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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Compiled from
+Her Letters and Journals, by Charles Edward Stowe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Compiled from Her Letters and Journals
+
+Author: Charles Edward Stowe
+
+Posting Date: May 3, 2014 [EBook #6702]
+Release Date: October, 2004 (original version's release date)
+First Posted: January 17, 2003 (original version's posting date)
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Emmy, Steve Schulze, Charles
+Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Richmond, Del. J. & J. Wilson, So.
+
+H.B. Stowe]
+
+
+
+
+LIFE OF
+
+HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
+
+    COMPILED FROM
+
+    Her Letters and Journals
+
+    BY HER SON
+
+    CHARLES EDWARD STOWE
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
+    The Riverside Press, Cambridge
+    1890
+
+
+
+
+    Copyright, 1889,
+    BY CHARLES E. STOWE,
+
+    _All rights reserved._
+
+
+    _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S.A._
+    Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
+
+
+[Illustration: Handwritten letter]
+
+It seems but fitting, that I should preface this story of my life with
+a few notes of instruction.
+
+The desire to leave behind me some recollections of my life, has
+been cherished by me, for many years past; but failing strength or
+increasing infirmities have prevented its accomplishment.
+
+At my suggestion and with what assistance I have been able to render,
+my son, Ross Charles Edward Stowe, has compiled from my letters and
+journals, this biography. It is this true story of my life, told for
+the most part, in my own words and has therefore all the force of an
+autobiography.
+
+It is perhaps much more accurate as to detail & impression than is
+possible with any autobiography, written later in life.
+
+If these pages, shall help those who read them to a firmer trust in God
+& a deeper sense of His fatherly goodness throughout the days of our
+earthly pilgrimage I can say with Valiant for Truth in the Pilgrim's
+Progress!
+
+I am going to my Father's & tho with great difficulty, I am got
+thither, get now, I do not repent me of all the troubles I have been
+at, to arrive where I am.
+
+My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage & my
+courage & skill to him that can get it.
+
+    Hartford Sept 30
+    1889
+
+                                         Harriet Beecher Stowe
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT
+
+
+I DESIRE to express my thanks here to Harper & Brothers, of New York,
+for permission to use letters already published in the "Autobiography
+and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher." I have availed myself freely
+of this permission in chapters i. and iii. In chapter xx. I have
+given letters already published in the "Life of George Eliot," by Mr.
+Cross; but in every instance I have copied from the original MSS. and
+not from the published work. In conclusion, I desire to express my
+indebtedness to Mr. Kirk Munroe, who has been my co-laborer in the work
+of compilation.
+
+                                                       CHARLES E. STOWE.
+    HARTFORD, _September 30, 1889_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  CHILDHOOD 1811-1824.
+
+  DEATH OF HER MOTHER.--FIRST JOURNEY FROM HOME.--LIFE AT NUT
+  PLAINS.--SCHOOL DAYS AND HOURS WITH FAVORITE AUTHORS.--THE
+  NEW MOTHER.--LITCHFIELD ACADEMY AND ITS INFLUENCE.--FIRST
+  LITERARY EFFORTS.--A REMARKABLE COMPOSITION.--GOES TO HARTFORD    1
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD, 1824-1832.
+
+  MISS CATHERINE BEECHER.--PROFESSOR FISHER.--THE WRECK OF THE
+  ALBION AND DEATH OF PROFESSOR FISHER.--"THE MINISTER'S
+  WOOING."--MISS CATHERINE BEECHER'S SPIRITUAL HISTORY.--MRS.
+  STOWE'S RECOLLECTIONS OF HER SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD.--HER
+  CONVERSION.--UNITES WITH THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD.--HER
+  DOUBTS AND SUBSEQUENT RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT.--HER FINAL PEACE      22
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  CINCINNATI, 1832-1836.
+
+  DR. BEECHER CALLED TO CINCINNATI.--THE WESTWARD JOURNEY.--FIRST
+  LETTER FROM HOME.--DESCRIPTION OF WALNUT HILLS.--STARTING A NEW
+  SCHOOL.--INWARD GLIMPSES.--THE SEMI-COLON CLUB.--EARLY
+  IMPRESSIONS OF SLAVERY.--A JOURNEY TO THE EAST.--THOUGHTS
+  AROUSED BY FIRST VISIT TO NIAGARA.--MARRIAGE TO PROFESSOR STOWE    53
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  EARLY MARRIED LIFE, 1836-1840.
+
+  PROFESSOR STOWE'S INTEREST IN POPULAR EDUCATION.--HIS DEPARTURE
+   FOR EUROPE.--SLAVERY RIOTS IN CINCINNATI.--BIRTH OF TWIN
+  DAUGHTERS.--PROFESSOR STOWE'S RETURN AND VISIT TO
+  COLUMBUS.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--AIDING A FUGITIVE
+  SLAVE.--AUTHORSHIP UNDER DIFFICULTIES.--A BEECHER ROUND ROBIN      78
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  POVERTY AND SICKNESS, 1840-1850.
+
+  FAMINE IN CINCINNATI.--SUMMER AT THE EAST.--PLANS FOR LITERARY
+  WORK.--EXPERIENCE ON A RAILROAD.--DEATH OF HER BROTHER
+  GEORGE.--SICKNESS AND DESPAIR.--A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF
+  HEALTH.--GOES TO BRATTLEBORO' WATER-CURE.--TROUBLES AT LANE
+  SEMINARY.--CHOLERA IN CINCINNATI.--DEATH OF YOUNGEST
+  CHILD.--DETERMINED TO LEAVE THE WEST                              100
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  REMOVAL TO BRUNSWICK, 1850-1852.
+
+  MRS. STOWE'S REMARKS ON WRITING AND UNDERSTANDING
+  BIOGRAPHY.--THEIR APPROPRIATENESS TO HER OWN BIOGRAPHY.--REASONS
+  FOR PROFESSOR STOWE'S LEAVING CINCINNATI.--MRS. STOWE'S JOURNEY
+  TO BROOKLYN.--HER BROTHER'S SUCCESS AS A MINISTER.--LETTERS
+  FROM HARTFORD AND BOSTON.--ARRIVES IN BRUNSWICK.--HISTORY OF THE
+  SLAVERY AGITATION.--PRACTICAL WORKING OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE
+  LAW.--MRS. EDWARD BEECHER'S LETTER TO MRS. STOWE AND ITS
+  EFFECT.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--BEGINS TO WRITE "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN"
+  AS A SERIAL FOR THE "NATIONAL ERA."--LETTER TO FREDERICK
+  DOUGLASS.--"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" A WORK OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION        126
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, 1852.
+
+  "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AS A SERIAL IN THE "NATIONAL ERA."--AN
+  OFFER FOR ITS PUBLICATION IN BOOK FORM.--WILL IT BE A
+  SUCCESS?--AN UNPRECEDENTED CIRCULATION.--CONGRATULATORY
+  MESSAGES.--KIND WORDS FROM ABROAD.--MRS. STOWE TO THE EARL OF
+  CARLISLE.--LETTERS FROM AND TO LORD SHAFTESBURY.--CORRESPONDENCE
+  WITH ARTHUR HELPS                                                 156
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  FIRST TRIP TO EUROPE, 1853.
+
+  THE EDMONDSONS.--BUYING SLAVES TO SET THEM FREE.--JENNY
+  LIND.--PROFESSOR STOWE IS CALLED TO ANDOVER.--FITTING UP THE NEW
+  HOME.--THE "KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN."--"UNCLE TOM" ABROAD.--HOW
+  IT WAS PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND.--PREFACE TO THE EUROPEAN
+  EDITION.--THE BOOK IN FRANCE.--IN GERMANY.--A GREETING FROM
+  CHARLES KINGSLEY.--PREPARING TO VISIT SCOTLAND.--LETTER TO MRS.
+  FOLLEN                                                            178
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  SUNNY MEMORIES, 1853.
+
+  CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.--ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.--RECEPTION IN
+  LIVERPOOL.--WELCOME TO SCOTLAND.--A GLASGOW TEA-PARTY.--EDINBURGH
+  HOSPITALITY.--ABERDEEN.--DUNDEE AND BIRMINGHAM.--JOSEPH
+  STURGE.--ELIHU BURRITT.--LONDON.--THE LORD MAYOR'S
+  DINNER.--CHARLES DICKENS AND HIS WIFE                             205
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  FROM OVER THE SEA, 1853.
+
+  THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--ARTHUR HELPS.--THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF
+  ARGYLL.--MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER.--A MEMORABLE MEETING AT
+  STAFFORD HOUSE.--MACAULAY AND DEAN MILMAN.--WINDSOR
+  CASTLE.--PROFESSOR STOWE RETURNS TO AMERICA.--MRS. STOWE ON THE
+  CONTINENT.--IMPRESSIONS OF PARIS.--EN ROUTE TO SWITZERLAND AND
+  GERMANY.--BACK TO ENGLAND.--HOMEWARD BOUND                        228
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  HOME AGAIN, 1853-1856.
+
+  ANTI-SLAVERY WORK.--STIRRING TIMES IN THE UNITED
+  STATES.--ADDRESS TO THE LADIES OF GLASGOW.--APPEAL TO THE WOMEN
+  OF AMERICA.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.--THE
+  WRITING OF "DRED."--FAREWELL LETTER FROM GEORGIANA MAY.--SECOND
+  VOYAGE TO ENGLAND                                                 250
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  DRED, 1856.
+
+  SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND.--A GLIMPSE AT THE QUEEN.--THE DUKE OF
+  ARGYLL AND INVERARY.--EARLY CORRESPONDENCE WITH LADY
+  BYRON.--DUNROBIN CASTLE AND ITS INMATES.--A VISIT TO STOKE
+  PARK.--LORD DUFFERIN.--CHARLES KINGSLEY AT HOME.--PARIS
+  REVISITED.--MADAME MOHL'S RECEPTIONS                              270
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  OLD SCENES REVISITED, 1856.
+
+  EN ROUTE TO ROME.--TRIALS OF TRAVEL.--A MIDNIGHT ARRIVAL AND
+  AN INHOSPITABLE RECEPTION.--GLORIES OF THE ETERNAL CITY.--NAPLES
+  AND VESUVIUS.--VENICE.--HOLY WEEK IN ROME.--RETURN TO
+  ENGLAND.--LETTER FROM HARRIET MARTINEAU ON "DRED."--A WORD FROM
+  MR. PRESCOTT ON "DRED."--FAREWELL TO LADY BYRON                   294
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  THE MINISTER'S WOOING, 1857-1859.
+
+  DEATH OF MRS. STOWE'S OLDEST SON.--LETTER TO THE DUCHESS OF
+  SUTHERLAND.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTERS IN PARIS.--LETTER TO HER
+  SISTER CATHERINE.--VISIT TO BRUNSWICK AND ORR'S ISLAND.--WRITES
+  "THE MINISTER'S WOOING" AND "THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND."--MR.
+  WHITTIER'S COMMENTS.--MR. LOWELL ON "THE MINISTER'S
+  WOOING."--LETTER TO MRS. STOWE FROM MR. LOWELL.--JOHN RUSKIN
+  ON "THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--A YEAR OF SADNESS.--LETTER TO LADY
+  BYRON.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTER.--DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE             315
+
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+
+  THE THIRD TRIP TO EUROPE, 1859.
+
+  THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE.--LADY BYRON ON "THE MINISTER'S
+  WOOING."--SOME FOREIGN PEOPLE AND THINGS AS THEY APPEARED TO
+  PROFESSOR STOWE.--A WINTER IN ITALY.--THINGS UNSEEN AND
+  UNREVEALED.--SPECULATIONS CONCERNING SPIRITUALISM.--JOHN
+  RUSKIN.--MRS. BROWNING.--THE RETURN TO AMERICA.--LETTERS TO DR.
+  HOLMES                                                            343
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  THE CIVIL WAR, 1860-1865.
+
+  THE OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR.--MRS. STOWE'S SON
+  ENLISTS.--THANKSGIVING DAY IN WASHINGTON.--THE PROCLAMATION OF
+  EMANCIPATION.--REJOICINGS IN BOSTON.--FRED STOWE AT
+  GETTYSBURG.--LEAVING ANDOVER AND SETTLING IN HARTFORD.--A REPLY
+  TO THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND.--LETTERS FROM JOHN BRIGHT, ARCHBISHOP
+  WHATELY, AND NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE                                  363
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  FLORIDA, 1865-1869.
+
+  LETTER TO DUCHESS OF ARGYLL.--MRS. STOWE DESIRES TO HAVE A HOME
+  AT THE SOUTH.--FLORIDA THE BEST FIELD FOR DOING GOOD.--SHE BUYS
+  A PLACE AT MANDARIN.--A CHARMING WINTER RESIDENCE.--"PALMETTO
+  LEAVES."--EASTER SUNDAY AT MANDARIN.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR.
+  HOLMES.--"POGANUC PEOPLE."--RECEPTIONS IN NEW ORLEANS AND
+  TALLAHASSEE.--LAST WINTER AT MANDARIN                             395
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  OLDTOWN FOLKS, 1869.
+
+  PROFESSOR STOWE THE ORIGINAL OF "HARRY" IN "OLDTOWN
+  FOLKS."--PROFESSOR STOWE'S LETTER TO GEORGE ELIOT.--HER REMARKS
+  ON THE SAME.--PROFESSOR STOWE'S NARRATIVE OF HIS YOUTHFUL
+  ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF SPIRITS.--PROFESSOR STOWE'S INFLUENCE
+  ON MRS. STOWE'S LITERARY LIFE.--GEORGE ELIOT ON "OLDTOWN FOLKS"   419
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  THE BYRON CONTROVERSY, 1869-1870.
+
+  MRS. STOWE'S STATEMENT OF HER OWN CASE.--THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER
+  WHICH SHE FIRST MET LADY BYRON.--LETTERS TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER
+  TO DR. HOLMES WHEN ABOUT TO PUBLISH "THE TRUE STORY OF LADY
+  BYRON'S LIFE" IN THE "ATLANTIC."--DR. HOLMES'S REPLY.--THE
+  CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER                                          445
+
+
+  CHAPTER XX.
+
+  GEORGE ELIOT.
+
+  CORRESPONDENCE WITH GEORGE ELIOT.--GEORGE ELIOT'S FIRST
+  IMPRESSIONS OF MRS. STOWE.--MRS. STOWE'S LETTER TO MRS.
+  FOLLEN.--GEORGE ELIOT'S LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--MRS. STOWE'S
+  REPLY.--LIFE IN FLORIDA.--ROBERT DALE OWEN AND MODERN
+  SPIRITUALISM.--GEORGE ELIOT'S LETTER ON THE PHENOMENA OF
+  SPIRITUALISM.--MRS. STOWE'S DESCRIPTION OF SCENERY IN
+  FLORIDA.--MRS. STOWE CONCERNING "MIDDLEMARCH."--GEORGE ELIOT
+  TO MRS. STOWE DURING REV. H. W. BEECHER'S TRIAL.--MRS. STOWE
+  CONCERNING HER LIFE EXPERIENCE WITH HER BROTHER, H. W. BEECHER,
+  AND HIS TRIAL.--MRS. LEWES' LAST LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--DIVERSE
+  MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THESE TWO WOMEN.--MRS. STOWE'S FINAL
+  ESTIMATE OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM                                   459
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  CLOSING SCENES, 1870-1889.
+
+  LITERARY LABORS.--COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLISHED BOOKS.--FIRST
+  READING TOUR.--PEEPS BEHIND THE CURTAIN.--SOME NEW ENGLAND
+  CITIES.--A LETTER FROM MAINE.--PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT
+  READINGS.--SECOND TOUR.--A WESTERN JOURNEY.--VISIT TO OLD
+  SCENES.--CELEBRATION OF SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.--CONGRATULATORY
+  POEMS FROM MR. WHITTIER AND DR. HOLMES.--LAST WORDS               489
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+                                                                   PAGE
+  PORTRAIT OF MRS. STOWE. From a crayon by Richmond, made in
+      England in 1853                                     _Frontispiece_
+
+  SILVER INKSTAND PRESENTED TO MRS. STOWE BY HER ENGLISH
+      ADMIRERS IN 1853                                               xi
+
+  PORTRAIT OF MRS. STOWE'S GRANDMOTHER, ROXANNA FOOTE. From
+      a miniature painted on ivory by her daughter, Mrs.
+      Lyman Beecher                                                   6
+
+  BIRTHPLACE AT LITCHFIELD, CONN.[A]                                 10
+
+  PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE E. BEECHER. From a photograph taken in
+      1875                                                           30
+
+  THE HOME AT WALNUT HILLS, CINCINNATI[A]                            56
+
+  PORTRAIT OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. From a photograph by Rockwood,
+      in 1884                                                       130
+
+  MANUSCRIPT PAGE OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" (fac-simile)               160
+
+  THE ANDOVER HOME. From a painting by F. Rondel, in 1860, owned
+      by Mrs. H. F. Allen                                           186
+
+  PORTRAIT OF LYMAN BEECHER, AT THE AGE OF EIGHTY-SEVEN. From a
+      painting owned by the Boston Congregational Club              264
+
+  PORTRAIT OF THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND. From an engraving
+      presented to Mrs. Stowe                                       318
+
+  THE OLD HOME AT HARTFORD                                          374
+
+  THE HOME AT MANDARIN, FLORIDA                                     402
+
+  PORTRAIT OF CALVIN ELLIS STOWE. From a photograph taken in 1882   422
+
+  PORTRAIT OF MRS. STOWE. From a photograph by Ritz and Hastings,
+      in 1884                                                       470
+
+  THE LATER HARTFORD HOME      508
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[A] From recent photographs and from views in the Autobiography of
+Lyman Beecher, published by Messrs. Harper & Brothers.
+
+
+
+
+LIFE AND LETTERS OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHILDHOOD, 1811-1824.
+
+    DEATH OF HER MOTHER.--FIRST JOURNEY FROM HOME.--LIFE
+    AT NUT PLAINS.--SCHOOL DAYS AND HOURS WITH FAVORITE
+    AUTHORS.--THE NEW MOTHER.--LITCHFIELD ACADEMY AND ITS
+    INFLUENCE.--FIRST LITERARY EFFORTS.--A REMARKABLE
+    COMPOSITION.--GOES TO HARTFORD.
+
+
+HARRIET BEECHER (STOWE) was born June 14, 1811, in the characteristic
+New England town of Litchfield, Conn. Her father was the Rev. Dr. Lyman
+Beecher, a distinguished Calvinistic divine, her mother Roxanna Foote,
+his first wife. The little new-comer was ushered into a household of
+happy, healthy children, and found five brothers and sisters awaiting
+her. The eldest was Catherine, born September 6, 1800. Following her
+were two sturdy boys, William and Edward; then came Mary, then George,
+and at last Harriet. Another little Harriet born three years before had
+died when only one month old, and the fourth daughter was named, in
+memory of this sister, Harriet Elizabeth Beecher. Just two years after
+Harriet was born, in the same month, another brother, Henry Ward, was
+welcomed to the family circle, and after him came Charles, the last of
+Roxanna Beecher's children.
+
+The first memorable incident of Harriet's life was the death of her
+mother, which occurred when she was four years old, and which ever
+afterwards remained with her as the tenderest, saddest, and most sacred
+memory of her childhood. Mrs. Stowe's recollections of her mother are
+found in a letter to her brother Charles, afterwards published in the
+"Autobiography and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher." She says:--
+
+"I was between three and four years of age when our mother died, and
+my personal recollections of her are therefore but few. But the deep
+interest and veneration that she inspired in all who knew her were such
+that during all my childhood I was constantly hearing her spoken of,
+and from one friend or another some incident or anecdote of her life
+was constantly being impressed upon me.
+
+"Mother was one of those strong, restful, yet widely sympathetic
+natures in whom all around seemed to find comfort and repose. The
+communion between her and my father was a peculiar one. It was an
+intimacy throughout the whole range of their being. There was no human
+mind in whose decisions he had greater confidence. Both intellectually
+and morally he regarded her as the better and stronger portion of
+himself, and I remember hearing him say that after her death his first
+sensation was a sort of terror, like that of a child suddenly shut out
+alone in the dark.
+
+"In my own childhood only two incidents of my mother twinkle like rays
+through the darkness. One was of our all running and dancing out before
+her from the nursery to the sitting-room one Sabbath morning, and her
+pleasant voice saying after us, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it
+holy, children.'
+
+"Another remembrance is this: mother was an enthusiastic horticulturist
+in all the small ways that limited means allowed. Her brother John
+in New York had just sent her a small parcel of fine tulip-bulbs. I
+remember rummaging these out of an obscure corner of the nursery one
+day when she was gone out, and being strongly seized with the idea that
+they were good to eat, using all the little English I then possessed
+to persuade my brothers that these were onions such as grown people
+ate and would be very nice for us. So we fell to and devoured the
+whole, and I recollect being somewhat disappointed in the odd sweetish
+taste, and thinking that onions were not so nice as I had supposed.
+Then mother's serene face appeared at the nursery door and we all ran
+towards her, telling with one voice of our discovery and achievement.
+We had found a bag of onions and had eaten them all up.
+
+"Also I remember that there was not even a momentary expression of
+impatience, but that she sat down and said, 'My dear children, what you
+have done makes mamma very sorry. Those were not onions but roots of
+beautiful flowers, and if you had let them alone we should have next
+summer in the garden great beautiful red and yellow flowers such as you
+never saw.' I remember how drooping and dispirited we all grew at this
+picture, and how sadly we regarded the empty paper bag.
+
+"Then I have a recollection of her reading aloud to the children Miss
+Edgeworth's 'Frank,' which had just come out, I believe, and was
+exciting a good deal of attention among the educational circles of
+Litchfield. After that came a time when every one said she was sick,
+and I used to be permitted to go once a day into her room, where she
+sat bolstered up in bed. I have a vision of a very fair face with a
+bright red spot on each cheek and her quiet smile. I remember dreaming
+one night that mamma had got well, and of waking with loud transports
+of joy that were hushed down by some one who came into the room. My
+dream was indeed a true one. She was forever well.
+
+"Then came the funeral. Henry was too little to go. I can see his
+golden curls and little black frock as he frolicked in the sun like a
+kitten, full of ignorant joy.
+
+"I recollect the mourning dresses, the tears of the older children, the
+walking to the burial-ground, and somebody's speaking at the grave.
+Then all was closed, and we little ones, to whom it was so confused,
+asked where she was gone and would she never come back.
+
+"They told us at one time that she had been laid in the ground, and at
+another that she had gone to heaven. Thereupon Henry, putting the two
+things together, resolved to dig through the ground and go to heaven
+to find her; for being discovered under sister Catherine's window one
+morning digging with great zeal and earnestness, she called to him to
+know what he was doing. Lifting his curly head, he answered with great
+simplicity, 'Why, I'm going to heaven to find mamma.'
+
+"Although our mother's bodily presence thus disappeared from our
+circle, I think her memory and example had more influence in moulding
+her family, in deterring from evil and exciting to good, than
+the living presence of many mothers. It was a memory that met us
+everywhere, for every person in the town, from the highest to the
+lowest, seemed to have been so impressed by her character and life that
+they constantly reflected some portion of it back upon us.
+
+"The passage in 'Uncle Tom' where Augustine St. Clare describes
+his mother's influence is a simple reproduction of my own mother's
+influence as it has always been felt in her family."
+
+Of his deceased wife Dr. Beecher said: "Few women have attained to
+more remarkable piety. Her faith was strong and her prayer prevailing.
+It was her wish that all her sons should devote themselves to the
+ministry, and to it she consecrated them with fervent prayer. Her
+prayers have been heard. All her sons have been converted and are now,
+according to her wish, ministers of Christ."
+
+Such was Roxanna Beecher, whose influence upon her four-year-old
+daughter was strong enough to mould the whole after-life of the author
+of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." After the mother's death the Litchfield home
+was such a sad, lonely place for the child that her aunt, Harriet
+Foote, took her away for a long visit at her grandmother's at Nut
+Plains, near Guilford, Conn., the first journey from home the little
+one had ever made. Of this visit Mrs. Stowe herself says:--
+
+"Among my earliest recollections are those of a visit to Nut Plains
+immediately after my mother's death. Aunt Harriet Foote, who was with
+mother during all her last sickness, took me home to stay with her.
+At the close of what seemed to me a long day's ride we arrived after
+dark at a lonely little white farmhouse, and were ushered into a large
+parlor where a cheerful wood fire was crackling. I was placed in the
+arms of an old lady, who held me close and wept silently, a thing at
+which I marveled, for my great loss was already faded from my childish
+mind.
+
+[Illustration: _Roxanna Foote_]
+
+"I remember being put to bed by my aunt in a large room, on one side
+of which stood the bed appropriated to her and me, and on the other
+that of my grandmother. My aunt Harriet was no common character. A more
+energetic human being never undertook the education of a child. Her
+ideas of education were those of a vigorous English woman of the old
+school. She believed in the Church, and had she been born under that
+_régime_ would have believed in the king stoutly, although being of the
+generation following the Revolution she was a not less stanch supporter
+of the Declaration of Independence.
+
+"According to her views little girls were to be taught to move very
+gently, to speak softly and prettily, to say 'yes ma'am,' and 'no
+ma'am,' never to tear their clothes, to sew, to knit at regular hours,
+to go to church on Sunday and make all the responses, and to come home
+and be catechised.
+
+"During these catechisings she used to place my little cousin Mary
+and myself bolt upright at her knee, while black Dinah and Harry, the
+bound boy, were ranged at a respectful distance behind us; for Aunt
+Harriet always impressed it upon her servants 'to order themselves
+lowly and reverently to all their betters,' a portion of the Church
+catechism that always pleased me, particularly when applied to them, as
+it insured their calling me 'Miss Harriet,' and treating me with a
+degree of consideration such as I never enjoyed in the more democratic
+circle at home. I became proficient in the Church catechism, and gave
+my aunt great satisfaction by the old-fashioned gravity and steadiness
+with which I learned to repeat it.
+
+"As my father was a Congregational minister, I believe Aunt Harriet,
+though the highest of High Church women, felt some scruples as
+to whether it was desirable that my religious education should
+be entirely out of the sphere of my birth. Therefore when this
+catechetical exercise was finished she would say, 'Now, niece, you
+have to learn another catechism, because your father is a Presbyterian
+minister,'--and then she would endeavor to make me commit to memory the
+Assembly catechism.
+
+"At this lengthening of exercise I secretly murmured. I was rather
+pleased at the first question in the Church catechism, which is
+certainly quite on the level of any child's understanding,--'What is
+your name?' It was such an easy good start, I could say it so loud and
+clear, and I was accustomed to compare it with the first question in
+the Primer, 'What is the chief end of man?' as vastly more difficult
+for me to answer. In fact, between my aunt's secret unbelief and my own
+childish impatience of too much catechism, the matter was indefinitely
+postponed after a few ineffectual attempts, and I was overjoyed to hear
+her announce privately to grandmother that she thought it would be time
+enough for Harriet to learn the Presbyterian catechism when she went
+home."
+
+Mingled with this superabundance of catechism and plentiful needlework
+the child was treated to copious extracts from Lowth's Isaiah,
+Buchanan's Researches in Asia, Bishop Heber's Life, and Dr. Johnson's
+Works, which, after her Bible and Prayer Book, were her grandmother's
+favorite reading. Harriet does not seem to have fully appreciated
+these; but she did enjoy her grandmother's comments upon their biblical
+readings. Among the Evangelists especially was the old lady perfectly
+at home, and her idea of each of the apostles was so distinct and
+dramatic that she spoke of them as of familiar acquaintances. She
+would, for instance, always smile indulgently at Peter's remarks and
+say, "There he is again, now; that's just like Peter. He's always so
+ready to put in."
+
+It must have been during this winter spent at Nut Plains, amid such
+surroundings, that Harriet began committing to memory that wonderful
+assortment of hymns, poems, and scriptural passages from which in after
+years she quoted so readily and effectively, for her sister Catherine,
+in writing of her the following November, says:--
+
+"Harriet is a very good girl. She has been to school all this summer,
+and has learned to read very fluently. She has committed to memory
+twenty-seven hymns and two long chapters in the Bible. She has a
+remarkably retentive memory and will make a very good scholar."
+
+At this time the child was five years old, and a regular attendant
+at "Ma'am Kilbourne's" school on West Street, to which she walked
+every day hand in hand with her chubby, rosy-faced, bare-footed,
+four-year-old brother, Henry Ward. With the ability to read germinated
+the intense literary longing that was to be hers through life. In
+those days but few books were specially prepared for children, and
+at six years of age we find the little girl hungrily searching for
+mental food amid barrels of old sermons and pamphlets stored in a
+corner of the garret. Here it seemed to her were some thousands of the
+most unintelligible things. "An appeal on the unlawfulness of a man
+marrying his wife's sister" turned up in every barrel she investigated,
+by twos, or threes, or dozens, till her soul despaired of finding an
+end. At last her patient search was rewarded, for at the very bottom
+of a barrel of musty sermons she discovered an ancient volume of
+"The Arabian Nights." With this her fortune was made, for in these
+most fascinating of fairy tales the imaginative child discovered a
+well-spring of joy that was all her own. When things went astray with
+her, when her brothers started off on long excursions, refusing to take
+her with them, or in any other childish sorrow, she had only to curl
+herself up in some snug corner and sail forth on her bit of enchanted
+carpet into fairyland to forget all her griefs.
+
+In recalling her own child-life Mrs. Stowe, among other things,
+describes her father's library, and gives a vivid bit of her own
+experiences within its walls. She says: "High above all the noise of
+the house, this room had to me the air of a refuge and a sanctuary. Its
+walls were set round from floor to ceiling with the friendly, quiet
+faces of books, and there stood my father's great writing-chair, on one
+arm of which lay open always his Cruden's Concordance and his Bible.
+Here I loved to retreat and niche myself down in a quiet corner with my
+favorite books around me. I had a kind of sheltered feeling as I thus
+sat and watched my father writing, turning to his books, and speaking
+from time to time to himself in a loud, earnest whisper. I vaguely felt
+that he was about some holy and mysterious work quite beyond my little
+comprehension, and I was careful never to disturb him by question or
+remark.
+
+[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE AT LITCHFIELD, CONNECTICUT.]
+
+"The books ranged around filled me too with a solemn awe. On the
+lower shelves were enormous folios, on whose backs I spelled in black
+letters, 'Lightfoot Opera,' a title whereat I wondered, considering
+the bulk of the volumes. Above these, grouped along in friendly,
+social rows, were books of all sorts, sizes, and bindings, the titles
+of which I had read so often that I knew them by heart. There were
+Bell's Sermons, Bonnett's Inquiries, Bogue's Essays, Toplady on
+Predestination, Boston's Fourfold State, Law's Serious Call, and other
+works of that kind. These I looked over wistfully, day after day,
+without even a hope of getting something interesting out of them. The
+thought that father could read and understand things like these filled
+me with a vague awe, and I wondered if I would ever be old enough to
+know what it was all about.
+
+"But there was one of my father's books that proved a mine of wealth
+to me. It was a happy hour when he brought home and set up in his
+bookcase Cotton Mather's 'Magnalia,' in a new edition of two volumes.
+What wonderful stories those! Stories too about my own country. Stories
+that made me feel the very ground I trod on to be consecrated by some
+special dealing of God's Providence."
+
+In continuing these reminiscences Mrs. Stowe describes as follows her
+sensations upon first hearing the Declaration of Independence: "I
+had never heard it before, and even now had but a vague idea of what
+was meant by some parts of it. Still I gathered enough from the recital
+of the abuses and injuries that had driven my nation to this course to
+feel myself swelling with indignation, and ready with all my little
+mind and strength to applaud the concluding passage, which Colonel
+Talmadge rendered with resounding majesty. I was as ready as any of
+them to pledge my life, fortune, and sacred honor for such a cause.
+The heroic element was strong in me, having come down by ordinary
+generation from a long line of Puritan ancestry, and just now it made
+me long to do something, I knew not what: to fight for my country, or
+to make some declaration on my own account."
+
+When Harriet was nearly six years old her father married as his second
+wife Miss Harriet Porter of Portland, Maine, and Mrs. Stowe thus
+describes her new mother: "I slept in the nursery with my two younger
+brothers. We knew that father was gone away somewhere on a journey
+and was expected home, therefore the sound of a bustle in the house
+the more easily awoke us. As father came into our room our new mother
+followed him. She was very fair, with bright blue eyes, and soft auburn
+hair bound round with a black velvet bandeau, and to us she seemed very
+beautiful.
+
+"Never did stepmother make a prettier or sweeter impression. The
+morning following her arrival we looked at her with awe. She seemed to
+us so fair, so delicate, so elegant, that we were almost afraid to go
+near her. We must have appeared to her as rough, red-faced, country
+children, honest, obedient, and bashful. She was peculiarly dainty
+and neat in all her ways and arrangements, and I used to feel breezy,
+rough, and rude in her presence.
+
+"In her religion she was distinguished for a most unfaltering
+Christ-worship. She was of a type noble but severe, naturally hard,
+correct, exact and exacting, with intense natural and moral ideality.
+Had it not been that Doctor Payson had set up and kept before her a
+tender, human, loving Christ, she would have been only a conscientious
+bigot. This image, however, gave softness and warmth to her religious
+life, and I have since noticed how her Christ-enthusiasm has sprung up
+in the hearts of all her children."
+
+In writing to her old home of her first impressions of her new one,
+Mrs. Beecher says: "It is a very lovely family, and with heartfelt
+gratitude I observed how cheerful and healthy they were. The sentiment
+is greatly increased, since I perceive them to be of agreeable habits
+and some of them of uncommon intellect."
+
+This new mother proved to be indeed all that the name implies to her
+husband's children, and never did they have occasion to call her aught
+other than blessed.
+
+Another year finds a new baby brother, Frederick by name, added to
+the family. At this time too we catch a characteristic glimpse of
+Harriet in one of her sister Catherine's letters. She says: "Last week
+we interred Tom junior with funeral honors by the side of old Tom of
+happy memory. Our Harriet is chief mourner always at their funerals.
+She asked for what she called an _epithet_ for the gravestone of Tom
+junior, which I gave as follows:--
+
+    "Here lies our Kit,
+     Who had a fit,
+       And acted queer,
+     Shot with a gun,
+     Her race is run,
+       And she lies here."
+
+In June, 1820, little Frederick died from scarlet fever, and Harriet
+was seized with a violent attack of the same dread disease; but, after
+a severe struggle, recovered.
+
+Following her happy, hearty child-life, we find her tramping through
+the woods or going on fishing excursions with her brothers, sitting
+thoughtfully in her father's study, listening eagerly to the animated
+theological discussions of the day, visiting her grandmother at Nut
+Plains, and figuring as one of the brightest scholars in the Litchfield
+Academy, taught by Mr. John Brace and Miss Pierce. When she was eleven
+years old her brother Edward wrote of her: "Harriet reads everything
+she can lay hands on, and sews and knits diligently."
+
+At this time she was no longer the youngest girl of the family, for
+another sister (Isabella) had been born in 1822. This event served
+greatly to mature her, as she was intrusted with much of the care of
+the baby out of school hours. It was not, however, allowed to interfere
+in any way with her studies, and, under the skillful direction of her
+beloved teachers, she seemed to absorb knowledge with every sense.
+She herself writes: "Much of the training and inspiration of my early
+days consisted not in the things that I was supposed to be studying,
+but in hearing, while seated unnoticed at my desk, the conversation
+of Mr. Brace with the older classes. There, from hour to hour, I
+listened with eager ears to historical criticisms and discussions,
+or to recitations in such works as Paley's Moral Philosophy, Blair's
+Rhetoric, Allison on Taste, all full of most awakening suggestions to
+my thoughts.
+
+"Mr. Brace exceeded all teachers I ever knew in the faculty of teaching
+composition. The constant excitement in which he kept the minds of his
+pupils, the wide and varied regions of thought into which he led them,
+formed a preparation for composition, the main requisite for which is
+to have something which one feels interested to say."
+
+In her tenth year Harriet began what to her was the fascinating work
+of writing compositions, and so rapidly did she progress that at the
+school exhibition held when she was twelve years old, hers was one of
+the two or three essays selected to be read aloud before the august
+assembly of visitors attracted by the occasion.
+
+Of this event Mrs. Stowe writes: "I remember well the scene at that
+exhibition, to me so eventful. The hall was crowded with all the
+literati of Litchfield. Before them all our compositions were read
+aloud. When mine was read I noticed that father, who was sitting on
+high by Mr. Brace, brightened and looked interested, and at the close
+I heard him ask, 'Who wrote that composition?' 'Your daughter, sir,'
+was the answer. It was the proudest moment of my life. There was no
+mistaking father's face when he was pleased, and to have interested him
+was past all juvenile triumphs."
+
+That composition has been carefully preserved, and on the old yellow
+sheets the cramped childish handwriting is still distinctly legible.
+As the first literary production of one who afterwards attained such
+distinction as a writer, it is deemed of sufficient value and interest
+to be embodied in this biography exactly as it was written and read
+sixty-five years ago. The subject was certainly a grave one to be
+handled by a child of twelve.
+
+
+CAN THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL BE PROVED BY THE LIGHT OF NATURE?
+
+    It has justly been concluded by the philosophers
+    of every age that "The proper study of mankind is
+    man," and his nature and composition, both physical
+    and mental, have been subjects of the most critical
+    examination. In the course of these researches many
+    have been at a loss to account for the change which
+    takes place in the body at the time of death. By some
+    it has been attributed to the flight of its tenant, and
+    by others to its final annihilation.
+
+    The questions, "What becomes of the soul at the time
+    of death?" and, if it be not annihilated, "What is
+    its destiny after death?" are those which, from the
+    interest that we all feel in them, will probably
+    engross universal attention.
+
+    In pursuing these inquiries it will be necessary to
+    divest ourselves of all that knowledge which we have
+    obtained from the light which revelation has shed over
+    them, and place ourselves in the same position as the
+    philosophers of past ages when considering the same
+    subject.
+
+    The first argument which has been advanced to prove
+    the immortality of the soul is drawn from the nature
+    of the mind itself. It has (say the supporters of
+    this theory) no composition of parts, and therefore,
+    as there are no particles, is not susceptible of
+    divisibility and cannot be acted upon by decay, and
+    therefore if it will not decay it will exist forever.
+
+    Now because the mind is not susceptible of decay
+    effected in the ordinary way by a gradual separation of
+    particles, affords no proof that that same omnipotent
+    power which created it cannot by another simple
+    exertion of power again reduce it to nothing. The only
+    reason for belief which this argument affords is that
+    the soul cannot be acted upon by decay. But it does not
+    prove that it cannot destroy its existence. Therefore,
+    for the validity of this argument, it must either be
+    proved that the "Creator" has not the power to destroy
+    it, or that he has not the will; but as neither of
+    these can be established, our immortality is left
+    dependent on the pleasure of the Creator. But it is
+    said that it is evident that the Creator designed the
+    soul for immortality, or he would never have created it
+    so essentially different from the body, for had they
+    both been designed for the same end they would both
+    have been created alike, as there would have been no
+    object in forming them otherwise. This only proves that
+    the soul and body had not the same destinations. Now
+    of what these destinations are we know nothing, and
+    after much useless reasoning we return where we began,
+    our argument depending upon the good pleasure of the
+    Creator.
+
+    And here it is said that a being of such infinite
+    wisdom and benevolence as that of which the Creator is
+    possessed would not have formed man with such vast
+    capacities and boundless desires, and would have given
+    him no opportunity for exercising them.
+
+    In order to establish the validity of this argument it
+    is necessary to prove by the light of Nature that the
+    Creator _is_ benevolent, which, being impracticable, is
+    of itself sufficient to render the argument invalid.
+
+    But the argument proceeds upon the supposition that
+    to destroy the soul would be unwise. Now this is
+    arraigning the "All-wise" before the tribunal of his
+    subjects to answer for the mistakes in his government.
+    Can we look into the council of the "Unsearchable" and
+    see what means are made to answer their ends? We do
+    not know but the destruction of the soul may, in the
+    government of God, be made to answer such a purpose
+    that its existence would be contrary to the dictates of
+    wisdom.
+
+    The great desire of the soul for immortality, its
+    secret, innate horror of annihilation, has been brought
+    to prove its immortality. But do we always find this
+    horror or this desire? Is it not much more evident
+    that the great majority of mankind have no such dread
+    at all? True that there is a strong feeling of horror
+    excited by the idea of perishing from the earth and
+    being forgotten, of losing all those honors and all
+    that fame awaited them. Many feel this secret horror
+    when they look down upon the vale of futurity and
+    reflect that though now the idols of the world, soon
+    all which will be left them will be the common portion
+    of mankind--oblivion! But this dread does not arise
+    from any idea of their destiny beyond the tomb, and
+    even were this true, it would afford no proof that
+    the mind would exist forever, merely from its strong
+    desires. For it might with as much correctness be
+    argued that the body will exist forever because we have
+    a great dread of dying, and upon this principle nothing
+    which we strongly desire would ever be withheld from
+    us, and no evil that we greatly dread will ever come
+    upon us, a principle evidently false.
+
+    Again, it has been said that the constant progression
+    of the powers of the mind affords another proof of its
+    immortality. Concerning this, Addison remarks, "Were a
+    human soul ever thus at a stand in her acquirements,
+    were her faculties to be full blown and incapable of
+    further enlargement, I could imagine that she might
+    fall away insensibly and drop at once into a state
+    of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being
+    that is in a perpetual progress of improvement, and
+    traveling on from perfection to perfection after having
+    just looked abroad into the works of her Creator and
+    made a few discoveries of his infinite wisdom and
+    goodness, must perish at her first setting out and in
+    the very beginning of her inquiries?"
+
+    In answer to this it may be said that the soul is not
+    always progressing in her powers. Is it not rather a
+    subject of general remark that those brilliant talents
+    which in youth expand, in manhood become stationary,
+    and in old age gradually sink to decay? Till when the
+    ancient man descends to the tomb scarce a wreck of that
+    once powerful mind remains.
+
+    Who, but upon reading the history of England, does not
+    look with awe upon the effects produced by the talents
+    of her Elizabeth? Who but admires that undaunted
+    firmness in time of peace and that profound depth
+    of policy which she displayed in the cabinet? Yet
+    behold the tragical end of this learned, this politic
+    princess! Behold the triumphs of age and sickness
+    over her once powerful talents, and say not that the
+    faculties of man are always progressing in their powers.
+
+    From the activity of the mind at the hour of death has
+    also been deduced its immortality. But it is not true
+    that the mind is always active at the time of death. We
+    find recorded in history numberless instances of those
+    talents, which were once adequate to the government of
+    a nation, being so weakened and palsied by the touch
+    of sickness as scarcely to tell to beholders what they
+    once were. The talents of the statesman, the wisdom of
+    the sage, the courage and might of the warrior, are
+    instantly destroyed by it, and all that remains of them
+    is the waste of idiocy or the madness of insanity.
+
+    Some minds there are who at the time of death retain
+    their faculties though much impaired, and if the
+    argument be valid these are the only cases where
+    immortality is conferred. Again, it is urged that the
+    inequality of rewards and punishments in this world
+    demand another in which virtue may be rewarded and vice
+    punished. This argument, in the first place, takes
+    for its foundation that by the light of nature the
+    distinction between virtue and vice can be discovered.
+    By some this is absolutely disbelieved, and by all
+    considered as extremely doubtful. And, secondly, it
+    puts the Creator under an obligation to reward and
+    punish the actions of his creatures. No such obligation
+    exists, and therefore the argument cannot be valid. And
+    this supposes the Creator to be a being of justice,
+    which cannot by the light of nature be proved, and
+    as the whole argument rests upon this foundation it
+    certainly cannot be correct.
+
+    This argument also directly impeaches the wisdom of the
+    Creator, for the sense of it is this,--that, forasmuch
+    as he was not able to manage his government in this
+    world, he must have another in which to rectify the
+    mistakes and oversights of this, and what an idea would
+    this give us of our All-wise Creator?
+
+    It is also said that all nations have some conceptions
+    of a future state, that the ancient Greeks and Romans
+    believed in it, that no nation has been found but have
+    possessed some idea of a future state of existence.
+    But their belief arose more from the fact that they
+    wished it to be so than from any real ground of belief;
+    for arguments appear much more plausible when the mind
+    wishes to be convinced. But it is said that every
+    nation, however circumstanced, possess some idea of
+    a future state. For this we may account by the fact
+    that it was handed down by tradition from the time of
+    the flood. From all these arguments, which, however
+    plausible at first sight, are found to be futile, may
+    be argued the necessity of a revelation. Without it,
+    the destiny of the noblest of the works of God would
+    have been left in obscurity. Never till the blessed
+    light of the Gospel dawned on the borders of the pit,
+    and the heralds of the Cross proclaimed "Peace on earth
+    and good will to men," was it that bewildered and
+    misled man was enabled to trace his celestial origin
+    and glorious destiny.
+
+    The sun of the Gospel has dispelled the darkness that
+    has rested on objects beyond the tomb. In the Gospel
+    man learned that when the dust returned to dust the
+    spirit fled to the God who gave it. He there found
+    that though man has lost the image of his divine
+    Creator, he is still destined, after this earthly house
+    of his tabernacle is dissolved, to an inheritance
+    incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, to
+    a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
+
+Soon after the writing of this remarkable composition, Harriet's
+child-life in Litchfield came to an end, for that same year she went
+to Hartford to pursue her studies in a school which had been recently
+established by her sister Catherine in that city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD, 1824-1832.
+
+    MISS CATHERINE BEECHER.--PROFESSOR FISHER.--THE WRECK
+    OF THE ALBION AND DEATH OF PROFESSOR FISHER.--"THE
+    MINISTER'S WOOING."--MISS CATHERINE BEECHER'S SPIRITUAL
+    HISTORY.--MRS. STOWE'S RECOLLECTIONS OF HER SCHOOL
+    DAYS IN HARTFORD.--HER CONVERSION.--UNITES WITH THE
+    FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD.--HER DOUBTS AND SUBSEQUENT
+    RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT.--HER FINAL PEACE.
+
+
+THE school days in Hartford began a new era in Harriet's life. It was
+the formative period, and it is therefore important to say a few words
+concerning her sister Catherine, under whose immediate supervision she
+was to continue her education. In fact, no one can comprehend either
+Mrs. Stowe or her writings without some knowledge of the life and
+character of this remarkable woman, whose strong, vigorous mind and
+tremendous personality indelibly stamped themselves on the sensitive,
+yielding, dreamy, and poetic nature of the younger sister. Mrs. Stowe
+herself has said that the two persons who most strongly influenced
+her at this period of her life were her brother Edward and her sister
+Catherine.
+
+Catherine was the oldest child of Lyman Beecher and Roxanna Foote, his
+wife. In a little battered journal found among her papers is a short
+sketch of her life, written when she was seventy-six years of age.
+In a tremulous hand she begins: "I was born at East Hampton, L. I.,
+September 5, 1800, at 5 P. M., in the large parlor opposite father's
+study. Don't remember much about it myself." The sparkle of wit in this
+brief notice of the circumstances of her birth is very characteristic.
+All through her life little ripples of fun were continually playing on
+the surface of that current of intense thought and feeling in which her
+deep, earnest nature flowed.
+
+When she was ten years of age her father removed to Litchfield, Conn.,
+and her happy girlhood was passed in that place. Her bright and
+versatile mind and ready wit enabled her to pass brilliantly through
+her school days with but little mental exertion, and those who knew
+her slightly might have imagined her to be only a bright, thoughtless,
+light-hearted girl. In Boston, at the age of twenty, she took lessons
+in music and drawing, and became so proficient in these branches as
+to secure a position as teacher in a young ladies' school, kept by
+a Rev. Mr. Judd, an Episcopal clergyman, at New London, Conn. About
+this time she formed the acquaintance of Professor Alexander Metcalf
+Fisher, of Yale College, one of the most distinguished young men in
+New England. In January of the year 1822 they became engaged, and the
+following spring Professor Fisher sailed for Europe to purchase books
+and scientific apparatus for the use of his department in the college.
+
+In his last letter to Miss Beecher, dated March 31, 1822, he writes:--
+
+"I set out at 10 precisely to-morrow, in the Albion for Liverpool; the
+ship has no superior in the whole number of excellent vessels belonging
+to this port, and Captain Williams is regarded as first on their list
+of commanders. The accommodations are admirable--fare $140. Unless our
+ship should speak some one bound to America on the passage, you will
+probably not hear from me under two months."
+
+Before two months had passed came vague rumors of a terrible shipwreck
+on the coast of Ireland. Then the tidings that the Albion was lost.
+Then came a letter from Mr. Pond, at Kinsale, Ireland, dated May 2,
+1822:--
+
+"You have doubtless heard of the shipwreck of the Albion packet of New
+York, bound to Liverpool. It was a melancholy shipwreck. It happened
+about four o'clock on the morning of the 22d of April. Professor
+Fisher, of Yale College, was one of the passengers. Out of twenty-three
+cabin passengers, but one reached the shore. He is a Mr. Everhart,
+of Chester County, Pennsylvania. He informs me that Professor Fisher
+was injured by things that fetched away in the cabin at the time the
+ship was knocked down. This was between 8 and 9 o'clock in the evening
+of the twenty-first. Mr. Fisher, though badly bruised, was calm and
+resolute, and assisted Captain Williams by taking the injured compass
+to his berth and repairing it. About five minutes before the vessel
+struck Captain Williams informed the passengers of their danger, and
+all went on deck except Professor Fisher, who remained sitting in his
+berth. Mr. Everhart was the last person who left the cabin, and the
+last who ever saw Professor Fisher alive."
+
+I should not have spoken of this incident of family history with
+such minuteness, except for the fact that it is so much a part of
+Mrs. Stowe's life as to make it impossible to understand either
+her character or her most important works without it. Without this
+incident "The Minister's Wooing" never would have been written, for
+both Mrs. Marvyn's terrible soul struggles and old Candace's direct
+and effective solution of all religious difficulties find their origin
+in this stranded, storm-beaten ship on the coast of Ireland, and the
+terrible mental conflicts through which her sister afterward passed,
+for she believed Professor Fisher eternally lost. No mind more directly
+and powerfully influenced Harriet's than that of her sister Catherine,
+unless it was her brother Edward's, and that which acted with such
+overwhelming power on the strong, unyielding mind of the older sister
+must have, in time, a permanent and abiding influence on the mind of
+the younger.
+
+After Professor Fisher's death his books came into Miss Beecher's
+possession, and among them was a complete edition of Scott's works. It
+was an epoch in the family history when Doctor Beecher came down-stairs
+one day with a copy of "Ivanhoe" in his hand, and said: "I have always
+said that my children should not read novels, but they must read these."
+
+The two years following the death of Professor Fisher were passed by
+Miss Catherine Beecher at Franklin, Mass., at the home of Professor
+Fisher's parents, where she taught his two sisters, studied mathematics
+with his brother Willard, and listened to Doctor Emmons' fearless
+and pitiless preaching. Hers was a mind too strong and buoyant to be
+crushed and prostrated by that which would have driven a weaker and
+less resolute nature into insanity. Of her it may well be said:--
+
+    "She faced the spectres of the mind
+     And laid them, thus she came at length
+     To find a stronger faith her own."
+
+Gifted naturally with a capacity for close metaphysical analysis and a
+robust fearlessness in following her premises to a logical conclusion,
+she arrived at results startling and original, if not always of
+permanent value.
+
+In 1840 she published in the "Biblical Repository" an article on Free
+Agency, which has been acknowledged by competent critics as the ablest
+refutation of Edwards on "The Will" which has appeared. An amusing
+incident connected with this publication may not be out of place here.
+A certain eminent theological professor of New England, visiting a
+distinguished German theologian and speaking of this production, said:
+"The ablest refutation of Edwards on 'The Will' which was ever written
+is the work of a woman, the daughter of Dr. Lyman Beecher." The worthy
+Teuton raised both hands in undisguised astonishment. "You have a woman
+that can write an able refutation of Edwards on 'The Will'? God forgive
+Christopher Columbus for discovering America!"
+
+Not finding herself able to love a God whom she thought of in her own
+language as "a perfectly happy being, unmoved by my sorrows or tears,
+and looking upon me only with dislike and aversion," she determined "to
+find happiness in living to do good." "It was right to pray and read
+the Bible, so I prayed and read. It was right to try to save others,
+so I labored for their salvation. I never had any fear of punishment
+or hope of reward all these years." She was tormented with doubts.
+"What has the Son of God done which the meanest and most selfish
+creature upon earth would not have done? After making such a wretched
+race and placing them in such disastrous circumstances, somehow,
+without any sorrow or trouble, Jesus Christ had a human nature that
+suffered and died. If something else besides ourselves will do all the
+suffering, who would not save millions of wretched beings and receive
+all the honor and gratitude without any of the trouble? Sometimes when
+such thoughts passed through my mind, I felt that it was all pride,
+rebellion, and sin."
+
+So she struggles on, sometimes floundering deep in the mire of doubt,
+and then lifted for the moment above it by her naturally buoyant
+spirits, and general tendency to look on the bright side of things. In
+this condition of mind, she came to Hartford in the winter of 1824,
+and began a school with eight scholars, and it was in the practical
+experience of teaching that she found a final solution of all her
+difficulties. She continues:--
+
+"After two or three years I commenced giving instruction in mental
+philosophy, and at the same time began a regular course of lectures
+and instructions from the Bible, and was much occupied with plans for
+governing my school, and in devising means to lead my pupils to become
+obedient, amiable, and pious. By degrees I finally arrived at the
+following principles in the government of my school:--
+
+"First. It is indispensable that my scholars should feel that I am
+sincerely and deeply interested in their best happiness, and the more I
+can convince them of this, the more ready will be their obedience.
+
+"Second. The preservation of authority and order depends upon the
+certainty that unpleasant consequences to themselves will inevitably be
+the result of doing wrong.
+
+"Third. It is equally necessary, to preserve my own influence and their
+affection, that they should feel that punishment is the natural result
+of wrong-doing in such a way that they shall regard themselves, instead
+of me, as the cause of their punishment.
+
+"Fourth. It is indispensable that my scholars should see that my
+requisitions are reasonable. In the majority of cases this can be
+shown, and in this way such confidence will be the result that they
+will trust to my judgment and knowledge, in cases where no explanation
+can be given.
+
+"Fifth. The more I can make my scholars feel that I am actuated by a
+spirit of self-denying benevolence, the more confidence they will feel
+in me, and the more they will be inclined to submit to self-denying
+duties for the good of others.
+
+"After a while I began to compare my experience with the government of
+God. I finally got through the whole subject, and drew out the results,
+and found that all my difficulties were solved and all my darkness
+dispelled."
+
+Her solution in brief is nothing more than that view of the divine
+nature which was for so many years preached by her brother, Henry Ward
+Beecher, and set forth in the writings of her sister Harriet,--the
+conception of a being of infinite love, patience, and kindness who
+suffers with man. The sufferings of Christ on the cross were not the
+sufferings of his human nature merely, but the sufferings of the
+divine nature in Him. In Christ we see the only revelation of God, and
+that is the revelation of one that suffers. This is the fundamental
+idea in "The Minister's Wooing," and it is the idea of God in which the
+storm-tossed soul of the older sister at last found rest. All this was
+directly opposed to that fundamental principle of theologians that God,
+being the infinitely perfect Being, cannot suffer, because suffering
+indicates imperfection. To Miss Beecher's mind the lack of ability to
+suffer with his suffering creatures was a more serious imperfection.
+Let the reader turn to the twenty-fourth chapter of "The Minister's
+Wooing" for a complete presentation of this subject, especially the
+passage that begins, "Sorrow is divine: sorrow is reigning on the
+throne of the universe."
+
+In the fall of the year 1824, while her sister Catherine was passing
+through the soul crisis which we have been describing, Harriet came to
+the school that she had recently established.
+
+In a letter to her son written in 1886, speaking of this period of her
+life, Mrs. Stowe says: "Somewhere between my twelfth and thirteenth
+year I was placed under the care of my elder sister Catherine, in the
+school that she had just started in Hartford, Connecticut. When I
+entered the school there were not more than twenty-five scholars in it,
+but it afterwards numbered its pupils by the hundreds. The school-room
+was on Main Street, nearly opposite Christ Church, over Sheldon &
+Colton's harness store, at the sign of the two white horses. I never
+shall forget the pleasure and surprise which these two white horses
+produced in my mind when I first saw them. One of the young men who
+worked in the rear of the harness store had a most beautiful tenor
+voice, and it was my delight to hear him singing in school hours:--
+
+[Illustration: Catherine E. Beecher]
+
+    'When in cold oblivion's shade
+     Beauty, wealth, and power are laid,
+     When, around the sculptured shrine,
+     Moss shall cling and ivy twine,
+     Where immortal spirits reign,
+     There shall we all meet again.'
+
+"As my father's salary was inadequate to the wants of his large family,
+the expense of my board in Hartford was provided for by a species of
+exchange. Mr. Isaac D. Bull sent a daughter to Miss Pierce's seminary
+in Litchfield, and she boarded in my father's family in exchange for
+my board in her father's family. If my good, refined, neat, particular
+stepmother could have chosen, she could not have found a family more
+exactly suited to her desires. The very soul of neatness and order
+pervaded the whole establishment. Mr. I. D. Bull was a fine, vigorous,
+white-haired man on the declining slope of life, but full of energy
+and of kindness. Mr. Samuel Collins, a neighbor who lived next door,
+used to frequently come in and make most impressive and solemn calls on
+Miss Mary Anne Bull, who was a brunette and a celebrated beauty of the
+day. I well remember her long raven curls falling from the comb that
+held them up on the top of her head. She had a rich soprano voice, and
+was the leading singer in the Centre Church choir. The two brothers
+also had fine, manly voices, and the family circle was often enlivened
+by quartette singing and flute playing. Mr. Bull kept a very large
+wholesale drug store on Front Street, in which his two sons, Albert
+and James, were clerks. The oldest son, Watson Bull, had established a
+retail drug store at the sign of the 'Good Samaritan.' A large picture
+of the Good Samaritan relieving the wounded traveler formed a striking
+part of the sign, and was contemplated by me with reverence.
+
+"The mother of the family gave me at once a child's place in her heart.
+A neat little hall chamber was allotted to me for my own, and a well
+made and kept single bed was given me, of which I took daily care with
+awful satisfaction. If I was sick nothing could exceed the watchful
+care and tender nursing of Mrs. Bull. In school my two most intimate
+friends were the leading scholars. They had written to me before I
+came and I had answered their letters, and on my arrival they gave me
+the warmest welcome. One was Catherine Ledyard Cogswell, daughter of
+the leading and best-beloved of Hartford physicians. The other was
+Georgiana May, daughter of a most lovely Christian woman who was a
+widow. Georgiana was one of many children, having two younger sisters,
+Mary and Gertrude, and several brothers. Catherine Cogswell was one of
+the most amiable, sprightly, sunny-tempered individuals I have ever
+known. She was, in fact, so much beloved that it was difficult for
+me to see much of her. Her time was all bespoken by different girls.
+One might walk with her to school, another had the like promise on
+the way home. And at recess, of which we had every day a short half
+hour, there was always a suppliant at Katy's shrine, whom she found it
+hard to refuse. Yet, among all these claimants, she did keep a little
+place here and there for me. Georgiana was older and graver, and less
+fascinating to the other girls, but between her and me there grew up
+the warmest friendship, which proved lifelong in its constancy.
+
+"Catherine and Georgiana were reading 'Virgil' when I came to the
+school. I began the study of Latin alone, and at the end of the first
+year made a translation of 'Ovid' in verse, which was read at the final
+exhibition of the school, and regarded, I believe, as a very creditable
+performance. I was very much interested in poetry, and it was my dream
+to be a poet. I began a drama called 'Cleon.' The scene was laid in the
+court and time of the emperor Nero, and Cleon was a Greek lord residing
+at Nero's court, who, after much searching and doubting, at last comes
+to the knowledge of Christianity. I filled blank book after blank book
+with this drama. It filled my thoughts sleeping and waking. One day
+sister Catherine pounced down upon me, and said that I must not waste
+my time writing poetry, but discipline my mind by the study of Butler's
+'Analogy.' So after this I wrote out abstracts from the 'Analogy,' and
+instructed a class of girls as old as myself, being compelled to master
+each chapter just ahead of the class I was teaching. About this time I
+read Baxter's 'Saint's Rest.' I do not think any book affected me more
+powerfully. As I walked the pavements I used to wish that they might
+sink beneath me if only I might find myself in heaven. I was at the
+same time very much interested in Butler's 'Analogy,' for Mr. Brace
+used to lecture on such themes when I was at Miss Pierce's school at
+Litchfield. I also began the study of French and Italian with a Miss
+Degan, who was born in Italy.
+
+"It was about this time that I first believed myself to be a Christian.
+I was spending my summer vacation at home, in Litchfield. I shall
+ever remember that dewy, fresh summer morning. I knew that it was a
+sacramental Sunday, and thought with sadness that when all the good
+people should take the sacrificial bread and wine I should be left
+out. I tried hard to feel my sins and count them up; but what with the
+birds, the daisies, and the brooks that rippled by the way, it was
+impossible. I came into church quite dissatisfied with myself, and as
+I looked upon the pure white cloth, the snowy bread and shining cups,
+of the communion table, thought with a sigh: 'There won't be anything
+for me to-day; it is all for these grown-up Christians.' Nevertheless,
+when father began to speak, I was drawn to listen by a certain
+pathetic earnestness in his voice. Most of father's sermons were as
+unintelligible to me as if he had spoken in Choctaw. But sometimes he
+preached what he was accustomed to call a 'frame sermon;' that is, a
+sermon that sprung out of the deep feeling of the occasion, and which
+consequently could be neither premeditated nor repeated. His text was
+taken from the Gospel of John, the declaration of Jesus: 'Behold, I
+call you no longer servants, but friends.' His theme was Jesus as a
+soul friend offered to every human being.
+
+"Forgetting all his hair-splitting distinctions and dialectic
+subtleties, he spoke in direct, simple, and tender language of the
+great love of Christ and his care for the soul. He pictured Him as
+patient with our errors, compassionate with our weaknesses, and
+sympathetic for our sorrows. He went on to say how He was ever near
+us, enlightening our ignorance, guiding our wanderings, comforting our
+sorrows with a love unwearied by faults, unchilled by ingratitude, till
+at last He should present us faultless before the throne of his glory
+with exceeding joy.
+
+"I sat intent and absorbed. Oh! how much I needed just such a friend,
+I thought to myself. Then the awful fact came over me that I had never
+had any conviction of my sins, and consequently could not come to Him.
+I longed to cry out 'I will,' when father made his passionate appeal,
+'Come, then, and trust your soul to this faithful friend.' Like a flash
+it came over me that if I needed conviction of sin, He was able to give
+me even this also. I would trust Him for the whole. My whole soul was
+illumined with joy, and as I left the church to walk home, it seemed to
+me as if Nature herself were hushing her breath to hear the music of
+heaven.
+
+"As soon as father came home and was seated in his study, I went up to
+him and fell in his arms saying, 'Father, I have given myself to Jesus,
+and He has taken me.' I never shall forget the expression of his face
+as he looked down into my earnest, childish eyes; it was so sweet, so
+gentle, and like sunlight breaking out upon a landscape. 'Is it so?' he
+said, holding me silently to his heart, as I felt the hot tears fall on
+my head. 'Then has a new flower blossomed in the kingdom this day.'"
+
+If she could have been let alone, and taught "to look up and not down,
+forward and not back, out and not in," this religious experience might
+have gone on as sweetly and naturally as the opening of a flower in
+the gentle rays of the sun. But unfortunately this was not possible
+at that time, when self-examination was carried to an extreme that was
+calculated to drive a nervous and sensitive mind well-nigh distracted.
+First, even her sister Catherine was afraid that there might be
+something wrong in the case of a lamb that had come into the fold
+without being first chased all over the lot by the shepherd; great
+stress being laid, in those days, on what was called "being under
+conviction." Then also the pastor of the First Church in Hartford, a
+bosom friend of Dr. Beecher, looked with melancholy and suspicious
+eyes on this unusual and doubtful path to heaven,--but more of this
+hereafter. Harriet's conversion took place in the summer of 1825, when
+she was fourteen, and the following year, April, 1826, Dr. Beecher
+resigned his pastorate in Litchfield to accept a call to the Hanover
+Street Church, Boston, Mass. In a letter to her grandmother Foote at
+Guilford, dated Hartford, March 4, 1826, Harriet writes:--
+
+"You have probably heard that our home in Litchfield is broken up.
+Papa has received a call to Boston, and concluded to accept, because
+he could not support his family in Litchfield. He was dismissed last
+week Tuesday, and will be here (Hartford) next Tuesday with mamma and
+Isabel. Aunt Esther will take Charles and Thomas to her house for the
+present. Papa's salary is to be $2,000 and $500 settlement.
+
+"I attend school constantly and am making some progress in my studies.
+I devote most of my attention to Latin and to arithmetic, and hope soon
+to prepare myself to assist Catherine in the school."
+
+This breaking up of the Litchfield home led Harriet, under her
+father's advice, to seek to connect herself with the First Church of
+Hartford. Accordingly, accompanied by two of her school friends, she
+went one day to the pastor's study to consult with him concerning the
+contemplated step. The good man listened attentively to the child's
+simple and modest statement of Christian experience, and then with an
+awful, though kindly, solemnity of speech and manner said, "Harriet,
+do you feel that if the universe should be destroyed (awful pause)
+you could be happy with God alone?" After struggling in vain, in her
+mental bewilderment, to fix in her mind some definite conception of the
+meaning of the sounds which fell on her ear like the measured strokes
+of a bell, the child of fourteen stammered out, "Yes, sir."
+
+"You realize, I trust," continued the doctor, "in some measure at
+least, the deceitfulness of your heart, and that in punishment for your
+sins God might justly leave you to make yourself as miserable as you
+have made yourself sinful?"
+
+"Yes, sir," again stammered Harriet.
+
+Having thus effectually, and to his own satisfaction, fixed the child's
+attention on the morbid and over-sensitive workings of her own heart,
+the good and truly kind-hearted man dismissed her with a fatherly
+benediction. But where was the joyous ecstasy of that beautiful Sabbath
+morning of a year ago? Where was that heavenly friend? Yet was not
+this as it should be, and might not God leave her "to make herself as
+miserable as she had made herself sinful"?
+
+In a letter addressed to her brother Edward, about this time, she
+writes: "My whole life is one continued struggle: I do nothing right.
+I yield to temptation almost as soon as it assails me. My deepest
+feelings are very evanescent. I am beset behind and before, and my sins
+take away all my happiness. But that which most constantly besets me is
+pride--I can trace almost all my sins back to it."
+
+In the mean time, the school is prospering. February 16, 1827,
+Catherine writes to Dr. Beecher: "My affairs go on well. The stock is
+all taken up, and next week I hope to have out the prospectus of the
+'Hartford Female Seminary.' I hope the building will be done, and all
+things in order, by June. The English lady is coming with twelve pupils
+from New York." Speaking of Harriet, who was at this time with her
+father in Boston, she adds: "I have received some letters from Harriet
+to-day which make me feel uneasy. She says, 'I don't know as I am fit
+for anything, and I have thought that I could wish to die young, and
+let the remembrance of me and my faults perish in the grave, rather
+than live, as I fear I do, a trouble to every one. You don't know how
+perfectly wretched I often feel: so useless, so weak, so destitute of
+all energy. Mamma often tells me that I am a strange, inconsistent
+being. Sometimes I could not sleep, and have groaned and cried till
+midnight, while in the daytime I tried to appear cheerful and succeeded
+so well that papa reproved me for laughing so much. I was so absent
+sometimes that I made strange mistakes, and then they all laughed at
+me, and I laughed, too, though I felt as though I should go distracted.
+I wrote rules; made out a regular system for dividing my time; but
+my feelings vary so much that it is almost impossible for me to be
+regular.'"
+
+But let Harriet "take courage in her dark sorrows and melancholies," as
+Carlyle says: "Samuel Johnson too had hypochondrias; all great souls
+are apt to have, and to be in thick darkness generally till the eternal
+ways and the celestial guiding stars disclose themselves, and the vague
+abyss of life knits itself up into firmaments for them."
+
+At the same time (the winter of 1827), Catherine writes to Edward
+concerning Harriet: "If she could come here (Hartford) it might be the
+best thing for her, for she can talk freely to me. I can get her books,
+and Catherine Cogswell, Georgiana May, and her friends here could do
+more for her than any one in Boston, for they love her and she loves
+them very much. Georgiana's difficulties are different from Harriet's:
+she is speculating about doctrines, etc. Harriet will have young
+society here all the time, which she cannot have at home, and I think
+cheerful and amusing friends will do much for her. I can do better in
+preparing her to teach drawing than any one else, for I best know what
+is needed."
+
+It was evidently necessary that something should be done to restore
+Harriet to a more tranquil and healthful frame of mind; consequently in
+the spring of 1827, accompanied by her friend Georgiana May, she went
+to visit her grandmother Foote at Nut Plains, Guilford. Miss May refers
+to this visit in a letter to Mrs. Foote, in January of the following
+winter.
+
+                                        HARTFORD, _January 4, 1828._
+
+    DEAR MRS. FOOTE:--... I very often think of you and
+    the happy hours I passed at your house last spring.
+    It seems as if it were but yesterday: now, while I am
+    writing, I can see your pleasant house and the familiar
+    objects around you as distinctly as the day I left
+    them. Harriet and I are very much the same girls we
+    were then. I do not believe we have altered very much,
+    though she is improved in some respects.
+
+The August following this visit to Guilford Harriet writes to her
+brother Edward in a vein which is still streaked with sadness, but
+shows some indication of returning health of mind.
+
+"Many of my objections you did remove that afternoon we spent together.
+After that I was not as unhappy as I had been. I felt, nevertheless,
+that my views were very indistinct and contradictory, and feared that
+if you left me thus I might return to the same dark, desolate state
+in which I had been all summer. I felt that my immortal interest,
+my happiness for both worlds, was depending on the turn my feelings
+might take. In my disappointment and distress I called upon God, and
+it seemed as if I was heard. I felt that He could supply the loss of
+all earthly love. All misery and darkness were over. I felt as if
+restored, nevermore to fall. Such sober certainty of waking bliss had
+long been a stranger to me. But even then I had doubts as to whether
+these feelings were right, because I felt love to God alone without
+that ardent love for my fellow-creatures which Christians have often
+felt.... I cannot say exactly what it is makes me reluctant to speak
+of my feelings. It costs me an effort to express feeling of any kind,
+but more particularly to speak of my private religious feelings. If any
+one questions me, my first impulse is to conceal all I can. As for
+expression of affection towards my brothers and sisters, my companions
+or friends, the stronger the affection the less inclination have I to
+express it. Yet sometimes I think myself the most frank, open, and
+communicative of beings, and at other times the most reserved. If you
+can resolve all these caprices into general principles, you will do
+more than I can. Your speaking so much philosophically has a tendency
+to repress confidence. We never wish to have our feelings analyzed
+down; and very little, nothing, that we say brought to the test of
+mathematical demonstration.
+
+"It appears to me that if I only could adopt the views of God you
+presented to my mind, they would exert a strong and beneficial
+influence over my character. But I am afraid to accept them for several
+reasons. First, it seems to be taking from the majesty and dignity
+of the divine character to suppose that his happiness can be at all
+affected by the conduct of his sinful, erring creatures. Secondly, it
+seems to me that such views of God would have an effect on our own
+minds in lessening that reverence and fear which is one of the greatest
+motives to us for action. For, although to a generous mind the thought
+of the love of God would be a sufficient incentive to action, there are
+times of coldness when that love is not felt, and then there remains no
+sort of stimulus. I find as I adopt these sentiments I feel less fear
+of God, and, in view of sin, I feel only a sensation of grief which is
+more easily dispelled and forgotten than that I formerly felt."
+
+A letter dated January 3, 1828, shows us that Harriet had returned to
+Hartford and was preparing herself to teach drawing and painting, under
+the direction of her sister Catherine.
+
+    MY DEAR GRANDMOTHER,--I should have written before to
+    assure you of my remembrance of you, but I have been
+    constantly employed, from nine in the morning till
+    after dark at night, in taking lessons of a painting
+    and drawing master, with only an intermission long
+    enough to swallow a little dinner which was sent to me
+    in the school-room. You may easily believe that after
+    spending the day in this manner, I did not feel in a
+    very epistolary humor in the evening, and if I had
+    been, I could not have written, for when I did not go
+    immediately to bed I was obliged to get a long French
+    lesson.
+
+    The seminary is finished, and the school going on
+    nicely. Miss Clarissa Brown is assisting Catherine in
+    the school. Besides her, Catherine, and myself, there
+    are two other teachers who both board in the family
+    with us: one is Miss Degan, an Italian lady who teaches
+    French and Italian; she rooms with me, and is very
+    interesting and agreeable. Miss Hawks is rooming with
+    Catherine. In some respects she reminds me very much
+    of my mother. She is gentle, affectionate, modest, and
+    retiring, and much beloved by all the scholars.... I
+    am still going on with my French, and carrying two
+    young ladies through Virgil, and if I have time, shall
+    commence Italian.
+
+    I am very comfortable and happy.
+
+    I propose, my dear grandmamma, to send you by the first
+    opportunity a dish of fruit of my own painting. Pray
+    do not now devour it in anticipation, for I cannot
+    promise that you will not find it sadly tasteless in
+    reality. If so, please excuse it, for the sake of the
+    poor young artist. I admire to cultivate a taste for
+    painting, and I wish to improve it; it was what my
+    dear mother admired and loved, and I cherish it for
+    her sake. I have thought more of this dearest of all
+    earthly friends these late years, since I have been old
+    enough to know her character and appreciate her worth.
+    I sometimes think that, had she lived, I might have
+    been both better and happier than I now am, but God is
+    good and wise in all his ways.
+
+A letter written to her brother Edward in Boston, dated March 27, 1828,
+shows how slowly she adopted the view of God that finally became one of
+the most characteristic elements in her writings.
+
+"I think that those views of God which you have presented to me have
+had an influence in restoring my mind to its natural tone. But still,
+after all, God is a being afar off. He is so far above us that anything
+but the most distant reverential affection seems almost sacrilegious.
+It is that affection that can lead us to be familiar that the heart
+needs. But easy and familiar expressions of attachment and that sort
+of confidential communication which I should address to papa or you
+would be improper for a subject to address to a king, much less for
+us to address to the King of kings. The language of prayer is of
+necessity stately and formal, and we cannot clothe all the little
+minutić of our wants and troubles in it. I wish I could describe to you
+how I feel when I pray. I feel that I love God,--that is, that I love
+Christ,--that I find comfort and happiness in it, and yet it is not
+that kind of comfort which would arise from free communication of my
+wants and sorrows to a friend. I sometimes wish that the Saviour were
+visibly present in this world, that I might go to Him for a solution of
+some of my difficulties.... Do you think, my dear brother, that there
+is such a thing as so realizing the presence and character of God that
+He can supply the place of earthly friends? I really wish to know what
+you think of this.... Do you suppose that God really loves sinners
+before they come to Him? Some say that we ought to tell them that God
+hates them, that He looks on them with utter abhorrence, and that they
+must love Him before He will look on them otherwise. Is it right to say
+to those who are in deep distress, 'God is interested in you; He feels
+for and loves you'?"
+
+Appended to this letter is a short note from Miss Catherine Beecher,
+who evidently read the letter over and answered Harriet's questions
+herself. She writes: "When the young man came to Jesus, is it not said
+that Jesus loved him, though he was unrenewed?"
+
+In April, 1828, Harriet again writes to her brother Edward:--
+
+"I have had more reason to be grateful to that friend than ever
+before. He has not left me in all my weakness. It seems to me that
+my love to Him is the love of despair. All my communion with Him,
+though sorrowful, is soothing. I am painfully sensible of ignorance
+and deficiency, but still I feel that I am willing that He should know
+all. He will look on all that is wrong only to purify and reform. He
+will never be irritated or impatient. He will never show me my faults
+in such a manner as to irritate without helping me. A friend to whom I
+would acknowledge all my faults must be perfect. Let any one once be
+provoked, once speak harshly to me, once sweep all the chords of my
+soul out of tune, I never could confide there again. It is only to the
+most perfect Being in the universe that imperfection can look and hope
+for patience. How strange!... You do not know how harsh and forbidding
+everything seems, compared with his character. All through the day in
+my intercourse with others, everything has a tendency to destroy the
+calmness of mind gained by communion with Him. One flatters me, another
+is angry with me, another is unjust to me.
+
+"You speak of your predilections for literature having been a snare to
+you. I have found it so myself. I can scarcely think, without tears
+and indignation, that all that is beautiful and lovely and poetical
+has been laid on other altars. Oh! will there never be a poet with a
+heart enlarged and purified by the Holy Spirit, who shall throw all the
+graces of harmony, all the enchantments of feeling, pathos, and poetry,
+around sentiments worthy of them?... It matters little what service He
+has for me.... I do not mean to live in vain. He has given me talents,
+and I will lay them at his feet, well satisfied, if He will accept
+them. All my powers He can enlarge. He made my mind, and He can teach
+me to cultivate and exert its faculties."
+
+The following November she writes from Groton, Conn., to Miss May:--
+
+"I am in such an uncertain, unsettled state, traveling back and
+forth, that I have very little time to write. In the first place, on
+my arrival in Boston I was obliged to spend two days in talking and
+telling news. Then after that came calling, visiting, etc., and then I
+came off to Groton to see my poor brother George, who was quite out of
+spirits and in very trying circumstances. To-morrow I return to Boston
+and spend four or five days, and then go to Franklin, where I spend the
+rest of my vacation.
+
+"I found the folks all well on my coming to Boston, and as to my new
+brother, James, he has nothing to distinguish him from forty other
+babies, except a very large pair of blue eyes and an uncommonly fair
+complexion, a thing which is of no sort of use or advantage to a man or
+boy.
+
+"I am thinking very seriously of remaining in Groton and taking care of
+the female school, and at the same time being of assistance and company
+for George. On some accounts it would not be so pleasant as returning
+to Hartford, for I should be among strangers. Nothing upon this point
+can be definitely decided till I have returned to Boston, and talked to
+papa and Catherine."
+
+Evidently papa and Catherine did not approve of the Groton plan, for
+in February of the following winter Harriet writes from Hartford to
+Edward, who is at this time with his father in Boston:--
+
+"My situation this winter (1829) is in many respects pleasant. I room
+with three other teachers, Miss Fisher, Miss Mary Dutton, and Miss
+Brigham. Ann Fisher you know. Miss Dutton is about twenty, has a fine
+mathematical mind, and has gone as far into that science perhaps as
+most students at college. She is also, as I am told, quite learned in
+the languages.... Miss Brigham is somewhat older: is possessed of a
+fine mind and most unconquerable energy and perseverance of character.
+From early childhood she has been determined to obtain an education,
+and to attain to a certain standard. Where persons are determined to
+be anything, they will be. I think, for this reason, she will make a
+first-rate character. Such are my companions. We spend our time in
+school during the day, and in studying in the evening. My plan of study
+is to read rhetoric and prepare exercises for my class the first half
+hour in the evening; after that the rest of the evening is divided
+between French and Italian. Thus you see the plan of my employment and
+the character of my immediate companions. Besides these, there are
+others among the teachers and scholars who must exert an influence
+over my character. Miss Degan, whose constant occupation it is to make
+others laugh; Mrs. Gamage, her room-mate, a steady, devoted, sincere
+Christian.... Little things have great power over me, and if I meet
+with the least thing that crosses my feelings, I am often rendered
+unhappy for days and weeks.... I wish I could bring myself to feel
+perfectly indifferent to the opinions of others. I believe that there
+never was a person more dependent on the good and evil opinions of
+those around than I am. This desire to be loved forms, I fear, the
+great motive for all my actions.... I have been reading carefully the
+book of Job, and I do not think that it contains the views of God which
+you presented to me. God seems to have stripped a dependent creature
+of all that renders life desirable, and then to have answered his
+complaints from the whirlwind; and instead of showing mercy and pity,
+to have overwhelmed him by a display of his power and justice.... With
+the view I received from you, I should have expected that a being who
+sympathizes with his guilty, afflicted creatures would not have spoken
+thus. Yet, after all, I do believe that God is such a being as you
+represent Him to be, and in the New Testament I find in the character
+of Jesus Christ a revelation of God as merciful and compassionate; in
+fact, just such a God as I need.
+
+"Somehow or another you have such a reasonable sort of way of saying
+things that when I come to reflect I almost always go over to your
+side.... My mind is often perplexed, and such thoughts arise in it
+that I cannot pray, and I become bewildered. The wonder to me is, how
+all ministers and all Christians can feel themselves so inexcusably
+sinful, when it seems to me we all come into the world in such a way
+that it would be miraculous if we did not sin. Mr. Hawes always says in
+prayer, 'We have nothing to offer in extenuation of any of our sins,'
+and I always think when he says it, that we have everything to offer
+in extenuation. The case seems to me exactly as if I had been brought
+into the world with such a thirst for ardent spirits that there was
+just a possibility, though no hope, that I should resist, and then
+my eternal happiness made dependent on my being temperate. Sometimes
+when I try to confess my sins, I feel that after all I am more to be
+pitied than blamed, for I have never known the time when I have not
+had a temptation within me so strong that it was certain I should not
+overcome it. This thought shocks me, but it comes with such force, and
+so appealingly, to all my consciousness, that it stifles all sense of
+sin....
+
+"Sometimes when I read the Bible, it seems to be wholly grounded on
+the idea that the sin of man is astonishing, inexcusable, and without
+palliation or cause, and the atonement is spoken of as such a wonderful
+and undeserved mercy that I am filled with amazement. Yet if I give up
+the Bible I gain nothing, for the providence of God in nature is just
+as full of mystery, and of the two I think that the Bible, with all its
+difficulties, is preferable to being without it; for the Bible holds
+out the hope that in a future world all shall be made plain.... So you
+see I am, as Mr. Hawes says, 'on the waves,' and all I can do is to
+take the word of God that He does do right and there I rest."
+
+The following summer, in July, she writes to Edward: "I have never
+been so happy as this summer. I began it in more suffering than I
+ever before have felt, but there is One whom I daily thank for all
+that suffering, since I hope that it has brought me at last to rest
+entirely in Him. I do hope that my long, long course of wandering and
+darkness and unhappiness is over, and that I have found in Him who died
+for me all, and more than all, I could desire. Oh, Edward, you can
+feel as I do; you can speak of Him! There are few, very few, who can.
+Christians in general do not seem to look to Him as their best friend,
+or realize anything of his unutterable love. They speak with a cold,
+vague, reverential awe, but do not speak as if in the habit of close
+and near communion; as if they confided to Him every joy and sorrow and
+constantly looked to Him for direction and guidance. I cannot express
+to you, my brother, I cannot tell you, how that Saviour appears to me.
+To bear with one so imperfect, so weak, so inconsistent, as myself,
+implied, long-suffering and patience more than words can express. I
+love most to look on Christ as my teacher, as one who, knowing the
+utmost of my sinfulness, my waywardness, my folly, can still have
+patience; can reform, purify, and daily make me more like himself."
+
+So, after four years of struggling and suffering, she returns to the
+place where she started from as a child of thirteen. It has been
+like watching a ship with straining masts and storm-beaten sails,
+buffeted by the waves, making for the harbor, and coming at last to
+quiet anchorage. There have been, of course, times of darkness and
+depression, but never any permanent loss of the religious trustfulness
+and peace of mind indicated by this letter.
+
+The next three years were passed partly in Boston, and partly in
+Guilford and Hartford. Writing of this period of her life to the Rev.
+Charles Beecher, she says:--
+
+    MY DEAR BROTHER,--The looking over of father's letters
+    in the period of his Boston life brings forcibly to
+    my mind many recollections. At this time I was more
+    with him, and associated in companionship of thought
+    and feeling for a longer period than any other of my
+    experience.
+
+In the summer of 1832 she writes to Miss May, revealing her spiritual
+and intellectual life in a degree unusual, even for her.
+
+"After the disquisition on myself above cited, you will be prepared to
+understand the changes through which this wonderful _ego et me ipse_
+has passed.
+
+"The amount of the matter has been, as this inner world of mine has
+become worn out and untenable, I have at last concluded to come out of
+it and live in the external one, and, as F---- S---- once advised me,
+to give up the pernicious habit of meditation to the first Methodist
+minister that would take it, and try to mix in society somewhat as
+another person would.
+
+"'_Horas non numero nisi serenas._' Uncle Samuel, who sits by me,
+has just been reading the above motto, the inscription on a sun-dial
+in Venice. It strikes me as having a distant relationship to what I
+was going to say. I have come to a firm resolution to count no hours
+but unclouded ones, and to let all others slip out of my memory and
+reckoning as quickly as possible....
+
+"I am trying to cultivate a general spirit of kindliness towards
+everybody. Instead of shrinking into a corner to notice how other
+people behave, I am holding out my hand to the right and to the left,
+and forming casual or incidental acquaintances with all who will be
+acquainted with me. In this way I find society full of interest and
+pleasure--a pleasure which pleaseth me more because it is not old and
+worn out. From these friendships I expect little; therefore generally
+receive more than I expect. From past friendships I have expected
+everything, and must of necessity have been disappointed. The kind
+words and looks and smiles I call forth by looking and smiling are not
+much by themselves, but they form a very pretty flower border to the
+way of life. They embellish the day or the hour as it passes, and when
+they fade they only do just as you expected they would. This kind of
+pleasure in acquaintanceship is new to me. I never tried it before.
+When I used to meet persons, the first inquiry was, 'Have they such and
+such a character, or have they anything that might possibly be of use
+or harm to me?'"
+
+It is striking, the degree of interest a letter had for her.
+
+"Your long letter came this morning. It revived much in my heart.
+Just think how glad I must have been this morning to hear from you. I
+was glad.... I thought of it through all the vexations of school this
+morning.... I have a letter at home; and when I came home from school,
+I went leisurely over it.
+
+"This evening I have spent in a little social party,--a dozen or
+so,--and I have been zealously talking all the evening. When I
+came to my cold, lonely room, there was your letter lying on the
+dressing-table. It touched me with a sort of painful pleasure, for it
+seems to me uncertain, improbable, that I shall ever return and find
+you as I have found your letter. Oh, my dear G----, it is scarcely
+well to love friends thus. The greater part that I see cannot move me
+deeply. They are present, and I enjoy them; they pass and I forget
+them. But those that I love differently; those that I LOVE; and oh,
+how much that word means! I feel sadly about them. They may change;
+they must die; they are separated from me, and I ask myself why should
+I wish to love with all the pains and penalties of such conditions? I
+check myself when expressing feelings like this, so much has been said
+of it by the sentimental, who talk what they could not have felt. But
+it is so deeply, sincerely so in me, that sometimes it will overflow.
+Well, there is a heaven,--a heaven,--a world of love, and love after
+all is the life-blood, the existence, the all in all of mind."
+
+This is the key to her whole life. She was impelled by love, and did
+what she did, and wrote what she did, under the impulse of love. Never
+could "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or "The Minister's Wooing" have been written,
+unless by one to whom love was the "life-blood of existence, the all in
+all of mind." Years afterwards Mrs. Browning was to express this same
+thought in the language of poetry.
+
+    "But when a soul by choice and conscience doth
+     Throw out her full force on another soul,
+     The conscience and the concentration both
+     Make mere life love. For life in perfect whole
+     And aim consummated is love in sooth,
+     As nature's magnet heat rounds pole with pole."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CINCINNATI, 1832-1836.
+
+    DR. BEECHER CALLED TO CINCINNATI.--THE WESTWARD
+    JOURNEY.--FIRST LETTER FROM HOME.--DESCRIPTION
+    OF WALNUT HILLS.--STARTING A NEW SCHOOL.--INWARD
+    GLIMPSES.--THE SEMI-COLON CLUB.--EARLY IMPRESSIONS OF
+    SLAVERY.--A JOURNEY TO THE EAST.--THOUGHTS AROUSED BY
+    FIRST VISIT TO NIAGARA.--MARRIAGE TO PROFESSOR STOWE.
+
+
+IN 1832, after having been settled for six years over the Hanover
+Street Church in Boston, Dr. Beecher received and finally accepted a
+most urgent call to become President of Lane Theological Seminary in
+Cincinnati. This institution had been chartered in 1829, and in 1831
+funds to the amount of nearly $70,000 had been promised to it provided
+that Dr. Beecher accepted the presidency. It was hard for this New
+England family to sever the ties of a lifetime and enter on so long
+a journey to the far distant West of those days; but being fully
+persuaded that their duty lay in this direction, they undertook to
+perform it cheerfully and willingly. With Dr. Beecher and his wife were
+to go Miss Catherine Beecher, who had conceived the scheme of founding
+in Cincinnati, then considered the capital of the West, a female
+college, and Harriet, who was to act as her principal assistant. In the
+party were also George, who was to enter Lane as a student, Isabella,
+James, the youngest son, and Miss Esther Beecher, the "Aunt Esther" of
+the children.
+
+Before making his final decision, Dr. Beecher, accompanied by his
+daughter Catherine, visited Cincinnati to take a general survey of
+their proposed battlefield, and their impressions of the city are given
+in the following letter written by the latter to Harriet in Boston:--
+
+"Here we are at last at our journey's end, alive and well. We are
+staying with Uncle Samuel (Foote), whose establishment I will try and
+sketch for you. It is on a height in the upper part of the city, and
+commands a fine view of the whole of the lower town. The city does not
+impress me as being so very new. It is true everything looks neat and
+clean, but it is compact, and many of the houses are of brick and very
+handsomely built. The streets run at right angles to each other, and
+are wide and well paved. We reached here in three days from Wheeling,
+and soon felt ourselves at home. The next day father and I, with three
+gentlemen, walked out to Walnut Hills. The country around the city
+consists of a constant succession and variety of hills of all shapes
+and sizes, forming an extensive amphitheatre. The site of the seminary
+is very beautiful and picturesque, though I was disappointed to find
+that both river and city are hidden by intervening hills. I never saw
+a place so capable of being rendered a paradise by the improvements
+of taste as the environs of this city. Walnut Hills are so elevated
+and cool that people have to leave there to be sick, it is said. The
+seminary is located on a farm of one hundred and twenty-five acres of
+fine land, with groves of superb trees around it, about two miles from
+the city. We have finally decided on the spot where our house shall
+stand in case we decide to come, and you cannot (where running water
+or the seashore is wanting) find another more delightful spot for a
+residence. It is on an eminence, with a grove running up from the back
+to the very doors, another grove across the street in front, and fine
+openings through which distant hills and the richest landscapes appear.
+
+"I have become somewhat acquainted with those ladies we shall have
+the most to do with, and find them intelligent, New England sort of
+folks. Indeed, this is a New England city in all its habits, and its
+inhabitants are more than half from New England. The Second Church,
+which is the best in the city, will give father a unanimous call to be
+their minister, with the understanding that he will give them what time
+he can spare from the seminary.
+
+"I know of no place in the world where there is so fair a prospect of
+finding everything that makes social and domestic life pleasant. Uncle
+John and Uncle Samuel are just the intelligent, sociable, free, and
+hospitable sort of folk that everybody likes and everybody feels at
+home with.
+
+"The folks are very anxious to have a school on our plan set on foot
+here. We can have fine rooms in the city college building, which is
+now unoccupied, and everybody is ready to lend a helping hand. As to
+father, I never saw such a field of usefulness and influence as is
+offered to him here."
+
+This, then, was the field of labor in which the next eighteen years
+of the life of Mrs. Stowe were to be passed. At this time her sister
+Mary was married and living in Hartford, her brothers Henry Ward and
+Charles were in college, while William and Edward, already licensed to
+preach, were preparing to follow their father to the West.
+
+[Illustration: THE HOME AT WALNUT HILLS, CINCINNATI.]
+
+Mr. Beecher's preliminary journey to Cincinnati was undertaken in
+the early spring of 1832, but he was not ready to remove his family
+until October of that year. An interesting account of this westward
+journey is given by Mrs. Stowe in a letter sent back to Hartford from
+Cincinnati, as follows:--
+
+"Well, my dear, the great sheet is out and the letter is begun. All our
+family are here (in New York), and in good health.
+
+"Father is to perform to-night in the Chatham Theatre! 'positively
+for the _last_ time this season!' I don't know, I'm sure, as we shall
+ever get to Pittsburgh. Father is staying here begging money for the
+Biblical Literature professorship; the incumbent is to be C. Stowe.
+Last night we had a call from Arthur Tappan and Mr. Eastman. Father
+begged $2,000 yesterday, and now the good people are praying him to
+abide certain days, as he succeeds so well. They are talking of sending
+us off and keeping him here. I really dare not go and see Aunt Esther
+and mother now; they were in the depths of tribulation before at
+staying so long, and now,
+
+    'In the lowest depths, _another_ deep!'
+
+Father is in high spirits. He is all in his own element,--dipping into
+books; consulting authorities for his oration; going round here, there,
+everywhere; begging, borrowing, and spoiling the Egyptians; delighted
+with past success and confident for the future.
+
+"Wednesday. Still in New York. I believe it would kill me dead to live
+long in the way I have been doing since I have been here. It is a sort
+of agreeable delirium. There's only one thing about it, it is too
+_scattering_. I begin to be athirst for the waters of quietness."
+
+Writing from Philadelphia, she adds:--
+
+"Well, we did get away from New York at last, but it was through much
+tribulation. The truckman carried all the family baggage to the wrong
+wharf, and, after waiting and waiting on board the boat, we were
+obliged to start without it, George remaining to look it up. Arrived
+here late Saturday evening,--dull, drizzling weather; poor Aunt Esther
+in dismay,--not a clean cap to put on,--mother in like state; all of
+us destitute. We went, half to Dr. Skinner's and half to Mrs. Elmes's:
+mother, Aunt Esther, father, and James to the former; Kate, Bella, and
+myself to Mr. Elmes's. They are rich, hospitable folks, and act the
+part of Gaius in apostolic times.... Our trunks came this morning.
+Father stood and saw them all brought into Dr. Skinner's entry, and
+then he swung his hat and gave a 'hurrah,' as any man would whose
+wife had not had a clean cap or ruffle for a week. Father does not
+succeed very well in opening purses here. Mr. Eastman says, however,
+that this is not of much consequence. I saw to-day a notice in the
+'Philadelphian' about father, setting forth how 'this distinguished
+brother, with his large family, having torn themselves from the
+endearing scenes of their home,' etc., etc., 'were going, like Jacob,'
+etc.,--a very scriptural and appropriate flourish. It is too much after
+the manner of men, or, as Paul says, speaking 'as a fool.' A number of
+the pious people of this city are coming here this evening to hold a
+prayer-meeting with reference to the journey and its object. For _this_
+I thank them."
+
+From Downington she writes:--
+
+"Here we all are,--Noah and his wife and his sons and his daughters,
+with the cattle and creeping things, all dropped down in the front
+parlor of this tavern, about thirty miles from Philadelphia. If to-day
+is a fair specimen of our journey, it will be a very pleasant, obliging
+driver, good roads, good spirits, good dinner, fine scenery, and now
+and then some 'psalms and hymns and spiritual songs;' for with George
+on board you may be sure of music of some kind. Moreover, George has
+provided himself with a quantity of tracts, and he and the children
+have kept up a regular discharge at all the wayfaring people we
+encountered. I tell him he is _peppering_ the land with moral influence.
+
+"We are all well; all in good spirits. Just let me give you a peep
+into our traveling household. Behold us, then, in the front parlor of
+this country inn, all as much at home as if we were in Boston. Father
+is sitting opposite to me at this table, reading; Kate is writing a
+billet-doux to Mary on a sheet like this; Thomas is opposite, writing
+in a little journal that he keeps; Sister Bell, too, has her little
+record; George is waiting for a seat that he may produce his paper
+and write. As for me, among the multitude of my present friends, my
+heart still makes occasional visits to absent ones,--visits full of
+pleasure, and full of cause of gratitude to Him who gives us friends.
+I have thought of you often to-day, my G. We stopped this noon at a
+substantial Pennsylvania tavern, and among the flowers in the garden
+was a late monthly honeysuckle like the one at North Guilford. I made
+a spring for it, but George secured the finest bunch, which he wore in
+his button-hole the rest of the noon.
+
+"This afternoon, as we were traveling, we struck up and sang 'Jubilee.'
+It put me in mind of the time when we used to ride along the rough
+North Guilford roads and make the air vocal as we went along. Pleasant
+times those. Those were blue skies, and that was a beautiful lake and
+noble pine-trees and rocks they were that hung over it. But those we
+shall look upon 'na mair.'
+
+"Well, my dear, there is a land where we shall not _love_ and _leave_.
+Those skies shall never cease to shine, the waters of life we shall
+_never_ be called upon _to leave_. We have here no continuing city, but
+we seek one to come. In such thoughts as these I desire ever to rest,
+and with such words as these let us 'comfort one another and edify one
+another.'"
+
+"Harrisburg, Sunday evening. Mother, Aunt Esther, George, and the
+little folks have just gathered into Kate's room, and we have just been
+singing. Father has gone to preach for Mr. De Witt. To-morrow we expect
+to travel sixty-two miles, and in two more days shall reach Wheeling;
+there we shall take the steamboat to Cincinnati."
+
+On the same journey George Beecher writes:--
+
+"We had poor horses in crossing the mountains. Our average rate for
+the last four days to Wheeling was forty-four miles. The journey,
+which takes the mail-stage forty-eight hours, took us eight days.
+At Wheeling we deliberated long whether to go on board a boat for
+Cincinnati, but the prevalence of the cholera there at last decided
+us to remain. While at Wheeling father preached eleven times,--nearly
+every evening,--and gave them the Taylorite heresy on sin and decrees
+to the highest notch; and what amused me most was to hear him establish
+it from the Confession of Faith. It went high and dry, however, above
+all objections, and they were delighted with it, even the old school
+men, since it had not been christened 'heresy' in their hearing. After
+remaining in Wheeling eight days, we chartered a stage for Cincinnati,
+and started next morning.
+
+"At Granville, Ohio, we were invited to stop and attend a protracted
+meeting. Being in no great hurry to enter Cincinnati till the cholera
+had left, we consented. We spent the remainder of the week there, and I
+preached five times and father four. The interest was increasingly deep
+and solemn each day, and when we left there were forty-five cases of
+conversion in the town, besides those from the surrounding towns. The
+people were astonished at the doctrine; said they never saw the truth
+so plain in their lives."
+
+Although the new-comers were cordially welcomed in Cincinnati, and
+everything possible was done for their comfort and to make them feel
+at home, they felt themselves to be strangers in a strange land.
+Their homesickness and yearnings for New England are set forth by the
+following extracts from Mrs. Stowe's answer to the first letter they
+received from Hartford after leaving there:--
+
+MY DEAR SISTER (Mary),--The Hartford letter from all and sundry has
+just arrived, and after cutting all manner of capers expressive of
+thankfulness, I have skipped three stairs at a time up to the study
+to begin an answer. My notions of answering letters are according
+to the literal sense of the word; not waiting six months and then
+scrawling a lazy reply, but sitting down the moment you have read a
+letter, and telling, as Dr. Woods says, "How the subject strikes you."
+I wish I could be clear that the path of duty lay in talking to you
+this afternoon, but as I find a loud call to consider the heels of
+George's stockings, I must only write a word or two, and then resume
+my darning-needle. You don't know how anxiously we all have watched
+for some intelligence from Hartford. Not a day has passed when I have
+not been the efficient agent in getting somebody to the post-office,
+and every day my heart has sunk at the sound of "no letters." I felt a
+tremor quite sufficient for a lover when I saw your handwriting once
+more, so you see that in your old age you can excite quite as much
+emotion as did the admirable Miss Byron in her adoring Sir Charles. I
+hope the consideration and digestion of this fact will have its due
+weight in encouraging you to proceed.
+
+The fact of our having received said letter is as yet a state secret,
+not to be made known till all our family circle "in full assembly meet"
+at the tea-table. Then what an illumination! "How we shall be edified
+and fructified," as that old Methodist said. It seems too bad to keep
+it from mother and Aunt Esther a whole afternoon, but then I have the
+comfort of thinking that we are consulting for their greatest happiness
+"on the whole," which is metaphysical benevolence.
+
+So kind Mrs. Parsons stopped in the very midst of her pumpkin pies to
+think of us? Seems to me I can see her bright, cheerful face now! And
+then those well known handwritings! We _do_ love our Hartford friends
+dearly; there can be, I think, no controverting that fact. Kate says
+that the word _love_ is used in _six senses_, and I am sure in some one
+of them they will all come in. Well, good-by for the present.
+
+Evening. Having finished the last hole on George's black vest, I stick
+in my needle and sit down to be sociable. You don't know how coming
+away from New England has sentimentalized us all! Never was there
+such an abundance of meditation on our native land, on the joys of
+friendship, the pains of separation. Catherine had an alarming paroxysm
+in Philadelphia which expended itself in "The Emigrant's Farewell."
+After this was sent off she felt considerably relieved. My symptoms
+have been of a less acute kind, but, I fear, more enduring. There! the
+tea-bell rings. Too bad! I was just going to say something bright. Now
+to take your letter and run! How they will stare when I produce it!
+
+After tea. Well, we have had a fine time. When supper was about half
+over, Catherine began: "We have a dessert that we have been saving all
+the afternoon," and then I held up my letter. "See here, this is from
+Hartford!" I wish you could have seen Aunt Esther's eyes brighten, and
+mother's pale face all in a smile, and father, as I unfolded the letter
+and began. Mrs. Parsons's notice of her Thanksgiving predicament caused
+just a laugh, and then one or two sighs (I told you we were growing
+sentimental!). We did talk some of keeping it (Thanksgiving), but
+perhaps we should all have felt something of the text, "How shall we
+sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" Your praises of Aunt Esther
+I read twice in an audible voice, as the children made some noise the
+first time. I think I detected a visible blush, though she found at
+that time a great deal to do in spreading bread and butter for James,
+and shuffling his plate; and, indeed, it was rather a vehement attack
+on her humility, since it gave her at least "angelic perfection," if
+not "Adamic" (to use Methodist technics). Jamie began his Sunday-school
+career yesterday. The superintendent asked him how old he was. "I'm
+four years old now, and when it _snows very hard_ I shall be five," he
+answered. I have just been trying to make him interpret his meaning;
+but he says, "Oh, I said so because I could not think of anything else
+to say." By the by, Mary, speaking of the temptations of cities, I
+have much solicitude on Jamie's account lest he should form improper
+intimacies, for yesterday or day before we saw him parading by the
+house with his arm over the neck of a great hog, apparently on the most
+amicable terms possible; and the other day he actually got upon the
+back of one, and rode some distance. So much for allowing these animals
+to promenade the streets, a particular in which Mrs. Cincinnati has
+imitated the domestic arrangements of some of her elder sisters, and a
+very disgusting one it is.
+
+Our family physician is one Dr. Drake, a man of a good deal of
+science, theory, and reputed skill, but a sort of general mark for
+the opposition of all the medical cloth of the city. He is a tall,
+rectangular, perpendicular sort of a body, as stiff as a poker, and
+enunciates his prescriptions very much as though he were delivering
+a discourse on the doctrine of election. The other evening he was
+detained from visiting Kate, and he sent a very polite, ceremonious
+note containing a prescription, with Dr. D.'s compliments to Miss
+Beecher, requesting that she would take the inclosed in a little
+molasses at nine o'clock precisely.
+
+The house we are at present inhabiting is the most inconvenient,
+ill-arranged, good-for-nothing, and altogether to be execrated affair
+that ever was put together. It was evidently built without a thought of
+a winter season. The kitchen is so disposed that it cannot be reached
+from any part of the house without going out into the air. Mother is
+actually obliged to put on a bonnet and cloak every time she goes into
+it. In the house are two parlors with folding doors between them. The
+back parlor has but one window, which opens on a veranda and has its
+lower half painted to keep out what little light there is. I need
+scarcely add that our landlord is an old bachelor and of course acted
+up to the light he had, though he left little enough of it for his
+tenants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During this early Cincinnati life Harriet suffered much from ill-health
+accompanied by great mental depression; but in spite of both she
+labored diligently with her sister Catherine in establishing their
+school. They called it the Western Female Institute, and proposed to
+conduct it upon the college plan, with a faculty of instructors. As all
+these things are treated at length in letters written by Mrs. Stowe to
+her friend, Miss Georgiana May, we cannot do better than turn to them.
+In May, 1833, she writes:--
+
+"Bishop Purcell visited our school to-day and expressed himself as
+greatly pleased that we had opened such an one here. He spoke of my
+poor little geography,[1] and thanked me for the unprejudiced manner
+in which I had handled the Catholic question in it. I was of course
+flattered that he should have known anything of the book.
+
+"How I wish you could see Walnut Hills. It is about two miles from the
+city, and the road to it is as picturesque as you can imagine a road to
+be without 'springs that run among the hills.' Every possible variety
+of hill and vale of beautiful slope, and undulations of land set off by
+velvet richness of turf and broken up by groves and forests of every
+outline of foliage, make the scene Arcadian. You might ride over the
+same road a dozen times a day untired, for the constant variation of
+view caused by ascending and descending hills relieves you from all
+tedium. Much of the wooding is beech of a noble growth. The straight,
+beautiful shafts of these trees as one looks up the cool green recesses
+of the woods seems as though they might form very proper columns for
+a Dryad temple. There! Catherine is growling at me for sitting up so
+late; so 'adieu to music, moonlight, and you.' I meant to tell you an
+abundance of classical things that I have been thinking to-night, but
+'woe's me.'
+
+"Since writing the above my whole time has been taken up in the labor
+of our new school, or wasted in the fatigue and lassitude following
+such labor. To-day is Sunday, and I am staying at home because I think
+it is time to take some efficient means to dissipate the illness and
+bad feelings of divers kinds that have for some time been growing upon
+me. At present there is and can be very little system or regularity
+about me. About half of my time I am scarcely alive, and a great part
+of the rest the slave and sport of morbid feeling and unreasonable
+prejudice. I have everything but good health.
+
+"I still rejoice that this letter will find you in good old
+Connecticut--thrice blessed--'oh, had I the wings of a dove' I would be
+there too. Give my love to Mary H. I remember well how gently she used
+to speak to and smile on that forlorn old daddy that boarded at your
+house one summer. It was associating with her that first put into my
+head the idea of saying something to people who were not agreeable, and
+of saying something when I had nothing to say, as is generally the case
+on such occasions."
+
+Again she writes to the same friend: "Your letter, my dear G., I have
+just received, and read through three times. Now for my meditations
+upon it. What a woman of the world you are grown. How good it would be
+for me to be put into a place which so breaks up and precludes thought.
+Thought, intense emotional thought, has been my disease. How much good
+it might do me to be where I could not but be thoughtless....
+
+"Now, Georgiana, let me copy for your delectation a list of matters
+that I have jotted down for consideration at a teachers' meeting to be
+held to-morrow night. It runneth as follows. Just hear! 'About quills
+and paper on the floor; forming classes; drinking in the entry (cold
+water, mind you); giving leave to speak; recess-bell, etc., etc.' 'You
+are tired, I see,' says Gilpin, 'so am I,' and I spare you.
+
+"I have just been hearing a class of little girls recite, and telling
+them a fairy story which I had to spin out as it went along, beginning
+with 'once upon a time there was,' etc., in the good old-fashioned way
+of stories.
+
+"Recently I have been reading the life of Madame de Staël and
+'Corinne.' I have felt an intense sympathy with many parts of that
+book, with many parts of her character. But in America feelings
+vehement and absorbing like hers become still more deep, morbid, and
+impassioned by the constant habits of self-government which the rigid
+forms of our society demand. They are repressed, and they burn inward
+till they burn the very soul, leaving only dust and ashes. It seems
+to me the intensity with which my mind has thought and felt on every
+subject presented to it has had this effect. It has withered and
+exhausted it, and though young I have no sympathy with the feelings of
+youth. All that is enthusiastic, all that is impassioned in admiration
+of nature, of writing, of character, in devotional thought and
+emotion, or in the emotions of affection, I have felt with vehement
+and absorbing intensity,--felt till my mind is exhausted, and seems
+to be sinking into deadness. Half of my time I am glad to remain in a
+listless vacancy, to busy myself with trifles, since thought is pain,
+and emotion is pain."
+
+During the winter of 1833-34 the young school-teacher became so
+distressed at her own mental listlessness that she made a vigorous
+effort to throw it off. She forced herself to mingle in society, and,
+stimulated by the offer of a prize of fifty dollars by Mr. James Hall,
+editor of the "Western Monthly," a newly established magazine, for the
+best short story, she entered into the competition. Her story, which
+was entitled "Uncle Lot," afterwards republished in the "Mayflower,"
+was by far the best submitted, and was awarded the prize without
+hesitation. This success gave a new direction to her thoughts, gave her
+an insight into her own ability, and so encouraged her that from that
+time on she devoted most of her leisure moments to writing.
+
+Her literary efforts were further stimulated at this time by the
+congenial society of the Semi-Colon Club, a little social circle that
+met on alternate weeks at Mr. Samuel Foote's and Dr. Drake's. The name
+of the club originated with a roundabout and rather weak bit of logic
+set forth by one of its promoters. He said: "You know that in Spanish
+Columbus is called 'Colon.' Now he who discovers a new pleasure is
+certainly half as great as he who discovers a new continent. Therefore
+if Colon discovered a continent, we who have discovered in this club a
+new pleasure should at least be entitled to the name of 'Semi-Colons.'"
+So Semi-Colons they became and remained for some years.
+
+At some meetings compositions were read, and at others nothing
+was read, but the time was passed in a general discussion of some
+interesting topic previously announced. Among the members of the club
+were Professor Stowe, unsurpassed in Biblical learning; Judge James
+Hall, editor of the "Western Monthly;" General Edward King; Mrs.
+Peters, afterwards founder of the Philadelphia School of Design; Miss
+Catherine Beecher; Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz; E. P. Cranch; Dr. Drake;
+S. P. Chase, and many others who afterwards became prominent in their
+several walks of life.
+
+In one of her letters to Miss May, Mrs. Stowe describes one of her
+methods for entertaining the members of the Semi-Colon as follows:--
+
+"I am wondering as to what I shall do next. I have been writing a
+piece to be read next Monday evening at Uncle Sam's _soirée_ (the
+Semi-Colon). It is a letter purporting to be from Dr. Johnson. I have
+been stilting about in his style so long that it is a relief to me to
+come down to the jog of common English. Now I think of it I will just
+give you a history of my campaign in this circle.
+
+"My first piece was a letter from Bishop Butler, written in his
+outrageous style of parentheses and foggification. My second a
+satirical essay on the modern uses of languages. This I shall send
+to you, as some of the gentlemen, it seems, took a fancy to it and
+requested leave to put it in the 'Western Magazine,' and so it is in
+print. It is ascribed to _Catherine_, or I don't know that I should
+have let it go. I have no notion of appearing in _propria personć_.
+
+"The next piece was a satire on certain members who were getting very
+much into the way of joking on the worn-out subjects of matrimony and
+old maid and old bachelorism. I therefore wrote a set of legislative
+enactments purporting to be from the ladies of the society, forbidding
+all such allusions in future. It made some sport at the time. I try not
+to be personal, and to be courteous, even in satire.
+
+"But I have written a piece this week that is making me some disquiet.
+I did not like it that there was so little that was serious and
+rational about the reading. So I conceived the design of writing a _set
+of letters_, and throwing them in, as being the letters of a friend.
+I wrote a letter this week for the first of the set,--easy, not very
+sprightly,--describing an imaginary situation, a house in the country,
+a gentleman and lady, Mr. and Mrs. Howard, as being pious, literary,
+and agreeable. I threw into the letter a number of little particulars
+and incidental allusions to give it the air of having been really a
+letter. I meant thus to give myself an opportunity for the introduction
+of different subjects and the discussion of different characters in
+future letters.
+
+"I meant to write on a great number of subjects in future. Cousin
+Elisabeth, only, was in the secret; Uncle Samuel and Sarah Elliot were
+not to know.
+
+"Yesterday morning I finished my letter, smoked it to make it look
+yellow, tore it to make it look old, directed it and scratched out the
+direction, postmarked it with red ink, sealed it and broke the seal,
+all this to give credibility to the fact of its being a real letter.
+Then I inclosed it in an envelope, stating that it was a part of a
+_set_ which had incidentally fallen into my hands. This envelope was
+written in a scrawny, scrawly, gentleman's hand.
+
+"I put it into the office in the morning, directed to 'Mrs. Samuel E.
+Foote,' and then sent word to Sis that it was coming, so that she
+might be ready to enact the part.
+
+"Well, the deception took. Uncle Sam examined it and pronounced, _ex
+cathedra_, that it must have been a real letter. Mr. Greene (the
+gentleman who reads) declared that it must have come from Mrs. Hall,
+and elucidated the theory by spelling out the names and dates which
+I had erased, which, of course, he accommodated to his own tastes.
+But then, what makes me feel uneasy is that Elisabeth, after reading
+it, did not seem to be exactly satisfied. She thought it had too much
+sentiment, too much particularity of incident,--she did not exactly
+know what. She was afraid that it would be criticised unmercifully.
+Now Elisabeth has a tact and quickness of perception that I trust
+to, and her remarks have made me uneasy enough. I am unused to being
+criticised, and don't know how I shall bear it."
+
+In 1833 Mrs. Stowe first had the subject of slavery brought to her
+personal notice by taking a trip across the river from Cincinnati into
+Kentucky in company with Miss Dutton, one of the associate teachers in
+the Western Institute. They visited an estate that afterwards figured
+as that of Colonel Shelby in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and here the young
+authoress first came into personal contact with the negro slaves of
+the South. In speaking, many years afterwards, of this visit, Miss
+Dutton said: "Harriet did not seem to notice anything in particular
+that happened, but sat much of the time as though abstracted in
+thought. When the negroes did funny things and cut up capers, she did
+not seem to pay the slightest attention to them. Afterwards, however,
+in reading 'Uncle Tom.' I recognized scene after scene of that visit
+portrayed with the most minute fidelity, and knew at once where the
+material for that portion of the story had been gathered."
+
+At this time, however, Mrs. Stowe was more deeply interested in the
+subject of education than in that of slavery, as is shown by the
+following extract from one of her letters to Miss May, who was herself
+a teacher. She says:--
+
+"We mean to turn over the West by means of _model schools_ in this, its
+capital. We mean to have a young lady's school of about fifty or sixty,
+a primary school of little girls to the same amount, and then a primary
+school for _boys_. We have come to the conclusion that the work of
+teaching will never be rightly done till it passes into _female_ hands.
+This is especially true with regard to boys. To govern boys by moral
+influences requires tact and talent and versatility it requires also
+the same division of labor that female education does. But men of tact,
+versatility, talent, and piety will not devote their lives to teaching.
+They must be ministers and missionaries, and all that, and while there
+is such a thrilling call for action in this way, every man who is
+merely teaching feels as if he were a Hercules with a distaff, ready
+to spring to the first trumpet that calls him away. As for division of
+labor, men must have salaries that can support wife and family, and, of
+course, a revenue would be required to support a requisite number of
+teachers if they could be found.
+
+"Then, if men have more knowledge they have less talent at
+communicating it, nor have they the patience, the long-suffering, and
+gentleness necessary to superintend the formation of character. We
+intend to make these principles understood, and ourselves to set the
+example of what females can do in this way. You see that first-rate
+talent is necessary for all that we mean to do, especially for the
+last, because here we must face down the prejudices of society and we
+must have exemplary success to be believed. We want original, planning
+minds, and you do not know how few there are among females, and how few
+we can command of those that exist."
+
+During the summer of 1834 the young teacher and writer made her first
+visit East since leaving New England two years before. Its object
+was mainly to be present at the graduation of her favorite brother,
+Henry Ward, from Amherst College. The earlier part of this journey
+was performed by means of stage to Toledo, and thence by steamer
+to Buffalo. A pleasant bit of personal description, and also of
+impressions of Niagara, seen for the first time on this journey, are
+given in a letter sent back to Cincinnati during its progress. In it
+she says of her fellow-travelers:--
+
+"Then there was a portly, rosy, clever Mr. Smith, or Jones, or
+something the like; and a New Orleans girl looking like distraction, as
+far as dress is concerned, but with the prettiest language and softest
+intonations in the world, and one of those faces which, while you say
+it isn't handsome, keeps you looking all the time to see what it can
+be that is so pretty about it. Then there was Miss B., an independent,
+good-natured, do-as-I-please sort of a body, who seemed of perpetual
+motion from morning till night. Poor Miss D. said, when we stopped at
+night, 'Oh, dear! I suppose Lydia will be fiddling about our room till
+morning, and we shall not one of us sleep.' Then, by way of contrast,
+there was a Mr. Mitchell, the most gentlemanly, obliging man that ever
+changed his seat forty times a day to please a lady. Oh, yes, he could
+ride outside,--or, oh, certainly, he could ride inside,--he had no
+objection to this, or that, or the other. Indeed, it was difficult to
+say what could come amiss to him. He speaks in a soft, quiet manner,
+with something of a drawl, using very correct, well-chosen language,
+and pronouncing all his words with carefulness; has everything in his
+dress and traveling appointments _comme il faut_; and seems to think
+there is abundant time for everything that is to be done in this
+world, without, as he says, 'any unnecessary excitement.' Before the
+party had fully discovered his name he was usually designated as 'the
+obliging gentleman,' or 'that gentleman who is so accommodating.' Yet
+our friend, withal, is of Irish extraction, and I have seen him roused
+to talk with both hands and a dozen words in a breath. He fell into
+a little talk about abolition and slavery with our good Mr. Jones, a
+man whose mode of reasoning consists in repeating the same sentence at
+regular intervals as long as you choose to answer it. This man, who was
+finally convinced that negroes were black, used it as an irrefragible
+argument to all that could be said, and at last began to deduce from
+it that they might just as well be slaves as anything else, and so he
+proceeded till all the philanthropy of our friend was roused, and he
+sprung up all lively and oratorical and gesticulatory and indignant to
+my heart's content. I like to see a quiet man that can be roused."
+
+In the same letter she gives her impressions of Niagara, as follows:--
+
+"I have seen it (Niagara) and yet live. Oh, where is your soul? Never
+mind, though. Let me tell, if I can, what is unutterable. Elisabeth,
+it is not _like_ anything; it did not look like anything I expected;
+it did not look like a waterfall. I did not once think whether it was
+high or low; whether it roared or didn't roar; whether it equaled my
+expectations or not. My mind whirled off, it seemed to me, in a new,
+strange world. It seemed unearthly, like the strange, dim images in the
+Revelation. I thought of the great white throne; the rainbow around
+it; the throne in sight like unto an emerald; and oh! that beautiful
+water rising like moonlight, falling as the soul sinks when it dies,
+to rise refined, spiritualized, and pure. That rainbow, breaking out,
+trembling, fading, and again coming like a beautiful spirit walking the
+waters. Oh, it is lovelier than it is great; it is like the Mind that
+made it: great, but so veiled in beauty that we gaze without terror.
+I felt as if I could have _gone over_ with the waters; it would be
+so beautiful a death; there would be no fear in it. I felt the rock
+tremble under me with a sort of joy. I was so maddened that I could
+have gone too, if it had gone."
+
+While at the East she was greatly affected by hearing of the death of
+her dear friend, Eliza Tyler, the wife of Professor Stowe. This lady
+was the daughter of Dr. Bennett Tyler, president of the Theological
+Institute of Connecticut, at East Windsor; but twenty-five years of
+age at the time of her death, a very beautiful woman gifted with a
+wonderful voice. She was also possessed of a well-stored mind and a
+personal magnetism that made her one of the most popular members of
+the Semi-Colon Club, in the proceedings of which she took an active
+interest.
+
+Her death left Professor Stowe a childless widower, and his forlorn
+condition greatly excited the sympathy of her who had been his wife's
+most intimate friend. It was easy for sympathy to ripen into love,
+and after a short engagement Harriet E. Beecher became the wife of
+Professor Calvin E. Stowe.
+
+Her last act before the wedding was to write the following note to the
+friend of her girlhood, Miss Georgiana May:--
+
+                                         _January 6, 1836._
+
+    Well, my dear G., about half an hour more and your old
+    friend, companion, schoolmate, sister, etc., will cease
+    to be Hatty Beecher and change to nobody knows who. My
+    dear, you are engaged, and pledged in a year or two to
+    encounter a similar fate, and do you wish to know how
+    you shall feel? Well, my dear, I have been dreading
+    and dreading the time, and lying awake all last week
+    wondering how I should live through this overwhelming
+    crisis, and lo! it has come and I feel _nothing at all_.
+
+    The wedding is to be altogether domestic; nobody
+    present but my own brothers and sisters, and my old
+    colleague, Mary Dutton; and as there is a sufficiency
+    of the ministry in our family we have not even to
+    call in the foreign aid of a minister. Sister Katy is
+    not here, so she will not witness my departure from
+    her care and guidance to that of another. None of my
+    numerous friends and acquaintances who have taken such
+    a deep interest in making the connection for me even
+    know the day, and it will be all done and over before
+    they know anything about it.
+
+    Well, it is really a mercy to have this entire
+    stupidity come over one at such a time. I should be
+    crazy to feel as I did yesterday, or indeed to feel
+    anything at all. But I inwardly vowed that my last
+    feelings and reflections on this subject should be
+    yours, and as I have not got any, it is just as well to
+    tell you _that_. Well, here comes Mr. S., so farewell,
+    and for the last time I subscribe
+
+                                    Your own
+                                         H. E. B.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] This geography was begun by Mrs. Stowe during the summer of 1832,
+while visiting her brother William at Newport, R. I. It was completed
+during the winter of 1833, and published by the firm of Corey, Fairbank
+& Webster, of Cincinnati.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+EARLY MARRIED LIFE, 1836-1840.
+
+    PROFESSOR STOWE'S INTEREST IN POPULAR EDUCATION.--HIS
+    DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.--SLAVERY RIOTS IN
+    CINCINNATI.--BIRTH OF TWIN DAUGHTERS.--PROFESSOR
+    STOWE'S RETURN AND VISIT TO COLUMBUS.--DOMESTIC
+    TRIALS.--AIDING A FUGITIVE SLAVE.--AUTHORSHIP UNDER
+    DIFFICULTIES.--A BEECHER ROUND ROBIN.
+
+
+THE letter to her friend Georgiana May, begun half an hour before her
+wedding, was not completed until nearly two months after that event.
+Taking it from her portfolio, she adds:--
+
+"Three weeks have passed since writing the above, and my husband
+and self are now quietly seated by our own fireside, as domestic as
+any pair of tame fowl you ever saw; he writing to his mother, and I
+to you. Two days after our marriage we took a wedding excursion, so
+called, though we would most gladly have been excused this conformity
+to ordinary custom had not necessity required Mr. Stowe to visit
+Columbus, and I had too much adhesiveness not to go too. Ohio roads
+at this season are no joke, I can tell you, though we were, on the
+whole, wonderfully taken care of, and our expedition included as many
+pleasures as an expedition at this time of the year _ever_ could.
+
+"And now, my dear, perhaps the wonder to you, as to me, is how this
+momentous crisis in the life of such a wisp of nerve as myself has
+been transacted so quietly. My dear, it is a wonder to myself. I am
+tranquil, quiet, and happy. I look _only_ on the present, and leave the
+future with Him who has hitherto been so kind to me. 'Take no thought
+for the morrow' is my motto, and my comfort is to rest on Him in whose
+house there are many mansions provided when these fleeting earthly ones
+pass away.
+
+"Dear Georgy, naughty girl that I am, it is a month that I have let
+the above lie by, because I got into a strain of emotion in it that I
+dreaded to return to. Well, so it shall be no longer. In about five
+weeks Mr. Stowe and myself start for New England. He sails the first
+of May. I am going with him to Boston, New York, and other places, and
+shall stop finally at Hartford, whence, as soon as he is gone, it is my
+intention to return westward."
+
+This reference to her husband as about to leave her relates to his
+sailing for Europe to purchase books for Lane Seminary, and also as a
+commissioner appointed by the State of Ohio to investigate the public
+school systems of the old world. He had long been convinced that higher
+education was impossible in the West without a higher grade of public
+schools, and had in 1833 been one of the founders in Cincinnati of
+"The College of Teachers," an institution that existed for ten years,
+and exerted a widespread influence. Its objects were to popularize the
+common schools, raise the standard of teachers, and create a demand
+for education among the people. Professor Stowe was associated in this
+movement with many of the leading intellects of Ohio at that time, and
+among them were Albert Pickett, Dr. Drake, Smith Grimke, Archbishop
+Purcell, President A. H. McGuffey, Dr. Beecher, Lydia Sigourney,
+Caroline Lee Hentz, and others. Their influence finally extended to the
+state legislature, and it was concluded to authorize Professor Stowe,
+when abroad, to investigate and report upon the common school systems
+of Europe, especially Prussia.
+
+He sailed from New York for London in the ship Montreal, Captain
+Champlin, on June 8, 1836, and carried with him, to be opened only
+after he was at sea, a letter from his wife, from which the following
+extract is made:--
+
+"Now, my dear, that you are gone where you are out of the reach of my
+care, advice, and good management, it is fitting that you should have
+something under my hand and seal for your comfort and furtherance in
+the new world you are going to. Firstly, I must caution you to set
+your face as a flint against the 'cultivation of indigo,' as Elisabeth
+calls it, in any way or shape. Keep yourself from it most scrupulously,
+and though you are unprovided with that precious and savory treatise
+entitled 'Kemper's Consolations,'[2] yet you can exercise yourself to
+recall and set in order such parts thereof as would more particularly
+suit your case, particularly those portions wherewith you so much
+consoled Kate, Aunt Esther, and your unworthy handmaid, while you yet
+tarried at Walnut Hills. But seriously, dear one, you must give more
+way to hope than to memory. You are going to a new scene now, and one
+that I hope will be full of enjoyment to you. I want you to take the
+good of it.
+
+"Only think of all you expect to see: the great libraries and
+beautiful paintings, fine churches, and, above all, think of seeing
+Tholuck, your great Apollo. My dear, I wish I were a man in your place;
+if I wouldn't have a grand time!"
+
+During her husband's absence abroad Mrs. Stowe lived quietly in
+Cincinnati with her father and brothers. She wrote occasionally short
+stories, articles, and essays for publication in the "Western Monthly
+Magazine" or the "New York Evangelist," and maintained a constant
+correspondence with her husband by means of a daily journal, which was
+forwarded to him once a month. She also assisted her brother, Henry
+Ward, who had accepted a temporary position as editor of the "Journal,"
+a small daily paper published in the city.
+
+At this time the question of slavery was an exciting one in Cincinnati,
+and Lane Seminary had become a hotbed of abolition. The anti-slavery
+movement among the students was headed by Theodore D. Weld, one
+of their number, who had procured funds to complete his education
+by lecturing through the South. While thus engaged he had been so
+impressed with the evils and horrors of slavery that he had become
+a radical abolitionist, and had succeeded in converting several
+Southerners to his views of the subject. Among them was Mr. J. G.
+Birney of Huntsville, Alabama, who not only liberated his slaves, but
+in connection with Dr. Gamaliel Bailey of Cincinnati founded in that
+city an anti-slavery paper called "The Philanthropist." This paper
+was finally suppressed, and its office wrecked by a mob instigated by
+Kentucky slaveholders, and it is of this event that Mrs. Stowe writes
+to her husband as follows:--
+
+"Yesterday evening I spent scribbling for Henry's newspaper (the
+'Journal') in this wise: 'Birney's printing-press has been mobbed, and
+many of the respectable citizens are disposed to wink at the outrage in
+consideration of its moving in the line of their prejudices.'
+
+"I wrote a conversational sketch, in which I rather satirized this
+inconsistent spirit, and brought out the effects of patronizing _any_
+violation of private rights. It was in a light, sketchy style, designed
+to draw attention to a long editorial of Henry's in which he considers
+the subject fully and seriously. His piece is, I think, a powerful
+one; indeed, he does write very strongly. I am quite proud of his
+editorials; they are well studied, earnest, and dignified. I think
+he will make a first-rate writer. Both our pieces have gone to press
+to-day, with Charles's article on music, and we have had not a little
+diversion about our _family newspaper_.
+
+"I thought, when I was writing last night, that I was, like a good
+wife, defending one of your principles in your absence, and wanted you
+to see how manfully I talked about it. Henry has also taken up and
+examined the question of the Seminole Indians, and done it very nobly."
+
+Again:--
+
+"The excitement about Birney continues to increase. The keeper of the
+Franklin Hotel was assailed by a document subscribed to by many of his
+boarders demanding that Birney should be turned out of doors. He chose
+to negative the demand, and twelve of his boarders immediately left,
+Dr. F. among the number. A meeting has been convoked by means of a
+handbill, in which some of the most respectable men of the city are
+invited by name to come together and consider the question whether they
+will allow Mr. Birney to continue his paper in the city. Mr. Greene
+says that, to his utter surprise, many of the most respectable and
+influential citizens gave out that they should go.
+
+"He was one of the number they invited, but he told those who came to
+him that he would have nothing to do with disorderly public meetings or
+mobs in any shape, and that he was entirely opposed to the whole thing.
+
+"I presume they will have a hot meeting, if they have any at all.
+
+"I wish father were at home to preach a sermon to his church, for many
+of its members do not frown on these things as they ought."
+
+"Later: The meeting was held, and was headed by Morgan, Neville, Judge
+Burke, and I know not who else. Judge Burnet was present and consented
+to their acts. The mob madness is certainly upon this city when men of
+sense and standing will pass resolutions approving in so many words of
+things done contrary to law, as one of the resolutions of this meeting
+did. It quoted the demolition of the tea in Boston harbor as being
+authority and precedent.
+
+"A large body, perhaps the majority of citizens, disapprove, but I fear
+there will not be public disavowal. Even N. Wright but faintly opposes,
+and Dr. Fore has been exceedingly violent. Mr. Hammond (editor of the
+'Gazette') in a very dignified and judicious manner has condemned the
+whole thing, and Henry has opposed, but otherwise the papers have
+either been silent or in favor of mobs. We shall see what the result
+will be in a few days.
+
+"For my part, I can easily see how such proceedings may make converts
+to abolitionism, for already my sympathies are strongly enlisted for
+Mr. Birney, and I hope that he will stand his ground and assert his
+rights. The office is fire-proof, and inclosed by high walls. I wish he
+would man it with armed men and see what can be done. If I were a man
+I would go, for one, and take good care of at least one window. Henry
+sits opposite me writing a most valiant editorial, and tells me to tell
+you he is waxing mighty in battle."
+
+In another letter she writes:--
+
+"I told you in my last that the mob broke into Birney's press, where,
+however, the mischief done was but slight. The object appeared to be
+principally to terrify. Immediately there followed a general excitement
+in which even good men in their panic and prejudice about abolitionism
+forgot that mobs were worse evils than these, talked against Birney,
+and winked at the outrage; N. Wright and Judge Burnet, for example.
+Meanwhile the turbulent spirits went beyond this and talked of
+revolution and of righting things without law that could not be righted
+by it. At the head of these were Morgan, Neville, Longworth, Joseph
+Graham, and Judge Burke. A meeting was convoked at Lower Market Street
+to decide whether they would permit the publishing of an abolition
+paper, and to this meeting all the most respectable citizens were by
+name summoned.
+
+"There were four classes in the city then: Those who meant to go as
+revolutionists and support the mob; those who meant to put down
+Birney, but rather hoped to do it without a mob; those who felt ashamed
+to go, foreseeing the probable consequence, and yet did not decidedly
+frown upon it; and those who sternly and decidedly reprehended it.
+
+"The first class was headed by Neville, Longworth, Graham, etc.; the
+second class, though of some numbers, was less conspicuous; of the
+third, Judge Burnet, Dr. Fore, and N. Wright were specimens; and in
+the last such men as Hammond, Mansfield, S. P. Chase,[3] and Chester
+were prominent. The meeting in so many words voted a mob, nevertheless
+a committee was appointed to wait on Mr. Birney and ascertain what he
+proposed to do; and, strange to tell, men as sensible as Uncle John and
+Judge Burnet were so short-sighted as to act on that committee.
+
+"All the newspapers in the city, except Hammond's ('Gazette') and
+Henry's (the 'Journal'), were either silent or openly 'mobocratic.' As
+might have been expected, Birney refused to leave, and that night the
+mob tore down his press, scattered the types, dragged the whole to the
+river, threw it in, and then came back to demolish the office.
+
+"They then went to the houses of Dr. Bailey, Mr. Donaldson, and Mr.
+Birney; but the persons they sought were not at home, having been
+aware of what was intended. The mayor was a silent spectator of these
+proceedings, and was heard to say, 'Well, lads, you have done well, so
+far; go home now before you disgrace yourselves;' but the 'lads' spent
+the rest of the night and a greater part of the next day (Sunday) in
+pulling down the houses of inoffensive and respectable blacks. The
+'Gazette' office was threatened, the 'Journal' office was to go next;
+Lane Seminary and the water-works also were mentioned as probable
+points to be attacked by the mob.
+
+"By Tuesday morning the city was pretty well alarmed. A regular corps
+of volunteers was organized, who for three nights patrolled the streets
+with firearms and with legal warrant from the mayor, who by this time
+was glad to give it, to put down the mob even by bloodshed.
+
+"For a day or two we did not know but there would actually be war
+to the knife, as was threatened by the mob, and we really saw Henry
+depart with his pistols with daily alarm, only we were all too full of
+patriotism not to have sent every brother we had rather than not have
+had the principles of freedom and order defended.
+
+"But here the tide turned. The mob, unsupported by a now frightened
+community, slunk into their dens and were still; and then Hammond,
+who, during the few days of its prevalence, had made no comments, but
+published simply the Sermon on the Mount, the Constitution of Ohio,
+and the Declaration of Independence, without any comment, now came
+out and gave a simple, concise history of the mob, tracing it to the
+market-house meeting, telling the whole history of the meeting, with
+the names of those who got it up, throwing on them and on those who
+had acted on the committee the whole responsibility of the following
+mob. It makes a terrible sensation, but it 'cuts its way,' and all who
+took other stand than that of steady opposition from the first are
+beginning to feel the reaction of public sentiment, while newspapers
+from abroad are pouring in their reprehensions of the disgraceful
+conduct of Cincinnati. Another time, I suspect, such men as Judge
+Burnet, Mr. Greene, and Uncle John will keep their fingers out of such
+a trap, and people will all learn better than to wink at a mob that
+happens to please them at the outset, or in any way to give it their
+countenance. Mr. Greene and Uncle John were full of wrath against mobs,
+and would not go to the meeting, and yet were cajoled into acting on
+that committee in the vain hope of getting Birney to go away and thus
+preventing the outrage.
+
+"They are justly punished, I think, for what was very irresolute and
+foolish conduct, to say the least."
+
+The general tone of her letters at this time would seem to show that,
+while Mrs. Stowe was anti-slavery in her sympathies, she was not a
+declared abolitionist. This is still further borne out in a letter
+written in 1837 from Putnam, Ohio, whither she had gone for a short
+visit to her brother William. In it she says:--
+
+"The good people here, you know, are about half abolitionists. A lady
+who takes a leading part in the female society in this place yesterday
+called and brought Catherine the proceedings of the Female Anti-Slavery
+Convention.
+
+"I should think them about as ultra as to measures as anything that has
+been attempted, though I am glad to see a better spirit than marks such
+proceedings generally.
+
+"To-day I read some in Mr. Birney's 'Philanthropist.' Abolitionism
+being the fashion here, it is natural to look at its papers.
+
+"It does seem to me that there needs to be an _intermediate_ society.
+If not, as light increases, all the excesses of the abolition party
+will not prevent humane and conscientious men from joining it.
+
+"Pray what is there in Cincinnati to satisfy one whose mind is awakened
+on this subject? No one can have the system of slavery brought before
+him without an irrepressible desire to _do_ something, and what is
+there to be done?"
+
+On September 29, 1836, while Professor Stowe was still absent in
+Europe, his wife gave birth to twin daughters, Eliza and Isabella, as
+she named them; but Eliza Tyler and Harriet Beecher, as her husband
+insisted they should be called, when, upon reaching New York, he was
+greeted by the joyful news. His trip from London in the ship Gladiator
+had been unusually long, even for those days of sailing vessels, and
+extended from November 19, 1836, to January 20, 1837.
+
+During the summer of 1837 Mrs. Stowe suffered much from ill health, on
+which account, and to relieve her from domestic cares, she was sent to
+make a long visit at Putnam with her brother, Rev. William Beecher.
+While here she received a letter from her husband, in which he says:--
+
+"We all of course feel proper indignation at the doings of last General
+Assembly, and shall treat them with merited contempt. This alliance
+between the old school (Presbyterians) and slaveholders will make more
+abolitionists than anything that has been done yet."
+
+In December Professor Stowe went to Columbus with the extended
+educational report that he had devoted the summer to preparing; and in
+writing from there to his wife he says:--
+
+"To-day I have been visiting the governor and legislators. They
+received me with the utmost kindness, and are evidently anticipating
+much from my report. The governor communicated it to the legislature
+to-day, and it is concluded that I read it in Dr. Hodges' church on
+two evenings, to-morrow and the day after, before both houses of the
+legislature and the citizens. The governor (Vance) will preside at both
+meetings. I like him (the governor) much. He is just such a plain,
+simple-hearted, sturdy body as old Fritz (Kaiser Frederick), with more
+of natural talent than his predecessor in the gubernatorial chair. For
+my year's work in this matter I am to receive $500."
+
+On January 14, 1838, Mrs. Stowe's third child, Henry Ellis, was born.
+
+It was about this time that the famous reunion of the Beecher family
+described in Lyman Beecher's "Autobiography" occurred. Edward made a
+visit to the East, and when he returned he brought Mary (Mrs. Thomas
+Perkins) from Hartford with him. William came down from Putnam, Ohio,
+and George from Batavia, New York, while Catherine, Harriet, Henry,
+Charles, Isabella, Thomas, and James were already at home. It was the
+first time they had ever all met together. Mary had never seen James,
+and had seen Thomas but once. The old doctor was almost transported
+with joy as they all gathered about him, and his cup of happiness was
+filled to overflowing when, the next day, which was Sunday, his pulpit
+was filled by Edward in the morning, William in the afternoon, and
+George in the evening.
+
+Side by side with this charming picture we have another of domestic
+life outlined by Mrs. Stowe's own hand. It is contained in the
+following letter, written June 21, 1838, to Miss May, at New Haven,
+Conn.:--
+
+    MY DEAR, DEAR GEORGIANA,--Only think how long it is
+    since I have written to you, and how changed I am since
+    then--the mother of three children! Well, if I have
+    not kept the reckoning of old times, let this last
+    circumstance prove my apology, for I have been hand,
+    heart, and head full since I saw you.
+
+    Now, to-day, for example, I'll tell you what I had
+    on my mind from dawn to dewy eve. In the first place
+    I waked about half after four and thought, "Bless
+    me, how light it is! I must get out of bed and rap
+    to wake up Mina, for breakfast must be had at six
+    o'clock this morning." So out of bed I jump and seize
+    the tongs and pound, pound, pound over poor Mina's
+    sleepy head, charitably allowing her about half an
+    hour to get waked up in,--that being the quantum of
+    time that it takes me,--or used to. Well, then baby
+    wakes--quâ, quâ, quâ, so I give him his breakfast,
+    dozing meanwhile and soliloquizing as follows: "Now I
+    must not forget to tell Mr. Stowe about the starch and
+    dried apples"--doze--"ah, um, dear me! why doesn't Mina
+    get up? I don't hear her,"--doze--"a, um,--I wonder if
+    Mina has soap enough! I think there were two bars left
+    on Saturday"--doze again--I wake again. "Dear me, broad
+    daylight! I must get up and go down and see if Mina is
+    getting breakfast." Up I jump and up wakes baby. "Now,
+    little boy, be good and let mother dress, because she
+    is in a hurry." I get my frock half on and baby by
+    that time has kicked himself down off his pillow, and
+    is crying and fisting the bed-clothes in great order. I
+    stop with one sleeve off and one on to settle matters
+    with him. Having planted him bolt upright and gone all
+    up and down the chamber barefoot to get pillows and
+    blankets to prop him up, I finish putting my frock on
+    and hurry down to satisfy myself by actual observation
+    that the breakfast is in progress. Then back I come
+    into the nursery, where, remembering that it is washing
+    day and that there is a great deal of work to be done,
+    I apply myself vigorously to sweeping, dusting, and the
+    setting to rights so necessary where there are three
+    little mischiefs always pulling down as fast as one can
+    put up.
+
+    Then there are Miss H---- and Miss E----, concerning
+    whom Mary will furnish you with all suitable
+    particulars, who are chattering, hallooing, or singing
+    at the tops of their voices, as may suit their various
+    states of mind, while the nurse is getting their
+    breakfast ready. This meal being cleared away, Mr.
+    Stowe dispatched to market with various memoranda
+    of provisions, etc., and the baby being washed and
+    dressed, I begin to think what next must be done.
+    I start to cut out some little dresses, have just
+    calculated the length and got one breadth torn off when
+    Master Henry makes a doleful lip and falls to crying
+    with might and main. I catch him up and turning round
+    see one of his sisters flourishing the things out of
+    my workbox in fine style. Moving it away and looking
+    the other side I see the second little mischief seated
+    by the hearth chewing coals and scraping up ashes with
+    great apparent relish. Grandmother lays hold upon her
+    and charitably offers to endeavor to quiet baby while
+    I go on with my work. I set at it again, pick up a
+    dozen pieces, measure them once more to see which is
+    the right one, and proceed to cut out some others, when
+    I see the twins on the point of quarreling with each
+    other. Number one pushes number two over. Number two
+    screams: that frightens the baby and he joins in. I
+    call number one a naughty girl, take the persecuted one
+    in my arms, and endeavor to comfort her by trotting to
+    the old lyric:--
+
+    "So ride the gentlefolk,
+     And so do we, so do we."
+
+    Meanwhile number one makes her way to the slop jar and
+    forthwith proceeds to wash her apron in it. Grandmother
+    catches her by one shoulder, drags her away, and sets
+    the jar up out of her reach. By and by the nurse comes
+    up from her sweeping. I commit the children to her, and
+    finish cutting out the frocks.
+
+    But let this suffice, for of such details as these are
+    all my days made up. Indeed, my dear, I am but a mere
+    drudge with few ideas beyond babies and housekeeping.
+    As for thoughts, reflections, and sentiments, good
+    lack! good lack!
+
+    I suppose I am a dolefully uninteresting person at
+    present, but I hope I shall grow young again one of
+    these days, for it seems to me that matters cannot
+    always stand exactly as they do now.
+
+    Well, Georgy, this marriage is--yes, I will speak well
+    of it, after all; for when I can stop and think long
+    enough to discriminate my head from my heels, I must
+    say that I think myself a fortunate woman both in
+    husband and children. My children I would not change
+    for all the ease, leisure, and pleasure that I could
+    have without them. They are money on interest whose
+    value will be constantly increasing.
+
+In 1839 Mrs. Stowe received into her family as a servant a colored
+girl from Kentucky. By the laws of Ohio she was free, having been
+brought into the State and left there by her mistress. In spite of
+this, Professor Stowe received word, after she had lived with them some
+months, that the girl's master was in the city looking for her, and
+that if she were not careful she would be seized and conveyed back into
+slavery. Finding that this could be accomplished by boldness, perjury,
+and the connivance of some unscrupulous justice, Professor Stowe
+determined to remove the girl to some place of security where she might
+remain until the search for her should be given up. Accordingly he and
+his brother-in-law, Henry Ward Beecher, both armed, drove the fugitive,
+in a covered wagon, at night, by unfrequented roads, twelve miles back
+into the country, and left her in safety with the family of old John
+Van Zandt, the fugitive's friend.
+
+It is from this incident of real life and personal experience that Mrs.
+Stowe conceived the thrilling episode of the fugitives' escape from Tom
+Loker and Marks in "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+An amusing and at the same time most interesting account of her
+struggles to accomplish literary work amid her distracting domestic
+duties at this time is furnished by the letter of one of her intimate
+friends, who writes:--
+
+"It was my good fortune to number Mrs. Stowe among my friends, and
+during a visit to her I had an opportunity one day of witnessing the
+combined exercise of her literary and domestic genius in a style that
+to me was quite amusing.
+
+"'Come Harriet,' said I, as I found her tending one baby and watching
+two others just able to walk, 'where is that piece for the "Souvenir"
+which I promised the editor I would get from you and send on next week?
+You have only this one day left to finish it, and have it I must.'
+
+"'And how will you get it, friend of mine?' said Harriet. 'You will
+at least have to wait till I get house-cleaning over and baby's teeth
+through.'
+
+"'As to house-cleaning, you can defer it one day longer; and as to
+baby's teeth, there is to be no end to them, as I can see. No, no;
+to-day that story must be ended. There Frederick has been sitting by
+Ellen and saying all those pretty things for more than a month now, and
+she has been turning and blushing till I am sure it is time to go to
+her relief. Come, it would not take you three hours at the rate you can
+write to finish the courtship, marriage, catastrophe, éclaircissement,
+and all; and this three hours' labor of your brains will earn enough to
+pay for all the sewing your fingers could do for a year to come. Two
+dollars a page, my dear, and you can write a page in fifteen minutes!
+Come, then, my lady housekeeper, economy is a cardinal virtue; consider
+the economy of the thing.'
+
+"'But, my dear, here is a baby in my arms and two little pussies by
+my side, and there is a great baking down in the kitchen, and there
+is a "new girl" for "help," besides preparations to be made for
+house-cleaning next week. It is really out of the question, you see.'
+
+"'I see no such thing. I do not know what genius is given for, if it
+is not to help a woman out of a scrape. Come, set your wits to work,
+let me have my way, and you shall have all the work done and finish the
+story too.'
+
+"'Well, but kitchen affairs?'
+
+"'We can manage them too. You know you can write anywhere and anyhow.
+Just take your seat at the kitchen table with your writing weapons, and
+while you superintend Mina fill up the odd snatches of time with the
+labors of your pen.'
+
+"I carried my point. In ten minutes she was seated; a table with flour,
+rolling-pin, ginger, and lard on one side, a dresser with eggs, pork,
+and beans and various cooking utensils on the other, near her an oven
+heating, and beside her a dark-skinned nymph, waiting orders.
+
+"'Here, Harriet,' said I, 'you can write on this atlas in your lap; no
+matter how the writing looks, I will copy it.'
+
+"'Well, well,' said she, with a resigned sort of amused look. 'Mina,
+you may do what I told you, while I write a few minutes, till it is
+time to mould up the bread. Where is the inkstand?'
+
+"'Here it is, close by, on the top of the tea-kettle,' said I.
+
+"At this Mina giggled, and we both laughed to see her merriment at our
+literary proceedings.
+
+"I began to overhaul the portfolio to find the right sheet.
+
+"'Here it is,' said I. 'Here is Frederick sitting by Ellen, glancing at
+her brilliant face, and saying something about "guardian angel," and
+all that--you remember?'
+
+"'Yes, yes,' said she, falling into a muse, as she attempted to recover
+the thread of her story.
+
+"'Ma'am, shall I put the pork on the top of the beans?' asked Mina.
+
+"'Come, come,' said Harriet, laughing. 'You see how it is. Mina is a
+new hand and cannot do anything without me to direct her. We must give
+up the writing for to-day.'
+
+"'No, no; let us have another trial. You can dictate as easily as you
+can write. Come, I can set the baby in this clothes-basket and give him
+some mischief or other to keep him quiet; you shall dictate and I will
+write. Now, this is the place where you left off: you were describing
+the scene between Ellen and her lover; the last sentence was, "Borne
+down by the tide of agony, she leaned her head on her hands, the tears
+streamed through her fingers, and her whole frame shook with convulsive
+sobs." What shall I write next?'
+
+"'Mina, pour a little milk into this pearlash,' said Harriet.
+
+"'Come,' said I. '"The tears streamed through her fingers and her whole
+frame shook with convulsive sobs." What next?'
+
+"Harriet paused and looked musingly out of the window, as she turned
+her mind to her story. 'You may write now,' said she, and she dictated
+as follows:
+
+"'"Her lover wept with her, nor dared he again to touch the point so
+sacredly guarded"--Mina, roll that crust a little thinner. "He spoke in
+soothing tones"--Mina, poke the coals in the oven.'
+
+"'Here,' said I, 'let me direct Mina about these matters, and write a
+while yourself.'
+
+"Harriet took the pen and patiently set herself to the work. For
+a while my culinary knowledge and skill were proof to all Mina's
+investigating inquiries, and they did not fail till I saw two pages
+completed.
+
+"'You have done bravely,' said I, as I read over the manuscript; 'now
+you must direct Mina a while. Meanwhile dictate and I will write.'
+
+"Never was there a more docile literary lady than my friend. Without a
+word of objection she followed my request.
+
+"'I am ready to write,' said I. 'The last sentence was: "What is this
+life to one who has suffered as I have?" What next?'
+
+"'Shall I put in the brown or the white bread first?' said Mina.
+
+"'The brown first,' said Harriet.
+
+"'"What is this life to one who has suffered as I have?"' said I.
+
+"Harriet brushed the flour off her apron and sat down for a moment in a
+muse. Then she dictated as follows:--
+
+"'"Under the breaking of my heart I have borne up. I have borne up
+under all that tries a woman,--but this thought,--oh, Henry!"'
+
+"'Ma'am, shall I put ginger into this pumpkin?' queried Mina.
+
+"'No, you may let that alone just now,' replied Harriet. She then
+proceeded:--
+
+"'"I know my duty to my children. I see the hour must come. You must
+take them, Henry; they are my last earthly comfort."'
+
+"'Ma'am, what shall I do with these egg-shells and all this truck
+here?' interrupted Mina.
+
+"'Put them in the pail by you,' answered Harriet.
+
+"'"They are my last earthly comfort,"' said I. 'What next?'
+
+"She continued to dictate,--
+
+"'"You must take them away. It may be--perhaps it _must_ be--that I
+shall soon follow, but the breaking heart of a wife still pleads, 'a
+little longer, a little longer.'"'
+
+"'How much longer must the gingerbread stay in?' inquired Mina.
+
+"'Five minutes,' said Harriet.
+
+"'"A little longer, a little longer,"' I repeated in a dolorous tone,
+and we burst into a laugh.
+
+"Thus we went on, cooking, writing, nursing, and laughing, till I
+finally accomplished my object. The piece was finished, copied, and the
+next day sent to the editor."
+
+The widely scattered members of the Beecher family had a fashion of
+communicating with each other by means of circular letters. These,
+begun on great sheets of paper, at either end of the line, were passed
+along from one to another, each one adding his or her budget of news
+to the general stock. When the filled sheet reached the last person
+for whom it was intended, it was finally remailed to its point of
+departure. Except in the cases of Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Perkins, the
+simple address "Rev. Mr. Beecher" was sufficient to insure its safe
+delivery in any town to which it was sent.
+
+One of these great, closely-written sheets, bearing in faded ink the
+names of all the Beechers, lies outspread before us as we write. It
+is postmarked Hartford, Conn., Batavia, N. Y., Chillicothe, Ohio,
+Zanesville, Ohio, Walnut Hills, Ohio, Indianapolis, Ind., Jacksonville,
+Ill., and New Orleans, La. In it Mrs. Stowe occupies her allotted space
+with--
+
+                             WALNUT HILLS, _April 27, 1839._
+
+    DEAR FRIENDS,--I am going to Hartford myself, and
+    therefore shall not write, but hurry along the
+    preparations for my forward journey. Belle, father says
+    you may go to the White Mountains with Mr. Stowe and me
+    this summer. George, we may look in on you coming back.
+    Good-by.
+
+    Affectionately to all,                  H. E. STOWE.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] A ridiculous book from which Mr. Stowe derived endless amusement.
+
+[3] Salmon P. Chase.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+POVERTY AND SICKNESS, 1840-1850.
+
+    FAMINE IN CINCINNATI.--SUMMER AT THE EAST.--PLANS
+    FOR LITERARY WORK.--EXPERIENCE ON A RAILROAD.--DEATH
+    OF HER BROTHER GEORGE.--SICKNESS AND DESPAIR.--A
+    JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF HEALTH.--GOES TO BRATTLEBORO'
+    WATERCURE.--TROUBLES AT LANE SEMINARY.--CHOLERA IN
+    CINCINNATI.--DEATH OF YOUNGEST CHILD.--DETERMINED TO
+    LEAVE THE WEST.
+
+
+ON January 7, 1839, Professor Stowe wrote to his mother in Natick,
+Mass.: "You left here, I believe, in the right time, for as there has
+been no navigation on the Ohio River for a year, we are almost in a
+state of famine as to many of the necessities of life. For example,
+salt (coarse) has sold in Cincinnati this winter for three dollars a
+bushel; rice eighteen cents a pound; coffee fifty cents a pound; white
+sugar the same; brown sugar twenty cents; molasses a dollar a gallon;
+potatoes a dollar a bushel. We do without such things mostly; as there
+is yet plenty of bread and bacon (flour six and seven dollars a barrel,
+and good pork from six to eight cents a pound) we get along very
+comfortably.
+
+"Our new house is pretty much as it was, but they say it will be
+finished in July. I expect to visit you next summer, as I shall deliver
+the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Dartmouth College; but whether wife and
+children come with me or not is not yet decided."
+
+Mrs. Stowe came on to the East with her husband and children during
+the following summer, and before her return made a trip through the
+White Mountains.
+
+In May, 1840, her second son was born and named Frederick William,
+after the sturdy Prussian king, for whom her husband cherished an
+unbounded admiration.
+
+Mrs. Stowe has said somewhere: "So we go, dear reader, so long as we
+have a body and a soul. For worlds must mingle,--the great and the
+little, the solemn and the trivial, wreathing in and out like the
+grotesque carvings on a gothic shrine; only did we know it rightly,
+nothing is trivial, since the human soul, with its awful shadow, makes
+all things sacred." So in writing a biography it is impossible for us
+to tell what did and what did not powerfully influence the character.
+It is safer simply to tell the unvarnished truth. The lily builds up
+its texture of delicate beauty from mould and decay. So how do we know
+from what humble material a soul grows in strength and beauty!
+
+In December, 1840, writing to Miss May, Mrs. Stowe says:--
+
+"For a year I have held the pen only to write an occasional business
+letter such as could not be neglected. This was primarily owing to a
+severe neuralgic complaint that settled in my eyes, and for two months
+not only made it impossible for me to use them in writing, but to fix
+them with attention on anything. I could not even bear the least light
+of day in my room. Then my dear little Frederick was born, and for two
+months more I was confined to my bed. Besides all this, we have had an
+unusual amount of sickness in our family....
+
+"For all that my history of the past year records so many troubles, I
+cannot on the whole regard it as a very troublous one. I have had so
+many counterbalancing mercies that I must regard myself as a person
+greatly blessed. It is true that about six months out of the twelve I
+have been laid up with sickness, but then I have had every comfort and
+the kindest of nurses in my faithful Anna. My children have thriven,
+and on the whole 'come to more,' as the Yankees say, than the care of
+them. Thus you see my troubles have been but enough to keep me from
+loving earth too well."
+
+In the spring of 1842 Mrs. Stowe again visited Hartford, taking her
+six-year-old daughter Hatty with her. In writing from there to her
+husband she confides some of her literary plans and aspirations to him,
+and he answers:--
+
+"My dear, you must be a literary woman. It is so written in the book
+of fate. Make all your calculations accordingly. Get a good stock of
+health and brush up your mind. Drop the E. out of your name. It only
+incumbers it and interferes with the flow and euphony. Write yourself
+fully and always Harriet Beecher Stowe, which is a name euphonious,
+flowing, and full of meaning. Then my word for it, your husband will
+lift up his head in the gate, and your children will rise up and call
+you blessed.
+
+"Our humble dwelling has to-day received a distinguished honor of which
+I must give you an account. It was a visit from his excellency the
+Baron de Roenne, ambassador of his majesty the King of Prussia to the
+United States. He was pleased to assure me of the great satisfaction
+my report on Prussian schools had afforded the king and members of
+his court, with much more to the same effect. Of course having a real
+live lord to exhibit, I was anxious for some one to exhibit him to; but
+neither Aunt Esther nor Anna dared venture near the study, though they
+both contrived to get a peep at his lordship from the little chamber
+window as he was leaving.
+
+"And now, my dear wife, I want you to come home as quick as you can.
+The fact is I cannot live without you, and if we were not so prodigious
+poor I would come for you at once. There is no woman like you in this
+wide world. Who else has so much talent with so little self-conceit;
+so much reputation with so little affectation; so much literature with
+so little nonsense; so much enterprise with so little extravagance;
+so much tongue with so little scold; so much sweetness with so little
+softness; so much of so many things and so little of so many other
+things?"
+
+In answer to this letter Mrs. Stowe writes from Hartford:--
+
+"I have seen Johnson of the 'Evangelist.' He is very liberally
+disposed, and I may safely reckon on being paid for all I do there. Who
+is that Hale, Jr., that sent me the 'Boston Miscellany,' and will he
+keep his word with me? His offers are very liberal,--twenty dollars for
+three pages, not very close print. Is he to be depended on? If so, it
+is the best offer I have received yet. I shall get something from the
+Harpers some time this winter or spring. Robertson, the publisher here,
+says the book ('The Mayflower') will sell, and though the terms they
+offer me are very low, that I shall make something on it. For a second
+volume I shall be able to make better terms. On the whole, my dear, if
+I choose to be a literary lady, I have, I think, as good a chance of
+making profit by it as any one I know of. But with all this, I have my
+doubts whether I shall be able to do so.
+
+"Our children are just coming to the age when everything depends on my
+efforts. They are delicate in health, and nervous and excitable, and
+need a mother's whole attention. Can I lawfully divide my attention by
+literary efforts?
+
+"There is one thing I must suggest. If I am to write, I must have a
+room to myself, which shall be _my_ room. I have in my own mind pitched
+on Mrs. Whipple's room. I can put the stove in it. I have bought a
+cheap carpet for it, and I have furniture enough at home to furnish it
+comfortably, and I only beg in addition that you will let me change the
+glass door from the nursery into that room and keep my plants there,
+and then I shall be quite happy.
+
+"All last winter I felt the need of some place where I could go and be
+quiet and satisfied. I could not there, for there was all the setting
+of tables, and clearing up of tables, and dressing and washing of
+children, and everything else going on, and the constant falling of
+soot and coal dust on everything in the room was a constant annoyance
+to me, and I never felt comfortable there though I tried hard. Then if
+I came into the parlor where you were I felt as if I were interrupting
+you, and you know you sometimes thought so too.
+
+"Now this winter let the cooking-stove be put into that room, and let
+the pipe run up through the floor into the room above. We can eat by
+our cooking-stove, and the children can be washed and dressed and keep
+their playthings in the room above, and play there when we don't want
+them below. You can study by the parlor fire, and I and my plants,
+etc., will take the other room. I shall keep my work and all my things
+there and feel settled and quiet. I intend to have a regular part of
+each day devoted to the children, and then I shall take them in there."
+
+In his reply to this letter Professor Stowe says:--
+
+"The little magazine ('The Souvenir') goes ahead finely. Fisher sent
+down to Fulton the other day and got sixty subscribers. He will make
+the June number as handsome as possible, as a specimen number for the
+students, several of whom will take agencies for it during the coming
+vacation. You have it in your power by means of this little magazine
+to form the mind of the West for the coming generation. It is just as
+I told you in my last letter. God has written it in his book that you
+must be a literary woman, and who are we that we should contend against
+God? You must therefore make all your calculations to spend the rest of
+your life with your pen.
+
+"If you only could come home to-day how happy should I be. I am daily
+finding out more and more (what I knew very well before) that you are
+the most intelligent and agreeable woman in the whole circle of my
+acquaintance."
+
+That Professor Stowe's devoted admiration for his wife was
+reciprocated, and that a most perfect sympathy of feeling existed
+between the husband and wife, is shown by a line in one of Mrs.
+Stowe's letters from Hartford in which she says: "I was telling
+Belle yesterday that I did not know till I came away how much I was
+dependent upon you for information. There are a thousand favorite
+subjects on which I could talk with you better than with any one else.
+If you were not already my dearly loved husband I should certainly fall
+in love with you."
+
+In this same letter she writes of herself:--
+
+"One thing more in regard to myself. The absence and wandering of mind
+and forgetfulness that so often vexes you is a physical infirmity
+with me. It is the failing of a mind not calculated to endure a great
+pressure of care, and so much do I feel the pressure I am under,
+so much is my mind often darkened and troubled by care, that life
+seriously considered holds out few allurements,--only my children.
+
+"In returning to my family, from whom I have been so long separated,
+I am impressed with a new and solemn feeling of responsibility. It
+appears to me that I am not probably destined for long life; at all
+events, the feeling is strongly impressed upon my mind that a work is
+put into my hands which I must be earnest to finish shortly. It is
+nothing great or brilliant in the world's eye; it lies in one small
+family circle, of which I am called to be the central point."
+
+On her way home from this Eastern visit Mrs. Stowe traveled for the
+first time by rail, and of this novel experience she writes to Miss
+Georgiana May:--
+
+                                BATAVIA, _August 29, 1842._
+
+    Here I am at Brother William's, and our passage along
+    this railroad reminds me of the verse of the psalm:--
+
+        "Tho' lions roar and tempests blow,
+         And rocks and dangers fill the way."
+
+    Such confusion of tongues, such shouting and swearing,
+    such want of all sort of system and decency in
+    arrangements, I never desire to see again. I was
+    literally almost trodden down and torn to pieces in
+    the Rochester depot when I went to help my poor,
+    near-sighted spouse in sorting out the baggage. You
+    see there was an accident which happened to the cars
+    leaving Rochester that morning, which kept us two
+    hours and a half at the passing place this side of
+    Auburn, waiting for them to come up and go by us.
+    The consequence was that we got into this Rochester
+    depot aforesaid after dark, and the steamboat, the
+    canal-boat, and the Western train of cars had all been
+    kept waiting three hours beyond their usual time,
+    and they all broke loose upon us the moment we put
+    our heads out of the cars, and such a jerking, and
+    elbowing, and scuffling, and swearing, and protesting,
+    and scolding you never heard, while the great
+    locomotive sailed up and down in the midst thereof,
+    spitting fire and smoke like some great fiend monster
+    diverting himself with our commotions. I do think
+    these steam concerns border a little too much on the
+    supernatural to be agreeable, especially when you are
+    shut up in a great dark depot after sundown.
+
+    Well, after all, we had to ride till twelve o'clock at
+    night to get to Batavia, and I've been sick abed, so to
+    speak, ever since.
+
+The winter of 1842 was one of peculiar trial to the family at Walnut
+Hills; as Mrs. Stowe writes, "It was a season of sickness and gloom."
+Typhoid fever raged among the students of the seminary, and the house
+of the president was converted into a hospital, while the members of
+his family were obliged to devote themselves to nursing the sick and
+dying.
+
+July 6, 1843, a few weeks before the birth of her third daughter,
+Georgiana May, a most terrible and overwhelming sorrow came on Mrs.
+Stowe, in common with all the family, in the sudden death of her
+brother, the Rev. George Beecher.
+
+He was a young man of unusual talent and ability, and much loved by his
+church and congregation. The circumstances of his death are related
+in a letter written by Mrs. Stowe, and are as follows: "Noticing the
+birds destroying his fruit and injuring his plants, he went for a
+double-barreled gun, which he scarcely ever had used, out of regard to
+the timidity and anxiety of his wife in reference to it. Shortly after
+he left the house, one of the elders of his church in passing saw him
+discharge one barrel at the birds. Soon after he heard the fatal report
+and saw the smoke, but the trees shut out the rest from sight.... In
+about half an hour after, the family assembled at breakfast, and the
+servant was sent out to call him.... In a few minutes she returned,
+exclaiming, 'Oh, Mr. Beecher is dead! Mr. Beecher is dead!'... In a
+short time a visitor in the family, assisted by a passing laborer,
+raised him up and bore him to the house. His face was pale and but
+slightly marred, his eyes were closed, and over his countenance rested
+the sweet expression of peaceful slumber.... Then followed the hurried
+preparations for the funeral and journey, until three o'clock, when,
+all arrangements being made, he was borne from his newly finished
+house, through his blooming garden, to the new church, planned and
+just completed under his directing eye.... The sermon and the prayers
+were finished, the choir he himself had trained sung their parting
+hymn, and at about five the funeral train started for a journey of over
+seventy miles. That night will stand alone in the memories of those who
+witnessed its scenes!
+
+"At ten in the evening heavy clouds gathered lowering behind, and
+finally rose so as nearly to cover the hemisphere, sending forth
+mutterings of thunder and constant flashes of lightning.
+
+"The excessive heat of the weather, the darkness of the night, the
+solitary road, the flaring of the lamps and lanterns, the flashes of
+the lightning, the roll of approaching thunder, the fear of being
+overtaken in an unfrequented place and the lights extinguished by the
+rain, the sad events of the day, the cries of the infant boy sick with
+the heat and bewailing the father who ever before had soothed his
+griefs, all combined to awaken the deepest emotions of the sorrowful,
+the awful, and the sublime....
+
+"And so it is at last; there must come a time when all that the most
+heart-broken, idolizing love can give us is a coffin and a grave! All
+that could be done for our brother, with all his means and all the
+affection of his people and friends, was just this, no more! After all,
+the deepest and most powerful argument for the religion of Christ is
+its power in times like this. Take from us Christ and what He taught,
+and what have we here? What confusion, what agony, what dismay, what
+wreck and waste! But give Him to us, even the most stricken heart can
+rise under the blow; yea, even triumph!
+
+"'Thy brother shall rise again,' said Jesus; and to us who weep
+He speaks: 'Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are made partakers of Christ's
+sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye also may be glad
+with exceeding joy!'"
+
+The advent of Mrs. Stowe's third daughter was followed by a protracted
+illness and a struggle with great poverty, of which Mrs. Stowe writes
+in October, 1843:--
+
+"Our straits for money this year are unparalleled even in our annals.
+Even our bright and cheery neighbor Allen begins to look blue, and
+says $600 is the very most we can hope to collect of our salary,
+once $1,200. We have a flock of entirely destitute young men in the
+seminary, as poor in money as they are rich in mental and spiritual
+resources. They promise to be as fine a band as those we have just sent
+off. We have two from Iowa and Wisconsin who were actually crowded from
+secular pursuits into the ministry by the wants of the people about
+them. Revivals began, and the people came to them saying, 'We have no
+minister, and you must preach to us, for you know more than we do.'"
+
+In the spring of 1844 Professor Stowe visited the East to arouse
+an interest in the struggling seminary and raise funds for its
+maintenance. While he was there he received the following letter from
+Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+"I am already half sick with confinement to the house and overwork.
+If I should sew every day for a month to come I should not be able to
+accomplish a half of what is to be done, and should be only more unfit
+for my other duties."
+
+This struggle against ill-health and poverty was continued through
+that year and well into the next, when, during her husband's absence to
+attend a ministerial convention at Detroit, Mrs. Stowe writes to him:--
+
+                                        _June 16, 1845._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--It is a dark, sloppy, rainy, muddy,
+    disagreeable day, and I have been working hard (for
+    me) all day in the kitchen, washing dishes, looking
+    into closets, and seeing a great deal of that dark
+    side of domestic life which a housekeeper may who will
+    investigate too curiously into minutić in warm, damp
+    weather, especially after a girl who keeps all clean
+    on the _outside_ of cup and platter, and is very apt
+    to make good the rest of the text in the _inside_ of
+    things.
+
+    I am sick of the smell of sour milk, and sour meat, and
+    sour everything, and then the clothes _will_ not dry,
+    and no wet thing does, and everything smells mouldy;
+    and altogether I feel as if I never wanted to eat again.
+
+    Your letter, which was neither sour nor mouldy, formed
+    a very agreeable contrast to all these things; the
+    more so for being unexpected. I am much obliged to
+    you for it. As to my health, it gives me very little
+    solicitude, although I am bad enough and daily growing
+    worse. I feel no life, no energy, no appetite, or
+    rather a growing distaste for food; in fact, I am
+    becoming quite ethereal. Upon reflection I perceive
+    that it pleases my Father to keep me in the fire,
+    for my whole situation is excessively harassing and
+    painful. I suffer with sensible distress in the brain,
+    as I have done more or less since my sickness last
+    winter, a distress which some days takes from me all
+    power of planning or executing anything; and you know
+    that, except this poor head, my unfortunate household
+    has no mainspring, for nobody feels any kind of
+    responsibility to do a thing in time, place, or manner,
+    except as I oversee it.
+
+    Georgiana is so excessively weak, nervous, cross, and
+    fretful, night and day, that she takes all Anna's
+    strength and time with her; and then the children are,
+    like other little sons and daughters of Adam, full of
+    all kinds of absurdity and folly.
+
+    When the brain gives out, as mine often does, and one
+    cannot think or remember anything, then what is to be
+    done? All common fatigue, sickness, and exhaustion is
+    nothing to this distress. Yet do I rejoice in my God
+    and know in whom I believe, and only pray that the
+    fire may consume the dross; as to the gold, that is
+    imperishable. No real evil can happen to me, so I fear
+    nothing for the future, and only suffer in the present
+    tense.
+
+    God, the mighty God, is mine, of that I am sure, and I
+    know He knows that though flesh and heart fail, I am
+    all the while desiring and trying for his will alone.
+    As to a journey, I need not ask a physician to see that
+    it is needful to me as far as health is concerned, that
+    is to say, all human appearances are that way, but I
+    feel no particular choice about it. If God wills I
+    go. He can easily find means. Money, I suppose, is as
+    plenty with Him now as it always has been, and if He
+    sees it is really best He will doubtless help me.
+
+That the necessary funds were provided is evident from the fact that
+the journey was undertaken and the invalid spent the summer of 1845 in
+Hartford, in Natick, and in Boston. She was not, however, permanently
+benefited by the change, and in the following spring it was deemed
+necessary to take more radical measures to arrest the progress of her
+increasing debility. After many consultations and much correspondence
+it was finally decided that she should go to Dr. Wesselhoeft's
+watercure establishment at Brattleboro', Vt.
+
+At this time, under date of March, 1846, she writes:
+
+"For all I have had trouble I can think of nothing but the greatness
+and richness of God's mercy to me in giving me such friends, and in
+always caring for us in every strait. There has been no day this winter
+when I have not had abundant reason to see this. Some friend has always
+stepped in to cheer and help, so that I have wanted for nothing. My
+husband has developed wonderfully as house-father and nurse. You would
+laugh to see him in his spectacles gravely marching the little troop in
+their nightgowns up to bed, tagging after them, as he says, like an old
+hen after a flock of ducks. The money for my journey has been sent in
+from an unknown hand in a wonderful manner. All this shows the care of
+our Father, and encourages me to rejoice and to hope in Him."
+
+A few days after her departure Professor Stowe wrote to his wife:--
+
+"I was greatly comforted by your brief letter from Pittsburgh. When
+I returned from the steamer the morning you left I found in the
+post-office a letter from Mrs. G. W. Bull of New York, inclosing $50 on
+account of the sickness in my family. There was another inclosing $50
+more from a Mrs. Devereaux of Raleigh, N. C., besides some smaller sums
+from others. My heart went out to God in aspiration and gratitude.
+None of the donors, so far as I know, have I ever seen or heard of
+before.
+
+"Henry and I have been living in a Robinson Crusoe and man Friday sort
+of style, greatly to our satisfaction, ever since you went away."
+
+Mrs. Stowe was accompanied to Brattleboro' by her sisters, Catherine
+and Mary, who were also suffering from troubles that they felt might be
+relieved by hydropathic treatment.
+
+From May, 1846, until March, 1847, she remained at Brattleboro' without
+seeing her husband or children. During these weary months her happiest
+days were those upon which she received letters from home.
+
+The following extracts, taken from letters written by her during this
+period, are of value, as revealing what it is possible to know of her
+habits of thought and mode of life at this time.
+
+                         BRATTLEBORO', _September, 1846._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I have been thinking of all your
+    trials, and I really pity you in having such a wife. I
+    feel as if I had been only a hindrance to you instead
+    of a help, and most earnestly and daily do I pray to
+    God to restore my health that I may do something for
+    you and my family. I think if I were only at home I
+    could at least sweep and dust, and wash potatoes, and
+    cook a little, and talk some to my children, and should
+    be doing something for my family. But the hope of
+    getting better buoys me up. I go through these tedious
+    and wearisome baths and bear that terrible douche
+    thinking of my children. They never will know how I
+    love them....
+
+    There is great truth and good sense in your analysis
+    of the cause of our past failures. We have now come
+    to a sort of crisis. If you and I do as we should for
+    _five years_ to come the character of our three oldest
+    children will be established. This is why I am willing
+    to spend so much time and make such efforts to have
+    health. Oh, that God would give me these five years in
+    full possession of mind and body, that I may train my
+    children as they should be trained. I am fully aware
+    of the importance of system and order in a family. I
+    know that nothing can be done without it; it is the
+    keystone, the _sine quâ non_, and in regard to my
+    children I place it next to piety. At the same time it
+    is true that both Anna[4] and I labor under serious
+    natural disadvantages on this subject. It is not all
+    that is necessary to feel the importance of order and
+    system, but it requires a particular kind of talent to
+    carry it through a family. Very much the same kind of
+    talent, as Uncle Samuel said, which is necessary to
+    make a good prime minister....
+
+    I think you might make an excellent sermon to
+    Christians on the care of health, in consideration
+    of the various infirmities and impediments to the
+    developing the results of religion, that result from
+    bodily ill health, and I wish you would make one that
+    your own mind may be more vividly impressed with it.
+    The world is too much in a hurry. Ministers think there
+    is no way to serve Christ but to overdraw on their
+    physical capital for four or five years for Christ and
+    then have nothing to give, but become a mere burden on
+    his hands for the next five....
+
+
+    _November 18._ "The daily course I go through
+    presupposes a degree of vigor beyond anything I ever
+    had before. For this week, I have gone before breakfast
+    to the wave-bath and let all the waves and billows roll
+    over me till every limb ached with cold and my hands
+    would scarcely have feeling enough to dress me. After
+    that I have walked till I was warm, and come home to
+    breakfast with such an appetite! Brown bread and milk
+    are luxuries indeed, and the only fear is that I may
+    eat too much. At eleven comes my douche, to which I
+    have walked in a driving rain for the last two days,
+    and after it walked in the rain again till I was warm.
+    (The umbrella you gave me at Natick answers finely, as
+    well as if it were a silk one.) After dinner I roll
+    ninepins or walk till four, then sitz-bath, and another
+    walk till six.
+
+    "I am anxious for your health; do be persuaded to
+    try a long walk before breakfast. You don't know how
+    much good it will do you. Don't sit in your hot study
+    without any ventilation, a stove burning up all the
+    vitality of the air and weakening your nerves, and
+    above all, do _amuse_ yourself. Go to Dr. Mussey's
+    and spend an evening, and to father's and Professor
+    Allen's. When you feel worried go off somewhere and
+    forget and throw it off. I should really rejoice to
+    hear that you and father and mother, with Professor
+    and Mrs. Allen, Mrs. K., and a few others of the same
+    calibre would agree to meet together for dancing
+    cotillons. It would do you all good, and if you took
+    Mr. K.'s wife and poor Miss Much-Afraid, her daughter,
+    into the alliance it would do them good. Bless me!
+    what a profane set everybody would think you were,
+    and yet you are the people of all the world most
+    solemnly in need of it. I wish you could be with me in
+    Brattleboro' and coast down hill on a sled, go sliding
+    and snowballing by moonlight! I would snowball every
+    bit of the _hypo_ out of you! Now, my dear, if you are
+    going to get sick, I am going to come home. There is no
+    use in my trying to get well if you, in the mean time,
+    are going to run yourself down."
+
+                                        _January, 1847._
+
+    My dear Soul,--I received your most melancholy
+    effusion, and I am sorry to find it's just so. I
+    entirely agree and sympathize. Why didn't you engage
+    the two tombstones--one for you and one for me?
+
+    [Illustration: Ding, dong! Dead and gone!]
+
+    I shall have to copy for your edification a "poem
+    on tombstones" which Kate put at Christmas into the
+    stocking of one of our most hypochondriac gentlemen,
+    who had pished and pshawed at his wife and us for
+    trying to get up a little fun. This poem was fronted
+    with the above vignette and embellished with sundry
+    similar ones, and tied with a long black ribbon. There
+    were only two cantos in very concise style, so I shall
+    send you them entire.
+
+    CANTO I.
+
+    In the kingdom of _Mortin_
+    I had the good fortin'
+    To find these verses
+    On tombs and on hearses,
+    Which I, being jinglish
+    Have done into English.
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    CANTO II.
+
+    The man what's so colickish
+    When his friends are all frolickish
+    As to turn up his noses
+    And turn on his toses
+    Shall have only verses
+    On tombstones and hearses.
+
+    But, seriously, my dear husband, you must try and be
+    patient, for this cannot last forever. Be patient and
+    bear it like the toothache, or a driving rain, or
+    anything else that you cannot escape. To see things as
+    through a glass darkly is your infirmity, you know;
+    but the Lord will yet deliver you from this trial. I
+    know how to pity you, for the last three weeks I have
+    suffered from an overwhelming mental depression, a
+    perfect heartsickness. All I wanted was to get home and
+    die. Die I was very sure I should at any rate, but I
+    suppose I was never less prepared to do so.
+
+The long exile was ended in the spring of 1847, and in May Mrs. Stowe
+returned to her Cincinnati home, where she was welcomed with sincere
+demonstrations of joy by her husband and children.
+
+Her sixth child, Samuel Charles, was born in January of 1848, and
+about this time her husband's health became so seriously impaired that
+it was thought desirable for him in turn to spend a season at the
+Brattleboro' water-cure. He went in June, 1848, and was compelled by
+the very precarious state of his health to remain until September,
+1849. During this period of more than a year Mrs. Stowe remained in
+Cincinnati caring for her six children, eking out her slender income by
+taking boarders and writing when she found time, confronting a terrible
+epidemic of cholera that carried off one of her little flock, and in
+every way showing herself to be a brave woman, possessed of a spirit
+that could rise superior to all adversity. Concerning this time she
+writes in January, 1849, to her dearest friend:--
+
+    MY BELOVED GEORGY,--For six months after my return from
+    Brattleboro' my eyes were so affected that I wrote
+    scarce any, and my health was in so strange a state
+    that I felt no disposition to write. After the birth of
+    little Charley my health improved, but my husband was
+    sick and I have been so loaded and burdened with cares
+    as to drain me dry of all capacity of thought, feeling,
+    memory, or emotion.
+
+    Well, Georgy, I am thirty-seven years old! I am glad
+    of it. I like to grow old and have six children and
+    cares endless. I wish you could see me with my flock
+    all around me. They sum up my cares, and were they gone
+    I should ask myself, What now remains to be done? They
+    are my work, over which I fear and tremble.
+
+In the early summer of 1849 cholera broke out in Cincinnati, and soon
+became epidemic. Professor Stowe, absent in Brattleboro', and filled
+with anxiety for the safety of his family, was most anxious, in spite
+of his feeble health, to return and share the danger with them, but
+this his wife would not consent to, as is shown by her letters to him,
+written at this time. In one of them, dated June 29, 1849, she says:--
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--This week has been unusually fatal.
+    The disease in the city has been malignant and
+    virulent. Hearse drivers have scarce been allowed to
+    unharness their horses, while furniture carts and
+    common vehicles are often employed for the removal of
+    the dead. The sable trains which pass our windows, the
+    frequent indications of crowding haste, and the absence
+    of reverent decency have, in many cases, been most
+    painful. Of course all these things, whether we will or
+    no, bring very doleful images to the mind.
+
+    On Tuesday one hundred and sixteen deaths from cholera
+    were reported, and that night the air was of that
+    peculiarly oppressive, deathly kind that seems to lie
+    like lead on the brain and soul.
+
+    As regards your coming home, I am decidedly opposed
+    to it. First, because the chance of your being taken
+    ill is just as great as the chance of your being able
+    to render us any help. To exchange the salubrious air
+    of Brattleboro' for the pestilent atmosphere of this
+    place with your system rendered sensitive by water-cure
+    treatment would be extremely dangerous. It is a source
+    of constant gratitude to me that neither you nor father
+    are exposed to the dangers here.
+
+    Second, none of us are sick, and it is very uncertain
+    whether we shall be.
+
+    Third, if we were sick there are so many of us that it
+    is not at all likely we shall all be taken at once.
+
+    _July 1._ Yesterday Mr. Stagg went to the city and
+    found all gloomy and discouraged, while a universal
+    panic seemed to be drawing nearer than ever before.
+    Large piles of coal were burning on the cross walks
+    and in the public squares, while those who had talked
+    confidently of the cholera being confined to the lower
+    classes and those who were imprudent began to feel as
+    did the magicians of old, "This is the finger of God."
+
+    Yesterday, upon the recommendation of all the clergymen
+    of the city, the mayor issued a proclamation for a day
+    of general fasting, humiliation, and prayer, to be
+    observed on Tuesday next.
+
+    _July 3._ We are all in good health and try to maintain
+    a calm and cheerful frame of mind. The doctors are
+    nearly used up. Dr. Bowen and Dr. Peck are sick in bed.
+    Dr. Potter and Dr. Pulte ought, I suppose, to be there
+    also. The younger physicians have no rest night or day.
+    Mr. Fisher is laid up from his incessant visitations
+    with the sick and dying. Our own Dr. Brown is likewise
+    prostrated, but we are all resolute to stand by each
+    other, and there are so many of us that it is not
+    likely we can all be taken sick together.
+
+    _July 4._ All well. The meeting yesterday was very
+    solemn and interesting. There is more or less sickness
+    about us, but no very dangerous cases. One hundred
+    and twenty burials from cholera alone yesterday, yet
+    to-day we see parties bent on pleasure or senseless
+    carousing, while to-morrow and next day will witness
+    a fresh harvest of death from them. How we can become
+    accustomed to anything! Awhile ago ten a day dying of
+    cholera struck terror to all hearts; but now the tide
+    has surged up gradually until the deaths average over
+    a hundred daily, and everybody is getting accustomed
+    to it. Gentlemen make themselves agreeable to ladies
+    by reciting the number of deaths in this house or
+    that. This together with talk of funerals, cholera
+    medicines, cholera dietetics, and chloride of lime form
+    the ordinary staple of conversation. Serious persons of
+    course throw in moral reflections to their taste.
+
+    _July 10._ Yesterday little Charley was taken ill, not
+    seriously, and at any other season I should not be
+    alarmed. Now, however, a slight illness seems like a
+    death sentence, and I will not dissemble that I feel
+    from the outset very little hope. I still think it best
+    that you should not return. By so doing you might lose
+    all you have gained. You might expose yourself to a
+    fatal incursion of disease. It is decidedly not your
+    duty to do so.
+
+    _July 12._ Yesterday I carried Charley to Dr. Pulte,
+    who spoke in such a manner as discouraged and
+    frightened me. He mentioned dropsy on the brain as
+    a possible result. I came home with a heavy heart,
+    sorrowing, desolate, and wishing my husband and father
+    were here.
+
+    About one o'clock this morning Miss Stewart suddenly
+    opened my door crying, "Mrs. Stowe, Henry is vomiting."
+    I was on my feet in an instant, and lifted up my heart
+    for help. He was, however, in a few minutes relieved.
+    Then I turned my attention to Charley, who was also
+    suffering, put him into a wet sheet, and kept him there
+    until he was in a profuse perspiration. He is evidently
+    getting better, and is auspiciously cross. Never was
+    crossness in a baby more admired. Anna and I have said
+    to each other exultingly a score of times, "How cross
+    the little fellow is! How he does scold!"
+
+    _July 15._ Since I last wrote our house has been a
+    perfect hospital. Charley apparently recovering, but
+    still weak and feeble, unable to walk or play, and
+    so miserably fretful and unhappy. Sunday Anna and
+    I were fairly stricken down, as many others are,
+    with no particular illness, but with such miserable
+    prostration. I lay on the bed all day reading my
+    hymn-book and thinking over passages of Scripture.
+
+    _July 17._ To-day we have been attending poor old Aunt
+    Frankie's[5] funeral. She died yesterday morning,
+    taken sick the day before while washing. Good, honest,
+    trustful old soul! She was truly one who hungered and
+    thirsted for righteousness.
+
+    Yesterday morning our poor little dog, Daisy, who had
+    been ailing the day before, was suddenly seized with
+    frightful spasms and died in half an hour. Poor little
+    affectionate thing! If I were half as good for my
+    nature as she for hers I should be much better than I
+    am. While we were all mourning over her the news came
+    that Aunt Frankie was breathing her last. Hatty, Eliza,
+    Anna, and I made her shroud yesterday, and this morning
+    I made her cap. We have just come from her grave.
+
+
+    _July 23._ At last, my dear, the hand of the Lord hath
+    touched us. We have been watching all day by the dying
+    bed of little Charley, who is gradually sinking. After
+    a partial recovery from the attack I described in my
+    last letter he continued for some days very feeble, but
+    still we hoped for recovery. About four days ago he was
+    taken with decided cholera, and now there is no hope of
+    his surviving this night.
+
+    Every kindness is shown us by the neighbors. Do not
+    return. All will be over before you could possibly get
+    here, and the epidemic is now said by the physicians
+    to prove fatal to every new case. Bear up. Let us not
+    faint when we are rebuked of Him. I dare not trust
+    myself to say more but shall write again soon.
+
+                                              _July 26._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--At last it is over and our dear
+    little one is gone from us. He is now among the
+    blessed. My Charley--my beautiful, loving, gladsome
+    baby, so loving, so sweet, so full of life and hope
+    and strength--now lies shrouded, pale and cold, in the
+    room below. Never was he anything to me but a comfort.
+    He has been my pride and joy. Many a heartache has he
+    cured for me. Many an anxious night have I held him to
+    my bosom and felt the sorrow and loneliness pass out
+    of me with the touch of his little warm hands. Yet I
+    have just seen him in his death agony, looked on his
+    imploring face when I could not help nor soothe nor do
+    one thing, not one, to mitigate his cruel suffering,
+    do nothing but pray in my anguish that he might die
+    soon. I write as though there were no sorrow like my
+    sorrow, yet there has been in this city, as in the
+    land of Egypt, scarce a house without its dead. This
+    heart-break, this anguish, has been everywhere, and
+    when it will end God alone knows.
+
+With this severest blow of all, the long years of trial and suffering
+in the West practically end; for in September, 1849, Professor Stowe
+returned from Brattleboro', and at the same time received a call to the
+Collins Professorship at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, that he
+decided to accept.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] The governess, Miss Anna Smith.
+
+[5] An old colored woman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+REMOVAL TO BRUNSWICK, 1850-1852.
+
+    MRS. STOWE'S REMARKS ON WRITING AND UNDERSTANDING
+    BIOGRAPHY.--THEIR APPROPRIATENESS TO HER OWN
+    BIOGRAPHY.--REASONS FOR PROFESSOR STOWE'S LEAVING
+    CINCINNATI.--MRS. STOWE'S JOURNEY TO BROOKLYN.--HER
+    BROTHER'S SUCCESS AS A MINISTER.--LETTERS FROM HARTFORD
+    AND BOSTON.--ARRIVES IN BRUNSWICK.--HISTORY OF THE
+    SLAVERY AGITATION.--PRACTICAL WORKING OF THE FUGITIVE
+    SLAVE LAW.--MRS. EDWARD BEECHER'S LETTER TO MRS. STOWE
+    AND ITS EFFECT.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--BEGINS TO WRITE
+    "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AS A SERIAL FOR THE "NATIONAL
+    ERA."--LETTER TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS.--"UNCLE TOM'S
+    CABIN" A WORK OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION.
+
+
+EARLY in the winter of 1849 Mrs. Stowe wrote in a private journal in
+which she recorded thought and feeling concerning religious themes:
+"It has been said that it takes a man to write the life of a man; that
+is, there must be similarity of mind in the person who undertakes to
+present the character of another. This is true, also, of reading and
+understanding biography. A statesman and general would read the life of
+Napoleon with the spirit and the understanding, while the commonplace
+man plods through it as a task. The difference is that the one, being
+of like mind and spirit with the subject of the biography, is able to
+sympathize with him in all his thoughts and experiences, and the other
+is not. The life of Henry Martyn would be tedious and unintelligible to
+a mind like that of a Richelieu or a Mazarin. They never experienced
+or saw or heard anything like it, and would be quite at a loss where
+to place such a man in their mental categories. It is not strange,
+therefore, that of all biography in the world that of Jesus Christ
+should be least understood. It is an exception to all the world has
+ever seen. 'The world knew Him not.' There is, to be sure, a simple
+grandeur about the life of Jesus which awes almost every mind. The most
+hardened scoffer, after he has jested and jeered at everything in the
+temple of Christianity, stands for a moment uncovered and breathless
+when he comes to the object of its adoration and feels how awful
+goodness is, and Virtue in her shape how lovely. Yet, after all, the
+character of the Christ has been looked at and not sympathized with.
+Men have turned aside to see this great sight. Christians have fallen
+in adoration, but very few have tried to enter into his sympathies and
+to feel as He felt."
+
+How little she dreamed that these words were to become profoundly
+appropriate as a description of her own life in its relation to
+mankind! How little the countless thousands who read, have read, and
+will read, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" enter into or sympathize with the
+feelings out of which it was written! A delicate, sensitive woman
+struggling with poverty, with weary step and aching head attending
+to the innumerable demands of a large family of growing children; a
+devoted Christian seeking with strong crying and tears a kingdom not
+of this world,--is this the popular conception of the author of "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin"? Nevertheless it is the reality. When, amid the burning
+ruins of a besieged city, a mother's voice is heard uttering a cry
+of anguish over a child killed in her arms by a bursting shell, the
+attention is arrested, the heart is touched. So "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was
+a cry of anguish from a mother's heart, and uttered in sad sincerity.
+It was the bursting forth of deep feeling, with all the intense anguish
+of wounded love. It will be the purpose of this chapter to show this,
+and to cause to pass before the reader's mind the time, the household,
+and the heart from which this cry was heard.
+
+After struggling for seventeen years with ill health and every possible
+vexation and hindrance in his work, Professor Stowe became convinced
+that it was his duty to himself and his family to seek some other field
+of labor.
+
+February 6, 1850, he writes to his mother, in Natick, Mass.: "My health
+has not been good this winter, and I do not suppose that I should live
+long were I to stay here. I have done a great deal of hard work here,
+and practiced no little self-denial. I have seen the seminary carried
+through a most vexatious series of lawsuits, ecclesiastical and civil,
+and raised from the depths of poverty to comparative affluence, and I
+feel at liberty now to leave. During the three months of June, July,
+and August last, more than nine thousand persons died of cholera within
+three miles of my house, and this winter, in the same territory, there
+have been more than ten thousand cases of small-pox, many of them of
+the very worst kind. Several have died on the hill, and the Jesuits'
+college near us has been quite broken up by it. There have been,
+however, no cases in our families or in the seminary.
+
+"I have received many letters from friends in the East expressing
+great gratification at the offer from Bowdoin College, and the hope
+that I would accept it. I am quite inclined to do so, but the matter
+is not yet finally settled, and there are difficulties in the way.
+They can offer me only $1,000 a year, and I must, out of it, hire my
+own house, at an expense of $75 to $100 a year. Here the trustees
+offer me $1,500 a year if I will stay, and a good house besides, which
+would make the whole salary equivalent to $1,800; and to-day I have
+had another offer from New York city of $2,300.... On the whole, I
+have written to Bowdoin College, proposing to them if they will give
+me $500 free and clear in addition to the salary, I will accept their
+proposition, and I suppose that there is no doubt that they will do it.
+In that case I should come on next spring, in May or June."
+
+This offer from Bowdoin College was additionally attractive to
+Professor Stowe from the fact that it was the college from which he
+graduated, and where some of the happiest years of his life had been
+passed.
+
+The professorship was one just established through the gift of Mrs.
+Collins, a member of Bowdoin Street Church in Boston, and named in her
+honor, the "Collins Professorship of Natural and Revealed Religion."
+
+It was impossible for Professor Stowe to leave Lane Seminary till some
+one could be found to take his place; so it was determined that Mrs.
+Stowe, with three of the children, should start for the East in April,
+and having established the family in Brunswick, Professor Stowe was to
+come on with the remaining children when his engagements would permit.
+
+The following extracts from a letter written by Mrs. Stowe at her
+brother Henry's, at Brooklyn, April 29, 1850, show us that the journey
+was accomplished without special incident.
+
+[Illustration: Henry Ward Beecher]
+
+"The boat got into Pittsburgh between four and five on Wednesday.
+The agent for the Pennsylvania Canal came on board and soon filled
+out our tickets, calling my three chicks one and a half. We had a
+quiet and agreeable passage, and crossed the slides at five o'clock
+in the morning, amid exclamations of unbounded delight from all the
+children, to whom the mountain scenery was a new and amazing thing.
+We reached Hollidaysburg about eleven o'clock, and at two o'clock in
+the night were called up to get into the cars at Jacktown. Arriving at
+Philadelphia about three o'clock in the afternoon, we took the boat and
+railroad line for New York.
+
+"At Lancaster we telegraphed to Brooklyn, and when we arrived in New
+York, between ten and eleven at night, Cousin Augustus met us and
+took us over to Brooklyn. We had ridden three hundred miles since two
+o'clock that morning, and were very tired.... I am glad we came that
+way, for the children have seen some of the finest scenery in our
+country.... Henry's people are more than ever in love with him, and
+have raised his salary to $3,300, and given him a beautiful horse and
+carriage worth $600.... My health is already improved by the journey,
+and I was able to walk a good deal between the locks on the canal. As
+to furniture, I think that we may safely afford an outlay of $150, and
+that will purchase all that may be necessary to set us up, and then we
+can get more as we have means and opportunity.... If I got anything
+for those pieces I wrote before coming away, I would like to be advised
+thereof by you.... My plan is to spend this week in Brooklyn, the next
+in Hartford, the next in Boston, and go on to Brunswick some time in
+May or June."
+
+May 18, 1850, we find her writing from Boston, where she is staying
+with her brother, Rev. Edward Beecher:--
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I came here from Hartford on Monday,
+    and have since then been busily engaged in the business
+    of buying and packing furniture.
+
+    I expect to go to Brunswick next Tuesday night by the
+    Bath steamer, which way I take as the cheaper. My
+    traveling expenses, when I get to Brunswick, including
+    everything, will have been seventy-six dollars....
+    And now, lastly, my dear husband, you have never been
+    wanting ... in kindness, consideration, and justice,
+    and I want you to reflect calmly how great a work
+    has been imposed upon me at a time when my situation
+    particularly calls for rest, repose, and quiet.
+
+    To come alone such a distance with the whole charge
+    of children, accounts, and baggage; to push my way
+    through hurrying crowds, looking out for trunks, and
+    bargaining with hackmen, has been a very severe trial
+    of my strength, to say nothing of the usual fatigues of
+    traveling.
+
+It was at this time, and as a result of the experiences of this trying
+period, that Mrs. Stowe wrote that little tract dear to so many
+Christian hearts, "Earthly Care a Heavenly Discipline."
+
+On the eve of sailing for Brunswick, Mrs. Stowe writes to Mrs. Sykes
+(Miss May): "I am wearied and worn out with seeing to bedsteads,
+tables, chairs, mattresses, with thinking about shipping my goods and
+making out accounts, and I have my trunk yet to pack, as I go on board
+the Bath steamer this evening. I beg you to look up Brunswick on the
+map; it is about half a day's ride in the cars from Boston. I expect to
+reach there by the way of Bath by to-morrow forenoon. There I have a
+house engaged and kind friends who offer every hospitable assistance.
+Come, therefore, to see me, and we will have a long talk in the pine
+woods, and knit up the whole history from the place where we left it."
+
+Before leaving Boston she had written to her husband in Cincinnati:
+"You are not able just now to bear anything, my dear husband, therefore
+trust all to me; I never doubt or despair. I am already making
+arrangements with editors to raise money.
+
+"I have sent some overtures to Wright. If he accepts my pieces and pays
+you for them, take the money and use it as you see necessary; if not,
+be sure and bring the pieces back to me. I am strong in spirit, and
+God who has been with me in so many straits will not forsake me now. I
+know Him well; He is my Father, and though I may be a blind and erring
+child, He will help me for all that. My trust through all errors and
+sins is in Him. He who helped poor timid Jacob through all his fears
+and apprehensions, who helped Abraham even when he sinned, who was with
+David in his wanderings, and who held up the too confident Peter when
+he began to sink,--He will help us, and his arms are about us, so that
+we shall not sink, my dear husband."
+
+May 29, 1850, she writes from Brunswick: "After a week of most
+incessant northeast storm, most discouraging and forlorn to the
+children, the sun has at length come out.... There is a fair wind
+blowing, and every prospect, therefore, that our goods will arrive
+promptly from Boston, and that we shall be in our own house by next
+week. Mrs. Upham[6] has done everything for me, giving up time and
+strength and taking charge of my affairs in a way without which we
+could not have got along at all in a strange place and in my present
+helpless condition. This family is delightful, there is such a perfect
+sweetness and quietude in all its movements. Not a harsh word or hasty
+expression is ever heard. It is a beautiful pattern of a Christian
+family, a beautiful exemplification of religion...."
+
+The events of the first summer in Brunswick are graphically described
+by Mrs. Stowe in a letter written to her sister-in-law, Mrs. George
+Beecher, December 17, 1850.
+
+    MY DEAR SISTER,--Is it really true that snow is on the
+    ground and Christmas coming, and I have not written
+    unto thee, most dear sister? No, I don't believe it!
+    I haven't been so naughty--it's all a mistake--yes,
+    written I must have--and written I have, too--in the
+    night-watches as I lay on my bed--such beautiful
+    letters--I wish you had only gotten them; but by day it
+    has been hurry, hurry, hurry, and drive, drive, drive!
+    or else the calm of a sick-room, ever since last spring.
+
+    I put off writing when your letter first came because I
+    meant to write you a long letter--a full and complete
+    one, and so days slid by,--and became weeks,--and my
+    little Charlie came ... etc. and etc.!!! Sarah, when
+    I look back, I wonder at myself, not that I forget
+    any one thing that I should remember, but that I
+    have remembered anything. From the time that I left
+    Cincinnati with my children to come forth to a country
+    that I knew not of almost to the present time, it has
+    seemed as if I could scarcely breathe, I was so pressed
+    with care. My head dizzy with the whirl of railroads
+    and steamboats; then ten days' sojourn in Boston, and
+    a constant toil and hurry in buying my furniture and
+    equipments; and then landing in Brunswick in the midst
+    of a drizzly, inexorable northeast storm, and beginning
+    the work of getting in order a deserted, dreary, damp
+    old house. All day long running from one thing to
+    another, as for example, thus:--
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, how shall I make this lounge, and what
+    shall I cover the back with first?
+
+    _Mrs. Stowe._ With the coarse cotton in the closet.
+
+    _Woman._ Mrs. Stowe, there isn't any more soap to clean
+    the windows.
+
+    _Mrs. Stowe._ Where shall I get soap?
+
+    Here H., run up to the store and get two bars.
+
+    There is a man below wants to see Mrs. Stowe about the
+    cistern. Before you go down, Mrs. Stowe, just show me
+    how to cover this round end of the lounge.
+
+    There's a man up from the depot, and he says that a
+    box has come for Mrs. Stowe, and it's coming up to the
+    house; will you come down and see about it?
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, don't go till you have shown the man how
+    to nail that carpet in the corner. He's nailed it all
+    crooked; what shall he do? The black thread is all used
+    up, and what shall I do about putting gimp on the back
+    of that sofa? Mrs. Stowe, there is a man come with a
+    lot of pails and tinware from Furbish; will you settle
+    the bill now?
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, here is a letter just come from Boston
+    inclosing that bill of lading; the man wants to know
+    what he shall do with the goods. If you will tell me
+    what to say I will answer the letter for you.
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, the meat-man is at the door. Hadn't we
+    better get a little beefsteak, or something, for dinner?
+
+    Shall Hatty go to Boardman's for some more black thread?
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, this cushion is an inch too wide for the
+    frame. What shall we do now?
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, where are the screws of the black walnut
+    bedstead?
+
+    Here's a man has brought in these bills for freight.
+    Will you settle them now?
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, I don't understand using this great needle.
+    I can't make it go through the cushion; it sticks in
+    the cotton.
+
+    Then comes a letter from my husband saying he is sick
+    abed, and all but dead; don't ever expect to see his
+    family again; wants to know how I shall manage, in
+    case I am left a widow; knows we shall get in debt
+    and never get out; wonders at my courage; thinks I am
+    very sanguine; warns me to be prudent, as there won't
+    be much to live on in case of his death, etc., etc.,
+    etc. I read the letter and poke it into the stove, and
+    proceed....
+
+    Some of my adventures were quite funny; as for example:
+    I had in my kitchen elect no sink, cistern, or any
+    other water privileges, so I bought at the cotton
+    factory two of the great hogsheads they bring oil in,
+    which here in Brunswick are often used for cisterns,
+    and had them brought up in triumph to my yard, and
+    was congratulating myself on my energy, when lo and
+    behold! it was discovered that there was no cellar door
+    except one in the kitchen, which was truly a strait
+    and narrow way, down a long pair of stairs. Hereupon,
+    as saith John Bunyan, I fell into a muse,--how to get
+    my cisterns into my cellar. In days of chivalry I
+    might have got a knight to make me a breach through
+    the foundation walls, but that was not to be thought
+    of now, and my oil hogsheads standing disconsolately
+    in the yard seemed to reflect no great credit on my
+    foresight. In this strait I fell upon a real honest
+    Yankee cooper, whom I besought, for the reputation of
+    his craft and mine, to take my hogsheads to pieces,
+    carry them down in staves, and set them up again, which
+    the worthy man actually accomplished one fair summer
+    forenoon, to the great astonishment of "us Yankees."
+    When my man came to put up the pump, he stared very
+    hard to see my hogsheads thus translated and standing
+    as innocent and quiet as could be in the cellar, and
+    then I told him, in a very mild, quiet way, that I
+    got 'em taken to pieces and put together--just as if
+    I had been always in the habit of doing such things.
+    Professor Smith came down and looked very hard at
+    them and then said, "Well, nothing can beat a willful
+    woman." Then followed divers negotiations with a very
+    clever, but (with reverence) somewhat lazy gentleman
+    of jobs, who occupieth a carpenter's shop opposite to
+    mine. This same John Titcomb, my very good friend, is
+    a character peculiar to Yankeedom. He is part owner
+    and landlord of the house I rent, and connected by
+    birth with all the best families in town; a man of
+    real intelligence, and good education, a great reader,
+    and quite a thinker. Being of an ingenious turn he
+    does painting, gilding, staining, upholstery jobs,
+    varnishing, all in addition to his primary trade of
+    carpentry. But he is a man studious of ease, and fully
+    possessed with the idea that man wants but little here
+    below; so he boards himself in his workshop on crackers
+    and herring, washed down with cold water, and spends
+    his time working, musing, reading new publications,
+    and taking his comfort. In his shop you shall see
+    a joiner's bench, hammers, planes, saws, gimlets,
+    varnish, paint, picture frames, fence posts, rare old
+    china, one or two fine portraits of his ancestry, a
+    bookcase full of books, the tooth of a whale, an old
+    spinning-wheel and spindle, a lady's parasol frame,
+    a church lamp to be mended, in short, Henry says Mr.
+    Titcomb's shop is like the ocean; there is no end to
+    the curiosities in it.
+
+    In all my moving and fussing Mr. Titcomb has been my
+    right-hand man. Whenever a screw was loose, a nail to
+    be driven, a lock mended, a pane of glass set, and
+    these cases were manifold, he was always on hand.
+    But my sink was no fancy job, and I believe nothing
+    but a very particular friendship would have moved
+    him to undertake it. So this same sink lingered in
+    a precarious state for some weeks, and when I had
+    _nothing else to do_, I used to call and do what
+    I could in the way of enlisting the good man's
+    sympathies in its behalf.
+
+    How many times I have been in and seated myself in one
+    of the old rocking-chairs, and talked first of the
+    news of the day, the railroad, the last proceedings
+    in Congress, the probabilities about the millennium,
+    and thus brought the conversation by little and little
+    round to my sink!... because, till the sink was done,
+    the pump could not be put up, and we couldn't have any
+    rain-water. Sometimes my courage would quite fail me to
+    introduce the subject, and I would talk of everything
+    else, turn and get out of the shop, and then turn back
+    as if a thought had just struck my mind, and say:--
+
+    "Oh, Mr. Titcomb! about that sink?"
+
+    "Yes, ma'am, I was thinking about going down street
+    this afternoon to look out stuff for it."
+
+    "Yes, sir, if you would be good enough to get it done
+    as soon as possible; we are in great need of it."
+
+    "I think there's no hurry. I believe we are going to
+    have a dry time now, so that you could not catch any
+    water, and you won't need a pump at present."
+
+    These negotiations extended from the first of June to
+    the first of July, and at last my sink was completed,
+    and so also was a new house spout, concerning which
+    I had had divers communings with Deacon Dunning of
+    the Baptist church. Also during this time good Mrs.
+    Mitchell and myself made two sofas, or lounges, a
+    barrel chair, divers bedspreads, pillow cases, pillows,
+    bolsters, mattresses; we painted rooms; we revarnished
+    furniture; we--what _didn't_ we do?
+
+    Then came on Mr. Stowe; and then came the eighth
+    of July and my little Charley. I was really glad
+    for an excuse to lie in bed, for I was full tired,
+    I can assure you. Well, I was what folks call very
+    comfortable for two weeks, when my nurse had to leave
+    me....
+
+    During this time I have employed my leisure hours in
+    making up my engagements with newspaper editors. I have
+    written more than anybody, or I myself, would have
+    thought. I have taught an hour a day in our school, and
+    I have read two hours every evening to the children.
+    The children study English history in school, and I
+    am reading Scott's historic novels in their order.
+    To-night I finish the "Abbot;" shall begin "Kenilworth"
+    next week; yet I am constantly pursued and haunted by
+    the idea that I don't do anything. Since I began this
+    note I have been called off at least a dozen times;
+    once for the fish-man, to buy a codfish; once to see
+    a man who had brought me some barrels of apples; once
+    to see a book-man; then to Mrs. Upham, to see about
+    a drawing I promised to make for her; then to nurse
+    the baby; then into the kitchen to make a chowder for
+    dinner; and now I am at it again, for nothing but
+    deadly determination enables me ever to write; it is
+    rowing against wind and tide.
+
+    I suppose you think now I have begun, I am never going
+    to stop, and in truth it looks like it; but the spirit
+    moves now and I must obey.
+
+    Christmas is coming, and our little household is all
+    alive with preparations; every one collecting their
+    little gifts with wonderful mystery and secrecy....
+
+    To tell the truth, dear, I am getting tired; my neck
+    and back ache, and I must come to a close.
+
+    Your ready kindness to me in the spring I felt very
+    much; and _why_ I did not have the sense to have sent
+    you one line just by way of acknowledgment, I'm sure
+    I don't know; I felt just as if I had, till I awoke,
+    and behold! I had not. But, my dear, if my wits are
+    somewhat wool-gathering and unsettled, my heart is as
+    true as a star. I love you, and have thought of you
+    often.
+
+    This fall I have felt often _sad_, lonesome, both very
+    unusual feelings with me in these busy days; but the
+    breaking away from my old home, and leaving father
+    and mother, and coming to a strange place affected me
+    naturally. In those sad hours my thoughts have often
+    turned to George; I have thought with encouragement
+    of his blessed state, and hoped that I should soon
+    be there too. I have many warm and kind friends
+    here, and have been treated with great attention and
+    kindness. Brunswick is a delightful residence, and
+    if you come East next summer you must come to my new
+    home. George[7] would delight to go a-fishing with the
+    children, and see the ships, and sail in the sailboats,
+    and all that.
+
+    Give Aunt Harriet's love to him, and tell him when he
+    gets to be a painter to send me a picture.
+
+    Affectionately yours,                      H. STOWE.
+
+The year 1850 is one memorable in the history of our nation as well as
+in the quiet household that we have followed in its pilgrimage from
+Cincinnati to Brunswick.
+
+The signers of the Declaration of Independence and the statesmen and
+soldiers of the Revolution were no friends of negro slavery. In fact,
+the very principles of the Declaration of Independence sounded the
+death-knell of slavery forever. No stronger utterances against this
+national sin are to be found anywhere than in the letters and published
+writings of Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, and Patrick Henry.
+"Jefferson encountered difficulties greater than he could overcome, and
+after vain wrestlings the words that broke from him, 'I tremble for my
+country when I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot
+sleep forever,' were the words of despair.
+
+"It was the desire of Washington's heart that Virginia should remove
+slavery by a public act; and as the prospects of a general emancipation
+grew more and more dim ... he did all that he could by bequeathing
+freedom to his own slaves."[8]
+
+Hamilton was one of the founders of the Manumission Society, the object
+of which was the abolition of slaves in the State of New York. Patrick
+Henry, speaking of slavery, said: "A serious view of this subject gives
+a gloomy prospect to future times." Slavery was thought by the founders
+of our Republic to be a dying institution, and all the provisions of
+the Constitution touching slavery looked towards gradual emancipation
+as an inevitable result of the growth of the democracy.
+
+From an economic standpoint slave labor had ceased to be profitable.
+"The whole interior of the Southern States was languishing, and its
+inhabitants emigrating, for want of some object to engage their
+attention and employ their industry." The cultivation of cotton was
+not profitable for the reason that there was no machine for separating
+the seed from the fibre.
+
+This was the state of affairs in 1793, when Eli Whitney, a New England
+mechanic, at this time residing in Savannah, Georgia, invented his
+cotton-gin, or a machine to separate seed and fibre. "The invention
+of this machine at once set the whole country in active motion."[9]
+The effect of this invention may to some extent be appreciated when
+we consider that whereas in 1793 the Southern States produced only
+about five or ten thousand bales, in 1859 they produced over five
+millions. But with this increase of the cotton culture the value
+of slave property was augmented. Slavery grew and spread. In 1818
+to 1821 it first became a factor in politics during the Missouri
+compromise. By this compromise slavery was not to extend north of
+latitude 36° 30´. From the time of this compromise till the year
+1833 the slavery agitation slumbered. This was the year that the
+British set the slaves free in their West Indian dependencies. This
+act caused great uneasiness among the slaveholders of the South. The
+National Anti-Slavery Society met in Philadelphia and pronounced
+slavery a national sin, which could be atoned for only by immediate
+emancipation. Such men as Garrison and Lundy began a work of agitation
+that was soon to set the whole nation in a ferment. From this time on
+slavery became the central problem of American history, and the line
+of cleavage in American politics. The invasion of Florida when it was
+yet the territory of a nation at peace with the United States, and its
+subsequent purchase from Spain, the annexation of Texas and the war
+with Mexico, were the direct results of the policy of the pro-slavery
+party to increase its influence and its territory. In 1849 the State
+of California knocked at the door of the Union for admission as a free
+State. This was bitterly opposed by the slaveholders of the South,
+who saw in it a menace to the slave-power from the fact that no slave
+State was seeking admission at the same time. Both North and South the
+feeling ran so high as to threaten the dismemberment of the Union, and
+the scenes of violence and bloodshed which were to come eleven years
+afterwards. It was to preserve the Union and avert the danger of the
+hour that Henry Clay brought forward his celebrated compromise measures
+in the winter of 1850. To conciliate the North, California was to be
+admitted as a free State. To pacify the slaveholders of the South, more
+stringent laws were to be enacted "concerning persons bound to service
+in one State and escaping into another."
+
+The 7th of March, 1850, Daniel Webster made his celebrated speech, in
+which he defended this compromise, and the abolitionists of the North
+were filled with indignation, which found its most fitting expression
+in Whittier's "Ichabod:" "So fallen, so lost, the glory from his gray
+hairs gone." ... "When honor dies the man is dead."
+
+It was in the midst of this excitement that Mrs. Stowe, with her
+children and her modest hopes for the future, arrived at the house of
+her brother, Dr. Edward Beecher.
+
+Dr. Beecher had been the intimate friend and supporter of Lovejoy,
+who had been murdered by the slaveholders at Alton for publishing an
+anti-slavery paper. His soul was stirred to its very depths by the
+iniquitous law which was at this time being debated in Congress,--a
+law which not only gave the slaveholder of the South the right to seek
+out and bring back into slavery any colored person whom he claimed
+as a slave, but commanded the people of the free States to assist in
+this revolting business. The most frequent theme of conversation while
+Mrs. Stowe was in Boston was this proposed law, and when she arrived
+in Brunswick her soul was all on fire with indignation at this new
+indignity and wrong about to be inflicted by the slave-power on the
+innocent and defenseless.
+
+After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, letter after letter was
+received by Mrs. Stowe in Brunswick from Mrs. Edward Beecher and
+other friends, describing the heart-rending scenes which were the
+inevitable results of the enforcement of this terrible law. Cities were
+more available for the capturing of escaped slaves than the country,
+and Boston, which claimed to have the cradle of liberty, opened her
+doors to the slave-hunters. The sorrow and anguish caused thereby no
+pen could describe. Families were broken up. Some hid in garrets and
+cellars. Some fled to the wharves and embarked in ships and sailed
+for Europe. Others went to Canada. One poor fellow who was doing good
+business as a crockery merchant, and supporting his family well, when
+he got notice that his master, whom he had left many years before, was
+after him, set out for Canada in midwinter on foot, as he did not dare
+to take a public conveyance. He froze both of his feet on the journey,
+and they had to be amputated. Mrs. Edward Beecher, in a letter to Mrs.
+Stowe's son, writing of this period, says:--
+
+"I had been nourishing an anti-slavery spirit since Lovejoy was
+murdered for publishing in his paper articles against slavery and
+intemperance, when our home was in Illinois. These terrible things
+which were going on in Boston were well calculated to rouse up this
+spirit. What can I do? I thought. Not much myself, but I know one who
+can. So I wrote several letters to your mother, telling her of various
+heart-rending events caused by the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave
+Law. I remember distinctly saying in one of them, 'Now, Hattie, if I
+could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make
+this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.'... When we
+lived in Boston your mother often visited us.... Several numbers of
+'Uncle Tom's Cabin' were written in your Uncle Edward's study at these
+times, and read to us from the manuscripts."
+
+A member of Mrs. Stowe's family well remembers the scene in the little
+parlor in Brunswick when the letter alluded to was received. Mrs. Stowe
+herself read it aloud to the assembled family, and when she came to the
+passage, "I would write something that would make this whole nation
+feel what an accursed thing slavery is," Mrs. Stowe rose up from her
+chair, crushing the letter in her hand, and with an expression on her
+face that stamped itself on the mind of her child, said: "I will write
+something. I will if I live."
+
+This was the origin of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and Professor Cairnes has
+well said in his admirable work, "The Slave Power," "The Fugitive
+Slave Law has been to the slave power a questionable gain. Among its
+first-fruits was 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"
+
+The purpose of writing a story that should make the whole nation feel
+that slavery was an accursed thing was not immediately carried out.
+In December, 1850, Mrs. Stowe writes: "Tell sister Katy I thank her
+for her letter and will answer it. As long as the baby sleeps with me
+nights I can't do much at anything, but I will do it at last. I will
+write that thing if I live.
+
+"What are folks in general saying about the slave law, and the stand
+taken by Boston ministers universally, except Edward?
+
+"To me it is incredible, amazing, mournful!! I feel as if I should
+be willing to sink with it, were all this sin and misery to sink in
+the sea.... I wish father would come on to Boston, and preach on the
+Fugitive Slave Law, as he once preached on the slave-trade, when I was
+a little girl in Litchfield. I sobbed aloud in one pew and Mrs. Judge
+Reeves in another. I wish some Martin Luther would arise to set this
+community right."
+
+December 22, 1850, she writes to her husband in Cincinnati: "Christmas
+has passed, not without many thoughts of our absent one. If you want
+a description of the scenes in our family preceding it, _vide_ a 'New
+Year's Story,' which I have sent to the 'New York Evangelist.' I am
+sorry that in the hurry of getting off this piece and one for the 'Era'
+you were neglected." The piece for the "Era" was a humorous article
+called "A Scholar's Adventures in the Country," being, in fact, a
+picture drawn from life and embodying Professor Stowe's efforts in the
+department of agriculture while in Cincinnati.
+
+_December 29, 1850._ "We have had terrible weather here. I remember
+such a storm when I was a child in Litchfield. Father and mother went
+to Warren, and were almost lost in the snowdrifts.
+
+"Sunday night I rather watched than slept. The wind howled, and the
+house rocked just as our old Litchfield house used to. The cold has
+been so intense that the children have kept begging to get up from
+table at meal-times to warm feet and fingers. Our air-tight stoves
+warm all but the floor,--heat your head and keep your feet freezing.
+If I sit by the open fire in the parlor my back freezes, if I sit in
+my bedroom and try to write my head aches and my feet are cold. I am
+projecting a sketch for the 'Era' on the capabilities of liberated
+blacks to take care of themselves. Can't you find out for me how much
+Willie Watson has paid for the redemption of his friends, and get any
+items in figures of that kind that you can pick up in Cincinnati?...
+When I have a headache and feel sick, as I do to-day, there is
+actually not a place in the house where I can lie down and take a nap
+without being disturbed. Overhead is the school-room, next door is the
+dining-room, and the girls practice there two hours a day. If I lock
+my door and lie down some one is sure to be rattling the latch before
+fifteen minutes have passed.... There is no doubt in my mind that
+our expenses this year will come two hundred dollars, if not three,
+beyond our salary. We shall be able to come through, notwithstanding;
+but I don't want to feel obliged to work as hard every year as I have
+this. I can earn four hundred dollars a year by writing, but I don't
+want to feel that I must, and when weary with teaching the children,
+and tending the baby, and buying provisions, and mending dresses, and
+darning stockings, sit down and write a piece for some paper."
+
+January 12, 1851, Mrs. Stowe again writes to Professor Stowe at
+Cincinnati: "Ever since we left Cincinnati to come here the good hand
+of God has been visibly guiding our way. Through what difficulties
+have we been brought! Though we knew not where means were to come
+from, yet means have been furnished every step of the way, and in
+every time of need. I was just in some discouragement with regard to
+my writing; thinking that the editor of the 'Era' was overstocked with
+contributors, and would not want my services another year, and lo! he
+sends me one hundred dollars, and ever so many good words with it. Our
+income this year will be seventeen hundred dollars in all, and I hope
+to bring our expenses within thirteen hundred."
+
+It was in the month of February after these words were written that
+Mrs. Stowe was seated at communion service in the college church at
+Brunswick. Suddenly, like the unrolling of a picture, the scene of
+the death of Uncle Tom passed before her mind. So strongly was she
+affected that it was with difficulty she could keep from weeping aloud.
+Immediately on returning home she took pen and paper and wrote out the
+vision which had been as it were blown into her mind as by the rushing
+of a mighty wind. Gathering her family about her she read what she
+had written. Her two little ones of ten and twelve years of age broke
+into convulsions of weeping, one of them saying through his sobs, "Oh,
+mamma! slavery is the most cruel thing in the world." Thus Uncle Tom
+was ushered into the world, and it was, as we said at the beginning,
+a cry, an immediate, an involuntary expression of deep, impassioned
+feeling.
+
+Twenty-five years afterwards Mrs. Stowe wrote in a letter to one of
+her children, of this period of her life: "I well remember the winter
+you were a baby and I was writing 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' My heart was
+bursting with the anguish excited by the cruelty and injustice our
+nation was showing to the slave, and praying God to let me do a little
+and to cause my cry for them to be heard. I remember many a night
+weeping over you as you lay sleeping beside me, and I thought of the
+slave mothers whose babes were torn from them."
+
+It was not till the following April that the first chapter of the story
+was finished and sent on to the "National Era" at Washington.
+
+In July Mrs. Stowe wrote to Frederick Douglass the following letter,
+which is given entire as the best possible introduction to the history
+of the career of that memorable work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+                                  BRUNSWICK, _July 9, 1851._
+
+    FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ESQ.:
+
+    _Sir_,--You may perhaps have noticed in your editorial
+    readings a series of articles that I am furnishing for
+    the "Era" under the title of "Uncle Tom's Cabin, or
+    Life among the Lowly."
+
+    In the course of my story the scene will fall upon
+    a cotton plantation. I am very desirous, therefore,
+    to gain information from one who has been an actual
+    laborer on one, and it occurred to me that in the
+    circle of your acquaintance there might be one
+    who would be able to communicate to me some such
+    information as I desire. I have before me an able paper
+    written by a Southern planter, in which the details and
+    _modus operandi_ are given from his point of sight.
+    I am anxious to have something more from another
+    standpoint. I wish to be able to make a picture that
+    shall be graphic and true to nature in its details.
+    Such a person as Henry Bibb, if in the country, might
+    give me just the kind of information I desire. You may
+    possibly know of some other person. I will subjoin to
+    this letter a list of questions, which in that case you
+    will do me a favor by inclosing to the individual, with
+    the request that he will at earliest convenience answer
+    them.
+
+    For some few weeks past I have received your paper
+    through the mail, and have read it with great interest,
+    and desire to return my acknowledgments for it. It will
+    be a pleasure to me at some time when less occupied to
+    contribute something to its columns. I have noticed
+    with regret your sentiments on two subjects--the church
+    and African colonization, ... with the more regret
+    because I think you have a considerable share of reason
+    for your feelings on both these subjects; but I would
+    willingly, if I could, modify your views on both points.
+
+    In the first place you say the church is "pro-slavery."
+    There is a sense in which this may be true. The
+    American church of all denominations, taken as a body,
+    comprises the best and most conscientious people
+    in the country. I do not say it comprises none but
+    these, or that none such are found out of it, but only
+    if a census were taken of the purest and most high
+    principled men and women of the country, the majority
+    of them would be found to be professors of religion
+    in some of the various Christian denominations.
+    This fact has given to the church great weight in
+    this country--the general and predominant spirit of
+    intelligence and probity and piety of its majority
+    has given it that degree of weight that it has the
+    power to decide the great moral questions of the
+    day. Whatever it unitedly and decidedly sets itself
+    against as moral evil it can put down. In this sense
+    the church is responsible for the sin of slavery. Dr.
+    Barnes has beautifully and briefly expressed this on
+    the last page of his work on slavery, when he says:
+    "Not all the force out of the church could sustain
+    slavery an hour if it were not sustained in it." It
+    then appears that the church has the power to put an
+    end to this evil and does not do it. In this sense she
+    may be said to be pro-slavery. But the church has the
+    same power over intemperance, and Sabbath-breaking,
+    and sin of all kinds. There is not a doubt that if
+    the moral power of the church were brought up to the
+    New Testament standpoint it is sufficient to put an
+    end to all these as well as to slavery. But I would
+    ask you, Would you consider it a fair representation
+    of the Christian church in this country to say that
+    it is pro-intemperance, pro-Sabbath-breaking, and
+    pro everything that it might put down if it were in
+    a higher state of moral feeling? If you should make
+    a list of all the abolitionists of the country, I
+    think that you would find a majority of them in the
+    church--certainly some of the most influential and
+    efficient ones are ministers.
+
+    I am a minister's daughter, and a minister's wife, and
+    I have had six brothers in the ministry (one is in
+    heaven); I certainly ought to know something of the
+    feelings of ministers on this subject. I was a child in
+    1820 when the Missouri question was agitated, and one
+    of the strongest and deepest impressions on my mind was
+    that made by my father's sermons and prayers, and the
+    anguish of his soul for the poor slave at that time. I
+    remember his preaching drawing tears down the hardest
+    faces of the old farmers in his congregation.
+
+    I well remember his prayers morning and evening in the
+    family for "poor, oppressed, bleeding Africa," that the
+    time of her deliverance might come; prayers offered
+    with strong crying and tears, and which indelibly
+    impressed my heart and made me what I am from my very
+    soul, the enemy of all slavery. Every brother I have
+    has been in his sphere a leading anti-slavery man. One
+    of them was to the last the bosom friend and counselor
+    of Lovejoy. As for myself and husband, we have for the
+    last seventeen years lived on the border of a slave
+    State, and we have never shrunk from the fugitives, and
+    we have helped them with all we had to give. I have
+    received the children of liberated slaves into a family
+    school, and taught them with my own children, and it
+    has been the influence that we found in the church
+    and by the altar that has made us do all this. Gather
+    up all the sermons that have been published on this
+    offensive and unchristian Fugitive Slave Law, and you
+    will find that those against it are numerically more
+    than those in its favor, and yet some of the strongest
+    opponents have not published their sermons. Out of
+    thirteen ministers who meet with my husband weekly for
+    discussion of moral subjects, only three are found who
+    will acknowledge or obey this law in any shape.
+
+    After all, my brother, the strength and hope of your
+    oppressed race does lie in the church--in hearts united
+    to Him of whom it is said, "He shall spare the souls
+    of the needy, and precious shall their blood be in his
+    sight." Everything is against you, but Jesus Christ is
+    for you, and He has not forgotten his church, misguided
+    and erring though it be. I have looked all the field
+    over with despairing eyes; I see no hope but in Him.
+    This movement must and will become a purely religious
+    one. The light will spread in churches, the tone of
+    feeling will rise, Christians North and South will give
+    up all connection with, and take up their testimony
+    against, slavery, and thus the work will be done.
+
+This letter gives us a conception of the state of moral and religious
+exaltation of the heart and mind out of which flowed chapter after
+chapter of that wonderful story. It all goes to prove the correctness
+of the position from which we started, that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" came
+from the heart rather than the head. It was an outburst of deep
+feeling, a cry in the darkness. The writer no more thought of style
+or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and
+cries for help to save her children from a burning house thinks of the
+teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist.
+
+A few years afterwards Mrs. Stowe, writing of this story, said, "This
+story is to show how Jesus Christ, who liveth and was dead, and now
+is alive and forevermore, has still a mother's love for the poor and
+lowly, and that no man can sink so low but that Jesus Christ will
+stoop to take his hand. Who so low, who so poor, who so despised as
+the American slave? The law almost denies his existence as a person,
+and regards him for the most part as less than a man--a mere thing,
+the property of another. The law forbids him to read or write, to hold
+property, to make a contract, or even to form a legal marriage. It
+takes from him all legal right to the wife of his bosom, the children
+of his body. He can do nothing, possess nothing, acquire nothing, but
+what must belong to his master. Yet even to this slave Jesus Christ
+stoops, from where he sits at the right hand of the Father, and says,
+'Fear not, thou whom man despiseth, for I am thy brother. Fear not, for
+I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine.'"
+
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a work of religion; the fundamental principles
+of the gospel applied to the burning question of negro slavery. It sets
+forth those principles of the Declaration of Independence that made
+Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, and Patrick Henry anti-slavery men;
+not in the language of the philosopher, but in a series of pictures.
+Mrs. Stowe spoke to the understanding and moral sense through the
+imagination.
+
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" made the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law
+an impossibility. It aroused the public sentiment of the world by
+presenting in the concrete that which had been a mere series of
+abstract propositions. It was, as we have already said, an appeal to
+the imagination through a series of pictures. People are like children,
+and understand pictures better than words. Some one rushes into your
+dining-room while you are at breakfast and cries out, "Terrible
+railroad accident, forty killed and wounded, six were burned alive."
+
+"Oh, shocking! dreadful!" you exclaim, and yet go quietly on with
+your rolls and coffee. But suppose you stood at that instant by the
+wreck, and saw the mangled dead, and heard the piercing shrieks of the
+wounded, you would be faint and dizzy with the intolerable spectacle.
+
+So "Uncle Tom's Cabin" made the crack of the slavedriver's whip, and
+the cries of the tortured blacks ring in every household in the land,
+till human hearts could endure it no longer.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] Wife of Professor Upham of Bowdoin College.
+
+[7] Her brother George's only child.
+
+[8] Bancroft's funeral oration on Lincoln.
+
+[9] Greeley's _American Conflict_, vol. i. p. 65.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, 1852.
+
+    "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AS A SERIAL IN THE "NATIONAL
+    ERA."--AN OFFER FOR ITS PUBLICATION IN BOOK
+    FORM.--WILL IT BE A SUCCESS?--AN UNPRECEDENTED
+    CIRCULATION.--CONGRATULATORY MESSAGES.--KIND WORDS FROM
+    ABROAD.--MRS. STOWE TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--LETTERS
+    FROM AND TO LORD SHAFTESBURY.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH
+    ARTHUR HELPS.
+
+
+THE wonderful story that was begun in the "National Era," June 5, 1851,
+and was announced to run for about three months, was not completed in
+that paper until April 1, 1852. It had been contemplated as a mere
+magazine tale of perhaps a dozen chapters, but once begun it could no
+more be controlled than the waters of the swollen Mississippi, bursting
+through a crevasse in its levees. The intense interest excited by the
+story, the demands made upon the author for more facts, the unmeasured
+words of encouragement to keep on in her good work that poured in
+from all sides, and above all the ever-growing conviction that she
+had been intrusted with a great and holy mission, compelled her to
+keep on until the humble tale had assumed the proportions of a volume
+prepared to stand among the most notable books in the world. As Mrs.
+Stowe has since repeatedly said, "I could not control the story; it
+wrote itself;" or "I the author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'? No, indeed. The
+Lord himself wrote it, and I was but the humblest of instruments in his
+hand. To Him alone should be given all the praise."
+
+Although the publication of the "National Era" has been long since
+suspended, the journal was in those days one of decided literary merit
+and importance. On its title-page, with the name of Dr. Gamaliel Bailey
+as editor, appeared that of John Greenleaf Whittier as corresponding
+editor. In its columns Mrs. Southworth made her first literary venture,
+while Alice and Phoebe Cary, Grace Greenwood, and a host of other
+well-known names were published with that of Mrs. Stowe, which appeared
+last of all in its prospectus for 1851.
+
+Before the conclusion of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Mrs. Stowe had so far
+outstripped her contemporaries that her work was pronounced by
+competent judges to be the most powerful production ever contributed to
+the magazine literature of this country, and she stood in the foremost
+rank of American writers.
+
+After finishing her story Mrs. Stowe penned the following appeal to its
+more youthful readers, and its serial publication was concluded:--
+
+"The author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' must now take leave of a wide circle
+of friends whose faces she has never seen, but whose sympathies coming
+to her from afar have stimulated and cheered her in her work.
+
+"The thought of the pleasant family circles that she has been meeting
+in spirit week after week has been a constant refreshment to her, and
+she cannot leave them without a farewell.
+
+"In particular the dear children who have followed her story have her
+warmest love. Dear children, you will soon be men and women, and I hope
+that you will learn from this story always to remember and pity the
+poor and oppressed. When you grow up, show your pity by doing all you
+can for them. Never, if you can help it, let a colored child be shut
+out from school or treated with neglect and contempt on account of his
+color. Remember the sweet example of little Eva, and try to feel the
+same regard for all that she did. Then, when you grow up, I hope the
+foolish and unchristian prejudice against people merely on account of
+their complexion will be done away with.
+
+"Farewell, dear children, until we meet again."
+
+With the completion of the story the editor of the "Era" wrote:
+"Mrs. Stowe has at last brought her great work to a close. We do not
+recollect any production of an American writer that has excited more
+general and profound interest."
+
+For the story as a serial the author received $300. In the mean time,
+however, it had attracted the attention of Mr. John P. Jewett, a
+Boston publisher, who promptly made overtures for its publication in
+book form. He offered Mr. and Mrs. Stowe a half share in the profits,
+provided they would share with him the expense of publication. This
+was refused by Professor Stowe, who said he was altogether too poor
+to assume any such risk; and the agreement finally made was that the
+author should receive a ten per cent. royalty upon all sales.
+
+Mrs. Stowe had no reason to hope for any large pecuniary gain from
+this publication, for it was practically her first book. To be sure,
+she had, in 1832, prepared a small school geography for a Western
+publisher, and ten years later the Harpers had brought out her
+"Mayflower." Still, neither of these had been sufficiently remunerative
+to cause her to regard literary work as a money-making business, and
+in regard to this new contract she writes: "I did not know until a week
+afterward precisely what terms Mr. Stowe had made, and I did not care.
+I had the most perfect indifference to the bargain."
+
+The agreement was signed March 13, 1852, and, as by arrangement with
+the "National Era" the book publication of the story was authorized
+before its completion as a serial, the first edition of five thousand
+copies was issued on the twentieth of the same month.
+
+In looking over the first semi-annual statement presented by her
+publishers we find Mrs. Stowe charged, a few days before the date of
+publication of her book, with "one copy U. T. C. cloth $.56," and this
+was the first copy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ever sold in book form.
+Five days earlier we find her charged with one copy of Horace Mann's
+speeches. In writing of this critical period of her life Mrs. Stowe
+says:--
+
+"After sending the last proof-sheet to the office I sat alone reading
+Horace Mann's eloquent plea for these young men and women, then about
+to be consigned to the slave warehouse of Bruin & Hill in Alexandria,
+Va.,--a plea impassioned, eloquent, but vain, as all other pleas on
+that side had ever proved in all courts hitherto. It seemed that there
+was no hope, that nobody would hear, nobody would read, nobody pity;
+that this frightful system, that had already pursued its victims into
+the free States, might at last even threaten them in Canada."[10]
+
+Filled with this fear, she determined to do all that one woman might
+to enlist the sympathies of England for the cause, and to avert, even
+as a remote contingency, the closing of Canada as a haven of refuge for
+the oppressed. To this end she at once wrote letters to Prince Albert,
+to the Duke of Argyll, to the Earls of Carlisle and Shaftesbury, to
+Macaulay, Dickens, and others whom she knew to be interested in the
+cause of anti-slavery. These she ordered to be sent to their several
+addresses, accompanied by the very earliest copies of her book that
+should be printed.
+
+Then, having done what she could, and committed the result to God, she
+calmly turned her attention to other affairs.
+
+In the mean time the fears of the author as to whether or not her book
+would be read were quickly dispelled. Three thousand copies were sold
+the very first day, a second edition was issued the following week, a
+third on the 1st of April, and within a year one hundred and twenty
+editions, or over three hundred thousand copies of the book, had been
+issued and sold in this country. Almost in a day the poor professor's
+wife had become the most talked-of woman in the world, her influence
+for good was spreading to its remotest corners, and henceforth she
+was to be a public character, whose every movement would be watched
+with interest, and whose every word would be quoted. The long, weary
+struggle with poverty was to be hers no longer; for, in seeking to aid
+the oppressed, she had also so aided herself that within four months
+from the time her book was published it had yielded her $10,000 in
+royalties.
+
+Now letters regarding the wonderful book, and expressing all shades
+of opinion concerning it, began to pour in upon the author. Her
+lifelong friend, whose words we have already so often quoted, wrote:--
+
+"I sat up last night until long after one o'clock reading and finishing
+'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' I could not leave it any more than I could have
+left a dying child, nor could I restrain an almost hysterical sobbing
+for an hour after I laid my head upon my pillow. I thought I was a
+thorough-going abolitionist before, but your book has awakened so
+strong a feeling of indignation and of compassion that I never seem to
+have had any feeling on this subject until now."
+
+The poet Longfellow wrote:--
+
+    I congratulate you most cordially upon the immense
+    success and influence of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It is one
+    of the greatest triumphs recorded in literary history,
+    to say nothing of the higher triumph of its moral
+    effect.
+
+    With great regard, and friendly remembrance to Mr.
+    Stowe, I remain,
+
+                          Yours most truly,
+                                 HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+Whittier wrote to Garrison:--
+
+"What a glorious work Harriet Beecher Stowe has wrought. Thanks for
+the Fugitive Slave Law! Better would it be for slavery if that law had
+never been enacted; for it gave occasion for 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"
+
+Garrison wrote to Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+"I estimate the value of anti-slavery writing by the abuse it brings.
+Now all the defenders of slavery have let me alone and are abusing
+you."
+
+To Mrs. Stowe, Whittier wrote:--
+
+    Ten thousand thanks for thy immortal book. My young
+    friend Mary Irving (of the "Era") writes me that she
+    has been reading it to some twenty young ladies,
+    daughters of Louisiana slaveholders, near New Orleans,
+    and amid the scenes described in it, and that they,
+    with one accord, pronounce it true.
+
+                            Truly thy friend,
+                                      JOHN G. WHITTIER.
+
+From Thomas Wentworth Higginson came the following:--
+
+    To have written at once the most powerful of
+    contemporary fictions and the most efficient of
+    anti-slavery tracts is a double triumph in literature
+    and philanthropy, to which this country has heretofore
+    seen no parallel.
+
+               Yours respectfully and gratefully,
+                                          T. W. HIGGINSON.
+
+A few days after the publication of the book, Mrs. Stowe, writing
+from Boston to her husband in Brunswick, says: "I have been in such a
+whirl ever since I have been here. I found business prosperous. Jewett
+animated. He has been to Washington and conversed with all the leading
+senators, Northern and Southern. Seward told him it was the greatest
+book of the times, or something of that sort, and he and Sumner went
+around with him to recommend it to Southern men and get them to read
+it."
+
+It is true that with these congratulatory and commendatory letters came
+hosts of others, threatening and insulting, from the Haleys and Legrees
+of the country.
+
+Of them Mrs. Stowe said: "They were so curiously compounded of
+blasphemy, cruelty, and obscenity, that their like could only be
+expressed by John Bunyan's account of the speech of Apollyon: 'He spake
+as a dragon.'"
+
+A correspondent of the "National Era" wrote: "'Uncle Tom's Cabin' is
+denounced by time-serving preachers as a meretricious work. Will you
+not come out in defense of it and roll back the tide of vituperation?"
+
+To this the editor answered: "We should as soon think of coming out in
+defense of Shakespeare."
+
+Several attempts were made in the South to write books controverting
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and showing a much brighter side of the slavery
+question, but they all fell flat and were left unread. Of one of them,
+a clergyman of Charleston, S. C., wrote in a private letter:--
+
+"I have read two columns in the 'Southern Press' of Mrs. Eastman's
+'Aunt Phillis' Cabin, or Southern Life as it is,' with the remarks of
+the editor. I have no comment to make on it, as that is done by itself.
+The editor might have saved himself being writ down an ass by the
+public if he had withheld his nonsense. If the two columns are a fair
+specimen of Mrs. Eastman's book, I pity her attempt and her name as an
+author."
+
+In due time Mrs. Stowe began to receive answers to the letters she had
+forwarded with copies of her book to prominent men in England, and
+these were without exception flattering and encouraging. Through his
+private secretary Prince Albert acknowledged with thanks the receipt
+of his copy, and promised to read it. Succeeding mails brought scores
+of letters from English men of letters and statesmen. Lord Carlisle
+wrote:--
+
+"I return my deep and solemn thanks to Almighty God who has led and
+enabled you to write such a book. I do feel indeed the most thorough
+assurance that in his good Providence such a book cannot have been
+written in vain. I have long felt that slavery is by far the _topping_
+question of the world and age we live in, including all that is most
+thrilling in heroism and most touching in distress; in short, the real
+epic of the universe. The self-interest of the parties most nearly
+concerned on the one hand, the apathy and ignorance of unconcerned
+observers on the other, have left these august pretensions to drop
+very much out of sight. Hence my rejoicing that a writer has appeared
+who will be read and must be felt, and that happen what may to the
+transactions of slavery they will no longer be suppressed."
+
+To this letter, of which but an extract has been given, Mrs. Stowe sent
+the following reply:--
+
+    MY LORD,--It is not with the common pleasure of
+    gratified authorship that I say how much I am gratified
+    by the receipt of your very kind communication
+    with regard to my humble efforts in the cause of
+    humanity. The subject is one so grave, so awful--the
+    success of what I have written has been so singular
+    and so unexpected--that I can scarce retain a
+    self-consciousness and am constrained to look upon
+    it all as the work of a Higher Power, who, when He
+    pleases, can accomplish his results by the feeblest
+    instruments. I am glad of anything which gives
+    notoriety to the book, because it is a plea for the
+    dumb and the helpless! I am glad particularly of
+    notoriety in England because I see with what daily
+    increasing power England's opinion is to act on this
+    country. No one can tell but a _native_ born here
+    by what an infinite complexity of ties, nerves, and
+    ligaments this terrible evil is bound in one body
+    politic; how the slightest touch upon it causes
+    even the free States to thrill and shiver, what a
+    terribly corrupting and tempting power it has upon
+    the conscience and moral sentiment even of a free
+    community. Nobody can tell the thousand ways in
+    which by trade, by family affinity, or by political
+    expediency, the free part of our country is constantly
+    tempted to complicity with the slaveholding part. It
+    is a terrible thing to become used to hearing the
+    enormities of slavery, to hear of things day after
+    day that one would think the sun should hide his face
+    from, and yet, to _get used to them_, to discuss them
+    coolly, to dismiss them coolly. For example, the sale
+    of intelligent, handsome colored females for vile
+    purposes, facts of the most public nature, have made
+    this a perfectly understood matter in our Northern
+    States. I have now, myself, under charge and educating,
+    two girls of whose character any mother might be proud,
+    who have actually been rescued from this sale in the
+    New Orleans market.
+
+    I desire to inclose a tract[11] in which I sketched down
+    a few incidents in the history of the family to which
+    these girls belong; it will show more than words can
+    the kind of incident to which I allude. The tract is
+    not a published document, only _printed_ to assist me
+    in raising money, and it would not, at present, be for
+    the good of the parties to have it published even in
+    England.
+
+    But though these things are known in the free States,
+    and other things, if possible, worse, yet there is
+    a terrible deadness of moral sense. They are known
+    by clergymen who yet would not on any account so far
+    commit themselves as to preach on the evils of slavery,
+    or pray for the slaves in their pulpits. They are known
+    by politicians who yet give their votes for slavery
+    extension and perpetuation.
+
+    This year both our great leading parties voted to
+    suppress all agitation of the subject, and in both
+    those parties were men who knew personally facts of
+    slavery and the internal slave-trade that one would
+    think no man could ever forget. Men _united_ in
+    pledging themselves to the Fugitive Slave Law, who yet
+    would tell you in private conversation that it was an
+    abomination, and who do not hesitate to say, that as
+    a matter of practice they always help the fugitive
+    because they _can't_ do otherwise.
+
+    The moral effect of this constant insincerity, the
+    moral effect of witnessing and becoming accustomed to
+    the most appalling forms of crime and oppression, is to
+    me the most awful and distressing part of the subject.
+    Nothing makes me feel it so painfully as to see with
+    how much more keenness the English feel the disclosures
+    of my book than the Americans. I myself am blunted by
+    use--by seeing, touching, handling the details. In
+    dealing even for the ransom of slaves, in learning
+    market prices of men, women, and children, I feel that
+    I acquire a horrible familiarity with evil.
+
+    Here, then, the great, wise, and powerful mind of
+    England, if she will but fully master the subject,
+    may greatly help us. Hers is the same kind of mind
+    as our own, but disembarrassed from our temptations
+    and unnerved by the thousands of influences that
+    blind and deaden us. There is a healthful vivacity
+    of moral feeling on this subject that must electrify
+    our paralyzed vitality. For this reason, therefore, I
+    rejoice when I see minds like your lordship's turning
+    to this subject; and I feel an intensity of emotion, as
+    if I could say, Do not for Christ's sake let go; you
+    know not what you may do.
+
+    Your lordship will permit me to send you two of the
+    most characteristic documents of the present struggle,
+    written by two men who are, in their way, as eloquent
+    for the slave as Chatham was for us in our hour of need.
+
+    I am now preparing some additional notes to my book, in
+    which I shall further confirm what I have said by facts
+    and statistics, and in particular by extracts from
+    the _codes of slaveholding States_, and the _records
+    of their courts_. These are documents that cannot be
+    disputed, and I pray your lordship to give them your
+    attention. No disconnected facts can be so terrible as
+    these legal decisions. They will soon appear in England.
+
+    It is so far from being irrelevant for England to
+    notice slavery that I already see indications that this
+    subject, on _both sides_, is yet to be presented there,
+    and the battle fought on _English ground_. I see that
+    my friend the South Carolinian gentleman has sent to
+    "Fraser's Magazine" an article; before published in
+    this country, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The article
+    in the London "Times" was eagerly reprinted in this
+    country, was issued as a tract and sold by the hundred,
+    headed, "What they think of 'Uncle Tom' in England."
+    If I mistake not, a strong effort will be made to
+    pervert the public mind of England, and to do away the
+    impression which the book has left.
+
+    For a time after it was issued it seemed to go by
+    acclamation. From quarters the most unexpected, from
+    all political parties, came an almost unbroken chorus
+    of approbation. I was very much surprised, knowing
+    the explosive nature of the subject. It was not till
+    the sale had run to over a hundred thousand copies
+    that reaction began, and the reaction was led off by
+    the London "Times." Instantly, as by a preconcerted
+    signal, all papers of a certain class began to abuse;
+    and some who had at first issued articles entirely
+    commendatory, now issued others equally depreciatory.
+    Religious papers, notably the "New York Observer,"
+    came out and denounced the book as _anti-Christian_,
+    anti-evangelical, resorting even to personal slander on
+    the author as a means of diverting attention from the
+    work.
+
+    All this has a meaning, but I think it comes too late.
+    I can think of no reason why it was not tried sooner,
+    excepting that God had intended that the cause should
+    have a hearing. It is strange that they should have
+    waited so long for the political effect of a book which
+    they might have foreseen at first; but not strange
+    that they should, now they _do_ see what it is doing,
+    attempt to root it up.
+
+    The effects of the book so far have been, I think,
+    these: 1st. To soften and moderate the bitterness of
+    feeling in _extreme abolitionists_. 2d. To convert to
+    abolitionist views many whom this same bitterness had
+    repelled. 3d. To inspire the free colored people with
+    self-respect, hope, and confidence. 4th. To inspire
+    universally through the country a kindlier feeling
+    toward the negro race.
+
+    It was unfortunate for the cause of freedom that
+    the first agitators of this subject were of that
+    class which your lordship describes in your note as
+    "well-meaning men." I speak sadly of their faults,
+    for they were men of _noble_ hearts. "But oppression
+    maketh a wise man _mad_," and they spoke and did
+    many things in the frenzy of outraged humanity that
+    repelled sympathy and threw multitudes off to a
+    hopeless distance. It is mournful to think of all the
+    absurdities that have been said and done in the name
+    and for the sake of this holy cause, that have so long
+    and so fatally retarded it.
+
+    I confess that I expected for myself nothing but abuse
+    from extreme abolitionists, especially as I dared to
+    name a forbidden shibboleth, "Liberia," and the fact
+    that the wildest and extremest abolitionists united
+    with the coldest conservatives, at first, to welcome
+    and advance the book is a thing that I have never
+    ceased to wonder at.
+
+    I have written this long letter because I am extremely
+    desirous that some leading minds in England should know
+    how _we_ stand. The subject is now on trial at the bar
+    of a civilized world--a Christian world! and I feel
+    sure that God has not ordered this without a design.
+    Yours for the cause,
+
+                                HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+In December the Earl of Shaftesbury wrote to Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+    MADAM,--It is very possible that the writer of this
+    letter may be wholly unknown to you. But whether my
+    name be familiar to your ears, or whether you now read
+    it for the first time, I cannot refrain from expressing
+    to you the deep gratitude that I feel to Almighty God
+    who has inspired both your heart and your head in
+    the composition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." None but a
+    Christian believer could have produced such a book as
+    yours, which has absolutely startled the whole world,
+    and impressed many thousands by revelations of cruelty
+    and sin that give us an idea of what would be the
+    uncontrolled dominion of Satan on this fallen earth.
+
+To this letter Mrs. Stowe replied as follows:--
+
+                              ANDOVER, _January 6, 1853._
+
+    TO THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY:
+
+    _My Lord_,--The few lines I have received from you are
+    a comfort and an encouragement to me, feeble as I now
+    am in health, and pressed oftentimes with sorrowful
+    thoughts.
+
+    It is a comfort to know that in other lands there are
+    those who feel as we feel, and who are looking with
+    simplicity to the gospel of Jesus, and prayerfully
+    hoping his final coming.
+
+    My lord, before you wrote me I read with deep emotion
+    your letter to the ladies of England, and subsequently
+    the noble address of the Duchess of Sutherland, and I
+    could not but feel that such movements, originating
+    in such a quarter, prompted by a spirit so devout and
+    benevolent, were truly of God, and must result in a
+    blessing to the world.
+
+    I grieve to see that both in England and this country
+    there are those who are entirely incapable of
+    appreciating the Christian and truly friendly feeling
+    that prompted this movement, and that there are even
+    those who meet it with coarse personalities such as
+    I had not thought possible in an English or American
+    paper.
+
+    When I wrote my work it was in simplicity and in the
+    love of Christ, and if I felt anything that seemed to
+    me like a call to undertake it, it was this, that I had
+    a true heart of love for the Southern people, a feeling
+    appreciation of their trials, and a sincere admiration
+    of their many excellent traits, and that I thus felt,
+    I think, must appear to every impartial reader of the
+    work.
+
+    It was my hope that a book so kindly intended, so
+    favorable in many respects, might be permitted free
+    circulation among them, and that the gentle voice of
+    Eva and the manly generosity of St. Clare might be
+    allowed to say those things of the system which would
+    be invidious in any other form.
+
+    At first the book seemed to go by acclamation; the
+    South did not condemn, and the North was loud and
+    unanimous in praise; not a dissenting voice was raised;
+    to my astonishment everybody praised. But when the
+    book circulated so widely and began to penetrate the
+    Southern States, when it began to be perceived how
+    powerfully it affected every mind that read it, there
+    came on a reaction.
+
+    Answers, pamphlets, newspaper attacks came thick and
+    fast, and certain Northern papers, religious,--so
+    called,--turned and began to denounce the work as
+    unchristian, heretical, etc. The reason of all this
+    is that it has been seen that the book has a direct
+    tendency to do what it was written for,--to awaken
+    conscience in the slaveholding States and lead to
+    emancipation.
+
+    Now there is nothing that Southern political leaders
+    and capitalists so dread as anti-slavery feeling among
+    themselves. All the force of lynch law is employed
+    to smother discussion and blind conscience on this
+    question. The question is not allowed to be discussed,
+    and he who sells a book or publishes a tract makes
+    himself liable to fine and imprisonment.
+
+    My book is, therefore, as much under an interdict in
+    some parts of the South as the Bible is in Italy. It
+    is not allowed in the bookstores, and the greater part
+    of the people hear of it and me only through grossly
+    caricatured representations in the papers, with garbled
+    extracts from the book.
+
+    A cousin residing in Georgia this winter says that the
+    prejudice against my name is so strong that she dares
+    not have it appear on the outside of her letters, and
+    that very amiable and excellent people have asked her
+    if such as I could be received into reputable society
+    at the North.
+
+    Under these circumstances, it is a matter of particular
+    regret that the "New York Observer," an old and
+    long-established religious paper in the United States,
+    extensively read at the South, should have come out in
+    such a bitter and unscrupulous style of attack as even
+    to induce some Southern papers, with a generosity one
+    often finds at the South, to protest against it.
+
+    That they should use their Christian character and
+    the sacred name of Christ still further to blind the
+    minds and strengthen the prejudices of their Southern
+    brethren is to me a matter of deepest sorrow. All
+    those things, of course, cannot touch me in my private
+    capacity, sheltered as I am by a happy home and very
+    warm friends. I only grieve for it as a dishonor to
+    Christ and a real injustice to many noble-minded people
+    at the South, who, if they were allowed quietly and
+    dispassionately to hear and judge, might be led to the
+    best results.
+
+    But, my lord, all this only shows us how strong is the
+    interest we touch. _All the wealth of America_ may be
+    said to be interested in it. And, if I may judge from
+    the furious and bitter tone of some English papers,
+    they also have some sensitive connection with the evil.
+
+    I trust that those noble and gentle ladies of England
+    who have in so good a spirit expressed their views of
+    the question will not be discouraged by the strong
+    abuse that will follow. England is doing us good. We
+    need the vitality of a disinterested country to warm
+    our torpid and benumbed public sentiment.
+
+    Nay, the storm of feeling which the book raises in
+    Italy, Germany, and France is all good, though truly
+    'tis painful for us Americans to bear. The fact is, we
+    have become used to this frightful evil, and we need
+    the public sentiment of the world to help us.
+
+    I am now writing a work to be called "Key to Uncle
+    Tom's Cabin." It contains, in an undeniable form,
+    the facts which corroborate all that I have said.
+    One third of it is taken up with judicial records of
+    trials and decisions, and with statute law. It is a
+    most fearful story, my lord,--I can truly say that I
+    write with life-blood, but as called of God. I give in
+    my evidence, and I hope that England may so fix the
+    attention of the world on the facts of which I am the
+    unwilling publisher, that the Southern States may be
+    compelled to notice what hitherto they have denied and
+    ignored. If they call the fiction dreadful, what will
+    they say of the fact, where I cannot deny, suppress, or
+    color? But it is God's will that it must be told, and I
+    am the unwilling agent.
+
+    This coming month of April, my husband and myself
+    expect to sail for England on the invitation of the
+    Anti-Slavery Society of the Ladies and Gentlemen of
+    Glasgow, to confer with friends there.
+
+    There are points where English people can do much good;
+    there are also points where what they seek to do may be
+    made more efficient by a little communion with those
+    who know the feelings and habits of our countrymen: but
+    I am persuaded that England can do much for us.
+
+    My lord, they greatly mistake who see, in this movement
+    of English Christians for the abolition of slavery,
+    signs of disunion between the nations. It is the purest
+    and best proof of friendship England has ever shown us,
+    and will, I am confident, be so received. I earnestly
+    trust that all who have begun to take in hand the cause
+    will be in nothing daunted, but persevere to the end;
+    for though everything else be against us, _Christ_ is
+    certainly on our side and He _must at last prevail_,
+    and it will be done, "not by might, nor by power, but
+    by His Spirit."
+
+              Yours in Christian sincerity,
+                                           H. B. STOWE.
+
+Mrs. Stowe also received a letter from Arthur Helps[12] accompanying
+a review of her work written by himself and published in "Fraser's
+Magazine." In his letter Mr. Helps took exception to the comparison
+instituted in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" between the working-classes of
+England and the slaves of America. In her answer to this criticism and
+complaint Mrs. Stowe says:--
+
+    MR. ARTHUR HELPS:
+
+    _My dear Sir_,--I cannot but say I am greatly obliged
+    to you for the kind opinions expressed in your letter.
+    On one point, however, it appears that my book has not
+    faithfully represented to you the feelings of my heart.
+    I mean in relation to the English nation as a nation.
+    You will notice that the remarks on that subject occur
+    in the _dramatic_ part of the book, in the mouth of an
+    intelligent Southerner. As a fair-minded person, bound
+    to state for both sides all that could be said in the
+    person of St. Clare, the best that could be said on
+    that point, and what I know _is_ in fact constantly
+    reiterated, namely, that the laboring class of the
+    South are in many respects, as to physical comfort, in
+    a better condition than the poor of England.
+
+    This is the slaveholder's stereotyped apology,--a
+    defense it cannot be, unless two wrongs make one right.
+
+    It is generally supposed among us that this estimate
+    of the relative condition of the slaves and the poor
+    of England is correct, and we base our ideas on
+    reports made in Parliament and various documentary
+    evidence; also such sketches as "London Labor and
+    London Poor," which have been widely circulated among
+    us. The inference, however, which _we_ of the freedom
+    party draw from it, is _not_ that the slave is, on
+    the whole, in the best condition because of this
+    striking difference; that in America the slave has not
+    a recognized _human_ character _in law, has not even
+    an existence_, whereas in England the law recognizes
+    and protects the meanest subject, in theory _always_,
+    and in _fact_ to a certain extent. A prince of the
+    blood could not strike the meanest laborer without a
+    liability to prosecution, in _theory_ at least, and
+    that is something. In America any man may strike any
+    slave he meets, and if the master does not choose to
+    notice it, he has no redress.
+
+    I do not suppose _human nature_ to be widely different
+    in England and America. In both countries, when any
+    class holds power and wealth by institutions which
+    in the long run bring misery on lower classes, they
+    are very unwilling still to part with that wealth and
+    power. They are unwilling to be convinced that it is
+    their duty, and unwilling to do it if they are. It
+    is always so everywhere; it is not English nature or
+    American nature, but human nature. We have seen in
+    England the battle for popular rights fought step by
+    step with as determined a resistance from parties in
+    possession as the slaveholder offers in America.
+
+    There was the same kind of resistance in certain
+    quarters there to the laws restricting the employing of
+    young children eighteen hours a day in factories, as
+    there is here to the anti-slavery effort.
+
+    Again, in England as in America, there are, in those
+    very classes whose interests are most invaded by what
+    are called popular rights, some of the most determined
+    supporters of them, and here I think that the balance
+    preponderates in favor of England. I think there are
+    more of the high nobility of England who are friends
+    of the common people and willing to help the cause of
+    human progress, irrespective of its influence on their
+    own interests, than there are those of a similar class
+    among slaveholding aristocracy, though even that class
+    is not without such men. But I am far from having any
+    of that senseless prejudice against the English nation
+    as a nation which, greatly to my regret, I observe
+    sometimes in America. It is a relic of barbarism for
+    two such nations as England and America to cherish any
+    such unworthy prejudice.
+
+    For my own part, I am proud to be of English blood;
+    and though I do not think England's national course
+    faultless, and though I think many of her institutions
+    and arrangements capable of much revision and
+    improvement, yet my heart warms to her as, _on the
+    whole_, the strongest, greatest, and best nation on
+    earth. Have not England and America one blood, one
+    language, one literature, and a glorious literature
+    it is! Are not Milton and Shakespeare, and all the
+    wise and brave and good of old, common to us both,
+    and should there be anything but cordiality between
+    countries that have so glorious an inheritance in
+    common? If there is, it will be elsewhere than in
+    hearts like mine.
+
+                         Sincerely yours,
+                                     H. B. STOWE.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] Introduction to Illustrated Edition of _Uncle Tom_, p. xiii.
+(Houghton, Osgood & Co., 1879.)
+
+[11] Afterwards embodied in the _Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin_.
+
+[12] Author of _Spanish Conquest in America_.--ED.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+FIRST TRIP TO EUROPE, 1853.
+
+    THE EDMONDSONS.--BUYING SLAVES TO SET THEM FREE.--JENNY
+    LIND.--PROFESSOR STOWE IS CALLED TO ANDOVER.--FITTING
+    UP THE NEW HOME.--THE "KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S
+    CABIN."--"UNCLE TOM" ABROAD.--HOW IT WAS PUBLISHED
+    IN ENGLAND.--PREFACE TO THE EUROPEAN EDITION.--THE
+    BOOK IN FRANCE.--IN GERMANY.--A GREETING FROM CHARLES
+    KINGSLEY.--PREPARING TO VISIT SCOTLAND.--LETTER TO MRS.
+    FOLLEN.
+
+
+VERY soon after the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Mrs. Stowe
+visited her brother Henry in Brooklyn, and while there became intensely
+interested in the case of the Edmondsons, a slave family of Washington,
+D. C. Emily and Mary two of the daughters of Paul (a free colored man)
+and Milly (a slave) Edmondson, had, for trying to escape from bondage,
+been sold to a trader for the New Orleans market. While they were
+lying in jail in Alexandria awaiting the making up of a gang for the
+South, their heartbroken father determined to visit the North and try
+to beg from a freedom-loving people the money with which to purchase
+his daughters' liberty. The sum asked by the trader was $2,250, but its
+magnitude did not appall the brave old man, and he set forth upon his
+quest full of faith that in some way he would secure it.
+
+Reaching New York, he went to the anti-slavery bureau and related
+his pitiful story. The sum demanded was such a large one and seemed
+so exorbitant that even those who took the greatest interest in the
+case were disheartened over the prospect of raising it. The old man
+was finally advised to go to Henry Ward Beecher and ask his aid. He
+made his way to the door of the great Brooklyn preacher's house, but,
+overcome by many disappointments and fearing to meet with another
+rebuff, hesitated to ring the bell, and sat down on the steps with
+tears streaming from his eyes.
+
+There Mr. Beecher found him, learned his story, and promised to do what
+he could. There was a great meeting in Plymouth Church that evening,
+and, taking the old colored man with him to it, Mrs. Stowe's brother
+made such an eloquent and touching appeal on behalf of the slave girls
+as to rouse his audience to profound indignation and pity. The entire
+sum of $2,250 was raised then and there, and the old man, hardly able
+to realize his great joy, was sent back to his despairing children with
+their freedom money in his hand.
+
+All this had happened in the latter part of 1848, and Mrs. Stowe had
+first known of the liberated girls in 1851, when she had been appealed
+to for aid in educating them. From that time forward she became
+personally responsible for all their expenses while they remained in
+school, and until the death of one of them in 1853.
+
+Now during her visit to New York in the spring of 1852 she met their
+old mother, Milly Edmondson, who had come North in the hope of saving
+her two remaining slave children, a girl and a young man, from falling
+into the trader's clutches. Twelve hundred dollars was the sum to be
+raised, and by hard work the father had laid by one hundred of it when
+a severe illness put an end to his efforts. After many prayers and much
+consideration of the matter, his feeble old wife said to him one day,
+"Paul, I'm a gwine up to New York myself to see if I can't get that
+money."
+
+Her husband objected that she was too feeble, that she would be unable
+to find her way, and that Northern people had got tired of buying
+slaves to set them free, but the resolute old woman clung to her
+purpose and finally set forth. Reaching New York she made her way to
+Mr. Beecher's house, where she was so fortunate as to find Mrs. Stowe.
+Now her troubles were at an end, for this champion of the oppressed
+at once made the slave woman's cause her own and promised that her
+children should be redeemed. She at once set herself to the task of
+raising the purchase-money, not only for Milly's children, but for
+giving freedom to the old slave woman herself. On May 29, she writes to
+her husband in Brunswick:--
+
+"The mother of the Edmondson girls, now aged and feeble, is in the
+city. I did not actually know when I wrote 'Uncle Tom' of a living
+example in which Christianity had reached its fullest development under
+the crushing wrongs of slavery, but in this woman I see it. I never
+knew before what I could feel till, with her sorrowful, patient eyes
+upon me, she told me her history and begged my aid. The expression of
+her face as she spoke, and the depth of patient sorrow in her eyes, was
+beyond anything I ever saw.
+
+"'Well,' said I, when she had finished, 'set your heart at rest;
+you and your children shall be redeemed. If I can't raise the money
+otherwise, I will pay it myself.' You should have seen the wonderfully
+sweet, solemn look she gave me as she said, 'The Lord bless you, my
+child!'
+
+"Well, I have received a sweet note from Jenny Lind, with her name
+and her husband's with which to head my subscription list. They give
+a hundred dollars. Another hundred is subscribed by Mr. Bowen in his
+wife's name, and I have put my own name down for an equal amount. A
+lady has given me twenty-five dollars, and Mr. Storrs has pledged me
+fifty dollars. Milly and I are to meet the ladies of Henry's and Dr.
+Cox's churches to-morrow, and she is to tell them her story. I have
+written to Drs. Bacon and Dutton in New Haven to secure a similar
+meeting of ladies there. I mean to have one in Boston, and another in
+Portland. It will do good to the givers as well as to the receivers.
+
+"But all this time I have been so longing to get your letter from
+New Haven, for I heard it was there. It is not fame nor praise that
+contents me. I seem never to have needed love so much as now. I long
+to hear you say how much you love me. Dear one, if this effort impedes
+my journey home, and wastes some of my strength, you will not murmur.
+When I see this Christlike soul standing so patiently bleeding, yet
+forgiving, I feel a sacred call to be the helper of the helpless, and
+it is better that my own family do without me for a while longer than
+that this mother lose all. _I must redeem her._
+
+"_New Haven, June 2._ My old woman's case progresses gloriously. I
+am to see the ladies of this place to-morrow. Four hundred dollars
+were contributed by individuals in Brooklyn, and the ladies who took
+subscription papers at the meeting will undoubtedly raise two hundred
+dollars more."
+
+Before leaving New York, Mrs. Stowe gave Milly Edmondson her check for
+the entire sum necessary to purchase her own freedom and that of her
+children, and sent her home rejoicing. That this sum was made up to her
+by the generous contributions of those to whom she appealed is shown by
+a note written to her husband and dated July, 1852, in which she says:--
+
+"Had a very kind note from A. Lawrence inclosing a twenty-dollar
+gold-piece for the Edmondsons. Isabella's ladies gave me twenty-five
+dollars, so you see our check is more than paid already."
+
+Although during her visit in New York Mrs. Stowe made many new friends,
+and was overwhelmed with congratulations and praise of her book, the
+most pleasing incident of this time seems to have been an epistolatory
+interview with Jenny Lind (Goldschmidt). In writing of it to her
+husband she says:--
+
+"Well, we have heard Jenny Lind, and the affair was a bewildering dream
+of sweetness and beauty. Her face and movements are full of poetry and
+feeling. She has the artless grace of a little child, the poetic effect
+of a wood-nymph, is airy, light, and graceful.
+
+"We had first-rate seats, and how do you think we got them? When Mr.
+Howard went early in the morning for tickets, Mr. Goldschmidt told
+him it was impossible to get any good ones, as they were all sold.
+Mr. Howard said he regretted that, on Mrs. Stowe's account, as she
+was very desirous of hearing Jenny Lind. 'Mrs. Stowe!' exclaimed Mr.
+Goldschmidt, 'the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? Indeed, she shall
+have a seat whatever happens!'
+
+"Thereupon he took his hat and went out, returning shortly with tickets
+for two of the best seats in the house, inclosed in an envelope
+directed to me in his wife's handwriting. Mr. Howard said he could have
+sold those tickets at any time during the day for ten dollars each.
+
+"To-day I sent a note of acknowledgment with a copy of my book. I am
+most happy to have seen her, for she is a noble creature."
+
+To this note the great singer wrote in answer:--
+
+    MY DEAR MADAM,--Allow me to express my sincere thanks
+    for your very kind letter, which I was very happy to
+    receive.
+
+    You must feel and know what a deep impression "Uncle
+    Tom's Cabin" has made upon every heart that can feel
+    for the dignity of human existence: so I with my
+    miserable English would not even try to say a word
+    about the great excellency of that most beautiful book,
+    but I must thank you for the great joy I have felt over
+    that book.
+
+    Forgive me, my dear madam: it is a great liberty I take
+    in thus addressing you, I know, but I have so wished to
+    find an opportunity to pour out my thankfulness in a
+    few words to you that I cannot help this intruding. I
+    have the feeling about "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that great
+    changes will take place by and by, from the impression
+    people receive out of it, and that the writer of that
+    book can fall asleep to-day or to-morrow with the
+    bright, sweet conscience of having been a strong means
+    in the Creator's hand of operating essential good in
+    one of the most important questions for the welfare
+    of our black brethren. God bless and protect you and
+    yours, dear madam, and certainly God's hand will remain
+    with a blessing over your head.
+
+    Once more forgive my bad English and the liberty I have
+    taken, and believe me to be, dear madam,
+
+                          Yours most truly,
+                            JENNY GOLDSCHMIDT, _née_ LIND.
+
+In answer to Mrs. Stowe's appeal on behalf of the Edmonsons, Jenny Lind
+wrote:--
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I have with great interest read
+    your statement of the black family at Washington. It is
+    with pleasure also that I and my husband are placing
+    our humble names on the list you sent.
+
+    The time is short. I am very, very sorry that I shall
+    not be able to _see_ you. I must say farewell to you
+    in this way. Hoping that in the length of time you may
+    live to witness the progression of the good sake for
+    which you so nobly have fought, my best wishes go with
+    you.
+
+                              Yours in friendship,
+                                    JENNY GOLDSCHMIDT.
+
+While Mrs. Stowe was thus absent from home, her husband received and
+accepted a most urgent call to the Professorship of Sacred Literature
+in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Mass.
+
+In regard to leaving Brunswick and her many friends there, Mrs. Stowe
+wrote: "For my part, if I _must_ leave Brunswick, I would rather leave
+at once. I can tear away with a sudden pull more easily than to linger
+there knowing that I am to leave at last. I shall never find people
+whom I shall like better than those of Brunswick."
+
+As Professor Stowe's engagements necessitated his spending much of
+the summer in Brunswick, and also making a journey to Cincinnati,
+it devolved upon his wife to remain in Andover, and superintend the
+preparation of the house they were to occupy. This was known as the
+old stone workshop, on the west side of the Common, and it had a year
+or two before been fitted up by Charles Munroe and Jonathan Edwards[13]
+as the Seminary gymnasium. Beneath Mrs. Stowe's watchful care and by
+the judicious expenditure of money, it was transformed by the first of
+November into the charming abode which under the name of "The Cabin"
+became noted as one of the pleasantest literary centres of the country.
+Here for many years were received, and entertained in a modest way,
+many of the most distinguished people of this and other lands, and here
+were planned innumerable philanthropic undertakings in which Mrs. Stowe
+and her scholarly husband were the prime movers.
+
+The summer spent in preparing this home was one of great pleasure as
+well as literary activity. In July Mrs. Stowe writes to her husband: "I
+had no idea this place was so beautiful. Our family circle is charming.
+All the young men are so gentlemanly and so agreeable, as well as
+Christian in spirit. Mr. Dexter, his wife, and sister are delightful.
+Last evening a party of us went to ride on horseback down to Pomp's
+Pond. What a beautiful place it is! There is everything here that
+there is at Brunswick except the sea,--a great exception. Yesterday I
+was out all the forenoon sketching elms. There is no end to the beauty
+of these trees. I shall fill my book with them before I get through. We
+had a levee at Professor Park's last week,--quite a brilliant affair.
+To-day there is to be a fishing party to go to Salem beach and have a
+chowder.
+
+[Illustration: THE ANDOVER HOME]
+
+"It seems almost too good to be true that we are going to have such
+a house in such a beautiful place, and to live here among all these
+agreeable people, where everybody seems to love you so much and to
+think so much of you. I am almost afraid to accept it, and should not,
+did I not see the Hand that gives it all and know that it is both firm
+and true. He knows if it is best for us, and His blessing addeth no
+sorrow therewith. I cannot describe to you the constant undercurrent of
+love and joy and peace ever flowing through my soul. I am so happy--so
+blessed!"
+
+The literary work of this summer was directed toward preparing articles
+on many subjects for the "New York Independent" and the "National
+Era," as well as collecting material for future books. That the
+"Pearl of Orr's Island," which afterward appeared as a serial in the
+"Independent," was already contemplated, is shown by a letter written
+July 29th, in which Mrs. Stowe says: "What a lovely place Andover is!
+So many beautiful walks! Last evening a number of us climbed Prospect
+Hill, and had a most charming walk. Since I came here we have taken up
+hymn-singing to quite an extent, and while we were all up on the hill
+we sang 'When I can read my title clear.' It went finely.
+
+"I seem to have so much to fill my time, and yet there is my Maine
+story waiting. However, I am composing it every day, only I greatly
+need living studies for the filling in of my sketches. There is 'old
+Jonas,' my 'fish father,' a sturdy, independent fisherman farmer, who
+in his youth sailed all over the world and made up his mind about
+everything. In his old age he attends prayer-meetings and reads the
+'Missionary Herald.' He also has plenty of money in an old brown
+sea-chest. He is a great heart with an inflexible will and iron
+muscles. I must go to Orr's Island and see him again. I am now writing
+an article for the 'Era' on Maine and its scenery, which I think is
+even better than the 'Independent' letter. In it I took up Longfellow.
+Next I shall write one on Hawthorne and his surroundings.
+
+"To-day Mrs. Jewett sent out a most solemnly savage attack upon me
+from the 'Alabama Planter.' Among other things it says: 'The plan for
+assaulting the best institutions in the world may be made just as
+rational as it is by the wicked (perhaps unconsciously so) authoress
+of this book. The woman who wrote it must be either a very bad or a
+very fanatical person. For her own domestic peace we trust no enemy
+will ever penetrate into her household to pervert the scenes he may
+find there with as little logic or kindness as she has used in her
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin."' There's for you! Can you wonder now that such a
+wicked woman should be gone from you a full month instead of the week I
+intended? Ah, welladay!"
+
+At last the house was finished, the removal from Brunswick effected,
+and the reunited family was comfortably settled in its Andover home.
+The plans for the winter's literary work were, however, altered by
+force of circumstances. Instead of proceeding quietly and happily with
+her charming Maine story, Mrs. Stowe found it necessary to take notice
+in some manner of the cruel and incessant attacks made upon her as the
+author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and to fortify herself against them by
+a published statement of incontrovertible facts. It was claimed on all
+sides that she had in her famous book made such ignorant or malicious
+misrepresentations that it was nothing short of a tissue of falsehoods,
+and to refute this she was compelled to write a "Key to Uncle Tom's
+Cabin," in which should appear the sources from which she had obtained
+her knowledge. Late in the winter Mrs. Stowe wrote:--
+
+"I am now very much driven. I am preparing a Key to unlock 'Uncle
+Tom's Cabin.' It will contain all the original facts, anecdotes, and
+documents on which the story is founded, with some very interesting and
+affecting stories parallel to those told of Uncle Tom. Now I want you
+to write for me just what you heard that slave-buyer say, exactly as he
+said it, that people may compare it with what I have written. My Key
+will be stronger than the Cabin."
+
+In regard to this "Key" Mrs. Stowe also wrote to the Duchess of
+Sutherland upon hearing that she had headed an address from the women
+of England to those of America:--
+
+    It is made up of the facts, the documents, the things
+    which my own eyes have looked upon and my hands have
+    handled, that attest this awful indictment upon my
+    country. I write it in the anguish of my soul, with
+    tears and prayer, with sleepless nights and weary days.
+    I bear my testimony with a heavy heart, as one who in
+    court is forced by an awful oath to disclose the sins
+    of those dearest.
+
+    So I am called to draw up this fearful witness against
+    my country and send it into all countries, that the
+    general voice of humanity may quicken our paralyzed
+    vitality, that all Christians may pray for us, and that
+    shame, honor, love of country, and love of Christ may
+    be roused to give us strength to cast out this mighty
+    evil.
+
+                         Yours for the oppressed,
+                                             H. B. STOWE.
+
+This harassing, brain-wearying, and heart-sickening labor was
+continued until the first of April, 1853, when, upon invitation of the
+Anti-Slavery Society of Glasgow, Scotland, Mrs. Stowe, accompanied by
+her husband and her brother, Charles Beecher, sailed for Europe.
+
+In the mean time the success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" abroad was already
+phenomenal and unprecedented. From the pen of Mr. Sampson Low, the
+well-known London publisher, we have the following interesting
+statement regarding it:--
+
+"The first edition printed in London was in April, 1852, by Henry
+Vizetelly, in a neat volume at ten and sixpence, of which he issued
+7,000 copies. He received the first copy imported, through a friend
+who had bought it in Boston the day the steamer sailed, for his own
+reading. He gave it to Mr. V., who took it to the late Mr. David Bogue,
+well known for his general shrewdness and enterprise. He had the book
+to read and consider over night, and in the morning returned it,
+declining to take it at the very moderate price of five pounds.
+
+"Vizetelly at once put the volume into the hands of a friendly printer
+and brought it out on his own account, through the nominal agency of
+Clarke & Co. The 7,000 copies sold, other editions followed, and Mr.
+Vizetelly disposed of his interest in the book to the printer and
+agent, who joined with Mr. Beeton and at once began to issue monster
+editions. The demand called for fresh supplies, and these created an
+increased demand. The discovery was soon made that any one was at
+liberty to reprint the book, and the initiative was thus given to a
+new era in cheap literature, founded on American reprints. A shilling
+edition followed the one-and-sixpence, and this in turn became the
+precursor of one 'complete for sixpence.' From April to December, 1852,
+twelve different editions (not reissues) were published, and within
+the twelve months of its first appearance eighteen different London
+publishing houses were engaged in supplying the great demand that had
+set in, the total number of editions being forty, varying from fine
+art-illustrated editions at 15s., 10s., and 7s. 6d., to the cheap
+popular editions of 1s., 9d., and 6d.
+
+"After carefully analyzing these editions and weighing probabilities
+with ascertained facts, I am able pretty confidently to say that the
+aggregate number of copies circulated in Great Britain and the colonies
+exceeds one and a half millions."
+
+A similar statement made by Clarke & Co. in October, 1852, reveals the
+following facts. It says: "An early copy was sent from America the
+latter end of April to Mr. Bogue, the publisher, and was offered by
+him to Mr. Gilpin, late of Bishopsgate Street. Being declined by Mr.
+Gilpin, Mr. Bogue offered it to Mr. Henry Vizetelly, and by the latter
+gentleman it was eventually purchased for us. Before printing it,
+however, as there was one night allowed for decision, one volume was
+taken home to be read by Mr. Vizetelly, and the other by Mr. Salisbury,
+the printer, of Bouverie Street. The report of the latter gentleman the
+following morning, to quote his own words, was: 'I sat up till four in
+the morning reading the book, and the interest I felt was expressed one
+moment by laughter, another by tears. Thinking it might be weakness and
+not the power of the author that affected me, I resolved to try the
+effect upon my wife (a rather strong-minded woman). I accordingly woke
+her and read a few chapters to her. Finding that the interest in the
+story kept her awake, and that she, too, laughed and cried, I settled
+in my mind that it was a book that ought to, and might with safety, be
+printed.'
+
+"Mr. Vizetelly's opinion coincided with that of Mr. Salisbury, and to
+the latter gentleman it was confided to be brought out immediately. The
+week following the book was produced and one edition of 7,000 copies
+worked off. It made no stir until the middle of June, although we
+advertised it very extensively. From June it began to make its way, and
+it sold at the rate of 1,000 per week during July. In August the demand
+became very great, and went on increasing to the 20th, by which time
+it was perfectly overwhelming. We have now about 400 people employed
+in getting out the book, and seventeen printing machines besides hand
+presses. Already about 150,000 copies of the book are in the hands of
+the people, and still the returns of sales show no decline."
+
+The story was dramatized in the United States in August, 1852,
+without the consent or knowledge of the author, who had neglected
+to reserve her rights for this purpose. In September of the same
+year we find it announced as the attraction at two London theatres,
+namely, the Royal Victoria and the Great National Standard. In 1853
+Professor Stowe writes: "The drama of 'Uncle Tom' has been going on
+in the National Theatre of New York all summer with most unparalleled
+success. Everybody goes night after night, and nothing can stop it. The
+enthusiasm beats that of the run in the Boston Museum out and out. The
+'Tribune' is full of it. The 'Observer,' the 'Journal of Commerce,' and
+all that sort of fellows, are astonished and nonplussed. They do not
+know what to say or do about it."
+
+While the English editions of the story were rapidly multiplying, and
+being issued with illustrations by Cruikshank, introductions by Elihu
+Burritt, Lord Carlisle, etc., it was also making its way over the
+Continent. For the authorized French edition, translated by Madame
+Belloc, and published by Charpentier of Paris, Mrs. Stowe wrote the
+following:--
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE EUROPEAN EDITION.
+
+    In authorizing the circulation of this work on the
+    Continent of Europe, the author has only this apology,
+    that the love of _man_ is higher than the love of
+    country.
+
+    The great mystery which all Christian nations hold in
+    common, the union of God with man through the humanity
+    of Jesus Christ, invests human existence with an awful
+    sacredness; and in the eye of the true believer in
+    Jesus, he who tramples on the rights of his meanest
+    fellow-man is not only inhuman but sacrilegious, and
+    the worst form of this sacrilege is the institution of
+    _slavery_.
+
+    It has been said that the representations of this book
+    are exaggerations! and oh, _would_ that this were true!
+    Would that this book were indeed a fiction, and not a
+    close mosaic of facts! But that it is not a fiction the
+    proofs lie bleeding in thousands of hearts; they have
+    been attested by surrounding voices from almost every
+    slave State, and from slave-owners themselves. Since so
+    it must be, thanks be to God that this mighty cry, this
+    wail of an unutterable anguish, has at last been heard!
+
+    It has been said, and not in utter despair but in
+    solemn hope and assurance may we regard the struggle
+    that now convulses America,--the outcry of the demon
+    of slavery, which has heard the voice of Jesus of
+    Nazareth, and is rending and convulsing the noble
+    nation from which at last it must depart.
+
+    It cannot be that so monstrous a solecism can long
+    exist in the bosom of a nation which in all respects is
+    the best exponent of the great principle of universal
+    brotherhood. In America the Frenchman, the German,
+    the Italian, the Swede, and the Irish all mingle on
+    terms of equal right; all nations there display their
+    characteristic excellences and are admitted by her
+    liberal laws to equal privileges: everything is tending
+    to liberalize, humanize, and elevate, and for that very
+    reason it is that the contest with slavery there grows
+    every year more terrible.
+
+    The stream of human progress, widening, deepening,
+    strengthening from the confluent forces of all nations,
+    meets this barrier, behind which is concentrated all
+    the ignorance, cruelty, and oppression of the dark
+    ages, and it roars and foams and shakes the barrier,
+    and anon it must bear it down.
+
+    In its commencement slavery overspread every State in
+    the Union: the progress of society has now emancipated
+    the North from its yoke. In Kentucky, Tennessee,
+    Virginia, and Maryland, at different times, strong
+    movements have been made for emancipation,--movements
+    enforced by a comparison of the progressive march
+    of the adjoining free States with the poverty and
+    sterility and ignorance produced by a system which in a
+    few years wastes and exhausts all the resources of the
+    soil without the power of renewal.
+
+    The time cannot be distant when these States will
+    emancipate for self-preservation; and if no new slave
+    territory be added, the increase of slave population in
+    the remainder will enforce measures of emancipation.
+
+    Here, then, is the point of the battle. Unless more
+    slave territory is gained, slavery dies; if it is
+    gained, it lives. Around this point political parties
+    fight and manoeuvre, and every year the battle wages
+    hotter.
+
+    The internal struggles of no other nation in the world
+    are so interesting to Europeans as those of America;
+    for America is fast filling up from Europe, and every
+    European has almost immediately his vote in her
+    councils.
+
+    If, therefore, the oppressed of other nations desire
+    to find in America an asylum of permanent freedom, let
+    them come prepared, heart and hand, and vote against
+    the institution of slavery; for they who enslave man
+    cannot themselves remain free.
+
+    True are the great words of Kossuth: "No nation can
+    remain free with whom freedom is a _privilege_ and not
+    a principle."
+
+This preface was more or less widely copied in the twenty translations
+of the book that quickly followed its first appearance. These, arranged
+in the alphabetical order of their languages, are as follows: Armenian,
+Bohemian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Hungarian,
+Illyrian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romaic or modern Greek, Russian,
+Servian, Spanish, Wallachian, and Welsh.
+
+In Germany it received the following flattering notice from one of the
+leading literary journals: "The abolitionists in the United States
+should vote the author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' a civic crown, for a more
+powerful ally than Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe and her romance they
+could not have. We confess that in the whole modern romance literature
+of Germany, England, and France, we know of no novel to be called equal
+to this. In comparison with its glowing eloquence that never fails
+of its purpose, its wonderful truth to nature, the largeness of its
+ideas, and the artistic faultlessness of the machinery in this book,
+George Sand, with her Spiridion and Claudie, appears to us untrue
+and artificial; Dickens, with his but too faithful pictures from the
+popular life of London, petty; Bulwer, hectic and self-conscious. It is
+like a sign of warning from the New World to the Old."
+
+Madame George Sand reviewed the book, and spoke of Mrs. Stowe herself
+in words at once appreciative and discriminating: "Mrs. Stowe is all
+instinct; it is the very reason she appears to some not to have talent.
+Has she not talent? What is talent? Nothing, doubtless, compared to
+genius; but has she genius? She has genius as humanity feels the need
+of genius,--the genius of goodness, not that of the man of letters, but
+that of the saint."
+
+Charles Sumner wrote from the senate chamber at Washington to Professor
+Stowe: "All that I hear and read bears testimony to the good Mrs. Stowe
+has done. The article of George Sand is a most remarkable tribute,
+such as was hardly ever offered by such a genius to any living mortal.
+Should Mrs. Stowe conclude to visit Europe she will have a triumph."
+
+From Eversley parsonage Charles Kingsley wrote to Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+    A thousand thanks for your delightful letter. As for
+    your progress and ovation here in England, I have no
+    fear for you. You will be flattered and worshiped.
+    You deserve it and you must bear it. I am sure that
+    you have seen and suffered too much and too long to
+    be injured by the foolish yet honest and heartfelt
+    lionizing which you must go through.
+
+    I have many a story to tell you when we meet about the
+    effects of the great book upon the most unexpected
+    people.
+
+                          Yours ever faithfully,
+                                           C. KINGSLEY.
+
+March 28, 1853, Professor Stowe sent the following communication to the
+Committee of Examination of the Theological Seminary at Andover: "As I
+shall not be present at the examinations this term, I think it proper
+to make to you a statement of the reasons of my absence. During the
+last winter I have not enjoyed my usual health. Mrs. Stowe also became
+sick and very much exhausted. At this time we had the offer of a voyage
+to Great Britain and back free of expense."
+
+This offer, coming as it did from the friends of the cause of
+emancipation in the United Kingdom, was gladly accepted by Mr. and Mrs.
+Stowe, and they sailed immediately.
+
+The preceding month Mrs. Stowe had received a letter from Mrs. Follen
+in London, asking for information with regard to herself, her family,
+and the circumstances of her writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+In reply Mrs. Stowe sent the following very characteristic letter,
+which may be safely given at the risk of some repetition:--
+
+                              ANDOVER, _February 16, 1853._
+
+    MY DEAR MADAM,--I hasten to reply to your letter, to me
+    the more interesting that I have long been acquainted
+    with you, and during all the nursery part of my life
+    made daily use of your poems for children.
+
+    I used to think sometimes in those days that I would
+    write to you, and tell you how much I was obliged to
+    you for the pleasure which they gave us all.
+
+    So you want to know something about what sort of a
+    woman I am! Well, if this is any object, you shall
+    have statistics free of charge. To begin, then, I am
+    a little bit of a woman,--somewhat more than forty,
+    about as thin and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very
+    much to look at in my best days, and looking like a
+    used-up article now.
+
+    I was married when I was twenty-five years old to a man
+    rich in Greek and Hebrew, Latin and Arabic, and, alas!
+    rich in nothing else. When I went to housekeeping,
+    my entire stock of china for parlor and kitchen was
+    bought for eleven dollars. That lasted very well for
+    two years, till my brother was married and brought
+    his bride to visit me. I then found, on review, that
+    I had neither plates nor teacups to set a table for
+    my father's family; wherefore I thought it best to
+    reinforce the establishment by getting me a tea-set
+    that cost ten dollars more, and this, I believe, formed
+    my whole stock in trade for some years.
+
+    But then I was abundantly enriched with wealth of
+    another sort.
+
+    I had two little, curly-headed twin daughters to
+    begin with, and my stock in this line has gradually
+    increased, till I have been the mother of seven
+    children, the most beautiful and the most loved of
+    whom lies buried near my Cincinnati residence. It was
+    at his dying bed and at his grave that I learned what
+    a poor slave mother may feel when her child is torn
+    away from her. In those depths of sorrow which seemed
+    to me immeasurable, it was my only prayer to God that
+    such anguish might not be suffered in vain. There
+    were circumstances about his death of such peculiar
+    bitterness, of what seemed almost cruel suffering, that
+    I felt that I could never be consoled for it, unless
+    this crushing of my own heart might enable me to work
+    out some great good to others....
+
+    I allude to this here because I have often felt that
+    much that is in that book ("Uncle Tom") had its root
+    in the awful scenes and bitter sorrows of that summer.
+    It has left now, I trust, no trace on my mind, except
+    a deep compassion for the sorrowful, especially for
+    mothers who are separated from their children.
+
+    During long years of struggling with poverty and
+    sickness, and a hot, debilitating climate, my children
+    grew up around me. The nursery and the kitchen were my
+    principal fields of labor. Some of my friends, pitying
+    my trials, copied and sent a number of little sketches
+    from my pen to certain liberally paying "Annuals" with
+    my name. With the first money that I earned in this
+    way I bought a feather-bed! for as I had married into
+    poverty and without a dowry, and as my husband had only
+    a large library of books and a great deal of learning,
+    the bed and pillows were thought the most profitable
+    investment. After this I thought that I had discovered
+    the philosopher's stone. So when a new carpet or
+    mattress was going to be needed, or when, at the close
+    of the year, it began to be evident that my family
+    accounts, like poor Dora's, "wouldn't add up," then I
+    used to say to my faithful friend and factotum Anna,
+    who shared all my joys and sorrows, "Now, if you will
+    keep the babies and attend to the things in the house
+    for one day, I'll write a piece, and then we shall
+    be out of the scrape." So I became an author,--very
+    modest at first, I do assure you, and remonstrating
+    very seriously with the friends who had thought it best
+    to put my name to the pieces by way of getting up a
+    reputation; and if you ever see a woodcut of me, with
+    an immoderately long nose, on the cover of all the U.
+    S. Almanacs, I wish you to take notice, that I have
+    been forced into it contrary to my natural modesty by
+    the imperative solicitations of my dear five thousand
+    friends and the public generally. One thing I must say
+    with regard to my life at the West, which you will
+    understand better than many English women could.
+
+    I lived two miles from the city of Cincinnati, in the
+    country, and domestic service, not always you know to
+    be found in the city, is next to an impossibility to
+    obtain in the country, even by those who are willing to
+    give the highest wages; so what was to be expected for
+    poor me, who had very little of this world's goods to
+    offer?
+
+    Had it not been for my inseparable friend Anna, a
+    noble-hearted English girl, who landed on our shores
+    in destitution and sorrow, and clave to me as Ruth to
+    Naomi, I had never lived through all the trials which
+    this uncertainty and want of domestic service imposed
+    on both: you may imagine, therefore, how glad I was
+    when, our seminary property being divided out into
+    small lots which were rented at a low price, a number
+    of poor families settled in our vicinity, from whom
+    we could occasionally obtain domestic service. About
+    a dozen families of liberated slaves were among the
+    number, and they became my favorite resort in cases
+    of emergency. If anybody wishes to have a black face
+    look handsome, let them be left, as I have been, in
+    feeble health in oppressive hot weather, with a sick
+    baby in arms, and two or three other little ones in
+    the nursery, and not a servant in the whole house to
+    do a single turn. Then, if they could see my good old
+    Aunt Frankie coming with her honest, bluff, black face,
+    her long, strong arms, her chest as big and stout as
+    a barrel, and her hilarious, hearty laugh, perfectly
+    delighted to take one's washing and do it at a fair
+    price, they would appreciate the beauty of black people.
+
+    My cook, poor Eliza Buck,--how she would stare to think
+    of her name going to England!--was a regular epitome
+    of slave life in herself; fat, gentle, easy, loving
+    and lovable, always calling my very modest house and
+    door-yard "The Place," as if it had been a plantation
+    with seven hundred hands on it. She had lived through
+    the whole sad story of a Virginia-raised slave's life.
+    In her youth she must have been a very handsome mulatto
+    girl. Her voice was sweet, and her manners refined and
+    agreeable. She was raised in a good family as a nurse
+    and seamstress. When the family became embarrassed, she
+    was suddenly sold on to a plantation in Louisiana. She
+    has often told me how, without any warning, she was
+    suddenly forced into a carriage, and saw her little
+    mistress screaming and stretching her arms from the
+    window towards her as she was driven away. She has told
+    me of scenes on the Louisiana plantation, and she has
+    often been out at night by stealth ministering to poor
+    slaves who had been mangled and lacerated by the lash.
+    Hence she was sold into Kentucky, and her last master
+    was the father of all her children. On this point she
+    ever maintained a delicacy and reserve that always
+    appeared to me remarkable. She always called him her
+    husband; and it was not till after she had lived with
+    me some years that I discovered the real nature of
+    the connection. I shall never forget how sorry I felt
+    for her, nor my feelings at her humble apology, "You
+    know, Mrs. Stowe, slave women cannot help themselves."
+    She had two very pretty quadroon daughters, with her
+    beautiful hair and eyes, interesting children, whom I
+    had instructed in the family school with my children.
+    Time would fail to tell you all that I learned
+    incidentally of the slave system in the history of
+    various slaves who came into my family, and of the
+    underground railroad which, I may say, ran through our
+    house. But the letter is already too long.
+
+    You ask with regard to the remuneration which I have
+    received for my work here in America. Having been poor
+    all my life and expecting to be poor the rest of it,
+    the idea of making money by a book which I wrote just
+    because I could not help it, never occurred to me. It
+    was therefore an agreeable surprise to receive ten
+    thousand dollars as the first-fruits of three months'
+    sale. I presume as much more is now due. Mr. Bosworth
+    in England, the firm of Clarke & Co., and Mr. Bentley,
+    have all offered me an interest in the sales of their
+    editions in London. I am very glad of it, both on
+    account of the value of what they offer, and the value
+    of the example they set in this matter, wherein I think
+    that justice has been too little regarded.
+
+    I have been invited to visit Scotland, and shall
+    probably spend the summer there and in England.
+
+    I have very much at heart a design to erect in some of
+    the Northern States a normal school, for the education
+    of colored teachers in the United States and in Canada.
+    I have very much wished that some permanent memorial
+    of good to the colored race might be created out of
+    the proceeds of a work which promises to have so
+    unprecedented a sale. My own share of the profits will
+    be less than that of the publishers', either English
+    or American; but I am willing to give largely for this
+    purpose, and I have no doubt that the publishers, both
+    American and English, will unite with me; for nothing
+    tends more immediately to the emancipation of the slave
+    than the education and elevation of the free.
+
+    I am now writing a work which will contain, perhaps,
+    an equal amount of matter with "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+    It will contain all the facts and documents on which
+    that story was founded, and an immense body of facts,
+    reports of trials, legal documents, and testimony of
+    people now living South, which will more than confirm
+    every statement in "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+    I must confess that till I began the examination of
+    facts in order to write this book, much as I thought
+    I knew before, I had not begun to measure the depth
+    of the abyss. The law records of courts and judicial
+    proceedings are so incredible as to fill me with
+    amazement whenever I think of them. It seems to me
+    that the book cannot but be felt, and, coming upon the
+    sensibility awaked by the other, do something.
+
+    I suffer exquisitely in writing these things. It may
+    be truly said that I write with my heart's blood. Many
+    times in writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin" I thought my
+    health would fail utterly; but I prayed earnestly that
+    God would help me till I got through, and still I am
+    pressed beyond measure and above strength.
+
+    This horror, this nightmare abomination! can it be in
+    my country! It lies like lead on my heart, it shadows
+    my life with sorrow; the more so that I feel, as for my
+    own brothers, for the South, and am pained by every
+    horror I am obliged to write, as one who is forced
+    by some awful oath to disclose in court some family
+    disgrace. Many times I have thought that I must die,
+    and yet I pray God that I may live to see something
+    done. I shall in all probability be in London in May:
+    shall I see you?
+
+    It seems to me so odd and dream-like that so many
+    persons desire to see me, and now I cannot help
+    thinking that they will think, when they do, that God
+    hath chosen "the weak things of this world."
+
+    If I live till spring I shall hope to see Shakespeare's
+    grave, and Milton's mulberry-tree, and the good land of
+    my fathers,--old, old England! May that day come!
+
+                            Yours affectionately,
+                                           H. B. STOWE.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[13] Students in the Seminary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SUNNY MEMORIES, 1853.
+
+    CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.--ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.--RECEPTION
+    IN LIVERPOOL.--WELCOME TO SCOTLAND.--A GLASGOW
+    TEA-PARTY.--EDINBURGH HOSPITALITY.--ABERDEEN.--DUNDEE
+    AND BIRMINGHAM.--JOSEPH STURGE.--ELIHU
+    BURRITT.--LONDON.--THE LORD MAYOR'S DINNER.--CHARLES
+    DICKENS AND HIS WIFE.
+
+
+THE journey undertaken by Mrs. Stowe with her husband and brother
+through England and Scotland, and afterwards with her brother alone
+over much of the Continent, was one of unusual interest. No one was
+more surprised than Mrs. Stowe herself by the demonstrations of respect
+and affection that everywhere greeted her.
+
+Fortunately an unbroken record of this memorable journey, in Mrs.
+Stowe's own words, has been preserved, and we are thus able to
+receive her own impressions of what she saw, heard, and did, under
+circumstances that were at once pleasant, novel, and embarrassing.
+Beginning with her voyage, she writes as follows:--
+
+                               LIVERPOOL, _April 11, 1853._
+
+    MY DEAR CHILDREN,--You wish, first of all, to hear of
+    the voyage. Let me assure you, my dears, in the very
+    commencement of the matter, that going to sea is not at
+    all the thing that we have taken it to be.
+
+    Let me warn you, if you ever go to sea, to omit all
+    preparations for amusement on shipboard. Don't leave
+    so much as the unlocking of a trunk to be done after
+    sailing. In the few precious minutes when the ship
+    stands still, before she weighs her anchor, set your
+    house, that is to say your stateroom, as much in order
+    as if you were going to be hanged; place everything
+    in the most convenient position to be seized without
+    trouble at a moment's notice; for be sure that in half
+    an hour after sailing, an infinite desperation will
+    seize you, in which the grasshopper will be a burden.
+    If anything is in your trunk, it might almost as well
+    be in the sea, for any practical probability of your
+    getting to it.
+
+    Our voyage out was called "a good run." It was voted
+    unanimously to be "an extraordinary good passage," "a
+    pleasant voyage;" yet the ship rocked the whole time
+    from side to side with a steady, dizzy, continuous
+    motion, like a great cradle. I had a new sympathy for
+    babies, poor little things, who are rocked hours at a
+    time without so much as a "by your leave" in the case.
+    No wonder there are so many stupid people in the world!
+
+    We arrived on Sunday morning: the custom-house
+    officers, very gentlemanly men, came on board; our
+    luggage was all set out, and passed through a rapid
+    examination, which in many cases amounted only to
+    opening the trunk and shutting it, and all was over.
+    The whole ceremony did not occupy two hours.
+
+    We were inquiring of some friends for the most
+    convenient hotel, when we found the son of Mr. Cropper,
+    of Dingle Bank, waiting in the cabin to take us with
+    him to their hospitable abode. In a few moments after
+    the baggage had been examined, we all bade adieu to the
+    old ship, and went on board the little steam tender
+    which carries passengers up to the city.
+
+    This Mersey River would be a very beautiful one, if
+    it were not so dingy and muddy. As we are sailing
+    up in the tender towards Liverpool, I deplore the
+    circumstance feelingly.
+
+    "What does make this river so muddy?"
+
+    "Oh," says a by-stander, "don't you know that
+
+       "'The quality of mercy is not strained'?"
+
+    I had an early opportunity of making acquaintance with
+    my English brethren; for, much to my astonishment, I
+    found quite a crowd on the wharf, and we walked up to
+    our carriage through a long lane of people, bowing, and
+    looking very glad to see us.
+
+    When I came to get into the hack it was surrounded by
+    more faces than I could count. They stood very quietly,
+    and looked very kindly, though evidently very much
+    determined to look. Something prevented the hack from
+    moving on; so the interview was prolonged for some time.
+
+    Our carriage at last drove on, taking us through
+    Liverpool and a mile or two out, and at length wound
+    its way along the gravel paths of a beautiful little
+    retreat, on the banks of the Mersey, called the
+    "Dingle." It opened to my eyes like a paradise, all
+    wearied as I was with the tossing of the sea. I have
+    since become familiar with these beautiful little
+    spots, which are so common in England; but now all was
+    entirely new to me.
+
+    After a short season allotted to changing our ship
+    garments and for rest, we found ourselves seated at
+    the dinner table. While dining, the sister-in-law of
+    our friends came in from the next door, to exchange a
+    word or two of welcome, and invite us to breakfast with
+    them the following morning.
+
+    The next morning we slept late and hurried to dress,
+    remembering our engagement to breakfast with the
+    brother of our host, whose cottage stands on the same
+    ground, within a few steps of our own. I had not the
+    slightest idea of what the English mean by a breakfast,
+    and therefore went in all innocence, supposing I should
+    see nobody but the family circle of my acquaintances.
+    Quite to my astonishment, I found a party of between
+    thirty and forty people; ladies sitting with their
+    bonnets on, as in a morning call. It was impossible,
+    however, to feel more than a momentary embarrassment
+    in the friendly warmth and cordiality of the circle by
+    whom we were surrounded.
+
+    In the evening I went into Liverpool to attend a party
+    of friends of the anti-slavery cause. When I was going
+    away, the lady of the house said that the servants were
+    anxious to see me; so I came into the dressing-room to
+    give them an opportunity.
+
+    The next day was appointed to leave Liverpool. A
+    great number of friends accompanied us to the cars,
+    and a beautiful bouquet of flowers was sent with a
+    very affecting message from a sick gentleman, who,
+    from the retirement of his chamber, felt a desire to
+    testify his sympathy. We left Liverpool with hearts a
+    little tremulous and excited by the vibration of an
+    atmosphere of universal sympathy and kindness, and
+    found ourselves, at length, shut from the warm adieu of
+    our friends, in a snug compartment of the railroad car.
+
+    "Dear me!" said Mr. S.; "six Yankees shut up in a car
+    together! Not one Englishman to tell us anything about
+    the country! Just like the six old ladies that made
+    their living by taking tea at each other's houses!"
+
+    What a bright lookout we kept for ruins and old houses!
+    Mr. S., whose eyes are always in every place, allowed
+    none of us to slumber, but looking out, first on his
+    own side and then on ours, called our attention to
+    every visible thing. If he had been appointed on a
+    mission of inquiry, he could not have been more zealous
+    and faithful, and I began to think that our desire for
+    an English cicerone was quite superfluous.
+
+    Well, we are in Scotland at last, and now our pulse
+    rises as the sun declines in the west. We catch
+    glimpses of Solway Firth and talk about Redgauntlet.
+    The sun went down and night drew on; still we were in
+    Scotland. Scotch ballads, Scotch tunes, and Scotch
+    literature were in the ascendant. We sang "Auld Lang
+    Syne," "Scots wha hae," and "Bonnie Doon," and then,
+    changing the key, sang "Dundee," "Elgin," and "Martyr."
+
+    "Take care," said Mr. S.; "don't get too much excited."
+
+    "Ah," said I, "this is a thing that comes only once in
+    a lifetime; do let us have the comfort of it. We shall
+    never come into Scotland for the _first time_ again."
+
+    While we were thus at the fusion point of enthusiasm,
+    the cars stopped at Lockerbie. All was dim and dark
+    outside, but we soon became conscious that there was
+    quite a number of people collected, peering into the
+    window; and with a strange kind of thrill, I heard my
+    name inquired for in the Scottish accent. I went to the
+    window; there were men, women, and children gathered,
+    and hand after hand was presented, with the words,
+    "Ye're welcome to Scotland!"
+
+    Then they inquired for and shook hands with all the
+    party, having in some mysterious manner got the
+    knowledge of who they were, even down to little G.,
+    whom they took to be my son. Was it not pleasant, when
+    I had a heart so warm for this old country? I shall
+    never forget the thrill of those words, "Ye're welcome
+    to Scotland," nor the "Gude night."
+
+    After that we found similar welcomes in many succeeding
+    stopping-places; and though I did wave a towel out
+    of the window, instead of a pocket handkerchief, and
+    commit other awkwardnesses, from not knowing how to
+    play my part, yet I fancied, after all, that Scotland
+    and we were coming on well together. Who the good souls
+    were that were thus watching for us through the night,
+    I am sure I do not know; but that they were of the "one
+    blood" which unites all the families of the earth, I
+    felt.
+
+    At Glasgow, friends were waiting in the station-house.
+    Earnest, eager, friendly faces, ever so many. Warm
+    greetings, kindly words. A crowd parting in the middle,
+    through which we were conducted into a carriage, and
+    loud cheers of welcome, sent a throb, as the voice of
+    living Scotland.
+
+    I looked out of the carriage, as we drove on, and saw,
+    by the light of a lantern, Argyll Street. It was past
+    twelve o'clock when I found myself in a warm, cosy
+    parlor, with friends whom I have ever since been glad
+    to remember. In a little time we were all safely
+    housed in our hospitable apartments, and sleep fell on
+    me for the first time in Scotland.
+
+    The next morning I awoke worn and weary, and scarce
+    could the charms of the social Scotch breakfast restore
+    me.
+
+    Our friend and host was Mr. Bailie Paton. I believe
+    that it is to his suggestion in a public meeting that
+    we owe the invitation which brought us to Scotland.
+
+    After breakfast the visiting began. First, a friend of
+    the family, with three beautiful children, the youngest
+    of whom was the bearer of a handsomely bound album,
+    containing a pressed collection of the sea-mosses of
+    the Scottish coast, very vivid and beautiful.
+
+    All this day is a confused dream to me of a dizzy
+    and overwhelming kind. So many letters that it took
+    brother Charles from nine in the morning till two in
+    the afternoon to read and answer them in the shortest
+    manner; letters from all classes of people, high
+    and low, rich and poor, in all shades and styles of
+    composition, poetry and prose; some mere outbursts of
+    feeling; some invitations; some advice and suggestions;
+    some requests and inquiries; some presenting books, or
+    flowers, or fruit.
+
+    Then came, in their turn, deputations from Paisley,
+    Greenock, Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Belfast
+    in Ireland; calls of friendship, invitations of all
+    descriptions to go everywhere, and to see everything,
+    and to stay in so many places. One kind, venerable
+    minister, with his lovely daughter, offered me a
+    retreat in his quiet manse on the beautiful shores of
+    the Clyde.
+
+    For all these kindnesses, what could I give in return?
+    There was scarce time for even a grateful thought
+    on each. People have often said to me that it must
+    have been an exceeding bore. For my part, I could not
+    think of regarding it so. It only oppressed me with an
+    unutterable sadness.
+
+    In the afternoon I rode out with the lord provost to
+    see the cathedral. The lord provost answers to the
+    lord mayor in England. His title and office in both
+    countries continue only a year, except in case of
+    re-election.
+
+    As I saw the way to the cathedral blocked up by a
+    throng of people who had come out to see me, I could
+    not help saying, "What went ye out for to see? a reed
+    shaken with the wind?" In fact I was so worn out that
+    I could hardly walk through the building. The next
+    morning I was so ill as to need a physician, unable to
+    see any one that called, or to hear any of the letters.
+    I passed most of the day in bed, but in the evening
+    I had to get up, as I had engaged to drink tea with
+    two thousand people. Our kind friends, Dr. and Mrs.
+    Wardlaw, came after us, and Mr. S. and I went in the
+    carriage with them. Our carriage stopped at last at the
+    place. I have a dim remembrance of a way being made for
+    us through a great crowd all round the house, and of
+    going with Mrs. Wardlaw up into a dressing-room where
+    I met and shook hands with many friendly people. Then
+    we passed into a gallery, where a seat was reserved
+    for our party, directly in front of the audience. Our
+    friend Bailie Paton presided. Mrs. Wardlaw and I sat
+    together, and around us many friends, chiefly ministers
+    of the different churches, the ladies and gentlemen of
+    the Glasgow Anti-Slavery Society and others. I told
+    you it was a tea-party; but the arrangements were
+    altogether different from any I had ever seen. There
+    were narrow tables stretched up and down the whole
+    extent of the great hall, and every person had an
+    appointed seat. These tables were set out with cups
+    and saucers, cakes, biscuit, etc., and when the proper
+    time came, attendants passed along serving tea. The
+    arrangements were so accurate and methodical that the
+    whole multitude actually took tea together, without the
+    least apparent inconvenience or disturbance.
+
+    There was a gentle, subdued murmur of conversation
+    all over the house, the sociable clinking of teacups
+    and teaspoons, while the entertainment was going on.
+    It seemed to me such an odd idea, I could not help
+    wondering what sort of a teapot that must be in which
+    all this tea for two thousand people was made. Truly,
+    as Hadji Baba says, I think they must have had the
+    "father of all the tea-kettles" to boil it in. I could
+    not help wondering if old mother Scotland had put two
+    thousand teaspoonfuls of tea for the company, and one
+    for the teapot, as is our good Yankee custom.
+
+    We had quite a sociable time up in our gallery. Our
+    tea-table stretched quite across, and we drank tea
+    in sight of all the people. By _we_, I mean a great
+    number of ministers and their wives, and ladies of
+    the Anti-Slavery Society, besides our party, and the
+    friends whom I have mentioned before. All seemed to be
+    enjoying themselves.
+
+    After tea they sang a few verses of the seventy-second
+    psalm in the old Scotch version.
+
+    _April 17._ To-day a large party of us started on a
+    small steamer to go down the Clyde. It was a trip
+    full of pleasure and incident. Now we were shown
+    the remains of old Cardross Castle, where it was
+    said Robert Bruce breathed his last. And now we came
+    near the beautiful grounds of Roseneath, a green,
+    velvet-like peninsula, stretching out into the widening
+    waters.
+
+    Somewhere about here I was presented, by his own
+    request, to a broad-shouldered Scotch farmer, who stood
+    some six feet two, and who paid me the compliment to
+    say that he had read my book, and that he would walk
+    six miles to see me any day. Such a flattering evidence
+    of discriminating taste, of course, disposed my heart
+    towards him; but when I went up and put my hand into
+    his great prairie of a palm, I was as a grasshopper
+    in my own eyes. I inquired who he was and was told he
+    was one of the Duke of Argyll's farmers. I thought to
+    myself if all the duke's farmers were of this pattern,
+    that he might be able to speak to the enemy in the
+    gates to some purpose.
+
+    It was concluded after we left Roseneath that, instead
+    of returning by the boat, we should take carriage and
+    ride home along the banks of the river. In our carriage
+    were Mr. S. and myself, Dr. Robson, and Lady Anderson.
+    About this time I commenced my first essay towards
+    giving titles, and made, as you may suppose, rather an
+    odd piece of work of it, generally saying "Mrs." first,
+    and "Lady" afterwards, and then begging pardon. Lady
+    Anderson laughed and said she would give me a general
+    absolution. She is a truly genial, hearty Scotchwoman,
+    and seemed to enter happily into the spirit of the hour.
+
+    As we rode on, we found that the news of our coming had
+    spread through the village. People came and stood in
+    their doors, beckoning, bowing, smiling, and waving
+    their handkerchiefs, and the carriage was several
+    times stopped by persons who came to offer flowers.
+    I remember, in particular, a group of young girls
+    bringing to the carriage two of the most beautiful
+    children I ever saw, whose little hands literally
+    deluged us with flowers.
+
+    At the village of Helensburgh we stopped a little
+    while to call upon Mrs. Bell, the wife of Mr. Bell,
+    the inventor of the steamboat. His invention in this
+    country was at about the same time as that of Fulton
+    in America. Mrs. Bell came to the carriage to speak to
+    us. She is a venerable woman, far advanced in years.
+    They had prepared a lunch for us, and quite a number of
+    people had come together to meet us, but our friends
+    said there was not time for us to stop.
+
+    We rode through several villages after this, and met
+    everywhere a warm welcome. What pleased me was, that
+    it was not mainly from the literary, nor the rich, nor
+    the great, but the plain, common people. The butcher
+    came out of his stall and the baker from his shop, the
+    miller dusty with flour, the blooming, comely young
+    mother, with her baby in her arms, all smiling and
+    bowing, with that hearty, intelligent, friendly look,
+    as if they knew we should be glad to see them.
+
+    Once, while we stopped to change horses, I, for the
+    sake of seeing something more of the country, walked
+    on. It seems the honest landlord and his wife were
+    greatly disappointed at this; however, they got into
+    the carriage and rode on to see me, and I shook hands
+    with them with a right good will.
+
+    We saw several of the clergymen, who came out to meet
+    us; and I remember stopping just to be introduced,
+    one by one, to a most delightful family, a gray-headed
+    father and mother, with comely brothers and fair
+    sisters, all looking so kindly and homelike, that I
+    should have been glad to accept the invitation they
+    gave me to their dwelling.
+
+    This day has been a strange phenomenon to me. In the
+    first place, I have seen in all these villages how
+    universally the people read. I have seen how capable
+    they are of a generous excitement and enthusiasm, and
+    how much may be done by a work of fiction so written
+    as to enlist those sympathies which are common to all
+    classes. Certainly a great deal may be effected in this
+    way, if God gives to any one the power, as I hope he
+    will to many. The power of fictitious writing, for good
+    as well as evil, is a thing which ought most seriously
+    to be reflected on. No one can fail to see that in our
+    day it is becoming a very great agency.
+
+    We came home quite tired, as you may well suppose. You
+    will not be surprised that the next day I found myself
+    more disposed to keep my bed than go out.
+
+    Two days later: We bade farewell to Glasgow,
+    overwhelmed with kindness to the last, and only
+    oppressed by the thought of how little that was
+    satisfactory we were able to give in return. Again
+    we were in the railroad car on our way to Edinburgh.
+    A pleasant two hours' trip is this from Glasgow to
+    Edinburgh. When the cars stopped at Linlithgow station,
+    the name started us as out of a dream.
+
+    In Edinburgh the cars stopped amid a crowd of people
+    who had assembled to meet us. The lord provost met
+    us at the door of the car, and presented us to the
+    magistracy of the city and the committees of the
+    Edinburgh Anti-Slavery Societies. The drab dresses and
+    pure white bonnets of many Friends were conspicuous
+    among the dense moving crowd, as white doves seen
+    against a dark cloud. Mr. S. and myself, and our future
+    hostess, Mrs. Wigham, entered the carriage with the
+    lord provost, and away we drove, the crowd following
+    with their shouts and cheers. I was inexpressibly
+    touched and affected by this. While we were passing the
+    monument of Scott, I felt an oppressive melancholy.
+    What a moment life seems in the presence of the noble
+    dead! What a momentary thing is art, in all its beauty!
+    Where are all those great souls that have created such
+    an atmosphere of light about Edinburgh? and how little
+    a space was given them to live and enjoy!
+
+    We drove all over Edinburgh, up to the castle, to the
+    university, to Holyrood, to the hospitals, and through
+    many of the principal streets, amid shouts, and smiles,
+    and greetings. Some boys amused me very much by their
+    pertinacious attempts to keep up with the carriage.
+
+    "Heck," says one of them, "that's her; see the
+    _courls_!"
+
+    The various engravers who have amused themselves
+    by diversifying my face for the public having all,
+    with great unanimity, agreed in giving prominence to
+    this point, I suppose the urchins thought they were
+    on safe ground there. I certainly think I answered
+    one good purpose that day, and that is of giving the
+    much-oppressed and calumniated class called boys an
+    opportunity to develop all the noise that was in
+    them,--a thing for which I think they must bless me in
+    their remembrances.
+
+    At last the carriage drove into a deep-graveled yard,
+    and we alighted at a porch covered with green ivy, and
+    found ourselves once more at home.
+
+    You may spare your anxieties about me, for I do assure
+    you that if I were an old Sčvres china jar I could not
+    have more careful handling than I do. Everybody is
+    considerate; a great deal to say when there appears to
+    be so much excitement. Everybody seems to understand
+    how good-for-nothing I am; and yet, with all this
+    consideration, I have been obliged to keep my room and
+    bed for a good part of the time. Of the multitudes who
+    have called, I have seen scarcely any.
+
+    To-morrow evening is to be the great tea-party here.
+    How in the world I am ever to live through it I don't
+    know.
+
+    The amount of letters we found waiting for us here in
+    Edinburgh was, if possible, more appalling than in
+    Glasgow. Among those from persons whom you would be
+    interested in hearing of, I may mention a very kind
+    and beautiful one from the Duchess of Sutherland, and
+    one also from the Earl of Carlisle, both desiring to
+    make appointments for meeting us as soon as we come to
+    London. Also a very kind and interesting note from the
+    Rev. Mr. Kingsley and lady. I look forward with a great
+    deal of interest to passing a little time with them in
+    their rectory.
+
+    As to all engagements, I am in a state of happy
+    acquiescence, having resigned myself, as a very tame
+    lion, into the hands of my keepers. Whenever the time
+    comes for me to do anything, I try to behave as well as
+    I can, which, as Dr. Young says, is all that an angel
+    could do under the same circumstances.
+
+    _April 26._ Last night came off the _soirée_. The hall
+    was handsomely decorated with flags in front. We went
+    with the lord provost in his carriage. We went up as
+    before into a dressing-room, where I was presented
+    to many gentlemen and ladies. When we go in, the
+    cheering, clapping, and stamping at first strikes one
+    with a strange sensation; but then everybody looks so
+    heartily pleased and delighted, and there is such an
+    all-pervading atmosphere of geniality and sympathy, as
+    makes me in a few moments feel quite at home. After
+    all, I consider that these cheers and applauses are
+    Scotland's voice to America, a recognition of the
+    brotherhood of the countries.
+
+    The national penny offering, consisting of a thousand
+    golden sovereigns on a magnificent silver salver, stood
+    conspicuously in view of the audience. It has been an
+    unsolicited offering, given in the smallest sums, often
+    from the extreme poverty of the giver. The committee
+    who collected it in Edinburgh and Glasgow bore witness
+    to the willingness with which the very poorest
+    contributed the offering of their sympathy. In one
+    cottage they found a blind woman, and said, "Here, at
+    least, is one who will feel no interest, as she cannot
+    have read the book."
+
+    "Indeed," said the old lady, "if I cannot read, my son
+    has read it to me, and I've got my penny saved to give."
+
+    It is to my mind extremely touching to see how the
+    poor, in their poverty, can be moved to a generosity
+    surpassing that of the rich. Nor do I mourn that they
+    took it from their slender store, because I know that a
+    penny given from a kindly impulse is a greater comfort
+    and blessing to the poorest giver than even a penny
+    received.
+
+    As in the case of the other meeting, we came out long
+    before the speeches were ended. Well, of course I did
+    not sleep all night, and the next day I felt quite
+    miserable.
+
+    From Edinburgh we took cars for Aberdeen. I enjoyed
+    this ride more than anything we had seen yet, the
+    country was so wild and singular. In the afternoon we
+    came in sight of the German Ocean. The free, bracing
+    air from the sea, and the thought that it actually
+    _was_ the German Ocean, and that over the other side
+    was Norway, within a day's sail of us, gave it a
+    strange, romantic charm. It was towards the close of
+    the afternoon that we found ourselves crossing the
+    Dee, in view of Aberdeen. My spirits were wonderfully
+    elated: the grand scenery and fine, bracing air; the
+    noble, distant view of the city, rising with its
+    harbor and shipping,--all filled me with delight.
+    In this propitious state, disposed to be pleased
+    with everything, our hearts responded warmly to the
+    greetings of the many friends who were waiting for us
+    at the station-house.
+
+    The lord provost received us into his carriage, and
+    as we drove along pointed out to us the various
+    objects of interest in the beautiful town. Among other
+    things, a fine old bridge across the Dee attracted our
+    particular attention. We were conducted to the house
+    of Mr. Cruikshank, a Friend, and found waiting for us
+    there the thoughtful hospitality which we had ever
+    experienced in all our stopping-places. A snug little
+    quiet supper was laid out upon the table, of which we
+    partook in haste, as we were informed that the assembly
+    at the hall were waiting to receive us.
+
+    There arrived, we found the hall crowded, and with
+    difficulty made our way to the platform. Whether owing
+    to the stimulating effect of the air from the ocean,
+    or to the comparatively social aspect of the scene,
+    or perhaps to both, certain it is that we enjoyed the
+    meeting with great zest. I was surrounded on the stage
+    with blooming young ladies, one of whom put into my
+    hands a beautiful bouquet, some flowers of which I have
+    now, dried, in my album. The refreshment tables were
+    adorned with some exquisite wax flowers, the work, as
+    I was afterwards told, of a young lady in the place.
+    One of these designs especially interested me. It was a
+    group of water-lilies resting on a mirror, which gave
+    them the appearance of growing in the water.
+
+    We had some very animated speaking, in which the
+    speakers contrived to blend enthusiastic admiration and
+    love for America with detestation of slavery.
+
+    They presented an offering in a beautiful embroidered
+    purse, and after much shaking of hands we went home,
+    and sat down to the supper-table for a little more chat
+    before going to bed. The next morning--as we had only
+    till noon to stay in Aberdeen--our friends, the lord
+    provost and Mr. Leslie, the architect, came immediately
+    after breakfast to show us the place.
+
+    About two o'clock we started from Aberdeen, among
+    crowds of friends, to whom we bade farewell with real
+    regret.
+
+    At Stonehaven station, where we stopped a few minutes,
+    there was quite a gathering of the inhabitants to
+    exchange greetings, and afterwards, at successive
+    stations along the road, many a kindly face and voice
+    made our journey a pleasant one.
+
+    When we got into Dundee it seemed all alive with
+    welcome. We went in the carriage with the lord provost,
+    Mr. Thoms, to his residence, where a party had been
+    waiting dinner for us for some time.
+
+    The meeting in the evening was in a large church,
+    densely crowded, and conducted much as the others had
+    been. When they came to sing the closing hymn, I hoped
+    they would sing Dundee; but they did not, and I fear
+    in Scotland, as elsewhere, the characteristic national
+    melodies are giving way before more modern ones.
+
+    We left Dundee at two o'clock, by cars, for Edinburgh
+    again, and in the evening attended another _soirée_ of
+    the workingmen of Edinburgh. We have received letters
+    from the workingmen, both in Dundee and Glasgow,
+    desiring our return to attend _soirées_ in those
+    cities. Nothing could give us greater pleasure, had we
+    time or strength. The next day we had a few calls to
+    make, and an invitation from Lady Drummond to visit
+    classic Hawthornden, which, however, we had not time
+    to accept. In the forenoon, Mr. S. and I called on
+    Lord and Lady Gainsborough. Though she is one of the
+    queen's household, she is staying here at Edinburgh
+    while the queen is at Osborne. I infer, therefore, that
+    the appointment includes no very onerous duties. The
+    Earl of Gainsborough is the eldest brother of the Rev.
+    Baptist W. Noel.
+
+    It was a rainy, misty morning when I left my kind
+    retreat and friends in Edinburgh. Considerate as
+    everybody had been about imposing on my time or
+    strength, still you may well believe that I was much
+    exhausted. We left Edinburgh, therefore, with the
+    determination to plunge at once into some hidden and
+    unknown spot, where we might spend two or three days
+    quietly by ourselves; and remembering your Sunday at
+    Stratford-on-Avon, I proposed that we should go there.
+    As Stratford, however, is off the railroad line, we
+    determined to accept the invitation, which was lying by
+    us, from our friend, Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, and
+    take sanctuary with him. So we wrote on, intrusting him
+    with the secret, and charging him on no account to let
+    any one know of our arrival.
+
+    About night our cars whizzed into the depot at
+    Birmingham; but just before we came in a difficulty
+    was started in the company. "Mr. Sturge is to be there
+    waiting for us, but he does not know us and we don't
+    know him; what is to be done?" C. insisted that he
+    should know him by instinct; and so, after we reached
+    the depot, we told him to sally out and try. Sure
+    enough, in a few moments he pitched upon a cheerful,
+    middle-aged gentleman, with a moderate but not decisive
+    broad brim to his hat, and challenged him as Mr.
+    Sturge. The result verified the truth that "instinct is
+    a great matter." In a few moments our new friend and
+    ourselves were snugly encased in a fly, trotting off
+    as briskly as ever we could to his place at Edgbaston,
+    nobody a whit the wiser. You do not know how pleased we
+    felt to think we had done it so nicely.
+
+    As we were drinking tea that evening, Elihu Burritt
+    came in. It was the first time I had ever seen him,
+    though I had heard a great deal of him from our
+    friends in Edinburgh. He is a man in middle life,
+    tall and slender, with fair complexion, blue eyes,
+    an air of delicacy and refinement, and manners of
+    great gentleness. My ideas of the "learned blacksmith"
+    had been of something altogether more ponderous and
+    peremptory. Elihu has been for some years operating,
+    in England and on the Continent, in a movement which
+    many in our half-Christianized times regard with as
+    much incredulity as the grim, old warlike barons did
+    the suspicious imbecilities of reading and writing. The
+    sword now, as then, seems so much more direct a way to
+    terminate controversies, that many Christian men, even,
+    cannot conceive how the world is to get along without
+    it.
+
+    We spent the evening in talking over various topics
+    relating to the anti-slavery movement. Mr. Sturge was
+    very confident that something more was to be done
+    than had ever been done yet, by combinations for the
+    encouragement of free in the place of slave grown
+    produce; a question which has, ever since the days
+    of Clarkson, more or less deeply occupied the minds
+    of abolitionists in England. I should say that Mr.
+    Sturge in his family has for many years conscientiously
+    forborne the use of any article produced by slave
+    labor. I could scarcely believe it possible that there
+    could be such an abundance and variety of all that is
+    comfortable and desirable in the various departments
+    of household living within these limits. Mr. Sturge
+    presents the subject with very great force, the more so
+    from the consistency of his example.
+
+    The next morning, as we were sitting down to
+    breakfast, our friends sent in to me a plate of the
+    largest, finest strawberries I have ever seen, which,
+    considering that it was only the latter part of April,
+    seemed to me quite an astonishing luxury.
+
+    Before we left, we had agreed to meet a circle of
+    friends from Birmingham, consisting of the Abolition
+    Society there, which is of long standing, extending
+    back in its memories to the very commencement of the
+    agitation under Clarkson and Wilberforce. The windows
+    of the parlor were opened to the ground; and the
+    company invited filled not only the room, but stood
+    in a crowd on the grass around the window. Among the
+    peaceable company present was an admiral in the navy, a
+    fine, cheerful old gentleman, who entered with hearty
+    interest into the scene.
+
+    A throng of friends accompanied us to the depot, while
+    from Birmingham we had the pleasure of the company of
+    Elihu Burritt, and enjoyed a delightful run to London,
+    where we arrived towards evening.
+
+    At the station-house in London we found the Rev.
+    Messrs. Binney and Sherman waiting for us with
+    carriages. C. went with Mr. Sherman, and Mr. S. and I
+    soon found ourselves in a charming retreat called Rose
+    Cottage, in Walworth, about which I will tell you more
+    anon. Mrs. B. received us with every attention which
+    the most thoughtful hospitality could suggest. One of
+    the first things she said to me after we got into our
+    room was, "Oh, we are so glad you have come! for we
+    are all going to the lord mayor's dinner to-night, and
+    you are invited." So, though I was tired, I hurried
+    to dress in all the glee of meeting an adventure. As
+    soon as Mr. and Mrs. B. and the rest of the party were
+    ready, crack went the whip, round went the wheels, and
+    away we drove.
+
+    We found a considerable throng, and I was glad to
+    accept a seat which was offered me in the agreeable
+    vicinity of the lady mayoress, so that I might see what
+    would be interesting to me of the ceremonial.
+
+    A very dignified gentleman, dressed in black velvet,
+    with a fine head, made his way through the throng, and
+    sat down by me, introducing himself as Lord Chief Baron
+    Pollock. He told me he had just been reading the legal
+    part of the "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," and remarked
+    especially on the opinion of Judge Ruffin, in the case
+    of _State_ v. _Mann_, as having made a deep impression
+    on his mind.
+
+    Dinner was announced between nine and ten o'clock,
+    and we were conducted into a splendid hall, where the
+    tables were laid.
+
+    Directly opposite me was Mr. Dickens, whom I now beheld
+    for the first time, and was surprised to see looking
+    so young. Mr. Justice Talfourd, known as the author
+    of "Ion," was also there with his lady. She had a
+    beautiful, antique cast of head. The lord mayor was
+    simply dressed in black, without any other adornment
+    than a massive gold chain. We rose from table between
+    eleven and twelve o'clock--that is, we ladies--and went
+    into the drawing-room, where I was presented to Mrs.
+    Dickens and several other ladies. Mrs. Dickens is a
+    good specimen of a truly English woman; tall, large,
+    and well developed, with fine, healthy color, and an
+    air of frankness, cheerfulness, and reliability. A
+    friend whispered to me that she was as observing and
+    fond of humor as her husband.
+
+    After a while the gentlemen came back to the
+    drawing-room, and I had a few moments of very pleasant,
+    friendly conversation with Mr. Dickens. They are both
+    people that one could not know a little of without
+    desiring to know more.
+
+    After a little we began to talk of separating; the lord
+    mayor to take his seat in the House of Commons, and the
+    rest of the party to any other engagement that might be
+    upon their list.
+
+    "Come, let us go to the House of Commons," said one
+    of my friends, "and make a night of it." "With all my
+    heart," replied I, "if I only had another body to go
+    into to-morrow."
+
+    What a convenience in sight-seeing it would be if
+    one could have a relay of bodies as of clothes, and
+    slip from one into the other! But we, not used to the
+    London style of turning night into day, are full weary
+    already. So good-night to you all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+FROM OVER THE SEA, 1853.
+
+    THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--ARTHUR HELPS.--THE DUKE AND
+    DUCHESS OF ARGYLL.--MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER.--A
+    MEMORABLE MEETING AT STAFFORD HOUSE.--MACAULAY AND DEAN
+    MILMAN.--WINDSOR CASTLE.--PROFESSOR STOWE RETURNS TO
+    AMERICA.--MRS. STOWE ON THE CONTINENT.--IMPRESSIONS OF
+    PARIS.--EN ROUTE TO SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY.--BACK TO
+    ENGLAND.--HOMEWARD BOUND.
+
+            ROSE COTTAGE, WALWORTH, LONDON, _May 2, 1856._
+
+    MY DEAR,--This morning Mrs. Follen called and we had
+    quite a chat. We are separated by the whole city.
+    She lives at the West End, while I am down here in
+    Walworth, which is one of the postscripts of London,
+    for this place has as many postscripts as a lady's
+    letter. This evening we dined with the Earl of
+    Carlisle. There was no company but ourselves, for he,
+    with great consideration, said in his note that he
+    thought a little quiet would be the best thing he could
+    offer.
+
+    Lord Carlisle is a great friend to America, and so is
+    his sister, the Duchess of Sutherland. He is the only
+    English traveler who ever wrote notes on our country in
+    a real spirit of appreciation.
+
+    We went about seven o'clock, the dinner hour being here
+    somewhere between eight and nine. We were shown into an
+    ante-room adjoining the entrance hall, and from that
+    into an adjacent apartment, where we met Lord Carlisle.
+    The room had a pleasant, social air, warmed and
+    enlivened by the blaze of a coal fire and wax candles.
+
+    We had never, any of us, met Lord Carlisle before; but
+    the considerateness and cordiality of our reception
+    obviated whatever embarrassment there might have
+    been in this circumstance. In a few moments after we
+    were all seated, a servant announced the Duchess of
+    Sutherland, and Lord Carlisle presented me. She is
+    tall and stately, with a most noble bearing. Her fair
+    complexion, blonde hair, and full lips speak of Saxon
+    blood.
+
+    The only person present not of the family connection
+    was my quondam correspondent in America, Arthur Helps.
+    Somehow or other I had formed the impression from his
+    writings that he was a venerable sage of very advanced
+    years, who contemplated life as an aged hermit from the
+    door of his cell. Conceive my surprise to find a genial
+    young gentleman of about twenty-five, who looked as if
+    he might enjoy a joke as well as another man.
+
+    After the ladies left the table, the conversation
+    turned on the Maine law, which seems to be considered
+    over here as a phenomenon in legislation, and many of
+    the gentlemen present inquired about it with great
+    curiosity.
+
+    After the gentlemen rejoined us, the Duke and Duchess
+    of Argyll came in, and Lord and Lady Blantyre. These
+    ladies are the daughters of the Duchess of Sutherland.
+    The Duchess of Argyll is of slight and fairy-like
+    figure, with flaxen hair and blue eyes, answering
+    well enough to the description of Annot Lyle in the
+    Legend of Montrose. Lady Blantyre was somewhat taller,
+    of fuller figure, with a very brilliant bloom. Lord
+    Blantyre is of the Stuart blood, a tall and slender
+    young man with very graceful manners.
+
+    As to the Duke of Argyll, we found that the picture
+    drawn of him by his countrymen in Scotland was in
+    every way correct. Though slight of figure, with
+    fair complexion and blue eyes, his whole appearance
+    is indicative of energy and vivacity. His talents
+    and efficiency have made him a member of the British
+    Cabinet at a much earlier age than is usual; and
+    he has distinguished himself not only in political
+    life, but as a writer, having given to the world a
+    work on Presbyterianism, embracing an analysis of
+    the ecclesiastical history of Scotland since the
+    Reformation, which is spoken of as written with great
+    ability, and in a most liberal spirit. He made many
+    inquiries about our distinguished men, particularly of
+    Emerson, Longfellow, and Hawthorne; also of Prescott,
+    who appears to be a general favorite here. I felt at
+    the moment that we never value our own literary men so
+    much as when we are placed in a circle of intelligent
+    foreigners.
+
+    The following evening we went to dine with our old
+    friends of the Dingle, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Cropper,
+    who are now spending a little time in London. We were
+    delighted to meet them once more and to hear from our
+    Liverpool friends. Mrs. Cropper's father, Lord Denman,
+    has returned to England, though with no sensible
+    improvement in his health.
+
+    At dinner we were introduced to Lord and Lady
+    Hatherton. Lady Hatherton is a person of great
+    cultivation and intelligence, warmly interested in all
+    the progressive movements of the day; and I gained much
+    information in her society. There were also present
+    Sir Charles and Lady Trevelyan; the former holds an
+    appointment at the treasury, and Lady Trevelyan is a
+    sister of Macaulay.
+
+    In the evening quite a circle came in, among others
+    Lady Emma Campbell, sister of the Duke of Argyll; the
+    daughters of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who very
+    kindly invited me to visit them at Lambeth; and Mr.
+    Arthur Helps, besides many others whose names I need
+    not mention.
+
+    _May 7._ This evening our house was opened in a
+    general way for callers, who were coming and going all
+    the evening. I think there must have been over two
+    hundred people, among them Martin Farquhar Tupper, a
+    little man with fresh, rosy complexion and cheery,
+    joyous manners; and Mary Howitt, just such a cheerful,
+    sensible, fireside companion as we find her in her
+    books,--winning love and trust the very first moment of
+    the interview.
+
+    The general topic of remark on meeting me seems to be,
+    that I am not so bad-looking as they were afraid I was;
+    and I do assure you that when I have seen the things
+    that are put up in the shop windows here with my name
+    under them, I have been in wondering admiration at the
+    boundless loving-kindness of my English and Scottish
+    friends in keeping up such a warm heart for such a
+    Gorgon. I should think that the Sphinx in the London
+    Museum might have sat for most of them. I am going to
+    make a collection of these portraits to bring home to
+    you. There is a great variety of them, and they will be
+    useful, like the Irishman's guide-board, which showed
+    where the road did not go.
+
+    Before the evening was through I was talked out and
+    worn out; there was hardly a chip of me left. To-morrow
+    at eleven o'clock comes the meeting at Stafford House.
+    What it will amount to I do not know; but I take no
+    thought for the morrow.
+
+                                                   _May 8._
+
+    MY DEAR C.,--In fulfillment of my agreement I will tell
+    you, as nearly as I can remember, all the details of
+    the meeting at Stafford House. At about eleven o'clock
+    we drove under the arched carriage-way of a mansion
+    externally not very showy in appearance.
+
+    When the duchess appeared, I thought she looked
+    handsomer by daylight than in the evening. She received
+    us with the same warm and simple kindness which she
+    had shown before. We were presented to the Duke of
+    Sutherland. He is a tall, slender man, with rather a
+    thin face, light-brown hair, and a mild blue eye, with
+    an air of gentleness and dignity.
+
+    Among the first that entered were the members of the
+    family, the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, Lord and Lady
+    Blantyre, the Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford, and
+    Lady Emma Campbell. Then followed Lord Shaftesbury with
+    his beautiful lady, and her father and mother, Lord and
+    Lady Palmerston. Lord Palmerston is of middle height,
+    with a keen dark eye and black hair streaked with gray.
+    There is something peculiarly alert and vivacious about
+    all his movements; in short, his appearance perfectly
+    answers to what we know of him from his public life.
+    One has a strange, mythological feeling about the
+    existence of people of whom one hears for many years
+    without ever seeing them. While talking with Lord
+    Palmerston I could but remember how often I had heard
+    father and Mr. S. exulting over his foreign dispatches
+    by our own fireside. There were present, also, Lord
+    John Russell, Mr. Gladstone, and Lord Granville. The
+    latter we all thought very strikingly resembled in his
+    appearance the poet Longfellow.
+
+    After lunch the whole party ascended to the
+    picture-gallery, passing on our way the grand staircase
+    and hall, said to be the most magnificent in Europe.
+    The company now began to assemble and throng the
+    gallery, and very soon the vast room was crowded. Among
+    the throng I remember many presentations, but of course
+    must have forgotten many more. Archbishop Whateley was
+    there, with Mrs. and Miss Whateley; Macaulay, with two
+    of his sisters; Milman, the poet and historian; the
+    Bishop of Oxford, Chevalier Bunsen and lady, and many
+    more.
+
+    When all the company were together, Lord Shaftesbury
+    read a very short, kind, and considerate address in
+    behalf of the ladies of England, expressive of their
+    cordial welcome.
+
+    This Stafford House meeting, in any view of it,
+    is a most remarkable fact. Kind and gratifying as
+    its arrangements have been to me, I am far from
+    appropriating it to myself individually as a personal
+    honor. I rather regard it as the most public expression
+    possible of the feelings of the women of England on one
+    of the most important questions of our day, that of
+    individual liberty considered in its religious bearings.
+
+On this occasion the Duchess of Sutherland presented Mrs. Stowe with a
+superb gold bracelet, made in the form of a slave's shackle, bearing
+the inscription: "We trust it is a memorial of a chain that is soon
+to be broken." On two of the links were inscribed the dates of the
+abolition of the slave-trade and of slavery in English territory. Years
+after its presentation to her, Mrs. Stowe was able to have engraved
+on the clasp of this bracelet, "Constitutional Amendment (forever
+abolishing slavery in the United States)."
+
+Continuing her interesting journal, Mrs. Stowe writes, May 9th:--
+
+    DEAR E.,--This letter I consecrate to you, because I
+    know that the persons and things to be introduced into
+    it will most particularly be appreciated by you.
+
+    In your evening reading circles, Macaulay, Sydney
+    Smith, and Milman have long been such familiar names
+    that you will be glad to go with me over all the scenes
+    of my morning breakfast at Sir Charles Trevelyan's
+    yesterday. Lady Trevelyan, I believe I have said
+    before, is a sister of Macaulay.
+
+    We were set down at Westbourne Terrace somewhere, I
+    believe, about eleven o'clock, and found quite a number
+    already in the drawing-room. I had met Macaulay before,
+    but being seated between him and Dean Milman, I must
+    confess I was a little embarrassed at times, because I
+    wanted to hear what they were both saying at the same
+    time. However, by the use of the faculty by which you
+    play a piano with both hands, I got on very comfortably.
+
+    There were several other persons of note present
+    at this breakfast, whose conversation I had not an
+    opportunity of hearing, as they sat at a distance from
+    me. There was Lord Glenelg, brother of Sir Robert
+    Grant, governor of Bombay, whose beautiful hymns have
+    rendered him familiar in America. The favorite one,
+    commencing
+
+          "When gathering clouds around I view,"
+
+    was from his pen.
+
+    The historian Hallam was also present, and I think it
+    very likely there may have been other celebrities whom
+    I did not know. I am always finding out, a day or two
+    after, that I have been with somebody very remarkable
+    and did not know it at the time.
+
+Under date of May 18th she writes to her sister Mary:--
+
+    DEAR M.,--I can compare the embarrassment of our London
+    life, with its multiplied solicitations and infinite
+    stimulants to curiosity and desire, only to that annual
+    perplexity which used to beset us in our childhood on
+    Thanksgiving Day. Like Miss Edgeworth's philosophic
+    little Frank, we are obliged to make out a list of what
+    man _must_ want, and of what he _may_ want; and in our
+    list of the former we set down, in large and decisive
+    characters, one quiet day for the exploration and
+    enjoyment of Windsor.
+
+    The ride was done all too soon. About eleven o'clock
+    we found ourselves going up the old stone steps to the
+    castle. We went first through the state apartments. The
+    principal thing that interested me was the ball-room,
+    which was a perfect gallery of Vandyke's paintings.
+    After leaving the ball-room we filed off to the proper
+    quarter to show our orders for the private rooms. The
+    state apartments, which we had been looking at, are
+    open at all times, but the private apartments can
+    only be seen in the Queen's absence and by a special
+    permission, which had been procured for us on that
+    occasion by the kindness of the Duchess of Sutherland.
+
+    One of the first objects that attracted my attention
+    upon entering the vestibule was a baby's wicker wagon,
+    standing in one corner. It was much such a carriage as
+    all mothers are familiar with; such as figures largely
+    in the history of almost every family. It had neat
+    curtains and cushions of green merino, and was not
+    royal, only maternal. I mused over the little thing
+    with a good deal of interest.
+
+    We went for our dinner to the White Hart, the very inn
+    which Shakespeare celebrates in his "Merry Wives," and
+    had a most overflowing merry time of it. After dinner
+    we had a beautiful drive.
+
+    We were bent upon looking up the church which gave rise
+    to Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," intending
+    when we got there to have a little scene over it; Mr.
+    S., in all the conscious importance of having been
+    there before, assuring us that he knew exactly where it
+    was. So, after some difficulty with our coachman, and
+    being stopped at one church which would not answer our
+    purpose in any respect, we were at last set down by one
+    which looked authentic; embowered in mossy elms, with a
+    most ancient and goblin yew-tree, an ivy-mantled tower,
+    all perfect as could be. Here, leaning on the old
+    fence, we repeated the Elegy, which certainly applies
+    here as beautifully as language could apply.
+
+    Imagine our chagrin, on returning to London, at
+    being informed that we had not been to the genuine
+    churchyard after all. The gentleman who wept over the
+    scenes of his early days on the wrong doorstep was not
+    more grievously disappointed. However, he and we could
+    both console ourselves with the reflection that the
+    emotion was admirable, and wanted only the right place
+    to make it the most appropriate in the world.
+
+    The evening after our return from Windsor was spent
+    with our kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. Gurney. After
+    breakfast the next day, Mr. S., C., and I drove out to
+    call upon Kossuth. We found him in an obscure lodging
+    on the outskirts of London. I would that some of the
+    editors in America, who have thrown out insinuations
+    about his living in luxury, could have seen the utter
+    bareness and plainness of the reception room, which
+    had nothing in it beyond the simplest necessaries. He
+    entered into conversation with us with cheerfulness,
+    speaking English well, though with the idioms of
+    foreign languages. When we parted he took my hand
+    kindly and said, "God bless you, my child!"
+
+    I have been quite amused with something which has
+    happened lately. This week the "Times" has informed the
+    United Kingdom that Mrs. Stowe is getting a new dress
+    made! It wants to know if Mrs. Stowe is aware what sort
+    of a place her dress is being made in; and there is
+    a letter from a dressmaker's apprentice stating that
+    it is being made up piecemeal, in the most shockingly
+    distressed dens of London, by poor, miserable white
+    slaves, worse treated than the plantation slaves of
+    America!
+
+    Now Mrs. Stowe did not know anything of this, but
+    simply gave the silk into the hands of a friend, and
+    was in due time waited on in her own apartment by
+    a very respectable-appearing woman, who offered to
+    make the dress, and lo, this is the result! Since the
+    publication of this piece, I have received earnest
+    missives, from various parts of the country, begging me
+    to interfere, hoping that I was not going to patronize
+    the white slavery of England, and that I would employ
+    my talents equally against oppression in every form.
+    Could these people only know in what sweet simplicity I
+    had been living in the State of Maine, where the only
+    dressmaker of our circle was an intelligent, refined,
+    well-educated woman who was considered as the equal of
+    us all, and whose spring and fall ministrations to our
+    wardrobe were regarded a double pleasure,--a friendly
+    visit as well as a domestic assistance,--I say, could
+    they know all this, they would see how guiltless I
+    was in the matter. I verily never thought but that
+    the nice, pleasant person who came to measure me for
+    my silk dress was going to take it home and make it
+    herself; it never occurred to me that she was the head
+    of an establishment.
+
+May 22, she writes to her husband, whose duties had obliged him to
+return to America: "To-day we went to hear a sermon in behalf of the
+ragged schools by the Archbishop of Canterbury. My thoughts have
+been much saddened by the news which I received of the death of Mary
+Edmonson."
+
+"_May 30._ The next day from my last letter came off Miss Greenfield's
+concert, of which I send a card. You see in what company they have put
+your poor little wife. Funny!--isn't it? Well, the Hons. and Right
+Hons. all were there. I sat by Lord Carlisle.
+
+"After the concert the duchess asked Lady Hatherton and me to come
+round to Stafford House and take tea, which was not a thing to be
+despised, either on account of the tea or the duchess. A lovelier time
+we never had,--present, the Duchess of Argyll, Lady Caroline Campbell,
+Lady Hatherton, and myself. We had the nicest cup of tea, with such
+cream, and grapes and apricots, with some Italian bread, etc.
+
+"When we were going the duchess got me, on some pretext, into another
+room, and came up and put her arms round me, with her noble face all
+full of feeling.
+
+"'Oh, Mrs. Stowe, I have been reading that last chapter in the "Key";
+Argyll read it aloud to us. Oh, surely, surely you will succeed,--God
+surely will bless you!'
+
+"I said then that I thanked her for all her love and feeling for us,
+told her how earnestly all the women of England sympathized with her,
+and many in America. She looked really radiant and inspired. Had those
+who hang back from our cause seen her face, it might have put a soul
+into them as she said again, 'It will be done--it will be done--oh, I
+trust and pray it may!'
+
+"So we kissed each other, and vowed friendship and fidelity--so I came
+away.
+
+"To-day I am going with Lord Shaftesbury to St. Paul's to see the
+charity children, after which lunch with Dean Milman.
+
+"_May 31._ We went to lunch with Miss R. at Oxford Terrace, where,
+among a number of distinguished guests, was Lady Byron, with whom I had
+a few moments of deeply interesting conversation. No engravings that
+ever have been circulated in America do any justice to her appearance.
+She is of slight figure, formed with exceeding delicacy, and her whole
+form, face, dress, and air unite to make an impression of a character
+singularly dignified, gentle, pure, and yet strong. No words addressed
+to me in any conversation hitherto have made their way to my inner
+soul with such force as a few remarks dropped by her on the present
+religious aspect of England,--remarks of such quality as one seldom
+hears.
+
+"According to request, I will endeavor to keep you informed of all our
+goings-on after you left, up to the time of our departure for Paris.
+
+"We have borne in mind your advice to hasten away to the Continent.
+Charles wrote, a day or two since, to Mrs. C. at Paris to secure very
+private lodgings, and by no means let any one know that we were coming.
+She has replied urging us to come to her house, and promising entire
+seclusion and rest. So, since you departed, we have been passing with
+a kind of comprehensive skip and jump over remaining engagements.
+And just the evening after you left came off the presentation of the
+inkstand by the ladies of Surrey Chapel.
+
+"It is a beautiful specimen of silver-work, eighteen inches long, with
+a group of silver figures on it representing Religion, with the Bible
+in her hand, giving liberty to the slave. The slave is a masterly piece
+of work. He stands with his hands clasped, looking up to Heaven, while
+a white man is knocking the shackles from his feet. But the prettiest
+part of the scene was the presentation of a _gold pen_ by a band of
+beautiful children, one of whom made a very pretty speech. I called
+the little things to come and stand around me, and talked with them a
+few minutes, and this was all the speaking that fell to my share.
+
+"To-morrow we go--go to quiet, to obscurity, to peace--to Paris, to
+Switzerland; there we shall find the loveliest glen, and, as the Bible
+says, 'fall on sleep.'
+
+"_Paris, June 4._ Here we are in Paris, in a most charming family. I
+have been out all the morning exploring shops, streets, boulevards,
+and seeing and hearing life in Paris. When one has a pleasant home and
+friends to return to, this gay, bustling, vivacious, graceful city is
+one of the most charming things in the world; and we _have_ a most
+charming home.
+
+"I wish the children could see these Tuileries with their statues and
+fountains, men, women, and children seated in family groups under the
+trees, chatting, reading aloud, working muslin,--children driving hoop,
+playing ball, all alive and chattering French. Such fresh, pretty girls
+as are in the shops here! _Je suis ravé_, as they say. In short I am
+decidedly in a French humor, and am taking things quite _couleur de
+rose_.
+
+"_Monday, June 13._ We went this morning to the studio of M. Belloc,
+who is to paint my portrait. The first question which he proposed,
+with a genuine French air, was the question of 'pose' or position.
+It was concluded that, as other pictures had taken me looking at the
+spectator, this should take me looking away. M. Belloc remarked that M.
+Charpentier said I appeared always with the air of an observer,--was
+always looking around on everything. Hence M. Belloc would take me '_en
+observatrice, mais pas en curieuse_,'--with the air of observation,
+but not of curiosity. By and by M. Charpentier came in. He began
+panegyrizing 'Uncle Tom,' and this led to a discussion of the ground
+of its unprecedented success. In his thirty-five years' experience as
+a bookseller, he had known nothing like it. It surpassed all modern
+writings! At first he would not read it; his taste was for old masters
+of a century or two ago. 'Like M. Belloc in painting,' said I. At
+length he found his friend M., the first intelligence of the age,
+reading it.
+
+"'What, you, too?' said he.
+
+"'Ah, ah!' replied the friend; 'say nothing about this book! There is
+nothing like it. This leaves us all behind,--all, all, miles behind!'
+
+"M. Belloc said the reason was because there was in it more _genuine
+faith_ than in any book; and we branched off into florid eloquence
+touching paganism, Christianity, and art.
+
+"_Wednesday, June 22._ Adieu to Paris! Ho for Chalons-sur-Saône! After
+affectionate farewells of our kind friends, by eleven o'clock we were
+rushing, in the pleasantest of cars, over the smoothest of rails,
+through Burgundy. We arrived at Chalons at nine P. M.
+
+"_Thursday, 23_, eight o'clock A. M. Since five we have had a fine
+bustle on the quay below our windows. There lay three steamers, shaped
+for all the world like our last night's rolls. One would think Ichabod
+Crane might sit astride one of them and dip his feet in the water. They
+ought to be swift. L'Hirondelle (The Swallow) flew at five; another at
+six. We leave at nine.
+
+"_Lyons._ There was a scene of indescribable confusion upon our
+arrival here. Out of the hold of our steamer a man with a rope and hook
+began hauling baggage up a smooth board. Three hundred people were
+sorting their goods without checks. Porters were shouldering immense
+loads, four or five heavy trunks at once, corded together, and stalking
+off Atlantean. Hat-boxes, bandboxes, and valises burst like a meteoric
+shower out of a crater. '_A moi, ŕ moi!_' was the cry, from old men,
+young women, soldiers, shopkeepers, and _frčres_, scuffling and shoving
+together.
+
+"_Saturday, June 25._ Lyons to Genčve. As this was our first experience
+in the diligence line, we noticed particularly every peculiarity. I had
+had the idea that a diligence was a ricketty, slow-moulded antediluvian
+nondescript, toiling patiently along over impassable roads at a snail's
+pace. Judge of my astonishment at finding it a full-blooded, vigorous
+monster, of unscrupulous railway momentum and imperturbable equipoise
+of mind. Down the macadamized slopes we thundered at a prodigious
+pace; up the hills we trotted, with six horses, three abreast; madly
+through the little towns we burst, like a whirlwind, crashing across
+the pebbled streets, and out upon the broad, smooth road again. Before
+we had well considered the fact that we were out of Lyons we stopped to
+change horses. Done in a jiffy; and whoop, crick, crack, whack, rumble,
+bump, whirr, whisk, away we blazed, till, ere we knew it, another
+change and another.
+
+"As evening drew on, a wind sprang up and a storm seemed gathering on
+the Jura. The rain dashed against the panes of the berlin as we rode
+past the grim-faced monarch of the 'misty shroud.' It was night as we
+drove into Geneva and stopped at the Messagerie. I heard with joy a
+voice demanding if this were _Madame Besshare_. I replied, not without
+some scruples of conscience, '_Oui, Monsieur, c'est moi_,' though the
+name did not sound exactly like the one to which I had been wont to
+respond. In half an hour we were at home in the mansion of Monsieur
+Fazy."
+
+From Geneva the party made a tour of the Swiss Alps, spending some
+weeks among them. While there Charles Beecher wrote from a small hotel
+at the foot of the Jura:--
+
+"The people of the neighborhood, having discovered who Harriet was,
+were very kind, and full of delight at seeing her. It was Scotland over
+again. We have had to be unflinching to prevent her being overwhelmed,
+both in Paris and Geneva, by the same demonstrations of regard. To
+this we were driven, as a matter of life and death. It was touching to
+listen to the talk of these secluded mountaineers. The good hostess,
+even the servant maids, hung about Harriet, expressing such tender
+interest for the slave. All had read 'Uncle Tom;' and it had apparently
+been an era in their life's monotony, for they said, 'Oh, madam, do
+write another! Remember, our winter nights here are very long!'"
+
+Upon their return to Geneva they visited the Castle of Chillon, of
+which, in describing the dungeons, Mrs. Stowe writes:--
+
+"One of the pillars in this vault is covered with names. I think it
+is Bonnevard's Pillar. There are the names of Byron, Hunt, Schiller,
+and ever so many more celebrities. As we were going from the cell our
+conductress seemed to have a sudden light upon her mind. She asked a
+question or two of some of our party, and fell upon me vehemently to
+put my name also there. Charley scratched it on the soft freestone,
+and there it is for future ages. The lady could scarce repress her
+enthusiasm; she shook my hand over and over again, and said she had
+read 'Uncle Tom.' 'It is beautiful,' she said, 'but it is cruel.'
+
+"_Monday, July 18._ Weather suspicious. Stowed ourselves and our
+baggage into our _voiture_, and bade adieu to our friends and to
+Geneva. Ah, how regretfully! From the market-place we carried away
+a basket of cherries and fruit as a consolation. Dined at Lausanne,
+and visited the cathedral and picture-gallery, where was an exquisite
+_Eva_. Slept at Meudon.
+
+"_Tuesday, July 19._ Rode through Payerne to Freyburg. Stopped at the
+Zähringer Hof,--most romantic of inns.
+
+"_Wednesday, July 20._ Examined, not the lions, but the bears of Berne.
+Engaged a _voiture_ and drove to Thun. Dined and drove by the shore of
+the lake to Interlachen, arriving just after a brilliant sunset.
+
+"We crossed the Wengern Alps to Grindelwald. The Jungfrau is right over
+against us,--her glaciers purer, tenderer, more dazzlingly beautiful,
+if possible, than those of Mont Blanc. Slept at Grindelwald."
+
+From Rosenlaui, on this journey, Charles Beecher writes:--
+
+"_Friday, July 22._ Grindelwald to Meyringen. On we came, to the top of
+the Great Schiedeck, where H. and W. botanized, while I slept. Thence
+we rode down the mountain till we reached Rosenlaui, where, I am free
+to say, a dinner was to me a more interesting object than a glacier.
+Therefore, while H. and W. went to the latter, I turned off to the inn,
+amid their cries and reproaches.
+
+"Here, then, I am, writing these notes in the _salle ŕ manger_ of
+the inn, where other voyagers are eating and drinking, and there is
+H. feeding on the green moonshine of an emerald ice cave. One would
+almost think her incapable of fatigue. How she skips up and down high
+places and steep places, to the manifest perplexity of the honest
+guide Kienholz, _pčre_, who tries to take care of her, but does not
+exactly know how! She gets on a pyramid of débris, which the edge of
+the glacier is plowing and grinding up, sits down, and falls--not
+asleep exactly, but into a trance. W. and I are ready to go on: we
+shout; our voice is lost in the roar of the torrent. We send the guide.
+He goes down, and stands doubtfully. He does not know exactly what to
+do. She hears him, and starts to her feet, pointing with one hand to
+yonder peak, and with the other to that knife-like edge that seems
+cleaving heaven with its keen and glistening cimeter of snow, reminding
+one of Isaiah's sublime imagery, 'For my sword is bathed in heaven.'
+She points at the grizzly rocks, with their jags and spear-points.
+Evidently she is beside herself, and thinks she can remember the names
+of those monsters, born of earthquake and storm, which cannot be named
+nor known but by sight, and then are known at once perfectly and
+forever."
+
+After traveling through Germany, Belgium, and Holland, the party
+returned to Paris toward the end of August, from which place Mrs. Stowe
+writes:--
+
+"I am seated in a snug little room at M. Belloc's. The weather is
+overpoweringly hot, but these Parisian houses seem to have seized and
+imprisoned coolness. French household ways are delightful. I like their
+seclusion from the street by these deep-paned quadrangles.
+
+"Madame Belloc was the translator of Maria Edgeworth, by that lady's
+desire; corresponded with her for years, and still has many of her
+letters. Her translation of 'Uncle Tom' has to me all the merit and all
+the interest of an original composition. In perusing it, I enjoy the
+pleasure of reading the story with scarce any consciousness of its ever
+having been mine."
+
+The next letter is from London _en route_ for America, to which passage
+had been engaged on the Collins steamer Arctic. In it Mrs. Stowe
+writes:--
+
+"_London, August 28._ Our last letters from home changed all our plans.
+We concluded to hurry away by the next steamer, if at that late hour
+we could get a passage. We were all in a bustle. The last shoppings
+for aunts, cousins, and little folks were to be done by us all. The
+Palais Royal was to be rummaged; bronzes, vases, statuettes, bonbons,
+playthings,--all that the endless fertility of France could show,--was
+to be looked over for the 'folks at home.'
+
+"How we sped across the Channel C. relates. We are spending a few very
+pleasant days with our kind friends the L.'s, in London.
+
+"_On board the Arctic, September 7._ On Thursday, September 1, we
+reached York, and visited the beautiful ruins of St. Mary's Abbey,
+and the magnificent cathedral. It rained with inflexible pertinacity
+during all the time we were there, and the next day it rained still,
+when we took the cars for Castle Howard station.
+
+"Lady Carlisle welcomed us most affectionately, and we learned that,
+had we not been so reserved at the York station in concealing our
+names, we should have received a note from her. However, as we were
+safely arrived, it was of no consequence.
+
+"Our friends spoke much of Sumner and Prescott, who had visited there;
+also of Mr. Lawrence, our former ambassador, who had visited them just
+before his return. After a very pleasant day, we left with regret the
+warmth of this hospitable circle, thus breaking one more of the links
+that bind us to the English shore.
+
+"Nine o'clock in the evening found us sitting by a cheerful fire in the
+parlor of Mr. E. Baines at Leeds. The next day the house was filled
+with company, and the Leeds offering was presented.
+
+"Tuesday we parted from our excellent friends in Leeds, and soon found
+ourselves once more in the beautiful "Dingle," our first and last
+resting-place on English shores.
+
+"A deputation from Belfast, Ireland, here met me, presenting a
+beautiful bog-oak casket, lined with gold, and carved with appropriate
+national symbols, containing an offering for the cause of the
+oppressed. They read a beautiful address, and touched upon the
+importance of inspiring with the principles of emancipation the Irish
+nation, whose influence in our land is becoming so great. Had time and
+strength permitted, it had been my purpose to visit Ireland, to revisit
+Scotland, and to see more of England. But it is not in man that
+walketh to direct his steps. And now came parting, leave-taking, last
+letters, notes, and messages.
+
+"Thus, almost sadly as a child might leave its home, I left the shores
+of kind, strong Old England,--the mother of us all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+HOME AGAIN, 1853-1856.
+
+    ANTI-SLAVERY WORK.--STIRRING TIMES IN THE UNITED
+    STATES.--ADDRESS TO THE LADIES OF GLASGOW.--APPEAL TO
+    THE WOMEN OF AMERICA.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH WILLIAM
+    LLOYD GARRISON.--THE WRITING OF "DRED."--FAREWELL
+    LETTER FROM GEORGIANA MAY.--SECOND VOYAGE TO ENGLAND.
+
+
+AFTER her return in the autumn of 1853 from her European tour, Mrs.
+Stowe threw herself heart and soul into the great struggle with
+slavery. Much of her time was occupied in distributing over a wide
+area of country the English gold with which she had been intrusted
+for the advancement of the cause. With this money she assisted in the
+redemption of slaves whose cases were those of peculiar hardship, and
+helped establish them as free men. She supported anti-slavery lectures
+wherever they were most needed, aided in establishing and maintaining
+anti-slavery publications, founded and assisted in supporting schools
+in which colored people might be taught how to avail themselves of the
+blessings of freedom. She arranged public meetings, and prepared many
+of the addresses that should be delivered at them. She maintained such
+an extensive correspondence with persons of all shades of opinion in
+all parts of the world, that the letters received and answered by her
+between 1853 and 1856 would fill volumes. With all these multifarious
+interests, her children received a full share of her attention, nor
+were her literary activities relaxed.
+
+Immediately upon the completion of her European tour, her experiences
+were published in the form of a journal, both in this country and
+England, under the title of "Sunny Memories." She also revised and
+elaborated the collection of sketches which had been published by the
+Harpers in 1843, under title of "The Mayflower," and having purchased
+the plates caused them to be republished in 1855 by Phillips & Sampson,
+the successors of John P. Jewett & Co., in this country, and by Sampson
+Low & Co. in London.
+
+Soon after her return to America, feeling that she owed a debt of
+gratitude to her friends in Scotland, which her feeble health had not
+permitted her adequately to express while with them, Mrs. Stowe wrote
+the following open letter:--
+
+    TO THE LADIES' ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW:
+
+    _Dear Friends_,--I have had many things in my mind
+    to say to you, which it was my hope to have said
+    personally, but which I am now obliged to say by letter.
+
+    I have had many fears that you must have thought our
+    intercourse, during the short time that I was in
+    Glasgow, quite unsatisfactory.
+
+    At the time that I accepted your very kind invitation,
+    I was in tolerable health, and supposed that I should
+    be in a situation to enjoy society, and mingle as much
+    in your social circles as you might desire.
+
+    When the time came for me to fulfil my engagement with
+    you, I was, as you know, confined to my bed with a
+    sickness brought on by the exertion of getting the
+    "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" through the press during the
+    winter.
+
+    In every part of the world the story of "Uncle Tom"
+    had awakened sympathy for the American slave, and
+    consequently in every part of the world the story of
+    his wrongs had been denied; it had been asserted to be
+    a mere work of romance, and I was charged with being
+    the slanderer of the institutions of my own country. I
+    knew that if I shrank from supporting my position, the
+    sympathy which the work had excited would gradually die
+    out, and the whole thing would be looked upon as a mere
+    romantic excitement of the passions.
+
+    When I came abroad, I had not the slightest idea of
+    the kind of reception which was to meet me in England
+    and Scotland. I had thought of something involving
+    considerable warmth, perhaps, and a good deal of
+    cordiality and feeling on the part of friends; but of
+    the general extent of feeling through society, and of
+    the degree to which it would be publicly expressed, I
+    had, I may say, no conception.
+
+    As through your society I was invited to your country,
+    it may seem proper that what communication I have to
+    make to friends in England and Scotland should be made
+    through you.
+
+    In the first place, then, the question will probably
+    arise in your minds, Have the recent demonstrations in
+    Great Britain done good to the anti-slavery cause in
+    America?
+
+    The first result of those demonstrations, as might have
+    been expected, was an intense reaction. Every kind of
+    false, evil, and malignant report has been circulated
+    by malicious and partisan papers; and if there is any
+    blessing in having all manner of evil said against us
+    falsely, we have seemed to be in a fair way to come in
+    possession of it.
+
+    The sanction which was given in this matter to the
+    voice of the people, by the nobility of England and
+    Scotland, has been regarded and treated with special
+    rancor; and yet, in its place, it has been particularly
+    important. Without it great advantages would have
+    been taken to depreciate the value of the national
+    testimony. The value of this testimony in particular
+    will appear from the fact that the anti-slavery cause
+    has been treated with especial contempt by the leaders
+    of society in this country, and every attempt made to
+    brand it with ridicule.
+
+    The effect of making a cause generally unfashionable
+    is much greater in this world than it ought to be. It
+    operates very powerfully with the young and impressible
+    portion of the community; therefore Cassius M. Clay
+    very well said with regard to the demonstration at
+    Stafford House: "It will help our cause by rendering it
+    fashionable."
+
+    With regard to the present state of the anti-slavery
+    cause in America, I think, for many reasons, that it
+    has never been more encouraging. It is encouraging in
+    this respect, that the subject is now fairly up for
+    inquiry before the public mind. And that systematic
+    effort which has been made for years to prevent its
+    being discussed is proving wholly ineffectual.
+
+    The "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" has sold extensively at
+    the South, following in the wake of "Uncle Tom." Not
+    one fact or statement in it has been disproved as yet.
+    I have yet to learn of even an _attempt_ to disprove.
+
+    The "North American Review," a periodical which has
+    never been favorable to the discussion of the slavery
+    question, has come out with a review of "Uncle Tom's
+    Cabin," in which, while rating the book very low as a
+    work of art, they account for its great circulation
+    and success by the fact of its being a true picture of
+    slavery. They go on to say that the system is one so
+    inherently abominable that, unless slaveholders shall
+    rouse themselves and abolish the principle of chattel
+    ownership, they can no longer sustain themselves under
+    the contempt and indignation of the whole civilized
+    world. What are the slaveholders to do when this is the
+    best their friends and supporters can say for them?
+
+    I regret to say that the movements of Christian
+    denominations on this subject are yet greatly behind
+    what they should be. Some movements have been made by
+    religious bodies, of which I will not now speak; but
+    as a general thing the professed Christian church is
+    pushed up to its duty by the world, rather than the
+    world urged on by the church.
+
+    The colored people in this country are rapidly rising
+    in every respect. I shall request Frederick Douglass
+    to send you the printed account of the recent colored
+    convention. It would do credit to any set of men
+    whatever, and I hope you will get some notice taken
+    of it in the papers of the United Kingdom. It is time
+    that the slanders against this unhappy race should be
+    refuted, and it should be seen how, in spite of every
+    social and political oppression, they are rising in the
+    scale of humanity. In my opinion they advance quite as
+    fast as any of the foreign races which have found an
+    asylum among us.
+
+    May God so guide us in all things that our good be not
+    evil spoken of, and that we be left to defend nothing
+    which is opposed to his glory and the good of man!
+
+                      Yours in all sympathy,
+                                           H. B. STOWE.
+
+During the Kansas and Nebraska agitation (1853-54), Mrs. Stowe, in
+common with the abolitionists of the North, was deeply impressed
+with a solemn sense that it was a desperate crisis in the nation's
+history. She was in constant correspondence with Charles Sumner and
+other distinguished statesmen of the time, and kept herself informed
+as to the minutest details of the struggle. At this time she wrote and
+caused to be circulated broadcast the following appeal to the women of
+America:--
+
+"The Providence of God has brought our nation to a crisis of most
+solemn interest.
+
+"A question is now pending in our national legislature which is most
+vitally to affect the temporal and eternal interests, not only of
+ourselves, but of our children and our children's children for ages yet
+unborn. Through our nation it is to affect the interests of liberty and
+Christianity throughout the world.
+
+"Of the woes, the injustice, and the misery of slavery it is not
+needful to speak. There is but one feeling and one opinion upon this
+subject among us all. I do not think there is a mother who clasps her
+child to her breast who would ever be made to feel it right that that
+child should be a slave, not a mother among us who would not rather lay
+that child in its grave.
+
+"Nor can I believe that there is a woman so unchristian as to think
+it right to inflict upon her neighbor's child what she would consider
+worse than death were it inflicted upon her own. I do not believe there
+is a wife who would think it right that _her_ husband should be sold to
+a trader to be worked all his life without wages or a recognition of
+rights. I do not believe there is a husband who would consider it right
+that his wife should be regarded by law the property of another man. I
+do not believe there is a father or mother who would consider it right
+were they forbidden by law to teach their children to read. I do not
+believe there is a brother who would think it right to have his sister
+held as property, with no legal defense for her personal honor, by any
+man living.
+
+"All this is inherent in slavery. It is not the abuse of slavery, but
+its legal nature. And there is not a woman in the United States, where
+the question is fairly put to her, who thinks these things are right.
+
+"But though our hearts have bled over this wrong, there have been
+many things tending to fetter our hands, to perplex our efforts,
+and to silence our voice. We have been told that to speak of it was
+an invasion of the rights of states. We have heard of promises and
+compacts, and the natural expression of feeling has in many cases been
+repressed by an appeal to those honorable sentiments which respect the
+keeping of engagements.
+
+"But a time has now come when the subject is arising under quite a
+different aspect.
+
+"The question is not now, shall the wrongs of slavery exist as they
+have within their own territories, but shall we permit them to be
+extended all over the free territories of the United States? Shall the
+woes and the miseries of slavery be extended over a region of fair,
+free, unoccupied territory nearly equal in extent to the whole of the
+free States?
+
+"Nor is this all! This is not the last thing that is expected or
+intended. Should this movement be submitted to in silence, should the
+North consent to this solemn breach of contract on the part of the
+South, there yet remains one more step to be apprehended, namely, the
+legalizing of slavery throughout the free States. By a decision of the
+supreme court in the Lemmon case, it may be declared lawful for slave
+property to be held in the Northern States. Should this come to pass,
+it is no more improbable that there may be four years hence slave
+depots in New York city than it was four years ago that the South would
+propose a repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
+
+"Women of the free States! the question is not shall we remonstrate
+with slavery on its own soil, but are we willing to receive slavery
+into the free States and Territories of this Union? Shall the whole
+power of these United States go into the hands of slavery? Shall every
+State in the Union be thrown open to slavery? This is the possible
+result and issue of the question now pending. This is the fearful
+crisis at which we stand.
+
+"And now you ask, What can the _women_ of a country do?
+
+"O women of the free States! what did your brave mothers do in the
+days of our Revolution? Did not liberty in those days feel the strong
+impulse of woman's heart?
+
+"There was never a great interest agitating a community where woman's
+influence was not felt for good or for evil. At the time when the
+abolition of the slave-trade was convulsing England, women contributed
+more than any other laborers to that great triumph of humanity. The
+women of England refused to receive into their houses the sugar
+raised by slaves. Seventy thousand families thus refused the use of
+sugar in testimony of their abhorrence of the manner in which it was
+produced. At that time women were unwearied in going from house to
+house distributing books and tracts upon the subject, and presenting it
+clearly and forcibly to thousands of families who would otherwise have
+disregarded it.
+
+"The women all over England were associated in corresponding circles
+for prayer and labor. Petitions to the government were prepared and
+signed by women of every station in all parts of the kingdom.
+
+"Women of America! we do not know with what thrilling earnestness the
+hopes and the eyes of the world are fastened upon our country, and
+how intense is the desire that we should take a stand for universal
+liberty. When I was in England, although I distinctly stated that the
+raising of money was no part of my object there, it was actually forced
+upon me by those who could not resist the impulse to do something
+for this great cause. Nor did it come from the well-to-do alone; but
+hundreds of most affecting letters were received from poor working men
+and women, who inclosed small sums in postage-stamps to be devoted to
+freeing slaves.
+
+"Nor is this deep feeling confined to England alone. I found it in
+France, Switzerland, and Germany. Why do foreign lands regard us with
+this intensity of interest? Is it not because the whole world looks
+hopefully toward America as a nation especially raised by God to
+advance the cause of human liberty and religion?
+
+"There has been a universal expectation that the next step taken by
+America would surely be one that should have a tendency to right this
+great wrong. Those who are struggling for civil and religious liberty
+in Europe speak this word 'slavery' in sad whispers, as one names a
+fault of a revered friend. They can scarce believe the advertisements
+in American papers of slave sales of men, women, and children, traded
+like cattle. Scarcely can they trust their eyes when they read the laws
+of the slave States, and the decisions of their courts. The advocates
+of despotism hold these things up to them and say: 'See what comes
+of republican liberty!' Hitherto the answer has been, 'America is
+more than half free, and she certainly will in time repudiate slavery
+altogether.'
+
+"But what can they say now if, just as the great struggle for human
+rights is commencing throughout Europe, America opens all her
+Territories to the most unmitigated despotism?
+
+"While all the nations of Europe are thus moved on the subject of
+American slavery, shall we alone remain unmoved? Shall we, the wives,
+mothers, and sisters of America, remain content with inaction in such a
+crisis as this?
+
+"The first duty of every American woman at this time is to thoroughly
+understand the subject for herself, and to feel that she is bound to
+use her influence for the right. Then they can obtain signatures to
+petitions to our national legislature. They can spread information
+upon this vital topic throughout their neighborhoods. They can employ
+lecturers to lay the subject before the people. They can circulate the
+speeches of their members of Congress that bear upon the subject, and
+in many other ways they can secure to all a full understanding of the
+present position of our country.
+
+"Above all, it seems to be necessary and desirable that we should
+make this subject a matter of earnest prayer. A conflict is now begun
+between the forces of liberty and despotism throughout the whole world.
+We who are Christians, and believe in the sure word of prophecy, know
+that fearful convulsions and overturnings are predicted before the
+coming of Him who is to rule the earth in righteousness. How important,
+then, in this crisis, that all who believe in prayer should retreat
+beneath the shadow of the Almighty!
+
+"It is a melancholy but unavoidable result of such great encounters
+of principle that they tend to degenerate into sectional and personal
+bitterness. It is this liability that forms one of the most solemn and
+affecting features of the crisis now presented. We are on the eve of a
+conflict which will try men's souls, and strain to the utmost the bonds
+of brotherly union that bind this nation together.
+
+"Let us, then, pray that in the agitation of this question between
+the North and the South the war of principle may not become a mere
+sectional conflict, degenerating into the encounter of physical force.
+Let us raise our hearts to Him who has the power to restrain the wrath
+of men, that He will avert the consequences that our sins as a nation
+so justly deserve.
+
+"There are many noble minds in the South who do not participate in the
+machinations of their political leaders, and whose sense of honor and
+justice is outraged by this proposition equally with our own. While,
+then, we seek to sustain the cause of freedom unwaveringly, let us
+also hold it to be our office as true women to moderate the acrimony
+of political contest, remembering that the slaveholder and the slave
+are alike our brethren, whom the law of God commands us to love as
+ourselves.
+
+"For the sake, then, of our dear children, for the sake of our common
+country, for the sake of outraged and struggling liberty throughout the
+world, let every woman of America now do her duty."
+
+At this same time Mrs. Stowe found herself engaged in an active
+correspondence with William Lloyd Garrison, much of which appeared in
+the columns of his paper, the "Liberator." Late in 1853 she writes to
+him:--
+
+"In regard to you, your paper, and in some measure your party, I am in
+an honest embarrassment. I sympathize with you fully in many of your
+positions. Others I consider erroneous, hurtful to liberty and the
+progress of humanity. Nevertheless, I believe you and those who support
+them to be honest and conscientious in your course and opinions. What
+I fear is that your paper will take from poor Uncle Tom his Bible, and
+give him nothing in its place."
+
+To this Mr. Garrison answers: "I do not understand why the imputation
+is thrown upon the 'Liberator' as tending to rob Uncle Tom of his
+Bible. I know of no writer in its pages who wishes to deprive him of
+it, or of any comfort he may derive from it. It is for him to place
+whatever estimate he can upon it, and for you and me to do the same;
+but for neither of us to accept any more of it than we sincerely
+believe to be in accordance with reason, truth, and eternal right.
+How much of it is true and obligatory, each one can determine only
+for himself; for on Protestant ground there is no room for papal
+infallibility. All Christendom professes to believe in the inspiration
+of the volume, and at the same time all Christendom is by the ears as
+to its real teachings. Surely you would not have me disloyal to my
+conscience. How do you prove that you are not trammeled by educational
+or traditional notions as to the entire sanctity of the book? Indeed,
+it seems to me very evident that you are not free in spirit, in view of
+the apprehension and sorrow you feel because you find your conceptions
+of the Bible controverted in the 'Liberator,' else why such disquietude
+of mind? 'Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just.'"
+
+In answer to this Mrs. Stowe writes:--
+
+    I did not reply to your letter immediately, because
+    I did not wish to speak on so important a subject
+    unadvisedly, or without proper thought and reflection.
+    The greater the interest involved in a truth the more
+    careful, self-distrustful, and patient should be the
+    inquiry.
+
+    I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being
+    sure I had a better one to put in its place, because,
+    such as it is, it is better than nothing. I notice
+    in Mr. Parker's sermons a very eloquent passage on
+    the uses and influences of the Bible. He considers it
+    to embody absolute and perfect religion, and that no
+    better mode for securing present and eternal happiness
+    can be found than in the obedience to certain religious
+    precepts therein recorded. He would have it read and
+    circulated, and considers it, as I infer, a Christian
+    duty to send it to the heathen, the slave, etc. I
+    presume you agree with him.
+
+    These things being supposed about the Bible would
+    certainly make it appear that, if any man deems it
+    his duty to lessen its standing in the eyes of the
+    community, he ought at least to do so in a cautious and
+    reverential spirit, with humility and prayer.
+
+    My objection to the mode in which these things are
+    handled in the "Liberator" is that the general tone
+    and spirit seem to me the reverse of this. If your
+    paper circulated only among those of disciplined and
+    cultivated minds, skilled to separate truth from
+    falsehood, knowing where to go for evidence and how
+    to satisfy the doubts you raise, I should feel less
+    regret. But your name and benevolent labors have given
+    your paper a circulation among the poor and lowly. They
+    have no means of investigating, no habits of reasoning.
+    The Bible, as they at present understand it, is doing
+    them great good, and is a blessing to them and their
+    families. The whole tendency of your mode of proceeding
+    is to lessen their respect and reverence for the Bible,
+    without giving them anything in its place.
+
+    I have no fear of discussion as to its final results
+    on the Bible; my only regrets are for those human
+    beings whose present and immortal interests I think
+    compromised by this manner of discussion. Discussion
+    of the evidence of the authenticity and inspiration
+    of the Bible and of all theology will come more and
+    more, and I rejoice that they will. But I think they
+    must come, as all successful inquiries into truth must,
+    in a calm, thoughtful, and humble spirit; not with
+    bold assertions, hasty generalizations, or passionate
+    appeals.
+
+    [Illustration: Lyman Beecher]
+
+    I appreciate your good qualities none the less though
+    you differ with me on this point. I believe you to be
+    honest and sincere. In Mr. Parker's works I have found
+    much to increase my respect and esteem for him as a
+    man. He comes to results, it is true, to which it would
+    be death and utter despair for me to arrive at. Did I
+    believe as he does about the Bible and Jesus, I were of
+    all creatures most miserable, because I could not love
+    God. I could find no God to love. I would far rather
+    never have been born.
+
+    As to you, my dear friend, you must own that my
+    frankness to you is the best expression of my
+    confidence in your honor and nobleness. Did I not
+    believe that "an excellent spirit" is in you, I would
+    not take the trouble to write all this. If in any
+    points in this note I appear to have misapprehended or
+    done you injustice, I hope you will candidly let me
+    know where and how.
+
+                              Truly your friend,
+                                            H. B. STOWE.
+
+In addition to these letters the following extracts from a subsequent
+letter to Mr. Garrison are given to show in what respect their fields
+of labor differed, and to present an idea of what Mrs. Stowe was doing
+for the cause of freedom besides writing against slavery:--
+
+                                  ANDOVER, MASS., _February 18, 1854._
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--I see and sincerely rejoice in the result of your lecture
+in New York. I am increasingly anxious that all who hate slavery be
+united, if not in form, at least in fact,--a unity in difference. _Our_
+field lies in the church, and as yet I differ from you as to what may
+be done and hoped there. Brother Edward (Beecher) has written a sermon
+that goes to the very root of the decline of moral feeling in the
+church. As soon as it can be got ready for the press I shall have it
+printed, and shall send a copy to every minister in the country.
+
+Our lectures have been somewhat embarrassed by a pressure of new
+business brought upon us by the urgency of the Kansas-Nebraska
+question. Since we began, however, brother Edward has devoted his whole
+time to visiting, consultation, and efforts the result of which will
+shortly be given to the public. We are trying to secure a universal
+arousing of the pulpit.
+
+Dr. Bacon's letter is noble. You must think so. It has been sent to
+every member of Congress. Dr. Kirk's sermon is an advance, and his
+congregation warmly seconded it. Now, my good friend, be willing to see
+that the church is better than you have thought it. Be not unwilling
+to see some good symptoms, and hope that even those who see not at
+all at first will gain as they go on. I am acting on the conviction
+that you love the cause better than self. If anything can be done now
+advantageously by the aid of money, let me know. God has given me some
+power in this way, though I am too feeble to do much otherwise.
+
+                                   Yours for the cause,
+                                                H. B. STOWE.
+
+Although the demand was very great upon Mrs. Stowe for magazine and
+newspaper articles, many of which she managed to write in 1854-55,
+she had in her mind at this time a new book which should be in many
+respects the complement of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In preparing her Key
+to the latter work, she had collected much new material. In 1855,
+therefore, and during the spring of 1856, she found time to weave these
+hitherto unused facts into the story of "Dred." In her preface to the
+English edition of this book she writes:--
+
+"The author's object in this book is to show the general effect of
+slavery on society; the various social disadvantages which it brings,
+even to its most favored advocates; the shiftlessness and misery and
+backward tendency of all the economical arrangements of slave States;
+the retrograding of good families into poverty; the deterioration of
+land; the worse demoralization of all classes, from the aristocratic,
+tyrannical planter to the oppressed and poor white, which is the result
+of the introduction of slave labor.
+
+"It is also an object to display the corruption of Christianity which
+arises from the same source; a corruption that has gradually lowered
+the standard of the church, North and South, and been productive of
+more infidelity than the works of all the encyclopćdists put together."
+
+The story of "Dred" was suggested by the famous negro insurrection,
+led by Nat Turner, in Eastern Virginia in 1831. In this affair one of
+the principal participators was named "Dred." An interesting incident
+connected with the writing of "Dred" is vividly remembered by Mrs.
+Stowe's daughters.
+
+One sultry summer night there arose a terrific thunder-storm, with
+continuous flashes of lightning and incessant rumbling and muttering of
+thunder, every now and then breaking out into sharp, crashing reports
+followed by torrents of rain.
+
+The two young girls, trembling with fear, groped their way down-stairs
+to their mother's room, and on entering found her lying quietly in
+bed awake, and calmly watching the storm from the windows, the shades
+being up. She expressed no surprise on seeing them, but said that
+she had not been herself in the least frightened, though intensely
+interested in watching the storm. "I have been writing a description
+of a thunder-storm for my book, and I am watching to see if I need to
+correct it in any particular." Our readers will be interested to know
+that she had so well described a storm from memory that even this vivid
+object-lesson brought with it no new suggestions. This scene is to be
+found in the twenty-fourth chapter of "Dred,"--"Life in the Swamps."
+
+"The day had been sultry and it was now an hour or two past midnight,
+when a thunder-storm, which had long been gathering and muttering in
+the distant sky, began to develop its forces. A low, shivering sigh
+crept through the woods, and swayed in weird whistlings the tops of
+the pines; and sharp arrows of lightning came glittering down among
+the branches, as if sent from the bow of some warlike angel. An army
+of heavy clouds swept in a moment across the moon; then came a broad,
+dazzling, blinding sheet of flame."
+
+What particularly impressed Mrs. Stowe's daughters at the time was
+their mother's perfect calmness, and the minute study of the storm.
+She was on the alert to detect anything which might lead her to correct
+her description.
+
+Of this new story Charles Summer wrote from the senate chamber:--
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I am rejoiced to learn, from your
+    excellent sister here, that you are occupied with
+    another tale exposing slavery. I feel that it will
+    act directly upon pending questions, and help us in
+    our struggle for Kansas, and also to overthrow the
+    slave-oligarchy in the coming Presidential election. We
+    need your help at once in our struggle.
+
+                               Ever sincerely yours,
+                                           CHARLES SUMNER.
+
+Having finished this second great story of slavery, in the early
+summer of 1856 Mrs. Stowe decided to visit Europe again, in search of
+a much-needed rest. She also found it necessary to do so in order to
+secure the English right to her book, which she had failed to do on
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+Just before sailing she received the following touching letter from her
+life-long friend, Georgiana May. It is the last one of a series that
+extended without interruption over a period of thirty years, and as
+such has been carefully cherished:--
+
+                   OCEAN HOUSE, GROTON POINT, _July 26, 1856._
+
+    DEAR HATTIE,--Very likely it is too late for me to come
+    with my modest knock to your study door, and ask to
+    be taken in for a moment, but I do so want to _bless_
+    you before you go, and I have not been well enough to
+    write until to-day. It seems just as if I _could_ not
+    let you go till I have seen once more your face in the
+    flesh, for great uncertainties hang over my future. One
+    thing, however, is certain: whichever of us two gets
+    first to the farther shore of the great ocean between
+    us and the unseen will be pretty sure to be at hand to
+    welcome the other. It is not poetry, but solemn verity
+    between us that we _shall_ meet again.
+
+    But there is nothing _morbid_ or _morbific_ going into
+    these few lines. I have made "Old Tiff's" acquaintance.
+    _He_ is a verity,--will stand up with Uncle Tom and
+    Topsy, pieces of negro property you will be guilty of
+    holding after you are dead. Very likely your children
+    may be selling them.
+
+    Hattie, I rejoice over this completed work. Another
+    work for God and your generation. I am glad that you
+    have come out of it alive, that you have pleasure in
+    prospect, that you "walk at liberty" and have done
+    with "fits of languishing." Perhaps some day I shall
+    be set free, but the prospect does not look promising,
+    except as I have full faith that "the Good Man above
+    is looking on, and will bring it all round right."
+    Still "heart and flesh" both "fail me." He will be the
+    "strength of my heart," and I never seem to doubt "my
+    portion forever."
+
+    If I never speak to you again, this is the farewell
+    utterance.
+
+                               Yours truly,
+                                     GEORGIANA.
+
+Mrs. Stowe was accompanied on this second trip to Europe by her
+husband, her two eldest daughters, her son Henry, and her sister
+Mary (Mrs. Perkins). It was a pleasant summer voyage, and was safely
+accomplished without special incident.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+DRED, 1856.
+
+    SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND.--A GLIMPSE AT THE QUEEN.--THE
+    DUKE OF ARGYLL AND INVERARY.--EARLY CORRESPONDENCE WITH
+    LADY BYRON.--DUNROBIN CASTLE AND ITS INMATES.--A VISIT
+    TO STOKE PARK.--LORD DUFFERIN.--CHARLES KINGSLEY AT
+    HOME.--PARIS REVISITED.--MADAME MOHL'S RECEPTIONS.
+
+
+AFTER reaching England, about the middle of August, 1856, Mrs. Stowe
+and her husband spent some days in London completing arrangements
+to have an English edition of "Dred" published by Sampson Low & Co.
+Professor Stowe's duties in America being very pressing, he had
+intended returning at once, but was detained for a short time, as will
+be seen in the following letter written by him from Glasgow, August 29,
+to a friend in America:--
+
+    DEAR FRIEND,--I finished my business in London on
+    Wednesday, and intended to return by the Liverpool
+    steamer of to-morrow, but find that every berth on that
+    line is engaged until the 3d of October. We therefore
+    came here yesterday, and I shall take passage in the
+    steamer New York from this port next Tuesday. We have
+    received a special invitation to visit Inverary Castle,
+    the seat of the Duke of Argyll, and yesterday we had
+    just the very pleasantest little interview with the
+    Queen that ever was. None of the formal, drawing-room,
+    breathless receptions, but just an accidental,
+    done-on-purpose meeting at a railway station, while on
+    our way to Scotland.
+
+    The Queen seemed really delighted to see my wife, and
+    remarkably glad to see me for her sake. She pointed us
+    out to Prince Albert, who made two most gracious bows
+    to my wife and two to me, while the four royal children
+    stared their big blue eyes almost out looking at the
+    little authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Colonel Grey
+    handed the Queen, with my wife's compliments, a copy of
+    the new book ("Dred"). She took one volume herself and
+    handed the other to Prince Albert, and they were soon
+    both very busy reading. She is a real nice little body
+    with exceedingly pleasant, kindly manners.
+
+    I expect to be in Natick the last week in September.
+    God bless you all.
+
+                                         C. E. STOWE.
+
+After her husband's departure for the United States, Mrs. Stowe,
+with her son Henry, her two eldest daughters, and her sister Mary
+(Mrs. Perkins), accepted the Duke of Argyll's invitation to visit
+the Highlands. Of this visit we catch a pleasant glimpse from a
+letter written to Professor Stowe during its continuance, which is as
+follows:--
+
+                       INVERARY CASTLE, _September 6, 1856._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--We have been now a week in this
+    delicious place, enjoying the finest skies and scenery,
+    the utmost of kind hospitality. From Loch Goil we took
+    the coach for Inverary, a beautiful drive of about
+    two hours. We had seats on the outside, and the driver
+    John, like some of the White Mountain guides, was full
+    of song and story, and local tradition. He spoke Scotch
+    and Gaelic, recited ballads, and sung songs with great
+    gusto. Mary and the girls stopped in a little inn at
+    St. Catherine's, on the shores of Loch Fine, while
+    Henry and I took steamboat for Inverary, where we found
+    the duchess waiting in a carriage for us, with Lady
+    Emma Campbell....
+
+    The common routine of the day here is as follows: We
+    rise about half past eight. About half past nine we
+    all meet in the dining-hall, where the servants are
+    standing in a line down one side, and a row of chairs
+    for guests and visitors occupies the other. The duchess
+    with her nine children, a perfectly beautiful little
+    flock, sit together. The duke reads the Bible and a
+    prayer, and pronounces the benediction. After that,
+    breakfast is served,--a very hearty, informal, cheerful
+    meal,--and after that come walks, or drives, or fishing
+    parties, till lunch time, and then more drives, or
+    anything else: everybody, in short, doing what he likes
+    till half past seven, which is the dinner hour. After
+    that we have coffee and tea in the evening.
+
+    The first morning, the duke took me to see his mine
+    of nickel silver. We had a long and beautiful drive,
+    and talked about everything in literature, religion,
+    morals, and the temperance movement, about which last
+    he is in some state of doubt and uncertainty, not
+    inclining, I think, to have it pressed yet, though
+    feeling there is need of doing something.
+
+    If "Dred" has as good a sale in America as it is likely
+    to have in England, we shall do well. There is such
+    a demand that they had to placard the shop windows in
+    Glasgow with,--
+
+       "To prevent disappointment,
+                'Dred'
+        Not to be had till," etc.
+
+    Everybody is after it, and the prospect is of an
+    enormous sale.
+
+    God, to whom I prayed night and day while I was writing
+    the book, has heard me, and given us of worldly goods
+    more _than_ I asked. I feel, therefore, a desire to
+    "walk softly," and inquire, for what has He so trusted
+    us?
+
+    Every day I am more charmed with the duke and duchess;
+    they are simple-hearted, frank, natural, full of
+    feeling, of piety, and good sense. They certainly are,
+    apart from any considerations of rank or position, most
+    interesting and noble people. The duke laughed heartily
+    at many things I told him of our Andover theological
+    tactics, of your preaching, etc.; but I think he is a
+    sincere, earnest Christian.
