I am a
slave! yes, a slave; there is much in the word, more than most men
are disposed to analyse. It may seem simple to you, but follow it to
its degraded depths-follow it to where it sows the seeds of sorrow,
and there you will find it spreading poison and death, uprooting all
that is good in nature. Worse than that, my child is a slave too. It
is that which makes the wrong more cruel, that mantles the polished
vice, that holds us in that fearful grasp by which we dare not seek
our rights.
"My mother, ah! yes, my mother"-Clotilda shakes her head in sorrow.
"How strange that, by her misfortune, all, all, is misfortune for
ever! from one generation to another, sinking each life down, down,
down, into misery and woe. How oft she clasped my hand and whispered
in my ear: 'If we could but have our rights.' And she, my mother,--as
by that sacred name I called her-was fair; fairer than those who
held her for a hideous purpose, made her existence loathsome to
herself, who knew the right but forced the wrong. She once had
rights, but was stripped of them; and once in slavery who can ask
that right be done?"
"What rights have you beyond these?" he interrupted, suddenly.
"There is mystery in what you have said, in what I have seen;
something I want to solve. The same ardent devotion, tenderness,
affection,--the same touching chasteness, that characterises
Franconia, assimilates in you. You are a slave, a menial-she is
courted and caressed by persons of rank and station.
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