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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: deficient; nature, which fits nobody for such an office, had done
less for her than any lady I had known. It was no easy matter to
induce her to think and to feel that the curly-headed boy, who
stood by her side, and even leaned on her lap; who was loved by
little Tommy, and who loved little Tommy in turn; sustained to
her only the relation of a chattel. I was _more_ than that, and
she felt me to be more than that. I could talk and sing; I could
laugh and weep; I could reason and remember; I could love and
hate. I was human, and she, dear lady, knew and felt me to be
so. How could she, then, treat me as a brute, without a mighty
struggle with all the noble powers of her own soul. That
My Bondage and My Freedom |
