Post by JAGuar on Apr 27, 2005 19:12:37 GMT -5
This takes place in the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. An angry mob goes after a man named Sherburn after he killed another man in cold blood.
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The idea of you lynching anybody! It's amusing. The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a man! Because you're brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a man? Why a man's safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind-as long as it's day-time and you're not behind him.
Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the South, and I've lived in the North; so I know the average all around. The average man's a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man, all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men in the day-time, and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other people-whereas you're just as brave, and no braver. Why don't your juries hang murderers? Because they're afraid the man's friends will shoot them in the back, in the dark-and it's just what they would do.
So they always acquit; and then a man goes in the night, with a hundred masked cowards at his back, and lynches the rascal. Your mistake is, that you didn't bring a man with you; that's one mistake, and the other is that you didn't come in the dark, and fetch your masks. You brought part of a man-Buck Harkness, there-and if you hadn't had him to start you, you'd a taken it out in blowing.
You didn't want to come. The average man don't like trouble and danger. You don't like trouble and danger. But if only half a man-like Buck Harkness, there-shouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!' you're afraid to back down-afraid you'll be found out to be what you are-cowards-and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-man's coat tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing oiut is a mob; that's what an army is-a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness. Now the thing for you to do, is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching's going to be done, it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they'll bring their masks, and fetch a man along. Now leave-and take your half-a-man with you.
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The idea of you lynching anybody! It's amusing. The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a man! Because you're brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a man? Why a man's safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind-as long as it's day-time and you're not behind him.
Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the South, and I've lived in the North; so I know the average all around. The average man's a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man, all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men in the day-time, and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other people-whereas you're just as brave, and no braver. Why don't your juries hang murderers? Because they're afraid the man's friends will shoot them in the back, in the dark-and it's just what they would do.
So they always acquit; and then a man goes in the night, with a hundred masked cowards at his back, and lynches the rascal. Your mistake is, that you didn't bring a man with you; that's one mistake, and the other is that you didn't come in the dark, and fetch your masks. You brought part of a man-Buck Harkness, there-and if you hadn't had him to start you, you'd a taken it out in blowing.
You didn't want to come. The average man don't like trouble and danger. You don't like trouble and danger. But if only half a man-like Buck Harkness, there-shouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!' you're afraid to back down-afraid you'll be found out to be what you are-cowards-and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-man's coat tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing oiut is a mob; that's what an army is-a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness. Now the thing for you to do, is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching's going to be done, it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they'll bring their masks, and fetch a man along. Now leave-and take your half-a-man with you.
