of it until after her death. It was always a matter of grief to him
that he did not know her better, and that he could not was one of the
sins of slavery that he never forgave.

On Colonel Lloyd's plantation Douglass spent four years of the slave
life of which his graphic description on the platform stirred humane
hearts to righteous judgment of an unrighteous institution. It is
enough to say that this lad, with keen eyes and susceptible feelings,
was an eye-witness of all the evils to which slavery gave birth. Its
extremes of luxury and misery could be found within the limits of one
estate. He saw the field hand driven forth at dawn to labor until
dark. He beheld every natural affection crushed when inconsistent with
slavery, or warped and distorted to fit the necessities and promote
the interests of the institution. He heard the unmerited strokes of
the lash on the backs of others, and felt them on his own. In the wild
songs of the slaves he read, beneath their senseless jargon or their
fulsome praise of "old master," the often unconscious note of grief
and despair. He perceived, too, the debasing effects of slavery upon
master and slave alike, crushing all semblance of manhood in the
one, and in the other substituting passion for judgment, caprice for
justice, and indolence and effeminacy for the more virile virtues of
freemen. Doubtless the gentle hand of time will some time spread
the veil of silence over this painful past; but, while we are still
gathering its evil aftermath, it is well enough that we do not forget
the origin of so many of our civic problems.

When Douglass was ten years old, he was sent from the Lloyd plantation
to Baltimore, to live with one Hugh Auld, a relative of his master.
Here he enjoyed the high privilege, for a slave, of living in the
house with his master's family. In the capacity of house boy it was