Page:Sketchesinhistory00pett.pdf/108

Rh of beings not only incapable of such enjoyments, but whose minds and bodies were exactly adapted to the performance of the labor and drudgery needed by us. I am not sure that I had any doubt as to the truth of all this, until on looking up I saw depicted on her countenance grief, astonishment and disgust all combined. It was now my turn to be astonished. I had intended to close with a peroration upon the curse of Canaan, but that was all lost. A glance of her eye paralyzed my tongue. I wished to apologize, but could not do even that. There was silence, and I suffered more in five minutes than I can describe. I thought I saw in her countenance all kinds of emotion, until finally that of pity seemed to predominate.

“Mrs. Hamilton was, I judge, about the age of my mother,” said Platt, “and in person, voice and expression, commanding the utmost respect. I have never been able to account for my folly in being so forward in the expression of sentiments that I did not understand, nor did I know whether I believed them or not. After a most painful silence, she was the first to speak, and said, ‘My dear sir, wdien I heard that you were coming here from a New England home, I did hope and expect to hear from you sentiments very different from those you have just expressed. Yet, if such is your view of things on this subject, I am glad to know it now and to have the opportunity to give such advice as a mother might venture to give her son. People from the North are never under a greater mistake than when they suppose that they command the respect of slaveholders by advocating principles such as I have just listened to. Had my husband heard what you have said to me, he might, from courtesy or motives of policy, have seemed to coincide with your views in some measure, but his feelings towards you would have been characterized with