Clarkson to his last day never ceased to be interested in the subject, and took the warmest interest in all movements for the abolition of slavery in America.
One of his friends, during my visit at this place, read me a manuscript letter from him, written at a very advanced age, in which he speaks with the utmost ardor and enthusiasm of the first anti-slavery movements of Cassius Clay in Kentucky. The same friend described him to me as a cheerful, companionable being,—frank and simple-hearted, and with a good deal of quiet humor.
It is remarkable of him that with such intense feeling for human suffering as he had, and worn down and exhausted as he was, by the dreadful miseries and sorrows with which he was constantly obliged to be familiar, he never yielded to a spirit of bitterness or denunciation.
The narrative which he gives is as calm and unimpassioned, and as free from any trait of this kind, as the narrative of the evangelist.
I have given this sketch of what Clarkson did, that you may better appreciate the feelings with which I visited the place.
The old stone house, the moat, the draw-bridge, all spoke of days of violence long gone by, when no man was safe except within fortified walls, and every man's house literally had to be his castle.
To me it was interesting as the dwelling of a conqueror, as one who had not wrestled with flesh and blood merely, but with principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world, and who had overcome, as his great Master did before him, by faith, and prayer, and labor.
We were received with much cordiality by the widow of Clarkson, now in her eighty-fourth year. She has been a woman of great energy and vigor, and an efficient co-laborer in his plans of benevolence.
She is now quite feeble. I was placed under the care of a respectable female servant, who forthwith installed me in a large chamber overlooking the court-yard, which had been Clarkson's own room; the room where for years, many of his most important labors had been conducted, and from whence his soul had ascended to the reward of the just.
The servant who attended me seemed to be quite a superior woman; like many of the servants in respectable English families. She had grown up in the family, and was identified with it; its ruling aims and purposes had become hers. She had been the personal attendant of Clarkson, and his nurse during his last sickness; she had evidently understood, and been interested in his plans, and the veneration with which she therefore spoke of him, had the sanction of intelligent appreciation.