Contending Forces quotes

Sunday was and is the high holiday in all tropical climes.

On that day the slave forgot his bonds.

It was noon; the early service of the Church of England was ended. The clergyman of the parish had accompanied Charles Montfort home. Mrs. Montfort was visiting friends, so the two gentlemen dined alone.

Never before had he appreciated his home so much as now, when he contrasted it with the comparative barrenness of the new spot he had chosen.

The water was alive with marine creatures; the sea aflame.

The air was full of light-giving insects, incessantly moving, which illumined the darkness and gave life to every inanimate object. Over all the moon and stars were set in the cloudless deep-blue sky of coming night. Alas!

but when we survey the flotsam and jetsam left from the wreck of the Civil War, we can deceive ourselves no longer; we must confess that the natural laws which govern individuals and communities never relax in their operation.

The fruit of slavery was poisonous and bitter; let us rejoice that it no longer exists.

“Kismet,” says the Oriental, when unaccountable evils beset his path; “It is fate,” says the Anglo-Saxon, under like circumstances: but fate is the will of Providence after all.

Nature avenges herself upon us for every law violated in the mad rush for wealth or position or personal comfort where the rights of others of the human family are not respected.

If Charles Montfort had been contented to accept the rulings of the English Parliament, and had allowed his human property to come under the new laws just made for its government, although poorer in the end, he would have spared himself and family all the …

Dora laughed as she said: “I’d just drop John P. Langley if I thought he admired any woman more than he did me. But really, ma, you won’t be able to keep from loving her; she has the sweetest and saddest face I ever saw.

I have read of the woman with a story written on her face, but I never believed it anything but a fairy tale.

You’ll believe me when you see her and talk with her.”

quoted Dora softly. “For my part, I am sick of loud professions and constant hypocrisy.

My religion is short, and to the point⁠—feed the starving thief and make him an honest man; cover your friend’s faults with the mantle of charity and keep her in the path of virtue.

”

“Not I, indeed; I have always felt a great curiosity to know the reason why each individual woman loses character and standing in the eyes of the world.

I believe that we would hang our heads in shame at having the temerity to judge a fallen sister, could we but know the circumstances attending many such cases.

And, after all we may do or say,” continued the girl softly, “the best of us, who have lived the purest lives on earth that mortal can conceive, find at last that our only hope lies in the words of that text—‘This man receiveth sinners.’

“Good things to eat,” said Ma Smith, as she industriously beat eggs, sugar and butter together in a large yellow bowl, “good things to eat make a man respect himself and look up in the world.

You can’t feel that you are nobody all the time if once in a while you eat the same quality of food that a millionaire does.

”

“It is generally the other way: the men get tired of us first.

A woman loves one man, and is true to him through all eternity.

”

“I cannot understand people.

Here in the North we are allowed every privilege. There seems to be no prejudice until we seek employment; then every door is closed against us.

Can you explain this?”

The Lord jes’ seemed to pour his blessin’ down on us in a house full o’ chillun.

After Susie’d had twenty I used to pray the Lord to stop blessin’ us that way, ’cause he could see fer himself that too many blessins was a gittin’ to be a nuisance.

I cooked the dinner myself that day, bein’ the other cook was ashore, an’ you believe me, I sung an’ I prayed an’ I wrastled fer help in that ole steamboat kitchen down behin’ my bigges’ brass biler where I was kivered from pryin eyes.

I don’t b’lieve that, though, ’cause I had the rheumatism while I was there, an’ the doctors started in to cure me by prayin’ an’ wurkin’ on my body through my spirit, an’ it warn’t no more good than nuthin’ ’tall.

I’ve got as much faith as eny livin’ man, but rheumatism is one o’ them things that’ll convince you agin’ your will; it will draw speech out of a deef mute an’ make a blind man see, when them pains is a grindin’ inter your bones an’ jints worse than a saw cuttin’ thro’ knots in a cord wood stick.

