The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the SouthwestSparks, W. H. (William Henry)
History
The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest
Sparks, W. H. (William Henry)
Georgia -- History -- 1775-1865; Southwest, Old -- History; United States -- Biography
"Yes, my brother, by our grand-parents. They told him it should be so.
Ah! there are no distinctions in the grave; white skin and black skin
alike return to dust, and the marl of the earth is composed alike of
the bones of all races, and their properties seem to be the same. I,
too, wish to sleep there. It is a romantically beautiful spot, and its
grand old traditions make it holy ground. How its associations hallow
it! Imagination peoples it with those bold old red men who assembled in
the temple to worship the holy fire--emblematic of their
faith--humbling their fierce natures and supplicating for mercy. I go
there and I feel in the touch of the air that it is peopled with the
spirits of the mighty dead, surrounding and blessing me for my memory
of, and love for, their extinct race."
"Bravo, sister! What an enthusiast! You, sir, have some knowledge of
the Indians. Do they stir the romance of your nature as that of my baby
sister?"
The glance from her eye was full of scorn: it flashed with almost
malignant hate as she rose from her seat, and taking the arm of her
cousin she swept from the room, audibly whispering "baby sister" in
sneering accents.
"Woman's nature is a strange study, my young friend. I have several
sisters and they are all strange, each in her peculiar way. They are
remarkable for the love they bear their husbands, and yet they all have
a pleasure in tormenting them, and are never so unhappy, as when they
see these happy. This younger sister has a nature all her own. I do not
think she shares a trait with another living being. Wild, yet gentle;
the eagle to some, to some the dove. Quick as the lightning in her
temper--as fervid, too; a heart to hate intensely, and yet to melt in
love and worship its object; but would slay it, if she felt it had
deceived her. Always searching into the history of the past, and always
careless of the future."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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