They would not, however, let me rise. So, thought I, when we have taken
the burden of slavery off from the poor negro, unholy prejudice against
color keeps him from rising to a level with the rest of the community. I
begged that I might get up. They told me that my morning exertions
required longer rest. I told them that I must get my Greek. Whereupon
one of them stood over me, with his arms raised in a deploring attitude,
and said,--
"Sternitur infelix!--
--Et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos."
This, dear Aunty, is the lamentation of a Latin poet over a Greek
soldier lying prostrate on the battle-field, far from home;--"and dying
he remembers his sweet Greece." So they made game of me with the help of
the Classics, giving poignancy to their jokes by polishing the tips with
classical allusions. While I was under the "delusion," they sung
snatches of Bruce's Address to his army; and when they came to the words
"Who so base as be a slave?--
Let him turn and flee,"
one of them ran a cane under the delusion and punched me with it,
keeping stroke to the music. This was little short of profaneness. They
asked me if the chair-maker's harnesses were probably made by free or
slave labor, alluding, unfeelingly, to a mistake which I made in a
recitation one day, when two of those very students had kept me talking
about slavery up to the very moment when the recitation-bell rang, so
that I had not looked at my lesson. There are men in my class, and
these were some of them, who, I am told, are plotting to prevent my
having the first appointment, to which they know that my marks at
recitation entitle me. But may I never be so prejudiced against those
who differ from me on the subject of slavery as to deny them credit for
things which they have fairly earned. I leave this to the avowed enemies
of human rights. For the cause of the slave, I must gain the first
appointment.
I alluded, just now, to my feelings at witnessing tricks played on the
Freshmen. Had the Sophomores asked my advice before they played those
tricks, I should have dissuaded them; but when they played them, with
such courage and enterprise, I stood before them with admiration. But
while I was under that quilt, I found that I did not admire the
Sophomores at all, any more than I did the Seniors who then had me in
their power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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