before going to the South, and of course any such publication
must then depend on the acquiescence of the owners of the estate. I am
sure that no book of mine on the subject could be of as much use to the
poor people on Butler's Island as my residence among them; and I should,
therefore, be very unwilling to do anything that was likely to interfere
with that: although I have sometimes been haunted with the idea that it
was an imperative duty, knowing what I know, and having seen what I have
seen, to do all that lies in my power to show the dangers and evils of
this frightful institution. And the testimony of a planter's wife, whose
experience has all been gathered from estates where the slaves are
universally admitted to be well treated, should carry with it some
authority. So I am occupying myself, from time to time, as my leisure
allows, in making a fair copy of my Georgia Journal.

I occasionally make very copious extracts from what I read, and also
write critical analyses of the books that please or displease me, in the
language--French or Italian--in which they are written; but these are
fragmentary, and do not, I think, entitle me to say that I am writing
anything. No one here is interested in anything that I write, and I have
too little serious habit of study, too little application, and too much
vanity and desire for the encouragement of praise, to achieve much in my
condition of absolute intellectual solitude....

Here are two of your questions answered; the third is--whether I let
the slave question rest more than I did? Oh yes; for I have come to the
conclusion that no words of mine could be powerful enough to dispel the
clouds of prejudice which early habits of thought, and the general
opinion of society upon this subject have gathered round the minds of
the people I live among. I do not know whether they ever think or read
about it, and my arguments, though founded in this case on pretty sound
reason, are apt to degenerate into passionate appeals, the violence of
which is not calculated to do much good in the way of producing
convictions in the minds of others....

Even if the property were mine, I could exercise no power over it; nor
could our children, after our death, do anything for those wretched
slaves, under the present laws of Georgia. All that any one could do,
would be to refrain from using the income derived from the estates, and
return it to the rightful owners--that is, the earners of it. Had