My
mistress, who had kindly commenced to instruct me, had, in compliance
with the advice and direction of her husband, not only ceased to
instruct, but had set her face against my being instructed by any one
else. It is due, however, to my mistress to say of her, that she did
not adopt this course of treatment immediately. She at first lacked the
depravity indispensable to shutting me up in mental darkness. It was
at least necessary for her to have some training in the exercise of
irresponsible power, to make her equal to the task of treating me as
though I were a brute.
My mistress was, as I have said, a kind and tenderhearted woman; and in
the simplicity of her soul she commenced, when I first went to live with
her, to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another.
In entering upon the duties of a slaveholder, she did not seem to
perceive that I sustained to her the relation of a mere chattel, and
that for her to treat me as a human being was not only wrong, but
dangerously so. Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me. When
I went there, she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman. There was
no sorrow or suffering for which she had not a tear. She had bread for
the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that
came within her reach. Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of
these heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became
stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like
fierceness.
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