“In this beautiful Southland,” she read, “we are working out what will prove to be the crowning glory of civilization. Here man, free to reach his highest possible development, enjoying political liberty, delivered by the divine institution of slavery from the hampering, benumbing effects of labor, surrounded by comfort, beauty, affluence, can produce the finest fruits of human effort. Here a refined and beautiful social order is being established, learning encouraged, chivalrous feeling and living made possible, womanhood reverenced, all intellectual achievement honored and sought after, and here letters and art will flourish as they have not flourished anywhere on the face of the earth since the Christian era began. Here will it be possible, and here only in all the world, for a modern Greece to grow into the fulness of beautiful flower. Here poets and artists and orators and statesmen and men of science and women, whose beauty and grace and talent will make them social queens as powerful as were the ladies of the French salons, will be appreciated and honored and find it possible to reach their finest, fairest development. Here in the new world, in our own native land, will be made possible a reincarnation of all that ‘glory that was Greece, and grandeur that was Rome,’ as our own lamented southern poet has so beautifully sung.” Thus far she read, and then, lifting her eyes from the page, looked steadily away for a moment. A soft and tender light shone in their gray depths as, smiling gently, she dropped them again upon the page and removed her concealing hand. “Is it not a glorious prospect, and is it not worth while, my own dear heart, to have some share in bringing about so grand a consummation? What better can I do in the world than to help my beloved South to maintain and extend her social order in which the negro, a mere animal, does the work for which he is fitted and to which he was appointed by the Creator, and the white man, created by God in His own image, is left unhampered to develop his own God-given talents and so produce such splendid results? But I am lonely, my dear one, and I long always for the presence and the companionship of the mate God made for me. Rhoda, darling, do not be cruel any longer! Tell me I can come and claim her! Always, your friend and lover, Jefferson Delavan.”