that could serve the policy of concentrating slave power; and he remembered that it was equally necessary to keep an eye to the feeling abroad.  There were in America none but southern nobles,—­no affable gentlemen who could do the grace of polite circles except themselves,—­none who, through their bland manners, could do more to repel the awful descriptions given of southern society, nor who could not make strangers believe slaves were happy mortals, happily created to live in all the happiness of slave life.  “There’s nothing like putting our learned folks ahead-they’re polished down for the purpose, you see-and letting them represent us when abroad; they puts a different sort of shine on things what our institution makes profitable.  They don’t always set good examples at home, but we can’t control their tastes on small matters of that kind:  and then, what a valuable offset it is, just to have the power of doing the free and easy gentleman, to be the brilliant companion, to put on the smooth when you go among nobility what don’t understand the thing!” Graspum adds, with a cunning wink.

“Pooh! pooh! such talk don’t jingle.  You can’t separate our aristocracy from mistress-keeping.  It’s a matter of romance with them,—­a matter of romance, gentlemen, that’s all.  The south couldn’t live without romance, she couldn’t!” adds Nimrod, stretching back in his chair.

“And where did you get that broad idea from, Jakey?  I kind o’ likes that sort of philosophy,” adds another.

“Philosophy!  I reckon how there is deep and strong philosophy in that ar; but ye can’t calc’late much on’t when ye haint talents to bring it out.  That point where the soul comes in is a puzzler on Yankees; but it takes our editors and parsons to put the arguments where the Yankees can’t demolish them.  Read the Richmond—­, my grandmother of the day, if ye want to see the philosophy of niggers, and their souls.  That editor is a philosopher; the world’s got to learn his philosophy.  Just take that preacher from New Jersey, what preaches in All Saints; if he don’t prove niggers aint no souls I’m a Dutchman, and dead at that!  He gives ’em broadside logic, gentlemen; and if he hadn’t been raised north he wouldn’t bin so up on niggers when he cum south,” was the quick rejoinder of our knowing expounder, who, looking Graspum in the face, demanded to know if he was not correct.  Graspum thinks it better to waste no more time in words, but to get at the particular piece of business for which they have been called together.  He is a man of money,—­a man of trade, ever willing to admit the philosophy of the man-market, but don’t see the difference of honour between the aristocrat who sells his bits in the market, and the honourable dealer who gets but a commission for selling them.  And there’s something about the parson who, forgetting the sanctity of his calling, sanctifies everything pertaining to slavery.  Conscience, he admits, is a wonderful thing fixed somewhere about the heart, and, in spite