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Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

"Oak Openings"

You and I may fancy a white face better than one
of any other color; but nature colors the eye when it colors the
body, and there's not a nigger in America who doesn't think black
the pink of beauty."
"Perhaps it was proceeding too fast to say anything about the change
of color, Bourdon. But what can a Christian minister do, unless he
tell the truth? Adam could have been but of one color; and all the
races on earth, one excepted, must have changed from that one
color."
"Aye, and my life on it, that all the races on 'arth believe that
one color to have been just that which has fallen to the luck of
each partic'lar shade. Hang me if I should like to be persuaded out
of my color, any more than these Injins. In America, color goes for
a great deal; and it may count for as much with an Injin as among us
whites. No, no, parson; you should have begun with persuading these
savages into the notion that they're Jews; if you could get along
with THAT, the rest might be all the easier."
"You speak of the Jews, not as if you considered them a chosen
people of the Lord, but as a despised and hateful race. This is not
right, Bourdon. I know that Christians are thus apt to regard them;
but it does not tell well for their charity or their knowledge.


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