26/36 Give him a _bad_ master, and he aspires to a _good_ master; give him a good master, and he wishes to become his _own_ master. You may hurl a man so low, beneath the level of his kind, that he loses all just ideas of his natural position;{204} but elevate him a little, and the clear conception of rights arises to life and power, and leads him onward. Thus elevated, a little, at Freeland's, the dreams called into being by that good man, Father Lawson, when in Baltimore, began to visit me; and shoots from the tree of liberty began to put forth tender buds, and dim hopes of the future began to dawn. There were Henry Harris, John Harris, Handy Caldwell, and Sandy Jenkins. |