And here's a sample:

​

“Just a grain more, the poor things,” urges Theresa, who has 
watched them venture outside with their blood-stained laundry, 
to hang it fleetingly out of sight. “So they can sleep.”

Opium is not cheap, but giving extra to the girls makes Theresa 
the sweeter at night, when she is the only woman he thinks of.

He measures their doses on the tip of a knife.

* * *

Theresa: his ideal and his idol, whom he has loved since he was 
eleven and she eight, in the comfortable Carolina town of their 
parents. He describes her variously as a fine woman, tall, 
handsome, a dashing girl, a fine rider, with fine 
accomplishments and great beauty. She was a belle with many 
beaux, whereas he was a pigmy.

* * *

If there was anything I hated, it was investigating the organs of 
the female pelvis.

—The Story of My Life

* * *

Anyone would choose pain and a cure over pain without one, 
but how much pain must there be?

They are accustomed to biting their lips to muffle their grief.

The masters shudder at the sight of them and the wives won’t 
even look. They are not allowed in houses because of the smell, 
and the overseers use the whip in the fields, believing their 
foulness will ruin the crops.

As they are now, they can’t make more babies, and thus they 
cost in profit.

Anyway, it’s not up to dark girls to choose the kind of hurt they 
get....