Established in my new home in Baltimore, I was not very long in perceiving that in picturing to myself what was to be my life there, my imagination had painted only the bright side; and that the reality had its dark shades as well as its light ones.
Reflecting on his initial optimism in Baltimore, Douglass describes his realization that the reality of his new life contained both dark shades and bright ones.
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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.
It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.
It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.