is the essential wrong of the system, as manifested in its capabilities and possibilities, that she seeks to bring out; and in so treating her subject, she has shown a mind able to grasp its central principle. While, at the same time, the dramatic power she has evinced in the various scenes set forth in illustration of this principle, the alternating humor and pathos with which the story is told, and above all, the truly religious and Christian spirit that vivifies and elevates the whole, make the work one of such true and sanctified genius, as justly entitles it to the world-wide admiration it has obtained.
But what distinguishes this writer from most of the former opponents of slavery, is her freedom from all bitterness, and the just and Christian spirit in which she makes allowance for the difficulties of the slaveholders' position, and for the partial insensibility to the evils of the system which education and habit naturally engender. "Some have supposed it," she says, "an absurd refinement to talk about separating principles and persons, or to admit that he who upholds a bad system can be a good man. Systems most unjust and despotic have been defended by men personally just and humane. It is a melancholy consideration, but no less true, that there is almost no absurdity and no injustice that has not, at some period of the world's history, had the advantage of some good man's virtues in its support."[1] The excellence of the spirit in which she writes is well represented in the following extract, — which it is to be hoped may teach
- ↑ Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, part in, chap. x.
