It is impossible to form an estimate of the character of any race of savages, from the deferential behaviour to the white man when he is strong. The mistake has been made again and again; and the moment the white man has appeared in the new aspect of being weaker than the savage, the savage has changed and sprung upon him. There are pious persons who, in their practice, with strange inconsistency, claim for every child born to civilisation all innate depravity, and for every savage born to the woods and wilds an innate virtue. We believe every savage to be in his heart covetous, treacherous, and cruel; and we have yet to learn what knowledge the white man — lost, houseless, shipless, apparently forgotten by his race, plainly famine-stricken, weak, frozen, helpless, and dying — has of the gentleness of Esquimaux nature.

From a possible potential second chapter of my time travel fic what face does happiness wear in your dreams?

“Next you will say–”

His tongue and mouth rebelled, so unsavoury the thought.  Francis saw and pounced on it with the viciousness of an animal.

“Yes?”

So be it – James would not be cowed.

“That he met the same end.”  But here something unexpected happened:  Francis flinched.