I’m free to say that curin’ my mind didn’t have no effect on my pain, an’ I jes’ kep’ on seein’ blue blazes an’ swearin’ like mad. I’ll ’low that faith can move mountains, faith, as leetle as a mustard seed, an’ that’s mighty small.

Trivialities are not to be despised.

Inborn love implanted in a woman’s heart for a luxurious, esthetic home life, running on well-oiled wheels amid flowers, sunshine, books and priceless pamphlets, easy chairs and French gowns, may be the means of developing a Paderewski or freeing a race from servitude.

It was amusing to watch the way in which she governed societies and held her position. In her hands committees were as wax, and loud murmurings against the tyranny of her rule died down to judicious whispers.

“I believe that we shall not be held responsible for wrongs which we have unconsciously committed, or which we have committed under compulsion.

We are virtuous or non-virtuous only when we have a choice under temptation.

We cannot by any means apply the word to a little child who has never been exposed to temptation, nor to the Supreme Being ‘who cannot be tempted with evil.’

We are not held responsible for compulsory sin, only for the sin that is pleasant to our thoughts and palatable to our appetites.

All desires and hopes with which we are endowed are good in the sight of God, only it is left for us to discover their right uses.

Do I cover your ground?”

“Ah, that word ‘duty.’ What is our duty?” queried the girl, with a sad droop to the sensitive mouth. “It is so hard to know our duty. We are told that all hidden things shall be revealed.

Must repented and atoned-for sin rise at last to be our curse?

”

There was evidently more in this woman than appeared upon the surface. With all the centuries of civilization and culture that have come to this grand old world, no man has yet been found able to trace the windings of God’s inscrutable ways.

There are men and women whose seeming uselessness fit perfectly into the warp and woof of Destiny’s web.

All things work together for good.

“Pshaw!” he exclaimed impatiently, “

I have laughed at others only to become more of a drivelling idiot than any of the men I have ridiculed.

I never thought mere beauty in a woman could move me so.” The smile induced by pleasant thoughts lingered on his face as he threw himself upon his couch and tried to bring order out of the chaos of his thoughts.

The delicately moulded chin on which the God of Love had left his impress, might have served as the model for a sculptor. She and no other should be his wife—God willing.

Propinquity is responsible for many matches.

It was pleasant for Sappho, when she returned mornings from delivering her work, to find her fire burning briskly and the room well warmed. It was a comfort to her not to have the ugly problem of ashes, wood and coal to solve.

“Yes, my dear,” replied her mother, with her hand upon the dark braids beside her, “

I will not say that it was not a struggle, but mothers know, if they stop to think, that they must lose their babies sometime.

Your father and I made a home for ourselves, so I must look forward to the time when you young birds will want to build a nest away from me. But what is the matter with you, Dora? you look worried. Is anything wrong?”

don’t brood over unkind words; cast them from you. And I would have you remember, also, that sectional prejudice has always been fostered by the Southern whites among the Negroes to stifle natural feelings of brotherly love among us.

Dissension means disunion.

Carry these thoughts always in your mind, and act accordingly. Do not allow yourself to be made unhappy.”

Meanwhile on the floor above them Sappho turned restlessly on her pillow, thinking of a noble head and bright dark eyes. She knew that Will Smith loved her.

What woman does not feel the subtle intertwining of a kindred spirit linked to her own by the decree of Destiny, long years, perhaps, before either restless soul has entered upon its earthly pilgrimage.

She was not happy in her knowledge. Under cover of the friendly darkness she gave up the long struggle for self-control, and indulged in the grief that she knew was hers for all eternity. Oh, for death, the solitude of the grave and self-forgetfulness.

“What have I done, what have I done to suffer thus? To give up all joy, and have only misery for all my life. I love this man; I know it now! I want his love, his care, his protection.

I want him through life and beyond the grave, we two as one⁠—my husband.

