The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

362

362 THE STORY OF MY LIFL

My three years life at the South was of great value to
me in many ways, and gave me an education I could not
have received in any school of the time. It was no small
advantage to enjoy for three years the society of a man
like Mr. Hendersona - indeed, it was a liberal education in itself. His knowledge of the world, his acquaintance with English literature, his social relations with the
prominent political men of the time, who really controlled
the affairs of the nation, his thorough understanding of our
form of government, of the history of the republic, and of
the eminent men who had done so much towards its development, many of whom were prominent actors on the stage
at that time,- all this rendered his. companionship not only
agreeable, but instructive and educational.
I had thought, in my early narrowness, that goodness
and moral excellence were the exclusive possessions of the
religious sect with which I was connected. I learned while
in Virginia, that ethical greatness and a high order of character are to be found among people of all sects, and of no
sect, and thenceforth placed character higher than creed.
I had always regarded the Southern people as greater
sinners than those of the North, because the former clung
to the institution of slavery But in listening to Mr. Henderson's history of slivery, I learned for the first time, that
in the beginning of the nineteenth century, every nation of
Europe owned slaves and traded in them, but had gradually freed themselves from this colossal evil, and that our
republic was indebted to Great Britain for the existence of
slavery on this continent. That when the American cobo..
nists shook off their allegiance to the mother country, and