Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/282

I learnt from conversation with Mr Mason, that the pecuniary results of his system of management were not less satisfactory than the moral ones. Owing to his father's good nature in indorsing the paper of a friend, the plantations, as he inherited them, had been burdened by a heavy mortgage, which was now nearly paid off. I did not fail to congratulate this worthy gentleman on having approached so near to the solution of a problem which all my observation and experience had made me believe insoluble — the making plantation life a tolerable condition of existence, as well for the slaves as for the free. But, though evidently well pleased with my compliments, Mr Mason shook his head. "I shan't deny, sir," he said, "that I feel a certain pleasure from the approval, by a man of your experience and discernment, of my poor efforts to do the best I can in the very trying and embarrassing position in which Providence has placed me; but, after all, sir, make the very best of it, this slavery is a damnable business for whites and blacks, and all of us together." Though we had talked before with a good deal of freedom, and though I had given Mr Mason an account of my experiences at Richmond with a pretty free expression of my own feelings and opinions, he had all along observed a certain uneasy reserve, as if doubting if it would be safe to speak out. Willing enough to draw him 'on, I replied, "Certainly, sir, if all masters were like you, slavery would be a very different thing from what it is, and vastly more tolerable." "Ay," said he, with a significant smile, "if all masters were like me, slavery would cease to exist to-morrow." "What," I asked, "are you an abolitionist?" I almost regretted the question the moment I had put it, for I at once perceived that even his sound head and heart were not entirely proof against a word so terrible to every southern ear — a sort of synonyme, in fact, for rape and throat-cutting. He began in a hesitating manner to disavow that character, but soon gave his answer a different turn. "No more an abolitionist," he