LETTERS TO MISS LINDSLEY. 295 



remain full of sympathy, and that they are not chilled by 

 age. As you appeal from the photograph which you have 

 been so kind as to send me, and give me the pleasant assur- 

 ance of a blooming face and a sunny radiance in the living 

 original, so permit me to add that the grave features 

 which did not smile upon you when you opened the letter, 

 will glow with a warm welcome when you enter our door, 

 and that he who wears them will laugh with the children, 

 and play with them too, and respond in sympathy with all 

 that is bright and pleasant in the family. Excuse this im- 

 plied self-commendation. I have, indeed, St. Paul for an 

 example, but I will not shelter myself under even that great 

 name. I will rather add that I wish to convert the grave 

 veteran professor of your imagination into a familiar friend, 

 with whom half an hour's conversation will make you feel 

 as if you had known him always. I will enclose, to the 

 care of your grandma, a photograph or two which you have 

 only to clothe with a smile, and you will instantly be at 

 home with the original 



TO MISS LINDSLEY. 



NEW HAVEN, March 2, 1863. 



YOUR thoughts on the emancipation proclama- 

 tion, and on the subject of slavery generally, do you much 

 honor. It is, I believe, a rare example that a person edu- 

 cated in a Slave State, and accustomed to regard that species 

 of injustice as a necessary element of society, comes volun- 

 tarily to regard it as a violation of natural right, and as in- 

 consistent with our Saviour's golden rule of doing to others 

 as we would wish them to do to us. This is the more remark- 

 able in a person so young as yourself, and in a young lady 

 too, trained in a family in which, no doubt, the yoke has been 

 made as easy and the burden as light as is consistent with 

 the enforcement of an unwilling service, generally unwill- 

 ing, because uncompensated ; although I am aware hav- 

 ing known many slave-holders, and having travelled in most 



