Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/62

Rh are by nature more eccentric, more spiritual, nearer the spirits, whether they be angels or devils.

In Sweden also—in the highest circles of Stockholm—we have known ladies whose domestics bore bloody marks, and whom the police were obliged to take in charge. Countess L. was amiable, kind, agreeable to everybody except her domestics, and she was not able to keep a servant in her house beyond six weeks. We have had the ladies of two foreign ministers—both English—both of whom, from their treatment of their servants, deserved the Christmas gift which one of them received from an acquaintance of the family—a bloody medal of bravery! A good thing is it that the servants of these ladies could leave them, thanks to the laws of a free country! But here, in this free country, people can, in the face of such facts, still defend slavery as a patriarchal institution, quite compatible with the laws of a free people, and with human rights and happiness!

I have had here several contests with a lady who defends these opinions, and who, in order to prove the justice and equity of slavery, and the happiness of the negro slaves under this excellent institution, avails herself of arguments and sophisms, backwards and forwards, with such an amazing contempt of logic and all sound reason, that I have sometimes become dumb from sheer astonishment.

I avoid, in a general way as much as possible, conversation on this subject. The question of slavery is a sore eye which winches at the slightest touch. It is painful to the good, and it irritates those who are not good; whilst it serves no purpose one way or the other. I am therefore silent, when I can be so with an easy conscience: but for all that, it is evident that the question cannot rest; that the work of light has commenced for the release of the children of Africa, and that their condition, even here, is improving with every passing year.