The Marrow of Tradition quotes

Such relations, the doctor knew very well, had been all too common in the old slavery days, and not a few of them had been projected into the new era.

Sins, like snakes, die hard.

The habits and customs of a people were not to be changed in a day, nor by the stroke of a pen. As family physician, and father confessor by brevet, Dr. Price had looked upon more than one hidden skeleton;

Such a sacrifice as this marriage clearly belonged in the catalogue of impossibilities.

Ellis had not lived long enough to learn that impossibilities are merely things of which we have not learned, or which we do not wish to happen.

Sandy returned at the end of a quarter of an hour, and dinner was announced. Mr. Delamere led the way to the dining-room with Mrs. Ochiltree. Tom followed with Clara. The major went to the head of the stairs and came down with Mrs.

The table was tastefully decorated with flowers, which grew about the house in lavish profusion.

In warm climates nature adorns herself with true feminine vanity.

“What a beautiful table!” exclaimed Tom, before they were seated.

Mrs. Ochiltree was quietly enjoying herself.

In early life she had been accustomed to impale fools on epigrams, like flies on pins, to see them wriggle.

But with advancing years she had lost in some measure the faculty of nice discrimination—it was pleasant to see her victims squirm, whether they were fools or friends.

She had long ago outgrown the period where ambition or passion, or its partners, envy and hatred, were springs of action in her life, and simply retained a mild enjoyment in the exercise of an old habit, with no active malice whatever.

The ruling passion merely grew stronger as the restraining faculties decreased in vigor.

A diversion was created at this point by the appearance of old Mammy Jane, dressed in a calico frock, with clean white neckerchief and apron, carrying the wonderful baby in honor of whose naming this feast had been given.

“You kept the rattle in the right-hand corner of the chest,” said Tom, “in the box with the red silk purse, from which you took the gold piece you gave me every Christmas.”

A smile shone on Mrs. Ochiltree’s severe features at this appreciation, like a ray of sunlight on a snowbank.

“Aunt Polly’s chest is like the widow’s cruse,” said Mrs. Carteret, “which was never empty.”

At the next station a Chinaman, of the ordinary laundry type, boarded the train, and took his seat in the white car without objection. At another point a colored nurse found a place with her mistress.

“White people,” said Miller to himself, who had seen these passengers from the window, “do not object to the negro as a servant. As the traditional negro⁠—the servant⁠—he is welcomed; as an equal, he is repudiated.”

Miller was something of a philosopher. He had long ago had the conclusion forced upon him that an educated man of his race, in order to live comfortably in the United States, must be either a philosopher or a fool;

“White people,” said Miller to himself, who had seen these passengers from the window, “do not object to the negro as a servant. As the traditional negro—the servant—he is welcomed; as an equal, he is repudiated.”

Miller was something of a philosopher. He had long ago had the conclusion forced upon him that an educated man of his race, in order to live comfortably in the United States, must be either a philosopher or a fool; and since he wished to be happy, and was not exactly a fool, he had cultivated philosophy.

By and by he saw a white man, with a dog, enter the rear coach. Miller wondered whether the dog would be allowed to ride with his master, and if not, what disposition would be made of him.

Surely, if a classification of passengers on trains was at all desirable, it might be made upon some more logical and considerate basis than a mere arbitrary, tactless, and, by the very nature of things, brutal drawing of a color line.

It was a veritable bed of Procrustes, this standard which the whites had set for the negroes.

Those who grew above it must have their heads cut off, figuratively speaking—must be forced back to the level assigned to their race;

The ability to live and thrive under adverse circumstances is the surest guaranty of the future. The race which at the last shall inherit the earth—the residuary legatee of civilization—will be the race which remains longest upon it.

The negro was here before the Anglo-Saxon was evolved, and his thick lips and heavy-lidded eyes looked out from the inscrutable face of the Sphinx across the sands of Egypt while yet the ancestors of those who now oppress him were living in caves, practicing human sacrifice, and painting themselves with woad⁠—and the negro is here yet.

