MDDM Gershom's Intervention

[Paul Mackin]

Doug Millison wrote:

>
> >
> >[Anonymous colonial revolutionary No. 2]: "Not only presuming us their
> >Subjects, which is bad enough,-- but that we're merely another kind of
> >Nigger,-- well that's what I can't forgive. Are you sure?"
>
> OK, but I read Washington as the speaker of the previous line and the
> following as Mason.  Assigning the following two to Washington and  Gershom
> is equally arbitrary on jbor's part.
>
> >[George Washington]: "Civility, Sir! The word you have employ'd, here in
> >this quiet Pool of Reason, is a very Shark, which ever feels its Lunch-Hour
> >nigh."
> >
> >[Gershom]: "Excuse me, do I hear that Word again? In this Smoak, 'twould
> >seem, so are we all."

If I read the passage correctly there are two reasons Washington couldn't be
the author of the "nigger" sentence.

One, after the lead in text saying that "more and more arrive at Raleigh's
Billiard-Room," it would be terrible narrative style to let only one of these
"more and more" speak.

Secondly, the N word sentence is uttered by someone of lower rank and
circumstances than Washington,  whom we know to be a well off landowner and
quite incapable of being bollixed by being equated with a slave.

The "civility, sir" sentence is of less certain origin, perhaps intentionally
be because it doesn't matter which one speaks it. The reader is meant ot find
it quite beyond belief that an 18th Century free white man could ever possibly
object to the N word in the way we all do today. Another example of projecting
20th Century sensibilies onto people living 200 plus years ago, which P
obviously thinks is humorous and possibly instructive.

Finally, Gershom MUST be the utterer of the "do I hear that word again"
sentence, because GW recognizes the voice.

IMHO. of course :-)

P.