Incredible ALS, three pages, lightly-lined on two adjoining sheets, 5 x 8, December 3, 1878. Letter to “My dear Charles,” on the death of Charles’s sister, an abolitionist. In full: “Your dear departed sister, she was held in high and sacred esteem by me as one of the truest and noblest women I ever knew. She was a devoted friend of the slave in the darkest hour of their cause. She was never shamed or afraid to encounter opposition odium or loss of reputation in the Cause of justice and humanity. I have observed her modest firmness in such trials when a mere girl, when the cry of ‘abolitionist’, ‘amalgamation’, ‘negro worshipper’ and other reproaches were hurled at her. She was always calm, patient, even tempered and amiable; but never wavered and never concealed her convictions. It was like her to go south now that Slavery is abolished and to do her best to lift and enlightened newly emancipated people for whose freedom She worked so faithfully in her youth. She has done what she could. She has laid down her life in the sacred cause of humanity–and now rests from all her righteous labors. As one of the class blest by her life and works I shall to my latest day, hold her memory precious.
My dear Charles. I need not tell you to bear up under this stroke. Sorrow will come, but sorrow is its own solace, mourning its own comforter. Besides we are all hastening to the end of our earthly pilgrimage. A few more days, months and years and we shall follow. I leave that future to explain itself without fear—My work is with this world while I am here. ‘Of what is to be and what has been done Why querest thou? The path and the time to be are one and both are now.’ Again my dear Charles, in memory of your kind mother your noble father and dear departed sister and brother I assure you, I share with you the great bereavement which came so suddenly upon you.” Reinforced horizontal folds and some mild toning, otherwise fine condition.
At the time he received this sad news, Douglass was living at Cedar Hill, his recently purchased home in Washington D.C. above the Anacostia. Though the identities of Charles and his sister remain unknown, it is clear that she made quite an impact on Douglass both personally and in the cause of abolition. She maintained her strength and dignity through ceaseless verbal attacks and the constant threat of violence, and joined the thousands of abolitionists who traveled to former Confederate states to support the recently freed slaves. At the end of the letter, Douglass offers comfort with the closing lines of the 1847 poem ‘My Soul and I’ by John Greenleaf Whittier, whom he referred to as ‘the slave’s poet.’ This is a truly remarkable personal letter from the champion of the abolitionist movement, eulogizing the life of a woman who shared his passion and embodied the qualities he most admired. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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