My Bondage and My Freedom. Frederick Douglass

men and helpless women, for thirty dollars per month—a business so horrible, hardening and disgraceful, that, rather, than engage in it, a decent man would blow his own brains out—and let the reader view with me the equally wicked, but less repulsive aspects of slave life; where pride and pomp roll luxuriously at ease; where the toil of a thousand men supports a single family in easy idleness and sin. This is the great house; it is the home of the LLOYDS! Some idea of its splendor has already been given—and, it is here that we shall find that height of luxury which is the opposite of that depth of poverty and physical wretchedness that we have just now been contemplating. But, there is this difference in the two extremes; viz: that in the case of the slave, the miseries and hardships of his lot are imposed by others, and, in the master’s case, they are imposed by himself. The slave is a subject, subjected by others; the slaveholder is a subject, but he is the author of his own subjection. There is more truth in the saying, that slavery is a greater evil to the master than to the slave, than many, who utter it, suppose. The self-executing laws of eternal justice follow close on the heels of the evil-doer here, as well as elsewhere; making escape from all its penalties impossible. But, let others philosophize; it is my province here to relate and describe; only allowing myself a word or two, occasionally, to assist the reader in the proper understanding of the facts narrated.

      CHAPTER VII. Life in the Great House

      COMFORTS AND LUXURIES—ELABORATE EXPENDITURE—HOUSE SERVANTS—MEN

      SERVANTS AND MAID SERVANTS—APPEARANCES—SLAVE ARISTOCRACY—STABLE AND

      CARRIAGE HOUSE—BOUNDLESS HOSPITALITY—FRAGRANCE OF RICH DISHES—THE

      DECEPTIVE CHARACTER OF SLAVERY—SLAVES SEEM HAPPY—SLAVES

      AND SLAVEHOLDERS ALIKE WRETCHED—FRETFUL DISCONTENT

      OF SLAVEHOLDERS—FAULT-FINDING—OLD BARNEY—HIS

      PROFESSION—WHIPPING—HUMILIATING SPECTACLE—CASE EXCEPTIONAL—WILLIAM

      WILKS—SUPPOSED SON OF COL. LLOYD—CURIOUS INCIDENT—SLAVES PREFER RICH