 |
| Cover photo: Carver, age 38, holding a clump of soil.
Tuskegee Institute, 1902 |
Carver: A Great Soul (Serpent Wise, 1998) is an eighty-page
introduction
to
Carver using the story of two trips he took to
Tulsa, Oklahoma.The
book came out in blank verse as a result
of the
author’s daily Shakespeare
readings.
The text on the back cover appears below.
An Inspired Scientist
The Peanut Man was just a little part
Of all that George Washington Carver was.
His meek but great inspiring presence made
Reports of him seem pale. One visitor wrote:
“I was expecting to talk to a great scientist; but the moment that I looked into the eyes of Dr. Carver,... I realized that I stood face to face with one of the most spiritual men—one of the most developed souls of this age. From what I have read of Gandhi of India, I am prepared to feel his spirituality; but I had never heard of this side of Carver; I expected a great brain but in the laboratory of Dr. George Washington Carver I had the feeling that I was in the presence of some one more divine than human.”
Carver himself saw the divine in all
humanity. He wrote once to a friend:
I am so glad you are learning to walk and talk with God. It will make you love humanity more because you will see so much of God in them... how natural that you would see Him most and at his best through man, the highest expression of his handiwork.”
For Carver, all of nature’s forms were windows
To Spirit. Born a slave, he grew through knowledge
Into a sage, teaching the ways to freedom.