Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

“ I do not think any mother ever laid her first born in the grave with any more sorrow than I do to-day when I make my heart the sepulchre in which I bury my first and only love. This, Clarence, is the saddest trial of my life. I am sadder to-day than when I stood a lonely orphan over my grandmother's grave, and heard the clods fall on her coffin and stood lonely and heart-stricken in my uncle's house, and felt that I was unwelcome there. But, Clarence, the great end of life is not the attainment of happiness but the performance of duty and the development of character. ”

“ Hating is poor employment for any rational being, but I am not prepared to glorify him at the expense of my mother's race. She was faithful to me when he deserted me to a life of ignorance and poverty, and although three-fourths of the blood in my veins belongs to my father's face, I feel a kinship with my mother's people that I do not with his, and I will defend that race from the aspersions of the meanest Negro hater in the land. Heathenism and civilization live side by side on American soil, but all the heathenism is not on the side of the Negro. ”

“ Lasette, who made it a point to hold in that neighborhood, mothers' meetings and try to teach mothers, who in the dark days of slavery had no bolts nor bars strong enough to keep out the invader from scattering their children like leaves in wintry weather, how to build up light and happy homes under the new dispensation of freedom. To her it was a labor of love and she found her reward in the peace and love which flowed into the soul and the improved condition of society. In lowly homes where she visited, her presence was a benediction and an inspiration. ”

“ It seemed as if an inspiration lit up the young face; her eye glowed with unwonted fervor; it seemed as if she had fused her whole soul into the subject, which was full of earnestness and enthusiasm. Her theme was the sensation of the hour. Men grew thoughtful and attentive, women tender and sympathetic as they heard this member of a once despised people, recount the trials and triumphs of her race, and the hopes that gathered around their future. The day before Annette graduated Mr. Thomas had met a friend of his at Mrs. Lasette's, who had lately returned from an extensive tour. ”

“ Luzerne listened eagerly and said, "Why, Miss Annette, you speak as if you had either loved or were using your fine imaginative powers on the subject with good effect. Have you ever loved any one?"
Annette blushed and stammered, and said, "I hardly know, but I think I have a fine idea of what love should be. I think the love of a woman for the companion of her future life should go out to him just as naturally as the waves leap to the strand, or the fire ascends to the sun." ”

“ I think that every woman, and man too, should be prepared for the reverses of fortune by being taught how to do some one thing thoroughly so as to be able to be a worker in the world's service, and not a pensioner upon its bounty. And for this end it does not become us as a race to despise any honest labor which lifts us above pauperism and dependence. I am pleased to see our people having industrial fairs. I believe in giving due honor to all honest labor, in covering idleness with shame, and crowning labor with respect. ”

“ To-day the Negro shares citizenship with you. He is not arraying himself against your social order; his hands are not dripping with dynamite, nor is he waving in your face the crimson banners of anarchy, but he is increasing in numbers and growing in intelligence, and is it not madness and folly to subject him to social and public inequalities, which are calculated to form and keep alive a hatred of race as a reaction against pride of caste? ”

“ I think that our people need more to be taught how to live than to be constantly warned to get ready to die. As Brother Thomas said, we are now passing through a crucial period of our history and what we need is life—more abundant life in every fibre of our souls; life which will manifest itself in moral earnestness, vigor of purpose, strength of character and spiritual progression."
"I do hope," said Mr. Thomas, "that as you are among us, you will impart some of your earnestness and enthusiasm to our young people." ”

“ Thomas, "I am a poor man, but I would rather rise up early, and sit up late and eat the bread of carelessness, than to roll in wealth by keeping a liquor saloon, and I am determined that no drunkard shall ever charge me with having helped drag him down to misery, shame and death. No drunkard's wife shall ever lay the wreck of her home at my door."
"My business," said Frank Miller, "is a legitimate one; there is money in it, and I am after that. If people will drink too much and make fools of themselves I can't help it; it is none of my business, and if I don't sell to them other people will. ”

