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354 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

bore testimony to the manliness and courage of John Brown, and though he still disapproved of the raid made by him upon Harper's Ferry, he commended me for my address, and gave me a pressing invitation to visit Charlestown, where he lives, and offered to give me some facts which might prove interesting to me, as to the sayings and conduct of Captain Brown while in prison and on trial, up to the time of his execution. I regret that my engagements and duties were such that I could not then and there accept his invitation, for I could not doubt the sincerity with which it was given, or fail to see the value of compliance. Mr. Hunter not only congratulated me upon my speech, but at parting, gave me a friendly grip, and added that if Robert E. Lee were alive and present, he knew he would give me his hand also.

This man's presence added much to the interest of the occasion by his frequent interruptions, approving, and condemning my sentiments as they were uttered. I only regret that he did not undertake a formal reply to my speech, but this, though invited, he declined to do. It would have given me an opportunity of fortifying certain positions in my address which were perhaps insufficiently defended. Upon the whole, taking the visit to Capt. Auld. to Easton with its old jail, to the home of my old master at Col. Lloyd's, and this visit to Harper's Ferry, with all their associations, they fulfill the expectation created at the beginning of this chapter.

CHAPTER XVII.INCIDENTS AND EVENTS.

Hon. Gerrit Smith and Mr. E. C. Delavan—Expericnces at Hotels and on Steamboats and other modes of travel—Hon. Edward Marshall—Grace Greenwood—Hon. Moses Norris— Rob't G. Ingersoll—Reflections and conclusions—Compensations.

In escaping from the South, the reader will have observed that I did not escape from its wide-spread influence in the North. That influence met me almost everywhere outside of pronounced anti-slavery circles, and sometimes even within them. It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.

I might recount many occasions when I have encountered this feeling, some painful and melancholy, some ridiculous and amusing. It has been a part of my mission to expose the absurdity of this spirit of caste and in some measure help to emancipate men from its control.

Invited to accompany Hon. Gerrit Smith to dine with Mr. E. C. Delavan, at Albany many years ago, I expressed to Mr. Smith, my awkwardness and