Oh, my God, help me, help me!” Heavy sobs shook her frame. Broken exclamations fell from her lips. “I cannot! It must not be! So good, so noble! Oh, the happiness of home and love! must I be shut from them forever?”

Down South the big white folks has nussed so meny black mammies thet they don’ know nuthin’ else fer their chillun. It don’ matter how black you is ef yer willin’ to keep in the mud.

Up here it’s diffurunt; you can do all right and live all right, but don’t put yer han’ on a white man or woman, or they’ll have a fit fer fear the black’ll rub off.

”

‘Mis’ Davis,’ says she, ‘Mis’ Davis, I wouldn’t a-walked up thet chuch aisle with thet white gempleman fer a thousan’ dollars, ’deed’n I wouldn’t.’ I was so mad with thet fool gal thet I jes’ itched ter spank her well.

How we to ’vance eny ef we don’t ’brace our ’tunities, I’d like ter know?

”

In that moment a cloud passed from before his mental vision, and he beheld in all its hideousness the cankering sore which is eating into the heart of republican principles and stamping the lie upon the Constitution.

Expediency and right must go hand in hand. There is no room for compromise.

Sappho was tired, and one of the young girls in her Bible class, noticing the weariness of her attitude, insisted upon assuming the duties of cashier for an hour.

Alphonse was a beautiful boy about eight years old, with golden curls and dark blue eyes that looked out on life from beneath their sweeping lashes with a glance all too melancholy for one of his tender years.

There are children who seem to have been born with the shadows of life heavy upon them.

So it was with little Alphonse. He passed from groups of merry young people and pleasant elders who, attracted by the beauty of the weird child, sought to beguile him with soft caress and loving touch;

Up from the South there came one morning early in March the report of another lynching. The skies were heavy with gray, storm-laden clouds, not darker nor more threatening than the dire and bloody news the daylight ushered in.

For a month or two peace had seemingly reigned in southern latitudes, but it was the slumbering of passion, not its subsidence.

At table, in the cars, at the office, in the workshop, men read with sick hearts the description of another illegal act of distorted justice, wherein the sufferings of the poor wretches were depicted only too truthfully for the peace of the community:

“Don’t lose your temper, Colonel; the man who gets mad always gets the worst of it,” replied John blandly. “

I want to ask you a question: Did you ever hear of such a thing as a man being robbed and murdered in the house of his friends?

” He looked Mr. Clapp squarely in the eye. The latter shifted uneasily in his seat.

Why, the greenest ward-heeler knows that neither a white nor black man is competent to fill an office if the heads of the department where he is employed wish to get rid of him.

The civil service is a good thing, but even that can’t save a man from becoming incompetent when his resignation is desired by anyone in authority.

That’s no argument at all. And as for our earning our rights—we didn’t earn them at Wagner and Fort Fisher and at Fort Pillow; we haven’t held the casting vote, and floated you from poverty into affluence.”

“That’s all right.

Promises are like pie-crust, made to be broken.

You may be the best we can do, and the best is d⸺ poor. Colonel, you just make up your mind to one thing: we’re coming high this time. It’s going to cost you something; yes, sir, right smart.”

Today a condition of affairs confronts us that they never foresaw: the systematic destruction of the Negro by every device which the fury of enlightened malevolence can invent. In whatever direction we turn, the clouds hang dark and threatening.

This new birth of the black race is a mighty agony.

God help us in our struggle for liberty and manhood! Agitation and eternal vigilance in the formation of public opinion were the weapons which broke the power of the slaveholder and gave us emancipation.

Miscegenation, then, being out of the question, nothing remains for the Negro but to be dominated by the white man there. I hold that the Negro in American civilization is a problem of a vast deal more import than we are inclined to believe.

The problem is national, not sectional.

The sin of slavery was the sin of the nation, and that sin stands before us today full of menace, full of peril to the whole people.

