Here and there low wooden houses were scattered along the
streets, as in other Southern villages, but he was chiefly
attracted by an unfinished square marble shaft, half-a-mile
below, and he walked down to inspect it before breakfast. His
aunt drily remarked that, at this rate, he would soon get through
all the sights; but she could not guess -- having lived always in
Washington -- how little the sights of Washington had to do with
its interest.
The boy could not have told her; he was nowhere near an
understanding of himself. The more he was educated, the less he
understood. Slavery struck him in the face; it was a nightmare; a
horror; a crime; the sum of all wickedness! Contact made it only
more repulsive. He wanted to escape, like the negroes, to free
soil. Slave States were dirty, unkempt, poverty-stricken,
ignorant, vicious! He had not a thought but repulsion for it; and
yet the picture had another side. The May sunshine and shadow had
something to do with it; the thickness of foliage and the heavy
smells had more; the sense of atmosphere, almost new, had perhaps
as much again; and the brooding indolence of a warm climate and a
negro population hung in the atmosphere heavier than the
catalpas. The impression was not simple, but the boy liked it:
distinctly it remained on his mind as an attraction, almost
obscuring Quincy itself.
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