My father was a refined and kindly gentleman, very grave, rather austere, of rigid probity, a sternly just and upright man, albeit he attended no church and never spoke of religious matters, and had no part nor lot in the pious joys of his Presbyterian family, nor ever seemed to suffer from this deprivation.

He laid his hand upon me in punishment only twice in his life, and then not heavily; once for telling him a lie--which surprised me, and showed me how unsuspicious he was, for that was not my maiden effort.

He punished me those two times only, and never any other member of the family at all; yet every now and then he cuffed our harmless slave boy, Lewis, for trifling little blunders and awkwardnesses.

My father had passed his life among the slaves from his cradle up, and his cuffings proceeded from the custom of the time, not from his nature.

When I was ten years old I saw a man fling a lump of iron-ore at a slaveman in anger, for merely doing something awkwardly--as if that were a crime.