Thursday, February 14, 2008
Be my Valentine
I've been enjoying a book, "Tales of Old Florida" which was edited by Frank Oppel and Tony Meisel and published in 1987. It's a collection of journal entries and magazine articles written between 1870 and 1909 and is absolutely wonderful! The writing style is by and large Victorian, but by American, mostly Northern (Yankee! ;o) authors.
Listening to the huge bombast and batshit of this campaign year with all the pandering made the below passage rather interesting. It's from "Harper's New Monthly Magazine", vol. XLI - No. 245, 1870 and is titled "Six Weeks in Florida". It's 13 pages of 10-point with repro copper-plate illustrations and with my aged vision, damned hard to transcribe so here is just a snippet (St. Augustine):
"One of the priests who minister there is Father Rousse. A gentle, kind-hearted, humane Frenchman he is, who does his best to take care of the bodies and souls of several hundred negros and white people, the most of whom are of the poorer class. During our frequent peregrinations we had reason to know of this, and also formed a friendly aquaintance with the good father.
When we came one day to bid him good-by, he said: "Ah, you will become a good Catholic sometime, will you not, mon ami?"
"I hope it is not necessary," we replied. "Be sure we shall meet each other in the better world."
"Je l'espere," he answered, sadly, making the sign of the cross.
Certainly the lower, and especially the negro class here, and, in truth, in all other places we visited in the South, needs the care of some spiritual and religious instructor. Before the war it was for the interest of the master that the slave should be under the control of a religious sentiment. It was one means of subjection, of obtaining obediance; but emancipation loosened that cord, so that the negro in his ignorance is falling from grace, and the elective franchise, with all the carpet-baggers in creation, won't save him. At one of the Protestant churches here, and subsequently in Jacksonville, we saw shocking mummeries, which belonged to the fetich (sp from orig) worship of savage Central Africa, and not Christian America. The necessity of taking care of themselves will be a great assistance to these poor people, but it will require many years to bring about that condition when they can provide for their own needs. Meanwhile the present generation will disappear, and a better intelligence will come with those that follow. But it is my conviction that the present political system will not achieve the desired end. The larger number of the negros are in darkest ignorance, and in the matter of voting are used by designing men (remember, this is 1870) to accomplish their bad selfish ends. "
This was written 138 years ago. We've made great strides haven't we? Can you spell "we are so screwed"?
Listening to the huge bombast and batshit of this campaign year with all the pandering made the below passage rather interesting. It's from "Harper's New Monthly Magazine", vol. XLI - No. 245, 1870 and is titled "Six Weeks in Florida". It's 13 pages of 10-point with repro copper-plate illustrations and with my aged vision, damned hard to transcribe so here is just a snippet (St. Augustine):
"One of the priests who minister there is Father Rousse. A gentle, kind-hearted, humane Frenchman he is, who does his best to take care of the bodies and souls of several hundred negros and white people, the most of whom are of the poorer class. During our frequent peregrinations we had reason to know of this, and also formed a friendly aquaintance with the good father.
When we came one day to bid him good-by, he said: "Ah, you will become a good Catholic sometime, will you not, mon ami?"
"I hope it is not necessary," we replied. "Be sure we shall meet each other in the better world."
"Je l'espere," he answered, sadly, making the sign of the cross.
Certainly the lower, and especially the negro class here, and, in truth, in all other places we visited in the South, needs the care of some spiritual and religious instructor. Before the war it was for the interest of the master that the slave should be under the control of a religious sentiment. It was one means of subjection, of obtaining obediance; but emancipation loosened that cord, so that the negro in his ignorance is falling from grace, and the elective franchise, with all the carpet-baggers in creation, won't save him. At one of the Protestant churches here, and subsequently in Jacksonville, we saw shocking mummeries, which belonged to the fetich (sp from orig) worship of savage Central Africa, and not Christian America. The necessity of taking care of themselves will be a great assistance to these poor people, but it will require many years to bring about that condition when they can provide for their own needs. Meanwhile the present generation will disappear, and a better intelligence will come with those that follow. But it is my conviction that the present political system will not achieve the desired end. The larger number of the negros are in darkest ignorance, and in the matter of voting are used by designing men (remember, this is 1870) to accomplish their bad selfish ends. "
This was written 138 years ago. We've made great strides haven't we? Can you spell "we are so screwed"?
