Black Diamonds Gathered in the Darkey Homes of the South
by Edward A Pollard (9781406723748)

PREFATORY THE writer of these simple pages has prepared them for publication from a collection of hasty and unstudied letters, on the subject of slave life in the South, which were originally addressed to DAVID M. CLARKSON, Esq., quot Glen- brook, quot Newburgh, N. Y., a gentleman whose friendship is one among those in the North that he has greatly prized, and whose cultivated patriotism is of that broad and noble type that he has ever fervently admired. The letters are not elaborated the author wrote them from what he found in his heart. Whether he shall add still further to them will depend upon the reception by the public of this humble offering. SLAVE LIFE IN THE SOUTH - IN general we are strongly averse to mixing up special questions in ethics or in politics with what is called polite literature. Artistically viewed, we doubt whether the mixture is ever allowable. Even satiric poetry, we take it, forms no exception to the rule for it is the province of that species of literature to attack wickedness and folly from the standpoint of admitted maxims of morality and wisdom, not to agitate debatable or unsettled problems. The introduction into the novel or poem of subjects pertaining to strict polemics or to severe philosophy, as the main purpose of the work, produces an incongruous association, which is never agreeable and is often disgusting. Who wants to read a novel designed to illustrate the beauties of free trade or a protective tariff quotWho does read Montgomery s maudlin poem, or Longfellow s sentimental cant in rhyme, on the awful sin of negro slavery Since the publication of Mrs. Stowe s quot Uncle Torn s Cabin, quot which led the van of a frightful procession of books of asimilar order on both sides of the slavery question, every reader of experience, taste, and discrimi nation, is predisposed to turn with loathing from any issue from the press whose title page has a perceptible squinting toward the vexed and vexatious subject. He is inclined to avoid it as a premeditated bore and deliberate swindle a delusion and a snare a cunning quot dodge, quot by which he may be made the victim of self-inflicted twaddle. Of course there is frequently much matter of pith and moment in the numerous books in which the discussion of the slavery question, in all or a few of its aspects, is thrown into the shape of stories or sketches. Indeed, there are some that touch the subject in a way so incidental and natural, and with so little of a partisan or disputatious spirit, that if the predisposition against them be once overcome, they may be read with equal entertainment and instruction. From the New Orleans Delta, Editorial. Among the last productions to which we allude, we unhesitatingly place a small and unpretending volume, being a series of short sketches of slave life in the South, in the form of letters originally addressed Ly the author, Edward A. Pollard, of Washington City, to his friend, David M. Clarkson, of Newburgh, New York. The author appears to be a thorough Southerner in education, opinion, sympathy, and attachment yet, his letters are remarkably freefrom sectional prejudice and acerbity, and, in truth, contain sketches that are amongst the moat catholic, ind tolerant, and genial, we ever had occasion to peruse. He would seem to have travelled much, to have observed much, and to know much of various countries and peoples...

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