Shirley Abbott replies : Mr. Quin has apparently not understood the point I was trying to make. What I wrote was that a large number of plantation mistresses “must have been intelligent, capable, and kind-hearted,” and I never once questioned that they worked hard. Contrary to the literary and political myth, however, they were not ministering angels in the Ellen O’Hara fashion but human beings. As I further pointed out, it is worth noting that in John Blassingame’s massive collection, Slave Testimony , with its firsthand, documented accounts, a significant number of slaves told of cruel treatment at the hands of white women. For other evidence of that kind, Mr. Quin might read Gerda Lerner’s biography of the Grimké sisters, or the writings of the Grimkés themselves. I am glad Catherine Clinton is so confident that the slaves admired their owners’ wives. To me, that’s wishful thinking—a surmise. Surely, at this late date, we can all agree, however, that whether Southern ladies were saints or sinners, slavery was evil, damaging to black and white souls alike.