A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. HavilandHaviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith)
Religion
A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland
Haviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith)
Freed persons; Haviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith), 1808-1898; Underground Railroad
In my reply, dated Raisin, March 16, 1847, I informed the sick deacon
that my letter to his father "had served as a moral emetic, by the mass
of black, bilious, and putrid matter it bad sent forth. You must have
been exercised with as great distress, as extreme pain, that was
producing paroxysms and vomiting, that you had in your sick-room in the
Toledo hotel, when your physician was so hastily called to your relief
by your son-in-law, as the matter that lies before me in letter form is
as 'black', and much more 'bilious,' and nearer 'mortification' than
that I saw there."
"We thank you for the name's sake. May he possess the wisdom of a
Daniel of old, although his lot be cast in the lions' den; and, like
Moses, may he become instrumental in leading his people away from a
worse bondage than that of Egypt.
"According to your logic, we are not only robbing the slaveholder, but
the poor slave of his valuable home, where he can enjoy the elevating
and soul-ennobling privilege of looking 'greasy, slick, and fat'--can
have the privilege of being forbidden the laborious task of cultivating
his intellect--is forbidden to claim his wife and children as his own
instead of the property of John P. Chester."
I pitied the young man, whose bitterness of hate seemed incorrigible,
and gave advice which I deemed wholesome, although I yielded to the
temptation of dealing somewhat in irony and sarcasm.
But the next letter from the sick deacon was filled and running over
with vulgar blackguardism, that I would neither answer nor give to the
public eye. It was directed to "Laura S. Haviland, Esq., or Dan." As it
arrived in my absence, my son Daniel handed it to Rev. John Patchin,
who became so indignant in reading the list of epithets that he
proposed to reply.
The first sentence of his letter was:
"Sir,--As John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay were seated in Congress,
they saw passing on the street a drove of jackasses. Said Henry Clay,
'There, Sir, Adams, is a company of your constituents as they come from
the North.' 'All right; they are going South to teach yours,' was the
quick reply. And I think one of those long-eared animals has strayed
down your way, and your ma might have sent you to his school--I think,
however, but a few weeks, or your epistolary correspondence with Mrs.
Haviland would have been vastly improved."
From the report my son gave me of the short epistle, it was filled with
sentenced couched in the same spirit throughout; "for," said he, "that
rabid fire-eater has been treated in a manner too mild. He needs
something more nearly like his own coin."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account