Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: Tell me something, Buster. What do you think of Negroes?
Pvt. Buster Kilrain: Well, if you mean the race, I don't really know. This is not a thing to be ashamed of. The thing is, you cannot judge a race. Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit. You take men one at a time.
Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: To me, there was never any difference.
Pvt. Buster Kilrain: None at all?
Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: None at all. Of course, I haven't known that many freed men, but those I knew in Bangor, Portland, you look in the eye, there was a man. There was a "divine spark," as my mother used to call it. That is all there is to it. Races are men. "What a piece of work is man. How infinite in faculties, in form and moving. How express and admirable. In action, how like an angel."
Pvt. Buster Kilrain: Well, if he's an angel, all right then. But he damn well must be a killer angel. Colonel, darling, you're a lovely man. I see a great vast difference between us, yet I admire you, lad. You're an idealist, praise be. The truth is, Colonel, there is no "divine spark." There's many a man alive no more of value than a dead dog. Believe me. When you've seen them hang each other the way I have back in the Old Country. Equality? What I'm fighting for is the right to prove I'm a better man than many of them. Where have you seen this "divine spark" in operation, Colonel? Where have you noted this magnificent equality? No two things on earth are equal or have an equal chance. Not a leaf, not a tree. There's many a man worse than me, and some better, but I don't think race or country matters a damn. What matters, Colonel, is justice. Which is why I'm here. I'll be treated as I deserve. Not as my father deserved. I'm Kilrain, and I damn all gentlemen. There is only one aristocracy, and that is right here. (taps his temple) And that's why we've got to win this war. Why someday you might even see a black fella be President!
Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: You have to stop drinking on duty Buster.
Pvt. Buster Kilrain: Sorry Colonel Darling but I needed a taste.
7 comments:
Very poetic day!
In 19th century parlance Obama is a mulatto from the Sandwich islands.
Private Kilrain sounds an awful lot like Victor McLaglen in She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.
If ONLY Obama were simply a "black fella" instead of the rootless, sociopathic lideologically-driven mullatto detached from ANY cultural moorings resembling American Exceptionalism and clinging to his anti-American lefty Weltanshruung
like a drowning man clutches at straws hoping they are tree-logs.
That's a beautiful compound sentence Virgil--I have a minor typo edit on the German but other than that--bango!
@chickenlittle/
My jr-yr HS English Lit teacher once said that I wrote "like an Elizabethan." She obviously was easily impressed--either that or she was trying to give me the subtle hint to clean up my prose and get with the 20th Cent. LOL.
"Killer Angels" is one of my husband's favorite books.
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