and the old people are idle and neglected; the middle-aged men
do not seem over-worked, and lead a mere animal existence, in itself not
peculiarly cruel or distressing, but with a constant element of fear and
uncertainty, "and the trifling evils of unrequited labor, ignorance the
most profound (to which they are condemned by law), and the unutterable
injustice which precludes them from all the merits and all the benefits
of voluntary exertion, and the progress that results from it."

Her eye notes closely the faces about her. When she gathers the slaves
to read prayers to them, she observes "their sable faces, so many of
them so uncouth in their outlines and proportions, and yet all of them
so pathetic, and some so sublime in their expression of patient
suffering and religious fervor." She says: "Just in proportion as I have
found the slaves on this plantation intelligent and advanced, I have
observed this pathetic expression of countenance in them, a mixture of
sadness and fear." The plantation, she writes, was well reputed, and its
management was considered above the average.

Her analysis of the master class in the South is keen and striking. "The
shop is not their element, and the eager spirit of speculation and the
sordid spirit of gain do not infect their whole existence, even to their
very demeanor and appearance, as they too manifestly do those of a large
proportion of the inhabitants of the Northern States. The Southerners
are infinitely better bred men, according to English notions, than the
men of the Northern States. The habit of command gives them a certain
self-possession, the enjoyment of leisure a certain ease. Their
temperament is impulsive and enthusiastic, and their manners have the
grace and spirit which seldom belong to the development of a Northern
people; but upon more familiar acquaintance the vices of the social
system to which they belong will be found to have infected them with
their own peculiar taint; and haughty, over-bearing irritability,
effeminate indolence, reckless extravagance, and a union of profligacy
and cruelty which is the immediate result of their irresponsible power
over their dependents, are some of the less pleasing traits."

She gives another and darker picture of the planter class. It goes
without saying that it is only a part of the class to which it fairly
applies: "A nation, for as such they should be spoken of, of men whose
organization and temperament is that of the