Analyzing Character eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 522 pages of information about Analyzing Character.

Analyzing Character eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 522 pages of information about Analyzing Character.

After I had worked in the salt-furnace for some time, work was secured for me in a coal mine, which was operated mainly for the purpose of securing fuel for the salt-furnace.

In those days, and later, as a young man, I used to try to picture in my imagination the feelings and ambitions of a white boy with absolutely no limit placed upon his aspirations and activities.  I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacle placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race.  I used to picture the way that I would act under such circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success.

One day, while at work in the coal mine, I happened to overhear two miners talking about a great school for colored people somewhere in Virginia.  This was the first time that I had ever heard anything about any kind of school or college that was more pretentious than the little colored school in our town.

In the darkness of the mine I noiselessly crept as close as I could to the two men talking.  I heard one tell the other that not only was the school established for the members of my race, but that opportunities were provided by which poor but worthy students could work out all or a part of the cost of board, and at the same time be taught some trade or industry.

As they went on describing the school, it seemed to me that it must be the greatest place on earth, and not even Heaven presented more attractions for me at that time than did the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute of Virginia, about which these men were talking.  I resolved at once to go to that school, although I had no idea where it was, or how many miles away, or how I was going to reach it; I remembered only that I was on fire constantly with one ambition, and that was to go to Hampton.  This thought was with me day and night.

In the fall of 1872, I determined to make an effort to get there, although, as I have stated, I had no definite idea of the direction in which Hampton was, or of what it would cost to go there.  I do not think that anyone thoroughly sympathized with me in my ambition to go to Hampton, unless it was my mother, and she was troubled with a grave fear that I was starting out on a wild-goose chase.  At any rate, I got only a half-hearted consent from her that I might start.  The small amount of money that I had earned had been consumed by my step-father and the remainder of the family, with the exception of a very few dollars, and so I had very little with which to buy clothes and pay my traveling expenses.

Finally, the great day came and I started for Hampton.  I had only a small, cheap satchel that contained what few articles of clothing I could get.  My mother, at the time, was rather weak and broken in health.  I hardly expected to see her again, and thus our parting was all the more sad.  She, however, was very brave through it all.  At that time there were no through trains connecting that part of West Virginia with eastern Virginia.  Trains ran only a portion of the way, and the remainder of the distance was traveled by stage-coaches.

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Analyzing Character from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.