Cauthorne made a study of Vance, rightly taking him as an excellent example of the younger Southern men of education and social mark left over from the war; a class of men a little inclined to give an insult on slight provocation, and wholly disinclined to receive one without fighting; but true as steel to a friend, punctilious in matters conventional, and beautifully tender and courtly in their intercourse with women, — a class, to say the truth, with as few faults and as high qualities as are the birthright of any other in the world.
During the course of the caucus it became necessary for Cauthorne and Vance to quite frequently interchange words; and it chanced that they invariably agreed upon matters of local State policy, whilst radically differing in their views upon national questions. At one time Vance said, —
"I think this question of the negro and his future depends almost wholly upon the sort of education he is to receive. At present it will not do to pass the government of the State and its counties into his hands. He cannot read or write; he knows not the first rule of economy; he is, in fact, ineligible to rule even his own cabin. Of course I admit his right to vote and to hold office, but" —
"Well, I don't admit any thing of the sort," growlingly interrupted a square-mouthed, elderly man, with a dark cigar clamped in his teeth. "Whenever you admit so much as that, away go all the hopes of the South."
"No, you are wrong," replied Vance. "My theory is this: keep the negroes out of office until you have educated them. Build up schools for their children, encourage political study among them, and the next generation will show more fitness for public trust. What do you think, sir?" turning to Cauthorne, who had silently stood near.
"The negroes seem to vastly outnumber you here: how will you keep them out of office while their education is progressing?" Cauthorne asked.
"There are thousands of ways," suggested the square-mouthed man. "They're mighty timid creatures."
"The question is a difficult one, I admit," said Vance, addressing Cauthorne, and giving no notice to the other. "I have puzzled my mind a good deal with it of late. The negro must be educated. That is fundamental. He must be absorbed, lost by education until he is no longer a negro, until he is not even a separate element in politics. I take it that the war has made us a nation, and it remains for us to make ourselves a people as well."
At this point some question was put to the body of the caucus, and the thread of the talk was broken. Soon after the meeting came to an end. Cauthorne did not go immediately to his room, but lighted a cigar, and walked a while on the long veranda. Vance had impressed him deeply and somewhat strangely, with his dark, swarthy, magnetic face, his peculiarly dignified manners, his voice, his sincerity, and, most of all, with his advanced political notions as compared with the current drift of Southern doctrines. There can be no doubt that a reflection from the grand old days of slavery had helped to accentuate and emphasize Vance's characteristics in Cauthorne's eyes. No strong imagination can fail to be affected by such a reflex, when placed in a focus of past glory like Tallahassee.
Cauthorne, walking there in the balmy night air, with the moon's rays pouring slantwise upon him from a point above the roof of the Capitol building, tried to conjure up the old time, when all these black folk who now sauntered and shambled to and fro in the streets and alleys, or snoozed and nodded in the cabins, were slaves, mere cattle, to be ordered here and there, to be bought and sold. He thought how gay the winters must have been in Tallahassee when the Northern friends of these lordlike slaveholders came down to bask in the balmy Floridian weather, and to drink the wine and feast on the viands of those homes, famous for unequalled hospitality. Yonder stands an old dilapidated mansion, whose windows are curtainless and shutterless, whose chimeys are crumbling, whose roof is battered, whose stuccoed walls are sadly colored and defaced. A few years ago, say twenty, that was a home where luxury reigned, and where distinguished men and women met in a way to charm the fancy of a poet or a painter. Men whose fame was world-wide came to that house, — politicians, artists, philosophers, novelists, actors. And the dignified youths and stately maidens went riding, driving, and walking, among the beautiful groves, or in happy companies sought Lake Jackson, or Lake Bradford, for a sail or a row on those silvery waters.
The question arose in Cauthorne's mind, how Mr. Arthur Vance, remembering the old time, and experiencing the new, with a full knowledge of all that lay between, could utter sentiments so liberal, so antagonistic to the whole spirit of his fathers. Not many men of the South, not another in Tallahassee, born and reared a Southerner, had at that time dared to go so far. He might safely be taken as the hero of a novel which should have for its purpose the portraying of Southern social life in this transition period.
And so it will be seen how it chanced that at last Cauthorne's fancy wove the web of a romance whose central figures were Arthur Vance and Lucie La Rue. But as a novelist, he was far too practical to depend much upon his fancy. The bricks of genius are not made without straw; but how in this case could the straw be gathered? Cauthorne always came round to the same point, where he stood with his eyes fixed upon the door opening upon the social life of Tallahassee: and he always stopped there; for upon that door was written, "No admittance without the password."
He often met Arthur Vance in the street, where they bowed, and passed each other by; and his eyes were now and then blessed with seeing Miss La Rue at church or in her father's carriage: but the days might have been months and the weeks years without bringing him any nearer to them. Meantime he was absorbing the local spirit, and fastening in his memory forever the dreamy coloring of those sunny, breezy, perfumed landscapes, those prematurely old houses, and all the accidents and eccentricities of the climate and people as he might see them. He wrote chapter after chapter of his novel, infusing into them a rare freshness and a unique coloring; but it was a constant sting to his pride, and an actual pang to his artistic consciousness, whenever he thought how little he was allowed to know of the social and inner lives of the persons he had chosen as models for his leading char acters. Some painters make up their com positions from the pictures of others; but the insincerity of the thing must be a very great load to them.
So the time slipped by into midwinter, and on toward the beginning of a very early Floridian spring. The well-kept Capitol grounds were snowy with tall lilies, and fleecy with the sprays of the bridal-wreath shrubs. The live-oaks put forth their tassels, and the dusky fig-orchards took on a tinge of tender green. The winds from the Gulf had in them the sweetest tropical languors.Cauthorne's mission seemed near its end. He was beginning to count the days as they led him to the time for his northward flight. He could not have the excuse of ill health with which to urge a stay after the adjournment of the legislature, which would be early in March. He never had been so strong physically, or so energetic mentally. He had heard much of the enervating influence of the Floridian climate, but he felt in himself the opposite effect. Life seemed to have caught some new and valuable element from the golden sunlight, the rippling breezes, and the mingled perfumes. He tried to analyze his condition, but as often wandered away from the effort to think of Lucie La Rue.
