Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup

There usually is a part in most book especially nonfiction where you have to let yourself go and have a good cry. This is the part in this book for me.

"As I entered their comfortable cottage, Margaret was the first that met me. She did not recognize me. When I left her, she was but seven years old, a little prattling girl, playing with her toys. Now she was grown to womanhood--was married, with a bright-eyed boy standing by her side. Not forgetful of his enslaved, unfortunate grandfather, she had named the child Solomon Northrup Staunton. When told who I was, she was overcome with emotion, and unable to speak. Presently Elizabeth entered the room, and Anne came running from the hotel, having been informed of my arrival. They embraced me, and with tears flowing down their cheeks, hung upon my neck. But I draw a veil over a scene which can better be imagined than described."


"Margaret once returned from school--weeping bitterly. On inquiring the cause of the children's sorrow, it was found that, while studying geography, their attention had been attracted to picture of slaves working in the cotton field, and an overseer following them with his whip, it reminded them of the sufferings their father might be, and, as it happened, actually was, enduring in the South."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Catherine E. Mckinley had a deep desire to know about Indigo. It became her purpose.

Image
"We watched the woman disappear into the bend of the road. It was unsettling. She seemed possessed, driven by some mimetic force. I was afraid that that force was also a part of me. I was also a worshiper, set wandering in an unfamiliar land."   It seems this week I have been driven to write about my mother. It has happened more than once. Here she is again. Tapping my shoulder a reminder that she loved blue. There is the one and only photo of her where she wears a dress of blue. The photo was taken years and years ago. In the photo are my two nephews, my mother and myself.. The photo was taken in West Philadelphia. She sewed it. A light blue that now I wish to call "Indigo." I have much to learn about Indigo. It is easy to pick up on the author, Catherine E. Mckinley's, fervent love for the color. One day my son asked me my favorite color. I said, "I don't have one." I don't. Perhaps, I choose colors by mood. Today red  and tomorrow green,
Read more

First Chapter First Paragraph

Image
http://www.bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com Closed until June 13     "Michael Hunter stared at the hand-lettered sign on the Gull Motel office, expelled a breath, and raked his fingers through his hair. Not the welcome he'd been expecting after a mind-rumbling thirty-six-hour cross-country drive to the Oregon coast. And where was he supposed to stay for the next three weeks, until the place opened again?"
Read more

Are these the types of lives we are seeing and reading about in the news today?

Image
"The difference between life and death was information:..the greatest danger was not the river, but the desert beyond. There the temperatures were so hellish they melted stones, there was no water, and they could be preyed upon by scorpions, wildcats, and hungry real coyotes...Rattlesnakes, as well as coral, moccasin, and darting indigo snakes, came out to hunt at night, the time when the migrants set off, because the daytime heat was lethal." isabelallende
Read more