Page:Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a native African and a slave.djvu/36

30 and complexion, there is One who looketh upon the heart.

Here and there we find a solitary pilgrim, belonging to the days of the years that are gone, treasuring Phillis's poems as a precious relic. But when they shall have passed away, who will remember her? May not this little record, though offered with diffidence, be allowed to perpetuate her name?

The poems now republished, are as they came from the hands of the author, without the alteration of a word or letter. Surely they lift an eloquent voice in behalf of her race.

Is it urged that Phillis is but a solitary instance of African genius? Even though this were the case—which we by no means grant—we reply that, had Phillis fallen into less generous and affectionate hands, she would speedily have perished under the privations and exertions of common servitude. Or had she dragged out a few years of suffering, she would have been of much less value to her master than the sturdy negress of more obscure faculties, but whose stronger limbs could have borne heavier burthens. How then can it be known, among this unfortunate people, how often the light of genius is quenched in suffering and death?