"In the midst of fo'ests, suh," went on the Captain, "we had ouah mansions, not inferio' to this--each a little kingdom with its complete wo'ld of amusements, its cote, and its happy populace, goin' singin' to the wo'k which supported the estate!"
"Yes," said the General, "I thought, when we were striking down that state of things, that we were doing a great thing for that populace. But I now see that I was only helping the black into a new slavery, the fruits of which we see here, around us, to-night."
"Well," said the General, looking about at the little audience. (It was in the smoking-room, and those present were smokers only.) "Well, now, take my case. I have some pretty valuable grounds down there where I live. When I got them, they were worthless. I could build as good a mansion as this or any of your ante-bellum Alabama houses for what I can get out of that little tract. What is that value? Merely the expression in terms of money of the power of excluding the rest of mankind from that little piece of ground. I make people give me the fruits of their labor, myself doing nothing. That's what builds this house and all these great houses, and breeds the luxury we are beginning to see around us; and the consciousness that this slavery exists, and is increasing, and bids fair to grow greatly, is what is making men crazy over these little spots of ground out here in the West! It is this slavery--"
"Suh," exclaimed the Captain, rising and grasping the General's hand, "you have done me the favo' of making me wisah! I nevah saw so cleahly the divine decree which has fo'eo'dained us to this opulence. Nothing so satisfactory, suh, as a basis and reason foh investment, has been advanced in my hearing since I have been in the real-estate business! Let us wo'k this out a little mo' in detail, if you please, suh--"
"Let us escape while there is yet time!" said Cornish; and we fled.
After supper there was a cotillion. The spacious ballroom, with its roof so high that the lights up there were as stars, was a sight which could scarcely be reconciled with the village community which he had found and changed. The palms, and flowers, and lights which decorated the room; the orchestra's river of dance-music; the men, all in the black livery which--on the surface--marks the final conquest of civilization over barbarism; the beautiful gowns, the sparkling jewels, and the white shoulders and arms of the ladies--all these made me wonder if I had not been transported to some Mayfair or Newport, so pictorial, so decorative, so charged with art, it seemed to be. The young people, carrying on their courtships in these unfamiliar halls, their disappearances into the more remote and tenebrous outskirts of the assembly--all seemed to me to be taking place on the stage, or in some romance.