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Carolina he visited but seldom, and he lived at the Quaker capital the life of elegant and inglorious ease which is so captivating to the imagination of the toiling and anxious multitude.
Miss Kemble was so little acquainted with him and his affairs that she did not know the nature of his property.
She did not know that he derived his whole income from the unrequited toil of slaves, extorted from them by the lash.
She did not know that he owned one slave.
It so happened that she had brought with her from her English home a particular abhorrence of slavery, and the feeling was increased in America by what she casually heard of the condition and treatment of the negroes.
Several passages in her diary, written before she ever saw the face of this Pierce Butler, prove her utter detestation of slavery.
But who can avoid his destiny?
In an evil hour, she turned her back upon her noble art, upon the public that admired and honored her, upon her country, too, and gave her hand to this democratic lord of seven hundred slaves.
All the world congratulated her. She was thought to have made a most brilliant match,--side, the woman of genius and feeling, the heir of an illustrious name, which she had proved herself worthy to bear!
For a time, all went well.
Children were born.
Women of a certain calibre are not long in discovering the quality of their husbands; and it is highly probable, that Frances Anne Kemble had taken the measure of Pierce Butler before the events occurred which led to their estrangement.
In the fourth year of their marriage, in December, 1838, the family, for the first time since the marriage, went together to spend the winter upon the Butler plantations in South Carolina.
She recorded her impressions at the time in a diary, according to her custom, which diary has been recently published.
What a contrast between this work, written in 1839, and her other diary written in 1832 and 1833!
In the first, there is a good
S. M. Betts and Company. Hartford, Conn. 1871.
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