In ceasing to instruct me, my mistress had to seek to justify herself to herself, and once consenting to take sides in such a debate, she was compelled to hold her position.
Douglass analyzes the psychological process by which his mistress, once kind, hardened her heart against his education to maintain her role as an enslaver.
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It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.
The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.
I looked into this kitchen with peculiar interest, and remembered that it was there I last saw my mother.