Chapter 11

_"A Change Came O'er the Spirit of My Dream"_

HOW I LEARNED TO READ--MY MISTRESS--HER SLAVEHOLDING DUTIES--
THEIR DEPLORABLE EFFECTS UPON HER ORIGINALLY NOBLE NATURE--THE
CONFLICT IN HER MIND--HER FINAL OPPOSITION TO MY LEARNING TO
READ--TOO LATE--SHE HAD GIVEN ME THE INCH, I WAS RESOLVED TO TAKE
THE ELL--HOW I PURSUED MY EDUCATION--MY TUTORS--HOW I COMPENSATED
THEM--WHAT PROGRESS I MADE--SLAVERY--WHAT I HEARD SAID ABOUT IT--
THIRTEEN YEARS OLD--THE _Columbian Orator_--A RICH SCENE--A
DIALOGUE--SPEECHES OF CHATHAM, SHERIDAN, PITT AND FOX--KNOWLEDGE
EVER INCREASING--MY EYES OPENED--LIBERTY--HOW I PINED FOR IT--MY
SADNESS--THE DISSATISFACTION OF MY POOR MISTRESS--MY HATRED OF
SLAVERY--ONE UPAS TREE OVERSHADOWED US BOTH.

I lived in the family of Master Hugh, at Baltimore, seven years,
during which time--as the almanac makers say of the weather--my
condition was variable. The most interesting feature of my
history here, was my learning to read and write, under somewhat
marked disadvantages. In attaining this knowledge, I was
compelled to resort to indirections by no means congenial to my
nature, and which were really humiliating to me. My mistress--
who, as the reader has already seen, had begun to teach me was
suddenly checked in her benevolent design, by the strong advice
of her husband. In faithful compliance with this advice, the
good lady had not only ceased to instruct me, herself, but had
set her face as a flint against my learning to read by any means.
It is due, however, to my mistress to say, that she did not adopt
this course in all its stringency at the first. She either
thought it unnecessary, or she lacked the depravity indispensable
to shutting me up in MISTRESS>mental darkness. It was, at least, necessary for her to
have some training, and some hardening, in the exercise of the
slaveholder's prerogative, to make her equal to forgetting my
human nature and character, and to treating me as a thing
destitute of a moral or an intellectual nature. Mrs. Auld--my
mistress--was, as I have said, a most kind and tender-hearted
woman; and, in the humanity of her heart, and the simplicity of
her mind, she set out, when I first went to live with her, to
treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another.

It is easy to see, that, in entering upon the duties of a
slaveholder, some little experience is needed. Nature has done
almost nothing to prepare men and women to be either slaves or
slaveholders. Nothing but rigid training, long persisted in, can
perfect the character of the one or the other. One cannot easily
forget to love freedom; and it is as hard to cease to respect
that natural love in our fellow creatures. On entering upon the
career of a slaveholding