Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

Chapter XXI. The Desert

The Desert THERE ISNO STUDY in human nature more interesting than the aspects of the same subject seen in the points of view of different characters. One might almost imagine that there were no such thing as absolute truth, since a change of situation or temperament is capable of changing the whole force of an argument. We have been accustomed, even those of us who feel most, to look on the arguments for and against the system of slavery with the eyes of those who are at ease. We do not even know how fair is freedom, for we were always free. We shall never have all the materials for absolute truth on this subject, till we take into account, with our own views and reasonings, the views and reasonings of those who have bowed down to the yoke, and felt the iron enter into their souls. We all console ourselves too easily for the sorrows of others. We talk and reason coolly of that which, did we feel it ourselves, would take away all power of composure and self-control. We have seen how the masters feel and reason; how good men feel and reason, whose public opinion and Christian fellowship support the master, and give him confidence in his position. We must add, also, to our estimate , the feelings and reasonings of the slave; and, therefore, the reader must follow us again to the fastness in the Dismal Swamp. It is a calm, still, Indian-summer afternoon. The whole air is flooded with a golden haze, in which the tree-tops move dreamily to and fro, as if in a whispering revery. The wild climbing grapevines , which hang in thousand-fold festoons round the enclosure, are purpling with grapes. The little settlement now has among its inmates Old Tiff and his children, and Harry and his wife. The children and Tiff had been received in the house of the widow whose husband had fallen a victim to the hunters, as we mentioned in one of our former chapters. All had united in building for Harry and Lisette a cabin contiguous to the other. Old Tiff, with his habitual industry, might now be seen hoeing 445 CHAPTER XXI in the sweet-potato patch, which belonged to the common settlement . The children were roaming up and down, looking after autumn flowers and grapes. Dred, who had been out all the night before, was now lying on the ground on the shady side of the clearing, with an old, muchworn , much-thumbed copy of the Bible by his side. It was the Bible of Denmark Vesey, and in many a secret meeting its wild, inspiring poetry had sounded like a trumpet in his youthful ear. He lay with his elbow resting on the ground, his hands supporting his massive head, and his large, gloomy, dark eyes fixed in revery on the moving tree-tops as they waved in the golden blue. Now his eye followed sailing islands of white cloud, drifting to and fro above them. There were elements in him which might, under other circumstances, have made him a poet. His frame, capacious and energetic as it was, had yet that keenness of excitability which places the soul en rapport with all the great forces of nature. The only book which he had been much in the habit of reading—the book, in fact, which had been the nurse and forming power of his soul—was the Bible, distinguished above all other literature for its intense sympathy with nature. Dred, indeed , resembled in organization and tone of mind some of those men of old who were dwellers in the wilderness, and drew their inspirations from the desert. It is remarkable that, in all ages, communities and individuals who have suffered under oppression have always fled for refuge to the Old Testament, and to the book of Revelation in the New. Even if not definitely understood, these magnificent compositions have a wild, inspiring power, like a wordless yet impassioned symphony played by a sublime orchestra, in which deep and awful sub-bass instruments mingle with those of ethereal softness, and wild minors twine and interlace with marches of battles and bursts of victorious harmony. They are much mistaken who say that nothing is efficient as a motive that is not definitely understood. Who ever thought of understanding the mingled wail and roar of the Marseillaise?1 Just this kind of indefinitestimulating power has the Bible to the souls of the oppressed...