She was tall,
and finely proportioned; of deep black, glossy complexion; had
regular features, and, among the other slaves, was remarkably
sedate in her manners. There is in _Prichard's Natural History
of Man_, the head of a figure--on page 157--the features of which
so resemble those of my mother, that I often recur to it with
something of the feeling which I suppose others experience when
looking upon the pictures of dear departed ones.
Yet I cannot say that I was very deeply attached to my mother;
certainly not so deeply as I should have been had our relations
in childhood been different. We were separated, according to the
common custom, when I was but an infant, and, of course, before I
knew my mother from any one else.
The germs of affection with which the Almighty, in his wisdom and
mercy, arms the hopeless infant against the ills and vicissitudes
of his lot, had been directed in their growth toward that loving
old grandmother, whose gentle hand and kind deportment it was in
the first effort of my infantile understanding to comprehend and
appreciate.
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