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READER RESPONSES, 1881-93

feet of good solid earth over him before he provokes the world to talk about him by
taking it into his confidence. The work before us is not indeed very likely to give
rise to controversies, because, from the nature of the case, great allowances will be
made, and provocations will be generally met, perhaps, with a good-natured 'It is
not worth while.' But this, probably, did not occur to Mr. Douglass: and while his
readers will be amused at his natural and almost child-like self-complacency, they
will not fail to admire, often, his frankness and boldness.
Ordinary rules cannot properly be applied to the biography of such a man, written by himself and published in his life-time. The world may be glad that he can
write his life at all, and quite content to receive it when it suits him, whether before
his death or afterward. As his career is unparalleled. so his character is not to be
measured in precisely the way that the characters of other men are measured. A man who was born a slave: who never had an acknowledged father: who only at rare
intervals was permitted to see his mother: whose childhood was more desolate than
nature dares allot to the young of any wild animal: whose youth was a period or
almost unspeakable misfortune, of hunger. and cold. and nakedness. of scourgings.
of beatings well nigh unto death, and of a despair to which death would have come
as a mercy:- but a man over whose life, when manhood was reached. came a marvellous change: who rose presently to be an orator so gifted that even enemies listened with delight; who came to have his share. neither obscure nor unimrortant. in
a great social movement which only the greatest civil war the world has ever known
could bring to an end; and who came, at length. before he was an old man. to fill
offices of dignity and trust in the capital of his country:-- the story of the career or
such a man as this may be written when and how he pleases. and the world may
accept it without carping and without criticism. and be glad to get it. Ir free thought
and free speech are not mere phrases and really belong to any body. they belong to
Frederick Douglass. They are not denied in fable even to the beasts: surely a slave
may earn them beyond all challenge if he achieves such a life as this one made ror
himself. Had he been of another complexion. the ages would count him among their
heroes. Perhaps they will yet.
It is a pity that a work so unique. so altogether different from anything in autobiographical literature. has so poor a setting. It is not absolutely had in tyre and
paper; but in its binding, its scant margins. its press-work. and its illustrations it
could hardly be worse. One must have a cult ivated imagination to surpose that the
impression on the cover is meant for the Goddess of Liberty and the American
eagle, and not for a young woman preparing a dish of corn-meal and water for a
large and evidently hungry spring-chicken . The illustrations within the covers are
of that style of art belonging to the dime novel. suggesting to one who may casually
open it that the book had better not be read. or. if read. cannot rossihly he true. Had
they been omitted altogether--excepting the portrait of Douglass, as a frontispiece-the book would have been attractive enough if left solely to the merit of the
narrative.