+
+    Our American politics form the daily topic of interest.
+    The late movements in Congress are discussed with great
+    warmth, and every morning the papers are watched for
+    new details.
+
+    I must stop now, as it is late and we are to leave here
+    early to-morrow morning. We are going to Staffa, Iona,
+    the Pass of Glencoe, and finally through the Caledonian
+    Canal up to Dunrobin Castle, where a large party of all
+    sorts of interesting people are gathered around the
+    Duchess of Sutherland.
+
+                            Affectionately yours,
+                                             HARRIET.
+
+From Dunrobin Castle one of his daughters writes to Professor Stowe:
+"We spent five most delightful days at Inverary, and were so sorry
+you could not be there with us. From there we went to Oban, and spent
+several days sight-seeing, finally reaching Inverness by way of the
+Caledonian Canal. Here, to our surprise, we found our rooms at the
+hotel all prepared for us. The next morning we left by post for
+Dunrobin, which is fifty-nine miles from Inverness. At the borders of
+the duke's estate we found a delightfully comfortable carriage awaiting
+us, and before we had gone much farther the postilion announced that
+the duchess was coming to meet us. Sure enough, as we looked up the
+road we saw a fine cavalcade approaching. It consisted of a splendid
+coach-and-four (in which sat the duchess) with liveried postilions, and
+a number of outriders, one of whom rode in front to clear the way. The
+duchess seemed perfectly delighted to see mamma, and taking her into
+her own carriage dashed off towards the castle, we following on behind."
+
+At Dunrobin Mrs. Stowe found awaiting her the following note from her
+friend, Lady Byron:--
+
+                             LONDON, _September 10, 1856._
+
+    Your book, dear Mrs. Stowe, is of the "little leaven"
+    kind, and must prove a great moral force,--perhaps not
+    manifestly so much as secretly, and yet I can hardly
+    conceive so much power without immediate and sensible
+    effects; only there will be a strong disposition to
+    resist on the part of all the hollow-hearted professors
+    of religion, whose heathenisms you so unsparingly
+    expose. They have a class feeling like others. To the
+    young, and to those who do not reflect much on what
+    is offered to their belief, you will do great good by
+    showing how spiritual food is adulterated. The Bread
+    from Heaven is in the same case as baker's bread. I
+    feel that one perusal is not enough. It is a "mine," to
+    use your own simile. If there is truth in what I heard
+    Lord Byron say, that works of fiction _lived_ only by
+    the amount of _truth_ which they contained, your story
+    is sure of long life....
+
+    I know now, more than before, how to value communion
+    with you.
+
+    With kind regards to your family,
+                     Yours affectionately,
+                                     A. T. NOEL BYRON.
+
+From this pleasant abiding-place Mrs. Stowe writes to her husband:--
+
+                    DUNROBIN CASTLE, _September 15, 1856._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Everything here is like a fairy
+    story. The place is beautiful! It is the most perfect
+    combination of architectural and poetic romance,
+    with home comfort. The people, too, are charming. We
+    have here Mr. Labouchere, a cabinet minister, and
+    Lady Mary his wife,--I like him very much, and her,
+    too,--Kingsley's brother, a very entertaining man, and
+    to-morrow Lord Ellsmere is expected. I wish you could
+    be here, for I am sure you would like it. Life is so
+    quiet and sincere and friendly, that you would feel
+    more as if you had come at the hearts of these people
+    than in London.
+
+    The Sutherland estate looks like a garden. We stopped
+    at the town of Frain, four miles before we reached
+    Sutherlandshire, where a crowd of well-to-do,
+    nice-looking people gathered around the carriage, and
+    as we drove off gave three cheers. This was better than
+    I expected, and looks well for their opinion of my
+    views.
+
+    "Dred" is selling over here wonderfully. Low says, with
+    all the means at his command, he has not been able to
+    meet the demand. He sold fifty thousand in two weeks,
+    and probably will sell as many more.
+
+    I am showered with letters, private and printed, in
+    which the only difficulty is to know what the writers
+    would be at. I see evidently happiness and prosperity
+    all through the line of this estate. I see the duke
+    giving his thought and time, and spending the whole
+    income of this estate in improvements upon it. I see
+    the duke and duchess evidently beloved wherever they
+    move. I see them most amiable, most Christian, most
+    considerate to everybody. The writers of the letters
+    admit the goodness of the duke, but denounce the
+    system, and beg me to observe its effects for myself.
+    I do observe that, compared with any other part of
+    the Highlands, Sutherland is a garden. I observe
+    well-clothed people, thriving lands, healthy children,
+    fine schoolhouses, and all that.
+
+    Henry was invited to the tenants' dinner, where he
+    excited much amusement by pledging every toast in fair
+    water, as he has done invariably on all occasions since
+    he has been here.
+
+    The duchess, last night, showed me her copy of "Dred,"
+    in which she has marked what most struck or pleased
+    her. I begged it, and am going to send it to you. She
+    said to me this morning at breakfast, "The Queen says
+    that she began 'Dred' the very minute she got it, and
+    is deeply interested in it."
+
+    She bought a copy of Lowell's poems, and begged me to
+    mark the best ones for her; so if you see him, tell him
+    that we have been reading him together. She is, taking
+    her all in all, one of the noblest-appointed women I
+    ever saw; real old, genuine English, such as one reads
+    of in history; full of nobility, courage, tenderness,
+    and zeal. It does me good to hear her read prayers
+    daily, as she does, in the midst of her servants and
+    guests, with a manner full of grand and noble feeling.
+
+    _Thursday Morning, September 25._ We were obliged to
+    get up at half past five the morning we left Dunrobin,
+    an effort when one doesn't go to bed till one o'clock.
+    We found breakfast laid for us in the library, and
+    before we had quite finished the duchess came in.
+    Our starting off was quite an imposing sight. First
+    came the duke's landau, in which were Mary, the duke,
+    and myself; then a carriage in which were Eliza and
+    Hatty, and finally the carriage which we had hired,
+    with Henry, our baggage, and Mr. Jackson (the duke's
+    secretary). The gardener sent a fresh bouquet for each
+    of us, and there was such a leave-taking, as if we were
+    old and dear friends. We did really love them, and had
+    no doubt of their love for us.
+
+    The duke rode with us as far as Dornach, where he
+    showed us the cathedral beneath which his ancestors are
+    buried, and where is a statue of his father, similar to
+    one the tenants have erected on top of the highest hill
+    in the neighborhood.
+
+    We also saw the prison, which had but two inmates,
+    and the old castle. Here the duke took leave of us,
+    and taking our own carriage we crossed the ferry and
+    continued on our way. After a very bad night's rest at
+    Inverness, in consequence of the town's being so full
+    of people attending some Highland games that we could
+    have no places at the hotel, and after a weary ride in
+    the rain, we came into Aberdeen Friday night.
+
+    To-morrow we go on to Edinburgh, where I hope to meet
+    a letter from you. The last I heard from Low, he had
+    sold sixty thousand of "Dred," and it was still selling
+    well. I have not yet heard from America how it goes.
+    The critics scold, and whiffle, and dispute about it,
+    but on the whole it is a success, so the "Times" says,
+    with much coughing, hemming, and standing first on one
+    foot and then on the other. If the "Times" were sure we
+    should beat in the next election, "Dred" would go up in
+    the scale; but as long as there is that uncertainty, it
+    has first one line of praise, and then one of blame.
+
+Henry Stowe returned to America in October to enter Dartmouth College,
+while the rest of the party pursued their way southward, as will be
+seen by the following letters:--
+
+                           CITY OF YORK, _October 10, 1856._
+
+    DEAR HUSBAND,--Henry will tell you all about our
+    journey, and at present I have but little time for
+    details. I received your first letter with great joy,
+    relief, and gratitude, first to God for restoring your
+    health and strength, and then to you for so good, long,
+    and refreshing a letter.
+
+    Henry, I hope, comes home with a serious determination
+    to do well and be a comfort. Seldom has a young man
+    seen what he has in this journey, or made more valuable
+    friends.
+
+    Since we left Aberdeen, from which place my last was
+    mailed, we have visited in Edinburgh with abounding
+    delight; thence yesterday to Newcastle. Last night
+    attended service in Durham Cathedral, and after that
+    came to York, whence we send Henry to Liverpool.
+
+    I send you letters, etc., by him. One hundred thousand
+    copies of "Dred" sold in four weeks! After that who
+    cares what critics say? Its success in England has
+    been complete, so far as sale is concerned. It is very
+    bitterly attacked, both from a literary and a religious
+    point of view. The "Record" is down upon it with a
+    cartload of solemnity; the "Athenćum" with waspish
+    spite; the "Edinburgh" goes out of its way to say that
+    the author knows nothing of the society she describes;
+    but yet it goes everywhere, is read everywhere, and
+    Mr. Low says that he puts the hundred and twenty-fifth
+    thousand to press confidently. The fact that so many
+    good judges like it better than "Uncle Tom" is success
+    enough.
+
+    In my journal to Henry, which you may look for next
+    week, you will learn how I have been very near the
+    Queen, and formed acquaintance with divers of her lords
+    and ladies, and heard all she has said about "Dred;"
+    how she prefers it to "Uncle Tom," how she inquired for
+    you, and other matters.
+
+    Till then, I am, as ever, your affectionate wife,
+
+                                             H. B. STOWE.
+
+After leaving York, Mrs. Stowe and her party spent a day or two at
+Carlton Rectory, on the edge of Sherwood Forest, in which they enjoyed
+a most delightful picnic. From there they were to travel to London by
+way of Warwick and Oxford, and of this journey Mrs. Stowe writes as
+follows to her son Henry:--
+
+"The next morning we were induced to send our things to London, being
+assured by Mr. G. that he would dispatch them immediately with some
+things of his own that were going, and that they should certainly await
+us upon our arrival. In one respect it was well for us that we thus rid
+ourselves of the trouble of looking after them, for I never saw such
+blind, confusing arrangements as these English railroads have.
+
+"When we were set down at the place where we were to change for
+Warwick, we were informed that probably the train had gone. At any rate
+it could only be found on the other side of the station. You might
+naturally think we had nothing to do but walk across to the other side.
+No, indeed! We had to ascend a flight of stairs, go through a sort of
+tubular bridge, and down another pair of stairs. When we got there
+the guard said the train was just about to start, and yet the ticket
+office was closed. We tried the door in vain. 'You must hurry,' said
+the guard. 'How can we?' said I, 'when we can't get tickets.' He went
+and thumped, and at last roused the dormant intelligence inside. We got
+our tickets, ran for dear life, got in, and then _waited ten minutes_!
+Arrived at Warwick we had a very charming time, and after seeing all
+there was to see we took cars for Oxford.
+
+"The next day we tried to see Oxford. You can have no idea of it.
+Call it a college! it is a city of colleges,--a mountain of museums,
+colleges, halls, courts, parks, chapels, lecture-rooms. Out of
+twenty-four colleges we saw only three. We saw enough, however, to show
+us that to explore the colleges of Oxford would take a week. Then we
+came away, and about eleven o'clock at night found ourselves in London.
+
+"It was dripping and raining here, for all the world, just as it did
+when we left; but we found a cosy little parlor, papered with cheerful
+crimson paper, lighted by a coal-fire, a neat little supper laid out,
+and the Misses Low waiting; for us. Wasn't it nice?
+
+"We are expecting our baggage to-night. Called at Sampson Low's store
+to-day and found it full everywhere of red 'Dreds.'"
+
+Upon reaching London Mrs. Stowe found the following note from Lady
+Byron awaiting her:--
+
+                          OXFORD HOUSE, _October 15, 1856._
+
+    DEAR MRS. STOWE,--The newspapers represent you as
+    returning to London, but I cannot wait for the chance,
+    slender I fear, of seeing you there, for I wish to
+    consult you on a point admitting but of little delay.
+    Feeling that the sufferers in Kansas have a claim not
+    only to sympathy, but to the expression of it, I wish
+    to send them a donation. It is, however, necessary to
+    know what is the best application of money and what
+    the safest channel. Presuming that you will approve
+    the object, I ask you to tell me. Perhaps you would
+    undertake the transmission of my Ł50. My present
+    residence, two miles beyond Richmond, is opposite. I
+    have watched for instructions of your course with warm
+    interest. The sale of your book will go on increasing.
+    It is beginning to be understood.
+
+    Believe me, with kind regards to your daughters,
+
+                   Your faithful and affectionate
+                                        A. T. NOEL BYRON.
+
+To this note the following answer was promptly returned:--
+
+         GROVE TERRACE, KENTISH TOWN, _October 16, 1856._
+
+    DEAR LADY BYRON,--How glad I was to see your
+    handwriting once more! how more than glad I should be
+    to see _you!_ I do long to see you. I have so much to
+    say,--so much to ask, and need to be refreshed with a
+    sense of a congenial and sympathetic soul.
+
+    Thank you, my dear friend, for your sympathy with our
+    poor sufferers in Kansas. May God bless you for it! By
+    doing this you will step to my side; perhaps you may
+    share something of that abuse which they who "know not
+    what they do" heap upon all who so feel for the right.
+    I assure you, dear friend, I am _not_ insensible to the
+    fiery darts which thus fly around me....
+
+    Direct as usual to my publishers, and believe me, as
+    ever, with all my heart,
+
+                    Affectionately yours,       H. B. S.
+
+Having dispatched this note, Mrs. Stowe wrote to her husband concerning
+their surroundings and plans as follows:--
+
+"_Friday, 16th._ Confusion in the camp! no baggage come, nobody
+knows why; running to stations, inquiries, messages, and no baggage.
+Meanwhile we have not even a clean collar, nothing but very soiled
+traveling dresses; while Lady Mary Labouchere writes that her carriage
+will wait for us at Slough Station this afternoon, and we must be off
+at two. What's to be done? Luckily I did not carry all my dresses to
+Dunrobin; so I, of all the party, have a dress that can be worn. We go
+out and buy collars and handkerchiefs, and two o'clock beholds us at
+the station house.
+
+"_Stoke Park._ I arrived here alone, the baggage not having yet been
+heard from. Mr. G., being found in London, confessed that he delayed
+sending it by the proper train. In short, Mr. G. is what is called
+an easy man, and one whose easiness makes everybody else uneasy. So
+because he was easy and thought it was no great matter, and things
+would turn out well enough, without any great care, _we_ have had all
+this discomfort.
+
+"I arrived alone at the Slough Station and found Lady Mary's carriage
+waiting. Away we drove through a beautiful park full of deer, who
+were so tame as to stand and look at us as we passed. The house is in
+the Italian style, with a dome on top, and wide terraces with stone
+balustrades around it.
+
+"Lady Mary met me at the door, and seemed quite concerned to learn
+of our ill-fortune. We went through a splendid suite of rooms to a
+drawing-room, where a little tea-table was standing.
+
+"After tea Lady Mary showed me my room. It had that delightful,
+homelike air of repose and comfort they succeed so well in giving to
+rooms here. There was a cheerful fire burning, an arm-chair drawn up
+beside it, a sofa on the other side with a neatly arranged sofa-table
+on which were writing materials. One of the little girls had put
+a pot of pretty greenhouse moss in a silver basket on this table,
+and my toilet cushion was made with a place in the centre to hold a
+little vase of flowers. Here Lady Mary left me to rest before dressing
+for dinner. I sat down in an easy-chair before the fire, and formed
+hospitable resolutions as to how I would try to make rooms always look
+homelike and pleasant to tired guests. Then came the maid to know if
+I wanted hot water,--if I wanted anything,--and by and by it was time
+for dinner. Going down into the parlor I met Mr. Labouchere and we all
+went in to dinner. It was not quite as large a party as at Dunrobin,
+but much in the same way. No company, but several ladies who were all
+family connections.
+
+"The following morning Lord Dufferin and Lord Alfred Paget, two
+gentlemen of the Queen's household, rode over from Windsor to lunch
+with us. They brought news of the goings-on there. Do you remember one
+night the Duchess of S. read us a letter from Lady Dufferin, describing
+the exploits of her son, who went yachting with Prince Napoleon up by
+Spitzbergen, and when Prince Napoleon and all the rest gave up and went
+back, still persevered and discovered a new island? Well, this was the
+same man. A thin, slender person, not at all the man you would fancy as
+a Mr. Great Heart,--lively, cheery, and conversational.
+
+"Lord Alfred is also very pleasant.
+
+"Lady Mary prevailed on Lord Dufferin to stay and drive with us after
+lunch, and we went over to Clifden, the duchess's villa, of which we
+saw the photograph at Dunrobin. For grace and beauty some of the rooms
+in this place exceed any I have yet seen in England.
+
+"When we came back my first thought was whether Aunt Mary and the
+girls had come. Just as we were all going up to dress for dinner they
+appeared. Meanwhile, the Queen had sent over from Windsor for Lady Mary
+and her husband to dine with her that evening, and such invitations are
+understood as commands.
+
+"So, although they themselves had invited four or five people to
+dinner, they had to go and leave us to entertain ourselves. Lady
+Mary was dressed very prettily in a flounced white silk dress with a
+pattern of roses woven round the bottom of each flounce, and looked
+very elegant. Mr. Labouchere wore breeches, with knee and shoe buckles
+sparkling with diamonds.
+
+"They got home soon after we had left the drawing-room, as the Queen
+always retires at eleven. No late hours for her.
+
+"The next day Lady Mary told me that the Queen had talked to her all
+about 'Dred,' and how she preferred it to 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' how
+interested she was in Nina, how provoked when she died, and how she
+was angry that something dreadful did not happen to Tom Gordon. She
+inquired for papa, and the rest of the family, all of whom she seemed
+to be well informed about.
+
+"The next morning we had Lord Dufferin again to breakfast. He is one of
+the most entertaining young men I have seen in England, full of real
+thought and noble feeling, and has a wide range of reading. He had read
+all our American literature, and was very flattering in his remarks
+on Hawthorne, Poe, and Longfellow. I find J. R. Lowell less known,
+however, than he deserves to be.
+
+"Lord Dufferin says that his mother wrote him some verses on his coming
+of age, and that he built a tower for them and inscribed them on a
+brass plate. I recommend the example to you, Henry; make yourself the
+tower and your memory the brass plate.
+
+"This morning came also, to call, Lady Augusta Bruce, Lord Elgin's
+daughter, one of the Duchess of Kent's ladies-in-waiting; a very
+excellent, sensible girl, who is a strong anti-slavery body.
+
+"After lunch we drove over to Eton, and went in to see the provost's
+house. After this, as we were passing by Windsor the coachman suddenly
+stopped and said, 'The Queen is coming, my lady.' We stood still and
+the royal cortége passed. I only saw the Queen, who bowed graciously.
+
+"Lady Mary stayed at our car door till it left the station, and handed
+in a beautiful bouquet as we parted. This is one of the loveliest
+visits I have made."
+
+After filling a number of other pleasant engagements in England, among
+which was a visit in the family of Charles Kingsley, Mrs. Stowe and her
+party crossed the Channel and settled down for some months in Paris for
+the express purpose of studying French. From the French capital she
+writes to her husband in Andover as follows:--
+
+                                 PARIS, _November 7, 1856._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--On the 28th, when your last was
+    written, I was at Charles Kingsley's. It seemed odd
+    enough to Mary and me to find ourselves, long after
+    dark, alone in a hack, driving towards the house of a
+    man whom we never had seen (nor his wife either).
+
+    My heart fluttered as, after rumbling a long way
+    through the dark, we turned into a yard. We knocked at
+    a door and were met in the hall by a man who stammers
+    a little in his speech, and whose inquiry, "Is this
+    Mrs. Stowe?" was our first positive introduction.
+    Ushered into a large, pleasant parlor lighted by a coal
+    fire, which flickered on comfortable chairs, lounges,
+    pictures, statuettes, and book-cases, we took a good
+    view of him. He is tall, slender, with blue eyes, brown
+    hair, and a hale, well-browned face, and somewhat
+    loose-jointed withal. His wife is a real Spanish beauty.
+
+    How we did talk and go on for three days! I guess he
+    is tired. I'm sure we were. He is a nervous, excitable
+    being, and talks with head, shoulders, arms, and
+    hands, while his hesitance makes it the harder. Of his
+    theology I will say more some other time. He, also,
+    has been through the great distress, the "Conflict
+    of Ages," but has come out at a different end from
+    Edward, and stands with John Foster, though with more
+    positiveness than he.
+
+    He laughed a good deal at many stories I told him of
+    father, and seemed delighted to hear about him. But he
+    is, what I did not expect, a zealous Churchman; insists
+    that the Church of England is the finest and broadest
+    platform a man can stand on, and that the thirty-nine
+    articles are the only ones he could subscribe to.
+    I told him you thought them the best summary (of
+    doctrine) you knew, which pleased him greatly.
+
+    Well, I got your letter to-night in Paris, at No. 19
+    Rue de Clichy, where you may as well direct your future
+    letters.
+
+    We reached Paris about eleven o'clock last night and
+    took a carriage for 17 Rue de Clichy, but when we got
+    there, no ringing or pounding could rouse anybody.
+    Finally, in despair, we remembered a card that had been
+    handed into the cars by some hotel-runner, and finding
+    it was of an English and French hotel, we drove there,
+    and secured very comfortable accommodations. We did not
+    get to bed until after two o'clock. The next morning I
+    sent a messenger to find Mme. Borione, and discovered
+    that we had mistaken the number, and should have gone
+    to No. 19, which was the next door; so we took a
+    carriage and soon found ourselves established here,
+    where we have a nice parlor and two bedrooms.
+
+    There are twenty-one in the family, mostly Americans,
+    like ourselves, come to learn to speak French. One of
+    them is a tall, handsome, young English lady, Miss
+    Durant, who is a sculptress, studying with Baron de
+    Triqueti. She took me to his studio, and he immediately
+    remarked that she ought to get me to sit. I said
+    I would, "only my French lessons." "Oh," said he,
+    smiling, "we will give you French lessons while you
+    sit." So I go to-morrow morning.
+
+    As usual, my horrid pictures do me a service, and
+    people seem relieved when they see me; think me even
+    handsome "in a manner." Kingsley, in his relief,
+    expressed as much to his wife, and as beauty has never
+    been one of my strong points I am open to flattery upon
+    it.
+
+    We had a most agreeable call from Arthur Helps before
+    we left London. He, Kingsley, and all the good people
+    are full of the deepest anxiety for our American
+    affairs. They really do feel very deeply, seeing the
+    peril so much plainer than we do in America.
+
+    _Sunday night._ I fear I have delayed your letter too
+    long. The fact is, that of the ten days I have been
+    here I have been laid up three with severe neuralgia,
+    viz., _toothache in the backbone_, and since then have
+    sat all day to be modeled for my bust.
+
+    We spent the other evening with Baron de Triqueti,
+    the sculptor. He has an English wife, and a charming
+    daughter about the age of our girls. Life in Paris is
+    altogether more simple and natural than in England.
+    They give you a plate of cake and a cup of tea in the
+    most informal, social way,--the tea-kettle sings at the
+    fire, and the son and daughter busy themselves gayly
+    together making and handing tea. When tea was over, M.
+    de Triqueti showed us a manuscript copy of the Gospels,
+    written by his mother, to console herself in a season
+    of great ill-health, and which he had illustrated all
+    along with exquisite pen-drawings, resembling the most
+    perfect line engravings. I can't describe the beauty,
+    grace, delicacy, and fullness of devotional feeling in
+    these people. He is one of the loveliest men I ever saw.
+
+    We have already three evenings in the week in which we
+    can visit and meet friends if we choose, namely, at
+    Madame Mohl's, Madame Lanziel's, and Madame Belloc's.
+    All these salôns are informal, social gatherings, with
+    no fuss of refreshments, no nonsense of any kind. Just
+    the cheeriest, heartiest, kindest little receptions you
+    ever saw.
+
+    A kiss to dear little Charley. If he could see all the
+    things that I see every day in the Tuileries and Champs
+    Elysées, he would go wild. All Paris is a general
+    whirligig out of doors, but indoors people seem steady,
+    quiet, and sober as anybody.
+
+    _November 30._ This is Sunday evening, and a Sunday
+    in Paris always puts me in mind of your story about
+    somebody who said, "Bless you! they make such a
+    noise that the Devil couldn't meditate." All the
+    extra work and odd jobs of life are put into Sunday.
+    Your washerwoman comes Sunday, with her innocent,
+    good-humored face, and would be infinitely at a
+    loss to know why she shouldn't. Your bonnet, cloak,
+    shoes, and everything are sent home Sunday morning,
+    and all the way to church there is such whirligiging
+    and pirouetting along the boulevards as almost takes
+    one's breath away. To-day we went to the Oratoire to
+    hear M. Grand Pierre. I could not understand much; my
+    French ear is not quick enough to follow. I could only
+    perceive that the subject was "La Charité," and that
+    the speaker was fluent, graceful, and earnest, the
+    audience serious and attentive.
+
+    Last night we were at Baron de Triqueti's again, with a
+    party invited to celebrate the birthday of their eldest
+    daughter, Blanche, a lovely girl of nineteen. There
+    were some good ladies there who had come eighty leagues
+    to meet me, and who were so delighted with my miserable
+    French that it was quite encouraging. I believe I am
+    getting over the sandbar at last, and conversation is
+    beginning to come easy to me.
+
+    There were three French gentlemen who had just been
+    reading "Dred" in English, and who were as excited
+    and full of it as could be, and I talked with them to
+    a degree that astonished myself. There is a review
+    of "Dred" in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" which has
+    long extracts from the book, and is written in a very
+    appreciative and favorable spirit. Generally speaking,
+    French critics seem to have a finer appreciation of my
+    subtle shades of meaning than English. I am curious
+    to hear what Professor Park has to say about it.
+    There has been another review in "La Presse" equally
+    favorable. All seem to see the truth about American
+    slavery much plainer than people can who are in it. If
+    American ministers and Christians could see through
+    their sophistical spider-webs, with what wonder, pity,
+    and contempt they would regard their own vacillating
+    condition!
+
+    We visit once a week at Madame Mohl's, where we meet
+    all sorts of agreeable people. Lady Elgin doesn't go
+    into society now, having been struck with paralysis,
+    but sits at home and receives her friends as usual.
+    This notion of sitting always in the open air is one of
+    her peculiarities.
+
+    I must say, life in Paris is arranged more sensibly
+    than with us. Visiting involves no trouble in the
+    feeding line. People don't go to eat. A cup of tea and
+    plate of biscuit is all,--just enough to break up the
+    stiffness.
+
+    It is wonderful that the people here do not seem to
+    have got over "Uncle Tom" a bit. The impression seems
+    fresh as if just published. How often have they said,
+    That book has revived the Gospel among the poor of
+    France; it has done more than all the books we have
+    published put together. It has gone among the _les
+    ouvriers_, among the poor of Faubourg St. Antoine, and
+    nobody knows how many have been led to Christ by it. Is
+    not this blessed, my dear husband? Is it not worth all
+    the suffering of writing it?
+
+    I went the other evening to M. Grand Pierre's, where
+    there were three rooms full of people, all as eager
+    and loving as ever we met in England or Scotland. Oh,
+    if Christians in Boston could only see the earnestness
+    of feeling with which Christians here regard slavery,
+    and their surprise and horror at the lukewarmness, to
+    say the least, of our American church! About eleven
+    o'clock we all joined in singing a hymn, then M. Grand
+    Pierre made an address, in which I was named in the
+    most affectionate and cordial manner. Then followed a
+    beautiful prayer for our country, for America, on which
+    hang so many of the hopes of Protestantism. One and all
+    then came up, and there was great shaking of hands and
+    much effusion.
+
+Under date of December 28, Mrs. Perkins writes: "On Sunday we went with
+Mr. and Mrs. (Jacob) Abbott to the Hôtel des Invalides, and I think
+I was never more interested and affected. Three or four thousand old
+and disabled soldiers have here a beautiful and comfortable home. We
+went to the morning service. The church is very large, and the colors
+taken in battle are hung on the walls. Some of them are so old as to be
+moth-eaten. The service is performed, as near as possible, in imitation
+of the service before a battle. The drum beats the call to assemble,
+and the common soldiers march up and station themselves in the centre
+of the church, under the commander. All the services are regulated by
+the beat of the drum. Only one priest officiates, and soldiers are
+stationed around to protect him. The music is from a brass band, and is
+very magnificent.
+
+"In the afternoon I went to vespers in the Madeleine, where the music
+was exquisite. They have two fine organs at opposite ends of the
+church. The 'Adeste Fidelis' was sung by a single voice, accompanied
+by the organ, and after every verse it was taken up by male voices
+and the other organ and repeated. The effect was wonderfully fine. I
+have always found in our small churches at home that the organ was too
+powerful and pained my head, but in these large cathedrals the effect
+is different. The volume of sound rolls over, full but soft, and I feel
+as though it must come from another sphere.
+
+"In the evening Mr. and Mrs. Bunsen called. He is a son of Chevalier
+Bunsen, and she a niece of Elizabeth Fry,--very intelligent and
+agreeable people."
+
+Under date of January 25, Mrs. Stowe writes from Paris:--
+
+"Here is a story for Charley. The boys in the Faubourg St. Antoine are
+the children of _ouvriers_, and every day their mothers give them two
+sous to buy a dinner. When they heard I was coming to the school, of
+their own accord they subscribed half their dinner money to give to me
+for the poor slaves. This five-franc piece I have now; I have bought it
+of the cause for five dollars, and am going to make a hole in it and
+hang it round Charley's neck as a medal.
+
+"I have just completed arrangements for leaving the girls at a
+Protestant boarding-school while I go to Rome.
+
+"We expect to start the 1st of February, and my direction will be, E.
+Bartholimeu, 108 Via Margaretta."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+OLD SCENES REVISITED, 1856.
+
+    EN ROUTE TO ROME.--TRIALS OF TRAVEL.--A MIDNIGHT
+    ARRIVAL AND AN INHOSPITABLE RECEPTION.--GLORIES OF THE
+    ETERNAL CITY.--NAPLES AND VESUVIUS.--VENICE.--HOLY
+    WEEK IN ROME.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--LETTER FROM HARRIET
+    MARTINEAU ON "DRED."--A WORD FROM MR. PRESCOTT ON
+    "DRED."--FAREWELL TO LADY BYRON.
+
+
+AFTER leaving Paris Mrs. Stowe and her sister, Mrs. Perkins, traveled
+leisurely through the South of France toward Italy, stopping at Amiens,
+Lyons, and Marseilles. At this place they took steamer for Genoa,
+Leghorn, and Civita Vecchia. During their last night on shipboard they
+met with an accident, of which, and their subsequent trials in reaching
+Rome, Mrs. Stowe writes as follows:--
+
+    About eleven o'clock, as I had just tranquilly laid
+    down in my berth, I was roused by a grating crash,
+    accompanied by a shock that shook the whole ship,
+    and followed by the sound of a general rush on deck,
+    trampling, scuffling, and cries. I rushed to the door
+    and saw all the gentlemen hurrying on their clothes and
+    getting confusedly towards the stairway. I went back
+    to Mary, and we put on our things in silence, and, as
+    soon as we could, got into the upper saloon. It was an
+    hour before we could learn anything certainly, except
+    that we had run into another vessel. The fate of the
+    Arctic came to us both, but we did not mention it to
+    each other; indeed, a quieter, more silent company
+    you would not often see. Had I had any confidence
+    in the administration of the boat, it would have
+    been better, but as I had not, I sat in momentary
+    uncertainty. Had we then known, as we have since, the
+    fate of a boat recently sunk in the Mediterranean by
+    a similar carelessness, it would have increased our
+    fears. By a singular chance an officer, whose wife and
+    children were lost on board that boat, was on board
+    ours, and happened to be on the forward part of the
+    boat when the accident occurred. The captain and mate
+    were both below; there was nobody looking out, and
+    had not this officer himself called out to stop the
+    boat, we should have struck her with such force as to
+    have sunk us. As it was, we turned aside and the shock
+    came on a paddle-wheel, which was broken by it, for
+    when, after two hours' delay, we tried to start and
+    had gone a little way, there was another crash and the
+    paddle-wheel fell down. You may be sure we did little
+    sleeping that night. It was an inexpressible desolation
+    to think that we might never again see those we loved.
+    No one knows how much one thinks, and how rapidly, in
+    such hours.
+
+    In the Naples boat that was sunk a short time ago, the
+    women perished in a dreadful way. The shock threw the
+    chimney directly across the egress from below, so that
+    they could not get on deck, and they were all drowned
+    in the cabin.
+
+    We went limping along with one broken limb till
+    the next day about eleven, when we reached Civita
+    Vecchia, where there were two hours more of delay
+    about passports. Then we, that is, Mary and I, and a
+    Dr. Edison from Philadelphia, with his son Alfred,
+    took a carriage to Rome, but they gave us a miserable
+    thing that looked as if it had been made soon after
+    the deluge. About eight o'clock at night, on a lonely
+    stretch of road, the wheel came off. We got out, and
+    our postilions stood silently regarding matters. None
+    of us could speak Italian, they could not speak French;
+    but the driver at last conveyed the idea that for five
+    francs he could get a man to come and mend the wheel.
+    The five francs were promised, and he untackled a horse
+    and rode off. Mary and I walked up and down the dark,
+    desolate road, occasionally reminding each other that
+    we were on classic ground, and laughing at the oddity
+    of our lonely, starlight promenade. After a while our
+    driver came back, Tag, Rag, and Bobtail at his heels.
+    I don't think I can do greater justice to Italian
+    costumes than by this respectable form of words.
+
+    Then there was another consultation. They put a
+    bit of rotten timber under to pry the carriage up.
+    Fortunately, it did not break, as we all expected it
+    would, till after the wheel was on. Then a new train
+    of thought was suggested. How was it to be kept on?
+    Evidently they had not thought far in that direction,
+    for they had brought neither hammer nor nail, nor tool
+    of any kind, and therefore they looked first at the
+    wheel, then at each other, and then at us. The doctor
+    now produced a little gimlet, with the help of which
+    the broken fragments of the former linchpin were pushed
+    out, and the way was cleared for a new one. Then they
+    began knocking a fence to pieces to get out nails, but
+    none could be found to fit. At last another ambassador
+    was sent back for nails. While we were thus waiting,
+    the diligence, in which many of our ship's company were
+    jogging on to Rome, came up. They had plenty of room
+    inside, and one of the party, seeing our distress,
+    tried hard to make the driver stop, but he doggedly
+    persisted in going on, and declared if anybody got down
+    to help us he would leave him behind.
+
+    An interesting little episode here occurred. It was
+    raining, and Mary and I proposed, as the wheel was now
+    on, to take our seats. We had no sooner done so than
+    the horses were taken with a sudden fit of animation
+    and ran off with us in the most vivacious manner, Tag,
+    Rag, and Co. shouting in the rear. Some heaps of stone
+    a little in advance presented an interesting prospect
+    by way of a terminus. However, the horses were lucidly
+    captured before the wheel was off again; and our
+    ambassador being now returned, we were set right and
+    again proceeded.
+
+    I must not forget to remark that at every post where
+    we changed horses and drivers, we had a pitched battle
+    with the driver for more money than we had been told
+    was the regular rate, and the carriage was surrounded
+    with a perfect mob of ragged, shock-headed, black-eyed
+    people, whose words all ended in "ino," and who raved
+    and ranted at us till finally we paid much more than we
+    ought, to get rid of them.
+
+    At the gates of Rome the official, after looking at our
+    passports, coolly told the doctor that if he had a mind
+    to pay him five francs he could go in without further
+    disturbance, but if not he would keep the baggage till
+    morning. This form of statement had the recommendation
+    of such precision and neatness of expression that we
+    paid him forthwith, and into Rome we dashed at two
+    o'clock in the morning of the 9th of February, 1857, in
+    a drizzling rain.
+
+    We drove to the Hotel d'Angleterre,--it was full,--and
+    ditto to four or five others, and in the last effort
+    our refractory wheel came off again, and we all got out
+    into the street. About a dozen lean, ragged "corbies,"
+    who are called porters and who are always lying in
+    wait for travelers, pounced upon us. They took down
+    our baggage in a twinkling, and putting it all into
+    the street surrounded it, and chattered over it, while
+    M. and I stood in the rain and received first lessons
+    in Italian. How we did try to say something! but they
+    couldn't talk anything but in "ino" as aforesaid. The
+    doctor finally found a man who could speak a word or
+    two of French, and leaving Mary, Alfred, and me to keep
+    watch over our pile of trunks, he went off with him to
+    apply for lodgings. I have heard many flowery accounts
+    of first impressions of Rome. I must say ours was
+    somewhat sombre.
+
+    A young man came by and addressed us in English. How
+    cheering! We almost flew upon him. We begged him, at
+    least, to lend us his Italian to call another carriage,
+    and he did so. A carriage which was passing was luckily
+    secured, and Mary and I, with all our store of boxes
+    and little parcels, were placed in it out of the rain,
+    at least. Here we sat while the doctor from time to
+    time returned from his wanderings to tell us he could
+    find no place. "Can it be," said I, "that we are to
+    be obliged to spend a night in the streets?" What
+    made it seem more odd was the knowledge that, could
+    we only find them, we had friends enough in Rome who
+    would be glad to entertain us. We began to speculate
+    on lodgings. Who knows what we may get entrapped into?
+    Alfred suggested stories he had read of beds placed on
+    trap-doors,--of testers which screwed down on people
+    and smothered them; and so, when at last the doctor
+    announced lodgings found, we followed in rather an
+    uncertain frame of mind.
+
+    We alighted at a dirty stone passage, smelling of cats
+    and onions, damp, cold, and earthy, we went up stone
+    stairways, and at last were ushered into two very
+    decent chambers, where we might lay our heads. The
+    "corbies" all followed us,--black-haired, black-browed,
+    ragged, and clamorous as ever. They insisted that we
+    should pay the pretty little sum of twenty francs, or
+    four dollars, for bringing our trunks about twenty
+    steps. The doctor modestly but firmly declined to
+    be thus imposed upon, and then ensued a general
+    "chatteration;" one and all fell into attitudes, and
+    the "inos" and "issimos" rolled freely. "For pity's
+    sake get them off," we said; so we made a truce for ten
+    francs, but still they clamored, forced their way even
+    into our bedroom, and were only repulsed by a loud and
+    combined volley of "No, no, noes!" which we all set up
+    at once, upon which they retreated.
+
+    Our hostess was a little French woman, and that
+    reassured us. I examined the room, and seeing no trace
+    of treacherous testers, or trap-doors, resolved to
+    avail myself without fear of the invitation of a very
+    clean, white bed, where I slept till morning without
+    dreaming.
+
+    The next day we sent our cards to M. Bartholimeu, and
+    before we had finished breakfast he was on the spot.
+    We then learned that he had been watching the diligence
+    office for over a week, and that he had the pleasant
+    set of apartments we are now occupying all ready and
+    waiting for us.
+
+                                              _March 1._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Every day is opening to me a new
+    world of wonders here in Italy. I have been in the
+    Catacombs, where I was shown many memorials of the
+    primitive Christians, and to-day we are going to the
+    Vatican. The weather is sunny and beautiful beyond
+    measure, and flowers are springing in the fields on
+    every side. Oh, my dear, how I do long to have you
+    here to enjoy what you are so much better fitted to
+    appreciate than I,--this wonderful combination of the
+    past and the present, of what has been and what is!
+
+    Think of strolling leisurely through the Forum, of
+    seeing the very stones that were laid in the time of
+    the Republic, of rambling over the ruined Palace of the
+    Cćsars, of walking under the Arch of Titus, of seeing
+    the Dying Gladiator, and whole ranges of rooms filled
+    with wonders of art, all in one morning! All this I
+    did on Saturday, and only wanted you. You know so much
+    more and could appreciate so much better. At the Palace
+    of the Cćsars, where the very dust is a _mélange_ of
+    exquisite marbles, I saw for the first time an acanthus
+    growing, and picked my first leaf.
+
+    Our little _ménage_ moves on prosperously; the doctor
+    takes excellent care of us and we of him. One sees
+    everybody here at Rome, John Bright, Mrs. Hemans' son,
+    Mrs. Gaskell, etc., etc. Over five thousand English
+    travelers are said to be here. Jacob Abbot and wife
+    are coming. Rome is a world! Rome is an astonishment!
+    Papal Rome is an enchantress! Old as she is, she is
+    like Nińon d'Enclos,--the young fall in love with her.
+
+    You will hear next from us at Naples.
+
+                               Affectionately yours,
+                                               H. B. S.
+
+From Rome the travelers went to Naples, and after visiting Pompeii and
+Herculaneum made the ascent of Vesuvius, a graphic account of which
+is contained in a letter written at this time by Mrs. Stowe to her
+daughters in Paris. After describing the preparations and start, she
+says:--
+
+"Gradually the ascent became steeper and steeper, till at length it
+was all our horses could do to pull us up. The treatment of horses in
+Naples is a thing that takes away much from the pleasure and comfort of
+such travelers as have the least feeling for animals. The people seem
+absolutely to have no consideration for them. You often see vehicles
+drawn by one horse carrying fourteen or fifteen great, stout men and
+women. This is the worse as the streets are paved with flat stones
+which are exceedingly slippery. On going up hill the drivers invariably
+race their horses, urging them on with a constant storm of blows.
+
+"As the ascent of the mountain became steeper, the horses panted and
+trembled in a way that made us feel that we could not sit in the
+carriage, yet the guide and driver never made the slightest motion to
+leave the box. At last three of us got out and walked, and invited
+our guide to do the same, yet with all this relief the last part of
+the ascent was terrible, and the rascally fellows actually forced the
+horses to it by beating them with long poles on the back of their
+legs. No Englishman or American would ever allow a horse to be treated
+so.
+
+"The Hermitage is a small cabin, where one can buy a little wine or
+any other refreshment one may need. There is a species of wine made of
+the grapes of Vesuvius, called 'Lachryma Christi,' that has a great
+reputation. Here was a miscellaneous collection of beggars, ragged
+boys, men playing guitars, bawling donkey drivers, and people wanting
+to sell sticks or minerals, the former to assist in the ascent, and the
+latter as specimens of the place. In the midst of the commotion we were
+placed on our donkeys, and the serious, pensive brutes moved away. At
+last we reached the top of the mountain, and I gladly sprang on firm
+land. The whole top of the mountain was covered with wavering wreaths
+of smoke, from the shadows of which emerged two English gentlemen,
+who congratulated us on our safe arrival, and assured us that we were
+fortunate in our day, as the mountain was very active. We could hear
+a hollow, roaring sound, like the burning of a great furnace, but saw
+nothing. 'Is this all?' I said. 'Oh, no. Wait till the guide comes up
+with the rest of the party,' and soon one after another came up, and we
+then followed the guide up a cloudy, rocky path, the noise of the fire
+constantly becoming nearer. Finally we stood on the verge of a vast,
+circular pit about forty feet deep, the floor of which is of black,
+ropy waves of congealed lava.
+
+"The sides are sulphur cliffs, stained in every brilliant shade, from
+lightest yellow to deepest orange and brown. In the midst of the lava
+floor rises a black cone, the chimney of the great furnace. This was
+burning and flaming like the furnace of a glass-house, and every few
+moments throwing up showers of cinders and melted lava which fell with
+a rattling sound on the black floor of the pit. One small bit of the
+lava came over and fell at our feet, and a gentleman lighted his cigar
+at it.
+
+"All around where we stood the smoke was issuing from every chance rent
+and fissure of the rock, and the Neapolitans who crowded round us were
+every moment soliciting us to let them cook us an egg in one of these
+rifts, and, overcome by persuasion, I did so, and found it very nicely
+boiled, or rather steamed, though the shell tasted of Glauber's salt
+and sulphur.
+
+"The whole place recalled to my mind so vividly Milton's description of
+the infernal regions, that I could not but believe that he had drawn
+the imagery from this source. Milton, as we all know, was some time in
+Italy, and, although I do not recollect any account of his visiting
+Vesuvius, I cannot think how he should have shaped his language so
+coincidently to the phenomena if he had not.
+
+"On the way down the mountain our ladies astonished the natives
+by making an express stipulation that our donkeys were not to be
+beaten,--why, they could not conjecture. The idea of any feeling of
+compassion for an animal is so foreign to a Neapolitan's thoughts that
+they supposed it must be some want of courage on our part. When, once
+in a while, the old habit so prevailed that the boy felt that he must
+strike the donkey, and when I forbade him, he would say, 'Courage,
+signora, courage.'
+
+"Time would fail me to tell the whole of our adventures in Southern
+Italy. We left it with regret, and I will tell you some time by word of
+mouth what else we saw.
+
+"We went by water from Naples to Leghorn, and were gloriously seasick,
+all of us. From Leghorn we went to Florence, where we abode two weeks
+nearly. Two days ago we left Florence and started for Venice, stopping
+one day and two nights _en route_ at Bologna. Here we saw the great
+university, now used as a library, the walls of which are literally
+covered with the emblazoned names and coats of arms of distinguished
+men who were educated there.
+
+"_Venice._ The great trouble of traveling in Europe, or indeed
+of traveling anywhere, is that you can never _catch_ romance. No
+sooner are you in any place than being there seems the most natural,
+matter-of-fact occurrence in the world. Nothing looks foreign or
+strange to you. You take your tea and your dinner, eat, drink, and
+sleep as aforetime, and scarcely realize where you are or what you are
+seeing. But Venice is an exception to this state of things; it is all
+romance from beginning to end, and never ceases to seem strange and
+picturesque.
+
+"It was a rainy evening when our cars rumbled over the long railroad
+bridge across the lagoon that leads to the station. Nothing but flat,
+dreary swamps, and then the wide expanse of sea on either side. The
+cars stopped, and the train, being a long one, left us a little out
+of the station. We got out in a driving rain, in company with flocks
+of Austrian soldiers, with whom the third-class cars were filled. We
+went through a long passage, and emerged into a room where all nations
+seemed commingling; Italians, Germans, French, Austrians, Orientals,
+all in wet weather trim.
+
+"Soon, however, the news was brought that our baggage was looked out
+and our gondolas ready.
+
+"The first plunge under the low, black hood of a gondola, especially of
+a rainy night, has something funereal in it. Four of us sat cowering
+together, and looked, out of the rain-dropped little windows at the
+sides, at the scene. Gondolas of all sizes were gliding up and down,
+with their sharp, fishy-looking prows of steel pushing their ways
+silently among each other, while gondoliers shouted and jabbered, and
+made as much confusion in their way as terrestrial hackmen on dry land.
+Soon, however, trunks and carpet-bags being adjusted, we pushed off,
+and went gliding away up the Grand Canal, with a motion so calm that
+we could scarce discern it except by the moving of objects on shore.
+Venice, _la belle_, appeared to as much disadvantage as a beautiful
+woman bedraggled in a thunder-storm."
+
+"_Lake Como._ We stayed in Venice five days, and during that time saw
+all the sights that it could enter the head of a _valet-de-place_ to
+afflict us with. It is an affliction, however, for which there is no
+remedy, because you want to see the things, and would be very sorry if
+you went home without having done so. From Venice we went to Milan to
+see the cathedral and Leonardo da Vinci's 'Last Supper.' The former is
+superb, and of the latter I am convinced, from the little that remains
+of it, that it _was_ the greatest picture the world ever saw. We shall
+run back to Rome for Holy Week, and then to Paris.
+
+"_Rome._ From Lake Como we came back here for Holy Week, and now it is
+over.
+
+"'What do you think of it?'
+
+"Certainly no thoughtful or sensitive person, no person impressible
+either through the senses or the religious feelings, can fail to feel
+it deeply.
+
+"In the first place, the mere fact of the different nations of
+the earth moving, so many of them, with one accord, to so old and
+venerable a city, to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus, is
+something in itself affecting. Whatever dispute there may be about the
+other commemorative feasts of Christendom, the time of this epoch is
+fixed unerringly by the Jews' Passover. That great and solemn feast,
+therefore, stands as an historical monument to mark the date of the
+most important and thrilling events which this world ever witnessed.
+
+"When one sees the city filling with strangers, pilgrims arriving on
+foot, the very shops decorating themselves in expectancy, every church
+arranging its services, the prices even of temporal matters raised by
+the crowd and its demands, he naturally thinks, Wherefore, why is all
+this? and he must be very careless indeed if it do not bring to mind,
+in a more real way than before, that at this very time, so many years
+ago, Christ and his apostles were living actors in the scenes thus
+celebrated to-day."
+
+As the spring was now well advanced, it was deemed advisable to bring
+this pleasant journey to a close, and for Mrs. Stowe at least it was
+imperative that she return to America. Therefore, leaving Rome with
+many regrets and lingering, backward glances, the two sisters hurried
+to Paris, where they found their brother-in-law, Mr. John Hooker,
+awaiting them. Under date of May 3 Mrs. Stowe writes from Paris to her
+husband: "Here I am once more, safe in Paris after a fatiguing journey.
+I found the girls well, and greatly improved in their studies. As to
+bringing them home with me now, I have come to the conclusion that it
+would not be expedient. A few months more of study here will do them
+a world of good. I have, therefore, arranged that they shall come in
+November in the Arago, with a party of friends who are going at that
+time.
+
+"John Hooker is here, so Mary is going with him and some others for a
+few weeks into Switzerland. I have some business affairs to settle in
+England, and shall sail from Liverpool in the Europa on the sixth of
+June. I am _so_ homesick to-day, and long with a great longing to be
+with you once more. I am impatient to go, and yet dread the voyage.
+Still, to reach you I must commit myself once more to the ocean, of
+which at times I have a nervous horror, as to the arms of my Father.
+'The sea is his, and He made it.' It is a rude, noisy old servant, but
+it is always obedient to his will, and cannot carry me beyond his power
+and love, wherever or to whatever it bears me."
+
+Having established her daughters in a Protestant boarding-school in
+Paris, Mrs. Stowe proceeded to London. While there she received the
+following letter from Harriet Martineau:--
+
+                                       AMBLESIDE, _June 1._
+
+    DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I have been at my wits' end to learn
+    how to reach you, as your note bore no direction but
+    "London." Arnolds, Croppers, and others could give no
+    light, and the newspapers tell only where you _had_
+    been. So I commit this to your publishers, trusting
+    that it will find you somewhere, and in time, perhaps,
+    bring you here. _Can't_ you come? You are aware that
+    we shall never meet if you don't come soon. I see
+    no strangers at all, but I hope to have breath and
+    strength enough for a little talk with you, if you
+    could come. You could have perfect freedom at the times
+    when I am laid up, and we could seize my "capability
+    seasons" for our talk.
+
+    The weather and scenery are usually splendid just now.
+    Did I see you (in white frock and black silk apron)
+    when I was in Ohio in 1835? Your sister I knew well,
+    and I have a clear recollection of your father. I
+    believe and hope you were the young lady in the black
+    silk apron.
+
+    Do you know I rather dreaded reading your book! Sick
+    people _are_ weak: and one of my chief weaknesses is
+    dislike of novels,--(except some old ones which I
+    almost know by heart). I knew that with you I should be
+    safe from the cobweb-spinning of our modern subjective
+    novelists and the jaunty vulgarity of our "funny
+    philosophers"--the Dickens sort, who have tired us
+    out. But I dreaded the alternative,--the too strong
+    interest. But oh! the delight I have had in "Dred!" The
+    genius carries all before it, and drowns everything in
+    glorious pleasure. So marked a work of genius claims
+    exemption from every sort of comparison; but, _as you
+    ask for my opinion of the book_, you may like to know
+    that I think it far superior to "Uncle Tom." I have
+    no doubt that a multitude of people will say it is a
+    falling off, because they made up their minds that
+    any new book of yours must be inferior to that, and
+    because it is so rare a thing for a prodigious fame to
+    be sustained by a second book; but, in my own mind I
+    am entirely convinced that the second book is by far
+    the best. Such faults as you have are in the artistic
+    department, and there is less defect in "Dred" than
+    in "Uncle Tom," and the whole material and treatment
+    seem to me richer and more substantial. I have had
+    critiques of "Dred" from the two very wisest people
+    I know--perfectly unlike each other (the critics, I
+    mean), and they delight me by thinking exactly like
+    each other and like me. They distinctly prefer it to
+    "Uncle Tom." To say the plain truth, it seems to me so
+    splendid a work of genius that nothing that I can say
+    can give you an idea of the intensity of admiration
+    with which I read it. It seemed to me, as I told my
+    nieces, that our English fiction writers had better
+    shut up altogether and have done with it, for one will
+    have no patience with any but didactic writing after
+    yours. My nieces (and you may have heard that Maria, my
+    nurse, is very, very clever) are thoroughly possessed
+    with the book, and Maria says she feels as if a fresh
+    department of human life had been opened to her since
+    this day week. I feel the freshness no less, while,
+    from my travels, I can be even more assured of the
+    truthfulness of your wonderful representation. I see
+    no limit to the good it may do by suddenly splitting
+    open Southern life, for everybody to look into. It
+    is precisely the thing that is most wanted,--just as
+    "Uncle Tom" was wanted, three years since, to show
+    what negro slavery in your republic was like. It is
+    plantation-life, particularly in the present case,
+    that I mean. As for your exposure of the weakness and
+    helplessness of the churches, I deeply honor you for
+    the courage with which you have made the exposure; but
+    I don't suppose that any amendment is to be looked for
+    in that direction. You have unburdened your own soul in
+    that matter, and if they had been corrigible, you would
+    have helped a good many more. But I don't expect that
+    result. The Southern railing at you will be something
+    unequaled, I suppose. I hear that three of us have
+    the honor of being abused from day to day already, as
+    most portentous and shocking women, you, Mrs. Chapman,
+    and myself (as the traveler of twenty years ago). Not
+    only newspapers, but pamphlets of such denunciation
+    are circulated, I'm told. I'm afraid now I, and even
+    Mrs. Chapman, must lose our fame, and all the railing
+    will be engrossed by you. My little function is to keep
+    English people tolerably right, by means of a London
+    daily paper, while the danger of misinformation and
+    misreading from the "Times" continues. I can't conceive
+    how such a paper as the "Times" can fail to be _better
+    informed_ than it is. At times it seems as if its New
+    York correspondent was making game of it. The able and
+    excellent editor of the "Daily News" gives me complete
+    liberty on American subjects, and Mrs. Chapman's and
+    other friends' constant supply of information enables
+    me to use this liberty for making the cause better
+    understood. I hope I shall hear that you are coming.
+    It is like a great impertinence--my having written so
+    freely about your book: but you asked my opinion,--that
+    is all I can say. Thank you much for sending the book
+    to me. If you come you will write our names in it, and
+    this will make it a valuable legacy to a nephew or
+    niece.
+
+    Believe me gratefully and affectionately yours,
+
+                                        HARRIET MARTINEAU.
+
+In London Mrs. Stowe also received the following letter from Prescott,
+the historian, which after long wandering had finally rested quietly at
+her English publishers awaiting her coming.
+
+                              PEPPERELL, _October 4, 1856._
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I am much obliged to you for the
+    copy of "Dred" which Mr. Phillips put into my hands. It
+    has furnished us our evening's amusement since we have
+    been in the country, where we spend the brilliant month
+    of October.
+
+    The African race are much indebted to you for
+    showing up the good sides of their characters, their
+    cheerfulness, and especially their powers of humor,
+    which are admirably set off by their peculiar _patois_,
+    in the same manner as the expression of the Scottish
+    sentiment is by the peculiar Scottish dialect. People
+    differ; but I was most struck among your characters
+    with Uncle Tiff and Nina. The former a variation of
+    good old Uncle Tom, though conceived in a merrier vein
+    than belonged to that sedate personage; the difference
+    of their tempers in this respect being well suited to
+    the difference of the circumstances in which they were
+    placed. But Nina, to my mind, is the true _hero_ of the
+    book, which I should have named after her instead of
+    "Dred." She is indeed a charming conception, full of
+    what is called character, and what is masculine in her
+    nature is toned down by such a delightful sweetness
+    and kindness of disposition as makes her perfectly
+    fascinating. I cannot forgive you for smothering her
+    so prematurely. No _dramatis personć_ could afford the
+    loss of such a character. But I will not bore you with
+    criticism, of which you have had quite enough. I must
+    thank you, however, for giving Tom Gordon a guttapercha
+    cane to perform his flagellations with.
+
+    I congratulate you on the brilliant success of the
+    work, unexampled even in this age of authorship; and,
+    as Mr. Phillips informs me, greater even in the old
+    country than in ours. I am glad you are likely to
+    settle the question and show that a Yankee writer can
+    get a copyright in England--little thanks to our own
+    government, which compels him to go there in order to
+    get it.
+
+    With sincere regard, believe me, dear Mrs. Stowe,
+
+                           Very truly yours,
+                                         WM. H. PRESCOTT.
+
+From Liverpool, on the eve of her departure for America, Mrs. Stowe
+wrote to her daughters in Paris:--
+
+    I spent the day before leaving London with Lady Byron.
+    She is lovelier than ever, and inquired kindly about
+    you both. I left London to go to Manchester, and
+    reaching there found the Rev. Mr. Gaskell waiting to
+    welcome me in the station. Mrs. Gaskell seems lovely
+    at home, where besides being a writer she proves
+    herself to be a first-class housekeeper, and performs
+    all the duties of a minister's wife. After spending a
+    delightful day with her I came here to the beautiful
+    "Dingle," which is more enchanting than ever. I am
+    staying with Mrs. Edward Cropper, Lord Denman's
+    daughter.
+
+    I want you to tell Aunt Mary that Mr. Ruskin lives with
+    his father at a place called Denmark Hill, Camberwell.
+    He has told me that the gallery of Turner pictures
+    there is open to me or my friends at any time of the
+    day or night. Both young and old Mr. Ruskin are fine
+    fellows, sociable and hearty, and will cordially
+    welcome any of my friends who desire to look at their
+    pictures.
+
+    I write in haste, as I must be aboard the ship
+    to-morrow at eight o'clock. So good-by, my dear girls,
+    from your ever affectionate mother.
+
+Her last letter written before sailing was to Lady Byron, and serves
+to show how warm an intimacy had sprung up between them. It was as
+follows:--
+
+                                         _June 5, 1857._
+
+    DEAR FRIEND,--I left you with a strange sort of
+    yearning, throbbing feeling--you make me feel quite
+    as I did years ago, a sort of girlishness quite odd
+    for me. I have felt a strange longing to send you
+    something. Don't smile when you see what it turns out
+    to be. I have a weakness for your pretty Parian things;
+    it is one of my own home peculiarities to have strong
+    passions for pretty tea-cups and other little matters
+    for my own quiet meals, when, as often happens, I am
+    too unwell to join the family. So I send you a cup
+    made of primroses, a funny little pitcher, quite large
+    enough for cream, and a little vase for violets and
+    primroses--which will be lovely together--and when you
+    use it think of me and that I love you more than I can
+    say.
+
+    I often think how strange it is that I should _know_
+    you--you who were a sort of legend of my early
+    days--that I should love you is only a natural result.
+    You seem to me to stand on the confines of that land
+    where the poor formalities which separate hearts here
+    pass like mist before the sun, and therefore it is
+    that I feel the language of love must not startle you
+    as strange or unfamiliar. You are so nearly there in
+    spirit that I fear with every adieu that it may be the
+    last; yet did you pass within the veil I should not
+    feel you lost.
+
+    I have got past the time when I feel that my heavenly
+    friends are _lost_ by going there. I feel them
+    _nearer_, rather than farther off.
+
+    So good-by, dear, dear friend, and if you see morning
+    in our Father's house before I do, carry my love to
+    those that wait for me, and if I pass first, you will
+    find me there, and we shall love each other _forever_.
+
+                                   Ever yours,
+                                            H. B. STOWE.
+
+The homeward voyage proved a prosperous one, and it was followed by a
+joyous welcome to the "Cabin" in Andover. The world seemed very bright,
+and amid all her happiness came no intimation of the terrible blow
+about to descend upon the head of the devoted mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE MINISTER'S WOOING, 1857-1859.
+
+    DEATH OF MRS. STOWE'S OLDEST SON.--LETTER TO THE
+    DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTERS IN
+    PARIS.--LETTER TO HER SISTER CATHERINE.--VISIT TO
+    BRUNSWICK AND ORR'S ISLAND.--WRITES "THE MINISTER'S
+    WOOING" AND "THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND."--MR.
+    WHITTIER'S COMMENTS.--MR. LOWELL ON THE "MINISTER'S
+    WOOING."--LETTER TO MRS. STOWE FROM MR. LOWELL.--JOHN
+    RUSKIN ON THE "MINISTER'S WOOING."--A YEAR OF
+    SADNESS.--LETTER TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER TO HER
+    DAUGHTER.--DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.
+
+
+IMMEDIATELY after Mrs. Stowe's return from England in June, 1857, a
+crushing sorrow came upon her in the death of her oldest son, Henry
+Ellis, who was drowned while bathing in the Connecticut River at
+Hanover, N. H., where he was pursuing his studies as a member of the
+Freshman class in Dartmouth College. This melancholy event took place
+the 9th of July, 1857, and the 3d of August Mrs. Stowe wrote to the
+Duchess of Sutherland:--
+
+    DEAR FRIEND,--Before this reaches you you will have
+    perhaps learned from other sources of the sad blow
+    which has fallen upon us,--our darling, our good,
+    beautiful boy, snatched away in the moment of health
+    and happiness. Alas! could I know that when I parted
+    from my Henry on English shores that I should never
+    see him more? I returned to my home, and, amid the
+    jubilee of meeting the rest, was fain to be satisfied
+    with only a letter from him, saying that his college
+    examinations were coming on, and he must defer seeing
+    me a week or two till they were over. I thought then
+    of taking his younger brother and going up to visit
+    him; but the health of the latter seeming unfavorably
+    affected by the seacoast air, I turned back with him
+    to a water-cure establishment. Before I had been two
+    weeks absent a fatal telegram hurried me home, and when
+    I arrived there it was to find the house filled with
+    his weeping classmates, who had just come bringing his
+    remains. There he lay so calm, so placid, so peaceful,
+    that I could not believe that he would not smile upon
+    me, and that my voice which always had such power over
+    him could not recall him. There had always been such
+    a peculiar union, such a tenderness between us. I had
+    had such power always to call up answering feelings
+    to my own, that it seemed impossible that he could be
+    silent and unmoved at my grief. But yet, dear friend,
+    I am sensible that in this last sad scene I had an
+    alleviation that was not granted to you. I recollect,
+    in the mournful letter you wrote me about that time,
+    you said that you mourned that you had never told your
+    own dear one how much you loved him. That sentence
+    touched me at the time. I laid it to heart, and from
+    that time lost no occasion of expressing to my children
+    those feelings that we too often defer to express to
+    our dearest friends till it is forever too late.
+
+    He did fully know how I loved him, and some of the last
+    loving words he spoke were of me. The very day that he
+    was taken from us, and when he was just rising from
+    the table of his boarding-house to go whence he never
+    returned, some one noticed the seal ring, which you
+    may remember to have seen on his finger, and said, How
+    beautiful that ring is! Yes, he said, and best of all,
+    it was my mother's gift to me. That ring, taken from
+    the lifeless hand a few hours later, was sent to me.
+    Singularly enough, it is broken right across the name
+    from a fall a little time previous....
+
+    It is a great comfort to me, dear friend, that I took
+    Henry with me to Dunrobin. I hesitated about keeping
+    him so long from his studies, but still I thought a
+    mind so observing and appreciative might learn from
+    such a tour more than through books, and so it was.
+    He returned from England full of high resolves and
+    manly purposes. "I may not be what the world calls a
+    Christian," he wrote, "but I will live such a life as
+    a Christian ought to live, such a life as every true
+    man ought to live." Henceforth he became remarkable for
+    a strict order and energy, and a vigilant temperance
+    and care of his bodily health, docility and deference
+    to his parents and teachers, and perseverance in every
+    duty.... Well, from the hard battle of this life he
+    is excused, and the will is taken for the deed, and
+    whatever comes his heart will not be pierced as mine
+    is. But I am glad that I can connect him with all my
+    choicest remembrances of the Old World.
+
+    Dunrobin will always be dearer to me now, and I have
+    felt towards you and the duke a turning of spirit,
+    because I remember how kindly you always looked on and
+    spoke to him. I knew then it was the angel of your lost
+    one that stirred your hearts with tenderness when you
+    looked on another so near his age. The plaid that the
+    duke gave him, and which he valued as one of the chief
+    of his boyish treasures, will hang in his room--for
+    still we have a room that we call his.
+
+    [Illustration: Aunty Sutherland]
+
+    You will understand, you will feel, this sorrow with us
+    as few can. My poor husband is much prostrated. I need
+    not say more: you know what this must be to a father's
+    heart. But still I repeat what I said when I saw you
+    last. Our dead are ministering angels; they teach us
+    to love, they fill us with tenderness for all that can
+    suffer. These weary hours when sorrow makes us for
+    the time blind and deaf and dumb, have their promise.
+    These hours come in answer to our prayers for nearness
+    to God. It is always our treasure that the lightning
+    strikes.... I have poured out my heart to you because
+    you can understand. While I was visiting in Hanover,
+    where Henry died, a poor, deaf old slave woman, who
+    has still five children in bondage, came to comfort
+    me. "Bear up, dear soul, she said; you must bear it,
+    for the Lord loves ye." She said further, "Sunday is a
+    heavy day to me, 'cause I can't work, and can't hear
+    preaching, and can't read, so I can't keep my mind off
+    my poor children. Some on 'em the blessed Master's got,
+    and they's safe; but, oh, there are five that I don't
+    know where they are."
+
+    What are our mother sorrows to this! I shall try to
+    search out and redeem these children, though, from the
+    ill success of efforts already made, I fear it will
+    be hopeless. Every sorrow I have, every lesson on the
+    sacredness of family love, makes me the more determined
+    to resist to the last this dreadful evil that makes so
+    many mothers so much deeper mourners than I ever can
+    be....
+
+                          Affectionately yours,
+                                            H. B. STOWE.
+
+About this same time she writes to her daughters in Paris: "Can
+anybody tell what sorrows are locked up with our best affections, or
+what pain may be associated with every pleasure? As I walk the house,
+the pictures he used to love, the presents I brought him, and the
+photographs I meant to show him, all pierce my heart. I have had a
+dreadful faintness of sorrow come over me at times. I have felt so
+crushed, so bleeding, so helpless, that I could only call on my Saviour
+with groanings that could not be uttered. Your papa justly said,
+'Every child that dies is for the time being an only one; yes--his
+individuality no time, no change, can ever replace.'
+
+"Two days after the funeral your father and I went to Hanover. We saw
+Henry's friends, and his room, which was just as it was the day he left
+it.
+
+"'There is not another such room in the college as his,' said one of
+his classmates with tears. I could not help loving the dear boys as
+they would come and look sadly in, and tell us one thing and another
+that they remembered of him. 'He was always talking of his home and his
+sisters,' said one. The very day he died he was so happy because I had
+returned, and he was expecting soon to go home and meet me. He died
+with that dear thought in his heart.
+
+"There was a beautiful lane leading down through a charming glen to
+the river. It had been for years the bathing-place of the students,
+and into the pure, clear water he plunged, little dreaming that he was
+never to come out alive.
+
+"In the evening we went down to see the boating club of which he was
+a member. He was so happy in this boating club. They had a beautiful
+boat called the Una, and a uniform, and he enjoyed it so much.
+
+"This evening all the different crews were out; but Henry's had their
+flag furled, and tied with black crape. I felt such love to the dear
+boys, all of them, because they loved Henry, that it did not pain me as
+it otherwise would. They were glad to see us there, and I was glad that
+we could be there. Yet right above where their boats were gliding in
+the evening light lay the bend in the river, clear, still, beautiful,
+fringed with overhanging pines, from whence our boy went upward to
+heaven. To heaven--if earnest, manly purpose, if sincere, deliberate
+strife with besetting sin is accepted of God, as I firmly believe it
+is. Our dear boy was but a beginner in the right way. Had he lived, we
+had hoped to see all wrong gradually fall from his soul as the worn-out
+calyx drops from the perfected flower. But Christ has taken him into
+his own teaching.
+
+    "'And one view of Jesus as He is,
+      Will strike all sin forever dead.'
+
+"Since I wrote to you last we have had anniversary meetings, and with
+all the usual bustle and care, our house full of company. Tuesday we
+received a beautiful portrait of our dear Henry, life-size, and as
+perfect almost as life. It has just that half-roguish, half-loving
+expression with which he would look at me sometimes, when I would come
+and brush back his hair and look into his eyes. Every time I go in or
+out of the room, it seems to give so bright a smile that I almost think
+that a spirit dwells within it.
+
+"When I am so heavy, so weary, and go about as if I were wearing an
+arrow that had pierced my heart, I sometimes look up, and this smile
+seems to say, 'Mother, patience, I am happy. In our Father's house are
+many mansions.' Sometimes I think I am like a gardener who has planted
+the seed of some rare exotic. He watches as the two little points of
+green leaf first spring above the soil. He shifts it from soil to
+soil, from pot to pot. He watches it, waters it, saves it through
+thousands of mischiefs and accidents. He counts every leaf, and marks
+the strengthening of the stem, till at last the blossom bud was fully
+formed. What curiosity, what eagerness,--what expectation--what longing
+now to see the mystery unfold in the new flower.
+
+"Just as the calyx begins to divide and a faint streak of color becomes
+visible,--lo! in one night the owner of the greenhouse sends and takes
+it away. He does, not consult me, he gives me no warning; he silently
+takes it and I look, but it is no more. What, then? Do I suppose he has
+destroyed the flower? Far from it; I know that he has taken it to his
+own garden. What Henry might have been I could guess better than any
+one. What Henry is, is known to Jesus only."
+
+Shortly after this time Mrs. Stowe wrote to her sister Catherine:--
+
+    If ever I was conscious of an attack of the Devil
+    trying to separate me from the love of Christ, it was
+    for some days after the terrible news came. I was in a
+    state of great physical weakness, most agonizing, and
+    unable to control my thoughts. Distressing doubts as
+    to Henry's spiritual state were rudely thrust upon my
+    soul. It was as if a voice had said to me: "You trusted
+    in God, did you? You believed that He loved you! You
+    had perfect confidence that he would never take your
+    child till the work of grace was mature! Now He has
+    hurried him into eternity without a moment's warning,
+    without preparation, and where is he?"
+
+    I saw at last that these thoughts were irrational, and
+    contradicted the calm, settled belief of my better
+    moments, and that they were dishonorable to God, and
+    that it was my duty to resist them, and to assume and
+    steadily maintain that Jesus in love had taken my dear
+    one to his bosom. Since then the Enemy has left me in
+    peace.
+
+    It is our duty to assume that a thing which would be
+    in its very nature unkind, ungenerous, and unfair has
+    not been done. What should we think of the crime of
+    that human being who should take a young mind from
+    circumstances where it was progressing in virtue, and
+    throw it recklessly into corrupting and depraving
+    society? Particularly if it were the child of one who
+    had trusted and confided in Him for years. No! no such
+    slander as this shall the Devil ever fix in my mind
+    against my Lord and my God! He who made me capable of
+    such an absorbing, unselfish devotion for my children,
+    so that I would sacrifice my eternal salvation for
+    them, He certainly did not make me capable of more
+    love, more disinterestedness than He has himself. He
+    invented mothers' hearts, and He certainly has the
+    pattern in his own, and my poor, weak rush-light of
+    love is enough to show me that some things can and some
+    things cannot be done. Mr. Stowe said in his sermon
+    last Sunday that the mysteries of God's ways with us
+    must be swallowed up by the greater mystery of the love
+    of Christ, even as Aaron's rod swallowed up the rods of
+    the magicians.
+
+    Papa and mamma are here, and we have been reading over
+    the "Autobiography and Correspondence." It is glorious,
+    beautiful; but more of this anon.
+
+                     Your affectionate sister,
+                                           HATTIE.
+
+                              ANDOVER, _August 24, 1857._
+
+    DEAR CHILDREN,--Since anniversary papa and I have been
+    living at home; Grandpa and Grandma Beecher are here
+    also, and we have had much comfort in their society....
+    To-night the last sad duty is before us. The body is
+    to be removed from the receiving tomb in the Old South
+    Churchyard, and laid in the graveyard near by. Pearson
+    has been at work for a week on a lot that is to be
+    thenceforth ours.
+
+        "Our just inheritance consecrated by his grave."
+
+    How little he thought, wandering there as he often has
+    with us, that his mortal form would so soon be resting
+    there. Yet that was written for him. It was as certain
+    then as now, and the hour and place of our death is
+    equally certain, though we know it not.
+
+    It seems selfish that I should yearn to lie down by his
+    side, but I never knew how much I loved him till now.
+
+    The one lost piece of silver seems more than all the
+    rest,--the one lost sheep dearer than all the fold, and
+    I so long for one word, one look, one last embrace....
+
+                               ANDOVER, _September 1, 1857._
+
+    MY DARLING CHILDREN,--I must not allow a week to pass
+    without sending a line to you.... Our home never looked
+    lovelier. I never saw Andover look so beautiful; the
+    trees so green, the foliage so rich. Papa and I are
+    just starting to spend a week in Brunswick, for I am so
+    miserable;--so weak--the least exertion fatigues me,
+    and much of my time I feel a heavy languor, indifferent
+    to everything. I know nothing is so likely to bring
+    me up as the air of the seaside.... I have set many
+    flowers around Henry's grave, which are blossoming;
+    pansies, white immortelle, white petunia, and verbenas.
+    Papa walks there every day, often twice or three times.
+    The lot has been rolled and planted with fine grass,
+    which is already up and looks green and soft as velvet,
+    and the little birds gather about it. To-night as I
+    sat there the sky was so beautiful, all rosy, with the
+    silver moon looking out of it. Papa said with a deep
+    sigh, "I am submissive, but not reconciled."
+
+                         BRUNSWICK, _September 6, 1857._
+
+    MY DEAR GIRLS,--Papa and I have been here for four
+    or five days past. We both of us felt so unwell that
+    we thought we would try the sea air and the dear old
+    scenes of Brunswick. Everything here is just as we
+    left it. We are staying with Mrs. Upham, whose house
+    is as wide, cool, and hospitable as ever. The trees
+    in the yard have grown finely, and Mrs. Upham has
+    cultivated flowers so successfully that the house is
+    all surrounded by them. Everything about the town is
+    the same, even to Miss Gidding's old shop, which is
+    as disorderly as ever, presenting the same medley of
+    tracts, sewing-silk, darning-cotton, and unimaginable
+    old bonnets, which existed there of yore. She has been
+    heard to complain that she can't find things as easily
+    as once. Day before yesterday papa, Charley, and I went
+    down to Harpswell about seven o'clock in the morning.
+    The old spruces and firs look lovely as ever, and I was
+    delighted, as I always used to be, with every step of
+    the way. Old Getchell's mill stands as forlorn as ever
+    in its sandy wastes, and More Brook creeps on glassy
+    and clear beyond. Arriving at Harpswell a glorious hot
+    day, with scarce a breeze to ruffle the water, papa
+    and Charley went to fish for cunners, who soon proved
+    too _cun_ning for them, for they ate every morsel of
+    bait off the hooks, so that out of twenty bites they
+    only secured two or three. What they did get were fried
+    for our dinner, reinforced by a fine clam-chowder. The
+    evening was one of the most glorious I ever saw--a
+    calm sea and round, full moon; Mrs. Upham and I sat
+    out on the rocks between the mainland and the island
+    until ten o'clock. I never did see a more perfect and
+    glorious scene, and to add to it there was a splendid
+    northern light dancing like spirits in the sky. Had it
+    not been for a terrible attack of mosquitoes in our
+    sleeping-rooms, that kept us up and fighting all night,
+    we should have called it a perfect success.
+
+    We went into the sea to bathe twice, once the day we
+    came, and about eight o'clock in the morning before we
+    went back. Besides this we have been to Middle Bay,
+    where Charley, standing where you all stood before him,
+    actually caught a flounder with his own hand, whereat
+    he screamed loud enough to scare all the folks on Eagle
+    Island. We have also been to Maquoit. We have visited
+    the old pond, and, if I mistake not, the relics of your
+    old raft yet float there; at all events, one or two
+    fragments of a raft are there, caught among rushes.
+
+    I do not realize that one of the busiest and happiest
+    of the train who once played there shall play there no
+    more. "He shall return to his house no more, neither
+    shall his place know him any more." I think I have felt
+    the healing touch of Jesus of Nazareth on the deep
+    wound in my heart, for I have golden hours of calm
+    when I say: "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in
+    thy sight." So sure am I that the most generous love
+    has ordered all, that I can now take pleasure to give
+    this little proof of my unquestioning confidence in
+    resigning one of my dearest comforts to Him. I feel
+    very near the spirit land, and the words, "I shall go
+    to him, but he shall not return to me," are very sweet.
+
+    Oh, if God would give to you, my dear children, a view
+    of the infinite beauty of Eternal Love,--if He would
+    unite us in himself, then even on earth all tears might
+    be wiped away.
+
+    Papa has preached twice to-day, and is preaching again
+    to-night. He told me to be sure to write and send you
+    his love. I hope his health is getting better. Mrs.
+    Upham sends you her best love, and hopes you will make
+    her a visit some time.
+
+    Good-by, my darlings. Come soon to your affectionate
+    mother.
+
+                                                  H. B. S.
+
+The winter of 1857 was passed quietly and uneventfully at Andover. In
+November Mrs. Stowe contributed to the "Atlantic Monthly" a touching
+little allegory, "The Mourning Veil."
+
+In December, 1858, the first chapter of "The Minister's Wooing"
+appeared in the same magazine. Simultaneously with this story was
+written "The Pearl of Orr's Island," published first as a serial in
+the "Independent."
+
+She dictated a large part of "The Minister's Wooing" under a great
+pressure of mental excitement, and it was a relief to her to turn to
+the quiet story of the coast of Maine, which she loved so well.
+
+In February, 1874, Mrs. Stowe received the following words from Mr.
+Whittier, which are very interesting in this connection: "When I am in
+the mood for thinking deeply I read 'The Minister's Wooing.' But 'The
+Pearl of Orr's Island' is my favorite. It is the most charming New
+England idyl ever written."
+
+"The Minister's Wooing" was received with universal commendation from
+the first, and called forth the following appreciative words from the
+pen of Mr. James Russell Lowell:--
+
+"It has always seemed to us that the anti-slavery element in the two
+former novels by Mrs. Stowe stood in the way of a full appreciation of
+her remarkable genius, at least in her own country. It was so easy to
+account for the unexampled popularity of 'Uncle Tom' by attributing it
+to a cheap sympathy with sentimental philanthropy! As people began to
+recover from the first enchantment, they began also to resent it and
+to complain that a dose of that insane Garrison-root which takes the
+reason prisoner had been palmed upon them without their knowing it,
+and that their ordinary water-gruel of fiction, thinned with sentiment
+and thickened with moral, had been hocussed with the bewildering
+hasheesh of Abolition. We had the advantage of reading that truly
+extraordinary book for the first time in Paris, long after the whirl of
+excitement produced by its publication had subsided, in the seclusion
+of distance, and with a judgment unbiased by those political sympathies
+which it is impossible, perhaps unwise, to avoid at home. We felt then,
+and we believe now, that the secret of Mrs. Stowe's power lay in that
+same genius by which the great successes in creative literature have
+always been achieved,--the genius that instinctively goes right to
+the organic elements of human nature, whether under a white skin or a
+black, and which disregards as trivial the conventional and factitious
+notions which make so large a part both of our thinking and feeling.
+Works of imagination written with an aim to immediate impression are
+commonly ephemeral, like Miss Martineau's 'Tales,' and Elliott's
+'Corn-law Rhymes;' but the creative faculty of Mrs. Stowe, like that
+of Cervantes in 'Don Quixote' and of Fielding in 'Joseph Andrews,'
+overpowered the narrow specialty of her design, and expanded a local
+and temporary theme with the cosmopolitanism of genius.
+
+"It is a proverb that 'There is a great deal of human nature in men,'
+but it is equally and sadly true that there is amazingly little of it
+in books. Fielding is the only English novelist who deals with life in
+its broadest sense. Thackeray, his disciple and congener, and Dickens,
+the congener of Smollett, do not so much treat of life as of the strata
+of society; the one studying nature from the club-room window, the
+other from the reporters' box in the police court. It may be that the
+general obliteration of distinctions of rank in this country, which is
+generally considered a detriment to the novelist, will in the end turn
+to his advantage by compelling him to depend for his effects on the
+contrasts and collisions of innate character, rather than on those
+shallower traits superinduced by particular social arrangements, or by
+hereditary associations. Shakespeare drew ideal, and Fielding natural
+men and women; Thackeray draws either gentlemen or snobs, and Dickens
+either unnatural men or the oddities natural only in the lowest grades
+of a highly artificial system of society. The first two knew human
+nature; of the two latter, one knows what is called the world, and
+the other the streets of London. Is it possible that the very social
+democracy which here robs the novelist of so much romance, so much
+costume, so much antithesis of caste, so much in short that is purely
+external, will give him a set-off in making it easier for him to get at
+that element of universal humanity which neither of the two extremes
+of an aristocratic system, nor the salient and picturesque points of
+contrast between the two, can alone lay open to him?
+
+"We hope to see this problem solved by Mrs. Stowe. That kind of
+romantic interest which Scott evolved from the relations of lord
+and vassal, of thief and clansman, from the social more than the
+moral contrast of Roundhead and Cavalier, of far-descended pauper
+and _nouveau riche_ which Cooper found in the clash of savagery with
+civilization, and the shaggy virtue bred on the border-land between
+the two, Indian by habit, white by tradition, Mrs. Stowe seems in
+her former novels to have sought in a form of society alien to her
+sympathies, and too remote for exact study, or for the acquirement of
+that local truth which is the slow result of unconscious observation.
+There can be no stronger proof of the greatness of her genius, of her
+possessing that conceptive faculty which belongs to the higher order
+of imagination, than the avidity with which 'Uncle Tom' was read at the
+South. It settled the point that this book was true to human nature,
+even if not minutely so to plantation life.
+
+"If capable of so great a triumph where success must so largely depend
+on the sympathetic insight of her mere creative power, have we not a
+right to expect something far more in keeping with the requirements
+of art, now that her wonderful eye is to be the mirror of familiar
+scenes, and of a society in which she was bred, of which she has
+seen so many varieties, and that, too, in the country, where it is
+most _naďve_ and original? It is a great satisfaction to us that in
+'The Minister's Wooing' she has chosen her time and laid her scene
+amid New England habits and traditions. There is no other writer who
+is so capable of perpetuating for us, in a work of art, a style of
+thought and manners which railways and newspapers will soon render as
+palćozoic as the mastodon or the megalosaurians. Thus far the story has
+fully justified our hopes. The leading characters are all fresh and
+individual creations. Mrs. Kate Scudder, the notable Yankee housewife;
+Mary, in whom Cupid is to try conclusions with Calvin; James Marvyn,
+the adventurous boy of the coast, in whose heart the wild religion of
+nature swells till the strait swathings of Puritanism are burst; Dr.
+Hopkins, the conscientious minister come upon a time when the social
+_prestige_ of the clergy is waning, and whose independence will test
+the voluntary system of ministerial support; Simeon Brown, the man
+of theological dialectics, in whom the utmost perfection of creed is
+shown to be not inconsistent with the most contradictory imperfection
+of life,--all these are characters new to literature. And the scene
+is laid just far enough away in point of time to give proper tone and
+perspective.
+
+"We think we find in the story, so far as it has proceeded, the promise
+of an interest as unhackneyed as it will be intense. There is room
+for the play of all the passions and interests that make up the great
+tragi-comedy of life, while all the scenery and accessories will be
+those which familiarity has made dear to us. We are a little afraid of
+Colonel Burr, to be sure, it is so hard to make a historical personage
+fulfill the conditions demanded by the novel of every-day life. He is
+almost sure either to fall below our traditional conception of him,
+or to rise above the natural and easy level of character, into the
+vague or the melodramatic. Moreover, we do not want a novel of society
+from Mrs. Stowe; she is quite too good to be wasted in that way, and
+her tread is much more firm on the turf of the "door-yard" or the
+pasture, and the sanded floor of the farmhouse, than on the velvet of
+the _salôn_. We have no notion how she is to develop her plot, but we
+think we foresee chances for her best power in the struggle which seems
+foreshadowed between Mary's conscientious admiration of the doctor and
+her half-conscious passion for James, before she discovers that one of
+these conflicting feelings means simply moral liking and approval, and
+the other that she is a woman and that she loves. And is not the value
+of dogmatic theology as a rule of life to be thoroughly tested for the
+doctor by his slave-trading parishioners? Is he not to learn the bitter
+difference between intellectual acceptance of a creed and that true
+partaking of the sacrament of love and faith and sorrow that makes
+Christ the very life-blood of our being and doing? And has not James
+Marvyn also his lesson to be taught? We foresee him drawn gradually
+back by Mary from his recoil against Puritan formalism to a perception
+of how every creed is pliant and plastic to a beautiful nature, of how
+much charm there may be in an hereditary faith, even if it have become
+almost conventional.
+
+"In the materials of character already present in the story, there is
+scope for Mrs. Stowe's humor, pathos, clear moral sense, and quick eye
+for the scenery of life. We do not believe that there is any one who,
+by birth, breeding, and natural capacity, has had the opportunity to
+know New England so well as she, or who has the peculiar genius so
+to profit by the knowledge. Already there have been scenes in 'The
+Minister's Wooing' that, in their lowness of tone and quiet truth,
+contrast as charmingly with the humid vagueness of the modern school of
+novel-writers as 'The Vicar of Wakefield' itself, and we are greatly
+mistaken if it do not prove to be the most characteristic of Mrs.
+Stowe's works, and therefore that on which her fame will chiefly rest
+with posterity."
+
+"The Minister's Wooing" was not completed as a serial till December,
+1859. Long before its completion Mrs. Stowe received letters from many
+interested readers, who were as much concerned for the future of her
+"spiritual children," as George Eliot would call them, as if they had
+been flesh and blood.
+
+The following letter from Mr. Lowell is given as the most valuable
+received by Mrs. Stowe at this time:--
+
+                              CAMBRIDGE, _February 4, 1859._
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I certainly did mean to write you
+    about your story, but only to cry _bravissima!_ with
+    the rest of the world. I intended no kind of criticism;
+    deeming it wholly out of place, and in the nature of
+    a wet-blanket, so long as a story is unfinished. When
+    I got the first number in MS., I said to Mr. Phillips
+    that I thought it would be the best thing you had done,
+    and what followed has only confirmed my first judgment.
+    From long habit, and from the tendency of my studies, I
+    cannot help looking at things purely from an ćsthetic
+    point of view, and what _I_ valued in "Uncle Tom" was
+    the genius, and not the moral. That is saying a good
+    deal, for I never use the word _genius_ at haphazard,
+    and always (perhaps, too) sparingly. I am going to be
+    as frank as I ought to be with one whom I value so
+    highly. What especially charmed me in the new story
+    was, that you had taken your stand on New England
+    ground. You are one of the few persons lucky enough
+    to be born with eyes in your head,--that is, with
+    something behind the eyes which makes them of value. To
+    most people the seeing apparatus is as useless as the
+    great telescope at the observatory is to me,--something
+    to stare through with no intelligent result. Nothing
+    could be better than the conception of your plot (so
+    far as I divine it), and the painting-in of your
+    figures. As for "theology," it is as much a part of
+    daily life in New England as in Scotland, and all I
+    should have to say about it is this: let it crop out
+    when it naturally comes to the surface, only don't dig
+    down to it. A moral aim is a fine thing, but in making
+    a story an artist is a traitor who does not sacrifice
+    everything to art. Remember the lesson that Christ gave
+    us twice over. First, he preferred the useless Mary to
+    the dish-washing Martha, and next, when that exemplary
+    moralist and friend of humanity, Judas, objected to
+    the sinful waste of the Magdalen's ointment, the great
+    Teacher would rather it should be wasted in an act of
+    simple beauty than utilized for the benefit of the
+    poor. Cleopatra was an artist when she dissolved her
+    biggest pearl to captivate her Antony-public. May I, a
+    critic by profession, say the whole truth to a woman of
+    genius? Yes? And never be forgiven? I shall try, and
+    try to be forgiven, too. In the first place, pay no
+    regard to the advice of anybody. In the second place,
+    pay a great deal to mine! A Kilkenny-cattish style
+    of advice? Not at all. My advice is to follow your
+    own instincts,--to stick to nature, and to avoid what
+    people commonly call the "Ideal;" for that, and beauty,
+    and pathos, and success, all lie in the simply natural.
+    We all preach it, from Wordsworth down, and we all,
+    from Wordsworth down, don't practice it. Don't I feel
+    it every day in this weary editorial mill of mine, that
+    there are ten thousand people who can write "ideal"
+    things for one who can see, and feel, and reproduce
+    nature and character? Ten thousand, did I say? Nay, ten
+    million. What made Shakespeare so great? Nothing but
+    eyes and--faith in them. The same is true of Thackeray.
+    I see nowhere more often than in authors the truth that
+    men love their opposites. Dickens insists on being
+    tragic and makes shipwreck.
+
+    I always thought (forgive me) that the Hebrew parts of
+    "Dred" were a mistake. Do not think me impertinent; I
+    am only honestly anxious that what I consider a very
+    remarkable genius should have faith in itself. Let
+    your moral take care of itself, and remember that an
+    author's writing-desk is something infinitely higher
+    than a pulpit. What I call "care of itself" is shown
+    in that noble passage in the February number about the
+    ladder up to heaven. That is grand preaching and in the
+    right way. I am sure that "The Minister's Wooing" is
+    going to be the best of your products hitherto, and I
+    am sure of it because you show so thorough a mastery
+    of your material, so true a perception of realities,
+    without which the ideality is impossible.
+
+    As for "orthodoxy," be at ease. Whatever is well done
+    the world finds orthodox at last, in spite of all the
+    Fakir journals, whose only notion of orthodoxy seems
+    to be the power of standing in one position till you
+    lose all the use of your limbs. If, with your heart and
+    brain, _you_ are not orthodox, in Heaven's name who is?
+    If you mean "Calvinistic," no woman could ever be such,
+    for Calvinism is logic, and no woman worth the name
+    could ever live by syllogisms. Woman charms a higher
+    faculty in us than reason, God be praised, and nothing
+    has delighted me more in your new story than the happy
+    instinct with which you develop this incapacity of the
+    lovers' logic in your female characters. Go on just
+    as you have begun, and make it appear in as many ways
+    as you like,--that, whatever creed may be true, it is
+    _not_ true and never will be that man can be saved by
+    machinery. I can speak with some chance of being right,
+    for I confess a strong sympathy with many parts of
+    Calvinistic theology, and, for one thing, believe in
+    hell with all my might, and in the goodness of God for
+    all that.
+
+    I have not said anything. What could I say? One might
+    almost as well advise a mother about the child she
+    still bears under her heart, and say, give it these and
+    those qualities, as an author about a work yet in the
+    brain.
+
+    Only this I will say, that I am honestly delighted with
+    "The Minister's Wooing;" that reading it has been one
+    of my few editorial pleasures; that no one appreciates
+    your genius more highly than I, or hopes more fervently
+    that you will let yourself go without regard to this,
+    that, or t'other. Don't read any criticisms on your
+    story: believe that you know better than any of us, and
+    be sure that everybody likes it. That I know. There is
+    not, and never was, anybody so competent to write a
+    true New England poem as yourself, and have no doubt
+    that you are doing it. The native sod sends up the
+    best inspiration to the brain, and you are as sure of
+    immortality as we all are of dying,--if you only go on
+    with entire faith in yourself.
+
+                  Faithfully and admiringly yours,
+                                             J. R. LOWELL.
+
+After the book was published in England, Mr. Ruskin wrote to Mrs.
+Stowe:--
+
+"Well, I have read the book now, and I think nothing can be nobler
+than the noble parts of it (Mary's great speech to Colonel Burr, for
+instance), nothing wiser than the wise parts of it (the author's
+parenthetical and under-breath remarks), nothing more delightful than
+the delightful parts (all that Virginie says and does), nothing more
+edged than the edged parts (Candace's sayings and doings, to wit); but
+I do not like the plan of the whole, because the simplicity of the
+minister seems to diminish the probability of Mary's reverence for him.
+I cannot fancy even so good a girl who would not have laughed at him.
+Nor can I fancy a man of real intellect reaching such a period of life
+without understanding his own feelings better, or penetrating those of
+another more quickly.
+
+"Then I am provoked at nothing happening to Mrs. Scudder, whom I think
+as entirely unendurable a creature as ever defied poetical justice at
+the end of a novel meant to irritate people. And finally, I think you
+are too disdainful of what ordinary readers seek in a novel, under the
+name of 'interest,'--that gradually developing wonder, expectation, and
+curiosity which makes people who have no self-command sit up till three
+in the morning to get to the crisis, and people who have self-command
+lay the book down with a resolute sigh, and think of it all the next
+day through till the time comes for taking it up again. Still, I know
+well that in many respects it was impossible for you to treat this
+story merely as a work of literary art. There must have been many facts
+which you could not dwell upon, and which no one may judge by common
+rules.
+
+"It is also true, as you say once or twice in the course of the work,
+that we have not among us here the peculiar religious earnestness you
+have mainly to describe.
+
+"We have little earnest formalism, and our formalists are for the most
+part hollow, feeble, uninteresting, mere stumbling-blocks. We have the
+Simeon Brown species, indeed; and among readers even of his kind the
+book may do some good, and more among the weaker, truer people, whom it
+will shake like mattresses,--making the dust fly, and perhaps with it
+some of the sticks and quill-ends, which often make that kind of person
+an objectionable mattress. I write too lightly of the book,--far too
+lightly,--but your letter made me gay, and I have been lighter-hearted
+ever since; only I kept this after beginning it, because I was ashamed
+to send it without a line to Mrs. Browning as well. I do not understand
+why you should apprehend (or rather anticipate without apprehension)
+any absurd criticism on it. It is sure to be a popular book,--not as
+'Uncle Tom' was, for that owed part of its popularity to its dramatic
+effect (the flight on the ice, etc.), which I did not like; but as a
+true picture of human life is always popular. Nor, I should think,
+would any critics venture at all to carp at it.
+
+"The Candace and Virginie bits appear to me, as far as I have yet seen,
+the best. I am very glad there is this nice French lady in it: the
+French are the least appreciated in general, of all nations, by other
+nations.... My father says the book is worth its weight in gold, and he
+knows good work."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When we turn from these criticisms and commendations to the inner
+history of this period, we find that the work was done in deep sadness
+of heart, and the undertone of pathos that forms the dark background
+of the brightest and most humorous parts of "The Minister's Wooing"
+was the unconscious revelation of one of sorrowful spirit, who, weary
+of life, would have been glad to lie down with her arms "round the
+wayside cross, and sleep away into a brighter scene."
+
+Just before beginning the writing of "The Minister's Wooing" she sent
+the following letter to Lady Byron:--
+
+                                  ANDOVER, _June 30, 1858._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--I did long to hear from you at a time
+    when few knew how to speak, because I knew that you
+    did know everything that sorrow can teach,--you whose
+    whole life has been a crucifixion, a long ordeal.
+    But I believe that the "Lamb," who stands forever in
+    the midst of the throne "as it had been slain," has
+    everywhere his followers, those who are sent into the
+    world, as he was, to suffer for the redemption of
+    others, and like him they must look to the joy set
+    before them of redeeming others.
+
+    I often think that God called you to this beautiful and
+    terrible ministry when He suffered you to link your
+    destiny with one so strangely gifted, so fearfully
+    tempted, and that the reward which is to meet you, when
+    you enter within the veil, where you must soon pass,
+    will be to see the angel, once chained and defiled
+    within him, set free from sin and glorified, and so
+    know that to you it has been given, by your life of
+    love and faith, to accomplish this glorious change.
+
+    I think very much on the subject on which you conversed
+    with me once,--the future state of retribution. It
+    is evident to me that the spirit of Christianity has
+    produced in the human spirit a tenderness of love which
+    wholly revolts from the old doctrine on the subject,
+    and I observe the more Christ-like any one becomes,
+    the more impossible it seems for him to accept it; and
+    yet, on the contrary, it was Christ who said, "Fear
+    Him that is able to destroy soul and body in hell,"
+    and the most appalling language on this subject is
+    that of Christ himself. Certain ideas once prevalent
+    certainly must be thrown off. An endless infliction for
+    past sins was once the doctrine that we now generally
+    reject. The doctrine as now taught is that of an
+    eternal persistence in evil necessitating eternal
+    punishment, since evil induces misery by an eternal
+    nature of things, and this, I fear, is inferable from
+    the analogies of nature, and confirmed by the whole
+    implication of the Bible.
+
+    Is there any fair way of disposing of the current
+    of assertion, and the still deeper undercurrent of
+    implication, on this subject, without one which
+    loosens all faith in revelation, and throws us on pure
+    naturalism? But of one thing I am sure,--probation does
+    not end with this life, and the number of the redeemed
+    may therefore be infinitely greater than the world's
+    history leads us to suppose.
+
+The views expressed in this letter certainly throw light on many
+passages in "The Minister's Wooing."
+
+The following letter, written to her daughter Georgiana, is introduced
+as revealing the spirit in which much of "The Minister's Wooing" was
+written:--
+
+                                      _February 12, 1859._
+
+    MY DEAR GEORGIE,--Why haven't I written? Because, dear
+    Georgie, I am like the dry, dead, leafless tree, and
+    have only cold, dead, slumbering buds of hope on the
+    end of stiff, hard, frozen twigs of thought, but no
+    leaves, no blossoms; nothing to send to a little girl
+    who doesn't know what to do with herself any more than
+    a kitten. I am cold, weary, dead; everything is a
+    burden to me.
+
+    I let my plants die by inches before my eyes, and do
+    not water them, and I dread everything I do, and wish
+    it was not to be done, and so when I get a letter from
+    my little girl I smile and say, "Dear little puss, I
+    will answer it;" and I sit hour after hour with folded
+    hands, looking at the inkstand and dreading to begin.
+    The fact is, pussy, mamma is tired. Life to you is
+    gay and joyous, but to mamma it has been a battle in
+    which the spirit is willing but the flesh weak, and
+    she would be glad, like the woman in the St. Bernard,
+    to lie down with her arms around the wayside cross,
+    and sleep away into a brighter scene. Henry's fair,
+    sweet face looks down upon me now and then from out
+    a cloud, and I feel again all the bitterness of the
+    eternal "No" which says I must never, never, in this
+    life, see that face, lean on that arm, hear that voice.
+    Not that my faith in God in the least fails, and that
+    I do not believe that all this is for good. I do, and
+    though not happy, I am blessed. Weak, weary as I am, I
+    rest on Jesus in the innermost depth of my soul, and
+    am quite sure that there is coming an inconceivable
+    hour of beauty and glory when I shall regain Jesus,
+    and he will give me back my beloved one, whom he is
+    educating in a far higher sphere than I proposed. So do
+    not mistake me,--only know that mamma is sitting weary
+    by the wayside, feeling weak and worn, but in no sense
+    discouraged.
+
+                       Your affectionate mother,
+                                             H. B. S.
+
+So is it ever: when with bold step we press our way into the holy place
+where genius hath wrought, we find it to be a place of sorrows. Art
+has its Gethsemane and its Calvary as well as religion. Our best loved
+books and sweetest songs are those "that tell of saddest thought."
+
+The summer of 1859 found Mrs. Stowe again on her way to Europe, this
+time accompanied by all her children except the youngest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE THIRD TRIP TO EUROPE, 1859.
+
+    THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE.--LADY BYRON ON "THE
+    MINISTER'S WOOING."--SOME FOREIGN PEOPLE AND THINGS
+    AS THEY APPEARED TO PROFESSOR STOWE.--A WINTER IN
+    ITALY.--THINGS UNSEEN AND UNREVEALED.--SPECULATIONS
+    CONCERNING SPIRITUALISM.--JOHN RUSKIN.--MRS.
+    BROWNING.--THE RETURN TO AMERICA.--LETTERS TO DR.
+    HOLMES.
+
+
+MRS. STOWE'S third and last trip to Europe was undertaken in the summer
+of 1859. In writing to Lady Byron in May of that year, she says: "I
+am at present writing something that interests me greatly, and may
+interest you, as an attempt to portray the heart and life of New
+England, its religion, theology, and manners. Sampson Low & Son are
+issuing it in numbers, and I should be glad to know how they strike
+you. It is to publish this work complete that I intend to visit England
+this summer."
+
+The story thus referred to was "The Minister's Wooing," and Lady
+Byron's answer to the above, which is appended, leaves no room for
+doubt as to her appreciation of it. She writes:--
+
+                                    LONDON, _May 31, 1859._
+
+    DEAR FRIEND,--I have found, particularly as to
+    yourself, that if I did not answer from the first
+    impulse, all had evaporated. Your letter came by the
+    Niagara, which brought Fanny Kemble, to learn the loss
+    of her _best_ friend, that Miss Fitzhugh whom you saw
+    at my house.
+
+    I have an intense interest in your new novel. More
+    power in these few numbers than in any of your former
+    writings, relatively, at least to my own mind. More
+    power than in "Adam Bede," which is _the_ book of the
+    season, and well deserves a high place. Whether Mrs.
+    Scudder will rival Mrs. Poyser, we shall see.
+
+    It would amuse you to hear my granddaughter and myself
+    attempting to foresee the future of the "love story,"
+    being quite persuaded for the moment that James is
+    at sea, and the minister about to ruin himself. We
+    think that she will labor to be in love with the
+    self-devoting man, under her mother's influence, and
+    from that hyper-conscientiousness so common with good
+    girls,--but we don't wish her to succeed. Then what
+    is to become of her older lover? He--Time will show.
+    I have just missed Dale Owen, with whom I wished to
+    have conversed about the "Spiritualism." Harris is
+    lecturing here on religion. I do not hear him praised.
+    People are looking for helps to believe everywhere but
+    in life,--in music, in architecture, in antiquity,
+    in ceremony,--and upon all is written, "Thou shalt
+    _not_ believe." At least, if this be faith, happier
+    the unbeliever. I am willing to see _through_ that
+    materialism, but if I am to rest there, I would rend
+    the veil.
+
+    _June 1._ The day of the packet's sailing. I shall hope
+    to be visited by you here. The best flowers sent me
+    have been placed in your little vases, giving life, as
+    it were, to the remembrance of you, though not to pass
+    away like them.
+
+                                 Ever yours,
+                                   A. T. NOEL BYRON.
+
+The entire family, with the exception of the youngest son, was abroad
+at this time. The two eldest daughters were in Paris, having previously
+sailed for Havre in March, in company with their cousin, Miss Beecher.
+On their arrival in Paris, they went directly to the house of their
+old friend, Madame Borione, and soon afterwards entered a Protestant
+school. The rest of the family, including Mrs. Stowe, her husband and
+youngest daughter, sailed for Liverpool early in August. At about the
+same time, Fred Stowe, in company with his friend Samuel Scoville, took
+passage for the same port in a sailing vessel. A comprehensive outline
+of the earlier portion of this foreign tour is given in the following
+letter written by Professor Stowe to the sole member of the family
+remaining in America:
+
+          CASTLE CHILLON, SWITZERLAND, _September 1, 1859._
+
+    DEAR LITTLE CHARLEY,--We are all here except Fred, and
+    all well. We have had a most interesting journey, of
+    which I must give a brief account.
+
+    We sailed from New York in the steamer Asia, on the 3d
+    of August [1859], a very hot day, and for ten days it
+    was the hottest weather I ever knew at sea. We had a
+    splendid ship's company, mostly foreigners, Italians,
+    Spaniards, with a sprinkling of Scotch and Irish. We
+    passed one big iceberg in the night close to, and as
+    the iceberg wouldn't turn out for us we turned out for
+    the iceberg, and were very glad to come off so. This
+    was the night of the 9th of August, and after that we
+    had cooler weather, and on the morning of the 13th the
+    wind blew like all possessed, and so continued till
+    afternoon. Sunday morning, the 14th, we got safe into
+    Liverpool, landed, and went to the Adelphi Hotel. Mamma
+    and Georgie were only a little sick on the way over,
+    and that was the morning of the 13th.
+
+    As it was court time, the high sheriff of Lancashire,
+    Sir Robert Gerauld, a fine, stout, old, gray-haired
+    John Bull, came thundering up to the hotel at noon
+    in his grand coach with six beautiful horses with
+    outriders, and two trumpeters, and twelve men with
+    javelins for a guard, all dressed in the gayest
+    manner, and rushing along like Time in the primer, the
+    trumpeters too-ti-toot-tooing like a house a-fire, and
+    how I wished my little Charley had been there to see it!
+
+    Monday we wanted to go and see the court, so we
+    went over to St. George's Hall, a most magnificent
+    structure, that beats the Boston State House all
+    hollow, and Sir Robert Gerauld himself met us, and said
+    he would get us a good place. So he took us away round
+    a narrow, crooked passage, and opened a little door,
+    where we saw nothing but a great, crimson curtain,
+    which he told us to put aside and go straight on; and
+    where do you think we all found ourselves?
+
+    Right on the platform with the judges in their big wigs
+    and long robes, and facing the whole crowded court! It
+    was enough to frighten a body into fits, but we took it
+    quietly as we could, and your mamma looked as meek as
+    Moses in her little, battered straw hat and gray cloak,
+    seeming to say, "I didn't come here o' purpose."
+
+    That same night we arrived in London, and Tuesday
+    (August 16th), riding over the city, we called at
+    Stafford House, and inquired if the Duchess of
+    Sutherland was there. A servant came out and said
+    the duchess was in and would be very glad to see us;
+    so your mamma, Georgie, and I went walking up the
+    magnificent staircase in the entrance hall, and the
+    great, noble, brilliant duchess came sailing down the
+    stairs to meet us, in her white morning dress (for it
+    was only four o'clock in the afternoon, and she was
+    not yet dressed for dinner), took your mamma into her
+    great bosom, and folded her up till the little Yankee
+    woman looked like a small gray kitten half covered in a
+    snowbank, and kissed and kissed her, and then she took
+    up little Georgie and kissed her, and then she took my
+    hand, and didn't kiss me.
+
+    Next day we went to the duchess's villa, near Windsor
+    Castle, and had a grand time riding round the park,
+    sailing on the Thames, and eating the very best dinner
+    that was ever set on a table.
+
+    We stayed in London till the 25th of August, and then
+    went to Paris and found H. and E. and H. B. all well
+    and happy; and on the 30th of August we all went to
+    Geneva together, and to-day, the 1st of September, we
+    all took a sail up the beautiful Lake Leman here in the
+    midst of the Alps, close by the old castle of Chillon,
+    about which Lord Byron has written a poem. In a day or
+    two we shall go to Chamouni, and then Georgie and I
+    will go back to Paris and London, and so home at the
+    time appointed. Until then I remain as ever,
+
+                Your loving father,
+                               C. E. STOWE.
+
+Mrs. Stowe accompanied her husband and daughter to England, where,
+after traveling and visiting for two weeks, she bade them good-by and
+returned to her daughters in Switzerland. From Lausanne she writes
+under date of October 9th:--
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Here we are at Lausanne, in the
+    Hotel Gibbon, occupying the very parlor that the
+    Ruskins had when we were here before. The day I left
+    you I progressed prosperously to Paris. Reached there
+    about one o'clock at night; could get no carriage,
+    and finally had to turn in at a little hotel close by
+    the station, where I slept till morning. I could not
+    but think what if anything should happen to me there?
+    Nobody knew me or where I was, but the bed was clean,
+    the room respectable; so I locked my door and slept,
+    then took a carriage in the morning, and found Madame
+    Borione at breakfast. I write to-night, that you may
+    get a letter from me at the earliest possible date
+    after your return.
+
+    Instead of coming to Geneva in one day, I stopped
+    over one night at Macon, got to Geneva the next day
+    about four o'clock, and to Lausanne at eight. Coming
+    up-stairs and opening the door, I found the whole
+    party seated with their books and embroidery about
+    a centre-table, and looking as homelike and cosy as
+    possible. You may imagine the greetings, the kissing,
+    laughing, and good times generally.
+
+From Lausanne the merry party traveled toward Florence by easy stages,
+stopping at Lake Como, Milan, Verona, Venice, Genoa, and Leghorn. At
+Florence, where they arrived early in November, they met Fred Stowe
+and his friend, Samuel Scoville, and here they were also joined by
+their Brooklyn friends, the Howards. Thus it was a large and thoroughly
+congenial party that settled down in the old Italian city to spend the
+winter. From here Mrs. Stowe wrote weekly letters to her husband in
+Andover, and among them are the following, that not only throw light
+upon their mode of life, but illustrate a marked tendency of her mind:--
+
+                         FLORENCE, _Christmas Day, 1859._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I wish you all a Merry Christmas,
+    hoping to spend the next one with you.
+
+    For us, we are expecting to spend this evening with
+    quite a circle of American friends. With Scoville and
+    Fred came L. Bacon (son of Dr. Bacon); a Mr. Porter,
+    who is to study theology at Andover, and is now making
+    the tour of Europe; Mr. Clarke, formerly minister at
+    Cornwall; Mr. Jenkyns, of Lowell; Mr. and Mrs. Howard,
+    John and Annie Howard, who came in most unexpectedly
+    upon us last night. So we shall have quite a New
+    England party, and shall sing Millais' Christmas hymn
+    in great force. Hope you will all do the same in the
+    old stone cabin.
+
+    Our parlor is all trimmed with laurel and myrtle,
+    looking like a great bower, and our mantel and table
+    are redolent with bouquets of orange blossoms and pinks.
+
+
+                                      _January 16, 1860._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Your letter received to-day has
+    raised quite a weight from my mind, for it shows that
+    at last you have received all mine, and that thus the
+    chain of communication between us is unbroken. What
+    you said about your spiritual experiences in feeling
+    the presence of dear Henry with you, and, above all,
+    the vibration of that mysterious guitar, was very
+    pleasant to me. Since I have been in Florence, I have
+    been distressed by inexpressible yearnings after
+    him,--such sighings and outreachings, with a sense of
+    utter darkness and separation, not only from him but
+    from all spiritual communion with my God. But I have
+    become acquainted with a friend through whom I receive
+    consoling impressions of these things,--a Mrs. E., of
+    Boston, a very pious, accomplished, and interesting
+    woman, who has had a history much like yours in
+    relation to spiritual manifestations.
+
+    Without doubt she is what the spiritualists would
+    regard as a very powerful medium, but being a very
+    earnest Christian, and afraid of getting led astray,
+    she has kept carefully aloof from all circles and
+    things of that nature. She came and opened her mind to
+    me in the first place, to ask my advice as to what she
+    had better do; relating experiences very similar to
+    many of yours.
+
+    My advice was substantially to try the spirits whether
+    they were of God,--to keep close to the Bible and
+    prayer, and then accept whatever came. But I have
+    found that when I am with her I receive very strong
+    impressions from the spiritual world, so that I feel
+    often sustained and comforted, as if I had been near
+    to my Henry and other departed friends. This has been
+    at times so strong as greatly to soothe and support
+    me. I told her your experiences, in which she was
+    greatly interested. She said it was so rare to hear of
+    Christian and reliable people with such peculiarities.
+
+    I cannot, however, think that Henry strikes the
+    guitar,--that must be Eliza. Her spirit has ever
+    seemed to cling to that mode of manifestation, and if
+    you would keep it in your sleeping-room, no doubt you
+    would hear from it oftener. I have been reading lately
+    a curious work from an old German in Paris who has been
+    making experiments in spirit-writing. He purports to
+    describe a series of meetings held in the presence of
+    fifty witnesses, whose names he gives, in which writing
+    has come on paper, without the apparition of hands or
+    any pen or pencil, from various historical people.
+
+    He seems a devout believer in inspiration, and the book
+    is curious for its mixture of all the phenomena, Pagan
+    and Christian, going over Hindoo, Chinese, Greek, and
+    Italian literature for examples, and then bringing
+    similar ones from the Bible.
+
+    One thing I am convinced of,--that spiritualism is a
+    reaction from the intense materialism of the present
+    age. Luther, when he recognized a personal devil,
+    was much nearer right. We ought to enter fully, at
+    least, into the spiritualism of the Bible. Circles and
+    spiritual jugglery I regard as the lying signs and
+    wonders, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness;
+    but there is a real scriptural spiritualism which has
+    fallen into disuse, and must be revived, and there
+    are, doubtless, people who, from some constitutional
+    formation, can more readily receive the impressions of
+    the surrounding spiritual world. Such were apostles,
+    prophets, and workers of miracles.
+
+    _Sunday evening._ To-day I went down to sit with Mrs.
+    E. in her quiet parlor. We read in Revelation together,
+    and talked of the saints and spirits of the just made
+    perfect, till it seemed, as it always does when with
+    her, as if Henry were close by me. Then a curious thing
+    happened. She has a little Florentine guitar which
+    hangs in her parlor, quite out of reach. She and I
+    were talking, and her sister, a very matter-of-fact,
+    practical body, who attends to temporals for her, was
+    arranging a little lunch for us, when suddenly the bass
+    string of the guitar was struck loudly and distinctly.
+
+    "Who struck that guitar?" said the sister. We both
+    looked up and saw that no body or thing was on that
+    side of the room. After the sister had gone out, Mrs.
+    E. said, "Now, that is strange! I asked last night
+    that if any spirit was present with us after you came
+    to-day, that it would try to touch that guitar." A
+    little while after her husband came in, and as we were
+    talking we were all stopped by a peculiar sound, as if
+    somebody had drawn a hand across all the strings at
+    once. We marveled, and I remembered the guitar at home.
+
+    What think you? Have you had any more manifestations,
+    any truths from the spirit world?
+
+About the end of February the pleasant Florentine circle broke up, and
+Mrs. Stowe and her party journeyed to Rome, where they remained until
+the middle of April. We next find them in Naples, starting on a six
+days' trip to Castellamare, Sorrento, Salerno, Pćstum, and Amalfi; then
+up Vesuvius, and to the Blue Grotto of Capri, and afterwards back to
+Rome by diligence. Leaving Rome on May 9th, they traveled leisurely
+towards Paris, which they reached on the 27th. From there Mrs. Stowe
+wrote to her husband on May 28th:--
+
+    Since my last letter a great change has taken place
+    in our plans, in consequence of which our passage for
+    America is engaged by the Europa, which sails the 16th
+    of June; so, if all goes well, we are due in Boston
+    four weeks from this date. I long for home, for my
+    husband and children, for my room, my yard and garden,
+    for the beautiful trees of Andover. We will make a very
+    happy home, and our children will help us.
+
+                              Affectionately yours,
+                                                HATTY.
+
+This extended and pleasant tour was ended with an equally pleasant
+homeward voyage, for on the Europa were found Nathaniel Hawthorne and
+James T. Fields, who proved most delightful traveling companions.
+
+While Mrs. Stowe fully enjoyed her foreign experiences, she was
+so thoroughly American in every fibre of her being that she was
+always thankful to return to her own land and people. She could not,
+therefore, in any degree reciprocate the views of Mr. Ruskin on this
+subject, as expressed in the following letter, received soon after her
+return to Andover:--
+
+                                  GENEVA, _June 18, 1860._
+
+    DEAR MRS. STOWE,--It takes a great deal, when I am at
+    Geneva, to make me wish myself anywhere else, and,
+    of all places else, in London; nevertheless, I very
+    heartily wish at this moment that I were looking out
+    on the Norwood Hills, and were expecting you and the
+    children to breakfast to-morrow.
+
+    I had very serious thoughts, when I received your
+    note, of running home; but I expected that very day an
+    American friend, Mr. S., who I thought would miss me
+    more here than you would in London; so I stayed.
+
+    What a dreadful thing it is that people should have to
+    go to America again, after coming to Europe! It seems
+    to me an inversion of the order of nature. I think
+    America is a sort of "United" States of Probation, out
+    of which all wise people, being once delivered, and
+    having obtained entrance into this better world, should
+    never be expected to return (sentence irremediably
+    ungrammatical), particularly when they have been making
+    themselves cruelly pleasant to friends here. My friend
+    Norton, whom I met first on this very blue lake water,
+    had no business to go back to Boston again, any more
+    than you.
+
+    I was waiting for S. at the railroad station on
+    Thursday, and thinking of you, naturally enough,--it
+    seemed so short a while since we were there together.
+    I managed to get hold of Georgie as she was crossing
+    the rails, and packed her in opposite my mother and
+    beside me, and was thinking myself so clever, when you
+    sent that rascally courier for her! I never forgave him
+    any of his behavior after his imperativeness on that
+    occasion.
+
+    And so she is getting nice and strong? Ask her, please,
+    when you write, with my love, whether, when she stands
+    now behind the great stick, one can see much of her on
+    each side?
+
+    So you have been seeing the Pope and all his Easter
+    performances? I congratulate you, for I suppose it is
+    something like "Positively the last appearance on any
+    stage." What was the use of thinking about _him_? You
+    should have had your own thoughts about what was to
+    come after him. I don't mean that Roman Catholicism
+    will die out so quickly. It will last pretty nearly as
+    long as Protestantism, which keeps it up; but I wonder
+    what is to come next. That is the main question just
+    now for everybody.
+
+    So you are coming round to Venice, after all? We shall
+    all have to come to it, depend upon it, some way or
+    another. There never has been anything in any other
+    part of the world like Venetian strength well developed.
+
+    I've no heart to write about anything in Europe to you
+    now. When are you coming back again? Please send me
+    a line as soon as you get safe over, to say you are
+    all--wrong, but not lost in the Atlantic.
+
+    I don't know if you will ever get this letter, but I
+    hope you will think it worth while to glance again at
+    the Denmark Hill pictures; so I send this to my father,
+    who, I hope, will be able to give it you.
+
+    I really am very sorry you are going,--you and yours;
+    and that is absolute fact, and I shall not enjoy my
+    Swiss journey at all so much as I might. It was a shame
+    of you not to give me warning before. I could have
+    stopped at Paris so easily for you! All good be with
+    you! Remember me devotedly to the young ladies, and
+    believe me ever affectionately yours,
+
+                                                 J. RUSKIN.
+
+In Rome Mrs. Stowe had formed a warm friendship with the Brownings,
+with whom she afterwards maintained a correspondence. The following
+letter from Mrs. Browning was written a year after their first meeting.
+
+                   ROME, 126 VIA FELICE, _14 March, 1861._
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--Let me say one word first. Your
+    letter, which would have given me pleasure if I had
+    been in the midst of pleasures, came to me when little
+    beside could have pleased. Dear friend, let me say it,
+    I had had a great blow and loss in England, and you
+    wrote things in that letter which seemed meant for me,
+    meant to do me good, and which did me good,--the first
+    good any letter or any talk did me; and it struck me as
+    strange, as more than a coincidence, that your first
+    word since we parted in Rome last spring should come to
+    me in Rome, and bear so directly on an experience which
+    you did not know of. I thank you very much.
+
+    The earnest stanzas I sent to England for one who
+    wanted them even more than I. I don't know how people
+    can keep up their prejudices against spiritualism with
+    tears in their eyes,--how they are not, at least,
+    thrown on the "wish that it might be true," and the
+    investigation of the phenomena, by that abrupt shutting
+    in their faces of the door of death, which shuts them
+    out from the sight of their beloved. My tendency is to
+    beat up against it like a crying child. Not that this
+    emotional impulse is the best for turning the key and
+    obtaining safe conclusions,--no. I did not write before
+    because I always do shrink from touching my own griefs,
+    one feels at first so sore that nothing but stillness
+    is borne. It is only after, when one is better, that
+    one can express one's self at all. This is so with me,
+    at least, though perhaps it ought not to be so with a
+    poet.
+
+    If you saw my "De Profundis" you must understand that
+    it was written nearly twenty years ago, and referred
+    to what went before. Mr. Howard's affliction made me
+    think of the MS. (in reference to a sermon of Dr.
+    Beecher's in the "Independent"), and I pulled it out
+    of a secret place and sent it to America, not thinking
+    that the publication would fall in so nearly with a new
+    grief of mine as to lead to misconceptions. In fact the
+    poem would have been an exaggeration in that case, and
+    unsuitable in other respects.
+
+    It refers to the greatest affliction of my life,--the
+    only time when I felt _despair_,--written a year after
+    or more. Forgive all these reticences. My husband calls
+    me "peculiar" in some things,--peculiarly _lâche_,
+    perhaps. I can't articulate some names, or speak of
+    certain afflictions;--no, not to _him_,--not after all
+    these years! It's a sort of _dumbness_ of the soul.
+    Blessed are those who can speak, I say. But don't you
+    see from this how I must want "spiritualism" above most
+    persons?
+
+    Now let me be ashamed of this egotism, together with
+    the rest of the weakness obtruded on you here, when I
+    should rather have congratulated you, my dear friend,
+    on the great crisis you are passing through in America.
+    If the North is found noble enough to stand fast on
+    the moral question, whatever the loss or diminution of
+    territory, God and just men will see you greater and
+    more glorious as a nation.
+
+    I had much anxiety for you after the Seward and Adams
+    speeches, but the danger seems averted by that fine
+    madness of the South which seems judicial. The tariff
+    movement we should regret deeply (and do, some of us),
+    only I am told it was wanted in order to persuade
+    those who were less accessible to moral argument. It's
+    eking out the holy water with ditch water. If the Devil
+    flees before it, even so, let us be content. How you
+    must feel, _you_ who have done so much to set this
+    accursed slavery in the glare of the world, convicting
+    it of hideousness! They should raise a statue to you in
+    America and elsewhere.
+
+    Meanwhile I am reading you in the "Independent," sent
+    to me by Mr. Tilton, with the greatest interest. Your
+    new novel opens beautifully.[14]
+
+    Do write to me and tell me of yourself and the subjects
+    which interest us both. It seems to me that our Roman
+    affairs may linger a little (while the Papacy bleeds
+    slowly to death in its finances) on account of this
+    violent clerical opposition in France. Otherwise we
+    were prepared for the fall of the house any morning.
+    Prince Napoleon's speech represents, with whatever
+    slight discrepancy, the inner mind of the emperor. It
+    occupied seventeen columns of the "Moniteur" and was
+    magnificent. Victor Emmanuel wrote to thank him for
+    it in the name of Italy, and even the English papers
+    praised it as "a masterly exposition of the policy of
+    France." It is settled that we shall wait for Venice.
+    It will not be for long. Hungary is _only_ waiting,
+    and even in the ashes of Poland there are flickering
+    sparks. Is it the beginning of the restitution of all
+    things?
+
+    Here in Rome there are fewer English than usual, and
+    more empty houses. There is a new story every morning,
+    and nobody to cut off the head of the Scheherazade.
+    Yesterday the Pope was going to Venice directly, and,
+    the day before, fixed the hour for Victor Emmanuel's
+    coming, and the day before _that_ brought a letter from
+    Cavour to Antonelli about sweeping the streets clean
+    for the feet of the king. The poor Romans live on these
+    stories, while the Holy Father and king of Naples meet
+    holding one another's hands, and cannot speak for sobs.
+    The little queen, however, is a heroine in her way and
+    from her point of view, and when she drives about in a
+    common fiacre, looking very pretty under her only crown
+    left of golden hair, one must feel sorry that she was
+    not born and married nearer to holy ground. My husband
+    prays you to remember him, and I ask your daughters to
+    remember both of us. Our boy rides his pony and studies
+    under his abbé, and keeps a pair of red cheeks, thank
+    God.
+
+    I ought to send you more about the society in Rome, but
+    I have lived much alone this winter, and have little to
+    tell you. Dr. Manning and Mr. De Vere stay away, not
+    bearing, perhaps, to see the Pope in his agony.
+
+                   Your ever affectionate friend,
+                                    ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
+
+Soon after her return to America Mrs. Stowe began a correspondence with
+Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, which opened the way for the warm friendship
+that has stood the test of years. Of this correspondence the two
+following letters, written about this time, are of attention.
+
+                             ANDOVER, _September 9, 1860._
+
+    DEAR DR. HOLMES,--I have had an impulse upon me for
+    a long time to write you a line of recognition and
+    sympathy, in response to those that reached me monthly
+    in your late story in the "Atlantic" ("Elsie Venner").
+
+    I know not what others may think of it, since I have
+    seen nobody since my return; but to me it is of deeper
+    and broader interest than anything you have done
+    yet, and I feel an intense curiosity concerning that
+    underworld of thought from which like bubbles your
+    incidents and remarks often seem to burst up. The
+    foundations of moral responsibility, the interlacing
+    laws of nature and spirit, and their relations to us
+    here and hereafter, are topics which I ponder more
+    and more, and on which only one medically educated
+    can write _well_. I think a course of medical study
+    ought to be required of all ministers. How I should
+    like to talk with you upon the strange list of topics
+    suggested in the schoolmaster's letter! They are bound
+    to agitate the public mind more and more, and it is of
+    the chiefest importance to learn, if we can, to think
+    soundly and wisely of them. Nobody can be a sound
+    theologian who has not had his mind drawn to think with
+    reverential fear on these topics.
+
+    Allow me to hint that the monthly numbers are not
+    long enough. Get us along a little faster. You must
+    work this well out. Elaborate and give us all the
+    particulars. Old Sophie is a jewel; give us more of
+    her. I have seen her. Could you ever come out and spend
+    a day with us? The professor and I would so like to
+    have a talk on some of these matters with you!
+
+                        Very truly yours,
+                                      H. B. STOWE.
+
+
+                             ANDOVER, _February 18, 1861._
+
+    DEAR DOCTOR,--I was quite indignant to hear yesterday
+    of the very unjust and stupid attack upon you in the
+    ----. Mr. Stowe has written to them a remonstrance
+    which I hope they will allow to appear as he wrote it,
+    and over his name. He was well acquainted with your
+    father and feels the impropriety of the thing.
+
+    But, my dear friend, in being shocked, surprised,
+    or displeased personally with such things, we must
+    consider other people's natures. A man or woman may
+    wound us to the quick without knowing it, or meaning to
+    do so, simply through difference of fibre. As Cowper
+    hath somewhere happily said:--
+
+    "Oh, why are farmers made so coarse,
+       Or clergy made so fine?
+     A kick that scarce might move a horse
+       Might kill a sound divine."
+
+    When once people get ticketed, and it is known that one
+    is a hammer, another a saw, and so on, if we happen to
+    get a taste of their quality we cannot help being hurt,
+    to be sure, but we shall not take it ill of them. There
+    be pious, well-intending beetles, wedges, hammers,
+    saws, and all other kinds of implements, good--except
+    where they come in the way of our fingers--and from a
+    beetle you can have only a beetle's gospel.
+
+    I have suffered in my day from this sort of handling,
+    which is worse for us women, who must never answer, and
+    once when I wrote to Lady Byron, feeling just as you
+    do about some very stupid and unkind things that had
+    invaded my personality, she answered me, "Words do not
+    kill, my dear, or I should have been dead long ago."
+
+    There is much true religion and kindness in the world,
+    after all, and as a general thing he who has struck a
+    nerve would be very sorry for it if he only knew what
+    he had done.
+
+    I would say nothing, if I were you. There is eternal
+    virtue in silence.
+
+    I must express my pleasure with the closing chapters of
+    "Elsie." They are nobly and beautifully done, and quite
+    come up to what I wanted to complete my idea of her
+    character. I am quite satisfied with it now. It is an
+    artistic creation, original and beautiful.
+
+                Believe me to be your true friend,
+                                                H. B. STOWE.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[14] _The Pearl of Orr's Island._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE CIVIL WAR, 1860-1865.
+
+    THE OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR.--MRS. STOWE'S SON
+    ENLISTS.--THANKSGIVING DAY IN WASHINGTON.--THE
+    PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION.--REJOICINGS IN
+    BOSTON.--FRED STOWE AT GETTYSBURG.--LEAVING ANDOVER
+    AND SETTLING IN HARTFORD.--A REPLY TO THE WOMEN OF
+    ENGLAND.--LETTERS FROM JOHN BRIGHT, ARCHBISHOP WHATELY,
+    AND NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+IMMEDIATELY after Mrs. Stowe's return from Europe, it became only too
+evident that the nation was rapidly and inevitably drifting into all
+the horrors of civil war. To use her own words: "It was God's will
+that this nation--the North as well as the South--should deeply and
+terribly suffer for the sin of consenting to and encouraging the great
+oppressions of the South; that the ill-gotten wealth, which had arisen
+from striking hands with oppression and robbery, should be paid back
+in the taxes of war; that the blood of the poor slave, that had cried
+so many years from the ground in vain, should be answered by the blood
+of the sons from the best hearthstones through all the free States;
+that the slave mothers, whose tears nobody regarded, should have with
+them a great company of weepers, North and South,--Rachels weeping for
+their children and refusing to be comforted; that the free States, who
+refused to listen when they were told of lingering starvation, cold,
+privation, and barbarous cruelty, as perpetrated on the slave, should
+have lingering starvation, cold, hunger, and cruelty doing its work
+among their own sons, at the hands of these slave-masters, with whose
+sins our nation had connived."
+
+Mrs. Stowe spoke from personal experience, having seen her own son go
+forth in the ranks of those who first responded to the President's
+call for volunteers. He was one of the first to place his name on the
+muster-roll of Company A of the First Massachusetts Volunteers. While
+his regiment was still at the camp in Cambridge, Mrs. Stowe was called
+to Brooklyn on important business, from which place she writes to her
+husband under the date June 11, 1861:--
+
+"Yesterday noon Henry (Ward Beecher) came in, saying that the
+Commonwealth, with the First (Massachusetts) Regiment on board, had
+just sailed by. Immediately I was of course eager to get to Jersey City
+to see Fred. Sister Eunice said she would go with me, and in a few
+minutes she, Hatty, Sam Scoville, and I were in a carriage, driving
+towards the Fulton Ferry. Upon reaching Jersey City we found that the
+boys were dining in the depot, an immense building with many tracks
+and platforms. It has a great cast-iron gallery just under the roof,
+apparently placed there with prophetic instinct of these times. There
+was a crowd of people pressing against the grated doors, which were
+locked, but through which we could see the soldiers. It was with great
+difficulty that we were at last permitted to go inside, and that object
+seemed to be greatly aided by a bit of printed satin that some man gave
+Mr. Scoville.
+
+"When we were in, a vast area of gray caps and blue overcoats was
+presented. The boys were eating, drinking, smoking, talking, singing,
+and laughing. Company A was reported to be here, there, and everywhere.
+At last S. spied Fred in the distance, and went leaping across the
+tracks towards him. Immediately afterwards a blue-overcoated figure
+bristling with knapsack and haversack, and looking like an assortment
+of packages, came rushing towards us.
+
+"Fred was overjoyed, you may be sure, and my first impulse was to wipe
+his face with my handkerchief before I kissed him. He was in high
+spirits, in spite of the weight of blue overcoat, knapsack, etc., etc.,
+that he would formerly have declared intolerable for half an hour.
+I gave him my handkerchief and Eunice gave him hers, with a sheer
+motherly instinct that is so strong within her, and then we filled his
+haversack with oranges.
+
+"We stayed with Fred about two hours, during which time the gallery
+was filled with people, cheering and waving their handkerchiefs. Every
+now and then the band played inspiriting airs, in which the soldiers
+joined with hearty voices. While some of the companies sang, others
+were drilled, and all seemed to be having a general jollification. The
+meal that had been provided was plentiful, and consisted of coffee,
+lemonade, sandwiches, etc.
+
+"On our way out we were introduced to the Rev. Mr. Cudworth, chaplain
+of the regiment. He is a fine-looking man, with black eyes and hair,
+set off by a white havelock. He wore a sword, and Fred, touching it,
+asked, 'Is this for use or ornament, sir?'
+
+"'Let me see you in danger,' answered the chaplain, 'and you'll find
+out.'
+
+"I said to him I supposed he had had many an one confided to his kind
+offices, but I could not forbear adding one more to the number. He
+answered, 'You may rest assured, Mrs. Stowe, I will do all in my power.'
+
+"We parted from Fred at the door. He said he felt lonesome enough
+Saturday evening on the Common in Boston, where everybody was taking
+leave of somebody, and he seemed to be the only one without a friend,
+but that this interview made up for it all.
+
+"I also saw young Henry. Like Fred he is mysteriously changed, and
+wears an expression of gravity and care. So our boys come to manhood
+in a day. Now I am watching anxiously for the evening paper to tell me
+that the regiment has reached Washington in safety."
+
+In November, 1862, Mrs. Stowe was invited to visit Washington, to be
+present at a great thanksgiving dinner provided for the thousands
+of fugitive slaves who had flocked to the city. She accepted the
+invitation the more gladly because her son's regiment was encamped
+near the city, and she should once more see him. He was now Lieutenant
+Stowe, having honestly won his promotion by bravery on more than one
+hard-fought field. She writes of this visit:--
+
+    Imagine a quiet little parlor with a bright coal fire,
+    and the gaslight burning above a centre-table, about
+    which Hatty, Fred, and I are seated. Fred is as happy
+    as happy can be to be with mother and sister once more.
+    All day yesterday we spent in getting him. First we had
+    to procure a permit to go to camp, then we went to the
+    fort where the colonel is, and then to another where
+    the brigadier-general is stationed. I was so afraid
+    they would not let him come with us, and was never
+    happier than when at last he sprang into the carriage
+    free to go with us for forty-eight hours. "Oh!" he
+    exclaimed in a sort of rapture, "this pays for a year
+    and a half of fighting and hard work!"
+
+    We tried hard to get the five o'clock train out to
+    Laurel, where J.'s regiment is stationed, as we wanted
+    to spend Sunday all together; but could not catch it,
+    and so had to content ourselves with what we could
+    have. I have managed to secure a room for Fred next
+    ours, and feel as though I had my boy at home once
+    more. He is looking very well, has grown in thickness,
+    and is as loving and affectionate as a boy can be.
+
+    I have just been writing a pathetic appeal to the
+    brigadier-general to let him stay with us a week. I
+    have also written to General Buckingham in regard to
+    changing him from the infantry, in which there seems to
+    be no prospect of anything but garrison duty, to the
+    cavalry, which is full of constant activity.
+
+    General B. called on us last evening. He seemed to
+    think the prospect before us was, at best, of a long
+    war. He was the officer deputed to carry the order
+    to General McClellan relieving him of command of the
+    army. He carried it to him in his tent about twelve
+    o'clock at night. Burnside was there. McClellan said it
+    was very unexpected, but immediately turned over the
+    command. I said I thought he ought to have expected
+    it after having so disregarded the President's order.
+    General B. smiled and said he supposed McClellan had
+    done that so often before that he had no idea any
+    notice would be taken of it this time.
+
+    Now, as I am very tired, I must close, and remain as
+    always, lovingly yours,
+
+                                             HATTY.
+
+During the darkest and most bitter period of the Civil War, Mrs. Stowe
+penned the following letter to the Duchess of Argyll:--
+
+                                  ANDOVER, _July 31, 1863._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--Your lovely, generous letter was a
+    real comfort to me, and reminded me that a year--and,
+    alas! a whole year--had passed since I wrote to your
+    dear mother, of whom I think so often as one of God's
+    noblest creatures, and one whom it comforts me to think
+    is still in our world.
+
+    _So many_, good and noble, have passed away whose
+    friendship was such a pride, such a comfort to me!
+    Your noble father, Lady Byron, Mrs. Browning,--their
+    spirits are as perfect as ever passed to the world of
+    light. I grieve about your dear mother's eyes. I have
+    thought about you all, many a sad, long, quiet hour,
+    as I have lain on my bed and looked at the pictures
+    on my wall; one, in particular, of the moment before
+    the Crucifixion, which is the first thing I look at
+    when I wake in the morning. I think how suffering is,
+    and must be, the portion of noble spirits, and no lot
+    so brilliant that must not first or last dip into the
+    shadow of that eclipse. Prince Albert, too, the ideal
+    knight, the _Prince Arthur_ of our times, the good,
+    wise, steady head and heart we--that is, our world, we
+    Anglo-Saxons--need so much. And the Queen! yes, I have
+    thought of and prayed for her, too. But could a woman
+    hope to have _always_ such a heart, and yet ever be
+    weaned from earth "all this and heaven, too"?
+
+    Under my picture I have inscribed, "Forasmuch as Christ
+    also hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves
+    with the same mind."
+
+    This year has been one long sigh, one smothering sob,
+    to me. And I thank God that we have as yet one or two
+    generous friends in England who understand and feel for
+    our cause.
+
+    The utter failure of Christian, anti-slavery England,
+    in those _instincts_ of a right heart which always can
+    see where the cause of liberty lies, has been as bitter
+    a grief to me as was the similar prostration of all our
+    American religious people in the day of the Fugitive
+    Slave Law. Exeter Hall is a humbug, a pious humbug,
+    like the rest. Lord Shaftesbury. Well, let him go; he
+    is a Tory, and has, after all, the instincts of his
+    class. But I saw _your_ duke's speech to his tenants!
+    That was grand! If _he_ can see these things, they are
+    to be seen, and why cannot Exeter Hall see them? It is
+    simply the want of the honest heart.
+
+    Why do the horrible barbarities of _Southern_ soldiers
+    cause no comment? Why is the sympathy of the British
+    Parliament reserved for the poor women of New Orleans,
+    deprived of their elegant amusement of throwing vitriol
+    into soldiers' faces, and practicing indecencies
+    inconceivable in any other state of society? Why is
+    _all_ expression of sympathy on the _Southern_ side?
+    There is a class of women in New Orleans whom Butler
+    protects from horrible barbarities, that up to his day
+    have been practiced on them by these so-called New
+    Orleans ladies, but British sympathy has ceased to
+    notice _them_. You see I am bitter. I am. You wonder
+    at my brother. He is a man, and feels a thousand
+    times more than I can, and deeper than all he ever
+    has expressed, the spirit of these things. You must
+    not wonder, therefore. Remember it is the moment when
+    every nerve is vital; it is our agony; we tread the
+    winepress alone, and they whose cheap rhetoric has been
+    for years pushing us into it now desert _en masse_. I
+    thank my God I always loved and trusted most those who
+    now _do_ stand true,--your family, your duke, yourself,
+    your noble mother. I have lost Lady Byron. Her great
+    heart, her eloquent letters, would have been such a joy
+    to me! And Mrs. Browning, oh such a heroic woman! None
+    of her poems can express what _she_ was,--so grand, so
+    comprehending, so strong, with such inspired insight!
+    She stood by Italy through its crisis. Her heart was
+    with all good through the world. Your prophecy that
+    we shall come out better, truer, stronger, will, I am
+    confident, be true, and it was worthy of yourself and
+    your good lineage.
+
+    Slavery will be sent out by this agony. We are only
+    in the throes and ravings of the exorcism. The roots
+    of the cancer have gone everywhere, but they must
+    die--will. Already the Confiscation Bill is its natural
+    destruction. Lincoln has been too slow. He should have
+    done it sooner, and with an impulse, but come it must,
+    come it will. Your mother will live to see slavery
+    abolished, _unless_ England forms an alliance to hold
+    it up. England is the great reliance of the slave-power
+    to-day, and next to England the faltering weakness of
+    the North, which palters and dare not fire the great
+    broadside for fear of hitting friends. These things
+    _must_ be done, and sudden, sharp remedies are _mercy_.
+    Just now we are in a dark hour; but whether God be with
+    us or not, I know He is with the slave, and with his
+    redemption will come the solution of our question. I
+    have long known _what_ and who we had to deal with
+    in this, for when I wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" I had
+    letters addressed to me showing a state of society
+    perfectly _inconceivable_. That they violate graves,
+    make drinking-cups of skulls, that _ladies_ wear cameos
+    cut from bones, and treasure scalps, is no surprise
+    to me. If I had written what I knew of the obscenity,
+    brutality, and cruelty of that society down there,
+    society would have cast out the books; and it is for
+    their interest, the interest of the whole race in the
+    South, that we should succeed. I wish _them_ no ill,
+    feel no bitterness; they have had a Dahomian education
+    which makes them savage. We don't expect any more of
+    _them_, but if slavery is destroyed, one generation of
+    education and liberty will efface these stains. They
+    will come to themselves, these States, and be glad it
+    is over.
+
+    I am using up my paper to little purpose. Please give
+    my best love to your dear mother. I am going to write
+    to her. If I only could have written the things I have
+    often thought! I am going to put on her bracelet, with
+    the other dates, that of the abolition of slavery in
+    the District of Columbia. Remember me to the duke and
+    to your dear children. My husband desires his best
+    regards, my daughters also.
+
+                     I am lovingly ever yours,
+                                          H. B. STOWE.
+
+Later in the year we hear again from her son in the army, and this
+time the news comes in a chaplain's letter from the terrible field of
+Gettysburg. He writes:--
+
+            GETTYSBURG, PA., _Saturday, July 11_, 9.30 P. M.
+
+    MRS. H. B. STOWE:
+
+    _Dear Madam_,--Among the thousands of wounded and dying
+    men on this war-scarred field, I have just met with
+    your son, Captain Stowe. If you have not already heard
+    from him, it may cheer your heart to know that he is
+    in the hands of good, kind friends. He was struck by
+    a fragment of a shell, which entered his right ear.
+    He is quiet and cheerful, longs to see some member
+    of his family, and is, above all, anxious that they
+    should hear from him as soon as possible. I assured him
+    I would write at once, and though I am wearied by a
+    week's labor here among scenes of terrible suffering,
+    I know that, to a mother's anxious heart, even a hasty
+    scrawl about her boy will be more than welcome.
+
+    May God bless and sustain you in this troubled time!
+
+                      Yours with sincere sympathy,
+                                          J. M. CROWELL.
+
+The wound in the head was not fatal, and after weary months of intense
+suffering it imperfectly healed; but the cruel iron had too nearly
+touched the brain of the young officer, and never again was he what he
+had been. Soon after the war his mother bought a plantation in Florida,
+largely in the hope that the out-of-door life connected with its
+management might be beneficial to her afflicted son. He remained on it
+for several years, and then, being possessed with the idea that a long
+sea voyage would do him more good than anything else, sailed from New
+York to San Francisco around the Horn. That he reached the latter city
+in safety is known; but that is all. No word from him or concerning
+him has ever reached the loving hearts that have waited so anxiously
+for it, and of his ultimate fate nothing is known.
+
+Meantime, the year 1863 was proving eventful in many other ways to Mrs.
+Stowe. In the first place, the long and pleasant Andover connection of
+Professor Stowe was about to be severed, and the family were to remove
+to Hartford, Conn. They were to occupy a house that Mrs. Stowe was
+building on the bank of Park River. It was erected in a grove of oaks
+that had in her girlhood been one of Mrs. Stowe's favorite resorts.
+Here, with her friend Georgiana May, she had passed many happy hours,
+and had often declared that if she were ever able to build a house, it
+should stand in that very place. Here, then, it was built in 1863, and
+as the location was at that time beyond the city limits, it formed,
+with its extensive, beautiful groves, a particularly charming place of
+residence. Beautiful as it was, however, it was occupied by the family
+for only a few years. The needs of the growing city caused factories to
+spring up in the neighborhood, and to escape their encroachments the
+Stowes in 1873 bought and moved into the house on Forest Street that
+has ever since been their Northern home. Thus the only house Mrs. Stowe
+ever planned and built for herself has been appropriated to the use of
+factory hands, and is now a tenement occupied by several families.
+
+Another important event of 1863 was the publishing of that charming
+story of Italy, "Agnes of Sorrento," which had been begun nearly four
+years before. This story suggested itself to Mrs. Stowe while she
+was abroad during the winter of 1859-60. The origin of the story is
+as follows: One evening, at a hotel in Florence, it was proposed that
+the various members of the party should write short stories and read
+them for the amusement of the company. Mrs. Stowe took part in this
+literary contest, and the result was the first rough sketch of "Agnes
+of Sorrento." From this beginning was afterwards elaborated "Agnes of
+Sorrento," with a dedication to Annie Howard, who was one of the party.
+
+Not the least important event of the year to Mrs. Stowe, and the world
+at large through her instrumentality, was the publication in the
+"Atlantic Monthly" of her reply to the address of the women of England.
+The "reply" is substantially as follows:--
+
+                                      _January, 1863._
+
+                           A REPLY
+
+    To "The affectionate and Christian Address of many
+    thousands of Women of Great Britain and Ireland to
+    their Sisters, the Women of the United States of
+    America," (signed by)
+
+    ANNA MARIA BEDFORD (Duchess of Bedford).
+    OLIVIA CECILIA COWLEY (Countess Cowley).
+    CONSTANCE GROSVENOR (Countess Grosvenor).
+    HARRIET SUTHERLAND (Duchess of Sutherland).
+    ELIZABETH ARGYLL (Duchess of Argyll).
+    ELIZABETH FORTESCUE (Countess Fortescue).
+    EMILY SHAFTESBURY (Countess of Shaftesbury).
+    MARY RUTHVEN (Baroness Ruthven).
+    M. A. MILMAN (wife of Dean of St. Paul).
+    R. BUXTON (daughter of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton).
+    CAROLINE AMELIA OWEN (wife of Professor Owen).
+    MRS. CHARLES WINDHAM.
+    C. A. HATHERTON (Baroness Hatherton).
+    ELIZABETH DUCIE (Countess Dowager of Ducie).
+    CECILIA PARKE (wife of Baron Parke).
+    MARY ANN CHALLIS (wife of the Lord Mayor of London).
+    E. GORDON (Duchess Dowager of Gordon).
+    ANNA M. L. MELVILLE (daughter of Earl of Leven and Melville).
+    GEORGIANA EBRINGTON (Lady Ebrington).
+    A. HILL (Viscountess Hill).
+    MRS. GOBAT (wife of Bishop Gobat of Jerusalem).
+    E. PALMERSTON (Viscountess Palmerston).
+    (And others).
+
+    SISTERS,--More than eight years ago you sent to us in
+    America a document with the above heading. It is as
+    follows:--
+
+    "A common origin, a common faith, and, we sincerely
+    believe, a common cause, urge us, at the present
+    moment, to address you on the subject of that system of
+    negro slavery which still prevails so extensively, and,
+    even under kindly disposed masters, with such frightful
+    results, in many of the vast regions of the Western
+    world.
+
+    "We will not dwell on the ordinary topics,--on the
+    progress of civilization, on the advance of freedom
+    everywhere, on the rights and requirements of the
+    nineteenth century; but we appeal to you very seriously
+    to reflect, and to ask counsel of God, how far such a
+    state of things is in accordance with his Holy Word,
+    the inalienable rights of immortal souls, and the
+    pure and merciful spirit of the Christian religion.
+    We do not shut our eyes to the difficulties, nay, the
+    dangers, that might beset the immediate abolition of
+    that long-established system. We see and admit the
+    necessity of preparation for so great an event; but,
+    in speaking of indispensable preliminaries, we cannot
+    be silent on those laws of your country which, in
+    direct contravention of God's own law, 'instituted in
+    the time of man's innocency,' deny in effect to the
+    slave the sanctity of marriage, with all its joys,
+    rights, and obligations; which separate, at the will
+    of the master, the wife from the husband, and the
+    children from the parents. Nor can we be silent on that
+    awful system which, either by statute or by custom,
+    interdicts to any race of men, or any portion of the
+    human family, education in the truths of the gospel and
+    the ordinances of Christianity. A remedy applied to
+    these two evils alone would commence the amelioration
+    of their sad condition. We appeal to you then, as
+    sisters, as wives, and as mothers, to raise your voices
+    to your fellow-citizens, and your prayers to God, for
+    the removal of this affliction and disgrace from the
+    Christian world.
+
+    "We do not say these things in a spirit of
+    self-complacency, as though our nation were free from
+    the guilt it perceives in others.
+
+    "We acknowledge with grief and shame our heavy share
+    in this great sin. We acknowledge that our forefathers
+    introduced, nay compelled the adoption, of slavery in
+    those mighty colonies. We humbly confess it before
+    Almighty God; and it is because we so deeply feel
+    and unfeignedly avow our own complicity, that we now
+    venture to implore your aid to wipe away our common
+    crime and our common dishonor."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    This address, splendidly illuminated on vellum, was
+    sent to our shores at the head of twenty-six folio
+    volumes, containing considerably more than half
+    a million of signatures of British women. It was
+    forwarded to me with a letter from a British nobleman,
+    now occupying one of the highest official positions
+    in England, with a request on behalf of these ladies
+    that it should be in any possible way presented to the
+    attention of my countrywomen.
+
+    This memorial, as it now stands in its solid oaken
+    case, with its heavy folios, each bearing on its back
+    the imprint of the American eagle, forms a most unique
+    library, a singular monument of an international
+    expression of a moral idea. No right-thinking person
+    can find aught to be objected against the substance
+    or form of this memorial. It is temperate, just, and
+    kindly; and on the high ground of Christian equality,
+    where it places itself, may be regarded as a perfectly
+    proper expression of sentiment, as between blood
+    relations and equals in two different nations. The
+    signatures to this appeal are not the least remarkable
+    part of it; for, beginning at the very steps of the
+    throne, they go down to the names of women in the
+    very humblest conditions in life, and represent all
+    that Great Britain possesses, not only of highest and
+    wisest, but of plain, homely common sense and good
+    feeling. Names of wives of cabinet ministers appear
+    on the same page with the names of wives of humble
+    labourers,--names of duchesses and countesses, of wives
+    of generals, ambassadors, savants, and men of letters,
+    mingled with names traced in trembling characters by
+    hands evidently unused to hold the pen, and stiffened
+    by lowly toil. Nay, so deep and expansive was the
+    feeling, that British subjects in foreign lands had
+    their representation. Among the signatures are those of
+    foreign residents, from Paris to Jerusalem. Autographs
+    so diverse, and collected from sources so various,
+    have seldom been found in juxtaposition. They remain
+    at this day a silent witness of a most singular tide
+    of feeling which at that time swept over the British
+    community and _made_ for itself an expression, even at
+    the risk of offending the sensibilities of an equal and
+    powerful nation.
+
+    No reply to that address, in any such tangible and
+    monumental form, has ever been possible. It was
+    impossible to canvass our vast territories with the
+    zealous and indefatigable industry with which England
+    was canvassed for signatures. In America, those
+    possessed of the spirit which led to this efficient
+    action had no leisure for it. All their time and
+    energies were already absorbed in direct efforts to
+    remove the great evil, concerning which the minds of
+    their English sisters had been newly aroused, and their
+    only answer was the silent continuance of these efforts.
+
+    From the slaveholding States, however, as was to be
+    expected, came a flood of indignant recrimination and
+    rebuke. No one act, perhaps, ever produced more frantic
+    irritation, or called out more unsparing abuse. It came
+    with the whole united weight of the British aristocracy
+    and commonalty on the most diseased and sensitive part
+    of our national life; and it stimulated that fierce
+    excitement which was working before, and has worked
+    since, till it has broken out into open war.
+
+    The time has come, however, when such an astonishing
+    page has been turned, in the anti-slavery history of
+    America, that the women of our country, feeling that
+    the great anti-slavery work to which their English
+    sisters exhorted them is almost done, may properly and
+    naturally feel moved to reply to their appeal, and lay
+    before them the history of what has occurred since the
+    receipt of their affectionate and Christian address.
+
+    Your address reached us just as a great moral conflict
+    was coming to its intensest point. The agitation kept
+    up by the anti-slavery portion of America, by England,
+    and by the general sentiment of humanity in Europe,
+    had made the situation of the slaveholding aristocracy
+    intolerable. As one of them at the time expressed it,
+    they felt themselves under the ban of the civilized
+    world. Two courses only were open to them: to abandon
+    slave institutions, the sources of their wealth and
+    political power, or to assert them with such an
+    overwhelming national force as to compel the respect
+    and assent of mankind. They chose the latter.
+
+    To this end they determined to seize on and control all
+    the resources of the Federal Government, and to spread
+    their institutions through new States and Territories
+    until the balance of power should fall into their hands
+    and they should be able to force slavery into all the
+    free States.
+
+    A leading Southern senator boasted that he would yet
+    call the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill; and for a
+    while the political successes of the slave-power were
+    such as to suggest to New England that this was no
+    impossible event.
+
+    They repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had
+    hitherto stood like the Chinese wall, between our
+    Northwestern Territories and the irruptions of
+    slaveholding barbarians.
+
+    Then came the struggle between freedom and slavery in
+    the new territory; the battle for Kansas and Nebraska,
+    fought with fire and sword and blood, where a race of
+    men, of whom John Brown was the immortal type, acted
+    over again the courage, the perseverance, and the
+    military-religious ardor of the old Covenanters of
+    Scotland, and like them redeemed the ark of liberty at
+    the price of their own blood, and blood dearer than
+    their own.
+
+    The time of the Presidential canvass which elected
+    Mr. Lincoln was the crisis of this great battle. The
+    conflict had become narrowed down to the one point of
+    the extension of slave territory. If the slaveholders
+    could get States enough, they could control and
+    rule; if they were outnumbered by free States, their
+    institutions, by the very law of their nature, would
+    die of suffocation. Therefore Fugitive Slave Law,
+    District of Columbia, Inter-State Slave-trade, and what
+    not, were all thrown out of sight for a grand rally
+    on this vital point. A President was elected pledged
+    to opposition to this one thing alone,--a man known
+    to be in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law and other
+    so-called compromises of the Constitution, but honest
+    and faithful in his determination on this one subject.
+    That this was indeed the vital point was shown by the
+    result. The moment Lincoln's election was ascertained,
+    the slaveholders resolved to destroy the Union they
+    could no longer control.
+
+    They met and organized a Confederacy which they openly
+    declared to be the first republic founded on the right
+    and determination of the white man to enslave the black
+    man, and, spreading their banners, declared themselves
+    to the Christian world of the nineteenth century as a
+    nation organized with the full purpose and intent of
+    perpetuating slavery.
+
+    But in the course of the struggle that followed, it
+    became important for the new confederation to secure
+    the assistance of foreign powers, and infinite pains
+    were then taken to blind and bewilder the mind of
+    England as to the real issues of the conflict in
+    America.
+
+    It has been often and earnestly asserted that slavery
+    had nothing to do with this conflict; that it was a
+    mere struggle for power; that the only object was to
+    restore the Union as it was, with all its abuses. It is
+    to be admitted that expressions have proceeded from the
+    national administration which naturally gave rise to
+    misapprehension, and therefore we beg to speak to you
+    on this subject more fully.
+
+    And first the declaration of the Confederate States
+    themselves is proof enough, that, whatever may be
+    declared on the other side, the maintenance of slavery
+    is regarded by them as the vital object of their
+    movement.
+
+    We ask your attention under this head to the
+    declaration of their Vice-President, Stephens, in that
+    remarkable speech delivered on the 21st of March,
+    1861, at Savannah, Georgia, wherein he declares the
+    object and purposes of the new Confederacy. It is one
+    of the most extraordinary papers which our century
+    has produced. I quote from the _verbatim_ report in
+    the "Savannah Republican" of the address as it was
+    delivered in the Athenćum of that city, on which
+    occasion, says the newspaper from which I copy, "Mr.
+    Stephens took his seat amid a burst of enthusiasm and
+    applause such as the Athenćum has never had displayed
+    within its walls within the recollection 'of the oldest
+    inhabitant.'"
+
+    Last, not least, the new Constitution has put at rest
+    _forever_ all the agitating questions relating to our
+    peculiar institution,--African slavery as it exists
+    among us, the proper _status_ of the negro in our form
+    of civilization. _This was the immediate cause of the
+    late rupture and present revolution._ Jefferson, in his
+    forecast, had anticipated this as the "rock upon which
+    the old Union would split." He was right. What was a
+    conjecture with him is now a realized fact. But whether
+    he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that
+    rock _stood_ and _stands_ may be doubted.
+
+    _The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of
+    the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of
+    the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of
+    the African was in violation of the laws of nature;
+    that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and
+    politically._
+
+    In the mean while, during the past year, the Republican
+    administration, with all the unwonted care of
+    organizing an army and navy, and conducting military
+    operations on an immense scale, have proceeded to
+    demonstrate the feasibility of overthrowing slavery
+    by purely constitutional measures. To this end they
+    have instituted a series of movements which have made
+    this year more fruitful in anti-slavery triumphs than
+    any other since the emancipation of the British West
+    Indies. The District of Columbia, as belonging strictly
+    to the national government and to no separate State,
+    has furnished a fruitful subject of remonstrance from
+    British Christians with America. We have abolished
+    slavery there, and thus wiped out the only blot of
+    territorial responsibility on our escutcheon.
+
+    By another act, equally grand in principle, and far
+    more important in its results, slavery is forever
+    excluded from the Territories of the United States.
+
+    By another act, America has consummated the
+    long-delayed treaty with Great Britain for the
+    suppression of the slave-trade. In ports whence slave
+    vessels formerly sailed with the connivance of the
+    port officers, the administration has placed men who
+    stand up to their duty, and for the first time in our
+    history the slave-trader is convicted and hung as a
+    pirate. This abominable secret traffic has been wholly
+    demolished by the energy of the Federal Government.
+
+    Lastly, and more significant still, the United States
+    government has in its highest official capacity taken
+    distinct anti-slavery ground, and presented to the
+    country a plan of peaceable emancipation with suitable
+    compensation. This noble-spirited and generous offer
+    has been urged on the slaveholding States by the chief
+    executive with earnestness and sincerity. But this is
+    but half the story of the anti-slavery triumphs of this
+    year. We have shown you what has been done for freedom
+    by the simple use of the ordinary constitutional forces
+    of the Union. We are now to show you what has been done
+    to the same end by the constitutional war-power of the
+    nation.
+
+    By this power it has been this year decreed that every
+    slave of a rebel who reaches the lines of our army
+    becomes a free man; that all slaves found deserted
+    by their masters become free men; that every slave
+    employed in any service for the United States thereby
+    obtains his liberty; and that every slave employed
+    against the United States in any capacity obtains his
+    liberty; and lest the army should contain officers
+    disposed to remand slaves to their masters, the power
+    of judging and delivering up slaves is denied to army
+    officers, and all such acts are made penal.
+
+    By this act the Fugitive Slave Law is for all present
+    purposes practically repealed. With this understanding
+    and provision, wherever our armies march they carry
+    liberty with them. For be it remembered that our army
+    is almost entirely a volunteer one, and that the most
+    zealous and ardent volunteers are those who have been
+    for years fighting, with tongue and pen, the abolition
+    battle. So marked is the character of our soldiers in
+    this respect, that they are now familiarly designated
+    in the official military dispatches of the Confederate
+    States as "the Abolitionists." Conceive the results
+    when an army so empowered by national law marches
+    through a slave territory. One regiment alone has to
+    our certain knowledge liberated two thousand slaves
+    during the past year, and this regiment is but one out
+    of hundreds.
+
+    Lastly, the great decisive measure of the war
+    has appeared,--_the President's Proclamation of
+    Emancipation_.
+
+    This also has been much misunderstood and
+    misrepresented in England. It has been said to mean
+    virtually this: Be loyal and you shall keep your
+    slaves; rebel and they shall be free. But let us
+    remember what we have just seen of the purpose and
+    meaning of the Union to which the rebellious States
+    are invited back. It is to a Union which has abolished
+    slavery in the District of Columbia, and interdicted
+    slavery in the Territories; which vigorously represses
+    the slave-trade, and hangs the convicted slaver as a
+    pirate; which necessitates emancipation by denying
+    expansion to slavery, and facilitates it by the offer
+    of compensation. Any slaveholding States which should
+    return to such a Union might fairly be supposed to
+    return with the purpose of peaceable emancipation.
+    The President's Proclamation simply means this: Come
+    in and emancipate peaceably with compensation; stay
+    out and I emancipate, nor will I protect you from the
+    consequences.
+
+    Will our sisters in England feel no heartbeat at
+    that event? Is it not one of the predicted voices of
+    the latter day, saying under the whole heavens, "It
+    is done; the kingdoms of this world are become the
+    kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ"?
+
+    And now, sisters of England, in this solemn, expectant
+    hour, let us speak to you of one thing which fills our
+    hearts with pain and solicitude. It is an unaccountable
+    fact, and one which we entreat you seriously to ponder,
+    that the party which has brought the cause of freedom
+    thus far on its way, during the past eventful year,
+    has found little or no support in England. Sadder
+    than this, the party which makes slavery the chief
+    corner-stone of its edifice finds in England its
+    strongest defenders.
+
+    The voices that have spoken for us who contend for
+    liberty have been few and scattering. God forbid that
+    we should forget those few noble voices, so sadly
+    exceptional in the general outcry against us! They
+    are, alas! too few to be easily forgotten. False
+    statements have blinded the minds of your community,
+    and turned the most generous sentiments of the British
+    heart against us. The North are fighting for supremacy
+    and the South for independence, has been the voice.
+    Independence? for what? to do what? To prove the
+    doctrine that all men are _not_ equal; to establish the
+    doctrine that the white may enslave the negro!
+
+    In the beginning of our struggle, the voices that
+    reached us across the water said: "If we were only
+    sure you were fighting for the abolition of slavery,
+    we should not dare to say whither our sympathies for
+    your cause might not carry us." Such, as we heard, were
+    the words of the honored and religious nobleman who
+    draughted this very letter which you signed and sent
+    us, and to which we are now replying.
+
+    When these words reached us we said: "We can wait; our
+    friends in England will soon see whither this conflict
+    is tending." A year and a half have passed; step after
+    step has been taken for liberty; chain after chain has
+    fallen, till the march of our armies is choked and
+    clogged by the glad flocking of emancipated slaves;
+    the day of final emancipation is set; the border
+    States begin to move in voluntary consent; universal
+    freedom for all dawns like the sun in the distant
+    horizon, and still no voice from England. No voice?
+    Yes, we have heard on the high seas the voice of a
+    war-steamer, built for a man-stealing Confederacy,
+    with English gold, in an English dockyard, going out
+    of an English harbor, manned by English sailors, with
+    the full knowledge of English government officers, in
+    defiance of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality!
+    So far has English sympathy overflowed. We have heard
+    of other steamers, iron-clad, designed to furnish to
+    a slavery-defending Confederacy their only lack,--a
+    navy for the high seas. We have heard that the British
+    Evangelical Alliance refuses to express sympathy with
+    the liberating party, when requested to do so by
+    the French Evangelical Alliance. We find in English
+    religious newspapers all those sad degrees in the
+    downward-sliding scale of defending and apologizing
+    for slaveholders and slaveholding, with which we have
+    so many years contended in our own country. We find
+    the President's Proclamation of Emancipation spoken
+    of in those papers only as an incitement to servile
+    insurrection. Nay, more,--we find in your papers, from
+    thoughtful men, the admission of the rapid decline of
+    anti-slavery sentiments in England.
+
+    This very day the writer of this has been present at
+    a solemn religious festival in the national capital,
+    given at the home of a portion of those fugitive slaves
+    who have fled to our lines for protection,--who, under
+    the shadow of our flag, find sympathy and succor. The
+    national day of thanksgiving was there kept by over
+    a thousand redeemed slaves, and for whom Christian
+    charity had spread an ample repast. Our sisters,
+    we wish _you_ could have witnessed the scene. We
+    wish you could have heard the prayer of a blind old
+    negro, called among his fellows John the Baptist,
+    when in touching broken English he poured forth his
+    thanksgivings. We wish you could have heard the sound
+    of that strange rhythmical chant which is now forbidden
+    to be sung on Southern plantations,--the psalm of this
+    modern exodus,--which combines the barbaric fire of
+    the Marseillaise with the religious fervor of the old
+    Hebrew prophet:--
+
+    "Oh, go down, Moses,
+     Way down into Egypt's land!
+     Tell King Pharaoh
+     To let my people go!
+     Stand away dere,
+     Stand away dere,
+     And let my people go!"
+
+    As we were leaving, an aged woman came and lifted up
+    her hands in blessing. "Bressed be de Lord dat brought
+    me to see dis first happy day of my life! Bressed be de
+    Lord!" In all England is there no Amen?
+
+    We have been shocked and saddened by the question
+    asked in an association of Congregational ministers in
+    England, the very blood relations of the liberty-loving
+    Puritans,--"Why does not the North let the South go?"
+
+    What! give up the point of emancipation for these four
+    million slaves? Turn our backs on them, and leave them
+    to their fate? What! leave our white brothers to run
+    a career of oppression and robbery, that, as sure as
+    there is a God that ruleth in the armies of heaven,
+    will bring down a day of wrath and doom? Remember that
+    wishing success to this slavery-establishing effort is
+    only wishing to the sons and daughters of the South all
+    the curses that God has written against oppression.
+    _Mark our words!_ If we succeed, the children of
+    these very men who are now fighting us will rise up
+    to call us blessed. Just as surely as there is a God
+    who governs in the world, so surely all the laws of
+    national prosperity follow in the train of equity; and
+    if we succeed, we shall have delivered the children's
+    children of our misguided brethren from the wages of
+    sin, which is always and everywhere death.
+
+    And now, sisters of England, think it not strange if we
+    bring back the words of your letter, not in bitterness,
+    but in deepest sadness, and lay them down at your door.
+    We say to you, Sisters, you have spoken well; we have
+    heard you; we have heeded; we have striven in the
+    cause, even unto death. We have sealed our devotion
+    by desolate hearth and darkened homestead,--by the
+    blood of sons, husbands, and brothers. In many of
+    our dwellings the very light of our lives has gone
+    out; and yet we accept the life-long darkness as our
+    own part in this great and awful expiation, by which
+    the bonds of wickedness shall be loosed, and abiding
+    peace established on the foundation of righteousness.
+    Sisters, what have _you_ done, and what do you mean to
+    do?
+
+    We appeal to you as sisters, as wives, and as mothers,
+    to raise your voices to your fellow-citizens, and your
+    prayers to God for the removal of this affliction and
+    disgrace from the Christian world.
+
+    In behalf of many thousands of American women.
+
+                                    HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+    WASHINGTON, _November 27, 1862._
+
+The publication of this reply elicited the following interesting letter
+from John Bright:--
+
+                              ROCHDALE, _March 9, 1863._
+
+    DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I received your kind note with
+    real pleasure, and felt it very good of you to send
+    me a copy of the "Atlantic Monthly" with your noble
+    letter to the women of England. I read every word
+    of it with an intense interest, and I am quite sure
+    that its effect upon opinion here has been marked and
+    beneficial. It has covered some with shame, and it has
+    compelled many to think, and it has stimulated not a
+    few to act. Before this reaches you, you will have
+    seen what large and earnest meetings have been held in
+    all our towns in favor of abolition and the North. No
+    town has a building large enough to contain those who
+    come to listen, to applaud, and to vote in favor of
+    freedom and the Union. The effect of this is evident
+    on our newspapers and on the tone of Parliament, where
+    now nobody says a word in favor of recognition, or
+    mediation, or any such thing.
+
+    The need and duty of England is admitted to be a strict
+    neutrality, but the feeling of the millions of her
+    people is one of friendliness to the United States and
+    its government. It would cause universal rejoicing,
+    among all but a limited circle of aristocracy and
+    commercially rich and corrupt, to hear that the
+    Northern forces had taken Vicksburg on the great river,
+    and Charleston on the Atlantic, and that the neck of
+    the conspiracy was utterly broken.
+
+    I hope your people may have strength and virtue to win
+    the great cause intrusted to them, but it is fearful to
+    contemplate the amount of the depravity in the North
+    engendered by the long power of slavery. New England is
+    far ahead of the States as a whole,--too instructed and
+    too moral; but still I will hope that she will bear the
+    nation through this appalling danger.
+
+    I well remember the evening at Rome and our
+    conversation. You lamented the election of Buchanan.
+    You judged him with a more unfriendly but a more
+    correct eye than mine. He turned out more incapable and
+    less honest than I hoped for. And I think I was right
+    in saying that your party was not then sufficiently
+    consolidated to enable it to maintain its policy in the
+    execution, even had Frémont been elected. As it is now,
+    six years later, the North but falteringly supports the
+    policy of the government, though impelled by the force
+    of events which then you did not dream of. President
+    Lincoln has lived half his troubled reign. In the
+    coming half I hope he may see land; surely slavery will
+    be so broken up that nothing can restore and renew it;
+    and, slavery once fairly gone, I know not how all your
+    States can long be kept asunder.
+
+                  Believe me very sincerely yours,
+                                            JOHN BRIGHT.
+
+It also called forth from Archbishop Whately the following letter:--
+
+                          PALACE, DUBLIN, _January, 1863._
+
+    DEAR MADAM,--In acknowledging your letter and
+    pamphlet, I take the opportunity of laying before
+    you what I collect to be the prevailing sentiments
+    here on American affairs. Of course there is a great
+    variety of opinion, as may be expected in a country
+    like ours. Some few sympathize with the Northerns,
+    and some few with the Southerns, but far the greater
+    portion sympathize with neither completely, but lament
+    that each party should be making so much greater
+    an expenditure of life and property than can be
+    compensated for by any advantage they can dream of
+    obtaining.
+
+    Those who are the least favorable to the Northerns are
+    not so from any approbation of slavery, but from not
+    understanding that the war is waged in the cause of
+    abolition. "It was waged," they say, "ostensibly for
+    the restoration of the Union," and in attestation of
+    this, they refer to the proclamation which announced
+    the confiscation of slaves that were the property of
+    secessionists, while those who adhered to the Federal
+    cause should be exempt from such confiscation, which,
+    they say, did not savor much of zeal for abolition.
+    And if the other object--the restoration of the
+    Union--could be accomplished, which they all regard
+    as hopeless, they do not understand how it will tend
+    to the abolition of slavery. On the contrary, "if,"
+    say they, "the separation had been allowed to take
+    place peaceably, the Northerns might, as we do, have
+    proclaimed freedom to every slave who set foot on
+    their territory; which would have been a great check
+    to slavery, and especially to any cruel treatment of
+    slaves." Many who have a great dislike to slavery yet
+    hold that the Southerns had at least as much right
+    to secede as the Americans had originally to revolt
+    from Great Britain. And there are many who think that,
+    considering the dreadful distress we have suffered from
+    the cotton famine, we have shown great forbearance in
+    withstanding the temptation of recognizing the Southern
+    States and to break the blockade.
+
+    Then, again, there are some who are provoked at the
+    incessant railing at England, and threats of an
+    invasion of Canada, which are poured forth in some of
+    the American papers.
+
+    There are many, also, who consider that the present
+    state of things cannot continue much longer if the
+    Confederates continue to hold their own, as they
+    have done hitherto; and that a people who shall have
+    maintained their independence for two or three years
+    will be recognized by the principal European powers.
+    Such appears to have been the procedure of the European
+    powers in all similar cases, such as the revolt of the
+    Anglo-American and Spanish-American colonies, of the
+    Haytians and the Belgians. In these and other like
+    cases, the rule practically adopted seems to have been
+    to recognize the revolters, not at once, but after a
+    reasonable time had been allowed to see whether they
+    could maintain their independence; and this without
+    being understood to have pronounced any decision either
+    way as to the justice of the cause.
+
+    Moreover, there are many who say that the negroes and
+    people of color are far from being kindly or justly
+    treated in the Northern States. An emancipated slave,
+    at any rate, has not received good training for earning
+    his bread by the wages of labor; and if, in addition
+    to this and his being treated as an outcast, he is
+    excluded, as it is said, from many employments, by
+    the refusal of white laborers to work along with him,
+    he will have gained little by taking refuge in the
+    Northern States.
+
+    I have now laid before you the views which I conceive
+    to be most prevalent among us, and for which I am not
+    myself responsible.
+
+    For the safe and effectual emancipation of slaves,
+    I myself consider there is no plan so good as the
+    gradual one which was long ago suggested by Bishop
+    Hinds. What he recommended was an _ad valorem tax_ upon
+    slaves,--the value to be fixed by the owner, with an
+    option to government to purchase at that price. Thus
+    the slaves would be a burden to the master, and those
+    the most so who should be the most valuable, as being
+    the most intelligent and steady, and therefore the best
+    qualified for freedom; and it would be his interest to
+    train his slaves to be free laborers, and to emancipate
+    them, one by one, as speedily as he could with safety.
+    I fear, however, that the time is gone by for trying
+    this experiment in America.
+
+    With best wishes for the new year, believe me
+
+                                Yours faithfully,
+                                            RD. WHATELY.
+
+Among the many letters written from this side of the Atlantic regarding
+the reply, was one from Nathaniel Hawthorne, in which he says:--
+
+    I read with great pleasure your article in the last
+    "Atlantic." If anything could make John Bull blush, I
+    should think it might be that; but he is a hardened
+    and villainous hypocrite. I always felt that he cared
+    nothing for or against slavery, except as it gave him
+    a vantage-ground on which to parade his own virtue and
+    sneer at our iniquity.
+
+    With best regards from Mrs. Hawthorne and myself to
+    yourself and family, sincerely yours,
+
+                                         NATH'L HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+FLORIDA, 1865-1869.
+
+    LETTER TO DUCHESS OF ARGYLL.--MRS. STOWE DESIRES TO
+    HAVE A HOME AT THE SOUTH.--FLORIDA THE BEST FIELD
+    FOR DOING GOOD.--SHE BUYS A PLACE AT MANDARIN.--A
+    CHARMING WINTER RESIDENCE.--"PALMETTO LEAVES."--EASTER
+    SUNDAY AT MANDARIN.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR.
+    HOLMES.--"POGANUC PEOPLE."--RECEPTIONS IN NEW ORLEANS
+    AND TALLAHASSEE.--LAST WINTER AT MANDARIN.
+
+
+IN 1866, the terrible conflict between the North and South having
+ended, Mrs. Stowe wrote the following letter to the Duchess of Argyll:--
+
+                              HARTFORD, _February 19, 1866._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--Your letter was a real spring of
+    comfort to me, bringing refreshingly the pleasant
+    library at Inverary and the lovely days I spent there.
+
+    I am grieved at what you say of your dear mother's
+    health. I showed your letter to Mrs. Perkins, and we
+    both agreed in saying that _we_ should like for a time
+    to fill the place of maid to her, as doubtless you all
+    feel, too. I should so love to be with her, to read to
+    her, and talk to her! and oh, there is so much that
+    would cheer and comfort a noble heart like hers that
+    we could talk about. Oh, my friend, when I think of
+    what has been done these last few years, and of what is
+    now doing, I am lost in amazement. I have just, by way
+    of realizing it to myself, been reading "Uncle Tom's
+    Cabin" again, and when I read that book, scarred and
+    seared and burned into with the memories of an anguish
+    and horror that can never be forgotten, and think it
+    is all over now, all past, and that now the questions
+    debated are simply of more or less time before granting
+    legal suffrage to those who so lately were held only
+    as articles of merchandise,--when this comes over me I
+    think no private or individual sorrow can ever make me
+    wholly without comfort. If my faith in God's presence
+    and real, living power in the affairs of men ever grows
+    dim, this makes it impossible to doubt.
+
+    I have just had a sweet and lovely Christian letter
+    from Garrison, whose beautiful composure and
+    thankfulness in his hour of victory are as remarkable
+    as his wonderful courage in the day of moral battle.
+    His note ends with the words, "And who but God is to
+    be glorified?" Garrison's attitude is far more exalted
+    than that of Wendell Phillips. He acknowledges the
+    great deed done. He suspends his "Liberator" with
+    words of devout thanksgiving, and devotes himself
+    unobtrusively to the work yet to be accomplished for
+    the freedmen; while Phillips seems resolved to ignore
+    the mighty work that has been done, because of the
+    inevitable shortcomings and imperfections that beset
+    it still. We have a Congress of splendid men,--men
+    of stalwart principle and determination. We have a
+    President[15] honestly seeking to do right; and if he
+    fails in knowing just what right is, it is because he
+    is a man born and reared in a slave State, and acted
+    on by many influences which we cannot rightly estimate
+    unless we were in his place. My brother Henry has
+    talked with him earnestly and confidentially, and has
+    faith in him as an earnest, good man seeking to do
+    right. Henry takes the ground that it is unwise and
+    impolitic to endeavor to force negro suffrage on the
+    South at the point of the bayonet. His policy would be,
+    to hold over the negro the protection of our Freedman's
+    Bureau until the great laws of free labor shall begin
+    to draw the master and servant together; to endeavor to
+    soothe and conciliate, and win to act with us, a party
+    composed of the really good men at the South.
+
+    For this reason he has always advocated lenity of
+    measures towards them. He wants to get them into a
+    state in which the moral influence of the North can
+    act upon them beneficially, and to get such a state of
+    things that there will be a party _at the South_ to
+    protect the negro.
+
+    Charles Sumner is looking simply at the abstract
+    _right_ of the thing. Henry looks at actual
+    probabilities. We all know that the state of society
+    at the South is such that laws are a very inadequate
+    protection even to white men. Southern elections always
+    have been scenes of mob violence _when only white men
+    voted_.
+
+    Multitudes of lives have been lost at the polls in
+    this way, and if against their will negro suffrage was
+    forced upon them, I do not see how any one in their
+    senses can expect anything less than an immediate war
+    of races.
+
+    If negro suffrage were required as a condition of
+    acquiring political position, there is no doubt the
+    slave States would grant it; grant it nominally,
+    because they would know that the grant never could or
+    would become an actual realization. And what would then
+    be gained for the negro?
+
+    I am sorry that people cannot differ on such great and
+    perplexing public questions without impugning each
+    other's motives. Henry has been called a back-slider
+    because of the lenity of his counsels, but I cannot
+    but think it is the Spirit of Christ that influences
+    him. Garrison has been in the same way spoken of as
+    a deserter, because he says that a work that is done
+    shall be called done, and because he would not keep up
+    an anti-slavery society when slavery is abolished; and
+    I think our President is much injured by the abuse that
+    is heaped on him, and the selfish and unworthy motives
+    that are ascribed to him by those who seem determined
+    to allow to nobody an honest, unselfish difference in
+    judgment from their own.
+
+    Henry has often spoken of you and your duke as pleasant
+    memories in a scene of almost superhuman labor and
+    excitement. He often said to me: "When this is all
+    over,--when we have won the victory,--_then_ I will
+    write to the duchess." But when it was over and the
+    flag raised again at Sumter his arm was smitten
+    down with the news of our President's death! We all
+    appreciate your noble and true sympathy through the
+    dark hour of our national trial. You and yours are
+    almost the only friends we now have left in England.
+    You cannot know what it was, unless you could imagine
+    your own country to be in danger of death, extinction
+    of nationality. _That_, dear friend, is an experience
+    which shows us what we are and what we can feel. I am
+    glad to hear that we may hope to see your son in this
+    country. I fear so many pleasant calls will beset his
+    path that we cannot hope for a moment, but it would
+    give us _all_ the greatest pleasure to see him here.
+    Our dull, prosy, commonplace, though good old Hartford
+    could offer few attractions compared with Boston or
+    New York, and yet I hope he will not leave us out
+    altogether if he comes among us. God bless him! You are
+    very happy indeed in being permitted to keep all your
+    dear ones and see them growing up.
+
+    I want to ask a favor. Do you have, as we do, _cartes
+    de visite_? If you have, and could send me one of
+    yourself and the duke and of Lady Edith and your
+    eldest son, I should be so very glad to see how you
+    are looking now; and the dear mother, too, I should
+    so like to see how she looks. It seems almost like a
+    dream to look back to those pleasant days. I am glad
+    to see you still keep some memories of our goings on.
+    Georgie's marriage is a very happy one to us. They live
+    in Stockbridge, the loveliest part of Massachusetts,
+    and her husband is a most devoted pastor, and gives all
+    his time and property to the great work which he has
+    embraced, purely for the love of it. My other daughters
+    are with me, and my son, Captain Stowe, who has come
+    with weakened health through our struggle, suffering
+    constantly from the effects of a wound in his head
+    received at Gettysburg, which makes his returning to
+    his studies a hard struggle. My husband is in better
+    health since he resigned his professorship, and desires
+    his most sincere regards to yourself and the duke, and
+    his profound veneration to your mother. Sister Mary
+    also desires to be remembered to you, as do also my
+    daughters. Please tell me a little in your next of Lady
+    Edith; she must be very lovely now.
+
+    I am, with sincerest affection, ever yours,
+
+                                            H. B. STOWE.
+
+Soon after the close of the war Mrs. Stowe conceived the idea of making
+for herself and her family a winter home in the South, where she might
+escape the rigors of Northern winters, and where her afflicted son
+Frederick might enjoy an out-of-door life throughout the year. She was
+also most anxious to do her share towards educating and leading to a
+higher life those colored people whom she had helped so largely to set
+free, and who were still in the state of profound ignorance imposed
+by slavery. In writing of her hopes and plans to her brother Charles
+Beecher, in 1866, she says:--
+
+"My plan of going to Florida, as it lies in my mind, is not in any
+sense a mere worldly enterprise. I have for many years had a longing to
+be more immediately doing Christ's work on earth. My heart is with that
+poor people whose cause in words I have tried to plead, and who now,
+ignorant and docile, are just in that formative stage in which whoever
+seizes has them.
+
+"Corrupt politicians are already beginning to speculate on them as
+possible capital for their schemes, and to fill their poor heads with
+all sorts of vagaries. Florida is the State into which they have,
+more than anywhere else, been pouring. Emigration is positively and
+decidedly setting that way; but as yet it is mere worldly emigration,
+with the hope of making money, nothing more.
+
+"The Episcopal Church is, however, undertaking, under direction of the
+future Bishop of Florida, a wide-embracing scheme of Christian activity
+for the whole State. In this work I desire to be associated, and my
+plan is to locate at some salient point on the St. John's River, where
+I can form the nucleus of a Christian neighborhood, whose influence
+shall be felt far beyond its own limits."
+
+During this year Mrs. Stowe partially carried her plan into execution
+by hiring an old plantation called "Laurel Grove," on the west side of
+the St. John's River, near the present village of Orange Park. Here
+she established her son Frederick as a cotton planter, and here he
+remained for two years. This location did not, however, prove entirely
+satisfactory, nor did the raising of cotton prove to be, under the
+circumstances, a profitable business. After visiting Florida during
+the winter of 1866-67, at which time her attention was drawn to the
+beauties and superior advantages of Mandarin on the east side of the
+river, Mrs. Stowe writes from Hartford, May 29, 1867, to Rev. Charles
+Beecher:--
+
+    MY DEAR BROTHER,--We are now thinking seriously of a
+    place in Mandarin much more beautiful than any other
+    in the vicinity. It has on it five large date palms,
+    an olive tree in full bearing, besides a fine orange
+    grove which this year will yield about seventy-five
+    thousand oranges. If we get that, then I want you to
+    consider the expediency of buying the one next to it.
+    It contains about two hundred acres of land, on which
+    is a fine orange grove, the fruit from which last year
+    brought in two thousand dollars as sold at the wharf.
+    It is right on the river, and four steamboats pass it
+    each week, on their way to Savannah and Charleston.
+    There is on the place a very comfortable cottage, as
+    houses go out there, where they do not need to be built
+    as substantially as with us.
+
+    [Illustration: THE HOME AT MANDARIN, FLORIDA.]
+
+    I am now in correspondence with the Bishop of Florida,
+    with a view to establishing a line of churches along
+    the St. John's River, and if I settle at Mandarin, it
+    will be one of my stations. Will you consent to enter
+    the Episcopal Church and be our clergyman? You are
+    just the man we want. If my tasks and feelings did not
+    incline me toward the Church, I should still choose
+    it as the best system for training immature minds
+    such as those of our negroes. The system was composed
+    with reference to the wants of the laboring class of
+    England, at a time when they were as ignorant as our
+    negroes now are.
+
+    I long to be at this work, and cannot think of it
+    without my heart burning within me. Still I leave all
+    with my God, and only hope He will open the way for me
+    to do all that I want to for this poor people.
+
+                         Affectionately yours,
+                                          H. B. STOWE.
+
+Mrs. Stowe had some years before this joined the Episcopal Church, for
+the sake of attending the same communion as her daughters, who were
+Episcopalians. Her brother Charles did not, however, see fit to change
+his creed, and though he went to Florida he settled a hundred and sixty
+miles west from the St. John's River, at Newport, near St. Marks, on
+the Gulf coast, and about twenty miles from Tallahassee. Here he lived
+every winter and several summers for fifteen years, and here he left
+the impress of his own remarkably sweet and lovely character upon the
+scattered population of the entire region.
+
+Mrs. Stowe in the mean time purchased the property, with its orange
+grove and comfortable cottage, that she had recommended to him, and
+thus Mandarin became her winter home. No one who has ever seen it can
+forget the peaceful beauty of this Florida home and its surroundings.
+The house, a story and a half cottage of many gables, stands on a
+bluff overlooking the broad St. John's, which is five miles wide at
+this point. It nestles in the shade of a grove of superb, moss-hung
+live-oaks, around one of which the front piazza is built. Several fine
+old orange trees also stand near the cottage, scenting the air with
+the sweet perfume of their blossoms in the early spring, and offering
+their golden fruit to whoever may choose to pluck it during the winter
+months. Back of the house stretches the well-tended orange grove in
+which Mrs. Stowe took such genuine pride and pleasure. Everywhere about
+the dwelling and within it were flowers and singing birds, while the
+rose garden in front, at the foot of the bluff, was the admiration of
+all who saw it.
+
+Here, on the front piazza, beneath the grand oaks, looking out on the
+calm sunlit river, Professor Stowe enjoyed that absolute peace and
+restful quiet for which his scholarly nature had always longed, but
+which had been forbidden to the greater part of his active life. At
+almost any hour of the day the well-known figure, with snow-white,
+patriarchal beard and kindly face, might be seen sitting there, with a
+basket of books, many of them in dead and nearly forgotten languages,
+close at hand. An amusing incident of family life was as follows:
+Some Northern visitors seemed to think that the family had no rights
+which were worthy of a a moment's consideration. They would land at
+the wharf, roam about the place, pick flowers, peer into the house
+through the windows and doors, and act with that disregard of all the
+proprieties of life which characterizes ill-bred people when on a
+journey. The professor had been driven well-nigh distracted by these
+migratory bipeds. One day, when one of them broke a branch from an
+orange tree directly before his eyes, and was bearing it off in triumph
+with all its load of golden fruit, he leaped from his chair, and
+addressed the astonished individual on those fundamental principles of
+common honesty, which he deemed outraged by this act. The address was
+vigorous and truthful, but of a kind which will not bear repeating.
+"Why," said the horror-stricken culprit, "I thought that this was Mrs.
+Stowe's place!" "You thought it was Mrs. Stowe's place!" Then, in a
+voice of thunder, "I would have you understand, sir, that I am the
+proprietor and protector of Mrs. Stowe and of this place, and if you
+commit any more such shameful depredations I will have you punished as
+you deserve!" Thus this predatory Yankee was taught to realize that
+there is a God in Israel.
+
+In April, 1869, Mrs. Stowe was obliged to hurry North in order to visit
+Canada in time to protect her English rights in "Oldtown Folks," which
+she had just finished.
+
+About this time she secured a plot of land, and made arrangements for
+the erection on it of a building that should be used as a schoolhouse
+through the week, and as a church on Sunday. For several years
+Professor Stowe preached during the winter in this little schoolhouse,
+and Mrs. Stowe conducted Sunday-school, sewing classes, singing
+classes, and various other gatherings for instruction and amusement,
+all of which were well attended and highly appreciated by both the
+white and colored residents of the neighborhood.
+
+Upon one occasion, having just arrived at her Mandarin home, Mrs. Stowe
+writes:--
+
+"At last, after waiting a day and a half in Charleston, we arrived here
+about ten o'clock Saturday morning, just a week from the day we sailed.
+The house looked so pretty, and quiet, and restful, the day was so calm
+and lovely, it seemed as though I had passed away from all trouble, and
+was looking back upon you all from a secure resting-place. Mr. Stowe
+is very happy here, and is constantly saying how pleasant it is, and
+how glad he is that he is here. He is so much improved in health that
+already he is able to take a considerable walk every day.
+
+"We are all well, contented, and happy, and we have six birds, two
+dogs, and a pony. Do write more and oftener. Tell me all the little
+nothings and nowheres. You can't imagine how they are magnified by the
+time they have reached into this remote corner."
+
+In 1872 she wrote a series of Florida sketches, which were published in
+book form, the following year, by J. R. Osgood & Co., under the title
+of "Palmetto Leaves." May 19, 1873, she writes to her brother Charles
+at Newport, Fla.:--
+
+"Although you have not answered my last letter, I cannot leave Florida
+without saying good-by. I send you the 'Palmetto Leaves' and my parting
+love. If I could either have brought or left my husband, I should have
+come to see you this winter. The account of your roses fills me with
+envy.
+
+"We leave on the San Jacinto next Saturday, and I am making the most of
+the few charming hours yet left; for never did we have so delicious a
+spring. I never knew such altogether perfect weather. It is enough to
+make a saint out of the toughest old Calvinist that ever set his face
+as a flint. How do you think New England theology would have fared if
+our fathers had been landed here instead of on Plymouth Rock?
+
+"The next you hear of me will be at the North, where our address is
+Forest Street, Hartford. We have bought a pretty cottage there, near to
+Belle, and shall spend the summer there."
+
+In a letter written in May of the following year to her son Charles, at
+Harvard, Mrs. Stowe says: "I can hardly realize that this long, flowery
+summer, with its procession of blooms and fruit, has been running on at
+the same time with the snowbanks and sleet storms of the North. But so
+it is. It is now the first of May. Strawberries and blackberries are
+over with us; oranges are in a waning condition, few and far between.
+Now we are going North to begin another summer, and have roses,
+strawberries, blackberries, and green peas come again.
+
+"I am glad to hear of your reading. The effect produced on you by
+Jonathan Edwards is very similar to that produced on me when I took the
+same mental bath. His was a mind whose grasp and intensity you cannot
+help feeling. He was a poet in the intensity of his conceptions, and
+some of his sermons are more terrible than Dante's 'Inferno.'"
+
+In November, 1874, upon their return to Mandarin, she writes: "We have
+had heavenly weather, and we needed it; for our house was a cave of
+spider-webs, cockroaches, dirt, and all abominations, but less than a
+week has brought it into beautiful order. It now begins to put on that
+quaint, lively, pretty air that so fascinates me. Our weather is, as
+I said, heavenly, neither hot nor cold; cool, calm, bright, serene,
+and so tranquillizing. There is something indescribable about the best
+weather we have down here. It does not debilitate me like the soft
+October air in Hartford."
+
+During the following February, she writes in reply to an invitation to
+visit a Northern watering place later in the season: "I shall be most
+happy to come, and know of nothing to prevent. I have, thank goodness,
+no serial story on hand for this summer, to hang like an Old Man of
+the Sea about my neck, and hope to enjoy a little season of being like
+other folks. It is a most lovely day to-day, most unfallen Eden-like."
+
+In a letter written later in the same season, March 28, 1875, Mrs.
+Stowe gives us a pleasant glimpse at their preparations for the proper
+observance of Easter Sunday in the little Mandarin schoolhouse. She
+says: "It was the week before Easter, and we had on our minds the
+dressing of the church. There my two Gothic fireboards were to be
+turned into a pulpit for the occasion. I went to Jacksonville and got a
+five-inch moulding for a base, and then had one fireboard sawed in two,
+so that there was an arched panel for each end. Then came a rummage
+for something for a top, and to make a desk of, until it suddenly
+occurred to me that our old black walnut extension table had a set of
+leaves. They were exactly the thing. The whole was trimmed with a
+beading of yellow pine, and rubbed, and pumice-stoned, and oiled, and
+I got out my tubes of paint and painted the nail-holes with Vandyke
+brown. By Saturday morning it was a lovely little Gothic pulpit, and
+Anthony carried it over to the schoolhouse and took away the old desk
+which I gave him for his meeting-house. That afternoon we drove out
+into the woods and gathered a quantity of superb Easter lilies, papaw,
+sparkleberry, great fern-leaves, and cedar. In the evening the girls
+went over to the Meads to practice Easter hymns; but I sat at home
+and made a cross, eighteen inches long, of cedar and white lilies.
+This Southern cedar is the most exquisite thing; it is so feathery and
+delicate.
+
+"Sunday morning was cool and bright, a most perfect Easter. Our little
+church was full, and everybody seemed delighted with the decorations.
+Mr. Stowe preached a sermon to show that Christ is going to put
+everything right at last, which is comforting. So the day was one of
+real pleasure, and also I trust of real benefit, to the poor souls who
+learned from it that Christ is indeed risen for them."
+
+During this winter the following characteristic letters passed between
+Mrs. Stowe and her valued friend, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, called
+forth by the sending to the latter of a volume of Mrs. Stowe's latest
+stories:--
+
+                                  BOSTON, _January 8, 1876._
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I would not write to thank you for
+    your most welcome "Christmas Box,"
+
+           "A box whose sweets compacted lie,"
+
+    before I had read it, and every word of it. I have
+    been very much taken up with antics of one kind and
+    another, and have only finished it this afternoon. The
+    last of the papers was of less comparative value to
+    me than to a great fraction of your immense parish of
+    readers, because I am so familiar with every movement
+    of the Pilgrims in their own chronicles.
+
+    "Deacon Pitkin's Farm" is full of those thoroughly
+    truthful touches of New England in which, if you are
+    not unrivaled, I do not know who your rival may be.
+    I wiped the tears from one eye in reading "Deacon
+    Pitkin's Farm."
+
+    I wiped the tears, and plenty of them, from both eyes,
+    in reading "Betty's Bright Idea." It is a most charming
+    and touching story, and nobody can read who has not
+    a heart like a pebble, without being melted into
+    tenderness.
+
+    How much you have done and are doing to make our New
+    England life wholesome and happy! If there is any
+    one who can look back over a literary life which has
+    pictured our old and helped our new civilization, it is
+    yourself. Of course your later books have harder work
+    cut out for them than those of any other writer. They
+    have had "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for a rival. The brightest
+    torch casts a shadow in the blaze of a light, and any
+    transcendent success affords the easiest handle for
+    that class of critics whose method is the one that
+    Dogberry held to be "odious."
+
+    I think it grows pleasanter to us to be remembered by
+    the friends we still have, as with each year they grow
+    fewer. We have lost Agassiz and Sumner from our circle,
+    and I found Motley stricken with threatening illness
+    (which I hope is gradually yielding to treatment), in
+    the profoundest grief at the loss of his wife, another
+    old and dear friend of mine. So you may be assured that
+    I feel most sensibly your kind attention, and send you
+    my heartfelt thanks for remembering me.
+
+        Always, dear Mrs. Stowe, faithfully yours,
+                                           O. W. HOLMES.
+
+To this letter Mrs. Stowe replied as follows:--
+
+                             MANDARIN, _February 23, 1876._
+
+    DEAR DOCTOR,--How kind it was of you to write me that
+    very beautiful note! and how I wish you were just where
+    I am, to see the trees laden at the same time with
+    golden oranges and white blossoms! I should so like
+    to cut off a golden cluster, leaves and all, for you.
+    Well, Boston seems very far away and dreamy, like some
+    previous state of existence, as I sit on the veranda
+    and gaze on the receding shores of the St. John's,
+    which at this point is five miles wide.
+
+    Dear doctor, how time slips by! I remember when Sumner
+    seemed to me a young man, and now he has gone. And
+    Wilson has gone, and Chase, whom I knew as a young man
+    in society in Cincinnati, has gone, and Stanton has
+    gone, and Seward has gone, and yet how lively the world
+    races on! A few air-bubbles of praise or lamentation,
+    and away sails the great ship of life, no matter over
+    whose grave!
+
+    Well, one cannot but feel it! To me, also, a whole
+    generation of friends has gone from the other side of
+    the water since I was there and broke kindly bread
+    with them. The Duchess of Sutherland, the good old
+    duke, Lansdowne, Ellesmere, Lady Byron, Lord and Lady
+    Amberly, Charles Kingsley, the good Quaker, Joseph
+    Sturge, all are with the shadowy train that has moved
+    on. Among them were as dear and true friends as I ever
+    had, and as pure and noble specimens of human beings
+    as God ever made. They are living somewhere in intense
+    vitality, I must believe, and you, dear doctor, must
+    not doubt.
+
+    I think about your writings a great deal, and one
+    element in them always attracts me. It is their pitiful
+    and sympathetic vein, the pity for poor, struggling
+    human nature. In this I feel that you must be very near
+    and dear to Him whose name is Love.
+
+    You wrote some verses once that have got into the
+    hymn-books, and have often occurred to me in my most
+    sacred hours as descriptive of the feelings with which
+    I bear the sorrows and carry the cares of life. They
+    begin,--
+
+           "Love Divine, that stooped to share."
+
+    I have not all your books down here, and am haunted by
+    gaps in the verses that memory cannot make good; but it
+    is that "Love Divine" which is my stay and comfort and
+    hope, as one friend after another passes beyond sight
+    and hearing. Please let me have it in your handwriting.
+
+    I remember a remark you once made on spiritualism.
+    I cannot recall the words, but you spoke of it as
+    modifying the sharp angles of Calvinistic belief,
+    as a fog does those of a landscape. I would like to
+    talk with you some time on spiritualism, and show
+    you a collection of very curious facts that I have
+    acquired through mediums _not_ professional. Mr. Stowe
+    has just been wading through eight volumes of "La
+    Mystique," by Goerres, professor for forty years past
+    in the University of Munich, first of physiology and
+    latterly of philosophy. He examines the whole cycle of
+    abnormal psychic, spiritual facts, trances, ecstasy,
+    clairvoyance, witchcraft, spiritualism, etc., etc., as
+    shown in the Romish miracles and the history of Europe.
+
+    I have long since come to the conclusion that
+    the marvels of spiritualism are natural, and not
+    supernatural, phenomena,--an uncommon working of
+    natural laws. I believe that the door between those
+    _in_ the body and those _out_ has never in any age
+    been entirely closed, and that occasional perceptions
+    within the veil are a part of the course of nature, and
+    therefore not miraculous. Of course such a phase of
+    human experience is very substantial ground for every
+    kind of imposture and superstition, and I have no faith
+    whatever in mediums who practice for money. In their
+    case I think the law of Moses, that forbade consulting
+    those who dealt with "familiar spirits," a very wise
+    one.
+
+    Do write some more, dear doctor. You are too well
+    off in your palace down there on the new land. Your
+    Centennial Ballad was a charming little peep; now give
+    us a full-fledged story. Mr. Stowe sends his best
+    regards, and wishes you would read "Goerres."[16] It is
+    in French also, and he thinks the French translation
+    better than the German.
+
+                             Yours ever truly,
+                                         H. B. STOWE.
+
+Writing in the autumn of 1876 to her son Charles, who was at that time
+abroad, studying at Bonn, Mrs. Stowe describes a most tempestuous
+passage between New York and Charleston, during which she and her
+husband and daughters suffered so much that they were ready to
+forswear the sea forever. The great waves as they rushed, boiling
+and seething, past would peer in at the little bull's-eye window of
+the state-room, as if eager to swallow up ship and passengers. From
+Charleston, however, they had a most delightful run to their journey's
+end. She writes: "We had a triumphal entrance into the St. John's, and
+a glorious sail up the river. Arriving at Mandarin, at four o'clock,
+we found all the neighbors, black as well as white, on the wharf to
+receive us. There was a great waving of handkerchiefs and flags,
+clapping of hands and cheering, as we drew near. The house was open and
+all ready for us, and we are delighted to be once more in our beautiful
+Florida home."
+
+In the following December she writes to her son: "I am again entangled
+in writing a serial, a thing I never mean to do again, but the story,
+begun for a mere Christmas brochure, grew so under my hands that I
+thought I might as well fill it out and make a book of it. It is
+the last thing of the kind I ever expect to do. In it I condense my
+recollections of a bygone era, that in which I was brought up, the ways
+and manners of which are now as nearly obsolete as the Old England of
+Dickens's stories is.'
+
+"I am so hampered by the necessity of writing this story, that I am
+obliged to give up company and visiting of all kinds and keep my
+strength for it. I hope I may be able to finish it, as I greatly desire
+to do so, but I begin to feel that I am not so strong as I used to be.
+Your mother is an old woman, Charley mine, and it is best she should
+give up writing before people are tired of reading her.
+
+"I would much rather have written another such a book as 'Footsteps
+of the Master,' but all, even the religious papers, are gone mad on
+serials. Serials they demand and will have, and I thought, since this
+generation will listen to nothing but stories, why not tell them?"
+
+The book thus referred to was "Poganuc People," that series of
+delightful reminiscences of the New England life of nearly a century
+ago, that has proved so fascinating to many thousands of readers.
+It was published in 1878, and, as Mrs. Stowe foresaw, was her last
+literary undertaking of any length, though for several years afterwards
+she wrote occasional short stories and articles.
+
+In January, 1879, she wrote from Mandarin to Dr. Holmes:--
+
+    DEAR DOCTOR,--I wish I could give to you and Mrs.
+    Holmes the exquisite charm of this morning. My window
+    is wide open; it is a lovely, fresh, sunny day, and a
+    great orange tree hung with golden balls closes the
+    prospect from my window. The tree is about thirty feet
+    high, and its leaves fairly glisten in the sunshine.
+
+    I sent "Poganuc People" to you and Mrs. Holmes as
+    being among the few who know those old days. It is
+    an extremely quiet story for these sensational days,
+    when heaven and earth seem to be racked for a thrill;
+    but as I get old I do love to think of those quiet,
+    simple times when there was not a poor person in the
+    parish, and the changing glories of the year were the
+    only spectacle. We, that is the professor and myself,
+    have been reading with much interest Motley's Memoir.
+    That was a man to be proud of, a beauty, too (by your
+    engraving). I never had the pleasure of a personal
+    acquaintance.
+
+    I feel with you that we have come into the land of
+    leave-taking. Hardly a paper but records the death of
+    some of Mr. Stowe's associates. But the river is not so
+    black as it seems, and there are clear days when the
+    opposite shore is plainly visible, and now and then
+    we catch a strain of music, perhaps even a gesture of
+    recognition. They are thinking of us, without doubt, on
+    the other side. My daughters and I have been reading
+    "Elsie Venner" again. Elsie is one of my especial
+    friends,--poor, dear child!--and all your theology in
+    that book I subscribe to with both hands.
+
+    Does not the Bible plainly tell us of a time when there
+    shall be no more pain? That is to be the end and crown
+    of the Messiah's mission, when God shall wipe all tears
+    away. My face is set that way, and yours, too, I trust
+    and believe.
+
+    Mr. Stowe sends hearty and affectionate remembrance
+    both to you and Mrs. Holmes, and I am, as ever, truly
+    yours,
+
+                                         H. B. STOWE.
+
+About this time Mrs. Stowe paid a visit to her brother Charles, at
+Newport, Fla., and, continuing her journey to New Orleans, was made to
+feel how little of bitterness towards her was felt by the best class
+of Southerners. In both New Orleans and Tallahassee she was warmly
+welcomed, and tendered public receptions that gave equal pleasure to
+her and to the throngs of cultivated people who attended them. She was
+also greeted everywhere with intense enthusiasm by the colored people,
+who, whenever they knew of her coming, thronged the railway stations in
+order to obtain a glimpse of her whom they venerated above all women.
+
+The return to her Mandarin home each succeeding winter was always
+a source of intense pleasure to this true lover of nature in its
+brightest and tenderest moods. Each recurring season was filled with
+new delights. In December, 1879, she writes to her son, now married and
+settled as a minister in Saco, Me.:--
+
+    DEAR CHILDREN,--Well, we have stepped from December
+    to June, and this morning is sunny and dewy, with a
+    fresh sea-breeze giving life to the air. I have just
+    been out to cut a great bunch of roses and lilies,
+    though the garden is grown into such a jungle that I
+    could hardly get about in it. The cannas, and dwarf
+    bananas, and roses are all tangled together, so that I
+    can hardly thread my way among them. I never in my life
+    saw anything range and run rampant over the ground as
+    cannas do. The ground is littered with fallen oranges,
+    and the place looks shockingly untidy, but so beautiful
+    that I am quite willing to forgive its disorder.
+
+    We got here Wednesday evening about nine o'clock, and
+    found all the neighbors waiting to welcome us on the
+    wharf. The Meads, and Cranes, and Webbs, and all the
+    rest were there, while the black population was in a
+    frenzy of joy. Your father is quite well. The sea had
+    its usual exhilarating effect upon him. Before we left
+    New York he was quite meek, and exhibited such signs of
+    grace and submission that I had great hopes of him. He
+    promised to do exactly as I told him, and stated that
+    he had entire confidence in my guidance. What woman
+    couldn't call such a spirit evidence of being prepared
+    for speedy translation? I was almost afraid he could
+    not be long for this world. But on the second day at
+    sea his spirits rose, and his appetite reasserted
+    itself. He declared in loud tones how well he felt,
+    and quite resented my efforts to take care of him. I
+    reminded him of his gracious vows and promises in the
+    days of his low spirits, but to no effect. The fact
+    is, his self-will has not left him yet, and I have now
+    no fear of his immediate translation. He is going to
+    preach for us this morning.
+
+The last winter passed in this well-loved Southern home was that of
+1883-84, for the following season Professor Stowe's health was in
+too precarious a state to permit him to undertake the long journey
+from Hartford. By this time one of Mrs. Stowe's fondest hopes had
+been realized; and, largely through her efforts, Mandarin had been
+provided with a pretty little Episcopal church, to which was attached a
+comfortable rectory, and over which was installed a regular clergyman.
+
+In January, 1884, Mrs. Stowe writes:--
+
+"Mandarin looks very gay and airy now with its new villas, and our new
+church and rectory. Our minister is perfect. I wish you could know him.
+He wants only physical strength. In everything else he is all one could
+ask.
+
+"It is a bright, lovely morning, and four orange-pickers are busy
+gathering our fruit. Our trees on the bluff have done better than any
+in Florida.
+
+"This winter I study nothing but Christ's life. First I read Farrar's
+account and went over it carefully. Now I am reading Geikie. It keeps
+my mind steady, and helps me to bear the languor and pain, of which I
+have more than usual this winter."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] Andrew Johnson.
+
+[16] _Die Christliche Mystik_, by Johann Joseph Görres, Regensburg,
+1836-42.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+OLDTOWN FOLKS, 1869.
+
+    PROFESSOR STOWE THE ORIGINAL OF "HARRY" IN "OLDTOWN
+    FOLKS."--PROFESSOR STOWE'S LETTER TO GEORGE
+    ELIOT.--HER REMARKS ON THE SAME.--PROFESSOR STOWE'S
+    NARRATIVE OF HIS YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF
+    SPIRITS.--PROFESSOR STOWE'S INFLUENCE ON MRS. STOWE'S
+    LITERARY LIFE.--GEORGE ELIOT ON "OLDTOWN FOLKS."
+
+
+THIS biography would be signally incomplete without some mention of the
+birth, childhood, early associations, and very peculiar and abnormal
+psychological experiences of Professor Stowe. Aside from the fact of
+Dr. Stowe's being Mrs. Stowe's husband, and for this reason entitled to
+notice in any sketch of her life, however meagre, he is the original of
+the "visionary boy" in "Oldtown Folks;" and "Oldtown Fireside Stories"
+embody the experiences of his childhood and youth among the grotesque
+and original characters of his native town.
+
+March 26, 1882, Professor Stowe wrote the following characteristic
+letter to Mrs. Lewes:--
+
+    MRS. LEWES,--I fully sympathize with you in your
+    disgust with Hume and the professing mediums generally.
+
+    Hume spent his boyhood in my father's native town,
+    among my relatives and acquaintances, and he was a
+    disagreeable, nasty boy. But he certainly has qualities
+    which science has not yet explained, and some of his
+    doings are as real as they are strange. My interest in
+    the subject of spiritualism arises from the fact of
+    my own experience, more than sixty years ago, in my
+    early childhood. I then never thought of questioning
+    the objective reality of all I saw, and supposed that
+    everybody else had the same experience. Of what this
+    experience was you may gain some idea from certain
+    passages in "Oldtown Folks."
+
+    The same experiences continue yet, but with serious
+    doubts as to the objectivity of the scenes exhibited. I
+    have noticed that people who have remarkable and minute
+    answers to prayer, such as Stilling, Franke, Lavater,
+    are for the most part of this peculiar temperament.
+    Is it absurd to suppose that some peculiarity in the
+    nervous system, in the connecting link between soul and
+    body, may bring some, more than others, into an almost
+    abnormal contact with the spirit-world (for example,
+    Jacob Boehme and Swedenborg), and that, too, without
+    correcting their faults, or making them morally better
+    than others? Allow me to say that I have always admired
+    the working of your mind, there is about it such a
+    perfect uprightness and uncalculating honesty. I think
+    you are a better Christian without church or theology
+    than most people are with both, though I am, and always
+    have been in the main, a Calvinist of the Jonathan
+    Edwards school. God bless you! I have a warm side for
+    Mr. Lewes on account of his Goethe labors.
+
+    Goethe has been my admiration for more than forty
+    years. In 1830 I got hold of his "Faust," and for two
+    gloomy, dreary November days, while riding through the
+    woods of New Hampshire in an old-fashioned stagecoach,
+    to enter upon a professorship in Dartmouth College, I
+    was perfectly dissolved by it.
+
+                          Sincerely yours,
+                                   C. E. STOWE.
+
+In a letter to Mrs. Stowe, written June 24, 1872, Mrs. Lewes alludes
+to Professor Stowe's letter as follows: "Pray give my special thanks
+to the professor for his letter. His handwriting, which does really
+look like Arabic,--a very graceful character, surely,--happens to be
+remarkably legible to me, and I did not hesitate over a single word.
+Some of the words, as expressions of fellowship, were very precious to
+me, and I hold it very good of him to write to me that best sort of
+encouragement. I was much impressed with the fact--which you have told
+me--that he was the original of the "visionary boy" in "Oldtown Folks;"
+and it must be deeply interesting to talk with him on his experience.
+Perhaps I am inclined, under the influence of the facts, physiological
+and psychological, which have been gathered of late years, to give
+larger place to the interpretation of vision-seeing as subjective than
+the professor would approve. It seems difficult to limit--at least
+to limit with any precision--the possibility of confounding sense
+by impressions derived from inward conditions with those which are
+directly dependent on external stimulus. In fact, the division between
+within and without in this sense seems to become every year a more
+subtle and bewildering problem."
+
+In 1834, while Mr. Stowe was a professor in Lane Theological Seminary
+at Cincinnati, Ohio, he wrote out a history of his youthful adventures
+in the spirit-world, from which the following extracts are taken:--
+
+[Illustration: Signature: C. S. Stowe.]
+
+"I have often thought I would communicate to some scientific physician
+a particular account of a most singular delusion under which I lived
+from my earliest infancy till the fifteenth or sixteenth year of my
+age, and the effects of which remain very distinctly now that I am past
+thirty.
+
+"The facts are of such a nature as to be indelibly impressed upon my
+mind they appear to me to be curious, and well worth the attention of
+the psychologist. I regard the occurrences in question as the more
+remarkable because I cannot discover that I possess either taste or
+talent for fiction or poetry. I have barely imagination enough to
+enjoy, with a high degree of relish, the works of others in this
+department of literature, but have never felt able or disposed to
+engage in that sort of writing myself. On the contrary, my style has
+always been remarkable for its dry, matter-of-fact plainness; my mind
+has been distinguished for its quickness and adaptedness to historical
+and literary investigations, for ardor and perseverance in pursuit of
+the knowledge of facts,--_eine verständige Richtung_, as the Germans
+would say,--rather than for any other quality; and the only talent of a
+higher kind which I am conscious of possessing is a turn for accurate
+observation of men and things, and a certain broad humor and drollery.
+
+"From the hour of my birth I have been constitutionally feeble, as were
+my parents before me, and my nervous system easily excitable. With
+care, however, I have kept myself in tolerable health, and my life
+has been an industrious one, for my parents were poor and I have
+always been obliged to labor for my livelihood.
+
+"With these preliminary remarks, I proceed to the curious details of
+my psychological history. As early as I can remember anything, I can
+remember observing a multitude of animated and active objects, which
+I could see with perfect distinctness, moving about me, and could
+sometimes, though seldom, hear them make a rustling noise, or other
+articulate sounds; but I could never touch them. They were in all
+respects independent of the sense of touch, and incapable of being
+obstructed in any way by the intervention of material objects; I could
+see them at any distance, and through any intervening object, with as
+much ease and distinctness as if they were in the room with me, and
+directly before my eyes. I could see them passing through the floors,
+and the ceilings, and the walls of the house, from one apartment to
+another, in all directions, without a door, or a keyhole, or crevice
+being open to admit them. I could follow them with my eyes to any
+distance, or directly through or just beneath the surface, or up and
+down, in the midst of boards and timbers and bricks, or whatever
+else would stop the motion or intercept the visibleness of all other
+objects. These appearances occasioned neither surprise nor alarm,
+except when they assumed some hideous and frightful form, or exhibited
+some menacing gesture, for I became acquainted with them as soon as
+with any of the objects of sense. As to the reality of their existence
+and the harmlessness of their character, I knew no difference between
+them and any other of the objects which met my eye. They were as
+familiar to me as the forms of my parents and my brother; they made
+up a part of my daily existence, and were as really the subjects of
+my consciousness as the little bench on which I sat in the corner by
+my mother's knee, or the wheels and sticks and strings with which I
+amused myself upon the floor. I indeed recognized a striking difference
+between them and the things which I could feel and handle, but to me
+this difference was no more a matter of surprise than that which I
+observed between my mother and the black woman who so often came to
+work for her; or between my infant brother and the little spotted
+dog Brutus of which I was so fond. There was no time, or place, or
+circumstance, in which they did not occasionally make their appearance.
+Solitude and silence, however, were more favorable to their appearance
+than company and conversation. They were more pleased with candle-light
+than the daylight. They were most numerous, distinct, and active when
+I was alone and in the dark, especially when my mother had laid me in
+bed and returned to her own room with the candle. At such times, I
+always expected the company of my ćrial visitors, and counted upon it
+to amuse me till I dropped asleep. Whenever they failed to make their
+appearance, as was sometimes the case, I felt lonely and discontented.
+I kept up a lively conversation with them,--not by language or by
+signs, for the attempt on my part to speak or move would at once break
+the charm and drive them away in a fret, but by a peculiar sort of
+spiritual intercommunion.
+
+"When their attention was directed towards me, I could feel and respond
+to all their thoughts and feelings, and was conscious that they could
+in the same manner feel and respond to mine. Sometimes they would take
+no notice of me, but carry on a brisk conversation among themselves,
+principally by looks and gestures, with now and then an audible word.
+In fact, there were but few with whom I was very familiar. These few
+were much more constant and uniform in their visits than the great
+multitude, who were frequently changing, and too much absorbed in
+their own concerns to think much of me. I scarcely know how I can
+give an idea of their form and general appearance, for there are no
+objects in the material world with which I can compare them, and no
+language adapted to an accurate description of their peculiarities.
+They exhibited all possible combinations of size, shape, proportion,
+and color, but their most usual appearance was with the human form
+and proportion, but under a shadowy outline that seemed just ready to
+melt into the invisible air, and sometimes liable to the most sudden
+and grotesque changes, and with a uniform darkly bluish color spotted
+with brown, or brownish white. This was the general appearance of
+the multitude; but there were many exceptions to this description,
+particularly among my more welcome and familiar visitors, as will be
+seen in the sequel.
+
+"Besides these rational and generally harmless beings, there was
+another set of objects which never varied in their form or qualities,
+and were always mischievous and terrible. The fact of their appearance
+depended very much on the state of my health and feelings. If I was
+well and cheerful they seldom troubled me; but when sick or depressed
+they were sure to obtrude their hateful presence upon me. These were a
+sort of heavy clouds floating about overhead, of a black color, spotted
+with brown, in the shape of a very flaring inverted tunnel without a
+nozzle, and from ten to thirty or forty feet in diameter. They floated
+from place to place in great numbers, and in all directions, with a
+strong and steady progress, but with a tremulous, quivering, internal
+motion that agitated them in every part.
+
+"Whenever they approached, the rational phantoms were thrown into great
+consternation; and well it might be, for if a cloud touched any part of
+one of the rational phantoms it immediately communicated its own color
+and tremulous motion to the part it touched.
+
+"In spite of all the efforts and convulsive struggles of the unhappy
+victim, this color and motion slowly, but steadily and uninteruptedly,
+proceeded to diffuse itself over every part of the body, and as fast as
+it did so the body was drawn into the cloud and became a part of its
+substance. It was indeed a fearful sight to see the contortions, the
+agonizing efforts, of the poor creatures who had been touched by one of
+these awful clouds, and were dissolving and melting into it by inches
+without the possibility of escape or resistance.
+
+"This was the only visible object that had the least power over the
+phantoms, and this was evidently composed of the same material as
+themselves. The forms and actions of all these phantoms varied very
+much with the state of my health and animal spirits, but I never could
+discover that the surrounding material objects had any influence upon
+them, except in this one particular, namely, if I saw them in a neat,
+well furnished room, there was a neatness and polish in their form
+and motions; and, on the contrary, if I was in an unfinished, rough
+apartment, there was a corresponding rudeness and roughness in my ćrial
+visitors. A corresponding difference was visible when I saw them in the
+woods or in the meadows, upon the water or upon the ground, in the air
+or among the stars.
+
+"Every different apartment which I occupied had a different set of
+phantoms, and they always had a degree of correspondence to the
+circumstances in which they were seen. (It should be noted, however,
+that it was not so much the place where the phantoms themselves
+appeared to me to be, that affected their forms and movements, as the
+place in which I myself actually was while observing them. The apparent
+locality of the phantoms, it is true, had some influence, but my own
+actual locality had much more.)
+
+"Thus far I have attempted only a general outline of these curious
+experiences. I will now proceed to a detailed account of several
+particular incidents, for the sake of illustrating the general
+statements already made. I select a few from manifestations without
+number. I am able to ascertain dates from the following circumstances:--
+
+"I was born in April, 1802, and my father died in July, 1808, after
+suffering for more than a year from a lingering organic disease.
+Between two and three years before his death he removed from the house
+in which I was born to another at a little distance from it. What
+occurred, therefore, before my father's last sickness, must have taken
+place during the first five years of my life, and whatever took place
+before the removal of the family must have taken place during the
+first three years of my life. Before the removal of the family I slept
+in a small upper chamber in the front part of the house, where I was
+generally alone for several hours in the evening and morning. Adjoining
+this room, and opening into it by a very small door, was a low, dark,
+narrow, unfinished closet, which was open on the other side into a
+ruinous, old chaise-house. This closet was a famous place for the
+gambols of the phantoms, but of their forms and actions I do not now
+retain any very distinct recollection. I only remember that I was very
+careful not to do anything that I thought would be likely to offend
+them; yet otherwise their presence caused me no uneasiness, and was not
+at all disagreeable to me.
+
+"The first incident of which I have a distinct recollection was the
+following:--
+
+"One night, as I was lying alone in my chamber with my little dog
+Brutus snoring beside my bed, there came out of the closet a very
+large Indian woman and a very small Indian man, with a huge bass-viol
+between them. The woman was dressed in a large, loose, black gown,
+secured around her waist by a belt of the same material, and on her
+head she wore a high, dark gray fur cap, shaped somewhat like a lady's
+muff, ornamented with a row of covered buttons in front, and open
+towards the bottom, showing a red lining. The man was dressed in a
+shabby, black-colored overcoat and a little round, black hat that
+fitted closely to his head. They took no notice of me, but were rather
+ill-natured towards each other, and seemed to be disputing for the
+possession of the bass-viol. The man snatched it away and struck upon
+it a few harsh, hollow notes, which I distinctly heard, and which
+seemed to vibrate through my whole body, with a strange, stinging
+sensation. The woman then took it and appeared to play very intently
+and much to her own satisfaction, but without producing any sound that
+was perceptible by me. They soon left the chamber, and I saw them go
+down into the back kitchen, where they sat and played and talked with
+my mother. It was only when the man took the bow that I could hear the
+harsh, abrupt, disagreeable sounds of the instrument. At length they
+arose, went out of the back door, and sprang upon a large heap of straw
+and unthreshed beans, and disappeared with a strange, rumbling sound.
+This vision was repeated night after night with scarcely any variation
+while we lived in that house, and once, and once only, after the family
+had removed to the other house. The only thing that seemed to me
+unaccountable and that excited my curiosity was that there should be
+such a large heap of straw and beans before the door every night, when
+I could see nothing of it in the daytime. I frequently crept out of bed
+and stole softly down into the kitchen, and peeped out of the door to
+see if it was there very early in the morning.
+
+"I attempted to make some inquiries of my mother, but as I was not as
+yet very skillful in the use of language, I could get no satisfaction
+out of her answers, and could see that my questions seemed to distress
+her. At first she took little notice of what I said, regarding it
+no doubt as the meaningless prattle of a thoughtless child. My
+persistence, however, seemed to alarm her, and I suppose that she
+feared for my sanity. I soon desisted from asking anything further, and
+shut myself more and more within myself. One night, very soon after
+the removal, when the house was still, and all the family were in bed,
+these unearthly musicians once made their appearance in the kitchen of
+the new house, and after looking around peevishly, and sitting with a
+discontented frown and in silence, they arose and went out of the back
+door, and sprang on a pile of cornstalks, and I saw them no more.
+
+"Our new dwelling was a low-studded house of only one story, and,
+instead of an upper chamber, I now occupied a bedroom that opened into
+the kitchen. Within this bedroom, directly on the left hand of the
+door as you entered from the kitchen, was the staircase which led to
+the garret; and, as the room was unfinished, some of the boards which
+inclosed the staircase were too short, and left a considerable space
+between them and the ceiling. One of these open spaces was directly in
+front of my bed, so that when I lay upon my pillow my face was opposite
+to it. Every night, after I had gone to bed and the candle was removed,
+a very pleasant-looking human face would peer at me over the top of
+that board, and gradually press forward his head, neck, shoulders,
+and finally his whole body as far as the waist, through the opening,
+and then, smiling upon me with great good-nature, would withdraw in
+the same manner in which he had entered. He was a great favorite of
+mine; for though we neither of us spoke, we perfectly understood, and
+were entirely devoted to, each other. It is a singular fact that the
+features of this favorite phantom bore a very close resemblance to
+those of a boy older than myself whom I feared and hated: still the
+resemblance was so strong that I called him by the same name, Harvey.
+
+"Harvey's visits were always expected and always pleasant; but
+sometimes there were visitations of another sort, odious and frightful.
+One of these I will relate as a specimen of the rest.
+
+"One night, after I had retired to bed and was looking for Harvey,
+I observed an unusual number of the tunnel-shaped tremulous clouds
+already described, and they seemed intensely black and strongly
+agitated. This alarmed me exceedingly, and I had a terrible feeling
+that something awful was going to happen. It was not long before I saw
+Harvey at his accustomed place, cautiously peeping at me through the
+aperture, with an expression of pain and terror on his countenance.
+He seemed to warn me to be on my guard, but was afraid to put his
+head into the room lest he should be touched by one of the clouds,
+which were every moment growing thicker and more numerous. Harvey soon
+withdrew and left me alone. On turning my eyes towards the left-hand
+wall of the room, I thought I saw at an immense distance below me the
+regions of the damned, as I had heard them pictured in sermons. From
+this awful world of horror the tunnel-shaped clouds were ascending,
+and I perceived that they were the principal instruments of torture in
+these gloomy abodes. These regions were at such an immense distance
+below me that I could obtain but a very indistinct view of the
+inhabitants, who were very numerous and exceedingly active. Near the
+surface of the earth, and as it seemed to me but a little distance from
+my bed, I saw four or five sturdy, resolute devils endeavoring to carry
+off an unprincipled and dissipated man in the neighborhood, by the name
+of Brown, of whom I had stood in terror for years. These devils I saw
+were very different from the common representations. They had neither
+red faces, nor horns, nor hoofs, nor tails. They were in all respects
+stoutly built and well-dressed gentlemen. The only peculiarity that I
+noted in their appearance was as to their heads. Their faces and necks
+were perfectly bare, without hair or flesh, and of a uniform sky-blue
+color, like the ashes of burnt paper before it falls to pieces, and of
+a certain glossy smoothness.
+
+"As I looked on, full of eagerness, the devils struggled to force Brown
+down with them, and Brown struggled with the energy of desperation to
+save himself from their grip, and it seemed that the human was likely
+to prove too strong for the infernal. In this emergency one of the
+devils, panting for breath and covered with perspiration, beckoned to
+a strong, thick cloud that seemed to understand him perfectly, and,
+whirling up to Brown, touched his hand. Brown resisted stoutly, and
+struck out right and left at the cloud most furiously, but the usual
+effect was produced,--the hand grew black, quivered, and seemed to
+be melting into the cloud; then the arm, by slow degrees, and then
+the head and shoulders. At this instant Brown, collecting all his
+energies for one desperate effort, sprang at once into the centre of
+the cloud, tore it asunder, and descended to the ground, exclaiming,
+with a hoarse, furious voice that grated on my ear, 'There, I've got
+out; dam'me if I haven't!' This was the first word that had been spoken
+through the whole horrible scene. It was the first time I had ever
+seen a cloud fail to produce its appropriate result, and it terrified
+me so that I trembled from head to foot. The devils, however, did
+not seem to be in the least discouraged. One of them, who seemed to
+be the leader, went away and quickly returned bringing with him an
+enormous pair of rollers fixed in an iron frame, such as are used in
+iron-mills for the purpose of rolling out and slitting bars of iron,
+except instead of being turned by machinery, each roller was turned by
+an immense crank. Three of the devils now seized Brown and put his feet
+to the rollers, while two others stood, one at each crank, and began to
+roll him in with a steady strain that was entirely irresistible. Not
+a word was spoken, not a sound was heard; but the fearful struggles
+and terrified, agonizing looks of Brown were more than I could endure.
+I sprang from my bed and ran through the kitchen into the room where
+my parents slept, and entreated that they would permit me to spend
+the remainder of the night with them. After considerable parleying
+they assured me that nothing could hurt me, and advised me to go back
+to bed. I replied that I was not afraid of their hurting me, but I
+couldn't bear to see them acting so with C. Brown. 'Poh! poh! you
+foolish boy,' replied my father, sternly. 'You've only been dreaming;
+go right back to bed, or I shall have to whip you.' Knowing that there
+was no other alternative, I trudged back through the kitchen with all
+the courage I could muster, cautiously entered my room, where I found
+everything quiet, there being neither cloud, nor devil, nor anything of
+the kind to be seen, and getting into bed I slept quietly till morning.
+The next day I was rather sad and melancholy, but kept all my troubles
+to myself, through fear of Brown. This happened before my father's
+sickness, and consequently between the four and six years of my age.
+
+"During my father's sickness and after his death I lived with my
+grandmother; and when I had removed to her house I forever lost sight
+of Harvey. I still continued to sleep alone for the most part, but in
+a neatly furnished upper chamber. Across the corner of the chamber,
+opposite to and at a little distance from the head of my bed, there
+was a closet in the form of an old-fashioned buffet. After going to
+bed, on looking at the door of this closet, I could see at a great
+distance from it a pleasant meadow, terminated by a beautiful little
+grove. Out of this grove, and across this meadow, a charming little
+female figure would advance, about eight inches high and exquisitely
+proportioned, dressed in a loose black silk robe, with long, smooth
+black hair parted up her head and hanging loose over her shoulders.
+She would come forward with a slow and regular step, becoming more
+distinctly visible as she approached nearer, till she came even with
+the surface of the closet door, when she would smile upon me, raise her
+hands to her head and draw them down on each side of her face, suddenly
+turn round, and go off at a rapid trot. The moment she turned I could
+see a good-looking mulatto man, rather smaller than herself, following
+directly in her wake and trotting off after her. This was generally
+repeated two or three times before I went to sleep. The features of
+the mulatto bore some resemblance to those of the Indian man with the
+bass-viol, but were much more mild and agreeable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I awoke one bright, moonlight night, and found a large, full-length
+human skeleton of an ashy-blue color in bed with me! I screamed out
+with fright, and soon summoned the family around me. I refused to tell
+the cause of my alarm, but begged permission to occupy another bed,
+which was granted.
+
+"For the remainder of the night I slept but little; but I saw upon
+the window-stools companies of little fairies, about six inches high,
+in white robes, gamboling and dancing with incessant merriment.
+Two of them, a male and female, rather taller than the rest, were
+dignified with a crown and sceptre. They took the kindest notice of
+me, smiled upon me with great benignity, and seemed to assure me of
+their protection. I was soothed and cheered by their presence, though
+after all there was a sort of sinister and selfish expression in their
+countenances which prevented my placing implicit confidence in them.
+
+"Up to this time I had never doubted the real existence of these
+phantoms, nor had I ever suspected that other people had not seen
+them as distinctly as myself. I now, however, began to discover with
+no little anxiety that my friends had little or no knowledge of the
+ćrial beings among whom I have spent my whole life; that my allusions
+to them were not understood, and all complaints respecting them were
+laughed at. I had never been disposed to say much about them, and this
+discovery confirmed me in my silence. It did not, however, affect
+my own belief, or lead me to suspect that my imaginations were not
+realities.
+
+"During the whole of this period I took great pleasure in walking
+out alone, particularly in the evening. The most lonely fields, the
+woods, and the banks of the river, and other places most completely
+secluded, were my favorite resorts, for there I could enjoy the sight
+of innumerable ćrial beings of all sorts, without interruption.
+Every object, even every shaking leaf, seemed to me to be animated
+by some living soul, whose nature in some degree corresponded to its
+habitation. I spent much of my life in these solitary rambles; there
+were particular places to which I gave names, and visited them at
+regular intervals. Moonlight was particularly agreeable to me, but most
+of all I enjoyed a thick, foggy night. At times, during these walks,
+I would be excessively oppressed by an indefinite and deep feeling
+of melancholy. Without knowing why, I would be so unhappy as to wish
+myself annihilated, and suddenly it would occur to me that my friends
+at home were suffering some dreadful calamity, and so vivid would be
+the impression, that I would hasten home with all speed to see what
+had taken place. At such seasons I felt a morbid love for my friends
+that would almost burn up my soul, and yet, at the least provocation
+from them, I would fly into an uncontrollable passion and foam like a
+little fury. I was called a dreadful-tempered boy; but the Lord knows
+that I never occasioned pain to any animal, whether human or brutal,
+without suffering untold agonies in consequence of it. I cannot, even
+now, without feelings of deep sorrow, call to mind the alternate fits
+of corroding melancholy, irritation, and bitter remorse which I then
+endured. These fits of melancholy were most constant and oppressive
+during the autumnal months.
+
+"I very early learned to read, and soon became immoderately attached
+to books. In the Bible I read the first chapters of Job, and parts
+of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation, with most intense delight, and
+with such frequency that I could repeat large portions from memory
+long before the age at which boys in the country are usually able to
+read plain sentences. The first large book besides the Bible that
+I remember reading was Morse's 'History of New England,' which I
+devoured with insatiable greediness, particularly those parts which
+relate to Indian wars and witchcraft. I was in the habit of applying
+to my grandmother for explanations, and she would relate to me, while
+I listened with breathless attention, long stories from Mather's
+'Magnalia' or (Mag-nilly, as she used to call it), a work which I
+earnestly longed to read, but of which I never got sight till after my
+twentieth year. Very early there fell into my hands an old school-book,
+called 'The Art of Speaking,' containing numerous extracts from Milton
+and Shakespeare. There was little else in the book that interested
+me, but these extracts from the two great English poets, though there
+were many things in them that I did not well understand, I read again
+and again, with increasing pleasure at every perusal, till I had
+nearly committed them to memory, and almost thumbed the old book into
+nonentity. But of all the books that I read at this period, there was
+none that went to my heart like Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress.' I read
+it and re-read it night and day; I took it to bed with me and hugged it
+to my bosom while I slept; every different edition that I could find
+I seized upon and read with as eager a curiosity as if it had been a
+new story throughout; and I read with the unspeakable satisfaction of
+most devoutly believing that everything which 'Honest John' related
+was a real verity, an actual occurrence. Oh that I could read that
+most inimitable book once more with the same solemn conviction of its
+literal truth, that I might once more enjoy the same untold ecstacy!
+
+"One other remark it seems proper to make before I proceed further
+to details. The appearance, and especially the motions, of my ćrial
+visitors were intimately connected, either as cause or effect, I cannot
+determine which, with certain sensations of my own. Their countenances
+generally expressed pleasure or pain, complaisance or anger, according
+to the mood of my own mind: if they moved from place to place without
+moving their limbs, with that gliding motion appropriate to spirits, I
+felt in my stomach that peculiar tickling sensation which accompanies a
+rapid, progressive movement through the air; and if they went off with
+an uneasy trot, I felt an unpleasant jarring through my frame. Their
+appearance was always attended with considerable effort and fatigue
+on my part: the more distinct and vivid they were, the more would my
+fatigue be increased; and at such times my face was always pale, and my
+eyes unusually sparkling and wild. This continued to be the case after
+I became satisfied that it was all a delusion of the imagination, and
+it so continues to the present day."
+
+It is not surprising that Mrs. Stowe should have felt herself impelled
+to give literary form to an experience so exceptional. Still more
+must this be the case when the early associations of this exceptional
+character were as amusing and interesting as they are shown forth in
+"Oldtown Fireside Stories."
+
+None of the incidents or characters embodied in those sketches are
+ideal. The stories are told as they came from Mr. Stowe's lips, with
+little or no alteration. Sam Lawson was a real character. In 1874 Mr.
+Whittier wrote to Mrs. Stowe: "I am not able to write or study much,
+or read books that require thought, without suffering, but I have Sam
+Lawson lying at hand, and, as Corporal Trim said of Yorick's sermon, 'I
+like it hugely.'"
+
+The power and literary value of these stories lie in the fact that they
+are true to nature. Professor Stowe was himself an inimitable mimic
+and story-teller. No small proportion of Mrs. Stowe's success as a
+literary woman is to be attributed to him. Not only was he possessed of
+a bright, quick mind, but wonderful retentiveness of memory. Mrs. Stowe
+was never at a loss for reliable information on any subject as long as
+the professor lived. He belonged to that extinct species, the "general
+scholar." His scholarship was not critical in the modern sense of the
+word, but in the main accurate, in spite of his love for the marvelous.
+
+It is not out of place to give a little idea of his power in
+character-painting, as it shows how suggestive his conversation and
+letters must have been to a mind like that of Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+                             NATICK, _July 14, 1839._
+
+    I have had a real good time this week writing my
+    oration. I have strolled over my old walking places,
+    and found the same old stone walls, the same old
+    foot-paths through the rye-fields, the same bends in
+    the river, the same old bullfrogs with their green
+    spectacles on, the same old terrapins sticking up their
+    heads and bowing as I go by; and nothing was wanting
+    but my wife to talk with to make all complete.... I
+    have had some rare talks with old uncle "Jaw" Bacon,
+    and other old characters, which you ought to have
+    heard. The Curtises have been flooding Uncle "Jaw's"
+    meadows, and he is in a great stew about it. He says:
+    "I took and tell'd your Uncle Izic to tell them 'ere
+    Curtises that if the Devil didn't git 'em far flowing
+    my medder arter that sort, I didn't see no use o'
+    havin' any Devil." "Have you talked with the Curtises
+    yourself?" "Yes, hang the sarcy dogs! and they took
+    and tell'd me that they'd take and flow clean up to my
+    front door, and make me go out and in in a boat." "Why
+    don't you go to law?" "Oh, they keep alterin' and er
+    tinkerin'-up the laws so here in Massachusetts that a
+    body can't git no damage fur flowing; they think cold
+    water can't hurt nobody."
+
+    Mother and Aunt Nabby each keep separate
+    establishments. First Aunt Nabby gets up in the morning
+    and examines the sink, to see whether it leaks and
+    rots the beam. She then makes a little fire, gets her
+    little teapot of bright shining tin, and puts into it a
+    teaspoonful of black tea, and so prepares her breakfast.
+
+    By this time mother comes creeping down-stairs, like
+    an old tabby-cat out of the ash-hole; and she kind o'
+    doubts and reckons whether or no she had better try to
+    git any breakfast, bein' as she's not much appetite
+    this mornin'; but she goes to the leg of bacon and cuts
+    off a little slice, reckons sh'll broil it; then goes
+    and looks at the coffee-pot and reckons sh'll have a
+    little coffee; don't exactly know whether it's good
+    for her, but she don't drink much. So while Aunt Nabby
+    is sitting sipping her tea and munching her bread and
+    butter with a matter-of-fact certainty and marvelous
+    satisfaction, mother goes doubting and reckoning round,
+    like Mrs. Diffidence in Doubting Castle, till you see
+    rising up another little table in another corner of the
+    room, with a good substantial structure of broiled ham
+    and coffee, and a boiled egg or two, with various et
+    ceteras, which Mrs. Diffidence, after many desponding
+    ejaculations, finally sits down to, and in spite of
+    all presentiments makes them fly as nimbly as Mr.
+    Ready-to-Halt did Miss Much-afraid when he footed it
+    so well with her on his crutches in the dance on the
+    occasion of Giant Despair's overthrow.
+
+    I have thus far dined alternately with mother and Aunt
+    Susan, not having yet been admitted to Aunt Nabby's
+    establishment. There are now great talkings, and
+    congresses and consultations of the allied powers,
+    and already rumors are afloat that perhaps all will
+    unite their forces and dine at one table, especially
+    as Harriet and little Hattie are coming, and there is
+    no knowing what might come out in the papers if there
+    should be anything a little odd.
+
+    Mother is very well, thin as a hatchet and smart as
+    a steel trap; Aunt Nabby, fat and easy as usual; for
+    since the sink is mended, and no longer leaks and rots
+    the beam, and she has nothing to do but watch it,
+    and Uncle Bill has joined the Washingtonians and no
+    longer drinks rum, she is quite at a loss for topics of
+    worriment.
+
+    Uncle Ike has had a little touch of palsy and is rather
+    feeble. He says that his legs and arms have rather
+    gi'n out, but his head and pluck are as good as they
+    ever were. I told him that our sister Kate was very
+    much in the same fix, whereat he was considerably
+    affected, and opened the crack in his great pumpkin of
+    a face, displaying the same two rows of great white
+    ivories which have been my admiration from my youth
+    up. He is sixty-five years of age, and has never lost
+    a tooth, and was never in his life more than fifteen
+    miles from the spot where he was born, except once, in
+    the ever-memorable year 1819, when I was at Bradford
+    Academy.
+
+    In a sudden glow of adventurous rashness he undertook
+    to go after me and bring me home for vacation; and he
+    actually performed the whole journey of thirty miles
+    with his horse and wagon, and slept at a tavern a whole
+    night, a feat of bravery on which he has never since
+    ceased to plume himself. I well remember that awful
+    night in the tavern in the remote region of North
+    Andover. We occupied a chamber in which were two beds.
+    In the unsuspecting innocence of youth I undressed
+    myself and got into bed as usual; but my brave and
+    thoughtful uncle, merely divesting himself of his coat,
+    put it under his pillow, and then threw himself on to
+    the bed with his boots on his feet, and his two hands
+    resting on the rim of his hat, which he had prudently
+    placed on the apex of his stomach as he lay on his
+    back. He wouldn't allow me to blow out the candle,
+    but he lay there with his great white eyes fixed on
+    the ceiling, in the cool, determined manner of a bold
+    man who had made up his mind to face danger and meet
+    whatever might befall him. We escaped, however, without
+    injury, the doughty landlord and his relentless sons
+    merely demanding pay for supper, lodging, horse-feed,
+    and breakfast, which my valiant uncle, betraying no
+    signs of fear, resolutely paid.
+
+Mrs. Stowe has woven this incident into chapter thirty-two of "Oldtown
+Folks," where Uncle Ike figures as Uncle Jacob.
+
+Mrs. Stowe had misgivings as to the reception which "Oldtown Folks"
+would meet in England, owing to its distinctively New England
+character. Shortly after the publication of the book she received the
+following words of encouragement from Mrs. Lewes (George Eliot), July
+11, 1869:--
+
+"I have received and read 'Oldtown Folks.' I think that few of your
+readers can have felt more interest than I have felt in that picture
+of an elder generation; for my interest in it has a double root,--one
+in my own love for our old-fashioned provincial life, which had its
+affinities with a contemporary life, even all across the Atlantic,
+and of which I have gathered glimpses in different phases from my
+father and mother, with their relations; the other is my experimental
+acquaintance with some shades of Calvinistic orthodoxy. I think your
+way of presenting the religious convictions which are not your own,
+except by the way of indirect fellowship, is a triumph of insight and
+true tolerance.... Both Mr. Lewes and I are deeply interested in the
+indications which the professor gives of his peculiar psychological
+experience, and we should feel it a great privilege to learn much more
+of it from his lips. It is a rare thing to have such an opportunity of
+studying exceptional experience in the testimony of a truthful and in
+every way distinguished mind."
+
+"Oldtown Folks" is of interest as being undoubtedly the last of Mrs.
+Stowe's works which will outlive the generation for which it was
+written. Besides its intrinsic merit as a work of fiction, it has a
+certain historic value as being a faithful study of "New England life
+and character in that particular time of its history which may be
+called the seminal period."
+
+Whether Mrs. Stowe was far enough away from the time and people she
+attempts to describe to "make (her) mind as still and passive as
+a looking-glass or a mountain lake, and to give merely the images
+reflected there," is something that will in great part determine the
+permanent value of this work. Its interest as a story merely is of
+course ephemeral.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE BYRON CONTROVERSY, 1869-1870.
+
+    MRS. STOWE'S STATEMENT OF HER OWN CASE.--THE
+    CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH SHE FIRST MET LADY
+    BYRON.--LETTERS TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER TO DR. HOLMES
+    WHEN ABOUT TO PUBLISH "THE TRUE STORY OF LADY BYRON'S
+    LIFE" IN THE "ATLANTIC."--DR. HOLMES'S REPLY.--THE
+    CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER.
+
+
+IT seems impossible to avoid the unpleasant episode in Mrs. Stowe's
+life known as the "Byron Controversy." It will be our effort to deal
+with the matter as colorlessly as is consistent with an adequate
+setting forth of the motives which moved Mrs. Stowe to awaken this
+unsavory discussion. In justification of her action in this matter,
+Mrs. Stowe says:--
+
+"What interest have you and I, my brother and my sister, in this short
+life of ours, to utter anything but the truth? Is not truth between man
+and man, and between man and woman, the foundation on which all things
+rest? Have you not, every individual of you, who must hereafter give
+an account yourself alone to God, an interest to know the exact truth
+in this matter, and a duty to perform as respects that truth? Hear me,
+then, while I tell you the position in which I stood, and what was my
+course in relation to it.
+
+"A shameless attack on my friend's memory had appeared in the
+'Blackwood' of July, 1869, branding Lady Byron as the vilest of
+criminals, and recommending the Guiccioli book to a Christian public
+as interesting from the very fact that it was the avowed production
+of Lord Byron's mistress. No efficient protest was made against
+this outrage in England, and Littell's 'Living Age' reprinted the
+'Blackwood' article, and the Harpers, the largest publishing house in
+America, perhaps in the world, republished the book.
+
+"Its statements--with those of the 'Blackwood,' 'Pall Mall Gazette,'
+and other English periodicals--were being propagated through all
+the young reading and writing world of America. I was meeting them
+advertised in dailies, and made up into articles in magazines, and thus
+the generation of to-day, who had no means of judging Lady Byron but by
+these fables of her slanderers, were being foully deceived. The friends
+who knew her personally were a small, select circle in England, whom
+death is every day reducing. They were few in number compared with the
+great world, and were _silent_. I saw these foul slanders crystallizing
+into history, uncontradicted by friends who knew her personally, who,
+firm in their own knowledge of her virtues, and limited in view as
+aristocratic circles generally are, had no idea of the width of the
+world they were living in, and the exigency of the crisis. When time
+passed on and no voice was raised, I spoke."
+
+It is hardly necessary to recapitulate, at any great length, facts
+already so familiar to the reading public; it may be sufficient simply
+to say that after the appearance in 1868 of the Countess Guiccioli's
+"Recollections of Lord Byron," Mrs. Stowe felt herself called upon
+to defend the memory of her friend from what she esteemed to be
+falsehoods and slanders. To accomplish this object, she prepared for
+the "Atlantic Monthly" of September, 1869, an article, "The True Story
+of Lady Byron's Life." Speaking of her first impressions of Lady Byron,
+Mrs. Stowe says:--
+
+"I formed her acquaintance in the year 1853, during my first visit to
+England. I met her at a lunch party in the house of one of her friends.
+When I was introduced to her, I felt in a moment the words of her
+husband:--
+
+    "'There was awe in the homage that she drew;
+      Her spirit seemed as seated on a throne.'"
+
+It was in the fall of 1856, on the occasion of Mrs. Stowe's second
+visit to England, as she and her sister were on their way to Eversley
+to visit the Rev. C. Kingsley, that they stopped by invitation to lunch
+with Lady Byron at her summer residence at Ham Common, near Richmond.
+At that time Lady Byron informed Mrs. Stowe that it was her earnest
+desire to receive a visit from her on her return, as there was a
+subject of great importance concerning which she desired her advice.
+Mrs. Stowe has thus described this interview with Lady Byron:--
+
+"After lunch, I retired with Lady Byron, and my sister remained with
+her friends. I should here remark that the chief subject of the
+conversation which ensued was not entirely new to me.
+
+"In the interval between my first and second visits to England, a lady
+who for many years had enjoyed Lady Byron's friendship and confidence
+had, with her consent, stated the case generally to me, giving some of
+the incidents, so that I was in a manner prepared for what followed.
+
+"Those who accuse Lady Byron of being a person fond of talking upon
+this subject, and apt to make unconsidered confidences, can have known
+very little of her, of her reserve, and of the apparent difficulty she
+had in speaking on subjects nearest her heart. Her habitual calmness
+and composure of manner, her collected dignity on all occasions, are
+often mentioned by her husband, sometimes with bitterness, sometimes
+with admiration. He says: 'Though I accuse Lady Byron of an excess of
+self-respect, I must in candor admit that, if ever a person had excuse
+for an extraordinary portion of it, she has, as in all her thoughts,
+words, and deeds she is the most decorous woman that ever existed, and
+must appear, what few I fancy could, a perfectly refined gentlewoman,
+even to her _femme de chambre_.'
+
+"This calmness and dignity were never more manifested than in this
+interview. In recalling the conversation at this distance of time, I
+cannot remember all the language used. Some particular words and forms
+of expression I do remember, and those I give; and in other cases I
+give my recollection of the substance of what was said.
+
+"There was something awful to me in the intensity of repressed emotion
+which she showed as she proceeded. The great fact upon which all turned
+was stated in words that were unmistakable."
+
+Mrs. Stowe goes on to give minutely Lady Byron's conversation, and
+concludes by saying:--
+
+    Of course I did not listen to this story as one who
+    was investigating its worth. I received it as truth,
+    and the purpose for which it was communicated was not
+    to enable me to prove it to the world, but to ask
+    my opinion whether she should show it to the world
+    before leaving it. The whole consultation was upon the
+    assumption that she had at her command such proofs as
+    could not be questioned. Concerning what they were I
+    did not minutely inquire, only, in answer to a general
+    question, she said that she had letters and documents
+    in proof of her story. Knowing Lady Byron's strength
+    of mind, her clear-headedness, her accurate habits,
+    and her perfect knowledge of the matter, I considered
+    her judgment on this point decisive. I told her that
+    I would take the subject into consideration and give
+    my opinion in a few days. That night, after my sister
+    and myself had retired to our own apartment, I related
+    to her the whole history, and we spent the night in
+    talking it over. I was powerfully impressed with the
+    justice and propriety of an immediate disclosure;
+    while she, on the contrary, represented the fatal
+    consequences that would probably come upon Lady Byron
+    from taking such a step.
+
+    Before we parted the next day, I requested Lady Byron
+    to give me some memoranda of such dates and outlines
+    of the general story as would enable me better to keep
+    it in its connection, which she did. On giving me the
+    paper, Lady Byron requested me to return it to her
+    when it had ceased to be of use to me for the purpose
+    intended. Accordingly, a day or two after, I inclosed
+    it to her in a hasty note, as I was then leaving London
+    for Paris, and had not yet had time fully to consider
+    the subject. On reviewing my note I can recall that
+    then the whole history appeared to me like one of those
+    singular cases where unnatural impulses to vice are
+    the result of a taint of constitutional insanity. This
+    has always seemed to me the only way of accounting for
+    instances of utterly motiveless and abnormal wickedness
+    and cruelty. These, my first impressions, were
+    expressed in the hasty note written at the time:
+
+                                LONDON, _November 5, 1856._
+
+    DEAREST FRIEND,--I return these. They have held mine
+    eyes waking. How strange! How unaccountable! Have you
+    ever subjected the facts to the judgment of a medical
+    man, learned in nervous pathology? Is it not insanity?
+
+    "Great wits to madness nearly are allied,
+     And thin partitions do their bounds divide."
+
+    But my purpose to-night is not to write to you fully
+    what I think of this matter. I am going to write to you
+    from Paris more at leisure.
+
+    (The rest of the letter was taken up in the final
+    details of a charity in which Lady Byron had been
+    engaged with me in assisting an unfortunate artist. It
+    concludes thus:)
+
+    I write now in all haste, _en route_ for Paris. As to
+    America, all is not lost yet. Farewell. I love you, my
+    dear friend, as never before, with an intense feeling
+    that I cannot easily express. God bless you.
+
+                                             H. B. S.
+
+The next letter is as follows:--
+
+                              PARIS, _December 17, 1856._
+
+    DEAR LADY BYRON,--The Kansas Committee have written
+    me a letter desiring me to express to Miss ---- their
+    gratitude for the five pounds she sent them. I am not
+    personally acquainted with her, and must return these
+    acknowledgments through you.
+
+    I wrote you a day or two since, inclosing the reply of
+    the Kansas Committee to you.
+
+    On that subject on which you spoke to me the last time
+    we were together, I have thought often and deeply.
+    I have changed my mind somewhat. Considering the
+    peculiar circumstances of the case, I could wish that
+    the sacred veil of silence, so bravely thrown over the
+    past, should never be withdrawn during the time that
+    you remain with us. I would say then, leave all with
+    some discreet friends, who, after both have passed
+    from earth, shall say what was due to justice. I am
+    led to think this by seeing how low, how unworthy, the
+    judgments of this world are; and I would not that what
+    I so much respect, love, and revere should be placed
+    within reach of its harpy claw, which pollutes what
+    it touches. The day will yet come which will bring to
+    light every hidden thing. "There is nothing covered
+    that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not
+    be known;" and so justice will not fail.
+
+    Such, my dear friend, are my thoughts; different from
+    what they were since first I heard that strange, sad
+    history. Meanwhile I love you forever, whether we meet
+    again on earth or not.
+
+                                Affectionately yours,
+                                                H. B. S.
+
+Before her article appeared in print, Mrs. Stowe addressed the
+following letter to Dr. Holmes in Boston:--
+
+                                 HARTFORD, _June 26, 1869._
+
+    DEAR DOCTOR,--I am going to ask help of you, and I feel
+    that confidence in your friendship that leads me to be
+    glad that I have a friend like you to ask advice of. In
+    order that you may understand fully what it is, I must
+    go back some years and tell you about it.
+
+    When I went to England the first time, I formed a
+    friendship with Lady Byron which led to a somewhat
+    interesting correspondence. When there the second
+    time, after the publication of "Dred" in 1856, Lady
+    Byron wrote to me that she wished to have some private
+    confidential conversation with me, and invited me to
+    come spend a day with her at her country-seat near
+    London. I went, met her alone, and spent an afternoon
+    with her. The object of the visit she then explained
+    to me. She was in such a state of health that she
+    considered she had very little time to live, and
+    was engaged in those duties and reviews which every
+    thoughtful person finds who is coming deliberately, and
+    with their eyes open, to the boundaries of this mortal
+    life.
+
+    Lady Byron, as you must perceive, has all her life
+    lived under a weight of slanders and false imputations
+    laid upon her by her husband. Her own side of the story
+    has been told only to that small circle of confidential
+    friends who needed to know it in order to assist her
+    in meeting the exigencies which it imposed on her.
+    Of course it has thrown the sympathy mostly on his
+    side, since the world generally has more sympathy with
+    impulsive incorrectness than with strict justice.
+
+    At that time there was a cheap edition of Byron's
+    works in contemplation, meant to bring them into
+    circulation among the masses, and the pathos arising
+    from the story of his domestic misfortunes was one
+    great means relied on for giving it currency.
+
+    Under these circumstances some of Lady Byron's friends
+    had proposed the question to her whether she had not a
+    responsibility to society for the truth; whether she
+    did right to allow these persons to gain influence
+    over the popular mind by a silent consent to an utter
+    falsehood. As her whole life had been passed in the
+    most heroic self-abnegation and self sacrifice, the
+    question was now proposed to her whether one more act
+    of self-denial was not required of her, namely, to
+    declare _the truth_, no matter at what expense to her
+    own feelings.
+
+    For this purpose she told me she wished to recount the
+    whole story to a person in whom she had confidence,--a
+    person of another country, and out of the whole sphere
+    of personal and local feelings which might be supposed
+    to influence those in the country and station in life
+    where the events really happened,--in order that I
+    might judge whether anything more was required of her
+    in relation to this history.
+
+    The interview had almost the solemnity of a death-bed
+    confession, and Lady Byron told me the history which I
+    have embodied in an article to appear in the "Atlantic
+    Monthly." I have been induced to prepare it by the run
+    which the Guiccioli book is having, which is from first
+    to last an unsparing attack on Lady Byron's memory by
+    Lord Byron's mistress.
+
+    When you have read my article, I want, _not_ your
+    advice as to whether the main facts shall be told, for
+    on this point I am so resolved that I frankly say
+    advice would do me no good. But you might help me,
+    with your delicacy and insight, to make the _manner of
+    telling_ more perfect, and I want to do it as wisely
+    and well as such story can be told.
+
+    My post-office address after July 1st will be Westport
+    Point, Bristol Co., Mass., care of Mrs. I. M. Soule.
+    The proof-sheets will be sent you by the publisher.
+
+                                     Very truly yours,
+                                               H. B. STOWE.
+
+In reply to the storm of controversy aroused by the publication of this
+article, Mrs. Stowe made a more extended effort to justify the charges
+which she had brought against Lord Byron, in a work published in 1869,
+"Lady Byron Vindicated." Immediately after the publication of this
+work, she mailed a copy to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, accompanied by
+the following note:--
+
+                                 BOSTON, _May 19, 1869._
+
+    DEAR DOCTOR,--... In writing this book, which I now
+    take the liberty of sending to you, I have been in
+    ... a "critical place." It has been a strange, weird
+    sort of experience, and I have had not a word to say
+    to anybody, though often thinking of you and wishing
+    I could have a little of your help and sympathy in
+    getting out what I saw. I think of you very much, and
+    rejoice to see the _hold_ your works get on England
+    as well as this country, and I would give more for
+    your opinion than that of most folks. How often I have
+    pondered your last letter to me, and sent it to many
+    (friends)! God bless you. Please accept for yourself
+    and your good wife, this copy.
+
+                           From yours truly,
+                                      H. B. STOWE.
+
+Mrs. Stowe also published in 1870, through Sampson Low & Son, of
+London, a volume for English readers, "The History of the Byron
+Controversy." These additional volumes, however, do not seem to have
+satisfied the public as a whole, and perhaps the expediency of the
+publication of Mrs. Stowe's first article is doubtful, even to her most
+ardent admirers. The most that can be hoped for, through the mention
+of the subject in this biography, is the vindication of Mrs. Stowe's
+purity of motive and nobility of intention in bringing this painful
+matter into notice.
+
+While she was being on all hands effectively, and evidently in some
+quarters with rare satisfaction, roundly abused for the article, and
+her consequent responsibility in bringing this unsavory discussion so
+prominently before the public mind, she received the following letter
+from Dr. O. W. Holmes:--
+
+                               BOSTON, _September 25, 1869._
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I have been meaning to write to
+    you for some time, but in the midst of all the wild and
+    virulent talk about the article in the "Atlantic," I
+    felt as if there was little to say until the first fury
+    of the storm had blown over.
+
+    I think that we all perceive now that the battle is
+    not to be fought here, but in England. I have listened
+    to a good deal of talk, always taking your side in a
+    quiet way, backed very heartily on one occasion by
+    one of my most intellectual friends, reading all that
+    came in my way, and watching the course of opinion.
+    And first, it was to be expected that the Guiccioli
+    fanciers would resent any attack on Lord Byron, and
+    would highly relish the opportunity of abusing one who,
+    like yourself, had been identified with all those moral
+    enterprises which elevate the standard of humanity at
+    large, and of womanhood in particular. After this scum
+    had worked itself off, there must necessarily follow a
+    controversy, none the less sharp and bitter, but not
+    depending essentially on abuse. The first point the
+    recusants got hold of was the error of the two years
+    which contrived to run the gauntlet of so many pairs
+    of eyes. Some of them were made happy by mouthing and
+    shaking this between their teeth, as a poodle tears
+    round with a glove. This did not last long. No sensible
+    person could believe for a moment you were mistaken in
+    the essential character of a statement every word of
+    which would fall on the ear of a listening friend like
+    a drop of melted lead, and burn its scar deep into the
+    memory. That Lady Byron believed and told you the story
+    will not be questioned by any but fools and malignants.
+    Whether her belief was well founded there may be
+    positive evidence in existence to show affirmatively.
+    The fact that her statement is not peremptorily
+    contradicted by those most likely to be acquainted
+    with the facts of the case, is the one result so far
+    which is forcing itself into unwilling recognition. I
+    have seen nothing, in the various hypotheses brought
+    forward, which did not to me involve a greater
+    improbability than the presumption of guilt. Take
+    that, for witness, that Byron accused himself, through
+    a spirit of perverse vanity, of crimes he had not
+    committed. How preposterous! He would stain the name of
+    a sister, whom, on the supposition of his innocence,
+    he loved with angelic ardor as well as purity, by
+    associating it with such an infamous accusation.
+    Suppose there are some anomalies hard to explain in
+    Lady Byron's conduct. Could a young and guileless
+    woman, in the hands of such a man, be expected to
+    act in any given way, or would she not be likely to
+    waver, to doubt, to hope, to contradict herself, in the
+    anomalous position in which, without experience, she
+    found herself?
+
+    As to the intrinsic evidence contained in the poems,
+    I think it confirms rather than contradicts the
+    hypothesis of guilt. I do not think that Butler's
+    argument, and all the other attempts at invalidation of
+    the story, avail much in the face of the acknowledged
+    fact that it was told to various competent and honest
+    witnesses, and remains without a satisfactory answer
+    from those most interested.
+
+    I know your firm self-reliance, and your courage to
+    proclaim the truth when any good end is to be served
+    by it. It is to be expected that public opinion will
+    be more or less divided as to the expediency of this
+    revelation....
+
+    Hoping that you have recovered from your indisposition,
+    I am
+
+                               Faithfully yours,
+                                        O. W. HOLMES.
+
+While undergoing the most unsparing and pitiless criticism and brutal
+insult, Mrs. Stowe received the following sympathetic words from Mrs.
+Lewes (George Eliot):--
+
+           THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, _December 10, 1869._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,-- ... In the midst of your trouble I
+    was often thinking of you, for I feared that you were
+    undergoing a considerable trial from the harsh and
+    unfair judgments, partly the fruit of hostility glad
+    to find an opportunity for venting itself, and partly
+    of that unthinking cruelty which belongs to hasty
+    anonymous journalism. For my own part, I should have
+    preferred that the Byron question should never have
+    been brought before the public, because I think the
+    discussion of such subjects is injurious socially. But
+    with regard to yourself, dear friend, I feel sure that,
+    in acting on a different basis of impressions, you were
+    impelled by pure, generous feeling. Do not think that
+    I would have written to you of this point to express a
+    judgment. I am anxious only to convey to you a sense
+    of my sympathy and confidence, such as a kiss and a
+    pressure of the hand could give if I were near you.
+
+    I trust that I shall hear a good account of Professor
+    Stowe's health, as well as your own, whenever you
+    have time to write me a word or two. I shall not be
+    so unreasonable as to expect a long letter, for the
+    hours of needful rest from writing become more and more
+    precious as the years go on, but some brief news of
+    you and yours will be especially welcome just now. Mr.
+    Lewes unites with me in high regards to your husband
+    and yourself, but in addition to that I have the sister
+    woman's privilege of saying that I am always
+
+                            Your affectionate friend,
+                                            M. H. LEWES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+GEORGE ELIOT.
+
+    CORRESPONDENCE WITH GEORGE ELIOT.--GEORGE ELIOT'S FIRST
+    IMPRESSIONS OF MRS. STOWE.--MRS. STOWE'S LETTER TO MRS.
+    FOLLEN.--GEORGE ELIOT'S LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--MRS.
+    STOWE'S REPLY.--LIFE IN FLORIDA.--ROBERT DALE OWEN AND
+    MODERN SPIRITUALISM.--GEORGE ELIOT'S LETTER ON THE
+    PHENOMENA OF SPIRITUALISM.--MRS. STOWE'S DESCRIPTION
+    OF SCENERY IN FLORIDA.--MRS. STOWE CONCERNING
+    "MIDDLEMARCH."--GEORGE ELIOT TO MRS. STOWE DURING REV.
+    H. W. BEECHER'S TRIAL.--MRS. STOWE CONCERNING HER LIFE
+    EXPERIENCE WITH HER BROTHER, H. W. BEECHER, AND HIS
+    TRIAL.--MRS. LEWES' LAST LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--DIVERSE
+    MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THESE TWO WOMEN.--MRS.
+    STOWE'S FINAL ESTIMATE OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM.
+
+
+IT is with a feeling of relief that we turn from one of the most
+disagreeable experiences of Mrs. Stowe's life to one of the most
+delightful, namely, the warm friendship of one of the most eminent
+women of this age, George Eliot.
+
+There seems to have been some deep affinity of feeling that drew them
+closely together in spite of diversity of intellectual tastes.
+
+George Eliot's attention was first personally attracted to Mrs. Stowe
+in 1853, by means of a letter which the latter had written to Mrs.
+Follen. Speaking of this incident she (George Eliot) writes: "Mrs.
+Follen showed me a delightful letter which she has just had from Mrs.
+Stowe, telling all about herself. She begins by saying, 'I am a little
+bit of a woman, rather more than forty, as withered and dry as a pinch
+of snuff; never very well worth looking at in my best days, and now a
+decidedly used-up article.' The whole letter is most fascinating, and
+makes one love her."[17]
+
+The correspondence between these two notable women was begun by Mrs.
+Stowe, and called forth the following extremely interesting letter from
+the distinguished English novelist:--
+
+               THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, _May 8, 1869._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--I value very highly the warrant to
+    call you friend which your letter has given me. It
+    lay awaiting me on our return the other night from a
+    nine weeks' absence in Italy, and it made me almost
+    wish that you could have a momentary vision of the
+    discouragement,--nay, paralyzing despondency--in which
+    many days of my writing life have been passed, in order
+    that you might fully understand the good I find in such
+    sympathy as yours, in such an assurance as you give me
+    that my work has been worth doing. But I will not dwell
+    on any mental sickness of mine. The best joy your words
+    give me is the sense of that sweet, generous feeling in
+    you which dictated them. I shall always be the richer
+    because you have in this way made me know you better. I
+    must tell you that my first glimpse of you as a woman
+    came through a letter of yours, and charmed me very
+    much. The letter was addressed to Mrs. Follen, and
+    one morning I called on her in London (how many years
+    ago!); she was kind enough to read it to me, because it
+    contained a little history of your life, and a sketch
+    of your domestic circumstances. I remember thinking
+    that it was very kind of you to write that long letter,
+    in reply to inquiries of one who was personally unknown
+    to you; and, looking back with my present experience,
+    I think it was kinder than it then appeared, for at
+    that time you must have been much oppressed with the
+    immediate results of your fame. I remember, too, that
+    you wrote of your husband as one who was richer in
+    Hebrew and Greek than in pounds or shillings; and as an
+    ardent scholar has always been a character of peculiar
+    interest to me, I have rarely had your image in my mind
+    without the accompanying image (more or less erroneous)
+    of such a scholar by your side. I shall welcome the
+    fruit of his Goethe studies, whenever it comes.
+
+    I have good hopes that your fears are groundless as
+    to the obstacles your new book ("Oldtown Folks") may
+    find here from its thorough American character. Most
+    readers who are likely to be really influenced by
+    writing above the common order will find that special
+    aspect an added reason for interest and study; and
+    I dare say you have long seen, as I am beginning to
+    see with new clearness, that if a book which has any
+    sort of exquisiteness happens also to be a popular,
+    widely circulated book, the power over the social mind
+    for any good is, after all, due to its reception by a
+    few appreciative natures, and is the slow result of
+    radiation from that narrow circle. I mean that you can
+    affect a few souls, and that each of these in turn may
+    affect a few more, but that no exquisite book tells
+    properly and directly on a multitude, however largely
+    it may be spread by type and paper. Witness the things
+    the multitude will say about it, if one is so unhappy
+    as to be obliged to hear their sayings. I do not
+    write this cynically, but in pure sadness and pity.
+    Both traveling abroad and staying at home among our
+    English sights and sports, one must continually feel
+    how slowly the centuries work toward the moral good of
+    men, and that thought lies very close to what you say
+    as to your wonder or conjecture concerning my religious
+    point of view. I believe that religion, too, has to
+    be modified according to the dominant phases; that
+    a religion more perfect than any yet prevalent must
+    express less care of personal consolation, and the more
+    deeply awing sense of responsibility to man springing
+    from sympathy with that which of all things is most
+    certainly known to us,--the difficulty of the human
+    lot. Letters are necessarily narrow and fragmentary,
+    and when one writes on wide subjects, are likely to
+    create more misunderstanding than illumination. But I
+    have little anxiety in writing to you, dear friend and
+    fellow-laborer; for you have had longer experience than
+    I as a writer, and fuller experience as a woman, since
+    you have borne children and known a mother's history
+    from the beginning. I trust your quick and long-taught
+    mind as an interpreter little liable to mistake me.
+
+    When you say, "We live in an orange grove, and are
+    planting many more," and when I think you must have
+    abundant family love to cheer you, it seems to me
+    that you must have a paradise about you. But no list
+    of circumstances will make a paradise. Nevertheless,
+    I must believe that the joyous, tender humor of your
+    books clings about your more immediate life, and
+    makes some of that sunshine for yourself which you
+    have given to us. I see the advertisement of "Oldtown
+    Folks," and shall eagerly expect it. That and every
+    other new link between us will be reverentially valued.
+    With great devotion and regard,
+
+                                      Yours always,
+                                                M. L. LEWES.
+
+Mrs. Stowe writes from Mandarin to George Eliot:--
+
+                              MANDARIN, _February 8, 1872._
+
+    DEAR FRIEND,--It is two years nearly since I had your
+    last very kind letter, and I have never answered,
+    because two years of constant and severe work have made
+    it impossible to give a drop to anything beyond the
+    needs of the hour. Yet I have always thought of you,
+    loved you, trusted you all the same, and read every
+    little scrap from your writing that came to hand.
+
+    One thing brings you back to me. I am now in Florida
+    in my little hut in the orange orchard, with the broad
+    expanse of the blue St. John's in front, and the
+    waving of the live-oaks, with their long, gray mosses,
+    overhead, and the bright gold of oranges looking
+    through dusky leaves around. It is like Sorrento,--so
+    like that I can quite dream of being there. And when I
+    get here I enter another life. The world recedes; I am
+    out of it; it ceases to influence; its bustle and noise
+    die away in the far distance; and here is no winter, an
+    open-air life,--a quaint, rude, wild wilderness sort of
+    life, both rude and rich; but when I am here I write
+    more letters to friends than ever I do elsewhere. The
+    mail comes only twice a week, and then is the event
+    of the day. My old rabbi and I here set up our tent,
+    he with German, and Greek, and Hebrew, devouring all
+    sorts of black-letter books, and I spinning ideal webs
+    out of bits that he lets fall here and there.
+
+    I have long thought that I would write you again when I
+    got here, and so I do. I have sent North to have them
+    send me the "Harper's Weekly," in which your new story
+    is appearing, and have promised myself leisurely to
+    devour and absorb every word of it.
+
+    While I think of it I want to introduce to you a friend
+    of mine, a most noble man, Mr. Owen, for some years our
+    ambassador at Naples, now living a literary and scholar
+    life in America. His father was Robert Dale Owen, the
+    theorist and communist you may have heard of in England
+    some years since.
+
+    Years ago, in Naples, I visited Mr. Owen for the
+    first time, and found him directing his attention
+    to the phenomena of spiritism. He had stumbled upon
+    some singular instances of it accidentally, and he
+    had forthwith instituted a series of researches and
+    experiments on the subject, some of which he showed me.
+    It was the first time I had ever seriously thought of
+    the matter, and he invited my sister and myself to see
+    some of the phenomena as exhibited by a medium friend
+    of theirs who resided in their family. The result at
+    the time was sufficiently curious, but I was interested
+    in his account of the manner in which he proceeded,
+    keeping records of every experiment with its results,
+    in classified orders. As the result of his studies
+    and observations, he has published two books, one
+    "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," published
+    in 1860, and latterly, "The Debatable Land Between this
+    World and the Next." I regard Mr. Owen as one of the
+    few men who are capable of entering into an inquiry of
+    this kind without an utter drowning of common sense,
+    and his books are both of them worth a fair reading. To
+    me they present a great deal that is intensely curious
+    and interesting, although I do not admit, of course,
+    all his deductions, and think he often takes too much
+    for granted. Still, with every abatement there remains
+    a residuum of fact, which I think both curious and
+    useful. In a late letter to me he says:--
+
+    "There is no writer of the present day whom I more
+    esteem than Mrs. Lewes, nor any one whose opinion of my
+    work I should more highly value."
+
+    I believe he intends sending them to you, and I hope
+    you will read them. Lest some of the narratives should
+    strike you, as such narratives did me once, as being a
+    perfect Arabian Nights' Entertainment, I want to say
+    that I have accidentally been in the way of confirming
+    some of the most remarkable by personal observation....
+    In regard to all this class of subjects, I am of the
+    opinion of Goethe, that "it is just as absurd to deny
+    the facts of spiritualism now as it was in the Middle
+    Ages to ascribe them to the Devil." I think Mr. Owen
+    attributes too much value to his facts. I do not think
+    the things contributed from the ultra-mundane sphere
+    are particularly valuable, apart from the evidence they
+    give of continued existence after death.
+
+    I do not think there is yet any evidence to warrant
+    the idea that they are a supplement or continuation of
+    the revelations of Christianity, but I do regard them
+    as an interesting and curious study in psychology,
+    and every careful observer like Mr. Owen ought to be
+    welcomed to bring in his facts. With this I shall
+    send you my observations on Mr. Owen's books, from
+    the "Christian Union." I am perfectly aware of the
+    frivolity and worthlessness of much of the revealings
+    purporting to come from spirits. In my view, the worth
+    or worthlessness of them has nothing to do with the
+    question of fact.
+
+    Do invisible spirits speak in any wise,--wise or
+    foolish?--is the question _a priori_? I do not know
+    of any reason why there should not be as many foolish
+    virgins in the future state as in this. As I am a
+    believer in the Bible and Christianity, I don't need
+    these things as confirmations, and they are not likely
+    to be a religion to me. I regard them simply as I do
+    the phenomena of the Aurora Borealis, or Darwin's
+    studies on natural selection, as curious studies into
+    nature. Besides, I think some day we shall find a law
+    by which all these facts will fall into their places.
+
+    I hope now this subject does not bore you: it certainly
+    is one that seems increasingly to insist on getting
+    itself heard. It is going on and on, making converts,
+    who are many more than dare avow themselves, and for my
+    part I wish it were all brought into the daylight of
+    inquiry.
+
+    Let me hear from you if ever you feel like it. I know
+    too well the possibilities and impossibilities of a
+    nature like yours to ask more, but it can do you no
+    harm to know that I still think of you and love you as
+    ever.
+
+                           Faithfully yours,
+                                          H. B. STOWE.
+
+    THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, REGENT'S PARK, _March 4, 1872._
+
+    DEAR FRIEND,--I can understand very easily that the
+    two last years have been full for you of other and
+    more imperative work than the writing of letters not
+    absolutely demanded either by charity or business. The
+    proof that you still think of me affectionately is very
+    welcome now it has come, and more cheering because it
+    enables me to think of you as enjoying your retreat
+    in your orange orchard,--your western Sorrento--the
+    beloved rabbi still beside you. I am sure it must be
+    a great blessing to you to bathe in that quietude, as
+    it always is to us when we go out of reach of London
+    influences and have the large space of country days to
+    study, walk, and talk in....
+
+    When I am more at liberty I will certainly read Mr.
+    Owen's books, if he is good enough to send them to me.
+    I desire on all subjects to keep an open mind, but
+    hitherto the various phenomena, reported or attested
+    in connection with ideas of spirit intercourse and so
+    on, have come before me here in the painful form of the
+    lowest charlatanerie....
+
+    But apart from personal contact with people who get
+    money by public exhibitions as mediums, or with
+    semi-idiots such as those who make a court for a Mrs.
+    ----, or other feminine personages of that kind, I
+    would not willingly place any barriers between my mind
+    and any possible channel of truth affecting the human
+    lot. The spirit in which you have written in the paper
+    you kindly sent me is likely to touch others, and
+    arouse them at least to attention in a case where you
+    have been deeply impressed....
+
+                    Yours with sincere affection,
+                                             M. L. LEWES.
+
+
+    (Begun April 4th.)
+
+                         MANDARIN, FLORIDA, _May 11, 1872._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--I was very glad to get your dear
+    little note,--sorry to see by it that you are not in
+    your full physical force. Owing to the awkwardness
+    and misunderstanding of publishers, I am not reading
+    "Middlemarch," as I expected to be, here in these
+    orange shades: they don't send it, and I am too far
+    out of the world to get it. I felt, when I read your
+    letters, how glad I should be to have you here in our
+    Florida cottage, in the wholly new, wild, woodland
+    life. Though resembling Italy in climate, it is wholly
+    different in the appearance of nature,--the plants, the
+    birds, the animals, all different. The green tidiness
+    and culture of England here gives way to a wild and
+    rugged savageness of beauty. Every tree bursts forth
+    with flowers; wild vines and creepers execute delirious
+    gambols, and weave and interweave in interminable
+    labyrinths. Yet here, in the great sandy plains back
+    of our house, there is a constant wondering sense
+    of beauty in the wild, wonderful growths of nature.
+    First of all, the pines--high as the stone pines of
+    Italy--with long leaves, eighteen inches long, through
+    which there is a constant dreamy sound, as if of
+    dashing waters. Then the live-oaks and the water-oaks,
+    narrow-leaved evergreens, which grow to enormous size,
+    and whose branches are draped with long festoons of the
+    gray moss. There is a great, wild park of these trees
+    back of us, which, with the dazzling, varnished green
+    of the new spring leaves and the swaying drapery of
+    moss, looks like a sort of enchanted grotto. Underneath
+    grow up hollies and ornamental flowering shrubs, and
+    the yellow jessamine climbs into and over everything
+    with fragrant golden bells and buds, so that sometimes
+    the foliage of a tree is wholly hidden in its embrace.
+
+    This wild, wonderful, bright and vivid growth, that
+    is all new, strange, and unknown by name to me, has a
+    charm for me. It is the place to forget the outside
+    world, and live in one's self. And if you were here,
+    we would go together and gather azaleas, and white
+    lilies, and silver bells, and blue iris. These flowers
+    keep me painting in a sort of madness. I have just
+    finished a picture of white lilies that grow in the
+    moist land by the watercourses. I am longing to begin
+    on blue iris. Artist, poet, as you are by nature, you
+    ought to see all these things, and if you would come
+    here I would take you in heart and house, and you
+    should have a little room in our cottage. The history
+    of the cottage is this: I found a hut built close to
+    a great live-oak twenty-five feet in girth, and with
+    overarching boughs eighty feet up in the air, spreading
+    like a firmament, and all swaying with mossy festoons.
+    We began to live here, and gradually we improved the
+    hut by lath, plaster, and paper. Then we threw out
+    a wide veranda all round, for in these regions the
+    veranda is the living-room of the house. Ours had to be
+    built around the trunk of the tree, so that our cottage
+    has a peculiar and original air, and seems as if it
+    were half tree, or a something that had grown out of
+    the tree. We added on parts, and have thrown out gables
+    and chambers, as a tree throws out new branches, till
+    our cottage is like nobody else's, and yet we settle
+    into it with real enjoyment. There are all sorts of
+    queer little rooms in it, and we are accommodating at
+    this present a family of seventeen souls. In front,
+    the beautiful, grand St. John's stretches five miles
+    from shore to shore, and we watch the steamboats plying
+    back and forth to the great world we are out of. On
+    all sides, large orange trees, with their dense shade
+    and ever-vivid green, shut out the sun so that we can
+    sit, and walk, and live in the open air. Our winter
+    here is only cool, bracing out-door weather, without
+    snow. No month without flowers blooming in the open
+    air, and lettuce and peas in the garden. The summer
+    range is about 90°, but the sea-breezes keep the air
+    delightfully fresh. Generally we go North, however, for
+    three months of summer. Well, I did not mean to run on
+    about Florida, but the subject runs away with me, and I
+    want you to visit us in spirit if not personally.
+
+    My poor rabbi!--he sends you some Arabic, which I fear
+    you cannot read: on diablerie he is up to his ears in
+    knowledge, having read all things in all tongues, from
+    the Talmud down....
+
+                            Ever lovingly yours,
+                                       H. B. STOWE.
+
+[Illustration: H B Stowe]
+
+                           BOSTON, _September 26, 1872._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--I think when you see my name again
+    so soon, you will think it rains, hails, and snows
+    notes from this quarter. Just now, however, I am in
+    this lovely, little nest in Boston, where dear Mrs.
+    Fields, like a dove, "sits brooding on the charmed
+    wave." We are both wishing we had you here with us,
+    and she has not received any answer from you as yet
+    in reply to the invitation you spoke of in your last
+    letter to me. It seems as if you must have written,
+    and the letter somehow gone astray, because I know,
+    of course, you would write. Yesterday we were both out
+    of our senses with mingled pity and indignation at
+    that dreadful stick of a Casaubon,--and think of poor
+    Dorothea dashing like a warm, sunny wave against so
+    cold and repulsive a rock! He is a little too dreadful
+    for anything: there does not seem to be a drop of warm
+    blood in him, and so, as it is his misfortune and
+    not his fault, to be cold-blooded, one must not get
+    angry with him. It is the scene in the garden, after
+    the interview with the doctor, that rests on our mind
+    at this present. There was such a man as he over in
+    Boston, high in literary circles, but I fancy his wife
+    wasn't like Dorothea, and a vastly proper time they had
+    of it, treating each other with mutual reverence, like
+    two Chinese mandarins.
+
+    My love, what I miss in this story is just what we
+    would have if you would come to our tumble-down, jolly,
+    improper, but joyous country,--namely, "jollitude."
+    You write and live on so high a plane! It is all
+    self-abnegation. We want to get you over here, and into
+    this house, where, with closed doors, we sometimes
+    make the rafters ring with fun, and say anything and
+    everything, no matter what, and won't be any properer
+    than we's a mind to be. I am wishing every day you
+    could see our America,--travel, as I have been doing,
+    from one bright, thriving, pretty, flowery town to
+    another, and see so much wealth, ease, progress,
+    culture, and all sorts of nice things. This dovecot
+    where I now am is the sweetest little nest imaginable;
+    fronting on a city street, with back windows opening on
+    a sea view, with still, quiet rooms filled with books,
+    pictures, and all sorts of things, such as you and
+    Mr. Lewes would enjoy. Don't be afraid of the ocean,
+    now! I've crossed it six times, and assure you it is
+    an overrated item. Froude is coming here--why not you?
+    Besides, we have the fountain of eternal youth here,
+    that is, in Florida, where I live, and if you should
+    come you would both of you take a new lease of life,
+    and what glorious poems, and philosophies, and whatnot,
+    we should have! My rabbi writes, in the seventh heaven,
+    an account of your note to him. To think of his
+    setting-off on his own account when I was away!
+
+    Come now, since your answer to dear Mrs. Fields is yet
+    to come; let it be a glad yes, and we will clasp you to
+    our heart of hearts.
+
+                                Your ever loving,
+                                            H. B. S.
+
+During the summer of 1874, while Mrs. Stowe's brother, the Rev. Henry
+Ward Beecher, was the victim of a most revolting, malicious, and
+groundless attack on his purity, Mrs. Lewes wrote the following words
+of sympathy:--
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--The other day I had a letter from
+    Mrs. Fields, written to let me know something of you
+    under that heavy trouble, of which such information as
+    I have had has been quite untrustworthy, leaving me
+    in entire incredulity in regard to it except on this
+    point, that you and yours must be suffering deeply.
+    Naturally I thought most of you in the matter (its
+    public aspects being indeterminate), and many times
+    before our friend's letter came I had said to Mr.
+    Lewes: "What must Mrs. Stowe be feeling!" I remember
+    Mrs. Fields once told me of the wonderful courage and
+    cheerfulness which belonged to you, enabling you to
+    bear up under exceptional trials, and I imagined you
+    helping the sufferers with tenderness and counsel, but
+    yet, nevertheless, I felt that there must be a bruising
+    weight on your heart. Dear, honored friend, you who are
+    so ready to give warm fellowship, is it any comfort to
+    you to be told that those afar off are caring for you
+    in spirit, and will be happier for all good issues that
+    may bring you rest?
+
+    I cannot, dare not, write more in my ignorance, lest
+    I should be using unreasonable words. But I trust in
+    your not despising this scrap of paper which tells you,
+    perhaps rather for my relief than yours, that I am
+    always in grateful, sweet remembrance of your goodness
+    to me and your energetic labors for all.
+
+It was two years or more before Mrs. Stowe replied to these words of
+sympathy.
+
+            Orange-blossom time, MANDARIN, _March 18, 1876._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--I always think of you when the orange
+    trees are in blossom; just now they are fuller than
+    ever, and so many bees are filling the branches that
+    the air is full of a sort of still murmur. And now I am
+    beginning to hear from you every month in Harper's. It
+    is as good as a letter. "Daniel Deronda" has succeeded
+    in awaking in my somewhat worn-out mind an interest.
+    So many stories are tramping over one's mind in every
+    modern magazine nowadays that one is macadamized, so to
+    speak. It takes something unusual to make a sensation.
+    This does excite and interest me, as I wait for each
+    number with eagerness. I wish I could endow you with
+    our long winter weather,--not winter, except such as
+    you find in Sicily. We live here from November to
+    June, and my husband sits outdoors on the veranda
+    and reads all day. We emigrate in solid family: my
+    two dear daughters, husband, self, and servants come
+    together to spend the winter here, and so together to
+    our Northern home in summer. My twin daughters relieve
+    me from all domestic care; they are lively, vivacious,
+    with a real genius for practical life. We have around
+    us a little settlement of neighbors, who like ourselves
+    have a winter home here, and live an easy, undress,
+    picnic kind of life, far from the world and its cares.
+    Mr. Stowe has been busy on eight volumes of Görres on
+    the mysticism of the Middle Ages.[18] This Görres was
+    Professor of Philosophy at Munich, and he reviews the
+    whole ground of the shadow-land between the natural and
+    the supernatural,--ecstacy, trance, prophecy, miracles,
+    spiritualism, the stigmata, etc. He was a devout Roman
+    Catholic, and the so-called facts that he reasons on
+    seem to me quite amazing; and yet the possibilities
+    that lie between inert matter and man's living,
+    all-powerful, immortal soul may make almost anything
+    credible. The soul at times can do anything with
+    matter. I have been busying myself with Sainte-Beuve's
+    seven volumes on the Port Royal development. I like him
+    (Sainte-Beuve). His capacity of seeing, doing justice
+    to all kinds of natures and sentiments, is wonderful. I
+    am sorry he is no longer our side the veil.
+
+    There is a redbird (cardinal grosbeak) singing in
+    the orange trees fronting my window, so sweetly and
+    insistently as to almost stop my writing. I hope, dear
+    friend, you are well--better than when you wrote last.
+
+    It was very sweet and kind of you to write what you
+    did last. I suppose it is so long ago you may have
+    forgotten, but it was a word of tenderness and sympathy
+    about my brother's trial; it was womanly, tender, and
+    sweet, such as at heart you are. After all, my love of
+    you is greater than my admiration, for I think it more
+    and better to be really a woman worth loving than to
+    have read Greek and German and written books. And in
+    this last book I read, I feel more with you in some
+    little, fine points,--they stare at me as making an
+    amusing exhibition. For, my dear, I feel myself at
+    last as one who has been playing and picnicking on the
+    shores of life, and waked from a dream late in the
+    afternoon to find that everybody almost has gone over
+    to the beyond. And the rest are sorting their things
+    and packing their trunks, and waiting for the boat to
+    come and take them.
+
+    It seems now but a little time since my brother Henry
+    and I were two young people together. He was my two
+    years junior, and nearest companion out of seven
+    brothers and three sisters. I taught him drawing and
+    heard his Latin lessons, for you know a girl becomes
+    mature and womanly long before a boy. I saw him through
+    college, and helped him through the difficult love
+    affair that gave him his wife; and then he and my
+    husband had a real German, enthusiastic love for each
+    other, which ended in making me a wife. Ah! in those
+    days we never dreamed that he, or I, or any of us, were
+    to be known in the world. All he seemed then was a
+    boy full of fun, full of love, full of enthusiasm for
+    protecting abused and righting wronged people, which
+    made him in those early days write editorials, and wear
+    arms and swear himself a special policeman to protect
+    the poor negroes in Cincinnati, where we then lived,
+    when there were mobs instigated by the slaveholders of
+    Kentucky.
+
+    Then he married, and lived a missionary life in the new
+    West, all with a joyousness, an enthusiasm, a chivalry,
+    which made life bright and vigorous to us both. Then
+    in time he was called to Brooklyn, just as the crisis
+    of the great anti-slavery battle came on, and the
+    Fugitive Slave Law was passed. I was then in Maine,
+    and I well remember one snowy night his riding till
+    midnight to see me, and then our talking, till near
+    morning, what we could do to make headway against the
+    horrid cruelties that were being practiced against the
+    defenseless blacks. My husband was then away lecturing,
+    and my heart was burning itself out in indignation and
+    anguish. Henry told me then that he meant to fight that
+    battle in New York; that he would have a church that
+    would stand by him to resist the tyrannic dictation
+    of Southern slaveholders. I said: "I, too, have begun
+    to do something; I have begun a story, trying to
+    set forth the sufferings and wrongs of the slaves."
+    "That's right, Hattie," he said; "finish it, and I
+    will scatter it thick as the leaves of Vallambrosa,"
+    and so came "Uncle Tom," and Plymouth Church became a
+    stronghold where the slave always found refuge and a
+    strong helper. One morning my brother found sitting on
+    his doorstep poor old Paul Edmonson, weeping; his two
+    daughters, of sixteen and eighteen, had passed into
+    the slave warehouse of Bruin & Hill, and were to be
+    sold. My brother took the man by the hand to a public
+    meeting, told his story for him, and in an hour raised
+    the two thousand dollars to redeem his children. Over
+    and over again, afterwards, slaves were redeemed at
+    Plymouth Church, and Henry and Plymouth Church became
+    words of hatred and fear through half the Union. From
+    that time until we talked together about the Fugitive
+    Slave Law, there was not a pause or stop in the battle
+    till we had been through the war and slavery had been
+    wiped out in blood. Through all he has been pouring
+    himself out, wrestling, burning, laboring everywhere,
+    making stump speeches when elections turned on the
+    slave question, and ever maintaining that the cause
+    of Christ was the cause of the slave. And when all
+    was over, it was he and Lloyd Garrison who were sent
+    by government once more to raise our national flag
+    on Fort Sumter. You must see that a man does not
+    so energize without making many enemies. Half of
+    our Union has been defeated, a property of millions
+    annihilated by emancipation, a proud and powerful slave
+    aristocracy reduced to beggary, and there are those
+    who never saw our faces that, to this hour, hate him
+    and me. Then he has been a progressive in theology.
+    He has been a student of Huxley, and Spencer, and
+    Darwin,--enough to alarm the old school,--and yet
+    remained so ardent a supernaturalist as equally to
+    repel the radical destructionists in religion. He and I
+    are Christ-worshippers, adoring Him as the Image of the
+    Invisible God and all that comes from believing this.
+    Then he has been a reformer, an advocate of universal
+    suffrage and woman's rights, yet not radical enough to
+    please that reform party who stand where the Socialists
+    of France do, and are for tearing up all creation
+    generally. Lastly, he has had the misfortune of a
+    popularity which is perfectly phenomenal. I cannot give
+    you any idea of the love, worship, idolatry, with which
+    he has been overwhelmed. He has something magnetic
+    about him that makes everybody crave his society,--that
+    makes men follow and worship him. I remember being at
+    his house one evening in the time of early flowers, and
+    in that one evening came a box of flowers from Maine,
+    another from New Jersey, another from Connecticut,--all
+    from people with whom he had no personal acquaintance,
+    who had read something of his and wanted to send him
+    some token. I said, "One would think you were a _prima
+    donna_. What does make people go on so about you?"
+
+    My brother is hopelessly generous and confiding. His
+    inability to believe evil is something incredible, and
+    so has come all this suffering. You said you hoped
+    I should be at rest when the first investigating
+    committee and Plymouth Church cleared my brother almost
+    by acclamation. Not so. The enemy have so committed
+    themselves that either they or he must die, and there
+    has followed two years of the most dreadful struggle.
+    First, a legal trial of six months, the expenses
+    of which on his side were one hundred and eighteen
+    thousand dollars, and in which he and his brave wife
+    sat side by side in the court-room, and heard all that
+    these plotters, who had been weaving their webs for
+    three years, could bring. The foreman of the jury was
+    offered a bribe of ten thousand dollars to decide
+    against my brother. He sent the letter containing the
+    proposition to the judge. But with all their plotting,
+    three fourths of the jury decided against them, and
+    their case was lost. It was accepted as a triumph
+    by my brother's friends; a large number of the most
+    influential clergy of all denominations so expressed
+    themselves in a public letter, and it was hoped the
+    thing was so far over that it might be lived down and
+    overgrown with better things.
+
+    But the enemy, intriguing secretly with all those
+    parties in the community who wish to put down a public
+    and too successful man, have been struggling to bring
+    the thing up again for an ecclesiastical trial. The
+    cry has been raised in various religious papers that
+    Plymouth Church was in complicity with crime,--that
+    they were so captivated with eloquence and genius that
+    they refused to make competent investigation. The six
+    months' legal investigation was insufficient; a new
+    trial was needed. Plymouth Church immediately called a
+    council of ministers and laymen, in number representing
+    thirty-seven thousand Congregational Christians, to
+    whom Plymouth Church surrendered her records,--her
+    conduct,--all the facts of the case, and this great
+    council unanimously supported the church and ratified
+    her decision; recognizing the fact that, in all the
+    investigations hitherto, nothing had been proved
+    against my brother. They at his request, and that of
+    Plymouth Church, appointed a committee of five to whom
+    within sixty days any one should bring any facts that
+    they could prove, or else forever after hold their
+    peace. It is thought now by my brother's friends that
+    this thing must finally reach a close. But you see
+    why I have not written. This has drawn on my life--my
+    heart's blood. He is myself; I know you are the kind of
+    woman to understand me when I say that I felt a blow at
+    him more than at myself. I, who know his purity, honor,
+    delicacy, know that he has been from childhood of an
+    ideal purity,--who reverenced his conscience as his
+    king, whose glory was redressing human wrong, who spake
+    no slander, no, nor listened to it.
+
+    Never have I known a nature of such strength, and
+    such almost childlike innocence. He is of a nature
+    so sweet and perfect that, though I have seen him
+    thunderously indignant at moments, I never saw him
+    fretful or irritable,--a man who continuously, in
+    every little act of life, is thinking of others, a
+    man that all the children on the street run after,
+    and that every sorrowful, weak, or distressed person
+    looks to as a natural helper. In all this long history
+    there has been no circumstance of his relation to any
+    woman that has not been worthy of himself,--pure,
+    delicate, and proper; and I know all sides of it, and
+    certainly should not say this if there were even a
+    misgiving. Thank God, there is none, and I can read my
+    New Testament and feel that by all the beatitudes my
+    brother is blessed.
+
+    His calmness, serenity, and cheerfulness through all
+    this time has uplifted us all. Where he was, there was
+    no anxiety, no sorrow. My brother's power to console
+    is something peculiar and wonderful. I have seen him
+    at death-beds and funerals, where it would seem as if
+    hope herself must be dumb, bring down the very peace of
+    Heaven and change despair to trust. He has not had less
+    power in his own adversity. You cannot conceive how
+    he is beloved, by those even who never saw him,--old,
+    paralytic, distressed, neglected people, poor
+    seamstresses, black people, who have felt these arrows
+    shot against their benefactor as against themselves,
+    and most touching have been their letters of sympathy.
+    From the first, he has met this in the spirit of
+    Francis de Sales, who met a similar plot,--by silence,
+    prayer, and work, and when urged to defend himself said
+    "God would do it in his time." God was the best judge
+    how much reputation he needed to serve Him with.
+
+    In your portrait of Deronda, you speak of him as one
+    of those rare natures in whom a private wrong bred
+    no bitterness. "The sense of injury breeds, not the
+    will to inflict injuries, but a hatred of all injury;"
+    and I must say, through all this conflict my brother
+    has been always in the spirit of Him who touched and
+    healed the ear of Malchus when he himself was attacked.
+    His friends and lawyers have sometimes been aroused
+    and sometimes indignant with his habitual caring for
+    others, and his habit of vindicating and extending
+    even to his enemies every scrap and shred of justice
+    that might belong to them. From first to last of this
+    trial, he has never for a day intermitted his regular
+    work. Preaching to crowded houses, preaching even in
+    his short vacations at watering places, carrying on
+    his missions which have regenerated two once wretched
+    districts of the city, editing a paper, and in short
+    giving himself up to work. He cautioned his church not
+    to become absorbed in him and his trials, to prove
+    their devotion by more faithful church work and a
+    wider charity; and never have the Plymouth missions
+    among the poor been so energetic and effective. He
+    said recently, "The worst that can befall a man is to
+    stop thinking of God and begin to think of himself;
+    if trials make us self-absorbed, they hurt us." Well,
+    dear, pardon me for this outpour. I loved you--I love
+    you--and therefore wanted you to know just what I felt.
+    Now, dear, this is over, don't think you must reply to
+    it or me. I know how much you have to do,--yes, I know
+    all about an aching head and an overtaxed brain. This
+    last work of yours is to be your best, I think, and I
+    hope it will bring you enough to buy an orange grove in
+    Sicily, or somewhere else, and so have lovely weather
+    such as we have.
+
+    Your ancient admirer,[19] who usually goes to bed at
+    eight o'clock, was convicted by me of sitting up after
+    eleven over the last installment of "Daniel Deronda,"
+    and he is full of it. We think well of Guendoline, and
+    that she isn't much more than young ladies in general
+    so far.
+
+    Next year, if I can possibly do it, I will send you
+    some of our oranges. I perfectly long to have you enjoy
+    them.
+
+               Your very loving            H. B. STOWE.
+
+    P. S. I am afraid I shall write you again when I
+    am reading your writings, they are so provokingly
+    suggestive of things one wants to say.
+
+                                           H. B. S.
+
+In her reply to this letter Mrs. Lewes says, incidentally: "Please
+offer my reverential love to the Professor, and tell him I am
+ruthlessly proud of having kept him out of his bed. I hope that both
+you and he will continue to be interested in my spiritual children."
+
+After Mr. Lewes's death, Mrs. Lewes writes to Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+              THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, _April 10, 1879._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have been long without sending you
+    any sign (unless you have received a message from me
+    through Mrs. Fields), but my heart has been going out
+    to you and your husband continually as among the chief
+    of the many kind beings who have given me their tender
+    fellow-feeling in my last earthly sorrow.... When your
+    first letter came, with the beautiful gift of your
+    book,[20] I was unable to read any letters, and did not
+    for a long time see what you had sent me. But when I
+    did know, and had read your words of thankfulness at
+    the great good you have seen wrought by your help, I
+    felt glad, for your sake first, and then for the sake
+    of the great nation to which you belong. The hopes
+    of the world are taking refuge westward, under the
+    calamitous conditions, moral and physical, in which we
+    of the elder world are getting involved....
+
+    Thank you for telling me that you have the comfort of
+    seeing your son in a path that satisfies your best
+    wishes for him. I like to think of your having family
+    joys. One of the prettiest photographs of a child that
+    I possess is one of your sending to me....
+
+    Please offer my reverential, affectionate regards to
+    your husband, and believe me, dear friend,
+
+                        Yours always gratefully,
+                                            M. L. LEWES.
+
+As much as has been said with regard to spiritualism in these pages,
+the subject has by no means the prominence that it really possessed in
+the studies and conversations of both Professor and Mrs. Stowe.
+
+Professor Stowe's very remarkable psychological development, and the
+exceptional experiences of his early life, were sources of conversation
+of unfailing interest and study to both.
+
+Professor Stowe had made an elaborate and valuable collection of the
+literature of the subject, and was, as Mrs. Stowe writes, "over head
+and ears in _diablerie_."
+
+It is only just to give Mrs. Stowe's views on this perplexing theme
+more at length, and as the mature reflection of many years has caused
+them to take form.
+
+In reference to professional mediums, and spirits that peep, rap, and
+mutter, she writes:--
+
+"Each friend takes away a portion of ourselves. There was some part
+of our being related to him as to no other, and we had things to say
+to him which no other would understand or appreciate. A portion of
+our thoughts has become useless and burdensome, and again and again,
+with involuntary yearning, we turn to the stone at the door of the
+sepulchre. We lean against the cold, silent marble, but there is no
+answer,--no voice, neither any that regardeth.
+
+"There are those who would have us think that in _our_ day this doom
+is reversed; that there are those who have the power to restore to us
+the communion of our lost ones. How many a heart, wrung and tortured
+with the anguish of this fearful silence, has throbbed with strange,
+vague hopes at the suggestion! When we hear sometimes of persons of the
+strongest and clearest minds becoming credulous votaries of certain
+spiritualist circles, let us not wonder: if we inquire, we shall
+almost always find that the belief has followed some stroke of death;
+it is only an indication of the desperation of that heart-hunger which
+in part it appeases.
+
+"Ah, _were_ it true! Were it indeed so that the wall between the
+spiritual and material is growing thin, and a new dispensation
+germinating in which communion with the departed blest shall be among
+the privileges and possibilities of this our mortal state! Ah, were
+it so that when we go forth weeping in the gray dawn, bearing spices
+and odors which we long to pour forth for the beloved dead, we should
+indeed find the stone rolled away and an angel sitting on it!
+
+"But for us the stone must be rolled away by an _unquestionable_ angel,
+whose countenance is as the lightning, who executes no doubtful juggle
+by pale moonlight or starlight, but rolls back the stone in fair, open
+morning, and sits on it. Then we could bless God for his mighty gift,
+and with love, and awe, and reverence take up that blessed fellowship
+with another life, and weave it reverently and trustingly into the web
+of our daily course.
+
+"But no such angel have we seen,--no such sublime, unquestionable,
+glorious manifestation. And when we look at what is offered to us,
+ah! who that had a friend in heaven could wish them to return in such
+wise as this? The very instinct of a sacred sorrow seems to forbid
+that our beautiful, our glorified ones should stoop lower than even to
+the medium of their cast-off bodies, to juggle, and rap, and squeak,
+and perform mountebank tricks with tables and chairs; to recite over
+in weary sameness harmless truisms, which we were wise enough to say
+for ourselves; to trifle, and banter, and jest, or to lead us through
+endless moonshiny mazes. Sadly and soberly we say that, if this be
+communion with the dead, we had rather be without it. We want something
+a little in advance of our present life, and not below it. We have read
+with some attention weary pages of spiritual communication purporting
+to come from Bacon, Swedenborg, and others, and long accounts from
+divers spirits of things seen in the spirit land, and we can conceive
+of no more appalling prospect than to have them true.
+
+"If the future life is so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable as we
+might infer from these readings, one would have reason to deplore an
+immortality from which no suicide could give an outlet. To be condemned
+to such eternal prosing would be worse than annihilation.
+
+"Is there, then, no satisfaction for this craving of the soul? There
+is One who says: "I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am
+alive for evermore, and I have the keys of hell and of death;" and this
+same being said once before: "He that loveth me shall be loved of my
+Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself unto him." This
+is a promise direct and personal; not confined to the first apostles,
+but stated in the most general way as attainable by any one who loves
+and does the will of Jesus. It seems given to us as some comfort for
+the unavoidable heart-breaking separations of death that there should
+be, in that dread unknown, one all-powerful Friend with whom it is
+possible to commune, and from whose spirit there may come a response to
+us. Our Elder Brother, the partaker of our nature, is not only in the
+spirit land, but is all-powerful there. It is he that shutteth and no
+man openeth, and openeth and no man shutteth. He whom we have seen in
+the flesh, weeping over the grave of Lazarus, is he who hath the keys
+of hell and of death. If we cannot commune with our friends, we can at
+least commune with Him to whom they are present, who is intimately with
+them as with us. He is the true bond of union between the spirit world
+and our souls; and one blest hour of prayer, when we draw near to Him
+and feel the breadth, and length, and depth, and heighth of that love
+of his that passeth knowledge, is better than all those incoherent,
+vain, dreamy glimpses with which longing hearts are cheated.
+
+"They who have disbelieved all spiritual truth, who have been
+Sadduceeic doubters of either angel or spirit, may find in modern
+spiritualism a great advance. But can one who has ever really had
+communion with Christ, who has said with John, "Truly our fellowship is
+with the Father and the Son,"--can such an one be satisfied with what
+is found in the modern circle?
+
+"For Christians who have strayed into these inclosures, we cannot but
+recommend the homely but apt quotation of old John Newton:--
+
+    "'What think ye of Christ is the test
+      To try both your word and your scheme.'
+
+"In all these so-called revelations, have there come any echoes of
+the _new song_ which no man save the redeemed from earth could learn;
+any unfoldings of that love that passeth knowledge,--anything, in
+short, such as spirits might utter to whom was unveiled that which eye
+hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered the heart of man to
+conceive? We must confess that all those spirits that yet have spoken
+appear to be living in quite another sphere from John or Paul.
+
+"Let us, then, who long for communion with spirits, seek nearness to
+Him who has promised to speak and commune, leaving forever this word to
+his church:--
+
+"'I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you.'"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] George Eliot's Life, edited by J. W. Cross, vol. i.
+
+[18] _Die Christliche Mystik._
+
+[19] Professor Stowe.
+
+[20] _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, new edition, with introduction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+CLOSING SCENES, 1870-1889.
+
+    LITERARY LABORS.--COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLISHED
+    BOOKS.--FIRST READING TOUR.--PEEPS BEHIND
+    THE CURTAIN.--SOME NEW ENGLAND CITIES.--A
+    LETTER FROM MAINE.--PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT
+    READINGS.--SECOND TOUR.--A WESTERN JOURNEY.--VISIT
+    TO OLD SCENES.--CELEBRATION OF SEVENTIETH
+    BIRTHDAY.--CONGRATULATORY POEMS FROM MR. WHITTIER AND
+    DR. HOLMES.--LAST WORDS.
+
+
+BESIDES the annual journeys to and from Florida, and her many interests
+in the South, Mrs. Stowe's time between 1870 and 1880 was largely
+occupied by literary and kindred labors. In the autumn of 1871 we find
+her writing to her daughters as follows regarding her work:--
+
+"I have at last finished all my part in the third book of mine that is
+to come out this year, to wit 'Oldtown Fireside Stories,' and you can
+have no idea what a perfect luxury of rest it is to be free from all
+literary engagements, of all kinds, sorts, or descriptions. I feel like
+a poor woman I once read about,--
+
+    "'Who always was tired,
+     'Cause she lived in a house
+      Where help wasn't hired,'
+
+and of whom it is related that in her dying moments,
+
+    "'She folded her hands
+      With her latest endeavor,
+      Saying nothing, dear nothing,
+      Sweet nothing forever.'
+
+"I am in about her state of mind. I luxuriate in laziness. I do not
+want to do anything or go anywhere. I only want to sink down into lazy
+enjoyment of living."
+
+She was certainly well entitled to a rest, for never had there been a
+more laborious literary life. In addition to the twenty-three books
+already written, she had prepared for various magazines and journals
+an incredible number of short stories, letters of travel, essays,
+and other articles. Yet with all she had accomplished, and tired as
+she was, she still had seven books to write, besides many more short
+stories, before her work should be done. As her literary life did not
+really begin until 1852, the bulk of her work has been accomplished
+within twenty-six years, as will be seen from the following list of her
+books, arranged in the chronological order of their publication:--
+
+    1833. An Elementary Geography.
+    1843. The Mayflower.
+    1852. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
+    1853. Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin.
+    1854. Sunny Memories.
+    1856. Dred.
+    1858. Our Charley.
+    1859. Minister's Wooing.
+    1862. Pearl of Orr's Island.
+    1863. Agnes of Sorrento.
+    1864. House and Home Papers.
+    1865. Little Foxes.
+    1866. Nina Gordon (Formerly "Dred").
+    1867. Religious Poems.
+    1867. Queer Little People.
+    1868. The Chimney Corner.
+    1868. Men of Our Times.
+    1869. Oldtown Folks.
+    1870. Lady Byron Vindicated.
+    1871. The History of the Byron Controversy (London).
+    1870. Little Pussy Willow.
+    1871. Pink and White Tyranny.
+    1871. Old Town Fireside Stories.
+    1872. My Wife and I.
+    1873. Palmetto Leaves.
+    1873. Library of Famous Fiction.
+    1875. We and Our Neighbors.
+    1876. Betty's Bright Idea.
+    1877. Footsteps of the Master.
+    1878. Bible Heroines.
+    1878. Poganuc People.
+    1881. A Dog's Mission.
+
+In 1872 a new and remunerative field of labor was opened to Mrs. Stowe,
+and though it entailed a vast amount of weariness and hard work, she
+entered it with her customary energy and enthusiasm. It presented
+itself in the shape of an offer from the American Literary (Lecture)
+Bureau of Boston to deliver a course of forty readings from her own
+works in the principal cities of the New England States. The offer was
+a liberal one, and Mrs. Stowe accepted it on condition that the reading
+tour should be ended in time to allow her to go to her Florida home
+in December. This being acceded to, she set forth and gave her first
+reading in Bridgeport, Conn., on the evening of September 19, 1872.
+
+The following extracts from letters written to her husband while on
+this reading tour throw some interesting gleams of light on the scenes
+behind the curtain of the lecturer's platform. From Boston, October
+3d, she writes: "Have had a most successful but fatiguing week. Read
+in Cambridgeport to-night, and Newburyport to-morrow night." Two weeks
+later, upon receipt of a letter from her husband, in which he fears he
+has not long to live, she writes from Westfield, Mass:--
+
+"I have never had a greater trial than being forced to stay away from
+you now. I would not, but that my engagements have involved others in
+heavy expense, and should I fail to fulfill them, it would be doing a
+wrong.
+
+"God has given me strength as I needed it, and I never read more to my
+own satisfaction than last night.
+
+"Now, my dear husband, please do _want_, and try, to remain with us yet
+a while longer, and let us have a little quiet evening together before
+either of us crosses the river. My heart cries out for a home with you;
+our home together in Florida. Oh, may we see it again! Your ever loving
+wife."
+
+From Fitchburg, Mass., under date of October 29th, she writes:--
+
+"In the cars, near Palmer, who should I discover but Mr. and Mrs. J. T.
+Fields, returning from a Western trip, as gay as a troubadour. I took
+an empty seat next to them, and we had a jolly ride to Boston. I drove
+to Mr. Williams's house, where I met the Chelsea agent, who informed
+me that there was no hotel in Chelsea, but that they were expecting to
+send over for me. So I turned at once toward 148 Charles Street, where
+I tumbled in on the Fields before they had got their things off. We had
+a good laugh, and I received a hearty welcome. I was quickly installed
+in my room, where, after a nice dinner, I curled up for my afternoon
+nap. At half-past seven the carriage came for me, and I was informed
+that I should not have a hard reading, as they had engaged singers
+to take part. So, when I got into the carriage, who should I find,
+beshawled, and beflowered, and betoggled in blue satin and white lace,
+but our old friend ---- of Andover concert memory, now become Madame
+Thingumbob, of European celebrity. She had studied in Italy, come out
+in Milan, sung there in opera for a whole winter, and also in Paris and
+London.
+
+"Well, she sings very sweetly and looks very nice and pretty. Then we
+had a little rosebud of a Chelsea girl who sang, and a pianist. I read
+'Minister's Housekeeper' and Topsy, and the audience was very jolly and
+appreciative. Then we all jogged home."
+
+The next letter finds Mrs. Stowe in Maine, and writing in the cars
+between Bangor and Portland. She says:--
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Well, Portland and Bangor are over,
+    and the latter, which I had dreaded as lonesome and
+    far off, turned out the pleasantest of any place I
+    have visited yet. I stayed at the Fays; he was one of
+    the Andover students, you remember; and found a warm,
+    cosy, social home. In the evening I met an appreciative
+    audience, and had a delightful reading. I read Captain
+    Kittridge, apparently to the great satisfaction of the
+    people, who laughed heartily at his sea stories, and
+    the "Minister's Housekeeper" with the usual success,
+    also Eva and Topsy.
+
+    One woman, totally deaf, came to me afterwards and
+    said: "Bless you. I come jist to see you. I'd rather
+    see you than the Queen." Another introduced her little
+    girl named Harriet Beecher Stowe, and another, older,
+    named Eva. She said they had traveled fifty miles to
+    hear me read. An incident like that appeals to one's
+    heart, does it not?
+
+    The people of Bangor were greatly embarrassed by the
+    horse disease; but the mayor and his wife walked over
+    from their house, a long distance off, to bring me
+    flowers, and at the reading he introduced me. I had
+    an excellent audience notwithstanding that it rained
+    tremendously, and everybody had to walk because there
+    were no horses. The professors called on me, also
+    Newman Smith, now a settled minister here.
+
+    Everybody is so anxious about you, and Mr. Fay made
+    me promise that you and I should come and spend a
+    week with them next summer. Mr. Howard, in Portland,
+    called upon me to inquire for you, and everybody was so
+    delighted to hear that you were getting better.
+
+    It stormed all the time I was in Portland and Bangor,
+    so I saw nothing of them. Now I am in a palace car
+    riding alongside the Kennebec, and recalling the
+    incidents of my trip. I certainly had very satisfactory
+    houses; and these pleasant little visits, and meetings
+    with old acquaintance, would be well worth having,
+    even though I had made nothing in a pecuniary sense.
+    On the whole it is as easy a way of making money as
+    I have ever tried, though no way of making money is
+    perfectly easy,--there must be some disagreeables. The
+    lonesomeness of being at a hotel in dull weather is
+    one, and in Portland it seems there is nobody now to
+    invite us to their homes. Our old friends there are
+    among the past. They have gone on over the river. I
+    send you a bit of poetry that pleases me. The love of
+    the old for each other has its poetry. It is something
+    sacred and full of riches. I long to be with you, and
+    to have some more of our good long talks.
+
+    The scenery along this river is very fine. The oaks
+    still keep their leaves, though the other trees are
+    bare; but oaks and pines make a pleasant contrast. We
+    shall stop twenty minutes at Brunswick, so I shall get
+    a glimpse of the old place.
+
+    Now we are passing through Hallowell, and the Kennebec
+    changes sides. What a beautiful river! It is now full
+    of logs and rafts. Well, I must bring this to a close.
+    Good-by, dear, with unchanging love. Ever your wife.
+
+From South Framingham, Mass., she writes on November 7th:--
+
+    Well, my dear, here I am in E.'s pretty little house.
+    He has a pretty wife, a pretty sister, a pretty baby,
+    two nice little boys, and a lovely white cat. The last
+    is a perfect beauty! a Persian, from a stock brought
+    over by Dr. Parker, as white as snow, with the softest
+    fur, a perfect bunch of loving-kindness, all purr and
+    felicity. I had a good audience last evening, and
+    enjoyed it. My audiences, considering the horse disease
+    and the rains, are amazing. And how they do laugh! We
+    get into regular gales.
+
+    E. has the real country minister turn-out: horse and
+    buggy, and such a nice horse too. The baby is a beauty,
+    and giggles, and goos, and shouts inquiries with the
+    rising inflection, in the most inspiring manner.
+
+    _November 13._ Wakefield. I read in Haverhill last
+    night. It was as usual stormy. I had a good audience,
+    but not springy and inspiriting like that at Waltham.
+    Some audiences seem to put spring into one, and some
+    to take it out. This one seemed good but heavy. I had
+    to lift them, while in Framingham and Waltham they
+    lifted me.
+
+    The Lord bless and keep you. It grieves me to think
+    you are dull and I not with you. By and by we will be
+    together and stay together. Good-by dear. Your ever
+    loving wife,
+
+                                                H. B. S.
+
+    _November 24._ "I had a very pleasant reading in
+    Peabody. While there visited the library and saw the
+    picture of the Queen that she had painted expressly
+    for George Peabody. It was about six inches square,
+    enameled on gold, and set in a massive frame of solid
+    gold and velvet. The effect is like painting on ivory.
+    At night the picture rolls back into a safe, and great
+    doors, closed with a combination lock, defend it. It
+    reminded me of some of the foreign wonders we have seen.
+
+    "Well, my course is almost done, and if I get through
+    without any sickness, cold, or accident, how wonderful
+    it will seem. I have never felt the near, kind presence
+    of our Heavenly Father so much as in this. 'He giveth
+    strength to the faint, and to them of no might He
+    increaseth strength.' I have found this true all my
+    life."
+
+From Newport she writes on November 26th:--
+
+"It was a hard, tiring, disagreeable piece of business to read in New
+London. Had to wait three mortal hours in Palmer. Then a slow, weary
+train, that did not reach New London until after dark. There was then
+no time to rest, and I was so tired that it did seem as though I could
+not dress. I really trembled with fatigue. The hall was long and
+dimly lighted, and the people were not seated compactly, but around in
+patches. The light was dim, except for a great flaring gas jet arranged
+right under my eyes on the reading desk, and I did not see a creature
+whom I knew. I was only too glad when it was over and I was back again
+at my hotel. There I found that I must be up at five o'clock to catch
+the Newport train.
+
+"I started for this place in the dusk of a dreary, foggy morning.
+Traveled first on a ferry, then in cars, and then in a little cold
+steamboat. Found no one to meet me, in spite of all my writing, and so
+took a carriage and came to the hotel. The landlord was very polite to
+me, said he knew me by my trunk, had been to our place in Mandarin,
+etc. All I wanted was a warm room, a good bed, and unlimited time to
+sleep. Now I have had a three hours' nap, and here I am, sitting by
+myself in the great, lonely hotel parlor.
+
+"Well, dear old man, I think lots of you, and only want to end
+all this in a quiet home where we can sing 'John Anderson, my Jo'
+together. I check off place after place as the captive the days of his
+imprisonment. Only two more after to-night. Ever your loving wife."
+
+Mrs. Stowe made one more reading tour the following year, and this time
+it was in the West. On October 28, 1873, she writes from Zanesville,
+Ohio, to her son at Harvard:--
+
+    You have been very good to write as often as you have,
+    and your letters, meeting me at different points, have
+    been most cheering. I have been tired, almost to the
+    last degree. Read two successive evenings in Chicago,
+    and traveled the following day for thirteen hours, a
+    distance of about three hundred miles, to Cincinnati.
+    We were compelled to go in the most uncomfortable
+    cars I ever saw, crowded to overflowing, a fiend of a
+    stove at each end burning up all the air, and without
+    a chance to even lay my head down. This is the grand
+    route between Chicago and Cincinnati, and we were on it
+    from eight in the morning until nearly ten at night.
+
+    Arrived at Cincinnati we found that George Beecher had
+    not received our telegram, was not expecting us, had no
+    rooms engaged for us, and that we could not get rooms
+    at his boarding-place. After finding all this out we
+    had to go to the hotel, where, about eleven o'clock, I
+    crept into bed with every nerve aching from fatigue.
+    The next day was dark and rainy, and I lay in bed most
+    of it; but when I got up to go and read I felt only
+    half rested, and was still so tired that it seemed as
+    though I could not get through.
+
+    Those who planned my engagements failed to take, into
+    account the fearful distances and wretched trains out
+    here. On none of these great Western routes is there a
+    drawing-room car. Mr. Saunders tried in every way to
+    get them to put one on for us, but in vain. They are
+    all reserved for the night trains; so that there is no
+    choice except to travel by night in sleeping cars, or
+    take such trains as I have described in the daytime.
+
+    I had a most sympathetic audience in Cincinnati; they
+    all seemed delighted and begged me to come again. The
+    next day George took us for a drive out to Walnut
+    Hills, where we saw the seminary buildings, the house
+    where your sisters were born, and the house in which
+    we afterwards lived. In the afternoon we had to leave
+    and hurry away to a reading in Dayton. The next evening
+    another in Columbus, where we spent Sunday with an old
+    friend.
+
+    By this time I am somewhat rested from the strain of
+    that awful journey; but I shall never again undertake
+    such another. It was one of those things that have to
+    be done once, to learn not to do it again. My only
+    reading between Columbus and Pittsburgh is to be here
+    in Zanesville, a town as black as Acheron, and where
+    one might expect to see the river Styx.
+
+    Later. I had a nice audience and a pleasant reading
+    here, and to-day we go on to Pittsburgh, where I read
+    to-morrow night.
+
+    I met the other day at Dayton a woman who now has
+    grandchildren; but who, when I first came West, was a
+    gay rattling girl. She was one of the first converts
+    of brother George's seemingly obscure ministry in the
+    little new town of Chillicothe. Now she has one son
+    who is a judge of the supreme court, and another in
+    business. Both she and they are not only Christians,
+    but Christians of the primitive sort, whose religion
+    is their all; who triumph and glory in tribulation,
+    knowing that it worketh patience. She told me, with
+    a bright sweet calm, of her husband killed in battle
+    the first year of the war, of her only daughter and
+    two grandchildren dying in the faith, and of her own
+    happy waiting on God's will, with bright hopes of a
+    joyful reunion. Her sons are leading members of the
+    Presbyterian Church, and most active in stirring up
+    others to make their profession a reality, not an
+    empty name. When I thought that all this came from the
+    conversion of one giddy girl, when George seemed to be
+    doing so little, I said, "Who can measure the work of
+    a faithful minister?" It is such living witnesses that
+    maintain Christianity on earth.
+
+    Good-by. We shall soon be home now, and preparing for
+    Florida. Always your own loving mother,
+
+                                               H. B. S.
+
+Mrs. Stowe never undertook another reading tour, nor, after this one,
+did she ever read again for money, though she frequently contributed
+her talent in this direction to the cause of charity.
+
+The most noteworthy event of her later years was the celebration of
+the seventieth anniversary of her birthday. That it might be fittingly
+observed, her publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. of Boston,
+arranged a reception for her in form of a garden party, to which they
+invited the _literati_ of America. It was held on June 14, 1882, at
+"The Old Elms," the home of Ex-Governor Claflin of Massachusetts, in
+Newtonville, one of Boston's most beautiful suburbs. Here the assembly
+gathered to do honor to Mrs. Stowe, that lovely June afternoon,
+comprised two hundred of the most distinguished and best known among
+the literary men and women of the day.
+
+From three until five o'clock was spent socially. As the guests arrived
+they were presented to Mrs. Stowe by Mr. H. O. Houghton, and then they
+gathered in groups in the parlors, on the verandas, on the lawn, and in
+the refreshment room. At five o'clock they assembled in a large tent
+on the lawn, when Mr. Houghton, as host, addressed to his guest and
+her friends a few words of congratulation and welcome. He closed his
+remarks by saying:--
+
+"And now, honored madam, as
+
+          "'When to them who sail
+    Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
+    Mozambic, off at sea northeast winds blow
+    Sabean odors from the spicy shore
+    Of Arabie the blest,'
+
+so the benedictions of the lowly and the blessings of all conditions
+of men are brought to you to-day on the wings of the wind, from every
+quarter of the globe; but there will be no fresher laurels to crown
+this day of your rejoicing than are brought by those now before
+you, who have been your co-workers in the strife; who have wrestled
+and suffered, fought and conquered, with you; who rank you with the
+Miriams, the Deborahs, and the Judiths of old; and who now shout back
+the refrain, when you utter the inspired song:--
+
+    "'Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.'
+    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
+    'The Almighty Lord hath disappointed them by the hand of a woman.'"
+
+In reply to this Mrs. Stowe's brother, Henry Ward Beecher, said: "Of
+course you all sympathize with me to-day, but, standing in this place,
+I do not see your faces more clearly than I see those of my father and
+my mother. Her I only knew as a mere babe-child. He was my teacher and
+my companion. A more guileless soul than he, a more honest one, more
+free from envy, from jealousy, and from selfishness, I never knew.
+Though he thought he was great by his theology, everybody else knew he
+was great by his religion. My mother is to me what the Virgin Mary is
+to a devout Catholic. She was a woman of great nature, profound as a
+philosophical thinker, great in argument, with a kind of intellectual
+imagination, diffident, not talkative,--in which respect I take
+after her,--the woman who gave birth to Mrs. Stowe, whose graces and
+excellences she probably more than any of her children--we number but
+thirteen--has possessed. I suppose that in bodily resemblance, perhaps,
+she is not like my mother, but in mind I presume she is most like her.
+I thank you for my father's sake and for my mother's sake for the
+courtesy, the friendliness, and the kindness which you give to Mrs.
+Stowe."
+
+The following poem from John Greenleaf Whittier was then read:--
+
+    "Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers
+     And golden-fruited orange bowers
+     To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours!
+     To her who, in our evil time,
+     Dragged into light the nation's crime
+     With strength beyond the strength of men,
+     And, mightier than their sword, her pen;
+     To her who world-wide entrance gave
+     To the log cabin of the slave,
+     Made all his wrongs and sorrows known,
+     And all earth's languages his own,--
+     North, South, and East and West, made all
+     The common air electrical,
+     Until the o'ercharged bolts of heaven
+     Blazed down, and every chain was riven!
+
+       "Welcome from each and all to her
+     Whose Wooing of the Minister
+     Revealed the warm heart of the man
+     Beneath the creed-bound Puritan,
+     And taught the kinship of the love
+     Of man below and God above;
+     To her whose vigorous pencil-strokes
+     Sketched into life her Oldtown Folks,
+     Whose fireside stories, grave or gay,
+     In quaint Sam Lawson's vagrant way,
+     With Old New England's flavor rife,
+     Waifs from her rude idyllic life,
+     Are racy as the legends old
+     By Chaucer or Boccaccio told;
+     To her who keeps, through change of place
+     And time, her native strength and grace,
+     Alike where warm Sorrento smiles,
+     Or where, by birchen-shaded isles
+     Whose summer winds have shivered o'er
+     The icy drift of Labrador,
+     She lifts to light the priceless Pearl
+     Of Harpswell's angel-beckoned girl.
+     To her at threescore years and ten
+     Be tributes of the tongue and pen,
+     Be honor, praise, and heart thanks given,
+     The loves of earth, the hopes of heaven!
+
+       "Ah, dearer than the praise that stirs
+     The air to-day, our love is hers!
+     She needs no guaranty of fame
+     Whose own is linked with Freedom's name.
+     Long ages after ours shall keep
+     Her memory living while we sleep;
+     The waves that wash our gray coast lines,
+     The winds that rock the Southern pines
+     Shall sing of her; the unending years
+     Shall tell her tale in unborn ears.
+     And when, with sins and follies past,
+     Are numbered color-hate and caste,
+     White, black, and red shall own as one,
+     The noblest work by woman done."
+
+It was followed by a few words from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes,
+who also read the subjoined as his contribution to the chorus of
+congratulation:--
+
+    "If every tongue that speaks her praise
+     For whom I shape my tinkling phrase
+       Were summoned to the table,
+     The vocal chorus that would meet
+     Of mingling accents harsh or sweet,
+     From every land and tribe, would beat
+       The polyglots of Babel.
+
+    "Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane,
+     Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine,
+       Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi,
+     High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too,
+     The Russian serf, the Polish Jew,
+     Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo
+       Would shout, 'We know the lady.'
+
+    "Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom
+     And her he learned his gospel from,
+       Has never heard of Moses;
+     Full well the brave black hand we know
+     That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe
+     That killed the weed that used to grow
+       Among the Southern roses.
+
+    "When Archimedes, long ago,
+     Spoke out so grandly, '_Dos pou sto_,--
+       Give me a place to stand on,
+     I'll move your planet for you, now,'--
+     He little dreamed or fancied how
+     The _sto_ at last should find its _pou_
+       For woman's faith to land on.
+
+    "Her lever was the wand of art,
+     Her fulcrum was the human heart,
+       Whence all unfailing aid is;
+     She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed
+     Its mountains shook, its temples reeled,
+     The blood-red fountains were unsealed,
+       And Moloch sunk to Hades.
+
+    "All through the conflict, up and down
+     Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown,
+       One ghost, one form ideal;
+     And which was false and which was true,
+     And which was mightier of the two,
+     The wisest sibyl never knew,
+       For both alike were real.
+
+    "Sister, the holy maid does well
+     Who counts her beads in convent cell,
+       Where pale devotion lingers;
+     But she who serves the sufferer's needs,
+     Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds,
+     May trust the Lord will count her beads
+       As well as human fingers.
+
+    "When Truth herself was Slavery's slave
+     Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave
+       The rainbow wings of fiction.
+     And Truth who soared descends to-day
+     Bearing an angel's wreath away,
+     Its lilies at thy feet to lay
+       With heaven's own benediction."
+
+Poems written for the occasion by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, Miss Elizabeth
+Stuart Phelps, Mr. J. T. Trowbridge, Mrs. Allen (Mrs. Stowe's
+daughter), Mrs. Annie Fields, and Miss Charlotte F. Bates, were also
+read, and speeches were made by Judge Albion W. Tourgée and others
+prominent in the literary world.
+
+Letters from many noted people, who were prevented from being present
+by distance or by other engagements, had been received. Only four of
+them were read, but they were all placed in Mrs. Stowe's hands. The
+exercises were closed by a few words from Mrs. Stowe herself. As she
+came to the front of the platform the whole company rose, and remained
+standing until she had finished. In her quiet, modest, way, and yet so
+clearly as to be plainly heard by all, she said:--
+
+"I wish to say that I thank all my friends from my heart,--that is
+all. And one thing more,--and that is, if any of you have doubt, or
+sorrow, or pain, if you doubt about this world, just remember what
+God has done; just remember that this great sorrow of slavery has
+gone, gone by forever. I see it every day at the South. I walk about
+there and see the lowly cabins. I see these people growing richer and
+richer. I see men very happy in their lowly lot; but, to be sure, you
+must have patience with them. They are not perfect, but have their
+faults, and they are serious faults in the view of white people. But
+they are very happy, that is evident, and they do know how to enjoy
+themselves,--a great deal more than you do. An old negro friend in our
+neighborhood has got a new, nice two-story house, and an orange grove,
+and a sugar-mill. He has got a lot of money, besides. Mr. Stowe met
+him one day, and he said, 'I have got twenty head of cattle, four head
+of "hoss," forty head of hen, and I have got ten children, all _mine,
+every one mine_.' Well, now, that is a thing that a black man could not
+say once, and this man was sixty years old before he could say it. With
+all the faults of the colored people, take a man and put him down with
+nothing but his hands, and how many could say as much as that? I think
+they have done well.
+
+"A little while ago they had at his house an evening festival for their
+church, and raised fifty dollars. We white folks took our carriages,
+and when we reached the house we found it fixed nicely. Every one of
+his daughters knew how to cook. They had a good place for the festival.
+Their suppers were spread on little white tables with nice clean cloths
+on them. People paid fifty cents for supper. They got between fifty and
+sixty dollars, and had one of the best frolics you could imagine. They
+had also for supper ice-cream, which they made themselves.
+
+"That is the sort of thing I see going on around me. Let us never
+doubt. Everything that ought to happen is going to happen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Stowe's public life ends with the garden party, and little more
+remains to be told. She had already, in 1880, begun the task of
+selection from the great accumulation of letters and papers relating
+to her life, and writes thus to her son in Saco, Maine, regarding the
+work:--
+
+                                    _September 30, 1880._
+
+    MY DEAR CHARLEY,--My mind has been with you a great
+    deal lately. I have been looking over and arranging
+    my papers with a view to sifting out those that are
+    not worth keeping, and so filing and arranging those
+    that are to be kept, that my heirs and assigns may
+    with the less trouble know where and what they are. I
+    cannot describe (to you) the peculiar feelings which
+    this review occasions. Reading old letters--when so
+    many of the writers are gone from earth, seems to me
+    like going into the world of spirits--letters full of
+    the warm, eager, anxious, busy life, that is _forever_
+    past. My own letters, too, full of by-gone scenes in
+    my early life and the childish days of my children.
+    It is affecting to me to recall things that strongly
+    moved me years ago, that filled my thoughts and made
+    me anxious when the occasion and emotion have wholly
+    vanished from my mind. But I thank God there is _one_
+    thing running through all of them from the time I was
+    thirteen years old, and that is the intense unwavering
+    sense of Christ's educating, guiding presence and care.
+    It is _all_ that remains now. The romance of my youth
+    is faded, it looks to me now, from my years, so _very_
+    young--those days when my mind only lived in _emotion_,
+    and when my letters never were dated, because they were
+    only histories of the _internal_, but now that I am no
+    more and never can be young in this world, now that the
+    friends of those days are almost all in eternity, what
+    remains?
+
+    Through life and through death, through sorrowing, through sinning,
+    Christ shall suffice me as he hath sufficed.
+    Christ is the end and Christ the beginning,
+    The beginning and end of all is Christ.
+
+    [Illustration: THE LATER HARTFORD HOME.]
+
+    I was passionate in my attachments in those far back
+    years, and as I have looked over files of old letters,
+    they are all gone (except one, C. Van Rensselaer),
+    Georgiana May, Delia Bacon, Clarissa Treat, Elisabeth
+    Lyman, Sarah Colt, Elisabeth Phenix, Frances Strong,
+    Elisabeth Foster. I have letters from them all, but
+    they have been long in spirit land and know more about
+    how it is there than I do. It gives me a sort of dizzy
+    feeling of the shortness of life and nearness of
+    eternity when I see how many that I have traveled with
+    are gone within the veil. Then there are all my own
+    letters, written in the first two years of marriage,
+    when Mr. Stowe was in Europe and I was looking forward
+    to motherhood and preparing for it--my letters when my
+    whole life was within the four walls of my nursery,
+    my thoughts absorbed by the developing character of
+    children who have now lived their earthly life and gone
+    to the eternal one,--my two little boys, each in their
+    way good and lovely, whom Christ has taken in youth,
+    and my little one, my first Charley, whom He took away
+    before he knew sin or sorrow,--then my brother
+    George and sister Catherine, the one a companion of my
+    youth, the other the mother who assumed the care of
+    me after I left home in my twelfth year--and they are
+    gone. Then my blessed father, for many years so true an
+    image of the Heavenly Father,--in all my afflictions he
+    was afflicted, in all my perplexities he was a sure and
+    safe counselor, and he too is gone upward to join the
+    angelic mother whom I scarcely knew in this world, who
+    has been to me only a spiritual presence through life.
+
+In 1882 Mrs. Stowe writes to her son certain impressions derived from
+reading the "Life and Letters of John Quincy Adams," which are given as
+containing a retrospect of the stormy period of her own life-experience.
+
+"Your father enjoys his proximity to the Boston library. He is now
+reading the twelve or fourteen volumes of the life and diary of John
+Q. Adams. It is a history of our country through all the period of
+slavery usurpation that led to the war. The industry of the man in
+writing is wonderful. Every day's doings in the house are faithfully
+daguerreotyped,--all the mean tricks, contrivances of the slave-power,
+and the pusillanimity of the Northern members from day to day recorded.
+Calhoun was then secretary of state. Under his connivance even the
+United States census was falsified, to prove that freedom was bad for
+negroes. Records of deaf, dumb, and blind, and insane colored people
+were distributed in Northern States, and in places where John Q. Adams
+had means of _proving_ there were no negroes. When he found that these
+falsified figures had been used with the English embassador as reasons
+for admitting Texas as a slave State, the old man called on Calhoun,
+and showed him the industriously collected _proofs_ of the falsity of
+this census. He says: 'He writhed like a trodden rattlesnake, but said
+the census was full of mistakes; but one part balanced another,--it
+was not worth while to correct them.' His whole life was an incessant
+warfare with the rapidly advancing spirit of slavery, that was coiling
+like a serpent around everything.
+
+"At a time when the Southerners were like so many excited tigers
+and rattlesnakes,--when they bullied, and scoffed, and sneered, and
+threatened, this old man rose every day in his place, and, knowing
+every parliamentary rule and tactic of debate, found means to make
+himself heard. Then he presented a petition from _negroes_, which
+raised a storm of fury. The old man claimed that the right of petition
+was the right of every human being. They moved to expel him. By the
+rules of the house a man, before he can be expelled, may have the
+floor to make his defense. This was just what he wanted. He held the
+floor for _fourteen days_, and used his wonderful powers of memory and
+arrangement to give a systematic, scathing history of the usurpations
+of slavery; he would have spoken fourteen days more, but his enemies,
+finding the thing getting hotter and hotter, withdrew their motion, and
+the right of petition was gained.
+
+"What is remarkable in this journal is the minute record of going to
+church every Sunday, and an analysis of the text and sermon. There
+is something about these so simple, so humble, so earnest. Often
+differing from the speaker--but with gravity and humility--he seems
+always to be so self-distrustful; to have such a sense of sinfulness
+and weakness, but such trust in God's fatherly mercy, as is most
+beautiful to see. Just the record of his Sunday sermons, and his
+remarks upon them, would be most instructive to a preacher. He was a
+regular communicant, and, beside, attended church on Christmas and
+Easter,--I cannot but love the old man. He died without seeing even the
+dawn of liberty which God has brought; but oh! I am sure he sees it
+from above. He died in the Capitol, in the midst of his labors, and the
+last words he said were, 'This is the last of earth; I am content.' And
+now, I trust, he is with God.
+
+"All, all are gone. All that raged; all that threatened; all the
+cowards that yielded; truckled, sold their country for a mess of
+pottage; all the _men_ that stood and bore infamy and scorn for the
+truth; all are silent in dust; the fight is over, but eternity will
+never efface from their souls whether they did well or ill--whether
+they fought bravely or failed like cowards. In a sense, our lives
+are irreparable. If we shrink, if we fail, if we choose the fleeting
+instead of the eternal, God may forgive us; but there must be an
+eternal regret! This man lived for humanity when hardest bestead; for
+truth when truth was unpopular; for Christ when Christ stood chained
+and scourged in the person of the slave."
+
+In the fall of 1887 she writes to her brother Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher
+of Brooklyn, N. Y.:--
+
+    49 FOREST STREET, HARTFORD, CONN., _October 11, 1887._
+
+    DEAR BROTHER,--I was delighted to receive your kind
+    letter. _You_ were my earliest religious teacher; your
+    letters to me while a school-girl in Hartford gave
+    me a high Christian aim and standard which I hope I
+    have never lost. Not only did they do me good, but
+    also my intimate friends, Georgiana May and Catherine
+    Cogswell, to whom I read them. The simplicity, warmth,
+    and childlike earnestness of those school days I love
+    to recall. I am the _only one living_ of that circle
+    of early friends. _Not one_ of my early schoolmates is
+    living,--and now Henry, younger by a year or two than
+    I, has gone--my husband also.[21] I often think, _Why_
+    am I spared? Is there yet anything for me to do? I am
+    thinking with my son Charles's help of writing a review
+    of my life, under the title, "Pebbles from the Shores
+    of a Past Life."
+
+    Charlie told me that he has got all written up to my
+    twelfth or thirteenth year, when I came to be under
+    sister Catherine's care in Hartford. I am writing daily
+    my remembrances from that time. You were then, I think,
+    teacher of the Grammar School in Hartford....
+
+    So, my dear brother, let us keep good heart; no evil
+    can befall us. Sin alone is evil, and from that Christ
+    will keep us. Our journey is _so_ short!
+
+    I feel about all things now as I do about the things
+    that happen in a hotel, after my trunk is packed to go
+    home. I may be vexed and annoyed ... but what of it! I
+    am going home soon.
+
+                        Your affectionate sister,
+                                             HATTIE.
+
+To a friend she writes a little later:--
+
+"I have thought much lately of the possibility of my leaving you all
+and going home. I am come to that stage of my pilgrimage that is within
+sight of the River of Death, and I feel that now I must have all in
+readiness day and night for the messenger of the King. I have sometimes
+had in my sleep strange perceptions of a vivid spiritual life near to
+and with Christ, and multitudes of holy ones, and the joy of it is like
+no other joy,--it cannot be told in the language of the world. What I
+have then I _know_ with absolute certainty, yet it is so unlike and
+above anything we conceive of in this world that it is difficult to
+put it into words. The inconceivable loveliness of Christ! It seems
+that about Him there is a sphere where the enthusiasm of love is the
+calm habit of the soul, that without words, without the necessity of
+demonstrations of affection, heart beats to heart, soul answers soul,
+we respond to the Infinite Love, and we feel his answer in us, and
+there is no need of words. All seemed to be busy coming and going on
+ministries of good, and passing each gave a thrill of joy to each as
+Jesus, the directing soul, the centre of all, "over all, in all, and
+through all," was working his beautiful and merciful will to redeem and
+save. I was saying as I awoke:--
+
+    "''Tis joy enough, my all in all,
+        At thy dear feet to lie.
+      Thou wilt not let me lower fall,
+        And none can higher fly.'
+
+"This was but a glimpse; but it has left a strange sweetness in my
+mind."
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[21] Professor Stowe died August, 1886.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+    ABBOTT, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob, 292.
+
+    Aberdeen, reception in, 221.
+
+    Abolition, English meetings in favor of, 389.
+
+    Abolition sentiment, growth of, 87.
+
+    Abolitionism made fashionable, 253.
+
+    Adams, John Quincy, crusade of, against slavery, 509;
+      holds floor of Congress fourteen days, 510;
+      his religious life and trust, 511;
+      died without seeing dawn of liberty, 511;
+      life and letters of, 510.
+
+    "Agnes of Sorrento," first draft of, 374;
+      date of, 490;
+      Whittier's praise of, 503.
+
+    "Alabama Planter," savage attack of, on H. B. S., 187.
+
+    Albert, Prince, Mrs. Stowe's letter to, 160;
+      his reply, 164;
+      meeting with, 271;
+      death, 368.
+
+    America, liberty in, 193;
+      Ruskin on, 354.
+
+    American novelist, Lowell on the, 330.
+
+    Andover, Mass., beauty of, 186;
+      Stowe family settled in, 188.
+
+    Anti-slavery cause: result of English demonstrations, 252;
+      letters to England, 160;
+      feeling dreaded in South, 172;
+      movement in Cincinnati, 81;
+      in Boston, 145;
+      Beecher family all anti-slavery men, 152.
+
+    "Arabian Nights," H. B. S.'s delight in, 9.
+
+    Argyll, Duke and Duchess of 229, 232;
+      warmth of, 239;
+      H. B. S. invited to visit, 270, 271;
+      death of father of Duchess, 368.
+
+    Argyll, Duchess of, letter from H. B. S. to, on England's attitude
+          during our Civil War, 368;
+      on _post bellum_ events, 395.
+
+    "Atlantic Monthly," contains "Minister's Wooing," 327;
+      Mrs. Stowe's address to women of England, 375;
+      "The True Story of Lady Byron's Life," 447, 453.
+
+
+    BAILEY, Gamaliel, Dr., editor of "National Era," 157.
+
+    Bangor, readings in, 493.
+
+    Bates, Charlotte Fiske, reads a poem at Mrs. Stowe's seventieth
+          birthday, 505.
+
+    Baxter's "Saints' Rest," has a powerful effect on H. B. S., 32.
+
+    Beecher, Catherine, eldest sister of H. B. S., 1;
+      her education of H. B. S., 22;
+      account of her own birth, 23;
+      strong influence over Harriet, 22;
+      girlhood of, 23;
+      teacher at New London, 23;
+      engagement, 23;
+      drowning of her lover, 23;
+      soul struggles after Prof. Fisher's death, 25, 26;
+      teaches in his family, 25;
+      publishes article on Free Agency, 26;
+      opens school at Hartford, 27;
+      solution of doubts while teaching, 28, 29;
+      her conception of Divine Nature, 28;
+      school at Hartford described by H. B. S., 29;
+      doubts about Harriet's conversion, 35;
+      hopes for "Hartford Female Seminary," 37;
+      letter to Edward about Harriet's doubts, 38;
+      note on Harriet's letter, 43;
+      new school at Cincinnati, 53, 64, _et seq._;
+      visits Cincinnati with father, 54;
+      impressions of city, 54;
+      homesickness, 62;
+      at water cure, 113;
+      a mother to sister Harriet, 509;
+      letters to H. B. S. to, on her religious depression, 37;
+      on religious doubts, 322.
+
+    Beecher, Charles, brother of H. B. S., 2;
+      in college, 56;
+      goes to Florida, 402;
+      letters from H. B. S., on mother's death, 2-4, 49.
+
+    Beecher, Edward, Dr., brother of H. B. S., 1;
+      influence over her, 22, 25;
+      indignation against Fugitive Slave Act, 144;
+      efforts to arouse churches, 265;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, on early religious struggles, 36, 37;
+      on her feelings, 39;
+      on views of God, 42, 43, 44, 48;
+      on death of friends and relatives, and the writing of her life
+          by her son Charles, 512.
+
+    Beecher, Esther, aunt of H. B. S., 53, 56, 57.
+
+    Beecher family, famous reunion of, 89;
+      circular letter to, 99.
+
+    Beecher, Frederick, H. B. S.'s half-brother, death of, 13.
+
+    Beecher, George, brother of H. B. S., 1;
+      visit to, 45;
+      enters Lane as student, 53;
+      music and tracts, 58;
+      account of journey to Cincinnati, 59;
+      sudden death, 108;
+      H. B. S. meets at Dayton one of his first converts, 499;
+      his letters cherished, 508.
+
+    Beecher, George, nephew of H. B. S., visit to, 498.
+
+    Beecher, Mrs. George, letter from H. B. S. to, describing new home,
+          133.
+
+    Beecher, Harriet E. first; death of, 1;
+      second, (H. B. S.) birth of, 1.
+
+    Beecher, Mrs. Harriet Porter, H. B. S.'s stepmother, 11;
+      personal appearance and character of, 11, 12;
+      pleasant impressions of new home and children, 12;
+      at Cincinnati, 62.
+
+    Beecher, Henry Ward, brother of H. B. S., birth of, 1;
+      anecdote of, after mother's death, 2;
+      first school, 8;
+      conception of Divine Nature, 28;
+      in college, 55;
+      H. B. S. attends graduation, 73;
+      editor of Cincinnati "Journal," 81;
+      sympathy with anti-slavery movement, 84, 85, 87;
+      at Brooklyn, 130;
+      saves Edmonson's daughters, 178;
+      H. B. S. visits, 364;
+      views on Reconstruction, 397;
+      George Eliot on Beecher trial, 472;
+      his character as told by H. B. S., 475;
+      love for Prof. Stowe, 475;
+      his youth and life in West, 476;
+      Brooklyn and his anti-slavery fight, 476;
+      Edmonsons and Plymouth Church, 477;
+      his loyalty and energy, 477;
+      his religion, 477;
+      popularity and personal magnetism, 478;
+      terrible struggle in the Beecher trial, 478;
+      bribery of jury, but final triumph, 479;
+      ecclesiastical trial of, 479;
+      committee of five appointed to bring facts, 479;
+      his ideal purity and innocence, 480;
+      power at death-beds and funerals, 480;
+      beloved by poor and oppressed, 481;
+      meets accusations by silence, prayer, and work, 481;
+      his thanks and speech at Stowe Garden Party, 501;
+      tribute to father, mother, and sister Harriet, 502;
+      death, 512.
+
+    Beecher, Isabella, H. B. S.'s half-sister, birth of, 13;
+      goes to Cincinnati, 53.
+
+    Beecher, James, H. B. S.'s half-brother, 45;
+      goes to Cincinnati, 53;
+      begins Sunday-school, 63.
+
+    Beecher, Rev. Dr. Lyman, H. B. Stowe's father, 1;
+      "Autobiography and Correspondence of," 2, 89;
+      verdict on his wife's remarkable piety, 3;
+      pride in his daughter's essay, 14;
+      admiration of Walter Scott, 25;
+      sermon which converts H. B. S., 33, 34;
+      accepts call to Hanover Street Church, Boston, 35;
+      president of Lane Theological Seminary, 53;
+      first journey to Cincinnati, 53;
+      removal and westward journey, 56 _et seq._;
+      removes family to Cincinnati, 56;
+      Beecher reunion, 89;
+      powerful sermons on slave question, 152;
+      his sturdy character, H. W. Beecher's eulogy upon, 502;
+      death and reunion with H. B. S's mother, 509.
+
+    Beecher, Mary, sister of H. B. S., 1;
+      married, 55;
+      letter to, 61;
+      accompanies sister to Europe, 269;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, on love for New England, 61;
+      on visit to Windsor, 235.
+
+    Beecher, Roxanna Foote, mother of H. B. S., 1;
+      her death, 2;
+      strong, sympathetic nature, 2;
+      reverence for the Sabbath, 3;
+      sickness, death, and funeral, 4;
+      influence in family strong even after death, 5;
+      character described by H. W. Beecher, 502;
+      H. B. S.'s resemblance to, 502.
+
+    Beecher, William, brother of H. B. S., 1;
+      licensed to preach, 56.
+
+    Bell, Henry, English inventor of steamboat, 215.
+
+    Belloc, Mme., translates "Uncle Tom," 247.
+
+    Belloc, M., to paint portrait of H. B. S., 241.
+
+    Bentley, London publisher, offers pay for "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 202.
+
+    "Betty's Bright Idea," date of, 491.
+
+    Bible, 48;
+      Uncle Tom's, 262;
+      use and influence of, 263.
+
+    "Bible Heroines," date of, 491.
+
+    Bibliography of H. B. S., 490.
+
+    Biography, H. B. S.'s remarks on writing and understanding, 126.
+
+    Birney, J. G., office wrecked, 81 _et seq._;
+      H. B. S.'s sympathy with, 84.
+
+    Birthday, seventieth, celebration of by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
+          500.
+
+    Blackwood's attack on Lady Byron, 448.
+
+    Blantyre, Lord, 230.
+
+    Bogue, David, 189-191.
+
+    Boston opens doors to slave-hunters, 144.
+
+    Boston Library, Prof. Stowe enjoys proximity to, 509.
+
+    Bowdoin College calls Prof. Stowe, 125, 129.
+
+    Bowen, H. C., 181.
+
+    Bruce, John, of Litchfield Academy, H. B. S.'s tribute to, 14;
+      lectures on Butler's "Analogy," 32.
+
+    Brigham, Miss, character of, 46.
+
+    Bright, John, letter to H. B. S. on her "Appeal to English Women,"
+          389.
+
+    Brooklyn, Mrs. Stowe's visit to brother Henry in, 130;
+      visit in 1852, when she helps the Edmonson slave family, 178-180;
+      Beecher, H. W. called to, 476;
+      Beecher trial in, 478.
+
+    Brown and the phantoms, 431.
+
+    Brown, John, bravery of, 380.
+
+    Browning, Mrs., on life and love, 52.
+
+    Browning, E. B., letter to H. B. S., 356;
+      death of, 368, 370.
+
+    Browning, Robert and E. B, friendship with, 355.
+
+    Brunswick, Mrs. Stowe's love of, 184;
+      revisited, 324.
+
+    Buck, Eliza, history of as slave, 201.
+
+    Bull, J. D. and family, make home for H. B. S. while at school in
+          Hartford, 30, 31.
+
+    Bunsen, Chevalier, 233.
+
+    Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," Prof. Stowe's love of, 437.
+
+    Burritt, Elihu, writes introduction to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 192;
+      calls on Mrs. Stowe, 223.
+
+    Butler's "Analogy," study of, by H. B. S., 32.
+
+    "Byron Controversy," 445;
+      history of, 455;
+      George Eliot on, 458;
+      Dr. Holmes on, 455.
+
+    Byron, Lady, 239;
+      letters from, 274, 281;
+      makes donation to Kansas sufferers, 281;
+      on power of words, 361;
+      death of, 368, 370;
+      her character assailed, 446;
+      her first meeting with H. B. S., 447;
+      dignity and calmness, 448;
+      memoranda and letters about Lord Byron shown to Mrs. Stowe, 450;
+      solemn interview with H. B. S., 453;
+      letters to H. B. S. from, 274, 282;
+      on "The Minister's Wooing," 343;
+      farewell to, 313, 339;
+      her confidences, 440;
+      Mrs. Stowe's counsels to, 451.
+
+    Byron, Lord, Mrs. Stowe on, 339;
+      she suspects his insanity, 450;
+      cheap edition of his works proposed, 453;
+      Recollections of, by Countess Guiccioli, 446;
+      his position as viewed by Dr. Holmes, 457;
+      evidence of his poems for and against him, 457.
+
+
+    "CABIN, The," literary centre, 185.
+
+    Cairnes, Prof., on the "Fugitive Slave Law," 146.
+
+    Calhoun falsifies census, 509.
+
+    Calvinism, J. R. Lowell's sympathy with, 335.
+
+    Cambridgeport, H. B. S. reads in, 491.
+
+    Carlisle, Lord, praises "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 164;
+      Mrs. Stowe's reply, 164;
+      writes introduction to "Uncle Tom," 192;
+      H. B. S. dines with, 228;
+      farewell to, 248;
+      letter from H. B. S. to on moral effect of slavery, 164;
+      letter to H. B. S. from, 218.
+
+    Cary, Alice and Phoebe, 157.
+
+    Casaubon and Dorothea, criticism by H. B. S. on, 471.
+
+    Catechisms, Church and Assembly, H. B. S.'s early study of, 6, 7.
+
+    Chapman, Mrs. Margaret Weston, 310.
+
+    Charpentier of Paris, publishes "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 192;
+      eulogy of that work, 242.
+
+    Chase, Salmon P., 69, 85.
+
+    Chelsea, H. B. S. reads in, 492.
+
+    Chicago, readings in, 498.
+
+    Children of H. B. S., picture of three eldest, 90;
+      appeal to, by H. B. S. 157;
+      described by H. B. S., 198;
+      letters to, from H. B. S. on European voyage and impressions, 205;
+      on life in London, 228;
+      on meeting at Stafford House, 232;
+      on Vesuvius, 301, 416.
+
+    "Chimney Corner, The," date of, 490.
+
+    Cholera epidemic in Cincinnati, 120.
+
+    Christ, life of, little understood, 127;
+      communion with Him possible, 487;
+      love and faith in, 513;
+      study of his life, 418;
+      his presence all that remains now, 507;
+      his promises comfort the soul for separations by death, 486.
+
+    "Christian Union," contains observations by H. B. S. on spiritualism
+          and Mr. Owen's books, 465.
+
+    Christianity and spiritualism, 487.
+
+    Church, the, responsible for slavery, 151.
+
+    Cincinnati, Lyman Beecher accepts call to, 53;
+      Catherine Beecher's impressions of, 54, 55;
+      Walnut Hills and Seminary, 54, 55;
+      famine in, 100;
+      cholera, 119;
+      sympathetic audience in, 498.
+
+    Civil War, Mrs. Stowe on causes of, 363.
+
+    Clarke & Co. on English success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 190;
+      offer author remuneration, 202.
+
+    Clay, Henry, and his compromise, 143.
+
+    Cogswell, Catherine Ledyard, school-friend of H. B. S., 31.
+
+    College of Teachers, 79.
+
+    Collins professorship, 129.
+
+    Colored people, advance of, 255.
+
+    Confederacy, A. H. Stephens on object of, 381.
+
+    Courage and cheerfulness of H. B. S., 473.
+
+    Cranch, E. P., 69.
+
+    Cruikshank illustrates "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 192.
+
+
+    "DANIEL DERONDA," appears, in "Harper's," 473;
+      his nature like H. W. Beecher's, 481;
+      admiration of Prof. Stowe for, 482.
+
+    Da Vinci's Last Supper, H. B. S.'s impressions of, 305.
+
+    Death of youngest-born of H. B. S., 124;
+      anguish at, 198.
+
+    Death, H. B. S. within sight of the River of, 513.
+
+    "Debatable Land between this World and the Next," 464.
+
+    Declaration of Independence, H. B. S.'s feeling about, 11;
+      death-knell to slavery, 141.
+
+    Degan, Miss, 32, 41, 46.
+
+    Democracy and American novelists, Lowell on, 329.
+
+    "De Profundis," motive of Mrs. Browning's, 357.
+
+    De Staël, Mme., and Corinne, 67.
+
+    Dickens, first sight of, 226;
+      J. R. Lowell on, 328.
+
+    "Dog's Mission, A," date of, 491.
+
+    Domestic service, H. B. S.'s trouble with, 200.
+
+    Doubters and disbelievers may find comfort in spiritualism, 487.
+
+    Doubts, religious, after death of eldest son, 321.
+
+    Douglass, Frederick, 254;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, on slavery, 149.
+
+    Drake, Dr., family physician, 63;
+      one of founders of "College of Teachers," 79.
+
+    "Dred," 266;
+      Sumner's letter on, 268;
+      Georgiana May on, 268;
+      English edition of, 270;
+      presented to Queen Victoria, 271;
+      her interest in, 277, 285;
+      demand for, in Glasgow, 273;
+      Duchess of Sutherland's copy, 276;
+      Low's sales of, 278, 279;
+      "London Times," on, 278;
+      English reviews on, severe, 279;
+      "Revue des Deux Mondes" on, 290;
+      Miss Martineau on, 309;
+      Prescott on, 311;
+      Lowell on, 334;
+      now "Nina Gordon," publication of, 490.
+
+    Dudevant, Madame. See Sand, George.
+
+    Dufferin, Lord and Lady, their love of American literature, 284,
+          285.
+
+    Dundee, meeting at, 222.
+
+    Dunrobin Castle, visit to, 276.
+
+
+    E----, letter from H. B. S. to, on breakfast at the Trevelyans',
+          234.
+
+    "Earthly Care a Heavenly Discipline," 131.
+
+    East Hampton, L. I., birthplace of Catherine Beecher, 23.
+
+    Eastman, Mrs., writes a Southern reply to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 163.
+
+    Edgeworth, Maria, 247.
+
+    Edinburgh, H. B. S. in, 216;
+      return to, 222.
+
+    Edmonson slave family; efforts to save, 179;
+      Mrs. Stowe educates and supports daughters, 179;
+      raises money to free mother and two slave children, 180.
+
+    Edmonson, death of Mary, 238.
+
+    Education, H. B. S.'s interest in, 72, 73.
+
+    Edwards, Jonathan, the power of, 406;
+      his treatise on "The Will," refuted by Catherine Beecher, 26.
+
+    Eliot, George, 419;
+      a good Christian, 420;
+      on psychical problems, 421;
+      on "Oldtown Folks," 443;
+      her despondency in "writing life" and longing for sympathy, 460;
+      on power of fine books, 461;
+      on religion, 462;
+      desires to keep an open mind on all subjects, 467;
+      on impostures of spiritualism, 467;
+      lack of "jollitude" in "Middlemarch," 471;
+      invited to visit America, 471;
+      sympathy with H. B. S. in Beecher trial, 472;
+      proud of Stowes' interest in her "spiritual children," 482;
+      on death of Mr. Lewes and gratitude for sympathy of H. B. S., 483;
+      a "woman worth loving," H. B. S.'s love for greater than her
+          admiration, 475;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, on spiritualism, 463;
+      describes Florida nature and home, 468;
+      reply to letter of sympathy giving facts in the Beecher case, 473;
+      from Professor Stowe on spiritualism, 419;
+      letter to H. B. S. from, 421;
+      with sympathy on abuse called out by the Byron affair, 458;
+      on effect of letter of H. B. S. to Mrs. Follen upon her mind, 460;
+      on joy of sympathy, 460;
+      reply to letter on spiritualism, 466;
+      sympathy with her in the Beecher trial, 472.
+
+    Elmes, Mr., 57.
+
+    "Elms, The Old," H. B. S.'s seventieth birthday celebrated at, 500.
+
+    "Elsie Venner," Mrs. Stowe's praise of, 360, 362, 415.
+
+    Emancipation, Proclamation of, 384.
+
+    Emmons, Doctor, the preaching of, 25.
+
+    England and America compared, 177.
+
+    England, attitude of, in civil war, grief at, 369;
+      help of to America on slave question, 166, 174.
+
+    English women's address on slavery, 374;
+      H. B. S.'s reply in the "Atlantic Monthly," 374.
+
+    Europe, first visit to, 189;
+      second visit to, 268;
+      third visit to, 343.
+
+
+    FAITH in Christ, 513.
+
+    Famine in Cincinnati, 100.
+
+    Fiction, power of, 216.
+
+    Fields, Mrs. Annie, in Boston, 470;
+      her tribute to Mrs. Stowe's courage and cheerfulness, 473;
+      George Eliot's mention of, 483;
+      her poem read at seventieth birthday, 505.
+
+    Fields, Jas. T., Mr. and Mrs., visit of H. B. S. to, 492.
+
+    Fisher, Prof. Alexander Metcalf, 23;
+      engagement to Catherine Beecher, 23;
+      sails for Europe, 23, 24;
+      his death by drowning in shipwreck of Albion, 24;
+      Catherine Beecher's soul struggles, over his future fate, 25;
+      influence of these struggles depicted in "The Minister's
+          Wooing," 25.
+
+    Florence, Mrs. Stowe's winter in, 349.
+
+    Florida, winter home in Mandarin, 401;
+      like Sorrento, 463;
+      wonderful growth of nature, 468;
+      how H. B. S.'s house was built, 469;
+      her happy life in, 474;
+      longings for, 482;
+      her enjoyment of happy life of the freedmen in, 506.
+
+    Flowers, love of, 405, 406, 416, 469;
+      painting, 469.
+
+    Follen, Mrs., 197;
+      letter from H. B. S. to, on her biography, 197.
+
+    Foote, Harriet, aunt of H. B. S., 5;
+      energetic English character, 6;
+      teaches niece catechism, 6, 7.
+
+    Foote, Mrs. Roxanna, grandmother of H. B. S., first visit to, 5-7;
+      visit to in 1827, 38.
+
+    "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," 464.
+
+    "Footsteps of the Master," published, 491.
+
+    "Fraser's Magazine" on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 168;
+      Helps's review of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 175.
+
+    "Free Agency," Catherine Beecher's refutation of Edwards on "The
+          Will," 26.
+
+    French critics, high standing of, 291.
+
+    Friends, love for, 51;
+      death of, 410;
+      death of old, whose letters are cherished, 508;
+      death of, takes away a part of ourselves, 485.
+
+    Friendship, opinion of, 50.
+
+    Fugitive Slave Act, suffering caused by, 144;
+      Prof. Cairnes on, 146;
+      practically repealed, 384.
+
+    Future life, glimpses of, leave strange sweetness, 513.
+
+    Future punishment, ideas of, 340.
+
+
+    GARRISON, W. L., to Mrs. Stowe on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 161;
+      in hour of victory, 396;
+      his "Liberator," 261;
+      sent with H. W. Beecher to raise flag on Sumter, 477;
+      letters to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 161;
+      on slavery, 251-262;
+      on arousing the church, 265.
+
+    Gaskell, Mrs., at home, 312.
+
+    Geography, school, written by Mrs. Stowe, 65 _note_, 158.
+
+    Germany's tribute to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 195.
+
+    Gladstone, W. E., 233.
+
+    Glasgow, H. B. S. visits, 210;
+      Anti-slavery Society of, 174, 189, 213.
+
+    Glasgow Anti-slavery Society, letter from H. B. S. to, 251.
+
+    God, H. B. S.'s views of, 30, 42, 43, 46, 47;
+      trust in, 112, 132, 148, 341;
+      doubts and final trust in, 321, 396;
+      his help in time of need, 496.
+
+    Goethe and Mr. Lewes, 420;
+      Prof. Stowe's admiration of, 420.
+
+    Goldschmidt, Madame. See Lind, Jenny.
+
+    Görres on spiritualism and mysticism, 412, 474.
+
+    Grandmother, letter from H. B. S. to, on breaking up of Litchfield
+          home, 35;
+      on school life in Hartford, 41.
+
+    Granville, Lord, 233.
+
+    "Gray's Elegy," visit to scene of, 236.
+
+    Guiccioli, Countess, "Recollections of Lord Byron," 446.
+
+
+    HALL, Judge James, 68, 69.
+
+    Hallam, Arthur Henry, 235.
+
+    Hamilton and Manumission Society, 141.
+
+    Harper & Brothers reprint Guiccioli's "Recollections of Byron," 446.
+
+    Hartford, H. B. S. goes to school at, 21;
+      the Stowes make their home at, 373.
+
+    Harvey, a phantom, 430.
+
+    Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 353;
+      letter on, 187;
+      on slavery, 394;
+      letter to H. B. S. on, from English attitude towards America, 394.
+
+    Health, care of, 115.
+
+    Heaven, belief in, 59.
+
+    Helps, Arthur, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 175;
+      meets H. B. S., 229;
+      letter from H. B. S. to, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 175.
+
+    Henry, Patrick, on slavery, 141.
+
+    Hentz, Mrs. Caroline Lee, 69, 80.
+
+    Higginson, T. W., letter to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
+          162.
+
+    "History, The, of the Byron Controversy," 490.
+
+    Holmes, O. W., correspondence with, 360, _et seq._;
+      attacks upon, 361;
+      H. B. S. asks advice from, about manner of telling facts in
+          relation to Byron Controversy, 452, 454;
+      sends copy of "Lady Byron Vindicated" to, 454;
+      on facts of case, 455;
+      on sympathy displayed in his writings, 411;
+      poem on H. B. S.'s seventieth birthday, 503;
+      tribute to Uncle Tom, 504;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, 359, 410;
+      on "Poganuc People," 414;
+      asking advice about Byron Controversy and article for "Atlantic
+          Monthly," 452;
+      letters to H. B. S. from, 360, 409;
+      on facts in the Byron Controversy, 456.
+
+    Houghton, Mifflin & Co., celebrate H. B. S.'s seventieth birthday, 500.
+
+    Houghton, H. O., presents guests to H. B. S., on celebration of
+          seventieth birthday, 500;
+      address of welcome by, 501.
+
+    "House and Home Papers" published, 490.
+
+    Howitt, Mary, calls on H. B. S., 231.
+
+    Human life, sacredness of, 193.
+
+    Human nature in books and men, 328.
+
+    Hume and mediums, 419.
+
+    Humor of Mrs. Stowe's books, George Eliot on, 462.
+
+    Husband and wife, sympathy between, 105.
+
+
+    IDEALISM _versus_ Realism, Lowell on, 334.
+
+    "Independent," New York, work for, 186;
+      Mrs. Browning reads Mrs. Stowe in, 357.
+
+    Inverary Castle, H. B. S.'s, visit to, 271.
+
+    Ireland's gift to Mrs. Stowe, 248.
+
+
+    JEFFERSON, Thomas, on slavery, 141.
+
+    Jewett, John P., of Boston, publisher of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 158.
+
+
+    KANSAS Nebraska Bill, 255;
+      urgency of question, 265.
+
+    "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" projected, 174;
+      written, 188; contains facts, 203;
+      read by Pollock, 226;
+      by Argyll, 239;
+      sickness caused by, 252;
+      sale, 253;
+      facts woven into "Dred," 266;
+      date of in chronological list, 490.
+
+    Kingsley, Charles, upon effect of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 196;
+      visit to, 286;
+      letters to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 196, 218.
+
+    Kossuth, on freedom, 195;
+      Mrs. Stowe calls upon, 237.
+
+
+    LABOUCHERE, Lady Mary, visit to, 283.
+
+    "Lady Byron Vindicated," 454;
+      date, 490.
+
+    Letters, circular, writing of, a custom in the Beecher family, 99;
+      H. B. S.'s love of, 62, 63;
+      H. B. S.'s peculiar emotions on re-reading old, 507.
+
+    Lewes, G. H., George Eliot's letter after death of, 483.
+
+    Lewes, Mrs. G. H. See Eliot, George, 325.
+
+    "Library of Famous Fiction," date of, 491.
+
+    "Liberator," The, 261;
+      and Bible, 263;
+      suspended after the close of civil war, 396.
+
+    Lincoln and slavery, 380;
+      death of, 398.
+
+    Lind, Jenny, liberality of, 181;
+      H. B. S. attends concert by, 182;
+      letter to H. B. S. from, on her delight in "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
+          183;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, with appeal for slaves, 183, 184.
+
+    Litchfield, birthplace of H. B. S., 1;
+      end of her child-life in, 21;
+      home at broken up, 35.
+
+    Literary labors, early, 15-21;
+      prize story, 68;
+      club essays, 69-71;
+      contributor to "Western Monthly Magazine," 81;
+      school geography, 65;
+      described in letter to a friend, 94;
+      price for, 103;
+      fatigue caused by, 489;
+      length of time passed in, with list of books written, 490.
+
+    Literary work _versus_ domestic duties, 94 _et seq._, 139;
+      short stories--"New Year's Story" for "N. Y. Evangelist," 146;
+      "A Scholar's Adventures in the Country" for "Era," 146.
+
+    Literature, opinion of, 44.
+
+    "Little Pussy Willow," date of, 491.
+
+    Liverpool, warm reception of H. B. S. at, 207.
+
+    London poor and Southern slaves, 175.
+
+    London, first visit to, 225;
+      second visit to, 281.
+
+    Longfellow, H. W., congratulations of, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 161;
+      letter on, 187;
+      Lord Granville's likeness to, 233;
+      letters to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 161.
+
+    Love, the impulse of life, 51, 52.
+
+    Lovejoy, J. P., murdered, 143, 145;
+      aided by Beechers, 152.
+
+    Low, Sampson, on success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" abroad, 189.
+
+    Low, Sampson & Co. publish "Dred," 269;
+      their sales, 279.
+
+    Lowell, J. R., Duchess of Sutherland's interest in, 277;
+      less known in England than he should be, 285;
+      on "Uncle Tom," 327;
+      on Dickens and Thackeray, 327, 334;
+      on "The Minister's Wooing," 330, 333;
+      on idealism, 334;
+      letter to H. B. S. from, on "The Minister's Wooing," 333.
+
+
+    MACAULAY, 233, 234.
+
+    McClellan, Gen., his disobedience to the President's commands, 367.
+
+    "Magnalia," Cotton Mather's, a mine of wealth to H. B. S., 10;
+      Prof. Stowe's interest in, 427.
+
+    Maine law, curiosity about in England, 229.
+
+    Mandarin, Mrs. Stowe at, 403;
+      like Sorrento, 463;
+      how her house was built, 469;
+      her happy out-door life in, relieved from domestic care, 474;
+      longings for home at, 492;
+      freedmen's happy life in South, 506.
+
+    Mann, Horace, makes a plea for slaves, 159.
+
+    Martineau, Harriet, letter to H. B. S. from, 208.
+
+    May, Georgiana, school and life-long friend of H. B. S., 31, 32;
+      Mrs. Sykes, 132;
+      her ill-health and farewell to H. B. S., 268;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, 44, 49, 50;
+      account of westward journey, 56;
+      on labor in establishing school, 65, 66;
+      on education, 72;
+      just before her marriage to Mr. Stowe, 76;
+      on her early married life and housekeeping, 89;
+      on birth of her son, 101;
+      describing first railroad ride, 106;
+      on her children, 119;
+      her letter to Mrs. Foote, grandmother of H. B. S., 38;
+      letters to H. B. S. from, 161, 268.
+
+    "Mayflower, The," 103, 158;
+      revised and republished, 251;
+      date of, 490.
+
+    Melancholy, 118, 341;
+      a characteristic of Prof. Stowe in childhood, 436.
+
+    "Men of Our Times," date of, 410.
+
+    "Middlemarch," H. B. S. wishes to read, 468;
+      character of Casaubon in, 471.
+
+    Milman, Dean, 234.
+
+    Milton's hell, 303.
+
+    "Minister's Wooing, The," soul struggles of Mrs. Marvyn,
+          foundation of incident, 25;
+      idea of God in, 29;
+      impulse for writing, 52;
+      appears in "Atlantic Monthly," 326;
+      Lowell, J. R. on, 327, 330, 333;
+      Whittier on, 327;
+      completed, 332;
+      Ruskin on, 336;
+      undertone of pathos, 339;
+      visits England in relation to, 343;
+      date of, 490;
+      "reveals warm heart of man" beneath the Puritan in Whittier's
+          poem, 502.
+
+    Missouri Compromise, 142, 257;
+      repealed, 379.
+
+    Mohl, Madame, and her _salon_, 291.
+
+    Money-making, reading as easy a way as any of, 494.
+
+    Moral aim in novel-writing, J. R. Lowell on, 333.
+
+    "Mourning Veil, The," 327.
+
+    "Mystique La," on spiritualism, 412.
+
+
+    NAPLES and Vesuvius, 302.
+
+    "National Era," its history, 157;
+      work for, 186.
+
+    Negroes, petition from, presented by J. Q. Adams, 510.
+
+    New England, Mrs. Stowe's knowledge of, 332;
+      in "The Minister's Wooing," 333;
+      life pictured in "Oldtown Folks," 444.
+
+    New London, fatigue of reading at, 496.
+
+    Newport, tiresome journey to, on reading tour, 497.
+
+    Niagara, impressions of, 75.
+
+    Normal school for colored teachers, 203.
+
+    "North American Review" on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 254.
+
+    North _versus_ South, England on, 388, 391.
+
+    Norton, C. E., Ruskin on the proper home of, 354.
+
+
+    "OBSERVER, New York," denunciation of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 168, 172.
+
+    "Oldtown Fireside Stories," 438;
+      strange spiritual experiences of Prof. Stowe, 438;
+      Sam Lawson a real character, 439;
+      relief after finishing, 489;
+      date of in chronological list, 491;
+      in Whittier's poem on seventieth birthday "With Old New England's
+          flavor rife," 503.
+
+    "Oldtown Folks," 404;
+      Prof. Stowe original of "Harry" in, 421;
+      George Eliot on its reception in England, 443, 461, 463;
+      picture of N. E. life, 444;
+      date of, 490;
+      Whittier's praise of, "vigorous pencil-strokes" in poem on
+          seventieth birthday, 503.
+
+    Orthodoxy, 335.
+
+    "Our Charley," date of, 490.
+
+    Owen, Robert Dale, his "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World"
+          and "The Debatable Land between this World and the Next," 464;
+      H. B. S. wishes George Eliot to meet, 464.
+
+
+    PALMERSTON, Lord, meeting with, 232.
+
+    "Palmetto Leaves" published, 405;
+      date, 491.
+
+    Papacy, The, 358.
+
+    Paris, first visit to, 241;
+      second visit, 286.
+
+    Park, Professor Edwards A., 186.
+
+    Parker, Theodore, on the Bible and Jesus, 264.
+
+    Paton, Bailie, host of Mrs. Stowe, 211.
+
+    Peabody, pleasant reading in, 496;
+      Queen Victoria's picture at, 496.
+
+    "Pearl of Orr's Island, The," 186, 187;
+      first published, 327;
+      Whittier's favorite, 327;
+      date of, 490.
+
+    "Pebbles from the Shores of a Past Life," a review of her life
+          proposed to be written by H. B. S. with aid of son Charles,
+          512.
+
+    Phantoms seen by Professor Stowe, 425.
+
+    Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, writes poem on H. B. S.'s seventieth
+          birthday, 505.
+
+    "Philanthropist, The," anti-slavery paper, 81, 87.
+
+    Phillips, Wendell, attitude of after war, 396.
+
+    "Pink and White Tyranny," date of, 491.
+
+    Plymouth Church, saves Edmonson's daughters, 179;
+      slavery and, 477;
+      clears Henry Ward Beecher by acclamation, 478;
+      calls council of Congregational ministers and laymen, 479;
+      council ratifies decision of Church, 479;
+      committee of five appointed to bring facts which could be
+          proved, 479;
+      missions among poor particularly effective at time of trial, 481.
+
+    "Poganuc People," 413;
+      sent to Dr. Holmes, 414;
+      date of, 491.
+
+    Pollock, Lord Chief Baron, 226.
+
+    Poor, generosity of touches H. B. S., 219.
+
+    Portland, H. B. S.'s friends there among the past, 494;
+      her readings in, 493.
+
+    Portraits of Mrs. Stowe, 231;
+      Belloc to paint, 241;
+      untruth of, 288.
+
+    Poverty in early married life, 198.
+
+    Prescott, W. H., letter to H. B, S. from, on "Dred," 311.
+
+    "Presse, La," on "Dred," 291.
+
+    Providential aid in sickness, 113.
+
+
+    "QUEER Little People," date of, 490.
+
+
+    READING and teaching, 139.
+
+    Religion and humanity, George Eliot on, 462.
+
+    "Religious poems," date of, 490.
+
+    "Revue des Deux Mondes" on "Dred," 290.
+
+    Riots in Cincinnati and anti-slavery agitation, 85.
+
+    Roenne, Baron de, visits Professor Stowe, 102.
+
+    Roman politics in 1861, 358.
+
+    Rome, H. B. S.'s journey to, 294;
+      impressions of, 300.
+
+    Ruskin, John, letters to H. B. S. from, on "The Minister's
+          Wooing," 336;
+      on his dislike of America, but love for American friends, 354.
+
+    Ruskin and Turner, 313.
+
+
+    SAINT-BEUVE, H. B. S.'s liking for, 474.
+
+    Sales, Francis de, H. W. Beecher compared with, 481.
+
+    Salisbury, Mr., interest of in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 191.
+
+    Salons, French, 289.
+
+    Sand, George, reviews "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 196.
+
+    Scotland, H. B. S.'s first visit to, 209.
+
+    Scott, Walter, Lyman Beecher's opinion of, when discussing
+          novel-reading, 25;
+      monument in Edinburgh, 217.
+
+    Sea, H. B. S.'s nervous horror of, 307.
+
+    Sea-voyages, H. B. S. on, 205.
+
+    Semi-Colon Club, H. B. S. becomes a member of, 68.
+
+    Shaftesbury, Earl of, letter of, to Mrs. Stowe, 170.
+
+    Shaftesbury, Lord, to H. B. S., letter from, 170;
+      letter from H. B. S. to, 170;
+      America and, 369.
+
+    Skinner, Dr., 57.
+
+    Slave, aiding a fugitive, 93.
+
+    Slave-holding States on English address, 378;
+      intensity of conflict in, 379.
+
+    Slavery, H. B. S.'s first notice of, 71;
+      anti-slavery agitation, 81;
+      death-knell of, 141;
+      Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, and Patrick Henry on, 141;
+      growth of, 142;
+      résumé of its history, 143;
+      responsibility of church for, 151;
+      Lord Carlisle's opinion on, 164;
+      moral effect of, 165;
+      sacrilege of, 193;
+      its past and future, 194;
+      its injustice, 255;
+      its death-blow; 370;
+      English women's appeal against, 375;
+      J. Q. Adams' crusade against, 509;
+      gone forever, 506.
+
+    Slaves, H. B. S.'s work for and sympathy with, 152;
+      family sorrows of, 318.
+
+    Smith, Anna, helper to Mrs. S., 115;
+      _note_, 200.
+
+    Soul, immortality of, H. B. S.'s essay written at age of twelve:
+          first literary production, 15-21;
+      Addison's remarks upon, 18;
+      Greek and Roman idea of immortality, 20;
+      light given by Gospel, 20, 21;
+      Christ on, 109.
+
+    South, England's sympathy with the, 370, 386.
+
+    South Framingham, good audience at reading in, 495.
+
+    "Souvenir, The," 105.
+
+    Spiritualism, Mrs. Stowe on, 350, 351, 464;
+      Mrs. Browning on, 356;
+      Holmes, O. W., on, 411;
+      "La Mystique" and Görres on, 412, 474;
+      Professor Stowe's strange experiences in, 420, 423;
+      George Eliot on psychical problems of, 421;
+      on "Charlatanerie" connected with, 467;
+      Robert Dale Owen on, 464;
+      Goethe on, 465;
+      H. B. S.'s letter to George Eliot on, 466;
+      her mature views on, 485;
+      a comfort to doubters and disbelievers, 487;
+      from Christian standpoint, 487.
+
+    Stafford House meeting, 233.
+
+    Stephens, A. H., on object of Confederacy, 381.
+
+    Storrs, Dr. R. S., 181.
+
+    Stowe, Calvin E., 56;
+      death of first wife, 75;
+      his engagement to Harriet E. Beecher, 76;
+      their marriage, 76, 77;
+      his work in Lane Seminary, 79;
+      sent by the Seminary to Europe on educational matters, 80;
+      returns, 88;
+      his Educational Report presented, 89;
+      aids a fugitive slave, 93;
+      strongly encourages his wife in her literary aspirations, 102,
+          105;
+      care of the sick students in Lane Seminary, 107;
+      is "house-father" during his wife's illness and absence, 113;
+      goes to water cure after his wife's return from the same, 119;
+      absent from Cincinnati home at death of youngest child, 124;
+      accepts the Collins Professorship at Bowdoin, 125;
+      gives his mother his  reasons for leaving Cincinnati, 128;
+      remains behind to finish college work, while wife and three
+          children leave for Brunswick, Me., 129;
+      resigns his professorship at Bowdoin, and accepts a call to
+          Andover, 184;
+      accompanies his wife to Europe, 205;
+      his second trip with wife to Europe, 269;
+      sermon after his son's death, 322;
+      great sorrow at his bereavement, 324;
+      goes to Europe for the fourth time, 345;
+      resigns his position at Andover, 373;
+      in Florida, 403;
+      failing health, 417;
+      his letter to George Eliot, 420;
+      H. B. S. uses his strange experiences in youth as material for
+          her picture of "Harry" in "Oldtown Folks," 421;
+      the psychological history of his strange child-life, 423;
+      curious experiences with phantoms, and good and bad spirits, 427;
+      visions of fairies, 435;
+      love of reading, 437;
+      his power of character-painting shown in his description of a
+          visit to his relatives, 439;
+      George Eliot's mental picture of his personality, 461;
+      enjoys life and study in Florida, 463;
+      his studies on Prof. Görres' book, "Die Christliche Mystik," and
+          its relation to his own spiritual experience, 474;
+      love for Henry Ward Beecher returned by latter, 475;
+      absorbed in "Daniel Deronda," 482;
+      "over head and ears in _diablerie_," 484;
+      fears he has not long to live, 491;
+      dull at wife's absence on reading tour, 496;
+      enjoys proximity to Boston Library, and "Life of John Quincy
+          Adams," 509;
+      death, 512 and _note_;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, 80, 106;
+      on her illness, 112, 114, 117;
+      on cholera epidemic in Cincinnati, 120;
+      on sickness, death of son Charley, 122;
+      account of new home, 133;
+      on her writings and literary aspirations, 146;
+      on success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 162;
+      on her interest in the Edmonson slave family, 180;
+      on life in London, 238;
+      on visit to the Duke of Argyle, 271;
+      from Dunrobin Castle, 275;
+      on "Dred," 282;
+      other letters from abroad, 282;
+      on life in Paris, 286;
+      on journey to Rome, 294;
+      on impressions of Rome, 300;
+      on Swiss journey, 348;
+      from Florence, 349;
+      from Paris, 353;
+      on farewell to her soldier son, 364;
+      visit to Duchess of Argyle, 366;
+      on her reading tour, 491;
+      on his health and her enforced absence from him, 492;
+      on reading, at Chelsea, 492;
+      at Bangor and Portland, 493;
+      at South Framingham and Haverhill, 495;
+      Peabody, 496;
+      fatigue at New London reading, 496;
+      letters from to H. B. S. on visit to his relatives and
+          description of home life, 440;
+      to mother on reasons for leaving the West, 128;
+      to George Eliot, 420;
+      to son Charles, 345.
+
+    Stowe, Charles E., seventh child of H. B. S., birth of, 139;
+      at Harvard, 406;
+      at Bonn, 412;
+      letter from Calvin E. Stowe to, 345;
+      letter from H. B. S. to, on her school life, 29;
+      on "Poganuc People," 413;
+      on her readings in the West, 497;
+      on selection of papers and letters for her biography, 507;
+      on interest of herself and Prof. Stowe in life and anti-slavery
+          career of John Quincy Adams, 509.
+
+    Stowe, Eliza Tyler (Mrs. C. E.), death of, 75;
+      twin daughter of H. B. S., 88.
+
+    Stowe, Frederick William, second son of H. B. S., 101;
+      enlists in First Massachusetts, 364;
+      made lieutenant for bravery, 366;
+      mother's visit to, 367;
+      severely wounded, 372;
+      subsequent effects of the wound, never entirely recovers, his
+          disappearance and unknown fate, 373;
+      ill-health after war, Florida home purchased for his sake, 399.
+
+    Stowe, Georgiana May, daughter of H. B. S., birth of, 108;
+      family happy in her marriage, 399;
+      letter from H. B. S. to, 340.
+
+    Stowe, Harriet Beecher, birth and parentage of, 1;
+      first memorable incident, the death of her mother, 2;
+      letter to her brother Charles on her mother's death, 2;
+      incident of the tulip bulbs and mother's gentleness, 2;
+      first journey a visit to her grandmother, 5;
+      study of catechisms under her grandmother and aunt, 6;
+      early religious and Biblical reading, 8;
+      first school at the age of five, 8;
+      hunger after mental food, 9;
+      joyful discovery of "The Arabian Nights," in the bottom of a
+          barrel of dull sermons, 9;
+      reminiscences of reading in father's library, 10;
+      impression made by the Declaration of Independence, 11;
+      appearance and character of her stepmother, 11, 12;
+      healthy, happy child-life, 13;
+      birth of her half-sister Isabella and H. B. S.'s care of infant,
+          14;
+      early love of writing, 14;
+      her essay selected for reading at school exhibitions, 14;
+      her father s pride in essay, 15;
+      subject of essay, arguments for belief in the Immortality of the
+          Soul, 15-21;
+      end of child-life in Litchfield, 21;
+      goes to sister Catherine's school at Hartford, 29;
+      describes Catherine Beecher's school in letter to son, 29;
+      her home with the Bulls, 30, 31;
+      school friends, 31, 32;
+      takes up Latin, her study of Ovid and Virgil, 32;
+      dreams of being a poet and writes "Cleon," a drama, 32;
+      her conversion, 33, 34;
+      doubts of relatives and friends, 34, 35;
+      connects herself with First Church, Hartford, 36;
+      her struggle with rigid theology, 36;
+      her melancholy and doubts, 37, 38;
+      necessity of cheerful society, 38;
+      visit to grandmother, 38;
+      return to Hartford, 41;
+      interest in painting lessons, 41;
+      confides her religious doubts to her brother Edward, 42;
+      school life in Hartford, 46;
+      peace at last, 49;
+      accompanies her father and family to Cincinnati, 53;
+      describes her journey, 56;
+      yearnings for New England home, 60;
+      ill-health and depression, 64;
+      her life in Cincinnati and teaching at new school established by
+          her sister Catherine and herself, 65;
+      wins prize for short story, 68;
+      joins "Semicolon Club," 68;
+      slavery first brought to her personal notice, 71;
+      attends Henry Ward Beecher's graduation, 73;
+      engagement, 76;
+      marriage, 76;
+      anti-slavery agitation, 82;
+      sympathy with Birney, editor of anti-slavery paper in Cincinnati,
+          84;
+      birth of twin daughters, 88;
+      of her third child, 89;
+      reunion of the Beecher family, 89;
+      housekeeping _versus_ literary work, 93;
+      birth of second son, 101;
+      visits Hartford, 102;
+      literary work encouraged, 102, 105;
+      sickness in Lane Seminary, 107;
+      death of brother George, 108;
+      birth of third daughter, 108;
+      protracted illness and poverty, 110;
+      seminary struggles, 110;
+      goes to water cure, 113;
+      returns home, 118;
+      birth of sixth child, 118;
+      bravery in cholera epidemic, 120;
+      death of youngest child Charles, 123;
+      leaves Cincinnati, 125;
+      removal to Brunswick, 126;
+      getting settled, 134;
+      husband arrives, 138;
+      birth of seventh child, 139;
+      anti-slavery feeling aroused by letters from Boston, 145;
+      "Uncle Tom's Cabin," first thought of, 145;
+      writings for papers, 147;
+      "Uncle Tom's Cabin" appears as a serial, 156;
+      in book form, 159;
+      its wonderful success, 160;
+      praise from Longfellow, Whittier, Garrison, Higginson, 161;
+      letters from English nobility, 164, _et seq._;
+      writes "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," 174, 188;
+      visits Henry Ward in Brooklyn, 178;
+      raises money to free Edmondson family, 181;
+      home-making at Andover, 186;
+      first trip to Europe, 189, 205;
+      wonderful success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" abroad, 189;
+      her warm reception at Liverpool, 207;
+      delight in Scotland, 209;
+      public reception and tea-party at Glasgow, 212;
+      warm welcome from Scotch people, 214;
+      touched by the "penny offering" of the poor for the slaves, 219;
+      Edinburgh soirée, 219;
+      meets English celebrities at Lord Mayor's dinner in London, 226;
+      meets English nobility, 229;
+      Stafford House, 232;
+      breakfast at Lord Trevelyan's, 234;
+      Windsor, 235;
+      presentation of bracelet, 233;
+      of inkstand, 240;
+      Paris, first visit to, 241;
+      _en route_ for Switzerland, 243;
+      Geneva and Chillon, 244;
+      Grindelwald to Meyringen, 245;
+      London, _en route_ for America, 247;
+      work for slaves in America, 250;
+      correspondence with Garrison, 261, _et seq._;
+      "Dred," 266;
+      second visit to Europe, 268;
+      meeting with Queen Victoria, 270;
+      visits Inverary Castle, 271;
+      Dunrobin Castle, 275;
+      Oxford and London, 280;
+      visits the Laboucheres, 283;
+      Paris, 289;
+      _en route_ to Rome, 294;
+      Naples and Vesuvius, 301;
+      Venice and Milan, 305;
+      homeward journey and return, 306, 314;
+      death of oldest son, 315;
+      visits Dartmouth, 319;
+      receives advice from Lowell on "The Pearl of Orr's Island," 327;
+      "The Minister's Wooing," 327, 330, 334;
+      third trip to Europe, 342;
+      Duchess of Sutherland's warm welcome, 346;
+      Switzerland, 348;
+      Florence, 349;
+      Italian journey, 352;
+      return to America, 353;
+      letters from Ruskin, Mrs. Browning, Holmes, 353, 362;
+      bids farewell to her son, 364;
+      at Washington, 366;
+      her son wounded at Gettysburg, 372;
+      his disappearance, 373;
+      the Stowes remove to Hartford, 373;
+      Address to women of England on slavery, 374;
+      winter home in Florida, 401;
+      joins the Episcopal Church, 402;
+      erects schoolhouse and church in Florida, 404;
+      "Palmetto, Leaves," 405;
+      "Poganuc People," 413;
+      warm reception at South, 415;
+      last winter in Florida, 417;
+      writes "Oldtown Folks," 404;
+      her interest in husband's strange spiritual experiences, 438;
+      H. B. S. justifies her action in Byron Controversy, 445;
+      her love and faith in Lady Byron, 449;
+      reads Byron letters, 450;
+      counsels silence and patience to Lady Byron, 451;
+      writes "True Story of Lady Byron's Life," 447, 453;
+      publishes "Lady Byron Vindicated," 454;
+      "History of the Byron Controversy," 455;
+      her purity of motive in this painful matter, 455;
+      George Eliot's sympathy with her in Byron matter, 458;
+      her friendship with George Eliot dates from letter shown by Mrs.
+          Follen, 459, 460;
+      describes Florida life and peace to George Eliot, 463;
+      her interest in Mr. Owen and spiritualism, 464;
+      love of Florida life and nature, 468;
+      history of Florida home, 469;
+      impressions of "Middlemarch," 471;
+      invites George Eliot to come to America, 472;
+      words of sympathy on Beecher trial from George Eliot, and Mrs.
+          Stowe's reply, 473;
+      her defense of her brother's purity of life, 475;
+      Beecher trial drawn on her heart's blood, 480;
+      her mature views on spiritualism, 484;
+      her doubts of ordinary manifestations, 486;
+      soul-cravings after dead friends satisfied by Christ's promises,
+          486;
+      chronological list of her books, 490;
+      accepts offer from N. E. Lecture Bureau to give readings from
+          her works, 491;
+      gives readings in New England, 491, _et seq._;
+      warm welcome in Maine, 493;
+      sympathetic audiences in Massachusetts, 495;
+      fatigue of traveling and reading at New London, 496;
+      Western reading tour, 497;
+      "fearful distances and wretched trains," 498;
+      seventieth anniversary of birthday celebrated by Houghton,
+          Mifflin & Co., 500;
+      H. O. Houghton's welcome, 501;
+      H. W. Beecher's reply and eulogy on sister, 502;
+      Whittier's poem at seventieth birthday, 502;
+      Holmes' poem, 503;
+      other poems of note written for the occasion, 505;
+      Mrs. Stowe's thanks, 505;
+      joy in the future of the colored race, 506;
+      reading old letters and papers, 507;
+      her own letters to Mr. Stowe and letters from friends, 508;
+      interest in Life of John Quincy Adams and his crusade against
+          slavery, 510;
+      death of husband, 512 and _note_;
+      of Henry Ward Beecher, 512;
+      thinks of writing review of her life aided by son, under title
+          of "Pebbles from the Shores of a Past Life," 512;
+      her feelings on the nearness of death, but perfect trust in
+          Christ, 513; glimpses
+      of the future life leave a strange sweetness in her mind, 513.
+
+    Stowe, Harriet Beecher, twin daughter of H. B. S., 88.
+
+    Stowe, Henry Ellis, first son of H. B. S., 89;
+      goes to Europe, 269;
+      returns to enter Dartmouth, 278;
+      death of, 315;
+      his character, 317;
+      his portrait, 320;
+      mourning for, 341, 350.
+
+    Stowe, Samuel Charles, sixth child of H. B. S., birth of, 118;
+      death of, 124;
+      anguish at loss of, 198;
+      early death of, 508.
+
+    Study, plans for a, 104.
+
+    Sturge, Joseph, visit to, 223.
+
+    Suffrage, universal, H. W. Beecher advocate of, 477.
+
+    Sumner, Charles, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 196;
+      letter to H. B. S. from, 268.
+
+    Sumter, Fort, H. W. Beecher raises flag on, 477.
+
+    "Sunny Memories," 251;
+      date of, 491.
+
+    Sutherland, Duchess of, 188, 218;
+      friend to America, 228;
+      at Stafford House presents gold bracelet, 233;
+      visit to, 274, 276;
+      fine character, 277;
+      sympathy with on son's death, 319;
+      warm welcome to H. B. S., 346;
+      death of, 410;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, on "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," 188;
+      on death of eldest son, 315.
+
+    Sutherland, Lord, personal appearance of, 232.
+
+    Swedenborg, weary messages from spirit-world of, 486.
+
+    Swiss Alps, visit to, 244;
+      delight in, 246.
+
+    Swiss interest in "Uncle Tom," 244.
+
+    Switzerland, H. B. S. in, 348.
+
+    Sykes, Mrs. See May, Georgiana.
+
+
+    TALFOURD, Mr. Justice, 226.
+
+    Thackeray, W. M., Lowell on, 328.
+
+    Thanksgiving Day in Washington, freed slaves celebrate, 387.
+
+    "Times, London," on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 168;
+      on Mrs. Stowe's new dress, 237;
+      on "Dred," 278;
+      Miss Martineau's criticism on, 310.
+
+    Titcomb, John, aids H. B. S. in moving, 137.
+
+    Tourgée, Judge A. W., his speech at seventieth birthday, 505.
+
+    Trevelyan, Lord and Lady, 231;
+      breakfast to Mrs. Stowe, 234.
+
+    Triqueti, Baron de, models bust of H. B. S., 289.
+
+    Trowbridge, J. T., writes on seventieth birthday, 505.
+
+    "True Story of Lady Byron's Life, The," in "Atlantic Monthly," 447.
+
+    Tupper, M. F., calls on H. B. S., 231.
+
+    "Uncle Tom's Cabin," description of Augustine St. Clair's mother's
+          influence a simple reproduction of Mrs. Lyman Beecher's
+          influence, 5;
+      written under love's impulse, 52;
+      fugitives' escape, foundation of story, 93;
+      popular conception of author of, 127;
+      origin and inspiration of, 145;
+      Prof. Cairnes on, 146;
+      Uncle Tom's death, conception of, 148;
+      letter to Douglas about facts, 149;
+      appears in the "Era," 149, 156;
+      came from heart, 153;
+      a religious work, object of, 154;
+      its power, 155;
+      begins a serial in "National Era," 156;
+      price paid by "Era," 158;
+      publisher's offer, 158;
+      first copy of books sold, 159;
+      wonderful success, 160;
+      praise from Longfellow, Whittier, Garrison, and Higginson, 161,
+          162;
+      threatening letters, 163;
+      Eastman's, Mrs., rejoinder to, 163;
+      reception in England, "Times," on, 168;
+      political effect of, 168, 169;
+      book under interdict in South, 172;
+      "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," 174, 188;
+      Jenny Lind's praise of, 183;
+      attack upon, 187;
+      Sampson Low upon its success abroad, 189;
+      first London publisher, 189;
+      number of editions sold in Great Britain and abroad, 190;
+      dramatized in U.S. and London, 192;
+      European edition, preface to, 192;
+      fact not fiction, 193;
+      translations of, 195;
+      German tribute to, 195;
+      George Sand's review, 196;
+      remuneration for, 202;
+      written with heart's blood, 203;
+      Swiss interest in, 244, 245;
+      Mme. Belloc translates, 247;
+      "North American Review" on, 254;
+      in France, 291;
+      compared with "Dred," 285, 309;
+      J. R. Lowell on, 327, 330;
+      Mrs. Stowe rereads after war, 396;
+      later books compared with, 409;
+      H. W. Beecher's approval of, 476;
+      new edition with introduction sent to George Eliot, 483;
+      date of, 490;
+      Whittier's mention of, in poem on seventieth birthday, 502;
+      Holmes' tribute to, in poem on same occasion, 504.
+
+
+    UPHAM, Mrs., kindness to H. B. S., 133;
+      visit to, 324.
+
+
+    VENICE, 304.
+
+    Victoria, Queen, H. B. S.'s interview with, 270;
+      gives her picture to Geo. Peabody, 496.
+
+    Vizetelly, Henry, first London publisher of "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
+          189, 191.
+
+
+    WAKEFIELD, reading at, 495.
+
+    Walnut Hills, picture of, 65;
+      and old home revisited, 499.
+
+    Waltham, audience inspires reader, 496.
+
+    Washington, Mrs. Stowe visits soldier son at, 366.
+
+    Washington on slavery, 141.
+
+    Water cure, H. B. S. at, 113.
+
+    "We and our Neighbors," date of, 491.
+
+    Webster, Daniel, famous speech of, 143.
+
+    Weld, Theodore D. in the anti-slavery movement, 81.
+
+    Western travel, discomforts of, 498.
+
+    Whately, Archbishop, letter to H. B. S. from, 391.
+
+    Whitney, A. D. T., writes poem on seventieth birthday, 505.
+
+    Whitney, Eli, and the cotton gin, 142.
+
+    Whittier's "Ichabod," a picture of Daniel Webster, 143.
+
+    Whittier, J. G., 157;
+      letter to W. L. Garrison from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 161;
+      letter to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 162;
+      on "Pearl of Orr's Island," 327;
+      on "Minister's Wooing," 327;
+      poem on H. B. S's seventieth birthday, 502.
+
+    Windsor, visit to, 235.
+
+    Womanhood, true, H. B. S. on intellect _versus_ heart, 475.
+
+    Woman's rights, H. W. Beecher, advocate of, 478.
+
+    Women of America, Appeal from H. B. S. to, 255.
+
+    Women's influence, power of, 258.
+
+
+    ZANESVILLE, description of, 499.
+
+
+
+
+_A LIST OF THE WORKS OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOVELS, STORIES, SKETCHES, AND POEMS, BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+_It is the great happiness of Mrs. Stowe not only to have written many
+delightful books, but to have written one book which will be always
+famous not only as the most vivid picture of an extinct evil system,
+but as one of the most powerful influences in overthrowing it. . . . No
+book was ever more a historical event than "Uncle Tom's Cabin." . . .
+If all whom she has charmed and quickened should unite to sing her
+praises, the birds of summer would be outdone._--GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
+
+
+  _UNCLE TOM'S CABIN._ A Story of American Slavery. 12mo,
+    $2.00.
+
+  New _Popular Edition_ from new plates. With account
+    of the writing of this story by Mrs. STOWE, and
+    frontispiece. 16mo, $1.00.
+
+  _Holiday Edition._ With an Introduction of more
+    than thirty pages by Mrs. STOWE, describing the
+    circumstances under which the story was written, and
+    a Bibliography of the various editions and languages
+    in which the work has appeared, by GEORGE BULLEN,
+    of the British Museum. With more than one hundred
+    illustrations, and red-line border. 8vo, full gilt,
+    $3.00; half calf, $5.00; morocco, or tree calf, $6.00.
+
+The publication of this remarkable story was an event in American
+history as well as in American literature. It fixed the eyes of the
+nation and of the civilized world on the evils of slavery, presenting
+these so vividly and powerfully that the heart and conscience of
+mankind were thenceforth enlisted against them. But, aside from
+its graphic portrayal of slavery, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a story
+of thrilling power, and abounds in humorous delineations of negro
+and Yankee character. Its extraordinary annual sale of thousands of
+copies, and its translation into numerous foreign languages, attest its
+universal and permanent interest.
+
+
+  _DRED (NINA GORDON)._ A Story of Slavery. New Edition
+    from new plates. 12mo, $1.50.
+
+This volume was originally published under the title "Dred." It has a
+close connection with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the object of both being to
+picture life at the South as it was under the régime of slavery.
+
+    "Uncle Tom" and "Dred" will assure Mrs. Stowe a
+    place in that high rank of novelists who can give
+    us a national life in all its phases, popular and
+    aristocratic, humorous and tragic, political and
+    religious.--_Westminster Review_ (London).
+
+
+  _AGNES OF SORRENTO._ An Italian Romance. 12mo, $1.50.
+
+In this story a plot of rare interest is wrought out, amid the glowing
+scenery of Italy, with the author's well-known dramatic skill.
+
+
+  _THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND._ 12mo, $1.50.
+
+The scene of this charming tale is laid upon the coast of Maine. The
+author's familiar knowledge of New England rural life renders the
+volume especially attractive.
+
+    A story of singular pathos and beauty.--_North American
+    Review._
+
+
+  _THE MINISTER'S WOOING._ 12mo, $1.50.
+
+In this volume Mrs. Stowe has reproduced the New England of two
+generations ago. It deals with the noblest and most rugged traits of
+New England character.
+
+
+  _MY WIFE AND I_; or, Harry Henderson's History. New
+    Edition. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.
+
+This book first appeared as a serial in the _Christian Union_, New
+York. The author dedicates it to "the many dear, bright young girls
+whom she is so happy as to number among her choicest friends."
+
+
+  _WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS._ New Edition. Illustrated. 12mo,
+    $1.50.
+
+This is a sequel to "My Wife and I."
+
+
+  _POGANUC PEOPLE._ Their Loves and Lives. New Edition.
+    Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.
+
+A story of a New England town, its men and its manners.
+
+
+  _OLD TOWN FOLKS._ 12mo, $1.50.
+
+    Full to repletion of delicate sketches of very original
+    characters, and clever bits of dialogue, and vivid
+    descriptions of natural scenery.--_The Spectator_
+    (London).
+
+
+  _SAM LAWSON'S OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES._ Illustrated.
+    New Edition, enlarged. 12mo, $1.50.
+
+CONTENTS: The Ghost in the Mill; The Sullivan Looking-Glass; The
+Minister's Housekeeper; The Widow's Bandbox; Captain Kidd's Money;
+"Mis' Elderkin's Pitcher"; The Ghost in the Cap'n Brown House; Colonel
+Eph's Shoe-Buckles; The Bull-Fight; How to Fight the Devil; Laughin' in
+Meetin'; The Toothacre's Ghost Story; The Parson's Horse Race; Oldtown
+Fireside Talks of the Revolution; A Student's Sea Story.
+
+    These stories will prove a mine of genuine fun;
+    pictures of a time, place, and state of society which
+    are like nothing on this side of the world, and
+    which, we suppose, are becoming rapidly erased.--_The
+    Athenćum_ (London).
+
+
+  _THE MAYFLOWER, AND OTHER SKETCHES._ 12mo, $1.50.
+
+A series of New England sketches, many of which have become household
+stories throughout the land.
+
+The above eleven 12mo volumes, uniform, in box, $16.00.
+
+
+  _LITTLE PUSSY WILLOW, ETC._ Illustrated. Square 12mo, $1.25.
+
+  _A DOG'S MISSION, ETC._ Illustrated. Square 12mo, $1.25.
+
+  _QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE._ Illustrated. Square 12mo, $1.25.
+
+These three Juvenile books, $3.75.
+
+Three collections of delightful stories--the best of reading for young
+folks.
+
+
+  _PALMETTO LEAVES._ Sketches of Florida. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.50.
+
+    Any one who wishes a delightful excursion to the land
+    of flowers has only to turn over these "Palmetto
+    Leaves" and he has it.--_New York Observer._
+
+
+  _HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS_. 16mo, $1.50.
+
+CONTENTS: The Ravages of a Carpet; Home-Keeping _versus_ House-Keeping;
+What is a Home? The Economy of the Beautiful; Raking up the Fire;
+The Lady who does her own Work; What can be got in America; Economy;
+Servants; Cookery; Our House; Home Religion.
+
+    An invaluable volume, and one which should be owned and
+    consulted by every one who has a house, or who wants a
+    home.--_The Congregationalist_ (Boston.)
+
+
+  _LITTLE FOXES._ Common Household Faults. 16mo, $1.50.
+
+    The foxes are,--Fault-Finding, Irritability,
+    Repression, Persistence, Intolerance, Discourtesy,
+    Exactingness. Mrs. Stowe has made essays as
+    entertaining as stories, enlivened with wit,
+    seasoned with sense, glowing with the most kindly
+    feeling.--_Hartford Press._
+
+
+  _THE CHIMNEY CORNER._ 16mo, $1.50.
+
+A series of papers on Woman's Rights and Duties, Health, Amusements,
+Entertainment of Company, Dress, Fashion, Self-Discipline, etc. The
+genial, practical wisdom of these subjects gives this volume great
+value.
+
+These three Household Books, uniform, in box, $4.50.
+
+
+  _RELIGIOUS POEMS._ Illustrated. 16mo, $1.50.
+
+    All characterized by the genius of Mrs. Stowe.... In
+    all, there is a profound appreciation of the _inner
+    life_ of religion,--a wrestling for nearness to
+    God.--_American Christian Review._
+
+
+  _FLOWERS AND FRUIT_, selected from the Writings of
+    Harriet Beecher Stowe. 16mo, $1.00.
+
+    A charming little book ... full of sweet passages,
+    and bright, discerning, wise, and in the best sense
+    of the term, witty sayings of our greatest American
+    novelist.--_Chicago Advance._
+
+
+  _DIALOGUES AND SCENES FROM THE WRITINGS OF MRS. STOWE._
+    For use in School Entertainments. Selected by EMILY
+    WEAVER. In Riverside Literature Series, extra number
+    _E_. 16mo, paper, 15 cents, _net_.
+
+    The selections are from some of Mrs. Stowe's most
+    true-to-life scenes,--full of pathos and mirth.... Nine
+    most charming dialogues.--_School Journal_ (New York).
+
+
+*** _For sale by all Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price
+by the Publishers_,
+
+    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,
+    4 PARK STREET, BOSTON; 11 EAST 17TH STREET, NEW YORK.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 146, repeated word "the" removed from text. Original read (make
+the the whole nation)
+
+Page 179, "propect" changed to "prospect" (over the prospect of raising)
+
+Page 205, "everywere" changed to "everywhere" (affection that
+everywhere)
+
+Page 205, "Frith" changed to "Firth" (of Solway Firth and)
+
+Page 416, "neigbors" changed to "neighbors" (all the neigbors waiting)
+
+Page 437, "nonenity" changed to "nonentity" (old book into nonentity)
+
+Page 438, "aerial" changed to "ćrial" (of my ćrial visitors)
+
+Page 505, "Tourgee" changed to "Tourgée" (Tourgée and others prominent)
+
+Page 516, Stowe, Catherine, page reference added to (visits Cincinnati
+with father, 54;)
+
+Page 522, Lowell, J. R. "interesti n" changed to "interest in"
+(Sutherland's interest in, 277)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Compiled
+from Her Letters and Journals, by Charles Edward Stowe
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ***
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Compiled from
+Her Letters and Journals, by Charles Edward Stowe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Compiled from Her Letters and Journals
+
+Author: Charles Edward Stowe
+
+Posting Date: May 3, 2014 [EBook #6702]
+Release Date: October, 2004 (original version's release date)
+First Posted: January 17, 2003 (original version's posting date)
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Emmy, Steve Schulze, Charles
+Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 526px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="526" height="800" alt="cover" />
+</div><div class='tnote copyright'><b>Transcriber's Note:</b> This cover was
+created by the transcriber by adding text to the original plain cover and is placed in the public
+domain.</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a id="frontis"></a>
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="400" height="688" alt="H.B. Stowe drawing by J. &amp; J. Wilson, So.  Richmond, Del" />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>LIFE OF<br />
+<br />
+HARRIET BEECHER STOWE</h1>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<small>COMPILED FROM</small><br />
+<br />
+<b><big>Her Letters and Journals</big></b><br />
+<br /><br /><br />
+<small>BY HER SON</small><br />
+<br />
+CHARLES EDWARD STOWE<br />
+<br /><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 139px;">
+<img src="images/title.jpg" width="139" height="181" alt="emblem" />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br /><br />
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br />
+<big>HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY</big><br />
+<b>The Riverside Press, Cambridge</b><br />
+1890<br />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='copyright'>
+Copyright, 1889,<br />
+<span class="smcap">By</span> CHARLES E. STOWE,<br />
+<br />
+<i>All rights reserved.</i><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<i>The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S.A.</i><br />
+Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton &amp; Co.<br />
+</div>
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="letter images">
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="images/letter_1-big.jpg"><img src="images/letter_1.jpg" width="300" height="460" alt="Handwritten letter&mdash;page 1" /></a>
+</td>
+<td align="left"><a href="images/letter_2-big.jpg"><img src="images/letter_2.jpg" width="300" height="317" alt="Handwritten letter&mdash;page 2" /></a></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>It seems but fitting, that I should
+preface this story of my life with a
+few notes of instruction.</p>
+
+<p>The desire to leave behind me some
+recollections of my life, has been cherished
+by me, for many years past; but failing
+strength or increasing infirmities have prevented
+its accomplishment.</p>
+
+<p>At my suggestion and with what
+assistance I have been able to render,
+my son, Ross Charles Edward Stowe, has
+compiled from my letters and journals, this
+biography. It is this true story of my
+life, told for the most part, in my
+own words and has therefore all the
+force of an autobiography.</p>
+
+<p>It is perhaps much more accurate
+as to detail &amp; impression than is
+possible with any autobiography, written
+later in life.</p>
+
+<p>If these pages, shall help those who
+read them to a firmer trust in God
+&amp; a deeper sense of His fatherly goodness
+throughout the days of our earthly pilgrimage
+I can say with Valiant for Truth
+in the Pilgrim's Progress!</p>
+
+<p>I am going to my Father's
+&amp; tho with great difficulty, I am
+got thither, get now, I do not
+repent me of all the troubles
+I have been at, to arrive where
+I am.</p>
+
+<p>My sword I give to him that
+shall succeed me in my pilgrimage
+&amp; my courage &amp; skill to him
+that can get it.</p>
+
+<div class='unindent'>
+Hartford Sept 30<br />
+<span style="margin-right: 2em;">1889</span><br /></div>
+<div class='sig'>
+Harriet Beecher Stowe<br />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I desire</span> to express my thanks here to Harper &amp;
+Brothers, of New York, for permission to use letters
+already published in the "Autobiography and Correspondence
+of Lyman Beecher." I have availed myself
+freely of this permission in chapters i. and iii. In
+chapter xx. I have given letters already published in
+the "Life of George Eliot," by Mr. Cross; but in
+every instance I have copied from the original MSS.
+and not from the published work. In conclusion, I
+desire to express my indebtedness to Mr. Kirk Munroe,
+who has been my co-laborer in the work of compilation.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+CHARLES E. STOWE.<br />
+</div>
+<p><span class="smcap">Hartford</span>, <i>September 30, 1889</i>.<br /></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a><br /><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="contents">
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>CHAPTER I.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>CHILDHOOD 1811-1824.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Death of her Mother.&mdash;First Journey from Home.&mdash;Life at Nut Plains.&mdash;School Days and Hours with Favorite Authors.&mdash;The New Mother.&mdash;Litchfield Academy and its Influence.&mdash;First Literary Efforts.&mdash;A Remarkable Composition.&mdash;Goes to Hartford</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER II.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD, 1824-1832.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Miss Catherine Beecher.&mdash;Professor Fisher.&mdash;The Wreck of the Albion and Death of Professor Fisher.&mdash;"The Minister's Wooing."&mdash;Miss Catherine Beecher's Spiritual History.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe's Recollections of her School Days in Hartford.&mdash;Her Conversion.&mdash;Unites with the First Church in Hartford.&mdash;Her Doubts and Subsequent Religious Development.&mdash;Her Final Peace</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER III.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>CINCINNATI, 1832-1836.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Dr. Beecher called to Cincinnati.&mdash;The Westward Journey.&mdash;First Letter from Home.&mdash;Description of Walnut Hills.&mdash;Starting a New School.&mdash;Inward Glimpses.&mdash;The Semi-Colon Club.&mdash;Early Impressions of Slavery.&mdash;A Journey to the East.&mdash;Thoughts aroused by First Visit to Niagara.&mdash;Marriage to Professor Stowe</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER IV.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>EARLY MARRIED LIFE, 1836-1840.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Professor Stowe's Interest in Popular Education.&mdash;His Departure for Europe.&mdash;Slavery Riots in Cincinnati.&mdash;Birth of Twin Daughters.&mdash;Professor Stowe's Return and Visit to Columbus.&mdash;Domestic Trials.&mdash;Aiding a Fugitive Slave.&mdash;Authorship under Difficulties.&mdash;A Beecher Round Robin</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER V.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>POVERTY AND SICKNESS, 1840-1850.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Famine in Cincinnati.&mdash;Summer at the East.&mdash;Plans for Literary Work.&mdash;Experience on a Railroad.&mdash;Death of her Brother George.&mdash;Sickness and Despair.&mdash;A Journey in Search of Health.&mdash;Goes to Brattleboro' Water-cure.&mdash;Troubles at Lane Seminary.&mdash;Cholera in Cincinnati.&mdash;Death of Youngest Child.&mdash;Determined to leave the West</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER VI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>REMOVAL TO BRUNSWICK, 1850-1852.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Mrs. Stowe's Remarks on Writing and Understanding Biography.&mdash;Their Appropriateness to her own Biography.&mdash;Reasons for Professor Stowe's leaving Cincinnati.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe's Journey to Brooklyn.&mdash;Her Brother's Success as a Minister.&mdash;Letters from Hartford and Boston.&mdash;Arrives in Brunswick.&mdash;History of the Slavery Agitation.&mdash;Practical Working of the Fugitive Slave Law.&mdash;Mrs. Edward Beecher's Letter to Mrs. Stowe and its Effect.&mdash;Domestic Trials.&mdash;Begins to write "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as a Serial for the "National Era."&mdash;Letter to Frederick Douglass.&mdash;"Uncle Tom's Cabin" a Work of Religious Emotion</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER VII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, 1852.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">"Uncle Tom's Cabin" as a Serial in the "National Era."&mdash;An <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>Offer for its Publication in Book Form.&mdash;Will it be a Success?&mdash;An Unprecedented Circulation.&mdash;Congratulatory Messages.&mdash;Kind Words from Abroad.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe to the Earl of Carlisle.&mdash;Letters from and to Lord Shaftesbury.&mdash;Correspondence with Arthur Helps</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER VIII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>FIRST TRIP TO EUROPE, 1853.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">The Edmondsons.&mdash;Buying Slaves to set them Free.&mdash;Jenny Lind.&mdash;Professor Stowe is called to Andover.&mdash;Fitting up the New Home.&mdash;The "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin."&mdash;"Uncle Tom" Abroad.&mdash;How it was Published in England.&mdash;Preface to the European Edition.&mdash;The Book in France.&mdash;In Germany.&mdash;A Greeting from Charles Kingsley.&mdash;Preparing to visit Scotland.&mdash;Letter to Mrs. Follen</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_178">178</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER IX.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>SUNNY MEMORIES, 1853.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Crossing the Atlantic.&mdash;Arrival in England.&mdash;Reception in Liverpool.&mdash;Welcome to Scotland.&mdash;A Glasgow Tea-Party.&mdash;Edinburgh Hospitality.&mdash;Aberdeen.&mdash;Dundee and Birmingham.&mdash;Joseph Sturge.&mdash;Elihu Burritt.&mdash;London.&mdash;The Lord Mayor's Dinner.&mdash;Charles Dickens and his Wife</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER X.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>FROM OVER THE SEA, 1853.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">The Earl of Carlisle.&mdash;Arthur Helps.&mdash;The Duke and Duchess of Argyll.&mdash;Martin Farquhar Tupper.&mdash;A Memorable Meeting at Stafford House.&mdash;Macaulay and Dean Milman.&mdash;Windsor Castle.&mdash;Professor Stowe returns to America.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe on the Continent.&mdash;Impressions of Paris.&mdash;En Route to Switzerland and Germany.&mdash;Back to England.&mdash;Homeward Bound</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_228">228</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER XI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>HOME AGAIN, 1853-1856.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Anti-Slavery Work.&mdash;Stirring Times in the United States.&mdash;Address <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>to the Ladies of Glasgow.&mdash;Appeal to the Women of America.&mdash;Correspondence with William Lloyd Garrison.&mdash;The Writing of "Dred."&mdash;Farewell Letter from Georgiana May.&mdash;Second Voyage to England</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER XII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>DRED, 1856.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Second Visit to England.&mdash;A Glimpse at the Queen.&mdash;The Duke of Argyll and Inverary.&mdash;Early Correspondence with Lady Byron.&mdash;Dunrobin Castle and its Inmates.&mdash;A Visit to Stoke Park.&mdash;Lord Dufferin.&mdash;Charles Kingsley at Home.&mdash;Paris Revisited.&mdash;Madame Mohl's Receptions</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_270">270</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER XIII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>OLD SCENES REVISITED, 1856.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">En Route to Rome.&mdash;Trials of Travel.&mdash;A Midnight Arrival and an Inhospitable Reception.&mdash;Glories of the Eternal City.&mdash;Naples and Vesuvius.&mdash;Venice.&mdash;Holy Week in Rome.&mdash;Return to England.&mdash;Letter from Harriet Martineau on "Dred."&mdash;A Word from Mr. Prescott on "Dred."&mdash;Farewell to Lady Byron</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_294">294</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER XIV.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>THE MINISTER'S WOOING, 1857-1859.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Death of Mrs. Stowe's Oldest Son.&mdash;Letter to the Duchess of Sutherland.&mdash;Letter to her Daughters in Paris.&mdash;Letter to her Sister Catherine.&mdash;Visit to Brunswick and Orr's Island.&mdash;Writes "The Minister's Wooing" and "The Pearl of Orr's Island."&mdash;Mr. Whittier's Comments.&mdash;Mr. Lowell on "The Minister's Wooing."&mdash;Letter to Mrs. Stowe from Mr. Lowell.&mdash;John Ruskin on "The Minister's Wooing."&mdash;A Year of Sadness.&mdash;Letter to Lady Byron.&mdash;Letter to her Daughter.&mdash;Departure for Europe</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_315">315</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER XV.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>THE THIRD TRIP TO EUROPE, 1859.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Third Visit to Europe.&mdash;Lady Byron on "The Minister's Wooing."&mdash;Some Foreign People and Things as they Appeared <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span>to Professor Stowe.&mdash;A Winter in Italy.&mdash;Things Unseen and Unrevealed.&mdash;Speculations concerning Spiritualism.&mdash;John Ruskin.&mdash;Mrs. Browning.&mdash;The Return to America.&mdash;Letters to Dr. Holmes</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_343">343</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER XVI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>THE CIVIL WAR, 1860-1865.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">The Outbreak of Civil War.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe's Son enlists.&mdash;Thanksgiving Day in Washington.&mdash;The Proclamation of Emancipation.&mdash;Rejoicings in Boston.&mdash;Fred Stowe at Gettysburg.&mdash;Leaving Andover and Settling in Hartford.&mdash;A Reply to the Women of England.&mdash;Letters from John Bright, Archbishop Whately, and Nathaniel Hawthorne</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_363">363</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER XVII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>FLORIDA, 1865-1869.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Letter to Duchess of Argyll.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe desires to have a Home at the South.&mdash;Florida the best Field for Doing Good.&mdash;She Buys a Place at Mandarin.&mdash;A Charming Winter Residence.&mdash;"Palmetto Leaves."&mdash;Easter Sunday at Mandarin.&mdash;Correspondence with Dr. Holmes.&mdash;"Poganuc People."&mdash;Receptions in New Orleans and Tallahassee.&mdash;Last Winter at Mandarin</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_395">395</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER XVIII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>OLDTOWN FOLKS, 1869.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Professor Stowe the Original of "Harry" in "Oldtown Folks."&mdash;Professor Stowe's Letter to George Eliot.&mdash;Her Remarks on the Same.&mdash;Professor Stowe's Narrative of his Youthful Adventures in the World of Spirits.&mdash;Professor Stowe's Influence on Mrs. Stowe's Literary Life.&mdash;George Eliot on "Oldtown Folks"</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_419">419</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER XIX.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>THE BYRON CONTROVERSY, 1869-1870.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Mrs. Stowe's Statement of her own Case.&mdash;The Circumstances under which she first met Lady Byron.&mdash;Letters to Lady Byron.&mdash;Letter to Dr. Holmes when about to publish "The True Story of Lady Byron's Life" in the "Atlantic."&mdash;Dr. Holmes's Reply.&mdash;The Conclusion <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>of the Matter</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_445">445</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER XX.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>GEORGE ELIOT.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Correspondence with George Eliot.&mdash;George Eliot's First Impressions of Mrs. Stowe.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe's Letter to Mrs. Follen.&mdash;George Eliot's Letter to Mrs. Stowe.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe's Reply.&mdash;Life in Florida.&mdash;Robert Dale Owen and Modern Spiritualism.&mdash;George Eliot's Letter on the Phenomena of Spiritualism.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe's Description of Scenery in Florida.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe concerning "Middlemarch."&mdash;George Eliot to Mrs. Stowe during Rev. H. W. Beecher's Trial.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe concerning her Life Experience with her Brother, H. W. Beecher, and his Trial.&mdash;Mrs. Lewes' Last Letter to Mrs. Stowe.&mdash;Diverse Mental Characteristics of these Two Women.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe's Final Estimate of Modern Spiritualism</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_459">459</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><br />CHAPTER XXI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'>CLOSING SCENES, 1870-1889.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary1">Literary Labors.&mdash;Complete List of Published Books.&mdash;First Reading Tour.&mdash;Peeps Behind the Curtain.&mdash;Some New England Cities.&mdash;A Letter from Maine.&mdash;Pleasant and Unpleasant Readings.&mdash;Second Tour.&mdash;A Western Journey.&mdash;Visit to Old Scenes.&mdash;Celebration of Seventieth Birthday.&mdash;Congratulatory Poems from Mr. Whittier and Dr. Holmes.&mdash;Last Words</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_489">489</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
+<img src="images/i006.jpg" width="300" height="208" alt="Inkstand" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Illustrations">
+<tr><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Mrs. Stowe.</span> From a crayon by Richmond, made in England in 1853</div></td><td align="right"><i><a href="#frontis">Frontispiece</a></i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">Silver Inkstand presented to Mrs. Stowe by her English Admirers in 1853</span></div></td><td align="right" valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_xi">xi</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Mrs. Stowe's Grandmother, Roxanna Foote.</span> From a miniature painted on ivory by her daughter, Mrs. Lyman Beecher</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_6">6</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">Birthplace at Litchfield, Conn.</span><a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Catherine E. Beecher.</span> From a photograph taken in 1875</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">The Home at Walnut Hills, Cincinnati</span><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Henry Ward Beecher.</span> From a photograph by Rockwood, in 1884</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">Manuscript Page of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"</span> (fac-simile)</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">The Andover Home.</span> From a painting by F. Rondel, in 1860, owned by Mrs. H. F. Allen</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_186">186</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Lyman Beecher, at the Age of Eighty-Seven.</span> From a painting owned by the Boston Congregational Club</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">Portrait of the Duchess of Sutherland.</span> From an engraving presented to Mrs. Stowe</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_318">318</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">The Old Home at Hartford</span></div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_374">374</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">The Home at Mandarin, Florida</span></div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_402">402</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Calvin Ellis Stowe.</span> From a photograph taken in 1882</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_422">422</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">Portrait of Mrs. Stowe.</span> From a photograph by Ritz and Hastings, in 1884</div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_470">470</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><div class="summary2"><span class="smcap">The Later Hartford Home</span></div></td><td align='right' valign='bottom'><a href="#Page_508">508</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1">[A]</a> From recent photographs and from views in the Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, published
+by Messrs. Harper &amp; Brothers.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<div class='adtitle2'>LIFE AND LETTERS
+<small>OF</small>
+HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I.<br />
+
+<small>CHILDHOOD, 1811-1824.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Death of her Mother.&mdash;First Journey from Home.&mdash;Life at
+Nut Plains.&mdash;School Days and Hours with Favorite Authors.&mdash;The
+New Mother.&mdash;Litchfield Academy and its
+Influence.&mdash;First Literary Efforts.&mdash;A Remarkable Composition.&mdash;Goes
+to Hartford.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Harriet Beecher</span> (<span class="smcap">Stowe</span>) was born June 14,
+1811, in the characteristic New England town of Litchfield,
+Conn. Her father was the Rev. Dr. Lyman
+Beecher, a distinguished Calvinistic divine, her mother
+Roxanna Foote, his first wife. The little new-comer
+was ushered into a household of happy, healthy children,
+and found five brothers and sisters awaiting her.
+The eldest was Catherine, born September 6, 1800.
+Following her were two sturdy boys, William and Edward;
+then came Mary, then George, and at last Harriet.
+Another little Harriet born three years before
+had died when only one month old, and the fourth
+daughter was named, in memory of this sister, Harriet
+Elizabeth Beecher. Just two years after Harriet was
+born, in the same month, another brother, Henry Ward,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+was welcomed to the family circle, and after him came
+Charles, the last of Roxanna Beecher's children.</p>
+
+<p>The first memorable incident of Harriet's life was the
+death of her mother, which occurred when she was four
+years old, and which ever afterwards remained with
+her as the tenderest, saddest, and most sacred memory
+of her childhood. Mrs. Stowe's recollections of her
+mother are found in a letter to her brother Charles, afterwards
+published in the "Autobiography and Correspondence
+of Lyman Beecher." She says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I was between three and four years of age when
+our mother died, and my personal recollections of her
+are therefore but few. But the deep interest and
+veneration that she inspired in all who knew her were
+such that during all my childhood I was constantly
+hearing her spoken of, and from one friend or another
+some incident or anecdote of her life was constantly
+being impressed upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother was one of those strong, restful, yet widely
+sympathetic natures in whom all around seemed to find
+comfort and repose. The communion between her and
+my father was a peculiar one. It was an intimacy
+throughout the whole range of their being. There
+was no human mind in whose decisions he had greater
+confidence. Both intellectually and morally he regarded
+her as the better and stronger portion of himself,
+and I remember hearing him say that after her
+death his first sensation was a sort of terror, like that
+of a child suddenly shut out alone in the dark.</p>
+
+<p>"In my own childhood only two incidents of my
+mother twinkle like rays through the darkness. One
+was of our all running and dancing out before her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
+from the nursery to the sitting-room one Sabbath morning,
+and her pleasant voice saying after us, 'Remember
+the Sabbath day to keep it holy, children.'</p>
+
+<p>"Another remembrance is this: mother was an enthusiastic
+horticulturist in all the small ways that limited
+means allowed. Her brother John in New York
+had just sent her a small parcel of fine tulip-bulbs.
+I remember rummaging these out of an obscure corner
+of the nursery one day when she was gone out, and
+being strongly seized with the idea that they were good
+to eat, using all the little English I then possessed to
+persuade my brothers that these were onions such as
+grown people ate and would be very nice for us. So
+we fell to and devoured the whole, and I recollect being
+somewhat disappointed in the odd sweetish taste, and
+thinking that onions were not so nice as I had supposed.
+Then mother's serene face appeared at the nursery door
+and we all ran towards her, telling with one voice of
+our discovery and achievement. We had found a bag
+of onions and had eaten them all up.</p>
+
+<p>"Also I remember that there was not even a momentary
+expression of impatience, but that she sat down
+and said, 'My dear children, what you have done
+makes mamma very sorry. Those were not onions but
+roots of beautiful flowers, and if you had let them
+alone we should have next summer in the garden great
+beautiful red and yellow flowers such as you never saw.'
+I remember how drooping and dispirited we all grew
+at this picture, and how sadly we regarded the empty
+paper bag.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I have a recollection of her reading aloud to
+the children Miss Edgeworth's 'Frank,' which had just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+come out, I believe, and was exciting a good deal of
+attention among the educational circles of Litchfield.
+After that came a time when every one said she was
+sick, and I used to be permitted to go once a day into
+her room, where she sat bolstered up in bed. I have a
+vision of a very fair face with a bright red spot on each
+cheek and her quiet smile. I remember dreaming one
+night that mamma had got well, and of waking with
+loud transports of joy that were hushed down by some
+one who came into the room. My dream was indeed a
+true one. She was forever well.</p>
+
+<p>"Then came the funeral. Henry was too little to
+go. I can see his golden curls and little black frock
+as he frolicked in the sun like a kitten, full of ignorant
+joy.</p>
+
+<p>"I recollect the mourning dresses, the tears of the
+older children, the walking to the burial-ground, and
+somebody's speaking at the grave. Then all was closed,
+and we little ones, to whom it was so confused, asked
+where she was gone and would she never come back.</p>
+
+<p>"They told us at one time that she had been laid in
+the ground, and at another that she had gone to heaven.
+Thereupon Henry, putting the two things together, resolved
+to dig through the ground and go to heaven to
+find her; for being discovered under sister Catherine's
+window one morning digging with great zeal and earnestness,
+she called to him to know what he was doing.
+Lifting his curly head, he answered with great simplicity,
+'Why, I'm going to heaven to find mamma.'</p>
+
+<p>"Although our mother's bodily presence thus disappeared
+from our circle, I think her memory and example
+had more influence in moulding her family, in deterring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+from evil and exciting to good, than the living presence
+of many mothers. It was a memory that met us everywhere,
+for every person in the town, from the highest
+to the lowest, seemed to have been so impressed by her
+character and life that they constantly reflected some
+portion of it back upon us.</p>
+
+<p>"The passage in 'Uncle Tom' where Augustine St.
+Clare describes his mother's influence is a simple reproduction
+of my own mother's influence as it has always
+been felt in her family."</p>
+
+<p>Of his deceased wife Dr. Beecher said: "Few women
+have attained to more remarkable piety. Her faith was
+strong and her prayer prevailing. It was her wish that
+all her sons should devote themselves to the ministry,
+and to it she consecrated them with fervent prayer.
+Her prayers have been heard. All her sons have been
+converted and are now, according to her wish, ministers
+of Christ."</p>
+
+<p>Such was Roxanna Beecher, whose influence upon
+her four-year-old daughter was strong enough to mould
+the whole after-life of the author of "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin." After the mother's death the Litchfield home
+was such a sad, lonely place for the child that her aunt,
+Harriet Foote, took her away for a long visit at her
+grandmother's at Nut Plains, near Guilford, Conn., the
+first journey from home the little one had ever made.
+Of this visit Mrs. Stowe herself says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Among my earliest recollections are those of a visit
+to Nut Plains immediately after my mother's death.
+Aunt Harriet Foote, who was with mother during all
+her last sickness, took me home to stay with her. At
+the close of what seemed to me a long day's ride we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+arrived after dark at a lonely little white farmhouse,
+and were ushered into a large parlor where a cheerful
+wood fire was crackling. I was placed in the arms of
+an old lady, who held me close and wept silently, a
+thing at which I marveled, for my great loss was already
+faded from my childish mind.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 326px;">
+<img src="images/i007.jpg" width="326" height="600" alt="Roxanna Foote" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"I remember being put to bed by my aunt in a large
+room, on one side of which stood the bed appropriated
+to her and me, and on the other that of my grandmother.
+My aunt Harriet was no common character.
+A more energetic human being never undertook the
+education of a child. Her ideas of education were
+those of a vigorous English woman of the old school.
+She believed in the Church, and had she been born
+under that <i>régime</i> would have believed in the king
+stoutly, although being of the generation following the
+Revolution she was a not less stanch supporter of the
+Declaration of Independence.</p>
+
+<p>"According to her views little girls were to be taught
+to move very gently, to speak softly and prettily, to say
+'yes ma'am,' and 'no ma'am,' never to tear their clothes,
+to sew, to knit at regular hours, to go to church on
+Sunday and make all the responses, and to come home
+and be catechised.</p>
+
+<p>"During these catechisings she used to place my
+little cousin Mary and myself bolt upright at her knee,
+while black Dinah and Harry, the bound boy, were
+ranged at a respectful distance behind us; for Aunt
+Harriet always impressed it upon her servants 'to order
+themselves lowly and reverently to all their betters,' a
+portion of the Church catechism that always pleased
+me, particularly when applied to them, as it insured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+their calling me 'Miss Harriet,' and treating me with a
+degree of consideration such as I never enjoyed in the
+more democratic circle at home. I became proficient
+in the Church catechism, and gave my aunt great satisfaction
+by the old-fashioned gravity and steadiness with
+which I learned to repeat it.</p>
+
+<p>"As my father was a Congregational minister, I believe
+Aunt Harriet, though the highest of High Church
+women, felt some scruples as to whether it was desirable
+that my religious education should be entirely out of
+the sphere of my birth. Therefore when this catechetical
+exercise was finished she would say, 'Now,
+niece, you have to learn another catechism, because
+your father is a Presbyterian minister,'&mdash;and then she
+would endeavor to make me commit to memory the Assembly
+catechism.</p>
+
+<p>"At this lengthening of exercise I secretly murmured.
+I was rather pleased at the first question in
+the Church catechism, which is certainly quite on the
+level of any child's understanding,&mdash;'What is your
+name?' It was such an easy good start, I could say
+it so loud and clear, and I was accustomed to compare
+it with the first question in the Primer, 'What is the
+chief end of man?' as vastly more difficult for me to
+answer. In fact, between my aunt's secret unbelief
+and my own childish impatience of too much catechism,
+the matter was indefinitely postponed after a few ineffectual
+attempts, and I was overjoyed to hear her announce
+privately to grandmother that she thought it
+would be time enough for Harriet to learn the Presbyterian
+catechism when she went home."</p>
+
+<p>Mingled with this superabundance of catechism and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+plentiful needlework the child was treated to copious
+extracts from Lowth's Isaiah, Buchanan's Researches
+in Asia, Bishop Heber's Life, and Dr. Johnson's Works,
+which, after her Bible and Prayer Book, were her
+grandmother's favorite reading. Harriet does not seem
+to have fully appreciated these; but she did enjoy her
+grandmother's comments upon their biblical readings.
+Among the Evangelists especially was the old lady perfectly
+at home, and her idea of each of the apostles was
+so distinct and dramatic that she spoke of them as of
+familiar acquaintances. She would, for instance, always
+smile indulgently at Peter's remarks and say, "There
+he is again, now; that's just like Peter. He's always
+so ready to put in."</p>
+
+<p>It must have been during this winter spent at Nut
+Plains, amid such surroundings, that Harriet began
+committing to memory that wonderful assortment of
+hymns, poems, and scriptural passages from which in
+after years she quoted so readily and effectively, for
+her sister Catherine, in writing of her the following
+November, says:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<p>"Harriet is a very good girl. She has been to school
+all this summer, and has learned to read very fluently.
+She has committed to memory twenty-seven hymns and
+two long chapters in the Bible. She has a remarkably
+retentive memory and will make a very good scholar."</p>
+
+<p>At this time the child was five years old, and a regular
+attendant at "Ma'am Kilbourne's" school on West
+Street, to which she walked every day hand in hand
+with her chubby, rosy-faced, bare-footed, four-year-old
+brother, Henry Ward. With the ability to read germinated
+the intense literary longing that was to be hers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+through life. In those days but few books were specially
+prepared for children, and at six years of age we
+find the little girl hungrily searching for mental food
+amid barrels of old sermons and pamphlets stored in a
+corner of the garret. Here it seemed to her were some
+thousands of the most unintelligible things. "An appeal
+on the unlawfulness of a man marrying his wife's
+sister" turned up in every barrel she investigated, by
+twos, or threes, or dozens, till her soul despaired of finding
+an end. At last her patient search was rewarded,
+for at the very bottom of a barrel of musty sermons she
+discovered an ancient volume of "The Arabian Nights."
+With this her fortune was made, for in these most fascinating
+of fairy tales the imaginative child discovered
+a well-spring of joy that was all her own. When
+things went astray with her, when her brothers started
+off on long excursions, refusing to take her with them,
+or in any other childish sorrow, she had only to curl
+herself up in some snug corner and sail forth on her
+bit of enchanted carpet into fairyland to forget all her
+griefs.</p>
+
+<p>In recalling her own child-life Mrs. Stowe, among
+other things, describes her father's library, and gives a
+vivid bit of her own experiences within its walls. She
+says: "High above all the noise of the house, this room
+had to me the air of a refuge and a sanctuary. Its
+walls were set round from floor to ceiling with the
+friendly, quiet faces of books, and there stood my father's
+great writing-chair, on one arm of which lay
+open always his Cruden's Concordance and his Bible.
+Here I loved to retreat and niche myself down in a
+quiet corner with my favorite books around me. I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+a kind of sheltered feeling as I thus sat and watched
+my father writing, turning to his books, and speaking
+from time to time to himself in a loud, earnest whisper.
+I vaguely felt that he was about some holy and mysterious
+work quite beyond my little comprehension, and I
+was careful never to disturb him by question or remark.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i010.jpg" width="600" height="376" alt="house with horse and carrage going by" />
+<div class="caption">BIRTHPLACE AT LITCHFIELD, CONNECTICUT.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"The books ranged around filled me too with a solemn
+awe. On the lower shelves were enormous folios,
+on whose backs I spelled in black letters, 'Lightfoot
+Opera,' a title whereat I wondered, considering the
+bulk of the volumes. Above these, grouped along in
+friendly, social rows, were books of all sorts, sizes, and
+bindings, the titles of which I had read so often that I
+knew them by heart. There were Bell's Sermons, Bonnett's
+Inquiries, Bogue's Essays, Toplady on Predestination,
+Boston's Fourfold State, Law's Serious Call,
+and other works of that kind. These I looked over
+wistfully, day after day, without even a hope of getting
+something interesting out of them. The thought that
+father could read and understand things like these
+filled me with a vague awe, and I wondered if I would
+ever be old enough to know what it was all about.</p>
+
+<p>"But there was one of my father's books that proved
+a mine of wealth to me. It was a happy hour when he
+brought home and set up in his bookcase Cotton Mather's
+'Magnalia,' in a new edition of two volumes.
+What wonderful stories those! Stories too about my
+own country. Stories that made me feel the very
+ground I trod on to be consecrated by some special
+dealing of God's Providence."</p>
+
+<p>In continuing these reminiscences Mrs. Stowe describes
+as follows her sensations upon first hearing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+Declaration of Independence: "I had never heard it
+before, and even now had but a vague idea of what
+was meant by some parts of it. Still I gathered enough
+from the recital of the abuses and injuries that had
+driven my nation to this course to feel myself swelling
+with indignation, and ready with all my little mind and
+strength to applaud the concluding passage, which
+Colonel Talmadge rendered with resounding majesty. I
+was as ready as any of them to pledge my life, fortune,
+and sacred honor for such a cause. The heroic element
+was strong in me, having come down by ordinary generation
+from a long line of Puritan ancestry, and just
+now it made me long to do something, I knew not
+what: to fight for my country, or to make some declaration
+on my own account."</p>
+
+<p>When Harriet was nearly six years old her father
+married as his second wife Miss Harriet Porter of Portland,
+Maine, and Mrs. Stowe thus describes her new
+mother: "I slept in the nursery with my two younger
+brothers. We knew that father was gone away somewhere
+on a journey and was expected home, therefore
+the sound of a bustle in the house the more easily
+awoke us. As father came into our room our new
+mother followed him. She was very fair, with bright
+blue eyes, and soft auburn hair bound round with a
+black velvet bandeau, and to us she seemed very beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>"Never did stepmother make a prettier or sweeter
+impression. The morning following her arrival we
+looked at her with awe. She seemed to us so fair, so
+delicate, so elegant, that we were almost afraid to go
+near her. We must have appeared to her as rough,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+red-faced, country children, honest, obedient, and bashful.
+She was peculiarly dainty and neat in all her
+ways and arrangements, and I used to feel breezy,
+rough, and rude in her presence.</p>
+
+<p>"In her religion she was distinguished for a most
+unfaltering Christ-worship. She was of a type noble
+but severe, naturally hard, correct, exact and exacting,
+with intense natural and moral ideality. Had it not
+been that Doctor Payson had set up and kept before
+her a tender, human, loving Christ, she would have
+been only a conscientious bigot. This image, however,
+gave softness and warmth to her religious life, and I
+have since noticed how her Christ-enthusiasm has
+sprung up in the hearts of all her children."</p>
+
+<p>In writing to her old home of her first impressions
+of her new one, Mrs. Beecher says: "It is a very lovely
+family, and with heartfelt gratitude I observed how
+cheerful and healthy they were. The sentiment is
+greatly increased, since I perceive them to be of agreeable
+habits and some of them of uncommon intellect."</p>
+
+<p>This new mother proved to be indeed all that the
+name implies to her husband's children, and never did
+they have occasion to call her aught other than blessed.</p>
+
+<p>Another year finds a new baby brother, Frederick
+by name, added to the family. At this time too we
+catch a characteristic glimpse of Harriet in one of her
+sister Catherine's letters. She says: "Last week we
+interred Tom junior with funeral honors by the side of
+old Tom of happy memory. Our Harriet is chief
+mourner always at their funerals. She asked for what
+she called an <i>epithet</i> for the gravestone of Tom junior,
+which I gave as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Here lies our Kit,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Who had a fit,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And acted queer,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Shot with a gun,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Her race is run,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And she lies here."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>In June, 1820, little Frederick died from scarlet fever,
+and Harriet was seized with a violent attack of the
+same dread disease; but, after a severe struggle, recovered.</p>
+
+<p>Following her happy, hearty child-life, we find her
+tramping through the woods or going on fishing excursions
+with her brothers, sitting thoughtfully in her
+father's study, listening eagerly to the animated theological
+discussions of the day, visiting her grandmother
+at Nut Plains, and figuring as one of the brightest
+scholars in the Litchfield Academy, taught by Mr.
+John Brace and Miss Pierce. When she was eleven
+years old her brother Edward wrote of her: "Harriet
+reads everything she can lay hands on, and sews and
+knits diligently."</p>
+
+<p>At this time she was no longer the youngest girl of
+the family, for another sister (Isabella) had been born
+in 1822. This event served greatly to mature her, as
+she was intrusted with much of the care of the baby
+out of school hours. It was not, however, allowed to
+interfere in any way with her studies, and, under the
+skillful direction of her beloved teachers, she seemed
+to absorb knowledge with every sense. She herself
+writes: "Much of the training and inspiration of my
+early days consisted not in the things that I was supposed
+to be studying, but in hearing, while seated unnoticed
+at my desk, the conversation of Mr. Brace with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+the older classes. There, from hour to hour, I listened
+with eager ears to historical criticisms and discussions,
+or to recitations in such works as Paley's Moral Philosophy,
+Blair's Rhetoric, Allison on Taste, all full of
+most awakening suggestions to my thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Brace exceeded all teachers I ever knew in the
+faculty of teaching composition. The constant excitement
+in which he kept the minds of his pupils, the wide
+and varied regions of thought into which he led them,
+formed a preparation for composition, the main requisite
+for which is to have something which one feels interested
+to say."</p>
+
+<p>In her tenth year Harriet began what to her was the
+fascinating work of writing compositions, and so rapidly
+did she progress that at the school exhibition held when
+she was twelve years old, hers was one of the two or
+three essays selected to be read aloud before the august
+assembly of visitors attracted by the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Of this event Mrs. Stowe writes: "I remember well
+the scene at that exhibition, to me so eventful. The
+hall was crowded with all the literati of Litchfield.
+Before them all our compositions were read aloud.
+When mine was read I noticed that father, who was
+sitting on high by Mr. Brace, brightened and looked
+interested, and at the close I heard him ask, 'Who
+wrote that composition?' 'Your daughter, sir,' was the
+answer. It was the proudest moment of my life. There
+was no mistaking father's face when he was pleased,
+and to have interested him was past all juvenile triumphs."</p>
+
+<p>That composition has been carefully preserved, and
+on the old yellow sheets the cramped childish handwriting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+is still distinctly legible. As the first literary
+production of one who afterwards attained such distinction
+as a writer, it is deemed of sufficient value and
+interest to be embodied in this biography exactly as it
+was written and read sixty-five years ago. The subject
+was certainly a grave one to be handled by a child of
+twelve.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>CAN THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL BE PROVED BY
+THE LIGHT OF NATURE?</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>It has justly been concluded by the philosophers of
+every age that "The proper study of mankind is man,"
+and his nature and composition, both physical and mental,
+have been subjects of the most critical examination.
+In the course of these researches many have been at a
+loss to account for the change which takes place in the
+body at the time of death. By some it has been attributed
+to the flight of its tenant, and by others to its
+final annihilation.</p>
+
+<p>The questions, "What becomes of the soul at the
+time of death?" and, if it be not annihilated, "What
+is its destiny after death?" are those which, from the
+interest that we all feel in them, will probably engross
+universal attention.</p>
+
+<p>In pursuing these inquiries it will be necessary to
+divest ourselves of all that knowledge which we have
+obtained from the light which revelation has shed over
+them, and place ourselves in the same position as the
+philosophers of past ages when considering the same
+subject.</p>
+
+<p>The first argument which has been advanced to
+prove the immortality of the soul is drawn from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+nature of the mind itself. It has (say the supporters
+of this theory) no composition of parts, and therefore,
+as there are no particles, is not susceptible of divisibility
+and cannot be acted upon by decay, and therefore
+if it will not decay it will exist forever.</p>
+
+<p>Now because the mind is not susceptible of decay
+effected in the ordinary way by a gradual separation of
+particles, affords no proof that that same omnipotent
+power which created it cannot by another simple exertion
+of power again reduce it to nothing. The only
+reason for belief which this argument affords is that
+the soul cannot be acted upon by decay. But it does
+not prove that it cannot destroy its existence. Therefore,
+for the validity of this argument, it must either
+be proved that the "Creator" has not the power to
+destroy it, or that he has not the will; but as neither
+of these can be established, our immortality is left dependent
+on the pleasure of the Creator. But it is said
+that it is evident that the Creator designed the soul for
+immortality, or he would never have created it so essentially
+different from the body, for had they both been
+designed for the same end they would both have been
+created alike, as there would have been no object in
+forming them otherwise. This only proves that the
+soul and body had not the same destinations. Now of
+what these destinations are we know nothing, and after
+much useless reasoning we return where we began, our
+argument depending upon the good pleasure of the
+Creator.</p>
+
+<p>And here it is said that a being of such infinite wisdom
+and benevolence as that of which the Creator is
+possessed would not have formed man with such vast<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+capacities and boundless desires, and would have given
+him no opportunity for exercising them.</p>
+
+<p>In order to establish the validity of this argument
+it is necessary to prove by the light of Nature that the
+Creator <i>is</i> benevolent, which, being impracticable, is of
+itself sufficient to render the argument invalid.</p>
+
+<p>But the argument proceeds upon the supposition that
+to destroy the soul would be unwise. Now this is arraigning
+the "All-wise" before the tribunal of his subjects
+to answer for the mistakes in his government.
+Can we look into the council of the "Unsearchable"
+and see what means are made to answer their ends?
+We do not know but the destruction of the soul may,
+in the government of God, be made to answer such a
+purpose that its existence would be contrary to the dictates
+of wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>The great desire of the soul for immortality, its secret,
+innate horror of annihilation, has been brought to prove
+its immortality. But do we always find this horror or
+this desire? Is it not much more evident that the
+great majority of mankind have no such dread at all?
+True that there is a strong feeling of horror excited
+by the idea of perishing from the earth and being forgotten,
+of losing all those honors and all that fame
+awaited them. Many feel this secret horror when they
+look down upon the vale of futurity and reflect that
+though now the idols of the world, soon all which will
+be left them will be the common portion of mankind&mdash;oblivion!
+But this dread does not arise from any idea
+of their destiny beyond the tomb, and even were this
+true, it would afford no proof that the mind would
+exist forever, merely from its strong desires. For it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+might with as much correctness be argued that the
+body will exist forever because we have a great dread
+of dying, and upon this principle nothing which we
+strongly desire would ever be withheld from us, and no
+evil that we greatly dread will ever come upon us, a
+principle evidently false.</p>
+
+<p>Again, it has been said that the constant progression
+of the powers of the mind affords another proof
+of its immortality. Concerning this, Addison remarks,
+"Were a human soul ever thus at a stand in her acquirements,
+were her faculties to be full blown and incapable
+of further enlargement, I could imagine that
+she might fall away insensibly and drop at once into a
+state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking
+being that is in a perpetual progress of improvement,
+and traveling on from perfection to perfection after
+having just looked abroad into the works of her Creator
+and made a few discoveries of his infinite wisdom
+and goodness, must perish at her first setting out and
+in the very beginning of her inquiries?"</p>
+
+<p>In answer to this it may be said that the soul is not
+always progressing in her powers. Is it not rather a
+subject of general remark that those brilliant talents
+which in youth expand, in manhood become stationary,
+and in old age gradually sink to decay? Till when
+the ancient man descends to the tomb scarce a wreck of
+that once powerful mind remains.</p>
+
+<p>Who, but upon reading the history of England, does
+not look with awe upon the effects produced by the
+talents of her Elizabeth? Who but admires that undaunted
+firmness in time of peace and that profound
+depth of policy which she displayed in the cabinet?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+Yet behold the tragical end of this learned, this politic
+princess! Behold the triumphs of age and sickness
+over her once powerful talents, and say not that the
+faculties of man are always progressing in their powers.</p>
+
+<p>From the activity of the mind at the hour of death
+has also been deduced its immortality. But it is not
+true that the mind is always active at the time of death.
+We find recorded in history numberless instances of
+those talents, which were once adequate to the government
+of a nation, being so weakened and palsied by
+the touch of sickness as scarcely to tell to beholders
+what they once were. The talents of the statesman,
+the wisdom of the sage, the courage and might of the
+warrior, are instantly destroyed by it, and all that remains
+of them is the waste of idiocy or the madness of
+insanity.</p>
+
+<p>Some minds there are who at the time of death retain
+their faculties though much impaired, and if the argument
+be valid these are the only cases where immortality
+is conferred. Again, it is urged that the
+inequality of rewards and punishments in this world
+demand another in which virtue may be rewarded and
+vice punished. This argument, in the first place, takes
+for its foundation that by the light of nature the distinction
+between virtue and vice can be discovered. By
+some this is absolutely disbelieved, and by all considered
+as extremely doubtful. And, secondly, it puts the Creator
+under an obligation to reward and punish the actions
+of his creatures. No such obligation exists, and
+therefore the argument cannot be valid. And this supposes
+the Creator to be a being of justice, which cannot
+by the light of nature be proved, and as the whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+argument rests upon this foundation it certainly cannot
+be correct.</p>
+
+<p>This argument also directly impeaches the wisdom of
+the Creator, for the sense of it is this,&mdash;that, forasmuch
+as he was not able to manage his government in
+this world, he must have another in which to rectify
+the mistakes and oversights of this, and what an idea
+would this give us of our All-wise Creator?</p>
+
+<p>It is also said that all nations have some conceptions
+of a future state, that the ancient Greeks and Romans
+believed in it, that no nation has been found but have
+possessed some idea of a future state of existence. But
+their belief arose more from the fact that they wished
+it to be so than from any real ground of belief; for
+arguments appear much more plausible when the mind
+wishes to be convinced. But it is said that every nation,
+however circumstanced, possess some idea of a
+future state. For this we may account by the fact that
+it was handed down by tradition from the time of the
+flood. From all these arguments, which, however plausible
+at first sight, are found to be futile, may be argued
+the necessity of a revelation. Without it, the destiny
+of the noblest of the works of God would have been
+left in obscurity. Never till the blessed light of the
+Gospel dawned on the borders of the pit, and the heralds
+of the Cross proclaimed "Peace on earth and good
+will to men," was it that bewildered and misled man
+was enabled to trace his celestial origin and glorious
+destiny.</p>
+
+<p>The sun of the Gospel has dispelled the darkness
+that has rested on objects beyond the tomb. In the
+Gospel man learned that when the dust returned to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+dust the spirit fled to the God who gave it. He there
+found that though man has lost the image of his divine
+Creator, he is still destined, after this earthly house of
+his tabernacle is dissolved, to an inheritance incorruptible,
+undefiled, and that fadeth not away, to a house not
+made with hands, eternal in the heavens.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Soon after the writing of this remarkable composition,
+Harriet's child-life in Litchfield came to an end,
+for that same year she went to Hartford to pursue her
+studies in a school which had been recently established
+by her sister Catherine in that city.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II.<br />
+
+<small>SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD, 1824-1832.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Miss Catherine Beecher.&mdash;Professor Fisher.&mdash;The Wreck of
+the Albion and Death of Professor Fisher.&mdash;"The Minister's
+Wooing."&mdash;Miss Catherine Beecher's Spiritual History.&mdash;Mrs.
+Stowe's Recollections of her School Days
+in Hartford.&mdash;Her Conversion.&mdash;Unites with the First
+Church in Hartford.&mdash;Her Doubts and Subsequent Religious
+Development.&mdash;Her Final Peace.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> school days in Hartford began a new era in
+Harriet's life. It was the formative period, and it is
+therefore important to say a few words concerning her
+sister Catherine, under whose immediate supervision she
+was to continue her education. In fact, no one can
+comprehend either Mrs. Stowe or her writings without
+some knowledge of the life and character of this remarkable
+woman, whose strong, vigorous mind and tremendous
+personality indelibly stamped themselves on
+the sensitive, yielding, dreamy, and poetic nature of
+the younger sister. Mrs. Stowe herself has said that
+the two persons who most strongly influenced her at
+this period of her life were her brother Edward and her
+sister Catherine.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine was the oldest child of Lyman Beecher
+and Roxanna Foote, his wife. In a little battered
+journal found among her papers is a short sketch of
+her life, written when she was seventy-six years of age.
+In a tremulous hand she begins: "I was born at East<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+Hampton, L. I., September 5, 1800, at 5 <small>P. M.</small>, in the
+large parlor opposite father's study. Don't remember
+much about it myself." The sparkle of wit in this
+brief notice of the circumstances of her birth is very
+characteristic. All through her life little ripples of fun
+were continually playing on the surface of that current
+of intense thought and feeling in which her deep, earnest
+nature flowed.</p>
+
+<p>When she was ten years of age her father removed
+to Litchfield, Conn., and her happy girlhood was passed
+in that place. Her bright and versatile mind and ready
+wit enabled her to pass brilliantly through her school
+days with but little mental exertion, and those who
+knew her slightly might have imagined her to be only
+a bright, thoughtless, light-hearted girl. In Boston, at
+the age of twenty, she took lessons in music and drawing,
+and became so proficient in these branches as to
+secure a position as teacher in a young ladies' school,
+kept by a Rev. Mr. Judd, an Episcopal clergyman, at
+New London, Conn. About this time she formed the
+acquaintance of Professor Alexander Metcalf Fisher, of
+Yale College, one of the most distinguished young men
+in New England. In January of the year 1822 they became
+engaged, and the following spring Professor Fisher
+sailed for Europe to purchase books and scientific apparatus
+for the use of his department in the college.</p>
+
+<p>In his last letter to Miss Beecher, dated March 31,
+1822, he writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I set out at 10 precisely to-morrow, in the Albion
+for Liverpool; the ship has no superior in the whole
+number of excellent vessels belonging to this port, and
+Captain Williams is regarded as first on their list of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+commanders. The accommodations are admirable&mdash;fare
+$140. Unless our ship should speak some one
+bound to America on the passage, you will probably
+not hear from me under two months."</p>
+
+<p>Before two months had passed came vague rumors of
+a terrible shipwreck on the coast of Ireland. Then the
+tidings that the Albion was lost. Then came a letter
+from Mr. Pond, at Kinsale, Ireland, dated May 2,
+1822:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You have doubtless heard of the shipwreck of the
+Albion packet of New York, bound to Liverpool. It
+was a melancholy shipwreck. It happened about four
+o'clock on the morning of the 22d of April. Professor
+Fisher, of Yale College, was one of the passengers.
+Out of twenty-three cabin passengers, but one reached
+the shore. He is a Mr. Everhart, of Chester County,
+Pennsylvania. He informs me that Professor Fisher
+was injured by things that fetched away in the cabin at
+the time the ship was knocked down. This was between
+8 and 9 o'clock in the evening of the twenty-first.
+Mr. Fisher, though badly bruised, was calm and
+resolute, and assisted Captain Williams by taking the
+injured compass to his berth and repairing it. About
+five minutes before the vessel struck Captain Williams
+informed the passengers of their danger, and all went
+on deck except Professor Fisher, who remained sitting
+in his berth. Mr. Everhart was the last person who
+left the cabin, and the last who ever saw Professor
+Fisher alive."</p>
+
+<p>I should not have spoken of this incident of family
+history with such minuteness, except for the fact that
+it is so much a part of Mrs. Stowe's life as to make it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+impossible to understand either her character or her
+most important works without it. Without this incident
+"The Minister's Wooing" never would have been
+written, for both Mrs. Marvyn's terrible soul struggles
+and old Candace's direct and effective solution of all
+religious difficulties find their origin in this stranded,
+storm-beaten ship on the coast of Ireland, and the terrible
+mental conflicts through which her sister afterward
+passed, for she believed Professor Fisher eternally lost.
+No mind more directly and powerfully influenced Harriet's
+than that of her sister Catherine, unless it was
+her brother Edward's, and that which acted with such
+overwhelming power on the strong, unyielding mind
+of the older sister must have, in time, a permanent and
+abiding influence on the mind of the younger.</p>
+
+<p>After Professor Fisher's death his books came into
+Miss Beecher's possession, and among them was a complete
+edition of Scott's works. It was an epoch in the
+family history when Doctor Beecher came down-stairs
+one day with a copy of "Ivanhoe" in his hand, and
+said: "I have always said that my children should not
+read novels, but they must read these."</p>
+
+<p>The two years following the death of Professor
+Fisher were passed by Miss Catherine Beecher at
+Franklin, Mass., at the home of Professor Fisher's parents,
+where she taught his two sisters, studied mathematics
+with his brother Willard, and listened to Doctor
+Emmons' fearless and pitiless preaching. Hers was a
+mind too strong and buoyant to be crushed and prostrated
+by that which would have driven a weaker and
+less resolute nature into insanity. Of her it may well
+be said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"She faced the spectres of the mind<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And laid them, thus she came at length</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To find a stronger faith her own."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Gifted naturally with a capacity for close metaphysical
+analysis and a robust fearlessness in following her
+premises to a logical conclusion, she arrived at results
+startling and original, if not always of permanent value.</p>
+
+<p>In 1840 she published in the "Biblical Repository"
+an article on Free Agency, which has been acknowledged
+by competent critics as the ablest refutation of
+Edwards on "The Will" which has appeared. An
+amusing incident connected with this publication may
+not be out of place here. A certain eminent theological
+professor of New England, visiting a distinguished
+German theologian and speaking of this production,
+said: "The ablest refutation of Edwards on 'The
+Will' which was ever written is the work of a woman,
+the daughter of Dr. Lyman Beecher." The worthy
+Teuton raised both hands in undisguised astonishment.
+"You have a woman that can write an able refutation
+of Edwards on 'The Will'? God forgive Christopher
+Columbus for discovering America!"</p>
+
+<p>Not finding herself able to love a God whom she
+thought of in her own language as "a perfectly happy
+being, unmoved by my sorrows or tears, and looking
+upon me only with dislike and aversion," she determined
+"to find happiness in living to do good." "It
+was right to pray and read the Bible, so I prayed and
+read. It was right to try to save others, so I labored
+for their salvation. I never had any fear of punishment
+or hope of reward all these years." She was tormented
+with doubts. "What has the Son of God<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+done which the meanest and most selfish creature upon
+earth would not have done? After making such a
+wretched race and placing them in such disastrous circumstances,
+somehow, without any sorrow or trouble,
+Jesus Christ had a human nature that suffered and
+died. If something else besides ourselves will do all
+the suffering, who would not save millions of wretched
+beings and receive all the honor and gratitude without
+any of the trouble? Sometimes when such thoughts
+passed through my mind, I felt that it was all pride,
+rebellion, and sin."</p>
+
+<p>So she struggles on, sometimes floundering deep in
+the mire of doubt, and then lifted for the moment
+above it by her naturally buoyant spirits, and general
+tendency to look on the bright side of things. In this
+condition of mind, she came to Hartford in the winter
+of 1824, and began a school with eight scholars, and it
+was in the practical experience of teaching that she
+found a final solution of all her difficulties. She continues:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"After two or three years I commenced giving instruction
+in mental philosophy, and at the same time
+began a regular course of lectures and instructions
+from the Bible, and was much occupied with plans for
+governing my school, and in devising means to lead
+my pupils to become obedient, amiable, and pious. By
+degrees I finally arrived at the following principles in
+the government of my school:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"First. It is indispensable that my scholars should
+feel that I am sincerely and deeply interested in their
+best happiness, and the more I can convince them of
+this, the more ready will be their obedience.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Second. The preservation of authority and order
+depends upon the certainty that unpleasant consequences
+to themselves will inevitably be the result of
+doing wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"Third. It is equally necessary, to preserve my own
+influence and their affection, that they should feel that
+punishment is the natural result of wrong-doing in
+such a way that they shall regard themselves, instead
+of me, as the cause of their punishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Fourth. It is indispensable that my scholars should
+see that my requisitions are reasonable. In the majority
+of cases this can be shown, and in this way such
+confidence will be the result that they will trust to my
+judgment and knowledge, in cases where no explanation
+can be given.</p>
+
+<p>"Fifth. The more I can make my scholars feel that
+I am actuated by a spirit of self-denying benevolence,
+the more confidence they will feel in me, and the more
+they will be inclined to submit to self-denying duties
+for the good of others.</p>
+
+<p>"After a while I began to compare my experience
+with the government of God. I finally got through
+the whole subject, and drew out the results, and found
+that all my difficulties were solved and all my darkness
+dispelled."</p>
+
+<p>Her solution in brief is nothing more than that view
+of the divine nature which was for so many years
+preached by her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, and
+set forth in the writings of her sister Harriet,&mdash;the
+conception of a being of infinite love, patience, and
+kindness who suffers with man. The sufferings of
+Christ on the cross were not the sufferings of his human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+nature merely, but the sufferings of the divine
+nature in Him. In Christ we see the only revelation
+of God, and that is the revelation of one that suffers.
+This is the fundamental idea in "The Minister's Wooing,"
+and it is the idea of God in which the storm-tossed
+soul of the older sister at last found rest. All
+this was directly opposed to that fundamental principle
+of theologians that God, being the infinitely perfect
+Being, cannot suffer, because suffering indicates imperfection.
+To Miss Beecher's mind the lack of ability to
+suffer with his suffering creatures was a more serious
+imperfection. Let the reader turn to the twenty-fourth
+chapter of "The Minister's Wooing" for a complete
+presentation of this subject, especially the passage that
+begins, "Sorrow is divine: sorrow is reigning on the
+throne of the universe."</p>
+
+<p>In the fall of the year 1824, while her sister Catherine
+was passing through the soul crisis which we have
+been describing, Harriet came to the school that she
+had recently established.</p>
+
+<p>In a letter to her son written in 1886, speaking of
+this period of her life, Mrs. Stowe says: "Somewhere
+between my twelfth and thirteenth year I was placed
+under the care of my elder sister Catherine, in the
+school that she had just started in Hartford, Connecticut.
+When I entered the school there were not more
+than twenty-five scholars in it, but it afterwards numbered
+its pupils by the hundreds. The school-room was
+on Main Street, nearly opposite Christ Church, over
+Sheldon &amp; Colton's harness store, at the sign of the
+two white horses. I never shall forget the pleasure and
+surprise which these two white horses produced in my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+mind when I first saw them. One of the young men
+who worked in the rear of the harness store had a most
+beautiful tenor voice, and it was my delight to hear
+him singing in school hours:&mdash;</p>
+<div class='poem'>
+'When in cold oblivion's shade<br />
+Beauty, wealth, and power are laid,<br />
+When, around the sculptured shrine,<br />
+Moss shall cling and ivy twine,<br />
+Where immortal spirits reign,<br />
+There shall we all meet again.'<br />
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 351px;">
+<img src="images/i030.jpg" width="351" height="600" alt="Catherine E. Beecher portrait and signature" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"As my father's salary was inadequate to the wants
+of his large family, the expense of my board in Hartford
+was provided for by a species of exchange. Mr.
+Isaac D. Bull sent a daughter to Miss Pierce's seminary
+in Litchfield, and she boarded in my father's family in
+exchange for my board in her father's family. If my
+good, refined, neat, particular stepmother could have
+chosen, she could not have found a family more exactly
+suited to her desires. The very soul of neatness and
+order pervaded the whole establishment. Mr. I. D.
+Bull was a fine, vigorous, white-haired man on the declining
+slope of life, but full of energy and of kindness.
+Mr. Samuel Collins, a neighbor who lived next
+door, used to frequently come in and make most impressive
+and solemn calls on Miss Mary Anne Bull, who
+was a brunette and a celebrated beauty of the day. I
+well remember her long raven curls falling from the
+comb that held them up on the top of her head. She
+had a rich soprano voice, and was the leading singer in
+the Centre Church choir. The two brothers also had
+fine, manly voices, and the family circle was often enlivened
+by quartette singing and flute playing. Mr.
+Bull kept a very large wholesale drug store on Front<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+Street, in which his two sons, Albert and James, were
+clerks. The oldest son, Watson Bull, had established
+a retail drug store at the sign of the 'Good Samaritan.'
+A large picture of the Good Samaritan relieving the
+wounded traveler formed a striking part of the sign,
+and was contemplated by me with reverence.</p>
+
+<p>"The mother of the family gave me at once a child's
+place in her heart. A neat little hall chamber was
+allotted to me for my own, and a well made and kept
+single bed was given me, of which I took daily care
+with awful satisfaction. If I was sick nothing could
+exceed the watchful care and tender nursing of Mrs.
+Bull. In school my two most intimate friends were
+the leading scholars. They had written to me before
+I came and I had answered their letters, and on my
+arrival they gave me the warmest welcome. One was
+Catherine Ledyard Cogswell, daughter of the leading
+and best-beloved of Hartford physicians. The other
+was Georgiana May, daughter of a most lovely Christian
+woman who was a widow. Georgiana was one of
+many children, having two younger sisters, Mary and
+Gertrude, and several brothers. Catherine Cogswell
+was one of the most amiable, sprightly, sunny-tempered
+individuals I have ever known. She was, in fact, so
+much beloved that it was difficult for me to see much
+of her. Her time was all bespoken by different girls.
+One might walk with her to school, another had the
+like promise on the way home. And at recess, of which
+we had every day a short half hour, there was always
+a suppliant at Katy's shrine, whom she found it hard
+to refuse. Yet, among all these claimants, she did keep
+a little place here and there for me. Georgiana was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+older and graver, and less fascinating to the other girls,
+but between her and me there grew up the warmest
+friendship, which proved lifelong in its constancy.</p>
+
+<p>"Catherine and Georgiana were reading 'Virgil'
+when I came to the school. I began the study of Latin
+alone, and at the end of the first year made a translation
+of 'Ovid' in verse, which was read at the final
+exhibition of the school, and regarded, I believe, as a
+very creditable performance. I was very much interested
+in poetry, and it was my dream to be a poet. I
+began a drama called 'Cleon.' The scene was laid in
+the court and time of the emperor Nero, and Cleon was
+a Greek lord residing at Nero's court, who, after much
+searching and doubting, at last comes to the knowledge
+of Christianity. I filled blank book after blank book
+with this drama. It filled my thoughts sleeping and
+waking. One day sister Catherine pounced down upon
+me, and said that I must not waste my time writing
+poetry, but discipline my mind by the study of Butler's
+'Analogy.' So after this I wrote out abstracts from
+the 'Analogy,' and instructed a class of girls as old as
+myself, being compelled to master each chapter just
+ahead of the class I was teaching. About this time I
+read Baxter's 'Saint's Rest.' I do not think any book
+affected me more powerfully. As I walked the pavements
+I used to wish that they might sink beneath me
+if only I might find myself in heaven. I was at the
+same time very much interested in Butler's 'Analogy,'
+for Mr. Brace used to lecture on such themes when I
+was at Miss Pierce's school at Litchfield. I also began
+the study of French and Italian with a Miss Degan,
+who was born in Italy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It was about this time that I first believed myself
+to be a Christian. I was spending my summer vacation
+at home, in Litchfield. I shall ever remember that
+dewy, fresh summer morning. I knew that it was a
+sacramental Sunday, and thought with sadness that
+when all the good people should take the sacrificial
+bread and wine I should be left out. I tried hard to
+feel my sins and count them up; but what with the
+birds, the daisies, and the brooks that rippled by the
+way, it was impossible. I came into church quite dissatisfied
+with myself, and as I looked upon the pure
+white cloth, the snowy bread and shining cups, of the
+communion table, thought with a sigh: 'There won't
+be anything for me to-day; it is all for these grown-up
+Christians.' Nevertheless, when father began to speak,
+I was drawn to listen by a certain pathetic earnestness
+in his voice. Most of father's sermons were as unintelligible
+to me as if he had spoken in Choctaw. But
+sometimes he preached what he was accustomed to call
+a 'frame sermon;' that is, a sermon that sprung out
+of the deep feeling of the occasion, and which consequently
+could be neither premeditated nor repeated.
+His text was taken from the Gospel of John, the declaration
+of Jesus: 'Behold, I call you no longer servants,
+but friends.' His theme was Jesus as a soul friend
+offered to every human being.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgetting all his hair-splitting distinctions and
+dialectic subtleties, he spoke in direct, simple, and
+tender language of the great love of Christ and his
+care for the soul. He pictured Him as patient with
+our errors, compassionate with our weaknesses, and
+sympathetic for our sorrows. He went on to say how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+He was ever near us, enlightening our ignorance, guiding
+our wanderings, comforting our sorrows with a love
+unwearied by faults, unchilled by ingratitude, till at
+last He should present us faultless before the throne of
+his glory with exceeding joy.</p>
+
+<p>"I sat intent and absorbed. Oh! how much I
+needed just such a friend, I thought to myself. Then
+the awful fact came over me that I had never had any
+conviction of my sins, and consequently could not come
+to Him. I longed to cry out 'I will,' when father
+made his passionate appeal, 'Come, then, and trust
+your soul to this faithful friend.' Like a flash it came
+over me that if I needed conviction of sin, He was able
+to give me even this also. I would trust Him for the
+whole. My whole soul was illumined with joy, and
+as I left the church to walk home, it seemed to me as
+if Nature herself were hushing her breath to hear the
+music of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as father came home and was seated in his
+study, I went up to him and fell in his arms saying,
+'Father, I have given myself to Jesus, and He has taken
+me.' I never shall forget the expression of his face as
+he looked down into my earnest, childish eyes; it was
+so sweet, so gentle, and like sunlight breaking out upon
+a landscape. 'Is it so?' he said, holding me silently
+to his heart, as I felt the hot tears fall on my head.
+'Then has a new flower blossomed in the kingdom this
+day.'"</p>
+
+<p>If she could have been let alone, and taught "to look
+up and not down, forward and not back, out and not
+in," this religious experience might have gone on as
+sweetly and naturally as the opening of a flower in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+gentle rays of the sun. But unfortunately this was
+not possible at that time, when self-examination was
+carried to an extreme that was calculated to drive a
+nervous and sensitive mind well-nigh distracted. First,
+even her sister Catherine was afraid that there might
+be something wrong in the case of a lamb that had
+come into the fold without being first chased all over
+the lot by the shepherd; great stress being laid, in
+those days, on what was called "being under conviction."
+Then also the pastor of the First Church in
+Hartford, a bosom friend of Dr. Beecher, looked with
+melancholy and suspicious eyes on this unusual and
+doubtful path to heaven,&mdash;but more of this hereafter.
+Harriet's conversion took place in the summer of 1825,
+when she was fourteen, and the following year, April,
+1826, Dr. Beecher resigned his pastorate in Litchfield
+to accept a call to the Hanover Street Church, Boston,
+Mass. In a letter to her grandmother Foote at Guilford,
+dated Hartford, March 4, 1826, Harriet writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You have probably heard that our home in Litchfield
+is broken up. Papa has received a call to Boston,
+and concluded to accept, because he could not support
+his family in Litchfield. He was dismissed last week
+Tuesday, and will be here (Hartford) next Tuesday
+with mamma and Isabel. Aunt Esther will take
+Charles and Thomas to her house for the present.
+Papa's salary is to be $2,000 and $500 settlement.</p>
+
+<p>"I attend school constantly and am making some
+progress in my studies. I devote most of my attention
+to Latin and to arithmetic, and hope soon to prepare
+myself to assist Catherine in the school."</p>
+
+<p>This breaking up of the Litchfield home led Harriet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+under her father's advice, to seek to connect herself
+with the First Church of Hartford. Accordingly,
+accompanied by two of her school friends, she went one
+day to the pastor's study to consult with him concerning
+the contemplated step. The good man listened
+attentively to the child's simple and modest statement
+of Christian experience, and then with an awful, though
+kindly, solemnity of speech and manner said, "Harriet,
+do you feel that if the universe should be destroyed
+(awful pause) you could be happy with God alone?"
+After struggling in vain, in her mental bewilderment,
+to fix in her mind some definite conception of the
+meaning of the sounds which fell on her ear like the
+measured strokes of a bell, the child of fourteen stammered
+out, "Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You realize, I trust," continued the doctor, "in
+some measure at least, the deceitfulness of your heart,
+and that in punishment for your sins God might justly
+leave you to make yourself as miserable as you have
+made yourself sinful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," again stammered Harriet.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus effectually, and to his own satisfaction,
+fixed the child's attention on the morbid and over-sensitive
+workings of her own heart, the good and truly
+kind-hearted man dismissed her with a fatherly benediction.
+But where was the joyous ecstasy of that
+beautiful Sabbath morning of a year ago? Where
+was that heavenly friend? Yet was not this as it
+should be, and might not God leave her "to make herself
+as miserable as she had made herself sinful"?</p>
+
+<p>In a letter addressed to her brother Edward, about
+this time, she writes: "My whole life is one continued<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+struggle: I do nothing right. I yield to temptation
+almost as soon as it assails me. My deepest feelings
+are very evanescent. I am beset behind and before,
+and my sins take away all my happiness. But that
+which most constantly besets me is pride&mdash;I can trace
+almost all my sins back to it."</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, the school is prospering. February
+16, 1827, Catherine writes to Dr. Beecher: "My
+affairs go on well. The stock is all taken up, and next
+week I hope to have out the prospectus of the 'Hartford
+Female Seminary.' I hope the building will be
+done, and all things in order, by June. The English
+lady is coming with twelve pupils from New York."
+Speaking of Harriet, who was at this time with her
+father in Boston, she adds: "I have received some letters
+from Harriet to-day which make me feel uneasy.
+She says, 'I don't know as I am fit for anything, and I
+have thought that I could wish to die young, and let
+the remembrance of me and my faults perish in the
+grave, rather than live, as I fear I do, a trouble to
+every one. You don't know how perfectly wretched I
+often feel: so useless, so weak, so destitute of all
+energy. Mamma often tells me that I am a strange,
+inconsistent being. Sometimes I could not sleep, and
+have groaned and cried till midnight, while in the daytime
+I tried to appear cheerful and succeeded so well
+that papa reproved me for laughing so much. I was
+so absent sometimes that I made strange mistakes, and
+then they all laughed at me, and I laughed, too,
+though I felt as though I should go distracted. I
+wrote rules; made out a regular system for dividing
+my time; but my feelings vary so much that it is almost
+impossible for me to be regular.'"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But let Harriet "take courage in her dark sorrows
+and melancholies," as Carlyle says: "Samuel Johnson
+too had hypochondrias; all great souls are apt to have,
+and to be in thick darkness generally till the eternal
+ways and the celestial guiding stars disclose themselves,
+and the vague abyss of life knits itself up into firmaments
+for them."</p>
+
+<p>At the same time (the winter of 1827), Catherine
+writes to Edward concerning Harriet: "If she could
+come here (Hartford) it might be the best thing for her,
+for she can talk freely to me. I can get her
+books, and Catherine Cogswell, Georgiana May, and
+her friends here could do more for her than any one
+in Boston, for they love her and she loves them very
+much. Georgiana's difficulties are different from Harriet's:
+she is speculating about doctrines, etc. Harriet
+will have young society here all the time, which she
+cannot have at home, and I think cheerful and amusing
+friends will do much for her. I can do better in
+preparing her to teach drawing than any one else, for I
+best know what is needed."</p>
+
+<p>It was evidently necessary that something should be
+done to restore Harriet to a more tranquil and healthful
+frame of mind; consequently in the spring of
+1827, accompanied by her friend Georgiana May, she
+went to visit her grandmother Foote at Nut Plains,
+Guilford. Miss May refers to this visit in a letter to
+Mrs. Foote, in January of the following winter.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Hartford</span>, <i>January 4, 1828</i>.<br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mrs. Foote</span>:&mdash; .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. I very often think of
+you and the happy hours I passed at your house last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+spring. It seems as if it were but yesterday: now,
+while I am writing, I can see your pleasant house and
+the familiar objects around you as distinctly as the day
+I left them. Harriet and I are very much the same
+girls we were then. I do not believe we have altered
+very much, though she is improved in some respects.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The August following this visit to Guilford Harriet
+writes to her brother Edward in a vein which is still
+streaked with sadness, but shows some indication of
+returning health of mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Many of my objections you did remove that afternoon
+we spent together. After that I was not as unhappy
+as I had been. I felt, nevertheless, that my
+views were very indistinct and contradictory, and feared
+that if you left me thus I might return to the same
+dark, desolate state in which I had been all summer.
+I felt that my immortal interest, my happiness for both
+worlds, was depending on the turn my feelings might
+take. In my disappointment and distress I called upon
+God, and it seemed as if I was heard. I felt that He
+could supply the loss of all earthly love. All misery
+and darkness were over. I felt as if restored, nevermore
+to fall. Such sober certainty of waking bliss had
+long been a stranger to me. But even then I had
+doubts as to whether these feelings were right, because
+I felt love to God alone without that ardent love for
+my fellow-creatures which Christians have often felt.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+I cannot say exactly what it is makes me reluctant
+to speak of my feelings. It costs me an effort to
+express feeling of any kind, but more particularly to
+speak of my private religious feelings. If any one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+questions me, my first impulse is to conceal all I can.
+As for expression of affection towards my brothers
+and sisters, my companions or friends, the stronger
+the affection the less inclination have I to express it.
+Yet sometimes I think myself the most frank, open,
+and communicative of beings, and at other times the
+most reserved. If you can resolve all these caprices
+into general principles, you will do more than I can.
+Your speaking so much philosophically has a tendency
+to repress confidence. We never wish to have our
+feelings analyzed down; and very little, nothing, that
+we say brought to the test of mathematical demonstration.</p>
+
+<p>"It appears to me that if I only could adopt the
+views of God you presented to my mind, they would
+exert a strong and beneficial influence over my character.
+But I am afraid to accept them for several reasons.
+First, it seems to be taking from the majesty
+and dignity of the divine character to suppose that his
+happiness can be at all affected by the conduct of his
+sinful, erring creatures. Secondly, it seems to me that
+such views of God would have an effect on our own
+minds in lessening that reverence and fear which is one
+of the greatest motives to us for action. For, although
+to a generous mind the thought of the love of God
+would be a sufficient incentive to action, there are times
+of coldness when that love is not felt, and then there
+remains no sort of stimulus. I find as I adopt these
+sentiments I feel less fear of God, and, in view of sin,
+I feel only a sensation of grief which is more easily dispelled
+and forgotten than that I formerly felt."</p>
+
+<p>A letter dated January 3, 1828, shows us that Harriet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+had returned to Hartford and was preparing herself
+to teach drawing and painting, under the direction
+of her sister Catherine.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Grandmother</span>,&mdash;I should have written
+before to assure you of my remembrance of you, but I
+have been constantly employed, from nine in the morning
+till after dark at night, in taking lessons of a painting
+and drawing master, with only an intermission long
+enough to swallow a little dinner which was sent to me
+in the school-room. You may easily believe that after
+spending the day in this manner, I did not feel in a very
+epistolary humor in the evening, and if I had been, I
+could not have written, for when I did not go immediately
+to bed I was obliged to get a long French lesson.</p>
+
+<p>The seminary is finished, and the school going on
+nicely. Miss Clarissa Brown is assisting Catherine in
+the school. Besides her, Catherine, and myself, there
+are two other teachers who both board in the family
+with us: one is Miss Degan, an Italian lady who
+teaches French and Italian; she rooms with me, and is
+very interesting and agreeable. Miss Hawks is rooming
+with Catherine. In some respects she reminds me
+very much of my mother. She is gentle, affectionate,
+modest, and retiring, and much beloved by all the
+scholars.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. I am still going on with my French,
+and carrying two young ladies through Virgil, and if
+I have time, shall commence Italian.</p>
+
+<p>I am very comfortable and happy.</p>
+
+<p>I propose, my dear grandmamma, to send you by
+the first opportunity a dish of fruit of my own painting.
+Pray do not now devour it in anticipation, for I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+cannot promise that you will not find it sadly tasteless
+in reality. If so, please excuse it, for the sake of the
+poor young artist. I admire to cultivate a taste for
+painting, and I wish to improve it; it was what my
+dear mother admired and loved, and I cherish it for her
+sake. I have thought more of this dearest of all earthly
+friends these late years, since I have been old enough
+to know her character and appreciate her worth. I
+sometimes think that, had she lived, I might have been
+both better and happier than I now am, but God is
+good and wise in all his ways.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A letter written to her brother Edward in Boston,
+dated March 27, 1828, shows how slowly she adopted
+the view of God that finally became one of the most
+characteristic elements in her writings.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that those views of God which you have
+presented to me have had an influence in restoring my
+mind to its natural tone. But still, after all, God is a
+being afar off. He is so far above us that anything
+but the most distant reverential affection seems almost
+sacrilegious. It is that affection that can lead us to be
+familiar that the heart needs. But easy and familiar
+expressions of attachment and that sort of confidential
+communication which I should address to papa or you
+would be improper for a subject to address to a king,
+much less for us to address to the King of kings. The
+language of prayer is of necessity stately and formal,
+and we cannot clothe all the little minutić of our wants
+and troubles in it. I wish I could describe to you how
+I feel when I pray. I feel that I love God,&mdash;that is,
+that I love Christ,&mdash;that I find comfort and happiness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+in it, and yet it is not that kind of comfort which
+would arise from free communication of my wants and
+sorrows to a friend. I sometimes wish that the Saviour
+were visibly present in this world, that I might go to
+Him for a solution of some of my difficulties.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Do
+you think, my dear brother, that there is such a thing
+as so realizing the presence and character of God that
+He can supply the place of earthly friends? I really
+wish to know what you think of this.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Do you
+suppose that God really loves sinners before they come
+to Him? Some say that we ought to tell them that
+God hates them, that He looks on them with utter abhorrence,
+and that they must love Him before He will
+look on them otherwise. Is it right to say to those
+who are in deep distress, 'God is interested in you; He
+feels for and loves you'?"</p>
+
+<p>Appended to this letter is a short note from Miss
+Catherine Beecher, who evidently read the letter over
+and answered Harriet's questions herself. She writes:
+"When the young man came to Jesus, is it not said
+that Jesus loved him, though he was unrenewed?"</p>
+
+<p>In April, 1828, Harriet again writes to her brother
+Edward:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have had more reason to be grateful to that
+friend than ever before. He has not left me in all my
+weakness. It seems to me that my love to Him is the
+love of despair. All my communion with Him, though
+sorrowful, is soothing. I am painfully sensible of ignorance
+and deficiency, but still I feel that I am willing
+that He should know all. He will look on all that
+is wrong only to purify and reform. He will never be
+irritated or impatient. He will never show me my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+faults in such a manner as to irritate without helping
+me. A friend to whom I would acknowledge all my
+faults must be perfect. Let any one once be provoked,
+once speak harshly to me, once sweep all the chords of
+my soul out of tune, I never could confide there again.
+It is only to the most perfect Being in the universe
+that imperfection can look and hope for patience. How
+strange!&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. You do not know how harsh and forbidding
+everything seems, compared with his character.
+All through the day in my intercourse with others,
+everything has a tendency to destroy the calmness of
+mind gained by communion with Him. One flatters
+me, another is angry with me, another is unjust to me.</p>
+
+<p>"You speak of your predilections for literature having
+been a snare to you. I have found it so myself.
+I can scarcely think, without tears and indignation,
+that all that is beautiful and lovely and poetical has
+been laid on other altars. Oh! will there never be a
+poet with a heart enlarged and purified by the Holy
+Spirit, who shall throw all the graces of harmony,
+all the enchantments of feeling, pathos, and poetry,
+around sentiments worthy of them?&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. It matters
+little what service He has for me.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. I do not mean
+to live in vain. He has given me talents, and I will
+lay them at his feet, well satisfied, if He will accept
+them. All my powers He can enlarge. He made my
+mind, and He can teach me to cultivate and exert its
+faculties."</p>
+
+<p>The following November she writes from Groton,
+Conn., to Miss May:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am in such an uncertain, unsettled state, traveling
+back and forth, that I have very little time to write.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+In the first place, on my arrival in Boston I was
+obliged to spend two days in talking and telling news.
+Then after that came calling, visiting, etc., and then I
+came off to Groton to see my poor brother George, who
+was quite out of spirits and in very trying circumstances.
+To-morrow I return to Boston and spend four
+or five days, and then go to Franklin, where I spend
+the rest of my vacation.</p>
+
+<p>"I found the folks all well on my coming to Boston,
+and as to my new brother, James, he has nothing to
+distinguish him from forty other babies, except a very
+large pair of blue eyes and an uncommonly fair complexion,
+a thing which is of no sort of use or advantage
+to a man or boy.</p>
+
+<p>"I am thinking very seriously of remaining in Groton
+and taking care of the female school, and at the
+same time being of assistance and company for George.
+On some accounts it would not be so pleasant as returning
+to Hartford, for I should be among strangers.
+Nothing upon this point can be definitely decided till
+I have returned to Boston, and talked to papa and
+Catherine."</p>
+
+<p>Evidently papa and Catherine did not approve of
+the Groton plan, for in February of the following
+winter Harriet writes from Hartford to Edward, who
+is at this time with his father in Boston:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My situation this winter (1829) is in many respects
+pleasant. I room with three other teachers, Miss
+Fisher, Miss Mary Dutton, and Miss Brigham. Ann
+Fisher you know. Miss Dutton is about twenty, has a
+fine mathematical mind, and has gone as far into that
+science perhaps as most students at college. She is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+also, as I am told, quite learned in the languages.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+Miss Brigham is somewhat older: is possessed of a fine
+mind and most unconquerable energy and perseverance
+of character. From early childhood she has been determined
+to obtain an education, and to attain to a certain
+standard. Where persons are determined to be
+anything, they will be. I think, for this reason, she
+will make a first-rate character. Such are my companions.
+We spend our time in school during the day,
+and in studying in the evening. My plan of study is
+to read rhetoric and prepare exercises for my class the
+first half hour in the evening; after that the rest of
+the evening is divided between French and Italian.
+Thus you see the plan of my employment and the character
+of my immediate companions. Besides these,
+there are others among the teachers and scholars who
+must exert an influence over my character. Miss Degan,
+whose constant occupation it is to make others
+laugh; Mrs. Gamage, her room-mate, a steady, devoted,
+sincere Christian.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Little things have great
+power over me, and if I meet with the least thing that
+crosses my feelings, I am often rendered unhappy for
+days and weeks.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. I wish I could bring myself to
+feel perfectly indifferent to the opinions of others. I
+believe that there never was a person more dependent
+on the good and evil opinions of those around than I
+am. This desire to be loved forms, I fear, the great
+motive for all my actions.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. I have been reading
+carefully the book of Job, and I do not think that it
+contains the views of God which you presented to me.
+God seems to have stripped a dependent creature of all
+that renders life desirable, and then to have answered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+his complaints from the whirlwind; and instead of
+showing mercy and pity, to have overwhelmed him by
+a display of his power and justice.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. With the view
+I received from you, I should have expected that a being
+who sympathizes with his guilty, afflicted creatures
+would not have spoken thus. Yet, after all, I do believe
+that God is such a being as you represent Him to
+be, and in the New Testament I find in the character
+of Jesus Christ a revelation of God as merciful and
+compassionate; in fact, just such a God as I need.</p>
+
+<p>"Somehow or another you have such a reasonable
+sort of way of saying things that when I come to reflect
+I almost always go over to your side.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. My
+mind is often perplexed, and such thoughts arise in it
+that I cannot pray, and I become bewildered. The
+wonder to me is, how all ministers and all Christians
+can feel themselves so inexcusably sinful, when it seems
+to me we all come into the world in such a way that it
+would be miraculous if we did not sin. Mr. Hawes
+always says in prayer, 'We have nothing to offer in
+extenuation of any of our sins,' and I always think
+when he says it, that we have everything to offer in
+extenuation. The case seems to me exactly as if I had
+been brought into the world with such a thirst for
+ardent spirits that there was just a possibility, though
+no hope, that I should resist, and then my eternal happiness
+made dependent on my being temperate. Sometimes
+when I try to confess my sins, I feel that after
+all I am more to be pitied than blamed, for I have
+never known the time when I have not had a temptation
+within me so strong that it was certain I should
+not overcome it. This thought shocks me, but it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+comes with such force, and so appealingly, to all my
+consciousness, that it stifles all sense of sin.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes when I read the Bible, it seems to be
+wholly grounded on the idea that the sin of man is
+astonishing, inexcusable, and without palliation or cause,
+and the atonement is spoken of as such a wonderful
+and undeserved mercy that I am filled with amazement.
+Yet if I give up the Bible I gain nothing, for the
+providence of God in nature is just as full of mystery,
+and of the two I think that the Bible, with all its difficulties,
+is preferable to being without it; for the Bible
+holds out the hope that in a future world all shall be
+made plain.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. So you see I am, as Mr. Hawes says,
+'on the waves,' and all I can do is to take the word of
+God that He does do right and there I rest."</p>
+
+<p>The following summer, in July, she writes to Edward:
+"I have never been so happy as this summer.
+I began it in more suffering than I ever before have
+felt, but there is One whom I daily thank for all that
+suffering, since I hope that it has brought me at last
+to rest entirely in Him. I do hope that my long, long
+course of wandering and darkness and unhappiness is
+over, and that I have found in Him who died for me
+all, and more than all, I could desire. Oh, Edward, you
+can feel as I do; you can speak of Him! There are
+few, very few, who can. Christians in general do not
+seem to look to Him as their best friend, or realize anything
+of his unutterable love. They speak with a cold,
+vague, reverential awe, but do not speak as if in the
+habit of close and near communion; as if they confided
+to Him every joy and sorrow and constantly looked to
+Him for direction and guidance. I cannot express to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+you, my brother, I cannot tell you, how that Saviour
+appears to me. To bear with one so imperfect, so
+weak, so inconsistent, as myself, implied, long-suffering
+and patience more than words can express. I love
+most to look on Christ as my teacher, as one who,
+knowing the utmost of my sinfulness, my waywardness,
+my folly, can still have patience; can reform, purify,
+and daily make me more like himself."</p>
+
+<p>So, after four years of struggling and suffering, she
+returns to the place where she started from as a child
+of thirteen. It has been like watching a ship with
+straining masts and storm-beaten sails, buffeted by the
+waves, making for the harbor, and coming at last to
+quiet anchorage. There have been, of course, times of
+darkness and depression, but never any permanent loss
+of the religious trustfulness and peace of mind indicated
+by this letter.</p>
+
+<p>The next three years were passed partly in Boston,
+and partly in Guilford and Hartford. Writing of this
+period of her life to the Rev. Charles Beecher, she
+says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Brother</span>,&mdash;The looking over of father's
+letters in the period of his Boston life brings forcibly
+to my mind many recollections. At this time I was
+more with him, and associated in companionship of
+thought and feeling for a longer period than any other
+of my experience.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In the summer of 1832 she writes to Miss May,
+revealing her spiritual and intellectual life in a degree
+unusual, even for her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"After the disquisition on myself above cited, you
+will be prepared to understand the changes through
+which this wonderful <i>ego et me ipse</i> has passed.</p>
+
+<p>"The amount of the matter has been, as this inner
+world of mine has become worn out and untenable, I
+have at last concluded to come out of it and live in the
+external one, and, as F&mdash;&mdash; S&mdash;&mdash; once advised me, to
+give up the pernicious habit of meditation to the first
+Methodist minister that would take it, and try to mix
+in society somewhat as another person would.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Horas non numero nisi serenas.</i>' Uncle Samuel,
+who sits by me, has just been reading the above
+motto, the inscription on a sun-dial in Venice. It
+strikes me as having a distant relationship to what I
+was going to say. I have come to a firm resolution to
+count no hours but unclouded ones, and to let all
+others slip out of my memory and reckoning as quickly
+as possible.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>"I am trying to cultivate a general spirit of kindliness
+towards everybody. Instead of shrinking into a
+corner to notice how other people behave, I am holding
+out my hand to the right and to the left, and forming
+casual or incidental acquaintances with all who will be
+acquainted with me. In this way I find society full of
+interest and pleasure&mdash;a pleasure which pleaseth me
+more because it is not old and worn out. From these
+friendships I expect little; therefore generally receive
+more than I expect. From past friendships I have
+expected everything, and must of necessity have been
+disappointed. The kind words and looks and smiles I
+call forth by looking and smiling are not much by
+themselves, but they form a very pretty flower border<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+to the way of life. They embellish the day or the
+hour as it passes, and when they fade they only do just
+as you expected they would. This kind of pleasure in
+acquaintanceship is new to me. I never tried it before.
+When I used to meet persons, the first inquiry was,
+'Have they such and such a character, or have they
+anything that might possibly be of use or harm to
+me?'"</p>
+
+<p>It is striking, the degree of interest a letter had for
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Your long letter came this morning. It revived
+much in my heart. Just think how glad I must have
+been this morning to hear from you. I was glad.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+I thought of it through all the vexations of school this
+morning.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. I have a letter at home; and when I
+came home from school, I went leisurely over it.</p>
+
+<p>"This evening I have spent in a little social party,&mdash;a
+dozen or so,&mdash;and I have been zealously talking
+all the evening. When I came to my cold, lonely room,
+there was your letter lying on the dressing-table. It
+touched me with a sort of painful pleasure, for it seems
+to me uncertain, improbable, that I shall ever return
+and find you as I have found your letter. Oh, my
+dear G&mdash;&mdash;, it is scarcely well to love friends thus.
+The greater part that I see cannot move me deeply.
+They are present, and I enjoy them; they pass and I
+forget them. But those that I love differently; those
+that I <span class="smcap">love</span>; and oh, how much that word means! I
+feel sadly about them. They may change; they must
+die; they are separated from me, and I ask myself
+why should I wish to love with all the pains and penalties
+of such conditions? I check myself when expressing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+feelings like this, so much has been said of it by
+the sentimental, who talk what they could not have
+felt. But it is so deeply, sincerely so in me, that sometimes
+it will overflow. Well, there is a heaven,&mdash;a
+heaven,&mdash;a world of love, and love after all is the life-blood,
+the existence, the all in all of mind."</p>
+
+<p>This is the key to her whole life. She was impelled
+by love, and did what she did, and wrote what she
+did, under the impulse of love. Never could "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin" or "The Minister's Wooing" have been
+written, unless by one to whom love was the "life-blood
+of existence, the all in all of mind." Years afterwards
+Mrs. Browning was to express this same thought in the
+language of poetry.</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"But when a soul by choice and conscience doth<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Throw out her full force on another soul,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The conscience and the concentration both</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Make mere life love. For life in perfect whole</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And aim consummated is love in sooth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">As nature's magnet heat rounds pole with pole."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III<br />
+
+<small>CINCINNATI, 1832-1836.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Dr. Beecher called to Cincinnati.&mdash;The Westward Journey.&mdash;First
+Letter from Home.&mdash;Description of Walnut Hills.&mdash;Starting
+a New School.&mdash;Inward Glimpses.&mdash;The Semi-Colon
+Club.&mdash;Early Impressions of Slavery.&mdash;A Journey
+to the East.&mdash;Thoughts aroused by First Visit to Niagara.&mdash;Marriage
+to Professor Stowe.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 1832, after having been settled for six years over
+the Hanover Street Church in Boston, Dr. Beecher
+received and finally accepted a most urgent call to
+become President of Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati.
+This institution had been chartered in 1829,
+and in 1831 funds to the amount of nearly $70,000
+had been promised to it provided that Dr. Beecher
+accepted the presidency. It was hard for this New
+England family to sever the ties of a lifetime and enter
+on so long a journey to the far distant West of those
+days; but being fully persuaded that their duty lay in
+this direction, they undertook to perform it cheerfully
+and willingly. With Dr. Beecher and his wife were
+to go Miss Catherine Beecher, who had conceived the
+scheme of founding in Cincinnati, then considered the
+capital of the West, a female college, and Harriet, who
+was to act as her principal assistant. In the party
+were also George, who was to enter Lane as a student,
+Isabella, James, the youngest son, and Miss Esther
+Beecher, the "Aunt Esther" of the children.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Before making his final decision, Dr. Beecher, accompanied
+by his daughter Catherine, visited Cincinnati
+to take a general survey of their proposed battlefield,
+and their impressions of the city are given in the
+following letter written by the latter to Harriet in Boston:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Here we are at last at our journey's end, alive and
+well. We are staying with Uncle Samuel (Foote),
+whose establishment I will try and sketch for you. It
+is on a height in the upper part of the city, and commands
+a fine view of the whole of the lower town.
+The city does not impress me as being so very new. It
+is true everything looks neat and clean, but it is compact,
+and many of the houses are of brick and very
+handsomely built. The streets run at right angles to
+each other, and are wide and well paved. We reached
+here in three days from Wheeling, and soon felt ourselves
+at home. The next day father and I, with three
+gentlemen, walked out to Walnut Hills. The country
+around the city consists of a constant succession and
+variety of hills of all shapes and sizes, forming an extensive
+amphitheatre. The site of the seminary is very
+beautiful and picturesque, though I was disappointed
+to find that both river and city are hidden by intervening
+hills. I never saw a place so capable of being rendered
+a paradise by the improvements of taste as the
+environs of this city. Walnut Hills are so elevated
+and cool that people have to leave there to be sick, it
+is said. The seminary is located on a farm of one hundred
+and twenty-five acres of fine land, with groves of
+superb trees around it, about two miles from the city.
+We have finally decided on the spot where our house<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+shall stand in case we decide to come, and you cannot
+(where running water or the seashore is wanting) find
+another more delightful spot for a residence. It is on
+an eminence, with a grove running up from the back
+to the very doors, another grove across the street in
+front, and fine openings through which distant hills and
+the richest landscapes appear.</p>
+
+<p>"I have become somewhat acquainted with those
+ladies we shall have the most to do with, and find them
+intelligent, New England sort of folks. Indeed, this
+is a New England city in all its habits, and its inhabitants
+are more than half from New England. The
+Second Church, which is the best in the city, will give
+father a unanimous call to be their minister, with the
+understanding that he will give them what time he can
+spare from the seminary.</p>
+
+<p>"I know of no place in the world where there is so
+fair a prospect of finding everything that makes social
+and domestic life pleasant. Uncle John and Uncle
+Samuel are just the intelligent, sociable, free, and hospitable
+sort of folk that everybody likes and everybody
+feels at home with.</p>
+
+<p>"The folks are very anxious to have a school on our
+plan set on foot here. We can have fine rooms in the
+city college building, which is now unoccupied, and
+everybody is ready to lend a helping hand. As to
+father, I never saw such a field of usefulness and influence
+as is offered to him here."</p>
+
+<p>This, then, was the field of labor in which the next
+eighteen years of the life of Mrs. Stowe were to be
+passed. At this time her sister Mary was married and
+living in Hartford, her brothers Henry Ward and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+Charles were in college, while William and Edward, already
+licensed to preach, were preparing to follow their
+father to the West.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i057.jpg" width="600" height="395" alt="drawing of house" />
+<div class="caption">THE HOME AT WALNUT HILLS, CINCINNATI.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Beecher's preliminary journey to Cincinnati was
+undertaken in the early spring of 1832, but he was not
+ready to remove his family until October of that year.
+An interesting account of this westward journey is
+given by Mrs. Stowe in a letter sent back to Hartford
+from Cincinnati, as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear, the great sheet is out and the letter
+is begun. All our family are here (in New York), and
+in good health.</p>
+
+<p>"Father is to perform to-night in the Chatham
+Theatre! 'positively for the <i>last</i> time this season!'
+I don't know, I'm sure, as we shall ever get to Pittsburgh.
+Father is staying here begging money for the
+Biblical Literature professorship; the incumbent is to
+be C. Stowe. Last night we had a call from Arthur
+Tappan and Mr. Eastman. Father begged $2,000
+yesterday, and now the good people are praying him
+to abide certain days, as he succeeds so well. They are
+talking of sending us off and keeping him here. I
+really dare not go and see Aunt Esther and mother
+now; they were in the depths of tribulation before at
+staying so long, and now,</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+'In the lowest depths, <i>another</i> deep!'<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>Father is in high spirits. He is all in his own element,&mdash;dipping
+into books; consulting authorities for his
+oration; going round here, there, everywhere; begging,
+borrowing, and spoiling the Egyptians; delighted with
+past success and confident for the future.</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Wednesday. Still in New York. I believe it
+would kill me dead to live long in the way I have been
+doing since I have been here. It is a sort of agreeable
+delirium. There's only one thing about it, it is too
+<i>scattering</i>. I begin to be athirst for the waters of
+quietness."</p>
+
+<p>Writing from Philadelphia, she adds:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we did get away from New York at last, but
+it was through much tribulation. The truckman carried
+all the family baggage to the wrong wharf, and,
+after waiting and waiting on board the boat, we were
+obliged to start without it, George remaining to look it
+up. Arrived here late Saturday evening,&mdash;dull, drizzling
+weather; poor Aunt Esther in dismay,&mdash;not a
+clean cap to put on,&mdash;mother in like state; all of us
+destitute. We went, half to Dr. Skinner's and half to
+Mrs. Elmes's: mother, Aunt Esther, father, and James
+to the former; Kate, Bella, and myself to Mr. Elmes's.
+They are rich, hospitable folks, and act the part of
+Gaius in apostolic times.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Our trunks came this
+morning. Father stood and saw them all brought into
+Dr. Skinner's entry, and then he swung his hat and
+gave a 'hurrah,' as any man would whose wife had not
+had a clean cap or ruffle for a week. Father does not
+succeed very well in opening purses here. Mr. Eastman
+says, however, that this is not of much consequence.
+I saw to-day a notice in the 'Philadelphian'
+about father, setting forth how 'this distinguished
+brother, with his large family, having torn themselves
+from the endearing scenes of their home,' etc., etc.,
+'were going, like Jacob,' etc.,&mdash;a very scriptural and
+appropriate flourish. It is too much after the manner<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+of men, or, as Paul says, speaking 'as a fool.' A number
+of the pious people of this city are coming here this
+evening to hold a prayer-meeting with reference to the
+journey and its object. For <i>this</i> I thank them."</p>
+
+<p>From Downington she writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Here we all are,&mdash;Noah and his wife and his sons
+and his daughters, with the cattle and creeping things,
+all dropped down in the front parlor of this tavern,
+about thirty miles from Philadelphia. If to-day is a
+fair specimen of our journey, it will be a very pleasant,
+obliging driver, good roads, good spirits, good dinner,
+fine scenery, and now and then some 'psalms and
+hymns and spiritual songs;' for with George on board
+you may be sure of music of some kind. Moreover,
+George has provided himself with a quantity of tracts,
+and he and the children have kept up a regular discharge
+at all the wayfaring people we encountered. I
+tell him he is <i>peppering</i> the land with moral influence.</p>
+
+<p>"We are all well; all in good spirits. Just let me
+give you a peep into our traveling household. Behold
+us, then, in the front parlor of this country inn, all as
+much at home as if we were in Boston. Father is sitting
+opposite to me at this table, reading; Kate is writing
+a billet-doux to Mary on a sheet like this; Thomas
+is opposite, writing in a little journal that he keeps;
+Sister Bell, too, has her little record; George is waiting
+for a seat that he may produce his paper and write. As
+for me, among the multitude of my present friends, my
+heart still makes occasional visits to absent ones,&mdash;visits
+full of pleasure, and full of cause of gratitude to
+Him who gives us friends. I have thought of you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+often to-day, my G. We stopped this noon at a substantial
+Pennsylvania tavern, and among the flowers in
+the garden was a late monthly honeysuckle like the one
+at North Guilford. I made a spring for it, but George
+secured the finest bunch, which he wore in his button-hole
+the rest of the noon.</p>
+
+<p>"This afternoon, as we were traveling, we struck up
+and sang 'Jubilee.' It put me in mind of the time
+when we used to ride along the rough North Guilford
+roads and make the air vocal as we went along. Pleasant
+times those. Those were blue skies, and that was
+a beautiful lake and noble pine-trees and rocks they
+were that hung over it. But those we shall look upon
+'na mair.'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear, there is a land where we shall not
+<i>love</i> and <i>leave</i>. Those skies shall never cease to shine,
+the waters of life we shall <i>never</i> be called upon <i>to
+leave</i>. We have here no continuing city, but we seek
+one to come. In such thoughts as these I desire ever
+to rest, and with such words as these let us 'comfort
+one another and edify one another.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Harrisburg, Sunday evening. Mother, Aunt Esther,
+George, and the little folks have just gathered into
+Kate's room, and we have just been singing. Father
+has gone to preach for Mr. De Witt. To-morrow we
+expect to travel sixty-two miles, and in two more days
+shall reach Wheeling; there we shall take the steamboat
+to Cincinnati."</p>
+
+<p>On the same journey George Beecher writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We had poor horses in crossing the mountains.
+Our average rate for the last four days to Wheeling
+was forty-four miles. The journey, which takes the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+mail-stage forty-eight hours, took us eight days. At
+Wheeling we deliberated long whether to go on board
+a boat for Cincinnati, but the prevalence of the cholera
+there at last decided us to remain. While at Wheeling
+father preached eleven times,&mdash;nearly every evening,&mdash;and
+gave them the Taylorite heresy on sin and decrees
+to the highest notch; and what amused me most
+was to hear him establish it from the Confession of
+Faith. It went high and dry, however, above all objections,
+and they were delighted with it, even the old
+school men, since it had not been christened 'heresy'
+in their hearing. After remaining in Wheeling eight
+days, we chartered a stage for Cincinnati, and started
+next morning.</p>
+
+<p>"At Granville, Ohio, we were invited to stop and
+attend a protracted meeting. Being in no great hurry
+to enter Cincinnati till the cholera had left, we consented.
+We spent the remainder of the week there,
+and I preached five times and father four. The interest
+was increasingly deep and solemn each day, and
+when we left there were forty-five cases of conversion
+in the town, besides those from the surrounding towns.
+The people were astonished at the doctrine; said they
+never saw the truth so plain in their lives."</p>
+
+<p>Although the new-comers were cordially welcomed
+in Cincinnati, and everything possible was done for
+their comfort and to make them feel at home, they felt
+themselves to be strangers in a strange land. Their
+homesickness and yearnings for New England are set
+forth by the following extracts from Mrs. Stowe's answer
+to the first letter they received from Hartford
+after leaving there:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Sister</span> (Mary),&mdash;The Hartford letter
+from all and sundry has just arrived, and after cutting
+all manner of capers expressive of thankfulness, I have
+skipped three stairs at a time up to the study to begin
+an answer. My notions of answering letters are according
+to the literal sense of the word; not waiting
+six months and then scrawling a lazy reply, but sitting
+down the moment you have read a letter, and telling,
+as Dr. Woods says, "How the subject strikes you." I
+wish I could be clear that the path of duty lay in talking
+to you this afternoon, but as I find a loud call to
+consider the heels of George's stockings, I must only
+write a word or two, and then resume my darning-needle.
+You don't know how anxiously we all have
+watched for some intelligence from Hartford. Not a
+day has passed when I have not been the efficient agent
+in getting somebody to the post-office, and every day
+my heart has sunk at the sound of "no letters." I felt
+a tremor quite sufficient for a lover when I saw your
+handwriting once more, so you see that in your old age
+you can excite quite as much emotion as did the admirable
+Miss Byron in her adoring Sir Charles. I hope
+the consideration and digestion of this fact will have
+its due weight in encouraging you to proceed.</p>
+
+<p>The fact of our having received said letter is as yet
+a state secret, not to be made known till all our family
+circle "in full assembly meet" at the tea-table. Then
+what an illumination! "How we shall be edified and
+fructified," as that old Methodist said. It seems too
+bad to keep it from mother and Aunt Esther a whole
+afternoon, but then I have the comfort of thinking
+that we are consulting for their greatest happiness "on
+the whole," which is metaphysical benevolence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So kind Mrs. Parsons stopped in the very midst
+of her pumpkin pies to think of us? Seems to me I
+can see her bright, cheerful face now! And then
+those well known handwritings! We <i>do</i> love our
+Hartford friends dearly; there can be, I think, no controverting
+that fact. Kate says that the word <i>love</i> is
+used in <i>six senses</i>, and I am sure in some one of them
+they will all come in. Well, good-by for the present.</p>
+
+<p>Evening. Having finished the last hole on George's
+black vest, I stick in my needle and sit down to be
+sociable. You don't know how coming away from
+New England has sentimentalized us all! Never was
+there such an abundance of meditation on our native
+land, on the joys of friendship, the pains of separation.
+Catherine had an alarming paroxysm in Philadelphia
+which expended itself in "The Emigrant's Farewell."
+After this was sent off she felt considerably relieved.
+My symptoms have been of a less acute kind, but, I
+fear, more enduring. There! the tea-bell rings. Too
+bad! I was just going to say something bright. Now
+to take your letter and run! How they will stare when
+I produce it!</p>
+
+<p>After tea. Well, we have had a fine time. When
+supper was about half over, Catherine began: "We
+have a dessert that we have been saving all the afternoon,"
+and then I held up my letter. "See here, this
+is from Hartford!" I wish you could have seen Aunt
+Esther's eyes brighten, and mother's pale face all in a
+smile, and father, as I unfolded the letter and began.
+Mrs. Parsons's notice of her Thanksgiving predicament
+caused just a laugh, and then one or two sighs (I told
+you we were growing sentimental!). We did talk<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+some of keeping it (Thanksgiving), but perhaps we
+should all have felt something of the text, "How shall
+we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" Your
+praises of Aunt Esther I read twice in an audible voice,
+as the children made some noise the first time. I think
+I detected a visible blush, though she found at that
+time a great deal to do in spreading bread and butter
+for James, and shuffling his plate; and, indeed, it was
+rather a vehement attack on her humility, since it gave
+her at least "angelic perfection," if not "Adamic" (to
+use Methodist technics). Jamie began his Sunday-school
+career yesterday. The superintendent asked
+him how old he was. "I'm four years old now, and
+when it <i>snows very hard</i> I shall be five," he answered.
+I have just been trying to make him interpret his
+meaning; but he says, "Oh, I said so because I could
+not think of anything else to say." By the by, Mary,
+speaking of the temptations of cities, I have much
+solicitude on Jamie's account lest he should form improper
+intimacies, for yesterday or day before we saw
+him parading by the house with his arm over the neck
+of a great hog, apparently on the most amicable terms
+possible; and the other day he actually got upon the
+back of one, and rode some distance. So much for
+allowing these animals to promenade the streets, a particular
+in which Mrs. Cincinnati has imitated the domestic
+arrangements of some of her elder sisters, and a
+very disgusting one it is.</p>
+
+<p>Our family physician is one Dr. Drake, a man of a
+good deal of science, theory, and reputed skill, but a
+sort of general mark for the opposition of all the medical
+cloth of the city. He is a tall, rectangular, perpendicular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+sort of a body, as stiff as a poker, and
+enunciates his prescriptions very much as though he
+were delivering a discourse on the doctrine of election.
+The other evening he was detained from visiting Kate,
+and he sent a very polite, ceremonious note containing
+a prescription, with Dr. D.'s compliments to Miss
+Beecher, requesting that she would take the inclosed
+in a little molasses at nine o'clock precisely.</p>
+
+<p>The house we are at present inhabiting is the most
+inconvenient, ill-arranged, good-for-nothing, and altogether
+to be execrated affair that ever was put together.
+It was evidently built without a thought of a winter
+season. The kitchen is so disposed that it cannot be
+reached from any part of the house without going out
+into the air. Mother is actually obliged to put on a
+bonnet and cloak every time she goes into it. In the
+house are two parlors with folding doors between them.
+The back parlor has but one window, which opens on
+a veranda and has its lower half painted to keep out
+what little light there is. I need scarcely add that our
+landlord is an old bachelor and of course acted up to
+the light he had, though he left little enough of it for
+his tenants.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>During this early Cincinnati life Harriet suffered
+much from ill-health accompanied by great mental depression;
+but in spite of both she labored diligently
+with her sister Catherine in establishing their school.
+They called it the Western Female Institute, and proposed
+to conduct it upon the college plan, with a faculty
+of instructors. As all these things are treated at
+length in letters written by Mrs. Stowe to her friend,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+Miss Georgiana May, we cannot do better than turn
+to them. In May, 1833, she writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Bishop Purcell visited our school to-day and expressed
+himself as greatly pleased that we had opened
+such an one here. He spoke of my poor little geography,<a name="FNanchor_1_2" id="FNanchor_1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_2" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+and thanked me for the unprejudiced manner in
+which I had handled the Catholic question in it. I
+was of course flattered that he should have known anything
+of the book.</p>
+
+<p>"How I wish you could see Walnut Hills. It is
+about two miles from the city, and the road to it is as
+picturesque as you can imagine a road to be without
+'springs that run among the hills.' Every possible
+variety of hill and vale of beautiful slope, and undulations
+of land set off by velvet richness of turf and
+broken up by groves and forests of every outline of
+foliage, make the scene Arcadian. You might ride
+over the same road a dozen times a day untired, for
+the constant variation of view caused by ascending
+and descending hills relieves you from all tedium.
+Much of the wooding is beech of a noble growth. The
+straight, beautiful shafts of these trees as one looks up
+the cool green recesses of the woods seems as though
+they might form very proper columns for a Dryad temple.
+There! Catherine is growling at me for sitting
+up so late; so 'adieu to music, moonlight, and you.' I
+meant to tell you an abundance of classical things that
+I have been thinking to-night, but 'woe's me.'</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Since writing the above my whole time has been
+taken up in the labor of our new school, or wasted in
+the fatigue and lassitude following such labor. To-day
+is Sunday, and I am staying at home because I think
+it is time to take some efficient means to dissipate the
+illness and bad feelings of divers kinds that have for
+some time been growing upon me. At present there
+is and can be very little system or regularity about me.
+About half of my time I am scarcely alive, and a great
+part of the rest the slave and sport of morbid feeling
+and unreasonable prejudice. I have everything but
+good health.</p>
+
+<p>"I still rejoice that this letter will find you in good
+old Connecticut&mdash;thrice blessed&mdash;'oh, had I the
+wings of a dove' I would be there too. Give my love
+to Mary H. I remember well how gently she used to
+speak to and smile on that forlorn old daddy that
+boarded at your house one summer. It was associating
+with her that first put into my head the idea of saying
+something to people who were not agreeable, and of
+saying something when I had nothing to say, as is generally
+the case on such occasions."</p>
+
+<p>Again she writes to the same friend: "Your letter,
+my dear G., I have just received, and read through
+three times. Now for my meditations upon it. What
+a woman of the world you are grown. How good it
+would be for me to be put into a place which so breaks
+up and precludes thought. Thought, intense emotional
+thought, has been my disease. How much good it
+might do me to be where I could not but be thoughtless.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Georgiana, let me copy for your delectation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+a list of matters that I have jotted down for consideration
+at a teachers' meeting to be held to-morrow night.
+It runneth as follows. Just hear! 'About quills and
+paper on the floor; forming classes; drinking in the
+entry (cold water, mind you); giving leave to speak;
+recess-bell, etc., etc.' 'You are tired, I see,' says Gilpin,
+'so am I,' and I spare you.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just been hearing a class of little girls recite,
+and telling them a fairy story which I had to spin
+out as it went along, beginning with 'once upon a time
+there was,' etc., in the good old-fashioned way of stories.</p>
+
+<p>"Recently I have been reading the life of Madame
+de Staël and 'Corinne.' I have felt an intense sympathy
+with many parts of that book, with many parts of her
+character. But in America feelings vehement and
+absorbing like hers become still more deep, morbid,
+and impassioned by the constant habits of self-government
+which the rigid forms of our society demand.
+They are repressed, and they burn inward till they
+burn the very soul, leaving only dust and ashes. It
+seems to me the intensity with which my mind has
+thought and felt on every subject presented to it has
+had this effect. It has withered and exhausted it, and
+though young I have no sympathy with the feelings of
+youth. All that is enthusiastic, all that is impassioned
+in admiration of nature, of writing, of character, in
+devotional thought and emotion, or in the emotions of
+affection, I have felt with vehement and absorbing
+intensity,&mdash;felt till my mind is exhausted, and seems
+to be sinking into deadness. Half of my time I am
+glad to remain in a listless vacancy, to busy myself
+with trifles, since thought is pain, and emotion is pain."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>During the winter of 1833-34 the young school-teacher
+became so distressed at her own mental listlessness
+that she made a vigorous effort to throw it off.
+She forced herself to mingle in society, and, stimulated
+by the offer of a prize of fifty dollars by Mr. James
+Hall, editor of the "Western Monthly," a newly established
+magazine, for the best short story, she entered
+into the competition. Her story, which was entitled
+"Uncle Lot," afterwards republished in the "Mayflower,"
+was by far the best submitted, and was
+awarded the prize without hesitation. This success
+gave a new direction to her thoughts, gave her an insight
+into her own ability, and so encouraged her that
+from that time on she devoted most of her leisure
+moments to writing.</p>
+
+<p>Her literary efforts were further stimulated at this
+time by the congenial society of the Semi-Colon Club,
+a little social circle that met on alternate weeks at Mr.
+Samuel Foote's and Dr. Drake's. The name of the
+club originated with a roundabout and rather weak bit
+of logic set forth by one of its promoters. He said:
+"You know that in Spanish Columbus is called 'Colon.'
+Now he who discovers a new pleasure is certainly half
+as great as he who discovers a new continent. Therefore
+if Colon discovered a continent, we who have discovered
+in this club a new pleasure should at least be
+entitled to the name of 'Semi-Colons.'" So Semi-Colons
+they became and remained for some years.</p>
+
+<p>At some meetings compositions were read, and at
+others nothing was read, but the time was passed in a
+general discussion of some interesting topic previously
+announced. Among the members of the club were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+Professor Stowe, unsurpassed in Biblical learning;
+Judge James Hall, editor of the "Western Monthly;"
+General Edward King; Mrs. Peters, afterwards founder
+of the Philadelphia School of Design; Miss Catherine
+Beecher; Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz; E. P. Cranch;
+Dr. Drake; S. P. Chase, and many others who afterwards
+became prominent in their several walks of life.</p>
+
+<p>In one of her letters to Miss May, Mrs. Stowe describes
+one of her methods for entertaining the members
+of the Semi-Colon as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am wondering as to what I shall do next. I
+have been writing a piece to be read next Monday
+evening at Uncle Sam's <i>soirée</i> (the Semi-Colon). It is
+a letter purporting to be from Dr. Johnson. I have
+been stilting about in his style so long that it is a relief
+to me to come down to the jog of common English.
+Now I think of it I will just give you a history of my
+campaign in this circle.</p>
+
+<p>"My first piece was a letter from Bishop Butler,
+written in his outrageous style of parentheses and foggification.
+My second a satirical essay on the modern
+uses of languages. This I shall send to you, as some
+of the gentlemen, it seems, took a fancy to it and
+requested leave to put it in the 'Western Magazine,'
+and so it is in print. It is ascribed to <i>Catherine</i>, or I
+don't know that I should have let it go. I have no
+notion of appearing in <i>propria personć</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"The next piece was a satire on certain members
+who were getting very much into the way of joking
+on the worn-out subjects of matrimony and old maid
+and old bachelorism. I therefore wrote a set of legislative
+enactments purporting to be from the ladies of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+the society, forbidding all such allusions in future. It
+made some sport at the time. I try not to be personal,
+and to be courteous, even in satire.</p>
+
+<p>"But I have written a piece this week that is making
+me some disquiet. I did not like it that there was
+so little that was serious and rational about the reading.
+So I conceived the design of writing a <i>set of letters</i>,
+and throwing them in, as being the letters of a friend.
+I wrote a letter this week for the first of the set,&mdash;easy,
+not very sprightly,&mdash;describing an imaginary
+situation, a house in the country, a gentleman and
+lady, Mr. and Mrs. Howard, as being pious, literary,
+and agreeable. I threw into the letter a number of
+little particulars and incidental allusions to give it the
+air of having been really a letter. I meant thus to
+give myself an opportunity for the introduction of different
+subjects and the discussion of different characters
+in future letters.</p>
+
+<p>"I meant to write on a great number of subjects in
+future. Cousin Elisabeth, only, was in the secret;
+Uncle Samuel and Sarah Elliot were not to know.</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday morning I finished my letter, smoked it
+to make it look yellow, tore it to make it look old,
+directed it and scratched out the direction, postmarked
+it with red ink, sealed it and broke the seal, all this to
+give credibility to the fact of its being a real letter.
+Then I inclosed it in an envelope, stating that it was
+a part of a <i>set</i> which had incidentally fallen into my
+hands. This envelope was written in a scrawny,
+scrawly, gentleman's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I put it into the office in the morning, directed to
+'Mrs. Samuel E. Foote,' and then sent word to Sis that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+it was coming, so that she might be ready to enact the
+part.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the deception took. Uncle Sam examined it
+and pronounced, <i>ex cathedra</i>, that it must have been
+a real letter. Mr. Greene (the gentleman who reads)
+declared that it must have come from Mrs. Hall, and
+elucidated the theory by spelling out the names and
+dates which I had erased, which, of course, he accommodated
+to his own tastes. But then, what makes me
+feel uneasy is that Elisabeth, after reading it, did not
+seem to be exactly satisfied. She thought it had too
+much sentiment, too much particularity of incident,&mdash;she
+did not exactly know what. She was afraid that it
+would be criticised unmercifully. Now Elisabeth has
+a tact and quickness of perception that I trust to, and
+her remarks have made me uneasy enough. I am
+unused to being criticised, and don't know how I shall
+bear it."</p>
+
+<p>In 1833 Mrs. Stowe first had the subject of slavery
+brought to her personal notice by taking a trip across
+the river from Cincinnati into Kentucky in company
+with Miss Dutton, one of the associate teachers in the
+Western Institute. They visited an estate that afterwards
+figured as that of Colonel Shelby in "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin," and here the young authoress first came
+into personal contact with the negro slaves of the
+South. In speaking, many years afterwards, of this
+visit, Miss Dutton said: "Harriet did not seem to
+notice anything in particular that happened, but sat
+much of the time as though abstracted in thought.
+When the negroes did funny things and cut up capers,
+she did not seem to pay the slightest attention to them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+Afterwards, however, in reading 'Uncle Tom.' I recognized
+scene after scene of that visit portrayed with
+the most minute fidelity, and knew at once where the
+material for that portion of the story had been gathered."</p>
+
+<p>At this time, however, Mrs. Stowe was more deeply
+interested in the subject of education than in that of
+slavery, as is shown by the following extract from one
+of her letters to Miss May, who was herself a teacher.
+She says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We mean to turn over the West by means of
+<i>model schools</i> in this, its capital. We mean to have a
+young lady's school of about fifty or sixty, a primary
+school of little girls to the same amount, and then a
+primary school for <i>boys</i>. We have come to the conclusion
+that the work of teaching will never be rightly
+done till it passes into <i>female</i> hands. This is especially
+true with regard to boys. To govern boys by
+moral influences requires tact and talent and versatility
+it requires also the same division of labor that
+female education does. But men of tact, versatility,
+talent, and piety will not devote their lives to teaching.
+They must be ministers and missionaries, and all that,
+and while there is such a thrilling call for action in this
+way, every man who is merely teaching feels as if he
+were a Hercules with a distaff, ready to spring to the
+first trumpet that calls him away. As for division of
+labor, men must have salaries that can support wife
+and family, and, of course, a revenue would be required
+to support a requisite number of teachers if they could
+be found.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, if men have more knowledge they have less<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+talent at communicating it, nor have they the patience,
+the long-suffering, and gentleness necessary to superintend
+the formation of character. We intend to make
+these principles understood, and ourselves to set the
+example of what females can do in this way. You see
+that first-rate talent is necessary for all that we mean
+to do, especially for the last, because here we must face
+down the prejudices of society and we must have exemplary
+success to be believed. We want original,
+planning minds, and you do not know how few there
+are among females, and how few we can command of
+those that exist."</p>
+
+<p>During the summer of 1834 the young teacher and
+writer made her first visit East since leaving New England
+two years before. Its object was mainly to be
+present at the graduation of her favorite brother, Henry
+Ward, from Amherst College. The earlier part of this
+journey was performed by means of stage to Toledo,
+and thence by steamer to Buffalo. A pleasant bit of
+personal description, and also of impressions of Niagara,
+seen for the first time on this journey, are given in a
+letter sent back to Cincinnati during its progress. In
+it she says of her fellow-travelers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Then there was a portly, rosy, clever Mr. Smith, or
+Jones, or something the like; and a New Orleans girl
+looking like distraction, as far as dress is concerned, but
+with the prettiest language and softest intonations in
+the world, and one of those faces which, while you say
+it isn't handsome, keeps you looking all the time to see
+what it can be that is so pretty about it. Then there
+was Miss B., an independent, good-natured, do-as-I-please
+sort of a body, who seemed of perpetual motion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+from morning till night. Poor Miss D. said, when we
+stopped at night, 'Oh, dear! I suppose Lydia will be
+fiddling about our room till morning, and we shall not
+one of us sleep.' Then, by way of contrast, there was
+a Mr. Mitchell, the most gentlemanly, obliging man
+that ever changed his seat forty times a day to please
+a lady. Oh, yes, he could ride outside,&mdash;or, oh, certainly,
+he could ride inside,&mdash;he had no objection to
+this, or that, or the other. Indeed, it was difficult to
+say what could come amiss to him. He speaks in a
+soft, quiet manner, with something of a drawl, using
+very correct, well-chosen language, and pronouncing all
+his words with carefulness; has everything in his dress
+and traveling appointments <i>comme il faut</i>; and seems
+to think there is abundant time for everything that
+is to be done in this world, without, as he says, 'any
+unnecessary excitement.' Before the party had fully
+discovered his name he was usually designated as 'the
+obliging gentleman,' or 'that gentleman who is so accommodating.'
+Yet our friend, withal, is of Irish extraction,
+and I have seen him roused to talk with both
+hands and a dozen words in a breath. He fell into a
+little talk about abolition and slavery with our good
+Mr. Jones, a man whose mode of reasoning consists in
+repeating the same sentence at regular intervals as long
+as you choose to answer it. This man, who was finally
+convinced that negroes were black, used it as an irrefragible
+argument to all that could be said, and at last
+began to deduce from it that they might just as well be
+slaves as anything else, and so he proceeded till all the
+philanthropy of our friend was roused, and he sprung
+up all lively and oratorical and gesticulatory and indignant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+to my heart's content. I like to see a quiet man
+that can be roused."</p>
+
+<p>In the same letter she gives her impressions of
+Niagara, as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen it (Niagara) and yet live. Oh, where
+is your soul? Never mind, though. Let me tell, if I
+can, what is unutterable. Elisabeth, it is not <i>like</i> anything;
+it did not look like anything I expected; it did
+not look like a waterfall. I did not once think whether
+it was high or low; whether it roared or didn't roar;
+whether it equaled my expectations or not. My mind
+whirled off, it seemed to me, in a new, strange world.
+It seemed unearthly, like the strange, dim images in
+the Revelation. I thought of the great white throne;
+the rainbow around it; the throne in sight like unto an
+emerald; and oh! that beautiful water rising like moonlight,
+falling as the soul sinks when it dies, to rise refined,
+spiritualized, and pure. That rainbow, breaking
+out, trembling, fading, and again coming like a beautiful
+spirit walking the waters. Oh, it is lovelier than it
+is great; it is like the Mind that made it: great, but so
+veiled in beauty that we gaze without terror. I felt as
+if I could have <i>gone over</i> with the waters; it would
+be so beautiful a death; there would be no fear in it.
+I felt the rock tremble under me with a sort of joy.
+I was so maddened that I could have gone too, if it had
+gone."</p>
+
+<p>While at the East she was greatly affected by hearing
+of the death of her dear friend, Eliza Tyler, the wife
+of Professor Stowe. This lady was the daughter of
+Dr. Bennett Tyler, president of the Theological Institute
+of Connecticut, at East Windsor; but twenty-five<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+years of age at the time of her death, a very beautiful
+woman gifted with a wonderful voice. She was also
+possessed of a well-stored mind and a personal magnetism
+that made her one of the most popular members
+of the Semi-Colon Club, in the proceedings of which
+she took an active interest.</p>
+
+<p>Her death left Professor Stowe a childless widower,
+and his forlorn condition greatly excited the sympathy
+of her who had been his wife's most intimate friend.
+It was easy for sympathy to ripen into love, and after a
+short engagement Harriet E. Beecher became the wife
+of Professor Calvin E. Stowe.</p>
+
+<p>Her last act before the wedding was to write the following
+note to the friend of her girlhood, Miss Georgiana
+May:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><i>January 6, 1836.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p>Well, my dear G., about half an hour more and your
+old friend, companion, schoolmate, sister, etc., will cease
+to be Hatty Beecher and change to nobody knows who.
+My dear, you are engaged, and pledged in a year or two
+to encounter a similar fate, and do you wish to know
+how you shall feel? Well, my dear, I have been dreading
+and dreading the time, and lying awake all last
+week wondering how I should live through this overwhelming
+crisis, and lo! it has come and I feel <i>nothing
+at all</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The wedding is to be altogether domestic; nobody
+present but my own brothers and sisters, and my old
+colleague, Mary Dutton; and as there is a sufficiency
+of the ministry in our family we have not even to call
+in the foreign aid of a minister. Sister Katy is not
+here, so she will not witness my departure from her care<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+and guidance to that of another. None of my numerous
+friends and acquaintances who have taken such a
+deep interest in making the connection for me even
+know the day, and it will be all done and over before
+they know anything about it.</p>
+
+<p>Well, it is really a mercy to have this entire stupidity
+come over one at such a time. I should be crazy to feel
+as I did yesterday, or indeed to feel anything at all.
+But I inwardly vowed that my last feelings and reflections
+on this subject should be yours, and as I have not
+got any, it is just as well to tell you <i>that</i>. Well, here
+comes Mr. S., so farewell, and for the last time I subscribe</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 3em;">Your own</span><br />
+H. E. B.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.<br />
+
+<small>EARLY MARRIED LIFE, 1836-1840.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Professor Stowe's Interest in Popular Education.&mdash;His Departure
+for Europe.&mdash;Slavery Riots in Cincinnati.&mdash;Birth
+of Twin Daughters.&mdash;Professor Stowe's Return and Visit
+to Columbus.&mdash;Domestic Trials.&mdash;Aiding a Fugitive Slave.&mdash;Authorship
+under Difficulties.&mdash;A Beecher Round Robin.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> letter to her friend Georgiana May, begun half
+an hour before her wedding, was not completed until
+nearly two months after that event. Taking it from
+her portfolio, she adds:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Three weeks have passed since writing the above,
+and my husband and self are now quietly seated by our
+own fireside, as domestic as any pair of tame fowl you
+ever saw; he writing to his mother, and I to you. Two
+days after our marriage we took a wedding excursion,
+so called, though we would most gladly have been excused
+this conformity to ordinary custom had not necessity
+required Mr. Stowe to visit Columbus, and I had
+too much adhesiveness not to go too. Ohio roads at
+this season are no joke, I can tell you, though we were,
+on the whole, wonderfully taken care of, and our expedition
+included as many pleasures as an expedition at
+this time of the year <i>ever</i> could.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, my dear, perhaps the wonder to you, as
+to me, is how this momentous crisis in the life of such
+a wisp of nerve as myself has been transacted so quietly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+My dear, it is a wonder to myself. I am tranquil,
+quiet, and happy. I look <i>only</i> on the present,
+and leave the future with Him who has hitherto been
+so kind to me. 'Take no thought for the morrow' is
+my motto, and my comfort is to rest on Him in whose
+house there are many mansions provided when these
+fleeting earthly ones pass away.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Georgy, naughty girl that I am, it is a month
+that I have let the above lie by, because I got into a
+strain of emotion in it that I dreaded to return to.
+Well, so it shall be no longer. In about five weeks
+Mr. Stowe and myself start for New England. He
+sails the first of May. I am going with him to Boston,
+New York, and other places, and shall stop finally at
+Hartford, whence, as soon as he is gone, it is my intention
+to return westward."</p>
+
+<p>This reference to her husband as about to leave her
+relates to his sailing for Europe to purchase books for
+Lane Seminary, and also as a commissioner appointed
+by the State of Ohio to investigate the public school
+systems of the old world. He had long been convinced
+that higher education was impossible in the West without
+a higher grade of public schools, and had in 1833
+been one of the founders in Cincinnati of "The College
+of Teachers," an institution that existed for ten
+years, and exerted a widespread influence. Its objects
+were to popularize the common schools, raise the standard
+of teachers, and create a demand for education
+among the people. Professor Stowe was associated in
+this movement with many of the leading intellects of
+Ohio at that time, and among them were Albert Pickett,
+Dr. Drake, Smith Grimke, Archbishop Purcell, President<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+A. H. McGuffey, Dr. Beecher, Lydia Sigourney,
+Caroline Lee Hentz, and others. Their influence finally
+extended to the state legislature, and it was concluded
+to authorize Professor Stowe, when abroad, to investigate
+and report upon the common school systems of
+Europe, especially Prussia.</p>
+
+<p>He sailed from New York for London in the ship
+Montreal, Captain Champlin, on June 8, 1836, and
+carried with him, to be opened only after he was at
+sea, a letter from his wife, from which the following
+extract is made:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my dear, that you are gone where you are
+out of the reach of my care, advice, and good management,
+it is fitting that you should have something
+under my hand and seal for your comfort and furtherance
+in the new world you are going to. Firstly, I
+must caution you to set your face as a flint against the
+'cultivation of indigo,' as Elisabeth calls it, in any way
+or shape. Keep yourself from it most scrupulously,
+and though you are unprovided with that precious and
+savory treatise entitled 'Kemper's Consolations,'<a name="FNanchor_2_3" id="FNanchor_2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_3" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> yet
+you can exercise yourself to recall and set in order such
+parts thereof as would more particularly suit your case,
+particularly those portions wherewith you so much consoled
+Kate, Aunt Esther, and your unworthy handmaid,
+while you yet tarried at Walnut Hills. But seriously,
+dear one, you must give more way to hope than
+to memory. You are going to a new scene now, and
+one that I hope will be full of enjoyment to you. I
+want you to take the good of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Only think of all you expect to see: the great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+libraries and beautiful paintings, fine churches, and,
+above all, think of seeing Tholuck, your great Apollo.
+My dear, I wish I were a man in your place; if I
+wouldn't have a grand time!"</p>
+
+<p>During her husband's absence abroad Mrs. Stowe
+lived quietly in Cincinnati with her father and brothers.
+She wrote occasionally short stories, articles, and
+essays for publication in the "Western Monthly Magazine"
+or the "New York Evangelist," and maintained
+a constant correspondence with her husband by means
+of a daily journal, which was forwarded to him once a
+month. She also assisted her brother, Henry Ward,
+who had accepted a temporary position as editor of the
+"Journal," a small daily paper published in the city.</p>
+
+<p>At this time the question of slavery was an exciting
+one in Cincinnati, and Lane Seminary had become a
+hotbed of abolition. The anti-slavery movement among
+the students was headed by Theodore D. Weld, one of
+their number, who had procured funds to complete his
+education by lecturing through the South. While
+thus engaged he had been so impressed with the evils
+and horrors of slavery that he had become a radical
+abolitionist, and had succeeded in converting several
+Southerners to his views of the subject. Among them
+was Mr. J. G. Birney of Huntsville, Alabama, who not
+only liberated his slaves, but in connection with Dr.
+Gamaliel Bailey of Cincinnati founded in that city an
+anti-slavery paper called "The Philanthropist." This
+paper was finally suppressed, and its office wrecked by
+a mob instigated by Kentucky slaveholders, and it is of
+this event that Mrs. Stowe writes to her husband as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday evening I spent scribbling for Henry's
+newspaper (the 'Journal') in this wise: 'Birney's printing-press
+has been mobbed, and many of the respectable
+citizens are disposed to wink at the outrage in consideration
+of its moving in the line of their prejudices.'</p>
+
+<p>"I wrote a conversational sketch, in which I rather
+satirized this inconsistent spirit, and brought out the
+effects of patronizing <i>any</i> violation of private rights.
+It was in a light, sketchy style, designed to draw attention
+to a long editorial of Henry's in which he considers
+the subject fully and seriously. His piece is, I
+think, a powerful one; indeed, he does write very
+strongly. I am quite proud of his editorials; they are
+well studied, earnest, and dignified. I think he will
+make a first-rate writer. Both our pieces have gone to
+press to-day, with Charles's article on music, and we
+have had not a little diversion about our <i>family newspaper</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought, when I was writing last night, that I
+was, like a good wife, defending one of your principles
+in your absence, and wanted you to see how manfully I
+talked about it. Henry has also taken up and examined
+the question of the Seminole Indians, and done it
+very nobly."</p>
+
+<p>Again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The excitement about Birney continues to increase.
+The keeper of the Franklin Hotel was assailed by a
+document subscribed to by many of his boarders demanding
+that Birney should be turned out of doors.
+He chose to negative the demand, and twelve of his
+boarders immediately left, Dr. F. among the number.
+A meeting has been convoked by means of a handbill,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+in which some of the most respectable men of the city
+are invited by name to come together and consider the
+question whether they will allow Mr. Birney to continue
+his paper in the city. Mr. Greene says that, to
+his utter surprise, many of the most respectable and
+influential citizens gave out that they should go.</p>
+
+<p>"He was one of the number they invited, but he
+told those who came to him that he would have nothing
+to do with disorderly public meetings or mobs in
+any shape, and that he was entirely opposed to the
+whole thing.</p>
+
+<p>"I presume they will have a hot meeting, if they
+have any at all.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish father were at home to preach a sermon to
+his church, for many of its members do not frown on
+these things as they ought."</p>
+
+<p>"Later: The meeting was held, and was headed by
+Morgan, Neville, Judge Burke, and I know not who
+else. Judge Burnet was present and consented to
+their acts. The mob madness is certainly upon this
+city when men of sense and standing will pass resolutions
+approving in so many words of things done contrary
+to law, as one of the resolutions of this meeting
+did. It quoted the demolition of the tea in Boston
+harbor as being authority and precedent.</p>
+
+<p>"A large body, perhaps the majority of citizens, disapprove,
+but I fear there will not be public disavowal.
+Even N. Wright but faintly opposes, and Dr. Fore has
+been exceedingly violent. Mr. Hammond (editor of
+the 'Gazette') in a very dignified and judicious manner
+has condemned the whole thing, and Henry has
+opposed, but otherwise the papers have either been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+silent or in favor of mobs. We shall see what the
+result will be in a few days.</p>
+
+<p>"For my part, I can easily see how such proceedings
+may make converts to abolitionism, for already my
+sympathies are strongly enlisted for Mr. Birney, and I
+hope that he will stand his ground and assert his rights.
+The office is fire-proof, and inclosed by high walls. I
+wish he would man it with armed men and see what can
+be done. If I were a man I would go, for one, and
+take good care of at least one window. Henry sits
+opposite me writing a most valiant editorial, and tells
+me to tell you he is waxing mighty in battle."</p>
+
+<p>In another letter she writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I told you in my last that the mob broke into Birney's
+press, where, however, the mischief done was but
+slight. The object appeared to be principally to terrify.
+Immediately there followed a general excitement
+in which even good men in their panic and prejudice
+about abolitionism forgot that mobs were worse evils
+than these, talked against Birney, and winked at the
+outrage; N. Wright and Judge Burnet, for example.
+Meanwhile the turbulent spirits went beyond this and
+talked of revolution and of righting things without law
+that could not be righted by it. At the head of these
+were Morgan, Neville, Longworth, Joseph Graham,
+and Judge Burke. A meeting was convoked at Lower
+Market Street to decide whether they would permit the
+publishing of an abolition paper, and to this meeting
+all the most respectable citizens were by name summoned.</p>
+
+<p>"There were four classes in the city then: Those
+who meant to go as revolutionists and support the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+mob; those who meant to put down Birney, but rather
+hoped to do it without a mob; those who felt ashamed
+to go, foreseeing the probable consequence, and yet did
+not decidedly frown upon it; and those who sternly
+and decidedly reprehended it.</p>
+
+<p>"The first class was headed by Neville, Longworth,
+Graham, etc.; the second class, though of some numbers,
+was less conspicuous; of the third, Judge Burnet,
+Dr. Fore, and N. Wright were specimens; and in the
+last such men as Hammond, Mansfield, S. P. Chase,<a name="FNanchor_3_4" id="FNanchor_3_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_4" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>
+and Chester were prominent. The meeting in so many
+words voted a mob, nevertheless a committee was appointed
+to wait on Mr. Birney and ascertain what he
+proposed to do; and, strange to tell, men as sensible as
+Uncle John and Judge Burnet were so short-sighted as
+to act on that committee.</p>
+
+<p>"All the newspapers in the city, except Hammond's
+('Gazette') and Henry's (the 'Journal'), were either
+silent or openly 'mobocratic.' As might have been
+expected, Birney refused to leave, and that night the
+mob tore down his press, scattered the types, dragged
+the whole to the river, threw it in, and then came back
+to demolish the office.</p>
+
+<p>"They then went to the houses of Dr. Bailey, Mr.
+Donaldson, and Mr. Birney; but the persons they
+sought were not at home, having been aware of what
+was intended. The mayor was a silent spectator of
+these proceedings, and was heard to say, 'Well, lads,
+you have done well, so far; go home now before you
+disgrace yourselves;' but the 'lads' spent the rest of
+the night and a greater part of the next day (Sunday)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+in pulling down the houses of inoffensive and respectable
+blacks. The 'Gazette' office was threatened, the
+'Journal' office was to go next; Lane Seminary and
+the water-works also were mentioned as probable points
+to be attacked by the mob.</p>
+
+<p>"By Tuesday morning the city was pretty well
+alarmed. A regular corps of volunteers was organized,
+who for three nights patrolled the streets with
+firearms and with legal warrant from the mayor, who
+by this time was glad to give it, to put down the mob
+even by bloodshed.</p>
+
+<p>"For a day or two we did not know but there would
+actually be war to the knife, as was threatened by the
+mob, and we really saw Henry depart with his pistols
+with daily alarm, only we were all too full of patriotism
+not to have sent every brother we had rather than not
+have had the principles of freedom and order defended.</p>
+
+<p>"But here the tide turned. The mob, unsupported
+by a now frightened community, slunk into their dens
+and were still; and then Hammond, who, during the
+few days of its prevalence, had made no comments,
+but published simply the Sermon on the Mount, the
+Constitution of Ohio, and the Declaration of Independence,
+without any comment, now came out and gave a
+simple, concise history of the mob, tracing it to the
+market-house meeting, telling the whole history of the
+meeting, with the names of those who got it up, throwing
+on them and on those who had acted on the committee
+the whole responsibility of the following mob.
+It makes a terrible sensation, but it 'cuts its way,' and
+all who took other stand than that of steady opposition
+from the first are beginning to feel the reaction of public<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+sentiment, while newspapers from abroad are pouring
+in their reprehensions of the disgraceful conduct
+of Cincinnati. Another time, I suspect, such men as
+Judge Burnet, Mr. Greene, and Uncle John will keep
+their fingers out of such a trap, and people will all
+learn better than to wink at a mob that happens to
+please them at the outset, or in any way to give it their
+countenance. Mr. Greene and Uncle John were full
+of wrath against mobs, and would not go to the meeting,
+and yet were cajoled into acting on that committee
+in the vain hope of getting Birney to go away and thus
+preventing the outrage.</p>
+
+<p>"They are justly punished, I think, for what was
+very irresolute and foolish conduct, to say the least."</p>
+
+<p>The general tone of her letters at this time would
+seem to show that, while Mrs. Stowe was anti-slavery
+in her sympathies, she was not a declared abolitionist.
+This is still further borne out in a letter written in
+1837 from Putnam, Ohio, whither she had gone for a
+short visit to her brother William. In it she says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The good people here, you know, are about half
+abolitionists. A lady who takes a leading part in
+the female society in this place yesterday called and
+brought Catherine the proceedings of the Female Anti-Slavery
+Convention.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think them about as ultra as to measures
+as anything that has been attempted, though I am
+glad to see a better spirit than marks such proceedings
+generally.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day I read some in Mr. Birney's 'Philanthropist.'
+Abolitionism being the fashion here, it is natural
+to look at its papers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It does seem to me that there needs to be an <i>intermediate</i>
+society. If not, as light increases, all the
+excesses of the abolition party will not prevent humane
+and conscientious men from joining it.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray what is there in Cincinnati to satisfy one
+whose mind is awakened on this subject? No one can
+have the system of slavery brought before him without
+an irrepressible desire to <i>do</i> something, and what is
+there to be done?"</p>
+
+<p>On September 29, 1836, while Professor Stowe was
+still absent in Europe, his wife gave birth to twin
+daughters, Eliza and Isabella, as she named them; but
+Eliza Tyler and Harriet Beecher, as her husband insisted
+they should be called, when, upon reaching New
+York, he was greeted by the joyful news. His trip
+from London in the ship Gladiator had been unusually
+long, even for those days of sailing vessels, and extended
+from November 19, 1836, to January 20, 1837.</p>
+
+<p>During the summer of 1837 Mrs. Stowe suffered
+much from ill health, on which account, and to relieve
+her from domestic cares, she was sent to make a
+long visit at Putnam with her brother, Rev. William
+Beecher. While here she received a letter from her
+husband, in which he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We all of course feel proper indignation at the
+doings of last General Assembly, and shall treat them
+with merited contempt. This alliance between the old
+school (Presbyterians) and slaveholders will make more
+abolitionists than anything that has been done yet."</p>
+
+<p>In December Professor Stowe went to Columbus
+with the extended educational report that he had devoted
+the summer to preparing; and in writing from
+there to his wife he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"To-day I have been visiting the governor and legislators.
+They received me with the utmost kindness,
+and are evidently anticipating much from my report.
+The governor communicated it to the legislature to-day,
+and it is concluded that I read it in Dr. Hodges'
+church on two evenings, to-morrow and the day after,
+before both houses of the legislature and the citizens.
+The governor (Vance) will preside at both meetings.
+I like him (the governor) much. He is just such a
+plain, simple-hearted, sturdy body as old Fritz (Kaiser
+Frederick), with more of natural talent than his
+predecessor in the gubernatorial chair. For my year's
+work in this matter I am to receive $500."</p>
+
+<p>On January 14, 1838, Mrs. Stowe's third child,
+Henry Ellis, was born.</p>
+
+<p>It was about this time that the famous reunion of
+the Beecher family described in Lyman Beecher's
+"Autobiography" occurred. Edward made a visit to
+the East, and when he returned he brought Mary
+(Mrs. Thomas Perkins) from Hartford with him.
+William came down from Putnam, Ohio, and George
+from Batavia, New York, while Catherine, Harriet,
+Henry, Charles, Isabella, Thomas, and James were already
+at home. It was the first time they had ever
+all met together. Mary had never seen James, and
+had seen Thomas but once. The old doctor was almost
+transported with joy as they all gathered about
+him, and his cup of happiness was filled to overflowing
+when, the next day, which was Sunday, his pulpit was
+filled by Edward in the morning, William in the afternoon,
+and George in the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Side by side with this charming picture we have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+another of domestic life outlined by Mrs. Stowe's own
+hand. It is contained in the following letter, written
+June 21, 1838, to Miss May, at New Haven, Conn.:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear, dear Georgiana</span>,&mdash;Only think how
+long it is since I have written to you, and how changed
+I am since then&mdash;the mother of three children!
+Well, if I have not kept the reckoning of old times, let
+this last circumstance prove my apology, for I have
+been hand, heart, and head full since I saw you.</p>
+
+<p>Now, to-day, for example, I'll tell you what I had
+on my mind from dawn to dewy eve. In the first
+place I waked about half after four and thought,
+"Bless me, how light it is! I must get out of bed and
+rap to wake up Mina, for breakfast must be had at
+six o'clock this morning." So out of bed I jump and
+seize the tongs and pound, pound, pound over poor
+Mina's sleepy head, charitably allowing her about half
+an hour to get waked up in,&mdash;that being the quantum
+of time that it takes me,&mdash;or used to. Well, then
+baby wakes&mdash;quâ, quâ, quâ, so I give him his breakfast,
+dozing meanwhile and soliloquizing as follows:
+"Now I must not forget to tell Mr. Stowe about the
+starch and dried apples"&mdash;doze&mdash;"ah, um, dear me!
+why doesn't Mina get up? I don't hear her,"&mdash;doze&mdash;"a,
+um,&mdash;I wonder if Mina has soap enough! I
+think there were two bars left on Saturday"&mdash;doze
+again&mdash;I wake again. "Dear me, broad daylight! I
+must get up and go down and see if Mina is getting
+breakfast." Up I jump and up wakes baby. "Now,
+little boy, be good and let mother dress, because she is
+in a hurry." I get my frock half on and baby by that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+time has kicked himself down off his pillow, and is crying
+and fisting the bed-clothes in great order. I stop with
+one sleeve off and one on to settle matters with him.
+Having planted him bolt upright and gone all up and
+down the chamber barefoot to get pillows and blankets
+to prop him up, I finish putting my frock on and hurry
+down to satisfy myself by actual observation that the
+breakfast is in progress. Then back I come into the
+nursery, where, remembering that it is washing day
+and that there is a great deal of work to be done, I
+apply myself vigorously to sweeping, dusting, and the
+setting to rights so necessary where there are three little
+mischiefs always pulling down as fast as one can
+put up.</p>
+
+<p>Then there are Miss H&mdash;&mdash; and Miss E&mdash;&mdash;, concerning
+whom Mary will furnish you with all suitable
+particulars, who are chattering, hallooing, or singing at
+the tops of their voices, as may suit their various states
+of mind, while the nurse is getting their breakfast ready.
+This meal being cleared away, Mr. Stowe dispatched to
+market with various memoranda of provisions, etc., and
+the baby being washed and dressed, I begin to think
+what next must be done. I start to cut out some little
+dresses, have just calculated the length and got one
+breadth torn off when Master Henry makes a doleful
+lip and falls to crying with might and main. I catch
+him up and turning round see one of his sisters flourishing
+the things out of my workbox in fine style.
+Moving it away and looking the other side I see the
+second little mischief seated by the hearth chewing
+coals and scraping up ashes with great apparent relish.
+Grandmother lays hold upon her and charitably offers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+to endeavor to quiet baby while I go on with my work.
+I set at it again, pick up a dozen pieces, measure them
+once more to see which is the right one, and proceed
+to cut out some others, when I see the twins on the
+point of quarreling with each other. Number one
+pushes number two over. Number two screams: that
+frightens the baby and he joins in. I call number one
+a naughty girl, take the persecuted one in my arms,
+and endeavor to comfort her by trotting to the old
+lyric:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"So ride the gentlefolk,<br />
+And so do we, so do we."<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>Meanwhile number one makes her way to the slop jar
+and forthwith proceeds to wash her apron in it. Grandmother
+catches her by one shoulder, drags her away,
+and sets the jar up out of her reach. By and by the
+nurse comes up from her sweeping. I commit the children
+to her, and finish cutting out the frocks.</div>
+
+<p>But let this suffice, for of such details as these are
+all my days made up. Indeed, my dear, I am but a
+mere drudge with few ideas beyond babies and housekeeping.
+As for thoughts, reflections, and sentiments,
+good lack! good lack!</p>
+
+<p>I suppose I am a dolefully uninteresting person at
+present, but I hope I shall grow young again one of
+these days, for it seems to me that matters cannot always
+stand exactly as they do now.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Georgy, this marriage is&mdash;yes, I will speak
+well of it, after all; for when I can stop and think long
+enough to discriminate my head from my heels, I must
+say that I think myself a fortunate woman both in husband
+and children. My children I would not change<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+for all the ease, leisure, and pleasure that I could have
+without them. They are money on interest whose
+value will be constantly increasing.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1839 Mrs. Stowe received into her family as a
+servant a colored girl from Kentucky. By the laws of
+Ohio she was free, having been brought into the State
+and left there by her mistress. In spite of this, Professor
+Stowe received word, after she had lived with
+them some months, that the girl's master was in the city
+looking for her, and that if she were not careful she
+would be seized and conveyed back into slavery. Finding
+that this could be accomplished by boldness, perjury,
+and the connivance of some unscrupulous justice,
+Professor Stowe determined to remove the girl to some
+place of security where she might remain until the
+search for her should be given up. Accordingly he
+and his brother-in-law, Henry Ward Beecher, both
+armed, drove the fugitive, in a covered wagon, at night,
+by unfrequented roads, twelve miles back into the country,
+and left her in safety with the family of old John
+Van Zandt, the fugitive's friend.</p>
+
+<p>It is from this incident of real life and personal experience
+that Mrs. Stowe conceived the thrilling episode
+of the fugitives' escape from Tom Loker and Marks in
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin."</p>
+
+<p>An amusing and at the same time most interesting
+account of her struggles to accomplish literary work
+amid her distracting domestic duties at this time is
+furnished by the letter of one of her intimate friends,
+who writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It was my good fortune to number Mrs. Stowe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+among my friends, and during a visit to her I had an
+opportunity one day of witnessing the combined exercise
+of her literary and domestic genius in a style that
+to me was quite amusing.</p>
+
+<p>"'Come Harriet,' said I, as I found her tending one
+baby and watching two others just able to walk, 'where
+is that piece for the "Souvenir" which I promised the
+editor I would get from you and send on next week?
+You have only this one day left to finish it, and have
+it I must.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And how will you get it, friend of mine?' said
+Harriet. 'You will at least have to wait till I get
+house-cleaning over and baby's teeth through.'</p>
+
+<p>"'As to house-cleaning, you can defer it one day
+longer; and as to baby's teeth, there is to be no end to
+them, as I can see. No, no; to-day that story must be
+ended. There Frederick has been sitting by Ellen and
+saying all those pretty things for more than a month
+now, and she has been turning and blushing till I am
+sure it is time to go to her relief. Come, it would not
+take you three hours at the rate you can write to finish
+the courtship, marriage, catastrophe, éclaircissement,
+and all; and this three hours' labor of your brains will
+earn enough to pay for all the sewing your fingers
+could do for a year to come. Two dollars a page, my
+dear, and you can write a page in fifteen minutes!
+Come, then, my lady housekeeper, economy is a cardinal
+virtue; consider the economy of the thing.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But, my dear, here is a baby in my arms and two
+little pussies by my side, and there is a great baking
+down in the kitchen, and there is a "new girl" for
+"help," besides preparations to be made for house-cleaning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+next week. It is really out of the question,
+you see.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I see no such thing. I do not know what genius
+is given for, if it is not to help a woman out of a scrape.
+Come, set your wits to work, let me have my way, and
+you shall have all the work done and finish the story
+too.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, but kitchen affairs?'</p>
+
+<p>"'We can manage them too. You know you can
+write anywhere and anyhow. Just take your seat at
+the kitchen table with your writing weapons, and while
+you superintend Mina fill up the odd snatches of time
+with the labors of your pen.'</p>
+
+<p>"I carried my point. In ten minutes she was seated;
+a table with flour, rolling-pin, ginger, and lard on one
+side, a dresser with eggs, pork, and beans and various
+cooking utensils on the other, near her an oven heating,
+and beside her a dark-skinned nymph, waiting
+orders.</p>
+
+<p>"'Here, Harriet,' said I, 'you can write on this atlas
+in your lap; no matter how the writing looks, I will
+copy it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, well,' said she, with a resigned sort of
+amused look. 'Mina, you may do what I told you,
+while I write a few minutes, till it is time to mould up
+the bread. Where is the inkstand?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Here it is, close by, on the top of the tea-kettle,'
+said I.</p>
+
+<p>"At this Mina giggled, and we both laughed to see
+her merriment at our literary proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>"I began to overhaul the portfolio to find the right
+sheet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'Here it is,' said I. 'Here is Frederick sitting by
+Ellen, glancing at her brilliant face, and saying something
+about "guardian angel," and all that&mdash;you remember?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, yes,' said she, falling into a muse, as she attempted
+to recover the thread of her story.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ma'am, shall I put the pork on the top of the
+beans?' asked Mina.</p>
+
+<p>"'Come, come,' said Harriet, laughing. 'You see
+how it is. Mina is a new hand and cannot do anything
+without me to direct her. We must give up the writing
+for to-day.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, no; let us have another trial. You can dictate
+as easily as you can write. Come, I can set the baby
+in this clothes-basket and give him some mischief or
+other to keep him quiet; you shall dictate and I will
+write. Now, this is the place where you left off: you
+were describing the scene between Ellen and her lover;
+the last sentence was, "Borne down by the tide of
+agony, she leaned her head on her hands, the tears
+streamed through her fingers, and her whole frame
+shook with convulsive sobs." What shall I write
+next?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Mina, pour a little milk into this pearlash,' said
+Harriet.</p>
+
+<p>"'Come,' said I. '"The tears streamed through
+her fingers and her whole frame shook with convulsive
+sobs." What next?'</p>
+
+<p>"Harriet paused and looked musingly out of the
+window, as she turned her mind to her story. 'You
+may write now,' said she, and she dictated as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"'"Her lover wept with her, nor dared he again to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+touch the point so sacredly guarded"&mdash;Mina, roll that
+crust a little thinner. "He spoke in soothing tones"&mdash;Mina,
+poke the coals in the oven.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Here,' said I, 'let me direct Mina about these
+matters, and write a while yourself.'</p>
+
+<p>"Harriet took the pen and patiently set herself to
+the work. For a while my culinary knowledge and
+skill were proof to all Mina's investigating inquiries,
+and they did not fail till I saw two pages completed.</p>
+
+<p>"'You have done bravely,' said I, as I read over the
+manuscript; 'now you must direct Mina a while. Meanwhile
+dictate and I will write.'</p>
+
+<p>"Never was there a more docile literary lady than
+my friend. Without a word of objection she followed
+my request.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am ready to write,' said I. 'The last sentence
+was: "What is this life to one who has suffered as I
+have?" What next?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Shall I put in the brown or the white bread first?'
+said Mina.</p>
+
+<p>"'The brown first,' said Harriet.</p>
+
+<p>"'"What is this life to one who has suffered as I
+have?"' said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Harriet brushed the flour off her apron and sat
+down for a moment in a muse. Then she dictated as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'"Under the breaking of my heart I have borne
+up. I have borne up under all that tries a woman,&mdash;but
+this thought,&mdash;oh, Henry!"'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ma'am, shall I put ginger into this pumpkin?'
+queried Mina.</p>
+
+<p>"'No, you may let that alone just now,' replied Harriet.
+She then proceeded:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'"I know my duty to my children. I see the hour
+must come. You must take them, Henry; they are my
+last earthly comfort."'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ma'am, what shall I do with these egg-shells and
+all this truck here?' interrupted Mina.</p>
+
+<p>"'Put them in the pail by you,' answered Harriet.</p>
+
+<p>"'"They are my last earthly comfort,"' said I.
+'What next?'</p>
+
+<p>"She continued to dictate,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'"You must take them away. It may be&mdash;perhaps
+it <i>must</i> be&mdash;that I shall soon follow, but the
+breaking heart of a wife still pleads, 'a little longer, a
+little longer.'"'</p>
+
+<p>"'How much longer must the gingerbread stay in?'
+inquired Mina.</p>
+
+<p>"'Five minutes,' said Harriet.</p>
+
+<p>"'"A little longer, a little longer,"' I repeated in
+a dolorous tone, and we burst into a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus we went on, cooking, writing, nursing, and
+laughing, till I finally accomplished my object. The
+piece was finished, copied, and the next day sent to the
+editor."</p>
+
+<p>The widely scattered members of the Beecher family
+had a fashion of communicating with each other by
+means of circular letters. These, begun on great sheets
+of paper, at either end of the line, were passed along
+from one to another, each one adding his or her budget
+of news to the general stock. When the filled sheet
+reached the last person for whom it was intended, it was
+finally remailed to its point of departure. Except in
+the cases of Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Perkins, the simple
+address "Rev. Mr. Beecher" was sufficient to insure its
+safe delivery in any town to which it was sent.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One of these great, closely-written sheets, bearing in
+faded ink the names of all the Beechers, lies outspread
+before us as we write. It is postmarked Hartford,
+Conn., Batavia, N. Y., Chillicothe, Ohio, Zanesville,
+Ohio, Walnut Hills, Ohio, Indianapolis, Ind., Jacksonville,
+Ill., and New Orleans, La. In it Mrs. Stowe occupies
+her allotted space with&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Walnut Hills</span>, <i>April 27, 1839.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>,&mdash;I am going to Hartford myself,
+and therefore shall not write, but hurry along the
+preparations for my forward journey. Belle, father
+says you may go to the White Mountains with Mr.
+Stowe and me this summer. George, we may look in
+on you coming back. Good-by.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately to all, <span class="smcap">H. E. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V.<br />
+
+<small>POVERTY AND SICKNESS, 1840-1850.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Famine in Cincinnati.&mdash;Summer at the East.&mdash;Plans for Literary
+Work.&mdash;Experience on a Railroad.&mdash;Death of her
+Brother George.&mdash;Sickness and Despair.&mdash;A Journey in
+Search of Health.&mdash;Goes to Brattleboro' Watercure.&mdash;Troubles
+at Lane Seminary.&mdash;Cholera in Cincinnati.&mdash;Death
+of Youngest Child.&mdash;Determined to leave the West.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> January 7, 1839, Professor Stowe wrote to his
+mother in Natick, Mass.: "You left here, I believe,
+in the right time, for as there has been no navigation
+on the Ohio River for a year, we are almost in a state
+of famine as to many of the necessities of life. For
+example, salt (coarse) has sold in Cincinnati this winter
+for three dollars a bushel; rice eighteen cents a pound;
+coffee fifty cents a pound; white sugar the same; brown
+sugar twenty cents; molasses a dollar a gallon; potatoes
+a dollar a bushel. We do without such things mostly;
+as there is yet plenty of bread and bacon (flour six and
+seven dollars a barrel, and good pork from six to eight
+cents a pound) we get along very comfortably.</p>
+
+<p>"Our new house is pretty much as it was, but they
+say it will be finished in July. I expect to visit you
+next summer, as I shall deliver the Phi Beta Kappa
+oration at Dartmouth College; but whether wife and
+children come with me or not is not yet decided."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe came on to the East with her husband<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+and children during the following summer, and before
+her return made a trip through the White Mountains.</p>
+
+<p>In May, 1840, her second son was born and named
+Frederick William, after the sturdy Prussian king, for
+whom her husband cherished an unbounded admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe has said somewhere: "So we go, dear
+reader, so long as we have a body and a soul. For
+worlds must mingle,&mdash;the great and the little, the
+solemn and the trivial, wreathing in and out like the
+grotesque carvings on a gothic shrine; only did we
+know it rightly, nothing is trivial, since the human soul,
+with its awful shadow, makes all things sacred." So
+in writing a biography it is impossible for us to tell
+what did and what did not powerfully influence the
+character. It is safer simply to tell the unvarnished
+truth. The lily builds up its texture of delicate beauty
+from mould and decay. So how do we know from
+what humble material a soul grows in strength and
+beauty!</p>
+
+<p>In December, 1840, writing to Miss May, Mrs. Stowe
+says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"For a year I have held the pen only to write an
+occasional business letter such as could not be neglected.
+This was primarily owing to a severe neuralgic
+complaint that settled in my eyes, and for two months
+not only made it impossible for me to use them in writing,
+but to fix them with attention on anything. I
+could not even bear the least light of day in my room.
+Then my dear little Frederick was born, and for two
+months more I was confined to my bed. Besides all
+this, we have had an unusual amount of sickness in our
+family.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"For all that my history of the past year records so
+many troubles, I cannot on the whole regard it as a
+very troublous one. I have had so many counterbalancing
+mercies that I must regard myself as a person
+greatly blessed. It is true that about six months out of
+the twelve I have been laid up with sickness, but then
+I have had every comfort and the kindest of nurses
+in my faithful Anna. My children have thriven, and
+on the whole 'come to more,' as the Yankees say, than
+the care of them. Thus you see my troubles have been
+but enough to keep me from loving earth too well."</p>
+
+<p>In the spring of 1842 Mrs. Stowe again visited
+Hartford, taking her six-year-old daughter Hatty with
+her. In writing from there to her husband she confides
+some of her literary plans and aspirations to him,
+and he answers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, you must be a literary woman. It is so
+written in the book of fate. Make all your calculations
+accordingly. Get a good stock of health and brush up
+your mind. Drop the E. out of your name. It only
+incumbers it and interferes with the flow and euphony.
+Write yourself fully and always Harriet Beecher Stowe,
+which is a name euphonious, flowing, and full of meaning.
+Then my word for it, your husband will lift up
+his head in the gate, and your children will rise up and
+call you blessed.</p>
+
+<p>"Our humble dwelling has to-day received a distinguished
+honor of which I must give you an account.
+It was a visit from his excellency the Baron de Roenne,
+ambassador of his majesty the King of Prussia to the
+United States. He was pleased to assure me of the
+great satisfaction my report on Prussian schools had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+afforded the king and members of his court, with much
+more to the same effect. Of course having a real live
+lord to exhibit, I was anxious for some one to exhibit
+him to; but neither Aunt Esther nor Anna dared venture
+near the study, though they both contrived to get
+a peep at his lordship from the little chamber window
+as he was leaving.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, my dear wife, I want you to come home
+as quick as you can. The fact is I cannot live without
+you, and if we were not so prodigious poor I would
+come for you at once. There is no woman like you
+in this wide world. Who else has so much talent with
+so little self-conceit; so much reputation with so little
+affectation; so much literature with so little nonsense;
+so much enterprise with so little extravagance; so much
+tongue with so little scold; so much sweetness with so
+little softness; so much of so many things and so little
+of so many other things?"</p>
+
+<p>In answer to this letter Mrs. Stowe writes from Hartford:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen Johnson of the 'Evangelist.' He is
+very liberally disposed, and I may safely reckon on being
+paid for all I do there. Who is that Hale, Jr., that
+sent me the 'Boston Miscellany,' and will he keep his
+word with me? His offers are very liberal,&mdash;twenty
+dollars for three pages, not very close print. Is he to
+be depended on? If so, it is the best offer I have received
+yet. I shall get something from the Harpers
+some time this winter or spring. Robertson, the publisher
+here, says the book ('The Mayflower') will sell,
+and though the terms they offer me are very low, that
+I shall make something on it. For a second volume I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+shall be able to make better terms. On the whole, my
+dear, if I choose to be a literary lady, I have, I think,
+as good a chance of making profit by it as any one I
+know of. But with all this, I have my doubts whether
+I shall be able to do so.</p>
+
+<p>"Our children are just coming to the age when
+everything depends on my efforts. They are delicate
+in health, and nervous and excitable, and need a mother's
+whole attention. Can I lawfully divide my attention
+by literary efforts?</p>
+
+<p>"There is one thing I must suggest. If I am to
+write, I must have a room to myself, which shall be <i>my</i>
+room. I have in my own mind pitched on Mrs. Whipple's
+room. I can put the stove in it. I have bought
+a cheap carpet for it, and I have furniture enough at
+home to furnish it comfortably, and I only beg in addition
+that you will let me change the glass door from
+the nursery into that room and keep my plants there,
+and then I shall be quite happy.</p>
+
+<p>"All last winter I felt the need of some place where
+I could go and be quiet and satisfied. I could not
+there, for there was all the setting of tables, and clearing
+up of tables, and dressing and washing of children,
+and everything else going on, and the constant falling
+of soot and coal dust on everything in the room was a
+constant annoyance to me, and I never felt comfortable
+there though I tried hard. Then if I came into the
+parlor where you were I felt as if I were interrupting
+you, and you know you sometimes thought so too.</p>
+
+<p>"Now this winter let the cooking-stove be put into
+that room, and let the pipe run up through the floor
+into the room above. We can eat by our cooking-stove,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+and the children can be washed and dressed and keep
+their playthings in the room above, and play there when
+we don't want them below. You can study by the parlor
+fire, and I and my plants, etc., will take the other
+room. I shall keep my work and all my things there
+and feel settled and quiet. I intend to have a regular
+part of each day devoted to the children, and then I
+shall take them in there."</p>
+
+<p>In his reply to this letter Professor Stowe says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The little magazine ('The Souvenir') goes ahead
+finely. Fisher sent down to Fulton the other day and
+got sixty subscribers. He will make the June number
+as handsome as possible, as a specimen number for the
+students, several of whom will take agencies for it during
+the coming vacation. You have it in your power
+by means of this little magazine to form the mind of
+the West for the coming generation. It is just as I
+told you in my last letter. God has written it in his
+book that you must be a literary woman, and who are
+we that we should contend against God? You must
+therefore make all your calculations to spend the rest
+of your life with your pen.</p>
+
+<p>"If you only could come home to-day how happy
+should I be. I am daily finding out more and more
+(what I knew very well before) that you are the most
+intelligent and agreeable woman in the whole circle of
+my acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>That Professor Stowe's devoted admiration for his
+wife was reciprocated, and that a most perfect sympathy
+of feeling existed between the husband and wife, is
+shown by a line in one of Mrs. Stowe's letters from
+Hartford in which she says: "I was telling Belle yesterday<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+that I did not know till I came away how much
+I was dependent upon you for information. There are
+a thousand favorite subjects on which I could talk with
+you better than with any one else. If you were not
+already my dearly loved husband I should certainly fall
+in love with you."</p>
+
+<p>In this same letter she writes of herself:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"One thing more in regard to myself. The absence
+and wandering of mind and forgetfulness that so often
+vexes you is a physical infirmity with me. It is the
+failing of a mind not calculated to endure a great pressure
+of care, and so much do I feel the pressure I am
+under, so much is my mind often darkened and troubled
+by care, that life seriously considered holds out few
+allurements,&mdash;only my children.</p>
+
+<p>"In returning to my family, from whom I have been
+so long separated, I am impressed with a new and
+solemn feeling of responsibility. It appears to me that
+I am not probably destined for long life; at all events,
+the feeling is strongly impressed upon my mind that a
+work is put into my hands which I must be earnest to
+finish shortly. It is nothing great or brilliant in the
+world's eye; it lies in one small family circle, of which
+I am called to be the central point."</p>
+
+<p>On her way home from this Eastern visit Mrs. Stowe
+traveled for the first time by rail, and of this novel
+experience she writes to Miss Georgiana May:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Batavia</span>, <i>August 29, 1842.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p>Here I am at Brother William's, and our passage
+along this railroad reminds me of the verse of the
+psalm:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Tho' lions roar and tempests blow,<br />
+And rocks and dangers fill the way."<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Such confusion of tongues, such shouting and swearing,
+such want of all sort of system and decency in arrangements,
+I never desire to see again. I was literally
+almost trodden down and torn to pieces in the Rochester
+depot when I went to help my poor, near-sighted spouse
+in sorting out the baggage. You see there was an accident
+which happened to the cars leaving Rochester
+that morning, which kept us two hours and a half at
+the passing place this side of Auburn, waiting for them
+to come up and go by us. The consequence was that
+we got into this Rochester depot aforesaid after dark,
+and the steamboat, the canal-boat, and the Western
+train of cars had all been kept waiting three hours beyond
+their usual time, and they all broke loose upon us
+the moment we put our heads out of the cars, and such
+a jerking, and elbowing, and scuffling, and swearing,
+and protesting, and scolding you never heard, while the
+great locomotive sailed up and down in the midst thereof,
+spitting fire and smoke like some great fiend monster
+diverting himself with our commotions. I do think
+these steam concerns border a little too much on the
+supernatural to be agreeable, especially when you are
+shut up in a great dark depot after sundown.</p>
+
+<p>Well, after all, we had to ride till twelve o'clock at
+night to get to Batavia, and I've been sick abed, so to
+speak, ever since.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The winter of 1842 was one of peculiar trial to the
+family at Walnut Hills; as Mrs. Stowe writes, "It was
+a season of sickness and gloom." Typhoid fever raged
+among the students of the seminary, and the house of
+the president was converted into a hospital, while the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+members of his family were obliged to devote themselves
+to nursing the sick and dying.</p>
+
+<p>July 6, 1843, a few weeks before the birth of her
+third daughter, Georgiana May, a most terrible and
+overwhelming sorrow came on Mrs. Stowe, in common
+with all the family, in the sudden death of her brother,
+the Rev. George Beecher.</p>
+
+<p>He was a young man of unusual talent and ability,
+and much loved by his church and congregation. The
+circumstances of his death are related in a letter written
+by Mrs. Stowe, and are as follows: "Noticing the birds
+destroying his fruit and injuring his plants, he went for
+a double-barreled gun, which he scarcely ever had used,
+out of regard to the timidity and anxiety of his wife in
+reference to it. Shortly after he left the house, one of
+the elders of his church in passing saw him discharge
+one barrel at the birds. Soon after he heard the fatal
+report and saw the smoke, but the trees shut out the
+rest from sight.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. In about half an hour after, the
+family assembled at breakfast, and the servant was sent
+out to call him.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. In a few minutes she returned,
+exclaiming, 'Oh, Mr. Beecher is dead! Mr. Beecher is
+dead!' .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. In a short time a visitor in the family,
+assisted by a passing laborer, raised him up and bore
+him to the house. His face was pale and but slightly
+marred, his eyes were closed, and over his countenance
+rested the sweet expression of peaceful slumber.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+Then followed the hurried preparations for the funeral
+and journey, until three o'clock, when, all arrangements
+being made, he was borne from his newly finished
+house, through his blooming garden, to the new church,
+planned and just completed under his directing eye.&nbsp;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+The sermon and the prayers were finished, the
+choir he himself had trained sung their parting hymn,
+and at about five the funeral train started for a journey
+of over seventy miles. That night will stand alone in
+the memories of those who witnessed its scenes!</p>
+
+<p>"At ten in the evening heavy clouds gathered lowering
+behind, and finally rose so as nearly to cover the
+hemisphere, sending forth mutterings of thunder and
+constant flashes of lightning.</p>
+
+<p>"The excessive heat of the weather, the darkness of
+the night, the solitary road, the flaring of the lamps
+and lanterns, the flashes of the lightning, the roll of
+approaching thunder, the fear of being overtaken in an
+unfrequented place and the lights extinguished by the
+rain, the sad events of the day, the cries of the infant
+boy sick with the heat and bewailing the father who
+ever before had soothed his griefs, all combined to
+awaken the deepest emotions of the sorrowful, the awful,
+and the sublime.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>"And so it is at last; there must come a time when
+all that the most heart-broken, idolizing love can give
+us is a coffin and a grave! All that could be done for
+our brother, with all his means and all the affection of
+his people and friends, was just this, no more! After
+all, the deepest and most powerful argument for the
+religion of Christ is its power in times like this. Take
+from us Christ and what He taught, and what have we
+here? What confusion, what agony, what dismay,
+what wreck and waste! But give Him to us, even the
+most stricken heart can rise under the blow; yea, even
+triumph!</p>
+
+<p>"'Thy brother shall rise again,' said Jesus; and to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+us who weep He speaks: 'Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are
+made partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when his
+glory shall be revealed, ye also may be glad with exceeding
+joy!'"</p>
+
+<p>The advent of Mrs. Stowe's third daughter was
+followed by a protracted illness and a struggle with
+great poverty, of which Mrs. Stowe writes in October,
+1843:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Our straits for money this year are unparalleled
+even in our annals. Even our bright and cheery neighbor
+Allen begins to look blue, and says $600 is the
+very most we can hope to collect of our salary, once
+$1,200. We have a flock of entirely destitute young
+men in the seminary, as poor in money as they are rich
+in mental and spiritual resources. They promise to be
+as fine a band as those we have just sent off. We have
+two from Iowa and Wisconsin who were actually crowded
+from secular pursuits into the ministry by the wants of
+the people about them. Revivals began, and the people
+came to them saying, 'We have no minister, and you
+must preach to us, for you know more than we do.'"</p>
+
+<p>In the spring of 1844 Professor Stowe visited the
+East to arouse an interest in the struggling seminary
+and raise funds for its maintenance. While he was
+there he received the following letter from Mrs.
+Stowe:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am already half sick with confinement to the
+house and overwork. If I should sew every day for a
+month to come I should not be able to accomplish a
+half of what is to be done, and should be only more
+unfit for my other duties."</p>
+
+<p>This struggle against ill-health and poverty was continued<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+through that year and well into the next, when,
+during her husband's absence to attend a ministerial
+convention at Detroit, Mrs. Stowe writes to him:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><i>June 16, 1845.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Husband</span>,&mdash;It is a dark, sloppy, rainy,
+muddy, disagreeable day, and I have been working hard
+(for me) all day in the kitchen, washing dishes, looking
+into closets, and seeing a great deal of that dark side
+of domestic life which a housekeeper may who will
+investigate too curiously into minutić in warm, damp
+weather, especially after a girl who keeps all clean on
+the <i>outside</i> of cup and platter, and is very apt to make
+good the rest of the text in the <i>inside</i> of things.</p>
+
+<p>I am sick of the smell of sour milk, and sour meat,
+and sour everything, and then the clothes <i>will</i> not dry,
+and no wet thing does, and everything smells mouldy;
+and altogether I feel as if I never wanted to eat again.</p>
+
+<p>Your letter, which was neither sour nor mouldy,
+formed a very agreeable contrast to all these things;
+the more so for being unexpected. I am much obliged
+to you for it. As to my health, it gives me very little
+solicitude, although I am bad enough and daily growing
+worse. I feel no life, no energy, no appetite, or
+rather a growing distaste for food; in fact, I am becoming
+quite ethereal. Upon reflection I perceive that
+it pleases my Father to keep me in the fire, for my whole
+situation is excessively harassing and painful. I suffer
+with sensible distress in the brain, as I have done more
+or less since my sickness last winter, a distress which
+some days takes from me all power of planning or executing
+anything; and you know that, except this poor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+head, my unfortunate household has no mainspring, for
+nobody feels any kind of responsibility to do a thing
+in time, place, or manner, except as I oversee it.</p>
+
+<p>Georgiana is so excessively weak, nervous, cross, and
+fretful, night and day, that she takes all Anna's strength
+and time with her; and then the children are, like other
+little sons and daughters of Adam, full of all kinds of
+absurdity and folly.</p>
+
+<p>When the brain gives out, as mine often does, and
+one cannot think or remember anything, then what is
+to be done? All common fatigue, sickness, and exhaustion
+is nothing to this distress. Yet do I rejoice
+in my God and know in whom I believe, and only pray
+that the fire may consume the dross; as to the gold,
+that is imperishable. No real evil can happen to me,
+so I fear nothing for the future, and only suffer in the
+present tense.</p>
+
+<p>God, the mighty God, is mine, of that I am sure, and
+I know He knows that though flesh and heart fail, I am
+all the while desiring and trying for his will alone. As
+to a journey, I need not ask a physician to see that it
+is needful to me as far as health is concerned, that is to
+say, all human appearances are that way, but I feel no
+particular choice about it. If God wills I go. He can
+easily find means. Money, I suppose, is as plenty with
+Him now as it always has been, and if He sees it is
+really best He will doubtless help me.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That the necessary funds were provided is evident
+from the fact that the journey was undertaken and the
+invalid spent the summer of 1845 in Hartford, in Natick,
+and in Boston. She was not, however, permanently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+benefited by the change, and in the following
+spring it was deemed necessary to take more radical
+measures to arrest the progress of her increasing
+debility. After many consultations and much correspondence
+it was finally decided that she should go
+to Dr. Wesselhoeft's watercure establishment at Brattleboro',
+Vt.</p>
+
+<p>At this time, under date of March, 1846, she writes:</p>
+
+<p>"For all I have had trouble I can think of nothing
+but the greatness and richness of God's mercy to me
+in giving me such friends, and in always caring for us
+in every strait. There has been no day this winter
+when I have not had abundant reason to see this.
+Some friend has always stepped in to cheer and help,
+so that I have wanted for nothing. My husband has
+developed wonderfully as house-father and nurse. You
+would laugh to see him in his spectacles gravely marching
+the little troop in their nightgowns up to bed, tagging
+after them, as he says, like an old hen after a flock
+of ducks. The money for my journey has been sent
+in from an unknown hand in a wonderful manner. All
+this shows the care of our Father, and encourages me to
+rejoice and to hope in Him."</p>
+
+<p>A few days after her departure Professor Stowe wrote
+to his wife:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I was greatly comforted by your brief letter from
+Pittsburgh. When I returned from the steamer the
+morning you left I found in the post-office a letter from
+Mrs. G. W. Bull of New York, inclosing $50 on account
+of the sickness in my family. There was another
+inclosing $50 more from a Mrs. Devereaux of Raleigh,
+N. C., besides some smaller sums from others. My heart<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+went out to God in aspiration and gratitude. None of
+the donors, so far as I know, have I ever seen or heard
+of before.</p>
+
+<p>"Henry and I have been living in a Robinson Crusoe
+and man Friday sort of style, greatly to our satisfaction,
+ever since you went away."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe was accompanied to Brattleboro' by her
+sisters, Catherine and Mary, who were also suffering
+from troubles that they felt might be relieved by hydropathic
+treatment.</p>
+
+<p>From May, 1846, until March, 1847, she remained
+at Brattleboro' without seeing her husband or children.
+During these weary months her happiest days were
+those upon which she received letters from home.</p>
+
+<p>The following extracts, taken from letters written by
+her during this period, are of value, as revealing what
+it is possible to know of her habits of thought and
+mode of life at this time.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Brattleboro</span>', <i>September, 1846.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Husband</span>,&mdash;I have been thinking of all
+your trials, and I really pity you in having such a wife.
+I feel as if I had been only a hindrance to you instead
+of a help, and most earnestly and daily do I pray to
+God to restore my health that I may do something for
+you and my family. I think if I were only at home I
+could at least sweep and dust, and wash potatoes, and
+cook a little, and talk some to my children, and should
+be doing something for my family. But the hope of
+getting better buoys me up. I go through these tedious
+and wearisome baths and bear that terrible douche
+thinking of my children. They never will know how
+I love them.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There is great truth and good sense in your analysis
+of the cause of our past failures. We have now come
+to a sort of crisis. If you and I do as we should for
+<i>five years</i> to come the character of our three oldest
+children will be established. This is why I am willing
+to spend so much time and make such efforts to have
+health. Oh, that God would give me these five years
+in full possession of mind and body, that I may train
+my children as they should be trained. I am fully
+aware of the importance of system and order in a family.
+I know that nothing can be done without it; it
+is the keystone, the <i>sine quâ non</i>, and in regard to my
+children I place it next to piety. At the same time it
+is true that both Anna<a name="FNanchor_4_5" id="FNanchor_4_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_5" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> and I labor under serious natural
+disadvantages on this subject. It is not all that is
+necessary to feel the importance of order and system,
+but it requires a particular kind of talent to carry it
+through a family. Very much the same kind of talent,
+as Uncle Samuel said, which is necessary to make a
+good prime minister.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>I think you might make an excellent sermon to Christians
+on the care of health, in consideration of the various
+infirmities and impediments to the developing the
+results of religion, that result from bodily ill health, and
+I wish you would make one that your own mind may
+be more vividly impressed with it. The world is too
+much in a hurry. Ministers think there is no way to
+serve Christ but to overdraw on their physical capital
+for four or five years for Christ and then have nothing
+to give, but become a mere burden on his hands for the
+next five.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>
+<p><i>November 18.</i> "The daily course I go through presupposes
+a degree of vigor beyond anything I ever had
+before. For this week, I have gone before breakfast
+to the wave-bath and let all the waves and billows roll
+over me till every limb ached with cold and my hands
+would scarcely have feeling enough to dress me. After
+that I have walked till I was warm, and come home to
+breakfast with such an appetite! Brown bread and
+milk are luxuries indeed, and the only fear is that I
+may eat too much. At eleven comes my douche, to
+which I have walked in a driving rain for the last two
+days, and after it walked in the rain again till I was
+warm. (The umbrella you gave me at Natick answers
+finely, as well as if it were a silk one.) After dinner I
+roll ninepins or walk till four, then sitz-bath, and another
+walk till six.</p>
+
+<p>"I am anxious for your health; do be persuaded to
+try a long walk before breakfast. You don't know how
+much good it will do you. Don't sit in your hot study
+without any ventilation, a stove burning up all the
+vitality of the air and weakening your nerves, and
+above all, do <i>amuse</i> yourself. Go to Dr. Mussey's and
+spend an evening, and to father's and Professor Allen's.
+When you feel worried go off somewhere and forget
+and throw it off. I should really rejoice to hear that
+you and father and mother, with Professor and Mrs.
+Allen, Mrs. K., and a few others of the same calibre
+would agree to meet together for dancing cotillons. It
+would do you all good, and if you took Mr. K.'s wife
+and poor Miss Much-Afraid, her daughter, into the alliance
+it would do them good. Bless me! what a profane
+set everybody would think you were, and yet you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+are the people of all the world most solemnly in need
+of it. I wish you could be with me in Brattleboro' and
+coast down hill on a sled, go sliding and snowballing
+by moonlight! I would snowball every bit of the
+<i>hypo</i> out of you! Now, my dear, if you are going to
+get sick, I am going to come home. There is no use
+in my trying to get well if you, in the mean time, are
+going to run yourself down."</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'>
+<i>January, 1847.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='smcap'>My dear Soul,</span>&mdash;I received your most melancholy
+effusion, and I am sorry to find it's just so. I entirely
+agree and sympathize. Why didn't you engage the
+two tombstones&mdash;one for you and one for me?</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 285px;">
+<img src="images/i117.jpg" width="285" height="249" alt="Tombstone next to dead small tree" />
+<div class="caption">Ding, dong! Dead and gone!</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>I shall have to copy for your edification a "poem on
+tombstones" which Kate put at Christmas into the
+stocking of one of our most hypochondriac gentlemen,
+who had pished and pshawed at his wife and us for trying
+to get up a little fun. This poem was fronted with
+the above vignette and embellished with sundry similar
+ones, and tied with a long black ribbon. There were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+only two cantos in very concise style, so I shall send
+you them entire.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="poem and tombstone">
+<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">CANTO I.</span><br />
+In the kingdom of <i>Mortin</i><br />
+I had the good fortin'<br />
+To find these verses<br />
+On tombs and on hearses,<br />
+Which I, being jinglish<br />
+Have done into English.<br /></td>
+<td align="center"><img src="images/i118.jpg" width="290" height="230" alt="tombstone with steeple" />
+</td>
+<td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">CANTO II.</span><br />
+The man what's so colickish<br />
+When his friends are all frolickish<br />
+As to turn up his noses<br />
+And turn on his toses<br />
+Shall have only verses<br />
+On tombstones and hearses.<br /></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>But, seriously, my dear husband, you must try and
+be patient, for this cannot last forever. Be patient and
+bear it like the toothache, or a driving rain, or anything
+else that you cannot escape. To see things as through
+a glass darkly is your infirmity, you know; but the
+Lord will yet deliver you from this trial. I know how
+to pity you, for the last three weeks I have suffered
+from an overwhelming mental depression, a perfect
+heartsickness. All I wanted was to get home and die.
+Die I was very sure I should at any rate, but I suppose
+I was never less prepared to do so.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The long exile was ended in the spring of 1847, and
+in May Mrs. Stowe returned to her Cincinnati home,
+where she was welcomed with sincere demonstrations of
+joy by her husband and children.</p>
+
+<p>Her sixth child, Samuel Charles, was born in January
+of 1848, and about this time her husband's health
+became so seriously impaired that it was thought desirable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+for him in turn to spend a season at the Brattleboro'
+water-cure. He went in June, 1848, and was
+compelled by the very precarious state of his health to
+remain until September, 1849. During this period of
+more than a year Mrs. Stowe remained in Cincinnati
+caring for her six children, eking out her slender income
+by taking boarders and writing when she found
+time, confronting a terrible epidemic of cholera that
+carried off one of her little flock, and in every way
+showing herself to be a brave woman, possessed of a
+spirit that could rise superior to all adversity. Concerning
+this time she writes in January, 1849, to her
+dearest friend:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My beloved Georgy</span>,&mdash;For six months after my
+return from Brattleboro' my eyes were so affected that
+I wrote scarce any, and my health was in so strange a
+state that I felt no disposition to write. After the
+birth of little Charley my health improved, but my husband
+was sick and I have been so loaded and burdened
+with cares as to drain me dry of all capacity of thought,
+feeling, memory, or emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Well, Georgy, I am thirty-seven years old! I am
+glad of it. I like to grow old and have six children
+and cares endless. I wish you could see me with my
+flock all around me. They sum up my cares, and
+were they gone I should ask myself, What now remains
+to be done? They are my work, over which I
+fear and tremble.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In the early summer of 1849 cholera broke out in
+Cincinnati, and soon became epidemic. Professor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+Stowe, absent in Brattleboro', and filled with anxiety
+for the safety of his family, was most anxious, in spite
+of his feeble health, to return and share the danger
+with them, but this his wife would not consent to, as
+is shown by her letters to him, written at this time.
+In one of them, dated June 29, 1849, she says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Husband</span>,&mdash;This week has been unusually
+fatal. The disease in the city has been malignant
+and virulent. Hearse drivers have scarce been
+allowed to unharness their horses, while furniture carts
+and common vehicles are often employed for the removal
+of the dead. The sable trains which pass our
+windows, the frequent indications of crowding haste,
+and the absence of reverent decency have, in many
+cases, been most painful. Of course all these things,
+whether we will or no, bring very doleful images to the
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>On Tuesday one hundred and sixteen deaths from
+cholera were reported, and that night the air was of
+that peculiarly oppressive, deathly kind that seems to
+lie like lead on the brain and soul.</p>
+
+<p>As regards your coming home, I am decidedly opposed
+to it. First, because the chance of your being
+taken ill is just as great as the chance of your being
+able to render us any help. To exchange the salubrious
+air of Brattleboro' for the pestilent atmosphere
+of this place with your system rendered sensitive by
+water-cure treatment would be extremely dangerous.
+It is a source of constant gratitude to me that neither
+you nor father are exposed to the dangers here.</p>
+
+<p>Second, none of us are sick, and it is very uncertain
+whether we shall be.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Third, if we were sick there are so many of us that
+it is not at all likely we shall all be taken at once.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 1.</i> Yesterday Mr. Stagg went to the city and
+found all gloomy and discouraged, while a universal
+panic seemed to be drawing nearer than ever before.
+Large piles of coal were burning on the cross walks
+and in the public squares, while those who had talked
+confidently of the cholera being confined to the lower
+classes and those who were imprudent began to feel as
+did the magicians of old, "This is the finger of God."</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday, upon the recommendation of all the clergymen
+of the city, the mayor issued a proclamation for
+a day of general fasting, humiliation, and prayer, to be
+observed on Tuesday next.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 3.</i> We are all in good health and try to maintain
+a calm and cheerful frame of mind. The doctors
+are nearly used up. Dr. Bowen and Dr. Peck are sick
+in bed. Dr. Potter and Dr. Pulte ought, I suppose, to
+be there also. The younger physicians have no rest
+night or day. Mr. Fisher is laid up from his incessant
+visitations with the sick and dying. Our own Dr.
+Brown is likewise prostrated, but we are all resolute to
+stand by each other, and there are so many of us that
+it is not likely we can all be taken sick together.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 4.</i> All well. The meeting yesterday was very
+solemn and interesting. There is more or less sickness
+about us, but no very dangerous cases. One hundred
+and twenty burials from cholera alone yesterday, yet
+to-day we see parties bent on pleasure or senseless carousing,
+while to-morrow and next day will witness a
+fresh harvest of death from them. How we can become
+accustomed to anything! Awhile ago ten a day dying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+of cholera struck terror to all hearts; but now the tide
+has surged up gradually until the deaths average over
+a hundred daily, and everybody is getting accustomed
+to it. Gentlemen make themselves agreeable to ladies
+by reciting the number of deaths in this house or that.
+This together with talk of funerals, cholera medicines,
+cholera dietetics, and chloride of lime form the ordinary
+staple of conversation. Serious persons of course throw
+in moral reflections to their taste.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 10.</i> Yesterday little Charley was taken ill,
+not seriously, and at any other season I should not be
+alarmed. Now, however, a slight illness seems like a
+death sentence, and I will not dissemble that I feel
+from the outset very little hope. I still think it best
+that you should not return. By so doing you might
+lose all you have gained. You might expose yourself
+to a fatal incursion of disease. It is decidedly not
+your duty to do so.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 12.</i> Yesterday I carried Charley to Dr. Pulte,
+who spoke in such a manner as discouraged and frightened
+me. He mentioned dropsy on the brain as a possible
+result. I came home with a heavy heart, sorrowing,
+desolate, and wishing my husband and father were
+here.</p>
+
+<p>About one o'clock this morning Miss Stewart suddenly
+opened my door crying, "Mrs. Stowe, Henry is
+vomiting." I was on my feet in an instant, and lifted
+up my heart for help. He was, however, in a few minutes
+relieved. Then I turned my attention to Charley,
+who was also suffering, put him into a wet sheet, and
+kept him there until he was in a profuse perspiration.
+He is evidently getting better, and is auspiciously cross.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+Never was crossness in a baby more admired. Anna
+and I have said to each other exultingly a score of
+times, "How cross the little fellow is! How he does
+scold!"</p>
+
+<p><i>July 15.</i> Since I last wrote our house has been a
+perfect hospital. Charley apparently recovering, but
+still weak and feeble, unable to walk or play, and so
+miserably fretful and unhappy. Sunday Anna and I
+were fairly stricken down, as many others are, with no
+particular illness, but with such miserable prostration.
+I lay on the bed all day reading my hymn-book and
+thinking over passages of Scripture.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 17.</i> To-day we have been attending poor old
+Aunt Frankie's<a name="FNanchor_5_6" id="FNanchor_5_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_6" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> funeral. She died yesterday morning,
+taken sick the day before while washing. Good, honest,
+trustful old soul! She was truly one who hungered
+and thirsted for righteousness.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday morning our poor little dog, Daisy, who
+had been ailing the day before, was suddenly seized
+with frightful spasms and died in half an hour. Poor
+little affectionate thing! If I were half as good for my
+nature as she for hers I should be much better than I
+am. While we were all mourning over her the news
+came that Aunt Frankie was breathing her last. Hatty,
+Eliza, Anna, and I made her shroud yesterday, and
+this morning I made her cap. We have just come
+from her grave.</p>
+
+<p><i>July 23.</i> At last, my dear, the hand of the Lord
+hath touched us. We have been watching all day by
+the dying bed of little Charley, who is gradually sinking.
+After a partial recovery from the attack I described<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+in my last letter he continued for some days
+very feeble, but still we hoped for recovery. About
+four days ago he was taken with decided cholera, and
+now there is no hope of his surviving this night.</p>
+
+<p>Every kindness is shown us by the neighbors. Do
+not return. All will be over before you could possibly
+get here, and the epidemic is now said by the physicians
+to prove fatal to every new case. Bear up.
+Let us not faint when we are rebuked of Him. I dare
+not trust myself to say more but shall write again soon.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><i>July 26.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Husband</span>,&mdash;At last it is over and our
+dear little one is gone from us. He is now among
+the blessed. My Charley&mdash;my beautiful, loving, gladsome
+baby, so loving, so sweet, so full of life and hope
+and strength&mdash;now lies shrouded, pale and cold, in the
+room below. Never was he anything to me but a comfort.
+He has been my pride and joy. Many a heartache
+has he cured for me. Many an anxious night
+have I held him to my bosom and felt the sorrow and
+loneliness pass out of me with the touch of his little
+warm hands. Yet I have just seen him in his death
+agony, looked on his imploring face when I could not
+help nor soothe nor do one thing, not one, to mitigate
+his cruel suffering, do nothing but pray in my anguish
+that he might die soon. I write as though there were
+no sorrow like my sorrow, yet there has been in this
+city, as in the land of Egypt, scarce a house without its
+dead. This heart-break, this anguish, has been everywhere,
+and when it will end God alone knows.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With this severest blow of all, the long years of
+trial and suffering in the West practically end; for in
+September, 1849, Professor Stowe returned from Brattleboro',
+and at the same time received a call to the
+Collins Professorship at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick,
+Maine, that he decided to accept.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.<br />
+
+<small>REMOVAL TO BRUNSWICK, <b>1850-1852</b>.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Mrs. Stowe's Remarks on Writing and Understanding Biography.&mdash;Their
+Appropriateness to her own Biography.&mdash;Reasons
+for Professor Stowe's leaving Cincinnati.&mdash;Mrs.
+Stowe's Journey to Brooklyn.&mdash;Her Brother's Success as
+a Minister.&mdash;Letters from Hartford and Boston.&mdash;Arrives
+in Brunswick.&mdash;History of the Slavery Agitation.&mdash;Practical
+Working of the Fugitive Slave Law.&mdash;Mrs. Edward
+Beecher's Letter to Mrs. Stowe and its Effect.&mdash;Domestic
+Trials.&mdash;Begins to write "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as a Serial
+for the "National Era."&mdash;Letter to Frederick Douglass.&mdash;"Uncle
+Tom's Cabin" a Work of Religious Emotion.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Early</span> in the winter of 1849 Mrs. Stowe wrote in
+a private journal in which she recorded thought and
+feeling concerning religious themes: "It has been said
+that it takes a man to write the life of a man; that is,
+there must be similarity of mind in the person who
+undertakes to present the character of another. This
+is true, also, of reading and understanding biography.
+A statesman and general would read the life of Napoleon
+with the spirit and the understanding, while the
+commonplace man plods through it as a task. The
+difference is that the one, being of like mind and spirit
+with the subject of the biography, is able to sympathize
+with him in all his thoughts and experiences, and the
+other is not. The life of Henry Martyn would be
+tedious and unintelligible to a mind like that of a
+Richelieu or a Mazarin. They never experienced or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+saw or heard anything like it, and would be quite at a
+loss where to place such a man in their mental categories.
+It is not strange, therefore, that of all biography
+in the world that of Jesus Christ should be least
+understood. It is an exception to all the world has
+ever seen. 'The world knew Him not.' There is, to
+be sure, a simple grandeur about the life of Jesus which
+awes almost every mind. The most hardened scoffer,
+after he has jested and jeered at everything in the
+temple of Christianity, stands for a moment uncovered
+and breathless when he comes to the object of its adoration
+and feels how awful goodness is, and Virtue in her
+shape how lovely. Yet, after all, the character of the
+Christ has been looked at and not sympathized with.
+Men have turned aside to see this great sight. Christians
+have fallen in adoration, but very few have tried
+to enter into his sympathies and to feel as He felt."</p>
+
+<p>How little she dreamed that these words were to become
+profoundly appropriate as a description of her
+own life in its relation to mankind! How little the
+countless thousands who read, have read, and will read,
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" enter into or sympathize with
+the feelings out of which it was written! A delicate,
+sensitive woman struggling with poverty, with weary
+step and aching head attending to the innumerable
+demands of a large family of growing children; a devoted
+Christian seeking with strong crying and tears a
+kingdom not of this world,&mdash;is this the popular conception
+of the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"?
+Nevertheless it is the reality. When, amid the burning
+ruins of a besieged city, a mother's voice is heard
+uttering a cry of anguish over a child killed in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+arms by a bursting shell, the attention is arrested, the
+heart is touched. So "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a cry
+of anguish from a mother's heart, and uttered in sad
+sincerity. It was the bursting forth of deep feeling,
+with all the intense anguish of wounded love. It will
+be the purpose of this chapter to show this, and to
+cause to pass before the reader's mind the time, the
+household, and the heart from which this cry was
+heard.</p>
+
+<p>After struggling for seventeen years with ill health
+and every possible vexation and hindrance in his work,
+Professor Stowe became convinced that it was his duty
+to himself and his family to seek some other field of
+labor.</p>
+
+<p>February 6, 1850, he writes to his mother, in Natick,
+Mass.: "My health has not been good this winter,
+and I do not suppose that I should live long were
+I to stay here. I have done a great deal of hard work
+here, and practiced no little self-denial. I have seen
+the seminary carried through a most vexatious series of
+lawsuits, ecclesiastical and civil, and raised from the
+depths of poverty to comparative affluence, and I feel
+at liberty now to leave. During the three months of
+June, July, and August last, more than nine thousand
+persons died of cholera within three miles of my house,
+and this winter, in the same territory, there have been
+more than ten thousand cases of small-pox, many of
+them of the very worst kind. Several have died on the
+hill, and the Jesuits' college near us has been quite
+broken up by it. There have been, however, no cases
+in our families or in the seminary.</p>
+
+<p>"I have received many letters from friends in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+East expressing great gratification at the offer from
+Bowdoin College, and the hope that I would accept
+it. I am quite inclined to do so, but the matter is not
+yet finally settled, and there are difficulties in the way.
+They can offer me only $1,000 a year, and I must,
+out of it, hire my own house, at an expense of $75 to
+$100 a year. Here the trustees offer me $1,500 a
+year if I will stay, and a good house besides, which
+would make the whole salary equivalent to $1,800;
+and to-day I have had another offer from New York
+city of $2,300.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. On the whole, I have written to
+Bowdoin College, proposing to them if they will give
+me $500 free and clear in addition to the salary, I will
+accept their proposition, and I suppose that there is no
+doubt that they will do it. In that case I should come
+on next spring, in May or June."</p>
+
+<p>This offer from Bowdoin College was additionally
+attractive to Professor Stowe from the fact that it was
+the college from which he graduated, and where some
+of the happiest years of his life had been passed.</p>
+
+<p>The professorship was one just established through
+the gift of Mrs. Collins, a member of Bowdoin Street
+Church in Boston, and named in her honor, the "Collins
+Professorship of Natural and Revealed Religion."</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible for Professor Stowe to leave Lane
+Seminary till some one could be found to take his
+place; so it was determined that Mrs. Stowe, with three
+of the children, should start for the East in April, and
+having established the family in Brunswick, Professor
+Stowe was to come on with the remaining children
+when his engagements would permit.</p>
+
+<p>The following extracts from a letter written by Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+Stowe at her brother Henry's, at Brooklyn, April 29,
+1850, show us that the journey was accomplished without
+special incident.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 365px;">
+<img src="images/i130.jpg" width="365" height="550" alt="Henry Ward Beecher portrait and signature" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"The boat got into Pittsburgh between four and
+five on Wednesday. The agent for the Pennsylvania
+Canal came on board and soon filled out our tickets,
+calling my three chicks one and a half. We had a
+quiet and agreeable passage, and crossed the slides at
+five o'clock in the morning, amid exclamations of unbounded
+delight from all the children, to whom the
+mountain scenery was a new and amazing thing. We
+reached Hollidaysburg about eleven o'clock, and at two
+o'clock in the night were called up to get into the cars
+at Jacktown. Arriving at Philadelphia about three
+o'clock in the afternoon, we took the boat and railroad
+line for New York.</p>
+
+<p>"At Lancaster we telegraphed to Brooklyn, and
+when we arrived in New York, between ten and eleven
+at night, Cousin Augustus met us and took us over to
+Brooklyn. We had ridden three hundred miles since
+two o'clock that morning, and were very tired.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. I
+am glad we came that way, for the children have seen
+some of the finest scenery in our country.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Henry's
+people are more than ever in love with him, and have
+raised his salary to $3,300, and given him a beautiful
+horse and carriage worth $600.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. My health is
+already improved by the journey, and I was able to
+walk a good deal between the locks on the canal. As
+to furniture, I think that we may safely afford an outlay
+of $150, and that will purchase all that may be
+necessary to set us up, and then we can get more as
+we have means and opportunity.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. If I got anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+for those pieces I wrote before coming away, I
+would like to be advised thereof by you.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. My plan
+is to spend this week in Brooklyn, the next in Hartford,
+the next in Boston, and go on to Brunswick some
+time in May or June."</p>
+
+<p>May 18, 1850, we find her writing from Boston,
+where she is staying with her brother, Rev. Edward
+Beecher:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Husband</span>,&mdash;I came here from Hartford
+on Monday, and have since then been busily engaged
+in the business of buying and packing furniture.</p>
+
+<p>I expect to go to Brunswick next Tuesday night by
+the Bath steamer, which way I take as the cheaper.
+My traveling expenses, when I get to Brunswick, including
+everything, will have been seventy-six dollars.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+And now, lastly, my dear husband, you have
+never been wanting .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. in kindness, consideration,
+and justice, and I want you to reflect calmly how great
+a work has been imposed upon me at a time when my
+situation particularly calls for rest, repose, and quiet.</p>
+
+<p>To come alone such a distance with the whole charge
+of children, accounts, and baggage; to push my way
+through hurrying crowds, looking out for trunks, and
+bargaining with hackmen, has been a very severe trial
+of my strength, to say nothing of the usual fatigues of
+traveling.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was at this time, and as a result of the experiences
+of this trying period, that Mrs. Stowe wrote that little
+tract dear to so many Christian hearts, "Earthly Care
+a Heavenly Discipline."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the eve of sailing for Brunswick, Mrs. Stowe
+writes to Mrs. Sykes (Miss May): "I am wearied and
+worn out with seeing to bedsteads, tables, chairs, mattresses,
+with thinking about shipping my goods and
+making out accounts, and I have my trunk yet to pack,
+as I go on board the Bath steamer this evening. I beg
+you to look up Brunswick on the map; it is about half
+a day's ride in the cars from Boston. I expect to reach
+there by the way of Bath by to-morrow forenoon.
+There I have a house engaged and kind friends who
+offer every hospitable assistance. Come, therefore, to
+see me, and we will have a long talk in the pine woods,
+and knit up the whole history from the place where we
+left it."</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving Boston she had written to her husband
+in Cincinnati: "You are not able just now to
+bear anything, my dear husband, therefore trust all to
+me; I never doubt or despair. I am already making
+arrangements with editors to raise money.</p>
+
+<p>"I have sent some overtures to Wright. If he
+accepts my pieces and pays you for them, take the
+money and use it as you see necessary; if not, be sure
+and bring the pieces back to me. I am strong in
+spirit, and God who has been with me in so many
+straits will not forsake me now. I know Him well; He
+is my Father, and though I may be a blind and erring
+child, He will help me for all that. My trust through
+all errors and sins is in Him. He who helped poor
+timid Jacob through all his fears and apprehensions,
+who helped Abraham even when he sinned, who was
+with David in his wanderings, and who held up the too
+confident Peter when he began to sink,&mdash;He will help<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+us, and his arms are about us, so that we shall not sink,
+my dear husband."</p>
+
+<p>May 29, 1850, she writes from Brunswick: "After
+a week of most incessant northeast storm, most discouraging
+and forlorn to the children, the sun has at
+length come out.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. There is a fair wind blowing,
+and every prospect, therefore, that our goods will
+arrive promptly from Boston, and that we shall be in
+our own house by next week. Mrs. Upham<a name="FNanchor_6_7" id="FNanchor_6_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_7" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> has done
+everything for me, giving up time and strength and
+taking charge of my affairs in a way without which we
+could not have got along at all in a strange place and
+in my present helpless condition. This family is delightful,
+there is such a perfect sweetness and quietude in
+all its movements. Not a harsh word or hasty expression
+is ever heard. It is a beautiful pattern of a Christian
+family, a beautiful exemplification of religion.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;."</p>
+
+<p>The events of the first summer in Brunswick are
+graphically described by Mrs. Stowe in a letter written
+to her sister-in-law, Mrs. George Beecher, December 17,
+1850.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Sister</span>,&mdash;Is it really true that snow is on
+the ground and Christmas coming, and I have not
+written unto thee, most dear sister? No, I don't
+believe it! I haven't been so naughty&mdash;it's all a
+mistake&mdash;yes, written I must have&mdash;and written I
+have, too&mdash;in the night-watches as I lay on my bed&mdash;such
+beautiful letters&mdash;I wish you had only gotten
+them; but by day it has been hurry, hurry, hurry, and
+drive, drive, drive! or else the calm of a sick-room,
+ever since last spring.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+<p>I put off writing when your letter first came because
+I meant to write you a long letter&mdash;a full and complete
+one, and so days slid by,&mdash;and became weeks,&mdash;and
+my little Charlie came .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. etc. and etc.!!!
+Sarah, when I look back, I wonder at myself, not that
+I forget any one thing that I should remember, but
+that I have remembered anything. From the time that
+I left Cincinnati with my children to come forth to a
+country that I knew not of almost to the present time,
+it has seemed as if I could scarcely breathe, I was so
+pressed with care. My head dizzy with the whirl of
+railroads and steamboats; then ten days' sojourn in Boston,
+and a constant toil and hurry in buying my furniture
+and equipments; and then landing in Brunswick
+in the midst of a drizzly, inexorable northeast storm,
+and beginning the work of getting in order a deserted,
+dreary, damp old house. All day long running from
+one thing to another, as for example, thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe, how shall I make this lounge, and what
+shall I cover the back with first?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Stowe.</i> With the coarse cotton in the closet.</p>
+
+<p><i>Woman.</i> Mrs. Stowe, there isn't any more soap to
+clean the windows.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Stowe.</i> Where shall I get soap?</p>
+
+<p>Here H., run up to the store and get two bars.</p>
+
+<p>There is a man below wants to see Mrs. Stowe about
+the cistern. Before you go down, Mrs. Stowe, just
+show me how to cover this round end of the lounge.</p>
+
+<p>There's a man up from the depot, and he says that
+a box has come for Mrs. Stowe, and it's coming up to
+the house; will you come down and see about it?</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe, don't go till you have shown the man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+how to nail that carpet in the corner. He's nailed it
+all crooked; what shall he do? The black thread is
+all used up, and what shall I do about putting gimp on
+the back of that sofa? Mrs. Stowe, there is a man
+come with a lot of pails and tinware from Furbish; will
+you settle the bill now?</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe, here is a letter just come from Boston
+inclosing that bill of lading; the man wants to know
+what he shall do with the goods. If you will tell me
+what to say I will answer the letter for you.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe, the meat-man is at the door. Hadn't
+we better get a little beefsteak, or something, for dinner?</p>
+
+<p>Shall Hatty go to Boardman's for some more black
+thread?</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe, this cushion is an inch too wide for the
+frame. What shall we do now?</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe, where are the screws of the black walnut
+bedstead?</p>
+
+<p>Here's a man has brought in these bills for freight.
+Will you settle them now?</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe, I don't understand using this great
+needle. I can't make it go through the cushion; it
+sticks in the cotton.</p>
+
+<p>Then comes a letter from my husband saying he is
+sick abed, and all but dead; don't ever expect to see
+his family again; wants to know how I shall manage,
+in case I am left a widow; knows we shall get in debt
+and never get out; wonders at my courage; thinks I
+am very sanguine; warns me to be prudent, as there
+won't be much to live on in case of his death, etc., etc.,
+etc. I read the letter and poke it into the stove, and
+proceed.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Some of my adventures were quite funny; as for
+example: I had in my kitchen elect no sink, cistern, or
+any other water privileges, so I bought at the cotton
+factory two of the great hogsheads they bring oil in,
+which here in Brunswick are often used for cisterns,
+and had them brought up in triumph to my yard, and
+was congratulating myself on my energy, when lo and
+behold! it was discovered that there was no cellar door
+except one in the kitchen, which was truly a strait and
+narrow way, down a long pair of stairs. Hereupon, as
+saith John Bunyan, I fell into a muse,&mdash;how to get
+my cisterns into my cellar. In days of chivalry I
+might have got a knight to make me a breach through
+the foundation walls, but that was not to be thought of
+now, and my oil hogsheads standing disconsolately in
+the yard seemed to reflect no great credit on my foresight.
+In this strait I fell upon a real honest Yankee
+cooper, whom I besought, for the reputation of his
+craft and mine, to take my hogsheads to pieces, carry
+them down in staves, and set them up again, which the
+worthy man actually accomplished one fair summer
+forenoon, to the great astonishment of "us Yankees."
+When my man came to put up the pump, he stared
+very hard to see my hogsheads thus translated and
+standing as innocent and quiet as could be in the cellar,
+and then I told him, in a very mild, quiet way, that
+I got 'em taken to pieces and put together&mdash;just as if
+I had been always in the habit of doing such things.
+Professor Smith came down and looked very hard at
+them and then said, "Well, nothing can beat a willful
+woman." Then followed divers negotiations with a
+very clever, but (with reverence) somewhat lazy gentleman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+of jobs, who occupieth a carpenter's shop opposite
+to mine. This same John Titcomb, my very good
+friend, is a character peculiar to Yankeedom. He is
+part owner and landlord of the house I rent, and connected
+by birth with all the best families in town; a
+man of real intelligence, and good education, a great
+reader, and quite a thinker. Being of an ingenious
+turn he does painting, gilding, staining, upholstery
+jobs, varnishing, all in addition to his primary trade of
+carpentry. But he is a man studious of ease, and fully
+possessed with the idea that man wants but little here
+below; so he boards himself in his workshop on crackers
+and herring, washed down with cold water, and
+spends his time working, musing, reading new publications,
+and taking his comfort. In his shop you shall
+see a joiner's bench, hammers, planes, saws, gimlets,
+varnish, paint, picture frames, fence posts, rare old
+china, one or two fine portraits of his ancestry, a bookcase
+full of books, the tooth of a whale, an old spinning-wheel
+and spindle, a lady's parasol frame, a church
+lamp to be mended, in short, Henry says Mr. Titcomb's
+shop is like the ocean; there is no end to the curiosities
+in it.</p>
+
+<p>In all my moving and fussing Mr. Titcomb has been
+my right-hand man. Whenever a screw was loose, a
+nail to be driven, a lock mended, a pane of glass set,
+and these cases were manifold, he was always on hand.
+But my sink was no fancy job, and I believe nothing
+but a very particular friendship would have moved him
+to undertake it. So this same sink lingered in a precarious
+state for some weeks, and when I had <i>nothing
+else to do</i>, I used to call and do what I could in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+way of enlisting the good man's sympathies in its behalf.</p>
+
+<p>How many times I have been in and seated myself
+in one of the old rocking-chairs, and talked first of the
+news of the day, the railroad, the last proceedings in
+Congress, the probabilities about the millennium, and
+thus brought the conversation by little and little round
+to my sink!&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. because, till the sink was done, the
+pump could not be put up, and we couldn't have any
+rain-water. Sometimes my courage would quite fail me
+to introduce the subject, and I would talk of everything
+else, turn and get out of the shop, and then turn
+back as if a thought had just struck my mind, and
+say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Titcomb! about that sink?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, ma'am, I was thinking about going down
+street this afternoon to look out stuff for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, if you would be good enough to get it
+done as soon as possible; we are in great need of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I think there's no hurry. I believe we are going
+to have a dry time now, so that you could not catch
+any water, and you won't need a pump at present."</p>
+
+<p>These negotiations extended from the first of June
+to the first of July, and at last my sink was completed,
+and so also was a new house spout, concerning which I
+had had divers communings with Deacon Dunning of
+the Baptist church. Also during this time good Mrs.
+Mitchell and myself made two sofas, or lounges, a barrel
+chair, divers bedspreads, pillow cases, pillows, bolsters,
+mattresses; we painted rooms; we revarnished
+furniture; we&mdash;what <i>didn't</i> we do?</p>
+
+<p>Then came on Mr. Stowe; and then came the eighth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+of July and my little Charley. I was really glad for
+an excuse to lie in bed, for I was full tired, I can assure
+you. Well, I was what folks call very comfortable for
+two weeks, when my nurse had to leave me.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>During this time I have employed my leisure hours
+in making up my engagements with newspaper editors.
+I have written more than anybody, or I myself, would
+have thought. I have taught an hour a day in our
+school, and I have read two hours every evening to the
+children. The children study English history in school,
+and I am reading Scott's historic novels in their order.
+To-night I finish the "Abbot;" shall begin "Kenilworth"
+next week; yet I am constantly pursued and
+haunted by the idea that I don't do anything. Since I
+began this note I have been called off at least a dozen
+times; once for the fish-man, to buy a codfish; once to
+see a man who had brought me some barrels of apples;
+once to see a book-man; then to Mrs. Upham, to see
+about a drawing I promised to make for her; then to
+nurse the baby; then into the kitchen to make a chowder
+for dinner; and now I am at it again, for nothing
+but deadly determination enables me ever to write; it
+is rowing against wind and tide.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose you think now I have begun, I am never
+going to stop, and in truth it looks like it; but the
+spirit moves now and I must obey.</p>
+
+<p>Christmas is coming, and our little household is all
+alive with preparations; every one collecting their little
+gifts with wonderful mystery and secrecy.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>To tell the truth, dear, I am getting tired; my neck
+and back ache, and I must come to a close.</p>
+
+<p>Your ready kindness to me in the spring I felt very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+much; and <i>why</i> I did not have the sense to have sent
+you one line just by way of acknowledgment, I'm
+sure I don't know; I felt just as if I had, till I awoke,
+and behold! I had not. But, my dear, if my wits are
+somewhat wool-gathering and unsettled, my heart is as
+true as a star. I love you, and have thought of you
+often.</p>
+
+<p>This fall I have felt often <i>sad</i>, lonesome, both very
+unusual feelings with me in these busy days; but the
+breaking away from my old home, and leaving father
+and mother, and coming to a strange place affected me
+naturally. In those sad hours my thoughts have often
+turned to George; I have thought with encouragement
+of his blessed state, and hoped that I should soon
+be there too. I have many warm and kind friends
+here, and have been treated with great attention and
+kindness. Brunswick is a delightful residence, and if
+you come East next summer you must come to my new
+home. George<a name="FNanchor_7_8" id="FNanchor_7_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_8" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> would delight to go a-fishing with the
+children, and see the ships, and sail in the sailboats,
+and all that.</p>
+
+<p>Give Aunt Harriet's love to him, and tell him when
+he gets to be a painter to send me a picture.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="smcap">H. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>The year 1850 is one memorable in the history of
+our nation as well as in the quiet household that we
+have followed in its pilgrimage from Cincinnati to
+Brunswick.</p>
+
+<p>The signers of the Declaration of Independence and
+the statesmen and soldiers of the Revolution were no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+friends of negro slavery. In fact, the very principles
+of the Declaration of Independence sounded the death-knell
+of slavery forever. No stronger utterances
+against this national sin are to be found anywhere
+than in the letters and published writings of Jefferson,
+Washington, Hamilton, and Patrick Henry. "Jefferson
+encountered difficulties greater than he could overcome,
+and after vain wrestlings the words that broke
+from him, 'I tremble for my country when I reflect
+that God is just and that his justice cannot sleep forever,'
+were the words of despair.</p>
+
+<p>"It was the desire of Washington's heart that Virginia
+should remove slavery by a public act; and as
+the prospects of a general emancipation grew more and
+more dim .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. he did all that he could by bequeathing
+freedom to his own slaves."<a name="FNanchor_8_9" id="FNanchor_8_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_9" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>Hamilton was one of the founders of the Manumission
+Society, the object of which was the abolition of
+slaves in the State of New York. Patrick Henry,
+speaking of slavery, said: "A serious view of this
+subject gives a gloomy prospect to future times." Slavery
+was thought by the founders of our Republic to
+be a dying institution, and all the provisions of the
+Constitution touching slavery looked towards gradual
+emancipation as an inevitable result of the growth of
+the democracy.</p>
+
+<p>From an economic standpoint slave labor had ceased
+to be profitable. "The whole interior of the Southern
+States was languishing, and its inhabitants emigrating,
+for want of some object to engage their attention and
+employ their industry." The cultivation of cotton was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+not profitable for the reason that there was no machine
+for separating the seed from the fibre.</p>
+
+<p>This was the state of affairs in 1793, when Eli
+Whitney, a New England mechanic, at this time residing
+in Savannah, Georgia, invented his cotton-gin, or a
+machine to separate seed and fibre. "The invention
+of this machine at once set the whole country in active
+motion."<a name="FNanchor_9_10" id="FNanchor_9_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_10" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> The effect of this invention may to some
+extent be appreciated when we consider that whereas
+in 1793 the Southern States produced only about five
+or ten thousand bales, in 1859 they produced over five
+millions. But with this increase of the cotton culture
+the value of slave property was augmented. Slavery
+grew and spread. In 1818 to 1821 it first became a
+factor in politics during the Missouri compromise. By
+this compromise slavery was not to extend north of
+latitude 36° 30´. From the time of this compromise
+till the year 1833 the slavery agitation slumbered.
+This was the year that the British set the slaves free
+in their West Indian dependencies. This act caused
+great uneasiness among the slaveholders of the South.
+The National Anti-Slavery Society met in Philadelphia
+and pronounced slavery a national sin, which could be
+atoned for only by immediate emancipation. Such men
+as Garrison and Lundy began a work of agitation that
+was soon to set the whole nation in a ferment. From
+this time on slavery became the central problem of
+American history, and the line of cleavage in American
+politics. The invasion of Florida when it was yet the
+territory of a nation at peace with the United States,
+and its subsequent purchase from Spain, the annexation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+of Texas and the war with Mexico, were the direct
+results of the policy of the pro-slavery party to increase
+its influence and its territory. In 1849 the State of
+California knocked at the door of the Union for admission
+as a free State. This was bitterly opposed by the
+slaveholders of the South, who saw in it a menace to
+the slave-power from the fact that no slave State was
+seeking admission at the same time. Both North and
+South the feeling ran so high as to threaten the dismemberment
+of the Union, and the scenes of violence
+and bloodshed which were to come eleven years afterwards.
+It was to preserve the Union and avert the
+danger of the hour that Henry Clay brought forward
+his celebrated compromise measures in the winter of
+1850. To conciliate the North, California was to be
+admitted as a free State. To pacify the slaveholders
+of the South, more stringent laws were to be enacted
+"concerning persons bound to service in one State and
+escaping into another."</p>
+
+<p>The 7th of March, 1850, Daniel Webster made his
+celebrated speech, in which he defended this compromise,
+and the abolitionists of the North were filled with
+indignation, which found its most fitting expression in
+Whittier's "Ichabod:" "So fallen, so lost, the glory
+from his gray hairs gone." .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. "When honor dies
+the man is dead."</p>
+
+<p>It was in the midst of this excitement that Mrs.
+Stowe, with her children and her modest hopes for the
+future, arrived at the house of her brother, Dr. Edward
+Beecher.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Beecher had been the intimate friend and supporter
+of Lovejoy, who had been murdered by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+slaveholders at Alton for publishing an anti-slavery
+paper. His soul was stirred to its very depths by the
+iniquitous law which was at this time being debated
+in Congress,&mdash;a law which not only gave the slaveholder
+of the South the right to seek out and bring
+back into slavery any colored person whom he claimed
+as a slave, but commanded the people of the free
+States to assist in this revolting business. The most
+frequent theme of conversation while Mrs. Stowe was
+in Boston was this proposed law, and when she arrived
+in Brunswick her soul was all on fire with indignation
+at this new indignity and wrong about to be inflicted
+by the slave-power on the innocent and defenseless.</p>
+
+<p>After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, letter
+after letter was received by Mrs. Stowe in Brunswick
+from Mrs. Edward Beecher and other friends, describing
+the heart-rending scenes which were the inevitable
+results of the enforcement of this terrible law. Cities
+were more available for the capturing of escaped slaves
+than the country, and Boston, which claimed to have
+the cradle of liberty, opened her doors to the slave-hunters.
+The sorrow and anguish caused thereby no
+pen could describe. Families were broken up. Some
+hid in garrets and cellars. Some fled to the wharves
+and embarked in ships and sailed for Europe. Others
+went to Canada. One poor fellow who was doing good
+business as a crockery merchant, and supporting his
+family well, when he got notice that his master, whom
+he had left many years before, was after him, set out
+for Canada in midwinter on foot, as he did not dare to
+take a public conveyance. He froze both of his feet
+on the journey, and they had to be amputated. Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+Edward Beecher, in a letter to Mrs. Stowe's son, writing
+of this period, says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I had been nourishing an anti-slavery spirit since
+Lovejoy was murdered for publishing in his paper
+articles against slavery and intemperance, when our
+home was in Illinois. These terrible things which
+were going on in Boston were well calculated to rouse
+up this spirit. What can I do? I thought. Not
+much myself, but I know one who can. So I wrote
+several letters to your mother, telling her of various
+heart-rending events caused by the enforcement of the
+Fugitive Slave Law. I remember distinctly saying in
+one of them, 'Now, Hattie, if I could use a pen as you
+can, I would write something that would make this
+whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.' .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+When we lived in Boston your mother often
+visited us.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Several numbers of 'Uncle Tom's
+Cabin' were written in your Uncle Edward's study at
+these times, and read to us from the manuscripts."</p>
+
+<p>A member of Mrs. Stowe's family well remembers
+the scene in the little parlor in Brunswick when the
+letter alluded to was received. Mrs. Stowe herself read
+it aloud to the assembled family, and when she came
+to the passage, "I would write something that would
+make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing
+slavery is," Mrs. Stowe rose up from her chair, crushing
+the letter in her hand, and with an expression on
+her face that stamped itself on the mind of her child,
+said: "I will write something. I will if I live."</p>
+
+<p>This was the origin of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and
+Professor Cairnes has well said in his admirable work,
+"The Slave Power," "The Fugitive Slave Law has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+been to the slave power a questionable gain. Among
+its first-fruits was 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"</p>
+
+<p>The purpose of writing a story that should make the
+whole nation feel that slavery was an accursed
+thing was not immediately carried out. In December,
+1850, Mrs. Stowe writes: "Tell sister Katy I thank
+her for her letter and will answer it. As long as the
+baby sleeps with me nights I can't do much at anything,
+but I will do it at last. I will write that thing
+if I live.</p>
+
+<p>"What are folks in general saying about the slave
+law, and the stand taken by Boston ministers universally,
+except Edward?</p>
+
+<p>"To me it is incredible, amazing, mournful!! I
+feel as if I should be willing to sink with it, were all
+this sin and misery to sink in the sea.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. I wish
+father would come on to Boston, and preach on the
+Fugitive Slave Law, as he once preached on the slave-trade,
+when I was a little girl in Litchfield. I sobbed
+aloud in one pew and Mrs. Judge Reeves in another.
+I wish some Martin Luther would arise to set this community
+right."</p>
+
+<p>December 22, 1850, she writes to her husband in
+Cincinnati: "Christmas has passed, not without many
+thoughts of our absent one. If you want a description
+of the scenes in our family preceding it, <i>vide</i> a
+'New Year's Story,' which I have sent to the 'New
+York Evangelist.' I am sorry that in the hurry of
+getting off this piece and one for the 'Era' you were
+neglected." The piece for the "Era" was a humorous
+article called "A Scholar's Adventures in the Country,"
+being, in fact, a picture drawn from life and embodying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+Professor Stowe's efforts in the department of agriculture
+while in Cincinnati.</p>
+
+<p><i>December 29, 1850.</i> "We have had terrible weather
+here. I remember such a storm when I was a child in
+Litchfield. Father and mother went to Warren, and
+were almost lost in the snowdrifts.</p>
+
+<p>"Sunday night I rather watched than slept. The
+wind howled, and the house rocked just as our old
+Litchfield house used to. The cold has been so intense
+that the children have kept begging to get up from
+table at meal-times to warm feet and fingers. Our air-tight
+stoves warm all but the floor,&mdash;heat your head
+and keep your feet freezing. If I sit by the open fire
+in the parlor my back freezes, if I sit in my bedroom
+and try to write my head aches and my feet are cold.
+I am projecting a sketch for the 'Era' on the capabilities
+of liberated blacks to take care of themselves.
+Can't you find out for me how much Willie Watson
+has paid for the redemption of his friends, and get any
+items in figures of that kind that you can pick up in
+Cincinnati?&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. When I have a headache and feel
+sick, as I do to-day, there is actually not a place in the
+house where I can lie down and take a nap without being
+disturbed. Overhead is the school-room, next door
+is the dining-room, and the girls practice there two
+hours a day. If I lock my door and lie down some one
+is sure to be rattling the latch before fifteen minutes
+have passed.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. There is no doubt in my mind that
+our expenses this year will come two hundred dollars,
+if not three, beyond our salary. We shall be able to
+come through, notwithstanding; but I don't want to
+feel obliged to work as hard every year as I have this.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+I can earn four hundred dollars a year by writing, but
+I don't want to feel that I must, and when weary with
+teaching the children, and tending the baby, and buying
+provisions, and mending dresses, and darning stockings,
+sit down and write a piece for some paper."</p>
+
+<p>January 12, 1851, Mrs. Stowe again writes to Professor
+Stowe at Cincinnati: "Ever since we left Cincinnati
+to come here the good hand of God has been
+visibly guiding our way. Through what difficulties
+have we been brought! Though we knew not where
+means were to come from, yet means have been furnished
+every step of the way, and in every time of
+need. I was just in some discouragement with regard
+to my writing; thinking that the editor of the 'Era'
+was overstocked with contributors, and would not want
+my services another year, and lo! he sends me one
+hundred dollars, and ever so many good words with it.
+Our income this year will be seventeen hundred dollars
+in all, and I hope to bring our expenses within
+thirteen hundred."</p>
+
+<p>It was in the month of February after these words
+were written that Mrs. Stowe was seated at communion
+service in the college church at Brunswick. Suddenly,
+like the unrolling of a picture, the scene of the death
+of Uncle Tom passed before her mind. So strongly
+was she affected that it was with difficulty she could
+keep from weeping aloud. Immediately on returning
+home she took pen and paper and wrote out the vision
+which had been as it were blown into her mind as by
+the rushing of a mighty wind. Gathering her family
+about her she read what she had written. Her two
+little ones of ten and twelve years of age broke into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+convulsions of weeping, one of them saying through
+his sobs, "Oh, mamma! slavery is the most cruel thing
+in the world." Thus Uncle Tom was ushered into the
+world, and it was, as we said at the beginning, a cry,
+an immediate, an involuntary expression of deep, impassioned
+feeling.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-five years afterwards Mrs. Stowe wrote in a
+letter to one of her children, of this period of her life:
+"I well remember the winter you were a baby and I
+was writing 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' My heart was bursting
+with the anguish excited by the cruelty and injustice
+our nation was showing to the slave, and praying
+God to let me do a little and to cause my cry for them
+to be heard. I remember many a night weeping over
+you as you lay sleeping beside me, and I thought of
+the slave mothers whose babes were torn from them."</p>
+
+<p>It was not till the following April that the first
+chapter of the story was finished and sent on to the
+"National Era" at Washington.</p>
+
+<p>In July Mrs. Stowe wrote to Frederick Douglass the
+following letter, which is given entire as the best possible
+introduction to the history of the career of that
+memorable work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin."</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Brunswick</span>, <i>July 9, 1851.</i><br /></div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">Frederick Douglass, Esq.</span>:</div>
+
+<p><i>Sir</i>,&mdash;You may perhaps have noticed in your editorial
+readings a series of articles that I am furnishing
+for the "Era" under the title of "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin, or Life among the Lowly."</p>
+
+<p>In the course of my story the scene will fall upon a
+cotton plantation. I am very desirous, therefore, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+gain information from one who has been an actual
+laborer on one, and it occurred to me that in the circle
+of your acquaintance there might be one who would
+be able to communicate to me some such information
+as I desire. I have before me an able paper written
+by a Southern planter, in which the details and <i>modus
+operandi</i> are given from his point of sight. I am
+anxious to have something more from another standpoint.
+I wish to be able to make a picture that shall
+be graphic and true to nature in its details. Such a
+person as Henry Bibb, if in the country, might give
+me just the kind of information I desire. You may
+possibly know of some other person. I will subjoin
+to this letter a list of questions, which in that case you
+will do me a favor by inclosing to the individual, with
+the request that he will at earliest convenience answer
+them.</p>
+
+<p>For some few weeks past I have received your paper
+through the mail, and have read it with great interest,
+and desire to return my acknowledgments for it. It
+will be a pleasure to me at some time when less occupied
+to contribute something to its columns. I have
+noticed with regret your sentiments on two subjects&mdash;the
+church and African colonization, .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. with the
+more regret because I think you have a considerable
+share of reason for your feelings on both these subjects;
+but I would willingly, if I could, modify your
+views on both points.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place you say the church is "pro-slavery."
+There is a sense in which this may be true.
+The American church of all denominations, taken as
+a body, comprises the best and most conscientious people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+in the country. I do not say it comprises none but
+these, or that none such are found out of it, but
+only if a census were taken of the purest and most high
+principled men and women of the country, the majority
+of them would be found to be professors of religion in
+some of the various Christian denominations. This
+fact has given to the church great weight in this country&mdash;the
+general and predominant spirit of intelligence
+and probity and piety of its majority has given
+it that degree of weight that it has the power to decide
+the great moral questions of the day. Whatever
+it unitedly and decidedly sets itself against as moral
+evil it can put down. In this sense the church is responsible
+for the sin of slavery. Dr. Barnes has beautifully
+and briefly expressed this on the last page of
+his work on slavery, when he says: "Not all the force
+out of the church could sustain slavery an hour if it
+were not sustained in it." It then appears that the
+church has the power to put an end to this evil and
+does not do it. In this sense she may be said to be
+pro-slavery. But the church has the same power over
+intemperance, and Sabbath-breaking, and sin of all
+kinds. There is not a doubt that if the moral power
+of the church were brought up to the New Testament
+standpoint it is sufficient to put an end to all these as
+well as to slavery. But I would ask you, Would you
+consider it a fair representation of the Christian church
+in this country to say that it is pro-intemperance, pro-Sabbath-breaking,
+and pro everything that it might put
+down if it were in a higher state of moral feeling? If
+you should make a list of all the abolitionists of the
+country, I think that you would find a majority of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+them in the church&mdash;certainly some of the most influential
+and efficient ones are ministers.</p>
+
+<p>I am a minister's daughter, and a minister's wife,
+and I have had six brothers in the ministry (one is in
+heaven); I certainly ought to know something of the
+feelings of ministers on this subject. I was a child in
+1820 when the Missouri question was agitated, and one
+of the strongest and deepest impressions on my mind
+was that made by my father's sermons and prayers, and
+the anguish of his soul for the poor slave at that time.
+I remember his preaching drawing tears down the
+hardest faces of the old farmers in his congregation.</p>
+
+<p>I well remember his prayers morning and evening in
+the family for "poor, oppressed, bleeding Africa," that
+the time of her deliverance might come; prayers offered
+with strong crying and tears, and which indelibly impressed
+my heart and made me what I am from my
+very soul, the enemy of all slavery. Every brother I
+have has been in his sphere a leading anti-slavery man.
+One of them was to the last the bosom friend and
+counselor of Lovejoy. As for myself and husband, we
+have for the last seventeen years lived on the border of
+a slave State, and we have never shrunk from the fugitives,
+and we have helped them with all we had to give.
+I have received the children of liberated slaves into a
+family school, and taught them with my own children,
+and it has been the influence that we found in the
+church and by the altar that has made us do all this.
+Gather up all the sermons that have been published on
+this offensive and unchristian Fugitive Slave Law, and
+you will find that those against it are numerically more
+than those in its favor, and yet some of the strongest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+opponents have not published their sermons. Out of
+thirteen ministers who meet with my husband weekly
+for discussion of moral subjects, only three are found
+who will acknowledge or obey this law in any shape.</p>
+
+<p>After all, my brother, the strength and hope of your
+oppressed race does lie in the church&mdash;in hearts united
+to Him of whom it is said, "He shall spare the souls
+of the needy, and precious shall their blood be in his
+sight." Everything is against you, but Jesus Christ is
+for you, and He has not forgotten his church, misguided
+and erring though it be. I have looked all the
+field over with despairing eyes; I see no hope but in
+Him. This movement must and will become a purely
+religious one. The light will spread in churches, the
+tone of feeling will rise, Christians North and South
+will give up all connection with, and take up their testimony
+against, slavery, and thus the work will be
+done.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This letter gives us a conception of the state of
+moral and religious exaltation of the heart and mind
+out of which flowed chapter after chapter of that wonderful
+story. It all goes to prove the correctness of
+the position from which we started, that "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin" came from the heart rather than the head. It
+was an outburst of deep feeling, a cry in the darkness.
+The writer no more thought of style or literary excellence
+than the mother who rushes into the street and
+cries for help to save her children from a burning
+house thinks of the teachings of the rhetorician or the
+elocutionist.</p>
+
+<p>A few years afterwards Mrs. Stowe, writing of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+story, said, "This story is to show how Jesus Christ,
+who liveth and was dead, and now is alive and forevermore,
+has still a mother's love for the poor and lowly,
+and that no man can sink so low but that Jesus Christ
+will stoop to take his hand. Who so low, who so poor,
+who so despised as the American slave? The law
+almost denies his existence as a person, and regards
+him for the most part as less than a man&mdash;a mere
+thing, the property of another. The law forbids him
+to read or write, to hold property, to make a contract,
+or even to form a legal marriage. It takes from him
+all legal right to the wife of his bosom, the children of
+his body. He can do nothing, possess nothing, acquire
+nothing, but what must belong to his master. Yet
+even to this slave Jesus Christ stoops, from where he
+sits at the right hand of the Father, and says, 'Fear
+not, thou whom man despiseth, for I am thy brother.
+Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee
+by thy name, thou art mine.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a work of religion; the
+fundamental principles of the gospel applied to the
+burning question of negro slavery. It sets forth those
+principles of the Declaration of Independence that
+made Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, and Patrick
+Henry anti-slavery men; not in the language of the
+philosopher, but in a series of pictures. Mrs. Stowe
+spoke to the understanding and moral sense through
+the imagination.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Tom's Cabin" made the enforcement of the
+Fugitive Slave Law an impossibility. It aroused the
+public sentiment of the world by presenting in the concrete
+that which had been a mere series of abstract<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+propositions. It was, as we have already said, an appeal
+to the imagination through a series of pictures.
+People are like children, and understand pictures better
+than words. Some one rushes into your dining-room
+while you are at breakfast and cries out, "Terrible
+railroad accident, forty killed and wounded, six were
+burned alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, shocking! dreadful!" you exclaim, and yet
+go quietly on with your rolls and coffee. But suppose
+you stood at that instant by the wreck, and saw the
+mangled dead, and heard the piercing shrieks of the
+wounded, you would be faint and dizzy with the intolerable
+spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>So "Uncle Tom's Cabin" made the crack of the
+slavedriver's whip, and the cries of the tortured blacks
+ring in every household in the land, till human hearts
+could endure it no longer.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.<br />
+
+<small>UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, 1852.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">"Uncle Tom's Cabin" as a Serial in the "National Era."&mdash;An
+Offer for its Publication in Book Form.&mdash;Will it be a
+Success?&mdash;An Unprecedented Circulation.&mdash;Congratulatory
+Messages.&mdash;Kind Words from Abroad.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe
+to the Earl of Carlisle.&mdash;Letters from and to Lord
+Shaftesbury.&mdash;Correspondence with Arthur Helps.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> wonderful story that was begun in the "National
+Era," June 5, 1851, and was announced to run
+for about three months, was not completed in that
+paper until April 1, 1852. It had been contemplated
+as a mere magazine tale of perhaps a dozen chapters,
+but once begun it could no more be controlled than the
+waters of the swollen Mississippi, bursting through a
+crevasse in its levees. The intense interest excited by
+the story, the demands made upon the author for more
+facts, the unmeasured words of encouragement to keep
+on in her good work that poured in from all sides, and
+above all the ever-growing conviction that she had been
+intrusted with a great and holy mission, compelled her
+to keep on until the humble tale had assumed the proportions
+of a volume prepared to stand among the most
+notable books in the world. As Mrs. Stowe has since
+repeatedly said, "I could not control the story; it
+wrote itself;" or "I the author of 'Uncle Tom's
+Cabin'? No, indeed. The Lord himself wrote it,
+and I was but the humblest of instruments in his hand.
+To Him alone should be given all the praise."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Although the publication of the "National Era" has
+been long since suspended, the journal was in those
+days one of decided literary merit and importance. On
+its title-page, with the name of Dr. Gamaliel Bailey as
+editor, appeared that of John Greenleaf Whittier as
+corresponding editor. In its columns Mrs. Southworth
+made her first literary venture, while Alice and Ph&oelig;be
+Cary, Grace Greenwood, and a host of other well-known
+names were published with that of Mrs. Stowe, which
+appeared last of all in its prospectus for 1851.</p>
+
+<p>Before the conclusion of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Mrs.
+Stowe had so far outstripped her contemporaries that
+her work was pronounced by competent judges to be
+the most powerful production ever contributed to the
+magazine literature of this country, and she stood in
+the foremost rank of American writers.</p>
+
+<p>After finishing her story Mrs. Stowe penned the following
+appeal to its more youthful readers, and its serial
+publication was concluded:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' must now take
+leave of a wide circle of friends whose faces she has
+never seen, but whose sympathies coming to her from
+afar have stimulated and cheered her in her work.</p>
+
+<p>"The thought of the pleasant family circles that she
+has been meeting in spirit week after week has been a
+constant refreshment to her, and she cannot leave them
+without a farewell.</p>
+
+<p>"In particular the dear children who have followed
+her story have her warmest love. Dear children, you
+will soon be men and women, and I hope that you will
+learn from this story always to remember and pity the
+poor and oppressed. When you grow up, show your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+pity by doing all you can for them. Never, if you can
+help it, let a colored child be shut out from school or
+treated with neglect and contempt on account of his
+color. Remember the sweet example of little Eva, and
+try to feel the same regard for all that she did. Then,
+when you grow up, I hope the foolish and unchristian
+prejudice against people merely on account of their
+complexion will be done away with.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, dear children, until we meet again."</p>
+
+<p>With the completion of the story the editor of the
+"Era" wrote: "Mrs. Stowe has at last brought her
+great work to a close. We do not recollect any production
+of an American writer that has excited more
+general and profound interest."</p>
+
+<p>For the story as a serial the author received $300.
+In the mean time, however, it had attracted the attention
+of Mr. John P. Jewett, a Boston publisher, who
+promptly made overtures for its publication in book
+form. He offered Mr. and Mrs. Stowe a half share in
+the profits, provided they would share with him the expense
+of publication. This was refused by Professor
+Stowe, who said he was altogether too poor to assume
+any such risk; and the agreement finally made was that
+the author should receive a ten per cent. royalty upon
+all sales.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe had no reason to hope for any large
+pecuniary gain from this publication, for it was practically
+her first book. To be sure, she had, in 1832, prepared
+a small school geography for a Western publisher,
+and ten years later the Harpers had brought out her
+"Mayflower." Still, neither of these had been sufficiently
+remunerative to cause her to regard literary work<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+as a money-making business, and in regard to this new
+contract she writes: "I did not know until a week afterward
+precisely what terms Mr. Stowe had made, and I
+did not care. I had the most perfect indifference to
+the bargain."</p>
+
+<p>The agreement was signed March 13, 1852, and, as
+by arrangement with the "National Era" the book
+publication of the story was authorized before its completion
+as a serial, the first edition of five thousand
+copies was issued on the twentieth of the same month.</p>
+
+<p>In looking over the first semi-annual statement presented
+by her publishers we find Mrs. Stowe charged,
+a few days before the date of publication of her book,
+with "one copy U. T. C. cloth $.56," and this was the
+first copy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ever sold in book
+form. Five days earlier we find her charged with one
+copy of Horace Mann's speeches. In writing of this
+critical period of her life Mrs. Stowe says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"After sending the last proof-sheet to the office I
+sat alone reading Horace Mann's eloquent plea for these
+young men and women, then about to be consigned to
+the slave warehouse of Bruin &amp; Hill in Alexandria, Va.,&mdash;a
+plea impassioned, eloquent, but vain, as all other
+pleas on that side had ever proved in all courts hitherto.
+It seemed that there was no hope, that nobody would
+hear, nobody would read, nobody pity; that this frightful
+system, that had already pursued its victims into
+the free States, might at last even threaten them in
+Canada."<a name="FNanchor_10_11" id="FNanchor_10_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_11" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p>Filled with this fear, she determined to do all that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+one woman might to enlist the sympathies of England
+for the cause, and to avert, even as a remote contingency,
+the closing of Canada as a haven of refuge for
+the oppressed. To this end she at once wrote letters
+to Prince Albert, to the Duke of Argyll, to the Earls
+of Carlisle and Shaftesbury, to Macaulay, Dickens, and
+others whom she knew to be interested in the cause of
+anti-slavery. These she ordered to be sent to their
+several addresses, accompanied by the very earliest
+copies of her book that should be printed.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a href="images/i160-big.jpg"><img src="images/i160.jpg" width="600" height="672" alt="Handwritten transcript of start of Uncle Tom's Cabin" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then, having done what she could, and committed
+the result to God, she calmly turned her attention to
+other affairs.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time the fears of the author as to whether
+or not her book would be read were quickly dispelled.
+Three thousand copies were sold the very first day, a
+second edition was issued the following week, a third on
+the 1st of April, and within a year one hundred and
+twenty editions, or over three hundred thousand copies
+of the book, had been issued and sold in this country.
+Almost in a day the poor professor's wife had become
+the most talked-of woman in the world, her influence for
+good was spreading to its remotest corners, and henceforth
+she was to be a public character, whose every
+movement would be watched with interest, and whose
+every word would be quoted. The long, weary struggle
+with poverty was to be hers no longer; for, in seeking
+to aid the oppressed, she had also so aided herself that
+within four months from the time her book was published
+it had yielded her $10,000 in royalties.</p>
+
+<p>Now letters regarding the wonderful book, and expressing
+all shades of opinion concerning it, began to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+pour in upon the author. Her lifelong friend, whose
+words we have already so often quoted, wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I sat up last night until long after one o'clock reading
+and finishing 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' I could not
+leave it any more than I could have left a dying child,
+nor could I restrain an almost hysterical sobbing for an
+hour after I laid my head upon my pillow. I thought
+I was a thorough-going abolitionist before, but your
+book has awakened so strong a feeling of indignation
+and of compassion that I never seem to have had any
+feeling on this subject until now."</p>
+
+<p>The poet Longfellow wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>I congratulate you most cordially upon the immense
+success and influence of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It is
+one of the greatest triumphs recorded in literary history,
+to say nothing of the higher triumph of its moral
+effect.</p>
+
+<p>With great regard, and friendly remembrance to Mr.
+Stowe, I remain,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours most truly,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Henry W. Longfellow</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Whittier wrote to Garrison:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What a glorious work Harriet Beecher Stowe has
+wrought. Thanks for the Fugitive Slave Law! Better
+would it be for slavery if that law had never been enacted;
+for it gave occasion for 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"</p>
+
+<p>Garrison wrote to Mrs. Stowe:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I estimate the value of anti-slavery writing by the
+abuse it brings. Now all the defenders of slavery have
+let me alone and are abusing you."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To Mrs. Stowe, Whittier wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Ten thousand thanks for thy immortal book. My
+young friend Mary Irving (of the "Era") writes me
+that she has been reading it to some twenty young
+ladies, daughters of Louisiana slaveholders, near New
+Orleans, and amid the scenes described in it, and that
+they, with one accord, pronounce it true.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Truly thy friend,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">John G. Whittier</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>From Thomas Wentworth Higginson came the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>To have written at once the most powerful of contemporary
+fictions and the most efficient of anti-slavery
+tracts is a double triumph in literature and philanthropy,
+to which this country has heretofore seen no
+parallel.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours respectfully and gratefully,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">T. W. Higginson</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>A few days after the publication of the book, Mrs.
+Stowe, writing from Boston to her husband in Brunswick,
+says: "I have been in such a whirl ever since I
+have been here. I found business prosperous. Jewett
+animated. He has been to Washington and conversed
+with all the leading senators, Northern and Southern.
+Seward told him it was the greatest book of the times,
+or something of that sort, and he and Sumner went
+around with him to recommend it to Southern men and
+get them to read it."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is true that with these congratulatory and commendatory
+letters came hosts of others, threatening and
+insulting, from the Haleys and Legrees of the country.</p>
+
+<p>Of them Mrs. Stowe said: "They were so curiously
+compounded of blasphemy, cruelty, and obscenity, that
+their like could only be expressed by John Bunyan's
+account of the speech of Apollyon: 'He spake as a
+dragon.'"</p>
+
+<p>A correspondent of the "National Era" wrote:
+"'Uncle Tom's Cabin' is denounced by time-serving
+preachers as a meretricious work. Will you not come
+out in defense of it and roll back the tide of vituperation?"</p>
+
+<p>To this the editor answered: "We should as soon
+think of coming out in defense of Shakespeare."</p>
+
+<p>Several attempts were made in the South to write
+books controverting "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and showing
+a much brighter side of the slavery question, but
+they all fell flat and were left unread. Of one of
+them, a clergyman of Charleston, S. C., wrote in a private
+letter:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<p>"I have read two columns in the 'Southern Press'
+of Mrs. Eastman's 'Aunt Phillis' Cabin, or Southern
+Life as it is,' with the remarks of the editor. I have
+no comment to make on it, as that is done by itself.
+The editor might have saved himself being writ down
+an ass by the public if he had withheld his nonsense.
+If the two columns are a fair specimen of Mrs. Eastman's
+book, I pity her attempt and her name as an
+author."</p>
+
+<p>In due time Mrs. Stowe began to receive answers to
+the letters she had forwarded with copies of her book<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+to prominent men in England, and these were without
+exception flattering and encouraging. Through his
+private secretary Prince Albert acknowledged with
+thanks the receipt of his copy, and promised to read it.
+Succeeding mails brought scores of letters from English
+men of letters and statesmen. Lord Carlisle wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I return my deep and solemn thanks to Almighty
+God who has led and enabled you to write such a book.
+I do feel indeed the most thorough assurance that in
+his good Providence such a book cannot have been
+written in vain. I have long felt that slavery is by
+far the <i>topping</i> question of the world and age we live
+in, including all that is most thrilling in heroism and
+most touching in distress; in short, the real epic of the
+universe. The self-interest of the parties most nearly
+concerned on the one hand, the apathy and ignorance
+of unconcerned observers on the other, have left these
+august pretensions to drop very much out of sight.
+Hence my rejoicing that a writer has appeared who
+will be read and must be felt, and that happen what
+may to the transactions of slavery they will no longer
+be suppressed."</p>
+
+<p>To this letter, of which but an extract has been
+given, Mrs. Stowe sent the following reply:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Lord</span>,&mdash;It is not with the common pleasure of
+gratified authorship that I say how much I am gratified
+by the receipt of your very kind communication with
+regard to my humble efforts in the cause of humanity.
+The subject is one so grave, so awful&mdash;the success of
+what I have written has been so singular and so unexpected&mdash;that
+I can scarce retain a self-consciousness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+and am constrained to look upon it all as the work of a
+Higher Power, who, when He pleases, can accomplish
+his results by the feeblest instruments. I am glad of
+anything which gives notoriety to the book, because it
+is a plea for the dumb and the helpless! I am glad
+particularly of notoriety in England because I see with
+what daily increasing power England's opinion is to act
+on this country. No one can tell but a <i>native</i> born
+here by what an infinite complexity of ties, nerves, and
+ligaments this terrible evil is bound in one body politic;
+how the slightest touch upon it causes even the free
+States to thrill and shiver, what a terribly corrupting
+and tempting power it has upon the conscience and
+moral sentiment even of a free community. Nobody
+can tell the thousand ways in which by trade, by family
+affinity, or by political expediency, the free part of
+our country is constantly tempted to complicity with
+the slaveholding part. It is a terrible thing to become
+used to hearing the enormities of slavery, to hear of
+things day after day that one would think the sun
+should hide his face from, and yet, to <i>get used to them</i>,
+to discuss them coolly, to dismiss them coolly. For
+example, the sale of intelligent, handsome colored
+females for vile purposes, facts of the most public
+nature, have made this a perfectly understood matter
+in our Northern States. I have now, myself, under
+charge and educating, two girls of whose character any
+mother might be proud, who have actually been rescued
+from this sale in the New Orleans market.</p>
+
+<p>I desire to inclose a tract<a name="FNanchor_11_12" id="FNanchor_11_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_12" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> in which I sketched down
+a few incidents in the history of the family to which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+these girls belong; it will show more than words can
+the kind of incident to which I allude. The tract is
+not a published document, only <i>printed</i> to assist me in
+raising money, and it would not, at present, be for the
+good of the parties to have it published even in England.</p>
+
+<p>But though these things are known in the free
+States, and other things, if possible, worse, yet there is
+a terrible deadness of moral sense. They are known
+by clergymen who yet would not on any account so far
+commit themselves as to preach on the evils of slavery,
+or pray for the slaves in their pulpits. They are
+known by politicians who yet give their votes for slavery
+extension and perpetuation.</p>
+
+<p>This year both our great leading parties voted to
+suppress all agitation of the subject, and in both those
+parties were men who knew personally facts of slavery
+and the internal slave-trade that one would think no
+man could ever forget. Men <i>united</i> in pledging themselves
+to the Fugitive Slave Law, who yet would tell
+you in private conversation that it was an abomination,
+and who do not hesitate to say, that as a matter of
+practice they always help the fugitive because they
+<i>can't</i> do otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>The moral effect of this constant insincerity, the
+moral effect of witnessing and becoming accustomed to
+the most appalling forms of crime and oppression, is to
+me the most awful and distressing part of the subject.
+Nothing makes me feel it so painfully as to see with
+how much more keenness the English feel the disclosures
+of my book than the Americans. I myself am
+blunted by use&mdash;by seeing, touching, handling the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+details. In dealing even for the ransom of slaves, in
+learning market prices of men, women, and children, I
+feel that I acquire a horrible familiarity with evil.</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, the great, wise, and powerful mind of
+England, if she will but fully master the subject, may
+greatly help us. Hers is the same kind of mind as
+our own, but disembarrassed from our temptations and
+unnerved by the thousands of influences that blind and
+deaden us. There is a healthful vivacity of moral feeling
+on this subject that must electrify our paralyzed
+vitality. For this reason, therefore, I rejoice when I
+see minds like your lordship's turning to this subject;
+and I feel an intensity of emotion, as if I could say, Do
+not for Christ's sake let go; you know not what you
+may do.</p>
+
+<p>Your lordship will permit me to send you two of the
+most characteristic documents of the present struggle,
+written by two men who are, in their way, as eloquent
+for the slave as Chatham was for us in our hour of
+need.</p>
+
+<p>I am now preparing some additional notes to my
+book, in which I shall further confirm what I have
+said by facts and statistics, and in particular by extracts
+from the <i>codes of slaveholding States</i>, and the
+<i>records of their courts</i>. These are documents that
+cannot be disputed, and I pray your lordship to give
+them your attention. No disconnected facts can be so
+terrible as these legal decisions. They will soon appear
+in England.</p>
+
+<p>It is so far from being irrelevant for England to
+notice slavery that I already see indications that this
+subject, on <i>both sides</i>, is yet to be presented there, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+the battle fought on <i>English ground</i>. I see that my
+friend the South Carolinian gentleman has sent to
+"Fraser's Magazine" an article; before published in
+this country, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The article in
+the London "Times" was eagerly reprinted in this
+country, was issued as a tract and sold by the hundred,
+headed, "What they think of 'Uncle Tom' in England."
+If I mistake not, a strong effort will be made
+to pervert the public mind of England, and to do away
+the impression which the book has left.</p>
+
+<p>For a time after it was issued it seemed to go by
+acclamation. From quarters the most unexpected, from
+all political parties, came an almost unbroken chorus of
+approbation. I was very much surprised, knowing the
+explosive nature of the subject. It was not till the
+sale had run to over a hundred thousand copies that
+reaction began, and the reaction was led off by the
+London "Times." Instantly, as by a preconcerted signal,
+all papers of a certain class began to abuse; and
+some who had at first issued articles entirely commendatory,
+now issued others equally depreciatory. Religious
+papers, notably the "New York Observer," came
+out and denounced the book as <i>anti-Christian</i>, anti-evangelical,
+resorting even to personal slander on the
+author as a means of diverting attention from the work.</p>
+
+<p>All this has a meaning, but I think it comes too
+late. I can think of no reason why it was not tried
+sooner, excepting that God had intended that the cause
+should have a hearing. It is strange that they should
+have waited so long for the political effect of a book
+which they might have foreseen at first; but not
+strange that they should, now they <i>do</i> see what it is
+doing, attempt to root it up.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The effects of the book so far have been, I think,
+these: 1st. To soften and moderate the bitterness of
+feeling in <i>extreme abolitionists</i>. 2d. To convert to
+abolitionist views many whom this same bitterness had
+repelled. 3d. To inspire the free colored people with
+self-respect, hope, and confidence. 4th. To inspire
+universally through the country a kindlier feeling toward
+the negro race.</p>
+
+<p>It was unfortunate for the cause of freedom that the
+first agitators of this subject were of that class which
+your lordship describes in your note as "well-meaning
+men." I speak sadly of their faults, for they were
+men of <i>noble</i> hearts. "But oppression maketh a wise
+man <i>mad</i>," and they spoke and did many things in the
+frenzy of outraged humanity that repelled sympathy
+and threw multitudes off to a hopeless distance. It is
+mournful to think of all the absurdities that have been
+said and done in the name and for the sake of this
+holy cause, that have so long and so fatally retarded it.</p>
+
+<p>I confess that I expected for myself nothing but
+abuse from extreme abolitionists, especially as I dared
+to name a forbidden shibboleth, "Liberia," and the
+fact that the wildest and extremest abolitionists united
+with the coldest conservatives, at first, to welcome and
+advance the book is a thing that I have never ceased
+to wonder at.</p>
+
+<p>I have written this long letter because I am extremely
+desirous that some leading minds in England
+should know how <i>we</i> stand. The subject is now on
+trial at the bar of a civilized world&mdash;a Christian
+world! and I feel sure that God has not ordered this
+without a design. Yours for the cause,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">Harriet Beecher Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In December the Earl of Shaftesbury wrote to Mrs.
+Stowe:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Madam</span>,&mdash;It is very possible that the writer of this
+letter may be wholly unknown to you. But whether
+my name be familiar to your ears, or whether you now
+read it for the first time, I cannot refrain from expressing
+to you the deep gratitude that I feel to Almighty
+God who has inspired both your heart and your head
+in the composition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." None
+but a Christian believer could have produced such a
+book as yours, which has absolutely startled the whole
+world, and impressed many thousands by revelations of
+cruelty and sin that give us an idea of what would be
+the uncontrolled dominion of Satan on this fallen earth.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To this letter Mrs. Stowe replied as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Andover</span>, <i>January 6, 1853.</i><br /></div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">To the Earl of Shaftesbury</span>:</div>
+
+<p><i>My Lord</i>,&mdash;The few lines I have received from you
+are a comfort and an encouragement to me, feeble as
+I now am in health, and pressed oftentimes with sorrowful
+thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>It is a comfort to know that in other lands there
+are those who feel as we feel, and who are looking with
+simplicity to the gospel of Jesus, and prayerfully hoping
+his final coming.</p>
+
+<p>My lord, before you wrote me I read with deep
+emotion your letter to the ladies of England, and subsequently
+the noble address of the Duchess of Sutherland,
+and I could not but feel that such movements,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+originating in such a quarter, prompted by a spirit so
+devout and benevolent, were truly of God, and must
+result in a blessing to the world.</p>
+
+<p>I grieve to see that both in England and this country
+there are those who are entirely incapable of appreciating
+the Christian and truly friendly feeling that
+prompted this movement, and that there are even those
+who meet it with coarse personalities such as I had not
+thought possible in an English or American paper.</p>
+
+<p>When I wrote my work it was in simplicity and in
+the love of Christ, and if I felt anything that seemed
+to me like a call to undertake it, it was this, that I had
+a true heart of love for the Southern people, a feeling
+appreciation of their trials, and a sincere admiration of
+their many excellent traits, and that I thus felt, I
+think, must appear to every impartial reader of the
+work.</p>
+
+<p>It was my hope that a book so kindly intended, so
+favorable in many respects, might be permitted free
+circulation among them, and that the gentle voice of
+Eva and the manly generosity of St. Clare might be
+allowed to say those things of the system which would
+be invidious in any other form.</p>
+
+<p>At first the book seemed to go by acclamation; the
+South did not condemn, and the North was loud and
+unanimous in praise; not a dissenting voice was raised;
+to my astonishment everybody praised. But when the
+book circulated so widely and began to penetrate the
+Southern States, when it began to be perceived how
+powerfully it affected every mind that read it, there
+came on a reaction.</p>
+
+<p>Answers, pamphlets, newspaper attacks came thick<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+and fast, and certain Northern papers, religious,&mdash;so
+called,&mdash;turned and began to denounce the work as unchristian,
+heretical, etc. The reason of all this is that
+it has been seen that the book has a direct tendency
+to do what it was written for,&mdash;to awaken conscience
+in the slaveholding States and lead to emancipation.</p>
+
+<p>Now there is nothing that Southern political leaders
+and capitalists so dread as anti-slavery feeling among
+themselves. All the force of lynch law is employed to
+smother discussion and blind conscience on this question.
+The question is not allowed to be discussed, and
+he who sells a book or publishes a tract makes himself
+liable to fine and imprisonment.</p>
+
+<p>My book is, therefore, as much under an interdict
+in some parts of the South as the Bible is in Italy. It
+is not allowed in the bookstores, and the greater part
+of the people hear of it and me only through grossly
+caricatured representations in the papers, with garbled
+extracts from the book.</p>
+
+<p>A cousin residing in Georgia this winter says that
+the prejudice against my name is so strong that she
+dares not have it appear on the outside of her letters,
+and that very amiable and excellent people have asked
+her if such as I could be received into reputable society
+at the North.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances, it is a matter of particular
+regret that the "New York Observer," an old and
+long-established religious paper in the United States,
+extensively read at the South, should have come out
+in such a bitter and unscrupulous style of attack as
+even to induce some Southern papers, with a generosity
+one often finds at the South, to protest against it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That they should use their Christian character and
+the sacred name of Christ still further to blind the
+minds and strengthen the prejudices of their Southern
+brethren is to me a matter of deepest sorrow. All
+those things, of course, cannot touch me in my private
+capacity, sheltered as I am by a happy home and very
+warm friends. I only grieve for it as a dishonor to
+Christ and a real injustice to many noble-minded people
+at the South, who, if they were allowed quietly and
+dispassionately to hear and judge, might be led to the
+best results.</p>
+
+<p>But, my lord, all this only shows us how strong is
+the interest we touch. <i>All the wealth of America</i>
+may be said to be interested in it. And, if I may judge
+from the furious and bitter tone of some English papers,
+they also have some sensitive connection with the evil.</p>
+
+<p>I trust that those noble and gentle ladies of England
+who have in so good a spirit expressed their views
+of the question will not be discouraged by the strong
+abuse that will follow. England is doing us good. We
+need the vitality of a disinterested country to warm our
+torpid and benumbed public sentiment.</p>
+
+<p>Nay, the storm of feeling which the book raises in
+Italy, Germany, and France is all good, though truly
+'tis painful for us Americans to bear. The fact is, we
+have become used to this frightful evil, and we need
+the public sentiment of the world to help us.</p>
+
+<p>I am now writing a work to be called "Key to Uncle
+Tom's Cabin." It contains, in an undeniable form, the
+facts which corroborate all that I have said. One third
+of it is taken up with judicial records of trials and
+decisions, and with statute law. It is a most fearful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+story, my lord,&mdash;I can truly say that I write with life-blood,
+but as called of God. I give in my evidence,
+and I hope that England may so fix the attention of the
+world on the facts of which I am the unwilling publisher,
+that the Southern States may be compelled to
+notice what hitherto they have denied and ignored. If
+they call the fiction dreadful, what will they say of the
+fact, where I cannot deny, suppress, or color? But it
+is God's will that it must be told, and I am the unwilling
+agent.</p>
+
+<p>This coming month of April, my husband and myself
+expect to sail for England on the invitation of the
+Anti-Slavery Society of the Ladies and Gentlemen of
+Glasgow, to confer with friends there.</p>
+
+<p>There are points where English people can do much
+good; there are also points where what they seek to do
+may be made more efficient by a little communion with
+those who know the feelings and habits of our countrymen:
+but I am persuaded that England can do much
+for us.</p>
+
+<p>My lord, they greatly mistake who see, in this movement
+of English Christians for the abolition of slavery,
+signs of disunion between the nations. It is the purest
+and best proof of friendship England has ever shown
+us, and will, I am confident, be so received. I earnestly
+trust that all who have begun to take in hand the cause
+will be in nothing daunted, but persevere to the end;
+for though everything else be against us, <i>Christ</i> is certainly
+on our side and He <i>must at last prevail</i>, and it
+will be done, "not by might, nor by power, but by His
+Spirit."</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours in Christian sincerity,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe also received a letter from Arthur Helps<a name="FNanchor_12_13" id="FNanchor_12_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_13" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>
+accompanying a review of her work written by himself
+and published in "Fraser's Magazine." In his letter
+Mr. Helps took exception to the comparison instituted
+in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" between the working-classes
+of England and the slaves of America. In her answer
+to this criticism and complaint Mrs. Stowe says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Arthur Helps</span>:</p>
+
+<p><i>My dear Sir</i>,&mdash;I cannot but say I am greatly
+obliged to you for the kind opinions expressed in your
+letter. On one point, however, it appears that my book
+has not faithfully represented to you the feelings of my
+heart. I mean in relation to the English nation as a
+nation. You will notice that the remarks on that subject
+occur in the <i>dramatic</i> part of the book, in the
+mouth of an intelligent Southerner. As a fair-minded
+person, bound to state for both sides all that could be
+said in the person of St. Clare, the best that could be
+said on that point, and what I know <i>is</i> in fact constantly
+reiterated, namely, that the laboring class of
+the South are in many respects, as to physical comfort,
+in a better condition than the poor of England.</p>
+
+<p>This is the slaveholder's stereotyped apology,&mdash;a
+defense it cannot be, unless two wrongs make one right.</p>
+
+<p>It is generally supposed among us that this estimate
+of the relative condition of the slaves and the poor of
+England is correct, and we base our ideas on reports
+made in Parliament and various documentary evidence;
+also such sketches as "London Labor and London Poor,"
+which have been widely circulated among us. The inference,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+however, which <i>we</i> of the freedom party draw
+from it, is <i>not</i> that the slave is, on the whole, in the
+best condition because of this striking difference; that
+in America the slave has not a recognized <i>human</i> character
+<i>in law, has not even an existence</i>, whereas in England
+the law recognizes and protects the meanest subject,
+in theory <i>always</i>, and in <i>fact</i> to a certain extent.
+A prince of the blood could not strike the meanest
+laborer without a liability to prosecution, in <i>theory</i> at
+least, and that is something. In America any man
+may strike any slave he meets, and if the master does
+not choose to notice it, he has no redress.</p>
+
+<p>I do not suppose <i>human nature</i> to be widely different
+in England and America. In both countries, when any
+class holds power and wealth by institutions which in
+the long run bring misery on lower classes, they are
+very unwilling still to part with that wealth and power.
+They are unwilling to be convinced that it is their duty,
+and unwilling to do it if they are. It is always so
+everywhere; it is not English nature or American nature,
+but human nature. We have seen in England the battle
+for popular rights fought step by step with as determined
+a resistance from parties in possession as the
+slaveholder offers in America.</p>
+
+<p>There was the same kind of resistance in certain quarters
+there to the laws restricting the employing of young
+children eighteen hours a day in factories, as there is
+here to the anti-slavery effort.</p>
+
+<p>Again, in England as in America, there are, in those
+very classes whose interests are most invaded by what
+are called popular rights, some of the most determined
+supporters of them, and here I think that the balance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+preponderates in favor of England. I think there are
+more of the high nobility of England who are friends
+of the common people and willing to help the cause of
+human progress, irrespective of its influence on their own
+interests, than there are those of a similar class among
+slaveholding aristocracy, though even that class is not
+without such men. But I am far from having any of
+that senseless prejudice against the English nation as a
+nation which, greatly to my regret, I observe sometimes
+in America. It is a relic of barbarism for two such
+nations as England and America to cherish any such
+unworthy prejudice.</p>
+
+<p>For my own part, I am proud to be of English blood;
+and though I do not think England's national course
+faultless, and though I think many of her institutions
+and arrangements capable of much revision and improvement,
+yet my heart warms to her as, <i>on the whole</i>,
+the strongest, greatest, and best nation on earth. Have
+not England and America one blood, one language,
+one literature, and a glorious literature it is! Are not
+Milton and Shakespeare, and all the wise and brave
+and good of old, common to us both, and should there
+be anything but cordiality between countries that have
+so glorious an inheritance in common? If there is, it
+will be elsewhere than in hearts like mine.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Sincerely yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.<br />
+
+<small>FIRST TRIP TO EUROPE, 1853.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">The Edmondsons.&mdash;Buying Slaves to set them Free.&mdash;Jenny
+Lind.&mdash;Professor Stowe is called to Andover.&mdash;Fitting
+up the New Home.&mdash;The "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin."&mdash;"Uncle
+Tom" Abroad.&mdash;How it was Published in England.&mdash;Preface
+to the European Edition.&mdash;The Book in
+France.&mdash;In Germany.&mdash;A Greeting from Charles Kingsley.&mdash;Preparing
+to visit Scotland.&mdash;Letter to Mrs. Follen.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Very</span> soon after the publication of "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin" Mrs. Stowe visited her brother Henry in Brooklyn,
+and while there became intensely interested in the
+case of the Edmondsons, a slave family of Washington,
+D. C. Emily and Mary two of the daughters of Paul
+(a free colored man) and Milly (a slave) Edmondson,
+had, for trying to escape from bondage, been sold to a
+trader for the New Orleans market. While they were
+lying in jail in Alexandria awaiting the making up of
+a gang for the South, their heartbroken father determined
+to visit the North and try to beg from a freedom-loving
+people the money with which to purchase
+his daughters' liberty. The sum asked by the trader
+was $2,250, but its magnitude did not appall the brave
+old man, and he set forth upon his quest full of faith
+that in some way he would secure it.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching New York, he went to the anti-slavery
+bureau and related his pitiful story. The sum demanded
+was such a large one and seemed so exorbitant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+that even those who took the greatest interest in
+the case were disheartened over the prospect of raising
+it. The old man was finally advised to go to Henry
+Ward Beecher and ask his aid. He made his way to
+the door of the great Brooklyn preacher's house, but,
+overcome by many disappointments and fearing to meet
+with another rebuff, hesitated to ring the bell, and sat
+down on the steps with tears streaming from his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>There Mr. Beecher found him, learned his story, and
+promised to do what he could. There was a great
+meeting in Plymouth Church that evening, and, taking
+the old colored man with him to it, Mrs. Stowe's
+brother made such an eloquent and touching appeal on
+behalf of the slave girls as to rouse his audience to
+profound indignation and pity. The entire sum of
+$2,250 was raised then and there, and the old man,
+hardly able to realize his great joy, was sent back to his
+despairing children with their freedom money in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>All this had happened in the latter part of 1848, and
+Mrs. Stowe had first known of the liberated girls in
+1851, when she had been appealed to for aid in educating
+them. From that time forward she became personally
+responsible for all their expenses while they
+remained in school, and until the death of one of them
+in 1853.</p>
+
+<p>Now during her visit to New York in the spring of
+1852 she met their old mother, Milly Edmondson, who
+had come North in the hope of saving her two remaining
+slave children, a girl and a young man, from falling
+into the trader's clutches. Twelve hundred dollars was
+the sum to be raised, and by hard work the father had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+laid by one hundred of it when a severe illness put an
+end to his efforts. After many prayers and much consideration
+of the matter, his feeble old wife said to him
+one day, "Paul, I'm a gwine up to New York myself
+to see if I can't get that money."</p>
+
+<p>Her husband objected that she was too feeble, that
+she would be unable to find her way, and that Northern
+people had got tired of buying slaves to set them
+free, but the resolute old woman clung to her purpose
+and finally set forth. Reaching New York she made
+her way to Mr. Beecher's house, where she was so fortunate
+as to find Mrs. Stowe. Now her troubles were at
+an end, for this champion of the oppressed at once
+made the slave woman's cause her own and promised
+that her children should be redeemed. She at once set
+herself to the task of raising the purchase-money, not
+only for Milly's children, but for giving freedom to the
+old slave woman herself. On May 29, she writes to her
+husband in Brunswick:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The mother of the Edmondson girls, now aged and
+feeble, is in the city. I did not actually know when I
+wrote 'Uncle Tom' of a living example in which Christianity
+had reached its fullest development under the
+crushing wrongs of slavery, but in this woman I see it.
+I never knew before what I could feel till, with her sorrowful,
+patient eyes upon me, she told me her history
+and begged my aid. The expression of her face as she
+spoke, and the depth of patient sorrow in her eyes, was
+beyond anything I ever saw.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' said I, when she had finished, 'set your
+heart at rest; you and your children shall be redeemed.
+If I can't raise the money otherwise, I will pay it myself.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
+You should have seen the wonderfully sweet,
+solemn look she gave me as she said, 'The Lord bless
+you, my child!'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I have received a sweet note from Jenny
+Lind, with her name and her husband's with which to
+head my subscription list. They give a hundred dollars.
+Another hundred is subscribed by Mr. Bowen in
+his wife's name, and I have put my own name down for
+an equal amount. A lady has given me twenty-five
+dollars, and Mr. Storrs has pledged me fifty dollars.
+Milly and I are to meet the ladies of Henry's and Dr.
+Cox's churches to-morrow, and she is to tell them her
+story. I have written to Drs. Bacon and Dutton in
+New Haven to secure a similar meeting of ladies there.
+I mean to have one in Boston, and another in Portland.
+It will do good to the givers as well as to the
+receivers.</p>
+
+<p>"But all this time I have been so longing to get
+your letter from New Haven, for I heard it was there.
+It is not fame nor praise that contents me. I seem
+never to have needed love so much as now. I long to
+hear you say how much you love me. Dear one, if this
+effort impedes my journey home, and wastes some of
+my strength, you will not murmur. When I see this
+Christlike soul standing so patiently bleeding, yet forgiving,
+I feel a sacred call to be the helper of the helpless,
+and it is better that my own family do without me
+for a while longer than that this mother lose all. <i>I
+must redeem her.</i></p>
+
+<p>"<i>New Haven, June 2.</i> My old woman's case progresses
+gloriously. I am to see the ladies of this place
+to-morrow. Four hundred dollars were contributed by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
+individuals in Brooklyn, and the ladies who took subscription
+papers at the meeting will undoubtedly raise
+two hundred dollars more."</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving New York, Mrs. Stowe gave Milly
+Edmondson her check for the entire sum necessary to
+purchase her own freedom and that of her children,
+and sent her home rejoicing. That this sum was made
+up to her by the generous contributions of those to
+whom she appealed is shown by a note written to her
+husband and dated July, 1852, in which she says:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<p>"Had a very kind note from A. Lawrence inclosing
+a twenty-dollar gold-piece for the Edmondsons. Isabella's
+ladies gave me twenty-five dollars, so you see
+our check is more than paid already."</p>
+
+<p>Although during her visit in New York Mrs. Stowe
+made many new friends, and was overwhelmed with
+congratulations and praise of her book, the most pleasing
+incident of this time seems to have been an epistolatory
+interview with Jenny Lind (Goldschmidt). In
+writing of it to her husband she says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we have heard Jenny Lind, and the affair
+was a bewildering dream of sweetness and beauty.
+Her face and movements are full of poetry and feeling.
+She has the artless grace of a little child, the poetic
+effect of a wood-nymph, is airy, light, and graceful.</p>
+
+<p>"We had first-rate seats, and how do you think we
+got them? When Mr. Howard went early in the
+morning for tickets, Mr. Goldschmidt told him it was
+impossible to get any good ones, as they were all sold.
+Mr. Howard said he regretted that, on Mrs. Stowe's account,
+as she was very desirous of hearing Jenny Lind.
+'Mrs. Stowe!' exclaimed Mr. Goldschmidt, 'the author<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? Indeed, she shall have a
+seat whatever happens!'</p>
+
+<p>"Thereupon he took his hat and went out, returning
+shortly with tickets for two of the best seats in the
+house, inclosed in an envelope directed to me in his
+wife's handwriting. Mr. Howard said he could have
+sold those tickets at any time during the day for ten
+dollars each.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day I sent a note of acknowledgment with a
+copy of my book. I am most happy to have seen her,
+for she is a noble creature."</p>
+
+<p>To this note the great singer wrote in answer:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Madam</span>,&mdash;Allow me to express my sincere
+thanks for your very kind letter, which I was very
+happy to receive.</p>
+
+<p>You must feel and know what a deep impression
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" has made upon every heart that
+can feel for the dignity of human existence: so I with
+my miserable English would not even try to say a word
+about the great excellency of that most beautiful book,
+but I must thank you for the great joy I have felt over
+that book.</p>
+
+<p>Forgive me, my dear madam: it is a great liberty I
+take in thus addressing you, I know, but I have so
+wished to find an opportunity to pour out my thankfulness
+in a few words to you that I cannot help this
+intruding. I have the feeling about "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin" that great changes will take place by and by,
+from the impression people receive out of it, and that
+the writer of that book can fall asleep to-day or to-morrow
+with the bright, sweet conscience of having<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+been a strong means in the Creator's hand of operating
+essential good in one of the most important questions
+for the welfare of our black brethren. God bless and
+protect you and yours, dear madam, and certainly God's
+hand will remain with a blessing over your head.</p>
+
+<p>Once more forgive my bad English and the liberty
+I have taken, and believe me to be, dear madam,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours most truly,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Jenny Goldschmidt</span>, <i>née</i> <span class="smcap">Lind</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>In answer to Mrs. Stowe's appeal on behalf of the
+Edmonsons, Jenny Lind wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Stowe</span>,&mdash;I have with great interest
+read your statement of the black family at Washington.
+It is with pleasure also that I and my husband
+are placing our humble names on the list you sent.</p>
+
+<p>The time is short. I am very, very sorry that I shall
+not be able to <i>see</i> you. I must say farewell to you in
+this way. Hoping that in the length of time you may
+live to witness the progression of the good sake for
+which you so nobly have fought, my best wishes go
+with you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours in friendship,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Jenny Goldschmidt</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>While Mrs. Stowe was thus absent from home, her
+husband received and accepted a most urgent call to
+the Professorship of Sacred Literature in the Theological
+Seminary at Andover, Mass.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to leaving Brunswick and her many
+friends there, Mrs. Stowe wrote: "For my part, if I
+<i>must</i> leave Brunswick, I would rather leave at once. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+can tear away with a sudden pull more easily than to
+linger there knowing that I am to leave at last. I
+shall never find people whom I shall like better than
+those of Brunswick."</p>
+
+<p>As Professor Stowe's engagements necessitated his
+spending much of the summer in Brunswick, and also
+making a journey to Cincinnati, it devolved upon his
+wife to remain in Andover, and superintend the preparation
+of the house they were to occupy. This was
+known as the old stone workshop, on the west side of
+the Common, and it had a year or two before been
+fitted up by Charles Munroe and Jonathan Edwards<a name="FNanchor_13_14" id="FNanchor_13_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_14" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>
+as the Seminary gymnasium. Beneath Mrs. Stowe's
+watchful care and by the judicious expenditure of
+money, it was transformed by the first of November
+into the charming abode which under the name of
+"The Cabin" became noted as one of the pleasantest
+literary centres of the country. Here for many years
+were received, and entertained in a modest way, many
+of the most distinguished people of this and other
+lands, and here were planned innumerable philanthropic
+undertakings in which Mrs. Stowe and her scholarly
+husband were the prime movers.</p>
+
+<p>The summer spent in preparing this home was one
+of great pleasure as well as literary activity. In July
+Mrs. Stowe writes to her husband: "I had no idea this
+place was so beautiful. Our family circle is charming.
+All the young men are so gentlemanly and so agreeable,
+as well as Christian in spirit. Mr. Dexter, his
+wife, and sister are delightful. Last evening a party
+of us went to ride on horseback down to Pomp's Pond.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+What a beautiful place it is! There is everything here
+that there is at Brunswick except the sea,&mdash;a great exception.
+Yesterday I was out all the forenoon sketching
+elms. There is no end to the beauty of these trees.
+I shall fill my book with them before I get through.
+We had a levee at Professor Park's last week,&mdash;quite a
+brilliant affair. To-day there is to be a fishing party
+to go to Salem beach and have a chowder.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i186.jpg" width="600" height="394" alt="another house, more horses" />
+<div class="caption">THE ANDOVER HOME</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"It seems almost too good to be true that we are
+going to have such a house in such a beautiful place,
+and to live here among all these agreeable people,
+where everybody seems to love you so much and to
+think so much of you. I am almost afraid to accept it,
+and should not, did I not see the Hand that gives it all
+and know that it is both firm and true. He knows if
+it is best for us, and His blessing addeth no sorrow
+therewith. I cannot describe to you the constant undercurrent
+of love and joy and peace ever flowing
+through my soul. I am so happy&mdash;so blessed!"</p>
+
+<p>The literary work of this summer was directed toward
+preparing articles on many subjects for the "New
+York Independent" and the "National Era," as well
+as collecting material for future books. That the
+"Pearl of Orr's Island," which afterward appeared as a
+serial in the "Independent," was already contemplated,
+is shown by a letter written July 29th, in which Mrs.
+Stowe says: "What a lovely place Andover is! So
+many beautiful walks! Last evening a number of us
+climbed Prospect Hill, and had a most charming walk.
+Since I came here we have taken up hymn-singing to
+quite an extent, and while we were all up on the hill
+we sang 'When I can read my title clear.' It went
+finely.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I seem to have so much to fill my time, and yet
+there is my Maine story waiting. However, I am composing
+it every day, only I greatly need living studies
+for the filling in of my sketches. There is 'old Jonas,'
+my 'fish father,' a sturdy, independent fisherman
+farmer, who in his youth sailed all over the world and
+made up his mind about everything. In his old age
+he attends prayer-meetings and reads the 'Missionary
+Herald.' He also has plenty of money in an old brown
+sea-chest. He is a great heart with an inflexible will
+and iron muscles. I must go to Orr's Island and see
+him again. I am now writing an article for the 'Era'
+on Maine and its scenery, which I think is even better
+than the 'Independent' letter. In it I took up Longfellow.
+Next I shall write one on Hawthorne and his
+surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day Mrs. Jewett sent out a most solemnly savage
+attack upon me from the 'Alabama Planter.'
+Among other things it says: 'The plan for assaulting
+the best institutions in the world may be made just as
+rational as it is by the wicked (perhaps unconsciously
+so) authoress of this book. The woman who wrote it
+must be either a very bad or a very fanatical person.
+For her own domestic peace we trust no enemy will
+ever penetrate into her household to pervert the scenes
+he may find there with as little logic or kindness as she
+has used in her "Uncle Tom's Cabin."' There's for
+you! Can you wonder now that such a wicked woman
+should be gone from you a full month instead of the
+week I intended? Ah, welladay!"</p>
+
+<p>At last the house was finished, the removal from
+Brunswick effected, and the reunited family was comfortably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+settled in its Andover home. The plans for
+the winter's literary work were, however, altered by
+force of circumstances. Instead of proceeding quietly
+and happily with her charming Maine story, Mrs. Stowe
+found it necessary to take notice in some manner of
+the cruel and incessant attacks made upon her as the
+author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and to fortify herself
+against them by a published statement of incontrovertible
+facts. It was claimed on all sides that she had in
+her famous book made such ignorant or malicious misrepresentations
+that it was nothing short of a tissue of
+falsehoods, and to refute this she was compelled to
+write a "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which should
+appear the sources from which she had obtained her
+knowledge. Late in the winter Mrs. Stowe wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am now very much driven. I am preparing a
+Key to unlock 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' It will contain
+all the original facts, anecdotes, and documents on
+which the story is founded, with some very interesting
+and affecting stories parallel to those told of Uncle
+Tom. Now I want you to write for me just what you
+heard that slave-buyer say, exactly as he said it, that
+people may compare it with what I have written. My
+Key will be stronger than the Cabin."</p>
+
+<p>In regard to this "Key" Mrs. Stowe also wrote to
+the Duchess of Sutherland upon hearing that she had
+headed an address from the women of England to those
+of America:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>It is made up of the facts, the documents, the
+things which my own eyes have looked upon and my
+hands have handled, that attest this awful indictment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+upon my country. I write it in the anguish of my
+soul, with tears and prayer, with sleepless nights and
+weary days. I bear my testimony with a heavy heart,
+as one who in court is forced by an awful oath to disclose
+the sins of those dearest.</p>
+
+<p>So I am called to draw up this fearful witness
+against my country and send it into all countries, that
+the general voice of humanity may quicken our paralyzed
+vitality, that all Christians may pray for us, and
+that shame, honor, love of country, and love of Christ
+may be roused to give us strength to cast out this
+mighty evil.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours for the oppressed,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>This harassing, brain-wearying, and heart-sickening
+labor was continued until the first of April, 1853, when,
+upon invitation of the Anti-Slavery Society of Glasgow,
+Scotland, Mrs. Stowe, accompanied by her husband and
+her brother, Charles Beecher, sailed for Europe.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time the success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
+abroad was already phenomenal and unprecedented.
+From the pen of Mr. Sampson Low, the well-known
+London publisher, we have the following interesting
+statement regarding it:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The first edition printed in London was in April,
+1852, by Henry Vizetelly, in a neat volume at ten and
+sixpence, of which he issued 7,000 copies. He received
+the first copy imported, through a friend who had
+bought it in Boston the day the steamer sailed, for his
+own reading. He gave it to Mr. V., who took it to
+the late Mr. David Bogue, well known for his general
+shrewdness and enterprise. He had the book to read<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+and consider over night, and in the morning returned
+it, declining to take it at the very moderate price of
+five pounds.</p>
+
+<p>"Vizetelly at once put the volume into the hands of a
+friendly printer and brought it out on his own account,
+through the nominal agency of Clarke &amp; Co. The
+7,000 copies sold, other editions followed, and Mr.
+Vizetelly disposed of his interest in the book to the
+printer and agent, who joined with Mr. Beeton and at
+once began to issue monster editions. The demand
+called for fresh supplies, and these created an increased
+demand. The discovery was soon made that any one
+was at liberty to reprint the book, and the initiative
+was thus given to a new era in cheap literature, founded
+on American reprints. A shilling edition followed the
+one-and-sixpence, and this in turn became the precursor
+of one 'complete for sixpence.' From April to December,
+1852, twelve different editions (not reissues)
+were published, and within the twelve months of its
+first appearance eighteen different London publishing
+houses were engaged in supplying the great demand
+that had set in, the total number of editions being
+forty, varying from fine art-illustrated editions at 15s.,
+10s., and 7s. 6d., to the cheap popular editions of 1s.,
+9d., and 6d.</p>
+
+<p>"After carefully analyzing these editions and weighing
+probabilities with ascertained facts, I am able pretty
+confidently to say that the aggregate number of copies
+circulated in Great Britain and the colonies exceeds
+one and a half millions."</p>
+
+<p>A similar statement made by Clarke &amp; Co. in October,
+1852, reveals the following facts. It says: "An early<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+copy was sent from America the latter end of April to
+Mr. Bogue, the publisher, and was offered by him to
+Mr. Gilpin, late of Bishopsgate Street. Being declined
+by Mr. Gilpin, Mr. Bogue offered it to Mr. Henry
+Vizetelly, and by the latter gentleman it was eventually
+purchased for us. Before printing it, however, as
+there was one night allowed for decision, one volume
+was taken home to be read by Mr. Vizetelly, and the
+other by Mr. Salisbury, the printer, of Bouverie Street.
+The report of the latter gentleman the following morning,
+to quote his own words, was: 'I sat up till four
+in the morning reading the book, and the interest I felt
+was expressed one moment by laughter, another by tears.
+Thinking it might be weakness and not the power of
+the author that affected me, I resolved to try the effect
+upon my wife (a rather strong-minded woman). I
+accordingly woke her and read a few chapters to her.
+Finding that the interest in the story kept her awake,
+and that she, too, laughed and cried, I settled in my
+mind that it was a book that ought to, and might with
+safety, be printed.'</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Vizetelly's opinion coincided with that of Mr.
+Salisbury, and to the latter gentleman it was confided
+to be brought out immediately. The week following
+the book was produced and one edition of 7,000 copies
+worked off. It made no stir until the middle of June,
+although we advertised it very extensively. From
+June it began to make its way, and it sold at the rate of
+1,000 per week during July. In August the demand
+became very great, and went on increasing to the 20th,
+by which time it was perfectly overwhelming. We
+have now about 400 people employed in getting out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
+the book, and seventeen printing machines besides hand
+presses. Already about 150,000 copies of the book
+are in the hands of the people, and still the returns of
+sales show no decline."</p>
+
+<p>The story was dramatized in the United States in
+August, 1852, without the consent or knowledge of
+the author, who had neglected to reserve her rights for
+this purpose. In September of the same year we find
+it announced as the attraction at two London theatres,
+namely, the Royal Victoria and the Great National
+Standard. In 1853 Professor Stowe writes: "The
+drama of 'Uncle Tom' has been going on in the National
+Theatre of New York all summer with most unparalleled
+success. Everybody goes night after night,
+and nothing can stop it. The enthusiasm beats that
+of the run in the Boston Museum out and out. The
+'Tribune' is full of it. The 'Observer,' the 'Journal
+of Commerce,' and all that sort of fellows, are astonished
+and nonplussed. They do not know what to say
+or do about it."</p>
+
+<p>While the English editions of the story were rapidly
+multiplying, and being issued with illustrations by
+Cruikshank, introductions by Elihu Burritt, Lord Carlisle,
+etc., it was also making its way over the Continent.
+For the authorized French edition, translated by Madame
+Belloc, and published by Charpentier of Paris,
+Mrs. Stowe wrote the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>PREFACE TO THE EUROPEAN EDITION.</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>In authorizing the circulation of this work on the
+Continent of Europe, the author has only this apology,
+that the love of <i>man</i> is higher than the love of country.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The great mystery which all Christian nations hold
+in common, the union of God with man through the
+humanity of Jesus Christ, invests human existence with
+an awful sacredness; and in the eye of the true believer
+in Jesus, he who tramples on the rights of his meanest
+fellow-man is not only inhuman but sacrilegious, and
+the worst form of this sacrilege is the institution of
+<i>slavery</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said that the representations of this book
+are exaggerations! and oh, <i>would</i> that this were true!
+Would that this book were indeed a fiction, and not a
+close mosaic of facts! But that it is not a fiction the
+proofs lie bleeding in thousands of hearts; they have
+been attested by surrounding voices from almost every
+slave State, and from slave-owners themselves. Since so
+it must be, thanks be to God that this mighty cry, this
+wail of an unutterable anguish, has at last been heard!</p>
+
+<p>It has been said, and not in utter despair but in solemn
+hope and assurance may we regard the struggle
+that now convulses America,&mdash;the outcry of the demon
+of slavery, which has heard the voice of Jesus of Nazareth,
+and is rending and convulsing the noble nation
+from which at last it must depart.</p>
+
+<p>It cannot be that so monstrous a solecism can long
+exist in the bosom of a nation which in all respects is
+the best exponent of the great principle of universal
+brotherhood. In America the Frenchman, the German,
+the Italian, the Swede, and the Irish all mingle on
+terms of equal right; all nations there display their
+characteristic excellences and are admitted by her liberal
+laws to equal privileges: everything is tending to
+liberalize, humanize, and elevate, and for that very reason<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
+it is that the contest with slavery there grows every
+year more terrible.</p>
+
+<p>The stream of human progress, widening, deepening,
+strengthening from the confluent forces of all nations,
+meets this barrier, behind which is concentrated all the
+ignorance, cruelty, and oppression of the dark ages, and
+it roars and foams and shakes the barrier, and anon it
+must bear it down.</p>
+
+<p>In its commencement slavery overspread every State
+in the Union: the progress of society has now emancipated
+the North from its yoke. In Kentucky, Tennessee,
+Virginia, and Maryland, at different times, strong
+movements have been made for emancipation,&mdash;movements
+enforced by a comparison of the progressive
+march of the adjoining free States with the poverty
+and sterility and ignorance produced by a system which
+in a few years wastes and exhausts all the resources of
+the soil without the power of renewal.</p>
+
+<p>The time cannot be distant when these States will
+emancipate for self-preservation; and if no new slave
+territory be added, the increase of slave population in
+the remainder will enforce measures of emancipation.</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, is the point of the battle. Unless more
+slave territory is gained, slavery dies; if it is gained, it
+lives. Around this point political parties fight and
+man&oelig;uvre, and every year the battle wages hotter.</p>
+
+<p>The internal struggles of no other nation in the
+world are so interesting to Europeans as those of
+America; for America is fast filling up from Europe,
+and every European has almost immediately his vote in
+her councils.</p>
+
+<p>If, therefore, the oppressed of other nations desire to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+find in America an asylum of permanent freedom, let
+them come prepared, heart and hand, and vote against
+the institution of slavery; for they who enslave man
+cannot themselves remain free.</p>
+
+<p>True are the great words of Kossuth: "No nation
+can remain free with whom freedom is a <i>privilege</i> and
+not a principle."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This preface was more or less widely copied in the
+twenty translations of the book that quickly followed
+its first appearance. These, arranged in the alphabetical
+order of their languages, are as follows: Armenian, Bohemian,
+Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Flemish, French, German,
+Hungarian, Illyrian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese,
+Romaic or modern Greek, Russian, Servian, Spanish,
+Wallachian, and Welsh.</p>
+
+<p>In Germany it received the following flattering notice
+from one of the leading literary journals: "The abolitionists
+in the United States should vote the author of
+'Uncle Tom's Cabin' a civic crown, for a more powerful
+ally than Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe and her
+romance they could not have. We confess that in the
+whole modern romance literature of Germany, England,
+and France, we know of no novel to be called equal to
+this. In comparison with its glowing eloquence that
+never fails of its purpose, its wonderful truth to nature,
+the largeness of its ideas, and the artistic faultlessness
+of the machinery in this book, George Sand, with her
+Spiridion and Claudie, appears to us untrue and artificial;
+Dickens, with his but too faithful pictures from the
+popular life of London, petty; Bulwer, hectic and self-conscious.
+It is like a sign of warning from the New
+World to the Old."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Madame George Sand reviewed the book, and spoke
+of Mrs. Stowe herself in words at once appreciative and
+discriminating: "Mrs. Stowe is all instinct; it is the
+very reason she appears to some not to have talent.
+Has she not talent? What is talent? Nothing, doubtless,
+compared to genius; but has she genius? She
+has genius as humanity feels the need of genius,&mdash;the
+genius of goodness, not that of the man of letters,
+but that of the saint."</p>
+
+<p>Charles Sumner wrote from the senate chamber at
+Washington to Professor Stowe: "All that I hear and
+read bears testimony to the good Mrs. Stowe has done.
+The article of George Sand is a most remarkable tribute,
+such as was hardly ever offered by such a genius to
+any living mortal. Should Mrs. Stowe conclude to visit
+Europe she will have a triumph."</p>
+
+<p>From Eversley parsonage Charles Kingsley wrote to
+Mrs. Stowe:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>A thousand thanks for your delightful letter. As
+for your progress and ovation here in England, I have
+no fear for you. You will be flattered and worshiped.
+You deserve it and you must bear it. I am sure that
+you have seen and suffered too much and too long to
+be injured by the foolish yet honest and heartfelt lionizing
+which you must go through.</p>
+
+<p>I have many a story to tell you when we meet about
+the effects of the great book upon the most unexpected
+people.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours ever faithfully,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">C. Kingsley</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>March 28, 1853, Professor Stowe sent the following
+communication to the Committee of Examination of the
+Theological Seminary at Andover: "As I shall not be
+present at the examinations this term, I think it proper
+to make to you a statement of the reasons of my absence.
+During the last winter I have not enjoyed my
+usual health. Mrs. Stowe also became sick and very
+much exhausted. At this time we had the offer of a
+voyage to Great Britain and back free of expense."</p>
+
+<p>This offer, coming as it did from the friends of the
+cause of emancipation in the United Kingdom, was
+gladly accepted by Mr. and Mrs. Stowe, and they sailed
+immediately.</p>
+
+<p>The preceding month Mrs. Stowe had received a letter
+from Mrs. Follen in London, asking for information
+with regard to herself, her family, and the circumstances
+of her writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin."</p>
+
+<p>In reply Mrs. Stowe sent the following very characteristic
+letter, which may be safely given at the risk of
+some repetition:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Andover</span>, <i>February 16, 1853.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Madam</span>,&mdash;I hasten to reply to your letter,
+to me the more interesting that I have long been acquainted
+with you, and during all the nursery part of
+my life made daily use of your poems for children.</p>
+
+<p>I used to think sometimes in those days that I would
+write to you, and tell you how much I was obliged to
+you for the pleasure which they gave us all.</p>
+
+<p>So you want to know something about what sort of
+a woman I am! Well, if this is any object, you shall
+have statistics free of charge. To begin, then, I am a
+little bit of a woman,&mdash;somewhat more than forty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+about as thin and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very
+much to look at in my best days, and looking like a
+used-up article now.</p>
+
+<p>I was married when I was twenty-five years old to a
+man rich in Greek and Hebrew, Latin and Arabic, and,
+alas! rich in nothing else. When I went to housekeeping,
+my entire stock of china for parlor and kitchen
+was bought for eleven dollars. That lasted very well
+for two years, till my brother was married and brought
+his bride to visit me. I then found, on review, that I
+had neither plates nor teacups to set a table for my
+father's family; wherefore I thought it best to reinforce
+the establishment by getting me a tea-set that cost ten
+dollars more, and this, I believe, formed my whole stock
+in trade for some years.</p>
+
+<p>But then I was abundantly enriched with wealth of
+another sort.</p>
+
+<p>I had two little, curly-headed twin daughters to begin
+with, and my stock in this line has gradually increased,
+till I have been the mother of seven children, the most
+beautiful and the most loved of whom lies buried near
+my Cincinnati residence. It was at his dying bed and
+at his grave that I learned what a poor slave mother
+may feel when her child is torn away from her. In
+those depths of sorrow which seemed to me immeasurable,
+it was my only prayer to God that such anguish
+might not be suffered in vain. There were circumstances
+about his death of such peculiar bitterness, of
+what seemed almost cruel suffering, that I felt that I
+could never be consoled for it, unless this crushing of
+my own heart might enable me to work out some great
+good to others.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I allude to this here because I have often felt that
+much that is in that book ("Uncle Tom") had its root
+in the awful scenes and bitter sorrows of that summer.
+It has left now, I trust, no trace on my mind, except a
+deep compassion for the sorrowful, especially for mothers
+who are separated from their children.</p>
+
+<p>During long years of struggling with poverty and
+sickness, and a hot, debilitating climate, my children
+grew up around me. The nursery and the kitchen were
+my principal fields of labor. Some of my friends, pitying
+my trials, copied and sent a number of little sketches
+from my pen to certain liberally paying "Annuals"
+with my name. With the first money that I earned in
+this way I bought a feather-bed! for as I had married
+into poverty and without a dowry, and as my husband
+had only a large library of books and a great deal of
+learning, the bed and pillows were thought the most
+profitable investment. After this I thought that I had
+discovered the philosopher's stone. So when a new carpet
+or mattress was going to be needed, or when, at the
+close of the year, it began to be evident that my family
+accounts, like poor Dora's, "wouldn't add up," then I
+used to say to my faithful friend and factotum Anna,
+who shared all my joys and sorrows, "Now, if you will
+keep the babies and attend to the things in the house
+for one day, I'll write a piece, and then we shall be out
+of the scrape." So I became an author,&mdash;very modest
+at first, I do assure you, and remonstrating very seriously
+with the friends who had thought it best to put
+my name to the pieces by way of getting up a reputation;
+and if you ever see a woodcut of me, with an
+immoderately long nose, on the cover of all the U. S.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+Almanacs, I wish you to take notice, that I have been
+forced into it contrary to my natural modesty by the
+imperative solicitations of my dear five thousand friends
+and the public generally. One thing I must say with
+regard to my life at the West, which you will understand
+better than many English women could.</p>
+
+<p>I lived two miles from the city of Cincinnati, in the
+country, and domestic service, not always you know to
+be found in the city, is next to an impossibility to obtain
+in the country, even by those who are willing to
+give the highest wages; so what was to be expected for
+poor me, who had very little of this world's goods to
+offer?</p>
+
+<p>Had it not been for my inseparable friend Anna, a
+noble-hearted English girl, who landed on our shores
+in destitution and sorrow, and clave to me as Ruth to
+Naomi, I had never lived through all the trials which
+this uncertainty and want of domestic service imposed
+on both: you may imagine, therefore, how glad I was
+when, our seminary property being divided out into
+small lots which were rented at a low price, a number
+of poor families settled in our vicinity, from whom we
+could occasionally obtain domestic service. About a
+dozen families of liberated slaves were among the number,
+and they became my favorite resort in cases of
+emergency. If anybody wishes to have a black face
+look handsome, let them be left, as I have been, in feeble
+health in oppressive hot weather, with a sick baby in
+arms, and two or three other little ones in the nursery,
+and not a servant in the whole house to do a single turn.
+Then, if they could see my good old Aunt Frankie coming
+with her honest, bluff, black face, her long, strong<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+arms, her chest as big and stout as a barrel, and her
+hilarious, hearty laugh, perfectly delighted to take one's
+washing and do it at a fair price, they would appreciate
+the beauty of black people.</p>
+
+<p>My cook, poor Eliza Buck,&mdash;how she would stare to
+think of her name going to England!&mdash;was a regular
+epitome of slave life in herself; fat, gentle, easy, loving
+and lovable, always calling my very modest house
+and door-yard "The Place," as if it had been a plantation
+with seven hundred hands on it. She had lived
+through the whole sad story of a Virginia-raised slave's
+life. In her youth she must have been a very handsome
+mulatto girl. Her voice was sweet, and her manners
+refined and agreeable. She was raised in a good
+family as a nurse and seamstress. When the family
+became embarrassed, she was suddenly sold on to a
+plantation in Louisiana. She has often told me how,
+without any warning, she was suddenly forced into a
+carriage, and saw her little mistress screaming and
+stretching her arms from the window towards her as
+she was driven away. She has told me of scenes on
+the Louisiana plantation, and she has often been out at
+night by stealth ministering to poor slaves who had
+been mangled and lacerated by the lash. Hence she
+was sold into Kentucky, and her last master was the
+father of all her children. On this point she ever
+maintained a delicacy and reserve that always appeared
+to me remarkable. She always called him her husband;
+and it was not till after she had lived with me some
+years that I discovered the real nature of the connection.
+I shall never forget how sorry I felt for her, nor
+my feelings at her humble apology, "You know, Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+Stowe, slave women cannot help themselves." She had
+two very pretty quadroon daughters, with her beautiful
+hair and eyes, interesting children, whom I had instructed
+in the family school with my children. Time
+would fail to tell you all that I learned incidentally of
+the slave system in the history of various slaves who
+came into my family, and of the underground railroad
+which, I may say, ran through our house. But the
+letter is already too long.</p>
+
+<p>You ask with regard to the remuneration which I
+have received for my work here in America. Having
+been poor all my life and expecting to be poor the rest
+of it, the idea of making money by a book which I
+wrote just because I could not help it, never occurred
+to me. It was therefore an agreeable surprise to receive
+ten thousand dollars as the first-fruits of three
+months' sale. I presume as much more is now due.
+Mr. Bosworth in England, the firm of Clarke &amp; Co.,
+and Mr. Bentley, have all offered me an interest in the
+sales of their editions in London. I am very glad of
+it, both on account of the value of what they offer,
+and the value of the example they set in this matter,
+wherein I think that justice has been too little regarded.</p>
+
+<p>I have been invited to visit Scotland, and shall probably
+spend the summer there and in England.</p>
+
+<p>I have very much at heart a design to erect in some
+of the Northern States a normal school, for the education
+of colored teachers in the United States and in
+Canada. I have very much wished that some permanent
+memorial of good to the colored race might be
+created out of the proceeds of a work which promises
+to have so unprecedented a sale. My own share of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+profits will be less than that of the publishers', either
+English or American; but I am willing to give largely
+for this purpose, and I have no doubt that the publishers,
+both American and English, will unite with me;
+for nothing tends more immediately to the emancipation
+of the slave than the education and elevation of
+the free.</p>
+
+<p>I am now writing a work which will contain, perhaps,
+an equal amount of matter with "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+It will contain all the facts and documents on which
+that story was founded, and an immense body of facts,
+reports of trials, legal documents, and testimony of
+people now living South, which will more than confirm
+every statement in "Uncle Tom's Cabin."</p>
+
+<p>I must confess that till I began the examination of
+facts in order to write this book, much as I thought I
+knew before, I had not begun to measure the depth of
+the abyss. The law records of courts and judicial proceedings
+are so incredible as to fill me with amazement
+whenever I think of them. It seems to me that the
+book cannot but be felt, and, coming upon the sensibility
+awaked by the other, do something.</p>
+
+<p>I suffer exquisitely in writing these things. It may
+be truly said that I write with my heart's blood. Many
+times in writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin" I thought my
+health would fail utterly; but I prayed earnestly that
+God would help me till I got through, and still I am
+pressed beyond measure and above strength.</p>
+
+<p>This horror, this nightmare abomination! can it be
+in my country! It lies like lead on my heart, it
+shadows my life with sorrow; the more so that I feel,
+as for my own brothers, for the South, and am pained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+by every horror I am obliged to write, as one who is
+forced by some awful oath to disclose in court some
+family disgrace. Many times I have thought that I
+must die, and yet I pray God that I may live to see
+something done. I shall in all probability be in London
+in May: shall I see you?</p>
+
+<p>It seems to me so odd and dream-like that so many
+persons desire to see me, and now I cannot help thinking
+that they will think, when they do, that God hath
+chosen "the weak things of this world."</p>
+
+<p>If I live till spring I shall hope to see Shakespeare's
+grave, and Milton's mulberry-tree, and the good land of
+my fathers,&mdash;old, old England! May that day come!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours affectionately,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.<br />
+
+<small>SUNNY MEMORIES, <b>1853</b>.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Crossing the Atlantic.&mdash;Arrival in England.&mdash;Reception in
+Liverpool.&mdash;Welcome to Scotland.&mdash;A Glasgow Tea-Party.&mdash;Edinburgh
+Hospitality.&mdash;Aberdeen.&mdash;Dundee and Birmingham.&mdash;Joseph
+Sturge.&mdash;Elihu Burritt.&mdash;London.&mdash;The
+Lord Mayor's Dinner.&mdash;Charles Dickens and his Wife.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> journey undertaken by Mrs. Stowe with her
+husband and brother through England and Scotland,
+and afterwards with her brother alone over much of
+the Continent, was one of unusual interest. No one
+was more surprised than Mrs. Stowe herself by the
+demonstrations of respect and affection that everywhere
+greeted her.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately an unbroken record of this memorable
+journey, in Mrs. Stowe's own words, has been preserved,
+and we are thus able to receive her own impressions of
+what she saw, heard, and did, under circumstances that
+were at once pleasant, novel, and embarrassing. Beginning
+with her voyage, she writes as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Liverpool</span>, <i>April 11, 1853.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Children</span>,&mdash;You wish, first of all, to
+hear of the voyage. Let me assure you, my dears, in
+the very commencement of the matter, that going to
+sea is not at all the thing that we have taken it to be.</p>
+
+<p>Let me warn you, if you ever go to sea, to omit all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+preparations for amusement on shipboard. Don't leave
+so much as the unlocking of a trunk to be done after
+sailing. In the few precious minutes when the ship
+stands still, before she weighs her anchor, set your
+house, that is to say your stateroom, as much in order
+as if you were going to be hanged; place everything
+in the most convenient position to be seized without
+trouble at a moment's notice; for be sure that in half
+an hour after sailing, an infinite desperation will seize
+you, in which the grasshopper will be a burden. If
+anything is in your trunk, it might almost as well be
+in the sea, for any practical probability of your getting
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>Our voyage out was called "a good run." It was
+voted unanimously to be "an extraordinary good passage,"
+"a pleasant voyage;" yet the ship rocked the
+whole time from side to side with a steady, dizzy, continuous
+motion, like a great cradle. I had a new sympathy
+for babies, poor little things, who are rocked
+hours at a time without so much as a "by your leave"
+in the case. No wonder there are so many stupid people
+in the world!</p>
+
+<p>We arrived on Sunday morning: the custom-house
+officers, very gentlemanly men, came on board; our
+luggage was all set out, and passed through a rapid
+examination, which in many cases amounted only to
+opening the trunk and shutting it, and all was over.
+The whole ceremony did not occupy two hours.</p>
+
+<p>We were inquiring of some friends for the most convenient
+hotel, when we found the son of Mr. Cropper,
+of Dingle Bank, waiting in the cabin to take us with
+him to their hospitable abode. In a few moments after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+the baggage had been examined, we all bade adieu to
+the old ship, and went on board the little steam tender
+which carries passengers up to the city.</p>
+
+<p>This Mersey River would be a very beautiful one, if
+it were not so dingy and muddy. As we are sailing
+up in the tender towards Liverpool, I deplore the circumstance
+feelingly.</p>
+
+<p>"What does make this river so muddy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," says a by-stander, "don't you know that</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"'The quality of mercy is not strained'?"<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I had an early opportunity of making acquaintance
+with my English brethren; for, much to my astonishment,
+I found quite a crowd on the wharf, and we
+walked up to our carriage through a long lane of people,
+bowing, and looking very glad to see us.</p>
+
+<p>When I came to get into the hack it was surrounded
+by more faces than I could count. They stood very
+quietly, and looked very kindly, though evidently very
+much determined to look. Something prevented the
+hack from moving on; so the interview was prolonged
+for some time.</p>
+
+<p>Our carriage at last drove on, taking us through
+Liverpool and a mile or two out, and at length wound
+its way along the gravel paths of a beautiful little retreat,
+on the banks of the Mersey, called the "Dingle."
+It opened to my eyes like a paradise, all wearied as I
+was with the tossing of the sea. I have since become
+familiar with these beautiful little spots, which are so
+common in England; but now all was entirely new to me.</p>
+
+<p>After a short season allotted to changing our ship
+garments and for rest, we found ourselves seated at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+dinner table. While dining, the sister-in-law of our
+friends came in from the next door, to exchange a word
+or two of welcome, and invite us to breakfast with
+them the following morning.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning we slept late and hurried to dress,
+remembering our engagement to breakfast with the
+brother of our host, whose cottage stands on the same
+ground, within a few steps of our own. I had not the
+slightest idea of what the English mean by a breakfast,
+and therefore went in all innocence, supposing I should
+see nobody but the family circle of my acquaintances.
+Quite to my astonishment, I found a party of between
+thirty and forty people; ladies sitting with their
+bonnets on, as in a morning call. It was impossible,
+however, to feel more than a momentary embarrassment
+in the friendly warmth and cordiality of the circle
+by whom we were surrounded.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I went into Liverpool to attend a
+party of friends of the anti-slavery cause. When I
+was going away, the lady of the house said that the
+servants were anxious to see me; so I came into the
+dressing-room to give them an opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>The next day was appointed to leave Liverpool. A
+great number of friends accompanied us to the cars,
+and a beautiful bouquet of flowers was sent with a very
+affecting message from a sick gentleman, who, from the
+retirement of his chamber, felt a desire to testify his
+sympathy. We left Liverpool with hearts a little tremulous
+and excited by the vibration of an atmosphere of
+universal sympathy and kindness, and found ourselves,
+at length, shut from the warm adieu of our friends, in
+a snug compartment of the railroad car.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" said Mr. S.; "six Yankees shut up in
+a car together! Not one Englishman to tell us anything
+about the country! Just like the six old ladies
+that made their living by taking tea at each other's
+houses!"</p>
+
+<p>What a bright lookout we kept for ruins and old
+houses! Mr. S., whose eyes are always in every place,
+allowed none of us to slumber, but looking out, first on
+his own side and then on ours, called our attention to
+every visible thing. If he had been appointed on a
+mission of inquiry, he could not have been more zealous
+and faithful, and I began to think that our desire for
+an English cicerone was quite superfluous.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we are in Scotland at last, and now our pulse
+rises as the sun declines in the west. We catch glimpses
+of Solway Firth and talk about Redgauntlet. The sun
+went down and night drew on; still we were in Scotland.
+Scotch ballads, Scotch tunes, and Scotch literature
+were in the ascendant. We sang "Auld Lang
+Syne," "Scots wha hae," and "Bonnie Doon," and
+then, changing the key, sang "Dundee," "Elgin," and
+"Martyr."</p>
+
+<p>"Take care," said Mr. S.; "don't get too much excited."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said I, "this is a thing that comes only once
+in a lifetime; do let us have the comfort of it. We
+shall never come into Scotland for the <i>first time</i> again."</p>
+
+<p>While we were thus at the fusion point of enthusiasm,
+the cars stopped at Lockerbie. All was dim and
+dark outside, but we soon became conscious that there
+was quite a number of people collected, peering into
+the window; and with a strange kind of thrill, I heard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+my name inquired for in the Scottish accent. I went
+to the window; there were men, women, and children
+gathered, and hand after hand was presented, with the
+words, "Ye're welcome to Scotland!"</p>
+
+<p>Then they inquired for and shook hands with all
+the party, having in some mysterious manner got the
+knowledge of who they were, even down to little G.,
+whom they took to be my son. Was it not pleasant,
+when I had a heart so warm for this old country? I
+shall never forget the thrill of those words, "Ye're
+welcome to Scotland," nor the "Gude night."</p>
+
+<p>After that we found similar welcomes in many succeeding
+stopping-places; and though I did wave a
+towel out of the window, instead of a pocket handkerchief,
+and commit other awkwardnesses, from not knowing
+how to play my part, yet I fancied, after all, that
+Scotland and we were coming on well together. Who
+the good souls were that were thus watching for us
+through the night, I am sure I do not know; but that
+they were of the "one blood" which unites all the
+families of the earth, I felt.</p>
+
+<p>At Glasgow, friends were waiting in the station-house.
+Earnest, eager, friendly faces, ever so many.
+Warm greetings, kindly words. A crowd parting in
+the middle, through which we were conducted into a
+carriage, and loud cheers of welcome, sent a throb, as
+the voice of living Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>I looked out of the carriage, as we drove on, and
+saw, by the light of a lantern, Argyll Street. It was
+past twelve o'clock when I found myself in a warm,
+cosy parlor, with friends whom I have ever since been
+glad to remember. In a little time we were all safely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+housed in our hospitable apartments, and sleep fell on
+me for the first time in Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning I awoke worn and weary, and
+scarce could the charms of the social Scotch breakfast
+restore me.</p>
+
+<p>Our friend and host was Mr. Bailie Paton. I believe
+that it is to his suggestion in a public meeting that we
+owe the invitation which brought us to Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast the visiting began. First, a friend
+of the family, with three beautiful children, the youngest
+of whom was the bearer of a handsomely bound album,
+containing a pressed collection of the sea-mosses
+of the Scottish coast, very vivid and beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>All this day is a confused dream to me of a dizzy
+and overwhelming kind. So many letters that it took
+brother Charles from nine in the morning till two in
+the afternoon to read and answer them in the shortest
+manner; letters from all classes of people, high and
+low, rich and poor, in all shades and styles of composition,
+poetry and prose; some mere outbursts of feeling;
+some invitations; some advice and suggestions;
+some requests and inquiries; some presenting books, or
+flowers, or fruit.</p>
+
+<p>Then came, in their turn, deputations from Paisley,
+Greenock, Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Belfast
+in Ireland; calls of friendship, invitations of all descriptions
+to go everywhere, and to see everything, and
+to stay in so many places. One kind, venerable minister,
+with his lovely daughter, offered me a retreat in
+his quiet manse on the beautiful shores of the Clyde.</p>
+
+<p>For all these kindnesses, what could I give in return?
+There was scarce time for even a grateful thought on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+each. People have often said to me that it must have
+been an exceeding bore. For my part, I could not
+think of regarding it so. It only oppressed me with an
+unutterable sadness.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon I rode out with the lord provost to
+see the cathedral. The lord provost answers to the
+lord mayor in England. His title and office in both
+countries continue only a year, except in case of re-election.</p>
+
+<p>As I saw the way to the cathedral blocked up by a
+throng of people who had come out to see me, I could
+not help saying, "What went ye out for to see? a
+reed shaken with the wind?" In fact I was so worn
+out that I could hardly walk through the building.
+The next morning I was so ill as to need a physician,
+unable to see any one that called, or to hear any of the
+letters. I passed most of the day in bed, but in the
+evening I had to get up, as I had engaged to drink tea
+with two thousand people. Our kind friends, Dr. and
+Mrs. Wardlaw, came after us, and Mr. S. and I went in
+the carriage with them. Our carriage stopped at last
+at the place. I have a dim remembrance of a way being
+made for us through a great crowd all round the
+house, and of going with Mrs. Wardlaw up into a
+dressing-room where I met and shook hands with many
+friendly people. Then we passed into a gallery, where
+a seat was reserved for our party, directly in front of
+the audience. Our friend Bailie Paton presided. Mrs.
+Wardlaw and I sat together, and around us many
+friends, chiefly ministers of the different churches, the
+ladies and gentlemen of the Glasgow Anti-Slavery Society
+and others. I told you it was a tea-party; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+the arrangements were altogether different from any I
+had ever seen. There were narrow tables stretched up
+and down the whole extent of the great hall, and every
+person had an appointed seat. These tables were set
+out with cups and saucers, cakes, biscuit, etc., and when
+the proper time came, attendants passed along serving
+tea. The arrangements were so accurate and methodical
+that the whole multitude actually took tea together,
+without the least apparent inconvenience or disturbance.</p>
+
+<p>There was a gentle, subdued murmur of conversation
+all over the house, the sociable clinking of teacups and
+teaspoons, while the entertainment was going on. It
+seemed to me such an odd idea, I could not help wondering
+what sort of a teapot that must be in which all
+this tea for two thousand people was made. Truly, as
+Hadji Baba says, I think they must have had the
+"father of all the tea-kettles" to boil it in. I could
+not help wondering if old mother Scotland had put two
+thousand teaspoonfuls of tea for the company, and one
+for the teapot, as is our good Yankee custom.</p>
+
+<p>We had quite a sociable time up in our gallery. Our
+tea-table stretched quite across, and we drank tea in
+sight of all the people. By <i>we</i>, I mean a great number
+of ministers and their wives, and ladies of the Anti-Slavery
+Society, besides our party, and the friends
+whom I have mentioned before. All seemed to be enjoying
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>After tea they sang a few verses of the seventy-second
+psalm in the old Scotch version.</p>
+
+<p><i>April 17.</i> To-day a large party of us started on a
+small steamer to go down the Clyde. It was a trip full
+of pleasure and incident. Now we were shown the remains<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+of old Cardross Castle, where it was said Robert
+Bruce breathed his last. And now we came near the
+beautiful grounds of Roseneath, a green, velvet-like peninsula,
+stretching out into the widening waters.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere about here I was presented, by his own
+request, to a broad-shouldered Scotch farmer, who stood
+some six feet two, and who paid me the compliment to
+say that he had read my book, and that he would walk
+six miles to see me any day. Such a flattering evidence
+of discriminating taste, of course, disposed my heart
+towards him; but when I went up and put my hand
+into his great prairie of a palm, I was as a grasshopper
+in my own eyes. I inquired who he was and was told
+he was one of the Duke of Argyll's farmers. I thought
+to myself if all the duke's farmers were of this pattern,
+that he might be able to speak to the enemy in the
+gates to some purpose.</p>
+
+<p>It was concluded after we left Roseneath that, instead
+of returning by the boat, we should take carriage and
+ride home along the banks of the river. In our carriage
+were Mr. S. and myself, Dr. Robson, and Lady
+Anderson. About this time I commenced my first essay
+towards giving titles, and made, as you may suppose,
+rather an odd piece of work of it, generally saying
+"Mrs." first, and "Lady" afterwards, and then
+begging pardon. Lady Anderson laughed and said
+she would give me a general absolution. She is a truly
+genial, hearty Scotchwoman, and seemed to enter happily
+into the spirit of the hour.</p>
+
+<p>As we rode on, we found that the news of our coming
+had spread through the village. People came and
+stood in their doors, beckoning, bowing, smiling, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
+waving their handkerchiefs, and the carriage was several
+times stopped by persons who came to offer flowers.
+I remember, in particular, a group of young girls bringing
+to the carriage two of the most beautiful children
+I ever saw, whose little hands literally deluged us with
+flowers.</p>
+
+<p>At the village of Helensburgh we stopped a little
+while to call upon Mrs. Bell, the wife of Mr. Bell, the
+inventor of the steamboat. His invention in this country
+was at about the same time as that of Fulton in
+America. Mrs. Bell came to the carriage to speak to
+us. She is a venerable woman, far advanced in years.
+They had prepared a lunch for us, and quite a number
+of people had come together to meet us, but our friends
+said there was not time for us to stop.</p>
+
+<p>We rode through several villages after this, and met
+everywhere a warm welcome. What pleased me was,
+that it was not mainly from the literary, nor the rich,
+nor the great, but the plain, common people. The
+butcher came out of his stall and the baker from his
+shop, the miller dusty with flour, the blooming, comely
+young mother, with her baby in her arms, all smiling
+and bowing, with that hearty, intelligent, friendly look,
+as if they knew we should be glad to see them.</p>
+
+<p>Once, while we stopped to change horses, I, for the
+sake of seeing something more of the country, walked
+on. It seems the honest landlord and his wife were
+greatly disappointed at this; however, they got into
+the carriage and rode on to see me, and I shook hands
+with them with a right good will.</p>
+
+<p>We saw several of the clergymen, who came out to
+meet us; and I remember stopping just to be introduced,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+one by one, to a most delightful family, a gray-headed
+father and mother, with comely brothers and
+fair sisters, all looking so kindly and homelike, that I
+should have been glad to accept the invitation they
+gave me to their dwelling.</p>
+
+<p>This day has been a strange phenomenon to me. In
+the first place, I have seen in all these villages how
+universally the people read. I have seen how capable
+they are of a generous excitement and enthusiasm, and
+how much may be done by a work of fiction so written
+as to enlist those sympathies which are common to
+all classes. Certainly a great deal may be effected in
+this way, if God gives to any one the power, as I hope
+he will to many. The power of fictitious writing, for
+good as well as evil, is a thing which ought most seriously
+to be reflected on. No one can fail to see that
+in our day it is becoming a very great agency.</p>
+
+<p>We came home quite tired, as you may well suppose.
+You will not be surprised that the next day I found
+myself more disposed to keep my bed than go out.</p>
+
+<p>Two days later: We bade farewell to Glasgow, overwhelmed
+with kindness to the last, and only oppressed
+by the thought of how little that was satisfactory we
+were able to give in return. Again we were in the railroad
+car on our way to Edinburgh. A pleasant two
+hours' trip is this from Glasgow to Edinburgh. When
+the cars stopped at Linlithgow station, the name started
+us as out of a dream.</p>
+
+<p>In Edinburgh the cars stopped amid a crowd of people
+who had assembled to meet us. The lord provost
+met us at the door of the car, and presented us to the
+magistracy of the city and the committees of the Edinburgh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
+Anti-Slavery Societies. The drab dresses and
+pure white bonnets of many Friends were conspicuous
+among the dense moving crowd, as white doves seen
+against a dark cloud. Mr. S. and myself, and our
+future hostess, Mrs. Wigham, entered the carriage with
+the lord provost, and away we drove, the crowd following
+with their shouts and cheers. I was inexpressibly
+touched and affected by this. While we were passing
+the monument of Scott, I felt an oppressive melancholy.
+What a moment life seems in the presence of
+the noble dead! What a momentary thing is art, in
+all its beauty! Where are all those great souls that
+have created such an atmosphere of light about Edinburgh?
+and how little a space was given them to live
+and enjoy!</p>
+
+<p>We drove all over Edinburgh, up to the castle, to the
+university, to Holyrood, to the hospitals, and through
+many of the principal streets, amid shouts, and smiles,
+and greetings. Some boys amused me very much by
+their pertinacious attempts to keep up with the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Heck," says one of them, "that's her; see the
+<i>courls</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>The various engravers who have amused themselves
+by diversifying my face for the public having all, with
+great unanimity, agreed in giving prominence to this
+point, I suppose the urchins thought they were on safe
+ground there. I certainly think I answered one good
+purpose that day, and that is of giving the much-oppressed
+and calumniated class called boys an opportunity
+to develop all the noise that was in them,&mdash;a thing
+for which I think they must bless me in their remembrances.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At last the carriage drove into a deep-graveled yard,
+and we alighted at a porch covered with green ivy, and
+found ourselves once more at home.</p>
+
+<p>You may spare your anxieties about me, for I do assure
+you that if I were an old Sčvres china jar I could
+not have more careful handling than I do. Everybody
+is considerate; a great deal to say when there appears
+to be so much excitement. Everybody seems to understand
+how good-for-nothing I am; and yet, with all
+this consideration, I have been obliged to keep my room
+and bed for a good part of the time. Of the multitudes
+who have called, I have seen scarcely any.</p>
+
+<p>To-morrow evening is to be the great tea-party here.
+How in the world I am ever to live through it I don't
+know.</p>
+
+<p>The amount of letters we found waiting for us here
+in Edinburgh was, if possible, more appalling than in
+Glasgow. Among those from persons whom you would
+be interested in hearing of, I may mention a very kind
+and beautiful one from the Duchess of Sutherland, and
+one also from the Earl of Carlisle, both desiring to
+make appointments for meeting us as soon as we come
+to London. Also a very kind and interesting note from
+the Rev. Mr. Kingsley and lady. I look forward with
+a great deal of interest to passing a little time with
+them in their rectory.</p>
+
+<p>As to all engagements, I am in a state of happy acquiescence,
+having resigned myself, as a very tame lion,
+into the hands of my keepers. Whenever the time
+comes for me to do anything, I try to behave as well as
+I can, which, as Dr. Young says, is all that an angel
+could do under the same circumstances.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>April 26.</i> Last night came off the <i>soirée</i>. The
+hall was handsomely decorated with flags in front.
+We went with the lord provost in his carriage. We
+went up as before into a dressing-room, where I was
+presented to many gentlemen and ladies. When we go
+in, the cheering, clapping, and stamping at first strikes
+one with a strange sensation; but then everybody looks
+so heartily pleased and delighted, and there is such an
+all-pervading atmosphere of geniality and sympathy, as
+makes me in a few moments feel quite at home. After
+all, I consider that these cheers and applauses are Scotland's
+voice to America, a recognition of the brotherhood
+of the countries.</p>
+
+<p>The national penny offering, consisting of a thousand
+golden sovereigns on a magnificent silver salver,
+stood conspicuously in view of the audience. It has
+been an unsolicited offering, given in the smallest sums,
+often from the extreme poverty of the giver. The
+committee who collected it in Edinburgh and Glasgow
+bore witness to the willingness with which the very
+poorest contributed the offering of their sympathy. In
+one cottage they found a blind woman, and said,
+"Here, at least, is one who will feel no interest, as she
+cannot have read the book."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed," said the old lady, "if I cannot read, my
+son has read it to me, and I've got my penny saved to
+give."</p>
+
+<p>It is to my mind extremely touching to see how the
+poor, in their poverty, can be moved to a generosity
+surpassing that of the rich. Nor do I mourn that they
+took it from their slender store, because I know that a
+penny given from a kindly impulse is a greater comfort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
+and blessing to the poorest giver than even a penny received.</p>
+
+<p>As in the case of the other meeting, we came out
+long before the speeches were ended. Well, of course
+I did not sleep all night, and the next day I felt quite
+miserable.</p>
+
+<p>From Edinburgh we took cars for Aberdeen. I enjoyed
+this ride more than anything we had seen yet, the
+country was so wild and singular. In the afternoon we
+came in sight of the German Ocean. The free, bracing
+air from the sea, and the thought that it actually
+<i>was</i> the German Ocean, and that over the other side
+was Norway, within a day's sail of us, gave it a strange,
+romantic charm. It was towards the close of the afternoon
+that we found ourselves crossing the Dee, in view
+of Aberdeen. My spirits were wonderfully elated: the
+grand scenery and fine, bracing air; the noble, distant
+view of the city, rising with its harbor and shipping,&mdash;all
+filled me with delight. In this propitious state, disposed
+to be pleased with everything, our hearts responded
+warmly to the greetings of the many friends
+who were waiting for us at the station-house.</p>
+
+<p>The lord provost received us into his carriage, and
+as we drove along pointed out to us the various objects
+of interest in the beautiful town. Among other things,
+a fine old bridge across the Dee attracted our particular
+attention. We were conducted to the house of Mr.
+Cruikshank, a Friend, and found waiting for us there
+the thoughtful hospitality which we had ever experienced
+in all our stopping-places. A snug little quiet
+supper was laid out upon the table, of which we partook
+in haste, as we were informed that the assembly at
+the hall were waiting to receive us.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There arrived, we found the hall crowded, and with
+difficulty made our way to the platform. Whether
+owing to the stimulating effect of the air from the
+ocean, or to the comparatively social aspect of the scene,
+or perhaps to both, certain it is that we enjoyed the
+meeting with great zest. I was surrounded on the stage
+with blooming young ladies, one of whom put into my
+hands a beautiful bouquet, some flowers of which I
+have now, dried, in my album. The refreshment tables
+were adorned with some exquisite wax flowers, the work,
+as I was afterwards told, of a young lady in the place.
+One of these designs especially interested me. It was
+a group of water-lilies resting on a mirror, which gave
+them the appearance of growing in the water.</p>
+
+<p>We had some very animated speaking, in which the
+speakers contrived to blend enthusiastic admiration and
+love for America with detestation of slavery.</p>
+
+<p>They presented an offering in a beautiful embroidered
+purse, and after much shaking of hands we went
+home, and sat down to the supper-table for a little more
+chat before going to bed. The next morning&mdash;as we
+had only till noon to stay in Aberdeen&mdash;our friends,
+the lord provost and Mr. Leslie, the architect, came immediately
+after breakfast to show us the place.</p>
+
+<p>About two o'clock we started from Aberdeen, among
+crowds of friends, to whom we bade farewell with real
+regret.</p>
+
+<p>At Stonehaven station, where we stopped a few minutes,
+there was quite a gathering of the inhabitants to
+exchange greetings, and afterwards, at successive stations
+along the road, many a kindly face and voice made
+our journey a pleasant one.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When we got into Dundee it seemed all alive with
+welcome. We went in the carriage with the lord provost,
+Mr. Thoms, to his residence, where a party had
+been waiting dinner for us for some time.</p>
+
+<p>The meeting in the evening was in a large church,
+densely crowded, and conducted much as the others
+had been. When they came to sing the closing hymn,
+I hoped they would sing Dundee; but they did not,
+and I fear in Scotland, as elsewhere, the characteristic
+national melodies are giving way before more modern
+ones.</p>
+
+<p>We left Dundee at two o'clock, by cars, for Edinburgh
+again, and in the evening attended another <i>soirée</i>
+of the workingmen of Edinburgh. We have received
+letters from the workingmen, both in Dundee and
+Glasgow, desiring our return to attend <i>soirées</i> in those
+cities. Nothing could give us greater pleasure, had we
+time or strength. The next day we had a few calls to
+make, and an invitation from Lady Drummond to visit
+classic Hawthornden, which, however, we had not time
+to accept. In the forenoon, Mr. S. and I called on
+Lord and Lady Gainsborough. Though she is one of
+the queen's household, she is staying here at Edinburgh
+while the queen is at Osborne. I infer, therefore, that
+the appointment includes no very onerous duties. The
+Earl of Gainsborough is the eldest brother of the Rev.
+Baptist W. Noel.</p>
+
+<p>It was a rainy, misty morning when I left my kind
+retreat and friends in Edinburgh. Considerate as everybody
+had been about imposing on my time or strength,
+still you may well believe that I was much exhausted.
+We left Edinburgh, therefore, with the determination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
+to plunge at once into some hidden and unknown spot,
+where we might spend two or three days quietly by ourselves;
+and remembering your Sunday at Stratford-on-Avon,
+I proposed that we should go there. As Stratford,
+however, is off the railroad line, we determined to
+accept the invitation, which was lying by us, from our
+friend, Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, and take sanctuary
+with him. So we wrote on, intrusting him with the
+secret, and charging him on no account to let any one
+know of our arrival.</p>
+
+<p>About night our cars whizzed into the depot at Birmingham;
+but just before we came in a difficulty was
+started in the company. "Mr. Sturge is to be there
+waiting for us, but he does not know us and we don't
+know him; what is to be done?" C. insisted that
+he should know him by instinct; and so, after we
+reached the depot, we told him to sally out and try.
+Sure enough, in a few moments he pitched upon a
+cheerful, middle-aged gentleman, with a moderate but
+not decisive broad brim to his hat, and challenged him
+as Mr. Sturge. The result verified the truth that "instinct
+is a great matter." In a few moments our new
+friend and ourselves were snugly encased in a fly, trotting
+off as briskly as ever we could to his place at
+Edgbaston, nobody a whit the wiser. You do not
+know how pleased we felt to think we had done it so
+nicely.</p>
+
+<p>As we were drinking tea that evening, Elihu Burritt
+came in. It was the first time I had ever seen him,
+though I had heard a great deal of him from our
+friends in Edinburgh. He is a man in middle life, tall
+and slender, with fair complexion, blue eyes, an air of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
+delicacy and refinement, and manners of great gentleness.
+My ideas of the "learned blacksmith" had been
+of something altogether more ponderous and peremptory.
+Elihu has been for some years operating, in England
+and on the Continent, in a movement which many
+in our half-Christianized times regard with as much
+incredulity as the grim, old warlike barons did the suspicious
+imbecilities of reading and writing. The sword
+now, as then, seems so much more direct a way to terminate
+controversies, that many Christian men, even, cannot
+conceive how the world is to get along without it.</p>
+
+<p>We spent the evening in talking over various topics
+relating to the anti-slavery movement. Mr. Sturge was
+very confident that something more was to be done than
+had ever been done yet, by combinations for the encouragement
+of free in the place of slave grown
+produce; a question which has, ever since the days of
+Clarkson, more or less deeply occupied the minds of
+abolitionists in England. I should say that Mr. Sturge
+in his family has for many years conscientiously forborne
+the use of any article produced by slave labor. I
+could scarcely believe it possible that there could be
+such an abundance and variety of all that is comfortable
+and desirable in the various departments of household
+living within these limits. Mr. Sturge presents the
+subject with very great force, the more so from the
+consistency of his example.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, as we were sitting down to breakfast,
+our friends sent in to me a plate of the largest,
+finest strawberries I have ever seen, which, considering
+that it was only the latter part of April, seemed to me
+quite an astonishing luxury.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Before we left, we had agreed to meet a circle of
+friends from Birmingham, consisting of the Abolition
+Society there, which is of long standing, extending back
+in its memories to the very commencement of the agitation
+under Clarkson and Wilberforce. The windows
+of the parlor were opened to the ground; and the company
+invited filled not only the room, but stood in a
+crowd on the grass around the window. Among the
+peaceable company present was an admiral in the navy,
+a fine, cheerful old gentleman, who entered with hearty
+interest into the scene.</p>
+
+<p>A throng of friends accompanied us to the depot,
+while from Birmingham we had the pleasure of the
+company of Elihu Burritt, and enjoyed a delightful run
+to London, where we arrived towards evening.</p>
+
+<p>At the station-house in London we found the Rev.
+Messrs. Binney and Sherman waiting for us with carriages.
+C. went with Mr. Sherman, and Mr. S. and
+I soon found ourselves in a charming retreat called
+Rose Cottage, in Walworth, about which I will tell
+you more anon. Mrs. B. received us with every attention
+which the most thoughtful hospitality could suggest.
+One of the first things she said to me after we
+got into our room was, "Oh, we are so glad you have
+come! for we are all going to the lord mayor's dinner
+to-night, and you are invited." So, though I was tired,
+I hurried to dress in all the glee of meeting an adventure.
+As soon as Mr. and Mrs. B. and the rest of the
+party were ready, crack went the whip, round went the
+wheels, and away we drove.</p>
+
+<p>We found a considerable throng, and I was glad to
+accept a seat which was offered me in the agreeable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+vicinity of the lady mayoress, so that I might see what
+would be interesting to me of the ceremonial.</p>
+
+<p>A very dignified gentleman, dressed in black velvet,
+with a fine head, made his way through the throng,
+and sat down by me, introducing himself as Lord Chief
+Baron Pollock. He told me he had just been reading
+the legal part of the "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
+and remarked especially on the opinion of Judge
+Ruffin, in the case of <i>State</i> v. <i>Mann</i>, as having made
+a deep impression on his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner was announced between nine and ten o'clock,
+and we were conducted into a splendid hall, where the
+tables were laid.</p>
+
+<p>Directly opposite me was Mr. Dickens, whom I now
+beheld for the first time, and was surprised to see looking
+so young. Mr. Justice Talfourd, known as the
+author of "Ion," was also there with his lady. She
+had a beautiful, antique cast of head. The lord mayor
+was simply dressed in black, without any other adornment
+than a massive gold chain. We rose from table
+between eleven and twelve o'clock&mdash;that is, we ladies&mdash;and
+went into the drawing-room, where I was presented
+to Mrs. Dickens and several other ladies. Mrs.
+Dickens is a good specimen of a truly English woman;
+tall, large, and well developed, with fine, healthy color,
+and an air of frankness, cheerfulness, and reliability.
+A friend whispered to me that she was as observing
+and fond of humor as her husband.</p>
+
+<p>After a while the gentlemen came back to the drawing-room,
+and I had a few moments of very pleasant,
+friendly conversation with Mr. Dickens. They are both
+people that one could not know a little of without desiring
+to know more.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After a little we began to talk of separating; the
+lord mayor to take his seat in the House of Commons,
+and the rest of the party to any other engagement that
+might be upon their list.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, let us go to the House of Commons," said
+one of my friends, "and make a night of it." "With
+all my heart," replied I, "if I only had another body
+to go into to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>What a convenience in sight-seeing it would be if
+one could have a relay of bodies as of clothes, and slip
+from one into the other! But we, not used to the London
+style of turning night into day, are full weary
+already. So good-night to you all.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER X.<br />
+
+<small>FROM OVER THE SEA, <b>1853</b>.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">The Earl of Carlisle.&mdash;Arthur Helps.&mdash;The Duke and Duchess
+of Argyll.&mdash;Martin Farquhar Tupper.&mdash;A Memorable
+Meeting at Stafford House.&mdash;Macaulay and Dean Milman.&mdash;Windsor
+Castle.&mdash;Professor Stowe returns to America.&mdash;Mrs.
+Stowe on the Continent.&mdash;Impressions of Paris.&mdash;En
+Route to Switzerland and Germany.&mdash;Back to England.&mdash;Homeward
+Bound.</span></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Rose Cottage, Walworth, London</span>, <i>May 2, 1856.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear</span>,&mdash;This morning Mrs. Follen called and
+we had quite a chat. We are separated by the whole
+city. She lives at the West End, while I am down here
+in Walworth, which is one of the postscripts of London,
+for this place has as many postscripts as a lady's
+letter. This evening we dined with the Earl of Carlisle.
+There was no company but ourselves, for he, with great
+consideration, said in his note that he thought a little
+quiet would be the best thing he could offer.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Carlisle is a great friend to America, and so is
+his sister, the Duchess of Sutherland. He is the only
+English traveler who ever wrote notes on our country
+in a real spirit of appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>We went about seven o'clock, the dinner hour being
+here somewhere between eight and nine. We were
+shown into an ante-room adjoining the entrance hall,
+and from that into an adjacent apartment, where we
+met Lord Carlisle. The room had a pleasant, social<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
+air, warmed and enlivened by the blaze of a coal fire
+and wax candles.</p>
+
+<p>We had never, any of us, met Lord Carlisle before;
+but the considerateness and cordiality of our reception
+obviated whatever embarrassment there might have
+been in this circumstance. In a few moments after we
+were all seated, a servant announced the Duchess of
+Sutherland, and Lord Carlisle presented me. She is tall
+and stately, with a most noble bearing. Her fair complexion,
+blonde hair, and full lips speak of Saxon blood.</p>
+
+<p>The only person present not of the family connection
+was my quondam correspondent in America, Arthur
+Helps. Somehow or other I had formed the impression
+from his writings that he was a venerable sage of
+very advanced years, who contemplated life as an aged
+hermit from the door of his cell. Conceive my surprise
+to find a genial young gentleman of about twenty-five,
+who looked as if he might enjoy a joke as well as
+another man.</p>
+
+<p>After the ladies left the table, the conversation
+turned on the Maine law, which seems to be considered
+over here as a phenomenon in legislation, and many of
+the gentlemen present inquired about it with great
+curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>After the gentlemen rejoined us, the Duke and
+Duchess of Argyll came in, and Lord and Lady Blantyre.
+These ladies are the daughters of the Duchess
+of Sutherland. The Duchess of Argyll is of slight
+and fairy-like figure, with flaxen hair and blue eyes,
+answering well enough to the description of Annot
+Lyle in the Legend of Montrose. Lady Blantyre was
+somewhat taller, of fuller figure, with a very brilliant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
+bloom. Lord Blantyre is of the Stuart blood, a tall
+and slender young man with very graceful manners.</p>
+
+<p>As to the Duke of Argyll, we found that the picture
+drawn of him by his countrymen in Scotland was in
+every way correct. Though slight of figure, with fair
+complexion and blue eyes, his whole appearance is indicative
+of energy and vivacity. His talents and efficiency
+have made him a member of the British Cabinet
+at a much earlier age than is usual; and he has distinguished
+himself not only in political life, but as a
+writer, having given to the world a work on Presbyterianism,
+embracing an analysis of the ecclesiastical
+history of Scotland since the Reformation, which is
+spoken of as written with great ability, and in a most
+liberal spirit. He made many inquiries about our distinguished
+men, particularly of Emerson, Longfellow,
+and Hawthorne; also of Prescott, who appears to be a
+general favorite here. I felt at the moment that we
+never value our own literary men so much as when we
+are placed in a circle of intelligent foreigners.</p>
+
+<p>The following evening we went to dine with our old
+friends of the Dingle, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Cropper,
+who are now spending a little time in London. We
+were delighted to meet them once more and to hear
+from our Liverpool friends. Mrs. Cropper's father,
+Lord Denman, has returned to England, though with
+no sensible improvement in his health.</p>
+
+<p>At dinner we were introduced to Lord and Lady
+Hatherton. Lady Hatherton is a person of great cultivation
+and intelligence, warmly interested in all the
+progressive movements of the day; and I gained much
+information in her society. There were also present<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
+Sir Charles and Lady Trevelyan; the former holds an
+appointment at the treasury, and Lady Trevelyan is a
+sister of Macaulay.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening quite a circle came in, among others
+Lady Emma Campbell, sister of the Duke of Argyll;
+the daughters of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who
+very kindly invited me to visit them at Lambeth; and
+Mr. Arthur Helps, besides many others whose names I
+need not mention.</p>
+
+<p><i>May 7.</i> This evening our house was opened in a
+general way for callers, who were coming and going all
+the evening. I think there must have been over two
+hundred people, among them Martin Farquhar Tupper,
+a little man with fresh, rosy complexion and cheery,
+joyous manners; and Mary Howitt, just such a cheerful,
+sensible, fireside companion as we find her in her
+books,&mdash;winning love and trust the very first moment
+of the interview.</p>
+
+<p>The general topic of remark on meeting me seems to
+be, that I am not so bad-looking as they were afraid I
+was; and I do assure you that when I have seen the
+things that are put up in the shop windows here with
+my name under them, I have been in wondering admiration
+at the boundless loving-kindness of my English
+and Scottish friends in keeping up such a warm heart
+for such a Gorgon. I should think that the Sphinx in
+the London Museum might have sat for most of them.
+I am going to make a collection of these portraits to
+bring home to you. There is a great variety of them,
+and they will be useful, like the Irishman's guide-board,
+which showed where the road did not go.</p>
+
+<p>Before the evening was through I was talked out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+and worn out; there was hardly a chip of me left.
+To-morrow at eleven o'clock comes the meeting at Stafford
+House. What it will amount to I do not know;
+but I take no thought for the morrow.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><i>May 8.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear C.</span>,&mdash;In fulfillment of my agreement I
+will tell you, as nearly as I can remember, all the details
+of the meeting at Stafford House. At about
+eleven o'clock we drove under the arched carriage-way
+of a mansion externally not very showy in appearance.</p>
+
+<p>When the duchess appeared, I thought she looked
+handsomer by daylight than in the evening. She received
+us with the same warm and simple kindness
+which she had shown before. We were presented to
+the Duke of Sutherland. He is a tall, slender man,
+with rather a thin face, light-brown hair, and a mild
+blue eye, with an air of gentleness and dignity.</p>
+
+<p>Among the first that entered were the members of
+the family, the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, Lord and
+Lady Blantyre, the Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford,
+and Lady Emma Campbell. Then followed Lord
+Shaftesbury with his beautiful lady, and her father and
+mother, Lord and Lady Palmerston. Lord Palmerston
+is of middle height, with a keen dark eye and black
+hair streaked with gray. There is something peculiarly
+alert and vivacious about all his movements; in short,
+his appearance perfectly answers to what we know of
+him from his public life. One has a strange, mythological
+feeling about the existence of people of whom
+one hears for many years without ever seeing them.
+While talking with Lord Palmerston I could but remember
+how often I had heard father and Mr. S. exulting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+over his foreign dispatches by our own fireside.
+There were present, also, Lord John Russell, Mr. Gladstone,
+and Lord Granville. The latter we all thought
+very strikingly resembled in his appearance the poet
+Longfellow.</p>
+
+<p>After lunch the whole party ascended to the picture-gallery,
+passing on our way the grand staircase and
+hall, said to be the most magnificent in Europe. The
+company now began to assemble and throng the gallery,
+and very soon the vast room was crowded. Among
+the throng I remember many presentations, but of
+course must have forgotten many more. Archbishop
+Whateley was there, with Mrs. and Miss Whateley;
+Macaulay, with two of his sisters; Milman, the poet
+and historian; the Bishop of Oxford, Chevalier Bunsen
+and lady, and many more.</p>
+
+<p>When all the company were together, Lord Shaftesbury
+read a very short, kind, and considerate address
+in behalf of the ladies of England, expressive of their
+cordial welcome.</p>
+
+<p>This Stafford House meeting, in any view of it, is a
+most remarkable fact. Kind and gratifying as its
+arrangements have been to me, I am far from appropriating
+it to myself individually as a personal honor.
+I rather regard it as the most public expression possible
+of the feelings of the women of England on one of
+the most important questions of our day, that of individual
+liberty considered in its religious bearings.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>On this occasion the Duchess of Sutherland presented
+Mrs. Stowe with a superb gold bracelet, made in the
+form of a slave's shackle, bearing the inscription: "We<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+trust it is a memorial of a chain that is soon to be
+broken." On two of the links were inscribed the dates
+of the abolition of the slave-trade and of slavery in English
+territory. Years after its presentation to her, Mrs.
+Stowe was able to have engraved on the clasp of this
+bracelet, "Constitutional Amendment (forever abolishing
+slavery in the United States)."</p>
+
+<p>Continuing her interesting journal, Mrs. Stowe writes,
+May 9th:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear E.</span>,&mdash;This letter I consecrate to you, because I
+know that the persons and things to be introduced into
+it will most particularly be appreciated by you.</p>
+
+<p>In your evening reading circles, Macaulay, Sydney
+Smith, and Milman have long been such familiar names
+that you will be glad to go with me over all the scenes
+of my morning breakfast at Sir Charles Trevelyan's
+yesterday. Lady Trevelyan, I believe I have said before,
+is a sister of Macaulay.</p>
+
+<p>We were set down at Westbourne Terrace somewhere,
+I believe, about eleven o'clock, and found quite
+a number already in the drawing-room. I had met
+Macaulay before, but being seated between him and
+Dean Milman, I must confess I was a little embarrassed
+at times, because I wanted to hear what they were both
+saying at the same time. However, by the use of the
+faculty by which you play a piano with both hands, I
+got on very comfortably.</p>
+
+<p>There were several other persons of note present at
+this breakfast, whose conversation I had not an opportunity
+of hearing, as they sat at a distance from me.
+There was Lord Glenelg, brother of Sir Robert Grant,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+governor of Bombay, whose beautiful hymns have rendered
+him familiar in America. The favorite one, commencing</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"When gathering clouds around I view,"<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>was from his pen.</div>
+
+<p>The historian Hallam was also present, and I think
+it very likely there may have been other celebrities
+whom I did not know. I am always finding out, a day
+or two after, that I have been with somebody very
+remarkable and did not know it at the time.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Under date of May 18th she writes to her sister
+Mary:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear M.</span>,&mdash;I can compare the embarrassment of
+our London life, with its multiplied solicitations and
+infinite stimulants to curiosity and desire, only to that
+annual perplexity which used to beset us in our childhood
+on Thanksgiving Day. Like Miss Edgeworth's
+philosophic little Frank, we are obliged to make out a
+list of what man <i>must</i> want, and of what he <i>may</i> want;
+and in our list of the former we set down, in large and
+decisive characters, one quiet day for the exploration
+and enjoyment of Windsor.</p>
+
+<p>The ride was done all too soon. About eleven
+o'clock we found ourselves going up the old stone steps
+to the castle. We went first through the state apartments.
+The principal thing that interested me was the
+ball-room, which was a perfect gallery of Vandyke's
+paintings. After leaving the ball-room we filed off to
+the proper quarter to show our orders for the private
+rooms. The state apartments, which we had been looking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
+at, are open at all times, but the private apartments
+can only be seen in the Queen's absence and by a special
+permission, which had been procured for us on that
+occasion by the kindness of the Duchess of Sutherland.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first objects that attracted my attention
+upon entering the vestibule was a baby's wicker wagon,
+standing in one corner. It was much such a carriage
+as all mothers are familiar with; such as figures largely
+in the history of almost every family. It had neat curtains
+and cushions of green merino, and was not royal,
+only maternal. I mused over the little thing with a
+good deal of interest.</p>
+
+<p>We went for our dinner to the White Hart, the very
+inn which Shakespeare celebrates in his "Merry Wives,"
+and had a most overflowing merry time of it. After
+dinner we had a beautiful drive.</p>
+
+<p>We were bent upon looking up the church which
+gave rise to Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard,"
+intending when we got there to have a little scene over
+it; Mr. S., in all the conscious importance of having
+been there before, assuring us that he knew exactly
+where it was. So, after some difficulty with our coachman,
+and being stopped at one church which would not
+answer our purpose in any respect, we were at last set
+down by one which looked authentic; embowered in
+mossy elms, with a most ancient and goblin yew-tree,
+an ivy-mantled tower, all perfect as could be. Here,
+leaning on the old fence, we repeated the Elegy, which
+certainly applies here as beautifully as language could
+apply.</p>
+
+<p>Imagine our chagrin, on returning to London, at
+being informed that we had not been to the genuine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
+churchyard after all. The gentleman who wept over
+the scenes of his early days on the wrong doorstep was
+not more grievously disappointed. However, he and
+we could both console ourselves with the reflection that
+the emotion was admirable, and wanted only the right
+place to make it the most appropriate in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The evening after our return from Windsor was
+spent with our kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. Gurney.
+After breakfast the next day, Mr. S., C., and I drove
+out to call upon Kossuth. We found him in an obscure
+lodging on the outskirts of London. I would
+that some of the editors in America, who have thrown
+out insinuations about his living in luxury, could have
+seen the utter bareness and plainness of the reception
+room, which had nothing in it beyond the simplest
+necessaries. He entered into conversation with us with
+cheerfulness, speaking English well, though with the
+idioms of foreign languages. When we parted he took
+my hand kindly and said, "God bless you, my child!"</p>
+
+<p>I have been quite amused with something which has
+happened lately. This week the "Times" has informed
+the United Kingdom that Mrs. Stowe is getting
+a new dress made! It wants to know if Mrs. Stowe is
+aware what sort of a place her dress is being made in;
+and there is a letter from a dressmaker's apprentice
+stating that it is being made up piecemeal, in the most
+shockingly distressed dens of London, by poor, miserable
+white slaves, worse treated than the plantation
+slaves of America!</p>
+
+<p>Now Mrs. Stowe did not know anything of this, but
+simply gave the silk into the hands of a friend, and
+was in due time waited on in her own apartment by a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
+very respectable-appearing woman, who offered to make
+the dress, and lo, this is the result! Since the publication
+of this piece, I have received earnest missives, from
+various parts of the country, begging me to interfere,
+hoping that I was not going to patronize the white
+slavery of England, and that I would employ my talents
+equally against oppression in every form. Could these
+people only know in what sweet simplicity I had been
+living in the State of Maine, where the only dressmaker
+of our circle was an intelligent, refined, well-educated
+woman who was considered as the equal of us all, and
+whose spring and fall ministrations to our wardrobe
+were regarded a double pleasure,&mdash;a friendly visit as
+well as a domestic assistance,&mdash;I say, could they know
+all this, they would see how guiltless I was in the matter.
+I verily never thought but that the nice, pleasant
+person who came to measure me for my silk dress was
+going to take it home and make it herself; it never
+occurred to me that she was the head of an establishment.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>May 22, she writes to her husband, whose duties had
+obliged him to return to America: "To-day we went to
+hear a sermon in behalf of the ragged schools by the
+Archbishop of Canterbury. My thoughts have been
+much saddened by the news which I received of the
+death of Mary Edmonson."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>May 30.</i> The next day from my last letter came
+off Miss Greenfield's concert, of which I send a card.
+You see in what company they have put your poor little
+wife. Funny!&mdash;isn't it? Well, the Hons. and Right
+Hons. all were there. I sat by Lord Carlisle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"After the concert the duchess asked Lady Hatherton
+and me to come round to Stafford House and take
+tea, which was not a thing to be despised, either on account
+of the tea or the duchess. A lovelier time we
+never had,&mdash;present, the Duchess of Argyll, Lady
+Caroline Campbell, Lady Hatherton, and myself. We
+had the nicest cup of tea, with such cream, and grapes
+and apricots, with some Italian bread, etc.</p>
+
+<p>"When we were going the duchess got me, on some
+pretext, into another room, and came up and put her
+arms round me, with her noble face all full of feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, Mrs. Stowe, I have been reading that last
+chapter in the "Key"; Argyll read it aloud to us.
+Oh, surely, surely you will succeed,&mdash;God surely will
+bless you!'</p>
+
+<p>"I said then that I thanked her for all her love and
+feeling for us, told her how earnestly all the women of
+England sympathized with her, and many in America.
+She looked really radiant and inspired. Had those
+who hang back from our cause seen her face, it might
+have put a soul into them as she said again, 'It will
+be done&mdash;it will be done&mdash;oh, I trust and pray it
+may!'</p>
+
+<p>"So we kissed each other, and vowed friendship and
+fidelity&mdash;so I came away.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day I am going with Lord Shaftesbury to St.
+Paul's to see the charity children, after which lunch
+with Dean Milman.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>May 31.</i> We went to lunch with Miss R. at Oxford
+Terrace, where, among a number of distinguished
+guests, was Lady Byron, with whom I had a few moments
+of deeply interesting conversation. No engravings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
+that ever have been circulated in America do any
+justice to her appearance. She is of slight figure,
+formed with exceeding delicacy, and her whole form,
+face, dress, and air unite to make an impression of a
+character singularly dignified, gentle, pure, and yet
+strong. No words addressed to me in any conversation
+hitherto have made their way to my inner soul with
+such force as a few remarks dropped by her on the
+present religious aspect of England,&mdash;remarks of such
+quality as one seldom hears.</p>
+
+<p>"According to request, I will endeavor to keep you
+informed of all our goings-on after you left, up to the
+time of our departure for Paris.</p>
+
+<p>"We have borne in mind your advice to hasten away
+to the Continent. Charles wrote, a day or two since, to
+Mrs. C. at Paris to secure very private lodgings, and
+by no means let any one know that we were coming.
+She has replied urging us to come to her house, and
+promising entire seclusion and rest. So, since you departed,
+we have been passing with a kind of comprehensive
+skip and jump over remaining engagements.
+And just the evening after you left came off the presentation
+of the inkstand by the ladies of Surrey Chapel.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a beautiful specimen of silver-work, eighteen
+inches long, with a group of silver figures on it representing
+Religion, with the Bible in her hand, giving liberty
+to the slave. The slave is a masterly piece of work.
+He stands with his hands clasped, looking up to Heaven,
+while a white man is knocking the shackles from his
+feet. But the prettiest part of the scene was the presentation
+of a <i>gold pen</i> by a band of beautiful children,
+one of whom made a very pretty speech. I called the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+little things to come and stand around me, and talked
+with them a few minutes, and this was all the speaking
+that fell to my share.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow we go&mdash;go to quiet, to obscurity, to
+peace&mdash;to Paris, to Switzerland; there we shall find
+the loveliest glen, and, as the Bible says, 'fall on
+sleep.'</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Paris, June 4.</i> Here we are in Paris, in a most
+charming family. I have been out all the morning
+exploring shops, streets, boulevards, and seeing and
+hearing life in Paris. When one has a pleasant home
+and friends to return to, this gay, bustling, vivacious,
+graceful city is one of the most charming things in the
+world; and we <i>have</i> a most charming home.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish the children could see these Tuileries with
+their statues and fountains, men, women, and children
+seated in family groups under the trees, chatting, reading
+aloud, working muslin,&mdash;children driving hoop,
+playing ball, all alive and chattering French. Such
+fresh, pretty girls as are in the shops here! <i>Je suis
+ravé</i>, as they say. In short I am decidedly in a French
+humor, and am taking things quite <i>couleur de rose</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Monday, June 13.</i> We went this morning to the
+studio of M. Belloc, who is to paint my portrait. The
+first question which he proposed, with a genuine French
+air, was the question of 'pose' or position. It was
+concluded that, as other pictures had taken me looking
+at the spectator, this should take me looking away. M.
+Belloc remarked that M. Charpentier said I appeared
+always with the air of an observer,&mdash;was always looking
+around on everything. Hence M. Belloc would
+take me '<i>en observatrice, mais pas en curieuse</i>,'&mdash;with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
+the air of observation, but not of curiosity. By and by
+M. Charpentier came in. He began panegyrizing 'Uncle
+Tom,' and this led to a discussion of the ground of
+its unprecedented success. In his thirty-five years' experience
+as a bookseller, he had known nothing like it.
+It surpassed all modern writings! At first he would
+not read it; his taste was for old masters of a century
+or two ago. 'Like M. Belloc in painting,' said I. At
+length he found his friend M., the first intelligence of
+the age, reading it.</p>
+
+<p>"'What, you, too?' said he.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah, ah!' replied the friend; 'say nothing about
+this book! There is nothing like it. This leaves us all
+behind,&mdash;all, all, miles behind!'</p>
+
+<p>"M. Belloc said the reason was because there was
+in it more <i>genuine faith</i> than in any book; and we
+branched off into florid eloquence touching paganism,
+Christianity, and art.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Wednesday, June 22.</i> Adieu to Paris! Ho for
+Chalons-sur-Saône! After affectionate farewells of our
+kind friends, by eleven o'clock we were rushing, in the
+pleasantest of cars, over the smoothest of rails, through
+Burgundy. We arrived at Chalons at nine <small>P. M.</small></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Thursday, 23</i>, eight o'clock <small>A. M.</small> Since five we
+have had a fine bustle on the quay below our windows.
+There lay three steamers, shaped for all the
+world like our last night's rolls. One would think
+Ichabod Crane might sit astride one of them and dip
+his feet in the water. They ought to be swift. L'Hirondelle
+(The Swallow) flew at five; another at six.
+We leave at nine.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Lyons.</i> There was a scene of indescribable confusion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+upon our arrival here. Out of the hold of our
+steamer a man with a rope and hook began hauling
+baggage up a smooth board. Three hundred people
+were sorting their goods without checks. Porters were
+shouldering immense loads, four or five heavy trunks
+at once, corded together, and stalking off Atlantean.
+Hat-boxes, bandboxes, and valises burst like a meteoric
+shower out of a crater. '<i>A moi, ŕ moi!</i>' was the cry,
+from old men, young women, soldiers, shopkeepers, and
+<i>frčres</i>, scuffling and shoving together.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Saturday, June 25.</i> Lyons to Genčve. As this
+was our first experience in the diligence line, we noticed
+particularly every peculiarity. I had had the idea that
+a diligence was a ricketty, slow-moulded antediluvian
+nondescript, toiling patiently along over impassable
+roads at a snail's pace. Judge of my astonishment at
+finding it a full-blooded, vigorous monster, of unscrupulous
+railway momentum and imperturbable equipoise
+of mind. Down the macadamized slopes we thundered
+at a prodigious pace; up the hills we trotted, with six
+horses, three abreast; madly through the little towns
+we burst, like a whirlwind, crashing across the pebbled
+streets, and out upon the broad, smooth road again.
+Before we had well considered the fact that we were out
+of Lyons we stopped to change horses. Done in a jiffy;
+and whoop, crick, crack, whack, rumble, bump, whirr,
+whisk, away we blazed, till, ere we knew it, another
+change and another.</p>
+
+<p>"As evening drew on, a wind sprang up and a storm
+seemed gathering on the Jura. The rain dashed
+against the panes of the berlin as we rode past the
+grim-faced monarch of the 'misty shroud.' It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
+night as we drove into Geneva and stopped at the Messagerie.
+I heard with joy a voice demanding if this
+were <i>Madame Besshare</i>. I replied, not without some
+scruples of conscience, '<i>Oui, Monsieur, c'est moi</i>,'
+though the name did not sound exactly like the one to
+which I had been wont to respond. In half an hour
+we were at home in the mansion of Monsieur Fazy."</p>
+
+<p>From Geneva the party made a tour of the Swiss
+Alps, spending some weeks among them. While there
+Charles Beecher wrote from a small hotel at the foot of
+the Jura:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The people of the neighborhood, having discovered
+who Harriet was, were very kind, and full of delight at
+seeing her. It was Scotland over again. We have had
+to be unflinching to prevent her being overwhelmed,
+both in Paris and Geneva, by the same demonstrations
+of regard. To this we were driven, as a matter of life
+and death. It was touching to listen to the talk of
+these secluded mountaineers. The good hostess, even
+the servant maids, hung about Harriet, expressing such
+tender interest for the slave. All had read 'Uncle
+Tom;' and it had apparently been an era in their
+life's monotony, for they said, 'Oh, madam, do write
+another! Remember, our winter nights here are very
+long!'"</p>
+
+<p>Upon their return to Geneva they visited the Castle
+of Chillon, of which, in describing the dungeons, Mrs.
+Stowe writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"One of the pillars in this vault is covered with names.
+I think it is Bonnevard's Pillar. There are the names
+of Byron, Hunt, Schiller, and ever so many more celebrities.
+As we were going from the cell our conductress<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
+seemed to have a sudden light upon her mind. She
+asked a question or two of some of our party, and fell
+upon me vehemently to put my name also there. Charley
+scratched it on the soft freestone, and there it is for
+future ages. The lady could scarce repress her enthusiasm;
+she shook my hand over and over again, and
+said she had read 'Uncle Tom.' 'It is beautiful,' she
+said, 'but it is cruel.'</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Monday, July 18.</i> Weather suspicious. Stowed
+ourselves and our baggage into our <i>voiture</i>, and bade
+adieu to our friends and to Geneva. Ah, how regretfully!
+From the market-place we carried away a basket
+of cherries and fruit as a consolation. Dined at
+Lausanne, and visited the cathedral and picture-gallery,
+where was an exquisite <i>Eva</i>. Slept at Meudon.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Tuesday, July 19.</i> Rode through Payerne to
+Freyburg. Stopped at the Zähringer Hof,&mdash;most romantic
+of inns.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Wednesday, July 20.</i> Examined, not the lions,
+but the bears of Berne. Engaged a <i>voiture</i> and drove
+to Thun. Dined and drove by the shore of the lake to
+Interlachen, arriving just after a brilliant sunset.</p>
+
+<p>"We crossed the Wengern Alps to Grindelwald.
+The Jungfrau is right over against us,&mdash;her glaciers
+purer, tenderer, more dazzlingly beautiful, if possible,
+than those of Mont Blanc. Slept at Grindelwald."</p>
+
+<p>From Rosenlaui, on this journey, Charles Beecher
+writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Friday, July 22.</i> Grindelwald to Meyringen. On
+we came, to the top of the Great Schiedeck, where H.
+and W. botanized, while I slept. Thence we rode down
+the mountain till we reached Rosenlaui, where, I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+free to say, a dinner was to me a more interesting object
+than a glacier. Therefore, while H. and W. went
+to the latter, I turned off to the inn, amid their cries
+and reproaches.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, then, I am, writing these notes in the <i>salle
+ŕ manger</i> of the inn, where other voyagers are eating
+and drinking, and there is H. feeding on the green
+moonshine of an emerald ice cave. One would almost
+think her incapable of fatigue. How she skips up and
+down high places and steep places, to the manifest
+perplexity of the honest guide Kienholz, <i>pčre</i>, who
+tries to take care of her, but does not exactly know
+how! She gets on a pyramid of débris, which the edge
+of the glacier is plowing and grinding up, sits down,
+and falls&mdash;not asleep exactly, but into a trance. W.
+and I are ready to go on: we shout; our voice is lost
+in the roar of the torrent. We send the guide. He
+goes down, and stands doubtfully. He does not know
+exactly what to do. She hears him, and starts to her
+feet, pointing with one hand to yonder peak, and with
+the other to that knife-like edge that seems cleaving
+heaven with its keen and glistening cimeter of snow,
+reminding one of Isaiah's sublime imagery, 'For my
+sword is bathed in heaven.' She points at the grizzly
+rocks, with their jags and spear-points. Evidently she
+is beside herself, and thinks she can remember the
+names of those monsters, born of earthquake and storm,
+which cannot be named nor known but by sight, and
+then are known at once perfectly and forever."</p>
+
+<p>After traveling through Germany, Belgium, and
+Holland, the party returned to Paris toward the end of
+August, from which place Mrs. Stowe writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am seated in a snug little room at M. Belloc's.
+The weather is overpoweringly hot, but these Parisian
+houses seem to have seized and imprisoned coolness.
+French household ways are delightful. I like their
+seclusion from the street by these deep-paned quadrangles.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Belloc was the translator of Maria Edgeworth,
+by that lady's desire; corresponded with her for
+years, and still has many of her letters. Her translation
+of 'Uncle Tom' has to me all the merit and all the
+interest of an original composition. In perusing it, I
+enjoy the pleasure of reading the story with scarce any
+consciousness of its ever having been mine."</p>
+
+<p>The next letter is from London <i>en route</i> for America,
+to which passage had been engaged on the Collins
+steamer Arctic. In it Mrs. Stowe writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>London, August 28.</i> Our last letters from home
+changed all our plans. We concluded to hurry away
+by the next steamer, if at that late hour we could get a
+passage. We were all in a bustle. The last shoppings
+for aunts, cousins, and little folks were to be done by us
+all. The Palais Royal was to be rummaged; bronzes,
+vases, statuettes, bonbons, playthings,&mdash;all that the endless
+fertility of France could show,&mdash;was to be looked
+over for the 'folks at home.'</p>
+
+<p>"How we sped across the Channel C. relates. We
+are spending a few very pleasant days with our kind
+friends the L.'s, in London.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>On board the Arctic, September 7.</i> On Thursday,
+September 1, we reached York, and visited the
+beautiful ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, and the magnificent
+cathedral. It rained with inflexible pertinacity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>
+during all the time we were there, and the next day it
+rained still, when we took the cars for Castle Howard
+station.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Carlisle welcomed us most affectionately, and
+we learned that, had we not been so reserved at the
+York station in concealing our names, we should have
+received a note from her. However, as we were safely
+arrived, it was of no consequence.</p>
+
+<p>"Our friends spoke much of Sumner and Prescott,
+who had visited there; also of Mr. Lawrence, our former
+ambassador, who had visited them just before his
+return. After a very pleasant day, we left with regret
+the warmth of this hospitable circle, thus breaking one
+more of the links that bind us to the English shore.</p>
+
+<p>"Nine o'clock in the evening found us sitting by a
+cheerful fire in the parlor of Mr. E. Baines at Leeds.
+The next day the house was filled with company, and
+the Leeds offering was presented.</p>
+
+<p>"Tuesday we parted from our excellent friends in
+Leeds, and soon found ourselves once more in the beautiful
+"Dingle," our first and last resting-place on English
+shores.</p>
+
+<p>"A deputation from Belfast, Ireland, here met me,
+presenting a beautiful bog-oak casket, lined with gold,
+and carved with appropriate national symbols, containing
+an offering for the cause of the oppressed. They
+read a beautiful address, and touched upon the importance
+of inspiring with the principles of emancipation
+the Irish nation, whose influence in our land is becoming
+so great. Had time and strength permitted, it had
+been my purpose to visit Ireland, to revisit Scotland,
+and to see more of England. But it is not in man that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
+walketh to direct his steps. And now came parting,
+leave-taking, last letters, notes, and messages.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus, almost sadly as a child might leave its home,
+I left the shores of kind, strong Old England,&mdash;the
+mother of us all."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XI.<br />
+
+<small>HOME AGAIN, <b>1853-1856</b>.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Anti-Slavery Work.&mdash;Stirring Times in the United States.&mdash;Address
+to the Ladies of Glasgow.&mdash;Appeal to the Women
+of America.&mdash;Correspondence with William Lloyd Garrison.&mdash;The
+Writing of "Dred."&mdash;Farewell Letter from
+Georgiana May.&mdash;Second Voyage to England.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">After</span> her return in the autumn of 1853 from her
+European tour, Mrs. Stowe threw herself heart and
+soul into the great struggle with slavery. Much of her
+time was occupied in distributing over a wide area of
+country the English gold with which she had been intrusted
+for the advancement of the cause. With this
+money she assisted in the redemption of slaves whose
+cases were those of peculiar hardship, and helped establish
+them as free men. She supported anti-slavery
+lectures wherever they were most needed, aided in
+establishing and maintaining anti-slavery publications,
+founded and assisted in supporting schools in which
+colored people might be taught how to avail themselves
+of the blessings of freedom. She arranged public meetings,
+and prepared many of the addresses that should be
+delivered at them. She maintained such an extensive
+correspondence with persons of all shades of opinion in
+all parts of the world, that the letters received and
+answered by her between 1853 and 1856 would fill volumes.
+With all these multifarious interests, her children<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>
+received a full share of her attention, nor were her
+literary activities relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately upon the completion of her European
+tour, her experiences were published in the form of a
+journal, both in this country and England, under the
+title of "Sunny Memories." She also revised and
+elaborated the collection of sketches which had been
+published by the Harpers in 1843, under title of "The
+Mayflower," and having purchased the plates caused
+them to be republished in 1855 by Phillips &amp; Sampson,
+the successors of John P. Jewett &amp; Co., in this
+country, and by Sampson Low &amp; Co. in London.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after her return to America, feeling that she
+owed a debt of gratitude to her friends in Scotland,
+which her feeble health had not permitted her adequately
+to express while with them, Mrs. Stowe wrote
+the following open letter:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">To the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society of Glasgow</span>:</p>
+
+<p><i>Dear Friends</i>,&mdash;I have had many things in my
+mind to say to you, which it was my hope to have said
+personally, but which I am now obliged to say by letter.</p>
+
+<p>I have had many fears that you must have thought
+our intercourse, during the short time that I was in
+Glasgow, quite unsatisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>At the time that I accepted your very kind invitation,
+I was in tolerable health, and supposed that I
+should be in a situation to enjoy society, and mingle as
+much in your social circles as you might desire.</p>
+
+<p>When the time came for me to fulfil my engagement
+with you, I was, as you know, confined to my bed with
+a sickness brought on by the exertion of getting the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
+"Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" through the press during
+the winter.</p>
+
+<p>In every part of the world the story of "Uncle Tom"
+had awakened sympathy for the American slave, and
+consequently in every part of the world the story of his
+wrongs had been denied; it had been asserted to be a
+mere work of romance, and I was charged with being
+the slanderer of the institutions of my own country. I
+knew that if I shrank from supporting my position, the
+sympathy which the work had excited would gradually
+die out, and the whole thing would be looked upon as
+a mere romantic excitement of the passions.</p>
+
+<p>When I came abroad, I had not the slightest idea of
+the kind of reception which was to meet me in England
+and Scotland. I had thought of something involving
+considerable warmth, perhaps, and a good deal of cordiality
+and feeling on the part of friends; but of the
+general extent of feeling through society, and of the
+degree to which it would be publicly expressed, I had,
+I may say, no conception.</p>
+
+<p>As through your society I was invited to your country,
+it may seem proper that what communication I have
+to make to friends in England and Scotland should be
+made through you.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, then, the question will probably
+arise in your minds, Have the recent demonstrations in
+Great Britain done good to the anti-slavery cause in
+America?</p>
+
+<p>The first result of those demonstrations, as might
+have been expected, was an intense reaction. Every
+kind of false, evil, and malignant report has been circulated
+by malicious and partisan papers; and if there is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>
+any blessing in having all manner of evil said against
+us falsely, we have seemed to be in a fair way to come
+in possession of it.</p>
+
+<p>The sanction which was given in this matter to the
+voice of the people, by the nobility of England and
+Scotland, has been regarded and treated with special
+rancor; and yet, in its place, it has been particularly
+important. Without it great advantages would have
+been taken to depreciate the value of the national testimony.
+The value of this testimony in particular will
+appear from the fact that the anti-slavery cause has
+been treated with especial contempt by the leaders of
+society in this country, and every attempt made to
+brand it with ridicule.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of making a cause generally unfashionable
+is much greater in this world than it ought to be. It
+operates very powerfully with the young and impressible
+portion of the community; therefore Cassius M.
+Clay very well said with regard to the demonstration at
+Stafford House: "It will help our cause by rendering
+it fashionable."</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the present state of the anti-slavery
+cause in America, I think, for many reasons, that it has
+never been more encouraging. It is encouraging in
+this respect, that the subject is now fairly up for inquiry
+before the public mind. And that systematic
+effort which has been made for years to prevent its
+being discussed is proving wholly ineffectual.</p>
+
+<p>The "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" has sold extensively
+at the South, following in the wake of "Uncle
+Tom." Not one fact or statement in it has been disproved
+as yet. I have yet to learn of even an <i>attempt</i>
+to disprove.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The "North American Review," a periodical which
+has never been favorable to the discussion of the slavery
+question, has come out with a review of "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin," in which, while rating the book very low as a
+work of art, they account for its great circulation and
+success by the fact of its being a true picture of slavery.
+They go on to say that the system is one so inherently
+abominable that, unless slaveholders shall rouse themselves
+and abolish the principle of chattel ownership,
+they can no longer sustain themselves under the contempt
+and indignation of the whole civilized world.
+What are the slaveholders to do when this is the best
+their friends and supporters can say for them?</p>
+
+<p>I regret to say that the movements of Christian denominations
+on this subject are yet greatly behind
+what they should be. Some movements have been
+made by religious bodies, of which I will not now
+speak; but as a general thing the professed Christian
+church is pushed up to its duty by the world, rather
+than the world urged on by the church.</p>
+
+<p>The colored people in this country are rapidly rising
+in every respect. I shall request Frederick Douglass
+to send you the printed account of the recent colored
+convention. It would do credit to any set of men
+whatever, and I hope you will get some notice taken of
+it in the papers of the United Kingdom. It is time
+that the slanders against this unhappy race should be
+refuted, and it should be seen how, in spite of every
+social and political oppression, they are rising in the
+scale of humanity. In my opinion they advance quite
+as fast as any of the foreign races which have found
+an asylum among us.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>May God so guide us in all things that our good be
+not evil spoken of, and that we be left to defend nothing
+which is opposed to his glory and the good of
+man!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours in all sympathy,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>During the Kansas and Nebraska agitation (1853-54),
+Mrs. Stowe, in common with the abolitionists of
+the North, was deeply impressed with a solemn sense
+that it was a desperate crisis in the nation's history.
+She was in constant correspondence with Charles Sumner
+and other distinguished statesmen of the time, and
+kept herself informed as to the minutest details of the
+struggle. At this time she wrote and caused to be
+circulated broadcast the following appeal to the women
+of America:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Providence of God has brought our nation to
+a crisis of most solemn interest.</p>
+
+<p>"A question is now pending in our national legislature
+which is most vitally to affect the temporal and
+eternal interests, not only of ourselves, but of our children
+and our children's children for ages yet unborn.
+Through our nation it is to affect the interests of liberty
+and Christianity throughout the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Of the woes, the injustice, and the misery of slavery
+it is not needful to speak. There is but one feeling
+and one opinion upon this subject among us all. I do
+not think there is a mother who clasps her child to her
+breast who would ever be made to feel it right that
+that child should be a slave, not a mother among us
+who would not rather lay that child in its grave.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor can I believe that there is a woman so unchristian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+as to think it right to inflict upon her neighbor's
+child what she would consider worse than death
+were it inflicted upon her own. I do not believe there
+is a wife who would think it right that <i>her</i> husband
+should be sold to a trader to be worked all his life
+without wages or a recognition of rights. I do not
+believe there is a husband who would consider it right
+that his wife should be regarded by law the property
+of another man. I do not believe there is a father or
+mother who would consider it right were they forbidden
+by law to teach their children to read. I do not
+believe there is a brother who would think it right to
+have his sister held as property, with no legal defense
+for her personal honor, by any man living.</p>
+
+<p>"All this is inherent in slavery. It is not the abuse
+of slavery, but its legal nature. And there is not a
+woman in the United States, where the question is fairly
+put to her, who thinks these things are right.</p>
+
+<p>"But though our hearts have bled over this wrong,
+there have been many things tending to fetter our
+hands, to perplex our efforts, and to silence our voice.
+We have been told that to speak of it was an invasion
+of the rights of states. We have heard of promises
+and compacts, and the natural expression of feeling has
+in many cases been repressed by an appeal to those
+honorable sentiments which respect the keeping of
+engagements.</p>
+
+<p>"But a time has now come when the subject is arising
+under quite a different aspect.</p>
+
+<p>"The question is not now, shall the wrongs of slavery
+exist as they have within their own territories, but
+shall we permit them to be extended all over the free<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>
+territories of the United States? Shall the woes and
+the miseries of slavery be extended over a region of
+fair, free, unoccupied territory nearly equal in extent
+to the whole of the free States?</p>
+
+<p>"Nor is this all! This is not the last thing that is
+expected or intended. Should this movement be submitted
+to in silence, should the North consent to this
+solemn breach of contract on the part of the South,
+there yet remains one more step to be apprehended,
+namely, the legalizing of slavery throughout the free
+States. By a decision of the supreme court in the
+Lemmon case, it may be declared lawful for slave property
+to be held in the Northern States. Should this
+come to pass, it is no more improbable that there may
+be four years hence slave depots in New York city
+than it was four years ago that the South would propose
+a repeal of the Missouri Compromise.</p>
+
+<p>"Women of the free States! the question is not
+shall we remonstrate with slavery on its own soil, but
+are we willing to receive slavery into the free States
+and Territories of this Union? Shall the whole power
+of these United States go into the hands of slavery?
+Shall every State in the Union be thrown open to
+slavery? This is the possible result and issue of the
+question now pending. This is the fearful crisis at
+which we stand.</p>
+
+<p>"And now you ask, What can the <i>women</i> of a country
+do?</p>
+
+<p>"O women of the free States! what did your brave
+mothers do in the days of our Revolution? Did not
+liberty in those days feel the strong impulse of woman's
+heart?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There was never a great interest agitating a community
+where woman's influence was not felt for
+good or for evil. At the time when the abolition of
+the slave-trade was convulsing England, women contributed
+more than any other laborers to that great
+triumph of humanity. The women of England refused
+to receive into their houses the sugar raised by slaves.
+Seventy thousand families thus refused the use of sugar
+in testimony of their abhorrence of the manner in
+which it was produced. At that time women were unwearied
+in going from house to house distributing
+books and tracts upon the subject, and presenting it
+clearly and forcibly to thousands of families who would
+otherwise have disregarded it.</p>
+
+<p>"The women all over England were associated in
+corresponding circles for prayer and labor. Petitions
+to the government were prepared and signed by women
+of every station in all parts of the kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>"Women of America! we do not know with what
+thrilling earnestness the hopes and the eyes of the
+world are fastened upon our country, and how intense
+is the desire that we should take a stand for universal
+liberty. When I was in England, although I distinctly
+stated that the raising of money was no part of my object
+there, it was actually forced upon me by those who
+could not resist the impulse to do something for this
+great cause. Nor did it come from the well-to-do
+alone; but hundreds of most affecting letters were
+received from poor working men and women, who inclosed
+small sums in postage-stamps to be devoted to
+freeing slaves.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor is this deep feeling confined to England alone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>
+I found it in France, Switzerland, and Germany. Why
+do foreign lands regard us with this intensity of interest?
+Is it not because the whole world looks hopefully
+toward America as a nation especially raised by
+God to advance the cause of human liberty and religion?</p>
+
+<p>"There has been a universal expectation that the
+next step taken by America would surely be one that
+should have a tendency to right this great wrong.
+Those who are struggling for civil and religious liberty
+in Europe speak this word 'slavery' in sad whispers, as
+one names a fault of a revered friend. They can scarce
+believe the advertisements in American papers of slave
+sales of men, women, and children, traded like cattle.
+Scarcely can they trust their eyes when they read the
+laws of the slave States, and the decisions of their
+courts. The advocates of despotism hold these things
+up to them and say: 'See what comes of republican
+liberty!' Hitherto the answer has been, 'America is
+more than half free, and she certainly will in time
+repudiate slavery altogether.'</p>
+
+<p>"But what can they say now if, just as the great
+struggle for human rights is commencing throughout
+Europe, America opens all her Territories to the most
+unmitigated despotism?</p>
+
+<p>"While all the nations of Europe are thus moved
+on the subject of American slavery, shall we alone remain
+unmoved? Shall we, the wives, mothers, and
+sisters of America, remain content with inaction in such
+a crisis as this?</p>
+
+<p>"The first duty of every American woman at this
+time is to thoroughly understand the subject for herself,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
+and to feel that she is bound to use her influence
+for the right. Then they can obtain signatures to
+petitions to our national legislature. They can spread
+information upon this vital topic throughout their
+neighborhoods. They can employ lecturers to lay the
+subject before the people. They can circulate the
+speeches of their members of Congress that bear upon
+the subject, and in many other ways they can secure to
+all a full understanding of the present position of our
+country.</p>
+
+<p>"Above all, it seems to be necessary and desirable
+that we should make this subject a matter of earnest
+prayer. A conflict is now begun between the forces
+of liberty and despotism throughout the whole world.
+We who are Christians, and believe in the sure word
+of prophecy, know that fearful convulsions and overturnings
+are predicted before the coming of Him who
+is to rule the earth in righteousness. How important,
+then, in this crisis, that all who believe in prayer should
+retreat beneath the shadow of the Almighty!</p>
+
+<p>"It is a melancholy but unavoidable result of such
+great encounters of principle that they tend to degenerate
+into sectional and personal bitterness. It is
+this liability that forms one of the most solemn and
+affecting features of the crisis now presented. We are
+on the eve of a conflict which will try men's souls, and
+strain to the utmost the bonds of brotherly union that
+bind this nation together.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us, then, pray that in the agitation of this question
+between the North and the South the war of principle
+may not become a mere sectional conflict, degenerating
+into the encounter of physical force. Let us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>
+raise our hearts to Him who has the power to restrain
+the wrath of men, that He will avert the consequences
+that our sins as a nation so justly deserve.</p>
+
+<p>"There are many noble minds in the South who do
+not participate in the machinations of their political
+leaders, and whose sense of honor and justice is outraged
+by this proposition equally with our own. While,
+then, we seek to sustain the cause of freedom unwaveringly,
+let us also hold it to be our office as true women
+to moderate the acrimony of political contest, remembering
+that the slaveholder and the slave are alike our
+brethren, whom the law of God commands us to love as
+ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>"For the sake, then, of our dear children, for the
+sake of our common country, for the sake of outraged
+and struggling liberty throughout the world, let every
+woman of America now do her duty."</p>
+
+<p>At this same time Mrs. Stowe found herself engaged
+in an active correspondence with William Lloyd Garrison,
+much of which appeared in the columns of his
+paper, the "Liberator." Late in 1853 she writes to
+him:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"In regard to you, your paper, and in some measure
+your party, I am in an honest embarrassment. I
+sympathize with you fully in many of your positions.
+Others I consider erroneous, hurtful to liberty and the
+progress of humanity. Nevertheless, I believe you and
+those who support them to be honest and conscientious
+in your course and opinions. What I fear is that your
+paper will take from poor Uncle Tom his Bible, and
+give him nothing in its place."</p>
+
+<p>To this Mr. Garrison answers: "I do not understand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
+why the imputation is thrown upon the 'Liberator' as
+tending to rob Uncle Tom of his Bible. I know of
+no writer in its pages who wishes to deprive him of it,
+or of any comfort he may derive from it. It is for him
+to place whatever estimate he can upon it, and for you
+and me to do the same; but for neither of us to accept
+any more of it than we sincerely believe to be in accordance
+with reason, truth, and eternal right. How much
+of it is true and obligatory, each one can determine
+only for himself; for on Protestant ground there is no
+room for papal infallibility. All Christendom professes
+to believe in the inspiration of the volume, and at the
+same time all Christendom is by the ears as to its real
+teachings. Surely you would not have me disloyal to
+my conscience. How do you prove that you are not
+trammeled by educational or traditional notions as to
+the entire sanctity of the book? Indeed, it seems to
+me very evident that you are not free in spirit, in view
+of the apprehension and sorrow you feel because you
+find your conceptions of the Bible controverted in the
+'Liberator,' else why such disquietude of mind?
+'Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just.'"</p>
+
+<p>In answer to this Mrs. Stowe writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>I did not reply to your letter immediately, because I
+did not wish to speak on so important a subject unadvisedly,
+or without proper thought and reflection. The
+greater the interest involved in a truth the more careful,
+self-distrustful, and patient should be the inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>I would not attack the faith of a heathen without
+being sure I had a better one to put in its place, because,
+such as it is, it is better than nothing. I notice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
+in Mr. Parker's sermons a very eloquent passage on the
+uses and influences of the Bible. He considers it to
+embody absolute and perfect religion, and that no better
+mode for securing present and eternal happiness can
+be found than in the obedience to certain religious precepts
+therein recorded. He would have it read and
+circulated, and considers it, as I infer, a Christian duty
+to send it to the heathen, the slave, etc. I presume
+you agree with him.</p>
+
+<p>These things being supposed about the Bible would
+certainly make it appear that, if any man deems it his
+duty to lessen its standing in the eyes of the community,
+he ought at least to do so in a cautious and reverential
+spirit, with humility and prayer.</p>
+
+<p>My objection to the mode in which these things are
+handled in the "Liberator" is that the general tone
+and spirit seem to me the reverse of this. If your
+paper circulated only among those of disciplined and
+cultivated minds, skilled to separate truth from falsehood,
+knowing where to go for evidence and how to
+satisfy the doubts you raise, I should feel less regret.
+But your name and benevolent labors have given your
+paper a circulation among the poor and lowly. They
+have no means of investigating, no habits of reasoning.
+The Bible, as they at present understand it, is doing
+them great good, and is a blessing to them and their
+families. The whole tendency of your mode of proceeding
+is to lessen their respect and reverence for the
+Bible, without giving them anything in its place.</p>
+
+<p>I have no fear of discussion as to its final results on
+the Bible; my only regrets are for those human beings
+whose present and immortal interests I think compromised<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>
+by this manner of discussion. Discussion of the
+evidence of the authenticity and inspiration of the
+Bible and of all theology will come more and more,
+and I rejoice that they will. But I think they must
+come, as all successful inquiries into truth must, in a
+calm, thoughtful, and humble spirit; not with bold
+assertions, hasty generalizations, or passionate appeals.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 345px;">
+<img src="images/i264.jpg" width="345" height="600" alt="Lyman Beecher portrait and signature" />
+</div>
+
+<p>I appreciate your good qualities none the less though
+you differ with me on this point. I believe you to be
+honest and sincere. In Mr. Parker's works I have
+found much to increase my respect and esteem for him
+as a man. He comes to results, it is true, to which it
+would be death and utter despair for me to arrive at.
+Did I believe as he does about the Bible and Jesus, I
+were of all creatures most miserable, because I could
+not love God. I could find no God to love. I would
+far rather never have been born.</p>
+
+<p>As to you, my dear friend, you must own that my
+frankness to you is the best expression of my confidence
+in your honor and nobleness. Did I not believe
+that "an excellent spirit" is in you, I would not take
+the trouble to write all this. If in any points in this
+note I appear to have misapprehended or done you injustice,
+I hope you will candidly let me know where and
+how.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Truly your friend,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>In addition to these letters the following extracts
+from a subsequent letter to Mr. Garrison are given to
+show in what respect their fields of labor differed, and
+to present an idea of what Mrs. Stowe was doing for
+the cause of freedom besides writing against slavery:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='right'>
+<span class="smcap">Andover, Mass</span>., <i>February 18, 1854.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I see and sincerely rejoice in the
+result of your lecture in New York. I am increasingly
+anxious that all who hate slavery be united, if not in
+form, at least in fact,&mdash;a unity in difference. <i>Our</i>
+field lies in the church, and as yet I differ from you as
+to what may be done and hoped there. Brother Edward
+(Beecher) has written a sermon that goes to the
+very root of the decline of moral feeling in the church.
+As soon as it can be got ready for the press I shall
+have it printed, and shall send a copy to every minister
+in the country.</p>
+
+<p>Our lectures have been somewhat embarrassed by a
+pressure of new business brought upon us by the
+urgency of the Kansas-Nebraska question. Since we
+began, however, brother Edward has devoted his whole
+time to visiting, consultation, and efforts the result of
+which will shortly be given to the public. We are trying
+to secure a universal arousing of the pulpit.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bacon's letter is noble. You must think so. It
+has been sent to every member of Congress. Dr.
+Kirk's sermon is an advance, and his congregation
+warmly seconded it. Now, my good friend, be willing
+to see that the church is better than you have thought
+it. Be not unwilling to see some good symptoms, and
+hope that even those who see not at all at first will
+gain as they go on. I am acting on the conviction
+that you love the cause better than self. If anything
+can be done now advantageously by the aid of money,
+let me know. God has given me some power in this
+way, though I am too feeble to do much otherwise.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours for the cause,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Although the demand was very great upon Mrs.
+Stowe for magazine and newspaper articles, many of
+which she managed to write in 1854-55, she had in
+her mind at this time a new book which should be
+in many respects the complement of "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin." In preparing her Key to the latter work, she
+had collected much new material. In 1855, therefore,
+and during the spring of 1856, she found time to
+weave these hitherto unused facts into the story of
+"Dred." In her preface to the English edition of this
+book she writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The author's object in this book is to show the general
+effect of slavery on society; the various social disadvantages
+which it brings, even to its most favored
+advocates; the shiftlessness and misery and backward
+tendency of all the economical arrangements of slave
+States; the retrograding of good families into poverty;
+the deterioration of land; the worse demoralization of
+all classes, from the aristocratic, tyrannical planter to
+the oppressed and poor white, which is the result of the
+introduction of slave labor.</p>
+
+<p>"It is also an object to display the corruption of
+Christianity which arises from the same source; a corruption
+that has gradually lowered the standard of the
+church, North and South, and been productive of more
+infidelity than the works of all the encyclopćdists put
+together."</p>
+
+<p>The story of "Dred" was suggested by the famous
+negro insurrection, led by Nat Turner, in Eastern Virginia
+in 1831. In this affair one of the principal participators
+was named "Dred." An interesting incident
+connected with the writing of "Dred" is vividly remembered
+by Mrs. Stowe's daughters.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One sultry summer night there arose a terrific thunder-storm,
+with continuous flashes of lightning and
+incessant rumbling and muttering of thunder, every
+now and then breaking out into sharp, crashing reports
+followed by torrents of rain.</p>
+
+<p>The two young girls, trembling with fear, groped
+their way down-stairs to their mother's room, and on
+entering found her lying quietly in bed awake, and
+calmly watching the storm from the windows, the shades
+being up. She expressed no surprise on seeing them,
+but said that she had not been herself in the least
+frightened, though intensely interested in watching the
+storm. "I have been writing a description of a thunder-storm
+for my book, and I am watching to see if I
+need to correct it in any particular." Our readers will
+be interested to know that she had so well described a
+storm from memory that even this vivid object-lesson
+brought with it no new suggestions. This scene is to
+be found in the twenty-fourth chapter of "Dred,"&mdash;"Life
+in the Swamps."</p>
+
+<p>"The day had been sultry and it was now an hour
+or two past midnight, when a thunder-storm, which had
+long been gathering and muttering in the distant sky,
+began to develop its forces. A low, shivering sigh
+crept through the woods, and swayed in weird whistlings
+the tops of the pines; and sharp arrows of lightning
+came glittering down among the branches, as if
+sent from the bow of some warlike angel. An army
+of heavy clouds swept in a moment across the moon;
+then came a broad, dazzling, blinding sheet of flame."</p>
+
+<p>What particularly impressed Mrs. Stowe's daughters
+at the time was their mother's perfect calmness, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+minute study of the storm. She was on the alert to
+detect anything which might lead her to correct her
+description.</p>
+
+<p>Of this new story Charles Summer wrote from the
+senate chamber:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Stowe</span>,&mdash;I am rejoiced to learn,
+from your excellent sister here, that you are occupied
+with another tale exposing slavery. I feel that it will
+act directly upon pending questions, and help us in our
+struggle for Kansas, and also to overthrow the slave-oligarchy
+in the coming Presidential election. We
+need your help at once in our struggle.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Ever sincerely yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Charles Sumner</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Having finished this second great story of slavery, in
+the early summer of 1856 Mrs. Stowe decided to visit
+Europe again, in search of a much-needed rest. She
+also found it necessary to do so in order to secure the
+English right to her book, which she had failed to do
+on "Uncle Tom's Cabin."</p>
+
+<p>Just before sailing she received the following touching
+letter from her life-long friend, Georgiana May.
+It is the last one of a series that extended without
+interruption over a period of thirty years, and as such
+has been carefully cherished:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Ocean House, Groton Point</span>, <i>July 26, 1856.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Hattie</span>,&mdash;Very likely it is too late for me to
+come with my modest knock to your study door, and
+ask to be taken in for a moment, but I do so want to
+<i>bless</i> you before you go, and I have not been well
+enough to write until to-day. It seems just as if I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>
+<i>could</i> not let you go till I have seen once more your
+face in the flesh, for great uncertainties hang over my
+future. One thing, however, is certain: whichever of
+us two gets first to the farther shore of the great ocean
+between us and the unseen will be pretty sure to be at
+hand to welcome the other. It is not poetry, but solemn
+verity between us that we <i>shall</i> meet again.</p>
+
+<p>But there is nothing <i>morbid</i> or <i>morbific</i> going into
+these few lines. I have made "Old Tiff's" acquaintance.
+<i>He</i> is a verity,&mdash;will stand up with Uncle Tom
+and Topsy, pieces of negro property you will be guilty
+of holding after you are dead. Very likely your children
+may be selling them.</p>
+
+<p>Hattie, I rejoice over this completed work. Another
+work for God and your generation. I am glad that
+you have come out of it alive, that you have pleasure
+in prospect, that you "walk at liberty" and have done
+with "fits of languishing." Perhaps some day I shall
+be set free, but the prospect does not look promising,
+except as I have full faith that "the Good Man above
+is looking on, and will bring it all round right." Still
+"heart and flesh" both "fail me." He will be the
+"strength of my heart," and I never seem to doubt
+"my portion forever."</p>
+
+<p>If I never speak to you again, this is the farewell
+utterance.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours truly,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Georgiana</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe was accompanied on this second trip to
+Europe by her husband, her two eldest daughters, her
+son Henry, and her sister Mary (Mrs. Perkins). It
+was a pleasant summer voyage, and was safely accomplished
+without special incident.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XII.<br />
+
+<small>DRED, <b>1856</b>.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Second Visit to England.&mdash;A Glimpse at the Queen.&mdash;The
+Duke of Argyll and Inverary.&mdash;Early Correspondence with
+Lady Byron.&mdash;Dunrobin Castle and its Inmates.&mdash;A Visit
+to Stoke Park.&mdash;Lord Dufferin.&mdash;Charles Kingsley at
+Home.&mdash;Paris Revisited.&mdash;Madame Mohl's Receptions.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">After</span> reaching England, about the middle of August,
+1856, Mrs. Stowe and her husband spent some
+days in London completing arrangements to have an
+English edition of "Dred" published by Sampson
+Low &amp; Co. Professor Stowe's duties in America being
+very pressing, he had intended returning at once, but
+was detained for a short time, as will be seen in the
+following letter written by him from Glasgow, August
+29, to a friend in America:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I finished my business in London
+on Wednesday, and intended to return by the Liverpool
+steamer of to-morrow, but find that every berth
+on that line is engaged until the 3d of October. We
+therefore came here yesterday, and I shall take passage
+in the steamer New York from this port next Tuesday.
+We have received a special invitation to visit Inverary
+Castle, the seat of the Duke of Argyll, and yesterday
+we had just the very pleasantest little interview with
+the Queen that ever was. None of the formal, drawing-room,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>
+breathless receptions, but just an accidental,
+done-on-purpose meeting at a railway station, while on
+our way to Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen seemed really delighted to see my wife,
+and remarkably glad to see me for her sake. She
+pointed us out to Prince Albert, who made two most
+gracious bows to my wife and two to me, while the four
+royal children stared their big blue eyes almost out
+looking at the little authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+Colonel Grey handed the Queen, with my wife's compliments,
+a copy of the new book ("Dred"). She took one
+volume herself and handed the other to Prince Albert,
+and they were soon both very busy reading. She is a
+real nice little body with exceedingly pleasant, kindly
+manners.</p>
+
+<p>I expect to be in Natick the last week in September.
+God bless you all.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">C. E. Stowe.</span><br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>After her husband's departure for the United States,
+Mrs. Stowe, with her son Henry, her two eldest daughters,
+and her sister Mary (Mrs. Perkins), accepted the
+Duke of Argyll's invitation to visit the Highlands. Of
+this visit we catch a pleasant glimpse from a letter written
+to Professor Stowe during its continuance, which is
+as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Inverary Castle</span>, <i>September 6, 1856.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Husband</span>,&mdash;We have been now a week
+in this delicious place, enjoying the finest skies and
+scenery, the utmost of kind hospitality. From Loch
+Goil we took the coach for Inverary, a beautiful drive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>
+of about two hours. We had seats on the outside, and
+the driver John, like some of the White Mountain guides,
+was full of song and story, and local tradition. He
+spoke Scotch and Gaelic, recited ballads, and sung songs
+with great gusto. Mary and the girls stopped in a little
+inn at St. Catherine's, on the shores of Loch Fine, while
+Henry and I took steamboat for Inverary, where we
+found the duchess waiting in a carriage for us, with
+Lady Emma Campbell.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>The common routine of the day here is as follows:
+We rise about half past eight. About half past nine
+we all meet in the dining-hall, where the servants are
+standing in a line down one side, and a row of chairs
+for guests and visitors occupies the other. The duchess
+with her nine children, a perfectly beautiful little flock,
+sit together. The duke reads the Bible and a prayer,
+and pronounces the benediction. After that, breakfast
+is served,&mdash;a very hearty, informal, cheerful meal,&mdash;and
+after that come walks, or drives, or fishing parties,
+till lunch time, and then more drives, or anything else:
+everybody, in short, doing what he likes till half past
+seven, which is the dinner hour. After that we have
+coffee and tea in the evening.</p>
+
+<p>The first morning, the duke took me to see his mine
+of nickel silver. We had a long and beautiful drive,
+and talked about everything in literature, religion,
+morals, and the temperance movement, about which last
+he is in some state of doubt and uncertainty, not inclining,
+I think, to have it pressed yet, though feeling
+there is need of doing something.</p>
+
+<p>If "Dred" has as good a sale in America as it is
+likely to have in England, we shall do well. There is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>
+such a demand that they had to placard the shop windows
+in Glasgow with,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"To prevent disappointment,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'Dred'</span><br />
+Not to be had till," etc.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Everybody is after it, and the prospect is of an enormous
+sale.</p>
+
+<p>God, to whom I prayed night and day while I was
+writing the book, has heard me, and given us of worldly
+goods more <i>than</i> I asked. I feel, therefore, a desire to
+"walk softly," and inquire, for what has He so trusted
+us?</p>
+
+<p>Every day I am more charmed with the duke and
+duchess; they are simple-hearted, frank, natural, full
+of feeling, of piety, and good sense. They certainly
+are, apart from any considerations of rank or position,
+most interesting and noble people. The duke laughed
+heartily at many things I told him of our Andover
+theological tactics, of your preaching, etc.; but I think
+he is a sincere, earnest Christian.</p>
+
+<p>Our American politics form the daily topic of interest.
+The late movements in Congress are discussed
+with great warmth, and every morning the papers are
+watched for new details.</p>
+
+<p>I must stop now, as it is late and we are to leave
+here early to-morrow morning. We are going to Staffa,
+Iona, the Pass of Glencoe, and finally through the Caledonian
+Canal up to Dunrobin Castle, where a large
+party of all sorts of interesting people are gathered
+around the Duchess of Sutherland.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Affectionately yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Harriet</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>From Dunrobin Castle one of his daughters writes
+to Professor Stowe: "We spent five most delightful
+days at Inverary, and were so sorry you could not be
+there with us. From there we went to Oban, and spent
+several days sight-seeing, finally reaching Inverness by
+way of the Caledonian Canal. Here, to our surprise,
+we found our rooms at the hotel all prepared for us.
+The next morning we left by post for Dunrobin, which
+is fifty-nine miles from Inverness. At the borders of
+the duke's estate we found a delightfully comfortable
+carriage awaiting us, and before we had gone much
+farther the postilion announced that the duchess was
+coming to meet us. Sure enough, as we looked up the
+road we saw a fine cavalcade approaching. It consisted
+of a splendid coach-and-four (in which sat the duchess)
+with liveried postilions, and a number of outriders, one
+of whom rode in front to clear the way. The duchess
+seemed perfectly delighted to see mamma, and taking
+her into her own carriage dashed off towards the castle,
+we following on behind."</p>
+
+<p>At Dunrobin Mrs. Stowe found awaiting her the following
+note from her friend, Lady Byron:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>September 10, 1856.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p>Your book, dear Mrs. Stowe, is of the "little leaven"
+kind, and must prove a great moral force,&mdash;perhaps not
+manifestly so much as secretly, and yet I can hardly
+conceive so much power without immediate and sensible
+effects; only there will be a strong disposition to resist
+on the part of all the hollow-hearted professors of
+religion, whose heathenisms you so unsparingly expose.
+They have a class feeling like others. To the young,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>
+and to those who do not reflect much on what is offered
+to their belief, you will do great good by showing how
+spiritual food is adulterated. The Bread from Heaven
+is in the same case as baker's bread. I feel that one
+perusal is not enough. It is a "mine," to use your own
+simile. If there is truth in what I heard Lord Byron
+say, that works of fiction <i>lived</i> only by the amount of
+<i>truth</i> which they contained, your story is sure of long
+life.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>I know now, more than before, how to value communion
+with you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 6em;">With kind regards to your family,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours affectionately,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">A. T. Noel Byron</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>From this pleasant abiding-place Mrs. Stowe writes
+to her husband:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Dunrobin Castle</span>, <i>September 15, 1856.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Husband</span>,&mdash;Everything here is like a
+fairy story. The place is beautiful! It is the most
+perfect combination of architectural and poetic romance,
+with home comfort. The people, too, are charming. We
+have here Mr. Labouchere, a cabinet minister, and Lady
+Mary his wife,&mdash;I like him very much, and her, too,&mdash;Kingsley's
+brother, a very entertaining man, and to-morrow
+Lord Ellsmere is expected. I wish you could
+be here, for I am sure you would like it. Life is so
+quiet and sincere and friendly, that you would feel more
+as if you had come at the hearts of these people than
+in London.</p>
+
+<p>The Sutherland estate looks like a garden. We
+stopped at the town of Frain, four miles before we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>
+reached Sutherlandshire, where a crowd of well-to-do,
+nice-looking people gathered around the carriage, and
+as we drove off gave three cheers. This was better
+than I expected, and looks well for their opinion of my
+views.</p>
+
+<p>"Dred" is selling over here wonderfully. Low says,
+with all the means at his command, he has not been able
+to meet the demand. He sold fifty thousand in two
+weeks, and probably will sell as many more.</p>
+
+<p>I am showered with letters, private and printed, in
+which the only difficulty is to know what the writers
+would be at. I see evidently happiness and prosperity
+all through the line of this estate. I see the duke
+giving his thought and time, and spending the whole
+income of this estate in improvements upon it. I see
+the duke and duchess evidently beloved wherever they
+move. I see them most amiable, most Christian, most
+considerate to everybody. The writers of the letters
+admit the goodness of the duke, but denounce the system,
+and beg me to observe its effects for myself. I do
+observe that, compared with any other part of the Highlands,
+Sutherland is a garden. I observe well-clothed
+people, thriving lands, healthy children, fine schoolhouses,
+and all that.</p>
+
+<p>Henry was invited to the tenants' dinner, where he
+excited much amusement by pledging every toast in
+fair water, as he has done invariably on all occasions
+since he has been here.</p>
+
+<p>The duchess, last night, showed me her copy of
+"Dred," in which she has marked what most struck or
+pleased her. I begged it, and am going to send it to
+you. She said to me this morning at breakfast, "The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
+Queen says that she began 'Dred' the very minute she
+got it, and is deeply interested in it."</p>
+
+<p>She bought a copy of Lowell's poems, and begged
+me to mark the best ones for her; so if you see him,
+tell him that we have been reading him together. She
+is, taking her all in all, one of the noblest-appointed
+women I ever saw; real old, genuine English, such as
+one reads of in history; full of nobility, courage, tenderness,
+and zeal. It does me good to hear her read
+prayers daily, as she does, in the midst of her servants
+and guests, with a manner full of grand and noble feeling.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thursday Morning, September 25.</i> We were
+obliged to get up at half past five the morning we
+left Dunrobin, an effort when one doesn't go to bed
+till one o'clock. We found breakfast laid for us in the
+library, and before we had quite finished the duchess
+came in. Our starting off was quite an imposing sight.
+First came the duke's landau, in which were Mary, the
+duke, and myself; then a carriage in which were Eliza
+and Hatty, and finally the carriage which we had hired,
+with Henry, our baggage, and Mr. Jackson (the duke's
+secretary). The gardener sent a fresh bouquet for
+each of us, and there was such a leave-taking, as if we
+were old and dear friends. We did really love them, and
+had no doubt of their love for us.</p>
+
+<p>The duke rode with us as far as Dornach, where he
+showed us the cathedral beneath which his ancestors
+are buried, and where is a statue of his father, similar
+to one the tenants have erected on top of the highest
+hill in the neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>We also saw the prison, which had but two inmates,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>
+and the old castle. Here the duke took leave of us,
+and taking our own carriage we crossed the ferry and
+continued on our way. After a very bad night's rest
+at Inverness, in consequence of the town's being so full
+of people attending some Highland games that we
+could have no places at the hotel, and after a weary
+ride in the rain, we came into Aberdeen Friday night.</p>
+
+<p>To-morrow we go on to Edinburgh, where I hope to
+meet a letter from you. The last I heard from Low,
+he had sold sixty thousand of "Dred," and it was still
+selling well. I have not yet heard from America how
+it goes. The critics scold, and whiffle, and dispute
+about it, but on the whole it is a success, so the
+"Times" says, with much coughing, hemming, and
+standing first on one foot and then on the other. If
+the "Times" were sure we should beat in the next
+election, "Dred" would go up in the scale; but as long
+as there is that uncertainty, it has first one line of
+praise, and then one of blame.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Henry Stowe returned to America in October to enter
+Dartmouth College, while the rest of the party pursued
+their way southward, as will be seen by the following
+letters:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">City of York</span>, <i>October 10, 1856.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Husband</span>,&mdash;Henry will tell you all about our
+journey, and at present I have but little time for details.
+I received your first letter with great joy, relief,
+and gratitude, first to God for restoring your health
+and strength, and then to you for so good, long, and
+refreshing a letter.</p>
+
+<p>Henry, I hope, comes home with a serious determination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>
+to do well and be a comfort. Seldom has a young
+man seen what he has in this journey, or made more
+valuable friends.</p>
+
+<p>Since we left Aberdeen, from which place my last
+was mailed, we have visited in Edinburgh with abounding
+delight; thence yesterday to Newcastle. Last
+night attended service in Durham Cathedral, and after
+that came to York, whence we send Henry to Liverpool.</p>
+
+<p>I send you letters, etc., by him. One hundred thousand
+copies of "Dred" sold in four weeks! After that
+who cares what critics say? Its success in England
+has been complete, so far as sale is concerned. It is
+very bitterly attacked, both from a literary and a religious
+point of view. The "Record" is down upon it
+with a cartload of solemnity; the "Athenćum" with
+waspish spite; the "Edinburgh" goes out of its way
+to say that the author knows nothing of the society she
+describes; but yet it goes everywhere, is read everywhere,
+and Mr. Low says that he puts the hundred and
+twenty-fifth thousand to press confidently. The fact
+that so many good judges like it better than "Uncle
+Tom" is success enough.</p>
+
+<p>In my journal to Henry, which you may look for
+next week, you will learn how I have been very near
+the Queen, and formed acquaintance with divers of
+her lords and ladies, and heard all she has said about
+"Dred;" how she prefers it to "Uncle Tom," how she
+inquired for you, and other matters.</p>
+
+<p>Till then, I am, as ever, your affectionate wife,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After leaving York, Mrs. Stowe and her party spent
+a day or two at Carlton Rectory, on the edge of Sherwood
+Forest, in which they enjoyed a most delightful
+picnic. From there they were to travel to London by
+way of Warwick and Oxford, and of this journey Mrs.
+Stowe writes as follows to her son Henry:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The next morning we were induced to send our
+things to London, being assured by Mr. G. that he
+would dispatch them immediately with some things of
+his own that were going, and that they should certainly
+await us upon our arrival. In one respect it was well
+for us that we thus rid ourselves of the trouble of looking
+after them, for I never saw such blind, confusing
+arrangements as these English railroads have.</p>
+
+<p>"When we were set down at the place where we
+were to change for Warwick, we were informed that
+probably the train had gone. At any rate it could
+only be found on the other side of the station. You
+might naturally think we had nothing to do but walk
+across to the other side. No, indeed! We had to ascend
+a flight of stairs, go through a sort of tubular
+bridge, and down another pair of stairs. When we got
+there the guard said the train was just about to start,
+and yet the ticket office was closed. We tried the door
+in vain. 'You must hurry,' said the guard. 'How
+can we?' said I, 'when we can't get tickets.' He went
+and thumped, and at last roused the dormant intelligence
+inside. We got our tickets, ran for dear life,
+got in, and then <i>waited ten minutes</i>! Arrived at
+Warwick we had a very charming time, and after seeing
+all there was to see we took cars for Oxford.</p>
+
+<p>"The next day we tried to see Oxford. You can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>
+have no idea of it. Call it a college! it is a city of
+colleges,&mdash;a mountain of museums, colleges, halls,
+courts, parks, chapels, lecture-rooms. Out of twenty-four
+colleges we saw only three. We saw enough, however,
+to show us that to explore the colleges of Oxford
+would take a week. Then we came away, and about
+eleven o'clock at night found ourselves in London.</p>
+
+<p>"It was dripping and raining here, for all the world,
+just as it did when we left; but we found a cosy little
+parlor, papered with cheerful crimson paper, lighted by
+a coal-fire, a neat little supper laid out, and the Misses
+Low waiting; for us. Wasn't it nice?</p>
+
+<p>"We are expecting our baggage to-night. Called at
+Sampson Low's store to-day and found it full everywhere
+of red 'Dreds.'"</p>
+
+<p>Upon reaching London Mrs. Stowe found the following
+note from Lady Byron awaiting her:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Oxford House</span>, <i>October 15, 1856.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mrs. Stowe</span>,&mdash;The newspapers represent
+you as returning to London, but I cannot wait for the
+chance, slender I fear, of seeing you there, for I wish
+to consult you on a point admitting but of little delay.
+Feeling that the sufferers in Kansas have a claim not
+only to sympathy, but to the expression of it, I wish to
+send them a donation. It is, however, necessary to
+know what is the best application of money and what
+the safest channel. Presuming that you will approve
+the object, I ask you to tell me. Perhaps you would
+undertake the transmission of my Ł50. My present
+residence, two miles beyond Richmond, is opposite. I
+have watched for instructions of your course with warm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>
+interest. The sale of your book will go on increasing.
+It is beginning to be understood.</p>
+
+<p>Believe me, with kind regards to your daughters,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Your faithful and affectionate</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">A. T. Noel Byron</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>To this note the following answer was promptly returned:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Grove Terrace, Kentish Town</span>, <i>October 16, 1856.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Lady Byron</span>,&mdash;How glad I was to see your
+handwriting once more! how more than glad I should
+be to see <i>you!</i> I do long to see you. I have so much
+to say,&mdash;so much to ask, and need to be refreshed with
+a sense of a congenial and sympathetic soul.</p>
+
+<p>Thank you, my dear friend, for your sympathy with
+our poor sufferers in Kansas. May God bless you for
+it! By doing this you will step to my side; perhaps
+you may share something of that abuse which they
+who "know not what they do" heap upon all who so
+feel for the right. I assure you, dear friend, I am
+<i>not</i> insensible to the fiery darts which thus fly around
+me.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>Direct as usual to my publishers, and believe me, as
+ever, with all my heart,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+Affectionately yours, H. B. S.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Having dispatched this note, Mrs. Stowe wrote to her
+husband concerning their surroundings and plans as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Friday, 16th.</i> Confusion in the camp! no baggage
+come, nobody knows why; running to stations, inquiries,
+messages, and no baggage. Meanwhile we have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>
+not even a clean collar, nothing but very soiled traveling
+dresses; while Lady Mary Labouchere writes that
+her carriage will wait for us at Slough Station this
+afternoon, and we must be off at two. What's to be
+done? Luckily I did not carry all my dresses to Dunrobin;
+so I, of all the party, have a dress that can be
+worn. We go out and buy collars and handkerchiefs,
+and two o'clock beholds us at the station house.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Stoke Park.</i> I arrived here alone, the baggage
+not having yet been heard from. Mr. G., being found
+in London, confessed that he delayed sending it by the
+proper train. In short, Mr. G. is what is called an easy
+man, and one whose easiness makes everybody else uneasy.
+So because he was easy and thought it was no
+great matter, and things would turn out well enough,
+without any great care, <i>we</i> have had all this discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>"I arrived alone at the Slough Station and found
+Lady Mary's carriage waiting. Away we drove through
+a beautiful park full of deer, who were so tame as to
+stand and look at us as we passed. The house is in
+the Italian style, with a dome on top, and wide terraces
+with stone balustrades around it.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Mary met me at the door, and seemed quite
+concerned to learn of our ill-fortune. We went through
+a splendid suite of rooms to a drawing-room, where a
+little tea-table was standing.</p>
+
+<p>"After tea Lady Mary showed me my room. It
+had that delightful, homelike air of repose and comfort
+they succeed so well in giving to rooms here. There
+was a cheerful fire burning, an arm-chair drawn up beside
+it, a sofa on the other side with a neatly arranged
+sofa-table on which were writing materials. One of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>
+the little girls had put a pot of pretty greenhouse moss
+in a silver basket on this table, and my toilet cushion
+was made with a place in the centre to hold a little
+vase of flowers. Here Lady Mary left me to rest before
+dressing for dinner. I sat down in an easy-chair
+before the fire, and formed hospitable resolutions as to
+how I would try to make rooms always look homelike
+and pleasant to tired guests. Then came the maid to
+know if I wanted hot water,&mdash;if I wanted anything,&mdash;and
+by and by it was time for dinner. Going down
+into the parlor I met Mr. Labouchere and we all went
+in to dinner. It was not quite as large a party as at
+Dunrobin, but much in the same way. No company,
+but several ladies who were all family connections.</p>
+
+<p>"The following morning Lord Dufferin and Lord
+Alfred Paget, two gentlemen of the Queen's household,
+rode over from Windsor to lunch with us. They
+brought news of the goings-on there. Do you remember
+one night the Duchess of S. read us a letter from
+Lady Dufferin, describing the exploits of her son, who
+went yachting with Prince Napoleon up by Spitzbergen,
+and when Prince Napoleon and all the rest gave up
+and went back, still persevered and discovered a new
+island? Well, this was the same man. A thin, slender
+person, not at all the man you would fancy as a Mr.
+Great Heart,&mdash;lively, cheery, and conversational.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Alfred is also very pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Mary prevailed on Lord Dufferin to stay and
+drive with us after lunch, and we went over to Clifden,
+the duchess's villa, of which we saw the photograph at
+Dunrobin. For grace and beauty some of the rooms
+in this place exceed any I have yet seen in England.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"When we came back my first thought was whether
+Aunt Mary and the girls had come. Just as we were
+all going up to dress for dinner they appeared. Meanwhile,
+the Queen had sent over from Windsor for Lady
+Mary and her husband to dine with her that evening,
+and such invitations are understood as commands.</p>
+
+<p>"So, although they themselves had invited four or
+five people to dinner, they had to go and leave us to
+entertain ourselves. Lady Mary was dressed very
+prettily in a flounced white silk dress with a pattern of
+roses woven round the bottom of each flounce, and
+looked very elegant. Mr. Labouchere wore breeches,
+with knee and shoe buckles sparkling with diamonds.</p>
+
+<p>"They got home soon after we had left the drawing-room,
+as the Queen always retires at eleven. No late
+hours for her.</p>
+
+<p>"The next day Lady Mary told me that the Queen
+had talked to her all about 'Dred,' and how she preferred
+it to 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' how interested she
+was in Nina, how provoked when she died, and how
+she was angry that something dreadful did not happen
+to Tom Gordon. She inquired for papa, and the rest
+of the family, all of whom she seemed to be well informed
+about.</p>
+
+<p>"The next morning we had Lord Dufferin again to
+breakfast. He is one of the most entertaining young
+men I have seen in England, full of real thought and
+noble feeling, and has a wide range of reading. He
+had read all our American literature, and was very
+flattering in his remarks on Hawthorne, Poe, and Longfellow.
+I find J. R. Lowell less known, however, than
+he deserves to be.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Lord Dufferin says that his mother wrote him some
+verses on his coming of age, and that he built a tower
+for them and inscribed them on a brass plate. I recommend
+the example to you, Henry; make yourself the
+tower and your memory the brass plate.</p>
+
+<p>"This morning came also, to call, Lady Augusta
+Bruce, Lord Elgin's daughter, one of the Duchess of
+Kent's ladies-in-waiting; a very excellent, sensible girl,
+who is a strong anti-slavery body.</p>
+
+<p>"After lunch we drove over to Eton, and went in to
+see the provost's house. After this, as we were passing
+by Windsor the coachman suddenly stopped and said,
+'The Queen is coming, my lady.' We stood still and
+the royal cortége passed. I only saw the Queen, who
+bowed graciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Mary stayed at our car door till it left the
+station, and handed in a beautiful bouquet as we parted.
+This is one of the loveliest visits I have made."</p>
+
+<p>After filling a number of other pleasant engagements
+in England, among which was a visit in the
+family of Charles Kingsley, Mrs. Stowe and her party
+crossed the Channel and settled down for some months
+in Paris for the express purpose of studying French.
+From the French capital she writes to her husband in
+Andover as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>November 7, 1856.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Husband</span>,&mdash;On the 28th, when your last
+was written, I was at Charles Kingsley's. It seemed
+odd enough to Mary and me to find ourselves, long
+after dark, alone in a hack, driving towards the house
+of a man whom we never had seen (nor his wife either).</p>
+
+<p>My heart fluttered as, after rumbling a long way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>
+through the dark, we turned into a yard. We knocked
+at a door and were met in the hall by a man who stammers
+a little in his speech, and whose inquiry, "Is
+this Mrs. Stowe?" was our first positive introduction.
+Ushered into a large, pleasant parlor lighted by a coal
+fire, which flickered on comfortable chairs, lounges,
+pictures, statuettes, and book-cases, we took a good view
+of him. He is tall, slender, with blue eyes, brown hair,
+and a hale, well-browned face, and somewhat loose-jointed
+withal. His wife is a real Spanish beauty.</p>
+
+<p>How we did talk and go on for three days! I guess
+he is tired. I'm sure we were. He is a nervous, excitable
+being, and talks with head, shoulders, arms, and
+hands, while his hesitance makes it the harder. Of his
+theology I will say more some other time. He, also,
+has been through the great distress, the "Conflict of
+Ages," but has come out at a different end from Edward,
+and stands with John Foster, though with more
+positiveness than he.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed a good deal at many stories I told him
+of father, and seemed delighted to hear about him.
+But he is, what I did not expect, a zealous Churchman;
+insists that the Church of England is the finest and
+broadest platform a man can stand on, and that the
+thirty-nine articles are the only ones he could subscribe
+to. I told him you thought them the best summary
+(of doctrine) you knew, which pleased him greatly.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I got your letter to-night in Paris, at No. 19
+Rue de Clichy, where you may as well direct your
+future letters.</p>
+
+<p>We reached Paris about eleven o'clock last night
+and took a carriage for 17 Rue de Clichy, but when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>
+we got there, no ringing or pounding could rouse anybody.
+Finally, in despair, we remembered a card that
+had been handed into the cars by some hotel-runner,
+and finding it was of an English and French hotel, we
+drove there, and secured very comfortable accommodations.
+We did not get to bed until after two o'clock.
+The next morning I sent a messenger to find Mme.
+Borione, and discovered that we had mistaken the number,
+and should have gone to No. 19, which was the
+next door; so we took a carriage and soon found ourselves
+established here, where we have a nice parlor
+and two bedrooms.</p>
+
+<p>There are twenty-one in the family, mostly Americans,
+like ourselves, come to learn to speak French.
+One of them is a tall, handsome, young English lady,
+Miss Durant, who is a sculptress, studying with Baron
+de Triqueti. She took me to his studio, and he immediately
+remarked that she ought to get me to sit. I
+said I would, "only my French lessons." "Oh," said
+he, smiling, "we will give you French lessons while
+you sit." So I go to-morrow morning.</p>
+
+<p>As usual, my horrid pictures do me a service, and
+people seem relieved when they see me; think me even
+handsome "in a manner." Kingsley, in his relief, expressed
+as much to his wife, and as beauty has never
+been one of my strong points I am open to flattery
+upon it.</p>
+
+<p>We had a most agreeable call from Arthur Helps
+before we left London. He, Kingsley, and all the
+good people are full of the deepest anxiety for our
+American affairs. They really do feel very deeply,
+seeing the peril so much plainer than we do in America.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday night.</i> I fear I have delayed your letter too
+long. The fact is, that of the ten days I have been
+here I have been laid up three with severe neuralgia,
+viz., <i>toothache in the backbone</i>, and since then have
+sat all day to be modeled for my bust.</p>
+
+<p>We spent the other evening with Baron de Triqueti,
+the sculptor. He has an English wife, and a charming
+daughter about the age of our girls. Life in Paris is
+altogether more simple and natural than in England.
+They give you a plate of cake and a cup of tea in the
+most informal, social way,&mdash;the tea-kettle sings at the
+fire, and the son and daughter busy themselves gayly
+together making and handing tea. When tea was over,
+M. de Triqueti showed us a manuscript copy of the Gospels,
+written by his mother, to console herself in a season
+of great ill-health, and which he had illustrated all along
+with exquisite pen-drawings, resembling the most perfect
+line engravings. I can't describe the beauty, grace,
+delicacy, and fullness of devotional feeling in these
+people. He is one of the loveliest men I ever saw.</p>
+
+<p>We have already three evenings in the week in which
+we can visit and meet friends if we choose, namely, at
+Madame Mohl's, Madame Lanziel's, and Madame Belloc's.
+All these salôns are informal, social gatherings,
+with no fuss of refreshments, no nonsense of any kind.
+Just the cheeriest, heartiest, kindest little receptions you
+ever saw.</p>
+
+<p>A kiss to dear little Charley. If he could see all the
+things that I see every day in the Tuileries and Champs
+Elysées, he would go wild. All Paris is a general
+whirligig out of doors, but indoors people seem steady,
+quiet, and sober as anybody.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>November 30.</i> This is Sunday evening, and a Sunday
+in Paris always puts me in mind of your story
+about somebody who said, "Bless you! they make such
+a noise that the Devil couldn't meditate." All the extra
+work and odd jobs of life are put into Sunday. Your
+washerwoman comes Sunday, with her innocent, good-humored
+face, and would be infinitely at a loss to know
+why she shouldn't. Your bonnet, cloak, shoes, and
+everything are sent home Sunday morning, and all the
+way to church there is such whirligiging and pirouetting
+along the boulevards as almost takes one's breath away.
+To-day we went to the Oratoire to hear M. Grand Pierre.
+I could not understand much; my French ear is not
+quick enough to follow. I could only perceive that the
+subject was "La Charité," and that the speaker was
+fluent, graceful, and earnest, the audience serious and
+attentive.</p>
+
+<p>Last night we were at Baron de Triqueti's again,
+with a party invited to celebrate the birthday of their
+eldest daughter, Blanche, a lovely girl of nineteen.
+There were some good ladies there who had come
+eighty leagues to meet me, and who were so delighted
+with my miserable French that it was quite encouraging.
+I believe I am getting over the sandbar at last, and conversation
+is beginning to come easy to me.</p>
+
+<p>There were three French gentlemen who had just
+been reading "Dred" in English, and who were as excited
+and full of it as could be, and I talked with them
+to a degree that astonished myself. There is a review
+of "Dred" in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" which
+has long extracts from the book, and is written in a
+very appreciative and favorable spirit. Generally speaking,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>
+French critics seem to have a finer appreciation of
+my subtle shades of meaning than English. I am curious
+to hear what Professor Park has to say about it.
+There has been another review in "La Presse" equally
+favorable. All seem to see the truth about American
+slavery much plainer than people can who are in it. If
+American ministers and Christians could see through
+their sophistical spider-webs, with what wonder, pity,
+and contempt they would regard their own vacillating
+condition!</p>
+
+<p>We visit once a week at Madame Mohl's, where we
+meet all sorts of agreeable people. Lady Elgin doesn't
+go into society now, having been struck with paralysis,
+but sits at home and receives her friends as usual. This
+notion of sitting always in the open air is one of her
+peculiarities.</p>
+
+<p>I must say, life in Paris is arranged more sensibly
+than with us. Visiting involves no trouble in the feeding
+line. People don't go to eat. A cup of tea and
+plate of biscuit is all,&mdash;just enough to break up the
+stiffness.</p>
+
+<p>It is wonderful that the people here do not seem to
+have got over "Uncle Tom" a bit. The impression
+seems fresh as if just published. How often have they
+said, That book has revived the Gospel among the
+poor of France; it has done more than all the books
+we have published put together. It has gone among
+the <i>les ouvriers</i>, among the poor of Faubourg St.
+Antoine, and nobody knows how many have been led
+to Christ by it. Is not this blessed, my dear husband?
+Is it not worth all the suffering of writing it?</p>
+
+<p>I went the other evening to M. Grand Pierre's, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>
+there were three rooms full of people, all as eager and
+loving as ever we met in England or Scotland. Oh, if
+Christians in Boston could only see the earnestness of
+feeling with which Christians here regard slavery, and
+their surprise and horror at the lukewarmness, to say
+the least, of our American church! About eleven
+o'clock we all joined in singing a hymn, then M. Grand
+Pierre made an address, in which I was named in the
+most affectionate and cordial manner. Then followed
+a beautiful prayer for our country, for America, on
+which hang so many of the hopes of Protestantism.
+One and all then came up, and there was great shaking
+of hands and much effusion.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Under date of December 28, Mrs. Perkins writes:
+"On Sunday we went with Mr. and Mrs. (Jacob) Abbott
+to the Hôtel des Invalides, and I think I was never
+more interested and affected. Three or four thousand
+old and disabled soldiers have here a beautiful and comfortable
+home. We went to the morning service. The
+church is very large, and the colors taken in battle are
+hung on the walls. Some of them are so old as to be
+moth-eaten. The service is performed, as near as possible,
+in imitation of the service before a battle. The
+drum beats the call to assemble, and the common soldiers
+march up and station themselves in the centre of
+the church, under the commander. All the services are
+regulated by the beat of the drum. Only one priest
+officiates, and soldiers are stationed around to protect
+him. The music is from a brass band, and is very magnificent.</p>
+
+<p>"In the afternoon I went to vespers in the Madeleine,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>
+where the music was exquisite. They have two fine
+organs at opposite ends of the church. The 'Adeste
+Fidelis' was sung by a single voice, accompanied by
+the organ, and after every verse it was taken up by male
+voices and the other organ and repeated. The effect
+was wonderfully fine. I have always found in our
+small churches at home that the organ was too powerful
+and pained my head, but in these large cathedrals
+the effect is different. The volume of sound rolls over,
+full but soft, and I feel as though it must come from
+another sphere.</p>
+
+<p>"In the evening Mr. and Mrs. Bunsen called. He is
+a son of Chevalier Bunsen, and she a niece of Elizabeth
+Fry,&mdash;very intelligent and agreeable people."</p>
+
+<p>Under date of January 25, Mrs. Stowe writes from
+Paris:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Here is a story for Charley. The boys in the Faubourg
+St. Antoine are the children of <i>ouvriers</i>, and
+every day their mothers give them two sous to buy a
+dinner. When they heard I was coming to the school,
+of their own accord they subscribed half their dinner
+money to give to me for the poor slaves. This five-franc
+piece I have now; I have bought it of the cause
+for five dollars, and am going to make a hole in it and
+hang it round Charley's neck as a medal.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just completed arrangements for leaving
+the girls at a Protestant boarding-school while I go to
+Rome.</p>
+
+<p>"We expect to start the 1st of February, and my direction
+will be, E. Bartholimeu, 108 Via Margaretta."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII<br />
+
+<small>OLD SCENES REVISITED, <b>1856</b>.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">En Route to Rome.&mdash;Trials of Travel.&mdash;A Midnight Arrival
+and an Inhospitable Reception.&mdash;Glories of the Eternal
+City.&mdash;Naples and Vesuvius.&mdash;Venice.&mdash;Holy Week in
+Rome.&mdash;Return to England.&mdash;Letter from Harriet Martineau
+on "Dred."&mdash;A Word from Mr. Prescott on "Dred."&mdash;Farewell
+to Lady Byron.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">After</span> leaving Paris Mrs. Stowe and her sister, Mrs.
+Perkins, traveled leisurely through the South of France
+toward Italy, stopping at Amiens, Lyons, and Marseilles.
+At this place they took steamer for Genoa,
+Leghorn, and Civita Vecchia. During their last night
+on shipboard they met with an accident, of which, and
+their subsequent trials in reaching Rome, Mrs. Stowe
+writes as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>About eleven o'clock, as I had just tranquilly laid
+down in my berth, I was roused by a grating crash,
+accompanied by a shock that shook the whole ship, and
+followed by the sound of a general rush on deck, trampling,
+scuffling, and cries. I rushed to the door and saw
+all the gentlemen hurrying on their clothes and getting
+confusedly towards the stairway. I went back to Mary,
+and we put on our things in silence, and, as soon as we
+could, got into the upper saloon. It was an hour before
+we could learn anything certainly, except that we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>
+had run into another vessel. The fate of the Arctic
+came to us both, but we did not mention it to each
+other; indeed, a quieter, more silent company you would
+not often see. Had I had any confidence in the administration
+of the boat, it would have been better, but
+as I had not, I sat in momentary uncertainty. Had
+we then known, as we have since, the fate of a boat recently
+sunk in the Mediterranean by a similar carelessness,
+it would have increased our fears. By a singular
+chance an officer, whose wife and children were lost on
+board that boat, was on board ours, and happened to
+be on the forward part of the boat when the accident
+occurred. The captain and mate were both below;
+there was nobody looking out, and had not this officer
+himself called out to stop the boat, we should have
+struck her with such force as to have sunk us. As it
+was, we turned aside and the shock came on a paddle-wheel,
+which was broken by it, for when, after two
+hours' delay, we tried to start and had gone a little
+way, there was another crash and the paddle-wheel
+fell down. You may be sure we did little sleeping
+that night. It was an inexpressible desolation to
+think that we might never again see those we loved.
+No one knows how much one thinks, and how rapidly,
+in such hours.</p>
+
+<p>In the Naples boat that was sunk a short time ago,
+the women perished in a dreadful way. The shock
+threw the chimney directly across the egress from below,
+so that they could not get on deck, and they
+were all drowned in the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>We went limping along with one broken limb till
+the next day about eleven, when we reached Civita<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>
+Vecchia, where there were two hours more of delay
+about passports. Then we, that is, Mary and I, and a
+Dr. Edison from Philadelphia, with his son Alfred, took
+a carriage to Rome, but they gave us a miserable thing
+that looked as if it had been made soon after the
+deluge. About eight o'clock at night, on a lonely
+stretch of road, the wheel came off. We got out, and
+our postilions stood silently regarding matters. None
+of us could speak Italian, they could not speak French;
+but the driver at last conveyed the idea that for five
+francs he could get a man to come and mend the wheel.
+The five francs were promised, and he untackled a
+horse and rode off. Mary and I walked up and down
+the dark, desolate road, occasionally reminding each
+other that we were on classic ground, and laughing at
+the oddity of our lonely, starlight promenade. After
+a while our driver came back, Tag, Rag, and Bobtail
+at his heels. I don't think I can do greater justice to
+Italian costumes than by this respectable form of words.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was another consultation. They put a
+bit of rotten timber under to pry the carriage up.
+Fortunately, it did not break, as we all expected it
+would, till after the wheel was on. Then a new train
+of thought was suggested. How was it to be kept on?
+Evidently they had not thought far in that direction,
+for they had brought neither hammer nor nail, nor
+tool of any kind, and therefore they looked first at the
+wheel, then at each other, and then at us. The doctor
+now produced a little gimlet, with the help of which
+the broken fragments of the former linchpin were
+pushed out, and the way was cleared for a new one.
+Then they began knocking a fence to pieces to get out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>
+nails, but none could be found to fit. At last another
+ambassador was sent back for nails. While we were
+thus waiting, the diligence, in which many of our ship's
+company were jogging on to Rome, came up. They
+had plenty of room inside, and one of the party, seeing
+our distress, tried hard to make the driver stop, but he
+doggedly persisted in going on, and declared if anybody
+got down to help us he would leave him behind.</p>
+
+<p>An interesting little episode here occurred. It was
+raining, and Mary and I proposed, as the wheel was now
+on, to take our seats. We had no sooner done so than
+the horses were taken with a sudden fit of animation
+and ran off with us in the most vivacious manner, Tag,
+Rag, and Co. shouting in the rear. Some heaps of
+stone a little in advance presented an interesting prospect
+by way of a terminus. However, the horses were
+lucidly captured before the wheel was off again; and
+our ambassador being now returned, we were set right
+and again proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>I must not forget to remark that at every post where
+we changed horses and drivers, we had a pitched battle
+with the driver for more money than we had been told
+was the regular rate, and the carriage was surrounded
+with a perfect mob of ragged, shock-headed, black-eyed
+people, whose words all ended in "ino," and who raved
+and ranted at us till finally we paid much more than
+we ought, to get rid of them.</p>
+
+<p>At the gates of Rome the official, after looking at
+our passports, coolly told the doctor that if he had a
+mind to pay him five francs he could go in without
+further disturbance, but if not he would keep the baggage
+till morning. This form of statement had the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>
+recommendation of such precision and neatness of expression
+that we paid him forthwith, and into Rome
+we dashed at two o'clock in the morning of the 9th of
+February, 1857, in a drizzling rain.</p>
+
+<p>We drove to the Hotel d'Angleterre,&mdash;it was full,&mdash;and
+ditto to four or five others, and in the last effort
+our refractory wheel came off again, and we all got out
+into the street. About a dozen lean, ragged "corbies,"
+who are called porters and who are always lying in wait
+for travelers, pounced upon us. They took down our
+baggage in a twinkling, and putting it all into the
+street surrounded it, and chattered over it, while M.
+and I stood in the rain and received first lessons in
+Italian. How we did try to say something! but they
+couldn't talk anything but in "ino" as aforesaid.
+The doctor finally found a man who could speak a
+word or two of French, and leaving Mary, Alfred, and
+me to keep watch over our pile of trunks, he went off
+with him to apply for lodgings. I have heard many
+flowery accounts of first impressions of Rome. I must
+say ours was somewhat sombre.</p>
+
+<p>A young man came by and addressed us in English.
+How cheering! We almost flew upon him. We begged
+him, at least, to lend us his Italian to call another carriage,
+and he did so. A carriage which was passing
+was luckily secured, and Mary and I, with all our store
+of boxes and little parcels, were placed in it out of the
+rain, at least. Here we sat while the doctor from time
+to time returned from his wanderings to tell us he
+could find no place. "Can it be," said I, "that we
+are to be obliged to spend a night in the streets?"
+What made it seem more odd was the knowledge that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>
+could we only find them, we had friends enough in
+Rome who would be glad to entertain us. We began
+to speculate on lodgings. Who knows what we may
+get entrapped into? Alfred suggested stories he had
+read of beds placed on trap-doors,&mdash;of testers which
+screwed down on people and smothered them; and so,
+when at last the doctor announced lodgings found, we
+followed in rather an uncertain frame of mind.</p>
+
+<p>We alighted at a dirty stone passage, smelling of
+cats and onions, damp, cold, and earthy, we went up
+stone stairways, and at last were ushered into two very
+decent chambers, where we might lay our heads. The
+"corbies" all followed us,&mdash;black-haired, black-browed,
+ragged, and clamorous as ever. They insisted that we
+should pay the pretty little sum of twenty francs, or
+four dollars, for bringing our trunks about twenty steps.
+The doctor modestly but firmly declined to be thus imposed
+upon, and then ensued a general "chatteration;"
+one and all fell into attitudes, and the "inos" and
+"issimos" rolled freely. "For pity's sake get them
+off," we said; so we made a truce for ten francs, but
+still they clamored, forced their way even into our bedroom,
+and were only repulsed by a loud and combined
+volley of "No, no, noes!" which we all set up at once,
+upon which they retreated.</p>
+
+<p>Our hostess was a little French woman, and that reassured
+us. I examined the room, and seeing no trace
+of treacherous testers, or trap-doors, resolved to avail
+myself without fear of the invitation of a very clean,
+white bed, where I slept till morning without dreaming.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we sent our cards to M. Bartholimeu,
+and before we had finished breakfast he was on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>
+spot. We then learned that he had been watching the
+diligence office for over a week, and that he had the
+pleasant set of apartments we are now occupying all
+ready and waiting for us.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><i>March 1.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Husband</span>,&mdash;Every day is opening to me
+a new world of wonders here in Italy. I have been in
+the Catacombs, where I was shown many memorials of
+the primitive Christians, and to-day we are going to the
+Vatican. The weather is sunny and beautiful beyond
+measure, and flowers are springing in the fields on
+every side. Oh, my dear, how I do long to have you
+here to enjoy what you are so much better fitted to appreciate
+than I,&mdash;this wonderful combination of the
+past and the present, of what has been and what is!</p>
+
+<p>Think of strolling leisurely through the Forum, of
+seeing the very stones that were laid in the time of the
+Republic, of rambling over the ruined Palace of the
+Cćsars, of walking under the Arch of Titus, of seeing
+the Dying Gladiator, and whole ranges of rooms filled
+with wonders of art, all in one morning! All this I
+did on Saturday, and only wanted you. You know so
+much more and could appreciate so much better. At
+the Palace of the Cćsars, where the very dust is a
+<i>mélange</i> of exquisite marbles, I saw for the first time
+an acanthus growing, and picked my first leaf.</p>
+
+<p>Our little <i>ménage</i> moves on prosperously; the doctor
+takes excellent care of us and we of him. One sees
+everybody here at Rome, John Bright, Mrs. Hemans'
+son, Mrs. Gaskell, etc., etc. Over five thousand English
+travelers are said to be here. Jacob Abbot and wife are
+coming. Rome is a world! Rome is an astonishment!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>
+Papal Rome is an enchantress! Old as she is, she is
+like Nińon d'Enclos,&mdash;the young fall in love with her.</p>
+
+<p>You will hear next from us at Naples.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Affectionately yours,</span><br />
+H. B. S.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>From Rome the travelers went to Naples, and after
+visiting Pompeii and Herculaneum made the ascent of
+Vesuvius, a graphic account of which is contained in a
+letter written at this time by Mrs. Stowe to her daughters
+in Paris. After describing the preparations and
+start, she says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Gradually the ascent became steeper and steeper,
+till at length it was all our horses could do to pull us
+up. The treatment of horses in Naples is a thing that
+takes away much from the pleasure and comfort of
+such travelers as have the least feeling for animals.
+The people seem absolutely to have no consideration
+for them. You often see vehicles drawn by one horse
+carrying fourteen or fifteen great, stout men and women.
+This is the worse as the streets are paved with flat
+stones which are exceedingly slippery. On going up
+hill the drivers invariably race their horses, urging
+them on with a constant storm of blows.</p>
+
+<p>"As the ascent of the mountain became steeper, the
+horses panted and trembled in a way that made us feel
+that we could not sit in the carriage, yet the guide
+and driver never made the slightest motion to leave
+the box. At last three of us got out and walked, and
+invited our guide to do the same, yet with all this relief
+the last part of the ascent was terrible, and the
+rascally fellows actually forced the horses to it by beating
+them with long poles on the back of their legs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>
+No Englishman or American would ever allow a horse
+to be treated so.</p>
+
+<p>"The Hermitage is a small cabin, where one can buy
+a little wine or any other refreshment one may need.
+There is a species of wine made of the grapes of Vesuvius,
+called 'Lachryma Christi,' that has a great reputation.
+Here was a miscellaneous collection of beggars,
+ragged boys, men playing guitars, bawling donkey
+drivers, and people wanting to sell sticks or minerals,
+the former to assist in the ascent, and the latter as
+specimens of the place. In the midst of the commotion
+we were placed on our donkeys, and the serious,
+pensive brutes moved away. At last we reached the
+top of the mountain, and I gladly sprang on firm land.
+The whole top of the mountain was covered with wavering
+wreaths of smoke, from the shadows of which
+emerged two English gentlemen, who congratulated us
+on our safe arrival, and assured us that we were fortunate
+in our day, as the mountain was very active. We
+could hear a hollow, roaring sound, like the burning of
+a great furnace, but saw nothing. 'Is this all?' I
+said. 'Oh, no. Wait till the guide comes up with
+the rest of the party,' and soon one after another came
+up, and we then followed the guide up a cloudy, rocky
+path, the noise of the fire constantly becoming nearer.
+Finally we stood on the verge of a vast, circular pit
+about forty feet deep, the floor of which is of black,
+ropy waves of congealed lava.</p>
+
+<p>"The sides are sulphur cliffs, stained in every brilliant
+shade, from lightest yellow to deepest orange and
+brown. In the midst of the lava floor rises a black
+cone, the chimney of the great furnace. This was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>
+burning and flaming like the furnace of a glass-house,
+and every few moments throwing up showers of cinders
+and melted lava which fell with a rattling sound on the
+black floor of the pit. One small bit of the lava came
+over and fell at our feet, and a gentleman lighted his
+cigar at it.</p>
+
+<p>"All around where we stood the smoke was issuing
+from every chance rent and fissure of the rock, and the
+Neapolitans who crowded round us were every moment
+soliciting us to let them cook us an egg in one of these
+rifts, and, overcome by persuasion, I did so, and found
+it very nicely boiled, or rather steamed, though the
+shell tasted of Glauber's salt and sulphur.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole place recalled to my mind so vividly
+Milton's description of the infernal regions, that I
+could not but believe that he had drawn the imagery
+from this source. Milton, as we all know, was some
+time in Italy, and, although I do not recollect any
+account of his visiting Vesuvius, I cannot think how he
+should have shaped his language so coincidently to the
+phenomena if he had not.</p>
+
+<p>"On the way down the mountain our ladies astonished
+the natives by making an express stipulation that
+our donkeys were not to be beaten,&mdash;why, they could
+not conjecture. The idea of any feeling of compassion
+for an animal is so foreign to a Neapolitan's thoughts
+that they supposed it must be some want of courage on
+our part. When, once in a while, the old habit so prevailed
+that the boy felt that he must strike the donkey,
+and when I forbade him, he would say, 'Courage, signora,
+courage.'</p>
+
+<p>"Time would fail me to tell the whole of our adventures<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>
+in Southern Italy. We left it with regret, and I
+will tell you some time by word of mouth what else we
+saw.</p>
+
+<p>"We went by water from Naples to Leghorn, and
+were gloriously seasick, all of us. From Leghorn we
+went to Florence, where we abode two weeks nearly.
+Two days ago we left Florence and started for Venice,
+stopping one day and two nights <i>en route</i> at Bologna.
+Here we saw the great university, now used as a library,
+the walls of which are literally covered with the emblazoned
+names and coats of arms of distinguished men
+who were educated there.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Venice.</i> The great trouble of traveling in Europe,
+or indeed of traveling anywhere, is that you can never
+<i>catch</i> romance. No sooner are you in any place than
+being there seems the most natural, matter-of-fact
+occurrence in the world. Nothing looks foreign or
+strange to you. You take your tea and your dinner,
+eat, drink, and sleep as aforetime, and scarcely realize
+where you are or what you are seeing. But Venice is
+an exception to this state of things; it is all romance
+from beginning to end, and never ceases to seem
+strange and picturesque.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a rainy evening when our cars rumbled over
+the long railroad bridge across the lagoon that leads to
+the station. Nothing but flat, dreary swamps, and
+then the wide expanse of sea on either side. The cars
+stopped, and the train, being a long one, left us a little
+out of the station. We got out in a driving rain, in
+company with flocks of Austrian soldiers, with whom
+the third-class cars were filled. We went through a
+long passage, and emerged into a room where all nations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>
+seemed commingling; Italians, Germans, French,
+Austrians, Orientals, all in wet weather trim.</p>
+
+<p>"Soon, however, the news was brought that our baggage
+was looked out and our gondolas ready.</p>
+
+<p>"The first plunge under the low, black hood of a
+gondola, especially of a rainy night, has something
+funereal in it. Four of us sat cowering together, and
+looked, out of the rain-dropped little windows at the
+sides, at the scene. Gondolas of all sizes were gliding
+up and down, with their sharp, fishy-looking prows of
+steel pushing their ways silently among each other,
+while gondoliers shouted and jabbered, and made as
+much confusion in their way as terrestrial hackmen on
+dry land. Soon, however, trunks and carpet-bags being
+adjusted, we pushed off, and went gliding away
+up the Grand Canal, with a motion so calm that we
+could scarce discern it except by the moving of objects
+on shore. Venice, <i>la belle</i>, appeared to as much disadvantage
+as a beautiful woman bedraggled in a thunder-storm."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Lake Como.</i> We stayed in Venice five days, and
+during that time saw all the sights that it could enter
+the head of a <i>valet-de-place</i> to afflict us with. It is an
+affliction, however, for which there is no remedy, because
+you want to see the things, and would be very
+sorry if you went home without having done so. From
+Venice we went to Milan to see the cathedral and
+Leonardo da Vinci's 'Last Supper.' The former is
+superb, and of the latter I am convinced, from the little
+that remains of it, that it <i>was</i> the greatest picture the
+world ever saw. We shall run back to Rome for Holy
+Week, and then to Paris.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Rome.</i> From Lake Como we came back here for
+Holy Week, and now it is over.</p>
+
+<p>"'What do you think of it?'</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly no thoughtful or sensitive person, no person
+impressible either through the senses or the religious
+feelings, can fail to feel it deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place, the mere fact of the different
+nations of the earth moving, so many of them, with
+one accord, to so old and venerable a city, to celebrate
+the death and resurrection of Jesus, is something in itself
+affecting. Whatever dispute there may be about the
+other commemorative feasts of Christendom, the time
+of this epoch is fixed unerringly by the Jews' Passover.
+That great and solemn feast, therefore, stands as an
+historical monument to mark the date of the most important
+and thrilling events which this world ever witnessed.</p>
+
+<p>"When one sees the city filling with strangers, pilgrims
+arriving on foot, the very shops decorating themselves
+in expectancy, every church arranging its services,
+the prices even of temporal matters raised by
+the crowd and its demands, he naturally thinks, Wherefore,
+why is all this? and he must be very careless
+indeed if it do not bring to mind, in a more real way
+than before, that at this very time, so many years ago,
+Christ and his apostles were living actors in the scenes
+thus celebrated to-day."</p>
+
+<p>As the spring was now well advanced, it was deemed
+advisable to bring this pleasant journey to a close, and
+for Mrs. Stowe at least it was imperative that she return
+to America. Therefore, leaving Rome with many regrets
+and lingering, backward glances, the two sisters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>
+hurried to Paris, where they found their brother-in-law,
+Mr. John Hooker, awaiting them. Under date of
+May 3 Mrs. Stowe writes from Paris to her husband:
+"Here I am once more, safe in Paris after a fatiguing
+journey. I found the girls well, and greatly improved
+in their studies. As to bringing them home with me
+now, I have come to the conclusion that it would not
+be expedient. A few months more of study here will
+do them a world of good. I have, therefore, arranged
+that they shall come in November in the Arago, with
+a party of friends who are going at that time.</p>
+
+<p>"John Hooker is here, so Mary is going with him
+and some others for a few weeks into Switzerland. I
+have some business affairs to settle in England, and
+shall sail from Liverpool in the Europa on the sixth
+of June. I am <i>so</i> homesick to-day, and long with a
+great longing to be with you once more. I am impatient
+to go, and yet dread the voyage. Still, to reach
+you I must commit myself once more to the ocean, of
+which at times I have a nervous horror, as to the arms
+of my Father. 'The sea is his, and He made it.' It
+is a rude, noisy old servant, but it is always obedient
+to his will, and cannot carry me beyond his power and
+love, wherever or to whatever it bears me."</p>
+
+<p>Having established her daughters in a Protestant
+boarding-school in Paris, Mrs. Stowe proceeded to London.
+While there she received the following letter
+from Harriet Martineau:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Ambleside</span>, <i>June 1.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mrs. Stowe</span>,&mdash;I have been at my wits' end
+to learn how to reach you, as your note bore no direction
+but "London." Arnolds, Croppers, and others<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>
+could give no light, and the newspapers tell only where
+you <i>had</i> been. So I commit this to your publishers,
+trusting that it will find you somewhere, and in time,
+perhaps, bring you here. <i>Can't</i> you come? You are
+aware that we shall never meet if you don't come soon.
+I see no strangers at all, but I hope to have breath and
+strength enough for a little talk with you, if you could
+come. You could have perfect freedom at the times
+when I am laid up, and we could seize my "capability
+seasons" for our talk.</p>
+
+<p>The weather and scenery are usually splendid just
+now. Did I see you (in white frock and black silk
+apron) when I was in Ohio in 1835? Your sister I
+knew well, and I have a clear recollection of your
+father. I believe and hope you were the young lady in
+the black silk apron.</p>
+
+<p>Do you know I rather dreaded reading your book!
+Sick people <i>are</i> weak: and one of my chief weaknesses
+is dislike of novels,&mdash;(except some old ones which I
+almost know by heart). I knew that with you I should
+be safe from the cobweb-spinning of our modern subjective
+novelists and the jaunty vulgarity of our "funny
+philosophers"&mdash;the Dickens sort, who have tired us
+out. But I dreaded the alternative,&mdash;the too strong
+interest. But oh! the delight I have had in "Dred!"
+The genius carries all before it, and drowns everything
+in glorious pleasure. So marked a work of genius
+claims exemption from every sort of comparison; but,
+<i>as you ask for my opinion of the book</i>, you may like
+to know that I think it far superior to "Uncle Tom."
+I have no doubt that a multitude of people will say it
+is a falling off, because they made up their minds that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>
+any new book of yours must be inferior to that, and
+because it is so rare a thing for a prodigious fame to
+be sustained by a second book; but, in my own mind
+I am entirely convinced that the second book is by far
+the best. Such faults as you have are in the artistic
+department, and there is less defect in "Dred" than in
+"Uncle Tom," and the whole material and treatment
+seem to me richer and more substantial. I have had
+critiques of "Dred" from the two very wisest people I
+know&mdash;perfectly unlike each other (the critics, I mean),
+and they delight me by thinking exactly like each other
+and like me. They distinctly prefer it to "Uncle Tom."
+To say the plain truth, it seems to me so splendid
+a work of genius that nothing that I can say can give
+you an idea of the intensity of admiration with which
+I read it. It seemed to me, as I told my nieces, that
+our English fiction writers had better shut up altogether
+and have done with it, for one will have no patience
+with any but didactic writing after yours. My
+nieces (and you may have heard that Maria, my nurse,
+is very, very clever) are thoroughly possessed with the
+book, and Maria says she feels as if a fresh department
+of human life had been opened to her since this day
+week. I feel the freshness no less, while, from my
+travels, I can be even more assured of the truthfulness
+of your wonderful representation. I see no limit to the
+good it may do by suddenly splitting open Southern
+life, for everybody to look into. It is precisely the
+thing that is most wanted,&mdash;just as "Uncle Tom" was
+wanted, three years since, to show what negro slavery
+in your republic was like. It is plantation-life, particularly
+in the present case, that I mean. As for your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>
+exposure of the weakness and helplessness of the
+churches, I deeply honor you for the courage with
+which you have made the exposure; but I don't suppose
+that any amendment is to be looked for in that
+direction. You have unburdened your own soul in
+that matter, and if they had been corrigible, you would
+have helped a good many more. But I don't expect
+that result. The Southern railing at you will be something
+unequaled, I suppose. I hear that three of us
+have the honor of being abused from day to day already,
+as most portentous and shocking women, you,
+Mrs. Chapman, and myself (as the traveler of twenty
+years ago). Not only newspapers, but pamphlets of
+such denunciation are circulated, I'm told. I'm afraid
+now I, and even Mrs. Chapman, must lose our fame,
+and all the railing will be engrossed by you. My little
+function is to keep English people tolerably right, by
+means of a London daily paper, while the danger of
+misinformation and misreading from the "Times" continues.
+I can't conceive how such a paper as the
+"Times" can fail to be <i>better informed</i> than it is. At
+times it seems as if its New York correspondent was
+making game of it. The able and excellent editor of
+the "Daily News" gives me complete liberty on American
+subjects, and Mrs. Chapman's and other friends'
+constant supply of information enables me to use this
+liberty for making the cause better understood. I
+hope I shall hear that you are coming. It is like a
+great impertinence&mdash;my having written so freely about
+your book: but you asked my opinion,&mdash;that is all I
+can say. Thank you much for sending the book to
+me. If you come you will write our names in it, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>
+this will make it a valuable legacy to a nephew or
+niece.</p>
+
+<p>Believe me gratefully and affectionately yours,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">Harriet Martineau</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>In London Mrs. Stowe also received the following
+letter from Prescott, the historian, which after long
+wandering had finally rested quietly at her English
+publishers awaiting her coming.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Pepperell</span>, <i>October 4, 1856.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Stowe</span>,&mdash;I am much obliged to you
+for the copy of "Dred" which Mr. Phillips put into
+my hands. It has furnished us our evening's amusement
+since we have been in the country, where we
+spend the brilliant month of October.</p>
+
+<p>The African race are much indebted to you for showing
+up the good sides of their characters, their cheerfulness,
+and especially their powers of humor, which are
+admirably set off by their peculiar <i>patois</i>, in the same
+manner as the expression of the Scottish sentiment is
+by the peculiar Scottish dialect. People differ; but I
+was most struck among your characters with Uncle
+Tiff and Nina. The former a variation of good old
+Uncle Tom, though conceived in a merrier vein than
+belonged to that sedate personage; the difference of
+their tempers in this respect being well suited to the
+difference of the circumstances in which they were
+placed. But Nina, to my mind, is the true <i>hero</i> of the
+book, which I should have named after her instead of
+"Dred." She is indeed a charming conception, full of
+what is called character, and what is masculine in her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>
+nature is toned down by such a delightful sweetness
+and kindness of disposition as makes her perfectly fascinating.
+I cannot forgive you for smothering her so
+prematurely. No <i>dramatis personć</i> could afford the
+loss of such a character. But I will not bore you with
+criticism, of which you have had quite enough. I must
+thank you, however, for giving Tom Gordon a guttapercha
+cane to perform his flagellations with.</p>
+
+<p>I congratulate you on the brilliant success of the
+work, unexampled even in this age of authorship; and,
+as Mr. Phillips informs me, greater even in the old
+country than in ours. I am glad you are likely to settle
+the question and show that a Yankee writer can get
+a copyright in England&mdash;little thanks to our own government,
+which compels him to go there in order to
+get it.</p>
+
+<p>With sincere regard, believe me, dear Mrs. Stowe,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Very truly yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Wm. H. Prescott</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>From Liverpool, on the eve of her departure for
+America, Mrs. Stowe wrote to her daughters in Paris:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>I spent the day before leaving London with Lady
+Byron. She is lovelier than ever, and inquired kindly
+about you both. I left London to go to Manchester,
+and reaching there found the Rev. Mr. Gaskell waiting
+to welcome me in the station. Mrs. Gaskell seems lovely
+at home, where besides being a writer she proves herself
+to be a first-class housekeeper, and performs all
+the duties of a minister's wife. After spending a delightful
+day with her I came here to the beautiful
+"Dingle," which is more enchanting than ever. I am<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>
+staying with Mrs. Edward Cropper, Lord Denman's
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>I want you to tell Aunt Mary that Mr. Ruskin lives
+with his father at a place called Denmark Hill, Camberwell.
+He has told me that the gallery of Turner pictures
+there is open to me or my friends at any time of
+the day or night. Both young and old Mr. Ruskin are
+fine fellows, sociable and hearty, and will cordially welcome
+any of my friends who desire to look at their
+pictures.</p>
+
+<p>I write in haste, as I must be aboard the ship to-morrow
+at eight o'clock. So good-by, my dear girls,
+from your ever affectionate mother.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Her last letter written before sailing was to Lady
+Byron, and serves to show how warm an intimacy had
+sprung up between them. It was as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><i>June 5, 1857.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I left you with a strange sort of
+yearning, throbbing feeling&mdash;you make me feel quite
+as I did years ago, a sort of girlishness quite odd for
+me. I have felt a strange longing to send you something.
+Don't smile when you see what it turns out to
+be. I have a weakness for your pretty Parian things;
+it is one of my own home peculiarities to have strong
+passions for pretty tea-cups and other little matters
+for my own quiet meals, when, as often happens, I am
+too unwell to join the family. So I send you a cup
+made of primroses, a funny little pitcher, quite large
+enough for cream, and a little vase for violets and
+primroses&mdash;which will be lovely together&mdash;and when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>
+you use it think of me and that I love you more than I
+can say.</p>
+
+<p>I often think how strange it is that I should <i>know</i>
+you&mdash;you who were a sort of legend of my early days&mdash;that
+I should love you is only a natural result. You
+seem to me to stand on the confines of that land where
+the poor formalities which separate hearts here pass like
+mist before the sun, and therefore it is that I feel the
+language of love must not startle you as strange or unfamiliar.
+You are so nearly there in spirit that I fear
+with every adieu that it may be the last; yet did you
+pass within the veil I should not feel you lost.</p>
+
+<p>I have got past the time when I feel that my heavenly
+friends are <i>lost</i> by going there. I feel them
+<i>nearer</i>, rather than farther off.</p>
+
+<p>So good-by, dear, dear friend, and if you see morning
+in our Father's house before I do, carry my love to
+those that wait for me, and if I pass first, you will find
+me there, and we shall love each other <i>forever</i>.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Ever yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>The homeward voyage proved a prosperous one, and
+it was followed by a joyous welcome to the "Cabin"
+in Andover. The world seemed very bright, and amid
+all her happiness came no intimation of the terrible
+blow about to descend upon the head of the devoted
+mother.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV.<br />
+
+<small>THE MINISTER'S WOOING, 1857-1859.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Death of Mrs. Stowe's Oldest Son.&mdash;Letter to the Duchess of
+Sutherland.&mdash;Letter to her Daughters in Paris.&mdash;Letter
+to her Sister Catherine.&mdash;Visit to Brunswick and Orr's
+Island.&mdash;Writes "The Minister's Wooing" and "The Pearl
+of Orr's Island."&mdash;Mr. Whittier's Comments.&mdash;Mr. Lowell
+on the "Minister's Wooing."&mdash;Letter to Mrs. Stowe from
+Mr. Lowell.&mdash;John Ruskin on the "Minister's Wooing."&mdash;A
+Year of Sadness.&mdash;Letter to Lady Byron.&mdash;Letter to her
+Daughter.&mdash;Departure for Europe.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Immediately</span> after Mrs. Stowe's return from England
+in June, 1857, a crushing sorrow came upon her
+in the death of her oldest son, Henry Ellis, who was
+drowned while bathing in the Connecticut River at
+Hanover, N. H., where he was pursuing his studies as
+a member of the Freshman class in Dartmouth College.
+This melancholy event took place the 9th of
+July, 1857, and the 3d of August Mrs. Stowe wrote to
+the Duchess of Sutherland:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>,&mdash;Before this reaches you you will
+have perhaps learned from other sources of the sad
+blow which has fallen upon us,&mdash;our darling, our good,
+beautiful boy, snatched away in the moment of health
+and happiness. Alas! could I know that when I parted
+from my Henry on English shores that I should never
+see him more? I returned to my home, and, amid the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>
+jubilee of meeting the rest, was fain to be satisfied with
+only a letter from him, saying that his college examinations
+were coming on, and he must defer seeing me a
+week or two till they were over. I thought then of
+taking his younger brother and going up to visit him;
+but the health of the latter seeming unfavorably affected
+by the seacoast air, I turned back with him to
+a water-cure establishment. Before I had been two
+weeks absent a fatal telegram hurried me home, and
+when I arrived there it was to find the house filled with
+his weeping classmates, who had just come bringing
+his remains. There he lay so calm, so placid, so peaceful,
+that I could not believe that he would not smile
+upon me, and that my voice which always had such
+power over him could not recall him. There had always
+been such a peculiar union, such a tenderness
+between us. I had had such power always to call up
+answering feelings to my own, that it seemed impossible
+that he could be silent and unmoved at my grief. But
+yet, dear friend, I am sensible that in this last sad scene
+I had an alleviation that was not granted to you. I
+recollect, in the mournful letter you wrote me about
+that time, you said that you mourned that you had
+never told your own dear one how much you loved him.
+That sentence touched me at the time. I laid it to
+heart, and from that time lost no occasion of expressing
+to my children those feelings that we too often defer
+to express to our dearest friends till it is forever too
+late.</p>
+
+<p>He did fully know how I loved him, and some of the
+last loving words he spoke were of me. The very day
+that he was taken from us, and when he was just rising<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
+from the table of his boarding-house to go whence he
+never returned, some one noticed the seal ring, which
+you may remember to have seen on his finger, and said,
+How beautiful that ring is! Yes, he said, and best of
+all, it was my mother's gift to me. That ring, taken
+from the lifeless hand a few hours later, was sent to
+me. Singularly enough, it is broken right across the
+name from a fall a little time previous.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>It is a great comfort to me, dear friend, that I took
+Henry with me to Dunrobin. I hesitated about keeping
+him so long from his studies, but still I thought a
+mind so observing and appreciative might learn from
+such a tour more than through books, and so it was.
+He returned from England full of high resolves and
+manly purposes. "I may not be what the world calls
+a Christian," he wrote, "but I will live such a life as a
+Christian ought to live, such a life as every true man
+ought to live." Henceforth he became remarkable for
+a strict order and energy, and a vigilant temperance and
+care of his bodily health, docility and deference to his
+parents and teachers, and perseverance in every duty.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+Well, from the hard battle of this life he is excused,
+and the will is taken for the deed, and whatever comes
+his heart will not be pierced as mine is. But I am glad
+that I can connect him with all my choicest remembrances
+of the Old World.</p>
+
+<p>Dunrobin will always be dearer to me now, and I
+have felt towards you and the duke a turning of spirit,
+because I remember how kindly you always looked on
+and spoke to him. I knew then it was the angel of your
+lost one that stirred your hearts with tenderness when
+you looked on another so near his age. The plaid that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>
+the duke gave him, and which he valued as one of the
+chief of his boyish treasures, will hang in his room&mdash;for
+still we have a room that we call his.</p>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 379px;">
+<img src="images/i318.jpg" width="379" height="600" alt="Aunty Sutherland portrait and signatures" />
+</div>
+
+<p>You will understand, you will feel, this sorrow with
+us as few can. My poor husband is much prostrated.
+I need not say more: you know what this must be to a
+father's heart. But still I repeat what I said when I
+saw you last. Our dead are ministering angels; they
+teach us to love, they fill us with tenderness for all that
+can suffer. These weary hours when sorrow makes us
+for the time blind and deaf and dumb, have their
+promise. These hours come in answer to our prayers
+for nearness to God. It is always our treasure that the
+lightning strikes.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. I have poured out my heart to
+you because you can understand. While I was visiting
+in Hanover, where Henry died, a poor, deaf old slave
+woman, who has still five children in bondage, came to
+comfort me. "Bear up, dear soul, she said; you must
+bear it, for the Lord loves ye." She said further,
+"Sunday is a heavy day to me, 'cause I can't work, and
+can't hear preaching, and can't read, so I can't keep my
+mind off my poor children. Some on 'em the blessed
+Master's got, and they's safe; but, oh, there are five
+that I don't know where they are."</p>
+
+<p>What are our mother sorrows to this! I shall try
+to search out and redeem these children, though, from
+the ill success of efforts already made, I fear it will be
+hopeless. Every sorrow I have, every lesson on the
+sacredness of family love, makes me the more determined
+to resist to the last this dreadful evil that makes
+so many mothers so much deeper mourners than I ever
+can be.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Affectionately yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>About this same time she writes to her daughters in
+Paris: "Can anybody tell what sorrows are locked up
+with our best affections, or what pain may be associated
+with every pleasure? As I walk the house, the pictures
+he used to love, the presents I brought him, and
+the photographs I meant to show him, all pierce my
+heart. I have had a dreadful faintness of sorrow come
+over me at times. I have felt so crushed, so bleeding,
+so helpless, that I could only call on my Saviour with
+groanings that could not be uttered. Your papa justly
+said, 'Every child that dies is for the time being an
+only one; yes&mdash;his individuality no time, no change,
+can ever replace.'</p>
+
+<p>"Two days after the funeral your father and I went
+to Hanover. We saw Henry's friends, and his room,
+which was just as it was the day he left it.</p>
+
+<p>"'There is not another such room in the college as
+his,' said one of his classmates with tears. I could not
+help loving the dear boys as they would come and look
+sadly in, and tell us one thing and another that they
+remembered of him. 'He was always talking of his
+home and his sisters,' said one. The very day he died
+he was so happy because I had returned, and he was
+expecting soon to go home and meet me. He died
+with that dear thought in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a beautiful lane leading down through a
+charming glen to the river. It had been for years the
+bathing-place of the students, and into the pure, clear
+water he plunged, little dreaming that he was never to
+come out alive.</p>
+
+<p>"In the evening we went down to see the boating
+club of which he was a member. He was so happy in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>
+this boating club. They had a beautiful boat called
+the Una, and a uniform, and he enjoyed it so much.</p>
+
+<p>"This evening all the different crews were out; but
+Henry's had their flag furled, and tied with black crape.
+I felt such love to the dear boys, all of them, because
+they loved Henry, that it did not pain me as it otherwise
+would. They were glad to see us there, and I was
+glad that we could be there. Yet right above where
+their boats were gliding in the evening light lay the
+bend in the river, clear, still, beautiful, fringed with
+overhanging pines, from whence our boy went upward
+to heaven. To heaven&mdash;if earnest, manly purpose, if
+sincere, deliberate strife with besetting sin is accepted
+of God, as I firmly believe it is. Our dear boy was
+but a beginner in the right way. Had he lived, we had
+hoped to see all wrong gradually fall from his soul as
+the worn-out calyx drops from the perfected flower.
+But Christ has taken him into his own teaching.</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"'And one view of Jesus as He is,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Will strike all sin forever dead.'</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"Since I wrote to you last we have had anniversary
+meetings, and with all the usual bustle and care, our
+house full of company. Tuesday we received a beautiful
+portrait of our dear Henry, life-size, and as perfect
+almost as life. It has just that half-roguish, half-loving
+expression with which he would look at me sometimes,
+when I would come and brush back his hair and look
+into his eyes. Every time I go in or out of the room,
+it seems to give so bright a smile that I almost think
+that a spirit dwells within it.</p>
+
+<p>"When I am so heavy, so weary, and go about as if
+I were wearing an arrow that had pierced my heart, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>
+sometimes look up, and this smile seems to say, 'Mother,
+patience, I am happy. In our Father's house are many
+mansions.' Sometimes I think I am like a gardener
+who has planted the seed of some rare exotic. He
+watches as the two little points of green leaf first spring
+above the soil. He shifts it from soil to soil, from pot
+to pot. He watches it, waters it, saves it through thousands
+of mischiefs and accidents. He counts every leaf,
+and marks the strengthening of the stem, till at last the
+blossom bud was fully formed. What curiosity, what
+eagerness,&mdash;what expectation&mdash;what longing now to
+see the mystery unfold in the new flower.</p>
+
+<p>"Just as the calyx begins to divide and a faint streak
+of color becomes visible,&mdash;lo! in one night the owner
+of the greenhouse sends and takes it away. He does,
+not consult me, he gives me no warning; he silently
+takes it and I look, but it is no more. What, then?
+Do I suppose he has destroyed the flower? Far from
+it; I know that he has taken it to his own garden.
+What Henry might have been I could guess better than
+any one. What Henry is, is known to Jesus only."</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after this time Mrs. Stowe wrote to her sister
+Catherine:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>If ever I was conscious of an attack of the Devil trying
+to separate me from the love of Christ, it was for
+some days after the terrible news came. I was in a
+state of great physical weakness, most agonizing, and
+unable to control my thoughts. Distressing doubts as
+to Henry's spiritual state were rudely thrust upon my
+soul. It was as if a voice had said to me: "You
+trusted in God, did you? You believed that He loved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>
+you! You had perfect confidence that he would never
+take your child till the work of grace was mature!
+Now He has hurried him into eternity without a moment's
+warning, without preparation, and where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>I saw at last that these thoughts were irrational, and
+contradicted the calm, settled belief of my better moments,
+and that they were dishonorable to God, and
+that it was my duty to resist them, and to assume and
+steadily maintain that Jesus in love had taken my dear
+one to his bosom. Since then the Enemy has left me
+in peace.</p>
+
+<p>It is our duty to assume that a thing which would
+be in its very nature unkind, ungenerous, and unfair
+has not been done. What should we think of the
+crime of that human being who should take a young
+mind from circumstances where it was progressing in
+virtue, and throw it recklessly into corrupting and
+depraving society? Particularly if it were the child
+of one who had trusted and confided in Him for years.
+No! no such slander as this shall the Devil ever
+fix in my mind against my Lord and my God! He
+who made me capable of such an absorbing, unselfish
+devotion for my children, so that I would sacrifice my
+eternal salvation for them, He certainly did not make
+me capable of more love, more disinterestedness than
+He has himself. He invented mothers' hearts, and He
+certainly has the pattern in his own, and my poor, weak
+rush-light of love is enough to show me that some
+things can and some things cannot be done. Mr. Stowe
+said in his sermon last Sunday that the mysteries of
+God's ways with us must be swallowed up by the greater
+mystery of the love of Christ, even as Aaron's rod swallowed
+up the rods of the magicians.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Papa and mamma are here, and we have been reading
+over the "Autobiography and Correspondence."
+It is glorious, beautiful; but more of this anon.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Your affectionate sister,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Hattie</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Andover</span>, <i>August 24, 1857.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Children</span>,&mdash;Since anniversary papa and I
+have been living at home; Grandpa and Grandma
+Beecher are here also, and we have had much comfort
+in their society.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. To-night the last sad duty is
+before us. The body is to be removed from the receiving
+tomb in the Old South Churchyard, and laid in the
+graveyard near by. Pearson has been at work for a
+week on a lot that is to be thenceforth ours.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"Our just inheritance consecrated by his grave."<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>How little he thought, wandering there as he often has
+with us, that his mortal form would so soon be resting
+there. Yet that was written for him. It was as certain
+then as now, and the hour and place of our death
+is equally certain, though we know it not.</div>
+
+<p>It seems selfish that I should yearn to lie down by
+his side, but I never knew how much I loved him till
+now.</p>
+
+<p>The one lost piece of silver seems more than all the
+rest,&mdash;the one lost sheep dearer than all the fold,
+and I so long for one word, one look, one last embrace.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Andover</span>, <i>September 1, 1857.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My darling Children</span>,&mdash;I must not allow a week
+to pass without sending a line to you.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Our home
+never looked lovelier. I never saw Andover look so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>
+beautiful; the trees so green, the foliage so rich.
+Papa and I are just starting to spend a week in Brunswick,
+for I am so miserable;&mdash;so weak&mdash;the least
+exertion fatigues me, and much of my time I feel a
+heavy languor, indifferent to everything. I know
+nothing is so likely to bring me up as the air of the
+seaside.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. I have set many flowers around Henry's
+grave, which are blossoming; pansies, white immortelle,
+white petunia, and verbenas. Papa walks there
+every day, often twice or three times. The lot has
+been rolled and planted with fine grass, which is already
+up and looks green and soft as velvet, and the little
+birds gather about it. To-night as I sat there the sky
+was so beautiful, all rosy, with the silver moon looking
+out of it. Papa said with a deep sigh,  "I am submissive,
+but not reconciled."</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Brunswick</span>, <i>September 6, 1857.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Girls</span>,&mdash;Papa and I have been here for
+four or five days past. We both of us felt so unwell
+that we thought we would try the sea air and the dear
+old scenes of Brunswick. Everything here is just as
+we left it. We are staying with Mrs. Upham, whose
+house is as wide, cool, and hospitable as ever. The
+trees in the yard have grown finely, and Mrs. Upham
+has cultivated flowers so successfully that the house is
+all surrounded by them. Everything about the town is
+the same, even to Miss Gidding's old shop, which is as
+disorderly as ever, presenting the same medley of tracts,
+sewing-silk, darning-cotton, and unimaginable old bonnets,
+which existed there of yore. She has been heard
+to complain that she can't find things as easily as once.
+Day before yesterday papa, Charley, and I went down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>
+to Harpswell about seven o'clock in the morning. The
+old spruces and firs look lovely as ever, and I was
+delighted, as I always used to be, with every step of
+the way. Old Getchell's mill stands as forlorn as ever
+in its sandy wastes, and More Brook creeps on glassy
+and clear beyond. Arriving at Harpswell a glorious
+hot day, with scarce a breeze to ruffle the water, papa
+and Charley went to fish for cunners, who soon proved
+too <i>cun</i>ning for them, for they ate every morsel of bait
+off the hooks, so that out of twenty bites they only
+secured two or three. What they did get were fried
+for our dinner, reinforced by a fine clam-chowder.
+The evening was one of the most glorious I ever saw&mdash;a
+calm sea and round, full moon; Mrs. Upham and
+I sat out on the rocks between the mainland and the
+island until ten o'clock. I never did see a more perfect
+and glorious scene, and to add to it there was a
+splendid northern light dancing like spirits in the sky.
+Had it not been for a terrible attack of mosquitoes in
+our sleeping-rooms, that kept us up and fighting all
+night, we should have called it a perfect success.</p>
+
+<p>We went into the sea to bathe twice, once the day
+we came, and about eight o'clock in the morning before
+we went back. Besides this we have been to Middle
+Bay, where Charley, standing where you all stood
+before him, actually caught a flounder with his own
+hand, whereat he screamed loud enough to scare all the
+folks on Eagle Island. We have also been to Maquoit.
+We have visited the old pond, and, if I mistake not, the
+relics of your old raft yet float there; at all events, one
+or two fragments of a raft are there, caught among
+rushes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I do not realize that one of the busiest and happiest
+of the train who once played there shall play there no
+more. "He shall return to his house no more, neither
+shall his place know him any more." I think I have
+felt the healing touch of Jesus of Nazareth on the deep
+wound in my heart, for I have golden hours of calm
+when I say: "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good
+in thy sight." So sure am I that the most generous
+love has ordered all, that I can now take pleasure to
+give this little proof of my unquestioning confidence in
+resigning one of my dearest comforts to Him. I feel
+very near the spirit land, and the words, "I shall go to
+him, but he shall not return to me," are very sweet.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, if God would give to you, my dear children, a
+view of the infinite beauty of Eternal Love,&mdash;if He
+would unite us in himself, then even on earth all tears
+might be wiped away.</p>
+
+<p>Papa has preached twice to-day, and is preaching
+again to-night. He told me to be sure to write and
+send you his love. I hope his health is getting better.
+Mrs. Upham sends you her best love, and hopes you
+will make her a visit some time.</p>
+
+<p>Good-by, my darlings. Come soon to your affectionate
+mother.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+H. B. S.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>The winter of 1857 was passed quietly and uneventfully
+at Andover. In November Mrs. Stowe contributed
+to the "Atlantic Monthly" a touching little allegory,
+"The Mourning Veil."</p>
+
+<p>In December, 1858, the first chapter of "The Minister's
+Wooing" appeared in the same magazine. Simultaneously
+with this story was written "The Pearl of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>
+Orr's Island," published first as a serial in the "Independent."</p>
+
+<p>She dictated a large part of "The Minister's Wooing"
+under a great pressure of mental excitement, and
+it was a relief to her to turn to the quiet story of the
+coast of Maine, which she loved so well.</p>
+
+<p>In February, 1874, Mrs. Stowe received the following
+words from Mr. Whittier, which are very interesting
+in this connection: "When I am in the mood for
+thinking deeply I read 'The Minister's Wooing.' But
+'The Pearl of Orr's Island' is my favorite. It is the
+most charming New England idyl ever written."</p>
+
+<p>"The Minister's Wooing" was received with universal
+commendation from the first, and called forth the
+following appreciative words from the pen of Mr.
+James Russell Lowell:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It has always seemed to us that the anti-slavery
+element in the two former novels by Mrs. Stowe stood
+in the way of a full appreciation of her remarkable
+genius, at least in her own country. It was so easy to
+account for the unexampled popularity of 'Uncle Tom'
+by attributing it to a cheap sympathy with sentimental
+philanthropy! As people began to recover from the
+first enchantment, they began also to resent it and to
+complain that a dose of that insane Garrison-root which
+takes the reason prisoner had been palmed upon them
+without their knowing it, and that their ordinary water-gruel
+of fiction, thinned with sentiment and thickened
+with moral, had been hocussed with the bewildering
+hasheesh of Abolition. We had the advantage of
+reading that truly extraordinary book for the first time
+in Paris, long after the whirl of excitement produced by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>
+its publication had subsided, in the seclusion of distance,
+and with a judgment unbiased by those political
+sympathies which it is impossible, perhaps unwise, to
+avoid at home. We felt then, and we believe now, that
+the secret of Mrs. Stowe's power lay in that same
+genius by which the great successes in creative literature
+have always been achieved,&mdash;the genius that
+instinctively goes right to the organic elements of
+human nature, whether under a white skin or a black,
+and which disregards as trivial the conventional and
+factitious notions which make so large a part both of
+our thinking and feeling. Works of imagination written
+with an aim to immediate impression are commonly
+ephemeral, like Miss Martineau's 'Tales,' and Elliott's
+'Corn-law Rhymes;' but the creative faculty of Mrs.
+Stowe, like that of Cervantes in 'Don Quixote' and of
+Fielding in 'Joseph Andrews,' overpowered the narrow
+specialty of her design, and expanded a local and temporary
+theme with the cosmopolitanism of genius.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a proverb that 'There is a great deal of human
+nature in men,' but it is equally and sadly true that there
+is amazingly little of it in books. Fielding is the only
+English novelist who deals with life in its broadest
+sense. Thackeray, his disciple and congener, and Dickens,
+the congener of Smollett, do not so much treat of
+life as of the strata of society; the one studying nature
+from the club-room window, the other from the reporters'
+box in the police court. It may be that the general
+obliteration of distinctions of rank in this country,
+which is generally considered a detriment to the novelist,
+will in the end turn to his advantage by compelling
+him to depend for his effects on the contrasts and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>
+collisions of innate character, rather than on those shallower
+traits superinduced by particular social arrangements,
+or by hereditary associations. Shakespeare drew
+ideal, and Fielding natural men and women; Thackeray
+draws either gentlemen or snobs, and Dickens
+either unnatural men or the oddities natural only in the
+lowest grades of a highly artificial system of society.
+The first two knew human nature; of the two latter,
+one knows what is called the world, and the other the
+streets of London. Is it possible that the very social
+democracy which here robs the novelist of so much
+romance, so much costume, so much antithesis of caste,
+so much in short that is purely external, will give him
+a set-off in making it easier for him to get at that element
+of universal humanity which neither of the two
+extremes of an aristocratic system, nor the salient and
+picturesque points of contrast between the two, can
+alone lay open to him?</p>
+
+<p>"We hope to see this problem solved by Mrs. Stowe.
+That kind of romantic interest which Scott evolved
+from the relations of lord and vassal, of thief and clansman,
+from the social more than the moral contrast of
+Roundhead and Cavalier, of far-descended pauper and
+<i>nouveau riche</i> which Cooper found in the clash of savagery
+with civilization, and the shaggy virtue bred on
+the border-land between the two, Indian by habit, white
+by tradition, Mrs. Stowe seems in her former novels to
+have sought in a form of society alien to her sympathies,
+and too remote for exact study, or for the acquirement
+of that local truth which is the slow result of
+unconscious observation. There can be no stronger
+proof of the greatness of her genius, of her possessing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>
+that conceptive faculty which belongs to the higher
+order of imagination, than the avidity with which
+'Uncle Tom' was read at the South. It settled the
+point that this book was true to human nature, even if
+not minutely so to plantation life.</p>
+
+<p>"If capable of so great a triumph where success must
+so largely depend on the sympathetic insight of her
+mere creative power, have we not a right to expect
+something far more in keeping with the requirements of
+art, now that her wonderful eye is to be the mirror of
+familiar scenes, and of a society in which she was bred,
+of which she has seen so many varieties, and that, too,
+in the country, where it is most <i>naďve</i> and original?
+It is a great satisfaction to us that in 'The Minister's
+Wooing' she has chosen her time and laid her scene
+amid New England habits and traditions. There is no
+other writer who is so capable of perpetuating for us, in
+a work of art, a style of thought and manners which
+railways and newspapers will soon render as palćozoic
+as the mastodon or the megalosaurians. Thus far the
+story has fully justified our hopes. The leading characters
+are all fresh and individual creations. Mrs.
+Kate Scudder, the notable Yankee housewife; Mary, in
+whom Cupid is to try conclusions with Calvin; James
+Marvyn, the adventurous boy of the coast, in whose
+heart the wild religion of nature swells till the strait
+swathings of Puritanism are burst; Dr. Hopkins, the
+conscientious minister come upon a time when the social
+<i>prestige</i> of the clergy is waning, and whose independence
+will test the voluntary system of ministerial support;
+Simeon Brown, the man of theological dialectics,
+in whom the utmost perfection of creed is shown to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>
+not inconsistent with the most contradictory imperfection
+of life,&mdash;all these are characters new to literature.
+And the scene is laid just far enough away in point of
+time to give proper tone and perspective.</p>
+
+<p>"We think we find in the story, so far as it has proceeded,
+the promise of an interest as unhackneyed as it
+will be intense. There is room for the play of all the
+passions and interests that make up the great tragi-comedy
+of life, while all the scenery and accessories
+will be those which familiarity has made dear to us.
+We are a little afraid of Colonel Burr, to be sure, it is
+so hard to make a historical personage fulfill the conditions
+demanded by the novel of every-day life. He is
+almost sure either to fall below our traditional conception
+of him, or to rise above the natural and easy level
+of character, into the vague or the melodramatic. Moreover,
+we do not want a novel of society from Mrs.
+Stowe; she is quite too good to be wasted in that way,
+and her tread is much more firm on the turf of the
+"door-yard" or the pasture, and the sanded floor of
+the farmhouse, than on the velvet of the <i>salôn</i>. We
+have no notion how she is to develop her plot, but we
+think we foresee chances for her best power in the
+struggle which seems foreshadowed between Mary's
+conscientious admiration of the doctor and her half-conscious
+passion for James, before she discovers that
+one of these conflicting feelings means simply moral
+liking and approval, and the other that she is a woman
+and that she loves. And is not the value of dogmatic
+theology as a rule of life to be thoroughly tested for
+the doctor by his slave-trading parishioners? Is he not
+to learn the bitter difference between intellectual acceptance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>
+of a creed and that true partaking of the sacrament
+of love and faith and sorrow that makes Christ
+the very life-blood of our being and doing? And has
+not James Marvyn also his lesson to be taught? We
+foresee him drawn gradually back by Mary from his
+recoil against Puritan formalism to a perception of how
+every creed is pliant and plastic to a beautiful nature,
+of how much charm there may be in an hereditary
+faith, even if it have become almost conventional.</p>
+
+<p>"In the materials of character already present in the
+story, there is scope for Mrs. Stowe's humor, pathos,
+clear moral sense, and quick eye for the scenery of life.
+We do not believe that there is any one who, by birth,
+breeding, and natural capacity, has had the opportunity
+to know New England so well as she, or who has the
+peculiar genius so to profit by the knowledge. Already
+there have been scenes in 'The Minister's Wooing'
+that, in their lowness of tone and quiet truth, contrast
+as charmingly with the humid vagueness of the modern
+school of novel-writers as 'The Vicar of Wakefield'
+itself, and we are greatly mistaken if it do not prove to
+be the most characteristic of Mrs. Stowe's works, and
+therefore that on which her fame will chiefly rest with
+posterity."</p>
+
+<p>"The Minister's Wooing" was not completed as a
+serial till December, 1859. Long before its completion
+Mrs. Stowe received letters from many interested
+readers, who were as much concerned for the future of
+her "spiritual children," as George Eliot would call
+them, as if they had been flesh and blood.</p>
+
+<p>The following letter from Mr. Lowell is given as the
+most valuable received by Mrs. Stowe at this time:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Cambridge</span>, <i>February 4, 1859.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Stowe</span>,&mdash;I certainly did mean to
+write you about your story, but only to cry <i>bravissima!</i>
+with the rest of the world. I intended no kind of
+criticism; deeming it wholly out of place, and in the
+nature of a wet-blanket, so long as a story is unfinished.
+When I got the first number in MS., I said to Mr. Phillips
+that I thought it would be the best thing you had
+done, and what followed has only confirmed my first
+judgment. From long habit, and from the tendency
+of my studies, I cannot help looking at things purely
+from an ćsthetic point of view, and what <i>I</i> valued in
+"Uncle Tom" was the genius, and not the moral.
+That is saying a good deal, for I never use the word
+<i>genius</i> at haphazard, and always (perhaps, too) sparingly.
+I am going to be as frank as I ought to be
+with one whom I value so highly. What especially
+charmed me in the new story was, that you had taken
+your stand on New England ground. You are one of
+the few persons lucky enough to be born with eyes in
+your head,&mdash;that is, with something behind the eyes
+which makes them of value. To most people the seeing
+apparatus is as useless as the great telescope at the
+observatory is to me,&mdash;something to stare through with
+no intelligent result. Nothing could be better than
+the conception of your plot (so far as I divine it), and
+the painting-in of your figures. As for "theology,"
+it is as much a part of daily life in New England as in
+Scotland, and all I should have to say about it is this:
+let it crop out when it naturally comes to the surface,
+only don't dig down to it. A moral aim is a fine thing,
+but in making a story an artist is a traitor who does<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span>
+not sacrifice everything to art. Remember the lesson
+that Christ gave us twice over. First, he preferred the
+useless Mary to the dish-washing Martha, and next,
+when that exemplary moralist and friend of humanity,
+Judas, objected to the sinful waste of the Magdalen's
+ointment, the great Teacher would rather it should be
+wasted in an act of simple beauty than utilized for the
+benefit of the poor. Cleopatra was an artist when she
+dissolved her biggest pearl to captivate her Antony-public.
+May I, a critic by profession, say the whole
+truth to a woman of genius? Yes? And never be
+forgiven? I shall try, and try to be forgiven, too. In
+the first place, pay no regard to the advice of anybody.
+In the second place, pay a great deal to mine! A Kilkenny-cattish
+style of advice? Not at all. My advice is
+to follow your own instincts,&mdash;to stick to nature, and
+to avoid what people commonly call the "Ideal;" for
+that, and beauty, and pathos, and success, all lie in the
+simply natural. We all preach it, from Wordsworth
+down, and we all, from Wordsworth down, don't practice
+it. Don't I feel it every day in this weary editorial
+mill of mine, that there are ten thousand people who
+can write "ideal" things for one who can see, and feel,
+and reproduce nature and character? Ten thousand,
+did I say? Nay, ten million. What made Shakespeare
+so great? Nothing but eyes and&mdash;faith in
+them. The same is true of Thackeray. I see nowhere
+more often than in authors the truth that men love
+their opposites. Dickens insists on being tragic and
+makes shipwreck.</p>
+
+<p>I always thought (forgive me) that the Hebrew parts
+of "Dred" were a mistake. Do not think me impertinent;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>
+I am only honestly anxious that what I consider
+a very remarkable genius should have faith in
+itself. Let your moral take care of itself, and remember
+that an author's writing-desk is something infinitely
+higher than a pulpit. What I call "care of itself" is
+shown in that noble passage in the February number
+about the ladder up to heaven. That is grand preaching
+and in the right way. I am sure that "The Minister's
+Wooing" is going to be the best of your products
+hitherto, and I am sure of it because you show so
+thorough a mastery of your material, so true a perception
+of realities, without which the ideality is impossible.</p>
+
+<p>As for "orthodoxy," be at ease. Whatever is well
+done the world finds orthodox at last, in spite of all
+the Fakir journals, whose only notion of orthodoxy
+seems to be the power of standing in one position till
+you lose all the use of your limbs. If, with your heart
+and brain, <i>you</i> are not orthodox, in Heaven's name who
+is? If you mean "Calvinistic," no woman could ever
+be such, for Calvinism is logic, and no woman worth
+the name could ever live by syllogisms. Woman
+charms a higher faculty in us than reason, God be
+praised, and nothing has delighted me more in your new
+story than the happy instinct with which you develop
+this incapacity of the lovers' logic in your female characters.
+Go on just as you have begun, and make it
+appear in as many ways as you like,&mdash;that, whatever
+creed may be true, it is <i>not</i> true and never will be that
+man can be saved by machinery. I can speak with
+some chance of being right, for I confess a strong
+sympathy with many parts of Calvinistic theology, and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>
+for one thing, believe in hell with all my might, and in
+the goodness of God for all that.</p>
+
+<p>I have not said anything. What could I say? One
+might almost as well advise a mother about the child
+she still bears under her heart, and say, give it these
+and those qualities, as an author about a work yet in
+the brain.</p>
+
+<p>Only this I will say, that I am honestly delighted
+with "The Minister's Wooing;" that reading it has
+been one of my few editorial pleasures; that no one
+appreciates your genius more highly than I, or hopes
+more fervently that you will let yourself go without regard
+to this, that, or t'other. Don't read any criticisms
+on your story: believe that you know better than any
+of us, and be sure that everybody likes it. That I
+know. There is not, and never was, anybody so competent
+to write a true New England poem as yourself,
+and have no doubt that you are doing it. The native
+sod sends up the best inspiration to the brain, and you
+are as sure of immortality as we all are of dying,&mdash;if
+you only go on with entire faith in yourself.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Faithfully and admiringly yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">J. R. Lowell</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>After the book was published in England, Mr. Ruskin
+wrote to Mrs. Stowe:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I have read the book now, and I think nothing
+can be nobler than the noble parts of it (Mary's
+great speech to Colonel Burr, for instance), nothing
+wiser than the wise parts of it (the author's parenthetical
+and under-breath remarks), nothing more delightful
+than the delightful parts (all that Virginie says and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span>
+does), nothing more edged than the edged parts (Candace's
+sayings and doings, to wit); but I do not like the
+plan of the whole, because the simplicity of the minister
+seems to diminish the probability of Mary's reverence
+for him. I cannot fancy even so good a girl who would
+not have laughed at him. Nor can I fancy a man of
+real intellect reaching such a period of life without
+understanding his own feelings better, or penetrating
+those of another more quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I am provoked at nothing happening to Mrs.
+Scudder, whom I think as entirely unendurable a creature
+as ever defied poetical justice at the end of a novel
+meant to irritate people. And finally, I think you are
+too disdainful of what ordinary readers seek in a novel,
+under the name of 'interest,'&mdash;that gradually developing
+wonder, expectation, and curiosity which makes
+people who have no self-command sit up till three in
+the morning to get to the crisis, and people who have
+self-command lay the book down with a resolute sigh,
+and think of it all the next day through till the time
+comes for taking it up again. Still, I know well that
+in many respects it was impossible for you to treat this
+story merely as a work of literary art. There must
+have been many facts which you could not dwell upon,
+and which no one may judge by common rules.</p>
+
+<p>"It is also true, as you say once or twice in the
+course of the work, that we have not among us here
+the peculiar religious earnestness you have mainly to
+describe.</p>
+
+<p>"We have little earnest formalism, and our formalists
+are for the most part hollow, feeble, uninteresting, mere
+stumbling-blocks. We have the Simeon Brown species,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span>
+indeed; and among readers even of his kind the book
+may do some good, and more among the weaker, truer
+people, whom it will shake like mattresses,&mdash;making
+the dust fly, and perhaps with it some of the sticks and
+quill-ends, which often make that kind of person an
+objectionable mattress. I write too lightly of the book,&mdash;far
+too lightly,&mdash;but your letter made me gay, and
+I have been lighter-hearted ever since; only I kept this
+after beginning it, because I was ashamed to send it
+without a line to Mrs. Browning as well. I do not
+understand why you should apprehend (or rather anticipate
+without apprehension) any absurd criticism on it.
+It is sure to be a popular book,&mdash;not as 'Uncle Tom'
+was, for that owed part of its popularity to its dramatic
+effect (the flight on the ice, etc.), which I did not like;
+but as a true picture of human life is always popular.
+Nor, I should think, would any critics venture at all to
+carp at it.</p>
+
+<p>"The Candace and Virginie bits appear to me, as far
+as I have yet seen, the best. I am very glad there is
+this nice French lady in it: the French are the least
+appreciated in general, of all nations, by other nations.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+My father says the book is worth its weight in
+gold, and he knows good work."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>When we turn from these criticisms and commendations
+to the inner history of this period, we find that
+the work was done in deep sadness of heart, and the
+undertone of pathos that forms the dark background
+of the brightest and most humorous parts of "The
+Minister's Wooing" was the unconscious revelation of
+one of sorrowful spirit, who, weary of life, would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>
+been glad to lie down with her arms "round the wayside
+cross, and sleep away into a brighter scene."</p>
+
+<p>Just before beginning the writing of "The Minister's
+Wooing" she sent the following letter to Lady
+Byron:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Andover</span>, <i>June 30, 1858.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I did long to hear from you
+at a time when few knew how to speak, because I knew
+that you did know everything that sorrow can teach,&mdash;you
+whose whole life has been a crucifixion, a long
+ordeal. But I believe that the "Lamb," who stands
+forever in the midst of the throne "as it had been
+slain," has everywhere his followers, those who are sent
+into the world, as he was, to suffer for the redemption
+of others, and like him they must look to the joy set
+before them of redeeming others.</p>
+
+<p>I often think that God called you to this beautiful
+and terrible ministry when He suffered you to link
+your destiny with one so strangely gifted, so fearfully
+tempted, and that the reward which is to meet you,
+when you enter within the veil, where you must soon
+pass, will be to see the angel, once chained and defiled
+within him, set free from sin and glorified, and so know
+that to you it has been given, by your life of love and
+faith, to accomplish this glorious change.</p>
+
+<p>I think very much on the subject on which you conversed
+with me once,&mdash;the future state of retribution.
+It is evident to me that the spirit of Christianity has
+produced in the human spirit a tenderness of love which
+wholly revolts from the old doctrine on the subject, and
+I observe the more Christ-like any one becomes, the
+more impossible it seems for him to accept it; and yet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>
+on the contrary, it was Christ who said, "Fear Him
+that is able to destroy soul and body in hell," and the
+most appalling language on this subject is that of Christ
+himself. Certain ideas once prevalent certainly must
+be thrown off. An endless infliction for past sins was
+once the doctrine that we now generally reject. The
+doctrine as now taught is that of an eternal persistence
+in evil necessitating eternal punishment, since evil induces
+misery by an eternal nature of things, and this,
+I fear, is inferable from the analogies of nature, and
+confirmed by the whole implication of the Bible.</p>
+
+<p>Is there any fair way of disposing of the current of
+assertion, and the still deeper undercurrent of implication,
+on this subject, without one which loosens all faith
+in revelation, and throws us on pure naturalism? But
+of one thing I am sure,&mdash;probation does not end with
+this life, and the number of the redeemed may therefore
+be infinitely greater than the world's history leads
+us to suppose.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The views expressed in this letter certainly throw
+light on many passages in "The Minister's Wooing."</p>
+
+<p>The following letter, written to her daughter Georgiana,
+is introduced as revealing the spirit in which much
+of "The Minister's Wooing" was written:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><i>February 12, 1859.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Georgie</span>,&mdash;Why haven't I written? Because,
+dear Georgie, I am like the dry, dead, leafless
+tree, and have only cold, dead, slumbering buds of hope
+on the end of stiff, hard, frozen twigs of thought, but
+no leaves, no blossoms; nothing to send to a little girl<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span>
+who doesn't know what to do with herself any more
+than a kitten. I am cold, weary, dead; everything is
+a burden to me.</p>
+
+<p>I let my plants die by inches before my eyes, and do
+not water them, and I dread everything I do, and wish
+it was not to be done, and so when I get a letter from
+my little girl I smile and say, "Dear little puss, I will
+answer it;" and I sit hour after hour with folded hands,
+looking at the inkstand and dreading to begin. The
+fact is, pussy, mamma is tired. Life to you is gay and
+joyous, but to mamma it has been a battle in which the
+spirit is willing but the flesh weak, and she would be
+glad, like the woman in the St. Bernard, to lie down
+with her arms around the wayside cross, and sleep away
+into a brighter scene. Henry's fair, sweet face looks
+down upon me now and then from out a cloud, and I
+feel again all the bitterness of the eternal "No" which
+says I must never, never, in this life, see that face, lean
+on that arm, hear that voice. Not that my faith in God
+in the least fails, and that I do not believe that all this
+is for good. I do, and though not happy, I am blessed.
+Weak, weary as I am, I rest on Jesus in the innermost
+depth of my soul, and am quite sure that there is coming
+an inconceivable hour of beauty and glory when I
+shall regain Jesus, and he will give me back my beloved
+one, whom he is educating in a far higher sphere than
+I proposed. So do not mistake me,&mdash;only know that
+mamma is sitting weary by the wayside, feeling weak
+and worn, but in no sense discouraged.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Your affectionate mother,</span><br />
+H. B. S.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So is it ever: when with bold step we press our way
+into the holy place where genius hath wrought, we find
+it to be a place of sorrows. Art has its Gethsemane
+and its Calvary as well as religion. Our best loved
+books and sweetest songs are those "that tell of saddest
+thought."</p>
+
+<p>The summer of 1859 found Mrs. Stowe again on her
+way to Europe, this time accompanied by all her children
+except the youngest.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XV.<br />
+
+<small>THE THIRD TRIP TO EUROPE, <b>1859</b>.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Third Visit to Europe.&mdash;Lady Byron on "The Minister's Wooing."&mdash;Some
+Foreign People and Things as they Appeared
+to Professor Stowe.&mdash;A Winter in Italy.&mdash;Things Unseen
+and Unrevealed.&mdash;Speculations concerning Spiritualism.&mdash;John
+Ruskin.&mdash;Mrs. Browning.&mdash;The Return to America.&mdash;Letters
+to Dr. Holmes.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Stowe's</span> third and last trip to Europe was undertaken
+in the summer of 1859. In writing to Lady
+Byron in May of that year, she says: "I am at present
+writing something that interests me greatly, and may
+interest you, as an attempt to portray the heart and life
+of New England, its religion, theology, and manners.
+Sampson Low &amp; Son are issuing it in numbers, and I
+should be glad to know how they strike you. It is to
+publish this work complete that I intend to visit England
+this summer."</p>
+
+<p>The story thus referred to was "The Minister's Wooing,"
+and Lady Byron's answer to the above, which is
+appended, leaves no room for doubt as to her appreciation
+of it. She writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>May 31, 1859.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I have found, particularly as to
+yourself, that if I did not answer from the first impulse,
+all had evaporated. Your letter came by the Niagara,
+which brought Fanny Kemble, to learn the loss of her
+<i>best</i> friend, that Miss Fitzhugh whom you saw at my
+house.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have an intense interest in your new novel. More
+power in these few numbers than in any of your former
+writings, relatively, at least to my own mind. More
+power than in "Adam Bede," which is <i>the</i> book of the
+season, and well deserves a high place. Whether Mrs.
+Scudder will rival Mrs. Poyser, we shall see.</p>
+
+<p>It would amuse you to hear my granddaughter and
+myself attempting to foresee the future of the "love
+story," being quite persuaded for the moment that James
+is at sea, and the minister about to ruin himself. We
+think that she will labor to be in love with the self-devoting
+man, under her mother's influence, and from
+that hyper-conscientiousness so common with good girls,&mdash;but
+we don't wish her to succeed. Then what is to
+become of her older lover? He&mdash;Time will show. I
+have just missed Dale Owen, with whom I wished to
+have conversed about the "Spiritualism." Harris is
+lecturing here on religion. I do not hear him praised.
+People are looking for helps to believe everywhere but
+in life,&mdash;in music, in architecture, in antiquity, in ceremony,&mdash;and
+upon all is written, "Thou shalt <i>not</i>
+believe." At least, if this be faith, happier the unbeliever.
+I am willing to see <i>through</i> that materialism,
+but if I am to rest there, I would rend the veil.</p>
+
+<p><i>June 1.</i> The day of the packet's sailing. I shall
+hope to be visited by you here. The best flowers sent
+me have been placed in your little vases, giving life, as
+it were, to the remembrance of you, though not to pass
+away like them.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Ever yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">A. T. Noel Byron</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The entire family, with the exception of the youngest
+son, was abroad at this time. The two eldest daughters
+were in Paris, having previously sailed for Havre in
+March, in company with their cousin, Miss Beecher.
+On their arrival in Paris, they went directly to the
+house of their old friend, Madame Borione, and soon
+afterwards entered a Protestant school. The rest of
+the family, including Mrs. Stowe, her husband and
+youngest daughter, sailed for Liverpool early in August.
+At about the same time, Fred Stowe, in company
+with his friend Samuel Scoville, took passage for
+the same port in a sailing vessel. A comprehensive
+outline of the earlier portion of this foreign tour is
+given in the following letter written by Professor Stowe
+to the sole member of the family remaining in America:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Castle Chillon, Switzerland</span>, <i>September 1, 1859.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear little Charley</span>,&mdash;We are all here except
+Fred, and all well. We have had a most interesting
+journey, of which I must give a brief account.</p>
+
+<p>We sailed from New York in the steamer Asia, on
+the 3d of August [1859], a very hot day, and for ten
+days it was the hottest weather I ever knew at sea.
+We had a splendid ship's company, mostly foreigners,
+Italians, Spaniards, with a sprinkling of Scotch and
+Irish. We passed one big iceberg in the night close to,
+and as the iceberg wouldn't turn out for us we turned
+out for the iceberg, and were very glad to come off so.
+This was the night of the 9th of August, and after
+that we had cooler weather, and on the morning of the
+13th the wind blew like all possessed, and so continued
+till afternoon. Sunday morning, the 14th, we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span>
+got safe into Liverpool, landed, and went to the Adelphi
+Hotel. Mamma and Georgie were only a little
+sick on the way over, and that was the morning of the
+13th.</p>
+
+<p>As it was court time, the high sheriff of Lancashire,
+Sir Robert Gerauld, a fine, stout, old, gray-haired John
+Bull, came thundering up to the hotel at noon in his
+grand coach with six beautiful horses with outriders,
+and two trumpeters, and twelve men with javelins for a
+guard, all dressed in the gayest manner, and rushing
+along like Time in the primer, the trumpeters too-ti-toot-tooing
+like a house a-fire, and how I wished my little
+Charley had been there to see it!</p>
+
+<p>Monday we wanted to go and see the court, so we
+went over to St. George's Hall, a most magnificent
+structure, that beats the Boston State House all hollow,
+and Sir Robert Gerauld himself met us, and said he
+would get us a good place. So he took us away round
+a narrow, crooked passage, and opened a little door,
+where we saw nothing but a great, crimson curtain,
+which he told us to put aside and go straight on; and
+where do you think we all found ourselves?</p>
+
+<p>Right on the platform with the judges in their big
+wigs and long robes, and facing the whole crowded
+court! It was enough to frighten a body into fits, but
+we took it quietly as we could, and your mamma looked
+as meek as Moses in her little, battered straw hat and
+gray cloak, seeming to say, "I didn't come here o'
+purpose."</p>
+
+<p>That same night we arrived in London, and Tuesday
+(August 16th), riding over the city, we called at Stafford
+House, and inquired if the Duchess of Sutherland was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>
+there. A servant came out and said the duchess was
+in and would be very glad to see us; so your mamma,
+Georgie, and I went walking up the magnificent staircase
+in the entrance hall, and the great, noble, brilliant
+duchess came sailing down the stairs to meet
+us, in her white morning dress (for it was only four
+o'clock in the afternoon, and she was not yet dressed
+for dinner), took your mamma into her great bosom,
+and folded her up till the little Yankee woman looked
+like a small gray kitten half covered in a snowbank,
+and kissed and kissed her, and then she took up little
+Georgie and kissed her, and then she took my hand,
+and didn't kiss me.</p>
+
+<p>Next day we went to the duchess's villa, near Windsor
+Castle, and had a grand time riding round the park,
+sailing on the Thames, and eating the very best dinner
+that was ever set on a table.</p>
+
+<p>We stayed in London till the 25th of August, and
+then went to Paris and found H. and E. and H. B.
+all well and happy; and on the 30th of August we all
+went to Geneva together, and to-day, the 1st of September,
+we all took a sail up the beautiful Lake Leman
+here in the midst of the Alps, close by the old castle
+of Chillon, about which Lord Byron has written a poem.
+In a day or two we shall go to Chamouni, and then
+Georgie and I will go back to Paris and London, and
+so home at the time appointed. Until then I remain
+as ever,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Your loving father,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">C. E. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe accompanied her husband and daughter
+to England, where, after traveling and visiting for two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span>
+weeks, she bade them good-by and returned to her
+daughters in Switzerland. From Lausanne she writes
+under date of October 9th:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Husband</span>,&mdash;Here we are at Lausanne, in
+the Hotel Gibbon, occupying the very parlor that the
+Ruskins had when we were here before. The day I
+left you I progressed prosperously to Paris. Reached
+there about one o'clock at night; could get no carriage,
+and finally had to turn in at a little hotel close by the
+station, where I slept till morning. I could not but
+think what if anything should happen to me there? Nobody
+knew me or where I was, but the bed was clean,
+the room respectable; so I locked my door and slept,
+then took a carriage in the morning, and found Madame
+Borione at breakfast. I write to-night, that you may
+get a letter from me at the earliest possible date after
+your return.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of coming to Geneva in one day, I stopped
+over one night at Macon, got to Geneva the next day
+about four o'clock, and to Lausanne at eight. Coming
+up-stairs and opening the door, I found the whole party
+seated with their books and embroidery about a centre-table,
+and looking as homelike and cosy as possible.
+You may imagine the greetings, the kissing, laughing,
+and good times generally.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>From Lausanne the merry party traveled toward
+Florence by easy stages, stopping at Lake Como, Milan,
+Verona, Venice, Genoa, and Leghorn. At Florence,
+where they arrived early in November, they met Fred
+Stowe and his friend, Samuel Scoville, and here they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span>
+were also joined by their Brooklyn friends, the Howards.
+Thus it was a large and thoroughly congenial
+party that settled down in the old Italian city to spend
+the winter. From here Mrs. Stowe wrote weekly letters
+to her husband in Andover, and among them are the
+following, that not only throw light upon their mode of
+life, but illustrate a marked tendency of her mind:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Florence</span>, <i>Christmas Day, 1859.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Husband</span>,&mdash;I wish you all a Merry Christmas,
+hoping to spend the next one with you.</p>
+
+<p>For us, we are expecting to spend this evening with
+quite a circle of American friends. With Scoville and
+Fred came L. Bacon (son of Dr. Bacon); a Mr. Porter,
+who is to study theology at Andover, and is now making
+the tour of Europe; Mr. Clarke, formerly minister at
+Cornwall; Mr. Jenkyns, of Lowell; Mr. and Mrs. Howard,
+John and Annie Howard, who came in most unexpectedly
+upon us last night. So we shall have quite a
+New England party, and shall sing Millais' Christmas
+hymn in great force. Hope you will all do the same in
+the old stone cabin.</p>
+
+<p>Our parlor is all trimmed with laurel and myrtle, looking
+like a great bower, and our mantel and table are
+redolent with bouquets of orange blossoms and pinks.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><i>January 16, 1860.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Husband</span>,&mdash;Your letter received to-day
+has raised quite a weight from my mind, for it shows
+that at last you have received all mine, and that thus
+the chain of communication between us is unbroken.
+What you said about your spiritual experiences in feeling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span>
+the presence of dear Henry with you, and, above
+all, the vibration of that mysterious guitar, was very
+pleasant to me. Since I have been in Florence, I have
+been distressed by inexpressible yearnings after him,&mdash;such
+sighings and outreachings, with a sense of utter
+darkness and separation, not only from him but from
+all spiritual communion with my God. But I have become
+acquainted with a friend through whom I receive
+consoling impressions of these things,&mdash;a Mrs. E., of
+Boston, a very pious, accomplished, and interesting
+woman, who has had a history much like yours in relation
+to spiritual manifestations.</p>
+
+<p>Without doubt she is what the spiritualists would
+regard as a very powerful medium, but being a very
+earnest Christian, and afraid of getting led astray, she
+has kept carefully aloof from all circles and things of
+that nature. She came and opened her mind to me in
+the first place, to ask my advice as to what she had better
+do; relating experiences very similar to many of
+yours.</p>
+
+<p>My advice was substantially to try the spirits whether
+they were of God,&mdash;to keep close to the Bible and
+prayer, and then accept whatever came. But I have
+found that when I am with her I receive very strong
+impressions from the spiritual world, so that I feel often
+sustained and comforted, as if I had been near to my
+Henry and other departed friends. This has been at
+times so strong as greatly to soothe and support me. I
+told her your experiences, in which she was greatly interested.
+She said it was so rare to hear of Christian
+and reliable people with such peculiarities.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot, however, think that Henry strikes the guitar,&mdash;that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span>
+must be Eliza. Her spirit has ever seemed to
+cling to that mode of manifestation, and if you would
+keep it in your sleeping-room, no doubt you would hear
+from it oftener. I have been reading lately a curious
+work from an old German in Paris who has been making
+experiments in spirit-writing. He purports to describe
+a series of meetings held in the presence of fifty
+witnesses, whose names he gives, in which writing has
+come on paper, without the apparition of hands or any
+pen or pencil, from various historical people.</p>
+
+<p>He seems a devout believer in inspiration, and the
+book is curious for its mixture of all the phenomena,
+Pagan and Christian, going over Hindoo, Chinese,
+Greek, and Italian literature for examples, and then
+bringing similar ones from the Bible.</p>
+
+<p>One thing I am convinced of,&mdash;that spiritualism is a
+reaction from the intense materialism of the present age.
+Luther, when he recognized a personal devil, was much
+nearer right. We ought to enter fully, at least, into
+the spiritualism of the Bible. Circles and spiritual jugglery
+I regard as the lying signs and wonders, with all
+deceivableness of unrighteousness; but there is a real
+scriptural spiritualism which has fallen into disuse, and
+must be revived, and there are, doubtless, people who,
+from some constitutional formation, can more readily
+receive the impressions of the surrounding spiritual
+world. Such were apostles, prophets, and workers of
+miracles.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sunday evening.</i> To-day I went down to sit with
+Mrs. E. in her quiet parlor. We read in Revelation
+together, and talked of the saints and spirits of the just
+made perfect, till it seemed, as it always does when with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span>
+her, as if Henry were close by me. Then a curious
+thing happened. She has a little Florentine guitar
+which hangs in her parlor, quite out of reach. She and
+I were talking, and her sister, a very matter-of-fact,
+practical body, who attends to temporals for her, was
+arranging a little lunch for us, when suddenly the bass
+string of the guitar was struck loudly and distinctly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who struck that guitar?" said the sister. We
+both looked up and saw that no body or thing was on
+that side of the room. After the sister had gone out,
+Mrs. E. said, "Now, that is strange! I asked last night
+that if any spirit was present with us after you came
+to-day, that it would try to touch that guitar." A little
+while after her husband came in, and as we were talking
+we were all stopped by a peculiar sound, as if somebody
+had drawn a hand across all the strings at once. We
+marveled, and I remembered the guitar at home.</p>
+
+<p>What think you? Have you had any more manifestations,
+any truths from the spirit world?</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>About the end of February the pleasant Florentine
+circle broke up, and Mrs. Stowe and her party journeyed
+to Rome, where they remained until the middle
+of April. We next find them in Naples, starting on a
+six days' trip to Castellamare, Sorrento, Salerno, Pćstum,
+and Amalfi; then up Vesuvius, and to the Blue
+Grotto of Capri, and afterwards back to Rome by diligence.
+Leaving Rome on May 9th, they traveled leisurely
+towards Paris, which they reached on the 27th.
+From there Mrs. Stowe wrote to her husband on May
+28th:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Since my last letter a great change has taken place
+in our plans, in consequence of which our passage for
+America is engaged by the Europa, which sails the 16th
+of June; so, if all goes well, we are due in Boston four
+weeks from this date. I long for home, for my husband
+and children, for my room, my yard and garden,
+for the beautiful trees of Andover. We will make a
+very happy home, and our children will help us.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Affectionately yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Hatty</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>This extended and pleasant tour was ended with an
+equally pleasant homeward voyage, for on the Europa
+were found Nathaniel Hawthorne and James T. Fields,
+who proved most delightful traveling companions.</p>
+
+<p>While Mrs. Stowe fully enjoyed her foreign experiences,
+she was so thoroughly American in every fibre
+of her being that she was always thankful to return to
+her own land and people. She could not, therefore, in
+any degree reciprocate the views of Mr. Ruskin on this
+subject, as expressed in the following letter, received
+soon after her return to Andover:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Geneva</span>, <i>June 18, 1860.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mrs. Stowe</span>,&mdash;It takes a great deal, when I
+am at Geneva, to make me wish myself anywhere else,
+and, of all places else, in London; nevertheless, I very
+heartily wish at this moment that I were looking out
+on the Norwood Hills, and were expecting you and the
+children to breakfast to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>I had very serious thoughts, when I received your
+note, of running home; but I expected that very day
+an American friend, Mr. S., who I thought would miss
+me more here than you would in London; so I stayed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>What a dreadful thing it is that people should have
+to go to America again, after coming to Europe! It
+seems to me an inversion of the order of nature. I
+think America is a sort of "United" States of Probation,
+out of which all wise people, being once delivered,
+and having obtained entrance into this better world,
+should never be expected to return (sentence irremediably
+ungrammatical), particularly when they have
+been making themselves cruelly pleasant to friends here.
+My friend Norton, whom I met first on this very blue
+lake water, had no business to go back to Boston again,
+any more than you.</p>
+
+<p>I was waiting for S. at the railroad station on Thursday,
+and thinking of you, naturally enough,&mdash;it seemed
+so short a while since we were there together. I managed
+to get hold of Georgie as she was crossing the
+rails, and packed her in opposite my mother and beside
+me, and was thinking myself so clever, when you sent
+that rascally courier for her! I never forgave him
+any of his behavior after his imperativeness on that
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>And so she is getting nice and strong? Ask her,
+please, when you write, with my love, whether, when
+she stands now behind the great stick, one can see much
+of her on each side?</p>
+
+<p>So you have been seeing the Pope and all his Easter
+performances? I congratulate you, for I suppose it is
+something like "Positively the last appearance on any
+stage." What was the use of thinking about <i>him</i>? You
+should have had your own thoughts about what was to
+come after him. I don't mean that Roman Catholicism
+will die out so quickly. It will last pretty nearly as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span>
+long as Protestantism, which keeps it up; but I wonder
+what is to come next. That is the main question just
+now for everybody.</p>
+
+<p>So you are coming round to Venice, after all? We
+shall all have to come to it, depend upon it, some way
+or another. There never has been anything in any
+other part of the world like Venetian strength well
+developed.</p>
+
+<p>I've no heart to write about anything in Europe to
+you now. When are you coming back again? Please
+send me a line as soon as you get safe over, to say you
+are all&mdash;wrong, but not lost in the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know if you will ever get this letter, but I
+hope you will think it worth while to glance again at
+the Denmark Hill pictures; so I send this to my father,
+who, I hope, will be able to give it you.</p>
+
+<p>I really am very sorry you are going,&mdash;you and
+yours; and that is absolute fact, and I shall not enjoy
+my Swiss journey at all so much as I might. It was a
+shame of you not to give me warning before. I could
+have stopped at Paris so easily for you! All good be
+with you! Remember me devotedly to the young
+ladies, and believe me ever affectionately yours,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">J. Ruskin</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>In Rome Mrs. Stowe had formed a warm friendship
+with the Brownings, with whom she afterwards maintained
+a correspondence. The following letter from
+Mrs. Browning was written a year after their first
+meeting.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Rome, 126 Via Felice</span>, <i>14 March, 1861.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Stowe</span>,&mdash;Let me say one word
+first. Your letter, which would have given me pleasure
+if I had been in the midst of pleasures, came to me
+when little beside could have pleased. Dear friend,
+let me say it, I had had a great blow and loss in England,
+and you wrote things in that letter which seemed
+meant for me, meant to do me good, and which did me
+good,&mdash;the first good any letter or any talk did me;
+and it struck me as strange, as more than a coincidence,
+that your first word since we parted in Rome
+last spring should come to me in Rome, and bear so
+directly on an experience which you did not know of.
+I thank you very much.</p>
+
+<p>The earnest stanzas I sent to England for one who
+wanted them even more than I. I don't know how
+people can keep up their prejudices against spiritualism
+with tears in their eyes,&mdash;how they are not, at least,
+thrown on the "wish that it might be true," and the
+investigation of the phenomena, by that abrupt shutting
+in their faces of the door of death, which shuts
+them out from the sight of their beloved. My tendency
+is to beat up against it like a crying child. Not
+that this emotional impulse is the best for turning the
+key and obtaining safe conclusions,&mdash;no. I did not
+write before because I always do shrink from touching
+my own griefs, one feels at first so sore that nothing
+but stillness is borne. It is only after, when one is
+better, that one can express one's self at all. This is so
+with me, at least, though perhaps it ought not to be so
+with a poet.</p>
+
+<p>If you saw my "De Profundis" you must understand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span>
+that it was written nearly twenty years ago, and
+referred to what went before. Mr. Howard's affliction
+made me think of the MS. (in reference to a sermon of
+Dr. Beecher's in the "Independent"), and I pulled it
+out of a secret place and sent it to America, not thinking
+that the publication would fall in so nearly with a
+new grief of mine as to lead to misconceptions. In
+fact the poem would have been an exaggeration in that
+case, and unsuitable in other respects.</p>
+
+<p>It refers to the greatest affliction of my life,&mdash;the
+only time when I felt <i>despair</i>,&mdash;written a year after or
+more. Forgive all these reticences. My husband calls
+me "peculiar" in some things,&mdash;peculiarly <i>lâche</i>, perhaps.
+I can't articulate some names, or speak of certain
+afflictions;&mdash;no, not to <i>him</i>,&mdash;not after all these
+years! It's a sort of <i>dumbness</i> of the soul. Blessed
+are those who can speak, I say. But don't you see
+from this how I must want "spiritualism" above most
+persons?</p>
+
+<p>Now let me be ashamed of this egotism, together
+with the rest of the weakness obtruded on you here,
+when I should rather have congratulated you, my dear
+friend, on the great crisis you are passing through in
+America. If the North is found noble enough to stand
+fast on the moral question, whatever the loss or diminution
+of territory, God and just men will see you greater
+and more glorious as a nation.</p>
+
+<p>I had much anxiety for you after the Seward and
+Adams speeches, but the danger seems averted by that
+fine madness of the South which seems judicial. The
+tariff movement we should regret deeply (and do, some
+of us), only I am told it was wanted in order to persuade<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span>
+those who were less accessible to moral argument.
+It's eking out the holy water with ditch water. If the
+Devil flees before it, even so, let us be content. How
+you must feel, <i>you</i> who have done so much to set this
+accursed slavery in the glare of the world, convicting it
+of hideousness! They should raise a statue to you in
+America and elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile I am reading you in the "Independent,"
+sent to me by Mr. Tilton, with the greatest interest.
+Your new novel opens beautifully.<a name="FNanchor_14_15" id="FNanchor_14_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_15" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+<p>Do write to me and tell me of yourself and the subjects
+which interest us both. It seems to me that our
+Roman affairs may linger a little (while the Papacy
+bleeds slowly to death in its finances) on account of
+this violent clerical opposition in France. Otherwise
+we were prepared for the fall of the house any morning.
+Prince Napoleon's speech represents, with whatever
+slight discrepancy, the inner mind of the emperor.
+It occupied seventeen columns of the "Moniteur" and
+was magnificent. Victor Emmanuel wrote to thank him
+for it in the name of Italy, and even the English papers
+praised it as "a masterly exposition of the policy of
+France." It is settled that we shall wait for Venice.
+It will not be for long. Hungary is <i>only</i> waiting, and
+even in the ashes of Poland there are flickering sparks.
+Is it the beginning of the restitution of all things?</p>
+
+<p>Here in Rome there are fewer English than usual,
+and more empty houses. There is a new story every
+morning, and nobody to cut off the head of the Scheherazade.
+Yesterday the Pope was going to Venice
+directly, and, the day before, fixed the hour for Victor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span>
+Emmanuel's coming, and the day before <i>that</i> brought
+a letter from Cavour to Antonelli about sweeping the
+streets clean for the feet of the king. The poor Romans
+live on these stories, while the Holy Father and
+king of Naples meet holding one another's hands, and
+cannot speak for sobs. The little queen, however, is a
+heroine in her way and from her point of view, and
+when she drives about in a common fiacre, looking very
+pretty under her only crown left of golden hair, one
+must feel sorry that she was not born and married
+nearer to holy ground. My husband prays you to
+remember him, and I ask your daughters to remember
+both of us. Our boy rides his pony and studies under
+his abbé, and keeps a pair of red cheeks, thank God.</p>
+
+<p>I ought to send you more about the society in Rome,
+but I have lived much alone this winter, and have little
+to tell you. Dr. Manning and Mr. De Vere stay away,
+not bearing, perhaps, to see the Pope in his agony.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Your ever affectionate friend,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Elizabeth B. Browning</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Soon after her return to America Mrs. Stowe began
+a correspondence with Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes,
+which opened the way for the warm friendship that has
+stood the test of years. Of this correspondence the
+two following letters, written about this time, are
+of attention.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Andover</span>, <i>September 9, 1860.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Dr. Holmes</span>,&mdash;I have had an impulse upon
+me for a long time to write you a line of recognition
+and sympathy, in response to those that reached me
+monthly in your late story in the "Atlantic" ("Elsie
+Venner").</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I know not what others may think of it, since I have
+seen nobody since my return; but to me it is of deeper
+and broader interest than anything you have done yet,
+and I feel an intense curiosity concerning that underworld
+of thought from which like bubbles your incidents
+and remarks often seem to burst up. The foundations
+of moral responsibility, the interlacing laws of
+nature and spirit, and their relations to us here and
+hereafter, are topics which I ponder more and more,
+and on which only one medically educated can write
+<i>well</i>. I think a course of medical study ought to be
+required of all ministers. How I should like to talk
+with you upon the strange list of topics suggested in
+the schoolmaster's letter! They are bound to agitate
+the public mind more and more, and it is of the chiefest
+importance to learn, if we can, to think soundly and
+wisely of them. Nobody can be a sound theologian
+who has not had his mind drawn to think with reverential
+fear on these topics.</p>
+
+<p>Allow me to hint that the monthly numbers are not
+long enough. Get us along a little faster. You must
+work this well out. Elaborate and give us all the particulars.
+Old Sophie is a jewel; give us more of her.
+I have seen her. Could you ever come out and spend
+a day with us? The professor and I would so like to
+have a talk on some of these matters with you!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Very truly yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='right'><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap">Andover</span>, <i>February 18, 1861.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Doctor</span>,&mdash;I was quite indignant to hear
+yesterday of the very unjust and stupid attack upon
+you in the &mdash;&mdash;. Mr. Stowe has written to them a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span>
+remonstrance which I hope they will allow to appear
+as he wrote it, and over his name. He was well acquainted
+with your father and feels the impropriety of
+the thing.</p>
+
+<p>But, my dear friend, in being shocked, surprised, or
+displeased personally with such things, we must consider
+other people's natures. A man or woman may
+wound us to the quick without knowing it, or meaning
+to do so, simply through difference of fibre. As Cowper
+hath somewhere happily said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Oh, why are farmers made so coarse,<br />
+Or clergy made so fine?<br />
+A kick that scarce might move a horse<br />
+Might kill a sound divine."<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>When once people get ticketed, and it is known that
+one is a hammer, another a saw, and so on, if we happen
+to get a taste of their quality we cannot help being
+hurt, to be sure, but we shall not take it ill of them.
+There be pious, well-intending beetles, wedges, hammers,
+saws, and all other kinds of implements, good&mdash;except
+where they come in the way of our fingers&mdash;and
+from a beetle you can have only a beetle's gospel.</p>
+
+<p>I have suffered in my day from this sort of handling,
+which is worse for us women, who must never answer,
+and once when I wrote to Lady Byron, feeling just as
+you do about some very stupid and unkind things that
+had invaded my personality, she answered me, "Words
+do not kill, my dear, or I should have been dead long
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>There is much true religion and kindness in the
+world, after all, and as a general thing he who has
+struck a nerve would be very sorry for it if he only
+knew what he had done.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I would say nothing, if I were you. There is eternal
+virtue in silence.</p>
+
+<p>I must express my pleasure with the closing chapters
+of "Elsie." They are nobly and beautifully done, and
+quite come up to what I wanted to complete my idea of
+her character. I am quite satisfied with it now. It is
+an artistic creation, original and beautiful.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Believe me to be your true friend,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI.<br />
+
+<small>THE CIVIL WAR, <b>1860-1865</b>.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">The Outbreak of Civil War.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe's Son enlists.&mdash;Thanksgiving
+Day in Washington.&mdash;The Proclamation of
+Emancipation.&mdash;Rejoicings in Boston.&mdash;Fred Stowe at
+Gettysburg.&mdash;Leaving Andover and Settling in Hartford.&mdash;A
+Reply to the Women of England.&mdash;Letters from John
+Bright, Archbishop Whately, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Immediately</span> after Mrs. Stowe's return from Europe,
+it became only too evident that the nation was rapidly
+and inevitably drifting into all the horrors of civil war.
+To use her own words: "It was God's will that this
+nation&mdash;the North as well as the South&mdash;should
+deeply and terribly suffer for the sin of consenting to
+and encouraging the great oppressions of the South;
+that the ill-gotten wealth, which had arisen from striking
+hands with oppression and robbery, should be paid
+back in the taxes of war; that the blood of the poor
+slave, that had cried so many years from the ground in
+vain, should be answered by the blood of the sons from
+the best hearthstones through all the free States; that
+the slave mothers, whose tears nobody regarded, should
+have with them a great company of weepers, North and
+South,&mdash;Rachels weeping for their children and refusing
+to be comforted; that the free States, who refused
+to listen when they were told of lingering starvation,
+cold, privation, and barbarous cruelty, as perpetrated on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span>
+the slave, should have lingering starvation, cold, hunger,
+and cruelty doing its work among their own sons, at
+the hands of these slave-masters, with whose sins our
+nation had connived."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe spoke from personal experience, having
+seen her own son go forth in the ranks of those who
+first responded to the President's call for volunteers.
+He was one of the first to place his name on the muster-roll
+of Company A of the First Massachusetts Volunteers.
+While his regiment was still at the camp in
+Cambridge, Mrs. Stowe was called to Brooklyn on important
+business, from which place she writes to her
+husband under the date June 11, 1861:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday noon Henry (Ward Beecher) came in,
+saying that the Commonwealth, with the First (Massachusetts)
+Regiment on board, had just sailed by. Immediately
+I was of course eager to get to Jersey City to
+see Fred. Sister Eunice said she would go with me,
+and in a few minutes she, Hatty, Sam Scoville, and I
+were in a carriage, driving towards the Fulton Ferry.
+Upon reaching Jersey City we found that the boys
+were dining in the depot, an immense building with
+many tracks and platforms. It has a great cast-iron
+gallery just under the roof, apparently placed there
+with prophetic instinct of these times. There was a
+crowd of people pressing against the grated doors,
+which were locked, but through which we could see the
+soldiers. It was with great difficulty that we were at
+last permitted to go inside, and that object seemed to
+be greatly aided by a bit of printed satin that some
+man gave Mr. Scoville.</p>
+
+<p>"When we were in, a vast area of gray caps and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span>
+blue overcoats was presented. The boys were eating,
+drinking, smoking, talking, singing, and laughing.
+Company A was reported to be here, there, and everywhere.
+At last S. spied Fred in the distance, and went
+leaping across the tracks towards him. Immediately
+afterwards a blue-overcoated figure bristling with knapsack
+and haversack, and looking like an assortment of
+packages, came rushing towards us.</p>
+
+<p>"Fred was overjoyed, you may be sure, and my first
+impulse was to wipe his face with my handkerchief before
+I kissed him. He was in high spirits, in spite of
+the weight of blue overcoat, knapsack, etc., etc., that
+he would formerly have declared intolerable for half an
+hour. I gave him my handkerchief and Eunice gave
+him hers, with a sheer motherly instinct that is so
+strong within her, and then we filled his haversack with
+oranges.</p>
+
+<p>"We stayed with Fred about two hours, during
+which time the gallery was filled with people, cheering
+and waving their handkerchiefs. Every now and then
+the band played inspiriting airs, in which the soldiers
+joined with hearty voices. While some of the companies
+sang, others were drilled, and all seemed to be having a
+general jollification. The meal that had been provided
+was plentiful, and consisted of coffee, lemonade, sandwiches,
+etc.</p>
+
+<p>"On our way out we were introduced to the Rev.
+Mr. Cudworth, chaplain of the regiment. He is a fine-looking
+man, with black eyes and hair, set off by a
+white havelock. He wore a sword, and Fred, touching
+it, asked, 'Is this for use or ornament, sir?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Let me see you in danger,' answered the chaplain,
+'and you'll find out.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I said to him I supposed he had had many an one
+confided to his kind offices, but I could not forbear adding
+one more to the number. He answered, 'You may
+rest assured, Mrs. Stowe, I will do all in my power.'</p>
+
+<p>"We parted from Fred at the door. He said he felt
+lonesome enough Saturday evening on the Common in
+Boston, where everybody was taking leave of somebody,
+and he seemed to be the only one without a friend, but
+that this interview made up for it all.</p>
+
+<p>"I also saw young Henry. Like Fred he is mysteriously
+changed, and wears an expression of gravity and
+care. So our boys come to manhood in a day. Now I
+am watching anxiously for the evening paper to tell me
+that the regiment has reached Washington in safety."</p>
+
+<p>In November, 1862, Mrs. Stowe was invited to visit
+Washington, to be present at a great thanksgiving dinner
+provided for the thousands of fugitive slaves who
+had flocked to the city. She accepted the invitation
+the more gladly because her son's regiment was encamped
+near the city, and she should once more see
+him. He was now Lieutenant Stowe, having honestly
+won his promotion by bravery on more than one hard-fought
+field. She writes of this visit:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Imagine a quiet little parlor with a bright coal fire,
+and the gaslight burning above a centre-table, about
+which Hatty, Fred, and I are seated. Fred is as happy
+as happy can be to be with mother and sister once
+more. All day yesterday we spent in getting him.
+First we had to procure a permit to go to camp, then
+we went to the fort where the colonel is, and then to
+another where the brigadier-general is stationed. I was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span>
+so afraid they would not let him come with us, and was
+never happier than when at last he sprang into the carriage
+free to go with us for forty-eight hours. "Oh!"
+he exclaimed in a sort of rapture, "this pays for a year
+and a half of fighting and hard work!"</p>
+
+<p>We tried hard to get the five o'clock train out to
+Laurel, where J.'s regiment is stationed, as we wanted
+to spend Sunday all together; but could not catch it,
+and so had to content ourselves with what we could
+have. I have managed to secure a room for Fred next
+ours, and feel as though I had my boy at home once
+more. He is looking very well, has grown in thickness,
+and is as loving and affectionate as a boy can be.</p>
+
+<p>I have just been writing a pathetic appeal to the
+brigadier-general to let him stay with us a week. I
+have also written to General Buckingham in regard to
+changing him from the infantry, in which there seems
+to be no prospect of anything but garrison duty, to the
+cavalry, which is full of constant activity.</p>
+
+<p>General B. called on us last evening. He seemed to
+think the prospect before us was, at best, of a long war.
+He was the officer deputed to carry the order to General
+McClellan relieving him of command of the army.
+He carried it to him in his tent about twelve o'clock at
+night. Burnside was there. McClellan said it was
+very unexpected, but immediately turned over the command.
+I said I thought he ought to have expected it
+after having so disregarded the President's order. General
+B. smiled and said he supposed McClellan had
+done that so often before that he had no idea any
+notice would be taken of it this time.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as I am very tired, I must close, and remain as
+always, lovingly yours,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">Hatty</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>During the darkest and most bitter period of the
+Civil War, Mrs. Stowe penned the following letter to
+the Duchess of Argyll:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Andover</span>, <i>July 31, 1863.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,&mdash;Your lovely, generous letter
+was a real comfort to me, and reminded me that a year&mdash;and,
+alas! a whole year&mdash;had passed since I wrote
+to your dear mother, of whom I think so often as one
+of God's noblest creatures, and one whom it comforts
+me to think is still in our world.</p>
+
+<p><i>So many</i>, good and noble, have passed away whose
+friendship was such a pride, such a comfort to me!
+Your noble father, Lady Byron, Mrs. Browning,&mdash;their
+spirits are as perfect as ever passed to the world of
+light. I grieve about your dear mother's eyes. I have
+thought about you all, many a sad, long, quiet hour, as
+I have lain on my bed and looked at the pictures on
+my wall; one, in particular, of the moment before the
+Crucifixion, which is the first thing I look at when I
+wake in the morning. I think how suffering is, and
+must be, the portion of noble spirits, and no lot so
+brilliant that must not first or last dip into the shadow
+of that eclipse. Prince Albert, too, the ideal knight,
+the <i>Prince Arthur</i> of our times, the good, wise, steady
+head and heart we&mdash;that is, our world, we Anglo-Saxons&mdash;need
+so much. And the Queen! yes, I have
+thought of and prayed for her, too. But could a
+woman hope to have <i>always</i> such a heart, and yet ever
+be weaned from earth "all this and heaven, too"?</p>
+
+<p>Under my picture I have inscribed, "Forasmuch as
+Christ also hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves
+with the same mind."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This year has been one long sigh, one smothering
+sob, to me. And I thank God that we have as yet one
+or two generous friends in England who understand
+and feel for our cause.</p>
+
+<p>The utter failure of Christian, anti-slavery England,
+in those <i>instincts</i> of a right heart which always can see
+where the cause of liberty lies, has been as bitter a
+grief to me as was the similar prostration of all our
+American religious people in the day of the Fugitive
+Slave Law. Exeter Hall is a humbug, a pious humbug,
+like the rest. Lord Shaftesbury. Well, let him
+go; he is a Tory, and has, after all, the instincts of his
+class. But I saw <i>your</i> duke's speech to his tenants!
+That was grand! If <i>he</i> can see these things, they are
+to be seen, and why cannot Exeter Hall see them? It
+is simply the want of the honest heart.</p>
+
+<p>Why do the horrible barbarities of <i>Southern</i> soldiers
+cause no comment? Why is the sympathy of the British
+Parliament reserved for the poor women of New
+Orleans, deprived of their elegant amusement of throwing
+vitriol into soldiers' faces, and practicing indecencies
+inconceivable in any other state of society? Why
+is <i>all</i> expression of sympathy on the <i>Southern</i> side?
+There is a class of women in New Orleans whom Butler
+protects from horrible barbarities, that up to his day
+have been practiced on them by these so-called New Orleans
+ladies, but British sympathy has ceased to notice
+<i>them</i>. You see I am bitter. I am. You wonder at
+my brother. He is a man, and feels a thousand times
+more than I can, and deeper than all he ever has expressed,
+the spirit of these things. You must not wonder,
+therefore. Remember it is the moment when every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span>
+nerve is vital; it is our agony; we tread the winepress
+alone, and they whose cheap rhetoric has been for years
+pushing us into it now desert <i>en masse</i>. I thank my
+God I always loved and trusted most those who now <i>do</i>
+stand true,&mdash;your family, your duke, yourself, your
+noble mother. I have lost Lady Byron. Her great
+heart, her eloquent letters, would have been such a joy
+to me! And Mrs. Browning, oh such a heroic woman!
+None of her poems can express what <i>she</i> was,&mdash;so
+grand, so comprehending, so strong, with such inspired
+insight! She stood by Italy through its crisis. Her
+heart was with all good through the world. Your
+prophecy that we shall come out better, truer, stronger,
+will, I am confident, be true, and it was worthy of yourself
+and your good lineage.</p>
+
+<p>Slavery will be sent out by this agony. We are only
+in the throes and ravings of the exorcism. The roots
+of the cancer have gone everywhere, but they must die&mdash;will.
+Already the Confiscation Bill is its natural
+destruction. Lincoln has been too slow. He should
+have done it sooner, and with an impulse, but come it
+must, come it will. Your mother will live to see slavery
+abolished, <i>unless</i> England forms an alliance to hold
+it up. England is the great reliance of the slave-power
+to-day, and next to England the faltering weakness of
+the North, which palters and dare not fire the great
+broadside for fear of hitting friends. These things
+<i>must</i> be done, and sudden, sharp remedies are <i>mercy</i>.
+Just now we are in a dark hour; but whether God be
+with us or not, I know He is with the slave, and with
+his redemption will come the solution of our question.
+I have long known <i>what</i> and who we had to deal with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span>
+in this, for when I wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" I had
+letters addressed to me showing a state of society perfectly
+<i>inconceivable</i>. That they violate graves, make
+drinking-cups of skulls, that <i>ladies</i> wear cameos cut
+from bones, and treasure scalps, is no surprise to me.
+If I had written what I knew of the obscenity, brutality,
+and cruelty of that society down there, society
+would have cast out the books; and it is for their interest,
+the interest of the whole race in the South, that we
+should succeed. I wish <i>them</i> no ill, feel no bitterness;
+they have had a Dahomian education which makes them
+savage. We don't expect any more of <i>them</i>, but if
+slavery is destroyed, one generation of education and
+liberty will efface these stains. They will come to
+themselves, these States, and be glad it is over.</p>
+
+<p>I am using up my paper to little purpose. Please
+give my best love to your dear mother. I am going to
+write to her. If I only could have written the things
+I have often thought! I am going to put on her bracelet,
+with the other dates, that of the abolition of slavery
+in the District of Columbia. Remember me to the
+duke and to your dear children. My husband desires
+his best regards, my daughters also.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">I am lovingly ever yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Later in the year we hear again from her son in the
+army, and this time the news comes in a chaplain's
+letter from the terrible field of Gettysburg. He
+writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Gettysburg, Pa.</span>, <i>Saturday, July 11</i>, 9.30 <small>P. M.</small><br /></div>
+
+<div class='unindent'><span class="smcap">Mrs. H. B. Stowe</span>:</div>
+
+<p><i>Dear Madam</i>,&mdash;Among the thousands of wounded
+and dying men on this war-scarred field, I have just
+met with your son, Captain Stowe. If you have not
+already heard from him, it may cheer your heart to
+know that he is in the hands of good, kind friends.
+He was struck by a fragment of a shell, which entered
+his right ear. He is quiet and cheerful, longs to see
+some member of his family, and is, above all, anxious
+that they should hear from him as soon as possible. I
+assured him I would write at once, and though I am
+wearied by a week's labor here among scenes of terrible
+suffering, I know that, to a mother's anxious heart, even
+a hasty scrawl about her boy will be more than welcome.</p>
+
+<p>May God bless and sustain you in this troubled time!</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours with sincere sympathy,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">J. M. Crowell</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>The wound in the head was not fatal, and after weary
+months of intense suffering it imperfectly healed; but
+the cruel iron had too nearly touched the brain of the
+young officer, and never again was he what he had
+been. Soon after the war his mother bought a plantation
+in Florida, largely in the hope that the out-of-door
+life connected with its management might be beneficial
+to her afflicted son. He remained on it for several
+years, and then, being possessed with the idea that a
+long sea voyage would do him more good than anything
+else, sailed from New York to San Francisco
+around the Horn. That he reached the latter city in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span>
+safety is known; but that is all. No word from him
+or concerning him has ever reached the loving hearts
+that have waited so anxiously for it, and of his ultimate
+fate nothing is known.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, the year 1863 was proving eventful in
+many other ways to Mrs. Stowe. In the first place, the
+long and pleasant Andover connection of Professor
+Stowe was about to be severed, and the family were to
+remove to Hartford, Conn. They were to occupy a
+house that Mrs. Stowe was building on the bank of
+Park River. It was erected in a grove of oaks that
+had in her girlhood been one of Mrs. Stowe's favorite
+resorts. Here, with her friend Georgiana May, she had
+passed many happy hours, and had often declared that
+if she were ever able to build a house, it should stand
+in that very place. Here, then, it was built in 1863,
+and as the location was at that time beyond the city
+limits, it formed, with its extensive, beautiful groves, a
+particularly charming place of residence. Beautiful as
+it was, however, it was occupied by the family for only
+a few years. The needs of the growing city caused factories
+to spring up in the neighborhood, and to escape
+their encroachments the Stowes in 1873 bought and
+moved into the house on Forest Street that has ever
+since been their Northern home. Thus the only house
+Mrs. Stowe ever planned and built for herself has been
+appropriated to the use of factory hands, and is now a
+tenement occupied by several families.</p>
+
+<p>Another important event of 1863 was the publishing
+of that charming story of Italy, "Agnes of Sorrento,"
+which had been begun nearly four years before. This
+story suggested itself to Mrs. Stowe while she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span>
+abroad during the winter of 1859-60. The origin of
+the story is as follows: One evening, at a hotel in
+Florence, it was proposed that the various members of
+the party should write short stories and read them for
+the amusement of the company. Mrs. Stowe took part
+in this literary contest, and the result was the first rough
+sketch of "Agnes of Sorrento." From this beginning
+was afterwards elaborated "Agnes of Sorrento," with
+a dedication to Annie Howard, who was one of the
+party.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i374.jpg" width="600" height="398" alt="oh, surprise, another house" />
+<div class="caption">THE OLD HOME AT HARTFORD</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Not the least important event of the year to Mrs.
+Stowe, and the world at large through her instrumentality,
+was the publication in the "Atlantic Monthly"
+of her reply to the address of the women of England.
+The "reply" is substantially as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><i>January, 1863.</i><br /></div>
+
+<div class='center'>A REPLY</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>To "The affectionate and Christian Address of many
+thousands of Women of Great Britain and Ireland
+to their Sisters, the Women of the United States of
+America," (signed by)</div>
+
+
+<ul class='names'><li><span class="smcap">Anna Maria Bedford</span> (Duchess of Bedford).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Olivia Cecilia Cowley</span> (Countess Cowley).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Constance Grosvenor</span> (Countess Grosvenor).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Harriet Sutherland</span> (Duchess of Sutherland).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Argyll</span> (Duchess of Argyll).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Fortescue</span> (Countess Fortescue).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Emily Shaftesbury</span> (Countess of Shaftesbury).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Mary Ruthven</span> (Baroness Ruthven).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">M. A. Milman</span> (wife of Dean of St. Paul).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">R. Buxton</span> (daughter of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Caroline Amelia Owen</span> (wife of Professor Owen).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Mrs. Charles Windham.</span></li>
+<li><small>C. A. HATHERTON</small> (Baroness Hatherton).</li>
+<li><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Ducie</span> (Countess Dowager of Ducie).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Cecilia Parke</span> (wife of Baron Parke).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Mary Ann Challis</span> (wife of the Lord Mayor of London).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">E. Gordon</span> (Duchess Dowager of Gordon).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Anna M. L. Melville</span> (daughter of Earl of Leven and Melville).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Georgiana Ebrington</span> (Lady Ebrington).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">A. Hill</span> (Viscountess Hill).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gobat</span> (wife of Bishop Gobat of Jerusalem).</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">E. Palmerston</span> (Viscountess Palmerston).</li>
+<li>(And others).</li></ul>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sisters</span>,&mdash;More than eight years ago you sent to
+us in America a document with the above heading. It
+is as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A common origin, a common faith, and, we sincerely
+believe, a common cause, urge us, at the present
+moment, to address you on the subject of that system
+of negro slavery which still prevails so extensively, and,
+even under kindly disposed masters, with such frightful
+results, in many of the vast regions of the Western
+world.</p>
+
+<p>"We will not dwell on the ordinary topics,&mdash;on the
+progress of civilization, on the advance of freedom
+everywhere, on the rights and requirements of the nineteenth
+century; but we appeal to you very seriously to
+reflect, and to ask counsel of God, how far such a state
+of things is in accordance with his Holy Word, the
+inalienable rights of immortal souls, and the pure and
+merciful spirit of the Christian religion. We do not
+shut our eyes to the difficulties, nay, the dangers, that
+might beset the immediate abolition of that long-established
+system. We see and admit the necessity of
+preparation for so great an event; but, in speaking of
+indispensable preliminaries, we cannot be silent on those
+laws of your country which, in direct contravention of
+God's own law, 'instituted in the time of man's innocency,'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span>
+deny in effect to the slave the sanctity of marriage,
+with all its joys, rights, and obligations; which
+separate, at the will of the master, the wife from the
+husband, and the children from the parents. Nor can
+we be silent on that awful system which, either by
+statute or by custom, interdicts to any race of men,
+or any portion of the human family, education in the
+truths of the gospel and the ordinances of Christianity.
+A remedy applied to these two evils alone would
+commence the amelioration of their sad condition. We
+appeal to you then, as sisters, as wives, and as mothers,
+to raise your voices to your fellow-citizens, and your
+prayers to God, for the removal of this affliction and
+disgrace from the Christian world.</p>
+
+<p>"We do not say these things in a spirit of self-complacency,
+as though our nation were free from the guilt
+it perceives in others.</p>
+
+<p>"We acknowledge with grief and shame our heavy
+share in this great sin. We acknowledge that our forefathers
+introduced, nay compelled the adoption, of slavery
+in those mighty colonies. We humbly confess it
+before Almighty God; and it is because we so deeply
+feel and unfeignedly avow our own complicity, that we
+now venture to implore your aid to wipe away our common
+crime and our common dishonor."</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>This address, splendidly illuminated on vellum, was
+sent to our shores at the head of twenty-six folio volumes,
+containing considerably more than half a million
+of signatures of British women. It was forwarded to
+me with a letter from a British nobleman, now occupying
+one of the highest official positions in England, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span>
+a request on behalf of these ladies that it should be in
+any possible way presented to the attention of my countrywomen.</p>
+
+<p>This memorial, as it now stands in its solid oaken
+case, with its heavy folios, each bearing on its back the
+imprint of the American eagle, forms a most unique
+library, a singular monument of an international expression
+of a moral idea. No right-thinking person can
+find aught to be objected against the substance or form
+of this memorial. It is temperate, just, and kindly;
+and on the high ground of Christian equality, where it
+places itself, may be regarded as a perfectly proper expression
+of sentiment, as between blood relations and
+equals in two different nations. The signatures to this
+appeal are not the least remarkable part of it; for, beginning
+at the very steps of the throne, they go down
+to the names of women in the very humblest conditions
+in life, and represent all that Great Britain possesses,
+not only of highest and wisest, but of plain, homely
+common sense and good feeling. Names of wives of
+cabinet ministers appear on the same page with the
+names of wives of humble labourers,&mdash;names of duchesses
+and countesses, of wives of generals, ambassadors,
+savants, and men of letters, mingled with names traced
+in trembling characters by hands evidently unused to
+hold the pen, and stiffened by lowly toil. Nay, so deep
+and expansive was the feeling, that British subjects in
+foreign lands had their representation. Among the
+signatures are those of foreign residents, from Paris to
+Jerusalem. Autographs so diverse, and collected from
+sources so various, have seldom been found in juxtaposition.
+They remain at this day a silent witness of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span>
+a most singular tide of feeling which at that time swept
+over the British community and <i>made</i> for itself an expression,
+even at the risk of offending the sensibilities
+of an equal and powerful nation.</p>
+
+<p>No reply to that address, in any such tangible and
+monumental form, has ever been possible. It was impossible
+to canvass our vast territories with the zealous
+and indefatigable industry with which England was
+canvassed for signatures. In America, those possessed
+of the spirit which led to this efficient action had no
+leisure for it. All their time and energies were already
+absorbed in direct efforts to remove the great evil, concerning
+which the minds of their English sisters had
+been newly aroused, and their only answer was the
+silent continuance of these efforts.</p>
+
+<p>From the slaveholding States, however, as was to be
+expected, came a flood of indignant recrimination and
+rebuke. No one act, perhaps, ever produced more
+frantic irritation, or called out more unsparing abuse.
+It came with the whole united weight of the British
+aristocracy and commonalty on the most diseased and
+sensitive part of our national life; and it stimulated
+that fierce excitement which was working before, and
+has worked since, till it has broken out into open war.</p>
+
+<p>The time has come, however, when such an astonishing
+page has been turned, in the anti-slavery history of
+America, that the women of our country, feeling that
+the great anti-slavery work to which their English sisters
+exhorted them is almost done, may properly and
+naturally feel moved to reply to their appeal, and lay
+before them the history of what has occurred since the
+receipt of their affectionate and Christian address.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Your address reached us just as a great moral conflict
+was coming to its intensest point. The agitation
+kept up by the anti-slavery portion of America, by
+England, and by the general sentiment of humanity in
+Europe, had made the situation of the slaveholding
+aristocracy intolerable. As one of them at the time
+expressed it, they felt themselves under the ban of the
+civilized world. Two courses only were open to them:
+to abandon slave institutions, the sources of their wealth
+and political power, or to assert them with such an overwhelming
+national force as to compel the respect and
+assent of mankind. They chose the latter.</p>
+
+<p>To this end they determined to seize on and control
+all the resources of the Federal Government, and to
+spread their institutions through new States and Territories
+until the balance of power should fall into their
+hands and they should be able to force slavery into all
+the free States.</p>
+
+<p>A leading Southern senator boasted that he would
+yet call the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill; and for
+a while the political successes of the slave-power were
+such as to suggest to New England that this was no
+impossible event.</p>
+
+<p>They repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had
+hitherto stood like the Chinese wall, between our Northwestern
+Territories and the irruptions of slaveholding
+barbarians.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the struggle between freedom and slavery
+in the new territory; the battle for Kansas and Nebraska,
+fought with fire and sword and blood, where a
+race of men, of whom John Brown was the immortal
+type, acted over again the courage, the perseverance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span>
+and the military-religious ardor of the old Covenanters
+of Scotland, and like them redeemed the ark of liberty
+at the price of their own blood, and blood dearer
+than their own.</p>
+
+<p>The time of the Presidential canvass which elected
+Mr. Lincoln was the crisis of this great battle. The
+conflict had become narrowed down to the one point of
+the extension of slave territory. If the slaveholders
+could get States enough, they could control and rule;
+if they were outnumbered by free States, their institutions,
+by the very law of their nature, would die of
+suffocation. Therefore Fugitive Slave Law, District
+of Columbia, Inter-State Slave-trade, and what not,
+were all thrown out of sight for a grand rally on this
+vital point. A President was elected pledged to opposition
+to this one thing alone,&mdash;a man known to be in
+favor of the Fugitive Slave Law and other so-called
+compromises of the Constitution, but honest and faithful
+in his determination on this one subject. That this
+was indeed the vital point was shown by the result.
+The moment Lincoln's election was ascertained, the
+slaveholders resolved to destroy the Union they could
+no longer control.</p>
+
+<p>They met and organized a Confederacy which they
+openly declared to be the first republic founded on the
+right and determination of the white man to enslave
+the black man, and, spreading their banners, declared
+themselves to the Christian world of the nineteenth
+century as a nation organized with the full purpose and
+intent of perpetuating slavery.</p>
+
+<p>But in the course of the struggle that followed, it
+became important for the new confederation to secure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span>
+the assistance of foreign powers, and infinite pains were
+then taken to blind and bewilder the mind of England
+as to the real issues of the conflict in America.</p>
+
+<p>It has been often and earnestly asserted that slavery
+had nothing to do with this conflict; that it was a mere
+struggle for power; that the only object was to restore
+the Union as it was, with all its abuses. It is to be
+admitted that expressions have proceeded from the
+national administration which naturally gave rise to
+misapprehension, and therefore we beg to speak to you
+on this subject more fully.</p>
+
+<p>And first the declaration of the Confederate States
+themselves is proof enough, that, whatever may be declared
+on the other side, the maintenance of slavery is
+regarded by them as the vital object of their movement.</p>
+
+<p>We ask your attention under this head to the declaration
+of their Vice-President, Stephens, in that remarkable
+speech delivered on the 21st of March, 1861, at
+Savannah, Georgia, wherein he declares the object and
+purposes of the new Confederacy. It is one of the
+most extraordinary papers which our century has produced.
+I quote from the <i>verbatim</i> report in the "Savannah
+Republican" of the address as it was delivered
+in the Athenćum of that city, on which occasion,
+says the newspaper from which I copy, "Mr. Stephens
+took his seat amid a burst of enthusiasm and applause
+such as the Athenćum has never had displayed within
+its walls within the recollection 'of the oldest inhabitant.'"</p>
+
+<p>Last, not least, the new Constitution has put at rest
+<i>forever</i> all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar
+institution,&mdash;African slavery as it exists among<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span>
+us, the proper <i>status</i> of the negro in our form of civilization.
+<i>This was the immediate cause of the late
+rupture and present revolution.</i> Jefferson, in his
+forecast, had anticipated this as the "rock upon which
+the old Union would split." He was right. What was
+a conjecture with him is now a realized fact. But
+whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon
+which that rock <i>stood</i> and <i>stands</i> may be doubted.</p>
+
+<p><i>The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most
+of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation
+of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of
+the African was in violation of the laws of nature;
+that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally,
+and politically.</i></p>
+
+<p>In the mean while, during the past year, the Republican
+administration, with all the unwonted care of
+organizing an army and navy, and conducting military
+operations on an immense scale, have proceeded to
+demonstrate the feasibility of overthrowing slavery by
+purely constitutional measures. To this end they have
+instituted a series of movements which have made this
+year more fruitful in anti-slavery triumphs than any
+other since the emancipation of the British West Indies.
+The District of Columbia, as belonging strictly to the
+national government and to no separate State, has
+furnished a fruitful subject of remonstrance from
+British Christians with America. We have abolished
+slavery there, and thus wiped out the only blot of territorial
+responsibility on our escutcheon.</p>
+
+<p>By another act, equally grand in principle, and far
+more important in its results, slavery is forever excluded
+from the Territories of the United States.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By another act, America has consummated the long-delayed
+treaty with Great Britain for the suppression
+of the slave-trade. In ports whence slave vessels formerly
+sailed with the connivance of the port officers,
+the administration has placed men who stand up to
+their duty, and for the first time in our history the
+slave-trader is convicted and hung as a pirate. This
+abominable secret traffic has been wholly demolished
+by the energy of the Federal Government.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, and more significant still, the United States
+government has in its highest official capacity taken
+distinct anti-slavery ground, and presented to the country
+a plan of peaceable emancipation with suitable compensation.
+This noble-spirited and generous offer has
+been urged on the slaveholding States by the chief
+executive with earnestness and sincerity. But this is
+but half the story of the anti-slavery triumphs of this
+year. We have shown you what has been done for
+freedom by the simple use of the ordinary constitutional
+forces of the Union. We are now to show you
+what has been done to the same end by the constitutional
+war-power of the nation.</p>
+
+<p>By this power it has been this year decreed that
+every slave of a rebel who reaches the lines of our army
+becomes a free man; that all slaves found deserted by
+their masters become free men; that every slave employed
+in any service for the United States thereby
+obtains his liberty; and that every slave employed
+against the United States in any capacity obtains his
+liberty; and lest the army should contain officers disposed
+to remand slaves to their masters, the power of
+judging and delivering up slaves is denied to army
+officers, and all such acts are made penal.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By this act the Fugitive Slave Law is for all present
+purposes practically repealed. With this understanding
+and provision, wherever our armies march they
+carry liberty with them. For be it remembered that
+our army is almost entirely a volunteer one, and that
+the most zealous and ardent volunteers are those who
+have been for years fighting, with tongue and pen, the
+abolition battle. So marked is the character of our
+soldiers in this respect, that they are now familiarly
+designated in the official military dispatches of the
+Confederate States as "the Abolitionists." Conceive
+the results when an army so empowered by national
+law marches through a slave territory. One regiment
+alone has to our certain knowledge liberated two thousand
+slaves during the past year, and this regiment is
+but one out of hundreds.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, the great decisive measure of the war has
+appeared,&mdash;<i>the President's Proclamation of Emancipation</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This also has been much misunderstood and misrepresented
+in England. It has been said to mean virtually
+this: Be loyal and you shall keep your slaves;
+rebel and they shall be free. But let us remember
+what we have just seen of the purpose and meaning of
+the Union to which the rebellious States are invited
+back. It is to a Union which has abolished slavery in
+the District of Columbia, and interdicted slavery in the
+Territories; which vigorously represses the slave-trade,
+and hangs the convicted slaver as a pirate; which
+necessitates emancipation by denying expansion to
+slavery, and facilitates it by the offer of compensation.
+Any slaveholding States which should return to such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span>
+Union might fairly be supposed to return with the
+purpose of peaceable emancipation. The President's
+Proclamation simply means this: Come in and emancipate
+peaceably with compensation; stay out and I
+emancipate, nor will I protect you from the consequences.</p>
+
+<p>Will our sisters in England feel no heartbeat at that
+event? Is it not one of the predicted voices of the
+latter day, saying under the whole heavens, "It is
+done; the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms
+of our Lord and of His Christ"?</p>
+
+<p>And now, sisters of England, in this solemn, expectant
+hour, let us speak to you of one thing which
+fills our hearts with pain and solicitude. It is an unaccountable
+fact, and one which we entreat you seriously
+to ponder, that the party which has brought the
+cause of freedom thus far on its way, during the past
+eventful year, has found little or no support in England.
+Sadder than this, the party which makes slavery
+the chief corner-stone of its edifice finds in England
+its strongest defenders.</p>
+
+<p>The voices that have spoken for us who contend for
+liberty have been few and scattering. God forbid that
+we should forget those few noble voices, so sadly exceptional
+in the general outcry against us! They are,
+alas! too few to be easily forgotten. False statements
+have blinded the minds of your community, and turned
+the most generous sentiments of the British heart
+against us. The North are fighting for supremacy and
+the South for independence, has been the voice. Independence?
+for what? to do what? To prove the
+doctrine that all men are <i>not</i> equal; to establish the
+doctrine that the white may enslave the negro!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the beginning of our struggle, the voices that
+reached us across the water said: "If we were only
+sure you were fighting for the abolition of slavery, we
+should not dare to say whither our sympathies for your
+cause might not carry us." Such, as we heard, were
+the words of the honored and religious nobleman who
+draughted this very letter which you signed and sent
+us, and to which we are now replying.</p>
+
+<p>When these words reached us we said: "We can
+wait; our friends in England will soon see whither this
+conflict is tending." A year and a half have passed;
+step after step has been taken for liberty; chain after
+chain has fallen, till the march of our armies is choked
+and clogged by the glad flocking of emancipated slaves;
+the day of final emancipation is set; the border States
+begin to move in voluntary consent; universal freedom
+for all dawns like the sun in the distant horizon, and
+still no voice from England. No voice? Yes, we have
+heard on the high seas the voice of a war-steamer, built
+for a man-stealing Confederacy, with English gold, in
+an English dockyard, going out of an English harbor,
+manned by English sailors, with the full knowledge
+of English government officers, in defiance of the
+Queen's proclamation of neutrality! So far has English
+sympathy overflowed. We have heard of other steamers,
+iron-clad, designed to furnish to a slavery-defending
+Confederacy their only lack,&mdash;a navy for the high
+seas. We have heard that the British Evangelical
+Alliance refuses to express sympathy with the liberating
+party, when requested to do so by the French Evangelical
+Alliance. We find in English religious newspapers
+all those sad degrees in the downward-sliding scale of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span>
+defending and apologizing for slaveholders and slaveholding,
+with which we have so many years contended
+in our own country. We find the President's Proclamation
+of Emancipation spoken of in those papers only as
+an incitement to servile insurrection. Nay, more,&mdash;we
+find in your papers, from thoughtful men, the admission
+of the rapid decline of anti-slavery sentiments in
+England.</p>
+
+<p>This very day the writer of this has been present at
+a solemn religious festival in the national capital, given
+at the home of a portion of those fugitive slaves who
+have fled to our lines for protection,&mdash;who, under the
+shadow of our flag, find sympathy and succor. The
+national day of thanksgiving was there kept by over a
+thousand redeemed slaves, and for whom Christian
+charity had spread an ample repast. Our sisters, we
+wish <i>you</i> could have witnessed the scene. We wish
+you could have heard the prayer of a blind old negro,
+called among his fellows John the Baptist, when in
+touching broken English he poured forth his thanksgivings.
+We wish you could have heard the sound of
+that strange rhythmical chant which is now forbidden
+to be sung on Southern plantations,&mdash;the psalm of this
+modern exodus,&mdash;which combines the barbaric fire of
+the Marseillaise with the religious fervor of the old
+Hebrew prophet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Oh, go down, Moses,<br />
+Way down into Egypt's land!<br />
+Tell King Pharaoh<br />
+To let my people go!<br />
+Stand away dere,<br />
+Stand away dere,<br />
+And let my people go!"<br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='unindent'>As we were leaving, an aged woman came and lifted up
+her hands in blessing. "Bressed be de Lord dat
+brought me to see dis first happy day of my life!
+Bressed be de Lord!" In all England is there no
+Amen?</div>
+
+<p>We have been shocked and saddened by the question
+asked in an association of Congregational ministers in
+England, the very blood relations of the liberty-loving
+Puritans,&mdash;"Why does not the North let the South
+go?"</p>
+
+<p>What! give up the point of emancipation for these
+four million slaves? Turn our backs on them, and
+leave them to their fate? What! leave our white
+brothers to run a career of oppression and robbery,
+that, as sure as there is a God that ruleth in the armies
+of heaven, will bring down a day of wrath and doom?
+Remember that wishing success to this slavery-establishing
+effort is only wishing to the sons and daughters
+of the South all the curses that God has written against
+oppression. <i>Mark our words!</i> If we succeed, the
+children of these very men who are now fighting us will
+rise up to call us blessed. Just as surely as there is a
+God who governs in the world, so surely all the laws of
+national prosperity follow in the train of equity; and if
+we succeed, we shall have delivered the children's children
+of our misguided brethren from the wages of sin,
+which is always and everywhere death.</p>
+
+<p>And now, sisters of England, think it not strange if
+we bring back the words of your letter, not in bitterness,
+but in deepest sadness, and lay them down at
+your door. We say to you, Sisters, you have spoken
+well; we have heard you; we have heeded; we have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span>
+striven in the cause, even unto death. We have sealed
+our devotion by desolate hearth and darkened homestead,&mdash;by
+the blood of sons, husbands, and brothers.
+In many of our dwellings the very light of our lives
+has gone out; and yet we accept the life-long darkness
+as our own part in this great and awful expiation, by
+which the bonds of wickedness shall be loosed, and
+abiding peace established on the foundation of righteousness.
+Sisters, what have <i>you</i> done, and what do
+you mean to do?</p>
+
+<p>We appeal to you as sisters, as wives, and as mothers,
+to raise your voices to your fellow-citizens, and your
+prayers to God for the removal of this affliction and
+disgrace from the Christian world.</p>
+
+<p>In behalf of many thousands of American women.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">Harriet Beecher Stowe.</span></div>
+<p><span class="smcap">Washington</span>, <i>November 27, 1862.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The publication of this reply elicited the following
+interesting letter from John Bright:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Rochdale</span>, <i>March 9, 1863.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mrs. Stowe</span>,&mdash;I received your kind note
+with real pleasure, and felt it very good of you to send
+me a copy of the "Atlantic Monthly" with your noble
+letter to the women of England. I read every word of
+it with an intense interest, and I am quite sure that its
+effect upon opinion here has been marked and beneficial.
+It has covered some with shame, and it has
+compelled many to think, and it has stimulated not a
+few to act. Before this reaches you, you will have
+seen what large and earnest meetings have been held in
+all our towns in favor of abolition and the North. No<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span>
+town has a building large enough to contain those who
+come to listen, to applaud, and to vote in favor of freedom
+and the Union. The effect of this is evident on
+our newspapers and on the tone of Parliament, where
+now nobody says a word in favor of recognition, or
+mediation, or any such thing.</p>
+
+<p>The need and duty of England is admitted to be a
+strict neutrality, but the feeling of the millions of her
+people is one of friendliness to the United States and
+its government. It would cause universal rejoicing,
+among all but a limited circle of aristocracy and commercially
+rich and corrupt, to hear that the Northern
+forces had taken Vicksburg on the great river, and
+Charleston on the Atlantic, and that the neck of the
+conspiracy was utterly broken.</p>
+
+<p>I hope your people may have strength and virtue to
+win the great cause intrusted to them, but it is fearful
+to contemplate the amount of the depravity in the
+North engendered by the long power of slavery. New
+England is far ahead of the States as a whole,&mdash;too
+instructed and too moral; but still I will hope that
+she will bear the nation through this appalling danger.</p>
+
+<p>I well remember the evening at Rome and our conversation.
+You lamented the election of Buchanan.
+You judged him with a more unfriendly but a more
+correct eye than mine. He turned out more incapable
+and less honest than I hoped for. And I think I was
+right in saying that your party was not then sufficiently
+consolidated to enable it to maintain its policy in the
+execution, even had Frémont been elected. As it is
+now, six years later, the North but falteringly supports
+the policy of the government, though impelled by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span>
+force of events which then you did not dream of.
+President Lincoln has lived half his troubled reign. In
+the coming half I hope he may see land; surely slavery
+will be so broken up that nothing can restore and
+renew it; and, slavery once fairly gone, I know not
+how all your States can long be kept asunder.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Believe me very sincerely yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">John Bright</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>It also called forth from Archbishop Whately the
+following letter:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Palace, Dublin</span>, <i>January, 1863.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Madam</span>,&mdash;In acknowledging your letter and
+pamphlet, I take the opportunity of laying before you
+what I collect to be the prevailing sentiments here on
+American affairs. Of course there is a great variety
+of opinion, as may be expected in a country like ours.
+Some few sympathize with the Northerns, and some few
+with the Southerns, but far the greater portion sympathize
+with neither completely, but lament that each
+party should be making so much greater an expenditure
+of life and property than can be compensated for by
+any advantage they can dream of obtaining.</p>
+
+<p>Those who are the least favorable to the Northerns
+are not so from any approbation of slavery, but from
+not understanding that the war is waged in the cause
+of abolition. "It was waged," they say, "ostensibly
+for the restoration of the Union," and in attestation of
+this, they refer to the proclamation which announced
+the confiscation of slaves that were the property of
+secessionists, while those who adhered to the Federal
+cause should be exempt from such confiscation, which,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span>
+they say, did not savor much of zeal for abolition.
+And if the other object&mdash;the restoration of the Union&mdash;could
+be accomplished, which they all regard as
+hopeless, they do not understand how it will tend to
+the abolition of slavery. On the contrary, "if," say
+they, "the separation had been allowed to take place
+peaceably, the Northerns might, as we do, have proclaimed
+freedom to every slave who set foot on their territory;
+which would have been a great check to slavery,
+and especially to any cruel treatment of slaves." Many
+who have a great dislike to slavery yet hold that the
+Southerns had at least as much right to secede as the
+Americans had originally to revolt from Great Britain.
+And there are many who think that, considering the
+dreadful distress we have suffered from the cotton famine,
+we have shown great forbearance in withstanding
+the temptation of recognizing the Southern States and
+to break the blockade.</p>
+
+<p>Then, again, there are some who are provoked at the
+incessant railing at England, and threats of an invasion
+of Canada, which are poured forth in some of the
+American papers.</p>
+
+<p>There are many, also, who consider that the present
+state of things cannot continue much longer if the Confederates
+continue to hold their own, as they have done
+hitherto; and that a people who shall have maintained
+their independence for two or three years will be recognized
+by the principal European powers. Such
+appears to have been the procedure of the European
+powers in all similar cases, such as the revolt of the
+Anglo-American and Spanish-American colonies, of the
+Haytians and the Belgians. In these and other like
+cases, the rule practically adopted seems to have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span>
+to recognize the revolters, not at once, but after a reasonable
+time had been allowed to see whether they
+could maintain their independence; and this without
+being understood to have pronounced any decision
+either way as to the justice of the cause.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, there are many who say that the negroes
+and people of color are far from being kindly or justly
+treated in the Northern States. An emancipated slave,
+at any rate, has not received good training for earning
+his bread by the wages of labor; and if, in addition to
+this and his being treated as an outcast, he is excluded,
+as it is said, from many employments, by the refusal of
+white laborers to work along with him, he will have
+gained little by taking refuge in the Northern States.</p>
+
+<p>I have now laid before you the views which I conceive
+to be most prevalent among us, and for which I
+am not myself responsible.</p>
+
+<p>For the safe and effectual emancipation of slaves, I
+myself consider there is no plan so good as the gradual
+one which was long ago suggested by Bishop Hinds.
+What he recommended was an <i>ad valorem tax</i> upon
+slaves,&mdash;the value to be fixed by the owner, with an
+option to government to purchase at that price. Thus
+the slaves would be a burden to the master, and those
+the most so who should be the most valuable, as being
+the most intelligent and steady, and therefore the best
+qualified for freedom; and it would be his interest to
+train his slaves to be free laborers, and to emancipate
+them, one by one, as speedily as he could with safety.
+I fear, however, that the time is gone by for trying this
+experiment in America.</p>
+
+<p>With best wishes for the new year, believe me</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours faithfully,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Rd. Whately</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Among the many letters written from this side of the
+Atlantic regarding the reply, was one from Nathaniel
+Hawthorne, in which he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>I read with great pleasure your article in the last
+"Atlantic." If anything could make John Bull blush,
+I should think it might be that; but he is a hardened
+and villainous hypocrite. I always felt that he cared
+nothing for or against slavery, except as it gave him a
+vantage-ground on which to parade his own virtue and
+sneer at our iniquity.</p>
+
+<p>With best regards from Mrs. Hawthorne and myself
+to yourself and family, sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">Nath'l Hawthorne</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII.<br />
+
+<small>FLORIDA, 1865-1869.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Letter to Duchess of Argyll.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe desires to have a
+Home at the South.&mdash;Florida the Best Field for Doing
+Good.&mdash;She Buys a Place at Mandarin.&mdash;A Charming Winter
+Residence.&mdash;"Palmetto Leaves."&mdash;Easter Sunday at
+Mandarin.&mdash;Correspondence with Dr. Holmes.&mdash;"Poganuc
+People."&mdash;Receptions in New Orleans and Tallahassee.&mdash;Last
+Winter at Mandarin.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 1866, the terrible conflict between the North and
+South having ended, Mrs. Stowe wrote the following
+letter to the Duchess of Argyll:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Hartford</span>, <i>February 19, 1866.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,&mdash;Your letter was a real spring
+of comfort to me, bringing refreshingly the pleasant
+library at Inverary and the lovely days I spent there.</p>
+
+<p>I am grieved at what you say of your dear mother's
+health. I showed your letter to Mrs. Perkins, and we
+both agreed in saying that <i>we</i> should like for a time to
+fill the place of maid to her, as doubtless you all feel,
+too. I should so love to be with her, to read to her,
+and talk to her! and oh, there is so much that would
+cheer and comfort a noble heart like hers that we could
+talk about. Oh, my friend, when I think of what has
+been done these last few years, and of what is now
+doing, I am lost in amazement. I have just, by way
+of realizing it to myself, been reading "Uncle Tom's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span>
+Cabin" again, and when I read that book, scarred and
+seared and burned into with the memories of an anguish
+and horror that can never be forgotten, and think
+it is all over now, all past, and that now the questions
+debated are simply of more or less time before granting
+legal suffrage to those who so lately were held only as
+articles of merchandise,&mdash;when this comes over me I
+think no private or individual sorrow can ever make me
+wholly without comfort. If my faith in God's presence
+and real, living power in the affairs of men ever grows
+dim, this makes it impossible to doubt.</p>
+
+<p>I have just had a sweet and lovely Christian letter
+from Garrison, whose beautiful composure and thankfulness
+in his hour of victory are as remarkable as his
+wonderful courage in the day of moral battle. His
+note ends with the words, "And who but God is to be
+glorified?" Garrison's attitude is far more exalted
+than that of Wendell Phillips. He acknowledges the
+great deed done. He suspends his "Liberator" with
+words of devout thanksgiving, and devotes himself
+unobtrusively to the work yet to be accomplished for
+the freedmen; while Phillips seems resolved to ignore
+the mighty work that has been done, because of the
+inevitable shortcomings and imperfections that beset it
+still. We have a Congress of splendid men,&mdash;men of
+stalwart principle and determination. We have a President<a name="FNanchor_15_16" id="FNanchor_15_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_16" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>
+honestly seeking to do right; and if he fails in
+knowing just what right is, it is because he is a man
+born and reared in a slave State, and acted on by many
+influences which we cannot rightly estimate unless we
+were in his place. My brother Henry has talked with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span>
+him earnestly and confidentially, and has faith in him
+as an earnest, good man seeking to do right. Henry
+takes the ground that it is unwise and impolitic to
+endeavor to force negro suffrage on the South at the
+point of the bayonet. His policy would be, to hold
+over the negro the protection of our Freedman's Bureau
+until the great laws of free labor shall begin to draw
+the master and servant together; to endeavor to soothe
+and conciliate, and win to act with us, a party composed
+of the really good men at the South.</p>
+
+<p>For this reason he has always advocated lenity of
+measures towards them. He wants to get them into a
+state in which the moral influence of the North can act
+upon them beneficially, and to get such a state of
+things that there will be a party <i>at the South</i> to protect
+the negro.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Sumner is looking simply at the abstract
+<i>right</i> of the thing. Henry looks at actual probabilities.
+We all know that the state of society at the South is
+such that laws are a very inadequate protection even to
+white men. Southern elections always have been scenes
+of mob violence <i>when only white men voted</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Multitudes of lives have been lost at the polls in this
+way, and if against their will negro suffrage was forced
+upon them, I do not see how any one in their senses can
+expect anything less than an immediate war of races.</p>
+
+<p>If negro suffrage were required as a condition of
+acquiring political position, there is no doubt the slave
+States would grant it; grant it nominally, because they
+would know that the grant never could or would become
+an actual realization. And what would then be
+gained for the negro?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I am sorry that people cannot differ on such great
+and perplexing public questions without impugning
+each other's motives. Henry has been called a back-slider
+because of the lenity of his counsels, but I cannot
+but think it is the Spirit of Christ that influences
+him. Garrison has been in the same way spoken of as
+a deserter, because he says that a work that is done
+shall be called done, and because he would not keep up
+an anti-slavery society when slavery is abolished; and I
+think our President is much injured by the abuse that
+is heaped on him, and the selfish and unworthy motives
+that are ascribed to him by those who seem determined
+to allow to nobody an honest, unselfish difference in
+judgment from their own.</p>
+
+<p>Henry has often spoken of you and your duke as
+pleasant memories in a scene of almost superhuman
+labor and excitement. He often said to me: "When
+this is all over,&mdash;when we have won the victory,&mdash;<i>then</i>
+I will write to the duchess." But when it was over
+and the flag raised again at Sumter his arm was smitten
+down with the news of our President's death! We
+all appreciate your noble and true sympathy through
+the dark hour of our national trial. You and yours
+are almost the only friends we now have left in England.
+You cannot know what it was, unless you could
+imagine your own country to be in danger of death,
+extinction of nationality. <i>That</i>, dear friend, is an experience
+which shows us what we are and what we can
+feel. I am glad to hear that we may hope to see your
+son in this country. I fear so many pleasant calls will
+beset his path that we cannot hope for a moment, but
+it would give us <i>all</i> the greatest pleasure to see him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span>
+here. Our dull, prosy, commonplace, though good old
+Hartford could offer few attractions compared with
+Boston or New York, and yet I hope he will not leave
+us out altogether if he comes among us. God bless
+him! You are very happy indeed in being permitted
+to keep all your dear ones and see them growing up.</p>
+
+<p>I want to ask a favor. Do you have, as we do,
+<i>cartes de visite</i>? If you have, and could send me one
+of yourself and the duke and of Lady Edith and your
+eldest son, I should be so very glad to see how you are
+looking now; and the dear mother, too, I should so like
+to see how she looks. It seems almost like a dream to
+look back to those pleasant days. I am glad to see
+you still keep some memories of our goings on. Georgie's
+marriage is a very happy one to us. They live in
+Stockbridge, the loveliest part of Massachusetts, and
+her husband is a most devoted pastor, and gives all his
+time and property to the great work which he has embraced,
+purely for the love of it. My other daughters
+are with me, and my son, Captain Stowe, who has come
+with weakened health through our struggle, suffering
+constantly from the effects of a wound in his head
+received at Gettysburg, which makes his returning to
+his studies a hard struggle. My husband is in better
+health since he resigned his professorship, and desires
+his most sincere regards to yourself and the duke, and
+his profound veneration to your mother. Sister Mary
+also desires to be remembered to you, as do also my
+daughters. Please tell me a little in your next of Lady
+Edith; she must be very lovely now.</p>
+
+<p>I am, with sincerest affection, ever yours,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Soon after the close of the war Mrs. Stowe conceived
+the idea of making for herself and her family a winter
+home in the South, where she might escape the rigors
+of Northern winters, and where her afflicted son Frederick
+might enjoy an out-of-door life throughout the
+year. She was also most anxious to do her share towards
+educating and leading to a higher life those colored
+people whom she had helped so largely to set free,
+and who were still in the state of profound ignorance
+imposed by slavery. In writing of her hopes and plans
+to her brother Charles Beecher, in 1866, she says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My plan of going to Florida, as it lies in my mind,
+is not in any sense a mere worldly enterprise. I have
+for many years had a longing to be more immediately
+doing Christ's work on earth. My heart is with that
+poor people whose cause in words I have tried to plead,
+and who now, ignorant and docile, are just in that formative
+stage in which whoever seizes has them.</p>
+
+<p>"Corrupt politicians are already beginning to speculate
+on them as possible capital for their schemes, and
+to fill their poor heads with all sorts of vagaries. Florida
+is the State into which they have, more than anywhere
+else, been pouring. Emigration is positively
+and decidedly setting that way; but as yet it is mere
+worldly emigration, with the hope of making money,
+nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>"The Episcopal Church is, however, undertaking,
+under direction of the future Bishop of Florida, a wide-embracing
+scheme of Christian activity for the whole
+State. In this work I desire to be associated, and my
+plan is to locate at some salient point on the St. John's
+River, where I can form the nucleus of a Christian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span>
+neighborhood, whose influence shall be felt far beyond
+its own limits."</p>
+
+<p>During this year Mrs. Stowe partially carried her
+plan into execution by hiring an old plantation called
+"Laurel Grove," on the west side of the St. John's
+River, near the present village of Orange Park. Here
+she established her son Frederick as a cotton planter,
+and here he remained for two years. This location did
+not, however, prove entirely satisfactory, nor did the
+raising of cotton prove to be, under the circumstances,
+a profitable business. After visiting Florida during
+the winter of 1866-67, at which time her attention was
+drawn to the beauties and superior advantages of
+Mandarin on the east side of the river, Mrs. Stowe
+writes from Hartford, May 29, 1867, to Rev. Charles
+Beecher:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Brother</span>,&mdash;We are now thinking seriously
+of a place in Mandarin much more beautiful than
+any other in the vicinity. It has on it five large date
+palms, an olive tree in full bearing, besides a fine
+orange grove which this year will yield about seventy-five
+thousand oranges. If we get that, then I want
+you to consider the expediency of buying the one next
+to it. It contains about two hundred acres of land, on
+which is a fine orange grove, the fruit from which last
+year brought in two thousand dollars as sold at the
+wharf. It is right on the river, and four steamboats
+pass it each week, on their way to Savannah and
+Charleston. There is on the place a very comfortable
+cottage, as houses go out there, where they do not need
+to be built as substantially as with us.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i402.jpg" width="600" height="392" alt="another house" />
+<div class="caption">THE HOME AT MANDARIN, FLORIDA.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>I am now in correspondence with the Bishop of
+Florida, with a view to establishing a line of churches
+along the St. John's River, and if I settle at Mandarin,
+it will be one of my stations. Will you consent to enter
+the Episcopal Church and be our clergyman? You are
+just the man we want. If my tasks and feelings did
+not incline me toward the Church, I should still choose
+it as the best system for training immature minds such
+as those of our negroes. The system was composed
+with reference to the wants of the laboring class of
+England, at a time when they were as ignorant as our
+negroes now are.</p>
+
+<p>I long to be at this work, and cannot think of it
+without my heart burning within me. Still I leave all
+with my God, and only hope He will open the way for
+me to do all that I want to for this poor people.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Affectionately yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe had some years before this joined the
+Episcopal Church, for the sake of attending the same
+communion as her daughters, who were Episcopalians.
+Her brother Charles did not, however, see fit to change
+his creed, and though he went to Florida he settled a
+hundred and sixty miles west from the St. John's River,
+at Newport, near St. Marks, on the Gulf coast, and
+about twenty miles from Tallahassee. Here he lived
+every winter and several summers for fifteen years, and
+here he left the impress of his own remarkably sweet
+and lovely character upon the scattered population of
+the entire region.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe in the mean time purchased the property,
+with its orange grove and comfortable cottage, that she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span>
+had recommended to him, and thus Mandarin became
+her winter home. No one who has ever seen it can
+forget the peaceful beauty of this Florida home and its
+surroundings. The house, a story and a half cottage
+of many gables, stands on a bluff overlooking the
+broad St. John's, which is five miles wide at this point.
+It nestles in the shade of a grove of superb, moss-hung
+live-oaks, around one of which the front piazza
+is built. Several fine old orange trees also stand near
+the cottage, scenting the air with the sweet perfume of
+their blossoms in the early spring, and offering their
+golden fruit to whoever may choose to pluck it during
+the winter months. Back of the house stretches the
+well-tended orange grove in which Mrs. Stowe took
+such genuine pride and pleasure. Everywhere about
+the dwelling and within it were flowers and singing
+birds, while the rose garden in front, at the foot of the
+bluff, was the admiration of all who saw it.</p>
+
+<p>Here, on the front piazza, beneath the grand oaks,
+looking out on the calm sunlit river, Professor Stowe
+enjoyed that absolute peace and restful quiet for which
+his scholarly nature had always longed, but which had
+been forbidden to the greater part of his active life.
+At almost any hour of the day the well-known figure,
+with snow-white, patriarchal beard and kindly face,
+might be seen sitting there, with a basket of books,
+many of them in dead and nearly forgotten languages,
+close at hand. An amusing incident of family life was
+as follows: Some Northern visitors seemed to think
+that the family had no rights which were worthy of a
+a moment's consideration. They would land at the
+wharf, roam about the place, pick flowers, peer into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span>
+house through the windows and doors, and act with
+that disregard of all the proprieties of life which characterizes
+ill-bred people when on a journey. The professor
+had been driven well-nigh distracted by these
+migratory bipeds. One day, when one of them broke
+a branch from an orange tree directly before his eyes,
+and was bearing it off in triumph with all its load of
+golden fruit, he leaped from his chair, and addressed
+the astonished individual on those fundamental principles
+of common honesty, which he deemed outraged by
+this act. The address was vigorous and truthful, but
+of a kind which will not bear repeating. "Why,"
+said the horror-stricken culprit, "I thought that this
+was Mrs. Stowe's place!" "You thought it was Mrs.
+Stowe's place!" Then, in a voice of thunder, "I
+would have you understand, sir, that I am the proprietor
+and protector of Mrs. Stowe and of this place, and
+if you commit any more such shameful depredations I
+will have you punished as you deserve!" Thus this
+predatory Yankee was taught to realize that there is a
+God in Israel.</p>
+
+<p>In April, 1869, Mrs. Stowe was obliged to hurry
+North in order to visit Canada in time to protect her
+English rights in "Oldtown Folks," which she had just
+finished.</p>
+
+<p>About this time she secured a plot of land, and made
+arrangements for the erection on it of a building that
+should be used as a schoolhouse through the week, and
+as a church on Sunday. For several years Professor
+Stowe preached during the winter in this little schoolhouse,
+and Mrs. Stowe conducted Sunday-school, sewing
+classes, singing classes, and various other gatherings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span>
+for instruction and amusement, all of which were
+well attended and highly appreciated by both the white
+and colored residents of the neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>Upon one occasion, having just arrived at her Mandarin
+home, Mrs. Stowe writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"At last, after waiting a day and a half in Charleston,
+we arrived here about ten o'clock Saturday morning,
+just a week from the day we sailed. The house
+looked so pretty, and quiet, and restful, the day was so
+calm and lovely, it seemed as though I had passed away
+from all trouble, and was looking back upon you all
+from a secure resting-place. Mr. Stowe is very happy
+here, and is constantly saying how pleasant it is, and
+how glad he is that he is here. He is so much improved
+in health that already he is able to take a considerable
+walk every day.</p>
+
+<p>"We are all well, contented, and happy, and we
+have six birds, two dogs, and a pony. Do write more
+and oftener. Tell me all the little nothings and nowheres.
+You can't imagine how they are magnified by
+the time they have reached into this remote corner."</p>
+
+<p>In 1872 she wrote a series of Florida sketches, which
+were published in book form, the following year, by
+J. R. Osgood &amp; Co., under the title of "Palmetto
+Leaves." May 19, 1873, she writes to her brother
+Charles at Newport, Fla.:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Although you have not answered my last letter, I
+cannot leave Florida without saying good-by. I send
+you the 'Palmetto Leaves' and my parting love. If
+I could either have brought or left my husband, I
+should have come to see you this winter. The account
+of your roses fills me with envy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We leave on the San Jacinto next Saturday, and I
+am making the most of the few charming hours yet
+left; for never did we have so delicious a spring. I
+never knew such altogether perfect weather. It is
+enough to make a saint out of the toughest old Calvinist
+that ever set his face as a flint. How do you
+think New England theology would have fared if our
+fathers had been landed here instead of on Plymouth
+Rock?</p>
+
+<p>"The next you hear of me will be at the North,
+where our address is Forest Street, Hartford. We have
+bought a pretty cottage there, near to Belle, and shall
+spend the summer there."</p>
+
+<p>In a letter written in May of the following year to
+her son Charles, at Harvard, Mrs. Stowe says: "I can
+hardly realize that this long, flowery summer, with its
+procession of blooms and fruit, has been running on at
+the same time with the snowbanks and sleet storms of
+the North. But so it is. It is now the first of May.
+Strawberries and blackberries are over with us; oranges
+are in a waning condition, few and far between. Now
+we are going North to begin another summer, and have
+roses, strawberries, blackberries, and green peas come
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to hear of your reading. The effect
+produced on you by Jonathan Edwards is very similar
+to that produced on me when I took the same mental
+bath. His was a mind whose grasp and intensity you
+cannot help feeling. He was a poet in the intensity of
+his conceptions, and some of his sermons are more
+terrible than Dante's 'Inferno.'"</p>
+
+<p>In November, 1874, upon their return to Mandarin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span>
+she writes: "We have had heavenly weather, and we
+needed it; for our house was a cave of spider-webs,
+cockroaches, dirt, and all abominations, but less than a
+week has brought it into beautiful order. It now begins
+to put on that quaint, lively, pretty air that so
+fascinates me. Our weather is, as I said, heavenly,
+neither hot nor cold; cool, calm, bright, serene, and so
+tranquillizing. There is something indescribable about
+the best weather we have down here. It does not debilitate
+me like the soft October air in Hartford."</p>
+
+<p>During the following February, she writes in reply
+to an invitation to visit a Northern watering place later
+in the season: "I shall be most happy to come, and
+know of nothing to prevent. I have, thank goodness,
+no serial story on hand for this summer, to hang like
+an Old Man of the Sea about my neck, and hope to
+enjoy a little season of being like other folks. It is a
+most lovely day to-day, most unfallen Eden-like."</p>
+
+<p>In a letter written later in the same season, March
+28, 1875, Mrs. Stowe gives us a pleasant glimpse at
+their preparations for the proper observance of Easter
+Sunday in the little Mandarin schoolhouse. She says:
+"It was the week before Easter, and we had on our
+minds the dressing of the church. There my two
+Gothic fireboards were to be turned into a pulpit for
+the occasion. I went to Jacksonville and got a five-inch
+moulding for a base, and then had one fireboard
+sawed in two, so that there was an arched panel for
+each end. Then came a rummage for something for
+a top, and to make a desk of, until it suddenly occurred
+to me that our old black walnut extension table had a
+set of leaves. They were exactly the thing. The whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span>
+was trimmed with a beading of yellow pine, and rubbed,
+and pumice-stoned, and oiled, and I got out my tubes
+of paint and painted the nail-holes with Vandyke brown.
+By Saturday morning it was a lovely little Gothic pulpit,
+and Anthony carried it over to the schoolhouse and
+took away the old desk which I gave him for his meeting-house.
+That afternoon we drove out into the woods
+and gathered a quantity of superb Easter lilies, papaw,
+sparkleberry, great fern-leaves, and cedar. In
+the evening the girls went over to the Meads to practice
+Easter hymns; but I sat at home and made a
+cross, eighteen inches long, of cedar and white lilies.
+This Southern cedar is the most exquisite thing; it is
+so feathery and delicate.</p>
+
+<p>"Sunday morning was cool and bright, a most perfect
+Easter. Our little church was full, and everybody
+seemed delighted with the decorations. Mr. Stowe
+preached a sermon to show that Christ is going to put
+everything right at last, which is comforting. So the
+day was one of real pleasure, and also I trust of real
+benefit, to the poor souls who learned from it that
+Christ is indeed risen for them."</p>
+
+<p>During this winter the following characteristic letters
+passed between Mrs. Stowe and her valued friend, Dr.
+Oliver Wendell Holmes, called forth by the sending to
+the latter of a volume of Mrs. Stowe's latest stories:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>January 8, 1876.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Stowe</span>,&mdash;I would not write to
+thank you for your most welcome "Christmas Box,"</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"A box whose sweets compacted lie,"<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>before I had read it, and every word of it. I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span>
+been very much taken up with antics of one kind and
+another, and have only finished it this afternoon. The
+last of the papers was of less comparative value to me
+than to a great fraction of your immense parish of
+readers, because I am so familiar with every movement
+of the Pilgrims in their own chronicles.</div>
+
+<p>"Deacon Pitkin's Farm" is full of those thoroughly
+truthful touches of New England in which, if you are
+not unrivaled, I do not know who your rival may be.
+I wiped the tears from one eye in reading "Deacon
+Pitkin's Farm."</p>
+
+<p>I wiped the tears, and plenty of them, from both
+eyes, in reading "Betty's Bright Idea." It is a most
+charming and touching story, and nobody can read who
+has not a heart like a pebble, without being melted into
+tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>How much you have done and are doing to make
+our New England life wholesome and happy! If there
+is any one who can look back over a literary life which
+has pictured our old and helped our new civilization,
+it is yourself. Of course your later books have harder
+work cut out for them than those of any other writer.
+They have had "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for a rival. The
+brightest torch casts a shadow in the blaze of a light,
+and any transcendent success affords the easiest handle
+for that class of critics whose method is the one that
+Dogberry held to be "odious."</p>
+
+<p>I think it grows pleasanter to us to be remembered
+by the friends we still have, as with each year they
+grow fewer. We have lost Agassiz and Sumner from
+our circle, and I found Motley stricken with threatening
+illness (which I hope is gradually yielding to treatment),<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span>
+in the profoundest grief at the loss of his wife, another
+old and dear friend of mine. So you may be assured
+that I feel most sensibly your kind attention, and send
+you my heartfelt thanks for remembering me.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Always, dear Mrs. Stowe, faithfully yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">O. W. Holmes</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>To this letter Mrs. Stowe replied as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Mandarin</span>, <i>February 23, 1876.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Doctor</span>,&mdash;How kind it was of you to write
+me that very beautiful note! and how I wish you were
+just where I am, to see the trees laden at the same time
+with golden oranges and white blossoms! I should so
+like to cut off a golden cluster, leaves and all, for you.
+Well, Boston seems very far away and dreamy, like
+some previous state of existence, as I sit on the veranda
+and gaze on the receding shores of the St. John's, which
+at this point is five miles wide.</p>
+
+<p>Dear doctor, how time slips by! I remember when
+Sumner seemed to me a young man, and now he has
+gone. And Wilson has gone, and Chase, whom I knew
+as a young man in society in Cincinnati, has gone, and
+Stanton has gone, and Seward has gone, and yet how
+lively the world races on! A few air-bubbles of praise
+or lamentation, and away sails the great ship of life, no
+matter over whose grave!</p>
+
+<p>Well, one cannot but feel it! To me, also, a whole
+generation of friends has gone from the other side of
+the water since I was there and broke kindly bread with
+them. The Duchess of Sutherland, the good old duke,
+Lansdowne, Ellesmere, Lady Byron, Lord and Lady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span>
+Amberly, Charles Kingsley, the good Quaker, Joseph
+Sturge, all are with the shadowy train that has moved
+on. Among them were as dear and true friends as I
+ever had, and as pure and noble specimens of human
+beings as God ever made. They are living somewhere
+in intense vitality, I must believe, and you, dear doctor,
+must not doubt.</p>
+
+<p>I think about your writings a great deal, and one
+element in them always attracts me. It is their pitiful
+and sympathetic vein, the pity for poor, struggling human
+nature. In this I feel that you must be very near
+and dear to Him whose name is Love.</p>
+
+<p>You wrote some verses once that have got into the
+hymn-books, and have often occurred to me in my most
+sacred hours as descriptive of the feelings with which
+I bear the sorrows and carry the cares of life. They
+begin,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+"Love Divine, that stooped to share."<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>I have not all your books down here, and am haunted
+by gaps in the verses that memory cannot make good;
+but it is that "Love Divine" which is my stay and comfort
+and hope, as one friend after another passes beyond
+sight and hearing. Please let me have it in your
+handwriting.</p>
+
+<p>I remember a remark you once made on spiritualism.
+I cannot recall the words, but you spoke of it as modifying
+the sharp angles of Calvinistic belief, as a fog
+does those of a landscape. I would like to talk with
+you some time on spiritualism, and show you a collection
+of very curious facts that I have acquired through
+mediums <i>not</i> professional. Mr. Stowe has just been
+wading through eight volumes of "La Mystique," by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span>
+Goerres, professor for forty years past in the University
+of Munich, first of physiology and latterly of philosophy.
+He examines the whole cycle of abnormal
+psychic, spiritual facts, trances, ecstasy, clairvoyance,
+witchcraft, spiritualism, etc., etc., as shown in the Romish
+miracles and the history of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>I have long since come to the conclusion that the
+marvels of spiritualism are natural, and not supernatural,
+phenomena,&mdash;an uncommon working of natural
+laws. I believe that the door between those <i>in</i> the
+body and those <i>out</i> has never in any age been entirely
+closed, and that occasional perceptions within the veil
+are a part of the course of nature, and therefore not
+miraculous. Of course such a phase of human experience
+is very substantial ground for every kind of imposture
+and superstition, and I have no faith whatever
+in mediums who practice for money. In their case I
+think the law of Moses, that forbade consulting those
+who dealt with "familiar spirits," a very wise one.</p>
+
+<p>Do write some more, dear doctor. You are too well
+off in your palace down there on the new land. Your
+Centennial Ballad was a charming little peep; now
+give us a full-fledged story. Mr. Stowe sends his best
+regards, and wishes you would read "Goerres."<a name="FNanchor_16_17" id="FNanchor_16_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_17" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> It is
+in French also, and he thinks the French translation
+better than the German.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours ever truly,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Writing in the autumn of 1876 to her son Charles,
+who was at that time abroad, studying at Bonn, Mrs.
+Stowe describes a most tempestuous passage between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span>
+New York and Charleston, during which she and her
+husband and daughters suffered so much that they
+were ready to forswear the sea forever. The great
+waves as they rushed, boiling and seething, past would
+peer in at the little bull's-eye window of the state-room,
+as if eager to swallow up ship and passengers. From
+Charleston, however, they had a most delightful run to
+their journey's end. She writes: "We had a triumphal
+entrance into the St. John's, and a glorious sail up the
+river. Arriving at Mandarin, at four o'clock, we found
+all the neighbors, black as well as white, on the wharf
+to receive us. There was a great waving of handkerchiefs
+and flags, clapping of hands and cheering, as
+we drew near. The house was open and all ready for
+us, and we are delighted to be once more in our beautiful
+Florida home."</p>
+
+<p>In the following December she writes to her son:
+"I am again entangled in writing a serial, a thing I
+never mean to do again, but the story, begun for a
+mere Christmas brochure, grew so under my hands
+that I thought I might as well fill it out and make a
+book of it. It is the last thing of the kind I ever expect
+to do. In it I condense my recollections of a
+bygone era, that in which I was brought up, the ways
+and manners of which are now as nearly obsolete as
+the Old England of Dickens's stories is.'</p>
+
+<p>"I am so hampered by the necessity of writing this
+story, that I am obliged to give up company and visiting
+of all kinds and keep my strength for it. I hope
+I may be able to finish it, as I greatly desire to do so,
+but I begin to feel that I am not so strong as I used
+to be. Your mother is an old woman, Charley mine,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span>
+and it is best she should give up writing before people
+are tired of reading her.</p>
+
+<p>"I would much rather have written another such a
+book as 'Footsteps of the Master,' but all, even the
+religious papers, are gone mad on serials. Serials they
+demand and will have, and I thought, since this generation
+will listen to nothing but stories, why not tell
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>The book thus referred to was "Poganuc People,"
+that series of delightful reminiscences of the New England
+life of nearly a century ago, that has proved so
+fascinating to many thousands of readers. It was published
+in 1878, and, as Mrs. Stowe foresaw, was her last
+literary undertaking of any length, though for several
+years afterwards she wrote occasional short stories and
+articles.</p>
+
+<p>In January, 1879, she wrote from Mandarin to Dr.
+Holmes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Doctor</span>,&mdash;I wish I could give to you and
+Mrs. Holmes the exquisite charm of this morning. My
+window is wide open; it is a lovely, fresh, sunny day,
+and a great orange tree hung with golden balls closes
+the prospect from my window. The tree is about thirty
+feet high, and its leaves fairly glisten in the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>I sent "Poganuc People" to you and Mrs. Holmes
+as being among the few who know those old days. It
+is an extremely quiet story for these sensational days,
+when heaven and earth seem to be racked for a thrill;
+but as I get old I do love to think of those quiet, simple
+times when there was not a poor person in the parish,
+and the changing glories of the year were the only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span>
+spectacle. We, that is the professor and myself, have
+been reading with much interest Motley's Memoir.
+That was a man to be proud of, a beauty, too (by your
+engraving). I never had the pleasure of a personal
+acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>I feel with you that we have come into the land of
+leave-taking. Hardly a paper but records the death
+of some of Mr. Stowe's associates. But the river is not
+so black as it seems, and there are clear days when the
+opposite shore is plainly visible, and now and then we
+catch a strain of music, perhaps even a gesture of
+recognition. They are thinking of us, without doubt,
+on the other side. My daughters and I have been
+reading "Elsie Venner" again. Elsie is one of my
+especial friends,&mdash;poor, dear child!&mdash;and all your
+theology in that book I subscribe to with both hands.</p>
+
+<p>Does not the Bible plainly tell us of a time when
+there shall be no more pain? That is to be the end
+and crown of the Messiah's mission, when God shall
+wipe all tears away. My face is set that way, and yours,
+too, I trust and believe.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stowe sends hearty and affectionate remembrance
+both to you and Mrs. Holmes, and I am, as ever,
+truly yours,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>About this time Mrs. Stowe paid a visit to her
+brother Charles, at Newport, Fla., and, continuing her
+journey to New Orleans, was made to feel how little of
+bitterness towards her was felt by the best class of
+Southerners. In both New Orleans and Tallahassee she
+was warmly welcomed, and tendered public receptions
+that gave equal pleasure to her and to the throngs of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span>
+cultivated people who attended them. She was also
+greeted everywhere with intense enthusiasm by the
+colored people, who, whenever they knew of her coming,
+thronged the railway stations in order to obtain
+a glimpse of her whom they venerated above all
+women.</p>
+
+<p>The return to her Mandarin home each succeeding
+winter was always a source of intense pleasure to this
+true lover of nature in its brightest and tenderest moods.
+Each recurring season was filled with new delights.
+In December, 1879, she writes to her son, now married
+and settled as a minister in Saco, Me.:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Children</span>,&mdash;Well, we have stepped from December
+to June, and this morning is sunny and dewy,
+with a fresh sea-breeze giving life to the air. I have
+just been out to cut a great bunch of roses and lilies,
+though the garden is grown into such a jungle that I
+could hardly get about in it. The cannas, and dwarf
+bananas, and roses are all tangled together, so that I
+can hardly thread my way among them. I never in
+my life saw anything range and run rampant over the
+ground as cannas do. The ground is littered with
+fallen oranges, and the place looks shockingly untidy,
+but so beautiful that I am quite willing to forgive its
+disorder.</p>
+
+<p>We got here Wednesday evening about nine o'clock,
+and found all the neighbors waiting to welcome us on
+the wharf. The Meads, and Cranes, and Webbs, and
+all the rest were there, while the black population was
+in a frenzy of joy. Your father is quite well. The
+sea had its usual exhilarating effect upon him. Before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span>
+we left New York he was quite meek, and exhibited
+such signs of grace and submission that I had great
+hopes of him. He promised to do exactly as I told
+him, and stated that he had entire confidence in my
+guidance. What woman couldn't call such a spirit
+evidence of being prepared for speedy translation? I
+was almost afraid he could not be long for this world.
+But on the second day at sea his spirits rose, and his
+appetite reasserted itself. He declared in loud tones
+how well he felt, and quite resented my efforts to take
+care of him. I reminded him of his gracious vows and
+promises in the days of his low spirits, but to no effect.
+The fact is, his self-will has not left him yet, and I have
+now no fear of his immediate translation. He is going
+to preach for us this morning.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The last winter passed in this well-loved Southern
+home was that of 1883-84, for the following season
+Professor Stowe's health was in too precarious a state
+to permit him to undertake the long journey from
+Hartford. By this time one of Mrs. Stowe's fondest
+hopes had been realized; and, largely through her
+efforts, Mandarin had been provided with a pretty little
+Episcopal church, to which was attached a comfortable
+rectory, and over which was installed a regular clergyman.</p>
+
+<p>In January, 1884, Mrs. Stowe writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mandarin looks very gay and airy now with its
+new villas, and our new church and rectory. Our
+minister is perfect. I wish you could know him. He
+wants only physical strength. In everything else he is
+all one could ask.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It is a bright, lovely morning, and four orange-pickers
+are busy gathering our fruit. Our trees on the
+bluff have done better than any in Florida.</p>
+
+<p>"This winter I study nothing but Christ's life. First
+I read Farrar's account and went over it carefully.
+Now I am reading Geikie. It keeps my mind steady,
+and helps me to bear the languor and pain, of which
+I have more than usual this winter."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.<br />
+
+<small>OLDTOWN FOLKS, 1869.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Professor Stowe the Original of "Harry" in "Oldtown
+Folks."&mdash;Professor Stowe's Letter to George Eliot.&mdash;Her
+Remarks on the Same.&mdash;Professor Stowe's Narrative of his
+Youthful Adventures in the World of Spirits.&mdash;Professor
+Stowe's Influence on Mrs. Stowe's Literary Life.&mdash;George
+Eliot on "Oldtown Folks."</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> biography would be signally incomplete without
+some mention of the birth, childhood, early associations,
+and very peculiar and abnormal psychological experiences
+of Professor Stowe. Aside from the fact of Dr.
+Stowe's being Mrs. Stowe's husband, and for this reason
+entitled to notice in any sketch of her life, however
+meagre, he is the original of the "visionary boy" in
+"Oldtown Folks;" and "Oldtown Fireside Stories"
+embody the experiences of his childhood and youth
+among the grotesque and original characters of his native
+town.</p>
+
+<p>March 26, 1882, Professor Stowe wrote the following
+characteristic letter to Mrs. Lewes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Lewes</span>,&mdash;I fully sympathize with you in your
+disgust with Hume and the professing mediums generally.</p>
+
+<p>Hume spent his boyhood in my father's native town,
+among my relatives and acquaintances, and he was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span>
+disagreeable, nasty boy. But he certainly has qualities
+which science has not yet explained, and some of his
+doings are as real as they are strange. My interest
+in the subject of spiritualism arises from the fact of my
+own experience, more than sixty years ago, in my early
+childhood. I then never thought of questioning the
+objective reality of all I saw, and supposed that everybody
+else had the same experience. Of what this experience
+was you may gain some idea from certain passages
+in "Oldtown Folks."</p>
+
+<p>The same experiences continue yet, but with serious
+doubts as to the objectivity of the scenes exhibited.
+I have noticed that people who have remarkable and
+minute answers to prayer, such as Stilling, Franke,
+Lavater, are for the most part of this peculiar temperament.
+Is it absurd to suppose that some peculiarity in
+the nervous system, in the connecting link between soul
+and body, may bring some, more than others, into an
+almost abnormal contact with the spirit-world (for
+example, Jacob Boehme and Swedenborg), and that,
+too, without correcting their faults, or making them
+morally better than others? Allow me to say that I
+have always admired the working of your mind, there
+is about it such a perfect uprightness and uncalculating
+honesty. I think you are a better Christian without
+church or theology than most people are with both,
+though I am, and always have been in the main, a Calvinist
+of the Jonathan Edwards school. God bless
+you! I have a warm side for Mr. Lewes on account of
+his Goethe labors.</p>
+
+<p>Goethe has been my admiration for more than forty
+years. In 1830 I got hold of his "Faust," and for two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span>
+gloomy, dreary November days, while riding through
+the woods of New Hampshire in an old-fashioned stagecoach,
+to enter upon a professorship in Dartmouth College,
+I was perfectly dissolved by it.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Sincerely yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap"> C. E. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>In a letter to Mrs. Stowe, written June 24, 1872,
+Mrs. Lewes alludes to Professor Stowe's letter as follows:
+"Pray give my special thanks to the professor
+for his letter. His handwriting, which does really look
+like Arabic,&mdash;a very graceful character, surely,&mdash;happens
+to be remarkably legible to me, and I did not
+hesitate over a single word. Some of the words, as
+expressions of fellowship, were very precious to me, and
+I hold it very good of him to write to me that best sort
+of encouragement. I was much impressed with the fact&mdash;which
+you have told me&mdash;that he was the original
+of the "visionary boy" in "Oldtown Folks;" and it
+must be deeply interesting to talk with him on his experience.
+Perhaps I am inclined, under the influence
+of the facts, physiological and psychological, which have
+been gathered of late years, to give larger place to the
+interpretation of vision-seeing as subjective than the
+professor would approve. It seems difficult to limit&mdash;at
+least to limit with any precision&mdash;the possibility of
+confounding sense by impressions derived from inward
+conditions with those which are directly dependent on
+external stimulus. In fact, the division between within
+and without in this sense seems to become every year a
+more subtle and bewildering problem."</p>
+
+<p>In 1834, while Mr. Stowe was a professor in Lane
+Theological Seminary at Cincinnati, Ohio, he wrote out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span>
+a history of his youthful adventures in the spirit-world,
+from which the following extracts are taken:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 363px;">
+<img src="images/i422.jpg" width="363" height="600" alt="C. Stowe signature and portrait" />
+</div>
+
+<p>"I have often thought I would communicate to some
+scientific physician a particular account of a most singular
+delusion under which I lived from my earliest infancy
+till the fifteenth or sixteenth year of my age, and
+the effects of which remain very distinctly now that I
+am past thirty.</p>
+
+<p>"The facts are of such a nature as to be indelibly
+impressed upon my mind they appear to me to be curious,
+and well worth the attention of the psychologist.
+I regard the occurrences in question as the more remarkable
+because I cannot discover that I possess either
+taste or talent for fiction or poetry. I have barely
+imagination enough to enjoy, with a high degree of
+relish, the works of others in this department of literature,
+but have never felt able or disposed to engage in
+that sort of writing myself. On the contrary, my style
+has always been remarkable for its dry, matter-of-fact
+plainness; my mind has been distinguished for its quickness
+and adaptedness to historical and literary investigations,
+for ardor and perseverance in pursuit of the
+knowledge of facts,&mdash;<i>eine verständige Richtung</i>, as the
+Germans would say,&mdash;rather than for any other quality;
+and the only talent of a higher kind which I am conscious
+of possessing is a turn for accurate observation
+of men and things, and a certain broad humor and
+drollery.</p>
+
+<p>"From the hour of my birth I have been constitutionally
+feeble, as were my parents before me, and my
+nervous system easily excitable. With care, however,
+I have kept myself in tolerable health, and my life has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span>
+been an industrious one, for my parents were poor
+and I have always been obliged to labor for my livelihood.</p>
+
+<p>"With these preliminary remarks, I proceed to the
+curious details of my psychological history. As early
+as I can remember anything, I can remember observing
+a multitude of animated and active objects, which I
+could see with perfect distinctness, moving about me,
+and could sometimes, though seldom, hear them make
+a rustling noise, or other articulate sounds; but I could
+never touch them. They were in all respects independent
+of the sense of touch, and incapable of being
+obstructed in any way by the intervention of material
+objects; I could see them at any distance, and through
+any intervening object, with as much ease and distinctness
+as if they were in the room with me, and directly
+before my eyes. I could see them passing through the
+floors, and the ceilings, and the walls of the house, from
+one apartment to another, in all directions, without a
+door, or a keyhole, or crevice being open to admit them.
+I could follow them with my eyes to any distance, or
+directly through or just beneath the surface, or up and
+down, in the midst of boards and timbers and bricks, or
+whatever else would stop the motion or intercept the
+visibleness of all other objects. These appearances occasioned
+neither surprise nor alarm, except when they
+assumed some hideous and frightful form, or exhibited
+some menacing gesture, for I became acquainted with
+them as soon as with any of the objects of sense. As
+to the reality of their existence and the harmlessness of
+their character, I knew no difference between them and
+any other of the objects which met my eye. They were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span>
+as familiar to me as the forms of my parents and my
+brother; they made up a part of my daily existence,
+and were as really the subjects of my consciousness as
+the little bench on which I sat in the corner by my
+mother's knee, or the wheels and sticks and strings with
+which I amused myself upon the floor. I indeed recognized
+a striking difference between them and the things
+which I could feel and handle, but to me this difference
+was no more a matter of surprise than that which I observed
+between my mother and the black woman who
+so often came to work for her; or between my infant
+brother and the little spotted dog Brutus of which I
+was so fond. There was no time, or place, or circumstance,
+in which they did not occasionally make their
+appearance. Solitude and silence, however, were more
+favorable to their appearance than company and conversation.
+They were more pleased with candle-light
+than the daylight. They were most numerous, distinct,
+and active when I was alone and in the dark, especially
+when my mother had laid me in bed and returned to
+her own room with the candle. At such times, I always
+expected the company of my ćrial visitors, and
+counted upon it to amuse me till I dropped asleep.
+Whenever they failed to make their appearance, as was
+sometimes the case, I felt lonely and discontented. I
+kept up a lively conversation with them,&mdash;not by language
+or by signs, for the attempt on my part to speak
+or move would at once break the charm and drive them
+away in a fret, but by a peculiar sort of spiritual intercommunion.</p>
+
+<p>"When their attention was directed towards me, I
+could feel and respond to all their thoughts and feelings,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[425]</a></span>
+and was conscious that they could in the same
+manner feel and respond to mine. Sometimes they
+would take no notice of me, but carry on a brisk conversation
+among themselves, principally by looks and
+gestures, with now and then an audible word. In fact,
+there were but few with whom I was very familiar.
+These few were much more constant and uniform in
+their visits than the great multitude, who were frequently
+changing, and too much absorbed in their own
+concerns to think much of me. I scarcely know how I
+can give an idea of their form and general appearance,
+for there are no objects in the material world with
+which I can compare them, and no language adapted to
+an accurate description of their peculiarities. They
+exhibited all possible combinations of size, shape, proportion,
+and color, but their most usual appearance was
+with the human form and proportion, but under a
+shadowy outline that seemed just ready to melt into the
+invisible air, and sometimes liable to the most sudden
+and grotesque changes, and with a uniform darkly
+bluish color spotted with brown, or brownish white.
+This was the general appearance of the multitude; but
+there were many exceptions to this description, particularly
+among my more welcome and familiar visitors, as
+will be seen in the sequel.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides these rational and generally harmless beings,
+there was another set of objects which never varied in
+their form or qualities, and were always mischievous
+and terrible. The fact of their appearance depended
+very much on the state of my health and feelings. If
+I was well and cheerful they seldom troubled me; but
+when sick or depressed they were sure to obtrude their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[426]</a></span>
+hateful presence upon me. These were a sort of heavy
+clouds floating about overhead, of a black color, spotted
+with brown, in the shape of a very flaring inverted tunnel
+without a nozzle, and from ten to thirty or forty feet
+in diameter. They floated from place to place in great
+numbers, and in all directions, with a strong and steady
+progress, but with a tremulous, quivering, internal motion
+that agitated them in every part.</p>
+
+<p>"Whenever they approached, the rational phantoms
+were thrown into great consternation; and well it might
+be, for if a cloud touched any part of one of the rational
+phantoms it immediately communicated its own
+color and tremulous motion to the part it touched.</p>
+
+<p>"In spite of all the efforts and convulsive struggles
+of the unhappy victim, this color and motion slowly, but
+steadily and uninteruptedly, proceeded to diffuse itself
+over every part of the body, and as fast as it did so the
+body was drawn into the cloud and became a part of its
+substance. It was indeed a fearful sight to see the
+contortions, the agonizing efforts, of the poor creatures
+who had been touched by one of these awful clouds,
+and were dissolving and melting into it by inches without
+the possibility of escape or resistance.</p>
+
+<p>"This was the only visible object that had the least
+power over the phantoms, and this was evidently composed
+of the same material as themselves. The forms
+and actions of all these phantoms varied very much
+with the state of my health and animal spirits, but I
+never could discover that the surrounding material objects
+had any influence upon them, except in this one
+particular, namely, if I saw them in a neat, well furnished
+room, there was a neatness and polish in their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[427]</a></span>
+form and motions; and, on the contrary, if I was in an
+unfinished, rough apartment, there was a corresponding
+rudeness and roughness in my ćrial visitors. A corresponding
+difference was visible when I saw them in
+the woods or in the meadows, upon the water or upon
+the ground, in the air or among the stars.</p>
+
+<p>"Every different apartment which I occupied had a
+different set of phantoms, and they always had a degree
+of correspondence to the circumstances in which
+they were seen. (It should be noted, however, that it
+was not so much the place where the phantoms themselves
+appeared to me to be, that affected their forms
+and movements, as the place in which I myself actually
+was while observing them. The apparent locality of
+the phantoms, it is true, had some influence, but my
+own actual locality had much more.)</p>
+
+<p>"Thus far I have attempted only a general outline
+of these curious experiences. I will now proceed to a
+detailed account of several particular incidents, for the
+sake of illustrating the general statements already
+made. I select a few from manifestations without
+number. I am able to ascertain dates from the following
+circumstances:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I was born in April, 1802, and my father died in
+July, 1808, after suffering for more than a year from
+a lingering organic disease. Between two and three
+years before his death he removed from the house in
+which I was born to another at a little distance from it.
+What occurred, therefore, before my father's last sickness,
+must have taken place during the first five years
+of my life, and whatever took place before the removal
+of the family must have taken place during the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[428]</a></span>
+three years of my life. Before the removal of the family
+I slept in a small upper chamber in the front part
+of the house, where I was generally alone for several
+hours in the evening and morning. Adjoining this
+room, and opening into it by a very small door, was a
+low, dark, narrow, unfinished closet, which was open
+on the other side into a ruinous, old chaise-house.
+This closet was a famous place for the gambols of the
+phantoms, but of their forms and actions I do not now
+retain any very distinct recollection. I only remember
+that I was very careful not to do anything that I
+thought would be likely to offend them; yet otherwise
+their presence caused me no uneasiness, and was not at
+all disagreeable to me.</p>
+
+<p>"The first incident of which I have a distinct recollection
+was the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"One night, as I was lying alone in my chamber
+with my little dog Brutus snoring beside my bed, there
+came out of the closet a very large Indian woman and
+a very small Indian man, with a huge bass-viol between
+them. The woman was dressed in a large, loose, black
+gown, secured around her waist by a belt of the same
+material, and on her head she wore a high, dark gray
+fur cap, shaped somewhat like a lady's muff, ornamented
+with a row of covered buttons in front, and
+open towards the bottom, showing a red lining. The
+man was dressed in a shabby, black-colored overcoat
+and a little round, black hat that fitted closely to his
+head. They took no notice of me, but were rather ill-natured
+towards each other, and seemed to be disputing
+for the possession of the bass-viol. The man snatched
+it away and struck upon it a few harsh, hollow notes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[429]</a></span>
+which I distinctly heard, and which seemed to vibrate
+through my whole body, with a strange, stinging sensation.
+The woman then took it and appeared to play
+very intently and much to her own satisfaction, but
+without producing any sound that was perceptible by
+me. They soon left the chamber, and I saw them go
+down into the back kitchen, where they sat and played
+and talked with my mother. It was only when the
+man took the bow that I could hear the harsh, abrupt,
+disagreeable sounds of the instrument. At length they
+arose, went out of the back door, and sprang upon a
+large heap of straw and unthreshed beans, and disappeared
+with a strange, rumbling sound. This vision
+was repeated night after night with scarcely any variation
+while we lived in that house, and once, and once
+only, after the family had removed to the other house.
+The only thing that seemed to me unaccountable and
+that excited my curiosity was that there should be such
+a large heap of straw and beans before the door every
+night, when I could see nothing of it in the daytime.
+I frequently crept out of bed and stole softly down into
+the kitchen, and peeped out of the door to see if it was
+there very early in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>"I attempted to make some inquiries of my mother,
+but as I was not as yet very skillful in the use of language,
+I could get no satisfaction out of her answers,
+and could see that my questions seemed to distress her.
+At first she took little notice of what I said, regarding
+it no doubt as the meaningless prattle of a thoughtless
+child. My persistence, however, seemed to alarm her,
+and I suppose that she feared for my sanity. I soon
+desisted from asking anything further, and shut myself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[430]</a></span>
+more and more within myself. One night, very soon
+after the removal, when the house was still, and all the
+family were in bed, these unearthly musicians once
+made their appearance in the kitchen of the new house,
+and after looking around peevishly, and sitting with a
+discontented frown and in silence, they arose and went
+out of the back door, and sprang on a pile of cornstalks,
+and I saw them no more.</p>
+
+<p>"Our new dwelling was a low-studded house of only
+one story, and, instead of an upper chamber, I now
+occupied a bedroom that opened into the kitchen.
+Within this bedroom, directly on the left hand of the
+door as you entered from the kitchen, was the staircase
+which led to the garret; and, as the room was
+unfinished, some of the boards which inclosed the staircase
+were too short, and left a considerable space between
+them and the ceiling. One of these open spaces
+was directly in front of my bed, so that when I lay
+upon my pillow my face was opposite to it. Every
+night, after I had gone to bed and the candle was removed,
+a very pleasant-looking human face would peer
+at me over the top of that board, and gradually press
+forward his head, neck, shoulders, and finally his whole
+body as far as the waist, through the opening, and
+then, smiling upon me with great good-nature, would
+withdraw in the same manner in which he had entered.
+He was a great favorite of mine; for though we neither
+of us spoke, we perfectly understood, and were entirely
+devoted to, each other. It is a singular fact that the
+features of this favorite phantom bore a very close
+resemblance to those of a boy older than myself whom
+I feared and hated: still the resemblance was so strong
+that I called him by the same name, Harvey.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[431]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Harvey's visits were always expected and always
+pleasant; but sometimes there were visitations of another
+sort, odious and frightful. One of these I will
+relate as a specimen of the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"One night, after I had retired to bed and was looking
+for Harvey, I observed an unusual number of the
+tunnel-shaped tremulous clouds already described, and
+they seemed intensely black and strongly agitated.
+This alarmed me exceedingly, and I had a terrible feeling
+that something awful was going to happen. It was
+not long before I saw Harvey at his accustomed place,
+cautiously peeping at me through the aperture, with an
+expression of pain and terror on his countenance. He
+seemed to warn me to be on my guard, but was afraid
+to put his head into the room lest he should be touched
+by one of the clouds, which were every moment growing
+thicker and more numerous. Harvey soon withdrew
+and left me alone. On turning my eyes towards
+the left-hand wall of the room, I thought I saw at an
+immense distance below me the regions of the damned,
+as I had heard them pictured in sermons. From this
+awful world of horror the tunnel-shaped clouds were
+ascending, and I perceived that they were the principal
+instruments of torture in these gloomy abodes. These
+regions were at such an immense distance below me
+that I could obtain but a very indistinct view of the
+inhabitants, who were very numerous and exceedingly
+active. Near the surface of the earth, and as it seemed
+to me but a little distance from my bed, I saw four or
+five sturdy, resolute devils endeavoring to carry off an
+unprincipled and dissipated man in the neighborhood,
+by the name of Brown, of whom I had stood in terror<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[432]</a></span>
+for years. These devils I saw were very different from
+the common representations. They had neither red
+faces, nor horns, nor hoofs, nor tails. They were in all
+respects stoutly built and well-dressed gentlemen. The
+only peculiarity that I noted in their appearance was as
+to their heads. Their faces and necks were perfectly
+bare, without hair or flesh, and of a uniform sky-blue
+color, like the ashes of burnt paper before it falls to
+pieces, and of a certain glossy smoothness.</p>
+
+<p>"As I looked on, full of eagerness, the devils struggled
+to force Brown down with them, and Brown
+struggled with the energy of desperation to save himself
+from their grip, and it seemed that the human was
+likely to prove too strong for the infernal. In this
+emergency one of the devils, panting for breath and
+covered with perspiration, beckoned to a strong, thick
+cloud that seemed to understand him perfectly, and,
+whirling up to Brown, touched his hand. Brown resisted
+stoutly, and struck out right and left at the cloud
+most furiously, but the usual effect was produced,&mdash;the
+hand grew black, quivered, and seemed to be melting
+into the cloud; then the arm, by slow degrees, and
+then the head and shoulders. At this instant Brown,
+collecting all his energies for one desperate effort,
+sprang at once into the centre of the cloud, tore it
+asunder, and descended to the ground, exclaiming, with
+a hoarse, furious voice that grated on my ear, 'There,
+I've got out; dam'me if I haven't!' This was the
+first word that had been spoken through the whole
+horrible scene. It was the first time I had ever seen a
+cloud fail to produce its appropriate result, and it terrified
+me so that I trembled from head to foot. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[433]</a></span>
+devils, however, did not seem to be in the least discouraged.
+One of them, who seemed to be the leader,
+went away and quickly returned bringing with him an
+enormous pair of rollers fixed in an iron frame, such
+as are used in iron-mills for the purpose of rolling out
+and slitting bars of iron, except instead of being turned
+by machinery, each roller was turned by an immense
+crank. Three of the devils now seized Brown and put
+his feet to the rollers, while two others stood, one at
+each crank, and began to roll him in with a steady
+strain that was entirely irresistible. Not a word was
+spoken, not a sound was heard; but the fearful struggles
+and terrified, agonizing looks of Brown were more
+than I could endure. I sprang from my bed and ran
+through the kitchen into the room where my parents
+slept, and entreated that they would permit me to spend
+the remainder of the night with them. After considerable
+parleying they assured me that nothing could hurt
+me, and advised me to go back to bed. I replied that
+I was not afraid of their hurting me, but I couldn't
+bear to see them acting so with C. Brown. 'Poh!
+poh! you foolish boy,' replied my father, sternly.
+'You've only been dreaming; go right back to bed,
+or I shall have to whip you.' Knowing that there was
+no other alternative, I trudged back through the kitchen
+with all the courage I could muster, cautiously entered
+my room, where I found everything quiet, there being
+neither cloud, nor devil, nor anything of the kind to
+be seen, and getting into bed I slept quietly till morning.
+The next day I was rather sad and melancholy,
+but kept all my troubles to myself, through fear of
+Brown. This happened before my father's sickness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[434]</a></span>
+and consequently between the four and six years of
+my age.</p>
+
+<p>"During my father's sickness and after his death I
+lived with my grandmother; and when I had removed
+to her house I forever lost sight of Harvey. I still continued
+to sleep alone for the most part, but in a neatly
+furnished upper chamber. Across the corner of the
+chamber, opposite to and at a little distance from the
+head of my bed, there was a closet in the form of an
+old-fashioned buffet. After going to bed, on looking
+at the door of this closet, I could see at a great distance
+from it a pleasant meadow, terminated by a beautiful
+little grove. Out of this grove, and across this meadow,
+a charming little female figure would advance, about
+eight inches high and exquisitely proportioned, dressed
+in a loose black silk robe, with long, smooth black hair
+parted up her head and hanging loose over her shoulders.
+She would come forward with a slow and regular
+step, becoming more distinctly visible as she approached
+nearer, till she came even with the surface of the closet
+door, when she would smile upon me, raise her hands to
+her head and draw them down on each side of her face,
+suddenly turn round, and go off at a rapid trot. The
+moment she turned I could see a good-looking mulatto
+man, rather smaller than herself, following directly in
+her wake and trotting off after her. This was generally
+repeated two or three times before I went to sleep.
+The features of the mulatto bore some resemblance to
+those of the Indian man with the bass-viol, but were
+much more mild and agreeable.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"I awoke one bright, moonlight night, and found a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[435]</a></span>
+large, full-length human skeleton of an ashy-blue color
+in bed with me! I screamed out with fright, and soon
+summoned the family around me. I refused to tell the
+cause of my alarm, but begged permission to occupy
+another bed, which was granted.</p>
+
+<p>"For the remainder of the night I slept but little;
+but I saw upon the window-stools companies of little
+fairies, about six inches high, in white robes, gamboling
+and dancing with incessant merriment. Two of them,
+a male and female, rather taller than the rest, were dignified
+with a crown and sceptre. They took the kindest
+notice of me, smiled upon me with great benignity,
+and seemed to assure me of their protection. I was
+soothed and cheered by their presence, though after all
+there was a sort of sinister and selfish expression in
+their countenances which prevented my placing implicit
+confidence in them.</p>
+
+<p>"Up to this time I had never doubted the real existence
+of these phantoms, nor had I ever suspected that
+other people had not seen them as distinctly as myself.
+I now, however, began to discover with no little anxiety
+that my friends had little or no knowledge of the ćrial
+beings among whom I have spent my whole life; that
+my allusions to them were not understood, and all complaints
+respecting them were laughed at. I had never
+been disposed to say much about them, and this discovery
+confirmed me in my silence. It did not, however,
+affect my own belief, or lead me to suspect that my
+imaginations were not realities.</p>
+
+<p>"During the whole of this period I took great pleasure
+in walking out alone, particularly in the evening.
+The most lonely fields, the woods, and the banks of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[436]</a></span>
+river, and other places most completely secluded, were
+my favorite resorts, for there I could enjoy the sight of
+innumerable ćrial beings of all sorts, without interruption.
+Every object, even every shaking leaf, seemed to
+me to be animated by some living soul, whose nature in
+some degree corresponded to its habitation. I spent
+much of my life in these solitary rambles; there were
+particular places to which I gave names, and visited
+them at regular intervals. Moonlight was particularly
+agreeable to me, but most of all I enjoyed a thick,
+foggy night. At times, during these walks, I would be
+excessively oppressed by an indefinite and deep feeling
+of melancholy. Without knowing why, I would be so
+unhappy as to wish myself annihilated, and suddenly it
+would occur to me that my friends at home were suffering
+some dreadful calamity, and so vivid would be the
+impression, that I would hasten home with all speed to
+see what had taken place. At such seasons I felt a
+morbid love for my friends that would almost burn up
+my soul, and yet, at the least provocation from them, I
+would fly into an uncontrollable passion and foam like
+a little fury. I was called a dreadful-tempered boy;
+but the Lord knows that I never occasioned pain to any
+animal, whether human or brutal, without suffering untold
+agonies in consequence of it. I cannot, even now,
+without feelings of deep sorrow, call to mind the alternate
+fits of corroding melancholy, irritation, and bitter
+remorse which I then endured. These fits of melancholy
+were most constant and oppressive during the
+autumnal months.</p>
+
+<p>"I very early learned to read, and soon became immoderately
+attached to books. In the Bible I read the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[437]</a></span>
+first chapters of Job, and parts of Ezekiel, Daniel, and
+Revelation, with most intense delight, and with such
+frequency that I could repeat large portions from
+memory long before the age at which boys in the country
+are usually able to read plain sentences. The first
+large book besides the Bible that I remember reading
+was Morse's 'History of New England,' which I devoured
+with insatiable greediness, particularly those
+parts which relate to Indian wars and witchcraft. I
+was in the habit of applying to my grandmother for
+explanations, and she would relate to me, while I listened
+with breathless attention, long stories from Mather's
+'Magnalia' or (Mag-nilly, as she used to call it),
+a work which I earnestly longed to read, but of which
+I never got sight till after my twentieth year. Very
+early there fell into my hands an old school-book, called
+'The Art of Speaking,' containing numerous extracts
+from Milton and Shakespeare. There was little else in
+the book that interested me, but these extracts from the
+two great English poets, though there were many things
+in them that I did not well understand, I read again
+and again, with increasing pleasure at every perusal, till
+I had nearly committed them to memory, and almost
+thumbed the old book into nonentity. But of all the
+books that I read at this period, there was none that
+went to my heart like Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress.'
+I read it and re-read it night and day; I took it to bed
+with me and hugged it to my bosom while I slept; every
+different edition that I could find I seized upon and
+read with as eager a curiosity as if it had been a new
+story throughout; and I read with the unspeakable
+satisfaction of most devoutly believing that everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[438]</a></span>
+which 'Honest John' related was a real verity, an actual
+occurrence. Oh that I could read that most inimitable
+book once more with the same solemn conviction
+of its literal truth, that I might once more enjoy the
+same untold ecstacy!</p>
+
+<p>"One other remark it seems proper to make before
+I proceed further to details. The appearance, and
+especially the motions, of my ćrial visitors were intimately
+connected, either as cause or effect, I cannot
+determine which, with certain sensations of my own.
+Their countenances generally expressed pleasure or pain,
+complaisance or anger, according to the mood of my
+own mind: if they moved from place to place without
+moving their limbs, with that gliding motion appropriate
+to spirits, I felt in my stomach that peculiar tickling
+sensation which accompanies a rapid, progressive
+movement through the air; and if they went off with
+an uneasy trot, I felt an unpleasant jarring through my
+frame. Their appearance was always attended with
+considerable effort and fatigue on my part: the more
+distinct and vivid they were, the more would my fatigue
+be increased; and at such times my face was always
+pale, and my eyes unusually sparkling and wild. This
+continued to be the case after I became satisfied that it
+was all a delusion of the imagination, and it so continues
+to the present day."</p>
+
+<p>It is not surprising that Mrs. Stowe should have felt
+herself impelled to give literary form to an experience
+so exceptional. Still more must this be the case when
+the early associations of this exceptional character were
+as amusing and interesting as they are shown forth in
+"Oldtown Fireside Stories."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[439]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>None of the incidents or characters embodied in
+those sketches are ideal. The stories are told as they
+came from Mr. Stowe's lips, with little or no alteration.
+Sam Lawson was a real character. In 1874 Mr. Whittier
+wrote to Mrs. Stowe: "I am not able to write or
+study much, or read books that require thought, without
+suffering, but I have Sam Lawson lying at hand, and,
+as Corporal Trim said of Yorick's sermon, 'I like it
+hugely.'"</p>
+
+<p>The power and literary value of these stories lie in
+the fact that they are true to nature. Professor
+Stowe was himself an inimitable mimic and story-teller.
+No small proportion of Mrs. Stowe's success as a literary
+woman is to be attributed to him. Not only was
+he possessed of a bright, quick mind, but wonderful
+retentiveness of memory. Mrs. Stowe was never at a
+loss for reliable information on any subject as long
+as the professor lived. He belonged to that extinct
+species, the "general scholar." His scholarship was not
+critical in the modern sense of the word, but in the
+main accurate, in spite of his love for the marvelous.</p>
+
+<p>It is not out of place to give a little idea of his
+power in character-painting, as it shows how suggestive
+his conversation and letters must have been to a mind
+like that of Mrs. Stowe:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Natick</span>, <i>July 14, 1839.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p>I have had a real good time this week writing my
+oration. I have strolled over my old walking places,
+and found the same old stone walls, the same old foot-paths
+through the rye-fields, the same bends in the
+river, the same old bullfrogs with their green spectacles
+on, the same old terrapins sticking up their heads and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[440]</a></span>
+bowing as I go by; and nothing was wanting but my
+wife to talk with to make all complete.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. I have
+had some rare talks with old uncle "Jaw" Bacon, and
+other old characters, which you ought to have heard.
+The Curtises have been flooding Uncle "Jaw's" meadows,
+and he is in a great stew about it. He says:
+"I took and tell'd your Uncle Izic to tell them 'ere
+Curtises that if the Devil didn't git 'em far flowing my
+medder arter that sort, I didn't see no use o' havin' any
+Devil." "Have you talked with the Curtises yourself?"
+"Yes, hang the sarcy dogs! and they took and tell'd
+me that they'd take and flow clean up to my front
+door, and make me go out and in in a boat." "Why
+don't you go to law?" "Oh, they keep alterin' and er
+tinkerin'-up the laws so here in Massachusetts that a
+body can't git no damage fur flowing; they think cold
+water can't hurt nobody."</p>
+
+<p>Mother and Aunt Nabby each keep separate establishments.
+First Aunt Nabby gets up in the morning
+and examines the sink, to see whether it leaks and rots
+the beam. She then makes a little fire, gets her little
+teapot of bright shining tin, and puts into it a teaspoonful
+of black tea, and so prepares her breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>By this time mother comes creeping down-stairs, like
+an old tabby-cat out of the ash-hole; and she kind o'
+doubts and reckons whether or no she had better try to
+git any breakfast, bein' as she's not much appetite this
+mornin'; but she goes to the leg of bacon and cuts off
+a little slice, reckons sh'll broil it; then goes and looks
+at the coffee-pot and reckons sh'll have a little coffee;
+don't exactly know whether it's good for her, but she
+don't drink much. So while Aunt Nabby is sitting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[441]</a></span>
+sipping her tea and munching her bread and butter
+with a matter-of-fact certainty and marvelous satisfaction,
+mother goes doubting and reckoning round, like
+Mrs. Diffidence in Doubting Castle, till you see rising
+up another little table in another corner of the room,
+with a good substantial structure of broiled ham and
+coffee, and a boiled egg or two, with various et ceteras,
+which Mrs. Diffidence, after many desponding ejaculations,
+finally sits down to, and in spite of all presentiments
+makes them fly as nimbly as Mr. Ready-to-Halt
+did Miss Much-afraid when he footed it so well with
+her on his crutches in the dance on the occasion of
+Giant Despair's overthrow.</p>
+
+<p>I have thus far dined alternately with mother and
+Aunt Susan, not having yet been admitted to Aunt
+Nabby's establishment. There are now great talkings,
+and congresses and consultations of the allied powers,
+and already rumors are afloat that perhaps all will unite
+their forces and dine at one table, especially as Harriet
+and little Hattie are coming, and there is no knowing
+what might come out in the papers if there should be
+anything a little odd.</p>
+
+<p>Mother is very well, thin as a hatchet and smart as
+a steel trap; Aunt Nabby, fat and easy as usual; for
+since the sink is mended, and no longer leaks and rots
+the beam, and she has nothing to do but watch it,
+and Uncle Bill has joined the Washingtonians and no
+longer drinks rum, she is quite at a loss for topics of
+worriment.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Ike has had a little touch of palsy and is
+rather feeble. He says that his legs and arms have
+rather gi'n out, but his head and pluck are as good as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[442]</a></span>
+they ever were. I told him that our sister Kate was
+very much in the same fix, whereat he was considerably
+affected, and opened the crack in his great pumpkin of
+a face, displaying the same two rows of great white
+ivories which have been my admiration from my youth
+up. He is sixty-five years of age, and has never lost
+a tooth, and was never in his life more than fifteen
+miles from the spot where he was born, except once, in
+the ever-memorable year 1819, when I was at Bradford
+Academy.</p>
+
+<p>In a sudden glow of adventurous rashness he undertook
+to go after me and bring me home for vacation;
+and he actually performed the whole journey of thirty
+miles with his horse and wagon, and slept at a tavern a
+whole night, a feat of bravery on which he has never
+since ceased to plume himself. I well remember that
+awful night in the tavern in the remote region of North
+Andover. We occupied a chamber in which were two
+beds. In the unsuspecting innocence of youth I undressed
+myself and got into bed as usual; but my
+brave and thoughtful uncle, merely divesting himself
+of his coat, put it under his pillow, and then threw himself
+on to the bed with his boots on his feet, and his
+two hands resting on the rim of his hat, which he had
+prudently placed on the apex of his stomach as he lay
+on his back. He wouldn't allow me to blow out the
+candle, but he lay there with his great white eyes
+fixed on the ceiling, in the cool, determined manner of
+a bold man who had made up his mind to face danger
+and meet whatever might befall him. We escaped,
+however, without injury, the doughty landlord and his
+relentless sons merely demanding pay for supper, lodging,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[443]</a></span>
+horse-feed, and breakfast, which my valiant uncle,
+betraying no signs of fear, resolutely paid.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe has woven this incident into chapter
+thirty-two of "Oldtown Folks," where Uncle Ike figures
+as Uncle Jacob.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe had misgivings as to the reception which
+"Oldtown Folks" would meet in England, owing to
+its distinctively New England character. Shortly after
+the publication of the book she received the following
+words of encouragement from Mrs. Lewes (George
+Eliot), July 11, 1869:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have received and read 'Oldtown Folks.' I
+think that few of your readers can have felt more interest
+than I have felt in that picture of an elder generation;
+for my interest in it has a double root,&mdash;one in
+my own love for our old-fashioned provincial life, which
+had its affinities with a contemporary life, even all
+across the Atlantic, and of which I have gathered
+glimpses in different phases from my father and mother,
+with their relations; the other is my experimental acquaintance
+with some shades of Calvinistic orthodoxy.
+I think your way of presenting the religious convictions
+which are not your own, except by the way of indirect
+fellowship, is a triumph of insight and true tolerance.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+Both Mr. Lewes and I are deeply interested in the
+indications which the professor gives of his peculiar
+psychological experience, and we should feel it a great
+privilege to learn much more of it from his lips. It is
+a rare thing to have such an opportunity of studying
+exceptional experience in the testimony of a truthful
+and in every way distinguished mind."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[444]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oldtown Folks" is of interest as being undoubtedly
+the last of Mrs. Stowe's works which will outlive the
+generation for which it was written. Besides its intrinsic
+merit as a work of fiction, it has a certain historic
+value as being a faithful study of "New England life
+and character in that particular time of its history
+which may be called the seminal period."</p>
+
+<p>Whether Mrs. Stowe was far enough away from the
+time and people she attempts to describe to "make
+(her) mind as still and passive as a looking-glass or a
+mountain lake, and to give merely the images reflected
+there," is something that will in great part determine
+the permanent value of this work. Its interest as a
+story merely is of course ephemeral.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[445]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX.<br />
+
+<small>THE BYRON CONTROVERSY, <b>1869-1870</b>.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Mrs. Stowe's Statement of her own Case.&mdash;The Circumstances
+under which she first met Lady Byron.&mdash;Letters to Lady
+Byron.&mdash;Letter to Dr. Holmes when about to publish "The
+True Story of Lady Byron's Life" in the "Atlantic."&mdash;Dr.
+Holmes's Reply.&mdash;The Conclusion of the Matter.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> seems impossible to avoid the unpleasant episode
+in Mrs. Stowe's life known as the "Byron Controversy."
+It will be our effort to deal with the matter
+as colorlessly as is consistent with an adequate setting
+forth of the motives which moved Mrs. Stowe to
+awaken this unsavory discussion. In justification of
+her action in this matter, Mrs. Stowe says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What interest have you and I, my brother and my
+sister, in this short life of ours, to utter anything but
+the truth? Is not truth between man and man, and
+between man and woman, the foundation on which all
+things rest? Have you not, every individual of you,
+who must hereafter give an account yourself alone to
+God, an interest to know the exact truth in this matter,
+and a duty to perform as respects that truth? Hear
+me, then, while I tell you the position in which I stood,
+and what was my course in relation to it.</p>
+
+<p>"A shameless attack on my friend's memory had
+appeared in the 'Blackwood' of July, 1869, branding
+Lady Byron as the vilest of criminals, and recommending<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[446]</a></span>
+the Guiccioli book to a Christian public as interesting
+from the very fact that it was the avowed production
+of Lord Byron's mistress. No efficient protest
+was made against this outrage in England, and Littell's
+'Living Age' reprinted the 'Blackwood' article, and
+the Harpers, the largest publishing house in America,
+perhaps in the world, republished the book.</p>
+
+<p>"Its statements&mdash;with those of the 'Blackwood,'
+'Pall Mall Gazette,' and other English periodicals&mdash;were
+being propagated through all the young reading
+and writing world of America. I was meeting them
+advertised in dailies, and made up into articles in magazines,
+and thus the generation of to-day, who had no
+means of judging Lady Byron but by these fables of
+her slanderers, were being foully deceived. The friends
+who knew her personally were a small, select circle in
+England, whom death is every day reducing. They
+were few in number compared with the great world, and
+were <i>silent</i>. I saw these foul slanders crystallizing into
+history, uncontradicted by friends who knew her personally,
+who, firm in their own knowledge of her virtues,
+and limited in view as aristocratic circles generally
+are, had no idea of the width of the world they were
+living in, and the exigency of the crisis. When time
+passed on and no voice was raised, I spoke."</p>
+
+<p>It is hardly necessary to recapitulate, at any great
+length, facts already so familiar to the reading public;
+it may be sufficient simply to say that after the appearance
+in 1868 of the Countess Guiccioli's "Recollections
+of Lord Byron," Mrs. Stowe felt herself called upon to
+defend the memory of her friend from what she esteemed
+to be falsehoods and slanders. To accomplish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[447]</a></span>
+this object, she prepared for the "Atlantic Monthly"
+of September, 1869, an article, "The True Story of
+Lady Byron's Life." Speaking of her first impressions
+of Lady Byron, Mrs. Stowe says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I formed her acquaintance in the year 1853, during
+my first visit to England. I met her at a lunch
+party in the house of one of her friends. When I was
+introduced to her, I felt in a moment the words of her
+husband:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"'There was awe in the homage that she drew;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Her spirit seemed as seated on a throne.'"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>It was in the fall of 1856, on the occasion of Mrs.
+Stowe's second visit to England, as she and her sister
+were on their way to Eversley to visit the Rev. C.
+Kingsley, that they stopped by invitation to lunch with
+Lady Byron at her summer residence at Ham Common,
+near Richmond. At that time Lady Byron informed
+Mrs. Stowe that it was her earnest desire to receive a
+visit from her on her return, as there was a subject of
+great importance concerning which she desired her advice.
+Mrs. Stowe has thus described this interview
+with Lady Byron:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"After lunch, I retired with Lady Byron, and my
+sister remained with her friends. I should here remark
+that the chief subject of the conversation which ensued
+was not entirely new to me.</p>
+
+<p>"In the interval between my first and second visits
+to England, a lady who for many years had enjoyed
+Lady Byron's friendship and confidence had, with her
+consent, stated the case generally to me, giving some of
+the incidents, so that I was in a manner prepared for
+what followed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[448]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Those who accuse Lady Byron of being a person
+fond of talking upon this subject, and apt to make unconsidered
+confidences, can have known very little of
+her, of her reserve, and of the apparent difficulty she
+had in speaking on subjects nearest her heart. Her
+habitual calmness and composure of manner, her collected
+dignity on all occasions, are often mentioned by
+her husband, sometimes with bitterness, sometimes with
+admiration. He says: 'Though I accuse Lady Byron
+of an excess of self-respect, I must in candor admit
+that, if ever a person had excuse for an extraordinary
+portion of it, she has, as in all her thoughts, words, and
+deeds she is the most decorous woman that ever existed,
+and must appear, what few I fancy could, a perfectly
+refined gentlewoman, even to her <i>femme de chambre</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>"This calmness and dignity were never more manifested
+than in this interview. In recalling the conversation
+at this distance of time, I cannot remember all
+the language used. Some particular words and forms
+of expression I do remember, and those I give; and in
+other cases I give my recollection of the substance of
+what was said.</p>
+
+<p>"There was something awful to me in the intensity
+of repressed emotion which she showed as she proceeded.
+The great fact upon which all turned was
+stated in words that were unmistakable."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe goes on to give minutely Lady Byron's
+conversation, and concludes by saying:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Of course I did not listen to this story as one who
+was investigating its worth. I received it as truth, and
+the purpose for which it was communicated was not to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[449]</a></span>
+enable me to prove it to the world, but to ask my
+opinion whether she should show it to the world before
+leaving it. The whole consultation was upon the assumption
+that she had at her command such proofs as
+could not be questioned. Concerning what they were
+I did not minutely inquire, only, in answer to a general
+question, she said that she had letters and documents
+in proof of her story. Knowing Lady Byron's strength
+of mind, her clear-headedness, her accurate habits, and
+her perfect knowledge of the matter, I considered her
+judgment on this point decisive. I told her that I
+would take the subject into consideration and give my
+opinion in a few days. That night, after my sister and
+myself had retired to our own apartment, I related to
+her the whole history, and we spent the night in talking
+it over. I was powerfully impressed with the justice
+and propriety of an immediate disclosure; while
+she, on the contrary, represented the fatal consequences
+that would probably come upon Lady Byron from taking
+such a step.</p>
+
+<p>Before we parted the next day, I requested Lady
+Byron to give me some memoranda of such dates and
+outlines of the general story as would enable me better
+to keep it in its connection, which she did. On giving
+me the paper, Lady Byron requested me to return it to
+her when it had ceased to be of use to me for the purpose
+intended. Accordingly, a day or two after, I inclosed
+it to her in a hasty note, as I was then leaving
+London for Paris, and had not yet had time fully to
+consider the subject. On reviewing my note I can recall
+that then the whole history appeared to me like one
+of those singular cases where unnatural impulses to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[450]</a></span>
+vice are the result of a taint of constitutional insanity.
+This has always seemed to me the only way of accounting
+for instances of utterly motiveless and abnormal
+wickedness and cruelty. These, my first impressions,
+were expressed in the hasty note written at the time:</p>
+
+<div class='right'>
+<span class="smcap">London</span>, <i>November 5, 1856.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dearest Friend</span>,&mdash;I return these. They have held
+mine eyes waking. How strange! How unaccountable!
+Have you ever subjected the facts to the judgment
+of a medical man, learned in nervous pathology?
+Is it not insanity?</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Great wits to madness nearly are allied,<br />
+And thin partitions do their bounds divide."<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>But my purpose to-night is not to write to you fully
+what I think of this matter. I am going to write to
+you from Paris more at leisure.</p>
+
+<p>(The rest of the letter was taken up in the final
+details of a charity in which Lady Byron had been
+engaged with me in assisting an unfortunate artist. It
+concludes thus:)</p>
+
+<p>I write now in all haste, <i>en route</i> for Paris. As to
+America, all is not lost yet. Farewell. I love you, my
+dear friend, as never before, with an intense feeling that
+I cannot easily express. God bless you.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+H. B. S.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>The next letter is as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Paris</span>, <i>December 17, 1856.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Lady Byron</span>,&mdash;The Kansas Committee have
+written me a letter desiring me to express to Miss &mdash;&mdash;
+their gratitude for the five pounds she sent them. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[451]</a></span>
+am not personally acquainted with her, and must return
+these acknowledgments through you.</p>
+
+<p>I wrote you a day or two since, inclosing the reply
+of the Kansas Committee to you.</p>
+
+<p>On that subject on which you spoke to me the last
+time we were together, I have thought often and
+deeply. I have changed my mind somewhat. Considering
+the peculiar circumstances of the case, I could
+wish that the sacred veil of silence, so bravely thrown
+over the past, should never be withdrawn during the
+time that you remain with us. I would say then, leave
+all with some discreet friends, who, after both have
+passed from earth, shall say what was due to justice.
+I am led to think this by seeing how low, how unworthy,
+the judgments of this world are; and I would
+not that what I so much respect, love, and revere should
+be placed within reach of its harpy claw, which pollutes
+what it touches. The day will yet come which will
+bring to light every hidden thing. "There is nothing
+covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that
+shall not be known;" and so justice will not fail.</p>
+
+<p>Such, my dear friend, are my thoughts; different
+from what they were since first I heard that strange,
+sad history. Meanwhile I love you forever, whether
+we meet again on earth or not.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Affectionately yours,</span><br />
+H. B. S.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Before her article appeared in print, Mrs. Stowe
+addressed the following letter to Dr. Holmes in Boston:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[452]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Hartford</span>, <i>June 26, 1869.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Doctor</span>,&mdash;I am going to ask help of you,
+and I feel that confidence in your friendship that leads
+me to be glad that I have a friend like you to ask
+advice of. In order that you may understand fully
+what it is, I must go back some years and tell you
+about it.</p>
+
+<p>When I went to England the first time, I formed a
+friendship with Lady Byron which led to a somewhat
+interesting correspondence. When there the second
+time, after the publication of "Dred" in 1856, Lady
+Byron wrote to me that she wished to have some private
+confidential conversation with me, and invited me
+to come spend a day with her at her country-seat near
+London. I went, met her alone, and spent an afternoon
+with her. The object of the visit she then
+explained to me. She was in such a state of health
+that she considered she had very little time to live, and
+was engaged in those duties and reviews which every
+thoughtful person finds who is coming deliberately, and
+with their eyes open, to the boundaries of this mortal
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Byron, as you must perceive, has all her life
+lived under a weight of slanders and false imputations
+laid upon her by her husband. Her own side of the
+story has been told only to that small circle of confidential
+friends who needed to know it in order to assist
+her in meeting the exigencies which it imposed on her.
+Of course it has thrown the sympathy mostly on his
+side, since the world generally has more sympathy with
+impulsive incorrectness than with strict justice.</p>
+
+<p>At that time there was a cheap edition of Byron's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[453]</a></span>
+works in contemplation, meant to bring them into circulation
+among the masses, and the pathos arising from
+the story of his domestic misfortunes was one great
+means relied on for giving it currency.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances some of Lady Byron's
+friends had proposed the question to her whether she
+had not a responsibility to society for the truth;
+whether she did right to allow these persons to gain
+influence over the popular mind by a silent consent to
+an utter falsehood. As her whole life had been passed
+in the most heroic self-abnegation and self sacrifice, the
+question was now proposed to her whether one more
+act of self-denial was not required of her, namely, to
+declare <i>the truth</i>, no matter at what expense to her
+own feelings.</p>
+
+<p>For this purpose she told me she wished to recount
+the whole story to a person in whom she had confidence,&mdash;a
+person of another country, and out of the
+whole sphere of personal and local feelings which
+might be supposed to influence those in the country
+and station in life where the events really happened,&mdash;in
+order that I might judge whether anything more was
+required of her in relation to this history.</p>
+
+<p>The interview had almost the solemnity of a death-bed
+confession, and Lady Byron told me the history
+which I have embodied in an article to appear in the
+"Atlantic Monthly." I have been induced to prepare
+it by the run which the Guiccioli book is having,
+which is from first to last an unsparing attack on
+Lady Byron's memory by Lord Byron's mistress.</p>
+
+<p>When you have read my article, I want, <i>not</i> your
+advice as to whether the main facts shall be told, for on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[454]</a></span>
+this point I am so resolved that I frankly say advice
+would do me no good. But you might help me, with
+your delicacy and insight, to make the <i>manner of telling</i>
+more perfect, and I want to do it as wisely and
+well as such story can be told.</p>
+
+<p>My post-office address after July 1st will be Westport
+Point, Bristol Co., Mass., care of Mrs. I. M.
+Soule. The proof-sheets will be sent you by the publisher.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Very truly yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>In reply to the storm of controversy aroused by the
+publication of this article, Mrs. Stowe made a more
+extended effort to justify the charges which she had
+brought against Lord Byron, in a work published in
+1869, "Lady Byron Vindicated." Immediately after
+the publication of this work, she mailed a copy to Dr.
+Oliver Wendell Holmes, accompanied by the following
+note:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>May 19, 1869.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Doctor</span>,&mdash; .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. In writing this book, which I
+now take the liberty of sending to you, I have been in
+.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. a "critical place." It has been a strange, weird sort
+of experience, and I have had not a word to say to
+anybody, though often thinking of you and wishing I
+could have a little of your help and sympathy in getting
+out what I saw. I think of you very much, and
+rejoice to see the <i>hold</i> your works get on England as
+well as this country, and I would give more for your
+opinion than that of most folks. How often I have
+pondered your last letter to me, and sent it to many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[455]</a></span>
+(friends)! God bless you. Please accept for yourself
+and your good wife, this copy.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">From yours truly,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe also published in 1870, through Sampson
+Low &amp; Son, of London, a volume for English readers,
+"The History of the Byron Controversy." These
+additional volumes, however, do not seem to have satisfied
+the public as a whole, and perhaps the expediency
+of the publication of Mrs. Stowe's first article is doubtful,
+even to her most ardent admirers. The most that
+can be hoped for, through the mention of the subject
+in this biography, is the vindication of Mrs. Stowe's
+purity of motive and nobility of intention in bringing
+this painful matter into notice.</p>
+
+<p>While she was being on all hands effectively, and evidently
+in some quarters with rare satisfaction, roundly
+abused for the article, and her consequent responsibility
+in bringing this unsavory discussion so prominently
+before the public mind, she received the following letter
+from Dr. O. W. Holmes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>September 25, 1869.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Mrs. Stowe</span>,&mdash;I have been meaning to
+write to you for some time, but in the midst of all the
+wild and virulent talk about the article in the "Atlantic,"
+I felt as if there was little to say until the first
+fury of the storm had blown over.</p>
+
+<p>I think that we all perceive now that the battle is
+not to be fought here, but in England. I have listened
+to a good deal of talk, always taking your side in a
+quiet way, backed very heartily on one occasion by one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[456]</a></span>
+of my most intellectual friends, reading all that came
+in my way, and watching the course of opinion. And
+first, it was to be expected that the Guiccioli fanciers
+would resent any attack on Lord Byron, and would
+highly relish the opportunity of abusing one who, like
+yourself, had been identified with all those moral enterprises
+which elevate the standard of humanity at large,
+and of womanhood in particular. After this scum had
+worked itself off, there must necessarily follow a controversy,
+none the less sharp and bitter, but not depending
+essentially on abuse. The first point the recusants
+got hold of was the error of the two years which contrived
+to run the gauntlet of so many pairs of eyes.
+Some of them were made happy by mouthing and
+shaking this between their teeth, as a poodle tears
+round with a glove. This did not last long. No sensible
+person could believe for a moment you were mistaken
+in the essential character of a statement every
+word of which would fall on the ear of a listening
+friend like a drop of melted lead, and burn its scar deep
+into the memory. That Lady Byron believed and told
+you the story will not be questioned by any but fools
+and malignants. Whether her belief was well founded
+there may be positive evidence in existence to show
+affirmatively. The fact that her statement is not peremptorily
+contradicted by those most likely to be acquainted
+with the facts of the case, is the one result
+so far which is forcing itself into unwilling recognition.
+I have seen nothing, in the various hypotheses
+brought forward, which did not to me involve a greater
+improbability than the presumption of guilt. Take
+that, for witness, that Byron accused himself, through a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[457]</a></span>
+spirit of perverse vanity, of crimes he had not committed.
+How preposterous! He would stain the name
+of a sister, whom, on the supposition of his innocence,
+he loved with angelic ardor as well as purity, by associating
+it with such an infamous accusation. Suppose
+there are some anomalies hard to explain in Lady
+Byron's conduct. Could a young and guileless woman,
+in the hands of such a man, be expected to act in any
+given way, or would she not be likely to waver, to
+doubt, to hope, to contradict herself, in the anomalous
+position in which, without experience, she found herself?</p>
+
+<p>As to the intrinsic evidence contained in the poems,
+I think it confirms rather than contradicts the hypothesis
+of guilt. I do not think that Butler's argument,
+and all the other attempts at invalidation of the story,
+avail much in the face of the acknowledged fact that it
+was told to various competent and honest witnesses, and
+remains without a satisfactory answer from those most
+interested.</p>
+
+<p>I know your firm self-reliance, and your courage to
+proclaim the truth when any good end is to be served
+by it. It is to be expected that public opinion will be
+more or less divided as to the expediency of this revelation.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>Hoping that you have recovered from your indisposition,
+I am</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Faithfully yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">O. W. Holmes</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>While undergoing the most unsparing and pitiless
+criticism and brutal insult, Mrs. Stowe received the
+following sympathetic words from Mrs. Lewes (George
+Eliot):&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[458]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">The Priory, 21 North Bank</span>, <i>December 10, 1869.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,&mdash; .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. In the midst of your
+trouble I was often thinking of you, for I feared that
+you were undergoing a considerable trial from the harsh
+and unfair judgments, partly the fruit of hostility glad
+to find an opportunity for venting itself, and partly of
+that unthinking cruelty which belongs to hasty anonymous
+journalism. For my own part, I should have preferred
+that the Byron question should never have been
+brought before the public, because I think the discussion
+of such subjects is injurious socially. But with
+regard to yourself, dear friend, I feel sure that, in acting
+on a different basis of impressions, you were impelled
+by pure, generous feeling. Do not think that I
+would have written to you of this point to express a
+judgment. I am anxious only to convey to you a sense
+of my sympathy and confidence, such as a kiss and a
+pressure of the hand could give if I were near you.</p>
+
+<p>I trust that I shall hear a good account of Professor
+Stowe's health, as well as your own, whenever you have
+time to write me a word or two. I shall not be so unreasonable
+as to expect a long letter, for the hours of
+needful rest from writing become more and more precious
+as the years go on, but some brief news of you
+and yours will be especially welcome just now. Mr.
+Lewes unites with me in high regards to your husband
+and yourself, but in addition to that I have the sister
+woman's privilege of saying that I am always</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Your affectionate friend,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">M. H. Lewes</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[459]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XX.<br />
+
+<small>GEORGE ELIOT.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Correspondence with George Eliot.&mdash;George Eliot's First Impressions
+of Mrs. Stowe.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe's Letter to Mrs.
+Follen.&mdash;George Eliot's Letter to Mrs. Stowe.&mdash;Mrs.
+Stowe's Reply.&mdash;Life in Florida.&mdash;Robert Dale Owen and
+Modern Spiritualism.&mdash;George Eliot's Letter on the Phenomena
+of Spiritualism.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe's Description of
+Scenery in Florida.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe concerning "Middlemarch."&mdash;George
+Eliot to Mrs. Stowe during Rev. H. W.
+Beecher's Trial.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe concerning her Life Experience
+with her Brother, H. W. Beecher, and his Trial.&mdash;Mrs.
+Lewes' Last Letter to Mrs. Stowe.&mdash;Diverse Mental
+Characteristics of these Two Women.&mdash;Mrs. Stowe's Final
+Estimate of Modern Spiritualism.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is with a feeling of relief that we turn from one of
+the most disagreeable experiences of Mrs. Stowe's life
+to one of the most delightful, namely, the warm friendship
+of one of the most eminent women of this age,
+George Eliot.</p>
+
+<p>There seems to have been some deep affinity of feeling
+that drew them closely together in spite of diversity
+of intellectual tastes.</p>
+
+<p>George Eliot's attention was first personally attracted
+to Mrs. Stowe in 1853, by means of a letter which the
+latter had written to Mrs. Follen. Speaking of this
+incident she (George Eliot) writes: "Mrs. Follen
+showed me a delightful letter which she has just had
+from Mrs. Stowe, telling all about herself. She begins<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[460]</a></span>
+by saying, 'I am a little bit of a woman, rather more
+than forty, as withered and dry as a pinch of snuff;
+never very well worth looking at in my best days, and
+now a decidedly used-up article.' The whole letter is
+most fascinating, and makes one love her."<a name="FNanchor_17_18" id="FNanchor_17_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_18" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<p>The correspondence between these two notable women
+was begun by Mrs. Stowe, and called forth the
+following extremely interesting letter from the distinguished
+English novelist:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">The Priory, 21 North Bank</span>, <i>May 8, 1869.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I value very highly the warrant
+to call you friend which your letter has given me. It
+lay awaiting me on our return the other night from a
+nine weeks' absence in Italy, and it made me almost
+wish that you could have a momentary vision of the discouragement,&mdash;nay,
+paralyzing despondency&mdash;in which
+many days of my writing life have been passed, in order
+that you might fully understand the good I find in
+such sympathy as yours, in such an assurance as you
+give me that my work has been worth doing. But I
+will not dwell on any mental sickness of mine. The
+best joy your words give me is the sense of that sweet,
+generous feeling in you which dictated them. I shall
+always be the richer because you have in this way made
+me know you better. I must tell you that my first
+glimpse of you as a woman came through a letter of
+yours, and charmed me very much. The letter was addressed
+to Mrs. Follen, and one morning I called on
+her in London (how many years ago!); she was kind
+enough to read it to me, because it contained a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[461]</a></span>
+history of your life, and a sketch of your domestic
+circumstances. I remember thinking that it was very
+kind of you to write that long letter, in reply to inquiries
+of one who was personally unknown to you;
+and, looking back with my present experience, I think
+it was kinder than it then appeared, for at that time
+you must have been much oppressed with the immediate
+results of your fame. I remember, too, that you wrote
+of your husband as one who was richer in Hebrew and
+Greek than in pounds or shillings; and as an ardent
+scholar has always been a character of peculiar interest
+to me, I have rarely had your image in my mind without
+the accompanying image (more or less erroneous) of
+such a scholar by your side. I shall welcome the fruit
+of his Goethe studies, whenever it comes.</p>
+
+<p>I have good hopes that your fears are groundless as
+to the obstacles your new book ("Oldtown Folks") may
+find here from its thorough American character. Most
+readers who are likely to be really influenced by writing
+above the common order will find that special aspect
+an added reason for interest and study; and I dare say
+you have long seen, as I am beginning to see with new
+clearness, that if a book which has any sort of exquisiteness
+happens also to be a popular, widely circulated
+book, the power over the social mind for any good is,
+after all, due to its reception by a few appreciative natures,
+and is the slow result of radiation from that narrow
+circle. I mean that you can affect a few souls, and
+that each of these in turn may affect a few more, but
+that no exquisite book tells properly and directly on a
+multitude, however largely it may be spread by type and
+paper. Witness the things the multitude will say about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[462]</a></span>
+it, if one is so unhappy as to be obliged to hear their
+sayings. I do not write this cynically, but in pure sadness
+and pity. Both traveling abroad and staying at
+home among our English sights and sports, one must
+continually feel how slowly the centuries work toward
+the moral good of men, and that thought lies very close
+to what you say as to your wonder or conjecture concerning
+my religious point of view. I believe that
+religion, too, has to be modified according to the dominant
+phases; that a religion more perfect than any yet
+prevalent must express less care of personal consolation,
+and the more deeply awing sense of responsibility to
+man springing from sympathy with that which of all
+things is most certainly known to us,&mdash;the difficulty
+of the human lot. Letters are necessarily narrow and
+fragmentary, and when one writes on wide subjects, are
+likely to create more misunderstanding than illumination.
+But I have little anxiety in writing to you, dear
+friend and fellow-laborer; for you have had longer
+experience than I as a writer, and fuller experience as
+a woman, since you have borne children and known a
+mother's history from the beginning. I trust your
+quick and long-taught mind as an interpreter little
+liable to mistake me.</p>
+
+<p>When you say, "We live in an orange grove, and are
+planting many more," and when I think you must have
+abundant family love to cheer you, it seems to me that
+you must have a paradise about you. But no list of
+circumstances will make a paradise. Nevertheless, I
+must believe that the joyous, tender humor of your
+books clings about your more immediate life, and
+makes some of that sunshine for yourself which you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[463]</a></span>
+have given to us. I see the advertisement of "Oldtown
+Folks," and shall eagerly expect it. That and
+every other new link between us will be reverentially
+valued. With great devotion and regard,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours always,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">M. L. Lewes</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe writes from Mandarin to George Eliot:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Mandarin</span>, <i>February 8, 1872.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>,&mdash;It is two years nearly since I had
+your last very kind letter, and I have never answered,
+because two years of constant and severe work have
+made it impossible to give a drop to anything beyond
+the needs of the hour. Yet I have always thought of
+you, loved you, trusted you all the same, and read
+every little scrap from your writing that came to hand.</p>
+
+<p>One thing brings you back to me. I am now in
+Florida in my little hut in the orange orchard, with the
+broad expanse of the blue St. John's in front, and the
+waving of the live-oaks, with their long, gray mosses,
+overhead, and the bright gold of oranges looking
+through dusky leaves around. It is like Sorrento,&mdash;so
+like that I can quite dream of being there. And when
+I get here I enter another life. The world recedes; I
+am out of it; it ceases to influence; its bustle and noise
+die away in the far distance; and here is no winter, an
+open-air life,&mdash;a quaint, rude, wild wilderness sort of
+life, both rude and rich; but when I am here I write
+more letters to friends than ever I do elsewhere. The
+mail comes only twice a week, and then is the event of
+the day. My old rabbi and I here set up our tent, he
+with German, and Greek, and Hebrew, devouring all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[464]</a></span>
+sorts of black-letter books, and I spinning ideal webs
+out of bits that he lets fall here and there.</p>
+
+<p>I have long thought that I would write you again
+when I got here, and so I do. I have sent North to
+have them send me the "Harper's Weekly," in which
+your new story is appearing, and have promised myself
+leisurely to devour and absorb every word of it.</p>
+
+<p>While I think of it I want to introduce to you a
+friend of mine, a most noble man, Mr. Owen, for some
+years our ambassador at Naples, now living a literary
+and scholar life in America. His father was Robert
+Dale Owen, the theorist and communist you may have
+heard of in England some years since.</p>
+
+<p>Years ago, in Naples, I visited Mr. Owen for the
+first time, and found him directing his attention to the
+phenomena of spiritism. He had stumbled upon some
+singular instances of it accidentally, and he had forthwith
+instituted a series of researches and experiments
+on the subject, some of which he showed me. It was
+the first time I had ever seriously thought of the matter,
+and he invited my sister and myself to see some of
+the phenomena as exhibited by a medium friend of
+theirs who resided in their family. The result at the
+time was sufficiently curious, but I was interested in his
+account of the manner in which he proceeded, keeping
+records of every experiment with its results, in classified
+orders. As the result of his studies and observations,
+he has published two books, one "Footfalls on the
+Boundary of Another World," published in 1860, and
+latterly, "The Debatable Land Between this World and
+the Next." I regard Mr. Owen as one of the few men
+who are capable of entering into an inquiry of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[465]</a></span>
+kind without an utter drowning of common sense, and
+his books are both of them worth a fair reading. To
+me they present a great deal that is intensely curious and
+interesting, although I do not admit, of course, all his
+deductions, and think he often takes too much for
+granted. Still, with every abatement there remains a
+residuum of fact, which I think both curious and useful.
+In a late letter to me he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There is no writer of the present day whom I
+more esteem than Mrs. Lewes, nor any one whose opinion
+of my work I should more highly value."</p>
+
+<p>I believe he intends sending them to you, and I hope
+you will read them. Lest some of the narratives should
+strike you, as such narratives did me once, as being a
+perfect Arabian Nights' Entertainment, I want to say
+that I have accidentally been in the way of confirming
+some of the most remarkable by personal observation.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+In regard to all this class of subjects, I am of the
+opinion of Goethe, that "it is just as absurd to deny
+the facts of spiritualism now as it was in the Middle
+Ages to ascribe them to the Devil." I think Mr.
+Owen attributes too much value to his facts. I do not
+think the things contributed from the ultra-mundane
+sphere are particularly valuable, apart from the evidence
+they give of continued existence after death.</p>
+
+<p>I do not think there is yet any evidence to warrant
+the idea that they are a supplement or continuation of
+the revelations of Christianity, but I do regard them as
+an interesting and curious study in psychology, and every
+careful observer like Mr. Owen ought to be welcomed
+to bring in his facts. With this I shall send you my
+observations on Mr. Owen's books, from the "Christian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[466]</a></span>
+Union." I am perfectly aware of the frivolity and
+worthlessness of much of the revealings purporting to
+come from spirits. In my view, the worth or worthlessness
+of them has nothing to do with the question of
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>Do invisible spirits speak in any wise,&mdash;wise or foolish?&mdash;is
+the question <i>a priori</i>? I do not know of any
+reason why there should not be as many foolish virgins
+in the future state as in this. As I am a believer in
+the Bible and Christianity, I don't need these things as
+confirmations, and they are not likely to be a religion
+to me. I regard them simply as I do the phenomena
+of the Aurora Borealis, or Darwin's studies on natural
+selection, as curious studies into nature. Besides, I
+think some day we shall find a law by which all these
+facts will fall into their places.</p>
+
+<p>I hope now this subject does not bore you: it certainly
+is one that seems increasingly to insist on getting
+itself heard. It is going on and on, making converts,
+who are many more than dare avow themselves, and
+for my part I wish it were all brought into the daylight
+of inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>Let me hear from you if ever you feel like it. I know
+too well the possibilities and impossibilities of a nature
+like yours to ask more, but it can do you no harm to
+know that I still think of you and love you as ever.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Faithfully yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">The Priory, 21 North Bank, Regent's Park</span>, <i>March 4, 1872.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I can understand very easily that
+the two last years have been full for you of other and
+more imperative work than the writing of letters not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[467]</a></span>
+absolutely demanded either by charity or business.
+The proof that you still think of me affectionately is
+very welcome now it has come, and more cheering because
+it enables me to think of you as enjoying your
+retreat in your orange orchard,&mdash;your western Sorrento&mdash;the
+beloved rabbi still beside you. I am sure it
+must be a great blessing to you to bathe in that quietude,
+as it always is to us when we go out of reach of
+London influences and have the large space of country
+days to study, walk, and talk in.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>When I am more at liberty I will certainly read Mr.
+Owen's books, if he is good enough to send them to
+me. I desire on all subjects to keep an open mind, but
+hitherto the various phenomena, reported or attested in
+connection with ideas of spirit intercourse and so on,
+have come before me here in the painful form of the
+lowest charlatanerie.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>But apart from personal contact with people who get
+money by public exhibitions as mediums, or with semi-idiots
+such as those who make a court for a Mrs. &mdash;&mdash;,
+or other feminine personages of that kind, I would not
+willingly place any barriers between my mind and any
+possible channel of truth affecting the human lot. The
+spirit in which you have written in the paper you kindly
+sent me is likely to touch others, and arouse them at
+least to attention in a case where you have been deeply
+impressed.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours with sincere affection,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">M. L. Lewes</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[468]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>(Begun April 4th.)</p>
+
+<div class='right'>
+<span class="smcap">Mandarin, Florida</span>, <i>May 11, 1872.</i><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I was very glad to get your
+dear little note,&mdash;sorry to see by it that you are not in
+your full physical force. Owing to the awkwardness
+and misunderstanding of publishers, I am not reading
+"Middlemarch," as I expected to be, here in these
+orange shades: they don't send it, and I am too far
+out of the world to get it. I felt, when I read your
+letters, how glad I should be to have you here in our
+Florida cottage, in the wholly new, wild, woodland life.
+Though resembling Italy in climate, it is wholly different
+in the appearance of nature,&mdash;the plants, the
+birds, the animals, all different. The green tidiness
+and culture of England here gives way to a wild and
+rugged savageness of beauty. Every tree bursts forth
+with flowers; wild vines and creepers execute delirious
+gambols, and weave and interweave in interminable
+labyrinths. Yet here, in the great sandy plains back
+of our house, there is a constant wondering sense of
+beauty in the wild, wonderful growths of nature. First
+of all, the pines&mdash;high as the stone pines of Italy&mdash;with
+long leaves, eighteen inches long, through which
+there is a constant dreamy sound, as if of dashing
+waters. Then the live-oaks and the water-oaks, narrow-leaved
+evergreens, which grow to enormous size,
+and whose branches are draped with long festoons of
+the gray moss. There is a great, wild park of these
+trees back of us, which, with the dazzling, varnished
+green of the new spring leaves and the swaying drapery
+of moss, looks like a sort of enchanted grotto. Underneath
+grow up hollies and ornamental flowering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[469]</a></span>
+shrubs, and the yellow jessamine climbs into and over
+everything with fragrant golden bells and buds, so that
+sometimes the foliage of a tree is wholly hidden in its
+embrace.</p>
+
+<p>This wild, wonderful, bright and vivid growth, that
+is all new, strange, and unknown by name to me, has
+a charm for me. It is the place to forget the outside
+world, and live in one's self. And if you were here,
+we would go together and gather azaleas, and white
+lilies, and silver bells, and blue iris. These flowers keep
+me painting in a sort of madness. I have just finished
+a picture of white lilies that grow in the moist land by
+the watercourses. I am longing to begin on blue iris.
+Artist, poet, as you are by nature, you ought to see all
+these things, and if you would come here I would take
+you in heart and house, and you should have a little
+room in our cottage. The history of the cottage is this:
+I found a hut built close to a great live-oak twenty-five
+feet in girth, and with overarching boughs eighty
+feet up in the air, spreading like a firmament, and all
+swaying with mossy festoons. We began to live here,
+and gradually we improved the hut by lath, plaster, and
+paper. Then we threw out a wide veranda all round,
+for in these regions the veranda is the living-room of
+the house. Ours had to be built around the trunk of
+the tree, so that our cottage has a peculiar and original
+air, and seems as if it were half tree, or a something that
+had grown out of the tree. We added on parts, and
+have thrown out gables and chambers, as a tree throws
+out new branches, till our cottage is like nobody else's,
+and yet we settle into it with real enjoyment. There
+are all sorts of queer little rooms in it, and we are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[470]</a></span>
+accommodating at this present a family of seventeen
+souls. In front, the beautiful, grand St. John's stretches
+five miles from shore to shore, and we watch the steamboats
+plying back and forth to the great world we are
+out of. On all sides, large orange trees, with their
+dense shade and ever-vivid green, shut out the sun so
+that we can sit, and walk, and live in the open air.
+Our winter here is only cool, bracing out-door weather,
+without snow. No month without flowers blooming in
+the open air, and lettuce and peas in the garden. The
+summer range is about 90°, but the sea-breezes keep
+the air delightfully fresh. Generally we go North,
+however, for three months of summer. Well, I did not
+mean to run on about Florida, but the subject runs
+away with me, and I want you to visit us in spirit if
+not personally.</p>
+
+<p>My poor rabbi!&mdash;he sends you some Arabic, which
+I fear you cannot read: on diablerie he is up to his
+ears in knowledge, having read all things in all tongues,
+from the Talmud down.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Ever lovingly yours,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 324px;">
+<img src="images/i470.jpg" width="324" height="580" alt="H B Stowe portrait and signature" />
+</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>September 26, 1872.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I think when you see my name
+again so soon, you will think it rains, hails, and snows
+notes from this quarter. Just now, however, I am in
+this lovely, little nest in Boston, where dear Mrs. Fields,
+like a dove, "sits brooding on the charmed wave." We
+are both wishing we had you here with us, and she has
+not received any answer from you as yet in reply to
+the invitation you spoke of in your last letter to me.
+It seems as if you must have written, and the letter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[471]</a></span>
+somehow gone astray, because I know, of course, you
+would write. Yesterday we were both out of our senses
+with mingled pity and indignation at that dreadful
+stick of a Casaubon,&mdash;and think of poor Dorothea
+dashing like a warm, sunny wave against so cold and
+repulsive a rock! He is a little too dreadful for anything:
+there does not seem to be a drop of warm blood
+in him, and so, as it is his misfortune and not his fault,
+to be cold-blooded, one must not get angry with him.
+It is the scene in the garden, after the interview with
+the doctor, that rests on our mind at this present.
+There was such a man as he over in Boston, high in
+literary circles, but I fancy his wife wasn't like Dorothea,
+and a vastly proper time they had of it, treating
+each other with mutual reverence, like two Chinese
+mandarins.</p>
+
+<p>My love, what I miss in this story is just what we
+would have if you would come to our tumble-down,
+jolly, improper, but joyous country,&mdash;namely, "jollitude."
+You write and live on so high a plane! It is
+all self-abnegation. We want to get you over here,
+and into this house, where, with closed doors, we sometimes
+make the rafters ring with fun, and say anything
+and everything, no matter what, and won't be any
+properer than we's a mind to be. I am wishing every
+day you could see our America,&mdash;travel, as I have been
+doing, from one bright, thriving, pretty, flowery town
+to another, and see so much wealth, ease, progress, culture,
+and all sorts of nice things. This dovecot where
+I now am is the sweetest little nest imaginable; fronting
+on a city street, with back windows opening on a
+sea view, with still, quiet rooms filled with books, pictures,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[472]</a></span>
+and all sorts of things, such as you and Mr. Lewes
+would enjoy. Don't be afraid of the ocean, now! I've
+crossed it six times, and assure you it is an overrated
+item. Froude is coming here&mdash;why not you? Besides,
+we have the fountain of eternal youth here, that
+is, in Florida, where I live, and if you should come you
+would both of you take a new lease of life, and what
+glorious poems, and philosophies, and whatnot, we
+should have! My rabbi writes, in the seventh heaven,
+an account of your note to him. To think of his setting-off
+on his own account when I was away!</p>
+
+<p>Come now, since your answer to dear Mrs. Fields is
+yet to come; let it be a glad yes, and we will clasp you
+to our heart of hearts.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Your ever loving,</span><br />
+H. B. S.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>During the summer of 1874, while Mrs. Stowe's
+brother, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, was the victim
+of a most revolting, malicious, and groundless attack
+on his purity, Mrs. Lewes wrote the following words of
+sympathy:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,&mdash;The other day I had a letter
+from Mrs. Fields, written to let me know something of
+you under that heavy trouble, of which such information
+as I have had has been quite untrustworthy, leaving
+me in entire incredulity in regard to it except on
+this point, that you and yours must be suffering deeply.
+Naturally I thought most of you in the matter (its public
+aspects being indeterminate), and many times before
+our friend's letter came I had said to Mr. Lewes:
+"What must Mrs. Stowe be feeling!" I remember<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[473]</a></span>
+Mrs. Fields once told me of the wonderful courage and
+cheerfulness which belonged to you, enabling you to
+bear up under exceptional trials, and I imagined you
+helping the sufferers with tenderness and counsel, but
+yet, nevertheless, I felt that there must be a bruising
+weight on your heart. Dear, honored friend, you who
+are so ready to give warm fellowship, is it any comfort
+to you to be told that those afar off are caring for you
+in spirit, and will be happier for all good issues that
+may bring you rest?</p>
+
+<p>I cannot, dare not, write more in my ignorance, lest I
+should be using unreasonable words. But I trust in
+your not despising this scrap of paper which tells you,
+perhaps rather for my relief than yours, that I am
+always in grateful, sweet remembrance of your goodness
+to me and your energetic labors for all.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was two years or more before Mrs. Stowe replied
+to these words of sympathy.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'>Orange-blossom time, <span class="smcap">Mandarin</span>, <i>March 18, 1876.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I always think of you when
+the orange trees are in blossom; just now they are
+fuller than ever, and so many bees are filling the
+branches that the air is full of a sort of still murmur.
+And now I am beginning to hear from you every
+month in Harper's. It is as good as a letter. "Daniel
+Deronda" has succeeded in awaking in my somewhat
+worn-out mind an interest. So many stories are tramping
+over one's mind in every modern magazine nowadays
+that one is macadamized, so to speak. It takes
+something unusual to make a sensation. This does<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[474]</a></span>
+excite and interest me, as I wait for each number with
+eagerness. I wish I could endow you with our long
+winter weather,&mdash;not winter, except such as you find
+in Sicily. We live here from November to June, and
+my husband sits outdoors on the veranda and reads
+all day. We emigrate in solid family: my two dear
+daughters, husband, self, and servants come together
+to spend the winter here, and so together to our Northern
+home in summer. My twin daughters relieve me
+from all domestic care; they are lively, vivacious, with a
+real genius for practical life. We have around us a little
+settlement of neighbors, who like ourselves have a
+winter home here, and live an easy, undress, picnic kind
+of life, far from the world and its cares. Mr. Stowe
+has been busy on eight volumes of Görres on the mysticism
+of the Middle Ages.<a name="FNanchor_18_19" id="FNanchor_18_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_19" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> This Görres was Professor
+of Philosophy at Munich, and he reviews the whole
+ground of the shadow-land between the natural and
+the supernatural,&mdash;ecstacy, trance, prophecy, miracles,
+spiritualism, the stigmata, etc. He was a devout Roman
+Catholic, and the so-called facts that he reasons on
+seem to me quite amazing; and yet the possibilities that
+lie between inert matter and man's living, all-powerful,
+immortal soul may make almost anything credible.
+The soul at times can do anything with matter. I
+have been busying myself with Sainte-Beuve's seven
+volumes on the Port Royal development. I like him
+(Sainte-Beuve). His capacity of seeing, doing justice to
+all kinds of natures and sentiments, is wonderful. I am
+sorry he is no longer our side the veil.</p>
+
+<p>There is a redbird (cardinal grosbeak) singing in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[475]</a></span>
+the orange trees fronting my window, so sweetly and
+insistently as to almost stop my writing. I hope, dear
+friend, you are well&mdash;better than when you wrote last.</p>
+
+<p>It was very sweet and kind of you to write what you
+did last. I suppose it is so long ago you may have forgotten,
+but it was a word of tenderness and sympathy
+about my brother's trial; it was womanly, tender, and
+sweet, such as at heart you are. After all, my love of
+you is greater than my admiration, for I think it more
+and better to be really a woman worth loving than to
+have read Greek and German and written books. And
+in this last book I read, I feel more with you in some
+little, fine points,&mdash;they stare at me as making an
+amusing exhibition. For, my dear, I feel myself at
+last as one who has been playing and picnicking on the
+shores of life, and waked from a dream late in the
+afternoon to find that everybody almost has gone over
+to the beyond. And the rest are sorting their things
+and packing their trunks, and waiting for the boat to
+come and take them.</p>
+
+<p>It seems now but a little time since my brother
+Henry and I were two young people together. He
+was my two years junior, and nearest companion out of
+seven brothers and three sisters. I taught him drawing
+and heard his Latin lessons, for you know a girl
+becomes mature and womanly long before a boy. I
+saw him through college, and helped him through the
+difficult love affair that gave him his wife; and then he
+and my husband had a real German, enthusiastic love
+for each other, which ended in making me a wife.
+Ah! in those days we never dreamed that he, or I, or
+any of us, were to be known in the world. All he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[476]</a></span>
+seemed then was a boy full of fun, full of love, full of
+enthusiasm for protecting abused and righting wronged
+people, which made him in those early days write editorials,
+and wear arms and swear himself a special
+policeman to protect the poor negroes in Cincinnati,
+where we then lived, when there were mobs instigated
+by the slaveholders of Kentucky.</p>
+
+<p>Then he married, and lived a missionary life in the
+new West, all with a joyousness, an enthusiasm, a chivalry,
+which made life bright and vigorous to us both.
+Then in time he was called to Brooklyn, just as the
+crisis of the great anti-slavery battle came on, and the
+Fugitive Slave Law was passed. I was then in Maine,
+and I well remember one snowy night his riding till
+midnight to see me, and then our talking, till near
+morning, what we could do to make headway against
+the horrid cruelties that were being practiced against
+the defenseless blacks. My husband was then away
+lecturing, and my heart was burning itself out in indignation
+and anguish. Henry told me then that he
+meant to fight that battle in New York; that he would
+have a church that would stand by him to resist the
+tyrannic dictation of Southern slaveholders. I said: "I,
+too, have begun to do something; I have begun a story,
+trying to set forth the sufferings and wrongs of the
+slaves." "That's right, Hattie," he said; "finish it,
+and I will scatter it thick as the leaves of Vallambrosa,"
+and so came "Uncle Tom," and Plymouth Church became
+a stronghold where the slave always found refuge
+and a strong helper. One morning my brother found
+sitting on his doorstep poor old Paul Edmonson, weeping;
+his two daughters, of sixteen and eighteen, had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[477]</a></span>
+passed into the slave warehouse of Bruin &amp; Hill, and
+were to be sold. My brother took the man by the
+hand to a public meeting, told his story for him, and in
+an hour raised the two thousand dollars to redeem his
+children. Over and over again, afterwards, slaves were
+redeemed at Plymouth Church, and Henry and Plymouth
+Church became words of hatred and fear through
+half the Union. From that time until we talked together
+about the Fugitive Slave Law, there was not a
+pause or stop in the battle till we had been through the
+war and slavery had been wiped out in blood. Through
+all he has been pouring himself out, wrestling, burning,
+laboring everywhere, making stump speeches when
+elections turned on the slave question, and ever maintaining
+that the cause of Christ was the cause of the
+slave. And when all was over, it was he and Lloyd
+Garrison who were sent by government once more to
+raise our national flag on Fort Sumter. You must
+see that a man does not so energize without making
+many enemies. Half of our Union has been defeated,
+a property of millions annihilated by emancipation, a
+proud and powerful slave aristocracy reduced to beggary,
+and there are those who never saw our faces that,
+to this hour, hate him and me. Then he has been a
+progressive in theology. He has been a student of
+Huxley, and Spencer, and Darwin,&mdash;enough to alarm
+the old school,&mdash;and yet remained so ardent a supernaturalist
+as equally to repel the radical destructionists in
+religion. He and I are Christ-worshippers, adoring
+Him as the Image of the Invisible God and all that
+comes from believing this. Then he has been a reformer,
+an advocate of universal suffrage and woman's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[478]</a></span>
+rights, yet not radical enough to please that reform
+party who stand where the Socialists of France do, and
+are for tearing up all creation generally. Lastly,
+he has had the misfortune of a popularity which is perfectly
+phenomenal. I cannot give you any idea of the
+love, worship, idolatry, with which he has been overwhelmed.
+He has something magnetic about him that
+makes everybody crave his society,&mdash;that makes men
+follow and worship him. I remember being at his
+house one evening in the time of early flowers, and in
+that one evening came a box of flowers from Maine,
+another from New Jersey, another from Connecticut,&mdash;all
+from people with whom he had no personal acquaintance,
+who had read something of his and wanted to
+send him some token. I said, "One would think you
+were a <i>prima donna</i>. What does make people go on so
+about you?"</p>
+
+<p>My brother is hopelessly generous and confiding.
+His inability to believe evil is something incredible,
+and so has come all this suffering. You said you
+hoped I should be at rest when the first investigating
+committee and Plymouth Church cleared my brother
+almost by acclamation. Not so. The enemy have so
+committed themselves that either they or he must die,
+and there has followed two years of the most dreadful
+struggle. First, a legal trial of six months, the expenses
+of which on his side were one hundred and
+eighteen thousand dollars, and in which he and his
+brave wife sat side by side in the court-room, and heard
+all that these plotters, who had been weaving their webs
+for three years, could bring. The foreman of the jury
+was offered a bribe of ten thousand dollars to decide<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[479]</a></span>
+against my brother. He sent the letter containing the
+proposition to the judge. But with all their plotting,
+three fourths of the jury decided against them, and
+their case was lost. It was accepted as a triumph by
+my brother's friends; a large number of the most influential
+clergy of all denominations so expressed themselves
+in a public letter, and it was hoped the thing
+was so far over that it might be lived down and overgrown
+with better things.</p>
+
+<p>But the enemy, intriguing secretly with all those parties
+in the community who wish to put down a public
+and too successful man, have been struggling to
+bring the thing up again for an ecclesiastical trial. The
+cry has been raised in various religious papers that
+Plymouth Church was in complicity with crime,&mdash;that
+they were so captivated with eloquence and genius
+that they refused to make competent investigation.
+The six months' legal investigation was insufficient; a
+new trial was needed. Plymouth Church immediately
+called a council of ministers and laymen, in number
+representing thirty-seven thousand Congregational
+Christians, to whom Plymouth Church surrendered her
+records,&mdash;her conduct,&mdash;all the facts of the case, and
+this great council unanimously supported the church
+and ratified her decision; recognizing the fact that, in
+all the investigations hitherto, nothing had been proved
+against my brother. They at his request, and that of
+Plymouth Church, appointed a committee of five to
+whom within sixty days any one should bring any facts
+that they could prove, or else forever after hold their
+peace. It is thought now by my brother's friends that
+this thing must finally reach a close. But you see why<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[480]</a></span>
+I have not written. This has drawn on my life&mdash;my
+heart's blood. He is myself; I know you are the
+kind of woman to understand me when I say that I
+felt a blow at him more than at myself. I, who know
+his purity, honor, delicacy, know that he has been
+from childhood of an ideal purity,&mdash;who reverenced
+his conscience as his king, whose glory was redressing
+human wrong, who spake no slander, no, nor listened
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>Never have I known a nature of such strength, and
+such almost childlike innocence. He is of a nature so
+sweet and perfect that, though I have seen him thunderously
+indignant at moments, I never saw him fretful
+or irritable,&mdash;a man who continuously, in every little
+act of life, is thinking of others, a man that all the children
+on the street run after, and that every sorrowful,
+weak, or distressed person looks to as a natural helper.
+In all this long history there has been no circumstance
+of his relation to any woman that has not been worthy
+of himself,&mdash;pure, delicate, and proper; and I know all
+sides of it, and certainly should not say this if there
+were even a misgiving. Thank God, there is none, and
+I can read my New Testament and feel that by all the
+beatitudes my brother is blessed.</p>
+
+<p>His calmness, serenity, and cheerfulness through all
+this time has uplifted us all. Where he was, there was
+no anxiety, no sorrow. My brother's power to console
+is something peculiar and wonderful. I have seen him
+at death-beds and funerals, where it would seem as if
+hope herself must be dumb, bring down the very peace
+of Heaven and change despair to trust. He has not
+had less power in his own adversity. You cannot conceive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[481]</a></span>
+how he is beloved, by those even who never saw
+him,&mdash;old, paralytic, distressed, neglected people, poor
+seamstresses, black people, who have felt these arrows
+shot against their benefactor as against themselves, and
+most touching have been their letters of sympathy.
+From the first, he has met this in the spirit of Francis
+de Sales, who met a similar plot,&mdash;by silence, prayer,
+and work, and when urged to defend himself said "God
+would do it in his time." God was the best judge how
+much reputation he needed to serve Him with.</p>
+
+<p>In your portrait of Deronda, you speak of him as
+one of those rare natures in whom a private wrong
+bred no bitterness. "The sense of injury breeds, not the
+will to inflict injuries, but a hatred of all injury;" and
+I must say, through all this conflict my brother has been
+always in the spirit of Him who touched and healed
+the ear of Malchus when he himself was attacked.
+His friends and lawyers have sometimes been aroused
+and sometimes indignant with his habitual caring for
+others, and his habit of vindicating and extending even
+to his enemies every scrap and shred of justice that
+might belong to them. From first to last of this trial,
+he has never for a day intermitted his regular work.
+Preaching to crowded houses, preaching even in his
+short vacations at watering places, carrying on his missions
+which have regenerated two once wretched districts
+of the city, editing a paper, and in short giving
+himself up to work. He cautioned his church not to
+become absorbed in him and his trials, to prove their
+devotion by more faithful church work and a wider
+charity; and never have the Plymouth missions among
+the poor been so energetic and effective. He said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[482]</a></span>
+recently, "The worst that can befall a man is to stop
+thinking of God and begin to think of himself; if
+trials make us self-absorbed, they hurt us." Well, dear,
+pardon me for this outpour. I loved you&mdash;I love you&mdash;and
+therefore wanted you to know just what I felt.
+Now, dear, this is over, don't think you must reply to it
+or me. I know how much you have to do,&mdash;yes, I
+know all about an aching head and an overtaxed brain.
+This last work of yours is to be your best, I think, and
+I hope it will bring you enough to buy an orange grove
+in Sicily, or somewhere else, and so have lovely weather
+such as we have.</p>
+
+<p>Your ancient admirer,<a name="FNanchor_19_20" id="FNanchor_19_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_20" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> who usually goes to bed at
+eight o'clock, was convicted by me of sitting up after
+eleven over the last installment of "Daniel Deronda," and
+he is full of it. We think well of Guendoline, and that
+she isn't much more than young ladies in general so far.</p>
+
+<p>Next year, if I can possibly do it, I will send you
+some of our oranges. I perfectly long to have you
+enjoy them.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Your very loving</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">H. B. Stowe</span>.<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>P. S. I am afraid I shall write you again when I am
+reading your writings, they are so provokingly suggestive
+of things one wants to say.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+H. B. S.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>In her reply to this letter Mrs. Lewes says, incidentally:
+"Please offer my reverential love to the Professor,
+and tell him I am ruthlessly proud of having kept him
+out of his bed. I hope that both you and he will continue
+to be interested in my spiritual children."</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[483]</a></span></p>
+<p>After Mr. Lewes's death, Mrs. Lewes writes to Mrs.
+Stowe:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">The Priory, 21 North Bank</span>, <i>April 10, 1879.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,&mdash;I have been long without sending
+you any sign (unless you have received a message
+from me through Mrs. Fields), but my heart has been
+going out to you and your husband continually as
+among the chief of the many kind beings who have
+given me their tender fellow-feeling in my last earthly
+sorrow.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. When your first letter came, with the beautiful
+gift of your book,<a name="FNanchor_20_21" id="FNanchor_20_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_21" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> I was unable to read any letters,
+and did not for a long time see what you had sent me.
+But when I did know, and had read your words of
+thankfulness at the great good you have seen wrought
+by your help, I felt glad, for your sake first, and then
+for the sake of the great nation to which you belong.
+The hopes of the world are taking refuge westward,
+under the calamitous conditions, moral and physical, in
+which we of the elder world are getting involved.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>Thank you for telling me that you have the comfort
+of seeing your son in a path that satisfies your best
+wishes for him. I like to think of your having family
+joys. One of the prettiest photographs of a child that
+I possess is one of your sending to me.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>Please offer my reverential, affectionate regards to
+your husband, and believe me, dear friend,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours always gratefully,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">M. L. Lewes</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>As much as has been said with regard to spiritualism
+in these pages, the subject has by no means the prominence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[484]</a></span>
+that it really possessed in the studies and conversations
+of both Professor and Mrs. Stowe.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Stowe's very remarkable psychological development,
+and the exceptional experiences of his early
+life, were sources of conversation of unfailing interest
+and study to both.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Stowe had made an elaborate and valuable
+collection of the literature of the subject, and was, as
+Mrs. Stowe writes, "over head and ears in <i>diablerie</i>."</p>
+
+<p>It is only just to give Mrs. Stowe's views on this perplexing
+theme more at length, and as the mature reflection
+of many years has caused them to take form.</p>
+
+<p>In reference to professional mediums, and spirits that
+peep, rap, and mutter, she writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Each friend takes away a portion of ourselves.
+There was some part of our being related to him as
+to no other, and we had things to say to him which no
+other would understand or appreciate. A portion of
+our thoughts has become useless and burdensome, and
+again and again, with involuntary yearning, we turn to
+the stone at the door of the sepulchre. We lean
+against the cold, silent marble, but there is no answer,&mdash;no
+voice, neither any that regardeth.</p>
+
+<p>"There are those who would have us think that in
+<i>our</i> day this doom is reversed; that there are those who
+have the power to restore to us the communion of our
+lost ones. How many a heart, wrung and tortured with
+the anguish of this fearful silence, has throbbed with
+strange, vague hopes at the suggestion! When we
+hear sometimes of persons of the strongest and clearest
+minds becoming credulous votaries of certain spiritualist
+circles, let us not wonder: if we inquire, we shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[485]</a></span>
+almost always find that the belief has followed some
+stroke of death; it is only an indication of the desperation
+of that heart-hunger which in part it appeases.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, <i>were</i> it true! Were it indeed so that the wall
+between the spiritual and material is growing thin, and
+a new dispensation germinating in which communion
+with the departed blest shall be among the privileges
+and possibilities of this our mortal state! Ah, were it
+so that when we go forth weeping in the gray dawn,
+bearing spices and odors which we long to pour forth
+for the beloved dead, we should indeed find the stone
+rolled away and an angel sitting on it!</p>
+
+<p>"But for us the stone must be rolled away by an <i>unquestionable</i>
+angel, whose countenance is as the lightning,
+who executes no doubtful juggle by pale moonlight
+or starlight, but rolls back the stone in fair, open
+morning, and sits on it. Then we could bless God for
+his mighty gift, and with love, and awe, and reverence
+take up that blessed fellowship with another life, and
+weave it reverently and trustingly into the web of our
+daily course.</p>
+
+<p>"But no such angel have we seen,&mdash;no such sublime,
+unquestionable, glorious manifestation. And when we
+look at what is offered to us, ah! who that had a friend
+in heaven could wish them to return in such wise as
+this? The very instinct of a sacred sorrow seems to
+forbid that our beautiful, our glorified ones should
+stoop lower than even to the medium of their cast-off
+bodies, to juggle, and rap, and squeak, and perform
+mountebank tricks with tables and chairs; to recite over
+in weary sameness harmless truisms, which we were
+wise enough to say for ourselves; to trifle, and banter,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[486]</a></span>
+and jest, or to lead us through endless moonshiny mazes.
+Sadly and soberly we say that, if this be communion
+with the dead, we had rather be without it. We want
+something a little in advance of our present life, and
+not below it. We have read with some attention weary
+pages of spiritual communication purporting to come
+from Bacon, Swedenborg, and others, and long accounts
+from divers spirits of things seen in the spirit
+land, and we can conceive of no more appalling prospect
+than to have them true.</p>
+
+<p>"If the future life is so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
+as we might infer from these readings, one would
+have reason to deplore an immortality from which no
+suicide could give an outlet. To be condemned to such
+eternal prosing would be worse than annihilation.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there, then, no satisfaction for this craving of the
+soul? There is One who says: "I am he that liveth
+and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and
+I have the keys of hell and of death;" and this same
+being said once before: "He that loveth me shall be
+loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest
+myself unto him." This is a promise direct and
+personal; not confined to the first apostles, but stated
+in the most general way as attainable by any one who
+loves and does the will of Jesus. It seems given to us
+as some comfort for the unavoidable heart-breaking
+separations of death that there should be, in that dread
+unknown, one all-powerful Friend with whom it is possible
+to commune, and from whose spirit there may come a
+response to us. Our Elder Brother, the partaker of our
+nature, is not only in the spirit land, but is all-powerful
+there. It is he that shutteth and no man openeth, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[487]</a></span>
+openeth and no man shutteth. He whom we have seen
+in the flesh, weeping over the grave of Lazarus, is he
+who hath the keys of hell and of death. If we cannot
+commune with our friends, we can at least commune
+with Him to whom they are present, who is intimately
+with them as with us. He is the true bond of union
+between the spirit world and our souls; and one blest
+hour of prayer, when we draw near to Him and feel the
+breadth, and length, and depth, and heighth of that love
+of his that passeth knowledge, is better than all those
+incoherent, vain, dreamy glimpses with which longing
+hearts are cheated.</p>
+
+<p>"They who have disbelieved all spiritual truth, who
+have been Sadduceeic doubters of either angel or spirit,
+may find in modern spiritualism a great advance. But
+can one who has ever really had communion with Christ,
+who has said with John, "Truly our fellowship is with
+the Father and the Son,"&mdash;can such an one be satisfied
+with what is found in the modern circle?</p>
+
+<p>"For Christians who have strayed into these inclosures,
+we cannot but recommend the homely but apt
+quotation of old John Newton:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"'What think ye of Christ is the test<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To try both your word and your scheme.'</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"In all these so-called revelations, have there come any
+echoes of the <i>new song</i> which no man save the redeemed
+from earth could learn; any unfoldings of that love
+that passeth knowledge,&mdash;anything, in short, such as
+spirits might utter to whom was unveiled that which
+eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered
+the heart of man to conceive? We must confess that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[488]</a></span>
+all those spirits that yet have spoken appear to be living
+in quite another sphere from John or Paul.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us, then, who long for communion with spirits,
+seek nearness to Him who has promised to speak and
+commune, leaving forever this word to his church:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to
+you.'"</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[489]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI.<br />
+
+<small>CLOSING SCENES, <b>1870-1889</b>.</small></h2>
+
+<div class='summary3'><span class="smcap">Literary Labors.&mdash;Complete List of Published Books.&mdash;First
+Reading Tour.&mdash;Peeps Behind the Curtain.&mdash;Some New
+England Cities.&mdash;A Letter from Maine.&mdash;Pleasant and
+Unpleasant Readings.&mdash;Second Tour.&mdash;A Western Journey.&mdash;Visit
+to Old Scenes.&mdash;Celebration of Seventieth
+Birthday.&mdash;Congratulatory Poems from Mr. Whittier and
+Dr. Holmes.&mdash;Last Words.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Besides</span> the annual journeys to and from Florida,
+and her many interests in the South, Mrs. Stowe's time
+between 1870 and 1880 was largely occupied by literary
+and kindred labors. In the autumn of 1871 we
+find her writing to her daughters as follows regarding
+her work:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have at last finished all my part in the third book
+of mine that is to come out this year, to wit 'Oldtown
+Fireside Stories,' and you can have no idea what a perfect
+luxury of rest it is to be free from all literary
+engagements, of all kinds, sorts, or descriptions. I feel
+like a poor woman I once read about,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"'Who always was tired,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">'Cause she lived in a house</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where help wasn't hired,'</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>and of whom it is related that in her dying moments,</div>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"'She folded her hands<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">With her latest endeavor,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Saying nothing, dear nothing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sweet nothing forever.'</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[490]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am in about her state of mind. I luxuriate in
+laziness. I do not want to do anything or go anywhere.
+I only want to sink down into lazy enjoyment
+of living."</p>
+
+<p>She was certainly well entitled to a rest, for never
+had there been a more laborious literary life. In addition
+to the twenty-three books already written, she had
+prepared for various magazines and journals an incredible
+number of short stories, letters of travel, essays,
+and other articles. Yet with all she had accomplished,
+and tired as she was, she still had seven books to write,
+besides many more short stories, before her work should
+be done. As her literary life did not really begin until
+1852, the bulk of her work has been accomplished
+within twenty-six years, as will be seen from the following
+list of her books, arranged in the chronological
+order of their publication:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<ul class='names'><li>1833. An Elementary Geography.</li>
+<li>1843. The Mayflower.</li>
+<li>1852. Uncle Tom's Cabin.</li>
+<li>1853. Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin.</li>
+<li>1854. Sunny Memories.</li>
+<li>1856. Dred.</li>
+<li>1858. Our Charley.</li>
+<li>1859. Minister's Wooing.</li>
+<li>1862. Pearl of Orr's Island.</li>
+<li>1863. Agnes of Sorrento.</li>
+<li>1864. House and Home Papers.</li>
+<li>1865. Little Foxes.</li>
+<li>1866. Nina Gordon (Formerly "Dred").</li>
+<li>1867. Religious Poems.</li>
+<li>1867. Queer Little People.</li>
+<li>1868. The Chimney Corner.</li>
+<li>1868. Men of Our Times.</li>
+<li>1869. Oldtown Folks.</li>
+<li>1870. Lady Byron Vindicated.</li>
+<li><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[491]</a></span>1871. The History of the Byron Controversy (London).</li>
+<li>1870. Little Pussy Willow.</li>
+<li>1871. Pink and White Tyranny.</li>
+<li>1871. Old Town Fireside Stories.</li>
+<li>1872. My Wife and I.</li>
+<li>1873. Palmetto Leaves.</li>
+<li>1873. Library of Famous Fiction.</li>
+<li>1875. We and Our Neighbors.</li>
+<li>1876. Betty's Bright Idea.</li>
+<li>1877. Footsteps of the Master.</li>
+<li>1878. Bible Heroines.</li>
+<li>1878. Poganuc People.</li>
+<li>1881. A Dog's Mission.</li></ul>
+
+
+
+<p>In 1872 a new and remunerative field of labor was
+opened to Mrs. Stowe, and though it entailed a vast
+amount of weariness and hard work, she entered it
+with her customary energy and enthusiasm. It presented
+itself in the shape of an offer from the American
+Literary (Lecture) Bureau of Boston to deliver a course
+of forty readings from her own works in the principal
+cities of the New England States. The offer was a
+liberal one, and Mrs. Stowe accepted it on condition
+that the reading tour should be ended in time to allow
+her to go to her Florida home in December. This being
+acceded to, she set forth and gave her first reading
+in Bridgeport, Conn., on the evening of September 19,
+1872.</p>
+
+<p>The following extracts from letters written to her
+husband while on this reading tour throw some interesting
+gleams of light on the scenes behind the curtain
+of the lecturer's platform. From Boston, October 3d,
+she writes: "Have had a most successful but fatiguing
+week. Read in Cambridgeport to-night, and Newburyport
+to-morrow night." Two weeks later, upon receipt
+of a letter from her husband, in which he fears he has
+not long to live, she writes from Westfield, Mass:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[492]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have never had a greater trial than being forced
+to stay away from you now. I would not, but that my
+engagements have involved others in heavy expense,
+and should I fail to fulfill them, it would be doing a
+wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"God has given me strength as I needed it, and I
+never read more to my own satisfaction than last night.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my dear husband, please do <i>want</i>, and try,
+to remain with us yet a while longer, and let us have a
+little quiet evening together before either of us crosses
+the river. My heart cries out for a home with you;
+our home together in Florida. Oh, may we see it
+again! Your ever loving wife."</p>
+
+<p>From Fitchburg, Mass., under date of October 29th,
+she writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"In the cars, near Palmer, who should I discover
+but Mr. and Mrs. J. T. Fields, returning from a Western
+trip, as gay as a troubadour. I took an empty
+seat next to them, and we had a jolly ride to Boston.
+I drove to Mr. Williams's house, where I met the Chelsea
+agent, who informed me that there was no hotel in
+Chelsea, but that they were expecting to send over for
+me. So I turned at once toward 148 Charles Street,
+where I tumbled in on the Fields before they had got
+their things off. We had a good laugh, and I received
+a hearty welcome. I was quickly installed in my room,
+where, after a nice dinner, I curled up for my afternoon
+nap. At half-past seven the carriage came for
+me, and I was informed that I should not have a hard
+reading, as they had engaged singers to take part. So,
+when I got into the carriage, who should I find, beshawled,
+and beflowered, and betoggled in blue satin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[493]</a></span>
+and white lace, but our old friend &mdash;&mdash; of Andover
+concert memory, now become Madame Thingumbob, of
+European celebrity. She had studied in Italy, come
+out in Milan, sung there in opera for a whole winter,
+and also in Paris and London.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she sings very sweetly and looks very nice
+and pretty. Then we had a little rosebud of a Chelsea
+girl who sang, and a pianist. I read 'Minister's Housekeeper'
+and Topsy, and the audience was very jolly
+and appreciative. Then we all jogged home."</p>
+
+<p>The next letter finds Mrs. Stowe in Maine, and writing
+in the cars between Bangor and Portland. She
+says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Husband</span>,&mdash;Well, Portland and Bangor
+are over, and the latter, which I had dreaded as lonesome
+and far off, turned out the pleasantest of any place
+I have visited yet. I stayed at the Fays; he was one
+of the Andover students, you remember; and found a
+warm, cosy, social home. In the evening I met an
+appreciative audience, and had a delightful reading.
+I read Captain Kittridge, apparently to the great satisfaction
+of the people, who laughed heartily at his sea
+stories, and the "Minister's Housekeeper" with the
+usual success, also Eva and Topsy.</p>
+
+<p>One woman, totally deaf, came to me afterwards and
+said: "Bless you. I come jist to see you. I'd rather
+see you than the Queen." Another introduced her little
+girl named Harriet Beecher Stowe, and another,
+older, named Eva. She said they had traveled fifty
+miles to hear me read. An incident like that appeals
+to one's heart, does it not?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[494]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The people of Bangor were greatly embarrassed by
+the horse disease; but the mayor and his wife walked
+over from their house, a long distance off, to bring me
+flowers, and at the reading he introduced me. I had an
+excellent audience notwithstanding that it rained tremendously,
+and everybody had to walk because there
+were no horses. The professors called on me, also
+Newman Smith, now a settled minister here.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody is so anxious about you, and Mr. Fay
+made me promise that you and I should come and
+spend a week with them next summer. Mr. Howard,
+in Portland, called upon me to inquire for you, and
+everybody was so delighted to hear that you were getting
+better.</p>
+
+<p>It stormed all the time I was in Portland and Bangor,
+so I saw nothing of them. Now I am in a palace
+car riding alongside the Kennebec, and recalling the
+incidents of my trip. I certainly had very satisfactory
+houses; and these pleasant little visits, and meetings
+with old acquaintance, would be well worth having,
+even though I had made nothing in a pecuniary sense.
+On the whole it is as easy a way of making money as
+I have ever tried, though no way of making money is
+perfectly easy,&mdash;there must be some disagreeables.
+The lonesomeness of being at a hotel in dull weather is
+one, and in Portland it seems there is nobody now to
+invite us to their homes. Our old friends there are
+among the past. They have gone on over the river.
+I send you a bit of poetry that pleases me. The love
+of the old for each other has its poetry. It is something
+sacred and full of riches. I long to be with you,
+and to have some more of our good long talks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[495]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The scenery along this river is very fine. The oaks
+still keep their leaves, though the other trees are bare;
+but oaks and pines make a pleasant contrast. We
+shall stop twenty minutes at Brunswick, so I shall get
+a glimpse of the old place.</p>
+
+<p>Now we are passing through Hallowell, and the
+Kennebec changes sides. What a beautiful river! It
+is now full of logs and rafts. Well, I must bring this
+to a close. Good-by, dear, with unchanging love. Ever
+your wife.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>From South Framingham, Mass., she writes on November
+7th:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Well, my dear, here I am in E.'s pretty little house.
+He has a pretty wife, a pretty sister, a pretty baby, two
+nice little boys, and a lovely white cat. The last is a
+perfect beauty! a Persian, from a stock brought over
+by Dr. Parker, as white as snow, with the softest fur, a
+perfect bunch of loving-kindness, all purr and felicity.
+I had a good audience last evening, and enjoyed it.
+My audiences, considering the horse disease and the
+rains, are amazing. And how they do laugh! We get
+into regular gales.</p>
+
+<p>E. has the real country minister turn-out: horse and
+buggy, and such a nice horse too. The baby is a
+beauty, and giggles, and goos, and shouts inquiries
+with the rising inflection, in the most inspiring manner.</p>
+
+<p><i>November 13.</i> Wakefield. I read in Haverhill
+last night. It was as usual stormy. I had a good
+audience, but not springy and inspiriting like that at
+Waltham. Some audiences seem to put spring into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[496]</a></span>
+one, and some to take it out. This one seemed good
+but heavy. I had to lift them, while in Framingham
+and Waltham they lifted me.</p>
+
+<p>The Lord bless and keep you. It grieves me to think
+you are dull and I not with you. By and by we will
+be together and stay together. Good-by dear. Your
+ever loving wife,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+H. B. S.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><i>November 24.</i> "I had a very pleasant reading in
+Peabody. While there visited the library and saw the
+picture of the Queen that she had painted expressly
+for George Peabody. It was about six inches square,
+enameled on gold, and set in a massive frame of solid
+gold and velvet. The effect is like painting on ivory.
+At night the picture rolls back into a safe, and great
+doors, closed with a combination lock, defend it. It
+reminded me of some of the foreign wonders we have
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my course is almost done, and if I get
+through without any sickness, cold, or accident, how
+wonderful it will seem. I have never felt the near,
+kind presence of our Heavenly Father so much as in
+this. 'He giveth strength to the faint, and to them of
+no might He increaseth strength.' I have found this
+true all my life."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>From Newport she writes on November 26th:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It was a hard, tiring, disagreeable piece of business
+to read in New London. Had to wait three mortal
+hours in Palmer. Then a slow, weary train, that did
+not reach New London until after dark. There was
+then no time to rest, and I was so tired that it did seem
+as though I could not dress. I really trembled with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[497]</a></span>
+fatigue. The hall was long and dimly lighted, and
+the people were not seated compactly, but around in
+patches. The light was dim, except for a great flaring
+gas jet arranged right under my eyes on the reading
+desk, and I did not see a creature whom I knew. I
+was only too glad when it was over and I was back
+again at my hotel. There I found that I must be up
+at five o'clock to catch the Newport train.</p>
+
+<p>"I started for this place in the dusk of a dreary,
+foggy morning. Traveled first on a ferry, then in
+cars, and then in a little cold steamboat. Found no
+one to meet me, in spite of all my writing, and so took
+a carriage and came to the hotel. The landlord was
+very polite to me, said he knew me by my trunk, had
+been to our place in Mandarin, etc. All I wanted was
+a warm room, a good bed, and unlimited time to sleep.
+Now I have had a three hours' nap, and here I am, sitting
+by myself in the great, lonely hotel parlor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dear old man, I think lots of you, and only
+want to end all this in a quiet home where we can sing
+'John Anderson, my Jo' together. I check off place
+after place as the captive the days of his imprisonment.
+Only two more after to-night. Ever your loving
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe made one more reading tour the following
+year, and this time it was in the West. On October
+28, 1873, she writes from Zanesville, Ohio, to her
+son at Harvard:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>You have been very good to write as often as you
+have, and your letters, meeting me at different points,
+have been most cheering. I have been tired, almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[498]</a></span>
+to the last degree. Read two successive evenings in
+Chicago, and traveled the following day for thirteen
+hours, a distance of about three hundred miles, to Cincinnati.
+We were compelled to go in the most uncomfortable
+cars I ever saw, crowded to overflowing, a
+fiend of a stove at each end burning up all the air, and
+without a chance to even lay my head down. This is
+the grand route between Chicago and Cincinnati, and
+we were on it from eight in the morning until nearly
+ten at night.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at Cincinnati we found that George Beecher
+had not received our telegram, was not expecting us,
+had no rooms engaged for us, and that we could not
+get rooms at his boarding-place. After finding all this
+out we had to go to the hotel, where, about eleven
+o'clock, I crept into bed with every nerve aching from
+fatigue. The next day was dark and rainy, and I lay
+in bed most of it; but when I got up to go and read
+I felt only half rested, and was still so tired that it
+seemed as though I could not get through.</p>
+
+<p>Those who planned my engagements failed to take,
+into account the fearful distances and wretched trains
+out here. On none of these great Western routes is
+there a drawing-room car. Mr. Saunders tried in every
+way to get them to put one on for us, but in vain.
+They are all reserved for the night trains; so that there
+is no choice except to travel by night in sleeping cars,
+or take such trains as I have described in the daytime.</p>
+
+<p>I had a most sympathetic audience in Cincinnati;
+they all seemed delighted and begged me to come
+again. The next day George took us for a drive out
+to Walnut Hills, where we saw the seminary buildings,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[499]</a></span>
+the house where your sisters were born, and the house
+in which we afterwards lived. In the afternoon we had
+to leave and hurry away to a reading in Dayton. The
+next evening another in Columbus, where we spent
+Sunday with an old friend.</p>
+
+<p>By this time I am somewhat rested from the strain
+of that awful journey; but I shall never again undertake
+such another. It was one of those things that
+have to be done once, to learn not to do it again. My
+only reading between Columbus and Pittsburgh is to be
+here in Zanesville, a town as black as Acheron, and
+where one might expect to see the river Styx.</p>
+
+<p>Later. I had a nice audience and a pleasant reading
+here, and to-day we go on to Pittsburgh, where I
+read to-morrow night.</p>
+
+<p>I met the other day at Dayton a woman who now
+has grandchildren; but who, when I first came West,
+was a gay rattling girl. She was one of the first converts
+of brother George's seemingly obscure ministry
+in the little new town of Chillicothe. Now she has one
+son who is a judge of the supreme court, and another
+in business. Both she and they are not only Christians,
+but Christians of the primitive sort, whose religion
+is their all; who triumph and glory in tribulation,
+knowing that it worketh patience. She told me,
+with a bright sweet calm, of her husband killed in battle
+the first year of the war, of her only daughter and
+two grandchildren dying in the faith, and of her own
+happy waiting on God's will, with bright hopes of a
+joyful reunion. Her sons are leading members of the
+Presbyterian Church, and most active in stirring up
+others to make their profession a reality, not an empty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[500]</a></span>
+name. When I thought that all this came from the
+conversion of one giddy girl, when George seemed to
+be doing so little, I said, "Who can measure the work
+of a faithful minister?" It is such living witnesses
+that maintain Christianity on earth.</p>
+
+<p>Good-by. We shall soon be home now, and preparing
+for Florida. Always your own loving mother,</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+H. B. S.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe never undertook another reading tour,
+nor, after this one, did she ever read again for money,
+though she frequently contributed her talent in this
+direction to the cause of charity.</p>
+
+<p>The most noteworthy event of her later years was the
+celebration of the seventieth anniversary of her birthday.
+That it might be fittingly observed, her publishers,
+Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin &amp; Co. of Boston,
+arranged a reception for her in form of a garden party,
+to which they invited the <i>literati</i> of America. It was
+held on June 14, 1882, at "The Old Elms," the home
+of Ex-Governor Claflin of Massachusetts, in Newtonville,
+one of Boston's most beautiful suburbs. Here
+the assembly gathered to do honor to Mrs. Stowe, that
+lovely June afternoon, comprised two hundred of the
+most distinguished and best known among the literary
+men and women of the day.</p>
+
+<p>From three until five o'clock was spent socially. As
+the guests arrived they were presented to Mrs. Stowe
+by Mr. H. O. Houghton, and then they gathered in
+groups in the parlors, on the verandas, on the lawn,
+and in the refreshment room. At five o'clock they
+assembled in a large tent on the lawn, when Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[501]</a></span>
+Houghton, as host, addressed to his guest and her
+friends a few words of congratulation and welcome.
+He closed his remarks by saying:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And now, honored madam, as</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"'When to them who sail</span><br />
+Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past<br />
+Mozambic, off at sea northeast winds blow<br />
+Sabean odors from the spicy shore<br />
+Of Arabie the blest,'<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>so the benedictions of the lowly and the blessings of
+all conditions of men are brought to you to-day on the
+wings of the wind, from every quarter of the globe;
+but there will be no fresher laurels to crown this day
+of your rejoicing than are brought by those now before
+you, who have been your co-workers in the strife; who
+have wrestled and suffered, fought and conquered, with
+you; who rank you with the Miriams, the Deborahs,
+and the Judiths of old; and who now shout back the
+refrain, when you utter the inspired song:&mdash;</div>
+
+<div class='poem2'>
+"'Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.'<br />
+.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;.<br />
+'The Almighty Lord hath disappointed them by the hand of a woman.'"<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>In reply to this Mrs. Stowe's brother, Henry Ward
+Beecher, said: "Of course you all sympathize with me
+to-day, but, standing in this place, I do not see your
+faces more clearly than I see those of my father and
+my mother. Her I only knew as a mere babe-child.
+He was my teacher and my companion. A more guileless
+soul than he, a more honest one, more free from
+envy, from jealousy, and from selfishness, I never knew.
+Though he thought he was great by his theology,
+everybody else knew he was great by his religion. My<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[502]</a></span>
+mother is to me what the Virgin Mary is to a devout
+Catholic. She was a woman of great nature, profound
+as a philosophical thinker, great in argument, with a
+kind of intellectual imagination, diffident, not talkative,&mdash;in
+which respect I take after her,&mdash;the woman who
+gave birth to Mrs. Stowe, whose graces and excellences
+she probably more than any of her children&mdash;we number
+but thirteen&mdash;has possessed. I suppose that in
+bodily resemblance, perhaps, she is not like my mother,
+but in mind I presume she is most like her. I thank
+you for my father's sake and for my mother's sake for
+the courtesy, the friendliness, and the kindness which
+you give to Mrs. Stowe."</p>
+
+<p>The following poem from John Greenleaf Whittier
+was then read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And golden-fruited orange bowers</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To her who, in our evil time,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Dragged into light the nation's crime</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">With strength beyond the strength of men,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And, mightier than their sword, her pen;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To her who world-wide entrance gave</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To the log cabin of the slave,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Made all his wrongs and sorrows known,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And all earth's languages his own,&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">North, South, and East and West, made all</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The common air electrical,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Until the o'ercharged bolts of heaven</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Blazed down, and every chain was riven!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Welcome from each and all to her</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whose Wooing of the Minister</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Revealed the warm heart of the man</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Beneath the creed-bound Puritan,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And taught the kinship of the love</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[503]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of man below and God above;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To her whose vigorous pencil-strokes</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Sketched into life her Oldtown Folks,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whose fireside stories, grave or gay,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">In quaint Sam Lawson's vagrant way,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">With Old New England's flavor rife,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Waifs from her rude idyllic life,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Are racy as the legends old</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">By Chaucer or Boccaccio told;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To her who keeps, through change of place</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And time, her native strength and grace,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Alike where warm Sorrento smiles,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Or where, by birchen-shaded isles</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whose summer winds have shivered o'er</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The icy drift of Labrador,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">She lifts to light the priceless Pearl</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of Harpswell's angel-beckoned girl.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">To her at threescore years and ten</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Be tributes of the tongue and pen,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Be honor, praise, and heart thanks given,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The loves of earth, the hopes of heaven!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">"Ah, dearer than the praise that stirs</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The air to-day, our love is hers!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">She needs no guaranty of fame</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whose own is linked with Freedom's name.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Long ages after ours shall keep</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Her memory living while we sleep;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The waves that wash our gray coast lines,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The winds that rock the Southern pines</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Shall sing of her; the unending years</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Shall tell her tale in unborn ears.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And when, with sins and follies past,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Are numbered color-hate and caste,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">White, black, and red shall own as one,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The noblest work by woman done."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>It was followed by a few words from Dr. Oliver
+Wendell Holmes, who also read the subjoined as his
+contribution to the chorus of congratulation:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"If every tongue that speaks her praise<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">For whom I shape my tinkling phrase</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[504]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Were summoned to the table,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The vocal chorus that would meet</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Of mingling accents harsh or sweet,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">From every land and tribe, would beat</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">The polyglots of Babel.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The Russian serf, the Polish Jew,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Would shout, 'We know the lady.'</span><br />
+<br />
+"Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And her he learned his gospel from,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Has never heard of Moses;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Full well the brave black hand we know</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">That killed the weed that used to grow</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Among the Southern roses.</span><br />
+<br />
+"When Archimedes, long ago,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Spoke out so grandly, '<i>Dos pou sto</i>,&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Give me a place to stand on,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">I'll move your planet for you, now,'&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">He little dreamed or fancied how</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The <i>sto</i> at last should find its <i>pou</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">For woman's faith to land on.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Her lever was the wand of art,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Her fulcrum was the human heart,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Whence all unfailing aid is;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Its mountains shook, its temples reeled,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The blood-red fountains were unsealed,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And Moloch sunk to Hades.</span><br />
+<br />
+"All through the conflict, up and down<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">One ghost, one form ideal;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And which was false and which was true,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And which was mightier of the two,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The wisest sibyl never knew,</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[505]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">For both alike were real.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Sister, the holy maid does well<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Who counts her beads in convent cell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Where pale devotion lingers;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">But she who serves the sufferer's needs,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">May trust the Lord will count her beads</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">As well as human fingers.</span><br />
+<br />
+"When Truth herself was Slavery's slave<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">The rainbow wings of fiction.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And Truth who soared descends to-day</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Bearing an angel's wreath away,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Its lilies at thy feet to lay</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">With heaven's own benediction."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Poems written for the occasion by Mrs. A. D. T.
+Whitney, Miss Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Mr. J. T.
+Trowbridge, Mrs. Allen (Mrs. Stowe's daughter), Mrs.
+Annie Fields, and Miss Charlotte F. Bates, were also
+read, and speeches were made by Judge Albion W.
+Tourgée and others prominent in the literary world.</p>
+
+<p>Letters from many noted people, who were prevented
+from being present by distance or by other engagements,
+had been received. Only four of them were
+read, but they were all placed in Mrs. Stowe's hands.
+The exercises were closed by a few words from Mrs.
+Stowe herself. As she came to the front of the platform
+the whole company rose, and remained standing
+until she had finished. In her quiet, modest, way, and
+yet so clearly as to be plainly heard by all, she said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to say that I thank all my friends from my
+heart,&mdash;that is all. And one thing more,&mdash;and that
+is, if any of you have doubt, or sorrow, or pain, if you
+doubt about this world, just remember what God has
+done; just remember that this great sorrow of slavery<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[506]</a></span>
+has gone, gone by forever. I see it every day at the
+South. I walk about there and see the lowly cabins.
+I see these people growing richer and richer. I see
+men very happy in their lowly lot; but, to be sure, you
+must have patience with them. They are not perfect,
+but have their faults, and they are serious faults in the
+view of white people. But they are very happy, that
+is evident, and they do know how to enjoy themselves,&mdash;a
+great deal more than you do. An old negro
+friend in our neighborhood has got a new, nice two-story
+house, and an orange grove, and a sugar-mill.
+He has got a lot of money, besides. Mr. Stowe met
+him one day, and he said, 'I have got twenty head of
+cattle, four head of "hoss," forty head of hen, and I
+have got ten children, all <i>mine, every one mine</i>.'
+Well, now, that is a thing that a black man could not
+say once, and this man was sixty years old before he
+could say it. With all the faults of the colored people,
+take a man and put him down with nothing but his
+hands, and how many could say as much as that? I
+think they have done well.</p>
+
+<p>"A little while ago they had at his house an evening
+festival for their church, and raised fifty dollars. We
+white folks took our carriages, and when we reached
+the house we found it fixed nicely. Every one of his
+daughters knew how to cook. They had a good place
+for the festival. Their suppers were spread on little
+white tables with nice clean cloths on them. People
+paid fifty cents for supper. They got between fifty
+and sixty dollars, and had one of the best frolics you
+could imagine. They had also for supper ice-cream,
+which they made themselves.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[507]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That is the sort of thing I see going on around me.
+Let us never doubt. Everything that ought to happen
+is going to happen."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Mrs. Stowe's public life ends with the garden party,
+and little more remains to be told. She had already,
+in 1880, begun the task of selection from the great
+accumulation of letters and papers relating to her life,
+and writes thus to her son in Saco, Maine, regarding
+the work:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><i>September 30, 1880.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Charley</span>,&mdash;My mind has been with you
+a great deal lately. I have been looking over and
+arranging my papers with a view to sifting out those
+that are not worth keeping, and so filing and arranging
+those that are to be kept, that my heirs and assigns
+may with the less trouble know where and what they
+are. I cannot describe (to you) the peculiar feelings
+which this review occasions. Reading old letters&mdash;when
+so many of the writers are gone from earth,
+seems to me like going into the world of spirits&mdash;letters
+full of the warm, eager, anxious, busy life, that
+is <i>forever</i> past. My own letters, too, full of by-gone
+scenes in my early life and the childish days of my
+children. It is affecting to me to recall things that
+strongly moved me years ago, that filled my thoughts
+and made me anxious when the occasion and emotion
+have wholly vanished from my mind. But I thank
+God there is <i>one</i> thing running through all of them
+from the time I was thirteen years old, and that is the
+intense unwavering sense of Christ's educating, guiding
+presence and care. It is <i>all</i> that remains now.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[508]</a></span>
+The romance of my youth is faded, it looks to me now,
+from my years, so <i>very</i> young&mdash;those days when my
+mind only lived in <i>emotion</i>, and when my letters never
+were dated, because they were only histories of the <i>internal</i>,
+but now that I am no more and never can be
+young in this world, now that the friends of those
+days are almost all in eternity, what remains?</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+Through life and through death, through sorrowing, through sinning,<br />
+Christ shall suffice me as he hath sufficed.<br />
+Christ is the end and Christ the beginning,<br />
+The beginning and end of all is Christ.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/i508.jpg" width="600" height="388" alt="yet another house" />
+<div class="caption">THE LATER HARTFORD HOME.</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>I was passionate in my attachments in those far back
+years, and as I have looked over files of old letters,
+they are all gone (except one, C. Van Rensselaer),
+Georgiana May, Delia Bacon, Clarissa Treat, Elisabeth
+Lyman, Sarah Colt, Elisabeth Phenix, Frances Strong,
+Elisabeth Foster. I have letters from them all, but
+they have been long in spirit land and know more about
+how it is there than I do. It gives me a sort of dizzy
+feeling of the shortness of life and nearness of eternity
+when I see how many that I have traveled with are
+gone within the veil. Then there are all my own letters,
+written in the first two years of marriage, when
+Mr. Stowe was in Europe and I was looking forward to
+motherhood and preparing for it&mdash;my letters when
+my whole life was within the four walls of my nursery,
+my thoughts absorbed by the developing character of
+children who have now lived their earthly life and gone
+to the eternal one,&mdash;my two little boys, each in their
+way good and lovely, whom Christ has taken in youth,
+and my little one, my first Charley, whom He took
+away before he knew sin or sorrow,&mdash;then my brother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[509]</a></span>
+George and sister Catherine, the one a companion of
+my youth, the other the mother who assumed the care
+of me after I left home in my twelfth year&mdash;and they
+are gone. Then my blessed father, for many years so
+true an image of the Heavenly Father,&mdash;in all my
+afflictions he was afflicted, in all my perplexities he was
+a sure and safe counselor, and he too is gone upward to
+join the angelic mother whom I scarcely knew in this
+world, who has been to me only a spiritual presence
+through life.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In 1882 Mrs. Stowe writes to her son certain impressions
+derived from reading the "Life and Letters of
+John Quincy Adams," which are given as containing a
+retrospect of the stormy period of her own life-experience.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father enjoys his proximity to the Boston
+library. He is now reading the twelve or fourteen
+volumes of the life and diary of John Q. Adams. It is
+a history of our country through all the period of
+slavery usurpation that led to the war. The industry
+of the man in writing is wonderful. Every day's doings
+in the house are faithfully daguerreotyped,&mdash;all
+the mean tricks, contrivances of the slave-power, and
+the pusillanimity of the Northern members from day to
+day recorded. Calhoun was then secretary of state.
+Under his connivance even the United States census
+was falsified, to prove that freedom was bad for negroes.
+Records of deaf, dumb, and blind, and insane colored
+people were distributed in Northern States, and in
+places where John Q. Adams had means of <i>proving</i>
+there were no negroes. When he found that these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[510]</a></span>
+falsified figures had been used with the English embassador
+as reasons for admitting Texas as a slave State,
+the old man called on Calhoun, and showed him the
+industriously collected <i>proofs</i> of the falsity of this
+census. He says: 'He writhed like a trodden rattlesnake,
+but said the census was full of mistakes; but
+one part balanced another,&mdash;it was not worth while to
+correct them.' His whole life was an incessant warfare
+with the rapidly advancing spirit of slavery, that was
+coiling like a serpent around everything.</p>
+
+<p>"At a time when the Southerners were like so many
+excited tigers and rattlesnakes,&mdash;when they bullied,
+and scoffed, and sneered, and threatened, this old man
+rose every day in his place, and, knowing every parliamentary
+rule and tactic of debate, found means to
+make himself heard. Then he presented a petition
+from <i>negroes</i>, which raised a storm of fury. The old
+man claimed that the right of petition was the right of
+every human being. They moved to expel him. By
+the rules of the house a man, before he can be expelled,
+may have the floor to make his defense. This
+was just what he wanted. He held the floor for <i>fourteen
+days</i>, and used his wonderful powers of memory
+and arrangement to give a systematic, scathing history
+of the usurpations of slavery; he would have spoken
+fourteen days more, but his enemies, finding the thing
+getting hotter and hotter, withdrew their motion, and
+the right of petition was gained.</p>
+
+<p>"What is remarkable in this journal is the minute
+record of going to church every Sunday, and an analysis
+of the text and sermon. There is something about
+these so simple, so humble, so earnest. Often differing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[511]</a></span>
+from the speaker&mdash;but with gravity and humility&mdash;he
+seems always to be so self-distrustful; to have such
+a sense of sinfulness and weakness, but such trust in
+God's fatherly mercy, as is most beautiful to see. Just
+the record of his Sunday sermons, and his remarks
+upon them, would be most instructive to a preacher.
+He was a regular communicant, and, beside, attended
+church on Christmas and Easter,&mdash;I cannot but love
+the old man. He died without seeing even the dawn
+of liberty which God has brought; but oh! I am sure
+he sees it from above. He died in the Capitol, in the
+midst of his labors, and the last words he said were,
+'This is the last of earth; I am content.' And now, I
+trust, he is with God.</p>
+
+<p>"All, all are gone. All that raged; all that threatened;
+all the cowards that yielded; truckled, sold their
+country for a mess of pottage; all the <i>men</i> that stood
+and bore infamy and scorn for the truth; all are silent
+in dust; the fight is over, but eternity will never efface
+from their souls whether they did well or ill&mdash;whether
+they fought bravely or failed like cowards. In a sense,
+our lives are irreparable. If we shrink, if we fail, if we
+choose the fleeting instead of the eternal, God may forgive
+us; but there must be an eternal regret! This
+man lived for humanity when hardest bestead; for
+truth when truth was unpopular; for Christ when
+Christ stood chained and scourged in the person of the
+slave."</p>
+
+<p>In the fall of 1887 she writes to her brother Rev.
+Dr. Edward Beecher of Brooklyn, N. Y.:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[512]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">49 Forest Street, Hartford, Conn.</span>, <i>October 11, 1887.</i><br /></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Brother</span>,&mdash;I was delighted to receive your
+kind letter. <i>You</i> were my earliest religious teacher;
+your letters to me while a school-girl in Hartford gave
+me a high Christian aim and standard which I hope
+I have never lost. Not only did they do me good, but
+also my intimate friends, Georgiana May and Catherine
+Cogswell, to whom I read them. The simplicity,
+warmth, and childlike earnestness of those school days
+I love to recall. I am the <i>only one living</i> of that circle
+of early friends. <i>Not one</i> of my early schoolmates is
+living,&mdash;and now Henry, younger by a year or two
+than I, has gone&mdash;my husband also.<a name="FNanchor_21_22" id="FNanchor_21_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_22" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> I often think,
+<i>Why</i> am I spared? Is there yet anything for me to
+do? I am thinking with my son Charles's help of writing
+a review of my life, under the title, "Pebbles from
+the Shores of a Past Life."</p>
+
+<p>Charlie told me that he has got all written up to my
+twelfth or thirteenth year, when I came to be under sister
+Catherine's care in Hartford. I am writing daily my
+remembrances from that time. You were then, I think,
+teacher of the Grammar School in Hartford.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>So, my dear brother, let us keep good heart; no evil
+can befall us. Sin alone is evil, and from that Christ
+will keep us. Our journey is <i>so</i> short!</p>
+
+<p>I feel about all things now as I do about the things
+that happen in a hotel, after my trunk is packed to go
+home. I may be vexed and annoyed .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. but what of
+it! I am going home soon.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>
+<span style="margin-right: 4em;">Your affectionate sister,</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Hattie</span>.<br />
+</div></blockquote>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[513]</a></span></p>
+<p>To a friend she writes a little later:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have thought much lately of the possibility of my
+leaving you all and going home. I am come to that
+stage of my pilgrimage that is within sight of the River
+of Death, and I feel that now I must have all in readiness
+day and night for the messenger of the King. I
+have sometimes had in my sleep strange perceptions of
+a vivid spiritual life near to and with Christ, and multitudes
+of holy ones, and the joy of it is like no other
+joy,&mdash;it cannot be told in the language of the world.
+What I have then I <i>know</i> with absolute certainty, yet
+it is so unlike and above anything we conceive of in
+this world that it is difficult to put it into words. The
+inconceivable loveliness of Christ! It seems that about
+Him there is a sphere where the enthusiasm of love is
+the calm habit of the soul, that without words, without
+the necessity of demonstrations of affection, heart beats
+to heart, soul answers soul, we respond to the Infinite
+Love, and we feel his answer in us, and there is no
+need of words. All seemed to be busy coming and
+going on ministries of good, and passing each gave
+a thrill of joy to each as Jesus, the directing soul,
+the centre of all, "over all, in all, and through all," was
+working his beautiful and merciful will to redeem and
+save. I was saying as I awoke:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"''Tis joy enough, my all in all,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">At thy dear feet to lie.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Thou wilt not let me lower fall,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And none can higher fly.'</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>"This was but a glimpse; but it has left a strange
+sweetness in my mind."</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[514]</a><br /><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[515]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>INDEX.</h2>
+
+
+<div class='index'>
+<span class="smcap">Abbott</span>, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Aberdeen, reception in, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Abolition, English meetings in favor of, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Abolition sentiment, growth of, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Abolitionism made fashionable, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Adams, John Quincy, crusade of, against slavery, <a href="#Page_509">509</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">holds floor of Congress fourteen days, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his religious life and trust, <a href="#Page_511">511</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">died without seeing dawn of liberty, <a href="#Page_511">511</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">life and letters of, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Agnes of Sorrento," first draft of, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date of, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whittier's praise of, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Alabama Planter," savage attack of, on H. B. S., <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Albert, Prince, Mrs. Stowe's letter to, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his reply, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">meeting with, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+America, liberty in, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ruskin on, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+American novelist, Lowell on the, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Andover, Mass., beauty of, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stowe family settled in, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Anti-slavery cause: result of English demonstrations, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to England, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">feeling dreaded in South, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">movement in Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Boston, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beecher family all anti-slavery men, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Arabian Nights," H. B. S.'s delight in, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Argyll, Duke and Duchess of 229, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">warmth of, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S. invited to visit, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of father of Duchess, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Argyll, Duchess of, letter from H. B. S. to, on England's attitude during our Civil War, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on <i>post bellum</i> events, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Atlantic Monthly," contains "Minister's Wooing," <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mrs. Stowe's address to women of England, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The True Story of Lady Byron's Life," <a href="#Page_447">447</a>, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Bailey</span>, Gamaliel, Dr., editor of "National Era," <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bangor, readings in, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bates, Charlotte Fiske, reads a poem at Mrs. Stowe's seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_505">505</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Baxter's "Saints' Rest," has a powerful effect on H. B. S., <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Catherine, eldest sister of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her education of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">account of her own birth, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">strong influence over Harriet, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">girlhood of, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">teacher at New London, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">engagement, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">drowning of her lover, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">soul struggles after Prof. Fisher's death, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">teaches in his family, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">publishes article on Free Agency, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opens school at Hartford, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">solution of doubts while teaching, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her conception of Divine Nature, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school at Hartford described by H. B. S., <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">doubts about Harriet's conversion, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">hopes for "Hartford Female Seminary," <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to Edward about Harriet's doubts, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">note on Harriet's letter, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[516]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">new school at Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visits Cincinnati with father, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">impressions of city, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">homesickness, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at water cure, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a mother to sister Harriet, <a href="#Page_509">509</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to H. B. S. to, on her religious depression, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on religious doubts, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Charles, brother of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in college, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">goes to Florida, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from H. B. S., on mother's death, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>-<a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Edward, Dr., brother of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence over her, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">indignation against Fugitive Slave Act, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">efforts to arouse churches, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from H. B. S. to, on early religious struggles, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on her feelings, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on views of God, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on death of friends and relatives, and the writing of her life by her son Charles, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Esther, aunt of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Beecher family, famous reunion of, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">circular letter to, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Frederick, H. B. S.'s half-brother, death of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Beecher, George, brother of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit to, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">enters Lane as student, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">music and tracts, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">account of journey to Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sudden death, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S. meets at Dayton one of his first converts, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his letters cherished, <a href="#Page_508">508</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, George, nephew of H. B. S., visit to, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Mrs. George, letter from H. B. S. to, describing new home, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Harriet E. first; death of, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">second, (H. B. S.) birth of, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Mrs. Harriet Porter, H. B. S.'s stepmother, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">personal appearance and character of, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pleasant impressions of new home and children, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Henry Ward, brother of H. B. S., birth of, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">anecdote of, after mother's death, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first school, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">conception of Divine Nature, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in college, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S. attends graduation, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">editor of Cincinnati "Journal," <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sympathy with anti-slavery movement, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Brooklyn, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">saves Edmonson's daughters, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S. visits, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">views on Reconstruction, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">George Eliot on Beecher trial, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his character as told by H. B. S., <a href="#Page_475">475</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">love for Prof. Stowe, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his youth and life in West, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Brooklyn and his anti-slavery fight, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Edmonsons and Plymouth Church, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his loyalty and energy, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his religion, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">popularity and personal magnetism, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">terrible struggle in the Beecher trial, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bribery of jury, but final triumph, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ecclesiastical trial of, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">committee of five appointed to bring facts, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his ideal purity and innocence, <a href="#Page_480">480</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">power at death-beds and funerals, <a href="#Page_480">480</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">beloved by poor and oppressed, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">meets accusations by silence, prayer, and work, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his thanks and speech at Stowe Garden Party, <a href="#Page_501">501</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tribute to father, mother, and sister Harriet, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Isabella, H. B. S.'s half-sister, birth of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">goes to Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, James, H. B. S.'s half-brother, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">goes to Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">begins Sunday-school, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Rev. Dr. Lyman, H. B. Stowe's father, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Autobiography and Correspondence of," <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">verdict on his wife's remarkable piety, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pride in his daughter's essay, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">admiration of Walter Scott, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sermon which converts H. B. S., <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accepts call to Hanover Street Church, Boston, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">president of Lane Theological Seminary, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first journey to Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">removal and westward journey, <a href="#Page_56">56</a> <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[517]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">removes family to Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beecher reunion, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">powerful sermons on slave question, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his sturdy character, H. W. Beecher's eulogy upon, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death and reunion with H. B. S's mother, <a href="#Page_509">509</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Mary, sister of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">married, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accompanies sister to Europe, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from H. B. S. to, on love for New England, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on visit to Windsor, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, Roxanna Foote, mother of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her death, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">strong, sympathetic nature, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reverence for the Sabbath, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sickness, death, and funeral, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence in family strong even after death, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">character described by H. W. Beecher, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S.'s resemblance to, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Beecher, William, brother of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">licensed to preach, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Bell, Henry, English inventor of steamboat, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Belloc, Mme., translates "Uncle Tom," <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Belloc, M., to paint portrait of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bentley, London publisher, offers pay for "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Betty's Bright Idea," date of, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bible, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Uncle Tom's, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">use and influence of, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Bible Heroines," date of, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bibliography of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Biography, H. B. S.'s remarks on writing and understanding, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Birney, J. G., office wrecked, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>et seq.</i>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S.'s sympathy with, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Birthday, seventieth, celebration of by Houghton, Mifflin &amp; Co., <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Blackwood's attack on Lady Byron, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Blantyre, Lord, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bogue, David, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>-<a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Boston opens doors to slave-hunters, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Boston Library, Prof. Stowe enjoys proximity to, <a href="#Page_509">509</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bowdoin College calls Prof. Stowe, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bowen, H. C., <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bruce, John, of Litchfield Academy, H. B. S.'s tribute to, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">lectures on Butler's "Analogy," <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Brigham, Miss, character of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bright, John, letter to H. B. S. on her "Appeal to English Women," <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Brooklyn, Mrs. Stowe's visit to brother Henry in, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit in 1852, when she helps the Edmonson slave family, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>-<a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beecher, H. W. called to, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beecher trial in, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Brown and the phantoms, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Brown, John, bravery of, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Browning, Mrs., on life and love, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Browning, E. B., letter to H. B. S., <a href="#Page_356">356</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Browning, Robert and E. B, friendship with, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Brunswick, Mrs. Stowe's love of, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">revisited, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Buck, Eliza, history of as slave, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bull, J. D. and family, make home for H. B. S. while at school in Hartford, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bunsen, Chevalier, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," Prof. Stowe's love of, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Burritt, Elihu, writes introduction to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">calls on Mrs. Stowe, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Butler's "Analogy," study of, by H. B. S., <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Byron Controversy," <a href="#Page_445">445</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">history of, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">George Eliot on, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dr. Holmes on, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Byron, Lady, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">makes donation to Kansas sufferers, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on power of words, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her character assailed, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her first meeting with H. B. S., <a href="#Page_447">447</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dignity and calmness, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">memoranda and letters about Lord Byron shown to Mrs. Stowe, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">solemn interview with H. B. S., <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[518]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to H. B. S. from, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on "The Minister's Wooing," <a href="#Page_343">343</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">farewell to, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her confidences, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mrs. Stowe's counsels to, <a href="#Page_451">451</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Byron, Lord, Mrs. Stowe on, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">she suspects his insanity, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cheap edition of his works proposed, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Recollections of, by Countess Guiccioli, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his position as viewed by Dr. Holmes, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">evidence of his poems for and against him, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"<span class="smcap">Cabin</span>, The," literary centre, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cairnes, Prof., on the "Fugitive Slave Law," <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Calhoun falsifies census, <a href="#Page_509">509</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Calvinism, J. R. Lowell's sympathy with, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cambridgeport, H. B. S. reads in, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Carlisle, Lord, praises "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mrs. Stowe's reply, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes introduction to "Uncle Tom," <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S. dines with, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">farewell to, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter from H. B. S. to on moral effect of slavery, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to H. B. S. from, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Cary, Alice and Ph&oelig;be, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Casaubon and Dorothea, criticism by H. B. S. on, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Catechisms, Church and Assembly, H. B. S.'s early study of, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Chapman, Mrs. Margaret Weston, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Charpentier of Paris, publishes "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">eulogy of that work, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Chase, Salmon P., <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Chelsea, H. B. S. reads in, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Chicago, readings in, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Children of H. B. S., picture of three eldest, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appeal to, by H. B. S. 157;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">described by H. B. S., <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to, from H. B. S. on European voyage and impressions, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on life in London, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on meeting at Stafford House, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on Vesuvius, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Chimney Corner, The," date of, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cholera epidemic in Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Christ, life of, little understood, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">communion with Him possible, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">love and faith in, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">study of his life, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his presence all that remains now, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his promises comfort the soul for separations by death, <a href="#Page_486">486</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Christian Union," contains observations by H. B. S. on spiritualism and Mr. Owen's books, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Christianity and spiritualism, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Church, the, responsible for slavery, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cincinnati, Lyman Beecher accepts call to, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Catherine Beecher's impressions of, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Walnut Hills and Seminary, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">famine in, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cholera, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sympathetic audience in, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Civil War, Mrs. Stowe on causes of, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Clarke &amp; Co. on English success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">offer author remuneration, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Clay, Henry, and his compromise, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cogswell, Catherine Ledyard, school-friend of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.<br />
+<br />
+College of Teachers, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Collins professorship, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Colored people, advance of, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Confederacy, A. H. Stephens on object of, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Courage and cheerfulness of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_473">473</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cranch, E. P., <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Cruikshank illustrates "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"<span class="smcap">Daniel Deronda</span>," appears, in "Harper's," <a href="#Page_473">473</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his nature like H. W. Beecher's, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">admiration of Prof. Stowe for, <a href="#Page_482">482</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Da Vinci's Last Supper, H. B. S.'s impressions of, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Death of youngest-born of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[519]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">anguish at, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Death, H. B. S. within sight of the River of, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Debatable Land between this World and the Next," <a href="#Page_464">464</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Declaration of Independence, H. B. S.'s feeling about, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death-knell to slavery, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Degan, Miss, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Democracy and American novelists, Lowell on, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"De Profundis," motive of Mrs. Browning's, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.<br />
+<br />
+De Staël, Mme., and Corinne, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dickens, first sight of, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">J. R. Lowell on, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Dog's Mission, A," date of, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Domestic service, H. B. S.'s trouble with, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Doubters and disbelievers may find comfort in spiritualism, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Doubts, religious, after death of eldest son, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Douglass, Frederick, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from H. B. S. to, on slavery, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Drake, Dr., family physician, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">one of founders of "College of Teachers," <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Dred," <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sumner's letter on, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Georgiana May on, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">English edition of, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">presented to Queen Victoria, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her interest in, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">demand for, in Glasgow, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Duchess of Sutherland's copy, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Low's sales of, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"London Times," on, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">English reviews on, severe, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Revue des Deux Mondes" on, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Miss Martineau on, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prescott on, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lowell on, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">now "Nina Gordon," publication of, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Dudevant, Madame. See Sand, George.<br />
+<br />
+Dufferin, Lord and Lady, their love of American literature, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dundee, meeting at, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Dunrobin Castle, visit to, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">E&mdash;&mdash;</span>, letter from H. B. S. to, on breakfast at the Trevelyans', <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Earthly Care a Heavenly Discipline," <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.<br />
+<br />
+East Hampton, L. I., birthplace of Catherine Beecher, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Eastman, Mrs., writes a Southern reply to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Edgeworth, Maria, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Edinburgh, H. B. S. in, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">return to, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Edmonson slave family; efforts to save, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mrs. Stowe educates and supports daughters, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">raises money to free mother and two slave children, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Edmonson, death of Mary, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Education, H. B. S.'s interest in, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Edwards, Jonathan, the power of, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his treatise on "The Will," refuted by Catherine Beecher, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Eliot, George, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a good Christian, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on psychical problems, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on "Oldtown Folks," <a href="#Page_443">443</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her despondency in "writing life" and longing for sympathy, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on power of fine books, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on religion, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">desires to keep an open mind on all subjects, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on impostures of spiritualism, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">lack of "jollitude" in "Middlemarch," <a href="#Page_471">471</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">invited to visit America, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sympathy with H. B. S. in Beecher trial, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proud of Stowes' interest in her "spiritual children," <a href="#Page_482">482</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on death of Mr. Lewes and gratitude for sympathy of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_483">483</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a "woman worth loving," H. B. S.'s love for greater than her admiration, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from H. B. S. to, on spiritualism, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">describes Florida nature and home, <a href="#Page_468">468</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reply to letter of sympathy giving facts in the Beecher case, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">from Professor Stowe on spiritualism, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to H. B. S. from, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">with sympathy on abuse called out by the Byron affair, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[520]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">on effect of letter of H. B. S. to Mrs. Follen upon her mind, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on joy of sympathy, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reply to letter on spiritualism, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sympathy with her in the Beecher trial, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Elmes, Mr., <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Elms, The Old," H. B. S.'s seventieth birthday celebrated at, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Elsie Venner," Mrs. Stowe's praise of, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Emancipation, Proclamation of, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Emmons, Doctor, the preaching of, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br />
+<br />
+England and America compared, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.<br />
+<br />
+England, attitude of, in civil war, grief at, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">help of to America on slave question, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+English women's address on slavery, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S.'s reply in the "Atlantic Monthly," <a href="#Page_374">374</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Europe, first visit to, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">second visit to, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">third visit to, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Faith</span> in Christ, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Famine in Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fiction, power of, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fields, Mrs. Annie, in Boston, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her tribute to Mrs. Stowe's courage and cheerfulness, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">George Eliot's mention of, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her poem read at seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_505">505</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Fields, Jas. T., Mr. and Mrs., visit of H. B. S. to, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fisher, Prof. Alexander Metcalf, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">engagement to Catherine Beecher, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sails for Europe, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his death by drowning in shipwreck of Albion, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Catherine Beecher's soul struggles, over his future fate, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence of these struggles depicted in "The Minister's Wooing," <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Florence, Mrs. Stowe's winter in, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Florida, winter home in Mandarin, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">like Sorrento, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wonderful growth of nature, <a href="#Page_468">468</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">how H. B. S.'s house was built, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her happy life in, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">longings for, <a href="#Page_482">482</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her enjoyment of happy life of the freedmen in, <a href="#Page_506">506</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Flowers, love of, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">painting, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Follen, Mrs., <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter from H. B. S. to, on her biography, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Foote, Harriet, aunt of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">energetic English character, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">teaches niece catechism, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Foote, Mrs. Roxanna, grandmother of H. B. S., first visit to, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>-<a href="#Page_7">7</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit to in 1827, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," <a href="#Page_464">464</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Footsteps of the Master," published, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Fraser's Magazine" on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Helps's review of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Free Agency," Catherine Beecher's refutation of Edwards on "The Will," <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br />
+<br />
+French critics, high standing of, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Friends, love for, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of old, whose letters are cherished, <a href="#Page_508">508</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, takes away a part of ourselves, <a href="#Page_485">485</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Friendship, opinion of, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Fugitive Slave Act, suffering caused by, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prof. Cairnes on, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">practically repealed, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Future life, glimpses of, leave strange sweetness, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Future punishment, ideas of, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Garrison</span>, W. L., to Mrs. Stowe on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in hour of victory, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his "Liberator," <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sent with H. W. Beecher to raise flag on Sumter, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on slavery, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>-<a href="#Page_262">262</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on arousing the church, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Gaskell, Mrs., at home, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Geography, school, written by Mrs. Stowe, <a href="#Page_65">65</a> <i>note</i>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Germany's tribute to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[521]</a></span>Gladstone, W. E., <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Glasgow, H. B. S. visits, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Anti-slavery Society of, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Glasgow Anti-slavery Society, letter from H. B. S. to, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.<br />
+<br />
+God, H. B. S.'s views of, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">trust in, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">doubts and final trust in, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his help in time of need, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Goethe and Mr. Lewes, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prof. Stowe's admiration of, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Goldschmidt, Madame. See Lind, Jenny.<br />
+<br />
+Görres on spiritualism and mysticism, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Grandmother, letter from H. B. S. to, on breaking up of Litchfield home, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on school life in Hartford, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Granville, Lord, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Gray's Elegy," visit to scene of, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Guiccioli, Countess, "Recollections of Lord Byron," <a href="#Page_446">446</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Hall</span>, Judge James, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hallam, Arthur Henry, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hamilton and Manumission Society, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Harper &amp; Brothers reprint Guiccioli's "Recollections of Byron," <a href="#Page_446">446</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hartford, H. B. S. goes to school at, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Stowes make their home at, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Harvey, a phantom, <a href="#Page_430">430</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hawthorne, Nathaniel, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter on, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on slavery, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to H. B. S. on, from English attitude towards America, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Health, care of, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Heaven, belief in, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Helps, Arthur, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_175">175</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">meets H. B. S., <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter from H. B. S. to, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Henry, Patrick, on slavery, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hentz, Mrs. Caroline Lee, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Higginson, T. W., letter to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"History, The, of the Byron Controversy," <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Holmes, O. W., correspondence with, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <i>et seq.</i>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attacks upon, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S. asks advice from, about manner of telling facts in relation to Byron Controversy, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sends copy of "Lady Byron Vindicated" to, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on facts of case, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on sympathy displayed in his writings, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">poem on H. B. S.'s seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">tribute to Uncle Tom, <a href="#Page_504">504</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from H. B. S. to, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on "Poganuc People," <a href="#Page_414">414</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">asking advice about Byron Controversy and article for "Atlantic Monthly," <a href="#Page_452">452</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to H. B. S. from, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on facts in the Byron Controversy, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Houghton, Mifflin &amp; Co., celebrate H. B. S.'s seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Houghton, H. O., presents guests to H. B. S., on celebration of seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address of welcome by, <a href="#Page_501">501</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"House and Home Papers" published, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Howitt, Mary, calls on H. B. S., <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Human life, sacredness of, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Human nature in books and men, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Hume and mediums, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Humor of Mrs. Stowe's books, George Eliot on, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Husband and wife, sympathy between, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Idealism</span> <i>versus</i> Realism, Lowell on, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Independent," New York, work for, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mrs. Browning reads Mrs. Stowe in, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Inverary Castle, H. B. S.'s, visit to, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Ireland's gift to Mrs. Stowe, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Jefferson</span>, Thomas, on slavery, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[522]</a></span>Jewett, John P., of Boston, publisher of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_158">158</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Kansas</span> Nebraska Bill, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">urgency of question, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" projected, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">written, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>; contains facts, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">read by Pollock, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">by Argyll, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sickness caused by, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sale, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">facts woven into "Dred," <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date of in chronological list, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Kingsley, Charles, upon effect of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit to, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Kossuth, on freedom, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mrs. Stowe calls upon, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Labouchere</span>, Lady Mary, visit to, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Lady Byron Vindicated," <a href="#Page_454">454</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Letters, circular, writing of, a custom in the Beecher family, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S.'s love of, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S.'s peculiar emotions on re-reading old, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Lewes, G. H., George Eliot's letter after death of, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lewes, Mrs. G. H. See Eliot, George, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Library of Famous Fiction," date of, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Liberator," The, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and Bible, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suspended after the close of civil war, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Lincoln and slavery, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Lind, Jenny, liberality of, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S. attends concert by, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to H. B. S. from, on her delight in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_183">183</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from H. B. S. to, with appeal for slaves, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Litchfield, birthplace of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">end of her child-life in, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">home at broken up, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Literary labors, early, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>-<a href="#Page_21">21</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">prize story, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">club essays, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>-<a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">contributor to "Western Monthly Magazine," <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school geography, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">described in letter to a friend, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price for, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fatigue caused by, <a href="#Page_489">489</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">length of time passed in, with list of books written, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Literary work <i>versus</i> domestic duties, <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">short stories&mdash;"New Year's Story" for "N. Y. Evangelist," <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"A Scholar's Adventures in the Country" for "Era," <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Literature, opinion of, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Little Pussy Willow," date of, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Liverpool, warm reception of H. B. S. at, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.<br />
+<br />
+London poor and Southern slaves, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br />
+<br />
+London, first visit to, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">second visit to, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Longfellow, H. W., congratulations of, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter on, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lord Granville's likeness to, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Love, the impulse of life, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Lovejoy, J. P., murdered, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">aided by Beechers, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Low, Sampson, on success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" abroad, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Low, Sampson &amp; Co. publish "Dred," <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">their sales, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Lowell, J. R., Duchess of Sutherland's interest in, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">less known in England than he should be, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on "Uncle Tom," <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on Dickens and Thackeray, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on "The Minister's Wooing," <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on idealism, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to H. B. S. from, on "The Minister's Wooing," <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Macaulay</span>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.<br />
+<br />
+McClellan, Gen., his disobedience to the President's commands, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Magnalia," Cotton Mather's, a mine of wealth to H. B. S., <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prof. Stowe's interest in, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Maine law, curiosity about in England, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Mandarin, Mrs. Stowe at, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>;<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[523]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">like Sorrento, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">how her house was built, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her happy out-door life in, relieved from domestic care, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">longings for home at, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">freedmen's happy life in South, <a href="#Page_506">506</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Mann, Horace, makes a plea for slaves, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Martineau, Harriet, letter to H. B. S. from, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br />
+<br />
+May, Georgiana, school and life-long friend of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mrs. Sykes, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her ill-health and farewell to H. B. S., <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from H. B. S. to, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">account of westward journey, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on labor in establishing school, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on education, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">just before her marriage to Mr. Stowe, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on her early married life and housekeeping, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on birth of her son, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">describing first railroad ride, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on her children, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her letter to Mrs. Foote, grandmother of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters to H. B. S. from, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Mayflower, The," <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">revised and republished, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date of, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Melancholy, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a characteristic of Prof. Stowe in childhood, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Men of Our Times," date of, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Middlemarch," H. B. S. wishes to read, <a href="#Page_468">468</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">character of Casaubon in, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Milman, Dean, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Milton's hell, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Minister's Wooing, The," soul struggles of Mrs. Marvyn, foundation of incident, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">idea of God in, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">impulse for writing, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appears in "Atlantic Monthly," <a href="#Page_326">326</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lowell, J. R. on, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whittier on, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">completed, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ruskin on, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">undertone of pathos, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visits England in relation to, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date of, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"reveals warm heart of man" beneath the Puritan in Whittier's poem, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Missouri Compromise, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">repealed, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Mohl, Madame, and her <i>salon</i>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Money-making, reading as easy a way as any of, <a href="#Page_494">494</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Moral aim in novel-writing, J. R. Lowell on, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Mourning Veil, The," <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Mystique La," on spiritualism, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Naples</span> and Vesuvius, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"National Era," its history, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">work for, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Negroes, petition from, presented by J. Q. Adams, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>.<br />
+<br />
+New England, Mrs. Stowe's knowledge of, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in "The Minister's Wooing," <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">life pictured in "Oldtown Folks," <a href="#Page_444">444</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+New London, fatigue of reading at, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Newport, tiresome journey to, on reading tour, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Niagara, impressions of, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Normal school for colored teachers, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"North American Review" on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.<br />
+<br />
+North <i>versus</i> South, England on, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Norton, C. E., Ruskin on the proper home of, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"<span class="smcap">Observer</span>, New York," denunciation of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Oldtown Fireside Stories," <a href="#Page_438">438</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">strange spiritual experiences of Prof. Stowe, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sam Lawson a real character, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">relief after finishing, <a href="#Page_489">489</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date of in chronological list, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Whittier's poem on seventieth birthday "With Old New England's flavor rife," <a href="#Page_503">503</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Oldtown Folks," <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prof. Stowe original of "Harry" in, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">George Eliot on its reception in England, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">picture of N. E. life, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date of, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[524]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whittier's praise of, "vigorous pencil-strokes" in poem on seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Orthodoxy, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Our Charley," date of, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Owen, Robert Dale, his "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World" and "The Debatable Land between this World and the Next," <a href="#Page_464">464</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S. wishes George Eliot to meet, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Palmerston</span>, Lord, meeting with, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Palmetto Leaves" published, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Papacy, The, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Paris, first visit to, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">second visit, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Park, Professor Edwards A., <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Parker, Theodore, on the Bible and Jesus, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Paton, Bailie, host of Mrs. Stowe, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Peabody, pleasant reading in, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Queen Victoria's picture at, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Pearl of Orr's Island, The," <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first published, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whittier's favorite, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date of, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Pebbles from the Shores of a Past Life," a review of her life proposed to be written by H. B. S. with aid of son Charles, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Phantoms seen by Professor Stowe, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, writes poem on H. B. S.'s seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_505">505</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Philanthropist, The," anti-slavery paper, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Phillips, Wendell, attitude of after war, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Pink and White Tyranny," date of, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Plymouth Church, saves Edmonson's daughters, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">slavery and, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">clears Henry Ward Beecher by acclamation, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">calls council of Congregational ministers and laymen, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">council ratifies decision of Church, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">committee of five appointed to bring facts which could be proved, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">missions among poor particularly effective at time of trial, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Poganuc People," <a href="#Page_413">413</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sent to Dr. Holmes, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date of, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Pollock, Lord Chief Baron, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Poor, generosity of touches H. B. S., <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Portland, H. B. S.'s friends there among the past, <a href="#Page_494">494</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her readings in, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Portraits of Mrs. Stowe, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Belloc to paint, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">untruth of, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Poverty in early married life, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Prescott, W. H., letter to H. B, S. from, on "Dred," <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Presse, La," on "Dred," <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Providential aid in sickness, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+"<span class="smcap">Queer</span> Little People," date of, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Reading</span> and teaching, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Religion and humanity, George Eliot on, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Religious poems," date of, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Revue des Deux Mondes" on "Dred," <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Riots in Cincinnati and anti-slavery agitation, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Roenne, Baron de, visits Professor Stowe, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Roman politics in 1861, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Rome, H. B. S.'s journey to, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">impressions of, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Ruskin, John, letters to H. B. S. from, on "The Minister's Wooing," <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on his dislike of America, but love for American friends, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Ruskin and Turner, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Saint-Beuve</span>, H. B. S.'s liking for, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sales, Francis de, H. W. Beecher compared with, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Salisbury, Mr., interest of in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Salons, French, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[525]</a></span>Sand, George, reviews "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Scotland, H. B. S.'s first visit to, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Scott, Walter, Lyman Beecher's opinion of, when discussing novel-reading, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">monument in Edinburgh, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Sea, H. B. S.'s nervous horror of, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sea-voyages, H. B. S. on, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Semi-Colon Club, H. B. S. becomes a member of, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Shaftesbury, Earl of, letter of, to Mrs. Stowe, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Shaftesbury, Lord, to H. B. S., letter from, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter from H. B. S. to, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">America and, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Skinner, Dr., <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Slave, aiding a fugitive, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Slave-holding States on English address, <a href="#Page_378">378</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">intensity of conflict in, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Slavery, H. B. S.'s first notice of, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">anti-slavery agitation, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death-knell of, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, and Patrick Henry on, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">growth of, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">résumé of its history, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">responsibility of church for, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lord Carlisle's opinion on, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">moral effect of, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sacrilege of, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its past and future, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its injustice, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its death-blow; 370;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">English women's appeal against, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">J. Q. Adams' crusade against, <a href="#Page_509">509</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">gone forever, <a href="#Page_506">506</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Slaves, H. B. S.'s work for and sympathy with, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">family sorrows of, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Smith, Anna, helper to Mrs. S., <a href="#Page_115">115</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>note</i>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Soul, immortality of, H. B. S.'s essay written at age of twelve: first literary production, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>-<a href="#Page_21">21</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Addison's remarks upon, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Greek and Roman idea of immortality, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">light given by Gospel, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Christ on, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+South, England's sympathy with the, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>.<br />
+<br />
+South Framingham, good audience at reading in, <a href="#Page_495">495</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Souvenir, The," <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Spiritualism, Mrs. Stowe on, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mrs. Browning on, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Holmes, O. W., on, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"La Mystique" and Görres on, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Professor Stowe's strange experiences in, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">George Eliot on psychical problems of, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on "Charlatanerie" connected with, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Robert Dale Owen on, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Goethe on, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S.'s letter to George Eliot on, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her mature views on, <a href="#Page_485">485</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a comfort to doubters and disbelievers, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">from Christian standpoint, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Stafford House meeting, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Stephens, A. H., on object of Confederacy, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Storrs, Dr. R. S., <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Stowe, Calvin E., <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of first wife, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his engagement to Harriet E. Beecher, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">their marriage, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his work in Lane Seminary, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sent by the Seminary to Europe on educational matters, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">returns, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his Educational Report presented, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">aids a fugitive slave, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">strongly encourages his wife in her literary aspirations, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">care of the sick students in Lane Seminary, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">is "house-father" during his wife's illness and absence, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">goes to water cure after his wife's return from the same, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">absent from Cincinnati home at death of youngest child, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accepts the Collins Professorship at Bowdoin, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">gives his mother his&nbsp; reasons for leaving Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">remains behind to finish college work, while wife and three children leave for Brunswick, Me., <a href="#Page_129">129</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resigns his professorship at Bowdoin, and accepts a call to Andover, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accompanies his wife to Europe, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[526]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">his second trip with wife to Europe, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sermon after his son's death, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">great sorrow at his bereavement, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">goes to Europe for the fourth time, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resigns his position at Andover, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Florida, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">failing health, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his letter to George Eliot, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S. uses his strange experiences in youth as material for her picture of "Harry" in "Oldtown Folks," <a href="#Page_421">421</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the psychological history of his strange child-life, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">curious experiences with phantoms, and good and bad spirits, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visions of fairies, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">love of reading, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his power of character-painting shown in his description of a visit to his relatives, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">George Eliot's mental picture of his personality, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">enjoys life and study in Florida, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his studies on Prof. Görres' book, "Die Christliche Mystik," and its relation to his own spiritual experience, <a href="#Page_474">474</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">love for Henry Ward Beecher returned by latter, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">absorbed in "Daniel Deronda," <a href="#Page_482">482</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"over head and ears in <i>diablerie</i>," <a href="#Page_484">484</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fears he has not long to live, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dull at wife's absence on reading tour, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">enjoys proximity to Boston Library, and "Life of John Quincy Adams," <a href="#Page_509">509</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death, <a href="#Page_512">512</a> and <i>note</i>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from H. B. S. to, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on her illness, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on cholera epidemic in Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on sickness, death of son Charley, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">account of new home, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on her writings and literary aspirations, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on her interest in the Edmonson slave family, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on life in London, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on visit to the Duke of Argyle, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">from Dunrobin Castle, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on "Dred," <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">other letters from abroad, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on life in Paris, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on journey to Rome, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on impressions of Rome, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on Swiss journey, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">from Florence, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">from Paris, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on farewell to her soldier son, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit to Duchess of Argyle, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on her reading tour, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on his health and her enforced absence from him, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on reading, at Chelsea, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Bangor and Portland, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at South Framingham and Haverhill, <a href="#Page_495">495</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Peabody, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fatigue at New London reading, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from to H. B. S. on visit to his relatives and description of home life, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">to mother on reasons for leaving the West, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">to George Eliot, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">to son Charles, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Stowe, Charles E., seventh child of H. B. S., birth of, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Harvard, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Bonn, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter from Calvin E. Stowe to, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter from H. B. S. to, on her school life, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on "Poganuc People," <a href="#Page_413">413</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on her readings in the West, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on selection of papers and letters for her biography, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on interest of herself and Prof. Stowe in life and anti-slavery career of John Quincy Adams, <a href="#Page_509">509</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Stowe, Eliza Tyler (Mrs. C. E.), death of, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">twin daughter of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Stowe, Frederick William, second son of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">enlists in First Massachusetts, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">made lieutenant for bravery, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mother's visit to, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">severely wounded, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">subsequent effects of the wound, never entirely recovers, his disappearance and unknown fate, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ill-health after war, Florida home purchased for his sake, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Stowe, Georgiana May, daughter of H. B. S., birth of, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">family happy in her marriage, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter from H. B. S. to, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Stowe, Harriet Beecher, birth and parentage of, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first memorable incident, the death of her mother, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[527]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to her brother Charles on her mother's death, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">incident of the tulip bulbs and mother's gentleness, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first journey a visit to her grandmother, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">study of catechisms under her grandmother and aunt, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">early religious and Biblical reading, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first school at the age of five, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">hunger after mental food, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">joyful discovery of "The Arabian Nights," in the bottom of a barrel of dull sermons, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reminiscences of reading in father's library, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">impression made by the Declaration of Independence, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appearance and character of her stepmother, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">healthy, happy child-life, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">birth of her half-sister Isabella and H. B. S.'s care of infant, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">early love of writing, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her essay selected for reading at school exhibitions, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her father s pride in essay, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">subject of essay, arguments for belief in the Immortality of the Soul, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>-<a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">end of child-life in Litchfield, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">goes to sister Catherine's school at Hartford, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">describes Catherine Beecher's school in letter to son, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her home with the Bulls, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school friends, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">takes up Latin, her study of Ovid and Virgil, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dreams of being a poet and writes "Cleon," a drama, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her conversion, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">doubts of relatives and friends, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">connects herself with First Church, Hartford, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her struggle with rigid theology, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her melancholy and doubts, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">necessity of cheerful society, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit to grandmother, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">return to Hartford, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">interest in painting lessons, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">confides her religious doubts to her brother Edward, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school life in Hartford, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">peace at last, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accompanies her father and family to Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">describes her journey, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">yearnings for New England home, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ill-health and depression, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her life in Cincinnati and teaching at new school established by her sister Catherine and herself, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wins prize for short story, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">joins "Semicolon Club," <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">slavery first brought to her personal notice, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attends Henry Ward Beecher's graduation, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">engagement, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">marriage, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">anti-slavery agitation, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sympathy with Birney, editor of anti-slavery paper in Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">birth of twin daughters, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of her third child, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reunion of the Beecher family, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">housekeeping <i>versus</i> literary work, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">birth of second son, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visits Hartford, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">literary work encouraged, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sickness in Lane Seminary, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of brother George, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">birth of third daughter, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">protracted illness and poverty, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">seminary struggles, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">goes to water cure, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">returns home, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">birth of sixth child, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bravery in cholera epidemic, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of youngest child Charles, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">leaves Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">removal to Brunswick, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">getting settled, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">husband arrives, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">birth of seventh child, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">anti-slavery feeling aroused by letters from Boston, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Uncle Tom's Cabin," first thought of, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writings for papers, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Uncle Tom's Cabin" appears as a serial, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in book form, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its wonderful success, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">praise from Longfellow, Whittier, Garrison, Higginson, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from English nobility, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visits Henry Ward in Brooklyn, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">raises money to free Edmondson family, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">home-making at Andover, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first trip to Europe, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wonderful success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" abroad, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[528]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">her warm reception at Liverpool, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">delight in Scotland, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">public reception and tea-party at Glasgow, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">warm welcome from Scotch people, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">touched by the "penny offering" of the poor for the slaves, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Edinburgh soirée, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">meets English celebrities at Lord Mayor's dinner in London, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">meets English nobility, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stafford House, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">breakfast at Lord Trevelyan's, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Windsor, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">presentation of bracelet, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of inkstand, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Paris, first visit to, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>en route</i> for Switzerland, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Geneva and Chillon, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grindelwald to Meyringen, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">London, <i>en route</i> for America, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">work for slaves in America, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">correspondence with Garrison, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Dred," <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">second visit to Europe, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">meeting with Queen Victoria, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visits Inverary Castle, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dunrobin Castle, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oxford and London, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visits the Laboucheres, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Paris, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>en route</i> to Rome, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Naples and Vesuvius, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Venice and Milan, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">homeward journey and return, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of oldest son, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visits Dartmouth, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">receives advice from Lowell on "The Pearl of Orr's Island," <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The Minister's Wooing," <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">third trip to Europe, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Duchess of Sutherland's warm welcome, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Switzerland, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Florence, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Italian journey, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">return to America, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from Ruskin, Mrs. Browning, Holmes, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bids farewell to her son, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Washington, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her son wounded at Gettysburg, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his disappearance, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the Stowes remove to Hartford, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Address to women of England on slavery, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">winter home in Florida, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">joins the Episcopal Church, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">erects schoolhouse and church in Florida, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Palmetto, Leaves," <a href="#Page_405">405</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Poganuc People," <a href="#Page_413">413</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">warm reception at South, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">last winter in Florida, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes "Oldtown Folks," <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her interest in husband's strange spiritual experiences, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. B. S. justifies her action in Byron Controversy, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her love and faith in Lady Byron, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reads Byron letters, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">counsels silence and patience to Lady Byron, <a href="#Page_451">451</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">writes "True Story of Lady Byron's Life," <a href="#Page_447">447</a>, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">publishes "Lady Byron Vindicated," <a href="#Page_454">454</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"History of the Byron Controversy," <a href="#Page_455">455</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her purity of motive in this painful matter, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">George Eliot's sympathy with her in Byron matter, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her friendship with George Eliot dates from letter shown by Mrs. Follen, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">describes Florida life and peace to George Eliot, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her interest in Mr. Owen and spiritualism, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">love of Florida life and nature, <a href="#Page_468">468</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">history of Florida home, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">impressions of "Middlemarch," <a href="#Page_471">471</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">invites George Eliot to come to America, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">words of sympathy on Beecher trial from George Eliot, and Mrs. Stowe's reply, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her defense of her brother's purity of life, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beecher trial drawn on her heart's blood, <a href="#Page_480">480</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her mature views on spiritualism, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her doubts of ordinary manifestations, <a href="#Page_486">486</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">soul-cravings after dead friends satisfied by Christ's promises, <a href="#Page_486">486</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">chronological list of her books, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">accepts offer from N. E. Lecture Bureau to give readings from her works, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">gives readings in New England, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>, <i>et seq.</i>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">warm welcome in Maine, <a href="#Page_493">493</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sympathetic audiences in Massachusetts, <a href="#Page_495">495</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fatigue of traveling and reading at New London, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Western reading tour, <a href="#Page_497">497</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"fearful distances and wretched trains," <a href="#Page_498">498</a>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[529]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">seventieth anniversary of birthday celebrated by Houghton, Mifflin &amp; Co., <a href="#Page_500">500</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. O. Houghton's welcome, <a href="#Page_501">501</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. W. Beecher's reply and eulogy on sister, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whittier's poem at seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Holmes' poem, <a href="#Page_503">503</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">other poems of note written for the occasion, <a href="#Page_505">505</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mrs. Stowe's thanks, <a href="#Page_505">505</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">joy in the future of the colored race, <a href="#Page_506">506</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reading old letters and papers, <a href="#Page_507">507</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her own letters to Mr. Stowe and letters from friends, <a href="#Page_508">508</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">interest in Life of John Quincy Adams and his crusade against slavery, <a href="#Page_510">510</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of husband, <a href="#Page_512">512</a> and <i>note</i>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of Henry Ward Beecher, <a href="#Page_512">512</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">thinks of writing review of her life aided by son, under title of "Pebbles from the Shores of a Past Life," <a href="#Page_512">512</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her feelings on the nearness of death, but perfect trust in Christ, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>; glimpses</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of the future life leave a strange sweetness in her mind, <a href="#Page_513">513</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Stowe, Harriet Beecher, twin daughter of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Stowe, Henry Ellis, first son of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">goes to Europe, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">returns to enter Dartmouth, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his character, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his portrait, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">mourning for, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Stowe, Samuel Charles, sixth child of H. B. S., birth of, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">anguish at loss of, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">early death of, <a href="#Page_508">508</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Study, plans for a, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sturge, Joseph, visit to, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Suffrage, universal, H. W. Beecher advocate of, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sumner, Charles, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to H. B. S. from, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Sumter, Fort, H. W. Beecher raises flag on, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Sunny Memories," <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date of, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Sutherland, Duchess of, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">friend to America, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">at Stafford House presents gold bracelet, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit to, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fine character, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sympathy with on son's death, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">warm welcome to H. B. S., <a href="#Page_346">346</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">death of, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letters from H. B. S. to, on "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on death of eldest son, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Sutherland, Lord, personal appearance of, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Swedenborg, weary messages from spirit-world of, <a href="#Page_486">486</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Swiss Alps, visit to, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">delight in, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Swiss interest in "Uncle Tom," <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Switzerland, H. B. S. in, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Sykes, Mrs. See May, Georgiana.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Talfourd</span>, Mr. Justice, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Thackeray, W. M., Lowell on, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Thanksgiving Day in Washington, freed slaves celebrate, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Times, London," on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on Mrs. Stowe's new dress, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on "Dred," <a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Miss Martineau's criticism on, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Titcomb, John, aids H. B. S. in moving, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Tourgée, Judge A. W., his speech at seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_505">505</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Trevelyan, Lord and Lady, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">breakfast to Mrs. Stowe, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Triqueti, Baron de, models bust of H. B. S., <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Trowbridge, J. T., writes on seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_505">505</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"True Story of Lady Byron's Life, The," in "Atlantic Monthly," <a href="#Page_447">447</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Tupper, M. F., calls on H. B. S., <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin," description of Augustine St. Clair's mother's influence a simple reproduction of Mrs. Lyman Beecher's influence, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">written under love's impulse, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fugitives' escape, foundation of story, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">popular conception of author of, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">origin and inspiration of, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[530]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prof. Cairnes on, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Uncle Tom's death, conception of, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to Douglas about facts, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">appears in the "Era," <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">came from heart, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">a religious work, object of, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its power, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">begins a serial in "National Era," <a href="#Page_156">156</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">price paid by "Era," <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">publisher's offer, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first copy of books sold, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">wonderful success, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">praise from Longfellow, Whittier, Garrison, and Higginson, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">threatening letters, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Eastman's, Mrs., rejoinder to, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reception in England, "Times," on, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">political effect of, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">book under interdict in South, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Jenny Lind's praise of, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">attack upon, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sampson Low upon its success abroad, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">first London publisher, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">number of editions sold in Great Britain and abroad, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dramatized in U.S. and London, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">European edition, preface to, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fact not fiction, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">translations of, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">German tribute to, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">George Sand's review, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">remuneration for, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">written with heart's blood, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Swiss interest in, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mme. Belloc translates, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"North American Review" on, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in France, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">compared with "Dred," <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">J. R. Lowell on, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Mrs. Stowe rereads after war, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">later books compared with, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H. W. Beecher's approval of, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">new edition with introduction sent to George Eliot, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">date of, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whittier's mention of, in poem on seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Holmes' tribute to, in poem on same occasion, <a href="#Page_504">504</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Upham</span>, Mrs., kindness to H. B. S., <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">visit to, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Venice</span>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Victoria, Queen, H. B. S.'s interview with, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">gives her picture to Geo. Peabody, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Vizetelly, Henry, first London publisher of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Wakefield</span>, reading at, <a href="#Page_495">495</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Walnut Hills, picture of, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and old home revisited, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Waltham, audience inspires reader, <a href="#Page_496">496</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Washington, Mrs. Stowe visits soldier son at, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Washington on slavery, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Water cure, H. B. S. at, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.<br />
+<br />
+"We and our Neighbors," date of, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Webster, Daniel, famous speech of, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Weld, Theodore D. in the anti-slavery movement, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Western travel, discomforts of, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Whately, Archbishop, letter to H. B. S. from, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Whitney, A. D. T., writes poem on seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_505">505</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Whitney, Eli, and the cotton gin, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Whittier's "Ichabod," a picture of Daniel Webster, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Whittier, J. G., <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to W. L. Garrison from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on "Pearl of Orr's Island," <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on "Minister's Wooing," <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">poem on H. B. S's seventieth birthday, <a href="#Page_502">502</a>.</span><br />
+<br />
+Windsor, visit to, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Womanhood, true, H. B. S. on intellect <i>versus</i> heart, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Woman's rights, H. W. Beecher, advocate of, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Women of America, Appeal from H. B. S. to, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.<br />
+<br />
+Women's influence, power of, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Zanesville</span>, description of, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[531]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1_2" id="Footnote_1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_2">[1]</a> This geography was begun by Mrs. Stowe during the summer of
+1832, while visiting her brother William at Newport, R. I. It was completed
+during the winter of 1833, and published by the firm of Corey,
+Fairbank &amp; Webster, of Cincinnati.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2_3" id="Footnote_2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_3">[2]</a> A ridiculous book from which Mr. Stowe derived endless amusement.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3_4" id="Footnote_3_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_4">[3]</a> Salmon P. Chase.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4_5" id="Footnote_4_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_5">[4]</a> The governess, Miss Anna Smith.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5_6" id="Footnote_5_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_6">[5]</a> An old colored woman.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_6_7" id="Footnote_6_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_7">[6]</a> Wife of Professor Upham of Bowdoin College.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7_8" id="Footnote_7_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_8">[7]</a> Her brother George's only child.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8_9" id="Footnote_8_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_9">[8]</a> Bancroft's funeral oration on Lincoln.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_9_10" id="Footnote_9_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_10">[9]</a> Greeley's <i>American Conflict</i>, vol. i. p. 65.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_10_11" id="Footnote_10_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_11">[10]</a> Introduction to Illustrated Edition of <i>Uncle Tom</i>, p. xiii. (Houghton,
+Osgood &amp; Co., 1879.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_11_12" id="Footnote_11_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_12">[11]</a> Afterwards embodied in the <i>Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_12_13" id="Footnote_12_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_13">[12]</a> Author of <i>Spanish Conquest in America</i>.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Ed.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_13_14" id="Footnote_13_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_14">[13]</a> Students in the Seminary.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_14_15" id="Footnote_14_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_15">[14]</a> <i>The Pearl of Orr's Island.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_15_16" id="Footnote_15_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_16">[15]</a> Andrew Johnson.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_16_17" id="Footnote_16_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_17">[16]</a> <i>Die Christliche Mystik</i>, by Johann Joseph Görres, Regensburg, 1836-42.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_17_18" id="Footnote_17_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_18">[17]</a> George Eliot's Life, edited by J. W. Cross, vol. i.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_18_19" id="Footnote_18_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_19">[18]</a> <i>Die Christliche Mystik.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_19_20" id="Footnote_19_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_20">[19]</a> Professor Stowe.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_20_21" id="Footnote_20_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_21">[20]</a> <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin</i>, new edition, with introduction.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_21_22" id="Footnote_21_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_22">[21]</a> Professor Stowe died August, 1886.</p></div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[532]</a></span></p>
+<div class='adtitle2'><i>A LIST OF THE WORKS<br />
+<small>OF</small><br />
+HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.</i></div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[533]</a></span></p>
+<div class='adtitle2'>NOVELS, STORIES, SKETCHES, AND POEMS,<br />
+<small>BY</small><br />
+HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.</div>
+
+<div class='center'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</div>
+<p><i>It is the great happiness of Mrs. Stowe not only to have written
+many delightful books, but to have written one book which will be always
+famous not only as the most vivid picture of an extinct evil system,
+but as one of the most powerful influences in overthrowing it.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+No book was ever more a historical event than "Uncle Tom's Cabin." .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+If all whom she has charmed and quickened should unite to sing
+her praises, the birds of summer would be outdone.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">George William
+Curtis.</span></p>
+<div class='center'>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</div>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>UNCLE TOM'S CABIN.</i> A Story of American Slavery. 12mo,
+$2.00.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'>New <i>Popular Edition</i> from new plates. With account of the writing
+of this story by Mrs. <span class="smcap">Stowe</span>, and frontispiece. 16mo, $1.00.</div>
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>Holiday Edition.</i> With an Introduction of more than thirty pages by
+Mrs. <span class="smcap">Stowe</span>, describing the circumstances under which the story
+was written, and a Bibliography of the various editions and languages
+in which the work has appeared, by <span class="smcap">George Bullen</span>, of the
+British Museum. With more than one hundred illustrations, and
+red-line border. 8vo, full gilt, $3.00; half calf, $5.00; morocco, or
+tree calf, $6.00.</div>
+
+<p>The publication of this remarkable story was an event in American
+history as well as in American literature. It fixed the eyes of the nation
+and of the civilized world on the evils of slavery, presenting these
+so vividly and powerfully that the heart and conscience of mankind
+were thenceforth enlisted against them. But, aside from its graphic
+portrayal of slavery, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a story of thrilling
+power, and abounds in humorous delineations of negro and Yankee
+character. Its extraordinary annual sale of thousands of copies, and
+its translation into numerous foreign languages, attest its universal
+and permanent interest.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[534]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>DRED (NINA GORDON).</i> A Story of Slavery. New Edition from
+new plates. 12mo, $1.50.</div>
+
+<p>This volume was originally published under the title "Dred." It
+has a close connection with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the object of both
+being to picture life at the South as it was under the régime of slavery.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Uncle Tom" and "Dred" will assure Mrs. Stowe a place in that high
+rank of novelists who can give us a national life in all its phases, popular and
+aristocratic, humorous and tragic, political and religious.&mdash;<i>Westminster Review</i>
+(London).<br /><br /></p></blockquote>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>AGNES OF SORRENTO.</i> An Italian Romance. 12mo, $1.50.</div>
+
+<p>In this story a plot of rare interest is wrought out, amid the glowing
+scenery of Italy, with the author's well-known dramatic skill.<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.</i> 12mo, $1.50.</div>
+
+<p>The scene of this charming tale is laid upon the coast of Maine.
+The author's familiar knowledge of New England rural life renders the
+volume especially attractive.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>A story of singular pathos and beauty.&mdash;<i>North American Review.</i><br /><br /></p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>THE MINISTER'S WOOING.</i> 12mo, $1.50.</div>
+
+<p>In this volume Mrs. Stowe has reproduced the New England of two
+generations ago. It deals with the noblest and most rugged traits of
+New England character.<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>MY WIFE AND I</i>; or, Harry Henderson's History. New Edition.
+Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.</div>
+
+<p>This book first appeared as a serial in the <i>Christian Union</i>, New
+York. The author dedicates it to "the many dear, bright young girls
+whom she is so happy as to number among her choicest friends."<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS.</i> New Edition. Illustrated. 12mo,
+$1.50.</div>
+
+<p>This is a sequel to "My Wife and I."<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>POGANUC PEOPLE.</i> Their Loves and Lives. New Edition.
+Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.</div>
+
+<p>A story of a New England town, its men and its manners.<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>OLD TOWN FOLKS.</i> 12mo, $1.50.</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>Full to repletion of delicate sketches of very original characters, and clever
+bits of dialogue, and vivid descriptions of natural scenery.&mdash;<i>The Spectator</i>
+(London).<br /><br /></p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>SAM LAWSON'S OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES.</i> Illustrated.
+New Edition, enlarged. 12mo, $1.50.</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[535]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Contents</span>: The Ghost in the Mill; The Sullivan Looking-Glass;
+The Minister's Housekeeper; The Widow's Bandbox; Captain Kidd's
+Money; "Mis' Elderkin's Pitcher"; The Ghost in the Cap'n Brown
+House; Colonel Eph's Shoe-Buckles; The Bull-Fight; How to Fight
+the Devil; Laughin' in Meetin'; The Toothacre's Ghost Story; The
+Parson's Horse Race; Oldtown Fireside Talks of the Revolution; A
+Student's Sea Story.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>These stories will prove a mine of genuine fun; pictures of a time, place,
+and state of society which are like nothing on this side of the world, and
+which, we suppose, are becoming rapidly erased.&mdash;<i>The Athenćum</i> (London).<br /><br /></p></blockquote>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>THE MAYFLOWER, AND OTHER SKETCHES.</i> 12mo,
+$1.50.</div>
+
+<p>A series of New England sketches, many of which have become
+household stories throughout the land.</p>
+
+<p>The above eleven 12mo volumes, uniform, in box, $16.00.<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>LITTLE PUSSY WILLOW, ETC.</i> Illustrated. Square 12mo,
+$1.25.<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>A DOG'S MISSION, ETC.</i> Illustrated. Square 12mo, $1.25.<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE.</i> Illustrated. Square 12mo, $1.25.</div>
+
+<p>These three Juvenile books, $3.75.</p>
+
+<p>Three collections of delightful stories&mdash;the best of reading for
+young folks.<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>PALMETTO LEAVES.</i> Sketches of Florida. Illustrated. 16mo,
+$1.50.</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Any one who wishes a delightful excursion to the land of flowers has only
+to turn over these "Palmetto Leaves" and he has it.&mdash;<i>New York Observer.</i><br /><br /></p></blockquote>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS</i>. 16mo, $1.50.</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Contents</span>: The Ravages of a Carpet; Home-Keeping <i>versus</i>
+House-Keeping; What is a Home? The Economy of the Beautiful;
+Raking up the Fire; The Lady who does her own Work; What can
+be got in America; Economy; Servants; Cookery; Our House;
+Home Religion.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>An invaluable volume, and one which should be owned and consulted by
+every one who has a house, or who wants a home.&mdash;<i>The Congregationalist</i>
+(Boston.)<br /><br /></p></blockquote>
+
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>LITTLE FOXES.</i> Common Household Faults. 16mo, $1.50.</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The foxes are,&mdash;Fault-Finding, Irritability, Repression, Persistence, Intolerance,
+Discourtesy, Exactingness. Mrs. Stowe has made essays as entertaining
+as stories, enlivened with wit, seasoned with sense, glowing with the most
+kindly feeling.&mdash;<i>Hartford Press.</i><br /><br /></p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[536]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>THE CHIMNEY CORNER.</i> 16mo, $1.50.</div>
+
+<p>A series of papers on Woman's Rights and Duties, Health, Amusements,
+Entertainment of Company, Dress, Fashion, Self-Discipline,
+etc. The genial, practical wisdom of these subjects gives this volume
+great value.</p>
+
+<p>These three Household Books, uniform, in box, $4.50.<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>RELIGIOUS POEMS.</i> Illustrated. 16mo, $1.50.</div>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>All characterized by the genius of Mrs. Stowe.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. In all, there is a profound
+appreciation of the <i>inner life</i> of religion,&mdash;a wrestling for nearness to
+God.&mdash;<i>American Christian Review.</i><br /><br /></p></blockquote>
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>FLOWERS AND FRUIT</i>, selected from the Writings of Harriet
+Beecher Stowe. 16mo, $1.00.</div>
+
+<p>A charming little book .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. full of sweet passages, and bright, discerning,
+wise, and in the best sense of the term, witty sayings of our greatest American
+novelist.&mdash;<i>Chicago Advance.</i><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+
+<div class='hang1'><i>DIALOGUES AND SCENES FROM THE WRITINGS OF
+MRS. STOWE.</i> For use in School Entertainments. Selected by
+<span class="smcap">Emily Weaver</span>. In Riverside Literature Series, extra number <i>E</i>.
+16mo, paper, 15 cents, <i>net</i>.</div>
+
+<p>The selections are from some of Mrs. Stowe's most true-to-life scenes,&mdash;full
+of pathos and mirth.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Nine most charming dialogues.&mdash;<i>School Journal</i>
+(New York).</p>
+
+
+<p>&#8258; <i>For sale by all Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price by the
+Publishers</i>,</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,<br />
+<span class="smcap">4 Park Street, Boston</span>; <span class="smcap">11 East 17th Street, New York</span>.
+</div>
+<hr class='chap' />
+
+<div class='tnote'><div class='center'><b>Transcriber's Notes:</b></div>
+
+<p>Punctuation errors repaired.</p>
+
+<p>Page 146, repeated word "the" removed from text. Original read (make the
+the whole nation)</p>
+
+<p>Page 179, "propect" changed to "prospect" (over the prospect of raising)</p>
+
+<p>Page 205, "everywere" changed to "everywhere" (affection that everywhere)</p>
+
+<p>Page 205, "Frith" changed to "Firth" (of Solway Firth and)</p>
+
+<p>Page 416, "neigbors" changed to "neighbors" (all the neigbors waiting)</p>
+
+<p>Page 437, "nonenity" changed to "nonentity" (old book into nonentity)</p>
+
+<p>Page 438, "aerial" changed to "ćrial" (of my ćrial visitors)</p>
+
+<p>Page 505, "Tourgee" changed to "Tourgée" (Tourgée and others prominent)</p>
+
+<p>Page 516, Stowe, Catherine, page reference added to (visits Cincinnati with father, 54;)</p>
+
+<p>Page 522, Lowell, J. R. "interesti n" changed to "interest in" (Sutherland's interest
+in, 277)</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Compiled
+from Her Letters and Journals, by Charles Edward Stowe
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Compiled from
+Her Letters and Journals, by Charles Edward Stowe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Compiled from Her Letters and Journals
+
+Author: Charles Edward Stowe
+
+Posting Date: May 3, 2014 [EBook #6702]
+Release Date: October, 2004 (original version's release date)
+First Posted: January 17, 2003 (original version's posting date)
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Emmy, Steve Schulze, Charles
+Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Richmond, Del. J. & J. Wilson, So.
+
+H.B. Stowe]
+
+
+
+
+LIFE OF
+
+HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
+
+    COMPILED FROM
+
+    Her Letters and Journals
+
+    BY HER SON
+
+    CHARLES EDWARD STOWE
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+    BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
+    The Riverside Press, Cambridge
+    1890
+
+
+
+
+    Copyright, 1889,
+    BY CHARLES E. STOWE,
+
+    _All rights reserved._
+
+
+    _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S.A._
+    Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
+
+
+[Illustration: Handwritten letter]
+
+It seems but fitting, that I should preface this story of my life with
+a few notes of instruction.
+
+The desire to leave behind me some recollections of my life, has
+been cherished by me, for many years past; but failing strength or
+increasing infirmities have prevented its accomplishment.
+
+At my suggestion and with what assistance I have been able to render,
+my son, Ross Charles Edward Stowe, has compiled from my letters and
+journals, this biography. It is this true story of my life, told for
+the most part, in my own words and has therefore all the force of an
+autobiography.
+
+It is perhaps much more accurate as to detail & impression than is
+possible with any autobiography, written later in life.
+
+If these pages, shall help those who read them to a firmer trust in God
+& a deeper sense of His fatherly goodness throughout the days of our
+earthly pilgrimage I can say with Valiant for Truth in the Pilgrim's
+Progress!
+
+I am going to my Father's & tho with great difficulty, I am got
+thither, get now, I do not repent me of all the troubles I have been
+at, to arrive where I am.
+
+My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage & my
+courage & skill to him that can get it.
+
+    Hartford Sept 30
+    1889
+
+                                         Harriet Beecher Stowe
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT
+
+
+I DESIRE to express my thanks here to Harper & Brothers, of New York,
+for permission to use letters already published in the "Autobiography
+and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher." I have availed myself freely
+of this permission in chapters i. and iii. In chapter xx. I have
+given letters already published in the "Life of George Eliot," by Mr.
+Cross; but in every instance I have copied from the original MSS. and
+not from the published work. In conclusion, I desire to express my
+indebtedness to Mr. Kirk Munroe, who has been my co-laborer in the work
+of compilation.
+
+                                                       CHARLES E. STOWE.
+    HARTFORD, _September 30, 1889_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+
+  CHILDHOOD 1811-1824.
+
+  DEATH OF HER MOTHER.--FIRST JOURNEY FROM HOME.--LIFE AT NUT
+  PLAINS.--SCHOOL DAYS AND HOURS WITH FAVORITE AUTHORS.--THE
+  NEW MOTHER.--LITCHFIELD ACADEMY AND ITS INFLUENCE.--FIRST
+  LITERARY EFFORTS.--A REMARKABLE COMPOSITION.--GOES TO HARTFORD    1
+
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+
+  SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD, 1824-1832.
+
+  MISS CATHERINE BEECHER.--PROFESSOR FISHER.--THE WRECK OF THE
+  ALBION AND DEATH OF PROFESSOR FISHER.--"THE MINISTER'S
+  WOOING."--MISS CATHERINE BEECHER'S SPIRITUAL HISTORY.--MRS.
+  STOWE'S RECOLLECTIONS OF HER SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD.--HER
+  CONVERSION.--UNITES WITH THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD.--HER
+  DOUBTS AND SUBSEQUENT RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT.--HER FINAL PEACE      22
+
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+
+  CINCINNATI, 1832-1836.
+
+  DR. BEECHER CALLED TO CINCINNATI.--THE WESTWARD JOURNEY.--FIRST
+  LETTER FROM HOME.--DESCRIPTION OF WALNUT HILLS.--STARTING A NEW
+  SCHOOL.--INWARD GLIMPSES.--THE SEMI-COLON CLUB.--EARLY
+  IMPRESSIONS OF SLAVERY.--A JOURNEY TO THE EAST.--THOUGHTS
+  AROUSED BY FIRST VISIT TO NIAGARA.--MARRIAGE TO PROFESSOR STOWE    53
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+
+  EARLY MARRIED LIFE, 1836-1840.
+
+  PROFESSOR STOWE'S INTEREST IN POPULAR EDUCATION.--HIS DEPARTURE
+   FOR EUROPE.--SLAVERY RIOTS IN CINCINNATI.--BIRTH OF TWIN
+  DAUGHTERS.--PROFESSOR STOWE'S RETURN AND VISIT TO
+  COLUMBUS.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--AIDING A FUGITIVE
+  SLAVE.--AUTHORSHIP UNDER DIFFICULTIES.--A BEECHER ROUND ROBIN      78
+
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+
+  POVERTY AND SICKNESS, 1840-1850.
+
+  FAMINE IN CINCINNATI.--SUMMER AT THE EAST.--PLANS FOR LITERARY
+  WORK.--EXPERIENCE ON A RAILROAD.--DEATH OF HER BROTHER
+  GEORGE.--SICKNESS AND DESPAIR.--A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF
+  HEALTH.--GOES TO BRATTLEBORO' WATER-CURE.--TROUBLES AT LANE
+  SEMINARY.--CHOLERA IN CINCINNATI.--DEATH OF YOUNGEST
+  CHILD.--DETERMINED TO LEAVE THE WEST                              100
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  REMOVAL TO BRUNSWICK, 1850-1852.
+
+  MRS. STOWE'S REMARKS ON WRITING AND UNDERSTANDING
+  BIOGRAPHY.--THEIR APPROPRIATENESS TO HER OWN BIOGRAPHY.--REASONS
+  FOR PROFESSOR STOWE'S LEAVING CINCINNATI.--MRS. STOWE'S JOURNEY
+  TO BROOKLYN.--HER BROTHER'S SUCCESS AS A MINISTER.--LETTERS
+  FROM HARTFORD AND BOSTON.--ARRIVES IN BRUNSWICK.--HISTORY OF THE
+  SLAVERY AGITATION.--PRACTICAL WORKING OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE
+  LAW.--MRS. EDWARD BEECHER'S LETTER TO MRS. STOWE AND ITS
+  EFFECT.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--BEGINS TO WRITE "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN"
+  AS A SERIAL FOR THE "NATIONAL ERA."--LETTER TO FREDERICK
+  DOUGLASS.--"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" A WORK OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION        126
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, 1852.
+
+  "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AS A SERIAL IN THE "NATIONAL ERA."--AN
+  OFFER FOR ITS PUBLICATION IN BOOK FORM.--WILL IT BE A
+  SUCCESS?--AN UNPRECEDENTED CIRCULATION.--CONGRATULATORY
+  MESSAGES.--KIND WORDS FROM ABROAD.--MRS. STOWE TO THE EARL OF
+  CARLISLE.--LETTERS FROM AND TO LORD SHAFTESBURY.--CORRESPONDENCE
+  WITH ARTHUR HELPS                                                 156
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  FIRST TRIP TO EUROPE, 1853.
+
+  THE EDMONDSONS.--BUYING SLAVES TO SET THEM FREE.--JENNY
+  LIND.--PROFESSOR STOWE IS CALLED TO ANDOVER.--FITTING UP THE NEW
+  HOME.--THE "KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN."--"UNCLE TOM" ABROAD.--HOW
+  IT WAS PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND.--PREFACE TO THE EUROPEAN
+  EDITION.--THE BOOK IN FRANCE.--IN GERMANY.--A GREETING FROM
+  CHARLES KINGSLEY.--PREPARING TO VISIT SCOTLAND.--LETTER TO MRS.
+  FOLLEN                                                            178
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  SUNNY MEMORIES, 1853.
+
+  CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.--ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.--RECEPTION IN
+  LIVERPOOL.--WELCOME TO SCOTLAND.--A GLASGOW TEA-PARTY.--EDINBURGH
+  HOSPITALITY.--ABERDEEN.--DUNDEE AND BIRMINGHAM.--JOSEPH
+  STURGE.--ELIHU BURRITT.--LONDON.--THE LORD MAYOR'S
+  DINNER.--CHARLES DICKENS AND HIS WIFE                             205
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  FROM OVER THE SEA, 1853.
+
+  THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--ARTHUR HELPS.--THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF
+  ARGYLL.--MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER.--A MEMORABLE MEETING AT
+  STAFFORD HOUSE.--MACAULAY AND DEAN MILMAN.--WINDSOR
+  CASTLE.--PROFESSOR STOWE RETURNS TO AMERICA.--MRS. STOWE ON THE
+  CONTINENT.--IMPRESSIONS OF PARIS.--EN ROUTE TO SWITZERLAND AND
+  GERMANY.--BACK TO ENGLAND.--HOMEWARD BOUND                        228
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  HOME AGAIN, 1853-1856.
+
+  ANTI-SLAVERY WORK.--STIRRING TIMES IN THE UNITED
+  STATES.--ADDRESS TO THE LADIES OF GLASGOW.--APPEAL TO THE WOMEN
+  OF AMERICA.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.--THE
+  WRITING OF "DRED."--FAREWELL LETTER FROM GEORGIANA MAY.--SECOND
+  VOYAGE TO ENGLAND                                                 250
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+
+  DRED, 1856.
+
+  SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND.--A GLIMPSE AT THE QUEEN.--THE DUKE OF
+  ARGYLL AND INVERARY.--EARLY CORRESPONDENCE WITH LADY
+  BYRON.--DUNROBIN CASTLE AND ITS INMATES.--A VISIT TO STOKE
+  PARK.--LORD DUFFERIN.--CHARLES KINGSLEY AT HOME.--PARIS
+  REVISITED.--MADAME MOHL'S RECEPTIONS                              270
+
+  CHAPTER XIII.
+
+  OLD SCENES REVISITED, 1856.
+
+  EN ROUTE TO ROME.--TRIALS OF TRAVEL.--A MIDNIGHT ARRIVAL AND
+  AN INHOSPITABLE RECEPTION.--GLORIES OF THE ETERNAL CITY.--NAPLES
+  AND VESUVIUS.--VENICE.--HOLY WEEK IN ROME.--RETURN TO
+  ENGLAND.--LETTER FROM HARRIET MARTINEAU ON "DRED."--A WORD FROM
+  MR. PRESCOTT ON "DRED."--FAREWELL TO LADY BYRON                   294
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.
+
+  THE MINISTER'S WOOING, 1857-1859.
+
+  DEATH OF MRS. STOWE'S OLDEST SON.--LETTER TO THE DUCHESS OF
+  SUTHERLAND.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTERS IN PARIS.--LETTER TO HER
+  SISTER CATHERINE.--VISIT TO BRUNSWICK AND ORR'S ISLAND.--WRITES
+  "THE MINISTER'S WOOING" AND "THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND."--MR.
+  WHITTIER'S COMMENTS.--MR. LOWELL ON "THE MINISTER'S
+  WOOING."--LETTER TO MRS. STOWE FROM MR. LOWELL.--JOHN RUSKIN
+  ON "THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--A YEAR OF SADNESS.--LETTER TO LADY
+  BYRON.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTER.--DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE             315
+
+
+  CHAPTER XV.
+
+  THE THIRD TRIP TO EUROPE, 1859.
+
+  THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE.--LADY BYRON ON "THE MINISTER'S
+  WOOING."--SOME FOREIGN PEOPLE AND THINGS AS THEY APPEARED TO
+  PROFESSOR STOWE.--A WINTER IN ITALY.--THINGS UNSEEN AND
+  UNREVEALED.--SPECULATIONS CONCERNING SPIRITUALISM.--JOHN
+  RUSKIN.--MRS. BROWNING.--THE RETURN TO AMERICA.--LETTERS TO DR.
+  HOLMES                                                            343
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.
+
+  THE CIVIL WAR, 1860-1865.
+
+  THE OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR.--MRS. STOWE'S SON
+  ENLISTS.--THANKSGIVING DAY IN WASHINGTON.--THE PROCLAMATION OF
+  EMANCIPATION.--REJOICINGS IN BOSTON.--FRED STOWE AT
+  GETTYSBURG.--LEAVING ANDOVER AND SETTLING IN HARTFORD.--A REPLY
+  TO THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND.--LETTERS FROM JOHN BRIGHT, ARCHBISHOP
+  WHATELY, AND NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE                                  363
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVII.
+
+  FLORIDA, 1865-1869.
+
+  LETTER TO DUCHESS OF ARGYLL.--MRS. STOWE DESIRES TO HAVE A HOME
+  AT THE SOUTH.--FLORIDA THE BEST FIELD FOR DOING GOOD.--SHE BUYS
+  A PLACE AT MANDARIN.--A CHARMING WINTER RESIDENCE.--"PALMETTO
+  LEAVES."--EASTER SUNDAY AT MANDARIN.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR.
+  HOLMES.--"POGANUC PEOPLE."--RECEPTIONS IN NEW ORLEANS AND
+  TALLAHASSEE.--LAST WINTER AT MANDARIN                             395
+
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+  OLDTOWN FOLKS, 1869.
+
+  PROFESSOR STOWE THE ORIGINAL OF "HARRY" IN "OLDTOWN
+  FOLKS."--PROFESSOR STOWE'S LETTER TO GEORGE ELIOT.--HER REMARKS
+  ON THE SAME.--PROFESSOR STOWE'S NARRATIVE OF HIS YOUTHFUL
+  ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF SPIRITS.--PROFESSOR STOWE'S INFLUENCE
+  ON MRS. STOWE'S LITERARY LIFE.--GEORGE ELIOT ON "OLDTOWN FOLKS"   419
+
+
+  CHAPTER XIX.
+
+  THE BYRON CONTROVERSY, 1869-1870.
+
+  MRS. STOWE'S STATEMENT OF HER OWN CASE.--THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER
+  WHICH SHE FIRST MET LADY BYRON.--LETTERS TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER
+  TO DR. HOLMES WHEN ABOUT TO PUBLISH "THE TRUE STORY OF LADY
+  BYRON'S LIFE" IN THE "ATLANTIC."--DR. HOLMES'S REPLY.--THE
+  CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER                                          445
+
+
+  CHAPTER XX.
+
+  GEORGE ELIOT.
+
+  CORRESPONDENCE WITH GEORGE ELIOT.--GEORGE ELIOT'S FIRST
+  IMPRESSIONS OF MRS. STOWE.--MRS. STOWE'S LETTER TO MRS.
+  FOLLEN.--GEORGE ELIOT'S LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--MRS. STOWE'S
+  REPLY.--LIFE IN FLORIDA.--ROBERT DALE OWEN AND MODERN
+  SPIRITUALISM.--GEORGE ELIOT'S LETTER ON THE PHENOMENA OF
+  SPIRITUALISM.--MRS. STOWE'S DESCRIPTION OF SCENERY IN
+  FLORIDA.--MRS. STOWE CONCERNING "MIDDLEMARCH."--GEORGE ELIOT
+  TO MRS. STOWE DURING REV. H. W. BEECHER'S TRIAL.--MRS. STOWE
+  CONCERNING HER LIFE EXPERIENCE WITH HER BROTHER, H. W. BEECHER,
+  AND HIS TRIAL.--MRS. LEWES' LAST LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--DIVERSE
+  MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THESE TWO WOMEN.--MRS. STOWE'S FINAL
+  ESTIMATE OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM                                   459
+
+
+  CHAPTER XXI.
+
+  CLOSING SCENES, 1870-1889.
+
+  LITERARY LABORS.--COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLISHED BOOKS.--FIRST
+  READING TOUR.--PEEPS BEHIND THE CURTAIN.--SOME NEW ENGLAND
+  CITIES.--A LETTER FROM MAINE.--PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT
+  READINGS.--SECOND TOUR.--A WESTERN JOURNEY.--VISIT TO OLD
+  SCENES.--CELEBRATION OF SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.--CONGRATULATORY
+  POEMS FROM MR. WHITTIER AND DR. HOLMES.--LAST WORDS               489
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+                                                                   PAGE
+  PORTRAIT OF MRS. STOWE. From a crayon by Richmond, made in
+      England in 1853                                     _Frontispiece_
+
+  SILVER INKSTAND PRESENTED TO MRS. STOWE BY HER ENGLISH
+      ADMIRERS IN 1853                                               xi
+
+  PORTRAIT OF MRS. STOWE'S GRANDMOTHER, ROXANNA FOOTE. From
+      a miniature painted on ivory by her daughter, Mrs.
+      Lyman Beecher                                                   6
+
+  BIRTHPLACE AT LITCHFIELD, CONN.[A]                                 10
+
+  PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE E. BEECHER. From a photograph taken in
+      1875                                                           30
+
+  THE HOME AT WALNUT HILLS, CINCINNATI[A]                            56
+
+  PORTRAIT OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. From a photograph by Rockwood,
+      in 1884                                                       130
+
+  MANUSCRIPT PAGE OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" (fac-simile)               160
+
+  THE ANDOVER HOME. From a painting by F. Rondel, in 1860, owned
+      by Mrs. H. F. Allen                                           186
+
+  PORTRAIT OF LYMAN BEECHER, AT THE AGE OF EIGHTY-SEVEN. From a
+      painting owned by the Boston Congregational Club              264
+
+  PORTRAIT OF THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND. From an engraving
+      presented to Mrs. Stowe                                       318
+
+  THE OLD HOME AT HARTFORD                                          374
+
+  THE HOME AT MANDARIN, FLORIDA                                     402
+
+  PORTRAIT OF CALVIN ELLIS STOWE. From a photograph taken in 1882   422
+
+  PORTRAIT OF MRS. STOWE. From a photograph by Ritz and Hastings,
+      in 1884                                                       470
+
+  THE LATER HARTFORD HOME      508
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[A] From recent photographs and from views in the Autobiography of
+Lyman Beecher, published by Messrs. Harper & Brothers.
+
+
+
+
+LIFE AND LETTERS OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHILDHOOD, 1811-1824.
+
+    DEATH OF HER MOTHER.--FIRST JOURNEY FROM HOME.--LIFE
+    AT NUT PLAINS.--SCHOOL DAYS AND HOURS WITH FAVORITE
+    AUTHORS.--THE NEW MOTHER.--LITCHFIELD ACADEMY AND ITS
+    INFLUENCE.--FIRST LITERARY EFFORTS.--A REMARKABLE
+    COMPOSITION.--GOES TO HARTFORD.
+
+
+HARRIET BEECHER (STOWE) was born June 14, 1811, in the characteristic
+New England town of Litchfield, Conn. Her father was the Rev. Dr. Lyman
+Beecher, a distinguished Calvinistic divine, her mother Roxanna Foote,
+his first wife. The little new-comer was ushered into a household of
+happy, healthy children, and found five brothers and sisters awaiting
+her. The eldest was Catherine, born September 6, 1800. Following her
+were two sturdy boys, William and Edward; then came Mary, then George,
+and at last Harriet. Another little Harriet born three years before had
+died when only one month old, and the fourth daughter was named, in
+memory of this sister, Harriet Elizabeth Beecher. Just two years after
+Harriet was born, in the same month, another brother, Henry Ward, was
+welcomed to the family circle, and after him came Charles, the last of
+Roxanna Beecher's children.
+
+The first memorable incident of Harriet's life was the death of her
+mother, which occurred when she was four years old, and which ever
+afterwards remained with her as the tenderest, saddest, and most sacred
+memory of her childhood. Mrs. Stowe's recollections of her mother are
+found in a letter to her brother Charles, afterwards published in the
+"Autobiography and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher." She says:--
+
+"I was between three and four years of age when our mother died, and
+my personal recollections of her are therefore but few. But the deep
+interest and veneration that she inspired in all who knew her were such
+that during all my childhood I was constantly hearing her spoken of,
+and from one friend or another some incident or anecdote of her life
+was constantly being impressed upon me.
+
+"Mother was one of those strong, restful, yet widely sympathetic
+natures in whom all around seemed to find comfort and repose. The
+communion between her and my father was a peculiar one. It was an
+intimacy throughout the whole range of their being. There was no human
+mind in whose decisions he had greater confidence. Both intellectually
+and morally he regarded her as the better and stronger portion of
+himself, and I remember hearing him say that after her death his first
+sensation was a sort of terror, like that of a child suddenly shut out
+alone in the dark.
+
+"In my own childhood only two incidents of my mother twinkle like rays
+through the darkness. One was of our all running and dancing out before
+her from the nursery to the sitting-room one Sabbath morning, and her
+pleasant voice saying after us, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it
+holy, children.'
+
+"Another remembrance is this: mother was an enthusiastic horticulturist
+in all the small ways that limited means allowed. Her brother John
+in New York had just sent her a small parcel of fine tulip-bulbs. I
+remember rummaging these out of an obscure corner of the nursery one
+day when she was gone out, and being strongly seized with the idea that
+they were good to eat, using all the little English I then possessed
+to persuade my brothers that these were onions such as grown people
+ate and would be very nice for us. So we fell to and devoured the
+whole, and I recollect being somewhat disappointed in the odd sweetish
+taste, and thinking that onions were not so nice as I had supposed.
+Then mother's serene face appeared at the nursery door and we all ran
+towards her, telling with one voice of our discovery and achievement.
+We had found a bag of onions and had eaten them all up.
+
+"Also I remember that there was not even a momentary expression of
+impatience, but that she sat down and said, 'My dear children, what you
+have done makes mamma very sorry. Those were not onions but roots of
+beautiful flowers, and if you had let them alone we should have next
+summer in the garden great beautiful red and yellow flowers such as you
+never saw.' I remember how drooping and dispirited we all grew at this
+picture, and how sadly we regarded the empty paper bag.
+
+"Then I have a recollection of her reading aloud to the children Miss
+Edgeworth's 'Frank,' which had just come out, I believe, and was
+exciting a good deal of attention among the educational circles of
+Litchfield. After that came a time when every one said she was sick,
+and I used to be permitted to go once a day into her room, where she
+sat bolstered up in bed. I have a vision of a very fair face with a
+bright red spot on each cheek and her quiet smile. I remember dreaming
+one night that mamma had got well, and of waking with loud transports
+of joy that were hushed down by some one who came into the room. My
+dream was indeed a true one. She was forever well.
+
+"Then came the funeral. Henry was too little to go. I can see his
+golden curls and little black frock as he frolicked in the sun like a
+kitten, full of ignorant joy.
+
+"I recollect the mourning dresses, the tears of the older children, the
+walking to the burial-ground, and somebody's speaking at the grave.
+Then all was closed, and we little ones, to whom it was so confused,
+asked where she was gone and would she never come back.
+
+"They told us at one time that she had been laid in the ground, and at
+another that she had gone to heaven. Thereupon Henry, putting the two
+things together, resolved to dig through the ground and go to heaven
+to find her; for being discovered under sister Catherine's window one
+morning digging with great zeal and earnestness, she called to him to
+know what he was doing. Lifting his curly head, he answered with great
+simplicity, 'Why, I'm going to heaven to find mamma.'
+
+"Although our mother's bodily presence thus disappeared from our
+circle, I think her memory and example had more influence in moulding
+her family, in deterring from evil and exciting to good, than
+the living presence of many mothers. It was a memory that met us
+everywhere, for every person in the town, from the highest to the
+lowest, seemed to have been so impressed by her character and life that
+they constantly reflected some portion of it back upon us.
+
+"The passage in 'Uncle Tom' where Augustine St. Clare describes
+his mother's influence is a simple reproduction of my own mother's
+influence as it has always been felt in her family."
+
+Of his deceased wife Dr. Beecher said: "Few women have attained to
+more remarkable piety. Her faith was strong and her prayer prevailing.
+It was her wish that all her sons should devote themselves to the
+ministry, and to it she consecrated them with fervent prayer. Her
+prayers have been heard. All her sons have been converted and are now,
+according to her wish, ministers of Christ."
+
+Such was Roxanna Beecher, whose influence upon her four-year-old
+daughter was strong enough to mould the whole after-life of the author
+of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." After the mother's death the Litchfield home
+was such a sad, lonely place for the child that her aunt, Harriet
+Foote, took her away for a long visit at her grandmother's at Nut
+Plains, near Guilford, Conn., the first journey from home the little
+one had ever made. Of this visit Mrs. Stowe herself says:--
+
+"Among my earliest recollections are those of a visit to Nut Plains
+immediately after my mother's death. Aunt Harriet Foote, who was with
+mother during all her last sickness, took me home to stay with her.
+At the close of what seemed to me a long day's ride we arrived after
+dark at a lonely little white farmhouse, and were ushered into a large
+parlor where a cheerful wood fire was crackling. I was placed in the
+arms of an old lady, who held me close and wept silently, a thing at
+which I marveled, for my great loss was already faded from my childish
+mind.
+
+[Illustration: _Roxanna Foote_]
+
+"I remember being put to bed by my aunt in a large room, on one side
+of which stood the bed appropriated to her and me, and on the other
+that of my grandmother. My aunt Harriet was no common character. A more
+energetic human being never undertook the education of a child. Her
+ideas of education were those of a vigorous English woman of the old
+school. She believed in the Church, and had she been born under that
+_regime_ would have believed in the king stoutly, although being of the
+generation following the Revolution she was a not less stanch supporter
+of the Declaration of Independence.
+
+"According to her views little girls were to be taught to move very
+gently, to speak softly and prettily, to say 'yes ma'am,' and 'no
+ma'am,' never to tear their clothes, to sew, to knit at regular hours,
+to go to church on Sunday and make all the responses, and to come home
+and be catechised.
+
+"During these catechisings she used to place my little cousin Mary
+and myself bolt upright at her knee, while black Dinah and Harry, the
+bound boy, were ranged at a respectful distance behind us; for Aunt
+Harriet always impressed it upon her servants 'to order themselves
+lowly and reverently to all their betters,' a portion of the Church
+catechism that always pleased me, particularly when applied to them, as
+it insured their calling me 'Miss Harriet,' and treating me with a
+degree of consideration such as I never enjoyed in the more democratic
+circle at home. I became proficient in the Church catechism, and gave
+my aunt great satisfaction by the old-fashioned gravity and steadiness
+with which I learned to repeat it.
+
+"As my father was a Congregational minister, I believe Aunt Harriet,
+though the highest of High Church women, felt some scruples as
+to whether it was desirable that my religious education should
+be entirely out of the sphere of my birth. Therefore when this
+catechetical exercise was finished she would say, 'Now, niece, you
+have to learn another catechism, because your father is a Presbyterian
+minister,'--and then she would endeavor to make me commit to memory the
+Assembly catechism.
+
+"At this lengthening of exercise I secretly murmured. I was rather
+pleased at the first question in the Church catechism, which is
+certainly quite on the level of any child's understanding,--'What is
+your name?' It was such an easy good start, I could say it so loud and
+clear, and I was accustomed to compare it with the first question in
+the Primer, 'What is the chief end of man?' as vastly more difficult
+for me to answer. In fact, between my aunt's secret unbelief and my own
+childish impatience of too much catechism, the matter was indefinitely
+postponed after a few ineffectual attempts, and I was overjoyed to hear
+her announce privately to grandmother that she thought it would be time
+enough for Harriet to learn the Presbyterian catechism when she went
+home."
+
+Mingled with this superabundance of catechism and plentiful needlework
+the child was treated to copious extracts from Lowth's Isaiah,
+Buchanan's Researches in Asia, Bishop Heber's Life, and Dr. Johnson's
+Works, which, after her Bible and Prayer Book, were her grandmother's
+favorite reading. Harriet does not seem to have fully appreciated
+these; but she did enjoy her grandmother's comments upon their biblical
+readings. Among the Evangelists especially was the old lady perfectly
+at home, and her idea of each of the apostles was so distinct and
+dramatic that she spoke of them as of familiar acquaintances. She
+would, for instance, always smile indulgently at Peter's remarks and
+say, "There he is again, now; that's just like Peter. He's always so
+ready to put in."
+
+It must have been during this winter spent at Nut Plains, amid such
+surroundings, that Harriet began committing to memory that wonderful
+assortment of hymns, poems, and scriptural passages from which in after
+years she quoted so readily and effectively, for her sister Catherine,
+in writing of her the following November, says:--
+
+"Harriet is a very good girl. She has been to school all this summer,
+and has learned to read very fluently. She has committed to memory
+twenty-seven hymns and two long chapters in the Bible. She has a
+remarkably retentive memory and will make a very good scholar."
+
+At this time the child was five years old, and a regular attendant
+at "Ma'am Kilbourne's" school on West Street, to which she walked
+every day hand in hand with her chubby, rosy-faced, bare-footed,
+four-year-old brother, Henry Ward. With the ability to read germinated
+the intense literary longing that was to be hers through life. In
+those days but few books were specially prepared for children, and
+at six years of age we find the little girl hungrily searching for
+mental food amid barrels of old sermons and pamphlets stored in a
+corner of the garret. Here it seemed to her were some thousands of the
+most unintelligible things. "An appeal on the unlawfulness of a man
+marrying his wife's sister" turned up in every barrel she investigated,
+by twos, or threes, or dozens, till her soul despaired of finding an
+end. At last her patient search was rewarded, for at the very bottom
+of a barrel of musty sermons she discovered an ancient volume of
+"The Arabian Nights." With this her fortune was made, for in these
+most fascinating of fairy tales the imaginative child discovered a
+well-spring of joy that was all her own. When things went astray with
+her, when her brothers started off on long excursions, refusing to take
+her with them, or in any other childish sorrow, she had only to curl
+herself up in some snug corner and sail forth on her bit of enchanted
+carpet into fairyland to forget all her griefs.
+
+In recalling her own child-life Mrs. Stowe, among other things,
+describes her father's library, and gives a vivid bit of her own
+experiences within its walls. She says: "High above all the noise of
+the house, this room had to me the air of a refuge and a sanctuary. Its
+walls were set round from floor to ceiling with the friendly, quiet
+faces of books, and there stood my father's great writing-chair, on one
+arm of which lay open always his Cruden's Concordance and his Bible.
+Here I loved to retreat and niche myself down in a quiet corner with my
+favorite books around me. I had a kind of sheltered feeling as I thus
+sat and watched my father writing, turning to his books, and speaking
+from time to time to himself in a loud, earnest whisper. I vaguely felt
+that he was about some holy and mysterious work quite beyond my little
+comprehension, and I was careful never to disturb him by question or
+remark.
+
+[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE AT LITCHFIELD, CONNECTICUT.]
+
+"The books ranged around filled me too with a solemn awe. On the
+lower shelves were enormous folios, on whose backs I spelled in black
+letters, 'Lightfoot Opera,' a title whereat I wondered, considering
+the bulk of the volumes. Above these, grouped along in friendly,
+social rows, were books of all sorts, sizes, and bindings, the titles
+of which I had read so often that I knew them by heart. There were
+Bell's Sermons, Bonnett's Inquiries, Bogue's Essays, Toplady on
+Predestination, Boston's Fourfold State, Law's Serious Call, and other
+works of that kind. These I looked over wistfully, day after day,
+without even a hope of getting something interesting out of them. The
+thought that father could read and understand things like these filled
+me with a vague awe, and I wondered if I would ever be old enough to
+know what it was all about.
+
+"But there was one of my father's books that proved a mine of wealth
+to me. It was a happy hour when he brought home and set up in his
+bookcase Cotton Mather's 'Magnalia,' in a new edition of two volumes.
+What wonderful stories those! Stories too about my own country. Stories
+that made me feel the very ground I trod on to be consecrated by some
+special dealing of God's Providence."
+
+In continuing these reminiscences Mrs. Stowe describes as follows her
+sensations upon first hearing the Declaration of Independence: "I
+had never heard it before, and even now had but a vague idea of what
+was meant by some parts of it. Still I gathered enough from the recital
+of the abuses and injuries that had driven my nation to this course to
+feel myself swelling with indignation, and ready with all my little
+mind and strength to applaud the concluding passage, which Colonel
+Talmadge rendered with resounding majesty. I was as ready as any of
+them to pledge my life, fortune, and sacred honor for such a cause.
+The heroic element was strong in me, having come down by ordinary
+generation from a long line of Puritan ancestry, and just now it made
+me long to do something, I knew not what: to fight for my country, or
+to make some declaration on my own account."
+
+When Harriet was nearly six years old her father married as his second
+wife Miss Harriet Porter of Portland, Maine, and Mrs. Stowe thus
+describes her new mother: "I slept in the nursery with my two younger
+brothers. We knew that father was gone away somewhere on a journey
+and was expected home, therefore the sound of a bustle in the house
+the more easily awoke us. As father came into our room our new mother
+followed him. She was very fair, with bright blue eyes, and soft auburn
+hair bound round with a black velvet bandeau, and to us she seemed very
+beautiful.
+
+"Never did stepmother make a prettier or sweeter impression. The
+morning following her arrival we looked at her with awe. She seemed to
+us so fair, so delicate, so elegant, that we were almost afraid to go
+near her. We must have appeared to her as rough, red-faced, country
+children, honest, obedient, and bashful. She was peculiarly dainty
+and neat in all her ways and arrangements, and I used to feel breezy,
+rough, and rude in her presence.
+
+"In her religion she was distinguished for a most unfaltering
+Christ-worship. She was of a type noble but severe, naturally hard,
+correct, exact and exacting, with intense natural and moral ideality.
+Had it not been that Doctor Payson had set up and kept before her a
+tender, human, loving Christ, she would have been only a conscientious
+bigot. This image, however, gave softness and warmth to her religious
+life, and I have since noticed how her Christ-enthusiasm has sprung up
+in the hearts of all her children."
+
+In writing to her old home of her first impressions of her new one,
+Mrs. Beecher says: "It is a very lovely family, and with heartfelt
+gratitude I observed how cheerful and healthy they were. The sentiment
+is greatly increased, since I perceive them to be of agreeable habits
+and some of them of uncommon intellect."
+
+This new mother proved to be indeed all that the name implies to her
+husband's children, and never did they have occasion to call her aught
+other than blessed.
+
+Another year finds a new baby brother, Frederick by name, added to
+the family. At this time too we catch a characteristic glimpse of
+Harriet in one of her sister Catherine's letters. She says: "Last week
+we interred Tom junior with funeral honors by the side of old Tom of
+happy memory. Our Harriet is chief mourner always at their funerals.
+She asked for what she called an _epithet_ for the gravestone of Tom
+junior, which I gave as follows:--
+
+    "Here lies our Kit,
+     Who had a fit,
+       And acted queer,
+     Shot with a gun,
+     Her race is run,
+       And she lies here."
+
+In June, 1820, little Frederick died from scarlet fever, and Harriet
+was seized with a violent attack of the same dread disease; but, after
+a severe struggle, recovered.
+
+Following her happy, hearty child-life, we find her tramping through
+the woods or going on fishing excursions with her brothers, sitting
+thoughtfully in her father's study, listening eagerly to the animated
+theological discussions of the day, visiting her grandmother at Nut
+Plains, and figuring as one of the brightest scholars in the Litchfield
+Academy, taught by Mr. John Brace and Miss Pierce. When she was eleven
+years old her brother Edward wrote of her: "Harriet reads everything
+she can lay hands on, and sews and knits diligently."
+
+At this time she was no longer the youngest girl of the family, for
+another sister (Isabella) had been born in 1822. This event served
+greatly to mature her, as she was intrusted with much of the care of
+the baby out of school hours. It was not, however, allowed to interfere
+in any way with her studies, and, under the skillful direction of her
+beloved teachers, she seemed to absorb knowledge with every sense.
+She herself writes: "Much of the training and inspiration of my early
+days consisted not in the things that I was supposed to be studying,
+but in hearing, while seated unnoticed at my desk, the conversation
+of Mr. Brace with the older classes. There, from hour to hour, I
+listened with eager ears to historical criticisms and discussions,
+or to recitations in such works as Paley's Moral Philosophy, Blair's
+Rhetoric, Allison on Taste, all full of most awakening suggestions to
+my thoughts.
+
+"Mr. Brace exceeded all teachers I ever knew in the faculty of teaching
+composition. The constant excitement in which he kept the minds of his
+pupils, the wide and varied regions of thought into which he led them,
+formed a preparation for composition, the main requisite for which is
+to have something which one feels interested to say."
+
+In her tenth year Harriet began what to her was the fascinating work
+of writing compositions, and so rapidly did she progress that at the
+school exhibition held when she was twelve years old, hers was one of
+the two or three essays selected to be read aloud before the august
+assembly of visitors attracted by the occasion.
+
+Of this event Mrs. Stowe writes: "I remember well the scene at that
+exhibition, to me so eventful. The hall was crowded with all the
+literati of Litchfield. Before them all our compositions were read
+aloud. When mine was read I noticed that father, who was sitting on
+high by Mr. Brace, brightened and looked interested, and at the close
+I heard him ask, 'Who wrote that composition?' 'Your daughter, sir,'
+was the answer. It was the proudest moment of my life. There was no
+mistaking father's face when he was pleased, and to have interested him
+was past all juvenile triumphs."
+
+That composition has been carefully preserved, and on the old yellow
+sheets the cramped childish handwriting is still distinctly legible.
+As the first literary production of one who afterwards attained such
+distinction as a writer, it is deemed of sufficient value and interest
+to be embodied in this biography exactly as it was written and read
+sixty-five years ago. The subject was certainly a grave one to be
+handled by a child of twelve.
+
+
+CAN THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL BE PROVED BY THE LIGHT OF NATURE?
+
+    It has justly been concluded by the philosophers
+    of every age that "The proper study of mankind is
+    man," and his nature and composition, both physical
+    and mental, have been subjects of the most critical
+    examination. In the course of these researches many
+    have been at a loss to account for the change which
+    takes place in the body at the time of death. By some
+    it has been attributed to the flight of its tenant, and
+    by others to its final annihilation.
+
+    The questions, "What becomes of the soul at the time
+    of death?" and, if it be not annihilated, "What is
+    its destiny after death?" are those which, from the
+    interest that we all feel in them, will probably
+    engross universal attention.
+
+    In pursuing these inquiries it will be necessary to
+    divest ourselves of all that knowledge which we have
+    obtained from the light which revelation has shed over
+    them, and place ourselves in the same position as the
+    philosophers of past ages when considering the same
+    subject.
+
+    The first argument which has been advanced to prove
+    the immortality of the soul is drawn from the nature
+    of the mind itself. It has (say the supporters of
+    this theory) no composition of parts, and therefore,
+    as there are no particles, is not susceptible of
+    divisibility and cannot be acted upon by decay, and
+    therefore if it will not decay it will exist forever.
+
+    Now because the mind is not susceptible of decay
+    effected in the ordinary way by a gradual separation of
+    particles, affords no proof that that same omnipotent
+    power which created it cannot by another simple
+    exertion of power again reduce it to nothing. The only
+    reason for belief which this argument affords is that
+    the soul cannot be acted upon by decay. But it does not
+    prove that it cannot destroy its existence. Therefore,
+    for the validity of this argument, it must either be
+    proved that the "Creator" has not the power to destroy
+    it, or that he has not the will; but as neither of
+    these can be established, our immortality is left
+    dependent on the pleasure of the Creator. But it is
+    said that it is evident that the Creator designed the
+    soul for immortality, or he would never have created it
+    so essentially different from the body, for had they
+    both been designed for the same end they would both
+    have been created alike, as there would have been no
+    object in forming them otherwise. This only proves that
+    the soul and body had not the same destinations. Now
+    of what these destinations are we know nothing, and
+    after much useless reasoning we return where we began,
+    our argument depending upon the good pleasure of the
+    Creator.
+
+    And here it is said that a being of such infinite
+    wisdom and benevolence as that of which the Creator is
+    possessed would not have formed man with such vast
+    capacities and boundless desires, and would have given
+    him no opportunity for exercising them.
+
+    In order to establish the validity of this argument it
+    is necessary to prove by the light of Nature that the
+    Creator _is_ benevolent, which, being impracticable, is
+    of itself sufficient to render the argument invalid.
+
+    But the argument proceeds upon the supposition that
+    to destroy the soul would be unwise. Now this is
+    arraigning the "All-wise" before the tribunal of his
+    subjects to answer for the mistakes in his government.
+    Can we look into the council of the "Unsearchable" and
+    see what means are made to answer their ends? We do
+    not know but the destruction of the soul may, in the
+    government of God, be made to answer such a purpose
+    that its existence would be contrary to the dictates of
+    wisdom.
+
+    The great desire of the soul for immortality, its
+    secret, innate horror of annihilation, has been brought
+    to prove its immortality. But do we always find this
+    horror or this desire? Is it not much more evident
+    that the great majority of mankind have no such dread
+    at all? True that there is a strong feeling of horror
+    excited by the idea of perishing from the earth and
+    being forgotten, of losing all those honors and all
+    that fame awaited them. Many feel this secret horror
+    when they look down upon the vale of futurity and
+    reflect that though now the idols of the world, soon
+    all which will be left them will be the common portion
+    of mankind--oblivion! But this dread does not arise
+    from any idea of their destiny beyond the tomb, and
+    even were this true, it would afford no proof that
+    the mind would exist forever, merely from its strong
+    desires. For it might with as much correctness be
+    argued that the body will exist forever because we have
+    a great dread of dying, and upon this principle nothing
+    which we strongly desire would ever be withheld from
+    us, and no evil that we greatly dread will ever come
+    upon us, a principle evidently false.
+
+    Again, it has been said that the constant progression
+    of the powers of the mind affords another proof of its
+    immortality. Concerning this, Addison remarks, "Were a
+    human soul ever thus at a stand in her acquirements,
+    were her faculties to be full blown and incapable of
+    further enlargement, I could imagine that she might
+    fall away insensibly and drop at once into a state
+    of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being
+    that is in a perpetual progress of improvement, and
+    traveling on from perfection to perfection after having
+    just looked abroad into the works of her Creator and
+    made a few discoveries of his infinite wisdom and
+    goodness, must perish at her first setting out and in
+    the very beginning of her inquiries?"
+
+    In answer to this it may be said that the soul is not
+    always progressing in her powers. Is it not rather a
+    subject of general remark that those brilliant talents
+    which in youth expand, in manhood become stationary,
+    and in old age gradually sink to decay? Till when the
+    ancient man descends to the tomb scarce a wreck of that
+    once powerful mind remains.
+
+    Who, but upon reading the history of England, does not
+    look with awe upon the effects produced by the talents
+    of her Elizabeth? Who but admires that undaunted
+    firmness in time of peace and that profound depth
+    of policy which she displayed in the cabinet? Yet
+    behold the tragical end of this learned, this politic
+    princess! Behold the triumphs of age and sickness
+    over her once powerful talents, and say not that the
+    faculties of man are always progressing in their powers.
+
+    From the activity of the mind at the hour of death has
+    also been deduced its immortality. But it is not true
+    that the mind is always active at the time of death. We
+    find recorded in history numberless instances of those
+    talents, which were once adequate to the government of
+    a nation, being so weakened and palsied by the touch
+    of sickness as scarcely to tell to beholders what they
+    once were. The talents of the statesman, the wisdom of
+    the sage, the courage and might of the warrior, are
+    instantly destroyed by it, and all that remains of them
+    is the waste of idiocy or the madness of insanity.
+
+    Some minds there are who at the time of death retain
+    their faculties though much impaired, and if the
+    argument be valid these are the only cases where
+    immortality is conferred. Again, it is urged that the
+    inequality of rewards and punishments in this world
+    demand another in which virtue may be rewarded and vice
+    punished. This argument, in the first place, takes
+    for its foundation that by the light of nature the
+    distinction between virtue and vice can be discovered.
+    By some this is absolutely disbelieved, and by all
+    considered as extremely doubtful. And, secondly, it
+    puts the Creator under an obligation to reward and
+    punish the actions of his creatures. No such obligation
+    exists, and therefore the argument cannot be valid. And
+    this supposes the Creator to be a being of justice,
+    which cannot by the light of nature be proved, and
+    as the whole argument rests upon this foundation it
+    certainly cannot be correct.
+
+    This argument also directly impeaches the wisdom of the
+    Creator, for the sense of it is this,--that, forasmuch
+    as he was not able to manage his government in this
+    world, he must have another in which to rectify the
+    mistakes and oversights of this, and what an idea would
+    this give us of our All-wise Creator?
+
+    It is also said that all nations have some conceptions
+    of a future state, that the ancient Greeks and Romans
+    believed in it, that no nation has been found but have
+    possessed some idea of a future state of existence.
+    But their belief arose more from the fact that they
+    wished it to be so than from any real ground of belief;
+    for arguments appear much more plausible when the mind
+    wishes to be convinced. But it is said that every
+    nation, however circumstanced, possess some idea of
+    a future state. For this we may account by the fact
+    that it was handed down by tradition from the time of
+    the flood. From all these arguments, which, however
+    plausible at first sight, are found to be futile, may
+    be argued the necessity of a revelation. Without it,
+    the destiny of the noblest of the works of God would
+    have been left in obscurity. Never till the blessed
+    light of the Gospel dawned on the borders of the pit,
+    and the heralds of the Cross proclaimed "Peace on earth
+    and good will to men," was it that bewildered and
+    misled man was enabled to trace his celestial origin
+    and glorious destiny.
+
+    The sun of the Gospel has dispelled the darkness that
+    has rested on objects beyond the tomb. In the Gospel
+    man learned that when the dust returned to dust the
+    spirit fled to the God who gave it. He there found
+    that though man has lost the image of his divine
+    Creator, he is still destined, after this earthly house
+    of his tabernacle is dissolved, to an inheritance
+    incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, to
+    a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
+
+Soon after the writing of this remarkable composition, Harriet's
+child-life in Litchfield came to an end, for that same year she went
+to Hartford to pursue her studies in a school which had been recently
+established by her sister Catherine in that city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD, 1824-1832.
+
+    MISS CATHERINE BEECHER.--PROFESSOR FISHER.--THE WRECK
+    OF THE ALBION AND DEATH OF PROFESSOR FISHER.--"THE
+    MINISTER'S WOOING."--MISS CATHERINE BEECHER'S SPIRITUAL
+    HISTORY.--MRS. STOWE'S RECOLLECTIONS OF HER SCHOOL
+    DAYS IN HARTFORD.--HER CONVERSION.--UNITES WITH THE
+    FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD.--HER DOUBTS AND SUBSEQUENT
+    RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT.--HER FINAL PEACE.
+
+
+THE school days in Hartford began a new era in Harriet's life. It was
+the formative period, and it is therefore important to say a few words
+concerning her sister Catherine, under whose immediate supervision she
+was to continue her education. In fact, no one can comprehend either
+Mrs. Stowe or her writings without some knowledge of the life and
+character of this remarkable woman, whose strong, vigorous mind and
+tremendous personality indelibly stamped themselves on the sensitive,
+yielding, dreamy, and poetic nature of the younger sister. Mrs. Stowe
+herself has said that the two persons who most strongly influenced
+her at this period of her life were her brother Edward and her sister
+Catherine.
+
+Catherine was the oldest child of Lyman Beecher and Roxanna Foote, his
+wife. In a little battered journal found among her papers is a short
+sketch of her life, written when she was seventy-six years of age.
+In a tremulous hand she begins: "I was born at East Hampton, L. I.,
+September 5, 1800, at 5 P. M., in the large parlor opposite father's
+study. Don't remember much about it myself." The sparkle of wit in this
+brief notice of the circumstances of her birth is very characteristic.
+All through her life little ripples of fun were continually playing on
+the surface of that current of intense thought and feeling in which her
+deep, earnest nature flowed.
+
+When she was ten years of age her father removed to Litchfield, Conn.,
+and her happy girlhood was passed in that place. Her bright and
+versatile mind and ready wit enabled her to pass brilliantly through
+her school days with but little mental exertion, and those who knew
+her slightly might have imagined her to be only a bright, thoughtless,
+light-hearted girl. In Boston, at the age of twenty, she took lessons
+in music and drawing, and became so proficient in these branches as
+to secure a position as teacher in a young ladies' school, kept by
+a Rev. Mr. Judd, an Episcopal clergyman, at New London, Conn. About
+this time she formed the acquaintance of Professor Alexander Metcalf
+Fisher, of Yale College, one of the most distinguished young men in
+New England. In January of the year 1822 they became engaged, and the
+following spring Professor Fisher sailed for Europe to purchase books
+and scientific apparatus for the use of his department in the college.
+
+In his last letter to Miss Beecher, dated March 31, 1822, he writes:--
+
+"I set out at 10 precisely to-morrow, in the Albion for Liverpool; the
+ship has no superior in the whole number of excellent vessels belonging
+to this port, and Captain Williams is regarded as first on their list
+of commanders. The accommodations are admirable--fare $140. Unless our
+ship should speak some one bound to America on the passage, you will
+probably not hear from me under two months."
+
+Before two months had passed came vague rumors of a terrible shipwreck
+on the coast of Ireland. Then the tidings that the Albion was lost.
+Then came a letter from Mr. Pond, at Kinsale, Ireland, dated May 2,
+1822:--
+
+"You have doubtless heard of the shipwreck of the Albion packet of New
+York, bound to Liverpool. It was a melancholy shipwreck. It happened
+about four o'clock on the morning of the 22d of April. Professor
+Fisher, of Yale College, was one of the passengers. Out of twenty-three
+cabin passengers, but one reached the shore. He is a Mr. Everhart,
+of Chester County, Pennsylvania. He informs me that Professor Fisher
+was injured by things that fetched away in the cabin at the time the
+ship was knocked down. This was between 8 and 9 o'clock in the evening
+of the twenty-first. Mr. Fisher, though badly bruised, was calm and
+resolute, and assisted Captain Williams by taking the injured compass
+to his berth and repairing it. About five minutes before the vessel
+struck Captain Williams informed the passengers of their danger, and
+all went on deck except Professor Fisher, who remained sitting in his
+berth. Mr. Everhart was the last person who left the cabin, and the
+last who ever saw Professor Fisher alive."
+
+I should not have spoken of this incident of family history with
+such minuteness, except for the fact that it is so much a part of
+Mrs. Stowe's life as to make it impossible to understand either
+her character or her most important works without it. Without this
+incident "The Minister's Wooing" never would have been written, for
+both Mrs. Marvyn's terrible soul struggles and old Candace's direct
+and effective solution of all religious difficulties find their origin
+in this stranded, storm-beaten ship on the coast of Ireland, and the
+terrible mental conflicts through which her sister afterward passed,
+for she believed Professor Fisher eternally lost. No mind more directly
+and powerfully influenced Harriet's than that of her sister Catherine,
+unless it was her brother Edward's, and that which acted with such
+overwhelming power on the strong, unyielding mind of the older sister
+must have, in time, a permanent and abiding influence on the mind of
+the younger.
+
+After Professor Fisher's death his books came into Miss Beecher's
+possession, and among them was a complete edition of Scott's works. It
+was an epoch in the family history when Doctor Beecher came down-stairs
+one day with a copy of "Ivanhoe" in his hand, and said: "I have always
+said that my children should not read novels, but they must read these."
+
+The two years following the death of Professor Fisher were passed by
+Miss Catherine Beecher at Franklin, Mass., at the home of Professor
+Fisher's parents, where she taught his two sisters, studied mathematics
+with his brother Willard, and listened to Doctor Emmons' fearless
+and pitiless preaching. Hers was a mind too strong and buoyant to be
+crushed and prostrated by that which would have driven a weaker and
+less resolute nature into insanity. Of her it may well be said:--
+
+    "She faced the spectres of the mind
+     And laid them, thus she came at length
+     To find a stronger faith her own."
+
+Gifted naturally with a capacity for close metaphysical analysis and a
+robust fearlessness in following her premises to a logical conclusion,
+she arrived at results startling and original, if not always of
+permanent value.
+
+In 1840 she published in the "Biblical Repository" an article on Free
+Agency, which has been acknowledged by competent critics as the ablest
+refutation of Edwards on "The Will" which has appeared. An amusing
+incident connected with this publication may not be out of place here.
+A certain eminent theological professor of New England, visiting a
+distinguished German theologian and speaking of this production, said:
+"The ablest refutation of Edwards on 'The Will' which was ever written
+is the work of a woman, the daughter of Dr. Lyman Beecher." The worthy
+Teuton raised both hands in undisguised astonishment. "You have a woman
+that can write an able refutation of Edwards on 'The Will'? God forgive
+Christopher Columbus for discovering America!"
+
+Not finding herself able to love a God whom she thought of in her own
+language as "a perfectly happy being, unmoved by my sorrows or tears,
+and looking upon me only with dislike and aversion," she determined "to
+find happiness in living to do good." "It was right to pray and read
+the Bible, so I prayed and read. It was right to try to save others,
+so I labored for their salvation. I never had any fear of punishment
+or hope of reward all these years." She was tormented with doubts.
+"What has the Son of God done which the meanest and most selfish
+creature upon earth would not have done? After making such a wretched
+race and placing them in such disastrous circumstances, somehow,
+without any sorrow or trouble, Jesus Christ had a human nature that
+suffered and died. If something else besides ourselves will do all the
+suffering, who would not save millions of wretched beings and receive
+all the honor and gratitude without any of the trouble? Sometimes when
+such thoughts passed through my mind, I felt that it was all pride,
+rebellion, and sin."
+
+So she struggles on, sometimes floundering deep in the mire of doubt,
+and then lifted for the moment above it by her naturally buoyant
+spirits, and general tendency to look on the bright side of things. In
+this condition of mind, she came to Hartford in the winter of 1824,
+and began a school with eight scholars, and it was in the practical
+experience of teaching that she found a final solution of all her
+difficulties. She continues:--
+
+"After two or three years I commenced giving instruction in mental
+philosophy, and at the same time began a regular course of lectures
+and instructions from the Bible, and was much occupied with plans for
+governing my school, and in devising means to lead my pupils to become
+obedient, amiable, and pious. By degrees I finally arrived at the
+following principles in the government of my school:--
+
+"First. It is indispensable that my scholars should feel that I am
+sincerely and deeply interested in their best happiness, and the more I
+can convince them of this, the more ready will be their obedience.
+
+"Second. The preservation of authority and order depends upon the
+certainty that unpleasant consequences to themselves will inevitably be
+the result of doing wrong.
+
+"Third. It is equally necessary, to preserve my own influence and their
+affection, that they should feel that punishment is the natural result
+of wrong-doing in such a way that they shall regard themselves, instead
+of me, as the cause of their punishment.
+
+"Fourth. It is indispensable that my scholars should see that my
+requisitions are reasonable. In the majority of cases this can be
+shown, and in this way such confidence will be the result that they
+will trust to my judgment and knowledge, in cases where no explanation
+can be given.
+
+"Fifth. The more I can make my scholars feel that I am actuated by a
+spirit of self-denying benevolence, the more confidence they will feel
+in me, and the more they will be inclined to submit to self-denying
+duties for the good of others.
+
+"After a while I began to compare my experience with the government of
+God. I finally got through the whole subject, and drew out the results,
+and found that all my difficulties were solved and all my darkness
+dispelled."
+
+Her solution in brief is nothing more than that view of the divine
+nature which was for so many years preached by her brother, Henry Ward
+Beecher, and set forth in the writings of her sister Harriet,--the
+conception of a being of infinite love, patience, and kindness who
+suffers with man. The sufferings of Christ on the cross were not the
+sufferings of his human nature merely, but the sufferings of the
+divine nature in Him. In Christ we see the only revelation of God, and
+that is the revelation of one that suffers. This is the fundamental
+idea in "The Minister's Wooing," and it is the idea of God in which the
+storm-tossed soul of the older sister at last found rest. All this was
+directly opposed to that fundamental principle of theologians that God,
+being the infinitely perfect Being, cannot suffer, because suffering
+indicates imperfection. To Miss Beecher's mind the lack of ability to
+suffer with his suffering creatures was a more serious imperfection.
+Let the reader turn to the twenty-fourth chapter of "The Minister's
+Wooing" for a complete presentation of this subject, especially the
+passage that begins, "Sorrow is divine: sorrow is reigning on the
+throne of the universe."
+
+In the fall of the year 1824, while her sister Catherine was passing
+through the soul crisis which we have been describing, Harriet came to
+the school that she had recently established.
+
+In a letter to her son written in 1886, speaking of this period of her
+life, Mrs. Stowe says: "Somewhere between my twelfth and thirteenth
+year I was placed under the care of my elder sister Catherine, in the
+school that she had just started in Hartford, Connecticut. When I
+entered the school there were not more than twenty-five scholars in it,
+but it afterwards numbered its pupils by the hundreds. The school-room
+was on Main Street, nearly opposite Christ Church, over Sheldon &
+Colton's harness store, at the sign of the two white horses. I never
+shall forget the pleasure and surprise which these two white horses
+produced in my mind when I first saw them. One of the young men who
+worked in the rear of the harness store had a most beautiful tenor
+voice, and it was my delight to hear him singing in school hours:--
+
+[Illustration: Catherine E. Beecher]
+
+    'When in cold oblivion's shade
+     Beauty, wealth, and power are laid,
+     When, around the sculptured shrine,
+     Moss shall cling and ivy twine,
+     Where immortal spirits reign,
+     There shall we all meet again.'
+
+"As my father's salary was inadequate to the wants of his large family,
+the expense of my board in Hartford was provided for by a species of
+exchange. Mr. Isaac D. Bull sent a daughter to Miss Pierce's seminary
+in Litchfield, and she boarded in my father's family in exchange for
+my board in her father's family. If my good, refined, neat, particular
+stepmother could have chosen, she could not have found a family more
+exactly suited to her desires. The very soul of neatness and order
+pervaded the whole establishment. Mr. I. D. Bull was a fine, vigorous,
+white-haired man on the declining slope of life, but full of energy
+and of kindness. Mr. Samuel Collins, a neighbor who lived next door,
+used to frequently come in and make most impressive and solemn calls on
+Miss Mary Anne Bull, who was a brunette and a celebrated beauty of the
+day. I well remember her long raven curls falling from the comb that
+held them up on the top of her head. She had a rich soprano voice, and
+was the leading singer in the Centre Church choir. The two brothers
+also had fine, manly voices, and the family circle was often enlivened
+by quartette singing and flute playing. Mr. Bull kept a very large
+wholesale drug store on Front Street, in which his two sons, Albert
+and James, were clerks. The oldest son, Watson Bull, had established a
+retail drug store at the sign of the 'Good Samaritan.' A large picture
+of the Good Samaritan relieving the wounded traveler formed a striking
+part of the sign, and was contemplated by me with reverence.
+
+"The mother of the family gave me at once a child's place in her heart.
+A neat little hall chamber was allotted to me for my own, and a well
+made and kept single bed was given me, of which I took daily care with
+awful satisfaction. If I was sick nothing could exceed the watchful
+care and tender nursing of Mrs. Bull. In school my two most intimate
+friends were the leading scholars. They had written to me before I
+came and I had answered their letters, and on my arrival they gave me
+the warmest welcome. One was Catherine Ledyard Cogswell, daughter of
+the leading and best-beloved of Hartford physicians. The other was
+Georgiana May, daughter of a most lovely Christian woman who was a
+widow. Georgiana was one of many children, having two younger sisters,
+Mary and Gertrude, and several brothers. Catherine Cogswell was one of
+the most amiable, sprightly, sunny-tempered individuals I have ever
+known. She was, in fact, so much beloved that it was difficult for
+me to see much of her. Her time was all bespoken by different girls.
+One might walk with her to school, another had the like promise on
+the way home. And at recess, of which we had every day a short half
+hour, there was always a suppliant at Katy's shrine, whom she found it
+hard to refuse. Yet, among all these claimants, she did keep a little
+place here and there for me. Georgiana was older and graver, and less
+fascinating to the other girls, but between her and me there grew up
+the warmest friendship, which proved lifelong in its constancy.
+
+"Catherine and Georgiana were reading 'Virgil' when I came to the
+school. I began the study of Latin alone, and at the end of the first
+year made a translation of 'Ovid' in verse, which was read at the final
+exhibition of the school, and regarded, I believe, as a very creditable
+performance. I was very much interested in poetry, and it was my dream
+to be a poet. I began a drama called 'Cleon.' The scene was laid in the
+court and time of the emperor Nero, and Cleon was a Greek lord residing
+at Nero's court, who, after much searching and doubting, at last comes
+to the knowledge of Christianity. I filled blank book after blank book
+with this drama. It filled my thoughts sleeping and waking. One day
+sister Catherine pounced down upon me, and said that I must not waste
+my time writing poetry, but discipline my mind by the study of Butler's
+'Analogy.' So after this I wrote out abstracts from the 'Analogy,' and
+instructed a class of girls as old as myself, being compelled to master
+each chapter just ahead of the class I was teaching. About this time I
+read Baxter's 'Saint's Rest.' I do not think any book affected me more
+powerfully. As I walked the pavements I used to wish that they might
+sink beneath me if only I might find myself in heaven. I was at the
+same time very much interested in Butler's 'Analogy,' for Mr. Brace
+used to lecture on such themes when I was at Miss Pierce's school at
+Litchfield. I also began the study of French and Italian with a Miss
+Degan, who was born in Italy.
+
+"It was about this time that I first believed myself to be a Christian.
+I was spending my summer vacation at home, in Litchfield. I shall
+ever remember that dewy, fresh summer morning. I knew that it was a
+sacramental Sunday, and thought with sadness that when all the good
+people should take the sacrificial bread and wine I should be left
+out. I tried hard to feel my sins and count them up; but what with the
+birds, the daisies, and the brooks that rippled by the way, it was
+impossible. I came into church quite dissatisfied with myself, and as
+I looked upon the pure white cloth, the snowy bread and shining cups,
+of the communion table, thought with a sigh: 'There won't be anything
+for me to-day; it is all for these grown-up Christians.' Nevertheless,
+when father began to speak, I was drawn to listen by a certain
+pathetic earnestness in his voice. Most of father's sermons were as
+unintelligible to me as if he had spoken in Choctaw. But sometimes he
+preached what he was accustomed to call a 'frame sermon;' that is, a
+sermon that sprung out of the deep feeling of the occasion, and which
+consequently could be neither premeditated nor repeated. His text was
+taken from the Gospel of John, the declaration of Jesus: 'Behold, I
+call you no longer servants, but friends.' His theme was Jesus as a
+soul friend offered to every human being.
+
+"Forgetting all his hair-splitting distinctions and dialectic
+subtleties, he spoke in direct, simple, and tender language of the
+great love of Christ and his care for the soul. He pictured Him as
+patient with our errors, compassionate with our weaknesses, and
+sympathetic for our sorrows. He went on to say how He was ever near
+us, enlightening our ignorance, guiding our wanderings, comforting our
+sorrows with a love unwearied by faults, unchilled by ingratitude, till
+at last He should present us faultless before the throne of his glory
+with exceeding joy.
+
+"I sat intent and absorbed. Oh! how much I needed just such a friend,
+I thought to myself. Then the awful fact came over me that I had never
+had any conviction of my sins, and consequently could not come to Him.
+I longed to cry out 'I will,' when father made his passionate appeal,
+'Come, then, and trust your soul to this faithful friend.' Like a flash
+it came over me that if I needed conviction of sin, He was able to give
+me even this also. I would trust Him for the whole. My whole soul was
+illumined with joy, and as I left the church to walk home, it seemed to
+me as if Nature herself were hushing her breath to hear the music of
+heaven.
+
+"As soon as father came home and was seated in his study, I went up to
+him and fell in his arms saying, 'Father, I have given myself to Jesus,
+and He has taken me.' I never shall forget the expression of his face
+as he looked down into my earnest, childish eyes; it was so sweet, so
+gentle, and like sunlight breaking out upon a landscape. 'Is it so?' he
+said, holding me silently to his heart, as I felt the hot tears fall on
+my head. 'Then has a new flower blossomed in the kingdom this day.'"
+
+If she could have been let alone, and taught "to look up and not down,
+forward and not back, out and not in," this religious experience might
+have gone on as sweetly and naturally as the opening of a flower in
+the gentle rays of the sun. But unfortunately this was not possible
+at that time, when self-examination was carried to an extreme that was
+calculated to drive a nervous and sensitive mind well-nigh distracted.
+First, even her sister Catherine was afraid that there might be
+something wrong in the case of a lamb that had come into the fold
+without being first chased all over the lot by the shepherd; great
+stress being laid, in those days, on what was called "being under
+conviction." Then also the pastor of the First Church in Hartford, a
+bosom friend of Dr. Beecher, looked with melancholy and suspicious
+eyes on this unusual and doubtful path to heaven,--but more of this
+hereafter. Harriet's conversion took place in the summer of 1825, when
+she was fourteen, and the following year, April, 1826, Dr. Beecher
+resigned his pastorate in Litchfield to accept a call to the Hanover
+Street Church, Boston, Mass. In a letter to her grandmother Foote at
+Guilford, dated Hartford, March 4, 1826, Harriet writes:--
+
+"You have probably heard that our home in Litchfield is broken up.
+Papa has received a call to Boston, and concluded to accept, because
+he could not support his family in Litchfield. He was dismissed last
+week Tuesday, and will be here (Hartford) next Tuesday with mamma and
+Isabel. Aunt Esther will take Charles and Thomas to her house for the
+present. Papa's salary is to be $2,000 and $500 settlement.
+
+"I attend school constantly and am making some progress in my studies.
+I devote most of my attention to Latin and to arithmetic, and hope soon
+to prepare myself to assist Catherine in the school."
+
+This breaking up of the Litchfield home led Harriet, under her
+father's advice, to seek to connect herself with the First Church of
+Hartford. Accordingly, accompanied by two of her school friends, she
+went one day to the pastor's study to consult with him concerning the
+contemplated step. The good man listened attentively to the child's
+simple and modest statement of Christian experience, and then with an
+awful, though kindly, solemnity of speech and manner said, "Harriet,
+do you feel that if the universe should be destroyed (awful pause)
+you could be happy with God alone?" After struggling in vain, in her
+mental bewilderment, to fix in her mind some definite conception of the
+meaning of the sounds which fell on her ear like the measured strokes
+of a bell, the child of fourteen stammered out, "Yes, sir."
+
+"You realize, I trust," continued the doctor, "in some measure at
+least, the deceitfulness of your heart, and that in punishment for your
+sins God might justly leave you to make yourself as miserable as you
+have made yourself sinful?"
+
+"Yes, sir," again stammered Harriet.
+
+Having thus effectually, and to his own satisfaction, fixed the child's
+attention on the morbid and over-sensitive workings of her own heart,
+the good and truly kind-hearted man dismissed her with a fatherly
+benediction. But where was the joyous ecstasy of that beautiful Sabbath
+morning of a year ago? Where was that heavenly friend? Yet was not
+this as it should be, and might not God leave her "to make herself as
+miserable as she had made herself sinful"?
+
+In a letter addressed to her brother Edward, about this time, she
+writes: "My whole life is one continued struggle: I do nothing right.
+I yield to temptation almost as soon as it assails me. My deepest
+feelings are very evanescent. I am beset behind and before, and my sins
+take away all my happiness. But that which most constantly besets me is
+pride--I can trace almost all my sins back to it."
+
+In the mean time, the school is prospering. February 16, 1827,
+Catherine writes to Dr. Beecher: "My affairs go on well. The stock is
+all taken up, and next week I hope to have out the prospectus of the
+'Hartford Female Seminary.' I hope the building will be done, and all
+things in order, by June. The English lady is coming with twelve pupils
+from New York." Speaking of Harriet, who was at this time with her
+father in Boston, she adds: "I have received some letters from Harriet
+to-day which make me feel uneasy. She says, 'I don't know as I am fit
+for anything, and I have thought that I could wish to die young, and
+let the remembrance of me and my faults perish in the grave, rather
+than live, as I fear I do, a trouble to every one. You don't know how
+perfectly wretched I often feel: so useless, so weak, so destitute of
+all energy. Mamma often tells me that I am a strange, inconsistent
+being. Sometimes I could not sleep, and have groaned and cried till
+midnight, while in the daytime I tried to appear cheerful and succeeded
+so well that papa reproved me for laughing so much. I was so absent
+sometimes that I made strange mistakes, and then they all laughed at
+me, and I laughed, too, though I felt as though I should go distracted.
+I wrote rules; made out a regular system for dividing my time; but
+my feelings vary so much that it is almost impossible for me to be
+regular.'"
+
+But let Harriet "take courage in her dark sorrows and melancholies," as
+Carlyle says: "Samuel Johnson too had hypochondrias; all great souls
+are apt to have, and to be in thick darkness generally till the eternal
+ways and the celestial guiding stars disclose themselves, and the vague
+abyss of life knits itself up into firmaments for them."
+
+At the same time (the winter of 1827), Catherine writes to Edward
+concerning Harriet: "If she could come here (Hartford) it might be the
+best thing for her, for she can talk freely to me. I can get her books,
+and Catherine Cogswell, Georgiana May, and her friends here could do
+more for her than any one in Boston, for they love her and she loves
+them very much. Georgiana's difficulties are different from Harriet's:
+she is speculating about doctrines, etc. Harriet will have young
+society here all the time, which she cannot have at home, and I think
+cheerful and amusing friends will do much for her. I can do better in
+preparing her to teach drawing than any one else, for I best know what
+is needed."
+
+It was evidently necessary that something should be done to restore
+Harriet to a more tranquil and healthful frame of mind; consequently in
+the spring of 1827, accompanied by her friend Georgiana May, she went
+to visit her grandmother Foote at Nut Plains, Guilford. Miss May refers
+to this visit in a letter to Mrs. Foote, in January of the following
+winter.
+
+                                        HARTFORD, _January 4, 1828._
+
+    DEAR MRS. FOOTE:--... I very often think of you and
+    the happy hours I passed at your house last spring.
+    It seems as if it were but yesterday: now, while I am
+    writing, I can see your pleasant house and the familiar
+    objects around you as distinctly as the day I left
+    them. Harriet and I are very much the same girls we
+    were then. I do not believe we have altered very much,
+    though she is improved in some respects.
+
+The August following this visit to Guilford Harriet writes to her
+brother Edward in a vein which is still streaked with sadness, but
+shows some indication of returning health of mind.
+
+"Many of my objections you did remove that afternoon we spent together.
+After that I was not as unhappy as I had been. I felt, nevertheless,
+that my views were very indistinct and contradictory, and feared that
+if you left me thus I might return to the same dark, desolate state
+in which I had been all summer. I felt that my immortal interest,
+my happiness for both worlds, was depending on the turn my feelings
+might take. In my disappointment and distress I called upon God, and
+it seemed as if I was heard. I felt that He could supply the loss of
+all earthly love. All misery and darkness were over. I felt as if
+restored, nevermore to fall. Such sober certainty of waking bliss had
+long been a stranger to me. But even then I had doubts as to whether
+these feelings were right, because I felt love to God alone without
+that ardent love for my fellow-creatures which Christians have often
+felt.... I cannot say exactly what it is makes me reluctant to speak
+of my feelings. It costs me an effort to express feeling of any kind,
+but more particularly to speak of my private religious feelings. If any
+one questions me, my first impulse is to conceal all I can. As for
+expression of affection towards my brothers and sisters, my companions
+or friends, the stronger the affection the less inclination have I to
+express it. Yet sometimes I think myself the most frank, open, and
+communicative of beings, and at other times the most reserved. If you
+can resolve all these caprices into general principles, you will do
+more than I can. Your speaking so much philosophically has a tendency
+to repress confidence. We never wish to have our feelings analyzed
+down; and very little, nothing, that we say brought to the test of
+mathematical demonstration.
+
+"It appears to me that if I only could adopt the views of God you
+presented to my mind, they would exert a strong and beneficial
+influence over my character. But I am afraid to accept them for several
+reasons. First, it seems to be taking from the majesty and dignity
+of the divine character to suppose that his happiness can be at all
+affected by the conduct of his sinful, erring creatures. Secondly, it
+seems to me that such views of God would have an effect on our own
+minds in lessening that reverence and fear which is one of the greatest
+motives to us for action. For, although to a generous mind the thought
+of the love of God would be a sufficient incentive to action, there are
+times of coldness when that love is not felt, and then there remains no
+sort of stimulus. I find as I adopt these sentiments I feel less fear
+of God, and, in view of sin, I feel only a sensation of grief which is
+more easily dispelled and forgotten than that I formerly felt."
+
+A letter dated January 3, 1828, shows us that Harriet had returned to
+Hartford and was preparing herself to teach drawing and painting, under
+the direction of her sister Catherine.
+
+    MY DEAR GRANDMOTHER,--I should have written before to
+    assure you of my remembrance of you, but I have been
+    constantly employed, from nine in the morning till
+    after dark at night, in taking lessons of a painting
+    and drawing master, with only an intermission long
+    enough to swallow a little dinner which was sent to me
+    in the school-room. You may easily believe that after
+    spending the day in this manner, I did not feel in a
+    very epistolary humor in the evening, and if I had
+    been, I could not have written, for when I did not go
+    immediately to bed I was obliged to get a long French
+    lesson.
+
+    The seminary is finished, and the school going on
+    nicely. Miss Clarissa Brown is assisting Catherine in
+    the school. Besides her, Catherine, and myself, there
+    are two other teachers who both board in the family
+    with us: one is Miss Degan, an Italian lady who teaches
+    French and Italian; she rooms with me, and is very
+    interesting and agreeable. Miss Hawks is rooming with
+    Catherine. In some respects she reminds me very much
+    of my mother. She is gentle, affectionate, modest, and
+    retiring, and much beloved by all the scholars.... I
+    am still going on with my French, and carrying two
+    young ladies through Virgil, and if I have time, shall
+    commence Italian.
+
+    I am very comfortable and happy.
+
+    I propose, my dear grandmamma, to send you by the first
+    opportunity a dish of fruit of my own painting. Pray
+    do not now devour it in anticipation, for I cannot
+    promise that you will not find it sadly tasteless in
+    reality. If so, please excuse it, for the sake of the
+    poor young artist. I admire to cultivate a taste for
+    painting, and I wish to improve it; it was what my
+    dear mother admired and loved, and I cherish it for
+    her sake. I have thought more of this dearest of all
+    earthly friends these late years, since I have been old
+    enough to know her character and appreciate her worth.
+    I sometimes think that, had she lived, I might have
+    been both better and happier than I now am, but God is
+    good and wise in all his ways.
+
+A letter written to her brother Edward in Boston, dated March 27, 1828,
+shows how slowly she adopted the view of God that finally became one of
+the most characteristic elements in her writings.
+
+"I think that those views of God which you have presented to me have
+had an influence in restoring my mind to its natural tone. But still,
+after all, God is a being afar off. He is so far above us that anything
+but the most distant reverential affection seems almost sacrilegious.
+It is that affection that can lead us to be familiar that the heart
+needs. But easy and familiar expressions of attachment and that sort
+of confidential communication which I should address to papa or you
+would be improper for a subject to address to a king, much less for
+us to address to the King of kings. The language of prayer is of
+necessity stately and formal, and we cannot clothe all the little
+minutiae of our wants and troubles in it. I wish I could describe to you
+how I feel when I pray. I feel that I love God,--that is, that I love
+Christ,--that I find comfort and happiness in it, and yet it is not
+that kind of comfort which would arise from free communication of my
+wants and sorrows to a friend. I sometimes wish that the Saviour were
+visibly present in this world, that I might go to Him for a solution of
+some of my difficulties.... Do you think, my dear brother, that there
+is such a thing as so realizing the presence and character of God that
+He can supply the place of earthly friends? I really wish to know what
+you think of this.... Do you suppose that God really loves sinners
+before they come to Him? Some say that we ought to tell them that God
+hates them, that He looks on them with utter abhorrence, and that they
+must love Him before He will look on them otherwise. Is it right to say
+to those who are in deep distress, 'God is interested in you; He feels
+for and loves you'?"
+
+Appended to this letter is a short note from Miss Catherine Beecher,
+who evidently read the letter over and answered Harriet's questions
+herself. She writes: "When the young man came to Jesus, is it not said
+that Jesus loved him, though he was unrenewed?"
+
+In April, 1828, Harriet again writes to her brother Edward:--
+
+"I have had more reason to be grateful to that friend than ever
+before. He has not left me in all my weakness. It seems to me that
+my love to Him is the love of despair. All my communion with Him,
+though sorrowful, is soothing. I am painfully sensible of ignorance
+and deficiency, but still I feel that I am willing that He should know
+all. He will look on all that is wrong only to purify and reform. He
+will never be irritated or impatient. He will never show me my faults
+in such a manner as to irritate without helping me. A friend to whom I
+would acknowledge all my faults must be perfect. Let any one once be
+provoked, once speak harshly to me, once sweep all the chords of my
+soul out of tune, I never could confide there again. It is only to the
+most perfect Being in the universe that imperfection can look and hope
+for patience. How strange!... You do not know how harsh and forbidding
+everything seems, compared with his character. All through the day in
+my intercourse with others, everything has a tendency to destroy the
+calmness of mind gained by communion with Him. One flatters me, another
+is angry with me, another is unjust to me.
+
+"You speak of your predilections for literature having been a snare to
+you. I have found it so myself. I can scarcely think, without tears
+and indignation, that all that is beautiful and lovely and poetical
+has been laid on other altars. Oh! will there never be a poet with a
+heart enlarged and purified by the Holy Spirit, who shall throw all the
+graces of harmony, all the enchantments of feeling, pathos, and poetry,
+around sentiments worthy of them?... It matters little what service He
+has for me.... I do not mean to live in vain. He has given me talents,
+and I will lay them at his feet, well satisfied, if He will accept
+them. All my powers He can enlarge. He made my mind, and He can teach
+me to cultivate and exert its faculties."
+
+The following November she writes from Groton, Conn., to Miss May:--
+
+"I am in such an uncertain, unsettled state, traveling back and
+forth, that I have very little time to write. In the first place, on
+my arrival in Boston I was obliged to spend two days in talking and
+telling news. Then after that came calling, visiting, etc., and then I
+came off to Groton to see my poor brother George, who was quite out of
+spirits and in very trying circumstances. To-morrow I return to Boston
+and spend four or five days, and then go to Franklin, where I spend the
+rest of my vacation.
+
+"I found the folks all well on my coming to Boston, and as to my new
+brother, James, he has nothing to distinguish him from forty other
+babies, except a very large pair of blue eyes and an uncommonly fair
+complexion, a thing which is of no sort of use or advantage to a man or
+boy.
+
+"I am thinking very seriously of remaining in Groton and taking care of
+the female school, and at the same time being of assistance and company
+for George. On some accounts it would not be so pleasant as returning
+to Hartford, for I should be among strangers. Nothing upon this point
+can be definitely decided till I have returned to Boston, and talked to
+papa and Catherine."
+
+Evidently papa and Catherine did not approve of the Groton plan, for
+in February of the following winter Harriet writes from Hartford to
+Edward, who is at this time with his father in Boston:--
+
+"My situation this winter (1829) is in many respects pleasant. I room
+with three other teachers, Miss Fisher, Miss Mary Dutton, and Miss
+Brigham. Ann Fisher you know. Miss Dutton is about twenty, has a fine
+mathematical mind, and has gone as far into that science perhaps as
+most students at college. She is also, as I am told, quite learned in
+the languages.... Miss Brigham is somewhat older: is possessed of a
+fine mind and most unconquerable energy and perseverance of character.
+From early childhood she has been determined to obtain an education,
+and to attain to a certain standard. Where persons are determined to
+be anything, they will be. I think, for this reason, she will make a
+first-rate character. Such are my companions. We spend our time in
+school during the day, and in studying in the evening. My plan of study
+is to read rhetoric and prepare exercises for my class the first half
+hour in the evening; after that the rest of the evening is divided
+between French and Italian. Thus you see the plan of my employment and
+the character of my immediate companions. Besides these, there are
+others among the teachers and scholars who must exert an influence
+over my character. Miss Degan, whose constant occupation it is to make
+others laugh; Mrs. Gamage, her room-mate, a steady, devoted, sincere
+Christian.... Little things have great power over me, and if I meet
+with the least thing that crosses my feelings, I am often rendered
+unhappy for days and weeks.... I wish I could bring myself to feel
+perfectly indifferent to the opinions of others. I believe that there
+never was a person more dependent on the good and evil opinions of
+those around than I am. This desire to be loved forms, I fear, the
+great motive for all my actions.... I have been reading carefully the
+book of Job, and I do not think that it contains the views of God which
+you presented to me. God seems to have stripped a dependent creature
+of all that renders life desirable, and then to have answered his
+complaints from the whirlwind; and instead of showing mercy and pity,
+to have overwhelmed him by a display of his power and justice.... With
+the view I received from you, I should have expected that a being who
+sympathizes with his guilty, afflicted creatures would not have spoken
+thus. Yet, after all, I do believe that God is such a being as you
+represent Him to be, and in the New Testament I find in the character
+of Jesus Christ a revelation of God as merciful and compassionate; in
+fact, just such a God as I need.
+
+"Somehow or another you have such a reasonable sort of way of saying
+things that when I come to reflect I almost always go over to your
+side.... My mind is often perplexed, and such thoughts arise in it
+that I cannot pray, and I become bewildered. The wonder to me is, how
+all ministers and all Christians can feel themselves so inexcusably
+sinful, when it seems to me we all come into the world in such a way
+that it would be miraculous if we did not sin. Mr. Hawes always says in
+prayer, 'We have nothing to offer in extenuation of any of our sins,'
+and I always think when he says it, that we have everything to offer
+in extenuation. The case seems to me exactly as if I had been brought
+into the world with such a thirst for ardent spirits that there was
+just a possibility, though no hope, that I should resist, and then
+my eternal happiness made dependent on my being temperate. Sometimes
+when I try to confess my sins, I feel that after all I am more to be
+pitied than blamed, for I have never known the time when I have not
+had a temptation within me so strong that it was certain I should not
+overcome it. This thought shocks me, but it comes with such force, and
+so appealingly, to all my consciousness, that it stifles all sense of
+sin....
+
+"Sometimes when I read the Bible, it seems to be wholly grounded on
+the idea that the sin of man is astonishing, inexcusable, and without
+palliation or cause, and the atonement is spoken of as such a wonderful
+and undeserved mercy that I am filled with amazement. Yet if I give up
+the Bible I gain nothing, for the providence of God in nature is just
+as full of mystery, and of the two I think that the Bible, with all its
+difficulties, is preferable to being without it; for the Bible holds
+out the hope that in a future world all shall be made plain.... So you
+see I am, as Mr. Hawes says, 'on the waves,' and all I can do is to
+take the word of God that He does do right and there I rest."
+
+The following summer, in July, she writes to Edward: "I have never
+been so happy as this summer. I began it in more suffering than I
+ever before have felt, but there is One whom I daily thank for all
+that suffering, since I hope that it has brought me at last to rest
+entirely in Him. I do hope that my long, long course of wandering and
+darkness and unhappiness is over, and that I have found in Him who died
+for me all, and more than all, I could desire. Oh, Edward, you can
+feel as I do; you can speak of Him! There are few, very few, who can.
+Christians in general do not seem to look to Him as their best friend,
+or realize anything of his unutterable love. They speak with a cold,
+vague, reverential awe, but do not speak as if in the habit of close
+and near communion; as if they confided to Him every joy and sorrow and
+constantly looked to Him for direction and guidance. I cannot express
+to you, my brother, I cannot tell you, how that Saviour appears to me.
+To bear with one so imperfect, so weak, so inconsistent, as myself,
+implied, long-suffering and patience more than words can express. I
+love most to look on Christ as my teacher, as one who, knowing the
+utmost of my sinfulness, my waywardness, my folly, can still have
+patience; can reform, purify, and daily make me more like himself."
+
+So, after four years of struggling and suffering, she returns to the
+place where she started from as a child of thirteen. It has been
+like watching a ship with straining masts and storm-beaten sails,
+buffeted by the waves, making for the harbor, and coming at last to
+quiet anchorage. There have been, of course, times of darkness and
+depression, but never any permanent loss of the religious trustfulness
+and peace of mind indicated by this letter.
+
+The next three years were passed partly in Boston, and partly in
+Guilford and Hartford. Writing of this period of her life to the Rev.
+Charles Beecher, she says:--
+
+    MY DEAR BROTHER,--The looking over of father's letters
+    in the period of his Boston life brings forcibly to
+    my mind many recollections. At this time I was more
+    with him, and associated in companionship of thought
+    and feeling for a longer period than any other of my
+    experience.
+
+In the summer of 1832 she writes to Miss May, revealing her spiritual
+and intellectual life in a degree unusual, even for her.
+
+"After the disquisition on myself above cited, you will be prepared to
+understand the changes through which this wonderful _ego et me ipse_
+has passed.
+
+"The amount of the matter has been, as this inner world of mine has
+become worn out and untenable, I have at last concluded to come out of
+it and live in the external one, and, as F---- S---- once advised me,
+to give up the pernicious habit of meditation to the first Methodist
+minister that would take it, and try to mix in society somewhat as
+another person would.
+
+"'_Horas non numero nisi serenas._' Uncle Samuel, who sits by me,
+has just been reading the above motto, the inscription on a sun-dial
+in Venice. It strikes me as having a distant relationship to what I
+was going to say. I have come to a firm resolution to count no hours
+but unclouded ones, and to let all others slip out of my memory and
+reckoning as quickly as possible....
+
+"I am trying to cultivate a general spirit of kindliness towards
+everybody. Instead of shrinking into a corner to notice how other
+people behave, I am holding out my hand to the right and to the left,
+and forming casual or incidental acquaintances with all who will be
+acquainted with me. In this way I find society full of interest and
+pleasure--a pleasure which pleaseth me more because it is not old and
+worn out. From these friendships I expect little; therefore generally
+receive more than I expect. From past friendships I have expected
+everything, and must of necessity have been disappointed. The kind
+words and looks and smiles I call forth by looking and smiling are not
+much by themselves, but they form a very pretty flower border to the
+way of life. They embellish the day or the hour as it passes, and when
+they fade they only do just as you expected they would. This kind of
+pleasure in acquaintanceship is new to me. I never tried it before.
+When I used to meet persons, the first inquiry was, 'Have they such and
+such a character, or have they anything that might possibly be of use
+or harm to me?'"
+
+It is striking, the degree of interest a letter had for her.
+
+"Your long letter came this morning. It revived much in my heart.
+Just think how glad I must have been this morning to hear from you. I
+was glad.... I thought of it through all the vexations of school this
+morning.... I have a letter at home; and when I came home from school,
+I went leisurely over it.
+
+"This evening I have spent in a little social party,--a dozen or
+so,--and I have been zealously talking all the evening. When I
+came to my cold, lonely room, there was your letter lying on the
+dressing-table. It touched me with a sort of painful pleasure, for it
+seems to me uncertain, improbable, that I shall ever return and find
+you as I have found your letter. Oh, my dear G----, it is scarcely
+well to love friends thus. The greater part that I see cannot move me
+deeply. They are present, and I enjoy them; they pass and I forget
+them. But those that I love differently; those that I LOVE; and oh,
+how much that word means! I feel sadly about them. They may change;
+they must die; they are separated from me, and I ask myself why should
+I wish to love with all the pains and penalties of such conditions? I
+check myself when expressing feelings like this, so much has been said
+of it by the sentimental, who talk what they could not have felt. But
+it is so deeply, sincerely so in me, that sometimes it will overflow.
+Well, there is a heaven,--a heaven,--a world of love, and love after
+all is the life-blood, the existence, the all in all of mind."
+
+This is the key to her whole life. She was impelled by love, and did
+what she did, and wrote what she did, under the impulse of love. Never
+could "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or "The Minister's Wooing" have been written,
+unless by one to whom love was the "life-blood of existence, the all in
+all of mind." Years afterwards Mrs. Browning was to express this same
+thought in the language of poetry.
+
+    "But when a soul by choice and conscience doth
+     Throw out her full force on another soul,
+     The conscience and the concentration both
+     Make mere life love. For life in perfect whole
+     And aim consummated is love in sooth,
+     As nature's magnet heat rounds pole with pole."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CINCINNATI, 1832-1836.
+
+    DR. BEECHER CALLED TO CINCINNATI.--THE WESTWARD
+    JOURNEY.--FIRST LETTER FROM HOME.--DESCRIPTION
+    OF WALNUT HILLS.--STARTING A NEW SCHOOL.--INWARD
+    GLIMPSES.--THE SEMI-COLON CLUB.--EARLY IMPRESSIONS OF
+    SLAVERY.--A JOURNEY TO THE EAST.--THOUGHTS AROUSED BY
+    FIRST VISIT TO NIAGARA.--MARRIAGE TO PROFESSOR STOWE.
+
+
+IN 1832, after having been settled for six years over the Hanover
+Street Church in Boston, Dr. Beecher received and finally accepted a
+most urgent call to become President of Lane Theological Seminary in
+Cincinnati. This institution had been chartered in 1829, and in 1831
+funds to the amount of nearly $70,000 had been promised to it provided
+that Dr. Beecher accepted the presidency. It was hard for this New
+England family to sever the ties of a lifetime and enter on so long
+a journey to the far distant West of those days; but being fully
+persuaded that their duty lay in this direction, they undertook to
+perform it cheerfully and willingly. With Dr. Beecher and his wife were
+to go Miss Catherine Beecher, who had conceived the scheme of founding
+in Cincinnati, then considered the capital of the West, a female
+college, and Harriet, who was to act as her principal assistant. In the
+party were also George, who was to enter Lane as a student, Isabella,
+James, the youngest son, and Miss Esther Beecher, the "Aunt Esther" of
+the children.
+
+Before making his final decision, Dr. Beecher, accompanied by his
+daughter Catherine, visited Cincinnati to take a general survey of
+their proposed battlefield, and their impressions of the city are given
+in the following letter written by the latter to Harriet in Boston:--
+
+"Here we are at last at our journey's end, alive and well. We are
+staying with Uncle Samuel (Foote), whose establishment I will try and
+sketch for you. It is on a height in the upper part of the city, and
+commands a fine view of the whole of the lower town. The city does not
+impress me as being so very new. It is true everything looks neat and
+clean, but it is compact, and many of the houses are of brick and very
+handsomely built. The streets run at right angles to each other, and
+are wide and well paved. We reached here in three days from Wheeling,
+and soon felt ourselves at home. The next day father and I, with three
+gentlemen, walked out to Walnut Hills. The country around the city
+consists of a constant succession and variety of hills of all shapes
+and sizes, forming an extensive amphitheatre. The site of the seminary
+is very beautiful and picturesque, though I was disappointed to find
+that both river and city are hidden by intervening hills. I never saw
+a place so capable of being rendered a paradise by the improvements
+of taste as the environs of this city. Walnut Hills are so elevated
+and cool that people have to leave there to be sick, it is said. The
+seminary is located on a farm of one hundred and twenty-five acres of
+fine land, with groves of superb trees around it, about two miles from
+the city. We have finally decided on the spot where our house shall
+stand in case we decide to come, and you cannot (where running water
+or the seashore is wanting) find another more delightful spot for a
+residence. It is on an eminence, with a grove running up from the back
+to the very doors, another grove across the street in front, and fine
+openings through which distant hills and the richest landscapes appear.
+
+"I have become somewhat acquainted with those ladies we shall have
+the most to do with, and find them intelligent, New England sort of
+folks. Indeed, this is a New England city in all its habits, and its
+inhabitants are more than half from New England. The Second Church,
+which is the best in the city, will give father a unanimous call to be
+their minister, with the understanding that he will give them what time
+he can spare from the seminary.
+
+"I know of no place in the world where there is so fair a prospect of
+finding everything that makes social and domestic life pleasant. Uncle
+John and Uncle Samuel are just the intelligent, sociable, free, and
+hospitable sort of folk that everybody likes and everybody feels at
+home with.
+
+"The folks are very anxious to have a school on our plan set on foot
+here. We can have fine rooms in the city college building, which is
+now unoccupied, and everybody is ready to lend a helping hand. As to
+father, I never saw such a field of usefulness and influence as is
+offered to him here."
+
+This, then, was the field of labor in which the next eighteen years
+of the life of Mrs. Stowe were to be passed. At this time her sister
+Mary was married and living in Hartford, her brothers Henry Ward and
+Charles were in college, while William and Edward, already licensed to
+preach, were preparing to follow their father to the West.
+
+[Illustration: THE HOME AT WALNUT HILLS, CINCINNATI.]
+
+Mr. Beecher's preliminary journey to Cincinnati was undertaken in
+the early spring of 1832, but he was not ready to remove his family
+until October of that year. An interesting account of this westward
+journey is given by Mrs. Stowe in a letter sent back to Hartford from
+Cincinnati, as follows:--
+
+"Well, my dear, the great sheet is out and the letter is begun. All our
+family are here (in New York), and in good health.
+
+"Father is to perform to-night in the Chatham Theatre! 'positively
+for the _last_ time this season!' I don't know, I'm sure, as we shall
+ever get to Pittsburgh. Father is staying here begging money for the
+Biblical Literature professorship; the incumbent is to be C. Stowe.
+Last night we had a call from Arthur Tappan and Mr. Eastman. Father
+begged $2,000 yesterday, and now the good people are praying him to
+abide certain days, as he succeeds so well. They are talking of sending
+us off and keeping him here. I really dare not go and see Aunt Esther
+and mother now; they were in the depths of tribulation before at
+staying so long, and now,
+
+    'In the lowest depths, _another_ deep!'
+
+Father is in high spirits. He is all in his own element,--dipping into
+books; consulting authorities for his oration; going round here, there,
+everywhere; begging, borrowing, and spoiling the Egyptians; delighted
+with past success and confident for the future.
+
+"Wednesday. Still in New York. I believe it would kill me dead to live
+long in the way I have been doing since I have been here. It is a sort
+of agreeable delirium. There's only one thing about it, it is too
+_scattering_. I begin to be athirst for the waters of quietness."
+
+Writing from Philadelphia, she adds:--
+
+"Well, we did get away from New York at last, but it was through much
+tribulation. The truckman carried all the family baggage to the wrong
+wharf, and, after waiting and waiting on board the boat, we were
+obliged to start without it, George remaining to look it up. Arrived
+here late Saturday evening,--dull, drizzling weather; poor Aunt Esther
+in dismay,--not a clean cap to put on,--mother in like state; all of
+us destitute. We went, half to Dr. Skinner's and half to Mrs. Elmes's:
+mother, Aunt Esther, father, and James to the former; Kate, Bella, and
+myself to Mr. Elmes's. They are rich, hospitable folks, and act the
+part of Gaius in apostolic times.... Our trunks came this morning.
+Father stood and saw them all brought into Dr. Skinner's entry, and
+then he swung his hat and gave a 'hurrah,' as any man would whose
+wife had not had a clean cap or ruffle for a week. Father does not
+succeed very well in opening purses here. Mr. Eastman says, however,
+that this is not of much consequence. I saw to-day a notice in the
+'Philadelphian' about father, setting forth how 'this distinguished
+brother, with his large family, having torn themselves from the
+endearing scenes of their home,' etc., etc., 'were going, like Jacob,'
+etc.,--a very scriptural and appropriate flourish. It is too much after
+the manner of men, or, as Paul says, speaking 'as a fool.' A number of
+the pious people of this city are coming here this evening to hold a
+prayer-meeting with reference to the journey and its object. For _this_
+I thank them."
+
+From Downington she writes:--
+
+"Here we all are,--Noah and his wife and his sons and his daughters,
+with the cattle and creeping things, all dropped down in the front
+parlor of this tavern, about thirty miles from Philadelphia. If to-day
+is a fair specimen of our journey, it will be a very pleasant, obliging
+driver, good roads, good spirits, good dinner, fine scenery, and now
+and then some 'psalms and hymns and spiritual songs;' for with George
+on board you may be sure of music of some kind. Moreover, George has
+provided himself with a quantity of tracts, and he and the children
+have kept up a regular discharge at all the wayfaring people we
+encountered. I tell him he is _peppering_ the land with moral influence.
+
+"We are all well; all in good spirits. Just let me give you a peep
+into our traveling household. Behold us, then, in the front parlor of
+this country inn, all as much at home as if we were in Boston. Father
+is sitting opposite to me at this table, reading; Kate is writing a
+billet-doux to Mary on a sheet like this; Thomas is opposite, writing
+in a little journal that he keeps; Sister Bell, too, has her little
+record; George is waiting for a seat that he may produce his paper
+and write. As for me, among the multitude of my present friends, my
+heart still makes occasional visits to absent ones,--visits full of
+pleasure, and full of cause of gratitude to Him who gives us friends.
+I have thought of you often to-day, my G. We stopped this noon at a
+substantial Pennsylvania tavern, and among the flowers in the garden
+was a late monthly honeysuckle like the one at North Guilford. I made
+a spring for it, but George secured the finest bunch, which he wore in
+his button-hole the rest of the noon.
+
+"This afternoon, as we were traveling, we struck up and sang 'Jubilee.'
+It put me in mind of the time when we used to ride along the rough
+North Guilford roads and make the air vocal as we went along. Pleasant
+times those. Those were blue skies, and that was a beautiful lake and
+noble pine-trees and rocks they were that hung over it. But those we
+shall look upon 'na mair.'
+
+"Well, my dear, there is a land where we shall not _love_ and _leave_.
+Those skies shall never cease to shine, the waters of life we shall
+_never_ be called upon _to leave_. We have here no continuing city, but
+we seek one to come. In such thoughts as these I desire ever to rest,
+and with such words as these let us 'comfort one another and edify one
+another.'"
+
+"Harrisburg, Sunday evening. Mother, Aunt Esther, George, and the
+little folks have just gathered into Kate's room, and we have just been
+singing. Father has gone to preach for Mr. De Witt. To-morrow we expect
+to travel sixty-two miles, and in two more days shall reach Wheeling;
+there we shall take the steamboat to Cincinnati."
+
+On the same journey George Beecher writes:--
+
+"We had poor horses in crossing the mountains. Our average rate for
+the last four days to Wheeling was forty-four miles. The journey,
+which takes the mail-stage forty-eight hours, took us eight days.
+At Wheeling we deliberated long whether to go on board a boat for
+Cincinnati, but the prevalence of the cholera there at last decided
+us to remain. While at Wheeling father preached eleven times,--nearly
+every evening,--and gave them the Taylorite heresy on sin and decrees
+to the highest notch; and what amused me most was to hear him establish
+it from the Confession of Faith. It went high and dry, however, above
+all objections, and they were delighted with it, even the old school
+men, since it had not been christened 'heresy' in their hearing. After
+remaining in Wheeling eight days, we chartered a stage for Cincinnati,
+and started next morning.
+
+"At Granville, Ohio, we were invited to stop and attend a protracted
+meeting. Being in no great hurry to enter Cincinnati till the cholera
+had left, we consented. We spent the remainder of the week there, and I
+preached five times and father four. The interest was increasingly deep
+and solemn each day, and when we left there were forty-five cases of
+conversion in the town, besides those from the surrounding towns. The
+people were astonished at the doctrine; said they never saw the truth
+so plain in their lives."
+
+Although the new-comers were cordially welcomed in Cincinnati, and
+everything possible was done for their comfort and to make them feel
+at home, they felt themselves to be strangers in a strange land.
+Their homesickness and yearnings for New England are set forth by the
+following extracts from Mrs. Stowe's answer to the first letter they
+received from Hartford after leaving there:--
+
+MY DEAR SISTER (Mary),--The Hartford letter from all and sundry has
+just arrived, and after cutting all manner of capers expressive of
+thankfulness, I have skipped three stairs at a time up to the study
+to begin an answer. My notions of answering letters are according
+to the literal sense of the word; not waiting six months and then
+scrawling a lazy reply, but sitting down the moment you have read a
+letter, and telling, as Dr. Woods says, "How the subject strikes you."
+I wish I could be clear that the path of duty lay in talking to you
+this afternoon, but as I find a loud call to consider the heels of
+George's stockings, I must only write a word or two, and then resume
+my darning-needle. You don't know how anxiously we all have watched
+for some intelligence from Hartford. Not a day has passed when I have
+not been the efficient agent in getting somebody to the post-office,
+and every day my heart has sunk at the sound of "no letters." I felt a
+tremor quite sufficient for a lover when I saw your handwriting once
+more, so you see that in your old age you can excite quite as much
+emotion as did the admirable Miss Byron in her adoring Sir Charles. I
+hope the consideration and digestion of this fact will have its due
+weight in encouraging you to proceed.
+
+The fact of our having received said letter is as yet a state secret,
+not to be made known till all our family circle "in full assembly meet"
+at the tea-table. Then what an illumination! "How we shall be edified
+and fructified," as that old Methodist said. It seems too bad to keep
+it from mother and Aunt Esther a whole afternoon, but then I have the
+comfort of thinking that we are consulting for their greatest happiness
+"on the whole," which is metaphysical benevolence.
+
+So kind Mrs. Parsons stopped in the very midst of her pumpkin pies to
+think of us? Seems to me I can see her bright, cheerful face now! And
+then those well known handwritings! We _do_ love our Hartford friends
+dearly; there can be, I think, no controverting that fact. Kate says
+that the word _love_ is used in _six senses_, and I am sure in some one
+of them they will all come in. Well, good-by for the present.
+
+Evening. Having finished the last hole on George's black vest, I stick
+in my needle and sit down to be sociable. You don't know how coming
+away from New England has sentimentalized us all! Never was there
+such an abundance of meditation on our native land, on the joys of
+friendship, the pains of separation. Catherine had an alarming paroxysm
+in Philadelphia which expended itself in "The Emigrant's Farewell."
+After this was sent off she felt considerably relieved. My symptoms
+have been of a less acute kind, but, I fear, more enduring. There! the
+tea-bell rings. Too bad! I was just going to say something bright. Now
+to take your letter and run! How they will stare when I produce it!
+
+After tea. Well, we have had a fine time. When supper was about half
+over, Catherine began: "We have a dessert that we have been saving all
+the afternoon," and then I held up my letter. "See here, this is from
+Hartford!" I wish you could have seen Aunt Esther's eyes brighten, and
+mother's pale face all in a smile, and father, as I unfolded the letter
+and began. Mrs. Parsons's notice of her Thanksgiving predicament caused
+just a laugh, and then one or two sighs (I told you we were growing
+sentimental!). We did talk some of keeping it (Thanksgiving), but
+perhaps we should all have felt something of the text, "How shall we
+sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" Your praises of Aunt Esther
+I read twice in an audible voice, as the children made some noise the
+first time. I think I detected a visible blush, though she found at
+that time a great deal to do in spreading bread and butter for James,
+and shuffling his plate; and, indeed, it was rather a vehement attack
+on her humility, since it gave her at least "angelic perfection," if
+not "Adamic" (to use Methodist technics). Jamie began his Sunday-school
+career yesterday. The superintendent asked him how old he was. "I'm
+four years old now, and when it _snows very hard_ I shall be five," he
+answered. I have just been trying to make him interpret his meaning;
+but he says, "Oh, I said so because I could not think of anything else
+to say." By the by, Mary, speaking of the temptations of cities, I
+have much solicitude on Jamie's account lest he should form improper
+intimacies, for yesterday or day before we saw him parading by the
+house with his arm over the neck of a great hog, apparently on the most
+amicable terms possible; and the other day he actually got upon the
+back of one, and rode some distance. So much for allowing these animals
+to promenade the streets, a particular in which Mrs. Cincinnati has
+imitated the domestic arrangements of some of her elder sisters, and a
+very disgusting one it is.
+
+Our family physician is one Dr. Drake, a man of a good deal of
+science, theory, and reputed skill, but a sort of general mark for
+the opposition of all the medical cloth of the city. He is a tall,
+rectangular, perpendicular sort of a body, as stiff as a poker, and
+enunciates his prescriptions very much as though he were delivering
+a discourse on the doctrine of election. The other evening he was
+detained from visiting Kate, and he sent a very polite, ceremonious
+note containing a prescription, with Dr. D.'s compliments to Miss
+Beecher, requesting that she would take the inclosed in a little
+molasses at nine o'clock precisely.
+
+The house we are at present inhabiting is the most inconvenient,
+ill-arranged, good-for-nothing, and altogether to be execrated affair
+that ever was put together. It was evidently built without a thought of
+a winter season. The kitchen is so disposed that it cannot be reached
+from any part of the house without going out into the air. Mother is
+actually obliged to put on a bonnet and cloak every time she goes into
+it. In the house are two parlors with folding doors between them. The
+back parlor has but one window, which opens on a veranda and has its
+lower half painted to keep out what little light there is. I need
+scarcely add that our landlord is an old bachelor and of course acted
+up to the light he had, though he left little enough of it for his
+tenants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During this early Cincinnati life Harriet suffered much from ill-health
+accompanied by great mental depression; but in spite of both she
+labored diligently with her sister Catherine in establishing their
+school. They called it the Western Female Institute, and proposed to
+conduct it upon the college plan, with a faculty of instructors. As all
+these things are treated at length in letters written by Mrs. Stowe to
+her friend, Miss Georgiana May, we cannot do better than turn to them.
+In May, 1833, she writes:--
+
+"Bishop Purcell visited our school to-day and expressed himself as
+greatly pleased that we had opened such an one here. He spoke of my
+poor little geography,[1] and thanked me for the unprejudiced manner
+in which I had handled the Catholic question in it. I was of course
+flattered that he should have known anything of the book.
+
+"How I wish you could see Walnut Hills. It is about two miles from the
+city, and the road to it is as picturesque as you can imagine a road to
+be without 'springs that run among the hills.' Every possible variety
+of hill and vale of beautiful slope, and undulations of land set off by
+velvet richness of turf and broken up by groves and forests of every
+outline of foliage, make the scene Arcadian. You might ride over the
+same road a dozen times a day untired, for the constant variation of
+view caused by ascending and descending hills relieves you from all
+tedium. Much of the wooding is beech of a noble growth. The straight,
+beautiful shafts of these trees as one looks up the cool green recesses
+of the woods seems as though they might form very proper columns for
+a Dryad temple. There! Catherine is growling at me for sitting up so
+late; so 'adieu to music, moonlight, and you.' I meant to tell you an
+abundance of classical things that I have been thinking to-night, but
+'woe's me.'
+
+"Since writing the above my whole time has been taken up in the labor
+of our new school, or wasted in the fatigue and lassitude following
+such labor. To-day is Sunday, and I am staying at home because I think
+it is time to take some efficient means to dissipate the illness and
+bad feelings of divers kinds that have for some time been growing upon
+me. At present there is and can be very little system or regularity
+about me. About half of my time I am scarcely alive, and a great part
+of the rest the slave and sport of morbid feeling and unreasonable
+prejudice. I have everything but good health.
+
+"I still rejoice that this letter will find you in good old
+Connecticut--thrice blessed--'oh, had I the wings of a dove' I would be
+there too. Give my love to Mary H. I remember well how gently she used
+to speak to and smile on that forlorn old daddy that boarded at your
+house one summer. It was associating with her that first put into my
+head the idea of saying something to people who were not agreeable, and
+of saying something when I had nothing to say, as is generally the case
+on such occasions."
+
+Again she writes to the same friend: "Your letter, my dear G., I have
+just received, and read through three times. Now for my meditations
+upon it. What a woman of the world you are grown. How good it would be
+for me to be put into a place which so breaks up and precludes thought.
+Thought, intense emotional thought, has been my disease. How much good
+it might do me to be where I could not but be thoughtless....
+
+"Now, Georgiana, let me copy for your delectation a list of matters
+that I have jotted down for consideration at a teachers' meeting to be
+held to-morrow night. It runneth as follows. Just hear! 'About quills
+and paper on the floor; forming classes; drinking in the entry (cold
+water, mind you); giving leave to speak; recess-bell, etc., etc.' 'You
+are tired, I see,' says Gilpin, 'so am I,' and I spare you.
+
+"I have just been hearing a class of little girls recite, and telling
+them a fairy story which I had to spin out as it went along, beginning
+with 'once upon a time there was,' etc., in the good old-fashioned way
+of stories.
+
+"Recently I have been reading the life of Madame de Stael and
+'Corinne.' I have felt an intense sympathy with many parts of that
+book, with many parts of her character. But in America feelings
+vehement and absorbing like hers become still more deep, morbid, and
+impassioned by the constant habits of self-government which the rigid
+forms of our society demand. They are repressed, and they burn inward
+till they burn the very soul, leaving only dust and ashes. It seems
+to me the intensity with which my mind has thought and felt on every
+subject presented to it has had this effect. It has withered and
+exhausted it, and though young I have no sympathy with the feelings of
+youth. All that is enthusiastic, all that is impassioned in admiration
+of nature, of writing, of character, in devotional thought and
+emotion, or in the emotions of affection, I have felt with vehement
+and absorbing intensity,--felt till my mind is exhausted, and seems
+to be sinking into deadness. Half of my time I am glad to remain in a
+listless vacancy, to busy myself with trifles, since thought is pain,
+and emotion is pain."
+
+During the winter of 1833-34 the young school-teacher became so
+distressed at her own mental listlessness that she made a vigorous
+effort to throw it off. She forced herself to mingle in society, and,
+stimulated by the offer of a prize of fifty dollars by Mr. James Hall,
+editor of the "Western Monthly," a newly established magazine, for the
+best short story, she entered into the competition. Her story, which
+was entitled "Uncle Lot," afterwards republished in the "Mayflower,"
+was by far the best submitted, and was awarded the prize without
+hesitation. This success gave a new direction to her thoughts, gave her
+an insight into her own ability, and so encouraged her that from that
+time on she devoted most of her leisure moments to writing.
+
+Her literary efforts were further stimulated at this time by the
+congenial society of the Semi-Colon Club, a little social circle that
+met on alternate weeks at Mr. Samuel Foote's and Dr. Drake's. The name
+of the club originated with a roundabout and rather weak bit of logic
+set forth by one of its promoters. He said: "You know that in Spanish
+Columbus is called 'Colon.' Now he who discovers a new pleasure is
+certainly half as great as he who discovers a new continent. Therefore
+if Colon discovered a continent, we who have discovered in this club a
+new pleasure should at least be entitled to the name of 'Semi-Colons.'"
+So Semi-Colons they became and remained for some years.
+
+At some meetings compositions were read, and at others nothing
+was read, but the time was passed in a general discussion of some
+interesting topic previously announced. Among the members of the club
+were Professor Stowe, unsurpassed in Biblical learning; Judge James
+Hall, editor of the "Western Monthly;" General Edward King; Mrs.
+Peters, afterwards founder of the Philadelphia School of Design; Miss
+Catherine Beecher; Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz; E. P. Cranch; Dr. Drake;
+S. P. Chase, and many others who afterwards became prominent in their
+several walks of life.
+
+In one of her letters to Miss May, Mrs. Stowe describes one of her
+methods for entertaining the members of the Semi-Colon as follows:--
+
+"I am wondering as to what I shall do next. I have been writing a
+piece to be read next Monday evening at Uncle Sam's _soiree_ (the
+Semi-Colon). It is a letter purporting to be from Dr. Johnson. I have
+been stilting about in his style so long that it is a relief to me to
+come down to the jog of common English. Now I think of it I will just
+give you a history of my campaign in this circle.
+
+"My first piece was a letter from Bishop Butler, written in his
+outrageous style of parentheses and foggification. My second a
+satirical essay on the modern uses of languages. This I shall send
+to you, as some of the gentlemen, it seems, took a fancy to it and
+requested leave to put it in the 'Western Magazine,' and so it is in
+print. It is ascribed to _Catherine_, or I don't know that I should
+have let it go. I have no notion of appearing in _propria personae_.
+
+"The next piece was a satire on certain members who were getting very
+much into the way of joking on the worn-out subjects of matrimony and
+old maid and old bachelorism. I therefore wrote a set of legislative
+enactments purporting to be from the ladies of the society, forbidding
+all such allusions in future. It made some sport at the time. I try not
+to be personal, and to be courteous, even in satire.
+
+"But I have written a piece this week that is making me some disquiet.
+I did not like it that there was so little that was serious and
+rational about the reading. So I conceived the design of writing a _set
+of letters_, and throwing them in, as being the letters of a friend.
+I wrote a letter this week for the first of the set,--easy, not very
+sprightly,--describing an imaginary situation, a house in the country,
+a gentleman and lady, Mr. and Mrs. Howard, as being pious, literary,
+and agreeable. I threw into the letter a number of little particulars
+and incidental allusions to give it the air of having been really a
+letter. I meant thus to give myself an opportunity for the introduction
+of different subjects and the discussion of different characters in
+future letters.
+
+"I meant to write on a great number of subjects in future. Cousin
+Elisabeth, only, was in the secret; Uncle Samuel and Sarah Elliot were
+not to know.
+
+"Yesterday morning I finished my letter, smoked it to make it look
+yellow, tore it to make it look old, directed it and scratched out the
+direction, postmarked it with red ink, sealed it and broke the seal,
+all this to give credibility to the fact of its being a real letter.
+Then I inclosed it in an envelope, stating that it was a part of a
+_set_ which had incidentally fallen into my hands. This envelope was
+written in a scrawny, scrawly, gentleman's hand.
+
+"I put it into the office in the morning, directed to 'Mrs. Samuel E.
+Foote,' and then sent word to Sis that it was coming, so that she
+might be ready to enact the part.
+
+"Well, the deception took. Uncle Sam examined it and pronounced, _ex
+cathedra_, that it must have been a real letter. Mr. Greene (the
+gentleman who reads) declared that it must have come from Mrs. Hall,
+and elucidated the theory by spelling out the names and dates which
+I had erased, which, of course, he accommodated to his own tastes.
+But then, what makes me feel uneasy is that Elisabeth, after reading
+it, did not seem to be exactly satisfied. She thought it had too much
+sentiment, too much particularity of incident,--she did not exactly
+know what. She was afraid that it would be criticised unmercifully.
+Now Elisabeth has a tact and quickness of perception that I trust
+to, and her remarks have made me uneasy enough. I am unused to being
+criticised, and don't know how I shall bear it."
+
+In 1833 Mrs. Stowe first had the subject of slavery brought to her
+personal notice by taking a trip across the river from Cincinnati into
+Kentucky in company with Miss Dutton, one of the associate teachers in
+the Western Institute. They visited an estate that afterwards figured
+as that of Colonel Shelby in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and here the young
+authoress first came into personal contact with the negro slaves of
+the South. In speaking, many years afterwards, of this visit, Miss
+Dutton said: "Harriet did not seem to notice anything in particular
+that happened, but sat much of the time as though abstracted in
+thought. When the negroes did funny things and cut up capers, she did
+not seem to pay the slightest attention to them. Afterwards, however,
+in reading 'Uncle Tom.' I recognized scene after scene of that visit
+portrayed with the most minute fidelity, and knew at once where the
+material for that portion of the story had been gathered."
+
+At this time, however, Mrs. Stowe was more deeply interested in the
+subject of education than in that of slavery, as is shown by the
+following extract from one of her letters to Miss May, who was herself
+a teacher. She says:--
+
+"We mean to turn over the West by means of _model schools_ in this, its
+capital. We mean to have a young lady's school of about fifty or sixty,
+a primary school of little girls to the same amount, and then a primary
+school for _boys_. We have come to the conclusion that the work of
+teaching will never be rightly done till it passes into _female_ hands.
+This is especially true with regard to boys. To govern boys by moral
+influences requires tact and talent and versatility it requires also
+the same division of labor that female education does. But men of tact,
+versatility, talent, and piety will not devote their lives to teaching.
+They must be ministers and missionaries, and all that, and while there
+is such a thrilling call for action in this way, every man who is
+merely teaching feels as if he were a Hercules with a distaff, ready
+to spring to the first trumpet that calls him away. As for division of
+labor, men must have salaries that can support wife and family, and, of
+course, a revenue would be required to support a requisite number of
+teachers if they could be found.
+
+"Then, if men have more knowledge they have less talent at
+communicating it, nor have they the patience, the long-suffering, and
+gentleness necessary to superintend the formation of character. We
+intend to make these principles understood, and ourselves to set the
+example of what females can do in this way. You see that first-rate
+talent is necessary for all that we mean to do, especially for the
+last, because here we must face down the prejudices of society and we
+must have exemplary success to be believed. We want original, planning
+minds, and you do not know how few there are among females, and how few
+we can command of those that exist."
+
+During the summer of 1834 the young teacher and writer made her first
+visit East since leaving New England two years before. Its object
+was mainly to be present at the graduation of her favorite brother,
+Henry Ward, from Amherst College. The earlier part of this journey
+was performed by means of stage to Toledo, and thence by steamer
+to Buffalo. A pleasant bit of personal description, and also of
+impressions of Niagara, seen for the first time on this journey, are
+given in a letter sent back to Cincinnati during its progress. In it
+she says of her fellow-travelers:--
+
+"Then there was a portly, rosy, clever Mr. Smith, or Jones, or
+something the like; and a New Orleans girl looking like distraction, as
+far as dress is concerned, but with the prettiest language and softest
+intonations in the world, and one of those faces which, while you say
+it isn't handsome, keeps you looking all the time to see what it can
+be that is so pretty about it. Then there was Miss B., an independent,
+good-natured, do-as-I-please sort of a body, who seemed of perpetual
+motion from morning till night. Poor Miss D. said, when we stopped at
+night, 'Oh, dear! I suppose Lydia will be fiddling about our room till
+morning, and we shall not one of us sleep.' Then, by way of contrast,
+there was a Mr. Mitchell, the most gentlemanly, obliging man that ever
+changed his seat forty times a day to please a lady. Oh, yes, he could
+ride outside,--or, oh, certainly, he could ride inside,--he had no
+objection to this, or that, or the other. Indeed, it was difficult to
+say what could come amiss to him. He speaks in a soft, quiet manner,
+with something of a drawl, using very correct, well-chosen language,
+and pronouncing all his words with carefulness; has everything in his
+dress and traveling appointments _comme il faut_; and seems to think
+there is abundant time for everything that is to be done in this
+world, without, as he says, 'any unnecessary excitement.' Before the
+party had fully discovered his name he was usually designated as 'the
+obliging gentleman,' or 'that gentleman who is so accommodating.' Yet
+our friend, withal, is of Irish extraction, and I have seen him roused
+to talk with both hands and a dozen words in a breath. He fell into
+a little talk about abolition and slavery with our good Mr. Jones, a
+man whose mode of reasoning consists in repeating the same sentence at
+regular intervals as long as you choose to answer it. This man, who was
+finally convinced that negroes were black, used it as an irrefragible
+argument to all that could be said, and at last began to deduce from
+it that they might just as well be slaves as anything else, and so he
+proceeded till all the philanthropy of our friend was roused, and he
+sprung up all lively and oratorical and gesticulatory and indignant to
+my heart's content. I like to see a quiet man that can be roused."
+
+In the same letter she gives her impressions of Niagara, as follows:--
+
+"I have seen it (Niagara) and yet live. Oh, where is your soul? Never
+mind, though. Let me tell, if I can, what is unutterable. Elisabeth,
+it is not _like_ anything; it did not look like anything I expected;
+it did not look like a waterfall. I did not once think whether it was
+high or low; whether it roared or didn't roar; whether it equaled my
+expectations or not. My mind whirled off, it seemed to me, in a new,
+strange world. It seemed unearthly, like the strange, dim images in the
+Revelation. I thought of the great white throne; the rainbow around
+it; the throne in sight like unto an emerald; and oh! that beautiful
+water rising like moonlight, falling as the soul sinks when it dies,
+to rise refined, spiritualized, and pure. That rainbow, breaking out,
+trembling, fading, and again coming like a beautiful spirit walking the
+waters. Oh, it is lovelier than it is great; it is like the Mind that
+made it: great, but so veiled in beauty that we gaze without terror.
+I felt as if I could have _gone over_ with the waters; it would be
+so beautiful a death; there would be no fear in it. I felt the rock
+tremble under me with a sort of joy. I was so maddened that I could
+have gone too, if it had gone."
+
+While at the East she was greatly affected by hearing of the death of
+her dear friend, Eliza Tyler, the wife of Professor Stowe. This lady
+was the daughter of Dr. Bennett Tyler, president of the Theological
+Institute of Connecticut, at East Windsor; but twenty-five years of
+age at the time of her death, a very beautiful woman gifted with a
+wonderful voice. She was also possessed of a well-stored mind and a
+personal magnetism that made her one of the most popular members of
+the Semi-Colon Club, in the proceedings of which she took an active
+interest.
+
+Her death left Professor Stowe a childless widower, and his forlorn
+condition greatly excited the sympathy of her who had been his wife's
+most intimate friend. It was easy for sympathy to ripen into love,
+and after a short engagement Harriet E. Beecher became the wife of
+Professor Calvin E. Stowe.
+
+Her last act before the wedding was to write the following note to the
+friend of her girlhood, Miss Georgiana May:--
+
+                                         _January 6, 1836._
+
+    Well, my dear G., about half an hour more and your old
+    friend, companion, schoolmate, sister, etc., will cease
+    to be Hatty Beecher and change to nobody knows who. My
+    dear, you are engaged, and pledged in a year or two to
+    encounter a similar fate, and do you wish to know how
+    you shall feel? Well, my dear, I have been dreading
+    and dreading the time, and lying awake all last week
+    wondering how I should live through this overwhelming
+    crisis, and lo! it has come and I feel _nothing at all_.
+
+    The wedding is to be altogether domestic; nobody
+    present but my own brothers and sisters, and my old
+    colleague, Mary Dutton; and as there is a sufficiency
+    of the ministry in our family we have not even to
+    call in the foreign aid of a minister. Sister Katy is
+    not here, so she will not witness my departure from
+    her care and guidance to that of another. None of my
+    numerous friends and acquaintances who have taken such
+    a deep interest in making the connection for me even
+    know the day, and it will be all done and over before
+    they know anything about it.
+
+    Well, it is really a mercy to have this entire
+    stupidity come over one at such a time. I should be
+    crazy to feel as I did yesterday, or indeed to feel
+    anything at all. But I inwardly vowed that my last
+    feelings and reflections on this subject should be
+    yours, and as I have not got any, it is just as well to
+    tell you _that_. Well, here comes Mr. S., so farewell,
+    and for the last time I subscribe
+
+                                    Your own
+                                         H. E. B.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] This geography was begun by Mrs. Stowe during the summer of 1832,
+while visiting her brother William at Newport, R. I. It was completed
+during the winter of 1833, and published by the firm of Corey, Fairbank
+& Webster, of Cincinnati.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+EARLY MARRIED LIFE, 1836-1840.
+
+    PROFESSOR STOWE'S INTEREST IN POPULAR EDUCATION.--HIS
+    DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.--SLAVERY RIOTS IN
+    CINCINNATI.--BIRTH OF TWIN DAUGHTERS.--PROFESSOR
+    STOWE'S RETURN AND VISIT TO COLUMBUS.--DOMESTIC
+    TRIALS.--AIDING A FUGITIVE SLAVE.--AUTHORSHIP UNDER
+    DIFFICULTIES.--A BEECHER ROUND ROBIN.
+
+
+THE letter to her friend Georgiana May, begun half an hour before her
+wedding, was not completed until nearly two months after that event.
+Taking it from her portfolio, she adds:--
+
+"Three weeks have passed since writing the above, and my husband
+and self are now quietly seated by our own fireside, as domestic as
+any pair of tame fowl you ever saw; he writing to his mother, and I
+to you. Two days after our marriage we took a wedding excursion, so
+called, though we would most gladly have been excused this conformity
+to ordinary custom had not necessity required Mr. Stowe to visit
+Columbus, and I had too much adhesiveness not to go too. Ohio roads
+at this season are no joke, I can tell you, though we were, on the
+whole, wonderfully taken care of, and our expedition included as many
+pleasures as an expedition at this time of the year _ever_ could.
+
+"And now, my dear, perhaps the wonder to you, as to me, is how this
+momentous crisis in the life of such a wisp of nerve as myself has
+been transacted so quietly. My dear, it is a wonder to myself. I am
+tranquil, quiet, and happy. I look _only_ on the present, and leave the
+future with Him who has hitherto been so kind to me. 'Take no thought
+for the morrow' is my motto, and my comfort is to rest on Him in whose
+house there are many mansions provided when these fleeting earthly ones
+pass away.
+
+"Dear Georgy, naughty girl that I am, it is a month that I have let
+the above lie by, because I got into a strain of emotion in it that I
+dreaded to return to. Well, so it shall be no longer. In about five
+weeks Mr. Stowe and myself start for New England. He sails the first
+of May. I am going with him to Boston, New York, and other places, and
+shall stop finally at Hartford, whence, as soon as he is gone, it is my
+intention to return westward."
+
+This reference to her husband as about to leave her relates to his
+sailing for Europe to purchase books for Lane Seminary, and also as a
+commissioner appointed by the State of Ohio to investigate the public
+school systems of the old world. He had long been convinced that higher
+education was impossible in the West without a higher grade of public
+schools, and had in 1833 been one of the founders in Cincinnati of
+"The College of Teachers," an institution that existed for ten years,
+and exerted a widespread influence. Its objects were to popularize the
+common schools, raise the standard of teachers, and create a demand
+for education among the people. Professor Stowe was associated in this
+movement with many of the leading intellects of Ohio at that time, and
+among them were Albert Pickett, Dr. Drake, Smith Grimke, Archbishop
+Purcell, President A. H. McGuffey, Dr. Beecher, Lydia Sigourney,
+Caroline Lee Hentz, and others. Their influence finally extended to the
+state legislature, and it was concluded to authorize Professor Stowe,
+when abroad, to investigate and report upon the common school systems
+of Europe, especially Prussia.
+
+He sailed from New York for London in the ship Montreal, Captain
+Champlin, on June 8, 1836, and carried with him, to be opened only
+after he was at sea, a letter from his wife, from which the following
+extract is made:--
+
+"Now, my dear, that you are gone where you are out of the reach of my
+care, advice, and good management, it is fitting that you should have
+something under my hand and seal for your comfort and furtherance in
+the new world you are going to. Firstly, I must caution you to set
+your face as a flint against the 'cultivation of indigo,' as Elisabeth
+calls it, in any way or shape. Keep yourself from it most scrupulously,
+and though you are unprovided with that precious and savory treatise
+entitled 'Kemper's Consolations,'[2] yet you can exercise yourself to
+recall and set in order such parts thereof as would more particularly
+suit your case, particularly those portions wherewith you so much
+consoled Kate, Aunt Esther, and your unworthy handmaid, while you yet
+tarried at Walnut Hills. But seriously, dear one, you must give more
+way to hope than to memory. You are going to a new scene now, and one
+that I hope will be full of enjoyment to you. I want you to take the
+good of it.
+
+"Only think of all you expect to see: the great libraries and
+beautiful paintings, fine churches, and, above all, think of seeing
+Tholuck, your great Apollo. My dear, I wish I were a man in your place;
+if I wouldn't have a grand time!"
+
+During her husband's absence abroad Mrs. Stowe lived quietly in
+Cincinnati with her father and brothers. She wrote occasionally short
+stories, articles, and essays for publication in the "Western Monthly
+Magazine" or the "New York Evangelist," and maintained a constant
+correspondence with her husband by means of a daily journal, which was
+forwarded to him once a month. She also assisted her brother, Henry
+Ward, who had accepted a temporary position as editor of the "Journal,"
+a small daily paper published in the city.
+
+At this time the question of slavery was an exciting one in Cincinnati,
+and Lane Seminary had become a hotbed of abolition. The anti-slavery
+movement among the students was headed by Theodore D. Weld, one
+of their number, who had procured funds to complete his education
+by lecturing through the South. While thus engaged he had been so
+impressed with the evils and horrors of slavery that he had become
+a radical abolitionist, and had succeeded in converting several
+Southerners to his views of the subject. Among them was Mr. J. G.
+Birney of Huntsville, Alabama, who not only liberated his slaves, but
+in connection with Dr. Gamaliel Bailey of Cincinnati founded in that
+city an anti-slavery paper called "The Philanthropist." This paper
+was finally suppressed, and its office wrecked by a mob instigated by
+Kentucky slaveholders, and it is of this event that Mrs. Stowe writes
+to her husband as follows:--
+
+"Yesterday evening I spent scribbling for Henry's newspaper (the
+'Journal') in this wise: 'Birney's printing-press has been mobbed, and
+many of the respectable citizens are disposed to wink at the outrage in
+consideration of its moving in the line of their prejudices.'
+
+"I wrote a conversational sketch, in which I rather satirized this
+inconsistent spirit, and brought out the effects of patronizing _any_
+violation of private rights. It was in a light, sketchy style, designed
+to draw attention to a long editorial of Henry's in which he considers
+the subject fully and seriously. His piece is, I think, a powerful
+one; indeed, he does write very strongly. I am quite proud of his
+editorials; they are well studied, earnest, and dignified. I think
+he will make a first-rate writer. Both our pieces have gone to press
+to-day, with Charles's article on music, and we have had not a little
+diversion about our _family newspaper_.
+
+"I thought, when I was writing last night, that I was, like a good
+wife, defending one of your principles in your absence, and wanted you
+to see how manfully I talked about it. Henry has also taken up and
+examined the question of the Seminole Indians, and done it very nobly."
+
+Again:--
+
+"The excitement about Birney continues to increase. The keeper of the
+Franklin Hotel was assailed by a document subscribed to by many of his
+boarders demanding that Birney should be turned out of doors. He chose
+to negative the demand, and twelve of his boarders immediately left,
+Dr. F. among the number. A meeting has been convoked by means of a
+handbill, in which some of the most respectable men of the city are
+invited by name to come together and consider the question whether they
+will allow Mr. Birney to continue his paper in the city. Mr. Greene
+says that, to his utter surprise, many of the most respectable and
+influential citizens gave out that they should go.
+
+"He was one of the number they invited, but he told those who came to
+him that he would have nothing to do with disorderly public meetings or
+mobs in any shape, and that he was entirely opposed to the whole thing.
+
+"I presume they will have a hot meeting, if they have any at all.
+
+"I wish father were at home to preach a sermon to his church, for many
+of its members do not frown on these things as they ought."
+
+"Later: The meeting was held, and was headed by Morgan, Neville, Judge
+Burke, and I know not who else. Judge Burnet was present and consented
+to their acts. The mob madness is certainly upon this city when men of
+sense and standing will pass resolutions approving in so many words of
+things done contrary to law, as one of the resolutions of this meeting
+did. It quoted the demolition of the tea in Boston harbor as being
+authority and precedent.
+
+"A large body, perhaps the majority of citizens, disapprove, but I fear
+there will not be public disavowal. Even N. Wright but faintly opposes,
+and Dr. Fore has been exceedingly violent. Mr. Hammond (editor of the
+'Gazette') in a very dignified and judicious manner has condemned the
+whole thing, and Henry has opposed, but otherwise the papers have
+either been silent or in favor of mobs. We shall see what the result
+will be in a few days.
+
+"For my part, I can easily see how such proceedings may make converts
+to abolitionism, for already my sympathies are strongly enlisted for
+Mr. Birney, and I hope that he will stand his ground and assert his
+rights. The office is fire-proof, and inclosed by high walls. I wish he
+would man it with armed men and see what can be done. If I were a man
+I would go, for one, and take good care of at least one window. Henry
+sits opposite me writing a most valiant editorial, and tells me to tell
+you he is waxing mighty in battle."
+
+In another letter she writes:--
+
+"I told you in my last that the mob broke into Birney's press, where,
+however, the mischief done was but slight. The object appeared to be
+principally to terrify. Immediately there followed a general excitement
+in which even good men in their panic and prejudice about abolitionism
+forgot that mobs were worse evils than these, talked against Birney,
+and winked at the outrage; N. Wright and Judge Burnet, for example.
+Meanwhile the turbulent spirits went beyond this and talked of
+revolution and of righting things without law that could not be righted
+by it. At the head of these were Morgan, Neville, Longworth, Joseph
+Graham, and Judge Burke. A meeting was convoked at Lower Market Street
+to decide whether they would permit the publishing of an abolition
+paper, and to this meeting all the most respectable citizens were by
+name summoned.
+
+"There were four classes in the city then: Those who meant to go as
+revolutionists and support the mob; those who meant to put down
+Birney, but rather hoped to do it without a mob; those who felt ashamed
+to go, foreseeing the probable consequence, and yet did not decidedly
+frown upon it; and those who sternly and decidedly reprehended it.
+
+"The first class was headed by Neville, Longworth, Graham, etc.; the
+second class, though of some numbers, was less conspicuous; of the
+third, Judge Burnet, Dr. Fore, and N. Wright were specimens; and in
+the last such men as Hammond, Mansfield, S. P. Chase,[3] and Chester
+were prominent. The meeting in so many words voted a mob, nevertheless
+a committee was appointed to wait on Mr. Birney and ascertain what he
+proposed to do; and, strange to tell, men as sensible as Uncle John and
+Judge Burnet were so short-sighted as to act on that committee.
+
+"All the newspapers in the city, except Hammond's ('Gazette') and
+Henry's (the 'Journal'), were either silent or openly 'mobocratic.' As
+might have been expected, Birney refused to leave, and that night the
+mob tore down his press, scattered the types, dragged the whole to the
+river, threw it in, and then came back to demolish the office.
+
+"They then went to the houses of Dr. Bailey, Mr. Donaldson, and Mr.
+Birney; but the persons they sought were not at home, having been
+aware of what was intended. The mayor was a silent spectator of these
+proceedings, and was heard to say, 'Well, lads, you have done well, so
+far; go home now before you disgrace yourselves;' but the 'lads' spent
+the rest of the night and a greater part of the next day (Sunday) in
+pulling down the houses of inoffensive and respectable blacks. The
+'Gazette' office was threatened, the 'Journal' office was to go next;
+Lane Seminary and the water-works also were mentioned as probable
+points to be attacked by the mob.
+
+"By Tuesday morning the city was pretty well alarmed. A regular corps
+of volunteers was organized, who for three nights patrolled the streets
+with firearms and with legal warrant from the mayor, who by this time
+was glad to give it, to put down the mob even by bloodshed.
+
+"For a day or two we did not know but there would actually be war
+to the knife, as was threatened by the mob, and we really saw Henry
+depart with his pistols with daily alarm, only we were all too full of
+patriotism not to have sent every brother we had rather than not have
+had the principles of freedom and order defended.
+
+"But here the tide turned. The mob, unsupported by a now frightened
+community, slunk into their dens and were still; and then Hammond,
+who, during the few days of its prevalence, had made no comments, but
+published simply the Sermon on the Mount, the Constitution of Ohio,
+and the Declaration of Independence, without any comment, now came
+out and gave a simple, concise history of the mob, tracing it to the
+market-house meeting, telling the whole history of the meeting, with
+the names of those who got it up, throwing on them and on those who
+had acted on the committee the whole responsibility of the following
+mob. It makes a terrible sensation, but it 'cuts its way,' and all who
+took other stand than that of steady opposition from the first are
+beginning to feel the reaction of public sentiment, while newspapers
+from abroad are pouring in their reprehensions of the disgraceful
+conduct of Cincinnati. Another time, I suspect, such men as Judge
+Burnet, Mr. Greene, and Uncle John will keep their fingers out of such
+a trap, and people will all learn better than to wink at a mob that
+happens to please them at the outset, or in any way to give it their
+countenance. Mr. Greene and Uncle John were full of wrath against mobs,
+and would not go to the meeting, and yet were cajoled into acting on
+that committee in the vain hope of getting Birney to go away and thus
+preventing the outrage.
+
+"They are justly punished, I think, for what was very irresolute and
+foolish conduct, to say the least."
+
+The general tone of her letters at this time would seem to show that,
+while Mrs. Stowe was anti-slavery in her sympathies, she was not a
+declared abolitionist. This is still further borne out in a letter
+written in 1837 from Putnam, Ohio, whither she had gone for a short
+visit to her brother William. In it she says:--
+
+"The good people here, you know, are about half abolitionists. A lady
+who takes a leading part in the female society in this place yesterday
+called and brought Catherine the proceedings of the Female Anti-Slavery
+Convention.
+
+"I should think them about as ultra as to measures as anything that has
+been attempted, though I am glad to see a better spirit than marks such
+proceedings generally.
+
+"To-day I read some in Mr. Birney's 'Philanthropist.' Abolitionism
+being the fashion here, it is natural to look at its papers.
+
+"It does seem to me that there needs to be an _intermediate_ society.
+If not, as light increases, all the excesses of the abolition party
+will not prevent humane and conscientious men from joining it.
+
+"Pray what is there in Cincinnati to satisfy one whose mind is awakened
+on this subject? No one can have the system of slavery brought before
+him without an irrepressible desire to _do_ something, and what is
+there to be done?"
+
+On September 29, 1836, while Professor Stowe was still absent in
+Europe, his wife gave birth to twin daughters, Eliza and Isabella, as
+she named them; but Eliza Tyler and Harriet Beecher, as her husband
+insisted they should be called, when, upon reaching New York, he was
+greeted by the joyful news. His trip from London in the ship Gladiator
+had been unusually long, even for those days of sailing vessels, and
+extended from November 19, 1836, to January 20, 1837.
+
+During the summer of 1837 Mrs. Stowe suffered much from ill health, on
+which account, and to relieve her from domestic cares, she was sent to
+make a long visit at Putnam with her brother, Rev. William Beecher.
+While here she received a letter from her husband, in which he says:--
+
+"We all of course feel proper indignation at the doings of last General
+Assembly, and shall treat them with merited contempt. This alliance
+between the old school (Presbyterians) and slaveholders will make more
+abolitionists than anything that has been done yet."
+
+In December Professor Stowe went to Columbus with the extended
+educational report that he had devoted the summer to preparing; and in
+writing from there to his wife he says:--
+
+"To-day I have been visiting the governor and legislators. They
+received me with the utmost kindness, and are evidently anticipating
+much from my report. The governor communicated it to the legislature
+to-day, and it is concluded that I read it in Dr. Hodges' church on
+two evenings, to-morrow and the day after, before both houses of the
+legislature and the citizens. The governor (Vance) will preside at both
+meetings. I like him (the governor) much. He is just such a plain,
+simple-hearted, sturdy body as old Fritz (Kaiser Frederick), with more
+of natural talent than his predecessor in the gubernatorial chair. For
+my year's work in this matter I am to receive $500."
+
+On January 14, 1838, Mrs. Stowe's third child, Henry Ellis, was born.
+
+It was about this time that the famous reunion of the Beecher family
+described in Lyman Beecher's "Autobiography" occurred. Edward made a
+visit to the East, and when he returned he brought Mary (Mrs. Thomas
+Perkins) from Hartford with him. William came down from Putnam, Ohio,
+and George from Batavia, New York, while Catherine, Harriet, Henry,
+Charles, Isabella, Thomas, and James were already at home. It was the
+first time they had ever all met together. Mary had never seen James,
+and had seen Thomas but once. The old doctor was almost transported
+with joy as they all gathered about him, and his cup of happiness was
+filled to overflowing when, the next day, which was Sunday, his pulpit
+was filled by Edward in the morning, William in the afternoon, and
+George in the evening.
+
+Side by side with this charming picture we have another of domestic
+life outlined by Mrs. Stowe's own hand. It is contained in the
+following letter, written June 21, 1838, to Miss May, at New Haven,
+Conn.:--
+
+    MY DEAR, DEAR GEORGIANA,--Only think how long it is
+    since I have written to you, and how changed I am since
+    then--the mother of three children! Well, if I have
+    not kept the reckoning of old times, let this last
+    circumstance prove my apology, for I have been hand,
+    heart, and head full since I saw you.
+
+    Now, to-day, for example, I'll tell you what I had
+    on my mind from dawn to dewy eve. In the first place
+    I waked about half after four and thought, "Bless
+    me, how light it is! I must get out of bed and rap
+    to wake up Mina, for breakfast must be had at six
+    o'clock this morning." So out of bed I jump and seize
+    the tongs and pound, pound, pound over poor Mina's
+    sleepy head, charitably allowing her about half an
+    hour to get waked up in,--that being the quantum of
+    time that it takes me,--or used to. Well, then baby
+    wakes--qua, qua, qua, so I give him his breakfast,
+    dozing meanwhile and soliloquizing as follows: "Now I
+    must not forget to tell Mr. Stowe about the starch and
+    dried apples"--doze--"ah, um, dear me! why doesn't Mina
+    get up? I don't hear her,"--doze--"a, um,--I wonder if
+    Mina has soap enough! I think there were two bars left
+    on Saturday"--doze again--I wake again. "Dear me, broad
+    daylight! I must get up and go down and see if Mina is
+    getting breakfast." Up I jump and up wakes baby. "Now,
+    little boy, be good and let mother dress, because she
+    is in a hurry." I get my frock half on and baby by
+    that time has kicked himself down off his pillow, and
+    is crying and fisting the bed-clothes in great order. I
+    stop with one sleeve off and one on to settle matters
+    with him. Having planted him bolt upright and gone all
+    up and down the chamber barefoot to get pillows and
+    blankets to prop him up, I finish putting my frock on
+    and hurry down to satisfy myself by actual observation
+    that the breakfast is in progress. Then back I come
+    into the nursery, where, remembering that it is washing
+    day and that there is a great deal of work to be done,
+    I apply myself vigorously to sweeping, dusting, and the
+    setting to rights so necessary where there are three
+    little mischiefs always pulling down as fast as one can
+    put up.
+
+    Then there are Miss H---- and Miss E----, concerning
+    whom Mary will furnish you with all suitable
+    particulars, who are chattering, hallooing, or singing
+    at the tops of their voices, as may suit their various
+    states of mind, while the nurse is getting their
+    breakfast ready. This meal being cleared away, Mr.
+    Stowe dispatched to market with various memoranda
+    of provisions, etc., and the baby being washed and
+    dressed, I begin to think what next must be done.
+    I start to cut out some little dresses, have just
+    calculated the length and got one breadth torn off when
+    Master Henry makes a doleful lip and falls to crying
+    with might and main. I catch him up and turning round
+    see one of his sisters flourishing the things out of
+    my workbox in fine style. Moving it away and looking
+    the other side I see the second little mischief seated
+    by the hearth chewing coals and scraping up ashes with
+    great apparent relish. Grandmother lays hold upon her
+    and charitably offers to endeavor to quiet baby while
+    I go on with my work. I set at it again, pick up a
+    dozen pieces, measure them once more to see which is
+    the right one, and proceed to cut out some others, when
+    I see the twins on the point of quarreling with each
+    other. Number one pushes number two over. Number two
+    screams: that frightens the baby and he joins in. I
+    call number one a naughty girl, take the persecuted one
+    in my arms, and endeavor to comfort her by trotting to
+    the old lyric:--
+
+    "So ride the gentlefolk,
+     And so do we, so do we."
+
+    Meanwhile number one makes her way to the slop jar and
+    forthwith proceeds to wash her apron in it. Grandmother
+    catches her by one shoulder, drags her away, and sets
+    the jar up out of her reach. By and by the nurse comes
+    up from her sweeping. I commit the children to her, and
+    finish cutting out the frocks.
+
+    But let this suffice, for of such details as these are
+    all my days made up. Indeed, my dear, I am but a mere
+    drudge with few ideas beyond babies and housekeeping.
+    As for thoughts, reflections, and sentiments, good
+    lack! good lack!
+
+    I suppose I am a dolefully uninteresting person at
+    present, but I hope I shall grow young again one of
+    these days, for it seems to me that matters cannot
+    always stand exactly as they do now.
+
+    Well, Georgy, this marriage is--yes, I will speak well
+    of it, after all; for when I can stop and think long
+    enough to discriminate my head from my heels, I must
+    say that I think myself a fortunate woman both in
+    husband and children. My children I would not change
+    for all the ease, leisure, and pleasure that I could
+    have without them. They are money on interest whose
+    value will be constantly increasing.
+
+In 1839 Mrs. Stowe received into her family as a servant a colored
+girl from Kentucky. By the laws of Ohio she was free, having been
+brought into the State and left there by her mistress. In spite of
+this, Professor Stowe received word, after she had lived with them some
+months, that the girl's master was in the city looking for her, and
+that if she were not careful she would be seized and conveyed back into
+slavery. Finding that this could be accomplished by boldness, perjury,
+and the connivance of some unscrupulous justice, Professor Stowe
+determined to remove the girl to some place of security where she might
+remain until the search for her should be given up. Accordingly he and
+his brother-in-law, Henry Ward Beecher, both armed, drove the fugitive,
+in a covered wagon, at night, by unfrequented roads, twelve miles back
+into the country, and left her in safety with the family of old John
+Van Zandt, the fugitive's friend.
+
+It is from this incident of real life and personal experience that Mrs.
+Stowe conceived the thrilling episode of the fugitives' escape from Tom
+Loker and Marks in "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+An amusing and at the same time most interesting account of her
+struggles to accomplish literary work amid her distracting domestic
+duties at this time is furnished by the letter of one of her intimate
+friends, who writes:--
+
+"It was my good fortune to number Mrs. Stowe among my friends, and
+during a visit to her I had an opportunity one day of witnessing the
+combined exercise of her literary and domestic genius in a style that
+to me was quite amusing.
+
+"'Come Harriet,' said I, as I found her tending one baby and watching
+two others just able to walk, 'where is that piece for the "Souvenir"
+which I promised the editor I would get from you and send on next week?
+You have only this one day left to finish it, and have it I must.'
+
+"'And how will you get it, friend of mine?' said Harriet. 'You will
+at least have to wait till I get house-cleaning over and baby's teeth
+through.'
+
+"'As to house-cleaning, you can defer it one day longer; and as to
+baby's teeth, there is to be no end to them, as I can see. No, no;
+to-day that story must be ended. There Frederick has been sitting by
+Ellen and saying all those pretty things for more than a month now, and
+she has been turning and blushing till I am sure it is time to go to
+her relief. Come, it would not take you three hours at the rate you can
+write to finish the courtship, marriage, catastrophe, eclaircissement,
+and all; and this three hours' labor of your brains will earn enough to
+pay for all the sewing your fingers could do for a year to come. Two
+dollars a page, my dear, and you can write a page in fifteen minutes!
+Come, then, my lady housekeeper, economy is a cardinal virtue; consider
+the economy of the thing.'
+
+"'But, my dear, here is a baby in my arms and two little pussies by
+my side, and there is a great baking down in the kitchen, and there
+is a "new girl" for "help," besides preparations to be made for
+house-cleaning next week. It is really out of the question, you see.'
+
+"'I see no such thing. I do not know what genius is given for, if it
+is not to help a woman out of a scrape. Come, set your wits to work,
+let me have my way, and you shall have all the work done and finish the
+story too.'
+
+"'Well, but kitchen affairs?'
+
+"'We can manage them too. You know you can write anywhere and anyhow.
+Just take your seat at the kitchen table with your writing weapons, and
+while you superintend Mina fill up the odd snatches of time with the
+labors of your pen.'
+
+"I carried my point. In ten minutes she was seated; a table with flour,
+rolling-pin, ginger, and lard on one side, a dresser with eggs, pork,
+and beans and various cooking utensils on the other, near her an oven
+heating, and beside her a dark-skinned nymph, waiting orders.
+
+"'Here, Harriet,' said I, 'you can write on this atlas in your lap; no
+matter how the writing looks, I will copy it.'
+
+"'Well, well,' said she, with a resigned sort of amused look. 'Mina,
+you may do what I told you, while I write a few minutes, till it is
+time to mould up the bread. Where is the inkstand?'
+
+"'Here it is, close by, on the top of the tea-kettle,' said I.
+
+"At this Mina giggled, and we both laughed to see her merriment at our
+literary proceedings.
+
+"I began to overhaul the portfolio to find the right sheet.
+
+"'Here it is,' said I. 'Here is Frederick sitting by Ellen, glancing at
+her brilliant face, and saying something about "guardian angel," and
+all that--you remember?'
+
+"'Yes, yes,' said she, falling into a muse, as she attempted to recover
+the thread of her story.
+
+"'Ma'am, shall I put the pork on the top of the beans?' asked Mina.
+
+"'Come, come,' said Harriet, laughing. 'You see how it is. Mina is a
+new hand and cannot do anything without me to direct her. We must give
+up the writing for to-day.'
+
+"'No, no; let us have another trial. You can dictate as easily as you
+can write. Come, I can set the baby in this clothes-basket and give him
+some mischief or other to keep him quiet; you shall dictate and I will
+write. Now, this is the place where you left off: you were describing
+the scene between Ellen and her lover; the last sentence was, "Borne
+down by the tide of agony, she leaned her head on her hands, the tears
+streamed through her fingers, and her whole frame shook with convulsive
+sobs." What shall I write next?'
+
+"'Mina, pour a little milk into this pearlash,' said Harriet.
+
+"'Come,' said I. '"The tears streamed through her fingers and her whole
+frame shook with convulsive sobs." What next?'
+
+"Harriet paused and looked musingly out of the window, as she turned
+her mind to her story. 'You may write now,' said she, and she dictated
+as follows:
+
+"'"Her lover wept with her, nor dared he again to touch the point so
+sacredly guarded"--Mina, roll that crust a little thinner. "He spoke in
+soothing tones"--Mina, poke the coals in the oven.'
+
+"'Here,' said I, 'let me direct Mina about these matters, and write a
+while yourself.'
+
+"Harriet took the pen and patiently set herself to the work. For
+a while my culinary knowledge and skill were proof to all Mina's
+investigating inquiries, and they did not fail till I saw two pages
+completed.
+
+"'You have done bravely,' said I, as I read over the manuscript; 'now
+you must direct Mina a while. Meanwhile dictate and I will write.'
+
+"Never was there a more docile literary lady than my friend. Without a
+word of objection she followed my request.
+
+"'I am ready to write,' said I. 'The last sentence was: "What is this
+life to one who has suffered as I have?" What next?'
+
+"'Shall I put in the brown or the white bread first?' said Mina.
+
+"'The brown first,' said Harriet.
+
+"'"What is this life to one who has suffered as I have?"' said I.
+
+"Harriet brushed the flour off her apron and sat down for a moment in a
+muse. Then she dictated as follows:--
+
+"'"Under the breaking of my heart I have borne up. I have borne up
+under all that tries a woman,--but this thought,--oh, Henry!"'
+
+"'Ma'am, shall I put ginger into this pumpkin?' queried Mina.
+
+"'No, you may let that alone just now,' replied Harriet. She then
+proceeded:--
+
+"'"I know my duty to my children. I see the hour must come. You must
+take them, Henry; they are my last earthly comfort."'
+
+"'Ma'am, what shall I do with these egg-shells and all this truck
+here?' interrupted Mina.
+
+"'Put them in the pail by you,' answered Harriet.
+
+"'"They are my last earthly comfort,"' said I. 'What next?'
+
+"She continued to dictate,--
+
+"'"You must take them away. It may be--perhaps it _must_ be--that I
+shall soon follow, but the breaking heart of a wife still pleads, 'a
+little longer, a little longer.'"'
+
+"'How much longer must the gingerbread stay in?' inquired Mina.
+
+"'Five minutes,' said Harriet.
+
+"'"A little longer, a little longer,"' I repeated in a dolorous tone,
+and we burst into a laugh.
+
+"Thus we went on, cooking, writing, nursing, and laughing, till I
+finally accomplished my object. The piece was finished, copied, and the
+next day sent to the editor."
+
+The widely scattered members of the Beecher family had a fashion of
+communicating with each other by means of circular letters. These,
+begun on great sheets of paper, at either end of the line, were passed
+along from one to another, each one adding his or her budget of news
+to the general stock. When the filled sheet reached the last person
+for whom it was intended, it was finally remailed to its point of
+departure. Except in the cases of Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Perkins, the
+simple address "Rev. Mr. Beecher" was sufficient to insure its safe
+delivery in any town to which it was sent.
+
+One of these great, closely-written sheets, bearing in faded ink the
+names of all the Beechers, lies outspread before us as we write. It
+is postmarked Hartford, Conn., Batavia, N. Y., Chillicothe, Ohio,
+Zanesville, Ohio, Walnut Hills, Ohio, Indianapolis, Ind., Jacksonville,
+Ill., and New Orleans, La. In it Mrs. Stowe occupies her allotted space
+with--
+
+                             WALNUT HILLS, _April 27, 1839._
+
+    DEAR FRIENDS,--I am going to Hartford myself, and
+    therefore shall not write, but hurry along the
+    preparations for my forward journey. Belle, father says
+    you may go to the White Mountains with Mr. Stowe and me
+    this summer. George, we may look in on you coming back.
+    Good-by.
+
+    Affectionately to all,                  H. E. STOWE.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[2] A ridiculous book from which Mr. Stowe derived endless amusement.
+
+[3] Salmon P. Chase.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+POVERTY AND SICKNESS, 1840-1850.
+
+    FAMINE IN CINCINNATI.--SUMMER AT THE EAST.--PLANS
+    FOR LITERARY WORK.--EXPERIENCE ON A RAILROAD.--DEATH
+    OF HER BROTHER GEORGE.--SICKNESS AND DESPAIR.--A
+    JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF HEALTH.--GOES TO BRATTLEBORO'
+    WATERCURE.--TROUBLES AT LANE SEMINARY.--CHOLERA IN
+    CINCINNATI.--DEATH OF YOUNGEST CHILD.--DETERMINED TO
+    LEAVE THE WEST.
+
+
+ON January 7, 1839, Professor Stowe wrote to his mother in Natick,
+Mass.: "You left here, I believe, in the right time, for as there has
+been no navigation on the Ohio River for a year, we are almost in a
+state of famine as to many of the necessities of life. For example,
+salt (coarse) has sold in Cincinnati this winter for three dollars a
+bushel; rice eighteen cents a pound; coffee fifty cents a pound; white
+sugar the same; brown sugar twenty cents; molasses a dollar a gallon;
+potatoes a dollar a bushel. We do without such things mostly; as there
+is yet plenty of bread and bacon (flour six and seven dollars a barrel,
+and good pork from six to eight cents a pound) we get along very
+comfortably.
+
+"Our new house is pretty much as it was, but they say it will be
+finished in July. I expect to visit you next summer, as I shall deliver
+the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Dartmouth College; but whether wife and
+children come with me or not is not yet decided."
+
+Mrs. Stowe came on to the East with her husband and children during
+the following summer, and before her return made a trip through the
+White Mountains.
+
+In May, 1840, her second son was born and named Frederick William,
+after the sturdy Prussian king, for whom her husband cherished an
+unbounded admiration.
+
+Mrs. Stowe has said somewhere: "So we go, dear reader, so long as we
+have a body and a soul. For worlds must mingle,--the great and the
+little, the solemn and the trivial, wreathing in and out like the
+grotesque carvings on a gothic shrine; only did we know it rightly,
+nothing is trivial, since the human soul, with its awful shadow, makes
+all things sacred." So in writing a biography it is impossible for us
+to tell what did and what did not powerfully influence the character.
+It is safer simply to tell the unvarnished truth. The lily builds up
+its texture of delicate beauty from mould and decay. So how do we know
+from what humble material a soul grows in strength and beauty!
+
+In December, 1840, writing to Miss May, Mrs. Stowe says:--
+
+"For a year I have held the pen only to write an occasional business
+letter such as could not be neglected. This was primarily owing to a
+severe neuralgic complaint that settled in my eyes, and for two months
+not only made it impossible for me to use them in writing, but to fix
+them with attention on anything. I could not even bear the least light
+of day in my room. Then my dear little Frederick was born, and for two
+months more I was confined to my bed. Besides all this, we have had an
+unusual amount of sickness in our family....
+
+"For all that my history of the past year records so many troubles, I
+cannot on the whole regard it as a very troublous one. I have had so
+many counterbalancing mercies that I must regard myself as a person
+greatly blessed. It is true that about six months out of the twelve I
+have been laid up with sickness, but then I have had every comfort and
+the kindest of nurses in my faithful Anna. My children have thriven,
+and on the whole 'come to more,' as the Yankees say, than the care of
+them. Thus you see my troubles have been but enough to keep me from
+loving earth too well."
+
+In the spring of 1842 Mrs. Stowe again visited Hartford, taking her
+six-year-old daughter Hatty with her. In writing from there to her
+husband she confides some of her literary plans and aspirations to him,
+and he answers:--
+
+"My dear, you must be a literary woman. It is so written in the book
+of fate. Make all your calculations accordingly. Get a good stock of
+health and brush up your mind. Drop the E. out of your name. It only
+incumbers it and interferes with the flow and euphony. Write yourself
+fully and always Harriet Beecher Stowe, which is a name euphonious,
+flowing, and full of meaning. Then my word for it, your husband will
+lift up his head in the gate, and your children will rise up and call
+you blessed.
+
+"Our humble dwelling has to-day received a distinguished honor of which
+I must give you an account. It was a visit from his excellency the
+Baron de Roenne, ambassador of his majesty the King of Prussia to the
+United States. He was pleased to assure me of the great satisfaction
+my report on Prussian schools had afforded the king and members of
+his court, with much more to the same effect. Of course having a real
+live lord to exhibit, I was anxious for some one to exhibit him to; but
+neither Aunt Esther nor Anna dared venture near the study, though they
+both contrived to get a peep at his lordship from the little chamber
+window as he was leaving.
+
+"And now, my dear wife, I want you to come home as quick as you can.
+The fact is I cannot live without you, and if we were not so prodigious
+poor I would come for you at once. There is no woman like you in this
+wide world. Who else has so much talent with so little self-conceit;
+so much reputation with so little affectation; so much literature with
+so little nonsense; so much enterprise with so little extravagance;
+so much tongue with so little scold; so much sweetness with so little
+softness; so much of so many things and so little of so many other
+things?"
+
+In answer to this letter Mrs. Stowe writes from Hartford:--
+
+"I have seen Johnson of the 'Evangelist.' He is very liberally
+disposed, and I may safely reckon on being paid for all I do there. Who
+is that Hale, Jr., that sent me the 'Boston Miscellany,' and will he
+keep his word with me? His offers are very liberal,--twenty dollars for
+three pages, not very close print. Is he to be depended on? If so, it
+is the best offer I have received yet. I shall get something from the
+Harpers some time this winter or spring. Robertson, the publisher here,
+says the book ('The Mayflower') will sell, and though the terms they
+offer me are very low, that I shall make something on it. For a second
+volume I shall be able to make better terms. On the whole, my dear, if
+I choose to be a literary lady, I have, I think, as good a chance of
+making profit by it as any one I know of. But with all this, I have my
+doubts whether I shall be able to do so.
+
+"Our children are just coming to the age when everything depends on my
+efforts. They are delicate in health, and nervous and excitable, and
+need a mother's whole attention. Can I lawfully divide my attention by
+literary efforts?
+
+"There is one thing I must suggest. If I am to write, I must have a
+room to myself, which shall be _my_ room. I have in my own mind pitched
+on Mrs. Whipple's room. I can put the stove in it. I have bought a
+cheap carpet for it, and I have furniture enough at home to furnish it
+comfortably, and I only beg in addition that you will let me change the
+glass door from the nursery into that room and keep my plants there,
+and then I shall be quite happy.
+
+"All last winter I felt the need of some place where I could go and be
+quiet and satisfied. I could not there, for there was all the setting
+of tables, and clearing up of tables, and dressing and washing of
+children, and everything else going on, and the constant falling of
+soot and coal dust on everything in the room was a constant annoyance
+to me, and I never felt comfortable there though I tried hard. Then if
+I came into the parlor where you were I felt as if I were interrupting
+you, and you know you sometimes thought so too.
+
+"Now this winter let the cooking-stove be put into that room, and let
+the pipe run up through the floor into the room above. We can eat by
+our cooking-stove, and the children can be washed and dressed and keep
+their playthings in the room above, and play there when we don't want
+them below. You can study by the parlor fire, and I and my plants,
+etc., will take the other room. I shall keep my work and all my things
+there and feel settled and quiet. I intend to have a regular part of
+each day devoted to the children, and then I shall take them in there."
+
+In his reply to this letter Professor Stowe says:--
+
+"The little magazine ('The Souvenir') goes ahead finely. Fisher sent
+down to Fulton the other day and got sixty subscribers. He will make
+the June number as handsome as possible, as a specimen number for the
+students, several of whom will take agencies for it during the coming
+vacation. You have it in your power by means of this little magazine
+to form the mind of the West for the coming generation. It is just as
+I told you in my last letter. God has written it in his book that you
+must be a literary woman, and who are we that we should contend against
+God? You must therefore make all your calculations to spend the rest of
+your life with your pen.
+
+"If you only could come home to-day how happy should I be. I am daily
+finding out more and more (what I knew very well before) that you are
+the most intelligent and agreeable woman in the whole circle of my
+acquaintance."
+
+That Professor Stowe's devoted admiration for his wife was
+reciprocated, and that a most perfect sympathy of feeling existed
+between the husband and wife, is shown by a line in one of Mrs.
+Stowe's letters from Hartford in which she says: "I was telling
+Belle yesterday that I did not know till I came away how much I was
+dependent upon you for information. There are a thousand favorite
+subjects on which I could talk with you better than with any one else.
+If you were not already my dearly loved husband I should certainly fall
+in love with you."
+
+In this same letter she writes of herself:--
+
+"One thing more in regard to myself. The absence and wandering of mind
+and forgetfulness that so often vexes you is a physical infirmity
+with me. It is the failing of a mind not calculated to endure a great
+pressure of care, and so much do I feel the pressure I am under,
+so much is my mind often darkened and troubled by care, that life
+seriously considered holds out few allurements,--only my children.
+
+"In returning to my family, from whom I have been so long separated,
+I am impressed with a new and solemn feeling of responsibility. It
+appears to me that I am not probably destined for long life; at all
+events, the feeling is strongly impressed upon my mind that a work is
+put into my hands which I must be earnest to finish shortly. It is
+nothing great or brilliant in the world's eye; it lies in one small
+family circle, of which I am called to be the central point."
+
+On her way home from this Eastern visit Mrs. Stowe traveled for the
+first time by rail, and of this novel experience she writes to Miss
+Georgiana May:--
+
+                                BATAVIA, _August 29, 1842._
+
+    Here I am at Brother William's, and our passage along
+    this railroad reminds me of the verse of the psalm:--
+
+        "Tho' lions roar and tempests blow,
+         And rocks and dangers fill the way."
+
+    Such confusion of tongues, such shouting and swearing,
+    such want of all sort of system and decency in
+    arrangements, I never desire to see again. I was
+    literally almost trodden down and torn to pieces in
+    the Rochester depot when I went to help my poor,
+    near-sighted spouse in sorting out the baggage. You
+    see there was an accident which happened to the cars
+    leaving Rochester that morning, which kept us two
+    hours and a half at the passing place this side of
+    Auburn, waiting for them to come up and go by us.
+    The consequence was that we got into this Rochester
+    depot aforesaid after dark, and the steamboat, the
+    canal-boat, and the Western train of cars had all been
+    kept waiting three hours beyond their usual time,
+    and they all broke loose upon us the moment we put
+    our heads out of the cars, and such a jerking, and
+    elbowing, and scuffling, and swearing, and protesting,
+    and scolding you never heard, while the great
+    locomotive sailed up and down in the midst thereof,
+    spitting fire and smoke like some great fiend monster
+    diverting himself with our commotions. I do think
+    these steam concerns border a little too much on the
+    supernatural to be agreeable, especially when you are
+    shut up in a great dark depot after sundown.
+
+    Well, after all, we had to ride till twelve o'clock at
+    night to get to Batavia, and I've been sick abed, so to
+    speak, ever since.
+
+The winter of 1842 was one of peculiar trial to the family at Walnut
+Hills; as Mrs. Stowe writes, "It was a season of sickness and gloom."
+Typhoid fever raged among the students of the seminary, and the house
+of the president was converted into a hospital, while the members of
+his family were obliged to devote themselves to nursing the sick and
+dying.
+
+July 6, 1843, a few weeks before the birth of her third daughter,
+Georgiana May, a most terrible and overwhelming sorrow came on Mrs.
+Stowe, in common with all the family, in the sudden death of her
+brother, the Rev. George Beecher.
+
+He was a young man of unusual talent and ability, and much loved by his
+church and congregation. The circumstances of his death are related
+in a letter written by Mrs. Stowe, and are as follows: "Noticing the
+birds destroying his fruit and injuring his plants, he went for a
+double-barreled gun, which he scarcely ever had used, out of regard to
+the timidity and anxiety of his wife in reference to it. Shortly after
+he left the house, one of the elders of his church in passing saw him
+discharge one barrel at the birds. Soon after he heard the fatal report
+and saw the smoke, but the trees shut out the rest from sight.... In
+about half an hour after, the family assembled at breakfast, and the
+servant was sent out to call him.... In a few minutes she returned,
+exclaiming, 'Oh, Mr. Beecher is dead! Mr. Beecher is dead!'... In a
+short time a visitor in the family, assisted by a passing laborer,
+raised him up and bore him to the house. His face was pale and but
+slightly marred, his eyes were closed, and over his countenance rested
+the sweet expression of peaceful slumber.... Then followed the hurried
+preparations for the funeral and journey, until three o'clock, when,
+all arrangements being made, he was borne from his newly finished
+house, through his blooming garden, to the new church, planned and
+just completed under his directing eye.... The sermon and the prayers
+were finished, the choir he himself had trained sung their parting
+hymn, and at about five the funeral train started for a journey of over
+seventy miles. That night will stand alone in the memories of those who
+witnessed its scenes!
+
+"At ten in the evening heavy clouds gathered lowering behind, and
+finally rose so as nearly to cover the hemisphere, sending forth
+mutterings of thunder and constant flashes of lightning.
+
+"The excessive heat of the weather, the darkness of the night, the
+solitary road, the flaring of the lamps and lanterns, the flashes of
+the lightning, the roll of approaching thunder, the fear of being
+overtaken in an unfrequented place and the lights extinguished by the
+rain, the sad events of the day, the cries of the infant boy sick with
+the heat and bewailing the father who ever before had soothed his
+griefs, all combined to awaken the deepest emotions of the sorrowful,
+the awful, and the sublime....
+
+"And so it is at last; there must come a time when all that the most
+heart-broken, idolizing love can give us is a coffin and a grave! All
+that could be done for our brother, with all his means and all the
+affection of his people and friends, was just this, no more! After all,
+the deepest and most powerful argument for the religion of Christ is
+its power in times like this. Take from us Christ and what He taught,
+and what have we here? What confusion, what agony, what dismay, what
+wreck and waste! But give Him to us, even the most stricken heart can
+rise under the blow; yea, even triumph!
+
+"'Thy brother shall rise again,' said Jesus; and to us who weep
+He speaks: 'Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are made partakers of Christ's
+sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye also may be glad
+with exceeding joy!'"
+
+The advent of Mrs. Stowe's third daughter was followed by a protracted
+illness and a struggle with great poverty, of which Mrs. Stowe writes
+in October, 1843:--
+
+"Our straits for money this year are unparalleled even in our annals.
+Even our bright and cheery neighbor Allen begins to look blue, and
+says $600 is the very most we can hope to collect of our salary,
+once $1,200. We have a flock of entirely destitute young men in the
+seminary, as poor in money as they are rich in mental and spiritual
+resources. They promise to be as fine a band as those we have just sent
+off. We have two from Iowa and Wisconsin who were actually crowded from
+secular pursuits into the ministry by the wants of the people about
+them. Revivals began, and the people came to them saying, 'We have no
+minister, and you must preach to us, for you know more than we do.'"
+
+In the spring of 1844 Professor Stowe visited the East to arouse
+an interest in the struggling seminary and raise funds for its
+maintenance. While he was there he received the following letter from
+Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+"I am already half sick with confinement to the house and overwork.
+If I should sew every day for a month to come I should not be able to
+accomplish a half of what is to be done, and should be only more unfit
+for my other duties."
+
+This struggle against ill-health and poverty was continued through
+that year and well into the next, when, during her husband's absence to
+attend a ministerial convention at Detroit, Mrs. Stowe writes to him:--
+
+                                        _June 16, 1845._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--It is a dark, sloppy, rainy, muddy,
+    disagreeable day, and I have been working hard (for
+    me) all day in the kitchen, washing dishes, looking
+    into closets, and seeing a great deal of that dark
+    side of domestic life which a housekeeper may who will
+    investigate too curiously into minutiae in warm, damp
+    weather, especially after a girl who keeps all clean
+    on the _outside_ of cup and platter, and is very apt
+    to make good the rest of the text in the _inside_ of
+    things.
+
+    I am sick of the smell of sour milk, and sour meat, and
+    sour everything, and then the clothes _will_ not dry,
+    and no wet thing does, and everything smells mouldy;
+    and altogether I feel as if I never wanted to eat again.
+
+    Your letter, which was neither sour nor mouldy, formed
+    a very agreeable contrast to all these things; the
+    more so for being unexpected. I am much obliged to
+    you for it. As to my health, it gives me very little
+    solicitude, although I am bad enough and daily growing
+    worse. I feel no life, no energy, no appetite, or
+    rather a growing distaste for food; in fact, I am
+    becoming quite ethereal. Upon reflection I perceive
+    that it pleases my Father to keep me in the fire,
+    for my whole situation is excessively harassing and
+    painful. I suffer with sensible distress in the brain,
+    as I have done more or less since my sickness last
+    winter, a distress which some days takes from me all
+    power of planning or executing anything; and you know
+    that, except this poor head, my unfortunate household
+    has no mainspring, for nobody feels any kind of
+    responsibility to do a thing in time, place, or manner,
+    except as I oversee it.
+
+    Georgiana is so excessively weak, nervous, cross, and
+    fretful, night and day, that she takes all Anna's
+    strength and time with her; and then the children are,
+    like other little sons and daughters of Adam, full of
+    all kinds of absurdity and folly.
+
+    When the brain gives out, as mine often does, and one
+    cannot think or remember anything, then what is to be
+    done? All common fatigue, sickness, and exhaustion is
+    nothing to this distress. Yet do I rejoice in my God
+    and know in whom I believe, and only pray that the
+    fire may consume the dross; as to the gold, that is
+    imperishable. No real evil can happen to me, so I fear
+    nothing for the future, and only suffer in the present
+    tense.
+
+    God, the mighty God, is mine, of that I am sure, and I
+    know He knows that though flesh and heart fail, I am
+    all the while desiring and trying for his will alone.
+    As to a journey, I need not ask a physician to see that
+    it is needful to me as far as health is concerned, that
+    is to say, all human appearances are that way, but I
+    feel no particular choice about it. If God wills I
+    go. He can easily find means. Money, I suppose, is as
+    plenty with Him now as it always has been, and if He
+    sees it is really best He will doubtless help me.
+
+That the necessary funds were provided is evident from the fact that
+the journey was undertaken and the invalid spent the summer of 1845 in
+Hartford, in Natick, and in Boston. She was not, however, permanently
+benefited by the change, and in the following spring it was deemed
+necessary to take more radical measures to arrest the progress of her
+increasing debility. After many consultations and much correspondence
+it was finally decided that she should go to Dr. Wesselhoeft's
+watercure establishment at Brattleboro', Vt.
+
+At this time, under date of March, 1846, she writes:
+
+"For all I have had trouble I can think of nothing but the greatness
+and richness of God's mercy to me in giving me such friends, and in
+always caring for us in every strait. There has been no day this winter
+when I have not had abundant reason to see this. Some friend has always
+stepped in to cheer and help, so that I have wanted for nothing. My
+husband has developed wonderfully as house-father and nurse. You would
+laugh to see him in his spectacles gravely marching the little troop in
+their nightgowns up to bed, tagging after them, as he says, like an old
+hen after a flock of ducks. The money for my journey has been sent in
+from an unknown hand in a wonderful manner. All this shows the care of
+our Father, and encourages me to rejoice and to hope in Him."
+
+A few days after her departure Professor Stowe wrote to his wife:--
+
+"I was greatly comforted by your brief letter from Pittsburgh. When
+I returned from the steamer the morning you left I found in the
+post-office a letter from Mrs. G. W. Bull of New York, inclosing $50 on
+account of the sickness in my family. There was another inclosing $50
+more from a Mrs. Devereaux of Raleigh, N. C., besides some smaller sums
+from others. My heart went out to God in aspiration and gratitude.
+None of the donors, so far as I know, have I ever seen or heard of
+before.
+
+"Henry and I have been living in a Robinson Crusoe and man Friday sort
+of style, greatly to our satisfaction, ever since you went away."
+
+Mrs. Stowe was accompanied to Brattleboro' by her sisters, Catherine
+and Mary, who were also suffering from troubles that they felt might be
+relieved by hydropathic treatment.
+
+From May, 1846, until March, 1847, she remained at Brattleboro' without
+seeing her husband or children. During these weary months her happiest
+days were those upon which she received letters from home.
+
+The following extracts, taken from letters written by her during this
+period, are of value, as revealing what it is possible to know of her
+habits of thought and mode of life at this time.
+
+                         BRATTLEBORO', _September, 1846._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I have been thinking of all your
+    trials, and I really pity you in having such a wife. I
+    feel as if I had been only a hindrance to you instead
+    of a help, and most earnestly and daily do I pray to
+    God to restore my health that I may do something for
+    you and my family. I think if I were only at home I
+    could at least sweep and dust, and wash potatoes, and
+    cook a little, and talk some to my children, and should
+    be doing something for my family. But the hope of
+    getting better buoys me up. I go through these tedious
+    and wearisome baths and bear that terrible douche
+    thinking of my children. They never will know how I
+    love them....
+
+    There is great truth and good sense in your analysis
+    of the cause of our past failures. We have now come
+    to a sort of crisis. If you and I do as we should for
+    _five years_ to come the character of our three oldest
+    children will be established. This is why I am willing
+    to spend so much time and make such efforts to have
+    health. Oh, that God would give me these five years in
+    full possession of mind and body, that I may train my
+    children as they should be trained. I am fully aware
+    of the importance of system and order in a family. I
+    know that nothing can be done without it; it is the
+    keystone, the _sine qua non_, and in regard to my
+    children I place it next to piety. At the same time it
+    is true that both Anna[4] and I labor under serious
+    natural disadvantages on this subject. It is not all
+    that is necessary to feel the importance of order and
+    system, but it requires a particular kind of talent to
+    carry it through a family. Very much the same kind of
+    talent, as Uncle Samuel said, which is necessary to
+    make a good prime minister....
+
+    I think you might make an excellent sermon to
+    Christians on the care of health, in consideration
+    of the various infirmities and impediments to the
+    developing the results of religion, that result from
+    bodily ill health, and I wish you would make one that
+    your own mind may be more vividly impressed with it.
+    The world is too much in a hurry. Ministers think there
+    is no way to serve Christ but to overdraw on their
+    physical capital for four or five years for Christ and
+    then have nothing to give, but become a mere burden on
+    his hands for the next five....
+
+
+    _November 18._ "The daily course I go through
+    presupposes a degree of vigor beyond anything I ever
+    had before. For this week, I have gone before breakfast
+    to the wave-bath and let all the waves and billows roll
+    over me till every limb ached with cold and my hands
+    would scarcely have feeling enough to dress me. After
+    that I have walked till I was warm, and come home to
+    breakfast with such an appetite! Brown bread and milk
+    are luxuries indeed, and the only fear is that I may
+    eat too much. At eleven comes my douche, to which I
+    have walked in a driving rain for the last two days,
+    and after it walked in the rain again till I was warm.
+    (The umbrella you gave me at Natick answers finely, as
+    well as if it were a silk one.) After dinner I roll
+    ninepins or walk till four, then sitz-bath, and another
+    walk till six.
+
+    "I am anxious for your health; do be persuaded to
+    try a long walk before breakfast. You don't know how
+    much good it will do you. Don't sit in your hot study
+    without any ventilation, a stove burning up all the
+    vitality of the air and weakening your nerves, and
+    above all, do _amuse_ yourself. Go to Dr. Mussey's
+    and spend an evening, and to father's and Professor
+    Allen's. When you feel worried go off somewhere and
+    forget and throw it off. I should really rejoice to
+    hear that you and father and mother, with Professor
+    and Mrs. Allen, Mrs. K., and a few others of the same
+    calibre would agree to meet together for dancing
+    cotillons. It would do you all good, and if you took
+    Mr. K.'s wife and poor Miss Much-Afraid, her daughter,
+    into the alliance it would do them good. Bless me!
+    what a profane set everybody would think you were,
+    and yet you are the people of all the world most
+    solemnly in need of it. I wish you could be with me in
+    Brattleboro' and coast down hill on a sled, go sliding
+    and snowballing by moonlight! I would snowball every
+    bit of the _hypo_ out of you! Now, my dear, if you are
+    going to get sick, I am going to come home. There is no
+    use in my trying to get well if you, in the mean time,
+    are going to run yourself down."
+
+                                        _January, 1847._
+
+    My dear Soul,--I received your most melancholy
+    effusion, and I am sorry to find it's just so. I
+    entirely agree and sympathize. Why didn't you engage
+    the two tombstones--one for you and one for me?
+
+    [Illustration: Ding, dong! Dead and gone!]
+
+    I shall have to copy for your edification a "poem
+    on tombstones" which Kate put at Christmas into the
+    stocking of one of our most hypochondriac gentlemen,
+    who had pished and pshawed at his wife and us for
+    trying to get up a little fun. This poem was fronted
+    with the above vignette and embellished with sundry
+    similar ones, and tied with a long black ribbon. There
+    were only two cantos in very concise style, so I shall
+    send you them entire.
+
+    CANTO I.
+
+    In the kingdom of _Mortin_
+    I had the good fortin'
+    To find these verses
+    On tombs and on hearses,
+    Which I, being jinglish
+    Have done into English.
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    CANTO II.
+
+    The man what's so colickish
+    When his friends are all frolickish
+    As to turn up his noses
+    And turn on his toses
+    Shall have only verses
+    On tombstones and hearses.
+
+    But, seriously, my dear husband, you must try and be
+    patient, for this cannot last forever. Be patient and
+    bear it like the toothache, or a driving rain, or
+    anything else that you cannot escape. To see things as
+    through a glass darkly is your infirmity, you know;
+    but the Lord will yet deliver you from this trial. I
+    know how to pity you, for the last three weeks I have
+    suffered from an overwhelming mental depression, a
+    perfect heartsickness. All I wanted was to get home and
+    die. Die I was very sure I should at any rate, but I
+    suppose I was never less prepared to do so.
+
+The long exile was ended in the spring of 1847, and in May Mrs. Stowe
+returned to her Cincinnati home, where she was welcomed with sincere
+demonstrations of joy by her husband and children.
+
+Her sixth child, Samuel Charles, was born in January of 1848, and
+about this time her husband's health became so seriously impaired that
+it was thought desirable for him in turn to spend a season at the
+Brattleboro' water-cure. He went in June, 1848, and was compelled by
+the very precarious state of his health to remain until September,
+1849. During this period of more than a year Mrs. Stowe remained in
+Cincinnati caring for her six children, eking out her slender income by
+taking boarders and writing when she found time, confronting a terrible
+epidemic of cholera that carried off one of her little flock, and in
+every way showing herself to be a brave woman, possessed of a spirit
+that could rise superior to all adversity. Concerning this time she
+writes in January, 1849, to her dearest friend:--
+
+    MY BELOVED GEORGY,--For six months after my return from
+    Brattleboro' my eyes were so affected that I wrote
+    scarce any, and my health was in so strange a state
+    that I felt no disposition to write. After the birth of
+    little Charley my health improved, but my husband was
+    sick and I have been so loaded and burdened with cares
+    as to drain me dry of all capacity of thought, feeling,
+    memory, or emotion.
+
+    Well, Georgy, I am thirty-seven years old! I am glad
+    of it. I like to grow old and have six children and
+    cares endless. I wish you could see me with my flock
+    all around me. They sum up my cares, and were they gone
+    I should ask myself, What now remains to be done? They
+    are my work, over which I fear and tremble.
+
+In the early summer of 1849 cholera broke out in Cincinnati, and soon
+became epidemic. Professor Stowe, absent in Brattleboro', and filled
+with anxiety for the safety of his family, was most anxious, in spite
+of his feeble health, to return and share the danger with them, but
+this his wife would not consent to, as is shown by her letters to him,
+written at this time. In one of them, dated June 29, 1849, she says:--
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--This week has been unusually fatal.
+    The disease in the city has been malignant and
+    virulent. Hearse drivers have scarce been allowed to
+    unharness their horses, while furniture carts and
+    common vehicles are often employed for the removal of
+    the dead. The sable trains which pass our windows, the
+    frequent indications of crowding haste, and the absence
+    of reverent decency have, in many cases, been most
+    painful. Of course all these things, whether we will or
+    no, bring very doleful images to the mind.
+
+    On Tuesday one hundred and sixteen deaths from cholera
+    were reported, and that night the air was of that
+    peculiarly oppressive, deathly kind that seems to lie
+    like lead on the brain and soul.
+
+    As regards your coming home, I am decidedly opposed
+    to it. First, because the chance of your being taken
+    ill is just as great as the chance of your being able
+    to render us any help. To exchange the salubrious air
+    of Brattleboro' for the pestilent atmosphere of this
+    place with your system rendered sensitive by water-cure
+    treatment would be extremely dangerous. It is a source
+    of constant gratitude to me that neither you nor father
+    are exposed to the dangers here.
+
+    Second, none of us are sick, and it is very uncertain
+    whether we shall be.
+
+    Third, if we were sick there are so many of us that it
+    is not at all likely we shall all be taken at once.
+
+    _July 1._ Yesterday Mr. Stagg went to the city and
+    found all gloomy and discouraged, while a universal
+    panic seemed to be drawing nearer than ever before.
+    Large piles of coal were burning on the cross walks
+    and in the public squares, while those who had talked
+    confidently of the cholera being confined to the lower
+    classes and those who were imprudent began to feel as
+    did the magicians of old, "This is the finger of God."
+
+    Yesterday, upon the recommendation of all the clergymen
+    of the city, the mayor issued a proclamation for a day
+    of general fasting, humiliation, and prayer, to be
+    observed on Tuesday next.
+
+    _July 3._ We are all in good health and try to maintain
+    a calm and cheerful frame of mind. The doctors are
+    nearly used up. Dr. Bowen and Dr. Peck are sick in bed.
+    Dr. Potter and Dr. Pulte ought, I suppose, to be there
+    also. The younger physicians have no rest night or day.
+    Mr. Fisher is laid up from his incessant visitations
+    with the sick and dying. Our own Dr. Brown is likewise
+    prostrated, but we are all resolute to stand by each
+    other, and there are so many of us that it is not
+    likely we can all be taken sick together.
+
+    _July 4._ All well. The meeting yesterday was very
+    solemn and interesting. There is more or less sickness
+    about us, but no very dangerous cases. One hundred
+    and twenty burials from cholera alone yesterday, yet
+    to-day we see parties bent on pleasure or senseless
+    carousing, while to-morrow and next day will witness
+    a fresh harvest of death from them. How we can become
+    accustomed to anything! Awhile ago ten a day dying of
+    cholera struck terror to all hearts; but now the tide
+    has surged up gradually until the deaths average over
+    a hundred daily, and everybody is getting accustomed
+    to it. Gentlemen make themselves agreeable to ladies
+    by reciting the number of deaths in this house or
+    that. This together with talk of funerals, cholera
+    medicines, cholera dietetics, and chloride of lime form
+    the ordinary staple of conversation. Serious persons of
+    course throw in moral reflections to their taste.
+
+    _July 10._ Yesterday little Charley was taken ill, not
+    seriously, and at any other season I should not be
+    alarmed. Now, however, a slight illness seems like a
+    death sentence, and I will not dissemble that I feel
+    from the outset very little hope. I still think it best
+    that you should not return. By so doing you might lose
+    all you have gained. You might expose yourself to a
+    fatal incursion of disease. It is decidedly not your
+    duty to do so.
+
+    _July 12._ Yesterday I carried Charley to Dr. Pulte,
+    who spoke in such a manner as discouraged and
+    frightened me. He mentioned dropsy on the brain as
+    a possible result. I came home with a heavy heart,
+    sorrowing, desolate, and wishing my husband and father
+    were here.
+
+    About one o'clock this morning Miss Stewart suddenly
+    opened my door crying, "Mrs. Stowe, Henry is vomiting."
+    I was on my feet in an instant, and lifted up my heart
+    for help. He was, however, in a few minutes relieved.
+    Then I turned my attention to Charley, who was also
+    suffering, put him into a wet sheet, and kept him there
+    until he was in a profuse perspiration. He is evidently
+    getting better, and is auspiciously cross. Never was
+    crossness in a baby more admired. Anna and I have said
+    to each other exultingly a score of times, "How cross
+    the little fellow is! How he does scold!"
+
+    _July 15._ Since I last wrote our house has been a
+    perfect hospital. Charley apparently recovering, but
+    still weak and feeble, unable to walk or play, and
+    so miserably fretful and unhappy. Sunday Anna and
+    I were fairly stricken down, as many others are,
+    with no particular illness, but with such miserable
+    prostration. I lay on the bed all day reading my
+    hymn-book and thinking over passages of Scripture.
+
+    _July 17._ To-day we have been attending poor old Aunt
+    Frankie's[5] funeral. She died yesterday morning,
+    taken sick the day before while washing. Good, honest,
+    trustful old soul! She was truly one who hungered and
+    thirsted for righteousness.
+
+    Yesterday morning our poor little dog, Daisy, who had
+    been ailing the day before, was suddenly seized with
+    frightful spasms and died in half an hour. Poor little
+    affectionate thing! If I were half as good for my
+    nature as she for hers I should be much better than I
+    am. While we were all mourning over her the news came
+    that Aunt Frankie was breathing her last. Hatty, Eliza,
+    Anna, and I made her shroud yesterday, and this morning
+    I made her cap. We have just come from her grave.
+
+
+    _July 23._ At last, my dear, the hand of the Lord hath
+    touched us. We have been watching all day by the dying
+    bed of little Charley, who is gradually sinking. After
+    a partial recovery from the attack I described in my
+    last letter he continued for some days very feeble, but
+    still we hoped for recovery. About four days ago he was
+    taken with decided cholera, and now there is no hope of
+    his surviving this night.
+
+    Every kindness is shown us by the neighbors. Do not
+    return. All will be over before you could possibly get
+    here, and the epidemic is now said by the physicians
+    to prove fatal to every new case. Bear up. Let us not
+    faint when we are rebuked of Him. I dare not trust
+    myself to say more but shall write again soon.
+
+                                              _July 26._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--At last it is over and our dear
+    little one is gone from us. He is now among the
+    blessed. My Charley--my beautiful, loving, gladsome
+    baby, so loving, so sweet, so full of life and hope
+    and strength--now lies shrouded, pale and cold, in the
+    room below. Never was he anything to me but a comfort.
+    He has been my pride and joy. Many a heartache has he
+    cured for me. Many an anxious night have I held him to
+    my bosom and felt the sorrow and loneliness pass out
+    of me with the touch of his little warm hands. Yet I
+    have just seen him in his death agony, looked on his
+    imploring face when I could not help nor soothe nor do
+    one thing, not one, to mitigate his cruel suffering,
+    do nothing but pray in my anguish that he might die
+    soon. I write as though there were no sorrow like my
+    sorrow, yet there has been in this city, as in the
+    land of Egypt, scarce a house without its dead. This
+    heart-break, this anguish, has been everywhere, and
+    when it will end God alone knows.
+
+With this severest blow of all, the long years of trial and suffering
+in the West practically end; for in September, 1849, Professor Stowe
+returned from Brattleboro', and at the same time received a call to the
+Collins Professorship at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, that he
+decided to accept.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[4] The governess, Miss Anna Smith.
+
+[5] An old colored woman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+REMOVAL TO BRUNSWICK, 1850-1852.
+
+    MRS. STOWE'S REMARKS ON WRITING AND UNDERSTANDING
+    BIOGRAPHY.--THEIR APPROPRIATENESS TO HER OWN
+    BIOGRAPHY.--REASONS FOR PROFESSOR STOWE'S LEAVING
+    CINCINNATI.--MRS. STOWE'S JOURNEY TO BROOKLYN.--HER
+    BROTHER'S SUCCESS AS A MINISTER.--LETTERS FROM HARTFORD
+    AND BOSTON.--ARRIVES IN BRUNSWICK.--HISTORY OF THE
+    SLAVERY AGITATION.--PRACTICAL WORKING OF THE FUGITIVE
+    SLAVE LAW.--MRS. EDWARD BEECHER'S LETTER TO MRS. STOWE
+    AND ITS EFFECT.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--BEGINS TO WRITE
+    "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AS A SERIAL FOR THE "NATIONAL
+    ERA."--LETTER TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS.--"UNCLE TOM'S
+    CABIN" A WORK OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION.
+
+
+EARLY in the winter of 1849 Mrs. Stowe wrote in a private journal in
+which she recorded thought and feeling concerning religious themes:
+"It has been said that it takes a man to write the life of a man; that
+is, there must be similarity of mind in the person who undertakes to
+present the character of another. This is true, also, of reading and
+understanding biography. A statesman and general would read the life of
+Napoleon with the spirit and the understanding, while the commonplace
+man plods through it as a task. The difference is that the one, being
+of like mind and spirit with the subject of the biography, is able to
+sympathize with him in all his thoughts and experiences, and the other
+is not. The life of Henry Martyn would be tedious and unintelligible to
+a mind like that of a Richelieu or a Mazarin. They never experienced
+or saw or heard anything like it, and would be quite at a loss where
+to place such a man in their mental categories. It is not strange,
+therefore, that of all biography in the world that of Jesus Christ
+should be least understood. It is an exception to all the world has
+ever seen. 'The world knew Him not.' There is, to be sure, a simple
+grandeur about the life of Jesus which awes almost every mind. The most
+hardened scoffer, after he has jested and jeered at everything in the
+temple of Christianity, stands for a moment uncovered and breathless
+when he comes to the object of its adoration and feels how awful
+goodness is, and Virtue in her shape how lovely. Yet, after all, the
+character of the Christ has been looked at and not sympathized with.
+Men have turned aside to see this great sight. Christians have fallen
+in adoration, but very few have tried to enter into his sympathies and
+to feel as He felt."
+
+How little she dreamed that these words were to become profoundly
+appropriate as a description of her own life in its relation to
+mankind! How little the countless thousands who read, have read, and
+will read, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" enter into or sympathize with the
+feelings out of which it was written! A delicate, sensitive woman
+struggling with poverty, with weary step and aching head attending
+to the innumerable demands of a large family of growing children; a
+devoted Christian seeking with strong crying and tears a kingdom not
+of this world,--is this the popular conception of the author of "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin"? Nevertheless it is the reality. When, amid the burning
+ruins of a besieged city, a mother's voice is heard uttering a cry
+of anguish over a child killed in her arms by a bursting shell, the
+attention is arrested, the heart is touched. So "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was
+a cry of anguish from a mother's heart, and uttered in sad sincerity.
+It was the bursting forth of deep feeling, with all the intense anguish
+of wounded love. It will be the purpose of this chapter to show this,
+and to cause to pass before the reader's mind the time, the household,
+and the heart from which this cry was heard.
+
+After struggling for seventeen years with ill health and every possible
+vexation and hindrance in his work, Professor Stowe became convinced
+that it was his duty to himself and his family to seek some other field
+of labor.
+
+February 6, 1850, he writes to his mother, in Natick, Mass.: "My health
+has not been good this winter, and I do not suppose that I should live
+long were I to stay here. I have done a great deal of hard work here,
+and practiced no little self-denial. I have seen the seminary carried
+through a most vexatious series of lawsuits, ecclesiastical and civil,
+and raised from the depths of poverty to comparative affluence, and I
+feel at liberty now to leave. During the three months of June, July,
+and August last, more than nine thousand persons died of cholera within
+three miles of my house, and this winter, in the same territory, there
+have been more than ten thousand cases of small-pox, many of them of
+the very worst kind. Several have died on the hill, and the Jesuits'
+college near us has been quite broken up by it. There have been,
+however, no cases in our families or in the seminary.
+
+"I have received many letters from friends in the East expressing
+great gratification at the offer from Bowdoin College, and the hope
+that I would accept it. I am quite inclined to do so, but the matter
+is not yet finally settled, and there are difficulties in the way.
+They can offer me only $1,000 a year, and I must, out of it, hire my
+own house, at an expense of $75 to $100 a year. Here the trustees
+offer me $1,500 a year if I will stay, and a good house besides, which
+would make the whole salary equivalent to $1,800; and to-day I have
+had another offer from New York city of $2,300.... On the whole, I
+have written to Bowdoin College, proposing to them if they will give
+me $500 free and clear in addition to the salary, I will accept their
+proposition, and I suppose that there is no doubt that they will do it.
+In that case I should come on next spring, in May or June."
+
+This offer from Bowdoin College was additionally attractive to
+Professor Stowe from the fact that it was the college from which he
+graduated, and where some of the happiest years of his life had been
+passed.
+
+The professorship was one just established through the gift of Mrs.
+Collins, a member of Bowdoin Street Church in Boston, and named in her
+honor, the "Collins Professorship of Natural and Revealed Religion."
+
+It was impossible for Professor Stowe to leave Lane Seminary till some
+one could be found to take his place; so it was determined that Mrs.
+Stowe, with three of the children, should start for the East in April,
+and having established the family in Brunswick, Professor Stowe was to
+come on with the remaining children when his engagements would permit.
+
+The following extracts from a letter written by Mrs. Stowe at her
+brother Henry's, at Brooklyn, April 29, 1850, show us that the journey
+was accomplished without special incident.
+
+[Illustration: Henry Ward Beecher]
+
+"The boat got into Pittsburgh between four and five on Wednesday.
+The agent for the Pennsylvania Canal came on board and soon filled
+out our tickets, calling my three chicks one and a half. We had a
+quiet and agreeable passage, and crossed the slides at five o'clock
+in the morning, amid exclamations of unbounded delight from all the
+children, to whom the mountain scenery was a new and amazing thing.
+We reached Hollidaysburg about eleven o'clock, and at two o'clock in
+the night were called up to get into the cars at Jacktown. Arriving at
+Philadelphia about three o'clock in the afternoon, we took the boat and
+railroad line for New York.
+
+"At Lancaster we telegraphed to Brooklyn, and when we arrived in New
+York, between ten and eleven at night, Cousin Augustus met us and
+took us over to Brooklyn. We had ridden three hundred miles since two
+o'clock that morning, and were very tired.... I am glad we came that
+way, for the children have seen some of the finest scenery in our
+country.... Henry's people are more than ever in love with him, and
+have raised his salary to $3,300, and given him a beautiful horse and
+carriage worth $600.... My health is already improved by the journey,
+and I was able to walk a good deal between the locks on the canal. As
+to furniture, I think that we may safely afford an outlay of $150, and
+that will purchase all that may be necessary to set us up, and then we
+can get more as we have means and opportunity.... If I got anything
+for those pieces I wrote before coming away, I would like to be advised
+thereof by you.... My plan is to spend this week in Brooklyn, the next
+in Hartford, the next in Boston, and go on to Brunswick some time in
+May or June."
+
+May 18, 1850, we find her writing from Boston, where she is staying
+with her brother, Rev. Edward Beecher:--
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I came here from Hartford on Monday,
+    and have since then been busily engaged in the business
+    of buying and packing furniture.
+
+    I expect to go to Brunswick next Tuesday night by the
+    Bath steamer, which way I take as the cheaper. My
+    traveling expenses, when I get to Brunswick, including
+    everything, will have been seventy-six dollars....
+    And now, lastly, my dear husband, you have never been
+    wanting ... in kindness, consideration, and justice,
+    and I want you to reflect calmly how great a work
+    has been imposed upon me at a time when my situation
+    particularly calls for rest, repose, and quiet.
+
+    To come alone such a distance with the whole charge
+    of children, accounts, and baggage; to push my way
+    through hurrying crowds, looking out for trunks, and
+    bargaining with hackmen, has been a very severe trial
+    of my strength, to say nothing of the usual fatigues of
+    traveling.
+
+It was at this time, and as a result of the experiences of this trying
+period, that Mrs. Stowe wrote that little tract dear to so many
+Christian hearts, "Earthly Care a Heavenly Discipline."
+
+On the eve of sailing for Brunswick, Mrs. Stowe writes to Mrs. Sykes
+(Miss May): "I am wearied and worn out with seeing to bedsteads,
+tables, chairs, mattresses, with thinking about shipping my goods and
+making out accounts, and I have my trunk yet to pack, as I go on board
+the Bath steamer this evening. I beg you to look up Brunswick on the
+map; it is about half a day's ride in the cars from Boston. I expect to
+reach there by the way of Bath by to-morrow forenoon. There I have a
+house engaged and kind friends who offer every hospitable assistance.
+Come, therefore, to see me, and we will have a long talk in the pine
+woods, and knit up the whole history from the place where we left it."
+
+Before leaving Boston she had written to her husband in Cincinnati:
+"You are not able just now to bear anything, my dear husband, therefore
+trust all to me; I never doubt or despair. I am already making
+arrangements with editors to raise money.
+
+"I have sent some overtures to Wright. If he accepts my pieces and pays
+you for them, take the money and use it as you see necessary; if not,
+be sure and bring the pieces back to me. I am strong in spirit, and
+God who has been with me in so many straits will not forsake me now. I
+know Him well; He is my Father, and though I may be a blind and erring
+child, He will help me for all that. My trust through all errors and
+sins is in Him. He who helped poor timid Jacob through all his fears
+and apprehensions, who helped Abraham even when he sinned, who was with
+David in his wanderings, and who held up the too confident Peter when
+he began to sink,--He will help us, and his arms are about us, so that
+we shall not sink, my dear husband."
+
+May 29, 1850, she writes from Brunswick: "After a week of most
+incessant northeast storm, most discouraging and forlorn to the
+children, the sun has at length come out.... There is a fair wind
+blowing, and every prospect, therefore, that our goods will arrive
+promptly from Boston, and that we shall be in our own house by next
+week. Mrs. Upham[6] has done everything for me, giving up time and
+strength and taking charge of my affairs in a way without which we
+could not have got along at all in a strange place and in my present
+helpless condition. This family is delightful, there is such a perfect
+sweetness and quietude in all its movements. Not a harsh word or hasty
+expression is ever heard. It is a beautiful pattern of a Christian
+family, a beautiful exemplification of religion...."
+
+The events of the first summer in Brunswick are graphically described
+by Mrs. Stowe in a letter written to her sister-in-law, Mrs. George
+Beecher, December 17, 1850.
+
+    MY DEAR SISTER,--Is it really true that snow is on the
+    ground and Christmas coming, and I have not written
+    unto thee, most dear sister? No, I don't believe it!
+    I haven't been so naughty--it's all a mistake--yes,
+    written I must have--and written I have, too--in the
+    night-watches as I lay on my bed--such beautiful
+    letters--I wish you had only gotten them; but by day it
+    has been hurry, hurry, hurry, and drive, drive, drive!
+    or else the calm of a sick-room, ever since last spring.
+
+    I put off writing when your letter first came because I
+    meant to write you a long letter--a full and complete
+    one, and so days slid by,--and became weeks,--and my
+    little Charlie came ... etc. and etc.!!! Sarah, when
+    I look back, I wonder at myself, not that I forget
+    any one thing that I should remember, but that I
+    have remembered anything. From the time that I left
+    Cincinnati with my children to come forth to a country
+    that I knew not of almost to the present time, it has
+    seemed as if I could scarcely breathe, I was so pressed
+    with care. My head dizzy with the whirl of railroads
+    and steamboats; then ten days' sojourn in Boston, and
+    a constant toil and hurry in buying my furniture and
+    equipments; and then landing in Brunswick in the midst
+    of a drizzly, inexorable northeast storm, and beginning
+    the work of getting in order a deserted, dreary, damp
+    old house. All day long running from one thing to
+    another, as for example, thus:--
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, how shall I make this lounge, and what
+    shall I cover the back with first?
+
+    _Mrs. Stowe._ With the coarse cotton in the closet.
+
+    _Woman._ Mrs. Stowe, there isn't any more soap to clean
+    the windows.
+
+    _Mrs. Stowe._ Where shall I get soap?
+
+    Here H., run up to the store and get two bars.
+
+    There is a man below wants to see Mrs. Stowe about the
+    cistern. Before you go down, Mrs. Stowe, just show me
+    how to cover this round end of the lounge.
+
+    There's a man up from the depot, and he says that a
+    box has come for Mrs. Stowe, and it's coming up to the
+    house; will you come down and see about it?
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, don't go till you have shown the man how
+    to nail that carpet in the corner. He's nailed it all
+    crooked; what shall he do? The black thread is all used
+    up, and what shall I do about putting gimp on the back
+    of that sofa? Mrs. Stowe, there is a man come with a
+    lot of pails and tinware from Furbish; will you settle
+    the bill now?
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, here is a letter just come from Boston
+    inclosing that bill of lading; the man wants to know
+    what he shall do with the goods. If you will tell me
+    what to say I will answer the letter for you.
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, the meat-man is at the door. Hadn't we
+    better get a little beefsteak, or something, for dinner?
+
+    Shall Hatty go to Boardman's for some more black thread?
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, this cushion is an inch too wide for the
+    frame. What shall we do now?
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, where are the screws of the black walnut
+    bedstead?
+
+    Here's a man has brought in these bills for freight.
+    Will you settle them now?
+
+    Mrs. Stowe, I don't understand using this great needle.
+    I can't make it go through the cushion; it sticks in
+    the cotton.
+
+    Then comes a letter from my husband saying he is sick
+    abed, and all but dead; don't ever expect to see his
+    family again; wants to know how I shall manage, in
+    case I am left a widow; knows we shall get in debt
+    and never get out; wonders at my courage; thinks I am
+    very sanguine; warns me to be prudent, as there won't
+    be much to live on in case of his death, etc., etc.,
+    etc. I read the letter and poke it into the stove, and
+    proceed....
+
+    Some of my adventures were quite funny; as for example:
+    I had in my kitchen elect no sink, cistern, or any
+    other water privileges, so I bought at the cotton
+    factory two of the great hogsheads they bring oil in,
+    which here in Brunswick are often used for cisterns,
+    and had them brought up in triumph to my yard, and
+    was congratulating myself on my energy, when lo and
+    behold! it was discovered that there was no cellar door
+    except one in the kitchen, which was truly a strait
+    and narrow way, down a long pair of stairs. Hereupon,
+    as saith John Bunyan, I fell into a muse,--how to get
+    my cisterns into my cellar. In days of chivalry I
+    might have got a knight to make me a breach through
+    the foundation walls, but that was not to be thought
+    of now, and my oil hogsheads standing disconsolately
+    in the yard seemed to reflect no great credit on my
+    foresight. In this strait I fell upon a real honest
+    Yankee cooper, whom I besought, for the reputation of
+    his craft and mine, to take my hogsheads to pieces,
+    carry them down in staves, and set them up again, which
+    the worthy man actually accomplished one fair summer
+    forenoon, to the great astonishment of "us Yankees."
+    When my man came to put up the pump, he stared very
+    hard to see my hogsheads thus translated and standing
+    as innocent and quiet as could be in the cellar, and
+    then I told him, in a very mild, quiet way, that I
+    got 'em taken to pieces and put together--just as if
+    I had been always in the habit of doing such things.
+    Professor Smith came down and looked very hard at
+    them and then said, "Well, nothing can beat a willful
+    woman." Then followed divers negotiations with a very
+    clever, but (with reverence) somewhat lazy gentleman
+    of jobs, who occupieth a carpenter's shop opposite to
+    mine. This same John Titcomb, my very good friend, is
+    a character peculiar to Yankeedom. He is part owner
+    and landlord of the house I rent, and connected by
+    birth with all the best families in town; a man of
+    real intelligence, and good education, a great reader,
+    and quite a thinker. Being of an ingenious turn he
+    does painting, gilding, staining, upholstery jobs,
+    varnishing, all in addition to his primary trade of
+    carpentry. But he is a man studious of ease, and fully
+    possessed with the idea that man wants but little here
+    below; so he boards himself in his workshop on crackers
+    and herring, washed down with cold water, and spends
+    his time working, musing, reading new publications,
+    and taking his comfort. In his shop you shall see
+    a joiner's bench, hammers, planes, saws, gimlets,
+    varnish, paint, picture frames, fence posts, rare old
+    china, one or two fine portraits of his ancestry, a
+    bookcase full of books, the tooth of a whale, an old
+    spinning-wheel and spindle, a lady's parasol frame,
+    a church lamp to be mended, in short, Henry says Mr.
+    Titcomb's shop is like the ocean; there is no end to
+    the curiosities in it.
+
+    In all my moving and fussing Mr. Titcomb has been my
+    right-hand man. Whenever a screw was loose, a nail to
+    be driven, a lock mended, a pane of glass set, and
+    these cases were manifold, he was always on hand.
+    But my sink was no fancy job, and I believe nothing
+    but a very particular friendship would have moved
+    him to undertake it. So this same sink lingered in
+    a precarious state for some weeks, and when I had
+    _nothing else to do_, I used to call and do what
+    I could in the way of enlisting the good man's
+    sympathies in its behalf.
+
+    How many times I have been in and seated myself in one
+    of the old rocking-chairs, and talked first of the
+    news of the day, the railroad, the last proceedings
+    in Congress, the probabilities about the millennium,
+    and thus brought the conversation by little and little
+    round to my sink!... because, till the sink was done,
+    the pump could not be put up, and we couldn't have any
+    rain-water. Sometimes my courage would quite fail me to
+    introduce the subject, and I would talk of everything
+    else, turn and get out of the shop, and then turn back
+    as if a thought had just struck my mind, and say:--
+
+    "Oh, Mr. Titcomb! about that sink?"
+
+    "Yes, ma'am, I was thinking about going down street
+    this afternoon to look out stuff for it."
+
+    "Yes, sir, if you would be good enough to get it done
+    as soon as possible; we are in great need of it."
+
+    "I think there's no hurry. I believe we are going to
+    have a dry time now, so that you could not catch any
+    water, and you won't need a pump at present."
+
+    These negotiations extended from the first of June to
+    the first of July, and at last my sink was completed,
+    and so also was a new house spout, concerning which
+    I had had divers communings with Deacon Dunning of
+    the Baptist church. Also during this time good Mrs.
+    Mitchell and myself made two sofas, or lounges, a
+    barrel chair, divers bedspreads, pillow cases, pillows,
+    bolsters, mattresses; we painted rooms; we revarnished
+    furniture; we--what _didn't_ we do?
+
+    Then came on Mr. Stowe; and then came the eighth
+    of July and my little Charley. I was really glad
+    for an excuse to lie in bed, for I was full tired,
+    I can assure you. Well, I was what folks call very
+    comfortable for two weeks, when my nurse had to leave
+    me....
+
+    During this time I have employed my leisure hours in
+    making up my engagements with newspaper editors. I have
+    written more than anybody, or I myself, would have
+    thought. I have taught an hour a day in our school, and
+    I have read two hours every evening to the children.
+    The children study English history in school, and I
+    am reading Scott's historic novels in their order.
+    To-night I finish the "Abbot;" shall begin "Kenilworth"
+    next week; yet I am constantly pursued and haunted by
+    the idea that I don't do anything. Since I began this
+    note I have been called off at least a dozen times;
+    once for the fish-man, to buy a codfish; once to see
+    a man who had brought me some barrels of apples; once
+    to see a book-man; then to Mrs. Upham, to see about
+    a drawing I promised to make for her; then to nurse
+    the baby; then into the kitchen to make a chowder for
+    dinner; and now I am at it again, for nothing but
+    deadly determination enables me ever to write; it is
+    rowing against wind and tide.
+
+    I suppose you think now I have begun, I am never going
+    to stop, and in truth it looks like it; but the spirit
+    moves now and I must obey.
+
+    Christmas is coming, and our little household is all
+    alive with preparations; every one collecting their
+    little gifts with wonderful mystery and secrecy....
+
+    To tell the truth, dear, I am getting tired; my neck
+    and back ache, and I must come to a close.
+
+    Your ready kindness to me in the spring I felt very
+    much; and _why_ I did not have the sense to have sent
+    you one line just by way of acknowledgment, I'm sure
+    I don't know; I felt just as if I had, till I awoke,
+    and behold! I had not. But, my dear, if my wits are
+    somewhat wool-gathering and unsettled, my heart is as
+    true as a star. I love you, and have thought of you
+    often.
+
+    This fall I have felt often _sad_, lonesome, both very
+    unusual feelings with me in these busy days; but the
+    breaking away from my old home, and leaving father
+    and mother, and coming to a strange place affected me
+    naturally. In those sad hours my thoughts have often
+    turned to George; I have thought with encouragement
+    of his blessed state, and hoped that I should soon
+    be there too. I have many warm and kind friends
+    here, and have been treated with great attention and
+    kindness. Brunswick is a delightful residence, and
+    if you come East next summer you must come to my new
+    home. George[7] would delight to go a-fishing with the
+    children, and see the ships, and sail in the sailboats,
+    and all that.
+
+    Give Aunt Harriet's love to him, and tell him when he
+    gets to be a painter to send me a picture.
+
+    Affectionately yours,                      H. STOWE.
+
+The year 1850 is one memorable in the history of our nation as well as
+in the quiet household that we have followed in its pilgrimage from
+Cincinnati to Brunswick.
+
+The signers of the Declaration of Independence and the statesmen and
+soldiers of the Revolution were no friends of negro slavery. In fact,
+the very principles of the Declaration of Independence sounded the
+death-knell of slavery forever. No stronger utterances against this
+national sin are to be found anywhere than in the letters and published
+writings of Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, and Patrick Henry.
+"Jefferson encountered difficulties greater than he could overcome, and
+after vain wrestlings the words that broke from him, 'I tremble for my
+country when I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot
+sleep forever,' were the words of despair.
+
+"It was the desire of Washington's heart that Virginia should remove
+slavery by a public act; and as the prospects of a general emancipation
+grew more and more dim ... he did all that he could by bequeathing
+freedom to his own slaves."[8]
+
+Hamilton was one of the founders of the Manumission Society, the object
+of which was the abolition of slaves in the State of New York. Patrick
+Henry, speaking of slavery, said: "A serious view of this subject gives
+a gloomy prospect to future times." Slavery was thought by the founders
+of our Republic to be a dying institution, and all the provisions of
+the Constitution touching slavery looked towards gradual emancipation
+as an inevitable result of the growth of the democracy.
+
+From an economic standpoint slave labor had ceased to be profitable.
+"The whole interior of the Southern States was languishing, and its
+inhabitants emigrating, for want of some object to engage their
+attention and employ their industry." The cultivation of cotton was
+not profitable for the reason that there was no machine for separating
+the seed from the fibre.
+
+This was the state of affairs in 1793, when Eli Whitney, a New England
+mechanic, at this time residing in Savannah, Georgia, invented his
+cotton-gin, or a machine to separate seed and fibre. "The invention
+of this machine at once set the whole country in active motion."[9]
+The effect of this invention may to some extent be appreciated when
+we consider that whereas in 1793 the Southern States produced only
+about five or ten thousand bales, in 1859 they produced over five
+millions. But with this increase of the cotton culture the value
+of slave property was augmented. Slavery grew and spread. In 1818
+to 1821 it first became a factor in politics during the Missouri
+compromise. By this compromise slavery was not to extend north of
+latitude 36 deg. 30'. From the time of this compromise till the year
+1833 the slavery agitation slumbered. This was the year that the
+British set the slaves free in their West Indian dependencies. This
+act caused great uneasiness among the slaveholders of the South. The
+National Anti-Slavery Society met in Philadelphia and pronounced
+slavery a national sin, which could be atoned for only by immediate
+emancipation. Such men as Garrison and Lundy began a work of agitation
+that was soon to set the whole nation in a ferment. From this time on
+slavery became the central problem of American history, and the line
+of cleavage in American politics. The invasion of Florida when it was
+yet the territory of a nation at peace with the United States, and its
+subsequent purchase from Spain, the annexation of Texas and the war
+with Mexico, were the direct results of the policy of the pro-slavery
+party to increase its influence and its territory. In 1849 the State
+of California knocked at the door of the Union for admission as a free
+State. This was bitterly opposed by the slaveholders of the South,
+who saw in it a menace to the slave-power from the fact that no slave
+State was seeking admission at the same time. Both North and South the
+feeling ran so high as to threaten the dismemberment of the Union, and
+the scenes of violence and bloodshed which were to come eleven years
+afterwards. It was to preserve the Union and avert the danger of the
+hour that Henry Clay brought forward his celebrated compromise measures
+in the winter of 1850. To conciliate the North, California was to be
+admitted as a free State. To pacify the slaveholders of the South, more
+stringent laws were to be enacted "concerning persons bound to service
+in one State and escaping into another."
+
+The 7th of March, 1850, Daniel Webster made his celebrated speech, in
+which he defended this compromise, and the abolitionists of the North
+were filled with indignation, which found its most fitting expression
+in Whittier's "Ichabod:" "So fallen, so lost, the glory from his gray
+hairs gone." ... "When honor dies the man is dead."
+
+It was in the midst of this excitement that Mrs. Stowe, with her
+children and her modest hopes for the future, arrived at the house of
+her brother, Dr. Edward Beecher.
+
+Dr. Beecher had been the intimate friend and supporter of Lovejoy,
+who had been murdered by the slaveholders at Alton for publishing an
+anti-slavery paper. His soul was stirred to its very depths by the
+iniquitous law which was at this time being debated in Congress,--a
+law which not only gave the slaveholder of the South the right to seek
+out and bring back into slavery any colored person whom he claimed
+as a slave, but commanded the people of the free States to assist in
+this revolting business. The most frequent theme of conversation while
+Mrs. Stowe was in Boston was this proposed law, and when she arrived
+in Brunswick her soul was all on fire with indignation at this new
+indignity and wrong about to be inflicted by the slave-power on the
+innocent and defenseless.
+
+After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, letter after letter was
+received by Mrs. Stowe in Brunswick from Mrs. Edward Beecher and
+other friends, describing the heart-rending scenes which were the
+inevitable results of the enforcement of this terrible law. Cities were
+more available for the capturing of escaped slaves than the country,
+and Boston, which claimed to have the cradle of liberty, opened her
+doors to the slave-hunters. The sorrow and anguish caused thereby no
+pen could describe. Families were broken up. Some hid in garrets and
+cellars. Some fled to the wharves and embarked in ships and sailed
+for Europe. Others went to Canada. One poor fellow who was doing good
+business as a crockery merchant, and supporting his family well, when
+he got notice that his master, whom he had left many years before, was
+after him, set out for Canada in midwinter on foot, as he did not dare
+to take a public conveyance. He froze both of his feet on the journey,
+and they had to be amputated. Mrs. Edward Beecher, in a letter to Mrs.
+Stowe's son, writing of this period, says:--
+
+"I had been nourishing an anti-slavery spirit since Lovejoy was
+murdered for publishing in his paper articles against slavery and
+intemperance, when our home was in Illinois. These terrible things
+which were going on in Boston were well calculated to rouse up this
+spirit. What can I do? I thought. Not much myself, but I know one who
+can. So I wrote several letters to your mother, telling her of various
+heart-rending events caused by the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave
+Law. I remember distinctly saying in one of them, 'Now, Hattie, if I
+could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make
+this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.'... When we
+lived in Boston your mother often visited us.... Several numbers of
+'Uncle Tom's Cabin' were written in your Uncle Edward's study at these
+times, and read to us from the manuscripts."
+
+A member of Mrs. Stowe's family well remembers the scene in the little
+parlor in Brunswick when the letter alluded to was received. Mrs. Stowe
+herself read it aloud to the assembled family, and when she came to the
+passage, "I would write something that would make this whole nation
+feel what an accursed thing slavery is," Mrs. Stowe rose up from her
+chair, crushing the letter in her hand, and with an expression on her
+face that stamped itself on the mind of her child, said: "I will write
+something. I will if I live."
+
+This was the origin of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and Professor Cairnes has
+well said in his admirable work, "The Slave Power," "The Fugitive
+Slave Law has been to the slave power a questionable gain. Among its
+first-fruits was 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"
+
+The purpose of writing a story that should make the whole nation feel
+that slavery was an accursed thing was not immediately carried out.
+In December, 1850, Mrs. Stowe writes: "Tell sister Katy I thank her
+for her letter and will answer it. As long as the baby sleeps with me
+nights I can't do much at anything, but I will do it at last. I will
+write that thing if I live.
+
+"What are folks in general saying about the slave law, and the stand
+taken by Boston ministers universally, except Edward?
+
+"To me it is incredible, amazing, mournful!! I feel as if I should
+be willing to sink with it, were all this sin and misery to sink in
+the sea.... I wish father would come on to Boston, and preach on the
+Fugitive Slave Law, as he once preached on the slave-trade, when I was
+a little girl in Litchfield. I sobbed aloud in one pew and Mrs. Judge
+Reeves in another. I wish some Martin Luther would arise to set this
+community right."
+
+December 22, 1850, she writes to her husband in Cincinnati: "Christmas
+has passed, not without many thoughts of our absent one. If you want
+a description of the scenes in our family preceding it, _vide_ a 'New
+Year's Story,' which I have sent to the 'New York Evangelist.' I am
+sorry that in the hurry of getting off this piece and one for the 'Era'
+you were neglected." The piece for the "Era" was a humorous article
+called "A Scholar's Adventures in the Country," being, in fact, a
+picture drawn from life and embodying Professor Stowe's efforts in the
+department of agriculture while in Cincinnati.
+
+_December 29, 1850._ "We have had terrible weather here. I remember
+such a storm when I was a child in Litchfield. Father and mother went
+to Warren, and were almost lost in the snowdrifts.
+
+"Sunday night I rather watched than slept. The wind howled, and the
+house rocked just as our old Litchfield house used to. The cold has
+been so intense that the children have kept begging to get up from
+table at meal-times to warm feet and fingers. Our air-tight stoves
+warm all but the floor,--heat your head and keep your feet freezing.
+If I sit by the open fire in the parlor my back freezes, if I sit in
+my bedroom and try to write my head aches and my feet are cold. I am
+projecting a sketch for the 'Era' on the capabilities of liberated
+blacks to take care of themselves. Can't you find out for me how much
+Willie Watson has paid for the redemption of his friends, and get any
+items in figures of that kind that you can pick up in Cincinnati?...
+When I have a headache and feel sick, as I do to-day, there is
+actually not a place in the house where I can lie down and take a nap
+without being disturbed. Overhead is the school-room, next door is the
+dining-room, and the girls practice there two hours a day. If I lock
+my door and lie down some one is sure to be rattling the latch before
+fifteen minutes have passed.... There is no doubt in my mind that
+our expenses this year will come two hundred dollars, if not three,
+beyond our salary. We shall be able to come through, notwithstanding;
+but I don't want to feel obliged to work as hard every year as I have
+this. I can earn four hundred dollars a year by writing, but I don't
+want to feel that I must, and when weary with teaching the children,
+and tending the baby, and buying provisions, and mending dresses, and
+darning stockings, sit down and write a piece for some paper."
+
+January 12, 1851, Mrs. Stowe again writes to Professor Stowe at
+Cincinnati: "Ever since we left Cincinnati to come here the good hand
+of God has been visibly guiding our way. Through what difficulties
+have we been brought! Though we knew not where means were to come
+from, yet means have been furnished every step of the way, and in
+every time of need. I was just in some discouragement with regard to
+my writing; thinking that the editor of the 'Era' was overstocked with
+contributors, and would not want my services another year, and lo! he
+sends me one hundred dollars, and ever so many good words with it. Our
+income this year will be seventeen hundred dollars in all, and I hope
+to bring our expenses within thirteen hundred."
+
+It was in the month of February after these words were written that
+Mrs. Stowe was seated at communion service in the college church at
+Brunswick. Suddenly, like the unrolling of a picture, the scene of
+the death of Uncle Tom passed before her mind. So strongly was she
+affected that it was with difficulty she could keep from weeping aloud.
+Immediately on returning home she took pen and paper and wrote out the
+vision which had been as it were blown into her mind as by the rushing
+of a mighty wind. Gathering her family about her she read what she
+had written. Her two little ones of ten and twelve years of age broke
+into convulsions of weeping, one of them saying through his sobs, "Oh,
+mamma! slavery is the most cruel thing in the world." Thus Uncle Tom
+was ushered into the world, and it was, as we said at the beginning,
+a cry, an immediate, an involuntary expression of deep, impassioned
+feeling.
+
+Twenty-five years afterwards Mrs. Stowe wrote in a letter to one of
+her children, of this period of her life: "I well remember the winter
+you were a baby and I was writing 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' My heart was
+bursting with the anguish excited by the cruelty and injustice our
+nation was showing to the slave, and praying God to let me do a little
+and to cause my cry for them to be heard. I remember many a night
+weeping over you as you lay sleeping beside me, and I thought of the
+slave mothers whose babes were torn from them."
+
+It was not till the following April that the first chapter of the story
+was finished and sent on to the "National Era" at Washington.
+
+In July Mrs. Stowe wrote to Frederick Douglass the following letter,
+which is given entire as the best possible introduction to the history
+of the career of that memorable work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+                                  BRUNSWICK, _July 9, 1851._
+
+    FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ESQ.:
+
+    _Sir_,--You may perhaps have noticed in your editorial
+    readings a series of articles that I am furnishing for
+    the "Era" under the title of "Uncle Tom's Cabin, or
+    Life among the Lowly."
+
+    In the course of my story the scene will fall upon
+    a cotton plantation. I am very desirous, therefore,
+    to gain information from one who has been an actual
+    laborer on one, and it occurred to me that in the
+    circle of your acquaintance there might be one
+    who would be able to communicate to me some such
+    information as I desire. I have before me an able paper
+    written by a Southern planter, in which the details and
+    _modus operandi_ are given from his point of sight.
+    I am anxious to have something more from another
+    standpoint. I wish to be able to make a picture that
+    shall be graphic and true to nature in its details.
+    Such a person as Henry Bibb, if in the country, might
+    give me just the kind of information I desire. You may
+    possibly know of some other person. I will subjoin to
+    this letter a list of questions, which in that case you
+    will do me a favor by inclosing to the individual, with
+    the request that he will at earliest convenience answer
+    them.
+
+    For some few weeks past I have received your paper
+    through the mail, and have read it with great interest,
+    and desire to return my acknowledgments for it. It will
+    be a pleasure to me at some time when less occupied to
+    contribute something to its columns. I have noticed
+    with regret your sentiments on two subjects--the church
+    and African colonization, ... with the more regret
+    because I think you have a considerable share of reason
+    for your feelings on both these subjects; but I would
+    willingly, if I could, modify your views on both points.
+
+    In the first place you say the church is "pro-slavery."
+    There is a sense in which this may be true. The
+    American church of all denominations, taken as a body,
+    comprises the best and most conscientious people
+    in the country. I do not say it comprises none but
+    these, or that none such are found out of it, but only
+    if a census were taken of the purest and most high
+    principled men and women of the country, the majority
+    of them would be found to be professors of religion
+    in some of the various Christian denominations.
+    This fact has given to the church great weight in
+    this country--the general and predominant spirit of
+    intelligence and probity and piety of its majority
+    has given it that degree of weight that it has the
+    power to decide the great moral questions of the
+    day. Whatever it unitedly and decidedly sets itself
+    against as moral evil it can put down. In this sense
+    the church is responsible for the sin of slavery. Dr.
+    Barnes has beautifully and briefly expressed this on
+    the last page of his work on slavery, when he says:
+    "Not all the force out of the church could sustain
+    slavery an hour if it were not sustained in it." It
+    then appears that the church has the power to put an
+    end to this evil and does not do it. In this sense she
+    may be said to be pro-slavery. But the church has the
+    same power over intemperance, and Sabbath-breaking,
+    and sin of all kinds. There is not a doubt that if
+    the moral power of the church were brought up to the
+    New Testament standpoint it is sufficient to put an
+    end to all these as well as to slavery. But I would
+    ask you, Would you consider it a fair representation
+    of the Christian church in this country to say that
+    it is pro-intemperance, pro-Sabbath-breaking, and
+    pro everything that it might put down if it were in
+    a higher state of moral feeling? If you should make
+    a list of all the abolitionists of the country, I
+    think that you would find a majority of them in the
+    church--certainly some of the most influential and
+    efficient ones are ministers.
+
+    I am a minister's daughter, and a minister's wife, and
+    I have had six brothers in the ministry (one is in
+    heaven); I certainly ought to know something of the
+    feelings of ministers on this subject. I was a child in
+    1820 when the Missouri question was agitated, and one
+    of the strongest and deepest impressions on my mind was
+    that made by my father's sermons and prayers, and the
+    anguish of his soul for the poor slave at that time. I
+    remember his preaching drawing tears down the hardest
+    faces of the old farmers in his congregation.
+
+    I well remember his prayers morning and evening in the
+    family for "poor, oppressed, bleeding Africa," that the
+    time of her deliverance might come; prayers offered
+    with strong crying and tears, and which indelibly
+    impressed my heart and made me what I am from my very
+    soul, the enemy of all slavery. Every brother I have
+    has been in his sphere a leading anti-slavery man. One
+    of them was to the last the bosom friend and counselor
+    of Lovejoy. As for myself and husband, we have for the
+    last seventeen years lived on the border of a slave
+    State, and we have never shrunk from the fugitives, and
+    we have helped them with all we had to give. I have
+    received the children of liberated slaves into a family
+    school, and taught them with my own children, and it
+    has been the influence that we found in the church
+    and by the altar that has made us do all this. Gather
+    up all the sermons that have been published on this
+    offensive and unchristian Fugitive Slave Law, and you
+    will find that those against it are numerically more
+    than those in its favor, and yet some of the strongest
+    opponents have not published their sermons. Out of
+    thirteen ministers who meet with my husband weekly for
+    discussion of moral subjects, only three are found who
+    will acknowledge or obey this law in any shape.
+
+    After all, my brother, the strength and hope of your
+    oppressed race does lie in the church--in hearts united
+    to Him of whom it is said, "He shall spare the souls
+    of the needy, and precious shall their blood be in his
+    sight." Everything is against you, but Jesus Christ is
+    for you, and He has not forgotten his church, misguided
+    and erring though it be. I have looked all the field
+    over with despairing eyes; I see no hope but in Him.
+    This movement must and will become a purely religious
+    one. The light will spread in churches, the tone of
+    feeling will rise, Christians North and South will give
+    up all connection with, and take up their testimony
+    against, slavery, and thus the work will be done.
+
+This letter gives us a conception of the state of moral and religious
+exaltation of the heart and mind out of which flowed chapter after
+chapter of that wonderful story. It all goes to prove the correctness
+of the position from which we started, that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" came
+from the heart rather than the head. It was an outburst of deep
+feeling, a cry in the darkness. The writer no more thought of style
+or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and
+cries for help to save her children from a burning house thinks of the
+teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist.
+
+A few years afterwards Mrs. Stowe, writing of this story, said, "This
+story is to show how Jesus Christ, who liveth and was dead, and now
+is alive and forevermore, has still a mother's love for the poor and
+lowly, and that no man can sink so low but that Jesus Christ will
+stoop to take his hand. Who so low, who so poor, who so despised as
+the American slave? The law almost denies his existence as a person,
+and regards him for the most part as less than a man--a mere thing,
+the property of another. The law forbids him to read or write, to hold
+property, to make a contract, or even to form a legal marriage. It
+takes from him all legal right to the wife of his bosom, the children
+of his body. He can do nothing, possess nothing, acquire nothing, but
+what must belong to his master. Yet even to this slave Jesus Christ
+stoops, from where he sits at the right hand of the Father, and says,
+'Fear not, thou whom man despiseth, for I am thy brother. Fear not, for
+I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine.'"
+
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a work of religion; the fundamental principles
+of the gospel applied to the burning question of negro slavery. It sets
+forth those principles of the Declaration of Independence that made
+Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, and Patrick Henry anti-slavery men;
+not in the language of the philosopher, but in a series of pictures.
+Mrs. Stowe spoke to the understanding and moral sense through the
+imagination.
+
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" made the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law
+an impossibility. It aroused the public sentiment of the world by
+presenting in the concrete that which had been a mere series of
+abstract propositions. It was, as we have already said, an appeal to
+the imagination through a series of pictures. People are like children,
+and understand pictures better than words. Some one rushes into your
+dining-room while you are at breakfast and cries out, "Terrible
+railroad accident, forty killed and wounded, six were burned alive."
+
+"Oh, shocking! dreadful!" you exclaim, and yet go quietly on with
+your rolls and coffee. But suppose you stood at that instant by the
+wreck, and saw the mangled dead, and heard the piercing shrieks of the
+wounded, you would be faint and dizzy with the intolerable spectacle.
+
+So "Uncle Tom's Cabin" made the crack of the slavedriver's whip, and
+the cries of the tortured blacks ring in every household in the land,
+till human hearts could endure it no longer.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[6] Wife of Professor Upham of Bowdoin College.
+
+[7] Her brother George's only child.
+
+[8] Bancroft's funeral oration on Lincoln.
+
+[9] Greeley's _American Conflict_, vol. i. p. 65.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, 1852.
+
+    "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AS A SERIAL IN THE "NATIONAL
+    ERA."--AN OFFER FOR ITS PUBLICATION IN BOOK
+    FORM.--WILL IT BE A SUCCESS?--AN UNPRECEDENTED
+    CIRCULATION.--CONGRATULATORY MESSAGES.--KIND WORDS FROM
+    ABROAD.--MRS. STOWE TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--LETTERS
+    FROM AND TO LORD SHAFTESBURY.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH
+    ARTHUR HELPS.
+
+
+THE wonderful story that was begun in the "National Era," June 5, 1851,
+and was announced to run for about three months, was not completed in
+that paper until April 1, 1852. It had been contemplated as a mere
+magazine tale of perhaps a dozen chapters, but once begun it could no
+more be controlled than the waters of the swollen Mississippi, bursting
+through a crevasse in its levees. The intense interest excited by the
+story, the demands made upon the author for more facts, the unmeasured
+words of encouragement to keep on in her good work that poured in
+from all sides, and above all the ever-growing conviction that she
+had been intrusted with a great and holy mission, compelled her to
+keep on until the humble tale had assumed the proportions of a volume
+prepared to stand among the most notable books in the world. As Mrs.
+Stowe has since repeatedly said, "I could not control the story; it
+wrote itself;" or "I the author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'? No, indeed. The
+Lord himself wrote it, and I was but the humblest of instruments in his
+hand. To Him alone should be given all the praise."
+
+Although the publication of the "National Era" has been long since
+suspended, the journal was in those days one of decided literary merit
+and importance. On its title-page, with the name of Dr. Gamaliel Bailey
+as editor, appeared that of John Greenleaf Whittier as corresponding
+editor. In its columns Mrs. Southworth made her first literary venture,
+while Alice and Phoebe Cary, Grace Greenwood, and a host of other
+well-known names were published with that of Mrs. Stowe, which appeared
+last of all in its prospectus for 1851.
+
+Before the conclusion of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Mrs. Stowe had so far
+outstripped her contemporaries that her work was pronounced by
+competent judges to be the most powerful production ever contributed to
+the magazine literature of this country, and she stood in the foremost
+rank of American writers.
+
+After finishing her story Mrs. Stowe penned the following appeal to its
+more youthful readers, and its serial publication was concluded:--
+
+"The author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' must now take leave of a wide circle
+of friends whose faces she has never seen, but whose sympathies coming
+to her from afar have stimulated and cheered her in her work.
+
+"The thought of the pleasant family circles that she has been meeting
+in spirit week after week has been a constant refreshment to her, and
+she cannot leave them without a farewell.
+
+"In particular the dear children who have followed her story have her
+warmest love. Dear children, you will soon be men and women, and I hope
+that you will learn from this story always to remember and pity the
+poor and oppressed. When you grow up, show your pity by doing all you
+can for them. Never, if you can help it, let a colored child be shut
+out from school or treated with neglect and contempt on account of his
+color. Remember the sweet example of little Eva, and try to feel the
+same regard for all that she did. Then, when you grow up, I hope the
+foolish and unchristian prejudice against people merely on account of
+their complexion will be done away with.
+
+"Farewell, dear children, until we meet again."
+
+With the completion of the story the editor of the "Era" wrote:
+"Mrs. Stowe has at last brought her great work to a close. We do not
+recollect any production of an American writer that has excited more
+general and profound interest."
+
+For the story as a serial the author received $300. In the mean time,
+however, it had attracted the attention of Mr. John P. Jewett, a
+Boston publisher, who promptly made overtures for its publication in
+book form. He offered Mr. and Mrs. Stowe a half share in the profits,
+provided they would share with him the expense of publication. This
+was refused by Professor Stowe, who said he was altogether too poor
+to assume any such risk; and the agreement finally made was that the
+author should receive a ten per cent. royalty upon all sales.
+
+Mrs. Stowe had no reason to hope for any large pecuniary gain from
+this publication, for it was practically her first book. To be sure,
+she had, in 1832, prepared a small school geography for a Western
+publisher, and ten years later the Harpers had brought out her
+"Mayflower." Still, neither of these had been sufficiently remunerative
+to cause her to regard literary work as a money-making business, and
+in regard to this new contract she writes: "I did not know until a week
+afterward precisely what terms Mr. Stowe had made, and I did not care.
+I had the most perfect indifference to the bargain."
+
+The agreement was signed March 13, 1852, and, as by arrangement with
+the "National Era" the book publication of the story was authorized
+before its completion as a serial, the first edition of five thousand
+copies was issued on the twentieth of the same month.
+
+In looking over the first semi-annual statement presented by her
+publishers we find Mrs. Stowe charged, a few days before the date of
+publication of her book, with "one copy U. T. C. cloth $.56," and this
+was the first copy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ever sold in book form.
+Five days earlier we find her charged with one copy of Horace Mann's
+speeches. In writing of this critical period of her life Mrs. Stowe
+says:--
+
+"After sending the last proof-sheet to the office I sat alone reading
+Horace Mann's eloquent plea for these young men and women, then about
+to be consigned to the slave warehouse of Bruin & Hill in Alexandria,
+Va.,--a plea impassioned, eloquent, but vain, as all other pleas on
+that side had ever proved in all courts hitherto. It seemed that there
+was no hope, that nobody would hear, nobody would read, nobody pity;
+that this frightful system, that had already pursued its victims into
+the free States, might at last even threaten them in Canada."[10]
+
+Filled with this fear, she determined to do all that one woman might
+to enlist the sympathies of England for the cause, and to avert, even
+as a remote contingency, the closing of Canada as a haven of refuge for
+the oppressed. To this end she at once wrote letters to Prince Albert,
+to the Duke of Argyll, to the Earls of Carlisle and Shaftesbury, to
+Macaulay, Dickens, and others whom she knew to be interested in the
+cause of anti-slavery. These she ordered to be sent to their several
+addresses, accompanied by the very earliest copies of her book that
+should be printed.
+
+Then, having done what she could, and committed the result to God, she
+calmly turned her attention to other affairs.
+
+In the mean time the fears of the author as to whether or not her book
+would be read were quickly dispelled. Three thousand copies were sold
+the very first day, a second edition was issued the following week, a
+third on the 1st of April, and within a year one hundred and twenty
+editions, or over three hundred thousand copies of the book, had been
+issued and sold in this country. Almost in a day the poor professor's
+wife had become the most talked-of woman in the world, her influence
+for good was spreading to its remotest corners, and henceforth she
+was to be a public character, whose every movement would be watched
+with interest, and whose every word would be quoted. The long, weary
+struggle with poverty was to be hers no longer; for, in seeking to aid
+the oppressed, she had also so aided herself that within four months
+from the time her book was published it had yielded her $10,000 in
+royalties.
+
+Now letters regarding the wonderful book, and expressing all shades
+of opinion concerning it, began to pour in upon the author. Her
+lifelong friend, whose words we have already so often quoted, wrote:--
+
+"I sat up last night until long after one o'clock reading and finishing
+'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' I could not leave it any more than I could have
+left a dying child, nor could I restrain an almost hysterical sobbing
+for an hour after I laid my head upon my pillow. I thought I was a
+thorough-going abolitionist before, but your book has awakened so
+strong a feeling of indignation and of compassion that I never seem to
+have had any feeling on this subject until now."
+
+The poet Longfellow wrote:--
+
+    I congratulate you most cordially upon the immense
+    success and influence of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It is one
+    of the greatest triumphs recorded in literary history,
+    to say nothing of the higher triumph of its moral
+    effect.
+
+    With great regard, and friendly remembrance to Mr.
+    Stowe, I remain,
+
+                          Yours most truly,
+                                 HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+Whittier wrote to Garrison:--
+
+"What a glorious work Harriet Beecher Stowe has wrought. Thanks for
+the Fugitive Slave Law! Better would it be for slavery if that law had
+never been enacted; for it gave occasion for 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"
+
+Garrison wrote to Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+"I estimate the value of anti-slavery writing by the abuse it brings.
+Now all the defenders of slavery have let me alone and are abusing
+you."
+
+To Mrs. Stowe, Whittier wrote:--
+
+    Ten thousand thanks for thy immortal book. My young
+    friend Mary Irving (of the "Era") writes me that she
+    has been reading it to some twenty young ladies,
+    daughters of Louisiana slaveholders, near New Orleans,
+    and amid the scenes described in it, and that they,
+    with one accord, pronounce it true.
+
+                            Truly thy friend,
+                                      JOHN G. WHITTIER.
+
+From Thomas Wentworth Higginson came the following:--
+
+    To have written at once the most powerful of
+    contemporary fictions and the most efficient of
+    anti-slavery tracts is a double triumph in literature
+    and philanthropy, to which this country has heretofore
+    seen no parallel.
+
+               Yours respectfully and gratefully,
+                                          T. W. HIGGINSON.
+
+A few days after the publication of the book, Mrs. Stowe, writing
+from Boston to her husband in Brunswick, says: "I have been in such a
+whirl ever since I have been here. I found business prosperous. Jewett
+animated. He has been to Washington and conversed with all the leading
+senators, Northern and Southern. Seward told him it was the greatest
+book of the times, or something of that sort, and he and Sumner went
+around with him to recommend it to Southern men and get them to read
+it."
+
+It is true that with these congratulatory and commendatory letters came
+hosts of others, threatening and insulting, from the Haleys and Legrees
+of the country.
+
+Of them Mrs. Stowe said: "They were so curiously compounded of
+blasphemy, cruelty, and obscenity, that their like could only be
+expressed by John Bunyan's account of the speech of Apollyon: 'He spake
+as a dragon.'"
+
+A correspondent of the "National Era" wrote: "'Uncle Tom's Cabin' is
+denounced by time-serving preachers as a meretricious work. Will you
+not come out in defense of it and roll back the tide of vituperation?"
+
+To this the editor answered: "We should as soon think of coming out in
+defense of Shakespeare."
+
+Several attempts were made in the South to write books controverting
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and showing a much brighter side of the slavery
+question, but they all fell flat and were left unread. Of one of them,
+a clergyman of Charleston, S. C., wrote in a private letter:--
+
+"I have read two columns in the 'Southern Press' of Mrs. Eastman's
+'Aunt Phillis' Cabin, or Southern Life as it is,' with the remarks of
+the editor. I have no comment to make on it, as that is done by itself.
+The editor might have saved himself being writ down an ass by the
+public if he had withheld his nonsense. If the two columns are a fair
+specimen of Mrs. Eastman's book, I pity her attempt and her name as an
+author."
+
+In due time Mrs. Stowe began to receive answers to the letters she had
+forwarded with copies of her book to prominent men in England, and
+these were without exception flattering and encouraging. Through his
+private secretary Prince Albert acknowledged with thanks the receipt
+of his copy, and promised to read it. Succeeding mails brought scores
+of letters from English men of letters and statesmen. Lord Carlisle
+wrote:--
+
+"I return my deep and solemn thanks to Almighty God who has led and
+enabled you to write such a book. I do feel indeed the most thorough
+assurance that in his good Providence such a book cannot have been
+written in vain. I have long felt that slavery is by far the _topping_
+question of the world and age we live in, including all that is most
+thrilling in heroism and most touching in distress; in short, the real
+epic of the universe. The self-interest of the parties most nearly
+concerned on the one hand, the apathy and ignorance of unconcerned
+observers on the other, have left these august pretensions to drop
+very much out of sight. Hence my rejoicing that a writer has appeared
+who will be read and must be felt, and that happen what may to the
+transactions of slavery they will no longer be suppressed."
+
+To this letter, of which but an extract has been given, Mrs. Stowe sent
+the following reply:--
+
+    MY LORD,--It is not with the common pleasure of
+    gratified authorship that I say how much I am gratified
+    by the receipt of your very kind communication
+    with regard to my humble efforts in the cause of
+    humanity. The subject is one so grave, so awful--the
+    success of what I have written has been so singular
+    and so unexpected--that I can scarce retain a
+    self-consciousness and am constrained to look upon
+    it all as the work of a Higher Power, who, when He
+    pleases, can accomplish his results by the feeblest
+    instruments. I am glad of anything which gives
+    notoriety to the book, because it is a plea for the
+    dumb and the helpless! I am glad particularly of
+    notoriety in England because I see with what daily
+    increasing power England's opinion is to act on this
+    country. No one can tell but a _native_ born here
+    by what an infinite complexity of ties, nerves, and
+    ligaments this terrible evil is bound in one body
+    politic; how the slightest touch upon it causes
+    even the free States to thrill and shiver, what a
+    terribly corrupting and tempting power it has upon
+    the conscience and moral sentiment even of a free
+    community. Nobody can tell the thousand ways in
+    which by trade, by family affinity, or by political
+    expediency, the free part of our country is constantly
+    tempted to complicity with the slaveholding part. It
+    is a terrible thing to become used to hearing the
+    enormities of slavery, to hear of things day after
+    day that one would think the sun should hide his face
+    from, and yet, to _get used to them_, to discuss them
+    coolly, to dismiss them coolly. For example, the sale
+    of intelligent, handsome colored females for vile
+    purposes, facts of the most public nature, have made
+    this a perfectly understood matter in our Northern
+    States. I have now, myself, under charge and educating,
+    two girls of whose character any mother might be proud,
+    who have actually been rescued from this sale in the
+    New Orleans market.
+
+    I desire to inclose a tract[11] in which I sketched down
+    a few incidents in the history of the family to which
+    these girls belong; it will show more than words can
+    the kind of incident to which I allude. The tract is
+    not a published document, only _printed_ to assist me
+    in raising money, and it would not, at present, be for
+    the good of the parties to have it published even in
+    England.
+
+    But though these things are known in the free States,
+    and other things, if possible, worse, yet there is
+    a terrible deadness of moral sense. They are known
+    by clergymen who yet would not on any account so far
+    commit themselves as to preach on the evils of slavery,
+    or pray for the slaves in their pulpits. They are known
+    by politicians who yet give their votes for slavery
+    extension and perpetuation.
+
+    This year both our great leading parties voted to
+    suppress all agitation of the subject, and in both
+    those parties were men who knew personally facts of
+    slavery and the internal slave-trade that one would
+    think no man could ever forget. Men _united_ in
+    pledging themselves to the Fugitive Slave Law, who yet
+    would tell you in private conversation that it was an
+    abomination, and who do not hesitate to say, that as
+    a matter of practice they always help the fugitive
+    because they _can't_ do otherwise.
+
+    The moral effect of this constant insincerity, the
+    moral effect of witnessing and becoming accustomed to
+    the most appalling forms of crime and oppression, is to
+    me the most awful and distressing part of the subject.
+    Nothing makes me feel it so painfully as to see with
+    how much more keenness the English feel the disclosures
+    of my book than the Americans. I myself am blunted by
+    use--by seeing, touching, handling the details. In
+    dealing even for the ransom of slaves, in learning
+    market prices of men, women, and children, I feel that
+    I acquire a horrible familiarity with evil.
+
+    Here, then, the great, wise, and powerful mind of
+    England, if she will but fully master the subject,
+    may greatly help us. Hers is the same kind of mind
+    as our own, but disembarrassed from our temptations
+    and unnerved by the thousands of influences that
+    blind and deaden us. There is a healthful vivacity
+    of moral feeling on this subject that must electrify
+    our paralyzed vitality. For this reason, therefore, I
+    rejoice when I see minds like your lordship's turning
+    to this subject; and I feel an intensity of emotion, as
+    if I could say, Do not for Christ's sake let go; you
+    know not what you may do.
+
+    Your lordship will permit me to send you two of the
+    most characteristic documents of the present struggle,
+    written by two men who are, in their way, as eloquent
+    for the slave as Chatham was for us in our hour of need.
+
+    I am now preparing some additional notes to my book, in
+    which I shall further confirm what I have said by facts
+    and statistics, and in particular by extracts from
+    the _codes of slaveholding States_, and the _records
+    of their courts_. These are documents that cannot be
+    disputed, and I pray your lordship to give them your
+    attention. No disconnected facts can be so terrible as
+    these legal decisions. They will soon appear in England.
+
+    It is so far from being irrelevant for England to
+    notice slavery that I already see indications that this
+    subject, on _both sides_, is yet to be presented there,
+    and the battle fought on _English ground_. I see that
+    my friend the South Carolinian gentleman has sent to
+    "Fraser's Magazine" an article; before published in
+    this country, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The article
+    in the London "Times" was eagerly reprinted in this
+    country, was issued as a tract and sold by the hundred,
+    headed, "What they think of 'Uncle Tom' in England."
+    If I mistake not, a strong effort will be made to
+    pervert the public mind of England, and to do away the
+    impression which the book has left.
+
+    For a time after it was issued it seemed to go by
+    acclamation. From quarters the most unexpected, from
+    all political parties, came an almost unbroken chorus
+    of approbation. I was very much surprised, knowing
+    the explosive nature of the subject. It was not till
+    the sale had run to over a hundred thousand copies
+    that reaction began, and the reaction was led off by
+    the London "Times." Instantly, as by a preconcerted
+    signal, all papers of a certain class began to abuse;
+    and some who had at first issued articles entirely
+    commendatory, now issued others equally depreciatory.
+    Religious papers, notably the "New York Observer,"
+    came out and denounced the book as _anti-Christian_,
+    anti-evangelical, resorting even to personal slander on
+    the author as a means of diverting attention from the
+    work.
+
+    All this has a meaning, but I think it comes too late.
+    I can think of no reason why it was not tried sooner,
+    excepting that God had intended that the cause should
+    have a hearing. It is strange that they should have
+    waited so long for the political effect of a book which
+    they might have foreseen at first; but not strange
+    that they should, now they _do_ see what it is doing,
+    attempt to root it up.
+
+    The effects of the book so far have been, I think,
+    these: 1st. To soften and moderate the bitterness of
+    feeling in _extreme abolitionists_. 2d. To convert to
+    abolitionist views many whom this same bitterness had
+    repelled. 3d. To inspire the free colored people with
+    self-respect, hope, and confidence. 4th. To inspire
+    universally through the country a kindlier feeling
+    toward the negro race.
+
+    It was unfortunate for the cause of freedom that
+    the first agitators of this subject were of that
+    class which your lordship describes in your note as
+    "well-meaning men." I speak sadly of their faults,
+    for they were men of _noble_ hearts. "But oppression
+    maketh a wise man _mad_," and they spoke and did
+    many things in the frenzy of outraged humanity that
+    repelled sympathy and threw multitudes off to a
+    hopeless distance. It is mournful to think of all the
+    absurdities that have been said and done in the name
+    and for the sake of this holy cause, that have so long
+    and so fatally retarded it.
+
+    I confess that I expected for myself nothing but abuse
+    from extreme abolitionists, especially as I dared to
+    name a forbidden shibboleth, "Liberia," and the fact
+    that the wildest and extremest abolitionists united
+    with the coldest conservatives, at first, to welcome
+    and advance the book is a thing that I have never
+    ceased to wonder at.
+
+    I have written this long letter because I am extremely
+    desirous that some leading minds in England should know
+    how _we_ stand. The subject is now on trial at the bar
+    of a civilized world--a Christian world! and I feel
+    sure that God has not ordered this without a design.
+    Yours for the cause,
+
+                                HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+In December the Earl of Shaftesbury wrote to Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+    MADAM,--It is very possible that the writer of this
+    letter may be wholly unknown to you. But whether my
+    name be familiar to your ears, or whether you now read
+    it for the first time, I cannot refrain from expressing
+    to you the deep gratitude that I feel to Almighty God
+    who has inspired both your heart and your head in
+    the composition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." None but a
+    Christian believer could have produced such a book as
+    yours, which has absolutely startled the whole world,
+    and impressed many thousands by revelations of cruelty
+    and sin that give us an idea of what would be the
+    uncontrolled dominion of Satan on this fallen earth.
+
+To this letter Mrs. Stowe replied as follows:--
+
+                              ANDOVER, _January 6, 1853._
+
+    TO THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY:
+
+    _My Lord_,--The few lines I have received from you are
+    a comfort and an encouragement to me, feeble as I now
+    am in health, and pressed oftentimes with sorrowful
+    thoughts.
+
+    It is a comfort to know that in other lands there are
+    those who feel as we feel, and who are looking with
+    simplicity to the gospel of Jesus, and prayerfully
+    hoping his final coming.
+
+    My lord, before you wrote me I read with deep emotion
+    your letter to the ladies of England, and subsequently
+    the noble address of the Duchess of Sutherland, and I
+    could not but feel that such movements, originating
+    in such a quarter, prompted by a spirit so devout and
+    benevolent, were truly of God, and must result in a
+    blessing to the world.
+
+    I grieve to see that both in England and this country
+    there are those who are entirely incapable of
+    appreciating the Christian and truly friendly feeling
+    that prompted this movement, and that there are even
+    those who meet it with coarse personalities such as
+    I had not thought possible in an English or American
+    paper.
+
+    When I wrote my work it was in simplicity and in the
+    love of Christ, and if I felt anything that seemed to
+    me like a call to undertake it, it was this, that I had
+    a true heart of love for the Southern people, a feeling
+    appreciation of their trials, and a sincere admiration
+    of their many excellent traits, and that I thus felt,
+    I think, must appear to every impartial reader of the
+    work.
+
+    It was my hope that a book so kindly intended, so
+    favorable in many respects, might be permitted free
+    circulation among them, and that the gentle voice of
+    Eva and the manly generosity of St. Clare might be
+    allowed to say those things of the system which would
+    be invidious in any other form.
+
+    At first the book seemed to go by acclamation; the
+    South did not condemn, and the North was loud and
+    unanimous in praise; not a dissenting voice was raised;
+    to my astonishment everybody praised. But when the
+    book circulated so widely and began to penetrate the
+    Southern States, when it began to be perceived how
+    powerfully it affected every mind that read it, there
+    came on a reaction.
+
+    Answers, pamphlets, newspaper attacks came thick and
+    fast, and certain Northern papers, religious,--so
+    called,--turned and began to denounce the work as
+    unchristian, heretical, etc. The reason of all this
+    is that it has been seen that the book has a direct
+    tendency to do what it was written for,--to awaken
+    conscience in the slaveholding States and lead to
+    emancipation.
+
+    Now there is nothing that Southern political leaders
+    and capitalists so dread as anti-slavery feeling among
+    themselves. All the force of lynch law is employed
+    to smother discussion and blind conscience on this
+    question. The question is not allowed to be discussed,
+    and he who sells a book or publishes a tract makes
+    himself liable to fine and imprisonment.
+
+    My book is, therefore, as much under an interdict in
+    some parts of the South as the Bible is in Italy. It
+    is not allowed in the bookstores, and the greater part
+    of the people hear of it and me only through grossly
+    caricatured representations in the papers, with garbled
+    extracts from the book.
+
+    A cousin residing in Georgia this winter says that the
+    prejudice against my name is so strong that she dares
+    not have it appear on the outside of her letters, and
+    that very amiable and excellent people have asked her
+    if such as I could be received into reputable society
+    at the North.
+
+    Under these circumstances, it is a matter of particular
+    regret that the "New York Observer," an old and
+    long-established religious paper in the United States,
+    extensively read at the South, should have come out in
+    such a bitter and unscrupulous style of attack as even
+    to induce some Southern papers, with a generosity one
+    often finds at the South, to protest against it.
+
+    That they should use their Christian character and
+    the sacred name of Christ still further to blind the
+    minds and strengthen the prejudices of their Southern
+    brethren is to me a matter of deepest sorrow. All
+    those things, of course, cannot touch me in my private
+    capacity, sheltered as I am by a happy home and very
+    warm friends. I only grieve for it as a dishonor to
+    Christ and a real injustice to many noble-minded people
+    at the South, who, if they were allowed quietly and
+    dispassionately to hear and judge, might be led to the
+    best results.
+
+    But, my lord, all this only shows us how strong is the
+    interest we touch. _All the wealth of America_ may be
+    said to be interested in it. And, if I may judge from
+    the furious and bitter tone of some English papers,
+    they also have some sensitive connection with the evil.
+
+    I trust that those noble and gentle ladies of England
+    who have in so good a spirit expressed their views of
+    the question will not be discouraged by the strong
+    abuse that will follow. England is doing us good. We
+    need the vitality of a disinterested country to warm
+    our torpid and benumbed public sentiment.
+
+    Nay, the storm of feeling which the book raises in
+    Italy, Germany, and France is all good, though truly
+    'tis painful for us Americans to bear. The fact is, we
+    have become used to this frightful evil, and we need
+    the public sentiment of the world to help us.
+
+    I am now writing a work to be called "Key to Uncle
+    Tom's Cabin." It contains, in an undeniable form,
+    the facts which corroborate all that I have said.
+    One third of it is taken up with judicial records of
+    trials and decisions, and with statute law. It is a
+    most fearful story, my lord,--I can truly say that I
+    write with life-blood, but as called of God. I give in
+    my evidence, and I hope that England may so fix the
+    attention of the world on the facts of which I am the
+    unwilling publisher, that the Southern States may be
+    compelled to notice what hitherto they have denied and
+    ignored. If they call the fiction dreadful, what will
+    they say of the fact, where I cannot deny, suppress, or
+    color? But it is God's will that it must be told, and I
+    am the unwilling agent.
+
+    This coming month of April, my husband and myself
+    expect to sail for England on the invitation of the
+    Anti-Slavery Society of the Ladies and Gentlemen of
+    Glasgow, to confer with friends there.
+
+    There are points where English people can do much good;
+    there are also points where what they seek to do may be
+    made more efficient by a little communion with those
+    who know the feelings and habits of our countrymen: but
+    I am persuaded that England can do much for us.
+
+    My lord, they greatly mistake who see, in this movement
+    of English Christians for the abolition of slavery,
+    signs of disunion between the nations. It is the purest
+    and best proof of friendship England has ever shown us,
+    and will, I am confident, be so received. I earnestly
+    trust that all who have begun to take in hand the cause
+    will be in nothing daunted, but persevere to the end;
+    for though everything else be against us, _Christ_ is
+    certainly on our side and He _must at last prevail_,
+    and it will be done, "not by might, nor by power, but
+    by His Spirit."
+
+              Yours in Christian sincerity,
+                                           H. B. STOWE.
+
+Mrs. Stowe also received a letter from Arthur Helps[12] accompanying
+a review of her work written by himself and published in "Fraser's
+Magazine." In his letter Mr. Helps took exception to the comparison
+instituted in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" between the working-classes of
+England and the slaves of America. In her answer to this criticism and
+complaint Mrs. Stowe says:--
+
+    MR. ARTHUR HELPS:
+
+    _My dear Sir_,--I cannot but say I am greatly obliged
+    to you for the kind opinions expressed in your letter.
+    On one point, however, it appears that my book has not
+    faithfully represented to you the feelings of my heart.
+    I mean in relation to the English nation as a nation.
+    You will notice that the remarks on that subject occur
+    in the _dramatic_ part of the book, in the mouth of an
+    intelligent Southerner. As a fair-minded person, bound
+    to state for both sides all that could be said in the
+    person of St. Clare, the best that could be said on
+    that point, and what I know _is_ in fact constantly
+    reiterated, namely, that the laboring class of the
+    South are in many respects, as to physical comfort, in
+    a better condition than the poor of England.
+
+    This is the slaveholder's stereotyped apology,--a
+    defense it cannot be, unless two wrongs make one right.
+
+    It is generally supposed among us that this estimate
+    of the relative condition of the slaves and the poor
+    of England is correct, and we base our ideas on
+    reports made in Parliament and various documentary
+    evidence; also such sketches as "London Labor and
+    London Poor," which have been widely circulated among
+    us. The inference, however, which _we_ of the freedom
+    party draw from it, is _not_ that the slave is, on
+    the whole, in the best condition because of this
+    striking difference; that in America the slave has not
+    a recognized _human_ character _in law, has not even
+    an existence_, whereas in England the law recognizes
+    and protects the meanest subject, in theory _always_,
+    and in _fact_ to a certain extent. A prince of the
+    blood could not strike the meanest laborer without a
+    liability to prosecution, in _theory_ at least, and
+    that is something. In America any man may strike any
+    slave he meets, and if the master does not choose to
+    notice it, he has no redress.
+
+    I do not suppose _human nature_ to be widely different
+    in England and America. In both countries, when any
+    class holds power and wealth by institutions which
+    in the long run bring misery on lower classes, they
+    are very unwilling still to part with that wealth and
+    power. They are unwilling to be convinced that it is
+    their duty, and unwilling to do it if they are. It
+    is always so everywhere; it is not English nature or
+    American nature, but human nature. We have seen in
+    England the battle for popular rights fought step by
+    step with as determined a resistance from parties in
+    possession as the slaveholder offers in America.
+
+    There was the same kind of resistance in certain
+    quarters there to the laws restricting the employing of
+    young children eighteen hours a day in factories, as
+    there is here to the anti-slavery effort.
+
+    Again, in England as in America, there are, in those
+    very classes whose interests are most invaded by what
+    are called popular rights, some of the most determined
+    supporters of them, and here I think that the balance
+    preponderates in favor of England. I think there are
+    more of the high nobility of England who are friends
+    of the common people and willing to help the cause of
+    human progress, irrespective of its influence on their
+    own interests, than there are those of a similar class
+    among slaveholding aristocracy, though even that class
+    is not without such men. But I am far from having any
+    of that senseless prejudice against the English nation
+    as a nation which, greatly to my regret, I observe
+    sometimes in America. It is a relic of barbarism for
+    two such nations as England and America to cherish any
+    such unworthy prejudice.
+
+    For my own part, I am proud to be of English blood;
+    and though I do not think England's national course
+    faultless, and though I think many of her institutions
+    and arrangements capable of much revision and
+    improvement, yet my heart warms to her as, _on the
+    whole_, the strongest, greatest, and best nation on
+    earth. Have not England and America one blood, one
+    language, one literature, and a glorious literature
+    it is! Are not Milton and Shakespeare, and all the
+    wise and brave and good of old, common to us both,
+    and should there be anything but cordiality between
+    countries that have so glorious an inheritance in
+    common? If there is, it will be elsewhere than in
+    hearts like mine.
+
+                         Sincerely yours,
+                                     H. B. STOWE.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[10] Introduction to Illustrated Edition of _Uncle Tom_, p. xiii.
+(Houghton, Osgood & Co., 1879.)
+
+[11] Afterwards embodied in the _Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin_.
+
+[12] Author of _Spanish Conquest in America_.--ED.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+FIRST TRIP TO EUROPE, 1853.
+
+    THE EDMONDSONS.--BUYING SLAVES TO SET THEM FREE.--JENNY
+    LIND.--PROFESSOR STOWE IS CALLED TO ANDOVER.--FITTING
+    UP THE NEW HOME.--THE "KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S
+    CABIN."--"UNCLE TOM" ABROAD.--HOW IT WAS PUBLISHED
+    IN ENGLAND.--PREFACE TO THE EUROPEAN EDITION.--THE
+    BOOK IN FRANCE.--IN GERMANY.--A GREETING FROM CHARLES
+    KINGSLEY.--PREPARING TO VISIT SCOTLAND.--LETTER TO MRS.
+    FOLLEN.
+
+
+VERY soon after the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Mrs. Stowe
+visited her brother Henry in Brooklyn, and while there became intensely
+interested in the case of the Edmondsons, a slave family of Washington,
+D. C. Emily and Mary two of the daughters of Paul (a free colored man)
+and Milly (a slave) Edmondson, had, for trying to escape from bondage,
+been sold to a trader for the New Orleans market. While they were
+lying in jail in Alexandria awaiting the making up of a gang for the
+South, their heartbroken father determined to visit the North and try
+to beg from a freedom-loving people the money with which to purchase
+his daughters' liberty. The sum asked by the trader was $2,250, but its
+magnitude did not appall the brave old man, and he set forth upon his
+quest full of faith that in some way he would secure it.
+
+Reaching New York, he went to the anti-slavery bureau and related
+his pitiful story. The sum demanded was such a large one and seemed
+so exorbitant that even those who took the greatest interest in the
+case were disheartened over the prospect of raising it. The old man
+was finally advised to go to Henry Ward Beecher and ask his aid. He
+made his way to the door of the great Brooklyn preacher's house, but,
+overcome by many disappointments and fearing to meet with another
+rebuff, hesitated to ring the bell, and sat down on the steps with
+tears streaming from his eyes.
+
+There Mr. Beecher found him, learned his story, and promised to do what
+he could. There was a great meeting in Plymouth Church that evening,
+and, taking the old colored man with him to it, Mrs. Stowe's brother
+made such an eloquent and touching appeal on behalf of the slave girls
+as to rouse his audience to profound indignation and pity. The entire
+sum of $2,250 was raised then and there, and the old man, hardly able
+to realize his great joy, was sent back to his despairing children with
+their freedom money in his hand.
+
+All this had happened in the latter part of 1848, and Mrs. Stowe had
+first known of the liberated girls in 1851, when she had been appealed
+to for aid in educating them. From that time forward she became
+personally responsible for all their expenses while they remained in
+school, and until the death of one of them in 1853.
+
+Now during her visit to New York in the spring of 1852 she met their
+old mother, Milly Edmondson, who had come North in the hope of saving
+her two remaining slave children, a girl and a young man, from falling
+into the trader's clutches. Twelve hundred dollars was the sum to be
+raised, and by hard work the father had laid by one hundred of it when
+a severe illness put an end to his efforts. After many prayers and much
+consideration of the matter, his feeble old wife said to him one day,
+"Paul, I'm a gwine up to New York myself to see if I can't get that
+money."
+
+Her husband objected that she was too feeble, that she would be unable
+to find her way, and that Northern people had got tired of buying
+slaves to set them free, but the resolute old woman clung to her
+purpose and finally set forth. Reaching New York she made her way to
+Mr. Beecher's house, where she was so fortunate as to find Mrs. Stowe.
+Now her troubles were at an end, for this champion of the oppressed
+at once made the slave woman's cause her own and promised that her
+children should be redeemed. She at once set herself to the task of
+raising the purchase-money, not only for Milly's children, but for
+giving freedom to the old slave woman herself. On May 29, she writes to
+her husband in Brunswick:--
+
+"The mother of the Edmondson girls, now aged and feeble, is in the
+city. I did not actually know when I wrote 'Uncle Tom' of a living
+example in which Christianity had reached its fullest development under
+the crushing wrongs of slavery, but in this woman I see it. I never
+knew before what I could feel till, with her sorrowful, patient eyes
+upon me, she told me her history and begged my aid. The expression of
+her face as she spoke, and the depth of patient sorrow in her eyes, was
+beyond anything I ever saw.
+
+"'Well,' said I, when she had finished, 'set your heart at rest;
+you and your children shall be redeemed. If I can't raise the money
+otherwise, I will pay it myself.' You should have seen the wonderfully
+sweet, solemn look she gave me as she said, 'The Lord bless you, my
+child!'
+
+"Well, I have received a sweet note from Jenny Lind, with her name
+and her husband's with which to head my subscription list. They give
+a hundred dollars. Another hundred is subscribed by Mr. Bowen in his
+wife's name, and I have put my own name down for an equal amount. A
+lady has given me twenty-five dollars, and Mr. Storrs has pledged me
+fifty dollars. Milly and I are to meet the ladies of Henry's and Dr.
+Cox's churches to-morrow, and she is to tell them her story. I have
+written to Drs. Bacon and Dutton in New Haven to secure a similar
+meeting of ladies there. I mean to have one in Boston, and another in
+Portland. It will do good to the givers as well as to the receivers.
+
+"But all this time I have been so longing to get your letter from
+New Haven, for I heard it was there. It is not fame nor praise that
+contents me. I seem never to have needed love so much as now. I long
+to hear you say how much you love me. Dear one, if this effort impedes
+my journey home, and wastes some of my strength, you will not murmur.
+When I see this Christlike soul standing so patiently bleeding, yet
+forgiving, I feel a sacred call to be the helper of the helpless, and
+it is better that my own family do without me for a while longer than
+that this mother lose all. _I must redeem her._
+
+"_New Haven, June 2._ My old woman's case progresses gloriously. I
+am to see the ladies of this place to-morrow. Four hundred dollars
+were contributed by individuals in Brooklyn, and the ladies who took
+subscription papers at the meeting will undoubtedly raise two hundred
+dollars more."
+
+Before leaving New York, Mrs. Stowe gave Milly Edmondson her check for
+the entire sum necessary to purchase her own freedom and that of her
+children, and sent her home rejoicing. That this sum was made up to her
+by the generous contributions of those to whom she appealed is shown by
+a note written to her husband and dated July, 1852, in which she says:--
+
+"Had a very kind note from A. Lawrence inclosing a twenty-dollar
+gold-piece for the Edmondsons. Isabella's ladies gave me twenty-five
+dollars, so you see our check is more than paid already."
+
+Although during her visit in New York Mrs. Stowe made many new friends,
+and was overwhelmed with congratulations and praise of her book, the
+most pleasing incident of this time seems to have been an epistolatory
+interview with Jenny Lind (Goldschmidt). In writing of it to her
+husband she says:--
+
+"Well, we have heard Jenny Lind, and the affair was a bewildering dream
+of sweetness and beauty. Her face and movements are full of poetry and
+feeling. She has the artless grace of a little child, the poetic effect
+of a wood-nymph, is airy, light, and graceful.
+
+"We had first-rate seats, and how do you think we got them? When Mr.
+Howard went early in the morning for tickets, Mr. Goldschmidt told
+him it was impossible to get any good ones, as they were all sold.
+Mr. Howard said he regretted that, on Mrs. Stowe's account, as she
+was very desirous of hearing Jenny Lind. 'Mrs. Stowe!' exclaimed Mr.
+Goldschmidt, 'the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? Indeed, she shall
+have a seat whatever happens!'
+
+"Thereupon he took his hat and went out, returning shortly with tickets
+for two of the best seats in the house, inclosed in an envelope
+directed to me in his wife's handwriting. Mr. Howard said he could have
+sold those tickets at any time during the day for ten dollars each.
+
+"To-day I sent a note of acknowledgment with a copy of my book. I am
+most happy to have seen her, for she is a noble creature."
+
+To this note the great singer wrote in answer:--
+
+    MY DEAR MADAM,--Allow me to express my sincere thanks
+    for your very kind letter, which I was very happy to
+    receive.
+
+    You must feel and know what a deep impression "Uncle
+    Tom's Cabin" has made upon every heart that can feel
+    for the dignity of human existence: so I with my
+    miserable English would not even try to say a word
+    about the great excellency of that most beautiful book,
+    but I must thank you for the great joy I have felt over
+    that book.
+
+    Forgive me, my dear madam: it is a great liberty I take
+    in thus addressing you, I know, but I have so wished to
+    find an opportunity to pour out my thankfulness in a
+    few words to you that I cannot help this intruding. I
+    have the feeling about "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that great
+    changes will take place by and by, from the impression
+    people receive out of it, and that the writer of that
+    book can fall asleep to-day or to-morrow with the
+    bright, sweet conscience of having been a strong means
+    in the Creator's hand of operating essential good in
+    one of the most important questions for the welfare
+    of our black brethren. God bless and protect you and
+    yours, dear madam, and certainly God's hand will remain
+    with a blessing over your head.
+
+    Once more forgive my bad English and the liberty I have
+    taken, and believe me to be, dear madam,
+
+                          Yours most truly,
+                            JENNY GOLDSCHMIDT, _nee_ LIND.
+
+In answer to Mrs. Stowe's appeal on behalf of the Edmonsons, Jenny Lind
+wrote:--
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I have with great interest read
+    your statement of the black family at Washington. It is
+    with pleasure also that I and my husband are placing
+    our humble names on the list you sent.
+
+    The time is short. I am very, very sorry that I shall
+    not be able to _see_ you. I must say farewell to you
+    in this way. Hoping that in the length of time you may
+    live to witness the progression of the good sake for
+    which you so nobly have fought, my best wishes go with
+    you.
+
+                              Yours in friendship,
+                                    JENNY GOLDSCHMIDT.
+
+While Mrs. Stowe was thus absent from home, her husband received and
+accepted a most urgent call to the Professorship of Sacred Literature
+in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Mass.
+
+In regard to leaving Brunswick and her many friends there, Mrs. Stowe
+wrote: "For my part, if I _must_ leave Brunswick, I would rather leave
+at once. I can tear away with a sudden pull more easily than to linger
+there knowing that I am to leave at last. I shall never find people
+whom I shall like better than those of Brunswick."
+
+As Professor Stowe's engagements necessitated his spending much of
+the summer in Brunswick, and also making a journey to Cincinnati,
+it devolved upon his wife to remain in Andover, and superintend the
+preparation of the house they were to occupy. This was known as the
+old stone workshop, on the west side of the Common, and it had a year
+or two before been fitted up by Charles Munroe and Jonathan Edwards[13]
+as the Seminary gymnasium. Beneath Mrs. Stowe's watchful care and by
+the judicious expenditure of money, it was transformed by the first of
+November into the charming abode which under the name of "The Cabin"
+became noted as one of the pleasantest literary centres of the country.
+Here for many years were received, and entertained in a modest way,
+many of the most distinguished people of this and other lands, and here
+were planned innumerable philanthropic undertakings in which Mrs. Stowe
+and her scholarly husband were the prime movers.
+
+The summer spent in preparing this home was one of great pleasure as
+well as literary activity. In July Mrs. Stowe writes to her husband: "I
+had no idea this place was so beautiful. Our family circle is charming.
+All the young men are so gentlemanly and so agreeable, as well as
+Christian in spirit. Mr. Dexter, his wife, and sister are delightful.
+Last evening a party of us went to ride on horseback down to Pomp's
+Pond. What a beautiful place it is! There is everything here that
+there is at Brunswick except the sea,--a great exception. Yesterday I
+was out all the forenoon sketching elms. There is no end to the beauty
+of these trees. I shall fill my book with them before I get through. We
+had a levee at Professor Park's last week,--quite a brilliant affair.
+To-day there is to be a fishing party to go to Salem beach and have a
+chowder.
+
+[Illustration: THE ANDOVER HOME]
+
+"It seems almost too good to be true that we are going to have such
+a house in such a beautiful place, and to live here among all these
+agreeable people, where everybody seems to love you so much and to
+think so much of you. I am almost afraid to accept it, and should not,
+did I not see the Hand that gives it all and know that it is both firm
+and true. He knows if it is best for us, and His blessing addeth no
+sorrow therewith. I cannot describe to you the constant undercurrent of
+love and joy and peace ever flowing through my soul. I am so happy--so
+blessed!"
+
+The literary work of this summer was directed toward preparing articles
+on many subjects for the "New York Independent" and the "National
+Era," as well as collecting material for future books. That the
+"Pearl of Orr's Island," which afterward appeared as a serial in the
+"Independent," was already contemplated, is shown by a letter written
+July 29th, in which Mrs. Stowe says: "What a lovely place Andover is!
+So many beautiful walks! Last evening a number of us climbed Prospect
+Hill, and had a most charming walk. Since I came here we have taken up
+hymn-singing to quite an extent, and while we were all up on the hill
+we sang 'When I can read my title clear.' It went finely.
+
+"I seem to have so much to fill my time, and yet there is my Maine
+story waiting. However, I am composing it every day, only I greatly
+need living studies for the filling in of my sketches. There is 'old
+Jonas,' my 'fish father,' a sturdy, independent fisherman farmer, who
+in his youth sailed all over the world and made up his mind about
+everything. In his old age he attends prayer-meetings and reads the
+'Missionary Herald.' He also has plenty of money in an old brown
+sea-chest. He is a great heart with an inflexible will and iron
+muscles. I must go to Orr's Island and see him again. I am now writing
+an article for the 'Era' on Maine and its scenery, which I think is
+even better than the 'Independent' letter. In it I took up Longfellow.
+Next I shall write one on Hawthorne and his surroundings.
+
+"To-day Mrs. Jewett sent out a most solemnly savage attack upon me
+from the 'Alabama Planter.' Among other things it says: 'The plan for
+assaulting the best institutions in the world may be made just as
+rational as it is by the wicked (perhaps unconsciously so) authoress
+of this book. The woman who wrote it must be either a very bad or a
+very fanatical person. For her own domestic peace we trust no enemy
+will ever penetrate into her household to pervert the scenes he may
+find there with as little logic or kindness as she has used in her
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin."' There's for you! Can you wonder now that such a
+wicked woman should be gone from you a full month instead of the week I
+intended? Ah, welladay!"
+
+At last the house was finished, the removal from Brunswick effected,
+and the reunited family was comfortably settled in its Andover home.
+The plans for the winter's literary work were, however, altered by
+force of circumstances. Instead of proceeding quietly and happily with
+her charming Maine story, Mrs. Stowe found it necessary to take notice
+in some manner of the cruel and incessant attacks made upon her as the
+author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and to fortify herself against them by
+a published statement of incontrovertible facts. It was claimed on all
+sides that she had in her famous book made such ignorant or malicious
+misrepresentations that it was nothing short of a tissue of falsehoods,
+and to refute this she was compelled to write a "Key to Uncle Tom's
+Cabin," in which should appear the sources from which she had obtained
+her knowledge. Late in the winter Mrs. Stowe wrote:--
+
+"I am now very much driven. I am preparing a Key to unlock 'Uncle
+Tom's Cabin.' It will contain all the original facts, anecdotes, and
+documents on which the story is founded, with some very interesting and
+affecting stories parallel to those told of Uncle Tom. Now I want you
+to write for me just what you heard that slave-buyer say, exactly as he
+said it, that people may compare it with what I have written. My Key
+will be stronger than the Cabin."
+
+In regard to this "Key" Mrs. Stowe also wrote to the Duchess of
+Sutherland upon hearing that she had headed an address from the women
+of England to those of America:--
+
+    It is made up of the facts, the documents, the things
+    which my own eyes have looked upon and my hands have
+    handled, that attest this awful indictment upon my
+    country. I write it in the anguish of my soul, with
+    tears and prayer, with sleepless nights and weary days.
+    I bear my testimony with a heavy heart, as one who in
+    court is forced by an awful oath to disclose the sins
+    of those dearest.
+
+    So I am called to draw up this fearful witness against
+    my country and send it into all countries, that the
+    general voice of humanity may quicken our paralyzed
+    vitality, that all Christians may pray for us, and that
+    shame, honor, love of country, and love of Christ may
+    be roused to give us strength to cast out this mighty
+    evil.
+
+                         Yours for the oppressed,
+                                             H. B. STOWE.
+
+This harassing, brain-wearying, and heart-sickening labor was
+continued until the first of April, 1853, when, upon invitation of the
+Anti-Slavery Society of Glasgow, Scotland, Mrs. Stowe, accompanied by
+her husband and her brother, Charles Beecher, sailed for Europe.
+
+In the mean time the success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" abroad was already
+phenomenal and unprecedented. From the pen of Mr. Sampson Low, the
+well-known London publisher, we have the following interesting
+statement regarding it:--
+
+"The first edition printed in London was in April, 1852, by Henry
+Vizetelly, in a neat volume at ten and sixpence, of which he issued
+7,000 copies. He received the first copy imported, through a friend
+who had bought it in Boston the day the steamer sailed, for his own
+reading. He gave it to Mr. V., who took it to the late Mr. David Bogue,
+well known for his general shrewdness and enterprise. He had the book
+to read and consider over night, and in the morning returned it,
+declining to take it at the very moderate price of five pounds.
+
+"Vizetelly at once put the volume into the hands of a friendly printer
+and brought it out on his own account, through the nominal agency of
+Clarke & Co. The 7,000 copies sold, other editions followed, and Mr.
+Vizetelly disposed of his interest in the book to the printer and
+agent, who joined with Mr. Beeton and at once began to issue monster
+editions. The demand called for fresh supplies, and these created an
+increased demand. The discovery was soon made that any one was at
+liberty to reprint the book, and the initiative was thus given to a
+new era in cheap literature, founded on American reprints. A shilling
+edition followed the one-and-sixpence, and this in turn became the
+precursor of one 'complete for sixpence.' From April to December, 1852,
+twelve different editions (not reissues) were published, and within
+the twelve months of its first appearance eighteen different London
+publishing houses were engaged in supplying the great demand that had
+set in, the total number of editions being forty, varying from fine
+art-illustrated editions at 15s., 10s., and 7s. 6d., to the cheap
+popular editions of 1s., 9d., and 6d.
+
+"After carefully analyzing these editions and weighing probabilities
+with ascertained facts, I am able pretty confidently to say that the
+aggregate number of copies circulated in Great Britain and the colonies
+exceeds one and a half millions."
+
+A similar statement made by Clarke & Co. in October, 1852, reveals the
+following facts. It says: "An early copy was sent from America the
+latter end of April to Mr. Bogue, the publisher, and was offered by
+him to Mr. Gilpin, late of Bishopsgate Street. Being declined by Mr.
+Gilpin, Mr. Bogue offered it to Mr. Henry Vizetelly, and by the latter
+gentleman it was eventually purchased for us. Before printing it,
+however, as there was one night allowed for decision, one volume was
+taken home to be read by Mr. Vizetelly, and the other by Mr. Salisbury,
+the printer, of Bouverie Street. The report of the latter gentleman the
+following morning, to quote his own words, was: 'I sat up till four in
+the morning reading the book, and the interest I felt was expressed one
+moment by laughter, another by tears. Thinking it might be weakness and
+not the power of the author that affected me, I resolved to try the
+effect upon my wife (a rather strong-minded woman). I accordingly woke
+her and read a few chapters to her. Finding that the interest in the
+story kept her awake, and that she, too, laughed and cried, I settled
+in my mind that it was a book that ought to, and might with safety, be
+printed.'
+
+"Mr. Vizetelly's opinion coincided with that of Mr. Salisbury, and to
+the latter gentleman it was confided to be brought out immediately. The
+week following the book was produced and one edition of 7,000 copies
+worked off. It made no stir until the middle of June, although we
+advertised it very extensively. From June it began to make its way, and
+it sold at the rate of 1,000 per week during July. In August the demand
+became very great, and went on increasing to the 20th, by which time
+it was perfectly overwhelming. We have now about 400 people employed
+in getting out the book, and seventeen printing machines besides hand
+presses. Already about 150,000 copies of the book are in the hands of
+the people, and still the returns of sales show no decline."
+
+The story was dramatized in the United States in August, 1852,
+without the consent or knowledge of the author, who had neglected
+to reserve her rights for this purpose. In September of the same
+year we find it announced as the attraction at two London theatres,
+namely, the Royal Victoria and the Great National Standard. In 1853
+Professor Stowe writes: "The drama of 'Uncle Tom' has been going on
+in the National Theatre of New York all summer with most unparalleled
+success. Everybody goes night after night, and nothing can stop it. The
+enthusiasm beats that of the run in the Boston Museum out and out. The
+'Tribune' is full of it. The 'Observer,' the 'Journal of Commerce,' and
+all that sort of fellows, are astonished and nonplussed. They do not
+know what to say or do about it."
+
+While the English editions of the story were rapidly multiplying, and
+being issued with illustrations by Cruikshank, introductions by Elihu
+Burritt, Lord Carlisle, etc., it was also making its way over the
+Continent. For the authorized French edition, translated by Madame
+Belloc, and published by Charpentier of Paris, Mrs. Stowe wrote the
+following:--
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE EUROPEAN EDITION.
+
+    In authorizing the circulation of this work on the
+    Continent of Europe, the author has only this apology,
+    that the love of _man_ is higher than the love of
+    country.
+
+    The great mystery which all Christian nations hold in
+    common, the union of God with man through the humanity
+    of Jesus Christ, invests human existence with an awful
+    sacredness; and in the eye of the true believer in
+    Jesus, he who tramples on the rights of his meanest
+    fellow-man is not only inhuman but sacrilegious, and
+    the worst form of this sacrilege is the institution of
+    _slavery_.
+
+    It has been said that the representations of this book
+    are exaggerations! and oh, _would_ that this were true!
+    Would that this book were indeed a fiction, and not a
+    close mosaic of facts! But that it is not a fiction the
+    proofs lie bleeding in thousands of hearts; they have
+    been attested by surrounding voices from almost every
+    slave State, and from slave-owners themselves. Since so
+    it must be, thanks be to God that this mighty cry, this
+    wail of an unutterable anguish, has at last been heard!
+
+    It has been said, and not in utter despair but in
+    solemn hope and assurance may we regard the struggle
+    that now convulses America,--the outcry of the demon
+    of slavery, which has heard the voice of Jesus of
+    Nazareth, and is rending and convulsing the noble
+    nation from which at last it must depart.
+
+    It cannot be that so monstrous a solecism can long
+    exist in the bosom of a nation which in all respects is
+    the best exponent of the great principle of universal
+    brotherhood. In America the Frenchman, the German,
+    the Italian, the Swede, and the Irish all mingle on
+    terms of equal right; all nations there display their
+    characteristic excellences and are admitted by her
+    liberal laws to equal privileges: everything is tending
+    to liberalize, humanize, and elevate, and for that very
+    reason it is that the contest with slavery there grows
+    every year more terrible.
+
+    The stream of human progress, widening, deepening,
+    strengthening from the confluent forces of all nations,
+    meets this barrier, behind which is concentrated all
+    the ignorance, cruelty, and oppression of the dark
+    ages, and it roars and foams and shakes the barrier,
+    and anon it must bear it down.
+
+    In its commencement slavery overspread every State in
+    the Union: the progress of society has now emancipated
+    the North from its yoke. In Kentucky, Tennessee,
+    Virginia, and Maryland, at different times, strong
+    movements have been made for emancipation,--movements
+    enforced by a comparison of the progressive march
+    of the adjoining free States with the poverty and
+    sterility and ignorance produced by a system which in a
+    few years wastes and exhausts all the resources of the
+    soil without the power of renewal.
+
+    The time cannot be distant when these States will
+    emancipate for self-preservation; and if no new slave
+    territory be added, the increase of slave population in
+    the remainder will enforce measures of emancipation.
+
+    Here, then, is the point of the battle. Unless more
+    slave territory is gained, slavery dies; if it is
+    gained, it lives. Around this point political parties
+    fight and manoeuvre, and every year the battle wages
+    hotter.
+
+    The internal struggles of no other nation in the world
+    are so interesting to Europeans as those of America;
+    for America is fast filling up from Europe, and every
+    European has almost immediately his vote in her
+    councils.
+
+    If, therefore, the oppressed of other nations desire
+    to find in America an asylum of permanent freedom, let
+    them come prepared, heart and hand, and vote against
+    the institution of slavery; for they who enslave man
+    cannot themselves remain free.
+
+    True are the great words of Kossuth: "No nation can
+    remain free with whom freedom is a _privilege_ and not
+    a principle."
+
+This preface was more or less widely copied in the twenty translations
+of the book that quickly followed its first appearance. These, arranged
+in the alphabetical order of their languages, are as follows: Armenian,
+Bohemian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Hungarian,
+Illyrian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romaic or modern Greek, Russian,
+Servian, Spanish, Wallachian, and Welsh.
+
+In Germany it received the following flattering notice from one of the
+leading literary journals: "The abolitionists in the United States
+should vote the author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' a civic crown, for a more
+powerful ally than Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe and her romance they
+could not have. We confess that in the whole modern romance literature
+of Germany, England, and France, we know of no novel to be called equal
+to this. In comparison with its glowing eloquence that never fails
+of its purpose, its wonderful truth to nature, the largeness of its
+ideas, and the artistic faultlessness of the machinery in this book,
+George Sand, with her Spiridion and Claudie, appears to us untrue
+and artificial; Dickens, with his but too faithful pictures from the
+popular life of London, petty; Bulwer, hectic and self-conscious. It is
+like a sign of warning from the New World to the Old."
+
+Madame George Sand reviewed the book, and spoke of Mrs. Stowe herself
+in words at once appreciative and discriminating: "Mrs. Stowe is all
+instinct; it is the very reason she appears to some not to have talent.
+Has she not talent? What is talent? Nothing, doubtless, compared to
+genius; but has she genius? She has genius as humanity feels the need
+of genius,--the genius of goodness, not that of the man of letters, but
+that of the saint."
+
+Charles Sumner wrote from the senate chamber at Washington to Professor
+Stowe: "All that I hear and read bears testimony to the good Mrs. Stowe
+has done. The article of George Sand is a most remarkable tribute,
+such as was hardly ever offered by such a genius to any living mortal.
+Should Mrs. Stowe conclude to visit Europe she will have a triumph."
+
+From Eversley parsonage Charles Kingsley wrote to Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+    A thousand thanks for your delightful letter. As for
+    your progress and ovation here in England, I have no
+    fear for you. You will be flattered and worshiped.
+    You deserve it and you must bear it. I am sure that
+    you have seen and suffered too much and too long to
+    be injured by the foolish yet honest and heartfelt
+    lionizing which you must go through.
+
+    I have many a story to tell you when we meet about the
+    effects of the great book upon the most unexpected
+    people.
+
+                          Yours ever faithfully,
+                                           C. KINGSLEY.
+
+March 28, 1853, Professor Stowe sent the following communication to the
+Committee of Examination of the Theological Seminary at Andover: "As I
+shall not be present at the examinations this term, I think it proper
+to make to you a statement of the reasons of my absence. During the
+last winter I have not enjoyed my usual health. Mrs. Stowe also became
+sick and very much exhausted. At this time we had the offer of a voyage
+to Great Britain and back free of expense."
+
+This offer, coming as it did from the friends of the cause of
+emancipation in the United Kingdom, was gladly accepted by Mr. and Mrs.
+Stowe, and they sailed immediately.
+
+The preceding month Mrs. Stowe had received a letter from Mrs. Follen
+in London, asking for information with regard to herself, her family,
+and the circumstances of her writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+In reply Mrs. Stowe sent the following very characteristic letter,
+which may be safely given at the risk of some repetition:--
+
+                              ANDOVER, _February 16, 1853._
+
+    MY DEAR MADAM,--I hasten to reply to your letter, to me
+    the more interesting that I have long been acquainted
+    with you, and during all the nursery part of my life
+    made daily use of your poems for children.
+
+    I used to think sometimes in those days that I would
+    write to you, and tell you how much I was obliged to
+    you for the pleasure which they gave us all.
+
+    So you want to know something about what sort of a
+    woman I am! Well, if this is any object, you shall
+    have statistics free of charge. To begin, then, I am
+    a little bit of a woman,--somewhat more than forty,
+    about as thin and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very
+    much to look at in my best days, and looking like a
+    used-up article now.
+
+    I was married when I was twenty-five years old to a man
+    rich in Greek and Hebrew, Latin and Arabic, and, alas!
+    rich in nothing else. When I went to housekeeping,
+    my entire stock of china for parlor and kitchen was
+    bought for eleven dollars. That lasted very well for
+    two years, till my brother was married and brought
+    his bride to visit me. I then found, on review, that
+    I had neither plates nor teacups to set a table for
+    my father's family; wherefore I thought it best to
+    reinforce the establishment by getting me a tea-set
+    that cost ten dollars more, and this, I believe, formed
+    my whole stock in trade for some years.
+
+    But then I was abundantly enriched with wealth of
+    another sort.
+
+    I had two little, curly-headed twin daughters to
+    begin with, and my stock in this line has gradually
+    increased, till I have been the mother of seven
+    children, the most beautiful and the most loved of
+    whom lies buried near my Cincinnati residence. It was
+    at his dying bed and at his grave that I learned what
+    a poor slave mother may feel when her child is torn
+    away from her. In those depths of sorrow which seemed
+    to me immeasurable, it was my only prayer to God that
+    such anguish might not be suffered in vain. There
+    were circumstances about his death of such peculiar
+    bitterness, of what seemed almost cruel suffering, that
+    I felt that I could never be consoled for it, unless
+    this crushing of my own heart might enable me to work
+    out some great good to others....
+
+    I allude to this here because I have often felt that
+    much that is in that book ("Uncle Tom") had its root
+    in the awful scenes and bitter sorrows of that summer.
+    It has left now, I trust, no trace on my mind, except
+    a deep compassion for the sorrowful, especially for
+    mothers who are separated from their children.
+
+    During long years of struggling with poverty and
+    sickness, and a hot, debilitating climate, my children
+    grew up around me. The nursery and the kitchen were my
+    principal fields of labor. Some of my friends, pitying
+    my trials, copied and sent a number of little sketches
+    from my pen to certain liberally paying "Annuals" with
+    my name. With the first money that I earned in this
+    way I bought a feather-bed! for as I had married into
+    poverty and without a dowry, and as my husband had only
+    a large library of books and a great deal of learning,
+    the bed and pillows were thought the most profitable
+    investment. After this I thought that I had discovered
+    the philosopher's stone. So when a new carpet or
+    mattress was going to be needed, or when, at the close
+    of the year, it began to be evident that my family
+    accounts, like poor Dora's, "wouldn't add up," then I
+    used to say to my faithful friend and factotum Anna,
+    who shared all my joys and sorrows, "Now, if you will
+    keep the babies and attend to the things in the house
+    for one day, I'll write a piece, and then we shall
+    be out of the scrape." So I became an author,--very
+    modest at first, I do assure you, and remonstrating
+    very seriously with the friends who had thought it best
+    to put my name to the pieces by way of getting up a
+    reputation; and if you ever see a woodcut of me, with
+    an immoderately long nose, on the cover of all the U.
+    S. Almanacs, I wish you to take notice, that I have
+    been forced into it contrary to my natural modesty by
+    the imperative solicitations of my dear five thousand
+    friends and the public generally. One thing I must say
+    with regard to my life at the West, which you will
+    understand better than many English women could.
+
+    I lived two miles from the city of Cincinnati, in the
+    country, and domestic service, not always you know to
+    be found in the city, is next to an impossibility to
+    obtain in the country, even by those who are willing to
+    give the highest wages; so what was to be expected for
+    poor me, who had very little of this world's goods to
+    offer?
+
+    Had it not been for my inseparable friend Anna, a
+    noble-hearted English girl, who landed on our shores
+    in destitution and sorrow, and clave to me as Ruth to
+    Naomi, I had never lived through all the trials which
+    this uncertainty and want of domestic service imposed
+    on both: you may imagine, therefore, how glad I was
+    when, our seminary property being divided out into
+    small lots which were rented at a low price, a number
+    of poor families settled in our vicinity, from whom
+    we could occasionally obtain domestic service. About
+    a dozen families of liberated slaves were among the
+    number, and they became my favorite resort in cases
+    of emergency. If anybody wishes to have a black face
+    look handsome, let them be left, as I have been, in
+    feeble health in oppressive hot weather, with a sick
+    baby in arms, and two or three other little ones in
+    the nursery, and not a servant in the whole house to
+    do a single turn. Then, if they could see my good old
+    Aunt Frankie coming with her honest, bluff, black face,
+    her long, strong arms, her chest as big and stout as
+    a barrel, and her hilarious, hearty laugh, perfectly
+    delighted to take one's washing and do it at a fair
+    price, they would appreciate the beauty of black people.
+
+    My cook, poor Eliza Buck,--how she would stare to think
+    of her name going to England!--was a regular epitome
+    of slave life in herself; fat, gentle, easy, loving
+    and lovable, always calling my very modest house and
+    door-yard "The Place," as if it had been a plantation
+    with seven hundred hands on it. She had lived through
+    the whole sad story of a Virginia-raised slave's life.
+    In her youth she must have been a very handsome mulatto
+    girl. Her voice was sweet, and her manners refined and
+    agreeable. She was raised in a good family as a nurse
+    and seamstress. When the family became embarrassed, she
+    was suddenly sold on to a plantation in Louisiana. She
+    has often told me how, without any warning, she was
+    suddenly forced into a carriage, and saw her little
+    mistress screaming and stretching her arms from the
+    window towards her as she was driven away. She has told
+    me of scenes on the Louisiana plantation, and she has
+    often been out at night by stealth ministering to poor
+    slaves who had been mangled and lacerated by the lash.
+    Hence she was sold into Kentucky, and her last master
+    was the father of all her children. On this point she
+    ever maintained a delicacy and reserve that always
+    appeared to me remarkable. She always called him her
+    husband; and it was not till after she had lived with
+    me some years that I discovered the real nature of
+    the connection. I shall never forget how sorry I felt
+    for her, nor my feelings at her humble apology, "You
+    know, Mrs. Stowe, slave women cannot help themselves."
+    She had two very pretty quadroon daughters, with her
+    beautiful hair and eyes, interesting children, whom I
+    had instructed in the family school with my children.
+    Time would fail to tell you all that I learned
+    incidentally of the slave system in the history of
+    various slaves who came into my family, and of the
+    underground railroad which, I may say, ran through our
+    house. But the letter is already too long.
+
+    You ask with regard to the remuneration which I have
+    received for my work here in America. Having been poor
+    all my life and expecting to be poor the rest of it,
+    the idea of making money by a book which I wrote just
+    because I could not help it, never occurred to me. It
+    was therefore an agreeable surprise to receive ten
+    thousand dollars as the first-fruits of three months'
+    sale. I presume as much more is now due. Mr. Bosworth
+    in England, the firm of Clarke & Co., and Mr. Bentley,
+    have all offered me an interest in the sales of their
+    editions in London. I am very glad of it, both on
+    account of the value of what they offer, and the value
+    of the example they set in this matter, wherein I think
+    that justice has been too little regarded.
+
+    I have been invited to visit Scotland, and shall
+    probably spend the summer there and in England.
+
+    I have very much at heart a design to erect in some of
+    the Northern States a normal school, for the education
+    of colored teachers in the United States and in Canada.
+    I have very much wished that some permanent memorial
+    of good to the colored race might be created out of
+    the proceeds of a work which promises to have so
+    unprecedented a sale. My own share of the profits will
+    be less than that of the publishers', either English
+    or American; but I am willing to give largely for this
+    purpose, and I have no doubt that the publishers, both
+    American and English, will unite with me; for nothing
+    tends more immediately to the emancipation of the slave
+    than the education and elevation of the free.
+
+    I am now writing a work which will contain, perhaps,
+    an equal amount of matter with "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+    It will contain all the facts and documents on which
+    that story was founded, and an immense body of facts,
+    reports of trials, legal documents, and testimony of
+    people now living South, which will more than confirm
+    every statement in "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+    I must confess that till I began the examination of
+    facts in order to write this book, much as I thought
+    I knew before, I had not begun to measure the depth
+    of the abyss. The law records of courts and judicial
+    proceedings are so incredible as to fill me with
+    amazement whenever I think of them. It seems to me
+    that the book cannot but be felt, and, coming upon the
+    sensibility awaked by the other, do something.
+
+    I suffer exquisitely in writing these things. It may
+    be truly said that I write with my heart's blood. Many
+    times in writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin" I thought my
+    health would fail utterly; but I prayed earnestly that
+    God would help me till I got through, and still I am
+    pressed beyond measure and above strength.
+
+    This horror, this nightmare abomination! can it be in
+    my country! It lies like lead on my heart, it shadows
+    my life with sorrow; the more so that I feel, as for my
+    own brothers, for the South, and am pained by every
+    horror I am obliged to write, as one who is forced
+    by some awful oath to disclose in court some family
+    disgrace. Many times I have thought that I must die,
+    and yet I pray God that I may live to see something
+    done. I shall in all probability be in London in May:
+    shall I see you?
+
+    It seems to me so odd and dream-like that so many
+    persons desire to see me, and now I cannot help
+    thinking that they will think, when they do, that God
+    hath chosen "the weak things of this world."
+
+    If I live till spring I shall hope to see Shakespeare's
+    grave, and Milton's mulberry-tree, and the good land of
+    my fathers,--old, old England! May that day come!
+
+                            Yours affectionately,
+                                           H. B. STOWE.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[13] Students in the Seminary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SUNNY MEMORIES, 1853.
+
+    CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.--ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.--RECEPTION
+    IN LIVERPOOL.--WELCOME TO SCOTLAND.--A GLASGOW
+    TEA-PARTY.--EDINBURGH HOSPITALITY.--ABERDEEN.--DUNDEE
+    AND BIRMINGHAM.--JOSEPH STURGE.--ELIHU
+    BURRITT.--LONDON.--THE LORD MAYOR'S DINNER.--CHARLES
+    DICKENS AND HIS WIFE.
+
+
+THE journey undertaken by Mrs. Stowe with her husband and brother
+through England and Scotland, and afterwards with her brother alone
+over much of the Continent, was one of unusual interest. No one was
+more surprised than Mrs. Stowe herself by the demonstrations of respect
+and affection that everywhere greeted her.
+
+Fortunately an unbroken record of this memorable journey, in Mrs.
+Stowe's own words, has been preserved, and we are thus able to
+receive her own impressions of what she saw, heard, and did, under
+circumstances that were at once pleasant, novel, and embarrassing.
+Beginning with her voyage, she writes as follows:--
+
+                               LIVERPOOL, _April 11, 1853._
+
+    MY DEAR CHILDREN,--You wish, first of all, to hear of
+    the voyage. Let me assure you, my dears, in the very
+    commencement of the matter, that going to sea is not at
+    all the thing that we have taken it to be.
+
+    Let me warn you, if you ever go to sea, to omit all
+    preparations for amusement on shipboard. Don't leave
+    so much as the unlocking of a trunk to be done after
+    sailing. In the few precious minutes when the ship
+    stands still, before she weighs her anchor, set your
+    house, that is to say your stateroom, as much in order
+    as if you were going to be hanged; place everything
+    in the most convenient position to be seized without
+    trouble at a moment's notice; for be sure that in half
+    an hour after sailing, an infinite desperation will
+    seize you, in which the grasshopper will be a burden.
+    If anything is in your trunk, it might almost as well
+    be in the sea, for any practical probability of your
+    getting to it.
+
+    Our voyage out was called "a good run." It was voted
+    unanimously to be "an extraordinary good passage," "a
+    pleasant voyage;" yet the ship rocked the whole time
+    from side to side with a steady, dizzy, continuous
+    motion, like a great cradle. I had a new sympathy for
+    babies, poor little things, who are rocked hours at a
+    time without so much as a "by your leave" in the case.
+    No wonder there are so many stupid people in the world!
+
+    We arrived on Sunday morning: the custom-house
+    officers, very gentlemanly men, came on board; our
+    luggage was all set out, and passed through a rapid
+    examination, which in many cases amounted only to
+    opening the trunk and shutting it, and all was over.
+    The whole ceremony did not occupy two hours.
+
+    We were inquiring of some friends for the most
+    convenient hotel, when we found the son of Mr. Cropper,
+    of Dingle Bank, waiting in the cabin to take us with
+    him to their hospitable abode. In a few moments after
+    the baggage had been examined, we all bade adieu to the
+    old ship, and went on board the little steam tender
+    which carries passengers up to the city.
+
+    This Mersey River would be a very beautiful one, if
+    it were not so dingy and muddy. As we are sailing
+    up in the tender towards Liverpool, I deplore the
+    circumstance feelingly.
+
+    "What does make this river so muddy?"
+
+    "Oh," says a by-stander, "don't you know that
+
+       "'The quality of mercy is not strained'?"
+
+    I had an early opportunity of making acquaintance with
+    my English brethren; for, much to my astonishment, I
+    found quite a crowd on the wharf, and we walked up to
+    our carriage through a long lane of people, bowing, and
+    looking very glad to see us.
+
+    When I came to get into the hack it was surrounded by
+    more faces than I could count. They stood very quietly,
+    and looked very kindly, though evidently very much
+    determined to look. Something prevented the hack from
+    moving on; so the interview was prolonged for some time.
+
+    Our carriage at last drove on, taking us through
+    Liverpool and a mile or two out, and at length wound
+    its way along the gravel paths of a beautiful little
+    retreat, on the banks of the Mersey, called the
+    "Dingle." It opened to my eyes like a paradise, all
+    wearied as I was with the tossing of the sea. I have
+    since become familiar with these beautiful little
+    spots, which are so common in England; but now all was
+    entirely new to me.
+
+    After a short season allotted to changing our ship
+    garments and for rest, we found ourselves seated at
+    the dinner table. While dining, the sister-in-law of
+    our friends came in from the next door, to exchange a
+    word or two of welcome, and invite us to breakfast with
+    them the following morning.
+
+    The next morning we slept late and hurried to dress,
+    remembering our engagement to breakfast with the
+    brother of our host, whose cottage stands on the same
+    ground, within a few steps of our own. I had not the
+    slightest idea of what the English mean by a breakfast,
+    and therefore went in all innocence, supposing I should
+    see nobody but the family circle of my acquaintances.
+    Quite to my astonishment, I found a party of between
+    thirty and forty people; ladies sitting with their
+    bonnets on, as in a morning call. It was impossible,
+    however, to feel more than a momentary embarrassment
+    in the friendly warmth and cordiality of the circle by
+    whom we were surrounded.
+
+    In the evening I went into Liverpool to attend a party
+    of friends of the anti-slavery cause. When I was going
+    away, the lady of the house said that the servants were
+    anxious to see me; so I came into the dressing-room to
+    give them an opportunity.
+
+    The next day was appointed to leave Liverpool. A
+    great number of friends accompanied us to the cars,
+    and a beautiful bouquet of flowers was sent with a
+    very affecting message from a sick gentleman, who,
+    from the retirement of his chamber, felt a desire to
+    testify his sympathy. We left Liverpool with hearts a
+    little tremulous and excited by the vibration of an
+    atmosphere of universal sympathy and kindness, and
+    found ourselves, at length, shut from the warm adieu of
+    our friends, in a snug compartment of the railroad car.
+
+    "Dear me!" said Mr. S.; "six Yankees shut up in a car
+    together! Not one Englishman to tell us anything about
+    the country! Just like the six old ladies that made
+    their living by taking tea at each other's houses!"
+
+    What a bright lookout we kept for ruins and old houses!
+    Mr. S., whose eyes are always in every place, allowed
+    none of us to slumber, but looking out, first on his
+    own side and then on ours, called our attention to
+    every visible thing. If he had been appointed on a
+    mission of inquiry, he could not have been more zealous
+    and faithful, and I began to think that our desire for
+    an English cicerone was quite superfluous.
+
+    Well, we are in Scotland at last, and now our pulse
+    rises as the sun declines in the west. We catch
+    glimpses of Solway Firth and talk about Redgauntlet.
+    The sun went down and night drew on; still we were in
+    Scotland. Scotch ballads, Scotch tunes, and Scotch
+    literature were in the ascendant. We sang "Auld Lang
+    Syne," "Scots wha hae," and "Bonnie Doon," and then,
+    changing the key, sang "Dundee," "Elgin," and "Martyr."
+
+    "Take care," said Mr. S.; "don't get too much excited."
+
+    "Ah," said I, "this is a thing that comes only once in
+    a lifetime; do let us have the comfort of it. We shall
+    never come into Scotland for the _first time_ again."
+
+    While we were thus at the fusion point of enthusiasm,
+    the cars stopped at Lockerbie. All was dim and dark
+    outside, but we soon became conscious that there was
+    quite a number of people collected, peering into the
+    window; and with a strange kind of thrill, I heard my
+    name inquired for in the Scottish accent. I went to the
+    window; there were men, women, and children gathered,
+    and hand after hand was presented, with the words,
+    "Ye're welcome to Scotland!"
+
+    Then they inquired for and shook hands with all the
+    party, having in some mysterious manner got the
+    knowledge of who they were, even down to little G.,
+    whom they took to be my son. Was it not pleasant, when
+    I had a heart so warm for this old country? I shall
+    never forget the thrill of those words, "Ye're welcome
+    to Scotland," nor the "Gude night."
+
+    After that we found similar welcomes in many succeeding
+    stopping-places; and though I did wave a towel out
+    of the window, instead of a pocket handkerchief, and
+    commit other awkwardnesses, from not knowing how to
+    play my part, yet I fancied, after all, that Scotland
+    and we were coming on well together. Who the good souls
+    were that were thus watching for us through the night,
+    I am sure I do not know; but that they were of the "one
+    blood" which unites all the families of the earth, I
+    felt.
+
+    At Glasgow, friends were waiting in the station-house.
+    Earnest, eager, friendly faces, ever so many. Warm
+    greetings, kindly words. A crowd parting in the middle,
+    through which we were conducted into a carriage, and
+    loud cheers of welcome, sent a throb, as the voice of
+    living Scotland.
+
+    I looked out of the carriage, as we drove on, and saw,
+    by the light of a lantern, Argyll Street. It was past
+    twelve o'clock when I found myself in a warm, cosy
+    parlor, with friends whom I have ever since been glad
+    to remember. In a little time we were all safely
+    housed in our hospitable apartments, and sleep fell on
+    me for the first time in Scotland.
+
+    The next morning I awoke worn and weary, and scarce
+    could the charms of the social Scotch breakfast restore
+    me.
+
+    Our friend and host was Mr. Bailie Paton. I believe
+    that it is to his suggestion in a public meeting that
+    we owe the invitation which brought us to Scotland.
+
+    After breakfast the visiting began. First, a friend of
+    the family, with three beautiful children, the youngest
+    of whom was the bearer of a handsomely bound album,
+    containing a pressed collection of the sea-mosses of
+    the Scottish coast, very vivid and beautiful.
+
+    All this day is a confused dream to me of a dizzy
+    and overwhelming kind. So many letters that it took
+    brother Charles from nine in the morning till two in
+    the afternoon to read and answer them in the shortest
+    manner; letters from all classes of people, high
+    and low, rich and poor, in all shades and styles of
+    composition, poetry and prose; some mere outbursts of
+    feeling; some invitations; some advice and suggestions;
+    some requests and inquiries; some presenting books, or
+    flowers, or fruit.
+
+    Then came, in their turn, deputations from Paisley,
+    Greenock, Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Belfast
+    in Ireland; calls of friendship, invitations of all
+    descriptions to go everywhere, and to see everything,
+    and to stay in so many places. One kind, venerable
+    minister, with his lovely daughter, offered me a
+    retreat in his quiet manse on the beautiful shores of
+    the Clyde.
+
+    For all these kindnesses, what could I give in return?
+    There was scarce time for even a grateful thought
+    on each. People have often said to me that it must
+    have been an exceeding bore. For my part, I could not
+    think of regarding it so. It only oppressed me with an
+    unutterable sadness.
+
+    In the afternoon I rode out with the lord provost to
+    see the cathedral. The lord provost answers to the
+    lord mayor in England. His title and office in both
+    countries continue only a year, except in case of
+    re-election.
+
+    As I saw the way to the cathedral blocked up by a
+    throng of people who had come out to see me, I could
+    not help saying, "What went ye out for to see? a reed
+    shaken with the wind?" In fact I was so worn out that
+    I could hardly walk through the building. The next
+    morning I was so ill as to need a physician, unable to
+    see any one that called, or to hear any of the letters.
+    I passed most of the day in bed, but in the evening
+    I had to get up, as I had engaged to drink tea with
+    two thousand people. Our kind friends, Dr. and Mrs.
+    Wardlaw, came after us, and Mr. S. and I went in the
+    carriage with them. Our carriage stopped at last at the
+    place. I have a dim remembrance of a way being made for
+    us through a great crowd all round the house, and of
+    going with Mrs. Wardlaw up into a dressing-room where
+    I met and shook hands with many friendly people. Then
+    we passed into a gallery, where a seat was reserved
+    for our party, directly in front of the audience. Our
+    friend Bailie Paton presided. Mrs. Wardlaw and I sat
+    together, and around us many friends, chiefly ministers
+    of the different churches, the ladies and gentlemen of
+    the Glasgow Anti-Slavery Society and others. I told
+    you it was a tea-party; but the arrangements were
+    altogether different from any I had ever seen. There
+    were narrow tables stretched up and down the whole
+    extent of the great hall, and every person had an
+    appointed seat. These tables were set out with cups
+    and saucers, cakes, biscuit, etc., and when the proper
+    time came, attendants passed along serving tea. The
+    arrangements were so accurate and methodical that the
+    whole multitude actually took tea together, without the
+    least apparent inconvenience or disturbance.
+
+    There was a gentle, subdued murmur of conversation
+    all over the house, the sociable clinking of teacups
+    and teaspoons, while the entertainment was going on.
+    It seemed to me such an odd idea, I could not help
+    wondering what sort of a teapot that must be in which
+    all this tea for two thousand people was made. Truly,
+    as Hadji Baba says, I think they must have had the
+    "father of all the tea-kettles" to boil it in. I could
+    not help wondering if old mother Scotland had put two
+    thousand teaspoonfuls of tea for the company, and one
+    for the teapot, as is our good Yankee custom.
+
+    We had quite a sociable time up in our gallery. Our
+    tea-table stretched quite across, and we drank tea
+    in sight of all the people. By _we_, I mean a great
+    number of ministers and their wives, and ladies of
+    the Anti-Slavery Society, besides our party, and the
+    friends whom I have mentioned before. All seemed to be
+    enjoying themselves.
+
+    After tea they sang a few verses of the seventy-second
+    psalm in the old Scotch version.
+
+    _April 17._ To-day a large party of us started on a
+    small steamer to go down the Clyde. It was a trip
+    full of pleasure and incident. Now we were shown
+    the remains of old Cardross Castle, where it was
+    said Robert Bruce breathed his last. And now we came
+    near the beautiful grounds of Roseneath, a green,
+    velvet-like peninsula, stretching out into the widening
+    waters.
+
+    Somewhere about here I was presented, by his own
+    request, to a broad-shouldered Scotch farmer, who stood
+    some six feet two, and who paid me the compliment to
+    say that he had read my book, and that he would walk
+    six miles to see me any day. Such a flattering evidence
+    of discriminating taste, of course, disposed my heart
+    towards him; but when I went up and put my hand into
+    his great prairie of a palm, I was as a grasshopper
+    in my own eyes. I inquired who he was and was told he
+    was one of the Duke of Argyll's farmers. I thought to
+    myself if all the duke's farmers were of this pattern,
+    that he might be able to speak to the enemy in the
+    gates to some purpose.
+
+    It was concluded after we left Roseneath that, instead
+    of returning by the boat, we should take carriage and
+    ride home along the banks of the river. In our carriage
+    were Mr. S. and myself, Dr. Robson, and Lady Anderson.
+    About this time I commenced my first essay towards
+    giving titles, and made, as you may suppose, rather an
+    odd piece of work of it, generally saying "Mrs." first,
+    and "Lady" afterwards, and then begging pardon. Lady
+    Anderson laughed and said she would give me a general
+    absolution. She is a truly genial, hearty Scotchwoman,
+    and seemed to enter happily into the spirit of the hour.
+
+    As we rode on, we found that the news of our coming had
+    spread through the village. People came and stood in
+    their doors, beckoning, bowing, smiling, and waving
+    their handkerchiefs, and the carriage was several
+    times stopped by persons who came to offer flowers.
+    I remember, in particular, a group of young girls
+    bringing to the carriage two of the most beautiful
+    children I ever saw, whose little hands literally
+    deluged us with flowers.
+
+    At the village of Helensburgh we stopped a little
+    while to call upon Mrs. Bell, the wife of Mr. Bell,
+    the inventor of the steamboat. His invention in this
+    country was at about the same time as that of Fulton
+    in America. Mrs. Bell came to the carriage to speak to
+    us. She is a venerable woman, far advanced in years.
+    They had prepared a lunch for us, and quite a number of
+    people had come together to meet us, but our friends
+    said there was not time for us to stop.
+
+    We rode through several villages after this, and met
+    everywhere a warm welcome. What pleased me was, that
+    it was not mainly from the literary, nor the rich, nor
+    the great, but the plain, common people. The butcher
+    came out of his stall and the baker from his shop, the
+    miller dusty with flour, the blooming, comely young
+    mother, with her baby in her arms, all smiling and
+    bowing, with that hearty, intelligent, friendly look,
+    as if they knew we should be glad to see them.
+
+    Once, while we stopped to change horses, I, for the
+    sake of seeing something more of the country, walked
+    on. It seems the honest landlord and his wife were
+    greatly disappointed at this; however, they got into
+    the carriage and rode on to see me, and I shook hands
+    with them with a right good will.
+
+    We saw several of the clergymen, who came out to meet
+    us; and I remember stopping just to be introduced,
+    one by one, to a most delightful family, a gray-headed
+    father and mother, with comely brothers and fair
+    sisters, all looking so kindly and homelike, that I
+    should have been glad to accept the invitation they
+    gave me to their dwelling.
+
+    This day has been a strange phenomenon to me. In the
+    first place, I have seen in all these villages how
+    universally the people read. I have seen how capable
+    they are of a generous excitement and enthusiasm, and
+    how much may be done by a work of fiction so written
+    as to enlist those sympathies which are common to all
+    classes. Certainly a great deal may be effected in this
+    way, if God gives to any one the power, as I hope he
+    will to many. The power of fictitious writing, for good
+    as well as evil, is a thing which ought most seriously
+    to be reflected on. No one can fail to see that in our
+    day it is becoming a very great agency.
+
+    We came home quite tired, as you may well suppose. You
+    will not be surprised that the next day I found myself
+    more disposed to keep my bed than go out.
+
+    Two days later: We bade farewell to Glasgow,
+    overwhelmed with kindness to the last, and only
+    oppressed by the thought of how little that was
+    satisfactory we were able to give in return. Again
+    we were in the railroad car on our way to Edinburgh.
+    A pleasant two hours' trip is this from Glasgow to
+    Edinburgh. When the cars stopped at Linlithgow station,
+    the name started us as out of a dream.
+
+    In Edinburgh the cars stopped amid a crowd of people
+    who had assembled to meet us. The lord provost met
+    us at the door of the car, and presented us to the
+    magistracy of the city and the committees of the
+    Edinburgh Anti-Slavery Societies. The drab dresses and
+    pure white bonnets of many Friends were conspicuous
+    among the dense moving crowd, as white doves seen
+    against a dark cloud. Mr. S. and myself, and our future
+    hostess, Mrs. Wigham, entered the carriage with the
+    lord provost, and away we drove, the crowd following
+    with their shouts and cheers. I was inexpressibly
+    touched and affected by this. While we were passing the
+    monument of Scott, I felt an oppressive melancholy.
+    What a moment life seems in the presence of the noble
+    dead! What a momentary thing is art, in all its beauty!
+    Where are all those great souls that have created such
+    an atmosphere of light about Edinburgh? and how little
+    a space was given them to live and enjoy!
+
+    We drove all over Edinburgh, up to the castle, to the
+    university, to Holyrood, to the hospitals, and through
+    many of the principal streets, amid shouts, and smiles,
+    and greetings. Some boys amused me very much by their
+    pertinacious attempts to keep up with the carriage.
+
+    "Heck," says one of them, "that's her; see the
+    _courls_!"
+
+    The various engravers who have amused themselves
+    by diversifying my face for the public having all,
+    with great unanimity, agreed in giving prominence to
+    this point, I suppose the urchins thought they were
+    on safe ground there. I certainly think I answered
+    one good purpose that day, and that is of giving the
+    much-oppressed and calumniated class called boys an
+    opportunity to develop all the noise that was in
+    them,--a thing for which I think they must bless me in
+    their remembrances.
+
+    At last the carriage drove into a deep-graveled yard,
+    and we alighted at a porch covered with green ivy, and
+    found ourselves once more at home.
+
+    You may spare your anxieties about me, for I do assure
+    you that if I were an old Sevres china jar I could not
+    have more careful handling than I do. Everybody is
+    considerate; a great deal to say when there appears to
+    be so much excitement. Everybody seems to understand
+    how good-for-nothing I am; and yet, with all this
+    consideration, I have been obliged to keep my room and
+    bed for a good part of the time. Of the multitudes who
+    have called, I have seen scarcely any.
+
+    To-morrow evening is to be the great tea-party here.
+    How in the world I am ever to live through it I don't
+    know.
+
+    The amount of letters we found waiting for us here in
+    Edinburgh was, if possible, more appalling than in
+    Glasgow. Among those from persons whom you would be
+    interested in hearing of, I may mention a very kind
+    and beautiful one from the Duchess of Sutherland, and
+    one also from the Earl of Carlisle, both desiring to
+    make appointments for meeting us as soon as we come to
+    London. Also a very kind and interesting note from the
+    Rev. Mr. Kingsley and lady. I look forward with a great
+    deal of interest to passing a little time with them in
+    their rectory.
+
+    As to all engagements, I am in a state of happy
+    acquiescence, having resigned myself, as a very tame
+    lion, into the hands of my keepers. Whenever the time
+    comes for me to do anything, I try to behave as well as
+    I can, which, as Dr. Young says, is all that an angel
+    could do under the same circumstances.
+
+    _April 26._ Last night came off the _soiree_. The hall
+    was handsomely decorated with flags in front. We went
+    with the lord provost in his carriage. We went up as
+    before into a dressing-room, where I was presented
+    to many gentlemen and ladies. When we go in, the
+    cheering, clapping, and stamping at first strikes one
+    with a strange sensation; but then everybody looks so
+    heartily pleased and delighted, and there is such an
+    all-pervading atmosphere of geniality and sympathy, as
+    makes me in a few moments feel quite at home. After
+    all, I consider that these cheers and applauses are
+    Scotland's voice to America, a recognition of the
+    brotherhood of the countries.
+
+    The national penny offering, consisting of a thousand
+    golden sovereigns on a magnificent silver salver, stood
+    conspicuously in view of the audience. It has been an
+    unsolicited offering, given in the smallest sums, often
+    from the extreme poverty of the giver. The committee
+    who collected it in Edinburgh and Glasgow bore witness
+    to the willingness with which the very poorest
+    contributed the offering of their sympathy. In one
+    cottage they found a blind woman, and said, "Here, at
+    least, is one who will feel no interest, as she cannot
+    have read the book."
+
+    "Indeed," said the old lady, "if I cannot read, my son
+    has read it to me, and I've got my penny saved to give."
+
+    It is to my mind extremely touching to see how the
+    poor, in their poverty, can be moved to a generosity
+    surpassing that of the rich. Nor do I mourn that they
+    took it from their slender store, because I know that a
+    penny given from a kindly impulse is a greater comfort
+    and blessing to the poorest giver than even a penny
+    received.
+
+    As in the case of the other meeting, we came out long
+    before the speeches were ended. Well, of course I did
+    not sleep all night, and the next day I felt quite
+    miserable.
+
+    From Edinburgh we took cars for Aberdeen. I enjoyed
+    this ride more than anything we had seen yet, the
+    country was so wild and singular. In the afternoon we
+    came in sight of the German Ocean. The free, bracing
+    air from the sea, and the thought that it actually
+    _was_ the German Ocean, and that over the other side
+    was Norway, within a day's sail of us, gave it a
+    strange, romantic charm. It was towards the close of
+    the afternoon that we found ourselves crossing the
+    Dee, in view of Aberdeen. My spirits were wonderfully
+    elated: the grand scenery and fine, bracing air; the
+    noble, distant view of the city, rising with its
+    harbor and shipping,--all filled me with delight.
+    In this propitious state, disposed to be pleased
+    with everything, our hearts responded warmly to the
+    greetings of the many friends who were waiting for us
+    at the station-house.
+
+    The lord provost received us into his carriage, and
+    as we drove along pointed out to us the various
+    objects of interest in the beautiful town. Among other
+    things, a fine old bridge across the Dee attracted our
+    particular attention. We were conducted to the house
+    of Mr. Cruikshank, a Friend, and found waiting for us
+    there the thoughtful hospitality which we had ever
+    experienced in all our stopping-places. A snug little
+    quiet supper was laid out upon the table, of which we
+    partook in haste, as we were informed that the assembly
+    at the hall were waiting to receive us.
+
+    There arrived, we found the hall crowded, and with
+    difficulty made our way to the platform. Whether owing
+    to the stimulating effect of the air from the ocean,
+    or to the comparatively social aspect of the scene,
+    or perhaps to both, certain it is that we enjoyed the
+    meeting with great zest. I was surrounded on the stage
+    with blooming young ladies, one of whom put into my
+    hands a beautiful bouquet, some flowers of which I have
+    now, dried, in my album. The refreshment tables were
+    adorned with some exquisite wax flowers, the work, as
+    I was afterwards told, of a young lady in the place.
+    One of these designs especially interested me. It was a
+    group of water-lilies resting on a mirror, which gave
+    them the appearance of growing in the water.
+
+    We had some very animated speaking, in which the
+    speakers contrived to blend enthusiastic admiration and
+    love for America with detestation of slavery.
+
+    They presented an offering in a beautiful embroidered
+    purse, and after much shaking of hands we went home,
+    and sat down to the supper-table for a little more chat
+    before going to bed. The next morning--as we had only
+    till noon to stay in Aberdeen--our friends, the lord
+    provost and Mr. Leslie, the architect, came immediately
+    after breakfast to show us the place.
+
+    About two o'clock we started from Aberdeen, among
+    crowds of friends, to whom we bade farewell with real
+    regret.
+
+    At Stonehaven station, where we stopped a few minutes,
+    there was quite a gathering of the inhabitants to
+    exchange greetings, and afterwards, at successive
+    stations along the road, many a kindly face and voice
+    made our journey a pleasant one.
+
+    When we got into Dundee it seemed all alive with
+    welcome. We went in the carriage with the lord provost,
+    Mr. Thoms, to his residence, where a party had been
+    waiting dinner for us for some time.
+
+    The meeting in the evening was in a large church,
+    densely crowded, and conducted much as the others had
+    been. When they came to sing the closing hymn, I hoped
+    they would sing Dundee; but they did not, and I fear
+    in Scotland, as elsewhere, the characteristic national
+    melodies are giving way before more modern ones.
+
+    We left Dundee at two o'clock, by cars, for Edinburgh
+    again, and in the evening attended another _soiree_ of
+    the workingmen of Edinburgh. We have received letters
+    from the workingmen, both in Dundee and Glasgow,
+    desiring our return to attend _soirees_ in those
+    cities. Nothing could give us greater pleasure, had we
+    time or strength. The next day we had a few calls to
+    make, and an invitation from Lady Drummond to visit
+    classic Hawthornden, which, however, we had not time
+    to accept. In the forenoon, Mr. S. and I called on
+    Lord and Lady Gainsborough. Though she is one of the
+    queen's household, she is staying here at Edinburgh
+    while the queen is at Osborne. I infer, therefore, that
+    the appointment includes no very onerous duties. The
+    Earl of Gainsborough is the eldest brother of the Rev.
+    Baptist W. Noel.
+
+    It was a rainy, misty morning when I left my kind
+    retreat and friends in Edinburgh. Considerate as
+    everybody had been about imposing on my time or
+    strength, still you may well believe that I was much
+    exhausted. We left Edinburgh, therefore, with the
+    determination to plunge at once into some hidden and
+    unknown spot, where we might spend two or three days
+    quietly by ourselves; and remembering your Sunday at
+    Stratford-on-Avon, I proposed that we should go there.
+    As Stratford, however, is off the railroad line, we
+    determined to accept the invitation, which was lying by
+    us, from our friend, Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, and
+    take sanctuary with him. So we wrote on, intrusting him
+    with the secret, and charging him on no account to let
+    any one know of our arrival.
+
+    About night our cars whizzed into the depot at
+    Birmingham; but just before we came in a difficulty
+    was started in the company. "Mr. Sturge is to be there
+    waiting for us, but he does not know us and we don't
+    know him; what is to be done?" C. insisted that he
+    should know him by instinct; and so, after we reached
+    the depot, we told him to sally out and try. Sure
+    enough, in a few moments he pitched upon a cheerful,
+    middle-aged gentleman, with a moderate but not decisive
+    broad brim to his hat, and challenged him as Mr.
+    Sturge. The result verified the truth that "instinct is
+    a great matter." In a few moments our new friend and
+    ourselves were snugly encased in a fly, trotting off
+    as briskly as ever we could to his place at Edgbaston,
+    nobody a whit the wiser. You do not know how pleased we
+    felt to think we had done it so nicely.
+
+    As we were drinking tea that evening, Elihu Burritt
+    came in. It was the first time I had ever seen him,
+    though I had heard a great deal of him from our
+    friends in Edinburgh. He is a man in middle life,
+    tall and slender, with fair complexion, blue eyes,
+    an air of delicacy and refinement, and manners of
+    great gentleness. My ideas of the "learned blacksmith"
+    had been of something altogether more ponderous and
+    peremptory. Elihu has been for some years operating,
+    in England and on the Continent, in a movement which
+    many in our half-Christianized times regard with as
+    much incredulity as the grim, old warlike barons did
+    the suspicious imbecilities of reading and writing. The
+    sword now, as then, seems so much more direct a way to
+    terminate controversies, that many Christian men, even,
+    cannot conceive how the world is to get along without
+    it.
+
+    We spent the evening in talking over various topics
+    relating to the anti-slavery movement. Mr. Sturge was
+    very confident that something more was to be done
+    than had ever been done yet, by combinations for the
+    encouragement of free in the place of slave grown
+    produce; a question which has, ever since the days
+    of Clarkson, more or less deeply occupied the minds
+    of abolitionists in England. I should say that Mr.
+    Sturge in his family has for many years conscientiously
+    forborne the use of any article produced by slave
+    labor. I could scarcely believe it possible that there
+    could be such an abundance and variety of all that is
+    comfortable and desirable in the various departments
+    of household living within these limits. Mr. Sturge
+    presents the subject with very great force, the more so
+    from the consistency of his example.
+
+    The next morning, as we were sitting down to
+    breakfast, our friends sent in to me a plate of the
+    largest, finest strawberries I have ever seen, which,
+    considering that it was only the latter part of April,
+    seemed to me quite an astonishing luxury.
+
+    Before we left, we had agreed to meet a circle of
+    friends from Birmingham, consisting of the Abolition
+    Society there, which is of long standing, extending
+    back in its memories to the very commencement of the
+    agitation under Clarkson and Wilberforce. The windows
+    of the parlor were opened to the ground; and the
+    company invited filled not only the room, but stood
+    in a crowd on the grass around the window. Among the
+    peaceable company present was an admiral in the navy, a
+    fine, cheerful old gentleman, who entered with hearty
+    interest into the scene.
+
+    A throng of friends accompanied us to the depot, while
+    from Birmingham we had the pleasure of the company of
+    Elihu Burritt, and enjoyed a delightful run to London,
+    where we arrived towards evening.
+
+    At the station-house in London we found the Rev.
+    Messrs. Binney and Sherman waiting for us with
+    carriages. C. went with Mr. Sherman, and Mr. S. and I
+    soon found ourselves in a charming retreat called Rose
+    Cottage, in Walworth, about which I will tell you more
+    anon. Mrs. B. received us with every attention which
+    the most thoughtful hospitality could suggest. One of
+    the first things she said to me after we got into our
+    room was, "Oh, we are so glad you have come! for we
+    are all going to the lord mayor's dinner to-night, and
+    you are invited." So, though I was tired, I hurried
+    to dress in all the glee of meeting an adventure. As
+    soon as Mr. and Mrs. B. and the rest of the party were
+    ready, crack went the whip, round went the wheels, and
+    away we drove.
+
+    We found a considerable throng, and I was glad to
+    accept a seat which was offered me in the agreeable
+    vicinity of the lady mayoress, so that I might see what
+    would be interesting to me of the ceremonial.
+
+    A very dignified gentleman, dressed in black velvet,
+    with a fine head, made his way through the throng, and
+    sat down by me, introducing himself as Lord Chief Baron
+    Pollock. He told me he had just been reading the legal
+    part of the "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," and remarked
+    especially on the opinion of Judge Ruffin, in the case
+    of _State_ v. _Mann_, as having made a deep impression
+    on his mind.
+
+    Dinner was announced between nine and ten o'clock,
+    and we were conducted into a splendid hall, where the
+    tables were laid.
+
+    Directly opposite me was Mr. Dickens, whom I now beheld
+    for the first time, and was surprised to see looking
+    so young. Mr. Justice Talfourd, known as the author
+    of "Ion," was also there with his lady. She had a
+    beautiful, antique cast of head. The lord mayor was
+    simply dressed in black, without any other adornment
+    than a massive gold chain. We rose from table between
+    eleven and twelve o'clock--that is, we ladies--and went
+    into the drawing-room, where I was presented to Mrs.
+    Dickens and several other ladies. Mrs. Dickens is a
+    good specimen of a truly English woman; tall, large,
+    and well developed, with fine, healthy color, and an
+    air of frankness, cheerfulness, and reliability. A
+    friend whispered to me that she was as observing and
+    fond of humor as her husband.
+
+    After a while the gentlemen came back to the
+    drawing-room, and I had a few moments of very pleasant,
+    friendly conversation with Mr. Dickens. They are both
+    people that one could not know a little of without
+    desiring to know more.
+
+    After a little we began to talk of separating; the lord
+    mayor to take his seat in the House of Commons, and the
+    rest of the party to any other engagement that might be
+    upon their list.
+
+    "Come, let us go to the House of Commons," said one
+    of my friends, "and make a night of it." "With all my
+    heart," replied I, "if I only had another body to go
+    into to-morrow."
+
+    What a convenience in sight-seeing it would be if
+    one could have a relay of bodies as of clothes, and
+    slip from one into the other! But we, not used to the
+    London style of turning night into day, are full weary
+    already. So good-night to you all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+FROM OVER THE SEA, 1853.
+
+    THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--ARTHUR HELPS.--THE DUKE AND
+    DUCHESS OF ARGYLL.--MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER.--A
+    MEMORABLE MEETING AT STAFFORD HOUSE.--MACAULAY AND DEAN
+    MILMAN.--WINDSOR CASTLE.--PROFESSOR STOWE RETURNS TO
+    AMERICA.--MRS. STOWE ON THE CONTINENT.--IMPRESSIONS OF
+    PARIS.--EN ROUTE TO SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY.--BACK TO
+    ENGLAND.--HOMEWARD BOUND.
+
+            ROSE COTTAGE, WALWORTH, LONDON, _May 2, 1856._
+
+    MY DEAR,--This morning Mrs. Follen called and we had
+    quite a chat. We are separated by the whole city.
+    She lives at the West End, while I am down here in
+    Walworth, which is one of the postscripts of London,
+    for this place has as many postscripts as a lady's
+    letter. This evening we dined with the Earl of
+    Carlisle. There was no company but ourselves, for he,
+    with great consideration, said in his note that he
+    thought a little quiet would be the best thing he could
+    offer.
+
+    Lord Carlisle is a great friend to America, and so is
+    his sister, the Duchess of Sutherland. He is the only
+    English traveler who ever wrote notes on our country in
+    a real spirit of appreciation.
+
+    We went about seven o'clock, the dinner hour being here
+    somewhere between eight and nine. We were shown into an
+    ante-room adjoining the entrance hall, and from that
+    into an adjacent apartment, where we met Lord Carlisle.
+    The room had a pleasant, social air, warmed and
+    enlivened by the blaze of a coal fire and wax candles.
+
+    We had never, any of us, met Lord Carlisle before; but
+    the considerateness and cordiality of our reception
+    obviated whatever embarrassment there might have
+    been in this circumstance. In a few moments after we
+    were all seated, a servant announced the Duchess of
+    Sutherland, and Lord Carlisle presented me. She is
+    tall and stately, with a most noble bearing. Her fair
+    complexion, blonde hair, and full lips speak of Saxon
+    blood.
+
+    The only person present not of the family connection
+    was my quondam correspondent in America, Arthur Helps.
+    Somehow or other I had formed the impression from his
+    writings that he was a venerable sage of very advanced
+    years, who contemplated life as an aged hermit from the
+    door of his cell. Conceive my surprise to find a genial
+    young gentleman of about twenty-five, who looked as if
+    he might enjoy a joke as well as another man.
+
+    After the ladies left the table, the conversation
+    turned on the Maine law, which seems to be considered
+    over here as a phenomenon in legislation, and many of
+    the gentlemen present inquired about it with great
+    curiosity.
+
+    After the gentlemen rejoined us, the Duke and Duchess
+    of Argyll came in, and Lord and Lady Blantyre. These
+    ladies are the daughters of the Duchess of Sutherland.
+    The Duchess of Argyll is of slight and fairy-like
+    figure, with flaxen hair and blue eyes, answering
+    well enough to the description of Annot Lyle in the
+    Legend of Montrose. Lady Blantyre was somewhat taller,
+    of fuller figure, with a very brilliant bloom. Lord
+    Blantyre is of the Stuart blood, a tall and slender
+    young man with very graceful manners.
+
+    As to the Duke of Argyll, we found that the picture
+    drawn of him by his countrymen in Scotland was in
+    every way correct. Though slight of figure, with
+    fair complexion and blue eyes, his whole appearance
+    is indicative of energy and vivacity. His talents
+    and efficiency have made him a member of the British
+    Cabinet at a much earlier age than is usual; and
+    he has distinguished himself not only in political
+    life, but as a writer, having given to the world a
+    work on Presbyterianism, embracing an analysis of
+    the ecclesiastical history of Scotland since the
+    Reformation, which is spoken of as written with great
+    ability, and in a most liberal spirit. He made many
+    inquiries about our distinguished men, particularly of
+    Emerson, Longfellow, and Hawthorne; also of Prescott,
+    who appears to be a general favorite here. I felt at
+    the moment that we never value our own literary men so
+    much as when we are placed in a circle of intelligent
+    foreigners.
+
+    The following evening we went to dine with our old
+    friends of the Dingle, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Cropper,
+    who are now spending a little time in London. We were
+    delighted to meet them once more and to hear from our
+    Liverpool friends. Mrs. Cropper's father, Lord Denman,
+    has returned to England, though with no sensible
+    improvement in his health.
+
+    At dinner we were introduced to Lord and Lady
+    Hatherton. Lady Hatherton is a person of great
+    cultivation and intelligence, warmly interested in all
+    the progressive movements of the day; and I gained much
+    information in her society. There were also present
+    Sir Charles and Lady Trevelyan; the former holds an
+    appointment at the treasury, and Lady Trevelyan is a
+    sister of Macaulay.
+
+    In the evening quite a circle came in, among others
+    Lady Emma Campbell, sister of the Duke of Argyll; the
+    daughters of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who very
+    kindly invited me to visit them at Lambeth; and Mr.
+    Arthur Helps, besides many others whose names I need
+    not mention.
+
+    _May 7._ This evening our house was opened in a
+    general way for callers, who were coming and going all
+    the evening. I think there must have been over two
+    hundred people, among them Martin Farquhar Tupper, a
+    little man with fresh, rosy complexion and cheery,
+    joyous manners; and Mary Howitt, just such a cheerful,
+    sensible, fireside companion as we find her in her
+    books,--winning love and trust the very first moment of
+    the interview.
+
+    The general topic of remark on meeting me seems to be,
+    that I am not so bad-looking as they were afraid I was;
+    and I do assure you that when I have seen the things
+    that are put up in the shop windows here with my name
+    under them, I have been in wondering admiration at the
+    boundless loving-kindness of my English and Scottish
+    friends in keeping up such a warm heart for such a
+    Gorgon. I should think that the Sphinx in the London
+    Museum might have sat for most of them. I am going to
+    make a collection of these portraits to bring home to
+    you. There is a great variety of them, and they will be
+    useful, like the Irishman's guide-board, which showed
+    where the road did not go.
+
+    Before the evening was through I was talked out and
+    worn out; there was hardly a chip of me left. To-morrow
+    at eleven o'clock comes the meeting at Stafford House.
+    What it will amount to I do not know; but I take no
+    thought for the morrow.
+
+                                                   _May 8._
+
+    MY DEAR C.,--In fulfillment of my agreement I will tell
+    you, as nearly as I can remember, all the details of
+    the meeting at Stafford House. At about eleven o'clock
+    we drove under the arched carriage-way of a mansion
+    externally not very showy in appearance.
+
+    When the duchess appeared, I thought she looked
+    handsomer by daylight than in the evening. She received
+    us with the same warm and simple kindness which she
+    had shown before. We were presented to the Duke of
+    Sutherland. He is a tall, slender man, with rather a
+    thin face, light-brown hair, and a mild blue eye, with
+    an air of gentleness and dignity.
+
+    Among the first that entered were the members of the
+    family, the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, Lord and Lady
+    Blantyre, the Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford, and
+    Lady Emma Campbell. Then followed Lord Shaftesbury with
+    his beautiful lady, and her father and mother, Lord and
+    Lady Palmerston. Lord Palmerston is of middle height,
+    with a keen dark eye and black hair streaked with gray.
+    There is something peculiarly alert and vivacious about
+    all his movements; in short, his appearance perfectly
+    answers to what we know of him from his public life.
+    One has a strange, mythological feeling about the
+    existence of people of whom one hears for many years
+    without ever seeing them. While talking with Lord
+    Palmerston I could but remember how often I had heard
+    father and Mr. S. exulting over his foreign dispatches
+    by our own fireside. There were present, also, Lord
+    John Russell, Mr. Gladstone, and Lord Granville. The
+    latter we all thought very strikingly resembled in his
+    appearance the poet Longfellow.
+
+    After lunch the whole party ascended to the
+    picture-gallery, passing on our way the grand staircase
+    and hall, said to be the most magnificent in Europe.
+    The company now began to assemble and throng the
+    gallery, and very soon the vast room was crowded. Among
+    the throng I remember many presentations, but of course
+    must have forgotten many more. Archbishop Whateley was
+    there, with Mrs. and Miss Whateley; Macaulay, with two
+    of his sisters; Milman, the poet and historian; the
+    Bishop of Oxford, Chevalier Bunsen and lady, and many
+    more.
+
+    When all the company were together, Lord Shaftesbury
+    read a very short, kind, and considerate address in
+    behalf of the ladies of England, expressive of their
+    cordial welcome.
+
+    This Stafford House meeting, in any view of it,
+    is a most remarkable fact. Kind and gratifying as
+    its arrangements have been to me, I am far from
+    appropriating it to myself individually as a personal
+    honor. I rather regard it as the most public expression
+    possible of the feelings of the women of England on one
+    of the most important questions of our day, that of
+    individual liberty considered in its religious bearings.
+
+On this occasion the Duchess of Sutherland presented Mrs. Stowe with a
+superb gold bracelet, made in the form of a slave's shackle, bearing
+the inscription: "We trust it is a memorial of a chain that is soon
+to be broken." On two of the links were inscribed the dates of the
+abolition of the slave-trade and of slavery in English territory. Years
+after its presentation to her, Mrs. Stowe was able to have engraved
+on the clasp of this bracelet, "Constitutional Amendment (forever
+abolishing slavery in the United States)."
+
+Continuing her interesting journal, Mrs. Stowe writes, May 9th:--
+
+    DEAR E.,--This letter I consecrate to you, because I
+    know that the persons and things to be introduced into
+    it will most particularly be appreciated by you.
+
+    In your evening reading circles, Macaulay, Sydney
+    Smith, and Milman have long been such familiar names
+    that you will be glad to go with me over all the scenes
+    of my morning breakfast at Sir Charles Trevelyan's
+    yesterday. Lady Trevelyan, I believe I have said
+    before, is a sister of Macaulay.
+
+    We were set down at Westbourne Terrace somewhere, I
+    believe, about eleven o'clock, and found quite a number
+    already in the drawing-room. I had met Macaulay before,
+    but being seated between him and Dean Milman, I must
+    confess I was a little embarrassed at times, because I
+    wanted to hear what they were both saying at the same
+    time. However, by the use of the faculty by which you
+    play a piano with both hands, I got on very comfortably.
+
+    There were several other persons of note present
+    at this breakfast, whose conversation I had not an
+    opportunity of hearing, as they sat at a distance from
+    me. There was Lord Glenelg, brother of Sir Robert
+    Grant, governor of Bombay, whose beautiful hymns have
+    rendered him familiar in America. The favorite one,
+    commencing
+
+          "When gathering clouds around I view,"
+
+    was from his pen.
+
+    The historian Hallam was also present, and I think it
+    very likely there may have been other celebrities whom
+    I did not know. I am always finding out, a day or two
+    after, that I have been with somebody very remarkable
+    and did not know it at the time.
+
+Under date of May 18th she writes to her sister Mary:--
+
+    DEAR M.,--I can compare the embarrassment of our London
+    life, with its multiplied solicitations and infinite
+    stimulants to curiosity and desire, only to that annual
+    perplexity which used to beset us in our childhood on
+    Thanksgiving Day. Like Miss Edgeworth's philosophic
+    little Frank, we are obliged to make out a list of what
+    man _must_ want, and of what he _may_ want; and in our
+    list of the former we set down, in large and decisive
+    characters, one quiet day for the exploration and
+    enjoyment of Windsor.
+
+    The ride was done all too soon. About eleven o'clock
+    we found ourselves going up the old stone steps to the
+    castle. We went first through the state apartments. The
+    principal thing that interested me was the ball-room,
+    which was a perfect gallery of Vandyke's paintings.
+    After leaving the ball-room we filed off to the proper
+    quarter to show our orders for the private rooms. The
+    state apartments, which we had been looking at, are
+    open at all times, but the private apartments can
+    only be seen in the Queen's absence and by a special
+    permission, which had been procured for us on that
+    occasion by the kindness of the Duchess of Sutherland.
+
+    One of the first objects that attracted my attention
+    upon entering the vestibule was a baby's wicker wagon,
+    standing in one corner. It was much such a carriage as
+    all mothers are familiar with; such as figures largely
+    in the history of almost every family. It had neat
+    curtains and cushions of green merino, and was not
+    royal, only maternal. I mused over the little thing
+    with a good deal of interest.
+
+    We went for our dinner to the White Hart, the very inn
+    which Shakespeare celebrates in his "Merry Wives," and
+    had a most overflowing merry time of it. After dinner
+    we had a beautiful drive.
+
+    We were bent upon looking up the church which gave rise
+    to Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," intending
+    when we got there to have a little scene over it; Mr.
+    S., in all the conscious importance of having been
+    there before, assuring us that he knew exactly where it
+    was. So, after some difficulty with our coachman, and
+    being stopped at one church which would not answer our
+    purpose in any respect, we were at last set down by one
+    which looked authentic; embowered in mossy elms, with a
+    most ancient and goblin yew-tree, an ivy-mantled tower,
+    all perfect as could be. Here, leaning on the old
+    fence, we repeated the Elegy, which certainly applies
+    here as beautifully as language could apply.
+
+    Imagine our chagrin, on returning to London, at
+    being informed that we had not been to the genuine
+    churchyard after all. The gentleman who wept over the
+    scenes of his early days on the wrong doorstep was not
+    more grievously disappointed. However, he and we could
+    both console ourselves with the reflection that the
+    emotion was admirable, and wanted only the right place
+    to make it the most appropriate in the world.
+
+    The evening after our return from Windsor was spent
+    with our kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. Gurney. After
+    breakfast the next day, Mr. S., C., and I drove out to
+    call upon Kossuth. We found him in an obscure lodging
+    on the outskirts of London. I would that some of the
+    editors in America, who have thrown out insinuations
+    about his living in luxury, could have seen the utter
+    bareness and plainness of the reception room, which
+    had nothing in it beyond the simplest necessaries. He
+    entered into conversation with us with cheerfulness,
+    speaking English well, though with the idioms of
+    foreign languages. When we parted he took my hand
+    kindly and said, "God bless you, my child!"
+
+    I have been quite amused with something which has
+    happened lately. This week the "Times" has informed the
+    United Kingdom that Mrs. Stowe is getting a new dress
+    made! It wants to know if Mrs. Stowe is aware what sort
+    of a place her dress is being made in; and there is
+    a letter from a dressmaker's apprentice stating that
+    it is being made up piecemeal, in the most shockingly
+    distressed dens of London, by poor, miserable white
+    slaves, worse treated than the plantation slaves of
+    America!
+
+    Now Mrs. Stowe did not know anything of this, but
+    simply gave the silk into the hands of a friend, and
+    was in due time waited on in her own apartment by
+    a very respectable-appearing woman, who offered to
+    make the dress, and lo, this is the result! Since the
+    publication of this piece, I have received earnest
+    missives, from various parts of the country, begging me
+    to interfere, hoping that I was not going to patronize
+    the white slavery of England, and that I would employ
+    my talents equally against oppression in every form.
+    Could these people only know in what sweet simplicity I
+    had been living in the State of Maine, where the only
+    dressmaker of our circle was an intelligent, refined,
+    well-educated woman who was considered as the equal of
+    us all, and whose spring and fall ministrations to our
+    wardrobe were regarded a double pleasure,--a friendly
+    visit as well as a domestic assistance,--I say, could
+    they know all this, they would see how guiltless I
+    was in the matter. I verily never thought but that
+    the nice, pleasant person who came to measure me for
+    my silk dress was going to take it home and make it
+    herself; it never occurred to me that she was the head
+    of an establishment.
+
+May 22, she writes to her husband, whose duties had obliged him to
+return to America: "To-day we went to hear a sermon in behalf of the
+ragged schools by the Archbishop of Canterbury. My thoughts have
+been much saddened by the news which I received of the death of Mary
+Edmonson."
+
+"_May 30._ The next day from my last letter came off Miss Greenfield's
+concert, of which I send a card. You see in what company they have put
+your poor little wife. Funny!--isn't it? Well, the Hons. and Right
+Hons. all were there. I sat by Lord Carlisle.
+
+"After the concert the duchess asked Lady Hatherton and me to come
+round to Stafford House and take tea, which was not a thing to be
+despised, either on account of the tea or the duchess. A lovelier time
+we never had,--present, the Duchess of Argyll, Lady Caroline Campbell,
+Lady Hatherton, and myself. We had the nicest cup of tea, with such
+cream, and grapes and apricots, with some Italian bread, etc.
+
+"When we were going the duchess got me, on some pretext, into another
+room, and came up and put her arms round me, with her noble face all
+full of feeling.
+
+"'Oh, Mrs. Stowe, I have been reading that last chapter in the "Key";
+Argyll read it aloud to us. Oh, surely, surely you will succeed,--God
+surely will bless you!'
+
+"I said then that I thanked her for all her love and feeling for us,
+told her how earnestly all the women of England sympathized with her,
+and many in America. She looked really radiant and inspired. Had those
+who hang back from our cause seen her face, it might have put a soul
+into them as she said again, 'It will be done--it will be done--oh, I
+trust and pray it may!'
+
+"So we kissed each other, and vowed friendship and fidelity--so I came
+away.
+
+"To-day I am going with Lord Shaftesbury to St. Paul's to see the
+charity children, after which lunch with Dean Milman.
+
+"_May 31._ We went to lunch with Miss R. at Oxford Terrace, where,
+among a number of distinguished guests, was Lady Byron, with whom I had
+a few moments of deeply interesting conversation. No engravings that
+ever have been circulated in America do any justice to her appearance.
+She is of slight figure, formed with exceeding delicacy, and her whole
+form, face, dress, and air unite to make an impression of a character
+singularly dignified, gentle, pure, and yet strong. No words addressed
+to me in any conversation hitherto have made their way to my inner
+soul with such force as a few remarks dropped by her on the present
+religious aspect of England,--remarks of such quality as one seldom
+hears.
+
+"According to request, I will endeavor to keep you informed of all our
+goings-on after you left, up to the time of our departure for Paris.
+
+"We have borne in mind your advice to hasten away to the Continent.
+Charles wrote, a day or two since, to Mrs. C. at Paris to secure very
+private lodgings, and by no means let any one know that we were coming.
+She has replied urging us to come to her house, and promising entire
+seclusion and rest. So, since you departed, we have been passing with
+a kind of comprehensive skip and jump over remaining engagements.
+And just the evening after you left came off the presentation of the
+inkstand by the ladies of Surrey Chapel.
+
+"It is a beautiful specimen of silver-work, eighteen inches long, with
+a group of silver figures on it representing Religion, with the Bible
+in her hand, giving liberty to the slave. The slave is a masterly piece
+of work. He stands with his hands clasped, looking up to Heaven, while
+a white man is knocking the shackles from his feet. But the prettiest
+part of the scene was the presentation of a _gold pen_ by a band of
+beautiful children, one of whom made a very pretty speech. I called
+the little things to come and stand around me, and talked with them a
+few minutes, and this was all the speaking that fell to my share.
+
+"To-morrow we go--go to quiet, to obscurity, to peace--to Paris, to
+Switzerland; there we shall find the loveliest glen, and, as the Bible
+says, 'fall on sleep.'
+
+"_Paris, June 4._ Here we are in Paris, in a most charming family. I
+have been out all the morning exploring shops, streets, boulevards,
+and seeing and hearing life in Paris. When one has a pleasant home and
+friends to return to, this gay, bustling, vivacious, graceful city is
+one of the most charming things in the world; and we _have_ a most
+charming home.
+
+"I wish the children could see these Tuileries with their statues and
+fountains, men, women, and children seated in family groups under the
+trees, chatting, reading aloud, working muslin,--children driving hoop,
+playing ball, all alive and chattering French. Such fresh, pretty girls
+as are in the shops here! _Je suis rave_, as they say. In short I am
+decidedly in a French humor, and am taking things quite _couleur de
+rose_.
+
+"_Monday, June 13._ We went this morning to the studio of M. Belloc,
+who is to paint my portrait. The first question which he proposed,
+with a genuine French air, was the question of 'pose' or position.
+It was concluded that, as other pictures had taken me looking at the
+spectator, this should take me looking away. M. Belloc remarked that M.
+Charpentier said I appeared always with the air of an observer,--was
+always looking around on everything. Hence M. Belloc would take me '_en
+observatrice, mais pas en curieuse_,'--with the air of observation,
+but not of curiosity. By and by M. Charpentier came in. He began
+panegyrizing 'Uncle Tom,' and this led to a discussion of the ground
+of its unprecedented success. In his thirty-five years' experience as
+a bookseller, he had known nothing like it. It surpassed all modern
+writings! At first he would not read it; his taste was for old masters
+of a century or two ago. 'Like M. Belloc in painting,' said I. At
+length he found his friend M., the first intelligence of the age,
+reading it.
+
+"'What, you, too?' said he.
+
+"'Ah, ah!' replied the friend; 'say nothing about this book! There is
+nothing like it. This leaves us all behind,--all, all, miles behind!'
+
+"M. Belloc said the reason was because there was in it more _genuine
+faith_ than in any book; and we branched off into florid eloquence
+touching paganism, Christianity, and art.
+
+"_Wednesday, June 22._ Adieu to Paris! Ho for Chalons-sur-Saone! After
+affectionate farewells of our kind friends, by eleven o'clock we were
+rushing, in the pleasantest of cars, over the smoothest of rails,
+through Burgundy. We arrived at Chalons at nine P. M.
+
+"_Thursday, 23_, eight o'clock A. M. Since five we have had a fine
+bustle on the quay below our windows. There lay three steamers, shaped
+for all the world like our last night's rolls. One would think Ichabod
+Crane might sit astride one of them and dip his feet in the water. They
+ought to be swift. L'Hirondelle (The Swallow) flew at five; another at
+six. We leave at nine.
+
+"_Lyons._ There was a scene of indescribable confusion upon our
+arrival here. Out of the hold of our steamer a man with a rope and hook
+began hauling baggage up a smooth board. Three hundred people were
+sorting their goods without checks. Porters were shouldering immense
+loads, four or five heavy trunks at once, corded together, and stalking
+off Atlantean. Hat-boxes, bandboxes, and valises burst like a meteoric
+shower out of a crater. '_A moi, a moi!_' was the cry, from old men,
+young women, soldiers, shopkeepers, and _freres_, scuffling and shoving
+together.
+
+"_Saturday, June 25._ Lyons to Geneve. As this was our first experience
+in the diligence line, we noticed particularly every peculiarity. I had
+had the idea that a diligence was a ricketty, slow-moulded antediluvian
+nondescript, toiling patiently along over impassable roads at a snail's
+pace. Judge of my astonishment at finding it a full-blooded, vigorous
+monster, of unscrupulous railway momentum and imperturbable equipoise
+of mind. Down the macadamized slopes we thundered at a prodigious
+pace; up the hills we trotted, with six horses, three abreast; madly
+through the little towns we burst, like a whirlwind, crashing across
+the pebbled streets, and out upon the broad, smooth road again. Before
+we had well considered the fact that we were out of Lyons we stopped to
+change horses. Done in a jiffy; and whoop, crick, crack, whack, rumble,
+bump, whirr, whisk, away we blazed, till, ere we knew it, another
+change and another.
+
+"As evening drew on, a wind sprang up and a storm seemed gathering on
+the Jura. The rain dashed against the panes of the berlin as we rode
+past the grim-faced monarch of the 'misty shroud.' It was night as we
+drove into Geneva and stopped at the Messagerie. I heard with joy a
+voice demanding if this were _Madame Besshare_. I replied, not without
+some scruples of conscience, '_Oui, Monsieur, c'est moi_,' though the
+name did not sound exactly like the one to which I had been wont to
+respond. In half an hour we were at home in the mansion of Monsieur
+Fazy."
+
+From Geneva the party made a tour of the Swiss Alps, spending some
+weeks among them. While there Charles Beecher wrote from a small hotel
+at the foot of the Jura:--
+
+"The people of the neighborhood, having discovered who Harriet was,
+were very kind, and full of delight at seeing her. It was Scotland over
+again. We have had to be unflinching to prevent her being overwhelmed,
+both in Paris and Geneva, by the same demonstrations of regard. To
+this we were driven, as a matter of life and death. It was touching to
+listen to the talk of these secluded mountaineers. The good hostess,
+even the servant maids, hung about Harriet, expressing such tender
+interest for the slave. All had read 'Uncle Tom;' and it had apparently
+been an era in their life's monotony, for they said, 'Oh, madam, do
+write another! Remember, our winter nights here are very long!'"
+
+Upon their return to Geneva they visited the Castle of Chillon, of
+which, in describing the dungeons, Mrs. Stowe writes:--
+
+"One of the pillars in this vault is covered with names. I think it
+is Bonnevard's Pillar. There are the names of Byron, Hunt, Schiller,
+and ever so many more celebrities. As we were going from the cell our
+conductress seemed to have a sudden light upon her mind. She asked a
+question or two of some of our party, and fell upon me vehemently to
+put my name also there. Charley scratched it on the soft freestone,
+and there it is for future ages. The lady could scarce repress her
+enthusiasm; she shook my hand over and over again, and said she had
+read 'Uncle Tom.' 'It is beautiful,' she said, 'but it is cruel.'
+
+"_Monday, July 18._ Weather suspicious. Stowed ourselves and our
+baggage into our _voiture_, and bade adieu to our friends and to
+Geneva. Ah, how regretfully! From the market-place we carried away
+a basket of cherries and fruit as a consolation. Dined at Lausanne,
+and visited the cathedral and picture-gallery, where was an exquisite
+_Eva_. Slept at Meudon.
+
+"_Tuesday, July 19._ Rode through Payerne to Freyburg. Stopped at the
+Zaehringer Hof,--most romantic of inns.
+
+"_Wednesday, July 20._ Examined, not the lions, but the bears of Berne.
+Engaged a _voiture_ and drove to Thun. Dined and drove by the shore of
+the lake to Interlachen, arriving just after a brilliant sunset.
+
+"We crossed the Wengern Alps to Grindelwald. The Jungfrau is right over
+against us,--her glaciers purer, tenderer, more dazzlingly beautiful,
+if possible, than those of Mont Blanc. Slept at Grindelwald."
+
+From Rosenlaui, on this journey, Charles Beecher writes:--
+
+"_Friday, July 22._ Grindelwald to Meyringen. On we came, to the top of
+the Great Schiedeck, where H. and W. botanized, while I slept. Thence
+we rode down the mountain till we reached Rosenlaui, where, I am free
+to say, a dinner was to me a more interesting object than a glacier.
+Therefore, while H. and W. went to the latter, I turned off to the inn,
+amid their cries and reproaches.
+
+"Here, then, I am, writing these notes in the _salle a manger_ of
+the inn, where other voyagers are eating and drinking, and there is
+H. feeding on the green moonshine of an emerald ice cave. One would
+almost think her incapable of fatigue. How she skips up and down high
+places and steep places, to the manifest perplexity of the honest
+guide Kienholz, _pere_, who tries to take care of her, but does not
+exactly know how! She gets on a pyramid of debris, which the edge of
+the glacier is plowing and grinding up, sits down, and falls--not
+asleep exactly, but into a trance. W. and I are ready to go on: we
+shout; our voice is lost in the roar of the torrent. We send the guide.
+He goes down, and stands doubtfully. He does not know exactly what to
+do. She hears him, and starts to her feet, pointing with one hand to
+yonder peak, and with the other to that knife-like edge that seems
+cleaving heaven with its keen and glistening cimeter of snow, reminding
+one of Isaiah's sublime imagery, 'For my sword is bathed in heaven.'
+She points at the grizzly rocks, with their jags and spear-points.
+Evidently she is beside herself, and thinks she can remember the names
+of those monsters, born of earthquake and storm, which cannot be named
+nor known but by sight, and then are known at once perfectly and
+forever."
+
+After traveling through Germany, Belgium, and Holland, the party
+returned to Paris toward the end of August, from which place Mrs. Stowe
+writes:--
+
+"I am seated in a snug little room at M. Belloc's. The weather is
+overpoweringly hot, but these Parisian houses seem to have seized and
+imprisoned coolness. French household ways are delightful. I like their
+seclusion from the street by these deep-paned quadrangles.
+
+"Madame Belloc was the translator of Maria Edgeworth, by that lady's
+desire; corresponded with her for years, and still has many of her
+letters. Her translation of 'Uncle Tom' has to me all the merit and all
+the interest of an original composition. In perusing it, I enjoy the
+pleasure of reading the story with scarce any consciousness of its ever
+having been mine."
+
+The next letter is from London _en route_ for America, to which passage
+had been engaged on the Collins steamer Arctic. In it Mrs. Stowe
+writes:--
+
+"_London, August 28._ Our last letters from home changed all our plans.
+We concluded to hurry away by the next steamer, if at that late hour
+we could get a passage. We were all in a bustle. The last shoppings
+for aunts, cousins, and little folks were to be done by us all. The
+Palais Royal was to be rummaged; bronzes, vases, statuettes, bonbons,
+playthings,--all that the endless fertility of France could show,--was
+to be looked over for the 'folks at home.'
+
+"How we sped across the Channel C. relates. We are spending a few very
+pleasant days with our kind friends the L.'s, in London.
+
+"_On board the Arctic, September 7._ On Thursday, September 1, we
+reached York, and visited the beautiful ruins of St. Mary's Abbey,
+and the magnificent cathedral. It rained with inflexible pertinacity
+during all the time we were there, and the next day it rained still,
+when we took the cars for Castle Howard station.
+
+"Lady Carlisle welcomed us most affectionately, and we learned that,
+had we not been so reserved at the York station in concealing our
+names, we should have received a note from her. However, as we were
+safely arrived, it was of no consequence.
+
+"Our friends spoke much of Sumner and Prescott, who had visited there;
+also of Mr. Lawrence, our former ambassador, who had visited them just
+before his return. After a very pleasant day, we left with regret the
+warmth of this hospitable circle, thus breaking one more of the links
+that bind us to the English shore.
+
+"Nine o'clock in the evening found us sitting by a cheerful fire in the
+parlor of Mr. E. Baines at Leeds. The next day the house was filled
+with company, and the Leeds offering was presented.
+
+"Tuesday we parted from our excellent friends in Leeds, and soon found
+ourselves once more in the beautiful "Dingle," our first and last
+resting-place on English shores.
+
+"A deputation from Belfast, Ireland, here met me, presenting a
+beautiful bog-oak casket, lined with gold, and carved with appropriate
+national symbols, containing an offering for the cause of the
+oppressed. They read a beautiful address, and touched upon the
+importance of inspiring with the principles of emancipation the Irish
+nation, whose influence in our land is becoming so great. Had time and
+strength permitted, it had been my purpose to visit Ireland, to revisit
+Scotland, and to see more of England. But it is not in man that
+walketh to direct his steps. And now came parting, leave-taking, last
+letters, notes, and messages.
+
+"Thus, almost sadly as a child might leave its home, I left the shores
+of kind, strong Old England,--the mother of us all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+HOME AGAIN, 1853-1856.
+
+    ANTI-SLAVERY WORK.--STIRRING TIMES IN THE UNITED
+    STATES.--ADDRESS TO THE LADIES OF GLASGOW.--APPEAL TO
+    THE WOMEN OF AMERICA.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH WILLIAM
+    LLOYD GARRISON.--THE WRITING OF "DRED."--FAREWELL
+    LETTER FROM GEORGIANA MAY.--SECOND VOYAGE TO ENGLAND.
+
+
+AFTER her return in the autumn of 1853 from her European tour, Mrs.
+Stowe threw herself heart and soul into the great struggle with
+slavery. Much of her time was occupied in distributing over a wide
+area of country the English gold with which she had been intrusted
+for the advancement of the cause. With this money she assisted in the
+redemption of slaves whose cases were those of peculiar hardship, and
+helped establish them as free men. She supported anti-slavery lectures
+wherever they were most needed, aided in establishing and maintaining
+anti-slavery publications, founded and assisted in supporting schools
+in which colored people might be taught how to avail themselves of the
+blessings of freedom. She arranged public meetings, and prepared many
+of the addresses that should be delivered at them. She maintained such
+an extensive correspondence with persons of all shades of opinion in
+all parts of the world, that the letters received and answered by her
+between 1853 and 1856 would fill volumes. With all these multifarious
+interests, her children received a full share of her attention, nor
+were her literary activities relaxed.
+
+Immediately upon the completion of her European tour, her experiences
+were published in the form of a journal, both in this country and
+England, under the title of "Sunny Memories." She also revised and
+elaborated the collection of sketches which had been published by the
+Harpers in 1843, under title of "The Mayflower," and having purchased
+the plates caused them to be republished in 1855 by Phillips & Sampson,
+the successors of John P. Jewett & Co., in this country, and by Sampson
+Low & Co. in London.
+
+Soon after her return to America, feeling that she owed a debt of
+gratitude to her friends in Scotland, which her feeble health had not
+permitted her adequately to express while with them, Mrs. Stowe wrote
+the following open letter:--
+
+    TO THE LADIES' ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW:
+
+    _Dear Friends_,--I have had many things in my mind
+    to say to you, which it was my hope to have said
+    personally, but which I am now obliged to say by letter.
+
+    I have had many fears that you must have thought our
+    intercourse, during the short time that I was in
+    Glasgow, quite unsatisfactory.
+
+    At the time that I accepted your very kind invitation,
+    I was in tolerable health, and supposed that I should
+    be in a situation to enjoy society, and mingle as much
+    in your social circles as you might desire.
+
+    When the time came for me to fulfil my engagement with
+    you, I was, as you know, confined to my bed with a
+    sickness brought on by the exertion of getting the
+    "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" through the press during the
+    winter.
+
+    In every part of the world the story of "Uncle Tom"
+    had awakened sympathy for the American slave, and
+    consequently in every part of the world the story of
+    his wrongs had been denied; it had been asserted to be
+    a mere work of romance, and I was charged with being
+    the slanderer of the institutions of my own country. I
+    knew that if I shrank from supporting my position, the
+    sympathy which the work had excited would gradually die
+    out, and the whole thing would be looked upon as a mere
+    romantic excitement of the passions.
+
+    When I came abroad, I had not the slightest idea of
+    the kind of reception which was to meet me in England
+    and Scotland. I had thought of something involving
+    considerable warmth, perhaps, and a good deal of
+    cordiality and feeling on the part of friends; but of
+    the general extent of feeling through society, and of
+    the degree to which it would be publicly expressed, I
+    had, I may say, no conception.
+
+    As through your society I was invited to your country,
+    it may seem proper that what communication I have to
+    make to friends in England and Scotland should be made
+    through you.
+
+    In the first place, then, the question will probably
+    arise in your minds, Have the recent demonstrations in
+    Great Britain done good to the anti-slavery cause in
+    America?
+
+    The first result of those demonstrations, as might have
+    been expected, was an intense reaction. Every kind of
+    false, evil, and malignant report has been circulated
+    by malicious and partisan papers; and if there is any
+    blessing in having all manner of evil said against us
+    falsely, we have seemed to be in a fair way to come in
+    possession of it.
+
+    The sanction which was given in this matter to the
+    voice of the people, by the nobility of England and
+    Scotland, has been regarded and treated with special
+    rancor; and yet, in its place, it has been particularly
+    important. Without it great advantages would have
+    been taken to depreciate the value of the national
+    testimony. The value of this testimony in particular
+    will appear from the fact that the anti-slavery cause
+    has been treated with especial contempt by the leaders
+    of society in this country, and every attempt made to
+    brand it with ridicule.
+
+    The effect of making a cause generally unfashionable
+    is much greater in this world than it ought to be. It
+    operates very powerfully with the young and impressible
+    portion of the community; therefore Cassius M. Clay
+    very well said with regard to the demonstration at
+    Stafford House: "It will help our cause by rendering it
+    fashionable."
+
+    With regard to the present state of the anti-slavery
+    cause in America, I think, for many reasons, that it
+    has never been more encouraging. It is encouraging in
+    this respect, that the subject is now fairly up for
+    inquiry before the public mind. And that systematic
+    effort which has been made for years to prevent its
+    being discussed is proving wholly ineffectual.
+
+    The "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" has sold extensively at
+    the South, following in the wake of "Uncle Tom." Not
+    one fact or statement in it has been disproved as yet.
+    I have yet to learn of even an _attempt_ to disprove.
+
+    The "North American Review," a periodical which has
+    never been favorable to the discussion of the slavery
+    question, has come out with a review of "Uncle Tom's
+    Cabin," in which, while rating the book very low as a
+    work of art, they account for its great circulation
+    and success by the fact of its being a true picture of
+    slavery. They go on to say that the system is one so
+    inherently abominable that, unless slaveholders shall
+    rouse themselves and abolish the principle of chattel
+    ownership, they can no longer sustain themselves under
+    the contempt and indignation of the whole civilized
+    world. What are the slaveholders to do when this is the
+    best their friends and supporters can say for them?
+
+    I regret to say that the movements of Christian
+    denominations on this subject are yet greatly behind
+    what they should be. Some movements have been made by
+    religious bodies, of which I will not now speak; but
+    as a general thing the professed Christian church is
+    pushed up to its duty by the world, rather than the
+    world urged on by the church.
+
+    The colored people in this country are rapidly rising
+    in every respect. I shall request Frederick Douglass
+    to send you the printed account of the recent colored
+    convention. It would do credit to any set of men
+    whatever, and I hope you will get some notice taken
+    of it in the papers of the United Kingdom. It is time
+    that the slanders against this unhappy race should be
+    refuted, and it should be seen how, in spite of every
+    social and political oppression, they are rising in the
+    scale of humanity. In my opinion they advance quite as
+    fast as any of the foreign races which have found an
+    asylum among us.
+
+    May God so guide us in all things that our good be not
+    evil spoken of, and that we be left to defend nothing
+    which is opposed to his glory and the good of man!
+
+                      Yours in all sympathy,
+                                           H. B. STOWE.
+
+During the Kansas and Nebraska agitation (1853-54), Mrs. Stowe, in
+common with the abolitionists of the North, was deeply impressed
+with a solemn sense that it was a desperate crisis in the nation's
+history. She was in constant correspondence with Charles Sumner and
+other distinguished statesmen of the time, and kept herself informed
+as to the minutest details of the struggle. At this time she wrote and
+caused to be circulated broadcast the following appeal to the women of
+America:--
+
+"The Providence of God has brought our nation to a crisis of most
+solemn interest.
+
+"A question is now pending in our national legislature which is most
+vitally to affect the temporal and eternal interests, not only of
+ourselves, but of our children and our children's children for ages yet
+unborn. Through our nation it is to affect the interests of liberty and
+Christianity throughout the world.
+
+"Of the woes, the injustice, and the misery of slavery it is not
+needful to speak. There is but one feeling and one opinion upon this
+subject among us all. I do not think there is a mother who clasps her
+child to her breast who would ever be made to feel it right that that
+child should be a slave, not a mother among us who would not rather lay
+that child in its grave.
+
+"Nor can I believe that there is a woman so unchristian as to think
+it right to inflict upon her neighbor's child what she would consider
+worse than death were it inflicted upon her own. I do not believe there
+is a wife who would think it right that _her_ husband should be sold to
+a trader to be worked all his life without wages or a recognition of
+rights. I do not believe there is a husband who would consider it right
+that his wife should be regarded by law the property of another man. I
+do not believe there is a father or mother who would consider it right
+were they forbidden by law to teach their children to read. I do not
+believe there is a brother who would think it right to have his sister
+held as property, with no legal defense for her personal honor, by any
+man living.
+
+"All this is inherent in slavery. It is not the abuse of slavery, but
+its legal nature. And there is not a woman in the United States, where
+the question is fairly put to her, who thinks these things are right.
+
+"But though our hearts have bled over this wrong, there have been
+many things tending to fetter our hands, to perplex our efforts,
+and to silence our voice. We have been told that to speak of it was
+an invasion of the rights of states. We have heard of promises and
+compacts, and the natural expression of feeling has in many cases been
+repressed by an appeal to those honorable sentiments which respect the
+keeping of engagements.
+
+"But a time has now come when the subject is arising under quite a
+different aspect.
+
+"The question is not now, shall the wrongs of slavery exist as they
+have within their own territories, but shall we permit them to be
+extended all over the free territories of the United States? Shall the
+woes and the miseries of slavery be extended over a region of fair,
+free, unoccupied territory nearly equal in extent to the whole of the
+free States?
+
+"Nor is this all! This is not the last thing that is expected or
+intended. Should this movement be submitted to in silence, should the
+North consent to this solemn breach of contract on the part of the
+South, there yet remains one more step to be apprehended, namely, the
+legalizing of slavery throughout the free States. By a decision of the
+supreme court in the Lemmon case, it may be declared lawful for slave
+property to be held in the Northern States. Should this come to pass,
+it is no more improbable that there may be four years hence slave
+depots in New York city than it was four years ago that the South would
+propose a repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
+
+"Women of the free States! the question is not shall we remonstrate
+with slavery on its own soil, but are we willing to receive slavery
+into the free States and Territories of this Union? Shall the whole
+power of these United States go into the hands of slavery? Shall every
+State in the Union be thrown open to slavery? This is the possible
+result and issue of the question now pending. This is the fearful
+crisis at which we stand.
+
+"And now you ask, What can the _women_ of a country do?
+
+"O women of the free States! what did your brave mothers do in the
+days of our Revolution? Did not liberty in those days feel the strong
+impulse of woman's heart?
+
+"There was never a great interest agitating a community where woman's
+influence was not felt for good or for evil. At the time when the
+abolition of the slave-trade was convulsing England, women contributed
+more than any other laborers to that great triumph of humanity. The
+women of England refused to receive into their houses the sugar
+raised by slaves. Seventy thousand families thus refused the use of
+sugar in testimony of their abhorrence of the manner in which it was
+produced. At that time women were unwearied in going from house to
+house distributing books and tracts upon the subject, and presenting it
+clearly and forcibly to thousands of families who would otherwise have
+disregarded it.
+
+"The women all over England were associated in corresponding circles
+for prayer and labor. Petitions to the government were prepared and
+signed by women of every station in all parts of the kingdom.
+
+"Women of America! we do not know with what thrilling earnestness the
+hopes and the eyes of the world are fastened upon our country, and
+how intense is the desire that we should take a stand for universal
+liberty. When I was in England, although I distinctly stated that the
+raising of money was no part of my object there, it was actually forced
+upon me by those who could not resist the impulse to do something
+for this great cause. Nor did it come from the well-to-do alone; but
+hundreds of most affecting letters were received from poor working men
+and women, who inclosed small sums in postage-stamps to be devoted to
+freeing slaves.
+
+"Nor is this deep feeling confined to England alone. I found it in
+France, Switzerland, and Germany. Why do foreign lands regard us with
+this intensity of interest? Is it not because the whole world looks
+hopefully toward America as a nation especially raised by God to
+advance the cause of human liberty and religion?
+
+"There has been a universal expectation that the next step taken by
+America would surely be one that should have a tendency to right this
+great wrong. Those who are struggling for civil and religious liberty
+in Europe speak this word 'slavery' in sad whispers, as one names a
+fault of a revered friend. They can scarce believe the advertisements
+in American papers of slave sales of men, women, and children, traded
+like cattle. Scarcely can they trust their eyes when they read the laws
+of the slave States, and the decisions of their courts. The advocates
+of despotism hold these things up to them and say: 'See what comes
+of republican liberty!' Hitherto the answer has been, 'America is
+more than half free, and she certainly will in time repudiate slavery
+altogether.'
+
+"But what can they say now if, just as the great struggle for human
+rights is commencing throughout Europe, America opens all her
+Territories to the most unmitigated despotism?
+
+"While all the nations of Europe are thus moved on the subject of
+American slavery, shall we alone remain unmoved? Shall we, the wives,
+mothers, and sisters of America, remain content with inaction in such a
+crisis as this?
+
+"The first duty of every American woman at this time is to thoroughly
+understand the subject for herself, and to feel that she is bound to
+use her influence for the right. Then they can obtain signatures to
+petitions to our national legislature. They can spread information
+upon this vital topic throughout their neighborhoods. They can employ
+lecturers to lay the subject before the people. They can circulate the
+speeches of their members of Congress that bear upon the subject, and
+in many other ways they can secure to all a full understanding of the
+present position of our country.
+
+"Above all, it seems to be necessary and desirable that we should
+make this subject a matter of earnest prayer. A conflict is now begun
+between the forces of liberty and despotism throughout the whole world.
+We who are Christians, and believe in the sure word of prophecy, know
+that fearful convulsions and overturnings are predicted before the
+coming of Him who is to rule the earth in righteousness. How important,
+then, in this crisis, that all who believe in prayer should retreat
+beneath the shadow of the Almighty!
+
+"It is a melancholy but unavoidable result of such great encounters
+of principle that they tend to degenerate into sectional and personal
+bitterness. It is this liability that forms one of the most solemn and
+affecting features of the crisis now presented. We are on the eve of a
+conflict which will try men's souls, and strain to the utmost the bonds
+of brotherly union that bind this nation together.
+
+"Let us, then, pray that in the agitation of this question between
+the North and the South the war of principle may not become a mere
+sectional conflict, degenerating into the encounter of physical force.
+Let us raise our hearts to Him who has the power to restrain the wrath
+of men, that He will avert the consequences that our sins as a nation
+so justly deserve.
+
+"There are many noble minds in the South who do not participate in the
+machinations of their political leaders, and whose sense of honor and
+justice is outraged by this proposition equally with our own. While,
+then, we seek to sustain the cause of freedom unwaveringly, let us
+also hold it to be our office as true women to moderate the acrimony
+of political contest, remembering that the slaveholder and the slave
+are alike our brethren, whom the law of God commands us to love as
+ourselves.
+
+"For the sake, then, of our dear children, for the sake of our common
+country, for the sake of outraged and struggling liberty throughout the
+world, let every woman of America now do her duty."
+
+At this same time Mrs. Stowe found herself engaged in an active
+correspondence with William Lloyd Garrison, much of which appeared in
+the columns of his paper, the "Liberator." Late in 1853 she writes to
+him:--
+
+"In regard to you, your paper, and in some measure your party, I am in
+an honest embarrassment. I sympathize with you fully in many of your
+positions. Others I consider erroneous, hurtful to liberty and the
+progress of humanity. Nevertheless, I believe you and those who support
+them to be honest and conscientious in your course and opinions. What
+I fear is that your paper will take from poor Uncle Tom his Bible, and
+give him nothing in its place."
+
+To this Mr. Garrison answers: "I do not understand why the imputation
+is thrown upon the 'Liberator' as tending to rob Uncle Tom of his
+Bible. I know of no writer in its pages who wishes to deprive him of
+it, or of any comfort he may derive from it. It is for him to place
+whatever estimate he can upon it, and for you and me to do the same;
+but for neither of us to accept any more of it than we sincerely
+believe to be in accordance with reason, truth, and eternal right.
+How much of it is true and obligatory, each one can determine only
+for himself; for on Protestant ground there is no room for papal
+infallibility. All Christendom professes to believe in the inspiration
+of the volume, and at the same time all Christendom is by the ears as
+to its real teachings. Surely you would not have me disloyal to my
+conscience. How do you prove that you are not trammeled by educational
+or traditional notions as to the entire sanctity of the book? Indeed,
+it seems to me very evident that you are not free in spirit, in view of
+the apprehension and sorrow you feel because you find your conceptions
+of the Bible controverted in the 'Liberator,' else why such disquietude
+of mind? 'Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just.'"
+
+In answer to this Mrs. Stowe writes:--
+
+    I did not reply to your letter immediately, because
+    I did not wish to speak on so important a subject
+    unadvisedly, or without proper thought and reflection.
+    The greater the interest involved in a truth the more
+    careful, self-distrustful, and patient should be the
+    inquiry.
+
+    I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being
+    sure I had a better one to put in its place, because,
+    such as it is, it is better than nothing. I notice
+    in Mr. Parker's sermons a very eloquent passage on
+    the uses and influences of the Bible. He considers it
+    to embody absolute and perfect religion, and that no
+    better mode for securing present and eternal happiness
+    can be found than in the obedience to certain religious
+    precepts therein recorded. He would have it read and
+    circulated, and considers it, as I infer, a Christian
+    duty to send it to the heathen, the slave, etc. I
+    presume you agree with him.
+
+    These things being supposed about the Bible would
+    certainly make it appear that, if any man deems it
+    his duty to lessen its standing in the eyes of the
+    community, he ought at least to do so in a cautious and
+    reverential spirit, with humility and prayer.
+
+    My objection to the mode in which these things are
+    handled in the "Liberator" is that the general tone
+    and spirit seem to me the reverse of this. If your
+    paper circulated only among those of disciplined and
+    cultivated minds, skilled to separate truth from
+    falsehood, knowing where to go for evidence and how
+    to satisfy the doubts you raise, I should feel less
+    regret. But your name and benevolent labors have given
+    your paper a circulation among the poor and lowly. They
+    have no means of investigating, no habits of reasoning.
+    The Bible, as they at present understand it, is doing
+    them great good, and is a blessing to them and their
+    families. The whole tendency of your mode of proceeding
+    is to lessen their respect and reverence for the Bible,
+    without giving them anything in its place.
+
+    I have no fear of discussion as to its final results
+    on the Bible; my only regrets are for those human
+    beings whose present and immortal interests I think
+    compromised by this manner of discussion. Discussion
+    of the evidence of the authenticity and inspiration
+    of the Bible and of all theology will come more and
+    more, and I rejoice that they will. But I think they
+    must come, as all successful inquiries into truth must,
+    in a calm, thoughtful, and humble spirit; not with
+    bold assertions, hasty generalizations, or passionate
+    appeals.
+
+    [Illustration: Lyman Beecher]
+
+    I appreciate your good qualities none the less though
+    you differ with me on this point. I believe you to be
+    honest and sincere. In Mr. Parker's works I have found
+    much to increase my respect and esteem for him as a
+    man. He comes to results, it is true, to which it would
+    be death and utter despair for me to arrive at. Did I
+    believe as he does about the Bible and Jesus, I were of
+    all creatures most miserable, because I could not love
+    God. I could find no God to love. I would far rather
+    never have been born.
+
+    As to you, my dear friend, you must own that my
+    frankness to you is the best expression of my
+    confidence in your honor and nobleness. Did I not
+    believe that "an excellent spirit" is in you, I would
+    not take the trouble to write all this. If in any
+    points in this note I appear to have misapprehended or
+    done you injustice, I hope you will candidly let me
+    know where and how.
+
+                              Truly your friend,
+                                            H. B. STOWE.
+
+In addition to these letters the following extracts from a subsequent
+letter to Mr. Garrison are given to show in what respect their fields
+of labor differed, and to present an idea of what Mrs. Stowe was doing
+for the cause of freedom besides writing against slavery:--
+
+                                  ANDOVER, MASS., _February 18, 1854._
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--I see and sincerely rejoice in the result of your lecture
+in New York. I am increasingly anxious that all who hate slavery be
+united, if not in form, at least in fact,--a unity in difference. _Our_
+field lies in the church, and as yet I differ from you as to what may
+be done and hoped there. Brother Edward (Beecher) has written a sermon
+that goes to the very root of the decline of moral feeling in the
+church. As soon as it can be got ready for the press I shall have it
+printed, and shall send a copy to every minister in the country.
+
+Our lectures have been somewhat embarrassed by a pressure of new
+business brought upon us by the urgency of the Kansas-Nebraska
+question. Since we began, however, brother Edward has devoted his whole
+time to visiting, consultation, and efforts the result of which will
+shortly be given to the public. We are trying to secure a universal
+arousing of the pulpit.
+
+Dr. Bacon's letter is noble. You must think so. It has been sent to
+every member of Congress. Dr. Kirk's sermon is an advance, and his
+congregation warmly seconded it. Now, my good friend, be willing to see
+that the church is better than you have thought it. Be not unwilling
+to see some good symptoms, and hope that even those who see not at
+all at first will gain as they go on. I am acting on the conviction
+that you love the cause better than self. If anything can be done now
+advantageously by the aid of money, let me know. God has given me some
+power in this way, though I am too feeble to do much otherwise.
+
+                                   Yours for the cause,
+                                                H. B. STOWE.
+
+Although the demand was very great upon Mrs. Stowe for magazine and
+newspaper articles, many of which she managed to write in 1854-55,
+she had in her mind at this time a new book which should be in many
+respects the complement of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In preparing her Key
+to the latter work, she had collected much new material. In 1855,
+therefore, and during the spring of 1856, she found time to weave these
+hitherto unused facts into the story of "Dred." In her preface to the
+English edition of this book she writes:--
+
+"The author's object in this book is to show the general effect of
+slavery on society; the various social disadvantages which it brings,
+even to its most favored advocates; the shiftlessness and misery and
+backward tendency of all the economical arrangements of slave States;
+the retrograding of good families into poverty; the deterioration of
+land; the worse demoralization of all classes, from the aristocratic,
+tyrannical planter to the oppressed and poor white, which is the result
+of the introduction of slave labor.
+
+"It is also an object to display the corruption of Christianity which
+arises from the same source; a corruption that has gradually lowered
+the standard of the church, North and South, and been productive of
+more infidelity than the works of all the encyclopaedists put together."
+
+The story of "Dred" was suggested by the famous negro insurrection,
+led by Nat Turner, in Eastern Virginia in 1831. In this affair one of
+the principal participators was named "Dred." An interesting incident
+connected with the writing of "Dred" is vividly remembered by Mrs.
+Stowe's daughters.
+
+One sultry summer night there arose a terrific thunder-storm, with
+continuous flashes of lightning and incessant rumbling and muttering of
+thunder, every now and then breaking out into sharp, crashing reports
+followed by torrents of rain.
+
+The two young girls, trembling with fear, groped their way down-stairs
+to their mother's room, and on entering found her lying quietly in
+bed awake, and calmly watching the storm from the windows, the shades
+being up. She expressed no surprise on seeing them, but said that
+she had not been herself in the least frightened, though intensely
+interested in watching the storm. "I have been writing a description
+of a thunder-storm for my book, and I am watching to see if I need to
+correct it in any particular." Our readers will be interested to know
+that she had so well described a storm from memory that even this vivid
+object-lesson brought with it no new suggestions. This scene is to be
+found in the twenty-fourth chapter of "Dred,"--"Life in the Swamps."
+
+"The day had been sultry and it was now an hour or two past midnight,
+when a thunder-storm, which had long been gathering and muttering in
+the distant sky, began to develop its forces. A low, shivering sigh
+crept through the woods, and swayed in weird whistlings the tops of
+the pines; and sharp arrows of lightning came glittering down among
+the branches, as if sent from the bow of some warlike angel. An army
+of heavy clouds swept in a moment across the moon; then came a broad,
+dazzling, blinding sheet of flame."
+
+What particularly impressed Mrs. Stowe's daughters at the time was
+their mother's perfect calmness, and the minute study of the storm.
+She was on the alert to detect anything which might lead her to correct
+her description.
+
+Of this new story Charles Summer wrote from the senate chamber:--
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I am rejoiced to learn, from your
+    excellent sister here, that you are occupied with
+    another tale exposing slavery. I feel that it will
+    act directly upon pending questions, and help us in
+    our struggle for Kansas, and also to overthrow the
+    slave-oligarchy in the coming Presidential election. We
+    need your help at once in our struggle.
+
+                               Ever sincerely yours,
+                                           CHARLES SUMNER.
+
+Having finished this second great story of slavery, in the early
+summer of 1856 Mrs. Stowe decided to visit Europe again, in search of
+a much-needed rest. She also found it necessary to do so in order to
+secure the English right to her book, which she had failed to do on
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+Just before sailing she received the following touching letter from her
+life-long friend, Georgiana May. It is the last one of a series that
+extended without interruption over a period of thirty years, and as
+such has been carefully cherished:--
+
+                   OCEAN HOUSE, GROTON POINT, _July 26, 1856._
+
+    DEAR HATTIE,--Very likely it is too late for me to come
+    with my modest knock to your study door, and ask to
+    be taken in for a moment, but I do so want to _bless_
+    you before you go, and I have not been well enough to
+    write until to-day. It seems just as if I _could_ not
+    let you go till I have seen once more your face in the
+    flesh, for great uncertainties hang over my future. One
+    thing, however, is certain: whichever of us two gets
+    first to the farther shore of the great ocean between
+    us and the unseen will be pretty sure to be at hand to
+    welcome the other. It is not poetry, but solemn verity
+    between us that we _shall_ meet again.
+
+    But there is nothing _morbid_ or _morbific_ going into
+    these few lines. I have made "Old Tiff's" acquaintance.
+    _He_ is a verity,--will stand up with Uncle Tom and
+    Topsy, pieces of negro property you will be guilty of
+    holding after you are dead. Very likely your children
+    may be selling them.
+
+    Hattie, I rejoice over this completed work. Another
+    work for God and your generation. I am glad that you
+    have come out of it alive, that you have pleasure in
+    prospect, that you "walk at liberty" and have done
+    with "fits of languishing." Perhaps some day I shall
+    be set free, but the prospect does not look promising,
+    except as I have full faith that "the Good Man above
+    is looking on, and will bring it all round right."
+    Still "heart and flesh" both "fail me." He will be the
+    "strength of my heart," and I never seem to doubt "my
+    portion forever."
+
+    If I never speak to you again, this is the farewell
+    utterance.
+
+                               Yours truly,
+                                     GEORGIANA.
+
+Mrs. Stowe was accompanied on this second trip to Europe by her
+husband, her two eldest daughters, her son Henry, and her sister
+Mary (Mrs. Perkins). It was a pleasant summer voyage, and was safely
+accomplished without special incident.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+DRED, 1856.
+
+    SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND.--A GLIMPSE AT THE QUEEN.--THE
+    DUKE OF ARGYLL AND INVERARY.--EARLY CORRESPONDENCE WITH
+    LADY BYRON.--DUNROBIN CASTLE AND ITS INMATES.--A VISIT
+    TO STOKE PARK.--LORD DUFFERIN.--CHARLES KINGSLEY AT
+    HOME.--PARIS REVISITED.--MADAME MOHL'S RECEPTIONS.
+
+
+AFTER reaching England, about the middle of August, 1856, Mrs. Stowe
+and her husband spent some days in London completing arrangements
+to have an English edition of "Dred" published by Sampson Low & Co.
+Professor Stowe's duties in America being very pressing, he had
+intended returning at once, but was detained for a short time, as will
+be seen in the following letter written by him from Glasgow, August 29,
+to a friend in America:--
+
+    DEAR FRIEND,--I finished my business in London on
+    Wednesday, and intended to return by the Liverpool
+    steamer of to-morrow, but find that every berth on that
+    line is engaged until the 3d of October. We therefore
+    came here yesterday, and I shall take passage in the
+    steamer New York from this port next Tuesday. We have
+    received a special invitation to visit Inverary Castle,
+    the seat of the Duke of Argyll, and yesterday we had
+    just the very pleasantest little interview with the
+    Queen that ever was. None of the formal, drawing-room,
+    breathless receptions, but just an accidental,
+    done-on-purpose meeting at a railway station, while on
+    our way to Scotland.
+
+    The Queen seemed really delighted to see my wife, and
+    remarkably glad to see me for her sake. She pointed us
+    out to Prince Albert, who made two most gracious bows
+    to my wife and two to me, while the four royal children
+    stared their big blue eyes almost out looking at the
+    little authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Colonel Grey
+    handed the Queen, with my wife's compliments, a copy of
+    the new book ("Dred"). She took one volume herself and
+    handed the other to Prince Albert, and they were soon
+    both very busy reading. She is a real nice little body
+    with exceedingly pleasant, kindly manners.
+
+    I expect to be in Natick the last week in September.
+    God bless you all.
+
+                                         C. E. STOWE.
+
+After her husband's departure for the United States, Mrs. Stowe,
+with her son Henry, her two eldest daughters, and her sister Mary
+(Mrs. Perkins), accepted the Duke of Argyll's invitation to visit
+the Highlands. Of this visit we catch a pleasant glimpse from a
+letter written to Professor Stowe during its continuance, which is as
+follows:--
+
+                       INVERARY CASTLE, _September 6, 1856._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--We have been now a week in this
+    delicious place, enjoying the finest skies and scenery,
+    the utmost of kind hospitality. From Loch Goil we took
+    the coach for Inverary, a beautiful drive of about
+    two hours. We had seats on the outside, and the driver
+    John, like some of the White Mountain guides, was full
+    of song and story, and local tradition. He spoke Scotch
+    and Gaelic, recited ballads, and sung songs with great
+    gusto. Mary and the girls stopped in a little inn at
+    St. Catherine's, on the shores of Loch Fine, while
+    Henry and I took steamboat for Inverary, where we found
+    the duchess waiting in a carriage for us, with Lady
+    Emma Campbell....
+
+    The common routine of the day here is as follows: We
+    rise about half past eight. About half past nine we
+    all meet in the dining-hall, where the servants are
+    standing in a line down one side, and a row of chairs
+    for guests and visitors occupies the other. The duchess
+    with her nine children, a perfectly beautiful little
+    flock, sit together. The duke reads the Bible and a
+    prayer, and pronounces the benediction. After that,
+    breakfast is served,--a very hearty, informal, cheerful
+    meal,--and after that come walks, or drives, or fishing
+    parties, till lunch time, and then more drives, or
+    anything else: everybody, in short, doing what he likes
+    till half past seven, which is the dinner hour. After
+    that we have coffee and tea in the evening.
+
+    The first morning, the duke took me to see his mine
+    of nickel silver. We had a long and beautiful drive,
+    and talked about everything in literature, religion,
+    morals, and the temperance movement, about which last
+    he is in some state of doubt and uncertainty, not
+    inclining, I think, to have it pressed yet, though
+    feeling there is need of doing something.
+
+    If "Dred" has as good a sale in America as it is likely
+    to have in England, we shall do well. There is such
+    a demand that they had to placard the shop windows in
+    Glasgow with,--
+
+       "To prevent disappointment,
+                'Dred'
+        Not to be had till," etc.
+
+    Everybody is after it, and the prospect is of an
+    enormous sale.
+
+    God, to whom I prayed night and day while I was writing
+    the book, has heard me, and given us of worldly goods
+    more _than_ I asked. I feel, therefore, a desire to
+    "walk softly," and inquire, for what has He so trusted
+    us?
+
+    Every day I am more charmed with the duke and duchess;
+    they are simple-hearted, frank, natural, full of
+    feeling, of piety, and good sense. They certainly are,
+    apart from any considerations of rank or position, most
+    interesting and noble people. The duke laughed heartily
+    at many things I told him of our Andover theological
+    tactics, of your preaching, etc.; but I think he is a
+    sincere, earnest Christian.
+
+    Our American politics form the daily topic of interest.
+    The late movements in Congress are discussed with great
+    warmth, and every morning the papers are watched for
+    new details.
+
+    I must stop now, as it is late and we are to leave here
+    early to-morrow morning. We are going to Staffa, Iona,
+    the Pass of Glencoe, and finally through the Caledonian
+    Canal up to Dunrobin Castle, where a large party of all
+    sorts of interesting people are gathered around the
+    Duchess of Sutherland.
+
+                            Affectionately yours,
+                                             HARRIET.
+
+From Dunrobin Castle one of his daughters writes to Professor Stowe:
+"We spent five most delightful days at Inverary, and were so sorry
+you could not be there with us. From there we went to Oban, and spent
+several days sight-seeing, finally reaching Inverness by way of the
+Caledonian Canal. Here, to our surprise, we found our rooms at the
+hotel all prepared for us. The next morning we left by post for
+Dunrobin, which is fifty-nine miles from Inverness. At the borders of
+the duke's estate we found a delightfully comfortable carriage awaiting
+us, and before we had gone much farther the postilion announced that
+the duchess was coming to meet us. Sure enough, as we looked up the
+road we saw a fine cavalcade approaching. It consisted of a splendid
+coach-and-four (in which sat the duchess) with liveried postilions, and
+a number of outriders, one of whom rode in front to clear the way. The
+duchess seemed perfectly delighted to see mamma, and taking her into
+her own carriage dashed off towards the castle, we following on behind."
+
+At Dunrobin Mrs. Stowe found awaiting her the following note from her
+friend, Lady Byron:--
+
+                             LONDON, _September 10, 1856._
+
+    Your book, dear Mrs. Stowe, is of the "little leaven"
+    kind, and must prove a great moral force,--perhaps not
+    manifestly so much as secretly, and yet I can hardly
+    conceive so much power without immediate and sensible
+    effects; only there will be a strong disposition to
+    resist on the part of all the hollow-hearted professors
+    of religion, whose heathenisms you so unsparingly
+    expose. They have a class feeling like others. To the
+    young, and to those who do not reflect much on what
+    is offered to their belief, you will do great good by
+    showing how spiritual food is adulterated. The Bread
+    from Heaven is in the same case as baker's bread. I
+    feel that one perusal is not enough. It is a "mine," to
+    use your own simile. If there is truth in what I heard
+    Lord Byron say, that works of fiction _lived_ only by
+    the amount of _truth_ which they contained, your story
+    is sure of long life....
+
+    I know now, more than before, how to value communion
+    with you.
+
+    With kind regards to your family,
+                     Yours affectionately,
+                                     A. T. NOEL BYRON.
+
+From this pleasant abiding-place Mrs. Stowe writes to her husband:--
+
+                    DUNROBIN CASTLE, _September 15, 1856._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Everything here is like a fairy
+    story. The place is beautiful! It is the most perfect
+    combination of architectural and poetic romance,
+    with home comfort. The people, too, are charming. We
+    have here Mr. Labouchere, a cabinet minister, and
+    Lady Mary his wife,--I like him very much, and her,
+    too,--Kingsley's brother, a very entertaining man, and
+    to-morrow Lord Ellsmere is expected. I wish you could
+    be here, for I am sure you would like it. Life is so
+    quiet and sincere and friendly, that you would feel
+    more as if you had come at the hearts of these people
+    than in London.
+
+    The Sutherland estate looks like a garden. We stopped
+    at the town of Frain, four miles before we reached
+    Sutherlandshire, where a crowd of well-to-do,
+    nice-looking people gathered around the carriage, and
+    as we drove off gave three cheers. This was better than
+    I expected, and looks well for their opinion of my
+    views.
+
+    "Dred" is selling over here wonderfully. Low says, with
+    all the means at his command, he has not been able to
+    meet the demand. He sold fifty thousand in two weeks,
+    and probably will sell as many more.
+
+    I am showered with letters, private and printed, in
+    which the only difficulty is to know what the writers
+    would be at. I see evidently happiness and prosperity
+    all through the line of this estate. I see the duke
+    giving his thought and time, and spending the whole
+    income of this estate in improvements upon it. I see
+    the duke and duchess evidently beloved wherever they
+    move. I see them most amiable, most Christian, most
+    considerate to everybody. The writers of the letters
+    admit the goodness of the duke, but denounce the
+    system, and beg me to observe its effects for myself.
+    I do observe that, compared with any other part of
+    the Highlands, Sutherland is a garden. I observe
+    well-clothed people, thriving lands, healthy children,
+    fine schoolhouses, and all that.
+
+    Henry was invited to the tenants' dinner, where he
+    excited much amusement by pledging every toast in fair
+    water, as he has done invariably on all occasions since
+    he has been here.
+
+    The duchess, last night, showed me her copy of "Dred,"
+    in which she has marked what most struck or pleased
+    her. I begged it, and am going to send it to you. She
+    said to me this morning at breakfast, "The Queen says
+    that she began 'Dred' the very minute she got it, and
+    is deeply interested in it."
+
+    She bought a copy of Lowell's poems, and begged me to
+    mark the best ones for her; so if you see him, tell him
+    that we have been reading him together. She is, taking
+    her all in all, one of the noblest-appointed women I
+    ever saw; real old, genuine English, such as one reads
+    of in history; full of nobility, courage, tenderness,
+    and zeal. It does me good to hear her read prayers
+    daily, as she does, in the midst of her servants and
+    guests, with a manner full of grand and noble feeling.
+
+    _Thursday Morning, September 25._ We were obliged to
+    get up at half past five the morning we left Dunrobin,
+    an effort when one doesn't go to bed till one o'clock.
+    We found breakfast laid for us in the library, and
+    before we had quite finished the duchess came in.
+    Our starting off was quite an imposing sight. First
+    came the duke's landau, in which were Mary, the duke,
+    and myself; then a carriage in which were Eliza and
+    Hatty, and finally the carriage which we had hired,
+    with Henry, our baggage, and Mr. Jackson (the duke's
+    secretary). The gardener sent a fresh bouquet for each
+    of us, and there was such a leave-taking, as if we were
+    old and dear friends. We did really love them, and had
+    no doubt of their love for us.
+
+    The duke rode with us as far as Dornach, where he
+    showed us the cathedral beneath which his ancestors are
+    buried, and where is a statue of his father, similar to
+    one the tenants have erected on top of the highest hill
+    in the neighborhood.
+
+    We also saw the prison, which had but two inmates,
+    and the old castle. Here the duke took leave of us,
+    and taking our own carriage we crossed the ferry and
+    continued on our way. After a very bad night's rest at
+    Inverness, in consequence of the town's being so full
+    of people attending some Highland games that we could
+    have no places at the hotel, and after a weary ride in
+    the rain, we came into Aberdeen Friday night.
+
+    To-morrow we go on to Edinburgh, where I hope to meet
+    a letter from you. The last I heard from Low, he had
+    sold sixty thousand of "Dred," and it was still selling
+    well. I have not yet heard from America how it goes.
+    The critics scold, and whiffle, and dispute about it,
+    but on the whole it is a success, so the "Times" says,
+    with much coughing, hemming, and standing first on one
+    foot and then on the other. If the "Times" were sure we
+    should beat in the next election, "Dred" would go up in
+    the scale; but as long as there is that uncertainty, it
+    has first one line of praise, and then one of blame.
+
+Henry Stowe returned to America in October to enter Dartmouth College,
+while the rest of the party pursued their way southward, as will be
+seen by the following letters:--
+
+                           CITY OF YORK, _October 10, 1856._
+
+    DEAR HUSBAND,--Henry will tell you all about our
+    journey, and at present I have but little time for
+    details. I received your first letter with great joy,
+    relief, and gratitude, first to God for restoring your
+    health and strength, and then to you for so good, long,
+    and refreshing a letter.
+
+    Henry, I hope, comes home with a serious determination
+    to do well and be a comfort. Seldom has a young man
+    seen what he has in this journey, or made more valuable
+    friends.
+
+    Since we left Aberdeen, from which place my last was
+    mailed, we have visited in Edinburgh with abounding
+    delight; thence yesterday to Newcastle. Last night
+    attended service in Durham Cathedral, and after that
+    came to York, whence we send Henry to Liverpool.
+
+    I send you letters, etc., by him. One hundred thousand
+    copies of "Dred" sold in four weeks! After that who
+    cares what critics say? Its success in England has
+    been complete, so far as sale is concerned. It is very
+    bitterly attacked, both from a literary and a religious
+    point of view. The "Record" is down upon it with a
+    cartload of solemnity; the "Athenaeum" with waspish
+    spite; the "Edinburgh" goes out of its way to say that
+    the author knows nothing of the society she describes;
+    but yet it goes everywhere, is read everywhere, and
+    Mr. Low says that he puts the hundred and twenty-fifth
+    thousand to press confidently. The fact that so many
+    good judges like it better than "Uncle Tom" is success
+    enough.
+
+    In my journal to Henry, which you may look for next
+    week, you will learn how I have been very near the
+    Queen, and formed acquaintance with divers of her lords
+    and ladies, and heard all she has said about "Dred;"
+    how she prefers it to "Uncle Tom," how she inquired for
+    you, and other matters.
+
+    Till then, I am, as ever, your affectionate wife,
+
+                                             H. B. STOWE.
+
+After leaving York, Mrs. Stowe and her party spent a day or two at
+Carlton Rectory, on the edge of Sherwood Forest, in which they enjoyed
+a most delightful picnic. From there they were to travel to London by
+way of Warwick and Oxford, and of this journey Mrs. Stowe writes as
+follows to her son Henry:--
+
+"The next morning we were induced to send our things to London, being
+assured by Mr. G. that he would dispatch them immediately with some
+things of his own that were going, and that they should certainly await
+us upon our arrival. In one respect it was well for us that we thus rid
+ourselves of the trouble of looking after them, for I never saw such
+blind, confusing arrangements as these English railroads have.
+
+"When we were set down at the place where we were to change for
+Warwick, we were informed that probably the train had gone. At any rate
+it could only be found on the other side of the station. You might
+naturally think we had nothing to do but walk across to the other side.
+No, indeed! We had to ascend a flight of stairs, go through a sort of
+tubular bridge, and down another pair of stairs. When we got there
+the guard said the train was just about to start, and yet the ticket
+office was closed. We tried the door in vain. 'You must hurry,' said
+the guard. 'How can we?' said I, 'when we can't get tickets.' He went
+and thumped, and at last roused the dormant intelligence inside. We got
+our tickets, ran for dear life, got in, and then _waited ten minutes_!
+Arrived at Warwick we had a very charming time, and after seeing all
+there was to see we took cars for Oxford.
+
+"The next day we tried to see Oxford. You can have no idea of it.
+Call it a college! it is a city of colleges,--a mountain of museums,
+colleges, halls, courts, parks, chapels, lecture-rooms. Out of
+twenty-four colleges we saw only three. We saw enough, however, to show
+us that to explore the colleges of Oxford would take a week. Then we
+came away, and about eleven o'clock at night found ourselves in London.
+
+"It was dripping and raining here, for all the world, just as it did
+when we left; but we found a cosy little parlor, papered with cheerful
+crimson paper, lighted by a coal-fire, a neat little supper laid out,
+and the Misses Low waiting; for us. Wasn't it nice?
+
+"We are expecting our baggage to-night. Called at Sampson Low's store
+to-day and found it full everywhere of red 'Dreds.'"
+
+Upon reaching London Mrs. Stowe found the following note from Lady
+Byron awaiting her:--
+
+                          OXFORD HOUSE, _October 15, 1856._
+
+    DEAR MRS. STOWE,--The newspapers represent you as
+    returning to London, but I cannot wait for the chance,
+    slender I fear, of seeing you there, for I wish to
+    consult you on a point admitting but of little delay.
+    Feeling that the sufferers in Kansas have a claim not
+    only to sympathy, but to the expression of it, I wish
+    to send them a donation. It is, however, necessary to
+    know what is the best application of money and what
+    the safest channel. Presuming that you will approve
+    the object, I ask you to tell me. Perhaps you would
+    undertake the transmission of my L50. My present
+    residence, two miles beyond Richmond, is opposite. I
+    have watched for instructions of your course with warm
+    interest. The sale of your book will go on increasing.
+    It is beginning to be understood.
+
+    Believe me, with kind regards to your daughters,
+
+                   Your faithful and affectionate
+                                        A. T. NOEL BYRON.
+
+To this note the following answer was promptly returned:--
+
+         GROVE TERRACE, KENTISH TOWN, _October 16, 1856._
+
+    DEAR LADY BYRON,--How glad I was to see your
+    handwriting once more! how more than glad I should be
+    to see _you!_ I do long to see you. I have so much to
+    say,--so much to ask, and need to be refreshed with a
+    sense of a congenial and sympathetic soul.
+
+    Thank you, my dear friend, for your sympathy with our
+    poor sufferers in Kansas. May God bless you for it! By
+    doing this you will step to my side; perhaps you may
+    share something of that abuse which they who "know not
+    what they do" heap upon all who so feel for the right.
+    I assure you, dear friend, I am _not_ insensible to the
+    fiery darts which thus fly around me....
+
+    Direct as usual to my publishers, and believe me, as
+    ever, with all my heart,
+
+                    Affectionately yours,       H. B. S.
+
+Having dispatched this note, Mrs. Stowe wrote to her husband concerning
+their surroundings and plans as follows:--
+
+"_Friday, 16th._ Confusion in the camp! no baggage come, nobody
+knows why; running to stations, inquiries, messages, and no baggage.
+Meanwhile we have not even a clean collar, nothing but very soiled
+traveling dresses; while Lady Mary Labouchere writes that her carriage
+will wait for us at Slough Station this afternoon, and we must be off
+at two. What's to be done? Luckily I did not carry all my dresses to
+Dunrobin; so I, of all the party, have a dress that can be worn. We go
+out and buy collars and handkerchiefs, and two o'clock beholds us at
+the station house.
+
+"_Stoke Park._ I arrived here alone, the baggage not having yet been
+heard from. Mr. G., being found in London, confessed that he delayed
+sending it by the proper train. In short, Mr. G. is what is called
+an easy man, and one whose easiness makes everybody else uneasy. So
+because he was easy and thought it was no great matter, and things
+would turn out well enough, without any great care, _we_ have had all
+this discomfort.
+
+"I arrived alone at the Slough Station and found Lady Mary's carriage
+waiting. Away we drove through a beautiful park full of deer, who
+were so tame as to stand and look at us as we passed. The house is in
+the Italian style, with a dome on top, and wide terraces with stone
+balustrades around it.
+
+"Lady Mary met me at the door, and seemed quite concerned to learn
+of our ill-fortune. We went through a splendid suite of rooms to a
+drawing-room, where a little tea-table was standing.
+
+"After tea Lady Mary showed me my room. It had that delightful,
+homelike air of repose and comfort they succeed so well in giving to
+rooms here. There was a cheerful fire burning, an arm-chair drawn up
+beside it, a sofa on the other side with a neatly arranged sofa-table
+on which were writing materials. One of the little girls had put
+a pot of pretty greenhouse moss in a silver basket on this table,
+and my toilet cushion was made with a place in the centre to hold a
+little vase of flowers. Here Lady Mary left me to rest before dressing
+for dinner. I sat down in an easy-chair before the fire, and formed
+hospitable resolutions as to how I would try to make rooms always look
+homelike and pleasant to tired guests. Then came the maid to know if
+I wanted hot water,--if I wanted anything,--and by and by it was time
+for dinner. Going down into the parlor I met Mr. Labouchere and we all
+went in to dinner. It was not quite as large a party as at Dunrobin,
+but much in the same way. No company, but several ladies who were all
+family connections.
+
+"The following morning Lord Dufferin and Lord Alfred Paget, two
+gentlemen of the Queen's household, rode over from Windsor to lunch
+with us. They brought news of the goings-on there. Do you remember one
+night the Duchess of S. read us a letter from Lady Dufferin, describing
+the exploits of her son, who went yachting with Prince Napoleon up by
+Spitzbergen, and when Prince Napoleon and all the rest gave up and went
+back, still persevered and discovered a new island? Well, this was the
+same man. A thin, slender person, not at all the man you would fancy as
+a Mr. Great Heart,--lively, cheery, and conversational.
+
+"Lord Alfred is also very pleasant.
+
+"Lady Mary prevailed on Lord Dufferin to stay and drive with us after
+lunch, and we went over to Clifden, the duchess's villa, of which we
+saw the photograph at Dunrobin. For grace and beauty some of the rooms
+in this place exceed any I have yet seen in England.
+
+"When we came back my first thought was whether Aunt Mary and the
+girls had come. Just as we were all going up to dress for dinner they
+appeared. Meanwhile, the Queen had sent over from Windsor for Lady Mary
+and her husband to dine with her that evening, and such invitations are
+understood as commands.
+
+"So, although they themselves had invited four or five people to
+dinner, they had to go and leave us to entertain ourselves. Lady
+Mary was dressed very prettily in a flounced white silk dress with a
+pattern of roses woven round the bottom of each flounce, and looked
+very elegant. Mr. Labouchere wore breeches, with knee and shoe buckles
+sparkling with diamonds.
+
+"They got home soon after we had left the drawing-room, as the Queen
+always retires at eleven. No late hours for her.
+
+"The next day Lady Mary told me that the Queen had talked to her all
+about 'Dred,' and how she preferred it to 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' how
+interested she was in Nina, how provoked when she died, and how she
+was angry that something dreadful did not happen to Tom Gordon. She
+inquired for papa, and the rest of the family, all of whom she seemed
+to be well informed about.
+
+"The next morning we had Lord Dufferin again to breakfast. He is one of
+the most entertaining young men I have seen in England, full of real
+thought and noble feeling, and has a wide range of reading. He had read
+all our American literature, and was very flattering in his remarks
+on Hawthorne, Poe, and Longfellow. I find J. R. Lowell less known,
+however, than he deserves to be.
+
+"Lord Dufferin says that his mother wrote him some verses on his coming
+of age, and that he built a tower for them and inscribed them on a
+brass plate. I recommend the example to you, Henry; make yourself the
+tower and your memory the brass plate.
+
+"This morning came also, to call, Lady Augusta Bruce, Lord Elgin's
+daughter, one of the Duchess of Kent's ladies-in-waiting; a very
+excellent, sensible girl, who is a strong anti-slavery body.
+
+"After lunch we drove over to Eton, and went in to see the provost's
+house. After this, as we were passing by Windsor the coachman suddenly
+stopped and said, 'The Queen is coming, my lady.' We stood still and
+the royal cortege passed. I only saw the Queen, who bowed graciously.
+
+"Lady Mary stayed at our car door till it left the station, and handed
+in a beautiful bouquet as we parted. This is one of the loveliest
+visits I have made."
+
+After filling a number of other pleasant engagements in England, among
+which was a visit in the family of Charles Kingsley, Mrs. Stowe and her
+party crossed the Channel and settled down for some months in Paris for
+the express purpose of studying French. From the French capital she
+writes to her husband in Andover as follows:--
+
+                                 PARIS, _November 7, 1856._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--On the 28th, when your last was
+    written, I was at Charles Kingsley's. It seemed odd
+    enough to Mary and me to find ourselves, long after
+    dark, alone in a hack, driving towards the house of a
+    man whom we never had seen (nor his wife either).
+
+    My heart fluttered as, after rumbling a long way
+    through the dark, we turned into a yard. We knocked at
+    a door and were met in the hall by a man who stammers
+    a little in his speech, and whose inquiry, "Is this
+    Mrs. Stowe?" was our first positive introduction.
+    Ushered into a large, pleasant parlor lighted by a coal
+    fire, which flickered on comfortable chairs, lounges,
+    pictures, statuettes, and book-cases, we took a good
+    view of him. He is tall, slender, with blue eyes, brown
+    hair, and a hale, well-browned face, and somewhat
+    loose-jointed withal. His wife is a real Spanish beauty.
+
+    How we did talk and go on for three days! I guess he
+    is tired. I'm sure we were. He is a nervous, excitable
+    being, and talks with head, shoulders, arms, and
+    hands, while his hesitance makes it the harder. Of his
+    theology I will say more some other time. He, also,
+    has been through the great distress, the "Conflict
+    of Ages," but has come out at a different end from
+    Edward, and stands with John Foster, though with more
+    positiveness than he.
+
+    He laughed a good deal at many stories I told him of
+    father, and seemed delighted to hear about him. But he
+    is, what I did not expect, a zealous Churchman; insists
+    that the Church of England is the finest and broadest
+    platform a man can stand on, and that the thirty-nine
+    articles are the only ones he could subscribe to.
+    I told him you thought them the best summary (of
+    doctrine) you knew, which pleased him greatly.
+
+    Well, I got your letter to-night in Paris, at No. 19
+    Rue de Clichy, where you may as well direct your future
+    letters.
+
+    We reached Paris about eleven o'clock last night and
+    took a carriage for 17 Rue de Clichy, but when we got
+    there, no ringing or pounding could rouse anybody.
+    Finally, in despair, we remembered a card that had been
+    handed into the cars by some hotel-runner, and finding
+    it was of an English and French hotel, we drove there,
+    and secured very comfortable accommodations. We did not
+    get to bed until after two o'clock. The next morning I
+    sent a messenger to find Mme. Borione, and discovered
+    that we had mistaken the number, and should have gone
+    to No. 19, which was the next door; so we took a
+    carriage and soon found ourselves established here,
+    where we have a nice parlor and two bedrooms.
+
+    There are twenty-one in the family, mostly Americans,
+    like ourselves, come to learn to speak French. One of
+    them is a tall, handsome, young English lady, Miss
+    Durant, who is a sculptress, studying with Baron de
+    Triqueti. She took me to his studio, and he immediately
+    remarked that she ought to get me to sit. I said
+    I would, "only my French lessons." "Oh," said he,
+    smiling, "we will give you French lessons while you
+    sit." So I go to-morrow morning.
+
+    As usual, my horrid pictures do me a service, and
+    people seem relieved when they see me; think me even
+    handsome "in a manner." Kingsley, in his relief,
+    expressed as much to his wife, and as beauty has never
+    been one of my strong points I am open to flattery upon
+    it.
+
+    We had a most agreeable call from Arthur Helps before
+    we left London. He, Kingsley, and all the good people
+    are full of the deepest anxiety for our American
+    affairs. They really do feel very deeply, seeing the
+    peril so much plainer than we do in America.
+
+    _Sunday night._ I fear I have delayed your letter too
+    long. The fact is, that of the ten days I have been
+    here I have been laid up three with severe neuralgia,
+    viz., _toothache in the backbone_, and since then have
+    sat all day to be modeled for my bust.
+
+    We spent the other evening with Baron de Triqueti,
+    the sculptor. He has an English wife, and a charming
+    daughter about the age of our girls. Life in Paris is
+    altogether more simple and natural than in England.
+    They give you a plate of cake and a cup of tea in the
+    most informal, social way,--the tea-kettle sings at the
+    fire, and the son and daughter busy themselves gayly
+    together making and handing tea. When tea was over, M.
+    de Triqueti showed us a manuscript copy of the Gospels,
+    written by his mother, to console herself in a season
+    of great ill-health, and which he had illustrated all
+    along with exquisite pen-drawings, resembling the most
+    perfect line engravings. I can't describe the beauty,
+    grace, delicacy, and fullness of devotional feeling in
+    these people. He is one of the loveliest men I ever saw.
+
+    We have already three evenings in the week in which we
+    can visit and meet friends if we choose, namely, at
+    Madame Mohl's, Madame Lanziel's, and Madame Belloc's.
+    All these salons are informal, social gatherings, with
+    no fuss of refreshments, no nonsense of any kind. Just
+    the cheeriest, heartiest, kindest little receptions you
+    ever saw.
+
+    A kiss to dear little Charley. If he could see all the
+    things that I see every day in the Tuileries and Champs
+    Elysees, he would go wild. All Paris is a general
+    whirligig out of doors, but indoors people seem steady,
+    quiet, and sober as anybody.
+
+    _November 30._ This is Sunday evening, and a Sunday
+    in Paris always puts me in mind of your story about
+    somebody who said, "Bless you! they make such a
+    noise that the Devil couldn't meditate." All the
+    extra work and odd jobs of life are put into Sunday.
+    Your washerwoman comes Sunday, with her innocent,
+    good-humored face, and would be infinitely at a
+    loss to know why she shouldn't. Your bonnet, cloak,
+    shoes, and everything are sent home Sunday morning,
+    and all the way to church there is such whirligiging
+    and pirouetting along the boulevards as almost takes
+    one's breath away. To-day we went to the Oratoire to
+    hear M. Grand Pierre. I could not understand much; my
+    French ear is not quick enough to follow. I could only
+    perceive that the subject was "La Charite," and that
+    the speaker was fluent, graceful, and earnest, the
+    audience serious and attentive.
+
+    Last night we were at Baron de Triqueti's again, with a
+    party invited to celebrate the birthday of their eldest
+    daughter, Blanche, a lovely girl of nineteen. There
+    were some good ladies there who had come eighty leagues
+    to meet me, and who were so delighted with my miserable
+    French that it was quite encouraging. I believe I am
+    getting over the sandbar at last, and conversation is
+    beginning to come easy to me.
+
+    There were three French gentlemen who had just been
+    reading "Dred" in English, and who were as excited
+    and full of it as could be, and I talked with them to
+    a degree that astonished myself. There is a review
+    of "Dred" in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" which has
+    long extracts from the book, and is written in a very
+    appreciative and favorable spirit. Generally speaking,
+    French critics seem to have a finer appreciation of my
+    subtle shades of meaning than English. I am curious
+    to hear what Professor Park has to say about it.
+    There has been another review in "La Presse" equally
+    favorable. All seem to see the truth about American
+    slavery much plainer than people can who are in it. If
+    American ministers and Christians could see through
+    their sophistical spider-webs, with what wonder, pity,
+    and contempt they would regard their own vacillating
+    condition!
+
+    We visit once a week at Madame Mohl's, where we meet
+    all sorts of agreeable people. Lady Elgin doesn't go
+    into society now, having been struck with paralysis,
+    but sits at home and receives her friends as usual.
+    This notion of sitting always in the open air is one of
+    her peculiarities.
+
+    I must say, life in Paris is arranged more sensibly
+    than with us. Visiting involves no trouble in the
+    feeding line. People don't go to eat. A cup of tea and
+    plate of biscuit is all,--just enough to break up the
+    stiffness.
+
+    It is wonderful that the people here do not seem to
+    have got over "Uncle Tom" a bit. The impression seems
+    fresh as if just published. How often have they said,
+    That book has revived the Gospel among the poor of
+    France; it has done more than all the books we have
+    published put together. It has gone among the _les
+    ouvriers_, among the poor of Faubourg St. Antoine, and
+    nobody knows how many have been led to Christ by it. Is
+    not this blessed, my dear husband? Is it not worth all
+    the suffering of writing it?
+
+    I went the other evening to M. Grand Pierre's, where
+    there were three rooms full of people, all as eager
+    and loving as ever we met in England or Scotland. Oh,
+    if Christians in Boston could only see the earnestness
+    of feeling with which Christians here regard slavery,
+    and their surprise and horror at the lukewarmness, to
+    say the least, of our American church! About eleven
+    o'clock we all joined in singing a hymn, then M. Grand
+    Pierre made an address, in which I was named in the
+    most affectionate and cordial manner. Then followed a
+    beautiful prayer for our country, for America, on which
+    hang so many of the hopes of Protestantism. One and all
+    then came up, and there was great shaking of hands and
+    much effusion.
+
+Under date of December 28, Mrs. Perkins writes: "On Sunday we went with
+Mr. and Mrs. (Jacob) Abbott to the Hotel des Invalides, and I think
+I was never more interested and affected. Three or four thousand old
+and disabled soldiers have here a beautiful and comfortable home. We
+went to the morning service. The church is very large, and the colors
+taken in battle are hung on the walls. Some of them are so old as to be
+moth-eaten. The service is performed, as near as possible, in imitation
+of the service before a battle. The drum beats the call to assemble,
+and the common soldiers march up and station themselves in the centre
+of the church, under the commander. All the services are regulated by
+the beat of the drum. Only one priest officiates, and soldiers are
+stationed around to protect him. The music is from a brass band, and is
+very magnificent.
+
+"In the afternoon I went to vespers in the Madeleine, where the music
+was exquisite. They have two fine organs at opposite ends of the
+church. The 'Adeste Fidelis' was sung by a single voice, accompanied
+by the organ, and after every verse it was taken up by male voices
+and the other organ and repeated. The effect was wonderfully fine. I
+have always found in our small churches at home that the organ was too
+powerful and pained my head, but in these large cathedrals the effect
+is different. The volume of sound rolls over, full but soft, and I feel
+as though it must come from another sphere.
+
+"In the evening Mr. and Mrs. Bunsen called. He is a son of Chevalier
+Bunsen, and she a niece of Elizabeth Fry,--very intelligent and
+agreeable people."
+
+Under date of January 25, Mrs. Stowe writes from Paris:--
+
+"Here is a story for Charley. The boys in the Faubourg St. Antoine are
+the children of _ouvriers_, and every day their mothers give them two
+sous to buy a dinner. When they heard I was coming to the school, of
+their own accord they subscribed half their dinner money to give to me
+for the poor slaves. This five-franc piece I have now; I have bought it
+of the cause for five dollars, and am going to make a hole in it and
+hang it round Charley's neck as a medal.
+
+"I have just completed arrangements for leaving the girls at a
+Protestant boarding-school while I go to Rome.
+
+"We expect to start the 1st of February, and my direction will be, E.
+Bartholimeu, 108 Via Margaretta."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+OLD SCENES REVISITED, 1856.
+
+    EN ROUTE TO ROME.--TRIALS OF TRAVEL.--A MIDNIGHT
+    ARRIVAL AND AN INHOSPITABLE RECEPTION.--GLORIES OF THE
+    ETERNAL CITY.--NAPLES AND VESUVIUS.--VENICE.--HOLY
+    WEEK IN ROME.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--LETTER FROM HARRIET
+    MARTINEAU ON "DRED."--A WORD FROM MR. PRESCOTT ON
+    "DRED."--FAREWELL TO LADY BYRON.
+
+
+AFTER leaving Paris Mrs. Stowe and her sister, Mrs. Perkins, traveled
+leisurely through the South of France toward Italy, stopping at Amiens,
+Lyons, and Marseilles. At this place they took steamer for Genoa,
+Leghorn, and Civita Vecchia. During their last night on shipboard they
+met with an accident, of which, and their subsequent trials in reaching
+Rome, Mrs. Stowe writes as follows:--
+
+    About eleven o'clock, as I had just tranquilly laid
+    down in my berth, I was roused by a grating crash,
+    accompanied by a shock that shook the whole ship,
+    and followed by the sound of a general rush on deck,
+    trampling, scuffling, and cries. I rushed to the door
+    and saw all the gentlemen hurrying on their clothes and
+    getting confusedly towards the stairway. I went back
+    to Mary, and we put on our things in silence, and, as
+    soon as we could, got into the upper saloon. It was an
+    hour before we could learn anything certainly, except
+    that we had run into another vessel. The fate of the
+    Arctic came to us both, but we did not mention it to
+    each other; indeed, a quieter, more silent company
+    you would not often see. Had I had any confidence
+    in the administration of the boat, it would have
+    been better, but as I had not, I sat in momentary
+    uncertainty. Had we then known, as we have since, the
+    fate of a boat recently sunk in the Mediterranean by
+    a similar carelessness, it would have increased our
+    fears. By a singular chance an officer, whose wife and
+    children were lost on board that boat, was on board
+    ours, and happened to be on the forward part of the
+    boat when the accident occurred. The captain and mate
+    were both below; there was nobody looking out, and
+    had not this officer himself called out to stop the
+    boat, we should have struck her with such force as to
+    have sunk us. As it was, we turned aside and the shock
+    came on a paddle-wheel, which was broken by it, for
+    when, after two hours' delay, we tried to start and
+    had gone a little way, there was another crash and the
+    paddle-wheel fell down. You may be sure we did little
+    sleeping that night. It was an inexpressible desolation
+    to think that we might never again see those we loved.
+    No one knows how much one thinks, and how rapidly, in
+    such hours.
+
+    In the Naples boat that was sunk a short time ago, the
+    women perished in a dreadful way. The shock threw the
+    chimney directly across the egress from below, so that
+    they could not get on deck, and they were all drowned
+    in the cabin.
+
+    We went limping along with one broken limb till
+    the next day about eleven, when we reached Civita
+    Vecchia, where there were two hours more of delay
+    about passports. Then we, that is, Mary and I, and a
+    Dr. Edison from Philadelphia, with his son Alfred,
+    took a carriage to Rome, but they gave us a miserable
+    thing that looked as if it had been made soon after
+    the deluge. About eight o'clock at night, on a lonely
+    stretch of road, the wheel came off. We got out, and
+    our postilions stood silently regarding matters. None
+    of us could speak Italian, they could not speak French;
+    but the driver at last conveyed the idea that for five
+    francs he could get a man to come and mend the wheel.
+    The five francs were promised, and he untackled a horse
+    and rode off. Mary and I walked up and down the dark,
+    desolate road, occasionally reminding each other that
+    we were on classic ground, and laughing at the oddity
+    of our lonely, starlight promenade. After a while our
+    driver came back, Tag, Rag, and Bobtail at his heels.
+    I don't think I can do greater justice to Italian
+    costumes than by this respectable form of words.
+
+    Then there was another consultation. They put a
+    bit of rotten timber under to pry the carriage up.
+    Fortunately, it did not break, as we all expected it
+    would, till after the wheel was on. Then a new train
+    of thought was suggested. How was it to be kept on?
+    Evidently they had not thought far in that direction,
+    for they had brought neither hammer nor nail, nor tool
+    of any kind, and therefore they looked first at the
+    wheel, then at each other, and then at us. The doctor
+    now produced a little gimlet, with the help of which
+    the broken fragments of the former linchpin were pushed
+    out, and the way was cleared for a new one. Then they
+    began knocking a fence to pieces to get out nails, but
+    none could be found to fit. At last another ambassador
+    was sent back for nails. While we were thus waiting,
+    the diligence, in which many of our ship's company were
+    jogging on to Rome, came up. They had plenty of room
+    inside, and one of the party, seeing our distress,
+    tried hard to make the driver stop, but he doggedly
+    persisted in going on, and declared if anybody got down
+    to help us he would leave him behind.
+
+    An interesting little episode here occurred. It was
+    raining, and Mary and I proposed, as the wheel was now
+    on, to take our seats. We had no sooner done so than
+    the horses were taken with a sudden fit of animation
+    and ran off with us in the most vivacious manner, Tag,
+    Rag, and Co. shouting in the rear. Some heaps of stone
+    a little in advance presented an interesting prospect
+    by way of a terminus. However, the horses were lucidly
+    captured before the wheel was off again; and our
+    ambassador being now returned, we were set right and
+    again proceeded.
+
+    I must not forget to remark that at every post where
+    we changed horses and drivers, we had a pitched battle
+    with the driver for more money than we had been told
+    was the regular rate, and the carriage was surrounded
+    with a perfect mob of ragged, shock-headed, black-eyed
+    people, whose words all ended in "ino," and who raved
+    and ranted at us till finally we paid much more than we
+    ought, to get rid of them.
+
+    At the gates of Rome the official, after looking at our
+    passports, coolly told the doctor that if he had a mind
+    to pay him five francs he could go in without further
+    disturbance, but if not he would keep the baggage till
+    morning. This form of statement had the recommendation
+    of such precision and neatness of expression that we
+    paid him forthwith, and into Rome we dashed at two
+    o'clock in the morning of the 9th of February, 1857, in
+    a drizzling rain.
+
+    We drove to the Hotel d'Angleterre,--it was full,--and
+    ditto to four or five others, and in the last effort
+    our refractory wheel came off again, and we all got out
+    into the street. About a dozen lean, ragged "corbies,"
+    who are called porters and who are always lying in
+    wait for travelers, pounced upon us. They took down
+    our baggage in a twinkling, and putting it all into
+    the street surrounded it, and chattered over it, while
+    M. and I stood in the rain and received first lessons
+    in Italian. How we did try to say something! but they
+    couldn't talk anything but in "ino" as aforesaid. The
+    doctor finally found a man who could speak a word or
+    two of French, and leaving Mary, Alfred, and me to keep
+    watch over our pile of trunks, he went off with him to
+    apply for lodgings. I have heard many flowery accounts
+    of first impressions of Rome. I must say ours was
+    somewhat sombre.
+
+    A young man came by and addressed us in English. How
+    cheering! We almost flew upon him. We begged him, at
+    least, to lend us his Italian to call another carriage,
+    and he did so. A carriage which was passing was luckily
+    secured, and Mary and I, with all our store of boxes
+    and little parcels, were placed in it out of the rain,
+    at least. Here we sat while the doctor from time to
+    time returned from his wanderings to tell us he could
+    find no place. "Can it be," said I, "that we are to
+    be obliged to spend a night in the streets?" What
+    made it seem more odd was the knowledge that, could
+    we only find them, we had friends enough in Rome who
+    would be glad to entertain us. We began to speculate
+    on lodgings. Who knows what we may get entrapped into?
+    Alfred suggested stories he had read of beds placed on
+    trap-doors,--of testers which screwed down on people
+    and smothered them; and so, when at last the doctor
+    announced lodgings found, we followed in rather an
+    uncertain frame of mind.
+
+    We alighted at a dirty stone passage, smelling of cats
+    and onions, damp, cold, and earthy, we went up stone
+    stairways, and at last were ushered into two very
+    decent chambers, where we might lay our heads. The
+    "corbies" all followed us,--black-haired, black-browed,
+    ragged, and clamorous as ever. They insisted that we
+    should pay the pretty little sum of twenty francs, or
+    four dollars, for bringing our trunks about twenty
+    steps. The doctor modestly but firmly declined to
+    be thus imposed upon, and then ensued a general
+    "chatteration;" one and all fell into attitudes, and
+    the "inos" and "issimos" rolled freely. "For pity's
+    sake get them off," we said; so we made a truce for ten
+    francs, but still they clamored, forced their way even
+    into our bedroom, and were only repulsed by a loud and
+    combined volley of "No, no, noes!" which we all set up
+    at once, upon which they retreated.
+
+    Our hostess was a little French woman, and that
+    reassured us. I examined the room, and seeing no trace
+    of treacherous testers, or trap-doors, resolved to
+    avail myself without fear of the invitation of a very
+    clean, white bed, where I slept till morning without
+    dreaming.
+
+    The next day we sent our cards to M. Bartholimeu, and
+    before we had finished breakfast he was on the spot.
+    We then learned that he had been watching the diligence
+    office for over a week, and that he had the pleasant
+    set of apartments we are now occupying all ready and
+    waiting for us.
+
+                                              _March 1._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Every day is opening to me a new
+    world of wonders here in Italy. I have been in the
+    Catacombs, where I was shown many memorials of the
+    primitive Christians, and to-day we are going to the
+    Vatican. The weather is sunny and beautiful beyond
+    measure, and flowers are springing in the fields on
+    every side. Oh, my dear, how I do long to have you
+    here to enjoy what you are so much better fitted to
+    appreciate than I,--this wonderful combination of the
+    past and the present, of what has been and what is!
+
+    Think of strolling leisurely through the Forum, of
+    seeing the very stones that were laid in the time of
+    the Republic, of rambling over the ruined Palace of the
+    Caesars, of walking under the Arch of Titus, of seeing
+    the Dying Gladiator, and whole ranges of rooms filled
+    with wonders of art, all in one morning! All this I
+    did on Saturday, and only wanted you. You know so much
+    more and could appreciate so much better. At the Palace
+    of the Caesars, where the very dust is a _melange_ of
+    exquisite marbles, I saw for the first time an acanthus
+    growing, and picked my first leaf.
+
+    Our little _menage_ moves on prosperously; the doctor
+    takes excellent care of us and we of him. One sees
+    everybody here at Rome, John Bright, Mrs. Hemans' son,
+    Mrs. Gaskell, etc., etc. Over five thousand English
+    travelers are said to be here. Jacob Abbot and wife
+    are coming. Rome is a world! Rome is an astonishment!
+    Papal Rome is an enchantress! Old as she is, she is
+    like Ninon d'Enclos,--the young fall in love with her.
+
+    You will hear next from us at Naples.
+
+                               Affectionately yours,
+                                               H. B. S.
+
+From Rome the travelers went to Naples, and after visiting Pompeii and
+Herculaneum made the ascent of Vesuvius, a graphic account of which
+is contained in a letter written at this time by Mrs. Stowe to her
+daughters in Paris. After describing the preparations and start, she
+says:--
+
+"Gradually the ascent became steeper and steeper, till at length it
+was all our horses could do to pull us up. The treatment of horses in
+Naples is a thing that takes away much from the pleasure and comfort of
+such travelers as have the least feeling for animals. The people seem
+absolutely to have no consideration for them. You often see vehicles
+drawn by one horse carrying fourteen or fifteen great, stout men and
+women. This is the worse as the streets are paved with flat stones
+which are exceedingly slippery. On going up hill the drivers invariably
+race their horses, urging them on with a constant storm of blows.
+
+"As the ascent of the mountain became steeper, the horses panted and
+trembled in a way that made us feel that we could not sit in the
+carriage, yet the guide and driver never made the slightest motion to
+leave the box. At last three of us got out and walked, and invited
+our guide to do the same, yet with all this relief the last part of
+the ascent was terrible, and the rascally fellows actually forced the
+horses to it by beating them with long poles on the back of their
+legs. No Englishman or American would ever allow a horse to be treated
+so.
+
+"The Hermitage is a small cabin, where one can buy a little wine or
+any other refreshment one may need. There is a species of wine made of
+the grapes of Vesuvius, called 'Lachryma Christi,' that has a great
+reputation. Here was a miscellaneous collection of beggars, ragged
+boys, men playing guitars, bawling donkey drivers, and people wanting
+to sell sticks or minerals, the former to assist in the ascent, and the
+latter as specimens of the place. In the midst of the commotion we were
+placed on our donkeys, and the serious, pensive brutes moved away. At
+last we reached the top of the mountain, and I gladly sprang on firm
+land. The whole top of the mountain was covered with wavering wreaths
+of smoke, from the shadows of which emerged two English gentlemen,
+who congratulated us on our safe arrival, and assured us that we were
+fortunate in our day, as the mountain was very active. We could hear
+a hollow, roaring sound, like the burning of a great furnace, but saw
+nothing. 'Is this all?' I said. 'Oh, no. Wait till the guide comes up
+with the rest of the party,' and soon one after another came up, and we
+then followed the guide up a cloudy, rocky path, the noise of the fire
+constantly becoming nearer. Finally we stood on the verge of a vast,
+circular pit about forty feet deep, the floor of which is of black,
+ropy waves of congealed lava.
+
+"The sides are sulphur cliffs, stained in every brilliant shade, from
+lightest yellow to deepest orange and brown. In the midst of the lava
+floor rises a black cone, the chimney of the great furnace. This was
+burning and flaming like the furnace of a glass-house, and every few
+moments throwing up showers of cinders and melted lava which fell with
+a rattling sound on the black floor of the pit. One small bit of the
+lava came over and fell at our feet, and a gentleman lighted his cigar
+at it.
+
+"All around where we stood the smoke was issuing from every chance rent
+and fissure of the rock, and the Neapolitans who crowded round us were
+every moment soliciting us to let them cook us an egg in one of these
+rifts, and, overcome by persuasion, I did so, and found it very nicely
+boiled, or rather steamed, though the shell tasted of Glauber's salt
+and sulphur.
+
+"The whole place recalled to my mind so vividly Milton's description of
+the infernal regions, that I could not but believe that he had drawn
+the imagery from this source. Milton, as we all know, was some time in
+Italy, and, although I do not recollect any account of his visiting
+Vesuvius, I cannot think how he should have shaped his language so
+coincidently to the phenomena if he had not.
+
+"On the way down the mountain our ladies astonished the natives
+by making an express stipulation that our donkeys were not to be
+beaten,--why, they could not conjecture. The idea of any feeling of
+compassion for an animal is so foreign to a Neapolitan's thoughts that
+they supposed it must be some want of courage on our part. When, once
+in a while, the old habit so prevailed that the boy felt that he must
+strike the donkey, and when I forbade him, he would say, 'Courage,
+signora, courage.'
+
+"Time would fail me to tell the whole of our adventures in Southern
+Italy. We left it with regret, and I will tell you some time by word of
+mouth what else we saw.
+
+"We went by water from Naples to Leghorn, and were gloriously seasick,
+all of us. From Leghorn we went to Florence, where we abode two weeks
+nearly. Two days ago we left Florence and started for Venice, stopping
+one day and two nights _en route_ at Bologna. Here we saw the great
+university, now used as a library, the walls of which are literally
+covered with the emblazoned names and coats of arms of distinguished
+men who were educated there.
+
+"_Venice._ The great trouble of traveling in Europe, or indeed
+of traveling anywhere, is that you can never _catch_ romance. No
+sooner are you in any place than being there seems the most natural,
+matter-of-fact occurrence in the world. Nothing looks foreign or
+strange to you. You take your tea and your dinner, eat, drink, and
+sleep as aforetime, and scarcely realize where you are or what you are
+seeing. But Venice is an exception to this state of things; it is all
+romance from beginning to end, and never ceases to seem strange and
+picturesque.
+
+"It was a rainy evening when our cars rumbled over the long railroad
+bridge across the lagoon that leads to the station. Nothing but flat,
+dreary swamps, and then the wide expanse of sea on either side. The
+cars stopped, and the train, being a long one, left us a little out
+of the station. We got out in a driving rain, in company with flocks
+of Austrian soldiers, with whom the third-class cars were filled. We
+went through a long passage, and emerged into a room where all nations
+seemed commingling; Italians, Germans, French, Austrians, Orientals,
+all in wet weather trim.
+
+"Soon, however, the news was brought that our baggage was looked out
+and our gondolas ready.
+
+"The first plunge under the low, black hood of a gondola, especially of
+a rainy night, has something funereal in it. Four of us sat cowering
+together, and looked, out of the rain-dropped little windows at the
+sides, at the scene. Gondolas of all sizes were gliding up and down,
+with their sharp, fishy-looking prows of steel pushing their ways
+silently among each other, while gondoliers shouted and jabbered, and
+made as much confusion in their way as terrestrial hackmen on dry land.
+Soon, however, trunks and carpet-bags being adjusted, we pushed off,
+and went gliding away up the Grand Canal, with a motion so calm that
+we could scarce discern it except by the moving of objects on shore.
+Venice, _la belle_, appeared to as much disadvantage as a beautiful
+woman bedraggled in a thunder-storm."
+
+"_Lake Como._ We stayed in Venice five days, and during that time saw
+all the sights that it could enter the head of a _valet-de-place_ to
+afflict us with. It is an affliction, however, for which there is no
+remedy, because you want to see the things, and would be very sorry if
+you went home without having done so. From Venice we went to Milan to
+see the cathedral and Leonardo da Vinci's 'Last Supper.' The former is
+superb, and of the latter I am convinced, from the little that remains
+of it, that it _was_ the greatest picture the world ever saw. We shall
+run back to Rome for Holy Week, and then to Paris.
+
+"_Rome._ From Lake Como we came back here for Holy Week, and now it is
+over.
+
+"'What do you think of it?'
+
+"Certainly no thoughtful or sensitive person, no person impressible
+either through the senses or the religious feelings, can fail to feel
+it deeply.
+
+"In the first place, the mere fact of the different nations of
+the earth moving, so many of them, with one accord, to so old and
+venerable a city, to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus, is
+something in itself affecting. Whatever dispute there may be about the
+other commemorative feasts of Christendom, the time of this epoch is
+fixed unerringly by the Jews' Passover. That great and solemn feast,
+therefore, stands as an historical monument to mark the date of the
+most important and thrilling events which this world ever witnessed.
+
+"When one sees the city filling with strangers, pilgrims arriving on
+foot, the very shops decorating themselves in expectancy, every church
+arranging its services, the prices even of temporal matters raised by
+the crowd and its demands, he naturally thinks, Wherefore, why is all
+this? and he must be very careless indeed if it do not bring to mind,
+in a more real way than before, that at this very time, so many years
+ago, Christ and his apostles were living actors in the scenes thus
+celebrated to-day."
+
+As the spring was now well advanced, it was deemed advisable to bring
+this pleasant journey to a close, and for Mrs. Stowe at least it was
+imperative that she return to America. Therefore, leaving Rome with
+many regrets and lingering, backward glances, the two sisters hurried
+to Paris, where they found their brother-in-law, Mr. John Hooker,
+awaiting them. Under date of May 3 Mrs. Stowe writes from Paris to her
+husband: "Here I am once more, safe in Paris after a fatiguing journey.
+I found the girls well, and greatly improved in their studies. As to
+bringing them home with me now, I have come to the conclusion that it
+would not be expedient. A few months more of study here will do them
+a world of good. I have, therefore, arranged that they shall come in
+November in the Arago, with a party of friends who are going at that
+time.
+
+"John Hooker is here, so Mary is going with him and some others for a
+few weeks into Switzerland. I have some business affairs to settle in
+England, and shall sail from Liverpool in the Europa on the sixth of
+June. I am _so_ homesick to-day, and long with a great longing to be
+with you once more. I am impatient to go, and yet dread the voyage.
+Still, to reach you I must commit myself once more to the ocean, of
+which at times I have a nervous horror, as to the arms of my Father.
+'The sea is his, and He made it.' It is a rude, noisy old servant, but
+it is always obedient to his will, and cannot carry me beyond his power
+and love, wherever or to whatever it bears me."
+
+Having established her daughters in a Protestant boarding-school in
+Paris, Mrs. Stowe proceeded to London. While there she received the
+following letter from Harriet Martineau:--
+
+                                       AMBLESIDE, _June 1._
+
+    DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I have been at my wits' end to learn
+    how to reach you, as your note bore no direction but
+    "London." Arnolds, Croppers, and others could give no
+    light, and the newspapers tell only where you _had_
+    been. So I commit this to your publishers, trusting
+    that it will find you somewhere, and in time, perhaps,
+    bring you here. _Can't_ you come? You are aware that
+    we shall never meet if you don't come soon. I see
+    no strangers at all, but I hope to have breath and
+    strength enough for a little talk with you, if you
+    could come. You could have perfect freedom at the times
+    when I am laid up, and we could seize my "capability
+    seasons" for our talk.
+
+    The weather and scenery are usually splendid just now.
+    Did I see you (in white frock and black silk apron)
+    when I was in Ohio in 1835? Your sister I knew well,
+    and I have a clear recollection of your father. I
+    believe and hope you were the young lady in the black
+    silk apron.
+
+    Do you know I rather dreaded reading your book! Sick
+    people _are_ weak: and one of my chief weaknesses is
+    dislike of novels,--(except some old ones which I
+    almost know by heart). I knew that with you I should be
+    safe from the cobweb-spinning of our modern subjective
+    novelists and the jaunty vulgarity of our "funny
+    philosophers"--the Dickens sort, who have tired us
+    out. But I dreaded the alternative,--the too strong
+    interest. But oh! the delight I have had in "Dred!" The
+    genius carries all before it, and drowns everything in
+    glorious pleasure. So marked a work of genius claims
+    exemption from every sort of comparison; but, _as you
+    ask for my opinion of the book_, you may like to know
+    that I think it far superior to "Uncle Tom." I have
+    no doubt that a multitude of people will say it is a
+    falling off, because they made up their minds that
+    any new book of yours must be inferior to that, and
+    because it is so rare a thing for a prodigious fame to
+    be sustained by a second book; but, in my own mind I
+    am entirely convinced that the second book is by far
+    the best. Such faults as you have are in the artistic
+    department, and there is less defect in "Dred" than
+    in "Uncle Tom," and the whole material and treatment
+    seem to me richer and more substantial. I have had
+    critiques of "Dred" from the two very wisest people
+    I know--perfectly unlike each other (the critics, I
+    mean), and they delight me by thinking exactly like
+    each other and like me. They distinctly prefer it to
+    "Uncle Tom." To say the plain truth, it seems to me so
+    splendid a work of genius that nothing that I can say
+    can give you an idea of the intensity of admiration
+    with which I read it. It seemed to me, as I told my
+    nieces, that our English fiction writers had better
+    shut up altogether and have done with it, for one will
+    have no patience with any but didactic writing after
+    yours. My nieces (and you may have heard that Maria, my
+    nurse, is very, very clever) are thoroughly possessed
+    with the book, and Maria says she feels as if a fresh
+    department of human life had been opened to her since
+    this day week. I feel the freshness no less, while,
+    from my travels, I can be even more assured of the
+    truthfulness of your wonderful representation. I see
+    no limit to the good it may do by suddenly splitting
+    open Southern life, for everybody to look into. It
+    is precisely the thing that is most wanted,--just as
+    "Uncle Tom" was wanted, three years since, to show
+    what negro slavery in your republic was like. It is
+    plantation-life, particularly in the present case,
+    that I mean. As for your exposure of the weakness and
+    helplessness of the churches, I deeply honor you for
+    the courage with which you have made the exposure; but
+    I don't suppose that any amendment is to be looked for
+    in that direction. You have unburdened your own soul in
+    that matter, and if they had been corrigible, you would
+    have helped a good many more. But I don't expect that
+    result. The Southern railing at you will be something
+    unequaled, I suppose. I hear that three of us have
+    the honor of being abused from day to day already, as
+    most portentous and shocking women, you, Mrs. Chapman,
+    and myself (as the traveler of twenty years ago). Not
+    only newspapers, but pamphlets of such denunciation
+    are circulated, I'm told. I'm afraid now I, and even
+    Mrs. Chapman, must lose our fame, and all the railing
+    will be engrossed by you. My little function is to keep
+    English people tolerably right, by means of a London
+    daily paper, while the danger of misinformation and
+    misreading from the "Times" continues. I can't conceive
+    how such a paper as the "Times" can fail to be _better
+    informed_ than it is. At times it seems as if its New
+    York correspondent was making game of it. The able and
+    excellent editor of the "Daily News" gives me complete
+    liberty on American subjects, and Mrs. Chapman's and
+    other friends' constant supply of information enables
+    me to use this liberty for making the cause better
+    understood. I hope I shall hear that you are coming.
+    It is like a great impertinence--my having written so
+    freely about your book: but you asked my opinion,--that
+    is all I can say. Thank you much for sending the book
+    to me. If you come you will write our names in it, and
+    this will make it a valuable legacy to a nephew or
+    niece.
+
+    Believe me gratefully and affectionately yours,
+
+                                        HARRIET MARTINEAU.
+
+In London Mrs. Stowe also received the following letter from Prescott,
+the historian, which after long wandering had finally rested quietly at
+her English publishers awaiting her coming.
+
+                              PEPPERELL, _October 4, 1856._
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I am much obliged to you for the
+    copy of "Dred" which Mr. Phillips put into my hands. It
+    has furnished us our evening's amusement since we have
+    been in the country, where we spend the brilliant month
+    of October.
+
+    The African race are much indebted to you for
+    showing up the good sides of their characters, their
+    cheerfulness, and especially their powers of humor,
+    which are admirably set off by their peculiar _patois_,
+    in the same manner as the expression of the Scottish
+    sentiment is by the peculiar Scottish dialect. People
+    differ; but I was most struck among your characters
+    with Uncle Tiff and Nina. The former a variation of
+    good old Uncle Tom, though conceived in a merrier vein
+    than belonged to that sedate personage; the difference
+    of their tempers in this respect being well suited to
+    the difference of the circumstances in which they were
+    placed. But Nina, to my mind, is the true _hero_ of the
+    book, which I should have named after her instead of
+    "Dred." She is indeed a charming conception, full of
+    what is called character, and what is masculine in her
+    nature is toned down by such a delightful sweetness
+    and kindness of disposition as makes her perfectly
+    fascinating. I cannot forgive you for smothering her
+    so prematurely. No _dramatis personae_ could afford the
+    loss of such a character. But I will not bore you with
+    criticism, of which you have had quite enough. I must
+    thank you, however, for giving Tom Gordon a guttapercha
+    cane to perform his flagellations with.
+
+    I congratulate you on the brilliant success of the
+    work, unexampled even in this age of authorship; and,
+    as Mr. Phillips informs me, greater even in the old
+    country than in ours. I am glad you are likely to
+    settle the question and show that a Yankee writer can
+    get a copyright in England--little thanks to our own
+    government, which compels him to go there in order to
+    get it.
+
+    With sincere regard, believe me, dear Mrs. Stowe,
+
+                           Very truly yours,
+                                         WM. H. PRESCOTT.
+
+From Liverpool, on the eve of her departure for America, Mrs. Stowe
+wrote to her daughters in Paris:--
+
+    I spent the day before leaving London with Lady Byron.
+    She is lovelier than ever, and inquired kindly about
+    you both. I left London to go to Manchester, and
+    reaching there found the Rev. Mr. Gaskell waiting to
+    welcome me in the station. Mrs. Gaskell seems lovely
+    at home, where besides being a writer she proves
+    herself to be a first-class housekeeper, and performs
+    all the duties of a minister's wife. After spending a
+    delightful day with her I came here to the beautiful
+    "Dingle," which is more enchanting than ever. I am
+    staying with Mrs. Edward Cropper, Lord Denman's
+    daughter.
+
+    I want you to tell Aunt Mary that Mr. Ruskin lives with
+    his father at a place called Denmark Hill, Camberwell.
+    He has told me that the gallery of Turner pictures
+    there is open to me or my friends at any time of the
+    day or night. Both young and old Mr. Ruskin are fine
+    fellows, sociable and hearty, and will cordially
+    welcome any of my friends who desire to look at their
+    pictures.
+
+    I write in haste, as I must be aboard the ship
+    to-morrow at eight o'clock. So good-by, my dear girls,
+    from your ever affectionate mother.
+
+Her last letter written before sailing was to Lady Byron, and serves
+to show how warm an intimacy had sprung up between them. It was as
+follows:--
+
+                                         _June 5, 1857._
+
+    DEAR FRIEND,--I left you with a strange sort of
+    yearning, throbbing feeling--you make me feel quite
+    as I did years ago, a sort of girlishness quite odd
+    for me. I have felt a strange longing to send you
+    something. Don't smile when you see what it turns out
+    to be. I have a weakness for your pretty Parian things;
+    it is one of my own home peculiarities to have strong
+    passions for pretty tea-cups and other little matters
+    for my own quiet meals, when, as often happens, I am
+    too unwell to join the family. So I send you a cup
+    made of primroses, a funny little pitcher, quite large
+    enough for cream, and a little vase for violets and
+    primroses--which will be lovely together--and when you
+    use it think of me and that I love you more than I can
+    say.
+
+    I often think how strange it is that I should _know_
+    you--you who were a sort of legend of my early
+    days--that I should love you is only a natural result.
+    You seem to me to stand on the confines of that land
+    where the poor formalities which separate hearts here
+    pass like mist before the sun, and therefore it is
+    that I feel the language of love must not startle you
+    as strange or unfamiliar. You are so nearly there in
+    spirit that I fear with every adieu that it may be the
+    last; yet did you pass within the veil I should not
+    feel you lost.
+
+    I have got past the time when I feel that my heavenly
+    friends are _lost_ by going there. I feel them
+    _nearer_, rather than farther off.
+
+    So good-by, dear, dear friend, and if you see morning
+    in our Father's house before I do, carry my love to
+    those that wait for me, and if I pass first, you will
+    find me there, and we shall love each other _forever_.
+
+                                   Ever yours,
+                                            H. B. STOWE.
+
+The homeward voyage proved a prosperous one, and it was followed by a
+joyous welcome to the "Cabin" in Andover. The world seemed very bright,
+and amid all her happiness came no intimation of the terrible blow
+about to descend upon the head of the devoted mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE MINISTER'S WOOING, 1857-1859.
+
+    DEATH OF MRS. STOWE'S OLDEST SON.--LETTER TO THE
+    DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTERS IN
+    PARIS.--LETTER TO HER SISTER CATHERINE.--VISIT TO
+    BRUNSWICK AND ORR'S ISLAND.--WRITES "THE MINISTER'S
+    WOOING" AND "THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND."--MR.
+    WHITTIER'S COMMENTS.--MR. LOWELL ON THE "MINISTER'S
+    WOOING."--LETTER TO MRS. STOWE FROM MR. LOWELL.--JOHN
+    RUSKIN ON THE "MINISTER'S WOOING."--A YEAR OF
+    SADNESS.--LETTER TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER TO HER
+    DAUGHTER.--DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.
+
+
+IMMEDIATELY after Mrs. Stowe's return from England in June, 1857, a
+crushing sorrow came upon her in the death of her oldest son, Henry
+Ellis, who was drowned while bathing in the Connecticut River at
+Hanover, N. H., where he was pursuing his studies as a member of the
+Freshman class in Dartmouth College. This melancholy event took place
+the 9th of July, 1857, and the 3d of August Mrs. Stowe wrote to the
+Duchess of Sutherland:--
+
+    DEAR FRIEND,--Before this reaches you you will have
+    perhaps learned from other sources of the sad blow
+    which has fallen upon us,--our darling, our good,
+    beautiful boy, snatched away in the moment of health
+    and happiness. Alas! could I know that when I parted
+    from my Henry on English shores that I should never
+    see him more? I returned to my home, and, amid the
+    jubilee of meeting the rest, was fain to be satisfied
+    with only a letter from him, saying that his college
+    examinations were coming on, and he must defer seeing
+    me a week or two till they were over. I thought then
+    of taking his younger brother and going up to visit
+    him; but the health of the latter seeming unfavorably
+    affected by the seacoast air, I turned back with him
+    to a water-cure establishment. Before I had been two
+    weeks absent a fatal telegram hurried me home, and when
+    I arrived there it was to find the house filled with
+    his weeping classmates, who had just come bringing his
+    remains. There he lay so calm, so placid, so peaceful,
+    that I could not believe that he would not smile upon
+    me, and that my voice which always had such power over
+    him could not recall him. There had always been such
+    a peculiar union, such a tenderness between us. I had
+    had such power always to call up answering feelings
+    to my own, that it seemed impossible that he could be
+    silent and unmoved at my grief. But yet, dear friend,
+    I am sensible that in this last sad scene I had an
+    alleviation that was not granted to you. I recollect,
+    in the mournful letter you wrote me about that time,
+    you said that you mourned that you had never told your
+    own dear one how much you loved him. That sentence
+    touched me at the time. I laid it to heart, and from
+    that time lost no occasion of expressing to my children
+    those feelings that we too often defer to express to
+    our dearest friends till it is forever too late.
+
+    He did fully know how I loved him, and some of the last
+    loving words he spoke were of me. The very day that he
+    was taken from us, and when he was just rising from
+    the table of his boarding-house to go whence he never
+    returned, some one noticed the seal ring, which you
+    may remember to have seen on his finger, and said, How
+    beautiful that ring is! Yes, he said, and best of all,
+    it was my mother's gift to me. That ring, taken from
+    the lifeless hand a few hours later, was sent to me.
+    Singularly enough, it is broken right across the name
+    from a fall a little time previous....
+
+    It is a great comfort to me, dear friend, that I took
+    Henry with me to Dunrobin. I hesitated about keeping
+    him so long from his studies, but still I thought a
+    mind so observing and appreciative might learn from
+    such a tour more than through books, and so it was.
+    He returned from England full of high resolves and
+    manly purposes. "I may not be what the world calls a
+    Christian," he wrote, "but I will live such a life as
+    a Christian ought to live, such a life as every true
+    man ought to live." Henceforth he became remarkable for
+    a strict order and energy, and a vigilant temperance
+    and care of his bodily health, docility and deference
+    to his parents and teachers, and perseverance in every
+    duty.... Well, from the hard battle of this life he
+    is excused, and the will is taken for the deed, and
+    whatever comes his heart will not be pierced as mine
+    is. But I am glad that I can connect him with all my
+    choicest remembrances of the Old World.
+
+    Dunrobin will always be dearer to me now, and I have
+    felt towards you and the duke a turning of spirit,
+    because I remember how kindly you always looked on and
+    spoke to him. I knew then it was the angel of your lost
+    one that stirred your hearts with tenderness when you
+    looked on another so near his age. The plaid that the
+    duke gave him, and which he valued as one of the chief
+    of his boyish treasures, will hang in his room--for
+    still we have a room that we call his.
+
+    [Illustration: Aunty Sutherland]
+
+    You will understand, you will feel, this sorrow with us
+    as few can. My poor husband is much prostrated. I need
+    not say more: you know what this must be to a father's
+    heart. But still I repeat what I said when I saw you
+    last. Our dead are ministering angels; they teach us
+    to love, they fill us with tenderness for all that can
+    suffer. These weary hours when sorrow makes us for
+    the time blind and deaf and dumb, have their promise.
+    These hours come in answer to our prayers for nearness
+    to God. It is always our treasure that the lightning
+    strikes.... I have poured out my heart to you because
+    you can understand. While I was visiting in Hanover,
+    where Henry died, a poor, deaf old slave woman, who
+    has still five children in bondage, came to comfort
+    me. "Bear up, dear soul, she said; you must bear it,
+    for the Lord loves ye." She said further, "Sunday is a
+    heavy day to me, 'cause I can't work, and can't hear
+    preaching, and can't read, so I can't keep my mind off
+    my poor children. Some on 'em the blessed Master's got,
+    and they's safe; but, oh, there are five that I don't
+    know where they are."
+
+    What are our mother sorrows to this! I shall try to
+    search out and redeem these children, though, from the
+    ill success of efforts already made, I fear it will
+    be hopeless. Every sorrow I have, every lesson on the
+    sacredness of family love, makes me the more determined
+    to resist to the last this dreadful evil that makes so
+    many mothers so much deeper mourners than I ever can
+    be....
+
+                          Affectionately yours,
+                                            H. B. STOWE.
+
+About this same time she writes to her daughters in Paris: "Can
+anybody tell what sorrows are locked up with our best affections, or
+what pain may be associated with every pleasure? As I walk the house,
+the pictures he used to love, the presents I brought him, and the
+photographs I meant to show him, all pierce my heart. I have had a
+dreadful faintness of sorrow come over me at times. I have felt so
+crushed, so bleeding, so helpless, that I could only call on my Saviour
+with groanings that could not be uttered. Your papa justly said,
+'Every child that dies is for the time being an only one; yes--his
+individuality no time, no change, can ever replace.'
+
+"Two days after the funeral your father and I went to Hanover. We saw
+Henry's friends, and his room, which was just as it was the day he left
+it.
+
+"'There is not another such room in the college as his,' said one of
+his classmates with tears. I could not help loving the dear boys as
+they would come and look sadly in, and tell us one thing and another
+that they remembered of him. 'He was always talking of his home and his
+sisters,' said one. The very day he died he was so happy because I had
+returned, and he was expecting soon to go home and meet me. He died
+with that dear thought in his heart.
+
+"There was a beautiful lane leading down through a charming glen to
+the river. It had been for years the bathing-place of the students,
+and into the pure, clear water he plunged, little dreaming that he was
+never to come out alive.
+
+"In the evening we went down to see the boating club of which he was
+a member. He was so happy in this boating club. They had a beautiful
+boat called the Una, and a uniform, and he enjoyed it so much.
+
+"This evening all the different crews were out; but Henry's had their
+flag furled, and tied with black crape. I felt such love to the dear
+boys, all of them, because they loved Henry, that it did not pain me as
+it otherwise would. They were glad to see us there, and I was glad that
+we could be there. Yet right above where their boats were gliding in
+the evening light lay the bend in the river, clear, still, beautiful,
+fringed with overhanging pines, from whence our boy went upward to
+heaven. To heaven--if earnest, manly purpose, if sincere, deliberate
+strife with besetting sin is accepted of God, as I firmly believe it
+is. Our dear boy was but a beginner in the right way. Had he lived, we
+had hoped to see all wrong gradually fall from his soul as the worn-out
+calyx drops from the perfected flower. But Christ has taken him into
+his own teaching.
+
+    "'And one view of Jesus as He is,
+      Will strike all sin forever dead.'
+
+"Since I wrote to you last we have had anniversary meetings, and with
+all the usual bustle and care, our house full of company. Tuesday we
+received a beautiful portrait of our dear Henry, life-size, and as
+perfect almost as life. It has just that half-roguish, half-loving
+expression with which he would look at me sometimes, when I would come
+and brush back his hair and look into his eyes. Every time I go in or
+out of the room, it seems to give so bright a smile that I almost think
+that a spirit dwells within it.
+
+"When I am so heavy, so weary, and go about as if I were wearing an
+arrow that had pierced my heart, I sometimes look up, and this smile
+seems to say, 'Mother, patience, I am happy. In our Father's house are
+many mansions.' Sometimes I think I am like a gardener who has planted
+the seed of some rare exotic. He watches as the two little points of
+green leaf first spring above the soil. He shifts it from soil to
+soil, from pot to pot. He watches it, waters it, saves it through
+thousands of mischiefs and accidents. He counts every leaf, and marks
+the strengthening of the stem, till at last the blossom bud was fully
+formed. What curiosity, what eagerness,--what expectation--what longing
+now to see the mystery unfold in the new flower.
+
+"Just as the calyx begins to divide and a faint streak of color becomes
+visible,--lo! in one night the owner of the greenhouse sends and takes
+it away. He does, not consult me, he gives me no warning; he silently
+takes it and I look, but it is no more. What, then? Do I suppose he has
+destroyed the flower? Far from it; I know that he has taken it to his
+own garden. What Henry might have been I could guess better than any
+one. What Henry is, is known to Jesus only."
+
+Shortly after this time Mrs. Stowe wrote to her sister Catherine:--
+
+    If ever I was conscious of an attack of the Devil
+    trying to separate me from the love of Christ, it was
+    for some days after the terrible news came. I was in a
+    state of great physical weakness, most agonizing, and
+    unable to control my thoughts. Distressing doubts as
+    to Henry's spiritual state were rudely thrust upon my
+    soul. It was as if a voice had said to me: "You trusted
+    in God, did you? You believed that He loved you! You
+    had perfect confidence that he would never take your
+    child till the work of grace was mature! Now He has
+    hurried him into eternity without a moment's warning,
+    without preparation, and where is he?"
+
+    I saw at last that these thoughts were irrational, and
+    contradicted the calm, settled belief of my better
+    moments, and that they were dishonorable to God, and
+    that it was my duty to resist them, and to assume and
+    steadily maintain that Jesus in love had taken my dear
+    one to his bosom. Since then the Enemy has left me in
+    peace.
+
+    It is our duty to assume that a thing which would be
+    in its very nature unkind, ungenerous, and unfair has
+    not been done. What should we think of the crime of
+    that human being who should take a young mind from
+    circumstances where it was progressing in virtue, and
+    throw it recklessly into corrupting and depraving
+    society? Particularly if it were the child of one who
+    had trusted and confided in Him for years. No! no such
+    slander as this shall the Devil ever fix in my mind
+    against my Lord and my God! He who made me capable of
+    such an absorbing, unselfish devotion for my children,
+    so that I would sacrifice my eternal salvation for
+    them, He certainly did not make me capable of more
+    love, more disinterestedness than He has himself. He
+    invented mothers' hearts, and He certainly has the
+    pattern in his own, and my poor, weak rush-light of
+    love is enough to show me that some things can and some
+    things cannot be done. Mr. Stowe said in his sermon
+    last Sunday that the mysteries of God's ways with us
+    must be swallowed up by the greater mystery of the love
+    of Christ, even as Aaron's rod swallowed up the rods of
+    the magicians.
+
+    Papa and mamma are here, and we have been reading over
+    the "Autobiography and Correspondence." It is glorious,
+    beautiful; but more of this anon.
+
+                     Your affectionate sister,
+                                           HATTIE.
+
+                              ANDOVER, _August 24, 1857._
+
+    DEAR CHILDREN,--Since anniversary papa and I have been
+    living at home; Grandpa and Grandma Beecher are here
+    also, and we have had much comfort in their society....
+    To-night the last sad duty is before us. The body is
+    to be removed from the receiving tomb in the Old South
+    Churchyard, and laid in the graveyard near by. Pearson
+    has been at work for a week on a lot that is to be
+    thenceforth ours.
+
+        "Our just inheritance consecrated by his grave."
+
+    How little he thought, wandering there as he often has
+    with us, that his mortal form would so soon be resting
+    there. Yet that was written for him. It was as certain
+    then as now, and the hour and place of our death is
+    equally certain, though we know it not.
+
+    It seems selfish that I should yearn to lie down by his
+    side, but I never knew how much I loved him till now.
+
+    The one lost piece of silver seems more than all the
+    rest,--the one lost sheep dearer than all the fold, and
+    I so long for one word, one look, one last embrace....
+
+                               ANDOVER, _September 1, 1857._
+
+    MY DARLING CHILDREN,--I must not allow a week to pass
+    without sending a line to you.... Our home never looked
+    lovelier. I never saw Andover look so beautiful; the
+    trees so green, the foliage so rich. Papa and I are
+    just starting to spend a week in Brunswick, for I am so
+    miserable;--so weak--the least exertion fatigues me,
+    and much of my time I feel a heavy languor, indifferent
+    to everything. I know nothing is so likely to bring
+    me up as the air of the seaside.... I have set many
+    flowers around Henry's grave, which are blossoming;
+    pansies, white immortelle, white petunia, and verbenas.
+    Papa walks there every day, often twice or three times.
+    The lot has been rolled and planted with fine grass,
+    which is already up and looks green and soft as velvet,
+    and the little birds gather about it. To-night as I
+    sat there the sky was so beautiful, all rosy, with the
+    silver moon looking out of it. Papa said with a deep
+    sigh, "I am submissive, but not reconciled."
+
+                         BRUNSWICK, _September 6, 1857._
+
+    MY DEAR GIRLS,--Papa and I have been here for four
+    or five days past. We both of us felt so unwell that
+    we thought we would try the sea air and the dear old
+    scenes of Brunswick. Everything here is just as we
+    left it. We are staying with Mrs. Upham, whose house
+    is as wide, cool, and hospitable as ever. The trees
+    in the yard have grown finely, and Mrs. Upham has
+    cultivated flowers so successfully that the house is
+    all surrounded by them. Everything about the town is
+    the same, even to Miss Gidding's old shop, which is
+    as disorderly as ever, presenting the same medley of
+    tracts, sewing-silk, darning-cotton, and unimaginable
+    old bonnets, which existed there of yore. She has been
+    heard to complain that she can't find things as easily
+    as once. Day before yesterday papa, Charley, and I went
+    down to Harpswell about seven o'clock in the morning.
+    The old spruces and firs look lovely as ever, and I was
+    delighted, as I always used to be, with every step of
+    the way. Old Getchell's mill stands as forlorn as ever
+    in its sandy wastes, and More Brook creeps on glassy
+    and clear beyond. Arriving at Harpswell a glorious hot
+    day, with scarce a breeze to ruffle the water, papa
+    and Charley went to fish for cunners, who soon proved
+    too _cun_ning for them, for they ate every morsel of
+    bait off the hooks, so that out of twenty bites they
+    only secured two or three. What they did get were fried
+    for our dinner, reinforced by a fine clam-chowder. The
+    evening was one of the most glorious I ever saw--a
+    calm sea and round, full moon; Mrs. Upham and I sat
+    out on the rocks between the mainland and the island
+    until ten o'clock. I never did see a more perfect and
+    glorious scene, and to add to it there was a splendid
+    northern light dancing like spirits in the sky. Had it
+    not been for a terrible attack of mosquitoes in our
+    sleeping-rooms, that kept us up and fighting all night,
+    we should have called it a perfect success.
+
+    We went into the sea to bathe twice, once the day we
+    came, and about eight o'clock in the morning before we
+    went back. Besides this we have been to Middle Bay,
+    where Charley, standing where you all stood before him,
+    actually caught a flounder with his own hand, whereat
+    he screamed loud enough to scare all the folks on Eagle
+    Island. We have also been to Maquoit. We have visited
+    the old pond, and, if I mistake not, the relics of your
+    old raft yet float there; at all events, one or two
+    fragments of a raft are there, caught among rushes.
+
+    I do not realize that one of the busiest and happiest
+    of the train who once played there shall play there no
+    more. "He shall return to his house no more, neither
+    shall his place know him any more." I think I have felt
+    the healing touch of Jesus of Nazareth on the deep
+    wound in my heart, for I have golden hours of calm
+    when I say: "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in
+    thy sight." So sure am I that the most generous love
+    has ordered all, that I can now take pleasure to give
+    this little proof of my unquestioning confidence in
+    resigning one of my dearest comforts to Him. I feel
+    very near the spirit land, and the words, "I shall go
+    to him, but he shall not return to me," are very sweet.
+
+    Oh, if God would give to you, my dear children, a view
+    of the infinite beauty of Eternal Love,--if He would
+    unite us in himself, then even on earth all tears might
+    be wiped away.
+
+    Papa has preached twice to-day, and is preaching again
+    to-night. He told me to be sure to write and send you
+    his love. I hope his health is getting better. Mrs.
+    Upham sends you her best love, and hopes you will make
+    her a visit some time.
+
+    Good-by, my darlings. Come soon to your affectionate
+    mother.
+
+                                                  H. B. S.
+
+The winter of 1857 was passed quietly and uneventfully at Andover. In
+November Mrs. Stowe contributed to the "Atlantic Monthly" a touching
+little allegory, "The Mourning Veil."
+
+In December, 1858, the first chapter of "The Minister's Wooing"
+appeared in the same magazine. Simultaneously with this story was
+written "The Pearl of Orr's Island," published first as a serial in
+the "Independent."
+
+She dictated a large part of "The Minister's Wooing" under a great
+pressure of mental excitement, and it was a relief to her to turn to
+the quiet story of the coast of Maine, which she loved so well.
+
+In February, 1874, Mrs. Stowe received the following words from Mr.
+Whittier, which are very interesting in this connection: "When I am in
+the mood for thinking deeply I read 'The Minister's Wooing.' But 'The
+Pearl of Orr's Island' is my favorite. It is the most charming New
+England idyl ever written."
+
+"The Minister's Wooing" was received with universal commendation from
+the first, and called forth the following appreciative words from the
+pen of Mr. James Russell Lowell:--
+
+"It has always seemed to us that the anti-slavery element in the two
+former novels by Mrs. Stowe stood in the way of a full appreciation of
+her remarkable genius, at least in her own country. It was so easy to
+account for the unexampled popularity of 'Uncle Tom' by attributing it
+to a cheap sympathy with sentimental philanthropy! As people began to
+recover from the first enchantment, they began also to resent it and
+to complain that a dose of that insane Garrison-root which takes the
+reason prisoner had been palmed upon them without their knowing it,
+and that their ordinary water-gruel of fiction, thinned with sentiment
+and thickened with moral, had been hocussed with the bewildering
+hasheesh of Abolition. We had the advantage of reading that truly
+extraordinary book for the first time in Paris, long after the whirl of
+excitement produced by its publication had subsided, in the seclusion
+of distance, and with a judgment unbiased by those political sympathies
+which it is impossible, perhaps unwise, to avoid at home. We felt then,
+and we believe now, that the secret of Mrs. Stowe's power lay in that
+same genius by which the great successes in creative literature have
+always been achieved,--the genius that instinctively goes right to
+the organic elements of human nature, whether under a white skin or a
+black, and which disregards as trivial the conventional and factitious
+notions which make so large a part both of our thinking and feeling.
+Works of imagination written with an aim to immediate impression are
+commonly ephemeral, like Miss Martineau's 'Tales,' and Elliott's
+'Corn-law Rhymes;' but the creative faculty of Mrs. Stowe, like that
+of Cervantes in 'Don Quixote' and of Fielding in 'Joseph Andrews,'
+overpowered the narrow specialty of her design, and expanded a local
+and temporary theme with the cosmopolitanism of genius.
+
+"It is a proverb that 'There is a great deal of human nature in men,'
+but it is equally and sadly true that there is amazingly little of it
+in books. Fielding is the only English novelist who deals with life in
+its broadest sense. Thackeray, his disciple and congener, and Dickens,
+the congener of Smollett, do not so much treat of life as of the strata
+of society; the one studying nature from the club-room window, the
+other from the reporters' box in the police court. It may be that the
+general obliteration of distinctions of rank in this country, which is
+generally considered a detriment to the novelist, will in the end turn
+to his advantage by compelling him to depend for his effects on the
+contrasts and collisions of innate character, rather than on those
+shallower traits superinduced by particular social arrangements, or by
+hereditary associations. Shakespeare drew ideal, and Fielding natural
+men and women; Thackeray draws either gentlemen or snobs, and Dickens
+either unnatural men or the oddities natural only in the lowest grades
+of a highly artificial system of society. The first two knew human
+nature; of the two latter, one knows what is called the world, and
+the other the streets of London. Is it possible that the very social
+democracy which here robs the novelist of so much romance, so much
+costume, so much antithesis of caste, so much in short that is purely
+external, will give him a set-off in making it easier for him to get at
+that element of universal humanity which neither of the two extremes
+of an aristocratic system, nor the salient and picturesque points of
+contrast between the two, can alone lay open to him?
+
+"We hope to see this problem solved by Mrs. Stowe. That kind of
+romantic interest which Scott evolved from the relations of lord
+and vassal, of thief and clansman, from the social more than the
+moral contrast of Roundhead and Cavalier, of far-descended pauper
+and _nouveau riche_ which Cooper found in the clash of savagery with
+civilization, and the shaggy virtue bred on the border-land between
+the two, Indian by habit, white by tradition, Mrs. Stowe seems in
+her former novels to have sought in a form of society alien to her
+sympathies, and too remote for exact study, or for the acquirement of
+that local truth which is the slow result of unconscious observation.
+There can be no stronger proof of the greatness of her genius, of her
+possessing that conceptive faculty which belongs to the higher order
+of imagination, than the avidity with which 'Uncle Tom' was read at the
+South. It settled the point that this book was true to human nature,
+even if not minutely so to plantation life.
+
+"If capable of so great a triumph where success must so largely depend
+on the sympathetic insight of her mere creative power, have we not a
+right to expect something far more in keeping with the requirements
+of art, now that her wonderful eye is to be the mirror of familiar
+scenes, and of a society in which she was bred, of which she has
+seen so many varieties, and that, too, in the country, where it is
+most _naive_ and original? It is a great satisfaction to us that in
+'The Minister's Wooing' she has chosen her time and laid her scene
+amid New England habits and traditions. There is no other writer who
+is so capable of perpetuating for us, in a work of art, a style of
+thought and manners which railways and newspapers will soon render as
+palaeozoic as the mastodon or the megalosaurians. Thus far the story has
+fully justified our hopes. The leading characters are all fresh and
+individual creations. Mrs. Kate Scudder, the notable Yankee housewife;
+Mary, in whom Cupid is to try conclusions with Calvin; James Marvyn,
+the adventurous boy of the coast, in whose heart the wild religion of
+nature swells till the strait swathings of Puritanism are burst; Dr.
+Hopkins, the conscientious minister come upon a time when the social
+_prestige_ of the clergy is waning, and whose independence will test
+the voluntary system of ministerial support; Simeon Brown, the man
+of theological dialectics, in whom the utmost perfection of creed is
+shown to be not inconsistent with the most contradictory imperfection
+of life,--all these are characters new to literature. And the scene
+is laid just far enough away in point of time to give proper tone and
+perspective.
+
+"We think we find in the story, so far as it has proceeded, the promise
+of an interest as unhackneyed as it will be intense. There is room
+for the play of all the passions and interests that make up the great
+tragi-comedy of life, while all the scenery and accessories will be
+those which familiarity has made dear to us. We are a little afraid of
+Colonel Burr, to be sure, it is so hard to make a historical personage
+fulfill the conditions demanded by the novel of every-day life. He is
+almost sure either to fall below our traditional conception of him,
+or to rise above the natural and easy level of character, into the
+vague or the melodramatic. Moreover, we do not want a novel of society
+from Mrs. Stowe; she is quite too good to be wasted in that way, and
+her tread is much more firm on the turf of the "door-yard" or the
+pasture, and the sanded floor of the farmhouse, than on the velvet of
+the _salon_. We have no notion how she is to develop her plot, but we
+think we foresee chances for her best power in the struggle which seems
+foreshadowed between Mary's conscientious admiration of the doctor and
+her half-conscious passion for James, before she discovers that one of
+these conflicting feelings means simply moral liking and approval, and
+the other that she is a woman and that she loves. And is not the value
+of dogmatic theology as a rule of life to be thoroughly tested for the
+doctor by his slave-trading parishioners? Is he not to learn the bitter
+difference between intellectual acceptance of a creed and that true
+partaking of the sacrament of love and faith and sorrow that makes
+Christ the very life-blood of our being and doing? And has not James
+Marvyn also his lesson to be taught? We foresee him drawn gradually
+back by Mary from his recoil against Puritan formalism to a perception
+of how every creed is pliant and plastic to a beautiful nature, of how
+much charm there may be in an hereditary faith, even if it have become
+almost conventional.
+
+"In the materials of character already present in the story, there is
+scope for Mrs. Stowe's humor, pathos, clear moral sense, and quick eye
+for the scenery of life. We do not believe that there is any one who,
+by birth, breeding, and natural capacity, has had the opportunity to
+know New England so well as she, or who has the peculiar genius so
+to profit by the knowledge. Already there have been scenes in 'The
+Minister's Wooing' that, in their lowness of tone and quiet truth,
+contrast as charmingly with the humid vagueness of the modern school of
+novel-writers as 'The Vicar of Wakefield' itself, and we are greatly
+mistaken if it do not prove to be the most characteristic of Mrs.
+Stowe's works, and therefore that on which her fame will chiefly rest
+with posterity."
+
+"The Minister's Wooing" was not completed as a serial till December,
+1859. Long before its completion Mrs. Stowe received letters from many
+interested readers, who were as much concerned for the future of her
+"spiritual children," as George Eliot would call them, as if they had
+been flesh and blood.
+
+The following letter from Mr. Lowell is given as the most valuable
+received by Mrs. Stowe at this time:--
+
+                              CAMBRIDGE, _February 4, 1859._
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I certainly did mean to write you
+    about your story, but only to cry _bravissima!_ with
+    the rest of the world. I intended no kind of criticism;
+    deeming it wholly out of place, and in the nature of
+    a wet-blanket, so long as a story is unfinished. When
+    I got the first number in MS., I said to Mr. Phillips
+    that I thought it would be the best thing you had done,
+    and what followed has only confirmed my first judgment.
+    From long habit, and from the tendency of my studies, I
+    cannot help looking at things purely from an aesthetic
+    point of view, and what _I_ valued in "Uncle Tom" was
+    the genius, and not the moral. That is saying a good
+    deal, for I never use the word _genius_ at haphazard,
+    and always (perhaps, too) sparingly. I am going to be
+    as frank as I ought to be with one whom I value so
+    highly. What especially charmed me in the new story
+    was, that you had taken your stand on New England
+    ground. You are one of the few persons lucky enough
+    to be born with eyes in your head,--that is, with
+    something behind the eyes which makes them of value. To
+    most people the seeing apparatus is as useless as the
+    great telescope at the observatory is to me,--something
+    to stare through with no intelligent result. Nothing
+    could be better than the conception of your plot (so
+    far as I divine it), and the painting-in of your
+    figures. As for "theology," it is as much a part of
+    daily life in New England as in Scotland, and all I
+    should have to say about it is this: let it crop out
+    when it naturally comes to the surface, only don't dig
+    down to it. A moral aim is a fine thing, but in making
+    a story an artist is a traitor who does not sacrifice
+    everything to art. Remember the lesson that Christ gave
+    us twice over. First, he preferred the useless Mary to
+    the dish-washing Martha, and next, when that exemplary
+    moralist and friend of humanity, Judas, objected to
+    the sinful waste of the Magdalen's ointment, the great
+    Teacher would rather it should be wasted in an act of
+    simple beauty than utilized for the benefit of the
+    poor. Cleopatra was an artist when she dissolved her
+    biggest pearl to captivate her Antony-public. May I, a
+    critic by profession, say the whole truth to a woman of
+    genius? Yes? And never be forgiven? I shall try, and
+    try to be forgiven, too. In the first place, pay no
+    regard to the advice of anybody. In the second place,
+    pay a great deal to mine! A Kilkenny-cattish style
+    of advice? Not at all. My advice is to follow your
+    own instincts,--to stick to nature, and to avoid what
+    people commonly call the "Ideal;" for that, and beauty,
+    and pathos, and success, all lie in the simply natural.
+    We all preach it, from Wordsworth down, and we all,
+    from Wordsworth down, don't practice it. Don't I feel
+    it every day in this weary editorial mill of mine, that
+    there are ten thousand people who can write "ideal"
+    things for one who can see, and feel, and reproduce
+    nature and character? Ten thousand, did I say? Nay, ten
+    million. What made Shakespeare so great? Nothing but
+    eyes and--faith in them. The same is true of Thackeray.
+    I see nowhere more often than in authors the truth that
+    men love their opposites. Dickens insists on being
+    tragic and makes shipwreck.
+
+    I always thought (forgive me) that the Hebrew parts of
+    "Dred" were a mistake. Do not think me impertinent; I
+    am only honestly anxious that what I consider a very
+    remarkable genius should have faith in itself. Let
+    your moral take care of itself, and remember that an
+    author's writing-desk is something infinitely higher
+    than a pulpit. What I call "care of itself" is shown
+    in that noble passage in the February number about the
+    ladder up to heaven. That is grand preaching and in the
+    right way. I am sure that "The Minister's Wooing" is
+    going to be the best of your products hitherto, and I
+    am sure of it because you show so thorough a mastery
+    of your material, so true a perception of realities,
+    without which the ideality is impossible.
+
+    As for "orthodoxy," be at ease. Whatever is well done
+    the world finds orthodox at last, in spite of all the
+    Fakir journals, whose only notion of orthodoxy seems
+    to be the power of standing in one position till you
+    lose all the use of your limbs. If, with your heart and
+    brain, _you_ are not orthodox, in Heaven's name who is?
+    If you mean "Calvinistic," no woman could ever be such,
+    for Calvinism is logic, and no woman worth the name
+    could ever live by syllogisms. Woman charms a higher
+    faculty in us than reason, God be praised, and nothing
+    has delighted me more in your new story than the happy
+    instinct with which you develop this incapacity of the
+    lovers' logic in your female characters. Go on just
+    as you have begun, and make it appear in as many ways
+    as you like,--that, whatever creed may be true, it is
+    _not_ true and never will be that man can be saved by
+    machinery. I can speak with some chance of being right,
+    for I confess a strong sympathy with many parts of
+    Calvinistic theology, and, for one thing, believe in
+    hell with all my might, and in the goodness of God for
+    all that.
+
+    I have not said anything. What could I say? One might
+    almost as well advise a mother about the child she
+    still bears under her heart, and say, give it these and
+    those qualities, as an author about a work yet in the
+    brain.
+
+    Only this I will say, that I am honestly delighted with
+    "The Minister's Wooing;" that reading it has been one
+    of my few editorial pleasures; that no one appreciates
+    your genius more highly than I, or hopes more fervently
+    that you will let yourself go without regard to this,
+    that, or t'other. Don't read any criticisms on your
+    story: believe that you know better than any of us, and
+    be sure that everybody likes it. That I know. There is
+    not, and never was, anybody so competent to write a
+    true New England poem as yourself, and have no doubt
+    that you are doing it. The native sod sends up the
+    best inspiration to the brain, and you are as sure of
+    immortality as we all are of dying,--if you only go on
+    with entire faith in yourself.
+
+                  Faithfully and admiringly yours,
+                                             J. R. LOWELL.
+
+After the book was published in England, Mr. Ruskin wrote to Mrs.
+Stowe:--
+
+"Well, I have read the book now, and I think nothing can be nobler
+than the noble parts of it (Mary's great speech to Colonel Burr, for
+instance), nothing wiser than the wise parts of it (the author's
+parenthetical and under-breath remarks), nothing more delightful than
+the delightful parts (all that Virginie says and does), nothing more
+edged than the edged parts (Candace's sayings and doings, to wit); but
+I do not like the plan of the whole, because the simplicity of the
+minister seems to diminish the probability of Mary's reverence for him.
+I cannot fancy even so good a girl who would not have laughed at him.
+Nor can I fancy a man of real intellect reaching such a period of life
+without understanding his own feelings better, or penetrating those of
+another more quickly.
+
+"Then I am provoked at nothing happening to Mrs. Scudder, whom I think
+as entirely unendurable a creature as ever defied poetical justice at
+the end of a novel meant to irritate people. And finally, I think you
+are too disdainful of what ordinary readers seek in a novel, under the
+name of 'interest,'--that gradually developing wonder, expectation, and
+curiosity which makes people who have no self-command sit up till three
+in the morning to get to the crisis, and people who have self-command
+lay the book down with a resolute sigh, and think of it all the next
+day through till the time comes for taking it up again. Still, I know
+well that in many respects it was impossible for you to treat this
+story merely as a work of literary art. There must have been many facts
+which you could not dwell upon, and which no one may judge by common
+rules.
+
+"It is also true, as you say once or twice in the course of the work,
+that we have not among us here the peculiar religious earnestness you
+have mainly to describe.
+
+"We have little earnest formalism, and our formalists are for the most
+part hollow, feeble, uninteresting, mere stumbling-blocks. We have the
+Simeon Brown species, indeed; and among readers even of his kind the
+book may do some good, and more among the weaker, truer people, whom it
+will shake like mattresses,--making the dust fly, and perhaps with it
+some of the sticks and quill-ends, which often make that kind of person
+an objectionable mattress. I write too lightly of the book,--far too
+lightly,--but your letter made me gay, and I have been lighter-hearted
+ever since; only I kept this after beginning it, because I was ashamed
+to send it without a line to Mrs. Browning as well. I do not understand
+why you should apprehend (or rather anticipate without apprehension)
+any absurd criticism on it. It is sure to be a popular book,--not as
+'Uncle Tom' was, for that owed part of its popularity to its dramatic
+effect (the flight on the ice, etc.), which I did not like; but as a
+true picture of human life is always popular. Nor, I should think,
+would any critics venture at all to carp at it.
+
+"The Candace and Virginie bits appear to me, as far as I have yet seen,
+the best. I am very glad there is this nice French lady in it: the
+French are the least appreciated in general, of all nations, by other
+nations.... My father says the book is worth its weight in gold, and he
+knows good work."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When we turn from these criticisms and commendations to the inner
+history of this period, we find that the work was done in deep sadness
+of heart, and the undertone of pathos that forms the dark background
+of the brightest and most humorous parts of "The Minister's Wooing"
+was the unconscious revelation of one of sorrowful spirit, who, weary
+of life, would have been glad to lie down with her arms "round the
+wayside cross, and sleep away into a brighter scene."
+
+Just before beginning the writing of "The Minister's Wooing" she sent
+the following letter to Lady Byron:--
+
+                                  ANDOVER, _June 30, 1858._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--I did long to hear from you at a time
+    when few knew how to speak, because I knew that you
+    did know everything that sorrow can teach,--you whose
+    whole life has been a crucifixion, a long ordeal.
+    But I believe that the "Lamb," who stands forever in
+    the midst of the throne "as it had been slain," has
+    everywhere his followers, those who are sent into the
+    world, as he was, to suffer for the redemption of
+    others, and like him they must look to the joy set
+    before them of redeeming others.
+
+    I often think that God called you to this beautiful and
+    terrible ministry when He suffered you to link your
+    destiny with one so strangely gifted, so fearfully
+    tempted, and that the reward which is to meet you, when
+    you enter within the veil, where you must soon pass,
+    will be to see the angel, once chained and defiled
+    within him, set free from sin and glorified, and so
+    know that to you it has been given, by your life of
+    love and faith, to accomplish this glorious change.
+
+    I think very much on the subject on which you conversed
+    with me once,--the future state of retribution. It
+    is evident to me that the spirit of Christianity has
+    produced in the human spirit a tenderness of love which
+    wholly revolts from the old doctrine on the subject,
+    and I observe the more Christ-like any one becomes,
+    the more impossible it seems for him to accept it; and
+    yet, on the contrary, it was Christ who said, "Fear
+    Him that is able to destroy soul and body in hell,"
+    and the most appalling language on this subject is
+    that of Christ himself. Certain ideas once prevalent
+    certainly must be thrown off. An endless infliction for
+    past sins was once the doctrine that we now generally
+    reject. The doctrine as now taught is that of an
+    eternal persistence in evil necessitating eternal
+    punishment, since evil induces misery by an eternal
+    nature of things, and this, I fear, is inferable from
+    the analogies of nature, and confirmed by the whole
+    implication of the Bible.
+
+    Is there any fair way of disposing of the current
+    of assertion, and the still deeper undercurrent of
+    implication, on this subject, without one which
+    loosens all faith in revelation, and throws us on pure
+    naturalism? But of one thing I am sure,--probation does
+    not end with this life, and the number of the redeemed
+    may therefore be infinitely greater than the world's
+    history leads us to suppose.
+
+The views expressed in this letter certainly throw light on many
+passages in "The Minister's Wooing."
+
+The following letter, written to her daughter Georgiana, is introduced
+as revealing the spirit in which much of "The Minister's Wooing" was
+written:--
+
+                                      _February 12, 1859._
+
+    MY DEAR GEORGIE,--Why haven't I written? Because, dear
+    Georgie, I am like the dry, dead, leafless tree, and
+    have only cold, dead, slumbering buds of hope on the
+    end of stiff, hard, frozen twigs of thought, but no
+    leaves, no blossoms; nothing to send to a little girl
+    who doesn't know what to do with herself any more than
+    a kitten. I am cold, weary, dead; everything is a
+    burden to me.
+
+    I let my plants die by inches before my eyes, and do
+    not water them, and I dread everything I do, and wish
+    it was not to be done, and so when I get a letter from
+    my little girl I smile and say, "Dear little puss, I
+    will answer it;" and I sit hour after hour with folded
+    hands, looking at the inkstand and dreading to begin.
+    The fact is, pussy, mamma is tired. Life to you is
+    gay and joyous, but to mamma it has been a battle in
+    which the spirit is willing but the flesh weak, and
+    she would be glad, like the woman in the St. Bernard,
+    to lie down with her arms around the wayside cross,
+    and sleep away into a brighter scene. Henry's fair,
+    sweet face looks down upon me now and then from out
+    a cloud, and I feel again all the bitterness of the
+    eternal "No" which says I must never, never, in this
+    life, see that face, lean on that arm, hear that voice.
+    Not that my faith in God in the least fails, and that
+    I do not believe that all this is for good. I do, and
+    though not happy, I am blessed. Weak, weary as I am, I
+    rest on Jesus in the innermost depth of my soul, and
+    am quite sure that there is coming an inconceivable
+    hour of beauty and glory when I shall regain Jesus,
+    and he will give me back my beloved one, whom he is
+    educating in a far higher sphere than I proposed. So do
+    not mistake me,--only know that mamma is sitting weary
+    by the wayside, feeling weak and worn, but in no sense
+    discouraged.
+
+                       Your affectionate mother,
+                                             H. B. S.
+
+So is it ever: when with bold step we press our way into the holy place
+where genius hath wrought, we find it to be a place of sorrows. Art
+has its Gethsemane and its Calvary as well as religion. Our best loved
+books and sweetest songs are those "that tell of saddest thought."
+
+The summer of 1859 found Mrs. Stowe again on her way to Europe, this
+time accompanied by all her children except the youngest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE THIRD TRIP TO EUROPE, 1859.
+
+    THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE.--LADY BYRON ON "THE
+    MINISTER'S WOOING."--SOME FOREIGN PEOPLE AND THINGS
+    AS THEY APPEARED TO PROFESSOR STOWE.--A WINTER IN
+    ITALY.--THINGS UNSEEN AND UNREVEALED.--SPECULATIONS
+    CONCERNING SPIRITUALISM.--JOHN RUSKIN.--MRS.
+    BROWNING.--THE RETURN TO AMERICA.--LETTERS TO DR.
+    HOLMES.
+
+
+MRS. STOWE'S third and last trip to Europe was undertaken in the summer
+of 1859. In writing to Lady Byron in May of that year, she says: "I
+am at present writing something that interests me greatly, and may
+interest you, as an attempt to portray the heart and life of New
+England, its religion, theology, and manners. Sampson Low & Son are
+issuing it in numbers, and I should be glad to know how they strike
+you. It is to publish this work complete that I intend to visit England
+this summer."
+
+The story thus referred to was "The Minister's Wooing," and Lady
+Byron's answer to the above, which is appended, leaves no room for
+doubt as to her appreciation of it. She writes:--
+
+                                    LONDON, _May 31, 1859._
+
+    DEAR FRIEND,--I have found, particularly as to
+    yourself, that if I did not answer from the first
+    impulse, all had evaporated. Your letter came by the
+    Niagara, which brought Fanny Kemble, to learn the loss
+    of her _best_ friend, that Miss Fitzhugh whom you saw
+    at my house.
+
+    I have an intense interest in your new novel. More
+    power in these few numbers than in any of your former
+    writings, relatively, at least to my own mind. More
+    power than in "Adam Bede," which is _the_ book of the
+    season, and well deserves a high place. Whether Mrs.
+    Scudder will rival Mrs. Poyser, we shall see.
+
+    It would amuse you to hear my granddaughter and myself
+    attempting to foresee the future of the "love story,"
+    being quite persuaded for the moment that James is
+    at sea, and the minister about to ruin himself. We
+    think that she will labor to be in love with the
+    self-devoting man, under her mother's influence, and
+    from that hyper-conscientiousness so common with good
+    girls,--but we don't wish her to succeed. Then what
+    is to become of her older lover? He--Time will show.
+    I have just missed Dale Owen, with whom I wished to
+    have conversed about the "Spiritualism." Harris is
+    lecturing here on religion. I do not hear him praised.
+    People are looking for helps to believe everywhere but
+    in life,--in music, in architecture, in antiquity,
+    in ceremony,--and upon all is written, "Thou shalt
+    _not_ believe." At least, if this be faith, happier
+    the unbeliever. I am willing to see _through_ that
+    materialism, but if I am to rest there, I would rend
+    the veil.
+
+    _June 1._ The day of the packet's sailing. I shall hope
+    to be visited by you here. The best flowers sent me
+    have been placed in your little vases, giving life, as
+    it were, to the remembrance of you, though not to pass
+    away like them.
+
+                                 Ever yours,
+                                   A. T. NOEL BYRON.
+
+The entire family, with the exception of the youngest son, was abroad
+at this time. The two eldest daughters were in Paris, having previously
+sailed for Havre in March, in company with their cousin, Miss Beecher.
+On their arrival in Paris, they went directly to the house of their
+old friend, Madame Borione, and soon afterwards entered a Protestant
+school. The rest of the family, including Mrs. Stowe, her husband and
+youngest daughter, sailed for Liverpool early in August. At about the
+same time, Fred Stowe, in company with his friend Samuel Scoville, took
+passage for the same port in a sailing vessel. A comprehensive outline
+of the earlier portion of this foreign tour is given in the following
+letter written by Professor Stowe to the sole member of the family
+remaining in America:
+
+          CASTLE CHILLON, SWITZERLAND, _September 1, 1859._
+
+    DEAR LITTLE CHARLEY,--We are all here except Fred, and
+    all well. We have had a most interesting journey, of
+    which I must give a brief account.
+
+    We sailed from New York in the steamer Asia, on the 3d
+    of August [1859], a very hot day, and for ten days it
+    was the hottest weather I ever knew at sea. We had a
+    splendid ship's company, mostly foreigners, Italians,
+    Spaniards, with a sprinkling of Scotch and Irish. We
+    passed one big iceberg in the night close to, and as
+    the iceberg wouldn't turn out for us we turned out for
+    the iceberg, and were very glad to come off so. This
+    was the night of the 9th of August, and after that we
+    had cooler weather, and on the morning of the 13th the
+    wind blew like all possessed, and so continued till
+    afternoon. Sunday morning, the 14th, we got safe into
+    Liverpool, landed, and went to the Adelphi Hotel. Mamma
+    and Georgie were only a little sick on the way over,
+    and that was the morning of the 13th.
+
+    As it was court time, the high sheriff of Lancashire,
+    Sir Robert Gerauld, a fine, stout, old, gray-haired
+    John Bull, came thundering up to the hotel at noon
+    in his grand coach with six beautiful horses with
+    outriders, and two trumpeters, and twelve men with
+    javelins for a guard, all dressed in the gayest
+    manner, and rushing along like Time in the primer, the
+    trumpeters too-ti-toot-tooing like a house a-fire, and
+    how I wished my little Charley had been there to see it!
+
+    Monday we wanted to go and see the court, so we
+    went over to St. George's Hall, a most magnificent
+    structure, that beats the Boston State House all
+    hollow, and Sir Robert Gerauld himself met us, and said
+    he would get us a good place. So he took us away round
+    a narrow, crooked passage, and opened a little door,
+    where we saw nothing but a great, crimson curtain,
+    which he told us to put aside and go straight on; and
+    where do you think we all found ourselves?
+
+    Right on the platform with the judges in their big wigs
+    and long robes, and facing the whole crowded court! It
+    was enough to frighten a body into fits, but we took it
+    quietly as we could, and your mamma looked as meek as
+    Moses in her little, battered straw hat and gray cloak,
+    seeming to say, "I didn't come here o' purpose."
+
+    That same night we arrived in London, and Tuesday
+    (August 16th), riding over the city, we called at
+    Stafford House, and inquired if the Duchess of
+    Sutherland was there. A servant came out and said
+    the duchess was in and would be very glad to see us;
+    so your mamma, Georgie, and I went walking up the
+    magnificent staircase in the entrance hall, and the
+    great, noble, brilliant duchess came sailing down the
+    stairs to meet us, in her white morning dress (for it
+    was only four o'clock in the afternoon, and she was
+    not yet dressed for dinner), took your mamma into her
+    great bosom, and folded her up till the little Yankee
+    woman looked like a small gray kitten half covered in a
+    snowbank, and kissed and kissed her, and then she took
+    up little Georgie and kissed her, and then she took my
+    hand, and didn't kiss me.
+
+    Next day we went to the duchess's villa, near Windsor
+    Castle, and had a grand time riding round the park,
+    sailing on the Thames, and eating the very best dinner
+    that was ever set on a table.
+
+    We stayed in London till the 25th of August, and then
+    went to Paris and found H. and E. and H. B. all well
+    and happy; and on the 30th of August we all went to
+    Geneva together, and to-day, the 1st of September, we
+    all took a sail up the beautiful Lake Leman here in the
+    midst of the Alps, close by the old castle of Chillon,
+    about which Lord Byron has written a poem. In a day or
+    two we shall go to Chamouni, and then Georgie and I
+    will go back to Paris and London, and so home at the
+    time appointed. Until then I remain as ever,
+
+                Your loving father,
+                               C. E. STOWE.
+
+Mrs. Stowe accompanied her husband and daughter to England, where,
+after traveling and visiting for two weeks, she bade them good-by and
+returned to her daughters in Switzerland. From Lausanne she writes
+under date of October 9th:--
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Here we are at Lausanne, in the
+    Hotel Gibbon, occupying the very parlor that the
+    Ruskins had when we were here before. The day I left
+    you I progressed prosperously to Paris. Reached there
+    about one o'clock at night; could get no carriage,
+    and finally had to turn in at a little hotel close by
+    the station, where I slept till morning. I could not
+    but think what if anything should happen to me there?
+    Nobody knew me or where I was, but the bed was clean,
+    the room respectable; so I locked my door and slept,
+    then took a carriage in the morning, and found Madame
+    Borione at breakfast. I write to-night, that you may
+    get a letter from me at the earliest possible date
+    after your return.
+
+    Instead of coming to Geneva in one day, I stopped
+    over one night at Macon, got to Geneva the next day
+    about four o'clock, and to Lausanne at eight. Coming
+    up-stairs and opening the door, I found the whole
+    party seated with their books and embroidery about
+    a centre-table, and looking as homelike and cosy as
+    possible. You may imagine the greetings, the kissing,
+    laughing, and good times generally.
+
+From Lausanne the merry party traveled toward Florence by easy stages,
+stopping at Lake Como, Milan, Verona, Venice, Genoa, and Leghorn. At
+Florence, where they arrived early in November, they met Fred Stowe
+and his friend, Samuel Scoville, and here they were also joined by
+their Brooklyn friends, the Howards. Thus it was a large and thoroughly
+congenial party that settled down in the old Italian city to spend the
+winter. From here Mrs. Stowe wrote weekly letters to her husband in
+Andover, and among them are the following, that not only throw light
+upon their mode of life, but illustrate a marked tendency of her mind:--
+
+                         FLORENCE, _Christmas Day, 1859._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I wish you all a Merry Christmas,
+    hoping to spend the next one with you.
+
+    For us, we are expecting to spend this evening with
+    quite a circle of American friends. With Scoville and
+    Fred came L. Bacon (son of Dr. Bacon); a Mr. Porter,
+    who is to study theology at Andover, and is now making
+    the tour of Europe; Mr. Clarke, formerly minister at
+    Cornwall; Mr. Jenkyns, of Lowell; Mr. and Mrs. Howard,
+    John and Annie Howard, who came in most unexpectedly
+    upon us last night. So we shall have quite a New
+    England party, and shall sing Millais' Christmas hymn
+    in great force. Hope you will all do the same in the
+    old stone cabin.
+
+    Our parlor is all trimmed with laurel and myrtle,
+    looking like a great bower, and our mantel and table
+    are redolent with bouquets of orange blossoms and pinks.
+
+
+                                      _January 16, 1860._
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Your letter received to-day has
+    raised quite a weight from my mind, for it shows that
+    at last you have received all mine, and that thus the
+    chain of communication between us is unbroken. What
+    you said about your spiritual experiences in feeling
+    the presence of dear Henry with you, and, above all,
+    the vibration of that mysterious guitar, was very
+    pleasant to me. Since I have been in Florence, I have
+    been distressed by inexpressible yearnings after
+    him,--such sighings and outreachings, with a sense of
+    utter darkness and separation, not only from him but
+    from all spiritual communion with my God. But I have
+    become acquainted with a friend through whom I receive
+    consoling impressions of these things,--a Mrs. E., of
+    Boston, a very pious, accomplished, and interesting
+    woman, who has had a history much like yours in
+    relation to spiritual manifestations.
+
+    Without doubt she is what the spiritualists would
+    regard as a very powerful medium, but being a very
+    earnest Christian, and afraid of getting led astray,
+    she has kept carefully aloof from all circles and
+    things of that nature. She came and opened her mind to
+    me in the first place, to ask my advice as to what she
+    had better do; relating experiences very similar to
+    many of yours.
+
+    My advice was substantially to try the spirits whether
+    they were of God,--to keep close to the Bible and
+    prayer, and then accept whatever came. But I have
+    found that when I am with her I receive very strong
+    impressions from the spiritual world, so that I feel
+    often sustained and comforted, as if I had been near
+    to my Henry and other departed friends. This has been
+    at times so strong as greatly to soothe and support
+    me. I told her your experiences, in which she was
+    greatly interested. She said it was so rare to hear of
+    Christian and reliable people with such peculiarities.
+
+    I cannot, however, think that Henry strikes the
+    guitar,--that must be Eliza. Her spirit has ever
+    seemed to cling to that mode of manifestation, and if
+    you would keep it in your sleeping-room, no doubt you
+    would hear from it oftener. I have been reading lately
+    a curious work from an old German in Paris who has been
+    making experiments in spirit-writing. He purports to
+    describe a series of meetings held in the presence of
+    fifty witnesses, whose names he gives, in which writing
+    has come on paper, without the apparition of hands or
+    any pen or pencil, from various historical people.
+
+    He seems a devout believer in inspiration, and the book
+    is curious for its mixture of all the phenomena, Pagan
+    and Christian, going over Hindoo, Chinese, Greek, and
+    Italian literature for examples, and then bringing
+    similar ones from the Bible.
+
+    One thing I am convinced of,--that spiritualism is a
+    reaction from the intense materialism of the present
+    age. Luther, when he recognized a personal devil,
+    was much nearer right. We ought to enter fully, at
+    least, into the spiritualism of the Bible. Circles and
+    spiritual jugglery I regard as the lying signs and
+    wonders, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness;
+    but there is a real scriptural spiritualism which has
+    fallen into disuse, and must be revived, and there
+    are, doubtless, people who, from some constitutional
+    formation, can more readily receive the impressions of
+    the surrounding spiritual world. Such were apostles,
+    prophets, and workers of miracles.
+
+    _Sunday evening._ To-day I went down to sit with Mrs.
+    E. in her quiet parlor. We read in Revelation together,
+    and talked of the saints and spirits of the just made
+    perfect, till it seemed, as it always does when with
+    her, as if Henry were close by me. Then a curious thing
+    happened. She has a little Florentine guitar which
+    hangs in her parlor, quite out of reach. She and I
+    were talking, and her sister, a very matter-of-fact,
+    practical body, who attends to temporals for her, was
+    arranging a little lunch for us, when suddenly the bass
+    string of the guitar was struck loudly and distinctly.
+
+    "Who struck that guitar?" said the sister. We both
+    looked up and saw that no body or thing was on that
+    side of the room. After the sister had gone out, Mrs.
+    E. said, "Now, that is strange! I asked last night
+    that if any spirit was present with us after you came
+    to-day, that it would try to touch that guitar." A
+    little while after her husband came in, and as we were
+    talking we were all stopped by a peculiar sound, as if
+    somebody had drawn a hand across all the strings at
+    once. We marveled, and I remembered the guitar at home.
+
+    What think you? Have you had any more manifestations,
+    any truths from the spirit world?
+
+About the end of February the pleasant Florentine circle broke up, and
+Mrs. Stowe and her party journeyed to Rome, where they remained until
+the middle of April. We next find them in Naples, starting on a six
+days' trip to Castellamare, Sorrento, Salerno, Paestum, and Amalfi; then
+up Vesuvius, and to the Blue Grotto of Capri, and afterwards back to
+Rome by diligence. Leaving Rome on May 9th, they traveled leisurely
+towards Paris, which they reached on the 27th. From there Mrs. Stowe
+wrote to her husband on May 28th:--
+
+    Since my last letter a great change has taken place
+    in our plans, in consequence of which our passage for
+    America is engaged by the Europa, which sails the 16th
+    of June; so, if all goes well, we are due in Boston
+    four weeks from this date. I long for home, for my
+    husband and children, for my room, my yard and garden,
+    for the beautiful trees of Andover. We will make a very
+    happy home, and our children will help us.
+
+                              Affectionately yours,
+                                                HATTY.
+
+This extended and pleasant tour was ended with an equally pleasant
+homeward voyage, for on the Europa were found Nathaniel Hawthorne and
+James T. Fields, who proved most delightful traveling companions.
+
+While Mrs. Stowe fully enjoyed her foreign experiences, she was
+so thoroughly American in every fibre of her being that she was
+always thankful to return to her own land and people. She could not,
+therefore, in any degree reciprocate the views of Mr. Ruskin on this
+subject, as expressed in the following letter, received soon after her
+return to Andover:--
+
+                                  GENEVA, _June 18, 1860._
+
+    DEAR MRS. STOWE,--It takes a great deal, when I am at
+    Geneva, to make me wish myself anywhere else, and,
+    of all places else, in London; nevertheless, I very
+    heartily wish at this moment that I were looking out
+    on the Norwood Hills, and were expecting you and the
+    children to breakfast to-morrow.
+
+    I had very serious thoughts, when I received your
+    note, of running home; but I expected that very day an
+    American friend, Mr. S., who I thought would miss me
+    more here than you would in London; so I stayed.
+
+    What a dreadful thing it is that people should have to
+    go to America again, after coming to Europe! It seems
+    to me an inversion of the order of nature. I think
+    America is a sort of "United" States of Probation, out
+    of which all wise people, being once delivered, and
+    having obtained entrance into this better world, should
+    never be expected to return (sentence irremediably
+    ungrammatical), particularly when they have been making
+    themselves cruelly pleasant to friends here. My friend
+    Norton, whom I met first on this very blue lake water,
+    had no business to go back to Boston again, any more
+    than you.
+
+    I was waiting for S. at the railroad station on
+    Thursday, and thinking of you, naturally enough,--it
+    seemed so short a while since we were there together.
+    I managed to get hold of Georgie as she was crossing
+    the rails, and packed her in opposite my mother and
+    beside me, and was thinking myself so clever, when you
+    sent that rascally courier for her! I never forgave him
+    any of his behavior after his imperativeness on that
+    occasion.
+
+    And so she is getting nice and strong? Ask her, please,
+    when you write, with my love, whether, when she stands
+    now behind the great stick, one can see much of her on
+    each side?
+
+    So you have been seeing the Pope and all his Easter
+    performances? I congratulate you, for I suppose it is
+    something like "Positively the last appearance on any
+    stage." What was the use of thinking about _him_? You
+    should have had your own thoughts about what was to
+    come after him. I don't mean that Roman Catholicism
+    will die out so quickly. It will last pretty nearly as
+    long as Protestantism, which keeps it up; but I wonder
+    what is to come next. That is the main question just
+    now for everybody.
+
+    So you are coming round to Venice, after all? We shall
+    all have to come to it, depend upon it, some way or
+    another. There never has been anything in any other
+    part of the world like Venetian strength well developed.
+
+    I've no heart to write about anything in Europe to you
+    now. When are you coming back again? Please send me
+    a line as soon as you get safe over, to say you are
+    all--wrong, but not lost in the Atlantic.
+
+    I don't know if you will ever get this letter, but I
+    hope you will think it worth while to glance again at
+    the Denmark Hill pictures; so I send this to my father,
+    who, I hope, will be able to give it you.
+
+    I really am very sorry you are going,--you and yours;
+    and that is absolute fact, and I shall not enjoy my
+    Swiss journey at all so much as I might. It was a shame
+    of you not to give me warning before. I could have
+    stopped at Paris so easily for you! All good be with
+    you! Remember me devotedly to the young ladies, and
+    believe me ever affectionately yours,
+
+                                                 J. RUSKIN.
+
+In Rome Mrs. Stowe had formed a warm friendship with the Brownings,
+with whom she afterwards maintained a correspondence. The following
+letter from Mrs. Browning was written a year after their first meeting.
+
+                   ROME, 126 VIA FELICE, _14 March, 1861._
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--Let me say one word first. Your
+    letter, which would have given me pleasure if I had
+    been in the midst of pleasures, came to me when little
+    beside could have pleased. Dear friend, let me say it,
+    I had had a great blow and loss in England, and you
+    wrote things in that letter which seemed meant for me,
+    meant to do me good, and which did me good,--the first
+    good any letter or any talk did me; and it struck me as
+    strange, as more than a coincidence, that your first
+    word since we parted in Rome last spring should come to
+    me in Rome, and bear so directly on an experience which
+    you did not know of. I thank you very much.
+
+    The earnest stanzas I sent to England for one who
+    wanted them even more than I. I don't know how people
+    can keep up their prejudices against spiritualism with
+    tears in their eyes,--how they are not, at least,
+    thrown on the "wish that it might be true," and the
+    investigation of the phenomena, by that abrupt shutting
+    in their faces of the door of death, which shuts them
+    out from the sight of their beloved. My tendency is to
+    beat up against it like a crying child. Not that this
+    emotional impulse is the best for turning the key and
+    obtaining safe conclusions,--no. I did not write before
+    because I always do shrink from touching my own griefs,
+    one feels at first so sore that nothing but stillness
+    is borne. It is only after, when one is better, that
+    one can express one's self at all. This is so with me,
+    at least, though perhaps it ought not to be so with a
+    poet.
+
+    If you saw my "De Profundis" you must understand that
+    it was written nearly twenty years ago, and referred
+    to what went before. Mr. Howard's affliction made me
+    think of the MS. (in reference to a sermon of Dr.
+    Beecher's in the "Independent"), and I pulled it out
+    of a secret place and sent it to America, not thinking
+    that the publication would fall in so nearly with a new
+    grief of mine as to lead to misconceptions. In fact the
+    poem would have been an exaggeration in that case, and
+    unsuitable in other respects.
+
+    It refers to the greatest affliction of my life,--the
+    only time when I felt _despair_,--written a year after
+    or more. Forgive all these reticences. My husband calls
+    me "peculiar" in some things,--peculiarly _lache_,
+    perhaps. I can't articulate some names, or speak of
+    certain afflictions;--no, not to _him_,--not after all
+    these years! It's a sort of _dumbness_ of the soul.
+    Blessed are those who can speak, I say. But don't you
+    see from this how I must want "spiritualism" above most
+    persons?
+
+    Now let me be ashamed of this egotism, together with
+    the rest of the weakness obtruded on you here, when I
+    should rather have congratulated you, my dear friend,
+    on the great crisis you are passing through in America.
+    If the North is found noble enough to stand fast on
+    the moral question, whatever the loss or diminution of
+    territory, God and just men will see you greater and
+    more glorious as a nation.
+
+    I had much anxiety for you after the Seward and Adams
+    speeches, but the danger seems averted by that fine
+    madness of the South which seems judicial. The tariff
+    movement we should regret deeply (and do, some of us),
+    only I am told it was wanted in order to persuade
+    those who were less accessible to moral argument. It's
+    eking out the holy water with ditch water. If the Devil
+    flees before it, even so, let us be content. How you
+    must feel, _you_ who have done so much to set this
+    accursed slavery in the glare of the world, convicting
+    it of hideousness! They should raise a statue to you in
+    America and elsewhere.
+
+    Meanwhile I am reading you in the "Independent," sent
+    to me by Mr. Tilton, with the greatest interest. Your
+    new novel opens beautifully.[14]
+
+    Do write to me and tell me of yourself and the subjects
+    which interest us both. It seems to me that our Roman
+    affairs may linger a little (while the Papacy bleeds
+    slowly to death in its finances) on account of this
+    violent clerical opposition in France. Otherwise we
+    were prepared for the fall of the house any morning.
+    Prince Napoleon's speech represents, with whatever
+    slight discrepancy, the inner mind of the emperor. It
+    occupied seventeen columns of the "Moniteur" and was
+    magnificent. Victor Emmanuel wrote to thank him for
+    it in the name of Italy, and even the English papers
+    praised it as "a masterly exposition of the policy of
+    France." It is settled that we shall wait for Venice.
+    It will not be for long. Hungary is _only_ waiting,
+    and even in the ashes of Poland there are flickering
+    sparks. Is it the beginning of the restitution of all
+    things?
+
+    Here in Rome there are fewer English than usual, and
+    more empty houses. There is a new story every morning,
+    and nobody to cut off the head of the Scheherazade.
+    Yesterday the Pope was going to Venice directly, and,
+    the day before, fixed the hour for Victor Emmanuel's
+    coming, and the day before _that_ brought a letter from
+    Cavour to Antonelli about sweeping the streets clean
+    for the feet of the king. The poor Romans live on these
+    stories, while the Holy Father and king of Naples meet
+    holding one another's hands, and cannot speak for sobs.
+    The little queen, however, is a heroine in her way and
+    from her point of view, and when she drives about in a
+    common fiacre, looking very pretty under her only crown
+    left of golden hair, one must feel sorry that she was
+    not born and married nearer to holy ground. My husband
+    prays you to remember him, and I ask your daughters to
+    remember both of us. Our boy rides his pony and studies
+    under his abbe, and keeps a pair of red cheeks, thank
+    God.
+
+    I ought to send you more about the society in Rome, but
+    I have lived much alone this winter, and have little to
+    tell you. Dr. Manning and Mr. De Vere stay away, not
+    bearing, perhaps, to see the Pope in his agony.
+
+                   Your ever affectionate friend,
+                                    ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
+
+Soon after her return to America Mrs. Stowe began a correspondence with
+Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, which opened the way for the warm friendship
+that has stood the test of years. Of this correspondence the two
+following letters, written about this time, are of attention.
+
+                             ANDOVER, _September 9, 1860._
+
+    DEAR DR. HOLMES,--I have had an impulse upon me for
+    a long time to write you a line of recognition and
+    sympathy, in response to those that reached me monthly
+    in your late story in the "Atlantic" ("Elsie Venner").
+
+    I know not what others may think of it, since I have
+    seen nobody since my return; but to me it is of deeper
+    and broader interest than anything you have done
+    yet, and I feel an intense curiosity concerning that
+    underworld of thought from which like bubbles your
+    incidents and remarks often seem to burst up. The
+    foundations of moral responsibility, the interlacing
+    laws of nature and spirit, and their relations to us
+    here and hereafter, are topics which I ponder more
+    and more, and on which only one medically educated
+    can write _well_. I think a course of medical study
+    ought to be required of all ministers. How I should
+    like to talk with you upon the strange list of topics
+    suggested in the schoolmaster's letter! They are bound
+    to agitate the public mind more and more, and it is of
+    the chiefest importance to learn, if we can, to think
+    soundly and wisely of them. Nobody can be a sound
+    theologian who has not had his mind drawn to think with
+    reverential fear on these topics.
+
+    Allow me to hint that the monthly numbers are not
+    long enough. Get us along a little faster. You must
+    work this well out. Elaborate and give us all the
+    particulars. Old Sophie is a jewel; give us more of
+    her. I have seen her. Could you ever come out and spend
+    a day with us? The professor and I would so like to
+    have a talk on some of these matters with you!
+
+                        Very truly yours,
+                                      H. B. STOWE.
+
+
+                             ANDOVER, _February 18, 1861._
+
+    DEAR DOCTOR,--I was quite indignant to hear yesterday
+    of the very unjust and stupid attack upon you in the
+    ----. Mr. Stowe has written to them a remonstrance
+    which I hope they will allow to appear as he wrote it,
+    and over his name. He was well acquainted with your
+    father and feels the impropriety of the thing.
+
+    But, my dear friend, in being shocked, surprised,
+    or displeased personally with such things, we must
+    consider other people's natures. A man or woman may
+    wound us to the quick without knowing it, or meaning to
+    do so, simply through difference of fibre. As Cowper
+    hath somewhere happily said:--
+
+    "Oh, why are farmers made so coarse,
+       Or clergy made so fine?
+     A kick that scarce might move a horse
+       Might kill a sound divine."
+
+    When once people get ticketed, and it is known that one
+    is a hammer, another a saw, and so on, if we happen to
+    get a taste of their quality we cannot help being hurt,
+    to be sure, but we shall not take it ill of them. There
+    be pious, well-intending beetles, wedges, hammers,
+    saws, and all other kinds of implements, good--except
+    where they come in the way of our fingers--and from a
+    beetle you can have only a beetle's gospel.
+
+    I have suffered in my day from this sort of handling,
+    which is worse for us women, who must never answer, and
+    once when I wrote to Lady Byron, feeling just as you
+    do about some very stupid and unkind things that had
+    invaded my personality, she answered me, "Words do not
+    kill, my dear, or I should have been dead long ago."
+
+    There is much true religion and kindness in the world,
+    after all, and as a general thing he who has struck a
+    nerve would be very sorry for it if he only knew what
+    he had done.
+
+    I would say nothing, if I were you. There is eternal
+    virtue in silence.
+
+    I must express my pleasure with the closing chapters of
+    "Elsie." They are nobly and beautifully done, and quite
+    come up to what I wanted to complete my idea of her
+    character. I am quite satisfied with it now. It is an
+    artistic creation, original and beautiful.
+
+                Believe me to be your true friend,
+                                                H. B. STOWE.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[14] _The Pearl of Orr's Island._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE CIVIL WAR, 1860-1865.
+
+    THE OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR.--MRS. STOWE'S SON
+    ENLISTS.--THANKSGIVING DAY IN WASHINGTON.--THE
+    PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION.--REJOICINGS IN
+    BOSTON.--FRED STOWE AT GETTYSBURG.--LEAVING ANDOVER
+    AND SETTLING IN HARTFORD.--A REPLY TO THE WOMEN OF
+    ENGLAND.--LETTERS FROM JOHN BRIGHT, ARCHBISHOP WHATELY,
+    AND NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+IMMEDIATELY after Mrs. Stowe's return from Europe, it became only too
+evident that the nation was rapidly and inevitably drifting into all
+the horrors of civil war. To use her own words: "It was God's will
+that this nation--the North as well as the South--should deeply and
+terribly suffer for the sin of consenting to and encouraging the great
+oppressions of the South; that the ill-gotten wealth, which had arisen
+from striking hands with oppression and robbery, should be paid back
+in the taxes of war; that the blood of the poor slave, that had cried
+so many years from the ground in vain, should be answered by the blood
+of the sons from the best hearthstones through all the free States;
+that the slave mothers, whose tears nobody regarded, should have with
+them a great company of weepers, North and South,--Rachels weeping for
+their children and refusing to be comforted; that the free States, who
+refused to listen when they were told of lingering starvation, cold,
+privation, and barbarous cruelty, as perpetrated on the slave, should
+have lingering starvation, cold, hunger, and cruelty doing its work
+among their own sons, at the hands of these slave-masters, with whose
+sins our nation had connived."
+
+Mrs. Stowe spoke from personal experience, having seen her own son go
+forth in the ranks of those who first responded to the President's
+call for volunteers. He was one of the first to place his name on the
+muster-roll of Company A of the First Massachusetts Volunteers. While
+his regiment was still at the camp in Cambridge, Mrs. Stowe was called
+to Brooklyn on important business, from which place she writes to her
+husband under the date June 11, 1861:--
+
+"Yesterday noon Henry (Ward Beecher) came in, saying that the
+Commonwealth, with the First (Massachusetts) Regiment on board, had
+just sailed by. Immediately I was of course eager to get to Jersey City
+to see Fred. Sister Eunice said she would go with me, and in a few
+minutes she, Hatty, Sam Scoville, and I were in a carriage, driving
+towards the Fulton Ferry. Upon reaching Jersey City we found that the
+boys were dining in the depot, an immense building with many tracks
+and platforms. It has a great cast-iron gallery just under the roof,
+apparently placed there with prophetic instinct of these times. There
+was a crowd of people pressing against the grated doors, which were
+locked, but through which we could see the soldiers. It was with great
+difficulty that we were at last permitted to go inside, and that object
+seemed to be greatly aided by a bit of printed satin that some man gave
+Mr. Scoville.
+
+"When we were in, a vast area of gray caps and blue overcoats was
+presented. The boys were eating, drinking, smoking, talking, singing,
+and laughing. Company A was reported to be here, there, and everywhere.
+At last S. spied Fred in the distance, and went leaping across the
+tracks towards him. Immediately afterwards a blue-overcoated figure
+bristling with knapsack and haversack, and looking like an assortment
+of packages, came rushing towards us.
+
+"Fred was overjoyed, you may be sure, and my first impulse was to wipe
+his face with my handkerchief before I kissed him. He was in high
+spirits, in spite of the weight of blue overcoat, knapsack, etc., etc.,
+that he would formerly have declared intolerable for half an hour.
+I gave him my handkerchief and Eunice gave him hers, with a sheer
+motherly instinct that is so strong within her, and then we filled his
+haversack with oranges.
+
+"We stayed with Fred about two hours, during which time the gallery
+was filled with people, cheering and waving their handkerchiefs. Every
+now and then the band played inspiriting airs, in which the soldiers
+joined with hearty voices. While some of the companies sang, others
+were drilled, and all seemed to be having a general jollification. The
+meal that had been provided was plentiful, and consisted of coffee,
+lemonade, sandwiches, etc.
+
+"On our way out we were introduced to the Rev. Mr. Cudworth, chaplain
+of the regiment. He is a fine-looking man, with black eyes and hair,
+set off by a white havelock. He wore a sword, and Fred, touching it,
+asked, 'Is this for use or ornament, sir?'
+
+"'Let me see you in danger,' answered the chaplain, 'and you'll find
+out.'
+
+"I said to him I supposed he had had many an one confided to his kind
+offices, but I could not forbear adding one more to the number. He
+answered, 'You may rest assured, Mrs. Stowe, I will do all in my power.'
+
+"We parted from Fred at the door. He said he felt lonesome enough
+Saturday evening on the Common in Boston, where everybody was taking
+leave of somebody, and he seemed to be the only one without a friend,
+but that this interview made up for it all.
+
+"I also saw young Henry. Like Fred he is mysteriously changed, and
+wears an expression of gravity and care. So our boys come to manhood
+in a day. Now I am watching anxiously for the evening paper to tell me
+that the regiment has reached Washington in safety."
+
+In November, 1862, Mrs. Stowe was invited to visit Washington, to be
+present at a great thanksgiving dinner provided for the thousands
+of fugitive slaves who had flocked to the city. She accepted the
+invitation the more gladly because her son's regiment was encamped
+near the city, and she should once more see him. He was now Lieutenant
+Stowe, having honestly won his promotion by bravery on more than one
+hard-fought field. She writes of this visit:--
+
+    Imagine a quiet little parlor with a bright coal fire,
+    and the gaslight burning above a centre-table, about
+    which Hatty, Fred, and I are seated. Fred is as happy
+    as happy can be to be with mother and sister once more.
+    All day yesterday we spent in getting him. First we had
+    to procure a permit to go to camp, then we went to the
+    fort where the colonel is, and then to another where
+    the brigadier-general is stationed. I was so afraid
+    they would not let him come with us, and was never
+    happier than when at last he sprang into the carriage
+    free to go with us for forty-eight hours. "Oh!" he
+    exclaimed in a sort of rapture, "this pays for a year
+    and a half of fighting and hard work!"
+
+    We tried hard to get the five o'clock train out to
+    Laurel, where J.'s regiment is stationed, as we wanted
+    to spend Sunday all together; but could not catch it,
+    and so had to content ourselves with what we could
+    have. I have managed to secure a room for Fred next
+    ours, and feel as though I had my boy at home once
+    more. He is looking very well, has grown in thickness,
+    and is as loving and affectionate as a boy can be.
+
+    I have just been writing a pathetic appeal to the
+    brigadier-general to let him stay with us a week. I
+    have also written to General Buckingham in regard to
+    changing him from the infantry, in which there seems to
+    be no prospect of anything but garrison duty, to the
+    cavalry, which is full of constant activity.
+
+    General B. called on us last evening. He seemed to
+    think the prospect before us was, at best, of a long
+    war. He was the officer deputed to carry the order
+    to General McClellan relieving him of command of the
+    army. He carried it to him in his tent about twelve
+    o'clock at night. Burnside was there. McClellan said it
+    was very unexpected, but immediately turned over the
+    command. I said I thought he ought to have expected
+    it after having so disregarded the President's order.
+    General B. smiled and said he supposed McClellan had
+    done that so often before that he had no idea any
+    notice would be taken of it this time.
+
+    Now, as I am very tired, I must close, and remain as
+    always, lovingly yours,
+
+                                             HATTY.
+
+During the darkest and most bitter period of the Civil War, Mrs. Stowe
+penned the following letter to the Duchess of Argyll:--
+
+                                  ANDOVER, _July 31, 1863._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--Your lovely, generous letter was a
+    real comfort to me, and reminded me that a year--and,
+    alas! a whole year--had passed since I wrote to your
+    dear mother, of whom I think so often as one of God's
+    noblest creatures, and one whom it comforts me to think
+    is still in our world.
+
+    _So many_, good and noble, have passed away whose
+    friendship was such a pride, such a comfort to me!
+    Your noble father, Lady Byron, Mrs. Browning,--their
+    spirits are as perfect as ever passed to the world of
+    light. I grieve about your dear mother's eyes. I have
+    thought about you all, many a sad, long, quiet hour,
+    as I have lain on my bed and looked at the pictures
+    on my wall; one, in particular, of the moment before
+    the Crucifixion, which is the first thing I look at
+    when I wake in the morning. I think how suffering is,
+    and must be, the portion of noble spirits, and no lot
+    so brilliant that must not first or last dip into the
+    shadow of that eclipse. Prince Albert, too, the ideal
+    knight, the _Prince Arthur_ of our times, the good,
+    wise, steady head and heart we--that is, our world, we
+    Anglo-Saxons--need so much. And the Queen! yes, I have
+    thought of and prayed for her, too. But could a woman
+    hope to have _always_ such a heart, and yet ever be
+    weaned from earth "all this and heaven, too"?
+
+    Under my picture I have inscribed, "Forasmuch as Christ
+    also hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves
+    with the same mind."
+
+    This year has been one long sigh, one smothering sob,
+    to me. And I thank God that we have as yet one or two
+    generous friends in England who understand and feel for
+    our cause.
+
+    The utter failure of Christian, anti-slavery England,
+    in those _instincts_ of a right heart which always can
+    see where the cause of liberty lies, has been as bitter
+    a grief to me as was the similar prostration of all our
+    American religious people in the day of the Fugitive
+    Slave Law. Exeter Hall is a humbug, a pious humbug,
+    like the rest. Lord Shaftesbury. Well, let him go; he
+    is a Tory, and has, after all, the instincts of his
+    class. But I saw _your_ duke's speech to his tenants!
+    That was grand! If _he_ can see these things, they are
+    to be seen, and why cannot Exeter Hall see them? It is
+    simply the want of the honest heart.
+
+    Why do the horrible barbarities of _Southern_ soldiers
+    cause no comment? Why is the sympathy of the British
+    Parliament reserved for the poor women of New Orleans,
+    deprived of their elegant amusement of throwing vitriol
+    into soldiers' faces, and practicing indecencies
+    inconceivable in any other state of society? Why is
+    _all_ expression of sympathy on the _Southern_ side?
+    There is a class of women in New Orleans whom Butler
+    protects from horrible barbarities, that up to his day
+    have been practiced on them by these so-called New
+    Orleans ladies, but British sympathy has ceased to
+    notice _them_. You see I am bitter. I am. You wonder
+    at my brother. He is a man, and feels a thousand
+    times more than I can, and deeper than all he ever
+    has expressed, the spirit of these things. You must
+    not wonder, therefore. Remember it is the moment when
+    every nerve is vital; it is our agony; we tread the
+    winepress alone, and they whose cheap rhetoric has been
+    for years pushing us into it now desert _en masse_. I
+    thank my God I always loved and trusted most those who
+    now _do_ stand true,--your family, your duke, yourself,
+    your noble mother. I have lost Lady Byron. Her great
+    heart, her eloquent letters, would have been such a joy
+    to me! And Mrs. Browning, oh such a heroic woman! None
+    of her poems can express what _she_ was,--so grand, so
+    comprehending, so strong, with such inspired insight!
+    She stood by Italy through its crisis. Her heart was
+    with all good through the world. Your prophecy that
+    we shall come out better, truer, stronger, will, I am
+    confident, be true, and it was worthy of yourself and
+    your good lineage.
+
+    Slavery will be sent out by this agony. We are only
+    in the throes and ravings of the exorcism. The roots
+    of the cancer have gone everywhere, but they must
+    die--will. Already the Confiscation Bill is its natural
+    destruction. Lincoln has been too slow. He should have
+    done it sooner, and with an impulse, but come it must,
+    come it will. Your mother will live to see slavery
+    abolished, _unless_ England forms an alliance to hold
+    it up. England is the great reliance of the slave-power
+    to-day, and next to England the faltering weakness of
+    the North, which palters and dare not fire the great
+    broadside for fear of hitting friends. These things
+    _must_ be done, and sudden, sharp remedies are _mercy_.
+    Just now we are in a dark hour; but whether God be with
+    us or not, I know He is with the slave, and with his
+    redemption will come the solution of our question. I
+    have long known _what_ and who we had to deal with
+    in this, for when I wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" I had
+    letters addressed to me showing a state of society
+    perfectly _inconceivable_. That they violate graves,
+    make drinking-cups of skulls, that _ladies_ wear cameos
+    cut from bones, and treasure scalps, is no surprise
+    to me. If I had written what I knew of the obscenity,
+    brutality, and cruelty of that society down there,
+    society would have cast out the books; and it is for
+    their interest, the interest of the whole race in the
+    South, that we should succeed. I wish _them_ no ill,
+    feel no bitterness; they have had a Dahomian education
+    which makes them savage. We don't expect any more of
+    _them_, but if slavery is destroyed, one generation of
+    education and liberty will efface these stains. They
+    will come to themselves, these States, and be glad it
+    is over.
+
+    I am using up my paper to little purpose. Please give
+    my best love to your dear mother. I am going to write
+    to her. If I only could have written the things I have
+    often thought! I am going to put on her bracelet, with
+    the other dates, that of the abolition of slavery in
+    the District of Columbia. Remember me to the duke and
+    to your dear children. My husband desires his best
+    regards, my daughters also.
+
+                     I am lovingly ever yours,
+                                          H. B. STOWE.
+
+Later in the year we hear again from her son in the army, and this
+time the news comes in a chaplain's letter from the terrible field of
+Gettysburg. He writes:--
+
+            GETTYSBURG, PA., _Saturday, July 11_, 9.30 P. M.
+
+    MRS. H. B. STOWE:
+
+    _Dear Madam_,--Among the thousands of wounded and dying
+    men on this war-scarred field, I have just met with
+    your son, Captain Stowe. If you have not already heard
+    from him, it may cheer your heart to know that he is
+    in the hands of good, kind friends. He was struck by
+    a fragment of a shell, which entered his right ear.
+    He is quiet and cheerful, longs to see some member
+    of his family, and is, above all, anxious that they
+    should hear from him as soon as possible. I assured him
+    I would write at once, and though I am wearied by a
+    week's labor here among scenes of terrible suffering,
+    I know that, to a mother's anxious heart, even a hasty
+    scrawl about her boy will be more than welcome.
+
+    May God bless and sustain you in this troubled time!
+
+                      Yours with sincere sympathy,
+                                          J. M. CROWELL.
+
+The wound in the head was not fatal, and after weary months of intense
+suffering it imperfectly healed; but the cruel iron had too nearly
+touched the brain of the young officer, and never again was he what he
+had been. Soon after the war his mother bought a plantation in Florida,
+largely in the hope that the out-of-door life connected with its
+management might be beneficial to her afflicted son. He remained on it
+for several years, and then, being possessed with the idea that a long
+sea voyage would do him more good than anything else, sailed from New
+York to San Francisco around the Horn. That he reached the latter city
+in safety is known; but that is all. No word from him or concerning
+him has ever reached the loving hearts that have waited so anxiously
+for it, and of his ultimate fate nothing is known.
+
+Meantime, the year 1863 was proving eventful in many other ways to Mrs.
+Stowe. In the first place, the long and pleasant Andover connection of
+Professor Stowe was about to be severed, and the family were to remove
+to Hartford, Conn. They were to occupy a house that Mrs. Stowe was
+building on the bank of Park River. It was erected in a grove of oaks
+that had in her girlhood been one of Mrs. Stowe's favorite resorts.
+Here, with her friend Georgiana May, she had passed many happy hours,
+and had often declared that if she were ever able to build a house, it
+should stand in that very place. Here, then, it was built in 1863, and
+as the location was at that time beyond the city limits, it formed,
+with its extensive, beautiful groves, a particularly charming place of
+residence. Beautiful as it was, however, it was occupied by the family
+for only a few years. The needs of the growing city caused factories to
+spring up in the neighborhood, and to escape their encroachments the
+Stowes in 1873 bought and moved into the house on Forest Street that
+has ever since been their Northern home. Thus the only house Mrs. Stowe
+ever planned and built for herself has been appropriated to the use of
+factory hands, and is now a tenement occupied by several families.
+
+Another important event of 1863 was the publishing of that charming
+story of Italy, "Agnes of Sorrento," which had been begun nearly four
+years before. This story suggested itself to Mrs. Stowe while she
+was abroad during the winter of 1859-60. The origin of the story is
+as follows: One evening, at a hotel in Florence, it was proposed that
+the various members of the party should write short stories and read
+them for the amusement of the company. Mrs. Stowe took part in this
+literary contest, and the result was the first rough sketch of "Agnes
+of Sorrento." From this beginning was afterwards elaborated "Agnes of
+Sorrento," with a dedication to Annie Howard, who was one of the party.
+
+Not the least important event of the year to Mrs. Stowe, and the world
+at large through her instrumentality, was the publication in the
+"Atlantic Monthly" of her reply to the address of the women of England.
+The "reply" is substantially as follows:--
+
+                                      _January, 1863._
+
+                           A REPLY
+
+    To "The affectionate and Christian Address of many
+    thousands of Women of Great Britain and Ireland to
+    their Sisters, the Women of the United States of
+    America," (signed by)
+
+    ANNA MARIA BEDFORD (Duchess of Bedford).
+    OLIVIA CECILIA COWLEY (Countess Cowley).
+    CONSTANCE GROSVENOR (Countess Grosvenor).
+    HARRIET SUTHERLAND (Duchess of Sutherland).
+    ELIZABETH ARGYLL (Duchess of Argyll).
+    ELIZABETH FORTESCUE (Countess Fortescue).
+    EMILY SHAFTESBURY (Countess of Shaftesbury).
+    MARY RUTHVEN (Baroness Ruthven).
+    M. A. MILMAN (wife of Dean of St. Paul).
+    R. BUXTON (daughter of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton).
+    CAROLINE AMELIA OWEN (wife of Professor Owen).
+    MRS. CHARLES WINDHAM.
+    C. A. HATHERTON (Baroness Hatherton).
+    ELIZABETH DUCIE (Countess Dowager of Ducie).
+    CECILIA PARKE (wife of Baron Parke).
+    MARY ANN CHALLIS (wife of the Lord Mayor of London).
+    E. GORDON (Duchess Dowager of Gordon).
+    ANNA M. L. MELVILLE (daughter of Earl of Leven and Melville).
+    GEORGIANA EBRINGTON (Lady Ebrington).
+    A. HILL (Viscountess Hill).
+    MRS. GOBAT (wife of Bishop Gobat of Jerusalem).
+    E. PALMERSTON (Viscountess Palmerston).
+    (And others).
+
+    SISTERS,--More than eight years ago you sent to us in
+    America a document with the above heading. It is as
+    follows:--
+
+    "A common origin, a common faith, and, we sincerely
+    believe, a common cause, urge us, at the present
+    moment, to address you on the subject of that system of
+    negro slavery which still prevails so extensively, and,
+    even under kindly disposed masters, with such frightful
+    results, in many of the vast regions of the Western
+    world.
+
+    "We will not dwell on the ordinary topics,--on the
+    progress of civilization, on the advance of freedom
+    everywhere, on the rights and requirements of the
+    nineteenth century; but we appeal to you very seriously
+    to reflect, and to ask counsel of God, how far such a
+    state of things is in accordance with his Holy Word,
+    the inalienable rights of immortal souls, and the
+    pure and merciful spirit of the Christian religion.
+    We do not shut our eyes to the difficulties, nay, the
+    dangers, that might beset the immediate abolition of
+    that long-established system. We see and admit the
+    necessity of preparation for so great an event; but,
+    in speaking of indispensable preliminaries, we cannot
+    be silent on those laws of your country which, in
+    direct contravention of God's own law, 'instituted in
+    the time of man's innocency,' deny in effect to the
+    slave the sanctity of marriage, with all its joys,
+    rights, and obligations; which separate, at the will
+    of the master, the wife from the husband, and the
+    children from the parents. Nor can we be silent on that
+    awful system which, either by statute or by custom,
+    interdicts to any race of men, or any portion of the
+    human family, education in the truths of the gospel and
+    the ordinances of Christianity. A remedy applied to
+    these two evils alone would commence the amelioration
+    of their sad condition. We appeal to you then, as
+    sisters, as wives, and as mothers, to raise your voices
+    to your fellow-citizens, and your prayers to God, for
+    the removal of this affliction and disgrace from the
+    Christian world.
+
+    "We do not say these things in a spirit of
+    self-complacency, as though our nation were free from
+    the guilt it perceives in others.
+
+    "We acknowledge with grief and shame our heavy share
+    in this great sin. We acknowledge that our forefathers
+    introduced, nay compelled the adoption, of slavery in
+    those mighty colonies. We humbly confess it before
+    Almighty God; and it is because we so deeply feel
+    and unfeignedly avow our own complicity, that we now
+    venture to implore your aid to wipe away our common
+    crime and our common dishonor."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    This address, splendidly illuminated on vellum, was
+    sent to our shores at the head of twenty-six folio
+    volumes, containing considerably more than half
+    a million of signatures of British women. It was
+    forwarded to me with a letter from a British nobleman,
+    now occupying one of the highest official positions
+    in England, with a request on behalf of these ladies
+    that it should be in any possible way presented to the
+    attention of my countrywomen.
+
+    This memorial, as it now stands in its solid oaken
+    case, with its heavy folios, each bearing on its back
+    the imprint of the American eagle, forms a most unique
+    library, a singular monument of an international
+    expression of a moral idea. No right-thinking person
+    can find aught to be objected against the substance
+    or form of this memorial. It is temperate, just, and
+    kindly; and on the high ground of Christian equality,
+    where it places itself, may be regarded as a perfectly
+    proper expression of sentiment, as between blood
+    relations and equals in two different nations. The
+    signatures to this appeal are not the least remarkable
+    part of it; for, beginning at the very steps of the
+    throne, they go down to the names of women in the
+    very humblest conditions in life, and represent all
+    that Great Britain possesses, not only of highest and
+    wisest, but of plain, homely common sense and good
+    feeling. Names of wives of cabinet ministers appear
+    on the same page with the names of wives of humble
+    labourers,--names of duchesses and countesses, of wives
+    of generals, ambassadors, savants, and men of letters,
+    mingled with names traced in trembling characters by
+    hands evidently unused to hold the pen, and stiffened
+    by lowly toil. Nay, so deep and expansive was the
+    feeling, that British subjects in foreign lands had
+    their representation. Among the signatures are those of
+    foreign residents, from Paris to Jerusalem. Autographs
+    so diverse, and collected from sources so various,
+    have seldom been found in juxtaposition. They remain
+    at this day a silent witness of a most singular tide
+    of feeling which at that time swept over the British
+    community and _made_ for itself an expression, even at
+    the risk of offending the sensibilities of an equal and
+    powerful nation.
+
+    No reply to that address, in any such tangible and
+    monumental form, has ever been possible. It was
+    impossible to canvass our vast territories with the
+    zealous and indefatigable industry with which England
+    was canvassed for signatures. In America, those
+    possessed of the spirit which led to this efficient
+    action had no leisure for it. All their time and
+    energies were already absorbed in direct efforts to
+    remove the great evil, concerning which the minds of
+    their English sisters had been newly aroused, and their
+    only answer was the silent continuance of these efforts.
+
+    From the slaveholding States, however, as was to be
+    expected, came a flood of indignant recrimination and
+    rebuke. No one act, perhaps, ever produced more frantic
+    irritation, or called out more unsparing abuse. It came
+    with the whole united weight of the British aristocracy
+    and commonalty on the most diseased and sensitive part
+    of our national life; and it stimulated that fierce
+    excitement which was working before, and has worked
+    since, till it has broken out into open war.
+
+    The time has come, however, when such an astonishing
+    page has been turned, in the anti-slavery history of
+    America, that the women of our country, feeling that
+    the great anti-slavery work to which their English
+    sisters exhorted them is almost done, may properly and
+    naturally feel moved to reply to their appeal, and lay
+    before them the history of what has occurred since the
+    receipt of their affectionate and Christian address.
+
+    Your address reached us just as a great moral conflict
+    was coming to its intensest point. The agitation kept
+    up by the anti-slavery portion of America, by England,
+    and by the general sentiment of humanity in Europe,
+    had made the situation of the slaveholding aristocracy
+    intolerable. As one of them at the time expressed it,
+    they felt themselves under the ban of the civilized
+    world. Two courses only were open to them: to abandon
+    slave institutions, the sources of their wealth and
+    political power, or to assert them with such an
+    overwhelming national force as to compel the respect
+    and assent of mankind. They chose the latter.
+
+    To this end they determined to seize on and control all
+    the resources of the Federal Government, and to spread
+    their institutions through new States and Territories
+    until the balance of power should fall into their hands
+    and they should be able to force slavery into all the
+    free States.
+
+    A leading Southern senator boasted that he would yet
+    call the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill; and for a
+    while the political successes of the slave-power were
+    such as to suggest to New England that this was no
+    impossible event.
+
+    They repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had
+    hitherto stood like the Chinese wall, between our
+    Northwestern Territories and the irruptions of
+    slaveholding barbarians.
+
+    Then came the struggle between freedom and slavery in
+    the new territory; the battle for Kansas and Nebraska,
+    fought with fire and sword and blood, where a race of
+    men, of whom John Brown was the immortal type, acted
+    over again the courage, the perseverance, and the
+    military-religious ardor of the old Covenanters of
+    Scotland, and like them redeemed the ark of liberty at
+    the price of their own blood, and blood dearer than
+    their own.
+
+    The time of the Presidential canvass which elected
+    Mr. Lincoln was the crisis of this great battle. The
+    conflict had become narrowed down to the one point of
+    the extension of slave territory. If the slaveholders
+    could get States enough, they could control and
+    rule; if they were outnumbered by free States, their
+    institutions, by the very law of their nature, would
+    die of suffocation. Therefore Fugitive Slave Law,
+    District of Columbia, Inter-State Slave-trade, and what
+    not, were all thrown out of sight for a grand rally
+    on this vital point. A President was elected pledged
+    to opposition to this one thing alone,--a man known
+    to be in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law and other
+    so-called compromises of the Constitution, but honest
+    and faithful in his determination on this one subject.
+    That this was indeed the vital point was shown by the
+    result. The moment Lincoln's election was ascertained,
+    the slaveholders resolved to destroy the Union they
+    could no longer control.
+
+    They met and organized a Confederacy which they openly
+    declared to be the first republic founded on the right
+    and determination of the white man to enslave the black
+    man, and, spreading their banners, declared themselves
+    to the Christian world of the nineteenth century as a
+    nation organized with the full purpose and intent of
+    perpetuating slavery.
+
+    But in the course of the struggle that followed, it
+    became important for the new confederation to secure
+    the assistance of foreign powers, and infinite pains
+    were then taken to blind and bewilder the mind of
+    England as to the real issues of the conflict in
+    America.
+
+    It has been often and earnestly asserted that slavery
+    had nothing to do with this conflict; that it was a
+    mere struggle for power; that the only object was to
+    restore the Union as it was, with all its abuses. It is
+    to be admitted that expressions have proceeded from the
+    national administration which naturally gave rise to
+    misapprehension, and therefore we beg to speak to you
+    on this subject more fully.
+
+    And first the declaration of the Confederate States
+    themselves is proof enough, that, whatever may be
+    declared on the other side, the maintenance of slavery
+    is regarded by them as the vital object of their
+    movement.
+
+    We ask your attention under this head to the
+    declaration of their Vice-President, Stephens, in that
+    remarkable speech delivered on the 21st of March,
+    1861, at Savannah, Georgia, wherein he declares the
+    object and purposes of the new Confederacy. It is one
+    of the most extraordinary papers which our century
+    has produced. I quote from the _verbatim_ report in
+    the "Savannah Republican" of the address as it was
+    delivered in the Athenaeum of that city, on which
+    occasion, says the newspaper from which I copy, "Mr.
+    Stephens took his seat amid a burst of enthusiasm and
+    applause such as the Athenaeum has never had displayed
+    within its walls within the recollection 'of the oldest
+    inhabitant.'"
+
+    Last, not least, the new Constitution has put at rest
+    _forever_ all the agitating questions relating to our
+    peculiar institution,--African slavery as it exists
+    among us, the proper _status_ of the negro in our form
+    of civilization. _This was the immediate cause of the
+    late rupture and present revolution._ Jefferson, in his
+    forecast, had anticipated this as the "rock upon which
+    the old Union would split." He was right. What was a
+    conjecture with him is now a realized fact. But whether
+    he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that
+    rock _stood_ and _stands_ may be doubted.
+
+    _The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of
+    the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of
+    the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of
+    the African was in violation of the laws of nature;
+    that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and
+    politically._
+
+    In the mean while, during the past year, the Republican
+    administration, with all the unwonted care of
+    organizing an army and navy, and conducting military
+    operations on an immense scale, have proceeded to
+    demonstrate the feasibility of overthrowing slavery
+    by purely constitutional measures. To this end they
+    have instituted a series of movements which have made
+    this year more fruitful in anti-slavery triumphs than
+    any other since the emancipation of the British West
+    Indies. The District of Columbia, as belonging strictly
+    to the national government and to no separate State,
+    has furnished a fruitful subject of remonstrance from
+    British Christians with America. We have abolished
+    slavery there, and thus wiped out the only blot of
+    territorial responsibility on our escutcheon.
+
+    By another act, equally grand in principle, and far
+    more important in its results, slavery is forever
+    excluded from the Territories of the United States.
+
+    By another act, America has consummated the
+    long-delayed treaty with Great Britain for the
+    suppression of the slave-trade. In ports whence slave
+    vessels formerly sailed with the connivance of the
+    port officers, the administration has placed men who
+    stand up to their duty, and for the first time in our
+    history the slave-trader is convicted and hung as a
+    pirate. This abominable secret traffic has been wholly
+    demolished by the energy of the Federal Government.
+
+    Lastly, and more significant still, the United States
+    government has in its highest official capacity taken
+    distinct anti-slavery ground, and presented to the
+    country a plan of peaceable emancipation with suitable
+    compensation. This noble-spirited and generous offer
+    has been urged on the slaveholding States by the chief
+    executive with earnestness and sincerity. But this is
+    but half the story of the anti-slavery triumphs of this
+    year. We have shown you what has been done for freedom
+    by the simple use of the ordinary constitutional forces
+    of the Union. We are now to show you what has been done
+    to the same end by the constitutional war-power of the
+    nation.
+
+    By this power it has been this year decreed that every
+    slave of a rebel who reaches the lines of our army
+    becomes a free man; that all slaves found deserted
+    by their masters become free men; that every slave
+    employed in any service for the United States thereby
+    obtains his liberty; and that every slave employed
+    against the United States in any capacity obtains his
+    liberty; and lest the army should contain officers
+    disposed to remand slaves to their masters, the power
+    of judging and delivering up slaves is denied to army
+    officers, and all such acts are made penal.
+
+    By this act the Fugitive Slave Law is for all present
+    purposes practically repealed. With this understanding
+    and provision, wherever our armies march they carry
+    liberty with them. For be it remembered that our army
+    is almost entirely a volunteer one, and that the most
+    zealous and ardent volunteers are those who have been
+    for years fighting, with tongue and pen, the abolition
+    battle. So marked is the character of our soldiers in
+    this respect, that they are now familiarly designated
+    in the official military dispatches of the Confederate
+    States as "the Abolitionists." Conceive the results
+    when an army so empowered by national law marches
+    through a slave territory. One regiment alone has to
+    our certain knowledge liberated two thousand slaves
+    during the past year, and this regiment is but one out
+    of hundreds.
+
+    Lastly, the great decisive measure of the war
+    has appeared,--_the President's Proclamation of
+    Emancipation_.
+
+    This also has been much misunderstood and
+    misrepresented in England. It has been said to mean
+    virtually this: Be loyal and you shall keep your
+    slaves; rebel and they shall be free. But let us
+    remember what we have just seen of the purpose and
+    meaning of the Union to which the rebellious States
+    are invited back. It is to a Union which has abolished
+    slavery in the District of Columbia, and interdicted
+    slavery in the Territories; which vigorously represses
+    the slave-trade, and hangs the convicted slaver as a
+    pirate; which necessitates emancipation by denying
+    expansion to slavery, and facilitates it by the offer
+    of compensation. Any slaveholding States which should
+    return to such a Union might fairly be supposed to
+    return with the purpose of peaceable emancipation.
+    The President's Proclamation simply means this: Come
+    in and emancipate peaceably with compensation; stay
+    out and I emancipate, nor will I protect you from the
+    consequences.
+
+    Will our sisters in England feel no heartbeat at
+    that event? Is it not one of the predicted voices of
+    the latter day, saying under the whole heavens, "It
+    is done; the kingdoms of this world are become the
+    kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ"?
+
+    And now, sisters of England, in this solemn, expectant
+    hour, let us speak to you of one thing which fills our
+    hearts with pain and solicitude. It is an unaccountable
+    fact, and one which we entreat you seriously to ponder,
+    that the party which has brought the cause of freedom
+    thus far on its way, during the past eventful year,
+    has found little or no support in England. Sadder
+    than this, the party which makes slavery the chief
+    corner-stone of its edifice finds in England its
+    strongest defenders.
+
+    The voices that have spoken for us who contend for
+    liberty have been few and scattering. God forbid that
+    we should forget those few noble voices, so sadly
+    exceptional in the general outcry against us! They
+    are, alas! too few to be easily forgotten. False
+    statements have blinded the minds of your community,
+    and turned the most generous sentiments of the British
+    heart against us. The North are fighting for supremacy
+    and the South for independence, has been the voice.
+    Independence? for what? to do what? To prove the
+    doctrine that all men are _not_ equal; to establish the
+    doctrine that the white may enslave the negro!
+
+    In the beginning of our struggle, the voices that
+    reached us across the water said: "If we were only
+    sure you were fighting for the abolition of slavery,
+    we should not dare to say whither our sympathies for
+    your cause might not carry us." Such, as we heard, were
+    the words of the honored and religious nobleman who
+    draughted this very letter which you signed and sent
+    us, and to which we are now replying.
+
+    When these words reached us we said: "We can wait; our
+    friends in England will soon see whither this conflict
+    is tending." A year and a half have passed; step after
+    step has been taken for liberty; chain after chain has
+    fallen, till the march of our armies is choked and
+    clogged by the glad flocking of emancipated slaves;
+    the day of final emancipation is set; the border
+    States begin to move in voluntary consent; universal
+    freedom for all dawns like the sun in the distant
+    horizon, and still no voice from England. No voice?
+    Yes, we have heard on the high seas the voice of a
+    war-steamer, built for a man-stealing Confederacy,
+    with English gold, in an English dockyard, going out
+    of an English harbor, manned by English sailors, with
+    the full knowledge of English government officers, in
+    defiance of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality!
+    So far has English sympathy overflowed. We have heard
+    of other steamers, iron-clad, designed to furnish to
+    a slavery-defending Confederacy their only lack,--a
+    navy for the high seas. We have heard that the British
+    Evangelical Alliance refuses to express sympathy with
+    the liberating party, when requested to do so by
+    the French Evangelical Alliance. We find in English
+    religious newspapers all those sad degrees in the
+    downward-sliding scale of defending and apologizing
+    for slaveholders and slaveholding, with which we have
+    so many years contended in our own country. We find
+    the President's Proclamation of Emancipation spoken
+    of in those papers only as an incitement to servile
+    insurrection. Nay, more,--we find in your papers, from
+    thoughtful men, the admission of the rapid decline of
+    anti-slavery sentiments in England.
+
+    This very day the writer of this has been present at
+    a solemn religious festival in the national capital,
+    given at the home of a portion of those fugitive slaves
+    who have fled to our lines for protection,--who, under
+    the shadow of our flag, find sympathy and succor. The
+    national day of thanksgiving was there kept by over
+    a thousand redeemed slaves, and for whom Christian
+    charity had spread an ample repast. Our sisters,
+    we wish _you_ could have witnessed the scene. We
+    wish you could have heard the prayer of a blind old
+    negro, called among his fellows John the Baptist,
+    when in touching broken English he poured forth his
+    thanksgivings. We wish you could have heard the sound
+    of that strange rhythmical chant which is now forbidden
+    to be sung on Southern plantations,--the psalm of this
+    modern exodus,--which combines the barbaric fire of
+    the Marseillaise with the religious fervor of the old
+    Hebrew prophet:--
+
+    "Oh, go down, Moses,
+     Way down into Egypt's land!
+     Tell King Pharaoh
+     To let my people go!
+     Stand away dere,
+     Stand away dere,
+     And let my people go!"
+
+    As we were leaving, an aged woman came and lifted up
+    her hands in blessing. "Bressed be de Lord dat brought
+    me to see dis first happy day of my life! Bressed be de
+    Lord!" In all England is there no Amen?
+
+    We have been shocked and saddened by the question
+    asked in an association of Congregational ministers in
+    England, the very blood relations of the liberty-loving
+    Puritans,--"Why does not the North let the South go?"
+
+    What! give up the point of emancipation for these four
+    million slaves? Turn our backs on them, and leave them
+    to their fate? What! leave our white brothers to run
+    a career of oppression and robbery, that, as sure as
+    there is a God that ruleth in the armies of heaven,
+    will bring down a day of wrath and doom? Remember that
+    wishing success to this slavery-establishing effort is
+    only wishing to the sons and daughters of the South all
+    the curses that God has written against oppression.
+    _Mark our words!_ If we succeed, the children of
+    these very men who are now fighting us will rise up
+    to call us blessed. Just as surely as there is a God
+    who governs in the world, so surely all the laws of
+    national prosperity follow in the train of equity; and
+    if we succeed, we shall have delivered the children's
+    children of our misguided brethren from the wages of
+    sin, which is always and everywhere death.
+
+    And now, sisters of England, think it not strange if we
+    bring back the words of your letter, not in bitterness,
+    but in deepest sadness, and lay them down at your door.
+    We say to you, Sisters, you have spoken well; we have
+    heard you; we have heeded; we have striven in the
+    cause, even unto death. We have sealed our devotion
+    by desolate hearth and darkened homestead,--by the
+    blood of sons, husbands, and brothers. In many of
+    our dwellings the very light of our lives has gone
+    out; and yet we accept the life-long darkness as our
+    own part in this great and awful expiation, by which
+    the bonds of wickedness shall be loosed, and abiding
+    peace established on the foundation of righteousness.
+    Sisters, what have _you_ done, and what do you mean to
+    do?
+
+    We appeal to you as sisters, as wives, and as mothers,
+    to raise your voices to your fellow-citizens, and your
+    prayers to God for the removal of this affliction and
+    disgrace from the Christian world.
+
+    In behalf of many thousands of American women.
+
+                                    HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+    WASHINGTON, _November 27, 1862._
+
+The publication of this reply elicited the following interesting letter
+from John Bright:--
+
+                              ROCHDALE, _March 9, 1863._
+
+    DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I received your kind note with
+    real pleasure, and felt it very good of you to send
+    me a copy of the "Atlantic Monthly" with your noble
+    letter to the women of England. I read every word
+    of it with an intense interest, and I am quite sure
+    that its effect upon opinion here has been marked and
+    beneficial. It has covered some with shame, and it has
+    compelled many to think, and it has stimulated not a
+    few to act. Before this reaches you, you will have
+    seen what large and earnest meetings have been held in
+    all our towns in favor of abolition and the North. No
+    town has a building large enough to contain those who
+    come to listen, to applaud, and to vote in favor of
+    freedom and the Union. The effect of this is evident
+    on our newspapers and on the tone of Parliament, where
+    now nobody says a word in favor of recognition, or
+    mediation, or any such thing.
+
+    The need and duty of England is admitted to be a strict
+    neutrality, but the feeling of the millions of her
+    people is one of friendliness to the United States and
+    its government. It would cause universal rejoicing,
+    among all but a limited circle of aristocracy and
+    commercially rich and corrupt, to hear that the
+    Northern forces had taken Vicksburg on the great river,
+    and Charleston on the Atlantic, and that the neck of
+    the conspiracy was utterly broken.
+
+    I hope your people may have strength and virtue to win
+    the great cause intrusted to them, but it is fearful to
+    contemplate the amount of the depravity in the North
+    engendered by the long power of slavery. New England is
+    far ahead of the States as a whole,--too instructed and
+    too moral; but still I will hope that she will bear the
+    nation through this appalling danger.
+
+    I well remember the evening at Rome and our
+    conversation. You lamented the election of Buchanan.
+    You judged him with a more unfriendly but a more
+    correct eye than mine. He turned out more incapable and
+    less honest than I hoped for. And I think I was right
+    in saying that your party was not then sufficiently
+    consolidated to enable it to maintain its policy in the
+    execution, even had Fremont been elected. As it is now,
+    six years later, the North but falteringly supports the
+    policy of the government, though impelled by the force
+    of events which then you did not dream of. President
+    Lincoln has lived half his troubled reign. In the
+    coming half I hope he may see land; surely slavery will
+    be so broken up that nothing can restore and renew it;
+    and, slavery once fairly gone, I know not how all your
+    States can long be kept asunder.
+
+                  Believe me very sincerely yours,
+                                            JOHN BRIGHT.
+
+It also called forth from Archbishop Whately the following letter:--
+
+                          PALACE, DUBLIN, _January, 1863._
+
+    DEAR MADAM,--In acknowledging your letter and
+    pamphlet, I take the opportunity of laying before
+    you what I collect to be the prevailing sentiments
+    here on American affairs. Of course there is a great
+    variety of opinion, as may be expected in a country
+    like ours. Some few sympathize with the Northerns,
+    and some few with the Southerns, but far the greater
+    portion sympathize with neither completely, but lament
+    that each party should be making so much greater
+    an expenditure of life and property than can be
+    compensated for by any advantage they can dream of
+    obtaining.
+
+    Those who are the least favorable to the Northerns are
+    not so from any approbation of slavery, but from not
+    understanding that the war is waged in the cause of
+    abolition. "It was waged," they say, "ostensibly for
+    the restoration of the Union," and in attestation of
+    this, they refer to the proclamation which announced
+    the confiscation of slaves that were the property of
+    secessionists, while those who adhered to the Federal
+    cause should be exempt from such confiscation, which,
+    they say, did not savor much of zeal for abolition.
+    And if the other object--the restoration of the
+    Union--could be accomplished, which they all regard
+    as hopeless, they do not understand how it will tend
+    to the abolition of slavery. On the contrary, "if,"
+    say they, "the separation had been allowed to take
+    place peaceably, the Northerns might, as we do, have
+    proclaimed freedom to every slave who set foot on
+    their territory; which would have been a great check
+    to slavery, and especially to any cruel treatment of
+    slaves." Many who have a great dislike to slavery yet
+    hold that the Southerns had at least as much right
+    to secede as the Americans had originally to revolt
+    from Great Britain. And there are many who think that,
+    considering the dreadful distress we have suffered from
+    the cotton famine, we have shown great forbearance in
+    withstanding the temptation of recognizing the Southern
+    States and to break the blockade.
+
+    Then, again, there are some who are provoked at the
+    incessant railing at England, and threats of an
+    invasion of Canada, which are poured forth in some of
+    the American papers.
+
+    There are many, also, who consider that the present
+    state of things cannot continue much longer if the
+    Confederates continue to hold their own, as they
+    have done hitherto; and that a people who shall have
+    maintained their independence for two or three years
+    will be recognized by the principal European powers.
+    Such appears to have been the procedure of the European
+    powers in all similar cases, such as the revolt of the
+    Anglo-American and Spanish-American colonies, of the
+    Haytians and the Belgians. In these and other like
+    cases, the rule practically adopted seems to have been
+    to recognize the revolters, not at once, but after a
+    reasonable time had been allowed to see whether they
+    could maintain their independence; and this without
+    being understood to have pronounced any decision either
+    way as to the justice of the cause.
+
+    Moreover, there are many who say that the negroes and
+    people of color are far from being kindly or justly
+    treated in the Northern States. An emancipated slave,
+    at any rate, has not received good training for earning
+    his bread by the wages of labor; and if, in addition
+    to this and his being treated as an outcast, he is
+    excluded, as it is said, from many employments, by
+    the refusal of white laborers to work along with him,
+    he will have gained little by taking refuge in the
+    Northern States.
+
+    I have now laid before you the views which I conceive
+    to be most prevalent among us, and for which I am not
+    myself responsible.
+
+    For the safe and effectual emancipation of slaves,
+    I myself consider there is no plan so good as the
+    gradual one which was long ago suggested by Bishop
+    Hinds. What he recommended was an _ad valorem tax_ upon
+    slaves,--the value to be fixed by the owner, with an
+    option to government to purchase at that price. Thus
+    the slaves would be a burden to the master, and those
+    the most so who should be the most valuable, as being
+    the most intelligent and steady, and therefore the best
+    qualified for freedom; and it would be his interest to
+    train his slaves to be free laborers, and to emancipate
+    them, one by one, as speedily as he could with safety.
+    I fear, however, that the time is gone by for trying
+    this experiment in America.
+
+    With best wishes for the new year, believe me
+
+                                Yours faithfully,
+                                            RD. WHATELY.
+
+Among the many letters written from this side of the Atlantic regarding
+the reply, was one from Nathaniel Hawthorne, in which he says:--
+
+    I read with great pleasure your article in the last
+    "Atlantic." If anything could make John Bull blush, I
+    should think it might be that; but he is a hardened
+    and villainous hypocrite. I always felt that he cared
+    nothing for or against slavery, except as it gave him
+    a vantage-ground on which to parade his own virtue and
+    sneer at our iniquity.
+
+    With best regards from Mrs. Hawthorne and myself to
+    yourself and family, sincerely yours,
+
+                                         NATH'L HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+FLORIDA, 1865-1869.
+
+    LETTER TO DUCHESS OF ARGYLL.--MRS. STOWE DESIRES TO
+    HAVE A HOME AT THE SOUTH.--FLORIDA THE BEST FIELD
+    FOR DOING GOOD.--SHE BUYS A PLACE AT MANDARIN.--A
+    CHARMING WINTER RESIDENCE.--"PALMETTO LEAVES."--EASTER
+    SUNDAY AT MANDARIN.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR.
+    HOLMES.--"POGANUC PEOPLE."--RECEPTIONS IN NEW ORLEANS
+    AND TALLAHASSEE.--LAST WINTER AT MANDARIN.
+
+
+IN 1866, the terrible conflict between the North and South having
+ended, Mrs. Stowe wrote the following letter to the Duchess of Argyll:--
+
+                              HARTFORD, _February 19, 1866._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--Your letter was a real spring of
+    comfort to me, bringing refreshingly the pleasant
+    library at Inverary and the lovely days I spent there.
+
+    I am grieved at what you say of your dear mother's
+    health. I showed your letter to Mrs. Perkins, and we
+    both agreed in saying that _we_ should like for a time
+    to fill the place of maid to her, as doubtless you all
+    feel, too. I should so love to be with her, to read to
+    her, and talk to her! and oh, there is so much that
+    would cheer and comfort a noble heart like hers that
+    we could talk about. Oh, my friend, when I think of
+    what has been done these last few years, and of what is
+    now doing, I am lost in amazement. I have just, by way
+    of realizing it to myself, been reading "Uncle Tom's
+    Cabin" again, and when I read that book, scarred and
+    seared and burned into with the memories of an anguish
+    and horror that can never be forgotten, and think it
+    is all over now, all past, and that now the questions
+    debated are simply of more or less time before granting
+    legal suffrage to those who so lately were held only
+    as articles of merchandise,--when this comes over me I
+    think no private or individual sorrow can ever make me
+    wholly without comfort. If my faith in God's presence
+    and real, living power in the affairs of men ever grows
+    dim, this makes it impossible to doubt.
+
+    I have just had a sweet and lovely Christian letter
+    from Garrison, whose beautiful composure and
+    thankfulness in his hour of victory are as remarkable
+    as his wonderful courage in the day of moral battle.
+    His note ends with the words, "And who but God is to
+    be glorified?" Garrison's attitude is far more exalted
+    than that of Wendell Phillips. He acknowledges the
+    great deed done. He suspends his "Liberator" with
+    words of devout thanksgiving, and devotes himself
+    unobtrusively to the work yet to be accomplished for
+    the freedmen; while Phillips seems resolved to ignore
+    the mighty work that has been done, because of the
+    inevitable shortcomings and imperfections that beset
+    it still. We have a Congress of splendid men,--men
+    of stalwart principle and determination. We have a
+    President[15] honestly seeking to do right; and if he
+    fails in knowing just what right is, it is because he
+    is a man born and reared in a slave State, and acted
+    on by many influences which we cannot rightly estimate
+    unless we were in his place. My brother Henry has
+    talked with him earnestly and confidentially, and has
+    faith in him as an earnest, good man seeking to do
+    right. Henry takes the ground that it is unwise and
+    impolitic to endeavor to force negro suffrage on the
+    South at the point of the bayonet. His policy would be,
+    to hold over the negro the protection of our Freedman's
+    Bureau until the great laws of free labor shall begin
+    to draw the master and servant together; to endeavor to
+    soothe and conciliate, and win to act with us, a party
+    composed of the really good men at the South.
+
+    For this reason he has always advocated lenity of
+    measures towards them. He wants to get them into a
+    state in which the moral influence of the North can
+    act upon them beneficially, and to get such a state of
+    things that there will be a party _at the South_ to
+    protect the negro.
+
+    Charles Sumner is looking simply at the abstract
+    _right_ of the thing. Henry looks at actual
+    probabilities. We all know that the state of society
+    at the South is such that laws are a very inadequate
+    protection even to white men. Southern elections always
+    have been scenes of mob violence _when only white men
+    voted_.
+
+    Multitudes of lives have been lost at the polls in
+    this way, and if against their will negro suffrage was
+    forced upon them, I do not see how any one in their
+    senses can expect anything less than an immediate war
+    of races.
+
+    If negro suffrage were required as a condition of
+    acquiring political position, there is no doubt the
+    slave States would grant it; grant it nominally,
+    because they would know that the grant never could or
+    would become an actual realization. And what would then
+    be gained for the negro?
+
+    I am sorry that people cannot differ on such great and
+    perplexing public questions without impugning each
+    other's motives. Henry has been called a back-slider
+    because of the lenity of his counsels, but I cannot
+    but think it is the Spirit of Christ that influences
+    him. Garrison has been in the same way spoken of as
+    a deserter, because he says that a work that is done
+    shall be called done, and because he would not keep up
+    an anti-slavery society when slavery is abolished; and
+    I think our President is much injured by the abuse that
+    is heaped on him, and the selfish and unworthy motives
+    that are ascribed to him by those who seem determined
+    to allow to nobody an honest, unselfish difference in
+    judgment from their own.
+
+    Henry has often spoken of you and your duke as pleasant
+    memories in a scene of almost superhuman labor and
+    excitement. He often said to me: "When this is all
+    over,--when we have won the victory,--_then_ I will
+    write to the duchess." But when it was over and the
+    flag raised again at Sumter his arm was smitten
+    down with the news of our President's death! We all
+    appreciate your noble and true sympathy through the
+    dark hour of our national trial. You and yours are
+    almost the only friends we now have left in England.
+    You cannot know what it was, unless you could imagine
+    your own country to be in danger of death, extinction
+    of nationality. _That_, dear friend, is an experience
+    which shows us what we are and what we can feel. I am
+    glad to hear that we may hope to see your son in this
+    country. I fear so many pleasant calls will beset his
+    path that we cannot hope for a moment, but it would
+    give us _all_ the greatest pleasure to see him here.
+    Our dull, prosy, commonplace, though good old Hartford
+    could offer few attractions compared with Boston or
+    New York, and yet I hope he will not leave us out
+    altogether if he comes among us. God bless him! You are
+    very happy indeed in being permitted to keep all your
+    dear ones and see them growing up.
+
+    I want to ask a favor. Do you have, as we do, _cartes
+    de visite_? If you have, and could send me one of
+    yourself and the duke and of Lady Edith and your
+    eldest son, I should be so very glad to see how you
+    are looking now; and the dear mother, too, I should
+    so like to see how she looks. It seems almost like a
+    dream to look back to those pleasant days. I am glad
+    to see you still keep some memories of our goings on.
+    Georgie's marriage is a very happy one to us. They live
+    in Stockbridge, the loveliest part of Massachusetts,
+    and her husband is a most devoted pastor, and gives all
+    his time and property to the great work which he has
+    embraced, purely for the love of it. My other daughters
+    are with me, and my son, Captain Stowe, who has come
+    with weakened health through our struggle, suffering
+    constantly from the effects of a wound in his head
+    received at Gettysburg, which makes his returning to
+    his studies a hard struggle. My husband is in better
+    health since he resigned his professorship, and desires
+    his most sincere regards to yourself and the duke, and
+    his profound veneration to your mother. Sister Mary
+    also desires to be remembered to you, as do also my
+    daughters. Please tell me a little in your next of Lady
+    Edith; she must be very lovely now.
+
+    I am, with sincerest affection, ever yours,
+
+                                            H. B. STOWE.
+
+Soon after the close of the war Mrs. Stowe conceived the idea of making
+for herself and her family a winter home in the South, where she might
+escape the rigors of Northern winters, and where her afflicted son
+Frederick might enjoy an out-of-door life throughout the year. She was
+also most anxious to do her share towards educating and leading to a
+higher life those colored people whom she had helped so largely to set
+free, and who were still in the state of profound ignorance imposed
+by slavery. In writing of her hopes and plans to her brother Charles
+Beecher, in 1866, she says:--
+
+"My plan of going to Florida, as it lies in my mind, is not in any
+sense a mere worldly enterprise. I have for many years had a longing to
+be more immediately doing Christ's work on earth. My heart is with that
+poor people whose cause in words I have tried to plead, and who now,
+ignorant and docile, are just in that formative stage in which whoever
+seizes has them.
+
+"Corrupt politicians are already beginning to speculate on them as
+possible capital for their schemes, and to fill their poor heads with
+all sorts of vagaries. Florida is the State into which they have,
+more than anywhere else, been pouring. Emigration is positively and
+decidedly setting that way; but as yet it is mere worldly emigration,
+with the hope of making money, nothing more.
+
+"The Episcopal Church is, however, undertaking, under direction of the
+future Bishop of Florida, a wide-embracing scheme of Christian activity
+for the whole State. In this work I desire to be associated, and my
+plan is to locate at some salient point on the St. John's River, where
+I can form the nucleus of a Christian neighborhood, whose influence
+shall be felt far beyond its own limits."
+
+During this year Mrs. Stowe partially carried her plan into execution
+by hiring an old plantation called "Laurel Grove," on the west side of
+the St. John's River, near the present village of Orange Park. Here
+she established her son Frederick as a cotton planter, and here he
+remained for two years. This location did not, however, prove entirely
+satisfactory, nor did the raising of cotton prove to be, under the
+circumstances, a profitable business. After visiting Florida during
+the winter of 1866-67, at which time her attention was drawn to the
+beauties and superior advantages of Mandarin on the east side of the
+river, Mrs. Stowe writes from Hartford, May 29, 1867, to Rev. Charles
+Beecher:--
+
+    MY DEAR BROTHER,--We are now thinking seriously of a
+    place in Mandarin much more beautiful than any other
+    in the vicinity. It has on it five large date palms,
+    an olive tree in full bearing, besides a fine orange
+    grove which this year will yield about seventy-five
+    thousand oranges. If we get that, then I want you to
+    consider the expediency of buying the one next to it.
+    It contains about two hundred acres of land, on which
+    is a fine orange grove, the fruit from which last year
+    brought in two thousand dollars as sold at the wharf.
+    It is right on the river, and four steamboats pass it
+    each week, on their way to Savannah and Charleston.
+    There is on the place a very comfortable cottage, as
+    houses go out there, where they do not need to be built
+    as substantially as with us.
+
+    [Illustration: THE HOME AT MANDARIN, FLORIDA.]
+
+    I am now in correspondence with the Bishop of Florida,
+    with a view to establishing a line of churches along
+    the St. John's River, and if I settle at Mandarin, it
+    will be one of my stations. Will you consent to enter
+    the Episcopal Church and be our clergyman? You are
+    just the man we want. If my tasks and feelings did not
+    incline me toward the Church, I should still choose
+    it as the best system for training immature minds
+    such as those of our negroes. The system was composed
+    with reference to the wants of the laboring class of
+    England, at a time when they were as ignorant as our
+    negroes now are.
+
+    I long to be at this work, and cannot think of it
+    without my heart burning within me. Still I leave all
+    with my God, and only hope He will open the way for me
+    to do all that I want to for this poor people.
+
+                         Affectionately yours,
+                                          H. B. STOWE.
+
+Mrs. Stowe had some years before this joined the Episcopal Church, for
+the sake of attending the same communion as her daughters, who were
+Episcopalians. Her brother Charles did not, however, see fit to change
+his creed, and though he went to Florida he settled a hundred and sixty
+miles west from the St. John's River, at Newport, near St. Marks, on
+the Gulf coast, and about twenty miles from Tallahassee. Here he lived
+every winter and several summers for fifteen years, and here he left
+the impress of his own remarkably sweet and lovely character upon the
+scattered population of the entire region.
+
+Mrs. Stowe in the mean time purchased the property, with its orange
+grove and comfortable cottage, that she had recommended to him, and
+thus Mandarin became her winter home. No one who has ever seen it can
+forget the peaceful beauty of this Florida home and its surroundings.
+The house, a story and a half cottage of many gables, stands on a
+bluff overlooking the broad St. John's, which is five miles wide at
+this point. It nestles in the shade of a grove of superb, moss-hung
+live-oaks, around one of which the front piazza is built. Several fine
+old orange trees also stand near the cottage, scenting the air with
+the sweet perfume of their blossoms in the early spring, and offering
+their golden fruit to whoever may choose to pluck it during the winter
+months. Back of the house stretches the well-tended orange grove in
+which Mrs. Stowe took such genuine pride and pleasure. Everywhere about
+the dwelling and within it were flowers and singing birds, while the
+rose garden in front, at the foot of the bluff, was the admiration of
+all who saw it.
+
+Here, on the front piazza, beneath the grand oaks, looking out on the
+calm sunlit river, Professor Stowe enjoyed that absolute peace and
+restful quiet for which his scholarly nature had always longed, but
+which had been forbidden to the greater part of his active life. At
+almost any hour of the day the well-known figure, with snow-white,
+patriarchal beard and kindly face, might be seen sitting there, with a
+basket of books, many of them in dead and nearly forgotten languages,
+close at hand. An amusing incident of family life was as follows:
+Some Northern visitors seemed to think that the family had no rights
+which were worthy of a a moment's consideration. They would land at
+the wharf, roam about the place, pick flowers, peer into the house
+through the windows and doors, and act with that disregard of all the
+proprieties of life which characterizes ill-bred people when on a
+journey. The professor had been driven well-nigh distracted by these
+migratory bipeds. One day, when one of them broke a branch from an
+orange tree directly before his eyes, and was bearing it off in triumph
+with all its load of golden fruit, he leaped from his chair, and
+addressed the astonished individual on those fundamental principles of
+common honesty, which he deemed outraged by this act. The address was
+vigorous and truthful, but of a kind which will not bear repeating.
+"Why," said the horror-stricken culprit, "I thought that this was Mrs.
+Stowe's place!" "You thought it was Mrs. Stowe's place!" Then, in a
+voice of thunder, "I would have you understand, sir, that I am the
+proprietor and protector of Mrs. Stowe and of this place, and if you
+commit any more such shameful depredations I will have you punished as
+you deserve!" Thus this predatory Yankee was taught to realize that
+there is a God in Israel.
+
+In April, 1869, Mrs. Stowe was obliged to hurry North in order to visit
+Canada in time to protect her English rights in "Oldtown Folks," which
+she had just finished.
+
+About this time she secured a plot of land, and made arrangements for
+the erection on it of a building that should be used as a schoolhouse
+through the week, and as a church on Sunday. For several years
+Professor Stowe preached during the winter in this little schoolhouse,
+and Mrs. Stowe conducted Sunday-school, sewing classes, singing
+classes, and various other gatherings for instruction and amusement,
+all of which were well attended and highly appreciated by both the
+white and colored residents of the neighborhood.
+
+Upon one occasion, having just arrived at her Mandarin home, Mrs. Stowe
+writes:--
+
+"At last, after waiting a day and a half in Charleston, we arrived here
+about ten o'clock Saturday morning, just a week from the day we sailed.
+The house looked so pretty, and quiet, and restful, the day was so calm
+and lovely, it seemed as though I had passed away from all trouble, and
+was looking back upon you all from a secure resting-place. Mr. Stowe
+is very happy here, and is constantly saying how pleasant it is, and
+how glad he is that he is here. He is so much improved in health that
+already he is able to take a considerable walk every day.
+
+"We are all well, contented, and happy, and we have six birds, two
+dogs, and a pony. Do write more and oftener. Tell me all the little
+nothings and nowheres. You can't imagine how they are magnified by the
+time they have reached into this remote corner."
+
+In 1872 she wrote a series of Florida sketches, which were published in
+book form, the following year, by J. R. Osgood & Co., under the title
+of "Palmetto Leaves." May 19, 1873, she writes to her brother Charles
+at Newport, Fla.:--
+
+"Although you have not answered my last letter, I cannot leave Florida
+without saying good-by. I send you the 'Palmetto Leaves' and my parting
+love. If I could either have brought or left my husband, I should have
+come to see you this winter. The account of your roses fills me with
+envy.
+
+"We leave on the San Jacinto next Saturday, and I am making the most of
+the few charming hours yet left; for never did we have so delicious a
+spring. I never knew such altogether perfect weather. It is enough to
+make a saint out of the toughest old Calvinist that ever set his face
+as a flint. How do you think New England theology would have fared if
+our fathers had been landed here instead of on Plymouth Rock?
+
+"The next you hear of me will be at the North, where our address is
+Forest Street, Hartford. We have bought a pretty cottage there, near to
+Belle, and shall spend the summer there."
+
+In a letter written in May of the following year to her son Charles, at
+Harvard, Mrs. Stowe says: "I can hardly realize that this long, flowery
+summer, with its procession of blooms and fruit, has been running on at
+the same time with the snowbanks and sleet storms of the North. But so
+it is. It is now the first of May. Strawberries and blackberries are
+over with us; oranges are in a waning condition, few and far between.
+Now we are going North to begin another summer, and have roses,
+strawberries, blackberries, and green peas come again.
+
+"I am glad to hear of your reading. The effect produced on you by
+Jonathan Edwards is very similar to that produced on me when I took the
+same mental bath. His was a mind whose grasp and intensity you cannot
+help feeling. He was a poet in the intensity of his conceptions, and
+some of his sermons are more terrible than Dante's 'Inferno.'"
+
+In November, 1874, upon their return to Mandarin, she writes: "We have
+had heavenly weather, and we needed it; for our house was a cave of
+spider-webs, cockroaches, dirt, and all abominations, but less than a
+week has brought it into beautiful order. It now begins to put on that
+quaint, lively, pretty air that so fascinates me. Our weather is, as
+I said, heavenly, neither hot nor cold; cool, calm, bright, serene,
+and so tranquillizing. There is something indescribable about the best
+weather we have down here. It does not debilitate me like the soft
+October air in Hartford."
+
+During the following February, she writes in reply to an invitation to
+visit a Northern watering place later in the season: "I shall be most
+happy to come, and know of nothing to prevent. I have, thank goodness,
+no serial story on hand for this summer, to hang like an Old Man of
+the Sea about my neck, and hope to enjoy a little season of being like
+other folks. It is a most lovely day to-day, most unfallen Eden-like."
+
+In a letter written later in the same season, March 28, 1875, Mrs.
+Stowe gives us a pleasant glimpse at their preparations for the proper
+observance of Easter Sunday in the little Mandarin schoolhouse. She
+says: "It was the week before Easter, and we had on our minds the
+dressing of the church. There my two Gothic fireboards were to be
+turned into a pulpit for the occasion. I went to Jacksonville and got a
+five-inch moulding for a base, and then had one fireboard sawed in two,
+so that there was an arched panel for each end. Then came a rummage
+for something for a top, and to make a desk of, until it suddenly
+occurred to me that our old black walnut extension table had a set of
+leaves. They were exactly the thing. The whole was trimmed with a
+beading of yellow pine, and rubbed, and pumice-stoned, and oiled, and
+I got out my tubes of paint and painted the nail-holes with Vandyke
+brown. By Saturday morning it was a lovely little Gothic pulpit, and
+Anthony carried it over to the schoolhouse and took away the old desk
+which I gave him for his meeting-house. That afternoon we drove out
+into the woods and gathered a quantity of superb Easter lilies, papaw,
+sparkleberry, great fern-leaves, and cedar. In the evening the girls
+went over to the Meads to practice Easter hymns; but I sat at home
+and made a cross, eighteen inches long, of cedar and white lilies.
+This Southern cedar is the most exquisite thing; it is so feathery and
+delicate.
+
+"Sunday morning was cool and bright, a most perfect Easter. Our little
+church was full, and everybody seemed delighted with the decorations.
+Mr. Stowe preached a sermon to show that Christ is going to put
+everything right at last, which is comforting. So the day was one of
+real pleasure, and also I trust of real benefit, to the poor souls who
+learned from it that Christ is indeed risen for them."
+
+During this winter the following characteristic letters passed between
+Mrs. Stowe and her valued friend, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, called
+forth by the sending to the latter of a volume of Mrs. Stowe's latest
+stories:--
+
+                                  BOSTON, _January 8, 1876._
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I would not write to thank you for
+    your most welcome "Christmas Box,"
+
+           "A box whose sweets compacted lie,"
+
+    before I had read it, and every word of it. I have
+    been very much taken up with antics of one kind and
+    another, and have only finished it this afternoon. The
+    last of the papers was of less comparative value to
+    me than to a great fraction of your immense parish of
+    readers, because I am so familiar with every movement
+    of the Pilgrims in their own chronicles.
+
+    "Deacon Pitkin's Farm" is full of those thoroughly
+    truthful touches of New England in which, if you are
+    not unrivaled, I do not know who your rival may be.
+    I wiped the tears from one eye in reading "Deacon
+    Pitkin's Farm."
+
+    I wiped the tears, and plenty of them, from both eyes,
+    in reading "Betty's Bright Idea." It is a most charming
+    and touching story, and nobody can read who has not
+    a heart like a pebble, without being melted into
+    tenderness.
+
+    How much you have done and are doing to make our New
+    England life wholesome and happy! If there is any
+    one who can look back over a literary life which has
+    pictured our old and helped our new civilization, it is
+    yourself. Of course your later books have harder work
+    cut out for them than those of any other writer. They
+    have had "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for a rival. The brightest
+    torch casts a shadow in the blaze of a light, and any
+    transcendent success affords the easiest handle for
+    that class of critics whose method is the one that
+    Dogberry held to be "odious."
+
+    I think it grows pleasanter to us to be remembered by
+    the friends we still have, as with each year they grow
+    fewer. We have lost Agassiz and Sumner from our circle,
+    and I found Motley stricken with threatening illness
+    (which I hope is gradually yielding to treatment), in
+    the profoundest grief at the loss of his wife, another
+    old and dear friend of mine. So you may be assured that
+    I feel most sensibly your kind attention, and send you
+    my heartfelt thanks for remembering me.
+
+        Always, dear Mrs. Stowe, faithfully yours,
+                                           O. W. HOLMES.
+
+To this letter Mrs. Stowe replied as follows:--
+
+                             MANDARIN, _February 23, 1876._
+
+    DEAR DOCTOR,--How kind it was of you to write me that
+    very beautiful note! and how I wish you were just where
+    I am, to see the trees laden at the same time with
+    golden oranges and white blossoms! I should so like
+    to cut off a golden cluster, leaves and all, for you.
+    Well, Boston seems very far away and dreamy, like some
+    previous state of existence, as I sit on the veranda
+    and gaze on the receding shores of the St. John's,
+    which at this point is five miles wide.
+
+    Dear doctor, how time slips by! I remember when Sumner
+    seemed to me a young man, and now he has gone. And
+    Wilson has gone, and Chase, whom I knew as a young man
+    in society in Cincinnati, has gone, and Stanton has
+    gone, and Seward has gone, and yet how lively the world
+    races on! A few air-bubbles of praise or lamentation,
+    and away sails the great ship of life, no matter over
+    whose grave!
+
+    Well, one cannot but feel it! To me, also, a whole
+    generation of friends has gone from the other side of
+    the water since I was there and broke kindly bread
+    with them. The Duchess of Sutherland, the good old
+    duke, Lansdowne, Ellesmere, Lady Byron, Lord and Lady
+    Amberly, Charles Kingsley, the good Quaker, Joseph
+    Sturge, all are with the shadowy train that has moved
+    on. Among them were as dear and true friends as I ever
+    had, and as pure and noble specimens of human beings
+    as God ever made. They are living somewhere in intense
+    vitality, I must believe, and you, dear doctor, must
+    not doubt.
+
+    I think about your writings a great deal, and one
+    element in them always attracts me. It is their pitiful
+    and sympathetic vein, the pity for poor, struggling
+    human nature. In this I feel that you must be very near
+    and dear to Him whose name is Love.
+
+    You wrote some verses once that have got into the
+    hymn-books, and have often occurred to me in my most
+    sacred hours as descriptive of the feelings with which
+    I bear the sorrows and carry the cares of life. They
+    begin,--
+
+           "Love Divine, that stooped to share."
+
+    I have not all your books down here, and am haunted by
+    gaps in the verses that memory cannot make good; but it
+    is that "Love Divine" which is my stay and comfort and
+    hope, as one friend after another passes beyond sight
+    and hearing. Please let me have it in your handwriting.
+
+    I remember a remark you once made on spiritualism.
+    I cannot recall the words, but you spoke of it as
+    modifying the sharp angles of Calvinistic belief,
+    as a fog does those of a landscape. I would like to
+    talk with you some time on spiritualism, and show
+    you a collection of very curious facts that I have
+    acquired through mediums _not_ professional. Mr. Stowe
+    has just been wading through eight volumes of "La
+    Mystique," by Goerres, professor for forty years past
+    in the University of Munich, first of physiology and
+    latterly of philosophy. He examines the whole cycle of
+    abnormal psychic, spiritual facts, trances, ecstasy,
+    clairvoyance, witchcraft, spiritualism, etc., etc., as
+    shown in the Romish miracles and the history of Europe.
+
+    I have long since come to the conclusion that
+    the marvels of spiritualism are natural, and not
+    supernatural, phenomena,--an uncommon working of
+    natural laws. I believe that the door between those
+    _in_ the body and those _out_ has never in any age
+    been entirely closed, and that occasional perceptions
+    within the veil are a part of the course of nature, and
+    therefore not miraculous. Of course such a phase of
+    human experience is very substantial ground for every
+    kind of imposture and superstition, and I have no faith
+    whatever in mediums who practice for money. In their
+    case I think the law of Moses, that forbade consulting
+    those who dealt with "familiar spirits," a very wise
+    one.
+
+    Do write some more, dear doctor. You are too well
+    off in your palace down there on the new land. Your
+    Centennial Ballad was a charming little peep; now give
+    us a full-fledged story. Mr. Stowe sends his best
+    regards, and wishes you would read "Goerres."[16] It is
+    in French also, and he thinks the French translation
+    better than the German.
+
+                             Yours ever truly,
+                                         H. B. STOWE.
+
+Writing in the autumn of 1876 to her son Charles, who was at that time
+abroad, studying at Bonn, Mrs. Stowe describes a most tempestuous
+passage between New York and Charleston, during which she and her
+husband and daughters suffered so much that they were ready to
+forswear the sea forever. The great waves as they rushed, boiling
+and seething, past would peer in at the little bull's-eye window of
+the state-room, as if eager to swallow up ship and passengers. From
+Charleston, however, they had a most delightful run to their journey's
+end. She writes: "We had a triumphal entrance into the St. John's, and
+a glorious sail up the river. Arriving at Mandarin, at four o'clock,
+we found all the neighbors, black as well as white, on the wharf to
+receive us. There was a great waving of handkerchiefs and flags,
+clapping of hands and cheering, as we drew near. The house was open and
+all ready for us, and we are delighted to be once more in our beautiful
+Florida home."
+
+In the following December she writes to her son: "I am again entangled
+in writing a serial, a thing I never mean to do again, but the story,
+begun for a mere Christmas brochure, grew so under my hands that I
+thought I might as well fill it out and make a book of it. It is
+the last thing of the kind I ever expect to do. In it I condense my
+recollections of a bygone era, that in which I was brought up, the ways
+and manners of which are now as nearly obsolete as the Old England of
+Dickens's stories is.'
+
+"I am so hampered by the necessity of writing this story, that I am
+obliged to give up company and visiting of all kinds and keep my
+strength for it. I hope I may be able to finish it, as I greatly desire
+to do so, but I begin to feel that I am not so strong as I used to be.
+Your mother is an old woman, Charley mine, and it is best she should
+give up writing before people are tired of reading her.
+
+"I would much rather have written another such a book as 'Footsteps
+of the Master,' but all, even the religious papers, are gone mad on
+serials. Serials they demand and will have, and I thought, since this
+generation will listen to nothing but stories, why not tell them?"
+
+The book thus referred to was "Poganuc People," that series of
+delightful reminiscences of the New England life of nearly a century
+ago, that has proved so fascinating to many thousands of readers.
+It was published in 1878, and, as Mrs. Stowe foresaw, was her last
+literary undertaking of any length, though for several years afterwards
+she wrote occasional short stories and articles.
+
+In January, 1879, she wrote from Mandarin to Dr. Holmes:--
+
+    DEAR DOCTOR,--I wish I could give to you and Mrs.
+    Holmes the exquisite charm of this morning. My window
+    is wide open; it is a lovely, fresh, sunny day, and a
+    great orange tree hung with golden balls closes the
+    prospect from my window. The tree is about thirty feet
+    high, and its leaves fairly glisten in the sunshine.
+
+    I sent "Poganuc People" to you and Mrs. Holmes as
+    being among the few who know those old days. It is
+    an extremely quiet story for these sensational days,
+    when heaven and earth seem to be racked for a thrill;
+    but as I get old I do love to think of those quiet,
+    simple times when there was not a poor person in the
+    parish, and the changing glories of the year were the
+    only spectacle. We, that is the professor and myself,
+    have been reading with much interest Motley's Memoir.
+    That was a man to be proud of, a beauty, too (by your
+    engraving). I never had the pleasure of a personal
+    acquaintance.
+
+    I feel with you that we have come into the land of
+    leave-taking. Hardly a paper but records the death of
+    some of Mr. Stowe's associates. But the river is not so
+    black as it seems, and there are clear days when the
+    opposite shore is plainly visible, and now and then
+    we catch a strain of music, perhaps even a gesture of
+    recognition. They are thinking of us, without doubt, on
+    the other side. My daughters and I have been reading
+    "Elsie Venner" again. Elsie is one of my especial
+    friends,--poor, dear child!--and all your theology in
+    that book I subscribe to with both hands.
+
+    Does not the Bible plainly tell us of a time when there
+    shall be no more pain? That is to be the end and crown
+    of the Messiah's mission, when God shall wipe all tears
+    away. My face is set that way, and yours, too, I trust
+    and believe.
+
+    Mr. Stowe sends hearty and affectionate remembrance
+    both to you and Mrs. Holmes, and I am, as ever, truly
+    yours,
+
+                                         H. B. STOWE.
+
+About this time Mrs. Stowe paid a visit to her brother Charles, at
+Newport, Fla., and, continuing her journey to New Orleans, was made to
+feel how little of bitterness towards her was felt by the best class
+of Southerners. In both New Orleans and Tallahassee she was warmly
+welcomed, and tendered public receptions that gave equal pleasure to
+her and to the throngs of cultivated people who attended them. She was
+also greeted everywhere with intense enthusiasm by the colored people,
+who, whenever they knew of her coming, thronged the railway stations in
+order to obtain a glimpse of her whom they venerated above all women.
+
+The return to her Mandarin home each succeeding winter was always
+a source of intense pleasure to this true lover of nature in its
+brightest and tenderest moods. Each recurring season was filled with
+new delights. In December, 1879, she writes to her son, now married and
+settled as a minister in Saco, Me.:--
+
+    DEAR CHILDREN,--Well, we have stepped from December
+    to June, and this morning is sunny and dewy, with a
+    fresh sea-breeze giving life to the air. I have just
+    been out to cut a great bunch of roses and lilies,
+    though the garden is grown into such a jungle that I
+    could hardly get about in it. The cannas, and dwarf
+    bananas, and roses are all tangled together, so that I
+    can hardly thread my way among them. I never in my life
+    saw anything range and run rampant over the ground as
+    cannas do. The ground is littered with fallen oranges,
+    and the place looks shockingly untidy, but so beautiful
+    that I am quite willing to forgive its disorder.
+
+    We got here Wednesday evening about nine o'clock, and
+    found all the neighbors waiting to welcome us on the
+    wharf. The Meads, and Cranes, and Webbs, and all the
+    rest were there, while the black population was in a
+    frenzy of joy. Your father is quite well. The sea had
+    its usual exhilarating effect upon him. Before we left
+    New York he was quite meek, and exhibited such signs of
+    grace and submission that I had great hopes of him. He
+    promised to do exactly as I told him, and stated that
+    he had entire confidence in my guidance. What woman
+    couldn't call such a spirit evidence of being prepared
+    for speedy translation? I was almost afraid he could
+    not be long for this world. But on the second day at
+    sea his spirits rose, and his appetite reasserted
+    itself. He declared in loud tones how well he felt,
+    and quite resented my efforts to take care of him. I
+    reminded him of his gracious vows and promises in the
+    days of his low spirits, but to no effect. The fact
+    is, his self-will has not left him yet, and I have now
+    no fear of his immediate translation. He is going to
+    preach for us this morning.
+
+The last winter passed in this well-loved Southern home was that of
+1883-84, for the following season Professor Stowe's health was in
+too precarious a state to permit him to undertake the long journey
+from Hartford. By this time one of Mrs. Stowe's fondest hopes had
+been realized; and, largely through her efforts, Mandarin had been
+provided with a pretty little Episcopal church, to which was attached a
+comfortable rectory, and over which was installed a regular clergyman.
+
+In January, 1884, Mrs. Stowe writes:--
+
+"Mandarin looks very gay and airy now with its new villas, and our new
+church and rectory. Our minister is perfect. I wish you could know him.
+He wants only physical strength. In everything else he is all one could
+ask.
+
+"It is a bright, lovely morning, and four orange-pickers are busy
+gathering our fruit. Our trees on the bluff have done better than any
+in Florida.
+
+"This winter I study nothing but Christ's life. First I read Farrar's
+account and went over it carefully. Now I am reading Geikie. It keeps
+my mind steady, and helps me to bear the languor and pain, of which I
+have more than usual this winter."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] Andrew Johnson.
+
+[16] _Die Christliche Mystik_, by Johann Joseph Goerres, Regensburg,
+1836-42.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+OLDTOWN FOLKS, 1869.
+
+    PROFESSOR STOWE THE ORIGINAL OF "HARRY" IN "OLDTOWN
+    FOLKS."--PROFESSOR STOWE'S LETTER TO GEORGE
+    ELIOT.--HER REMARKS ON THE SAME.--PROFESSOR STOWE'S
+    NARRATIVE OF HIS YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF
+    SPIRITS.--PROFESSOR STOWE'S INFLUENCE ON MRS. STOWE'S
+    LITERARY LIFE.--GEORGE ELIOT ON "OLDTOWN FOLKS."
+
+
+THIS biography would be signally incomplete without some mention of the
+birth, childhood, early associations, and very peculiar and abnormal
+psychological experiences of Professor Stowe. Aside from the fact of
+Dr. Stowe's being Mrs. Stowe's husband, and for this reason entitled to
+notice in any sketch of her life, however meagre, he is the original of
+the "visionary boy" in "Oldtown Folks;" and "Oldtown Fireside Stories"
+embody the experiences of his childhood and youth among the grotesque
+and original characters of his native town.
+
+March 26, 1882, Professor Stowe wrote the following characteristic
+letter to Mrs. Lewes:--
+
+    MRS. LEWES,--I fully sympathize with you in your
+    disgust with Hume and the professing mediums generally.
+
+    Hume spent his boyhood in my father's native town,
+    among my relatives and acquaintances, and he was a
+    disagreeable, nasty boy. But he certainly has qualities
+    which science has not yet explained, and some of his
+    doings are as real as they are strange. My interest in
+    the subject of spiritualism arises from the fact of
+    my own experience, more than sixty years ago, in my
+    early childhood. I then never thought of questioning
+    the objective reality of all I saw, and supposed that
+    everybody else had the same experience. Of what this
+    experience was you may gain some idea from certain
+    passages in "Oldtown Folks."
+
+    The same experiences continue yet, but with serious
+    doubts as to the objectivity of the scenes exhibited. I
+    have noticed that people who have remarkable and minute
+    answers to prayer, such as Stilling, Franke, Lavater,
+    are for the most part of this peculiar temperament.
+    Is it absurd to suppose that some peculiarity in the
+    nervous system, in the connecting link between soul and
+    body, may bring some, more than others, into an almost
+    abnormal contact with the spirit-world (for example,
+    Jacob Boehme and Swedenborg), and that, too, without
+    correcting their faults, or making them morally better
+    than others? Allow me to say that I have always admired
+    the working of your mind, there is about it such a
+    perfect uprightness and uncalculating honesty. I think
+    you are a better Christian without church or theology
+    than most people are with both, though I am, and always
+    have been in the main, a Calvinist of the Jonathan
+    Edwards school. God bless you! I have a warm side for
+    Mr. Lewes on account of his Goethe labors.
+
+    Goethe has been my admiration for more than forty
+    years. In 1830 I got hold of his "Faust," and for two
+    gloomy, dreary November days, while riding through the
+    woods of New Hampshire in an old-fashioned stagecoach,
+    to enter upon a professorship in Dartmouth College, I
+    was perfectly dissolved by it.
+
+                          Sincerely yours,
+                                   C. E. STOWE.
+
+In a letter to Mrs. Stowe, written June 24, 1872, Mrs. Lewes alludes
+to Professor Stowe's letter as follows: "Pray give my special thanks
+to the professor for his letter. His handwriting, which does really
+look like Arabic,--a very graceful character, surely,--happens to be
+remarkably legible to me, and I did not hesitate over a single word.
+Some of the words, as expressions of fellowship, were very precious to
+me, and I hold it very good of him to write to me that best sort of
+encouragement. I was much impressed with the fact--which you have told
+me--that he was the original of the "visionary boy" in "Oldtown Folks;"
+and it must be deeply interesting to talk with him on his experience.
+Perhaps I am inclined, under the influence of the facts, physiological
+and psychological, which have been gathered of late years, to give
+larger place to the interpretation of vision-seeing as subjective than
+the professor would approve. It seems difficult to limit--at least
+to limit with any precision--the possibility of confounding sense
+by impressions derived from inward conditions with those which are
+directly dependent on external stimulus. In fact, the division between
+within and without in this sense seems to become every year a more
+subtle and bewildering problem."
+
+In 1834, while Mr. Stowe was a professor in Lane Theological Seminary
+at Cincinnati, Ohio, he wrote out a history of his youthful adventures
+in the spirit-world, from which the following extracts are taken:--
+
+[Illustration: Signature: C. S. Stowe.]
+
+"I have often thought I would communicate to some scientific physician
+a particular account of a most singular delusion under which I lived
+from my earliest infancy till the fifteenth or sixteenth year of my
+age, and the effects of which remain very distinctly now that I am past
+thirty.
+
+"The facts are of such a nature as to be indelibly impressed upon my
+mind they appear to me to be curious, and well worth the attention of
+the psychologist. I regard the occurrences in question as the more
+remarkable because I cannot discover that I possess either taste or
+talent for fiction or poetry. I have barely imagination enough to
+enjoy, with a high degree of relish, the works of others in this
+department of literature, but have never felt able or disposed to
+engage in that sort of writing myself. On the contrary, my style has
+always been remarkable for its dry, matter-of-fact plainness; my mind
+has been distinguished for its quickness and adaptedness to historical
+and literary investigations, for ardor and perseverance in pursuit of
+the knowledge of facts,--_eine verstaendige Richtung_, as the Germans
+would say,--rather than for any other quality; and the only talent of a
+higher kind which I am conscious of possessing is a turn for accurate
+observation of men and things, and a certain broad humor and drollery.
+
+"From the hour of my birth I have been constitutionally feeble, as were
+my parents before me, and my nervous system easily excitable. With
+care, however, I have kept myself in tolerable health, and my life
+has been an industrious one, for my parents were poor and I have
+always been obliged to labor for my livelihood.
+
+"With these preliminary remarks, I proceed to the curious details of
+my psychological history. As early as I can remember anything, I can
+remember observing a multitude of animated and active objects, which
+I could see with perfect distinctness, moving about me, and could
+sometimes, though seldom, hear them make a rustling noise, or other
+articulate sounds; but I could never touch them. They were in all
+respects independent of the sense of touch, and incapable of being
+obstructed in any way by the intervention of material objects; I could
+see them at any distance, and through any intervening object, with as
+much ease and distinctness as if they were in the room with me, and
+directly before my eyes. I could see them passing through the floors,
+and the ceilings, and the walls of the house, from one apartment to
+another, in all directions, without a door, or a keyhole, or crevice
+being open to admit them. I could follow them with my eyes to any
+distance, or directly through or just beneath the surface, or up and
+down, in the midst of boards and timbers and bricks, or whatever
+else would stop the motion or intercept the visibleness of all other
+objects. These appearances occasioned neither surprise nor alarm,
+except when they assumed some hideous and frightful form, or exhibited
+some menacing gesture, for I became acquainted with them as soon as
+with any of the objects of sense. As to the reality of their existence
+and the harmlessness of their character, I knew no difference between
+them and any other of the objects which met my eye. They were as
+familiar to me as the forms of my parents and my brother; they made
+up a part of my daily existence, and were as really the subjects of
+my consciousness as the little bench on which I sat in the corner by
+my mother's knee, or the wheels and sticks and strings with which I
+amused myself upon the floor. I indeed recognized a striking difference
+between them and the things which I could feel and handle, but to me
+this difference was no more a matter of surprise than that which I
+observed between my mother and the black woman who so often came to
+work for her; or between my infant brother and the little spotted
+dog Brutus of which I was so fond. There was no time, or place, or
+circumstance, in which they did not occasionally make their appearance.
+Solitude and silence, however, were more favorable to their appearance
+than company and conversation. They were more pleased with candle-light
+than the daylight. They were most numerous, distinct, and active when
+I was alone and in the dark, especially when my mother had laid me in
+bed and returned to her own room with the candle. At such times, I
+always expected the company of my aerial visitors, and counted upon it
+to amuse me till I dropped asleep. Whenever they failed to make their
+appearance, as was sometimes the case, I felt lonely and discontented.
+I kept up a lively conversation with them,--not by language or by
+signs, for the attempt on my part to speak or move would at once break
+the charm and drive them away in a fret, but by a peculiar sort of
+spiritual intercommunion.
+
+"When their attention was directed towards me, I could feel and respond
+to all their thoughts and feelings, and was conscious that they could
+in the same manner feel and respond to mine. Sometimes they would take
+no notice of me, but carry on a brisk conversation among themselves,
+principally by looks and gestures, with now and then an audible word.
+In fact, there were but few with whom I was very familiar. These few
+were much more constant and uniform in their visits than the great
+multitude, who were frequently changing, and too much absorbed in
+their own concerns to think much of me. I scarcely know how I can
+give an idea of their form and general appearance, for there are no
+objects in the material world with which I can compare them, and no
+language adapted to an accurate description of their peculiarities.
+They exhibited all possible combinations of size, shape, proportion,
+and color, but their most usual appearance was with the human form
+and proportion, but under a shadowy outline that seemed just ready to
+melt into the invisible air, and sometimes liable to the most sudden
+and grotesque changes, and with a uniform darkly bluish color spotted
+with brown, or brownish white. This was the general appearance of
+the multitude; but there were many exceptions to this description,
+particularly among my more welcome and familiar visitors, as will be
+seen in the sequel.
+
+"Besides these rational and generally harmless beings, there was
+another set of objects which never varied in their form or qualities,
+and were always mischievous and terrible. The fact of their appearance
+depended very much on the state of my health and feelings. If I was
+well and cheerful they seldom troubled me; but when sick or depressed
+they were sure to obtrude their hateful presence upon me. These were a
+sort of heavy clouds floating about overhead, of a black color, spotted
+with brown, in the shape of a very flaring inverted tunnel without a
+nozzle, and from ten to thirty or forty feet in diameter. They floated
+from place to place in great numbers, and in all directions, with a
+strong and steady progress, but with a tremulous, quivering, internal
+motion that agitated them in every part.
+
+"Whenever they approached, the rational phantoms were thrown into great
+consternation; and well it might be, for if a cloud touched any part of
+one of the rational phantoms it immediately communicated its own color
+and tremulous motion to the part it touched.
+
+"In spite of all the efforts and convulsive struggles of the unhappy
+victim, this color and motion slowly, but steadily and uninteruptedly,
+proceeded to diffuse itself over every part of the body, and as fast as
+it did so the body was drawn into the cloud and became a part of its
+substance. It was indeed a fearful sight to see the contortions, the
+agonizing efforts, of the poor creatures who had been touched by one of
+these awful clouds, and were dissolving and melting into it by inches
+without the possibility of escape or resistance.
+
+"This was the only visible object that had the least power over the
+phantoms, and this was evidently composed of the same material as
+themselves. The forms and actions of all these phantoms varied very
+much with the state of my health and animal spirits, but I never could
+discover that the surrounding material objects had any influence upon
+them, except in this one particular, namely, if I saw them in a neat,
+well furnished room, there was a neatness and polish in their form
+and motions; and, on the contrary, if I was in an unfinished, rough
+apartment, there was a corresponding rudeness and roughness in my aerial
+visitors. A corresponding difference was visible when I saw them in the
+woods or in the meadows, upon the water or upon the ground, in the air
+or among the stars.
+
+"Every different apartment which I occupied had a different set of
+phantoms, and they always had a degree of correspondence to the
+circumstances in which they were seen. (It should be noted, however,
+that it was not so much the place where the phantoms themselves
+appeared to me to be, that affected their forms and movements, as the
+place in which I myself actually was while observing them. The apparent
+locality of the phantoms, it is true, had some influence, but my own
+actual locality had much more.)
+
+"Thus far I have attempted only a general outline of these curious
+experiences. I will now proceed to a detailed account of several
+particular incidents, for the sake of illustrating the general
+statements already made. I select a few from manifestations without
+number. I am able to ascertain dates from the following circumstances:--
+
+"I was born in April, 1802, and my father died in July, 1808, after
+suffering for more than a year from a lingering organic disease.
+Between two and three years before his death he removed from the house
+in which I was born to another at a little distance from it. What
+occurred, therefore, before my father's last sickness, must have taken
+place during the first five years of my life, and whatever took place
+before the removal of the family must have taken place during the
+first three years of my life. Before the removal of the family I slept
+in a small upper chamber in the front part of the house, where I was
+generally alone for several hours in the evening and morning. Adjoining
+this room, and opening into it by a very small door, was a low, dark,
+narrow, unfinished closet, which was open on the other side into a
+ruinous, old chaise-house. This closet was a famous place for the
+gambols of the phantoms, but of their forms and actions I do not now
+retain any very distinct recollection. I only remember that I was very
+careful not to do anything that I thought would be likely to offend
+them; yet otherwise their presence caused me no uneasiness, and was not
+at all disagreeable to me.
+
+"The first incident of which I have a distinct recollection was the
+following:--
+
+"One night, as I was lying alone in my chamber with my little dog
+Brutus snoring beside my bed, there came out of the closet a very
+large Indian woman and a very small Indian man, with a huge bass-viol
+between them. The woman was dressed in a large, loose, black gown,
+secured around her waist by a belt of the same material, and on her
+head she wore a high, dark gray fur cap, shaped somewhat like a lady's
+muff, ornamented with a row of covered buttons in front, and open
+towards the bottom, showing a red lining. The man was dressed in a
+shabby, black-colored overcoat and a little round, black hat that
+fitted closely to his head. They took no notice of me, but were rather
+ill-natured towards each other, and seemed to be disputing for the
+possession of the bass-viol. The man snatched it away and struck upon
+it a few harsh, hollow notes, which I distinctly heard, and which
+seemed to vibrate through my whole body, with a strange, stinging
+sensation. The woman then took it and appeared to play very intently
+and much to her own satisfaction, but without producing any sound that
+was perceptible by me. They soon left the chamber, and I saw them go
+down into the back kitchen, where they sat and played and talked with
+my mother. It was only when the man took the bow that I could hear the
+harsh, abrupt, disagreeable sounds of the instrument. At length they
+arose, went out of the back door, and sprang upon a large heap of straw
+and unthreshed beans, and disappeared with a strange, rumbling sound.
+This vision was repeated night after night with scarcely any variation
+while we lived in that house, and once, and once only, after the family
+had removed to the other house. The only thing that seemed to me
+unaccountable and that excited my curiosity was that there should be
+such a large heap of straw and beans before the door every night, when
+I could see nothing of it in the daytime. I frequently crept out of bed
+and stole softly down into the kitchen, and peeped out of the door to
+see if it was there very early in the morning.
+
+"I attempted to make some inquiries of my mother, but as I was not as
+yet very skillful in the use of language, I could get no satisfaction
+out of her answers, and could see that my questions seemed to distress
+her. At first she took little notice of what I said, regarding it
+no doubt as the meaningless prattle of a thoughtless child. My
+persistence, however, seemed to alarm her, and I suppose that she
+feared for my sanity. I soon desisted from asking anything further, and
+shut myself more and more within myself. One night, very soon after
+the removal, when the house was still, and all the family were in bed,
+these unearthly musicians once made their appearance in the kitchen of
+the new house, and after looking around peevishly, and sitting with a
+discontented frown and in silence, they arose and went out of the back
+door, and sprang on a pile of cornstalks, and I saw them no more.
+
+"Our new dwelling was a low-studded house of only one story, and,
+instead of an upper chamber, I now occupied a bedroom that opened into
+the kitchen. Within this bedroom, directly on the left hand of the
+door as you entered from the kitchen, was the staircase which led to
+the garret; and, as the room was unfinished, some of the boards which
+inclosed the staircase were too short, and left a considerable space
+between them and the ceiling. One of these open spaces was directly in
+front of my bed, so that when I lay upon my pillow my face was opposite
+to it. Every night, after I had gone to bed and the candle was removed,
+a very pleasant-looking human face would peer at me over the top of
+that board, and gradually press forward his head, neck, shoulders,
+and finally his whole body as far as the waist, through the opening,
+and then, smiling upon me with great good-nature, would withdraw in
+the same manner in which he had entered. He was a great favorite of
+mine; for though we neither of us spoke, we perfectly understood, and
+were entirely devoted to, each other. It is a singular fact that the
+features of this favorite phantom bore a very close resemblance to
+those of a boy older than myself whom I feared and hated: still the
+resemblance was so strong that I called him by the same name, Harvey.
+
+"Harvey's visits were always expected and always pleasant; but
+sometimes there were visitations of another sort, odious and frightful.
+One of these I will relate as a specimen of the rest.
+
+"One night, after I had retired to bed and was looking for Harvey,
+I observed an unusual number of the tunnel-shaped tremulous clouds
+already described, and they seemed intensely black and strongly
+agitated. This alarmed me exceedingly, and I had a terrible feeling
+that something awful was going to happen. It was not long before I saw
+Harvey at his accustomed place, cautiously peeping at me through the
+aperture, with an expression of pain and terror on his countenance.
+He seemed to warn me to be on my guard, but was afraid to put his
+head into the room lest he should be touched by one of the clouds,
+which were every moment growing thicker and more numerous. Harvey soon
+withdrew and left me alone. On turning my eyes towards the left-hand
+wall of the room, I thought I saw at an immense distance below me the
+regions of the damned, as I had heard them pictured in sermons. From
+this awful world of horror the tunnel-shaped clouds were ascending,
+and I perceived that they were the principal instruments of torture in
+these gloomy abodes. These regions were at such an immense distance
+below me that I could obtain but a very indistinct view of the
+inhabitants, who were very numerous and exceedingly active. Near the
+surface of the earth, and as it seemed to me but a little distance from
+my bed, I saw four or five sturdy, resolute devils endeavoring to carry
+off an unprincipled and dissipated man in the neighborhood, by the name
+of Brown, of whom I had stood in terror for years. These devils I saw
+were very different from the common representations. They had neither
+red faces, nor horns, nor hoofs, nor tails. They were in all respects
+stoutly built and well-dressed gentlemen. The only peculiarity that I
+noted in their appearance was as to their heads. Their faces and necks
+were perfectly bare, without hair or flesh, and of a uniform sky-blue
+color, like the ashes of burnt paper before it falls to pieces, and of
+a certain glossy smoothness.
+
+"As I looked on, full of eagerness, the devils struggled to force Brown
+down with them, and Brown struggled with the energy of desperation to
+save himself from their grip, and it seemed that the human was likely
+to prove too strong for the infernal. In this emergency one of the
+devils, panting for breath and covered with perspiration, beckoned to
+a strong, thick cloud that seemed to understand him perfectly, and,
+whirling up to Brown, touched his hand. Brown resisted stoutly, and
+struck out right and left at the cloud most furiously, but the usual
+effect was produced,--the hand grew black, quivered, and seemed to
+be melting into the cloud; then the arm, by slow degrees, and then
+the head and shoulders. At this instant Brown, collecting all his
+energies for one desperate effort, sprang at once into the centre of
+the cloud, tore it asunder, and descended to the ground, exclaiming,
+with a hoarse, furious voice that grated on my ear, 'There, I've got
+out; dam'me if I haven't!' This was the first word that had been spoken
+through the whole horrible scene. It was the first time I had ever
+seen a cloud fail to produce its appropriate result, and it terrified
+me so that I trembled from head to foot. The devils, however, did
+not seem to be in the least discouraged. One of them, who seemed to
+be the leader, went away and quickly returned bringing with him an
+enormous pair of rollers fixed in an iron frame, such as are used in
+iron-mills for the purpose of rolling out and slitting bars of iron,
+except instead of being turned by machinery, each roller was turned by
+an immense crank. Three of the devils now seized Brown and put his feet
+to the rollers, while two others stood, one at each crank, and began to
+roll him in with a steady strain that was entirely irresistible. Not
+a word was spoken, not a sound was heard; but the fearful struggles
+and terrified, agonizing looks of Brown were more than I could endure.
+I sprang from my bed and ran through the kitchen into the room where
+my parents slept, and entreated that they would permit me to spend
+the remainder of the night with them. After considerable parleying
+they assured me that nothing could hurt me, and advised me to go back
+to bed. I replied that I was not afraid of their hurting me, but I
+couldn't bear to see them acting so with C. Brown. 'Poh! poh! you
+foolish boy,' replied my father, sternly. 'You've only been dreaming;
+go right back to bed, or I shall have to whip you.' Knowing that there
+was no other alternative, I trudged back through the kitchen with all
+the courage I could muster, cautiously entered my room, where I found
+everything quiet, there being neither cloud, nor devil, nor anything of
+the kind to be seen, and getting into bed I slept quietly till morning.
+The next day I was rather sad and melancholy, but kept all my troubles
+to myself, through fear of Brown. This happened before my father's
+sickness, and consequently between the four and six years of my age.
+
+"During my father's sickness and after his death I lived with my
+grandmother; and when I had removed to her house I forever lost sight
+of Harvey. I still continued to sleep alone for the most part, but in
+a neatly furnished upper chamber. Across the corner of the chamber,
+opposite to and at a little distance from the head of my bed, there
+was a closet in the form of an old-fashioned buffet. After going to
+bed, on looking at the door of this closet, I could see at a great
+distance from it a pleasant meadow, terminated by a beautiful little
+grove. Out of this grove, and across this meadow, a charming little
+female figure would advance, about eight inches high and exquisitely
+proportioned, dressed in a loose black silk robe, with long, smooth
+black hair parted up her head and hanging loose over her shoulders.
+She would come forward with a slow and regular step, becoming more
+distinctly visible as she approached nearer, till she came even with
+the surface of the closet door, when she would smile upon me, raise her
+hands to her head and draw them down on each side of her face, suddenly
+turn round, and go off at a rapid trot. The moment she turned I could
+see a good-looking mulatto man, rather smaller than herself, following
+directly in her wake and trotting off after her. This was generally
+repeated two or three times before I went to sleep. The features of
+the mulatto bore some resemblance to those of the Indian man with the
+bass-viol, but were much more mild and agreeable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I awoke one bright, moonlight night, and found a large, full-length
+human skeleton of an ashy-blue color in bed with me! I screamed out
+with fright, and soon summoned the family around me. I refused to tell
+the cause of my alarm, but begged permission to occupy another bed,
+which was granted.
+
+"For the remainder of the night I slept but little; but I saw upon
+the window-stools companies of little fairies, about six inches high,
+in white robes, gamboling and dancing with incessant merriment.
+Two of them, a male and female, rather taller than the rest, were
+dignified with a crown and sceptre. They took the kindest notice of
+me, smiled upon me with great benignity, and seemed to assure me of
+their protection. I was soothed and cheered by their presence, though
+after all there was a sort of sinister and selfish expression in their
+countenances which prevented my placing implicit confidence in them.
+
+"Up to this time I had never doubted the real existence of these
+phantoms, nor had I ever suspected that other people had not seen
+them as distinctly as myself. I now, however, began to discover with
+no little anxiety that my friends had little or no knowledge of the
+aerial beings among whom I have spent my whole life; that my allusions
+to them were not understood, and all complaints respecting them were
+laughed at. I had never been disposed to say much about them, and this
+discovery confirmed me in my silence. It did not, however, affect
+my own belief, or lead me to suspect that my imaginations were not
+realities.
+
+"During the whole of this period I took great pleasure in walking
+out alone, particularly in the evening. The most lonely fields, the
+woods, and the banks of the river, and other places most completely
+secluded, were my favorite resorts, for there I could enjoy the sight
+of innumerable aerial beings of all sorts, without interruption.
+Every object, even every shaking leaf, seemed to me to be animated
+by some living soul, whose nature in some degree corresponded to its
+habitation. I spent much of my life in these solitary rambles; there
+were particular places to which I gave names, and visited them at
+regular intervals. Moonlight was particularly agreeable to me, but most
+of all I enjoyed a thick, foggy night. At times, during these walks,
+I would be excessively oppressed by an indefinite and deep feeling
+of melancholy. Without knowing why, I would be so unhappy as to wish
+myself annihilated, and suddenly it would occur to me that my friends
+at home were suffering some dreadful calamity, and so vivid would be
+the impression, that I would hasten home with all speed to see what
+had taken place. At such seasons I felt a morbid love for my friends
+that would almost burn up my soul, and yet, at the least provocation
+from them, I would fly into an uncontrollable passion and foam like a
+little fury. I was called a dreadful-tempered boy; but the Lord knows
+that I never occasioned pain to any animal, whether human or brutal,
+without suffering untold agonies in consequence of it. I cannot, even
+now, without feelings of deep sorrow, call to mind the alternate fits
+of corroding melancholy, irritation, and bitter remorse which I then
+endured. These fits of melancholy were most constant and oppressive
+during the autumnal months.
+
+"I very early learned to read, and soon became immoderately attached
+to books. In the Bible I read the first chapters of Job, and parts
+of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation, with most intense delight, and
+with such frequency that I could repeat large portions from memory
+long before the age at which boys in the country are usually able to
+read plain sentences. The first large book besides the Bible that
+I remember reading was Morse's 'History of New England,' which I
+devoured with insatiable greediness, particularly those parts which
+relate to Indian wars and witchcraft. I was in the habit of applying
+to my grandmother for explanations, and she would relate to me, while
+I listened with breathless attention, long stories from Mather's
+'Magnalia' or (Mag-nilly, as she used to call it), a work which I
+earnestly longed to read, but of which I never got sight till after my
+twentieth year. Very early there fell into my hands an old school-book,
+called 'The Art of Speaking,' containing numerous extracts from Milton
+and Shakespeare. There was little else in the book that interested
+me, but these extracts from the two great English poets, though there
+were many things in them that I did not well understand, I read again
+and again, with increasing pleasure at every perusal, till I had
+nearly committed them to memory, and almost thumbed the old book into
+nonentity. But of all the books that I read at this period, there was
+none that went to my heart like Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress.' I read
+it and re-read it night and day; I took it to bed with me and hugged it
+to my bosom while I slept; every different edition that I could find
+I seized upon and read with as eager a curiosity as if it had been a
+new story throughout; and I read with the unspeakable satisfaction of
+most devoutly believing that everything which 'Honest John' related
+was a real verity, an actual occurrence. Oh that I could read that
+most inimitable book once more with the same solemn conviction of its
+literal truth, that I might once more enjoy the same untold ecstacy!
+
+"One other remark it seems proper to make before I proceed further
+to details. The appearance, and especially the motions, of my aerial
+visitors were intimately connected, either as cause or effect, I cannot
+determine which, with certain sensations of my own. Their countenances
+generally expressed pleasure or pain, complaisance or anger, according
+to the mood of my own mind: if they moved from place to place without
+moving their limbs, with that gliding motion appropriate to spirits, I
+felt in my stomach that peculiar tickling sensation which accompanies a
+rapid, progressive movement through the air; and if they went off with
+an uneasy trot, I felt an unpleasant jarring through my frame. Their
+appearance was always attended with considerable effort and fatigue
+on my part: the more distinct and vivid they were, the more would my
+fatigue be increased; and at such times my face was always pale, and my
+eyes unusually sparkling and wild. This continued to be the case after
+I became satisfied that it was all a delusion of the imagination, and
+it so continues to the present day."
+
+It is not surprising that Mrs. Stowe should have felt herself impelled
+to give literary form to an experience so exceptional. Still more
+must this be the case when the early associations of this exceptional
+character were as amusing and interesting as they are shown forth in
+"Oldtown Fireside Stories."
+
+None of the incidents or characters embodied in those sketches are
+ideal. The stories are told as they came from Mr. Stowe's lips, with
+little or no alteration. Sam Lawson was a real character. In 1874 Mr.
+Whittier wrote to Mrs. Stowe: "I am not able to write or study much,
+or read books that require thought, without suffering, but I have Sam
+Lawson lying at hand, and, as Corporal Trim said of Yorick's sermon, 'I
+like it hugely.'"
+
+The power and literary value of these stories lie in the fact that they
+are true to nature. Professor Stowe was himself an inimitable mimic
+and story-teller. No small proportion of Mrs. Stowe's success as a
+literary woman is to be attributed to him. Not only was he possessed of
+a bright, quick mind, but wonderful retentiveness of memory. Mrs. Stowe
+was never at a loss for reliable information on any subject as long as
+the professor lived. He belonged to that extinct species, the "general
+scholar." His scholarship was not critical in the modern sense of the
+word, but in the main accurate, in spite of his love for the marvelous.
+
+It is not out of place to give a little idea of his power in
+character-painting, as it shows how suggestive his conversation and
+letters must have been to a mind like that of Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+                             NATICK, _July 14, 1839._
+
+    I have had a real good time this week writing my
+    oration. I have strolled over my old walking places,
+    and found the same old stone walls, the same old
+    foot-paths through the rye-fields, the same bends in
+    the river, the same old bullfrogs with their green
+    spectacles on, the same old terrapins sticking up their
+    heads and bowing as I go by; and nothing was wanting
+    but my wife to talk with to make all complete.... I
+    have had some rare talks with old uncle "Jaw" Bacon,
+    and other old characters, which you ought to have
+    heard. The Curtises have been flooding Uncle "Jaw's"
+    meadows, and he is in a great stew about it. He says:
+    "I took and tell'd your Uncle Izic to tell them 'ere
+    Curtises that if the Devil didn't git 'em far flowing
+    my medder arter that sort, I didn't see no use o'
+    havin' any Devil." "Have you talked with the Curtises
+    yourself?" "Yes, hang the sarcy dogs! and they took
+    and tell'd me that they'd take and flow clean up to my
+    front door, and make me go out and in in a boat." "Why
+    don't you go to law?" "Oh, they keep alterin' and er
+    tinkerin'-up the laws so here in Massachusetts that a
+    body can't git no damage fur flowing; they think cold
+    water can't hurt nobody."
+
+    Mother and Aunt Nabby each keep separate
+    establishments. First Aunt Nabby gets up in the morning
+    and examines the sink, to see whether it leaks and
+    rots the beam. She then makes a little fire, gets her
+    little teapot of bright shining tin, and puts into it a
+    teaspoonful of black tea, and so prepares her breakfast.
+
+    By this time mother comes creeping down-stairs, like
+    an old tabby-cat out of the ash-hole; and she kind o'
+    doubts and reckons whether or no she had better try to
+    git any breakfast, bein' as she's not much appetite
+    this mornin'; but she goes to the leg of bacon and cuts
+    off a little slice, reckons sh'll broil it; then goes
+    and looks at the coffee-pot and reckons sh'll have a
+    little coffee; don't exactly know whether it's good
+    for her, but she don't drink much. So while Aunt Nabby
+    is sitting sipping her tea and munching her bread and
+    butter with a matter-of-fact certainty and marvelous
+    satisfaction, mother goes doubting and reckoning round,
+    like Mrs. Diffidence in Doubting Castle, till you see
+    rising up another little table in another corner of the
+    room, with a good substantial structure of broiled ham
+    and coffee, and a boiled egg or two, with various et
+    ceteras, which Mrs. Diffidence, after many desponding
+    ejaculations, finally sits down to, and in spite of
+    all presentiments makes them fly as nimbly as Mr.
+    Ready-to-Halt did Miss Much-afraid when he footed it
+    so well with her on his crutches in the dance on the
+    occasion of Giant Despair's overthrow.
+
+    I have thus far dined alternately with mother and Aunt
+    Susan, not having yet been admitted to Aunt Nabby's
+    establishment. There are now great talkings, and
+    congresses and consultations of the allied powers,
+    and already rumors are afloat that perhaps all will
+    unite their forces and dine at one table, especially
+    as Harriet and little Hattie are coming, and there is
+    no knowing what might come out in the papers if there
+    should be anything a little odd.
+
+    Mother is very well, thin as a hatchet and smart as
+    a steel trap; Aunt Nabby, fat and easy as usual; for
+    since the sink is mended, and no longer leaks and rots
+    the beam, and she has nothing to do but watch it,
+    and Uncle Bill has joined the Washingtonians and no
+    longer drinks rum, she is quite at a loss for topics of
+    worriment.
+
+    Uncle Ike has had a little touch of palsy and is rather
+    feeble. He says that his legs and arms have rather
+    gi'n out, but his head and pluck are as good as they
+    ever were. I told him that our sister Kate was very
+    much in the same fix, whereat he was considerably
+    affected, and opened the crack in his great pumpkin of
+    a face, displaying the same two rows of great white
+    ivories which have been my admiration from my youth
+    up. He is sixty-five years of age, and has never lost
+    a tooth, and was never in his life more than fifteen
+    miles from the spot where he was born, except once, in
+    the ever-memorable year 1819, when I was at Bradford
+    Academy.
+
+    In a sudden glow of adventurous rashness he undertook
+    to go after me and bring me home for vacation; and he
+    actually performed the whole journey of thirty miles
+    with his horse and wagon, and slept at a tavern a whole
+    night, a feat of bravery on which he has never since
+    ceased to plume himself. I well remember that awful
+    night in the tavern in the remote region of North
+    Andover. We occupied a chamber in which were two beds.
+    In the unsuspecting innocence of youth I undressed
+    myself and got into bed as usual; but my brave and
+    thoughtful uncle, merely divesting himself of his coat,
+    put it under his pillow, and then threw himself on to
+    the bed with his boots on his feet, and his two hands
+    resting on the rim of his hat, which he had prudently
+    placed on the apex of his stomach as he lay on his
+    back. He wouldn't allow me to blow out the candle,
+    but he lay there with his great white eyes fixed on
+    the ceiling, in the cool, determined manner of a bold
+    man who had made up his mind to face danger and meet
+    whatever might befall him. We escaped, however, without
+    injury, the doughty landlord and his relentless sons
+    merely demanding pay for supper, lodging, horse-feed,
+    and breakfast, which my valiant uncle, betraying no
+    signs of fear, resolutely paid.
+
+Mrs. Stowe has woven this incident into chapter thirty-two of "Oldtown
+Folks," where Uncle Ike figures as Uncle Jacob.
+
+Mrs. Stowe had misgivings as to the reception which "Oldtown Folks"
+would meet in England, owing to its distinctively New England
+character. Shortly after the publication of the book she received the
+following words of encouragement from Mrs. Lewes (George Eliot), July
+11, 1869:--
+
+"I have received and read 'Oldtown Folks.' I think that few of your
+readers can have felt more interest than I have felt in that picture
+of an elder generation; for my interest in it has a double root,--one
+in my own love for our old-fashioned provincial life, which had its
+affinities with a contemporary life, even all across the Atlantic,
+and of which I have gathered glimpses in different phases from my
+father and mother, with their relations; the other is my experimental
+acquaintance with some shades of Calvinistic orthodoxy. I think your
+way of presenting the religious convictions which are not your own,
+except by the way of indirect fellowship, is a triumph of insight and
+true tolerance.... Both Mr. Lewes and I are deeply interested in the
+indications which the professor gives of his peculiar psychological
+experience, and we should feel it a great privilege to learn much more
+of it from his lips. It is a rare thing to have such an opportunity of
+studying exceptional experience in the testimony of a truthful and in
+every way distinguished mind."
+
+"Oldtown Folks" is of interest as being undoubtedly the last of Mrs.
+Stowe's works which will outlive the generation for which it was
+written. Besides its intrinsic merit as a work of fiction, it has a
+certain historic value as being a faithful study of "New England life
+and character in that particular time of its history which may be
+called the seminal period."
+
+Whether Mrs. Stowe was far enough away from the time and people she
+attempts to describe to "make (her) mind as still and passive as
+a looking-glass or a mountain lake, and to give merely the images
+reflected there," is something that will in great part determine the
+permanent value of this work. Its interest as a story merely is of
+course ephemeral.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE BYRON CONTROVERSY, 1869-1870.
+
+    MRS. STOWE'S STATEMENT OF HER OWN CASE.--THE
+    CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH SHE FIRST MET LADY
+    BYRON.--LETTERS TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER TO DR. HOLMES
+    WHEN ABOUT TO PUBLISH "THE TRUE STORY OF LADY BYRON'S
+    LIFE" IN THE "ATLANTIC."--DR. HOLMES'S REPLY.--THE
+    CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER.
+
+
+IT seems impossible to avoid the unpleasant episode in Mrs. Stowe's
+life known as the "Byron Controversy." It will be our effort to deal
+with the matter as colorlessly as is consistent with an adequate
+setting forth of the motives which moved Mrs. Stowe to awaken this
+unsavory discussion. In justification of her action in this matter,
+Mrs. Stowe says:--
+
+"What interest have you and I, my brother and my sister, in this short
+life of ours, to utter anything but the truth? Is not truth between man
+and man, and between man and woman, the foundation on which all things
+rest? Have you not, every individual of you, who must hereafter give
+an account yourself alone to God, an interest to know the exact truth
+in this matter, and a duty to perform as respects that truth? Hear me,
+then, while I tell you the position in which I stood, and what was my
+course in relation to it.
+
+"A shameless attack on my friend's memory had appeared in the
+'Blackwood' of July, 1869, branding Lady Byron as the vilest of
+criminals, and recommending the Guiccioli book to a Christian public
+as interesting from the very fact that it was the avowed production
+of Lord Byron's mistress. No efficient protest was made against
+this outrage in England, and Littell's 'Living Age' reprinted the
+'Blackwood' article, and the Harpers, the largest publishing house in
+America, perhaps in the world, republished the book.
+
+"Its statements--with those of the 'Blackwood,' 'Pall Mall Gazette,'
+and other English periodicals--were being propagated through all
+the young reading and writing world of America. I was meeting them
+advertised in dailies, and made up into articles in magazines, and thus
+the generation of to-day, who had no means of judging Lady Byron but by
+these fables of her slanderers, were being foully deceived. The friends
+who knew her personally were a small, select circle in England, whom
+death is every day reducing. They were few in number compared with the
+great world, and were _silent_. I saw these foul slanders crystallizing
+into history, uncontradicted by friends who knew her personally, who,
+firm in their own knowledge of her virtues, and limited in view as
+aristocratic circles generally are, had no idea of the width of the
+world they were living in, and the exigency of the crisis. When time
+passed on and no voice was raised, I spoke."
+
+It is hardly necessary to recapitulate, at any great length, facts
+already so familiar to the reading public; it may be sufficient simply
+to say that after the appearance in 1868 of the Countess Guiccioli's
+"Recollections of Lord Byron," Mrs. Stowe felt herself called upon
+to defend the memory of her friend from what she esteemed to be
+falsehoods and slanders. To accomplish this object, she prepared for
+the "Atlantic Monthly" of September, 1869, an article, "The True Story
+of Lady Byron's Life." Speaking of her first impressions of Lady Byron,
+Mrs. Stowe says:--
+
+"I formed her acquaintance in the year 1853, during my first visit to
+England. I met her at a lunch party in the house of one of her friends.
+When I was introduced to her, I felt in a moment the words of her
+husband:--
+
+    "'There was awe in the homage that she drew;
+      Her spirit seemed as seated on a throne.'"
+
+It was in the fall of 1856, on the occasion of Mrs. Stowe's second
+visit to England, as she and her sister were on their way to Eversley
+to visit the Rev. C. Kingsley, that they stopped by invitation to lunch
+with Lady Byron at her summer residence at Ham Common, near Richmond.
+At that time Lady Byron informed Mrs. Stowe that it was her earnest
+desire to receive a visit from her on her return, as there was a
+subject of great importance concerning which she desired her advice.
+Mrs. Stowe has thus described this interview with Lady Byron:--
+
+"After lunch, I retired with Lady Byron, and my sister remained with
+her friends. I should here remark that the chief subject of the
+conversation which ensued was not entirely new to me.
+
+"In the interval between my first and second visits to England, a lady
+who for many years had enjoyed Lady Byron's friendship and confidence
+had, with her consent, stated the case generally to me, giving some of
+the incidents, so that I was in a manner prepared for what followed.
+
+"Those who accuse Lady Byron of being a person fond of talking upon
+this subject, and apt to make unconsidered confidences, can have known
+very little of her, of her reserve, and of the apparent difficulty she
+had in speaking on subjects nearest her heart. Her habitual calmness
+and composure of manner, her collected dignity on all occasions, are
+often mentioned by her husband, sometimes with bitterness, sometimes
+with admiration. He says: 'Though I accuse Lady Byron of an excess of
+self-respect, I must in candor admit that, if ever a person had excuse
+for an extraordinary portion of it, she has, as in all her thoughts,
+words, and deeds she is the most decorous woman that ever existed, and
+must appear, what few I fancy could, a perfectly refined gentlewoman,
+even to her _femme de chambre_.'
+
+"This calmness and dignity were never more manifested than in this
+interview. In recalling the conversation at this distance of time, I
+cannot remember all the language used. Some particular words and forms
+of expression I do remember, and those I give; and in other cases I
+give my recollection of the substance of what was said.
+
+"There was something awful to me in the intensity of repressed emotion
+which she showed as she proceeded. The great fact upon which all turned
+was stated in words that were unmistakable."
+
+Mrs. Stowe goes on to give minutely Lady Byron's conversation, and
+concludes by saying:--
+
+    Of course I did not listen to this story as one who
+    was investigating its worth. I received it as truth,
+    and the purpose for which it was communicated was not
+    to enable me to prove it to the world, but to ask
+    my opinion whether she should show it to the world
+    before leaving it. The whole consultation was upon the
+    assumption that she had at her command such proofs as
+    could not be questioned. Concerning what they were I
+    did not minutely inquire, only, in answer to a general
+    question, she said that she had letters and documents
+    in proof of her story. Knowing Lady Byron's strength
+    of mind, her clear-headedness, her accurate habits,
+    and her perfect knowledge of the matter, I considered
+    her judgment on this point decisive. I told her that
+    I would take the subject into consideration and give
+    my opinion in a few days. That night, after my sister
+    and myself had retired to our own apartment, I related
+    to her the whole history, and we spent the night in
+    talking it over. I was powerfully impressed with the
+    justice and propriety of an immediate disclosure;
+    while she, on the contrary, represented the fatal
+    consequences that would probably come upon Lady Byron
+    from taking such a step.
+
+    Before we parted the next day, I requested Lady Byron
+    to give me some memoranda of such dates and outlines
+    of the general story as would enable me better to keep
+    it in its connection, which she did. On giving me the
+    paper, Lady Byron requested me to return it to her
+    when it had ceased to be of use to me for the purpose
+    intended. Accordingly, a day or two after, I inclosed
+    it to her in a hasty note, as I was then leaving London
+    for Paris, and had not yet had time fully to consider
+    the subject. On reviewing my note I can recall that
+    then the whole history appeared to me like one of those
+    singular cases where unnatural impulses to vice are
+    the result of a taint of constitutional insanity. This
+    has always seemed to me the only way of accounting for
+    instances of utterly motiveless and abnormal wickedness
+    and cruelty. These, my first impressions, were
+    expressed in the hasty note written at the time:
+
+                                LONDON, _November 5, 1856._
+
+    DEAREST FRIEND,--I return these. They have held mine
+    eyes waking. How strange! How unaccountable! Have you
+    ever subjected the facts to the judgment of a medical
+    man, learned in nervous pathology? Is it not insanity?
+
+    "Great wits to madness nearly are allied,
+     And thin partitions do their bounds divide."
+
+    But my purpose to-night is not to write to you fully
+    what I think of this matter. I am going to write to you
+    from Paris more at leisure.
+
+    (The rest of the letter was taken up in the final
+    details of a charity in which Lady Byron had been
+    engaged with me in assisting an unfortunate artist. It
+    concludes thus:)
+
+    I write now in all haste, _en route_ for Paris. As to
+    America, all is not lost yet. Farewell. I love you, my
+    dear friend, as never before, with an intense feeling
+    that I cannot easily express. God bless you.
+
+                                             H. B. S.
+
+The next letter is as follows:--
+
+                              PARIS, _December 17, 1856._
+
+    DEAR LADY BYRON,--The Kansas Committee have written
+    me a letter desiring me to express to Miss ---- their
+    gratitude for the five pounds she sent them. I am not
+    personally acquainted with her, and must return these
+    acknowledgments through you.
+
+    I wrote you a day or two since, inclosing the reply of
+    the Kansas Committee to you.
+
+    On that subject on which you spoke to me the last time
+    we were together, I have thought often and deeply.
+    I have changed my mind somewhat. Considering the
+    peculiar circumstances of the case, I could wish that
+    the sacred veil of silence, so bravely thrown over the
+    past, should never be withdrawn during the time that
+    you remain with us. I would say then, leave all with
+    some discreet friends, who, after both have passed
+    from earth, shall say what was due to justice. I am
+    led to think this by seeing how low, how unworthy, the
+    judgments of this world are; and I would not that what
+    I so much respect, love, and revere should be placed
+    within reach of its harpy claw, which pollutes what
+    it touches. The day will yet come which will bring to
+    light every hidden thing. "There is nothing covered
+    that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not
+    be known;" and so justice will not fail.
+
+    Such, my dear friend, are my thoughts; different from
+    what they were since first I heard that strange, sad
+    history. Meanwhile I love you forever, whether we meet
+    again on earth or not.
+
+                                Affectionately yours,
+                                                H. B. S.
+
+Before her article appeared in print, Mrs. Stowe addressed the
+following letter to Dr. Holmes in Boston:--
+
+                                 HARTFORD, _June 26, 1869._
+
+    DEAR DOCTOR,--I am going to ask help of you, and I feel
+    that confidence in your friendship that leads me to be
+    glad that I have a friend like you to ask advice of. In
+    order that you may understand fully what it is, I must
+    go back some years and tell you about it.
+
+    When I went to England the first time, I formed a
+    friendship with Lady Byron which led to a somewhat
+    interesting correspondence. When there the second
+    time, after the publication of "Dred" in 1856, Lady
+    Byron wrote to me that she wished to have some private
+    confidential conversation with me, and invited me to
+    come spend a day with her at her country-seat near
+    London. I went, met her alone, and spent an afternoon
+    with her. The object of the visit she then explained
+    to me. She was in such a state of health that she
+    considered she had very little time to live, and
+    was engaged in those duties and reviews which every
+    thoughtful person finds who is coming deliberately, and
+    with their eyes open, to the boundaries of this mortal
+    life.
+
+    Lady Byron, as you must perceive, has all her life
+    lived under a weight of slanders and false imputations
+    laid upon her by her husband. Her own side of the story
+    has been told only to that small circle of confidential
+    friends who needed to know it in order to assist her
+    in meeting the exigencies which it imposed on her.
+    Of course it has thrown the sympathy mostly on his
+    side, since the world generally has more sympathy with
+    impulsive incorrectness than with strict justice.
+
+    At that time there was a cheap edition of Byron's
+    works in contemplation, meant to bring them into
+    circulation among the masses, and the pathos arising
+    from the story of his domestic misfortunes was one
+    great means relied on for giving it currency.
+
+    Under these circumstances some of Lady Byron's friends
+    had proposed the question to her whether she had not a
+    responsibility to society for the truth; whether she
+    did right to allow these persons to gain influence
+    over the popular mind by a silent consent to an utter
+    falsehood. As her whole life had been passed in the
+    most heroic self-abnegation and self sacrifice, the
+    question was now proposed to her whether one more act
+    of self-denial was not required of her, namely, to
+    declare _the truth_, no matter at what expense to her
+    own feelings.
+
+    For this purpose she told me she wished to recount the
+    whole story to a person in whom she had confidence,--a
+    person of another country, and out of the whole sphere
+    of personal and local feelings which might be supposed
+    to influence those in the country and station in life
+    where the events really happened,--in order that I
+    might judge whether anything more was required of her
+    in relation to this history.
+
+    The interview had almost the solemnity of a death-bed
+    confession, and Lady Byron told me the history which I
+    have embodied in an article to appear in the "Atlantic
+    Monthly." I have been induced to prepare it by the run
+    which the Guiccioli book is having, which is from first
+    to last an unsparing attack on Lady Byron's memory by
+    Lord Byron's mistress.
+
+    When you have read my article, I want, _not_ your
+    advice as to whether the main facts shall be told, for
+    on this point I am so resolved that I frankly say
+    advice would do me no good. But you might help me,
+    with your delicacy and insight, to make the _manner of
+    telling_ more perfect, and I want to do it as wisely
+    and well as such story can be told.
+
+    My post-office address after July 1st will be Westport
+    Point, Bristol Co., Mass., care of Mrs. I. M. Soule.
+    The proof-sheets will be sent you by the publisher.
+
+                                     Very truly yours,
+                                               H. B. STOWE.
+
+In reply to the storm of controversy aroused by the publication of this
+article, Mrs. Stowe made a more extended effort to justify the charges
+which she had brought against Lord Byron, in a work published in 1869,
+"Lady Byron Vindicated." Immediately after the publication of this
+work, she mailed a copy to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, accompanied by
+the following note:--
+
+                                 BOSTON, _May 19, 1869._
+
+    DEAR DOCTOR,--... In writing this book, which I now
+    take the liberty of sending to you, I have been in
+    ... a "critical place." It has been a strange, weird
+    sort of experience, and I have had not a word to say
+    to anybody, though often thinking of you and wishing
+    I could have a little of your help and sympathy in
+    getting out what I saw. I think of you very much, and
+    rejoice to see the _hold_ your works get on England
+    as well as this country, and I would give more for
+    your opinion than that of most folks. How often I have
+    pondered your last letter to me, and sent it to many
+    (friends)! God bless you. Please accept for yourself
+    and your good wife, this copy.
+
+                           From yours truly,
+                                      H. B. STOWE.
+
+Mrs. Stowe also published in 1870, through Sampson Low & Son, of
+London, a volume for English readers, "The History of the Byron
+Controversy." These additional volumes, however, do not seem to have
+satisfied the public as a whole, and perhaps the expediency of the
+publication of Mrs. Stowe's first article is doubtful, even to her most
+ardent admirers. The most that can be hoped for, through the mention
+of the subject in this biography, is the vindication of Mrs. Stowe's
+purity of motive and nobility of intention in bringing this painful
+matter into notice.
+
+While she was being on all hands effectively, and evidently in some
+quarters with rare satisfaction, roundly abused for the article, and
+her consequent responsibility in bringing this unsavory discussion so
+prominently before the public mind, she received the following letter
+from Dr. O. W. Holmes:--
+
+                               BOSTON, _September 25, 1869._
+
+    MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I have been meaning to write to
+    you for some time, but in the midst of all the wild and
+    virulent talk about the article in the "Atlantic," I
+    felt as if there was little to say until the first fury
+    of the storm had blown over.
+
+    I think that we all perceive now that the battle is
+    not to be fought here, but in England. I have listened
+    to a good deal of talk, always taking your side in a
+    quiet way, backed very heartily on one occasion by
+    one of my most intellectual friends, reading all that
+    came in my way, and watching the course of opinion.
+    And first, it was to be expected that the Guiccioli
+    fanciers would resent any attack on Lord Byron, and
+    would highly relish the opportunity of abusing one who,
+    like yourself, had been identified with all those moral
+    enterprises which elevate the standard of humanity at
+    large, and of womanhood in particular. After this scum
+    had worked itself off, there must necessarily follow a
+    controversy, none the less sharp and bitter, but not
+    depending essentially on abuse. The first point the
+    recusants got hold of was the error of the two years
+    which contrived to run the gauntlet of so many pairs
+    of eyes. Some of them were made happy by mouthing and
+    shaking this between their teeth, as a poodle tears
+    round with a glove. This did not last long. No sensible
+    person could believe for a moment you were mistaken in
+    the essential character of a statement every word of
+    which would fall on the ear of a listening friend like
+    a drop of melted lead, and burn its scar deep into the
+    memory. That Lady Byron believed and told you the story
+    will not be questioned by any but fools and malignants.
+    Whether her belief was well founded there may be
+    positive evidence in existence to show affirmatively.
+    The fact that her statement is not peremptorily
+    contradicted by those most likely to be acquainted
+    with the facts of the case, is the one result so far
+    which is forcing itself into unwilling recognition. I
+    have seen nothing, in the various hypotheses brought
+    forward, which did not to me involve a greater
+    improbability than the presumption of guilt. Take
+    that, for witness, that Byron accused himself, through
+    a spirit of perverse vanity, of crimes he had not
+    committed. How preposterous! He would stain the name of
+    a sister, whom, on the supposition of his innocence,
+    he loved with angelic ardor as well as purity, by
+    associating it with such an infamous accusation.
+    Suppose there are some anomalies hard to explain in
+    Lady Byron's conduct. Could a young and guileless
+    woman, in the hands of such a man, be expected to
+    act in any given way, or would she not be likely to
+    waver, to doubt, to hope, to contradict herself, in the
+    anomalous position in which, without experience, she
+    found herself?
+
+    As to the intrinsic evidence contained in the poems,
+    I think it confirms rather than contradicts the
+    hypothesis of guilt. I do not think that Butler's
+    argument, and all the other attempts at invalidation of
+    the story, avail much in the face of the acknowledged
+    fact that it was told to various competent and honest
+    witnesses, and remains without a satisfactory answer
+    from those most interested.
+
+    I know your firm self-reliance, and your courage to
+    proclaim the truth when any good end is to be served
+    by it. It is to be expected that public opinion will
+    be more or less divided as to the expediency of this
+    revelation....
+
+    Hoping that you have recovered from your indisposition,
+    I am
+
+                               Faithfully yours,
+                                        O. W. HOLMES.
+
+While undergoing the most unsparing and pitiless criticism and brutal
+insult, Mrs. Stowe received the following sympathetic words from Mrs.
+Lewes (George Eliot):--
+
+           THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, _December 10, 1869._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,-- ... In the midst of your trouble I
+    was often thinking of you, for I feared that you were
+    undergoing a considerable trial from the harsh and
+    unfair judgments, partly the fruit of hostility glad
+    to find an opportunity for venting itself, and partly
+    of that unthinking cruelty which belongs to hasty
+    anonymous journalism. For my own part, I should have
+    preferred that the Byron question should never have
+    been brought before the public, because I think the
+    discussion of such subjects is injurious socially. But
+    with regard to yourself, dear friend, I feel sure that,
+    in acting on a different basis of impressions, you were
+    impelled by pure, generous feeling. Do not think that
+    I would have written to you of this point to express a
+    judgment. I am anxious only to convey to you a sense
+    of my sympathy and confidence, such as a kiss and a
+    pressure of the hand could give if I were near you.
+
+    I trust that I shall hear a good account of Professor
+    Stowe's health, as well as your own, whenever you
+    have time to write me a word or two. I shall not be
+    so unreasonable as to expect a long letter, for the
+    hours of needful rest from writing become more and more
+    precious as the years go on, but some brief news of
+    you and yours will be especially welcome just now. Mr.
+    Lewes unites with me in high regards to your husband
+    and yourself, but in addition to that I have the sister
+    woman's privilege of saying that I am always
+
+                            Your affectionate friend,
+                                            M. H. LEWES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+GEORGE ELIOT.
+
+    CORRESPONDENCE WITH GEORGE ELIOT.--GEORGE ELIOT'S FIRST
+    IMPRESSIONS OF MRS. STOWE.--MRS. STOWE'S LETTER TO MRS.
+    FOLLEN.--GEORGE ELIOT'S LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--MRS.
+    STOWE'S REPLY.--LIFE IN FLORIDA.--ROBERT DALE OWEN AND
+    MODERN SPIRITUALISM.--GEORGE ELIOT'S LETTER ON THE
+    PHENOMENA OF SPIRITUALISM.--MRS. STOWE'S DESCRIPTION
+    OF SCENERY IN FLORIDA.--MRS. STOWE CONCERNING
+    "MIDDLEMARCH."--GEORGE ELIOT TO MRS. STOWE DURING REV.
+    H. W. BEECHER'S TRIAL.--MRS. STOWE CONCERNING HER LIFE
+    EXPERIENCE WITH HER BROTHER, H. W. BEECHER, AND HIS
+    TRIAL.--MRS. LEWES' LAST LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--DIVERSE
+    MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THESE TWO WOMEN.--MRS.
+    STOWE'S FINAL ESTIMATE OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM.
+
+
+IT is with a feeling of relief that we turn from one of the most
+disagreeable experiences of Mrs. Stowe's life to one of the most
+delightful, namely, the warm friendship of one of the most eminent
+women of this age, George Eliot.
+
+There seems to have been some deep affinity of feeling that drew them
+closely together in spite of diversity of intellectual tastes.
+
+George Eliot's attention was first personally attracted to Mrs. Stowe
+in 1853, by means of a letter which the latter had written to Mrs.
+Follen. Speaking of this incident she (George Eliot) writes: "Mrs.
+Follen showed me a delightful letter which she has just had from Mrs.
+Stowe, telling all about herself. She begins by saying, 'I am a little
+bit of a woman, rather more than forty, as withered and dry as a pinch
+of snuff; never very well worth looking at in my best days, and now a
+decidedly used-up article.' The whole letter is most fascinating, and
+makes one love her."[17]
+
+The correspondence between these two notable women was begun by Mrs.
+Stowe, and called forth the following extremely interesting letter from
+the distinguished English novelist:--
+
+               THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, _May 8, 1869._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--I value very highly the warrant to
+    call you friend which your letter has given me. It
+    lay awaiting me on our return the other night from a
+    nine weeks' absence in Italy, and it made me almost
+    wish that you could have a momentary vision of the
+    discouragement,--nay, paralyzing despondency--in which
+    many days of my writing life have been passed, in order
+    that you might fully understand the good I find in such
+    sympathy as yours, in such an assurance as you give me
+    that my work has been worth doing. But I will not dwell
+    on any mental sickness of mine. The best joy your words
+    give me is the sense of that sweet, generous feeling in
+    you which dictated them. I shall always be the richer
+    because you have in this way made me know you better. I
+    must tell you that my first glimpse of you as a woman
+    came through a letter of yours, and charmed me very
+    much. The letter was addressed to Mrs. Follen, and
+    one morning I called on her in London (how many years
+    ago!); she was kind enough to read it to me, because it
+    contained a little history of your life, and a sketch
+    of your domestic circumstances. I remember thinking
+    that it was very kind of you to write that long letter,
+    in reply to inquiries of one who was personally unknown
+    to you; and, looking back with my present experience,
+    I think it was kinder than it then appeared, for at
+    that time you must have been much oppressed with the
+    immediate results of your fame. I remember, too, that
+    you wrote of your husband as one who was richer in
+    Hebrew and Greek than in pounds or shillings; and as an
+    ardent scholar has always been a character of peculiar
+    interest to me, I have rarely had your image in my mind
+    without the accompanying image (more or less erroneous)
+    of such a scholar by your side. I shall welcome the
+    fruit of his Goethe studies, whenever it comes.
+
+    I have good hopes that your fears are groundless as
+    to the obstacles your new book ("Oldtown Folks") may
+    find here from its thorough American character. Most
+    readers who are likely to be really influenced by
+    writing above the common order will find that special
+    aspect an added reason for interest and study; and
+    I dare say you have long seen, as I am beginning to
+    see with new clearness, that if a book which has any
+    sort of exquisiteness happens also to be a popular,
+    widely circulated book, the power over the social mind
+    for any good is, after all, due to its reception by a
+    few appreciative natures, and is the slow result of
+    radiation from that narrow circle. I mean that you can
+    affect a few souls, and that each of these in turn may
+    affect a few more, but that no exquisite book tells
+    properly and directly on a multitude, however largely
+    it may be spread by type and paper. Witness the things
+    the multitude will say about it, if one is so unhappy
+    as to be obliged to hear their sayings. I do not
+    write this cynically, but in pure sadness and pity.
+    Both traveling abroad and staying at home among our
+    English sights and sports, one must continually feel
+    how slowly the centuries work toward the moral good of
+    men, and that thought lies very close to what you say
+    as to your wonder or conjecture concerning my religious
+    point of view. I believe that religion, too, has to
+    be modified according to the dominant phases; that
+    a religion more perfect than any yet prevalent must
+    express less care of personal consolation, and the more
+    deeply awing sense of responsibility to man springing
+    from sympathy with that which of all things is most
+    certainly known to us,--the difficulty of the human
+    lot. Letters are necessarily narrow and fragmentary,
+    and when one writes on wide subjects, are likely to
+    create more misunderstanding than illumination. But I
+    have little anxiety in writing to you, dear friend and
+    fellow-laborer; for you have had longer experience than
+    I as a writer, and fuller experience as a woman, since
+    you have borne children and known a mother's history
+    from the beginning. I trust your quick and long-taught
+    mind as an interpreter little liable to mistake me.
+
+    When you say, "We live in an orange grove, and are
+    planting many more," and when I think you must have
+    abundant family love to cheer you, it seems to me
+    that you must have a paradise about you. But no list
+    of circumstances will make a paradise. Nevertheless,
+    I must believe that the joyous, tender humor of your
+    books clings about your more immediate life, and
+    makes some of that sunshine for yourself which you
+    have given to us. I see the advertisement of "Oldtown
+    Folks," and shall eagerly expect it. That and every
+    other new link between us will be reverentially valued.
+    With great devotion and regard,
+
+                                      Yours always,
+                                                M. L. LEWES.
+
+Mrs. Stowe writes from Mandarin to George Eliot:--
+
+                              MANDARIN, _February 8, 1872._
+
+    DEAR FRIEND,--It is two years nearly since I had your
+    last very kind letter, and I have never answered,
+    because two years of constant and severe work have made
+    it impossible to give a drop to anything beyond the
+    needs of the hour. Yet I have always thought of you,
+    loved you, trusted you all the same, and read every
+    little scrap from your writing that came to hand.
+
+    One thing brings you back to me. I am now in Florida
+    in my little hut in the orange orchard, with the broad
+    expanse of the blue St. John's in front, and the
+    waving of the live-oaks, with their long, gray mosses,
+    overhead, and the bright gold of oranges looking
+    through dusky leaves around. It is like Sorrento,--so
+    like that I can quite dream of being there. And when I
+    get here I enter another life. The world recedes; I am
+    out of it; it ceases to influence; its bustle and noise
+    die away in the far distance; and here is no winter, an
+    open-air life,--a quaint, rude, wild wilderness sort of
+    life, both rude and rich; but when I am here I write
+    more letters to friends than ever I do elsewhere. The
+    mail comes only twice a week, and then is the event
+    of the day. My old rabbi and I here set up our tent,
+    he with German, and Greek, and Hebrew, devouring all
+    sorts of black-letter books, and I spinning ideal webs
+    out of bits that he lets fall here and there.
+
+    I have long thought that I would write you again when I
+    got here, and so I do. I have sent North to have them
+    send me the "Harper's Weekly," in which your new story
+    is appearing, and have promised myself leisurely to
+    devour and absorb every word of it.
+
+    While I think of it I want to introduce to you a friend
+    of mine, a most noble man, Mr. Owen, for some years our
+    ambassador at Naples, now living a literary and scholar
+    life in America. His father was Robert Dale Owen, the
+    theorist and communist you may have heard of in England
+    some years since.
+
+    Years ago, in Naples, I visited Mr. Owen for the
+    first time, and found him directing his attention
+    to the phenomena of spiritism. He had stumbled upon
+    some singular instances of it accidentally, and he
+    had forthwith instituted a series of researches and
+    experiments on the subject, some of which he showed me.
+    It was the first time I had ever seriously thought of
+    the matter, and he invited my sister and myself to see
+    some of the phenomena as exhibited by a medium friend
+    of theirs who resided in their family. The result at
+    the time was sufficiently curious, but I was interested
+    in his account of the manner in which he proceeded,
+    keeping records of every experiment with its results,
+    in classified orders. As the result of his studies
+    and observations, he has published two books, one
+    "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," published
+    in 1860, and latterly, "The Debatable Land Between this
+    World and the Next." I regard Mr. Owen as one of the
+    few men who are capable of entering into an inquiry of
+    this kind without an utter drowning of common sense,
+    and his books are both of them worth a fair reading. To
+    me they present a great deal that is intensely curious
+    and interesting, although I do not admit, of course,
+    all his deductions, and think he often takes too much
+    for granted. Still, with every abatement there remains
+    a residuum of fact, which I think both curious and
+    useful. In a late letter to me he says:--
+
+    "There is no writer of the present day whom I more
+    esteem than Mrs. Lewes, nor any one whose opinion of my
+    work I should more highly value."
+
+    I believe he intends sending them to you, and I hope
+    you will read them. Lest some of the narratives should
+    strike you, as such narratives did me once, as being a
+    perfect Arabian Nights' Entertainment, I want to say
+    that I have accidentally been in the way of confirming
+    some of the most remarkable by personal observation....
+    In regard to all this class of subjects, I am of the
+    opinion of Goethe, that "it is just as absurd to deny
+    the facts of spiritualism now as it was in the Middle
+    Ages to ascribe them to the Devil." I think Mr. Owen
+    attributes too much value to his facts. I do not think
+    the things contributed from the ultra-mundane sphere
+    are particularly valuable, apart from the evidence they
+    give of continued existence after death.
+
+    I do not think there is yet any evidence to warrant
+    the idea that they are a supplement or continuation of
+    the revelations of Christianity, but I do regard them
+    as an interesting and curious study in psychology,
+    and every careful observer like Mr. Owen ought to be
+    welcomed to bring in his facts. With this I shall
+    send you my observations on Mr. Owen's books, from
+    the "Christian Union." I am perfectly aware of the
+    frivolity and worthlessness of much of the revealings
+    purporting to come from spirits. In my view, the worth
+    or worthlessness of them has nothing to do with the
+    question of fact.
+
+    Do invisible spirits speak in any wise,--wise or
+    foolish?--is the question _a priori_? I do not know
+    of any reason why there should not be as many foolish
+    virgins in the future state as in this. As I am a
+    believer in the Bible and Christianity, I don't need
+    these things as confirmations, and they are not likely
+    to be a religion to me. I regard them simply as I do
+    the phenomena of the Aurora Borealis, or Darwin's
+    studies on natural selection, as curious studies into
+    nature. Besides, I think some day we shall find a law
+    by which all these facts will fall into their places.
+
+    I hope now this subject does not bore you: it certainly
+    is one that seems increasingly to insist on getting
+    itself heard. It is going on and on, making converts,
+    who are many more than dare avow themselves, and for my
+    part I wish it were all brought into the daylight of
+    inquiry.
+
+    Let me hear from you if ever you feel like it. I know
+    too well the possibilities and impossibilities of a
+    nature like yours to ask more, but it can do you no
+    harm to know that I still think of you and love you as
+    ever.
+
+                           Faithfully yours,
+                                          H. B. STOWE.
+
+    THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, REGENT'S PARK, _March 4, 1872._
+
+    DEAR FRIEND,--I can understand very easily that the
+    two last years have been full for you of other and
+    more imperative work than the writing of letters not
+    absolutely demanded either by charity or business. The
+    proof that you still think of me affectionately is very
+    welcome now it has come, and more cheering because it
+    enables me to think of you as enjoying your retreat
+    in your orange orchard,--your western Sorrento--the
+    beloved rabbi still beside you. I am sure it must be
+    a great blessing to you to bathe in that quietude, as
+    it always is to us when we go out of reach of London
+    influences and have the large space of country days to
+    study, walk, and talk in....
+
+    When I am more at liberty I will certainly read Mr.
+    Owen's books, if he is good enough to send them to me.
+    I desire on all subjects to keep an open mind, but
+    hitherto the various phenomena, reported or attested
+    in connection with ideas of spirit intercourse and so
+    on, have come before me here in the painful form of the
+    lowest charlatanerie....
+
+    But apart from personal contact with people who get
+    money by public exhibitions as mediums, or with
+    semi-idiots such as those who make a court for a Mrs.
+    ----, or other feminine personages of that kind, I
+    would not willingly place any barriers between my mind
+    and any possible channel of truth affecting the human
+    lot. The spirit in which you have written in the paper
+    you kindly sent me is likely to touch others, and
+    arouse them at least to attention in a case where you
+    have been deeply impressed....
+
+                    Yours with sincere affection,
+                                             M. L. LEWES.
+
+
+    (Begun April 4th.)
+
+                         MANDARIN, FLORIDA, _May 11, 1872._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--I was very glad to get your dear
+    little note,--sorry to see by it that you are not in
+    your full physical force. Owing to the awkwardness
+    and misunderstanding of publishers, I am not reading
+    "Middlemarch," as I expected to be, here in these
+    orange shades: they don't send it, and I am too far
+    out of the world to get it. I felt, when I read your
+    letters, how glad I should be to have you here in our
+    Florida cottage, in the wholly new, wild, woodland
+    life. Though resembling Italy in climate, it is wholly
+    different in the appearance of nature,--the plants, the
+    birds, the animals, all different. The green tidiness
+    and culture of England here gives way to a wild and
+    rugged savageness of beauty. Every tree bursts forth
+    with flowers; wild vines and creepers execute delirious
+    gambols, and weave and interweave in interminable
+    labyrinths. Yet here, in the great sandy plains back
+    of our house, there is a constant wondering sense
+    of beauty in the wild, wonderful growths of nature.
+    First of all, the pines--high as the stone pines of
+    Italy--with long leaves, eighteen inches long, through
+    which there is a constant dreamy sound, as if of
+    dashing waters. Then the live-oaks and the water-oaks,
+    narrow-leaved evergreens, which grow to enormous size,
+    and whose branches are draped with long festoons of the
+    gray moss. There is a great, wild park of these trees
+    back of us, which, with the dazzling, varnished green
+    of the new spring leaves and the swaying drapery of
+    moss, looks like a sort of enchanted grotto. Underneath
+    grow up hollies and ornamental flowering shrubs, and
+    the yellow jessamine climbs into and over everything
+    with fragrant golden bells and buds, so that sometimes
+    the foliage of a tree is wholly hidden in its embrace.
+
+    This wild, wonderful, bright and vivid growth, that
+    is all new, strange, and unknown by name to me, has a
+    charm for me. It is the place to forget the outside
+    world, and live in one's self. And if you were here,
+    we would go together and gather azaleas, and white
+    lilies, and silver bells, and blue iris. These flowers
+    keep me painting in a sort of madness. I have just
+    finished a picture of white lilies that grow in the
+    moist land by the watercourses. I am longing to begin
+    on blue iris. Artist, poet, as you are by nature, you
+    ought to see all these things, and if you would come
+    here I would take you in heart and house, and you
+    should have a little room in our cottage. The history
+    of the cottage is this: I found a hut built close to
+    a great live-oak twenty-five feet in girth, and with
+    overarching boughs eighty feet up in the air, spreading
+    like a firmament, and all swaying with mossy festoons.
+    We began to live here, and gradually we improved the
+    hut by lath, plaster, and paper. Then we threw out
+    a wide veranda all round, for in these regions the
+    veranda is the living-room of the house. Ours had to be
+    built around the trunk of the tree, so that our cottage
+    has a peculiar and original air, and seems as if it
+    were half tree, or a something that had grown out of
+    the tree. We added on parts, and have thrown out gables
+    and chambers, as a tree throws out new branches, till
+    our cottage is like nobody else's, and yet we settle
+    into it with real enjoyment. There are all sorts of
+    queer little rooms in it, and we are accommodating at
+    this present a family of seventeen souls. In front,
+    the beautiful, grand St. John's stretches five miles
+    from shore to shore, and we watch the steamboats plying
+    back and forth to the great world we are out of. On
+    all sides, large orange trees, with their dense shade
+    and ever-vivid green, shut out the sun so that we can
+    sit, and walk, and live in the open air. Our winter
+    here is only cool, bracing out-door weather, without
+    snow. No month without flowers blooming in the open
+    air, and lettuce and peas in the garden. The summer
+    range is about 90 deg., but the sea-breezes keep the air
+    delightfully fresh. Generally we go North, however, for
+    three months of summer. Well, I did not mean to run on
+    about Florida, but the subject runs away with me, and I
+    want you to visit us in spirit if not personally.
+
+    My poor rabbi!--he sends you some Arabic, which I fear
+    you cannot read: on diablerie he is up to his ears in
+    knowledge, having read all things in all tongues, from
+    the Talmud down....
+
+                            Ever lovingly yours,
+                                       H. B. STOWE.
+
+[Illustration: H B Stowe]
+
+                           BOSTON, _September 26, 1872._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--I think when you see my name again
+    so soon, you will think it rains, hails, and snows
+    notes from this quarter. Just now, however, I am in
+    this lovely, little nest in Boston, where dear Mrs.
+    Fields, like a dove, "sits brooding on the charmed
+    wave." We are both wishing we had you here with us,
+    and she has not received any answer from you as yet
+    in reply to the invitation you spoke of in your last
+    letter to me. It seems as if you must have written,
+    and the letter somehow gone astray, because I know,
+    of course, you would write. Yesterday we were both out
+    of our senses with mingled pity and indignation at
+    that dreadful stick of a Casaubon,--and think of poor
+    Dorothea dashing like a warm, sunny wave against so
+    cold and repulsive a rock! He is a little too dreadful
+    for anything: there does not seem to be a drop of warm
+    blood in him, and so, as it is his misfortune and
+    not his fault, to be cold-blooded, one must not get
+    angry with him. It is the scene in the garden, after
+    the interview with the doctor, that rests on our mind
+    at this present. There was such a man as he over in
+    Boston, high in literary circles, but I fancy his wife
+    wasn't like Dorothea, and a vastly proper time they had
+    of it, treating each other with mutual reverence, like
+    two Chinese mandarins.
+
+    My love, what I miss in this story is just what we
+    would have if you would come to our tumble-down, jolly,
+    improper, but joyous country,--namely, "jollitude."
+    You write and live on so high a plane! It is all
+    self-abnegation. We want to get you over here, and into
+    this house, where, with closed doors, we sometimes
+    make the rafters ring with fun, and say anything and
+    everything, no matter what, and won't be any properer
+    than we's a mind to be. I am wishing every day you
+    could see our America,--travel, as I have been doing,
+    from one bright, thriving, pretty, flowery town to
+    another, and see so much wealth, ease, progress,
+    culture, and all sorts of nice things. This dovecot
+    where I now am is the sweetest little nest imaginable;
+    fronting on a city street, with back windows opening on
+    a sea view, with still, quiet rooms filled with books,
+    pictures, and all sorts of things, such as you and
+    Mr. Lewes would enjoy. Don't be afraid of the ocean,
+    now! I've crossed it six times, and assure you it is
+    an overrated item. Froude is coming here--why not you?
+    Besides, we have the fountain of eternal youth here,
+    that is, in Florida, where I live, and if you should
+    come you would both of you take a new lease of life,
+    and what glorious poems, and philosophies, and whatnot,
+    we should have! My rabbi writes, in the seventh heaven,
+    an account of your note to him. To think of his
+    setting-off on his own account when I was away!
+
+    Come now, since your answer to dear Mrs. Fields is yet
+    to come; let it be a glad yes, and we will clasp you to
+    our heart of hearts.
+
+                                Your ever loving,
+                                            H. B. S.
+
+During the summer of 1874, while Mrs. Stowe's brother, the Rev. Henry
+Ward Beecher, was the victim of a most revolting, malicious, and
+groundless attack on his purity, Mrs. Lewes wrote the following words
+of sympathy:--
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--The other day I had a letter from
+    Mrs. Fields, written to let me know something of you
+    under that heavy trouble, of which such information as
+    I have had has been quite untrustworthy, leaving me
+    in entire incredulity in regard to it except on this
+    point, that you and yours must be suffering deeply.
+    Naturally I thought most of you in the matter (its
+    public aspects being indeterminate), and many times
+    before our friend's letter came I had said to Mr.
+    Lewes: "What must Mrs. Stowe be feeling!" I remember
+    Mrs. Fields once told me of the wonderful courage and
+    cheerfulness which belonged to you, enabling you to
+    bear up under exceptional trials, and I imagined you
+    helping the sufferers with tenderness and counsel, but
+    yet, nevertheless, I felt that there must be a bruising
+    weight on your heart. Dear, honored friend, you who are
+    so ready to give warm fellowship, is it any comfort to
+    you to be told that those afar off are caring for you
+    in spirit, and will be happier for all good issues that
+    may bring you rest?
+
+    I cannot, dare not, write more in my ignorance, lest
+    I should be using unreasonable words. But I trust in
+    your not despising this scrap of paper which tells you,
+    perhaps rather for my relief than yours, that I am
+    always in grateful, sweet remembrance of your goodness
+    to me and your energetic labors for all.
+
+It was two years or more before Mrs. Stowe replied to these words of
+sympathy.
+
+            Orange-blossom time, MANDARIN, _March 18, 1876._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--I always think of you when the orange
+    trees are in blossom; just now they are fuller than
+    ever, and so many bees are filling the branches that
+    the air is full of a sort of still murmur. And now I am
+    beginning to hear from you every month in Harper's. It
+    is as good as a letter. "Daniel Deronda" has succeeded
+    in awaking in my somewhat worn-out mind an interest.
+    So many stories are tramping over one's mind in every
+    modern magazine nowadays that one is macadamized, so to
+    speak. It takes something unusual to make a sensation.
+    This does excite and interest me, as I wait for each
+    number with eagerness. I wish I could endow you with
+    our long winter weather,--not winter, except such as
+    you find in Sicily. We live here from November to
+    June, and my husband sits outdoors on the veranda
+    and reads all day. We emigrate in solid family: my
+    two dear daughters, husband, self, and servants come
+    together to spend the winter here, and so together to
+    our Northern home in summer. My twin daughters relieve
+    me from all domestic care; they are lively, vivacious,
+    with a real genius for practical life. We have around
+    us a little settlement of neighbors, who like ourselves
+    have a winter home here, and live an easy, undress,
+    picnic kind of life, far from the world and its cares.
+    Mr. Stowe has been busy on eight volumes of Goerres on
+    the mysticism of the Middle Ages.[18] This Goerres was
+    Professor of Philosophy at Munich, and he reviews the
+    whole ground of the shadow-land between the natural and
+    the supernatural,--ecstacy, trance, prophecy, miracles,
+    spiritualism, the stigmata, etc. He was a devout Roman
+    Catholic, and the so-called facts that he reasons on
+    seem to me quite amazing; and yet the possibilities
+    that lie between inert matter and man's living,
+    all-powerful, immortal soul may make almost anything
+    credible. The soul at times can do anything with
+    matter. I have been busying myself with Sainte-Beuve's
+    seven volumes on the Port Royal development. I like him
+    (Sainte-Beuve). His capacity of seeing, doing justice
+    to all kinds of natures and sentiments, is wonderful. I
+    am sorry he is no longer our side the veil.
+
+    There is a redbird (cardinal grosbeak) singing in
+    the orange trees fronting my window, so sweetly and
+    insistently as to almost stop my writing. I hope, dear
+    friend, you are well--better than when you wrote last.
+
+    It was very sweet and kind of you to write what you
+    did last. I suppose it is so long ago you may have
+    forgotten, but it was a word of tenderness and sympathy
+    about my brother's trial; it was womanly, tender, and
+    sweet, such as at heart you are. After all, my love of
+    you is greater than my admiration, for I think it more
+    and better to be really a woman worth loving than to
+    have read Greek and German and written books. And in
+    this last book I read, I feel more with you in some
+    little, fine points,--they stare at me as making an
+    amusing exhibition. For, my dear, I feel myself at
+    last as one who has been playing and picnicking on the
+    shores of life, and waked from a dream late in the
+    afternoon to find that everybody almost has gone over
+    to the beyond. And the rest are sorting their things
+    and packing their trunks, and waiting for the boat to
+    come and take them.
+
+    It seems now but a little time since my brother Henry
+    and I were two young people together. He was my two
+    years junior, and nearest companion out of seven
+    brothers and three sisters. I taught him drawing and
+    heard his Latin lessons, for you know a girl becomes
+    mature and womanly long before a boy. I saw him through
+    college, and helped him through the difficult love
+    affair that gave him his wife; and then he and my
+    husband had a real German, enthusiastic love for each
+    other, which ended in making me a wife. Ah! in those
+    days we never dreamed that he, or I, or any of us, were
+    to be known in the world. All he seemed then was a
+    boy full of fun, full of love, full of enthusiasm for
+    protecting abused and righting wronged people, which
+    made him in those early days write editorials, and wear
+    arms and swear himself a special policeman to protect
+    the poor negroes in Cincinnati, where we then lived,
+    when there were mobs instigated by the slaveholders of
+    Kentucky.
+
+    Then he married, and lived a missionary life in the new
+    West, all with a joyousness, an enthusiasm, a chivalry,
+    which made life bright and vigorous to us both. Then
+    in time he was called to Brooklyn, just as the crisis
+    of the great anti-slavery battle came on, and the
+    Fugitive Slave Law was passed. I was then in Maine,
+    and I well remember one snowy night his riding till
+    midnight to see me, and then our talking, till near
+    morning, what we could do to make headway against the
+    horrid cruelties that were being practiced against the
+    defenseless blacks. My husband was then away lecturing,
+    and my heart was burning itself out in indignation and
+    anguish. Henry told me then that he meant to fight that
+    battle in New York; that he would have a church that
+    would stand by him to resist the tyrannic dictation
+    of Southern slaveholders. I said: "I, too, have begun
+    to do something; I have begun a story, trying to
+    set forth the sufferings and wrongs of the slaves."
+    "That's right, Hattie," he said; "finish it, and I
+    will scatter it thick as the leaves of Vallambrosa,"
+    and so came "Uncle Tom," and Plymouth Church became a
+    stronghold where the slave always found refuge and a
+    strong helper. One morning my brother found sitting on
+    his doorstep poor old Paul Edmonson, weeping; his two
+    daughters, of sixteen and eighteen, had passed into
+    the slave warehouse of Bruin & Hill, and were to be
+    sold. My brother took the man by the hand to a public
+    meeting, told his story for him, and in an hour raised
+    the two thousand dollars to redeem his children. Over
+    and over again, afterwards, slaves were redeemed at
+    Plymouth Church, and Henry and Plymouth Church became
+    words of hatred and fear through half the Union. From
+    that time until we talked together about the Fugitive
+    Slave Law, there was not a pause or stop in the battle
+    till we had been through the war and slavery had been
+    wiped out in blood. Through all he has been pouring
+    himself out, wrestling, burning, laboring everywhere,
+    making stump speeches when elections turned on the
+    slave question, and ever maintaining that the cause
+    of Christ was the cause of the slave. And when all
+    was over, it was he and Lloyd Garrison who were sent
+    by government once more to raise our national flag
+    on Fort Sumter. You must see that a man does not
+    so energize without making many enemies. Half of
+    our Union has been defeated, a property of millions
+    annihilated by emancipation, a proud and powerful slave
+    aristocracy reduced to beggary, and there are those
+    who never saw our faces that, to this hour, hate him
+    and me. Then he has been a progressive in theology.
+    He has been a student of Huxley, and Spencer, and
+    Darwin,--enough to alarm the old school,--and yet
+    remained so ardent a supernaturalist as equally to
+    repel the radical destructionists in religion. He and I
+    are Christ-worshippers, adoring Him as the Image of the
+    Invisible God and all that comes from believing this.
+    Then he has been a reformer, an advocate of universal
+    suffrage and woman's rights, yet not radical enough to
+    please that reform party who stand where the Socialists
+    of France do, and are for tearing up all creation
+    generally. Lastly, he has had the misfortune of a
+    popularity which is perfectly phenomenal. I cannot give
+    you any idea of the love, worship, idolatry, with which
+    he has been overwhelmed. He has something magnetic
+    about him that makes everybody crave his society,--that
+    makes men follow and worship him. I remember being at
+    his house one evening in the time of early flowers, and
+    in that one evening came a box of flowers from Maine,
+    another from New Jersey, another from Connecticut,--all
+    from people with whom he had no personal acquaintance,
+    who had read something of his and wanted to send him
+    some token. I said, "One would think you were a _prima
+    donna_. What does make people go on so about you?"
+
+    My brother is hopelessly generous and confiding. His
+    inability to believe evil is something incredible, and
+    so has come all this suffering. You said you hoped
+    I should be at rest when the first investigating
+    committee and Plymouth Church cleared my brother almost
+    by acclamation. Not so. The enemy have so committed
+    themselves that either they or he must die, and there
+    has followed two years of the most dreadful struggle.
+    First, a legal trial of six months, the expenses
+    of which on his side were one hundred and eighteen
+    thousand dollars, and in which he and his brave wife
+    sat side by side in the court-room, and heard all that
+    these plotters, who had been weaving their webs for
+    three years, could bring. The foreman of the jury was
+    offered a bribe of ten thousand dollars to decide
+    against my brother. He sent the letter containing the
+    proposition to the judge. But with all their plotting,
+    three fourths of the jury decided against them, and
+    their case was lost. It was accepted as a triumph
+    by my brother's friends; a large number of the most
+    influential clergy of all denominations so expressed
+    themselves in a public letter, and it was hoped the
+    thing was so far over that it might be lived down and
+    overgrown with better things.
+
+    But the enemy, intriguing secretly with all those
+    parties in the community who wish to put down a public
+    and too successful man, have been struggling to bring
+    the thing up again for an ecclesiastical trial. The
+    cry has been raised in various religious papers that
+    Plymouth Church was in complicity with crime,--that
+    they were so captivated with eloquence and genius that
+    they refused to make competent investigation. The six
+    months' legal investigation was insufficient; a new
+    trial was needed. Plymouth Church immediately called a
+    council of ministers and laymen, in number representing
+    thirty-seven thousand Congregational Christians, to
+    whom Plymouth Church surrendered her records,--her
+    conduct,--all the facts of the case, and this great
+    council unanimously supported the church and ratified
+    her decision; recognizing the fact that, in all the
+    investigations hitherto, nothing had been proved
+    against my brother. They at his request, and that of
+    Plymouth Church, appointed a committee of five to whom
+    within sixty days any one should bring any facts that
+    they could prove, or else forever after hold their
+    peace. It is thought now by my brother's friends that
+    this thing must finally reach a close. But you see
+    why I have not written. This has drawn on my life--my
+    heart's blood. He is myself; I know you are the kind of
+    woman to understand me when I say that I felt a blow at
+    him more than at myself. I, who know his purity, honor,
+    delicacy, know that he has been from childhood of an
+    ideal purity,--who reverenced his conscience as his
+    king, whose glory was redressing human wrong, who spake
+    no slander, no, nor listened to it.
+
+    Never have I known a nature of such strength, and
+    such almost childlike innocence. He is of a nature
+    so sweet and perfect that, though I have seen him
+    thunderously indignant at moments, I never saw him
+    fretful or irritable,--a man who continuously, in
+    every little act of life, is thinking of others, a
+    man that all the children on the street run after,
+    and that every sorrowful, weak, or distressed person
+    looks to as a natural helper. In all this long history
+    there has been no circumstance of his relation to any
+    woman that has not been worthy of himself,--pure,
+    delicate, and proper; and I know all sides of it, and
+    certainly should not say this if there were even a
+    misgiving. Thank God, there is none, and I can read my
+    New Testament and feel that by all the beatitudes my
+    brother is blessed.
+
+    His calmness, serenity, and cheerfulness through all
+    this time has uplifted us all. Where he was, there was
+    no anxiety, no sorrow. My brother's power to console
+    is something peculiar and wonderful. I have seen him
+    at death-beds and funerals, where it would seem as if
+    hope herself must be dumb, bring down the very peace of
+    Heaven and change despair to trust. He has not had less
+    power in his own adversity. You cannot conceive how
+    he is beloved, by those even who never saw him,--old,
+    paralytic, distressed, neglected people, poor
+    seamstresses, black people, who have felt these arrows
+    shot against their benefactor as against themselves,
+    and most touching have been their letters of sympathy.
+    From the first, he has met this in the spirit of
+    Francis de Sales, who met a similar plot,--by silence,
+    prayer, and work, and when urged to defend himself said
+    "God would do it in his time." God was the best judge
+    how much reputation he needed to serve Him with.
+
+    In your portrait of Deronda, you speak of him as one
+    of those rare natures in whom a private wrong bred
+    no bitterness. "The sense of injury breeds, not the
+    will to inflict injuries, but a hatred of all injury;"
+    and I must say, through all this conflict my brother
+    has been always in the spirit of Him who touched and
+    healed the ear of Malchus when he himself was attacked.
+    His friends and lawyers have sometimes been aroused
+    and sometimes indignant with his habitual caring for
+    others, and his habit of vindicating and extending
+    even to his enemies every scrap and shred of justice
+    that might belong to them. From first to last of this
+    trial, he has never for a day intermitted his regular
+    work. Preaching to crowded houses, preaching even in
+    his short vacations at watering places, carrying on
+    his missions which have regenerated two once wretched
+    districts of the city, editing a paper, and in short
+    giving himself up to work. He cautioned his church not
+    to become absorbed in him and his trials, to prove
+    their devotion by more faithful church work and a
+    wider charity; and never have the Plymouth missions
+    among the poor been so energetic and effective. He
+    said recently, "The worst that can befall a man is to
+    stop thinking of God and begin to think of himself;
+    if trials make us self-absorbed, they hurt us." Well,
+    dear, pardon me for this outpour. I loved you--I love
+    you--and therefore wanted you to know just what I felt.
+    Now, dear, this is over, don't think you must reply to
+    it or me. I know how much you have to do,--yes, I know
+    all about an aching head and an overtaxed brain. This
+    last work of yours is to be your best, I think, and I
+    hope it will bring you enough to buy an orange grove in
+    Sicily, or somewhere else, and so have lovely weather
+    such as we have.
+
+    Your ancient admirer,[19] who usually goes to bed at
+    eight o'clock, was convicted by me of sitting up after
+    eleven over the last installment of "Daniel Deronda,"
+    and he is full of it. We think well of Guendoline, and
+    that she isn't much more than young ladies in general
+    so far.
+
+    Next year, if I can possibly do it, I will send you
+    some of our oranges. I perfectly long to have you enjoy
+    them.
+
+               Your very loving            H. B. STOWE.
+
+    P. S. I am afraid I shall write you again when I
+    am reading your writings, they are so provokingly
+    suggestive of things one wants to say.
+
+                                           H. B. S.
+
+In her reply to this letter Mrs. Lewes says, incidentally: "Please
+offer my reverential love to the Professor, and tell him I am
+ruthlessly proud of having kept him out of his bed. I hope that both
+you and he will continue to be interested in my spiritual children."
+
+After Mr. Lewes's death, Mrs. Lewes writes to Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+              THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, _April 10, 1879._
+
+    MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have been long without sending you
+    any sign (unless you have received a message from me
+    through Mrs. Fields), but my heart has been going out
+    to you and your husband continually as among the chief
+    of the many kind beings who have given me their tender
+    fellow-feeling in my last earthly sorrow.... When your
+    first letter came, with the beautiful gift of your
+    book,[20] I was unable to read any letters, and did not
+    for a long time see what you had sent me. But when I
+    did know, and had read your words of thankfulness at
+    the great good you have seen wrought by your help, I
+    felt glad, for your sake first, and then for the sake
+    of the great nation to which you belong. The hopes
+    of the world are taking refuge westward, under the
+    calamitous conditions, moral and physical, in which we
+    of the elder world are getting involved....
+
+    Thank you for telling me that you have the comfort of
+    seeing your son in a path that satisfies your best
+    wishes for him. I like to think of your having family
+    joys. One of the prettiest photographs of a child that
+    I possess is one of your sending to me....
+
+    Please offer my reverential, affectionate regards to
+    your husband, and believe me, dear friend,
+
+                        Yours always gratefully,
+                                            M. L. LEWES.
+
+As much as has been said with regard to spiritualism in these pages,
+the subject has by no means the prominence that it really possessed in
+the studies and conversations of both Professor and Mrs. Stowe.
+
+Professor Stowe's very remarkable psychological development, and the
+exceptional experiences of his early life, were sources of conversation
+of unfailing interest and study to both.
+
+Professor Stowe had made an elaborate and valuable collection of the
+literature of the subject, and was, as Mrs. Stowe writes, "over head
+and ears in _diablerie_."
+
+It is only just to give Mrs. Stowe's views on this perplexing theme
+more at length, and as the mature reflection of many years has caused
+them to take form.
+
+In reference to professional mediums, and spirits that peep, rap, and
+mutter, she writes:--
+
+"Each friend takes away a portion of ourselves. There was some part
+of our being related to him as to no other, and we had things to say
+to him which no other would understand or appreciate. A portion of
+our thoughts has become useless and burdensome, and again and again,
+with involuntary yearning, we turn to the stone at the door of the
+sepulchre. We lean against the cold, silent marble, but there is no
+answer,--no voice, neither any that regardeth.
+
+"There are those who would have us think that in _our_ day this doom
+is reversed; that there are those who have the power to restore to us
+the communion of our lost ones. How many a heart, wrung and tortured
+with the anguish of this fearful silence, has throbbed with strange,
+vague hopes at the suggestion! When we hear sometimes of persons of the
+strongest and clearest minds becoming credulous votaries of certain
+spiritualist circles, let us not wonder: if we inquire, we shall
+almost always find that the belief has followed some stroke of death;
+it is only an indication of the desperation of that heart-hunger which
+in part it appeases.
+
+"Ah, _were_ it true! Were it indeed so that the wall between the
+spiritual and material is growing thin, and a new dispensation
+germinating in which communion with the departed blest shall be among
+the privileges and possibilities of this our mortal state! Ah, were
+it so that when we go forth weeping in the gray dawn, bearing spices
+and odors which we long to pour forth for the beloved dead, we should
+indeed find the stone rolled away and an angel sitting on it!
+
+"But for us the stone must be rolled away by an _unquestionable_ angel,
+whose countenance is as the lightning, who executes no doubtful juggle
+by pale moonlight or starlight, but rolls back the stone in fair, open
+morning, and sits on it. Then we could bless God for his mighty gift,
+and with love, and awe, and reverence take up that blessed fellowship
+with another life, and weave it reverently and trustingly into the web
+of our daily course.
+
+"But no such angel have we seen,--no such sublime, unquestionable,
+glorious manifestation. And when we look at what is offered to us,
+ah! who that had a friend in heaven could wish them to return in such
+wise as this? The very instinct of a sacred sorrow seems to forbid
+that our beautiful, our glorified ones should stoop lower than even to
+the medium of their cast-off bodies, to juggle, and rap, and squeak,
+and perform mountebank tricks with tables and chairs; to recite over
+in weary sameness harmless truisms, which we were wise enough to say
+for ourselves; to trifle, and banter, and jest, or to lead us through
+endless moonshiny mazes. Sadly and soberly we say that, if this be
+communion with the dead, we had rather be without it. We want something
+a little in advance of our present life, and not below it. We have read
+with some attention weary pages of spiritual communication purporting
+to come from Bacon, Swedenborg, and others, and long accounts from
+divers spirits of things seen in the spirit land, and we can conceive
+of no more appalling prospect than to have them true.
+
+"If the future life is so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable as we
+might infer from these readings, one would have reason to deplore an
+immortality from which no suicide could give an outlet. To be condemned
+to such eternal prosing would be worse than annihilation.
+
+"Is there, then, no satisfaction for this craving of the soul? There
+is One who says: "I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am
+alive for evermore, and I have the keys of hell and of death;" and this
+same being said once before: "He that loveth me shall be loved of my
+Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself unto him." This
+is a promise direct and personal; not confined to the first apostles,
+but stated in the most general way as attainable by any one who loves
+and does the will of Jesus. It seems given to us as some comfort for
+the unavoidable heart-breaking separations of death that there should
+be, in that dread unknown, one all-powerful Friend with whom it is
+possible to commune, and from whose spirit there may come a response to
+us. Our Elder Brother, the partaker of our nature, is not only in the
+spirit land, but is all-powerful there. It is he that shutteth and no
+man openeth, and openeth and no man shutteth. He whom we have seen in
+the flesh, weeping over the grave of Lazarus, is he who hath the keys
+of hell and of death. If we cannot commune with our friends, we can at
+least commune with Him to whom they are present, who is intimately with
+them as with us. He is the true bond of union between the spirit world
+and our souls; and one blest hour of prayer, when we draw near to Him
+and feel the breadth, and length, and depth, and heighth of that love
+of his that passeth knowledge, is better than all those incoherent,
+vain, dreamy glimpses with which longing hearts are cheated.
+
+"They who have disbelieved all spiritual truth, who have been
+Sadduceeic doubters of either angel or spirit, may find in modern
+spiritualism a great advance. But can one who has ever really had
+communion with Christ, who has said with John, "Truly our fellowship is
+with the Father and the Son,"--can such an one be satisfied with what
+is found in the modern circle?
+
+"For Christians who have strayed into these inclosures, we cannot but
+recommend the homely but apt quotation of old John Newton:--
+
+    "'What think ye of Christ is the test
+      To try both your word and your scheme.'
+
+"In all these so-called revelations, have there come any echoes of
+the _new song_ which no man save the redeemed from earth could learn;
+any unfoldings of that love that passeth knowledge,--anything, in
+short, such as spirits might utter to whom was unveiled that which eye
+hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered the heart of man to
+conceive? We must confess that all those spirits that yet have spoken
+appear to be living in quite another sphere from John or Paul.
+
+"Let us, then, who long for communion with spirits, seek nearness to
+Him who has promised to speak and commune, leaving forever this word to
+his church:--
+
+"'I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you.'"
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] George Eliot's Life, edited by J. W. Cross, vol. i.
+
+[18] _Die Christliche Mystik._
+
+[19] Professor Stowe.
+
+[20] _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, new edition, with introduction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+CLOSING SCENES, 1870-1889.
+
+    LITERARY LABORS.--COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLISHED
+    BOOKS.--FIRST READING TOUR.--PEEPS BEHIND
+    THE CURTAIN.--SOME NEW ENGLAND CITIES.--A
+    LETTER FROM MAINE.--PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT
+    READINGS.--SECOND TOUR.--A WESTERN JOURNEY.--VISIT
+    TO OLD SCENES.--CELEBRATION OF SEVENTIETH
+    BIRTHDAY.--CONGRATULATORY POEMS FROM MR. WHITTIER AND
+    DR. HOLMES.--LAST WORDS.
+
+
+BESIDES the annual journeys to and from Florida, and her many interests
+in the South, Mrs. Stowe's time between 1870 and 1880 was largely
+occupied by literary and kindred labors. In the autumn of 1871 we find
+her writing to her daughters as follows regarding her work:--
+
+"I have at last finished all my part in the third book of mine that is
+to come out this year, to wit 'Oldtown Fireside Stories,' and you can
+have no idea what a perfect luxury of rest it is to be free from all
+literary engagements, of all kinds, sorts, or descriptions. I feel like
+a poor woman I once read about,--
+
+    "'Who always was tired,
+     'Cause she lived in a house
+      Where help wasn't hired,'
+
+and of whom it is related that in her dying moments,
+
+    "'She folded her hands
+      With her latest endeavor,
+      Saying nothing, dear nothing,
+      Sweet nothing forever.'
+
+"I am in about her state of mind. I luxuriate in laziness. I do not
+want to do anything or go anywhere. I only want to sink down into lazy
+enjoyment of living."
+
+She was certainly well entitled to a rest, for never had there been a
+more laborious literary life. In addition to the twenty-three books
+already written, she had prepared for various magazines and journals
+an incredible number of short stories, letters of travel, essays,
+and other articles. Yet with all she had accomplished, and tired as
+she was, she still had seven books to write, besides many more short
+stories, before her work should be done. As her literary life did not
+really begin until 1852, the bulk of her work has been accomplished
+within twenty-six years, as will be seen from the following list of her
+books, arranged in the chronological order of their publication:--
+
+    1833. An Elementary Geography.
+    1843. The Mayflower.
+    1852. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
+    1853. Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin.
+    1854. Sunny Memories.
+    1856. Dred.
+    1858. Our Charley.
+    1859. Minister's Wooing.
+    1862. Pearl of Orr's Island.
+    1863. Agnes of Sorrento.
+    1864. House and Home Papers.
+    1865. Little Foxes.
+    1866. Nina Gordon (Formerly "Dred").
+    1867. Religious Poems.
+    1867. Queer Little People.
+    1868. The Chimney Corner.
+    1868. Men of Our Times.
+    1869. Oldtown Folks.
+    1870. Lady Byron Vindicated.
+    1871. The History of the Byron Controversy (London).
+    1870. Little Pussy Willow.
+    1871. Pink and White Tyranny.
+    1871. Old Town Fireside Stories.
+    1872. My Wife and I.
+    1873. Palmetto Leaves.
+    1873. Library of Famous Fiction.
+    1875. We and Our Neighbors.
+    1876. Betty's Bright Idea.
+    1877. Footsteps of the Master.
+    1878. Bible Heroines.
+    1878. Poganuc People.
+    1881. A Dog's Mission.
+
+In 1872 a new and remunerative field of labor was opened to Mrs. Stowe,
+and though it entailed a vast amount of weariness and hard work, she
+entered it with her customary energy and enthusiasm. It presented
+itself in the shape of an offer from the American Literary (Lecture)
+Bureau of Boston to deliver a course of forty readings from her own
+works in the principal cities of the New England States. The offer was
+a liberal one, and Mrs. Stowe accepted it on condition that the reading
+tour should be ended in time to allow her to go to her Florida home
+in December. This being acceded to, she set forth and gave her first
+reading in Bridgeport, Conn., on the evening of September 19, 1872.
+
+The following extracts from letters written to her husband while on
+this reading tour throw some interesting gleams of light on the scenes
+behind the curtain of the lecturer's platform. From Boston, October
+3d, she writes: "Have had a most successful but fatiguing week. Read
+in Cambridgeport to-night, and Newburyport to-morrow night." Two weeks
+later, upon receipt of a letter from her husband, in which he fears he
+has not long to live, she writes from Westfield, Mass:--
+
+"I have never had a greater trial than being forced to stay away from
+you now. I would not, but that my engagements have involved others in
+heavy expense, and should I fail to fulfill them, it would be doing a
+wrong.
+
+"God has given me strength as I needed it, and I never read more to my
+own satisfaction than last night.
+
+"Now, my dear husband, please do _want_, and try, to remain with us yet
+a while longer, and let us have a little quiet evening together before
+either of us crosses the river. My heart cries out for a home with you;
+our home together in Florida. Oh, may we see it again! Your ever loving
+wife."
+
+From Fitchburg, Mass., under date of October 29th, she writes:--
+
+"In the cars, near Palmer, who should I discover but Mr. and Mrs. J. T.
+Fields, returning from a Western trip, as gay as a troubadour. I took
+an empty seat next to them, and we had a jolly ride to Boston. I drove
+to Mr. Williams's house, where I met the Chelsea agent, who informed
+me that there was no hotel in Chelsea, but that they were expecting to
+send over for me. So I turned at once toward 148 Charles Street, where
+I tumbled in on the Fields before they had got their things off. We had
+a good laugh, and I received a hearty welcome. I was quickly installed
+in my room, where, after a nice dinner, I curled up for my afternoon
+nap. At half-past seven the carriage came for me, and I was informed
+that I should not have a hard reading, as they had engaged singers
+to take part. So, when I got into the carriage, who should I find,
+beshawled, and beflowered, and betoggled in blue satin and white lace,
+but our old friend ---- of Andover concert memory, now become Madame
+Thingumbob, of European celebrity. She had studied in Italy, come out
+in Milan, sung there in opera for a whole winter, and also in Paris and
+London.
+
+"Well, she sings very sweetly and looks very nice and pretty. Then we
+had a little rosebud of a Chelsea girl who sang, and a pianist. I read
+'Minister's Housekeeper' and Topsy, and the audience was very jolly and
+appreciative. Then we all jogged home."
+
+The next letter finds Mrs. Stowe in Maine, and writing in the cars
+between Bangor and Portland. She says:--
+
+    MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Well, Portland and Bangor are over,
+    and the latter, which I had dreaded as lonesome and
+    far off, turned out the pleasantest of any place I
+    have visited yet. I stayed at the Fays; he was one of
+    the Andover students, you remember; and found a warm,
+    cosy, social home. In the evening I met an appreciative
+    audience, and had a delightful reading. I read Captain
+    Kittridge, apparently to the great satisfaction of the
+    people, who laughed heartily at his sea stories, and
+    the "Minister's Housekeeper" with the usual success,
+    also Eva and Topsy.
+
+    One woman, totally deaf, came to me afterwards and
+    said: "Bless you. I come jist to see you. I'd rather
+    see you than the Queen." Another introduced her little
+    girl named Harriet Beecher Stowe, and another, older,
+    named Eva. She said they had traveled fifty miles to
+    hear me read. An incident like that appeals to one's
+    heart, does it not?
+
+    The people of Bangor were greatly embarrassed by the
+    horse disease; but the mayor and his wife walked over
+    from their house, a long distance off, to bring me
+    flowers, and at the reading he introduced me. I had
+    an excellent audience notwithstanding that it rained
+    tremendously, and everybody had to walk because there
+    were no horses. The professors called on me, also
+    Newman Smith, now a settled minister here.
+
+    Everybody is so anxious about you, and Mr. Fay made
+    me promise that you and I should come and spend a
+    week with them next summer. Mr. Howard, in Portland,
+    called upon me to inquire for you, and everybody was so
+    delighted to hear that you were getting better.
+
+    It stormed all the time I was in Portland and Bangor,
+    so I saw nothing of them. Now I am in a palace car
+    riding alongside the Kennebec, and recalling the
+    incidents of my trip. I certainly had very satisfactory
+    houses; and these pleasant little visits, and meetings
+    with old acquaintance, would be well worth having,
+    even though I had made nothing in a pecuniary sense.
+    On the whole it is as easy a way of making money as
+    I have ever tried, though no way of making money is
+    perfectly easy,--there must be some disagreeables. The
+    lonesomeness of being at a hotel in dull weather is
+    one, and in Portland it seems there is nobody now to
+    invite us to their homes. Our old friends there are
+    among the past. They have gone on over the river. I
+    send you a bit of poetry that pleases me. The love of
+    the old for each other has its poetry. It is something
+    sacred and full of riches. I long to be with you, and
+    to have some more of our good long talks.
+
+    The scenery along this river is very fine. The oaks
+    still keep their leaves, though the other trees are
+    bare; but oaks and pines make a pleasant contrast. We
+    shall stop twenty minutes at Brunswick, so I shall get
+    a glimpse of the old place.
+
+    Now we are passing through Hallowell, and the Kennebec
+    changes sides. What a beautiful river! It is now full
+    of logs and rafts. Well, I must bring this to a close.
+    Good-by, dear, with unchanging love. Ever your wife.
+
+From South Framingham, Mass., she writes on November 7th:--
+
+    Well, my dear, here I am in E.'s pretty little house.
+    He has a pretty wife, a pretty sister, a pretty baby,
+    two nice little boys, and a lovely white cat. The last
+    is a perfect beauty! a Persian, from a stock brought
+    over by Dr. Parker, as white as snow, with the softest
+    fur, a perfect bunch of loving-kindness, all purr and
+    felicity. I had a good audience last evening, and
+    enjoyed it. My audiences, considering the horse disease
+    and the rains, are amazing. And how they do laugh! We
+    get into regular gales.
+
+    E. has the real country minister turn-out: horse and
+    buggy, and such a nice horse too. The baby is a beauty,
+    and giggles, and goos, and shouts inquiries with the
+    rising inflection, in the most inspiring manner.
+
+    _November 13._ Wakefield. I read in Haverhill last
+    night. It was as usual stormy. I had a good audience,
+    but not springy and inspiriting like that at Waltham.
+    Some audiences seem to put spring into one, and some
+    to take it out. This one seemed good but heavy. I had
+    to lift them, while in Framingham and Waltham they
+    lifted me.
+
+    The Lord bless and keep you. It grieves me to think
+    you are dull and I not with you. By and by we will be
+    together and stay together. Good-by dear. Your ever
+    loving wife,
+
+                                                H. B. S.
+
+    _November 24._ "I had a very pleasant reading in
+    Peabody. While there visited the library and saw the
+    picture of the Queen that she had painted expressly
+    for George Peabody. It was about six inches square,
+    enameled on gold, and set in a massive frame of solid
+    gold and velvet. The effect is like painting on ivory.
+    At night the picture rolls back into a safe, and great
+    doors, closed with a combination lock, defend it. It
+    reminded me of some of the foreign wonders we have seen.
+
+    "Well, my course is almost done, and if I get through
+    without any sickness, cold, or accident, how wonderful
+    it will seem. I have never felt the near, kind presence
+    of our Heavenly Father so much as in this. 'He giveth
+    strength to the faint, and to them of no might He
+    increaseth strength.' I have found this true all my
+    life."
+
+From Newport she writes on November 26th:--
+
+"It was a hard, tiring, disagreeable piece of business to read in New
+London. Had to wait three mortal hours in Palmer. Then a slow, weary
+train, that did not reach New London until after dark. There was then
+no time to rest, and I was so tired that it did seem as though I could
+not dress. I really trembled with fatigue. The hall was long and
+dimly lighted, and the people were not seated compactly, but around in
+patches. The light was dim, except for a great flaring gas jet arranged
+right under my eyes on the reading desk, and I did not see a creature
+whom I knew. I was only too glad when it was over and I was back again
+at my hotel. There I found that I must be up at five o'clock to catch
+the Newport train.
+
+"I started for this place in the dusk of a dreary, foggy morning.
+Traveled first on a ferry, then in cars, and then in a little cold
+steamboat. Found no one to meet me, in spite of all my writing, and so
+took a carriage and came to the hotel. The landlord was very polite to
+me, said he knew me by my trunk, had been to our place in Mandarin,
+etc. All I wanted was a warm room, a good bed, and unlimited time to
+sleep. Now I have had a three hours' nap, and here I am, sitting by
+myself in the great, lonely hotel parlor.
+
+"Well, dear old man, I think lots of you, and only want to end
+all this in a quiet home where we can sing 'John Anderson, my Jo'
+together. I check off place after place as the captive the days of his
+imprisonment. Only two more after to-night. Ever your loving wife."
+
+Mrs. Stowe made one more reading tour the following year, and this time
+it was in the West. On October 28, 1873, she writes from Zanesville,
+Ohio, to her son at Harvard:--
+
+    You have been very good to write as often as you have,
+    and your letters, meeting me at different points, have
+    been most cheering. I have been tired, almost to the
+    last degree. Read two successive evenings in Chicago,
+    and traveled the following day for thirteen hours, a
+    distance of about three hundred miles, to Cincinnati.
+    We were compelled to go in the most uncomfortable
+    cars I ever saw, crowded to overflowing, a fiend of a
+    stove at each end burning up all the air, and without
+    a chance to even lay my head down. This is the grand
+    route between Chicago and Cincinnati, and we were on it
+    from eight in the morning until nearly ten at night.
+
+    Arrived at Cincinnati we found that George Beecher had
+    not received our telegram, was not expecting us, had no
+    rooms engaged for us, and that we could not get rooms
+    at his boarding-place. After finding all this out we
+    had to go to the hotel, where, about eleven o'clock, I
+    crept into bed with every nerve aching from fatigue.
+    The next day was dark and rainy, and I lay in bed most
+    of it; but when I got up to go and read I felt only
+    half rested, and was still so tired that it seemed as
+    though I could not get through.
+
+    Those who planned my engagements failed to take, into
+    account the fearful distances and wretched trains out
+    here. On none of these great Western routes is there a
+    drawing-room car. Mr. Saunders tried in every way to
+    get them to put one on for us, but in vain. They are
+    all reserved for the night trains; so that there is no
+    choice except to travel by night in sleeping cars, or
+    take such trains as I have described in the daytime.
+
+    I had a most sympathetic audience in Cincinnati; they
+    all seemed delighted and begged me to come again. The
+    next day George took us for a drive out to Walnut
+    Hills, where we saw the seminary buildings, the house
+    where your sisters were born, and the house in which
+    we afterwards lived. In the afternoon we had to leave
+    and hurry away to a reading in Dayton. The next evening
+    another in Columbus, where we spent Sunday with an old
+    friend.
+
+    By this time I am somewhat rested from the strain of
+    that awful journey; but I shall never again undertake
+    such another. It was one of those things that have to
+    be done once, to learn not to do it again. My only
+    reading between Columbus and Pittsburgh is to be here
+    in Zanesville, a town as black as Acheron, and where
+    one might expect to see the river Styx.
+
+    Later. I had a nice audience and a pleasant reading
+    here, and to-day we go on to Pittsburgh, where I read
+    to-morrow night.
+
+    I met the other day at Dayton a woman who now has
+    grandchildren; but who, when I first came West, was a
+    gay rattling girl. She was one of the first converts
+    of brother George's seemingly obscure ministry in the
+    little new town of Chillicothe. Now she has one son
+    who is a judge of the supreme court, and another in
+    business. Both she and they are not only Christians,
+    but Christians of the primitive sort, whose religion
+    is their all; who triumph and glory in tribulation,
+    knowing that it worketh patience. She told me, with
+    a bright sweet calm, of her husband killed in battle
+    the first year of the war, of her only daughter and
+    two grandchildren dying in the faith, and of her own
+    happy waiting on God's will, with bright hopes of a
+    joyful reunion. Her sons are leading members of the
+    Presbyterian Church, and most active in stirring up
+    others to make their profession a reality, not an
+    empty name. When I thought that all this came from the
+    conversion of one giddy girl, when George seemed to be
+    doing so little, I said, "Who can measure the work of
+    a faithful minister?" It is such living witnesses that
+    maintain Christianity on earth.
+
+    Good-by. We shall soon be home now, and preparing for
+    Florida. Always your own loving mother,
+
+                                               H. B. S.
+
+Mrs. Stowe never undertook another reading tour, nor, after this one,
+did she ever read again for money, though she frequently contributed
+her talent in this direction to the cause of charity.
+
+The most noteworthy event of her later years was the celebration of
+the seventieth anniversary of her birthday. That it might be fittingly
+observed, her publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. of Boston,
+arranged a reception for her in form of a garden party, to which they
+invited the _literati_ of America. It was held on June 14, 1882, at
+"The Old Elms," the home of Ex-Governor Claflin of Massachusetts, in
+Newtonville, one of Boston's most beautiful suburbs. Here the assembly
+gathered to do honor to Mrs. Stowe, that lovely June afternoon,
+comprised two hundred of the most distinguished and best known among
+the literary men and women of the day.
+
+From three until five o'clock was spent socially. As the guests arrived
+they were presented to Mrs. Stowe by Mr. H. O. Houghton, and then they
+gathered in groups in the parlors, on the verandas, on the lawn, and in
+the refreshment room. At five o'clock they assembled in a large tent
+on the lawn, when Mr. Houghton, as host, addressed to his guest and
+her friends a few words of congratulation and welcome. He closed his
+remarks by saying:--
+
+"And now, honored madam, as
+
+          "'When to them who sail
+    Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
+    Mozambic, off at sea northeast winds blow
+    Sabean odors from the spicy shore
+    Of Arabie the blest,'
+
+so the benedictions of the lowly and the blessings of all conditions
+of men are brought to you to-day on the wings of the wind, from every
+quarter of the globe; but there will be no fresher laurels to crown
+this day of your rejoicing than are brought by those now before
+you, who have been your co-workers in the strife; who have wrestled
+and suffered, fought and conquered, with you; who rank you with the
+Miriams, the Deborahs, and the Judiths of old; and who now shout back
+the refrain, when you utter the inspired song:--
+
+    "'Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.'
+    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .
+    'The Almighty Lord hath disappointed them by the hand of a woman.'"
+
+In reply to this Mrs. Stowe's brother, Henry Ward Beecher, said: "Of
+course you all sympathize with me to-day, but, standing in this place,
+I do not see your faces more clearly than I see those of my father and
+my mother. Her I only knew as a mere babe-child. He was my teacher and
+my companion. A more guileless soul than he, a more honest one, more
+free from envy, from jealousy, and from selfishness, I never knew.
+Though he thought he was great by his theology, everybody else knew he
+was great by his religion. My mother is to me what the Virgin Mary is
+to a devout Catholic. She was a woman of great nature, profound as a
+philosophical thinker, great in argument, with a kind of intellectual
+imagination, diffident, not talkative,--in which respect I take
+after her,--the woman who gave birth to Mrs. Stowe, whose graces and
+excellences she probably more than any of her children--we number but
+thirteen--has possessed. I suppose that in bodily resemblance, perhaps,
+she is not like my mother, but in mind I presume she is most like her.
+I thank you for my father's sake and for my mother's sake for the
+courtesy, the friendliness, and the kindness which you give to Mrs.
+Stowe."
+
+The following poem from John Greenleaf Whittier was then read:--
+
+    "Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers
+     And golden-fruited orange bowers
+     To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours!
+     To her who, in our evil time,
+     Dragged into light the nation's crime
+     With strength beyond the strength of men,
+     And, mightier than their sword, her pen;
+     To her who world-wide entrance gave
+     To the log cabin of the slave,
+     Made all his wrongs and sorrows known,
+     And all earth's languages his own,--
+     North, South, and East and West, made all
+     The common air electrical,
+     Until the o'ercharged bolts of heaven
+     Blazed down, and every chain was riven!
+
+       "Welcome from each and all to her
+     Whose Wooing of the Minister
+     Revealed the warm heart of the man
+     Beneath the creed-bound Puritan,
+     And taught the kinship of the love
+     Of man below and God above;
+     To her whose vigorous pencil-strokes
+     Sketched into life her Oldtown Folks,
+     Whose fireside stories, grave or gay,
+     In quaint Sam Lawson's vagrant way,
+     With Old New England's flavor rife,
+     Waifs from her rude idyllic life,
+     Are racy as the legends old
+     By Chaucer or Boccaccio told;
+     To her who keeps, through change of place
+     And time, her native strength and grace,
+     Alike where warm Sorrento smiles,
+     Or where, by birchen-shaded isles
+     Whose summer winds have shivered o'er
+     The icy drift of Labrador,
+     She lifts to light the priceless Pearl
+     Of Harpswell's angel-beckoned girl.
+     To her at threescore years and ten
+     Be tributes of the tongue and pen,
+     Be honor, praise, and heart thanks given,
+     The loves of earth, the hopes of heaven!
+
+       "Ah, dearer than the praise that stirs
+     The air to-day, our love is hers!
+     She needs no guaranty of fame
+     Whose own is linked with Freedom's name.
+     Long ages after ours shall keep
+     Her memory living while we sleep;
+     The waves that wash our gray coast lines,
+     The winds that rock the Southern pines
+     Shall sing of her; the unending years
+     Shall tell her tale in unborn ears.
+     And when, with sins and follies past,
+     Are numbered color-hate and caste,
+     White, black, and red shall own as one,
+     The noblest work by woman done."
+
+It was followed by a few words from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes,
+who also read the subjoined as his contribution to the chorus of
+congratulation:--
+
+    "If every tongue that speaks her praise
+     For whom I shape my tinkling phrase
+       Were summoned to the table,
+     The vocal chorus that would meet
+     Of mingling accents harsh or sweet,
+     From every land and tribe, would beat
+       The polyglots of Babel.
+
+    "Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane,
+     Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine,
+       Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi,
+     High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too,
+     The Russian serf, the Polish Jew,
+     Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo
+       Would shout, 'We know the lady.'
+
+    "Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom
+     And her he learned his gospel from,
+       Has never heard of Moses;
+     Full well the brave black hand we know
+     That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe
+     That killed the weed that used to grow
+       Among the Southern roses.
+
+    "When Archimedes, long ago,
+     Spoke out so grandly, '_Dos pou sto_,--
+       Give me a place to stand on,
+     I'll move your planet for you, now,'--
+     He little dreamed or fancied how
+     The _sto_ at last should find its _pou_
+       For woman's faith to land on.
+
+    "Her lever was the wand of art,
+     Her fulcrum was the human heart,
+       Whence all unfailing aid is;
+     She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed
+     Its mountains shook, its temples reeled,
+     The blood-red fountains were unsealed,
+       And Moloch sunk to Hades.
+
+    "All through the conflict, up and down
+     Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown,
+       One ghost, one form ideal;
+     And which was false and which was true,
+     And which was mightier of the two,
+     The wisest sibyl never knew,
+       For both alike were real.
+
+    "Sister, the holy maid does well
+     Who counts her beads in convent cell,
+       Where pale devotion lingers;
+     But she who serves the sufferer's needs,
+     Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds,
+     May trust the Lord will count her beads
+       As well as human fingers.
+
+    "When Truth herself was Slavery's slave
+     Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave
+       The rainbow wings of fiction.
+     And Truth who soared descends to-day
+     Bearing an angel's wreath away,
+     Its lilies at thy feet to lay
+       With heaven's own benediction."
+
+Poems written for the occasion by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, Miss Elizabeth
+Stuart Phelps, Mr. J. T. Trowbridge, Mrs. Allen (Mrs. Stowe's
+daughter), Mrs. Annie Fields, and Miss Charlotte F. Bates, were also
+read, and speeches were made by Judge Albion W. Tourgee and others
+prominent in the literary world.
+
+Letters from many noted people, who were prevented from being present
+by distance or by other engagements, had been received. Only four of
+them were read, but they were all placed in Mrs. Stowe's hands. The
+exercises were closed by a few words from Mrs. Stowe herself. As she
+came to the front of the platform the whole company rose, and remained
+standing until she had finished. In her quiet, modest, way, and yet so
+clearly as to be plainly heard by all, she said:--
+
+"I wish to say that I thank all my friends from my heart,--that is
+all. And one thing more,--and that is, if any of you have doubt, or
+sorrow, or pain, if you doubt about this world, just remember what
+God has done; just remember that this great sorrow of slavery has
+gone, gone by forever. I see it every day at the South. I walk about
+there and see the lowly cabins. I see these people growing richer and
+richer. I see men very happy in their lowly lot; but, to be sure, you
+must have patience with them. They are not perfect, but have their
+faults, and they are serious faults in the view of white people. But
+they are very happy, that is evident, and they do know how to enjoy
+themselves,--a great deal more than you do. An old negro friend in our
+neighborhood has got a new, nice two-story house, and an orange grove,
+and a sugar-mill. He has got a lot of money, besides. Mr. Stowe met
+him one day, and he said, 'I have got twenty head of cattle, four head
+of "hoss," forty head of hen, and I have got ten children, all _mine,
+every one mine_.' Well, now, that is a thing that a black man could not
+say once, and this man was sixty years old before he could say it. With
+all the faults of the colored people, take a man and put him down with
+nothing but his hands, and how many could say as much as that? I think
+they have done well.
+
+"A little while ago they had at his house an evening festival for their
+church, and raised fifty dollars. We white folks took our carriages,
+and when we reached the house we found it fixed nicely. Every one of
+his daughters knew how to cook. They had a good place for the festival.
+Their suppers were spread on little white tables with nice clean cloths
+on them. People paid fifty cents for supper. They got between fifty and
+sixty dollars, and had one of the best frolics you could imagine. They
+had also for supper ice-cream, which they made themselves.
+
+"That is the sort of thing I see going on around me. Let us never
+doubt. Everything that ought to happen is going to happen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Stowe's public life ends with the garden party, and little more
+remains to be told. She had already, in 1880, begun the task of
+selection from the great accumulation of letters and papers relating
+to her life, and writes thus to her son in Saco, Maine, regarding the
+work:--
+
+                                    _September 30, 1880._
+
+    MY DEAR CHARLEY,--My mind has been with you a great
+    deal lately. I have been looking over and arranging
+    my papers with a view to sifting out those that are
+    not worth keeping, and so filing and arranging those
+    that are to be kept, that my heirs and assigns may
+    with the less trouble know where and what they are. I
+    cannot describe (to you) the peculiar feelings which
+    this review occasions. Reading old letters--when so
+    many of the writers are gone from earth, seems to me
+    like going into the world of spirits--letters full of
+    the warm, eager, anxious, busy life, that is _forever_
+    past. My own letters, too, full of by-gone scenes in
+    my early life and the childish days of my children.
+    It is affecting to me to recall things that strongly
+    moved me years ago, that filled my thoughts and made
+    me anxious when the occasion and emotion have wholly
+    vanished from my mind. But I thank God there is _one_
+    thing running through all of them from the time I was
+    thirteen years old, and that is the intense unwavering
+    sense of Christ's educating, guiding presence and care.
+    It is _all_ that remains now. The romance of my youth
+    is faded, it looks to me now, from my years, so _very_
+    young--those days when my mind only lived in _emotion_,
+    and when my letters never were dated, because they were
+    only histories of the _internal_, but now that I am no
+    more and never can be young in this world, now that the
+    friends of those days are almost all in eternity, what
+    remains?
+
+    Through life and through death, through sorrowing, through sinning,
+    Christ shall suffice me as he hath sufficed.
+    Christ is the end and Christ the beginning,
+    The beginning and end of all is Christ.
+
+    [Illustration: THE LATER HARTFORD HOME.]
+
+    I was passionate in my attachments in those far back
+    years, and as I have looked over files of old letters,
+    they are all gone (except one, C. Van Rensselaer),
+    Georgiana May, Delia Bacon, Clarissa Treat, Elisabeth
+    Lyman, Sarah Colt, Elisabeth Phenix, Frances Strong,
+    Elisabeth Foster. I have letters from them all, but
+    they have been long in spirit land and know more about
+    how it is there than I do. It gives me a sort of dizzy
+    feeling of the shortness of life and nearness of
+    eternity when I see how many that I have traveled with
+    are gone within the veil. Then there are all my own
+    letters, written in the first two years of marriage,
+    when Mr. Stowe was in Europe and I was looking forward
+    to motherhood and preparing for it--my letters when my
+    whole life was within the four walls of my nursery,
+    my thoughts absorbed by the developing character of
+    children who have now lived their earthly life and gone
+    to the eternal one,--my two little boys, each in their
+    way good and lovely, whom Christ has taken in youth,
+    and my little one, my first Charley, whom He took away
+    before he knew sin or sorrow,--then my brother
+    George and sister Catherine, the one a companion of my
+    youth, the other the mother who assumed the care of
+    me after I left home in my twelfth year--and they are
+    gone. Then my blessed father, for many years so true an
+    image of the Heavenly Father,--in all my afflictions he
+    was afflicted, in all my perplexities he was a sure and
+    safe counselor, and he too is gone upward to join the
+    angelic mother whom I scarcely knew in this world, who
+    has been to me only a spiritual presence through life.
+
+In 1882 Mrs. Stowe writes to her son certain impressions derived from
+reading the "Life and Letters of John Quincy Adams," which are given as
+containing a retrospect of the stormy period of her own life-experience.
+
+"Your father enjoys his proximity to the Boston library. He is now
+reading the twelve or fourteen volumes of the life and diary of John
+Q. Adams. It is a history of our country through all the period of
+slavery usurpation that led to the war. The industry of the man in
+writing is wonderful. Every day's doings in the house are faithfully
+daguerreotyped,--all the mean tricks, contrivances of the slave-power,
+and the pusillanimity of the Northern members from day to day recorded.
+Calhoun was then secretary of state. Under his connivance even the
+United States census was falsified, to prove that freedom was bad for
+negroes. Records of deaf, dumb, and blind, and insane colored people
+were distributed in Northern States, and in places where John Q. Adams
+had means of _proving_ there were no negroes. When he found that these
+falsified figures had been used with the English embassador as reasons
+for admitting Texas as a slave State, the old man called on Calhoun,
+and showed him the industriously collected _proofs_ of the falsity of
+this census. He says: 'He writhed like a trodden rattlesnake, but said
+the census was full of mistakes; but one part balanced another,--it
+was not worth while to correct them.' His whole life was an incessant
+warfare with the rapidly advancing spirit of slavery, that was coiling
+like a serpent around everything.
+
+"At a time when the Southerners were like so many excited tigers
+and rattlesnakes,--when they bullied, and scoffed, and sneered, and
+threatened, this old man rose every day in his place, and, knowing
+every parliamentary rule and tactic of debate, found means to make
+himself heard. Then he presented a petition from _negroes_, which
+raised a storm of fury. The old man claimed that the right of petition
+was the right of every human being. They moved to expel him. By the
+rules of the house a man, before he can be expelled, may have the
+floor to make his defense. This was just what he wanted. He held the
+floor for _fourteen days_, and used his wonderful powers of memory and
+arrangement to give a systematic, scathing history of the usurpations
+of slavery; he would have spoken fourteen days more, but his enemies,
+finding the thing getting hotter and hotter, withdrew their motion, and
+the right of petition was gained.
+
+"What is remarkable in this journal is the minute record of going to
+church every Sunday, and an analysis of the text and sermon. There
+is something about these so simple, so humble, so earnest. Often
+differing from the speaker--but with gravity and humility--he seems
+always to be so self-distrustful; to have such a sense of sinfulness
+and weakness, but such trust in God's fatherly mercy, as is most
+beautiful to see. Just the record of his Sunday sermons, and his
+remarks upon them, would be most instructive to a preacher. He was a
+regular communicant, and, beside, attended church on Christmas and
+Easter,--I cannot but love the old man. He died without seeing even the
+dawn of liberty which God has brought; but oh! I am sure he sees it
+from above. He died in the Capitol, in the midst of his labors, and the
+last words he said were, 'This is the last of earth; I am content.' And
+now, I trust, he is with God.
+
+"All, all are gone. All that raged; all that threatened; all the
+cowards that yielded; truckled, sold their country for a mess of
+pottage; all the _men_ that stood and bore infamy and scorn for the
+truth; all are silent in dust; the fight is over, but eternity will
+never efface from their souls whether they did well or ill--whether
+they fought bravely or failed like cowards. In a sense, our lives
+are irreparable. If we shrink, if we fail, if we choose the fleeting
+instead of the eternal, God may forgive us; but there must be an
+eternal regret! This man lived for humanity when hardest bestead; for
+truth when truth was unpopular; for Christ when Christ stood chained
+and scourged in the person of the slave."
+
+In the fall of 1887 she writes to her brother Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher
+of Brooklyn, N. Y.:--
+
+    49 FOREST STREET, HARTFORD, CONN., _October 11, 1887._
+
+    DEAR BROTHER,--I was delighted to receive your kind
+    letter. _You_ were my earliest religious teacher; your
+    letters to me while a school-girl in Hartford gave
+    me a high Christian aim and standard which I hope I
+    have never lost. Not only did they do me good, but
+    also my intimate friends, Georgiana May and Catherine
+    Cogswell, to whom I read them. The simplicity, warmth,
+    and childlike earnestness of those school days I love
+    to recall. I am the _only one living_ of that circle
+    of early friends. _Not one_ of my early schoolmates is
+    living,--and now Henry, younger by a year or two than
+    I, has gone--my husband also.[21] I often think, _Why_
+    am I spared? Is there yet anything for me to do? I am
+    thinking with my son Charles's help of writing a review
+    of my life, under the title, "Pebbles from the Shores
+    of a Past Life."
+
+    Charlie told me that he has got all written up to my
+    twelfth or thirteenth year, when I came to be under
+    sister Catherine's care in Hartford. I am writing daily
+    my remembrances from that time. You were then, I think,
+    teacher of the Grammar School in Hartford....
+
+    So, my dear brother, let us keep good heart; no evil
+    can befall us. Sin alone is evil, and from that Christ
+    will keep us. Our journey is _so_ short!
+
+    I feel about all things now as I do about the things
+    that happen in a hotel, after my trunk is packed to go
+    home. I may be vexed and annoyed ... but what of it! I
+    am going home soon.
+
+                        Your affectionate sister,
+                                             HATTIE.
+
+To a friend she writes a little later:--
+
+"I have thought much lately of the possibility of my leaving you all
+and going home. I am come to that stage of my pilgrimage that is within
+sight of the River of Death, and I feel that now I must have all in
+readiness day and night for the messenger of the King. I have sometimes
+had in my sleep strange perceptions of a vivid spiritual life near to
+and with Christ, and multitudes of holy ones, and the joy of it is like
+no other joy,--it cannot be told in the language of the world. What I
+have then I _know_ with absolute certainty, yet it is so unlike and
+above anything we conceive of in this world that it is difficult to
+put it into words. The inconceivable loveliness of Christ! It seems
+that about Him there is a sphere where the enthusiasm of love is the
+calm habit of the soul, that without words, without the necessity of
+demonstrations of affection, heart beats to heart, soul answers soul,
+we respond to the Infinite Love, and we feel his answer in us, and
+there is no need of words. All seemed to be busy coming and going on
+ministries of good, and passing each gave a thrill of joy to each as
+Jesus, the directing soul, the centre of all, "over all, in all, and
+through all," was working his beautiful and merciful will to redeem and
+save. I was saying as I awoke:--
+
+    "''Tis joy enough, my all in all,
+        At thy dear feet to lie.
+      Thou wilt not let me lower fall,
+        And none can higher fly.'
+
+"This was but a glimpse; but it has left a strange sweetness in my
+mind."
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[21] Professor Stowe died August, 1886.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+    ABBOTT, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob, 292.
+
+    Aberdeen, reception in, 221.
+
+    Abolition, English meetings in favor of, 389.
+
+    Abolition sentiment, growth of, 87.
+
+    Abolitionism made fashionable, 253.
+
+    Adams, John Quincy, crusade of, against slavery, 509;
+      holds floor of Congress fourteen days, 510;
+      his religious life and trust, 511;
+      died without seeing dawn of liberty, 511;
+      life and letters of, 510.
+
+    "Agnes of Sorrento," first draft of, 374;
+      date of, 490;
+      Whittier's praise of, 503.
+
+    "Alabama Planter," savage attack of, on H. B. S., 187.
+
+    Albert, Prince, Mrs. Stowe's letter to, 160;
+      his reply, 164;
+      meeting with, 271;
+      death, 368.
+
+    America, liberty in, 193;
+      Ruskin on, 354.
+
+    American novelist, Lowell on the, 330.
+
+    Andover, Mass., beauty of, 186;
+      Stowe family settled in, 188.
+
+    Anti-slavery cause: result of English demonstrations, 252;
+      letters to England, 160;
+      feeling dreaded in South, 172;
+      movement in Cincinnati, 81;
+      in Boston, 145;
+      Beecher family all anti-slavery men, 152.
+
+    "Arabian Nights," H. B. S.'s delight in, 9.
+
+    Argyll, Duke and Duchess of 229, 232;
+      warmth of, 239;
+      H. B. S. invited to visit, 270, 271;
+      death of father of Duchess, 368.
+
+    Argyll, Duchess of, letter from H. B. S. to, on England's attitude
+          during our Civil War, 368;
+      on _post bellum_ events, 395.
+
+    "Atlantic Monthly," contains "Minister's Wooing," 327;
+      Mrs. Stowe's address to women of England, 375;
+      "The True Story of Lady Byron's Life," 447, 453.
+
+
+    BAILEY, Gamaliel, Dr., editor of "National Era," 157.
+
+    Bangor, readings in, 493.
+
+    Bates, Charlotte Fiske, reads a poem at Mrs. Stowe's seventieth
+          birthday, 505.
+
+    Baxter's "Saints' Rest," has a powerful effect on H. B. S., 32.
+
+    Beecher, Catherine, eldest sister of H. B. S., 1;
+      her education of H. B. S., 22;
+      account of her own birth, 23;
+      strong influence over Harriet, 22;
+      girlhood of, 23;
+      teacher at New London, 23;
+      engagement, 23;
+      drowning of her lover, 23;
+      soul struggles after Prof. Fisher's death, 25, 26;
+      teaches in his family, 25;
+      publishes article on Free Agency, 26;
+      opens school at Hartford, 27;
+      solution of doubts while teaching, 28, 29;
+      her conception of Divine Nature, 28;
+      school at Hartford described by H. B. S., 29;
+      doubts about Harriet's conversion, 35;
+      hopes for "Hartford Female Seminary," 37;
+      letter to Edward about Harriet's doubts, 38;
+      note on Harriet's letter, 43;
+      new school at Cincinnati, 53, 64, _et seq._;
+      visits Cincinnati with father, 54;
+      impressions of city, 54;
+      homesickness, 62;
+      at water cure, 113;
+      a mother to sister Harriet, 509;
+      letters to H. B. S. to, on her religious depression, 37;
+      on religious doubts, 322.
+
+    Beecher, Charles, brother of H. B. S., 2;
+      in college, 56;
+      goes to Florida, 402;
+      letters from H. B. S., on mother's death, 2-4, 49.
+
+    Beecher, Edward, Dr., brother of H. B. S., 1;
+      influence over her, 22, 25;
+      indignation against Fugitive Slave Act, 144;
+      efforts to arouse churches, 265;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, on early religious struggles, 36, 37;
+      on her feelings, 39;
+      on views of God, 42, 43, 44, 48;
+      on death of friends and relatives, and the writing of her life
+          by her son Charles, 512.
+
+    Beecher, Esther, aunt of H. B. S., 53, 56, 57.
+
+    Beecher family, famous reunion of, 89;
+      circular letter to, 99.
+
+    Beecher, Frederick, H. B. S.'s half-brother, death of, 13.
+
+    Beecher, George, brother of H. B. S., 1;
+      visit to, 45;
+      enters Lane as student, 53;
+      music and tracts, 58;
+      account of journey to Cincinnati, 59;
+      sudden death, 108;
+      H. B. S. meets at Dayton one of his first converts, 499;
+      his letters cherished, 508.
+
+    Beecher, George, nephew of H. B. S., visit to, 498.
+
+    Beecher, Mrs. George, letter from H. B. S. to, describing new home,
+          133.
+
+    Beecher, Harriet E. first; death of, 1;
+      second, (H. B. S.) birth of, 1.
+
+    Beecher, Mrs. Harriet Porter, H. B. S.'s stepmother, 11;
+      personal appearance and character of, 11, 12;
+      pleasant impressions of new home and children, 12;
+      at Cincinnati, 62.
+
+    Beecher, Henry Ward, brother of H. B. S., birth of, 1;
+      anecdote of, after mother's death, 2;
+      first school, 8;
+      conception of Divine Nature, 28;
+      in college, 55;
+      H. B. S. attends graduation, 73;
+      editor of Cincinnati "Journal," 81;
+      sympathy with anti-slavery movement, 84, 85, 87;
+      at Brooklyn, 130;
+      saves Edmonson's daughters, 178;
+      H. B. S. visits, 364;
+      views on Reconstruction, 397;
+      George Eliot on Beecher trial, 472;
+      his character as told by H. B. S., 475;
+      love for Prof. Stowe, 475;
+      his youth and life in West, 476;
+      Brooklyn and his anti-slavery fight, 476;
+      Edmonsons and Plymouth Church, 477;
+      his loyalty and energy, 477;
+      his religion, 477;
+      popularity and personal magnetism, 478;
+      terrible struggle in the Beecher trial, 478;
+      bribery of jury, but final triumph, 479;
+      ecclesiastical trial of, 479;
+      committee of five appointed to bring facts, 479;
+      his ideal purity and innocence, 480;
+      power at death-beds and funerals, 480;
+      beloved by poor and oppressed, 481;
+      meets accusations by silence, prayer, and work, 481;
+      his thanks and speech at Stowe Garden Party, 501;
+      tribute to father, mother, and sister Harriet, 502;
+      death, 512.
+
+    Beecher, Isabella, H. B. S.'s half-sister, birth of, 13;
+      goes to Cincinnati, 53.
+
+    Beecher, James, H. B. S.'s half-brother, 45;
+      goes to Cincinnati, 53;
+      begins Sunday-school, 63.
+
+    Beecher, Rev. Dr. Lyman, H. B. Stowe's father, 1;
+      "Autobiography and Correspondence of," 2, 89;
+      verdict on his wife's remarkable piety, 3;
+      pride in his daughter's essay, 14;
+      admiration of Walter Scott, 25;
+      sermon which converts H. B. S., 33, 34;
+      accepts call to Hanover Street Church, Boston, 35;
+      president of Lane Theological Seminary, 53;
+      first journey to Cincinnati, 53;
+      removal and westward journey, 56 _et seq._;
+      removes family to Cincinnati, 56;
+      Beecher reunion, 89;
+      powerful sermons on slave question, 152;
+      his sturdy character, H. W. Beecher's eulogy upon, 502;
+      death and reunion with H. B. S's mother, 509.
+
+    Beecher, Mary, sister of H. B. S., 1;
+      married, 55;
+      letter to, 61;
+      accompanies sister to Europe, 269;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, on love for New England, 61;
+      on visit to Windsor, 235.
+
+    Beecher, Roxanna Foote, mother of H. B. S., 1;
+      her death, 2;
+      strong, sympathetic nature, 2;
+      reverence for the Sabbath, 3;
+      sickness, death, and funeral, 4;
+      influence in family strong even after death, 5;
+      character described by H. W. Beecher, 502;
+      H. B. S.'s resemblance to, 502.
+
+    Beecher, William, brother of H. B. S., 1;
+      licensed to preach, 56.
+
+    Bell, Henry, English inventor of steamboat, 215.
+
+    Belloc, Mme., translates "Uncle Tom," 247.
+
+    Belloc, M., to paint portrait of H. B. S., 241.
+
+    Bentley, London publisher, offers pay for "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 202.
+
+    "Betty's Bright Idea," date of, 491.
+
+    Bible, 48;
+      Uncle Tom's, 262;
+      use and influence of, 263.
+
+    "Bible Heroines," date of, 491.
+
+    Bibliography of H. B. S., 490.
+
+    Biography, H. B. S.'s remarks on writing and understanding, 126.
+
+    Birney, J. G., office wrecked, 81 _et seq._;
+      H. B. S.'s sympathy with, 84.
+
+    Birthday, seventieth, celebration of by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
+          500.
+
+    Blackwood's attack on Lady Byron, 448.
+
+    Blantyre, Lord, 230.
+
+    Bogue, David, 189-191.
+
+    Boston opens doors to slave-hunters, 144.
+
+    Boston Library, Prof. Stowe enjoys proximity to, 509.
+
+    Bowdoin College calls Prof. Stowe, 125, 129.
+
+    Bowen, H. C., 181.
+
+    Bruce, John, of Litchfield Academy, H. B. S.'s tribute to, 14;
+      lectures on Butler's "Analogy," 32.
+
+    Brigham, Miss, character of, 46.
+
+    Bright, John, letter to H. B. S. on her "Appeal to English Women,"
+          389.
+
+    Brooklyn, Mrs. Stowe's visit to brother Henry in, 130;
+      visit in 1852, when she helps the Edmonson slave family, 178-180;
+      Beecher, H. W. called to, 476;
+      Beecher trial in, 478.
+
+    Brown and the phantoms, 431.
+
+    Brown, John, bravery of, 380.
+
+    Browning, Mrs., on life and love, 52.
+
+    Browning, E. B., letter to H. B. S., 356;
+      death of, 368, 370.
+
+    Browning, Robert and E. B, friendship with, 355.
+
+    Brunswick, Mrs. Stowe's love of, 184;
+      revisited, 324.
+
+    Buck, Eliza, history of as slave, 201.
+
+    Bull, J. D. and family, make home for H. B. S. while at school in
+          Hartford, 30, 31.
+
+    Bunsen, Chevalier, 233.
+
+    Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," Prof. Stowe's love of, 437.
+
+    Burritt, Elihu, writes introduction to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 192;
+      calls on Mrs. Stowe, 223.
+
+    Butler's "Analogy," study of, by H. B. S., 32.
+
+    "Byron Controversy," 445;
+      history of, 455;
+      George Eliot on, 458;
+      Dr. Holmes on, 455.
+
+    Byron, Lady, 239;
+      letters from, 274, 281;
+      makes donation to Kansas sufferers, 281;
+      on power of words, 361;
+      death of, 368, 370;
+      her character assailed, 446;
+      her first meeting with H. B. S., 447;
+      dignity and calmness, 448;
+      memoranda and letters about Lord Byron shown to Mrs. Stowe, 450;
+      solemn interview with H. B. S., 453;
+      letters to H. B. S. from, 274, 282;
+      on "The Minister's Wooing," 343;
+      farewell to, 313, 339;
+      her confidences, 440;
+      Mrs. Stowe's counsels to, 451.
+
+    Byron, Lord, Mrs. Stowe on, 339;
+      she suspects his insanity, 450;
+      cheap edition of his works proposed, 453;
+      Recollections of, by Countess Guiccioli, 446;
+      his position as viewed by Dr. Holmes, 457;
+      evidence of his poems for and against him, 457.
+
+
+    "CABIN, The," literary centre, 185.
+
+    Cairnes, Prof., on the "Fugitive Slave Law," 146.
+
+    Calhoun falsifies census, 509.
+
+    Calvinism, J. R. Lowell's sympathy with, 335.
+
+    Cambridgeport, H. B. S. reads in, 491.
+
+    Carlisle, Lord, praises "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 164;
+      Mrs. Stowe's reply, 164;
+      writes introduction to "Uncle Tom," 192;
+      H. B. S. dines with, 228;
+      farewell to, 248;
+      letter from H. B. S. to on moral effect of slavery, 164;
+      letter to H. B. S. from, 218.
+
+    Cary, Alice and Phoebe, 157.
+
+    Casaubon and Dorothea, criticism by H. B. S. on, 471.
+
+    Catechisms, Church and Assembly, H. B. S.'s early study of, 6, 7.
+
+    Chapman, Mrs. Margaret Weston, 310.
+
+    Charpentier of Paris, publishes "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 192;
+      eulogy of that work, 242.
+
+    Chase, Salmon P., 69, 85.
+
+    Chelsea, H. B. S. reads in, 492.
+
+    Chicago, readings in, 498.
+
+    Children of H. B. S., picture of three eldest, 90;
+      appeal to, by H. B. S. 157;
+      described by H. B. S., 198;
+      letters to, from H. B. S. on European voyage and impressions, 205;
+      on life in London, 228;
+      on meeting at Stafford House, 232;
+      on Vesuvius, 301, 416.
+
+    "Chimney Corner, The," date of, 490.
+
+    Cholera epidemic in Cincinnati, 120.
+
+    Christ, life of, little understood, 127;
+      communion with Him possible, 487;
+      love and faith in, 513;
+      study of his life, 418;
+      his presence all that remains now, 507;
+      his promises comfort the soul for separations by death, 486.
+
+    "Christian Union," contains observations by H. B. S. on spiritualism
+          and Mr. Owen's books, 465.
+
+    Christianity and spiritualism, 487.
+
+    Church, the, responsible for slavery, 151.
+
+    Cincinnati, Lyman Beecher accepts call to, 53;
+      Catherine Beecher's impressions of, 54, 55;
+      Walnut Hills and Seminary, 54, 55;
+      famine in, 100;
+      cholera, 119;
+      sympathetic audience in, 498.
+
+    Civil War, Mrs. Stowe on causes of, 363.
+
+    Clarke & Co. on English success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 190;
+      offer author remuneration, 202.
+
+    Clay, Henry, and his compromise, 143.
+
+    Cogswell, Catherine Ledyard, school-friend of H. B. S., 31.
+
+    College of Teachers, 79.
+
+    Collins professorship, 129.
+
+    Colored people, advance of, 255.
+
+    Confederacy, A. H. Stephens on object of, 381.
+
+    Courage and cheerfulness of H. B. S., 473.
+
+    Cranch, E. P., 69.
+
+    Cruikshank illustrates "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 192.
+
+
+    "DANIEL DERONDA," appears, in "Harper's," 473;
+      his nature like H. W. Beecher's, 481;
+      admiration of Prof. Stowe for, 482.
+
+    Da Vinci's Last Supper, H. B. S.'s impressions of, 305.
+
+    Death of youngest-born of H. B. S., 124;
+      anguish at, 198.
+
+    Death, H. B. S. within sight of the River of, 513.
+
+    "Debatable Land between this World and the Next," 464.
+
+    Declaration of Independence, H. B. S.'s feeling about, 11;
+      death-knell to slavery, 141.
+
+    Degan, Miss, 32, 41, 46.
+
+    Democracy and American novelists, Lowell on, 329.
+
+    "De Profundis," motive of Mrs. Browning's, 357.
+
+    De Stael, Mme., and Corinne, 67.
+
+    Dickens, first sight of, 226;
+      J. R. Lowell on, 328.
+
+    "Dog's Mission, A," date of, 491.
+
+    Domestic service, H. B. S.'s trouble with, 200.
+
+    Doubters and disbelievers may find comfort in spiritualism, 487.
+
+    Doubts, religious, after death of eldest son, 321.
+
+    Douglass, Frederick, 254;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, on slavery, 149.
+
+    Drake, Dr., family physician, 63;
+      one of founders of "College of Teachers," 79.
+
+    "Dred," 266;
+      Sumner's letter on, 268;
+      Georgiana May on, 268;
+      English edition of, 270;
+      presented to Queen Victoria, 271;
+      her interest in, 277, 285;
+      demand for, in Glasgow, 273;
+      Duchess of Sutherland's copy, 276;
+      Low's sales of, 278, 279;
+      "London Times," on, 278;
+      English reviews on, severe, 279;
+      "Revue des Deux Mondes" on, 290;
+      Miss Martineau on, 309;
+      Prescott on, 311;
+      Lowell on, 334;
+      now "Nina Gordon," publication of, 490.
+
+    Dudevant, Madame. See Sand, George.
+
+    Dufferin, Lord and Lady, their love of American literature, 284,
+          285.
+
+    Dundee, meeting at, 222.
+
+    Dunrobin Castle, visit to, 276.
+
+
+    E----, letter from H. B. S. to, on breakfast at the Trevelyans',
+          234.
+
+    "Earthly Care a Heavenly Discipline," 131.
+
+    East Hampton, L. I., birthplace of Catherine Beecher, 23.
+
+    Eastman, Mrs., writes a Southern reply to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 163.
+
+    Edgeworth, Maria, 247.
+
+    Edinburgh, H. B. S. in, 216;
+      return to, 222.
+
+    Edmonson slave family; efforts to save, 179;
+      Mrs. Stowe educates and supports daughters, 179;
+      raises money to free mother and two slave children, 180.
+
+    Edmonson, death of Mary, 238.
+
+    Education, H. B. S.'s interest in, 72, 73.
+
+    Edwards, Jonathan, the power of, 406;
+      his treatise on "The Will," refuted by Catherine Beecher, 26.
+
+    Eliot, George, 419;
+      a good Christian, 420;
+      on psychical problems, 421;
+      on "Oldtown Folks," 443;
+      her despondency in "writing life" and longing for sympathy, 460;
+      on power of fine books, 461;
+      on religion, 462;
+      desires to keep an open mind on all subjects, 467;
+      on impostures of spiritualism, 467;
+      lack of "jollitude" in "Middlemarch," 471;
+      invited to visit America, 471;
+      sympathy with H. B. S. in Beecher trial, 472;
+      proud of Stowes' interest in her "spiritual children," 482;
+      on death of Mr. Lewes and gratitude for sympathy of H. B. S., 483;
+      a "woman worth loving," H. B. S.'s love for greater than her
+          admiration, 475;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, on spiritualism, 463;
+      describes Florida nature and home, 468;
+      reply to letter of sympathy giving facts in the Beecher case, 473;
+      from Professor Stowe on spiritualism, 419;
+      letter to H. B. S. from, 421;
+      with sympathy on abuse called out by the Byron affair, 458;
+      on effect of letter of H. B. S. to Mrs. Follen upon her mind, 460;
+      on joy of sympathy, 460;
+      reply to letter on spiritualism, 466;
+      sympathy with her in the Beecher trial, 472.
+
+    Elmes, Mr., 57.
+
+    "Elms, The Old," H. B. S.'s seventieth birthday celebrated at, 500.
+
+    "Elsie Venner," Mrs. Stowe's praise of, 360, 362, 415.
+
+    Emancipation, Proclamation of, 384.
+
+    Emmons, Doctor, the preaching of, 25.
+
+    England and America compared, 177.
+
+    England, attitude of, in civil war, grief at, 369;
+      help of to America on slave question, 166, 174.
+
+    English women's address on slavery, 374;
+      H. B. S.'s reply in the "Atlantic Monthly," 374.
+
+    Europe, first visit to, 189;
+      second visit to, 268;
+      third visit to, 343.
+
+
+    FAITH in Christ, 513.
+
+    Famine in Cincinnati, 100.
+
+    Fiction, power of, 216.
+
+    Fields, Mrs. Annie, in Boston, 470;
+      her tribute to Mrs. Stowe's courage and cheerfulness, 473;
+      George Eliot's mention of, 483;
+      her poem read at seventieth birthday, 505.
+
+    Fields, Jas. T., Mr. and Mrs., visit of H. B. S. to, 492.
+
+    Fisher, Prof. Alexander Metcalf, 23;
+      engagement to Catherine Beecher, 23;
+      sails for Europe, 23, 24;
+      his death by drowning in shipwreck of Albion, 24;
+      Catherine Beecher's soul struggles, over his future fate, 25;
+      influence of these struggles depicted in "The Minister's
+          Wooing," 25.
+
+    Florence, Mrs. Stowe's winter in, 349.
+
+    Florida, winter home in Mandarin, 401;
+      like Sorrento, 463;
+      wonderful growth of nature, 468;
+      how H. B. S.'s house was built, 469;
+      her happy life in, 474;
+      longings for, 482;
+      her enjoyment of happy life of the freedmen in, 506.
+
+    Flowers, love of, 405, 406, 416, 469;
+      painting, 469.
+
+    Follen, Mrs., 197;
+      letter from H. B. S. to, on her biography, 197.
+
+    Foote, Harriet, aunt of H. B. S., 5;
+      energetic English character, 6;
+      teaches niece catechism, 6, 7.
+
+    Foote, Mrs. Roxanna, grandmother of H. B. S., first visit to, 5-7;
+      visit to in 1827, 38.
+
+    "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," 464.
+
+    "Footsteps of the Master," published, 491.
+
+    "Fraser's Magazine" on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 168;
+      Helps's review of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 175.
+
+    "Free Agency," Catherine Beecher's refutation of Edwards on "The
+          Will," 26.
+
+    French critics, high standing of, 291.
+
+    Friends, love for, 51;
+      death of, 410;
+      death of old, whose letters are cherished, 508;
+      death of, takes away a part of ourselves, 485.
+
+    Friendship, opinion of, 50.
+
+    Fugitive Slave Act, suffering caused by, 144;
+      Prof. Cairnes on, 146;
+      practically repealed, 384.
+
+    Future life, glimpses of, leave strange sweetness, 513.
+
+    Future punishment, ideas of, 340.
+
+
+    GARRISON, W. L., to Mrs. Stowe on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 161;
+      in hour of victory, 396;
+      his "Liberator," 261;
+      sent with H. W. Beecher to raise flag on Sumter, 477;
+      letters to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 161;
+      on slavery, 251-262;
+      on arousing the church, 265.
+
+    Gaskell, Mrs., at home, 312.
+
+    Geography, school, written by Mrs. Stowe, 65 _note_, 158.
+
+    Germany's tribute to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 195.
+
+    Gladstone, W. E., 233.
+
+    Glasgow, H. B. S. visits, 210;
+      Anti-slavery Society of, 174, 189, 213.
+
+    Glasgow Anti-slavery Society, letter from H. B. S. to, 251.
+
+    God, H. B. S.'s views of, 30, 42, 43, 46, 47;
+      trust in, 112, 132, 148, 341;
+      doubts and final trust in, 321, 396;
+      his help in time of need, 496.
+
+    Goethe and Mr. Lewes, 420;
+      Prof. Stowe's admiration of, 420.
+
+    Goldschmidt, Madame. See Lind, Jenny.
+
+    Goerres on spiritualism and mysticism, 412, 474.
+
+    Grandmother, letter from H. B. S. to, on breaking up of Litchfield
+          home, 35;
+      on school life in Hartford, 41.
+
+    Granville, Lord, 233.
+
+    "Gray's Elegy," visit to scene of, 236.
+
+    Guiccioli, Countess, "Recollections of Lord Byron," 446.
+
+
+    HALL, Judge James, 68, 69.
+
+    Hallam, Arthur Henry, 235.
+
+    Hamilton and Manumission Society, 141.
+
+    Harper & Brothers reprint Guiccioli's "Recollections of Byron," 446.
+
+    Hartford, H. B. S. goes to school at, 21;
+      the Stowes make their home at, 373.
+
+    Harvey, a phantom, 430.
+
+    Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 353;
+      letter on, 187;
+      on slavery, 394;
+      letter to H. B. S. on, from English attitude towards America, 394.
+
+    Health, care of, 115.
+
+    Heaven, belief in, 59.
+
+    Helps, Arthur, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 175;
+      meets H. B. S., 229;
+      letter from H. B. S. to, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 175.
+
+    Henry, Patrick, on slavery, 141.
+
+    Hentz, Mrs. Caroline Lee, 69, 80.
+
+    Higginson, T. W., letter to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
+          162.
+
+    "History, The, of the Byron Controversy," 490.
+
+    Holmes, O. W., correspondence with, 360, _et seq._;
+      attacks upon, 361;
+      H. B. S. asks advice from, about manner of telling facts in
+          relation to Byron Controversy, 452, 454;
+      sends copy of "Lady Byron Vindicated" to, 454;
+      on facts of case, 455;
+      on sympathy displayed in his writings, 411;
+      poem on H. B. S.'s seventieth birthday, 503;
+      tribute to Uncle Tom, 504;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, 359, 410;
+      on "Poganuc People," 414;
+      asking advice about Byron Controversy and article for "Atlantic
+          Monthly," 452;
+      letters to H. B. S. from, 360, 409;
+      on facts in the Byron Controversy, 456.
+
+    Houghton, Mifflin & Co., celebrate H. B. S.'s seventieth birthday, 500.
+
+    Houghton, H. O., presents guests to H. B. S., on celebration of
+          seventieth birthday, 500;
+      address of welcome by, 501.
+
+    "House and Home Papers" published, 490.
+
+    Howitt, Mary, calls on H. B. S., 231.
+
+    Human life, sacredness of, 193.
+
+    Human nature in books and men, 328.
+
+    Hume and mediums, 419.
+
+    Humor of Mrs. Stowe's books, George Eliot on, 462.
+
+    Husband and wife, sympathy between, 105.
+
+
+    IDEALISM _versus_ Realism, Lowell on, 334.
+
+    "Independent," New York, work for, 186;
+      Mrs. Browning reads Mrs. Stowe in, 357.
+
+    Inverary Castle, H. B. S.'s, visit to, 271.
+
+    Ireland's gift to Mrs. Stowe, 248.
+
+
+    JEFFERSON, Thomas, on slavery, 141.
+
+    Jewett, John P., of Boston, publisher of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 158.
+
+
+    KANSAS Nebraska Bill, 255;
+      urgency of question, 265.
+
+    "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" projected, 174;
+      written, 188; contains facts, 203;
+      read by Pollock, 226;
+      by Argyll, 239;
+      sickness caused by, 252;
+      sale, 253;
+      facts woven into "Dred," 266;
+      date of in chronological list, 490.
+
+    Kingsley, Charles, upon effect of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 196;
+      visit to, 286;
+      letters to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 196, 218.
+
+    Kossuth, on freedom, 195;
+      Mrs. Stowe calls upon, 237.
+
+
+    LABOUCHERE, Lady Mary, visit to, 283.
+
+    "Lady Byron Vindicated," 454;
+      date, 490.
+
+    Letters, circular, writing of, a custom in the Beecher family, 99;
+      H. B. S.'s love of, 62, 63;
+      H. B. S.'s peculiar emotions on re-reading old, 507.
+
+    Lewes, G. H., George Eliot's letter after death of, 483.
+
+    Lewes, Mrs. G. H. See Eliot, George, 325.
+
+    "Library of Famous Fiction," date of, 491.
+
+    "Liberator," The, 261;
+      and Bible, 263;
+      suspended after the close of civil war, 396.
+
+    Lincoln and slavery, 380;
+      death of, 398.
+
+    Lind, Jenny, liberality of, 181;
+      H. B. S. attends concert by, 182;
+      letter to H. B. S. from, on her delight in "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
+          183;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, with appeal for slaves, 183, 184.
+
+    Litchfield, birthplace of H. B. S., 1;
+      end of her child-life in, 21;
+      home at broken up, 35.
+
+    Literary labors, early, 15-21;
+      prize story, 68;
+      club essays, 69-71;
+      contributor to "Western Monthly Magazine," 81;
+      school geography, 65;
+      described in letter to a friend, 94;
+      price for, 103;
+      fatigue caused by, 489;
+      length of time passed in, with list of books written, 490.
+
+    Literary work _versus_ domestic duties, 94 _et seq._, 139;
+      short stories--"New Year's Story" for "N. Y. Evangelist," 146;
+      "A Scholar's Adventures in the Country" for "Era," 146.
+
+    Literature, opinion of, 44.
+
+    "Little Pussy Willow," date of, 491.
+
+    Liverpool, warm reception of H. B. S. at, 207.
+
+    London poor and Southern slaves, 175.
+
+    London, first visit to, 225;
+      second visit to, 281.
+
+    Longfellow, H. W., congratulations of, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 161;
+      letter on, 187;
+      Lord Granville's likeness to, 233;
+      letters to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 161.
+
+    Love, the impulse of life, 51, 52.
+
+    Lovejoy, J. P., murdered, 143, 145;
+      aided by Beechers, 152.
+
+    Low, Sampson, on success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" abroad, 189.
+
+    Low, Sampson & Co. publish "Dred," 269;
+      their sales, 279.
+
+    Lowell, J. R., Duchess of Sutherland's interest in, 277;
+      less known in England than he should be, 285;
+      on "Uncle Tom," 327;
+      on Dickens and Thackeray, 327, 334;
+      on "The Minister's Wooing," 330, 333;
+      on idealism, 334;
+      letter to H. B. S. from, on "The Minister's Wooing," 333.
+
+
+    MACAULAY, 233, 234.
+
+    McClellan, Gen., his disobedience to the President's commands, 367.
+
+    "Magnalia," Cotton Mather's, a mine of wealth to H. B. S., 10;
+      Prof. Stowe's interest in, 427.
+
+    Maine law, curiosity about in England, 229.
+
+    Mandarin, Mrs. Stowe at, 403;
+      like Sorrento, 463;
+      how her house was built, 469;
+      her happy out-door life in, relieved from domestic care, 474;
+      longings for home at, 492;
+      freedmen's happy life in South, 506.
+
+    Mann, Horace, makes a plea for slaves, 159.
+
+    Martineau, Harriet, letter to H. B. S. from, 208.
+
+    May, Georgiana, school and life-long friend of H. B. S., 31, 32;
+      Mrs. Sykes, 132;
+      her ill-health and farewell to H. B. S., 268;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, 44, 49, 50;
+      account of westward journey, 56;
+      on labor in establishing school, 65, 66;
+      on education, 72;
+      just before her marriage to Mr. Stowe, 76;
+      on her early married life and housekeeping, 89;
+      on birth of her son, 101;
+      describing first railroad ride, 106;
+      on her children, 119;
+      her letter to Mrs. Foote, grandmother of H. B. S., 38;
+      letters to H. B. S. from, 161, 268.
+
+    "Mayflower, The," 103, 158;
+      revised and republished, 251;
+      date of, 490.
+
+    Melancholy, 118, 341;
+      a characteristic of Prof. Stowe in childhood, 436.
+
+    "Men of Our Times," date of, 410.
+
+    "Middlemarch," H. B. S. wishes to read, 468;
+      character of Casaubon in, 471.
+
+    Milman, Dean, 234.
+
+    Milton's hell, 303.
+
+    "Minister's Wooing, The," soul struggles of Mrs. Marvyn,
+          foundation of incident, 25;
+      idea of God in, 29;
+      impulse for writing, 52;
+      appears in "Atlantic Monthly," 326;
+      Lowell, J. R. on, 327, 330, 333;
+      Whittier on, 327;
+      completed, 332;
+      Ruskin on, 336;
+      undertone of pathos, 339;
+      visits England in relation to, 343;
+      date of, 490;
+      "reveals warm heart of man" beneath the Puritan in Whittier's
+          poem, 502.
+
+    Missouri Compromise, 142, 257;
+      repealed, 379.
+
+    Mohl, Madame, and her _salon_, 291.
+
+    Money-making, reading as easy a way as any of, 494.
+
+    Moral aim in novel-writing, J. R. Lowell on, 333.
+
+    "Mourning Veil, The," 327.
+
+    "Mystique La," on spiritualism, 412.
+
+
+    NAPLES and Vesuvius, 302.
+
+    "National Era," its history, 157;
+      work for, 186.
+
+    Negroes, petition from, presented by J. Q. Adams, 510.
+
+    New England, Mrs. Stowe's knowledge of, 332;
+      in "The Minister's Wooing," 333;
+      life pictured in "Oldtown Folks," 444.
+
+    New London, fatigue of reading at, 496.
+
+    Newport, tiresome journey to, on reading tour, 497.
+
+    Niagara, impressions of, 75.
+
+    Normal school for colored teachers, 203.
+
+    "North American Review" on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 254.
+
+    North _versus_ South, England on, 388, 391.
+
+    Norton, C. E., Ruskin on the proper home of, 354.
+
+
+    "OBSERVER, New York," denunciation of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 168, 172.
+
+    "Oldtown Fireside Stories," 438;
+      strange spiritual experiences of Prof. Stowe, 438;
+      Sam Lawson a real character, 439;
+      relief after finishing, 489;
+      date of in chronological list, 491;
+      in Whittier's poem on seventieth birthday "With Old New England's
+          flavor rife," 503.
+
+    "Oldtown Folks," 404;
+      Prof. Stowe original of "Harry" in, 421;
+      George Eliot on its reception in England, 443, 461, 463;
+      picture of N. E. life, 444;
+      date of, 490;
+      Whittier's praise of, "vigorous pencil-strokes" in poem on
+          seventieth birthday, 503.
+
+    Orthodoxy, 335.
+
+    "Our Charley," date of, 490.
+
+    Owen, Robert Dale, his "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World"
+          and "The Debatable Land between this World and the Next," 464;
+      H. B. S. wishes George Eliot to meet, 464.
+
+
+    PALMERSTON, Lord, meeting with, 232.
+
+    "Palmetto Leaves" published, 405;
+      date, 491.
+
+    Papacy, The, 358.
+
+    Paris, first visit to, 241;
+      second visit, 286.
+
+    Park, Professor Edwards A., 186.
+
+    Parker, Theodore, on the Bible and Jesus, 264.
+
+    Paton, Bailie, host of Mrs. Stowe, 211.
+
+    Peabody, pleasant reading in, 496;
+      Queen Victoria's picture at, 496.
+
+    "Pearl of Orr's Island, The," 186, 187;
+      first published, 327;
+      Whittier's favorite, 327;
+      date of, 490.
+
+    "Pebbles from the Shores of a Past Life," a review of her life
+          proposed to be written by H. B. S. with aid of son Charles,
+          512.
+
+    Phantoms seen by Professor Stowe, 425.
+
+    Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, writes poem on H. B. S.'s seventieth
+          birthday, 505.
+
+    "Philanthropist, The," anti-slavery paper, 81, 87.
+
+    Phillips, Wendell, attitude of after war, 396.
+
+    "Pink and White Tyranny," date of, 491.
+
+    Plymouth Church, saves Edmonson's daughters, 179;
+      slavery and, 477;
+      clears Henry Ward Beecher by acclamation, 478;
+      calls council of Congregational ministers and laymen, 479;
+      council ratifies decision of Church, 479;
+      committee of five appointed to bring facts which could be
+          proved, 479;
+      missions among poor particularly effective at time of trial, 481.
+
+    "Poganuc People," 413;
+      sent to Dr. Holmes, 414;
+      date of, 491.
+
+    Pollock, Lord Chief Baron, 226.
+
+    Poor, generosity of touches H. B. S., 219.
+
+    Portland, H. B. S.'s friends there among the past, 494;
+      her readings in, 493.
+
+    Portraits of Mrs. Stowe, 231;
+      Belloc to paint, 241;
+      untruth of, 288.
+
+    Poverty in early married life, 198.
+
+    Prescott, W. H., letter to H. B, S. from, on "Dred," 311.
+
+    "Presse, La," on "Dred," 291.
+
+    Providential aid in sickness, 113.
+
+
+    "QUEER Little People," date of, 490.
+
+
+    READING and teaching, 139.
+
+    Religion and humanity, George Eliot on, 462.
+
+    "Religious poems," date of, 490.
+
+    "Revue des Deux Mondes" on "Dred," 290.
+
+    Riots in Cincinnati and anti-slavery agitation, 85.
+
+    Roenne, Baron de, visits Professor Stowe, 102.
+
+    Roman politics in 1861, 358.
+
+    Rome, H. B. S.'s journey to, 294;
+      impressions of, 300.
+
+    Ruskin, John, letters to H. B. S. from, on "The Minister's
+          Wooing," 336;
+      on his dislike of America, but love for American friends, 354.
+
+    Ruskin and Turner, 313.
+
+
+    SAINT-BEUVE, H. B. S.'s liking for, 474.
+
+    Sales, Francis de, H. W. Beecher compared with, 481.
+
+    Salisbury, Mr., interest of in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 191.
+
+    Salons, French, 289.
+
+    Sand, George, reviews "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 196.
+
+    Scotland, H. B. S.'s first visit to, 209.
+
+    Scott, Walter, Lyman Beecher's opinion of, when discussing
+          novel-reading, 25;
+      monument in Edinburgh, 217.
+
+    Sea, H. B. S.'s nervous horror of, 307.
+
+    Sea-voyages, H. B. S. on, 205.
+
+    Semi-Colon Club, H. B. S. becomes a member of, 68.
+
+    Shaftesbury, Earl of, letter of, to Mrs. Stowe, 170.
+
+    Shaftesbury, Lord, to H. B. S., letter from, 170;
+      letter from H. B. S. to, 170;
+      America and, 369.
+
+    Skinner, Dr., 57.
+
+    Slave, aiding a fugitive, 93.
+
+    Slave-holding States on English address, 378;
+      intensity of conflict in, 379.
+
+    Slavery, H. B. S.'s first notice of, 71;
+      anti-slavery agitation, 81;
+      death-knell of, 141;
+      Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, and Patrick Henry on, 141;
+      growth of, 142;
+      resume of its history, 143;
+      responsibility of church for, 151;
+      Lord Carlisle's opinion on, 164;
+      moral effect of, 165;
+      sacrilege of, 193;
+      its past and future, 194;
+      its injustice, 255;
+      its death-blow; 370;
+      English women's appeal against, 375;
+      J. Q. Adams' crusade against, 509;
+      gone forever, 506.
+
+    Slaves, H. B. S.'s work for and sympathy with, 152;
+      family sorrows of, 318.
+
+    Smith, Anna, helper to Mrs. S., 115;
+      _note_, 200.
+
+    Soul, immortality of, H. B. S.'s essay written at age of twelve:
+          first literary production, 15-21;
+      Addison's remarks upon, 18;
+      Greek and Roman idea of immortality, 20;
+      light given by Gospel, 20, 21;
+      Christ on, 109.
+
+    South, England's sympathy with the, 370, 386.
+
+    South Framingham, good audience at reading in, 495.
+
+    "Souvenir, The," 105.
+
+    Spiritualism, Mrs. Stowe on, 350, 351, 464;
+      Mrs. Browning on, 356;
+      Holmes, O. W., on, 411;
+      "La Mystique" and Goerres on, 412, 474;
+      Professor Stowe's strange experiences in, 420, 423;
+      George Eliot on psychical problems of, 421;
+      on "Charlatanerie" connected with, 467;
+      Robert Dale Owen on, 464;
+      Goethe on, 465;
+      H. B. S.'s letter to George Eliot on, 466;
+      her mature views on, 485;
+      a comfort to doubters and disbelievers, 487;
+      from Christian standpoint, 487.
+
+    Stafford House meeting, 233.
+
+    Stephens, A. H., on object of Confederacy, 381.
+
+    Storrs, Dr. R. S., 181.
+
+    Stowe, Calvin E., 56;
+      death of first wife, 75;
+      his engagement to Harriet E. Beecher, 76;
+      their marriage, 76, 77;
+      his work in Lane Seminary, 79;
+      sent by the Seminary to Europe on educational matters, 80;
+      returns, 88;
+      his Educational Report presented, 89;
+      aids a fugitive slave, 93;
+      strongly encourages his wife in her literary aspirations, 102,
+          105;
+      care of the sick students in Lane Seminary, 107;
+      is "house-father" during his wife's illness and absence, 113;
+      goes to water cure after his wife's return from the same, 119;
+      absent from Cincinnati home at death of youngest child, 124;
+      accepts the Collins Professorship at Bowdoin, 125;
+      gives his mother his  reasons for leaving Cincinnati, 128;
+      remains behind to finish college work, while wife and three
+          children leave for Brunswick, Me., 129;
+      resigns his professorship at Bowdoin, and accepts a call to
+          Andover, 184;
+      accompanies his wife to Europe, 205;
+      his second trip with wife to Europe, 269;
+      sermon after his son's death, 322;
+      great sorrow at his bereavement, 324;
+      goes to Europe for the fourth time, 345;
+      resigns his position at Andover, 373;
+      in Florida, 403;
+      failing health, 417;
+      his letter to George Eliot, 420;
+      H. B. S. uses his strange experiences in youth as material for
+          her picture of "Harry" in "Oldtown Folks," 421;
+      the psychological history of his strange child-life, 423;
+      curious experiences with phantoms, and good and bad spirits, 427;
+      visions of fairies, 435;
+      love of reading, 437;
+      his power of character-painting shown in his description of a
+          visit to his relatives, 439;
+      George Eliot's mental picture of his personality, 461;
+      enjoys life and study in Florida, 463;
+      his studies on Prof. Goerres' book, "Die Christliche Mystik," and
+          its relation to his own spiritual experience, 474;
+      love for Henry Ward Beecher returned by latter, 475;
+      absorbed in "Daniel Deronda," 482;
+      "over head and ears in _diablerie_," 484;
+      fears he has not long to live, 491;
+      dull at wife's absence on reading tour, 496;
+      enjoys proximity to Boston Library, and "Life of John Quincy
+          Adams," 509;
+      death, 512 and _note_;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, 80, 106;
+      on her illness, 112, 114, 117;
+      on cholera epidemic in Cincinnati, 120;
+      on sickness, death of son Charley, 122;
+      account of new home, 133;
+      on her writings and literary aspirations, 146;
+      on success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 162;
+      on her interest in the Edmonson slave family, 180;
+      on life in London, 238;
+      on visit to the Duke of Argyle, 271;
+      from Dunrobin Castle, 275;
+      on "Dred," 282;
+      other letters from abroad, 282;
+      on life in Paris, 286;
+      on journey to Rome, 294;
+      on impressions of Rome, 300;
+      on Swiss journey, 348;
+      from Florence, 349;
+      from Paris, 353;
+      on farewell to her soldier son, 364;
+      visit to Duchess of Argyle, 366;
+      on her reading tour, 491;
+      on his health and her enforced absence from him, 492;
+      on reading, at Chelsea, 492;
+      at Bangor and Portland, 493;
+      at South Framingham and Haverhill, 495;
+      Peabody, 496;
+      fatigue at New London reading, 496;
+      letters from to H. B. S. on visit to his relatives and
+          description of home life, 440;
+      to mother on reasons for leaving the West, 128;
+      to George Eliot, 420;
+      to son Charles, 345.
+
+    Stowe, Charles E., seventh child of H. B. S., birth of, 139;
+      at Harvard, 406;
+      at Bonn, 412;
+      letter from Calvin E. Stowe to, 345;
+      letter from H. B. S. to, on her school life, 29;
+      on "Poganuc People," 413;
+      on her readings in the West, 497;
+      on selection of papers and letters for her biography, 507;
+      on interest of herself and Prof. Stowe in life and anti-slavery
+          career of John Quincy Adams, 509.
+
+    Stowe, Eliza Tyler (Mrs. C. E.), death of, 75;
+      twin daughter of H. B. S., 88.
+
+    Stowe, Frederick William, second son of H. B. S., 101;
+      enlists in First Massachusetts, 364;
+      made lieutenant for bravery, 366;
+      mother's visit to, 367;
+      severely wounded, 372;
+      subsequent effects of the wound, never entirely recovers, his
+          disappearance and unknown fate, 373;
+      ill-health after war, Florida home purchased for his sake, 399.
+
+    Stowe, Georgiana May, daughter of H. B. S., birth of, 108;
+      family happy in her marriage, 399;
+      letter from H. B. S. to, 340.
+
+    Stowe, Harriet Beecher, birth and parentage of, 1;
+      first memorable incident, the death of her mother, 2;
+      letter to her brother Charles on her mother's death, 2;
+      incident of the tulip bulbs and mother's gentleness, 2;
+      first journey a visit to her grandmother, 5;
+      study of catechisms under her grandmother and aunt, 6;
+      early religious and Biblical reading, 8;
+      first school at the age of five, 8;
+      hunger after mental food, 9;
+      joyful discovery of "The Arabian Nights," in the bottom of a
+          barrel of dull sermons, 9;
+      reminiscences of reading in father's library, 10;
+      impression made by the Declaration of Independence, 11;
+      appearance and character of her stepmother, 11, 12;
+      healthy, happy child-life, 13;
+      birth of her half-sister Isabella and H. B. S.'s care of infant,
+          14;
+      early love of writing, 14;
+      her essay selected for reading at school exhibitions, 14;
+      her father s pride in essay, 15;
+      subject of essay, arguments for belief in the Immortality of the
+          Soul, 15-21;
+      end of child-life in Litchfield, 21;
+      goes to sister Catherine's school at Hartford, 29;
+      describes Catherine Beecher's school in letter to son, 29;
+      her home with the Bulls, 30, 31;
+      school friends, 31, 32;
+      takes up Latin, her study of Ovid and Virgil, 32;
+      dreams of being a poet and writes "Cleon," a drama, 32;
+      her conversion, 33, 34;
+      doubts of relatives and friends, 34, 35;
+      connects herself with First Church, Hartford, 36;
+      her struggle with rigid theology, 36;
+      her melancholy and doubts, 37, 38;
+      necessity of cheerful society, 38;
+      visit to grandmother, 38;
+      return to Hartford, 41;
+      interest in painting lessons, 41;
+      confides her religious doubts to her brother Edward, 42;
+      school life in Hartford, 46;
+      peace at last, 49;
+      accompanies her father and family to Cincinnati, 53;
+      describes her journey, 56;
+      yearnings for New England home, 60;
+      ill-health and depression, 64;
+      her life in Cincinnati and teaching at new school established by
+          her sister Catherine and herself, 65;
+      wins prize for short story, 68;
+      joins "Semicolon Club," 68;
+      slavery first brought to her personal notice, 71;
+      attends Henry Ward Beecher's graduation, 73;
+      engagement, 76;
+      marriage, 76;
+      anti-slavery agitation, 82;
+      sympathy with Birney, editor of anti-slavery paper in Cincinnati,
+          84;
+      birth of twin daughters, 88;
+      of her third child, 89;
+      reunion of the Beecher family, 89;
+      housekeeping _versus_ literary work, 93;
+      birth of second son, 101;
+      visits Hartford, 102;
+      literary work encouraged, 102, 105;
+      sickness in Lane Seminary, 107;
+      death of brother George, 108;
+      birth of third daughter, 108;
+      protracted illness and poverty, 110;
+      seminary struggles, 110;
+      goes to water cure, 113;
+      returns home, 118;
+      birth of sixth child, 118;
+      bravery in cholera epidemic, 120;
+      death of youngest child Charles, 123;
+      leaves Cincinnati, 125;
+      removal to Brunswick, 126;
+      getting settled, 134;
+      husband arrives, 138;
+      birth of seventh child, 139;
+      anti-slavery feeling aroused by letters from Boston, 145;
+      "Uncle Tom's Cabin," first thought of, 145;
+      writings for papers, 147;
+      "Uncle Tom's Cabin" appears as a serial, 156;
+      in book form, 159;
+      its wonderful success, 160;
+      praise from Longfellow, Whittier, Garrison, Higginson, 161;
+      letters from English nobility, 164, _et seq._;
+      writes "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," 174, 188;
+      visits Henry Ward in Brooklyn, 178;
+      raises money to free Edmondson family, 181;
+      home-making at Andover, 186;
+      first trip to Europe, 189, 205;
+      wonderful success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" abroad, 189;
+      her warm reception at Liverpool, 207;
+      delight in Scotland, 209;
+      public reception and tea-party at Glasgow, 212;
+      warm welcome from Scotch people, 214;
+      touched by the "penny offering" of the poor for the slaves, 219;
+      Edinburgh soiree, 219;
+      meets English celebrities at Lord Mayor's dinner in London, 226;
+      meets English nobility, 229;
+      Stafford House, 232;
+      breakfast at Lord Trevelyan's, 234;
+      Windsor, 235;
+      presentation of bracelet, 233;
+      of inkstand, 240;
+      Paris, first visit to, 241;
+      _en route_ for Switzerland, 243;
+      Geneva and Chillon, 244;
+      Grindelwald to Meyringen, 245;
+      London, _en route_ for America, 247;
+      work for slaves in America, 250;
+      correspondence with Garrison, 261, _et seq._;
+      "Dred," 266;
+      second visit to Europe, 268;
+      meeting with Queen Victoria, 270;
+      visits Inverary Castle, 271;
+      Dunrobin Castle, 275;
+      Oxford and London, 280;
+      visits the Laboucheres, 283;
+      Paris, 289;
+      _en route_ to Rome, 294;
+      Naples and Vesuvius, 301;
+      Venice and Milan, 305;
+      homeward journey and return, 306, 314;
+      death of oldest son, 315;
+      visits Dartmouth, 319;
+      receives advice from Lowell on "The Pearl of Orr's Island," 327;
+      "The Minister's Wooing," 327, 330, 334;
+      third trip to Europe, 342;
+      Duchess of Sutherland's warm welcome, 346;
+      Switzerland, 348;
+      Florence, 349;
+      Italian journey, 352;
+      return to America, 353;
+      letters from Ruskin, Mrs. Browning, Holmes, 353, 362;
+      bids farewell to her son, 364;
+      at Washington, 366;
+      her son wounded at Gettysburg, 372;
+      his disappearance, 373;
+      the Stowes remove to Hartford, 373;
+      Address to women of England on slavery, 374;
+      winter home in Florida, 401;
+      joins the Episcopal Church, 402;
+      erects schoolhouse and church in Florida, 404;
+      "Palmetto, Leaves," 405;
+      "Poganuc People," 413;
+      warm reception at South, 415;
+      last winter in Florida, 417;
+      writes "Oldtown Folks," 404;
+      her interest in husband's strange spiritual experiences, 438;
+      H. B. S. justifies her action in Byron Controversy, 445;
+      her love and faith in Lady Byron, 449;
+      reads Byron letters, 450;
+      counsels silence and patience to Lady Byron, 451;
+      writes "True Story of Lady Byron's Life," 447, 453;
+      publishes "Lady Byron Vindicated," 454;
+      "History of the Byron Controversy," 455;
+      her purity of motive in this painful matter, 455;
+      George Eliot's sympathy with her in Byron matter, 458;
+      her friendship with George Eliot dates from letter shown by Mrs.
+          Follen, 459, 460;
+      describes Florida life and peace to George Eliot, 463;
+      her interest in Mr. Owen and spiritualism, 464;
+      love of Florida life and nature, 468;
+      history of Florida home, 469;
+      impressions of "Middlemarch," 471;
+      invites George Eliot to come to America, 472;
+      words of sympathy on Beecher trial from George Eliot, and Mrs.
+          Stowe's reply, 473;
+      her defense of her brother's purity of life, 475;
+      Beecher trial drawn on her heart's blood, 480;
+      her mature views on spiritualism, 484;
+      her doubts of ordinary manifestations, 486;
+      soul-cravings after dead friends satisfied by Christ's promises,
+          486;
+      chronological list of her books, 490;
+      accepts offer from N. E. Lecture Bureau to give readings from
+          her works, 491;
+      gives readings in New England, 491, _et seq._;
+      warm welcome in Maine, 493;
+      sympathetic audiences in Massachusetts, 495;
+      fatigue of traveling and reading at New London, 496;
+      Western reading tour, 497;
+      "fearful distances and wretched trains," 498;
+      seventieth anniversary of birthday celebrated by Houghton,
+          Mifflin & Co., 500;
+      H. O. Houghton's welcome, 501;
+      H. W. Beecher's reply and eulogy on sister, 502;
+      Whittier's poem at seventieth birthday, 502;
+      Holmes' poem, 503;
+      other poems of note written for the occasion, 505;
+      Mrs. Stowe's thanks, 505;
+      joy in the future of the colored race, 506;
+      reading old letters and papers, 507;
+      her own letters to Mr. Stowe and letters from friends, 508;
+      interest in Life of John Quincy Adams and his crusade against
+          slavery, 510;
+      death of husband, 512 and _note_;
+      of Henry Ward Beecher, 512;
+      thinks of writing review of her life aided by son, under title
+          of "Pebbles from the Shores of a Past Life," 512;
+      her feelings on the nearness of death, but perfect trust in
+          Christ, 513; glimpses
+      of the future life leave a strange sweetness in her mind, 513.
+
+    Stowe, Harriet Beecher, twin daughter of H. B. S., 88.
+
+    Stowe, Henry Ellis, first son of H. B. S., 89;
+      goes to Europe, 269;
+      returns to enter Dartmouth, 278;
+      death of, 315;
+      his character, 317;
+      his portrait, 320;
+      mourning for, 341, 350.
+
+    Stowe, Samuel Charles, sixth child of H. B. S., birth of, 118;
+      death of, 124;
+      anguish at loss of, 198;
+      early death of, 508.
+
+    Study, plans for a, 104.
+
+    Sturge, Joseph, visit to, 223.
+
+    Suffrage, universal, H. W. Beecher advocate of, 477.
+
+    Sumner, Charles, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 196;
+      letter to H. B. S. from, 268.
+
+    Sumter, Fort, H. W. Beecher raises flag on, 477.
+
+    "Sunny Memories," 251;
+      date of, 491.
+
+    Sutherland, Duchess of, 188, 218;
+      friend to America, 228;
+      at Stafford House presents gold bracelet, 233;
+      visit to, 274, 276;
+      fine character, 277;
+      sympathy with on son's death, 319;
+      warm welcome to H. B. S., 346;
+      death of, 410;
+      letters from H. B. S. to, on "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," 188;
+      on death of eldest son, 315.
+
+    Sutherland, Lord, personal appearance of, 232.
+
+    Swedenborg, weary messages from spirit-world of, 486.
+
+    Swiss Alps, visit to, 244;
+      delight in, 246.
+
+    Swiss interest in "Uncle Tom," 244.
+
+    Switzerland, H. B. S. in, 348.
+
+    Sykes, Mrs. See May, Georgiana.
+
+
+    TALFOURD, Mr. Justice, 226.
+
+    Thackeray, W. M., Lowell on, 328.
+
+    Thanksgiving Day in Washington, freed slaves celebrate, 387.
+
+    "Times, London," on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 168;
+      on Mrs. Stowe's new dress, 237;
+      on "Dred," 278;
+      Miss Martineau's criticism on, 310.
+
+    Titcomb, John, aids H. B. S. in moving, 137.
+
+    Tourgee, Judge A. W., his speech at seventieth birthday, 505.
+
+    Trevelyan, Lord and Lady, 231;
+      breakfast to Mrs. Stowe, 234.
+
+    Triqueti, Baron de, models bust of H. B. S., 289.
+
+    Trowbridge, J. T., writes on seventieth birthday, 505.
+
+    "True Story of Lady Byron's Life, The," in "Atlantic Monthly," 447.
+
+    Tupper, M. F., calls on H. B. S., 231.
+
+    "Uncle Tom's Cabin," description of Augustine St. Clair's mother's
+          influence a simple reproduction of Mrs. Lyman Beecher's
+          influence, 5;
+      written under love's impulse, 52;
+      fugitives' escape, foundation of story, 93;
+      popular conception of author of, 127;
+      origin and inspiration of, 145;
+      Prof. Cairnes on, 146;
+      Uncle Tom's death, conception of, 148;
+      letter to Douglas about facts, 149;
+      appears in the "Era," 149, 156;
+      came from heart, 153;
+      a religious work, object of, 154;
+      its power, 155;
+      begins a serial in "National Era," 156;
+      price paid by "Era," 158;
+      publisher's offer, 158;
+      first copy of books sold, 159;
+      wonderful success, 160;
+      praise from Longfellow, Whittier, Garrison, and Higginson, 161,
+          162;
+      threatening letters, 163;
+      Eastman's, Mrs., rejoinder to, 163;
+      reception in England, "Times," on, 168;
+      political effect of, 168, 169;
+      book under interdict in South, 172;
+      "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," 174, 188;
+      Jenny Lind's praise of, 183;
+      attack upon, 187;
+      Sampson Low upon its success abroad, 189;
+      first London publisher, 189;
+      number of editions sold in Great Britain and abroad, 190;
+      dramatized in U.S. and London, 192;
+      European edition, preface to, 192;
+      fact not fiction, 193;
+      translations of, 195;
+      German tribute to, 195;
+      George Sand's review, 196;
+      remuneration for, 202;
+      written with heart's blood, 203;
+      Swiss interest in, 244, 245;
+      Mme. Belloc translates, 247;
+      "North American Review" on, 254;
+      in France, 291;
+      compared with "Dred," 285, 309;
+      J. R. Lowell on, 327, 330;
+      Mrs. Stowe rereads after war, 396;
+      later books compared with, 409;
+      H. W. Beecher's approval of, 476;
+      new edition with introduction sent to George Eliot, 483;
+      date of, 490;
+      Whittier's mention of, in poem on seventieth birthday, 502;
+      Holmes' tribute to, in poem on same occasion, 504.
+
+
+    UPHAM, Mrs., kindness to H. B. S., 133;
+      visit to, 324.
+
+
+    VENICE, 304.
+
+    Victoria, Queen, H. B. S.'s interview with, 270;
+      gives her picture to Geo. Peabody, 496.
+
+    Vizetelly, Henry, first London publisher of "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
+          189, 191.
+
+
+    WAKEFIELD, reading at, 495.
+
+    Walnut Hills, picture of, 65;
+      and old home revisited, 499.
+
+    Waltham, audience inspires reader, 496.
+
+    Washington, Mrs. Stowe visits soldier son at, 366.
+
+    Washington on slavery, 141.
+
+    Water cure, H. B. S. at, 113.
+
+    "We and our Neighbors," date of, 491.
+
+    Webster, Daniel, famous speech of, 143.
+
+    Weld, Theodore D. in the anti-slavery movement, 81.
+
+    Western travel, discomforts of, 498.
+
+    Whately, Archbishop, letter to H. B. S. from, 391.
+
+    Whitney, A. D. T., writes poem on seventieth birthday, 505.
+
+    Whitney, Eli, and the cotton gin, 142.
+
+    Whittier's "Ichabod," a picture of Daniel Webster, 143.
+
+    Whittier, J. G., 157;
+      letter to W. L. Garrison from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 161;
+      letter to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 162;
+      on "Pearl of Orr's Island," 327;
+      on "Minister's Wooing," 327;
+      poem on H. B. S's seventieth birthday, 502.
+
+    Windsor, visit to, 235.
+
+    Womanhood, true, H. B. S. on intellect _versus_ heart, 475.
+
+    Woman's rights, H. W. Beecher, advocate of, 478.
+
+    Women of America, Appeal from H. B. S. to, 255.
+
+    Women's influence, power of, 258.
+
+
+    ZANESVILLE, description of, 499.
+
+
+
+
+_A LIST OF THE WORKS OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+
+
+
+
+NOVELS, STORIES, SKETCHES, AND POEMS, BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+_It is the great happiness of Mrs. Stowe not only to have written many
+delightful books, but to have written one book which will be always
+famous not only as the most vivid picture of an extinct evil system,
+but as one of the most powerful influences in overthrowing it. . . . No
+book was ever more a historical event than "Uncle Tom's Cabin." . . .
+If all whom she has charmed and quickened should unite to sing her
+praises, the birds of summer would be outdone._--GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
+
+
+  _UNCLE TOM'S CABIN._ A Story of American Slavery. 12mo,
+    $2.00.
+
+  New _Popular Edition_ from new plates. With account
+    of the writing of this story by Mrs. STOWE, and
+    frontispiece. 16mo, $1.00.
+
+  _Holiday Edition._ With an Introduction of more
+    than thirty pages by Mrs. STOWE, describing the
+    circumstances under which the story was written, and
+    a Bibliography of the various editions and languages
+    in which the work has appeared, by GEORGE BULLEN,
+    of the British Museum. With more than one hundred
+    illustrations, and red-line border. 8vo, full gilt,
+    $3.00; half calf, $5.00; morocco, or tree calf, $6.00.
+
+The publication of this remarkable story was an event in American
+history as well as in American literature. It fixed the eyes of the
+nation and of the civilized world on the evils of slavery, presenting
+these so vividly and powerfully that the heart and conscience of
+mankind were thenceforth enlisted against them. But, aside from
+its graphic portrayal of slavery, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a story
+of thrilling power, and abounds in humorous delineations of negro
+and Yankee character. Its extraordinary annual sale of thousands of
+copies, and its translation into numerous foreign languages, attest its
+universal and permanent interest.
+
+
+  _DRED (NINA GORDON)._ A Story of Slavery. New Edition
+    from new plates. 12mo, $1.50.
+
+This volume was originally published under the title "Dred." It has a
+close connection with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the object of both being to
+picture life at the South as it was under the regime of slavery.
+
+    "Uncle Tom" and "Dred" will assure Mrs. Stowe a
+    place in that high rank of novelists who can give
+    us a national life in all its phases, popular and
+    aristocratic, humorous and tragic, political and
+    religious.--_Westminster Review_ (London).
+
+
+  _AGNES OF SORRENTO._ An Italian Romance. 12mo, $1.50.
+
+In this story a plot of rare interest is wrought out, amid the glowing
+scenery of Italy, with the author's well-known dramatic skill.
+
+
+  _THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND._ 12mo, $1.50.
+
+The scene of this charming tale is laid upon the coast of Maine. The
+author's familiar knowledge of New England rural life renders the
+volume especially attractive.
+
+    A story of singular pathos and beauty.--_North American
+    Review._
+
+
+  _THE MINISTER'S WOOING._ 12mo, $1.50.
+
+In this volume Mrs. Stowe has reproduced the New England of two
+generations ago. It deals with the noblest and most rugged traits of
+New England character.
+
+
+  _MY WIFE AND I_; or, Harry Henderson's History. New
+    Edition. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.
+
+This book first appeared as a serial in the _Christian Union_, New
+York. The author dedicates it to "the many dear, bright young girls
+whom she is so happy as to number among her choicest friends."
+
+
+  _WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS._ New Edition. Illustrated. 12mo,
+    $1.50.
+
+This is a sequel to "My Wife and I."
+
+
+  _POGANUC PEOPLE._ Their Loves and Lives. New Edition.
+    Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.
+
+A story of a New England town, its men and its manners.
+
+
+  _OLD TOWN FOLKS._ 12mo, $1.50.
+
+    Full to repletion of delicate sketches of very original
+    characters, and clever bits of dialogue, and vivid
+    descriptions of natural scenery.--_The Spectator_
+    (London).
+
+
+  _SAM LAWSON'S OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES._ Illustrated.
+    New Edition, enlarged. 12mo, $1.50.
+
+CONTENTS: The Ghost in the Mill; The Sullivan Looking-Glass; The
+Minister's Housekeeper; The Widow's Bandbox; Captain Kidd's Money;
+"Mis' Elderkin's Pitcher"; The Ghost in the Cap'n Brown House; Colonel
+Eph's Shoe-Buckles; The Bull-Fight; How to Fight the Devil; Laughin' in
+Meetin'; The Toothacre's Ghost Story; The Parson's Horse Race; Oldtown
+Fireside Talks of the Revolution; A Student's Sea Story.
+
+    These stories will prove a mine of genuine fun;
+    pictures of a time, place, and state of society which
+    are like nothing on this side of the world, and
+    which, we suppose, are becoming rapidly erased.--_The
+    Athenaeum_ (London).
+
+
+  _THE MAYFLOWER, AND OTHER SKETCHES._ 12mo, $1.50.
+
+A series of New England sketches, many of which have become household
+stories throughout the land.
+
+The above eleven 12mo volumes, uniform, in box, $16.00.
+
+
+  _LITTLE PUSSY WILLOW, ETC._ Illustrated. Square 12mo, $1.25.
+
+  _A DOG'S MISSION, ETC._ Illustrated. Square 12mo, $1.25.
+
+  _QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE._ Illustrated. Square 12mo, $1.25.
+
+These three Juvenile books, $3.75.
+
+Three collections of delightful stories--the best of reading for young
+folks.
+
+
+  _PALMETTO LEAVES._ Sketches of Florida. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.50.
+
+    Any one who wishes a delightful excursion to the land
+    of flowers has only to turn over these "Palmetto
+    Leaves" and he has it.--_New York Observer._
+
+
+  _HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS_. 16mo, $1.50.
+
+CONTENTS: The Ravages of a Carpet; Home-Keeping _versus_ House-Keeping;
+What is a Home? The Economy of the Beautiful; Raking up the Fire;
+The Lady who does her own Work; What can be got in America; Economy;
+Servants; Cookery; Our House; Home Religion.
+
+    An invaluable volume, and one which should be owned and
+    consulted by every one who has a house, or who wants a
+    home.--_The Congregationalist_ (Boston.)
+
+
+  _LITTLE FOXES._ Common Household Faults. 16mo, $1.50.
+
+    The foxes are,--Fault-Finding, Irritability,
+    Repression, Persistence, Intolerance, Discourtesy,
+    Exactingness. Mrs. Stowe has made essays as
+    entertaining as stories, enlivened with wit,
+    seasoned with sense, glowing with the most kindly
+    feeling.--_Hartford Press._
+
+
+  _THE CHIMNEY CORNER._ 16mo, $1.50.
+
+A series of papers on Woman's Rights and Duties, Health, Amusements,
+Entertainment of Company, Dress, Fashion, Self-Discipline, etc. The
+genial, practical wisdom of these subjects gives this volume great
+value.
+
+These three Household Books, uniform, in box, $4.50.
+
+
+  _RELIGIOUS POEMS._ Illustrated. 16mo, $1.50.
+
+    All characterized by the genius of Mrs. Stowe.... In
+    all, there is a profound appreciation of the _inner
+    life_ of religion,--a wrestling for nearness to
+    God.--_American Christian Review._
+
+
+  _FLOWERS AND FRUIT_, selected from the Writings of
+    Harriet Beecher Stowe. 16mo, $1.00.
+
+    A charming little book ... full of sweet passages,
+    and bright, discerning, wise, and in the best sense
+    of the term, witty sayings of our greatest American
+    novelist.--_Chicago Advance._
+
+
+  _DIALOGUES AND SCENES FROM THE WRITINGS OF MRS. STOWE._
+    For use in School Entertainments. Selected by EMILY
+    WEAVER. In Riverside Literature Series, extra number
+    _E_. 16mo, paper, 15 cents, _net_.
+
+    The selections are from some of Mrs. Stowe's most
+    true-to-life scenes,--full of pathos and mirth.... Nine
+    most charming dialogues.--_School Journal_ (New York).
+
+
+*** _For sale by all Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price
+by the Publishers_,
+
+    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,
+    4 PARK STREET, BOSTON; 11 EAST 17TH STREET, NEW YORK.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 146, repeated word "the" removed from text. Original read (make
+the the whole nation)
+
+Page 179, "propect" changed to "prospect" (over the prospect of raising)
+
+Page 205, "everywere" changed to "everywhere" (affection that
+everywhere)
+
+Page 205, "Frith" changed to "Firth" (of Solway Firth and)
+
+Page 416, "neigbors" changed to "neighbors" (all the neigbors waiting)
+
+Page 437, "nonenity" changed to "nonentity" (old book into nonentity)
+
+Page 438, "aerial" changed to "aerial" (of my aerial visitors)
+
+Page 505, "Tourgee" changed to "Tourgee" (Tourgee and others prominent)
+
+Page 516, Stowe, Catherine, page reference added to (visits Cincinnati
+with father, 54;)
+
+Page 522, Lowell, J. R. "interesti n" changed to "interest in"
+(Sutherland's interest in, 277)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Compiled
+from Her Letters and Journals, by Charles Edward Stowe
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe
+by Charles Edward Stowe
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+Title: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe
+
+Author: Charles Edward Stowe
+
+Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6702]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 17, 2003]
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steve Schulze, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+This file was produced from images generously made available
+by the CWRU Preservation Department Digital Library
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIFE OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
+
+Compiled From
+
+Her Letters and Journals
+
+BY HER SON
+
+CHARLES EDWARD STOWE
+
+
+[Illustration: Handwritten Preface
+
+It seems but fitting, that I should preface this story of my life,
+with a few words of introduction.
+
+The desire to leave behind me some reflection of my life, has been
+cherished by me, for many years past; but failing strength and
+increasing infirmities have prevented its accomplishment.
+
+At my suggestion and with what assistance I have been able to render
+my son Revd. Charles Edward Stow, has compiled from my letters and
+journals, this biography. It is this true story of my own words, and
+has therefore all the force of an autobiography.
+
+It is perhaps much more accurate as to detail & impression than is
+possible with any autobiography, written later in life.
+
+If these pages, shall lead those who read them to a firmer trust in
+God and a deeper sense of this fatherly goodness throughout the days
+of our Earthly pilgrimage I can stay with Valient for Faith in the
+Pilgrim's Progress.
+
+I am going to my Father's & this with great difficulty. I am got
+hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the troubles I have been
+at, to arrive where I am.
+
+My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage & my
+courages & skills to him that can get it.
+
+Hartford Sept. 30 1889
+
+(Signed) Harriet Beecher Stowe]
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT.
+
+I desire to express my thanks here to Harper & Brothers, of New York,
+for permission to use letters already published in the "Autobiography
+and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher." I have availed myself freely of
+this permission in chapters i. and iii. In chapter xx. I have given
+letters already published in the "Life of George Eliot," by Mr. Cross;
+but in every instance I have copied from the original MSS. and not
+from the published work. In conclusion, I desire to express my
+indebtedness to Mr. Kirk Munroe, who has been my co-laborer in the
+work of compilation.
+
+CHARLES E. STOWE.
+
+HARTFORD, _September_ 30, 1889.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHILDHOOD 1811-1824.
+
+DEATH OF HER MOTHER.--FIRST JOURNEY FROM HOME.--LIFE AT NUT PLAINS.--
+SCHOOL DAYS AND HOURS WITH FAVORITE AUTHORS.--THE NEW MOTHER.--
+LITCHFIELD ACADEMY AND ITS INFLUENCE.--FIRST LITERARY EFFORTS.--A
+REMARKABLE COMPOSITION.--GOES TO HARTFORD.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD, 1824-1832.
+
+MISS CATHERINE BEECHER.--PROFESSOR FISHER.--THE WRECK OF THE ALBION
+AND DEATH OF PROFESSOR FISHER.--"THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--MISS
+CATHERINE BEECHER'S SPIRITUAL HISTORY.--MRS. STOWE'S RECOLLECTIONS OF
+HER SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD.--HER CONVERSION.--UNITES WITH THE FIRST
+CHURCH IN HARTFORD.--HER DOUBTS AND SUBSEQUENT RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT.
+--HER FINAL PEACE.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CINCINNATI, 1832-1836.
+
+DR. BEECHER CALLED TO CINCINNATI.--THE WESTWARD JOURNEY.--FIRST LETTER
+FROM HOME.--DESCRIPTION OF WALNUT HILLS.--STARTING A NEW SCHOOL.--
+INWARD GLIMPSES.--THE SEMI-COLON CLUB.--EARLY IMPRESSIONS OF SLAVERY.
+--A JOURNEY TO THE EAST.--THOUGHTS AROUSED BY FIRST VISIT TO NIAGARA.--
+MARRIAGE TO PROFESSOR STOWE.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+EARLY MARRIED LIFE, 1836-1840.
+
+PROFESSOR STOWE'S INTEREST IN POPULAR EDUCATION.--HIS DEPARTURE FOR
+EUROPE.--SLAVERY RIOTS IN CINCINNATI.--BIRTH OF TWIN DAUGHTERS.--
+PROFESSOR STOWE'S RETURN AND VISIT TO COLUMBUS.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--
+AIDING A FUGITIVE SLAVE.--AUTHORSHIP UNDER DIFFICULTIES.--A BEECHER
+ROUND ROBIN.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+POVERTY AND SICKNESS, 1840-1850.
+
+FAMINE IN CINCINNATI.--SUMMER AT THE EAST.--PLANS FOR LITERARY WORK.--
+EXPERIENCE ON A RAILROAD.--DEATH OF HER BROTHER GEORGE.--SICKNESS AND
+DESPAIR.--A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF HEALTH.--GOES TO BRATTLEBORO' WATER-
+CURE.--TROUBLES AT LANE SEMINARY.--CHOLERA IN CINCINNATI.--DEATH OF
+YOUNGEST CHILD.--DETERMINED TO LEAVE THE WEST.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+REMOVAL TO BRUNSWICK, 1850-1852.
+
+MRS. STOWE'S REMARKS ON WRITING AND UNDERSTANDING BIOGRAPHY.--THEIR
+APPROPRIATENESS TO HER OWN BIOGRAPHY.--REASONS FOR PROFESSOR STOWE'S
+LEAVING CINCINNATI.--MRS. STOWE'S JOURNEY TO BROOKLYN.--HER BROTHER'S
+SUCCESS AS A MINISTER.--LETTERS FROM HARTFORD AND BOSTON.--ARRIVES IN
+BRUNSWICK.--HISTORY OF THE SLAVERY AGITATION.--PRACTICAL WORKING OF
+THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.--MRS. EDWARD BEECHER'S LETTER TO MRS. STOWE
+AND ITS EFFECT.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--BEGINS TO WRITE "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN"
+AS A SERIAL FOR THE "NATIONAL ERA."--LETTER TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS.--
+"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" A WORK OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, 1852.
+
+"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AS A SERIAL IN THE "NATIONAL ERA."--AN OFFER FOR
+ITS PUBLICATION IN BOOK FORM.--WILL IT BE A SUCCESS?--AN UNPRECEDENTED
+CIRCULATION.--CONGRATULATORY MESSAGES.--KIND WORDS FROM ABROAD.--MRS.
+STOWE TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--LETTERS FROM AND TO LORD SHAFTESBURY.
+--CORRESPONDENCE WITH ARTHUR HELPS.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+FIRST TRIP TO EUROPE, 1853.
+
+THE EDMONDSONS.--BUYING SLAVES TO SET THEM FREE.--JENNY LIND.--
+PROFESSOR STOWE IS CALLED TO ANDOVER.--FITTING UP THE NEW HOME.--THE
+"KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN."--"UNCLE TOM" ABROAD.--HOW IT WAS PUBLISHED
+IN ENGLAND.--PREFACE TO THE EUROPEAN EDITION.--THE BOOK IN FRANCE.--IN
+GERMANY.--A GREETING FROM CHARLES KINGSLEY.--PREPARING TO VISIT
+SCOTLAND.--LETTER TO MRS. FOLLEN
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SUNNY MEMORIES, 1853.
+
+CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.--ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.--RECEPTION IN LIVERPOOL.--
+WELCOME TO SCOTLAND.--A GLASGOW TEA-PARTY.--EDINBURGH HOSPITALITY.--
+ABERDEEN.--DUNDEE AND BIRMINGHAM.--JOSEPH STURGE.--ELIHU BURRITT.--
+LONDON.--THE LORD MAYOR'S DINNER.--CHARLES DICKENS AND HIS WIFE
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+FROM OVER THE SEA, 1853.
+
+THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--ARTHUR HELPS.--THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF ARGYLL.
+--MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER.--A MEMORABLE MEETING AT STAFFORD HOUSE.--
+MACAULAY AND DEAN MILMAN.--WINDSOR CASTLE.--PROFESSOR STOWE RETURNS TO
+AMERICA.--MRS. STOWE ON THE CONTINENT.--IMPRESSIONS OF PARIS.--EN
+ROUTE TO SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY.--BACK TO ENGLAND.--HOMEWARD BOUND
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+HOME AGAIN, 1853-1856.
+
+ANTI-SLAVERY WORK.--STIRRING TIMES IN THE UNITED STATES.--ADDRESS TO
+THE LADIES OF GLASGOW.--APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA.--
+CORRESPONDENCE WITH WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.--THE WRITING OF "DRED."--
+FAREWELL LETTER FROM GEORGIANA MAY.--SECOND VOYAGE TO ENGLAND.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+DRED, 1856.
+
+SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND.--A GLIMPSE AT THE QUEEN.--THE DUKE OF ARGYLL
+AND INVERARY.--EARLY CORRESPONDENCE WITH LADY BYRON.--DUNROBIN CASTLE
+AND ITS INMATES.--A VISIT TO STOKE PARK.--LORD DUFFERIN.--HARLES
+KINGSLEY AT HOME.--PARIS REVISITED.--MADAME MOHL'S RECEPTIONS
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+OLD SCENES REVISITED, 1856.
+
+EN ROUTE TO ROME.--TRIALS OF TRAVEL.--A MIDNIGHT ARRIVAL AND AN
+INHOSPITABLE RECEPTION.--GLORIES OF THE ETERNAL CITY.--NAPLES AND
+VESUVIUS.--VENICE.--HOLY WEEK IN ROME.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--LETTER
+FROM HARRIET MARTINEAU ON "DRED."--A WORD FROM MR. PRESCOTT ON
+"DRED."--FAREWELL TO LADY BYRON.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE MINISTER'S WOOING, 1857-1859.
+
+DEATH OF MRS. STOWE'S OLDEST SON.--LETTER TO THE DUCHESS OF
+SUTHERLAND.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTERS IN PARIS.--LETTER TO HER SISTER
+CATHERINE.--VISIT TO BRUNSWICK AND ORR'S ISLAND.--WRITES "THE
+MINISTER'S WOOING" AND "THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND."--MR. WHITTIER'S
+COMMENTS.--MR. LOWELL ON "THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--LETTER TO MRS.
+STOWE FROM MR. LOWELL.--JOHN RUSKIN ON "THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--A
+YEAR OF SADNESS.--LETTER TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTER.--
+DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE THIRD TRIP TO EUROPE, 1859.
+
+THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE.--LADY BYRON ON "THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--SOME
+FOREIGN PEOPLE AND THINGS AS THEY APPEARED TO PROFESSOR STOWE.--A
+WINTER IN ITALY.--THINGS UNSEEN AND UNREVEALED.--SPECULATIONS
+CONCERNING SPIRITUALISM.--JOHN RUSKIN.--MRS. BROWNING.--THE RETURN TO
+AMERICA.--LETTERS TO DR. HOLMES
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE CIVIL WAR, 1860-1865.
+
+THE OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR.--MRS. STOWE'S SON ENLISTS.--THANKSGIVING
+DAY IN WASHINGTON.--THE PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION.--REJOICINGS IN
+BOSTON.--FRED STOWE AT GETTYSBURG.--LEAVING ANDOVER AND SETTLING IN
+HARTFORD.--A REPLY TO THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND.--LETTERS FROM JOHN BRIGHT,
+ARCHBISHOP WHATELY, AND NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+FLORIDA, 1865-1869.
+
+LETTER TO DUCHESS OF ARGYLL.--MRS. STOWE DESIRES TO HAVE A HOME AT THE
+SOUTH.--FLORIDA THE BEST FIELD FOR DOING GOOD.--SHE BUYS A PLACE AT
+MANDARIN.--A CHARMING WINTER RESIDENCE--"PALMETTO LEAVES."--EASTER
+SUNDAY AT MANDARIN.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. HOLMES.--"POGANUC
+PEOPLE."--RECEPTIONS IN NEW ORLEANS AND TALLAHASSEE.--LAST WINTER AT
+MANDARIN.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+OLDTOWN FOLKS, 1869.
+
+PROFESSOR STOWE THE ORIGINAL OF "HARRY" IN "OLDTOWN FOLKS."--PROFESSOR
+STOWE'S LETTER TO GEORGE ELIOT.--HER REMARKS ON THE SAME.--PROFESSOR
+STOWE'S NARRATIVE OF HIS YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF SPIRITS.
+--PROFESSOR STOWE'S INFLUENCE ON MRS. STOWE'S LITERARY LIFE.--GEORGE
+ELIOT ON "OLDTOWN FOLKS."
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE BYRON CONTROVERSY, 1869-1870.
+
+MRS. STOWE'S STATEMENT OF HER OWN CASE.--THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH
+SHE FIRST MET LADY BYRON.--LETTERS TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER TO DR.
+HOLMES WHEN ABOUT TO PUBLISH "THE TRUE STORY OF LADY BYRON'S LIFE" IN
+THE "ATLANTIC."--DR. HOLMES'S REPLY.--THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+GEORGE ELIOT.
+
+CORRESPONDENCE WITH GEORGE ELIOT.--GEORGE ELIOT'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF
+MRS. STOWE.--MRS. STOWE'S LETTER TO MRS. FOLLEN.--GEORGE ELIOT'S
+LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--MRS. STOWE'S REPLY.--LIFE IN FLORIDA.--ROBERT
+DALE OWEN AND MODERN SPIRITUALISM.--GEORGE ELIOT'S LETTER ON THE
+PHENOMENA OF SPIRITUALISM.--MRS. STOWE'S DESCRIPTION OF SCENERY IN
+FLORIDA.--MRS. STOWE CONCERNING "MIDDLEMARCH."--GEORGE ELIOT TO MRS.
+STOWE DURING REV. H. W. BEECHER'S TRIAL.--MRS. STOWE CONCERNING HER
+LIFE EXPERIENCE WITH HER BROTHER, H. W. BEECHER, AND His TRIAL.--MRS.
+LEWES' LAST LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--DIVERSE MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF
+THESE TWO WOMEN.--MRS. STOWE'S FINAL ESTIMATE OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+CLOSING SCENES, 1870-1889.
+
+LITERARY LABORS.--COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLISHED BOOKS.--FIRST READING
+TOUR.--PEEPS BEHIND THE CURTAIN.--SOME NEW ENGLAND CITIES.--A LETTER
+FROM MAINE.--PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT READINGS.--SECOND TOUR.--A
+WESTERN JOURNEY.--VISIT TO OLD SCENES.--CELEBRATION OF SEVENTIETH
+BIRTHDAY.--CONGRATULATORY POEMS FROM MR. WHITTIER AND DR. HOLMES.--
+LAST WORDS.
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+PORTRAIT OF MRS. STOWE. From a crayon by Richmond, made in England in
+1853
+
+SILVER INKSTAND PRESENTED TO MRS. STOWE BY HER ENGLISH ADMIRERS IN
+1853
+
+PORTRAIT OF MRS. STOWE'S GRANDMOTHER, ROXANNA FOOTE. From a miniature
+painted on ivory by her daughter, Mrs. Lyman Beecher.
+
+BIRTHPLACE AT LITCHFIELD, CONN.
+
+PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE E. BEECHER. From a photograph taken in 1875
+
+THE HOME AT WALNUT HILLS, CINCINNATI. [Footnote: From recent
+photographs and from views in the Autobiography of Lyman Beecher,
+published by Messrs. Harper & Brothers.]
+
+PORTRAIT OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. From a photograph by Rockwood, in 1884
+
+MANUSCRIPT PAGE OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" (facsimile)
+
+THE ANDOVER HOME. From a painting by F. Rondel, in 1860, owned by Mrs.
+H. F. Allen.
+
+PORTRAIT OF LYMAN BEECHER, AT THE AGE OF EIGHTY-SEVEN. From a painting
+owned by the Boston Congregational Club.
+
+PORTRAIT OF THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND. From an engraving presented to
+Mrs. Stowe.
+
+THE OLD HOME AT HARTFORD
+
+THE HOME AT MANDARIN, FLORIDA
+
+PORTRAIT OF CALVIN ELLIS STOWE. From a photograph taken in 1882
+
+PORTRAIT OF MRS. STOWE. From a photograph by Ritz and Hastings, in
+1884
+
+THE LATER HARTFORD HOME
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHILDHOOD, 1811-1824.
+
+
+DEATH OF HER MOTHER.--FIRST JOURNEY FROM HOME.--LIFE AT NUT PLAINS.--
+SCHOOL DAYS AND HOURS WITH FAVORITE AUTHORS.--THE NEW MOTHER.--
+LITCHFIELD ACADEMY AND ITS INFLUENCE.--FIRST LITERARY EFFORTS.--A
+REMARKABLE COMPOSITION.--GOES TO HARTFORD.
+
+Harriet Beecher (Stowe) was born June 14, 1811, in the characteristic
+New England town of Litchfield, Conn. Her father was the Rev. Dr.
+Lyman Beecher, a distinguished Calvinistic divine, her mother Roxanna
+Foote, his first wife. The little new-comer was ushered into a
+household of happy, healthy children, and found five brothers and
+sisters awaiting her. The eldest was Catherine, born September 6,
+1800. Following her were two sturdy boys, William and Edward; then
+came Mary, then George, and at last Harriet. Another little Harriet
+born three years before had died when only one month old, and the
+fourth daughter was named, in memory of this sister, Harriet Elizabeth
+Beecher. Just two years after Harriet was born, in the same month,
+another brother, Henry Ward, was welcomed to the family circle, and
+after him came Charles, the last of Roxanna Beecher's children.
+
+The first memorable incident of Harriet's life was the death of her
+mother, which occurred when she was four years old, and which ever
+afterwards remained with her as the tenderest, saddest, and most
+sacred memory of her childhood. Mrs. Stowe's recollections of her
+mother are found in a letter to her brother Charles, afterwards
+published in the "Autobiography and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher."
+She says:--
+
+"I was between three and four years of age when our mother died, and
+my personal recollections of her are therefore but few. But the deep
+interest and veneration that she inspired in all who knew her were
+such that during all my childhood I was constantly hearing her spoken
+of, and from one friend or another some incident or anecdote of her
+life was constantly being impressed upon me.
+
+"Mother was one of those strong, restful, yet widely sympathetic
+natures in whom all around seemed to find comfort and repose. The
+communion between her and my father was a peculiar one. It was an
+intimacy throughout the whole range of their being. There was no human
+mind in whose decisions he had greater confidence. Both intellectually
+and morally he regarded her as the better and stronger portion of
+himself, and I remember hearing him say that after her death his first
+sensation was a sort of terror, like that of a child suddenly shut out
+alone in the dark.
+
+"In my own childhood only two incidents of my mother twinkle like rays
+through the darkness. One was of our all running and dancing out
+before her from the nursery to the sitting-room one Sabbath morning,
+and her pleasant voice saying after us, 'Remember the Sabbath day to
+keep it holy, children.'
+
+"Another remembrance is this: mother was an enthusiastic
+horticulturist in all the small ways that limited means allowed. Her
+brother John in New York had just sent her a small parcel of fine
+tulip-bulbs. I remember rummaging these out of an obscure corner of
+the nursery one day when she was gone out, and being strongly seized
+with the idea that they were good to eat, using all the little English
+I then possessed to persuade my brothers that these were onions such
+as grown people ate and would be very nice for us. So we fell to and
+devoured the whole, and I recollect being somewhat disappointed in the
+odd sweetish taste, and thinking that onions were not so nice as I had
+supposed. Then mother's serene face appeared at the nursery door and
+we all ran towards her, telling with one voice of our discovery and
+achievement. We had found a bag of onions and had eaten them all up.
+
+"Also I remember that there was not even a momentary expression of
+impatience, but that she sat down and said, 'My dear children, what
+you have done makes mamma very sorry. Those were not onions but roots
+of beautiful flowers, and if you had let them alone we should have
+next summer in the garden great beautiful red and yellow flowers such
+as you never saw.' I remember how drooping and dispirited we all grew
+at this picture, and how sadly we regarded the empty paper bag.
+
+"Then I have a recollection of her reading aloud to the children Miss
+Edgeworth's 'Frank,' which had just come out, I believe, and was
+exciting a good deal of attention among the educational circles of
+Litchfield. After that came a time when every one said she was sick,
+and I used to be permitted to go once a day into her room, where she
+sat bolstered up in bed. I have a vision of a very fair face with a
+bright red spot on each cheek and her quiet smile. I remember dreaming
+one night that mamma had got well, and of waking with loud transports
+of joy that were hushed down by some one who came into the room. My
+dream was indeed a true one. She was forever well.
+
+"Then came the funeral. Henry was too little to go. I can see his
+golden curls and little black frock as he frolicked in the sun like a
+kitten, full of ignorant joy.
+
+"I recollect the mourning dresses, the tears of the older children,
+the walking to the burial-ground, and somebody's speaking at the
+grave. Then all was closed, and we little ones, to whom it was so
+confused, asked where she was gone and would she never come back.
+
+"They told us at one time that she had been laid in the ground, and at
+another that she had gone to heaven. Thereupon Henry, putting the two
+things together, resolved to dig through the ground and go to heaven
+to find her; for being discovered under sister Catherine's window one
+morning digging with great zeal and earnestness, she called to him to
+know what he was doing. Lifting his curly head, he answered with great
+simplicity, 'Why, I'm going to heaven to find mamma.'
+
+"Although our mother's bodily presence thus disappeared from our
+circle, I think her memory and example had more influence in moulding
+her family, in deterring from evil and exciting to good, than the
+living presence of many mothers. It was a memory that met us
+everywhere, for every person in the town, from the highest to the
+lowest, seemed to have been so impressed by her character and life
+that they constantly reflected some portion of it back upon us.
+
+"The passage in 'Uncle Tom' where Augustine St. Clare describes his
+mother's influence is a simple reproduction of my own mother's
+influence as it has always been felt in her family."
+
+Of his deceased wife Dr. Beecher said: "Few women have attained to
+more remarkable piety. Her faith was strong and her prayer prevailing.
+It was her wish that all her sons should devote themselves to the
+ministry, and to it she consecrated them with fervent prayer. Her
+prayers have been heard. All her sons have been converted and are now,
+according to her wish, ministers of Christ."
+
+Such was Roxanna Beecher, whose influence upon her four-year-old
+daughter was strong enough to mould the whole after-life of the author
+of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." After the mother's death the Litchfield home
+was such a sad, lonely place for the child that her aunt, Harriet
+Foote, took her away for a long visit at her grandmother's at Nut
+Plains, near Guilford, Conn., the first journey from home the little
+one had ever made. Of this visit Mrs. Stowe herself says:--
+
+"Among my earliest recollections are those of a visit to Nut Plains
+immediately after my mother's death. Aunt Harriet Foote, who was with
+mother during all her last sickness, took me home to stay with her. At
+the close of what seemed to me a long day's ride we arrived after dark
+at a lonely little white farmhouse, and were ushered into a large
+parlor where a cheerful wood fire was crackling; I was placed in the
+arms of an old lady, who held me close and wept silently, a thing at
+which I marveled, for my great loss was already faded from my childish
+mind.
+
+"I remember being put to bed by my aunt in a large room, on one side
+of which stood the bed appropriated to her and me, and on the other
+that of my grandmother. My aunt Harriet was no common character. A
+more energetic human being never undertook the education of a child.
+Her ideas of education were those of a vigorous English woman of the
+old school. She believed in the Church, and had she been born under
+that regime would have believed in the king stoutly, although being of
+the generation following the Revolution she was a not less stanch
+supporter of the Declaration of Independence.
+
+[Illustration: Roxanna Foote]
+
+"According to her views little girls were to be taught to move very
+gently, to speak softly and prettily, to say 'yes ma'am,' and 'no
+ma'am,' never to tear their clothes, to sew, to knit at regular hours,
+to go to church on Sunday and make all the responses, and to come home
+and be catechised.
+
+"During these catechisings she used to place my little cousin Mary and
+myself bolt upright at her knee, while black Dinah and Harry, the
+bound boy, were ranged at a respectful distance behind us; for Aunt
+Harriet always impressed it upon her servants 'to order themselves
+lowly and reverently to all their betters,' a portion of the Church
+catechism that always pleased me, particularly when applied to them,
+as it insured their calling me 'Miss Harriet,' and treating me with a
+degree of consideration such as I never enjoyed in the more democratic
+circle at home. I became proficient in the Church catechism, and gave
+my aunt great satisfaction by the old-fashioned gravity and steadiness
+with which I learned to repeat it.
+
+"As my father was a Congregational minister, I believe Aunt Harriet,
+though the highest of High Church women, felt some scruples as to
+whether it was desirable that my religious education should be
+entirely out of the sphere of my birth. Therefore when this
+catechetical exercise was finished she would say, 'Now, niece, you
+have to learn another catechism, because your father is a Presbyterian
+minister,'--and then she would endeavor to make me commit to memory
+the Assembly catechism.
+
+"At this lengthening of exercise I secretly murmured. I was rather
+pleased at the first question in the Church catechism, which is
+certainly quite on the level of any child's understanding,--'What is
+your name?' It was such an easy good start, I could say it so loud and
+clear, and I was accustomed to compare it with the first question in
+the Primer, 'What is the chief end of man?' as vastly more difficult
+for me to answer. In fact, between my aunt's secret unbelief and my
+own childish impatience of too much catechism, the matter was
+indefinitely postponed after a few ineffectual attempts, and I was
+overjoyed to hear her announce privately to grandmother that she
+thought it would be time enough for Harriet to learn the Presbyterian
+catechism when she went home."
+
+Mingled with this superabundance of catechism and plentiful needlework
+the child was treated to copious extracts from Lowth's Isaiah,
+Buchanan's Researches in Asia, Bishop Heber's Life, and Dr. Johnson's
+Works, which, after her Bible and Prayer Book, were her grandmother's
+favorite reading. Harriet does not seem to have fully appreciated
+these; but she did enjoy her grandmother's comments upon their
+biblical readings. Among the Evangelists especially was the old lady
+perfectly at home, and her idea of each of the apostles was so
+distinct and dramatic that she spoke of them as of familiar
+acquaintances. She would, for instance, always smile indulgently at
+Peter's remarks and say, "There he is again, now; that's just like
+Peter. He's always so ready to put in."
+
+It must have been during this winter spent at Nut Plains, amid such
+surroundings, that Harriet began committing to memory that wonderful
+assortment of hymns, poems, and scriptural passages from which in
+after years she quoted so readily and effectively, for her sister
+Catherine, in writing of her the following November, says:--
+
+"Harriet is a very good girl. She has been to school all this summer,
+and has learned to read very fluently. She has committed to memory
+twenty-seven hymns and two long chapters in the Bible. She has a
+remarkably retentive memory and will make a very good scholar."
+
+At this time the child was five years old, and a regular attendant at
+"Ma'am Kilbourne's" school on West Street, to which she walked every
+day hand in hand with her chubby, rosy-faced, bare-footed, four-year-
+old brother, Henry Ward. With the ability to read germinated the
+intense literary longing that was to be hers through life. In those
+days but few books were specially prepared for children, and at six
+years of age we find the little girl hungrily searching for mental
+food amid barrels of old sermons and pamphlets stored in a corner of
+the garret. Here it seemed to her were some thousands of the most
+unintelligible things. "An appeal on the unlawfulness of a man
+marrying his wife's sister" turned up in every barrel she
+investigated, by twos, or threes, or dozens, till her soul despaired
+of finding an end. At last her patient search was rewarded, for at the
+very bottom of a barrel of musty sermons she discovered an ancient
+volume of "The Arabian Nights." With this her fortune was made, for in
+these most fascinating of fairy tales the imaginative child discovered
+a well-spring of joy that was all her own. When things went astray
+with her, when her brothers started off on long excursions, refusing
+to take her with them, or in any other childish sorrow, she had only
+to curl herself up in some snug corner and sail forth on her bit of
+enchanted carpet into fairyland to forget all her griefs.
+
+In recalling her own child-life Mrs. Stowe, among other things,
+describes her father's library, and gives a vivid bit of her own
+experiences within its walls. She says: "High above all the noise of
+the house, this room had to me the air of a refuge and a sanctuary.
+Its walls were set round from floor to ceiling with the friendly,
+quiet faces of books, and there stood my father's great writing-chair,
+on one arm of which lay open always his Cruden's Concordance and his
+Bible. Here I loved to retreat and niche myself down in a quiet corner
+with my favorite books around me. I had a kind of sheltered feeling as
+I thus sat and watched my father writing, turning to his books, and
+speaking from time to time to himself in a loud, earnest whisper. I
+vaguely felt that he was about some holy and mysterious work quite
+beyond my little comprehension, and I was careful never to disturb him
+by question or remark.
+
+"The books ranged around filled me too with a solemn awe. On the lower
+shelves were enormous folios, on whose backs I spelled in black
+letters, 'Lightfoot Opera,' a title whereat I wondered, considering
+the bulk of the volumes. Above these, grouped along in friendly,
+social rows, were books of all sorts, sizes, and bindings, the titles
+of which I had read so often that I knew them by heart. There were
+Bell's Sermons, Bonnett's Inquiries, Bogue's Essays, Toplady on
+Predestination, Boston's Fourfold State, Law's Serious Call, and other
+works of that kind. These I looked over wistfully, day after day,
+without even a hope of getting something interesting out of them. The
+thought that father could read and understand things like these filled
+me with a vague awe, and I wondered if I would ever be old enough to
+know what it was all about.
+
+"But there was one of my father's books that proved a mine of wealth
+to me. It was a happy hour when he brought home and set up in his
+bookcase Cotton Mather's 'Magnalia,' in a new edition of two volumes.
+What wonderful stories those! Stories too about my own country.
+Stories that made me feel the very ground I trod on to be consecrated
+by some special dealing of God's Providence."
+
+[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE AT LITCHFIELD, CONNECTICUT.]
+
+In continuing these reminiscences Mrs. Stowe describes as follows her
+sensations upon first hearing the Declaration of Independence: "I had
+never heard it before, and even now had but a vague idea of what was
+meant by some parts of it. Still I gathered enough from the recital of
+the abuses and injuries that had driven my nation to this course to
+feel myself swelling with indignation, and ready with all my little
+mind and strength to applaud the concluding passage, which Colonel
+Talmadge rendered with resounding majesty. I was as ready as any of
+them to pledge my life, fortune, and sacred honor for such a cause.
+The heroic element was strong in me, having come down by ordinary
+generation from a long line of Puritan ancestry, and just now it made
+me long to do something, I knew not what: to fight for my country, or
+to make some declaration on my own account."
+
+When Harriet was nearly six years old her father married as his second
+wife Miss Harriet Porter of Portland, Maine, and Mrs. Stowe thus
+describes her new mother: "I slept in the nursery with my two younger
+brothers. We knew that father was gone away somewhere on a journey and
+was expected home, therefore the sound of a bustle in the house the
+more easily awoke us. As father came into our room our new mother
+followed him. She was very fair, with bright blue eyes, and soft
+auburn hair bound round with a black velvet bandeau, and to us she
+seemed very beautiful.
+
+"Never did stepmother make a prettier or sweeter impression. The
+morning following her arrival we looked at her with awe. She seemed to
+us so fair, so delicate, so elegant, that we were almost afraid to go
+near her. We must have appeared to her as rough, red-faced, country
+children, honest, obedient, and bashful. She was peculiarly dainty and
+neat in all her ways and arrangements, and I used to feel breezy,
+rough, and rude in her presence.
+
+"In her religion she was distinguished for a most unfaltering Christ-
+worship. She was of a type noble but severe, naturally hard, correct,
+exact and exacting, with intense natural and moral ideality. Had it
+not been that Doctor Payson had set up and kept before her a tender,
+human, loving Christ, she would have been only a conscientious bigot.
+This image, however, gave softness and warmth to her religious life,
+and I have since noticed how her Christ-enthusiasm has sprung up in
+the hearts of all her children."
+
+In writing to her old home of her first impressions of her new one,
+Mrs. Beecher says: "It is a very lovely family, and with heartfelt
+gratitude I observed how cheerful and healthy they were. The sentiment
+is greatly increased, since I perceive them to be of agreeable habits
+and some of them of uncommon intellect."
+
+This new mother proved to be indeed all that the name implies to her
+husband's children, and never did they have occasion to call her aught
+other than blessed.
+
+Another year finds a new baby brother, Frederick by name, added to the
+family. At this time too we catch a characteristic glimpse of Harriet
+in one of her sister Catherine's letters. She says: "Last week we
+interred Tom junior with funeral honors by the side of old Tom of
+happy memory. Our Harriet is chief mourner always at their funerals.
+She asked for what she called an _epithet_ for the gravestone of
+Tom junior, which I gave as follows:--
+
+  "Here lies our Kit,
+  Who had a fit,
+    And acted queer,
+  Shot with a gun,
+  Her race is run,
+    And she lies here."
+
+In June, 1820, little Frederick died from scarlet fever, and Harriet
+was seized with a violent attack of the same dread disease; but, after
+a severe struggle, recovered.
+
+Following her happy, hearty child-life, we find her tramping through
+the woods or going on fishing excursions with her brothers, sitting
+thoughtfully in her father's study, listening eagerly to the animated
+theological discussions of the day, visiting her grandmother at Nut
+Plains, and figuring as one of the brightest scholars in the
+Litchfield Academy, taught by Mr. John Brace and Miss Pierce. When she
+was eleven years old her brother Edward wrote of her: "Harriet reads
+everything she can lay hands on, and sews and knits diligently."
+
+At this time she was no longer the youngest girl of the family, for
+another sister (Isabella) had been born in 1822. This event served
+greatly to mature her, as she was intrusted with much of the care of
+the baby out of school hours. It was not, however, allowed to
+interfere in any way with her studies, and, under the skillful
+direction of her beloved teachers, she seemed to absorb knowledge with
+every sense. She herself writes: "Much of the training and inspiration
+of my early days consisted not in the things that I was supposed to be
+studying, but in hearing, while seated unnoticed at my desk, the
+conversation of Mr. Brace with the older classes. There, from hour to
+hour, I listened with eager ears to historical criticisms and
+discussions, or to recitations in such works as Paley's Moral
+Philosophy, Blair's Rhetoric, Allison on Taste, all full of most
+awakening suggestions to my thoughts.
+
+"Mr. Brace exceeded all teachers I ever knew in the faculty of
+teaching composition. The constant excitement in which he kept the
+minds of his pupils, the wide and varied regions of thought into which
+he led them, formed a preparation for composition, the main requisite
+for which is to have something which one feels interested to say."
+
+In her tenth year Harriet began what to her was the fascinating work
+of writing compositions, and so rapidly did she progress that at the
+school exhibition held when she was twelve years old, hers was one of
+the two or three essays selected to be read aloud before the august
+assembly of visitors attracted by the occasion.
+
+Of this event Mrs. Stowe writes: "I remember well the scene at that
+exhibition, to me so eventful. The hall was crowded with all the
+literati of Litchfield. Before them all our compositions were read
+aloud. When mine was read I noticed that father, who was sitting on
+high by Mr. Brace, brightened and looked interested, and at the close
+I heard him ask, 'Who wrote that composition?' 'Your daughter, sir,'
+was the answer. It was the proudest moment of my life. There was no
+mistaking father's face when he was pleased, and to have interested
+him was past all juvenile triumphs."
+
+That composition has been carefully preserved, and on the old yellow
+sheets the cramped childish hand-writing is still distinctly legible.
+As the first literary production of one who afterwards attained such
+distinction as a writer, it is deemed of sufficient value and interest
+to be embodied in this biography exactly as it was written and read
+sixty-five years ago. The subject was certainly a grave one to be
+handled by a child of twelve.
+
+CAN THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL BE PROVED BY THE LIGHT OF NATURE?
+
+It has justly been concluded by the philosophers of every age that
+"The proper study of mankind is man," and his nature and composition,
+both physical and mental, have been subjects of the most critical
+examination. In the course of these researches many have been at a
+loss to account for the change which takes place in the body at the
+time of death. By some it has been attributed to the flight of its
+tenant, and by others to its final annihilation.
+
+The questions, "What becomes of the soul at the time of death?" and,
+if it be not annihilated, "What is its destiny after death?" are those
+which, from the interest that we all feel in them, will probably
+engross universal attention.
+
+In pursuing these inquiries it will be necessary to divest ourselves
+of all that knowledge which we have obtained from the light which
+revelation has shed over them, and place ourselves in the same
+position as the philosophers of past ages when considering the same
+subject.
+
+The first argument which has been advanced to prove the immortality of
+the soul is drawn from the nature of the mind itself. It has (say the
+supporters of this theory) no composition of parts, and therefore, as
+there are no particles, is not susceptible of divisibility and cannot
+be acted upon by decay, and therefore if it will not decay it will
+exist forever.
+
+Now because the mind is not susceptible of decay effected in the
+ordinary way by a gradual separation of particles, affords no proof
+that that same omnipotent power which created it cannot by another
+simple exertion of power again reduce it to nothing. The only reason
+for belief which this argument affords is that the soul cannot be
+acted upon by decay. But it does not prove that it cannot destroy its
+existence. Therefore, for the validity of this argument, it must
+either be proved that the "Creator" has not the power to destroy it,
+or that he has not the will; but as neither of these can be
+established, our immortality is left dependent on the pleasure of the
+Creator. But it is said that it is evident that the Creator designed
+the soul for immortality, or he would never have created it so
+essentially different from the body, for had they both been designed
+for the same end they would both have been created alike, as there
+would have been no object in forming them otherwise. This only proves
+that the soul and body had not the same destinations. Now of what
+these destinations are we know nothing, and after much useless
+reasoning we return where we began, our argument depending upon the
+good pleasure of the Creator.
+
+And here it is said that a being of such infinite wisdom and
+benevolence as that of which the Creator is possessed would not have
+formed man with such vast capacities and boundless desires, and would
+have given him no opportunity for exercising them.
+
+In order to establish the validity of this argument it is necessary to
+prove by the light of Nature that the Creator is benevolent, which,
+being impracticable, is of itself sufficient to render the argument
+invalid.
+
+But the argument proceeds upon the supposition that to destroy the
+soul would be unwise. Now this is arraigning the "All-wise" before the
+tribunal of his subjects to answer for the mistakes in his government.
+Can we look into the council of the "Unsearchable" and see what means
+are made to answer their ends? We do not know but the destruction of
+the soul may, in the government of God, be made to answer such a
+purpose that its existence would be contrary to the dictates of
+wisdom.
+
+The great desire of the soul for immortality, its secret, innate
+horror of annihilation, has been brought to prove its immortality. But
+do we always find this horror or this desire? Is it not much more
+evident that the great majority of mankind have no such dread at all?
+True that there is a strong feeling of horror excited by the idea of
+perishing from the earth and being forgotten, of losing all those
+honors and all that fame awaited them. Many feel this secret horror
+when they look down upon the vale of futurity and reflect that though
+now the idols of the world, soon all which will be left them will be
+the common portion of mankind--oblivion! But this dread does not arise
+from any idea of their destiny beyond the tomb, and even were this
+true, it would afford no proof that the mind would exist forever,
+merely from its strong desires. For it might with as much correctness
+be argued that the body will exist forever because we have a great
+dread of dying, and upon this principle nothing which we strongly
+desire would ever be withheld from us, and no evil that we greatly
+dread will ever come upon us, a principle evidently false.
+
+Again, it has been said that the constant progression of the powers of
+the mind affords another proof of its immortality. Concerning this,
+Addison remarks, "Were a human soul ever thus at a stand in her
+acquirements, were her faculties to be full blown and incapable of
+further enlargement, I could imagine that she might fall away
+insensibly and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we
+believe a thinking being that is in a perpetual progress of
+improvement, and traveling on from perfection to perfection after
+having just looked abroad into the works of her Creator and made a few
+discoveries of his infinite wisdom and goodness, must perish at her
+first setting out and in the very beginning of her inquiries?"
+
+In answer to this it may be said that the soul is not always
+progressing in her powers. Is it not rather a subject of general
+remark that those brilliant talents which in youth expand, in manhood
+become stationary, and in old age gradually sink to decay? Till when
+the ancient man descends to the tomb scarce a wreck of that once
+powerful mind remains.
+
+Who, but upon reading the history of England, does not look with awe
+upon the effects produced by the talents of her Elizabeth? Who but
+admires that undaunted firmness in time of peace and that profound
+depth of policy which she displayed in the cabinet? Yet behold the
+tragical end of this learned, this politic princess! Behold the
+triumphs of age and sickness over her once powerful talents, and say
+not that the faculties of man are always progressing in their powers.
+
+From the activity of the mind at the hour of death has also been
+deduced its immortality. But it is not true that the mind is always
+active at the time of death. We find recorded in history numberless
+instances of those talents, which were once adequate to the government
+of a nation, being so weakened and palsied by the touch of sickness as
+scarcely to tell to beholders what they once were. The talents of the
+statesman, the wisdom of the sage, the courage and might of the
+warrior, are instantly destroyed by it, and all that remains of them
+is the waste of idiocy or the madness of insanity.
+
+Some minds there are who at the time of death retain their faculties
+though much impaired, and if the argument be valid these are the only
+cases where immortality is conferred. Again, it is urged that the
+inequality of rewards and punishments in this world demand another in
+which virtue may be rewarded and vice punished. This argument, in the
+first place, takes for its foundation that by the light of nature the
+distinction between virtue and vice can be discovered. By some this is
+absolutely disbelieved, and by all considered as extremely doubtful.
+And, secondly, it puts the Creator under an obligation to reward and
+punish the actions of his creatures. No such obligation exists, and
+therefore the argument cannot be valid. And this supposes the Creator
+to be a being of justice, which cannot by the light of nature be
+proved, and as the whole argument rests upon this foundation it
+certainly cannot be correct.
+
+This argument also directly impeaches the wisdom of the Creator, for
+the sense of it is this,--that, forasmuch as he was not able to manage
+his government in this world, he must have another in which to rectify
+the mistakes and oversights of this, and what an idea would this give
+us of our All-wise Creator?
+
+It is also said that all nations have some conceptions of a future
+state, that the ancient Greeks and Romans believed in it, that no
+nation has been found but have possessed some idea of a future state
+of existence. But their belief arose more from the fact that they
+wished it to be so than from any real ground of belief; for arguments
+appear much more plausible when the mind wishes to be convinced. But
+it is said that every nation, however circumstanced, possess some idea
+of a future state. For this we may account by the fact that it was
+handed down by tradition from the time of the flood. From all these
+arguments, which, however plausible at first sight, are found to be
+futile, may be argued the necessity of a revelation. Without it, the
+destiny of the noblest of the works of God would have been left in
+obscurity. Never till the blessed light of the Gospel dawned on the
+borders of the pit, and the heralds of the Cross proclaimed "Peace on
+earth and good will to men," was it that bewildered and misled man was
+enabled to trace his celestial origin and glorious destiny.
+
+The sun of the Gospel has dispelled the darkness that has rested on
+objects beyond the tomb. In the Gospel man learned that when the dust
+returned to dust the spirit fled to the God who gave it. He there
+found that though man has lost the image of his divine Creator, he is
+still destined, after this earthly house of his tabernacle is
+dissolved, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth
+not away, to a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
+
+Soon after the writing of this remarkable composition, Harriet's
+child-life in Litchfield came to an end, for that same year she went
+to Hartford to pursue her studies in a school which had been recently
+established by her sister Catherine in that city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD, 1824-1832.
+
+
+MISS CATHERINE BEECHER.--PROFESSOR FISHER.--THE WRECK OF THE ALBION
+AND DEATH OF PROFESSOR FISHER.--"THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--MISS
+CATHERINE BEECHER'S SPIRITUAL HISTORY.--MRS. STOWE'S RECOLLECTIONS OF
+HER SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD.--HER CONVERSION.--UNITES WITH THE FIRST
+CHURCH IN HARTFORD.--HER DOUBTS AND SUBSEQUENT RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT.
+--HER FINAL PEACE.
+
+The school days in Hartford began a new era in Harriet's life. It was
+the formative period, and it is therefore important to say a few words
+concerning her sister Catherine, under whose immediate supervision she
+was to continue her education. In fact, no one can comprehend either
+Mrs. Stowe or her writings without some knowledge of the life and
+character of this remarkable woman, whose strong, vigorous mind and
+tremendous personality indelibly stamped themselves on the sensitive,
+yielding, dreamy, and poetic nature of the younger sister. Mrs. Stowe
+herself has said that the two persons who most strongly influenced her
+at this period of her life were her brother Edward and her sister
+Catherine.
+
+Catherine was the oldest child of Lyman Beecher and Roxanna Foote, his
+wife. In a little battered journal found among her papers is a short
+sketch of her life, written when she was seventy-six years of age. In
+a tremulous hand she begins: "I was born at East Hampton, L. I.,
+September 5, 1800, at 5 P.M., in the large parlor opposite father's
+study. Don't remember much about it myself." The sparkle of wit in
+this brief notice of the circumstances of her birth is very
+characteristic. All through her life little ripples of fun were
+continually playing on the surface of that current of intense thought
+and feeling in which her deep, earnest nature flowed.
+
+When she was ten years of age her father removed to Litchfield, Conn.,
+and her happy girlhood was passed in that place. Her bright and
+versatile mind and ready wit enabled her to pass brilliantly through
+her school days with but little mental exertion, and those who knew
+her slightly might have imagined her to be only a bright, thoughtless,
+light-hearted girl. In Boston, at the age of twenty, she took lessons
+in music and drawing, and became so proficient in these branches as to
+secure a position as teacher in a young ladies' school, kept by a Rev.
+Mr. Judd, an Episcopal clergyman, at New London, Conn. About this time
+she formed the acquaintance of Professor Alexander Metcalf Fisher, of
+Yale College, one of the most distinguished young men in New England.
+In January of the year 1822 they became engaged, and the following
+spring Professor Fisher sailed for Europe to purchase books and
+scientific apparatus for the use of his department in the college.
+
+In his last letter to Miss Beecher, dated March 31, 1822, he writes:--
+
+"I set out at 10 precisely to-morrow, in the Albion for Liverpool; the
+ship has no superior in the whole number of excellent vessels
+belonging to this port, and Captain Williams is regarded as first on
+their list of commanders. The accommodations are admirable--fare $140.
+Unless our ship should speak some one bound to America on the passage,
+you will probably not hear from me under two months."
+
+Before two months had passed came vague rumors of a terrible shipwreck
+on the coast of Ireland. Then the tidings that the Albion was lost.
+Then came a letter from Mr. Pond, at Kinsale, Ireland, dated May 2,
+1822:--
+
+"You have doubtless heard of the shipwreck of the Albion packet of New
+York, bound to Liverpool. It was a melancholy shipwreck. It happened
+about four o'clock on the morning of the 22d of April. Professor
+Fisher, of Yale College, was one of the passengers. Out of twenty-
+three cabin passengers, but one reached the shore. He is a Mr.
+Everhart, of Chester County, Pennsylvania. He informs me that
+Professor Fisher was injured by things that fetched away in the cabin
+at the time the ship was knocked down. This was between 8 and 9
+o'clock in the evening of the twenty-first. Mr. Fisher, though badly
+bruised, was calm and resolute, and assisted Captain Williams by
+taking the injured compass to his berth and repairing it. About five
+minutes before the vessel struck Captain Williams informed the
+passengers of their danger, and all went on deck except Professor
+Fisher, who remained sitting in his berth. Mr. Everhart was the last
+person who left the cabin, and the last who ever saw Professor Fisher
+alive."
+
+I should not have spoken of this incident of family history with such
+minuteness, except for the fact that it is so much a part of Mrs.
+Stowe's life as to make it impossible to understand either her
+character or her most important works without it. Without this
+incident "The Minister's Wooing" never would have been written, for
+both Mrs. Marvyn's terrible soul struggles and old Candace's direct
+and effective solution of all religious difficulties find their origin
+in this stranded, storm-beaten ship on the coast of Ireland, and the
+terrible mental conflicts through which her sister afterward passed,
+for she believed Professor Fisher eternally lost. No mind more
+directly and powerfully influenced Harriet's than that of her sister
+Catherine, unless it was her brother Edward's, and that which acted
+with such overwhelming power on the strong, unyielding mind of the
+older sister must have, in time, a permanent and abiding influence on
+the mind of the younger.
+
+After Professor Fisher's death his books came into Miss Beecher's
+possession, and among them was a complete edition of Scott's works. It
+was an epoch in the family history when Doctor Beecher came down-
+stairs one day with a copy of "Ivanhoe" in his hand, and said: "I have
+always said that my children should not read novels, but they must
+read these."
+
+The two years following the death of Professor Fisher were passed by
+Miss Catherine Beecher at Franklin, Mass., at the home of Professor
+Fisher's parents, where she taught his two sisters, studied
+mathematics with his brother Willard, and listened to Doctor Emmons'
+fearless and pitiless preaching. Hers was a mind too strong and
+buoyant to be crushed and prostrated by that which would have driven a
+weaker and less resolute nature into insanity. Of her it may well be
+said:--
+
+  "She faced the spectres of the mind
+  And laid them, thus she came at length
+  To find a stronger faith her own."
+
+Gifted naturally with a capacity for close metaphysical analysis and a
+robust fearlessness in following her premises to a logical conclusion,
+she arrived at results startling and original, if not always of
+permanent value.
+
+In 1840 she published in the "Biblical Repository" an article on Free
+Agency, which has been acknowledged by competent critics as the ablest
+refutation of Edwards on "The Will" which has appeared. An amusing
+incident connected with this publication may not be out of place here.
+A certain eminent theological professor of New England, visiting a
+distinguished German theologian and speaking of this production, said:
+"The ablest refutation of Edwards on 'The Will' which was ever written
+is the work of a woman, the daughter of Dr. Lyman Beecher." The worthy
+Teuton raised both hands in undisguised astonishment. "You have a
+woman that can write an able refutation of Edwards on 'The Will'? God
+forgive Christopher Columbus for discovering America!"
+
+Not finding herself able to love a God whom she thought of in her own
+language as "a perfectly happy being, unmoved by my sorrows or tears,
+and looking upon me only with dislike and aversion," she determined
+"to find happiness in living to do good." "It was right to pray and
+read the Bible, so I prayed and read. It was right to try to save
+others, so I labored for their salvation. I never had any fear of
+punishment or hope of reward all these years." She was tormented with
+doubts. "What has the Son of God done which the meanest and most
+selfish creature upon earth would not have done? After making such a
+wretched race and placing them in such disastrous circumstances,
+somehow, without any sorrow or trouble, Jesus Christ had a human
+nature that suffered and died. If something else besides ourselves
+will do all the suffering, who would not save millions of wretched
+beings and receive all the honor and gratitude without any of the
+trouble? Sometimes when such thoughts passed through my mind, I felt
+that it was all pride, rebellion, and sin."
+
+So she struggles on, sometimes floundering deep in the mire of doubt,
+and then lifted for the moment above it by her naturally buoyant
+spirits, and general tendency to look on the bright side of things. In
+this condition of mind, she came to Hartford in the winter of 1824,
+and began a school with eight scholars, and it was in the practical
+experience of teaching that she found a final solution of all her
+difficulties. She continues:--
+
+"After two or three years I commenced giving instruction in mental
+philosophy, and at the same time began a regular course of lectures
+and instructions from the Bible, and was much occupied with plans for
+governing my school, and in devising means to lead my pupils to become
+obedient, amiable, and pious. By degrees I finally arrived at the
+following principles in the government of my school:--
+
+"First. It is indispensable that my scholars should feel that I am
+sincerely and deeply interested in their best happiness, and the more
+I can convince them of this, the more ready will be their obedience.
+
+"Second. The preservation of authority and order depends upon the
+certainty that unpleasant consequences to themselves will inevitably
+be the result of doing wrong.
+
+"Third. It is equally necessary, to preserve my own influence and
+their affection, that they should feel that punishment is the natural
+result of wrong-doing in such a way that they shall regard themselves,
+instead of me, as the cause of their punishment.
+
+"Fourth. It is indispensable that my scholars should see that my
+requisitions are reasonable. In the majority of cases this can be
+shown, and in this way such confidence will be the result that they
+will trust to my judgment and knowledge, in cases where no explanation
+can be given.
+
+"Fifth. The more I can make my scholars feel that I am actuated by a
+spirit of self-denying benevolence, the more confidence they will feel
+in me, and the more they will be inclined to submit to self-denying
+duties for the good of others.
+
+"After a while I began to compare my experience with the government of
+God. I finally got through the whole subject, and drew out the
+results, and found that all my difficulties were solved and all my
+darkness dispelled."
+
+Her solution in brief is nothing more than that view of the divine
+nature which was for so many years preached by her brother, Henry Ward
+Beecher, and set forth in the writings of her sister Harriet,--the
+conception of a being of infinite love, patience, and kindness who
+suffers with man. The sufferings of Christ on the cross were not the
+sufferings of his human nature merely, but the sufferings of the
+divine nature in Him. In Christ we see the only revelation of God, and
+that is the revelation of one that suffers. This is the fundamental
+idea in "The Minister's Wooing," and it is the idea of God in which
+the storm-tossed soul of the older sister at last found rest. All this
+was directly opposed to that fundamental principle of theologians that
+God, being the infinitely perfect Being, cannot suffer, because
+suffering indicates imperfection. To Miss Beecher's mind the lack of
+ability to suffer with his suffering creatures was a more serious
+imperfection. Let the reader turn to the twenty-fourth chapter of "The
+Minister's Wooing" for a complete presentation of this subject,
+especially the passage that begins, "Sorrow is divine: sorrow is
+reigning on the throne of the universe."
+
+In the fall of the year 1824, while her sister Catherine was passing
+through the soul crisis which we have been describing, Harriet came to
+the school that she had recently established.
+
+In a letter to her son written in 1886, speaking of this period of her
+life, Mrs. Stowe says: "Somewhere between my twelfth and thirteenth
+year I was placed under the care of my elder sister Catherine, in the
+school that she had just started in Hartford, Connecticut. When I
+entered the school there were not more than twenty-five scholars in
+it, but it afterwards numbered its pupils by the hundreds. The school-
+room was on Main Street, nearly opposite Christ Church, over Sheldon &
+Colton's harness store, at the sign of the two white horses. I never
+shall forget the pleasure and surprise which these two white horses
+produced in my mind when I first saw them. One of the young men who
+worked in the rear of the harness store had a most beautiful tenor
+voice, and it was my delight to hear him singing in school hours :--
+
+  'When in cold oblivion's shade
+  Beauty, wealth, and power are laid,
+  When, around the sculptured shrine,
+  Moss shall cling and ivy twine,
+  Where immortal spirits reign,
+  There shall we all meet again.'
+
+"As my father's salary was inadequate to the wants of his large
+family, the expense of my board in Hartford was provided for by a
+species of exchange. Mr. Isaac D. Bull sent a daughter to Miss
+Pierce's seminary in Litchfield, and she boarded in my father's family
+in exchange for my board in her father's family. If my good, refined,
+neat, particular stepmother could have chosen, she could not have
+found a family more exactly suited to her desires. The very soul of
+neatness and order pervaded the whole establishment. Mr. I. D. Bull
+was a fine, vigorous, white-haired man on the declining slope of life,
+but full of energy and of kindness. Mr. Samuel Collins, a neighbor who
+lived next door, used to frequently come in and make most impressive
+and solemn calls on Miss Mary Anne Bull, who was a brunette and a
+celebrated beauty of the day. I well remember her long raven curls
+falling from the comb that held them up on the top of her head. She
+had a rich soprano voice, and was the leading singer in the Centre
+Church choir. The two brothers also had fine, manly voices, and the
+family circle was often enlivened by quartette singing and flute
+playing. Mr. Bull kept a very large wholesale drug store on Front
+Street, in which his two sons, Albert and James, were clerks. The
+oldest son, Watson Bull, had established a retail drug store at the
+sign of the 'Good Samaritan.' A large picture of the Good Samaritan
+relieving the wounded traveler formed a striking part of the sign, and
+was contemplated by me with reverence.
+
+[Illustration: Catherine E. Beecher]
+
+"The mother of the family gave me at once a child's place in her
+heart. A neat little hall chamber was allotted to me for my own, and a
+well made and kept single bed was given me, of which I took daily care
+with awful satisfaction. If I was sick nothing could exceed the
+watchful care and tender nursing of Mrs. Bull. In school my two most
+intimate friends were the leading scholars. They had written to me
+before I came and I had answered their letters, and on my arrival they
+gave me the warmest welcome. One was Catherine Ledyard Cogswell,
+daughter of the leading and best-beloved of Hartford physicians. The
+other was Georgiana May, daughter of a most lovely Christian woman who
+was a widow. Georgiana was one of many children, having two younger
+sisters, Mary and Gertrude, and several brothers. Catherine Cogswell
+was one of the most amiable, sprightly, sunny-tempered individuals I
+have ever known. She was, in fact, so much beloved that it was
+difficult for me to see much of her. Her time was all bespoken by
+different girls. One might walk with her to school, another had the
+like promise on the way home. And at recess, of which we had every day
+a short half hour, there was always a suppliant at Katy's shrine, whom
+she found it hard to refuse. Yet, among all these claimants, she did
+keep a little place here and there for me. Georgiana was older and
+graver, and less fascinating to the other girls, but between her and
+me there grew up the warmest friendship, which proved lifelong in its
+constancy.
+
+"Catherine and Georgiana were reading 'Virgil' when I came to the
+school. I began the study of Latin alone, and at the end of the first
+year made a translation of 'Ovid' in verse, which was read at the
+final exhibition of the school, and regarded, I believe, as a very
+creditable performance. I was very much interested in poetry, and it
+was my dream to be a poet. I began a drama called 'Cleon.' The scene
+was laid in the court and time of the emperor Nero, and Cleon was a
+Greek lord residing at Nero's court, who, after much searching and
+doubting, at last comes to the knowledge of Christianity. I filled
+blank book after blank book with this drama. It filled my thoughts
+sleeping and waking. One day sister Catherine pounced down upon me,
+and said that I must not waste my time writing poetry, but discipline
+my mind by the study of Butler's 'Analogy.' So after this I wrote out
+abstracts from the 'Analogy,' and instructed a class of girls as old
+as myself, being compelled to master each chapter just ahead of the
+class I was teaching. About this time I read Baxter's 'Saint's Rest.'
+I do not think any book affected me more powerfully. As I walked the
+pavements I used to wish that they might sink beneath me if only I
+might find myself in heaven. I was at the same time very much
+interested in Butler's 'Analogy,' for Mr. Brace used to lecture on
+such themes when I was at Miss Pierce's school at Litchfield. I also
+began the study of French and Italian with a Miss Degan, who was born
+in Italy.
+
+"It was about this time that I first believed myself to be a
+Christian. I was spending my summer vacation at home, in Litchfield. I
+shall ever remember that dewy, fresh summer morning. I knew that it
+was a sacramental Sunday, and thought with sadness that when all the
+good people should take the sacrificial bread and wine I should be
+left out. I tried hard to feel my sins and count them up; but what
+with the birds, the daisies, and the brooks that rippled by the way,
+it was impossible. I came into church quite dissatisfied with myself,
+and as I looked upon the pure white cloth, the snowy bread and shining
+cups, of the communion table, thought with a sigh: 'There won't be
+anything for me to-day; it is all for these grown-up Christians.'
+Nevertheless, when father began to speak, I was drawn to listen by a
+certain pathetic earnestness in his voice. Most of father's sermons
+were as unintelligible to me as if he had spoken in Choctaw. But
+sometimes he preached what he was accustomed to call a 'frame sermon;'
+that is, a sermon that sprung out of the deep feeling of the occasion,
+and which consequently could be neither premeditated nor repeated. His
+text was taken from the Gospel of John, the declaration of Jesus:
+'Behold, I call you no longer servants, but friends.' His theme was
+Jesus as a soul friend offered to every human being.
+
+"Forgetting all his hair-splitting distinctions and dialectic
+subtleties, he spoke in direct, simple, and tender language of the
+great love of Christ and his care for the soul. He pictured Him as
+patient with our errors, compassionate with our weaknesses, and
+sympathetic for our sorrows. He went on to say how He was ever near
+us, enlightening our ignorance, guiding our wanderings, comforting our
+sorrows with a love unwearied by faults, unchilled by ingratitude,
+till at last He should present us faultless before the throne of his
+glory with exceeding joy.
+
+"I sat intent and absorbed. Oh! how much I needed just such a friend,
+I thought to myself. Then the awful fact came over me that I had never
+had any conviction of my sins, and consequently could not come to Him.
+I longed to cry out 'I will,' when father made his passionate appeal,
+'Come, then, and trust your soul to this faithful friend.' Like a
+flash it came over me that if I needed conviction of sin, He was able
+to give me even this also. I would trust Him for the whole. My whole
+soul was illumined with joy, and as I left the church to walk home, it
+seemed to me as if Nature herself were hushing her breath to hear the
+music of heaven.
+
+"As soon as father came home and was seated in his study, I went up to
+him and fell in his arms saying, 'Father, I have given myself to
+Jesus, and He has taken me.' I never shall forget the expression of
+his face as he looked down into my earnest, childish eyes; it was so
+sweet, so gentle, and like sunlight breaking out upon a landscape. 'Is
+it so?' he said, holding me silently to his heart, as I felt the hot
+tears fall on my head. 'Then has a new flower blossomed in the kingdom
+this day.'"
+
+If she could have been let alone, and taught "to look up and not down,
+forward and not back, out and not in," this religious experience might
+have gone on as sweetly and naturally as the opening of a flower in
+the gentle rays of the sun. But unfortunately this was not possible at
+that time, when self-examination was carried to an extreme that was
+calculated to drive a nervous and sensitive mind well-nigh distracted.
+First, even her sister Catherine was afraid that there might be
+something wrong in the case of a lamb that had come into the fold
+without being first chased all over the lot by the shepherd; great
+stress being laid, in those days, on what was called "being under
+conviction." Then also the pastor of the First Church in Hartford, a
+bosom friend of Dr. Beecher, looked with melancholy and suspicious
+eyes on this unusual and doubtful path to heaven,--but more of this
+hereafter. Harriet's conversion took place in the summer of 1825, when
+she was fourteen, and the following year, April, 1826, Dr. Beecher
+resigned his pastorate in Litchfield to accept a call to the Hanover
+Street Church, Boston, Mass. In a letter to her grandmother Foote at
+Guilford, dated Hartford, March 4, 1826, Harriet writes:--
+
+"You have probably heard that our home in Litchfield is broken up.
+Papa has received a call to Boston, and concluded to accept, because
+he could not support his family in Litchfield. He was dismissed last
+week Tuesday, and will be here (Hartford) next Tuesday with mamma and
+Isabel. Aunt Esther will take Charles and Thomas to her house for the
+present. Papa's salary is to be $2,000 and $500 settlement.
+
+"I attend school constantly and am making some progress in my studies.
+I devote most of my attention to Latin and to arithmetic, and hope
+soon to prepare myself to assist Catherine in the school."
+
+This breaking up of the Litchfield home led Harriet, under her
+father's advice, to seek to connect herself with the First Church of
+Hartford. Accordingly, accompanied by two of her school friends, she
+went one day to the pastor's study to consult with him concerning the
+contemplated step. The good man listened attentively to the child's
+simple and modest statement of Christian experience, and then with an
+awful, though kindly, solemnity of speech and manner said, "Harriet,
+do you feel that if the universe should be destroyed (awful pause) you
+could be happy with God alone?" After struggling in vain, in her
+mental bewilderment, to fix in her mind some definite conception of
+the meaning of the sounds which fell on her ear like the measured
+strokes of a bell, the child of fourteen stammered out, "Yes, sir."
+
+"You realize, I trust," continued the doctor, "in some measure at
+least, the deceitfulness of your heart, and that in punishment for
+your sins God might justly leave you to make yourself as miserable as
+you have made yourself sinful?"
+
+"Yes, sir," again stammered Harriet.
+
+Having thus effectually, and to his own satisfaction, fixed the
+child's attention on the morbid and over-sensitive workings of her own
+heart, the good and truly kind-hearted man dismissed her with a
+fatherly benediction. But where was the joyous ecstasy of that
+beautiful Sabbath morning of a year ago? Where was that heavenly
+friend? Yet was not this as it should be, and might not God leave her
+"to make herself as miserable as she had made herself sinful"?
+
+In a letter addressed to her brother Edward, about this time, she
+writes: "My whole life is one continued struggle: I do nothing right.
+I yield to temptation almost as soon as it assails me. My deepest
+feelings are very evanescent. I am beset behind and before, and my
+sins take away all my happiness. But that which most constantly besets
+me is pride--I can trace almost all my sins back to it."
+
+In the mean time, the school is prospering. February 16, 1827,
+Catherine writes to Dr. Beecher: "My affairs go on well. The stock is
+all taken up, and next week I hope to have out the prospectus of the
+'Hartford Female Seminary.' I hope the building will be done, and all
+things in order, by June. The English lady is coming with twelve
+pupils from New York." Speaking of Harriet, who was at this time with
+her father in Boston, she adds: "I have received some letters from
+Harriet to-day which make me feel uneasy. She says, 'I don't know as I
+am fit for anything, and I have thought that I could wish to die
+young, and let the remembrance of me and my faults perish in the
+grave, rather than live, as I fear I do, a trouble to every one. You
+don't know how perfectly wretched I often feel: so useless, so weak,
+so destitute of all energy. Mamma often tells me that I am a strange,
+inconsistent being. Sometimes I could not sleep, and have groaned and
+cried till midnight, while in the day-time I tried to appear cheerful
+and succeeded so well that papa reproved me for laughing so much. I
+was so absent sometimes that I made strange mistakes, and then they
+all laughed at me, and I laughed, too, though I felt as though I
+should go distracted. I wrote rules; made out a regular system for
+dividing my time; but my feelings vary so much that it is almost
+impossible for me to be regular.'"
+
+But let Harriet "take courage in her dark sorrows and melancholies,"
+as Carlyle says: "Samuel Johnson too had hypochondrias; all great
+souls are apt to have, and to be in thick darkness generally till the
+eternal ways and the celestial guiding stars disclose themselves, and
+the vague abyss of life knits itself up into firmaments for them."
+
+At the same time (the winter of 1827), Catherine writes to Edward
+concerning Harriet: "If she could come here (Hartford) it might be the
+best thing for her, for she can talk freely to me. I can get her
+books, and Catherine Cogswell, Georgiana May, and her friends here
+could do more for her than any one in Boston, for they love her and
+she loves them very much. Georgiana's difficulties are different from
+Harriet's: she is speculating about doctrines, etc. Harriet will have
+young society here all the time, which she cannot have at home, and I
+think cheerful and amusing friends will do much for her. I can do
+better in preparing her to teach drawing than any one else, for I best
+know what is needed."
+
+It was evidently necessary that something should be done to restore
+Harriet to a more tranquil and healthful frame of mind; consequently
+in the spring of 1827, accompanied by her friend Georgiana May, she
+went to visit her grandmother Foote at Nut Plains, Guilford. Miss May
+refers to this visit in a letter to Mrs. Foote, in January of the
+following winter.
+
+HARTFORD, _January_ 4, 1828.
+
+DEAR MRS. FOOTE:--. . . I very often think of you and the happy hours
+I passed at your house last spring. It seems as if it were but
+yesterday: now, while I am writing, I can see your pleasant house and
+the familiar objects around you as distinctly as the day I left them.
+Harriet and I are very much the same girls we were then. I do not
+believe we have altered very much, though she is improved in some
+respects.
+
+The August following this visit to Guilford Harriet writes to her
+brother Edward in a vein which is still streaked with sadness, but
+shows some indication of returning health of mind.
+
+"Many of my objections you did remove that afternoon we spent
+together. After that I was not as unhappy as I had been. I felt,
+nevertheless, that my views were very indistinct and contradictory,
+and feared that if you left me thus I might return to the same dark,
+desolate state in which I had been all summer. I felt that my immortal
+interest, my happiness for both worlds, was depending on the turn my
+feelings might take. In my disappointment and distress I called upon
+God, and it seemed as if I was heard. I felt that He could supply the
+loss of all earthly love. All misery and darkness were over. I felt as
+if restored, nevermore to fall. Such sober certainty of waking bliss
+had long been a stranger to me. But even then I had doubts as to
+whether these feelings were right, because I felt love to God alone
+without that ardent love for my fellow-creatures which Christians have
+often felt. . . . I cannot say exactly what it is makes me reluctant
+to speak of my feelings. It costs me an effort to express feeling of
+any kind, but more particularly to speak of my private religious
+feelings. If any one questions me, my first impulse is to conceal all
+I can. As for expression of affection towards my brothers and sisters,
+my companions or friends, the stronger the affection the less
+inclination have I to express it. Yet sometimes I think myself the
+most frank, open, and communicative of beings, and at other times the
+most reserved. If you can resolve all these caprices into general
+principles, you will do more than I can. Your speaking so much
+philosophically has a tendency to repress confidence. We never wish to
+have our feelings analyzed down; and very little, nothing, that we say
+brought to the test of mathematical demonstration.
+
+"It appears to me that if I only could adopt the views of God you
+presented to my mind, they would exert a strong and beneficial
+influence over my character. But I am afraid to accept them for
+several reasons. First, it seems to be taking from the majesty and
+dignity of the divine character to suppose that his happiness can be
+at all affected by the conduct of his sinful, erring creatures.
+Secondly, it seems to me that such views of God would have an effect
+on our own minds in lessening that reverence and fear which is one of
+the greatest motives to us for action. For, although to a generous
+mind the thought of the love of God would be a sufficient incentive to
+action, there are times of coldness when that love is not felt, and
+then there remains no sort of stimulus. I find as I adopt these
+sentiments I feel less fear of God, and, in view of sin, I feel only a
+sensation of grief which is more easily dispelled and forgotten than
+that I formerly felt."
+
+
+A letter dated January 3, 1828, shows us that Harriet had returned to
+Hartford and was preparing herself to teach drawing and painting,
+under the direction of her sister Catherine.
+
+MY DEAR GRANDMOTHER,--I should have written before to assure you of my
+remembrance of you, but I have been constantly employed, from nine in
+the morning till after dark at night, in taking lessons of a painting
+and drawing master, with only an intermission long enough to swallow a
+little dinner which was sent to me in the school-room. You may easily
+believe that after spending the day in this manner, I did not feel in
+a very epistolary humor in the evening, and if I had been, I could not
+have written, for when I did not go immediately to bed I was obliged
+to get a long French lesson.
+
+The seminary is finished, and the school going on nicely. Miss
+Clarissa Brown is assisting Catherine in the school. Besides her,
+Catherine, and myself, there are two other teachers who both board in
+the family with us: one is Miss Degan, an Italian lady who teaches
+French and Italian; she rooms with me, and is very interesting and
+agreeable. Miss Hawks is rooming with Catherine. In some respects she
+reminds me very much of my mother. She is gentle, affectionate,
+modest, and retiring, and much beloved by all the scholars. . . . I am
+still going on with my French, and carrying two young ladies through
+Virgil, and if I have time, shall commence Italian.
+
+I am very comfortable and happy.
+
+I propose, my dear grandmamma, to send you by the first opportunity a
+dish of fruit of my own painting. Pray do not now devour it in
+anticipation, for I cannot promise that you will not find it sadly
+tasteless in reality. If so, please excuse it, for the sake of the
+poor young artist. I admire to cultivate a taste for painting, and I
+wish to improve it; it was what my dear mother admired and loved, and
+I cherish it for her sake. I have thought more of this dearest of all
+earthly friends these late years, since I have been old enough to know
+her character and appreciate her worth. I sometimes think that, had
+she lived, I might have been both better and happier than I now am,
+but God is good and wise in all his ways.
+
+
+A letter written to her brother Edward in Boston, dated March 27,
+1828, shows how slowly she adopted the view of God that finally became
+one of the most characteristic elements in her writings.
+
+"I think that those views of God which you have presented to me have
+had an influence in restoring my mind to its natural tone. But still,
+after all, God is a being afar off. He is so far above us that
+anything but the most distant reverential affection seems almost
+sacrilegious. It is that affection that can lead us to be familiar
+that the heart needs. But easy and familiar expressions of attachment
+and that sort of confidential communication which I should address to
+papa or you would be improper for a subject to address to a king, much
+less for us to address to the King of kings. The language of prayer is
+of necessity stately and formal, and we cannot clothe all the little
+minutiae of our wants and troubles in it. I wish I could describe to
+you how I feel when I pray. I feel that I love God,--that is, that I
+love Christ,--that I find comfort and happiness in it, and yet it is
+not that kind of comfort which would arise from free communication of
+my wants and sorrows to a friend. I sometimes wish that the Saviour
+were visibly present in this world, that I might go to Him for a
+solution of some of my difficulties. . . . Do you think, my dear
+brother, that there is such a thing as so realizing the presence and
+character of God that He can supply the place of earthly friends? I
+really wish to know what you think of this. . . . Do you suppose that
+God really loves sinners before they come to Him? Some say that we
+ought to tell them that God hates them, that He looks on them with
+utter abhorrence, and that they must love Him before He will look on
+them otherwise. Is it right to say to those who are in deep distress,'
+God is interested in you; He feels for and loves you'?"
+
+Appended to this letter is a short note from Miss Catherine Beecher,
+who evidently read the letter over and answered Harriet's questions
+herself. She writes: "When the young man came to Jesus, is it not said
+that Jesus loved him, though he was unrenewed?"
+
+In April, 1828, Harriet again writes to her brother Edward:---
+
+"I have had more reason to be grateful to that friend than ever
+before. He has not left me in all my weakness. It seems to me that my
+love to Him is the love of despair. All my communion with Him, though
+sorrowful, is soothing. I am painfully sensible of ignorance and
+deficiency, but still I feel that I am willing that He should know
+all. He will look on all that is wrong only to purify and reform. He
+will never be irritated or impatient. He will never show me my faults
+in such a manner as to irritate without helping me. A friend to whom I
+would acknowledge all my faults must be perfect. Let any one once be
+provoked, once speak harshly to me, once sweep all the chords of my
+soul out of tune, I never could confide there again. It is only to the
+most perfect Being in the universe that imperfection can look and hope
+for patience. How strange! . . . You do not know how harsh and
+forbidding everything seems, compared with his character. All through
+the day in my intercourse with others, everything has a tendency to
+destroy the calmness of mind gained by communion with Him. One
+flatters me, another is angry with me, another is unjust to me.
+
+"You speak of your predilections for literature having been a snare to
+you. I have found it so myself. I can scarcely think, without tears
+and indignation, that all that is beautiful and lovely and poetical
+has been laid on other altars. Oh! will there never be a poet with a
+heart enlarged and purified by the Holy Spirit, who shall throw all
+the graces of harmony, all the enchantments of feeling, pathos, and
+poetry, around sentiments worthy of them? . . . It matters little what
+service He has for me. . . . I do not mean to live in vain. He has
+given me talents, and I will lay them at his feet, well satisfied, if
+He will accept them. All my powers He can enlarge. He made my mind,
+and He can teach me to cultivate and exert its faculties."
+
+The following November she writes from Groton, Conn., to Miss May:--
+
+"I am in such an uncertain, unsettled state, traveling back and forth,
+that I have very little time to write. In the first place, on my
+arrival in Boston I was obliged to spend two days in talking and
+telling news. Then after that came calling, visiting, etc., and then I
+came off to Groton to see my poor brother George, who was quite out of
+spirits and in very trying circumstances. To-morrow I return to Boston
+and spend four or five days, and then go to Franklin, where I spend
+the rest of my vacation.
+
+"I found the folks all well on my coming to Boston, and as to my new
+brother, James, he has nothing to distinguish him from forty other
+babies, except a very large pair of blue eyes and an uncommonly fair
+complexion, a thing which is of no sort of use or advantage to a man
+or boy.
+
+"I am thinking very seriously of remaining in Groton and taking care
+of the female school, and at the same time being of assistance and
+company for George. On some accounts it would not be so pleasant as
+returning to Hartford, for I should be among strangers. Nothing upon
+this point can be definitely decided till I have returned to Boston,
+and talked to papa and Catherine."
+
+Evidently papa and Catherine did not approve of the Groton plan, for
+in February of the following winter Harriet writes from Hartford to
+Edward, who is at this time with his father in Boston:---
+
+"My situation this winter (1829) is in many respects pleasant. I room
+with three other teachers, Miss Fisher, Miss Mary Dutton, and Miss
+Brigham. Ann Fisher you know. Miss Dutton is about twenty, has a fine
+mathematical mind, and has gone as far into that science perhaps as
+most students at college. She is also, as I am told, quite learned in
+the languages. . . . Miss Brigham is somewhat older: is possessed of
+a fine mind and most unconquerable energy and perseverance of
+character. From early childhood she has been determined to obtain an
+education, and to attain to a certain standard. Where persons are
+determined to be anything, they will be. I think, for this reason, she
+will make a first-rate character. Such are my companions. We spend our
+time in school during the day, and in studying in the evening. My plan
+of study is to read rhetoric and prepare exercises for my class the
+first half hour in the evening; after that the rest of the evening is
+divided between French and Italian. Thus you see the plan of my
+employment and the character of my immediate companions. Besides
+these, there are others among the teachers and scholars who must exert
+an influence over my character. Miss Degan, whose constant occupation
+it is to make others laugh; Mrs. Gamage, her room-mate, a steady,
+devoted, sincere Christian. . . . Little things have great power over
+me, and if I meet with the least thing that crosses my feelings, I am
+often rendered unhappy for days and weeks. . . . I wish I could bring
+myself to feel perfectly indifferent to the opinions of others. I
+believe that there never was a person more dependent on the good and
+evil opinions of those around than I am. This desire to be loved
+forms, I fear, the great motive for all my actions. . . . I have been
+reading carefully the book of Job, and I do not think that it contains
+the views of God which you presented to me. God seems to have stripped
+a dependent creature of all that renders life desirable, and then to
+have answered his complaints from the whirlwind; and instead of
+showing mercy and pity, to have overwhelmed him by a display of his
+power and justice. . . . With the view I received from you, I should
+have expected that a being who sympathizes with his guilty, afflicted
+creatures would not have spoken thus. Yet, after all, I do believe
+that God is such a being as you represent Him to be, and in the New
+Testament I find in the character of Jesus Christ a revelation of God
+as merciful and compassionate; in fact, just such a God as I need.
+
+"Somehow or another you have such a reasonable sort of way of saying
+things that when I come to reflect I almost always go over to your
+side. . . . My mind is often perplexed, and such thoughts arise in it
+that I cannot pray, and I become bewildered. The wonder to me is, how
+all ministers and all Christians can feel themselves so inexcusably
+sinful, when it seems to me we all come into the world in such a way
+that it would be miraculous if we did not sin. Mr. Hawes always says
+in prayer, 'We have nothing to offer in extenuation of any of our
+sins,' and I always think when he says it, that we have everything to
+offer in extenuation. The case seems to me exactly as if I had been
+brought into the world with such a thirst for ardent spirits that
+there was just a possibility, though no hope, that I should resist,
+and then my eternal happiness made dependent on my being temperate.
+Sometimes when I try to confess my sins, I feel that after all I am
+more to be pitied than blamed, for I have never known the time when I
+have not had a temptation within me so strong that it was certain I
+should not overcome it. This thought shocks me, but it comes with such
+force, and so appealingly, to all my consciousness, that it stifles
+all sense of sin. . . .
+
+"Sometimes when I read the Bible, it seems to be wholly grounded on
+the idea that the sin of man is astonishing, inexcusable, and without
+palliation or cause, and the atonement is spoken of as such a
+wonderful and undeserved mercy that I am filled with amazement. Yet if
+I give up the Bible I gain nothing, for the providence of God in
+nature is just as full of mystery, and of the two I think that the
+Bible, with all its difficulties, is preferable to being without it;
+for the Bible holds out the hope that in a future world all shall be
+made plain. . . . So you see I am, as Mr. Hawes says, 'on the waves,'
+and all I can do is to take the word of God that He does do right and
+there I rest."
+
+The following summer, in July, she writes to Edward: "I have never
+been so happy as this summer. I began it in more suffering than I ever
+before have felt, but there is One whom I daily thank for all that
+suffering, since I hope that it has brought me at last to rest
+entirely in Him. I do hope that my long, long course of wandering and
+darkness and unhappiness is over, and that I have found in Him who
+died for me all, and more than all, I could desire. Oh, Edward, you
+can feel as I do; you can speak of Him! There are few, very few, who
+can. Christians in general do not seem to look to Him as their best
+friend, or realize anything of his unutterable love. They speak with a
+cold, vague, reverential awe, but do not speak as if in the habit of
+close and near communion; as if they confided to Him every joy and
+sorrow and constantly looked to Him for direction and guidance. I
+cannot express to you, my brother, I cannot tell you, how that Saviour
+appears to me. To bear with one so imperfect, so weak, so
+inconsistent, as myself, implied long suffering and patience more than
+words can express. I love most to look on Christ as my teacher, as one
+who, knowing the utmost of my sinfulness, my waywardness, my folly,
+can still have patience; can reform, purify, and daily make me more
+like himself."
+
+So, after four years of struggling and suffering, she returns to the
+place where she started from as a child of thirteen. It has been like
+watching a ship with straining masts and storm-beaten sails, buffeted
+by the waves, making for the harbor, and coming at last to quiet
+anchorage. There have been, of course, times of darkness and
+depression, but never any permanent loss of the religious trustfulness
+and peace of mind indicated by this letter.
+
+The next three years were passed partly in Boston, and partly in
+Guilford and Hartford. Writing of this period of her life to the Rev.
+Charles Beecher, she says:---
+
+My Dear Brother:---The looking over of father's letters in the period
+of his Boston life brings forcibly to my mind many recollections. At
+this time I was more with him, and associated in companionship of
+thought and feeling for a longer period than any other of my
+experience.
+
+In the summer of 1832 she writes to Miss May, revealing her spiritual
+and intellectual life in a degree unusual, even for her.
+
+"After the disquisition on myself above cited, you will be prepared to
+understand the changes through which this wonderful _ego et me
+ipse_ has passed.
+
+"The amount of the matter has been, as this inner world of mine has
+become worn out and untenable, I have at last concluded to come out of
+it and live in the external one, and, as F------ S------ once advised
+me, to give up the pernicious habit of meditation to the first
+Methodist minister that would take it, and try to mix in society
+somewhat as another person would.
+
+"'_Horas non numero nisi serenas.'_ Uncle Samuel, who sits by me,
+has just been reading the above motto, the inscription on a sun-dial
+in Venice. It strikes me as having a distant relationship to what I
+was going to say. I have come to a firm resolution to count no hours
+but unclouded ones, and to let all others slip out of my memory and
+reckoning as quickly as possible. . . .
+
+"I am trying to cultivate a general spirit of kindliness towards
+everybody. Instead of shrinking into a corner to notice how other
+people behave, I am holding out my hand to the right and to the left,
+and forming casual or incidental acquaintances with all who will be
+acquainted with me. In this way I find society full of interest and
+pleasure--a pleasure which pleaseth me more because it is not old and
+worn out. From these friendships I expect little; therefore generally
+receive more than I expect. From past friendships I have expected
+everything, and must of necessity have been disappointed. The kind
+words and looks and smiles I call forth by looking and smiling are not
+much by themselves, but they form a very pretty flower border to the
+way of life. They embellish the day or the hour as it passes, and when
+they fade they only do just as you expected they would. This kind of
+pleasure in acquaintanceship is new to me. I never tried it before.
+When I used to meet persons, the first inquiry was, 'Have they such
+and such a character, or have they anything that might possibly be of
+use or harm to me?'"
+
+It is striking, the degree of interest a letter had for her.
+
+"Your long letter came this morning. It revived much in my heart. Just
+think how glad I must have been this morning to hear from you. I was
+glad. . . . I thought of it through all the vexations of school this
+morning. . . . I have a letter at home; and when I came home from
+school, I went leisurely over it.
+
+"This evening I have spent in a little social party,--a dozen or so,--
+and I have been zealously talking all the evening. When I came to my
+cold, lonely room, there was your letter lying on the dressing-table.
+It touched me with a sort of painful pleasure, for it seems to me
+uncertain, improbable, that I shall ever return and find you as I have
+found your letter. Oh, my dear G-----, it is scarcely well to love
+friends thus. The greater part that I see cannot move me deeply. They
+are present, and I enjoy them; they pass and I forget them. But those
+that I love differently; those that I LOVE; and oh, how much that word
+means! I feel sadly about them. They may change; they must die; they
+are separated from me, and I ask myself why should I wish to love with
+all the pains and penalties of such conditions? I check myself when
+expressing feelings like this, so much has been said of it by the
+sentimental, who talk what they could not have felt. But it is so
+deeply, sincerely so in me, that sometimes it will overflow. Well,
+there is a heaven,--a heaven,--a world of love, and love after all is
+the life-blood, the existence, the all in all of mind."
+
+This is the key to her whole life. She was impelled by love, and did
+what she did, and wrote what she did, under the impulse of love. Never
+could "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or "The Minister's Wooing" have been
+written, unless by one to whom love was the "life-blood of existence,
+the all in all of mind." Years afterwards Mrs. Browning was to express
+this same thought in the language of poetry.
+
+  "But when a soul by choice and conscience doth
+    Throw out her full force on another soul,
+  The conscience and the concentration both
+    Make mere life love. For life in perfect whole
+  And aim consummated is love in sooth,
+    As nature's magnet heat rounds pole with pole."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CINCINNATI, 1832-1836.
+
+
+DR. BEECHER CALLED TO CINCINNATI.--THE WESTWARD JOURNEY.--FIRST LETTER
+FROM HOME.--DESCRIPTION OF WALNUT HILLS.--STARTING A NEW SCHOOL.--
+INWARD GLIMPSES.--THE SEMI-COLON CLUB.--EARLY IMPRESSIONS OF SLAVERY.
+--A JOURNEY TO THE EAST.--THOUGHTS AROUSED BY FIRST VISIT TO NIAGARA.--
+MARRIAGE TO PROFESSOR STOWE.
+
+IN 1832, after having been settled for six years over the Hanover
+Street Church in Boston, Dr. Beecher received and finally accepted a
+most urgent call to become President of Lane Theological Seminary in
+Cincinnati. This institution had been chartered in 1829, and in 1831
+funds to the amount of nearly $70,000 had been promised to it provided
+that Dr. Beecher accepted the presidency. It was hard for this New
+England family to sever the ties of a lifetime and enter on so long a
+journey to the far distant West of those days; but being fully
+persuaded that their duty lay in this direction, they undertook to
+perform it cheerfully and willingly. With Dr. Beecher and his wife
+were to go Miss Catherine Beecher, who had conceived the scheme of
+founding in Cincinnati, then considered the capital of the West, a
+female college, and Harriet, who was to act as her principal
+assistant. In the party were also George, who was to enter Lane as a
+student, Isabella, James, the youngest son, and Miss Esther Beecher,
+the "Aunt Esther" of the children.
+
+Before making his final decision, Dr. Beecher, accompanied by his
+daughter Catherine, visited Cincinnati to take a general survey of
+their proposed battlefield, and their impressions of the city are
+given in the following letter written by the latter to Harriet in
+Boston:--
+
+"Here we are at last at our journey's end, alive and well. We are
+staying with Uncle Samuel (Foote), whose establishment I will try and
+sketch for you. It is on a height in the upper part of the city, and
+commands a fine view of the whole of the lower town. The city does not
+impress me as being so very new. It is true everything looks neat and
+clean, but it is compact, and many of the houses are of brick and very
+handsomely built. The streets run at right angles to each other, and
+are wide and well paved. We reached here in three days from Wheeling,
+and soon felt ourselves at home. The next day father and I, with three
+gentlemen, walked out to Walnut Hills. The country around the city
+consists of a constant succession and variety of hills of all shapes
+and sizes, forming an extensive amphitheatre. The site of the seminary
+is very beautiful and picturesque, though I was disappointed to find
+that both river and city are hidden by intervening hills. I never saw
+a place so capable of being rendered a paradise by the improvements of
+taste as the environs of this city. Walnut Hills are so elevated and
+cool that people have to leave there to be sick, it is said. The
+seminary is located on a farm of one hundred and twenty-five acres of
+fine land, with groves of superb trees around it, about two miles from
+the city. We have finally decided on the spot where our house shall
+stand in case we decide to come, and you cannot (where running water
+or the seashore is wanting) find another more delightful spot for a
+residence. It is on an eminence, with a grove running up from the back
+to the very doors, another grove across the street in front, and fine
+openings through which distant hills and the richest landscapes
+appear.
+
+"I have become somewhat acquainted with those ladies we shall have the
+most to do with, and find them intelligent, New England sort of folks.
+Indeed, this is a New England city in all its habits, and its
+inhabitants are more than half from New England. The Second Church,
+which is the best in the city, will give father a unanimous call to be
+their minister, with the understanding that he will give them what
+time he can spare from the seminary.
+
+"I know of no place in the world where there is so fair a prospect of
+finding everything that makes social and domestic life pleasant. Uncle
+John and Uncle Samuel are just the intelligent, sociable, free, and
+hospitable sort of folk that everybody likes and everybody feels at
+home with.
+
+"The folks are very anxious to have a school on our plan set on foot
+here. We can have fine rooms in the city college building, which is
+now unoccupied, and everybody is ready to lend a helping hand. As to
+father, I never saw such a field of usefulness and influence as is
+offered to him here."
+
+This, then, was the field of labor in which the next eighteen years of
+the life of Mrs. Stowe were to be passed. At this time her sister Mary
+was married and living in Hartford, her brothers Henry Ward and
+Charles were in college, while William and Edward, already licensed to
+preach, were preparing to follow their father to the West.
+
+Mr. Beecher's preliminary journey to Cincinnati was undertaken in the
+early spring of 1832, but he was not ready to remove his family until
+October of that year. An interesting account of this westward journey
+is given by Mrs. Stowe in a letter sent back to Hartford from
+Cincinnati, as follows:--
+
+"Well, my dear, the great sheet is out and the letter is begun. All
+our family are here (in New York), and in good health.
+
+"Father is to perform to-night in the Chatham Theatre! 'positively for
+the _last_ time this season!' I don't know, I'm sure, as we shall
+ever get to Pittsburgh. Father is staying here begging money for the
+Biblical Literature professorship; the incumbent is to be C. Stowe.
+Last night we had a call from Arthur Tappan and Mr. Eastman. Father
+begged $2,000 yesterday, and now the good people are praying him to
+abide certain days, as he succeeds so well. They are talking of
+sending us off and keeping him here. I really dare not go and see Aunt
+Esther and mother now; they were in the depths of tribulation before
+at staying so long, and now,
+
+'In the lowest depths, _another_ deep!'
+
+Father is in high spirits. He is all in his own element,--dipping into
+books; consulting authorities for his oration; going round here,
+there, everywhere; begging, borrowing, and spoiling the Egyptians;
+delighted with past success and confident for the future.
+
+"Wednesday. Still in New York. I believe it would kill me dead to live
+long in the way I have been doing since I have been here. It is a sort
+of agreeable delirium. There's only one thing about it, it is too
+_scattering._ I begin to be athirst for the waters of quietness."
+
+[Illustration: The home at Walnut Hills, Cincinnati.]
+
+Writing from Philadelphia, she adds:--
+
+"Well, we did get away from New York at last, but it was through much
+tribulation. The truckman carried all the family baggage to the wrong
+wharf, and, after waiting and waiting on board the boat, we were
+obliged to start without it, George remaining to look it up. Arrived
+here late Saturday evening,--dull, drizzling weather; poor Aunt Esther
+in dismay,--not a clean cap to put on,--mother in like state; all of
+us destitute. We went, half to Dr. Skinner's and half to Mrs. Elmes's:
+mother, Aunt Esther, father, and James to the former; Kate, Bella, and
+myself to Mr. Elmes's. They are rich, hospitable folks, and act the
+part of Gaius in apostolic times. . . . Our trunks came this morning.
+Father stood and saw them all brought into Dr. Skinner's entry, and
+then he swung his hat and gave a 'hurrah,' as any man would whose wife
+had not had a clean cap or ruffle for a week. Father does not succeed
+very well in opening purses here. Mr. Eastman says, however, that this
+is not of much consequence. I saw to-day a notice in the
+'Philadelphian' about father, setting forth how 'this distinguished
+brother, with his large family, having torn themselves from the
+endearing scenes of their home,' etc., etc., 'were going, like Jacob,'
+etc.,--a very scriptural and appropriate flourish. It is too much
+after the manner of men, or, as Paul says, speaking 'as a fool.' A
+number of the pious people of this city are coming here this evening
+to hold a prayer-meeting with reference to the journey and its object.
+For _this_ I thank them."
+
+From Downington she writes:--
+
+"Here we all are,--Noah and his wife and his sons and his daughters,
+with the cattle and creeping things, all dropped down in the front
+parlor of this tavern, about thirty miles from Philadelphia. If to-day
+is a fair specimen of our journey, it will be a very pleasant,
+obliging driver, good roads, good spirits, good dinner, fine scenery,
+and now and then some 'psalms and hymns and spiritual songs;' for with
+George on board you may be sure of music of some kind. Moreover,
+George has provided himself with a quantity of tracts, and he and the
+children have kept up a regular discharge at all the wayfaring people
+we encountered. I tell him he is _peppering_ the land with moral
+influence.
+
+"We are all well; all in good spirits. Just let me give you a peep
+into our traveling household. Behold us, then, in the front parlor of
+this country inn, all as much at home as if we were in Boston. Father
+is sitting opposite to me at this table, reading; Kate is writing a
+billet-doux to Mary on a sheet like this; Thomas is opposite, writing
+in a little journal that he keeps; Sister Bell, too, has her little
+record; George is waiting for a seat that he may produce his paper and
+write. As for me, among the multitude of my present friends, my heart
+still makes occasional visits to absent ones,--visits full of
+pleasure, and full of cause of gratitude to Him who gives us friends.
+I have thought of you often to-day, my G. We stopped this noon at a
+substantial Pennsylvania tavern, and among the flowers in the garden
+was a late monthly honeysuckle like the one at North Guilford. I made
+a spring for it, but George secured the finest bunch, which he wore in
+his buttonhole the rest of the noon.
+
+"This afternoon, as we were traveling, we struck up and sang
+'Jubilee.' It put me in mind of the time when we used to ride along
+the rough North Guilford roads and make the air vocal as we went
+along. Pleasant times those. Those were blue skies, and that was a
+beautiful lake and noble pine-trees and rocks they were that hung over
+it. But those we shall look upon 'na mair.'
+
+"Well, my dear, there is a land where we shall not _love_ and
+_leave._ Those skies shall never cease to shine, the waters of
+life we shall _never_ be called upon to leave. We have here no
+continuing city, but we seek one to come. In such thoughts as these I
+desire ever to rest, and with such words as these let us 'comfort one
+another and edify one another.'
+
+"Harrisburg, Sunday evening. Mother, Aunt Esther, George, and the
+little folks have just gathered into Kate's room, and we have just
+been singing. Father has gone to preach for Mr. De Witt. To-morrow we
+expect to travel sixty-two miles, and in two more days shall reach
+Wheeling; there we shall take the steamboat to Cincinnati."
+
+On the same journey George Beecher writes:--
+
+"We had poor horses in crossing the mountains. Our average rate for
+the last four days to Wheeling was forty-four miles. The journey,
+which takes the mail-stage forty-eight hours, took us eight days. At
+Wheeling we deliberated long whether to go on board a boat for
+Cincinnati, but the prevalence of the cholera there at last decided us
+to remain. While at Wheeling father preached eleven times,--nearly
+every evening,--and gave them the Taylorite heresy on sin and decrees
+to the highest notch; and what amused me most was to hear him
+establish it from the Confession of Faith. It went high and dry,
+however, above all objections, and they were delighted with it, even
+the old school men, since it had not been christened 'heresy' in their
+hearing. After remaining in Wheeling eight days, we chartered a stage
+for Cincinnati, and started next morning.
+
+"At Granville, Ohio, we were invited to stop and attend a protracted
+meeting. Being in no great hurry to enter Cincinnati till the cholera
+had left, we consented. We spent the remainder of the week there, and
+I preached five times and father four. The interest was increasingly
+deep and solemn each day, and when we left there were forty-five cases
+of conversion in the town, besides those from the surrounding towns.
+The people were astonished at the doctrine; said they never saw the
+truth so plain in their lives."
+
+Although the new-comers were cordially welcomed in Cincinnati, and
+everything possible was done for their comfort and to make them feel
+at home, they felt themselves to be strangers in a strange land. Their
+homesickness and yearnings for New England are set forth by the
+following extracts from Mrs. Stowe's answer to the first letter they
+received from Hartford after leaving there:--
+
+My dear Sister (Mary),--The Hartford letter from all and sundry has
+just arrived, and after cutting all manner of capers expressive of
+thankfulness, I have skipped three stairs at a time up to the study to
+begin an answer. My notions of answering letters are according to the
+literal sense of the word; not waiting six months and then scrawling a
+lazy reply, but sitting down the moment you have read a letter, and
+telling, as Dr. Woods says, "How the subject strikes you." I wish I
+could be clear that the path of duty lay in talking to you this
+afternoon, but as I find a loud call to consider the heels of George's
+stockings, I must only write a word or two, and then resume my
+darning-needle. You don't know how anxiously we all have watched for
+some intelligence from Hartford. Not a day has passed when I have not
+been the efficient agent in getting somebody to the post-office, and
+every day my heart has sunk at the sound of "no letters." I felt a
+tremor quite sufficient for a lover when I saw your handwriting once
+more, so you see that in your old age you can excite quite as much
+emotion as did the admirable Miss Byron in her adoring Sir Charles. I
+hope the consideration and digestion of this fact will have its due
+weight in encouraging you to proceed.
+
+The fact of our having received said letter is as yet a state secret,
+not to be made known till all our family circle "in full assembly
+meet" at the tea-table. Then what an illumination! "How we shall be
+edified and fructified," as that old Methodist said. It seems too bad
+to keep it from mother and Aunt Esther a whole afternoon, but then I
+have the comfort of thinking that we are consulting for their greatest
+happiness "on the whole," which is metaphysical benevolence.
+
+So kind Mrs. Parsons stopped in the very midst of her pumpkin pies to
+think of us? Seems to me I can see her bright, cheerful face now! And
+then those well known handwritings! We _do_ love our Hartford
+friends dearly; there can be, I think, no controverting that fact.
+Kate says that the word _love_ is used in _six senses_, and
+I am sure in some one of them they will all come in. Well, good-by for
+the present.
+
+Evening. Having finished the last hole on George's black vest, I stick
+in my needle and sit down to be sociable. You don't know how coming
+away from New England has sentimentalized us all! Never was there such
+an abundance of meditation on our native land, on the joys of
+friendship, the pains of separation. Catherine had an alarming
+paroxysm in Philadelphia which expended itself in "The Emigrant's
+Farewell." After this was sent off she felt considerably relieved. My
+symptoms have been of a less acute kind, but, I fear, more enduring.
+There! the tea-bell rings. Too bad! I was just going to say something
+bright. Now to take your letter and run! How they will stare when I
+produce it!
+
+After tea. Well, we have had a fine time. When supper was about half
+over, Catherine began: "We have a dessert that we have been saving all
+the afternoon," and then I held up my letter. "See here, this is from
+Hartford!" I wish you could have seen Aunt Esther's eyes brighten, and
+mother's pale face all in a smile, and father, as I unfolded the
+letter and began. Mrs. Parsons's notice of her Thanksgiving
+predicament caused just a laugh, and then one or two sighs (I told you
+we were growing sentimental!). We did talk some of keeping it
+(Thanksgiving), but perhaps we should all have felt something of the
+text, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" Your
+praises of Aunt Esther I read twice in an audible voice, as the
+children made some noise the first time. I think I detected a visible
+blush, though she found at that time a great deal to do in spreading
+bread and butter for James, and shuffling his plate; and, indeed, it
+was rather a vehement attack on her humility, since it gave her at
+least "angelic perfection," if not "Adamic" (to use Methodist
+technics). Jamie began his Sunday-school career yesterday. The
+superintendent asked him how old he was. "I'm four years old now, and
+when _it snows very hard_ I shall be five," he answered. I have
+just been trying to make him interpret his meaning; but he says, "Oh,
+I said so because I could not think of anything else to say." By the
+by, Mary, speaking of the temptations of cities, I have much
+solicitude on Jamie's account lest he should form improper intimacies,
+for yesterday or day before we saw him parading by the house with his
+arm over the neck of a great hog, apparently on the most amicable
+terms possible; and the other day he actually got upon the back of
+one, and rode some distance. So much for allowing these animals to
+promenade the streets, a particular in which Mrs. Cincinnati has
+imitated the domestic arrangements of some of her elder sisters, and a
+very disgusting one it is.
+
+Our family physician is one Dr. Drake, a man of a good deal of
+science, theory, and reputed skill, but a sort of general mark for the
+opposition of all the medical cloth of the city. He is a tall,
+rectangular, perpendicular sort of a body, as stiff as a poker, and
+enunciates his prescriptions very much as though he were delivering a
+discourse on the doctrine of election. The other evening he was
+detained from visiting Kate, and he sent a very polite, ceremonious
+note containing a prescription, with Dr. D.'s compliments to Miss
+Beecher, requesting that she would take the inclosed in a little
+molasses at nine o'clock precisely.
+
+The house we are at present inhabiting is the most inconvenient, ill-
+arranged, good-for-nothing, and altogether to be execrated affair that
+ever was put together. It was evidently built without a thought of a
+winter season. The kitchen is so disposed that it cannot be reached
+from any part of the house without going out into the air. Mother is
+actually obliged to put on a bonnet and cloak every time she goes into
+it. In the house are two parlors with folding doors between them. The
+back parlor has but one window, which opens on a veranda and has its
+lower half painted to keep out what little light there is. I need
+scarcely add that our landlord is an old bachelor and of course acted
+up to the light he had, though he left little enough of it for his
+tenants.
+
+During this early Cincinnati life Harriet suffered much from ill-
+health accompanied by great mental depression; but in spite of both
+she labored diligently with her sister Catherine in establishing their
+school. They called it the Western Female Institute, and proposed to
+conduct it upon the college plan, with a faculty of instructors. As
+all these things are treated at length in letters written by Mrs.
+Stowe to her friend, Miss Georgiana May, we cannot do better than turn
+to them. In May, 1833, she writes:--
+
+"Bishop Purcell visited our school to-day and expressed himself as
+greatly pleased that we had opened such an one here. He spoke of my
+poor little geography, [Footnote: This geography was begun by Mrs.
+Stowe during the summer of 1832, while visiting her brother William at
+Newport, R. I. It was completed during the winter of 1833, and
+published by the firm of Corey, Fairbank & Webster, of Cincinnati.]
+and thanked me for the unprejudiced manner in which I had handled the
+Catholic question in it. I was of course flattered that he should have
+known anything of the book.
+
+"How I wish you could see Walnut Hills. It is about two miles from the
+city, and the road to it is as picturesque as you can imagine a road
+to be without 'springs that run among the hills.' Every possible
+variety of hill and vale of beautiful slope, and undulations of land
+set off by velvet richness of turf and broken up by groves and forests
+of every outline of foliage, make the scene Arcadian. You might ride
+over the same road a dozen times a day untired, for the constant
+variation of view caused by ascending and descending hills relieves
+you from all tedium. Much of the wooding is beech of a noble growth.
+The straight, beautiful shafts of these trees as one looks up the cool
+green recesses of the woods seems as though they might form very
+proper columns for a Dryad temple. _There_! Catherine is growling
+at _me_ for sitting up so late; so 'adieu to music, moonlight,
+and you.' I meant to tell you an abundance of classical things that I
+have been thinking to-night, but 'woe's me.'
+
+"Since writing the above my whole time has been taken up in the labor
+of our new school, or wasted in the fatigue and lassitude following
+such labor. To-day is Sunday, and I am staying at home because I think
+it is time to take some efficient means to dissipate the illness and
+bad feelings of divers kinds that have for some time been growing upon
+me. At present there is and can be very little system or regularity
+about me. About half of my time I am scarcely alive, and a great part
+of the rest the slave and sport of morbid feeling and unreasonable
+prejudice. I have everything but good health.
+
+"I still rejoice that this letter will find you in good old
+Connecticut--thrice blessed--'oh, had I the wings of a dove' I would
+be there too. Give my love to Mary H. I remember well how gently she
+used to speak to and smile on that forlorn old daddy that boarded at
+your house one summer. It was associating with her that first put into
+my head the idea of saying something to people who were not agreeable,
+and of saying something when I had nothing to say, as is generally the
+case on such occasions."
+
+Again she writes to the same friend: "Your letter, my dear G., I have
+just received, and read through three times. Now for my meditations
+upon it. What a woman of the world you are grown. How good it would be
+for me to be put into a place which so breaks up and precludes
+thought. Thought, intense emotional thought, has been my disease. How
+much good it might do me to be where I could not but be thoughtless. . . .
+
+"Now, Georgiana, let me copy for your delectation a list of matters
+that I have jotted down for consideration at a teachers' meeting to be
+held to-morrow night. It runneth as follows. Just hear! 'About quills
+and paper on the floor; forming classes; drinking in the entry (cold
+water, mind you); giving leave to speak; recess-bell, etc., etc.' 'You
+are tired, I see,' says Gilpin, 'so am I,' and I spare you.
+
+"I have just been hearing a class of little girls recite, and telling
+them a fairy story which I had to spin out as it went along, beginning
+with 'once upon a time there was,' etc., in the good old-fashioned way
+of stories.
+
+"Recently I have been reading the life of Madame de Stael
+and 'Corinne.' I have felt an intense sympathy with many parts of that
+book, with many parts of her character. But in America feelings
+vehement and absorbing like hers become still more deep, morbid, and
+impassioned by the constant habits of self-government which the rigid
+forms of our society demand. They are repressed, and they burn
+inwardly till they burn the very soul, leaving only dust and ashes. It
+seems to me the intensity with which my mind has thought and felt on
+every subject presented to it has had this effect. It has withered and
+exhausted it, and though young I have no sympathy with the feelings of
+youth. All that is enthusiastic, all that is impassioned in admiration
+of nature, of writing, of character, in devotional thought and
+emotion, or in the emotions of affection, I have felt with vehement
+and absorbing intensity,--felt till my mind is exhausted, and seems to
+be sinking into deadness. Half of my time I am glad to remain in a
+listless vacancy, to busy myself with trifles, since thought is pain,
+and emotion is pain."
+
+During the winter of 1833-34 the young school-teacher became so
+distressed at her own mental listlessness that she made a vigorous
+effort to throw it off. She forced herself to mingle in society, and,
+stimulated by the offer of a prize of fifty dollars by Mr. James Hall,
+editor of the "Western Monthly," a newly established magazine, for the
+best short story, she entered into the competition. Her story, which
+was entitled "Uncle Lot," afterwards republished in the "May-flower,"
+was by far the best submitted, and was awarded the prize without
+hesitation. This success gave a new direction to her thoughts, gave
+her an insight into her own ability, and so encouraged her that from
+that time on she devoted most of her leisure moments to writing.
+
+Her literary efforts were further stimulated at this time by the
+congenial society of the Semi-Colon Club, a little social circle that
+met on alternate weeks at Mr. Samuel Foote's and Dr. Drake's. The name
+of the club originated with a roundabout and rather weak bit of logic
+set forth by one of its promoters. He said: "You know that in Spanish
+Columbus is called 'Colon.' Now he who discovers a new pleasure is
+certainly half as great as he who discovers a new continent. Therefore
+if Colon discovered a continent, we who have discovered in this club a
+new pleasure should at least be entitled to the name of 'Semi-
+Colons.'" So Semi-Colons they became and remained for some years.
+
+At some meetings compositions were read, and at others nothing was
+read, but the time was passed in a general discussion of some
+interesting topic previously announced. Among the members of the club
+were Professor Stowe, unsurpassed in Biblical learning; Judge James
+Hall, editor of the "Western Monthly;" General Edward King; Mrs.
+Peters, afterwards founder of the Philadelphia School of Design; Miss
+Catherine Beecher; Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz; E. P. Cranch; Dr. Drake;
+S. P. Chase, and many others who afterwards became prominent in their
+several walks of life.
+
+In one of her letters to Miss May, Mrs. Stowe describes one of her
+methods for entertaining the members of the Semi-Colon as follows:--
+
+"I am wondering as to what I shall do next. I have been writing a
+piece to be read next Monday evening at Uncle Sam's soiree (the Semi-
+Colon). It is a letter purporting to be from Dr. Johnson. I have been
+stilting about in his style so long that it is a relief to me to come
+down to the jog of common english. Now I think of it I will just give
+you a history of my campaign in this circle.
+
+"My first piece was a letter from Bishop Butler, written in his
+outrageous style of parentheses and foggification. My second a
+satirical essay on the modern uses of languages. This I shall send to
+you, as some of the gentlemen, it seems, took a fancy to it and
+requested leave to put it in the 'Western Magazine,' and so it is in
+print. It is ascribed to _Catherine_, or I don't know that I
+should have let it go. I have no notion of appearing in _propria
+personce_.
+
+"The next piece was a satire on certain members who were getting very
+much into the way of joking on the worn-out subjects of matrimony and
+old maid and old bachelorism. I therefore wrote a set of legislative
+enactments purporting to be from the ladies of the society, forbidding
+all such allusions in future. It made some sport at the time. I try
+not to be personal, and to be courteous, even in satire.
+
+"But I have written a piece this week that is making me some disquiet.
+I did not like it that there was so little that was serious and
+rational about the reading. So I conceived the design of writing a
+_set of letters_, and throwing them in, as being the letters of a
+friend. I wrote a letter this week for the first of the set,--easy,
+not very sprightly,--describing an imaginary situation, a house in the
+country, a gentleman and lady, Mr. and Mrs. Howard, as being pious,
+literary, and agreeable. I threw into the letter a number of little
+particulars and incidental allusions to give it the air of having been
+really a letter. I meant thus to give myself an opportunity for the
+introduction of different subjects and the discussion of different
+characters in future letters.
+
+"I meant to write on a great number of subjects in future. Cousin
+Elisabeth, only, was in the secret; Uncle Samuel and Sarah Elliot were
+not to know.
+
+"Yesterday morning I finished my letter, smoked it to make it look
+yellow, tore it to make it look old, directed it and scratched out the
+direction, postmarked it with red ink, sealed it and broke the seal,
+all this to give credibility to the fact of its being a real letter.
+Then I inclosed it in an envelope, stating that it was a part of a
+_set_ which had incidentally fallen into my hands. This envelope
+was written in a scrawny, scrawly, gentleman's hand.
+
+"I put it into the office in the morning, directed to 'Mrs. Samuel E.
+Foote,' and then sent word to Sis that it was coming, so that she
+might be ready to enact the part.
+
+"Well, the deception took. Uncle Sam examined it and pronounced, _ex
+cathedra_, that it must have been a real letter. Mr. Greene (the
+gentleman who reads) declared that it must have come from Mrs. Hall,
+and elucidated the theory by spelling out the names and dates which I
+had erased, which, of course, he accommodated to his own tastes. But
+then, what makes me feel uneasy is that Elisabeth, after reading it,
+did not seem to be exactly satisfied. She thought it had too much
+sentiment, too much particularity of incident,--she did not exactly
+know what. She was afraid that it would be criticised unmercifully.
+Now Elisabeth has a tact and quickness of perception that I trust to,
+and her remarks have made me uneasy enough. I am unused to being
+criticised, and don't know how I shall bear it."
+
+In 1833 Mrs. Stowe first had the subject of slavery brought to her
+personal notice by taking a trip across the river from Cincinnati into
+Kentucky in company with Miss Dutton, one of the associate teachers in
+the Western Institute. They visited an estate that afterwards figured
+as that of Colonel Shelby in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and here the young
+authoress first came into personal contact with the negro slaves of
+the South. In speaking, many years afterwards, of this visit, Miss
+Dutton said: "Harriet did not seem to notice anything in particular
+that happened, but sat much of the time as though abstracted in
+thought. When the negroes did funny things and cut up capers, she did
+not seem to pay the slightest attention to them. Afterwards, however,
+in reading 'Uncle Tom,' I recognized scene after scene of that visit
+portrayed with the most minute fidelity, and knew at once where the
+material for that portion of the story had been gathered."
+
+At this time, however, Mrs. Stowe was more deeply interested in the
+subject of education than in that of slavery, as is shown by the
+following extract from one of her letters to Miss May, who was herself
+a teacher. She says:--
+
+"We mean to turn over the West by means of _model schools_ in
+this, its capital. We mean to have a young lady's school of about
+fifty or sixty, a primary school of little girls to the same amount,
+and then a primary school for _boys_. We have come to the
+conclusion that the work of teaching will never be rightly done till
+it passes into _female_ hands. This is especially true with
+regard to boys. To govern boys by moral influences requires tact and
+talent and versatility; it requires also the same division of labor
+that female education does. But men of tact, versatility, talent, and
+piety will not devote their lives to teaching. They must be ministers
+and missionaries, and all that, and while there is such a thrilling
+call for action in this way, every man who is merely teaching feels as
+if he were a Hercules with a distaff, ready to spring to the first
+trumpet that calls him away. As for division of labor, men must have
+salaries that can support wife and family, and, of course, a revenue
+would be required to support a requisite number of teachers if they
+could be found.
+
+"Then, if men have more knowledge they have less talent at
+communicating it, nor have they the patience, the long-suffering, and
+gentleness necessary to superintend the formation of character. We
+intend to make these principles understood, and ourselves to set the
+example of what females can do in this way. You see that first-rate
+talent is necessary for all that we mean to do, especially for the
+last, because here we must face down the prejudices of society and we
+must have exemplary success to be believed. We want original, planning
+minds, and you do not know how few there are among females, and how
+few we can command of those that exist."
+
+During the summer of 1834 the young teacher and writer made her first
+visit East since leaving New England two years before. Its object was
+mainly to be present at the graduation of her favorite brother, Henry
+Ward, from Amherst College. The earlier part of this journey was
+performed by means of stage to Toledo, and thence by steamer to
+Buffalo. A pleasant bit of personal description, and also of
+impressions of Niagara, seen for the first time on this journey, are
+given in a letter sent back to Cincinnati during its progress. In it
+she says of her fellow-travelers:--
+
+"Then there was a portly, rosy, clever Mr. Smith, or Jones, or
+something the like; and a New Orleans girl looking like distraction,
+as far as dress is concerned, but with the prettiest language and
+softest intonations in the world, and one of those faces which, while
+you say it isn't handsome, keeps you looking all the time to see what
+it can be that is so pretty about it. Then there was Miss B., an
+independent, good-natured, do-as-I-please sort of a body, who seemed
+of perpetual motion from morning till night. Poor Miss D. said, when
+we stopped at night, 'Oh, dear! I suppose Lydia will be fiddling about
+our room till morning, and we shall not one of us sleep.' Then, by way
+of contrast, there was a Mr. Mitchell, the most gentlemanly, obliging
+man that ever changed his seat forty times a day to please a lady. Oh,
+yes, he could ride outside,---or, oh, certainly, he could ride
+inside,--he had no objection to this, or that, or the other. Indeed,
+it was difficult to say what could come amiss to him. He speaks in a
+soft, quiet manner, with something of a drawl, using very correct,
+well-chosen language, and pronouncing all his words with carefulness;
+has everything in his dress and traveling appointments comme il
+faut_; and seems to think there is abundant time for everything
+that is to be done in this world, without, as he says, 'any
+unnecessary excitement.' Before the party had fully discovered his
+name he was usually designated as 'the obliging gentleman,' or 'that
+gentleman who is so accommodating.' Yet our friend, withal, is of
+Irish extraction, and I have seen him roused to talk with both hands
+and a dozen words in a breath. He fell into a little talk about
+abolition and slavery with our good Mr. Jones, a man whose mode of
+reasoning consists in repeating the same sentence at regular intervals
+as long as you choose to answer it. This man, who was finally
+convinced that negroes were black, used it as an irrefragible argument
+to all that could be said, and at last began to deduce from it that
+they might just as well be slaves as anything else, and so he
+proceeded till all the philanthropy of our friend was roused, and he
+sprung up all lively and oratorical and gesticulatory and indignant to
+my heart's content. I like to see a quiet man that can be roused."
+
+In the same letter she gives her impressions of Niagara, as follows :--
+
+"I have seen it (Niagara) and yet live. Oh, where is your soul? Never
+mind, though. Let me tell, if I can, what is unutterable. Elisabeth,
+it is not _like_ anything; it did not look like anything I
+expected; it did not look like a waterfall. I did not once think
+whether it was high or low; whether it roared or didn't roar; whether
+it equaled my expectations or not. My mind whirled off, it seemed to
+me, in a new, strange world. It seemed unearthly, like the strange,
+dim images in the Revelation. I thought of the great white throne; the
+rainbow around it; the throne in sight like unto an emerald; and oh
+that beautiful water rising like moonlight, falling as the soul sinks
+when it dies, to rise refined, spiritualized, and pure. That rainbow,
+breaking out, trembling, fading, and again coming like a beautiful
+spirit walking the waters. Oh, it is lovelier than it is great; it is
+like the Mind that made it: great, but so veiled in beauty that we
+gaze without terror. I felt as if I could have _gone over_ with
+the waters; it would be so beautiful a death; there would be no fear
+in it. I felt the rock tremble under me with a sort of joy. I was so
+maddened that I could have gone too, if it had gone."
+
+While at the East she was greatly affected by hearing of the death of
+her dear friend, Eliza Tyler, the wife of Professor Stowe. This lady
+was the daughter of Dr. Bennett Tyler, president of the Theological
+Institute of Connecticut, at East Windsor; but twenty-five years of
+age at the time of her death, a very beautiful woman gifted with a
+wonderful voice. She was also possessed of a well-stored mind and a
+personal magnetism that made her one of the most popular members of
+the Semi-Colon Club, in the proceedings of which she took an active
+interest.
+
+Her death left Professor Stowe a childless widower, and his forlorn
+condition greatly excited the sympathy of her who had been his wife's
+most intimate friend. It was easy for sympathy to ripen into love, and
+after a short engagement Harriet E. Beecher became the wife of
+Professor Calvin E. Stowe.
+
+Her last act before the wedding was to write the following note to the
+friend of her girlhood, Miss Georgiana May:--
+
+_January_ 6, 1836.
+
+Well, my dear G., about half an hour more and your old friend,
+companion, schoolmate, sister, etc., will cease to be Hatty Beecher
+and change to nobody knows who. My dear, you are engaged, and pledged
+in a year or two to encounter a similar fate, and do you wish to know
+how you shall feel? Well, my dear, I have been dreading and dreading
+the time, and lying awake all last week wondering how I should live
+through this overwhelming crisis, and lo! it has come and I feel
+_nothing at all_.
+
+The wedding is to be altogether domestic; nobody present but my own
+brothers and sisters, and my old colleague, Mary Dutton; and as there
+is a sufficiency of the ministry in our family we have not even to
+call in the foreign aid of a minister. Sister Katy is not here, so she
+will not witness my departure from her care and guidance to that of
+another. None of my numerous friends and acquaintances who have taken
+such a deep interest in making the connection for me even know the
+day, and it will be all done and over before they know anything about
+it.
+
+Well, it is really a mercy to have this entire stupidity come over one
+at such a time. I should be crazy to feel as I did yesterday, or
+indeed to feel anything at all. But I inwardly vowed that my last
+feelings and reflections on this subject should be yours, and as I
+have not got any, it is just as well to tell you _that_. Well,
+here comes Mr. S., so farewell, and for the last time I subscribe,
+
+Your own H. E. B.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+EARLY MARRIED LIFE, 1836-1840.
+
+
+PROFESSOR STOWE'S INTEREST IN POPULAR EDUCATION.--HIS DEPARTURE FOR
+EUROPE.--SLAVERY RIOTS IN CINCINNATI.--BIRTH OF TWIN DAUGHTERS.--
+PROFESSOR STOWE'S RETURN AND VISIT TO COLUMBUS.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--
+AIDING A FUGITIVE SLAVE.--AUTHORSHIP UNDER DIFFICULTIES.--A BEECHER
+ROUND ROBIN.
+
+The letter to her friend Georgiana May, begun half an hour before her
+wedding, was not completed until nearly two months after that event.
+Taking it from her portfolio, she adds:--
+
+"Three weeks have passed since writing the above, and my husband and
+self are now quietly seated by our own fireside, as domestic as any
+pair of tame fowl you ever saw; he writing to his mother, and I to
+you. Two days after our marriage we took a wedding excursion, so
+called, though we would most gladly have been excused this conformity
+to ordinary custom had not necessity required Mr. Stowe to visit
+Columbus, and I had too much adhesiveness not to go too. Ohio roads at
+this season are no joke, I can tell you, though we were, on the whole,
+wonderfully taken care of, and our expedition included as many
+pleasures as an expedition at this time of the year _ever_ could.
+
+"And now, my dear, perhaps the wonder to you, as to me, is how this
+momentous crisis in the life of such a wisp of nerve as myself has
+been transacted so quietly. My dear, it is a wonder to myself. I am
+tranquil, quiet, and happy. I look _only_ on the present, and
+leave the future with Him who has hitherto been so kind to me. 'Take
+no thought for the morrow' is my motto, and my comfort is to rest on
+Him in whose house there are many mansions provided when these
+fleeting earthly ones pass away.
+
+"Dear Georgy, naughty girl that I am, it is a month that I have let
+the above lie by, because I got into a strain of emotion in it that I
+dreaded to return to. Well, so it shall be no longer. In about five
+weeks Mr. Stowe and myself start for New England. He sails the first
+of May. I am going with him to Boston, New York, and other places, and
+shall stop finally at Hartford, whence, as soon as he is gone, it is
+my intention to return westward."
+
+This reference to her husband as about to leave her relates to his
+sailing for Europe to purchase books for Lane Seminary, and also as a
+commissioner appointed by the State of Ohio to investigate the public
+school systems of the old world. He had long been convinced that
+higher education was impossible in the West without a higher grade of
+public schools, and had in 1833 been one of the founders in Cincinnati
+of "The College of Teachers," an institution that existed for ten
+years, and exerted a widespread influence. Its objects were to
+popularize the common schools, raise the standard of teachers, and
+create a demand for education among the people. Professor Stowe was
+associated in this movement with many of the leading intellects of
+Ohio at that time, and among them were Albert Pickett, Dr. Drake,
+Smith Grimke, Archbishop Purcell, President A. H. McGuffey, Dr.
+Beecher, Lydia Sigourney, Caroline Lee Hentz, and others. Their
+influence finally extended to the state legislature, and it was
+concluded to authorize Professor Stowe, when abroad, to investigate
+and report upon the common school systems of Europe, especially
+Prussia.
+
+He sailed from New York for London in the ship Montreal, Captain
+Champlin, on June 8, 1836, and carried with him, to be opened only
+after he was at sea, a letter from his wife, from which the following
+extract is made:--
+
+"Now, my dear, that you are gone where you are out of the reach of my
+care, advice, and good management, it is fitting that you should have
+something under my hand and seal for your comfort and furtherance in
+the new world you are going to. Firstly, I must caution you to set
+your face as a flint against the 'cultivation of indigo,' as Elisabeth
+calls it, in any way or shape. Keep yourself from it most
+scrupulously, and though you are unprovided with that precious and
+savory treatise entitled 'Kemper's Consolations,' [Footnote: A
+ridiculous book from which Mr. Stowe derived endless amusement.] yet
+you can exercise yourself to recall and set in order such parts
+thereof as would more particularly suit your case, particularly those
+portions wherewith you so much consoled Kate, Aunt Esther, and your
+unworthy handmaid, while you yet tarried at Walnut Hills. But
+seriously, dear one, you must give more way to hope than to memory.
+You are going to a new scene now, and one that I hope will be full of
+enjoyment to you. I want you to take the good of it.
+
+"Only think of all you expect to see: the great libraries and
+beautiful paintings, fine churches, and, above all, think of seeing
+Tholuck, your great Apollo. My dear, I wish I were a man in your
+place; if I wouldn't have a grand time!"
+
+During her husband's absence abroad Mrs. Stowe lived quietly in
+Cincinnati with her father and brothers. She wrote occasionally short
+stories, articles, and essays for publication in the "Western Monthly
+Magazine" or the "New York Evangelist," and maintained a constant
+correspondence with her husband by means of a daily journal, which was
+forwarded to him once a month. She also assisted her brother, Henry
+Ward, who had accepted a temporary position as editor of the
+"Journal," a small daily paper published in the city.
+
+At this time the question of slavery was an exciting one in
+Cincinnati, and Lane Seminary had become a hotbed of abolition. The
+anti-slavery movement among the students was headed by Theodore D.
+Weld, one of their number, who had procured funds to complete his
+education by lecturing through the South. While thus engaged he had
+been so impressed with the evils and horrors of slavery that he had
+become a radical abolitionist, and had succeeded in converting several
+Southerners to his views of the subject. Among them was Mr. J. G.
+Birney of Huntsville, Alabama, who not only liberated his slaves, but
+in connection with Dr. Gamaliel Bailey of Cincinnati founded in that
+city an anti-slavery paper called "The Philanthropist." This paper was
+finally suppressed, and its office wrecked by a mob instigated by
+Kentucky slaveholders, and it is of this event that Mrs. Stowe writes
+to her husband as follows:--
+
+"Yesterday evening I spent scribbling for Henry's newspaper (the
+'Journal') in this wise: 'Birney's printing-press has been mobbed, and
+many of the respectable citizens are disposed to wink at the outrage
+in consideration of its moving in the line of their prejudices.'
+
+"I wrote a conversational sketch, in which I rather satirized this
+inconsistent spirit, and brought out the effects of patronizing
+_any_ violation of private rights. It was in a light, sketchy
+style, designed to draw attention to a long editorial of Henry's in
+which he considers the subject fully and seriously. His piece is, I
+think, a powerful one; indeed, he does write very strongly. I am quite
+proud of his editorials; they are well studied, earnest, and
+dignified. I think he will make a first-rate writer. Both our pieces
+have gone to press to-day, with Charles's article on music, and we
+have had not a little diversion about our _family newspaper_.
+
+"I thought, when I was writing last night, that I was, like a good
+wife, defending one of your principles in your absence, and wanted you
+to see how manfully I talked about it. Henry has also taken up and
+examined the question of the Seminole Indians, and done it very
+nobly."
+
+Again:--
+
+"The excitement about Birney continues to increase. The keeper of the
+Franklin Hotel was assailed by a document subscribed to by many of his
+boarders demanding that Birney should be turned out of doors. He chose
+to negative the demand, and twelve of his boarders immediately left,
+Dr. F. among the number. A meeting has been convoked by means of a
+handbill, in which some of the most respectable men of the city are
+invited by name to come together and consider the question whether
+they will allow Mr. Birney to continue his paper in the city. Mr.
+Greene says that, to his utter surprise, many of the most respectable
+and influential citizens gave out that they should go.
+
+"He was one of the number they invited, but he told those who came to
+him that he would have nothing to do with disorderly public meetings
+or mobs in any shape, and that he was entirely opposed to the whole
+thing.
+
+"I presume they will have a hot meeting, if they have any at all.
+
+"I wish father were at home to preach a sermon to his church, for many
+of its members do not frown on these things as they ought."
+
+"Later: The meeting was held, and was headed by Morgan, Neville, Judge
+Burke, and I know not who else. Judge Burnet was present and consented
+to their acts. The mob madness is certainly upon this city when men of
+sense and standing will pass resolutions approving in so many words of
+things done contrary to law, as one of the resolutions of this meeting
+did. It quoted the demolition of the tea in Boston harbor as being
+authority and precedent.
+
+"A large body, perhaps the majority of citizens, disapprove, but I
+fear there will not be public disavowal. Even N. Wright but faintly
+opposes, and Dr. Fore has been exceedingly violent. Mr. Hammond
+(editor of the 'Gazette') in a very dignified and judicious manner has
+condemned the whole thing, and Henry has opposed, but otherwise the
+papers have either been silent or in favor of mobs. We shall see what
+the result will be in a few days.
+
+"For my part, I can easily see how such proceedings may make converts
+to abolitionism, for already my sympathies are strongly enlisted for
+Mr. Birney, and I hope that he will stand his ground and assert his
+rights. The office is fire-proof, and inclosed by high walls. I wish
+he would man it with armed men and see what can be done. If I were a
+man I would go, for one, and take good care of at least one window.
+Henry sits opposite me writing a most valiant editorial, and tells me
+to tell you he is waxing mighty in battle."
+
+In another letter she writes:--
+
+"I told you in my last that the mob broke into Birney's press, where,
+however, the mischief done was but slight. The object appeared to be
+principally to terrify. Immediately there followed a general
+excitement in which even good men in their panic and prejudice about
+abolitionism forgot that mobs were worse evils than these, talked
+against Birney, and winked at the outrage; N. Wright and Judge Burnet,
+for example. Meanwhile the turbulent spirits went beyond this and
+talked of revolution and of righting things without law that could not
+be righted by it. At the head of these were Morgan, Neville,
+Longworth, Joseph Graham, and Judge Burke. A meeting was convoked at
+Lower Market Street to decide whether they would permit the publishing
+of an abolition paper, and to this meeting able citizens were by name
+summoned.
+
+"There were four classes in the city then: Those who meant to go as
+revolutionists and support the mob; those who meant to put down
+Birney, but rather hoped to do it without a mob; those who felt
+ashamed to go, foreseeing the probable consequence, and yet did not
+decidedly frown upon it; and those who sternly and decidedly
+reprehended it.
+
+"The first class was headed by Neville, Longworth, Graham, etc.; the
+second class, though of some numbers, was less conspicuous; of the
+third, Judge Burnet, Dr. Fore, and N. Wright were specimens; and in
+the last such men as Hammond, Mansfield, S. P. Chase, [Footnote:
+Salmon P. Chase.] and Chester were prominent. The meeting in so many
+words voted a mob, nevertheless a committee was appointed to wait on
+Mr. Birney and ascertain what he proposed to do; and, strange to tell,
+men as sensible as Uncle John and Judge Burnet were so short-sighted
+as to act on that committee.
+
+"All the newspapers in the city, except Hammond's ('Gazette') and
+Henry's (the 'Journal'), were either silent or openly 'mobocratic.' As
+might have been expected, Birney refused to leave, and that night the
+mob tore down his press, scattered the types, dragged the whole to the
+river, threw it in, and then came back to demolish the office.
+
+"They then went to the houses of Dr. Bailey, Mr. Donaldson, and Mr.
+Birney; but the persons they sought were not at home, having been
+aware of what was intended. The mayor was a silent spectator of these
+proceedings, and was heard to say, 'Well, lads, you have done well, so
+far; go home now before you disgrace yourselves;' but the 'lads' spent
+the rest of the night and a greater part of the next day (Sunday) in
+pulling down the houses of inoffensive and respectable blacks. The
+'Gazette' office was threatened, the 'Journal' office was to go next;
+Lane Seminary and the water-works also were mentioned as probable
+points to be attacked by the mob.
+
+"By Tuesday morning the city was pretty well alarmed. A regular corps
+of volunteers was organized, who for three nights patrolled the
+streets with firearms and with legal warrant from the mayor, who by
+this time was glad to give it, to put down the mob even by bloodshed.
+
+"For a day or two we did not know but there would actually be war to
+the knife, as was threatened by the mob, and we really saw Henry
+depart with his pistols with daily alarm, only we were all too full of
+patriotism not to have sent every brother we had rather than not have
+had the principles of freedom and order defended.
+
+"But here the tide turned. The mob, unsupported by a now frightened
+community, slunk into their dens and were still; and then Hammond,
+who, during the few days of its prevalence, had made no comments, but
+published simply the Sermon on the Mount, the Constitution of Ohio,
+and the Declaration of Independence, without any comment, now came out
+and gave a simple, concise history of the mob, tracing it to the
+market-house meeting, telling the whole history of the meeting, with
+the names of those who got it up, throwing on them and on those who
+had acted on the committee the whole responsibility of the following
+mob. It makes a terrible sensation, but it 'cuts its way,' and all who
+took other stand than that of steady opposition from the first are
+beginning to feel the reaction of public sentiment, while newspapers
+from abroad are pouring in their reprehensions of the disgraceful
+conduct of Cincinnati. Another time, I suspect, such men as Judge
+Burnet, Mr. Greene, and Uncle John will keep their fingers out of such
+a trap, and people will all learn better than to wink at a mob that
+happens to please them at the outset, or in any way to give it their
+countenance. Mr. Greene and Uncle John were full of wrath against
+mobs, and would not go to the meeting, and yet were cajoled into
+acting on that committee in the vain hope of getting Birney to go away
+and thus preventing the outrage.
+
+"They are justly punished, I think, for what was very irresolute and
+foolish conduct, to say the least."
+
+The general tone of her letters at this tune would seem to show that,
+while Mrs. Stowe was anti-slavery in her sympathies, she was not a
+declared abolitionist. This is still further borne out in a letter
+written in 1837 from Putnam, Ohio, whither she had gone for a short
+visit to her brother William. In it she says:--
+
+"The good people here, you know, are about half abolitionists. A lady
+who takes a leading part in the female society in this place yesterday
+called and brought Catherine the proceedings of the Female Anti-
+Slavery Convention.
+
+"I should think them about as ultra as to measures as anything that
+has been attempted, though I am glad to see a better spirit than marks
+such proceedings generally.
+
+"To-day I read some in Mr. Birney's 'Philanthropist.' Abolitionism
+being the fashion here, it is natural to look at its papers.
+
+"It does seem to me that there needs to be an _intermediate_
+society. If not, as light increases, all the excesses of the abolition
+party will not prevent humane and conscientious men from joining it.
+
+"Pray what is there in Cincinnati to satisfy one whose mind is
+awakened on this subject? No one can have the system of slavery
+brought before him without an irrepressible desire to _do_
+something, and what is there to be done?"
+
+On September 29, 1836, while Professor Stowe was still absent in
+Europe, his wife gave birth to twin daughters, Eliza and Isabella, as
+she named them; but Eliza Tyler and Harriet Beecher, as her husband
+insisted they should be called, when, upon reaching New York, he was
+greeted by the joyful news. His trip from London in the ship Gladiator
+had been unusually long, even for those days of sailing vessels, and
+extended from November 19, 1836, to January 20, 1837.
+
+During the summer of 1837 Mrs. Stowe suffered much from ill health, on
+which account, and to relieve her from domestic cares, she was sent to
+make a long visit at Putnam with her brother, Rev. William Beecher.
+While here she received a letter from her husband, in which he says:--
+
+"We all of course feel proper indignation at the doings of last
+General Assembly, and shall treat them with merited contempt. This
+alliance between the old school (Presbyterians) and slaveholders will
+make more abolitionists than anything that has been done yet."
+
+In December Professor Stowe went to Columbus with the extended
+educational report that he had devoted the summer to preparing; and in
+writing from there to his wife he says:--
+
+"To-day I have been visiting the governor and legislators. They
+received me with the utmost kindness, and are evidently anticipating
+much from my report. The governor communicated it to the legislature
+to-day, and it is concluded that I read it in Dr. Hodges' church on
+two evenings, to-morrow and the day after, before both houses of the
+legislature and the citizens. The governor (Vance) will preside at
+both meetings. I like him (the governor) much. He is just such a
+plain, simple-hearted, sturdy body as old Fritz (Kaiser Frederick),
+with more of natural talent than his predecessor in the gubernatorial
+chair. For my year's work in this matter I am to receive $500."
+
+On January 14, 1838, Mrs. Stowe's third child, Henry Ellis, was born.
+
+It was about this time that the famous reunion of the Beecher family
+described in Lyman Beecher's "Autobiography" occurred. Edward made a
+visit to the East, and when he returned he brought Mary (Mrs. Thomas
+Perkins) from Hartford with him. William came down from Putnam, Ohio,
+and George from Batavia, New York, while Catherine, Harriet, Henry,
+Charles, Isabella, Thomas, and James were already at home. It was the
+first time they had ever all met together. Mary had never seen James,
+and had seen Thomas but once. The old doctor was almost transported
+with joy as they all gathered about him, and his eup of happiness was
+filled to overflowing when, the next day, which was Sunday, his pulpit
+was filled by Edward in the morning, William in the after-noon, and
+George in the evening.
+
+Side by side with this charming picture we have another of domestic
+life outlined by Mrs. Stowe's own hand. It is contained in the
+following letter, written June 21, 1838, to Miss May, at New Haven,
+Conn.:--
+
+MY DEAR, DEAR GEORGIANA,--Only think how long it is since I have
+written to you, and how changed I am since then--the mother of three
+children! Well, if I have not kept the reckoning of old times, let
+this last circumstance prove my apology, for I have been hand, heart,
+and head full since I saw you.
+
+"Now, to-day, for example, I'll tell you what I had on my mind from
+dawn to dewy eve. In the first place I waked about half after four and
+thought, 'Bless me, how light it is! I must get out of bed and rap to
+wake up Mina, for breakfast must be had at six o'clock this morning.'
+So out of bed I jump and seize the tongs and pound, pound, pound over
+poor Mina's sleepy head, charitably allowing her about half an hour to
+get waked up in,--that being the quantum of time that it takes me,--or
+used to. Well, then baby wakes--quâ, quâ, quâ, so I give him his
+breakfast, dozing meanwhile and soliloquizing as follows: "Now I must
+not forget to tell Mr. Stowe about the starch and dried apples"--doze--
+"ah, um, dear me! why doesn't Mina get up? I don't hear her,"
+--doze--"a, um,--I wonder if Mina has soap enough! I think there were
+two bars left on Saturday"--doze again--I wake again. "Dear me, broad
+daylight! I must get up and go down and see if Mina is getting
+breakfast." Up I jump and up wakes baby. "Now, little boy, be good and
+let mother dress, because she is in a hurry." I get my frock half on
+and baby by that time has kicked himself down off his pillow, and is
+crying and fisting the bed-clothes in great order. I stop with one
+sleeve off and one on to settle matters with him. Having planted him
+bolt upright and gone all up and down the chamber barefoot to get
+pillows and blankets, to prop him up, I finish putting my frock on and
+hurry down to satisfy myself by actual observation that the breakfast
+is in progress. Then back I come into the nursery, where, remembering
+that it is washing day and that there is a great deal of work to be
+done, I apply myself vigorously to sweeping, dusting, and the setting
+to rights so necessary where there are three little mischiefs always
+pulling down as fast as one can put up.
+
+"Then there are Miss H---- and Miss E----, concerning whom Mary will
+furnish you with all suitable particulars, who are chattering,
+hallooing, or singing at the tops of their voices, as may suit their
+various states of mind, while the nurse is getting their breakfast
+ready. This meal being cleared away, Mr. Stowe dispatched to market
+with various memoranda of provisions, etc., and the baby being washed
+and dressed, I begin to think what next must be done. I start to cut
+out some little dresses, have just calculated the length and got one
+breadth torn off when Master Henry makes a doleful lip and falls to
+crying with might and main. I catch him up and turning round see one
+of his sisters flourishing the things out of my workbox in fine style.
+Moving it away and looking the other side I see the second little
+mischief seated by the hearth chewing coals and scraping up ashes with
+great apparent relish. Grandmother lays hold upon her and charitably
+offers to endeavor to quiet baby while I go on with my work. I set at
+it again, pick up a dozen pieces, measure them once more to see which
+is the right one, and proceed to cut out some others, when I see the
+twins on the point of quarreling with each other. Number one pushes
+number two over. Number two screams: that frightens the baby and he
+joins in. I call number one a naughty girl, take the persecuted one in
+my arms, and endeavor to comfort her by trotting to the old lyric:--
+
+  "So ride the gentlefolk,
+  And so do we, so do we."
+
+Meanwhile number one makes her way to the slop jar and forthwith
+proceeds to wash her apron in it. Grandmother catches her by one
+shoulder, drags her away, and sets the jar up out of her reach. By and
+by the nurse comes up from her sweeping. I commit the children to her,
+and finish cutting out the frocks.
+
+But let this suffice, for of such details as these are all my days
+made up. Indeed, my dear, I am but a mere drudge with few ideas beyond
+babies and housekeeping. As for thoughts, reflections, and sentiments,
+good lack! good lack!
+
+I suppose I am a dolefully uninteresting person at present, but I hope
+I shall grow young again one of these days, for it seems to me that
+matters cannot always stand exactly as they do now.
+
+Well, Georgy, this marriage is--yes, I will speak well of it, after
+all; for when I can stop and think long enough to discriminate my head
+from my heels, I must say that I think myself a fortunate woman both
+in husband and children. My children I would not change for all the
+ease, leisure, and pleasure that I could have without them. They are
+money on interest whose value will be constantly increasing.
+
+In 1839 Mrs. Stowe received into her family as a servant a colored
+girl from Kentucky. By the laws of Ohio she was free, having been
+brought into the State and left there by her mistress. In spite of
+this, Professor Stowe received word, after she had lived with them
+some months, that the girl's master was in the city looking for her,
+and that if she were not careful she would be seized and conveyed back
+into slavery. Finding that this could be accomplished by boldness,
+perjury, and the connivance of some unscrupulous justice, Professor
+Stowe determined to remove the girl to some place of security where
+she might remain until the search for her should be given up.
+Accordingly he and his brother-in-law, Henry Ward Beecher, both armed,
+drove the fugitive, in a covered wagon, at night, by unfrequented
+roads, twelve miles back into the country, and left her in safety with
+the family of old John Van Zandt, the fugitive's friend.
+
+It is from this incident of real life and personal experience that
+Mrs. Stowe conceived the thrilling episode of the fugitives' escape
+from Tom Loker and Marks in "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+An amusing and at the same time most interesting account of her
+struggles to accomplish literary work amid her distracting domestic
+duties at this time is furnished by the letter of one of her intimate
+friends, who writes:--
+
+"It was my good fortune to number Mrs. Stowe among my friends, and
+during a visit to her I had an opportunity one day of witnessing the
+combined exercise of her literary and domestic genius in a style that
+to me was quite amusing.
+
+"'Come Harriet,' said I, as I found her tending one baby and watching
+two others just able to walk, 'where is that piece for the "Souvenir"
+which I promised the editor I would get from you and send on next
+week? You have only this one day left to finish it, and have it I
+must.'
+
+"'And how will you get it, friend of mine?' said Harriet. 'You will at
+least have to wait till I get house-cleaning over and baby's teeth
+through.'
+
+"'As to house-cleaning, you can defer it one day longer; and as to
+baby's teeth, there is to be no end to them, as I can see. No, no; to-
+day that story must be ended. There Frederick has been sitting by
+Ellen and saying all those pretty things for more than a month now,
+and she has been turning and blushing till I am sure it is time to go
+to her relief. Come, it would not take you three hours at the rate you
+can write to finish the courtship, marriage, catastrophe,
+éclaircissement, and all; and this three hours' labor of your brains
+will earn enough to pay for all the sewing your fingers could do for a
+year to come. Two dollars a page, my dear, and you can write a page in
+fifteen minutes! Come, then, my lady housekeeper, economy is a
+cardinal virtue; consider the economy of the thing.'
+
+"'But, my dear, here is a baby in my arms and two little pussies by my
+side, and there is a great baking down in the kitchen, and there is a
+"new girl" for "help," besides preparations to be made for house-cleaning
+next week. It is really out of the question, you see.'
+
+"'I see no such thing. I do not know what genius is given for, if it
+is not to help a woman out of a scrape. Come, set your wits to work,
+let me have my way, and you shall have all the work done and finish
+the story too.'
+
+"'Well, but kitchen affairs?'
+
+"'We can manage them too. You know you can write anywhere and anyhow.
+Just take your seat at the kitchen table with your writing weapons,
+and while you superintend Mina fill up the odd snatches of time with
+the labors of your pen.'
+
+"I carried my point. In ten minutes she was seated; a table with
+flour, rolling-pin, ginger, and lard on one side, a dresser with eggs,
+pork, and beans and various cooking utensils on the other, near her an
+oven heating, and beside her a dark-skinned nymph, waiting orders.
+
+"'Here, Harriet,' said I, 'you can write on this atlas in your lap; no
+matter how the writing looks, I will copy it.'
+
+"'Well, well,' said she, with a resigned sort of amused look. 'Mina,
+you may do what I told you, while I write a few minutes, till it is
+time to mould up the bread. Where is the inkstand?'
+
+"'Here it is, close by, on the top of the tea-kettle,' said I.
+
+"At this Mina giggled, and we both laughed to see her merriment at our
+literary proceedings.
+
+"I began to overhaul the portfolio to find the right sheet.
+
+"'Here it is,' said I. 'Here is Frederick sitting by Ellen, glancing
+at her brilliant face, and saying something about "guardian angel,"
+and all that--you remember?'
+
+"'Yes, yes,' said she, falling into a muse, as she attempted to
+recover the thread of her story.
+
+"'Ma'am, shall I put the pork on the top of the beans?' asked Mina.
+
+"'Come, come,' said Harriet, laughing. 'You see how it is. Mina is a
+new hand and cannot do anything without me to direct her. We must give
+up the writing for to-day.'
+
+"'No, no; let us have another trial. You can dictate as easily as you
+can write. Come, I can set the baby in this clothes-basket and give
+him some mischief or other to keep him quiet; you shall dictate and I
+will write. Now, this is the place where you left off: you were
+describing the scene between Ellen and her lover; the last sentence
+was, "Borne down by the tide of agony, she leaned her head on her
+hands, the tears streamed through her fingers, and her whole frame
+shook with convulsive sobs." What shall I write next?'
+
+"'Mina, pour a little milk into this pearlash,' said Harriet.
+
+"'Come,' said I. '"The tears streamed through her fingers and her
+whole frame shook with convulsive sobs." What next?'
+
+"Harriet paused and looked musingly out of the window, as she turned
+her mind to her story. 'You may write now,' said she, and she dictated
+as follows:
+
+"'"Her lover wept with her, nor dared he again to touch the point so
+sacredly guarded"--Mina, roll that crust a little thinner. "He spoke
+in soothing tones"--Mina, poke the coals in the oven.'
+
+"'Here,' said I, 'let me direct Mina about these matters, and write a
+while yourself.'
+
+"Harriet took the pen and patiently set herself to the work. For a
+while my culinary knowledge and skill were proof to all Mina's
+investigating inquiries, and they did not fail till I saw two pages
+completed.
+
+"'You have done bravely,' said I, as I read over the manuscript; 'now
+you must direct Mina a while. Meanwhile dictate and I will write.'
+
+"Never was there a more docile literary lady than my friend. Without a
+word of objection she followed my request.
+
+"'I am ready to write,' said I. 'The last sentence was: "What is this
+life to one who has suffered as I have?" What next?'
+
+"'Shall I put in the brown or the white bread first?' said Mina.
+
+"'The brown first,' said Harriet.
+
+"'"What is this life to one who has suffered as I have?"' said I.
+
+"Harriet brushed the flour off her apron and sat down for a moment in
+a muse. Then she dictated as follows:--
+
+"'"Under the breaking of my heart I have borne up. I have borne up
+under all that tries a woman,--but this thought,--oh, Henry!"'
+
+"'Ma'am, shall I put ginger into this pumpkin?' queried Mina.
+
+"'No, you may let that alone just now,' replied Harriet. She then
+proceeded:--
+
+"'"I know my duty to my children. I see the hour must come. You must
+take them, Henry; they are my last earthly comfort."'
+
+"'Ma'am, what shall I do with these egg-shells and all this truck
+here?' interrupted Mina.
+
+"'Put them in the pail by you,' answered Harriet. "'"They are my last
+earthly comfort,"' said I. 'What next?'
+
+"She continued to dictate,--
+
+"'"You must take them away. It may be---perhaps it _must_ be---
+that I shall soon follow, but the breaking heart of a wife still
+pleads, 'a little longer, a little longer.'"'
+
+"'How much longer must the gingerbread stay in?' inquired Mina.
+
+"'Five minutes,' said Harriet.
+
+"'"A little longer, a little longer,"' I repeated in a dolorous tone,
+and we burst into a laugh.
+
+"Thus we went on, cooking, writing, nursing, and laughing, till I
+finally accomplished my object. The piece was finished, copied, and
+the next day sent to the editor."
+
+The widely scattered members of the Beecher family had a fashion of
+communicating with each other by means of circular letters. These,
+begun on great sheets of paper, at either end of the line, were passed
+along from one to another, each one adding his or her budget of news
+to the general stock. When the filled sheet reached the last person
+for whom it was intended, it was finally remailed to its point of
+departure. Except in the cases of Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Perkins, the
+simple address "Rev. Mr. Beecher" was sufficient to insure its safe
+delivery in any town to which it was sent.
+
+One of these great, closely-written sheets, bearing in faded ink the
+names of all the Beechers, lies outspread before us as we write. It is
+postmarked Hartford, Conn., Batavia, N. Y., Chillicothe, Ohio,
+Zanesville, Ohio, Walnut Hills, Ohio, Indianapolis, Ind.,
+Jacksonville, Ill., and New Orleans, La. In it Mrs. Stowe occupies her
+allotted space with--
+
+WALNUT HILLS, 27,1839.
+
+DEAR FRIENDS,---I am going to Hartford myself, and therefore shall not
+write, but hurry along the preparations for my forward journey. Belle,
+father says you may go to the White Mountains with Mr. Stowe and me
+this summer. George, we may look in on you coming back. Good-by.
+Affectionately to all, H. E. STOWE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+POVERTY AND SICKNESS, 1840-1850.
+
+
+FAMINE IN CINCINNATI.--SUMMER AT THE EAST.--PLANS FOR LITERARY WORK.--
+EXPERIENCE ON A RAILROAD.--DEATH OF HER BROTHER GEORGE.--SICKNESS AND
+DESPAIR.--A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF HEALTH.--GOES TO BRATTLEBORO'
+WATERCURE.--TROUBLES AT LANE SEMINARY.---CHOLERA IN CINCINNATI.--DEATH
+OF YOUNGEST CHILD.---DETERMINED TO LEAVE THE WEST.
+
+On January 7, 1839, Professor Stowe wrote to his mother in Natick,
+Mass.: "You left here, I believe, in the right time, for as there has
+been no navigation on the Ohio River for a year, we are almost in a
+state of famine as to many of the necessities of life. For example,
+salt (coarse) has sold in Cincinnati this winter for three dollars a
+bushel; rice eighteen cents a pound; coffee fifty cents a pound; white
+sugar the same; brown sugar twenty cents; molasses a dollar a gallon;
+potatoes a dollar a bushel. We do without such things mostly; as there
+is yet plenty of bread and bacon (flour six and seven dollars a
+barrel, and good pork from six to eight cents a pound) we get along
+very comfortably.
+
+"Our new house is pretty much as it was, but they say it will be
+finished in July. I expect to visit you next summer, as I shall
+deliver the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Dartmouth College; but whether
+wife and children come with me or not is not yet decided."
+
+Mrs. Stowe came on to the East with her husband and children during
+the following summer, and before her return made a trip through the
+White Mountains.
+
+In May, 1840, her second son was born and named Frederick William,
+after the sturdy Prussian king, for whom her husband cherished an
+unbounded admiration.
+
+Mrs. Stowe has said somewhere: "So we go, dear reader, so long as we
+have a body and a soul. For worlds must mingle,--the great and the
+little, the solemn and the trivial, wreathing in and out like the
+grotesque carvings on a gothic shrine; only did we know it rightly,
+nothing is trivial, since the human soul, with its awful shadow, makes
+all things sacred." So in writing a biography it is impossible for us
+to tell what did and what did not powerfully influence the character.
+It is safer simply to tell the unvarnished truth. The lily builds up
+its texture of delicate beauty from mould and decay. So how do we know
+from what humble material a soul grows in strength and beauty!
+
+In December, 1840, writing to Miss May, Mrs. Stowe says:--
+
+"For a year I have held the pen only to write an occasional business
+letter such as could not be neglected. This was primarily owing to a
+severe neuralgic complaint that settled in my eyes, and for two months
+not only made it impossible for me to use them in writing, but to fix
+them with attention on anything. I could not even bear the least light
+of day in my room. Then my dear little Frederick was born, and for two
+months more I was confined to my bed. Besides all this, we have had an
+unusual amount of sickness in our family. . . .
+
+"For all that my history of the past year records so many troubles, I
+cannot on the whole regard it as a very troublous one. I have had so
+many counterbalancing mercies that I must regard myself as a person
+greatly blessed. It is true that about six months out of the twelve I
+have been laid up with sickness, but then I have had every comfort and
+the kindest of nurses in my faithful Anna. My children have thriven,
+and on the whole 'come to more,' as the Yankees say, than the care of
+them. Thus you see my troubles have been but enough to keep me from
+loving earth too well."
+
+In the spring of 1842 Mrs. Stowe again visited Hartford, taking her
+six-year-old daughter Hatty with her. In writing from there to her
+husband she confides some of her literary plans and aspirations to
+him, and he answers:--
+
+"My dear, you must be a literary woman. It is so written in the book
+of fate. Make all your calculations accordingly. Get a good stock of
+health and brush up your mind. Drop the E. out of your name. It only
+incumbers it and interferes with the flow and euphony. Write yourself
+fully and always Harriet Beecher Stowe, which is a name euphonious,
+flowing, and full of meaning. Then my word for it, your husband will
+lift up his head in the gate, and your children will rise up and call
+you blessed.
+
+"Our humble dwelling has to-day received a distinguished honor of
+which I must give you an account. It was a visit from his excellency
+the Baron de Roenne, ambassador of his majesty the King of Prussia to
+the United States. He was pleased to assure me of the great
+satisfaction my report on Prussian schools had afforded the king and
+members of his court, with much more to the same effect. Of course
+having a real live lord to exhibit, I was anxious for some one to
+exhibit him to; but neither Aunt Esther nor Anna dared venture near
+the study, though they both contrived to get a peep at his lordship
+from the little chamber window as he was leaving.
+
+"And now, my dear wife, I want you to come home as quick as you can.
+The fact is I cannot live without you, and if we were not so
+prodigious poor I would come for you at once. There is no woman like
+you in this wide world. Who else has so much talent with so little
+self-conceit; so much reputation with so little affectation; so much
+literature with so little nonsense; so much enterprise with so little
+extravagance; so much tongue with so little scold; so much sweetness
+with so little softness; so much of so many things and so little of so
+many other things?"
+
+In answer to this letter Mrs. Stowe writes from Hartford:--
+
+"I have seen Johnson of the 'Evangelist.' He is very liberally
+disposed, and I may safely reckon on being paid for all I do there.
+Who is that Hale, Jr., that sent me the 'Boston Miscellany,' and will
+he keep his word with me? His offers are very liberal,--twenty dollars
+for three pages, not very close print. Is he to be depended on? If so,
+it is the best offer I have received yet. I shall get something from
+the Harpers some time this winter or spring. Robertson, the publisher
+here, says the book ('The Mayflower') will sell, and though the terms
+they offer me are very low, that I shall make something on it. For a
+second volume I shall be able to make better terms. On the whole, my
+dear, if I choose to be a literary lady, I have, I think, as good a
+chance of making profit by it as any one I know of. But with all this,
+I have my doubts whether I shall be able to do so.
+
+"Our children are just coming to the age when everything depends on my
+efforts. They are delicate in health, and nervous and excitable, and
+need a mother's whole attention. Can I lawfully divide my attention by
+literary efforts?
+
+"There is one thing I must suggest. If I am to write, I must have a
+room to myself, which shall be my room. I have in my own mind pitched
+on Mrs. Whipple's room. I can put the stove in it. I have bought a
+cheap carpet for it, and I have furniture enough at home to furnish it
+comfortably, and I only beg in addition that you will let me change
+the glass door from the nursery into that room and keep my plants
+there, and then I shall be quite happy.
+
+"All last winter I felt the need of some place where I could go and be
+quiet and satisfied. I could not there, for there was all the setting
+of tables, and clearing up of tables, and dressing and washing of
+children, and everything else going on, and the constant falling of
+soot and coal dust on everything in the room was a constant annoyance
+to me, and I never felt comfortable there though I tried hard. Then if
+I came into the parlor where you were I felt as if I were interrupting
+you, and you know you sometimes thought so too.
+
+"Now this winter let the cooking-stove be put into that room, and let
+the pipe run up through the floor into the room above. We can eat by
+our cooking-stove, and the children can be washed and dressed and keep
+their playthings in the room above, and play there when we don't want
+them below. You can study by the parlor fire, and I and my plants,
+etc., will take the other room. I shall keep my work and all my things
+there and feel settled and quiet. I intend to have a regular part of
+each day devoted to the children, and then I shall take them in
+there."
+
+In his reply to this letter Professor Stowe says:--
+
+"The little magazine ('The Souvenir') goes ahead finely. Fisher sent
+down to Fulton the other day and got sixty subscribers. He will make
+the June number as handsome as possible, as a specimen number for the
+students, several of whom will take agencies for it during the coming
+vacation. You have it in your power by means of this little magazine
+to form the mind of the West for the coming generation. It is just as
+I told you in my last letter. God has written it in his book that you
+must be a literary woman, and who are we that we should contend
+against God? You must therefore make all your calculations to spend
+the rest of your life with your pen.
+
+"If you only could come home to-day how happy should I be. I am daily
+finding out more and more (what I knew very well before) that you are
+the most intelligent and agreeable woman in the whole circle of my
+acquaintance."
+
+That Professor Stowe's devoted admiration for his wife was
+reciprocated, and that a most perfect sympathy of feeling existed
+between the husband and wife, is shown by a line in one of Mrs.
+Stowe's letters from Hartford in which she says: "I was telling Belle
+yesterday that I did not know till I came away how much I was
+dependent upon you for information. There are a thousand favorite
+subjects on which I could talk with you better than with any one else.
+If you were not already my dearly loved husband I should certainly
+fall in love with you."
+
+In this same letter she writes of herself:--
+
+"One thing more in regard to myself. The absence and wandering of mind
+and forgetfulness that so often vexes you is a physical infirmity with
+me. It is the failing of a mind not calculated to endure a great
+pressure of care, and so much do I feel the pressure I am under, so
+much is my mind often darkened and troubled by care, that life
+seriously considered holds out few allurements,--only my children.
+
+"In returning to my family, from whom I have been so long separated, I
+am impressed with a new and solemn feeling of responsibility. It
+appears to me that I am not probably destined for long life; at all
+events, the feeling is strongly impressed upon my mind that a work is
+put into my hands which I must be earnest to finish shortly. It is
+nothing great or brilliant in the world's eye; it lies in one small
+family circle, of which I am called to be the central point."
+
+On her way home from this Eastern visit Mrs. Stowe traveled for the
+first time by rail, and of this novel experience she writes to Miss
+Georgiana May:--
+
+BATAVIA, _August_ 29, 1842.
+
+"Here I am at Brother William's, and our passage along this railroad
+reminds me of the verse of the psalm:--
+
+  "Tho' lions roar and tempests blow,
+  And rocks and dangers fill the way."
+
+Such confusion of tongues, such shouting and swearing, such want of
+all sort of system and decency in arrangements, I never desire to see
+again. I was literally almost trodden down and torn to pieces in the
+Rochester depot when I went to help my poor, near-sighted spouse in
+sorting out the baggage. You see there was an accident which happened
+to the cars leaving Rochester that morning, which kept us two hours
+and a half at the passing place this side of Auburn, waiting for them
+to come up and go by us. The consequence was that we got into this
+Rochester depot aforesaid after dark, and the steamboat, the canal-
+boat, and the Western train of cars had all been kept waiting three
+hours beyond their usual time, and they all broke loose upon us the
+moment we put our heads out of the cars, and such a jerking, and
+elbowing, and scuffling, and swearing, and protesting, and scolding
+you never heard, while the great locomotive sailed up and down in the
+midst thereof, spitting fire and smoke like some great fiend monster
+diverting himself with our commotions. I do think these steam concerns
+border a little too much on the supernatural to be agreeable,
+especially when you are shut up in a great dark depot after sundown.
+Well, after all, we had to ride till twelve o'clock at night to get to
+Batavia, and I've been sick abed, so to speak, ever since."
+
+The winter of 1842 was one of peculiar trial to the family at Walnut
+Hills; as Mrs. Stowe writes, "It was a season of sickness and gloom."
+Typhoid fever raged among the students of the seminary, and the house
+of the president was converted into a hospital, while the members of
+his family were obliged to devote themselves to nursing the sick and
+dying.
+
+July 6, 1843, a few weeks before the birth of her third daughter,
+Georgiana May, a most terrible and overwhelming sorrow came on Mrs.
+Stowe, in common with all the family, in the sudden death of her
+brother, the Rev. George Beecher.
+
+He was a young man of unusual talent and ability, and much loved by
+his church and congregation. The circumstances of his death are
+related in a letter written by Mrs. Stowe, and are as follows:
+"Noticing the birds destroying his fruit and injuring his plants, he
+went for a double-barreled gun, which he scarcely ever had used, out
+of regard to the timidity and anxiety of his wife in reference to it.
+Shortly after he left the house, one of the elders of his church in
+passing saw him discharge one barrel at the birds. Soon after he heard
+the fatal report and saw the smoke, but the trees shut out the rest
+from sight. . . . In about half an hour after, the family assembled at
+breakfast, and the servant was sent out to call him. . . . In a few
+minutes she returned, exclaiming, 'Oh, Mr. Beecher is dead! Mr.
+Beecher is dead!' . . . In a short time a visitor in the family,
+assisted by a passing laborer, raised him up and bore him to the
+house. His face was pale and but slightly marred, his eyes were
+closed, and over his countenance rested the sweet expression of
+peaceful slumber. . . . Then followed the hurried preparations for the
+funeral and journey, until three o'clock, when, all arrangements being
+made, he was borne from his newly finished house, through his blooming
+garden, to the new church, planned and just completed under his
+directing eye. . . . The sermon and the prayers were finished, the
+choir he himself had trained sung their parting hymn, and at about
+five the funeral train started for a journey of over seventy miles.
+That night will stand alone in the memories of those who witnessed its
+scenes!
+
+"At ten in the evening heavy clouds gathered lowering behind, and
+finally rose so as nearly to cover the hemisphere, sending forth
+mutterings of thunder and constant flashes of lightning.
+
+"The excessive heat of the weather, the darkness of the night, the
+solitary road, the flaring of the lamps and lanterns, the flashes of
+the lightning, the roll of approaching thunder, the fear of being
+overtaken in an unfrequented place and the lights extinguished by the
+rain, the sad events of the day, the cries of the infant boy sick with
+the heat and bewailing the father who ever before had soothed his
+griefs, all combined to awaken the deepest emotions of the sorrowful,
+the awful, and the sublime. . . .
+
+"And so it is at last; there must come a time when all that the most
+heart-broken, idolizing love can give us is a coffin and a grave! All
+that could be done for our brother, with all his means and all the
+affection of his people and friends, was just this, no more! After
+all, the deepest and most powerful argument for the religion of Christ
+is its power in times like this. Take from us Christ and what He
+taught, and what have we here? What confusion, what agony, what
+dismay, what wreck and waste! But give Him to us, even the most
+stricken heart can rise under the blow; yea, even triumph!
+
+"'Thy brother shall rise again,' said Jesus; and to us who weep He
+speaks: 'Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are made partakers of Christ's
+sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye also may be glad
+with exceeding joy!'"
+
+The advent of Mrs. Stowe's third daughter was followed by a protracted
+illness and a struggle with great poverty, of which Mrs. Stowe writes
+in October, 1843:--
+
+"Our straits for money this year are unparalleled even in our annals.
+Even our bright and cheery neighbor Allen begins to look blue, and
+says $600 is the very most we can hope to collect of our salary, once
+$1,200. We have a flock of entirely destitute young men in the
+seminary, as poor in money as they are rich in mental and spiritual
+resources. They promise to be as fine a band as those we have just
+sent off. We have two from Iowa and Wisconsin who were actually
+crowded from secular pursuits into the ministry by the wants of the
+people about them. Revivals began, and the people came to them saying,
+'We have no minister, and you must preach to us, for you know more
+than we do.'"
+
+In the spring of 1844 Professor Stowe visited the East to arouse an
+interest in the struggling seminary and raise funds for its
+maintenance. While he was there he received the following letter from
+Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+"I am already half sick with confinement to the house and overwork. If
+I should sew every day for a month to come I should not be able to
+accomplish a half of what is to be done, and should be only more unfit
+for my other duties."
+
+This struggle against ill-health and poverty was continued through
+that year and well into the next, when, during her husband's absence
+to attend a ministerial convention at Detroit, Mrs. Stowe writes to
+him:--
+
+_June_ 16, 1845.
+
+"MY DEAR HUSBAND,--It is a dark, sloppy, rainy, muddy, disagreeable
+day, and I have been working hard (for me) all day in the kitchen,
+washing dishes, looking into closets, and seeing a great deal of that
+dark side of domestic life which a housekeeper may who will
+investigate too curiously into minutiae in warm, damp weather,
+especially after a girl who keeps all clean on the _outside_ of
+cup and platter, and is very apt to make good the rest of the text in
+the _inside_ of things.
+
+I am sick of the smell of sour milk, and sour meat, and sour
+everything, and then the clothes _will_ not dry, and no wet thing
+does, and everything smells mouldy; and altogether I feel as if I
+never wanted to eat again.
+
+Your letter, which was neither sour nor mouldy, formed a very
+agreeable contrast to all these things; the more so for being
+unexpected. I am much obliged to you for it. As to my health, it gives
+me very little solicitude, although I am bad enough and daily growing
+worse. I feel no life, no energy, no appetite, or rather a growing
+distaste for food; in fact, I am becoming quite ethereal. Upon
+reflection I perceive that it pleases my Father to keep me in the
+fire, for my whole situation is excessively harassing and painful. I
+suffer with sensible distress in the brain, as I have done more or
+less since my sickness last winter, a distress which some days takes
+from me all power of planning or executing anything; and you know
+that, except this poor head, my unfortunate household has no
+mainspring, for nobody feels any kind of responsibility to do a thing
+in time, place, or manner, except as I oversee it.
+
+Georgiana is so excessively weak, nervous, cross, and fretful, night
+and day, that she takes all Anna's strength and time with her; and
+then the children are, like other little sons and daughters of Adam,
+full of all kinds of absurdity and folly.
+
+When the brain gives out, as mine often does, and one cannot think or
+remember anything, then what is to be done? All common fatigue,
+sickness, and exhaustion is nothing to this distress. Yet do I rejoice
+in my God and know in whom I believe, and only pray that the fire may
+consume the dross; as to the gold, that is imperishable. No real evil
+can happen to me, so I fear nothing for the future, and only suffer in
+the present tense.
+
+God, the mighty God, is mine, of that I am sure, and I know He knows
+that though flesh and heart fail, I am all the while desiring and
+trying for his will alone. As to a journey, I need not ask a physician
+to see that it is needful to me as far as health is concerned, that is
+to say, all human appearances are that way, but I feel no particular
+choice about it. If God wills I go. He can easily find means. Money, I
+suppose, is as plenty with Him now as it always has been, and if He
+sees it is really best He will doubtless help me."
+
+That the necessary funds were provided is evident from the fact that
+the journey was undertaken and the invalid spent the summer of 1845 in
+Hartford, in Natick, and in Boston. She was not, however, permanently
+benefited by the change, and in the following spring it was deemed
+necessary to take more radical measures to arrest the progress of her
+increasing debility. After many consultations and much correspondence
+it was finally decided that she should go to Dr. Wesselhoeft's
+watercure establishment at Brattleboro', Vt.
+
+At this time, under date of March, 1846, she writes:
+
+"For all I have had trouble I can think of nothing but the greatness
+and richness of God's mercy to me in giving me such friends, and in
+always caring for us in every strait. There has been no day this
+winter when I have not had abundant reason to see this. Some friend
+has always stepped in to cheer and help, so that I have wanted for
+nothing. My husband has developed wonderfully as house-father and
+nurse. You would laugh to see him in his spectacles gravely marching
+the little troop in their nightgowns up to bed, tagging after them, as
+he says, like an old hen after a flock of ducks. The money for my
+journey has been sent in from an unknown hand in a wonderful manner.
+All this shows the care of our Father, and encourages me to rejoice
+and to hope in Him."
+
+A few days after her departure Professor Stowe wrote to his wife:--
+
+"I was greatly comforted by your brief letter from Pittsburgh. When I
+returned from the steamer the morning you left I found in the post-
+office a letter from Mrs. G. W. Bull of New York, inclosing $50 on
+account of the sickness in my family. There was another inclosing $50
+more from a Mrs. Devereaux of Raleigh, N. C., besides some smaller
+sums from others. My heart went out to God in aspiration and
+gratitude. None of the donors, so far as I know, have I ever seen or
+heard of before.
+
+"Henry and I have been living in a Robinson Crusoe and man Friday sort
+of style, greatly to our satisfaction, ever since you went away."
+
+Mrs. Stowe was accompanied to Brattleboro' by her sisters, Catherine
+and Mary, who were also suffering from troubles that they felt might
+be relieved by hydropathic treatment.
+
+From May, 1846, until March, 1847, she remained at Brattleboro'
+without seeing her husband or children. During these weary months her
+happiest days were those upon which she received letters from home.
+
+The following extracts, taken from letters written by her during this
+period, are of value, as revealing what it is possible to know of her
+habits of thought and mode of life at this time.
+
+BRATTLEBORO', _September_, 1846.
+
+MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I have been thinking of all your trials, and I
+really pity you in having such a wife. I feel as if I had been only a
+hindrance to you instead of a help, and most earnestly and daily do I
+pray to God to restore my health that I may do something for you and
+my family. I think if I were only at home I could at least sweep and
+dust, and wash potatoes, and cook a little, and talk some to my
+children, and should be doing something for my family. But the hope of
+getting better buoys me up. I go through these tedious and wearisome
+baths and bear that terrible douche thinking of my children. They
+never will know how I love them. . . .
+
+There is great truth and good sense in your analysis of the cause of
+our past failures. We have now come to a sort of crisis. If you and I
+do as we should for _five years_ to come the character of our
+three oldest children will be established. This is why I am willing to
+spend so much time and make such efforts to have health. Oh, that God
+would give me these five years in full possession of mind and body,
+that I may train my children as they should be trained. I am fully
+aware of the importance of system and order in a family. I know that
+nothing can be done without it; it is the keystone, the _sine quâ
+non_, and in regard to my children I place it next to piety. At the
+same time it is true that both Anna [Footnote: The governess, Miss
+Anna Smith.] and I labor under serious natural disadvantages on this
+subject. It is not all that is necessary to feel the importance of
+order and system, but it requires a particular kind of talent to carry
+it through a family. Very much the same kind of talent, as Uncle
+Samuel said, which is necessary to make a good prime minister. . . .
+
+I think you might make an excellent sermon to Christians on the care
+of health, in consideration of the various infirmities and impediments
+to the developing the results of religion, that result from bodily ill
+health, and I wish you would make one that your own mind may be more
+vividly impressed with it. The world is too much in a hurry. Ministers
+think there is no way to serve Christ but to overdraw on their
+physical capital for four or five years for Christ and then have
+nothing to give, but become a mere burden on his hands for the next
+five. . . .
+
+_November_ 18.
+
+"The daily course I go through presupposes a degree of vigor beyond
+anything I ever had before. For this week, I have gone before
+breakfast to the wave-bath and let all the waves and billows roll over
+me till every limb ached with cold and my hands would scarcely have
+feeling enough to dress me. After that I have walked till I was warm,
+and come home to breakfast with such an appetite! Brown bread and milk
+are luxuries indeed, and the only fear is that I may eat too much. At
+eleven comes my douche, to which I have walked in a driving rain for
+the last two days, and after it walked in the rain again till I was
+warm. (The umbrella you gave me at Natick answers finely, as well as
+if it were a silk one.) After dinner I roll ninepins or walk till
+four, then sitz-bath, and another walk till six.
+
+"I am anxious for your health; do be persuaded to try a long walk
+before breakfast. You don't know how much good it will do you. Don't
+sit in your hot study without any ventilation, a stove burning up all
+the vitality of the air and weakening your nerves, and above all, do
+amuse yourself. Go to Dr. Mussey's and spend an evening, and to
+father's and Professor Allen's. When you feel worried go off somewhere
+and forget and throw it off. I should really rejoice to hear that you
+and father and mother, with Professor and Mrs. Allen, Mrs. K., and a
+few others of the same calibre would agree to meet together for
+dancing cotillons. It would do you all good, and if you took Mr. K.'s
+wife and poor Miss Much-Afraid, her daughter, into the alliance it
+would do them good. Bless me! what a profane set everybody would think
+you were, and yet you are the people of all the world most solemnly in
+need of it. I wish you could be with me in Brattleboro' and coast down
+hill on a sled, go sliding and snowballing by moonlight! I would
+snowball every bit of the _hypo_ out of you! Now, my dear, if you
+are going to get sick, I am going to come home. There is no use in my
+trying to get well if you, in the mean time, are going to run yourself
+down."
+
+[Illustration: Ding, dong! Dead and gone!]
+
+_January_, 1847.
+
+MY DEAR SOUL,--I received your most melancholy effusion, and I am
+sorry to find it's just so. I entirely agree and sympathize. Why
+didn't you engage the two tombstones--one for you and one for me?
+
+I shall have to copy for your edification a "poem on tombstones" which
+Kate put at Christmas into the stocking of one of our most
+hypochondriac gentlemen, who had pished and pshawed at his wife and us
+for trying to get up a little fun. This poem was fronted with the
+above vignette and embellished with sundry similar ones, and tied with
+a long black ribbon. There were only two cantos in very concise style,
+so I shall send you them entire.
+
+CANTO I.
+
+ In the kingdom of _Mortin_
+ I had the good fortin'
+ To find these verses
+ On tombs and on hearses,
+ Which I, being jinglish
+ Have done into English.
+
+ CANTO II.
+
+ The man what's so colickish
+ When his friends are all frolickish
+ As to turn up his noses
+ And turn on his toses
+ Shall have only verses
+ On tombstones and hearses.
+
+ But, seriously, my dear husband, you must try and be patient, for
+this cannot last forever. Be patient and bear it like the toothache,
+or a driving rain, or anything else that you cannot escape. To see
+things as through a glass darkly is your infirmity, you know; but the
+Lord will yet deliver you from this trial. I know how to pity you, for
+the last three weeks I have suffered from an overwhelming mental
+depression, a perfect heartsickness. All I wanted was to get home and
+die. Die I was very sure I should at any rate, but I suppose I was
+never less prepared to do so."
+
+The long exile was ended in the spring of 1847, and in May Mrs. Stowe
+returned to her Cincinnati home, where she was welcomed with sincere
+demonstrations of joy by her husband and children.
+
+Her sixth child, Samuel Charles, was born in January of 1848, and
+about this time her husband's health became so seriously impaired that
+it was thought desirable for him in turn to spend a season at the
+Brattleboro' water-cure. He went in June, 1848, and was compelled by
+the very precarious state of his health to remain until September,
+1849. During this period of more than a year Mrs. Stowe remained in
+Cincinnati caring for her six children, eking out her slender income
+by taking boarders and writing when she found time, confronting a
+terrible epidemic of cholera that carried off one of her little flock,
+and in every way showing herself to be a brave woman, possessed of a
+spirit that could rise superior to all adversity. Concerning this time
+she writes in January, 1849, to her dearest friend:--
+
+MY BELOVED GEORGY,--For six months after my return from Brattleboro'
+my eyes were so affected that I wrote scarce any, and my health was in
+so strange a state that I felt no disposition to write. After the
+birth of little Charley my health improved, but my husband was sick
+and I have been so loaded and burdened with cares as to drain me dry
+of all capacity of thought, feeling, memory, or emotion.
+
+"Well, Georgy, I am thirty-seven years old! I am glad of it. I like to
+grow old and have six children and cares endless. I wish you could see
+me with my flock all around me. They sum up my cares, and were they
+gone I should ask myself, What now remains to be done? They are my
+work, over which I fear and tremble."
+
+In the early summer of 1849 cholera broke out in Cincinnati, and soon
+became epidemic. Professor Stowe, absent in Brattleboro', and filled
+with anxiety for the safety of his family, was most anxious, in spite
+of his feeble health, to return and share the danger with them, but
+this his wife would not consent to, as is shown by her letters to him,
+written at this time. In one of them, dated June 29, 1849, she says:--
+
+MY DEAR HUSBAND,--This week has been unusually fatal. The disease in
+the city has been malignant and virulent. Hearse drivers have scarce
+been allowed to unharness their horses, while furniture carts and
+common vehicles are often employed for the removal of the dead. The
+sable trains which pass our windows, the frequent indications of
+crowding haste, and the absence of reverent decency have, in many
+cases, been most painful. Of course all these things, whether we will
+or no, bring very doleful images to the mind.
+
+On Tuesday one hundred and sixteen deaths from cholera were reported,
+and that night the air was of that peculiarly oppressive, deathly kind
+that seems to lie like lead on the brain and soul.
+
+As regards your coming home, I am decidedly opposed to it. First,
+because the chance of your being taken ill is just as great as the
+chance of your being able to render us any help. To exchange the
+salubrious air of Brattleboro' for the pestilent atmosphere of this
+place with your system rendered sensitive by water-cure treatment
+would be extremely dangerous. It is a source of constant gratitude to
+me that neither you nor father are exposed to the dangers here.
+
+Second, none of us are sick, and it is very uncertain whether we shall
+be.
+
+Third, if we were sick there are so many of us that it is not at all
+likely we shall all be taken at once.
+
+_July_ 1. Yesterday Mr. Stagg went to the city and found all
+gloomy and discouraged, while a universal panic seemed to be drawing
+nearer than ever before. Large piles of coal were burning on the cross
+walks and in the public squares, while those who had talked
+confidently of the cholera being confined to the lower classes and
+those who were imprudent began to feel as did the magicians of old,
+"This is the finger of God."
+
+Yesterday, upon the recommendation of all the clergymen of the city,
+the mayor issued a proclamation for a day of general fasting,
+humiliation, and prayer, to be observed on Tuesday next.
+
+_July_ 3. We are all in good health and try to maintain a calm
+and cheerful frame of mind. The doctors are nearly used up. Dr. Bowen
+and Dr. Peck are sick in bed. Dr. Potter and Dr. Pulte ought, I
+suppose, to be there also. The younger physicians have no rest night
+or day. Mr. Fisher is laid up from his incessant visitations with the
+sick and dying. Our own Dr. Brown is likewise prostrated, but we are
+all resolute to stand by each other, and there are so many of us that
+it is not likely we can all be taken sick together.
+
+_July_ 4. All well. The meeting yesterday was very solemn and
+interesting. There is more or less sickness about us, but no very
+dangerous cases. One hundred and twenty burials from cholera alone
+yesterday, yet to-day we see parties bent on pleasure or senseless
+carousing, while to-morrow and next day will witness a fresh harvest
+of death from them. How we can become accustomed to anything! Awhile
+ago ten a day dying of cholera struck terror to all hearts; but now
+the tide has surged up gradually until the deaths average over a
+hundred daily, and everybody is getting accustomed to it. Gentlemen
+make themselves agreeable to ladies by reciting the number of deaths
+in this house or that. This together with talk of funerals, cholera
+medicines, cholera dietetics, and chloride of lime form the ordinary
+staple of conversation. Serious persons of course throw in moral
+reflections to their taste.
+
+_July_ 10. Yesterday little Charley was taken ill, not seriously,
+and at any other season I should not be alarmed. Now, however, a
+slight illness seems like a death sentence, and I will not dissemble
+that I feel from the outset very little hope. I still think it best
+that you should not return. By so doing you might lose all you have
+gained. You might expose yourself to a fatal incursion of disease. It
+is decidedly not your duty to do so.
+
+_July_ 12. Yesterday I carried Charley to Dr. Pulte, who spoke in
+such a manner as discouraged and frightened me. He mentioned dropsy on
+the brain as a possible result. I came home with a heavy heart,
+sorrowing, desolate, and wishing my husband and father were here.
+
+About one o'clock this morning Miss Stewart suddenly opened my door
+crying, "Mrs. Stowe, Henry is vomiting." I was on my feet in an
+instant, and lifted up my heart for help. He was, however, in a few
+minutes relieved. Then I turned my attention to Charley, who was also
+suffering, put him into a wet sheet, and kept him there until he was
+in a profuse perspiration. He is evidently getting better, and is
+auspiciously cross. Never was crossness in a baby more admired. Anna
+and I have said to each other exultingly a score of times, "How cross
+the little fellow is! How he does scold!"
+
+_July_ 15. Since I last wrote our house has been a perfect
+hospital. Charley apparently recovering, but still weak and feeble,
+unable to walk or play, and so miserably fretful and unhappy. Sunday
+Anna and I were fairly stricken down, as many others are, with no
+particular illness, but with such miserable prostration. I lay on the
+bed all day reading my hymn-book and thinking over passages of
+Scripture.
+
+_July_ 17. To-day we have been attending poor old Aunt Frankie's
+[Footnote: An old colored woman.] funeral. She died yesterday morning,
+taken sick the day before while washing. Good, honest, trustful old
+soul! She was truly one who hungered and thirsted for righteousness.
+
+Yesterday morning our poor little dog, Daisy, who had been ailing the
+day before, was suddenly seized with frightful spasms and died in half
+an hour. Poor little affectionate thing! If I were half as good for my
+nature as she for hers I should be much better than I am. While we
+were all mourning over her the news came that Aunt Frankie was
+breathing her last. Hatty, Eliza, Anna, and I made her shroud
+yesterday, and this morning I made her cap. We have just come from her
+grave.
+
+_July_ 23. At last, my dear, the hand of the Lord hath touched
+us. We have been watching all day by the dying bed of little Charley,
+who is gradually sinking. After a partial recovery from the attack I
+described in my last letter he continued for some days very feeble,
+but still we hoped for recovery. About four days ago he was taken with
+decided cholera, and now there is no hope of his surviving this night.
+
+Every kindness is shown us by the neighbors. Do not return. All will
+be over before you could possibly get here, and the epidemic is now
+said by the physicians to prove fatal to every new case. Bear up. Let
+us not faint when we are rebuked of Him. I dare not trust myself to
+say more but shall write again soon.
+
+_July_ 26. MY DEAR HUSBAND,--At last it is over and our dear
+little one is gone from us. He is now among the blessed. My Charley--
+my beautiful, loving, gladsome baby, so loving, so sweet, so full of
+life and hope and strength--now lies shrouded, pale and cold, in the
+room below. Never was he anything to me but a comfort. He has been my
+pride and joy. Many a heartache has he cured for me. Many an anxious
+night have I held him to my bosom and felt the sorrow and loneliness
+pass out of me with the touch of his little warm hands. Yet I have
+just seen him in his death agony, looked on his imploring face when I
+could not help nor soothe nor do one thing, not one, to mitigate his
+cruel suffering, do nothing but pray in my anguish that he might die
+soon. I write as though there were no sorrow like my sorrow, yet there
+has been in this city, as in the land of Egypt, scarce a house without
+its dead. This heart-break, this anguish, has been everywhere, and
+when it will end God alone knows. With this severest blow of all, the
+long years of trial and suffering in the West practically end; for in
+September, 1849, Professor Stowe returned from Brattleboro', and at
+the same time received a call to the Collins Professorship at Bowdoin
+College, in Brunswick, Maine, that he decided to accept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+REMOVAL TO BRUNSWICK, 1850-1852.
+
+
+MRS. STOWE'S REMARKS ON WRITING AND UNDERSTANDING BIOGRAPHY.--THEIR
+APPROPRIATENESS TO HER OWN BIOGRAPHY.--REASONS FOR PROFESSOR STOWE'S
+LEAVING CINCINNATI.--MRS. STOWE'S JOURNEY TO BROOKLYN.--HER BROTHER'S
+SUCCESS AS A MINISTER.--LETTERS FROM HARTFORD AND BOSTON.--ARRIVES IN
+BRUNSWICK.--HISTORY OF THE SLAVERY AGITATION.--PRACTICAL WORKING OF
+THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.--MRS. EDWARD BEECHER'S LETTER TO MRS. STOWE
+AND ITS EFFECT.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--BEGINS TO WRITE "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN"
+AS A SERIAL FOR THE "NATIONAL ERA."--LETTER TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS.--
+"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" A WORK OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION.
+
+Early in the winter of 1849 Mrs. Stowe wrote in a private journal in
+which she recorded thought and feeling concerning religious themes:
+"It has been said that it takes a man to write the life of a man; that
+is, there must be similarity of mind in the person who undertakes to
+present the character of another. This is true, also, of reading and
+understanding biography. A statesman and general would read the life
+of Napoleon with the spirit and the understanding, while the
+commonplace man plods through it as a task. The difference is that the
+one, being of like mind and spirit with the subject of the biography,
+is able to sympathize with him in all his thoughts and experiences,
+and the other is not. The life of Henry Martyn would be tedious and
+unintelligible to a mind like that of a Richelieu or a Mazarin. They
+never experienced or saw or heard anything like it, and would be quite
+at a loss where to place such a man in their mental categories. It is
+not strange, therefore, that of all biography in the world that of
+Jesus Christ should be least understood. It is an exception to all the
+world has ever seen. 'The world knew Him not.' There is, to be sure, a
+simple grandeur about the life of Jesus which awes almost every mind.
+The most hardened scoffer, after he has jested and jeered at
+everything in the temple of Christianity, stands for a moment
+uncovered and breathless when he comes to the object of its adoration
+and feels how awful goodness is, and Virtue in her shape how lovely.
+Yet, after all, the character of the Christ has been looked at and not
+sympathized with. Men have turned aside to see this great sight.
+Christians have fallen in adoration, but very few have tried to enter
+into his sympathies and to feel as He felt." How little she dreamed
+that these words were to become profoundly appropriate as a
+description of her own life in its relation to mankind! How little the
+countless thousands who read, have read, and will read, "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin" enter into or sympathize with the feelings out of which it was
+written! A delicate, sensitive woman struggling with poverty, with
+weary step and aching head attending to the innumerable demands of a
+large family of growing children; a devoted Christian seeking with
+strong crying and tears a kingdom not of this world,--is this the
+popular conception of the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? Nevertheless
+it is the reality. When, amid the burning ruins of a besieged city, a
+mother's voice is heard uttering a cry of anguish over a child killed
+in her arms by a bursting shell, the attention is arrested, the heart
+is touched. So "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was a cry of anguish from a
+mother's heart, and uttered in sad sincerity. It was the bursting
+forth of deep feeling, with all the intense anguish of wounded love.
+It will be the purpose of this chapter to show this, and to cause to
+pass before the reader's mind the time, the household, and the heart
+from which this cry was heard.
+
+After struggling for seventeen years with ill health and every
+possible vexation and hindrance in his work, Professor Stowe became
+convinced that it was his duty to himself and his family to seek some
+other field of labor.
+
+February 6, 1850, he writes to his mother, in Natick, Mass.: "My
+health has not been good this winter, and I do not suppose that I
+should live long were I to stay here. I have done a great deal of hard
+work here, and practiced no little self-denial. I have seen the
+seminary carried through a most vexatious series of lawsuits,
+ecclesiastical and civil, and raised from the depths of poverty to
+comparative affluence, and I feel at liberty now to leave. During the
+three months of June, July, and August last, more than nine thousand
+persons died of cholera within three miles of my house, and this
+winter, in the same territory, there have been more than ten thousand
+cases of small-pox, many of them of the very worst kind. Several have
+died on the hill, and the Jesuits' college near us has been quite
+broken up by it. There have been, however, no cases in our families or
+in the seminary.
+
+"I have received many letters from friends in the East expressing
+great gratification at the offer from Bowdoin College, and the hope
+that I would accept it. I am quite inclined to do so, but the matter
+is not yet finally settled, and there are difficulties in the way.
+They can offer me only $1,000 a year, and I must, out of it, hire my
+own house, at an expense of $75 to $100 a year. Here the trustees
+offer me $1,500 a year if I will stay, and a good house besides, which
+would make the whole salary equivalent to $1,800; and to-day I have
+had another offer from New York city of $2,300. . . . On the whole, I
+have written to Bowdoin College, proposing to them if they will give
+me $500 free and clear in addition to the salary, I will accept their
+proposition, and I suppose that there is no doubt that they will do
+it. In that case I should come on next spring, in May or June."
+
+This offer from Bowdoin College was additionally attractive to
+Professor Stowe from the fact that it was the college from which he
+graduated, and where some of the happiest years of his life had been
+passed.
+
+The professorship was one just established through the gift of Mrs.
+Collins, a member of Bowdoin Street Church in Boston, and named in her
+honor, the "Collins Professorship of Natural and Revealed Religion."
+
+It was impossible for Professor Stowe to leave Lane Seminary till some
+one could be found to take his place; so it was determined that Mrs.
+Stowe, with three of the children, should start for the East in April,
+and having established the family in Brunswick, Professor Stowe was to
+come on with the remaining children when his engagements would permit.
+
+The following extracts from a letter written by Mrs. Stowe at her
+brother Henry's, at Brooklyn, April 29, 1850, show us that the journey
+was accomplished without special incident.
+
+"The boat got into Pittsburgh between four and five on Wednesday. The
+agent for the Pennsylvania Canal came on board and soon filled out our
+tickets, calling my three chicks one and a half. We had a quiet and
+agreeable passage, and crossed the slides at five o'clock in the
+morning, amid exclamations of unbounded delight from all the children,
+to whom the mountain scenery was a new and amazing thing. We reached
+Hollidaysburg about eleven o'clock, and at two o'clock in the night
+were called up to get into the cars at Jacktown. Arriving at
+Philadelphia about three o'clock in the afternoon, we took the boat
+and railroad line for New York.
+
+"At Lancaster we telegraphed to Brooklyn, and when we arrived in New
+York, between ten and eleven at night, Cousin Augustus met us and took
+us over to Brooklyn. We had ridden three hundred miles since two
+o'clock that morning, and were very tired. . . . I am glad we came
+that way, for the children have seen some of the finest scenery in our
+country. . . . Henry's people are more than ever in love with him, and
+have raised his salary to $3,300, and given him a beautiful horse and
+carriage worth $600. . . . My health is already improved by the
+journey, and I was able to walk a good deal between the locks on the
+canal. As to furniture, I think that we may safely afford an outlay of
+$150, and that will purchase all that may be necessary to set us up,
+and then we can get more as we have means and opportunity. . . . If I
+got anything for those pieces I wrote before coming away, I would like
+to be advised thereof by you. . . . My plan is to spend this week in
+Brooklyn, the next in Hartford, the next in Boston, and go on to
+Brunswick some time in May or June."
+
+May 18, 1850, we find her writing from Boston, where she is staying
+with her brother, Rev. Edward Beecher:--
+
+MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I came here from Hartford on Monday, and have since
+then been busily engaged in the business of buying and packing
+furniture.
+
+I expect to go to Brunswick next Tuesday night by the Bath steamer,
+which way I take as the cheaper. My traveling expenses, when I get to
+Brunswick, including everything, will have been seventy-six dollars. . . .
+And now, lastly, my dear husband, you have never been wanting . . .
+in kindness, consideration, and justice, and I want you to reflect
+calmly how great a work has been imposed upon me at a time when my
+situation particularly calls for rest, repose, and quiet.
+
+To come alone such a distance with the whole charge of children,
+accounts, and baggage; to push my way through hurrying crowds, looking
+out for trunks, and bargaining with hackmen, has been a very severe
+trial of my strength, to say nothing of the usual fatigues of
+traveling.
+
+It was at this time, and as a result of the experiences of this trying
+period, that Mrs. Stowe wrote that little tract dear to so many
+Christian hearts, "Earthly Care a Heavenly Discipline."
+
+On the eve of sailing for Brunswick, Mrs. Stowe writes to Mrs. Sykes
+(Miss May): "I am wearied and worn out with seeing to bedsteads,
+tables, chairs, mattresses, with thinking about shipping my goods and
+making out accounts, and I have my trunk yet to pack, as I go on board
+the Bath steamer this evening. I beg you to look up Brunswick on the
+map; it is about half a day's ride in the cars from Boston. I expect
+to reach there by the way of Bath by to-morrow forenoon. There I have
+a house engaged and kind friends who offer every hospitable
+assistance. Come, therefore, to see me, and we will have a long talk
+in the pine woods, and knit up the whole history from the place where
+we left it."
+
+Before leaving Boston she had written to her husband in Cincinnati:
+"You are not able just now to bear anything, my dear husband,
+therefore trust all to me; I never doubt or despair. I am already
+making arrangements with editors to raise money.
+
+"I have sent some overtures to Wright. If he accepts my pieces and
+pays you for them, take the money and use it as you see necessary; if
+not, be sure and bring the pieces back to me. I am strong in spirit,
+and God who has been with me in so many straits will not forsake me
+now. I know Him well; He is my Father, and though I may be a blind and
+erring child, He will help me for all that. My trust through all
+errors and sins is in Him. He who helped poor timid Jacob through all
+his fears and apprehensions, who helped Abraham even when he sinned,
+who was with David in his wanderings, and who held up the too
+confident Peter when he began to sink,--He will help us, and his arms
+are about us, so that we shall not sink, my dear husband."
+
+May 29, 1850, she writes from Brunswick: "After a week of most
+incessant northeast storm, most discouraging and forlorn to the
+children, the sun has at length come out. . . . There is a fair wind
+blowing, and every prospect, therefore, that our goods will arrive
+promptly from Boston, and that we shall be in our own house by next
+week. Mrs. Upham [Footnote: Wife of Professor Upham of Bowdoin
+College.] has done everything for me, giving up time and strength and
+taking charge of my affairs in a way without which we could not have
+got along at all in a strange place and in my present helpless
+condition. This family is delightful, there is such a perfect
+sweetness and quietude in all its movements. Not a harsh word or hasty
+expression is ever heard. It is a beautiful pattern of a Christian
+family, a beautiful exemplification of religion. . . ."
+
+The events of the first summer in Brunswick are graphically described
+by Mrs. Stowe in a letter written to her sister-in-law, Mrs. George
+Beecher, December 17, 1850.
+
+MY DEAR SISTER,--Is it really true that snow is on the ground and
+Christmas coming, and I have not written unto thee, most dear sister?
+No, I don't believe it! I haven't been so naughty--it's all a mistake--
+yes, written I must have--and written I have, too--in the night-
+watches as I lay on my bed--such beautiful letters--I wish you had
+only gotten them; but by day it has been hurry, hurry, hurry, and
+drive, drive, drive! or else the calm of a sick-room, ever since last
+spring.
+
+I put off writing when your letter first came because I meant to write
+you a long letter--a full and complete one, and so days slid by,--and
+became weeks,--and my little Charlie came . . . etc. and etc.!!!
+Sarah, when I look back, I wonder at myself, not that I forget any one
+thing that I should remember, but that I have remembered anything.
+From the time that I left Cincinnati with my children to come forth to
+a country that I knew not of almost to the present time, it has seemed
+as if I could scarcely breathe, I was so pressed with care. My head
+dizzy with the whirl of railroads and steamboats; then ten days'
+sojourn in Boston, and a constant toil and hurry in buying my
+furniture and equipments; and then landing in Brunswick in the midst
+of a drizzly, inexorable northeast storm, and beginning the work of
+getting in order a deserted, dreary, damp old house. All day long
+running from one thing to another, as for example, thus:---
+
+Mrs. Stowe, how shall I make this lounge, and what shall I cover the
+back with first?
+
+_Mrs. Stowe_. With the coarse cotton in the closet.
+
+_Woman_. Mrs. Stowe, there isn't any more soap to clean the
+windows.
+
+_Mrs. Stowe_. Where shall I get soap?
+
+Here H., run up to the store and get two bars.
+
+There is a man below wants to see Mrs. Stowe about the cistern. Before
+you go down, Mrs. Stowe, just show me how to cover this round end of
+the lounge.
+
+There 's a man up from the depot, and he says that a box has come for
+Mrs. Stowe, and it's coming up to the house; will you come down and
+see about it?
+
+Mrs. Stowe, don't go till you have shown the man how to nail that
+carpet in the corner. He 's nailed it all crooked; what shall he do?
+The black thread is all used up, and what shall I do about putting
+gimp on the back of that sofa? Mrs. Stowe, there is a man come with a
+lot of pails and tinware from Furbish; will you settle the bill now?
+
+Mrs. Stowe, here is a letter just come from Boston inclosing that bill
+of lading; the man wants to know what he shall do with the goods. If
+you will tell me what to say I will answer the letter for you.
+
+Mrs. Stowe, the meat-man is at the door. Hadn't we better get a little
+beefsteak, or something, for dinner?
+
+Shall Hatty go to Boardman's for some more black thread?
+
+Mrs. Stowe, this cushion is an inch too wide for the frame. What shall
+we do now?
+
+Mrs. Stowe, where are the screws of the black walnut bedstead?
+
+Here's a man has brought in these bills for freight. Will you settle
+them now?
+
+Mrs. Stowe, I don't understand using this great needle. I can't make
+it go through the cushion; it sticks in the cotton.
+
+Then comes a letter from my husband saying he is sick abed, and all
+but dead; don't ever expect to see his family again; wants to know how
+I shall manage, in case I am left a widow; knows we shall get in debt
+and never get out; wonders at my courage; thinks I am very sanguine;
+warns me to be prudent, as there won't be much to live on in case of
+his death, etc., etc., etc. I read the letter and poke it into the
+stove, and proceed. . . .
+
+Some of my adventures were quite funny; as for example: I had in my
+kitchen elect no sink, cistern, or any other water privileges, so I
+bought at the cotton factory two of the great hogsheads they bring oil
+in, which here in Brunswick are often used for cisterns, and had them
+brought up in triumph to my yard, and was congratulating myself on my
+energy, when lo and behold! it was discovered that there was no cellar
+door except one in the kitchen, which was truly a strait and narrow
+way, down a long pair of stairs. Hereupon, as saith John Bunyan, I
+fell into a muse,--how to get my cisterns into my cellar. In days of
+chivalry I might have got a knight to make me a breach through the
+foundation walls, but that was not to be thought of now, and my oil
+hogsheads standing disconsolately in the yard seemed to reflect no
+great credit on my foresight. In this strait I fell upon a real honest
+Yankee cooper, whom I besought, for the reputation of his craft and
+mine, to take my hogsheads to pieces, carry them down in staves, and
+set them up again, which the worthy man actually accomplished one fair
+summer forenoon, to the great astonishment of "us Yankees." When my
+man came to put up the pump, he stared very hard to see my hogsheads
+thus translated and standing as innocent and quiet as could be in the
+cellar, and then I told him, in a very mild, quiet way, that I got 'em
+taken to pieces and put together--just as if I had been always in the
+habit of doing such things. Professor Smith came down and looked very
+hard at them and then said, "Well, nothing can beat a willful woman."
+Then followed divers negotiations with a very clever, but (with
+reverence) somewhat lazy gentleman of jobs, who occupieth a
+carpenter's shop opposite to mine. This same John Titcomb, my very
+good friend, is a character peculiar to Yankeedom. He is part owner
+and landlord of the house I rent, and connected by birth with all the
+best families in town; a man of real intelligence, and good education,
+a great reader, and quite a thinker. Being of an ingenious turn he
+does painting, gilding, staining, upholstery jobs, varnishing, all in
+addition to his primary trade of carpentry. But he is a man studious
+of ease, and fully possessed with the idea that man wants but little
+here below; so he boards himself in his workshop on crackers and
+herring, washed down with cold water, and spends his time working,
+musing, reading new publications, and taking his comfort. In his shop
+you shall see a joiner's bench, hammers, planes, saws, gimlets,
+varnish, paint, picture frames, fence posts, rare old china, one or
+two fine portraits of his ancestry, a bookcase full of books, the
+tooth of a whale, an old spinning-wheel and spindle, a lady's parasol
+frame, a church lamp to be mended, in short, Henry says Mr. Titcomb's
+shop is like the ocean; there is no end to the curiosities in it.
+
+In all my moving and fussing Mr. Titcomb has been my right-hand man.
+Whenever a screw was loose, a nail to be driven, a lock mended, a pane
+of glass set, and these cases were manifold, he was always on hand.
+But my sink was no fancy job, and I believe nothing but a very
+particular friendship would have moved him to undertake it. So this
+same sink lingered in a precarious state for some weeks, and when I
+had _nothing else to do_, I used to call and do what I could in
+the way of enlisting the good man's sympathies in its behalf.
+
+How many times I have been in and seated myself in one of the old
+rocking-chairs, and talked first of the news of the day, the railroad,
+the last proceedings in Congress, the probabilities about the
+millennium, and thus brought the conversation by little and little
+round to my sink! . . . because, till the sink was done, the pump could
+not be put up, and we couldn't have any rain-water. Sometimes my
+courage would quite fail me to introduce the subject, and I would talk
+of everything else, turn and get out of the shop, and then turn back
+as if a thought had just struck my mind, and say:--
+
+"Oh, Mr. Titcomb! about that sink?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am, I was thinking about going down street this afternoon to
+look out stuff for it."
+
+"Yes, sir, if you would be good enough to get it done as soon as
+possible; we are in great need of it."
+
+"I think there's no hurry. I believe we are going to have a dry time
+now, so that you could not catch any water, and you won't need a pump
+at present."
+
+These negotiations extended from the first of June to the first of
+July, and at last my sink was completed, and so also was a new house
+spout, concerning which I had had divers communings with Deacon
+Dunning of the Baptist church. Also during this time good Mrs.
+Mitchell and myself made two sofas, or lounges, a barrel chair, divers
+bedspreads, pillow cases, pillows, bolsters, mattresses; we painted
+rooms; we revarnished furniture; we--what _didn't_ we do?
+
+Then came on Mr. Stowe; and then came the eighth of July and my little
+Charley. I was really glad for an excuse to lie in bed, for I was full
+tired, I can assure you. Well, I was what folks call very comfortable
+for two weeks, when my nurse had to leave me. . . .
+
+During this time I have employed my leisure hours in making up my
+engagements with newspaper editors. I have written more than anybody,
+or I myself, would have thought. I have taught an hour a day in our
+school, and I have read two hours every evening to the children. The
+children study English history in school, and I am reading Scott's
+historic novels in their order. To-night I finish the "Abbot;" shall
+begin "Kenilworth" next week; yet I am constantly pursued and haunted
+by the idea that I don't do anything. Since I began this note I have
+been called off at least a dozen times; once for the fish-man, to buy
+a codfish; once to see a man who had brought me some barrels of
+apples; once to see a book-man; then to Mrs. Upham, to see about a
+drawing I promised to make for her; then to nurse the baby; then into
+the kitchen to make a chowder for dinner; and now I am at it again,
+for nothing but deadly determination enables me ever to write; it is
+rowing against wind and tide.
+
+I suppose you think now I have begun, I am never going to stop, and in
+truth it looks like it; but the spirit moves now and I must obey.
+
+Christmas is coming, and our little household is all alive with
+preparations; every one collecting their little gifts with wonderful
+mystery and secrecy. . . .
+
+To tell the truth, dear, I am getting tired; my neck and back ache,
+and I must come to a close.
+
+Your ready kindness to me in the spring I felt very much; and
+_why_ I did not have the sense to have sent you one line just by
+way of acknowledgment, I'm sure I don't know; I felt just as if I had,
+till I awoke, and behold! I had not. But, my dear, if my wits are
+somewhat wool-gathering and unsettled, my heart is as true as a star.
+I love you, and have thought of you often.
+
+This fall I have felt often _sad_, lonesome, both very unusual
+feelings with me in these busy days; but the breaking away from my old
+home, and leaving father and mother, and coming to a strange place
+affected me naturally. In those sad hours my thoughts have often
+turned to George; I have thought with encouragement of his blessed
+state, and hoped that I should soon be there too. I have many warm and
+kind friends here, and have been treated with great attention and
+kindness. Brunswick is a delightful residence, and if you come East
+next summer you must come to my new home. George [Footnote: Her
+brother George's only child.] would delight to go a-fishing with the
+children, and see the ships, and sail in the sailboats, and all that.
+
+Give Aunt Harriet's love to him, and tell him when he gets to be a
+painter to send me a picture. Affectionately yours, H. STOWE.
+
+The year 1850 is one memorable in the history of our nation as well as
+in the quiet household that we have followed in its pilgrimage from
+Cincinnati to Brunswick.
+
+The signers of the Declaration of Independence and the statesmen and
+soldiers of the Revolution were no friends of negro slavery. In fact,
+the very principles of the Declaration of Independence sounded the
+deathknell of slavery forever. No stronger utterances against this
+national sin are to be found anywhere than in the letters and
+published writings of Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, and Patrick
+Henry. "Jefferson encountered difficulties greater than he could
+overcome, and after vain wrestlings the words that broke from him, 'I
+tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that his
+justice cannot sleep forever,' were the words of despair."
+
+"It was the desire of Washington's heart that Virginia should remove
+slavery by a public act; and as the prospects of a general
+emancipation grew more and more dim . . . he did all that he could by
+bequeathing freedom to his own slaves." [Footnote: Bancroft's funeral
+oration on Lincoln.]
+
+Hamilton was one of the founders of the Manumission Society, the
+object of which was the abolition of slaves in the State of New York.
+Patrick Henry, speaking of slavery, said: "A serious view of this
+subject gives a gloomy prospect to future times." Slavery was thought
+by the founders of our Republic to be a dying institution, and all the
+provisions of the Constitution touching slavery looked towards gradual
+emancipation as an inevitable result of the growth of the democracy.
+
+From an economic standpoint slave labor had ceased to be profitable.
+"The whole interior of the Southern States was languishing, and its
+inhabitants emigrating, for want of some object to engage their
+attention and employ their industry." The cultivation of cotton was
+not profitable for the reason that there was no machine for separating
+the seed from the fibre.
+
+This was the state of affairs in 1793, when Eli Whitney, a New England
+mechanic, at this time residing in Savannah, Georgia, invented his
+cotton-gin, or a machine to separate seed and fibre. "The invention of
+this machine at once set the whole country in active motion."
+[Footnote: Greeley's American Conflict, vol. i. p. 65.] The effect of
+this invention may to some extent be appreciated when we consider that
+whereas in 1793 the Southern States produced only about five or ten
+thousand bales, in 1859 they produced over five millions. But with
+this increase of the cotton culture the value of slave property was
+augmented. Slavery grew and spread. In 1818 to 1821 it first became a
+factor in politics during the Missouri compromise. By this compromise
+slavery was not to extend north of latitude 36° 30'. From the time of
+this compromise till the year 1833 the slavery agitation slumbered.
+This was the year that the British set the slaves free in their West
+Indian dependencies. This act caused great uneasiness among the
+slaveholders of the South. The National Anti-Slavery Society met in
+Philadelphia and pronounced slavery a national sin, which could be
+atoned for only by immediate emancipation. Such men as Garrison and
+Lundy began a work of agitation that was soon to set the whole nation
+in a ferment. From this time on slavery became the central problem of
+American history, and the line of cleavage in American politics. The
+invasion of Florida when it was yet the territory of a nation at peace
+with the United States, and its subsequent purchase from Spain, the
+annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico, were the direct results
+of the policy of the pro-slavery party to increase its influence and
+its territory. In 1849 the State of California knocked at the door of
+the Union for admission as a free State. This was bitterly opposed by
+the slaveholders of the South, who saw in it a menace to the slave-
+power from the fact that no slave State was seeking admission at the
+same time. Both North and South the feeling ran so high as to threaten
+the dismemberment of the Union, and the scenes of violence and
+bloodshed which were to come eleven years afterwards. It was to
+preserve the Union and avert the danger of the hour that Henry Clay
+brought forward his celebrated compromise measures in the winter of
+1850. To conciliate the North, California was to be admitted as a free
+State. To pacify the slaveholders of the South, more stringent laws
+were to be enacted "concerning persons bound to service in one State
+and escaping into another."
+
+The 7th of March, 1850, Daniel Webster made his celebrated speech, in
+which he defended this compromise, and the abolitionists of the North
+were filled with indignation, which found its most fitting expression
+in Whittier's "Ichabod:"
+
+ "So fallen, so lost, the glory from his gray hairs gone."
+   . . .
+ "When honor dies the man is dead."
+
+It was in the midst of this excitement that Mrs. Stowe, with her
+children and her modest hopes for the future, arrived at the house of
+her brother, Dr. Edward Beecher.
+
+Dr. Beecher had been the intimate friend and supporter of Lovejoy, who
+had been murdered by the slaveholders at Alton for publishing an anti-
+slavery paper. His soul was stirred to its very depths by the
+iniquitous law which was at this time being debated in Congress,--a
+law which not only gave the slaveholder of the South the right to seek
+out and bring back into slavery any colored person whom he claimed as
+a slave, but commanded the people of the free States to assist in this
+revolting business. The most frequent theme of conversation while Mrs.
+Stowe was in Boston was this proposed law, and when she arrived in
+Brunswick her soul was all on fire with indignation at this new
+indignity and wrong about to be inflicted by the slave-power on the
+innocent and defenseless.
+
+After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, letter after letter was
+received by Mrs. Stowe in Brunswick from Mrs. Edward Beecher and other
+friends, describing the heart-rending scenes which were the inevitable
+results of the enforcement of this terrible law. Cities were more
+available for the capturing of escaped slaves than the country, and
+Boston, which claimed to have the cradle of liberty, opened her doors
+to the slavehunters. The sorrow and anguish caused thereby no pen
+could describe. Families were broken up. Some hid in garrets and
+cellars. Some fled to the wharves and embarked in ships and sailed for
+Europe. Others went to Canada. One poor fellow who was doing good
+business as a crockery merchant, and supporting his family well, when
+he got notice that his master, whom he had left many years before, was
+after him, set out for Canada in midwinter on foot, as he did not dare
+to take a public conveyance. He froze both of his feet on the journey,
+and they had to be amputated. Mrs. Edward Beecher, in a letter to Mrs.
+Stowe's son, writing of this period, says:---
+
+"I had been nourishing an anti-slavery spirit since Lovejoy was
+murdered for publishing in his paper articles against slavery and
+intemperance, when our home was in Illinois. These terrible things
+which were going on in Boston were well calculated to rouse up this
+spirit. What can I do? I thought. Not much myself, but I know one who
+can. So I wrote several letters to your mother, telling her of various
+heart-rending events caused by the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave
+Law. I remember distinctly saying in one of them, 'Now, Hattie, if I
+could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make
+this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.' . . . When
+we lived in Boston your mother often visited us. . . . Several numbers
+of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' were written in your Uncle Edward's study at
+these times, and read to us from the manuscripts."
+
+A member of Mrs. Stowe's family well remembers the scene in the little
+parlor in Brunswick when the letter alluded to was received. Mrs.
+Stowe herself read it aloud to the assembled family, and when she came
+to the passage, "I would write something that would make this whole
+nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is," Mrs. Stowe rose up
+from her chair, crushing the letter in her hand, and with an
+expression on her face that stamped itself on the mind of her child,
+said: "I will write something. I will if I live."
+
+This was the origin of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and Professor Cairnes has
+well said in his admirable work, "The Slave Power," "The Fugitive
+Slave Law has been to the slave power a questionable gain. Among its
+first-fruits was 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"
+
+The purpose of writing a story that should make the whole nation feel
+that slavery was an accursed thing was not immediately carried out. In
+December, 1850, Mrs. Stowe writes: "Tell sister Katy I thank her for
+her letter and will answer it. As long as the baby sleeps with me
+nights I can't do much at anything, but I will do it at last. I will
+write that thing if I live.
+
+"What are folks in general saying about the slave law, and the stand
+taken by Boston ministers universally, except Edward?
+
+"To me it is incredible, amazing, mournful!! I feel as if I should be
+willing to sink with it, were all this sin and misery to sink in the
+sea. . . . I wish father would come on to Boston, and preach on the
+Fugitive Slave Law, as he once preached on the slave-trade, when I was
+a little girl in Litchfield. I sobbed aloud in one pew and Mrs. Judge
+Reeves in another. I wish some Martin Luther would arise to set this
+community right."
+
+December 22, 1850, she writes to her husband in Cincinnati: "Christmas
+has passed, not without many thoughts of our absent one. If you want a
+description of the scenes in our family preceding it, _vide_ a
+'New Year's Story,' which I have sent to the 'New York Evangelist.' I
+am sorry that in the hurry of getting off this piece and one for the
+'Era' you were neglected." The piece for the "Era" was a humorous
+article called "A Scholar's Adventures in the Country," being, in
+fact, a picture drawn from life and embodying Professor Stowe's
+efforts in the department of agriculture while in Cincinnati.
+
+_December_ 29,1850. "We have had terrible weather here. I
+remember such a storm when I was a child in Litchfield. Father and
+mother went to Warren, and were almost lost in the snowdrifts.
+
+"Sunday night I rather watched than slept. The wind howled, and the
+house rocked just as our old Litchfield house used to. The cold has
+been so intense that the children have kept begging to get up from
+table at meal-times to warm feet and fingers. Our air-tight stoves
+warm all but the floor,---heat your head and keep your feet freezing.
+If I sit by the open fire in the parlor my back freezes, if I sit in
+my bedroom and try to write my head aches and my feet are cold. I am
+projecting a sketch for the 'Era' on the capabilities of liberated
+blacks to take care of themselves. Can't you find out for me how much
+Willie Watson has paid for the redemption of his friends, and get any
+items in figures of that kind that you can pick up in Cincinnati? . . .
+When I have a headache and feel sick, as I do to-day, there is
+actually not a place in the house where I can lie down and take a nap
+without being disturbed. Overhead is the school-room, next door is the
+dining-room, and the girls practice there two hours a day. If I lock
+my door and lie down some one is sure to be rattling the latch before
+fifteen minutes have passed. . . . There is no doubt in my mind that
+our expenses this year will come two hundred dollars, if not three,
+beyond our salary. We shall be able to come through, notwithstanding;
+but I don't want to feel obliged to work as hard every year as I have
+this. I can earn four hundred dollars a year by writing, but I don't
+want to feel that I must, and when weary with teaching the children,
+and tending the baby, and buying provisions, and mending dresses, and
+darning stockings, sit down and write a piece for some paper."
+
+January 12, 1851, Mrs. Stowe again writes to Professor Stowe at
+Cincinnati: "Ever since we left Cincinnati to come here the good hand
+of God has been visibly guiding our way. Through what difficulties
+have we been brought! Though we knew not where means were to come
+from, yet means have been furnished every step of the way, and in
+every time of need. I was just in some discouragement with regard to
+my writing; thinking that the editor of the 'Era' was overstocked with
+contributors, and would not want my services another year, and lo! he
+sends me one hundred dollars, and ever so many good words with it. Our
+income this year will be seventeen hundred dollars in all, and I hope
+to bring our expenses within thirteen hundred."
+
+It was in the month of February after these words were written that
+Mrs. Stowe was seated at communion service in the college church at
+Brunswick. Suddenly, like the unrolling of a picture, the scene of the
+death of Uncle Tom passed before her mind. So strongly was she
+affected that it was with difficulty she could keep from weeping
+aloud. Immediately on returning home she took pen and paper and wrote
+out the vision which had been as it were blown into her mind as by the
+rushing of a mighty wind. Gathering her family about her she read what
+she had written. Her two little ones of ten and twelve years of age
+broke into convulsions of weeping, one of them saying through is sobs,
+"Oh, mamma! slavery is the most cruel thing in the world." Thus Uncle
+Tom was ushered into the world, and it was, as we said at the
+beginning, a cry, an immediate, an involuntary expression of deep,
+impassioned feeling.
+
+Twenty-five years afterwards Mrs. Stowe wrote in a letter to one of
+her children, of this period of her life: "I well remember the winter
+you were a baby and I was writing 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' My heart was
+bursting with the anguish excited by the cruelty and injustice our
+nation was showing to the slave, and praying God to let me do a little
+and to cause my cry for them to be heard. I remember many a night
+weeping over you as you lay sleeping beside me, and I thought of the
+slave mothers whose babes were torn from them."
+
+It was not till the following April that the first chapter of the
+story was finished and sent on to the "National Era" at Washington.
+
+In July Mrs. Stowe wrote to Frederick Douglass the following letter,
+which is given entire as the best possible introduction to the history
+of the career of that memorable work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+BRUNSWICK, _July 9_, 1851. FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ESQ.:
+
+_Sir_,---You may perhaps have noticed in your editorial readings
+a series of articles that I am furnishing for the "Era" under the
+title of "Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life among the Lowly.".
+
+In the course of my story the scene will fall upon a cotton
+plantation. I am very desirous, therefore, to gain information from
+one who has been an actual laborer on one, and it occurred to me that
+in the circle of your acquaintance there might be one who would be
+able to communicate to me some such information as I desire. I have
+before me an able paper written by a Southern planter, in which the
+details and _modus operandi_ are given from his point of sight. I
+am anxious to have something more from another standpoint. I wish to
+be able to make a picture that shall be graphic and true to nature in
+its details. Such a person as Henry Bibb, if in the country, might
+give me just the kind of information I desire. You may possibly know
+of some other person. I will subjoin to this letter a list of
+questions, which in that case you will do me a favor by inclosing to
+the individual, with the request that he will at earliest convenience
+answer them.
+
+For some few weeks past I have received your paper through the mail,
+and have read it with great interest, and desire to return my
+acknowledgments for it. It will be a pleasure to me at some time when
+less occupied to contribute something to its columns. I have noticed
+with regret your sentiments on two subjects--the church and African
+colonization, . . . with the more regret because I think you have a
+considerable share of reason for your feelings on both these subjects;
+but I would willingly, if I could, modify your views on both points.
+
+In the first place you say the church is "pro-slavery." There is a
+sense in which this may be true. The American church of all
+denominations, taken as a body, comprises the best and most
+conscientious people in the country. I do not say it comprises none
+but these, or that none such are found out of it, but only if a census
+were taken of the purest and most high principled men and women of the
+country, the majority of them would be found to be professors of
+religion in some of the various Christian denominations. This fact has
+given to the church great weight in this country--the general and
+predominant spirit of intelligence and probity and piety of its
+majority has given it that degree of weight that it has the power to
+decide the great moral questions of the day. Whatever it unitedly and
+decidedly sets itself against as moral evil it can put down. In this
+sense the church is responsible for the sin of slavery. Dr. Barnes has
+beautifully and briefly expressed this on the last page of his work on
+slavery, when he says: "Not all the force out of the church could
+sustain slavery an hour if it were not sustained in it." It then
+appears that the church has the power to put an end to this evil and
+does not do it. In this sense she may be said to be pro-slavery. But
+the church has the same power over intemperance, and Sabbath-breaking,
+and sin of all kinds. There is not a doubt that if the moral power of
+the church were brought up to the New Testament standpoint it is
+sufficient to put an end to all these as well as to slavery. But I
+would ask you, Would you consider it a fair representation of the
+Christian church in this country to say that it is pro-intemperance,
+pro-Sabbath-breaking, and pro everything that it might put down if it
+were in a higher state of moral feeling? If you should make a list of
+all the abolitionists of the country, I think that you would find a
+majority of them in the church--certainly some of the most influential
+and efficient ones are ministers.
+
+I am a minister's daughter, and a minister's wife, and I have had six
+brothers in the ministry (one is in heaven); I certainly ought to know
+something of the feelings of ministers on this subject. I was a child
+in 1820 when the Missouri question was agitated, and one of the
+strongest and deepest impressions on my mind was that made by my
+father's sermons and prayers, and the anguish of his soul for the poor
+slave at that time. I remember his preaching drawing tears down the
+hardest faces of the old farmers in his congregation.
+
+I well remember his prayers morning and evening in the family for
+"poor, oppressed, bleeding Africa," that the time of her deliverance
+might come; prayers offered with strong crying and tears, and which
+indelibly impressed my heart and made me what I am from my very soul,
+the enemy of all slavery. Every brother I have has been in his sphere
+a leading anti-slavery man. One of them was to the last the bosom
+friend and counselor of Lovejoy. As for myself and husband, we have
+for the last seventeen years lived on the border of a slave State, and
+we have never shrunk from the fugitives, and we have helped them with
+all we had to give. I have received the children of liberated slaves
+into a family school, and taught them with my own children, and it has
+been the influence that we found in the church and by the altar that
+has made us do all this. Gather up all the sermons that have been
+published on this offensive and unchristian Fugitive Slave Law, and
+you will find that those against it are numerically more than those in
+its favor, and yet some of the strongest opponents have not published
+their sermons. Out of thirteen ministers who meet with my husband
+weekly for discussion of moral subjects, only three are found who will
+acknowledge or obey this law in any shape.
+
+After all, my brother, the strength and hope of your oppressed race
+does lie in the church--in hearts united to Him of whom it is said,
+"He shall spare the souls of the needy, and precious shall their blood
+be in his sight." Everything is against you, but Jesus Christ is for
+you, and He has not forgotten his church, misguided and erring though
+it be. I have looked all the field over with despairing eyes; I see no
+hope but in Him. This movement must and will become a purely religious
+one. The light will spread in churches, the tone of feeling will rise,
+Christians North and South will give up all connection with, and take
+up their testimony against, slavery, and thus the work will be done.
+
+This letter gives us a conception of the state of moral and religious
+exaltation of the heart and mind out of which flowed chapter after
+chapter of that wonderful story. It all goes to prove the correctness
+of the position from which we started, that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" came
+from the heart rather than the head. It was an outburst of deep
+feeling, a cry in the darkness. The writer no more thought of style or
+literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and
+cries for help to save her children from a burning house thinks of the
+teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist.
+
+A few years afterwards Mrs. Stowe, writing of this story, said, "This
+story is to show how Jesus Christ, who liveth and was dead, and now is
+alive and forever-more, has still a mother's love for the poor and
+lowly, and that no man can sink so low but that Jesus Christ will
+stoop to take his hand. Who so low, who so poor, who so despised as
+the American slave? The law almost denies his existence as a person,
+and regards him for the most part as less than a man--a mere thing,
+the property of another. The law forbids him to read or write, to hold
+property, to make a contract, or even to form a legal marriage. It
+takes from him all legal right to the wife of his bosom, the children
+of his body. He can do nothing, possess nothing, acquire nothing, but
+what must belong to his master. Yet even to this slave Jesus Christ
+stoops, from where he sits at the right hand of the Father, and says,
+'Fear not, thou whom man despiseth, for I am thy brother. Fear not,
+for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art
+mine.'"
+
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a work of religion; the fundamental principles
+of the gospel applied to the burning question of negro slavery. It
+sets forth those principles of the Declaration of Independence that
+made Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, and Patrick Henry anti-slavery
+men; not in the language of the philosopher, but in a series of
+pictures. Mrs. Stowe spoke to the understanding and moral sense
+through the imagination.
+
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" made the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law an
+impossibility. It aroused the public sentiment of the world by
+arousing in the concrete that which had been a mere series of abstract
+propositions. It was, as we have already said, an appeal to the
+imagination through a series of pictures. People are like children,
+and understand pictures better than words. Some one rushes into your
+dining-room while you are at breakfast and cries out, "Terrible
+railroad accident, forty killed and wounded, six were burned alive."
+
+"Oh, shocking! dreadful!" you exclaim, and yet go quietly on with your
+rolls and coffee. But suppose you stood at that instant by the wreck,
+and saw the mangled dead, and heard the piercing shrieks of the
+wounded, you would be faint and dizzy with the intolerable spectacle.
+
+So "Uncle Tom's Cabin" made the crack of the slavedriver's whip, and
+the cries of the tortured blacks ring in every household in the land,
+till human hearts could endure it no longer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, 1852.
+
+
+"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AS A SERIAL IN THE "NATIONAL ERA."--AN OFFER FOR
+ITS PUBLICATION IN BOOK FORM.--WILL IT BE A SUCCESS?--AN UNPRECEDENTED
+CIRCULATION.--CONGRATULATORY MESSAGES.--KIND WORDS FROM ABROAD.--MRS.
+STOWE TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--LETTERS FROM AND TO LORD SHAFTESBURY.
+--CORRESPONDENCE WITH ARTHUR HELPS.
+
+The wonderful story that was begun in the "National Era," June 5,
+1851, and was announced to run for about three months, was not
+completed in that paper until April 1, 1852. It had been contemplated
+as a mere magazine tale of perhaps a dozen chapters, but once begun it
+could no more be controlled than the waters of the swollen
+Mississippi, bursting through a crevasse in its levees. The intense
+interest excited by the story, the demands made upon the author for
+more facts, the unmeasured words of encouragement to keep on in her
+good work that poured in from all sides, and above all the ever-
+growing conviction that she had been intrusted with a great and holy
+mission, compelled her to keep on until the humble tale had assumed
+the proportions of a volume prepared to stand among the most notable
+books in the world. As Mrs. Stowe has since repeatedly said, "I could
+not control the story; it wrote itself;" or "I the author of 'Uncle
+Tom's Cabin'? No, indeed. The Lord himself wrote it, and I was but the
+humblest of instruments in his hand. To Him alone should be given all
+the praise."
+
+Although the publication of the "National Era" has been long since
+suspended, the journal was in those days one of decided literary merit
+and importance. On its title-page, with the name of Dr. Gamaliel
+Bailey as editor, appeared that of John Greenleaf Whittier as
+corresponding editor. In its columns Mrs. Southworth made her first
+literary venture, while Alice and Phoebe Gary, Grace Greenwood, and a
+host of other well-known names were published with that of Mrs. Stowe,
+which appeared last of all in its prospectus for 1851.
+
+Before the conclusion of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Mrs. Stowe had so far
+outstripped her contemporaries that her work was pronounced by
+competent judges to be the most powerful production ever contributed
+to the magazine literature of this country, and she stood in the
+foremost rank of American writers.
+
+After finishing her story Mrs. Stowe penned the following appeal to
+its more youthful readers, and its serial publication was concluded:--
+
+"The author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' must now take leave of a wide
+circle of friends whose faces she has never seen, but whose sympathies
+coming to her from afar have stimulated and cheered her in her work.
+
+"The thought of the pleasant family circles that she has been meeting
+in spirit week after week has been a constant refreshment to her, and
+she cannot leave them without a farewell.
+
+"In particular the dear children who have followed her story have her
+warmest love. Dear children, you will soon be men and women, and I
+hope that you will learn from this story always to remember and pity
+the poor and oppressed. When you grow up, show your pity by doing all
+you can for them. Never, if you can help it, let a colored child be
+shut out from school or treated with neglect and contempt on account
+of his color. Remember the sweet example of little Eva, and try to
+feel the same regard for all that she did. Then, when you grow up, I
+hope the foolish and unchristian prejudice against people merely on
+account of their complexion will be done away with.
+
+"Farewell, dear children, until we meet again."
+
+With the completion of the story the editor of the "Era" wrote: "Mrs.
+Stowe has at last brought her great work to a close. We do not
+recollect any production of an American writer that has excited more
+general and profound interest."
+
+For the story as a serial the author received $300. In the mean time,
+however, it had attracted the attention of Mr. John P. Jewett, a
+Boston publisher, who promptly made overtures for its publication in
+book form. He offered Mr. and Mrs. Stowe a half share in the profits,
+provided they would share with him the expense of publication. This
+was refused by Professor Stowe, who said he was altogether too poor to
+assume any such risk; and the agreement finally made was that the
+author should receive a ten per cent royalty upon all sales.
+
+Mrs. Stowe had no reason to hope for any large pecuniary gain from
+this publication, for it was practically her first book. To be sure,
+she had, in 1832, prepared a small school geography for a Western
+publisher, and ten years later the Harpers had brought out her
+"Mayflower." Still, neither of these had been sufficiently
+remunerative to cause her to regard literary work as a money-making
+business, and in regard to this new contract she writes: "I did not
+know until a week afterward precisely what terms Mr. Stowe had made,
+and I did not care. I had the most perfect indifference to the
+bargain."
+
+The agreement was signed March 13, 1852, and, as by arrangement with
+the "National Era" the book publication of the story was authorized
+before its completion as a serial, the first edition of five thousand
+copies was issued on the twentieth of the same month.
+
+In looking over the first semi-annual statement presented by her
+publishers we find Mrs. Stowe charged, a few days before the date of
+publication of her book, with "one copy U. T. C. cloth $.56," and this
+was the first copy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ever sold in book form. Five
+days earlier we find her charged with one copy of Horace Mann's
+speeches. In writing of this critical period of her life Mrs. Stowe
+says:--
+
+"After sending the last proof-sheet to the office I sat alone reading
+Horace Mann's eloquent plea for these young men and women, then about
+to be consigned to the slave warehouse of Bruin & Hill in Alexandria,
+Va.,--a plea impassioned, eloquent, but vain, as all other pleas on
+that side had ever proved in all courts hitherto. It seemed that there
+was no hope, that nobody would hear, nobody would read, nobody pity;
+that this frightful system, that had already pursued its victims into
+the free States, might at last even threaten them in Canada."
+[Footnote: Introduction to Illustrated Edition of _Uncle Tom_, p.
+xiii. (Houghton, Osgood & Co., 1879.)]
+
+Filled with this fear, she determined to do all that one woman might
+to enlist the sympathies of England for the cause, and to avert, even
+as a remote contingency, the closing of Canada as a haven of refuge
+for the oppressed. To this end she at once wrote letters to Prince
+Albert, to the Duke of Argyll, to the Earls of Carlisle and
+Shaftesbury, to Macaulay, Dickens, and others whom she knew to be
+interested in the cause of anti-slavery. These she ordered to be sent
+to their several addresses, accompanied by the very earliest copies of
+her book that should be printed.
+
+Then, having done what she could, and committed the result to God, she
+calmly turned her attention to other affairs.
+
+In the mean time the fears of the author as to whether or not her book
+would be read were quickly dispelled. Three thousand copies were sold
+the very first day, a second edition was issued the following week, a
+third on the 1st of April, and within a year one hundred and twenty
+editions, or over three hundred thousand copies of the book, had been
+issued and sold in this country. Almost in a day the poor professor's
+wife had become the most talked-of woman in the world, her influence
+for good was spreading to its remotest corners, and henceforth she was
+to be a public character, whose every movement would be watched with
+interest, and whose every word would be quoted. The long, weary
+struggle with poverty was to be hers no longer; for, in seeking to aid
+the oppressed, she had also so aided herself that within four months
+from the time her book was published it had yielded her $10,000 in
+royalties.
+
+Now letters regarding the wonderful book, and expressing all shades of
+opinion concerning it, began to pour in upon the author. Her lifelong
+friend, whose words we have already so often quoted, wrote:--
+
+"I sat up last night until long after one o'clock reading and
+finishing 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' I could not leave it any more than I
+could have left a dying child, nor could I restrain an almost
+hysterical sobbing for an hour after I laid my head upon my pillow. I
+thought I was a thorough-going abolitionist before, but your book has
+awakened so strong a feeling of indignation and of compassion that I
+never seem to have had any feeling on this subject until now."
+
+The poet Longfellow wrote:--
+
+I congratulate you most cordially upon the immense success and
+influence of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It is one of the greatest triumphs
+recorded in literary history, to say nothing of the higher triumph of
+its moral effect.
+
+With great regard, and friendly remembrance to Mr. Stowe, I remain,
+
+Yours most truly,
+
+HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+Whittier wrote to Garrison:--
+
+"What a glorious work Harriet Beecher Stowe has wrought. Thanks for
+the Fugitive Slave Law! Better would it be for slavery if that law had
+never been enacted; for it gave occasion for 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"
+
+Garrison wrote to Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+"I estimate the value of anti-slavery writing by the abuse it brings.
+Now all the defenders of slavery have let me alone and are abusing
+you."
+
+To Mrs. Stowe, Whittier wrote:--
+
+Ten thousand thanks for thy immortal book. My young friend Mary Irving
+(of the "Era") writes me that she has been reading it to some twenty
+young ladies, daughters of Louisiana slaveholders, near New Orleans,
+and amid the scenes described in it, and that they, with one accord,
+pronounce it true.
+
+Truly thy friend,
+
+JOHN G. WHITTIER.
+
+From Thomas Wentworth Higginson came the following:--
+
+To have written at once the most powerful of contemporary fiction and
+the most efficient of anti-slavery tracts is a double triumph in
+literature and philanthropy, to which this country has heretofore seen
+no parallel.
+
+Yours respectfully and gratefully,
+
+T. W. HIGGINSON.
+
+A few days after the publication of the book, Mrs. Stowe, writing from
+Boston to her husband in Brunswick, says: "I have been in such a whirl
+ever since I have been here. I found business prosperous. Jewett
+animated. He has been to Washington and conversed with all the leading
+senators, Northern and Southern. Seward told him it was the greatest
+book of the times, or something of that sort, and he and Sumner went
+around with him to recommend it to Southern men and get them to read
+it."
+
+It is true that with these congratulatory and commendatory letters
+came hosts of others, threatening and insulting, from the Haleys and
+Legrees of the country.
+
+Of them Mrs. Stowe said: "They were so curiously compounded of
+blasphemy, cruelty, and obscenity, that their like could only be
+expressed by John Bunyan's account of the speech of Apollyon: 'He
+spake as a dragon.'"
+
+A correspondent of the "National Era" wrote: "'Uncle Tom's Cabin' is
+denounced by time-serving preachers as a meretricious work. Will you
+not come out in defense of it and roll back the tide of vituperation?"
+
+To this the editor answered: "We should as soon think of coming out in
+defense of Shakespeare."
+
+Several attempts were made in the South to write books controverting
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and showing a much brighter side of the slavery
+question, but they all fell flat and were left unread. Of one of them,
+a clergyman of Charleston, S.C., wrote in a private letter:--
+
+"I have read two columns in the 'Southern Press' of Mrs. Eastman's
+'Aunt Phillis' Cabin, or Southern Life as it is,' with the remarks of
+the editor. I have no comment to make on it, as that is done by
+itself. The editor might have saved himself being writ down an ass by
+the public if he had withheld his nonsense. If the two columns are a
+fair specimen of Mrs. Eastman's book, I pity her attempt and her name
+as an author."
+
+In due time Mrs. Stowe began to receive answers to the letters she had
+forwarded with copies of her book to prominent men in England, and
+these were without exception flattering and encouraging. Through his
+private secretary Prince Albert acknowledged with thanks the receipt
+of his copy, and promised to read it. Succeeding mails brought scores
+of letters from English men of letters and statesmen. Lord Carlisle
+wrote:--
+
+"I return my deep and solemn thanks to Almighty God who has led and
+enabled you to write such a book. I do feel indeed the most thorough
+assurance that in his good Providence such a book cannot have been
+written in vain. I have long felt that slavery is by far the
+_topping_ question of the world and age we live in, including all
+that is most thrilling in heroism and most touching in distress; in
+short, the real epic of the universe. The self-interest of the parties
+most nearly concerned on the one hand, the apathy and ignorance of
+unconcerned observers on the other, have left these august pretensions
+to drop very much out of sight. Hence my rejoicing that a writer has
+appeared who will be read and must be felt, and that happen what may
+to the transactions of slavery they will no longer be suppressed."
+
+To this letter, of which but an extract has been given, Mrs. Stowe
+sent the following reply:--
+
+MY LORD,--It is not with the common pleasure of gratified authorship
+that I say how much I am gratified by the receipt of your very kind
+communication with regard to my humble efforts in the cause of
+humanity. The subject is one so grave, so awful--the success of what I
+have written has been so singular and so unexpected--that I can scarce
+retain a self-consciousness and am constrained to look upon it all as
+the work of a Higher Power, who, when He pleases, can accomplish his
+results by the feeblest instruments. I am glad of anything which gives
+notoriety to the book, because it is a plea for the dumb and the
+helpless! I am glad particularly of notoriety in England because I see
+with what daily increasing power England's opinion is to act on this
+country. No one can tell but a _native_ born here by what an
+infinite complexity of ties, nerves, and ligaments this terrible evil
+is bound in one body politic; how the slightest touch upon it causes
+even the free States to thrill and shiver, what a terribly corrupting
+and tempting power it has upon the conscience and moral sentiment even
+of a free community. Nobody can tell the thousand ways in which by
+trade, by family affinity, or by political expediency, the free part
+of our country is constantly tempted to complicity with the
+slaveholding part. It is a terrible thing to become used to hearing
+the enormities of slavery, to hear of things day after day that one
+would think the sun should hide his face from, and yet, to _get used
+to them_, to discusss them coolly, to dismiss them coolly. For
+example, the sale of intelligent, handsome colored females for vile
+purposes, facts of the most public nature, have made this a perfectly
+understood matter in our Northern States. I have now, myself, under
+charge and educating, two girls of whose character any mother might be
+proud, who have actually been rescued from this sale in the New
+Orleans market.
+
+I desire to inclose a tract [Footnote: Afterwards embodied in the
+_Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin_.] in which I sketched down a few
+incidents in the history of the family to which these girls belong; it
+will show more than words can the kind of incident to which I allude.
+The tract is not a published document, only _printed_ to assist
+me in raising money, and it would not, at present, be for the good of
+the parties to have it published even in England.
+
+But though these things are known in the free States, and other
+things, if possible, worse, yet there is a terrible deadness of moral
+sense. They are known by clergymen who yet would not on any account so
+far commit themselves as to preach on the evils of slavery, or pray
+for the slaves in their pulpits. They are known by politicians who yet
+give their votes for slavery extension and perpetuation.
+
+This year both our great leading parties voted to suppress all
+agitation of the subject, and in both those parties were men who knew
+personally facts of slavery and the internal slave-trade that one
+would think no man could ever forget. Men _united_ in pledging
+themselves to the Fugitive Slave Law, who yet would tell you in
+private conversation that it was an abomination, and who do not
+hesitate to say, that as a matter of practice they always help the
+fugitive because they _can't_ do otherwise.
+
+The moral effect of this constant insincerity, the moral effect of
+witnessing and becoming accustomed to the most appalling forms of
+crime and oppression, is to me the most awful and distressing part of
+the subject. Nothing makes me feel it so painfully as to see with how
+much more keenness the English feel the disclosures of my book than
+the Americans. I myself am blunted by use--by seeing, touching,
+handling the details. In dealing even for the ransom of slaves, in
+learning market prices of men, women, and children, I feel that I
+acquire a horrible familiarity with evil.
+
+Here, then, the great, wise, and powerful mind of England, if she will
+but fully master the subject, may greatly help us. Hers is the same
+kind of mind as our own, but disembarrassed from our temptations and
+unnerved by the thousands of influences that blind and deaden us.
+There is a healthful vivacity of moral feeling on this subject that
+must electrify our paralyzed vitality. For this reason, therefore, I
+rejoice when I see minds like your lordship's turning to this subject;
+and I feel an intensity of emotion, as if I could say, Do not for
+Christ's sake let go; you know not what you may do.
+
+Your lordship will permit me to send you two of the most
+characteristic documents of the present struggle, written by two men
+who are, in their way, as eloquent for the slave as Chatham was for us
+in our hour of need.
+
+I am now preparing some additional notes to my book, in which I shall
+further confirm what I have said by facts and statistics, and in
+particular by extracts from the _codes of slaveholding States_,
+and the _records of their courts_. These are documents that
+cannot be disputed, and I pray your lordship to give them your
+attention. No disconnected facts can be so terrible as these legal
+decisions. They will soon appear in England.
+
+It is so far from being irrelevant for England to notice slavery that
+I already see indications that this subject, on _both sides_, is
+yet to be presented there, and the battle fought on _English
+ground_. I see that my friend the South Carolinian gentleman has
+sent to "Fraser's Magazine" an article, before published in this
+country, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The article in the London "Times" was
+eagerly reprinted in this country, was issued as a tract and sold by
+the hundred, headed, "What they think of 'Uncle Tom' in England." If I
+mistake not, a strong effort will be made to pervert the public mind
+of England, and to do away the impression which the book has left.
+
+For a time after it was issued it seemed to go by acclamation. From
+quarters the most unexpected, from all political parties, came an
+almost unbroken chorus of approbation. I was very much surprised,
+knowing the explosive nature of the subject. It was not till the sale
+had run to over a hundred thousand copies that reaction began, and the
+reaction was led off by the London "Times." Instantly, as by a
+preconcerted signal, all papers of a certain class began to abuse; and
+some who had at first issued articles entirely commendatory, now
+issued others equally depreciatory. Religious papers, notably the "New
+York Observer," came out and denounced the book as _anti-
+Christian_, anti-evangelical, resorting even to personal slander on
+the author as a means of diverting attention from the work.
+
+All this has a meaning, but I think it comes too late. I can think of
+no reason why it was not tried sooner, excepting that God had intended
+that the cause should have a hearing. It is strange that they should
+have waited so long for the political effect of a book which they
+might have foreseen at first; but not strange that they should, now
+they _do_ see what it is doing, attempt to root it up.
+
+The effects of the book so far have been, I think, these: 1st. To
+soften and moderate the bitterness of feeling in _extreme
+abolitionists_. 2d. To convert to abolitionist views many whom this
+same bitterness had repelled. 3d. To inspire the free colored people
+with self-respect, hope, and confidence. 4th. To inspire universally
+through the country a kindlier feeling toward the negro race.
+
+It was unfortunate for the cause of freedom that the first agitators
+of this subject were of that class which your lordship describes in
+your note as "well-meaning men." I speak sadly of their faults, for
+they were men of noble hearts. "But oppression maketh a wise man mad"
+and they spoke and did many things in the frenzy of outraged humanity
+that repelled sympathy and threw multitudes off to a hopeless
+distance. It is mournful to think of all the absurdities that have
+been said and done in the name and for the sake of this holy cause,
+that have so long and so fatally retarded it.
+
+I confess that I expected for myself nothing but abuse from extreme
+abolitionists, especially as I dared to name a forbidden shibboleth,
+"Liberia," and the fact that the wildest and extremest abolitionists
+united with the coldest conservatives, at first, to welcome and
+advance the book is a thing that I have never ceased to wonder at.
+
+I have written this long letter because I am extremely desirous that
+some leading minds in England should know how _we_ stand. The
+subject is now on trial at the bar of a civilized world--a Christian
+world! and I feel sure that God has not ordered this without a design.
+Yours for the cause,
+
+HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+In December the Earl of Shaftesbury wrote to Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+MADAM,-It is very possible that the writer of this letter may be
+wholly unknown to you. But whether my name be familiar to your ears,
+or whether you now read it for the first time, I cannot refrain from
+expressing to you the deep gratitude that I feel to Almighty God who
+has inspired both your heart and your head in the composition of
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin." None but a Christian believer could have produced
+such a book as yours, which has absolutely startled the whole world,
+and impressed many thousands by revelations of cruelty and sin that
+give us an idea of what would be the uncontrolled dominion of Satan on
+this fallen earth.
+
+To this letter Mrs. Stowe replied as follows:--
+
+ANDOVER, _January_ 6, 1853.
+
+To THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY:
+
+_My Lord_,-The few lines I have received from you are a comfort
+and an encouragement to me, feeble as I now am in health, and pressed
+oftentimes with sorrowful thoughts.
+
+It is a comfort to know that in other lands there are those who feel
+as we feel, and who are looking with simplicity to the gospel of
+Jesus, and prayerfully hoping his final coming.
+
+My lord, before you wrote me I read with deep emotion your letter to
+the ladies of England, and subsequently the noble address of the
+Duchess of Sutherland, and I could not but feel that such movements,
+originating in such a quarter, prompted by a spirit so devout and
+benevolent, were truly of God, and must result in a blessing to the
+world.
+
+I grieve to see that both in England and this country there are those
+who are entirely incapable of appreciating the Christian and truly
+friendly feeling that prompted this movement, and that there are even
+those who meet it with coarse personalities such as I had not thought
+possible in an English or American paper.
+
+When I wrote my work it was in simplicity and in the love of Christ,
+and if I felt anything that seemed to me like a call to undertake it,
+it was this, that I had a true heart of love for the Southern people,
+a feeling appreciation of their trials, and a sincere admiration of
+their many excellent traits, and that I thus felt, I think, must
+appear to every impartial reader of the work.
+
+It was my hope that a book so kindly intended, so favorable in many
+respects, might be permitted free circulation among them, and that the
+gentle voice of Eva and the manly generosity of St. Clare might be
+allowed to say those things of the system which would be invidious in
+any other form.
+
+At first the book seemed to go by acclamation; the South did not
+condemn, and the North was loud and unanimous in praise; not a
+dissenting voice was raised; to my astonishment everybody praised. But
+when the book circulated so widely and began to penetrate the Southern
+States, when it began to be perceived how powerfully it affected every
+mind that read it, there came on a reaction.
+
+Answers, pamphlets, newspaper attacks came thick and fast, and certain
+Northern papers, religious,--so called,--turned and began to denounce
+the work as unchristian, heretical, etc. The reason of all this is
+that it has been seen that the book has a direct tendency to do what
+it was written for,--to awaken conscience in the slaveholding States
+and lead to emancipation.
+
+Now there is nothing that Southern political leaders and capitalists
+so dread as anti-slavery feeling among themselves. All the force of
+lynch law is employed to smother discussion and blind conscience on
+this question. The question is not allowed to be discussed, and he who
+sells a book or publishes a tract makes himself liable to fine and
+imprisonment.
+
+My book is, therefore, as much under an interdict in some parts of the
+South as the Bible is in Italy. It is not allowed in the bookstores,
+and the greater part of the people hear of it and me only through
+grossly caricatured representations in the papers, with garbled
+extracts from the book.
+
+A cousin residing in Georgia this winter says that the prejudice
+against my name is so strong that she dares not have it appear on the
+outside of her letters, and that very amiable and excellent people
+have asked her if such as I could be received into reputable society
+at the North.
+
+Under these circumstances, it is a matter of particular regret that
+the "New York Observer," an old and long-established religious paper
+in the United States, extensively read at the South, should have come
+out in such a bitter and unscrupulous style of attack as even to
+induce some Southern papers, with a generosity one often finds at the
+South, to protest against it.
+
+That they should use their Christian character and the sacred name of
+Christ still further to blind the minds and strengthen the prejudices
+of their Southern brethren is to me a matter of deepest sorrow. All
+those things, of course, cannot touch me in my private capacity,
+sheltered as I am by a happy home and very warm friends. I only grieve
+for it as a dishonor to Christ and a real injustice to many noble-
+minded people at the South, who, if they were allowed quietly and
+dispassionately to hear and judge, might be led to the best results.
+
+But, my lord, all this only shows us how strong is the interest we
+touch. _All the wealth of America_ may be said to be interested
+in it. And, if I may judge from the furious and bitter tone of some
+English papers, they also have some sensitive connection with the
+evil.
+
+I trust that those noble and gentle ladies of England who have in so
+good a spirit expressed their views of the question will not be
+discouraged by the strong abuse that will follow. England is doing us
+good. We need the vitality of a disinterested country to warm our
+torpid and benumbed public sentiment.
+
+Nay, the storm of feeling which the book raises in Italy, Germany, and
+France is all good, though truly 'tis painful for us Americans to
+bear. The fact is, we have become used to this frightful evil, and we
+need the public sentiment of the world to help us.
+
+I am now writing a work to be called "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin." It
+contains, in an undeniable form, the facts which corroborate all that
+I have said. One third of it is taken up with judicial records of
+trials and decisions, and with statute law. It is a most fearful
+story, my lord,---I can truly say that I write with life-blood, but as
+called of God. I give in my evidence, and I hope that England may so
+fix the attention of the world on the facts of which I am the
+unwilling publisher, that the Southern States may be compelled to
+notice what hitherto they have denied and ignored. If they call the
+fiction dreadful, what will they say of the fact, where I cannot deny,
+suppress, or color? But it is God's will that it must be told, and I
+am the unwilling agent.
+
+This coming month of April, my husband and myself expect to sail for
+England on the invitation of the Anti-Slavery Society of the Ladies
+and Gentlemen of Glasgow, to confer with friends there.
+
+There are points where English people can do much good; there are also
+points where what they seek to do may be made more efficient by a
+little communion with those who know the feelings and habits of our
+countrymen: but I am persuaded that England can do much for us.
+
+My lord, they greatly mistake who see, in this movement of English
+Christians for the abolition of slavery, signs of disunion between the
+nations. It is the purest and best proof of friendship England has
+ever shown us, and will, I am confident, be so received. I earnestly
+trust that all who have begun to take in hand the cause will be in
+nothing daunted, but persevere to the end; for though everything else
+be against us, _Christ_ is certainly on our side and He _must
+at last prevail_, and it will be done, "not by might, nor by power,
+but by His Spirit." Yours in Christian sincerity, H. B. STOWE.
+
+Mrs. Stowe also received a letter from Arthur Helps [Footnote: Author
+of _Spanish Conquest in America_.--ED.] Accompanying a review of
+her work written by himself and published in "Fraser's Magazine." In
+his letter Mr. Helps took exception to the comparison instituted in
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" between the working-classes of England and the
+slaves of America. In her answer to this criticism and complaint Mrs.
+Stowe says:--
+
+MR. ARTHUR HELPS: _My dear Sir_,--I cannot but say I am greatly
+obliged to you for the kind opinions expressed in your letter. On one
+point, however, it appears that my book has not faithfully represented
+to you the feelings of my heart. I mean in relation to the English
+nation as a nation. You will notice that the remarks on that subject
+occur in the _dramatic_ part of the book, in the mouth of an
+intelligent Southerner. As a fair-minded person, bound to state for
+both sides all that could be said in the person of St. Clare, the best
+that could be said on that point, and what I know _is_ in fact
+constantly reiterated, namely, that the laboring class of the South
+are in many respects, as to physical comfort, in a better condition
+than the poor of England.
+
+This is the slaveholder's stereotyped apology,--a defense it cannot
+be, unless two wrongs make one right.
+
+It is generally supposed among us that this estimate of the relative
+condition of the slaves and the poor of England is correct, and we
+base our ideas on reports made in Parliament and various documentary
+evidence; also such sketches as "London Labor and London Poor," which
+have been widely circulated among us. The inference, however,
+which _we_ of the freedom party draw from it, is _not_ that
+the slave is, on the whole, in the best condition because of this
+striking difference; that in America the slave has not a recognized
+_human_ character _in law, has not even an existence_,
+whereas in England the law recognizes and protects the meanest
+subject, in theory _always_, and in _fact_ to a certain
+extent. A prince of the blood could not strike the meanest laborer
+without a liability to prosecution, in _theory_ at least, and
+that is something. In America any man may strike any slave he meets,
+and if the master does not choose to notice it, he has no redress.
+
+I do not suppose _human nature_ to be widely different in England
+and America. In both countries, when any class holds power and wealth
+by institutions which in the long run bring misery on lower classes,
+they are very unwilling still to part with that wealth and power. They
+are unwilling to be convinced that it is their duty, and unwilling to
+do it if they are. It is always so everywhere; it is not English
+nature or American nature, but human nature. We have seen in England
+the battle for popular rights fought step by step with as determined a
+resistance from parties in possession as the slaveholder offers in
+America.
+
+There was the same kind of resistance in certain quarters there to the
+laws restricting the employing of young children eighteen hours a day
+in factories, as there is here to the anti-slavery effort.
+
+Again, in England as in America, there are, in those very classes
+whose interests are most invaded by what are called popular rights,
+some of the most determined supporters of them, and here I think that
+the balance preponderates in favor of England. I think there are more
+of the high nobility of England who are friends of the common people
+and willing to help the cause of human progress, irrespective of its
+influence on their own interests, than there are those of a similar
+class among slaveholding aristocracy, though even that class is not
+without such men. But I am far from having any of that senseless
+prejudice against the English nation as a nation which, greatly to my
+regret, I observe sometimes in America. It is a relic of barbarism for
+two such nations as England and America to cherish any such unworthy
+prejudice.
+
+For my own part, I am proud to be of English blood; and though I do
+not think England's national course faultless, and though I think many
+of her institutions and arrangements capable of much revision and
+improvement, yet my heart warms to her as, on the whole, the
+strongest, greatest, and best nation on earth. Have not England and
+America one blood, one language, one literature, and a glorious
+literature it is! Are not Milton and Shakespeare, and all the wise and
+brave and good of old, common to us both, and should there be anything
+but cordiality between countries that have so glorious an inheritance
+in common? If there is, it will be elsewhere than in hearts like mine.
+
+Sincerely yours, H. B. STOWE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+FIRST TRIP TO EUROPE, 1853.
+
+
+THE EDMONDSONS.--BUYING SLAVES TO SET THEM FREE.--JENNY LIND.--
+PROFESSOR STOWE is CALLED TO ANDOVER.--FITTING UP THE NEW HOME.--THE
+"KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN."--"UNCLE TOM" ABROAD.--HOW IT WAS PUBLISHED
+IN ENGLAND.--PREFACE TO THE EUROPEAN EDITION.--THE BOOK IN FRANCE.--IN
+GERMANY.--A GREETING FROM CHARLES KINGSLEY.--PREPARING TO VISIT
+SCOTLAND.--LETTER TO MRS. FOLLEN.
+
+Very soon after the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Mrs. Stowe
+visited her brother Henry in Brooklyn, and while there became
+intensely interested in the case of the Edmondsons, a slave family of
+Washington, D.C. Emily and Mary two of the daughters of Paul (a free
+colored man) and Milly (a slave) Edmondson, had, for trying to escape
+from bondage, been sold to a trader for the New Orleans market. While
+they were lying in jail in Alexandria awaiting the making up of a gang
+for the South, their heartbroken father determined to visit the North
+and try to beg from a freedom-loving people the money with which to
+purchase his daughters' liberty. The sum asked by the trader was
+$2,250, but its magnitude did not appall the brave old man, and he set
+forth upon his quest full of faith that in some way he would secure
+it.
+
+Reaching New York, he went to the anti-slavery bureau and related his
+pitiful story. The sum demanded was such a large one and seemed so
+exorbitant that even those who took the greatest interest in the case
+were disheartened over the prospect of raising it. The old man was
+finally advised to go to Henry Ward Beecher and ask his aid. He made
+his way to the door of the great Brooklyn preacher's house, but,
+overcome by many disappointments and fearing to meet with another
+rebuff, hesitated to ring the bell, and sat down on the steps with
+tears streaming from his eyes.
+
+There Mr. Beecher found him, learned his story, and promised to do
+what he could. There was a great meeting in Plymouth Church that
+evening, and, taking the old colored man with him to it, Mrs. Stowe's
+brother made such an eloquent and touching appeal on behalf of the
+slave girls as to rouse his audience to profound indignation and pity.
+The entire sum of $2,250 was raised then and there, and the old man,
+hardly able to realize his great joy, was sent back to his despairing
+children with their freedom money in his hand.
+
+All this had happened in the latter part of 1848, and Mrs. Stowe had
+first known of the liberated girls in 1851, when she had been appealed
+to for aid in educating them. From that time forward she became
+personally responsible for all their expenses while they remained in
+school, and until the death of one of them in 1853.
+
+Now during her visit to New York in the spring of 1852 she met their
+old mother, Milly Edmondson, who had come North in the hope of saving
+her two remaining slave children, a girl and a young man, from falling
+into the trader's clutches. Twelve hundred dollars was the sum to be
+raised, and by hard work the father had laid by one hundred of it when
+a severe illness put an end to his efforts. After many prayers and
+much consideration of the matter, his feeble old wife said to him one
+day, "Paul, I'm a gwine up to New York myself to see if I can't get
+that money."
+
+Her husband objected that she was too feeble, that she would be unable
+to find her way, and that Northern people had got tired of buying
+slaves to set them free, but the resolute old woman clung to her
+purpose and finally set forth. Beaching New York she made her way to
+Mr. Beecher's house, where she was so fortunate as to find Mrs. Stowe.
+Now her troubles were at an end, for this champion of the oppressed at
+once made the slave woman's cause her own and promised that her
+children should be redeemed. She at once set herself to the task of
+raising the purchase-money, not only for Milly's children, but for
+giving freedom to the old slave woman herself. On May 29, she writes
+to her husband in Brunswick:--
+
+"The mother of the Edmondson girls, now aged and feeble, is in the
+city. I did not actually know when I wrote 'Uncle Tom' of a living
+example in which Christianity had reached its fullest development
+under the crushing wrongs of slavery, but in this woman I see it. I
+never knew before what I could feel till, with her sorrowful, patient
+eyes upon me, she told me her history and begged my aid. The
+expression of her face as she spoke, and the depth of patient sorrow
+in her eyes, was beyond anything I ever saw.
+
+"'Well,' said I, when she had finished, 'set your heart at rest; you
+and your children shall be redeemed. If I can't raise the money
+otherwise, I will pay it myself.' You should have seen the wonderfully
+sweet, solemn look she gave me as she said, 'The Lord bless you, my
+child!'
+
+"Well, I have received a sweet note from Jenny Lind, with her name
+and her husband's with which to head my subscription list. They give a
+hundred dollars. Another hundred is subscribed by Mr. Bowen in his
+wife's name, and I have put my own name down for an equal amount. A
+lady has given me twenty-five dollars, and Mr. Storrs has pledged me
+fifty dollars. Milly and I are to meet the ladies of Henry's and Dr.
+Cox's churches tomorrow, and she is to tell them her story. I have
+written to Drs. Bacon and Button in New Haven to secure a similar
+meeting of ladies there. I mean to have one in Boston, and another in
+Portland. It will do good to the givers as well as to the receivers.
+
+"But all this time I have been so longing to get your letter from New
+Haven, for I heard it was there. It is not fame nor praise that
+contents me. I seem never to have needed love so much as now. I long
+to hear you say how much you love me. Dear one, if this effort impedes
+my journey home, and wastes some of my strength, you will not murmur.
+When I see this Christlike soul standing so patiently bleeding, yet
+forgiving, I feel a sacred call to be the helper of the helpless, and
+it is better that my own family do without me for a while longer than
+that this mother lose all. _I must redeem her._
+
+_"New Haven, June_ 2. My old woman's case progresses gloriously.
+I am to see the ladies of this place tomorrow. Four hundred dollars
+were contributed by individuals in Brooklyn, and the ladies who took
+subscription papers at the meeting will undoubtedly raise two hundred
+dollars more."
+
+Before leaving New York, Mrs. Stowe gave Milly Edmondson her check for
+the entire sum necessary to purchase her own freedom and that of her
+children, and sent her home rejoicing. That this sum was made up to
+her by the generous contributions of those to whom she appealed is
+shown by a note written to her husband and dated July, 1852, in which
+she says:--
+
+"Had a very kind note from A. Lawrence inclosing a twenty-dollar gold-
+piece for the Edmondsons. Isabella's ladies gave me twenty-five
+dollars, so you see our check is more than paid already."
+
+Although during her visit in New York Mrs. Stowe made many new
+friends, and was overwhelmed with congratulations and praise of her
+book, the most pleasing incident of this time seems to have been an
+epistolatory interview with Jenny Lind (Goldschmidt). In writing of it
+to her husband she says:--
+
+"Well, we have heard Jenny Lind, and the affair was a bewildering
+dream of sweetness and beauty. Her face and movements are full of
+poetry and feeling. She has the artless grace of a little child, the
+poetic effect of a wood-nymph, is airy, light, and graceful.
+
+"We had first-rate seats, and how do you think we got them? When Mr.
+Howard went early in the morning for tickets, Mr. Goldschmidt told him
+it was impossible to get any good ones, as they were all sold. Mr.
+Howard said he regretted that, on Mrs. Stowe's account, as she was
+very desirous of hearing Jenny Lind. 'Mrs. Stowe!' exclaimed Mr.
+Goldschmidt, 'the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? Indeed, she shall
+have a seat whatever happens!'
+
+"Thereupon he took his hat and went out, returning shortly with
+tickets for two of the best seats in the house, inclosed in an
+envelope directed to me in his wife's handwriting. Mr. Howard said he
+could have sold those tickets at any time during the day for ten
+dollars each.
+
+"Today I sent a note of acknowledgment with a copy of my book. I am
+most happy to have seen her, for she is a noble creature."
+
+To this note the great singer wrote in answer:--
+
+MY DEAR MADAM,--Allow me to express my sincere thanks for your very
+kind letter, which I was very happy to receive.
+
+You must feel and know what a deep impression "Uncle Tom's Cabin" has
+made upon every heart that can feel for the dignity of human
+existence: so I with my miserable English would not even try to say a
+word about the great excellency of that most beautiful book, but I
+must thank you for the great joy I have felt over that book.
+
+Forgive me, my dear madam: it is a great liberty I take in thus
+addressing you, I know, but I have so wished to find an opportunity to
+pour out my thankfulness in a few words to you that I cannot help this
+intruding. I have the feeling about "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that great
+changes will take place by and by, from the impression people receive
+out of it, and that the writer of that book can fall asleep today or
+tomorrow with the bright, sweet conscience of having been a strong
+means in the Creator's hand of operating essential good in one of the
+most important questions for the welfare of our black brethren. God
+bless and protect you and yours, dear madam, and certainly God's hand
+will remain with a blessing over your head.
+
+Once more forgive my bad English and the liberty I have taken, and
+believe me to be, dear madam,
+
+Yours most truly, JENNY GOLDSCHMIDT, _née_ LIND.
+
+In answer to Mrs. Stowe's appeal on behalf of the Edmonsons, Jenny
+Lind wrote:--
+
+MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I have with great interest read your statement of
+the black family at Washington. It is with pleasure also that I and my
+husband are placing our humble names on the list you sent.
+
+The time is short. I am very, very sorry that I shall not be able to
+_see_ you. I must say farewell to you in this way. Hoping that in
+the length of time you may live to witness the progression of the good
+sake for which you so nobly have fought, my best wishes go with you.
+Yours in friendship,
+
+JENNY GOLDSCHMIDT.
+
+While Mrs. Stowe was thus absent from home, her husband received and
+accepted a most urgent call to the Professorship of Sacred Literature
+in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Mass.
+
+In regard to leaving Brunswick and her many friends there, Mrs. Stowe
+wrote: "For my part, if I _must_ leave Brunswick, I would rather
+leave at once. I can tear away with a sudden pull more easily than to
+linger there knowing that I am to leave at last. I shall never find
+people whom I shall like better than those of Brunswick."
+
+As Professor Stowe's engagements necessitated his spending much of the
+summer in Brunswick, and also making a journey to Cincinnati, it
+devolved upon his wife to remain in Andover, and superintend the
+preparation of the house they were to occupy. This was known as the
+old stone workshop, on the west side of the Common, and it had a year
+or two before been fitted up by Charles Munroe and Jonathan Edwards
+[Footnote: Students in the Seminary.] as the Seminary gymnasium.
+Beneath Mrs. Stowe's watchful care and by the judicious expenditure of
+money, it was transformed by the first of November into the charming
+abode which under the name of "The Cabin" became noted as one of the
+pleasantest literary centres of the country. Here for many years were
+received, and entertained in a modest way, many of the most
+distinguished people of this and other lands, and here were planned
+innumerable philanthropic undertakings in which Mrs. Stowe and her
+scholarly husband were the prime movers.
+
+The summer spent in preparing this home was one of great pleasure as
+well as literary activity. In July Mrs. Stowe writes to her husband:
+"I had no idea this place was so beautiful. Our family circle is
+charming. All the young men are so gentlemanly and so agreeable, as
+well as Christian in spirit. Mr. Dexter, his wife, and sister are
+delightful. Last evening a party of us went to ride on horseback down
+to Pomp's Pond. What a beautiful place it is! There is everything here
+that there is at Brunswick except the sea,--a great exception.
+Yesterday I was out all the forenoon sketching elms. There is no end
+to the beauty of these trees. I shall fill my book with them before I
+get through. We had a levee at Professor Park's last week,--quite a
+brilliant affair. Today there is to be a fishing party to go to Salem
+beach and have a chowder.
+
+"It seems almost too good to be true that we are going to have such a
+house in such a beautiful place, and to live here among all these
+agreeable people, where everybody seems to love you so much and to
+think so much of you. I am almost afraid to accept it, and should not,
+did I not see the Hand that gives it all and know that it is both firm
+and true. He knows if it is best for us, and His blessing addeth no
+sorrow therewith. I cannot describe to you the constant undercurrent
+of love and joy and peace ever flowing through my soul. I am so happy
+--so blessed!"
+
+The literary work of this summer was directed toward preparing
+articles on many subjects for the "New York Independent" and the
+"National Era," as well as collecting material for future books. That
+the "Pearl of Orr's Island," which afterward appeared as a serial in
+the "Independent," was already contemplated, is shown by a letter
+written July 29th, in which Mrs. Stowe says: "What a lovely place
+Andover is! So many beautiful walks! Last evening a number of us
+climbed Prospect Hill, and had a most charming walk. Since I came here
+we have taken up hymn-singing to quite an extent, and while we were
+all up on the hill we sang 'When I can read my title clear.' It went
+finely.
+
+[Illustration: THE ANDOVER HOME]
+
+"I seem to have so much to fill my time, and yet there is my Maine
+story waiting. However, I am composing it every day, only I greatly
+need living studies for the filling in of my sketches. There is 'old
+Jonas,' my 'fish father,' a sturdy, independent fisherman farmer, who
+in his youth sailed all over the world and made up his mind about
+everything. In his old age he attends prayer-meetings and reads the
+'Missionary Herald.' He also has plenty of money in an old brown sea-
+chest. He is a great heart with an inflexible will and iron muscles. I
+must go to Orr's Island and see him again. I am now writing an article
+for the 'Era' on Maine and its scenery, which I think is even better
+than the 'Independent' letter. In it I took up Longfellow. Next I
+shall write one on Hawthorne and his surroundings.
+
+"To-day Mrs. Jewett sent out a most solemnly savage attack upon me
+from the 'Alabama Planter.' Among other things it says: 'The plan for
+assaulting the best institutions in the world may be made just as
+rational as it is by the wicked (perhaps unconsciously so) authoress
+of this book. The woman who wrote it must be either a very bad or a
+very fanatical person. For her own domestic peace we trust no enemy
+will ever penetrate into her household to pervert the scenes he may
+find there with as little logic or kindness as she has used in her
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin." There's for you! Can you wonder now that such a
+wicked woman should be gone from you a full month instead of the week
+I intended? Ah, welladay!"
+
+At last the house was finished, the removal from Brunswick effected,
+and the reunited family was comfortably settled in its Andover home.
+The plans for the winter's literary work were, however, altered by
+force of circumstances. Instead of proceeding quietly and happily with
+her charming Maine story, Mrs. Stowe found it necessary to take notice
+in some manner of the cruel and incessant attacks made upon her as the
+author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and to fortify herself against them by
+a published statement of incontrovertible facts. It was claimed on all
+sides that she had in her famous book made such ignorant or malicious
+misrepresentations that it was nothing short of a tissue of
+falsehoods, and to refute this she was compelled to write a "Key to
+Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which should appear the sources from which she
+had obtained her knowledge. Late in the winter Mrs. Stowe wrote:--
+
+"I am now very much driven. I am preparing a Key to unlock 'Uncle
+Tom's Cabin.' It will contain all the original facts, anecdotes, and
+documents on which the story is founded, with some very interesting
+and affecting stories parallel to those told of Uncle Tom. Now I want
+you to write for me just what you heard that slave-buyer say, exactly
+as he said it, that people may compare it with what I have written. My
+Key will be stronger than the Cabin."
+
+In regard to this "Key" Mrs. Stowe also wrote to the Duchess of
+Sutherland upon hearing that she had headed an address from the women
+of England to those of America:--
+
+It is made up of the facts, the documents, the things which my own
+eyes have looked upon and my hands have handled, that attest this
+awful indictment upon my country. I write it in the anguish of my
+soul, with tears and prayer, with sleepless nights and weary days. I
+bear my testimony with a heavy heart, as one who in court is forced by
+an awful oath to disclose the sins of those dearest.
+
+So I am called to draw up this fearful witness against my country and
+send it into all countries, that the general voice of humanity may
+quicken our paralyzed vitality, that all Christians may pray for us,
+and that shame, honor, love of country, and love of Christ may be
+roused to give us strength to cast out this mighty evil. Yours for the
+oppressed, H. B. STOWE.
+
+This harassing, brain-wearying, and heart-sickening labor was
+continued until the first of April, 1853, when, upon invitation of the
+Anti-Slavery Society of Glasgow, Scotland, Mrs. Stowe, accompanied by
+her husband and her brother, Charles Beecher, sailed for Europe.
+
+In the mean time the success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" abroad was already
+phenomenal and unprecedented. From the pen of Mr. Sampson Low, the
+well-known London publisher, we have the following interesting
+statement regarding it:--
+
+"The first edition printed in London was in April, 1852, by Henry
+Vizetelly, in a neat volume at ten and sixpence, of which he issued
+7,000 copies. He received the first copy imported, through a friend
+who had bought it in Boston the day the steamer sailed, for his own
+reading. He gave it to Mr. V., who took it to the late Mr. David
+Bogue, well known for his general shrewdness and enterprise. He had
+the book to read and consider over night, and in the morning returned
+it, declining to take it at the very moderate price of five pounds.
+
+"Vizetelly at once put the volume into the hands of a friendly printer
+and brought it out on his own account, through the nominal agency of
+Clarke & Co. The 7,000 copies sold, other editions followed, and Mr.
+Vizetelly disposed of his interest in the book to the printer and
+agent, who joined with Mr. Beeton and at once began to issue monster
+editions. The demand called for fresh supplies, and these created an
+increased demand. The discovery was soon made that any one was at
+liberty to reprint the book, and the initiative was thus given to a
+new era in cheap literature, founded on American reprints. A shilling
+edition followed the one-and-sixpence, and this in turn became the
+precursor of one 'complete for sixpence.' From April to December,
+1852, twelve different editions (not reissues) were published, and
+within the twelve months of its first appearance eighteen different
+London publishing houses were engaged in supplying the great demand
+that had set in, the total number of editions being forty, varying
+from fine art-illustrated editions at 15s., 10s., and 7s. 6d., to the
+cheap popular editions of 1s., 9d., and 6d.
+
+"After carefully analyzing these editions and weighing probabilities
+with ascertained facts, I am able pretty confidently to say that the
+aggregate number of copies circulated in Great Britain and the
+colonies exceeds one and a half millions."
+
+A similar statement made by Clarke & Co. in October, 1852, reveals the
+following facts. It says: "An early copy was sent from America the
+latter end of April to Mr. Bogue, the publisher, and was offered by
+him to Mr. Gilpin, late of Bishopsgate Street. Being declined by Mr.
+Gilpin, Mr. Bogue offered it to Mr. Henry Vizetelly, and by the latter
+gentleman it was eventually purchased for us. Before printing it,
+however, as there was one night allowed for decision, one volume was
+taken home to be read by Mr. Vizetelly, and the other by Mr.
+Salisbury, the printer, of Bouverie Street. The report of the latter
+gentleman the following morning, to quote his own words, was: 'I sat
+up till four in the morning reading the book, and the interest I felt
+was expressed one moment by laughter, another by tears. Thinking it
+might be weakness and not the power of the author that affected me, I
+resolved to try the effect upon my wife (a rather strong-minded
+woman). I accordingly woke her and read a few chapters to her. Finding
+that the interest in the story kept her awake, and that she, too,
+laughed and cried, I settled in my mind that it was a book that ought
+to, and might with safety, be printed.'
+
+"Mr. Vizetelly's opinion coincided with that of Mr. Salisbury, and to
+the latter gentleman it was confided to be brought out immediately.
+The week following the book was produced and one edition of 7,000
+copies worked off. It made no stir until the middle of June, although
+we advertised it very extensively. From June it began to make its way,
+and it sold at the rate of 1,000 per week during July. In August the
+demand became very great, and went on increasing to the 20th, by which
+time it was perfectly overwhelming. We have now about 400 people
+employed in getting out the book, and seventeen printing machines
+besides hand presses. Already about 150,000 copies of the book are in
+the hands of the people, and still the returns of sales show no
+decline."
+
+The story was dramatized in the United States in August, 1852, without
+the consent or knowledge of the author, who had neglected to reserve
+her rights for this purpose. In September of the same year we find it
+announced as the attraction at two London theatres, namely, the Royal
+Victoria and the Great National Standard. In 1853 Professor Stowe
+writes: "The drama of 'Uncle Tom' has been going on in the National
+Theatre of New York all summer with most unparalleled success.
+Everybody goes night after night, and nothing can stop it. The
+enthusiasm beats that of the run in the Boston Museum out and out. The
+'Tribune' is full of it. The 'Observer,' the 'Journal of Commerce,'
+and all that sort of fellows, are astonished and nonplussed. They do
+not know what to say or do about it."
+
+While the English editions of the story were rapidly multiplying, and
+being issued with illustrations by Cruikshank, introductions by Elihu
+Burritt, Lord Carlisle, etc., it was also making its way over the
+Continent. For the authorized French edition, translated by Madame
+Belloc, and published by Charpentier of Paris, Mrs. Stowe wrote the
+following:--
+
+PREFACE TO THE EUROPEAN EDITION.
+
+In authorizing the circulation of this work on the Continent of
+Europe, the author has only this apology, that the love of _man_
+is higher than the love of country. The great mystery which all
+Christian nations hold in common, the union of God with man through
+the humanity of Jesus Christ, invests human existence with an awful
+sacredness; and in the eye of the true believer in Jesus, he who
+tramples on the rights of his meanest fellow-man is not only inhuman
+but sacrilegious, and the worst form of this sacrilege is the
+institution of _slavery_.
+
+It has been said that the representations of this book are
+exaggerations! and oh, _would_ that this were true! Would that
+this book were indeed a fiction, and not a close mosaic of facts! But
+that it is not a fiction the proofs lie bleeding in thousands of
+hearts; they have been attested by surrounding voices from almost
+every slave State, and from slave-owners themselves. Since so it must
+be, thanks be to God that this mighty cry, this wail of an unutterable
+anguish, has at last been heard!
+
+It has been said, and not in utter despair but in solemn hope and
+assurance may we regard the struggle that now convulses America,--the
+outcry of the demon of slavery, which has heard the voice of Jesus of
+Nazareth, and is rending and convulsing the noble nation from which at
+last it must depart.
+
+It cannot be that so monstrous a solecism can long exist in the bosom
+of a nation which in all respects is the best exponent of the great
+principle of universal brotherhood. In America the Frenchman, the
+German, the Italian, the Swede, and the Irish all mingle on terms of
+equal right; all nations there display their characteristic
+excellences and are admitted by her liberal laws to equal privileges:
+everything is tending to liberalize, humanize, and elevate, and for
+that very reason it is that the contest with slavery there grows every
+year more terrible.
+
+The stream of human progress, widening, deepening, strengthening from
+the confluent forces of all nations, meets this barrier, behind which
+is concentrated all the ignorance, cruelty, and oppression of the dark
+ages, and it roars and foams and shakes the barrier, and anon it must
+bear it down.
+
+In its commencement slavery overspread every State in the Union: the
+progress of society has now emancipated the North from its yoke. In
+Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Maryland, at different times,
+strong movements have been made for emancipation,--movements enforced
+by a comparison of the progressive march of the adjoining free States
+with the poverty and sterility and ignorance produced by a system
+which in a few years wastes and exhausts all the resources of the soil
+without the power of renewal.
+
+The time cannot be distant when these States will emancipate for self-
+preservation; and if no new slave territory be added, the increase of
+slave population in the remainder will enforce measures of
+emancipation.
+
+Here, then, is the point of the battle. Unless more slave territory is
+gained, slavery dies; if it is gained, it lives. Around this point
+political parties fight and manoeuvre, and every year the battle wages
+hotter.
+
+The internal struggles of no other nation in the world are so
+interesting to Europeans as those of America; for America is fast
+filling up from Europe, and every European has almost immediately his
+vote in her councils.
+
+If, therefore, the oppressed of other nations desire to find in
+America an asylum of permanent freedom, let them come prepared, heart
+and hand, and vote against the institution of slavery; for they who
+enslave man cannot themselves remain free.
+
+True are the great words of Kossuth: "No nation can remain free with
+whom freedom is a _privilege_ and not a principle."
+
+This preface was more or less widely copied in the twenty translations
+of the book that quickly followed its first appearance. These,
+arranged in the alphabetical order of their languages, are as follows:
+Armenian, Bohemian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Flemish, French, German,
+Hungarian, Illyrian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romaic or modern
+Greek, Russian, Servian, Spanish, Wallachian, and Welsh.
+
+In Germany it received the following flattering notice from one of the
+leading literary journals: "The abolitionists in the United States
+should vote the author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' a civic crown, for a
+more powerful ally than Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe and her romance
+they could not have. We confess that in the whole modern romance
+literature of Germany, England, and France, we know of no novel to be
+called equal to this. In comparison with its glowing eloquence that
+never fails of its purpose, its wonderful truth to nature, the
+largeness of its ideas, and the artistic faultlessness of the
+machinery in this book, George Sand, with her Spiridon and Claudie,
+appears to us untrue and artificial; Dickens, with his but too
+faithful pictures from the popular life of London, petty; Bulwer,
+hectic and self-conscious. It is like a sign of warning from the New
+World to the Old."
+
+Madame George Sand reviewed the book, and spoke of Mrs. Stowe herself
+in words at once appreciative and discriminating: "Mrs. Stowe is all
+instinct; it is the very reason she appears to some not to have
+talent. Has she not talent? What is talent? Nothing, doubtless,
+compared to genius; but has she genius? She has genius as humanity
+feels the need of genius,--the genius of goodness, not that of the man
+of letters, but that of the saint."
+
+Charles Sumner wrote from the senate chamber at Washington to
+Professor Stowe: "All that I hear and read bears testimony to the good
+Mrs. Stowe has done. The article of George Sand is a most remarkable
+tribute, such as was hardly ever offered by such a genius to any
+living mortal. Should Mrs. Stowe conclude to visit Europe she will
+have a triumph."
+
+From Eversley parsonage Charles Kingsley wrote to Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+A thousand thanks for your delightful letter. As for your progress
+and ovation here in England, I have no fear for you. You will be
+flattered and worshiped. You deserve it and you must bear it. I am
+sure that you have seen and suffered too much and too long to be
+injured by the foolish yet honest and heartfelt lionizing which you
+must go through.
+
+I have many a story to tell you when we meet about the effects of the
+great book upon the most unexpected people.
+
+Yours ever faithfully,
+
+C. KINGSLEY.
+
+March 28, 1853, Professor Stowe sent the following communication to
+the Committee of Examination of the Theological Seminary at Andover:
+"As I shall not be present at the examinations this term, I think it
+proper to make to you a statement of the reasons of my absence. During
+the last winter I have not enjoyed my usual health. Mrs. Stowe also
+became sick and very much exhausted. At this time we had the offer of
+a voyage to Great Britain and back free of expense."
+
+This offer, coming as it did from the friends of the cause of
+emancipation in the United Kingdom, was gladly accepted by Mr. and
+Mrs. Stowe, and they sailed immediately.
+
+The preceding month Mrs. Stowe had received a letter from Mrs. Follen
+in London, asking for information with regard to herself, her family,
+and the circumstances of her writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+In reply Mrs. Stowe sent the following very characteristic letter,
+which may be safely given at the risk of some repetition:--
+
+ANDOVER, _February_ 16, 1853.
+
+MY DEAR MADAM,--I hasten to reply to your letter, to me the more
+interesting that I have long been acquainted with you, and during all
+the nursery part of my life made daily use of your poems for children.
+
+I used to think sometimes in those days that I would write to you, and
+tell you how much I was obliged to you for the pleasure which they
+gave us all.
+
+So you want to know something about what sort of a woman I am! Well,
+if this is any object, you shall have statistics free of charge. To
+begin, then, I am a little bit of a woman,--somewhat more than forty,
+about as thin and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very much to look at
+in my best days, and looking like a used-up article now.
+
+I was married when I was twenty-five years old to a man rich in Greek
+and Hebrew, Latin and Arabic, and, alas! rich in nothing else. When I
+went to house-keeping, my entire stock of china for parlor and kitchen
+was bought for eleven dollars. That lasted very well for two years,
+till my brother was married and brought his bride to visit me. I then
+found, on review, that I had neither plates nor teacups to set a table
+for my father's family; wherefore I thought it best to reinforce the
+establishment by getting me a tea-set that cost ten dollars more, and
+this, I believe, formed my whole stock in trade for some years.
+
+But then I was abundantly enriched with wealth of another sort.
+
+I had two little, curly-headed twin daughters to begin with, and my
+stock in this line has gradually increased, till I have been the
+mother of seven children, the most beautiful and the most loved of
+whom lies buried near my Cincinnati residence. It was at his dying bed
+and at his grave that I learned what a poor slave mother may feel when
+her child is torn away from her. In those depths of sorrow which
+seemed to me immeasurable, it was my only prayer to God that such
+anguish might not be suffered in vain. There were circumstances about
+his death of such peculiar bitterness, of what seemed almost cruel
+suffering, that I felt that I could never be consoled for it, unless
+this crushing of my own heart might enable me to work out some great
+good to others. . . . I allude to this here because I have often felt
+that much that is in that book ("Uncle Tom") had its root in the awful
+scenes and bitter sorrows of that summer. It has left now, I trust, no
+trace on my mind, except a deep compassion for the sorrowful,
+especially for mothers who are separated from their children.
+
+During long years of struggling with poverty and sickness, and a hot,
+debilitating climate, my children grew up around me. The nursery and
+the kitchen were my principal fields of labor. Some of my friends,
+pitying my trials, copied and sent a number of little sketches from my
+pen to certain liberally paying "Annuals" with my name. With the first
+money that I earned in this way I bought a feather-bed! for as I had
+married into poverty and without a dowry, and as my husband had only a
+large library of books and a great deal of learning, the bed and
+pillows were thought the most profitable investment. After this I
+thought that I had discovered the philosopher's stone. So when a new
+carpet or mattress was going to be needed, or when, at the close of
+the year, it began to be evident that my family accounts, like poor
+Dora's, "wouldn't add up," then I used to say to my faithful friend
+and factotum Anna, who shared all my joys and sorrows, "Now, if you
+will keep the babies and attend to the things in the house for one
+day, I'll write a piece, and then we shall be out of the scrape." So I
+became an author,--very modest at first, I do assure you, and
+remonstrating very seriously with the friends who had thought it best
+to put my name to the pieces by way of getting up a reputation; and if
+you ever see a woodcut of me, with an immoderately long nose, on the
+cover of all the U.S. Almanacs, I wish you to take notice, that I have
+been forced into it contrary to my natural modesty by the imperative
+solicitations of my dear five thousand friends and the public
+generally. One thing I must say with regard to my life at the West,
+which you will understand better than many English women could.
+
+I lived two miles from the city of Cincinnati, in the country, and
+domestic service, not always you know to be found in the city, is next
+to an impossibility to obtain in the country, even by those who are
+willing to give the highest wages; so what was to be expected for poor
+me, who had very little of this world's goods to offer?
+
+Had it not been for my inseparable friend Anna, a noble-hearted
+English girl, who landed on our shores in destitution and sorrow, and
+clave to me as Ruth to Naomi, I had never lived through all the trials
+which this uncertainty and want of domestic service imposed on both:
+you may imagine, therefore, how glad I was when, our seminary property
+being divided out into small lots which were rented at a low price, a
+number of poor families settled in our vicinity, from whom we could
+occasionally obtain domestic service. About a dozen families of
+liberated slaves were among the number, and they became my favorite
+resort in cases of emergency. If anybody wishes to have a black face
+look handsome, let them be left, as I have been, in feeble health in
+oppressive hot weather, with a sick baby in arms, and two or three
+other little ones in the nursery, and not a servant in the whole house
+to do a single turn. Then, if they could see my good old Aunt Frankie
+coming with her honest, bluff, black face, her long, strong arms, her
+chest as big and stout as a barrel, and her hilarious, hearty laugh,
+perfectly delighted to take one's washing and do it at a fair price,
+they would appreciate the beauty of black people.
+
+My cook, poor Eliza Buck,--how she would stare to think of her name
+going to England!--was a regular epitome of slave life in herself;
+fat, gentle, easy, loving and lovable, always calling my very modest
+house and door-yard "The Place," as if it had been a plantation with
+seven hundred hands on it. She had lived through the whole sad story
+of a Virginia-raised slave's life. In her youth she must have been a
+very handsome mulatto girl. Her voice was sweet, and her manners
+refined and agreeable. She was raised in a good family as a nurse and
+seamstress. When the family became embarrassed, she was suddenly sold
+on to a plantation in Louisiana. She has often told me how, without
+any warning, she was suddenly forced into a carriage, and saw her
+little mistress screaming and stretching her arms from the window
+towards her as she was driven away. She has told me of scenes on the
+Louisiana plantation, and she has often been out at night by stealth
+ministering to poor slaves who had been mangled and lacerated by the
+lash. Hence she was sold into Kentucky, and her last master was the
+father of all her children. On this point she ever maintained a
+delicacy and reserve that always appeared to me remarkable. She always
+called him her husband; and it was not till after she had lived with
+me some years that I discovered the real nature of the connection. I
+shall never forget how sorry I felt for her, nor my feelings at her
+humble apology, "You know, Mrs. Stowe, slave women cannot help
+themselves." She had two very pretty quadroon daughters, with her
+beautiful hair and eyes, interesting children, whom I had instructed
+in the family school with my children. Time would fail to tell you all
+that I learned incidentally of the slave system in the history of
+various slaves who came into my family, and of the underground
+railroad which, I may say, ran through our house. But the letter is
+already too long.
+
+You ask with regard to the remuneration which I have received for my
+work here in America. Having been poor all my life and expecting to be
+poor the rest of it, the idea of making money by a book which I wrote
+just because I could not help it, never occurred to me. It was
+therefore an agreeable surprise to receive ten thousand dollars as the
+first-fruits of three months' sale. I presume as much more is now due.
+Mr. Bosworth in England, the firm of Clarke & Co., and Mr. Bentley,
+have all offered me an interest in the sales of their editions in
+London. I am very glad of it, both on account of the value of what
+they offer, and the value of the example they set in this matter,
+wherein I think that justice has been too little regarded.
+
+I have been invited to visit Scotland, and shall probably spend the
+summer there and in England.
+
+I have very much at heart a design to erect in some of the Northern
+States a normal school, for the education of colored teachers in the
+United States and in Canada. I have very much wished that some
+permanent memorial of good to the colored race might be created out of
+the proceeds of a work which promises to have so unprecedented a sale.
+My own share of the profits will be less than that of the publishers',
+either English or American; but I am willing to give largely for this
+purpose, and I have no doubt that the publishers, both American and
+English, will unite with me; for nothing tends more immediately to the
+emancipation of the slave than the education and elevation of the
+free.
+
+I am now writing a work which will contain, perhaps, an equal amount
+of matter with "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It will contain all the facts and
+documents on which that story was founded, and an immense body of
+facts, reports of trials, legal documents, and testimony of people now
+living South, which will more than confirm every statement in "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin."
+
+I must confess that till I began the examination of facts in order to
+write this book, much as I thought I knew before, I had not begun to
+measure the depth of the abyss. The law records of courts and judicial
+proceedings are so incredible as to fill me with amazement whenever I
+think of them. It seems to me that the book cannot but be felt, and,
+coming upon the sensibility awaked by the other, do something.
+
+I suffer exquisitely in writing these things. It may be truly said
+that I write with my heart's blood. Many times in writing "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin" I thought my health would fail utterly; but I prayed earnestly
+that God would help me till I got through, and still I am pressed
+beyond measure and above strength.
+
+This horror, this nightmare abomination! can it be in my country! It
+lies like lead on my heart, it shadows my life with sorrow; the more
+so that I feel, as for my own brothers, for the South, and am pained
+by every horror I am obliged to write, as one who is forced by some
+awful oath to disclose in court some family disgrace. Many times I
+have thought that I must die, and yet I pray God that I may live to
+see something done. I shall in all probability be in London in May:
+shall I see you?
+
+It seems to me so odd and dream-like that so many persons desire to
+see me, and now I cannot help thinking that they will think, when they
+do, that God hath chosen "the weak things of this world."
+
+If I live till spring I shall hope to see Shakespeare's grave, and
+Milton's mulberry-tree, and the good land of my fathers,--old, old
+England! May that day come!
+
+Yours affectionately, H. B. STOWE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SUNNY MEMORIES, 1853.
+
+
+CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.--ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.--RECEPTION IN LIVERPOOL.
+--WELCOME TO SCOTLAND.--A GLASGOW TEA-PARTY.--EDINBURGH HOSPITALITY.
+--ABERDEEN.--DUNDEE AND BIRMINGHAM.--JOSEPH STURGE.--ELIHU BURRITT.
+--LONDON.--THE LORD MAYOR'S DINNER.--CHARLES DICKENS AND HIS WIFE.
+
+The journey undertaken by Mrs. Stowe with her husband and brother
+through England and Scotland, and afterwards with her brother alone
+over much of the Continent, was one of unusual interest. No one was
+more surprised than Mrs. Stowe herself by the demonstrations of
+respect and affection that everywhere greeted her.
+
+Fortunately an unbroken record of this memorable journey, in Mrs.
+Stowe's own words, has been preserved, and we are thus able to receive
+her own impressions of what she saw, heard, and did, under
+circumstances that were at once pleasant, novel, and embarrassing.
+Beginning with her voyage, she writes as follows:--
+
+LIVERPOOL, _April_ 11,1853.
+
+MY DEAR CHILDREN,--You wish, first of all, to hear of the voyage. Let
+me assure you, my dears, in the very commencement of the matter, that
+going to sea is not at all the thing that we have taken it to be. Let
+me warn you, if you ever go to sea, to omit all preparations for
+amusement on shipboard. Don't leave so much as the unlocking of a
+trunk to be done after sailing. In the few precious minutes when the
+ship stands still, before she weighs her anchor, set your house, that
+is to say your stateroom, as much in order as if you were going to be
+hanged; place everything in the most convenient position to be seized
+without trouble at a moment's notice; for be sure that in half an hour
+after sailing, an infinite desperation will seize you, in which the
+grasshopper will be a burden. If anything is in your trunk, it might
+almost as well be in the sea, for any practical probability of your
+getting to it.
+
+Our voyage out was called "a good run." It was voted unanimously to be
+"an extraordinary good passage," "a pleasant voyage;" yet the ship
+rocked the whole time from side to side with a steady, dizzy,
+continuous motion, like a great cradle. I had a new sympathy for
+babies, poor little things, who are rocked hours at a time without so
+much as a "by your leave" in the case. No wonder there are so many
+stupid people in the world!
+
+We arrived on Sunday morning: the custom-house officers, very
+gentlemanly men, came on board; our luggage was all set out, and
+passed through a rapid examination, which in many cases amounted only
+to opening the trunk and shutting it, and all was over. The whole
+ceremony did not occupy two hours.
+
+We were inquiring of some friends for the most convenient hotel, when
+we found the son of Mr. Cropper, of Dingle Bank, waiting in the cabin
+to take us with him to their hospitable abode. In a few moments after
+the baggage had been examined, we all bade adieu to the old ship, and
+went on board the little steam tender which carries passengers up to
+the city.
+
+This Mersey River would be a very beautiful one, if it were not so
+dingy and muddy. As we are sailing up in the tender towards Liverpool,
+I deplore the circumstance feelingly.
+
+"What does make this river so muddy?"
+
+"Oh," says a by-stander, "don't you know that
+
+ "'The quality of mercy is not strained'?"
+
+I had an early opportunity of making acquaintance with my English
+brethren; for, much to my astonishment, I found quite a crowd on the
+wharf, and we walked up to our carriage through a long lane of people,
+bowing, and looking very glad to see us.
+
+When I came to get into the hack it was surrounded by more faces than
+I could count. They stood very quietly, and looked very kindly, though
+evidently very much determined to look. Something prevented the hack
+from moving on; so the interview was prolonged for some time.
+
+Our carriage at last drove on, taking us through Liverpool and a mile
+or two out, and at length wound its way along the gravel paths of a
+beautiful little retreat, on the banks of the Mersey, called the
+"Dingle." It opened to my eyes like a paradise, all wearied as I was
+with the tossing of the sea. I have since become familiar with these
+beautiful little spots, which are so common in England; but now all
+was entirely new to me.
+
+After a short season allotted to changing our ship garments and for
+rest, we found ourselves seated at the dinner table. While dining, the
+sister-in-law of our friends came in from the next door, to exchange a
+word or two of welcome, and invite us to breakfast with them the
+following morning.
+
+The next morning we slept late and hurried to dress, remembering our
+engagement to breakfast with the brother of our host, whose cottage
+stands on the same ground, within a few steps of our own. I had not
+the slightest idea of what the English mean by a breakfast, and
+therefore went in all innocence, supposing I should see nobody but the
+family circle of my acquaintances. Quite to my astonishment, I found a
+party of between thirty and forty people; ladies sitting with their
+bonnets on, as in a morning call. It was impossible, however, to feel
+more than a momentary embarrassment in the friendly warmth and
+cordiality of the circle by whom we were surrounded.
+
+In the evening I went into Liverpool to attend a party of friends of
+the anti-slavery cause. When I was going away, the lady of the house
+said that the servants were anxious to see me; so I came into the
+dressing-room to give them an opportunity.
+
+The next day was appointed to leave Liverpool. A great number of
+friends accompanied us to the cars, and a beautiful bouquet of flowers
+was sent with a very affecting message from a sick gentleman, who,
+from the retirement of his chamber, felt a desire to testify his
+sympathy. We left Liverpool with hearts a little tremulous and excited
+by the vibration of an atmosphere of universal sympathy and kindness,
+and found ourselves, at length, shut from the warm adieu of our
+friends, in a snug compartment of the railroad car.
+
+"Dear me!" said Mr. S.; "six Yankees shut up in a car together! Not
+one Englishman to tell us anything about the country! Just like the
+six old ladies that made their living by taking tea at each other's
+houses!"
+
+What a bright lookout we kept for ruins and old houses! Mr. S., whose
+eyes are always in every place, allowed none of us to slumber, but
+looking out, first on his own side and then on ours, called our
+attention to every visible thing. If he had been appointed on a
+mission of inquiry, he could not have been more zealous and faithful,
+and I began to think that our desire for an English cicerone was quite
+superfluous.
+
+Well, we are in Scotland at last, and now our pulse rises as the sun
+declines in the west. We catch glimpses of Solway Frith and talk about
+Redgauntlet. The sun went down and night drew on; still we were in
+Scotland. Scotch ballads, Scotch tunes, and Scotch literature were in
+the ascendant. We sang "Auld Lang Syne," "Scots wha hae," and "Bonnie
+Doon," and then, changing the key, sang "Dundee," "Elgin," and
+"Martyr."
+
+"Take care," said Mr. S.; "don't get too much excited."
+
+"Ah," said I, "this is a thing that comes only once in a lifetime; do
+let us have the comfort of it. We shall never come into Scotland for
+the _first time_ again."
+
+While we were thus at the fusion point of enthusiasm, the cars stopped
+at Lockerbie. All was dim and dark outside, but we soon became
+conscious that there was quite a number of people collected, peering
+into the window; and with a strange kind of thrill, I heard my name
+inquired for in the Scottish accent. I went to the window; there were
+men, women, and children gathered, and hand after hand was presented,
+with the words, "Ye're welcome to Scotland!"
+
+Then they inquired for and shook hands with all the party, having in
+some mysterious manner got the knowledge of who they were, even down
+to little G., whom they took to be my son. Was it not pleasant, when I
+had a heart so warm for this old country? I shall never forget the
+thrill of those words, "Ye're welcome to Scotland," nor the "Gude
+night."
+
+After that we found similar welcomes in many succeeding stopping-
+places; and though I did wave a towel out of the window, instead of a
+pocket handkerchief, and commit other awkwardnesses, from not knowing
+how to play my part, yet I fancied, after all, that Scotland and we
+were coming on well together. Who the good souls were that were thus
+watching for us through the night, I am sure I do not know; but that
+they were of the "one blood" which unites all the families of the
+earth, I felt.
+
+At Glasgow, friends were waiting in the station-house. Earnest, eager,
+friendly faces, ever so many. Warm greetings, kindly words. A crowd
+parting in the middle, through which we were conducted into a
+carriage, and loud cheers of welcome, sent a throb, as the voice of
+living Scotland.
+
+I looked out of the carriage, as we drove on, and saw, by the light of
+a lantern, Argyll Street. It was past twelve o'clock when I found
+myself in a warm, cosy parlor, with friends whom I have ever since
+been glad to remember. In a little time we were all safely housed in
+our hospitable apartments, and sleep fell on me for the first time in
+Scotland.
+
+The next morning I awoke worn and weary, and scarce could the charms
+of the social Scotch breakfast restore me.
+
+Our friend and host was Mr. Bailie Paton. I believe that it is to his
+suggestion in a public meeting that we owe the invitation which
+brought us to Scotland.
+
+After breakfast the visiting began. First, a friend of the family,
+with three beautiful children, the youngest of whom was the bearer of
+a handsomely bound album, containing a pressed collection of the sea-
+mosses of the Scottish coast, very vivid and beautiful.
+
+All this day is a confused dream to me of a dizzy and overwhelming
+kind. So many letters that it took brother Charles from nine in the
+morning till two in the afternoon to read and answer them in the
+shortest manner; letters from all classes of people, high and low,
+rich and poor, in all shades and styles of composition, poetry and
+prose; some mere outbursts of feeling; some invitations; some advice
+and suggestions; some requests and inquiries; some presenting books,
+or flowers, or fruit.
+
+Then came, in their turn, deputations from Paisley, Greenock, Dundee,
+Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Belfast in Ireland; calls of friendship,
+invitations of all descriptions to go everywhere, and to see
+everything, and to stay in so many places. One kind, venerable
+minister, with his lovely daughter, offered me a retreat in his quiet
+manse on the beautiful shores of the Clyde.
+
+For all these kindnesses, what could I give in return? There was
+scarce time for even a grateful thought on each. People have often
+said to me that it must have been an exceeding bore. For my part, I
+could not think of regarding it so. It only oppressed me with an
+unutterable sadness.
+
+In the afternoon I rode out with the lord provost to see the
+cathedral. The lord provost answers to the lord mayor in England. His
+title and office in both countries continue only a year, except in
+case of re-election.
+
+As I saw the way to the cathedral blocked up by a throng of people who
+had come out to see me, I could not help saying, "What went ye out for
+to see? a reed shaken with the wind?" In fact I was so worn out that I
+could hardly walk through the building. The next morning I was so ill
+as to need a physician, unable to see any one that called, or to hear
+any of the letters. I passed most of the day in bed, but in the
+evening I had to get up, as I had engaged to drink tea with two
+thousand people. Our kind friends, Dr. and Mrs. Wardlaw, came after
+us, and Mr. S. and I went in the carriage with them. Our carriage
+stopped at last at the place. I have a dim remembrance of a way being
+made for us through a great crowd all round the house, and of going
+with Mrs. Wardlaw up into a dressing-room where I met and shook hands
+with many friendly people. Then we passed into a gallery, where a seat
+was reserved for our party, directly in front of the audience. Our
+friend Bailie Paton presided. Mrs. Wardlaw and I sat together, and
+around us many friends, chiefly ministers of the different churches,
+the ladies and gentlemen of the Glasgow Anti-Slavery Society and
+others. I told you it was a tea-party; but the arrangements were
+altogether different from any I had ever seen. There were narrow
+tables stretched up and down the whole extent of the great hall, and
+every person had an appointed seat. These tables were set out with
+cups and saucers, cakes, biscuit, etc., and when the proper time came,
+attendants passed along serving tea. The arrangements were so accurate
+and methodical that the whole multitude actually took tea together,
+without the least apparent inconvenience or disturbance.
+
+There was a gentle, subdued murmur of conversation all over the house,
+the sociable clinking of teacups and teaspoons, while the
+entertainment was going on. It seemed to me such an odd idea, I could
+not help wondering what sort of a teapot that must be in which all
+this tea for two thousand people was made. Truly, as Hadji Baba says,
+I think they must have had the "father of all the tea-kettles" to boil
+it in. I could not help wondering if old mother Scotland had put two
+thousand teaspoonfuls of tea for the company, and one for the teapot,
+as is our good Yankee custom.
+
+We had quite a sociable time up in our gallery. Our tea-table
+stretched quite across, and we drank tea in sight of all the people.
+By _we_, I mean a great number of ministers and their wives, and
+ladies of the Anti-Slavery society, besides our party, and the friends
+whom I have mentioned before. All seemed to be enjoying themselves.
+
+After tea they sang a few verses of the seventy-second psalm in the
+old Scotch version.
+
+_April_ 17. To-day a large party of us started on a small steamer
+to go down the Clyde. It was a trip full of pleasure and incident. Now
+we were shown the remains of old Cardross Castle, where it was said
+Robert Bruce breathed his last. And now we came near the beautiful
+grounds of Roseneath, a green, velvet-like peninsula, stretching out
+into the widening waters.
+
+Somewhere about here I was presented, by his own request, to a broad-
+shouldered Scotch farmer, who stood some six feet two, and who paid me
+the compliment to say that he had read my book, and that he would walk
+sis miles to see me any day. Such a flattering evidence of
+discriminating taste, of course, disposed my heart towards him; but
+when I went up and put my hand into his great prairie of a palm, I was
+as a grasshopper in my own eyes. I inquired who he was and was told he
+was one of the Duke of Argyll's farmers. I thought to myself if all
+the duke's farmers were of this pattern, that he might be able to
+speak to the enemy in the gates to some purpose.
+
+It was concluded after we left Roseneath that, instead of returning by
+the boat, we should take carriage and ride home along the banks of the
+river. In our carriage were Mr. S. and myself, Dr. Robson, and Lady
+Anderson. About this time I commenced my first essay towards giving
+titles, and made, as you may suppose, rather an odd piece of work of
+it, generally saying "Mrs." first, and "Lady" afterwards, and then
+begging pardon. Lady Anderson laughed and said she would give me a
+general absolution. She is a truly genial, hearty Scotchwoman, and
+seemed to enter happily into the spirit of the hour.
+
+As we rode on, we found that the news of our coming had spread through
+the village. People came and stood in their doors, beckoning, bowing,
+smiling, and waving their handkerchiefs, and the carriage was several
+times stopped by persons who came to offer flowers. I remember, in
+particular, a group of young girls bringing to the carriage two of the
+most beautiful children I ever saw, whose little hands literally
+deluged us with flowers.
+
+At the village of Helensburgh we stopped a little while to call upon
+Mrs. Bell, the wife of Mr. Bell, the inventor of the steamboat. His
+invention in this country was at about the same time as that of Fulton
+in America. Mrs. Bell came to the carriage to speak to us. She is a
+venerable woman, far advanced in years. They had prepared a lunch for
+us, and quite a number of people had come together to meet us, but our
+friends said there was not time for us to stop.
+
+We rode through several villages after this, and met everywhere a warm
+welcome. What pleased me was, that it was not mainly from the
+literary, nor the rich, nor the great, but the plain, common people.
+The butcher came out of his stall and the baker from his shop, the
+miller dusty with flour, the blooming, comely young mother, with her
+baby in her arms, all smiling and bowing, with that hearty,
+intelligent, friendly look, as if they knew we should be glad to see
+them.
+
+Once, while we stopped to change horses, I, for the sake of seeing
+something more of the country, walked on. It seems the honest landlord
+and his wife were greatly disappointed at this; however, they got into
+the carriage and rode on to see me, and I shook hands with them with a
+right good will.
+
+We saw several of the clergymen, who came out to meet us; and I
+remember stopping just to be introduced, one by one, to a most
+delightful family, a gray-headed father and mother, with comely
+brothers and fair sisters, all looking so kindly and homelike, that I
+should have been glad to accept the invitation they gave me to their
+dwelling.
+
+This day has been a strange phenomenon to me. In the first place, I
+have seen in all these villages how universally the people read. I
+have seen how capable they are of a generous excitement and
+enthusiasm, and how much may be done by a work of fiction so written
+as to enlist those sympathies which are common to all classes.
+Certainly a great deal may be effected in this way, if God gives to
+any one the power, as I hope he will to many. The power of fictitious
+writing, for good as well as evil, is a thing which ought most
+seriously to be reflected on. No one can fail to see that in our day
+it is becoming a very great agency.
+
+We came home quite tired, as you may well suppose. You will not be
+surprised that the next day I found myself more disposed to keep my
+bed than go out.
+
+Two days later: We bade farewell to Glasgow, overwhelmed with kindness
+to the last, and only oppressed by the thought of how little that was
+satisfactory we were able to give in return. Again we were in the
+railroad car on our way to Edinburgh. A pleasant two hours' trip is
+this from Glasgow to Edinburgh. When the cars stopped at Linlithgow
+station, the name started us as out of a dream.
+
+In Edinburgh the cars stopped amid a crowd of people who had assembled
+to meet us. The lord provost met us at the door of the car, and
+presented us to the magistracy of the city and the committees of the
+Edinburgh Anti-Slavery Societies. The drab dresses and pure white
+bonnets of many Friends were conspicuous among the dense moving crowd,
+as white doves seen against a dark cloud. Mr. S. and myself, and our
+future hostess, Mrs. Wigham, entered the carriage with the lord
+provost, and away we drove, the crowd following with their shouts and
+cheers. I was inexpressibly touched and affected by this. While we
+were passing the monument of Scott, I felt an oppressive melancholy.
+What a moment life seems in the presence of the noble dead! What a
+momentary thing is art, in all its beauty! Where are all those great
+souls that have created such an atmosphere of light about Edinburgh?
+and how little a space was given them to live and enjoy!
+
+We drove all over Edinburgh, up to the castle, to the university, to
+Holyrood, to the hospitals, and through many of the principal streets,
+amid shouts, and smiles, and greetings. Some boys amused me very much
+by their pertinacious attempts to keep up with the carriage.
+
+"Heck," says one of them, "that's her; see the _courls_!"
+
+The various engravers who have amused themselves by diversifying my
+face for the public having all, with great unanimity, agreed in giving
+prominence to this point, I suppose the urchins thought they were on
+safe ground there. I certainly think I answered one good purpose that
+day, and that is of giving the much-oppressed and calumniated class
+called boys an opportunity to develop all the noise that was in them,
+--a thing for which I think they must bless me in their remembrances.
+At last the carriage drove into a deep-graveled yard, and we alighted
+at a porch covered with green ivy, and found ourselves once more at
+home.
+
+You may spare your anxieties about me, for I do assure you that if I
+were an old Sčvres china jar I could not have more careful handling
+than I do. Everybody is considerate; a great deal to say when there
+appears to be so much excitement. Everybody seems to understand how
+good-for-nothing I am; and yet, with all this consideration, I have
+been obliged to keep my room and bed for a good part of the time. Of
+the multitudes who have called, I have seen scarcely any.
+
+To-morrow evening is to be the great tea-party here. How in the world
+I am ever to live through it I don't know.
+
+The amount of letters we found waiting for us here in Edinburgh was,
+if possible, more appalling than in Glasgow. Among those from persons
+whom you would be interested in hearing of, I may mention a very kind
+and beautiful one from the Duchess of Sutherland, and one also from
+the Earl of Carlisle, both desiring to make appointments for meeting
+us as soon as we come to London. Also a very kind and interesting note
+from the Rev. Mr. Kingsley and lady. I look forward with a great deal
+of interest to passing a little time with them in their rectory.
+
+As to all engagements, I am in a state of happy acquiescence, having
+resigned myself, as a very tame lion, into the hands of my keepers.
+Whenever the time comes for me to do anything, I try to behave as well
+as I can, which, as Dr. Young says, is all that an angel could do
+under the same circumstances.
+
+_April_ 26. Last night came off the _soiree_. The hall was
+handsomely decorated with flags in front. We went with the lord
+provost in his carriage. We went up as before into a dressing-room,
+where I was presented to many gentlemen and ladies. When we go in, the
+cheering, clapping, and stamping at first strikes one with a strange
+sensation; but then everybody looks so heartily pleased and delighted,
+and there is such an all-pervading atmosphere of geniality and
+sympathy, as makes me in a few moments feel quite at home. After all,
+I consider that these cheers and applauses are Scotland's voice to
+America, a recognition of the brotherhood of the countries.
+
+The national penny offering, consisting of a thousand golden
+sovereigns on a magnificent silver salver, stood conspicuously in view
+of the audience. It has been an unsolicited offering, given in the
+smallest sums, often from the extreme poverty of the giver. The
+committee who collected it in Edinburgh and Glasgow bore witness to
+the willingness with which the very poorest contributed the offering
+of their sympathy. In one cottage they found a blind woman, and said,
+"Here, at least, is one who will feel no interest, as she cannot have
+read the book."
+
+"Indeed," said the old lady, "if I cannot read, my son has read it to
+me, and I've got my penny saved to give."
+
+It is to my mind extremely touching to see how the poor, in their
+poverty, can be moved to a generosity surpassing that of the rich. Nor
+do I mourn that they took it from their slender store, because I know
+that a penny given from a kindly impulse is a greater comfort and
+blessing to the poorest giver than even a penny received.
+
+As in the case of the other meeting, we came out long before the
+speeches were ended. Well, of course I did not sleep all night, and
+the next day I felt quite miserable.
+
+From Edinburgh we took cars for Aberdeen. I enjoyed this ride more
+than anything we had seen yet, the country was so wild and singular.
+In the afternoon we came in sight of the German Ocean. The free,
+bracing air from the sea, and the thought that it actually _was_
+the German Ocean, and that over the other side was Norway, within a
+day's sail of us, gave it a strange, romantic charm. It was towards
+the close of the afternoon that we found ourselves crossing the Dee,
+in view of Aberdeen. My spirits were wonderfully elated: the grand
+scenery and fine, bracing air; the noble, distant view of the city,
+rising with its harbor and shipping,--all filled me with delight. In
+this propitious state, disposed to be pleased with everything, our
+hearts responded warmly to the greetings of the many friends who were
+waiting for us at the station-house.
+
+The lord provost received us into his carriage, and as we drove along
+pointed out to us the various objects of interest in the beautiful
+town. Among other things, a fine old bridge across the Dee attracted
+our particular attention. We were conducted to the house of Mr.
+Cruikshank, a Friend, and found waiting for us there the thoughtful
+hospitality which we had ever experienced in all our stopping-places.
+A snug little quiet supper was laid out upon the table, of which we
+partook in haste, as we were informed that the assembly at the hall
+were waiting to receive us.
+
+There arrived, we found the hall crowded, and with difficulty made our
+way to the platform. Whether owing to the stimulating effect of the
+air from the ocean, or to the comparatively social aspect of the
+scene, or perhaps to both, certain it is that we enjoyed the meeting
+with great zest. I was surrounded on the stage with blooming young
+ladies, one of whom put into my hands a beautiful bouquet, some
+flowers of which I have now, dried, in my album. The refreshment
+tables were adorned with some exquisite wax flowers, the work, as I
+was afterwards told, of a young lady in the place. One of these
+designs especially interested me. It was a group of water-lilies
+resting on a mirror, which gave them the appearance of growing in the
+water.
+
+We had some very animated speaking, in which the speakers contrived to
+blend enthusiastic admiration and love for America with detestation of
+slavery.
+
+They presented an offering in a beautiful embroidered purse, and after
+much shaking of hands we went home, and sat down to the supper-table
+for a little more chat before going to bed. The next morning--as we
+had only till noon to stay in Aberdeen--our friends, the lord provost
+and Mr. Leslie, the architect, came immediately after breakfast to
+show us the place.
+
+About two o'clock we started from Aberdeen, among crowds of friends,
+to whom we bade farewell with real regret.
+
+At Stonehaven station, where we stopped a few minutes, there was quite
+a gathering of the inhabitants to exchange greetings, and afterwards,
+at successive stations along the road, many a kindly face and voice
+made our journey a pleasant one.
+
+When we got into Dundee it seemed all alive with welcome. We went in
+the carriage with the lord provost, Mr. Thoms, to his residence, where
+a party had been waiting dinner for us for some time.
+
+The meeting in the evening was in a large church, densely crowded, and
+conducted much as the others had been. When they came to sing the
+closing hymn, I hoped they would sing Dundee; but they did not, and I
+fear in Scotland, as elsewhere, the characteristic national melodies
+are giving way before more modern ones.
+
+We left Dundee at two o'clock, by cars, for Edinburgh again, and in
+the evening attended another _soiree_ of the workingmen of
+Edinburgh. We have received letters from the workingmen, both in
+Dundee and Glasgow, desiring our return to attend _soirees_ in
+those cities. Nothing could give us greater pleasure, had we time or
+strength. The next day we had a few calls to make, and an invitation
+from Lady Drummond to visit classic Hawthornden, which, however, we
+had not time to accept. In the forenoon, Mr. S. and I called on Lord
+and Lady Gainsborough. Though she is one of the queen's household, she
+is staying here at Edinburgh while the queen is at Osborne. I infer,
+therefore, that the appointment includes no very onerous duties. The
+Earl of Gainsborough is the eldest brother of the Rev. Baptist W.
+Noel. It was a rainy, misty morning when I left my kind retreat and
+friends in Edinburgh. Considerate as everybody had been about imposing
+on my time or strength, still you may well believe that I was much
+exhausted. We left Edinburgh, therefore, with the determination to
+plunge at once into some hidden and unknown spot, where we might spend
+two or three days quietly by ourselves; and remembering your Sunday at
+Stratford-on-Avon, I proposed that we should go there. As Stratford,
+however, is off the railroad line, we determined to accept the
+invitation, which was lying by us, from our friend, Joseph Sturge, of
+Birmingham, and take sanctuary with him. So we wrote on, intrusting
+him with the secret, and charging him on no account to let any one
+know of our arrival.
+
+About night our cars whizzed into the depot at Birmingham; but just
+before we came in a difficulty was started in the company. "Mr. Sturge
+is to be there waiting for us, but he does not know us and we don't
+know him; what is to be done?" C. insisted that he should know him by
+instinct; and so, after we reached the depot, we told him to sally out
+and try. Sure enough, in a few moments he pitched upon a cheerful,
+middle-aged gentleman, with a moderate but not decisive broad brim to
+his hat, and challenged him as Mr. Sturge. The result verified the
+truth that "instinct is a great matter." In a few moments our new
+friend and ourselves were snugly encased in a fly, trotting off as
+briskly as ever we could to his place at Edgbaston, nobody a whit the
+wiser. You do not know how pleased we felt to think we had done it so
+nicely.
+
+As we were drinking tea that evening, Elihu Burritt came in. It was
+the first time I had ever seen him, though I had heard a great deal of
+him from our friends in Edinburgh. He is a man in middle life, tall
+and slender, with fair complexion, blue eyes, an air of delicacy and
+refinement, and manners of great gentleness. My ideas of the "learned
+blacksmith" had been of something altogether more ponderous and
+peremptory. Elihu has been for some years operating, in England and on
+the Continent, in a movement which many in our half-Christianized
+times regard with as much incredulity as the grim, old warlike barons
+did the suspicious imbecilities of reading and writing. The sword now,
+as then, seems so much more direct a way to terminate controversies,
+that many Christian men, even, cannot conceive how the world is to get
+along without it.
+
+We spent the evening in talking over various topics relating to the
+anti-slavery movement. Mr. Sturge was very confident that something
+more was to be done than had ever been done yet, by combinations for
+the encouragement of free in the place of slave grown produce; a
+question which has, ever since the days of Clarkson, more or less
+deeply occupied the minds of abolitionists in England. I should say
+that Mr. Sturge in his family has for many years conscientiously
+forborne the use of any article produced by slave labor. I could
+scarcely believe it possible that there could be such an abundance and
+variety of all that is comfortable and desirable in the various
+departments of household living within these limits. Mr. Sturge
+presents the subject with very great force, the more so from the
+consistency of his example.
+
+The next morning, as we were sitting down to breakfast, our friends
+sent in to me a plate of the largest, finest strawberries I have ever
+seen, which, considering that it was only the latter part of April,
+seemed to me quite an astonishing luxury.
+
+Before we left, we had agreed to meet a circle of friends from
+Birmingham, consisting of the Abolition Society there, which is of
+long standing, extending back in its memories to the very commencement
+of the agitation under Clarkson and Wilberforce. The windows of the
+parlor were opened to the ground; and the company invited filled not
+only the room, but stood in a crowd on the grass around the window.
+Among the peaceable company present was an admiral in the navy, a
+fine, cheerful old gentleman, who entered with hearty interest into
+the scene.
+
+A throng of friends accompanied us to the depot, while from Birmingham
+we had the pleasure of the company of Elihu Burritt, and enjoyed a
+delightful run to London, where we arrived towards evening.
+
+At the station-house in London we found the Rev. Messrs. Binney and
+Sherman waiting for us with carriages. C. went with Mr. Sherman, and
+Mr. S. and I soon found ourselves in a charming retreat called Rose
+Cottage, in Walworth, about which I will tell you more anon. Mrs. B.
+received us with every attention which the most thoughtful hospitality
+could suggest. One of the first things she said to me after we got
+into our room was, "Oh, we are so glad you have come! for we are all
+going to the lord mayor's dinner tonight, and you are invited." So,
+though I was tired, I hurried to dress in all the glee of meeting an
+adventure. As soon as Mr. and Mrs. B. and the rest of the party were
+ready, crack went the whip, round went the wheels, and away we drove.
+
+We found a considerable throng, and I was glad to accept a seat which
+was offered me in the agreeable vicinity of the lady mayoress, so that
+I might see what would be interesting to me of the ceremonial.
+
+A very dignified gentleman, dressed in black velvet, with a fine head,
+made his way through the throng, and sat down by me, introducing
+himself as Lord Chief Baron Pollock. He told me he had just been
+reading the legal part of the "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," and remarked
+especially on the opinion of Judge Ruffin, in the case of _State_
+v. _Mann_, as having made a deep impression on his mind.
+
+Dinner was announced between nine and ten o'clock, and we were
+conducted into a splendid hall, where the tables were laid.
+
+Directly opposite me was Mr. Dickens, whom I now beheld for the first
+time, and was surprised to see looking so young. Mr. Justice Talfourd,
+known as the author of "Ion," was also there with his lady. She had a
+beautiful, antique cast of head. The lord mayor was simply dressed in
+black, without any other adornment than a massive gold chain. We rose
+from table between eleven and twelve o'clock--that is, we ladies--and
+went into the drawing-room, where I was presented to Mrs. Dickens and
+several other ladies. Mrs. Dickens is a good specimen of a truly
+English woman; tall, large, and well developed, with fine, healthy
+color, and an air of frankness, cheerfulness, and reliability. A
+friend whispered to me that she was as observing and fond of humor as
+her husband.
+
+After a while the gentlemen came back to the drawing-room, and I had a
+few moments of very pleasant, friendly conversation with Mr. Dickens.
+They are both people that one could not know a little of without
+desiring to know more. After a little we began to talk of separating;
+the lord mayor to take his seat in the House of Commons, and the rest
+of the party to any other engagement that might be upon their list.
+
+"Come, let us go to the House of Commons," said one of my friends,
+"and make a night of it." "With all my heart," replied I, "if I only
+had another body to go into to-morrow."
+
+What a convenience in sight-seeing it would be if one could have a
+relay of bodies as of clothes, and slip from one into the other! But
+we, not used to the London style of turning night into day, are full
+weary already. So good-night to you all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+FROM OVER THE SEA, 1853.
+
+
+THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--ARTHUR HELPS.--THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF ARGYLL.
+--MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER.--A MEMORABLE MEETING AT STAFFORD HOUSE.--
+MACAULAY AND DEAN MILMAN.--WINDSOR CASTLE.--PROFESSOR STOWE RETURNS TO
+AMERICA.--MRS. STOWE ON THE CONTINENT.--IMPRESSIONS OF PARIS.--EN
+ROUTE TO SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY.--BACK TO ENGLAND.--HOMEWARD BOUND.
+
+ROSE COTTAGE, WALWORTH, LONDON, _May_ 2, 1856.
+
+MY DEAR,--This morning Mrs. Follen called and we had quite a chat. We
+are separated by the whole city. She lives at the West End, while I am
+down here in Walworth, which is one of the postscripts of London, for
+this place has as many postscripts as a lady's letter. This evening we
+dined with the Earl of Carlisle. There was no company but ourselves,
+for he, with great consideration, said in his note that he thought a
+little quiet would be the best thing he could offer.
+
+Lord Carlisle is a great friend to America, and so is his sister, the
+Duchess of Sutherland. He is the only English traveler who ever wrote
+notes on our country in a real spirit of appreciation.
+
+We went about seven o'clock, the dinner hour being here somewhere
+between eight and nine. We were shown into an ante-room adjoining the
+entrance hall, and from that into an adjacent apartment, where we met
+Lord Carlisle. The room had a pleasant, social air, warmed and
+enlivened by the blaze of a coal fire and wax candles.
+
+We had never, any of us, met Lord Carlisle before; but the
+considerateness and cordiality of our reception obviated whatever
+embarrassment there might have been in this circumstance. In a few
+moments after we were all seated, a servant announced the Duchess of
+Sutherland, and Lord Carlisle presented me. She is tall and stately,
+with a most noble bearing. Her fair complexion, blonde hair, and full
+lips speak of Saxon blood.
+
+The only person present not of the family connection was my quondam
+correspondent in America, Arthur Helps. Somehow or other I had formed
+the impression from his writings that he was a venerable sage of very
+advanced years, who contemplated life as an aged hermit from the door
+of his cell. Conceive my surprise to find a genial young gentleman of
+about twenty-five, who looked as if he might enjoy a joke as well as
+another man.
+
+After the ladies left the table, the conversation turned on the Maine
+law, which seems to be considered over here as a phenomenon in
+legislation, and many of the gentlemen present inquired about it with
+great curiosity.
+
+After the gentlemen rejoined us, the Duke and Duchess of Argyll came
+in, and Lord and Lady Blantyre. These ladies are the daughters of the
+Duchess of Sutherland. The Duchess of Argyll is of slight and fairy-
+like figure, with flaxen hair and blue eyes, answering well enough to
+the description of Annot Lyle in the Legend of Montrose. Lady Blantyre
+was somewhat taller, of fuller figure, with a very brilliant bloom.
+Lord Blantyre is of the Stuart blood, a tall and slender young man
+with very graceful manners.
+
+As to the Duke of Argyll, we found that the picture drawn of him by
+his countrymen in Scotland was in every way correct. Though slight of
+figure, with fair complexion and blue eyes, his whole appearance is
+indicative of energy and vivacity. His talents and efficiency have
+made him a member of the British Cabinet at a much earlier age than is
+usual; and he has distinguished himself not only in political life,
+but as a writer, having given to the world a work on Presbyterianism,
+embracing an analysis of the ecclesiastical history of Scotland since
+the Reformation, which is spoken of as written with great ability, and
+in a most liberal spirit. He made many inquiries about our
+distinguished men, particularly of Emerson, Longfellow, and Hawthorne;
+also of Prescott, who appears to be a general favorite here. I felt at
+the moment that we never value our own literary men so much as when we
+are placed in a circle of intelligent foreigners.
+
+The following evening we went to dine with our old friends of the
+Dingle, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Cropper, who are now spending a little
+time in London. We were delighted to meet them once more and to hear
+from our Liverpool friends. Mrs. Cropper's father, Lord Denman, has
+returned to England, though with no sensible improvement in his
+health.
+
+At dinner we were introduced to Lord and Lady Hatherton. Lady
+Hatherton is a person of great cultivation and intelligence, warmly
+interested in all the progressive movements of the day; and I gained
+much information in her society. There were also present Sir Charles
+and Lady Trevelyan; the former holds an appointment at the treasury,
+and Lady Trevelyan is a sister of Macaulay.
+
+In the evening quite a circle came in, among others Lady Emma
+Campbell, sister of the Duke of Argyll; the daughters of the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, who very kindly invited me to visit them at
+Lambeth; and Mr. Arthur Helps, besides many others whose names I need
+not mention.
+
+_May_ 7. This evening our house was opened in a general way for
+callers, who were coming and going all the evening. I think there must
+have been over two hundred people, among them Martin Farquhar Tupper,
+a little man with fresh, rosy complexion and cheery, joyous manners;
+and Mary Howitt, just such a cheerful, sensible, fireside companion as
+we find her in her books,--winning love and trust the very first
+moment of the interview.
+
+The general topic of remark on meeting me seems to be, that I am not
+so bad-looking as they were afraid I was; and I do assure you that
+when I have seen the things that are put up in the shop windows here
+with my name under them, I have been in wondering admiration at the
+boundless loving-kindness of my English and Scottish friends in
+keeping up such a warm heart for such a Gorgon. I should think that
+the Sphinx in the London Museum might have sat for most of them. I am
+going to make a collection of these portraits to bring home to you.
+There is a great variety of them, and they will be useful, like the
+Irishman's guide-board, which showed where the road did not go.
+
+Before the evening was through I was talked out and worn out; there
+was hardly a chip of me left. To-morrow at eleven o'clock comes the
+meeting at Stafford House. What it will amount to I do not know; but I
+take no thought for the morrow.
+
+_May_ 8.
+
+MY DEAR C.,--In fulfillment of my agreement I will tell you, as nearly
+as I can remember, all the details of the meeting at Stafford House.
+At about eleven o'clock we drove under the arched carriage-way of a
+mansion externally not very showy in appearance.
+
+When the duchess appeared, I thought she looked handsomer by daylight
+than in the evening. She received us with the same warm and simple
+kindness which she had shown before. We were presented to the Duke of
+Sutherland. He is a tall, slender man, with rather a thin face, light-
+brown hair, and a mild blue eye, with an air of gentleness and
+dignity.
+
+Among the first that entered were the members of the family, the Duke
+and Duchess of Argyll, Lord and Lady Blantyre, the Marquis and
+Marchioness of Stafford, and Lady Emma Campbell. Then followed Lord
+Shaftesbury with his beautiful lady, and her father and mother, Lord
+and Lady Palmerston. Lord Palmerston is of middle height, with a keen
+dark eye and black hair streaked with gray. There is something
+peculiarly alert and vivacious about all his movements; in short, his
+appearance perfectly answers to what we know of him from his public
+life. One has a strange, mythological feeling about the existence of
+people of whom one hears for many years without ever seeing them.
+While talking with Lord Palmerston I could but remember how often I
+had heard father and Mr. S. exulting over his foreign dispatches by
+our own fireside. There were present, also, Lord John Russell, Mr.
+Gladstone, and Lord Granville. The latter we all thought very
+strikingly resembled in his appearance the poet Longfellow.
+
+After lunch the whole party ascended to the picture-gallery, passing
+on our way the grand staircase and hall, said to be the most
+magnificent in Europe. The company now began to assemble and throng
+the gallery, and very soon the vast room was crowded. Among the throng
+I remember many presentations, but of course must have forgotten many
+more. Archbishop Whateley was there, with Mrs. and Miss Whateley;
+Macaulay, with two of his sisters; Milman, the poet and historian; the
+Bishop of Oxford, Chevalier Bunsen and lady, and many more.
+
+When all the company were together, Lord Shaftesbury read a very
+short, kind, and considerate address in behalf of the ladies of
+England, expressive of their cordial welcome.
+
+This Stafford House meeting, in any view of it, is a most remarkable
+fact. Kind and gratifying as its arrangements have been to me, I am
+far from appropriating it to myself individually as a personal honor.
+I rather regard it as the most public expression possible of the
+feelings of the women of England on one of the most important
+questions of our day, that of individual liberty considered in its
+religious bearings.
+
+On this occasion the Duchess of Sutherland presented Mrs. Stowe with a
+superb gold bracelet, made in the form of a slave's shackle, bearing
+the inscription: "We trust it is a memorial of a chain that is soon to
+be broken." On two of the links were inscribed the dates of the
+abolition of the slave-trade and of slavery in English territory.
+Years after its presentation to her, Mrs. Stowe was able to have
+engraved on the clasp of this bracelet, "Constitutional Amendment
+(forever abolishing slavery in the United States)."
+
+Continuing her interesting journal, Mrs. Stowe writes, May 9th:--
+
+DEAR E.,--This letter I consecrate to you, because I know that the
+persons and things to be introduced into it will most particularly be
+appreciated by you.
+
+In your evening reading circles, Macaulay, Sydney Smith, and Milman
+have long been such familiar names that you will be glad to go with me
+over all the scenes of my morning breakfast at Sir Charles Trevelyan's
+yesterday. Lady Trevelyan, I believe I have said before, is a sister
+of Macaulay.
+
+We were set down at Westbourne Terrace somewhere, I believe, about
+eleven o'clock, and found quite a number already in the drawing-room.
+I had met Macaulay before, but being seated between him and Dean
+Milman, I must confess I was a little embarrassed at times, because I
+wanted to hear what they were both saying at the same time. However,
+by the use of the faculty by which you play a piano with both hands, I
+got on very comfortably.
+
+There were several other persons of note present at this breakfast,
+whose conversation I had not an opportunity of hearing, as they sat at
+a distance from me. There was Lord Glenelg, brother of Sir Robert
+Grant, governor of Bombay, whose beautiful hymns have rendered him
+familiar in America. The favorite one, commencing
+
+ "When gathering clouds around I view,"
+
+was from his pen.
+
+The historian Hallam was also present, and I think it very likely
+there may have been other celebrities whom I did not know. I am always
+finding out, a day or two after, that I have been with somebody very
+remarkable and did not know it at the time.
+
+Under date of May 18th she writes to her sister Mary:--
+
+DEAR M.,--I can compare the embarrassment of our London life, with its
+multiplied solicitations and infinite stimulants to curiosity and
+desire, only to that annual perplexity which used to beset us in our
+childhood on Thanksgiving Day. Like Miss Edgeworth's philosophic
+little Frank, we are obliged to make out a list of what man
+_must_ want, and of what he _may_ want; and in our list of
+the former we set down, in large and decisive characters, one quiet
+day for the exploration and enjoyment of Windsor.
+
+The ride was done all too soon. About eleven o'clock we found
+ourselves going up the old stone steps to the castle. We went first
+through the state apartments. The principal thing that interested me
+was the ball-room, which was a perfect gallery of Vandyke's paintings.
+After leaving the ball-room we filed off to the proper quarter to show
+our orders for the private rooms. The state apartments, which we had
+been looking at, are open at all times, but the private apartments can
+only be seen in the Queen's absence and by a special permission, which
+had been procured for us on that occasion by the kindness of the
+Duchess of Sutherland.
+
+One of the first objects that attracted my attention upon entering the
+vestibule was a baby's wicker wagon, standing in one corner. It was
+much such a carriage as all mothers are familiar with; such as figures
+largely in the history of almost every family. It had neat curtains
+and cushions of green merino, and was not royal, only maternal. I
+mused over the little thing with a good deal of interest.
+
+We went for our dinner to the White Hart, the very inn which
+Shakespeare celebrates in his "Merry Wives," and had a most
+overflowing merry time of it. After dinner we had a beautiful drive.
+
+We were bent upon looking up the church which gave rise to Gray's
+"Elegy in a Country Churchyard," intending when we got there to have a
+little scene over it; Mr. S., in all the conscious importance of
+having been there before, assuring us that he knew exactly where it
+was. So, after some difficulty with our coachman, and being stopped at
+one church which would not answer our purpose in any respect, we were
+at last set down by one which looked authentic; embowered in mossy
+elms, with a most ancient and goblin yew-tree, an ivy-mantled tower,
+all perfect as could be. Here, leaning on the old fence, we repeated
+the Elegy, which certainly applies here as beautifully as language
+could apply.
+
+Imagine our chagrin, on returning to London, at being informed that we
+had not been to the genuine churchyard after all. The gentleman who
+wept over the scenes of his early days on the wrong doorstep was not
+more grievously disappointed. However, he and we could both console
+ourselves with the reflection that the emotion was admirable, and
+wanted only the right place to make it the most appropriate in the
+world.
+
+The evening after our return from Windsor was spent with our kind
+friends, Mr. and Mrs. Gurney. After breakfast the next day, Mr. S.,
+C., and I drove out to call upon Kossuth. We found him in an obscure
+lodging on the outskirts of London. I would that some of the editors
+in America, who have thrown out insinuations about his living in
+luxury, could have seen the utter bareness and plainness of the
+reception room, which had nothing in it beyond the simplest
+necessaries. He entered into conversation with us with cheerfulness,
+speaking English well, though with the idioms of foreign languages.
+When we parted he took my hand kindly and said, "God bless you, my
+child!"
+
+I have been quite amused with something which has happened lately.
+This week the "Times" has informed the United Kingdom that Mrs. Stowe
+is getting a new dress made! It wants to know if Mrs. Stowe is aware
+what sort of a place her dress is being made in; and there is a letter
+from a dressmaker's apprentice stating that it is being made up
+piecemeal, in the most shockingly distressed dens of London, by poor,
+miserable white slaves, worse treated than the plantation slaves of
+America!
+
+Now Mrs. Stowe did not know anything of this, but simply gave the silk
+into the hands of a friend, and was in due time waited on in her own
+apartment by a very respectable-appearing woman, who offered to make
+the dress, and lo, this is the result! Since the publication of this
+piece, I have received earnest missives, from various parts of the
+country, begging me to interfere, hoping that I was not going to
+patronize the white slavery of England, and that I would employ my
+talents equally against oppression in every form. Could these people
+only know in what sweet simplicity I had been living in the State of
+Maine, where the only dressmaker of our circle was an intelligent,
+refined, well-educated woman who was considered as the equal of us
+all, and whose spring and fall ministrations to our wardrobe were
+regarded a double pleasure,--a friendly visit as well as a domestic
+assistance,--I say, could they know all this, they would see how
+guiltless I was in the matter. I verily never thought but that the
+nice, pleasant person who came to measure me for my silk dress was
+going to take it home and make it herself; it never occurred to me
+that she was the head of an establishment.
+
+May 22, she writes to her husband, whose duties had obliged him to
+return to America: "To-day we went to hear a sermon in behalf of the
+ragged schools by the Archbishop of Canterbury. My thoughts have been
+much saddened by the news which I received of the death of Mary
+Edmonson."
+
+"_May_ 30. The next day from my last letter came off Miss
+Greenfield's concert, of which I send a card. You see in what company
+they have put your poor little wife. Funny!--isn't it? Well, the Hons.
+and Right Hons. all were there. I sat by Lord Carlisle.
+
+"After the concert the duchess asked Lady Hatherton and me to come
+round to Stafford House and take tea, which was not a thing to be
+despised, either on account of the tea or the duchess. A lovelier time
+we never had,--present, the Duchess of Argyll, Lady Caroline Campbell,
+Lady Hatherton, and myself. We had the nicest cup of tea, with such
+cream, and grapes and apricots, with some Italian bread, etc.
+
+"When we were going the duchess got me, on some pretext, into another
+room, and came up and put her arms round me, with her noble face all
+full of feeling.
+
+"'Oh, Mrs. Stowe, I have been reading that last chapter in the "Key";
+Argyll read it aloud to us. Oh, surely, surely you will succeed,--God
+surely will bless you!'
+
+"I said then that I thanked her for all her love and feeling for us,
+told her how earnestly all the women of England sympathized with her,
+and many in America. She looked really radiant and inspired. Had those
+who hang back from our cause seen her face, it might have put a soul
+into them as she said again, 'It will be done--it will be done--oh, I
+trust and pray it may!'
+
+"So we kissed each other, and vowed friendship and fidelity--so I came
+away.
+
+"To-day I am going with Lord Shaftesbury to St. Paul's to see the
+charity children, after which lunch with Dean Milman.
+
+"_May_ 31. We went to lunch with Miss R. at Oxford Terrace,
+where, among a number of distinguished guests, was Lady Byron, with
+whom I had a few moments of deeply interesting conversation. No
+engravings that ever have been circulated in America do any justice to
+her appearance. She is of slight figure, formed with exceeding
+delicacy, and her whole form, face, dress, and air unite to make an
+impression of a character singularly dignified, gentle, pure, and yet
+strong. No words addressed to me in any conversation hitherto have
+made their way to my inner soul with such force as a few remarks
+dropped by her on the present religious aspect of England,--remarks of
+such quality as one seldom hears.
+
+"According to request, I will endeavor to keep you informed of all our
+goings-on after you left, up to the time of our departure for Paris.
+
+"We have borne in mind your advice to hasten away to the Continent.
+Charles wrote, a day or two since, to Mrs. C. at Paris to secure very
+private lodgings, and by no means let any one know that we were
+coming. She has replied urging us to come to her house, and promising
+entire seclusion and rest. So, since you departed, we have been
+passing with a kind of comprehensive skip and jump over remaining
+engagements. And just the evening after you left came off the
+presentation of the inkstand by the ladies of Surrey Chapel.
+
+"It is a beautiful specimen of silver-work, eighteen inches long, with
+a group of silver figures on it representing Religion, with the Bible
+in her hand, giving liberty to the slave. The slave is a masterly
+piece of work. He stands with his hands clasped, looking up to Heaven,
+while a white man is knocking the shackles from his feet. But the
+prettiest part of the scene was the presentation of a _gold pen_
+by a band of beautiful children, one of whom made a very pretty
+speech. I called the little things to come and stand around me, and
+talked with them a few minutes, and this was all the speaking that
+fell to my share.
+
+"To-morrow we go--go to quiet, to obscurity, to peace--to Paris, to
+Switzerland; there we shall find the loveliest glen, and, as the Bible
+says, 'fall on sleep.'
+
+"_Paris, June_ 4. Here we are in Paris, in a most charming
+family. I have been out all the morning exploring shops, streets,
+boulevards, and seeing and hearing life in Paris. When one has a
+pleasant home and friends to return to, this gay, bustling, vivacious,
+graceful city is one of the most charming things in the world; and we
+_have_ a most charming home.
+
+"I wish the children could see these Tuileries with their statues and
+fountains, men, women, and children seated in family groups under the
+trees, chatting, reading aloud, working muslin,--children driving
+hoop, playing ball, all alive and chattering French. Such fresh,
+pretty girls as are in the shops here! _Je suis ravé_, as they
+say. In short I am decidedly in a French humor, and am taking things
+quite _couleur de rose_.
+
+"_Monday, June_ 13. We went this morning to the studio of M.
+Belloc, who is to paint my portrait. The first question which he
+proposed, with a genuine French air, was the question of 'pose' or
+position. It was concluded that, as other pictures had taken me
+looking at the spectator, this should take me looking away. M. Belloc
+remarked that M. Charpentier said I appeared always with the air of an
+observer,--was always looking around on everything. Hence M. Belloc
+would take me '_en observatrice, mais pas en curieuse_,'--with
+the air of observation, but not of curiosity. By and by M. Charpentier
+came in. He began panegyrizing 'Uncle Tom,' and this led to a
+discussion of the ground of its unprecedented success. In his thirty-
+five years' experience as a bookseller, he had known nothing like it.
+It surpassed all modern writings! At first he would not read it; his
+taste was for old masters of a century or two ago. 'Like M. Belloc in
+painting,' said I. At length he found his friend M., the first
+intelligence of the age, reading it.
+
+"'What, you, too?' said he.
+
+"'Ah, ah!' replied the friend; 'say nothing about this book! There is
+nothing like it. This leaves us all behind,--all, all, miles behind!'
+
+"M. Belloc said the reason was because there was in it more _genuine
+faith_ than in any book; and we branched off into florid eloquence
+touching paganism, Christianity, and art.
+
+"_Wednesday, June_ 22. Adieu to Paris! Ho for Chalons-sur-Saône!
+After affectionate farewells of our kind friends, by eleven o'clock we
+were rushing, in the pleasantest of cars, over the smoothest of rails,
+through Burgundy. We arrived at Chalons at nine P. M.
+
+"_Thursday_, 23, eight o'clock A. M. Since five we have had a
+fine bustle on the quay below our windows. There lay three steamers,
+shaped for all the world like our last night's rolls. One would think
+Ichabod Crane might sit astride one of them and dip his feet in the
+water. They ought to be swift. L'Hirondelle (The Swallow) flew at
+five; another at six. We leave at nine.
+
+"_Lyons_. There was a scene of indescribable confusion upon our
+arrival here. Out of the hold of our steamer a man with a rope and
+hook began hauling baggage up a smooth board. Three hundred people
+were sorting their goods without checks. Porters were shouldering
+immense loads, four or five heavy trunks at once, corded together, and
+stalking off Atlantean. Hat-boxes, bandboxes, and valises burst like a
+meteoric shower out of a crater. '_A moi, ŕ moi_!' was the cry,
+from old men, young women, soldiers, shopkeepers, and _frčres_,
+scuffling and shoving together.
+
+"_Saturday, June_ 25. Lyons to Genčve. As this was our first
+experience in the diligence line, we noticed particularly every
+peculiarity. I had had the idea that a diligence was a ricketty, slow-
+moulded antediluvian nondescript, toiling patiently along over
+impassable roads at a snail's pace. Judge of my astonishment at
+finding it a full-blooded, vigorous monster, of unscrupulous railway
+momentum and imperturbable equipoise of mind. Down the macadamized
+slopes we thundered at a prodigious pace; up the hills we trotted,
+with six horses, three abreast; madly through the little towns we
+burst, like a whirlwind, crashing across the pebbled streets, and out
+upon the broad, smooth road again. Before we had well considered the
+fact that we were out of Lyons we stopped to change horses. Done in a
+jiffy; and whoop, crick, crack, whack, rumble, bump, whirr, whisk,
+away we blazed, till, ere we knew it, another change and another.
+
+"As evening drew on, a wind sprang up and a storm seemed gathering on
+the Jura. The rain dashed against the panes of the berlin as we rode
+past the grim-faced monarch of the 'misty shroud.' It was night as we
+drove into Geneva and stopped at the Messagerie. I heard with joy a
+voice demanding if this were _Madame Besshare_. I replied, not
+without some scruples of conscience, '_Oui, Monsieur, c'est
+moi_,' though the name did not sound exactly like the one to which
+I had been wont to respond. In half an hour we were at home in the
+mansion of Monsieur Fazy."
+
+From Geneva the party made a tour of the Swiss Alps, spending some
+weeks among them. While there Charles Beecher wrote from a small hotel
+at the foot of the Jura:--
+
+"The people of the neighborhood, having discovered who Harriet was,
+were very kind, and full of delight at seeing her. It was Scotland
+over again. We have had to be unflinching to prevent her being
+overwhelmed, both in Paris and Geneva, by the same demonstrations of
+regard. To this we were driven, as a matter of life and death. It was
+touching to listen to the talk of these secluded mountaineers. The
+good hostess, even the servant maids, hung about Harriet, expressing
+such tender interest for the slave. All had read 'Uncle Tom;' and it
+had apparently been an era in their life's monotony, for they said,
+'Oh, madam, do write another! Remember, our winter nights here are
+very long!'"
+
+Upon their return to Geneva they visited the Castle of Chillon, of
+which, in describing the dungeons, Mrs. Stowe writes:--
+
+"One of the pillars in this vault is covered with names. I think it is
+Bonnevard's Pillar. There are the names of Byron, Hunt, Schiller, and
+ever so many more celebrities. As we were going from the cell our
+conductress seemed to have a sudden light upon her mind. She asked a
+question or two of some of our party, and fell upon me vehemently to
+put my name also there. Charley scratched it on the soft freestone,
+and there it is for future ages. The lady could scarce repress her
+enthusiasm; she shook my hand over and over again, and said she had
+read 'Uncle Tom.' 'It is beautiful,' she said, 'but it is cruel.'
+
+"_Monday, July_ 18. Weather suspicious. Stowed ourselves and our
+baggage into our _voiture_, and bade adieu to our friends and to
+Geneva. Ah, how regretfully! From the market-place we carried away a
+basket of cherries and fruit as a consolation. Dined at Lausanne, and
+visited the cathedral and picture-gallery, where was an exquisite
+_Eva_. Slept at Meudon.
+
+"_Tuesday, July_ 19. Rode through Payerne to Freyburg. Stopped at
+the Zähringer Hof,--most romantic of inns.
+
+"_Wednesday, July_ 20. Examined, not the lions, but the bears of
+Berne. Engaged a _coiture_ and drove to Thun. Dined and drove by
+the shore of the lake to Interlachen, arriving just after a brilliant
+sunset.
+
+"We crossed the Wengern Alps to Grindelwald. The Jungfrau is right
+over against us,--her glaciers purer, tenderer, more dazzlingly
+beautiful, if possible, than those of Mont Blanc. Slept at
+Grindelwald."
+
+From Rosenlaui, on this journey, Charles Beecher writes:--
+
+"_Friday, July 22_. Grindelwald to Meyringen. On we came, to the
+top of the Great Schiedeck, where H. and W. botanized, while I slept.
+Thence we rode down the mountain till we reached Rosenlaui, where, I
+am free to say, a dinner was to me a more interesting object than a
+glacier. Therefore, while H. and W. went to the latter, I turned off
+to the inn, amid their cries and reproaches.
+
+"Here, then, I am, writing these notes in the _salle ŕ manger_ of
+the inn, where other voyagers are eating and drinking, and there is H.
+feeding on the green moonshine of an emerald ice cave. One would
+almost think her incapable of fatigue. How she skips up and down high
+places and steep places, to the manifest perplexity of the honest
+guide Kienholz, _pčre_, who tries to take care of her, but does
+not exactly know how! She gets on a pyramid of débris, which the edge
+of the glacier is plowing and grinding up, sits down, and falls--not
+asleep exactly, but into a trance. W. and I are ready to go on: we
+shout; our voice is lost in the roar of the torrent. We send the
+guide. He goes down, and stands doubtfully. He does not know exactly
+what to do. She hears him, and starts to her feet, pointing with one
+hand to yonder peak, and with the other to that knife-like edge that
+seems cleaving heaven with its keen and glistening cimeter of snow,
+reminding one of Isaiah's sublime imagery, 'For my sword is bathed in
+heaven.' She points at the grizzly rocks, with their jags and spear-
+points. Evidently she is beside herself, and thinks she can remember
+the names of those monsters, born of earthquake and storm, which
+cannot be named nor known but by sight, and then are known at once
+perfectly and forever."
+
+After traveling through Germany, Belgium, and Holland, the party
+returned to Paris toward the end of August, from which place Mrs.
+Stowe writes:--
+
+"I am seated in a snug little room at M. Belloc's. The weather is
+overpoweringly hot, but these Parisian houses seem to have seized and
+imprisoned coolness. French household ways are delightful. I like
+their seclusion from the street by these deep-paned quadrangles.
+
+"Madame Belloc was the translator of Maria Edgeworth, by that lady's
+desire; corresponded with her for years, and still has many of her
+letters. Her translation of 'Uncle Tom' has to me all the merit and
+all the interest of an original composition. In perusing it, I enjoy
+the pleasure of reading the story with scarce any consciousness of its
+ever having been mine."
+
+The next letter is from London _en route_ for America, to which
+passage had been engaged on the Collins steamer Arctic. In it Mrs.
+Stowe writes:--
+
+"_London, August _28. Our last letters from home changed all our
+plans. We concluded to hurry away by the next steamer, if at that late
+hour we could get a passage. We were all in a bustle. The last
+shoppings for aunts, cousins, and little folks were to be done by us
+all. The Palais Royal was to be rummaged; bronzes, vases, statuettes,
+bonbons, playthings,--all that the endless fertility of France could
+show,--was to be looked over for the 'folks at home.'
+
+"How we sped across the Channel C. relates. We are spending a few very
+pleasant days with our kind friends the L.'s, in London.
+
+"_On board the Arctic, September_ 7. On Thursday, September 1, we
+reached York, and visited the beautiful ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, and
+the magnificent cathedral. It rained with inflexible pertinacity
+during all the time we were there, and the next day it rained still,
+when we took the cars for Castle Howard station.
+
+"Lady Carlisle welcomed us most affectionately, and we learned that,
+had we not been so reserved at the York station in concealing our
+names, we should have received a note from her. However, as we were
+safely arrived, it was of no consequence.
+
+"Our friends spoke much of Sunmer and Prescott, who had visited there;
+also of Mr. Lawrence, our former ambassador, who had visited them just
+before his return. After a very pleasant day, we left with regret the
+warmth of this hospitable circle, thus breaking one more of the links
+that bind us to the English shore.
+
+"Nine o'clock in the evening found us sitting by a cheerful fire in
+the parlor of Mr. E. Baines at Leeds. The next day the house was
+filled with company, and the Leeds offering was presented.
+
+"Tuesday we parted from our excellent friends in Leeds, and soon found
+ourselves once more in the beautiful "Dingle," our first and last
+resting-place on English shores.
+
+"A deputation from Belfast, Ireland, here met me, presenting a
+beautiful bog-oak casket, lined with gold, and carved with appropriate
+national symbols, containing an offering for the cause of the
+oppressed. They read a beautiful address, and touched upon the
+importance of inspiring with the principles of emancipation the Irish
+nation, whose influence in our land is becoming so great. Had time and
+strength permitted, it had been my purpose to visit Ireland, to
+revisit Scotland, and to see more of England. But it is not in man
+that walketh to direct his steps. And now came parting, leave-taking,
+last letters, notes, and messages.
+
+"Thus, almost sadly as a child might leave its home, I left the shores
+of kind, strong Old England,--the mother of us all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+HOME AGAIN, 1853-1856.
+
+
+ANTI-SLAVERY WORK.--STIRRING TIMES IN THE UNITED STATES.--ADDRESS TO
+THE LADIES OF GLASGOW.--APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA.--
+CORRESPONDENCE WITH WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.--THE WRITING OF "DRED."--
+FAREWELL LETTER FROM GEORGIANA MAY.--SECOND VOYAGE TO ENGLAND.
+
+After her return in the autumn of 1853 from her European tour, Mrs.
+Stowe threw herself heart and soul into the great struggle with
+slavery. Much of her time was occupied in distributing over a wide
+area of country the English gold with which she had been intrusted for
+the advancement of the cause. With this money she assisted in the
+redemption of slaves whose cases were those of peculiar hardship, and
+helped establish them as free men. She supported anti-slavery lectures
+wherever they were most needed, aided in establishing and maintaining
+anti-slavery publications, founded and assisted in supporting schools
+in which colored people might be taught how to avail themselves of the
+blessings of freedom. She arranged public meetings, and prepared many
+of the addresses that should be delivered at them. She maintained such
+an extensive correspondence with persons of all shades of opinion in
+all parts of the world, that the letters received and answered by her
+between 1853 and 1856 would fill volumes. With all these multifarious
+interests, her children received a full share of her attention, nor
+were her literary activities relaxed.
+
+Immediately upon the completion of her European tour, her experiences
+were published in the form of a journal, both in this country and
+England, under the title of "Sunny Memories." She also revised and
+elaborated the collection of sketches which had been published by the
+Harpers in 1843, under title of "The Mayflower," and having purchased
+the plates caused them to be republished in 1855 by Phillips &
+Sampson, the successors of John P. Jewett & Co., in this country, and
+by Sampson Low & Co. in London.
+
+Soon after her return to America, feeling that she owed a debt of
+gratitude to her friends in Scotland, which her feeble health had not
+permitted her adequately to express while with them, Mrs. Stowe wrote
+the following open letter:--
+
+TO THE LADIES' ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW:
+
+_Dear Friends_,--I have had many things in my mind to say to you,
+which it was my hope to have said personally, but which I am now
+obliged to say by letter.
+
+I have had many fears that you must have thought our intercourse,
+during the short time that I was in Glasgow, quite unsatisfactory.
+
+At the time that I accepted your very kind invitation, I was in
+tolerable health, and supposed that I should be in a situation to
+enjoy society, and mingle as much in your social circles as you might
+desire.
+
+When the time came for me to fulfil my engagement with you, I was, as
+you know, confined to my bed with a sickness brought on by the
+exertion of getting the "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" through the press
+during the winter.
+
+In every part of the world the story of "Uncle Tom" had awakened
+sympathy for the American slave, and consequently in every part of the
+world the story of his wrongs had been denied; it had been asserted to
+be a mere work of romance, and I was charged with being the slanderer
+of the institutions of my own country. I knew that if I shrank from
+supporting my position, the sympathy which the work had excited would
+gradually die out, and the whole thing would be looked upon as a mere
+romantic excitement of the passions.
+
+When I came abroad, I had not the slightest idea of the kind of
+reception which was to meet me in England and Scotland. I had thought
+of something involving considerable warmth, perhaps, and a good deal
+of cordiality and feeling on the part of friends; but of the general
+extent of feeling through society, and of the degree to which it would
+be publicly expressed, I had, I may say, no conception.
+
+As through your society I was invited to your country, it may seem
+proper that what communication I have to make to friends in England
+and Scotland should be made through you.
+
+In the first place, then, the question will probably arise in your
+minds, Have the recent demonstrations in Great Britain done good to
+the anti-slavery cause in America?
+
+The first result of those demonstrations, as might have been expected,
+was an intense reaction. Every kind of false, evil, and malignant
+report has been circulated by malicious and partisan papers; and if
+there is any blessing in having all manner of evil said against us
+falsely, we have seemed to be in a fair way to come in possession of
+it.
+
+The sanction which was given in this matter to the voice of the
+people, by the nobility of England and Scotland, has been regarded and
+treated with special rancor; and yet, in its place, it has been
+particularly important. Without it great advantages would have been
+taken to depreciate the value of the national testimony. The value of
+this testimony in particular will appear from the fact that the anti-
+slavery cause has been treated with especial contempt by the leaders
+of society in this country, and every attempt made to brand it with
+ridicule.
+
+The effect of making a cause generally unfashionable is much greater
+in this world than it ought to be. It operates very powerfully with
+the young and impressible portion of the community; therefore Cassius
+M. Clay very well said with regard to the demonstration at Stafford
+House: "It will help our cause by rendering it fashionable."
+
+With regard to the present state of the anti-slavery cause in America,
+I think, for many reasons, that it has never been more encouraging. It
+is encouraging in this respect, that the subject is now fairly up for
+inquiry before the public mind. And that systematic effort which has
+been made for years to prevent its being discussed is proving wholly
+ineffectual.
+
+The "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" has sold extensively at the South,
+following in the wake of "Uncle Tom." Not one fact or statement in it
+has been disproved as yet. I have yet to learn of even an
+_attempt_ to disprove.
+
+The "North American Review," a periodical which has never been
+favorable to the discussion of the slavery question, has come out with
+a review of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which, while rating the book very
+low as a work of art, they account for its great circulation and
+success by the fact of its being a true picture of slavery. They go on
+to say that the system is one so inherently abominable that, unless
+slaveholders shall rouse themselves and abolish the principle of
+chattel ownership, they can no longer sustain themselves under the
+contempt and indignation of the whole civilized world. What are the
+slaveholders to do when this is the best their friends and supporters
+can say for them?
+
+I regret to say that the movements of Christian denominations on this
+subject are yet greatly behind what they should be. Some movements
+have been made by religious bodies, of which I will not now speak; but
+as a general thing the professed Christian church is pushed up to its
+duty by the world, rather than the world urged on by the church.
+
+The colored people in this country are rapidly rising in every
+respect. I shall request Frederick Douglass to send you the printed
+account of the recent colored convention. It would do credit to any
+set of men whatever, and I hope you will get some notice taken of it
+in the papers of the United Kingdom. It is time that the slanders
+against this unhappy race should be refuted, and it should he seen
+how, in spite of every social and political oppression, they are
+rising in the scale of humanity. In my opinion they advance quite as
+fast as any of the foreign races which have found an asylum among us.
+
+May God so guide us in all things that our good he not evil spoken of,
+and that we be left to defend nothing which is opposed to his glory
+and the good of man!
+
+Yours in all sympathy,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+During the Kansas and Nebraska agitation (1853-54), Mrs. Stowe, in
+common with the abolitionists of the North, was deeply impressed with
+a solemn sense that it was a desperate crisis in the nation's history.
+She was in constant correspondence with Charles Sumner and other
+distinguished statesmen of the time, and kept herself informed as to
+the minutest details of the struggle. At this time she wrote and
+caused to be circulated broadcast the following appeal to the women of
+America:--
+
+"The Providence of God has brought our nation to a crisis of most
+solemn interest.
+
+"A question is now pending in our national legislature which is most
+vitally to affect the temporal and eternal interests, not only of
+ourselves, but of our children and our children's children for ages
+yet unborn. Through our nation it is to affect the interests of
+liberty and Christianity throughout the world.
+
+"Of the woes, the injustice, and the misery of slavery it is not
+needful to speak. There is but one feeling and one opinion upon this
+subject among us all. I do not think there is a mother who clasps her
+child to her breast who would ever be made to feel it right that that
+child should be a slave, not a mother among us who would not rather
+lay that child in its grave.
+
+"Nor can I believe that there is a woman so unchristian as to think it
+right to inflict upon her neighbor's child what she would consider
+worse than death were it inflicted upon her own. I do not believe
+there is a wife who would think it right that _her_ husband
+should be sold to a trader to be worked all his life without wages or
+a recognition of rights. I do not believe there is a husband who would
+consider it right that his wife should be regarded by law the property
+of another man. I do not believe there is a father or mother who would
+consider it right were they forbidden by law to teach their children
+to read. I do not believe there is a brother who would think it right
+to have his sister held as property, with no legal defense for her
+personal honor, by any man living.
+
+"All this is inherent in slavery. It is not the abuse of slavery, but
+its legal nature. And there is not a woman in the United States, where
+the question is fairly put to her, who thinks these things are right.
+
+"But though our hearts have bled over this wrong, there have been many
+things tending to fetter our hands, to perplex our efforts, and to
+silence our voice. We have been told that to speak of it was an
+invasion of the rights of states. We have heard of promises and
+compacts, and the natural expression of feeling has in many cases been
+repressed by an appeal to those honorable sentiments which respect the
+keeping of engagements.
+
+"But a time has now come when the subject is arising under quite a
+different aspect.
+
+"The question is not now, shall the wrongs of slavery exist as they
+have within their own territories, but shall we permit them to be
+extended all over the free territories of the United States? Shall the
+woes and the miseries of slavery be extended over a region of fair,
+free, unoccupied territory nearly equal in extent to the whole of the
+free States?
+
+"Nor is this all! This is not the last thing that is expected or
+intended. Should this movement be submitted to in silence, should the
+North consent to this solemn breach of contract on the part of the
+South, there yet remains one more step to be apprehended, namely, the
+legalizing of slavery throughout the free States. By a decision of the
+supreme court in the Lemmon case, it may be declared lawful for slave
+property to be held in the Northern States. Should this come to pass,
+it is no more improbable that there may be four years hence slave
+depots in New York city than it was four years ago that the South
+would propose a repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
+
+"Women of the free States! the question is not shall we remonstrate
+with slavery on its own soil, but are we willing to receive slavery
+into the free States and Territories of this Union? Shall the whole
+power of these United States go into the hands of slavery? Shall every
+State in the Union be thrown open to slavery? This is the possible
+result and issue of the question now pending. This is the fearful
+crisis at which we stand.
+
+"And now you ask, What can the _women_ of a country do?
+
+"O women of the free States! what did your brave mothers do in the
+days of our Revolution? Did not liberty in those days feel the strong
+impulse of woman's heart?
+
+"There was never a great interest agitating a community where woman's
+influence was not felt for good or for evil. At the time when the
+abolition of the slave-trade was convulsing England, women contributed
+more than any other laborers to that great triumph of humanity. The
+women of England refused to receive into their houses the sugar raised
+by slaves. Seventy thousand families thus refused the use of sugar in
+testimony of their abhorrence of the manner in which it was produced.
+At that time women were unwearied in going from house to house
+distributing books and tracts upon the subject, and presenting it
+clearly and forcibly to thousands of families who would otherwise have
+disregarded it.
+
+"The women all over England were associated in corresponding circles
+for prayer and labor. Petitions to the government were prepared and
+signed by women of every station in all parts of the kingdom.
+
+"Women of America! we do not know with what thrilling earnestness the
+hopes and the eyes of the world are fastened upon our country, and how
+intense is the desire that we should take a stand for universal
+liberty. When I was in England, although I distinctly stated that the
+raising of money was no part of my object there, it was actually
+forced upon me by those who could not resist the impulse to do
+something for this great cause. Nor did it come from the well-to-do
+alone; but hundreds of most affecting letters were received from poor
+working men and women, who inclosed small sums in postage-stamps to be
+devoted to freeing slaves.
+
+"Nor is this deep feeling confined to England alone. I found it in
+France, Switzerland, and Germany. Why do foreign lands regard us with
+this intensity of interest? Is it not because the whole world looks
+hopefully toward America as a nation especially raised by God to
+advance the cause of human liberty and religion?
+
+"There has been a universal expectation that the next step taken by
+America would surely be one that should have a tendency to right this
+great wrong. Those who are struggling for civil and religious liberty
+in Europe speak this word 'slavery' in sad whispers, as one names a
+fault of a revered friend. They can scarce believe the advertisements
+in American papers of slave sales of men, women, and children, traded
+like cattle. Scarcely can they trust their eyes when they read the
+laws of the slave States, and the decisions of their courts. The
+advocates of despotism hold these things up to them and say: 'See what
+comes of republican liberty!' Hitherto the answer has been, 'America
+is more than half free, and she certainly will in time repudiate
+slavery altogether.'
+
+"But what can they say now if, just as the great struggle for human
+rights is commencing throughout Europe, America opens all her
+Territories to the most unmitigated despotism?
+
+"While all the nations of Europe are thus moved on the subject of
+American slavery, shall we alone remain unmoved? Shall we, the wives,
+mothers, and sisters of America, remain content with inaction in such
+a crisis as this?
+
+"The first duty of every American woman at this time is to thoroughly
+understand the subject for herself, and to feel that she is bound to
+use her influence for the right. Then they can obtain signatures to
+petitions to our national legislature. They can spread information
+upon this vital topic throughout their neighborhoods. They can employ
+lecturers to lay the subject before the people. They can circulate the
+speeches of their members of Congress that bear upon the subject, and
+in many other ways they can secure to all a full understanding of the
+present position of our country.
+
+"Above all, it seems to be necessary and desirable that we should make
+this subject a matter of earnest prayer. A conflict is now begun
+between the forces of liberty and despotism throughout the whole
+world. We who are Christians, and believe in the sure word of
+prophecy, know that fearful convulsions and over-turnings are
+predicted before the coming of Him who is to rule the earth in
+righteousness. How important, then, in this crisis, that all who
+believe in prayer should retreat beneath the shadow of the Almighty!
+
+"It is a melancholy but unavoidable result of such great encounters of
+principle that they tend to degenerate into sectional and personal
+bitterness. It is this liability that forms one of the most solemn and
+affecting features of the crisis now presented. We are on the eve of a
+conflict which will try men's souls, and strain to the utmost the
+bonds of brotherly union that bind this nation together.
+
+"Let us, then, pray that in the agitation of this question between the
+North and the South the war of principle may not become a mere
+sectional conflict, degenerating into the encounter of physical force.
+Let us raise our hearts to Him who has the power to restrain the wrath
+of men, that He will avert the consequences that our sins as a nation
+so justly deserve.
+
+"There are many noble minds in the South who do not participate in the
+machinations of their political leaders, and whose sense of honor and
+justice is outraged by this proposition equally with our own. While,
+then, we seek to sustain the cause of freedom unwaveringly, let us
+also hold it to be our office as true women to moderate the acrimony
+of political contest, remembering that the slaveholder and the slave
+are alike our brethren, whom the law of God commands us to love as
+ourselves.
+
+"For the sake, then, of our dear children, for the sake of our common
+country, for the sake of outraged and struggling liberty throughout
+the world, let every woman of America now do her duty."
+
+At this same time Mrs. Stowe found herself engaged in an active
+correspondence with William Lloyd Garrison, much of which appeared in
+the columns of his paper, the "Liberator." Late in 1853 she writes to
+him:--
+
+"In regard to you, your paper, and in some measure your party, I am in
+an honest embarrassment. I sympathize with you fully in many of your
+positions. Others I consider erroneous, hurtful to liberty and the
+progress of humanity. Nevertheless, I believe you and those who
+support them to be honest and conscientious in your course and
+opinions. What I fear is that your paper will take from poor Uncle Tom
+his Bible, and give him nothing in its place."
+
+To this Mr. Garrison answers: "I do not understand why the imputation
+is thrown upon the 'Liberator' as tending to rob Uncle Tom of his
+Bible. I know of no writer in its pages who wishes to deprive him of
+it, or of any comfort he may derive from it. It is for him to place
+whatever estimate he can upon it, and for you and me to do the same;
+but for neither of us to accept any more of it than we sincerely
+believe to be in accordance with reason, truth, and eternal right. How
+much of it is true and obligatory, each one can determine only for
+himself; for on Protestant ground there is no room for papal
+infallibility. All Christendom professes to believe in the inspiration
+of the volume, and at the same time all Christendom is by the ears as
+to its real teachings. Surely you would not have me disloyal to my
+conscience. How do you prove that you are not trammeled by educational
+or traditional notions as to the entire sanctity of the book? Indeed,
+it seems to me very evident that you are not free in spirit, in view
+of the apprehension and sorrow you feel because you find your
+conceptions of the Bible controverted in the 'Liberator,' else why
+such disquietude of mind? 'Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel
+just.'"
+
+In answer to this Mrs. Stowe writes:--
+
+I did not reply to your letter immediately, because I did not wish to
+speak on so important a subject unadvisedly, or without proper thought
+and reflection. The greater the interest involved in a truth the more
+careful, self-distrustful, and patient should be the inquiry.
+
+I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a
+better one to put in its place, because, such as it is, it is better
+than nothing. I notice in Mr. Parker's sermons a very eloquent passage
+on the uses and influences of the Bible. He considers it to embody
+absolute and perfect religion, and that no better mode for securing
+present and eternal happiness can be found than in the obedience to
+certain religious precepts therein recorded. He would have it read and
+circulated, and considers it, as I infer, a Christian duty to send it
+to the heathen, the slave, etc. I presume you agree with him.
+
+These things being supposed about the Bible would certainly make it
+appear that, if any man deems it his duty to lessen its standing in
+the eyes of the community, he ought at least to do so in a cautious
+and reverential spirit, with humility and prayer.
+
+My objection to the mode in which these things are handled in the
+"Liberator" is that the general tone and spirit seem to me the reverse
+of this. If your paper circulated only among those of disciplined and
+cultivated minds, skilled to separate truth from falsehood, knowing
+where to go for evidence and how to satisfy the doubts you raise, I
+should feel less regret. But your name and benevolent labors have
+given your paper a circulation among the poor and lowly. They have no
+means of investigating, no habits of reasoning. The Bible, as they at
+present understand it, is doing them great good, and is a blessing to
+them and their families. The whole tendency of your mode of proceeding
+is to lessen their respect and reverence for the Bible, without giving
+them anything in its place.
+
+I have no fear of discussion as to its final results on the Bible; my
+only regrets are for those human beings whose present and immortal
+interests I think compromised by this manner of discussion. Discussion
+of the evidence of the authenticity and inspiration of the Bible and
+of all theology will come more and more, and I rejoice that they will.
+But I think they must come, as all successful inquiries into truth
+must, in a calm, thoughtful, and humble spirit; not with bold
+assertions, hasty generalizations, or passionate appeals.
+
+I appreciate your good qualities none the less though you differ with
+me on this point. I believe you to be honest and sincere. In Mr.
+Parker's works I have found much to increase my respect and esteem for
+him as a man. He comes to results, it is true, to which it would be
+death and utter despair for me to arrive at. Did I believe as he does
+about the Bible and Jesus, I were of all creatures most miserable,
+because I could not love God. I could find no God to love. I would far
+rather never have been born.
+
+As to you, my dear friend, you must own that my frankness to you is
+the best expression of my confidence in your honor and nobleness. Did
+I not believe that "an excellent spirit" is in you, I would not take
+the trouble to write all this. If in any points in this note I appear
+to have misapprehended or done you injustice, I hope you will candidly
+let me know where and how.
+
+Truly your friend,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+[Illustration: Lyman Beecher]
+
+In addition to these letters the following extracts from a subsequent
+letter to Mr. Garrison are given to show in what respect their fields
+of labor differed, and to present an idea of what Mrs. Stowe was doing
+for the cause of freedom besides writing against slavery:--
+
+ANDOVER, MASS., _February_ 18,1854.
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--I see and sincerely rejoice in the result of your
+lecture in New York. I am increasingly anxious that all who hate
+slavery be united, if not in form, at least in fact,--a unity in
+difference. _Our_ field lies in the church, and as yet I differ
+from you as to what may be done and hoped there. Brother Edward
+(Beecher) has written a sermon that goes to the very root of the
+decline of moral feeling in the church. As soon as it can be got ready
+for the press I shall have it printed, and shall send a copy to every
+minister in the country.
+
+Our lectures have been somewhat embarrassed by a pressure of new
+business brought upon us by the urgency of the Kansas-Nebraska
+question. Since we began, however, brother Edward has devoted his
+whole time to visiting, consultation, and efforts the result of which
+will shortly be given to the public. We are trying to secure a
+universal arousing of the pulpit.
+
+Dr. Bacon's letter is noble. You must think so. It has been sent to
+every member of Congress. Dr. Kirk's sermon is an advance, and his
+congregation warmly seconded it. Now, my good friend, be willing to
+see that the church is better than you have thought it. Be not
+unwilling to see some good symptoms, and hope that even those who see
+not at all at first will gain as they go on. I am acting on the
+conviction that you love the cause better than self. If anything can
+be done now advantageously by the aid of money, let me know. God has
+given me some power in this way, though I am too feeble to do much
+otherwise.
+
+Yours for the cause,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+Although the demand was very great upon Mrs. Stowe for magazine and
+newspaper articles, many of which she managed to write in 1854-55, she
+had in her mind at this time a new book which should be in many
+respects the complement of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In preparing her Key
+to the latter work, she had collected much new material. In 1855,
+therefore, and during the spring of 1856, she found time to weave
+these hitherto unused facts into the story of "Dred." In her preface
+to the English edition of this book she writes:--
+
+"The author's object in this book is to show the general effect of
+slavery on society; the various social disadvantages which it brings,
+even to its most favored advocates; the shiftlessness and misery and
+backward tendency of all the economical arrangements of slave States;
+the retrograding of good families into poverty; the deterioration of
+land; the worse demoralization of all classes, from the aristocratic,
+tyrannical planter to the oppressed and poor white, which is the
+result of the introduction of slave labor.
+
+"It is also an object to display the corruption of Christianity which
+arises from the same source; a corruption that has gradually lowered
+the standard of the church, North and South, and been productive of
+more infidelity than the works of all the encyclopaedists put
+together."
+
+The story of "Dred" was suggested by the famous negro insurrection,
+led by Nat Turner, in Eastern Virginia in 1831. In this affair one of
+the principal participators was named "Dred." An interesting incident
+connected with the writing of "Dred" is vividly remembered by Mrs.
+Stowe's daughters.
+
+One sultry summer night there arose a terrific thunder-storm, with
+continuous flashes of lightning and incessant rumbling and muttering
+of thunder, every now and then breaking out into sharp, crashing
+reports followed by torrents of rain.
+
+The two young girls, trembling with fear, groped their way down-stairs
+to their mother's room, and on entering found her lying quietly in bed
+awake, and calmly watching the storm from the windows, the shades
+being up. She expressed no surprise on seeing them, but said that she
+had not been herself in the least frightened, though intensely
+interested in watching the storm. "I have been writing a description
+of a thunder-storm for my book, and I am watching to see if I need to
+correct it in any particular." Our readers will be interested to know
+that she had so well described a storm from memory that even this
+vivid object-lesson brought with it no new suggestions. This scene is
+to be found in the twenty-fourth chapter of "Dred,"--"Life in the
+Swamps."
+
+"The day had been sultry and it was now an hour or two past midnight,
+when a thunder-storm, which had long been gathering and muttering in
+the distant sky, began to develop its forces. A low, shivering sigh
+crept through the woods, and swayed in weird whistlings the tops of
+the pines; and sharp arrows of lightning came glittering down among
+the branches, as if sent from the bow of some warlike angel. An army
+of heavy clouds swept in a moment across the moon; then came a broad,
+dazzling, blinding sheet of flame."
+
+What particularly impressed Mrs. Stowe's daughters at the time was
+their mother's perfect calmness, and the minute study of the storm.
+She was on the alert to detect anything which might lead her to
+correct her description.
+
+Of this new story Charles Summer wrote from the senate chamber:--
+
+MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I am rejoiced to learn, from your excellent
+sister here, that you are occupied with another tale exposing slavery.
+I feel that it will act directly upon pending questions, and help us
+in our struggle for Kansas, and also to overthrow the slave-oligarchy
+in the coming Presidential election. We need your help at once in our
+struggle.
+
+Ever sincerely yours,
+
+CHARLES SUMNER.
+
+Having finished this second great story of slavery, in the early
+summer of 1856 Mrs. Stowe decided to visit Europe again, in search of
+a much-needed rest. She also found it necessary to do so in order to
+secure the English right to her book, which she had failed to do on
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+Just before sailing she received the following touching letter from
+her life-long friend, Georgiana May. It is the last one of a series
+that extended without interruption over a period of thirty years, and
+as such has been carefully cherished:--
+
+OCEAN HOUSE, GROTON POINT, _July_ 26, 1856.
+
+DEAR HATTIE,--Very likely it is too late for me to come with my modest
+knock to your study door, and ask to be taken in for a moment, but I
+do so want to _bless_ you before you go, and I have not been well
+enough to write until to-day. It seems just as if I _could_ not
+let you go till I have seen once more your face in the flesh, for
+great uncertainties hang over my future. One thing, however, is
+certain: whichever of us two gets first to the farther shore of the
+great ocean between us and the unseen will be pretty sure to be at
+hand to welcome the other. It is not poetry, but solemn verity between
+us that we _shall_ meet again.
+
+But there is nothing _morbid_ or _morbific_ going into these
+few lines. I have made "Old Tiff's" acquaintance. _He_ is a
+verity,--will stand up with Uncle Tom and Topsy, pieces of negro
+property you will be guilty of holding after you are dead. Very likely
+your children may be selling them.
+
+Hattie, I rejoice over this completed work. Another work for God and
+your generation. I am glad that you have come out of it alive, that
+you have pleasure in prospect, that you "walk at liberty" and have
+done with "fits of languishing." Perhaps some day I shall be set free,
+but the prospect does not look promising, except as I have full faith
+that "the Good Man above is looking on, and will bring it all round
+right." Still "heart and flesh" both "fail me." He will be the
+"strength of my heart," and I never seem to doubt "my portion
+forever."
+
+If I never speak to you again, this is the farewell utterance.
+
+Yours truly,
+
+GEORGIANA.
+
+Mrs. Stowe was accompanied on this second trip to Europe by her
+husband, her two eldest daughters, her son Henry, and her sister Mary
+(Mrs. Perkins). It was a pleasant summer voyage, and was safely
+accomplished without special incident.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+DRED, 1856.
+
+
+SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND.--A GLIMPSE AT THE QUEEN.--THE DUKE OF ARGYLL
+AND INVERARY.--EARLY CORRESPONDENCE WITH LADY BYRON.--DUNROBIN CASTLE
+AND ITS INMATES.--A VISIT TO STOKE PARK.--LORD DUFFERIN.--CHARLES
+KINGSLEY AT HOME.--PARIS REVISITED.--MADAME MOHL'S RECEPTIONS.
+
+After reaching England, about the middle of August, 1856, Mrs. Stowe
+and her husband spent some days in London completing arrangements to
+have an English edition of "Dred" published by Sampson Low & Co.
+Professor Stowe's duties in America being very pressing, he had
+intended returning at once, but was detained for a short time, as will
+be seen in the following letter written by him from Glasgow, August
+29, to a friend in America:--
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--I finished my business in London on Wednesday, and
+intended to return by the Liverpool steamer of to-morrow, but find
+that every berth on that line is engaged until the 3d of October. We
+therefore came here yesterday, and I shall take passage in the steamer
+New York from this port next Tuesday. We have received a special
+invitation to visit Inverary Castle, the seat of the Duke of Argyll,
+and yesterday we had just the very pleasantest little interview with
+the Queen that ever was. None of the formal, drawing-room, breathless
+receptions, but just an accidental, done-on-purpose meeting at a
+railway station, while on our way to Scotland.
+
+The Queen seemed really delighted to see my wife, and remarkably glad
+to see me for her sake. She pointed us out to Prince Albert, who made
+two most gracious bows to my wife and two to me, while the four royal
+children stared their big blue eyes almost out looking at the little
+authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Colonel Grey handed the Queen, with
+my wife's compliments, a copy of the new book ("Dred"). She took one
+volume herself and handed the other to Prince Albert, and they were
+soon both very busy reading. She is a real nice little body with
+exceedingly pleasant, kindly manners.
+
+I expect to be in Natick the last week in September. God bless you
+all.
+
+C. E. STOWE.
+
+After her husband's departure for the United States, Mrs. Stowe, with
+her son Henry, her two eldest daughters, and her sister Mary (Mrs.
+Perkins), accepted the Duke of Argyll's invitation to visit the
+Highlands. Of this visit we catch a pleasant glimpse from a letter
+written to Professor Stowe during its continuance, which is as
+follows:--
+
+INVERARY CASTLE, _September_ 6, 1856.
+
+MY DEAR HUSBAND,--We have been now a week in this delicious place,
+enjoying the finest skies and scenery, the utmost of kind hospitality.
+From Loch Goil we took the coach for Inverary, a beautiful drive of
+about two hours. We had seats on the outside, and the driver John,
+like some of the White Mountain guides, was full of song and story,
+and local tradition. He spoke Scotch and Gaelic, recited ballads, and
+sung songs with great gusto. Mary and the girls stopped in a little
+inn at St. Catherine's, on the shores of Loch Fine, while Henry and I
+took steamboat for Inverary, where we found the duchess waiting in a
+carriage for us, with Lady Emma Campbell. . . .
+
+The common routine of the day here is as follows: We rise about half
+past eight. About half past nine we all meet in the dining-hall, where
+the servants are standing in a line down one side, and a row of chairs
+for guests and visitors occupies the other. The duchess with her nine
+children, a perfectly beautiful little flock, sit together. The duke
+reads the Bible and a prayer, and pronounces the benediction. After
+that, breakfast is served,--a very hearty, informal, cheerful meal,--
+and after that come walks, or drives, or fishing parties, till lunch
+time, and then more drives, or anything else: everybody, in short,
+doing what he likes till half past seven, which is the dinner hour.
+After that we have coffee and tea in the evening.
+
+The first morning, the duke took me to see his mine of nickel silver.
+We had a long and beautiful drive, and talked about everything in
+literature, religion, morals, and the temperance movement, about which
+last he is in some state of doubt and uncertainty, not inclining, I
+think, to have it pressed yet, though feeling there is need of doing
+something.
+
+If "Dred" has as good a sale in America as it is likely to have in
+England, we shall do well. There is such a demand that they had to
+placard the shop windows in Glasgow with,--
+
+ "To prevent disappointment,
+ 'Dred'
+ Not to be had till," etc.
+
+ Everybody is after it, and the prospect is of an enormous sale.
+
+God, to whom I prayed night and day while I was writing the book, has
+heard me, and given us of worldly goods _more_ than I asked. I
+feel, therefore, a desire to "walk softly," and inquire, for what has
+He so trusted us?
+
+Every day I am more charmed with the duke and duchess; they are
+simple-hearted, frank, natural, full of feeling, of piety, and good
+sense. They certainly are, apart from any considerations of rank or
+position, most interesting and noble people. The duke laughed heartily
+at many things I told him of our Andover theological tactics, of your
+preaching, etc.; but I think he is a sincere, earnest Christian.
+
+Our American politics form the daily topic of interest. The late
+movements in Congress are discussed: with great warmth, and every
+morning the papers are watched for new details.
+
+I must stop now, as it is late and we are to leave here early to-
+morrow morning. We are going to Staffa, lona, the Pass of Glencoe, and
+finally through the Caledonian Canal up to Dunrobin Castle, where a
+large party of all sorts of interesting people are gathered around the
+Duchess of Sutherland.
+
+Affectionately yours,
+
+HARRIET.
+
+From Dunrobin Castle one of his daughters writes to Professor Stowe:
+"We spent five most delightful days at Inverary, and were so sorry you
+could not be there with us. From there we went to Oban, and spent
+several days sight-seeing, finally reaching Inverness by way of the
+Caledonian Canal. Here, to our surprise, we found our rooms at the
+hotel all prepared for us. The next morning we left by post for
+Dunrobin, which is fifty-nine miles from Inverness. At the borders of
+the duke's estate we found a delightfully comfortable carriage
+awaiting us, and before we had gone much farther the postilion
+announced that the duchess was coming to meet us. Sure enough, as we
+looked up the road we saw a fine cavalcade approaching. It consisted
+of a splendid coach-and-four (in which sat the duchess) with liveried
+postilions, and a number of outriders, one of whom rode in front to
+clear the way. The duchess seemed perfectly delighted to see mamma,
+and taking her into her own carriage dashed off towards the castle, we
+following on behind."
+
+At Dunrobin Mrs. Stowe found awaiting her the following note from her
+friend, Lady Byron:--
+
+LONDON, _September_ 10, 1856.
+
+Your book, dear Mrs. Stowe, is of the "little leaven" kind, and must
+prove a great moral force,--perhaps not manifestly so much as
+secretly, and yet I can hardly conceive so much power without
+immediate and sensible effects; only there will be a strong
+disposition to resist on the part of all the hollow-hearted professors
+of religion, whose heathenisms you so unsparingly expose. They have a
+class feeling like others. To the young, and to those who do not
+reflect much on what is offered to their belief, you will do great
+good by showing how spiritual food is adulterated. The Bread from
+Heaven is in the same case as baker's bread. I feel that one perusal
+is not enough. It is a "mine," to use your own simile. If there is
+truth in what I heard Lord Byron say, that works of fiction
+_lived_ only by the amount of _truth_ which they contained,
+your story is sure of long life. . . .
+
+I know now, more than before, how to value communion with you.
+
+With kind regards to your family,
+
+Yours affectionately,
+
+A. T. NOEL BYRON.
+
+From this pleasant abiding-place Mrs. Stowe writes to her husband:--
+
+DUNROBIN CASTLE, _September_ 15, 1856.
+
+MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Everything here is like a fairy story. The place is
+beautiful! It is the most perfect combination of architectural and
+poetic romance, with home comfort. The people, too, are charming. We
+have here Mr. Labouchere, a cabinet minister, and Lady Mary his wife,--
+I like him very much, and her, too,--Kingsley's brother, a very
+entertaining man, and to-morrow Lord Ellsmere is expected. I wish you
+could be here, for I am sure you would like it. Life is so quiet and
+sincere and friendly, that you would feel more as if you had come at
+the hearts of these people than in London.
+
+The Sutherland estate looks like a garden. We stopped at the town of
+Frain, four miles before we reached Sutherlandshire, where a crowd of
+well-to-do, nice-looking people gathered around the carriage, and as
+we drove off gave three cheers. This was better than I expected, and
+looks well for their opinion of my views.
+
+"Dred" is selling over here wonderfully. Low says, with all the means
+at his command, he has not been able to meet the demand. He sold fifty
+thousand in two weeks, and probably will sell as many more.
+
+I am showered with letters, private and printed, in which the only
+difficulty is to know what the writers would be at. I see evidently
+happiness and prosperity all through the line of this estate. I see
+the duke giving his thought and time, and spending the whole income of
+this estate in improvements upon it. I see the duke and duchess
+evidently beloved wherever they move. I see them most amiable, most
+Christian, most considerate to everybody. The writers of the letters
+admit the goodness of the duke, but denounce the system, and beg me to
+observe its effects for myself. I do observe that, compared with any
+other part of the Highlands, Sutherland is a garden. I observe well-
+clothed people, thriving lands, healthy children, fine school-houses,
+and all that.
+
+Henry was invited to the tenants' dinner, where he excited much
+amusement by pledging every toast in fair water, as he has done
+invariably on all occasions since he has been here.
+
+The duchess, last night, showed me her copy of "Dred," in which she
+has marked what most struck or pleased her. I begged it, and am going
+to send it to you. She said to me this morning at breakfast, "The
+Queen says that she began 'Dred' the very minute she got it, and is
+deeply interested in it."
+
+She bought a copy of Lowell's poems, and begged me to mark the best
+ones for her; so if you see him, tell him that we have been reading
+him together. She is, taking her all in all, one of the noblest-
+appointed women I ever saw; real old, genuine English, such as one
+reads of in history; full of nobility, courage, tenderness, and zeal.
+It does me good to hear her read prayers daily, as she does, in the
+midst of her servants and guests, with a manner full of grand and
+noble feeling.
+
+_Thursday Morning, September 25_. We were obliged to get up at
+half past five the morning we left Dunrobin, an effort when one
+doesn't go to bed till one o'clock. We found breakfast laid for us in
+the library, and before we had quite finished the duchess came in. Our
+starting off was quite an imposing sight. First came the duke's
+landau, in which were Mary, the duke, and myself; then a carriage in
+which were Eliza and Hatty, and finally the carriage which we had
+hired, with Henry, our baggage, and Mr. Jackson (the duke's
+secretary). The gardener sent a fresh bouquet for each of us, and
+there was such a leave-taking, as if we were old and dear friends. We
+did really love them, and had no doubt of their love for us.
+
+The duke rode with us as far as Dornach, where he showed us the
+cathedral beneath which his ancestors are buried, and where is a
+statue of his father, similar to one the tenants have erected on top
+of the highest hill in the neighborhood.
+
+We also saw the prison, which had but two inmates, and the old castle.
+Here the duke took leave of us, and taking our own carriage we crossed
+the ferry and continued on our way. After a very bad night's rest at
+Inverness, in consequence of the town's being so full of people
+attending some Highland games that we could have no places at the
+hotel, and after a weary ride in the rain, we came into Aberdeen
+Friday night.
+
+To-morrow we go on to Edinburgh, where I hope to meet a letter from
+you. The last I heard from Low, he had sold sixty thousand of "Dred,"
+and it was still selling well. I have not yet heard from America how
+it goes. The critics scold, and whiffle, and dispute about it, but on
+the whole it is a success, so the "Times" says, with much coughing,
+hemming, and standing first on one foot and then on the other. If the
+"Times" were sure we should beat in the next election, "Dred" would go
+up in the scale; but as long as there is that uncertainty, it has
+first one line of praise, and then one of blame.
+
+Henry Stowe returned to America in October to enter Dartmouth College,
+while the rest of the party pursued their way southward, as will be
+seen by the following letters:--
+
+CITY OF YORK, _October_ 10, 1856.
+
+DEAR HUSBAND,--Henry will tell you all about our journey, and at
+present I have but little time for details. I received your first
+letter with great joy, relief, and gratitude, first to God for
+restoring your health and strength, and then to you for so good, long,
+and refreshing a letter.
+
+Henry, I hope, comes home with a serious determination to do well and
+be a comfort. Seldom has a young man seen what he has in this journey,
+or made more valuable friends.
+
+Since we left Aberdeen, from which place my last was mailed, we have
+visited in Edinburgh with abounding delight; thence yesterday to
+Newcastle. Last night attended service in Durham Cathedral, and after
+that came to York, whence we send Henry to Liverpool.
+
+I send you letters, etc., by him. One hundred thousand copies of
+"Dred." sold in four weeks! After that who cares what critics say? Its
+success in England has been complete, so far as sale is concerned. It
+is very bitterly attacked, both from a literary and a religious point
+of view. The "Record" is down upon it with a cartload of solemnity;
+the "Athenaeum" with waspish spite; the "Edinburgh" goes out of its
+way to say that the author knows nothing of the society she describes;
+but yet it goes everywhere, is read everywhere, and Mr. Low says that
+he puts the hundred and twenty-fifth thousand to press confidently.
+The fact that so many good judges like it better than "Uncle Tom" is
+success enough.
+
+In my journal to Henry, which you may look for next week, you will
+learn how I have been very near the Queen, and formed acquaintance
+with divers of her lords and ladies, and heard all she has said about
+"Dred;" how she prefers it to "Uncle Tom," how she inquired for you,
+and other matters.
+
+Till then, I am, as ever, your affectionate wife,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+After leaving York, Mrs. Stowe and her party spent a day or two at
+Carlton Rectory, on the edge of Sherwood Forest, in which they enjoyed
+a most delightful picnic. From there they were to travel to London by
+way of Warwick and Oxford, and of this journey Mrs. Stowe writes as
+follows to her son Henry:--
+
+"The next morning we were induced to send our things to London, being
+assured by Mr. G. that he would dispatch them immediately with some
+things of his own that were going, and that they should certainly
+await us upon our arrival. In one respect it was well for us that we
+thus rid ourselves of the trouble of looking after them, for I never
+saw such blind, confusing arrangements as these English railroads
+have.
+
+"When we were set down at the place where we were to change for
+Warwick, we were informed that probably the train had gone. At any
+rate it could only be found on the other side of the station. You
+might naturally think we had nothing to do but walk across to the
+other side. No, indeed! We had to ascend a flight of stairs, go
+through a sort of tubular bridge, and down another pair of stairs.
+When we got there the guard said the train was just about to start,
+and yet the ticket office was closed. We tried the door in vain. 'You
+must hurry,' said the guard. 'How can we?' said I, 'when we can't get
+tickets.' He went and thumped, and at last roused the dormant
+intelligence inside. We got our tickets, ran for dear life, got in,
+and then _waited ten minutes_! Arrived at Warwick we had a very
+charming time, and after seeing all there was to see we took cars for
+Oxford.
+
+"The next day we tried to see Oxford. You can have no idea of it. Call
+it a college! it is a city, of colleges,--a mountain of museums,
+colleges, halls, courts, parks, chapels, lecture-rooms. Out of twenty-
+four colleges we saw only three. We saw enough, however, to show us
+that to explore the colleges of Oxford would take a week. Then we came
+away, and about eleven o'clock at night found ourselves in London. It
+was dripping and raining here, for all the world, just as it did when
+we left; but we found a cosy little parlor, papered with cheerful
+crimson paper, lighted by a coal-fire, a neat little supper laid out,
+and the Misses Low waiting for us. Wasn't it nice?
+
+"We are expecting our baggage to-night. Called at Sampson Low's store
+to-day and found it full everywhere of red 'Dreds.'"
+
+Upon reaching London Mrs. Stowe found the following note from Lady
+Byron awaiting her:--
+
+OXFORD HOUSE, _October_ 15, 1856.
+
+DEAR MRS. STOWE,--The newspapers represent you as returning to London,
+but I cannot wait for the chance, slender I fear, of seeing you there,
+for I wish to consult you on a point admitting but of little delay.
+Feeling that the sufferers in Kansas have a claim not only to
+sympathy, but to the expression of it, I wish to send them a donation.
+It is, however, necessary to know what is the best application of
+money and what the safest channel. Presuming that you will approve the
+object, I ask you to tell me. Perhaps you would undertake the
+transmission of my Ł50. My present residence, two miles beyond
+Richmond, is opposite. I have watched for instructions of your course
+with warm interest. The sale of your book will go on increasing. It is
+beginning to be understood.
+
+Believe me, with kind regards to your daughters,
+
+Your faithful and affectionate
+
+A. T. NOEL BYRON.
+
+To this note the following answer was promptly returned:--
+
+GROVE TERRACE, KENTISH TOWN, _October_ 16,1856.
+
+DEAR LADY BYRON,--How glad I was to see your handwriting once more!
+how more than glad I should be to see _you_! I do long to see
+you. I have so much to say,--so much to ask, and need to be refreshed
+with a sense of a congenial and sympathetic soul.
+
+Thank you, my dear friend, for your sympathy with our poor sufferers
+in Kansas. May God bless you for it! By doing this you will step to my
+side; perhaps you may share something of that abuse which they who
+"know, not what they do" heap upon all who so feel for the right. I
+assure you, dear friend, I am _not_ insensible to the fiery darts
+which thus fly around me. . . .
+
+Direct as usual to my publishers, and believe me, as ever, with all my
+heart,
+
+Affectionately yours,
+
+H. B. S.
+
+Having dispatched this note, Mrs. Stowe wrote to her husband
+concerning their surroundings and plans as follows:--
+
+"_Friday, 16th_. Confusion in the camp! no baggage come, nobody
+knows why; running to stations, inquiries, messages, and no baggage.
+Meanwhile we have not even a clean collar, nothing but very soiled
+traveling dresses; while Lady Mary Labouchere writes that her carriage
+will wait for us at Slough Station this afternoon, and we must be off
+at two. What's to be done? Luckily I did not carry all my dresses to
+Dunrobin; so I, of all the party, have a dress that can be worn. We go
+out and buy collars and handkerchiefs, and two o'clock beholds us at
+the station house.
+
+"_Stoke Park_. I arrived here alone, the baggage not having yet
+been heard from. Mr. G., being found in London, confessed that he
+delayed sending it by the proper train. In short, Mr. G. is what is
+called an easy man, and one whose easiness makes everybody else un
+easy. So because he was easy and thought it was no great matter, and
+things would turn out well enough, without any great care, _we_
+have had all this discomfort.
+
+"I arrived alone at the Slough Station and found Lady Mary's carriage
+waiting. Away we drove through a beautiful park full of deer, who were
+so tame as to stand and look at us as we passed. The house is in the
+Italian style, with a dome on top, and wide terraces with stone
+balustrades around it.
+
+"Lady Mary met me at the door, and seemed quite concerned to learn of
+our ill-fortune. We went through a splendid suite of rooms to a
+drawing-room, where a little tea-table was standing.
+
+"After tea Lady Mary showed me my room. It had that delightful,
+homelike air of repose and comfort they succeed so well in giving to
+rooms here. There was a cheerful fire burning, an arm-chair drawn up
+beside it, a sofa on the other side with a neatly arranged sofa-table
+on which were writing materials. One of the little girls had put a pot
+of pretty greenhouse moss in a silver basket on this table, and my
+toilet cushion was made with a place in the centre to hold a little
+vase of flowers. Here Lady Mary left me to rest before dressing for
+dinner. I sat down in an easy-chair before the fire, and formed
+hospitable resolutions as to how I would try to make rooms always look
+homelike and pleasant to tired guests. Then came the maid to know if I
+wanted hot water,--if I wanted anything,--and by and by it was time
+for dinner. Going down into the parlor I met Mr. Labouchere and we all
+went in to dinner. It was not quite as large a party as at Dunrobin,
+but much in the same way. No company, but several ladies who were all
+family connections.
+
+"The following morning Lord Dufferin and Lord Alfred Paget, two
+gentlemen of the Queen's household, rode over from Windsor to lunch
+with us. They brought news of the goings-on there. Do you remember one
+night the Duchess of S. read us a letter from Lady Dufferin,
+describing the exploits of her son, who went yachting with Prince
+Napoleon up by Spitzbergen, and when Prince Napoleon and all the rest
+gave up and went back, still persevered and discovered a new island?
+Well, this was the same man. A thin, slender person, not at all the
+man you would fancy as a Mr. Great Heart,--lively, cheery, and
+conversational.
+
+"Lord Alfred is also very pleasant.
+
+"Lady Mary prevailed on Lord Dufferin to stay and drive with us after
+lunch, and we went over to Clifden, the duchess's villa, of which we
+saw the photograph at Dunrobin. For grace and beauty some of the rooms
+in this place exceed any I have yet seen in England.
+
+"When we came back my first thought was whether Aunt Mary and the
+girls had come. Just as we were all going up to dress for dinner they
+appeared. Meanwhile, the Queen had sent over from Windsor for Lady
+Mary and her husband to dine with her that evening, and such
+invitations are understood as commands.
+
+"So, although they themselves had invited four or five people to
+dinner, they had to go and leave us to entertain ourselves. Lady Mary
+was dressed very prettily in a flounced white silk dress with a
+pattern of roses woven round the bottom of each flounce, and looked
+very elegant. Mr. Labouchere wore breeches, with knee and shoe buckles
+sparkling with diamonds.
+
+"They got home soon after we had left the drawing-room, as the Queen
+always retires at eleven. No late hours for her.
+
+"The next day Lady Mary told me that the Queen had talked to her all
+about 'Dred,' and how she preferred it to 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' how
+interested she was in Nina, how provoked when she died, and how she
+was angry that something dreadful did not happen to Tom Gordon. She
+inquired for papa, and the rest of the family, all of whom she seemed
+to be well informed about.
+
+"The next morning we had Lord Dufferin again to breakfast. He is one
+of the most entertaining young men I have seen in England, full of
+real thought and noble feeling, and has a wide range of reading. He
+had read all our American literature, and was very flattering in his
+remarks on Hawthorne, Poe, and Longfellow. I find J. R. Lowell less
+known, however, than he deserves to be.
+
+"Lord Dufferin says that his mother wrote him some verses on his
+coming of age, and that he built a tower for them and inscribed them
+on a brass plate. I recommend the example to you, Henry; make yourself
+the tower and your memory the brass plate.
+
+"This morning came also, to call, Lady Augusta Bruce, Lord Elgin's
+daughter, one of the Duchess of Kent's ladies-in-waiting; a very
+excellent, sensible girl, who is a strong anti-slavery body.
+
+"After lunch we drove over to Eton, and went in to see the provost's
+house. After this, as we were passing by Windsor the coachman suddenly
+stopped and said, 'The Queen is coming, my lady.' We stood still and
+the royal cortege passed. I only saw the Queen, who bowed graciously.
+
+"Lady Mary stayed at our car door till it left the station, and handed
+in a beautiful bouquet as we parted. This is one of the loveliest
+visits I have made."
+
+After filling a number of other pleasant engagements in England, among
+which was a visit in the family of Charles Kingsley, Mrs. Stowe and
+her party crossed the Channel and settled down for some months in
+Paris for the express purpose of studying French. From the French
+capital she writes to her husband in Andover as follows:--
+
+PARIS, _November_ 7, 1856.
+
+MY DEAR HUSBAND,--On the 28th, when your last was written, I was at
+Charles Kingsley's. It seemed odd enough to Mary and me to find
+ourselves, long after dark, alone in a hack, driving towards the house
+of a man whom we never had seen (nor his wife either).
+
+My heart fluttered as, after rumbling a long way through the dark, we
+turned into a yard. We knocked at a door and were met in the hall by a
+man who stammers a little in his speech, and whose inquiry, "Is this
+Mrs. Stowe?" was our first positive introduction. Ushered into a
+large, pleasant parlor lighted by a coal fire, which flickered on
+comfortable chairs, lounges, pictures, statuettes, and book-cases, we
+took a good view of him. He is tall, slender, with blue eyes, brown
+hair, and a hale, well-browned face, and somewhat loose-jointed
+withal. His wife is a real Spanish beauty.
+
+How we did talk and go on for three days! I guess he is tired. I'm
+sure we were. He is a nervous, excitable being, and talks with head,
+shoulders, arms, and hands, while his hesitance makes it the harder.
+Of his theology I will say more some other time. He, also, has been
+through the great distress, the "Conflict of Ages," but has come out
+at a different end from Edward, and stands with John Foster, though
+with more positiveness than he.
+
+He laughed a good deal at many stories I told him of father, and
+seemed delighted to hear about him. But he is, what I did not expect,
+a zealous Churchman; insists that the Church of England is the finest
+and broadest platform a man can stand on, and that the thirty-nine
+articles are the only ones he could subscribe to. I told him you
+thought them the best summary (of doctrine) you knew, which pleased
+him greatly.
+
+Well, I got your letter to-night in Paris, at No. 19 Rue de Clichy,
+where you may as well direct your future letters.
+
+We reached Paris about eleven o'clock last night and took a carriage
+for 17 Rue de Clichy, but when we got there, no ringing or pounding
+could rouse anybody. Finally, in despair, we remembered a card that
+had been handed into the cars by some hotel-runner, and finding it was
+of an English and French hotel, we drove there, and secured very
+comfortable accommodations. We did not get to bed until after two
+o'clock. The next morning I sent a messenger to find Mme. Borione, and
+discovered that we had mistaken the number, and should have gone to
+No. 19, which was the next door; so we took a carriage and soon found
+ourselves established here, where we have a nice parlor and two
+bedrooms.
+
+There are twenty-one in the family, mostly Americans, like ourselves,
+come to learn to speak French. One of them is a tall, handsome, young
+English lady, Miss Durant, who is a sculptress, studying with Baron de
+Triqueti. She took me to his studio, and he immediately remarked that
+she ought to get me to sit. I said I would, "only my French lessons."
+"Oh," said he, smiling, "we will give you French lessons while you
+sit." So I go to-morrow morning.
+
+As usual, my horrid pictures do me a service, and people seem relieved
+when they see me; think me even handsome "in a manner." Kingsley, in
+his relief, expressed as much to his wife, and as beauty has never
+been one of my strong points I am open to flattery upon it.
+
+We had a most agreeable call from Arthur Helps before we left London.
+He, Kingsley, and all the good people are full of the deepest anxiety
+for our American affairs. They really do feel very deeply, seeing the
+peril so much plainer than we do in America.
+
+_Sunday night_. I fear I have delayed your letter too long. The
+fact is, that of the ten days I have been here I have been laid up
+three with severe neuralgia, viz., _toothache in the backbone_,
+and since then have sat all day to be modeled for my bust.
+
+We spent the other evening with Baron de Triqueti, the sculptor. He
+has an English wife, and a charming daughter about the age of our
+girls. Life in Paris is altogether more simple and natural than in
+England. They give you a plate of cake and a cup of tea in the most
+informal, social way,--the tea-kettle sings at the fire, and the son
+and daughter busy themselves gayly together making and handing tea.
+When tea was over, M. de Triqueti showed us a manuscript copy of the
+Gospels, written by his mother, to console herself in a season of
+great ill-health, and which he had illustrated all along with
+exquisite pen-drawings, resembling the most perfect line engravings. I
+can't describe the beauty, grace, delicacy, and fullness of devotional
+feeling in these people. He is one of the loveliest men I ever saw.
+
+We have already three evenings in the week in which we can visit and
+meet friends if we choose, namely, at Madame Mohl's, Madame Lanziel's,
+and Madame Belloc's. All these salôns are informal, social gatherings,
+with no fuss of refreshments, no nonsense of any kind. Just the
+cheeriest, heartiest, kindest little receptions you ever saw.
+
+A kiss to dear little Charley. If he could see all the things that I
+see every day in the Tuileries and Champs Elysées, he would go wild.
+All Paris is a general whirligig out of doors, but indoors people seem
+steady, quiet, and sober as anybody.
+
+_November_ 30. This is Sunday evening, and a Sunday in Paris
+always puts me in mind of your story about somebody who said, "Bless
+you! they make such a noise that the Devil couldn't meditate." All the
+extra work and odd jobs of life are put into Sunday. Your washerwoman
+comes Sunday, with her innocent, good-humored face, and would be
+infinitely at a loss to know why she shouldn't. Your bonnet, cloak,
+shoes, and everything are sent home Sunday morning, and all the way to
+church there is such whirligiging and pirouetting along the boulevards
+as almost takes one's breath away. Today we went to the Oratoire to
+hear M. Grand Pierre. I could not understand much; my French ear is
+not quick enough to follow. I could only perceive that the subject was
+"La Charité," and that the speaker was fluent, graceful, and earnest,
+the audience serious and attentive.
+
+Last night we were at Baron de Triqueti's again, with a party invited
+to celebrate the birthday of their eldest daughter, Blanche, a lovely
+girl of nineteen. There were some good ladies there who had come
+eighty leagues to meet me, and who were so delighted with my miserable
+French that it was quite encouraging. I believe I am getting over the
+sandbar at last, and conversation is beginning to come easy to me.
+
+There were three French gentlemen who had just been reading "Dred" in
+English, and who were as excited and full of it as could be, and I
+talked with them to a degree that astonished myself. There is a review
+of "Dred" in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" which has long extracts from
+the book, and is written in a very appreciative and favorable spirit.
+Generally speaking, French critics seem to have a finer appreciation
+of my subtle shades of meaning than English. I am curious to hear what
+Professor Park has to say about it. There has been another review in
+"La Presse" equally favorable. All seem to see the truth about
+American slavery much plainer than people can who are in it. If
+American ministers and Christians could see through their sophistical
+spider-webs, with what wonder, pity, and contempt they would regard
+their own vacillating condition!
+
+We visit once a week at Madame Mohl's, where we meet all sorts of
+agreeable people. Lady Elgin doesn't go into society now, having been
+struck with paralysis, but sits at home and receives her friends as
+usual. This notion of sitting always in the open air is one of her
+peculiarities.
+
+I must say, life in Paris is arranged more sensibly than with us.
+Visiting involves no trouble in the feeding line. People don't go to
+eat. A cup of tea and plate of biscuit is all,--just enough to break
+up the stiffness.
+
+It is wonderful that the people here do not seem to have got over
+"Uncle Tom" a bit. The impression seems fresh as if just published.
+How often have they said, That book has revived the Gospel among the
+poor of France; it has done more than all the books we have published
+put together. It has gone among the _les ouvriers_, among the
+poor of Faubourg St. Antoine, and nobody knows how many have been led
+to Christ by it. Is not this blessed, my dear husband? Is it not worth
+all the suffering of writing it?
+
+I went the other evening to M. Grand Pierre's, where there were three
+rooms full of people, all as eager and loving as ever we met in
+England or Scotland. Oh, if Christians in Boston could only see the
+earnestness of feeling with which Christians here regard slavery, and
+their surprise and horror at the lukewarmness, to say the least, of
+our American church! About eleven o'clock we all joined in singing a
+hymn, then M. Grand Pierre made an address, in which I was named in
+the most affectionate and cordial manner. Then followed a beautiful
+prayer for our country, for America, on which hang so many of the
+hopes of Protestantism. One and all then came up, and there was great
+shaking of hands and much effusion.
+
+Under date of December 28, Mrs. Perkins writes: "On Sunday we went
+with Mr. and Mrs. (Jacob) Abbott to the Hôtel des Invalides, and I
+think I was never more interested and affected. Three or four thousand
+old and disabled soldiers have here a beautiful and comfortable home.
+We went to the morning service. The church is very large, and the
+colors taken in battle are hung on the walls. Some of them are so old
+as to be moth-eaten. The service is performed, as near as possible, in
+imitation of the service before a battle. The drum beats the call to
+assemble, and the common soldiers march up and station themselves in
+the centre of the church, under the commander. All the services are
+regulated by the beat of the drum. Only one priest officiates, and
+soldiers are stationed around to protect him. The music is from a
+brass band, and is very magnificent.
+
+"In the afternoon I went to vespers in the Madeleine, where the music
+was exquisite. They have two fine organs at opposite ends of the
+church. The 'Adeste Fidelis' was sung by a single voice, accompanied
+by the organ, and after every verse it was taken up by male voices and
+the other organ and repeated. The effect was wonderfully fine. I have
+always found in our small churches at home that the organ was too
+powerful and pained my head, but in these large cathedrals the effect
+is different. The volume of sound rolls over, full but soft, and I
+feel as though it must come from another sphere.
+
+"In the evening Mr. and Mrs. Bunsen called. He is a son of Chevalier
+Bunsen, and she a niece of Elizabeth Fry,--very intelligent and
+agreeable people."
+
+Under date of January 25, Mrs. Stowe writes from Paris:--"Here is a
+story for Charley. The boys in the Faubourg St. Antoine are the
+children of _ouvriers_, and every day their mothers give them two
+sous to buy a dinner. When they heard I was coming to the school, of
+their own accord they subscribed half their dinner money to give to me
+for the poor slaves. This five-franc piece I have now; I have bought
+it of the cause for five dollars, and am going to make a hole in it
+and hang it round Charley's neck as a medal.
+
+"I have just completed arrangements for leaving the girls at a
+Protestant boarding-school while I go to Rome.
+
+"We expect to start the 1st of February, and my direction will be, E.
+Bartholimeu, 108 Via Margaretta."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+OLD SCENES REVISITED, 1856.
+
+
+EN ROUTE TO ROME.--TRIALS OF TRAVEL.--A MIDNIGHT ARRIVAL AND AN
+INHOSPITABLE RECEPTION.--GLORIES OP THE ETERNAL CITY.--NAPLES AND
+VESUVIUS.--VENICE.--HOLY WEEK IN ROME.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--LETTER
+FROM HARRIET MARTINEAU ON "DRED."--A WORD FROM MR. PRESCOTT ON
+"DRED."--FAREWELL TO LADY BYRON.
+
+After leaving Paris Mrs. Stowe and her sister, Mrs. Perkins, traveled
+leisurely through the South of France toward Italy, stopping at
+Amiens, Lyons, and Marseilles. At this place they took steamer for
+Genoa, Leghorn, and Civita Vecchia. During their last night on
+shipboard they met with an accident, of which, and their subsequent
+trials in reaching Rome, Mrs. Stowe writes as follows:--
+
+About eleven o'clock, as I had just tranquilly laid down in my berth,
+I was roused by a grating crash, accompanied by a shock that shook the
+whole ship, and followed by the sound of a general rush on deck,
+trampling, scuffling, and cries. I rushed to the door and saw all the
+gentlemen hurrying on their clothes and getting confusedly towards the
+stairway. I went back to Mary, and we put on our things in silence,
+and, as soon as we could, got into the upper saloon. It was an hour
+before we could learn anything certainly, except that we had run into
+another vessel. The fate of the Arctic came to us both, but we did not
+mention it to each other; indeed, a quieter, more silent company you
+would not often see. Had I had any confidence in the administration of
+the boat, it would have been better, but as I had not, I sat in
+momentary uncertainty. Had we then known, as we have since, the fate
+of a boat recently sunk in the Mediterranean by a similar
+carelessness, it would have increased our fears. By a singular chance
+an officer, whose wife and children were lost on board that boat, was
+on board ours, and happened to be on the forward part of the boat when
+the accident occurred. The captain and mate were both below; there was
+nobody looking out, and had not this officer himself called out to
+stop the boat, we should have struck her with such force as to have
+sunk us. As it was, we turned aside and the shock came on a paddle-
+wheel, which was broken by it, for when, after two hours' delay, we
+tried to start and had gone a little way, there was another crash and
+the paddle-wheel fell down. You may be sure we did little sleeping
+that night. It was an inexpressible desolation to think that we might
+never again see those we loved. No one knows how much one thinks, and
+how rapidly, in such hours.
+
+In the Naples boat that was sunk a short time ago, the women perished
+in a dreadful way. The shock threw the chimney directly across the
+egress from below, so that they could not get on deck, and they were
+all drowned in the cabin.
+
+We went limping along with one broken limb till the next day about
+eleven, when we reached Civita Vecchia, where there were two hours
+more of delay about passports. Then we, that is, Mary and I, and a Dr.
+Edison from Philadelphia, with his son Alfred, took a carriage to
+Rome, but they gave us a miserable thing that looked as if it had been
+made soon after the deluge. About eight o'clock at night, on a lonely
+stretch of road, the wheel came off. We got out, and our postilions
+stood silently regarding matters. None of us could speak Italian, they
+could not speak French; but the driver at last conveyed the idea that
+for five francs he could get a man to come and mend the wheel. The
+five francs were promised, and he untackled a horse and rode off. Mary
+and I walked up and down the dark, desolate road, occasionally
+reminding each other that we were on classic ground, and laughing at
+the oddity of our lonely, starlight promenade. After a while our
+driver came back, Tag, Rag, and Bobtail at his heels. I don't think I
+can do greater justice to Italian costumes than by this respectable
+form of words.
+
+Then there was another consultation. They put a bit of rotten timber
+under to pry the carriage up. Fortunately, it did not break, as we all
+expected it would, till after the wheel was on. Then a new train of
+thought was suggested. How was it to be kept on? Evidently they had
+not thought far in that direction, for they had brought neither hammer
+nor nail, nor tool of any kind, and therefore they looked first at the
+wheel, then at each other, and then at us. The doctor now produced a
+little gimlet, with the help of which the broken fragments of the
+former linchpin were pushed out, and the way was cleared for a new
+one. Then they began knocking a fence to pieces to get out nails, but
+none could be found to fit. At last another ambassador was sent back
+for nails. While we were thus waiting, the diligence, in which many of
+our ship's company were jogging on to Rome, came up. They had plenty
+of room inside, and one of the party, seeing our distress, tried hard
+to make the driver stop, but he doggedly persisted in going on, and
+declared if anybody got down to help us he would leave him behind.
+
+An interesting little episode here occurred. It was raining, and Mary
+and I proposed, as the wheel was now on, to take our seats. We had no
+sooner done so than the horses were taken with a sudden fit of
+animation and ran off with us in the most vivacious manner, Tag, Rag,
+and Co. shouting in the rear. Some heaps of stone a little in advance
+presented an interesting prospect by way of a terminus. However, the
+horses were luckily captured before the wheel was off again; and our
+ambassador being now returned, we were set right and again proceeded.
+
+I must not forget to remark that at every post where we changed horses
+and drivers, we had a pitched battle with the driver for more money
+than we had been told was the regular rate, and the carriage was
+surrounded with a perfect mob of ragged, shock-headed, black-eyed
+people, whose words all ended in "ino," and who raved and ranted at us
+till finally we paid much more than we ought, to get rid of them.
+
+At the gates of Rome the official, after looking at our passports,
+coolly told the doctor that if he had a mind to pay him five francs he
+could go in without further disturbance, but if not he would keep the
+baggage till morning. This form of statement had the recommendation of
+such precision and neatness of expression that we paid him forthwith,
+and into Rome we dashed at two o'clock in the morning of the 9th of
+February, 1857, in a drizzling rain.
+
+We drove to the Hotel d'Angleterre,--it was full,--and ditto to four
+or five others, and in the last effort our refractory wheel came off
+again, and we all got out into the street. About a dozen lean, ragged
+"corbies," who are called porters and who are always lying in wait for
+travelers, pounced upon us. They took down our baggage in a twinkling,
+and putting it all into the street surrounded it, and chattered over
+it, while M. and I stood in the rain and received first lessons in
+Italian. How we did try to say something! but they couldn't talk
+anything but in "ino" as aforesaid. The doctor finally found a man who
+could speak a word or two of French, and leaving Mary, Alfred, and me
+to keep watch over our pile of trunks, he went off with him to apply
+for lodgings. I have heard many flowery accounts of first impressions
+of Rome. I must say ours was somewhat sombre.
+
+A young man came by and addressed us in English. How cheering! We
+almost flew upon him. We begged him, at least, to lend us his Italian
+to call another carriage, and he did so. A carriage which was passing
+was luckily secured, and Mary and I, with all our store of boxes and
+little parcels, were placed in it out of the rain, at least. Here we
+sat while the doctor from time to time returned from his wanderings to
+tell us he could find no place. "Can it be," said I, "that we are to
+be obliged to spend a night in the streets?" What made it seem more
+odd was the knowledge that, could we only find them, we had friends
+enough in Rome who would be glad to entertain us. We began to
+speculate on lodgings. Who knows what we may get entrapped into?
+Alfred suggested stories he had read of beds placed on trap-doors,--of
+testers which screwed down on people and smothered them; and so, when
+at last the doctor announced lodgings found, we followed in rather an
+uncertain frame of mind.
+
+We alighted at a dirty stone passage, smelling of cats and onions,
+damp, cold, and earthy, we went up stone stairways, and at last were
+ushered into two very decent chambers, where we might lay our heads.
+The "corbies" all followed us,--black-haired, black-browed, ragged,
+and clamorous as ever. They insisted that we should pay the pretty
+little sum of twenty francs, or four dollars, for bringing our trunks
+about twenty steps. The doctor modestly but firmly declined to be thus
+imposed upon, and then ensued a general "chatteration;" one and all
+fell into attitudes, and the "inos" and "issimos" rolled freely. "For
+pity's sake get them off," we said; so we made a truce for ten francs,
+but still they clamored, forced their way even into our bedroom, and
+were only repulsed by a loud and combined volley of "No, no, noes!"
+which we all set up at once, upon which they retreated.
+
+Our hostess was a little French woman, and that reassured us. I
+examined the room, and seeing no trace of treacherous testers, or
+trap-doors, resolved to avail myself without fear of the invitation of
+a very clean, white bed, where I slept till morning without dreaming.
+
+The next day we sent our cards to M. Bartholimeu, and before we had
+finished breakfast he was on the spot. We then learned that he had
+been watching the diligence office for over a week, and that he had
+the pleasant set of apartments we are now occupying all ready and
+waiting for us.
+
+_March 1._
+
+MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Every day is opening to me a new world of wonders
+here in Italy. I have been in the Catacombs, where I was shown many
+memorials of the primitive Christians, and to-day we are going to the
+Vatican. The weather is sunny and beautiful beyond measure, and
+flowers are springing in the fields on every side. Oh, my dear, how I
+do long to have you here to enjoy what you are so much better fitted
+to appreciate than I,--this wonderful combination of the past and the
+present, of what has been and what is!
+
+Think of strolling leisurely through the Forum, of seeing the very
+stones that were laid in the time of the Republic, of rambling over
+the ruined Palace of the Cćsars, of walking under the Arch of Titus,
+of seeing the Dying Gladiator, and whole ranges of rooms filled with
+wonders of art, all in one morning! All this I did on Saturday, and
+only wanted you. You know so much more and could appreciate so much
+better. At the Palace of the Cćesars, where the very dust is a
+_mélange_ of exquisite marbles, I saw for the first time an
+acanthus growing, and picked my first leaf.
+
+Our little _ménage_ moves on prosperously; the doctor takes
+excellent care of us and we of him. One sees everybody here at Rome,
+John Bright, Mrs. Hemans' son, Mrs. Gaskell, etc., etc. Over five
+thousand English travelers are said to be here. Jacob Abbot and wife
+are coming. Rome is a world! Rome is an astonishment! Papal Rome is an
+enchantress! Old as she is, she is like Nińon d'Enelos,--the young
+fall in love with her.
+
+You will hear next from us at Naples.
+
+Affectionately yours,
+
+H. B. S.
+
+From Rome the travelers went to Naples, and after visiting Pompeii and
+Herculaneum made the ascent of Vesuvius, a graphic account of which is
+contained in a letter written at this time by Mrs. Stowe to her
+daughters in Paris. After describing the preparations and start, she
+says:--
+
+"Gradually the ascent became steeper and steeper, till at length it
+was all our horses could do to pull us up. The treatment of horses in
+Naples is a thing that takes away much from the pleasure and comfort
+of such travelers as have the least feeling for animals. The people
+seem absolutely to have no consideration for them. You often see
+vehicles drawn by one horse carrying fourteen or fifteen great, stout
+men and women. This is the worse as the streets are paved with flat
+stones which are exceedingly slippery. On going up hill the drivers
+invariably race their horses, urging them on with a constant storm of
+blows.
+
+"As the ascent of the mountain became steeper, the horses panted and
+trembled in a way that made us feel that we could not sit in the
+carriage, yet the guide and driver never made the slightest motion to
+leave the box. At last three of us got out and walked, and invited our
+guide to do the same, yet with all this relief the last part of the
+ascent was terrible, and the rascally fellows actually forced the
+horses to it by beating them with long poles on the back of their
+legs. No Englishman or American would ever allow a horse to be treated
+so.
+
+"The Hermitage is a small cabin, where one can buy a little wine or
+any other refreshment one may need. There is a species of wine made of
+the grapes of Vesuvius, called 'Lachryma Christi,' that has a great
+reputation. Here was a miscellaneous collection of beggars, ragged
+boys, men playing guitars, bawling donkey drivers, and people wanting
+to sell sticks or minerals, the former to assist in the ascent, and
+the latter as specimens of the place. In the midst of the commotion we
+were placed on our donkeys, and the serious, pensive brutes moved
+away. At last we reached the top of the mountain, and I gladly sprang
+on firm land. The whole top of the mountain was covered with wavering
+wreaths of smoke, from the shadows of which emerged two English
+gentlemen, who congratulated us on our safe arrival, and assured us
+that we were fortunate in our day, as the mountain was very active. We
+could hear a hollow, roaring sound, like the burning of a great
+furnace, but saw nothing. 'Is this all?' I said. 'Oh, no. Wait till
+the guide comes up with the rest of the party,' and soon one after
+another came up, and we then followed the guide up a cloudy, rocky
+path, the noise of the fire constantly becoming nearer. Finally we
+stood on the verge of a vast, circular pit about forty feet deep, the
+floor of which is of black, ropy waves of congealed lava.
+
+"The sides are sulphur cliffs, stained in every brilliant shade, from
+lightest yellow to deepest orange and brown. In the midst of the lava
+floor rises a black cone, the chimney of the great furnace. This was
+burning and flaming like the furnace of a glass-house, and every few
+moments throwing up showers of cinders and melted lava which fell with
+a rattling sound on the black floor of the pit. One small bit of the
+lava came over and fell at our feet, and a gentleman lighted his cigar
+at it.
+
+"All around where we stood the smoke was issuing from every chance
+rent and fissure of the rock, and the Neapolitans who crowded round us
+were every moment soliciting us to let them cook us an egg in one of
+these rifts, and, overcome by persuasion, I did so, and found it very
+nicely boiled, or rather steamed, though the shell tasted of Glauber's
+salt and sulphur.
+
+"The whole place recalled to my mind so vividly Milton's description
+of the infernal regions, that I could not but believe that he had
+drawn the imagery from this source. Milton, as we all know, was some
+time in Italy, and, although I do not recollect any account of his
+visiting Vesuvius, I cannot think how he should have shaped his
+language so coincidently to the phenomena if he had not.
+
+"On the way down the mountain our ladies astonished the natives by
+making an express stipulation that our donkeys were not to be beaten,--
+why, they could not conjecture. The idea of any feeling of compassion
+for an animal is so foreign to a Neapolitan's thoughts that they
+supposed it must be some want of courage on our part. When, once in a
+while, the old habit so prevailed that the boy felt that he must
+strike the donkey, and when I forbade him, he would say, 'Courage,
+signora, courage.'
+
+"Time would fail me to tell the whole of our adventures in Southern
+Italy. We left it with regret, and I will tell you some time by word
+of mouth what else we saw.
+
+"We went by water from Naples to Leghorn, and were gloriously seasick,
+all of us. From Leghorn we went to Florence, where we abode two weeks
+nearly. Two days ago we left Florence and started for Venice, stopping
+one day and two nights _en route_ at Bologna, Here we saw the
+great university, now used as a library, the walls of which are
+literally covered with the emblazoned names and coats of arms of
+distinguished men who were educated there.
+
+"_Venice_. The great trouble of traveling in Europe, or indeed of
+traveling anywhere, is that you can never _catch_ romance. No
+sooner are you in any place than being there seems the most natural,
+matter-of-fact occurrence in the world. Nothing looks foreign or
+strange to you. You take your tea and your dinner, eat, drink, and
+sleep as aforetime, and scarcely realize where you are or what you are
+seeing. But Venice is an exception to this state of things; it is all
+romance from beginning to end, and never ceases to seem strange and
+picturesque.
+
+"It was a rainy evening when our cars rumbled over the long railroad
+bridge across the lagoon that leads to the station. Nothing but flat,
+dreary swamps, and then the wide expanse of sea on either side. The
+cars stopped, and the train, being a long one, left us a little out of
+the station. We got out in a driving rain, in company with flocks of
+Austrian soldiers, with whom the third-class cars were filled. We went
+through a long passage, and emerged into a room where all nations
+seemed commingling; Italians, Germans, French, Austrians, Orientals,
+all in wet weather trim.
+
+"Soon, however, the news was brought that our baggage was looked out
+and our gondolas ready.
+
+"The first plunge under the low, black hood of a gondola, especially
+of a rainy night, has something funereal in it. Four of us sat
+cowering together, and looked, out of the rain-dropped little windows
+at the sides, at the scene. Gondolas of all sizes were gliding up and
+down, with their sharp, fishy-looking prows of steel pushing their
+ways silently among each other, while gondoliers shouted and jabbered,
+and made as much confusion in their way as terrestrial hackmen on dry
+land. Soon, however, trunks and carpet-bags being adjusted, we pushed
+off, and went gliding away up the Grand Canal, with a motion so calm
+that we could scarce discern it except by the moving of objects on
+shore. Venice, _la belle_, appeared to as much disadvantage as a
+beautiful woman bedraggled in a thunder-storm."
+
+"_Lake Como_. We stayed in Venice five days, and during that time
+saw all the sights that it could enter the head of a _valet-de-
+place_ to afflict us with. It is an affliction, however, for which
+there is no remedy, because you want to see the things, and would be
+very sorry if you went home without having done so. From Venice we
+went to Milan to see the cathedral and Leonardo da Vinci's 'Last
+Supper.' The former is superb, and of the latter I am convinced, from
+the little that remains of it, that it _was_ the greatest picture
+the world ever saw. We shall run back to Rome for Holy Week, and then
+to Paris.
+
+"_Rome_. From Lake Como we came back here for Holy Week, and now
+it is over.
+
+"'What do you think of it?'
+
+"Certainly no thoughtful or sensitive person, no person impressible
+either through the senses or the religious feelings, can fail to feel
+it deeply.
+
+"In the first place, the mere fact of the different nations of the
+earth moving, so many of them, with one accord, to so old and
+venerable a city, to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus, is
+something in itself affecting. Whatever dispute there may be about the
+other commemorative feasts of Christendom, the time of this epoch is
+fixed unerringly by the Jews' Passover. That great and solemn feast,
+therefore, stands as an historical monument to mark the date of the
+most important and thrilling events which this world ever witnessed.
+
+"When one sees the city filling with strangers, pilgrims arriving on
+foot, the very shops decorating themselves in expectancy, every church
+arranging its services, the prices even of temporal matters raised by
+the crowd and its demands, he naturally thinks, Wherefore, why is all
+this? and he must be very careless indeed if it do not bring to mind,
+in a more real way than before, that at this very time, so many years
+ago, Christ and his apostles were living actors in the scenes thus
+celebrated to-day."
+
+As the spring was now well advanced, it was deemed advisable to bring
+this pleasant journey to a close, and for Mrs. Stowe at least it was
+imperative that she return to America. Therefore, leaving Rome with
+many regrets and lingering, backward glances, the two sisters hurried
+to Paris, where they found their brother-in-law, Mr. John Hooker,
+awaiting them. Under date of May 3 Mrs. Stowe writes from Paris to her
+husband: "Here I am once more, safe in Paris after a fatiguing
+journey. I found the girls well, and greatly improved in their
+studies. As to bringing them home with me now, I have come to the
+conclusion that it would not be expedient. A few months more of study
+here will do them a world of good. I have, therefore, arranged that
+they shall come in November in the Arago, with a party of friends who
+are going at that time.
+
+"John Hooker is here, so Mary is going with him and some others for a
+few weeks into Switzerland. I have some business affairs to settle in
+England, and shall sail from Liverpool in the Europa on the sixth of
+June. I am _so_ homesick to-day, and long with a great longing to
+be with you once more. I am impatient to go, and yet dread the voyage.
+Still, to reach you I must commit myself once more to the ocean, of
+which at times I have a nervous horror, as to the arms of my Father.
+'The sea is his, and He made it.' It is a rude, noisy old servant, but
+it is always obedient to his will, and cannot carry me beyond his
+power and love, wherever or to whatever it bears me."
+
+Having established her daughters in a Protestant boarding-school in
+Paris, Mrs. Stowe proceeded to London. While there she received the
+following letter from Harriet Martineau:--
+
+AMBLESIDE, _June_ 1.
+
+DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I have been at my wits' end to learn how to reach
+you, as your note bore no direction but "London." Arnolds, Croppers,
+and others could give no light, and the newspapers tell only where you
+_had_ been. So I commit this to your publishers, trusting that it
+will find you somewhere, and in time, perhaps, bring you here.
+_Can't_ you come? You are aware that we shall never meet if you
+don't come soon. I see no strangers at all, but I hope to have breath
+and strength enough for a little talk with you, if you could come. You
+could have perfect freedom at the times when I am laid up, and we
+could seize my "capability seasons" for our talk.
+
+The weather and scenery are usually splendid just now. Did I see you
+(in white frock and black silk apron) when I was in Ohio in 1835? Your
+sister I knew well, and I have a clear recollection of your father. I
+believe and hope you were the young lady in the black silk apron.
+
+Do you know I rather dreaded reading your book! Sick people _are_
+weak: and one of my chief weaknesses is dislike of novels,--(except
+some old ones which I almost know by heart). I knew that with you I
+should be safe from the cobweb-spinning of our modern subjective
+novelists and the jaunty vulgarity of our "funny philosophers"--the
+Dickens sort, who have tired us out. But I dreaded the alternative,--
+the too strong interest. But oh! the delight I have had in "Dred!" The
+genius carries all before it, and drowns everything in glorious
+pleasure. So marked a work of genius claims exemption from every sort
+of comparison; but, _as you ask for my opinion of the book_, you
+may like to know that I think it far superior to "Uncle Tom." I have
+no doubt that a multitude of people will say it is a falling off,
+because they made up their minds that any new book of yours must be
+inferior to that, and because it is so rare a thing for a prodigious
+fame to be sustained by a second book; but, in my own mind I am
+entirely convinced that the second book is by far the best. Such
+faults as you have are in the artistic department, and there is less
+defect in "Dred" than in "Uncle Tom," and the whole material and
+treatment seem to me richer and more substantial. I have had critiques
+of "Dred" from the two very wisest people I know--perfectly unlike
+each other (the critics, I mean), and they delight me by thinking
+exactly like each other and like me. They distinctly prefer it to
+"Uncle Tom." To say the plain truth, it seems to me so splendid a work
+of genius that nothing that I can say can give you an idea of the
+intensity of admiration with which I read it. It seemed to me, as I
+told my nieces, that our English fiction writers had better shut up
+altogether and have done with it, for one will have no patience with
+any but didactic writing after yours. My nieces (and you may have
+heard that Maria, my nurse, is very, very clever) are thoroughly
+possessed with the book, and Maria says she feels as if a fresh
+department of human life had been opened to her since this day week. I
+feel the freshness no less, while, from my travels, I can be even more
+assured of the truthfulness of your wonderful representation. I see no
+limit to the good it may do by suddenly splitting open Southern life,
+for everybody to look into. It is precisely the thing that is most
+wanted,--just as "Uncle Tom" was wanted, three years since, to show
+what negro slavery in your republic was like. It is plantation-life,
+particularly in the present case, that I mean. As for your exposure of
+the weakness and helplessness to the churches, I deeply honor you for
+the courage with which you have made the exposure; but I don't suppose
+that any amendment is to be looked for in that direction. You have
+unburdened your own soul in that matter, and if they had been
+corrigible, you would have helped a good many more. But I don't expect
+that result. The Southern railing at you will be something unequaled,
+I suppose. I hear that three of us have the honor of being abused from
+day to day already, as most portentous and shocking women, you, Mrs.
+Chapman, and myself as (the traveler of twenty years ago). Not only
+newspapers, but pamphlets of such denunciation are circulated, I'm
+told. I'm afraid now I, and even Mrs. Chapman, must lose our fame, and
+all the railing will be engrossed by you. My little function is to
+keep English people tolerably right, by means of a London daily paper,
+while the danger of misinformation and misreading from the "Times"
+continues. I can't conceive how such a paper as the "Times" can fail
+to be _better informed_ than it is. At times it seems as if its
+New York correspondent was making game of it. The able and excellent
+editor of the "Daily News" gives me complete liberty on American
+subjects, and Mrs. Chapman's and other friends' constant supply of
+information enables me to use this liberty for making the cause better
+understood. I hope I shall hear that you are coming. It is like a
+great impertinence--my having written so freely about your book: but
+you asked my opinion,--that is all I can say. Thank you much for
+sending the book to me. If you come you will write our names in it,
+and this will make it a valuable legacy to a nephew or niece.
+
+Believe me gratefully and affectionately yours,
+
+HARRIET MARTINEAU.
+
+In London Mrs. Stowe also received the following letter from Prescott,
+the historian, which after long wandering had finally rested quietly
+at her English publishers awaiting her coming.
+
+PEPPERELL, _October_ 4, 1856.
+
+MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I am much obliged to you for the copy of "Dred"
+which Mr. Phillips put into my hands. It has furnished us our
+evening's amusement since we have been in the country, where we spend
+the brilliant month of October.
+
+The African race are much indebted to you for showing up the good
+sides of their characters, their cheerfulness, and especially their
+powers of humor, which are admirably set off by their peculiar
+_patois_, in the same manner as the expression of the Scottish
+sentiment is by the peculiar Scottish dialect. People differ; but I
+was most struck among your characters with Uncle Tiff and Nina. The
+former a variation of good old Uncle Tom, though conceived in a
+merrier vein than belonged to that sedate personage; the difference of
+their tempers in this respect being well suited to the difference of
+the circumstances in which they were placed. But Nina, to my mind, is
+the true _hero_ of the book, which I should have named after her
+instead of "Dred." She is indeed a charming conception, full of what
+is called character, and what is masculine in her nature is toned down
+by such a delightful sweetness and kindness of disposition as makes
+her perfectly fascinating. I cannot forgive you for smothering her so
+prematurely. No _dramatis personć_ could afford the loss of such
+a character. But I will not bore you with criticism, of which you have
+had quite enough. I must thank you, however, for giving Tom Gordon a
+guttapercha cane to perform his flagellations with.
+
+I congratulate you on the brilliant success of the work, unexampled
+even in this age of authorship; and, as Mr. Phillips informs me,
+greater even in the old country than in ours. I am glad you are likely
+to settle the question and show that a Yankee writer can get a
+copyright in England--little thanks to our own government, which
+compels him to go there in order to get it.
+
+With sincere regard, believe me, dear Mrs. Stowe,
+
+Very truly yours,
+
+WM. H. PRESCOTT.
+
+From Liverpool, on the eve of her departure for America, Mrs. Stowe
+wrote to her daughters in Paris:--
+
+I spent the day before leaving London with Lady Byron. She is lovelier
+than ever, and inquired kindly about you both. I left London to go to
+Manchester, and reaching there found the Rev. Mr. Gaskell waiting to
+welcome me in the station. Mrs. Gaskell seems lovely at home, where
+besides being a writer she proves herself to be a first-class
+housekeeper, and performs all the duties of a minister's wife. After
+spending a delightful day with her I came here to the beautiful
+"Dingle," which is more enchanting than ever. I am staying with Mrs.
+Edward Cropper, Lord Denman's daughter.
+
+I want you to tell Aunt Mary that Mr. Ruskin lives with his father at
+a place called Denmark Hill, Camberwell. He has told me that the
+gallery of Turner pictures there is open to me or my friends at any
+time of the day or night. Both young and old Mr. Ruskin are fine
+fellows, sociable and hearty, and will cordially welcome any of my
+friends who desire to look at their pictures.
+
+I write in haste, as I must be aboard the ship tomorrow at eight
+o'clock. So good-by, my dear girls, from your ever affectionate
+mother.
+
+Her last letter written before sailing was to Lady Byron, and serves
+to show how warm an intimacy had sprung up between them. It was as
+follows:--
+
+_June_ 5, 1857.
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--I left you with a strange sort of yearning, throbbing
+feeling--you make me feel quite as I did years ago, a sort of
+girlishness quite odd for me. I have felt a strange longing to send
+you something. Don't smile when you see what it turns out to be. I
+have a weakness for your pretty Parian things; it is one of my own
+home peculiarities to have strong passions for pretty tea-cups and
+other little matters for my own quiet meals, when, as often happens, I
+am too unwell to join the family. So I send you a cup made of
+primroses, a funny little pitcher, quite large enough for cream, and a
+little vase for violets and primroses--which will be lovely together--
+and when you use it think of me and that I love you more than I can
+say.
+
+I often think how strange it is that I should _know_ you--you who
+were a sort of legend of my early days--that I should love you is only
+a natural result. You seem to me to stand on the confines of that land
+where the poor formalities which separate hearts here pass like mist
+before the sun, and therefore it is that I feel the language of love
+must not startle you as strange or unfamiliar. You are so nearly there
+in spirit that I fear with every adieu that it may be the last; yet
+did you pass within the veil I should not feel you lost.
+
+I have got past the time when I feel that my heavenly friends are
+_lost_ by going there. I feel them _nearer_, rather than
+farther off.
+
+So good-by, dear, dear friend, and if you see morning in our Father's
+house before I do, carry my love to those that wait for me, and if I
+pass first, you will find me there, and we shall love each other
+_forever_.
+
+Ever yours,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+The homeward voyage proved a prosperous one, and it was followed by a
+joyous welcome to the "Cabin" in Andover. The world seemed very
+bright, and amid all her happiness came no intimation of the terrible
+blow about to descend upon the head of the devoted mother.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE MINISTER'S WOOING, 1857-1859.
+
+
+DEATH OF MRS. STOWE'S OLDEST SON.--LETTER TO THE DUCHESS OF
+SUTHERLAND.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTERS IN PARIS.--LETTER TO HER SISTER
+CATHERINE.--VISIT TO BRUNSWICK AND ORR'S ISLAND.--WRITES "THE
+MINISTER'S WOOING" AND "THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND."--MR. WHITTIER'S
+COMMENTS.--MR. LOWELL ON THE "MINISTER'S WOOING."--LETTER TO MRS.
+STOWE FROM MR. LOWELL.--JOHN RUSKIN ON THE "MINISTER'S WOOING."--A
+YEAR OF SADNESS.--LETTER TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTER.--
+DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.
+
+Immediately after Mrs. Stowe's return from England in June, 1857, a
+crushing sorrow came upon her in the death of her oldest son, Henry
+Ellis, who was drowned while bathing in the Connecticut River at
+Hanover, N. H., where he was pursuing his studies as a member of the
+Freshman class in Dartmouth College. This melancholy event transpired
+the 9th of July, 1857, and the 3d of August Mrs. Stowe wrote to the
+Duchess of Sutherland:--
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--Before this reaches you you will have perhaps learned
+from other sources of the sad blow which has fallen upon us,--our
+darling, our good, beautiful boy, snatched away in the moment of
+health and happiness. Alas! could I know that when I parted from my
+Henry on English shores that I should never see him more? I returned
+to my home, and, amid the jubilee of meeting the rest, was fain to be
+satisfied with only a letter from him, saying that his college
+examinations were coming on, and he must defer seeing me a week or two
+till they were over. I thought then of taking his younger brother and
+going up to visit him; but the health of the latter seeming
+unfavorably affected by the seacoast air, I turned back with him to a
+water-cure establishment. Before I had been two weeks absent a fatal
+telegram hurried me home, and when I arrived there it was to find the
+house filled with his weeping classmates, who had just come bringing
+his remains. There he lay so calm, so placid, so peaceful, that I
+could not believe that he would not smile upon me, and that my voice
+which always had such power over him could not recall him. There had
+always been such a peculiar union, such a tenderness between us. I had
+had such power always to call up answering feelings to my own, that it
+seemed impossible that he could be silent and unmoved at my grief. But
+yet, dear friend, I am sensible that in this last sad scene I had an
+alleviation that was not granted to you. I recollect, in the mournful
+letter you wrote me about that time, you said that you mourned that
+you had never told your own dear one how much you loved him. That
+sentence touched me at the time. I laid it to heart, and from that
+time lost no occasion of expressing to my children those feelings that
+we too often defer to express to our dearest friends till it is
+forever too late.
+
+He did fully know how I loved him, and some of the last loving words
+he spoke were of me. The very day that he was taken from us, and when
+he was just rising from the table of his boarding-house to go whence
+he never returned, some one noticed the seal ring, which you may
+remember to have seen on his finger, and said, How beautiful that ring
+is! Yes, he said, and best of all, it was my mother's gift to me. That
+ring, taken from the lifeless hand a few hours later, was sent to me.
+Singularly enough, it is broken right across the name from a fall a
+little time previous. . . .
+
+It is a great comfort to me, dear friend, that I took Henry with me to
+Dunrobin. I hesitated about keeping him so long from his studies, but
+still I thought a mind so observing and appreciative might learn from
+such a tour more than through books, and so it was. He returned from
+England full of high resolves and manly purposes. "I may not be what
+the world calls a Christian," he wrote, "but I will live such a life
+as a Christian ought to live, such a life as every true man ought to
+live." Henceforth he became remarkable for a strict order and energy,
+and a vigilant temperance and care of his bodily health, docility and
+deference to his parents and teachers, and perseverance in every duty.
+
+. . . Well, from the hard battle of this life he is excused, and the
+will is taken for the deed, and whatever comes his heart will not be
+pierced as mine is. But I am glad that I can connect him with all my
+choicest remembrances of the Old World.
+
+Dunrobin will always be dearer to me now, and I have felt towards you
+and the duke a turning of spirit, because I remember how kindly you
+always looked on and spoke to him. I knew then it was the angel of
+your lost one that stirred your hearts with tenderness when you looked
+on another so near his age. The plaid that the duke gave him, and
+which he valued as one of the chief of his boyish treasures, will hang
+in his room--for still we have a room that we call his.
+
+You will understand, you will feel, this sorrow with us as few can. My
+poor husband is much prostrated. I need not say more: you know what
+this must be to a father's heart. But still I repeat what I said when
+I saw you last. Our dead are ministering angels; they teach us to
+love, they fill us with tenderness for all that can suffer. These
+weary hours when sorrow makes us for the time blind and deaf and dumb,
+have their promise. These hours come in answer to our prayers for
+nearness to God. It is always our treasure that the lightning strikes.
+. . . I have poured out my heart to you because you can understand.
+While I was visiting in Hanover, where Henry died, a poor, deaf old
+slave woman, who has still five children in bondage, came to comfort
+me. "Bear up, dear soul, she said; you must bear it, for the Lord
+loves ye." She said further, "Sunday is a heavy day to me, 'cause I
+can't work, and can't hear preaching, and can't read, so I can't keep
+my mind off my poor children. Some on 'em the blessed Master's got,
+and they's safe; but, oh, there are five that I don't know where they
+are."
+
+What are our mother sorrows to this! I shall try to search out and
+redeem these children, though, from the ill success of efforts already
+made, I fear it will be hopeless. Every sorrow I have, every lesson on
+the sacredness of family love, makes me the more determined to resist
+to the last this dreadful evil that makes so many mothers so much
+deeper mourners than I ever can be. . . .
+
+Affectionately yours,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+[Illustration: THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND]
+
+About this same time she writes to her daughters in Paris: "Can
+anybody tell what sorrows are locked up with our best affections, or
+what pain may be associated with every pleasure? As I walk the house,
+the pictures he used to love, the presents I brought him, and the
+photographs I meant to show him, ail pierce my heart, I have had a
+dreadful faintness of sorrow come over me at times. I have felt so
+crushed, so bleeding, so helpless, that I could only call on my
+Saviour with groanings that could not be uttered. Your papa justly
+said, 'Every child that dies is for the time being an only one; yes--
+his individuality no time, no change, can ever replace.'
+
+"Two days after the funeral your father and I went to Hanover. We saw
+Henry's friends, and his room, which was just as it was the day he
+left it.
+
+"'There is not another such room in the college as his,' said one of
+his classmates with tears. I could not help loving the dear boys as
+they would come and look sadly in, and tell us one thing and another
+that they remembered of him. 'He was always talking of his home and
+his sisters,' said one. The very day he died he was so happy because I
+had returned, and he was expecting soon to go home and meet me. He
+died with that dear thought in his heart.
+
+"There was a beautiful lane leading down through a charming glen to
+the river. It had been for years the bathing-place of the students,
+and into the pure, clear water he plunged, little dreaming that he was
+never to come out alive.
+
+"In the evening we went down to see the boating club of which he was a
+member. He was so happy in this boating club. They had a beautiful
+boat called the Una, and a uniform, and he enjoyed it so much.
+
+"This evening all the different crews were out; but Henry's had their
+flag furled, and tied with black crape. I felt such love to the dear
+boys, all of them, because they loved Henry, that it did not pain me
+as it otherwise would. They were glad to see us there, and I was glad
+that we could be there. Yet right above where their boats were gliding
+in the evening light lay the bend in the river, clear, still,
+beautiful, fringed with overhanging pines, from whence our boy went
+upward to heaven. To heaven--if earnest, manly purpose, if sincere,
+deliberate strife with besetting sin is accepted of God, as I firmly
+believe it is. Our dear boy was but a beginner in the right way. Had
+he lived, we had hoped to see all wrong gradually fall from his soul
+as the worn-out calyx drops from the perfected flower. But Christ has
+taken him into his own teaching.
+
+  "'And one view of Jesus as He is,
+  Will strike all sin forever dead.'
+
+"Since I wrote to you last we have had anniversary meetings, and with
+all the usual bustle and care, our house full of company. Tuesday we
+received a beautiful portrait of our dear Henry, life-size, and as
+perfect almost as life. It has just that half-roguish, half-loving
+expression with which he would look at me sometimes, when I would come
+and brush back his hair and look into his eyes. Every time I go in or
+out of the room, it seems to give so bright a smile that I almost
+think that a spirit dwells within it.
+
+"When I am so heavy, so weary, and go about as if I were wearing an
+arrow that had pierced my heart, I sometimes look up, and this smile
+seems to say, 'Mother, patience, I am happy. In our Father's house are
+many mansions.' Sometimes I think I am like a gardener who has planted
+the seed of some rare exotic. He watches as the two little points of
+green leaf first spring above the soil. He shifts it from soil to
+soil, from pot to pot. He watches it, waters it, saves it through
+thousands of mischiefs and accidents. He counts every leaf, and marks
+the strengthening of the stem, till at last the blossom bud was fully
+formed. What curiosity, what eagerness,--what expectation--what
+longing now to see the mystery unfold in the new flower.
+
+"Just as the calyx begins to divide and a faint streak of color
+becomes visible,--lo! in one night the owner of the greenhouse sends
+and takes it away. He does not consult me, he gives me no warning; he
+silently takes it and I look, but it is no more. What, then? Do I
+suppose he has destroyed the flower? Far from it; I know that he has
+taken it to his own garden. What Henry might have been I could guess
+better than any one. What Henry is, is known to Jesus only."
+
+Shortly after this time Mrs. Stowe wrote to her sister Catherine:--
+
+If ever I was conscious of an attack of the Devil trying to separate
+me from the love of Christ, it was for some days after the terrible
+news came. I was in a state of great physical weakness, most
+agonizing, and unable to control my thoughts. Distressing doubts as to
+Henry's spiritual state were rudely thrust upon my soul. It was as if
+a voice had said to me: "You trusted in God, did you? You believed
+that He loved you! You had perfect confidence that he would never take
+your child till the work of grace was mature! Now He has hurried him
+into eternity without a moment's warning, without preparation, and
+where is he?"
+
+I saw at last that these thoughts were irrational, and contradicted
+the calm, settled belief of my better moments, and that they were
+dishonorable to God, and that it was my duty to resist them, and to
+assume and steadily maintain that Jesus in love had taken my dear one
+to his bosom. Since then the Enemy has left me in peace.
+
+It is our duty to assume that a thing which would be in its very
+nature unkind, ungenerous, and unfair has not been done. What should
+we think of the crime of that human being who should take a young mind
+from circumstances where it was progressing in virtue, and throw it
+recklessly into corrupting and depraving society? Particularly if it
+were the child of one who had trusted and confided in Him for years.
+No! no such slander as this shall the Devil ever fix in my mind
+against my Lord and my God! He who made me capable of such an
+absorbing, unselfish devotion for my children, so that I would
+sacrifice my eternal salvation for them, He certainly did not make me
+capable of more love, more disinterestedness than He has himself. He
+invented mothers' hearts, and He certainly has the pattern in his own,
+and my poor, weak rush-light of love is enough to show me that some
+things can and some things cannot be done. Mr. Stowe said in his
+sermon last Sunday that the mysteries of God's ways with us must be
+swallowed up by the greater mystery of the love of Christ, even as
+Aaron's rod swallowed up the rods of the magicians.
+
+Papa and mamma are here, and we have been reading over the
+"Autobiography and Correspondence." It is glorious, beautiful; but
+more of this anon.
+
+Your affectionate sister,
+
+HATTIE.
+
+ANDOVER, _August_ 24, 1857.
+
+DEAR CHILDREN,--Since anniversary papa and I have been living at home;
+Grandpa and Grandma Beecher are here also, and we have had much
+comfort in their society. . . . To-night the last sad duty is before
+us. The body is to be removed from the receiving tomb in the Old South
+Churchyard, and laid in the graveyard near by. Pearson has been at
+work for a week on a lot that is to be thenceforth ours.
+
+ "Our just inheritance consecrated by his grave."
+
+How little he thought, wandering there as he often has with us, that
+his mortal form would so soon be resting there. Yet that was written
+for him. It was as certain then as now, and the hour and place of our
+death is equally certain, though we know it not.
+
+It seems selfish that I should yearn to lie down by his side, but I
+never knew how much I loved him till now.
+
+The one lost piece of silver seems more than all the rest,--the one
+lost sheep dearer than all the fold, and I so long for one word, one
+look, one last embrace. . . .
+
+ANDOVER, _September_ 1, 1857.
+
+MY DARLING CHILDREN,--I must not allow a week to pass without sending
+a line to you. . . . Our home never looked lovelier. I never saw
+Andover look so beautiful; the trees so green, the foliage so rich.
+Papa and I are just starting to spend a week in Brunswick, for I am so
+miserable--so weak--the least exertion fatigues me, and much of my
+time I feel a heavy languor, indifferent to everything. I know nothing
+is so likely to bring me up as the air of the seaside. . . . I have
+set many flowers around Henry's grave, which are blossoming; pansies,
+white immortelle, white petunia, and verbenas. Papa walks there every
+day, often twice or three times. The lot has been rolled and planted
+with fine grass, which is already up and looks green and soft as
+velvet, and the little birds gather about it. To-night as I sat there
+the sky was so beautiful, all rosy, with the silver moon looking out
+of it. Papa said with a deep sigh, "I am submissive, but not
+reconciled."
+
+BRUNSWICK, _September_ 6,1857.
+
+MY DEAR GIRLS,--Papa and I have been here for four or five days past.
+We both of us felt so unwell that we thought we would try the sea air
+and the dear old scenes of Brunswick. Everything here is just as we
+left it. We are staying with Mrs. Upham, whose house is as wide, cool,
+and hospitable as ever. The trees in the yard have grown finely, and
+Mrs. Upham has cultivated flowers so successfully that the house is
+all surrounded by them. Everything about the town is the same, even to
+Miss Gidding's old shop, which is as disorderly as ever, presenting
+the same medley of tracts, sewing-silk, darning-cotton, and
+unimaginable old bonnets, which existed there of yore. She has been
+heard to complain that she can't find things as easily as once. Day
+before yesterday papa, Charley, and I went down to Harpswell about
+seven o'clock in the morning. The old spruces and firs look lovely as
+ever, and I was delighted, as I always used to be, with every step of
+the way. Old Gotchell's mill stands as forlorn as ever in its sandy
+wastes, and More Brook creeps on glassy and clear beyond. Arriving at
+Harpswell a glorious hot day, with scarce a breeze to ruffle the
+water, papa and Charley went to fish for cunners, who soon proved too
+cunning for them, for they ate every morsel of bait off the hooks, so
+that out of twenty bites they only secured two or three. What they did
+get were fried for our dinner, reinforced by a fine clam-chowder. The
+evening was one of the most glorious I ever saw--a calm sea and round,
+full moon; Mrs. Upham and I sat out on the rocks between the mainland
+and the island until ten o'clock. I never did see a more perfect and
+glorious scene, and to add to it there was a splendid northern light
+dancing like spirits in the sky. Had it not been for a terrible attack
+of mosquitoes in our sleeping-rooms, that kept us up and fighting all
+night, we should have called it a perfect success.
+
+We went into the sea to bathe twice, once the day we came, and about
+eight o'clock in the morning before we went back. Besides this we have
+been to Middle Bay, where Charley, standing where you all stood before
+him, actually caught a flounder with his own hand, whereat he screamed
+loud enough to scare all the folks on Eagle Island. We have also been
+to Maquoit. We have visited the old pond, and, if I mistake not, the
+relics of your old raft yet float there; at all events, one or two
+fragments of a raft are there, caught among rushes.
+
+I do not realize that one of the busiest and happiest of the train who
+once played there shall play there no more. "He shall return to his
+house no more, neither shall his place know him any more." I think I
+have felt the healing touch of Jesus of Nazareth on the deep wound in
+my heart, for I have golden hours of calm when I say: "Even so,
+Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." So sure am I that the
+most generous love has ordered all, that I can now take pleasure to
+give this little proof of my unquestioning confidence in resigning one
+of my dearest comforts to Him. I feel very near the spirit land, and
+the words, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me," are
+very sweet.
+
+Oh, if God would give to you, my dear children, a view of the infinite
+beauty of Eternal Love,--if He would unite us in himself, then even on
+earth all tears might be wiped away.
+
+Papa has preached twice to-day, and is preaching again to-night. He
+told me to be sure to write and send you his love. I hope his health
+is getting better. Mrs. Upham sends you her best love, and hopes you
+will make her a visit some time.
+
+Good-by, my darlings. Come soon to your affectionate mother.
+
+H. B. S.
+
+The winter of 1857 was passed quietly and uneventfully at Andover. In
+November Mrs. Stowe contributed to the "Atlantic Monthly" a touching
+little allegory, "The Mourning Veil."
+
+In December, 1858, the first chapter of "The Minister's Wooing"
+appeared in the same magazine. Simultaneously with this story was
+written "The Pearl of Orr's Island," published first as a serial in
+the "Independent."
+
+She dictated a large part of "The Minister's Wooing" under a great
+pressure of mental excitement, and it was a relief to her to turn to
+the quiet story of the coast of Maine, which she loved so well.
+
+In February, 1874, Mrs. Stowe received the following words from Mr.
+Whittier, which are very interesting in this connection: "When I am in
+the mood for thinking deeply I read 'The Minister's Wooing.' But 'The
+Pearl of Orr's Island' is my favorite. It is the most charming New
+England idyl ever written."
+
+"The Minister's Wooing" was received with universal commendation from
+the first, and called forth the following appreciative words from the
+pen of Mr. James Russell Lowell:--
+
+"It has always seemed to us that the anti-slavery element in the two
+former novels by Mrs. Stowe stood in the way of a full appreciation of
+her remarkable genius, at least in her own country. It was so easy to
+account for the unexampled popularity of 'Uncle Tom' by attributing it
+to a cheap sympathy with sentimental philanthropy! As people began to
+recover from the first enchantment, they began also to resent it and
+to complain that a dose of that insane Garrison-root which takes the
+reason prisoner had been palmed upon them without their knowing it,
+and that their ordinary watergruel of fiction, thinned with sentiment
+and thickened with moral, had been hocussed with the bewildering
+hasheesh of Abolition. We had the advantage of reading that truly
+extraordinary book for the first time in Paris, long after the whirl
+of excitement produced by its publication had subsided, in the
+seclusion of distance, and with a judgment unbiased by those political
+sympathies which it is impossible, perhaps unwise, to avoid at home.
+We felt then, and we believe now, that the secret of Mrs. Stowe's
+power lay in that same genius by which the great successes in creative
+literature have always been achieved,--the genius that instinctively
+goes right to the organic elements of human nature, whether under a
+white skin or a black, and which disregards as trivial the
+conventional and factitious notions which make so large a part both of
+our thinking and feeling. Works of imagination written with an aim to
+immediate impression are commonly ephemeral, like Miss Martineau's
+'Tales,' and Elliott's 'Corn-law Rhymes;' but the creative faculty of
+Mrs. Stowe, like that of Cervantes in 'Don Quixote' and of Fielding in
+'Joseph Andrews,' overpowered the narrow specialty of her design, and
+expanded a local and temporary theme with the cosmopolitanism of
+genius.
+
+"It is a proverb that 'There is a great deal of human nature in men,'
+but it is equally and sadly true that there is amazingly little of it
+in books. Fielding is the only English novelist who deals with life in
+its broadest sense. Thackeray, his disciple and congener, and Dickens,
+the congener of Smollett, do not so much treat of life as of the
+strata of society; the one studying nature from the club-room window,
+the other from the reporters' box in the police court. It may be that
+the general obliteration of distinctions of rank in this country,
+which is generally considered a detriment to the novelist, will in the
+end turn to his advantage by compelling him to depend for his effects
+on the contrasts and collisions of innate character, rather than on
+those shallower traits superinduced by particular social arrangements,
+or by hereditary associations. Shakespeare drew ideal, and Fielding
+natural men and women; Thackeray draws either gentlemen or snobs, and
+Dickens either unnatural men or the oddities natural only in the
+lowest grades of a highly artificial system of society. The first two
+knew human nature; of the two latter, one knows what is called the
+world, and the other the streets of London. Is it possible that the
+very social democracy which here robs the novelist of so much romance,
+so much costume, so much antithesis of caste, so much in short that is
+purely external, will give him a set-off in making it easier for him
+to get at that element of universal humanity which neither of the two
+extremes of an aristocratic system, nor the salient and picturesque
+points of contrast between the two, can alone lay open to him?
+
+"We hope to see this problem solved by Mrs. Stowe. That kind of
+romantic interest which Scott evolved from the relations of lord and
+vassal, of thief and clansman, from the social more than the moral
+contrast of Roundhead and Cavalier, of far-descended pauper and
+_nouveau riche_ which Cooper found in the clash of savagery with
+civilization, and the shaggy virtue bred on the border-land between
+the two, Indian by habit, white by tradition, Mrs. Stowe seems in her
+former novels to have sought in a form of society alien to her
+sympathies, and too remote for exact study, or for the acquirement of
+that local truth which is the slow result of unconscious observation.
+There can be no stronger proof of the greatness of her genius, of her
+possessing that conceptive faculty which belongs to the higher order
+of imagination, than the avidity with which 'Uncle Tom' was read at
+the South. It settled the point that this book was true to human
+nature, even if not minutely so to plantation life.
+
+"If capable of so great a triumph where success must so largely depend
+on the sympathetic insight of her mere creative power, have we not a
+right to expect something far more in keeping with the requirements of
+art, now that her wonderful eye is to be the mirror of familiar
+scenes, and of a society in which she was bred, of which she has seen
+so many varieties, and that, too, in the country, where it is most
+_naive_ and original? It is a great satisfaction to us that in
+'The Minister's Wooing' she has chosen her time and laid her scene
+amid New England habits and traditions. There is no other writer who
+is so capable of perpetuating for us, in a work of art, a style of
+thought and manners which railways and newspapers will soon render as
+palćozoic as the mastodon or the megalosaurians. Thus far the story
+has fully justified our hopes. The leading characters are all fresh
+and individual creations. Mrs. Kate Scudder, the notable Yankee
+housewife; Mary, in whom Cupid is to try conclusions with Calvin;
+James Marvyn, the adventurous boy of the coast, in whose heart the
+wild religion of nature swells till the strait swathings of Puritanism
+are burst; Dr. Hopkins, the conscientious minister come upon a time
+when the social _prestige_ of the clergy is waning, and whose
+independence will test the voluntary system of ministerial support;
+Simeon Brown, the man of theological dialectics, in whom the utmost
+perfection of creed is shown to be not inconsistent with the most
+contradictory imperfection of life,--all these are characters new to
+literature. And the scene is laid just far enough away in point of
+time to give proper tone and perspective.
+
+"We think we find in the story, so far as it has proceeded, the
+promise of an interest as unhackneyed as it will be intense. There is
+room for the play of all the passions and interests that make up the
+great tragi-comedy of life, while all the scenery and accessories will
+be those which familiarity has made dear to us. We are a little afraid
+of Colonel Burr, to be sure, it is so hard to make a historical
+personage fulfill the conditions demanded by the novel of every-day
+life. He is almost sure either to fall below our traditional
+conception of him, or to rise above the natural and easy level of
+character, into the vague or the melodramatic. Moreover, we do not
+want a novel of society from Mrs. Stowe; she is quite too good to be
+wasted in that way, and her tread is much more firm on the turf of the
+"door-yard" or the pasture, and the sanded floor of the farmhouse,
+than on the velvet of the _salôn_. We have no notion how she is
+to develop her plot, but we think we foresee chances for her best
+power in the struggle which seems foreshadowed between Mary's
+conscientious admiration of the doctor and her half-conscious passion
+for James, before she discovers that one of these conflicting feelings
+means simply moral liking and approval, and the other that she is a
+woman and that she loves. And is not the value of dogmatic theology as
+a rule of life to be thoroughly tested for the doctor by his slave-
+trading parishioners? Is he not to learn the bitter difference between
+intellectual acceptance of a creed and that true partaking of the
+sacrament of love and faith and sorrow that makes Christ the very
+life-blood of our being and doing? And has not James Marvyn also his
+lesson to be taught? We foresee him drawn gradually back by Mary from
+his recoil against Puritan formalism to a perception of how every
+creed is pliant and plastic to a beautiful nature, of how much charm
+there may be in an hereditary faith, even if it have become almost
+conventional.
+
+"In the materials of character already present in the story, there is
+scope for Mrs. Stowe's humor, pathos, clear moral sense, and quick eye
+for the scenery of life. We do not believe that there is any one who,
+by birth, breeding, and natural capacity, has had the opportunity to
+know New England so well as she, or who has the peculiar genius so to
+profit by the knowledge. Already there have been scenes in 'The
+Minister's Wooing' that, in their lowness of tone and quiet truth,
+contrast as charmingly with the humid vagueness of the modern school
+of novel-writers as 'The Vicar of Wakefield' itself, and we are
+greatly mistaken if it do not prove to be the most characteristic of
+Mrs. Stowe's works, and therefore that on which her fame will chiefly
+rest with posterity."
+
+"The Minister's Wooing" was not completed as a serial till December,
+1859. Long before its completion Mrs. Stowe received letters from many
+interested readers, who were as much concerned for the future of her
+"spiritual children," as George Eliot would call them, as if they had
+been flesh and blood.
+
+The following letter from Mr. Lowell is given as the most valuable
+received by Mrs. Stowe at this time:--
+
+CAMBRIDGE, February 4, 1859.
+
+MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I certainly did mean to write you about your
+story, but only to cry _bravissima!_ with the rest of the world.
+I intended no kind of criticism; deeming it wholly out of place, and
+in the nature of a wet-blanket, so long as a story is unfinished. When
+I got the first number in MS., I said to Mr. Phillips that I thought
+it would be the best thing you had done, and what followed has only
+confirmed my first judgment. From long habit, and from the tendency of
+my studies, I cannot help looking at things purely from an ćsthetic
+point of view, and what _I_ valued in "Uncle Tom" was the genius,
+and not the moral. That is saying a good deal, for I never use the
+word _genius_ at haphazard, and always (perhaps, too) sparingly.
+I am going to be as frank as I ought to be with one whom I value so
+highly. What especially charmed me in the new story was, that you had
+taken your stand on New England ground. You are one of the few persons
+lucky enough to be born with eyes in your head,--that is, with
+something behind the eyes which makes them of value. To most people
+the seeing apparatus is as useless as the great telescope at the
+observatory is to me,--something to stare through with no intelligent
+result. Nothing could be better than the conception of your plot (so
+far as I divine it), and the painting-in of your figures. As for
+"theology," it is as much a part of daily life in New England as in
+Scotland, and all I should have to say about it is this: let it crop
+out when it naturally comes to the surface, only don't dig down to it.
+A moral aim is a fine thing, but in making a story an artist is a
+traitor who does not sacrifice everything to art. Remember the lesson
+that Christ gave us twice over. First, he preferred the useless Mary
+to the dish-washing Martha, and next, when that exemplary moralist and
+friend of humanity, Judas, objected to the sinful waste of the
+Magdalen's ointment, the great Teacher would rather it should be
+wasted in an act of simple beauty than utilized for the benefit of the
+poor. Cleopatra was an artist when she dissolved her biggest pearl to
+captivate her Antony-public. May I, a critic by profession, say the
+whole truth to a woman of genius? Yes? And never be forgiven? I shall
+try, and try to be forgiven, too. In the first place, pay no regard to
+the advice of anybody. In the second place, pay a great deal to mine!
+A Kilkenny-cattish style of advice? Not at all. My advice is to follow
+your own instincts,--to stick to nature, and to avoid what people
+commonly call the "Ideal;" for that, and beauty, and pathos, and
+success, all lie in the simply natural. We all preach it, from
+Wordsworth down, and we all, from Wordsworth down, don't practice it.
+Don't I feel it every day in this weary editorial mill of mine, that
+there are ten thousand people who can write "ideal" things for one who
+can see, and feel, and reproduce nature and character? Ten thousand,
+did I say? Nay, ten million. What made Shakespeare so great? Nothing
+but eyes and--faith in them. The same is true of Thackeray. I see
+nowhere more often than in authors the truth that men love their
+opposites. Dickens insists on being tragic and makes shipwreck.
+
+I always thought (forgive me) that the Hebrew parts of "Dred" were a
+mistake. Do not think me impertinent; I am only honestly anxious that
+what I consider a very remarkable genius should have faith in itself.
+Let your moral take care of itself, and remember that an author's
+writing-desk is something infinitely higher than a pulpit. What I call
+"care of itself" is shown in that noble passage in the February number
+about the ladder up to heaven. That is grand preaching and in the
+right way. I am sure that "The Minister's Wooing" is going to be the
+best of your products hitherto, and I am sure of it because you show
+so thorough a mastery of your material, so true a perception of
+realities, without which the ideality is impossible.
+
+As for "orthodoxy," be at ease. Whatever is well done the world finds
+orthodox at last, in spite of all the Fakir journals, whose only
+notion of orthodoxy seems to be the power of standing in one position
+till you lose all the use of your limbs. If, with your heart and
+brain, _you_ are not orthodox, in Heaven's name who is? If you
+mean "Calvinistic," no woman could ever be such, for Calvinism is
+logic, and no woman worth the name could ever live by syllogisms.
+Woman charms a higher faculty in us than reason, God be praised, and
+nothing has delighted me more in your new story than the happy
+instinct with which you develop this incapacity of the lovers' logic
+in your female characters. Go on just as you have begun, and make it
+appear in as many ways as you like,--that, whatever creed may be true,
+it is _not_ true and never will be that man can be saved by
+machinery. I can speak with some chance of being right, for I confess
+a strong sympathy with many parts of Calvinistic theology, and, for
+one thing, believe in hell with all my might, and in the goodness of
+God for all that.
+
+I have not said anything. What could I say? One might almost as well
+advise a mother about the child she still bears under her heart, and
+say, give it these and those qualities, as an author about a work yet
+in the brain.
+
+Only this I will say, that I am honestly delighted with "The
+Minister's Wooing;" that reading it has been one of my few editorial
+pleasures; that no one appreciates your genius more highly than I, or
+hopes more fervently that you will let yourself go without regard to
+this, that, or t'other. Don't read any criticisms on your story:
+believe that you know better than any of us, and be sure that
+everybody likes it. That I know. There is not, and never was, anybody
+so competent to write a true New England poem as yourself, and have no
+doubt that you are doing it. The native sod sends up the best
+inspiration to the brain, and you are as sure of immortality as we all
+are of dying,--if you only go on with entire faith in yourself.
+
+Faithfully and admiringly yours,
+
+J. K. LOWELL.
+
+After the book was published in England, Mr. Buskin wrote to Mrs.
+Stowe:--
+
+"Well, I have read the book now, and I think nothing can be nobler
+than the noble parts of it (Mary's great speech to Colonel Burr, for
+instance), nothing wiser than the wise parts of it (the author's
+parenthetical and under-breath remarks), nothing more delightful than
+the delightful parts (all that Virginie says and does), nothing more
+edged than the edged parts (Candace's sayings and doings, to wit); but
+I do not like the plan of the whole, because the simplicity of the
+minister seems to diminish the probability of Mary's reverence for
+him. I cannot fancy even so good a girl who would not have laughed at
+him. Nor can I fancy a man of real intellect reaching such a period of
+life without understanding his own feelings better, or penetrating
+those of another more quickly.
+
+"Then I am provoked at nothing happening to Mrs. Scudder, whom I think
+as entirely unendurable a creature as ever defied poetical justice at
+the end of a novel meant to irritate people. And finally, I think you
+are too disdainful of what ordinary readers seek in a novel, under the
+name of 'interest,'--that gradually developing wonder, expectation,
+and curiosity which makes people who have no self-command sit up till
+three in the morning to get to the crisis, and people who have self-
+command lay the book down with a resolute sigh, and think of it all
+the next day through till the time comes for taking it up again.
+Still, I know well that in many respects it was impossible for you to
+treat this story merely as a work of literary art. There must have
+been many facts which you could not dwell upon, and which no one may
+judge by common rules.
+
+"It is also true, as you say once or twice in the course of the work,
+that we have not among us here the peculiar religious earnestness you
+have mainly to describe.
+
+"We have little earnest formalism, and our formalists are for the most
+part hollow, feeble, uninteresting, mere stumbling-blocks. We have the
+Simeon Brown species, indeed; and among readers even of his kind the
+book may do some good, and more among the weaker, truer people, whom
+it will shake like mattresses,--making the dust fly, and perhaps with
+it some of the sticks and quill-ends, which often make that kind of
+person an objectionable mattress. I write too lightly of the book,--
+far too lightly,--but your letter made me gay, and I have been
+lighter-hearted ever since; only I kept this after beginning it,
+because I was ashamed to send it without a line to Mrs. Browning as
+well. I do not understand why you should apprehend (or rather
+anticipate without apprehension) any absurd criticism on it. It is
+sure to be a popular book,--not as 'Uncle Tom' was, for that owed part
+of its popularity to its dramatic effect (the flight on the ice,
+etc.), which I did not like; but as a true picture of human life is
+always popular. Nor, I should think, would any critics venture at all
+to carp at it.
+
+"The Candace and Virginie bits appear to me, as far as I have yet
+seen, the best. I am very glad there is this nice French lady in it:
+the French are the least appreciated in general, of all nations, by
+other nations. . . . My father says the book is worth its weight in
+gold, and he knows good work."
+
+When we turn from these criticisms and commendations to the inner
+history of this period, we find that the work was done in deep sadness
+of heart, and the undertone of pathos that forms the dark background
+of the brightest and most humorous parts of "The Minister's Wooing"
+was the unconscious revelation of one of sorrowful spirit, who, weary
+of life, would have been glad to lie down with her arms "round the
+wayside cross, and sleep away into a brighter scene."
+
+Just before beginning the writing of "The Minister's Wooing" she sent
+the following letter to Lady Byron:--
+
+ANDOVER, _June_ 30, 1858.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--I did long to hear from you at a time when few knew
+how to speak, because I knew that you did know everything that sorrow
+can teach,--you whose whole life has been a crucifixion, a long
+ordeal. But I believe that the "Lamb," who stands forever in the midst
+of the throne "as it had been slain," has everywhere his followers,
+those who are sent into the world, as he was, to suffer for the
+redemption of others, and like him they must look to the joy set
+before them of redeeming others.
+
+I often think that God called you to this beautiful and terrible
+ministry when He suffered you to link your destiny with one so
+strangely gifted, so fearfully tempted, and that the reward which is
+to meet you, when you enter within the veil, where you must soon pass,
+will be to see the angel, once chained and defiled within him, set
+free from sin and glorified, and so know that to you it has been
+given, by your life of love and faith, to accomplish this glorious
+change.
+
+I think very much on the subject on which you conversed with me once,
+--the future state of retribution. It is evident to me that the spirit
+of Christianity has produced in the human spirit a tenderness of love
+which wholly revolts from the old doctrine on the subject, and I
+observe the more Christ-like any one becomes, the more impossible it
+seems for him to accept it; and yet, on the contrary, it was Christ
+who said, "Fear Him that is able to destroy soul and body in hell,"
+and the most appalling language on this subject is that of Christ
+himself. Certain ideas once prevalent certainly must be thrown off. An
+endless infliction for past sins was once the doctrine that we now
+generally reject. The doctrine as now taught is that of an eternal
+persistence in evil necessitating eternal punishment, since evil
+induces misery by an eternal nature of things, and this, I fear, is
+inferable from the analogies of nature, and confirmed by the whole
+implication of the Bible.
+
+Is there any fair way of disposing of the current of assertion, and
+the still deeper undercurrent of implication, on this subject, without
+one which loosens all faith in revelation, and throws us on pure
+naturalism? But of one thing I am sure,--probation does not end with
+this life, and the number of the redeemed may therefore be infinitely
+greater than the world's history leads us to suppose.
+
+The views expressed in this letter certainly throw light on many
+passages in "The Minister's Wooing."
+
+The following letter, written to her daughter Georgiana, is introduced
+as revealing the spirit in which much of "The Minister's Wooing" was
+written:--
+
+_February_ 12, 1859.
+
+MY DEAR GEORGIE,--Why haven't I written? Because, dear Georgie, I am
+like the dry, dead, leafless tree, and have only cold, dead,
+slumbering buds of hope on the end of stiff, hard, frozen twigs of
+thought, but no leaves, no blossoms; nothing to send to a little girl
+who doesn't know what to do with herself any more than a kitten. I am
+cold, weary, dead; everything is a burden to me.
+
+I let my plants die by inches before my eyes, and do not water them,
+and I dread everything; I do, and wish it was not to be done, and so
+when I get a letter from my little girl I smile and say, "Dear little
+puss, I will answer it;" and I sit hour after hour with folded hands,
+looking at the inkstand and dreading to begin. The fact is, pussy,
+mamma is tired. Life to you is gay and joyous, but to mamma it has
+been a battle in which the spirit is willing but the flesh weak, and
+she would be glad, like the woman in the St. Bernard, to lie down with
+her arms around the wayside cross, and sleep away into a brighter
+scene. Henry's fair, sweet face looks down upon me now and then from
+out a cloud, and I feel again all the bitterness of the eternal "No"
+which says I must never, never, in this life, see that face, lean on
+that arm, hear that voice. Not that my faith in God in the least
+fails, and that I do not believe that all this is for good. I do, and
+though not happy, I am blessed. Weak, weary as I am, I rest on Jesus
+in the innermost depth of my soul, and am quite sure that there is
+coming an inconceivable hour of beauty and glory when I shall regain
+Jesus, and he will give me back my beloved one, whom he is educating
+in a far higher sphere than I proposed. So do not mistake me,--only
+know that mamma is sitting weary by the wayside, feeling weak and
+worn, but in no sense discouraged.
+
+ Your affectionate mother, H. B. S.
+
+So is it ever: when with bold step we press our way into the holy
+place where genius hath wrought, we find it to be a place of sorrows.
+Art has its Gethsemane and its Calvary as well as religion. Our best
+loved books and sweetest songs are those "that tell of saddest
+thought."
+
+The summer of 1859 found Mrs. Stowe again on her way to Europe, this
+time accompanied by all her children except the youngest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE THIRD TRIP TO EUROPE, 1859.
+
+
+THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE.--LADY BYRON ON "THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--SOME
+FOREIGN PEOPLE AND THINGS AS THEY APPEARED TO PROFESSOR STOWE.--A
+WINTER IN ITALY.--THINGS UNSEEN AND UNREVEALED.--SPECULATIONS
+CONCERNING SPIRITUALISM.--JOHN KUSKIN.--MRS. BROWNING.--THE RETURN TO
+AMERICA.--LETTERS TO DR. HOLMES.
+
+Mrs. Stowe's third and last trip to Europe was undertaken in the
+summer of 1859. In writing to Lady Byron in May of that year, she
+says: "I am at present writing something that interests me greatly,
+and may interest you, as an attempt to portray the heart and life of
+New England, its religion, theology, and manners. Sampson Low & Son
+are issuing it in numbers, and I should be glad to know how they
+strike you. It is to publish this work complete that I intend to visit
+England this summer."
+
+The story thus referred to was "The Minister's Wooing," and Lady
+Byron's answer to the above, which is appended, leaves no room for
+doubt as to her appreciation of it. She writes:--
+
+ LONDON, _May_ 31,1859.
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--I have found, particularly as to yourself, that if I did
+not answer from the first impulse, all had evaporated. Your letter
+came by the Niagara, which brought Fanny Kemble, to learn the loss of
+her _best_ friend, that Miss Fitzhugh whom you saw at my house.
+
+I have an intense interest in your new novel. More power in these few
+numbers than in any of your former writings, relatively, at least to
+my own mind. More power than in "Adam Bede," which is _the_ book
+of the season, and well deserves a high place. Whether Mrs. Scudder
+will rival Mrs. Poyser, we shall see.
+
+It would amuse you to hear my granddaughter and myself attempting to
+foresee the future of the "love story," being quite persuaded for the
+moment that James is at sea, and the minister about to ruin himself.
+We think that she will labor to be in love with the self-devoting man,
+under her mother's influence, and from that hyper-conscientiousness so
+common with good girls,--but we don't wish her to succeed. Then what
+is to become of her older lover? He--Time will show. I have just
+missed Dale Owen, with whom I wished to have conversed about the
+"Spiritualism." Harris is lecturing here on religion. I do not hear
+him praised. People are looking for helps to believe everywhere but in
+life,--in music, in architecture, in antiquity, in ceremony,--and upon
+all is written, "Thou shalt _not_ believe." At least, if this be
+faith, happier the unbeliever. I am willing to see _through_ that
+materialism, but if I am to rest there, I would rend the veil.
+
+_June_ 1. The day of the packet's sailing. I shall hope to be
+visited by you here. The best flowers sent me have been placed in your
+little vases, giving life, as it were, to the remembrance of you,
+though not to pass away like them.
+
+ Ever yours, A. T. NOEL BYRON.
+
+The entire family, with the exception of the youngest son, was abroad
+at this time. The two eldest daughters were in Paris, having
+previously sailed for Havre in March, in company with their cousin,
+Miss Beecher. On their arrival in Paris, they went directly to the
+house of their old friend, Madame Borione, and soon afterwards entered
+a Protestant school. The rest of the family, including Mrs. Stowe, her
+husband and youngest daughter, sailed for Liverpool early in August.
+At about the same time, Fred Stowe, in company with his friend Samuel
+Scoville, took passage for the same port in a sailing vessel. A
+comprehensive outline of the earlier portion of this foreign tour is
+given in the following letter written by Professor Stowe to the sole
+member of the family remaining in America:
+
+CASTLE CHILLON, SWITZERLAND, _September_ 1, 1859.
+
+DEAR LITTLE CHARLEY,--We are all here except Fred, and all well. We
+have had a most interesting journey, of which I must give a brief
+account.
+
+We sailed from New York in the steamer Asia, on the 3d of August
+[1859], a very hot day, and for ten days it was the hottest weather I
+ever knew at sea. We had a splendid ship's company, mostly foreigners,
+Italians, Spaniards, with a sprinkling of Scotch and Irish. We passed
+one big iceberg in the night close to, and as the iceberg wouldn't
+turn out for us we turned out for the iceberg, and were very glad to
+come off so. This was the night of the 9th of August, and after that
+we had cooler weather, and on the morning of the 13th the wind blew
+like all possessed, and so continued till afternoon. Sunday morning,
+the 14th, we got safe into Liverpool, landed, and went to the Adelphi
+Hotel. Mamma and Georgie were only a little sick on the way over, and
+that was the morning of the 13th.
+
+As it was court time, the high sheriff of Lancashire, Sir Robert
+Gerauld, a fine, stout, old, gray-haired John Bull, came thundering up
+to the hotel at noon in his grand coach with six beautiful horses with
+outriders, and two trumpeters, and twelve men with javelins for a
+guard, all dressed in the gayest manner, and rushing along like Time
+in the primer, the trumpeters too-ti-toot-tooing like a house a-fire,
+and how I wished my little Charley had been there to see it!
+
+Monday we wanted to go and see the court, so we went over to St.
+George's Hall, a most magnificent structure, that beats the Boston
+State House all hollow, and Sir Robert Gerauld himself met us, and
+said he would get us a good place. So he took us away round a narrow,
+crooked passage, and opened a little door, where we saw nothing but a
+great, crimson curtain, which he told us to put aside and go straight
+on; and where do you think we all found ourselves?
+
+Right on the platform with the judges in their big wigs and long
+robes, and facing the whole crowded court! It was enough to frighten a
+body into fits, but we took it quietly as we could, and your mamma
+looked as meek as Moses in her little, battered straw hat and gray
+cloak, seeming to say, "I didn't come here o' purpose."
+
+That same night we arrived in London, and Tuesday (August 16th),
+riding over the city, we called at Stafford House, and inquired if the
+Duchess of Sutherland was there. A servant came out and said the
+duchess was in and would be very glad to see us; so your mamma,
+Georgie, and I went walking up the magnificent staircase in the
+entrance hall, and the great, noble, brilliant duchess came sailing
+down the stairs to meet us, in her white morning dress (for it was
+only four o'clock in the afternoon, and she was not yet dressed for
+dinner), took your mamma into her great bosom, and folded her up till
+the little Yankee woman looked like a small gray kitten half covered
+in a snowbank, and kissed and kissed her, and then she took up little
+Georgie and kissed her, and then she took my hand, and didn't kiss me.
+
+Next day we went to the duchess's villa, near Windsor Castle, and had
+a grand time riding round the park, sailing on the Thames, and eating
+the very best dinner that was ever set on a table.
+
+We stayed in London till the 25th of August, and then went to Paris
+and found H. and E. and H. B. all well and happy; and on the 30th of
+August we all went to Geneva together, and to-day, the 1st of
+September, we all took a sail up the beautiful Lake Leman here in the
+midst of the Alps, close by the old castle of Chillon, about which
+Lord Byron has written a poem. In a day or two we shall go to
+Chamouni, and then Georgie and I will go back to Paris and London, and
+so home at the time appointed. Until then I remain as ever, Your
+loving father, C. E. STOWE.
+
+Mrs. Stowe accompanied her husband and daughter to England, where,
+after traveling and visiting for two weeks, she bade them good-by and
+returned to her daughters in Switzerland. From Lausanne she writes
+under date of October 9th:--
+
+MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Here we are at Lausanne, in the Hotel Gibbon,
+occupying the very parlor that the Ruskins had when we were here
+before. The day I left you I progressed prosperously to Paris. Reached
+there about one o'clock at night; could get no carriage, and finally
+had to turn in at a little hotel close by the station, where I slept
+till morning. I could not but think what if anything should happen to
+me there? Nobody knew me or where I was, but the bed was clean, the
+room respectable; so I locked my door and slept, then took a carriage
+in the morning, and found Madame Borione at breakfast. I write to-
+night, that you may get a letter from me at the earliest possible date
+after your return.
+
+Instead of coming to Geneva in one day, I stopped over one night at
+Macon, got to Geneva the next day about four o'clock, and to Lausanne
+at eight. Coming up-stairs and opening the door, I found the whole
+party seated with their books and embroidery about a centre-table, and
+looking as homelike and cosy as possible. You may imagine the
+greetings, the kissing, laughing, and good times generally.
+
+From Lausanne the merry party traveled toward Florence by easy stages,
+stopping at Lake Como, Milan, Verona, Venice, Genoa, and Leghorn. At
+Florence, where they arrived early in November, they met Fred Stowe
+and his friend, Samuel Scoville, and here they were also joined by
+their Brooklyn friends, the Howards. Thus it was a large and
+thoroughly congenial party that settled down in the old Italian city
+to spend the winter. From here Mrs. Stowe wrote weekly letters to her
+husband in Andover, and among them are the following, that not only
+throw light upon their mode of life, but illustrate a marked tendency
+of her mind:--
+
+FLORENCE, _Christmas Day,_ 1859.
+
+MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I wish you all a Merry Christmas, hoping to spend
+the next one with you. For us, we are expecting to spend this evening
+with quite a circle of American friends. With Scoville and Fred came
+L. Bacon (son of Dr. Bacon); a Mr. Porter, who is to study theology at
+Andover, and is now making the tour of Europe; Mr. Clarke, formerly
+minister at Cornwall; Mr. Jenkyns, of Lowell; Mr. and Mrs. Howard,
+John and Annie Howard, who came in most unexpectedly upon us last
+night. So we shall have quite a New England party, and shall sing
+Millais' Christmas hymn in great force. Hope you will all do the same
+in the old stone cabin.
+
+Our parlor is all trimmed with laurel and myrtle, looking like a great
+bower, and our mantel and table are redolent with bouquets of orange
+blossoms and pinks.
+
+_January_ 16, 1860.
+
+MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Your letter received to-day has raised quite a
+weight from my mind, for it shows that at last you have received all
+mine, and that thus the chain of communication between us is unbroken.
+What you said about your spiritual experiences in feeling the presence
+of dear Henry with you, and, above all, the vibration of that
+mysterious guitar, was very pleasant to me. Since I have been in
+Florence, I have been distressed by inexpressible yearnings after
+him,--such sighings and outreachings, with a sense of utter darkness
+and separation, not only from him but from all spiritual communion
+with my God. But I have become acquainted with a friend through whom I
+receive consoling impressions of these things,--a Mrs. E., of Boston,
+a very pious, accomplished, and interesting woman, who has had a
+history much like yours in relation to spiritual manifestations.
+
+Without doubt she is what the spiritualists would regard as a very
+powerful medium, but being a very earnest Christian, and afraid of
+getting led astray, she has kept carefully aloof from all circles and
+things of that nature. She came and opened her mind to me in the first
+place, to ask my advice as to what she had better do; relating
+experiences very similar to many of yours.
+
+My advice was substantially to try the spirits whether they were of
+God,--to keep close to the Bible and prayer, and then accept whatever
+came. But I have found that when I am with her I receive very strong
+impressions from the spiritual world, so that I feel often sustained
+and comforted, as if I had been near to my Henry and other departed
+friends. This has been at times so strong as greatly to soothe and
+support me. I told her your experiences, in which she was greatly
+interested. She said it was so rare to hear of Christian and reliable
+people with such peculiarities.
+
+I cannot, however, think that Henry strikes the guitar,--that must be
+Eliza, Her spirit has ever seemed to cling to that mode of
+manifestation, and if you would keep it in your sleeping-room, no
+doubt you would hear from it oftener. I have been reading lately a
+curious work from an old German in Paris who has been making
+experiments in spirit-writing. He purports to describe a series of
+meetings held in the presence of fifty witnesses, whose names he
+gives, in which writing has come on paper, without the apparition of
+hands or any pen or pencil, from various historical people.
+
+He seems a devout believer in inspiration, and the book is curious for
+its mixture of all the phenomena, Pagan and Christian, going over
+Hindoo. Chinese, Greek, and Italian literature for examples, and then
+bringing similar ones from the Bible.
+
+One thing I am convinced of,--that spiritualism is a reaction from the
+intense materialism of the present age. Luther, when he recognized a
+personal devil, was much nearer right. We ought to enter fully, at
+least, into the spiritualism of the Bible. Circles and spiritual
+jugglery I regard as the lying signs and wonders, with all
+deceivableness of unrighteousness; but there is a real scriptural
+spiritualism which has fallen into disuse, and must be revived, and
+there are, doubtless, people who, from some constitutional formation,
+can more readily receive the impressions of the surrounding spiritual
+world. Such were apostles, prophets, and workers of miracles.
+
+_Sunday evening_. To-day I went down to sit with Mrs. E. in her
+quiet parlor. We read in Revelation together, and talked of the saints
+and spirits of the just made perfect, till it seemed, as it always
+does when with her, as if Henry were close by me. Then a curious thing
+happened. She has a little Florentine guitar which hangs in her
+parlor, quite out of reach. She and I were talking, and her sister, a
+very matter-of-fact, practical body, who attends to temporals for her,
+was arranging a little lunch for us, when suddenly the bass string of
+the guitar was struck loudly and distinctly.
+
+"Who struck that guitar?" said the sister. We both looked up and saw
+that no body or thing was on that side of the room. After the sister
+had gone out, Mrs. E. said, "Now, that is strange! I asked last night
+that if any spirit was present with us after you came to-day, that it
+would try to touch that guitar." A little while after her husband came
+in, and as we were talking we were all stopped by a peculiar sound, as
+if somebody had drawn a hand across all the strings at once. We
+marveled, and I remembered the guitar at home.
+
+What think you? Have you had any more manifestations, any truths from
+the spirit world?
+
+About the end of February the pleasant Florentine circle broke up, and
+Mrs. Stowe and her party journeyed to Rome, where they remained until
+the middle of April. We next find them in Naples, starting on a six
+days' trip to Castellamare, Sorrento, Salerno, Paestum, and Amalfi;
+then up Vesuvius, and to the Blue Grotto of Capri, and afterwards back
+to Rome by diligence. Leaving Rome on May 9th, they traveled leisurely
+towards Paris, which they reached on the 27th. From there Mrs. Stowe
+wrote to her husband on May 28th:--
+
+Since my last letter a great change has taken place in our plans, in
+consequence of which our passage for America is engaged by the Europa,
+which sails the 16th of June; so, if all goes well, we are due in
+Boston four weeks from this date. I long for home, for my husband and
+children, for my room, my yard and garden, for the beautiful trees of
+Andover. We will make a very happy home, and our children will help
+us.
+
+Affectionately yours,
+
+HATTY.
+
+This extended and pleasant tour was ended with an equally pleasant
+homeward voyage, for on the Europa were found Nathaniel Hawthorne and
+James T. Fields, who proved most delightful traveling companions.
+
+While Mrs. Stowe fully enjoyed her foreign experiences, she was so
+thoroughly American in every fibre of her being that she was always
+thankful to return to her own land and people. She could not,
+therefore, in any degree reciprocate the views of Mr. Ruskin on this
+subject, as expressed in the following letter, received soon after her
+return to Andover:--
+
+GENEVA, _June_ 18, 1860.
+
+DEAR MRS. STOWE,--It takes a great deal, when I am at Geneva, to make
+me wish myself anywhere else, and, of all places else, in London;
+nevertheless, I very heartily wish at this moment that I were looking
+out on the Norwood Hills, and were expecting you and the children to
+breakfast to-morrow.
+
+I had very serious thoughts, when I received your note, of running
+home; but I expected that very day an American friend, Mr. S., who I
+thought would miss me more here than you would in London; so I stayed.
+
+What a dreadful thing it is that people should have to go to America
+again, after coming to Europe! It seems to me an inversion of the
+order of nature. I think America is a sort of "United" States of
+Probation, out of which all wise people, being once delivered, and
+having obtained entrance into this better world, should never be
+expected to return (sentence irremediably ungrammatical), particularly
+when they have been making themselves cruelly pleasant to friends
+here. My friend Norton, whom I met first on this very blue lake water,
+had no business to go back to Boston again, any more than you.
+
+I was waiting for S. at the railroad station on Thursday, and thinking
+of you, naturally enough,--it seemed so short a while since we were
+there together. I managed to get hold of Georgie as she was crossing
+the rails, and packed her in opposite my mother and beside me, and was
+thinking myself so clever, when you sent that rascally courier for
+her! I never forgave him any of his behavior after his imperativeness
+on that occasion.
+
+And so she is getting nice and strong? Ask her, please, when you
+write, with my love, whether, when she stands now behind the great
+stick, one can see much of her on each side?
+
+So you have been seeing the Pope and all his Easter performances? I
+congratulate you, for I suppose it is something like "Positively the
+last appearance on any stage." What was the use of thinking about
+_him?_ You should have had your own thoughts about what was to
+come after him. I don't mean that Roman Catholicism will die out so
+quickly. It will last pretty nearly as long as Protestantism, which
+keeps it up; but I wonder what is to come next. That is the main
+question just now for everybody.
+
+So you are coming round to Venice, after all? We shall all have to
+come to it, depend upon it, some way or another. There never has been
+anything in any other part of the world like Venetian strength well
+developed.
+
+I've no heart to write about anything in Europe to you now. When are
+you coming back again? Please send me a line as soon as you get safe
+over, to say you are all--wrong, but not lost in the Atlantic.
+
+I don't know if you will ever get this letter, but I hope you will
+think it worth while to glance again at the Denmark Hill pictures; so
+I send this to my father, who, I hope, will be able to give it you.
+
+I really am very sorry you are going,--you and yours; and that is
+absolute fact, and I shall not enjoy my Swiss journey at all so much
+as I might. It was a shame of you not to give me warning before. I
+could have stopped at Paris so easily for you! All good be with you!
+Remember me devotedly to the young ladies, and believe me ever
+affectionately yours,
+
+J. RUSKIN.
+
+In Rome Mrs. Stowe had formed a warm friendship with the Brownings,
+with whom she afterwards maintained a correspondence. The following
+letter from Mrs. Browning was written a year after their first
+meeting.
+
+ROME, 126 VIA FELICE, 14 _March_, 1861.
+
+MY DEAR, MRS. STOWE,--Let me say one word first. Your letter, which
+would have given me pleasure if I had been in the midst of pleasures,
+came to me when little beside could have pleased. Dear friend, let me
+say it, I had had a great blow and loss in England, and you wrote
+things in that letter which seemed meant for me, meant to do me good,
+and which did me good,--the first good any letter or any talk did me;
+and it struck me as strange, as more than a coincidence, that your
+first word since we parted in Rome last spring should come to me in
+Rome, and bear so directly on an experience which you did not know of.
+I thank you very much.
+
+The earnest stanzas I sent to England for one who wanted them even
+more than I. I don't know how people can keep up their prejudices
+against spiritualism with tears in their eyes,--how they are not, at
+least, thrown on the "wish that it might be true," and the
+investigation of the phenomena, by that abrupt shutting in their faces
+of the door of death, which shuts them out from the sight of their
+beloved. My tendency is to beat up against it like a crying child. Not
+that this emotional impulse is the best for turning the key and
+obtaining safe conclusions,--no. I did not write before because I
+always do shrink from touching my own griefs, one feels at first so
+sore that nothing but stillness is borne. It is only after, when one
+is better, that one can express one's self at all. This is so with me,
+at least, though perhaps it ought not to be so with a poet.
+
+If you saw my "De Profundis" you must understand that it was written
+nearly twenty years ago, and referred to what went before. Mr.
+Howard's affliction made me think of the MS. (in reference to a sermon
+of Dr. Beecher's in the "Independent"), and I pulled it out of a
+secret place and sent it to America, not thinking that the publication
+would fall in so nearly with a new grief of mine as to lead to
+misconceptions. In fact the poem would have been an exaggeration in
+that case, and unsuitable in other respects.
+
+It refers to the greatest affliction of my life,--the only time when I
+felt _despair_,--written a year after or more. Forgive all these
+reticences. My husband calls me "peculiar" in some things,--peculiarly
+lâche, perhaps. I can't articulate some names, or speak of certain
+afflictions;--no, not to _him_,--not after all these years! It's
+a sort of _dumbness_ of the soul. Blessed are those who can
+speak, I say. But don't you see from this how I must want
+"spiritualism" above most persons?
+
+Now let me be ashamed of this egotism, together with the rest of the
+weakness obtruded on you here, when I should rather have congratulated
+you, my dear friend, on the great crisis you are passing through in
+America. If the North is found noble enough to stand fast on the moral
+question, whatever the loss or diminution of territory, God and just
+men will see you greater and more glorious as a nation.
+
+I had much anxiety for you after the Seward and Adams speeches, but
+the danger seems averted by that fine madness of the South which seems
+judicial. The tariff movement we should regret deeply (and do, some of
+us), only I am told it was wanted in order to persuade those who were
+less accessible to moral argument. It's eking out the holy water with
+ditch water. If the Devil flees before it, even so, let us be content.
+How you must feel, _you_ who have done so much to set this
+accursed slavery in the glare of the world, convicting it of
+hideousness! They should raise a statue to you in America and
+elsewhere.
+
+Meanwhile I am reading you in the "Independent," sent to me by Mr.
+Tilton, with the greatest interest. Your new novel opens beautifully.
+[Footnote: _The Pearl of Orr's Island_.]
+
+Do write to me and tell me of yourself and the subjects which interest
+us both. It seems to me that our Roman affairs may linger a little
+(while the Papacy bleeds slowly to death in its finances) on account
+of this violent clerical opposition in France. Otherwise we were
+prepared for the fall of the house any morning. Prince Napoleon's
+speech represents, with whatever slight discrepancy, the inner mind of
+the emperor. It occupied seventeen columns of the "Moniteur" and was
+magnificent. Victor Emmanuel wrote to thank him for it in the name of
+Italy, and even the English papers praised it as "a masterly
+exposition of the policy of France." It is settled that we shall wait
+for Venice. It will not be for long. Hungary is _only_ waiting,
+and even in the ashes of Poland there are flickering sparks. Is it the
+beginning of the restitution of all things?
+
+Here in Rome there are fewer English than usual, and more empty
+houses. There is a new story every morning, and nobody to cut off the
+head of the Scheherazade. Yesterday the Pope was going to Venice
+directly, and, the day before, fixed the hour for Victor Emmanuel's
+coming, and the day before _that_ brought a letter from Cavour to
+Antonelli about sweeping the streets clean for the feet of the king.
+The poor Romans live on these stories, while the Holy Father and king
+of Naples meet holding one another's hands, and cannot speak for sobs.
+The little queen, however, is a heroine in her way and from her point
+of view, and when she drives about in a common fiacre, looking very
+pretty under her only crown left of golden hair, one must feel sorry
+that she was not born and married nearer to holy ground. My husband
+prays you to remember him, and I ask your daughters to remember both
+of us. Our boy rides his pony and studies under his abbé, and keeps a
+pair of red cheeks, thank God.
+
+I ought to send you more about the society in Rome, but I have lived
+much alone this winter, and have little to tell you. Dr. Manning and
+Mr. DeVere stay away, not bearing, perhaps, to see the Pope in his
+agony.
+
+Your ever affectionate friend,
+
+ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
+
+Soon after her return to America Mrs. Stowe began a correspondence
+with Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, which opened the way for the warm
+friendship that has stood the test of years. Of this correspondence
+the two following letters, written about this time, are worthy of
+attention.
+
+ANDOVER, _September_ 9, 1860.
+
+DEAR DR. HOLMES,--I have had an impulse upon me for a long time to
+write you a line of recognition and sympathy, in response to those
+that reached me monthly in your late story in the "Atlantic" ("Elsie
+Venner").
+
+I know not what others may think of it, since I have seen nobody since
+my return; but to me it is of deeper and broader interest than
+anything you have done yet, and I feel an intense curiosity concerning
+that underworld of thought from which Like bubbles your incidents and
+remarks often seem to burst up. The foundations of moral
+responsibility, the interlacing laws of nature and spirit, and their
+relations to us here and hereafter, are topics which I ponder more and
+more, and on which only one medically educated can write _well_.
+I think a course of medical study ought to be required of all
+ministers. How I should like to talk with you upon the strange list of
+topics suggested in the schoolmaster's letter! They are bound to
+agitate the public mind more and more, and it is of the chiefest
+importance to learn, if we can, to think soundly and wisely of them.
+Nobody can be a sound theologian who has not had his mind drawn to
+think with reverential fear on these topics.
+
+Allow me to hint that the monthly numbers are not long enough. Get us
+along a little faster. You must work this well out. Elaborate and give
+us all the particulars. Old Sophie is a jewel; give us more of her. I
+have seen her. Could you ever come out and spend a day with us? The
+professor and I would so like to have a talk on some of these matters
+with you!
+
+Very truly yours, H. B. STOWE.
+
+ANDOVER, _February_ 18, 1861.
+
+DEAR DOCTOR,--I was quite indignant to hear yesterday of the very
+unjust and stupid attack upon you in the----. Mr. Stowe has written to
+them a remonstrance which I hope they will allow to appear as he wrote
+it, and over his name. He was well acquainted with your father and
+feels the impropriety of the thing.
+
+But, my dear friend, in being shocked, surprised, or displeased
+personally with such things, we must consider other people's natures.
+A man or woman may wound us to the quick without knowing it, or
+meaning to do so, simply through difference of fibre. As Cowper hath
+somewhere happily said:--
+
+  "Oh, why are farmers made so coarse,
+    Or clergy made so fine?
+  A kick that scarce might move a horse
+    Might kill a sound divine."
+
+When once people get ticketed, and it is known that one is a hammer,
+another a saw, and so on, if we happen to get a taste of their quality
+we cannot help being hurt, to be sure, but we shall not take it ill of
+them. There be pious, well-intending beetles, wedges, hammers, saws,
+and all other kinds of implements, good--except where they come in the
+way of our fingers--and from a beetle you can have only a beetle's
+gospel.
+
+I have suffered in my day from this sort of handling, which is worse
+for us women, who must never answer, and once when I wrote to Lady
+Byron, feeling just as you do about some very stupid and unkind things
+that had invaded my personality, she answered me, "Words do not kill,
+my dear, or I should have been dead long ago."
+
+There is much true religion and kindness in the world, after all, and
+as a general thing he who has struck a nerve would be very sorry for
+it if he only knew what he had done. I would say nothing, if I were
+you. There is eternal virtue in silence.
+
+I must express my pleasure with the closing chapters of "Elsie." They
+are nobly and beautifully done, and quite come up to what I wanted to
+complete my idea of her character. I am quite satisfied with it now.
+It is an artistic creation, original and beautiful.
+
+Believe me to be your true friend,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE CIVIL WAR, 1860-1865.
+
+
+THE OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR.--MRS. STOWE'S SON ENLISTS.--THANKSGIVING
+DAY IN WASHINGTON.--THE PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION.--REJOICINGS IN
+BOSTON.--FRED STOWE AT GETTYSBURG.--LEAVING ANDOVER AND SETTLING IN
+HARTFORD.--A REPLY TO THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND.--LETTERS FROM JOHN BRIGHT,
+ARCHBISHOP WHATELY, AND NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+
+Immediately after Mrs. Stowe's return from Europe, it became only too
+evident that the nation was rapidly and inevitably drifting into all
+the horrors of civil war. To use her own words: "It was God's will
+that this nation--the North as well as the South--should deeply and
+terribly suffer for the sin of consenting to and encouraging the great
+oppressions of the South; that the ill-gotten wealth, which had arisen
+from striking hands with oppression and robbery, should be paid back
+in the taxes of war; that the blood of the poor slave, that had cried
+so many years from the ground in vain, should be answered by the blood
+of the sons from the best hearthstones through all the free States;
+that the slave mothers, whose tears nobody regarded, should have with
+them a great company of weepers, North and South,--Rachels weeping for
+their children and refusing to be comforted; that the free States, who
+refused to listen when they were told of lingering starvation, cold,
+privation, and barbarous cruelty, as perpetrated on the slave, should
+have lingering starvation, cold, hunger, and cruelty doing its work
+among their own sons, at the hands of these slave-masters, with whose
+sins our nation had connived."
+
+Mrs. Stowe spoke from personal experience, having seen her own son go
+forth in the ranks of those who first responded to the President's
+call for volunteers. He was one of the first to place his name on the
+muster-roll of Company A of the First Massachusetts Volunteers. While
+his regiment was still at the camp in Cambridge, Mrs. Stowe was called
+to Brooklyn on important business, from which place she writes to her
+husband under the date June 11, 1861:--
+
+"Yesterday noon Henry (Ward Beecher) came in, saying that the
+Commonwealth, with the First (Massachusetts) Regiment on board, had
+just sailed by. Immediately I was of course eager to get to Jersey
+City to see Fred. Sister Eunice said she would go with me, and in a
+few minutes she, Hatty, Sam Scoville, and I were in a carriage,
+driving towards the Fulton Ferry. Upon reaching Jersey City we found
+that the boys were dining in the depot, an immense building with many
+tracks and platforms. It has a great cast-iron gallery just under the
+roof, apparently placed there with prophetic instinct of these times.
+There was a crowd of people pressing against the grated doors, which
+were locked, but through which we could see the soldiers. It was with
+great difficulty that we were at last permitted to go inside, and that
+object seemed to be greatly aided by a bit of printed satin that some
+man gave Mr. Scoville.
+
+"When we were in, a vast area of gray caps and blue overcoats was
+presented. The boys were eating, drinking, smoking, talking, singing,
+and laughing. Company A was reported to be here, there, and
+everywhere. At last S. spied Fred in the distance, and went leaping
+across the tracks towards him. Immediately afterwards a blue-
+overcoated figure bristling with knapsack and haversack, and looking
+like an assortment of packages, came rushing towards us.
+
+"Fred was overjoyed, you may be sure, and my first impulse was to wipe
+his face with my handkerchief before I kissed him. He was in high
+spirits, in spite of the weight of blue overcoat, knapsack, etc.,
+etc., that he would formerly have declared intolerable for half an
+hour. I gave him my handkerchief and Eunice gave him hers, with a
+sheer motherly instinct that is so strong within her, and then we
+filled his haversack with oranges.
+
+"We stayed with Fred about two hours, during which time the gallery
+was filled with people, cheering and waving their handkerchiefs. Every
+now and then the band played inspiriting airs, in which the soldiers
+joined with hearty voices. While some of the companies sang, others
+were drilled, and all seemed to be having a general jollification. The
+meal that had been provided was plentiful, and consisted of coffee,
+lemonade, sandwiches, etc.
+
+"On our way out we were introduced to the Rev. Mr. Cudworth, chaplain
+of the regiment. He is a fine-looking man, with black eyes and hair,
+set off by a white havelock. He wore a sword, and Fred, touching it,
+asked, 'Is this for use or ornament, sir?'
+
+"'Let me see you in danger,' answered the chaplain, 'and you'll find
+out.'
+
+"I said to him I supposed he had had many an one confided to his kind
+offices, but I could not forbear adding one more to the number. He
+answered, 'You may rest assured, Mrs. Stowe, I will do all in my
+power.'
+
+"We parted from Fred at the door. He said he felt lonesome enough
+Saturday evening on the Common in Boston, where everybody was taking
+leave of somebody, and he seemed to be the only one without a friend,
+but that this interview made up for it all.
+
+"I also saw young Henry. Like Fred he is mysteriously changed, and
+wears an expression of gravity and care. So our boys come to manhood
+in a day. Now I am watching anxiously for the evening paper to tell me
+that the regiment has reached Washington in safety."
+
+In November, 1862, Mrs. Stowe was invited to visit Washington, to be
+present at a great thanksgiving dinner provided for the thousands of
+fugitive slaves who had flocked to the city. She accepted the
+invitation the more gladly because her son's regiment was encamped
+near the city, and she should once more see him. He was now Lieutenant
+Stowe, having honestly won his promotion by bravery on more than one
+hard-fought field. She writes of this visit:
+
+Imagine a quiet little parlor with a bright coal fire, and the
+gaslight burning above a centre-table, about which Hatty, Fred, and I
+are seated. Fred is as happy as happy can be to be with mother and
+sister once more. All day yesterday we spent in getting him. First we
+had to procure a permit to go to camp, then we went to the fort where
+the colonel is, and then to another where the brigadier-general is
+stationed. I was so afraid they would not let him come with us, and
+was never happier than when at last he sprang into the carriage free
+to go with us for forty-eight hours. "Oh!" he exclaimed in a sort of
+rapture, "this pays for a year and a half of fighting and hard work!"
+
+We tried hard to get the five o'clock train out to Laurel, where J.'s
+regiment is stationed, as we wanted to spend Sunday all together; but
+could not catch it, and so had to content ourselves with what we could
+have. I have managed to secure a room for Fred next ours, and feel as
+though I had my boy at home once more. He is looking very well, has
+grown in thickness, and is as loving and affectionate as a boy can be.
+
+I have just been writing a pathetic appeal to the brigadier-general to
+let him stay with us a week. I have also written to General Buckingham
+in regard to changing him from the infantry, in which there seems to
+be no prospect of anything but garrison duty, to the cavalry, which is
+full of constant activity.
+
+General B. called on us last evening. He seemed to think the prospect
+before us was, at best, of a long war. He was the officer deputed to
+carry the order to General McClellan relieving him of command of the
+army. He carried it to him in his tent about twelve o'clock at night.
+Burnside was there. McClellan said it was very unexpected, but
+immediately turned over the command. I said I thought he ought to have
+expected it after having so disregarded the President's order. General
+B. smiled and said he supposed McClellan had done that so often before
+that he had no idea any notice would be taken of it this time.
+
+Now, as I am very tired, I must close, and remain as always, lovingly
+yours,
+
+HATTY.
+
+During the darkest and most bitter period of the Civil War, Mrs. Stowe
+penned the following letter to the Duchess of Argyll:--
+
+ANDOVER, _July_ 31, 1863.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--Your lovely, generous letter was a real comfort to
+me, and reminded me that a year--and, alas! a whole year--had passed
+since I wrote to your dear mother, of whom I think so often as one of
+God's noblest creatures, and one whom it comforts me to think is still
+in our world.
+
+_So many_, good and noble, have passed away whose friendship was
+such a pride, such a comfort to me! Your noble father, Lady Byron,
+Mrs. Browning,--their spirits are as perfect as ever passed to the
+world of light. I grieve about your dear mother's eyes. I have thought
+about you all, many a sad, long, quiet hour, as I have lain on my bed
+and looked at the pictures on my wall; one, in particular, of the
+moment before the Crucifixion, which is the first thing I look at when
+I wake in the morning. I think how suffering is, and must be, the
+portion of noble spirits, and no lot so brilliant that must not first
+or last dip into the shadow of that eclipse. Prince Albert, too, the
+ideal knight, the _Prince Arthur_ of our times, the good, wise,
+steady head and heart we--that is, our world, we Anglo-Saxons--need so
+much. And the Queen! yes, I have thought of and prayed for her, too.
+But could a woman hope to have _always_ such a heart, and yet
+ever be weaned from earth "all this and heaven, too"?
+
+Under my picture I have inscribed, "Forasmuch as Christ also hath
+suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same mind."
+
+This year has been one long sigh, one smothering sob, to me. And I
+thank God that we have as yet one or two generous friends in England
+who understand and feel for our cause.
+
+The utter failure of Christian, anti-slavery England, in those
+_instincts_ of a right heart which always can see where the cause
+of liberty lies, has been as bitter a grief to me as was the similar
+prostration of all our American religious people in the day of the
+Fugitive Slave Law. Exeter Hall is a humbug, a pious humbug, like the
+rest. Lord Shaftesbury. Well, let him go; he is a Tory, and has, after
+all, the instincts of his class. But I saw _your_ duke's speech
+to his tenants! That was grand! If _he_ can see these things,
+they are to be seen, and why cannot Exeter Hall see them? It is simply
+the want of the honest heart.
+
+Why do the horrible barbarities of _Southern_ soldiers cause no
+comment? Why is the sympathy of the British Parliament reserved for
+the poor women of New Orleans, deprived of their elegant amusement of
+throwing vitriol into soldiers' faces, and practicing indecencies
+inconceivable in any other state of society? Why is _all_
+expression of sympathy on the _Southern_ side? There is a class
+of women in New Orleans whom Butler protects from horrible
+barbarities, that up to his day have been practiced on them by these
+so-called New Orleans ladies, but British sympathy has ceased to
+notice _them_. You see I am bitter. I am. You wonder at my
+brother. He is a man, and feels a thousand times more than I can, and
+deeper than all he ever has expressed, the spirit of these things. You
+must not wonder, therefore. Remember it is the moment when every nerve
+is vital; it is our agony; we tread the winepress alone, and they
+whose cheap rhetoric has been for years pushing us into it now desert
+_en masse_. I thank my God I always loved and trusted most those
+who now _do_ stand true,--your family, your duke, yourself, your
+noble mother. I have lost Lady Byron. Her great heart, her eloquent
+letters, would have been such a joy to me! And Mrs. Browning, oh such
+a heroic woman! None of her poems can express what _she_ was,--so
+grand, so comprehending, so strong, with such inspired insight! She
+stood by Italy through its crisis. Her heart was with all good through
+the world. Your prophecy that we shall come out better, truer,
+stronger, will, I am confident, be true, and it was worthy of yourself
+and your good lineage.
+
+Slavery will be sent out by this agony. We are only in the throes and
+ravings of the exorcism. The roots of the cancer have gone everywhere,
+but they must die--will. Already the Confiscation Bill is its natural
+destruction. Lincoln has been too slow. He should have done it sooner,
+and with an impulse, but come it must, come it will. Your mother will
+live to see slavery abolished, _unless_ England forms an alliance
+to hold it up. England is the great reliance of the slave-power to-
+day, and next to England the faltering weakness of the North, which
+palters and dare not fire the great broadside for fear of hitting
+friends. These things _must_ be done, and sudden, sharp remedies
+are _mercy_. Just now we are in a dark hour; but whether God be
+with us or not, I know He is with the slave, and with his redemption
+will come the solution of our question. I have long known _what_
+and who we had to deal with in this, for when I wrote "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin" I had letters addressed to me showing a state of society
+perfectly _inconceivable_. That they violate graves, make
+drinking-cups of skulls, that _ladies_ wear cameos cut from
+bones, and treasure scalps, is no surprise to me. If I had written
+what I knew of the obscenity, brutality, and cruelty of that society
+down there, society would have cast out the books; and it is for their
+interest, the interest of the whole race in the South, that we should
+succeed. I wish _them_ no ill, feel no bitterness; they have had
+a Dahomian education which makes them savage. We don't expect any more
+of _them_, but if slavery is destroyed, one generation of
+education and liberty will efface these stains. They will come to
+themselves, these States, and be glad it is over.
+
+I am using up my paper to little purpose. Please give my best love to
+your dear mother. I am going to write to her. If I only could have
+written the things I have often thought! I am going to put on her
+bracelet, with the other dates, that of the abolition of slavery in
+the District of Columbia. Remember me to the duke and to your dear
+children. My husband desires his best regards, my daughters also.
+
+I am lovingly ever yours,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+Later in the year we hear again from her son in the army, and this
+time the news comes in a chaplain's letter from the terrible field of
+Gettysburg. He writes:--
+
+GETTYSBURG, PA., _Saturday, July_ 11, 9.30 P. M.
+
+MRS. H. B. STOWE:
+
+_Dear Madam_,--Among the thousands of wounded and dying men on
+this war-scarred field, I have just met with your son, Captain Stowe.
+If you have not already heard from him, it may cheer your heart to
+know that he is in the hands of good, kind friends. He was struck by a
+fragment of a shell, which entered his right ear. He is quiet and
+cheerful, longs to see some member of his family, and is, above all,
+anxious that they should hear from him as soon as possible. I assured
+him I would write at once, and though I am wearied by a week's labor
+here among scenes of terrible suffering, I know that, to a mother's
+anxious heart, even a hasty scrawl about her boy will be more than
+welcome.
+
+May God bless and sustain you in this troubled time!
+
+Yours with sincere sympathy,
+
+J. M. CROWELL.
+
+The wound in the head was not fatal, and after weary months of intense
+suffering it imperfectly healed; but the cruel iron had too nearly
+touched the brain of the young officer, and never again was he what he
+had been. Soon after the war his mother bought a plantation in
+Florida, largely in the hope that the out-of-door life connected with
+its management might be beneficial to her afflicted son. He remained
+on it for several years, and then, being possessed with the idea that
+a long sea voyage would do him more good than anything else, sailed
+from New York to San Francisco around the Horn. That he reached the
+latter city in safety is known; but that is all. No word from him or
+concerning him has ever reached the loving hearts that have waited so
+anxiously for it, and of his ultimate fate nothing is known.
+
+Meantime, the year 1863 was proving eventful in many other ways to
+Mrs. Stowe. In the first place, the long and pleasant Andover
+connection of Professor Stowe was about to be severed, and the family
+were to remove to Hartford, Conn. They were to occupy a house that
+Mrs. Stowe was building on the bank of Park River. It was erected in a
+grove of oaks that had in her girlhood been one of Mrs. Stowe's
+favorite resorts. Here, with her friend Georgiana May, she had passed
+many happy hours, and had often declared that if she were ever able to
+build a house, it should stand in that very place. Here, then, it was
+built in 1863, and as the location was at that time beyond the city
+limits, it formed, with its extensive, beautiful groves, a
+particularly charming place of residence. Beautiful as it was,
+however, it was occupied by the family for only a few years. The needs
+of the growing city caused factories to spring up in the neighborhood,
+and to escape their encroachments the Stowes in 1873 bought and moved
+into the house on Forest Street that has ever since been their
+Northern home. Thus the only house Mrs. Stowe ever planned and built
+for herself has been appropriated to the use of factory hands, and is
+now a tenement occupied by several families.
+
+Another important event of 1863 was the publishing of that charming
+story of Italy, "Agnes of Sorrento," which had been begun nearly four
+years before. This story suggested itself to Mrs. Stowe while she was
+abroad during the winter of 1859-60. The origin of the story is as
+follows: One evening, at a hotel in Florence, it was proposed that the
+various members of the party should write short stories and read them
+for the amusement of the company. Mrs. Stowe took part in this
+literary contest, and the result was the first rough sketch of "Agnes
+of Sorrento." From this beginning was afterwards elaborated "Agnes of
+Sorrento," with a dedication to Annie Howard, who was one of the
+party.
+
+[Illustration: THE OLD HOME AT HARTFORD.]
+
+Not the least important event of the year to Mrs. Stowe, and the world
+at large through her instrumentality, was the publication in the
+"Atlantic Monthly" of her reply to the address of the women of
+England. The "reply" is substantially as follows:--
+
+_January_, 1863.
+
+A REPLY
+
+To "The affectionate and Christian Address of many thousands of Women
+of Great Britain and Ireland to their Sisters, the Women of the United
+States of America," (signed by)
+
+ ANNA MARIA BEDFORD (Duchess of Bedford).
+ OLIVIA CECILIA COWLEY (Countess Cowley).
+ CONSTANCE GROSVENOR (Countess Grosvenor).
+ HARRIET SUTHERLAND (Duchess of Sutherland).
+ ELIZABETH ARGYLL (Duchess of Argyll).
+ ELIZABETH FORTESCUE (Countess Fortescue).
+ EMILY SHAFTESBURY (Countess of Shaftesbury).
+ MARY RUTHVEN (Baroness Ruthven).
+ M. A. MILMAN (wife of Dean of St. Paul).
+ R. BUXTON (daughter of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton).
+ CAROLINE AMELIA OWEN (wife of Professor Owen).
+ MRS. CHARLES WINDHAM.
+ C. A. HATHERTON (Baroness Hatherton).
+ ELIZABETH DUCIE (Countess Dowager of Ducie).
+ CECILIA PARKE (wife of Baron Parke).
+ MARY ANN CHALLIS (wife of the Lord Mayor of London).
+ E. GORDON (Duchess Dowager of Gordon).
+ ANNA M. L. MELVILLE (daughter of Earl of Leven and Melville).
+ GEORGIANA EBRINGTON (Lady Ebrington).
+ A. HILL (Viscountess Hill).
+ MRS. GOBAT (wife of Bishop Gobat of Jerusalem).
+ E. PALMERSTON (Viscountess Palmerston).
+ (And others).
+
+SISTERS,--More than eight years ago you sent to us in America a
+document with the above heading. It is as follows:--
+
+"A common origin, a common faith, and, we sincerely believe, a common
+cause, urge us, at the present moment, to address you on the subject
+of that system of negro slavery which still prevails so extensively,
+and, even under kindly disposed masters, with such frightful results,
+in many of the vast regions of the Western world.
+
+"We will not dwell on the ordinary topics,--on the progress of
+civilization, on the advance of freedom everywhere, on the rights and
+requirements of the nineteenth century; but we appeal to you very
+seriously to reflect, and to ask counsel of God, how far such a state
+of things is in accordance with his Holy Word, the inalienable rights
+of immortal souls, and the pure and merciful spirit of the Christian
+religion. We do not shut our eyes to the difficulties, nay, the
+dangers, that might beset the immediate abolition of that long-
+established system. We see and admit the necessity of preparation for
+so great an event; but, in speaking of indispensable preliminaries, we
+cannot be silent on those laws of your country which, in direct
+contravention of God's own law, 'instituted in the time of man's
+innocency, deny in effect to the slave the sanctity of marriage, with
+all its joys, rights, and obligations; which separate, at the will of
+the master, the wife from the husband, and the children from the
+parents. Nor can we be silent on that awful system which, either by
+statute or by custom, interdicts to any race of men, or any portion of
+the human family, education in the truths of the gospel and the
+ordinances of Christianity. A remedy applied to these two evils alone
+would commence the amelioration of their sad condition. We appeal to
+you then, as sisters, as wives, and as mothers, to raise your voices
+to your fellow-citizens, and your prayers to God, for the removal of
+this affliction and disgrace from the Christian world.
+
+"We do not say these things in a spirit of self-complacency, as though
+our nation were free from the guilt it perceives in others.
+
+"We acknowledge with grief and shame our heavy share in this great
+sin. We acknowledge that our fore-fathers introduced, nay compelled
+the adoption, of slavery in those mighty colonies. We humbly confess
+it before Almighty God; and it is because we so deeply feel and
+unfeignedly avow our own complicity, that we now venture to implore
+your aid to wipe away our common crime and our common dishonor."
+
+This address, splendidly illuminated on vellum, was sent to our shores
+at the head of twenty-six folio volumes, containing considerably more
+than half a million of signatures of British women. It was forwarded
+to me with a letter from a British nobleman, now occupying one of the
+highest official positions in England, with a request on behalf of
+these ladies that it should be in any possible way presented to the
+attention of my countrywomen.
+
+This memorial, as it now stands in its solid oaken case, with its
+heavy folios, each bearing on its back the imprint of the American
+eagle, forms a most unique library, a singular monument of an
+international expression of a moral idea. No right-thinking person can
+find aught to be objected against the substance or form of this
+memorial. It is temperate, just, and kindly; and on the high ground of
+Christian equality, where it places itself, may be regarded as a
+perfectly proper expression of sentiment, as between blood relations
+and equals in two different nations. The signatures to this appeal are
+not the least remarkable part of it; for, beginning at the very steps
+of the throne, they go down to the names of women in the very humblest
+conditions in life, and represent all that Great Britain possesses,
+not only of highest and wisest, but of plain, homely common sense and
+good feeling. Names of wives of cabinet ministers appear on the same
+page with the names of wives of humble laborers,--names of duchesses
+and countesses, of wives of generals, ambassadors, savants, and men of
+letters, mingled with names traced in trembling characters by hands
+evidently unused to hold the pen, and stiffened by lowly toil. Nay, so
+deep and expansive was the feeling, that British subjects in foreign
+lands had their representation. Among the signatures are those of
+foreign residents, from Paris to Jerusalem. Autographs so diverse, and
+collected from sources so various, have seldom been found in
+juxtaposition. They remain at this day a silent witness of a most
+singular tide of feeling which at that time swept over the British
+community and _made_ for itself an expression, even at the risk
+of offending the sensibilities of an equal and powerful nation.
+
+No reply to that address, in any such tangible and monumental form,
+has ever been possible. It was impossible to canvass our vast
+territories with the zealous and indefatigable industry with which
+England was canvassed for signatures. In America, those possessed of
+the spirit which led to this efficient action had no leisure for it.
+All their time and energies were already absorbed in direct efforts to
+remove the great evil, concerning which the minds of their English
+sisters had been newly aroused, and their only answer was the silent
+continuance of these efforts.
+
+From the slaveholding States, however, as was to be expected, came a
+flood of indignant recrimination and rebuke. No one act, perhaps, ever
+produced more frantic irritation, or called out more unsparing abuse.
+It came with the whole united weight of the British aristocracy and
+commonalty on the most diseased and sensitive part of our national
+life; and it stimulated that fierce excitement which was working
+before, and has worked since, till it has broken out into open war.
+
+The time has come, however, when such an astonishing page has been
+turned, in the anti-slavery history of America, that the women of our
+country, feeling that the great anti-slavery work to which their
+English sisters exhorted them is almost done, may properly and
+naturally feel moved to reply to their appeal, and lay before them the
+history of what has occurred since the receipt of their affectionate
+and Christian address.
+
+Your address reached us just as a great moral conflict was coming to
+its intensest point. The agitation kept up by the anti-slavery portion
+of America, by England, and by the general sentiment of humanity in
+Europe, had made the situation of the slaveholding aristocracy
+intolerable. As one of them at the time expressed it, they felt
+themselves under the ban of the civilized world. Two courses only were
+open to them: to abandon slave institutions, the sources of their
+wealth and political power, or to assert them with such an
+overwhelming national force as to compel the respect and assent of
+mankind. They chose the latter.
+
+To this end they determined to seize on and control all the resources
+of the Federal Government, and to spread their institutions through
+new States and Territories until the balance of power should fall into
+their hands and they should be able to force slavery into all the free
+States.
+
+A leading Southern senator boasted that he would yet call the roll of
+his slaves on Bunker Hill; and for a while the political successes of
+the slave-power were such as to suggest to New England that this was
+no impossible event.
+
+They repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had hitherto stood like
+the Chinese wall, between our Northwestern Territories and the
+irruptions of slaveholding barbarians.
+
+Then came the struggle between freedom and slavery in the new
+territory; the battle for Kansas and Nebraska, fought with fire and
+sword and blood, where a race of men, of whom John Brown was the
+immortal type, acted over again the courage, the perseverance, and the
+military-religious ardor of the old Covenanters of Scotland, and like
+them redeemed the ark of Liberty at the price of their own blood, and
+blood dearer than their own.
+
+The time of the Presidential canvass which elected Mr. Lincoln was the
+crisis of this great battle. The conflict had become narrowed down to
+the one point of the extension of slave territory. If the slaveholders
+could get States enough, they could control and rule; if they were
+outnumbered by free States, their institutions, by the very law of
+their nature, would die of suffocation. Therefore Fugitive Slave Law,
+District of Columbia, Inter-State Slave-trade, and what not, were all
+thrown out of sight for a grand rally on this vital point. A President
+was elected pledged to opposition to this one thing alone,--a man
+known to be in favor of the Fugitive Slave Law and other so-called
+compromises of the Constitution, but honest and faithful in his
+determination on this one subject. That this was indeed the vital
+point was shown by the result. The moment Lincoln's election was
+ascertained, the slaveholders resolved to destroy the Union they could
+no longer control.
+
+They met and organized a Confederacy which they openly declared to be
+the first republic founded on the right and determination of the white
+man to enslave the black man, and, spreading their banners, declared
+themselves to the Christian world of the nineteenth century as a
+nation organized with the full purpose and intent of perpetuating
+slavery.
+
+But in the course of the struggle that followed, it became important
+for the new confederation to secure the assistance of foreign powers,
+and infinite pains were then taken to blind and bewilder the mind of
+England as to the real issues of the conflict in America.
+
+It has been often and earnestly asserted that slavery had nothing to
+do with this conflict; that it was a mere struggle for power; that the
+only object was to restore the Union as it was, with all its abuses.
+It is to be admitted that expressions have proceeded from the national
+administration which naturally gave rise to misapprehension, and
+therefore we beg to speak to you on this subject more fully.
+
+And first the declaration of the Confederate States themselves is
+proof enough, that, whatever may be declared on the other side, the
+maintenance of slavery is regarded by them as the vital object of
+their movement.
+
+We ask your attention under this head to the declaration of their
+Vice-President, Stephens, in that remarkable speech delivered on the
+21st of March, 1861, at Savannah, Georgia, wherein he declares the
+object and purposes of the new Confederacy. It is one of the most
+extraordinary papers which our century has produced. I quote from the
+_verbatim_ report in the "Savannah Republican" of the address as
+it was delivered in the Athenćum of that city, on which occasion, says
+the newspaper from which I copy, "Mr. Stephens took his seat amid a
+burst of enthusiasm and applause such as the Athenćum has never had
+displayed within its walls within the recollection 'of the oldest
+inhabitant,'"
+
+Last, not least, the new Constitution has put at rest _forever_
+all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution,--
+African slavery as it exists among us, the proper _status_ of
+the negro in our form of civilization. _This was the immediate cause
+of the late rupture and present revolution_. Jefferson, in his
+forecast, had anticipated this as the "rock upon which the old Union
+would split." He was right. What was a conjecture with him is now a
+realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon
+which that rock _stood_ and _stands_ may be doubted.
+
+_The prevailing ideas entertained by him, and most of the leading
+statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were,
+that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of
+nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and
+politically._
+
+In the mean while, during the past year, the Republican
+administration, with all the unwonted care of organizing an army and
+navy, and conducting military operations on an immense scale, have
+proceeded to demonstrate the feasibility of overthrowing slavery by
+purely constitutional measures. To this end they have instituted a
+series of movements which have made this year more fruitful in anti-
+slavery triumphs than any other since the emancipation of the British
+West Indies. The District of Columbia, as belonging strictly to the
+national government and to no separate State, has furnished a fruitful
+subject of remonstrance from British Christians with America. We have
+abolished slavery there, and thus wiped out the only blot of
+territorial responsibility on our escutcheon.
+
+By another act, equally grand in principle, and far more important in
+its results, slavery is forever excluded from the Territories of the
+United States.
+
+By another act, America has consummated the long-delayed treaty with
+Great Britain for the suppression of the slave-trade. In ports whence
+slave vessels formerly sailed with the connivance of the port
+officers, the administration has placed men who stand up to their
+duty, and for the first time in our history the slave-trader is
+convicted and hung as a pirate. This abominable secret traffic has
+been wholly demolished by the energy of the Federal Government.
+
+Lastly, and more significant still, the United States government has
+in its highest official capacity taken distinct anti-slavery ground,
+and presented to the country a plan of peaceable emancipation with
+suitable compensation. This noble-spirited and generous offer has been
+urged on the slaveholding States by the chief executive with
+earnestness and sincerity. But this is but half the story of the anti-
+slavery triumphs of this year. We have shown you what has been done
+for freedom by the simple use of the ordinary constitutional forces of
+the Union. We are now to show you what has been done to the same end
+by the constitutional war-power of the nation.
+
+By this power it has been this year decreed that every slave of a
+rebel who reaches the lines of our army becomes a free man; that all
+slaves found deserted by their masters become free men; that every
+slave employed in any service for the United States thereby obtains
+his liberty; and that every slave employed against the United States
+in any capacity obtains his liberty; and lest the army should contain
+officers disposed to remand slaves to their masters, the power of
+judging and delivering up slaves is denied to army officers, and all
+such acts are made penal.
+
+By this act the Fugitive Slave Law is for all present purposes
+practically repealed. With this understanding and provision, wherever
+our armies march they carry liberty with them. For be it remembered
+that our army is almost entirely a volunteer one, and that the most
+zealous and ardent volunteers are those who have been for years
+fighting, with tongue and pen, the abolition battle. So marked is the
+character of our soldiers in this respect, that they are now
+familiarly designated in the official military dispatches of the
+Confederate States as "the Abolitionists." Conceive the results when
+an army so empowered by national law marches through a slave
+territory. One regiment alone has to our certain knowledge liberated
+two thousand slaves during the past year, and this regiment is but one
+out of hundreds.
+
+Lastly, the great decisive measure of the war has appeared,--_the
+President's Proclamation of Emancipation_.
+
+This also has been much misunderstood and misrepresented in England.
+It has been said to mean virtually this: Be loyal and you shall keep
+your slaves; rebel and they shall be free. But let us remember what we
+have just seen of the purpose and meaning of the Union to which the
+rebellious States are invited back. It is to a Union which has
+abolished slavery in the District of Columbia, and interdicted slavery
+in the Territories; which vigorously represses the slave-trade, and
+hangs the convicted slaver as a pirate; which necessitates
+emancipation by denying expansion to slavery, and facilitates it by
+the offer of compensation. Any slaveholding States which should return
+to such a Union might fairly be supposed to return with the purpose of
+peaceable emancipation. The President's Proclamation simply means
+this: Come in and emancipate peaceably with compensation; stay out and
+I emancipate, nor will I protect you from the consequences.
+
+Will our sisters in England feel no heartbeat at that event? Is it not
+one of the predicted voices of the latter day, saying under the whole
+heavens, "It is done; the kingdoms of this world are become the
+kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ"?
+
+And now, sisters of England, in this solemn, expectant hour, let us
+speak to you of one thing which fills our hearts with pain and
+solicitude. It is an unaccountable fact, and one which we entreat you
+seriously to ponder, that the party which has brought the cause of
+freedom thus far on its way, during the past eventful year, has found
+little or no support in England. Sadder than this, the party which
+makes slavery the chief corner-stone of its edifice finds in England
+its strongest defenders.
+
+The voices that have spoken for us who contend for liberty have been
+few and scattering. God forbid that we should forget those few noble
+voices, so sadly exceptional in the general outcry against us! They
+are, alas! too few to be easily forgotten. False statements have
+blinded the minds of your community, and turned the most generous
+sentiments of the British heart against us. The North are fighting for
+supremacy and the South for independence, has been the voice.
+Independence? for what? to do what? To prove the doctrine that all men
+are _not_ equal; to establish the doctrine that the white may
+enslave the negro!
+
+In the beginning of our struggle, the voices that reached us across
+the water said: "If we were only sure you were fighting for the
+abolition of slavery, we should not dare to say whither our sympathies
+for your cause might not carry us." Such, as we heard, were the words
+of the honored and religious nobleman who draughted this very letter
+which you signed and sent us, and to which we are now replying.
+
+When these words reached us we said: "We can wait; our friends in
+England will soon see whither this conflict is tending." A year and a
+half have passed; step after step has been taken for liberty; chain
+after chain has fallen, till the march of our armies is choked and
+clogged by the glad flocking of emancipated slaves; the day of final
+emancipation is set; the border States begin to move in voluntary
+consent; universal freedom for all dawns like the sun in the distant
+horizon, and still no voice from England. No voice? Yes, we have heard
+on the high seas the voice of a war-steamer, built for a man-stealing
+Confederacy, with English gold, in an English dockyard, going out of
+an English harbor, manned by English sailors, with the full knowledge
+of English government officers, in defiance of the Queen's
+proclamation of neutrality! So far has English sympathy overflowed. We
+have heard of other steamers, iron-clad, designed to furnish to a
+slavery-defending Confederacy their only lack,--a navy for the high
+seas. We have heard that the British Evangelical Alliance refuses to
+express sympathy with the liberating party, when requested to do so by
+the French Evangelical Alliance. We find in English religious
+newspapers all those sad degrees in the downward-sliding scale of
+defending and apologizing for slaveholders and slave-holding, with
+which we have so many years contended in our own country. We find the
+President's Proclamation of Emancipation spoken of in those papers
+only as an incitement to servile insurrection. Nay, more,--we find in
+your papers, from thoughtful men, the admission of the rapid decline
+of anti-slavery sentiments in England.
+
+This very day the writer of this has been present at a solemn
+religious festival in the national capital, given at the home of a
+portion of those fugitive slaves who have fled to our lines for
+protection,--who, under the shadow of our flag, find sympathy and
+succor. The national day of thanksgiving was there kept by over a
+thousand redeemed slaves, and for whom Christian charity had spread an
+ample repast. Our sisters, we wish _you_ could have witnessed the
+scene. We wish you could have heard the prayer of a blind old negro,
+called among his fellows John the Baptist, when in touching broken
+English he poured forth his thanksgivings. We wish you could have
+heard the sound of that strange rhythmical chant which is now
+forbidden to be sung on Southern plantations,--the psalm of this
+modern exodus,--which combines the barbaric fire of the Marseillaise
+with the religious fervor of the old Hebrew prophet:--
+
+ "Oh, go down, Moses,
+ Way down into Egypt's land!
+ Tell King Pharaoh
+ To let my people go!
+ Stand away dere,
+ Stand away dere,
+ And let my people go!"
+
+As we were leaving, an aged woman came and lifted up her hands in
+blessing. "Bressed be de Lord dat brought me to see dis first happy
+day of my life! Bressed be de Lord!" In all England is there no Amen?
+
+We have been shocked and saddened by the question asked in an
+association of Congregational ministers in England, the very blood
+relations of the liberty-loving Puritans,--"Why does not the North let
+the South go?"
+
+What! give up the point of emancipation for these four million slaves?
+Turn our backs on them, and leave them to their fate? What! leave our
+white brothers to run a career of oppression and robbery, that, as
+sure as there is a God that ruleth in the armies of heaven, will bring
+down a day of wrath and doom? Remember that wishing success to this
+slavery-establishing effort is only wishing to the sons and daughters
+of the South all the curses that God has written against oppression.
+_Mark our words!_ If we succeed, the children of these very men
+who are now fighting us will rise up to call us blessed. Just as
+surely as there is a God who governs in the world, so surely all the
+laws of national prosperity follow in the train of equity; and if we
+succeed, we shall have delivered the children's children of our
+misguided brethren from the wages of sin, which is always and
+everywhere death.
+
+And now, sisters of England, think it not strange if we bring back the
+words of your letter, not in bitterness, but in deepest sadness, and
+lay them down at your door. We say to you, Sisters, you have spoken
+well; we have heard you; we have heeded; we have striven in the cause,
+even unto death. We have sealed our devotion by desolate hearth and
+darkened homestead,--by the blood of sons, husbands, and brothers. In
+many of our dwellings the very light of our lives has gone out; and
+yet we accept the life-long darkness as our own part in this great and
+awful expiation, by which the bonds of wickedness shall be loosed, and
+abiding peace established, on the foundation of righteousness.
+Sisters, what have _you_ done, and what do you mean to do?
+
+We appeal to you as sisters, as wives, and as mothers, to raise your
+voices to your fellow-citizens, and your prayers to God for the
+removal of this affliction and disgrace from the Christian world.
+
+In behalf of many thousands of American women.
+
+HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+WASHINGTON, _November_ 27, 1862.
+
+The publication of this reply elicited the following interesting
+letter from John Bright:--
+
+ROCHDALE, _March_ 9, 1863.
+
+DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I received your kind note with real pleasure, and
+felt it very good of you to send me a copy of the "Atlantic Monthly"
+with your noble letter to the women of England. I read every word of
+it with an intense interest, and I am quite sure that its effect upon
+opinion here has been marked and beneficial. It has covered some with
+shame, and it has compelled many to think, and it has stimulated not a
+few to act. Before this reaches you, you will have seen what large and
+earnest meetings have been held in all our towns in favor of abolition
+and the North. No town has a building large enough to contain those
+who come to listen, to applaud, and to vote in favor of freedom and
+the Union. The effect of this is evident on our newspapers and on the
+tone of Parliament, where now nobody says a word in favor of
+recognition, or mediation, or any such thing.
+
+The need and duty of England is admitted to be a strict neutrality,
+but the feeling of the millions of her people is one of friendliness
+to the United States and its government. It would cause universal
+rejoicing, among all but a limited circle of aristocracy and
+commercially rich and corrupt, to hear that the Northern forces had
+taken Vicksburg on the great river, and Charleston on the Atlantic,
+and that the neck of the conspiracy was utterly broken.
+
+I hope your people may have strength and virtue to win the great cause
+intrusted to them, but it is fearful to contemplate the amount of the
+depravity in the North engendered by the long power of slavery. New
+England is far ahead of the States as a whole,--too instructed and too
+moral; but still I will hope that she will bear the nation through
+this appalling danger.
+
+I well remember the evening at Rome and our conversation. You lamented
+the election of Buchanan. You judged him with a more unfriendly but a
+more correct eye than mine. He turned out more incapable and less
+honest than I hoped for. And I think I was right in saying that your
+party was not then sufficiently consolidated to enable it to maintain
+its policy in the execution, even had Frémont been elected. As it is
+now, six years later, the North but falteringly supports the policy of
+the government, though impelled by the force of events which then you
+did not dream of. President Lincoln has lived half his troubled reign.
+In the coming half I hope he may see land; surely slavery will be so
+broken up that nothing can restore and renew it; and, slavery once
+fairly gone, I know not how all your States can long be kept asunder.
+
+Believe me very sincerely yours,
+
+JOHN BRIGHT.
+
+It also called forth from Archbishop Whately the following letter:--
+
+PALACE, DUBLIN, _January_, 1863.
+
+DEAR MADAM,--In acknowledging your letter and pamphlet, I take the
+opportunity of laying before you what I collect to be the prevailing
+sentiments here on American affairs. Of course there is a great
+variety of opinion, as may be expected in a country like ours. Some
+few sympathize with the Northerns, and some few with the Southerns,
+but far the greater portion sympathize with neither completely, but
+lament that each party should be making so much greater an expenditure
+of life and property than can be compensated for by any advantage they
+can dream of obtaining.
+
+Those who are the least favorable to the Northerns are not so from any
+approbation of slavery, but from not understanding that the war is
+waged in the cause of abolition. "It was waged," they say, "ostensibly
+for the restoration of the Union," and in attestation of this, they
+refer to the proclamation which announced the confiscation of slaves
+that were the property of secessionists, while those who adhered to
+the Federal cause should be exempt from such confiscation, which, they
+say, did not savor much of zeal for abolition. And. if the other
+object--the restoration of the Union--could be accomplished, which
+they all regard as hopeless, they do not understand how it will tend
+to the abolition of slavery. On the contrary, "if," say they, "the
+separation had been allowed to take place peaceably, the Northerns
+might, as _we_ do, have proclaimed freedom to every slave who set
+foot on their territory; which would have been a great check to
+slavery, and especially to any cruel treatment of slaves." Many who
+have a great dislike to slavery yet hold that the Southerns had at
+least as much right to secede as the Americans had originally to
+revolt from Great Britain. And there are many who think that,
+considering the dreadful distress we have suffered from the cotton
+famine, we have shown great forbearance in withstanding the temptation
+of recognizing the Southern States and to break the blockade.
+
+Then, again, there are some who are provoked at the incessant railing
+at England, and threats of an invasion of Canada, which are poured
+forth in some of the American papers.
+
+There are many, also, who consider that the present state of things
+cannot continue much longer if the Confederates continue to hold their
+own, as they have done hitherto; and that a people who shall have
+maintained their independence for two or three years will be
+recognized by the principal European powers. Such appears to have been
+the procedure of the European powers in all similar cases, such as the
+revolt of the Anglo-American and Spanish-American colonies, of the
+Haytians and the Belgians. In these and other like cases, the rule
+practically adopted seems to have been to recognize the revolters, not
+at once, but after a reasonable time had been allowed to see whether
+they could maintain their independence; and this without being
+understood to have pronounced any decision either way as to the
+justice of the cause.
+
+Moreover, there are many who say that the negroes and people of color
+are far from being kindly or justly treated in the Northern States. An
+emancipated slave, at any rate, has not received good training for
+earning his bread by the wages of labor; and if, in addition to this
+and his being treated as an outcast, he is excluded, as it is said,
+from many employments, by the refusal of white laborers to work along
+with him, he will have gained little by taking refuge in the Northern
+States.
+
+I have now laid before you the views which I conceive to be most
+prevalent among us, and for which I am not myself responsible.
+
+For the safe and effectual emancipation of slaves, I myself consider
+there is no plan so good as the gradual one which was long ago
+suggested by Bishop Hinds. What he recommended was an _ad valorem
+tax_ upon slaves,--the value to be fixed by the owner, with an
+option to government to purchase at that price. Thus the slaves would
+be a burden to the master, and those the most so who should be the
+most valuable, as being the most intelligent and steady, and therefore
+the best qualified for freedom; and it would be his interest to train
+his slaves to be free laborers, and to emancipate them, one by one, as
+speedily as he could with safety. I fear, however, that the time is
+gone by for trying this experiment in America.
+
+With best wishes for the new year, believe me
+
+Yours faithfully,
+
+Rd. Whately.
+
+Among the many letters written from this side of the Atlantic
+regarding the reply, was one from Nathaniel Hawthorne, in which he
+says:--
+
+I read with great pleasure your article in the last "Atlantic." If
+anything could make John Bull blush, I should think it might be that;
+but he is a hardened and villainous hypocrite. I always felt that he
+cared nothing for or against slavery, except as it gave him a vantage-
+ground on which to parade his own virtue and sneer at our iniquity.
+
+With best regards from Mrs. Hawthorne and myself to yourself and
+family, sincerely yours,
+
+NATH'L HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+FLORIDA, 1865-1869.
+
+
+LETTER TO DUCHESS OF ARGYLL.--MRS. STOWE DESIRES TO HAVE A HOME AT THE
+SOUTH.--FLORIDA THE BEST FIELD FOR DOING GOOD.--SHE BUYS A PLACE AT
+MANDARIN.--A CHARMING WINTER RESIDENCE.--"PALMETTO LEAVES."--EASTER
+SUNDAY AT MANDARIN.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. HOLMES.--"POGANUC
+PEOPLE."--RECEPTIONS IN NEW ORLEANS AND TALLAHASSEE.--LAST WINTER AT
+MANDARIN.
+
+In 1866, the terrible conflict between the North and South having
+ended, Mrs. Stowe wrote the following letter to the Duchess of
+Argyll:--
+
+HARTFORD, _February_ 19, 1866.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--Your letter was a real spring of comfort to me,
+bringing refreshingly the pleasant library at Inverary and the lovely
+days I spent there.
+
+I am grieved at what you say of your dear mother's health. I showed
+your letter to Mrs. Perkins, and we both agreed in saying that
+_we_ should like for a time to fill the place of maid to her, as
+doubtless you all feel, too. I should so love to be with her, to read
+to her, and talk to her! and oh, there is so much that would cheer and
+comfort a noble heart like hers that we could talk about. Oh, my
+friend, when I think of what has been done these last few years, and
+of what is now doing, I am lost in amazement. I have just, by way of
+realizing it to myself, been reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin" again, and
+when I read that book, scarred and seared and burned into with the
+memories of an anguish and horror that can never be forgotten, and
+think it is all over now, all past, and that now the questions debated
+are simply of more or less time before granting legal suffrage to
+those who so lately were held only as articles of merchandise,--when
+this comes over me I think no private or individual sorrow can ever
+make me wholly without comfort. If my faith in God's presence and
+real, living power in the affairs of men ever grows dim, this makes it
+impossible to doubt.
+
+I have just had a sweet and lovely Christian letter from Garrison,
+whose beautiful composure and thankfulness in his hour of victory are
+as remarkable as his wonderful courage in the day of moral battle. His
+note ends with the words, "And who but God is to be glorified?"
+Garrison's attitude is far more exalted than that of Wendell Phillips.
+He acknowledges the great deed done. He suspends his "Liberator" with
+words of devout thanksgiving, and devotes himself unobtrusively to the
+work yet to be accomplished for the freedmen; while Phillips seems
+resolved to ignore the mighty work that has been done, because of the
+inevitable shortcomings and imperfections that beset it still. We have
+a Congress of splendid men,--men of stalwart principle and
+determination. We have a President [Footnote: Andrew Johnson] honestly
+seeking to do right; and if he fails in knowing just what right is, it
+is because he is a man born and reared in a slave State, and acted on
+by many influences which we cannot rightly estimate unless we were in
+his place. My brother Henry has talked with him earnestly and
+confidentially, and has faith in him as an earnest, good man seeking
+to do right. Henry takes the ground that it is unwise and impolitic to
+endeavor to force negro suffrage on the South at the point of the
+bayonet. His policy would be, to hold over the negro the protection of
+our Freedman's Bureau until the great laws of free labor shall begin
+to draw the master and servant together; to endeavor to soothe and
+conciliate, and win to act with us, a party composed of the really
+good men at the South.
+
+For this reason he has always advocated lenity of measures towards
+them. He wants to get them into a state in which the moral influence
+of the North can act upon them beneficially, and to get such a state
+of things that there will be a party _at the South_ to protect
+the negro.
+
+Charles Sumner is looking simply at the abstract _right_ of the
+thing. Henry looks at actual probabilities. We all know that the state
+of society at the South is such that laws are a very inadequate
+protection even to white men. Southern elections always have been
+scenes of mob violence _when only white men voted_.
+
+Multitudes of lives have been lost at the polls in this way, and if
+against their will negro suffrage was forced upon them, I do not see
+how any one in their senses can expect anything less than an immediate
+war of races.
+
+If negro suffrage were required as a condition of acquiring political
+position, there is no doubt the slave States would grant it; grant it
+nominally, because they would know that the grant never could or would
+become an actual realization. And what would then be gained for the
+negro?
+
+I am sorry that people cannot differ on such great and perplexing
+public questions without impugning each other's motives. Henry has
+been called a backslider because of the lenity of his counsels, but I
+cannot but think it is the Spirit of Christ that influences him.
+Garrison has been in the same way spoken of as a deserter, because he
+says that a work that _is_ done shall be called done, and because
+he would not keep up an anti-slavery society when slavery is
+abolished; and I think our President is much injured by the abuse that
+is heaped on him, and the selfish and unworthy motives that are
+ascribed to him by those who seem determined to allow to nobody an
+honest, unselfish difference in judgment from their own.
+
+Henry has often spoken of you and your duke as pleasant memories in a
+scene of almost superhuman labor and excitement. He often said to me:
+"When this is all over,--when we have won the victory,--_then_ I
+will write to the duchess." But when it was over and the flag raised
+again at Sumter his arm was smitten down with the news of our
+President's death! We all appreciate your noble and true sympathy
+through the dark hour of our national trial. You and yours are almost
+the only friends we now have left in England. You cannot know what it
+was, unless you could imagine your own country to be in danger of
+death, extinction of nationality. _That_, dear friend, is an
+experience which shows us what we are and what we can feel. I am glad
+to hear that we may hope to see your son in this country. I fear so
+many pleasant calls will beset his path that we cannot hope for a
+moment, but it would give us _all_ the greatest pleasure to see
+him here. Our dull, prosy, commonplace, though good old Hartford could
+offer few attractions compared with Boston or New York, and yet I hope
+he will not leave us out altogether if he comes among us. God bless
+him! You are very happy indeed in being permitted to keep all your
+dear ones and see them growing up.
+
+I want to ask a favor. Do you have, as we do, _cartes de visite_?
+If you have, and could send me one of yourself and the duke and of
+Lady Edith and your eldest son, I should be so very glad to see how
+you are looking now; and the dear mother, too, I should so like to see
+how she looks. It seems almost like a dream to look back to those
+pleasant days. I am glad to see you still keep some memories of our
+goings on. Georgie's marriage is a very happy one to us. They live in
+Stockbridge, the loveliest part of Massachusetts, and her husband is a
+most devoted pastor, and gives all his time and property to the great
+work which he has embraced, purely for the love of it. My other
+daughters are with me, and my son, Captain Stowe, who has come with
+weakened health through our struggle, suffering constantly from the
+effects of a wound in his head received at Gettysburg, which makes his
+returning to his studies a hard struggle. My husband is in better
+health since he resigned his professorship, and desires his most
+sincere regards to yourself and the duke, and his profound veneration
+to your mother. Sister Mary also desires to be remembered to you, as
+do also my daughters. Please tell me a little in your next of Lady
+Edith; she must be very lovely now.
+
+I am, with sincerest affection, ever yours,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+Soon after the close of the war Mrs. Stowe conceived the idea of
+making for herself and her family a winter home in the South, where
+she might escape the rigors of Northern winters, and where her
+afflicted son Frederick might enjoy an out-of-door life throughout the
+year. She was also most anxious to do her share towards educating and
+leading to a higher life those colored people whom she had helped so
+largely to set free, and who were still in the state of profound
+ignorance imposed by slavery. In writing of her hopes and plans to her
+brother Charles Beecher, in 1866, she says:--
+
+"My plan of going to Florida, as it lies in my mind, is not in any
+sense a mere worldly enterprise. I have for many years had a longing
+to be more immediately doing Christ's work on earth. My heart is with
+that poor people whose cause in words I have tried to plead, and who
+now, ignorant and docile, are just in that formative stage in which
+whoever seizes has them.
+
+"Corrupt politicians are already beginning to speculate on them as
+possible capital for their schemes, and to fill their poor heads with
+all sorts of vagaries. Florida is the State into which they have, more
+than anywhere else, been pouring. Emigration is positively and
+decidedly setting that way; but as yet it is mere worldly emigration,
+with the hope of making money, nothing more.
+
+"The Episcopal Church is, however, undertaking, under direction of the
+future Bishop of Florida, a wide-embracing scheme of Christian
+activity for the whole State. In this work I desire to be associated,
+and my plan is to locate at some salient point on the St. John's
+River, where I can form the nucleus of a Christian neighborhood, whose
+influence shall be felt far beyond its own limits."
+
+During this year Mrs. Stowe partially carried her plan into execution
+by hiring an old plantation called "Laurel Grove," on the west side of
+the St. John's River, near the present village of Orange Park. Here
+she established her son Frederick as a cotton planter, and here he
+remained for two years. This location did not, however, prove entirely
+satisfactory, nor did the raising of cotton prove to be, under the
+circumstances, a profitable business. After visiting Florida during
+the winter of 1866-67, at which time her attention was drawn to the
+beauties and superior advantages of Mandarin on the east side of the
+river, Mrs. Stowe writes from Hartford, May 29, 1867, to Rev. Charles
+Beecher:--
+
+My dear Brother,--We are now thinking seriously of a place in Mandarin
+much more beautiful than any other in the vicinity. It has on it five
+large date palms, an olive tree in full bearing, besides a fine orange
+grove which this year will yield about seventy-five thousand oranges.
+If we get that, then I want you to consider the expediency of buying
+the one next to it. It contains about two hundred acres of land, on
+which is a fine orange grove, the fruit from which last year brought
+in two thousand dollars as sold at the wharf. It is right on the
+river, and four steamboats pass it each week, on their way to Savannah
+and Charleston. There is on the place a very comfortable cottage, as
+houses go out there, where they do not need to be built as
+substantially as with us.
+
+I am now in correspondence with the Bishop of Florida, with a view to
+establishing a line of churches along the St. John's River, and if I
+settle at Mandarin, it will be one of my stations. Will you consent to
+enter the Episcopal Church and be our clergyman? You are just the man
+we want. If my tasks and feelings did not incline me toward the
+Church, I should still choose it as the best system for training
+immature minds such as those of our negroes. The system was composed
+with reference to the wants of the laboring class of England, at a
+time when they were as ignorant as our negroes now are.
+
+I long to be at this work, and cannot think of it without my heart
+burning within me. Still I leave all with my God, and only hope He
+will open the way for me to do all that I want to for this poor
+people.
+
+Affectionately yours,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+Mrs. Stowe had some years before this joined the Episcopal Church, for
+the sake of attending the same communion as her daughters, who were
+Episcopalians. Her brother Charles did not, however, see fit to change
+his creed, and though he went to Florida he settled a hundred and
+sixty miles west from the St. John's River, at Newport, near St.
+Marks, on the Gulf coast, and about twenty miles from Tallahassee.
+Here he lived every winter and several summers for fifteen years, and
+here he left the impress of his own remarkably sweet and lovely
+character upon the scattered population of the entire region.
+
+[Illustration: THE HOME AT MANDARIN, FLORIDA.]
+
+Mrs. Stowe in the mean time purchased the property, with its orange
+grove and comfortable cottage, that she had recommended to him, and
+thus Mandarin became her winter home. No one who has ever seen it can
+forget the peaceful beauty of this Florida home and its surroundings.
+The house, a story and a half cottage of many gables, stands on a
+bluff overlooking the broad St. John's, which is five miles wide at
+this point. It nestles in the shade of a grove of superb, moss-hung
+live-oaks, around one of which the front piazza is built. Several fine
+old orange trees also stand near the cottage, scenting the air with
+the sweet perfume of their blossoms in the early spring, and offering
+their golden fruit to whoever may choose to pluck it during the winter
+months. Back of the house stretches the well-tended orange grove in
+which Mrs. Stowe took such genuine pride and pleasure. Everywhere
+about the dwelling and within it were flowers and singing birds, while
+the rose garden in front, at the foot of the bluff, was the admiration
+of all who saw it.
+
+Here, on the front piazza, beneath the grand oaks, looking out on the
+calm sunlit river, Professor Stowe enjoyed that absolute peace and
+restful quiet for which his scholarly nature had always longed, but
+which had been forbidden to the greater part of his active life. At
+almost any hour of the day the well-known figure, with snow-white,
+patriarchal beard and kindly face, might be seen sitting there, with a
+basket of books, many of them in dead and nearly forgotten languages,
+close at hand. An amusing incident of family life was as follows: Some
+Northern visitors seemed to think that the family had no rights which
+were worthy of a moment's consideration. They would land at the wharf,
+roam about the place, pick flowers, peer into the house through the
+windows and doors, and act with that disregard of all the proprieties
+of life which characterizes ill-bred people when on a journey. The
+professor had been driven well-nigh distracted by these migratory
+bipeds. One day, when one of them broke a branch from an orange tree
+directly before his eyes, and was bearing it off in triumph with all
+its load of golden fruit, he leaped from his chair, and addressed the
+astonished individual on those fundamental principles of common
+honesty, which he deemed outraged by this act. The address was
+vigorous and truthful, but of a kind which will not bear repeating,
+"Why," said the horror-stricken culprit, "I thought that this was Mrs.
+Stowe's place!" "You thought it was Mrs. Stowe's place!" Then, in a
+voice of thunder, "I would have you understand, sir, that I am the
+proprietor and protector of Mrs. Stowe and of this place, and if you
+commit any more such shameful depredations I will have you punished as
+you deserve!" Thus this predatory Yankee was taught to realize that
+there is a God in Israel.
+
+In April, 1869, Mrs. Stowe was obliged to hurry North in order to
+visit Canada in time to protect her English rights in "Oldtown Folks,"
+which she had just finished.
+
+About this time she secured a plot of land, and made arrangements for
+the erection on it of a building that should be used as a schoolhouse
+through the week, and as a church on Sunday. For several years
+Professor Stowe preached during the winter in this little schoolhouse,
+and Mrs. Stowe conducted Sunday-school, sewing classes, singing
+classes, and various other gatherings for instruction and amusement,
+all of which were well attended and highly appreciated by both the
+white and colored residents of the neighborhood.
+
+Upon one occasion, having just arrived at her Mandarin home, Mrs.
+Stowe writes:--
+
+"At last, after waiting a day and a half in Charleston, we arrived
+here about ten o'clock Saturday morning, just a week from the day we
+sailed. The house looked so pretty, and quiet, and restful, the day
+was so calm and lovely, it seemed as though I had passed away from all
+trouble, and was looking back upon you all from a secure resting-
+place. Mr. Stowe is very happy here, and is constantly saying how
+pleasant it is, and how glad he is that he is here. He is so much
+improved in health that already he is able to take a considerable walk
+every day.
+
+"We are all well, contented, and happy, and we have six birds, two
+dogs, and a pony. Do write more and oftener. Tell me all the little
+nothings and nowheres. You can't imagine how they are magnified by the
+time they have reached into this remote corner."
+
+In 1872 she wrote a series of Florida sketches, which were published
+in book form, the following year, by J. E. Osgood & Co., under the
+title of "Palmetto Leaves." May 19, 1873, she writes to her brother
+Charles at Newport, Fla.:--
+
+"Although you have not answered my last letter, I cannot leave Florida
+without saying good-by. I send you the 'Palmetto Leaves' and my
+parting love. If I could either have brought or left my husband, I
+should have come to see you this winter. The account of your roses
+fills me with envy.
+
+"We leave on the San Jacinto next Saturday, and I am making the most
+of the few charming hours yet left; for never did we have so delicious
+a spring. I never knew such altogether perfect weather. It is enough
+to make a saint out of the toughest old Calvinist that ever set his
+face as a flint. How do you think New England theology would have
+fared if our fathers had been landed here instead of on Plymouth Rock?
+
+"The next you hear of me will be at the North, where our address is
+Forest Street, Hartford. We have bought a pretty cottage there, near
+to Belle, and shall spend the summer there."
+
+In a letter written in May of the following year to her son Charles,
+at Harvard, Mrs. Stowe says: "I can hardly realize that this long,
+flowery summer, with its procession of blooms and fruit, has been
+running on at the same time with the snowbanks and sleet storms of the
+North. But so it is. It is now the first of May. Strawberries and
+blackberries are over with us; oranges are in a waning condition, few
+and far between. Now we are going North to begin another summer, and
+have roses, strawberries, blackberries, and green peas come again.
+
+"I am glad to hear of your reading. The effect produced on you by
+Jonathan Edwards is very similar to that produced on me when I took
+the same mental bath. His was a mind whose grasp and intensity you
+cannot help feeling. He was a poet in the intensity of his
+conceptions, and some of his sermons are more terrible than Dante's
+'Inferno.'"
+
+In November, 1874, upon their return to Mandarin, she writes: "We have
+had heavenly weather, and we needed it: for our house was a cave of
+spider-webs, cockroaches, dirt, and all abominations, but less than a
+week has brought it into beautiful order. It now begins to put on that
+quaint, lively, pretty air that so fascinates me. Our weather is, as I
+said, heavenly, neither hot nor cold; cool, calm, bright, serene, and
+so tranquillizing. There is something indescribable about the best
+weather we have down here. It does not debilitate me like the soft
+October air in Hartford."
+
+During the following February, she writes in reply to an invitation to
+visit a Northern watering place later in the season: "I shall be most
+happy to come, and know of nothing to prevent. I have, thank goodness,
+no serial story on hand for this summer, to hang like an Old Man of
+the Sea about my neck, and hope to enjoy a little season of being like
+other folks. It is a most lovely day to-day, most unfallen Eden-like."
+
+In a letter written later in the same season, March 28, 1875, Mrs.
+Stowe gives us a pleasant glimpse at their preparations for the proper
+observance of Easter Sunday in the little Mandarin schoolhouse. She
+says:--
+
+"It was the week before Easter, and we had on our minds the dressing
+of the church. There my two Gothic fireboards were to be turned into a
+pulpit for the occasion. I went to Jacksonville and got a fiveinch
+moulding for a base, and then had one fireboard sawed in two, so that
+there was an arched panel for each end. Then came a rummage for
+something for a top, and to make a desk of, until it suddenly occurred
+to me that our old black walnut extension table had a set of leaves.
+They were exactly the thing. The whole was trimmed with a beading of
+yellow pine, and rubbed, and pumice-stoned, and oiled, and I got out
+my tubes of paint and painted the nail-holes with Vandyke brown. By
+Saturday morning it was a lovely little Gothic pulpit, and Anthony
+carried it over to the schoolhouse and took away the old desk which I
+gave him for his meeting-house. That afternoon we drove out into the
+woods and gathered a quantity of superb Easter lilies, papaw,
+sparkleberry, great fern-leaves, and cedar. In the evening the girls
+went over to the Meads to practice Easter hymns; but I sat at home and
+made a cross, eighteen inches long, of cedar and white lilies. This
+Southern cedar is the most exquisite thing; it is so feathery and
+delicate.
+
+"Sunday morning was cool and bright, a most perfect Easter. Our little
+church was full, and everybody seemed delighted with the decorations.
+Mr. Stowe preached a sermon to show that Christ is going to put
+everything right at last, which is comforting. So the day was one of
+real pleasure, and also I trust of real benefit, to the poor souls who
+learned from it that Christ is indeed risen for them"
+
+During this winter the following characteristic letters passed between
+Mrs. Stowe and her valued friend, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, called
+forth by the sending to the latter of a volume of Mrs. Stowe's latest
+stories:--
+
+Boston, _January_ 8, 1876.
+
+My dear Mrs. Stowe,--I would not write to thank you for your most
+welcome "Christmas Box,"
+
+ "A box whose sweets compacted lie,"
+
+before I had read it, and every word of it. I have been very much
+taken up with antics of one kind and another, and have only finished
+it this afternoon. The last of the papers was of less comparative
+value to me than to a great fraction of your immense parish of
+readers, because I am so familiar with every movement of the Pilgrims
+in their own chronicles.
+
+"Deacon Pitkin's Farm" is full of those thoroughly truthful touches of
+New England in which, if you are not unrivaled, I do not know who your
+rival may be. I wiped the tears from one eye in reading "Deacon
+Pitkin's Farm."
+
+I wiped the tears, and plenty of them, from both eyes, in reading
+"Betty's Bright Idea." It is a most charming and touching story, and
+nobody can read who has not a heart like a pebble, without being
+melted into tenderness.
+
+How much you have done and are doing to make our New England life
+wholesome and happy! If there is any one who can look back over a
+literary life which has pictured our old and helped our new
+civilization, it is yourself. Of course your later books have harder
+work cut out for them than those of any other writer. They have had
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin" for a rival. The brightest torch casts a shadow in
+the blaze of a light, and any transcendent success affords the easiest
+handle for that class of critics whose method is the one that Dogberry
+held to be "odious."
+
+I think it grows pleasanter to us to be remembered by the friends we
+still have, as with each year they grow fewer. We have lost Agassiz
+and Sumner from our circle, and I found Motley stricken with
+threatening illness (which I hope is gradually yielding to treatment),
+in the profoundest grief at the loss of his wife, another old and dear
+friend of mine. So you may be assured that I feel most sensibly your
+kind attention, and send you my heartfelt thanks for remembering me.
+
+Always, dear Mrs. Stowe, faithfully yours,
+
+O. W. HOLMES.
+
+To this letter Mrs. Stowe replied as follows:--
+
+MANDARIN, _February_ 23, 1876.
+
+DEAR DOCTOR,--How kind it was of you to write me that very beautiful
+note! and how I wish you were just where I am, to see the trees laden
+at the same time with golden oranges and white blossoms! I should so
+like to cut off a golden cluster, leaves and all, for you. Well,
+Boston seems very far away and dreamy, like some previous state of
+existence, as I sit on the veranda and gaze on the receding shores of
+the St. John's, which at this point is five miles wide.
+
+Dear doctor, how time slips by! I remember when Sumner seemed to me a
+young man, and now he has gone. And Wilson has gone, and Chase, whom I
+knew as a young man in society in Cincinnati, has gone, and Stanton
+has gone, and Seward has gone, and yet how lively the world races on!
+A few air-bubbles of praise or lamentation, and away sails the great
+ship of life, no matter over whose grave!
+
+Well, one cannot but feel it! To me, also, a whole generation of
+friends has gone from the other side of the water since I was there
+and broke kindly bread with them. The Duchess of Sutherland, the good
+old duke, Lansdowne, Ellesmere, Lady Byron, Lord and Lady Amberly,
+Charles Kingsley, the good Quaker, Joseph Sturge, all are with the
+shadowy train that has moved on. Among them were as dear and true
+friends as I ever had, and as pure and noble specimens of human beings
+as God ever made. They are living somewhere in intense vitality, I
+must believe, and you, dear doctor, must not doubt.
+
+I think about your writings a great deal, and one element in them
+always attracts me. It is their pitiful and sympathetic vein, the pity
+for poor, struggling human nature. In this I feel that you must be
+very near and dear to Him whose name is Love.
+
+You wrote some verses once that have got into the hymn-books, and have
+often occurred to me in my most sacred hours as descriptive of the
+feelings with which I bear the sorrows and carry the cares of life.
+They begin,--
+
+ "Love Divine, that stooped to share."
+
+I have not all your books down here, and am haunted by gaps in the
+verses that memory cannot make good; but it is that "Love Divine"
+which is my stay and comfort and hope, as one friend after another
+passes beyond sight and hearing. Please let me have it in your
+handwriting.
+
+I remember a remark you once made on spiritualism. I cannot recall the
+words, but you spoke of it as modifying the sharp angles of
+Calvinistic belief, as a fog does those of a landscape. I would like
+to talk with you some time on spiritualism, and show you a collection
+of very curious facts that I have acquired through mediums _not_
+professional. Mr. Stowe has just been wading through eight volumes of
+"La Mystique," by Goerres, professor for forty years past in the
+University of Munich, first of physiology and latterly of philosophy.
+He examines the whole cycle of abnormal psychic, spiritual facts,
+trances, ecstasy, clairvoyance, witchcraft, spiritualism, etc., etc.,
+as shown in the Romish miracles and the history of Europe.
+
+I have long since come to the conclusion that the marvels of
+spiritualism are natural, and not supernatural, phenomena,--an
+uncommon working of natural laws. I believe that the door between
+those _in_ the body and those _out_ has never in any age
+been entirely closed, and that occasional perceptions within the veil
+are a part of the course of nature, and therefore not miraculous. Of
+course such a phase of human experience is very substantial ground for
+every kind of imposture and superstition, and I have no faith whatever
+in mediums who practice for money. In their case I think the law of
+Moses, that forbade consulting those who dealt with "familiar
+spirits," a very wise one.
+
+Do write some more, dear doctor. You are too well off in your palace
+down there on the new land. Your Centennial Ballad was a charming
+little peep; now give us a full-fledged story. Mr. Stowe sends his
+best regards, and wishes you would read "Goerres." [Footnote: Die
+Christliche Mystik, by Johann Joseph Gorres, Regensburg, 1836-42.] It
+is in French also, and he thinks the French translation better than
+the German.
+
+Yours ever truly,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+Writing in the autumn of 1876 to her son Charles, who was at that time
+abroad, studying at Bonn, Mrs. Stowe describes a most tempestuous
+passage between New York and Charleston, during which she and her
+husband and daughters suffered so much that they were ready to
+forswear the sea forever. The great waves as they rushed, boiling and
+seething, past would peer in at the little bull's-eye window of the
+state-room, as if eager to swallow up ship and passengers. From
+Charleston, however, they had a most delightful run to their journey's
+end. She writes:--"We had a triumphal entrance into the St. John's,
+and a glorious sail up the river. Arriving at Mandarin, at four
+o'clock, we found all the neighbors, black as well as white, on the
+wharf to receive us. There was a great waving of handkerchiefs and
+flags, clapping of hands and cheering, as we drew near. The house was
+open and all ready for us, and we are delighted to be once more in our
+beautiful Florida home."
+
+In the following December she writes to her son: "I am again entangled
+in writing a serial, a thing I never mean to do again, but the story,
+begun for a mere Christmas brochure, grew so under my hands that I
+thought I might as well fill it out and make a book of it. It is the
+last thing of the kind I ever expect to do. In it I condense my
+recollections of a bygone era, that in which I was brought up, the
+ways and manners of which are now as nearly obsolete as the Old
+England of Dickens's stories is.
+
+"I am so hampered by the necessity of writing this story, that I am
+obliged to give up company and visiting of all kinds and keep my
+strength for it. I hope I may be able to finish it, as I greatly
+desire to do so, but I begin to feel that I am not so strong as I used
+to be. Your mother is an old woman, Charley mine, and it is best she
+should give up writing before people are tired of reading her.
+
+"I would much rather have written another such a book as 'Footsteps of
+the Master,' but all, even the religious papers, are gone mad on
+serials. Serials they demand and will have, and I thought, since this
+generation will listen to nothing but stories, why not tell them?"
+
+The book thus referred to was "Poganuc People," that series of
+delightful reminiscences of the New England life of nearly a century
+ago, that has proved so fascinating to many thousands of readers. It
+was published in 1878, and, as Mrs. Stowe foresaw, was her last
+literary undertaking of any length, though for several years
+afterwards she wrote occasional short stories and articles.
+
+In January, 1879, she wrote from Mandarin to Dr. Holmes:--
+
+DEAR DOCTOR,--I wish I could give to you and Mrs. Holmes the exquisite
+charm of this morning. My window is wide open; it is a lovely, fresh,
+sunny day, and a great orange tree hung with golden balls closes the
+prospect from my window. The tree is about thirty feet high, and its
+leaves fairly glisten in the sunshine.
+
+I sent "Poganuc People" to you and Mrs. Holmes as being among the few
+who know those old days. It is an extremely quiet story for these
+sensational days, when heaven and earth seem to be racked for a
+thrill; but as I get old I do love to think of those quiet, simple
+times when there was not a poor person in the parish, and the changing
+glories of the year were the only spectacle. We, that is the professor
+and myself, have been reading with much interest Motley's Memoir. That
+was a man to be proud of, a beauty, too (by your engraving), I never
+had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance.
+
+I feel with you that we have come into the land of leave-taking.
+Hardly a paper but records the death of some of Mr. Stowe's
+associates. But the river is not so black as it seems, and there are
+clear days when the opposite shore is plainly visible, and now and
+then we catch a strain of music, perhaps even a gesture of
+recognition. They are thinking of us, without doubt, on the other
+side. My daughters and I have been reading "Elsie Venner" again. Elsie
+is one of my especial friends,--poor, dear child!--and all your
+theology in that book I subscribe to with both hands.
+
+Does not the Bible plainly tell us of a time when there shall be no
+more pain? That is to be the end and crown of the Messiah's mission,
+when God shall wipe all tears away. My face is set that way, and
+yours, too, I trust and believe.
+
+Mr. Stowe sends hearty and affectionate remembrance both to you and
+Mrs. Holmes, and I am, as ever, truly yours,
+
+H, B, STOWE.
+
+About this time Mrs. Stowe paid a visit to her brother Charles, at
+Newport, Fla., and, continuing her journey to New Orleans, was made to
+feel how little of bitterness towards her was felt by the best class
+of Southerners, In both New Orleans and Tallahassee she was warmly
+welcomed, and tendered public receptions that gave equal pleasure to
+her and to the throngs of cultivated people who attended them. She was
+also greeted everywhere with intense enthusiasm by the colored people,
+who, whenever they knew of her coming, thronged the railway stations
+in order to obtain a glimpse of her whom they venerated above all
+women.
+
+The return to her Mandarin home each succeeding winter was always a
+source of intense pleasure to this true lover of nature in its
+brightest and tenderest moods. Each recurring season was filled with
+new delights. In December, 1879, she writes to her son, now married
+and settled as a minister in Saco, Me.:--
+
+DEAR CHILDREN,--Well, we have stepped from December to June, and this
+morning is sunny and dewy, with a fresh sea-breeze giving life to the
+air. I have just been out to cut a great bunch of roses and lilies,
+though the garden is grown into such a jungle that I could hardly get
+about in it. The cannas, and dwarf bananas, and roses are all tangled
+together, so that I can hardly thread my way among them. I never in my
+life saw anything range and run rampant over the ground as cannas do.
+The ground is littered with fallen oranges, and the place looks
+shockingly untidy, but so beautiful that I am quite willing to forgive
+its disorder.
+
+We got here Wednesday evening about nine o'clock, and found all the
+neighbors waiting to welcome us on the wharf. The Meads, and Cranes,
+and Webbs, and all the rest were there, while the black population was
+in a frenzy of joy. Your father is quite well. The sea had its usual
+exhilarating effect upon him. Before we left New York he was quite
+meek, and exhibited such signs of grace and submission that I had
+great hopes of him. He promised to do exactly as I told him, and
+stated that he had entire confidence in my guidance. What woman
+couldn't call such a spirit evidence of being prepared for speedy
+translation? I was almost afraid he could not be long for this world.
+But on the second day at sea his spirits rose, and his appetite
+reasserted itself. He declared in loud tones how well he felt, and
+quite resented my efforts to take care of him. I reminded him of his
+gracious vows and promises in the days of his low spirits, but to no
+effect. The fact is, his self-will has not left him yet, and I have
+now no fear of his immediate translation. He is going to preach for us
+this morning.
+
+The last winter passed in this well-loved Southern home was that of
+1883-84, for the following season Professor Stowe's health was in too
+precarious a state to permit him to undertake the long journey from
+Hartford. By this time one of Mrs. Stowe's fondest hopes had been
+realized; and, largely through her efforts, Mandarin had been provided
+with a pretty little Episcopal church, to which was attached a
+comfortable rectory, and over which was installed a regular clergy-
+man.
+
+In January, 1884, Mrs. Stowe writes:--
+
+"Mandarin looks very gay and airy now with its new villas, and our new
+church and rectory. Our minister is perfect. I wish you could know
+him. He wants only physical strength. In everything else he is all one
+could ask.
+
+"It is a bright, lovely morning, and four orange-pickers are busy
+gathering our fruit. Our trees on the bluff have done better than any
+in Florida.
+
+"This winter I study nothing but Christ's life. First I read Farrar's
+account and went over it carefully. Now I am reading Geikie. It keeps
+my mind steady, and helps me to bear the languor and pain, of which I
+have more than usual this winter."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+OLDTOWN FOLKS, 1869.
+
+
+PROFESSOR STOWE THE ORIGINAL OF "HARRY" IN "OLDTOWN FOLKS."--PROFESSOR
+STOWE'S LETTER TO GEORGE ELIOT.--HER REMARKS ON THE SAME.--PROFESSOR
+STOWE'S NARRATIVE OF HIS YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF SPIRITS.
+--PROFESSOR STOWE'S INFLUENCE ON MRS. STOWE'S LITERARY LIFE.--GEORGE
+ELIOT ON "OLDTOWN FOLKS."
+
+This biography would be signally incomplete without some mention of
+the birth, childhood, early associations, and very peculiar and
+abnormal psychological experiences of Professor Stowe. Aside from the
+fact of Dr. Stowe's being Mrs. Stowe's husband, and for this reason
+entitled to notice in any sketch of her life, however meagre, he is
+the original of the "visionary boy" in "Oldtown Folks;" and "Oldtown
+Fireside Stories" embody the experiences of his childhood and youth
+among the grotesque and original characters of his native town.
+
+March 26, 1882, Professor Stowe wrote the following characteristic
+letter to Mrs. Lewes:--
+
+MRS. LEWES,--I fully sympathize with you in your disgust with Hume and
+the professing mediums generally.
+
+Hume spent his boyhood in my father's native town, among my relatives
+and acquaintances, and he was a disagreeable, nasty boy. But he
+certainly has qualities which science has not yet explained, and some
+of his doings are as real as they are strange. My interest in the
+subject of spiritualism arises from the fact of my own experience,
+more than sixty years ago, in my early childhood. I then never thought
+of questioning the objective reality of all I saw, and supposed that
+everybody else had the same experience. Of what this experience was
+you may gain some idea from certain passages in "Oldtown Folks."
+
+The same experiences continue yet, but with serious doubts as to the
+objectivity of the scenes exhibited. I have noticed that people who
+have remarkable and minute answers to prayer, such as Stilling,
+Franke, Lavater, are for the most part of this peculiar temperament.
+Is it absurd to suppose that some peculiarity in the nervous system,
+in the connecting link between soul and body, may bring some, more
+than others, into an almost abnormal contact with the spirit-world
+(for example, Jacob Boehme and Swedenborg), and that, too, without
+correcting their faults, or making them morally better than others?
+Allow me to say that I have always admired the working of your mind,
+there is about it such a perfect uprightness and uncalculating
+honesty. I think you are a better Christian without church or theology
+than most people are with both, though I am, and always have been in
+the main, a Calvinist of the Jonathan Edwards school. God bless you! I
+have a warm side for Mr. Lewes on account of his Goethe labors.
+
+Goethe has been my admiration for more than forty years. In 1830 I got
+hold of his "Faust," and for two gloomy, dreary November days, while
+riding through the woods of New Hampshire in an old-fashioned
+stagecoach, to enter upon a professorship in Dartmouth College, I was
+perfectly dissolved by it.
+
+Sincerely yours,
+
+C. E. STOWE.
+
+In a letter to Mrs. Stowe, written June 24, 1872, Mrs. Lewes alludes
+to Professor Stowe's letter as follows: "Pray give my special thanks
+to the professor for his letter. His handwriting, which does really
+look like Arabic,--a very graceful character, surely,--happens to be
+remarkably legible to me, and I did not hesitate over a single word.
+Some of the words, as expressions of fellowship, were very precious to
+me, and I hold it very good of him to write to me that best sort of
+encouragement. I was much impressed with the fact--which you have told
+me--that he was the original of the "visionary boy" in "Oldtown
+Folks;" and it must be deeply interesting to talk with him on his
+experience. Perhaps I am inclined, under the influence of the facts,
+physiological and psychological, which have been gathered of late
+years, to give larger place to the interpretation of vision-seeing as
+subjective than the professor would approve. It seems difficult to
+limit--at least to limit with any precision--the possibility of
+confounding sense by impressions derived from inward conditions with
+those which are directly dependent on external stimulus. In fact, the
+division between within and without in this sense seems to become
+every year a more subtle and bewildering problem."
+
+In 1834, while Mr. Stowe was a professor in Lane Theological Seminary
+at Cincinnati, Ohio, he wrote out a history of his youthful adventures
+in the spirit-world, from which the following extracts are taken:--
+
+"I have often thought I would communicate to some scientific physician
+a particular account of a most singular delusion under which I lived
+from my earliest infancy till the fifteenth or sixteenth year of my
+age, and the effects of which remain very distinctly now that I am
+past thirty.
+
+"The facts are of such a nature as to be indelibly impressed upon my
+mind they appear to me to be curious, and well worth the attention of
+the psychologist. I regard the occurrences in question as the more
+remarkable because I cannot discover that I possess either taste or
+talent for fiction or poetry. I have barely imagination enough to
+enjoy, with a high degree of relish, the works of others in this
+department of literature, but have never felt able or disposed to
+engage in that sort of writing myself. On the contrary, my style has
+always been remarkable for its dry, matter-of-fact plainness: my mind
+has been distinguished for its quickness and adaptedness to historical
+and literary investigations, for ardor and perseverance in pursuit of
+the knowledge of facts,--_eine verständige Richtung_, as the
+Germans would say,--rather than for any other quality; and the only
+talent of a higher kind which I am conscious of possessing is a turn
+for accurate observation of men and things, and a certain broad humor
+and drollery.
+
+[Illustration: C. Z. Stowe]
+
+"From the hour of my birth I have been constitutionally feeble, as
+were my parents before me, and my nervous system easily excitable.
+With care, however, I have kept myself in tolerable health, and my
+life has been an industrious one, for my parents were poor and I have
+always been obliged to labor for my livelihood.
+
+"With these preliminary remarks, I proceed to the curious details of
+my psychological history. As early as I can remember anything, I can
+remember observing a multitude of animated and active objects, which I
+could see with perfect distinctness, moving about me, and could
+sometimes, though seldom, hear them make a rustling noise, or other
+articulate sounds; but I could never touch them. They were in all
+respects independent of the sense of touch, and incapable of being
+obstructed in any way by the intervention of material objects; I could
+see them at any distance, and through any intervening object, with as
+much ease and distinctness as if they were in the room with me, and
+directly before my eyes. I could see them passing through the floors,
+and the ceilings, and the walls of the house, from one apartment to
+another, in all directions, without a door, or a keyhole, or crevice
+being open to admit them. I could follow them with my eyes to any
+distance, or directly through or just beneath the surface, or up and
+down, in the midst of boards and timbers and bricks, or whatever else
+would stop the motion or intercept the visibleness of all other
+objects. These appearances occasioned neither surprise nor alarm,
+except when they assumed some hideous and frightful form, or exhibited
+some menacing gesture, for I became acquainted with them, as soon as
+with any of the objects of sense. As to the reality of their existence
+and the harmlessness of their character, I knew no difference between
+them and any other of the objects which met my eye. They were as
+familiar to me as the forms of my parents and my brother; they made up
+a part of my daily existence, and were as really the subjects of my
+consciousness as the little bench on which I sat in the corner by my
+mother's knee, or the wheels and sticks and strings with which I
+amused myself upon the floor. I indeed recognized a striking
+difference between them and the things which I could feel and handle,
+but to me this difference was no more a matter of surprise than that
+which I observed between my mother and the black woman who so often
+came to work for her; or between my infant brother and the little
+spotted dog Brutus of which I was so fond. There was no time, or
+place, or circumstance, in which they did not occasionally make their
+appearance. Solitude and silence, however, were more favorable to
+their appearance than company and conversation. They were more pleased
+with candle-light than the daylight. They were most numerous,
+distinct, and active when I was alone and in the dark, especially when
+my mother had laid me in bed and returned to her own room with the
+candle. At such times, I always expected the company of my serial
+visitors, and counted upon it to amuse me till I dropped asleep.
+Whenever they failed to make their appearance, as was sometimes the
+case, I felt lonely and discontented. I kept up a lively conversation
+with them,--not by language or by signs, for the attempt on my part to
+speak or move would at once break the charm and drive them away in a
+fret, but by a peculiar sort of spiritual intercommunion.
+
+"When their attention was directed towards me, I could feel and
+respond to all their thoughts and feelings, and was conscious that
+they could in the same manner feel and respond to mine. Sometimes they
+would take no notice of me, but carry on a brisk conversation among
+themselves, principally by looks and gestures, with now and then an
+audible word. In fact, there were but few with whom I was very
+familiar. These few were much more constant and uniform in their
+visits than the great multitude, who were frequently changing, and too
+much absorbed in their own concerns to think much of me. I scarcely
+know how I can give an idea of their form and general appearance, for
+there are no objects in the material world with which I can compare
+them, and no language adapted to an accurate description of their
+peculiarities. They exhibited all possible combinations of size,
+shape, proportion, and color, but their most usual appearance was with
+the human form and proportion, but under a shadowy outline that seemed
+just ready to melt into the invisible air, and sometimes liable to the
+most sudden and grotesque changes, and with a uniform darkly bluish
+color spotted with brown, or brownish white. This was the general
+appearance of the multitude; but there were many exceptions to this
+description, particularly among my more welcome and familiar visitors,
+as will be seen in the sequel."
+
+"Besides these rational and generally harmless beings, there was
+another set of objects which never varied in their form or qualities,
+and were always mischievous and terrible. The fact of their appearance
+depended very much on the state of my health and feelings. If I was
+well and cheerful they seldom troubled me; but when sick or depressed
+they were sure to obtrude their hateful presence upon me. These were a
+sort of heavy clouds floating about overhead, of a black color,
+spotted with brown, in the shape of a very flaring inverted tunnel
+without a nozzle, and from ten to thirty or forty feet in diameter.
+They floated from place to place in great numbers, and in all
+directions, with a strong and steady progress, but with a tremulous,
+quivering, internal motion that agitated them in every part.
+
+"Whenever they appproached, the rational phantoms were thrown into
+great consternation; and well it might be, for if a cloud touched any
+part of one of the rational phantoms it immediately communicated its
+own color and tremulous motion to the part it touched.
+
+"In spite of all the efforts and convulsive struggles of the unhappy
+victim, this color and motion slowly, but steadily and uninteruptedly,
+proceeded to diffuse itself over every part of the body, and as fast
+as it did so the body was drawn into the cloud and became a part of
+its substance. It was indeed a fearful sight to see the contortions,
+the agonizing efforts, of the poor creatures who had been touched by
+one of these awful clouds, and were dissolving and melting into it by
+inches without the possibility of escape or resistance.
+
+"This was the only visible object that had the least power over the
+phantoms, and this was evidently composed of the same material as
+themselves. The forms and actions of all these phantoms varied very
+much with the state of my health and animal spirits, but I never could
+discover that the surrounding material objects had any influence upon
+them, except in this one particular, namely, if I saw them in a neat,
+well furnished room, there was a neatness and polish in their form and
+motions; and, on the contrary, if I was in an unfinished, rough
+apartment, there was a corresponding rudeness and roughness in my
+aerial visitors. A corresponding difference was visible when I saw
+them in the woods or in the meadows, upon the water or upon the
+ground, in the air or among the stars."
+
+"Every different apartment which I occupied had a different set of
+phantoms, and they always had a degree of correspondence to the
+circumstances in which they were seen. (It should be noted, however,
+that it was not so much the place where the phantoms themselves
+appeared to me to be, that affected their forms and movements, as the
+place in which I myself actually was while observing them. The
+apparent locality of the phantoms, it is true, had some influence, but
+my own actual locality had much more.)"
+
+"Thus far I have attempted only a general outline of these curious
+experiences. I will now proceed to a detailed account of several
+particular incidents, for the sake of illustrating the general
+statements already made. I select a few from manifestations without
+number. I am able to ascertain dates from the following
+circumstances:--
+
+"I was born in April, 1802, and my father died in July, 1808, after
+suffering for more than a year from a lingering organic disease.
+Between two and three years before his death he removed from the house
+in which I was born to another at a little distance from it. What
+occurred, therefore, before my father's last sickness, must have taken
+place during the first five years of my life, and whatever took place
+before the removal of the family must have taken place during the
+first three years of my life. Before the removal of the family I slept
+in a small upper chamber in the front part of the house, where I was
+generally alone for several hours in the evening and morning.
+Adjoining this room, and opening into it by a very small door, was a
+low, dark, narrow, unfinished closet, which was open on the other side
+into a ruinous, old chaise-house. This closet was a famous place for
+the gambols of the phantoms, but of their forms and actions I do not
+now retain any very distinct recollection. I only remember that I was
+very careful not to do anything that I thought would be likely to
+offend them; yet otherwise their presence caused me no uneasiness, and
+was not at all disagreeable to me.
+
+"The first incident of which I have a distinct recollection was the
+following:--
+
+"One night, as I was lying alone in my chamber with my little dog
+Brutus snoring beside my bed, there came out of the closet a very
+large Indian woman and a very small Indian man, with a huge bass-viol
+between them. The woman was dressed in a large, loose, black gown,
+secured around her waist by a belt of the same material, and on her
+head she wore a high, dark gray fur cap, shaped somewhat like a lady's
+muff, ornamented with a row of covered buttons in front, and open
+towards the bottom, showing a red lining. The man was dressed in a
+shabby, black-colored overcoat and a little round, black hat that
+fitted closely to his head. They took no notice of me, but were rather
+ill-natured towards each other, and seemed to be disputing for the
+possession of the bass-viol. The man snatched it away and struck upon
+it a few harsh, hollow notes, which I distinctly heard, and which
+seemed to vibrate through my whole body, with a strange, stinging
+sensation The woman then took it and appeared to play very intently
+and much to her own satisfaction, but without producing any sound that
+was perceptible by me. They soon left the chamber, and I saw them go
+down into the back kitchen, where they sat and played and talked with
+my mother. It was only when the man took the bow that I could hear the
+harsh, abrupt, disagreeable sounds of the instrument. At length they
+arose, went out of the back door, and sprang upon a large heap of
+straw and unthreshed beans, and disappeared with a strange, rumbling
+sound. This vision was repeated night after night with scarcely any
+variation while we lived in that house, and once, and once only, after
+the family had removed to the other house. The only thing that seemed
+to me unaccountable and that excited my curiosity was that there
+should be such a large heap of straw and beans before the door every
+night, when I could see nothing of it in the daytime. I frequently
+crept out of bed and stole softly down into the kitchen, and peeped
+out of the door to see if it was there very early in the morning.
+
+"I attempted to make some inquiries of my mother, but as I was not as
+yet very skillful in the use of language, I could get no satisfaction
+out of her answers, and could see that my questions seemed to distress
+her. At first she took little notice of what I said, regarding it no
+doubt as the meaningless prattle of a thoughtless child. My
+persistence, however, seemed to alarm her, and I suppose that she
+feared for my sanity. I soon desisted from asking anything further,
+and shut myself more and more within myself. One night, very soon
+after the removal, when the house was still, and all the family were
+in bed, these unearthly musicians once made their appearance in the
+kitchen of the new house, and after looking around peevishly, and
+sitting with a discontented frown and in silence, they arose and went
+out of the back door, and sprang on a pile of cornstalks, and I saw
+them no more.
+
+"Our new dwelling was a low-studded house of only one story, and,
+instead of an upper chamber, I now occupied a bedroom that opened into
+the kitchen. Within this bedroom, directly on the left hand of the
+door as you entered from the kitchen, was the staircase which led to
+the garret; and, as the room was unfinished, some of the boards which
+inclosed the staircase were too short, and left a considerable space
+between them and the ceiling. One of these open spaces was directly in
+front of my bed, so that when I lay upon my pillow my face was
+opposite to it. Every night, after I had gone to bed and the candle
+was removed, a very pleasant-looking human face would peer at me over
+the top of that board, and gradually press forward his head, neck,
+shoulders, and finally his whole body as far as the waist, through the
+opening, and then, smiling upon me with great good-nature, would
+withdraw in the same manner in which he had entered. He was a great
+favorite of mine; for though we neither of us spoke, we perfectly
+understood, and were entirely devoted to, each other. It is a singular
+fact that the features of this favorite phantom bore a very close
+resemblance to those of a boy older than myself whom I feared and
+hated: still the resemblance was so strong that I called him by the
+same name, Harvey.
+
+"Harvey's visits were always expected and always pleasant; but
+sometimes there were visitations of another sort, odious and
+frightful. One of these I will relate as a specimen of the rest."
+
+"One night, after I had retired to bed and was looking for Harvey, I
+observed an unusual number of the tunnel-shaped tremulous clouds
+already described, and they seemed intensely black and strongly
+agitated. This alarmed me exceedingly, and I had a terrible feeling
+that something awful was going to happen. It was not long before I saw
+Harvey at his accustomed place, cautiously peeping at me through the
+aperture, with an expression of pain and terror on his countenance. He
+seemed to warn me to be on my guard, but was afraid to put his head
+into the room lest he should be touched by one of the clouds, which
+were every moment growing thicker and more numerous. Harvey soon
+withdrew and left me alone. On turning my eyes towards the left-hand
+wall of the room, I thought I saw at an immense distance below me the
+regions of the damned, as I had heard them pictured in sermons. From
+this awful world of horror the tunnel-shaped clouds were ascending,
+and I perceived that they were the principal instruments of torture in
+these gloomy abodes. These regions were at such an immense distance
+below me that I could obtain but a very indistinct view of the
+inhabitants, who were very numerous and exceedingly active. Near the
+surface of the earth, and as it seemed to me but a little distance
+from my bed, I saw four or five sturdy, resolute devils endeavoring to
+carry off an unprincipled and dissipated man in the neighborhood, by
+the name of Brown, of whom I had stood in terror for years. These
+devils I saw were very different from the common representations. They
+had neither red faces, nor horns, nor hoofs, nor tails. They were in
+all respects stoutly built and well-dressed gentlemen. The only
+peculiarity that I noted in their appearance was as to their heads.
+Their faces and necks were perfectly bare, without hair or flesh, and
+of a uniform sky-blue color, like the ashes of burnt paper before it
+falls to pieces, and of a certain glossy smoothness."
+
+"As I looked on, full of eagerness, the devils struggled to force
+Brown down with them, and Brown struggled with the energy of
+desperation to save himself from their grip, and it seemed that the
+human was likely to prove too strong for the infernal. In this
+emergency one of the devils, panting for breath and covered with
+perspiration, beckoned to a strong, thick cloud that seemed to
+understand him perfectly, and, whirling up to Brown, touched his hand.
+Brown resisted stoutly, and struck out right and left at the cloud
+most furiously, but the usual effect was produced,--the hand grew
+black, quivered, and seemed to be melting into the cloud; then the
+arm, by slow degrees, and then the head and shoulders. At this instant
+Brown, collecting all his energies for one desperate effort, sprang at
+once into the centre of the cloud, tore it asunder, and descended to
+the ground, exclaiming, with a hoarse, furious voice that grated on my
+ear, 'There, I've got out; dam'me if I haven't!' This was the first
+word that had been spoken through the whole horrible scene. It was the
+first time I had ever seen a cloud fail to produce its appropriate
+result, and it terrified me so that I trembled from head to foot. The
+devils, however, did not seem to be in the least discouraged. One of
+them, who seemed to be the leader, went away and quickly returned
+bringing with him an enormous pair of rollers fixed in an iron frame,
+such as are used in iron-mills for the purpose of rolling out and
+slitting bars of iron, except instead of being turned by machinery,
+each roller was turned by an immense crank. Three of the devils now
+seized Brown and put his feet to the rollers, while two others stood,
+one at each crank, and began to roll him in with a steady strain that
+was entirely irresistible. Not a word was spoken, not a sound was
+heard; but the fearful struggles and terrified, agonizing looks of
+Brown were more than I could endure. I sprang from my bed and ran
+through the kitchen into the room where my parents slept, and
+entreated that they would permit me to spend the remainder of the
+night with them. After considerable parleying they assured me that
+nothing could hurt me, and advised me to go back to bed. I replied
+that I was not afraid of their hurting me, but I couldn't bear to see
+them acting so with C. Brown. 'Poh! poh! you foolish boy,' replied my
+father, sternly. 'You've only been dreaming; go right back to bed, or
+I shall have to whip you.' Knowing that there was no other
+alternative, I trudged back through the kitchen with all the courage I
+could muster, cautiously entered my room, where I found everything
+quiet, there being neither cloud, nor devil, nor anything of the kind
+to be seen, and getting into bed I slept quietly till morning. The
+next day I was rather sad and melancholy, but kept all my troubles to
+myself, through fear of Brown. This happened before my father's
+sickness, and consequently between the four and six years of my age."
+
+"During my father's sickness and after his death I lived with my
+grandmother; and when I had removed to her house I forever lost sight
+of Harvey. I still continued to sleep alone for the most part, but in
+a neatly furnished upper chamber. Across the corner of the chamber,
+opposite to and at a little distance from the head of my bed, there
+was a closet in the form of an old-fashioned buffet. After going to
+bed, on looking at the door of this closet, I could see at a great
+distance from it a pleasant meadow, terminated by a beautiful little
+grove. Out of this grove, and across this meadow, a charming little
+female figure would advance, about eight inches high and exquisitely
+proportioned, dressed in a loose black silk robe, with long, smooth
+black hair parted up her head and hanging loose over her shoulders.
+She would come forward with a slow and regular step, becoming more
+distinctly visible as she approached nearer, till she came even with
+the surface of the closet door, when she would smile upon me, raise
+her hands to her head and draw them down on each side of her face,
+suddenly turn round, and go off at a rapid trot. The moment she turned
+I could see a good-looking mulatto man, rather smaller than herself,
+following directly in her wake and trotting off after her. This was
+generally repeated two or three times before I went to sleep. The
+features of the mulatto bore some resemblance to those of the Indian
+man with the bass-viol, but were much more mild and agreeable."
+
+"I awoke one bright, moonlight night, and found a large, full-length
+human skeleton of an ashy-blue color in bed with me! I screamed out
+with fright, and soon summoned the family around me. I refused to tell
+the cause of my alarm, but begged permission to occupy another bed,
+which was granted.
+
+"For the remainder of the night I slept but little; but I saw upon the
+window-stools companies of little fairies, about six inches high, in
+white robes, gamboling and dancing with incessant merriment. Two of
+them, a male and female, rather taller than the rest, were dignified
+with a crown and sceptre. They took the kindest notice of me, smiled
+upon me with great benignity, and seemed to assure me of their
+protection. I was soothed and cheered by their presence, though after
+all there was a sort of sinister and selfish expression in their
+countenances which prevented my placing implicit confidence in them.
+
+"Up to this time I had never doubted the real existence of these
+phantoms, nor had I ever suspected that other people had not seen them
+as distinctly as myself. I now, however, began to discover with no
+little anxiety that my friends had little or no knowledge of the
+aerial beings among whom I have spent my whole life; that my allusions
+to them were not understood, and all complaints respecting them were
+laughed at. I had never been disposed to say much about them, and this
+discovery confirmed me in my silence. It did not, however, affect my
+own belief, or lead me to suspect that my imaginations were not
+realities.
+
+"During the whole of this period I took great pleasure in walking out
+alone, particularly in the evening. The most lonely fields, the woods,
+and the banks of the river, and other places most completely secluded,
+were my favorite resorts, for there I could enjoy the sight of
+innumerable aerial beings of all sorts, without interruption. Every
+object, even every shaking leaf, seemed to me to be animated by some
+living soul, whose nature in some degree corresponded to its
+habitation. I spent much of my life in these solitary rambles; there
+were particular places to which I gave names, and visited them at
+regular intervals. Moonlight was particularly agreeable to me, but
+most of all I enjoyed a thick, foggy night. At times, during these
+walks, I would be excessively oppressed by an indefinite and deep
+feeling of melancholy. Without knowing why, I would be so unhappy as
+to wish myself annihilated, and suddenly it would occur to me that my
+friends at home were suffering some dreadful calamity, and so vivid
+would be the impression, that I would hasten home with all speed to
+see what had taken place. At such seasons I felt a morbid love for my
+friends that would almost burn up my soul, and yet, at the least
+provocation from them, I would fly into an uncontrollable passion and
+foam like a little fury. I was called a dreadful-tempered boy; but the
+Lord knows that I never occasioned pain to any animal, whether human
+or brutal, without suffering untold agonies in consequence of it. I
+cannot, even now, without feelings of deep sorrow, call to mind the
+alternate fits of corroding melancholy, irritation, and bitter remorse
+which I then endured. These fits of melancholy were most constant and
+oppressive during the autumnal months.
+
+"I very early learned to read, and soon became immoderately attached
+to books. In the Bible I read the first chapters of Job, and parts of
+Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation, with most intense delight, and with
+such frequency that I could repeat large portions from memory long
+before the age at which boys in the country are usually able to read
+plain sentences. The first large book besides the Bible that I
+remember reading was Morse's 'History of New England,' which I
+devoured with insatiable greediness, particularly those parts which
+relate to Indian wars and witchcraft. I was in the habit of applying
+to my grandmother for explanations, and she would relate to me, while
+I listened with breathless attention, long stories from Mather's
+'Magnalia' or (Mag-nilly, as she used to call it), a work which I
+earnestly longed to read, but of which, I never got sight till after
+my twentieth year. Very early there fell into my hands an old school-
+book, called 'The Art of Speaking,' containing numerous extracts from
+Milton and Shakespeare. There was little else in the book that
+interested me, but these extracts from the two great English poets,
+though there were many things in them that I did not well understand,
+I read again and again, with increasing pleasure at every perusal,
+till I had nearly committed them to memory, and almost thumbed the old
+book into nonenity. But of all the books that I read at this period,
+there was none that went to my heart like Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's
+Progress.' I read it and re-read it night and day; I took it to bed
+with me and hugged it to my bosom while I slept; every different
+edition that I could find I seized upon and read with as eager a
+curiosity as if it had been a new story throughout; and I read with
+the unspeakable satisfaction of most devoutly believing that
+everything which 'Honest John' related was a real verity, an actual
+occurrence. Oh that I could read that most inimitable book once more
+with the same solemn conviction of its literal truth, that I might
+once more enjoy the same untold ecstacy!
+
+"One other remark it seems proper to make before I proceed further to
+details. The appearance, and especially the motions, of my aerial
+visitors were intimately connected, either as cause or effect, I
+cannot determine which, with certain sensations of my own. Their
+countenances generally expressed pleasure or pain, complaisance or
+anger, according to the mood of my own mind: if they moved from place
+to place without moving their limbs, with that gliding motion
+appropriate to spirits, I felt in my stomach that peculiar tickling
+sensation which accompanies a rapid, progressive movement through the
+air; and if they went off with an uneasy trot, I felt an unpleasant
+jarring through my frame. Their appearance was always attended with
+considerable effort and fatigue on my part: the more distinct and
+vivid they were, the more would my fatigue be increased; and at such
+times my face was always pale, and my eyes unusually sparkling and
+wild. This continued to be the case after I became satisfied that it
+was all a delusion of the imagination, and it so continues to the
+present day."
+
+It is not surprising that Mrs. Stowe should have felt herself impelled
+to give literary form to an experience so exceptional. Still more must
+this be the case when the early associations of this exceptional
+character were as amusing and interesting as they are shown forth in
+"Oldtown Fireside Stories."
+
+None of the incidents or characters embodied in those sketches are
+ideal. The stories are told as they came from Mr. Stowe's lips, with
+little or no alteration. Sam Lawson was a real character. In 1874 Mr.
+Whittier wrote to Mrs. Stowe: "I am not able to write or study much,
+or read books that require thought, without suffering, but I have Sam
+Lawson lying at hand, and, as Corporal Trim said of Yorick's sermon,
+'I like it hugely.'"
+
+The power and literary value of these stories lie in the fact that
+they are true to nature. Professor Stowe was himself an inimitable
+mimic and story-teller. No small proportion of Mrs. Stowe's success as
+a literary woman is to be attributed to him. Not only was he possessed
+of a bright, quick mind, but wonderful retentiveness of memory. Mrs.
+Stowe was never at a loss for reliable information on any subject as
+long as the professor lived. He belonged, to that extinct species, the
+"general scholar." His scholarship was not critical in the modern
+sense of the word, but in the main accurate, in spite of his love for
+the marvelous.
+
+It is not out of place to give a little idea of his power in
+character-painting, as it shows how suggestive his conversation and
+letters must have been to a mind like that of Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+NATICK, _July_ 14, 1839.
+
+I have had a real good time this week writing my oration. I have
+strolled over my old walking places, and found the same old stone
+walls, the same old footpaths through the rye-fields, the same bends
+in the river, the same old bullfrogs with their green spectacles on,
+the same old terrapins sticking up their heads and bowing as I go by;
+and nothing was wanting but my wife to talk with to make all complete.
+. . . I have had some rare talks with old uncle "Jaw" Bacon, and other
+old characters, which you ought to have heard. The Curtises have been
+flooding Uncle "Jaw's" meadows, and he is in a great stew about it. He
+says: "I took and tell'd your Uncle Izic to tell them 'ere Curtises
+that if the Devil did n't git 'em far flowing my medder arter that
+sort, I didn't see no use o' havin' any Devil." "Have you talked with
+the Curtises yourself?" "Yes, hang the sarcy dogs! and they took and
+tell'd me that they'd take and flow clean up to my front door, and
+make me go out and in in a boat." "Why don't you go to law?" "Oh, they
+keep alterin' and er tinkerin'-up the laws so here in Massachusetts
+that a body can't git no damage fur flowing; they think cold water
+can't hurt nobody."
+
+Mother and Aunt Nabby each keep separate establishments. First Aunt
+Nabby gets up in the morning and examines the sink, to see whether it
+leaks and rots the beam. She then makes a little fire, gets her little
+teapot of bright shining tin, and puts into it a teaspoonful of black
+tea, and so prepares her breakfast.
+
+By this time mother comes creeping down-stairs, like an old tabby-cat
+out of the ash-hole; and she kind o' doubts and reckons whether or no
+she had better try to git any breakfast, bein' as she 's not much
+appetite this mornin'; but she goes to the leg of bacon and cuts off a
+little slice, reckons sh'll broil it; then goes and looks at the
+coffee-pot and reckons sh'll have a little coffee; don't exactly know
+whether it's good for her, but she don't drink much. So while Aunt
+Nabby is sitting sipping her tea and munching her bread and butter
+with a matter-of-fact certainty and marvelous satisfaction, mother
+goes doubting and reckoning round, like Mrs. Diffidence in Doubting
+Castle, till you see rising up another little table in another corner
+of the room, with a good substantial structure of broiled ham and
+coffee, and a boiled egg or two, with various et ceteras, which Mrs.
+Diffidence, after many desponding ejaculations, finally sits down to,
+and in spite of all presentiments makes them fly as nimbly as Mr.
+Ready-to-Halt did Miss Much-afraid when he footed it so well with her
+on his crutches in the dance on the occasion of Giant Despair's
+overthrow.
+
+I have thus far dined alternately with mother and Aunt Susan, not
+having yet been admitted to Aunt Nabby's establishment. There are now
+great talkings, and congresses and consultations of the allied powers,
+and already rumors are afloat that perhaps all will unite their forces
+and dine at one table, especially as Harriet and little Hattie are
+coming, and there is no knowing what might come out in the papers if
+there should be anything a little odd.
+
+Mother is very well, thin as a hatchet and smart as a steel trap; Aunt
+Nabby, fat and easy as usual; for since the sink is mended, and no
+longer leaks and rots the beam, and she has nothing to do but watch
+it, and Uncle Bill has joined the Washingtonians and no longer drinks
+rum, she is quite at a loss for topics of worriment.
+
+Uncle Ike has had a little touch of palsy and is rather feeble. He
+says that his legs and arms have rather gi'n out, but his head and
+pluck are as good as they ever were. I told him that our sister Kate
+was very much in the same fix, whereat he was considerably affected,
+and opened the crack in his great pumpkin of a face, displaying the
+same two rows of great white ivories which have been my admiration
+from my youth up. He is sixty-five years of age, and has never lost a
+tooth, and was never in his life more than fifteen miles from the spot
+where he was born, except once, in the ever-memorable year 1819, when
+I was at Bradford Academy.
+
+In a sudden glow of adventurous rashness he undertook to go after me
+and bring me home for vacation; and he actually performed the whole
+journey of thirty miles with his horse and wagon, and slept at a
+tavern a whole night, a feat of bravery on which he has never since
+ceased to plume himself. I well remember that awful night in the
+tavern in the remote region of North Andover. We occupied a chamber in
+which were two beds. In the unsuspecting innocence of youth I
+undressed myself and got into bed as usual; but my brave and
+thoughtful uncle, merely divesting himself of his coat, put it under
+his pillow, and then threw himself on to the bed with his boots on his
+feet, and his two hands resting on the rim of his hat, which he had
+prudently placed on the apex of his stomach as he lay on his back. He
+wouldn't allow me to blow out the candle, but he lay there with his
+great white eyes fixed on the ceiling, in the cool, determined manner
+of a bold man who had made up his mind to face danger and meet
+whatever might befall him. We escaped, however, without injury, the
+doughty landlord and his relentless sons merely demanding pay for
+supper, lodging, horse-feed, and breakfast, which my valiant uncle,
+betraying no signs of fear, resolutely paid.
+
+Mrs. Stowe has woven this incident into chapter thirty-two of "Oldtown
+Folks," where Uncle Ike figures as Uncle Jacob.
+
+Mrs. Stowe had misgivings as to the reception which "Oldtown Folks"
+would meet in England, owing to its distinctively New England
+character. Shortly after the publication of the book she received the
+following words of encouragement from Mrs. Lewes (George Eliot), July
+11, 1869 :--
+
+"I have received and read 'Oldtown Folks.' I think that few of your
+readers can have felt more interest than I have felt in that picture
+of an elder generation; for my interest in it has a double root,--one
+in my own love for our old-fashioned provincial life, which had its
+affinities with a contemporary life, even all across the Atlantic, and
+of which I have gathered glimpses in different phases from my father
+and mother, with their relations; the other is my experimental
+acquaintance with some shades of Calvinistic orthodoxy. I think your
+way of presenting the religious convictions which are not your own,
+except by the way of indirect fellowship, is a triumph of insight and
+true tolerance. . . . Both Mr. Lewes and I are deeply interested in
+the indications which the professor gives of his peculiar
+psychological experience, and we should feel it a great privilege to
+learn much more of it from his lips. It is a rare thing to have such
+an opportunity of studying exceptional experience in the testimony of
+a truthful and in every way distinguished mind."
+
+"Oldtown Folks" is of interest as being undoubtedly the last of Mrs.
+Stowe's works which will outlive the generation for which it was
+written. Besides its intrinsic merit as a work of fiction, it has a
+certain historic value as being a faithful study of "New England life
+and character in that particular time of its history which may be
+called the seminal period."
+
+Whether Mrs. Stowe was far enough away from the time and people she
+attempts to describe to "make (her) mind as still and passive as a
+looking-glass or a mountain lake, and to give merely the images
+reflected there," is something that will in great part determine the
+permanent value of this work. Its interest as a story merely is of
+course ephemeral.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE BYRON CONTROVERSY, 1869-1870.
+
+
+MRS. STOWE'S STATEMENT OF HER OWN CASE.--THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH
+SHE FIRST MET LADY BYRON.--LETTERS TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER TO DR.
+HOLMES WHEN ABOUT TO PUBLISH "THE TRUE STORY OF LADY BYRON'S LIFE" IN
+THE "ATLANTIC."--DR. HOLMES'S REPLY.--THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER.
+
+It seems impossible to avoid the unpleasant episode in Mrs. Stowe's
+life known as the "Byron Controversy." It will be our effort to deal
+with the matter as colorlessly as is consistent with an adequate
+setting forth of the motives which moved Mrs. Stowe to awaken this
+unsavory discussion. In justification of her action in this matter,
+Mrs. Stowe says:--
+
+"What interest have you and I, my brother and my sister, in this short
+life of ours, to utter anything but the truth? Is not truth between
+man and man, and between man and woman, the foundation on which all
+things rest? Have you not, every individual of you, who must hereafter
+give an account yourself alone to God, an interest to know the exact
+truth in this matter, and a duty to perform as respects that truth?
+Hear me, then, while I tell you the position in which I stood, and
+what was my course in relation to it.
+
+"A shameless attack on my friend's memory had appeared in the
+'Blackwood' of July, 1869, branding Lady Byron as the vilest of
+criminals, and recommending the Guiccioli book to a Christian public
+as interesting from the very fact that it was the avowed production of
+Lord Byron's mistress. No efficient protest was made against this
+outrage in England, and Littell's 'Living Age' reprinted the
+'Blackwood' article, and the Harpers, the largest publishing house in
+America, perhaps in the world, republished the book.
+
+"Its statements--with those of the 'Blackwood,' 'Pall Mall Gazette,'
+and other English periodicals--were being propagated through all the
+young reading and writing world of America. I was meeting them
+advertised in dailies, and made up into articles in magazines, and
+thus the generation of to-day, who had no means of judging Lady Byron
+but by these fables of her slanderers, were being foully deceived. The
+friends who knew her personally were a small, select circle in
+England, whom death is every day reducing. They were few in number
+compared with the great world, and were silent. I saw these foul
+slanders crystallizing into history, uncontradicted by friends who
+knew her personally, who, firm in their own knowledge of her virtues,
+and limited in view as aristocratic circles generally are, had no idea
+of the width of the world they were living in, and the exigency of the
+crisis. When time passed on and no voice was raised, I spoke."
+
+It is hardly necessary to recapitulate, at any great length, facts
+already so familiar to the reading public; it may be sufficient simply
+to say that after the appearance in 1868 of the Countess Guiccioli's
+"Recollections of Lord Byron," Mrs. Stowe felt herself called upon to
+defend the memory of her friend from what she esteemed to be
+falsehoods and slanders. To accomplish this object, she prepared for
+the "Atlantic Monthly" of September, 1869, an article, "The True Story
+of Lady Byron's Life." Speaking of her first impressions of Lady
+Byron, Mrs. Stowe says:--
+
+"I formed her acquaintance in the year 1853, during my first visit to
+England. I met her at a lunch party in the house of one of her
+friends. When I was introduced to her, I felt in a moment the words of
+her husband:--
+
+  "'There was awe in the homage that she drew;
+  Her spirit seemed as seated on a throne.'"
+
+It was in the fall of 1856, on the occasion of Mrs. Stowe's second
+visit to England, as she and her sister were on their way to Eversley
+to visit the Rev. C. Kingsley, that they stopped by invitation to
+lunch with Lady Byron at her summer residence at Ham Common, near
+Richmond. At that time Lady Byron informed Mrs. Stowe that it was her
+earnest desire to receive a visit from her on her return, as there was
+a subject of great importance concerning which she desired her advice.
+Mrs. Stowe has thus described this interview with Lady Byron:--
+
+"After lunch, I retired with Lady Byron, and my sister remained with
+her friends. I should here remark that the chief subject of the
+conversation which ensued was not entirely new to me."
+
+"In the interval between my first and second visits to England, a lady
+who for many years had enjoyed Lady Byron's friendship and confidence
+had, with her consent, stated the case generally to me, giving some of
+the incidents, so that I was in a manner prepared for what followed."
+
+"Those who accuse Lady Byron of being a person fond of talking upon
+this subject, and apt to make unconsidered confidences, can have known
+very little of her, of her reserve, and of the apparent difficulty she
+had in speaking on subjects nearest her heart. Her habitual calmness
+and composure of manner, her collected dignity on all occasions, are
+often mentioned by her husband, sometimes with bitterness, sometimes
+with admiration. He says: 'Though I accuse Lady Byron of an excess of
+self-respect, I must in candor admit that, if ever a person had excuse
+for an extraordinary portion of it, she has, as in all her thoughts,
+words, and deeds she is the most decorous woman that ever existed, and
+must appear, what few I fancy could, a perfectly refined gentlewoman,
+even to her _femme de chambre_.'
+
+"This calmness and dignity were never more manifested than in this
+interview. In recalling the conversation at this distance of time, I
+cannot remember all the language used. Some particular words and forms
+of expression I do remember, and those I give; and in other cases I
+give my recollection of the substance of what was said.
+
+"There was something awful to me in the intensity of repressed emotion
+which she showed as she proceeded. The great fact upon which all
+turned was stated in words that were unmistakable."
+
+Mrs. Stowe goes on to give minutely Lady Byron's conversation, and
+concludes by saying:--
+
+Of course I did not listen to this story as one who was investigating
+its worth. I received it as truth, and the purpose for which it was
+communicated was not to enable me to prove it to the world, but to ask
+my opinion whether she should show it to the world before leaving it.
+The whole consultation was upon the assumption that she had at her
+command such proofs as could not be questioned. Concerning what they
+were I did not minutely inquire, only, in answer to a general
+question, she said that she had letters and documents in proof of her
+story. Knowing Lady Byron's strength of mind, her clear-headedness,
+her accurate habits, and her perfect knowledge of the matter, I
+considered her judgment on this point decisive. I told her that I
+would take the subject into consideration and give my opinion in a few
+days. That night, after my sister and myself had retired to our own
+apartment, I related to her the whole history, and we spent the night
+in talking it over. I was powerfully impressed with the justice and
+propriety of an immediate disclosure; while she, on the contrary,
+represented the fatal consequences that would probably come upon Lady
+Byron from taking such a step.
+
+Before we parted the next day, I requested Lady Byron to give me some
+memoranda of such dates and outlines of the general story as would
+enable me better to keep it in its connection, which she did. On
+giving me the paper, Lady Byron requested me to return it to her when
+it had ceased to be of use to me for the purpose intended.
+Accordingly, a day or two after, I inclosed it to her in a hasty note,
+as I was then leaving London for Paris, and had not yet had time fully
+to consider the subject. On reviewing my note I can recall that then
+the whole history appeared to me like one of those singular cases
+where unnatural impulses to vice are the result of a taint of
+constitutional insanity. This has always seemed to me the only way of
+accounting for instances of utterly motiveless and abnormal wickedness
+and cruelty. These, my first impressions, were expressed in the hasty
+note written at the time:--
+
+LONDON, _November_ 5,1856.
+
+DEAREST FRIEND,--I return these. They have held mine eyes waking. How
+strange! How unaccountable! Have you ever subjected the facts to the
+judgment of a medical man, learned in nervous pathology? Is it not
+insanity?
+
+ "Great wits to madness nearly are allied,
+ And thin partitions do their bounds divide."
+
+But my purpose to-night is not to write to you fully what I think of
+this matter. I am going to write to you from Paris more at leisure.
+
+(The rest of the letter was taken up in the final details of a charity
+in which Lady Byron had been engaged with me in assisting an
+unfortunate artist. It concludes thus:)
+
+I write now in all haste, _en route_ for Paris. As to America,
+all is not lost yet. Farewell. I love you, my dear friend, as never
+before, with an intense feeling that I cannot easily express. God
+bless you.
+
+H. B. S.
+
+The next letter is as follows:--
+
+PARIS, _December_ 17, 1856.
+
+DEAR LADY BYRON,--The Kansas Committee have written me a letter
+desiring me to express to Miss ---- their gratitude for the five
+pounds she sent them. I am not personally acquainted with her, and
+must return these acknowledgments through you.
+
+I wrote you a day or two since, inclosing the reply of the Kansas
+Committee to you.
+
+On that subject on which you spoke to me the last time we were
+together, I have thought often and deeply. I have changed my mind
+somewhat. Considering the peculiar circumstances of the case, I could
+wish that the sacred veil of silence, so bravely thrown over the past,
+should never be withdrawn during the time that you remain with us. I
+would say then, leave all with some discreet friends, who, after both
+have passed from earth, shall say what was due to justice. I am led to
+think this by seeing how low, how unworthy, the judgments of this
+world are; and I would not that what I so much respect, love, and
+revere should be placed within reach of its harpy claw, which pollutes
+what it touches. The day will yet come which will bring to light every
+hidden thing. "There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed,
+neither hid that shall not be known;" and so justice will not fail.
+
+Such, my dear friend, are my thoughts; different from what they were
+since first I heard that strange, sad history. Meanwhile I love you
+forever, whether we meet again on earth or not.
+
+Affectionately yours,
+
+H. B. S.
+
+Before her article appeared in print, Mrs. Stowe addressed the
+following letter to Dr. Holmes in Boston:--
+
+HARTFORD, _June_ 26,1869.
+
+DEAR DOCTOR,--I am going to ask help of you, and I feel that
+confidence in your friendship that leads me to be glad that I have a
+friend like you to ask advice of. In order that you may understand
+fully what it is, I must go back some years and tell you about it.
+
+When I went to England the first time, I formed a friendship with Lady
+Byron which led to a somewhat interesting correspondence. When there
+the second time, after the publication of "Dred" in 1856, Lady Byron
+wrote to me that she wished to have some private confidential
+conversation with me, and invited me to come spend a day with her at
+her country-seat near London. I went, met her alone, and spent an
+afternoon with her. The object of the visit she then explained to me.
+She was in such a state of health that she considered she had very
+little time to live, and was engaged in those duties and reviews which
+every thoughtful person finds who is coming deliberately, and with
+their eyes open, to the boundaries of this mortal life.
+
+Lady Byron, as you must perceive, has all her life lived under a
+weight of slanders and false imputations laid upon her by her husband.
+Her own side of the story has been told only to that small circle of
+confidential friends who needed to know it in order to assist her in
+meeting the exigencies which it imposed on her. Of course it has
+thrown the sympathy mostly on his side, since the world generally has
+more sympathy with impulsive incorrectness than with strict justice.
+
+At that time there was a cheap edition of Byron's works in
+contemplation, meant to bring them into circulation among the masses,
+and the pathos arising from the story of his domestic misfortunes was
+one great means relied on for giving it currency.
+
+Under these circumstances some of Lady Byron's friends had proposed
+the question to her whether she had not a responsibility to society
+for the truth; whether she did right to allow these persons to gain
+influence over the popular mind by a silent consent to an utter
+falsehood. As her whole life had been passed in the most heroic self-
+abnegation and self sacrifice, the question was now proposed to her
+whether one more act of self-denial was not required of her, namely,
+to declare _the truth_, no matter at what expense to her own
+feelings.
+
+For this purpose she told me she wished to recount the whole story to
+a person in whom she had confidence,--a person of another country, and
+out of the whole sphere of personal and local feelings which might be
+supposed to influence those in the country and station in life where
+the events really happened,--in order that I might judge whether
+anything more was required of her in relation to this history.
+
+The interview had almost the solemnity of a deathbed confession, and
+Lady Byron told me the history which I have embodied in an article to
+appear in the "Atlantic Monthly." I have been induced to prepare it by
+the run which the Guiccioli book is having, which is from first to
+last an unsparing attack on Lady Byron's memory by Lord Byron's
+mistress.
+
+When you have read my article, I want, _not_ your advice as to
+whether the main facts shall be told, for on this point I am so
+resolved that I frankly say advice would do me no good. But you might
+help me, with your delicacy and insight, to make the _manner of
+telling_ more perfect, and I want to do it as wisely and well as
+such story can be told.
+
+My post-office address after July 1st will be Westport Point, Bristol
+Co., Mass., care of Mrs. I. M. Soule. The proof-sheets will be sent
+you by the publisher.
+
+Very truly yours, H. B. STOWE.
+
+In reply to the storm of controversy aroused by the publication of
+this article, Mrs. Stowe made a more extended effort to justify the
+charges which she had brought against Lord Byron, in a work published
+in 1869, "Lady Byron Vindicated." Immediately after the publication of
+this work, she mailed a copy to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, accompanied
+by the following note:--
+
+BOSTON, _May_ 19, 1869.
+
+DEAR DOCTOR,--. . . In writing this book, which I now take the liberty
+of sending to you, I have been in . . . a "critical place." It has
+been a strange, weird sort of experience, and I have had not a word to
+say to anybody, though often thinking of you and wishing I could have
+a little of your help and sympathy in getting out what I saw. I think
+of you very much, and rejoice to see the _hold_ your works get on
+England as well as this country, and I would give more for your
+opinion than that of most folks. How often I have pondered your last
+letter to me, and sent it to many (friends)! God bless you. Please
+accept for yourself and your good wife, this copy.
+
+From yours truly,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+Mrs. Stowe also published in 1870, through Sampson Low & Son, of
+London, a volume for English readers, "The History of the Byron
+Controversy." These additional volumes, however, do not seem to have
+satisfied the public as a whole, and perhaps the expediency of the
+publication of Mrs. Stowe's first article is doubtful, even to her
+most ardent admirers. The most that can be hoped for, through the
+mention of the subject in this biography, is the vindication of Mrs.
+Stowe's purity of motive and nobility of intention in bringing this
+painful matter into notice.
+
+While she was being on all hands effectively, and evidently in some
+quarters with rare satisfaction, roundly abused for the article, and
+her consequent responsibility in bringing this unsavory discussion so
+prominently before the public mind, she received the following letter
+from Dr. 0. W. Holmes:--
+
+BOSTON, _September_ 25, 1869.
+
+MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--I have been meaning to write to you for some
+time, but in the midst of all the wild and virulent talk about the
+article in the "Atlantic," I felt as if there was little to say until
+the first fury of the storm had blown over.
+
+I think that we all perceive now that the battle is not to be fought
+here, but in England. I have listened to a good deal of talk, always
+taking your side in a quiet way, backed very heartily on one occasion
+by one of my most intellectual friends, reading all that came in my
+way, and watching the course of opinion. And first, it was to be
+expected that the Guiccioli fanciers would resent any attack on Lord
+Byron, and would highly relish the opportunity of abusing one who,
+like yourself, had been identified with all those moral enterprises
+which elevate the standard of humanity at large, and of womanhood in
+particular. After this scum had worked itself off, there must
+necessarily follow a controversy, none the less sharp and bitter, but
+not depending essentially on abuse. The first point the recusants got
+hold of was the error of the two years which contrived to run the
+gauntlet of so many pairs of eyes. Some of them were made happy by
+mouthing and shaking this between their teeth, as a poodle tears round
+with a glove. This did not last long. No sensible person could believe
+for a moment you were mistaken in the essential character of a
+statement every word of which would fall on the ear of a listening
+friend like a drop of melted lead, and burn its scar deep into the
+memory. That Lady Byron believed and told you the story will not be
+questioned by any but fools and malignants. Whether her belief was
+well founded there may be positive evidence in existence to show
+affirmatively. The fact that her statement is not peremptorily
+contradicted by those most likely to be acquainted with the facts of
+the ease, is the one result so far which is forcing itself into
+unwilling recognition. I have seen nothing, in the various hypotheses
+brought forward, which did not to me involve a greater improbability
+than the presumption of guilt. Take that, for witness, that Byron
+accused himself, through a spirit of perverse vanity, of crimes he had
+not committed. How preposterous! He would stain the name of a sister,
+whom, on the supposition of his innocence, he loved with angelic ardor
+as well as purity, by associating it with such an infamous accusation.
+Suppose there are some anomalies hard to explain in Lady Byron's
+conduct. Could a young and guileless woman, in the hands of such a
+man, be expected to act in any given way, or would she not be likely
+to waver, to doubt, to hope, to contradict herself, in the anomalous
+position in which, without experience, she found herself?
+
+As to the intrinsic evidence contained in the poems, I think it
+confirms rather than contradicts the hypothesis of guilt. I do not
+think that Butler's argument, and all the other attempts at
+invalidation of the story, avail much in the face of the acknowledged
+fact that it was told to various competent and honest witnesses, and
+remains without a satisfactory answer from those most interested.
+
+I know your firm self-reliance, and your courage to proclaim the truth
+when any good end is to be served by it. It is to be expected that
+public opinion will be more or less divided as to the expediency of
+this revelation. . . .
+
+Hoping that you have recovered from your indisposition,
+
+I am Faithfully yours,
+
+0. W. HOLMES.
+
+While undergoing the most unsparing and pitiless criticism and brutal
+insult, Mrs. Stowe received the following sympathetic words from Mrs.
+Lewes (George Eliot):--
+
+THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, _December_ 10, 1869.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--. . . In the midst of your trouble I was often
+thinking of you, for I feared that you were undergoing a considerable
+trial from the harsh and unfair judgments, partly the fruit of
+hostility glad to find an opportunity for venting itself, and partly
+of that unthinking cruelty which belongs to hasty anonymous
+journalism. For my own part, I should have preferred that the Byron
+question should never have been brought before the public, because I
+think the discussion of such subjects is injurious socially. But with
+regard to yourself, dear friend, I feel sure that, in acting on a
+different basis of impressions, you were impelled by pure, generous
+feeling. Do not think that I would have written to you of this point
+to express a judgment. I am anxious only to convey to you a sense of
+my sympathy and confidence, such as a kiss and a pressure of the hand
+could give if I were near you.
+
+I trust that I shall hear a good account of Professor Stowe's health,
+as well as your own, whenever you have time to write me a word or two.
+I shall not be so unreasonable as to expect a long letter, for the
+hours of needful rest from writing become more and more precious as
+the years go on, but some brief news of you and yours will be
+especially welcome just now. Mr. Lewes unites with me in high regards
+to your husband and yourself, but in addition to that I have the
+sister woman's privilege of saying that I am always
+
+Your affectionate friend,
+
+M. H. LEWES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+GEORGE ELIOT.
+
+
+CORRESPONDENCE WITH GEORGE ELIOT.--GEORGE ELIOT'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF
+MRS. STOWE.--MRS. STOWE'S LETTER TO MRS. FOLLEN.--GEORGE ELIOT'S
+LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--MRS. STOWE'S REPLY.--LIFE IN FLORIDA.--ROBERT
+DALE OWEN AND MODERN SPIRITUALISM.--GEORGE ELIOT'S LETTER ON THE
+PHENOMENA OF SPIRITUALISM.--MRS. STOWE'S DESCRIPTION OF SCENERY IN
+FLORIDA.--MRS. STOWE CONCERNING "MIDDLEMARCH."--GEORGE ELIOT TO MRS.
+STOWE DURING REV. H. W. BEECHER'S TRIAL.--MRS. STOWE CONCERNING HER
+LIFE EXPERIENCE WITH HER BROTHER, H. W. BEECHER, AND HIS TRIAL.--MRS.
+LEWES' LAST LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--DIVERSE MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF
+THESE TWO WOMEN.--MRS. STOWE'S FINAL ESTIMATE OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM.
+
+It is with a feeling of relief that we turn from one of the most
+disagreeable experiences of Mrs. Stowe's life to one of the most
+delightful, namely, the warm friendship of one of the most eminent
+women of this age, George Eliot.
+
+There seems to have been some deep affinity of feeling that drew them
+closely together in spite of diversity of intellectual tastes.
+
+George Eliot's attention was first personally attracted to Mrs. Stowe
+in 1853, by means of a letter which the latter had written to Mrs.
+Follen. Speaking of this incident she (George Eliot) writes: "Mrs.
+Follen showed me a delightful letter which she has just had from Mrs.
+Stowe, telling all about herself. She begins by saying, 'I am a little
+bit of a woman, rather more than forty, as withered and dry as a pinch
+of snuff; never very well worth looking at in my best days, and now a
+decidedly used-up article.' The whole letter is most fascinating, and
+makes one love her." [Footnote: George Eliot's Life, edited by J. W.
+Cross, vol. i.]
+
+The correspondence between these two notable women was begun by Mrs.
+Stowe, and called forth the following extremely interesting letter
+from the distinguished English novelist:--
+
+THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, _May_ 8,1869.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--I value very highly the warrant to call you friend
+which your letter has given me. It lay awaiting me on our return the
+other night from a nine weeks' absence in Italy, and it made me almost
+wish that you could have a momentary vision of the discouragement,--
+nay, paralyzing despondency--in which many days of my writing life
+have been passed, in order that you might fully understand the good I
+find in such sympathy as yours, in such an assurance as you give me
+that my work has been worth doing. But I will not dwell on any mental
+sickness of mine. The best joy your words give me is the sense of that
+sweet, generous feeling in you which dictated them. I shall always be
+the richer because you have in this way made me know you better. I
+must tell you that my first glimpse of you as a woman came through a
+letter of yours, and charmed me very much. The letter was addressed to
+Mrs. Follen, and one morning I called on her in London (how many years
+ago!); she was kind enough to read it to me, because it contained a
+little history of your life, and a sketch of your domestic
+circumstances. I remember thinking that it was very kind of you to
+write that long letter, in reply to inquiries of one who was
+personally unknown to you; and, looking back with my present
+experience, I think it was kinder than it then appeared, for at that
+time you must have been much oppressed with the immediate results of
+your fame. I remember, too, that you wrote of your husband as one who
+was richer in Hebrew and Greek than in pounds or shillings; and as an
+ardent scholar has always been a character of peculiar interest to me,
+I have rarely had your image in my mind without the accompanying image
+(more or less erroneous) of such a scholar by your side. I shall
+welcome the fruit of his Goethe studies, whenever it comes.
+
+I have good hopes that your fears are groundless as to the obstacles
+your new book ("Oldtown Folks") may find here from its thorough
+American character. Most readers who are likely to be really
+influenced by writing above the common order will find that special
+aspect an added reason for interest and study; and I dare say you have
+long seen, as I am beginning to see with new clearness, that if a book
+which has any sort of exquisiteness happens also to be a popular,
+widely circulated book, the power over the social mind for any good
+is, after all, due to its reception by a few appreciative natures, and
+is the slow result of radiation from that narrow circle. I mean that
+you can affect a few souls, and that each of these in turn may affect
+a few more, but that no exquisite book tells properly and directly on
+a multitude, however largely it may be spread by type and paper.
+Witness the things the multitude will say about it, if one is so
+unhappy as to be obliged to hear their sayings. I do not write this
+cynically, but in pure sadness and pity. Both traveling abroad and
+staying at home among our English sights and sports, one must
+continually feel how slowly the centuries work toward the moral good
+of men, and that thought lies very close to what you say as to your
+wonder or conjecture concerning my religious point of view. I believe
+that religion, too, has to be modified according to the dominant
+phases; that a religion more perfect than any yet prevalent must
+express less care of personal consolation, and the more deeply awing
+sense of responsibility to man springing from sympathy with that which
+of all things is most certainly known to us,--the difficulty of the
+human lot. Letters are necessarily narrow and fragmentary, and
+when one writes on wide subjects, are likely to create more
+misunderstanding than illumination. But I have little anxiety in
+writing to you, dear friend and fellow-laborer; for you have had
+longer experience than I as a writer, and fuller experience as a
+woman, since you have borne children and known a mother's history from
+the beginning. I trust your quick and long-taught mind as an
+interpreter little liable to mistake me.
+
+When you say, "We live in an orange grove, and are planting many
+more," and when I think you must have abundant family love to cheer
+you, it seems to me that you must have a paradise about you. But no
+list of circumstances will make a paradise. Nevertheless, I must
+believe that the joyous, tender humor of your books clings about your
+more immediate life, and makes some of that sunshine for yourself
+which you have given to us. I see the advertisement of "Oldtown
+Folks," and shall eagerly expect it. That and every other new link
+between us will be reverentially valued. With great devotion and
+regard,
+
+Yours always,
+
+M. L. LEWES.
+
+Mrs. Stowe writes from Mandarin to George Eliot:--
+
+MANDARIN, _February_ 8, 1872.
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--It is two years nearly since I had your last very kind
+letter, and I have never answered, because two years of constant and
+severe work have made it impossible to give a drop to anything beyond
+the needs of the hour. Yet I have always thought of you, loved you,
+trusted you all the same, and read every little scrap from your
+writing that came to hand.
+
+One thing brings you back to me. I am now in Florida in my little hut
+in the orange orchard, with the broad expanse of the blue St. John's
+in front, and the waving of the live-oaks, with their long, gray
+mosses, overhead, and the bright gold of oranges looking through dusky
+leaves around. It is like Sorrento,--so like that I can quite dream of
+being there. And when I get here I enter another life. The world
+recedes; I am out of it; it ceases to influence; its bustle and noise
+die away in the far distance; and here is no winter, an open-air
+life,--a quaint, rude, wild wilderness sort of life, both rude and
+rich; but when I am here I write more letters to friends than ever I
+do elsewhere. The mail comes only twice a week, and then is the event
+of the day. My old rabbi and I here set up our tent, he with German,
+and Greek, and Hebrew, devouring all sorts of black-letter books, and
+I spinning ideal webs out of bits that he lets fall here and there.
+
+I have long thought that I would write you again when I got here, and
+so I do. I have sent North to have them send me the "Harper's Weekly,"
+in which your new story is appearing, and have promised myself
+leisurely to devour and absorb every word of it.
+
+While I think of it I want to introduce to you a friend of mine, a
+most noble man, Mr. Owen, for some years our ambassador at Naples, now
+living a literary and scholar life in America. His father was Robert
+Dale Owen, the theorist and communist you may have heard of in England
+some years since.
+
+Years ago, in Naples, I visited Mr. Owen for the first time, and found
+him directing his attention to the phenomena of spiritism. He had
+stumbled upon some singular instances of it accidentally, and he had
+forthwith instituted a series of researches and experiments on the
+subject, some of which he showed me. It was the first time I had ever
+seriously thought of the matter, and he invited my sister and myself
+to see some of the phenomena as exhibited by a medium friend of theirs
+who resided in their family. The result at the time was sufficiently
+curious, but I was interested in his account of the manner in which he
+proceeded, keeping records of every experiment with its results, in
+classified orders. As the result of his studies and observations, he
+has published two books, one "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another
+World," published in 1860, and latterly, "The Debatable Land Between
+this World and the Next." I regard Mr. Owen as one of the few men who
+are capable of entering into an inquiry of this kind without an utter
+drowning of common sense, and his books are both of them worth a fair
+reading. To me they present a great deal that is intensely curious and
+interesting, although I do not admit, of course, all his deductions,
+and think he often takes too much for granted. Still, with every
+abatement there remains a residuum of fact, which I think both curious
+and useful. In a late letter to me he says :--
+
+"There is no writer of the present day whom I more esteem than Mrs.
+Lewes, nor any one whose opinion of my work I should more highly
+value."
+
+I believe he intends sending them to you, and I hope you will read
+them. Lest some of the narratives should strike you, as such
+narratives did me once, as being a perfect Arabian Nights'
+Entertainment, I want to say that I have accidentally been in the way
+of confirming some of the most remarkable by personal observation.
+
+. . . In regard to all this class of subjects, I am of the opinion of
+Goethe, that "it is just as absurd to deny the facts of spiritualism
+now as it was in the Middle Ages to ascribe them to the Devil." I
+think Mr. Owen attributes too much value to his facts. I do not think
+the things contributed from the ultra-mundane sphere are particularly
+valuable, apart from the evidence they give of continued existence
+after death.
+
+I do not think there is yet any evidence to warrant the idea that they
+are a supplement or continuation of the revelations of Christianity,
+but I do regard them as an interesting and curious study in
+psychology, and every careful observer like Mr. Owen ought to be
+welcomed to bring in his facts. With this I shall send you my
+observations on Mr. Owen's books, from the "Christian Union." I am
+perfectly aware of the frivolity and worthlessness of much of the
+revealings purporting to come from spirits. In my view, the worth or
+worthlessness of them has nothing to do with the question of fact.
+
+Do invisible spirits speak in any wise,--wise or foolish?--is the
+question _a priori_. I do not know of any reason why there should
+not be as many foolish virgins in the future state as in this. As I am
+a believer in the Bible and Christianity, I don't need these things as
+confirmations, and they are not likely to be a religion to me. I
+regard them simply as I do the phenomena of the Aurora Borealis, or
+Darwin's studies on natural selection, as curious studies into nature.
+Besides, I think some day we shall find a law by which all these facts
+will fall into their places.
+
+I hope now this subject does not bore you: it certainly is one that
+seems increasingly to insist on getting itself heard. It is going on
+and on, making converts, who are many more than dare avow themselves,
+and for my part I wish it were all brought into the daylight of
+inquiry.
+
+Let me hear from you if ever you feel like it. I know too well the
+possibilities and impossibilities of a nature like yours to ask more,
+but it can do you no harm to know that I still think of you and love
+you as ever.
+
+Faithfully yours,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+THE PRIORY, 21 NORTH BANK, REGENT'S PARK, _March_ 4, 1872.
+
+DEAR, FRIEND,--I can understand very easily that the two last years
+have been full for you of other and more imperative work than the
+writing of letters not absolutely demanded either by charity or
+business. The proof that you still think of me affectionately is very
+welcome now it has come, and more cheering because it enables me to
+think of you as enjoying your retreat in your orange orchard,--your
+western Sorrento--the beloved rabbi still beside you. I am sure it
+must be a great blessing to you to bathe in that quietude, as it
+always is to us when we go out of reach of London influences and have
+the large space of country days to study, walk, and talk in. . . .
+
+When I am more at liberty I will certainly read Mr. Owen's books, if
+he is good enough to send them to me. I desire on all subjects to keep
+an open mind, but hitherto the various phenomena, reported or attested
+in connection with ideas of spirit intercourse and so on, have come
+before me here in the painful form of the lowest charlatanerie. . . .
+
+But apart from personal contact with people who get money by public
+exhibitions as mediums, or with semi-idiots such as those who make a
+court for a Mrs. ----, or other feminine personages of that kind, I
+would not willingly place any barriers between my mind and any
+possible channel of truth affecting the human lot. The spirit in which
+you have written in the paper you kindly sent me is likely to touch
+others, and arouse them at least to attention in a case where you have
+been deeply impressed. . . .
+
+Yours with sincere affection,
+
+M. L. LEWES.
+
+(Begun April 4th.)
+
+MANDARIN, FLORIDA, _May_ 11,1872.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--I was very glad to get your dear little note,--sorry
+to see by it that you are not in your full physical force. Owing to
+the awkwardness and misunderstanding of publishers, I am not reading
+"Middlemarch," as I expected to be, here in these orange shades: they
+don't send it, and I am too far out of the world to get it. I felt,
+when I read your letters, how glad I should be to have you here in our
+Florida cottage, in the wholly new, wild, woodland life. Though
+resembling Italy in climate, it is wholly different in the appearance
+of nature,--the plants, the birds, the animals, all different. The
+green tidiness and culture of England here gives way to a wild and
+rugged savageness of beauty. Every tree bursts forth with flowers;
+wild vines and creepers execute delirious gambols, and weave and
+interweave in interminable labyrinths. Yet here, in the great sandy
+plains back of our house, there is a constant wondering sense of
+beauty in the wild, wonderful growths of nature. First of all, the
+pines--high as the stone pines of Italy--with long leaves, eighteen
+inches long, through which there is a constant dreamy sound, as if of
+dashing waters. Then the live-oaks and the water-oaks, narrow-leaved
+evergreens, which grow to enormous size, and whose branches are draped
+with long festoons of the gray moss. There is a great, wild park of
+these trees back of us, which, with the dazzling, varnished green of
+the new spring leaves and the swaying drapery of moss, looks like a
+sort of enchanted grotto. Underneath grow up hollies and ornamental
+flowering shrubs, and the yellow jessamine climbs into and over
+everything with fragrant golden bells and buds, so that sometimes the
+foliage of a tree is wholly hidden in its embrace.
+
+This wild, wonderful, bright and vivid growth, that is all new,
+strange, and unknown by name to me, has a charm for me. It is the
+place to forget the outside world, and live in one's self. And if you
+were here, we would go together and gather azaleas, and white lilies,
+and silver bells, and blue iris. These flowers keep me painting in a
+sort of madness. I have just finished a picture of white lilies that
+grow in the moist land by the watercourses. I am longing to begin on
+blue iris. Artist, poet, as you are by nature, you ought to see all
+these things, and if you would come here I would take you in heart and
+house, and you should have a little room in our cottage. The history
+of the cottage is this: I found a hut built close to a great live-oak
+twenty-five feet in girth, and with overarching boughs eighty feet up
+in the air, spreading like a firmament, and all swaying with mossy
+festoons. We began to live here, and gradually we improved the hut by
+lath, plaster, and paper. Then we threw out a wide veranda all round,
+for in these regions the veranda is the living-room of the house. Ours
+had to be built around the trunk of the tree, so that our cottage has
+a peculiar and original air, and seems as if it were half tree, or a
+something that had grown out of the tree. We added on parts, and have
+thrown out gables and chambers, as a tree throws out new branches,
+till our cottage is like nobody else's, and yet we settle into it with
+real enjoyment. There are all sorts of queer little rooms in it, and
+we are accommodating at this present a family of seventeen souls. In
+front, the beautiful, grand St. John's stretches five miles from shore
+to shore, and we watch the steamboats plying back and forth to the
+great world we are out of. On all sides, large orange trees, with
+their dense shade and ever-vivid green, shut out the sun so that we
+can sit, and walk, and live in the open air. Our winter here is only
+cool, bracing out-door weather, without snow. No month without flowers
+blooming in the open air, and lettuce and peas in the garden. The
+summer range is about 90°, but the sea-breezes keep the air
+delightfully fresh. Generally we go North, however, for three months
+of summer. Well, I did not mean to run on about Florida, but the
+subject runs away with me, and I want you to visit us in spirit if not
+personally.
+
+My poor rabbi!--he sends you some Arabic, which I fear you cannot
+read: on diablerie he is up to his ears in knowledge, having read all
+things in all tongues, from the Talmud down. . . .
+
+Ever lovingly yours,
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+BOSTON, _September_ 26, 1872.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--I think when you see my name again so soon, you will
+think it rains, hails, and snows notes from this quarter. Just now,
+however, I am in this lovely, little nest in Boston, where dear Mrs.
+Field, like a dove, "sits brooding on the charmed wave." We are both
+wishing we had you here with us, and she has not received any answer
+from you as yet in reply to the invitation you spoke of in your last
+letter to me. It seems as if you must have written, and the letter
+somehow gone astray, because I know, of course, you would write.
+Yesterday we were both out of our senses with mingled pity and
+indignation at that dreadful stick of a Casaubon,--and think of poor
+Dorothea dashing like a warm, sunny wave against so cold and repulsive
+a rock! He is a little too dreadful for anything: there does not seem
+to be a drop of warm blood in him, and so, as it is his misfortune and
+not his fault, to be cold-blooded, one must not get angry with him. It
+is the scene in the garden, after the interview with the doctor, that
+rests on our mind at this present. There was such a man as he over in
+Boston, high in literary circles, but I fancy his wife wasn't like
+Dorothea, and a vastly proper time they had of it, treating each other
+with mutual reverence, like two Chinese mandarins.
+
+My love, what I miss in this story is just what we would have if you
+would come to our tumble-down, jolly, improper, but joyous country,--
+namely, "jollitude." You write and live on so high a plane! It is all
+self-abnegation. We want to get you over here, and into this house,
+where, with closed doors, we sometimes make the rafters ring with fun,
+and say anything and everything, no matter what, and won't be any
+properer than we's a mind to be. I am wishing every day you could see
+our America,--travel, as I have been doing, from one bright, thriving,
+pretty, flowery town to another, and see so much wealth, ease,
+progress, culture, and all sorts of nice things. This dovecot where I
+now am is the sweetest little nest imaginable; fronting on a city
+street, with back windows opening on a sea view, with still, quiet
+rooms filled with books, pictures, and all sorts of things, such as
+you and Mr. Lewes would enjoy. Don't be afraid of the ocean, now! I
+'ve crossed it six times, and assure you it is an overrated item.
+Froude is coming here--why not you? Besides, we have the fountain of
+eternal youth here, that is, in Florida, where I live, and if you
+should come you would both of you take a new lease of life, and what
+glorious poems, and philosophies, and whatnot, we should have! My
+rabbi writes, in the seventh heaven, an account of your note to him.
+To think of his setting-off on his own account when I was away!
+
+Come now, since your answer to dear Mrs. Fields is yet to come; let it
+be a glad yes, and we will clasp you to our heart of hearts.
+
+Your ever loving, H. B. S.
+
+During the summer of 1874, while Mrs. Stowe's brother, the Rev. Henry
+Ward Beecher, was the victim of a most revolting, malicious, and
+groundless attack on his purity, Mrs. Lewes wrote the following words
+of sympathy:--
+
+MY DEAR, FRIEND,--The other day I had a letter from Mrs. Fields,
+written to let me know something of you under that heavy trouble, of
+which such information as I have had has been quite untrustworthy,
+leaving me in entire incredulity in regard to it except on this point,
+that you and yours must be suffering deeply. Naturally I thought most
+of you in the matter (its public aspects being indeterminate), and
+many times before our friend's letter came I had said to Mr. Lewes:
+"What must Mrs. Stowe be feeling!" I remember Mrs. Fields once told me
+of the wonderful courage and cheerfulness which belonged to you,
+enabling you to bear up under exceptional trials, and I imagined you
+helping the sufferers with tenderness and counsel, but yet,
+nevertheless, I felt that there must be a bruising weight on your
+heart. Dear, honored friend, you who are so ready to give warm
+fellowship, is it any comfort to you to be told that those afar off
+are caring for you in spirit, and will be happier for all good issues
+that may bring you rest?
+
+I cannot, dare not, write more in my ignorance, lest I should be using
+unreasonable words. But I trust in your not despising this scrap of
+paper which tells you, perhaps rather for my relief than yours, that I
+am always in grateful, sweet remembrance of your goodness to me and
+your energetic labors for all.
+
+It was two years or more before Mrs. Stowe replied to these words of
+sympathy.
+
+Orange-blossom time, MANDARIN, _March_ 18, 1876,
+
+My Dear Friend,--I always think of you when the orange trees are in
+blossom; just now they are fuller than ever, and so many bees are
+filling the branches that the air is full of a sort of still murmur.
+And now I am beginning to hear from you every month in Harper's. It is
+as good as a letter. "Daniel Deronda" has succeeded in awaking in my
+somewhat worn-out mind an interest. So many stories are tramping over
+one's mind in every modern magazine nowadays that one is macadamized,
+so to speak. It takes something unusual to make a sensation. This does
+excite and interest me, as I wait for each number with eagerness. I
+wish I could endow you with our long winter weather,--not winter,
+except such as you find in Sicily. We live here from November to June,
+and my husband sits outdoors on the veranda and reads all day. We
+emigrate in solid family: my two dear daughters, husband, self, and
+servants come together to spend the winter here, and so together to
+our Northern home in summer. My twin daughters relieve me from all
+domestic care; they are lively, vivacious, with a real genius for
+practical life. We have around us a little settlement of neighbors,
+who like ourselves have a winter home here, and live an easy, undress,
+picnic kind of life, far from the world and its cares. Mr. Stowe has
+been busy on eight volumes of Görres on the mysticism of the Middle
+Ages. [Footnote: _Die Christliche Mystik_.] This Görres was
+Professor of Philosophy at Munich, and he reviews the whole ground of
+the shadow-land between the natural and the supernatural,--ecstacy,
+trance, prophecy, miracles, spiritualism, the stigmata, etc. He was a
+devout Roman Catholic, and the so-called facts that he reasons on seem
+to me quite amazing; and yet the possibilities that lie between inert
+matter and man's living, all-powerful, immortal soul may make almost
+anything credible. The soul at times can do anything with matter. I
+have been busying myself with Sainte-Beuve's seven volumes on the Port
+Royal development. I like him (Sainte-Beuve). His capacity of seeing,
+doing justice to all kinds of natures and sentiments, is wonderful. I
+am sorry he is no longer our side the veil.
+
+There is a redbird (cardinal grosbeak) singing in the orange trees
+fronting my window, so sweetly and insistently as to almost stop my
+writing. I hope, dear friend, you are well--better than when you wrote
+last.
+
+It was very sweet and kind of you to write what you did last. I
+suppose it is so long ago you may have forgotten, but it was a word of
+tenderness and sympathy about my brother's trial; it was womanly,
+tender, and sweet, such as at heart you are. After all, my love of you
+is greater than my admiration, for I think it more and better to be
+really a woman worth loving than to have read Greek and German and
+written books. And in this last book I read, I feel more with you in
+some little, fine points,--they stare at me as making an amusing
+exhibition. For, my dear, I feel myself at last as one who has been
+playing and picnicking on the shores of life, and waked from a dream
+late in the afternoon to find that everybody almost has gone over to
+the beyond. And the rest are sorting their things and packing their
+trunks, and waiting for the boat to come and take them.
+
+It seems now but a little time since my brother Henry and I were two
+young people together. He was my two years junior, and nearest
+companion out of seven brothers and three sisters. I taught him
+drawing and heard his Latin lessons, for you know a girl becomes
+mature and womanly long before a boy. I saw him through college, and
+helped him through the difficult love affair that gave him his wife;
+and then he and my husband had a real German, enthusiastic love for
+each other, which ended in making me a wife. Ah! in those days we
+never dreamed that he, or I, or any of us, were to be known in the
+world. All he seemed then was a boy full of fun, full of love, full of
+enthusiasm for protecting abused and righting wronged people, which
+made him in those early days write editorials, and wear arms and swear
+himself a special policeman to protect the poor negroes in Cincinnati,
+where we then lived, when there were mobs instigated by the
+slaveholders of Kentucky.
+
+Then he married, and lived a missionary life in the new West, all with
+a joyousness, an enthusiasm, a chivalry, which made life bright and
+vigorous to us both. Then in time he was called to Brooklyn, just as
+the crisis of the great anti-slavery battle came on, and the Fugitive
+Slave Law was passed. I was then in Maine, and I well remember one
+snowy night his riding till midnight to see me, and then our talking,
+till near morning, what we could do to make headway against the horrid
+cruelties that were being practiced against the defenseless blacks. My
+husband was then away lecturing, and my heart was burning itself out
+in indignation and anguish. Henry told me then that he meant to fight
+that battle in New York; that he would have a church that would stand
+by him to resist the tyrannic dictation of Southern slaveholders. I
+said: "I, too, have begun to do something; I have begun a story,
+trying to set forth the sufferings and wrongs of the slaves." "That's
+right, Hattie," he said; "finish it, and I will scatter it thick as
+the leaves of Vallambrosa," and so came "Uncle Tom," and Plymouth
+Church became a stronghold where the slave always found refuge and a
+strong helper. One morning my brother found sitting on his doorstep
+poor old Paul Edmonson, weeping; his two daughters, of sixteen and
+eighteen, had passed into the slave warehouse of Bruin & Hill, and
+were to be sold. My brother took the man by the hand to a public
+meeting, told his story for him, and in an hour raised the two
+thousand dollars to redeem his children. Over and over again,
+afterwards, slaves were redeemed at Plymouth Church, and Henry and
+Plymouth Church became words of hatred and fear through half the
+Union. From that time until we talked together about the Fugitive
+Slave Law, there was not a pause or stop in the battle till we had
+been through the war and slavery had been wiped out in blood. Through
+all he has been pouring himself out, wrestling, burning, laboring
+everywhere, making stump speeches when elections turned on the slave
+question, and ever maintaining that the cause of Christ was the cause
+of the slave. And when all was over, it was he and Lloyd Garrison who
+were sent by government once more to raise our national flag on Fort
+Sumter. You must see that a man does not so energize without making
+many enemies. Half of our Union has been defeated, a property of
+millions annihilated by emancipation, a proud and powerful slave
+aristocracy reduced to beggary, and there are those who never saw our
+faces that, to this hour, hate him and me. Then he has been a
+progressive in theology. He has been a student of Huxley, and Spencer,
+and Darwin,--enough to alarm the old school,--and yet remained so
+ardent a supernaturalist as equally to repel the radical
+destructionists in religion. He and I are Christ-worshippers, adoring
+Him as the Image of the Invisible God and all that comes from
+believing this. Then he has been a reformer, an advocate of universal
+suffrage and woman's rights, yet not radical enough to please that
+reform party who stand where the Socialists of France do, and are for
+tearing up all creation generally. Lastly, he has had the misfortune
+of a popularity which is perfectly phenomenal. I cannot give you any
+idea of the love, worship, idolatry, with which he has been
+overwhelmed. He has something magnetic about him that makes everybody
+crave his society,--that makes men follow and worship him. I remember
+being at his house one evening in the time of early flowers, and in
+that one evening came a box of flowers from Maine, another from New
+Jersey, another from Connecticut,--all from people with whom he had no
+personal acquaintance, who had read something of his and wanted to
+send him some token. I said, "One would think you were a _prima
+donna_. What does make people go on so about you?"
+
+My brother is hopelessly generous and confiding. His inability to
+believe evil is something incredible, and so has come all this
+suffering. You said you hoped I should be at rest when the first
+investigating committee and Plymouth Church cleared my brother almost
+by acclamation. Not so. The enemy have so committed themselves that
+either they or he must die, and there has followed two years of the
+most dreadful struggle. First, a legal trial of six months, the
+expenses of which on his side were one hundred and eighteen thousand
+dollars, and in which he and his brave wife sat side by side in the
+court-room, and heard all that these plotters, who had been weaving
+their webs for three years, could bring. The foreman of the jury was
+offered a bribe of ten thousand dollars to decide against my brother.
+He sent the letter containing the proposition to the judge. But with
+all their plotting, three fourths of the jury decided against them,
+and their case was lost. It was accepted as a triumph by my brother's
+friends; a large number of the most influential clergy of all
+denominations so expressed themselves in a public letter, and it was
+hoped the thing was so far over that it might be lived down and
+overgrown with better things.
+
+But the enemy, intriguing secretly with all those parties in the
+community who wish to put down a public and too successful man, have
+been struggling to bring the thing up again for an ecclesiastical
+trial. The cry has been raised in various religious papers that
+Plymouth Church was in complicity with crime,--that they were so
+captivated with eloquence and genius that they refused to make
+competent investigation. The six months' legal investigation was
+insufficient; a new trial was needed. Plymouth Church immediately
+called a council of ministers and laymen, in number representing
+thirty-seven thousand Congregational Christians, to whom Plymouth
+Church surrendered her records,--her conduct,--all the facts of the
+case, and this great council unanimously supported the church and
+ratified her decision; recognizing the fact that, in all the
+investigations hitherto, nothing had been proved against my brother.
+They at his request, and that of Plymouth Church, appointed a
+committee of five to whom within sixty days any one should bring any
+facts that they could prove, or else forever after hold their peace.
+It is thought now by my brother's friends that this thing must finally
+reach a close. But you see why I have not written. This has drawn on
+my life--my heart's blood. He is myself; I know you are the kind of
+woman to understand me when I say that I felt a blow at him more than
+at myself. I, who know his purity, honor, delicacy, know that he has
+been from childhood of an ideal purity,--who reverenced his conscience
+as his king, whose glory was redressing human wrong, who spake no
+slander, no, nor listened to it.
+
+Never have I known a nature of such strength, and such almost
+childlike innocence. He is of a nature so sweet and perfect that,
+though I have seen him thunderously indignant at moments, I never saw
+him fretful or irritable,--a man who continuously, in every little act
+of life, is thinking of others, a man that all the children on the
+street run after, and that every sorrowful, weak, or distressed person
+looks to as a natural helper. In all this long history there has been
+no circumstance of his relation to any woman that has not been worthy
+of himself,--pure, delicate, and proper; and I know all sides of it,
+and certainly should not say this if there were even a misgiving.
+Thank God, there is none, and I can read my New Testament and feel
+that by all the beatitudes my brother is blessed.
+
+His calmness, serenity, and cheerfulness through all this time has
+uplifted us all. Where he was, there was no anxiety, no sorrow. My
+brother's power to console is something peculiar and wonderful. I have
+seen him at death-beds and funerals, where it would seem as if hope
+herself must be dumb, bring down the very peace of Heaven and change
+despair to trust. He has not had less power in his own adversity. You
+cannot conceive how he is beloved, by those even who never saw him,
+--old, paralytic, distressed, neglected people, poor seamstresses,
+black people, who have felt these arrows shot against their benefactor
+as against themselves, and most touching have been their letters of
+sympathy. From the first, he has met this in the spirit of Francis de
+Sales, who met a similar plot,--by silence, prayer, and work, and when
+urged to defend himself said "God would do it in his time." God was
+the best judge how much reputation he needed to serve Him with.
+
+In your portrait of Deronda, you speak of him as one of those rare
+natures in whom a private wrong bred no bitterness. "The sense of
+injury breeds, not the will to inflict injuries, but a hatred of all
+injury;" and I must say, through all this conflict my brother has been
+always in the spirit of Him who touched and healed the ear of Malchus
+when he himself was attacked. His friends and lawyers have sometimes
+been aroused and sometimes indignant with his habitual caring for
+others, and his habit of vindicating and extending even to his enemies
+every scrap and shred of justice that might belong to them. From first
+to last of this trial, he has never for a day intermitted his regular
+work. Preaching to crowded houses, preaching even in his short
+vacations at watering places, carrying on his missions which have
+regenerated two once wretched districts of the city, editing a paper,
+and in short giving himself up to work. He cautioned his church not to
+become absorbed in him and his trials, to prove their devotion by more
+faithful church work and a wider charity; and never have the Plymouth
+missions among the poor been so energetic and effective. He said
+recently, "The worst that can befall a man is to stop thinking of God
+and begin to think of himself; if trials make us self-absorbed, they
+hurt us." Well, dear, pardon me for this outpour. I loved you--I love
+you--and therefore wanted you to know just what I felt. Now, dear,
+this is over, don't think you must reply to it or me. I know how much
+you have to do,--yes, I know all about an aching head and an overtaxed
+brain. This last work of yours is to be your best, I think, and I hope
+it will bring you enough to buy an orange grove in Sicily, or
+somewhere else, and so have lovely weather such as we have.
+
+Your ancient admirer, [Footnote: Professor Stowe.] who usually goes to
+bed at eight o'clock, was convicted by me of sitting up after eleven
+over the last installment of "Daniel Deronda," and he is full of it.
+We think well of Guendoline, and that she isn't much more than young
+ladies in general so far.
+
+Next year, if I can possibly do it, I will send you some of our
+oranges. I perfectly long to have you enjoy them. Your very loving
+
+H. B. STOWE.
+
+P. S. I am afraid I shall write you again when I am reading your
+writings, they are so provokingly suggestive of things one wants to
+say
+
+H. B. S.
+
+In her reply to this letter Mrs. Lewes says, incidentally: 'Please
+offer my reverential love to the Professor, and tell him I am
+ruthlessly proud of having kept him out of his bed. I hope that both
+you and he will continue to be interested in my spiritual children.'
+
+After Mr. Lewes's death, Mrs. Lewes writes to Mrs. Stowe:--
+
+The Priory, 21 North Bank, _April_ 10, 1879.
+
+My Dear Friend,--I have been long without sending you any sign (unless
+you have received a message from me through Mrs. Fields), but my heart
+has been going out to you and your husband continually as among the
+chief of the many kind beings who have given me their tender fellow-
+feeling in my last earthly sorrow. . . . When your first letter came,
+with the beautiful gift of your book, [Footnote: Uncle Tom's Cabin,
+new edition, with introduction.] I was unable to read any letters, and
+did not for a long time see what you had sent me. But when I did know,
+and had read your words of thankfulness at the great good you have
+seen wrought by your help, I felt glad, for your sake first, and then
+for the sake of the great nation to which you belong. The hopes of the
+world are taking refuge westward, under the calamitous conditions,
+moral and physical, in which we of the elder world are getting
+involved. . . .
+
+Thank you for telling me that you have the comfort of seeing your son
+in a path that satisfies your best wishes for him. I like to think of
+your having family joys. One of the prettiest photographs of a child
+that I possess is one of your sending to me. . . .
+
+Please offer my reverential, affectionate regards to your husband, and
+believe me, dear friend,
+
+Yours always gratefully,
+
+M. L. Lewes.
+
+As much as has been said with regard to spiritualism in these pages,
+the subject has by no means the prominence that it really possessed in
+the studies and conversations of both Professor and Mrs. Stowe.
+
+Professor Stowe's very remarkable psychological development, and the
+exceptional experiences of his early life, were sources of
+conversation of unfailing interest and study to both.
+
+Professor Stowe had made an elaborate and valuable collection of the
+literature of the subject, and was, as Mrs. Stowe writes, "over head
+and ears in _diablerie_."
+
+It is only just to give Mrs. Stowe's views on this perplexing theme
+more at length, and as the mature reflection of many years has caused
+them to take form.
+
+In reference to professional mediums, and spirits that peep, rap, and
+mutter, she writes:--
+
+"Each friend takes away a portion of ourselves. There was some part of
+our being related to him as to no other, and we had things to say to
+him which no other would understand or appreciate. A portion of our
+thoughts has become useless and burdensome, and again and again, with
+involuntary yearning, we turn to the stone at the door of the
+sepulchre. We lean against the cold, silent marble, but there is no
+answer,--no voice, neither any that regardeth.
+
+"There are those who would have us think that in _our_ day this
+doom is reversed; that there are those who have the power to restore
+to us the communion of our lost ones. How many a heart, wrung and
+tortured with the anguish of this fearful silence, has throbbed with
+strange, vague hopes at the suggestion! When we hear sometimes of
+persons of the strongest and clearest minds becoming credulous
+votaries of certain spiritualist circles, let us not wonder: if we
+inquire, we shall almost always find that the belief has followed some
+stroke of death; it is only an indication of the desperation of that
+heart-hunger which in part it appeases.
+
+"Ah, _were_ it true! Were it indeed so that the wall between the
+spiritual and material is growing thin, and a new dispensation
+germinating in which communion with the departed blest shall be among
+the privileges and possibilities of this our mortal state! Ah, were it
+so that when we go forth weeping in the gray dawn, bearing spices and
+odors which we long to pour forth for the beloved dead, we should
+indeed find the stone rolled away and an angel sitting on it!
+
+"But for us the stone must be rolled away by an _unquestionable_
+angel, whose countenance is as the lightning, who executes no doubtful
+juggle by pale moonlight or starlight, but rolls back the stone in
+fair, open morning, and sits on it. Then we could bless God for his
+mighty gift, and with love, and awe, and reverence take up that
+blessed fellowship with another life, and weave it reverently and
+trustingly into the web of our daily course.
+
+"But no such angel have we seen,--no such sublime, unquestionable,
+glorious manifestation. And when we look at what is offered to us, ah!
+who that had a friend in heaven could wish them to return in such wise
+as this? The very instinct of a sacred sorrow seems to forbid that our
+beautiful, our glorified ones should stoop lower than even to the
+medium of their cast-off bodies, to juggle, and rap, and squeak, and
+perform mountebank tricks with tables and chairs; to recite over in
+weary sameness harmless truisms, which we were wise enough to say for
+ourselves; to trifle, and banter, and jest, or to lead us through
+endless moonshiny mazes. Sadly and soberly we say that, if this be
+communion with the dead, we had rather be without it. We want
+something a little in advance of our present life, and not below it.
+We have read with some attention weary pages of spiritual
+communication purporting to come from Bacon, Swedenborg, and others,
+and long accounts from divers spirits of things seen in the spirit
+land, and we can conceive of no more appalling prospect than to have
+them true.
+
+"If the future life is so weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable as we
+might infer from these readings, one would have reason to deplore an
+immortality from which no suicide could give an outlet. To be
+condemned to such eternal prosing would be worse than annihilation.
+
+"Is there, then, no satisfaction for this craving of the soul? There
+is One who says: "I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am
+alive for evermore, and I have the keys of hell and of death;" and
+this same being said once before: "He that loveth me shall be loved of
+my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself unto him."
+This is a promise direct and personal; not confined to the first
+apostles, but stated in the most general way as attainable by any one
+who loves and does the will of Jesus. It seems given to us as some
+comfort for the unavoidable heart-breaking separations of death that
+there should be, in that dread unknown, one all-powerful Friend with
+whom it is possible to commune, and from whose spirit there may come a
+response to us. Our Elder Brother, the partaker of our nature, is not
+only in the spirit land, but is all-powerful there. It is he that
+shutteth and no man openeth, and openeth and no man shutteth. He whom
+we have seen in the flesh, weeping over the grave of Lazarus, is he
+who hath the keys of hell and of death. If we cannot commune with our
+friends, we can at least commune with Him to whom they are present,
+who is intimately with them as with us. He is the true bond of union
+between the spirit world and our souls; and one blest hour of prayer,
+when we draw near to Him and feel the breadth, and length, and depth,
+and heighth of that love of his that passeth knowledge, is better than
+all those incoherent, vain, dreamy glimpses with which longing hearts
+are cheated.
+
+"They who have disbelieved all spiritual truth, who have been
+Sadduceeic doubters of either angel or spirit, may find in modern
+spiritualism a great advance. But can one who has ever really had
+communion with Christ, who has said with John, "Truly our fellowship
+is with the Father and the Son,"--can such an one be satisfied with
+what is found in the modern circle?
+
+"For Christians who have strayed into these inclosures, we cannot but
+recommend the homely but apt quotation of old John Newton:--
+
+  "'What think ye of Christ is the test
+  To try both your word and your scheme.'
+
+"In all these so-called revelations, have there come any echoes of the
+_new song_ which no man save the redeemed from earth could learn;
+any unfoldings of that love that passeth knowledge,--anything, in
+short, such as spirits might utter to whom was unveiled that which eye
+hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered the heart of man to
+conceive? We must confess that all those spirits that yet have spoken
+appear to be living in quite another sphere from. John or Paul.
+
+"Let us, then, who long for communion with spirits, seek nearness to
+Him who has promised to speak and commune, leaving forever this word
+to his church:--
+
+"'I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+CLOSING SCENES, 1870-1889.
+
+
+LITERARY LABORS.--COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLISHED BOOKS.--FIRST READING
+TOUR.--PEEPS BEHIND THE CURTAIN.--SOME NEW ENGLAND CITIES.--A LETTER
+FROM MAINE.--PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT READINGS.--SECOND TOUR.--A
+WESTERN JOURNEY.--VISIT TO OLD SCENES.--CELEBRATION OF SEVENTIETH
+BIRTHDAY.--CONGRATULATORY POEMS FROM MR. WHITTIER AND DR. HOLMES.--
+LAST WORDS.
+
+Besides the annual journeys to and from Florida, and her many
+interests in the South, Mrs. Stowe's time between 1870 and 1880 was
+largely occupied by literary and kindred labors. In the autumn of 1871
+we find her writing to her daughters as follows regarding her work:--
+
+"I have at last finished all my part in the third book of mine that is
+to come out this year, to wit 'Oldtown Fireside Stories,' and you can
+have no idea what a perfect luxury of rest it is to be free from all
+literary engagements, of all kinds, sorts, or descriptions. I feel
+like a poor woman I once read about,--
+
+  "'Who always was tired,
+  'Cause she lived in a house
+  Where help wasn't hired,'
+
+and of whom it is related that in her dying moments,
+
+  'She folded her hands
+  With her latest endeavor,
+  Saying nothing, dear nothing,
+  Sweet nothing forever.'
+
+ "I am in about her state of mind. I luxuriate in laziness. I do not
+want to do anything or go anywhere. I only want to sink down into lazy
+enjoyment of living."
+
+She was certainly well entitled to a rest, for never had there been a
+more laborious literary life. In addition to the twenty-three books
+already written, she had prepared for various magazines and journals
+an incredible number of short stories, letters of travel, essays, and
+other articles. Yet with all she had accomplished, and tired as she
+was, she still had seven books to write, besides many more short
+stories, before her work should be done. As her literary life did not
+really begin until 1852, the bulk of her work has been accomplished
+within twenty-six years, as will be seen from the following list of
+her books, arranged in the chronological order of their publication:--
+
+ 1833. An Elementary Geography.
+ 1843. The Mayflower.
+ 1852. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
+ 1853. Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin.
+ 1854. Sunny Memories.
+ 1856. Dred.
+ 1858. Our Charley.
+ 1859. Minister's Wooing.
+ 1862. Pearl of Orr's Island.
+ 1863. Agnes of Sorrento.
+ 1864. House and Home Papers.
+ 1865. Little Foxes.
+ 1866. Nina Gordon (Formerly "Dred").
+ 1867. Religious Poems.
+ 1867. Queer Little People.
+ 1868. The Chimney Corner.
+ 1868. Men of Our Times.
+ 1869. Oldtown Folks.
+ 1870. Lady Byron Vindicated.
+ 1871. The History of the Byron Controversy (London).
+ 1870. Little Pussy Willow.
+ 1871. Pink and White Tyranny.
+ 1871. Old Town Fireside Stories.
+ 1872. My Wife and I.
+ 1873. Palmetto Leaves.
+ 1873. Library of Famous Fiction.
+ 1875. We and Our Neighbors.
+ 1876. Betty's Bright Idea.
+ 1877. Footsteps of the Master.
+ 1878. Bible Heroines.
+ 1878. Poganuc People.
+ 1881. Dog's Mission.
+
+In 1872 a new and remunerative field of labor was opened to Mrs.
+Stowe, and though it entailed a vast amount of weariness and hard
+work, she entered it with her customary energy and enthusiasm. It
+presented itself in the shape of an offer from the American Literary
+(Lecture) Bureau of Boston to deliver a course of forty readings from
+her own works in the principal cities of the New England States. The
+offer was a liberal one, and Mrs. Stowe accepted it on condition that
+the reading tour should be ended in time to allow her to go to her
+Florida home in December. This being acceded to, she set forth and
+gave her first reading in Bridgeport, Conn., on the evening of
+September 19, 1872.
+
+The following extracts from letters written to her husband while on
+this reading tour throw some interesting gleams of light on the scenes
+behind the curtain of the lecturer's platform. From Boston, October
+3d, she writes: "Have had a most successful but fatiguing week. Read
+in Cambridgeport to-night, and Newburyport to-morrow night." Two weeks
+later, upon receipt of a letter from her husband, in which he fears he
+has not long to live, she writes from Westfield, Mass:--
+
+"I have never had a greater trial than being forced to stay away from
+you now. I would not, but that my engagements have involved others in
+heavy expense, and should I fail to fulfill them, it would be doing a
+wrong.
+
+"God has given me strength as I needed it, and I never read more to my
+own satisfaction than last night.
+
+"Now, my dear husband, please do _want_, and try, to remain with
+us yet a while longer, and let us have a little quiet evening together
+before either of us crosses the river. My heart cries out for a home
+with you; our home together in Florida. Oh, may we see it again! Your
+ever loving wife."
+
+From Fitchburg, Mass., under date of October 29th, she writes:--
+
+"In the cars, near Palmer, who should I discover but Mr. and Mrs. J.
+T. Fields, returning from a Western trip, as gay as a troubadour. I
+took an empty seat next to them, and we had a jolly ride to Boston. I
+drove to Mr. Williams's house, where I met the Chelsea agent, who
+informed me that there was no hotel in Chelsea, but that they were
+expecting to send over for me. So I turned at once toward 148 Charles
+Street, where I tumbled in on the Fields before they had got their
+things off. We had a good laugh, and I received a hearty welcome. I
+was quickly installed in my room, where, after a nice dinner, I curled
+up for my afternoon nap. At half-past seven the carriage came for me,
+and I was informed that I should not have a hard reading, as they had
+engaged singers to take part. So, when I got into the carriage, who
+should I find, beshawled, and beflowered, and betoggled in blue satin
+and white lace, but our old friend ---- of Andover concert memory, now
+become Madame Thingumbob, of European celebrity. She had studied in
+Italy, come out in Milan, sung there in opera for a whole winter, and
+also in Paris and London.
+
+"Well, she sings very sweetly and looks very nice and pretty. Then we
+had a little rosebud of a Chelsea girl who sang, and a pianist. I read
+'Minister's Housekeeper' and Topsy, and the audience was very jolly
+and appreciative. Then we all jogged home."
+
+The next letter finds Mrs. Stowe in Maine, and writing in the cars
+between Bangor and Portland. She says:--
+
+MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Well, Portland and Bangor are over, and the latter,
+which I had dreaded as lonesome and far off, turned out the
+pleasantest of any place I have visited yet. I stayed at the Fays; he
+was one of the Andover students, you remember; and found a warm, cosy,
+social home. In the evening I met an appreciative audience, and had a
+delightful reading. I read Captain Kittridge, apparently to the great
+satisfaction of the people, who laughed heartily at his sea stories,
+and the "Minister's Housekeeper" with the usual success, also Eva and
+Topsy.
+
+One woman, totally deaf, came to me afterwards and said: "Bless you. I
+come jist to see you. I'd rather see you than the Queen." Another
+introduced her little girl named Harriet Beecher Stowe, and another,
+older, named Eva. She said they had traveled fifty miles to hear me
+read. An incident like that appeals to one's heart, does it not?
+
+The people of Bangor were greatly embarrassed by the horse disease;
+but the mayor and his wife walked over from their house, a long
+distance off, to bring me flowers, and at the reading he introduced
+me. I had an excellent audience notwithstanding that it rained
+tremendously, and everybody had to walk because there were no horses.
+The professors called on me, also Newman Smith, now a settled minister
+here.
+
+Everybody is so anxious about you, and Mr. Fay made me promise that
+you and I should come and spend a week with them, next summer. Mr.
+Howard, in Portland, called upon me to inquire for you, and everybody
+was so delighted to hear that you were getting better.
+
+It stormed all the time I was in Portland and Bangor, so I saw nothing
+of them. Now I am in a palace car riding alongside the Kennebec, and
+recalling the incidents of my trip. I certainly had very satisfactory
+houses; and these pleasant little visits, and meetings with old
+acquaintance, would be well worth having, even though I had made
+nothing in a pecuniary sense. On the whole it is as easy a way of
+making money as I have ever tried, though no way of making money is
+perfectly easy,--there must be some disagreeables. The lonesomeness of
+being at a hotel in dull weather is one, and in Portland it seems
+there is nobody now to invite us to their homes. Our old friends there
+are among the past. They have gone on over the river. I send you a bit
+of poetry that pleases me. The love of the old for each other has its
+poetry. It is something sacred and full of riches. I long to be with
+you, and to have some more of our good long talks.
+
+The scenery along this river is very fine. The oaks still keep their
+leaves, though the other trees are bare; but oaks and pines make a
+pleasant contrast. We shall stop twenty minutes at Brunswick, so I
+shall get a glimpse of the old place.
+
+Now we are passing through Hallowell, and the Kennebec changes sides.
+What a beautiful river! It is now full of logs and rafts. Well, I must
+bring this to a close. Good-by, dear, with unchanging love. Ever your
+wife.
+
+From South Framingham, Mass., she writes on November 7th:--
+
+Well, my dear, here I am in E.'s pretty little house. He has a pretty
+wife, a pretty sister, a pretty baby, two nice little boys, and a
+lovely white cat. The last is a perfect beauty! a Persian, from a
+stock brought over by Dr. Parker, as white as snow, with the softest
+fur, a perfect bunch of loving-kindness, all purr and felicity. I had
+a good audience last evening, and enjoyed it. My audiences,
+considering the horse disease and the rains, are amazing. And how they
+do laugh! We get into regular gales.
+
+E. has the real country minister turn-out: horse and buggy, and such a
+nice horse too. The baby is a beauty, and giggles, and goos, and
+shouts inquiries with the rising inflection, in the most inspiring
+manner.
+
+_November_ 13. Wakefield. I read in Haverhill last night. It was
+as usual stormy. I had a good audience, but not springy and
+inspiriting like that at Waltham. Some audiences seem to put spring
+into one, and some to take it out. This one seemed good but heavy. I
+had to lift them, while in Framingham and Waltham they lifted me.
+
+The Lord bless and keep you. It grieves me to think you are dull and I
+not with you. By and by we will be together and stay together. Good-by
+dear. Your ever loving wife,
+
+H. B. S. _November_ 24. "I had a very pleasant reading in
+Peabody. While there visited the library and saw the picture of the
+Queen that she had painted expressly for George Peabody. It was about
+six inches square, enameled on gold, and set in a massive frame of
+solid gold and velvet. The effect is like painting on ivory. At night
+the picture rolls back into a safe, and great doors, closed with a
+combination lock, defend it. It reminded me of some of the foreign
+wonders we have seen.
+
+"Well, my course is almost done, and if I get through without any
+sickness, cold, or accident, how wonderful it will seem. I have never
+felt the near, kind presence of our Heavenly Father so much as in
+this. 'He giveth strength to the faint, and to them of no might He
+increaseth strength.' I have found this true all my life."
+
+From Newport she writes on November 26th:--
+
+"It was a hard, tiring, disagreeable piece of business to read in New
+London. Had to wait three mortal hours in Palmer. Then a slow, weary
+train, that did not reach New London until after dark. There was then
+no time to rest, and I was so tired that it did seem as though I could
+not dress. I really trembled with fatigue. The hall was long and dimly
+lighted, and the people were not seated compactly, but around in
+patches. The light was dim, except for a great flaring gas jet
+arranged right under my eyes on the reading desk, and I did not see a
+creature whom I knew. I was only too glad when it was over and I was
+back again at my hotel. There I found that I must be up at five
+o'clock to catch the Newport train.
+
+"I started for this place in the dusk of a dreary, foggy morning.
+Traveled first on a ferry, then in cars, and then in a little cold
+steamboat. Found no one to meet me, in spite of all my writing, and so
+took a carriage and came to the hotel. The landlord was very polite to
+me, said he knew me by my trunk, had been to our place in Mandarin,
+etc. All I wanted was a warm room, a good bed, and unlimited time to
+sleep. Now I have had a three hours' nap, and here I am, sitting by
+myself in the great, lonely hotel parlor.
+
+"Well, dear old man, I think lots of you, and only want to end all
+this in a quiet home where we can sing 'John Anderson, my Jo'
+together. I check off place after place as the captive the days of his
+imprisonment. Only two more after to-night. Ever your loving wife."
+
+Mrs. Stowe made one more reading tour the following year, and this
+time it was in the West. On October 28, 1873, she writes from
+Zanesville, Ohio, to her son at Harvard:--
+
+You have been very good to write as often as you have, and your
+letters, meeting me at different points, have been most cheering. I
+have been tired, almost to the last degree. Read two successive
+evenings in Chicago, and traveled the following day for thirteen
+hours, a distance of about three hundred miles, to Cincinnati. We were
+compelled to go in the most uncomfortable cars I ever saw, crowded to
+overflowing, a fiend of a stove at each end burning up all the air,
+and without a chance to even lay my head down. This is the grand route
+between Chicago and Cincinnati, and we were on it from eight in the
+morning until nearly ten at night.
+
+Arrived at Cincinnati we found that George Beecher had not received
+our telegram, was not expecting us, had no rooms engaged for us, and
+that we could not get rooms at his boarding-place. After finding all
+this out we had to go to the hotel, where, about eleven o'clock, I
+crept into bed with every nerve aching from fatigue. The next day was
+dark and rainy, and I lay in bed most of it; but when I got up to go
+and read I felt only half rested, and was still so tired that it
+seemed as though I could not get through.
+
+Those who planned my engagements failed to take into account the
+fearful distances and wretched trains out here. On none of these great
+Western routes is there a drawing-room car. Mr. Saunders tried in
+every way to get them to put one on for us, but in vain. They are all
+reserved for the night trains; so that there is no choice except to
+travel by night in sleeping cars, or take such trains as I have
+described in the daytime.
+
+I had a most sympathetic audience in Cincinnati; they all seemed
+delighted and begged me to come again. The next day George took us for
+a drive out to Walnut Hills, where we saw the seminary buildings, the
+house where your sisters were born, and the house in which we
+afterwards lived. In the afternoon we had to leave and hurry away to a
+reading in Dayton. The next evening another in Columbus, where we
+spent Sunday with an old friend.
+
+By this time I am somewhat rested from the strain of that awful
+journey; but I shall never again undertake such another. It was one of
+those things that have to be done once, to learn not to do it again.
+My only reading between Columbus and Pittsburgh is to be here in
+Zanesville, a town as black as Acheron, and where one might expect to
+see the river Styx.
+
+Later. I had a nice audience and a pleasant reading here, and to-day
+we go on to Pittsburgh, where I read to-morrow night.
+
+I met the other day at Dayton a woman who now has grandchildren; but
+who, when I first came West, was a gay rattling girl. She was one of
+the first converts of brother George's seemingly obscure ministry in
+the little new town of Chillicothe. Now she has one son who is a judge
+of the supreme court, and another in business. Both she and they are
+not only Christians, but Christians of the primitive sort, whose
+religion is their all; who triumph and glory in tribulation, knowing
+that it worketh patience. She told me, with a bright sweet calm, of
+her husband killed in battle the first year of the war, of her only
+daughter and two grandchildren dying in the faith, and of her own
+happy waiting on God's will, with bright hopes of a joyful reunion.
+Her sons are leading members of the Presbyterian Church, and most
+active in stirring up others to make their profession a reality, not
+an empty name. When I thought that all this came from the conversion
+of one giddy girl, when George seemed to be doing so little, I said,
+"Who can measure the work of a faithful minister?" It is such living
+witnesses that maintain Christianity on earth.
+
+Good-by, We shall soon be home now, and preparing for Florida. Always
+your own loving mother,
+
+H. B. S.
+
+Mrs. Stowe never undertook another reading tour, nor, after this one,
+did she ever read again for money, though she frequently contributed
+her talent in this direction to the cause of charity.
+
+The most noteworthy event of her later years was the celebration of
+the seventieth anniversary of her birthday. That it might be fittingly
+observed, her publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. of Boston,
+arranged a reception for her in form of a garden party, to which they
+invited the _literati_ of America. It was held on June 14, 1882,
+at "The Old Elms," the home of Ex-Governor Claflin of Massachusetts,
+in Newtonville, one of Boston's most beautiful suburbs. Here the
+assembly gathered to do honor to Mrs. Stowe, that lovely June
+afternoon, comprised two hundred of the most distinguished and best
+known among the literary men and women of the day.
+
+From three until five o'clock was spent socially. As the guests
+arrived they were presented to Mrs. Stowe by Mr. H. 0. Houghton, and
+then they gathered in groups in the parlors, on the verandas, on the
+lawn, and in the refreshment room. At five o'clock they assembled in a
+large tent on the lawn, when Mr. Houghton, as host, addressed to his
+guest and her friends a few words of congratulation and welcome. He
+closed his remarks by saying:--
+
+  "And now, honored madam, as
+  "'When to them who sail
+  Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
+  Mozambic, off at sea northeast winds blow
+  Sabean odors from the spicy shore
+  Of Arabie the blest,'
+
+
+so the benedictions of the lowly and the blessings of all conditions
+of men are brought to you to-day on the wings of the wind, from every
+quarter of the globe; but there will be no fresher laurels to crown
+this day of your rejoicing than are brought by those now before you,
+who have been your co-workers in the strife; who have wrestled and
+suffered, fought and conquered, with you; who rank you with the
+Miriams, the Deborahs, and the Judiths of old; and who now shout back
+the refrain, when you utter the inspired song:--
+
+ "'Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.'
+  *     *     *     *     *
+  The Almighty Lord hath disappointed them by the hand of a woman.'"
+
+In reply to this Mrs. Stowe's brother, Henry Ward Beecher, said: "Of
+course you all sympathize with me to-day, but, standing in this place,
+I do not see your faces more clearly than I see those of my father and
+my mother. Her I only knew as a mere babe-child. He was my teacher and
+my companion. A more guileless soul than he, a more honest one, more
+free from envy, from jealousy, and from selfishness, I never knew.
+Though he thought he was great by his theology, everybody else knew he
+was great by his religion. My mother is to me what the Virgin Mary is
+to a devout Catholic. She was a woman of great nature, profound as a
+philosophical thinker, great in argument, with a kind of intellectual
+imagination, diffident, not talkative,--in which respect I take after
+her,--the woman who gave birth to Mrs. Stowe, whose graces and
+excellences she probably more than any of her children--we number but
+thirteen--has possessed. I suppose that in bodily resemblance,
+perhaps, she is not like my mother, but in mind I presume she is most
+like her. I thank you for my father's sake and for my mother's sake
+for the courtesy, the friendliness, and the kindness which you give to
+Mrs. Stowe."
+
+The following poem from John Greenleaf Whittier was then read:--
+
+  "Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers
+  And golden-fruited orange bowers
+  To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours!
+  To her who, in our evil time,
+  Dragged into light the nation's crime
+  With strength beyond the strength of men,
+  And, mightier than their sword, her pen;
+  To her who world-wide entrance gave
+  To the log cabin of the slave,
+  Made all his wrongs and sorrows known,
+  And all earth's languages his own,--
+  North, South, and East and West, made all
+  The common air electrical,
+  Until the o'ercharged bolts of heaven
+  Blazed down, and every chain was riven!
+
+  "Welcome from each and all to her
+  Whose Wooing of the Minister
+  Revealed the warm heart of the man
+  Beneath the creed-bound Puritan,
+  And taught the kinship of the love
+  Of man below and God above;
+
+  To her whose vigorous pencil-strokes
+  Sketched into life her Oldtown Folks,
+  Whose fireside stories, grave or gay,
+  In quaint Sam Lawson's vagrant way,
+  With Old New England's flavor rife,
+  Waifs from her rude idyllic life,
+  Are racy as the legends old
+  By Chaucer or Boccaccio told;
+  To her who keeps, through change of place
+  And time, her native strength and grace,
+  Alike where warm Sorrento smiles,
+  Or where, by birchen-shaded isles
+  Whose summer winds have shivered o'er
+  The icy drift of Labrador,
+  She lifts to light the priceless Pearl
+  Of Harpswell's angel-beckoned girl.
+  To her at threescore years and ten
+  Be tributes of the tongue and pen,
+  Be honor, praise, and heart thanks given,
+  The loves of earth, the hopes of heaven!
+
+  "Ah, dearer than the praise that stirs
+  The air to-day, our love is hers!
+  She needs no guaranty of fame
+  Whose own is linked with Freedom's name.
+  Long ages after ours shall keep
+  Her memory living while we sleep;
+  The waves that wash our gray coast lines,
+  The winds that rock the Southern pines
+  Shall sing of her; the unending years
+  Shall tell her tale in unborn ears.
+  And when, with sins and follies past,
+  Are numbered color-hate and caste,
+  White, black, and red shall own as one.
+  The noblest work by woman done."
+
+It was followed by a few words from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who
+also read the subjoined as his contribution to the chorus of
+congratulation:--
+
+  "If every tongue that speaks her praise
+  For whom I shape my tinkling phrase
+    Were summoned to the table,
+  The vocal chorus that would meet
+  Of mingling accents harsh or sweet,
+  From every land and tribe, would beat
+    The polyglots of Babel."
+
+  "Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane,
+  Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine,
+    Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi,
+  High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too,
+  The Russian serf, the Polish Jew,
+  Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo
+    Would shout, 'We know the lady.'"
+
+  "Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom
+  And her he learned his gospel from,
+    Has never heard of Moses;
+  Full well the brave black hand we know
+  That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe
+  That killed the weed that used to grow
+    Among the Southern roses."
+
+  "When Archimedes, long ago,
+  Spoke out so grandly, '_Dos pou sto_,--
+    Give me a place to stand on,
+  I'll move your planet for you, now,'--
+  He little dreamed or fancied how
+  The _sto_ at last should find its _pou_
+    For woman's faith to land on."
+
+  "Her lever was the wand of art,
+  Her fulcrum was the human heart,
+    Whence all unfailing aid is;
+  She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed.
+  Its mountains shook, its temples reeled,
+  The blood-red fountains were unsealed,
+    And Moloch sunk to Hades."
+
+  "All through the conflict, up and down
+  Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown,
+    One ghost, one form ideal;
+  And which was false and which was true,
+  And which was mightier of the two,
+  The wisest sibyl never knew,
+    For both alike were real."
+
+  "Sister, the holy maid does well
+  Who counts her beads in convent cell,
+    Where pale devotion lingers;
+  But she who serves the sufferer's needs,
+  Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds,
+  May trust the Lord will count her beads
+    As well as human fingers.
+
+  "When Truth herself was Slavery's slave
+  Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave
+    The rainbow wings of fiction.
+  And Truth who soared descends to-day
+  Bearing an angel's wreath away,
+  Its lilies at thy feet to lay
+    With heaven's own benediction."
+
+Poems written for the occasion by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, Miss
+Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Mr. J. T. Trowbridge, Mrs. Allen (Mrs.
+Stowe's daughter), Mrs. Annie Fields, and Miss Charlotte F. Bates,
+were also read, and speeches were made by Judge Albion W. Tourgee and
+others prominent in the literary world.
+
+Letters from many noted people, who were prevented from being present
+by distance or by other engagements, had been received. Only four of
+them were read, but they were all placed in Mrs. Stowe's hands. The
+exercises were closed by a few words from Mrs. Stowe herself. As she
+came to the front of the platform the whole company rose, and remained
+standing until she had finished. In her quiet, modest, way, and yet so
+clearly as to be plainly heard by all, she said:--
+
+"I wish to say that I thank all my friends from my heart,--that is
+all. And one thing more,--and that is, if any of you have doubt, or
+sorrow, or pain, if you doubt about this world, just remember what God
+has done; just remember that this great sorrow of slavery has gone,
+gone by forever. I see it every day at the South. I walk about there
+and see the lowly cabins. I see these people growing richer and
+richer. I see men very happy in their lowly lot; but, to be sure, you
+must have patience with them. They are not perfect, but have their
+faults, and they are serious faults in the view of white people. But
+they are very happy, that is evident, and they do know how to enjoy
+themselves,--a great deal more than you do. An old negro friend in our
+neighborhood has got a new, nice two-story house, and an orange grove,
+and a sugar-mill. He has got a lot of money, besides. Mr. Stowe met
+him one day, and he said, 'I have got twenty head of cattle, four head
+of "hoss," forty head of hen, and I have got ten children, all
+_mine, every one mine_.' Well, now, that is a thing that a black
+man could not say once, and this man was sixty years old before he
+could say it. With all the faults of the colored people, take a man
+and put him down with nothing but his hands, and how many could say as
+much as that? I think they have done well.
+
+"A little while ago they had at his house an evening festival for
+their church, and raised fifty dollars. We white folks took our
+carriages, and when we reached the house we found it fixed nicely.
+Every one of his daughters knew how to cook. They had a good place for
+the festival. Their suppers were spread on little white tables with
+nice clean cloths on them. People paid fifty cents for supper. They
+got between fifty and sixty dollars, and had one of the best frolics
+you could imagine. They had also for supper ice-cream, which they made
+themselves.
+
+"That is the sort of thing I see going on around me. Let us never
+doubt. Everything that ought to happen is going to happen."
+
+Mrs. Stowe's public life ends with the garden party, and little more
+remains to be told. She had already, in 1880, begun the task of
+selection from the great accumulation of letters and papers relating
+to her life, and writes thus to her son in Saco, Maine, regarding the
+work:--
+
+_September_ 30, 1880.
+
+MY DEAR CHARLEY,--My mind has been with you a great deal lately. I
+have been looking over and arranging my papers with a view to sifting
+out those that are not worth keeping, and so filing and arranging
+those that are to be kept, that my heirs and assigns may with the less
+trouble know where and what they are. I cannot describe (to you) the
+peculiar feelings which this review occasions. Reading old letters--
+when so many of the writers are gone from earth, seems to me like
+going into the world of spirits--letters full of the warm, eager,
+anxious, busy life, that is _forever_ past. My own letters, too,
+full of by-gone scenes in my early life and the childish days of my
+children. It is affecting to me to recall things that strongly moved
+me years ago, that filled my thoughts and made me anxious when the
+occasion and emotion have wholly vanished from my mind. But I thank
+God there is _one_ thing running through all of them from the
+time I was thirteen years old, and that is the intense unwavering
+sense of Christ's educating, guiding presence and care. It is
+_all_ that remains now. The romance of my youth is faded, it
+looks to me now, from my years, so _very_ young--those days when
+my mind only lived in _emotion_, and when my letters never were
+dated, because they were only histories of the _internal_, but
+now that I am no more and never can be young in this world, now that
+the friends of those days are almost all in eternity, what remains?
+
+ Through life and through death, through sorrowing, through sinning,
+ Christ shall suffice me as he hath sufficed.
+ Christ is the end and Christ the beginning,
+ The beginning and end of all is Christ.
+
+I was passionate in my attachments in those far back years, and as I
+have looked over files of old letters, they are all gone (except one,
+C. Van Rensselaer), Georgiana May, Delia Bacon, Clarissa Treat,
+Elisabeth Lyman, Sarah Colt, Elisabeth Phenix, Frances Strong,
+Elisabeth Foster. I have letters from them all, but they have been
+long in spirit land and know more about how it is there than I do. It
+gives me a sort of dizzy feeling of the shortness of life and nearness
+of eternity when I see how many that I have traveled with are gone
+within the veil. Then there are all my own letters, written in the
+first two years of marriage, when Mr. Stowe was in Europe and I was
+looking forward to motherhood and preparing for it--my letters when my
+whole life was within the four walls of my nursery, my thoughts
+absorbed by the developing character of children who have now lived
+their earthly life and gone to the eternal one,--my two little boys,
+each in their way good and lovely, whom Christ has taken in youth, and
+my little one, my first Charley, whom He took away before he knew sin
+or sorrow,--then my brother George and sister Catherine, the one a
+companion of my youth, the other the mother who assumed the care of me
+after I left home in my twelfth year--and they are gone. Then my
+blessed father, for many years so true an image of the Heavenly
+Father,--in all my afflictions he was afflicted, in all my
+perplexities he was a sure and safe counselor, and he too is gone
+upward to join the angelic mother whom I scarcely knew in this world,
+who has been to me only a spiritual presence through life.
+
+[Illustration: THE LATER HARTFORD HOME.]
+
+In 1882 Mrs. Stowe writes to her son certain impressions derived from
+reading the "Life and Letters of John Quincy Adams," which are given
+as containing a retrospect of the stormy period of her own life-
+experience.
+
+"Your father enjoys his proximity to the Boston library. He is now
+reading the twelve or fourteen volumes of the life and diary of John
+Q. Adams. It is a history of our country through all the period of
+slavery usurpation that led to the war. The industry of the man in
+writing is wonderful. Every day's doings in the house are faithfully
+daguerreotyped,--all the mean tricks, contrivances of the slave-power,
+and the pusillanimity of the Northern members from day to day
+recorded. Calhoun was then secretary of state. Under his connivance
+even the United States census was falsified, to prove that freedom was
+bad for negroes. Records of deaf, dumb, and blind, and insane colored
+people were distributed in Northern States, and in places where John
+Q. Adams had means of _proving_ there were no negroes. When he
+found that these falsified figures had been used with the English
+embassador as reasons for admitting Texas as a slave State, the old
+man called on Calhoun, and showed him the industriously collected
+_proofs_ of the falsity of this census. He says: 'He writhed like
+a trodden rattlesnake, but said the census was full of mistakes; but
+one part balanced another,--it was not worth while to correct them.'
+His whole life was an incessant warfare with the rapidly advancing
+spirit of slavery, that was coiling like a serpent around everything.
+
+"At a time when the Southerners were like so many excited tigers and
+rattlesnakes,--when they bullied, and scoffed, and sneered, and
+threatened, this old man rose every day in his place, and, knowing
+every parliamentary rule and tactic of debate, found means to make
+himself heard. Then he presented a petition from _negroes_, which
+raised a storm of fury. The old man claimed that the right of petition
+was the right of every human being. They moved to expel him. By the
+rules of the house a man, before he can be expelled, may have the
+floor to make his defense. This was just what he wanted. He held the
+floor for _fourteen days_, and used his wonderful powers of
+memory and arrangement to give a systematic, scathing history of the
+usurpations of slavery; he would have spoken fourteen days more, but
+his enemies, finding the thing getting hotter and hotter, withdrew
+their motion, and the right of petition was gained.
+
+"What is remarkable in this journal is the minute record of going to
+church every Sunday, and an analysis of the text and sermon. There is
+something about these so simple, so humble, so earnest. Often
+differing from the speaker--but with gravity and humility--he seems
+always to be so self-distrustful; to have such a sense of sinfulness
+and weakness, but such trust in God's fatherly mercy, as is most
+beautiful to see. Just the record of his Sunday sermons, and his
+remarks upon them, would be most instructive to a, preacher. He was a
+regular communicant, and, beside, attended church on Christmas and
+Easter,--I cannot but love the old man. He died without seeing even
+the dawn of liberty which God has brought; but oh! I am sure he sees
+it from above. He died in the Capitol, in the midst of his labors, and
+the last words he said were, 'This is the last of earth; I am
+content.' And now, I trust, he is with God.
+
+"All, all are gone. All that raged; all that threatened; all the
+cowards that yielded; truckled, sold their country for a mess of
+pottage; all the _men_ that stood and bore infamy and scorn for
+the truth; all are silent in dust; the fight is over, but eternity
+will never efface from their souls whether they did well or ill--
+whether they fought bravely or failed like cowards. In a sense, our
+lives are irreparable. If we shrink, if we fail, if we choose the
+fleeting instead of the eternal, God may forgive us; but there must be
+an eternal regret! This man lived for humanity when hardest bestead;
+for truth when truth was unpopular; for Christ when Christ stood
+chained and scourged in the person of the slave."
+
+In the fall of 1887 she writes to her brother Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher
+of Brooklyn, N. Y.:--
+
+49 FOREST STREET, HARTFORD, CONN., _October_ 11, 1887.
+
+Dear Brother,--I was delighted to receive your kind letter. _You_
+were my earliest religious teacher; your letters to me while a school-
+girl in Hartford gave me a high Christian aim and standard which I
+hope I have never lost. Not only did they do me good, but also my
+intimate friends, Georgiana May and Catherine Cogswell, to whom I read
+them. The simplicity, warmth, and childlike earnestness of those
+school days I love to recall. I am the _only one living_ of that
+circle of early friends. _Not one_ of my early schoolmates is
+living,--and now Henry, younger by a year or two than I, has gone--my
+husband also. [Footnote: Professor Stowe died August, 1886.] I often
+think, _Why_ am I spared? Is there yet anything for me to do? I
+am thinking with my son Charles's help of writing a review of my life,
+under the title, "Pebbles from the Shores of a Past Life."
+
+Charlie told me that he has got all written up to my twelfth or
+thirteenth year, when I came to be under sister Catherine's care in
+Hartford. I am writing daily my remembrances from that time. You were
+then, I think, teacher of the Grammar School in Hartford. . . .
+
+So, my dear brother, let us keep good heart; no evil can befall us.
+Sin alone is evil, and from that Christ will keep us. Our journey is
+_so_ short!
+
+I feel about all things now as I do about the things that happen in a
+hotel, after my trunk is packed to go home. I may be vexed and annoyed
+. . . but what of it! I am going home soon.
+
+Your affectionate sister,
+
+Hattie.
+
+To a friend she writes a little later:--
+
+"I have thought much lately of the possibility of my leaving you all
+and going home. I am come to that stage of my pilgrimage that is
+within sight of the River of Death, and I feel that now I must have
+all in readiness day and night for the messenger of the King. I have
+sometimes had in my sleep strange perceptions of a vivid spiritual
+life near to and with Christ, and multitudes of holy ones, and the joy
+of it is like no other joy,--it cannot be told in the language of the
+world. What I have then I _know_ with absolute certainty, yet it
+is so unlike and above anything we conceive of in this world that it
+is difficult to put it into words. The inconceivable loveliness of
+Christ! It seems that about Him there is a sphere where the enthusiasm
+of love is the calm habit of the soul, that without words, without the
+necessity of demonstrations of affection, heart beats to heart, soul
+answers soul, we respond to the Infinite Love, and we feel his answer
+in us, and there is no need of words. All seemed to be busy coming and
+going on ministries of good, and passing each gave a thrill of joy to
+each as Jesus, the directing soul, the centre of all, 'over all, in
+all, and through all," was working his beautiful and merciful will to
+redeem and save. I was saying as I awoke:--
+
+ "''T is joy enough, my all in all,
+ At thy dear feet to lie.
+ Thou wilt not let me lower fall,
+ And none can higher fly.'
+
+"This was but a glimpse; but it has left a strange sweetness in my
+mind."
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+ABBOTT, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob
+
+Aberdeen, reception in,
+
+Abolition, English meetings in favor of,
+
+Abolition sentiment, growth of,
+
+Abolitionism made fashionable
+
+Adams, John Quincy, crusade of, against slavery, holds floor of
+Congress fourteen days, his religious life and trust, died without
+seeing dawn of liberty, life and letters of,
+
+"Agnes of Sorrento," first draft of, date of, Whittier's praise of,
+
+"Alabama Planter," savage attack of, on H. B. S.
+
+Albert, Prince, Mrs. Stowe's letter to, his reply, meeting with,
+death,
+
+America, liberty in, Ruskin on,
+
+American novelist, Lowell on the
+
+Andover, Mass., beauty of, Stowe family settled in,
+
+Anti-slavery cause: result of English demonstrations, letters to
+England, feeling dreaded in South, movement in Cincinnati, in Boston,
+Beecher family all anti-slavery men,
+
+"Arabian Nights," H. B. S.'s delight in,
+
+Argyll, Duke and Duchess of, warmth of, H. B. S. invited to visit,
+death of father of Duchess,
+
+Argyll, Duchess of, letter from H. B. S. to, on England's attitude
+during our Civil War, on _post bellum_ events,
+
+"Atlantic Monthly," contains "Minister's Wooing," Mrs. Stowe's address
+to women of England, "The True Story of Lady Byron's Life,"
+
+BAILEY, Gamaliel, Dr., editor of "National Era,"
+
+Bangor, readings in
+
+Bates, Charlotte Fiske, reads a poem at Mrs. Stowe's seventieth
+birthday,
+
+Baxter's "Saints' Rest," has a powerful effect on H. B. S.
+
+Beecher, Catherine, eldest sister of H. B. S., her education of H. B.
+S., account of her own birth, strong influence over Harriet, girlhood
+of, teacher at New London, engagement, drowning of her lover, soul
+struggles after Prof. Fisher's death, teaches in his family, publishes
+article on Free Agency, opens school at Hartford, solution of doubts
+while teaching, her conception of Divine Nature, school at Hartford
+described by H. B. S., doubts about Harriet's conversion, hopes for
+"Hartford Female Seminary,", letter to Edward about Harriet's doubts,
+note on Harriet's letter, new school at Cincinnati, visits Cincinnati
+with father, impressions of city, homesickness, at water cure, a
+mother to sister Harriet, letters to H. B. S. to, on her religious
+depression, on religious doubts.
+
+Beecher, Charles, brother of H. B. S., in college, goes to Florida,
+letters from H. B. S., on mother's death.
+
+Beecher, Edward, Dr., brother of H. B. S., influence over her,
+indignation against Fugitive Slave Act, efforts to arouse churches,
+letters from H. B. S. to, on early religious struggles, on her
+feelings, on views of God, on death of friends and relatives and the
+writing of her life by her son Charles.
+
+Beecher, Esther, aunt of H. B. S.
+
+Beecher family, famous reunion of, circular letter to.
+
+Beecher, Frederick, H. B. S.'s half-brother, death of.
+
+Beecher, George, brother of H. B. S., visit to, enters Lane as student
+music and tracts, account of journey to Cincinnati, sudden death, H.
+B. S. meets at Dayton one of his first converts, his letters
+cherished.
+
+Beecher, George, nephew of H. B. S., visit to,
+
+Beecher, Mrs. George, letter from H. B. S. to, describing new home.
+
+Beecher, Harriet E. first; death of, second; (H. B. S.) birth of.
+
+Beecher, Mrs. Harriet Porter, H. B. S.'s stepmother; personal
+appearance and character of; pleasant impressions of new home and
+children; at Cincinnati.
+
+Beecher, Henry Ward, brother of H. B. S., birth of; anecdote of, after
+mother's death; first school; conception of Divine Nature, in
+college; H. B. S. attends graduation; editor of Cincinnati "Journal,";
+sympathy with anti-slavery movement; at Brooklyn; saves Edmonson's
+daughters; H. B. S. visits; views on Reconstruction; George Eliot on
+Beecher trial; his character as told by H. B. S.; love for Prof.
+Stowe; his youth and life in West; Brooklyn and his anti-slavery
+fight; Edmonsons and Plymouth Church; his loyalty and energy; his
+religion; popularity and personal magnetism; terrible struggle in the
+Beecher trial; bribery of jury, but final triumph; ecclesiastical
+trial of; committee of five appointed to bring facts; his ideal purity
+and innocence; power at death-beds and funerals; beloved by poor and
+oppressed; meets accusations by silence, prayer, and work; his thanks
+and speech at Stowe Garden Party; tribute to father, mother, and
+sister Harriet; death.
+
+Beecher, Isabella, H. B. S.'s half-sister, birth of; goes to
+Cincinnati.
+
+Beecher, James, H. B. S.'s half-brother; goes to Cincinnati, 53;
+begins Sunday-school.
+
+Beecher, Rev. Dr. Lyman, H. B. Stowe's father; "Autobiography and
+Correspondence of,"; verdict on his wife's remarkable piety; pride in
+his daughter's essay; admiration of Walter Scott; sermon which
+converts H. B. S.; accepts call to Hanover Street Church, Boston;
+president of Lane Theological Seminary; first journey to Cincinnati;
+removal and westward journey, et seq.; removes family to Cincinnati,;
+Beecher reunion; powerful sermons on slave question; his sturdy
+character, H. W. Beecher's eulogy upon; death and reunion with H. B.
+S's mother.
+
+Beecher, Mary, sister of H. B. S.; married; letter to; accompanies
+sister to Europe; letters from H. B. S. to, on love for New England;
+on visit to Windsor.
+
+Beecher, Roxanna Foote, mother of H. B. S.; her death; strong,
+sympathetic nature; reverence for the Sabbath; sickness, death, and
+funeral; influence in family strong even after death; character
+described by H. W. Beecher; H. B. S.'s resemblance to.
+
+Beecher, William, brother of H. B. S.; licensed to preach.
+
+Bell, Henry, English inventor of steamboat.
+
+Belloc, Mme., translates "Uncle Tom."
+
+Belloc, M., to paint portrait of H. B. S..
+
+Bentley, London publisher, offers pay for "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+"Betty's Bright Idea," date of.
+
+Bible; Uncle Tom's; use and influence of.
+
+"Bible Heroines," date of.
+
+Bibliography of H. B. S.
+
+Biography, H. B. S.'s remarks on writing and understanding.
+
+Birney, J. G., office wrecked, _et seq._; H. B. S.'s sympathy
+with.
+
+Birthday, seventieth, celebration of by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
+
+Blackwood's attack on Lady Byron.
+
+Blantyre, Lord.
+
+Bogne, David.
+
+Boston opens doors to slave-hunters.
+
+Boston Library, Prof. Stowe enjoys proximity to.
+
+Bowdoin College calls Prof. Stowe.
+
+Bowen, H. C.
+
+Bruce, John, of Litchfield Academy, H. B. S.'s tribute to; lectures on
+Butler's "Analogy."
+
+Brigham, Miss, character of.
+
+Bright, John, letter to H. B. S. on her "Appeal to English Women."
+
+Brooklyn, Mrs. Stowe's visit to brother Henry in; visit in 1852, when
+she helps the Edmonson slave family; Beecher, H. W. called to; Beecher
+trial in.
+
+Brown and the phantoms.
+
+Brown, John, bravery of.
+
+Browning, Mrs., on life and love.
+
+Browning, E. B., letter to H. B. S.; death of.
+
+Browning, Robert and E. B, friendship with.
+
+Brunswick, Mrs. Stowe's love of; revisited.
+
+Buck, Eliza, history of as slave.
+
+Bull, J. D. and family, make home for H. B. S. while at school in
+Hartford.
+
+Bunsen, Chevalier.
+
+Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," Prof. Stowe's love of.
+
+Burritt, Elihu, writes introduction to "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" calls on
+Mrs. Stowe.
+
+Butler's "Analogy," study of, by H. B. S.
+
+"Byron Controversy," 445; history of; George Eliot on; Dr. Holmes on.
+
+Byron, Lady; letters from; makes donation to Kansas sufferers; on
+power of words; death of; her character assailed; her first meeting
+with H. B. S.; dignity and calmness; memoranda and letters about Lord
+Byron shown to Mrs. Stowe; solemn interview with H. B. S.; letters to
+H. B. S. from,; on "The Minister's Wooing;" farewell to; her
+confidences; Mrs. Stowe's counsels to.
+
+Byron, Lord, Mrs. Stowe on; she suspects his insanity; cheap edition
+of his works proposed; Recollections of, by Countess Guiecioli; his
+position as viewed by Dr. Holmes; evidence of his poems for and
+against him.
+
+"CABIN, The," literary centre.
+
+Cairnes, Prof., on the "Fugitive Slave Law."
+
+Calhoun falsifies census.
+
+Calvinism, J. R. Lowell's sympathy with.
+
+Cambridgeport, H. B. S. reads in.
+
+Carlisle, Lord, praises "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" Mrs. Stowe's reply;
+writes introduction to "Uncle Tom," 192; H. B. S. dines with; farewell
+to; letter from H. B. S. to on moral effect of slavery; letter to H.
+B. S. from.
+
+Gary, Alice and Phoebe.
+
+Casaubon and Dorothea, criticism by H. B. S. on.
+
+Catechisms, Church and Assembly, H. B. S.'s early study of.
+
+Chapman, Mrs. Margaret Weston.
+
+Charpentier of Paris, publishes "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" eulogy of that
+work.
+
+Chase, Salmon P.
+
+Chelsea, H. B. S. reads in.
+
+Chicago, readings in.
+
+Children of H. B. S., picture of three eldest; appeal to, by H. B. S.;
+described by H. B. S.; letters to, from H. B. S. on European voyage
+and impressions; on life in London; on meeting at Stafford House; on
+Vesuvius.
+
+"Chimney Corner, The," date of.
+
+Cholera epidemic in Cincinnati.
+
+Christ, life of, little understood; communion with Him possible; love
+and faith in; study of his life; his presence all that remains now;
+his promises comfort the soul for separations by death.
+
+"Christian Union," contains observations by H. B. S. on spiritualism
+and Mr. Owen's books.
+
+Christianity and spiritualism.
+
+Church, the, responsible for slavery.
+
+Cincinnati, Lyman Beecher accepts call to; Catherine Beecher's
+impressions of; Walnut Hills and Seminary; famine in; cholera;
+sympathetic audience in.
+
+Civil War, Mrs. Stowe on causes of.
+
+Clarke & Co. on English success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" offer author
+remuneration.
+
+Clay, Henry, and his compromise.
+
+Cogswell, Catherine Ledyard, schoolfriend of H. B. S.
+
+College of Teachers.
+
+Collins professorship.
+
+Colored people, advance of.
+
+Confederacy, A. H. Stephens on object of.
+
+Courage and cheerfulness of H. B. S.
+
+Cranch, E. P.
+
+Cruikshank illustrates "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+"DANIEL DERONDA," appears in "Harper's;" his nature like H. W.
+Beecher's; admiration of Prof. Stowe for.
+
+Da Vinci's Last Supper, H. B. S.'s impressions of.
+
+Death of youngest-born of H. B. S.; anguish at.
+
+Death, H. B. S. within sight of the River of,
+
+"Debatable Land between this World and the Next,"
+
+Declaration of Independence, H. B. S.'s feeling about, death-knell to
+slavery,
+
+Degan, Miss,
+
+Democracy and American novelists, Lowell on,
+
+"De Profundis," motive of Mrs. Browning's,
+
+De Staël, Mme., and Corinne,
+
+Dickens, first sight of, J. E. Lowell on,
+
+"Dog's Mission, A," date of,
+
+Domestic service, H. B. S.'s trouble with,
+
+Doubters and disbelievers may find comfort in spiritualism,
+
+Doubts, religious, after death of eldest son,
+
+Douglass, Frederick, letters from H. B. S. to, on slavery,
+
+Drake, Dr., family physician, one of founders of "College of
+Teachers,"
+
+"Dred," Sumner's letter on, Georgiana May on, English edition of,
+presented to Queen Victoria, her interest in, demand for, in Glasgow,
+Duchess of Sutherland's copy, Low's sales of, "London Times," on,
+English reviews on, severe, "Revue des Deux Mondes" on, Miss Martineau
+on, Prescott on, Lowell on, now "Nina Gordon," publication of,
+
+Dudevant, Madame. See Sand, George.
+
+Dufferin, Lord and Lady, their love of American literature,
+
+Dundee, meeting at,
+
+Dunrobin Castle, visit to,
+
+E---, letter from H. B. S. to, on breakfast at the Trevelyans',
+
+"Earthly Care a Heavenly Discipline,"
+
+East Hampton, L. I., birthplace of Catherine Beecher,
+
+Eastman, Mrs., writes a Southern reply to "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
+
+Edgeworth, Maria,
+
+Edinburgh, H. B. S. in, return to,
+
+Edmonson slave family; efforts to save, Mrs. Stowe educates and
+supports daughters, raises money to free mother and two slave
+children,
+
+Edmonson, death of Mary,
+
+Education, H. B. S.'s interest in,
+
+Edwards, Jonathan, the power of, his treatise on "The Will," refuted
+by Catherine Beecher,
+
+Eliot, George, a good Christian, on psychical problems, on "Oldtown
+Folks," her despondency in "writing life" and longing for sympathy, on
+power of fine books, on religion, desires to keep an open mind on all
+subjects, on impostures of spiritualism, lack of "jollitude" in
+"Middlemarch," invited to visit America, sympathy with H. B. S. in
+Beecher trial, proud of Stowes' interest in her "spiritual children,"
+on death of Mr. Lewes and gratitude for sympathy of H. B. S., a "woman
+worth loving," H. B. S.'s love for greater than her admiration,
+letters from H. B. S. to, on spiritualism, describes Florida nature
+and home, reply to letter of sympathy giving facts in the Beecher
+ease, from Professor Stowe on spiritualism, letter to H. B. S. from,
+with sympathy on abuse called out by the Byron affair, on effect of
+letter of H. B. S. to Mrs. Follen upon her mind, on joy of sympathy,
+reply to letter on spiritualism, sympathy with her in the Beecher
+trial,
+
+Elmes. Mr.,
+
+"Elms, The Old," H. B. S.'s seventieth birthday celebrated at,
+
+"Elsie Vernier," Mrs. Stowe's praise of,
+
+Emancipation, Proclamation of,
+
+Emmons, Doctor, the preaching of,
+
+England and America compared,
+
+England, attitude of, in civil war, grief at, help of to America on
+slave question,
+
+English women's address on slavery, H. B. S.'s reply in the "Atlantic
+Monthly,"
+
+Europe, first visit to, second visit to, third visit to,
+
+Faith in Christ,
+
+Famine in Cincinnati,
+
+Fiction, power of,
+
+Fields, Mrs. Annie, in Boston, her tribute to Mrs. Stowe's courage and
+cheerfulness, George Eliot's mention of, her poem read at seventieth
+birthday,
+
+Fields. Jas. T., Mr. and Mrs., visit of H. B. S. to,
+
+Fisher, Prof. Alexander Metcalf, engagement to Catherine Beecher,
+sails for Europe, his death by drowning in shipwreck of Albion,
+Catherine Beecher's soul struggles, over his future fate, influence of
+these struggles depicted in "The Minister's Wooing,"
+
+Florence, Mrs. Stowe's winter in,
+
+Florida, winter home in Mandarin, like Sorrento, wonderful growth of
+nature, how H. B. S.'s house was built, her happy life in, longings
+for, her enjoyment of happy life of the freedmen in,
+
+Flowers, love of, painting,
+
+Follen, Mrs., letter from H. B. S. to, on her biography,
+
+Foote, Harriet, aunt of H. B. S., energetic English character, teaches
+niece catechism,
+
+Foote, Mrs. Roxanna, grandmother of H. B. S., first visit to, visit to
+in 1827,
+
+"Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World,"
+
+"Footsteps of the Master," published,
+
+"Fraser's Magazine" on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Helps's review of "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin,"
+
+"Free Agency," Catherine Beecher's refutation of Edwards on "The
+Will,"
+
+French critics, high standing of,
+
+Friends, love for, death of, death of old, whose letters are
+cherished, death of, takes away a part of ourselves,
+
+Friendship, opinion of,
+
+Fugitive Slave Act, suffering caused by, Prof. Cairnes on, practically
+repealed,
+
+Future life, glimpses of, leave strange sweetness,
+
+Future punishment, ideas of,
+
+Garrison, W. L., to Mrs. Stowe on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," in hour of
+victory, his "Liberator," sent with H. W. Beecher to raise flag on
+Sumter, letters to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," on slavery,
+on arousing the church,
+
+Gaskell, Mrs., at home, Geography, school, written by Mrs. Stowe,
+note,
+
+Germany's tribute to "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
+
+Gladstone, W. E.,
+
+Glasgow, H. B. S. visits, 210; Anti-slavery Society of.
+
+Glasgow Anti-slavery Society, letter from H. B. S. to.
+
+God, H. B. S.'s views of; trust in; doubts and final trust in; his
+help in time of need.
+
+Goethe and Mr. Lewes; Prof. Stowe's admiration of.
+
+Goldschmidt, Madame. See Lind, Jenny.
+
+Görres on spiritualism and mysticism.
+
+Grandmother, letter from H. B. S. to, on breaking up of Litchfield
+home; on school life in Hartford.
+
+Granville, Lord.
+
+"Gray's Elegy," visit to scene of.
+
+Guiccioli, Countess, "Recollections of Lord Byron."
+
+HALL, Judge James.
+
+Hallam, Arthur Henry.
+
+Hamilton and Manumission Society.
+
+Harper & Brothers reprint Guieeioli's "Recollections of Byron."
+
+Hartford, H. B. S. goes to school at; the Stowes make their home at.
+
+Harvey, a phantom.
+
+Hawthorne, Nathaniel; letter on; on slavery; letter to H. B. S. on,
+from English attitude towards America.
+
+Health, care of.
+
+Heaven, belief in.
+
+Helps, Arthur, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" meets H. B. S., letter from H.
+B. S. to, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+Henry, Patrick, on slavery.
+
+Hentz, Mrs. Caroline Lee.
+
+Higginson, T. W., letter to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+"History, The, of the Byron Controversy."
+
+Holmes, O. W., correspondence with, _et seq_.; attacks upon; H.
+B. S. asks advice from, about manner of telling facts in relation to
+Byron Controversy; sends copy of "Lady Byron Vindicated" to; on facts
+of case; on sympathy displayed in his writings; poem on H. B. S.'s
+seventieth birthday; tribute to Uncle Tom; letters from H. B. S. to;
+on "Poganue People;" asking advice about Byron Controversy and article
+for "Atlantic Monthly;" letters to H. B. S. from; on facts in the
+Byron Controversy.
+
+Houghton, Mifflin & Co., celebrate H. B. S.'s seventieth birthday.
+
+Houghton, H. 0., presents guests to H. B. S., on celebration of
+seventieth birthday, 500; address of welcome by.
+
+"House and Home Papers" published.
+
+Howitt, Mary, calls on H. B. S.
+
+Human life, sacredness of.
+
+Human nature in books and men.
+
+Hume and mediums.
+
+Humor of Mrs. Stowe's books, George Eliot on.
+
+Husband and wife, sympathy between.
+
+IDEALISM _versus_ Realism, Lowell on.
+
+"Independent," New York, work for; Mrs. Browning reads Mrs. Stowe in.
+
+Inverary Castle, H. B. S.'s. visit to.
+
+Ireland's gift to Mrs. Stowe.
+
+JEFFERSON, Thomas, on slavery.
+
+Jewett, John P., of Boston, publisher of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+KANSAS Nebraska Bill; urgency of question.
+
+"Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" projected; written; contains facts; read by
+Pollock; by Argyll; sickness caused by; sale; facts woven into "Dred;"
+date of in chronological list.
+
+Kingsley, Charles, upon effect of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 196; visit to;
+letters to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+Kossuth, on freedom; Mrs. Stowe calls upon.
+
+LABOUCHERE, Lady Mary, visit to.
+
+"Lady Byron Vindicated;" date.
+
+Letters, circular, writing of, a custom in the Beecher family; H. B.
+S.'s love of; H. B. S.'s peculiar emotions on re-reading old.
+
+Lewes, G. H., George Eliot's letter after death of.
+
+Lewes, Mrs. G. H. See Eliot, George.
+
+"Library of Famous Fiction," date of.
+
+"Liberator," The; and Bible; suspended after the close of civil war.
+
+Lincoln and slavery; death of.
+
+Lind, Jenny, liberality of; H. B. S. attends concert by; letter to H.
+B. S. from, on her delight in "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" letters from H. B.
+S. to, with appeal for slaves.
+
+Litchfield, birthplace of H. B. S.; end of her child-life in; home at
+broken up.
+
+Literary labors, early; prize story; club essays; contributor to
+"Western Monthly Magazine;" school geography; described in letter to a
+friend; price for; fatigue caused by; length of time passed in, with
+list of books written.
+
+Literary work _versus_ domestic duties, _et seq_.; short
+stories--"New Year's Story" for "N. Y. Evangelist;" "A Scholar's
+Adventures in the Country" for "Era."
+
+Literature, opinion of.
+
+"Little Pussy Willow," date of.
+
+Liverpool, warm reception of H. B. S. at.
+
+London poor and Southern slaves.
+
+London, first visit to; second visit to.
+
+Longfellow, H. W., congratulations of, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" letter
+on; Lord Granville's likeness to; letters to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle
+Tom's Cabin."
+
+Love, the impulse of life.
+
+Lovejoy, J. P., murdered; aided by Beechers.
+
+Low, Sampson, on success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" abroad.
+
+Low, Sampson & Co. publish "Dred;" their sales.
+
+Lowell, J. R., Duchess of Sutherland's interesting; less known in
+England than he should be; on "Uncle Tom;" on Dickens and Thackeray;
+on "The Minister's Wooing;" on idealism; letter to H. B. S. from, on
+"The Minister's Wooing."
+
+MACAULAY.
+
+McClellan, Gen., his disobedience to the President's commands.
+
+"Magnalia," Cotton Mather's, a mine of wealth to H. B. S; Prof.
+Stowe's interest in.
+
+Maine law, curiosity about in England.
+
+Mandarin, Mrs. Stowe at; like
+
+Sorrento, how her house was built, her happy out-door life in,
+relieved from domestic care, longings for home at, freed-men's happy
+life in South,
+
+Mann, Horace, makes a plea for slaves,
+
+Martineau, Harriet, letter to H. B. S. from,
+
+May, Georgiana, school and life-long friend of H. B. S., Mrs. Sykes,
+her ill-health and fare-well to H. B. S., letters from H. B. S. to,
+account of westward journey, on labor in establishing school, on
+education, just before her marriage to Mr. Stowe, on her early married
+life and housekeeping, on birth of her son, describing first railroad
+ride, on her children, her letter to Mrs. Foote, grandmother of H. B.
+S., letters to H. B. S. from,
+
+"Mayflower, The," revised and republished, date of,
+
+Melancholy, a characteristic of Prof. Stowe in childhood,
+
+"Men of Our Times," date of,
+
+"Middlemarch," H. B. S. wishes to read, character of Casaubon in,
+
+Milman, Dean,
+
+Milton's hell,
+
+"Minister's Wooing, The," soul struggles of Mrs. Marvyn, foundation of
+incident, idea of God in, impulse for writing, appears in "Atlantic
+Monthly," Lowell, J. R. on, Whittier on, completed, Ruskin on,
+undertone of pathos, visits England in relation to, date of, "reveals
+warm heart of man" beneath the Puritan in Whittier's poem,
+
+Missouri Compromise, repealed,
+
+Mohl, Madame, and her _salon_,
+
+Money-making, reading as easy a way as any of,
+
+Moral aim in novel-writing, J. R. Lowell on,
+
+"Mourning Veil, The,"
+
+"Mystique La," on spiritualism,
+
+NAPLES and Vesuvius,
+
+"National Era," its history, work for,
+
+Negroes, petition from, presented by J. Q. Adams,
+
+New England, Mrs. Stowe's knowledge of, in "The Minister's Wooing,"
+life pictured in "Oldtown Folks,"
+
+New London, fatigue of reading at,
+
+Newport, tiresome journey to, on reading tour,
+
+Niagara, impressions of,
+
+Normal school for colored teachers,
+
+"North American Review" on "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
+
+North _versus_ South, England on,
+
+Norton, C. E., Ruskin on the proper home of,
+
+"OBSERVER, New York," denunciation of "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
+
+"Oldtown Fireside Stories," strange spiritual experiences of Prof.
+Stowe, Sam Lawson a real character, relief after finishing, date of in
+chronological list, in Whittier's poem on seventieth birthday "With
+Old New England's flavor rife,"
+
+"Oldtown Folks," Prof. Stowe original of "Harry" in, George Eliot on
+its reception in England, picture of N. E. life, date of, Whittier's
+praise of, "vigorous pencil-strokes" in poem on seventieth birthday,
+
+Orthodoxy.
+
+"Our Charley," date of.
+
+Owen, Robert Dale, his "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World"
+and "The Debatable Land between this World and the Next;" H. B. S.
+wishes George Eliot to meet.
+
+PALMERSTON, Lord, meeting with.
+
+"Palmetto Leaves" published; date.
+
+Papacy, The.
+
+Paris, first visit to; second visit.
+
+Park, Professor Edwards A.
+
+Parker, Theodore, on the Bible and Jesus.
+
+Paton, Bailie, host of Mrs. Stowe.
+
+Peabody, pleasant reading in; Queen Victoria's picture at.
+
+"Pearl of Orr's Island, The;" first published; Whittier's favorite;
+date of.
+
+"Pebbles from the Shores of a Past Life," a review of her life
+proposed to be written by H. B. S. with aid of son Charles.
+
+Phantoms seen by Professor Stowe.
+
+Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, writes poem on H. B. S.'s seventieth
+birthday.
+
+"Philanthropist, The," anti-slavery paper.
+
+Phillips, Wendell, attitude of after war.
+
+"Pink and White Tyranny," date of.
+
+Plymouth Church, saves Edmonson's daughters; slavery and; clears Henry
+Ward Beecher by acclamation; calls council of Congregational ministers
+and laymen; council ratifies decision of Church; committee of five
+appointed to bring facts which could be proved; missions among poor
+particularly effective at time of trial.
+
+"Poganuc People;" sent to Dr. Holmes; date of.
+
+Pollock, Lord Chief Baron.
+
+Poor, generosity of touches H. B. S.
+
+Portland, H. B. S.'s friends there among the past; her readings in.
+
+Portraits of Mrs. Stowe; Belloc to paint; untruth of.
+
+Poverty in early married life.
+
+Prescott, W. H., letter to H. B. S. from, on "Dred."
+
+"Presse, La," on "Dred."
+
+Providential aid in sickness.
+
+"QUEER Little People."
+
+READING and teaching.
+
+Religion and humanity, George Eliot on.
+
+"Religious poems," date of.
+
+"Revue des Deux Mondes" on "Dred."
+
+Riots in Cincinnati and anti-slavery agitation.
+
+Roenne, Baron de, visits Professor Stowe.
+
+Roman polities in 1861.
+
+Rome, H. B. S.'s journey to; impressions of.
+
+Ruskin, John, letters to H. B. S. from, on "The Minister's Wooing;" on
+his dislike of America, but love for American friends.
+
+Ruskin and Turner.
+
+SAINT-BEUVE, H. B. S.'s liking for.
+
+Sales, Francis de, H. W. Beecher compared with.
+
+Salisbury, Mr., interest of in "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+Salons, French.
+
+Sand, George, reviews "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
+
+Scotland, H. B. S.'s first visit to.
+
+Scott, Walter, Lyman Beecher's opinion of, when discussing novel-
+reading, 25; monument in Edinburgh.
+
+Sea, H. B. S.'s nervous horror of.
+
+Sea-voyages, H. B. S. on.
+
+Semi-Colon Club, H. B. S. becomes a member of.
+
+Shaftesbury, Earl of, letter of, to Mrs. Stowe.
+
+Shaftesbury, Lord, to H. B. S., letter from; letter from H. B. S. to;
+America and.
+
+Skinner, Dr.
+
+Slave, aiding a fugitive.
+
+Slave-holding States on English address; intensity of conflict in.
+
+Slavery, H. B. S.'s first notice of; anti-slavery agitation; death-
+knell of; Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, and Patrick Henry on;
+growth of; résumé of its history; responsibility of church for; Lord
+Carlisle's opinion on; moral effect of; sacrilege of; its past and
+future; its injustice; its death-blow; English women's appeal against;
+J. Q. Adams' crusade against; gone forever.
+
+Slaves, H. B. S.'s work for and sympathy with; family sorrows of.
+
+Smith, Anna, helper to Mrs. S.; _note_.
+
+Soul, immortality of, H. B. S.'s essay written at age of twelve: first
+literary production; Addison's remarks upon; Greek and Roman idea of
+immortality; light given by Gospel; Christ on.
+
+South, England's sympathy with the.
+
+South Framingham, good audience at reading in.
+
+"Souvenir, The."
+
+Spiritualism, Mrs. Stowe on; Mrs. Browning on; Holmes, O. W., on; "La
+Mystique" and Görres on; Professor Stowe's strange experiences in;
+George Eliot on psychical problems of; on "Charlatanerie" connected
+with; Robert Dale Owen on; Goethe on; H. B. S.'s letter to George
+Eliot on; her mature views on; a comfort to doubters and disbelievers;
+from Christian standpoint.
+
+Stafford House meeting.
+
+Stephens, A. H., on object of Confederacy.
+
+Storrs, Dr. R. S.
+
+Stowe, Calvin E.; death of first wife; his engagement to Harriet E.
+Beecher; their marriage; his work in Lane Seminary; sent by the
+Seminary to Europe on educational matters; returns; his Educational
+Report presented; aids a fugitive slave; strongly encourages his wife
+in her literary aspirations; care of the sick students in Lane
+Seminary; is "house-father" during his wife's illness and absence;
+goes to water cure after his wife's return from the same; absent from
+Cincinnati home at death of youngest child; accepts the Collins
+Professorship at Bowdoin; gives his mother his reasons for leaving
+Cincinnati; remains behind to finish college work, while wife and
+three children leave for Brunswick, Me.; resigns his professorship at
+Bowdoin, and accepts a call to Andover; accompanies his wife to
+Europe; his second trip with wife to Europe; sermon after his son's
+death; great sorrow at his bereavement; goes to Europe for the fourth
+time; resigns his position at Andover; in Florida; failing health; his
+letter to George Eliot; H. B. S. uses his strange experiences in youth
+as material for her picture of "Harry" in "Oldtown Folks;" the
+psychological history of his strange child-life; curious experiences
+with phantoms, and good and bad spirits; visions of fairies; love of
+reading; his power of character-painting shown in his description of a
+visit to his relatives; George Eliot's mental picture of his
+personality; enjoys life and study in Florida; his studies on Prof.
+Görres' book, "Die Christliche Mystik," and its relation to his own
+spiritual experience; love for Henry Ward Beecher returned by latter;
+absorbed in "Daniel Deronda;" "over head and ears in
+_diablerie_;" fears he has not long to live; dull at wife's
+absence on reading tour; enjoys proximity to Boston Library, and "Life
+of John Qniney Adams;" death and _note_; letters from H. B. S.
+to; on her illness; on cholera epidemic in Cincinnati; on sickness,
+death of son Charley; account of new home; on her writings and
+literary aspirations; on success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" on her
+interest in the Edmonson slave family; on life in London; on visit to
+the Duke of Argyle; from Dunrobin Castle; on "Dred;" other letters
+from abroad; on life in Paris; on journey to Rome; on impressions of
+Rome; on Swiss journey; from Florence; from Paris; on farewell to her
+soldier son; visit to Duchess of Argyle; on her reading tour; on his
+health and her enforced absence from him; on reading, at Chelsea; at
+Bangor and Portland; at South Framingham and Haverhill; Peabody;
+fatigue at New London reading; letters from to H. B. S. on visit to
+his relatives and description of home life; to mother on reasons for
+leaving the West; to George Eliot; to son Charles.
+
+Stowe, Charles E., seventh child of H. B. S., birth of; at Harvard; at
+Bonn; letter from Calvin E. Stowe to; letter from H. B. S. to, on her
+school life; on "Poganuc People;" on her readings in the West; on
+selection of papers and letters for her biography; on interest of
+herself and Prof. Stowe in life and anti-slavery career of John Quincy
+Adams.
+
+Stowe, Eliza Tyler (Mrs. C. E.), draft of: twin daughter of H. B. S.
+
+Stowe, Frederick William, second son of H. B. S.; enlists in First
+Massachusetts; made lieutenant for bravery; mother's visit to;
+severely wounded; subsequent effects of the wound, never entirely
+recovers, his disappearance and unknown fate; ill-health after war,
+Florida home purchased for his sake.
+
+Stowe, Georgiana May, daughter of H. B. S., birth of; family happy in
+her marriage; letter from H. B. S. to.
+
+Stowe, Harriet Beecher, birth and parentage of; first memorable
+incident, the death of her mother; letter to her brother Charles on
+her mother's death, incident of the tulip bulbs and mother's
+gentleness, first journey a visit to her grandmother, study of
+catechisms under her grandmother and aunt, early religious and
+Biblical reading, first school at the age of five, hunger after mental
+food, joyful discovery of "The Arabian Nights," in the bottom of a
+barrel of dull sermons, reminiscences of reading in father's library,
+impression made by the Declaration of Independence, appearance and
+character of her stepmother, healthy, happy child-life, birth of her
+half-sister Isabella and H. B. S.'s care of infant, early love of
+writing, her essay selected for reading at school exhibitions, her
+father's pride in essay, subject of essay, arguments for belief in the
+Immortality of the Soul, end of child-life in Litchfield, goes to
+sister Catherine's school at Hartford, describes Catherine Beecher's
+school in letter to son, her home with the Bulls, school friends,
+takes up Latin, her study of Ovid and Virgil, dreams of being a poet
+and writes "Cleon," a drama, her conversion, doubts of relatives and
+friends, connects herself with First Church, Hartford, her struggle
+with rigid theology, her melancholy and doubts, necessity of cheerful
+society, visit to grandmother, return to Hartford, interest in
+painting lessons, confides her religious doubts to her brother Edward,
+school life in Hartford, peace at last, accompanies her father and
+family to Cincinnati, describes her journey, yearnings for New England
+home, ill-health and depression, her life in Cincinnati and teaching
+at new school established by her sister Catherine and herself, wins
+prize for short story, joins "Semicolon Club," slavery first brought
+to her personal notice, attends Henry Ward Beecher's graduation,
+engagement, marriage, anti-slavery agitation, sympathy with Birney,
+editor of anti-slavery paper in Cincinnati, birth of twin daughters,
+of her third child, reunion of the Beecher family, housekeeping
+_versus_ literary work, birth of second son, visits Hartford,
+literary work encouraged, sickness in Lane Seminary, death of brother
+George, birth of third daughter, protracted illness and poverty,
+seminary struggles, goes to water cure, returns home, birth of sixth
+child, bravery in cholera epidemic, death of youngest child Charles,
+leaves Cincinnati, removal to Brunswick, getting settled, husband
+arrives, birth of seventh child, anti-slavery feeling aroused by
+letters from Boston, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," first thought of, writings
+for papers, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" appears as a serial, in book form, its
+wonderful success, praise from Longfellow, Whittier, Garrison,
+Higginson, letters from English nobility, _et seq._; writes "Key
+to Uncle Tom's Cabin," visits Henry Ward in Brooklyn, raises money to
+free Edmondson family, home-making at Andover, first trip to Europe,
+wonderful success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" abroad, her warm reception at
+Liverpool,; delight in Scotland; public reception and teaparty at
+Glasgow; warm welcome from Scotch people; touched by the "penny
+offering" of the poor for the slaves; Edinburgh soirée; meets English
+celebrities at Lord Mayor's dinner in London; meets English nobility;
+Stafford House; breakfast at Lord Trevelyan's; Windsor; presentation
+of bracelet; of inkstand; Paris, first visit to; _en route_ for
+Switzerland; Geneva and Chillon; Grindelwald to Meyringen; London,
+_en route_ for America; work for slaves in America;
+correspondence with Garrison, _et. seq_.; "Dred"; second visit to
+Europe; meeting with Queen Victoria; visits Inverary Castle; Dunrobin
+Castle; Oxford and London; visits the Laboucheres; Paris; _en
+route_ to Rome; Naples and Vesuvius; Venice and Milan; homeward
+journey and return; death of oldest son; visits Dartmouth; receives
+advice from Lowell on "The Pearl of Orr's Island"; "The Minister's
+Wooing"; third trip to Europe; Duchess of Sutherland's warm welcome;
+Switzerland; Florence; Italian journey; return to America; letters
+from Ruskin, Mrs. Browning, Holmes; bids farewell to her son; at
+Washington; her son wounded at Gettysburg; his disappearance; the
+Stowes remove to Hartford; Address to women of England on slavery;
+winter home in Florida; joins the Episcopal Church; erects schoolhouse
+and church in Florida; "Palmetto Leaves"; "Poganuc People"; warm
+reception at South; last winter in Florida; writes "Oldtown Folks";
+her interest in husband's strange spiritual experiences; H. B. S.
+justifies her action in Byron Controversy; her love and faith in Lady
+Byron; reads Byron letters; counsels silence and patience to Lady
+Byron; writes "True Story of Lady Byron's Life"; publishes "Lady Byron
+Vindicated"; "History of the Byron Controversy"; her purity of motive
+in this painful matter; George Eliot's sympathy with her in Byron
+matter; her friendship, with George Eliot dates from letter shown by
+Mrs. Follen; describes Florida life and peace to George Eliot; her
+interest in Mr. Owen and spiritualism; love of Florida life and
+nature; history of Florida home; impressions of "Middlemarch"; invites
+George Eliot to come to America; words of sympathy on Beecher trial
+from George Eliot, and Mrs. Stowe's reply; her defense of her
+brother's purity of life; Beecher trial drawn on her heart's blood;
+her mature views on spiritualism; her doubts of ordinary
+manifestations; soul-cravings after dead friends satisfied by Christ's
+promises; chronological list of her books; accepts offer from N. E.
+Lecture Bureau to give readings from her works; gives readings in New
+England; warm welcome in Maine; sympathetic audiences in
+Massachusetts; fatigue of traveling and reading at New London; Western
+reading tour; "fearful distances and wretched trains"; seventieth
+anniversary of birthday celebrated by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.; H. 0.
+Houghton's welcome; H. W. Beecher's reply and eulogy on sister;
+Whittier's poem at seventieth birthday; Holmes' poem; other poems of
+note written for the occasion; Mrs. Stowe's thanks; joy in the future
+of the colored race; reading old letters and papers; her own letters
+to Mr. Stowe and letters from friends; interest in Life of John Quincy
+Adams and his crusade against slavery; death of husband; of Henry Ward
+Beecher; thinks of writing review of her life aided by son, under
+title of "Pebbles from the Shores of a Past Life"; her feelings on the
+nearness of death, but perfect trust in Christ; glimpses of the future
+life leave a strange sweetness in her mind.
+
+Stowe, Harriet Beecher, twin daughter of H. B. S.
+
+Stowe, Henry Ellis, first son of H. B. S.; goes to Europe; returns to
+enter Dartmouth; death of; his character; his portrait; mourning for.
+
+Stowe, Samuel Charles, sixth child of H. B. S., birth of; death of;
+anguish at loss of; early death of.
+
+Study, plans for a.
+
+Sturge, Joseph, visit to.
+
+Suffrage, universal, H. W. Beecher advocate of.
+
+Sumner, Charles, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; letter to H. B. S. from.
+
+Sumter, Fort, H. W. Beecher raises flag on.
+
+"Sunny Memories"; date of.
+
+Sutherland, Duchess of; friend to America; at Stafford House presents
+gold bracelet; visit to; fine character; sympathy with on son's death;
+warm welcome to H. B. S.; death of; letters from H. B. S. to, on "Key
+to Uncle Tom's Cabin"; on death of eldest son.
+
+Sutherland, Lord, personal appearance of.
+
+Swedenborg, weary messages from spirit-world of.
+
+Swiss Alps, visit to; delight in.
+
+Swiss interest in "Uncle Tom".
+
+Switzerland, H. B. S. in.
+
+Sykes, Mrs. See May, Georgiana.
+
+Talfourd, Mr. Justice.
+
+Thackeray, W. M., Lowell on.
+
+Thanksgiving Day in Washington, freed slaves celebrate.
+
+"Times, London," on "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; on Mrs. Stowe's new dress; on
+"Dred"; Miss Martineau's criticism on.
+
+Titcomb, John, aids H. B. S. in moving.
+
+Tourgée, Judge A. W., his speech at seventieth birthday.
+
+Trevelyan, Lord and Lady; breakfast to Mrs. Stowe.
+
+Triqueti, Baron de, models bust of H. B. S.
+
+Trowbridge, J. T., writes on seventieth birthday.
+
+"True Story of Lady Byron's Life, The," in "Atlantic Monthly".
+
+Tupper, M. F., calls on H. B. S.
+
+"Uncle Tom's Cabin," description of Augustine St. Clair's mother's
+influence a simple reproduction of Mrs. Lyman Beecher's influence;
+written under love's impulse; fugitives' escape, foundation of story;
+popular conception of author of; origin and inspiration of; Prof.
+Cairnes on; Uncle Tom's death, conception of, letter to Douglas about
+facts, appears in the "Era,", came from heart, a religious work,
+object of, its power, begins a serial in "National Era," price paid by
+"Era," publisher's offer, first copy of books sold, wonderful success.
+praise from Longfellow, Whittier, Garrison, and Higginson, threatening
+letters, Eastman's, Mrs., rejoinder to, reception in England, "Times,"
+on, political effect of, book tinder interdict in South, "Key to Uncle
+Tom's Cabin," Jenny Lind's praise of, attack upon, Sampson Low upon
+its success abroad, first London publisher, number of editions sold in
+Great Britain and abroad, dramatized in U. S. and London, European
+edition, preface to, fact not fiction, translations of, German tribute
+to, George Sand's review, remuneration for, written with heart's
+blood, Swiss interest in, Mme. Belloe translates, "North American
+Review" on, in France, compared with "Dred," J. R. Lowell on, Mrs.
+Stowe rereads after war, later books compared with, H. W. Beecher's
+approval of, new edition with introduction sent to George Eliot, date
+of, Whittier's mention of, in poem on seventieth birthday, Holmes'
+tribute to, in poem on same occasion,
+
+Upham, Mrs., kindness to H. B. S., visit to,
+
+Venice,
+
+Victoria, Queen, H. B. S.'s interview with, gives her picture to Geo.
+Peabody,
+
+Vizetelly, Henry, first London publisher of "Uncle Tom's Cabin,"
+
+WAKEFIELD, reading at,
+
+Walnut Hills, picture of, and old home revisited,
+
+Waltham, audience inspires reader,
+
+Washington, Mrs. Stowe visits soldier son at,
+
+Washington on slavery,
+
+Water cure, H. B. S. at,
+
+"We and our Neighbors," date of,
+
+Webster, Daniel, famous speech of,
+
+Weld, Theodore D. in the anti-slavery movement,
+
+Western travel, discomforts of,
+
+Whately, Archbishop, letter to H. B. S. from,
+
+Whitney, A. D. T., writes poem on seventieth birthday,
+
+Whitney, Eli, and the cotton gin,
+
+Whittier's "Ichabod," a picture of Daniel Webster,
+
+Whittier, J. G., letter to W. L. Garrison from, on "Uncle Tom's
+Cabin," letter to H. B. S. from, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin," on "Pearl of
+Orr's Island," on "Minister's Wooing," poem on H. B. S's. seventieth
+birthday,
+
+Windsor, visit to,
+
+Womanhood, true, H. B. S. on intellect _versus_ heart,
+
+Woman's rights, H. W. Beecher, advocate of,
+
+Women of America, Appeal from H. B. S. to,
+
+Women's influence, power of,
+
+ZANESVILLE, description of,
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe
+by Charles Edward Stowe
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ***
+
+This file should be named hbstw10.txt or hbstw10.zip
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