I would have preferred staying there, where, to say the least, you could
have had pleasanter social relations. You and Louis are nearer the
white race than the colored. Why should you prefer the one to the
other?"

"Because," said Minnie, "the prejudices of society are so strong against
the people with whom I am connected on my mother's side, that I could
not associate with white people on equal terms, without concealing my
origin, and that I scorned to do. The first years of my life passed
without my knowing that I was connected with the colored race; but when
it was revealed to me by mother, who suddenly claimed me, at first I
shrank from the social ostracism to which that knowledge doomed me, and
it was some time before I was reconciled to the change. Oh, there are
lessons of life that we never learn in the bowers of ease. They must be
learned in the fire. For months life seemed to me a dull, sad thing, and
for a while I did not care whether I lived or died, the sunshine had
suddenly faded from my path, and the future looked so dark and
cheerless. But now, when I look back upon those days of gloom and
suffering, I think they were among the most fruitful of my life, for in
those days of pain and sorrow my resolution was formed to join the
fortunes of my mother's race, and I resolved to brighten her old age
with a joy, with a gladness she had never known in her youth. And how
could I have done that had I left her unrecognized and palmed myself
upon society as a white woman? And to tell you the truth, having passed
most of my life in white society, I did not feel that the advantages of
that society would have ever paid me for the loss of my self-respect, by
passing as white, when I knew that I was colored; when I knew that any
society, however cultivated, wealthy or refined, would not be a social
gain to me, if my color and not my character must be my passport of
admission. So, when I found out that I was colored, I made up my mind