y. But the pleasant moods of a slaveholder are remarkably
brittle; they are easily snapped; they neither come often, nor remain
long. His temper is subjected to perpetual trials; but, since these
trials are never borne patiently, they add nothing to his natural stock
of patience.

Old master very early impressed me with the idea that he was an unhappy
man. Even to my child's eye, he wore a troubled, and at times, a haggard
aspect. His strange movements excited my curiosity, and awakened my
compassion. He seldom walked alone without muttering to himself; and he
occasionally stormed about, as if defying an army of invisible foes. "He
would do this, that, and the other; he'd be d--d if he did not,"--was
the usual form of his threats. Most of his leisure was spent in
walking, cursing and gesticulating, like one possessed by a demon. Most
evidently, he was a wretched man, at war with his own soul, and with
all the world around him. To be overheard by the children, disturbed him
very little. He made no more of our presence, than of that of the ducks
and geese which he met on the green. He little thought that the little
black urchins around him, could see, through those vocal crevices, the
very secrets of his heart. Slaveholders ever underrate the intelligence
with which{63 SUPPOSED OBTUSENESS OF SLAVE-CHILDREN} they have to
grapple. I really understood the old man's mutterings, attitudes and
gestures, about as well as he did himself. But slaveholders never
encourage that kind of communication, with the slaves, by which they
might learn to measure the depths of his knowledge. Ignorance is a high
virtue in a human chattel; and as the master studies to keep the slave
ignorant, the slave is cunning enough to make the master think he
succeeds. The slave fully appreciates the saying, "where ignorance is
bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." When old master's gestures were violent,
ending with a threatening shake of the head, and a sharp snap of his
middle finger and thumb, I deemed it wise to keep at a respectable
distance from him; for, at such times, trifling faults stood, in
his eyes, as momentous offenses; and, having both the power and the
disposition, the victim had only to be near him to catch the punishment,
deserved or undeserved.

One of the first circumstances that opened my eyes to the cruelty and
wickedness of slavery, and the heartlessness of my old master, was the
refusal of the latter to interpose his authority, to protec