to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable
anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to
read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view
of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the
horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of
agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often
wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile
to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was
this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was
no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every object within
sight or hearing, animate or inanimate. The silver trump of freedom
had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to
disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound, and seen in
every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my
wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing
without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from
every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved
in every storm.

I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself
dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I
should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have
been killed. While in this state of mind, I was eager to hear any one
speak of slavery. I was a ready listener. Every little while, I could
hear something about the abolitionists. It was some time before I found
what the word meant. It was always used in such connections as to make
it an interesting word to me. If a slave ran away and succeeded in
getting clear, or if a slave killed his master, set fire to a barn, or
did any thing very wrong in the mind of a slaveholder, it was spoken of
as the fruit of _abolition._ Hearing the word in this connection very