His wealth of picturesque language we may safely omit, and
briefly remind the student of the byways of history how Henry G. Surface
found himself, during the decade following Appomattox, with his little
world at his feet. He was thirty at the time, handsome, gifted,
high-spirited, a brilliant young man who already stood high in the
councils of the State. But he was also restless in disposition,
arrogant, over-weeningly vain, and ambitious past all belief--"a yellow
streak in him, and we didn't know it!" bellowed the Major. Bitterly
chagrined by his failure to secure, from a legislature of the early
seventies, the United States Senatorship which he had confidently
expected, young Surface, in a burst of anger and resentment, committed
the unforgivable sin. He went over bag and baggage to the other side, to
the "nigger party" whom all his family, friends, and relations, all his
"class," everybody else with his instincts and traditions, were
desperately struggling, by hook and by crook, to crush.
In our mild modern preferences as between presidents, or this governor
and that, we catch no reminiscence of the fierce antagonisms of the
elections of reconstruction days.
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