“ ‘Blessed are the meek,’ ” quoted Miller at the end of these consoling reflections, “ ‘for they shall inherit the earth.’ If this be true, the negro may yet come into his estate, for meekness seems to be set apart as his portion.”

Of the two barriers between them a man might have forgiven the one; a woman would not be likely to overlook either the bar sinister or the difference of race, even to the slight extent of a silent recognition.

Blood is thicker than water, but, if it flow too far from conventional channels, may turn to gall and wormwood.

Nevertheless, when the heart speaks, reason falls into the background, and Janet would have worshiped this sister, even afar off, had she received even the slightest encouragement.

“Thank you, Sam, I’m much obliged,” returned Miller mechanically. “One likes to know the truth.”

Truth, it has been said, is mighty, and must prevail; but it sometimes leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

In the ordinary course of events Miller would not have anticipated such an invitation, and for that reason had appreciated it all the more. The rebuff came with a corresponding shock. He had the heart of a man, the sensibilities of a cultivated gentleman;

“For instance,” resumed the general, “you, Carteret, represent the Associated Press. Through your hands passes all the news of the state. What more powerful medium for the propagation of an idea?

The man who would govern a nation by writing its songs was a blethering idiot beside the fellow who can edit its news dispatches.

The negroes are playing into our hands—every crime that one of them commits is reported by us. With the latitude they have had in this state they are growing more impudent and self-assertive every day.

“Yes, he’s one of the best of ’em,” sneered McBane. “

He’ll call any man ‘master’ for a quarter, or ‘God’ for half a dollar; for a dollar he’ll grovel at your feet, and for a cast-off coat you can buy an option on his immortal soul⁠—if he has one!

I’ve handled niggers for ten years, and I know ’em from the ground up. They’re all alike—they’re a scrub race, an affliction to the country, and the quicker we’re rid of ’em all the better.”

“O Lawd!” he groaned, “

I never troubles trouble till trouble troubles me

; but w’en I got dem drinks befo’, Gin’l Belmont gimme half a dollar an’ tol’ me ter keep de change. Dis time he didn’ say nothin’ ’bout de change.

If any subtler or more obscure motive kept her silent as to Ellis, she was not aware of it; for Clara’s views of life were still in the objective stage, and she had not yet fathomed the deepest recesses of her own consciousness.

Delamere had the cunning of weakness.

He knew, too, better than anyone else could know, how much truth there was in the rumors concerning him, and whether or not they could be verified too easily for him to make an indignant denial.

I ain’t never had no doubt erbout it; it’s jus’ w’at I’m livin’ fer, an’ I know I ain’ gwine ter die till I’ve done it.

Some lives fer one thing an’ some fer another, but dat’s my job.

I ain’ be’n in no has’e, fer I’m not ole yit, an’ dat man is in good health. I’d like ter see a little er de worl’ befo’ I takes chances on leavin’ it sudden;

De w’ite folks don’ fergive nothin’ de niggers does. Dey got up de Ku-Klux, dey said, on ’count er de kyarpit-baggers. Dey be’n talkin’ ’bout de kyarpit-baggers ever sence, an’ dey ’pears ter fergot all ’bout de Ku-Klux. But I ain’ fergot.

De niggers is be’n train’ ter fergiveniss; an’ fer fear dey might fergit how ter fergive, de w’ite folks gives ’em somethin’ new ev’y now an’ den, ter practice on.

A w’ite man kin do w’at he wants ter a nigger, but de minute de nigger gits back at ’im, up goes de nigger, an’ don’ come down tell somebody cuts ’im down.

The negroes who waited on them at the hotel seemed happy enough, and the teachers whom they had met at the mission school had been well-dressed, well-mannered, and apparently content with their position in life.

Surely a people who made no complaints could not be very much oppressed.

In order to give the visitors, ere they left Wellington, a pleasing impression of Southern customs, and particularly of the joyous, happy-go-lucky disposition of the Southern darky and his entire contentment with existing conditions, it was decided by the hotel management to treat them, on …

Young men of leisure spent much of their time around the hotel, and no small part of it in the bar. Delamere had been to the club, but had avoided the cardroom.

