A Crown of Shame, Volume I by Florence Marryat

The overseer of Beauregard occupied another bungalow on the plantation, a perfect bower of beauty, which, whilst lying close to the White House, was entirely concealed from observation by the glorious foliage that environed it. Its wooden walls were clothed in creepers, and surrounded by tall cocoa palms, and feathery bamboos and orange trees, with their double wealth of fruit and flower. The heavy perfumes by which the atmosphere was laden would have proved too much for any one but a man acclimatised to the West Indies, but they suited the sensuous, pleasure-loving nature of Henri de Courcelles perfectly. As he sat, or rather reclined, on a long bamboo lounge in his verandah, with a cigar between his lips, and his handsome eyes half closed, he looked the picture of lazy content. He was dressed in full white trousers, and a linen shirt, thrown open at the throat, round which a crimson silk neckerchief was carelessly knotted. His dark curling hair was thrown off his brow, and his olive complexion was flushed with the mid-day heat. His work was over for the time being, and he was free to rest and enjoy himself until the sun went down. He had been on horseback by six o'clock that morning, riding round the coffee and sugar plantations, keeping the coolies up to their work, and receiving the complaints of, or distributing his orders amongst, the men who worked under him.

The labourers on Beauregard had long come to the conclusion that it was lost time to prefer any request out of the ordinary routine to Henri de Courcelles. Charming as he was when in the society of his equals, he was a stern and implacable overseer, being quick to find fault, and slow to extend forgiveness, and having no sympathy whatever with the people he ruled over. He looked upon the negroes as so many brute beasts out of which it was his duty to get as much work as possible, and he had often turned away with disgust on encountering Lizzie Fellows with a dusky baby on her lap, or with her arm beneath the head of a dying negress. He did not give vent to his opinions in public. It would scarcely have been safe, surrounded as he was by the creatures he despised, and often at their mercy; but they knew them, all the same, and were ripe to seize the first opportunity for revenge. Liz -- with her calm practical brain, and reflective mind, should have seen for herself that a man who could swear at an unoffending coolie, or thrust a little child roughly from his path, or strike his horse between the ears with his hunting crop, for no reason except to gratify a passing temper, would never make a kind husband or father. But the ancients never did a wiser thing than to pourtray love as blind. It blinds the cleverest of us to mental as well as physical defects, until some fatal day, the rose-coloured glasses drop from our eyes, and we see the man, or woman, love has idealised, in their true colours.