, 1888-03-28

s%atiOn, and have kept up with him an
interchange of thought and of letters.
Notwithstanding his superiority of mind,
and naturally proud as he may be of bis
acquaintance, Mr.. Blyden has never
thought OF denying his origin. He would
fear to lower himself in his own eyes if he
despised the Mandingoes, the Ashanties
and the Fellahs. He feels himself a negro,
and he loves the negroes; he believes in
the tutare of Africa, and he believes that
future to be closely bound up with the
destlnleS OF his race. He has many times
set forth his ideas on the subject in vari-
GUS English reviews, and in speeches
delivered in England, the United States
and MonrOvia. He has just collected in
one volume his conferences and his
articles. Mr.. Blyden is a literary man,
not a man Of letters. He has never boast
ed Of writing a book. He pleads a cause
dear to him; he defends it as the case
demands, either as an able lawyer, inge-
NOUS and sometimes eloquent, or as a
philosopher, persuaded hat insults and
contempt prompt nothing, that nothing
III nature is to be despiSed. He believes
with st. Augustine that no doctrine, how
ever false, is entirely without some truth;
he thinks with Goethe that the most pre-
CiOuS OF all faculties is to be able to diScOv-
Z Il n0 tldLIpllu " IlC ClA SUdI buIOUOH IS
envelope. He renders justice to Europe,
to its civilization, though he is too African
to admire without reserve. Mr.. Blyden is
no enemy to the white race. Quite the
contrary. But he asks in return not to
refuse our sympathy to the negro, whom
he defines us ''thiS man of owe and suffer
ing and song" He invites us to recognise
that the blacks have the same right as we
to breathe, to exist and live; that dixie
OurSelves) they have their role to play
III the general destinieS of our species;
that they are an e~sSertial piece IN the
great mechanism ofthe world. N~egrOphobia,
continues NJ. Vdlhert, is often only an
instructive, unthinking, unreasonable
sentiment, an affair # nerves, the
effects OF prejudices acquired or inherit
ed; the fathers have eaten green grapes
and the teeth Of the children are set on
edge. An American Of superior intellect
and of humane feelings said one day to
the great actress Sarah Kemble thar he
had never pltled the m]iSfortunes of BESIDE.
mona, for Il daughter who could fall in
love with a negro deserved to he slihed
with a pillow. a celebrated English hiStO.
llal, Mr.. Freeman, who has travelled to
the United States, where one of his sons
was a planter, declared that it was absO-
lutely impossible for him to feel any
consideration for a black man, and still
less to consider him a brother. This is
hcw this historian, who did not fear Jokes
on cannibaIiSm, proposed TO solve two
embarrassing q %ueStionS at the same time,
the problem OF slavery and the question of
the Irish, whom also he refused 10 recog-
nize as a man and a brother.-He wished
that every freshman established in the star.
ny Republic would kill a negro, and in his
turn be hanged for the deed.
why did Mr.. Freeman despise the
negro? The only reason he gives is that
the negro lS black and that his ugliness is
repulSlve to HIM. Fortunately for him, he
never fell, like Scarmentado. INTO the
hands OF a corSair born on the coast of
Guinea, who wOuld most probably have
answered him in this way: ''You have a
long nose, and we have a fiat one; your
hair is quite straight, and our wool is
frizzy; your skin is of the colour of ashes,
ours is the colour of ebony; consequently
you are not men, and cannot theref re be-
our brothers. So when we meet YOU and
we are the stronger, we cut off YOUR
noses and your ears" One may be a
great historian and yet not be a philoso.
pher. Philosophers know the world is at
once very large and very small; that from
mile to mile each country has it's aesthetic
standard, that from one degree of latitude
to another tastes as well as habits differ.