Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 285
improve himself, the old love for knowledge still
burned within him. And hence all the leisure
he could command he gave to the cultivation of
his mind. He read books, and he read the newspapers,
especially that great fountain head of
antislavery thought and sentiment,—The Liberator.
This paper he read carefully, week by
week, as it came out, with ever increasing interest
and profit. And so things went on until
1841, when quite unexpectedly to himself, and
only three years after his escape from slavery, he
loomed into notice, and then began that marvelous
career which ended only two weeks ago last
Wednesday. Incredible as it may seem, in the
short space of nine years from his escape he was
lecturing to great audiences, both in this country
and in England, captivating them by the magic
of his eloquence, and by his masterly appeals in
behalf of his enslaved brethren, and was also the
editor of a paper which took rank with such
papers as The Liberator, The Anti-Slavery
Standard, and others. The most wonderful
thing about it all is, not that he was able to talk
to great audiences and edit a paper, but that he
was able to do these things so well. Men heard
him with astonishment, questioned, even doubted,
the truth of his story, wondered whether his
speeches and editorials were not written for him.
It seemed incredible to them that he could ever