previous next
[159]

Chapter 15: shades of colour.

The Negro is seen in Virginia under two aspects --an ideal aspect and a practical aspect.

In the library of the Capitol stands a figure called the Nation's Ward — a Negro boy, in all the freshness of his youth and all the impotence of his race. The Negro type is softened, but not into that of the African Sibyl, in which Story has enchanted into stone the sadness and pathos of a servile people. In the nation's ward, the face is rich in sunshine, and the figure ripples over with animal vivacity. The eyes seem lifted up in search of light. Free, and conscious of his freedom, the Negro youth is still perplexed. What shall he do with his great gift? Virile and plucky, strong to labour and quick to learn, he yet requires to see his way. Such is your ideal picture of the Negro child.

In the shop windows of Richmond appears a

1875.

Tufts University provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: