IN THE SHADOW
to acknowledge that it was simply overtaxed. On the other hand, let a subject be broad, simple, voluble, but expressed directly in words chosen for brevity without regard to style or euphony, and Dessalines would throw the book aside in disgust. "The man does not know how to write!" he would exclaim. "He has no vocabulary; one would think that he was writing a child's primer! Here is an entire paragraph without a single well-sounding word … tiens! there is nothing instructive in such a book!" These monologues were usually carried on aloud; negrolike he was given to audible self-communication. Perhaps it crystallized thoughts otherwise vague; the habit of talking aloud in the primitive nature is equivalent to the need of pencil and paper to record arithmetical calculations in the higher one; some other sense, visual, auditory, is called in to assist the insufficient brain cells.
A few days later Giles called to bring Dessalines a book in which he thought he would be interested—"The Races of Man," by Denniker. He found the Haytian in the pagoda, his favorite retreat. Dessalines held a letter in his hand and his great black face was troubled, dazed—wore the look which came to him when wrestling with a problem beyond the grasp of his strong but simple mentality. The vexed expression vanished as his eyes fell upon his friend.
"The very man I most wanted to see!" He sprang up, radiant, dilating with welcome. Something in the jubilant attitude reminded Giles for the instant of the behavior of his Danes when he loosed them for their morning romp; if Dessalines had possessed a tail he would have wagged it violently.
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