What images in paragraph 2 does Douglass use to describe his first feelings of freedom and his fear of capture? I have been frequently asked how I felt when I found myself in a free State. I have never
been able to answer the question with any satisfaction to myself. It was a moment of the
highest excitement I ever experienced. I suppose I felt as one may imagine the unarmed
mariner to feel when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a pirate. In
writing to a dear friend, immediately after my arrival at New York, I said I felt like one who
Lesson 1.14
Historical Examples
had escaped a den of hungry lions. This state of mind, however very soon subsided; and 1
was again seized with a feeling of great insecurity and loneliness. I was yet liable to be
taken and subjected to all the tortures of slavery. This in itself was enough to damp the
ardor of my enthusiasm. But the loneliness overcame me. There I was in the midst of
thousands, and yet a perfect stranger, without home and without friends, in the midst of
thousands of my own brethren-children of a common Father, and yet I dared not to unfold
to any one of them my sad condition. I was afraid to speak to any one for fear of speaking to
the wrong one, and thereby falling into the hands of money-loving kidnappers, whose
business it was to lie in wait for the panting fugitive, as the ferocious beasts of the forest
lie in wait for their prey. [1]n the midst of plenty yet suffering the terrible gnawing of
hunger–in the midst of houses, yet having no home, among fellow-men, yet feeling as if in
the midst of wild beasts, whose greediness to swallow up the trembling and half-famished
fugitive is only equalled by that with which the monsters of the deep swallow up the
trembling and half-famished fish upon which they subsist-I say let him be placed in this
most trying situation-the situation in which I was placed-then, and not till then, will he
fully appreciate the hardships of, and know how to sympathize with the tail-worn and
whip-scarred fugitive slave.