When Marriage Is What It Ought To

Cultivate In Young Minds An Equal Love Of The Good, The Beautiful And The Absurd; Most People's Lives Are Too Lead-colored To Lose The Smallest Twinkle Of Light From A Flash Of Nonsense.

The Southern Newspapers, With Their Advertisements Of Negro Sales And Personal Descriptions Of Fugitive Slaves, Supply Details Of Misery That It Would Be Difficult For Imagination To Exceed. Scorn, Derision, Insult, Menace - The Handcuff, The Last - The Tearing Away Of Children From Parents, Of Husbands From Wives - The Weary Trudging In Droves Along The Common Highways, The Labor Of Body, The Despair Of Mind, The Sickness Of Heart - These Are The Realities Which Belong To The System, And Form The Rule, Rather That The Exception, In The Slave's Experience.

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 The Evils Of This Frightful Institution.

Place, Time, Life, Death, Earth, Heaven Are Divisions And Distinctions We Make, Like The Imaginary Lines We Trace Upon The Surface Of The Globe.

[on Disagreeing With Her Husband About His Slave-holding:] I Cannot Give My Conscience Into The Keeping Of Another Human Being Or Submit The Actions Dictated By My Conscience To Their Will.