Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

90 LETTERS.
which she wrote in an hour of sadness, in consequence
of being cut by friends, reproached by relations, and
deluged with insulting letters from every part of the
South. Her relatives resort to both coaxing and
threatening, to induce her publicly to deny tha she
wrote the'" Autobiography of a Female Slave." The
truthfulness of her nature fires up at this. In one of
her letters to me she says, " What a mean thing they
wouldl make of me! I'll die first." She is true
metal. and rings clear under their blows. Yet she
has a loving, womanly heart, made desolate and sad
by separation from. early friends. We abolitionists
ought to rally round the noble young martyr. I wish
you had a chance to get acquainted with her. She
struclrk me as quite a remarkable young person.
More and more I become convinced that there is
a natural difference in the organization of people.
There is Mattie, brought up in a slave-holding community, and under the influence of an intensely aristocratic family, yet, fromn her earliest years, spontaneously giving all her sympathies to the poor. When
she went to school, she was a great pet with a
wealthy lady, a friend of her grand-father's. The
lady hired a slave of the grandfather, and caused
her to be whipped for some offence. Mattie heard
of it, on her way fronm school, and rushed into the
lady's house to pour forth her boiling indignation.
She called her a " cruel monster," and told her that
"the blue flames of hell were preparing for those
who treated poor people so!" The lady tried to
pacify her, and asked her to sit down and have some
cake. " I don't want to sit down in your house! "
she exclaimed; and off she went. The grandfather
tried to make her apologize to the lady for her rude