Time hanging heavy on his hands, he had sought the hotel in the hope that some form of distraction might present itself.

“Have you heard the latest, Mr. Delamere?” asked the bartender, as he mixed a cocktail for his customer.

… character which nothing under heaven could change, and which, if death is to take us as it finds us, and the future life to keep us as it takes us, promised anything but eternal felicity to those with whom she might associate after this life.

Tom Delamere had been heard to say, profanely, that if his Aunt Polly went to heaven, he would let his mansion in the skies on a long lease, at a low figure.

When the carriage drove up with Mrs. Carteret, her aunt was seated on the little front piazza, with her wrinkled hands folded in her lap, dozing the afternoon away in fitful slumber.

“

Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.

When I die, if you outlive me, Olivia, which is not likely, I shall leave my house and land to this child! He is a Carteret—he would never sell them to a negro. I can’t trust Tom Delamere, I’m afraid.”

“Lawd, Lawd!” chuckled Sandy, after the carriage had departed, “I never seed nothin’ lack de way dat ole lady do keep up her temper!

Wid one foot in de grave, an’ de other hov’rin’ on de edge, she talks ’bout my ole marster lack he wuz in his secon’ chil’hood.

But I’m jes’ willin’ ter bet dat he’ll outlas’ her! She ain’t half de woman she wuz dat night I waited on de table at de christenin’ pa’ty, w’en she ’lowed she wuzn’ feared er no man livin’.”

He had even wished that Clara might make some charge against him—he would have preferred that to her attitude of studied indifference, the only redeeming feature about which was that it was studied, showing that she, at least, had him in mind.

The next best thing, he reasoned, to having a woman love you, is to have her dislike you violently⁠—the main point is that you should be kept in mind, and made the subject of strong emotions.

He thought of the story of Hall Caine’s, where the woman, after years of persecution at the hands of an unwelcome suitor, is on the point of yielding, out of sheer irresistible admiration for the man’s strength and persistency, when the lover, unaware of his …

but to see him would surely spoil Miss Pemberton’s evening, and, in her frame of mind, might lead to the suspicion that Ellis had prearranged the exposure. Even if she should not harbor this unjust thought, she would not love the witness of her discomfiture.

We had rather not meet the persons who have seen, even though they never mention, the skeletons in our closets.

Delamere had disposed of himself for the evening. Ellis would have a fairer field with Delamere out of sight and unaccounted for, than with Delamere in evidence in his present condition.

“What do you want, Sandy,” asked Tom.

“Mistuh Tom,” asked Sandy solemnly, “ef I wuz in yo’ place, an’ you wuz in my place, an’ we wuz bofe in de same place, whar would I be?”

Tom looked at Sandy keenly, with a touch of apprehension. Did Sandy mean anything in particular by this enigmatical inquiry, and if so, what? But Sandy’s face clearly indicated a state of mind in which consecutive thought was improbable;

“No, suh, Mistuh Tom, no, suh! No mo’ liquor fer me, suh, never!

When liquor kin make a man see his own ha’nt, it’s ’bout time fer dat man ter quit drinkin’, it sho’ is!

Good night, Mistuh Tom.”

There is seemingly not one white man in Wellington who will speak a word for law, order, decency, or humanity. Those who do not participate will stand idly by and see an untried man deliberately and brutally murdered.

Race prejudice is the devil unchained.

”

With the childish fickleness of a mob, they now experienced a satisfaction almost as great as, though less exciting than, that attendant upon taking life. We speak of the mysteries of inanimate nature.

The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe.

One moment they make us despair of our kind, and the next we see in them the reflection of the divine image. Sandy, having thus escaped from the Mr. Hyde of the mob, now received the benediction of its Dr. Jekyll.

They were conscientious men, who had learned the ten commandments and wished to do right; but this class was a small minority, and their objections were soon silenced by the all-powerful race argument.

Selfishness is the most constant of human motives.

Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts which sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries;

that their whilom friends had stood passively by and seen them undone. Many of the most enterprising and progressive left the state, and those who remain still labor under a sense of wrong and outrage which renders them distinctly less valuable as citizens.

