2
I am much obliged to you for your appreciation of my services and sacrifices in the Anti-Slavery cause.
I hope the services may have been somewhere near your valuation of them; but I claim no credit for the sacrifices.
For, really, I made none that were not a hundred-fold compensated for by the satisfaction attending my course and the friendships I obtained by it—chief among which was that with yourself.
At the time I came into the cause, and all the time I was engaged in it, it never seemed to me that there was anything else for a man who wished to take some part in public affairs to do. I had no turn for the law, and politics seemed to me beneath the notice of a gentleman.
Anti-Slavery was the only national and historical movement on foot—besides its humanitarian aspects.
As for the
cold shoulders and petty social ostracisms, I really cared nothing about them—and there was not much of it that was forced upon my notice.
I knew I was abused behind my back, but people were always civil enough to my face.
And I never made the slightest show of having done anything I was ashamed of. Quite the contrary.
The only gems which I claim for my celestial crown were the Meetings and Picnics at which I had to preside.
These became almost intolerable bores to me, and even yet I feel a sensation of satisfaction, at the times and seasons when they used to occur, to think that I have not to go to them.
I told
John Sargent3 the other day that I wished they
4 could have kept on abolishing Slavery for the rest of their natural lives, it was such a pleasure to me to know they were at it, and I having nothing to
