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

LETTERS. 41
to make a holier music descend to this world, first in
purified affections, and ultimately in written notes.
In this view of the ever-active agency of spirit, how
appalling is the responsibility of a human soul; how
glorious its capabilities. Another means of keeping
my soul fresh is my intense love of Nature. Another
help, perhaps stronger than than either of the two, is
domestic love.
A Southern gentleman, some time since, wrote to
ie from New Orleans, postage double and unpaid,
inviting me to that city, promising me a " warm
reception, and lodgings in the calaboose, with as
much nigger company as you desire." 1 He wrote according to the light that was in him. He did not
know that the combined police of the world could
not imprison me. In spite of bolts and bars, I should
have been off, like a witch at midnight holding fair
discourse with Orion, and listening to the plaintive
song of Pleiades mourning for the earth-dimmed glory
of their fallen sister. How did he know, in his moral
midnight, that choosing to cast our lot with the lowliest of earth was the very way to enter into companionship with the highest in heaven?
TO JOSEPH CARPENTER.
NORTHIAMPTON, February 8, 1841.
The only house on our farm is a sort of shanty
with two rooms and a garret, where a smart colored
mall and his wife (fugitives from injustice) now reside. We expect to whitewash it, build a new woodshed, and live there the next year. I shall keep no
help, and there will be room enough for David and
The above extract from the letter written by the Southerner was
one of many of the same kind she received, because of her devotion to.he cause of abolition.