They were unlike the specimens of their race
whom we are accustomed to see at the North, and, in my judgment, were far
more agreeable. So rudely were they attired,--as if their garb had grown
upon them spontaneously,--so picturesquely natural in manners, and
wearing such a crust of primeval simplicity (which is quite polished away
from the Northern black man), that they seemed a kind of creature by
themselves, not altogether human, but perhaps quite as good, and akin to
the fawns and rustic deities of olden times. I wonder whether I shall
excite anybody's wrath by saying this. It is no great matter. At all
events, I felt most kindly towards these poor fugitives, but knew not
precisely what to wish in their behalf, nor in the least how to help
them. For the sake of the manhood which is latent in them, I would not
have turned them back; but I should have felt almost as reluctant, on
their own account, to hasten them forward to the stranger's land; and I
think my prevalent idea was, that, whoever may be benefited by the
results of this war, it will not be the present generation of negroes,
the childhood of whose race is now gone forever, and who must henceforth
fight a hard battle with the world, on very unequal terms.
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