If the world did but know you, if it knew what deeps are in you,
what strength and salvation for the race lie dormant in your dormant
powers, surely it would throw off the deference that masks contempt and
give you the right hand of royal fellowship.
And if, in the world just as it is, girls did but know themselves! If
they did but know how delightful, how noble and ennobling, how gracious
and consoling and helpful, they might be, how wearied eyes might love
to rest upon them, how sore hearts might be healed, and weak hearts
strengthened, by the fragrance of their unfolding youth! There is not
one girl in a thousand, North or South, who might not be lovely and
beloved. I do not reckon on a difference of race in North and South,
as the manner of some is. The great mass of girls whom one meets in
schools and public places are the ones who in the South would be the
listless, ragged daughters of poverty. The great mass of Southern
girls that we see are the cherished and cultivated upper classes, and
answer only to our very best. Like should always be compared with like.
And I am not afraid to compare our best, high-born or lowly, with the
best of any class or country. They have, besides all that is
beautiful, a substantial substratum of sound sense, high principle,
practical benevolence, and hidden resources. To behold them, they
sparkle like diamonds. To know them, they are beneficent as iron. Let
all the others emulate these. Let none be content with being
intelligent. Let them determine also to be full of grace.
Among the girls that I saw on my journey who did not please me, there
were several who did,--several of whom occasional glimpses promised
pleasant things, if only there were opportunity to grasp them,--and two
in particular who have left an abiding picture in my gallery. Let me
from pure delight linger over the portraiture.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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