Barry Pain,
The Negro of Song
(1895)
“ It is when it comes to the songs that are sung, that the negro annoys me. The lights are always low. May Afric's sunny fountains roll down Greenland's icy mountains, if I can stand such sickening monotony! I would sooner roll down the icy mountains myself, than hear once more that allusion to the defective illumination of the Negro's death-scene. Then there is the Negro's excessive and terrible familiarity with the angels. He thinks he hears the angels calling "Poor Old Joe." ”
