Carriages and fine
clothes cannot create happiness. I have every physical comfort, and yet my
heart is often heavy--oh, so very heavy; I know I am envied by many for my
fine establishment; yet how joyfully would I give it all up and accept the
meanest living for the children's freedom--and your love."
"But, Emily, granted we should remove to the North, you would find
annoyances there as well as here. There is a great deal of prejudice
existing there against people of colour, which, often exposes them to great
inconveniences."
"Yes, dear, I know all that; I should expect that. But then on the other
hand, remember what George said respecting the coloured people themselves;
what a pleasant social circle they form, and how intelligent many of them
are! Oh, Garie, how I have longed for friends!--we have visitors now and
then, but none that I can call friends. The gentlemen who come to see you
occasionally are polite to me, but, under existing circumstances, I feel
that they cannot entertain for me the respect I think I deserve. I know
they look down upon and despise me because I'm a coloured woman. Then there
would be another advantage; I should have some female society--here I have
none. The white ladies of the neighbourhood will not associate with me,
although I am better educated, thanks to your care, than many of them, so
it is only on rare occasions, when I can coax some of our more cultivated
coloured acquaintances from Savannah to pay us a short visit, that I have
any female society, and no woman can be happy without it.
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