The great steal was made, but the thieves did not turn honest⁠—the scheme still shows the mark of the burglar’s tools. Sins, like chickens, come home to roost.

The South paid a fearful price for the wrong of negro slavery; in some form or other it will doubtless reap the fruits of this later iniquity.

“The world of fools hath such a store, That he who would not see an ass, Must stay at home and shut his door And break his looking-glass.”

But while no one may be entirely wise, there are degrees of folly, and Jerry was not all kinds of a fool.

… they themselves, if in the negroes’ place, would have risen in the effort to throw off the yoke, all their reiterated theories of negro subordination and inferiority could not remove that lurking fear, founded upon the obscure consciousness that the slaves ought to have risen.

Conscience, it has been said, makes cowards of us all.

There was never, on the continent of America, a successful slave revolt, nor one which lasted more than a few hours, or resulted in the loss of more than a few white lives;

Not one of them said to me today: ‘Watson, stay at home this afternoon.’ I might have been killed, like any one of half a dozen others who have bit the dust, for any word that one of my ‘friends’ had said to warn me.

When the race cry is started in this neck of the woods, friendship, religion, humanity, reason, all shrivel up like dry leaves in a raging furnace.

”

an’ it won’t be me w’at ’ll be ’feared er de jedgment. Come along, boys! Dese gentlemen may have somethin’ ter live fer; but ez fer my pa’t,

I’d ruther be a dead nigger any day dan a live dog!

”

“A gun is mo’ dange’ous ter de man in front of it dan ter de man behin’ it. Dey’re gwine ter kill us anyhow; an’ we’re tired—we read de newspapers—an’ we’re tired er bein’ shot down like dogs, widout jedge er jury.

We’d ruther die fightin’ dan be stuck like pigs in a pen!

”

“Things can’t be any wuss, doctuh,” replied one of the crowd sturdily. “

A gun is mo’ dange’ous ter de man in front of it dan ter de man behin’ it.

Dey’re gwine ter kill us anyhow; an’ we’re tired—we read de newspapers—an’ we’re tired er bein’ shot down like dogs, widout jedge er jury. We’d ruther die fightin’ dan be stuck like pigs in a pen!”

his love of liberty, a mere animal dislike of restraint. Every finer human instinct would be interpreted in terms of savagery. Or, if forced to admire, they would none the less repress.

They would applaud his courage while they stretched his neck, or carried off the fragments of his mangled body as souvenirs, in much the same way that savages preserve the scalps or eat the hearts of their enemies.

But concern for the fate of Josh and his friends occupied only a secondary place in Miller’s mind for the moment. His wife and child were somewhere ahead of him. He pushed on.

He had had no opportunity, at least no tenable excuse, to kill or maim a negro since the termination of his contract with the state for convicts, and this occasion had awakened a dormant appetite for these diversions.

We are all puppets in the hands of Fate, and seldom see the strings that move us.

McBane had lived a life of violence and cruelty. As a man sows, so shall he reap. In works of fiction, such men are sometimes converted. More often, in real life, they do not change their natures until they are converted into dust.

We are all puppets in the hands of Fate, and seldom see the strings that move us. McBane had lived a life of violence and cruelty. As a man sows, so shall he reap.

In works of fiction, such men are sometimes converted. More often, in real life, they do not change their natures until they are converted into dust.

One does well to distrust a tamed tiger.

McBane had lived a life of violence and cruelty. As a man sows, so shall he reap. In works of fiction, such men are sometimes converted. More often, in real life, they do not change their natures until they are converted into dust.

One does well to distrust a tamed tiger.

On the outskirts of the crowd a few of the better class, or at least of the better clad, were looking on. The double volley described had already been fired, when the number of these was augmented by the arrival of Major Carteret and Mr.

Carteret would have hastened back to the scene of the riot, to see what was now going on, and to make another effort to stem the tide of bloodshed; but before the dread of losing his child, all other interests fell into the background.

Not all the negroes in Wellington could weigh in the balance for one instant against the life of the feeble child now gasping for breath in the house behind him.

Reaching the house, a vigorous ring brought the doctor’s wife to the door.