I am in the wood, buried in its somber gloom, and hushed in its solemn silence; hid from all human eyes; shut in with nature and nature’s God, and absent from all human contrivances.
From his autobiography, Douglass describes finding temporary refuge in the woods after escaping Covey, reflecting on his isolation and connection to nature.
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My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes.
This was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit, the white man’s power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man.
Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.