whites, as they should
be for physiological reasons,-when, in fine, they see that they have not
any fair and just position in American society and government,--they
may be sorry that they were not gradually emancipated, and colonized to
their own native country; and for ourselves-for our own country--the
seeds may be sowing, in the dark bosom of the future, which may spring
up in civil wars more terrible than ever were seen before.

Such speculations and opinions, I am sensible, would meet with no favor
among us now. The espousal of the slave-man's cause among our Northern
people is so humane and hearty that they can stop nowhere, for any
consideration of expediency, in doing him justice, after all his wrongs;
and I honor their feeling, go to what lengths it will. Nevertheless, I
put down these my thoughts, for my children to understand, regard them
as they may.

But what it is in my style or manner of writing that has called forth
such a hard feeling towards me, from extremists both North and South,
upon this slavery question, I cannot understand. In every instance
in which I have spoken of it, I have been drawn out by a sense of
duty,-there certainly was no pleasure in it. I have never assailed the
motives of any man or party; I have spoken in no feeling of unkindness
to anybody; there can have been no bitterness in my speech. [120] And
yet something, I suppose, there must have been in my way of expressing
myself, to offend. It may have been a fault, it may have been a merit
for aught I know; for truly I do not know what it was.

After all, how little does any man know of his own personality,--of his
personality in action? He may study himself; he may find out what his
faculties, what his traits of character are, in the abstract as it
were; but what they are in action, in movement,--how they appear to
others,--he cannot know. The eye that looks around upon a landscape sees
everything but itself. It is just as a man may look in the glass and see
himself there every day; but he sees only the framework, only the
"still life" in his face; he does not see it in the free play of
expression,--in the strong workings of thought and feeling. I was one
day sitting with Robert Walsh in Paris, and there was a large mirror
behind him. Suddenly he said, "Ah, what a vain fellow you are!"-"How
so?" I asked.--"Why," said he, "you are not looking at me as you
talk, but you are looking at yourself in the glass."--"It is a fact!" I
exc