In like manner, and to the fullest
extent, has Frederick Douglass passed through every gradation of
rank comprised in our national make-up, and bears upon his person
and upon his soul every thing that is American. And he has not
only full sympathy with every thing American; his proclivity or
bent, to active toil and visible progress, are in the strictly
national direction, delighting to outstrip "all creation."
Nor have the natural gifts, already named as his, lost anything
by his severe training. When unexcited, his mental processes are
probably slow, but singularly clear in perception, and wide in
vision, the unfailing memory bringing up all the facts in their
every aspect; incongruities he lays hold of incontinently, and
holds up on the edge of his keen and telling wit. But this wit
never descends to frivolity; it is rigidly in the keeping of his
truthful common sense, and always used in illustration or proof
of some point which could not so readily be reached any other
way. "Beware of a Yankee when he is feeding," is a shaft that
strikes home
[4] The German physiologists have even discovered vegetable
matter--starch--in the human body.
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