Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/423

 this swift blow in his very teeth, that seemed to place him outside the pale of a human being.

"Why is such a hope unreasonable, sir, to a man of your scientific mind?"

"It is a question of taste," snapped Lowell.

"Am I not a graduate of the same university with you? Did I not stand as high, and age for age, am I not your equal in culture?"

"Granted. Nevertheless you are a negro, and I do not desire the infusion of your blood in my family."

"But I have more of white than Negro blood, sir."

"So much the worse. It is the mark of shame."

"But it is the one drop of Negro blood at which your taste revolts, is it not?"

"To be frank, it is."

"Why is it an unpardonable sin in me that my ancestors were born under tropic skies where skin and hair were tanned and curled to suit the sun's fierce rays?"

"All tropic races are not negroes, and your race has characteristics apart from accidents of climate that make it unique in the annals of man," rejoined Lowell.

"And yet you demand perfect equality of man with man, absolutely in form and substance without reservation or subterfuge!"

"Yes, political equality."

"Politics is but a secondary phenomenon of society. You said absolute equality," protested Harris.

"The question you broach is a question of taste, and the deeper social instincts of racial purity and self preservation. I care not what your culture, or your genius, or your position, I do not desire, and will not permit, a mixture of Negro blood in my family. The idea is nauseating, and to my daughter it would be repulsive beyond the power of words to express it!"

"And yet," pleaded Harris, "you invited me to your