He was indeed strikingly
unlike the negroes of Mrs. Beecher Stowe, or the Christy Minstrels
of my youth. Imagine a gentleman, certainly somewhat dark, but of
a pleasant warm hue, speaking English with a slight and rather odd
foreign accent, every inch a man of the world, and armed with
manners so patronisingly superior that I am at a loss to name their
parallel in England. A butler perhaps rides as high over the
unbutlered, but then he sets you right with a reserve and a sort of
sighing patience which one is often moved to admire. And again,
the abstract butler never stoops to familiarity. But the coloured
gentleman will pass you a wink at a time; he is familiar like an
upper form boy to a fag; he unbends to you like Prince Hal with
Poins and Falstaff. He makes himself at home and welcome. Indeed,
I may say, this waiter behaved himself to me throughout that supper
much as, with us, a young, free, and not very self-respecting
master might behave to a good-looking chambermaid. I had come
prepared to pity the poor negro, to put him at his ease, to prove
in a thousand condescensions that I was no sharer in the prejudice
of race; but I assure you I put my patronage away for another
occasion, and had the grace to be pleased with that result.
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