Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-10-06
The Prisoner of the BastiIe.

81 an an old man now yet by fifteen
years my soul is younger than my body =
Fifteen years | existed, for ! did not live-it
was not li!e-in the selfsame dungeon, ten
feet square! During six years | had a com
panion; during nine | was alone. never
rightly could distinguish the face of him who
shared my captivity in the eternal twilight of
our cell. The first year we talked lncessant-
ly together we related our Joys forever gone,
over and over again. The next year we
communicated to each other our thoughts and
ideas on all subjects. The third year we
had no ideas to communicate; we were be.
ginning TO lose the power Of reflection. The
fourth at an interval of a month or so we
would open our lips TO ask each other if it
were indeed possible that the world went on
so gay and bnstling as when we formed a
portion of mankind. The fifth we were ST.
lent. The sixth he was taken away, | never
knew where, to execution or TO liberty but
| was glad when he was gone, even solitude
was better than the dim vision Of that pale,
vacant face. After that ! was alone 4; only
one event broke in upon five years vacancy.
One day, it must have been a year or two af-
ter my companion had left me, the dungeon
door was opened, and a voice, whence pro-
ceeding ] knew not, uttered these words =
by order of his imperial majesty, | init
mate TO you that your wife died a year ago."
Then The door was shut, and | heard no more;
.they had but flung this great agony TO prey
upon me, and left me alone with it again"
The above thrilling description of the
feelings of a prisoner who suffered within
the walls Of the terrible Bastile, must touch
a sympathetic cord in every human heart =
and all will join in execratiDg the system
which made that prison one of its engines Of
torture, and will rejoice that its walls have
long since been leveled to the dust. But it
should be borne in mind that, though France
has now no Bastile, America has and if the
former was accursed, the latter is thousand
fold more so.
The fate of the American slave is more
terrible in his dark and soul-destroying dun
geon, than could possibly be that of the
French prisoner of State and while we sym
pathize with the suiferings of the captive Of
the Bastile Of Paris, let us remember there
are millions Of captives in the Bastile of Re-
publican America. The American slave =
What pen can portray his sufferings-wha.
tongue can tell Of his terrible agony, of thu
physical and spiritual degradation he il
doomed to endure. There is not one of al
the millions that can say, "Uy soul is
younger than my body " for the power tina
makes him a slave denies that his soul o
: his body belongs to himself. He would es
teen himself happy if slavery blotted on
but fifteen years" of his life; instead c
this, his life as a man, as a %sentient being, i
extinguished the moment he draws his frs
l breath, and if he exists, he exists as a thing
"PRoPERTY" is branded on his forehead
It and he becomes a marketable commodity
and remains such until Death sets him fire.
e from the grasp of the oppressor, and restore
his stolen humanity.
J. Memory, that recalls past enjoyment
throwing their reflected light upon the pr
y sent, and Hope, that gilds the future, mi
% thus cheer the prisoner in his cell, but ca
1t not so comfort the despairing heart of /
l. American slave. His path is dark and che,
u less from its beginning to its end ; it is,
r all his hopes and aspirations, even me
tx gloomy than the Valley of the Shadow
y. Death, for the very presence of Death-n
y raj and intellectual dealh-is ever there
all its terror. Companionship is 10 him
i'll thing unknown. He has fellow prisone
an millions of them, who toll and suffer as
ca tolls and suffers ; but slavery admits of
. true companionship, for its victims dare
mt reveal the soul within they must appe
m not what God created them, but as slavl
has made them, ever in false character
r The slave is not permitted, as was the pri
ner of the Bastile, to communicate to anot
,rn his thoughts and ideas. Slavery denies
as right to cherish thoughts or ind ulge in ide
az it even denies that he can have either the
Inc or the other, and TO prove the lie which
speaks, uses its utmost power to annihiI