"Since my arrival I have enjoyed a continuation of that rest from exercise of mind which began last spring, until to-night. My soul is sorrowful, and my heart bleeds. I am ready to exclaim, When shall I be released from this land of slavery! But if my suffering for these poor creatures can at all ameliorate their condition, surely I ought to be quite willing, and I can now bless the Lord that my labor is not all in vain, though much remains to be done yet."
The secluded and inactive life she now led confirmed the opinion of her Presbyterian friends that she was a backslider in the divine life.
I must reserve for another chapter the recital of Angelina's efforts to open the eyes of the members of her household to the unchristian life they were leading, and the sins they were multiplying on their heads by their treatments of those they held in bondage.
[ CHAPTER VI. ]
Many things about the home life which habit had prevented Angelina from remarking before, now, since her visit among Friends, struck her as sinful, and inconsistent with a Christian profession. Only a few days after her return, she thus writes in her diary:—
"I am much tried at times at the manner in which I am obliged to live here in so much luxury and ease, and raised so far above the poor, and spending so much on my board. I want to live in plainness and simplicity and economy, for so should every Christian do. I am at a loss how to act, for if I live with mother, which seems the proper place for me, I must live in this way in a great degree. It is true I can always take the plainest food, and this I do generally, believing that whether at home or abroad I ought to eat nothing I think too sumptuous for a servant of Jesus Christ. For this reason, when I took tea at a minister's house a few evenings since, I did not touch the richest cakes, nor the fruit and nuts handed, after tea; and when paying a visit the other morning, I refused cake and wine, although I felt fatigued, and would have liked something plain to eat. But it is not only the food I eat at mother's, but the whole style of living is a direct departure from the simplicity that is in Christ. The Lord's poor tell me they do not like to come to such a fine house to see me; and if they come, instead of being able to read a lesson of frugality, and deadness to the world, they must go away lamenting over the inconsistency of a sister professor. One thing is very hard to bear—I feel obliged to pay five dollars a week for board, though I disapprove of this extravagance, and am actually accessory in maintaining this style of living, when I know it is wrong, and am thereby prevented from giving to the poor as liberally as I would like."
She and Sarah had for several years, when at home, paid board regularly to their mother, and this was probably one thing which irritated the other members of the family, several of whom were living in idleness on their mother, doing nothing and paying nothing. The brothers at least could not but feel the implied rebuke. As we have seen, she was not at all backward in expressing her disapprobation, when she found her silent testimony was disregarded or misunderstood; and her language was generally rather forcible. This, of course, was trying to those who did not see the necessity of living according to her standard, and very trying to Angelina, whose convictions were clear, and whose interest in her relatives was as tender as it was sincere. Scarcely a day passed that something did not occur to wound her feelings, shock her religious prejudices, or arouse her righteous indignation. Slavery was always the cause of the latter, and for the others ample reason was to be found in what she styled the vain lusts of the world, and in the coldness and irritability of some members of the family. Unrestrained self-indulgence, joined to high-strung and undisciplined tempers, made of what should have been a united, bright, and charming home circle, a place of constant discord, jealousy, and unhappiness.
Sarah had borne this state of things better than Angelina could, her extreme gentleness and kindness disarming all unkind feelings in others. But even she was forced to flee from it at last. The record is a most painful one, and it gives another evidence of Angelina's sense of her own power, and of her reliance on divine help, that she should for one moment have contemplated effecting any change. But the respite from those dissensions, and the rest thus given to her spirit by her visit North, softened the bitter feelings she had once entertained, and when she returned home it was with sentiments of affection for everyone, and especially for her mother, from whom she had been grievously estranged. She prayed that she might not do or say anything to alienate them further from her; but when she fully realized, as she had never yet done, the sad condition of things, she could not keep silent. She felt it her duty to speak, and she did so, kindly and affectionately, but unsparingly. She relates many incidents proving this, and showing also how badly her reproofs were received. The mistake she made, and which in after years she freely acknowledged, was in excess of zeal. But Angelina was a born radical, and if a thing was wrong, it was wrong, and she could not see why it should not be righted at once. Temporizing with a wrong, or compromising with it in any way, were things outside of her reasoning, and she never would admit that they were justifiable under any circumstances. It was, of course, difficult to apply this principle in the desired reform of her mother's inherited and life-long prejudices. Hence the incessant chafing and irritation which daily made Angelina feel more keenly her isolated position, and caused her to turn with increasing longing to the North, where her beloved sister and many dear friends were in sympathy with her.
To illustrate what I have said, one or two examples will be sufficient. She was much troubled because her mother had the drawing-room repainted and handsomely papered. Mrs. Grimké doubtless selected a paper in harmony with the house and furniture, and had no suspicion that she was thereby committing a sin. But Angelina thought it entirely too fine, and felt that she could never sit in the room. When the work was at last finished, and some friends were invited to tea, and afterwards repaired to the newly-decorated apartment, Angelina did not accompany them, but remained below, reading alone, much disturbed during the evening by the talking and laughing up stairs. Her mother did not notice her absence, or ascribed it to some other cause; but Angelina explained it to her some time afterwards, when, she says, a way seemed to open for it.