“Let us remember that the South was more conquered than persuaded.

The Confederates did not surrender their convictions with their swords.

Immediately after the war Henry W. Grady would have been looked upon as a monstrosity. It was a severe blow to the South when the slave gained his liberty. As the South gains wealth and resources I think that the problem will grow less difficult.

“

We are told that we can receive education only along certain elementary lines, and in the next breath we are taunted with not producing a genius in science or art.

A Southern white man will tell you that of all politicians the Negro is the vilest, ignoring the fact that for corrupt politics no race ever can or ever will excel the venality of a certain class of whites.

Literature, politics, theology, history have been ransacked and perverted to prove the hopeless inferiority of the Negro and the design of God that he should serve by right of color and physique.

She has convinced no one but herself.

Bitterer than double-distilled gall was the Federal success which brought Negro emancipation, domination and supremacy.

“ ‘Lynchings are justifiable on two grounds,’ says a thoughtful writer: ‘First, if they are consonant with the moral dignity and well-being of the people; and secondly, if they stop, and are the only sure means of stopping, the crime they avenge.’

Lynching does not stop crime; it is but a subterfuge for killing men.

It is a good excuse, to use a rough expression, to ‘go a-gunning for niggers.’

“God rest us all—we know not what we are! What nature wills, not what we wish, are we.”

Let us press forward and take courage and do the little that we can, leaving the rest to God.

The hand of the Divine Architect will fit each life into its own niche, to form an intricate whole of preconceived beauty.

Let us press forward and take courage and do the little that we can, leaving the rest to God.

The hand of the Divine Architect will fit each life into its own niche, to form an intricate whole of preconceived beauty.

Near the head of Grove and Phillips Streets stands the well-known Twelfth Baptist Church, a split from St. Paul’s, and world renowned under its beloved pastor and founder, Leonard Grimes.

Many curious things were in this darkened room, and no matter how much one might wish to disbelieve the power of this woman to foretell the future, he could not fail to be impressed with the surroundings.

And, after all, our surroundings influence our lives and characters as much as fate, destiny or any supernatural agency.

Madam Frances held out her hand for her fee, and as he laid a silver dollar across her palm, she said:

mumbled the crone, as if in self-communion. At length she seemed to come to herself, and said in clear accents: “If you would let an old woman advise you, I should say choose the right path, no matter what the cost.

But men are foolish always, foolish always for a pretty face.

”

“And a proud yeomanry, its country’s pride When once destroyed can never be supplied.”

Will the Republic learn the value of the black children of her adoption when it is too late?

The presence of these young Negroes was generally received as a pleasant innovation among that company.

“I believe that the same rules which govern all races will be applicable to mine,” returned Will. “If men are rude and foolish, down they must go. When at last in any race a new principle appears, an idea, that conserves it.

Ideas only save races.

If the black man is feeble and impotent, unimportant to the existing races—not on a parity with the best races, the black man must serve and be exterminated.

As a man Will Smith was not ashamed of the passion which consumed him.

An honorable love has its own subtle charm.

Now was his opportunity! The almost deserted paths were secure from intrusion. She was not indifferent to him; today should end suspense. He would have her answer.

“How peaceful, beautiful and calm the landscape seems.

If earth be so fair, what must be the beauty of heaven?

” she said, after a slight pause.

She was carried away by the vehemence of his wooing. All obstacles seemed, indeed, but trifles before this all-absorbing, passionate, eager warmth of youth’s first love. Poor soul! poor starved and storm-beaten heart!

Something of life that was dead leaped again into existence and loosened the icy hand that had for years locked up the fountain of youthful joy.

She felt drawn out of herself as she looked into the eyes of love and met the luminous light which transfigured the face of her lover.

Where was the usually pale, sad face that it reflected? They called her cold and proud. What would the world say if it could see that brilliant, vivid, flashing beauty that the mirror gave back to her astonished gaze?