“ Mr. Luzerne smiled, and thought what rare thoughtfulness and judgment she has evinced. How few women older than herself would have thought as quickly and as clearly, and yet she is no less womanly, although she seems so wise.
"What say you, my dear Annette, since I have released your hand. May I not hope to hold this hand as the most precious of all my earthly possessions until death us do part?" ”

“ Some races had been "architects of destruction," but their mission was to build over the ruins of the dead past, the most valuable thing that a man or woman could possess on earth, and that is good character. That mission should be to bless and not to curse. To lift up the banner of the Christian religion from the mire and dust into which slavery and pride of caste had trailed it, and to hold it up as an ensign of hope and deliverance to other races of the world, of whom the greater portion were not white people. ”

“ They were not conscious of the influence they might exert by being true to their own womanhood. Men like Frank Miller are the deadliest foes of women. One of the best and strongest safe guards of the home is the integrity of its women, and he who undermines that, strikes a fearful blow at the highest and best interests of society. Society is woman's realm and I never could understand how, if a woman really loves purity for its own worth and loveliness, she can socially tolerate men whose lives are a shame, and whose conduct in society is a blasting, withering curse. ”

“ If you pass into the white basis your mother can never be a guest in your home without betraying your origin; you cannot visit her openly and crown her with the respect she so well deserves without divulging the secret of your birth; and Charley, by doing so I do not think it possible that however rich or strong or influential you may be as a white man, that you can be as noble and as true a man as you will be if you stand in your lot without compromise or concealment, and feel that the feebler your mother's race is the closer you will cling to it. ”

“ Lasette to herself.
"Annette," said Mrs. Lasette, "this has been a fearful trial, but it must not be in vain; let it bring you more than happiness; let it bring you peace and blessedness. There is only one place for us to bring our sins and our sorrows, and that is the mercy seat. Let us both kneel there to-night and ask for grace to help in this your time of need. We are taught to cast our care upon Him for he careth for us. ”

“ Lasette was a fine conversationalist. She regarded speech as one of heaven's best gifts, and thought that conversation should be made one of the finest arts, and used to subserve the highest and best purposes of life, and always regretted when it was permitted to degenerate into gossip and backbiting. Harsh judgment she always tried to modify, often saying in doubtful cases, "Had we not better suspend our judgments? Truly we do not like people to think the worst of us and it is not fulfilling the law of love to think the worst of them. ”

“ Thomas' mind was, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" but he restrained his indignation and said,
"No, Frank, I cannot accept your offer; I am a temperance man and a prohibitionist, and I would rather have my hands clean than to have them foul."
"You are a greater milksop than I gave you credit for. Here you are hunting work, and find door after door closed against you, not because you are not but because you are colored, and here am I offering you easy employment and good wages and you refuse them." ”

“ I knew your husband's head was level and I tried to persuade Mr. Larkins to take up with his offer, but he would not hear to it; said he knew his own business best, and shut me up by telling me that he was not going to let any woman rule over him; and here I am to-day, Larkins gone and his poor old widow scuffing night and day to keep soul and body together; but there are some men you couldn't beat anything into their heads, not if you took a sledge hammer. ”

“ Young men who would have scorned to enter the lowest dens of vice, felt at home in his gilded palace of sin. Beautiful pictures adorned the walls, light streamed into the room through finely stained glass windows, women, not as God had made them, but as sin had debased them, came there to spend the evening in the mazy dance, or to sit with partners in sin and feast at luxurious tables. ”

“ Little children learned to love her, the street gamins knew her as their friend, aged women blessed the dear child as they called her, who planned for their comfort when the blasts of winter were raging around their homes. Before her great trial she had found her enjoyment more in her intellectual than spiritual life, but when every earthly prop was torn away, she learned to lean her fainting head on Christ the corner-stone and the language of her heart was "Nearer to thee, e'en though it be a cross that raiseth me." ”

“ Now, when my daughter saw that the children of all other nationalities, it mattered not how low and debasing might be their environments, could enter the school for which her father paid taxes, and that she was forced either to stay at home or to go through all weathers to an ungraded school, in a poorly ventilated and unevenly heated room, would not such public inequality burn into her soul the idea of race-inferiority? ”