would have made me think some special anxiety or sorrow must occasion it,
but that God knows the whole condition of these wretched people naturally
produces such a deportment, and there is no necessity to seek for special
or peculiar causes to account for it. Just in proportion as I have found
the slaves on this plantation intelligent and advanced beyond the general
brutish level of the majority, I have observed this pathetic expression of
countenance in them, a mixture of sadness and fear, the involuntary
exhibition of the two feelings, which I suppose must be the predominant
experience of their whole lives, regret and apprehension, not the less
heavy, either of them, for being, in some degree, vague and indefinite--a
sense of incalculable past loss and injury, and a dread of incalculable
future loss and injury.

I have never questioned Psyche as to her sadness, because, in the first
place, as I tell you, it appears to me most natural, and is observable in
all the slaves, whose superior natural or acquired intelligence allows of
their filling situations of trust or service about the house and family;
and, though I cannot and will not refuse to hear any and every tale of
suffering which these unfortunates bring to me, I am anxious to spare both
myself and them the pain of vain appeals to me for redress and help,
which, alas! it is too often utterly out of my power to give them. It is
useless, and indeed worse than useless, that they should see my impotent
indignation and unavailing pity, and hear expressions of compassion for
them, and horror at their condition, which might only prove incentives to
a hopeless resistance on their part to a system, under the hideous weight
of whose oppression any individual or partial revolt must be annihilated
and ground into the dust. Therefore, as I tell you, I asked Psyche no
questions, but, to my great astonishment, the other day M---- asked me if
I knew to whom Psyche belonged, as the poor woman had enquired of her with
much hesitation and anguish if she could tell her who owned her and her
children. She has two nice little children under six years old, whom she
keeps as clean and tidy, and who are sad and as silent, as herself. My
astonishment at this question was, as you will readily believe, not small,
and I forthwith sought out Psyche for an explanation. She was thrown into
extreme perturbation at finding that her question had been referred to me,
and it was some time before I co