Truly love was a wonderful cosmetic.

She sank into the inviting willow rocker, and for a while gave herself up to the happiness which was so intense as to be almost painful. There was no thought of evil mingled with the joy that wrapped her round about. No forebodings assailed her;

Such incidents as we have pictured above are not uncommon in any community where slavery has cast its baleful shadow. Emancipation has done much, but time and moral training among the white men of the South are the only cures for concubinage.

We may right a wrong, but we cannot restore our victim to his primeval state of happiness. Something is lost that can never be regained.

The wages of sin is death. Innocent or guilty, the laws of nature are immutable. So with shoulders bent and misshapen with heavy burdens, the Negro plods along bearing his cross—carrying the sins of others.

“And there rises ever a passionate cry From underneath in the darkened land”—

There is something magical in the mystery of night and the shadows of early dawn.

Then the mystery of creation and our own hidden nature seem to be revealed faintly to our dull sensibilities. The soul beholds itself all unadorned as it must stand before Almighty God.

There is something magical in the mystery of night and the shadows of early dawn. Then the mystery of creation and our own hidden nature seem to be revealed faintly to our dull sensibilities.

The soul beholds itself all unadorned as it must stand before Almighty God.

He raised his eyes to heaven and there beheld the beauty of myriad stars and undiscovered worlds bespangling the firmament. Never before had he noticed their sublimity. By the tremulous half-light of the early dawn his deed of the night before appeared despicable—devilish.

… the illimitable realms of futurity, then it may be that the pitying eye of Heaven sees the struggles of these irresponsible ones of earth who are monuments of man’s inhumanity to man, and sends a warning, pleading voice along the dim, resounding aisles of self-communion.

It is a law of the All-wise that Nemesis shall walk beside us in every wrong that we commit.

For joy we pay, for sorrow, too, and also for the ill we do. We call the recoil which comes from evildoing, retribution, which being the fruit of evil, is coexistent with it.

It is a law of the All-wise that Nemesis shall walk beside us in every wrong that we commit.

For joy we pay, for sorrow, too, and also for the ill we do.

We call the recoil which comes from evildoing, retribution, which being the fruit of evil, is coexistent with it. John had given no thought to the needs of his soul in his pursuit of wealth and position.

Her shipwrecked life seemed about to find peace. There was a new light in her eyes as she gazed on the sleeping child. Impulsively she folded him in her arms, and Alphonse awoke.

The awakening of childhood is beautiful.

She gazed with newfound ecstacy at the rosy face, the dimpled limbs, and thought that he was hers. Her feeling of degradation had made her ashamed of the joys of motherhood, of pride of possession in her child. But all that feeling was swept away.

“She is like the angels in the picture of the Crucifixion, so sweet and sad.

She has more tears in her heart than in her eyes.

”

After that came the fear that he might think that she regretted the past. No; she could not remain single; she would marry one whose manliness she could respect, if she did not love him.

Love was another thing, with which, she told herself, she was done.

Dora possessed the rare talent of being an interesting correspondent; indeed, her literary talents would have been valuable if cultivated. Doctor Lewis soon found this out. She gave him fascinating glimpses of the possibilities of an inner nature which perfect love and trust might develop.

I ain’t got no ’bility fer readin’, but I’s got a mem’ry, thank Gawd. As I was a-sayin’, I jes’ fell onto his neck, an’ I says to him: ‘

Mr. Jeemes, ef you want yer rib, I’m her.

’ Thet’s the way it camed ’bout, an’ we’s goin’ ter be merried purty soon, ’though Sarah Ann says I’m a mortalized ol’ ijit, an’ a insane mannyack, an’ Jeemes knows what he’s a-fishin’ fer. She’s insultin’, mos’ insultin’.”

“

Yes; but it is the happiness chastened by wrongs endured and grief subdued.

” She paused as though forgetful of her visitor, and then resumed in a low tone: