LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe 
 
 EDITED BY ANNIE FIELDS 
 
 LONDON 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY (LIMITED) 
 
 FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E. C. 
 1898 
 
 \All rights reserved] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE editor of this book wishes to express her thanks to 
 the Kev. C. E. Stowe for the use of the Life of Mrs. Stowe 
 written by him while his mother was still at his side. His 
 sequence of material concerning her early days left little to 
 be desired ; but many letters and much new material have 
 since appeared, and the publishers believe that a complete 
 life, corresponding to the new and beautiful edition of Mrs. 
 Stowe s works lately issued by them, is wished for by the 
 public. 
 
 To Messrs. Harper and Brothers the editor is indebted for 
 the use of the Life of Dr. Lyman Beecher, passages from 
 which, chiefly those written by Mrs. Stowe, have been used 
 as necessary parts of her own history. 
 
 To the friends whose letters now appear for the first 
 time the thanks of the editor are especially due. 
 
 The moment has at last arrived when the story of Mrs. 
 Stowe s life can be given in full. The cause to which she 
 surrendered herself is not forgotten ; one by one the figures 
 of those who bore a part in the great sacrifice begin to 
 shine like bronze after the smelting, and stand, cut in im 
 perishable forms, upon the tablets of memory. Therefore 
 it is fitting that one who led the vaDguard, one who was 
 born nevertheless to carry neither gun nor bayonet, but to 
 bear upon her heart the weight of a great love for suffering 
 men, should now herself be known. 
 
 A. F. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 HAPTEE 
 
 I. ANCESTRY AND EARLY CHILDHOOD 
 
 II. LIFE AT LlTCHFIELD .... 
 
 III. BOSTON AND THE HARTFORD SCHOOL 
 
 IV. LIFE IN CINCINNATI AND MARRIAGE 
 V. BRUNSJ 
 
 SY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN AND FIRST VISIT TO 
 
 LAND 
 
 VII. PORTRAITURE: CORRESPONDENT 
 
 ROPE .......... 
 
 VIII. BEREAVEMENT: THIRD AND LAST VISIT TO EUROPE 
 
 IX. WAR 
 
 X. PRIVATE LIFE IN WAR-TIME 
 
 XI. LIFE IN FLORIDA 
 
 XII. PUBLIC READINGS: TRIAL OF HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 TJLQX 
 
 1 
 
 25 
 55 
 73 
 
 205 
 238 
 258 
 279 
 302 
 344 
 
 XIII. NEARING THE END . . 376 
 
 The photogravure frontispiece to this volume is from a bust of Mrs. 
 Stowe by Miss Durant in 1853. (See page 207.) 
 
LIFE AND LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ANCESTRY AND EARLY CHILDHOOD 
 
 THERE were generations of character and fine develop 
 ment behind the life of Mrs. Stowe. John Beecher and 
 his mother, the first of the race who came to this country, 
 eighteen years after the arrival of the Mayflower, were 
 of the company of Davenport, a distinguished clergyman 
 of London, under whose leadership came a rich and able 
 body of men and women with the serious intention of 
 founding a new colony. Mrs. Beecher was a good woman, 
 and useful to the company, therefore they gave her a lot 
 of land in New Haven, whither they soon betook them 
 selves. The equivalent of this land had been promised to 
 her husband before his death, which occurred on the eve 
 of their departure. Their first religious service was held 
 under a large oak upon this place, and there later the 
 house was built, called latterly the old Beecher house. 
 
 It is impossible to understand the development of gen 
 ius unless we regard the root from which it springs. We 
 wonder at the beauty of the rose, but we think little of 
 the bush which bore it until we find no other rose to equal 
 it, and then we say, Whence came this wonder! 
 
2 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 The Beecher race may justly be considered a noble one, 
 as we trace it from this beginning; strong in spirit as 
 well as in body, always readers and thinkers, always ani 
 mated with love of the public good, and holding it pre 
 dominant above private good. The grandfather of Mrs. 
 Stowe was "one of the best read men in New England; 
 well versed in astronomy, geography, and history, and in 
 the interests of the Protestant reformation. Old Squire 
 Roger Sherman, one of the signers of the Declaration of 
 Independence, used to say that he always calculated to see 
 Mr. Beecher as soon as he got home from Congress to talk 
 over the particulars." 
 
 Surely it is not often that one discovers such persistence 
 of traits and habits as in this family. One would seem 
 to be reading of Mrs. Stowe s father rather than her grand 
 father, as the history continues: "He always kept a num 
 ber of college students and of representatives to the Legis 
 lature as boarders, being fond of their conversation. He 
 often kept pace with his student boarders in their studies, 
 frequently spending his evenings in their rooms. He had 
 a tenacious memory for what he read, but was entirely 
 forgetful and careless as to his dress, hat, tools, etc." This 
 grandfather was not a preacher, nor a college-bred man. 
 He was a farmer and blacksmith and maker of tools, 
 employing a man to do the ordinary work of the shop. 
 Dr. Beecher used to say he himself was so like his father 
 that when his sister Esther grew old she often called him 
 "father" by mistake, instead of "brother." 
 
 The same strange absent-mindedness which we shall find 
 in Mrs. Stowe is spoken of as a trait in her grandfather s 
 character. "Your Aunt Esther," says Dr. Beecher, "has 
 known him at least twelve times to come in from the barn 
 and sit down on a coat pocket full of eggs, jump up and 
 say, Oh, wife ! Why, my dear, she would reply, I 
 do wonder you can put eggs in your pocket after you have 
 
ANCESTRY. 3 
 
 broken them so once. Well, he would say, * I thought 
 I should remember this time. 
 
 The same love of fun, the same suffering from depres 
 sion of spirits, possessed this grandfather as was seen in 
 his son and his grandchildren. Dr. Lyman Beecher s 
 -mother was of Scotch descent, a Miss Lyman. He says 
 of her: "She was a woman tall, well-proportioned, dignified 
 in her movements, fair to look upon, intelligent in conver 
 sation, and in character lovely. I was her only child. 
 She died of consumption two days after I was born. I 
 was a seven months child; and when the woman that 
 attended on her saw what a puny thing I was, and that 
 the mother could not live, she thought it useless to attempt 
 to keep me alive. I was actually wrapped up and laid 
 aside. But, after a while, one of the women thought she 
 would look and see if I was living, and, rinding I was, 
 concluded to wash and dress me, saying, It s a pity he 
 had n t died with his mother. So you see it was but by 
 a hair s breadth I got a foothold in this world." 
 
 One experience, testifying to the sincerity of heart of the 
 Beecher family, and to their clear judgment, was common 
 to father, son, and grandson, Henry Ward Beecher. They 
 all married women distinguished for intellect and character. 
 Whatever appreciation of grace and refinement may have 
 been theirs, their wives possessed qualities born of energy 
 of mind and piety of heart. Dr. Beecher grew up in his 
 uncle s family at Guilford, Connecticut. It was country 
 life indeed, but there was an excellent school where he 
 was very early told by the teacher to come up "next the 
 head," because he was the best reader in the school. His 
 pride at this announcement can be imagined. It dwelt 
 with him all his life, and came back to his memory when, 
 being too old to write himself, his children gathered round 
 and made him tell the story of his days. 
 
 "They say everybody knows about God naturally," 
 
4 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 continued the old man. "A lie. All such ideas are by 
 teaching. One Sunday evening, I was out playing. They 
 kept Saturday evening, and children might play on Sun 
 day evening as soon as they could see three stars. But I 
 was so impatient I did not wait for that. Bill H. saw me 
 and said : 
 
 " That s wicked; there ain t three stars. 
 
 " Don t care. 
 
 " God says you must n t. 
 
 "< Don t care. 
 
 " He 11 punish you. 
 
 " Well, if He does, I 11 tell Aunt Benton. 
 
 " Well, He s bigger than Aunt Benton, and He 11 put 
 you in the fire and burn you for ever and ever. 
 
 " That took hold. I understood what fire was and what 
 forever was. What emotion I had thinking, No end! no 
 end ! It has been a sort of mainspring ever since. 
 
 "Curious now, this thing of personal identity! Here 
 I am an old man, telling you this story about a little boy ; 
 and yet I feel I am the same person I was then." 
 
 But the continuation of this identity as we see it in 
 his son Henry Ward Beecher and in his daughter Harriet 
 makes the wonder of it still more living. How like in 
 character is that tale of Henry s childhood, when, being 
 very angry, he rushes from the house behind the barn and 
 after a pause, says to himself, "Damn it." Then he re 
 members that it is wicked to swear; what would become of 
 him! The thought was too horrible to be endured. Sweat 
 stood in great drops upon his forehead. After a while, he 
 could bear the solitude no longer and went back into the 
 house, but doubtless carrying with him an unhappy con 
 science for many a long day. 
 
 To show moral courage of a high order was common to 
 them all. Lyman Beecher went to college, although there 
 was very little money, his "father having married again, 
 
ANCESTRY 5 
 
 and the house being full of children. His uncle helped 
 him out; but he was very industrious, and made a good 
 deal of money, for that time, by his own exertions. He 
 heard a robber one night in his room, and waked just in 
 season to see him disappearing with some garments through 
 the window. Lyman Beecher had a hot chase, but caught 
 the thief, brought him back to his room, and made him 
 lie on the floor by his bed until morning, when he carried 
 him before the judge. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe asked her father once if he was never afraid 
 when he was a boy alone in the fields hoeing corn, and 
 one of the great summer thunderstorms broke over him. 
 "Not I. I wished it would thunder all day. I never 
 heard such thunder since, except once in the hills round 
 Marietta, Ohio." 
 
 When his college days were nearly over, he began to 
 spend a part of his vacations in Guilford, near the large 
 house and farm of General Andrew Ward. Here Roxana 
 Foote lived, whom he married after a courtship of two 
 years. He found her reading Sir Charles Grandison. 
 "She said she never meant to marry until she found his 
 like I presume she thought she had. All the new 
 works that were published at that day were brought out 
 to the old house at Nutplains, read and discussed in the 
 old spinning-mill. When Miss Burney s Evelina ap 
 peared, Sally Hill rode out on horseback to bring it to 
 Roxana. A great treat they had of it. There was the 
 greatest frolicking in that spinning- mill ! Roxana was queen 
 among those girls! 
 
 " I was made for action. The Lord drove me, but I was 
 ready. I have always been going at full speed. The fifty 
 years of my active life have been years of rapid develop 
 ment." 
 
 Mrs. Stowe said of her father: "He often expressed to 
 
6 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 me great displeasure at the publication of private diaries of 
 good men, especially if they were of a melancholy cast, or 
 those recording great alternations of ecstasy and gloom. 
 Indeed, for no other thing did he become more cele 
 brated than for his power of imparting hope to the de 
 sponding; and it was those dark and doubting hours of his 
 own early life painful as they were which furnished 
 him with the necessary knowledge for the guidance of 
 hundreds of sensitive and troubled spirits to the firm 
 ground of a cheerful, intelligent religious hope." He never 
 preached without his eye on his audience. He noticed 
 every change of countenance, every indication of awakened 
 interest; and these he immediately followed up by seeking 
 private conversation. His ardor in this pursuit was singu 
 lar and almost indescribable. He used to liken it to the 
 ardor of the chase. 
 
 Speaking of his wife Eoxana, Dr. Beecher said: "There 
 were some things about your mother s religious character 
 peculiar, and very satisfactory in the retrospect. She 
 thought herself converted when five or six years old. She 
 could scarcely remember the time, but that, in all her 
 childish joys and sorrows, she went to God in prayer. 
 She experienced resignation, if any one ever did. I never 
 saw the like, so entire, without reservation or shadow of 
 turning. In no exigency was she taken by surprise. She 
 was just there, quiet as an angel above. I never heard a 
 murmur; and if there ever was a perfect mind as respects 
 submission, it was hers. I never witnessed a movement of 
 the least degree of selfishness ; and if there ever was any 
 such thing in the world as disinterestedness, she had it." 
 
 Dr. Beecher married Koxana Foote in 1799, as soon as 
 possible after his settlement in the town of East Hampton, 
 Long Island. He was then twenty-four years old, full of 
 youthful energy, not to be daunted by the strange condi 
 tions of his new island home. 
 
HAKRIET BORN AT LITCHFIELD 7 
 
 The parish of East Hampton was still a wild and removed 
 spot when Dr. Beecher carried thither his young wife. 
 The place was first visited by white people under Hudson 
 eleven years before the arrival of the Mayflower at Ply 
 mouth. "They found an interminable beach of snowy 
 sand, on which the ocean never ceases to beat; dark for 
 ests, wild fowl in countless flocks, and throngs of admiring 
 and astonished savages. . . . When Dr. Beecher went to 
 this picturesque but wild spot a windmill stood at each 
 end of the one long street. There were no trees except a 
 line of poplars between two of the best houses, and a single 
 enormous elm which had been trimmed up to a head." 
 
 East Hampton was early settled by intelligent men, and 
 there was but one church, a large dignified building with 
 bell and clock, the finest on the island. In these early 
 days one fourth of the whales stranded on the beach were 
 always presented to the minister as a portion of his salary. 
 
 The part of the parish first settled was Gardiner s Island, 
 which was separated from the town by a bay four or five 
 miles wide. This island has never passed out of the 
 hands of the Gardiner family, and while Dr. Beecher was 
 at East Hampton he found true pleasure and companion 
 ship with the seventh heir, John Lyon Gardiner, whose 
 hospitable mansion was always ready to receive the young 
 minister. Here it was that Dr. Beecher and his wife 
 started in life. Here he planted an orchard, the first that 
 had been seen in that land, behind a pleasant house on the 
 grassy street very near to the tumbling sea. Here their 
 life of tireless industry went on. Mrs. Beecher added to 
 everything else a love of painting, and finished twenty-four 
 fine miniatures upon ivory at this period. But as children 
 came to them, the remoteness and the labor of their post 
 were too great, and they removed to Litchfield, Connecticut, 
 whither the minister had been "called." 
 
 Harriet Beecher was born in Litchfield, June 14, 1811. 
 
8 HAKKIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 This town was first settled in 1720 in a pleasant high 
 country among hills, lakes, and valleys. Evidently intel 
 ligent men founded also this settlement, because they were 
 stirring patriots during the war of the revolution, and were 
 visited by Washington, Lafayette, Rochambeau, and many 
 of the principal officers of the army. One of the chief 
 heroes of that time lived to be a parishioner of Dr. Beecher. 
 Also during his life in Litchfield and helping to make 
 the town famous, were, among others, Governor Oliver 
 Wolcott, Jr., a member of Washington s cabinet, John 
 Pierpont the poet, and Judge Reeve. These men became 
 intimate friends of Dr. Beecher; especially Judge Reeve, 
 who had founded in Litchfield a celebrated law school, to 
 which young men were sent from nearly every State in the 
 union. The Reverend Mr. Huntington, who preceded Dr. 
 Beecher, wrote of Litchfield: "It is a delightful village 
 on a fruitful hill, richly endowed with schools, both pro 
 fessional and scientific, with its remarkable governors and 
 judges, with its learned lawyers and senators, and represen 
 tatives both in the National and State departments, and 
 with a population enlightened and respectable. Litchfield 
 was now in its glory." 
 
 The meeting-house, of course, made a great impression 
 upon the child Harriet. She described it later in life in 
 her first book, called "The Mayflower: " "To my childish 
 eyes our old meeting-house was an awe-inspiring thing. To 
 me it seemed fashioned very nearly on the model of Noah s 
 Ark and Solomon s Temple, as set forth in the pictures in 
 my Scripture Catechism. ... Its double row of windows, 
 of which I knew the number by heart, its doors, with 
 great wooden quirls over them; its belfry, projecting out 
 at the east end; its steeple and bell, all inspired as much 
 sense of the sublime in me as Strasbourg Cathedral itself. 
 . . . But the glory in the execution of those good old 
 billowy compositions called fuguing tunes, where the four 
 
DEATH OF MRS. BEECHER 9 
 
 parts that compose the choir take up the song, and go 
 racing around one after another, each singing a different 
 set of words, till at length, by some inexplicable magic, 
 they all come together again, and sail smoothly out into a 
 rolling sea of harmony! I remember the wonder with 
 which I used to look from side to side when treble, tenor, 
 counter, and bass, were thus roaring and foaming, and it 
 verily seemed to me as if the psalm were going to pieces 
 among the breakers, and the delighted astonishment with 
 which I found that each particular verse did emerge whole 
 and uninjured from the storm." 
 
 Harriet Beecher was hardly four years old when her 
 mother died, leaving eight little children weeping round 
 her bed. Of these children two possessed what the world 
 calls genius. They were all more or less distinguished, 
 Catherine, the eldest, being a woman of remarkable char 
 acter. Harriet and Henry Ward were next to the young 
 est, always inseparable companions, always inspired with the 
 tenderest love and faith in each other to the end of life. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe says of her mother and of her touching de 
 parture from this world: "I was between three and four 
 years of age when our mother died, and my own personal 
 recollections of her are therefore but few. But the deep 
 interest and veneration that she inspired in all who knew 
 her was such that, during all my childhood, I was con 
 stantly hearing her spoken of, and, from one friend or 
 another, some incident or anecdote of her life was con 
 stantly being impressed on me. 
 
 "Mother was one of those strong, restful, yet widely 
 sympathetic natures, in whom all around seemed to find 
 comfort arid repose. She was of a temperament peculiarly 
 restful and peace-giving. Her union of spirit with God, 
 unruffled and unbroken even from early childhood, seemed 
 to impart to her an equilibrium and healthful placidity 
 that no earthly reverses ever disturbed. The communion 
 
10 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 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 sud 
 denly shut out alone in the dark. 
 
 " Her death occurred at a time when the New England 
 ministry were in a peculiar crisis of political and moral 
 trial, and the need of such a stay and support in his 
 household was more than ever felt. ... I asked him the 
 question whether he ever had any reason to believe that 
 the spirits of the blessed are ever permitted to minister to* 
 us in our earthly sorrows, ^nd he said, after a moment of 
 deep thought, I never but once had anything like it. It 
 was a time of great trial and obloquy, and I had been 
 visiting around in my parish, and heard many things here 
 and there that distressed me. I came home to my house 
 almost overwhelmed; it seemed as if I must sink under it. 
 I went to sleep in the north bedroom, the room where 
 your mother died. I dreamed that I heard voices and 
 footsteps in the next room, and that I knew immediately 
 it was Koxana and Mary Hubbard coming to see me. The 
 door opened, and Mary stayed without, but your mother 
 came in and came toward rne. She did not speak, but 
 she smiled on me a smile of heaven, and with that smile 
 all my sorrow passed away. I awoke joyful, and I was 
 light-hearted for weeks after. 
 
 "In my own early 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. 
 
BOX AN A FOOTE 11 
 
 "Another remembrance is this: Mother was an enthu 
 siastic 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 remem 
 ber rummaging these out of an obscure corner of the nur- 
 -sery one day when she was gone out, and being strongly 
 seized with the idea that they were good to eat, and 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 
 
 - w 
 
 the whole; and I recollect being somewhat disappointed in 
 the odd, sweetish taste, and thinking that onions were not 
 as nice as I had supposed. Then mother s serene face 
 appeared at the nursery door, and we all ran toward her, 
 and with one voice began to tell our discovery and achieve 
 ment. We had found this bSg 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 onion-roots, but roots of beauti 
 ful flowers; and if you had let them alone, ma would have 
 had 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 to the chil 
 dren one evening aloud Miss Edge worth 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, I remember a time when every one said she 
 was sick; when, if I went into the street, every one asked 
 me how my mother was; when I saw the shelves of the 
 closets crowded with delicacies which had been sent in for 
 her, and how I used to be permitted to go once a day into 
 
12 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 her room, where she sat bolstered up in bed, taking her 
 gruel. I have a vision of a very fair face, with a bright 
 red spot on each cheek, and a quiet smile as she offered 
 me a spoonful of her gruel; of our dreaming one night, 
 we little ones, that mamma had got well, and waking in 
 loud transports of joy, and being hushed down by some 
 one coming into the room. Our dream was indeed a true 
 one. She was forever well; but they told us she was 
 dead, and took us in to see what seemed so cold, and so 
 unlike anything we had ever seen or known of her. 
 
 " Then came the funeral. Henry was too little to go. 
 I remember his golden curls and little black frock, as he 
 frolicked like a kitten in the sun in ignorant joy. 
 
 "I remember the mourning dresses, the tears of the 
 older children, the walking to the burial ground, and some 
 body s speaking at the grave, and the audible sobbing of 
 the family; and then all was closed, and we little ones, to 
 whom it was so confused, asked the question where she 
 was gone, and would she never come back ? 
 
 "They told us at one time that she had been laid in the 
 ground, at another that she had gone to heaven; where 
 upon 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, and, lifting his curly 
 head with great simplicity, he answered, Why, I m going 
 to heaven to find ma. 
 
 "Although mother s bodily presence disappeared from 
 our circle, I think that 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 
 
CHARACTER OF MRS. BEECHER 13 
 
 that they constantly reflected some portion of it back upon 
 us. 
 
 "Even our portly old black washerwoman, Candace, 
 who came once a week to help off the great family wash, 
 would draw us aside, and, with tears in her eyes, tell us 
 of the saintly virtues of our mother. 
 
 "I recollect that at first the house was full of little 
 works of ingenuity, and taste, and skill, which had been 
 wrought by her hand, furniture adorned with painting ; 
 pictures of birds and flowers, done with minutest skill; fine 
 embroidery, with every variety of lace and cobweb stitch; 
 exquisite needle-work, which has almost passed out of 
 memory in our day. I remember the bobbin and pillows 
 with which she made black lace. Many little anecdotes 
 were told me among her friends of her ceaseless activity 
 and contrivance in these r-espects. 
 
 "One thing in her personal appearance every one spoke 
 of, that she never spoke in company or before strangers 
 without blushing. She was of such great natural sensi 
 tiveness and even timidity that, in some respects, she never 
 could conform to the standard of what was expected of a 
 pastor s wife. In the weekly female prayer-meetings she 
 could never lead the devotions. Yet it was not known 
 that anybody ever expressed criticism or censure on this 
 account. It somehow seemed to be felt that her silent 
 presence had more power than the audible exercises of an 
 other. Such impression has been given me by those who 
 have spoken of this peculiarity. 
 
 "There was one passage of Scripture always associated 
 with her in our minds in childhood ; it was this : Ye are 
 come unto Mount Zion, the city of the living God, to the 
 heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of 
 angels; to the general assembly and Church of the first 
 born, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. 
 
 " We all knew that this was what our father repeated to 
 
14 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 her when she was dying, and we often repeated it to each 
 other. It was to that we felt we must attain, though we 
 scarcely knew how. In every scene of family joy or sor 
 row, or when father wished to make an appeal to our 
 hearts which he knew we could not resist, he spoke of 
 mother. 
 
 "I remember still the solemn impression produced on 
 my mind when I was only about eight years old. I had 
 been violently seized with malignant scarlet fever, and lain 
 all day insensible, and father was in an agony of appre 
 hension for my life. I remember waking up just as the 
 beams of the setting sun were shining into the window, 
 and hearing his voice in prayer by my bedside, and of his 
 speaking of her blessed mother who is now a saint in 
 heaven, and wondering in my heart what that solemn 
 appeal might mean. 
 
 "I think it will be the testimony of all her sons that 
 her image stood between them and the temptations of 
 youth as a sacred shield; that the hope of meeting her in 
 heaven has sometimes been the last strand which did not 
 part in hours of fierce temptation; and that the remem 
 brance of her holy life and death was a solemn witness of 
 the truth of religion, which repelled every assault of skep 
 ticism, and drew back the soul from every wandering to 
 the faith in which she lived and died." 
 
 Of this sad year after her mother s death, Catherine 
 Beecher wrote : " The experience of this year in our family 
 history was similar to that of a landscape in sunshine sud 
 denly overcast with heavy clouds. The gentle, contented, 
 smiling, healthful mother was gone, and the sunlight of 
 our home departed with her to return no more." 
 
 Dr. Beecher married twice again during his long life, 
 but Roxana was the wife of his young heart and the true 
 companion of his thought. His piety and purpose found 
 support and development in her companionship. 
 
CHILDHOOD 15 
 
 The prayer of this mother s heart was, that all her sons 
 should devote themselves to the ministry, and this wish 
 was accomplished. What her prayer for her daughters 
 may have been we cannot know, but her influence was such 
 that she left, as Mrs. Stowe always believed, an indelible 
 impression upon her own life. 
 
 Doubtless it was a recognition of Harriet s sensitive 
 nature, and the harm which might be done by leaving her 
 in the shadow of the family grief, which led her aunt to 
 carry her away to Nutplains, after her mother s death, 
 to make a long visit. It was good for her to be there, 
 although the intellectual food seems to have been rather 
 strong for her years. A love of wit and humor was as 
 natural to her as to her grandmother, and, as we have seen, 
 they enjoyed much together. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe writes of this visit: "Among my earliest 
 recollections are those of a visit to Nutplains immediately 
 after my mother s death. Aunt Harriet Foote, from 
 whom I was named, who was with mother during all her 
 last sickness, took me home to stay with her. I can now 
 remember, at the close of what seemed to me a long day s 
 ride, arriving after dark at a lonely little white farmhouse, 
 and being brought into a large parlor where a cheerful 
 wood fire was crackling, partly burned down into great 
 heavy coals. 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. But I could feel that this dear old grand 
 mother received me with a heart full of love and sorrow. 
 I recall still her bright white hair, the benign and tender 
 expression of her venerable face, and the great gold ring 
 she wore, which seemed so curious to my childish eyes. 
 It was her wedding-ring, as she often told me afterward. 
 There was a little tea-table set out before the fire, and 
 Uncle George came in from his farm- work, and sat down 
 with grandma and Aunt Harriet to tea. 
 
16 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 "After supper I remember grandma s reading prayers, 
 as was her custom, from a great prayer-book, which was 
 her constant companion. To this day certain portions of 
 the evening service never recur to me without bringing up 
 her venerable image and the tremulous tones of her aged 
 voice, which made that service have a different effect on 
 me from any other prayers I heard in early life. 
 
 " Then I remember being put to bed by my aunt in a 
 large room, on one side of which stood the bed appropri 
 ated to her and me, and on the other that of my grand 
 mother. The beds were curtained with a printed India 
 linen, which had been brought home by my seafaring 
 uncle; and I recollect now the almost awe-struck delight 
 with which I gazed on the strange mammoth plants, with 
 great roots and endless convolutions of branches, in whose 
 hollows appeared Chinese summer-houses, adorned with 
 countless bells, and perched jauntily aloft, with sleepy- 
 looking Mandarins smoking, and a Chinaman attendant 
 just in the act of ringing some of the bells with a hammer. 
 Also here and there were birds bigger than the mandarins, 
 with wide-open beaks just about to seize strange-looking 
 insects; and a constant wonder to my mind was why the 
 man never struck the bells, nor the bird ever caught the 
 insect. 
 
 "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 
 Englishwoman 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, 
 
LIFE AT NUTPLAINS 17 
 
 to sew and to knit at regular hours, to go to church on 
 Sunday and make all the responses, and to come home and 
 be catechised. 
 
 "I remember those catechisings, when she used to place 
 my little cousin Mary and myself bolt upright at her knee, 
 while black Dinah and Harvey 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 which always pleased me, particularly 
 when applied to them, as it insured their calling me Miss 
 Harriet, and treating me with a degree of consideration 
 which I never enjoyed in the more democratic circle at 
 home. 
 
 "I became a proficient in the Church Catechism, and 
 gave my aunt great satisfaction by the old-fashioned grav 
 ity and steadiness with which I learned to repeat it. 
 
 "As my father was a Congregationalist minister, I be 
 lieve Aunt Harriet, though the highest of High-Church 
 women, felt some scruples of delicacy as to whether it was 
 desirable my religious education should be entirely out of 
 the sphere of my birth, and therefore, when the catecheti 
 cal exercise was finished, and my cousin, who was a lamb 
 of the true Church, dismissed, she would say to me, 
 Niece, you have to learn another catechism, because your 
 father is a Presbyterian minister, and would therefore 
 endeavor to make me commit to memory the Assembly s 
 Catechism. 
 
 "At this lengthening of exercises I secretly murmured. 
 I was rather pleased at the first question in the Church 
 Catechism, which is certainly quite level to any child s 
 capacity, * What is your name 1 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 1 as vastly more 
 
18 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 difficult for me to remember. 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 leaxn the 
 Presbyterian Catechism when she went home. 
 
 "In her own private heart my aunt did not consider my 
 father an ordained minister; and, as she was a woman 
 who always acted up to her beliefs, when on a visit to our 
 family she would walk straight past his meeting-house, as 
 she always called it, to the little Episcopal churchy where 
 the Gospel was dispensed in what she considered an orderly 
 manner. It was a triumph of principle, for she was very 
 fond and proud of father, and had a lively, acute mind 
 peculiarly fitted to appreciate his preaching, which she 
 would often have been very glad to hear. 
 
 "She generally contrived, in speaking of these subjects 
 before me, to restrain herself, and probably was not aware 
 of the sharpness with which little ears sometimes attend to 
 conversations which are not meant for them to hear, and 
 perhaps was entirely unaware that I pondered in my mind 
 a declaration I once heard her make, that * many persons 
 out of the Episcopal Church would be saved at last, but 
 that they were resting entirely on uncovenanted mercy. 
 
 "I really think grandma stood a little in awe of Aunt 
 Harriet. Occasionally she would give me privately her 
 opinion of her when she was out of the room, opinions 
 always very charming in my eyes, because they took my 
 part in every childish grief, and in all those disciplinary 
 sorrows which Aunt Harriet often thought the wisest ex 
 pression of love to little girls. When I broke my needles, 
 tore my clothes, lost my thimble, slipped out of the house 
 and sauntered by the river when I should have been sew- 
 
AUNT HARRIET 19 
 
 ing, grandmother was always an accessory after the fact; 
 and when she could not save me from condign punishment, 
 would comfort me with the private assurance that I was 
 a poor child, and that Harriet needed punishing a great 
 deal more herself than I did. 
 
 "It is said that such indulgences are dangerous to chil 
 dren, but I cannot remember that they ever did me any 
 harm. In the main, I thought that justice and right were 
 on Aunt Harriet s side; yet I loved grandma for the exces 
 sive tenderness that blinded her to all my faults. I did 
 not really believe her sweet and comfortable sayings to be 
 exactly true; I only saw how much she must love, to be 
 so blind to all my faults. 
 
 " But grandmother was not by any means a weak woman. 
 Her mind was active and clear; her literary taste just, her 
 reading extensive. My image of her in later years is of 
 one always seated at a great round table covered with 
 books, among which nestled her work-basket. Among 
 these, chiefest, her large Bible and prayer-book; Lowth s 
 "Isaiah," which she knew almost by heart; Buchanan s 
 "Besearches in Asia;" "Bishop Heber s Life;" and Dr. 
 Johnson s " Works," which were great favorites with 
 her. . . . 
 
 "We used to read much to her: first many chapters of 
 the Bible, in which she would often interpose most graphic 
 comments, especially in the Evangelists, where she seemed 
 to have formed an idea of each of the apostles so distinct 
 and dramatic that she would speak of them as acquaintances. 
 She would always smile indulgently at Peter s remarks. 
 There he is again, now; that s just like Peter. He s al 
 ways so ready to put in ! She was fond of having us read 
 Isaiah to her in Lowth s translation, of which she had read 
 with interest all the critical notes. 
 
 "Concerning Dr. Johnson s Christian character, she once 
 informed me, with some degree of trouble, that she had 
 
20 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 had a discussion with my brother Edward, and that he 
 thought that President Edwards was a better Christian 
 than Dr. Johnson. He sent me his life to read, she 
 said, and I have read it, and he was a very good Chris 
 tian; but, after all, I doubt if he could have written better 
 prayers than these of Dr. Johnson s. Now just hear this, 
 she would say, and then she would read prayers which 
 that great master of English, that deep and melancholy 
 nature, certainly made wonderfully forcible and touching. 
 
 "Sometimes, in later years, after my brothers and I 
 were grown up, we, being trained Congregationalists, 
 would raise with our uncle and with Aunt Harriet the 
 controverted questions of our respective faiths, which 
 would be mooted with great vim. Grandma was always 
 secretly uneasy lest these controversies should lead to any 
 real disunion of feeling. 
 
 " On one occasion, after her hearing had become slightly 
 impaired, a wordy battle had been raging round her for 
 some time, which, as she could not understand what we 
 said, and as we seemed to be getting more and more ear 
 nest, moved her solicitude very deeply. At last she called 
 one of my brothers to her, and said, * There, now, if you 
 have talked long enough, I want you to read something to 
 me, and gave him that eloquent chapter in Isaiah which 
 begins, Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory 
 of the Lord is risen upon thee ; and goes on to describe 
 the day when the whole earth shall be full of the glory of 
 the Lord. Her face, while he* was reading, was like a 
 transparency, luminous with internal light. At the close 
 she said, Bishop Heber tells in his memoirs how, off in 
 India, there were four ministers of Christ met together, 
 all of different denominations, and they read this chapter 
 together, and found then there was one thing they all 
 agreed in exactly. 
 
 "We all looked at each other and smiled, for we were 
 
ttUTPLAINS 21 
 
 conscious that our discussion had been in the most perfect 
 love and good will. 
 
 J 
 
 " One other thing must be confessed : in her secret heart 
 grandma was, and always remained, a Tory. In her this 
 took no aggressive form. It was only the clinging of a 
 loving and constant nature to that which in childhood and 
 youth she had learned to love and venerate. On these 
 points she always observed a discreet silence in the family 
 circle, but made a confidante of me in my early childhood. 
 When, after hearing King George abused roundly one day 
 by some patriotic American, she took the first opportunity 
 to tell me privately that she did n t believe that the king 
 was to blame ; and then she opened her old English 
 prayer-book, and read in a trembling voice the old prayers 
 for the king and queen, and all the royal family, and told 
 me how it grieved her when they stopped reading them in 
 all the churches. She supposed it was all right, she said, 
 but she couldn t bear to give it up; they might have some 
 other way to settle it. 
 
 "When afterward I ventured to say something to Aunt 
 Harriet about it, she laughingly asserted that grandma was . 
 always an old Tory among them. I think, in the recollec 
 tions of all the children, our hours spent at Nutplains were 
 the golden hours of our life. Aunt Harriet had precisely 
 the turn which made her treasure every scrap of a family 
 relic and history. And even those of the family who had 
 passed away forever seemed still to be living at Nutplains, 
 so did she cherish every memorial, and recall every action 
 and word. There was Aunt Catherine s embroidery; there 
 were Aunt Mary s paintings and letters; there the things 
 which Uncle Samuel had brought from foreign shores; 
 frankincense from Spain, mats and baskets from Mogadore, 
 and various other trophies locked in drawers, which Aunt 
 Harriet displayed to us on every visit. 
 
22 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 "At Nutplains our mother, lost to us, seemed to live 
 again. We saw her paintings, her needlework, and heard 
 a thousand little sayings and doings of her daily life. And 
 so dear was everything that belonged to grandmother and 
 our Nutplains home, that the Episcopal service, even 
 though not well read, was always chosen during our visits 
 there in preference to our own. It seemed a part of Nut- 
 plains and of the life there. 
 
 " There was also an interesting and well-selected library, 
 and a portfolio of fine engravings; and, though the place 
 was lonely, yet the cheerful hospitality that reigned there 
 left them scarcely ever without agreeable visitors. 
 
 "The earliest poetry that I ever heard were the ballads 
 of Walter Scott, which Uncle George repeated to Cousin 
 Mary and me the first winter that I was there. The story 
 of the black and white huntsman made an impression on 
 me that I shall never forget. His mind was so steeped in 
 poetical literature that he could at any time complete any 
 passage in Burns or Scott from memory. As for graver 
 reading, there was Rees s Cyclopedia, in which I suppose 
 he had read every article, and which was often taken down 
 when I became old enough to ask questions, and passages 
 pointed out in it for my reading. 
 
 "All these remembrances may explain why the lonely 
 little white farmhouse under the hill was such a Paradise 
 to us, and the sight of its chimneys after a day s ride was 
 like a vision of Eden. In later years, returning there, I 
 have been surprised to find that the hills around were so 
 bleak and the land so barren; that the little stream near 
 by had so few charms to uninitiated eyes. To us, every 
 juniper-bush, every wild sweetbrier, every barren sandy 
 hillside, every stony pasture, spoke of bright hours of love, 
 when we were welcomed back to Nutplains as to our mo 
 ther s heart." 
 
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 23 
 
 During this first long visit after her mother s death 
 Harriet distinguished herself by committing to memory 
 a wonderful assortment of hymns, poems, and scriptural 
 passages, which enabled her, possessed as she was of a 
 very retentive mind, to use and quote these valuable ad 
 juncts of her writings during her mature life. She was 
 only five years old the following winter when she and 
 Henry, hand in hand, walked every day to Ma am Kil- 
 bourne s school. He was a chubby little fellow, and the 
 weather appeared to make no difference to either of them. 
 With the ability to read, Mrs. Stowe said, in after years, 
 there seemed to germinate in herself the intense literary 
 longing that belonged to her from that time. The desire 
 for expression so early developed reminds us of her father 
 in his great age, when he exclaimed, "I am sick, because I 
 cannot reveal the feelings of my heart ; " and again when 
 he took up his rusty fiddle, thrummed the strings, played 
 a note or two unsatisfied, and said, "If I could only play 
 what I hear inside of me, I d beat Paganini." In those 
 days there were few books for children. Harriet used to 
 go searching hungrily through barrels of old sermons and 
 pamphlets stored in a corner of the garret, looking for 
 something "good to read." It seemed to her there were 
 thousands of the most unintelligible things. An appeal 
 "on the unlawfulness of a man marrying his wife s sister" 
 turned up as 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 vol 
 ume 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 
 
24 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 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 this way the nature of the child developed itself, 
 as the leaf quietly breaks away from the sheath that bound 
 it, as the fruit at last forms and ripens on the bough. 
 She was not an easy child for the careful women of the 
 household to deal with, but her father held her in his heart 
 and watched her growth. Grandmother Foote, too, as we 
 have seen, had her own ideas of Aunt Harriet s strict 
 methods of government, and the dreaming child found shel 
 ter under her wing at Nutplains as well as in her father s 
 study at Litchfield. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 LIFE AT LITCHFIELD 
 
 Two years after the death of his wife, Dr. Beecher mar 
 ried Miss Harriet Porter of Portland, Maine. He had the 
 good fortune to meet this lady in Boston, whither he had 
 gone to preach, and where she was visiting a married sister. 
 Miss Porter belonged to the best society of the time. One 
 of her brothers was first governor of the new State of Maine, 
 one was twice appointed minister to Great Britain. Of 
 herself it was said that "her facility, gracefulness, amenity, 
 and dignity were proverbial, and were the same in all her 
 relations. Her sense of rectitude, order, and propriety 
 was exquisite." Mrs. Stowe describes the advent of the 
 new mother : 
 
 "I was about six years old, and slept in the nursery 
 with my two younger brothers. We knew that father was 
 gone away somewhere on a journey, and was expected 
 home, and therefore the sound of a bustle or disturbance 
 in the house more easily awoke us. We heard father s 
 voice in the entry, and started up in our little beds, crying 
 out as he entered our room, Why, here s pa! A cheer 
 ful voice called out from behind him, And here s ma! 
 
 "A beautiful lady, very fa*ir, with bright blue eyes, and 
 soft auburn hair bound round with a black velvet bandeau, 
 came into the room smiling, eager, and happy-looking, and, 
 coming up to our beds, kissed us, and told us that she 
 loved little children, and that she would be our mother. 
 We wanted forthwith to get up and be dressed, but she 
 pacified us with the promise that we should find her in 
 the morning. 
 
26 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1819 
 
 "Never did stepmother make a prettier or sweeter 
 impression. The next morning, I remember, 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 been rough, red- cheeked, hearty country chil 
 dren, honest, obedient, and bashful. She was peculiarly 
 dainty and neat in all her ways and arrangements; and 
 I remember I used to feel breezy, and rough, and rude in 
 her presence. We felt a little in awe of her, as if she 
 were a strange princess rather than our own mamma; but 
 her voice was very sweet, her ways, of moving and speak 
 ing very graceful, and she took us up in her lap and let us 
 play with her beautiful hands, which seemed wonderful 
 things, made of pearl, and ornamented with strange rings." 
 
 There is a letter from the second Mrs. Lyman Beecher 
 describing each of the children of Roxana Foote. She 
 characterizes every one with a discerning touch. Towards 
 the last she says: "Harriet and Henry come next, and 
 they are always hand in hand. They are as lovely children 
 as I ever saw ; amiable, affectionate, and very bright. " 
 
 There is a fragment of a letter written two years later 
 by one of the children, which gives a glimpse of the family : 
 
 "Mamma is well, and don t laugh any more than she 
 used to. Catherine goes on just as she always did, making 
 fun for everybody. George is as usual. Harriet makes 
 just as many wry faces, is just as odd, and loves to be 
 laughed at as much as ever. Henry does not improve 
 much in talking, but speaks very thick. Charles is the 
 1 most mischievous little fellow I ever knew. He seems to 
 do it for the very love of it; he is punished and punished 
 again, but it has no effect. He is the same honest little 
 boy, and I love him dearly. Poor little Fred has been 
 quite unwell, but has got better now; he grows more and 
 more interesting every day. Now for the boarders. Miss 
 M is just as amiable* and lovely as when you was here. 
 
1820] THE NEW MOTHER 27 
 
 Miss B loves fun still. Miss W and L same 
 
 as usual. Miss C the most obliging and useful of the 
 
 family. To conclude, the old cat has got the consump 
 tion." 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher, in later life, described the effect 
 upon his childish mind of the new mother: "My dear 
 mother not one that gave me birth, for I do not re 
 member to have ever seen her face, but she that brought 
 me up, she that did the office-work of a mother, if ever 
 a mother did; she that, according to her ability, performed 
 to the uttermost her duties was a woman of profound 
 veneration, rather than of a warm and loving nature. 
 Therefore her prayer was invariably a prayer of deep yearn 
 ing reverence. I remember well the impression which it 
 made on me. There was a mystic influence about it. A 
 sort of sympathetic hold it had upon me, but still I always 
 felt when I went to prayer, as though I were going into a 
 crypt, where the sun was not allowed to come; and I 
 shrunk from it." 
 
 In these days of continual oversight of the education of 
 children it is well to recall the long hours Harriet Beecher 
 was allowed to pass in her father s study. We recognize 
 the good to the developed man which comes from solitude 
 and opportunity to make his own discoveries; what then 
 shall we say of the value to a child, whose mind receives 
 impressions like that of a sensitive plate, when allowed to 
 range freely and seek the thing he loves. 
 
 "High above all the noise, of the house," wrote Mrs. 
 Stowe, "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 
 loveci to retreat and niche myself down in a quiet corner 
 with my favorite books around me. I had a kind of shel- 
 
28 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1820 
 
 tered 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 
 Four-fold 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 under 
 stand things like these filled me with a vague awe, and I 
 wondered if I should 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 won 
 derful 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." 
 
 About this time, somebody seems to have read aloud 
 the Declaration of Independence. " I had never heard it 
 before," wrote Mrs. Stowe, "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 inju 
 ries that had driven my nation to this course to feel myself 
 
1821] EARLY DEVELOPMENT 29 
 
 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 genera 
 tion 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 the little girl was ten or eleven years old, she 
 went to the Litchfield Academy, where the teachers appear 
 to have won her love and confidence. Mrs. Stowe says of 
 this period, " Much of the training and inspiration of my 
 early days consisted not in the things 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 Rheto 
 ric, * Allison on Taste, all full of most awakening sugges 
 tions 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." 
 
 It was evidently one of Harriet s earliest joys at school 
 to be allowed to write compositions. Her young soul was 
 already overflowing with thought and feeling. She was 
 only twelve years old when a school exhibition took place, 
 whereat three of the best compositions were read aloud be 
 fore "all the literati of Litchfield." 
 
 "When my turn came," said Mrs. Stowe in after years, 
 
30 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1822 
 
 "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 mo 
 ment of my life. There was no mistaking father s face 
 when he was pleased, and to have interested him was past 
 all juvenile triumphs." 
 
 The subject, "Can the Immortality of the Soul be 
 proved by the Light of Nature," was indeed an extraordi 
 nary one to be treated by a child of twelve years, but the 
 manner of the treatment is that of undeveloped genius. 
 Her arguments, drawn from history, from Addison, and 
 other writers, show no mental indigestion. At the end 
 she says: "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 winter of her eleventh year Harriet passed at Nut- 
 plains, where Catherine wrote to her in February : 
 
 "I suppose you will be very glad to hear you have a 
 little sister at home. We have no name for her yet. 
 
 "We all want you at home very much, but hope you 
 are now where you will learn to stand and sit straight, and 
 hear what people say to you, and sit still in your chair, 
 and learn to sew and knit well, and be a good girl in every 
 particular; and if you don t learn while you are with Aunt 
 Harriet, I am afraid you never will." 
 
 The time had now come when Harriet was to leave 
 Litchfield, not permanently at first, but as it proved, she 
 was there very little after her twelfth year. She loved 
 the place ! it made an indelible impression on her mind, 
 and in later life she says of it : 
 
 "My earliest recollections of Litchfield are those of its 
 beautiful scenery, which impressed and formed my mind 
 
1823] LOVE OF NATURE 31 
 
 long before I had words to give names to my emotions, or 
 could analyze my mental processes. I remember standing 
 often in the door of our house and looking over a distant 
 horizon, where Mount Tom reared its round blue head 
 against the sky, and the Great and Little Ponds, as they 
 were called, gleamed out amid a steel-blue sea of distant 
 pine groves. To the west of us rose a smooth-bosomed 
 hill called Prospect Hill; and many a pensive, wondering 
 hour have I sat at our play-room window, watching the 
 glory of the wonderful sunsets that used to burn them 
 selves out, amid voluminous wreathings, or castellated 
 turrets of clouds, vaporous pageantry proper to a moun 
 tainous region. 
 
 "Litchfield sunsets were famous, because perhaps 
 watched by more appreciative and intelligent eyes than the 
 sunsets of other mountain towns around. The love and 
 notice of nature was a custom and habit of the Litchfield 
 people; and always of a summer evening the way to Pro 
 spect Hill was dotted with parties of strollers who went up 
 thither to enjoy the evening. 
 
 " On the east of us lay another upland, called Chestnut 
 Hills, whose sides were wooded with a rich growth of 
 f orest- trees ; whose changes of tint and verdure, from the 
 first misty tints of spring green, through the deepening 
 hues of summer, into the rainbow glories of autumn, was 
 a subject of constant remark and of pensive contemplation 
 to us children. We heard them spoken of by older people, 
 pointed out to visitors, and came to take pride in them as 
 - a sort of birthright. 
 
 " Seated on the rough granite flag-steps of the east front 
 door with some favorite book, if by chance we could find 
 such a treasure, the book often fell from the hand while 
 the eyes wandered far off into those soft woody depths 
 with endless longings and dreams, dreams of all those 
 wild fruits, and flowers, and sylvan treasures which some 
 
32 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1823 
 
 Saturday afternoon s ramble had shown us lay sheltered in 
 those enchanted depths. There were the crisp apples of 
 the pink azalea, honeysuckle apples we called them ; there 
 were scarlet wintergreen berries; there were pink shell 
 blossoms of trailing arbutus, and feathers of ground pine; 
 there were blue, and white, and yellow violets, and crows- 
 foot, and bloodroot, and wild anemone, and other quaint 
 forest treasures. 
 
 "Between us and those woods lay the Bantam Eiver, 
 a small, clear rocky stream, pursuing its way through 
 groves of pine and birch, now so shallow that we could 
 easily ford it by stepping from stone to stone, and again, 
 in spots, so deep and wide as to afford bathing and swim 
 ming room for the young men and boys of the place. 
 Many and many a happy hour we wandered up and down 
 its tangled, rocky, and ever-changing banks, or sat under 
 a thick pine bower, on a great granite slab called Solitary 
 Bock, round which the clear brown waters gurgled. 
 
 "At the north of the house the horizon was closed in 
 with distant groves of chestnut and hickory, whose waving 
 tops seemed to have mysteries of invitation and promise to 
 our childhood. I had read, in a chance volume of Ges- 
 ner s Idyls, of tufted groves, where were altars to Apollo, 
 and where white-robed shepherds played on ivory flutes, 
 and shepherdesses brought garlands to hang round the 
 shrines, and for a long time I nourished a shadowy impres 
 sion that, could I get into those distant northern groves, 
 some of these dreams would be realized. These fairy vi 
 sions were, alas! all dissolved by an actual permission to . 
 make a Saturday afternoon s excursion in these very groves, 
 which were found to be used as goose-pastures, and to be 
 destitute of the flowery treasures of the Chestnut Hills 
 forests. 
 
 "My father was fond of excursions with his boys into 
 the forests about for fisKing and hunting. At first I re- 
 
1824] COUNTRY PLEASURES 33 
 
 member these only as something pertaining to father and 
 the older boys, they being the rewards given for good con 
 duct. I remember the regretful interest with which I 
 watched their joyful preparations for departure. They 
 were going to the Great Pond to Pine Island to that 
 wonderful blue pine forest which I could just see on the 
 horizon, and who knew what adventures they might meet ! 
 Then the house all day was so still; no tramping of laugh 
 ing, wrestling boys, no singing and shouting ; and per 
 haps only a long seam on a sheet to be oversewed as the 
 sole moans of beguiling the hours of absence. And then 
 dark night would come down, and stars look out from the 
 curtains, and innuendoes would be thrown out of children 
 being sent to bed, and my heart would be rent with an 
 guish at the idea of being sent off before the eventful ex 
 pedition had reported itself. And then what joy to hear 
 at a distance the tramp of feet, the shouts and laughs of 
 older brothers ; and what glad triumph when the successful 
 party burst into the kitchen with long strings of perch, 
 roach, pickerel, and bullheads, with waving blades of 
 sweet-flag, and high heads of cat-tail, and pockets full of 
 young wintergreen, of which a generous portion was be 
 stowed always upon me. These were the trophies, to my 
 eyes, brought from the land of enchantment. And then 
 what cheerful hurrying and scurrying to and fro, and 
 waving of lights, and what cleaning of fish in the back 
 shed, and what calling for frying-pan and gridiron, over 
 which father solemnly presided; for to his latest day he 
 held the opinion that no feminine hand could broil or fry 
 fish with that perfection of skill which belonged to himself 
 alone, as king of woodcraft and woodland cookery. 
 
 " I was always safe against being sent to bed for a happy 
 hour or two, and patronized with many a morsel of the 
 supper which followed, as father and brothers were gener 
 ally too flushed with victory to regard very strictly dull 
 household rules. 
 
34 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1824 
 
 " Somewhat later, I remember, were the expeditions for 
 chestnuts and walnuts in the autumn, to which all we 
 youngsters were taken. I remember the indiscriminate 
 levy which on such occasions was made on every basket 
 the house contained, which, in the anticipated certainty of 
 a great harvest to bring home, were thought to be only 
 too few. I recollect the dismay with which our second 
 mother, the most ladylike and orderly of housekeepers, 
 once contemplated the results of these proceedings in her 
 well arranged linen-room, where the contents of stocking 
 baskets, patch baskets, linen baskets, yarn baskets, and 
 thread baskets were all pitched into a promiscuous heap by 
 that omnipotent marauder, Mr. Beecher, who had accom 
 plished all this confusion with the simple promise to bring 
 the baskets home full of chestnuts. 
 
 "What fun it was, in those golden October days, when 
 father dared William and Edward to climb higher than he 
 could, and shake down the glossy chestnuts ! To the very 
 last of his life, he was fond of narrating an exploit of his 
 climbing a chestnut-tree that grew up fifty feet without 
 branches slantwise over a precipice, and then whirling him 
 self over the abyss to beat down the chestnuts for the chil 
 dren below. That was a thing, he said, that I would n t 
 let any of the boys do. And those chestnuts were had 
 in everlasting remembrance. I verily believe that he val 
 ued himself more on some of these exploits than even his 
 best sermons. 
 
 "My father was famous for his power of exciting family 
 enthusiasm. Whenever he had a point to carry or work 
 to be done, he would work the whole family up to a pitch 
 of fervent zeal, in which the strength of each one seemed 
 quadrupled. For instance: the wood of the family used 
 to be brought in winter on sleds, and piled up in the yard, 
 exactly over the spot where father wished in early spring 
 to fix his cucumber and melon frames; for he always made 
 
1823] HER FATHER S INFLUENCE 35 
 
 it a point to have cucumbers as soon as Dr. Taylor, who 
 lived in New Haven, and had much warmer and drier land ; 
 and he did it by dint of contrivance and cucumber frames, 
 as aforesaid. Of course, as all this wood was to be cut, 
 split, and carried into the wood-house before an early gar 
 den could be started, it required a miracle of generalship 
 to get it done, considering the immense quantity required 
 in that climate to keep an old windy castle of a house com 
 fortable. How the axes rung, and the chips flew, and the 
 jokes and stories flew faster; and when all was cut and 
 split, then came the great work of wheeling in and piling; 
 and then I, sole little girl among so many boys, was sucked 
 into the vortex of enthusiasm by father s well- pointed de 
 claration that he wished Harriet was a boy, she would 
 do more than any of them. 
 
 "I remember putting on a little black coat which I 
 thought looked more like the boys, casting needle and 
 thread to the wind, and working almost like one possessed 
 for a day and a half, till in the afternoon the wood was 
 all in and piled, and the chips swept up. Then father 
 tackled the horse into the cart, and proclaimed a grand 
 fishing party down to Little Pond. And how we all floated 
 among the lily- pads in our boat, christened The Yellow 
 Perch, and every one of us caught a string of fish, which 
 we displayed in triumph on our return. 
 
 "There were several occasions in course of the yearly 
 housekeeping requiring every hand in the house, which 
 would have lagged sadly had it not been for father s in 
 spiring talent. One of these was the apple-cutting season, 
 in the autumn, when a barrel of cider apple-sauce had to 
 be made, which was to stand frozen in the milk-room and 
 cut out from time to time in red glaciers, which, when 
 duly thawed, supplied the table. The work was done in 
 the kitchen, an immense brass kettle hanging over the 
 deep fireplace, a bright fire blazing and snapping, and all 
 
36 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1823 
 
 hands, children and servants, employed on the full baskets 
 of apples and quinces which stood around. I have the 
 image of my father still as he sat working the apple-peeler. 
 Come, George, he said, I 11 tell you what we 11 do to 
 make the evening go off. You and I 11 take turns, and 
 we 11 see who 11 tell the most out of Scott s novels ; for 
 those were the days when the Tales of my Landlord and 
 * Ivanhoe had just appeared. And so they took them, 
 novel by novel, reciting scenes and incidents, which kept 
 the eyes of all the children wide open, and made the work 
 go on without flagging. 
 
 "Occasionally he would raise a point of theology on 
 some incident narrated, and ask the opinion of one of his 
 boys, and run a sort of tilt with him, taking up the wrong 
 side of the question for the sake of seeing how the young 
 ster could practice his logic. If the party on the other 
 side did not make a fair hit at him, however, he would 
 stop and explain to him what he ought to have said. 
 The argument lies so, my son; do that, and you ll trip 
 me up. Much of his teaching to his children was in this 
 informal way. 
 
 "In regard to Scott s novels, it will be remembered 
 that, at the time they came out, novel writing stood at so 
 low an ebb that most serious-minded people regarded novel 
 reading as an evil. Such a thing as a novel was not to be 
 found in our house. And I well recollect the despairing 
 and hungry glances with which I used to search through 
 father s library, meeting only the same grim sentinels. 
 There, to be sure, was Harmer on Solomon s Song, which 
 I read, and nearly got by heart, because it told about the 
 same sort of things I had once read of in the Arabian 
 Nights. And there was the State of the Clergy during 
 the French Revolution, which had horrible stories in it 
 stranger than fiction. Then there was a side-closet full 
 of documents, a weltering ocean of pamphlets, in which I 
 
1824] SIR WALTER SCOTT 37 
 
 dug and toiled for hours to be repaid by disinterring a 
 delicious morsel of a Don Quixote that had once been a 
 book, but was now lying in forty or fifty disjecta membra^ 
 amid Calls, Appeals, Sermons, Essays, Keviews, Eeplies, 
 and Rejoinders. The turning up of such a fragment 
 seemed like the rising of an enchanted island out of an 
 ocean of mud. 
 
 "Great was the light and joy, therefore, when father 
 spoke ex cathedra: George, you may read Scott s novels. 
 I have always disapproved of novels as trash, but in these 
 is real genius and real culture, and you may read them. 
 And we did read them; for in one summer we went 
 through { Ivanhoe seven times, and were both of us able 
 to recite many of its scenes, from beginning to end, verba 
 tim. 
 
 "One of father s favorite resorts was Aunt Esther s 
 room, about half a minute s walk from our house. How 
 well I remember that room ! a low-studded parlor, looking 
 out on one side into a front yard shaded with great elm- 
 trees; on the other, down a green hillside, under the 
 branches of a thick apple-orchard. The floor was covered 
 with a neat red and green carpet; the fireplace resplendent 
 with the brightest of brass andirons, small hanging book 
 shelves over an old-fashioned mahogany bureau; a cush 
 ioned rocking chair; a neat cherry tea-table; and an old- 
 fashioned looking-glass, with a few chairs, completed the 
 inventory. I must not forget to say that a bed was turned 
 up against the wall, and concealed in the daytime by a 
 decorous fall of chmtz drapery. 
 
 "Aunt Esther herself, with her sparkling hazel eyes, 
 her keen, ready wit, and never-failing flow of anecdote 
 and information, interested us even more than the best 
 things she could produce from her closet. She had read 
 on all subjects chemistry, philosophy, physiology, but 
 
38 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1824 
 
 especially on natural history, where her anecdotes were 
 inexhaustible. If any child was confined to the house by 
 sickness, her recounting powers were a wonderful solace. 
 I once heard a little patient say, Only think ! Aunt 
 Esther has told me nineteen rat stories all in a string ! 
 In fact we thought there was no question we could ask her 
 that she could not answer. 
 
 " I remember once we said to her, Aunt Esther, how 
 came you to know so much about every sort of thing ? 
 * Oh, said she, you know the Bible says the works of the 
 Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure 
 therein. Now I happened to have pleasure therein, and 
 so I sought them out. 
 
 " It was here that father came to read her his sermons, 
 or the articles that he was preparing for the Christian 
 Spectator ; for he was a man who never could be satisfied 
 to keep anything he wrote to himself. First he would 
 read it to mother, and then he would say, I think now 
 I 11 go over and read it to Esther. 
 
 "It was in Aunt Esther s room that, I first found a stray 
 volume of Lord Byron s poetry, which she gave me one 
 afternoon to appease my craving for something to read. It 
 was the Corsair. I shall never forget how it astonished 
 and electrified me, and how I kept calling to Aunt Esther 
 to hear the wonderful things that I found in it, and to 
 ask what they could mean. Aunt Esther, what does it 
 mean " One I never loved enough to hate " ? 
 
 " Oh, child, it s one of Byron s strong expressions. 
 
 "I went home absorbed and wondering about Byron; 
 and after that I listened to everything that father and 
 mother said at the table about him. I remember hearing 
 father relate the account of his separation from his wife; 
 and one day, hearing him say, with a sorrowful countenance, 
 as if announcing the death of some one very interesting 
 to him, My dear, Byron is dead gone. After being 
 
1824] BYEON S DEATH 39 
 
 awhile silent, he said, * Oh, I m sorry that Byron is dead. 
 I did hope he would live to do something for Christ. 
 What a harp he might have swept ! The whole impres 
 sion made upon me by the conversation was solemn and 
 painful. 
 
 "I remember taking my basket for strawberries that after 
 noon, and going over to a strawberry field on Chestnut 
 Hill. But I was too dispirited to do anything; so I lay 
 down among the daisies, and looked up into the blue sky, 
 and thought of that great eternity into which Byron had 
 entered, and wondered how it might be with his soul. 
 
 "The next Sunday father preached a funeral sermon 
 on this text: The name of the just is as brightness, but 
 the memory of the wicked shall rot. The main idea of 
 the sermon was that goodness only is immortal, and that 
 no degree of brilliancy and genius can redeem vice from 
 perishing. He spoke of the different English classics, and 
 said that the impurities of Sterne and Swift had already 
 virtually consigned them almost to oblivion. Then after 
 a brief sketch of Byron s career, and an estimate of his 
 writings, he said that some things he had written would 
 be as imperishable as brass; but that the impurities of 
 other portions of his works, notwithstanding the beauty of 
 the language, would in a few years sink them in oblivion. 
 He closed with a most eloquent lamentation over the 
 wasted life and misused powers of the great poet. 
 
 "I was eleven years old at the time, and did not gen 
 erally understand father s sermons, but this I understood 
 perfectly, and it has made an impression on me that has 
 never been effaced. 
 
 "If it be recollected that the audience to whom he 
 preached was largely composed of the students of the law 
 school, sons of the first families from all parts of the 
 Union, and graduates of the first colleges, and the pupils 
 of the female school, also from the first families in all parts 
 
40 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1824 
 
 of the nation, and that the Byronic fever was then at its 
 height among the young people, it will be seen how valu 
 able may have been the moral discriminations and sugges 
 tions of such a sermon. 
 
 "Father often said, in after years, that he wished he 
 could have seen Byron, and presented to his mind his 
 views of religious truth. He thought if Byron could 
 only have talked with Taylor and me, it might have got 
 him out of his troubles ; for never did men have more 
 utter and complete faith in the absolute verity and power 
 of what they regarded as Gospel doctrine than my father 
 and the ministers with whom he acted. And though he 
 firmly believed in total depravity, yet practically he never 
 seemed to realize that people were unbelievers for any 
 other reason than for want of light, and that clear and able 
 arguments would not at once put an end to skepticism. 
 
 "With all that was truly great among men he felt a 
 kindred sympathy. Genius and heroism would move him 
 even to tears. I recollect hearing him read aloud Milton s 
 account of Satan s marshaling his forces of fallen angels 
 after his expulsion from heaven. The description of 
 Satan s courage and fortitude was read with such evident 
 sympathy as quite enlisted me in his favor, and in the 
 passage, 
 
 Millions of spirits, for his fault amerced 
 Of heaven, and from eternal splendors flung 
 For his revolt, yet faithful how they stood, 
 Their glory withered; as when heaven s fire 
 Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines, 
 With singed top, their stately growth, though bare, 
 Stands on the blasted heath. He now prepared 
 To speak; whereat their doubled ranks they bend 
 From wing to wing, and half inclose him round 
 With all his peers: attention held them mute. 
 Thrice he essayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn, 
 Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth, 
 
 On reaching this point father burst into tears himself, and 
 the reading ended. 
 
1824] DR. BEECHER S SYMPATHY WITH GENIUS 41 
 
 "He had always, perhaps on the same principle, an in 
 tense admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte, which he never 
 cared to disguise. He was wont to say that he was a 
 glorious fellow, and ought to have succeeded. The criti 
 cisms on his moral character, ambition, unscrupulousness, 
 etc., he used to meet by comparing him with the Bourbons 
 whom he supplanted, not a whit better morally, and 
 imbecile to boot. Of the two, he thought it better that 
 a wise and able bad man should reign than a stupid and 
 weak bad man. He never altogether liked Dr. Channing s 
 article on Napoleon. Why rein his character up, he 
 said, by the strict rules of Christian perfection, when you 
 never think of applying it to the character of any other 
 ruler or general of the day 1 
 
 "The fact is, that his sympathy with genius was so in 
 tense, especially executive genius, that it created what 
 might almost be called a personal affection toward the great 
 leader, and with it was blent somewhat of the anxiety of 
 the pastor, the habitual bishop of souls, for a gifted but 
 erratic nature. His mind was greatly exercised about the 
 condition of the emperor s soul, and he read every memoir 
 emanating from St. Helena with the earnest desire of 
 shaping out of those last conversations some hope for his 
 eternal future. 
 
 "Father was very fond of music, and very susceptible 
 to its influence; and one of the great eras of the family 
 in my childish recollection, is the triumphant bringing 
 home from New Haven a fine-toned upright piano, which 
 a fortunate accident had brought within the range of a 
 poor country minister s means. The ark of the covenant 
 was not brought into the tabernacle with more gladness 
 than this magical instrument into our abode. 
 
 "Father soon learned to accompany the piano with his 
 violin in various psalm tunes and Scotch airs, and brothers 
 
42 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1824 
 
 Edward and William to perform their part on the flute. 
 So we had often domestic concerts, which, if they did not 
 attain to the height of artistic perfection, filled the house 
 with gladness. 
 
 "One of my most decided impressions of the family as 
 it was in my childish days was of a great household in 
 spired by a spirit of cheerfulness and hilarity, and of my 
 father, though pressed and driven with business, always 
 lending an attentive ear to anything in the way of life and 
 social fellowship. My oldest sister, whose life seemed a 
 constant stream of mirthfulness, was his favorite and com 
 panion, and he was always more than indulgent toward 
 her pranks and jokes." 
 
 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 en 
 tered the school there were not more than twenty-five 
 scholars in it, but it afterwards numbered its pupils by 
 the hundreds. The schoolroom 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 wai 
 
1824] SCHOOL DAYS 43 
 
 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. 
 
 "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 satis 
 faction. 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 wel 
 come. One was Catherine Ledyard Cogswell, daughter of 
 the leading and best-loved of Hartford physicians. The 
 other was Georgiana May, daughter of a most lovely Chris 
 tian woman who was a widow. 
 
 "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." 
 
 For a girl of her age this drama is indeed remarkable. 
 
44 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1824 
 
 The little books in which the fragments of the play were 
 written are now before me, and I can seem to see the 
 young girl exciting herself over the scenes as they appeared 
 to her imagination. The following extracts will give a 
 hint of her growing power. The play is prefaced by a map 
 of the ground around Olympia, drawn by her own hand. 
 She indicates the situation of the city, the temple of Ju 
 piter, the sacred olive-tree, whence victors were crowned, 
 the way of the processions, the treasurer s house, the 
 Hippodrome, the seats of the judges, Alphseus River, and 
 much beside. 
 
 The drama opens in a street of Rome. 
 
 Enter LENTULUS, LUCULLUS, and others. 
 Lentulus. And so you missed the banquet t is a pity ! 
 You would have seen a new sight in those days. 
 Lucullus. Why was t uncommon ? 
 Len. Jupiter, that it was ! why, this same Cleon, 
 He is a perfect prince in entertainments. 
 
 Such show of plates and cups both gold and silver, 
 Such flaming rainbows of all colored stones, 
 Such wine, such music. . . . 
 Luc. And &o the emperor himself was there. 
 
 He takes to this young lord with special favor. 
 
 We shall live twice as fast while he is here. 
 Len. By Bacchus then we shall be lived to death. 
 I m almost out of breath with living now. 
 
 Luc. Clec-ii seeks pleasure with a ravening thirst. 
 
 Diversion is his labor and he works 
 With hand and foot and soul both night and day 
 He throws out money with so flush a hand 
 As makes e en Nero s waste seem parsimony. 
 
1825] POETIC EXPRESSION 45 
 
 SCENE. Cleon s house. An apartment splendidly fur 
 nished. Cleon reclining on a couch. 
 Enter SLAVE. 
 
 Slave. My lord, an aged man doth wait to see you. 
 Cleon. Well, have him up. [Exit Slave. 
 
 In nature s name what now ! 
 
 Enter DIAGORAS. 
 
 Cleon. Ha! may I trust my eyes, Diagoras! 
 
 Dia. I am Diagoras if thou art Cleon. 
 
 Cleon. Why then thou art, but wherefore eye me so ? 
 Sit down and contemplate me at your leisure. 
 
 Dia. Thou dost not seem the same that once I knew. 
 
 Cleon. Why, that s the truth for since that time, good 
 
 sire 
 
 Nature hath made me present of ten years, 
 And much hath been rubbed off or out of me 
 In the rough jostle of this worthy world. 
 
 I pray you to sit down. 
 
 Dia. There is no seat. 
 
 Cleon. Why, thou hast lost thy eyes, good sire, I think ; 
 
 Thou st a fair choice between some thirty couches, 
 Phrygian and Graecian and of every name. 
 Dia. Oh, then these beds adorned with pearls and gold 
 Are made to sit on. Pray you pardon me ; 
 I am a simple man, used to plain things. 
 
 Cleon. Ah, I divine thou art displeased, good master. 
 
 As it is there is no choice between two evils : 
 Either to rest thy philosophic feet 
 Upon this most profanely glittering floor 
 Which as thou seest is all inlaid with gems, 
 Or rest thyself on these aforesaid beds. 
 Nay, I but jested ; look not sad, good father, 
 Thou knowest Cleon s reckless tongue of old ; 
 I do assure thee of a hearty welcome. 
 And pray you sit that I may see thee longer. 
 
 [Seats him on a couch. 
 Dia. But I am sad for what I see and hear. 
 
46 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1825 
 
 I hear thou art the common talk for waste, 
 
 And that in riot and loose luxury 
 
 Thou dost outstrip even these degenerate days. 
 
 And thou companion of the very scum, 
 
 The very dross and dregs of all mankind; 
 Cleon. Which is the Emperor ! 
 Dia. Be that as it may, such is the tale of thee ; 
 
 Which I discredited until I came 
 
 To look upon thee with my personal eyes \ 
 
 And I have questioned much . . . 
 
 Is this the Athenian Cleon ? Is this he 
 
 Who drank philosophy and worshiped virtue ? 
 
 This he who triumphed in the Olympic race 
 
 Followed by wondering eyes ? . . . 
 
 Rememberest thou the glory of those days ? 
 
 Cleon. Good master ! I am even as you see, 
 A most degenerate and apostate thing 
 Convicted utterly. . . . 
 
 Dia. But canst thou tamely sink into a brute ? 
 
 Cleon. T is but anticipating transmigration. 
 And then, if ever I am called to that 
 I shall behave the more respectably 
 For having practiced somewhat in this world. 
 
 Dia. I do not wish to hear thy mockery. 
 
 Oh, could thy noble brother from the dead 
 Look up, how would his high-born spirit burn 
 To see thee groveling in this filthy sty. 
 Cleon [much moved]. 
 
 Tis well! Tis well! Thou shouldst have spoke 
 
 of him 
 
 My brother . . . 
 
 You find me, it is true, embedded here, 
 Sunk as you say in this luxurious slough. 
 
 Would that there were no vestige of high hopes, 
 No ghosts of h.appier moments to return, 
 
1825] CLEON 47 
 
 No need to labor in such desperate case. 
 
 It is my curse that I have had all things. 
 
 The things that satisfy the common crowd 
 I have possessed and desperately striven 
 To bend my soul to satisfaction with them. 
 
 Scene changes. 
 
 And what said Cleon ? Steady as Heaven 
 He answered with a decorous majesty 
 Declaring in so many words his purpose, 
 And willing to abide whate er should come. 
 Why, Nero could have stood a fiery answer, 
 But this severe composure madded him. 
 
 His face grew livid and he stamped his foot 
 And bade the slaves bring in the torture. 
 The worst of us were scarce prepared for that. 
 
 SCENE: CLEON, NERO. 
 Cleon, weak and faint, led in by two solditrt. 
 
 Nero. Sit down, Lord Cleon. 
 
 Cleon. I can stand. 
 
 Nero. My lord, we have bethought us since last night, 
 Regretting much that reverence for the gods 
 By thee attacked so fired our mind with zeal 
 As to outstep the limits of our mercy. 
 We would that gentler measures had been tried 
 Or thine avowal in less open day, 
 Less in the very teeth of our commands. 
 
 Cleon. Grieve not, my liege, for you have scarcely wronged 
 me. 
 
 Nero. There have been few frequenters of our court 
 On whom our eye hath borne such kind regard. 
 Thyself doth know how we have chosen thee 
 To be the prime companion of our revels, 
 
48 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1825 
 
 From which hath grown a friendship of whose strength 
 We knew not till of late ; for when last night, 
 The fumes of wine dispelled and ourselves cool, 
 Our very heart was shaken with remorse. 
 
 Nero will ask thee pardon of his wrong ; 
 Thy friend and not thy prince behold in him. 
 
 Cleon. My sovereign, Cleon hath no way complained. 
 
 Nero. But here, my lord, our mind is much perplexed. 
 We have forbid and interdict this faith 
 As what we have good cause to know is ill, 
 Infecting men with pestilential fumes, 
 Transforming them to haters of the Gods. 
 
 We would give tolerance to the freest thought 
 Wert not that we have lately given to justice 
 The sect and faith which thou canst not embrace 
 Save gainst our face against our very laws. 
 
 We are thy friend and not disposed to hear 
 
 That which might chafe us to severity, 
 
 Of which the gods do know we ve had enough. 
 
 My lord, we cannot think that you will hold it. 
 We are persuaded of your better reason 
 To be a follower of a crazy Jew. 
 Cleon [starting up~\. 
 
 I could sit still to hear myself reviled, 
 But not my sovereign .... 
 I will not hold the right of drawing breath 
 Unless 
 Nero. These are most decorous fruits of holy faith ! 
 
 Cleon. I stand rebuked, my lord, both before thee 
 
 And Him who is thy King no less than mine, 
 For whose sake I would reverence all forms. 
 
 Nero. Thou art resolved to trespass on forbearance, 
 Yet we will still forbear and seek to conquer 
 
1825] DRAMATIC GIFT 49 
 
 By mildness more than force. . . . 
 
 Since this name moves you, we will say no more. 
 
 What need we say. Suppose you be a Christian, 
 
 Why need all nature know it ; be you quiet, 
 
 You shall have private tolerance ; hold your peace 
 
 And worship what you will out of my sight. 
 
 Clean. But then, if I am questioned of my faith ? 
 Nero. Art thou so versed in smooth decoying phrase 
 
 And cannot turn off blank enquiry? 
 
 But we can put you in a post of honor 
 So that all men shall wink upon thy will. 
 
 Cleon. My lord, I scarce can trust myself to answer, 
 
 Since I have heard such degradation named. 
 In place of open bold apostasy, 
 
 Thou dost propose an hourly, daily lie. 
 
 It is my settled purpose while I live 
 To leave no word or argument untried 
 To win all men to reverence Him. 
 
 "I filled blank book after blank book, 77 Mrs. Stowe 
 says, "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 Kest. 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 my 
 self in heaven. I was at the same time very much inter- 
 
50 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1825 
 
 ested in Butler s Analogy, for Mr. Brace used to lecture 
 on such themes when I was at Miss Pierce a 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 premed 
 itated 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 
 
1825] THE SECOND BIRTH 51 
 
 sorrows with a love unwearied by faults, unchilled by in 
 gratitude, 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 Iris passionate 
 appeal, l 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 1 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, her son says in his 
 valuable compilation of Mrs. Stowe s Letters and Jour 
 nals, 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 
 
52 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1826 
 
 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, 
 in Boston. In a letter to her grandmother Foote at Guil- 
 ford, dated Hartford, March 4, 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 Tues 
 day, 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 pro 
 gress 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 contem 
 plated step. The good man listened attentively to the 
 child s simple and modest statement of Christian expe 
 rience, 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 
 
CATHERINE BEECHER 53 
 
 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 four 
 teen 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 sin 
 ful?" 
 
 "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 strug 
 gle : I do nothing right. I yield to temptation almost as 
 soon as it assails me. My deepest feelings are very eva 
 nescent. 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." 
 
 At this period the influence of her sister Catherine, the 
 eldest of Dr. Beecher s children, may be clearly seen. 
 
 Miss Beecher was a woman of singular and original 
 power, and from her earliest years exercised strong sway 
 over the excitable poetic nature of this younger sister. 
 Her own character had been strengthened by much sorrow. 
 At the age of twenty-two, having become engaged to Pro 
 fessor Fisher of Yale College, her lover was lost at sea, 
 
54 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1826 
 
 the ship which was to have borne him to England being 
 wrecked on the Irish coast. 
 
 "Without this incident," writes the Kev. C. E. Stowe, 
 " * 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 diffi 
 culties 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. " 
 
 Catherine s bravery was only equalled by her family 
 affection; she lent herself to her younger sister s interests 
 with peculiar zeal, and took her into the school she had 
 founded, where as pupil and teacher Harriet passed the 
 early years of her young womanhood. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 BOSTON AND THE HARTFORD SCHOOL 
 
 FOR several years Dr. Beecher had seen himself running 
 aground in Litchfield financially. Therefore when an invi 
 tation came from Boston, urging his presence in that city 
 as a last and saving hope for orthodoxy, he made up his 
 mind to leave the pleasant places which had become dear to 
 him and turn to other fields. His letter of " request for 
 dismission " gives a wonderfully frank description of his 
 household affairs. He read it in full to his congregation. 
 He begins : " When I gave myself to God in the Gospel of 
 his Son, it was done with the following views : That all 
 expectation of accumulating property for myself and family 
 be relinquished, leaving it to God in his own way to take 
 care of me when sickness or age should supersede active 
 labor. ... I never expected or desired to give my chil 
 dren anything but their own minds and faculties, properly 
 cultivated and prepared for active usefulness. . . . With 
 these views I gave myself to the ministry, first at East 
 Hampton, on Long Island, with- a salary of three hundred 
 dollars and my firewood, which, after five years, was raised 
 to four hundred dollars ; and then, as my family increased, 
 proving incompetent, at the end of another five years I 
 obtained a dismission, and settled in this place, May 29, 
 1810, upon a salary of eight hundred dollars, with an un 
 derstanding that I might calculate upon a voluntary supply 
 of wood. Early after my settlement, my wife (of beloved 
 memory) informed me from year to year that my income 
 did not meet the unavoidable expenses of the family, and 
 advised me to communicate the fact to the society." 
 
 Dr. Beecher continues : " I replied that I had come 
 
56 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1826 
 
 hither with the determination of removing no more, and 
 that in my judgment the condition of the society forbade 
 a request for the increase of my salary." He then gives 
 in detail the efforts made by his wife, who used all her 
 little fortune in the attempt to take boarders. This ven 
 ture was a total loss. The two elder children were then 
 teaching, and were able to turn their earnings into the 
 family coffer, but the sons were all to be educated for the 
 ministry, as they showed no talent for anything but study. 
 The utmost economy was of no avail, and after much suf 
 fering, when they were at the lowest ebb of their fortunes, 
 a letter came from Boston, urging Dr. Beecher to become 
 the pastor of the Hanover Street Church. 
 
 "For several days and nights, while agitated by this 
 subject, I endured what I shall not attempt to describe. 
 ... I hope you will do me the justice to believe that I 
 have endeavored to conduct uprightly, and in the fear of 
 God, and that the friendship between us, which has been 
 confirmed by the joys and the sorrows of fifteen years, may 
 not all in a moment be sacrificed, but that you will extend 
 to me in this heart-breaking moment the consolation of 
 believing that I have not forfeited your confidence, your 
 affection, and an interest in your prayers." 
 
 In after life, Mrs. Stowe said of this Boston era: "It 
 was the high noon of my father s manhood, the flood- tide 
 of his powers; and a combination of circumstances in the 
 history of Massachusetts brought him in to labor there just 
 as a whole generation were on the return-wave of a great 
 moral reaction. The strict theocracy founded by the 
 Puritans in the State of Massachusetts had striven by all 
 the ingenuity of legislation and institution to impress the 
 Calvinistic seal indelibly on all the future generations of 
 Massachusetts, so that no man of other opinions should 
 minister in the church, or bear office in the State. As in 
 Connecticut, so in Massachusetts, a reaction had come in 
 and forced open the doors of the State, and rent the sole 
 
1826] THEOLOGICAL POSITION 57 
 
 power from the clergy; but the revolution had gone deeper 
 and farther and extended to ideas and theologies. . . . 
 The party, called for convenience Unitarian, . . . con 
 sisted of persons of the most diverse and opposite shades 
 of opinion, united only in the profession of not believing 
 Calvinism as taught by the original founders of Massachu 
 setts. . . . 
 
 "Calvinism or Orthodoxy was the despised and perse 
 cuted form of faith. It was the dethroned royal family 
 wandering like a permitted mendicant in the city where it 
 once had held court, and Unitarianism reigned in its stead. 
 
 "All the literary men of Massachusetts were Unitarian. 
 All the trustees and professors of Harvard College were 
 Unitarians. All the elite of wealth and fashion crowded 
 Unitarian churches. The judges on the bench were Uni 
 tarian, giving decisions by which the peculiar features of 
 church organization, so carefully ordained by the Pilgrim 
 Fathers, had been nullified. The church, as consisting, 
 according to their belief, in regenerate people, had been 
 ignored, and all the power had passed into the hands of 
 the congregation. This power had been used by the 
 majorities to settle ministers of the fashionable and reign 
 ing type in many of the towns of Eastern Massachusetts. 
 The dominant majority entered at once into possession of 
 churches and church property, leaving the orthodox minor 
 ity to go out into schoolhouses or town halls, and build 
 their churches as best they could. Old foundations estab 
 lished by the Pilgrim Fathers for the perpetuation and 
 teaching of their own views in theology were seized upon 
 and appropriated to the support of opposing views. A 
 fund given for preaching an annual lecture on the Trinity 
 was employed for preaching an annual attack upon it, and 
 the Hollis professorship of divinity at Cambridge was em 
 ployed for the furnishing of a class of ministers whose sole 
 distinctive idea was declared warfare with the ideas and 
 intentions of the donor. 
 
58 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1826 
 
 "So bitter and so strong had been the reaction of a 
 whole generation against the too stringent bands of their 
 fathers, such the impulse with which they broke from 
 the cords with which their ancestors sought to bind them 
 forever. But in every such surge of society, however 
 confident and overbearing, there lies the element of a 
 counter reaction, and when Dr. Beecher came to Boston 
 this element had already begun to assert itself. 
 
 "He had not been in Boston many weeks before every 
 leisure hour was beset by people who came with earnest 
 intention to express to him those various phases of weary, 
 restless, wandering desire and aspiration proper to an ear 
 nest people whose traditional faith has been broken up, 
 but who have not outlived the necessity of definite and 
 settled belief. From minds of every class, in every circle 
 of society, the most fashionable and the most obscure, these 
 inquirers were constantly coming with every imaginable 
 theological problem, from the inspiration of the Bible out 
 through all the minutest ramifications of doctrinal opinion 
 or personal religious experience. . . . 
 
 "The effect of all this on my father s mind was to keep 
 him at a white heat of enthusiasm. Within a stone s 
 throw of our door was the old Copp s Hill bury ing-ground, 
 where rested the bones of the Puritan founders; and, 
 though not a man ordinarily given to sentiment or to visit 
 ing of graves, we were never left to forget in any prayer 
 of his that the bones of our fathers were before our door. 
 
 " His family prayers at this period, departing from the 
 customary forms of unexcited hours, became often upheav- 
 ings of passionate emotion such as I shall never forget. 
 * Come, Lord Jesus, he would say, here where the bones 
 of the fathers rest, here where the crown has been torn 
 from thy brow, come and recall thy wandering children. 
 Behold thy flock scattered on the mountain these sheep, 
 
1827] DR. BEECHER S HABITS 59 
 
 what have they done ? Gather them, gather them, good 
 Shepherd, for their feet stumble upon the dark mountains. 
 
 " Dr. Beecher kept a load of sand in his cellar, to which 
 he would run at odd intervals and shovel vigorously, throw 
 ing it from one side the cellar to the other, on his favor 
 ite theory of working off nervous excitement through the 
 muscles, and his woodpile and Woodsaw were inestimable 
 means to the same end. He had, also, in the back yard, 
 parallel bars, a single bar, ladder, and other simple gym 
 nastic apparatus, where he would sometimes astonish his 
 ministerial visitors by climbing ropes hand over hand, 
 whirling over on the single bar. 
 
 "The time that he spent in actual preparation for a 
 public effort was generally not long. If he was to preach 
 in the evening he was to be seen all day talking with 
 whoever would talk, accessible to all, full of everybody s 
 affairs, business, and burdens, till an hour or two before 
 the time, when he would rush up into his study (which he 
 always preferred should be the topmost room of the house), 
 and, throwing off his coat, after a swing or two with the 
 dumb-bells to settle the balance of his muscles, he would 
 sit down and dash ahead, making quantities of hieroglyphic 
 notes on small, stubbed bits of paper, about as big as the 
 palm of his hand. The bells would begin to ring and still 
 he would write. They would toll loud and long, and his 
 wife would say, He will certainly be late, and then would 
 be running up and down stairs of messengers to see that 
 he was finished, till, just as the last stroke of the bell was 
 dying away, he would emerge from the study with his coat 
 very much awry, come down the stairs like a hurricane, 
 stand impatiently protesting while female hands that ever 
 lay in wait adjusted his cravat and settled his coat collar, 
 calling loudly the while for a pin to fasten together the 
 
60 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1827 
 
 stubbed little bits of paper aforesaid, which being duly 
 dropped into the crown of his hat, and hooking wife or 
 daughter like a satchel on his arm, away he would start 
 on such a race through the streets as left neither brain nor 
 breath till the church was gained. Then came the pro 
 cess of getting in through crowded aisles wedged up with 
 heads, the bustle, and stir, and hush to look at him, as, 
 with a matter-of-fact, business-like push, he elbowed his 
 way through them and up the pulpit stairs." 
 
 This period in Boston was the time when Harriet felt 
 she drew nearer to her father than at any other period of 
 her life; yet she did not go with the family in the first 
 instance, but continued her stay at the school in Hartford, 
 where she became a teacher long before she ceased to be 
 a pupil. 
 
 There are many letters written to her brother Edward, 
 begun about this time, which show the unnatural vein into 
 which a delicate sympathetic girl could easily fall when 
 exposed to influences such as have been described. 
 
 Her brain had already wearied her body in the double 
 race for development. The sincerity of her nature is 
 beautifully apparent in these letters. The habit of con 
 fession is not one that suited a human soul like hers, accus 
 tomed to seek the Divine throne alone, hand in hand with 
 the Divine Son. To her mind there was no earthly inter 
 mediary necessary, nor was there a barrier of eighteen 
 hundred years between her life and the life of Christ; she 
 only saw a marvelous sequence of time, every day laden 
 with new proofs of the necessity and the verity of this 
 presence in her world. But the atmosphere of that period 
 and the terrible arguments of her father and of her sister 
 Catherine were sometimes more than she could endure. 
 She says to Edward : 
 
 "Many of my objections you did remove that afternoon 
 we spent together. After that I was not as unhappy as I 
 
1827] RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 61 
 
 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 wak 
 ing bliss had long been a stranger to me. But even then 
 I had doubts as to whether these feelings were right, be 
 cause 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." 
 
 This difficulty in expressing the deepest feelings of 
 her heart to another shows already the gathering wave 
 which was to break by and by, not in lamentations over 
 her own lot, but into a Miserere which was to become a 
 Magnificat for the sufferings of the down-trodden of the 
 earth, and for their regeneration. Delivered from herself, 
 she became a deliverer. Again she writes to her bro 
 ther: 
 
 " 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 commu 
 nication of my wants and sorrows to a friend. I some 
 times 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 
 
62 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1827 
 
 character of God that He can supply the place of earthly 
 friends? I really wish to know what yon think of this. 
 . . . Do you suppose that God really loves sinners before 
 they come to Him 1 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 ? " 
 
 At last came the vacation days when Harriet went to 
 Boston to see her family. She writes to Georgiana 
 May: 
 
 "In the first place, on my arrival, 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 dis 
 tinguish 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 Hart 
 ford, for I should be among strangers. Nothing upon this 
 point can be definitely decided till I have returned to Bos 
 ton, and talked to papa and Catherine." 
 
 "Harriet reads everything," Edward wrote of his sister, 
 " that she can lay hands on, and sews and knits vigorously. " 
 Doubtless a memory o! these over-working days lingered 
 
1827] DEPRESSION 63 
 
 with Mrs. Stowe in after life, when she said: "Women 
 have no idea how much vitality runs off from the ends of 
 their fingers when they should be resting." Neither was 
 she a friend of the kindergarten system. "I can t bear to 
 see these little animals (for children are hardly more in 
 the earliest years) drawing all the vitality out of these 
 sweet, delicate young girls just coming into womanhood." 
 Of course Froebel and his followers stood aghast, but the 
 improvement in method since those early days goes to 
 prove that Mrs. Stowe s common sense was not altogether 
 at fault. 
 
 Catherine s affection for Harriet did not allow any symp 
 toms of ill to escape her observation. While the latter 
 was at home, Catherine wrote to Dr. Beecher : 
 
 "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 some 
 times 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 
 
64 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1828 
 
 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)," continues her 
 son, " 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. Geor- 
 giana 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. " 
 
 Catherine seems to have had a sublime confidence in 
 herself which goes more than half way to fight the battles 
 of life. This confidence does not come without founda 
 tion. A distinguished theologian of New England said to 
 a German professor, concerning one of her publications : 
 
 "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 discover 
 ing America ! " 
 
 It does not appear at this juncture that the forces 
 worked together for returning Harriet immediately to the 
 school. She went instead with her friend Miss May to 
 visit her grandmother again, where she seems in some 
 degree to have recovered the tone of her spirits. 
 
 In the autumn, however, she returned, and in January 
 wrote to her grandmother, Mrs. Foote: "I have been con- 
 
1828] LOVE OF PAINTING 65 
 
 stantly employed from nine in the morning until after dark 
 at night, in taking lessons of a painting and drawing mas 
 ter, with only an intermission long enough to swallow a 
 little dinner which was sent to me in the schoolroom. 
 
 " 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 im 
 prove 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." 
 
66 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1829 
 
 When we consider the somewhat stern character of 
 "Sister Catherine," and remember how this young girl 
 worked without intermission day in and day out, we see 
 that she was quite right; "happier," if not "better," in 
 deed she might have been. 
 
 In the spring of the same year Harriet writes again to 
 Edward : 
 
 "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 forbid 
 ding 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 natters 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 en 
 larged 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. " 
 
 Her schemes for going to Groton to help George did not 
 meet with approval. In February, 1829, she writes again 
 to Edward, as usual, from the school in Hartford : 
 
 " My situation this winter is in many respects pleasant. 
 I room with three other teachers, Miss Fisher, Miss Mary 
 Dutton, and Miss Brigham. Ann Fisher you know. 
 
SCHOOL TEACHING 67 
 
 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 child 
 hood she has been determined to obtain an education, and 
 to attain to a certain standard. Where persons are deter 
 mined 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 in 
 fluence over my character. Miss Degan, whose constant 
 occupation it is to make others laugh; Mrs. Gamage, her 
 room-mate, a steady, devoted, sincere Christian. . . . Lit 
 tle things have great power over me, and if I meet with 
 the least thing that crosses my feelings, I am often ren 
 dered 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 care 
 fully 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 jus- 
 
68 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1830 
 
 tice. . . . 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 merci 
 ful 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 can 
 not 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 every 
 thing to offer in extenuation. The case seems to me ex 
 actly 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. Some 
 times 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." 
 
 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." 
 
1831] DELICATE HEALTH 69 
 
 "So, after four years of struggling and suffering," writes 
 her son, " 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." 
 
 Happily, also, those striving years, when learning and 
 imparting were accomplished almost with the same breath, 
 at last were ended. Yet a change had been wrought in 
 herself, which must not be overlooked; a change wholly 
 disregarded in the intensified atmosphere of her life. She 
 had not grown to be a strong woman; the apparently 
 " healthy and hearty " child had been suffered to think 
 and feel, to study and starve (as we may say), starve for 
 relaxation, until she became a woman subject to much 
 suffering and many inadequacies of physical life. If we 
 seem to be brought by a contemplation of this subject to 
 a lower level, it is because Mrs. Stowe, by physical weak 
 ness, was often unable to bear the stress and strain of 
 her experience, and was brought to a lower level her 
 self. She loved more, and consequently suffered more than 
 others, and the weight of her suffering was heavier because 
 she had grown up, apparently, almost without care either 
 from herself or others in behalf of her body. Yet Dr. 
 Beecher had already discovered that his own life of intel 
 lectual storm and stress required a physical balance. The 
 wood that he sawed, the land that he redeemed, the trees 
 that he planted and nourished, all attest to his faith in 
 these matters; but, for women, life in the open air was 
 not thought to be necessary; the same canons were not 
 brought to bear in their behalf. They were always tired 
 from the ceaseless round of indoor duties and lack of true 
 
70 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1832 
 
 relaxation which should draw neither too much upon the 
 brain nor the body. Now every child is regarded from 
 the physical point of view as well as the mental. 
 
 As to the spiritual life, perhaps, she was better off than 
 the larger number of children of our day. With all our 
 boasted education, it is only here and there when some 
 holy man or woman appears as an educator for the people 
 that Christ is born anew and the principles of his teaching 
 are again made to live before us. 
 
 From this period of Harriet Beecher s life we must look 
 upon her as a woman far from vigorous, yet laying upon 
 herself every burden within her reach. She was twenty- 
 one years old when we find her writing to her friend Miss 
 May: 
 
 "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 eternal 
 
 one, and, as F S once advised me, to give up the 
 
 pernicious habit of meditation to the first Methodist minis 
 ter 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 hav 
 ing a distant relationship to what I was going to say. I 
 have come to a firm resolution to count no hours but un 
 clouded 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 inci- 
 
1832] SOCIAL INSTINCTS 71 
 
 dental acquaintances with all who will he acquainted with 
 me. In this way I find society full of interest and plea 
 sure, 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 ? 
 
 "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 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 un 
 certain, 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 
 
72 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1832 
 
 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 some 
 times 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." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 LIFE IN CINCINNATI AND MAKRIAGE 
 
 IT was a momentous affair to the family when Dr. 
 Beecher decided to leave Boston after six years of service 
 and go to Cincinnati. There was a project on foot of 
 founding the Lane Theological Seminary at that place, 
 but the whole idea was to be given up unless Dr. Beecher 
 would become its president. 
 
 "With Dr. Beecher and his wife," writes his grandson, 
 "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." 
 
 In the autumn they started upon their long journey, 
 and Harriet writes to one of her friends in Hartford: 
 
 "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. Father 
 begged two thousand dollars yesterday, and now the good 
 people are praying him to abide certain days, as he suc 
 ceeds so well. They are talking of sending us off and 
 
74 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1832 
 
 keeping him here. I really dare not go and see Aunt 
 Esther and mother now; they were in the depths of tribu 
 lation 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, every 
 where; 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. East 
 man 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 
 
1832] JOURNEY TO CINCINNATI 75 
 
 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 speci 
 men of our journey, we shall find 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 oppo 
 site 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 
 
76 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1832 
 
 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 Wheel 
 ing; there we shall take the steamboat to Cincinnati. 
 
 As soon as the first letters from Hartford were received, 
 Harriet responded to her sister Mary : 
 
 " MY DEAR SISTER, 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 
 
1832] FIRST LETTER FROM HOME 77 
 
 path of duty lay in talking to you this afternoon, but as 
 I find a loud call to consider the heels of George s stock 
 ings, 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 admir 
 able 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 after 
 noon, 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 so 
 ciable. You don t know how coming away from New 
 England has sentimentalized us all! Never was there 
 
78 HAEEIET BEECHER STOWE [1832 
 
 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 Hart 
 ford! 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 senti 
 mental!). We did ,talk some of keeping it (Thanksgiv 
 ing), 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, ilary, speaking of the temptations 
 
1833] THE NEW HOUSE 79 
 
 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 ami 
 cable 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 in 
 closed 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." 
 
80 HARKIET BEECHER STOWE [1833 
 
 The story continues in her letters to Georgiana May : 
 
 " 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 pictur 
 esque 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 Arca 
 dian. 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 seem 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 
 
 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. 
 
1833] THE NEW SCHOOL 81 
 
 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 preju 
 dice. 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. 
 
 "Kecently I have been reading the life of Madame de 
 
82 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1833 
 
 Stael and c 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 absorb 
 ing like hers become still more deep, morbid, and impas 
 sioned 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 pre 
 sented to it has had this effect. It has withered and ex 
 hausted 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 char 
 acter, in devotional thought and emotion, or in the emo 
 tions 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 arn glad to 
 remain in a listless vacancy, to busy myself with trifles, 
 since thought is pain, and emotion is pain." 
 
 It was at this time that Harriet first tried her wings 
 before the public of letters. An award of fifty dollars be 
 ing offered by the editor of " The Western Magazine " for 
 a story, she entered into competition, and easily took the 
 prize. From this moment she devoted herself to an occu 
 pation more congenial to her nature than any other. She 
 also joined a social and literary club, which counted among 
 its members nearly all the distinguished men and women 
 of Cincinnati. 
 
 She writes of this club to Miss May : 
 
 "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 pur 
 porting 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, 
 
1833] SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS 83 
 
 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 lan 
 guages. This I shall send to you, as some of the gentle 
 men, it seems, took a fancy to it and requested leave to put 
 it in the c 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 persona. 
 
 "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 enact 
 ments purporting to be from the ladies of the society, for 
 bidding 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 intro 
 duction 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. 
 
84 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1834 
 
 - " 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) de 
 clared that it must have come from Mrs. Hall, and eluci 
 dated 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 unmerci 
 fully. Now Elisabeth has a tact and quickness of percep 
 tion 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." 
 
 About a year after the arrival of Dr. Beecher s family 
 in Cincinnati, the subject of slavery was first brought un 
 der Harriet s personal observation during a visit in Ken 
 tucky. Miss Dutton, one of the teachers in Miss Beecher s 
 Institute, was her companion. Harriet found herself on 
 the estate which was later known as Colonel Shelby s in 
 "Uncle Tom s Cabin." Many years after, Miss Dutton 
 said, in speaking of this visit: 
 
1834] MODEL SCHOOLS 85 
 
 "Harriet did not seem to notice anything in particular 
 that happened, but sat much of the time as though ab 
 stracted 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 Un 
 cle Tom, I recognized scene after scene of that visit por 
 trayed with the most minute fidelity, and knew at once 
 where the material for that portion of the story had been 
 gathered. " 
 
 But the great subject of slavery was not yet the ruling 
 thought of her existence. She continues to write to Miss 
 May on the subject of education: 
 
 "We mean to turn over the West by means of model 
 schools in this, its capital. We mean to have a young 
 ladies school of about fifty or sixty, a primary school of 
 little girls to the same amount, and then a primary school 
 for hoys. 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 divi 
 sion 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 mission 
 aries, 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 re 
 quired 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 
 
86 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1834 
 
 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 be 
 lieved. 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." 
 
 In after years Mrs. Stowe wrote of their home in Cincin 
 nati : 
 
 "Dr. Beecher s residence on Walnut Hills was in many 
 respects peculiarly pleasant. It was a two-story brick edi 
 fice of moderate dimensions, fronting the west, with a long 
 L running back into the primeval forest, or grove, as it 
 was familiarly called, which here came up to the very 
 door. Immense trees beech, black oak, and others 
 spread their broad arms over the back yard, affording in 
 summer an almost impenetrable shade. 
 
 "An airy veranda was built in the angle formed by the 
 L along the entire inner surface of the house, from which, 
 during the fierce gales of autumn and winter, we used to 
 watch the tossing of the spectral branches, and listen to 
 the roaring of the wind through the forest. Two or three 
 large beeches and elms had been with difficulty saved from 
 the inexorable woodman s axe, and though often menaced as 
 endangering the safety of the house from their great height, 
 they still flourish in beauty. Through that beautiful grove 
 the doctor and two of his sons, during the three years 
 1834-37, passed daily to and from the seminary buildings. 
 A rustic gate was hung between the back yard and the 
 grove, and the path crossed a run, or gully, where for 
 a season an old carpenter s bench supplied the place of 
 bridge. In that grove was a delightful resort of the 
 young people from the city, of Dr. Beecher s flock, who 
 
1834] THE LARGE HOUSEHOLD 87 
 
 often came out to spend a social hour or enjoy a picnic in 
 the woods. 
 
 "During the first year of Dr. Beecher s Walnut Hills 
 life, the care of the family was shared between Mrs. 
 Beecher and Aunt Esther, though, as the health of the 
 former declined, the burden of responsibility fell more and 
 more upon the latter. The family was large, comprising, in 
 cluding servants, thirteen in all, besides occasional visitors. 
 
 "The house was full. There was a continual high tide 
 of life and animation. The old carryall was constantly 
 vibrating between home and the city, and the excitement 
 of going and coming rendered anything like stagnation an 
 impossibility. And if we take into account the constant 
 occurrence of matters for consultation respecting the semi 
 nary and the students, or respecting the Church and con 
 gregation in the city, or respecting Presbytery, Synod, and 
 General Assembly, as well as the numberless details of 
 shopping, marketing, which must be done in the city, it 
 will be seen that at no period of his life was Dr. Beecher s 
 mind more constantly on the stretch, exerted to the utmost 
 tension of every fibre, and never, to use an expressive fig 
 ure of Professor Stowe, did he wheel a greater number of 
 heavily laden wheelbarrows all at one and the same time. 
 Had he husbanded his energies and turned them in a 
 single channel, the mental fire might have burned steadily 
 on till long after threescore years and ten. But this was 
 an impossibility. Circumstances and his own constitutional 
 temperament united to spur him on, and for more than 
 twenty of his best years he worked under a high pressure, 
 to use his favorite expression, to the ne plus, that is, 
 to the utmost limit of physical and moral endurance. 
 
 " It was an exuberant and glorious life while it lasted. 
 The atmosphere of his household was replete with moral 
 oxygen, full charged with intellectual electricity. No 
 where else have we felt anything resembling or equaling 
 
88 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1834 
 
 it. It was a kind of moral heaven, the purity, vivacity, 
 inspiration, and enthusiasm of which only those can appre 
 ciate who have lost it, and feel that in this world there is, 
 there can be, no place like home. " 
 
 "During the summer of 1834," writes her son, "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 is n 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-ch osen language, and pronouncing 
 
1834] NIAGARA 89 
 
 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. 7 Before the party had fully discovered his 
 name he was usually designated as "the obliging gentle 
 man, "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 irrefragable 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. 7 
 
 In this same letter she describes Niagara. Her style 
 is of the very fibre of her own being, and she lives again 
 for us as we read : 
 
 "Let me tell, if I can, what is unutterable. 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 moon 
 light, falling as the soul sinks when it dies, to rise re 
 fined, spiritualized, and pure ; that rainbow, breaking out, 
 trembling, fading, and again coming like a beautiful spirit 
 
90 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1836 
 
 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. " 
 
 It was during Harriet s absence in the East that the 
 news reached her of the death of a dear friend, Eliza Tyler, 
 the young wife of Professor Stowe. Calvin E. Stowe and 
 his wife Eliza Tyler had been among the most valued mem 
 bers of the social club of which Harriet Beecher has already 
 given us a picture. Eliza Tyler was about the same age as 
 Harriet. They became very close friends, and the news of 
 her death was a true sorrow. There were not many women 
 of her character and tastes anywhere, but Cincinnati was 
 robbed of its dearest joy to Harriet when Eliza Tyler died. 
 Professor Stowe was born in Natick, Massachusetts, in 1802, 
 early enough to be cognizant of all the theological warfare 
 of the period. The battle was hotly fought out in Con 
 necticut between the factions of the Doctors Taylor and 
 Tyler, the latter representing the radical branch of the 
 argument. Professor Stowe was sensitive to impressions, 
 eager for learning, with an extraordinary memory, reading 
 German and Hebrew with absolute ease, with a keen sense 
 of humor, and a still keener power of suffering from depres 
 sion of spirits. His quick insight and unusual, almost ex 
 ceptional, learning doubtless caused him early to espouse 
 the Tyler views in theology, and ultimately led him to find 
 his first wife. 
 
 When Harriet Beecher returned from her visit to the 
 East, she found Mr. Stowe plunged in the deepest woe. He 
 was always very dependent upon cheerful surroundings, and 
 now she saw him suffering from grief, utterly lonely and 
 forlorn. When he could be aroused from his sorrow his 
 
1836] MARRIAGE 91 
 
 mind reasserted itself and made him a very witty and de 
 lightful companion ; but left to himself he easily relapsed 
 into the darkness of grief. For two years, while busily 
 occupied as usual with matters of education, with ever 
 closer observation of the South, and the condition of the 
 slaves, with theological discussions and the social life 
 around her, she spent herself in endeavoring to soothe 
 this sad and solitary man. 
 
 The distance was not great between the sympathy and 
 loving care she gave to Professor Stowe during this period, 
 and the love which by and by declared itself. At the end 
 of the two years she became his wife. She writes to Miss 
 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 wonder 
 ing how I should live through this overwhelming crisis, 
 and lo! it has come, and I feel nothing at all." 
 
 This letter was interrupted by the arrival of Professor 
 Stowe upon the scene, and was left in her desk unfinished 
 until three weeks after the wedding, when she added : 
 
 "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 adhesive 
 ness not to go too. Ohio roads at this season are no joke, 
 I can tell you, though we were, on the whole, wonderfully 
 
92 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1836 
 
 taken care of, and our expedition included as many plea 
 sures 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." 
 
 Thus, at the very threshold of their new life, Harriet and 
 her husband discovered that, great as their love for each 
 other might be, it was ever to be enlarged and made more 
 beautiful by their devotion to the common welfare. The 
 condition of the public schools of Cincinnati was then far 
 behind the best intelligence of the age. Harriet had de 
 voted herself, up to the time of her marriage, to bringing 
 about some reformation in education, private as well as 
 public, and Professor Stowe had been one of the founders 
 of " The College for Teachers," an institution which exer 
 cised much influence in elevating the standard of teaching. 
 It was natural, under the circumstances, that Professor 
 Stowe should have been selected by the state legislature as 
 the right man to send abroad and report upon the common 
 schools of Europe, especially those of Prussia. There was 
 great need also of foreign books for Lane Seminary, and 
 
1836] PROFESSOR STOWE S DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE 93 
 
 who was so well fitted as Professor Stowe to select these ? 
 It was decided, therefore, that he should leave home on 
 this double mission. Mrs. Stowe could hardly have been 
 a child of her father without a feeling of being born to 
 serve the world as well as to live and love in her own little 
 round. Professor Stowe was of the same mind, and lived 
 in the same atmosphere as his wife in this respect. There 
 seems to have been no question between them as to the 
 acceptance of this call. The need was clear to them both ; 
 also it must have been quite evident that he was the only 
 man capable of fulfilling such errands, with intelligence, for 
 Cincinnati. His knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, German 
 and Italian, was remarkable for any period, but was excep 
 tional at a time when German dictionaries were so rare and 
 inaccessible that Theodore Parker was obliged to walk from 
 Watertown to Professor Ticknor s house in Boston to con 
 sult one. Professor Stowe s scholarship was not always, we 
 have heard, of the most accurate kind, but he read with 
 absolute ease the most recondite books in many languages. 
 To the end of his life he carried a small Greek Testament 
 and a copy of the Divina Commedia in his pocket, and died 
 with them under his pillow ; when one copy of either of 
 his favorites was worn out he would buy a new one ; they 
 were his inseparable companions. 
 
 This long parting of the newly married lovers was not 
 easy. Evidently Mrs. Stowe found it difficult to keep up 
 her husband s spirits. She was already unable to go with 
 him, but she went to watch his departure from New York, 
 and to cheer him on his way by a letter, to be opened on 
 the voyage, sparkling with her wit and wisdom. 
 
 "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 
 
94 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1838 
 
 face as a flint against the cultivation of indigo, as Elisa 
 beth calls it, in any way or shape. . . . 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 the long summer and autumn of her husband s 
 absence Mrs. Stowe lived at her father s home in Cincinnati, 
 writing busily for a local paper, of which Henry Ward had 
 accepted the temporary editorship, as well as for other 
 journals in !N"ew York and at the West; beside these en 
 gagements, she wrote a daily journal to her husband, 
 wherein we see, as in a glass, the crumbling and upheav 
 ing here and there of the great earthquake of war for slav 
 ery which was still to wait a quarter of a century for its 
 awful development. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe was not yet altogether an abolitionist. 
 Theodore D. Weld was a young student in the Seminary, 
 who by lecturing in the South had earned the money for 
 his education. He also earned what he had not foreseen, 
 a knowledge of slavery, which made him a strong advocate 
 for its abolition. He had won several slaveholders over 
 to his faith, some of whom had freed their slaves. One 
 of these gentlemen, Mr. Birney, came to Cincinnati and 
 joined with Dr. Bailey in editing an anti-slavery news 
 paper there. Kentucky slave owners, getting wind of 
 this, came to Cincinnati, and destroyed the Press. Mobo- 
 cracy reigned; the people took sides hotly. Mrs. Stowe 
 wrote to her husband : 
 
 "For my part, I can easily see how such proceedings 
 
1838] MOB VIOLENCE 95 
 
 may make converts to abolitionism, for already my sympa 
 thies 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. 
 
 "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. Imme 
 diately there followed a general excitement in which even 
 good men in their panic and prejudice about abolition 
 ism 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, Long- 
 worth, 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. 
 
 "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." 
 
96 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1838 
 
 The sense of obedience to law still holds her : " Pray 
 what is there in Cincinnati to satisfy one whose mind is 
 awakened on this subject ? " she continues. " 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 ? " 
 
 In the early autumn, before Professor Stowe could return 
 to his wife, she gave birth to twin daughters, who were 
 named by her Eliza and Isabella ; but the moment he 
 reached New York, in mid-winter, after a two months voy 
 age home from London, and heard the news, he insisted 
 they should be called Eliza Tyler and Harriet Beecher. 
 
 During the following summer, Mrs. Stowe s health be 
 came very delicate, and she went to make a long visit at 
 the house of the Rev. William Beecher in Putnam, Ohio. 
 Professor Stowe wrote to her : 
 
 "This alliance between the old school (Presbyterians) 
 and slaveholders will make more abolitionists than any 
 thing that has been done yet." 
 
 In January, Mrs. Stowe s third child, Henry, was born. 
 She wrote in June to Georgiana May : 
 
 "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 11 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 
 
1838] HOUSEKEEPING 97 
 
 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 does n 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 bedclothes 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. 
 
 "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 hus 
 band and children. My children I would not change for 
 all the ease, leisure, and pleasure that I could have with 
 out them. They are money on interest whose value will 
 be constantly increasing." 
 
98 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1838 
 
 One of her friends at this time was anxious to get her to 
 finish a story she had partly written, and for the conclusion 
 of which the editor was waiting. This friend s account 
 of difficulties is amusing, because both the ladies chose 
 to be amused, and carried the matter off in such a humor 
 ous vein; but it easily has another side, when we consider 
 Mrs. Stowe s health, and the work which lay before her. 
 
 " * Come, Harriet/ said I," wrote her friend, "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 Har 
 riet. 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," be 
 sides preparations to be made for housecleaning next week. 
 It is really out of the question, you see. 
 
1838] PURSUIT OF LETTERS UNDER DIFFICULTIES 99 
 
 " * 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 1 
 
 " * 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 superin 
 tend 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 at 
 tempted to recover the thread of her story. 
 
 " * Ma am, shall I put the pork on the top of the 
 beans? asked Mina. 
 
100 v HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1838 
 
 " Come, come, said Harriet, laughing. You see how 
 it is. Mina is a new hand and cannot do anything with 
 out 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 bahy 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 ringers, 
 and her whole frame shook with convulsive sobs." What 
 shall I write next ? 
 
 " Mina, pour a little milk into this pearlash, said 
 Harriet. 
 
 " Here, said I, let me direct Mina about these mat 
 ters, 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. Mean 
 while 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? 1 
 
 " Shall I put in the brown or the white bread first ? 
 said Mina. 
 
 " The brown first, said Harriet. 
 
1840] PURSUIT OF LETTERS UNDEfi i)IF?K .l>LVIFU 01 
 
 11 * 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? que 
 ried Mina. 
 
 " c No, you may let that alone just now, replied Har 
 riet. 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 1 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. " 1 
 
 " 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." 
 
 It is not wonderful, certainly, to find the following 
 letter written to Georgiana May in December, 1840. In 
 the previous month of May, another boy, Frederick Wil- 
 
50 2 HAKRIET 6EECHER STOWE [1840 
 
 liam, had been brought into the world. Mrs. Stowe 
 says : 
 
 "For a year I have held the pen only to write an occa 
 sional 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 Fred 
 erick 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." 
 
 During this hard time the navigation of the Ohio had 
 been impeded for several months. Cincinnati was like a 
 besieged city ; no supplies could reach the people. Flour 
 and pork, which happily could be had at reasonable prices, 
 kept them from starving, but in Mrs. Stowe s delicate 
 condition it was especially difficult to bear. She was sin 
 gularly uncomplaining, and the only mention we find of 
 this state of public affairs is in a letter from Professor 
 Stowe to his mother. A few months earlier there had 
 been a meeting of all the Beecher family in Cincinnati, a 
 very exciting affair to old Dr. Beecher as well as to the 
 eleven children. Two of them had never met before! 
 
1840] PEOFESSOR STOWE S APPRECIATION 103 
 
 The Doctor s pulpit was filled that Sunday, in the morning 
 by his son Edward, by William in the afternoon, and by 
 George in the evening. All these things drew upon Mrs. 
 Stowe s nervous energy, already at a low ebb. She was 
 obliged to leave home. Taking her six-year-old daughter 
 Hattie with her she went first to Hartford, where the 
 following letter reached her from her husband. She had 
 confided to him in a previous letter some of her literary 
 plans and aspirations; Professor Stowe replies: 
 
 "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 in- 
 cumbers 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 distin 
 guished honor of which I must give you an account. It 
 was a visit from his excellency the Baron de Roenne, am 
 bassador of his majesty the King of Prussia to the United 
 States. He was pleased to assure me of the great satisfac 
 tion 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 
 
104 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1840 
 
 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 Hart 
 ford: 
 
 " 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 win 
 ter 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 every 
 thing 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 1 
 
 "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 
 
1841] LITERATURE HER VOCATION 105 
 
 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 every 
 thing else going on, and the continual falling of soot and 
 coal dust on everything in the room was a constant annoy 
 ance 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. The children can be washed and dressed and 
 keep their playthings in the upper room 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 stu 
 dents, 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 1 You must therefore make all 
 
106 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1841 
 
 your calculations to spend the rest of your life with your 
 pen. 
 
 "If you only could come home to-day how happy 
 should I he. I am daily finding out more and more (what 
 I knew very well hefore) that you are the most intelligent 
 and agreeahle woman in the whole circle of my acquain 
 tance. " 
 
 " That Professor Stowe s devoted admiration for his wife 
 was reciprocated," writes their son Charles, "and that a 
 most perfect sympathy of feeling existed between the hus 
 band 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 fail 
 ing 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 
 
1842] EDUCATION OF CHILDREN 107 
 
 in one small family circle, of which I am called to be the 
 central point." 
 
 We find in a journal of this period: "For many weeks 
 past my mind has been oppressed with a strong sense of 
 the importance of the early education of my children, and 
 with an ever agonizing sense of incompetence to undertake 
 it. Where so many of the wisest and loestfail, how can 
 / hope to succeed. My only hope is in prayer. God is 
 all powerful. . . . 
 
 "The most fearful thing about this education matter is, 
 that it is example more than word. Talk as you will, the 
 child follows what he sees, not what he hears. The pre 
 vailing tone of the parent s character will make the temper 
 of the household; the spirit of the parent will form the 
 spirit of the child." 
 
 On the way home from her visit to the East, Mrs. 
 Stowe traveled for the first time by rail, and of this novel 
 experience she writes to Miss Georgiana May : 
 
 BATAVIA, August 29. 
 
 "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 till the way. 
 
 "Such confusion of tongues, such shouting and swear 
 ing, such want of all sort of system and decency in arrange 
 ments, 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 sort 
 ing 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, 
 
108 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1843 
 
 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 mon 
 ster diverting himself with our commotions. I do think 
 these steam concerns border a little too much on the super 
 natural 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 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 stu 
 dents 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. 
 
 In July, a few weeks before the birth of her third 
 daughter, Georgiana May, a most terrible and overwhelm 
 ing sorrow came on Mrs. Stowe, in common with all the 
 family, in the sudden death of her brother, the Rev. 
 George Beecher. 
 
 In October she writes to one of her brothers : 
 
 "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 six hundred dollars is the 
 very most we can hope to collect of our salary, once twelve 
 hundred dollars. 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 
 
1844] SEMINARY FAILS TO PAY 109 
 
 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. 
 
 Professor Stowe was obliged to go to the East in order 
 to raise money for the struggling seminary. His wife 
 wrote to him : 
 
 "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." 
 
 Exception has been taken to the idea that Mrs. Stowe 
 suffered from poverty. Her children were always made 
 comfortable. She had a devoted young woman, Anna, who 
 was her friend, companion, nurse for her children, and a 
 second self in household labors, such as only a loving, sym 
 pathetic heart like Mrs. Stowe s could draw to her side and 
 hold by her affection through a long series of years; also 
 there was a colored woman in the kitchen for the simple 
 cooking and the rougher work of the household. Never 
 theless, for Mrs. Stowe it was indeed "suffering from pov 
 erty." Professor Stowe s salary was very uncertain, as we 
 have seen. They were both pledged to Christ s work in 
 the world, and did not count the dollars and cents before 
 undertaking any labor which was required of them. Even 
 if a salary generous for a professor in those days had been 
 regularly paid, it would not have been more than sufficient 
 for seven children and an invalid wife ! Her husband was 
 not lacking in affection nor in constant endeavor, but they 
 were neither of them far-sighted from a worldly point of 
 view. For nearly two years at this period the trouble 
 continued which bore so hardly upon the wife and mother. 
 
110 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1845 
 
 Professor Stowe having been called away to a ministerial 
 convention at Detroit, his wife wrote to him : 
 
 June 16. 
 
 "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 investi 
 gate 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 solici 
 tude, although it is 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, ex 
 cept this poor head, my unfortunate household has no main 
 spring, 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 
 
1846] OVERWROUGHT 111 
 
 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 imperish 
 able. 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 particu 
 lar 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." 
 
 Professor Stowe was doubtless much moved by this 
 letter. We find he was able to get the means for sending 
 his wife eastward to her friends in, Hartford and Boston dur 
 ing the summer, but her condition was such that he was 
 not greatly relieved. In March 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, ano^in always caring for us ^n 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 
 
112 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [.1846 
 
 spectacles gravely inarching the little troop in their night 
 gowns up to bed, tagging after them, as he says, like an 
 old hen after a flock of ducks. The money for my jour 
 ney has been sent in from an unknown hand in a wonder 
 ful manner. All this shows the care of our Father, and 
 encourages me to rejoice and to hope in Him." 
 
 It was decided that she must try Dr. Wesselhoeft s 
 water-cure at Brattleboro , Vermont, her increasing debility 
 giving cause for anxiety. On her journey she sends a 
 line back from Pittsburgh to her husband, to which he 
 replies, giving her the names of two ladies, strangers, who 
 have sent him money, hearing of illness in the family. He 
 continues : 
 
 "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." 
 
 Happily, two of Mrs. Stowe s sisters, Catherine and 
 Mary, were able to be with her during a part of her ab 
 sence, but she was obliged to be away from her husband 
 and children eleven months! It was a weary interval. 
 
 BRATTLEBORO , September. 
 
 " MY DE ATC 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 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 loye them. . . . 
 
 " There is great truth and good sense in your analysis 
 
1846] CARE OF HEALTH 113 
 
 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 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 Chris 
 tians 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 be 
 come a mere burden on his hands for the next five. . . . 
 
 November 18. " The daily course I go through presup 
 poses a degree of vigor beyond anything I ev^r 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 
 
114 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1847 
 
 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 moon 
 light! 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,.Jn the meantime, 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 
 
1849] MENTAL DEPRESSION 115 
 
 agree and sympathize. Why didn t you engage the two 
 tombstones one for you and one for me ? 
 
 "But, seriously, my dear husband, you must try and 
 be patient, for this cannot last forever. Be patient and 
 bear it likoj 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 over 
 whelming 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 pre 
 pared to do so." 
 
 Happily the long exile was ended at last, and Mrs. 
 Stowe returned to her rejoicing family. In the following 
 January her son, Samuel Charles, was born. Shortly after, 
 Professor Stowe became ill and was sent in turn to Brattle- 
 boro , where he remained alone for fifteen months. Mrs. 
 Stowe writes to Miss May : 
 
 " 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! T ftm ^ 
 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 
 
116 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1849 
 
 I should ask myself, What now remains to be done? 
 They are my work, over which I fear and tremble." 
 
 Cholera was rife this year in Cincinnati. Professor 
 Stowe was anxious to return, and be with his family, but 
 his wife would not hear of it. 
 
 Her journal letter says, June 29th : 
 
 " 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. ex 
 tremely dangerous. It is a source of ^constant gratitude to 
 me that neither you nor father are exposed to the dangers 
 here._ Seconcl, none of us are sick, and it is very uncer 
 tain whether we shall be. 
 
 "July 4. All well. Jhe meeting yesterday was very 
 solemn and interesting. There is more or less sickness 
 
1849] CHOLERA 117 
 
 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! A while ago ten a day dying of cholera struck 
 terror to all hearts ; but now the tide has surged up grad 
 ually 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 re 
 turn. 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, deso 
 late, and wishing my husband and father were here. 
 
 "About one o clock this morning Miss Stewart suddenly 
 opened my door, crying, t 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 
 
118 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1849 
 
 more admired. Anna and I have said to each other exult- 
 ingly 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 pas 
 sages of Scripture. 
 
 "July 17. To-day we have, been attending poor old 
 Aunt Frankie s 1 funeral. She died yesterday morning, 
 taken sick the day before while washing. Good^Jionest^ 
 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 sur 
 viving this night. 
 
 "Every kindness is shown us by the neighbors. Do 
 1 An old colored woman. 
 
1849] DEATH OF HER BABY BOY 119 
 
 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 with 
 out its dead. This heart-break, this anguish, has been 
 everywhere, and when it will end God alone Tknows. " 
 
 Professor Stowe returned to Cincinnati with a new pur 
 pose in his mind. He had struggled through seventeen of 
 the best years of his life serving Lane Seminary and the 
 people of Cincinnati as far as in him lay. Now, two or 
 three invitations had been received from the East, one of 
 which (from Bowdoin College) he accepted with peculiar 
 pleasure, because he graduated there, and passed in Bruns 
 wick his happy early years. He could not leave Lane 
 Seminary until he should find some one to fill his place, but 
 it was decided that Mrs. Stowe, with three of the children, 
 
120 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1850 
 
 should leave Cincinnati in April and establish herself in a 
 house in Brunswick, ready to receive the rest of the family. 
 
 Of this journey Mrs. Stowe writes: 
 
 "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 agree 
 able 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 Phila 
 delphia 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 
 $3300, 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." 
 
1850] JOURNEY TO BRUNSWICK 121 
 
 May 18, 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 want 
 ing .... in kindness, consideration, and justice, and I 
 want you to reflect calmly how great a work has been im 
 posed 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 chiIHren7~~accounts, and baggage ; to push my way 
 through hurrying crowds, looking out for trunks, and bar 
 gaining 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," continues her son, "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 
 
 ew w6men~Eave known greater earthly cares. That 
 she saw her way through them, even while in the valley 
 of darkness, and was able to guide others to the light, 
 giving them the help and support by which she learned to 
 live and to rejoice, this was her mission to the world. 
 
CHAPTEE V 
 
 BRUNSWICK 
 
 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 Bruns 
 wick 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 any 
 thing, 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 appre- 
 
1850] THE FIKST SUMMER 123 
 
 hensions, 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." 
 
 She writes from Brunswick the last of May: "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 pro 
 spect, therefore, that our goods will arrive promptly from 
 Boston, and that we shall be in our own house by next 
 week. . Mrs. Upham l 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 reli 
 gion." . . . 
 
 The events of the first summer in Brunswick are graphi 
 cally described by Mrs. Stowe in a letter written to her 
 sister in-law, Mrs. George Beecher, in December. 
 
 " MY DEAR SISTEH, 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, writ 
 ten 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 received 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 
 l Wife of Professor Upham of Bowdoin College. 
 
124 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [18CO 
 
 I meant to write you a long letter, a full and complete 
 one ; and so days slid by, and became weeks, and my 
 little Charley 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 north 
 east 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 1 
 
 " Mrs. Stowe. l With the coarse cotton in the closet. 
 " Woman. Mrs. Stowe, there is n 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 1 
 
 " * 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 ? 
 
1850] RESOURCE 125 
 
 " 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. Had n 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 wal 
 nut bedstead 1 
 
 " Here s a man has brought in these bills for freight. 
 Will you settle them now 1 
 
 " 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 san 
 guine; 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 fac 
 tory 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 congratu 
 lating 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, 
 
126 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1850 
 
 I fell into a muse, how to get my cisterns into my cel 
 lar. 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 Yan 
 kees. 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) some 
 what 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, 
 
1850] VILLAGE LIFE 127 
 
 gimlets, varnish, paint, picture frames, fence posts, rare 
 old china, one or two fine portraits of his ancestry, a book 
 case 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. 
 
128 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1850 
 
 "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 Bap 
 tist 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 did 
 n 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. 
 
1850] HOMESICKNESS 129 
 
 "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 be 
 hold! 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 natu 
 rally. 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 l 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." 
 
 Her spirit was still unsatisfied. In spite of striving 
 
 and incessant devotion, there was yet a deeper cry in her 
 
 for humanity, which had not found expression. Few 
 
 women had suffered more or had enjoyed more than she; 
 
 1 Her brother George s only child. 
 
130 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1850 
 
 her experience was ripe for others, and her joy was large 
 enough to give hope to the down-trodden. 
 
 Upon her way to Brunswick she stopped, as we have 
 said, at the house of her brother in Boston, Dr. Edward 
 Beecher. Daniel Webster s seventh of March speech was 
 still ringing in the ears of the people. The hated Compro 
 mise had been defended by their idol, and he was cast into 
 the dust. "Ichabod," Whittier cried, "so fallen, so lost! 
 When honor dies the man is dead. ? 
 
 The hearts of men were aflame at the Fugitive Slave 
 Act, which was then being debated and finally passed by 
 the Congress of that year. The conversation turned upon 
 this topic, and heart-rending scenes were described of fami 
 lies broken up, men frozen by flight in winter through 
 rivers and pathless forests on their way to Canada. After 
 Mrs. Stowe reached Brunswick Mrs. Edward Beecher wrote 
 to her sister: "Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I 
 would write something to make this whole nation feel what 
 an accursed thing slavery is." 
 
 One of Mrs. Stowe s children remembers well 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 pas 
 sage, "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 some 
 thing. I will if I live." 
 
 In December, Mrs. Stowe sent a message to her sister: 
 "Tell 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, 
 
1850] FIRST SKETCH FOR THE "ERA" 131 
 
 and the stand taken by Boston ministers universally, ex 
 cept Edward ? 
 
 " To me it is incredible, amazing, mournful ! T T ?<*?] fl g 
 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 ancT Mrs. 
 Judge Reeves in another. I wish _ s_gme^ Martin. .Luther 
 would arise to set this community right." 
 
 She also writes to Professor Stowe at Christmas time 
 and cheers him up by telling him of stories she had been 
 writing for the "Era," and other papers, in which he 
 figures as a farmer, the facts being drawn from life ! ! But 
 the New Year had not arrived when she records days of 
 terrible cold, which made it almost impossible to hold a 
 pen. 
 
 December 29. "We have had terrible weather here. 
 I remember such a storm when I was a child in Litch 
 field. 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- 
 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 frienc 
 and get any items in figures of that kind that you can picl 
 up in Cincinnati ? . . . When I have a headache and feel 
 
132 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1850 
 
 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 rny 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 
 We shall be able to come through, notwithstand- 
 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. 
 
 "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 writ 
 ing ; 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." 
 
 Twenty-five years afterwards Mrs. Stowe wrote to her 
 son Charles 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 criielty and injustice our nation was show 
 ing to the slave, and praying God to let me do a little, 
 
1851] THE WRITING OF "UNCLE TOM" 133 
 
 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." 
 
 In April the first chapter of "Uncle Tom s Cabin" 
 was dispatched to Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, the editor of the 
 "National Era" in Washington. In July, Mrs. Stowe 
 wrote as follows : 
 
 BKUNSWICK, 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 ac 
 quaintance there might be one who would be able to com 
 municate 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 sub 
 join 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, 
 
134 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1851 
 
 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 Ameri 
 can church of all denominations, taken as a body, com 
 prises the best and most conscientious people in the coun 
 try. 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 vari 
 ous Christian denominations. This fact has given to the 
 church great weight in this country, the general and pre 
 dominant 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 beauti 
 fully 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 Sab 
 bath-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 
 
1851] ANTI-SLAVERY 135 
 
 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-intem 
 perance, pro- Sabbath-breaking, and pro everything that it 
 might put down if it were in a higher state of moral feel 
 ing *{ 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 influen 
 tial 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 strong 
 est 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 pub- 
 
136 . HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1852 
 
 lished on this offensive and unchristian Fugitive Slave 
 Law, and you will find that those against it are numeri 
 cally 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 
 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 de 
 spairing 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 r Chris 
 tians North and South will give up all connection with, 
 and take up their testimony against, slavery, and thus the 
 work will be done. 
 
 The great story was at last finished in "The National 
 Era," April, 1852. She had put her life-blood, her prayers, 
 and her tears into the work; yet she had no reason to 
 know that her labors were to find response in the world. 
 
 "After sending the last proof-sheet to the office," she 
 says, "I sat alone reading Horace Mann s eloquent plea 
 for the young men and women, then about to be con 
 signed to the slave warehouse of Bruin & Hill in Alexan 
 dria, Virginia, 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 no 
 body would hear, nobody would read, nobody pity; that 
 this frightful system, that had already pursued its victims 
 
18521 DOUBTFUL OF RESULT 137 
 
 into the free States, might at last even threaten them in 
 Canada. " 
 
 She began to reflect if she had done all in her power, 
 and sitting down again at her desk, she 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. 
 
 Very soon she was assured of the success of her sketches 
 in book form. The whole year s work in "The National 
 Era" brought her only three hundred dollars; but Mr. 
 Jewett, a Boston publisher, having offered to bring it out 
 immediately in one volume, three thousand copies were 
 sold the first day of publication. 
 
 She began to reflect how the subject had lain dormant 
 in her mind since she was a child, how she had been .led 
 step by step to do her work, and a sense of detachment 
 grew upon her daily. 
 
 The modesty of Mrs. Stowe s demeanor throughout the 
 altogether extraordinary experience which came to her 
 after the publication of "Uncle Tom s Cabin" is to be un 
 derstood only by looking upon her life from her own stand 
 point. She was pursued by the thought that the freedom 
 of the slaves was not yet accomplished, and although the 
 hearts of good men were hot with desire to achieve bhis 
 end, no one could see how the great result was to be won. 
 She had done something, she said to herself; God had 
 stirred the hearts of men through her, but what more could 
 be done! This was her constant cry, her ever present 
 thought. Letters of congratulation poured in upon her 
 and were gratefully received. The well known men and 
 women, both of Europe and America, responded to her 
 appeal, but she was entirely spent, and could not see the 
 
138 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1852 
 
 way. Soon after the appearance of her book, she felt the 
 need of change, and left home, going to stop for a while 
 with her brother Henry, where she could rest, and at 
 the same time watch the progress of events. She soon 
 wrote to her husband : 
 
 "The mother of the Edmondson girls [two slave girls 
 formerly, redeemed by the Plymouth Church at the instance 
 of Henry Ward Beecher], 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 ! 
 
 "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 meet 
 ing 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 Kave been so longing to get your 
 
1852] PRACTICAL WORK FOR SLAVES 139 
 
 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 im 
 pedes 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 pro 
 gresses 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 subscrip 
 tion papers at the meeting will undoubtedly raise two 
 hundred dollars more." 
 
 Before leaving New York, Mts. Stowe gave Milly Ed- 
 mondson her check for the entire sum necessary to pur 
 chase 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 ap 
 pealed is shown by a note written to her husband in July. 
 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 con 
 gratulations and praise of her book, the most pleasing inci 
 dent of this time seems to have been an epistolatory inter 
 view 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 
 
140 - HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 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 1 " Indeed, she shall have a seat, whatever hap 
 pens ! Thereupon he took his hat and went out, return 
 ing shortly with tickets for two of the best seats in the 
 house, inclosed in an envelope directed to me in his wife s 
 hand- writing. 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." 
 
 In the "History of the United States" by Mr. J. F. 
 Rhodes there is a brief critical review of Mrs. Stowe s 
 work which may be received as the ultimate view of pos 
 terity. The historian says : " There was a correct picture of 
 the essential features of slavery in Uncle Tom s Cabin, 
 the book which everybody read. The author of it had 
 but one purpose, to show the institution of slavery truly 
 just as it existed. While she had not the facts which 
 a critical historian would have collected, for the Key 
 to Uncle Tom s Cabin was not compiled until after the 
 novel was written, she used with the intuition of genius 
 the materials gained through personal observation, and 
 the result was what she desired." Again he continues: 
 "One of the finest touches in Uncle Tom is his joyful 
 expression when told by his good and indulgent master that 
 he should be set free and sent back to his old home in 
 Kentucky. In attributing the common desire of human- 
 
1853] HISTORY OF UNCLE TOM BY MRS. STOWE 141 
 
 ity to the negro, the author was as true as she was effec 
 tive." 
 
 A perfect history of the writing of " Uncle Tom " and 
 of the effect produced by its appearance is given by Mrs. 
 Stowe in the form of an introduction to the illustrated 
 edition published many years later. We cannot do better 
 than to repeat exactly this eloquent story of her success. 
 The account she gives is unvarnished and unexaggerated. 
 We can study in this paper the wonderful change which 
 has taken place in her style when we compare these pages 
 with her early letters. 
 
 " The author of * Uncle Tom had for many years lived 
 in Ohio on the confines of a slave state, and had thus been 
 made familiar with facts and occurrences in relation to the 
 institution of American slavery. Some of the most har 
 rowing incidents related in the story had from time to time 
 come to her knowledge in conversation with former slaves 
 now free in Ohio. The cruel sale and separation of a mar 
 ried woman from her husband, narrated in Chapter XII., 
 4 Select Incidents of Lawful Trade, had passed under her 
 own eye while passenger on a steamboat on the Ohio 
 River. Her husband and brother had once been obliged 
 to flee with a fugitive slave woman by night, as described 
 in Chapter IX., and she herself had been called to write 
 the letters for a former slave woman, servant in her own 
 family, to a slave husband in Kentucky, who, trusted 
 with unlimited liberty, free to come and go on business 
 between Kentucky and Ohio, still refused to break his 
 pledge of honor to his master, though that master from year 
 to year deferred the keeping of his promise of freedom to the 
 slave. It was the simple honor and loyalty of thife Chris 
 tian black man, who remained in slavery rather than violate 
 a trust, that first impressed her with the possibility of such 
 a character as, years after, was delineated in Uncle Tom. 
 
142 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 "From time to time incidents were brought to her 
 knowledge which deepened her horror of slavery. In her 
 own family she had a private school for her children, and 
 as there was no provision for the education of colored chil 
 dren in her vicinity, she allowed them the privilege of 
 attending. One day she was suddenly surprised by a visit 
 from the mother of one of the brightest and most amusing 
 of these children. It appeared that the child had never 
 been emancipated, and was one of the assets of an estate 
 in Kentucky, and had been seized and carried off by one 
 of the executors, and was to be sold by the sheriff at auc 
 tion to settle the estate. The sum for the little one s ran 
 som was made up by subscription in the neighborhood, 
 but the incident left a deep mark in Mrs. Stowe s mind as 
 to the practical workings of the institution of slavery. 
 
 "But it was not for many years that she felt any call to 
 make use of the materials thus accumulating. In fact, it 
 was a sort of general impression upon her mind, as upon 
 that of many humane people in those days, that the sub 
 ject was so-dark and painful a one, so involved in diffi 
 culty and obscurity, so utterly beyond human hope or 
 help, that it was of no use to read, or think, or distress 
 one s self about it. There was a class of professed Aboli 
 tionists in Cincinnati and the neighboring regions, but they 
 were unfashionable persons and few in number. Like all 
 asserters of pure abstract right as applied to human affairs, 
 they were regarded as a species of moral monomaniacs, 
 who, in the consideration of one class of interests and 
 wrongs, had lost sight of all proportion and all good judg 
 ment. Both in church and in state they were looked upon 
 as those that troubled Israel. 
 
 "It was a general saying among conservative and saga 
 cious people that this subject was a dangerous one to in 
 vestigate, and that nobody could begin to read and think 
 upon it without becoming practically insane; moreover, 
 
1853] PROFESSOR STOWE S HOUSE A REFUGE 14S 
 
 that it was a subject of such delicacy that no discussion of 
 it could be held in the free States without impinging upon 
 the sensibilities of the slave States, to whom alone the 
 management of the matter belonged. 
 
 " So when Dr. Bailey a wise, temperate, and just 
 man, a model of courtesy in speech and writing came to 
 Cincinnati and set up an anti-slavery paper, proposing a 
 fair discussion of the subject, there was an immediate ex 
 citement. On two occasions a mob led by slaveholders 
 from Kentucky attacked his office, destroyed his printing- 
 press, and threw his types into the Ohio Biver. The 
 most of the Cincinnati respectability, in church and state, 
 contented themselves on this occasion with reprobating the 
 imprudence of Dr. Bailey in thus arousing the passions 
 of our fellow-citizens of Kentucky. In these mobs arid 
 riots the free colored people were threatened, maltreated, 
 abused, and often had to flee for their lives. Even the 
 servants of good families were often chased to the very 
 houses of their employers, who rescued them with diffi 
 culty; and the story was current in those days of a brave 
 little woman who defended her black waiter, standing, 
 pistol in hand, on her own doorstep, and telling the mob 
 face to face that they should not enter except over her 
 dead body. 
 
 "Professor Stowe s house was more than once a refuge 
 for frightened fugitives on whom the very terrors of death 
 had fallen, and the inmates slept with arms in the house 
 and a large bell ready to call the young men of the adjoin 
 ing Institution, in case the mob should come up to search 
 the house. Nor was this a vain or improbable suggestion, 
 for the mob in their fury had more than once threatened 
 to go up and set fire to Lane Seminary, where a large body 
 of the students were known to be abolitionists. Only the 
 fact that the Institution was two miles from the city, with 
 a rough and muddy road up a long high hill, proved its 
 
144 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 salvation. Cincinnati mud, far known for its depth and 
 tenacity, had sometimes its advantages. 
 
 "The general policy of the leaders of society, in cases of 
 such disturbances, was after the good old pattern in Judaea, 
 where a higher One had appeared, who disturbed the 
 traders in swine ; * they besought him that he would depart 
 out of their coasts. Dr. Bailey at last was induced to 
 remove his paper to Washington, and to conduct his in 
 vestigation under the protection of the national Capitol, 
 and there for years he demonstrated the fact that the truth 
 may be spoken plainly yet courteously, and with all honor 
 able and Christian fairness, on the most exciting of sub 
 jects. In justice to the South it must be said that his 
 honesty, courage, and dignity of character won for him 
 friends even among the most determined slaveholders. 
 Manly men have a sort of friendship for an open, honest 
 opponent, like that of Eichard Coeur de Lion for Saladin. 
 
 "Far otherwise was the fate of Lovejoy, who essayed an 
 anti-slavery paper at Alton, Illinois. A mob from Mis 
 souri besieged the office, set the house on fire, and shot 
 him at the door. It was for some days reported that Dr. 
 Beecher s son, Rev. Edward Beecher, known to have been 
 associated with Lovejoy at this period, had been killed 
 at the same time. Such remembrances show how well 
 grounded were the fears which attended every effort to 
 agitate this subject. People who took the side of justice 
 and humanity in those days had to count the cost and pay 
 the price of their devotion. In those times, when John 
 G. Fee, a young Kentucky student in Lane Seminary, lib 
 erated his slaves, and undertook to preach the gospel of 
 emancipation in Kentucky, he was chased from the State, 
 and disinherited by his own father. Berea College, for 
 the education of colored and white, stands to-day a tri- 
 amphant monument of his persistence in well-doing. Mr. 
 Van Zandt, a Kentucky farmer, set free his slaves and 
 
1853] HISTORY OF UNCLE TOM S CABIN, CONTINUED 145 
 
 came over and bought a farm in Ohio. Subsequently, from 
 an impulse of humanity, he received and protected fugitive 
 slaves in the manner narrated in Chapter IX. of Uncle 
 Tom s Cabin. For this he was seized, imprisoned, his 
 property attached, and he was threatened with utter ruin. 
 Salmon P. Chase, then a rising young lawyer in Cincin 
 nati, had the bravery to appear as his lawyer. As he 
 was leaving the court-room, after making his plea, one of 
 the judges remarked, There goes a young man who has 
 ruined himself to-day, and the sentiment was echoed by 
 the general voice of society. The case went against Van 
 Zandt, and Mr. Chase carried it up to the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, which, utterly ignoring argument 
 and justice, decided it against him. But a few years 
 more, and Salmon P. Chase was himself Chief Justice of 
 the United States. It was one of those rare dramatic 
 instances in which courage and justice sometimes bring a 
 reward even in this life. 
 
 "After many years residence in Ohio, Mrs. Stowe re 
 turned to make her abode in New England, just in the 
 height of the excitement produced by the Fugitive Slave 
 Law. Settled in Brunswick, Maine, she was in constant 
 communication with friends in Boston, who wrote to her 
 from day to day of the terror and despair which that law 
 had occasioned to industrious, worthy colored people who 
 had from time to time escaped to Boston, and were living 
 in peace and security. She heard of families broken up 
 and fleeing in the dead of winter to the frozen shores of 
 Canada. But what seemed to her more inexplicable, more 
 dreadful, was the apparent apathy of the Christian world \_ 
 of the free North to these proceedings. The pulpits that /\ 
 denounced them were exceptions; the voices raised to 
 remonstrate few and far between. 
 
 "In New England, as at the West, professed abolition 
 ists were a small, despised, unfashionable band, whose 
 
146 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 constant remonstrances from year to year had been disre 
 garded as the voices of impracticable fanatics. It seemed 
 now as if the system once confined to the Southern States 
 was rousing itself to new efforts to extend itself all over 
 the North, and to overgrow the institutions of free society. 
 
 "With astonishment and distress Mrs. Stowe heard on 
 all sides, from humane and Christian people, that the 
 slavery of the blacks was a guaranteed constitutional right, 
 and that all opposition to it endangered the national 
 Union. With this conviction she saw that even earnest 
 and tender-hearted Christian people seemed to feel it a 
 duty to close their eyes, ears, and hearts to the harrowing 
 details of slavery, to put down all discussion of the sub 
 ject, and even to assist slave owners to recover fugitives 
 in Northern States. She said to herself, these people 
 cannot know what slavery is; they do not see what they 
 are defending; and hence arose a purpose to write some 
 sketches which should show to the world slavery as she 
 had herself seen it. Pondering this subject, she was one 
 day turning over a little bound volume of an anti-slavery 
 magazine, edited by Mrs. Dr. Bailey, of Washington, and 
 there she read the account of the escape of a woman with 
 her child on the ice of the Ohio Eiver from Kentucky. 
 The incident was given by an eye-witness, one who had 
 helped the woman to the Ohio shore. This formed the 
 first salient point of the story. She began to meditate. 
 The faithful slave husband in Kentucky . occurred to her 
 as a pattern of Uncle Tom, and the scenes of the story 
 began gradually to form themselves in her mind. 
 
 "The first part of the book ever committed to writing 
 was the death of Uncle Tom. This scene presented itself 
 almost as a tangible vision to her mind while sitting at the 
 "communion table in the little church in Brunswick. She 
 was perfectly overcome by jt, and could scarcely restrain 
 the convulsion of tears and sobbings that shook her frame. 
 
1853] HISTORY OF UNCLE TOM S CABIN CONTINUED 147 
 
 She hastened home and wrote it, and her husband being 
 away she read it to her two sons of ten and twelve years 
 of age. The little fellows broke out into convulsions of 
 weeping, one of them saying, through his sobs, Oh ! 
 mamma, slavery is the most cursed thing in the world ! 
 From that time the story can less be said to have been 
 composed by her than imposed upon her. Scenes, inci 
 dents, conversations rushed upon her with a vividness and 
 importunity that would not be denied. The book insisted 
 upon getting itself into being, and would take no denial. 
 After the two or three first chapters were written, she 
 wrote to Dr. Bailey of the National Era that she was 
 planning a story that might probably run through sev 
 eral numbers of the Era. In reply she received an in 
 stant application for it, and began immediately to send off 
 weekly installments. She was then in the midst of heavy 
 domestic cares, with a young infant, with a party of pupils 
 in her family to whom she was imparting daily lessons 
 with her own children, and with untrained servants requir 
 ing constant supervision, but the story was so much more 
 intense a reality to her than any other earthly thing that 
 the weekly installment never failed. It-was iJieia-in., har 
 mind day and night waiting to be written, and requiring 
 but a few moments to bring it into visible characters. 
 
 "The weekly number was always read to the family 
 circle before it was sent away, and all the household kept 
 up an intense interest in the progress of the story. 
 
 " As the narrative appeared in the * Era, sympathetic 
 words began to come to her from old workers who had 
 long been struggling in the anti-slavery cause. She visited 
 Boston, went to the Anti-Slavery rooms, and reinforced 
 her repertoire of facts by such documents as Theodore D. 
 Weld s Slavery As It Is, the Lives of Josiah Henson 
 and Lewis Clarke, particulars from both whose lives were 
 inwoven with the story in the characters of Uncle Tom 
 and George Harris. 
 
148 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 "In shaping her material the author had but one pur 
 pose, to show the institution of slavery truly, just as it 
 existed. She had visited in Kentucky, had formed the 
 acquaintance of people who were just, upright, and gener 
 ous, and yet slaveholders. She had heard their views and 
 appreciated their situation; she felt that justice required 
 that their difficulties should be recognized and their virtues 
 acknowledged. It was her object to show that the evils 
 of slavery were the inherent evils of a bad system,, and 
 not always the fault of those who had become involved in 
 it and were its actual administrators. 
 
 " Then she was convinced that the presentation of slavery 
 alone, in its most dreadful forms, would be a picture of 
 such unrelieved horror and darkness as nobody could be 
 induced to look at. Of set purpose, she sought to light up 
 the darkness by humorous and grotesque episodes, and the 
 presentation of the milder and more amusing phases of 
 slavery, for which her recollection of the never-failing wit 
 and drollery of her former colored friends in Ohio gave 
 her abundant material. As the story progressed, a young 
 publisher, J. P. Jewett, of Boston, set his eye upon it, 
 and made overtures for the publication of it in book form, 
 to which she consented. After a while she had a letter 
 from him expressing his fears that she was making the 
 story too long for a one- volume publication. He reminded 
 her that it was an unpopular subject, and that people 
 would not willingly hear much about it; that one short 
 volume might possibly sell, but if it grew to two it might 
 prove a fatal obstacle to its success. Mrs. Stowe replied 
 that she did not make the story, that the story made itself, 
 and that she could not stop it till it was done. .Ilie^IeeJU^ 
 ing that pursued her increased in intensity to the last, till 
 with the death of Uncle Tom it seemed as if the whole 
 vital force had left her. A ^feeling of profound discourage 
 ment canie over her. Would anybody read it? Would 
 
1853] DESPONDENCY OF THE AUTHOR 149 
 
 anybody listen 1 Would this appeal, into which she had 
 put heart, soul, mind, and strength, which she had written" 
 with her heart s blood, would it, -too, go for nothing, as 
 so many prayers and groans and entreaties of these poor 
 suffering souls had already gone ? There had just l>een 
 a party of slaves who had been seized and thrown into 
 prison in Washington for a vain effort to escape. They 
 were, many of them, partially educated, cultivated young 
 men and women, to whom slavery was intolerable. When 
 they were retaken and marched through the streets of 
 Washington, followed by a jeering crowd, one of them, 
 named Emily Edmonson, answered one man who cried 
 shame upon her, that she was not ashamed, that she 
 was proud that she and all the rest of them had made an 
 effort for liberty ! It was the sentiment of a heroine, but 
 she and her sisters were condemned no less to the auction- 
 block. 
 
 " Uncle Tom s Cabin was published March 20, 1852. 
 The despondency of the author as to the question whether 
 anybody would read or attend to her appeal was soon dis 
 pelled. Ten thousand copies were sold in a few days, and 
 over three hundred thousand within a year, and eight 
 power-presses, running day and night, were barely able to 
 keep pace with the demand for it. It was read every 
 where, apparently, and by everybody, and she soon began 
 to hear echoes of sympathy all over the land. J hp. ipfHgj- 
 nation, the pity, the distress, that had long weighed upon 
 her soul seemed to paa&uff from her, and into the readers 
 of the book. 
 
 " The following note from a lady, an intimate friend, was 
 a specimen of many which the post daily brought her : 
 
 " MY DEAR MKS. STOWE, 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 
 
150 HAERIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 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 thoroughgoing abolitionist before, but 
 your book has awakened so strong a feeling of indignation 
 and of compassion, that I seem never to have had any 
 feeling on this subject till now. But what can we do? 
 Alas ! alas ! what can we do ? This storm of feeling has 
 been raging, burning like a very fire in my bones all the 
 livelong night, and through all my duties this morning it 
 haunts me, I cannot away with it. Gladly would I 
 have gone out in the midnight storm last night, and, like 
 the blessed martyr of old, been stoned to death, if that 
 could have rescued these oppressed and afflicted ones. But 
 that would avail nothing. And now what am I doing? 
 Just the most foolish thing in the world. Writing to you, 
 who need no incitement; to you, who have spun from 
 your very -vitals this tissue of agony and truths; for I 
 know, I feel, that there are burning drops of your heart s 
 best blood here concentrated. To you, who need no en 
 couragement or sympathy of mine, and whom I would not 
 insult by praise, oh, no, you stand on too high an emi- 
 nemce for praise; but methinks I see the prayers of the 
 po or, the blessings of those who are ready to perish, gath- 
 erin g in clouds about you, and forming a halo round your 
 beloved head. And surely the tears of gentle, sympathiz 
 ing childhood, that are dropping about many a Christian 
 hear thstone over the wrongs and cruelties depicted by you 
 so touchingly, will water the sod and spring up in bright 
 flowt rs at your feet. And better still, I know, I see, 
 in the flushing cheek, the clenched hand and indignant 
 eye of the young man, as he dashes down the book and 
 paces the room to hide the tears that he is too proud to 
 show, too powerless to restrain, that you are sowing seed 
 which shall yet spring up to the glory of God, to the good 
 of the poor slave, to the enfranchisement of our beloved 
 though guilty country. 7 
 
1853] GEORGE SAND S REVIEW OF UNCLE TOM 151 
 
 " In one respect, Mrs. Stowe s expectations were strikingly 
 different from fact. She had painted slaveholders as ami 
 able, generous, and just. She had shown examples among 
 them of the noblest and most beautiful traits of character ; 
 had admitted fully their temptations, their perplexities, 
 and their difficulties, so that a friend of hers who had 
 many relatives in the South wrote to her in exultation : 
 Your book is going to be the great pacificator ; it will 
 unite both North and South/ Her expectation was that 
 the professed abolitionists would denounce it as altogether 
 too mild in its dealings with slaveholders. To her aston 
 ishment it was the extreme abolitionists who received, and 
 the entire South who rose up against it. 
 
 " The most valuable of the letters referred to were from 
 Lord Carlisle, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, the Earl of 
 Shaftesbury, Archbishop Whately, Hon. Arthur Helps, 
 Frederika Bremer, and George Sand. The latter thus in 
 troduced Uncle Tom s Cabin to the literary world of 
 France : 
 
 To review a book, the very morrow after its appearance, 
 in the very journal where it has just been published, is 
 doubtless contrary to usage, but in this case it is the most 
 disinterested homage that can be rendered, since the im 
 mense success attained by this work at its publication does 
 not need to be set forth. 
 
 This book is in all hands and in all journals. It has, 
 and will have, editions in every form; people devour it, 
 they cover it with tears. It is no longer permissible to 
 those who can read not to have read it, and one mourns 
 that there are so many souls condemned never to read it, 
 helots of poverty, slaves through ignorance, for whom 
 society has been unable as yet to solve the double problem 
 of uniting the food of the body with the food of the soul. 
 
 It is not, then, it cannot be, an officious and needless 
 
152 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 task to review this book of Mrs. Stowe. We repeat, it is 
 a homage, and never did a generous and pure work merit 
 one more tender and spontaneous. She is far from us; 
 we do not know her who has penetrated our hearts with 
 emotions so sad and yet so sweet. Let us thank her the 
 more. Let the gentle voice of woman, the generous voice 
 of man, with the voices of little children, so adorably glori 
 fied in this book, and those of the oppressed of this old 
 world, let them cross the seas and hasten to say to her 
 that she is esteemed and beloved! 
 
 If the best eulogy which one can make of the author is 
 to love her, the truest that one can make of the book is to 
 love its very faults. It has faults, we need not pass 
 them in silence, we need not evade the discussion of them, 
 but you need not be disturbed about them, you who are 
 rallied on the tears you have shed over the fortunes of the 
 poor victims in a narrative so simple and true. 
 
 These defects exist only in relation to the conventional 
 rules of art, which never have been and never will be ab 
 solute. If its judges, possessed with the love of what 
 they call "artistic work," find unskillful treatment in the 
 book, look well at them to see if their eyes are dry when 
 they are reading this or that chapter. 
 
 They will recall to your mind that Ohio senator, who, 
 having sagely demonstrated to his little wife that it is a 
 political duty to refuse asylum and help to the fugitive 
 slave, ends by taking two in his own carriage, in a dark 
 night, over fearful roads, where he must from time to time 
 plunge into mud to his waist to push on the vehicle. This 
 charming episode in "Uncle Tom" (a digression, if you 
 will) paints well the situation of most men placed between 
 their prejudices and established modes of thought and the 
 spontaneous and generous intuitions of their hearts. 
 
 It is the history, at the same time affecting and pleasing, 
 of many independent critics. Whatever they may be in 
 
1853] GEORGE BAND S CRITICISM !O3 
 
 the matter of social or literary questions, those who pretend 
 always to judge by strict rules are often vanquished by 
 their own feelings, and sometimes vanquished when un 
 willing to avow it. 
 
 I have always been charmed by the anecdote of Voltaire, 
 ridiculing and despising the fables of La Fontaine, seizing 
 the book and saying, "Look here, now, you will see in 
 the very first one " he reads one. " Well, that is passa 
 ble, but see how stupid this is! " he reads a second, and 
 iinds after all that it is quite pretty; a third disarms him 
 again, and at last he throws down the volume, saying, with 
 ingenuous spite, "It s nothing but a collection of master 
 pieces." Great souls may be bilious and vindictive, but 
 it is impossible for them to remain unjust and insensible. 
 
 It, however, should be said to people of culture, who 
 profess to be able to give correct judgments, that if their 
 culture is of the truest kind it will never resist a just and 
 right emotion. Therefore it is that this book, defective 
 according to the rules of the modern French romance, in 
 tensely interests everybody and triumphs over all criticisms 
 in the discussions it causes in domestic circles. 
 
 For this book is essentially domestic and of the family, 
 this book, with its long discussions, its minute details, 
 its portraits carefully studied. Mothers of families, young 
 girls, little children, servants even, can read and understand 
 them, and men themselves, even the most superior, cannot 
 disdain them. We do not say that the success of the book 
 is because its great merits redeem its faults ; we say its suc 
 cess is because of these very alleged faults. 
 
 For a long time we have striven in France against the 
 prolix explanations of Walter Scott. We have cried out 
 .against those of Balzac, but on consideration have perceived 
 that the painter of manners and character has never done 
 too much, that every stroke of the pencil was needed for 
 the general effect. Let us learn then to appreciate all 
 
154 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 kinds of treatment, when the effect is good, and when 
 they bear the seal of a master hand. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe is all instinct; it is the very reason that she 
 appears to some not to have talent. Has she not talent ? 
 What is talent ? Nothing, doubtless, compared to genius ; 
 but has she genius 1 I cannot say that she has talent as 
 one understands it in the world of letters, but she has 
 genius, as humanity feels the need of genius, the genius 
 of goodness, not that of the man of letters, but of the 
 saint. Yes, a saint ! Thrice holy the soul which thus 
 loves, blesses, and consoles the martyrs. Pure, penetra 
 ting, and profound the spirit which thus fathoms the re 
 cesses of the human soul. Noble, generous, and great the 
 heart which embraces in her pity, in her love, an entire 
 race, trodden down in blood and mire under the whip of 
 ruffians and the maledictions of the impious. 
 
 Thus should it be, thus should we value things our 
 selves. We should feel that genius is heart, that power is 
 faith, that talent is sincerity, and, finally, success is sym 
 pathy, since this book overcomes us, since it penetrates the 
 breast, pervades the spirit, and fills us with a strange senti 
 ment of mingled tenderness and admiration for a poor negro 
 lacerated by blows, prostrate in the dust, there gasping on 
 a miserable pallet, his last sigh exhaled towards God. 
 
 In matters of art there is but one rule, to paint and to 
 move. And where shall we find creations more complete, 
 types more vivid, situations more touching, more original, 
 than in "Uncle Tom," those beautiful relations of the 
 slave with the child of his master, indicating a state of 
 things unknown among us; the protest of the master him 
 self against slavery during that innocent part of life when 
 his soul belongs to God alone 1 Afterwards, when society 
 takes him, the law chases away God, and interest deposes 
 conscience. In coming to mature years the infant ceases 
 to be man and becomes master. God dies in his soul. 
 
1853] EVA AND UNCLE TOM 155 
 
 What hand has ever drawn a type more fascinating and 
 admirable than St. Clair, this exceptional nature, noble, 
 generous, and loving, but too soft and too nonchalant to 
 be really great? Is it not man himself, human nature 
 itself, with its innate virtues, its good aspirations, and its 
 deplorable failures ? this charming master who loves and 
 is beloved, who thinks and reasons, but concludes nothing 
 and does nothing! He spends in his day treasures of in 
 dulgence, of consideration, of goodness; he dies without 
 having accomplished anything. The story of his precious 
 life is all told in a word, "to aspire and to regret." He 
 has never learned to will. Alas! is there not something 
 of this even among the bravest and best of men ? 
 
 The life and death of a little child and of a negro slave ! 
 that is the whole book ! This negro and this child are 
 two saints of heaven ! The affection that unites them, the 
 respect of these two perfect ones for each other, is the only 
 love-story, the only passion of the drama. I know not 
 what other genius but that of sanctity itself could shed over 
 this affection and this situation a charm so powerful and 
 so sustained. The child reading the Bible on the knees 
 of the slave, dreaming over its mysteries and enjoying 
 them in her exceptional maturity; now covering him with 
 flowers like a doll, and now looking to him as something 
 sacred, passing from tender playfulness to tender venera 
 tion, and then fading away through a mysterious malady 
 which seems to be nothing but the wearing of pity in a 
 nature too pure, too divine, to accept earthly law; dying 
 finally in the arms of the slave, and calling him after her 
 to the bosom of God, all this is so new, so beautiful, 
 that one asks one s self in thinking of it whether the suc 
 cess which has attended the work is after all equal to the 
 height of the conception. 
 
 Children are the true heroes of Mrs. Stowe s works. 
 Her soul, the most motherly that could be, has conceived 
 
156 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 of these little creatures in a halo of grace. George Shelby, 
 the little Harry, the cousin of Eva, the regretted babe of 
 the little wife of the Senator, and Topsy, the poor, diabolic, 
 excellent Topsy, all the children that one sees, and even 
 those that one does not see in this romance, but of whom 
 one has only a few words from their desolate mothers, seem 
 to us a world of little angels, white and black, where any 
 mother may recognize some darling of her own, source of 
 her joys and tears. In taking form in the spirit of Mrs. 
 Stowe, these children, without ceasing to be children, as 
 sume ideal graces, and come at last to interest us more 
 than the personages of an ordinary love-story. 
 
 Women, too, are here judged and painted with a master 
 hand; not merely mothers who are sublime, but women 
 who are not mothers either in heart or in fact, and whose 
 infirmities are treated with indulgence or with rigor. By 
 the side of the methodical Miss Ophelia, who ends by 
 learning that duty is good for nothing without love, Marie 
 St. Clair is a frightfully truthful portrait. One shudders 
 in thinking that she exists, that she is everywhere, that 
 each of us has met her and seen her, perhaps, not far from 
 us, for it is only necessary that this charming creature 
 should have slaves to torture, and we should see her re 
 vealed complete through her vapors and her nervous com 
 plaints. 
 
 The saints also have their claw ! it is that of the lion. 
 She buries it deep in the conscience, and a little of burn 
 ing indignation and of terrible sarcasm does not, after all, 
 misbecome this Harriet Stowe, this woman so gentle, so 
 humane, so religious, and full of evangelical unction. Ah ! 
 yes, she is a very good woman, but not what we derisively 
 call "goody good." Hers is a heart strong and courageous, 
 which in blessing the unhappy and applauding the faith 
 ful, tending the feeble and succoring the irresolute, does 
 not hesitate to bind to the. pillory the hardened tyrant, to 
 show to the world his deformity. 
 
1853] RECEPTION OF UNCLE TOM IN PARIS 157 
 
 She is, in the true spirit of the word, consecrated. Her 
 fervent Christianity sings the praise of the martyr, but 
 permits no man the right to perpetuate the wrong. She 
 denounces that strange perversion of Scripture which toler 
 ates the iniquity of the oppressor because it gives oppor 
 tunity for the virtues of the victims. She calls on God 
 himself, and threatens in his name; she shows us human 
 law on one side, and God on the other! 
 
 Let no one say that, because she exhorts to patient en 
 durance of wrong, she justifies those who do the wrong. 
 Eead the beautiful page where George Harris, the white 
 slave, embraces for the first time the shores of a free terri 
 tory, and presses to his heart wife and child, who at last 
 are his own. What a beautiful picture, that! What a 
 large heart-throb ! what a triumphant protest of the eternal 
 and inalienable right of man to liberty ! 
 
 Honor and respect to you, Mrs. Stowe! Some day your 
 recompense, which is already recorded in heaven, will come 
 also in this world. GEORGE SAND. 
 
 NOHANT, December 17, 1852. 
 
 " Madame L. S. Belloc, also a well-known and distin 
 guished writer, the translator of Miss Edgeworth s and of 
 other English works into French, says : 
 
 " When the first translation of " Uncle Tom " was pub 
 lished in Paris there was a general hallelujah for the author 
 and for the cause. A few weeks after, M. Charpentier, 
 one of our best publishers, called on me to ask a new 
 translation. I objected that there were already so many it 
 might prove a failure. He insisted, saying, " II n y aura 
 jamais assez de lecteurs pour un tel livre," and he particu 
 larly desired a special translation for his own collection, 
 " Bibliotheque Charpentier," where it is catalogued, and 
 where it continues now to sell daily. " La Case de 1 Oncle 
 Tom " was the fifth, if I recollect rightly, and a sixth illus- 
 
158 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 trated edition appeared some months after. It was read 
 by high and low, by grown persons and children. A great 
 enthusiasm for the anti-slavery cause was the result. The 
 popularity of the work in France was immense, and no 
 doubt influenced the public mind in favor of the North 
 during the war of secession. 
 
 " The next step in the history of i Uncle Tom was a 
 meeting at Stafford House, when Lord Shaftesbury recom 
 mended to the women of England the sending of an ( affec 
 tionate and Christian address to the women of America. 
 
 " This address, composed by Lord Shaftesbury, was taken 
 in hand for signatures by energetic canvassers in all parts 
 of England, and also among resident English on the Con 
 tinent. The demand for signatures went as far forth as 
 the city of Jerusalem. When all the signatures were col 
 lected, the document was forwarded to the care of Mrs. 
 Stowe in America, with a letter from Lord Carlisle, re 
 commending it to her, to be presented to the ladies of 
 America in such way as she should see fit. 
 
 " It was exhibited first at the Boston anti-slavery fair, 
 and now remains in its solid oak case, a lasting monument 
 of the feeling called forth by l Uncle Tom s Cabin. 
 
 "It is in twenty-six thick folio volumes, solidly bound in 
 morocco, with the American eagle on the back of each. 
 On the first page of the first volume is the address beauti 
 fully illuminated on vellum, and following are the subscrib 
 ers names, filling the volumes. There are 562,448 names 
 of women of every rank of life, from the nearest in rank 
 to the throne of England to the wives and daughters of 
 the humblest artisan and laborer. Among all who signed 
 it is fair to presume there was not one who had not read 
 the book, and did not, at the time of signing, feel a sym 
 pathy for the cause of the oppressed people whose wrongs 
 formed its subject. The address, with its many signatures, 
 was simply a relief to that, impulsive desire to do some- 
 
1853] RECEPTION OF MRS. STOWE IN ENGLAND 159 
 
 thing for the cause of the slave, which the reading of 
 Uncle Tom s Cabin appeared to inspire. 
 
 " Of the wisdom of this step there have been many opin 
 ions. Nobody, however, can doubt that Lord Shaftesbury, 
 who had spent a long life in labors to lift burdens from 
 the working-classes of England, and who had redeemed 
 from slavery and degradation English women and children 
 in its mines and collieries, had thereby acquired a certain 
 right to plead for the cause of oppressed working-classes in 
 all countries. 
 
 " The address was received as a welcome word of cheer 
 and encouragement by that small band of faithful workers 
 who for years had stood in an unfashionable minority ; but 
 so far as the feeling expressed in it was one of real Chris 
 tian kindliness and humility, it was like a flower thrown 
 into the white heat of a furnace. It added intensity, if that 
 were possible, to that terrific conflict of forces which was 
 destined never to cease till slavery was finally abolished. 
 
 " It was a year after the publication of Uncle Tom 
 that Mrs. Stowe visited England, and was received at Staf 
 ford House, there meeting all the best known and best 
 worth knowing of the higher circles of England. 
 
 " A series of addresses presented to Mrs. Stowe at this 
 time by public meetings in different towns of England, 
 Scotland, and Ireland, still remain among the literary 
 curiosities relating to this book. The titles of these are 
 somewhat curious : Address from the Inhabitants of 
 Berwick-upon-Tweed ; l Address from the Inhabitants of 
 Dalkeith; Address from the Committee of the Glasgow 
 Female Anti-Slavery Society ; Address from the Glas 
 gow University Abstainers Society ; Address from a 
 Public Meeting in Belfast, Ireland ; Address from the 
 Committee of the Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, Edinburgh ; 
 1 Address from the City of Leeds. 
 
160 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 " All these public meetings, addresses, and demonstrations 
 of sympathy were, in their time and way, doubtless of per 
 fect sincerity. But when the United States went into a 
 state of civil war, these demonstrations ceased. 
 
 " But it is due to the brave true working-classes of Eng 
 land to say that in this conflict, whenever they thought 
 the war was one of justice to the slave, they gave it their 
 sympathy, and even when it brought hardship and want to 
 their very doors, refused to lend themselves to any popu 
 lar movement which would go to crusht he oppressed in 
 America. 
 
 " It is but justice also to the Duchess of Sutherland to 
 say that although by the time our war was initiated she had 
 retired from her place as leader of society to the chamber 
 of the invalid, yet her sympathies expressed in private 
 letters ever remained true to the cause of freedom. 
 
 " Her son-in-law, the Duke of Argyll, stood almost alone 
 in the House of Lords in defending the cause of the North 
 ern States. It is, moreover, a significant fact that the 
 Queen of England, in concurrence with Prince Albert, 
 steadily resisted every attempt to enlist the warlike power 
 of England against the Northern States. 
 
 Jut Almighty God had decreed the liberation of the 
 African race, and though Presidents, Senators, and Kepre- 
 sentatives united in declaring that such were not their in 
 tentions, yet by great signs and mighty wonders was this 
 nation compelled to listen to the voice that spoke from 
 heaven, Let my people go/ 
 
 " Uncle Tom s Cabin/ in the fervor which conceived it, 
 in the feeling which it inspired through the world, was 
 only one of a line of ripples marking the commencement of 
 mighty rapids, moving by forces which no human power 
 could stay to an irresistible termination, towards human 
 freedom. 
 
 " Now the war is over, slavery is a thing of the 
 
1853] END OF MRS. STOWE S HISTORY OF HER BOOK 161 
 
 slave-pens, blood-hounds, slave-whips, and slave-coffles are 
 only bad dreams of the night; and now the humane reader 
 can afford to read Uncle Tom s Cabin 7 without an ex 
 penditure of torture and tears." 
 
 Nothing need be added to this story respecting the 
 growth, development, and reception of "Uncle Tom." 
 
 It only remains for us to follow her, now suddenly launched 
 upon an ocean of new experiences; experiences such as are 
 known in this world to the few men and women whose 
 sympathies have led them to give their lives indeed for 
 others. We look back upon the dreaming child, we fol 
 low the eager girl, unconscious of incessant labor, conscious 
 only of aspiration and endeavor ; we watch the tender 
 mother; and then we see her, forever the same, a tiny 
 figure standing forgetful of herself against the dark vast 
 background of her country s life. 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN AND FIRST VISIT TO 
 ENGLAND 
 
 IN the autumn of the same year that "Uncle Tom" 
 was published, Mrs. Stowe returned to Brooklyn, where 
 she cemented her friendship with her "brother s parish 
 ioner, Mrs. John T. Howard. Mr. Howard was one 
 of the earliest promoters of Plymouth Church, and from 
 their first acquaintance to the end of his life Mr. and 
 Mrs. Howard and their children were Mr. Beecher s un 
 wavering supporters and faithful friends. By this time 
 Mrs. Stowe s foreign correspondence had increased. The 
 letters exchanged across the water were the beginning of 
 some of her most valued friendships. Her brother Henry 
 said, many years after leaving Indianapolis for Brooklyn: 
 " I have no opportunity to tell my friends there how dearly 
 I love them, but pearls and diamonds do not change when 
 laid away in a bag, neither do such friendships. " It was 
 the same with Mrs. Stowe. Her genius for friendship was 
 only another phase of her intimate life which the world 
 could not see. Her love once given was not subject to any 
 "wind of doctrine." Days, weeks, and months could pass 
 without communication, but her heart was always remem 
 bering and alive. 
 
 Mrs. Howard has written a delightful account of the 
 beginning of her lifelong intimacy with Mrs. Stowe. 
 
 "The newspapers were then filled with accounts of the 
 wonderful success of the book at home and abroad," writes 
 Mrs. Howard. "When ready to return to her home in 
 
1852] MANNER OF CONCEIVING UNCLE TOM 163 
 
 Andover, she urged my going with her, an invitation that 
 I gladly accepted. To lessen the fatigue of the long rail 
 road journey, we spent one night in Hartford with Mrs. 
 Stowe s sister, Mrs. Perkins. After a pleasant evening 
 with the family, we retired, sharing the same room at Mrs. 
 Stowe s request. I soon disrobed and lay upon the bed, 
 looking at her little childish figure gathered in a heap upon 
 the floor as she sat brushing out her long curls with a 
 thoughtful look upon her face, which I did not disturb by 
 words. 
 
 "At last she spoke, and said, <I have just received a 
 letter from my brother Edward from Galesburg, Illinois. 
 He is greatly disturbed lest all this praise and notoriety 
 should induce pride and vanity, and work harm to my 
 Christian character. She dropped her brush from her 
 hand and exclaimed with earnestness, < Dear soul, he need 
 not be troubled. He does n t know that I did not write 
 that book. What ! said I, * you did not write " Uncle 
 Tom " ? No, she said, I only put down what I saw. 
 * But you have never been at the South, have you ? 
 I asked. No, she said, but it all came before me in 
 visions, one after another, and I put them down in words. 
 But being still skeptical, I said, Still you must have 
 arranged the events. c No, said she, * your Annie re 
 proached me for letting Eva die. Why! I could not 
 help it. I felt as badly as any one could ! It was like a 
 death in my own family, and it affected me so deeply that 
 I could not write a word for two weeks after her death. 
 And did you know, I asked, that Uncle Tom would 
 die? Oh yes, she answered, I knew that he must die 
 from the first, but I did not know how. When I got to 
 that part of the story, I saw no more for some time. I 
 was physically exhausted, too. Mr. Stowe had then ac 
 cepted a call to Andover, and had to go there to find a 
 house for the family. 
 
164 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1852 
 
 " He urged my going with him for the change, and I 
 went. No available home could be found, and the Faculty 
 gave us permission to occupy a large stone building which 
 had been built for a gymnasium. I had always longed to 
 plan a house for myself, and we entered into the work 
 with great interest. We consulted an architect, and had 
 been with him arranging the plan for rooms, pantries, and 
 other household conveniences, all the morning. 
 
 " I was very tired when we returned to our boarding- 
 house to the early midday dinner. After dinner we went 
 to our room for rest. Mr. Stowe threw himself upon the 
 bed; I was to use the lounge; but suddenly arose before 
 me the death scene of Uncle Tom with what led to it 
 and George s visit to him. I sat down at the table and 
 wrote nine pages of foolscap paper without pausing, except 
 long enough to dip my pen into the inkstand. Just as I 
 had finished, Mr. Stowe awoke. "Wife," said he, "have 
 not you lain down yet?" "No," I answered. "I have 
 been writing, and I want you to listen to this, and see if 
 it will do." I read aloud to him with the tears flowing 
 fast. He wept, too, and before I had finished, his sobs 
 shook the bed upon which he was lying. He sprang up, 
 saying, "Do! I should think it would do!" and folding 
 the sheets he immediately directed and sent them to the 
 publisher, without one word of correction or revision of 
 any kind. I have often thought, she continued, that if 
 anything had happened to that package in going, it would 
 not have been possible for me to have reproduced it. 
 
 "As I lay there and listened to this wonderful account, 
 how could I help believing that God inspires his children, 
 and that mighty works do still show forth themselves in 
 those who are prepared to be his mediums. If I had only 
 possessed the limner s power, how gladly would I have 
 put upon canvas that face, lit with a light divine, as 
 though remembering those angel visits, and still saying, 
 
1852] DISCREPANCY IN THE HISTORY 165 
 
 Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be unto me 
 as Thou wilt. 
 
 "Many years after this occurrence," continues Mrs. 
 Howard, " a new edition of * Uncle Tom was brought out 
 by her publishers. In the preface was a paper by Mrs. 
 Stowe, giving an account of the writing of the book. In 
 this account she speaks of having many years before 
 written a sketch of the death of an old slave, and of her 
 reading it to her children, who were very much affected 
 by it, this being the original idea (in part) of Uncle Tom. 
 The next time I saw her I spoke of it, and reminded her 
 of what she had told me just after * Uncle Tom was pub 
 lished. There seemed to me a serious inconsistency be 
 tween the two accounts. No, said she, both are true, for 
 I had entirely forgotten that I had ever written that sketch, 
 and I suppose that I had unconsciously woven it in with 
 the other. " 
 
 There is still another discrepancy in this narration. 
 Professor Stowe did not accept the appointment to An- 
 dover until after the publication of "Uncle Tom." A 
 letter from his wife in Boston, while he is still in Bruns 
 wick at his post, considers the subject of acceptance, and 
 puts before him what Professor Park has to say on the 
 subject. They did not go to the boarding-house, it appears, 
 until the summer, when " Uncle Tom " had been published 
 three or four months. There is a letter from the Commit 
 tee of Trustees written in June of this year suggesting the 
 " old stone house " as a possible resort if they feel inclined 
 to fit it up. Therefore the subject had not been considered 
 before "Uncle Tom" was printed, and Mrs. Stowe must 
 have written the chapter as described after a busy day 
 either in Brunswick or in Boston. It is true that neither of 
 these slips disturbs in the least the true value of the story. 
 The work which she was to do lay upon her heart, and the 
 first available instant, even one which seemed necessary 
 
166 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 for repose, was seized upon and dedicated to this service. 
 The almost incredible swiftness of the writing proves the 
 rapt condition of her mind. Surely it is not wonderful 
 that some of the details of the occasion were forgotten. 
 
 Mrs. Howard was a generous intermediary between 
 Henry Ward Beecher and his sister. Harriet was always 
 anxious to know how it was with her brother, and he 
 found little time for correspondence. His daring in those 
 exciting days laid him open to the attacks of the enemy. 
 
 "Has the pressure really affected Henry s health? " Mrs. 
 Stowe writes. "I have been so sheltered and hemmed in 
 in my retirement that I have not read the articles in the 
 Observer. . . . I am reminded of one of Aunt Es 
 ther s stories. A man, when very drunk, had the habit 
 of using very abusive language to his wife, to which she 
 paid no attention, but went about her affairs as usual. At 
 last he fell to praying about her, saying all manner of 
 horrid things against her in his prayers. Still she gave no 
 heed. 
 
 " Why, do you hear, said a neighbor, how that man 
 goes on 1 
 
 "Oh, poh! said his wife, he ll get over it by and 
 
 % 
 
 " But do just hear him praying. 
 " Oh, let him pray, nobody minds his prayers. 
 "So it has struck me that both the secular and the pious 
 abuse of the Observer are equally unworthy of atten 
 tion. All we have to do is to live on." 
 
 The year following the publication of " Uncle Tom " 
 was a very hard one. Mrs. Stowe was necessarily much 
 away from home. Her visits at Brooklyn, which were a 
 necessity after her writing was done, were followed by the 
 news that Professor Stowe had accepted the call received 
 from the Andover Theological Seminary to become Professor 
 of Sacred Literature there. She was disinclined to leave 
 
1853] ANDOVER 167 
 
 Brunswick, where she found herself surrounded with loving 
 friends from the moment of her arrival, but she 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." 
 
 Again Professor Stowe was called away to Cincinnati, 
 and again his wife set herself to the task of making a new 
 home. The house decided upon for their abode in An- 
 dover was known at this time as the old stone work-shop, 
 but it was soon transformed by her care and ingenuity into 
 a pleasant residence, and called "The Stone Cabin." I can 
 well remember the cosy aspect of the house in winter, the 
 windows full of flowering plants, and a general air of com 
 fort pervading it. Here many interesting persons, drawn 
 by her great fame, came to visit her, and here she con 
 tinued her public and private labors. During the first 
 summer, before the house was ready, she wrote to her hus 
 band : 
 
 "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 sketch 
 ing 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 bril 
 liant affair. To-day 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 every 
 body 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 
 
168 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 his blessing addeth no sorrow therewith. I cannot de 
 scribe to you the constant undercurrent of love and joy 
 and peace ever flowing through my soul. I am so happy 
 so blessed ! " 
 
 And again : 
 
 "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 Haw 
 thorne and his surroundings. 
 
 "To-day Mr. 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 in 
 stitutions 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 domes 
 tic 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 a for you ! " 
 
 Her absence from home and children for the long time 
 required to go to Andover and start things afresh there 
 filled her mind with cares and anxieties. 
 
 She wrote to her husband : 
 
1853] ATTACKS AND ANXIETIES 169 
 
 "A day or two ago, my mind lay clear as glass, and I 
 thought I had no will but God s, and could have none. 
 Lo! his hand touches a spring, and I see what poor trash 
 I am. But I am his chosen one for all that, and I shall 
 reign with Him when all the stars have done blossoming, 
 and if I am so poor I am betrothed to One who is Heir of 
 all things. I read Chaucer a great deal yesterday, and am 
 charmed at the reverential Christian spirit in which he 
 viewed all things. He thought of marriage as a most 
 dread sacrament, just as I do; and surely, if our catechism 
 says truly, a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of 
 an inward and spiritual grace." 
 
 Professor Stowe was often greatly agitated by the diffi 
 culties which surrounded them. At such times, no matter 
 what her occupation was, she would drop everything to 
 write and try to soothe him. The large square sheets of 
 old-fashioned paper covered with her fine script would 
 make many a book beside those which belong to the public. 
 In one of these letters, she says : 
 
 "I grieve to see how much you suffer; but God, I am 
 persuaded, has better things in store for you. I trust you 
 will be of good cheer." 
 
 One would hardly guess that it was she who was bearing 
 the burden of the family to such an extent if she did not 
 occasionally recount the details, in order, as it appears, to 
 divert his mind from the painful channels of his own de 
 spair. The attacks made upon his wife after the publica 
 tion of "Uncle Tom" oppressed him. "For myself," she 
 said, "I have not an anxiety, but am only vulnerable 
 through you. That you should be exposed to this annoy 
 ance on my account is the real and only trouble I have 
 
 had. For me, what harm can or anybody else do 
 
 to me ? Who is he that can harm you if ye be followers 
 of that which is good ? In this belief I have tried to 
 keep near to Him who only is good. . . . Let me recom- 
 
170 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 mend to you what my good mother Edmondson says has 
 been her relief : Oh, many a time, she says, * my heart 
 has been so heavy and I ve been to the throne of Grace 
 and when I ve poured out my sorrows to the Lord, I ve 
 come away and felt that I can live a little longer. 
 
 "So God lays on you a heavy burden in the internal 
 structure of your mind; but how blessed is this baptism of 
 sorrow. Would you part with what you have gained by 
 your peculiar suffering ? / can see that you have acquired 
 by it much that gives you power over other minds. There 
 is not one sorrow that I have had that I would part with, 
 nay, I bear with joy all that falls on my heart from day 
 to day. I say * Welcome, cross of Christ ! " 
 
 Mr. J. R. Howard says that his father was making a brief 
 visit to Mrs. Stowe at this period, when "one afternoon 
 she told him that she often arose in the morning at half 
 past four and went out to enjoy the birds and the dawn, 
 and she challenged him to join her. The next morning 
 they went out, and in that rare, sweet atmosphere they 
 talked, and were silent, together. And she read to him 
 some verses which she had written at such an hour. Since 
 then they have been read and sung by many, to whom 
 they have brought the very peace of Christ." I give the 
 first stanza of the well-known beautiful hymn : 
 
 "Still, still with Thee when purple morning breaketh, 
 
 When the bird waketh and the shadows flee ; 
 Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight, 
 Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with thee! " 
 
 Even in the heat and hurry of that time the "central 
 peace " of which Wordsworth speaks was ever at her heart. 
 
 The Maine story to which Mrs. Stowe has already re 
 ferred was begun before she left Brunswick, but she was 
 obliged to lay it aside on account of the numberless at- 
 tacks made upon "Uncle Tom," which must finally be 
 answered. Unhappily the beautiful beginning of "The 
 
1853] KEY TO UNCLE TOM 171 
 
 Pearl of Orr s Island," one of her best pieces of writing, 
 was never followed out in the same vein. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe had scarcely set herself to the task of writing 
 what she calls "A key to unlock Uncle Tom s Cabin, 
 when she discovered it to be a far greater labor than she 
 anticipated. She had spoken, in writing to Mrs. Howard, 
 of an additional twenty-five pages which she was to add 
 to the next edition of "Uncle Tom," but she soon found 
 herself launched upon a work which was to occupy her for 
 many months and make an entirely new book. 
 
 Late in the winter, she wrote to her husband : 
 
 "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 coun 
 try. 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 dear 
 est. 
 
 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 
 
172 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 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 op 
 pressed, H. B. STOWE. 
 
 She continued the exhausting labor of preparing this 
 book until the spring, when an invitation came from the 
 friends of emancipation in England urging her to come 
 over to them. It was a great opportunity which Profes 
 sor Stowe and his wife accepted gladly. Meanwhile a 
 letter had been received from Mrs. Follen, who was then 
 in London, asking for information about the writer of 
 " Uncle Tom. " Mrs. Stowe replied : 
 
 ANDOVER, February 16. 
 
 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 
 
1853] LETTER TO MRS. FOLLEN 173 
 
 nor teacups to set a table for my father s family; where 
 fore 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 suf 
 fering, 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 sick 
 ness, and a hot, debilitating climate, my children grew up 
 around me. The nursery and the kitchen were my prin 
 cipal 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 with 
 out a dowry, and as my husband had only a large library 
 
174 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 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 11 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 uncer 
 tainty and want of domestic service imposed on both; you 
 may imagine, therefore, how glad I was when, our semi 
 nary property being divided out into small lots which were 
 rented at a low price, a number of poor families settled in 
 
1853] LETTER TO MRS. FOLLEN 175 
 
 our vicinity, from whom we could occasionally obtain do 
 mestic 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 appre 
 ciate 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 epi 
 tome 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 Lou 
 isiana 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 Ken 
 tucky, and her last master was the father of all her chil 
 dren. On this point she ever maintained a delicacy and 
 
176 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 reserve that always appeared to me remarkable. She al 
 ways 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 them 
 selves." 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 chil 
 dren. Time would fail to tell you all that I learned inci 
 dentally 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 proba 
 bly 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 pro 
 ceeds of a work which promises to have so unprecedented 
 
1853] LETTER TO MRS. FOLLEN 177 
 
 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 state 
 ment 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 
 
178 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 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. 
 
 A sequel to the statements in this letter regarding the 
 profits received from the sales of " Uncle Tom s Cabin " is 
 given by Charles Dudley Warner in an admirable history 
 of the book published in " The Atlantic Monthly." Mr. 
 Warner says : 
 
 "The story was dramatized in the United States in 
 August, 1852, without the consent or knowledge of the 
 author, and was played most successfully in the leading 
 cities, and subsequently was acted in every capital in Eu 
 rope. Mrs. Stowe had neglected to secure the dramatic 
 rights, and she derived no benefit from the great popularity 
 of a drama which still holds the stage. From the phe 
 nomenal sale of a book which was literally read by the 
 whole world, the author received only the ten per cent, on 
 the American editions, and by the laws of her own country 
 her copyright expired before her death." 
 
 Professor and Mrs. Stowe sailed from New York in 
 April for Liverpool to see Europe for the first time. In 
 spite of all the delightful recognition she had received from 
 England, through letters, she could not fail to be surprised 
 at the universal respect and affection which followed her 
 footsteps everywhere. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe not only wrote long letters home to her 
 children and family describing the almost unspeakable 
 
1853] FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE 179 
 
 pleasures of this summer tour, but before another year two 
 volumes of " Sunny Memories " were given to the public. 
 Her industry never slackened. On arriving at Liverpool, 
 she tells her children that they were considering the sub 
 ject of which hotel they should find most convenient, 
 " when we found the son of Mr. Cropper, of Dingle Bank, 
 waiting in the cabin to take us with him to their hospi 
 table 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 passen 
 gers up to the city. 
 
 "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 deter 
 mined to look. Something prevented the hack from mov 
 ing on; so the interview was prolonged for some time. 
 
 "Our carriage at last drove on, taking us through Liv 
 erpool 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 toss 
 ing of the sea. 
 
 " 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 there 
 fore went in all innocence, supposing I should see nobody 
 but the family circle of my acquaintances. Quite to my 
 
180 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 astonishment, I found a party of between thirty and forty- 
 people; ladies sitting with their bonnets on, as in a morn 
 ing 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. 
 
 "Well, we are in Scotland at last," she continues, "and 
 now our pulse rises as the sun declines in the west. We 
 catch glimpses of Solway Frith and talk about E-edgauntlet. 
 The sun went down and night drew on; still we were in 
 Scotland. Scotch ballads, Scotch tunes, and Scotch litera 
 ture 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. Stowe; don t get too much 
 excited. 
 
 1 c 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, where the real Old Mortality 
 
1853] SCOTLAND 181 
 
 is buried. 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 Scot 
 tish 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 know 
 ledge 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 succeed 
 ing stopping- places ; and though I did wave a towel out 
 of the window, instead of a pocket-handkerchief, and com 
 mit 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 greet 
 ings, 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 par 
 lor, with friends whom I have ever since been glad to re 
 member. In a little time we were all safely housed in 
 our hospitable apartments, and sleep fell on me for the 
 first time in Scotland. 
 
182 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 " The next morning I awoke worn and weary, and scarce 
 could the charms of the social Scotch breakfast restore me. 
 
 "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 regard 
 ing it so. It only oppressed me with an unutterable sad 
 ness. 
 
 " 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 reelection. 
 
 "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 1 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 
 
1853] TRIBUTES OF THE SCOTTISH PEOPLE 183 
 
 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." 
 
 Speaking of one of the gatherings of the working people 
 which she especially enjoyed in Glasgow at this time, she 
 says: "I was struck this night with the resemblance be 
 tween the Scotchman and the New Englander. One sees 
 the distinctive nationality of a country more in the middle 
 and laboring classes than in the higher, and accordingly at 
 this meeting there was more nationality, I thought, than 
 at the other." 
 
 Writing from Scotland to her Aunt Esther, Mrs. Stowe 
 says: "The views of Scotland, which lay on my mother s 
 table, even while I was a little child, and in poring over 
 which I spent so many happy dreamy hours, the Scotch 
 ballads which were the delight of our evening fireside, and 
 which seemed almost to melt the soul out of me, before I 
 was old enough to understand their words, the songs of 
 Burns, which had been a household treasure among us, 
 the enchantments of Scott, all these dimly returned upon 
 me. It was the result of them all which I felt in nerve 
 and brain. 
 
 "And that reminds me how much of our pleasure in 
 literature results from its reflection on us from other minds. 
 
 "So in coming to Scotland I seem to feel not only my 
 own individuality, but all that my friends would have felt, 
 had they been with me. For sometimes we seem to be 
 encompassed, as by a cloud, with a sense of the sympathy 
 of the absent and the dead." 
 
 She continues to their children : 
 
 "Somewhere near Boseneath 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 
 
184 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 of discriminating taste, of course, disposed my heart to 
 wards 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. Eobson, 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 pre 
 pared 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. 
 
1853] POWER OF FICTION 185 
 
 "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 dis 
 appointed 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 uni 
 versally 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. 
 
186 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 You will not be surprised that the next day I found my 
 self more disposed to keep my bed than go out. 
 
 "Two days later: We bade farewell to Glasgow, over 
 whelmed 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. Here was born that woman whose beauty and 
 whose name are set in the strong rough Scotch heart, as 
 a diamond in granite ! 
 
 "In Edinburgh the cars stopped amid a crowd of peo 
 ple who had assembled to meet us. The lord provost met 
 us at the door of the car, and presented us to the magis 
 tracy of the city and the committees of the Edinburgh Anti- 
 Slavery Societies. The drab dresses and pure white bon 
 nets 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. Wig- 
 ham, 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 oppres 
 sive melancholy. What a moment life seems in the pre 
 sence 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 ! 
 
1853] SCOTLAND S VOICE TO AMERICA 187 
 
 " 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 as 
 sure 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 considera 
 tion, 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. 
 
 "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 dress ing-room, where I was presented to 
 many gentlemen and ladies. When we go in, the cheer 
 ing, clapping, and stamping at first strike 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 
 
188 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 America, a recognition of the brotherhood of the coun 
 tries. 
 
 "The national penny offering, consisting of a thousand 
 golden sovereigns on a magnificent silver salver, stood con 
 spicuously in view of the audience. It has been an unso 
 licited offering, given in the smallest sums, often from the 
 extreme poverty of the giver. The committee who col 
 lected 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 sur 
 passing 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 bless 
 ing 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. 
 
 "As to all engagements, however, 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 in the same circumstances. 
 
 "As to the letters I receive, many of them are mere 
 outbursts of feeling; yet they are interesting as showing 
 the state of the public mind. Many of them are on kin 
 dred topics of moral reform, in which they seem to have an 
 intuitive sense that we should be interested. I am not, of 
 course, able to answer them all, but brother Charles does, 
 
1853] SIR WALTER SCOTT 189 
 
 and it takes a good part of every day. One was from a shoe 
 maker s wife in one of the islands, with a copy of very 
 fair verses. Many have come accompanying little keepsakes 
 and gifts. It seems to me rather touching and sad, that 
 people should want to give me things when I am not able 
 to give an interview or even a note in return. Charles 
 wrote from six to twelve o clock, steadily, answering letters. 
 
 "The meeting in Dundee 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 Scot 
 land, as elsewhere, the characteristic national melodies are 
 giving way before more modern ones." 
 
 It is very interesting in following Mrs. Stowe s footsteps 
 through Scotland to see how her minute knowledge of the 
 history and literature of the country made every spot alive 
 with spirits of the past or figures of the fancy. As they 
 passed Glamis Castle she says: "We could see but a 
 glimpse of it from the road, but the very sound of the 
 name was enough to stimulate our imagination. Scott says 
 in his Demonology that he never came anywhere near to 
 being overcome with a superstitious feeling, except twice 
 in his life, and one was on the night he slept in Glamis 
 Castle. . . . Scarcely ever a man had so much relish for 
 the supernatural and so little faith in it. 
 
 "I enjoyed my ride to Aberdeen more than anything we 
 had seen, the country is so wild and singular. . . . The 
 architecture of the cathedrals of Glasgow and Aberdeen 
 reminds me of what Walter Scott says of the Scotch people, 
 whom he compares to the native sycamore of their hills, 
 which scorns to be biased in its mode of growth, even by 
 the influence of the prevailing wind, but, shooting its 
 branches with equal boldness in every direction, shows no 
 weather side to the storm, and may be broken, but can 
 never be bended. 
 
190 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 "We lingered a long time about Aberdeen Cathedral, 
 and could scarcely tear ourselves away. We paced up and 
 down under the old trees, looking off on the waters of the 
 Don, listening to the waving branches, and, falling into 
 a dreamy state of mind, thought what if it were six hun 
 dred years ago, and we were pious, simple-hearted old 
 abbots ! What a fine place that would be to walk up and 
 down at eventide or on a Sabbath morning, reciting peni 
 tential psalms or reading St. Augustine. 
 
 " I cannot get over the feeling that the souls of the dead 
 do somehow connect themselves with the places of their 
 former habitation, and that the hush and thrill of spirit 
 which we feel in them may be owing to the overshadow 
 ing presence of the invisible." 
 
 Of Abbotsford she says: "I observe that it is quite 
 customary to speak as if it were a pity he ever undertook 
 it; but viewed as a development of his inner life, as a 
 working out in wood and stone of favorite fancies and 
 cherished ideas, the building has to me a deep interest. . . . 
 Wrought out in this way it has grown up like a bank of 
 coral; ... we should look at it as the poet s endeavor to 
 render outward and visible the dreamland of his thoughts, 
 and to create for himself a refuge from the cold dull reali 
 ties of life in an architectural romance." 
 
 Nothing escaped her eye that was connected with the 
 memory of Scott. She notes that the porch was copied 
 from one at Linlithgow Palace ; that the black and white 
 marbles were from the Hebrides; the carved oak for one 
 room from Dunfermline Abbey; the ceiling of another 
 copied from Boslin ; and a fireplace copied from a niche at 
 Melrose. There also she marked the ancient pulpit of 
 Erskine, wrought into a wall, the old door of Tolbooth 
 prison, and many other delightful things which Scott ap 
 propriated to make his home unique and interesting to read 
 ers and scholars, if not to the eye of the ordinary tourist. 
 
1853] JOSEPH STURGE AND ELIHU BURRITT 191 
 
 Her account of Melrose, too, is as fresh as if a large half- 
 century of devotees of Scott had not walked through it, 
 and her devotion at Dry burgh that of a friend to Scott 
 as well as a lover of his genius. 
 
 "It was a rainy, misty morning," she continued, "when 
 I left my kind retreat and friends in Edinburgh. Consid 
 erate 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 deter 
 mination to plunge at once into some hidden and unknown 
 spot, where we might spend two or three days quietly by 
 ourselves ; remembering your Sunday at Stratford-on-Avon, 
 I proposed that we should go there. As Stratford, how 
 ever, 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. 7 
 
 Of course the secret could not be kept. 
 
 "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 writ 
 ing. 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 with 
 out it. 
 
192 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 "Before we left, we had agreed to meet a circle of 
 friends from Birmingham, consisting of the Abolition So 
 ciety 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 in 
 vited 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. 75 
 
 The evening of her arrival in London, she went to a 
 dinner at the lord mayor s, where she saw many distin 
 guished persons. 
 
 "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 Rufnn, 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 
 
1853] LONDON 193 
 
 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 re 
 liability. A friend whispered to me that she was as ob 
 serving and fond of humor as her husband. 
 
 "After a while the gentlemen came back to the draw 
 ing-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." 
 
 The following day the American party dined with Lord 
 Carlisle, of whom Mrs. Stowe says : 
 
 "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 Car 
 lisle. 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 
 
194 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 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 gentle 
 men 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 complex 
 ion 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." 
 
1853] STAFFORD HOUSE 195 
 
 Of another entertainment she writes : 
 
 "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. " 
 
 May8. 
 
 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 exter 
 nally 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 Suther 
 land. He is a tall, slender man, with rather a thin face, 
 light-brown hair, and a mild blue eye, with an air of gen 
 tleness 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 
 i 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 fire 
 side. There were present, also, Lord John Russell, Mr. 
 
196 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 Gladstone, and Lord Granville. The latter we all thought 
 very strikingly resembled in his appearance the poet Long 
 fellow. 
 
 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 Whately was there, 
 with Mrs. and Miss Whately; 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 arrange 
 ments 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 ques 
 tions 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)." 
 
1853] SIGHT-SEEING 197 
 
 Of a breakfast at Sir Charles Trevelyan s, she tells her 
 daughter : 
 
 "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 opportu 
 nity 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." 
 
 She continues to her sister : 
 
 "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. 
 
 "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 
 
198 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 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 din 
 ner 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 au 
 thentic; 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 admir 
 able, 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 break 
 fast the next day, Mr. S., C., and I drove out to call upon 
 Kossuth. We found him in an obscure lodging on the out 
 skirts of London. I would that some of the editors in 
 America, who have thrown out insinuations about his liv 
 ing in luxury, could have seen the utter bareness and plain- 
 
1853] DRESSMAKING 199 
 
 ness 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 re 
 spectable-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." 
 
200 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 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 Arch 
 bishop of Canterbury. My thoughts have been much 
 saddened by the news which I received of the death of 
 Mary Edmondson." 
 
 "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 ! is n t it ? Well, the Hons. and Eight 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 pre 
 text, 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 s 
 
 "To-day I am going with Lord Shaftesbury to St. 
 
1853] PKESENTATION BY CHILDEEN 201 
 
 Paul s to see the charity children, after which lunch with 
 Dean Milman. 
 
 " May 31. We went to lunch with Miss E. 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 ap 
 pearance. She is of slight figure, formed with exceeding 
 delicacy, and her whole form, fa ce, 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, 
 
 "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 en 
 tire 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 
 
202 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1353 
 
 few minutes, and this was all the speaking that fell to my 
 share. 
 
 "To-morrow we go go to quiet, to ohscurity, to peace 
 to Paris, to Switzerland; there we shall find the loveliest 
 glen, and, as the Bible says, fall on sleep. " 
 
 "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 con 
 cluded 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 observa- 
 trice, mais pas en curieuse. 
 
 " Saturday, June 25. Lyons to Geneve. As this was 
 our first experience in the diligence line, we noticed partic 
 ularly every peculiarity. I had had the idea that a dili 
 gence was a rickety, slow-moulded, antediluvian nonde 
 script, 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 equipose 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, whir, 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 
 
1853] SWITZERLAND 203 
 
 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 B ess hare. I 
 replied, not without some scruples of conscience, Oui, 
 Monsieur, c est moi, though the name did not sound ex 
 actly like the one to which I had heen wont to respond. 
 In half an hour we were at home in the mansion of Mon 
 sieur Fazy." 
 
 Of their Swiss retreat her brother says : 
 "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 moun 
 taineers. 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, madame, 
 do write another ! E-emember, our winter nights here are 
 very long ! 
 
 "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 in 
 capable 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 ploughing 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 
 
204 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1353 
 
 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 scimitar of snow, re 
 minding one of Isaiah s sublime imagery, * For my sword is 
 bathed in heaven. She points at the grisly rocks, with 
 their jags and spear-points. Evidently she is beside her 
 self, 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." 
 
 In the month of September Mrs. Stowe returned to 
 America; "almost sadly," she writes, "as a child might 
 leave its home, I left the shores of kind, strong old Eng 
 land the mother of us all. " She hastened to throw her 
 self with renewed energy into work for the slaves. She had 
 brought with her from England a good deal of money which 
 had been given her for the purpose of pressing the anti- 
 slavery cause. " She supported anti-slavery lectures wher 
 ever they were most needed, aided in establishing and main 
 taining 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 ad 
 dresses that should be delivered at them. She carried on 
 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 chil 
 dren received a full share of her attention, nor were her 
 literary activities relaxed." In addition to the volumes 
 commemorating her enjoyment during the summer in Eng 
 land, she revised and enlarged her first book called "The 
 May-Mower " in the following winter. 
 
CHAPTEE 
 
 PORTRAITURE: CORRESPONDENCE: SECOND VISIT TO 
 EUROPE 
 
 MRS. STOWE said at the moment of her first triumphal 
 tour through England: "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 when I have 
 seen the things that are put up in the shop- windows here 
 with my name under them, I have been lost 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." 
 
 I remember once accompanying Mrs. Stowe to a recep 
 tion at a well-known house in Boston where before the even 
 ing was over the hostess drew me aside saying : " Why did 
 you never tell me that Mrs. Stowe was beautiful 1 n and 
 indeed when I observed her, in the full ardor of conver 
 sation, with her heightened color, her eyes shining and 
 awake but filled with great softness, her abundant curling 
 hair rippling naturally about her head and falling a little 
 at the sides (as in the portrait by Eichmond), I quite 
 agreed with my hostess. Nor was that the first time her 
 beauty had been revealed to me ; but she was seldom seen 
 
206 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 to be beautiful by the great world, and the pleasure of 
 this recognition was very great to those who loved her. 
 
 In personal appearance there was a strange similarity 
 of character, not of likeness, between the three women of 
 genius of that era, George Sand, George Eliot, and Mrs. 
 Stowe. All three have been agreeably portrayed, while 
 one of the pictures of Mrs. Stowe and one bust convey 
 some idea of the beauty in her face. The similarity ap 
 peared when their minds were absorbed, or their spirits 
 elsewhere; when they were sharing the daily round of life 
 of which that other current of existence hardly took heed, 
 although they wrought, and talked, and were present in 
 the body, apparently, like those who surrounded them. 
 
 At such times a strange heaviness, a lack-lustre visage, 
 was common to the three, and the portraits taken in such 
 moments (the photographs seem especially possessed by 
 this demon of absence) are painful, untrue, plain sometimes 
 beyond words. Their faces become almost like stone 
 masks, not etherealized as in death, but weighted with the 
 heavier tasks of life. 
 
 The wonderful contrast produced by the reawakening in 
 society when animated by conversation made them appear 
 like different persons, and when true artists took these sub 
 jects in hand they presented them, of course, with the light 
 of life in their faces. Nothing can be more striking than 
 the contrast between certain photographs of George Sand 
 and her portrait by Couture. 1 The same may be said also 
 of the photographs of George Eliot and a charming draw 
 ing once made of her face in colored chalk. Mrs. Stowe s 
 portrait by Richmond is not quite so close a likeness, but 
 it resembles her much more nearly than those who have 
 only known her photographs are willing to believe. The 
 
 l Of this portrait Gustave Flaubert says in a letter to George Sand 
 M Celui que j aime le mieux, c est le dessin de Couture . . . moi, qui suis 
 un vieux romantique, je retroufe la la tte de 1 auteur qui m a fait taut 
 re"ver dans ma jeunesse." 
 
1853] PERSONAL APPEARANCE 207 
 
 bust also, done by Miss Durant in the studio of Baron 
 de Triqueti, has preserved this sweet living expression of 
 her countenance. 1 Of this work Mrs. Stowe s daughter 
 wrote: "I well remember going with my mother for her 
 sittings at the studio. The dim light, the marble dust 
 and chippings covering the floor, the clink, clink of the 
 chisels, and Miss Durant, tall, handsome, and animated 
 before the mound of clay which day by day grew into a 
 resemblance to my mother, and the Baron de Triqueti 
 coming and going with kindly smiling face and friendly 
 words, and my gentle little mother smiling, happy, and 
 unconscious as a child. It all comes back to me like a 
 dream those far away, pleasant, happy days. . . . The 
 bust, after it was finished, was taken to London, where I 
 saw it, and thought it very beautiful and an excellent like 
 ness of my mother at forty-six, her age when it was 
 taken. " This bust was finally placed in the New York 
 University, the gift of Dr. Wallace Wood. 
 
 Upon this subject of her personal appearance one of 
 her old friends says: "Mrs. Stowe s face, like that of all 
 her mother s children, showed the delicate refinement of 
 the Foote mask overlaid by the stronger and more sanguine 
 Beecher integument. Her curling, crispy hair, more or less 
 freeing itself from the velvet bands with which she was ac 
 customed to confine it, gave an informal grace to her head. 
 Her eyes, whether twinkling with merriment or subdued 
 to thoughtfulness, were always kind and pleasant. Her 
 slender frame, with something of the Scholar s stoop of 
 the shoulders, although so faithful a mother and house 
 keeper might claim other reasons besides study for that, 
 was neatly but not stylishly dressed. Her manner was 
 ever self-possessed, gentle, considerate; without the graces 
 of one habituated to society, she was evidently a gentle 
 woman born and bred." 
 
 1 A reproduction from the bust forms the frontispiece of this book. 
 
208 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1853 
 
 Mrs. Stowe s first duty upon her return from this event 
 ful journey to Europe was to write to the friends she had 
 left behind. She sent an open letter to Scotland, fearing, 
 as she said, that her delicate health had made her a very 
 unsatisfactory guest. She begins with an introduction re 
 ferring to her state of physical exhaustion after finishing 
 the "Key to Uncle Tom s Cabin" and continues: 
 
 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 testi 
 mony 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 oper 
 ates 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 
 
1854] OPEN LETTER TO FRIENDS IN SCOTLAND 209 
 
 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 exten 
 sively 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 ques 
 tion, 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 sus 
 tain 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 1 
 
 I regret to say that the movements of Christian denomi 
 nations 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 
 
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1854 
 
 unhappy race should be refuted, and it should be seen 
 in spite of every social and political oppression, they 
 
 ising 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. 
 
 Yours in all sympathy, H. B. STOWE. 
 
 Almost simultaneously she sent broadcast an appeal to 
 the women of America. The Kansas and Nebraska agita 
 tion was going on and she was in constant correspondence 
 with Charles Sumner and others who could keep her in 
 formed as to the condition of the struggle. 
 
 "I cannot believe," she wrote in her appeal, "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 be 
 lieve 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 prop 
 erty, with no legal defense for her personal honor, by any 
 man living. 
 
 "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, unoccu 
 pied territory nearly equal in extent to the whole of the 
 free States? 
 
1854] LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA 211 
 
 " 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? 
 
 " women of the free States ! what did your brave mo 
 thers do in the days of our Be volution? Did not liberty 
 in those days feel the strong impulse of woman s heart? 
 
 "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 be 
 fore the coming of Him who is to rule the earth in right 
 eousness. How important, then, in this crisis, that all 
 who believe in prayer should retreat beneath the shadow of 
 the Almighty! 
 
212 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1854 
 
 "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. 
 
 "For the sake, then, of our dear children, for the sake 
 of our common country, for the sake of outraged and strug 
 gling liberty throughout the world, let every woman of 
 America now do her duty." 
 
 Beside these public letters she dispatched, of course, many 
 private ones. To a lady in Scotland, Mrs. Wigham, she 
 writes in October: "I hear that the pro-slavery papers 
 have been busy in fabricating every strange, odd, improb 
 able combination of evil against me. When Uncle Tom 
 came out first there was such a universal praising of it that 
 I began to think Woe unto you when all men speak well 
 of you. I have been quite relieved of my fears on that 
 score ; if there is any blessing in all manner of evil said 
 falsely against one I am likely to have it. But these 
 things I never read; they cannot change my friends; they 
 cannot change the truth, and above all, they cannot change 
 God. . . . Meanwhile let me say that every anti-slavery 
 person and paper speaks in one way, that of hope. They 
 say that they are greatly encouraged." 
 
 A new series of difficulties for the anti-slavery cause 
 now developed themselves. Mr. Garrison, being a friend 
 of Theodore Parker and on the radical side of religious 
 thought, gave Mrs. Stowe much uneasiness. "What I 
 fear," she wrote him, "is that The Liberator* [of which 
 Mr. Garrison was the brave editor] will take from poor 
 Uncle Tom his Bible and give him nothing in its place." 
 
 "Surely," replied Mr. Garrison, "you would not have 
 
1855] POSITION OF THE LIBERATOR 21S 
 
 me disloyal to my conscience. How do you piove that you 
 are not trammeled by educational or traditional notions as 
 to the entire sanctity of the Bible ? " 
 
 Mrs. Stowe replied: "I would not attack the faith of a 
 heathen without being sure that I had a better one to put 
 in its place, because such as it is, it is better than nothing. " 
 The church took up the argument, Dr. Bacon and Dr. 
 Kirk writing bravely on one side and Theodore Parker and 
 Mr. Garrison on the other; Mrs. Stowe and her brothers 
 adding their weight on the side of the old church. Hap 
 pily the great struggle against slavery united even those 
 who differed upon the methods to be employed for the 
 education of the negro, and they still stood side by side in 
 brotherly love. 
 
 In his " History of the United States from the Compro 
 mise of 1850 " Mr. James F. Ehodes gives a hint of the 
 critical and dissenting spirit of this stormy period: 
 
 "The graphic pen of Harriet Beecher Stowe has given 
 a description of Douglas as he appeared this winter, and 
 she has vividly characterized his manner of argument. . . . 
 The author of Uncle Tom s Cabin, and the society in 
 which she moved, scorned Douglas. Her soul was bound 
 up in the anti-slavery cause, and one might have expected 
 from her a diatribe, only differing in force from those 
 that other New England writers were publishing on every 
 opportunity. But she was almost as much artist as aboli 
 tionist; and from the Senate gallery she looked upon the 
 scene with the eye of an observer and student of character. 
 In her description there is much of penetration. Serene 
 as it is, one detects the striking impression made on the 
 sensitive woman of genius by the man who was an intellec 
 tual giant." 
 
 Mr. Rhodes has reference to the Illinois senator, Stephen 
 A. Douglas, whose course on the slavery question deserved 
 all the reprobation it received. Of another and better 
 
214 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1855 
 
 Douglass Frederick, the eminent fugitive from slavery 
 we have a glimpse in the following letter to Mr. Garrison, 
 touching the latter s criticism of Douglass s course in ally 
 ing himself with the political abolitionists : 
 
 CABIN, December 19, 1853. 
 MR. GARRISON. 
 
 Dear Sir, After seeing you, I enjoyed the pleasure 
 of a personal interview with Mr. Douglass, and I feel bound 
 in justice to say that the impression was far more satis 
 factory than I had anticipated. 
 
 There did not appear to be any deep underlying stratum 
 of bitterness ; he did not seem to me malignant or revenge 
 ful. I think it was only a temporary excitement and one 
 which he will outgrow. 
 
 I was much gratified with the growth and development 
 both of his mind and heart. I am satisfied that his change 
 of sentiment was not a mere political one but a genuine 
 growth of his own conviction. A vigorous reflective mind 
 like his cast among those who nourish these new senti 
 ments is naturally led to modified views. 
 
 At all events, he holds no opinion which he cannot 
 defend, with a variety of richness of thought and expression 
 and an aptness of illustration which shows it to be a growth 
 from the soil of his own mind with a living root, and not 
 a twig broken off other men s thoughts and stuck down to 
 subserve a temporary purpose. 
 
 His plans for the elevation of his own race are manly, 
 sensible, comprehensive; he has evidently observed closely 
 and thought deeply and will, I trust, act efficiently. 
 
 You speak of him as an apostate. I cannot but regard 
 this language as unjustly severe. Why is he any more to 
 be called an apostate for having spoken ill-tempered things 
 of former friends than they for having spoken severely and 
 cruelly as they have of him ? Where is this work of ex- 
 
1855] JUSTICE TO DOUGLASS 215 
 
 communication to end? Is there but one true anti-slavery 
 church and all others infidels 1 Who shall declare which 
 it is ? I feel bound to remonstrate with this for the 
 same reason that I do with slavery because I think it an 
 injustice. I must say still farther, that if the first allusion 
 to his family concerns was unfortunate this last one is more 
 unjustifiable still. I am utterly surprised at it. As a 
 friend to you and to him, I view it with the deepest con 
 cern and regret. 
 
 What Douglass is really, time will show. I trust that 
 he will make no farther additions to the already unfortu 
 nate controversial literature of the cause. Silence in this 
 case will be eminently golden. 
 
 I must indulge the hope you will see reason at some 
 future time to alter your opinion and that what you now 
 cast aside as worthless shall yet appear to be a treasure. 
 There is abundant room in the anti-slavery field for him to 
 perform a work without crossing the track or impeding the 
 movements of his old friends, and perhaps in some future 
 time, meeting each other from opposite quarters of a victo 
 rious field, you may yet shake hands together. 
 
 I write this note, because in the conversation I had with 
 you, and also with Miss Weston, I admitted so much that 
 was unfavorable to Mr. Douglass that I felt bound in jus 
 tice to state the more favorable views which had arisen to 
 my mind. 
 
 Very sincerely your friend, H. B. STOWE. 
 
 Again Mrs. Stowe set herself to the writing of a new 
 book. In preparing the "Key to Uncle Tom s Cabin" she 
 had collected much fresh material which she proceeded to 
 use for a story to be called "Dred." She was anxious to 
 show the general effect of slavery on society ; the demoraliza 
 tion of all classes, and the corruption of Christianity which 
 follows in its trail. 
 
216 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 
 
 All the summer and winter were absorbed in her labors 
 for this book, which is one of her finest pieces of work. 
 Harriet Martineau said of it, that in her opinion it was a 
 greater story than "Uncle Tom; " and other tributes to the 
 same effect were paid to her in England. 
 
 With the completion of her story, Mrs. Stowe again de 
 cided to find rest if possible, and certainly pleasure and di 
 version, in a second journey to Europe. 
 
 She set sail about the first of August, accompanied by 
 her husband, her two eldest daughters, her son Henry, and 
 her sister, Mrs. Perkins. The secondary object of her 
 journey (only secondary to her own health) was that of 
 securing a copyright to her new book. She had failed in 
 getting one on " Uncle Tom. " Sampson Low & Company 
 were her publishers, who looked after her interests with 
 personal good will. 
 
 Professor Stowe being obliged to return to his work in 
 Andover after a brief absence, his wife wrote to him : " 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 enor 
 mous 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 of Sutherland; they are simple-hearted, frank, 
 natural, full of feeling, of piety, and good sense. They 
 certainly are, apart from any considerations of rank or 
 
1856] DUKE AND DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND 217 
 
 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." 
 
 At Dunrobin, Mrs. Stowe found awaiting her the fol 
 lowing 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 con 
 ceive 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. . . . 
 
218 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 
 
 I know now, more than before, how to value communion 
 with you. 
 
 With kind regards to your family, 
 
 Yours affectionately, A. T. NOEL BYKON. 
 
 From this pleasant abiding-place Mrs. Stowe writes to 
 her husband : 
 
 DUNKOBIN CASTLE, September 15. 
 
 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, Kings- 
 ley 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 Suther- 
 landshire^ 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. 
 
 "Bred 7 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 
 
1856] DUNROBIN CASTLE 219 
 
 estate in improvements upon it. I see the duke and duch 
 ess evidently beloved wherever they move. I see them 
 most amiable, most Christian, most considerate to every 
 body. 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 chil 
 dren, fine school-houses, and all that. 
 
 Henry was invited to the tenants dinner, where he ex 
 cited 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. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe wrote to her friend, Mrs. Howard, at twelve 
 o clock at night: 
 
 "DEAR SUSY, ... The people here are such as 
 Henry " [Mr. Beecher] " would be delighted to know, and 
 how glad they would be to see him. The duchess since I 
 
220 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 
 
 saw her has passed through a great sorrow in the loss of her 
 son, and it seems to have only widened her heart and filled 
 it with a deeper feeling for all suffering humanity. The 
 news from America is eagerly watched by them, and the 
 Duchess said : I only wish Fremont could be elected 
 while you are here. I would have the castle illuminated. 
 You have no idea of the feelings of good people here about 
 America. They say it is a ship freighted with the world s 
 future; and they watch its struggle in the breakers with 
 the deepest emotion. The old duke has been perfectly 
 delighted with the hymns quoted in Dred, and asked 
 me where he could find such hymns. I have promised 
 him a Plymouth hymn-book as soon as I can get one from 
 America. He is unfortunately quite deaf, and being thus 
 precluded from society spends all his time doing good. 
 His estate has been changed from a desert to a garden. 
 He has been to-day showing me his improvements. . . . 
 When one sees money and station employed in this way, 
 in raising up and educating a country, it seems something 
 worth having. Susy dear, my paper and brain give out; 
 but not my heart, which loves you all just as ever." 
 
 She continues in her journal to her husband: "Thursday 
 Morning, September 25. We were obliged to get up at 
 half past five the morning we left Dunrobin, an effort when 
 one does n t go to bed till one o clock. We found break 
 fast 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. 
 
1856] SUCCESS OF DEED 221 
 
 "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 contin 
 ued on our way. After a very bad night s rest at Inver 
 ness, 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, c 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, says the 
 Eev. C. E. Stowe, to whom I am indebted for this se 
 quence, 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. 
 
 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 
 
222 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [i 8 56 
 
 gratitude, first to God for restoring your health and 
 strength, and then to you, for so good, long, and refresh 
 ing 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 de 
 light ; 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 solem 
 nity; the "Athenaeum" with waspish spite; the "Edin 
 burgh " goes out of its way to say that the author knows 
 nothing of the society she describes; but yet it goes every 
 where, 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. 
 
1856] CORRESPONDENCE WITH LADY BYRON 223 
 
 Upon Mrs. Stowe s return to London she found a letter 
 from Lady Byron, who wrote : 
 
 OXFORD HOUSE, October 15. 
 
 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 dona 
 tion. It is, however, necessary to know what is the best 
 application of money and what the safest channel. Pre 
 suming that you will approve the object, I ask you to tell 
 me. Perhaps you would undertake the transmission of my 
 50. 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 in 
 creasing. 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 re 
 turned : 
 
 GROVE TERRACE, KENTISH TOWN, October 16. 
 
 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 
 
224 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 
 
 assure you, .dear friend, I am not insensible to the fiery 
 darts which thus fly around me. 
 
 One of the very pleasant experiences during this second 
 journey to England was a visit to Lady Mary and Mr. La- 
 bouchere at Stoke Park. At the last moment the family 
 luggage was detained, and all the party were prevented from 
 going except Mrs. Stowe herself, who by chance had left 
 certain dresses in London. 
 
 "I arrived alone, 7 she wrote, "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 con 
 cerned 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 hospi 
 table 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 
 
1856] VISIT AT STOKE PARK 225 
 
 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, describ 
 ing 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 Dun- 
 robin. 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 in 
 vitations 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- 
 
226 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 
 
 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 re 
 marks 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 gra 
 ciously. 
 
 "Lady Mary stayed at our car door till it left the sta 
 tion, 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 
 
1856] CHARLES KINGSLEY 227 
 
 England, among which was a visit to Charles Kingsley and 
 his family, Mrs. Stowe and her party crossed the Channel. 
 She 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. 
 
 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 
 
228 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1856 
 
 platform a man can stand on, and that the thirty-nine arti 
 cles 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. 
 
 In writing from Paris, Mrs. Stowe tells her husband : 
 
 "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. 
 
 " November 30. This is Sunday evening, and a Sunday 
 in Paris always puts me in mind of your story about some 
 body who said, Bless you ! they make such a noise that 
 the Devil could n 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 
 
1856] PARIS 229 
 
 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 get 
 ting 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 does n t gb 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 
 *s 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 to- 
 
230 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 
 
 gether. It has gone among 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 writ 
 ing it 1 ? 
 
 "January 25, Paris. Here is a story for Charley. The 
 boys in the Faubourg St. Antoine are the children of ouvri- 
 ers, and every day their mothers give them two sous to buy 
 a luncheon. When they heard I was coming to the school, 
 of their own accord they subscribed half their luncheon 
 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." 
 
 The party did not reach Kome without accident. The 
 steamer ran ashore and broke a paddle wheel, and the mis 
 erable carriage which came to convey them from Civita 
 Vecchia broke down also, but after every possible misad 
 venture of travel, which she and her sister, Mrs. Perkins, 
 bore with cheerfulness, they found a spot to rest their weary 
 heads in the Eternal City. 
 
 It seemed at first as if they must pass the night in the 
 streets, every hotel being too crowded to receive them. 
 The next day they learned that a friend had been watching 
 the "diligence" office for over a week and that delightful 
 apartments were waiting for them into which they moved 
 the following day with all possible expedition. 
 
 "One sees everybody here at Rome," she wrote pres 
 ently, "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 en 
 chantress ! " 
 
1857] ROME, NAPLES, VENICE 231 
 
 From Naples she wrote to Professor Stowe : 
 
 "The whole place recalled to my mind so vividly Mil 
 ton 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 for 
 bade him, he would say, Courage, signora, courage. " 
 
 Of Venice she says : 
 
 " 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. No 
 thing 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." 
 
 Mrs. Stowe returned to Eome for Holy Week. The 
 ceremonies filled her heart with awe. 
 
 "Whatever dispute there may be about the other com 
 memorative 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 
 
232 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 
 
 to mark the date of the most important and thrilling events 
 which this world ever witnessed." 
 
 As the spring approached Mrs. Stowe turned her face 
 homeward. In Paris, she made up her mind to leave her 
 daughters a few months longer at the excellent school 
 where they had made good progress. She writes to her 
 husband : 
 
 "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 what 
 ever it bears me." 
 
 Upon her arrival in London she received a characteristic 
 letter from Harriet Martineau, who says : 
 
 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 free 
 dom 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. 
 
1857] LETTEK FROM HARRIET MARTINEAU 233 
 
 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 dis 
 like 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 novel 
 ists 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 car 
 ries all before it, and drowns everything in glorious plea 
 sure. 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 treat 
 ment 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 
 
234 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 
 
 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 truth 
 fulness 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 re 
 public 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 expo 
 sure; 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 
 
1857] MRS. GASKELL: MR. RUSKIN 235 
 
 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 coining. 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, 
 
 HARKIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 At Liverpool, on the eve of her departure for home, 
 Mrs. Stowe dispatched a note to her daughters in Paris, 
 telling them of her latest experiences. 
 
 "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 wel 
 come 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 ev.er. 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, Camber- 
 well. 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. 
 
236 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 
 
 "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. 
 
 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 fam 
 ily. 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 to 
 gether; 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. 
 
1B57] FAREWELL TO LADY BYRON 237 
 
 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. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 BEREAVEMENT: THIRD AND LAST VISIT TO EUROPE 
 
 MRS. STOWE left England full of renewed health, of joy 
 in her larger love and larger faith, of comfort in knowing 
 that those nearest to her were able to enjoy life by the rich 
 reward, as she considered it, obtained through her books, 
 and above all, that she was evidently a means by which 
 freedom to the slaves would finally be secured. 
 
 But in the Divine sight there was chastening still In 
 store for her. On the ninth of July, her eldest boy, 
 Henry, was drowned while bathing in the Connecticut 
 River at Hanover, where he was pursuing his studies as 
 Freshman in Dartmouth College. In order to understand 
 Mrs. Stowe s character more fully, we must hear of this 
 sorrow from her own lips. She wrote to the Duchess of 
 Sutherland, August 3d : 
 
 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, beauti 
 ful boy, snatched away in the moment of health and happi 
 ness. 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 com 
 ing 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 
 
1857] DEATH OF HER ELDEST SON 239 
 
 latter seeming unfavorably affected by the seacoast air, I 
 turned back with him to a water-cure establishment. Be 
 fore 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 al 
 ways 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 alle 
 viation that was not granted to you. 1 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. Singu 
 larly 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 
 
240 HARRIET BEECHEK STOWE [1857 
 
 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 persever 
 ance 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 under- 
 
1857] LETTER TO HER DAUGHTERS IN PARIS 241 
 
 stand. While I was visiting in Hanover, where Henry 
 died, a poor, deaf old slave woman, who has still five chil 
 dren 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 
 
242 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 
 
 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. Tuesda^ we received a beautiful portrait 
 
1857] SORROW 243 
 
 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 some 
 times look up, and this smile seems to say, * Mother, pa 
 tience, 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 mis 
 chiefs 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 ex 
 pectation, 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 con 
 sult me, he gives me no warning; he silently takes it, and 
 I look, but it is no more. W T hat, 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 
 
244 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 
 
 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 1 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 1 
 
 "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 main 
 tain that Jesus in love had taken my dear one to his 
 bosom. Since then the Enemy has left me in peace. . . . 
 
 " God who made me capable of such an absorbing, un 
 selfish 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 cer 
 tainly 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." 
 
 ANDOVER, September 1. 
 
 MY DAKLING 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 beau 
 tiful; 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 
 
1857] HARPSWELL 245 
 
 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. 
 
 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 Gid- 
 ding 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 Harps well 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 Mere 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 
 
246 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1857 
 
 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 heal 
 ing 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 un 
 questioning confidence in resigning one of my dearest com 
 forts to Him. I feel very near the spirit land, and the 
 words, "I shall go to hirn, but he shall not return to me," 
 are very sweet. 
 
1858] LETTERS WRITTEN IN AFFLICTION 247 
 
 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. H. B. S. 
 
 She wrote to Lady Byron out of her open heart : 
 
 ANDOVER, June 30. 
 
 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 des 
 tiny 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. 
 
 And again from her chamber of sorrows she writes to 
 her youngest daughter, Georgiana : 
 
 February 12. 
 
 MY DEAR GEORGIE, Why have n t I written ? Be 
 cause, 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 t<? send to a little girl who doesn t 
 
248 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1859 
 
 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 arid 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, feel 
 ing weak and worn, but in no sense discouraged. 
 
 Your affectionate mother, H. B. S. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe s literary labors did not cease. In Novem 
 ber she published in the "Atlantic Monthly" a brief alle 
 gory called "The Mourning Veil," and in the following 
 year, in December, the first chapters of "The Minister s 
 Wooing." 
 
 She was kept in good heart and spirit by the very strong 
 
1859] THE MINISTER S WOOING 249 
 
 commendation of this story, from the moment of its ap 
 pearance. James Russell Lowell wrote of it : 
 
 "It has always seemed to us that the anti-slavery ele 
 ment 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 hocused 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 sympa 
 thies 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 con 
 ventional 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." 
 
250 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1859 
 
 In a private letter to Mrs. Stowe full of wit and wisdom 
 on the same topic, Lowell says : 
 
 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. lam 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. 
 
 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 charac 
 ters. 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, be 
 lieve 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 
 
1859] LETTER FROM JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 251 
 
 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. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe s genius was essentially dramatic. She was 
 her own theatre; herself among the actors; the scenery 
 woven of her own brain. In her early days and in the 
 places where she lived the theatre was unknown, and music, 
 save the homely singing of church and fireside, absolutely 
 non-existent. 
 
 Not only " Uncle Tom " but the slighter sketches of her 
 earlier years, and " Dred," have the power which only genius 
 possesses of sweeping you out of your own world into the 
 world of her imagination; a world too, so lighted by the 
 flame of truth that you feel your heart burn within you, 
 as the hearts of all true men burned when she first laid 
 the spell of her strong spirit upon them to breathe a new 
 life into her fellow-men. 
 
 We who knew Mrs. Stowe later saw her wrapped about 
 as it were with a kind of sacred awe; but her work then 
 bore the stamp of fatigue ; the long agony of spirit for those 
 who were in bondage, the sympathy with the sorrows of hu 
 manity everywhere about her, the inexpressible woe which 
 she endured in the trials and losses of her children, made 
 writing a task for her. She was more than ever wonderful 
 then in her conversation and personal communion with 
 others. She literally poured her spirit out. She became 
 one with the joy and the grief of others; she drew near to 
 the heart of every one with whom she really came in close 
 
252 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1859 
 
 contact. Every human being was to her a spirit walking 
 the brief road to the eternal life, and the shows of things 
 were the divine setting in which the Lord s jewels shone. 
 She loved beautiful things and the luxuries of the world 
 when she chanced to come across them, but they bound her 
 no more than if they were the cobweb lines of the Lillipu 
 tians. 
 
 In the summer of 1859, Mrs. Stowe again went to 
 Europe for the last time, accompanied by her husband and 
 her youngest daughter. They traveled two months in 
 England, visiting their friends and reviewing the scenes 
 which had become dear to her. In the autumn her two 
 companions returned to America, to rejoin the youngest 
 son, the only member of the family who had been left be 
 hind. Mrs. Stowe went on her way to Italy, and wrote to 
 Professor Stowe from Lausanne, whither she had gone to 
 meet her two eldest daughters, who had been left at school 
 in Paris : 
 
 "Coming upstairs 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 party voyaged comfortably towards 
 Italy. They were joined on the way by her Brooklyn 
 friends, Mr. and Mrs. Howard and their children, her son 
 Frederick and a friend of his. Before Christmas they 
 were established in Florence, whence Mrs. Stowe wrote to 
 Andover on Christmas Day : " We shall have quite a New 
 England party to-night, and shall sing Milton s 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, look 
 ing like a great bower, and our mantel and table are redo 
 lent with bouquets of orange blossoms and pinks." 
 
1860] -SPIRITUALISM 253 
 
 January 16. 
 
 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 re 
 ceive 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 Chris 
 tian, 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 com 
 forted, as if I had been near to my Henry and other de 
 parted 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 peculiar 
 ities. 
 
254 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [18GO 
 
 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 deceiv- 
 ableness of unrighteousness; but there is a real scriptural 
 spiritualism which has fallen into disuse, and must be re 
 vived, and there are, doubtless, people who, from some 
 constitutional formation, can more readily receive the im 
 pressions of the surrounding spiritual world. Such were 
 apostles, prophets, and workers of miracles. 
 
 It was at this period that the editor of the present book 
 first met Mrs. Stowe. We had both been invited to a large 
 reception, one evening, in an old palace on the Arno. 
 There were music and dancing, and there were lively 
 groups of ladies and gentlemen strolling from room to room, 
 contrasting somewhat strangely in their gayety with the 
 solemn pictures hanging on the walls, and a sense of shad 
 owy presence which seems to haunt those dusky interiors. 
 A certain discrepancy between the modern company and 
 the surroundings, a weird mingling of the past and the 
 present, made any apparition appear possible, and left room 
 only for a faint thrill of surprise when a voice by my side 
 said, "There is Mrs. Stowe." In a moment she ap 
 proached and I was presented to her, and after a brief 
 pause she passed on. All this was natural enough, but a 
 wave of intense disappointment swept over me. Why had 
 I found no words to express or even indicate the feeling 
 that had choked me 1 Was the fault mine ? Oh, yes, I 
 said to myself, for I could not conceive it to be otherwise, 
 and I looked upon my opportunity, the gift of the gods, as 
 utterly and forever wasted. I was depressed and sorrowing 
 over the vanishing of a* presence I might perhaps never 
 
1860] FLORENCE 255 
 
 meet again, and no glamour of light or music or pictures 
 or friendly voices could recall any pleasure to my heart. 
 Meanwhile, the unconscious object of all this disturbance 
 was strolling quietly along, leaning on the arm of a friend, 
 hardly ever speaking, followed by a group of traveling com 
 panions, and entirely absorbed in the gay scene around her. 
 She was a small woman; and her pretty curling haii and 
 far-away dreaming eyes, and her way of becoming occupied 
 in what interested her until she forgot everything else for 
 the time, all this I first began to see and understand as I 
 gazed after her retreating figure. 
 
 In those days of our early acquaintance in Italy we had 
 ample opportunity to discover the affectionate qualities of 
 her character. If my first interview was a disappointment, 
 her second greeting a few days later had the warmth of old 
 acquaintance. From that moment we (my husband and I) 
 were continually meeting her, in galleries and out of them, 
 at Bellosguardo, which Hawthorne had just quitted, but 
 where Isa Blagden and Frances Power Cobbe still lingered, 
 or in Florence itself with Francesca Alexander and her 
 family, the Trollopes, or elsewhere. Our evenings were 
 commonly spent in each other s apartments. 
 
 Towards the end of February, the pleasant Florentine 
 residence was given up for a long visit in Rome. There, 
 one day, we went together to the rooms of the brothers 
 Castellani, the world-famous workers in gold. The collec 
 tion of antique gems and the beautiful reproductions of 
 them were new to us. Mrs. Stowe was full of enthusiasm, 
 and we lingered long over the wonderful things which the 
 brothers brought forward to show. Among them was the 
 head of an Egyptian slave carved in black onyx. It was 
 an admirable work of art, and while we were enjoying it 
 one of them said to Mrs. Stowe, " Madam, we know what 
 you have been to the poor slave. We are ourselves but 
 poor slaves still in Italy; you feel for us; will you keep 
 
256 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1860 
 
 this gem as a slight recognition of what you have done 1 " 
 She took the jewel in silence; but when we looked for 
 some response, her eyes were filled with tears, and it was 
 impossible for her to speak. 
 
 Great human tenderness was one of her chief character 
 istics. Although she was a reformer by nature there was 
 no sternness in her composition. Forgetfulness of others 
 there was certainly sometimes, arising from her hopeless 
 absent-mindedness and the preoccupation consequent upon 
 her work ; but her whole life was swayed and ruled by her 
 affections. 
 
 Her love was a sheet anchor which held in the stormiest 
 seas. Of her household devotion it is impossible to speak 
 fitly; but there are few natures that can be said to have 
 been more dependent upon human love. Her tender ways 
 were inexpressibly touching. 
 
 In spite of Mrs. Stowe s love of society, she did not be 
 come a woman of society, properly so called. She was 
 greatly sought after and appreciated, but the habit of her 
 mind and, I am tempted to say, the sincerity of her heart 
 forbade it. A worldly-minded woman of great taste, ele 
 gance, and appreciation, a friend of Mrs. Stowe, once said 
 to me, " Why is it that for some reason Mrs. Stowe does not 
 seem to go into the best society ? " I could not help re 
 membering how all society was at her command if she 
 had chosen to give herself to it, nor how her absorption 
 of mind and her devotion to a small circle made any large 
 currency impossible. The lady s question was one not to 
 be answered. Eyes cannot always be given to the blind ; 
 but we recall what Goethe says of this class of person in 
 his wonderful correspondence with Schiller, wonderful 
 because in those letters we see two men really speaking to 
 each other without reserve : 
 
 " It is amusing to see what it is has offended this kind 
 of person ; what they believe offends others ; how hollow, 
 
1860] HOME 257 
 
 empty, and common they esteem an existence different from 
 their own, how they direct their shafts against the outworks 
 of appearances, how little they even dream in what an in 
 accessible castle that man lives who is always in earnest in 
 regard to himself and everything around him." 
 
 Such a nature as Mrs. Stowe s was quite unlikely to 
 help her in playing the part of a famous woman of the 
 world with any success, and she did not attempt it. She 
 was always reaching out to the friends of her adoption and 
 drawing them closer to her side. 
 
 When the hours of our European play-days drew near 
 the end, she began to lay plans for returning home in the 
 steamer with those who had grown dear to her, and in one 
 of her notes of that period she wrote to me : 
 
 " On the strength of having heard that you were going 
 home in the Europa June 16th, we also have engaged pas 
 sage therein for that time, and hope that we shall not be 
 disappointed. ... It must be true, we can t have it other 
 wise. . . . Our Southern Italy trip was a glory ; it was 
 a rose a nightingale all, in short, that one ever dreams, 
 but alas ! it is over." 
 
 She wrote to Professor Stowe : 
 
 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. 
 
CHAPTEE IX 
 
 WAR 
 
 WE have now reached the period, both in the life of our 
 country and of Mrs. Stowe, which, looked at with the eye 
 of history, may be called the moment of culmination. 
 
 The red hand of war, dreaded in itself, inexorable in its 
 touch, yet inevitable, as Daniel Webster and others had seen 
 a quarter of a century earlier, was looked upon at last 
 by the regenerators of our people as the red-hot iron which 
 was to burn away our disease. This belief was the only 
 consolation in the miserable deep of suffering into which 
 the nation was plunged, and it held the hearts of men high 
 with courage and good cheer. 
 
 All the private interests and emotions which necessarily 
 occupied Mrs. Stowe were subservient in her heart to the 
 interests of her country. To use her own words : 
 
 "It was God s will that this nation the North as well 
 as the South should deeply and terribly suff er 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 
 
1861] MRS. STOWE S SON A VOLUNTEER 259 
 
 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," writes 
 the Rev. C. E. Stowe, "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 Massa 
 chusetts 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. 
 
 "Yesterday noon Henry" (Ward Beecher) "came in, say 
 ing 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 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 M. 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 
 
260 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1861 
 
 tracks towards him. Immediately afterwards a blue-over- 
 coated 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 wav 
 ing 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 jollifi 
 cation. 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 11 find out. 
 
 "I said to him I supposed he had had many a one con 
 fided to his kind offices, but I could not forbear adding one 
 more to the number. He answered, You may rest as 
 sured, Mrs. Stowe, I will do all in my power. 
 
 " We parted from Fred at the door. He said he felt lone 
 some 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. 
 
1862] VISIT TO WASHINGTON- 261 
 
 "I also saw young Henry. Like Fred he is mysteri 
 ously changed, and wears an expression of gravity and care. 
 So our boys come to manhood in a day. Now I am watch 
 ing anxiously for the evening paper to tell me that the 
 regiment has reached Washington in safety." 
 
 "In November, 1862," says her son Charles, "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 pro 
 cure 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 man 
 aged 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 affection 
 ate as a boy can be. 
 
262 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1862 
 
 I have just been writing a pathetic appeal to the briga 
 dier-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 disre 
 garded 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. 
 
 Just before she left Hartford for Washington I received 
 the following hurried note from her : 
 
 "I am going to Washington to see the heads of depart 
 ments myself, and to satisfy myself that I may refer to the 
 Emancipation Proclamation as a reality and a substance, 
 not a fizzle out at the little end of the horn, as I should be 
 sorry to call the attention of my sisters in Europe to any 
 such impotent conclusion. ... I mean to have a talk with 
 Father Abraham himself, among others. " 
 
 Mrs. Stowe lost no time, but proceeded to carry out her 
 plan as soon as practicable. Of this visit to Washington 
 she says little in her letters beyond the following meagre 
 words: "It seems to be the opinion here, not only that the 
 President will stand up to his proclamation, but that the 
 Border States will accede to his proposition for emancipa- 
 
1862] LETTER TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA 263 
 
 tion. I have noted the thing as a glorious expectancy ! 
 . . . To-day to the home of the contrabands, seeing about 
 five hundred poor fugitives eating a comfortable Thanks 
 giving dinner, and singing, Oh, let my people go ! It 
 was a strange and moving sight." 
 
 During this visit Mrs. Stowe wrote and dispatched to 
 the "Atlantic Monthly" her most eloquent and noble ap 
 peal to the women of England. 
 
 Eight years earlier an address had been received from 
 England by Mrs. Stowe with the names of some of the 
 most distinguished women of Great Britain at the head, 
 urging the abolition of slavery. This appeal was beauti 
 fully illuminated, and the twenty-six folio volumes which 
 accompanied it contain the signatures of more than half a 
 million of British women. 
 
 No published reply had as yet been made to this ad 
 dress. Now, however, the conditions had changed. The 
 North was giving her children, her possessions, her life, in a 
 vast struggle against slavery, and a strong party had arisen 
 in England in favor of the South. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe s reply was calm and strong, but written 
 with her heart s blood. She begins: "Sisters," and 
 after quoting their own words and describing the wonder 
 ful memorial in its oaken case as it stood before her, she 
 continues, " 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 duch 
 esses 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 
 
264 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1862 
 
 pen, and stiffened by lowly toil. Nay, so deep and ex 
 pansive was the feeling, that British subjects in foreign 
 lands had their representation. Among the signatures are 
 those of foreign residents, from Paris to Jerusalem. Auto 
 graphs 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 feel 
 ing which at that time swept over the British community 
 and made for itself an expression, even at the risk of offend 
 ing the sensibilities of an equal and powerful nation. 
 
 "No reply to that address, in any such tangible and mon 
 umental form, has ever been possible. It was impossible 
 to canvass our vast territories with the zealous and indefati 
 gable industry with which England was canvassed for sig 
 natures. 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 an 
 swer was the silent continuance of these efforts. 
 
 "From the slaveholding States, however, as was to be 
 expected, came a flood of indignant recrimination and re 
 buke. 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 astonish 
 ing 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 ex 
 horted them is almost done, may properly and naturally 
 feel moved to reply to their appeal, and lay before them 
 
1862] ADDRESS TO THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND 265 
 
 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. " 
 
 She then most eloquently and succinctly rehearses the 
 steps of the struggle. 
 
 The whole paper is eminently worth reproduction, but it 
 is already in print and we must therefore deny ourselves. 
 Towards the end she says : 
 
 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 sup 
 port in England. Sadder than this, the party which makes 
 slavery the chief corner-stone of its edifice finds in Eng 
 land its strongest defenders. 
 
 The voices that have spoken for us who contend for lib 
 erty 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 is 
 
266 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1862 
 
 fighting for supremacy and the South for independence, has 
 been the voice. Independence ? for what 1 to do what 1 To 
 prove the doctrine that all men are not equal; to establish 
 the doctrine that the white man may enslave the negro ! 
 
 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 am 
 ple 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 Bap 
 tist, 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 1 
 
 We have been shocked and saddened by the question 
 asked in an association of Congregational ministers in Eng 
 land, the very blood relations of the liberty-loving Puritans 
 " Why does not the North let the South go ? " 
 
1862] AMERICA TO ENGLAND 267 
 
 What! give up the point of emancipation for these four 
 million slaves 1 Turn our backs on them, and leave them 
 to their fate 1 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 1 Remember that wishing suc 
 cess 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 fight 
 ing 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 deso 
 late 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. 
 
268 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1862 
 
 John Bright and Archbishop Whately sent personal re 
 plies to this letter. John Bright said: "Before this 
 reaches you, you will have seen what large and earnest 
 meetings have been held in all our towns in favor of aboli 
 tion 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." 
 
 Mrs. Browning says : 
 
 " I had much anxiety for you after the Seward and Adams 
 speeches, but the danger seems averted by that fine mad 
 ness of the South which seems judicial. The tariff move 
 ment 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. 
 
 " Meanwhile I am reading you in the * Independent, sent 
 to me by Mr. Tilton, with the greatest interest. Your new 
 novel opens beautifully. " * 
 
 Mrs. Stowe wrote to Mrs. Howard : 
 
 " Can it be that New York is going into revolution 1 I 
 am writing on the decisive day (the 4th), yet ignorant what 
 its vote. Why did not Henry stump the state for Wads- 
 worth rather than this thing should be ? We are all on 
 tip-toe with anxiety. I don t know that there will long 
 be any use in investing in anything, if New York is going 
 to rebel and join the South as the * Tribune announces to 
 night. I think I see her a doin of it ! " 
 
 It was left for others to speak of Mrs. Stowe s interview 
 1 The Pearl of Orr s Island. 
 
1862] INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT LINCOLN 269 
 
 with President Lincoln. Her daughter was told that when 
 the President heard her name he seized her hand, saying, 
 " Is this the little woman who made this great war 1 " He 
 then led her to a seat in the window, where they were 
 withdrawn, and undisturbed by other guests. No one but 
 those two souls will ever know what waves of thought and 
 feeling swept over them in that brief hour. 
 
 Afterwards she heard these words pronounced in the 
 Senate Chamber in the Message of President Lincoln; it 
 was in the darkest hour of the war, Mrs. Stowe wrote, 
 when defeat and discouragement had followed the Union 
 armies and all hearts were trembling with fear: "If this 
 struggle is to be prolonged till there be not a home in 
 the land where there is not one dead, till all the treasure 
 amassed by the unpaid labor of the slave shall be wasted, 
 till every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be 
 atoned by blood drawn by the sword, we can only bow 
 and say, Just and true are thy ways, thou King of 
 saints! " 
 
 To the Duchess of Argyll Mrs. Stowe wrote from 
 
 ANDOVER, July 31. 
 
 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 friend 
 ship 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 
 
270 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1863 
 
 the moment before the Crucifixion, which is the first thing 
 I look at when I wake in the morning. I think how suf 
 fering 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 King 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. 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 can 
 not 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 ? 
 Why is all expression of sympathy on the Southern side 1 
 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 
 
1863] LETTER TO THE DUCHESS OF ARGYLE 271 
 
 not wonder, therefore. Eemember it is the moment when 
 every nerve is vital; it is our agony; we tread the wine 
 press 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 those who now do stand 
 true, your family, your duke, yourself, your noble mo 
 ther. I have lost Lady Byron. Her great heart, her elo 
 quent 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 compre 
 hending, 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 incon 
 ceivable. If I had written what I knew of the obscenity, 
 brutality, and cruelty of that society down there, society 
 
272 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1863 
 
 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 de 
 stroyed, 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 daugh 
 ters also. 
 
 I am lovingly ever yours, 
 
 H. B. STOWE. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe heard from her son directly after the battle 
 of Gettysburg. But it was the chaplain who wrote : 
 
 GETTYSBURG, PA., Saturday, July 11, 9.30 P. M. 
 MRS. 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 frag 
 ment 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 # week s labor here among scenes 
 of terrible suffering, I know that, to a mother s anxious 
 
1864] HER SON WOUNDED 273 
 
 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. 
 
 In the autumn of 1864 she wrote to me : "I feel I need 
 to write in these days, to keep from thinking of things that 
 make me dizzy and blind, and fill my eyes with tears so 
 that I cannot see the paper. I mean such things as are 
 being done where our heroes are dying as Shaw died. It 
 is not wise that all our literature should run in a rut cut 
 through our hearts and red with our blood. I feel the need 
 of a little gentle household merriment and talk of common 
 things, to indulge which I have devised the following." 
 
 Notwithstanding her view of the need and her skillfully 
 devised plans to meet it, she soon sent another epistle, 
 showing how impossible it was to stem the current of her 
 thought. 
 
 She wrote to the Editor of the Atlantic : 
 
 November 29, 1864. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, I have sent my New Year s arti 
 cle, the result of one of those peculiar experiences which 
 sometimes occur to us writers. I had planned an arti 
 cle, gay, sprightly, wholly domestic; but as I began and 
 sketched the pleasant home and quiet fireside, an irresist 
 ible impulse wrote for me what followed, an offering of 
 sympathy to the suffering and agonized whose homes have 
 forever been darkened. Many causes united at once to 
 force on me this vision, from which generally I shrink, but 
 which sometimes will not be denied, will make itself 
 felt. 
 
 Just before I went to New York two of my earliest and 
 most intimate friends lost their oldest sons, captains and 
 
274 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1866 
 
 majors, splendid fellows physically and morally, beauti 
 ful, brave, religious, uniting the courage of soldiers to the 
 faith of martyrs, and when I went to Brooklyn it seemed 
 as if I were hearing some such thing almost every day ; and 
 Henry, in his profession as minister, has so many letters 
 full of imploring anguish, the cry of hearts breaking that 
 ask help of him. . . . 
 
 In writing to Mrs. Howard at this time she says : " I left 
 my poor Fred at home. I do hope he will get a good ship. 
 The sea air works marvels in our family. That wound in 
 his head will never heal unless by a general tonic to the 
 whole system. ... I feel a weight of solicitude for the 
 poor fellow which I can only lay where you lay yours." 
 
 At last the war was ended, and she wrote to the Duchess 
 of Argyll : 
 
 HARTFORD, February 19. 
 
 MY DEAR FKIEND, Your letter was a real spring of 
 comfort to me, bringing refreshingly the pleasant library at 
 Inveraray and the lovely day I spent there. 
 
 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 my 
 self, 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 
 j forgotten, and think it is all over now, all past, and that 
 Inow 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. 
 
1866] GARRISON AND OTHERS AFTER THE WAR 275 
 
 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 ? " Gar 
 rison 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 thanksgiv 
 ing, 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, be- , 
 cause of the inevitable shortcomings and imperfections that I 
 beset it still. We have a Congress of splendid men, 
 men of stalwart principle and determination. We have a 
 President * 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 Freed- 
 man 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 com- J 
 posed of the really good men at the South. 
 
 For this reason he has always advocated lenity of mea-~\ 
 sures 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 Sunmer is looking simply at the abstract right 
 
 1 Andrew Johnson 
 
276 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1866 
 
 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 were forced 
 H upon them, I do not see how any one in their senses can 
 11 expect anything less than an immediate war of races. 
 
 If negro suffrage were required as a condition of acquir 
 ing 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 1 
 
 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 
 >y 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 ex 
 citement. 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 
 
1866] AFTER THE WAR 277 
 
 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. ... It seems almost like a dream to look back 
 to those pleasant days with you all. 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 Stock- 
 bridge, the loveliest part of Massachusetts, and her hus 
 band 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 pro 
 fessorship, 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. 
 
 The labor, the shock, were past, but the fatigue and the 
 strain of the long struggle for freedom which she carried 
 always on her own heart could never be over-lived. She 
 was already, as Mrs. Hawthorne used to say, "tired far 
 into the future." The woman who had written "Uncle 
 Tom " was not to continue a series of equally exciting sto 
 ries, but she was to bear the burden and heat of much 
 every-day labor with the patience and the rejoicing of all 
 faithful souls. 
 
278 HARRIET BELCHER STOWE [1866 
 
 We are reminded, as we study Mrs. Stowe s life, of 
 Swinburne s noble tribute to Sir Walter Scott after reading 
 his Journals, which appeared in full only -five or six years 
 ago. He says: "Now that we have before us in full 
 in all reasonable or desired completeness the great man s 
 own record of his troubles, his emotions, and his toils, we 
 find it, from the opening to the close, a record, not only 
 of dauntless endurance, but of elastic and joyous heroism. 
 . . . It is no longer pity that any one may presume to 
 feel for him at the lowest ebb of his fortunes or his life ; 
 it is rapture of sympathy, admiration, and applause." 
 
 The wound received by her son in his head was one 
 from which he was never entirely to recover. "After 
 weary months of intense suffering, 7 his brother says, "it 
 only imperfectly healed; the cruel iron had too nearly 
 touched the brain of the young officer. He was never to 
 be himself again. 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 bene 
 ficial to her afflicted son." 
 
 No more harrowing experience than this was endured 
 during our war; it is impossible to imagine anything more 
 painful, in its slow continuance; the doubt respecting her 
 boy s ultimate return to health; the methods to be em 
 ployed for his best welfare; the constantly increasing in 
 competence, and the final silence. She who was always 
 a comforter for the sorrowful still wrote from the centre of 
 divine peace : 
 
 " When winds are raging o er the upper ocean 
 And billows wild contend with angry roar, 
 Tis said, far down beneath the wild commotion, 
 That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore. 
 
 " Far, far away, the roar of passion dieth, 
 
 And loving thoughts rise calm and peacefully; 
 And no rude storn>, how fierce soe er it flieth, 
 Disturbs the soul that dwells, Lord, in thee." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 PRIVATE LIFE IN WAR-TIME 
 
 IN a period of great public excitement a contrast is 
 always to be observed. Private life still goes on, and it 
 depends upon the temperament, the religion, the imagina 
 tion of individuals whether the surface of their existence 
 is greatly deflected from ordinary channels by the public 
 necessity. With Mrs. Stowe, as we have seen, thought, 
 feeling, and her spiritual life on earth, if we may say so, 
 were swallowed up in the struggle; but as men lived on 
 from day to day and the war stretched its dreadful length 
 over years of time, life often appeared hardly more exciting 
 to some persons than in certain periods before the strife 
 began. We shall see how during this time Mrs. Stowe 
 kept steadily at her desk, providing stories which were 
 eagerly read by a large public. 
 
 In order to make the picture of her life during the war 
 a true one, we must return to the month of June, 1860, 
 in which she left England for the last time. She was 
 about leaving Paris for Liverpool when the news reached 
 her of the sudden death of Annie Howard, the beautiful 
 young daughter of her friend, and the companion of her 
 children. Mrs. Stowe at once wrote Mrs. Howard : " Oh, 
 my dear sister! Why am I not with you . . . the blow 
 has almost crushed us all. . . . We have thought of all 
 things that we could do, we thought of waiting here for 
 you, but we have no hope that you could be here. . . . 
 Our fears are for you, dear child, but we can only com 
 mend you to God. . . . How many stings and agonies and 
 
280 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1860 
 
 living thorns there are for every hour and moment in a 
 wrench like this, God only knows but God will reveal 
 himself to you in the deep waters. When thou passest 
 through the waters they shall not overflow thee, for I am 
 with thee. . . . Sorrow not, even as others, who have 
 no hope. For, if we believe that Jesus died and rose 
 again, even so also them that sleep in Jesus shall God 
 bring with Him." 
 
 SWAYLANDS, PENSHUKST, June 10. 
 
 MY DEAR SUSIE, We are resting a day or two in this 
 peaceful retreat under the shaded skies of England, liter 
 ally amid green pastures, and my thoughts return to you, 
 as this letter will find you weary and desolate on your 
 way to Paris. . . . 
 
 Ah! Susie, I who have walked in this dark valley for 
 now three years, what can I say to you who are entering 
 it ? One thing I can say be not afraid and confounded 
 if you find no apparent religious support at first. When 
 the heartstrings are all suddenly cut, it is, I believe, a 
 physical impossibility to feel faith or resignation; there is 
 a revolt of the instinctive and animal system, and though 
 we may submit to God it is rather by a constant painful 
 effort than by a sweet attraction. There are cases when 
 a superhuman grace is given and the soul is buoyed above 
 itself, but more often we can only bleed in silent pain. . . . 
 
 For such deep places there is nothing but the remem 
 brance of Him who though He were a son, yet learned 
 obedience by the things which He suffered. We see that 
 it cost Him a conflict with agony and bloody sweat to say, 
 Not my will but thy will. It did not come easily even 
 to Him, and He said it over and over in his anguish as we 
 must. Since that fearful night at your home " [the night 
 when Mrs. Stowe heard of the death of her son] "every 
 hour of life has been to me with an upper and an under 
 
1860] SYMPATHY IN SOKROW 281 
 
 current, and every day I have been making again and again 
 that hard sacrifice, and it is a submission now as painful 
 as at first. 
 
 "Time but the impression stronger makes 
 As streams their channels deeper wear." 
 
 and I know all the strange ways in which this anguish will 
 reveal itself, the prick, the thrust, the stab, the wearing 
 pain, the poison that is mingled with every bright remem 
 brance of the past, I have felt them all, and all I can 
 say is that, though "faint," I am "pursuing," although 
 the crown of thorns secretly pressed to one s heart never 
 ceases to pain. Yet as the day is the strength will be. 
 So often this summer I have looked on you with your 
 children all round you prosperous and happy, and thought 
 in what peace and prosperity your life was passing, and 
 how little you could know of the inner cell in my heart 
 where I spend so many sad hours. But I know whose 
 hand holds ours . . . and that He makes no mistakes. . . . 
 These are our weanings from earth, and we fill the long 
 night with tossings and moanings. . . . Our Father, loving 
 us better than we love ourselves, will educate us for our 
 inheritance. It is no small thing, this eternal glory, 
 and we must suffer something for it. ... I am very 
 poorly, but I am going to finish by copying one of the 
 Plymouth hymns, which I have said over almost every 
 day this winter and which I hope one day will be the ex 
 pression of my feelings. 
 
 "I worship thee, sweet will of God, 
 
 And all thy ways adore ; 
 And every day I live, I long 
 To love thee more and more." 
 
 To this I add some lines that I thought of much after 
 Henry s death: 
 
 " God never does, nor suffers to be done, 
 But that which we would do, if we could see 
 The end of all events as well as He." 
 
282 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1860 
 
 ON BOARD THE EuROPA, June. 
 MY DEAR SUSIE, We had a great fright yesterday 
 
 coming on in the express train. H was faint and we 
 
 thought she was restored, but just as we were stopping at 
 the next station she called out that she was dying, and 
 must be taken into the air. . . . We hurried out, all of 
 us, on to the platform with her, we had been sitting with 
 our hats off and had no time to put them on, got her 
 in all haste into a chamber of the railroad hotel, for she 
 seemed to be in a death agony. ... At last she began to 
 be more comfortable and we telegraphed to know when the 
 ship would sail; put her on a mattress, caught the next 
 express, found a physician, who gave her a tonic, and she 
 had a tolerable night. I think all this the culmination of 
 the excitement and fatigue of the last few weeks. ... I 
 thought I had lost her, and felt all calm, for I know she 
 is Christ s, whether it is yet made clear to her sad heart 
 or not. . . . She has not been well since the shock of the 
 sad news. . . . We are now lying by in Cork Harbor, 
 with the prospect of spending the rest of the day here. . . . 
 H. seems much better this morning, is dressed and on deck 
 like anybody else. Each of you had a letter in Paris from 
 one or another of us. 
 
 Ever affectionately yours, H. B. STOWE. 
 
 It was a beautiful voyage in every sense; and at that 
 period a voyage was no little matter of six days, but a 
 good fourteen days of sitting together on deck in pleasant 
 summer weather, and having time enough and to spare. 
 Hawthorne and his family also concluded to join the party. 
 Mrs. Hawthorne, who was always the romancer in conver 
 sation, filled the evening hours by weaving magic webs of 
 her fancies, until we looked upon her as a second Schehere- 
 zade, and the day the head was to be cut off was the day 
 we should come to shore. "Oh," said Hawthorne, "I 
 
1860] RETURN TO AMERICA 283 
 
 wish we might never get there." But the good ship 
 moved steadily as fate. Meanwhile, Mrs. Stowe often 
 took her turn at entertaining the little group. She was 
 seldom tired of relating stories of New England life and 
 her early experiences. 
 
 When the ship came to shore, Mrs. Stowe and her 
 daughters went at once to Andover, where Professor Stowe 
 had remained at his post during the long winter. She 
 went also with equal directness to her writing-desk; and 
 though there are seldom any dates upon her letters, the 
 following note must have been written shortly after her 
 return : 
 
 MY DEAR MR. FIELDS, "Agnes of Sorrento" was 
 conceived on the spot, a spontaneous tribute to the ex 
 ceeding loveliness and beauty of all things there. 
 
 One bright evening, as I was entering the old gateway, 
 I saw a beautiful young girl sitting in its shadow selling 
 oranges. She was my Agnes. Walking that same even 
 ing through the sombre depths of the gorge, I met " Old 
 Elsie," walking erect and tall, with her piercing black eyes, 
 Roman nose, and silver hair, walking with determina 
 tion in every step, and spinning like one of the Fates glitter 
 ing silver flax from a distaff she carried in her hands. 
 
 A few days after, our party, being weatherbound at Sa 
 lerno, had to resort to all our talents to pass the time, and 
 songs and stories were the fashion of the day. The first 
 chapter was my contribution to that entertainment. The 
 story was voted into existence by the voices of all that 
 party, and by none more enthusiastically than by one 
 young voice which will never be heard on earth more. 
 It was kept in mind and expanded and narrated as we 
 went on to Rome over a track that the pilgrim Agnes is to 
 travel. To me, therefore, it is fragrant with love of Italy 
 and memory of some of the brightest hours of life. 
 
284 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1860 
 
 I wanted to write something of this kind as an author s 
 introduction to the public. Could you contrive to print 
 it on a fly-leaf, if I get it ready, and put a little sort of 
 dedicatory poem at the end of it? I shall do this at least 
 in the book, if not now. 
 
 She wrote to Mrs. Howard, Sunday, August 3, 
 
 We have watched your course across the ocean from 
 the first day of your sailing until now, every day, noting 
 the wind and weather. ... I feel as if I had a sort of 
 right in you which I never had before, as if you and I 
 were united by a bond that could unite no others. . . . 
 It was you who broke to me the sudden news of my life, 
 and I no less seem to be associated in your kindred sorrow. 
 Will you not therefore come to us as soon as you can ? . . . 
 The old stone cabin will open wide its arms . . . when 
 the ship arrives that brings the dear form no longer 
 Annie, but associated with her parted spirit; then we shall 
 come to Brooklyn and mingle our tears with yours. To 
 day we have been reading Henry s sermon, "The Sepul 
 chre in the Garden." "Italy," H. said, "was the lovely 
 garden where we found the unexpected tomb." . . . Do 
 come to us as soon as you can. It is calm, quiet, still, 
 and shady, and we all long for you. . . . My health has 
 been very poor since I came home. A most oppressive 
 languor has weighed upon me. I have felt entirely pros 
 trate and longed for friends to lean on. ... 
 
 Your sister, H. B. S. 
 
 A network of difficulties seems to have closed about her 
 at this time, because in spite of her interest in the new 
 story and the hopeful view which she took of its speedy 
 completion, several months passed by before anything defi 
 nite came respecting her literary plans. 
 
1861] EXHAUSTED BY HER WORK 285 
 
 Meanwhile she had been tempted into beginning "The 
 Pearl of Orr s Island," a story good enough, if she had 
 been left to herself and not overridden by greedy editors 
 and publishers, to have added a lustre even to her name. 
 It is to this she refers in the following letter when she 
 speaks of her "Maine story." Unhappily the first num 
 ber, which is one of her finest pieces of writing, drew off 
 power which belonged to "Agnes of Sorrento," and Agnes 
 served to prevent her from ending "The Pearl of Orr s 
 Island " in a manner worthy of its first promise. 
 
 She says, writing in January, "Authors are apt, I sup 
 pose, like parents, to have their unreasonable partialities. 
 Everybody has, and I have a pleasure in writing Agnes 
 of Sorrento that gilds this icy winter weather. I write 
 my Maine story with a shiver, and come back to this as to 
 a flowery home where I love to rest. 
 
 "My manuscripts are always left to the printers for 
 punctuation, as you will observe ; I have no time for 
 copying. " 
 
 These incessant drafts upon Mrs. Stowe s energy had 
 greatly enfeebled her; but her spirit was indomitable, and 
 when she was weary a brief visit to Boston was, she con 
 sidered, sufficient to restore her nervous force. During 
 these visits she sometimes rehearsed the story of the early 
 days of her married life when, as we have seen, she fought 
 her way through difficulties and under the burden of sor 
 rows which would have crushed many another woman. 
 
 In an unpublished prefatory note for "The Pearl of 
 Orr s Island," the first seventeen chapters of which ap 
 peared in April of this year, Mrs. Stowe wrote in No 
 vember : " The writer was applied to a year ago to furnish 
 a serial story for The Independent. This offer she 
 promptly and decidedly declined, on the ground that she 
 had not time nor strength, having just come under engage 
 ments to furnish one to the Cornhill Magazine, simulta- 
 
286 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1861 
 
 neously with the Atlantic Monthly, in America. [This 
 was "Agnes of Sorrento."] The engagement for this story 
 lasted from May, 1861, to May, 1862, and Mrs. Stowe 
 thought it would absorb all her time and strength. 
 
 " The editor of The Independent subsequently wrote 
 to know whether she could not furnish a short story to 
 run through four or five numbers. . . . She responded 
 that it had always been her experience that a short story 
 once begun was taken possession of by certain spirits. " . . . 
 
 In spite of her better reason she was induced to begin, 
 and found, as she says in continuing: "a Captain Kittridge 
 with his garrulous yarns, Misses Koxy and Ruey given to 
 talk," and herself on the verge of her engagement for the 
 "Atlantic Monthly" quite unprepared. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe then wrote to "The Independent," propos 
 ing to stop her story then and there in two numbers, or 
 to promise a continuation after six months, beginning again 
 in December. The latter scheme was accepted. "But," 
 she says, "the agitations and mental excitements of the 
 war have, in the case of the writer, as in the case of many 
 others, used up the time and strength which would have 
 been devoted to authorship. 
 
 "Who could write on stories that had a son to send to 
 battle, with Washington beleaguered and the whole coun 
 try shaken as with an earthquake? Who could write fic 
 tion when fact was so imperious and terrible, in the days 
 of Bull Run and Big Bethel? But the author has labored 
 assiduously on her literary engagements, and if she must 
 commence a month or two later in the autumn than she 
 expected, it is no greater delay than the war has caused 
 everywhere and in every department of business. 
 
 "The readers will see by this frank statement that there 
 has been no intention of dealing unfairly with them, but 
 only the result of unforeseen circumstances. The story 
 will be resumed the first of December. " 
 
1861] DIFFICULTIES OF AUTHORSHIP 287 
 
 Accordingly the second part, beginning with what is 
 now chapter eighteenth, was begun in the number for De 
 cember, and completed in April. Upon taking up the 
 story again, Mrs. Stowe issued in " The Independent " the 
 following card : 
 
 TO OUR READERS 
 
 In commencing again "The Pearl of Orr s Island," the 
 author meets the serious embarrassment of trying to revive 
 for the second time an unexpected pleasure. 
 
 That a story so rustic, so woodland, so pale and color 
 less, so destitute of all that is ordinarily expected in a work 
 of fiction, should be advertised in the columns of "The 
 Independent" as this was last week, as "Mrs. So-and-So s 
 great romance," or with words to that effect, produces an 
 impression both appalling and ludicrous. 
 
 It is as if some golden-haired baby, who had touched 
 her mother s heart by singing: 
 
 "Jesus, tender shepherd, hear us! " 
 
 should forthwith be announced with flaming playbills, to 
 sing in the Boston Theatre as the celebrated Prima Donna, 
 Madame Trottietoes! 
 
 We beg our readers to know that no great romance is 
 coming, only a story pale and colorless as real life, and 
 sad as truth. 
 
 You will not be interested as you have been, kind 
 friends, we cannot hope it ; your expectations are raised 
 only to be dashed; for our characters have no strange and 
 wonderful adventures of outward life, and the changes that 
 occur to them and the history they make is that of the 
 inner life, that "cometh not with observation." 
 
 We are most sorry for our dear little child-audience, 
 who, now that Mara and Moses have grown up, will, we 
 fear, lose their interest in them. What a pity, boys and 
 girls, that you are not grown up too in these six months, 
 
288 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1861 
 
 and then Mara and Moses would not seem to you to be 
 getting dull, and talking all sorts of unintelligible talk. 
 
 But no, dear little folks, we don t wish it, either. 
 We pray you may stay long little and believing, and able 
 to be pleased with child s stories; for Christ says of such 
 as you is the kingdom of heaven. We must try and see 
 what can be done for you, and whether Captain Kittridge 
 has not a story or two left in his pocket, with which to 
 beguile your time. 
 
 She speaks of the severe winter in her letters to Mrs. 
 Howard: "Snow over the fences up to the frames of 
 the kitchen window. No cyclamen to be looked for yet, 
 
 no violets or anemones, nothing but wintry white, 
 and after this is gone will come unlimited water and slush. 
 We have seemed to be on an island in the frozen ocean, 
 going nowhere and seeing nobody." . . . 
 
 "Thursday evening of this week we inaugurated a soci 
 ety to be called the Pic-nic, to meet every week for mutual 
 amusement, pieces are to be written, songs sung, plays 
 played. The first one was a brilliant success and we are 
 in hopes to make the snows tolerable. I appoint you all 
 corresponding members. Send us something." 
 
 Thus we see the days wore on during this winter, while 
 she was struggling against failing strength, much labor, 
 and the hard weather, but cheerful still, as we who saw 
 her in Boston know. It was during these war years that 
 Mrs. Stowe exchanged many letters with three distin 
 guished persons whose correspondence was always a joy to 
 her: Mrs. Browning, Mr. Kuskin, and Dr. Holmes. She 
 writes to the latter: 
 
 ANDOVER. 
 
 DEAR DR. HOLMES, I have had an impulse upon me 
 for a long time to write* you a line of recognition and sym- 
 
1861] CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. HOLMES 289 
 
 pathy, in response to those that reached me monthly in 
 your late story in the "Atlantic" ("Elsie Vernier"). 
 
 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 under- world of 
 thought from which like bubbles your incidents and re 
 marks 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 the 
 ologian 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 particu 
 lars. 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. 
 
 DEAR DOCTOR, I was quite indignant to hear yester 
 day 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. 
 
290 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1861 
 
 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 some 
 where happily said : 
 
 " Oh, why are fanners 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 in 
 vaded 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. 
 
1862] VARIED RESPONSIBILITIES 291 
 
 Mrs. Stowe s correspondence with George Eliot did not 
 begin until a few years later, although the letter written 
 by Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. Follen, printed in the earlier pages 
 of this volume, had already awakened a strong feeling for 
 the writer in Mrs. Lewes. She said of it, "The whole 
 letter is most fascinating and makes me love her." 
 
 Mrs. Stowe s replies to the interesting letters of Mr. 
 Euskin have not been found, nor those written to Mrs. 
 Browning. We can only judge of their contents by the 
 intimate and affectionate answers, portions of which are 
 reproduced here, where they bear upon the subjects of the 
 time. 
 
 The ceaseless mill, whose engine was her own pen, still 
 went on whatever interruptions or preoccupations came to 
 her. 
 
 The varied currents of thought and feeling excited by 
 the war, and her trouble with two serial stories, made Mrs. 
 Stowe s work much more difficult, although she would not 
 recognize it even in her own mind. She explained herself 
 sometimes to Mrs. Howard by saying: * I never was so 
 hard run in writing as I have been lately, so you must 
 appreciate this so large letter writ with my own hand. 7 
 
 In April, she writes the same friend: "At last I am 
 free. Both stories are finished, and the last copy sent 
 to England, thanks to the girls busy copying fingers. I 
 have been pressed and overdriven. . . . Next I have to 
 go to Canada and spend ten days or a fortnight securing 
 copyright. Not a pleasant journey, but we shall try to 
 make the best of it." . 
 
 From the moment of our return from Europe together 
 Mrs. Stowe began to form the habit of getting a little much- 
 needed rest and change by coming to us for brief visits in 
 Boston. 
 
 During these vacations she was always interested to ob 
 serve the benevolent work going on about her and to lend 
 
292 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1862 
 
 a hand if it were possible. One incident flavored with a 
 strong touch of the ludicrous still lingers in my memory. 
 We had fallen in somewhere with a poor little waif of a 
 boy, one easily to be recognized by the practiced eye of 
 to-day as a good specimen of the street Arab. This little 
 being was taken up by us and brought home. His arrival 
 was looked upon with horror by the servants, who recog 
 nized existing facts and foresaw future miseries veiled from 
 our less educated vision. A visit to the bathroom was at 
 once suggested ; but as none of the house maidens offered 
 to take charge of the business, Mrs. Stowe announced her 
 self as more than equal to the occasion and proceeded to 
 administer the first bath probably ever known to that 
 specimen of the human family. Hawthorne s clasping the 
 leprous child was but a shadow compared to that hour, but 
 happily Mrs. Stowe was not Hawthorne and she combed 
 and scrubbed faithfully. 
 
 I cannot recall the precise ending of the tale. I can 
 only remember the whole house being aroused at some 
 unearthly hour of that night by the child s outcries, from 
 his unusual indulgence in a good supper, and Mrs. Stowe s 
 amusement at the situation. She declared the household 
 was far better constituted to look after young cherubim 
 than young male humans. Something of the canary-bird 
 order would be much more in its line, she said. I believe 
 he ran away the next day, probably understanding the 
 fitness of things better than ourselves. At any rate I find 
 a comforting note on the subject from Andover saying: 
 "If we can do no more we must let him go. He cer 
 tainly stands a better chance in his life s journey for the 
 little good we have been able to put into him. When we 
 try a little to resist the evil current and to pull one out 
 here and there, we learn how dreadful is the downward 
 gravitation, the sweep and whirl of the maelstrom. Let 
 us hope all these have a Father, who charges Himself with 
 
1862] LEAVING ANDOVER 293 
 
 them somewhere further on in their eternal pilgrimage 
 when our weak hold fails." 
 
 In the autumn a plan for leaving Andover altogether 
 was finally matured. She wrote, "You have heard that 
 we are going to Hartford to live, and I am now in all 
 the bustle of house planning, to say nothing of grading, 
 under-draining, and setting out trees around our future 
 home. It is four acres and a half of lovely woodland on 
 the banks of a river and yet within an easy walk of Hart 
 ford; in fact, in the city limits; and when our house is 
 done you and yours must come and see us. I would 
 rather have made the change in less troublous times, but 
 the duties here draw so hardly on Mr. Stowe s strength 
 that I thought it better to live on less and be in a place of 
 our own, and with no responsibilities except those of com 
 mon gentlefolk." 
 
 Mrs. Stowe s love of home, of the fireside, and her faith 
 in family ties were marked characteristics of her nature. 
 For the first time in her life she was now to make the 
 material house, at least, after her own idea, and for many 
 months she was absorbed in the enjoyment of forming 
 plans for her Hartford home. 
 
 In November she was in Hartford superintending the 
 growing establishment. She wrote, "My house with 
 eight gables is growing wonderfully. I go over every 
 day to see it. I am busy with drains, sewers, sinks, 
 digging, trenching, and above all with manure! You 
 should see the joy with which I gaze on manure heaps in 
 which the eye of faith sees Delaware grapes and D Angou- 
 leme pears, and all sorts of roses and posies, which at some 
 future day I hope you will be able to enjoy. 
 
 "Do tell me if our friend Hawthorne praises that arch 
 traitor Pierce in his preface, and your loyal firm publishes 
 it. I never read the preface, and have not yet seen the 
 book, but they say so here, and I can scarcely believe it 
 
294 HAKRIET BEECHER STOWE [1863 
 
 of you, if I can of him. I regret that I went to see him 
 last summer. What ! patronize such a traitor to our faces ! 
 I can scarce believe it. 
 
 " Meanwhile old Hartford seems fat, rich, and cosy, 
 stocks higher than ever, business plenty, everything as 
 tranquil as possible. The drawings of our house, that is to 
 be, are now finished, the spot where it is to stand is staked 
 out, and if you will come here I will show you both. To 
 night I was there, and the great full moon shining down 
 on the river and the red trees growing redder in the twi 
 light made a beautiful picture." 
 
 The year proved an eventful one to Mrs. Stowe. "In 
 the first place," says her son Charles, "the long and plea 
 sant Andover connection of Professor Stowe was about to 
 be severed, and the family were to remove to Hartford. 
 They were to occupy a house that Mrs. Stowe was build 
 ing 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 ; 
 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 en 
 croachments ten years later, Mrs. Stowe bought and moved 
 into the house on Forest Street that was ever afterward her 
 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." 
 
 In this year, also, was finally published "Agnes of 
 Sorrento. " 
 
1863] REMOVAL 295 
 
 In the month of May came the first letter to her pub 
 lisher from the new place. Already we find that the ever- 
 present need has driven Mrs. Stowe to print her thoughts 
 about "House and Home." 
 
 HARTFORD, OAKWOLD, May 1. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, I came here a month ago to hurry 
 on the preparations for our house, in which I am now 
 writing, in the high bow window of Mr. Stowe s study, 
 overlooking the wood and river. We are not moved in 
 yet, only our things, and the house presents a scene of the 
 wildest chaos, the furniture having been tumbled in and 
 lying boxed and promiscuous. 
 
 I sent the sixth number of " House and Home Papers " 
 a week ago, and, not having heard from it, am a little 
 anxious. I always want faith that a bulky manuscript 
 will go safe, for all I never lost one. ... I should 
 like to show you the result here when we are fairly in, 
 and the spring leaves are out. It is the brightest, cheer- 
 fulest, homeliest home that you could see, not even 
 excepting yours. 
 
 The pursuit of literature under such circumstances is 
 neither natural nor profitable. In Mrs. Stowe s case it 
 proved that she was pursuing, not literature, but the ne 
 cessities of life. Everything in the household economy 
 now depended upon her; and however strong her tenden 
 cies were naturally, she no longer possessed the reserved 
 strength to forge the work from her brain. In the writing 
 of "Uncle Tom, 77 great as were the odds against her, she 
 had been preparing to that end from the moment of her 
 birth. Her father s fiery powers of expression; her mo 
 ther s nature, absorbed in the still dream of love and duty; 
 her own solitary childhood in spite of the enormous house 
 hold in which she was brought up; above all her brooding 
 
296 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1863 
 
 nature quietly absorbing and assimilating the knowledge 
 and thought which were finding expression around her; 
 the first years of married life in Cincinnati, where the 
 slaves were continually harbored and assisted, notwith 
 standing the risks to life and property, everything, in 
 short, within and around her was nourishing the child of 
 her genius which was to leap into being and gather the 
 armies of America. 
 
 On the whole we may rather wonder at the high average 
 value of the literary work by which she lived, especially 
 when we follow the hints given in her letters of her inter 
 rupted and crowded existence. 
 
 In June she says, "I wrote my piece in a sea of 
 troubles. I had, as you see, to write by amanuensis, and 
 yet my little senate of girls say they like it better than 
 anything I have written yet. 7 It was a touching charac 
 teristic to see how the "senate of girls," or of such house 
 hold friends as she could muster wherever she might be, 
 were always called in to keep up her courage and to give 
 her a sympathetic stimulus. During the days when she 
 was writing, it was never safe to be far away, for she was 
 rapid as light itself, and before a brief hour was ended we 
 were pretty sure to hear her voice calling "Do come, 
 come and hear and tell me how you like it." 
 
 Her June letter continues: "Can I begin to tell you 
 what it is to begin to keep house in an unfinished home 
 and place, dependent on a carpenter, a plumber, a mason, 
 a bell-hanger, who come and go at their own sweet will, 
 breaking in, making all sorts of chips, dust, dirt, going 
 off in the midst leaving all standing, reappearing at un 
 certain intervals and making more dust, chips, and dirt. 
 One parlor and my library have thus risen piecemeal by 
 disturbance and convulsions. They are now almost done, 
 and the last box of books is almost unpacked, but my head 
 aches so with the past confusion that I cannot get up any 
 
3864] THE NEW HOUSE 297 
 
 feeling of rest. I can t enjoy can t feel a minute to sit 
 down and say It is done. 
 
 " The fountain plays, the plants flourish, and our front 
 hall minus the stair railing looks beautifully ; my pictures 
 are all hung in parlor and library, and yet I feel so unset 
 tled. Well, in a month more perhaps I shall get my 
 brains right side up." 
 
 The following year was made memorable in Mrs. 
 Stowe s life by the marriage of her youngest daughter. 
 Again I find that no description can begin to give as 
 clearly as the glimpses in her own letters the multifarious 
 responsibilities which beset her. She says: "I am in 
 trouble, have been in trouble ever since my turtle-doves 
 announced their intention of pairing in June instead of 
 August, because it entailed on me an immediate necessity 
 of bringing everything out of doors and in to a state of 
 completeness for the wedding exhibition in June. The 
 garden must be planted, the lawn graded, harrowed, rolled, 
 seeded, and the grass up and growing, stumps got out and 
 shrubs and trees got in, conservatory made over, belts 
 planted, holes filled, and all by three very slippery sort 
 of Irishmen who had rather any time be minding their own 
 business than mine. I have back doorsteps to be made, 
 and troughs, screens, and what not; papering, painting, 
 and varnishing, hitherto neglected, to be completed; also 
 spring house-cleaning; also dressmaking for one bride and 
 
 three ordinary females; also and and s 
 
 wardrobes to be overlooked; also carpets to be made and 
 put down ; also a revolution in the kitchen cabinet, threat 
 ening for a time to blow up the whole establishment alto 
 gether." And so the letter proceeds with two more sheets, 
 adding near the end : " I send you to-day a Chimney 
 Corner on Our Martyrs, which I have written out of 
 the fullness of my heart. ... It is an account of the 
 martyrdom of a Christian boy of our own town of An- 
 
298 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1864 
 
 dover, who died of starvation and want in a Southern 
 prison on last Christmas Day." 
 
 Just one month before the marriage she writes again: 
 "The wedding is indeed an absorbing whirlpool, but amid 
 it all I have the next Chimney Corner in good train and 
 shall send it on to-morrow or next day." 
 
 How small a portion of the world outside can under 
 stand the lives of writers, actors, and those whose profes 
 sions compel them to depend directly upon the public! 
 No private joy, no private sorrow, no rest, no change, is 
 recognized by this taskmaster. It is well: on the whole 
 we would not have it otherwise; because those who can 
 minister to the great Public embrace their profession in a 
 spirit of conscious or unconscious self-denial. In either 
 case the result is the same: development, advancement, 
 and sometimes attainment. 
 
 The wedding is not two days over when another letter 
 arrives full of her literary work, yet adding that she longs 
 for rest and if we will only tell her where Campton is, 
 whither we had gone, she would gladly join us. "I was 
 a weary idiot," she continues, "by the time the wedding 
 was over, and said Yes ma am to the men and No sir 
 to the women in sheer imbecility." 
 
 Nevertheless she did not get to Campton, but kept on, 
 with the exception of a few brief visits at Peekskill and 
 elsewhere until the autumn. In one of her notes she 
 
 says: "I have returned to my treadmill. A is to 
 
 leave as soon as she can get ready, and I am trying to see 
 her off, helping her to get her things together, and try 
 ing to induce her to take a new stand in a new place and 
 make herself a respectable woman. When she is gone a 
 load will be off my back. If it were not for the good that 
 is still left in our fellows our task would be easier than it 
 is we could cut them adrift and let them swim ; but 
 while we see much that may be turned to good account in 
 
1864J PRIVATE PHILANTHROPIES 299 
 
 them we hang on, or let them hang on, and our boat 
 moves slow. So behold me fighting my good fight of 
 womanhood against dust and disorganization and the uni 
 versal downward tendency of everybody, hoping for easier 
 times by and by." 
 
 With her heroic nature she was always ready to lead 
 the forlorn hope. The child no one else was willing to 
 provide for, the woman the world despised, were brought 
 into her home and cared for as her own. Unhappily, her 
 delicate health at this time (though she was naturally 
 strong), her constant literary labors, her uncertain income, 
 her private griefs, all united, caused her to fall short in 
 ability to accomplish what she undertook; hence there 
 were often crises from sudden illness and non-fulfillment 
 of engagements which were very serious in their effects, 
 but the elasticity of her spirits was something marvelous 
 and carried her over many a hard place. 
 
 The truth was, and it may seem a singular antithesis to 
 say of the writer of one of the greatest stories the world 
 has yet produced, that she was not a student of literature. 
 Books as a medium of the ideas of the age, and as the 
 promulgators of morals and religion, were of course like 
 the breath of her life ; but a study of the literature of the 
 past as the only true foundation for a literature of the 
 present was outside the pale of her occupations, and for 
 the larger portion of her life outside of her interest. 
 During the riper season of her activity with the pen, the 
 necessity of studying style and the thoughts of others 
 gained a larger hold upon her mind ; but she always said, 
 with a twinkle of amusement and pride, that she never 
 could have done anything without Mr. Stowe. He knew 
 everything, and all she had to do was to go to him. All 
 this double service, the impossibility of devoting herself 
 to a career which was after all her appointed work, made 
 her work exceptionally difficult. 
 
300 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1864 
 
 All her life she stimulated the activity of her pen rather 
 by her sympathy with humanity than by studies of litera 
 ture. In one of her letters she says: "You see whoever 
 can write on home and family matters, on what people 
 think of and are anxious about and want to hear from, has 
 an immense advantage. The success of the House and 
 Home Papers shows me how much people want this sort 
 of thing, and, now I am bringing the series to a close, I 
 find I have ever so much more to say ; in fact, the idea 
 has come in this shape. . . . A set of papers for the next 
 year to be called Christopher s Evenings, which will 
 allow great freedom and latitude; a capacity of striking 
 anywhere when a topic seems to be in the public mind 
 and that will comprise a little series of sketches or rather 
 little groups of sketches out of which books may be made. 
 You understand Christopher writes these for the winter- 
 evening amusement of his family. One set will be en 
 titled An Account of the Seven Little Foxes that spoil 
 the Vines. This will cover seven sketches of certain 
 domestic troubles. Another set is the Cathedral ; or, 
 the Shrines of Home Saints, under which I shall give 
 certain sketches of home characters contrasting with that 
 of the legends of the saints: the shirt-making, knitting, 
 whooping-cough-tending saints, the Aunt Esthers and Aunt 
 Marias. . . . Hum " [her- humming bird] " is well not 
 withstanding the dull weather; we keep him in a sunny 
 upper chamber and feed him daily on sugar and water, and 
 he catches his own mutton." 
 
 Thus in swift succession we find, not only charming 
 little idyls here and there like her story of "Hum the 
 Son of Buzz " in " Our Young Folks, " being the tale of 
 her captured and tamed humming-bird, but also "Little 
 Foxes," "The Chimney Corner," a volume of collected 
 Poems, " Oldtown Folks," " Sam Lawson s Fireside 
 Tales, " and others, following with tireless rapidity, bear- 
 
1864] RECOGNITION 301 
 
 ing the same stamp of living sympathy with difficulties of 
 the time and breathing a spirit of helpfulness and faith. 
 
 The world is yet to recognize the value of her writings 
 in their influence upon the suffering of our common human 
 ity. When this power was concentrated upon the evil of 
 slavery the response was national, universal, and unpre 
 cedented; but such papers as "The Ministries of Departed 
 Friends; A New Year Keverie," and others of like char 
 acter, will long keep her pages sacred to the dwellers in 
 silent places. 
 
CHAPTEE XI 
 
 LIFE IN FLORIDA 
 
 AFTER the close of the war, the infirm condition of her 
 son being ever in her mind, Mrs. Stowe began to discuss 
 projects for making a winter home in Florida. "She was 
 also," writes her son Charles, "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 im 
 posed 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 
 
 rf 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 peo 
 ple 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. 
 
 j "Corrupt politicians are already beginning to speculate 
 
 I 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 set 
 ting 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-embra 
 cing scheme of Christian activity for the whole State. In 
 this work I desire to be associated, and my plan is to 
 
1867] LAUREL GROVE 303 
 
 locate at some salient point on the St. John s Biver, where 
 I can form the nucleus of a Christian neighborhood, whose 
 influence shall he 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 Biver, near 
 the present village of Orange Park. Here she established 
 her son Frederick as a cotton planter, and here he re 
 mained for two years. The situation did not, however, 
 prove entirely satisfactory, nor did the raising of cotton 
 prove to be, under the circumstances, a profitable business. 
 After visiting Florida towards the spring, at which time her 
 attention was drawn to the beauties and superior advan 
 tages of Mandarin on the east side of the river, Mrs. Stowe 
 wrote from Hartford 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 thou 
 sand 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 Biver, and if I settle at Mandarin, it will be 
 one of my stations. Will you consent to enter the Epis 
 copal Church and be our clergyman? You are just the 
 
304 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1867 
 
 man we want. If my tastes 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 with 
 out 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," writes her son, "had some years before 
 this joined the Episcopal Church, for the sake of attend 
 ing the same communion as her daughters, who were Epis 
 copalians." This change was not remarkable when we 
 remember that Mrs. Stowe s mother was an Episcopalian. 
 Henry Ward Beecher said of their mother: "She was born 
 in the Episcopal church, and while a devout adherent to 
 that faith and government married my father. She was 
 a sensible woman, evinced not only by that but by the 
 fact that she united herself to the Congregational church 
 in Litchfield. She was a woman of extraordinary graces 
 and gifts; a woman not demonstrative, with a profound 
 philosophical nature and of wonderful depth of affection, 
 but with a serenity that was simply charming. "While my 
 father was in the early religious experience under Calvin- 
 istic teaching, debating and swelling and floating here and 
 there and tormenting himself, she threw the oil of faith 
 and trust on the waters, and they were quieted, for she 
 trusted in God. Their brother Charles did not, however, 
 see fit to change his creed, and though he went to Flor 
 ida, 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 
 
1867] MANDARIN 305 
 
 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." 
 
 Her own times for going and coming were somewhat 
 uncertain, depending upon her work, upon printers, bind 
 ers, and publishers ; also, perchance, upon the weather and 
 the state of her own health. She wrote to Mrs. Howard : 
 " I have been very hard driven of late, owing to a promise 
 inadvertently given to a publishing firm here in Hartford 
 that I would get a book called Men of our Times ready 
 for them this fall. I have been obliged to stop printing 
 my story, and work incessantly to get that off my hands, 
 and have written so much every day that to write even a 
 note in addition seemed more than I could do." 
 
306 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1867 
 
 Nevertheless in one of her pleasant familiar letters to 
 me she gives the following cheerful picture : 
 
 "My conservatory is doing splendidly. I wish you 
 could see two crimson camellias on one stem that are open 
 ing now. in front of my door as I sit writing. My ferns 
 and ivies that I brought from Brooklyn are all doing well, 
 my bulbs all asleep in pots under a blanket of earth 
 four inches deep in the cellar. I shall expect them up 
 about January, and in February shall have a gay time with 
 them." 
 
 At last, having an accessible home in the pleasant city 
 of Hartford, strangers and travelers often sought and found 
 her. In one of her familiar notes she says : " The Amber- 
 leys have written that they are coming to us to-morrow, 
 and of all times, accordingly, our furnace must spring a 
 leak. We are hoping to make all right before they get 
 here, but I am really ashamed to show such weather at 
 this time of year. Poor America! It s like having your 
 mother expose herself by a fit of ill temper before strangers. 
 . . . Do, I beg, write to a poor sinner laboring under a 
 book." And again, a little later: "The book is almost 
 done hang it ! but done well, and will be a good thing 
 for young men to read, and young women too, and so I 11 
 send you one. You 11 find some things in it, I fancy, 
 that I know and you don t, about the times before you 
 were born, when I was Hush, hush, my dearing in Cin 
 cinnati. ... I smell spring afar off sniff do you ? 
 Any smell of violets in the distance? I think it comes 
 over the water from the Pamfili Doria." 
 
 It was during one of Mrs. Stowe s visits to Boston 
 about this time that she chanced to talk with greater 
 fullness and openness than she had done before on the 
 subject of Spiritualism. In the simplest way she affirmed 
 her entire belief in possible manifestations of the nearness 
 and individual life of those who had passed to the unseen 
 
SPIRITUALISM 307 
 
 world and gave vivid illustrations of the reasons why her 
 faith was thus assured. She never sought after such testi 
 mony unless she found herself sitting with others who 
 were interested and who wished to try experiments, but 
 her conclusions were definite and unvarying. At that 
 period such a declaration of faith required a good deal of 
 bravery; now the subject has assumed a different phase 
 and there are few thinking persons who do not recognize 
 a certain truth hidden within the shadows. She spoke with 
 tender seriousness of such manifestations as are recorded 
 in the Old and New Testament. Her husband had pos 
 sessed the peculiar power from his early youth of seeing 
 persons moving about him who could not be perceived by 
 others. These visions were so distinct that it was impos 
 sible for him to distinguish at times between the real and 
 the unreal. I recall one illustration which had occurred 
 only a few years previous to their departure from Andover. 
 She had been called to Boston one day on business. 
 Making her preparations hurriedly, she bade the household 
 farewell, and rushed to the station, only to see the train 
 go out as she arrived. There was nothing to do but to 
 return home and wait patiently for the next train; but 
 wishing not to be disturbed, she quietly opened a side 
 door and crept noiselessly up the staircase leading to her 
 own room, sitting down by her writing-table in the win 
 dow. She had been seated about half an hour when Pro 
 fessor Stowe came in, looked about him with a preoccupied 
 air, but did not speak to her. She thought his behavior 
 strange, and amused herself by watching him; at last the 
 situation became so extraordinary that she began to laugh. 
 "Why," he exclaimed, with a most astonished air, "is 
 that you ? I thought it was one of my visions ! " 
 
 Mrs. Stowe wrote out one day for her children her own 
 mature views upon the subject of Spiritualism. She 
 says : 
 
308 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1868 
 
 "Each friend takes away a portion of ourselves. There 
 was some part of our heing 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 possi 
 bilities 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 un 
 questionable 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 
 
1868] MATURE VIEWS UPON SPIRITUALISM 309 
 
 blessed fellowship with another life, and weave it rever 
 ently 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 has friends 
 in heaven could wish them to return in such wise as this 1 
 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 harm 
 less truisms, which we were wise enough to say for our 
 selves; 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 purport 
 ing 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 unprofit 
 able 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 rne 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 
 
310 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1868 
 
 attainable by any one who loves and does the will of 
 Jesus, It seems given to us as some comfort for the un 
 avoidable 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 Bro 
 ther, 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 height of 
 that love of his that passeth knowledge, is better than all 
 those incoherent, vain, dreamy glimpses with which long 
 ing 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 1 
 
 "Let us, then, who long for communion with spirits, 
 seek nearness to Him who has promised to speak and com 
 mune, leaving forever this word to his church : 
 
 " I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to 
 you. " 
 
 In these busy years she went away upon her Boston 
 trips more and more rarely, but she writes after her return 
 
1868] BOSTON 311 
 
 from one of them: "I don t think I ever enjoyed Boston 
 so much as in this visit. Why was it ? Every cloud seemed 
 to turn out its silver lining, everybody was delightful, and 
 the music has really done me good. I feel it all over 
 me now. I think of it with a sober certainty of waking 
 bliss ! Our little hub is a grand hub. Three cheers 
 for it! . . . I have had sent me through the War Depart 
 ment a French poem which I think is full of real nerve 
 and strength of feeling. I undertook the reading only as 
 a duty, but found myself quite waked up. The indig 
 nation and the feeling with which the author denounces 
 modern skepticism, that worst of all unbelief, the denial 
 of all good, all beauty, all generosity, all heroism, is splen 
 did. He is a live man this, and I wish you would read 
 his poem and send it to Longfellow, for it does one s heart 
 good to see the French made the vehicle of so much real 
 heroic sentiment. The description of a slave hunt is 
 splendidly and bitterly satirical and indignant and full of 
 fine turns of language. Thank God that is over. No 
 matter what happens to you and me, that great burden of 
 sin and misery has tumbled off from our backs and rolled 
 into the sepulchre, where it shall never arise more. . . . 
 I have been the most industrious of beings since my re 
 turn, and am steaming away on the obstacle that stands 
 between me and my story, which I long to be at. ... I 
 want to get one or two special bits of information out of 
 Garrison, and so instead of sending my letter at random 
 to Boston I will trouble you (who have little or nothing 
 to do!) to get this letter to him. My own book, instead 
 of cooling, boils and bubbles daily and nightly, and I am 
 pushing and spurring like fury to get to it. I work like 
 a dray-horse, and I 11 never get in such a scrape again. 
 It isn t my business to make up books, but to make them. 
 I have lots to say." 
 
 The story which had so taken possession of her mind 
 
312 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [186 
 
 and heart was "Oldtown Folks," the one which she at 
 the time fancied the best calculated of all her works to 
 sustain the reputation of the author of "Uncle Tom s 
 Cabin." The many proofs of her own interest in it seem 
 to show that she had been moved to a livelier and deeper 
 satisfaction in this creation than in any of her later pro 
 ductions. She writes respecting it: "It is more to me 
 than a story ; it is my resume of the whole spirit and body 
 of New England, a country that is now exerting such an 
 influence on the civilized world that to know it truly be 
 comes an object." But there were weary lengths of roads 
 to be traveled, by a woman already overladen with respon 
 sibilities and in delicate health, before such a book could 
 reach its consummation. 
 
 "I must cry you mercy," she begins one of the notes 
 to her publisher, and explain my condition to you as well 
 as possible." The "condition" was frequently to be ex 
 plained ! Proofs were not ready when they were promised, 
 the press was stopped, and both author and publisher re 
 quired all the tender regard they really had for each other 
 and all the patience they possessed to keep in tune. She 
 says, "I am sorry to trouble you or derange your affairs, 
 but one can t always tell in driving such horses as we drive 
 where they are going to bring up." 
 
 She started off in this long journey very hopefully, 
 writing that she would like to begin printing at once, be 
 cause "to have the first part of my book in type will 
 greatly assist me in the last." A month later she writes: 
 "Here goes the first of my nameless story, of which I can 
 only say it is as unlike everything else as it is like the 
 strange world of folks I took it from. There is no fear 
 that there will not be as much matter as * Uncle Tom s 
 Cabin ; there will. There could be an endless quantity 
 if I only said all I can see and think that is strange and 
 curious. I partake in s disappointment that it is 
 
1868] THE BURDEN OF AUTHORS 313 
 
 not done, but it is of that class of things that cannot be 
 commanded; as my friend Sam Lawson (vide MSS.) says, 
 There s things that can be druv and then agin there s 
 things that can t/ and this is that kind; as had to be 
 humored. Instead of rushing on, I have often turned 
 back and written over with care, that nothing that I 
 wanted to say might be omitted; it has cost me a good 
 deal of labor to elaborate this first part, namely, to build 
 my theatre and to introduce my actors. My labor has all, 
 however, been given to the literary part. My printers 
 always inform me that I know nothing of punctuation, and 
 I give thanks that I have no responsibility for any of its 
 absurdities! Further than beginning my sentence with 
 a capital, I go not, so I hope my friend Mr. Bigelow, 
 who is a direct and lineal descendant of my Grandmo 
 ther, will put those things all right. " 
 
 Who so well as authors can fully understand and sym 
 pathize with the burden of a long story in the head, long 
 bills on the table, tempting offers to write for this and 
 that in order to bring in two hundred dollars from a 
 variety of pleasant editors who desire the name on their 
 list, house and grounds to be looked after, cooks to be 
 pacified, visits to be made it is no wonder that Mrs. 
 Stowe wrote: "The thing has been an awful tax and 
 labor, for I have tried to do it well. I say also to you 
 confidentially, that it has seemed as if every private care 
 that could hinder me as woman and mother has been 
 crowded into just this year that I have had this to do." 
 
 Happily more peaceful days were in store for her. Her 
 daughters, now grown to womanhood, were beginning to 
 take the reins of home work and government into their 
 own hands; and as the darkest hour foreruns the dawn, 
 so almost imperceptibly to herself her cares began to fade 
 away from her. 
 
 A new era opened in Mrs. Stowe s life when she made 
 
314 HAKEIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 her first visit to Florida. She was tired and benumbed 
 with care and cold. Suddenly the thought came to her 
 that she would go to the South, herself, and see what the 
 stories were worth which she was constantly hearing about 
 its condition. In the mean time, if she could, she would 
 enjoy the soft air, and find retirement in which she might 
 continue her book. She says in one of her letters : 
 
 "Winter weather and cold seem always a kind of night 
 mare to me. I am going to take my writing-desk and go 
 
 down to Florida to F s plantation, where we have 
 
 now a home, and abide there until the heroic agony of be- 
 tweenity, the freeze and thaw of winter, is over, and then 
 I doubt not I can write my three hours a day. Mean 
 while, I have a pretty good pile of manuscript. . . . The 
 letters I have got about blossoming roses and loungers in 
 linen coats, while we have been frozen and snowed up, 
 have made my very soul long to be away. Cold weather 
 really seems to torpify my brain. I write with a heavy 
 numbness. I have not yet had a good spell of writing, 
 though I have had all through the story abundant clairvoy 
 ance, and see just how it must be written; but for writing 
 some parts I want warm weather, and not to be in the 
 state of a froze and thawed apple. . . . The cold affects 
 me precisely as extreme hot weather used to in Cincinnati, 
 gives me a sort of bilious neuralgia. I hope to get a 
 clear, bright month in Florida, when I can say something 
 to purpose. 
 
 "I did want to read some of my story to you before I 
 went. I have read it to my husband; and though one 
 may think a husband a partial judge, yet mine is so ner 
 vous and so afraid of being bored that I feel as if it were 
 something to hold him; and he likes it is quite wake 
 ful, so to speak, about it. All I want now, to go on, is 
 a good/rawe, as father used to say about his preaching. 
 I want calm, soft, even dreamy, enjoyable weather, sun- 
 
1868] WORK DELAYED 315 
 
 shine and flowers. Love to dear A , whom I so much 
 
 want to see once more." 
 
 Unhappily, she could not get away so soon as she de 
 sired. There were contracts to be signed and other busi 
 nesses to arrange. These delays made her visit southward 
 much shorter than she intended, but it proved to be only 
 the introduction, the first brief chapter, as it were, of her 
 future winter life in Florida. Before leaving she wrote 
 to Mr. Fields : 
 
 "I am so constituted that it is absolutely fatal to me 
 to agree to have any literary work done at certain dates. 
 I mean to have this story done by the 1st of September. 
 It would be greatly for my pecuniary interest to get it 
 done before that, because I have the offer of eight thou 
 sand dollars for the newspaper use of the story I am plan 
 ning to write after it. But I am bound by the laws of 
 art. Sermons, essays, lives of distinguished people, I can 
 write to order at times and seasons. A story comes, grows 
 like a flower, sometimes will and sometimes won t, like 
 a pretty woman. When the spirits will help, I can write. 
 When they jeer, flout, make faces, and otherwise maltreat 
 me, I can only wait humbly at their gates, watch at the 
 posts of their doors. 
 
 "This story grows even when I do not write. I spent 
 a month in the mountains in Stockbridge composing before 
 I wrote a word. 
 
 "I only ask now a good physical condition, and I go to 
 warmer climes hoping to save time there. I put every 
 thing and everybody off that interferes with this, except 
 Pussy Willow, which will be a pretty story for a child 
 series." 
 
 At last she sailed away, about the first of March, and 
 with that delightful power of knowing what she wanted, 
 and being content when she attained her end, which is 
 too rare, alas ! her letters glowed and blossomed and shone 
 
316 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [18G8 
 
 with the fruit and flowers and sunshine of the South. It 
 was hardly to be expected that her literary work could 
 actually reach the printers hands under these circum 
 stances as rapidly as if she had been able to write at home ; 
 therefore it was with no sense of surprise that we received 
 from her, during the summer, what proved to be a chapter 
 of excuses instead of a chapter of her book: "I have a 
 long story to tell you of what has prevented my going 
 on with my story, which you must see would so occupy 
 all the nerve and brain force I have that I have not been 
 able to write a word except to my own children. To them 
 in their needs I must write chapters which would other 
 wise go into my novel." 
 
 In the autumn she found herself able to come again to 
 Boston for a few days visit. There were often long 
 croonings over the fire far into the night; her other- world- 
 liness and abstractions brought with them a dreamy qui 
 etude, especially to those whose harried lives kept them 
 only too much awake. Her coming was always a pleasure, 
 for she made holidays by her own delightful presence, and 
 asked nothing more than what she found in the compan 
 ionship of her friends. 
 
 After her return to Hartford and in December of the 
 same year, I find some curious notes showing how easily 
 she was attracted by new subjects of interest away from 
 the work she had in hand; not that she saw it in that 
 light, or was aware that her story was in the least retarded 
 by such digressions, but her keen sympathy with every 
 thing and everybody made it more and more difficult to 
 concentrate herself upon the long story she held after all 
 to be of the first importance. She writes to the editor of 
 the "Atlantic Monthly: " "I see that all the leading maga 
 zines have articles on * Planchette. 
 
 "There is a lady of my acquaintance who has developed 
 more remarkable facts in this way than any I have ever 
 
1868] SCATTERED POWER 317 
 
 seen; I have kept a record of these communications for 
 some time past, and everybody is very much struck with 
 them. 
 
 "I have material to prepare a very curious article. 
 Shall you want it 1 And when ? " 
 
 We can imagine the feeling of a publisher waiting for 
 copy of her promised story on reading this note! Also 
 the following of a few days later : 
 
 "I am beginning a series of articles called c Learning to 
 Write, designed to be helpful to a great many beginners. 
 ... I shall instance Hawthorne as a model and speak of 
 his Note-Book as something which every young author 
 aspiring to write should study. . . . My materials for the 
 6 Planchette article are really very extraordinary, . . . 
 but I don t want to write it now when I am driving so 
 hard upon my book. ... It costs some patience to you 
 and certainly to me to have it take so long, yet I have 
 conscientiously done all I could, since I began. Now the 
 end of it is in plain sight, but there is a good deal to be 
 done to bring it out worthily, and I work upon it steadily 
 and daily. I never put so much work into anything be 
 fore." 
 
 A week later she says again : 
 
 "I thank you very much for your encouraging words, 
 for I really need them. I have worked so hard that I 
 am almost tired. I hope that you will still continue to 
 read, and that you will not find it dull. ... I have re 
 ceived the books. What a wonderful fellow Hawthorne 
 was!" 
 
 Happily the time was near for a second flight to Florida, 
 and she wrote with her own rested hand en route from 
 Charleston : 
 
 " Room fragrant with violets, banked up in hyacinths, 
 flowers everywhere, windows open, birds singing." 
 
 She inclosed some fans, upon which she had been paint- 
 
318 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 
 
 ing flowers busily during the journey in order to send 
 them back to Boston to be sold at a fair in behalf of the 
 Cretans: "Make them do the Cretes all the good you 
 can," she said. 
 
 "At last," she writes a few days later, "after waiting a 
 day and a half in Charleston, we arrived at Mandarin 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 look 
 ing 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 the summer a new experience came to her. The 
 death of Lady Byron a few years before had closed an epi 
 sode in Mrs. Stowe s earthly affections. Lady Byron pos 
 sessed for her a strong personal fascination. She said 
 once: "When I was first 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 altogether natural that with Mrs. Stowe s tem 
 perament and the sincere affection which ripened between 
 her" and Lady Byron, she should have attempted after her 
 death to try to prove to the world the exceptional purity 
 of her character and her devotion to her marriage oath. 
 Mrs. Stowe wrote to D*. Holmes upon this subject: 
 
1869] LADY BYRON S STORY 319 
 
 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 in 
 teresting 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 con 
 fidential 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 exi 
 gencies 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 
 
320 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1869 
 
 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 pro 
 posed 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." 
 
 Dr. Holmes mentions the subject several times in writ 
 ing to his friend Lothrop Motley. "Mr. Fields was 
 absent in Europe," he s ays, "and his sub-editor, fearing 
 
1869] CORRESPONDENCE WITH LADY BYRON 321 
 
 to lose Mrs. Stowe as a contributor altogether, assented to 
 her request to print the Byron paper." In another letter 
 he writes: "We have had three storms this autumn: first, 
 the great gale of September 8, which I recognized while it 
 was blowing as the greatest for fifty-four years, for you 
 remember that I remember the September gale; second, 
 the Byron whirlwind, which began here and swiftly traveled 
 across the Atlantic; and third, the gold- storm, as I chris 
 tened the terrible financial conflict of the last week." 
 
 That Lady Byron should herself have contemplated the 
 publication of the statements made to Mrs. Stowe just 
 before her death and should have sought her advice on 
 the subject, proves how deeply she had suffered. Mrs. 
 Stowe and her sister advised against this step, but all 
 the more we can conceive of the responsibility accepted 
 by Mrs. Stowe in saving her friend from public obloquy 
 at the moment of her failing health. In finally answering 
 Lady Byron s question Mrs. Stowe wrote: 
 
 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 pecu 
 liar 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. 
 
322 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1869 
 
 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. 
 
 The subject lay in aheyance in Mrs. Stowe s mind for 
 several years after Lady Byron s death until the publica 
 tion of the Guiccioli memoirs, succeeded by an article in 
 "Blackwood s Magazine," where Lady Byron was spoken 
 of in a way to sting Mrs. Stowe to the quick. 
 
 Nothing more was needed. She arranged the state 
 ments given her by Lady Byron and published them in 
 the "Atlantic Monthly," showing them, as we have seen, 
 to Dr. Holmes. 
 
 To a more worldly minded person such a step would 
 have been impossible, but to Mrs. Stowe s love and to her 
 sense of right nothing was impossible, and she braved the 
 world for her friend s sake, hardly knowing that she was 
 brave. She always spoke and behaved as if she recognized 
 herself to be an instrument breathed upon by the Divine 
 Spirit. When we consider how this idea absorbed her 
 to the prejudice of what appeared to others a wholesome 
 exercise of human will and judgment, it is not wonderful 
 that the world was offended when she made conclusions 
 contrary to the opinion of the public, and thought best to 
 publish them. But the world could not understand the 
 motives which moved her. 
 
 She wrote to Mrs. Howard: "It is worth while to have 
 a storm of abuse once in a while, for one reason to read 
 the Psalms, they are a radiant field of glory that never 
 shines unless the night shuts in. Sometimes in my sleep 
 I have such nearness to the blessed, it is almost as if one 
 voice after another whispers to me, Thou shalt tread upon 
 the lion and the adder. * The eternal God is thy refuge, 
 
1869] PUBLICATION OF OLDTOWN FOLKS 323 
 
 and underneath thee are the everlasting arms. ... It a 
 worth while to have trouble to have friends stand by one 
 as mine do by me. . . . Depend upon it, the spirit of the 
 Lord did n t pitch me into this seething caldron for nothing, 
 and the Son of Man walketh with me in the fire. Eter 
 nal right and justice are with me and I shall triumph by 
 and by on the other side of the river and here too. . . . 
 Your letter and one from Sister Mary gave me more sup 
 port than any other. At first I thought the world s people 
 must have all lost their senses, or I Could that 
 account be called uncalled-for ! " 
 
 One is reminded in all this of Tennyson s lines written 
 at about the same epoch, where Arthur says : 
 
 "And some among you held, that if the King 
 Had seen the sight he would have sworn the vow; 
 Not easily, seeing that the King must guard 
 That which he rules, and is but as the hind 
 To whom a space of land is given to plough, 
 Who may not wander from the allotted field 
 Before his work be done ; but being done 
 Let visions of the night or of the day 
 Come as they will . . . 
 In moments when he feels he cannot die." 
 
 Perhaps a deeper sense of reverence for poetic genius 
 with which alone the world has learned to concern itself 
 in regard to Byron, would have suggested continued silence 
 and the Scripture warning, "Vengeance is mine, saith the 
 Lord ; " but Mrs. Stowe felt her message as from the Most 
 High, and who are we to condemn her? 
 
 Meanwhile her legitimate work, "Oldtown Folks," for 
 which the publishers had impatiently waited long after the 
 promised time, was at length fairly off her hands. The 
 book was published in the spring or early summer, and she 
 was free once more. 
 
 During the following winter she appeared to enjoy Man 
 darin with peculiar zest, and wrote contentedly therefrom 
 save for a vision of having to go to Canada in the early 
 spring to obtain the copyright of her story. 
 
324 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1870 
 
 The visits to Florida had now become necessary to her 
 health, and before long she perceived that to pass the 
 entire season there, and to surrender her large house in 
 Hartford, was the next step for her to take. She wrote: 
 "I am leaving the land of flowers on the 1st of June with 
 tears in my eyes; but having a house in Hartford, it must 
 
 be lived in. I wish you and would just come to see 
 
 it. You have no idea what a lovely place it has grown to 
 be, and I am trying to sell it as hard as a snake to crawl 
 out of his skin. Thus on, till reason is pushed out of life. 
 There s no earthly sense in having anything, lordy 
 massy, no! By the bye, I must delay sending you "The 
 Ghost in the Captain Brown House " till I can go to Natick, 
 and make a personal inspection of the premises and give it 
 to you hot." 
 
 Her busy brain was again at work with new plans for 
 future books and articles for magazines. "Gladly would 
 I fly to you on the wings of the wind," she says, "but I 
 am a slave, a bound thrall to work, and I cannot work 
 and play at the same time. After this year I hope to 
 have a little rest, and above all things I won t be ham 
 pered with a serial to write. . . . We have sold out in 
 Hartford." 
 
 All this routine of labor was to have a new form of in 
 terruption, which gave her intense joy. "I am doing just 
 what you say," she wrote, "being first lady-in-waiting on 
 his new majesty. He is very pretty, very gracious and 
 good, and his little mamma and he are a pair. ... I am 
 getting to be an old fool of a grandma, and to think there 
 is no bliss under heaven to compare with a baby." Later 
 she wrote on the same subject: "You ought to see my 
 baby. I have discovered a way to end the woman contro 
 versy. Let the women all say that they won t take care 
 of the babies till the laws are altered. One week of this 
 discipline would bring all the men on their marrow-bones. 
 
1870] ONE OF THE HARDEST YEARS OF HER LIFE 325 
 
 Only tell us what you want, they would say, and we will 
 do it. Of course you may imagine me trailing after our 
 little king, first granny-in-waiting. " 
 
 Only those who have followed Mrs. Stowe through 
 the exciting episodes of her life can know what the repose 
 of those winters in Florida became to her. Her human 
 interests were still fed and nourished by her wish to help 
 the freed people and to build a church for them, and poor 
 as she was herself at this time, she was able through her 
 busy pen and by writing letters to her friends to get 
 money enough together to carry out her projects for them. 
 But she was removed from much of the stress and strain of 
 life in New England. In spite of all her previous labors 
 the year 1870 was one of the hardest of her life. She 
 writes fully on the question to young Mr. Howard, who 
 was not only her friend, but also a member of a publishing 
 firm and one of the editors of the "Christian Union: " 
 
 MANDARIN, February, 1870. 
 
 George Eliot writes me that she and Mr. Lewes have 
 both read Henry s sermon, and, lying on their parlor table, 
 it has often been borrowed and read. ... I was encour 
 aged, and have sent her another lately on " The Comforting 
 God." They have just lost a son, his son, not hers, 
 but she is a warm-hearted, devoted woman, and was 
 attached to him as a mother. It is the real religious ele 
 ment, the deep reality of a life in God that gives these 
 things their power, that must give your paper its distinc 
 tive power, if it is to have any. Every denomination has 
 its paper, but there is a yearning after a centralizing 
 point, a point where all shall feel themselves one. That 
 feeling is the one to which a new religious paper may 
 address itself with mighty power. 
 
 I wish I could settle on a story. I am like a spider 
 that is puzzled where to attach its threads for a web. 
 
326 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1870 
 
 She had invested, she tells him, thirty-four thousand 
 dollars in various ways, none of which could give her any 
 immediate income. She had persuaded Professor Stowe 
 to give up his position in Andover, which she thought too 
 laborious for him, and of course, in consequence, any men 
 tion of her difficulties to him was out of the question. 
 There was probably no human being except Mr. Howard 
 to whom she could confide her anxieties and troubles, and 
 she pours herself out to him. During the three previous 
 years Mr. Fields had given her ten thousand dollars for 
 "Oldtown Folks," much of it in prepayments, that she 
 might write with a mind at leisure. This sum was not suf 
 ficient, it appeared, in spite of her calculations, and much 
 to her publisher s dismay she had undertaken, as we have 
 seen, the editorship of "Men of our Times," the comple 
 tion of "The Pearl of Orr s Island," and had contemplated 
 other projects, while her story sometimes halted altogether, 
 and sometimes progressed under conditions of extreme ex 
 haustion. 
 
 All these conditions were renewed with Mr. Howard. 
 She was deeply solicitous for the success of the "Christian 
 Union," of which her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, was 
 called the editor, and where his sermons were published. 
 She believed that a good religious paper was necessary, 
 and she was willing to write for it, as she said, for no 
 thing. On the other hand she had no income for the 
 year. If she would promise a serial story, she asked him, 
 would he guarantee her a certain sum of money every 
 month? Would he accept some very interesting papers 
 from her husband on the Old Testament, to be counted at 
 the same value as her own work? Would he remember 
 how deeply she believed in the necessity of the strictly 
 religious character of the paper and allow her to write a 
 series of unsigned articles on religious topics only ? In 
 deed, with her poor, tired little hand she wrote a volume 
 
1870] FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES 327 
 
 of letters to Mr. Howard during the year, showing the 
 anxieties which beset her. 
 
 "My investment in this Southern place," she wrote, "is 
 still one whose returns are in the future, and so, as I say, 
 I need to use my talents to bring an immediate return for 
 a year or two ; " and again she says, " My mind is bubbling 
 and boiling, and I think of so many stories I could write 
 that I don t settle upon any." "I see," she writes again, 
 "you have advertised a serial story from me as one of the 
 attractions of the year to come, and I ought therefore to 
 be thinking what to write. On looking back to the time 
 when Uncle Tom s Cabin came forth, I see myself then 
 a woman with no particular capital of reputation, driven 
 to write then as now by the necessity of making some 
 income for family expenses. In this mood, with a mind 
 burning with the wrongs of slavery, I undertook to write 
 some loose sketches of slave life in the * National Era, and 
 out of that attempt grew * Uncle Tom s Cabin. If there 
 had been a grand preparatory blast of trumpets or had it 
 been announced that Mrs. Stowe would do this or that, I 
 think it likely I could not have written; but nobody ex 
 pected anything, nobody said anything, and so I wrote 
 freely. Now what embarrasses me is to be announced as 
 an attraction, to have eyes fixed on me, and people all 
 waiting. ... I have a desire, a longing to express myself 
 once more on a certain subject, but a story ought to grow 
 out of one s heart like a flower and not be measured off by 
 the yard. . . . There is a misery a desolation an 
 anguish deeper than that of the slave; there is a cause 
 where every soul ought to be roused, but how to do it? 
 Temperance stories have been thick as pigweed in rich 
 land. I think I see how a better one could be written, 
 but am not sure yet," and thus the painful effort 
 went on in her mind. Sometimes she wished to write 
 about the church, sometimes about society, but something 
 
328 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1870 
 
 which publishers and editors needed enough to give her a 
 salary, that was what she must find. Mr. Howard did 
 everything in his power, but the result was she wrote 
 continually upon whatever subject moved her. There was 
 one story called "My Wife and I," which fulfilled the 
 promise of the much hated advertisement, but she threw 
 the weight of her influence upon the religious character 
 of the paper and also secured some valuable contributors. 
 "To have a paper," she wrote, "that, passing with the 
 power of a strong magnet over the confused heap of mod 
 ern thought, shall make every fragment of pure Christian 
 faith start up and show itself, and come into such near 
 ness that the furnace of love may smelt them all together, 
 that would be something worth praying for." She adds, 
 "Perhaps it must be ready to lose subscribers or get them 
 slowly and not to be a brilliant financial success." 
 
 " I feel, the more I think of it, sure that the world 
 that hates Christ is just as real in our times as it was 
 in his. Under the various forms of sentimental religion, 
 spiritualism, free inquiry, and philanthropic reform, there 
 is a spirit working that is not subject to the law of God, 
 neither, indeed, can be. How in such a world is a paper, 
 the animus of which is that of Christ and the apostles, to 
 succeed 1 ? I have pondered that question in relation to 
 Henry s popularity; but I feel that the world really does 
 hate him to a degree that makes it safe to hope that he is 
 about right. Such demonstrations as now and then occur 
 show that they are only waiting for him to be down to 
 spring on him, ... in proportion as he makes Christian 
 ity aggressive on sin they are malignant and spring joy 
 fully on him when their time comes." 
 
 She wrote to Mrs. Howard from Florida in January: 
 " I cannot realize what time of year it is. Here the spring 
 is coming on with such a rush that there is no time for 
 anything. I have been down seeing about my own little 
 
1870] THE CHURCH BELL 329 
 
 flower garden and setting out the plants I brought down 
 from my greenhouse, and have just finished tying up the 
 wax plant to the sides of the veranda, where it looks quite 
 green and handsome. Yesterday we had service in our 
 mission church for the first time. There has been no 
 preaching and no religious exercises of any sort except 
 those held by the negroes, since last May, except one 
 Sunday. Now we have a neat little building that will 
 hold three hundred, and yesterday on short notice we got 
 quite an audience. Mr. Stowe preached. He is going to 
 hold service for the colored folks in the morning. We 
 need a bell, as we live so scattered through the woods. I 
 wish you would inquire what the cost of a small bell 
 would be. It would be a new sound in these woods, and 
 if we get it, I shall see that everybody within three miles 
 shall awake to the consciousness of a * first bell on Sun 
 day morning and a Sunday - school bell and a meeting 
 bell. I bought a little Mason and Hamlin s organ in 
 
 New York and brought it down. H plays, and the 
 
 others make quite a choir in which I humbly join. . . . 
 The white school moved into the new building to-day; tho 
 colored school is not yet organized, but you see we are 
 like to have our hands full. . . . We have had an unu 
 sual spell of damp, chilly, sultry weather, which is very 
 provoking, as our climate is our only strong point. Flor 
 ida is like a woman whose good temper is her beauty, 
 our sunny days are what must cover a multitude of sins, 
 and when we don t have them, of course the sins have no 
 cloak. . . . What will the World, the Flesh, and the 
 Devil do to Henry now that he won t take twenty thou 
 sand dollars, and yet has had it offered ! 
 
 "I have had a very handsome letter from Professor 
 Phelps of And over, written purposely to express his strong 
 unqualified sympathy with my course in the Byron matter. 
 The Congregationalist has also a strong article. But I 
 
330 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1870 
 
 don t dwell on that. It is a duty done and left with God 
 who takes care of duties done. I have no more concern 
 with it." 
 
 The work of writing her story and other papers promised 
 to the " Christian Union " was not accomplished without 
 painful delays. In the summer she found herself in a 
 weak physical condition. "I must have a little time to 
 recuperate before I begin," she wrote Mr. Howard. "I 
 should do you no good writing feebly. I am not one of 
 those who, if they have three months before them, do 
 not write till almost the end. I have all the plod and 
 regularity about me of a plough horse, and I have worked 
 mostly up towards my engagements, but every hot spell 
 has thrown me upon my back and lasts me sometimes a 
 week or ten days. It is dangerous to try to write when 
 you feel that the brain and spinal system are prostrate or 
 inflamed. There is nothing for it but to wait then, and 
 thus I am behindhand. ... I know all your burdens 
 and worries, and be assured I shall do all I can daily. " 
 
 At this time her youngest daughter fell under a nervous 
 disease which finally, after many years of intense suffering, 
 ended her life. At first it was " sudden and utter prostra 
 tion with nervous sleeplessness and such depression of 
 spirits as made her, so gay and buoyant, a distress to look 
 at. " The suffering of this illness reacted upon Mrs. Stowe, 
 occupied all her thought, and prevented her from sleep. 
 Happily, as time went on, and she saw her daughter less 
 seldom, she was able to return to her work. "I cannot 
 positively come under binding engagements," she says in 
 October, "to begin my story next month, yet / think I 
 shall be ready, unless such heavy blows of family afflic 
 tions fall as paralyze me. I wanted to begin with a 
 month s supply ahead. ... I have not been writing, 
 but I have been composing the story all this time in the 
 intervals of nursing and tending baby, and now I feel a 
 
1872] UNIVERSAL BEXEVOLENCE 331 
 
 degree of assurance respecting it; though I am never san 
 guine in anything, but am a waiter on Providence. 
 
 " The blow has fallen ! My dear brother " (the husband 
 of her sister Mary, Thomas C. Perkins) " has left us. No 
 where in the world had I a truer friend. It is a blow 
 that strikes deep on my life and makes me feel that it is 
 like ice breaking under my feet. Those who truly love us, 
 and on whom we can at all times depend, are not many, 
 and all my life he has been one of these." 
 
 From this period, although she continued to write, she 
 lived chiefly in the retirement of the Florida orange grove, 
 which she always enjoyed. Her sympathy was strong 
 with the new impetus benevolent work in cities had re 
 ceived, and she helped it from her "grotto" in more ways 
 than one. Sometimes she would write soothing or inspir 
 iting letters, as the case might demand, to individuals. 
 
 The following note, written at the time of the Boston 
 fire in 1872, will show how alive she was to the need of 
 that period. 
 
 "I send inclosed one hundred dollars to the fund for 
 the firemen. I could wish it a hundred times as much, 
 and then it would be inadequate to express how much I 
 honor those brave, devoted men who put their own lives 
 between Boston and mine. No soldiers that fell .in battle 
 for our common country ever deserved of us all greater 
 honor than the noble men whose charred and blackened 
 remains have been borne from the ruins of Boston; they 
 are worthy to be inscribed on imperishable monuments. 
 
 "I would that some such honorary memorial might com 
 memorate their heroism." 
 
 In the autumn 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 Fire 
 side Stories, and you can have no idea what a perfect 
 
332 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 
 
 luxury of rest it is to be free from all literary engage 
 ments, 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 was n 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 lazi 
 ness. I do not want to do anything or go anywhere. I 
 only want to sink down into lazy enjoyment of living. " 
 
 "I am very much gratified," she writes Mr. Howard, 
 " with the success of * My Wife and I. I get a great many 
 more letters about it than I received about anything ex 
 cept Uncle Tom. An English novelist has purloined my 
 title and published My Wife and I in Queensland. The 
 title was a good hit, more shame to him for stealing it. 
 When you advertise again there is no harm in saying how 
 many you have sold. I like people to know it for very 
 many reasons. A letter from the Duchess of Argyll to 
 day, by which it appears she has been reading it." 
 
 She writes, also, to her friend s husband, from Manda 
 rin, after the death of their son Frank: "I hoped fully to 
 see him down here, but he has gone where the flowers 
 never fade, 
 
 <l Each new morning ray 
 Brings no sigh for yesterday." 
 
 This is my idea of heaven, a land where we can recall 
 nothing to sigh for; the present overpays the past. 
 
 " Of late I have seen the glory so wonderful, so over 
 powering that it seems too much to be ours, as if one 
 longed to suffer or endure a little something before one is 
 weighed down with such an overplus of joy. 
 
1872] GEORGE ELIOT 333 
 
 "Your Frank, like my Henry, was your heart s flower, 
 and Christ honored each by taking them for his bosom. 
 When you look over a bush for a flower to wear in your 
 bosom, it is not the mildewed or imperfect ones you 
 choose, but the very ones whose loss makes the bush 
 empty. . . . Oh, my dear brother, think of your blessed 
 ness by my sorrow. Where is my poor Fred? You know 
 where Frank is, and that he is safe and blessed. I never 
 forget my boy. Can a woman forget her child 1 " 
 
 Her son Frederick had remained on the Florida planta 
 tion which Mrs. Stowe bought for his sake for several 
 years. At last he was possessed by the idea that a long 
 sea-voyage would do him more good than anything else. 
 He sailed away from New York to San Francisco around 
 the Horn. His brother says: "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." 
 
 In August Mrs. Stowe writes : " I find it is a good thing 
 for me sometimes to fly from place to place, so that I can 
 not think continuously. It shakes out morbid thoughts 
 and brooding ones, and my nature is such that I need just 
 that to keep the whole stream of thought from running 
 inward. I hope I have learned something on the way to 
 the other and better to which we are all hastening." 
 
 There was at this time a pleasant home at St. John s 
 Wood, in London, which possessed peculiar attractions to 
 the lovers of best society. Other houses were as comforta 
 ble to look at, other hedges were as green, other drawing- 
 rooms were gayer, but this was the home of George Eliot, 
 and on Sunday afternoons the resort of those who desired 
 the best that London had to give. Here it was that 
 she told me of her admiration and deep regard, her affec- 
 
334 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 
 
 tion, for Mrs. Stowe. Her reverence and love were ex 
 pressed with such tremulous sincerity that the speaker won 
 our hearts by her love for our friend. Many letters had 
 already passed between Mrs. Stowe and herself, and she 
 confided to us her amusement at a fancy Mrs. Stowe had 
 taken that Casaubon, in "Middlemarch," was drawn from 
 the character of Mr. Lewes. Mrs. Stowe took it so entirely 
 for granted in her letters that it was impossible to dis 
 possess her mind of the illusion. Evidently it was the 
 source of much harmless household amusement at St. John s 
 Wood. I find in Mrs. Stowe s letters some pleasant allu 
 sions to this correspondence. She writes: "We were all 
 full of George Eliot when your note came, as I had re 
 ceived a beautiful letter from her in answer to one I wrote 
 from Florida. She is a noble, true woman; and if any 
 body doesn t see it, so much the worse for them, and not 
 her." Again Mrs. Stowe says she is coming to Boston, 
 and will bring George Eliot s letters with her that we may 
 read them together; but that pleasant plan was only one 
 of the imagination, and was never carried out. 
 
 Later George Eliot wrote Mrs. Stowe to comfort her anx 
 ieties about the success of " Oldtown Folks " in England : 
 
 " 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 
 
1872] LETTER TO GEORGE ELIOT 335 
 
 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 sad 
 ness 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." 
 
 Mrs. Stowe replies : 
 
 MANDARIN, February 8, 1872. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, It is two years nearly since I had 
 your last very kind letter, and I have never answered be 
 cause 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. 
 
336 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 
 
 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 an 
 other life. The world recedes I am out of it ; it ceases 
 to influence; its bustle and noise die away in the far dis 
 tance ; 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 Monthly," in which your new story 
 is appearing, and have promised myself leisurely to devour 
 and absorb every word of it. 
 
 In regard to the subject of Spiritualism 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-mun 
 dane sphere are particularly valuable, apart from the evi 
 dence 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. ... I am 
 
1872] KINDLY RECEPTION AT THE SOUTH 337 
 
 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 fool 
 ish ? 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 confir 
 mations, 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 curi 
 ous 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. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe paid a visit to her brother Charles in Florida 
 during the winter, 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 enthu 
 siasm by the colored people, who, whenever they knew of 
 
338 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 
 
 her coming, thronged the railway stations in order to obtain 
 a glimpse of her whom they venerated above all women. 
 
 Finding by George Eliot s former letter that she was 
 not quite well, Mrs. Stowe wrote again : 
 
 (Begun April 4.) MANDARIN, FLORIDA, May 11. 
 
 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 mis 
 understanding of publishers, I am not reading "Middle- 
 march," 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 differ 
 ent. 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 delicious gambols, and weave and inter 
 weave in interminable labyrinths. Yet here, in the great 
 sandy plains back of our house, there is a constant 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 flow 
 ering shrubs, and the yellow jessamine climbs into and 
 
1872] BEAUTY OF FLORIDA 339 
 
 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 firma 
 ment, 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 beau 
 tiful, 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, 
 
340 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 
 
 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 gar 
 den. 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 per 
 sonally. 
 
 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 , like a dove, 
 
 "sits brooding on the charmed wave." We are both wish 
 ing 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 inter- 
 
1872] LETTER TO GEORGE ELIOT 341 
 
 view with the doctor, that rests on our mind at this pre 
 sent. There was such a man as he over in Boston, high in 
 literary circles, hut 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, hut 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 imagi 
 nable; fronting on a city street, with back windows open 
 ing 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. 
 
342 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 
 
 The following season she wrote with her usual sense of 
 calm from Florida : 
 
 "I am writing as a pure recreative movement of mind, 
 to divert myself from the stormy, unrestful present. . . . 
 I am being chatelaine of a Florida farm. I have on my 
 mind the creation of a town on the banks of the St. John. 
 The three years since we came this side of the river have 
 called into life and growth a thousand peach-trees, a thou 
 sand orange-trees, about five hundred lemons, and seven 
 or eight hundred grapevines. A peach orchard, a vine 
 yard, a lemon grove, will carry my name to posterity. I 
 am founding a place which, thirty or forty years hence, 
 will be called the old Stowe place. . . . You can have 
 no idea of this queer country, this sort of strange, sandy, 
 half-tropical dreamland, unless you come to it. Here I 
 sit with open, windows, the orange buds just opening and 
 filling the air with sweetness, the hens drowsily cackling, 
 the men planting in the field, and callas and wild roses 
 blossoming out of doors. We keep a little fire morning 
 and night. We are flooded with birds; and by the bye, 
 it is St. Valentine s Day. ... I think a uniform edition 
 of Dr. Holmes s works would be a good thing. Next to 
 Hawthorne he is our most exquisite writer, and in many 
 passages he goes far beyond him. What is the dear Doc 
 tor doing? If you know any book good to inspire dreams 
 and visions, put it into my box. My husband chews end 
 lessly a German cud. I must have English. Has the 
 French book on Spiritualism come yet? If it has, put it 
 in. ... I wish I could give you a plateful of our oranges. 
 . . . We had seventy-five thousand of these same on our 
 trees this year, and if you will start off quick, they are 
 not all picked yet. Florida wants one thing, grass. If 
 it had grass, it would be paradise. But nobody knows what 
 grass is till they try to do. without it." 
 
 Three months later she wrote: "I hate to leave my 
 
1872] CHUKCH AND SCHOOLHOUSE BURNED 343 
 
 calm isle of Patmos, where the world is not, and I have 
 such quiet long hours for writing. Emerson could insu 
 late himself here and keep his electricity. Hawthorne 
 ought to have lived in an orange grove in Florida. . . . 
 You have no idea how small you all look, you folks in the 
 world, from this distance. All your fusses and your fum- 
 ings, your red hot hurrying newspapers, your clamor of 
 rival magazines, why, we see it as we see steamboats 
 fifteen miles off, a mere speck and smoke." 
 
 Again she writes: "You ought to see us riding out in 
 our mule-cart. Poor Fly ! the last of pea-time, who 
 looks like an animated hair-trunk, and the wagon and har 
 ness to match ! It is too funny, but we enjoy it hugely. 
 There are now in our solitude five Northern families, arid 
 we manage to have quite pleasant society. 
 
 " But think of our church and school house being burned 
 down just as we were ready to do something with it. I 
 feel it most for the colored people, who were so anxious 
 to have their school and now have no place to have it in. 
 We have all been trying to raise what we can for a new 
 building and intend to get one up by March. 
 
 "If I were North now I would try giving some readings 
 for this and perhaps raise something." 4 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 PUBLIC READINGS: TRIAL OF HENRY WARD BEECHER 
 
 IT was a strange contrast to Mrs. Stowe s usual life, 
 and one at variance with her natural taste, when she ap 
 peared before the public as a reader of her own stories in 
 the autumn and winter of 1872-73. She was no longer 
 able to venture on the effort of a long story, therefore it 
 was manifestly unwise for her to forego the income which 
 was offered through this proposed channel. She wrote to 
 her friends in Boston: "I have had a very urgent business 
 letter, saying that the lyceums of different towns were 
 making up their engagements, and that if I were going 
 into it I must make my engagements now. It seems to 
 me that I cannot do this. The thing will depend so much 
 on my health and ability to do. You know I could not 
 go round in cold weather. ... I feel entirely uncertain, 
 and, as the Yankees say, didn t know what to do nor to 
 don t. My state in regard to it may be described by the 
 phrase * Kind o love to hate to wish I did n t want 
 ter. I suppose the result will be I shall not work into 
 their lecture system." 
 
 In April she wrote from Mandarin: "I am painting a 
 Magnolia grandiflora, which I will show you. ... I 
 am appalled by finding myself booked to read. But I am 
 getting well and strong, and trust to be equal to the emer 
 gency. But I shrink from Tremont Temple, and 
 
 does not think I can fill it. On the whole I should like 
 to begin in Boston." And in August she said: "I am to 
 begin in Boston in Septe mber. ... It seems to me that 
 
1872] FIRST READINGS 345 
 
 is a little too early for Boston, isn t it? Will there be 
 anybody in town then? I don t know as it s my busi 
 ness, which is simply to speak my piece and take my 
 money. " 
 
 Her first reading actually took place in Springfield, not 
 Boston, and the next day she unexpectedly arrived at our 
 cottage at Manchester-by-the-Sea. She had read the pre 
 vious evening in a large public hall, had risen at five 
 o clock that morning, and found her way to us. Her next 
 readings were given in Boston, the first in the afternoon, 
 at the Tremont Temple. She was conscious that her 
 effort at Springfield had not been altogether successful, 
 she had not held her large* audience; and she was deter 
 mined to put the whole force of her nature into this after 
 noon reading at the Tremont Temple. She called me into 
 her bedroom, where she stood before the mirror, with her 
 short gray hair, which usually lay in soft curls around her 
 brow, brushed erect and standing stiffly. "Look here, 
 my dear," she said; "now I am exactly like my father, 
 Dr. Lyman Beecher, when he was going to preach," and 
 she held up her forefinger warningly. It was easy to see 
 that the spirit of the old preacher was revived in her 
 veins, and the afternoon would show something of his 
 power. An hour later, when I sat with her in the ante 
 room waiting for the moment of her appearance to arrive, 
 I could feel the power surging up within her. I knew 
 she was armed for a good fight. 
 
 That reading was a great success. She was alive in 
 every fibre of her being; she was to give portions of 
 "Uncle Tom s Cabin" to men, women, and children who 
 could hardly understand the crisis which inspired it, and 
 she determined to effect the difficult task of making them 
 feel as well as hear. With her presence and inspiration 
 they could not fail to understand what her words had sig 
 nified to the generation that had passed through the strug- 
 
346 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 
 
 gle of our war. When her voice was not sufficient to 
 make the audience hear, men and women rose from their 
 seats and crowded round her, standing gladly, that no 
 word might be lost. It was the last leap of the flame 
 which had burned out a great wrong. 
 
 One of her lively and observant hearers in another city 
 described Mrs. Stowe as " small in stature, with a complex 
 ion bordering on the blonde, and with the merriest twinkle 
 in her eye, betokening a reservoir of fun and mirth suffi 
 cient to explode a funeral assembly with laughter. . . . 
 In some parts of the scene between Eva and Topsy, she 
 reached the hearts of her audience, and many a tear was 
 pushed out of sight by finger tips and umbrella handles. 
 
 " In part third, " continues this writer, " Laughing in 
 Meeting, a constant ripple of laughter followed her read 
 ing till she reached the point where the deacon was sent 
 sprawling in the centre aisle of the church, when the entire 
 audience broke out and shook the hall with laughter and 
 applause. " 
 
 These readings were conducted for her by a Lecture 
 Bureau, who made her a very liberal offer if she would 
 give forty readings in the New England States. She 
 agreed to this plan with the understanding that the read 
 ings should be over before December in order to allow her 
 to go at once to Florida. 
 
 She wrote to her husband during this tour at a time 
 when he was peculiarly depressed, from Westfield, Massa 
 chusetts : 
 
 "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 
 
1872] LETTERS OF GOOD CHEER 347 
 
 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 to 
 gether in Florida. Oh, may we see it again! Your ever 
 loving wife." 
 
 Again she told him that she had driven to Chelsea and 
 found no hotel there. "So," she continues, "I turned at 
 once toward 148 Charles Street, where I tumbled in on 
 the Fieldses 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 , 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 House 
 keeper and Topsy, and the audience was very jolly and 
 appreciative. Then we all jogged home." 
 
 "One woman in Portland the other night," she wrote 
 again, "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 
 
348 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1872 
 
 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 Smyth, now a settled 
 minister here. 
 
 "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 acquaint 
 ance, 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 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." 
 
 She continues in another letter to her husband : 
 "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 increas- 
 eth strength. I have found this true all my life. " 
 
1872J FATIGUE OF TRAVEL AND READING 349 
 
 From Newport she writes, November 26 : 
 
 "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." 
 
 These difficult experiences of which she made so light 
 were continued one more year. She wrote to her son 
 Charles, then in Harvard, in October, 1873 : 
 
 "I 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 
 
350 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1873 
 
 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 Cin 
 cinnati, and we were on it from eight in the morning until 
 nearly ten at night. 
 
 "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 after 
 wards 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 Zanes- 
 ville, a town as black as Acheron, and where one might 
 expect to see the river Styx. 
 
 "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 
 
1873] FLORIDA AND REST 351 
 
 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 con 
 version of one giddy girl, when George seemed to be doing 
 so little, I said, Who can measure the work of a faithful 
 minister 1 It is such living witnesses that maintain 
 Christianity on earth." 
 
 At last Mrs. Stowe was again installed in the calm of 
 her Florida home, where she wrote a series of Florida 
 sketches, called "Palmetto Leaves." She sends a note to 
 her brother Charles at Newport, Florida : 
 
 "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 in 
 stead of on Plymouth Rock? 
 
 "The next you hear of me will be at the North, where 
 
352 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1874 
 
 our address is Forest Street, Hartford. We have bought 
 a pretty cottage there, near to Belle, and shall spend the 
 summer there." 
 
 Again this heart, which was never allowed to rest from 
 ceaseless anxieties, was to be put to another proof. Mrs. 
 Stowe wrote to her friend, Mrs. Howard : 
 
 "We are on our way to Cambridge for Charley s Class 
 Day, and of course my heart and hands are full of his 
 feelings and joys and interests. . . . But amid all these 
 scenes there is a deep undercurrent of fellow-suffering 
 with you all in this great trial, and my heart is constantly 
 ascending in silent prayer^ I prayed without ceasing for 
 Henry, that his strength, health, and courage might not 
 fail, and when I saw the report of the Friday night meet 
 ing I was comforted. I saw that God was manifestly 
 with you, and since then my heart has been at rest. But 
 I am all on fire to hear more, and cannot buy a Tri 
 bune. " 
 
 The notorious scandal aroused against her brother, 
 Henry Ward Beecher, has been very clearly outlined by 
 the Eev. Lyman Abbott, D. D. It may be considered 
 that Mr. Abbott has made the final report. He has 
 studied the subject and sifted the evidence with the care 
 ful conscience of a man of truth, and his words may well 
 be reprinted here to make the reasons for Mrs. Stowe s 
 sufferings and consolations more distinct to future readers. 
 
 Dr. Abbott says : " It is certain no other man in America 
 could have lived and retained his position and influence 
 through such a scandal. . . . He had formerly been editor 
 of the Independent, but had resigned in favor of Mr. 
 Tilton, who for some years was extremely successful and 
 popular, but at last fell under a cloud. Finding his own 
 morality impeached, he adopted the peculiar defense of 
 darkly insinuating that Mr. Beecher (who was now the 
 successful editor of the * Christian Union ) was open to 
 
1874] THE CHURCH COUNCIL 353 
 
 grave suspicion in the same direction. He determined 
 to drive him from his pulpit, and the city, accused Mr. 
 Beecher of improper advances to his wife, whispered to 
 his friends that Mrs. Tilton had become the victim of a 
 morbid passion, which had utterly wrecked her happiness 
 and health. This last coming to Mr. Beecher s ears, he 
 believed he had not been sufficiently discreet, and with 
 the instinct of a true gentleman overwhelmed himself with 
 reproaches both by word and by letter. . . . Finally a 
 direct charge appeared against him in the newspapers; 
 whereupon he appointed a committee to look into the 
 matter, consisting of some of the most eminent and re 
 spected members of his church and society. They reported 
 unanimously, after giving Mr. Tilton a full hearing, that 
 the charge was entirely false. . . . Tilton, however, 
 brought an action at law; the trial lasted six months, when 
 Mr. Beecher was entirely acquitted. The suit was never 
 tried again. 
 
 " A council of Congregational churches and ministers was 
 then called in Plymouth Church, . . . including many 
 men of strong prejudices against Mr. Beecher on theologi 
 cal grounds, and some men full of suspicions engendered 
 by the trial and public reports. . . . After nearly a week 
 spent in a most thorough and scrutinizing inquiry, it ex 
 tended to Mr. Beecher, without a dissenting voice, the con 
 fidence of the entire council in his integrity. The whole 
 affair was complicated in the public mind by Mr. Beecher s 
 unwisdom in the selection of some confidential friends at 
 this trying period of his life, prior to the first publication 
 of the scandal, and by his evident endeavor to keep it from 
 becoming public, an endeavor not only not strange, but 
 abundantly justified by the injurious effects of its publica 
 tion. 
 
354 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1874 
 
 "Dreadful as was the ordeal through which Mr. Beecher 
 was dragged, and fearful as his sufferings must have been 
 at times, the sufferings of his people were little less than 
 agony. Strong men with faltering voice and falling tears 
 attested the sympathy and intense love of his people for 
 their pastor, and how completely they made his trouble 
 their own. His support, serenity, and cheerfulness, his 
 ability to preach as he did every Sabbath during those 
 dark, dark months, showing almost no appearance of wear 
 or suffering, was, and still is, an unsolved wonder to those 
 who did hot see the position occupied by his church. Its 
 members suffered more than the pastor. Their prayers 
 and sympathies buoyed him up, rendering him almost 
 unconscious of the malignant billows that were dashing 
 against him. During those dreadful days no one ever 
 intruded upon Mr. Beecher; the love and sympathy of 
 his people were not kept alive by personal intercourse with 
 him, and not one in a hundred of his people had a mo 
 ment s conversation with him then or since about these 
 fearful troubles." 
 
 No one can understand the life of Mrs. Stowe without 
 some knowledge of this trial. If his people suffered, if 
 Plymouth Church prayed, what were her sufferings and 
 prayers, whose existence was so bound up in affection for 
 her brother ! Her strength, continually tried to the full by 
 the daily work at her desk, visibly failed. She sought 
 refuge as much as possible in Florida, where, remote from 
 newspapers and the battle of the world, her exhausted 
 forces found space to recuperate. She wrote once : " Christ 
 says, that amid the vaster ruins of man s desolation, ruins 
 more dreadfully suggestive than those of sculptured frieze 
 and architrave, we can yet live a bird s life of uncon 
 scious joy; or as Martin Luther beautifully paraphrases it, 
 * We can be like a bird that sits singing on his twig and 
 lets God think for him. " 
 
1875] SUFFERING WITH AND FOR HER BROTHER 355 
 
 Her confidence in her brother was never for a moment 
 shaken, but she could neither write much nor speak with 
 him. Her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Howard, at this crisis 
 gave her great comfort. She wrote to Mrs. Howard : 
 
 "Tell me how Henry is, how you all are. I am in 
 creasing in the hope and belief that the Lord will yet 
 manifest himself and scatter this wicked host. Prayer 
 and hope are our trust. Lately I have thought often of 
 what the Lord said to Moses when the army of Pharaoh 
 was behind, the mountains on one side, and the sea in front, 
 and the rebellious people cried to God : Wherefore liest 
 thou on thy face ? Speak unto the children of Israel, that 
 they go forward. They went forward and the sea divided 
 for them, but drowned their adversaries. It is for us these 
 things were done. We are heirs of them that through faith 
 and patience inherit the promises." 
 
 It was in this spirit that she endured the agony which 
 had fallen upon her in behalf of her beloved brother. 
 From the Twin Mountain House, where she had been with 
 Mr. Beecher, she wrote: "We leave to-morrow, and you 
 must not fail to be at home. There is preparing a recep 
 tion for Henry that shall show him, on his return, how his 
 people feel. I am coming down, and we Plymouthites 
 must all be together and have one sing. We have had 
 serene and lovely times here sitting in heavenly places; 
 prayers every morning with so many of the church around 
 that it seemed quite natural; some also of the best and 
 loveliest of our land. Not a breath of the slander reaches 
 here. Sundays, there is great crowding to hear the word ! 
 Twenty-four or five cars! and so much tenderness and 
 emotion and love ! Truly it has been good to be here ! " 
 
 DEAR SUSIE, Suffer a word ! This crisis must be 
 met in the closet and with the Father that seeth in secret. 
 All looking here and there, rushing to and fro, listen- 
 
356 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1875 
 
 ing to reports, guesses, apprehensions, only exhaust the 
 strength, and take away the power of endurance. Thank 
 God, He not only can help, but is not displeased to be 
 importuned. If God could be wearied and made impatient 
 by importunity, it were hard with us when we have trou 
 bles that will not let us rest, and keep us saying the same 
 thing again and again. But He, our Lord, prayed in an 
 agony three times, saying the same words. . . . God 
 bless you, and help us all. 
 
 I have been thinking much how Christ, when they 
 were binding Him, asked a moment s delay that He might 
 touch the ear of Malchus and heal him. 
 
 What unruffled sweetness of nature was in this ! 
 Malchus perhaps was forward and provoking, and thus 
 drew on himself the attack of Peter; but Christ was, as 
 He is always, not a destructive but a healing force. Across 
 all this gulf of mis ery and scandal and sin that has swal 
 lowed so many who seemed to be Christ s, I look and pray 
 for his healing power. 
 
 I cannot but look on T s history as most pitiable 
 
 and no subject for scorn. ... 
 
 " Scorn ! would the angels laugh to see 
 
 A bright soul driven 
 Fiend-dragged adown the awful track 
 To Hell from Heaven!" 
 
 Some of his letters, written in better moments, remind 
 ing me that he had been at our prayer-meetings and our 
 sacraments ... fill me with a sense of the pitiableness 
 of his mind. Then, too, he is the father of those poor, 
 innocent children, the husband of that poor wife. ... I 
 have read a great deal in "Pilgrim s Progress" lately, and 
 his case seems to me like that of the man in the iron cage. 
 
 The man said, " I was once a fair and flourishing pro 
 fessor of religion both in my own eyes and those of others. 
 I was once, as I thought, fair for the Celestial City and had 
 
1875] EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS TO MRS. HOWARD 357 
 
 then even joy at the thought that I should get thither. 
 Well, but what art thou now? I am now a man of 
 despair. I am shut up in this iron cage. I cannot get 
 out ! Oh, now I cannot ! But how earnest thou in this 
 condition 1 I left off to watch and be sober ; I laid the 
 reins on the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light 
 of the word and the goodness of God. I grieved the 
 Spirit and He is gone. I tempted the devil and he is 
 come to me; I have provoked God to anger, and He has 
 left me; I have hardened my heart so that I cannot re 
 pent. 
 
 This to all human view is his miserable state. . . . 
 I have been quite unwell for two days, and no letter 
 comes! . . . Meanwhile, faithful friend, cease not to 
 write, for your letters are as cold water to a thirsty soul. 
 
 Again she says: "I find since Henry s testimony that it 
 
 is impossible for me to pray for . Do you suppose Mary 
 
 and John joined in the * Father, forgive them, when they 
 saw the nails driven? No! I pray, Oh, God, to whom 
 vengeance belongeth, lift up Thyself ! . . . Pity me and 
 stick to me, to the end. I am perfectly heartsick and 
 homesick to be with you once more, but when I consider 
 that Mr. Stowe is pastor and preacher, and that the Sun 
 day services, Sunday-school, and all, depend on us, I feel 
 it would be a mere yielding to my feelings to leave our 
 few poor sheep in the wilderness. 7 
 
 Later in the same year she writes from Hartford: "I 
 am more and more impressed with a sense of the dreadful, 
 irreparable wrong and injustice this wicked husband has 
 done to his wife, and which to her is deadly ; for as he 
 forced her into sinful and, weak compliances, he did the 
 greatest injury to her possible to a human being. God 
 only knows the limit of endurance, but I think she is to 
 be judged of as the poor witches who, under torture, sleep- 
 
358 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1875 
 
 lessness, and exhaustion, criminated themselves and others 
 at the will of barbarous persecutors. . . . The way the 
 slanderer of St. Francis de Sales was brought to confess 
 often occurs to me, and I beg and pray that something 
 like that be done in this case." 
 
 To her sister Mary she says: "To think that Henry, 
 who never would listen to an indelicate word, who has 
 kept all this nauseous thing out of his mind, being obliged 
 to sit in open court and have this foulness dribbled out 
 before him ! It seems as if it was not permitted to him 
 to avoid drinking this most nauseous cup to the dregs. If 
 he can pity and forgive now he does it with his eyes open 
 and with full consciousness of what he forgives." 
 
 Happily there was always Florida, bright beautiful 
 soothing Florida, to help her through the deep waves of 
 trouble, and there were also the letters of her friends. 
 
 She writes: "We have had heavenly weather, and we 
 needed it; for our house was a cave of spider-webs, cock 
 roaches, 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 Octo 
 ber 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 unf allen-Eden-like, " 
 
 In a letter written later in the same season, March 28, 
 
1875] THE CHURCH IN FLORIDA 359 
 
 Mrs. Stowe gives us a pleasant glimpse at their prepara 
 tions 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 Jack- ( 
 sonville 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 the season of her great trouble George Eliot 
 wrote to her : 
 
360 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1376 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEXD, 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 1 
 
 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 grate 
 ful, sweet remembrance of your goodness to me and your 
 energetic labors for all. 
 
 To this letter Mrs. Stowe replies after a delay of more 
 than two years : 
 
 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 
 
1876] GORRES AND SAINTE-BECVE 3C1 
 
 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 Gorres on the mysticism of the Middle Ages. 
 This Gorres was Professor of Philosophy at Munich, and 
 he reviews the whole ground of the shadow-land between 
 the natural and the supernatural, ecstasy, trance, pro 
 phecy, 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 possi 
 bilities 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 Eoyal 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. 
 
862 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1876 
 
 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 for 
 gotten, 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 exhibi 
 tion. 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 edito 
 rials, and wear arms and swear himself a special policeman 
 
1876] HER BROTHER HENRY 363 
 
 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 remem 
 ber 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 hus 
 band 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 Vallombrosa, " 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 Edmondson, 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 thou 
 sand 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 
 
364 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1876 
 
 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 Gar 
 rison 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 destruction- 
 ists in religion. He and I are Christ-worshipers, 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 
 
1876] LETTER TO GEORGE ELIOT ABOUT HER BROTHER 365 
 
 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 Ply 
 mouth 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 bro 
 ther 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 
 
366 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1876 
 
 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 thunder 
 ously 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 misgiv 
 ing. Thank God, there is none, and I can read my New 
 Testament and feel that by all the beatitudes my brother 
 is blessed. 
 
1876] POWEK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER 367 
 
 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. 
 
 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 Henry s 
 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 
 
368 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1876 
 
 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, 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. 
 
 This friendship was one that greatly enlisted Mrs. 
 Stowe s sympathies and enriched her life. Her interest 
 in any woman who was supporting herself, and especially 
 in any one who found a daily taskmaster in the pen, and 
 above all when, as in this case, the woman was one pos 
 sessed of great moral aspiration half paralyzed in its action 
 by finding itself in an anomalous and (to the world in 
 general) utterly incomprehensible position, made such a 
 woman like a magnet to Mrs. Stowe. She inherited from 
 her father a faith in the divine power of sympathy, which 
 only waxed greater with years and experience. Wherever 
 she found a fellow-mortal suffering trouble or dishonor, in 
 spite of hindrance her feet were turned that way. The 
 genius of George Eliot a nd the contrasting elements of her 
 
1876] BYRON 369 
 
 life and character drew Mrs. Stowe to her side in sisterly 
 solicitude. Her attitude, her sweetness, her sincerity, 
 could not fail to win the heart of George Eliot. They 
 became loving friends. 
 
 It was the same inborn sense of fraternity which led 
 her, when a child, on hearing of the death of Lord Byron, 
 to go out into the fields and fling herself, weeping, on the 
 mounded hay, where she might pray alone for his forgive 
 ness and salvation. It is wonderful to observe the influ 
 ence of Byron upon that generation. It is on record that 
 when Tennyson, a boy of fifteen, heard some one say, 
 "Byron is dead," he thought the whole world at an end. 
 "I thought," he said one day, "everything was over and 
 finished for every one; that nothing else mattered. I 
 remember that I went out alone and carved * Byron is 
 dead into the sandstone. " 
 
 Mrs. Stowe belonged to the sympathetic order of genius ; 
 but it is to be observed how little of the " vatis irritabile " 
 was to be found in her. She wrote to Dr. Holmes, put 
 ting aside all mention of the sorrows which had so weighed 
 fyer down : 
 
 MANDARIN, February 23. 
 
 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 pre 
 vious state of existence, as I sit on the veranda and gaze 
 on the receding shores of the St. John s. 
 
 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 
 
370 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1876 
 
 has gone, and Seward has gone, and yet how lively the 
 world races on ! -A few air- bubbles of praise or lamenta 
 tion, 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 Amberley, 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 ele 
 ment in them always attracts me. It is their pitiful and 
 sympathetic vein, the pity for poor, struggling human na 
 ture. 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 sorrow 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 
 
1876] UNCOMMON WOEKING OF NATURAL LAWS 371 
 
 facts that I have acquired through mediums not profes 
 sional. 
 
 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 Cen 
 tennial Ballad was a charming little peep; now give us 
 a full-fledged story. Mr. Stowe sends his best regards, 
 and wishes you would read " Gb rres. " 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 to her son Charles, who was 
 at that time abroad, studying at Bonn, Mrs. Stowe de 
 scribes 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 for 
 swear 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 stateroom, as if eager to swallow up 
 ship and passengers. From Charleston, however, they 
 
 i Die Christliche MystiJe, by Jofrann Joseph Gorres, Regensburg, 
 1836-42. 
 
372 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1877 
 
 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 1877 she writes 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 1 " 
 
 She was speaking in this letter of "Poganuc People," 
 one of the most exquisite of her books of sketches. The 
 flame of her genius seemed to awaken once more as she 
 wrote, and the tenderness in its pages, the power to move 
 
1879] NEARLY SEVENTY 373 
 
 both laughter and tears, is of her very own and of her 
 very best. It was her last long book. The habit of her 
 life was to write, and she did not lose it, but she was 
 nearing her seventieth year, and the responsibility of a 
 serial story was never assumed by her again. 
 
 In January 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 oppo 
 site 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 Vernier" 
 again. Elsie is one of my especial friends, poor, dear 
 child ! and all your theology in that book I subscribe to 
 with both hands. 
 
374 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1880 
 
 Does not the Bible plainly tell us of a time when there 
 shall be no more pain 1 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. 
 
 There is one more letter to her son Charles and his 
 wife, which must close the record of her seventy years. 
 
 " Dear children, " she says, writing from Florida to Saco, 
 Maine, where her son was busy in his parish, " Well, 
 we have stepped from December to June, and this morn 
 ing 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 dis 
 order. . . . 
 
 "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 transla 
 tion ? 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 
 
1880] APPROACH OF AGE 375 
 
 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." 
 
 Still well, but not at all strong, we must leave her here 
 upon the entrance of the long valley of age. 
 
 This woman, who seems to have touched every note 
 in the gamut of human joy and suffering; she who had 
 known physical weakness, overwork, poverty on one hand, 
 and on the other great success, who had possessed de 
 voted friends and household happiness; she who had lived 
 through the sorrows of war, had lost her two sons, who 
 had watched a large company pass into the unseen land 
 of those who made this world lovely to her; she who 
 had seen the great of the earth fall away and despise her 
 for works she felt herself called upon to perform; who 
 had seen one dearest to her cast down from the high places 
 and trampled on, was now to experience a slow descent 
 towards the dark gate of death. There was to be no sud 
 den release from decadence, but every step of the journey 
 of life was to be painfully traversed. 
 
 A sense of fellowship in the joys and sorrows of human 
 ity was as I have said, a characteristic of her nature ; but 
 this sacred fellowship was not alone born of imagination and 
 tenderness of feeling ; she was indeed in harmony with the 
 children of men in that she walked with them through the 
 low gates of failure and decay, yet the light of her faith so 
 irradiated her whole nature that she always had the secret 
 of unspeakable peace if not of joy to give to those who 
 were walking the same road. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 NEABING THE END 
 
 AFTER the many instances of Mrs. Stowe s natural 
 eloquence which have been quoted in these pages, it is 
 scarcely necessary to say that she was a delightful talker. 
 Nevertheless, the affectionateness of her character, her in 
 tense interest in all human experience, qualified her for 
 personal communion to a most uncommon degree. She 
 loved to gather a small circle of friends around a fireside, 
 when she easily took the lead in fun and story telling. 
 This was her own ground, and upon it she was not to be 
 outdone. "Let me put my feet upon the fender," she 
 would say, "and I can talk till all is blue." 
 
 It appeared to those who listened most frequently to 
 her conversation that a large part of the charm of her tales 
 was often lost in the writing down; yet with all her un 
 usual powers she was an excellent listener herself. Her 
 natural modesty was such that she took keen pleasure in 
 gathering fresh thought and inspiration from the conversa 
 tion of others. Nor did the universal homage she received 
 from high and low leave any unworthy impression upon 
 her self-esteem. She was grateful and pleased and hum 
 ble, and the only visible effect produced upon her was the 
 heightened pleasure she received from the opportunities 
 of knowing men and women who excited her love and 
 admiration. Her name was a kind of sacred talisman, 
 especially in New and Old England. It was a banner 
 which had led men to battle against slavery. Therefore 
 it was often a cause of surprise and social embarrassment 
 
1881] TRAITS OF CHARACTER 377 
 
 when the bearer of this name proved to be sometimes too 
 modest, and sometimes too absent-minded, to remember 
 that anything was expected of her on great occasions, or 
 anything arranged for her special entertainment. I have 
 already told how she was utterly taken by surprise once in 
 a foreign city by being invited out to breakfast, as she 
 supposed privately, and finding herself suddenly in a large 
 hall, upon a raised platform crowded with local dignitaries, 
 and greeted before she could get her breath by a chorus of 
 children s voices singing an anthem in her honor, espe 
 cially composed for the occasion. Her love of fun was 
 greatly excited by this unexpected situation, and she used 
 to relate the anecdote, with details about her unprepared 
 condition which were irresistibly amusing. 
 
 The sense that a great work had been accomplished 
 through her only made her, if possible, less self-conscious. 
 Late in life (when her failing powers made it impossible 
 for her to speak as one living in a world which she seemed 
 to have left far behind) she was accosted, I was told, in 
 the garden of her country retreat, in the twilight one even 
 ing, by a good old retired sea-captain who was her neigh 
 bor for the time. "When I was younger," said he re 
 spectfully, holding his hat in his hand while he spoke, 
 "I read with a great deal of satisfaction and instruction 
 Uncle Tom s Cabin. The story impressed me very 
 much, and I am happy to shake hands with you, Mrs. 
 Stowe, who wrote it." "I did not write it," answered 
 the white-haired old lady gently, as she shook the captain s 
 hand. "You didn t?" he ejaculated in amazement. 
 "Why, who did, then?" "God wrote it," she replied 
 simply. "I merely did his dictation." "Amen," said 
 the captain reverently, as he walked thoughtfully away. 
 
 This was the expression in age of what lay at the foun 
 dation of her life. 
 
 Her absent-mindedness grew upon her with increasing 
 
378 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1881 
 
 years. It was only by an effort that she was able to 
 restrain herself sometimes after a brief conversation from 
 lapsing into a calm world known only to herself; but this 
 condition approached gradually. As she explained to her 
 husband in the early years of their life together, this habit 
 of mind was frequently the result of fatigue even while 
 she was still in the prime of life. Perhaps a dinner-table 
 of invited guests were eagerly listening to her conversation, 
 when at some suggestion of a new train of ideas, either 
 from within or thrown out in response by another, she 
 would become silent and hardly speak again. Occasionally 
 at a reception she would wander away, only to be found 
 strolling about in the conservatory, if there were one, or 
 quietly observant in some coigne of vantage where she was 
 not likely to be disturbed. 
 
 There is an anecdote given to me by a friend which 
 illustrates her shortcomings in this direction. Once when 
 she was at the height of her fame and popularity she was ex 
 pected on a certain day to dine at the old President Quincy 
 house in Quincy. The ladies, his daughters, received their 
 guest with the great dignity and courtesy which were native 
 to them, and she was shown to an upper room to arrange 
 her dress after the journey. The ladies waited in the 
 drawing-room below; but presently there seemed to be 
 unnecessary delay in Mrs. Stowe s joining them. They 
 waited more and more impatiently; they began to watch 
 the clock while the minutes passed, but still there was no 
 step on the stair. At last dinner was announced and still 
 they waited, and the maid who was sent up to speak to 
 Mrs. Stowe returned to say that she had knocked at the 
 door but there was no answer. Then the hostesses became 
 anxious, and hurried to her room in person to see what the 
 serious reason might be. They opened the door; there 
 stood Mrs. Stowe just as they had left her, her bonnet and 
 shawl still on, standing before a bookcase reading a volume 
 
1881] PROFESSOR STOWE ON THE TALMUD 379 
 
 which she had taken down. " Oh," said she, returning 
 suddenly to the present scene of things; "do forgive me ! 
 I found this dear old copy of Sir Charles Grandison just 
 like the one I used to read. I have n t seen it for years 
 and years ! " 
 
 Among the responsibilities of the later period of her life 
 was that of getting Professor Stowe to consent to publish 
 a book. This was no laughing matter; at first the book 
 was planned merely as an article on the " Talmud " for the 
 "Atlantic Monthly." Afterwards Professor Stowe en 
 larged the design. Later, in speaking of his manuscript, 
 she says: "You must not scare him off by grimly declar 
 ing that you must have the whole manuscript complete 
 before you set the printer to work; you must take the 
 three quarters he brings you and at least make believe 
 begin printing, and he will immediately go to work and 
 finish up the whole; otherwise what with lectures and the 
 original sin of laziness, it will all be indefinitely post 
 poned. I want to make a crisis, that he shall feel that 
 now is the accepted time, and that this must be finished 
 first and foremost." 
 
 And again she says : " My poor Itab. has been sick with 
 a heavy cold this v week, and if it hadn t been for me you 
 wouldn t have had this article, which I send in triumph. 
 I plunged into the sea of Rabbis and copied Mr. Stowe s 
 insufferable chaldaic characters so that you might not 
 have your life taken by wrathful printers. . . . Thus 
 I have ushered into the world a document which I venture 
 to say condenses more information on an obscure and curi 
 ous subject than any in the known world Hosanna ! " 
 
 In 1881 she wrote to her son Charles : " I send you a 
 newspaper clipping showing the disposition of educated 
 Christians to return to the primitive basis of the great facts 
 of Christianity. ... I have so rich a blessing from my 
 own keeping of Lent and Holy Week that I cannot but 
 
380 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1881 
 
 rejoice when I see the minds of our pious people turning 
 in this direction, for it is turning from all controversial 
 issues to the one spot where Christian union becomes a 
 verity. At Gethsemane, the Cross, and the Sepulchre, 
 Christians feel together. They feel, not know, they are 
 one. Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathaea, Peter, James, and 
 John were all disciples together at the sepulchre. 
 
 "I have just heard of the sudden death of my friend 
 Mr. Fields, . . . and now we all ask, What has he left 
 of all his life s accumulations? Houses, lands, pictures, 
 literary reputation, all that gone dreams, things of the 
 past. Had he any treasure laid up in Heaven 1 I think 
 from my remembrance of him that he had just what Jesus 
 meant by treasure laid up in Heaven. He had a habit 
 of quiet benevolence; he did habitually and quietly more 
 good to everybody he had to do with than common. He 
 
 favored with all his power s charitable work, and such 
 
 habits as these are, I think, what Christ meant by laying 
 up treasure in Heaven. A spirit sympathetic with Christ s 
 spirit, prepared to appreciate and enjoy Christ s work, is 
 what He Himself, in the only account He gives of the 
 last award, makes the test of fitness for eternal life. I 
 find many traces of childlike faith in his last pieces. . . . 
 When a friend is gone to the great hereafter how glad we 
 are that he did believe." 
 
 Mrs. Stowe s last public appearance was in June, 1882, 
 when her Boston publishers arranged a reception for her at 
 the beautiful country-seat of Ex-Governor Claflin. Henry 
 Ward Beecher accompanied his sister and responded to the 
 address of welcome in his own natural and touching man 
 ner. After poems by Whittier, Holmes, and others had 
 been read, Mrs. Stowe herself 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 : 
 
1882] BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL 381 
 
 * "I 
 
 "I wish to say that I thank all my friends from my/ 
 
 heart, that is all. And one thing more, that is, iff 
 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 y 
 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. 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. 
 
 " That is the sort of thing I see going on around me. \ 
 Let us never doubt of the result." 
 
 During the year Mrs. Stowe busied herself with the labor 
 
382 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1882 
 
 of putting her letters and papers in some order. She had 
 written to her son Charles at the beginning of this task : 
 
 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. 
 Beading 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 
 bygone 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 1 
 
 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, Elizabeth Lyman, Sarah 
 Colt, Elisabeth Phenix, Trances Strong, Elisabeth Foster. 
 
1882] DIARY OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS o83 
 
 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 look 
 ing 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 char 
 acter of children who have now lived their earthly life and 
 gone to the eternal one, my two little boys, each in 
 his 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. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe and her husband passed some time in Bos 
 ton at this period with her married daughter. She wrote 
 of the pleasure they had in reading : 
 
 " 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 Quincy 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 faith 
 fully daguerreotyped, all the mean tricks, contrivances 
 
384 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1882 
 
 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 in 
 sane colored people were distributed in Northern States, 
 and in places where John Quincy Adams had means of 
 proving there were no negroes. When he found that 
 these falsified figures had been used with the English 
 ambassador as reasons for admitting Texas as a slave State, 
 the old man called on Calhoun, and showed him the indus 
 triously 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. 
 
1882] CHARACTER OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 385 
 
 "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 commu 
 nicant, and, beside, attended church on Christmas and 
 Easter, I cannot but love the old man. He died with 
 out 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 irrepar 
 able. 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 per 
 son of the slave." 
 
 Meanwhile, the comfort Mrs. Stowe drew in from the 
 beauty of nature and the calm around her seemed yearly 
 to nourish and renew her power of existence. Questions 
 which were difficult to others were often solved to her mind 
 by practical observation. It amused her to hear persons 
 
386 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1884 
 
 agitating the question as to where they should look to sup 
 ply labor for the South. "Why," she remarked once, 
 " there was a negro, one of those fearfully hot days in the 
 spring, who was digging muck from a swamp just in front 
 of our house, and carrying it in a wheelbarrow up a steep 
 slope, where he dumped it down, and then went back for 
 more. He kept this up when it was so hot that we thought 
 either one of us would die to be five minutes in the sun. 
 We carried a thermometer to the spot, where he was work 
 ing, to see how great the heat was, and it rose at once to one 
 hundred and thirty-five degrees. The man, however, kept 
 cheerfully at his work, and when he went to his dinner 
 sat with the other negroes out in the white sand without 
 a bit of shade. Afterward they all lay down for a nap in 
 the same sheltered locality. Toward evening, when the 
 sun was sufficiently low to enable me to go out, I went to 
 speak to this man. Martin, said I, you ve had a 
 warm day s work. How do you stand it? Why, I 
 could n t endure such heat for five minutes. Hah ! hah ! 
 No, I s pose you couldn t. Ladies can t, missus. But, 
 Martin, aren t you very tired? Bress your heart, no, 
 missus. So Martin goes home to his supper, and after sup 
 per will be found dancing all the evening on the wharf near 
 by! After this, when people talk of bringing Germans 
 and Swedes to do such work, I am much entertained." 
 
 Many were the pleasant descriptions of her home sent 
 forth to tempt her friends away from the busy North. 
 "Here is where we read books," she said in one of her 
 letters, written in the month of March. " Up North no 
 body does, they don t have time; so if will mail 
 
 his book to Mandarin, I will read, mark, learn, and in 
 wardly digest. We are having a carnival of flowers. I 
 hope you read my Palmetto Leaves, for then you will 
 see all about us. ... Our home is like a martin-box. 
 ... I cannot tell you the quaint odd peace we have here 
 
1884] LAST WINTER IN FLORIDA 387 
 
 in living under the oak. * Behold she dwelleth under the 
 oak at Mamre. All that we want is friends, to whom we 
 may say that solitude is sweet. We have some neighbors, 
 however, who have made pretty places near us. Mr. 
 Stowe keeps up a German class of three young ladies, with 
 whom he is reading Faust for the nine hundred and ninety- 
 ninth time, and in the evening I read aloud to a small 
 party of the neighbors. We have made up our home as 
 we went along, throwing out a chamber here and there, 
 like twigs out of the old oak. . . . The orange blossoms 
 have come like showers of pearl, and the yellow jessamine 
 like golden fleeces, and the violets and the lilies, and aza 
 leas. This glorious, budding, blossoming spring, and we 
 have days when merely to breathe and be is to be blessed. 
 I love to have a day of mere existence. Life itself is a 
 pleasure when the sun shines warm, and the lizards dart 
 from all the shingles of the roof, and the birds sing in so 
 many notes and tones the yard reverberates; and I sit and 
 dream and am happy, and never want to go back North, 
 nor do anything with the toiling, snarling world again. I 
 do wish I could gather you both in my little nest." 
 
 "This was the last winter passed in their well-loved 
 Southern home," writes Rev. C. E. Stowe, "for the follow 
 ing 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, 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 phy 
 sical strength. In everything else he is all one could ask. 
 
388 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1885 
 
 "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. 7 
 
 But in the spring she wrote from Mandarin to Mrs. 
 Howard : 
 
 "I have been very unwell the season past. I have 
 suffered more pain, more weariness and weakness, than ever 
 in my life before. . . . But one thing, dear, precious 
 friend, I cannot do, while my husband lives, I cannot visit 
 and leave him, neither can I take him. He requires 
 personal attentions that only a wife ought to render. 
 They are not fatiguing nor exhausting, but require that I 
 should be constantly with him. I think we have never 
 enjoyed each other s society more than this winter. His 
 mind is still clear and bright, and he is competent as ever 
 to explain a text or instruct me in the merits of a verse. 
 At our home in Hartford everything is arranged with refer 
 ence to his comfort and he is perfectly comfortable, but 
 my friends must come there to see me. I cannot leave 
 him to go to them." 
 
 In December of the same year she writes again from 
 Forest Street, Hartford, Connecticut : 
 
 DEAR SUSIE, Instead of the annual fuss and rumpus 
 of this time of the year, the packing of trunks and the 
 writing for passage tickets and arranging for a sea- voyage, 
 I am quietly settled down for the winter in my Hartford 
 home, and devoutly blessing my dear Father in Heaven 
 that I have so quiet a home to settle down into. 
 
 It has become clear that Mr. Stowe cannot take the 
 
1885] DEATH OF PROFESSOR STOWE 389 
 
 journey. We dare not undertake it Our Southern home 
 has no such conveniences as an invalid needs. It was 
 charming while Mr. Stowe was well enough to sit on the 
 veranda and take long daily walks, but now it is safer and 
 better that we all stay with him here. ... I can make 
 him happy, and I look on this as my appointed work, and 
 hope to do it faithfully. . . . H. and E. aid me hero 
 ically in everything. I have no household cares. 
 
 Pray for me, dear sister, and believe me ever your loving 
 and true friend, H. B. STOWE. 
 
 Susie, do, do write to me. 
 
 Again she writes to Mrs. Howard in January, still in 
 Hartford : 
 
 "You could not do a more generous deed than to enrich 
 me with one of your precious letters. I am watching the 
 slow sinking of my dear husband under an incurable dis 
 ease, and only praying now that he may be spared pain. 
 I do not feel strength within me to see him suffer. . 
 
 " I have many things to be thankful for : a comfortable 
 home, with every convenience for the care of the sick; 
 two daughters, who relieve me of every household care, 
 and a trained hospital nurse, who knows how to do every 
 thing and does it with neatness, order, and efficiency. . . . 
 So I live day by day. I feel myself rather weak and 
 weary, not with physical labor, for of that I have none, 
 but you know all about it, just how it would be. ... 
 Please ask Henry to write me a few lines that I can read 
 to my dear husband; his mind is clear, and I read all my 
 letters to him, and nothing would please him more than 
 a few lines from Henry, whom he always loved peculiarly 
 from the time he was a student onward." 
 
 "For nearly a year now," she writes in December of 
 the same year, to Mrs. Howard, "I have been a watcher 
 and a waiter by my husband s sick-bed; caring for my 
 
390 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1887 
 
 own health and spirits that I might always show a cheerful 
 and hopeful face to him, and have something cheerful tc 
 say to him when he feels cast down and discouraged. " 
 
 Mrs. Stowe always insisted that no small proportion of 
 her success in literature should be attributed to her hus 
 band. But her love for him made her see, not what was 
 untrue, but what was secondary in her work, as if it were 
 of primary importance. He appears to have been a genuine 
 scholar, one of a race rare enough at any time, nor was his 
 mind confined to any narrow groove. He was first, above 
 all, learned in the Scriptures, but his mind was a strange 
 storehouse of an endless variety of things which his vigorous 
 memory never suffered him to forget. Professor Stowe 
 died in August, 1886. 
 
 A period of rest now opened before Mrs. Stowe, who, 
 bending under the weight of seventy-six years of unremit 
 ting toil, seemed to be possessed by a great calm. She 
 had written thirty books, beside an incredible number of 
 magazine papers, journals, short stories, letters, and chari 
 table missives. There are few lives which can approach 
 such a showing of industry. She continued to write a 
 few, a very few, notes to her friends. She says in one of 
 these : 
 
 "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 Biver 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 inconceiv- 
 
1893] THE ENTHUSIASM OF LOVE 391 
 
 able 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." 
 
 To Mrs. Howard she wrote: "Your note to me since 
 brother Henry s exaltation was exactly word forward what 
 I can send back to you. ... If you dreamed I was in 
 trouble the other night, you dreamed the truth, for I have 
 been suffering. ... I see that almost all your family 
 have crossed over Jordan, leaving you still here. ... I 
 had written thus far " [she says, and it is a very brief note, 
 alas !] " when I was obliged to stop through fatigue. It 
 is long since I have tried to write anything, and my strength 
 gives out quickly; but I hope this imperfect scrawl will 
 show you that I am still your ever affectionate 
 
 H. B. STQWE." 
 
 This was almost the end; occasionally she was known 
 to write an exceptional note, but, as she says to Mrs. 
 Howard, "My mind wanders like a running brook, and I 
 do not think of my friends as I used to, unless they recall 
 themselves to me by some kind action. ... I think I am 
 
392 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE [1893 
 
 in something of the condition of a silkworm who has 
 spun out all his silk, and can spin no more, unless he has 
 some fresh mulberry leaves. When I reach the golden 
 shores, where grow the trees of life, there I may be able 
 to renew the happy friendships with those who have gone 
 before and may come after me to that happy land." 
 
 Finally, she says to Mrs. Howard : 
 
 "My sun has set. The time of work for me is over. 
 I have written all my words and thought all my thoughts, 
 and now I rest me in the flickering light of the dying 
 embers, in a rest so profound that the voice of an old 
 friend arouses me but momentarily, and I drop back again 
 into repose. . . . Since the going home of my dear bro 
 ther Henry, our country has not sustained such a loss as 
 this of Phillips Brooks. He was one of the truly great 
 ones of this earth, great in the noble simplicity of his 
 life and character." 
 
 As I have said, she was like her father, Dr. Lyman 
 Beecher, in many things. The scorching fire of the brain 
 seemed to devour its essence, and she endured, as he did 
 before her, some years of existence when the motive power 
 of the mind almost ceased to act. She became "like a 
 little child," wandering about, pleased with flowers, fresh 
 air, the sound of a piano, or a voice singing hymns, but 
 the busy, inspiring spirit was asleep. 
 
 Gradually she faded away, shrouded in this strange 
 mystery, hovered over by the untiring affection of her 
 children, sweet and tender in her decadence, but "absent." 
 
 The tenderness and patience of her waiting years could 
 only be told perfectly by the daughters who hung over her. 
 She knew her condition, but there was never a word of 
 complaint, and so long as her husband lived she performed 
 the office of nurse and attendant upon his lightest wishes 
 as if she felt herself strong. Her near friends were some 
 times invited to dine or lo have supper with her at that 
 
1896] HER LEGACY 393 
 
 period, but they could see even then how prostrated she 
 became after the slightest mental effort. It was upon 
 occasion of such a visit that she told me, with a twinkle 
 of the eye, that "Mr. Stowe was sometimes inclined to be 
 a little fretful during the long period of his illness, and 
 said to her one day that he believed the Lord had forgot 
 ten him." "Oh, no, He hasn t," she answered; "cheer 
 up! your turn will come soon." 
 
 She was always fond of music, especially of the one kind 
 she had known best; and the singing of hymns never 
 failed to soothe her at the last; therefore when the little 
 group stood round her open grave on a lovely July day 
 and sang the hymns she loved, it seemed in its simplicity 
 and broken harmony a fitting farewell to the faded body 
 she had already left so far behind. 
 
 She died July 1, 1896, at the age of eighty-five years, 
 and her body was buried beside those of her husband and 
 the children who had preceded her, in the burial ground at 
 Andover. 
 
 A great spirit has performed its mission and has been 
 released. The world moves on, unconscious; but the 
 world s children have been blessed by her coming, and 
 they who know and understand should praise God rever 
 ently in her going. In the words of the prophet we can 
 almost hear her glad cry : 
 
 " My sword shall be bathed in heaven." 
 
INDEX 
 
 ABBOTT, Dr. Lyman, his statement of 
 the Henry Ward Beecher scandal, 
 352 ff. 
 
 Abolitionist, Abolitionism, see Slavery. 
 
 Absent-mindedness, in Mrs. Stowe s 
 grandfather, 2 ; in Mrs. Stowe, 2 ; a 
 physical infirmity with Mrs. Stowe, 
 106 ; increases with age, 378 f. 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, his life a warfare 
 with slavery, 383 ff. 
 
 Address to the women of America, con 
 taining 562,448 names of Englishwo 
 men, 158 ff., 263 ; reply to, 263. 
 
 " Addresses " presented to Mrs. Stowe 
 at English public meetings, 158, 159. 
 
 "Agnes of Sorrento," conception of, 
 283 f . ; interferes with " Pearl of Orr s 
 Island," 285 ; pleasure in writing, 285 ; 
 published, 294.; 
 
 Amherst College, Henry Ward Beecher 
 graduates from, 88. 
 
 " Analogy," Bishop Butler s, 49. 
 
 Ancestry of Mrs. Stowe, 1. 
 
 Andover Theological Seminary, calls 
 Professor Stowe, 166. 
 
 Anti-slavery, see Slavery. 
 
 Appeal to the women of England, Mrs. 
 Stowe s, 263 ff. ; replies, 268. 
 
 Appeal to the women of America, Mrs. 
 Stowe s, 210 ff. 
 
 "Arabian Nights," Harriet Beecher s 
 solace in childhood, 23. 
 
 Argyll, Duchess of, letters to, 269, 274. 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, defends Northern 
 States, 160. 
 
 " Asia, Researches in," Buchanan s, read 
 by Mrs. Foote, 19. 
 
 Bailey, Dr., edits anti-slavery paper in 
 Cincinnati, 94; the "Press" is de 
 stroyed by mob, 94 ff., 143 ; editor 
 of " National Era," 133. 
 
 Batavia, N. Y., Mrs. Stowe visits, 108. 
 
 Beecher, Catherine, sister of Harriet 
 Beecher ; the eldest child, 9 ; " makes 
 fun for everybody," 26 ; her school in 
 Hartford, 42 ; assumes care of Har 
 riet s education, 42 ; fears Harriet s 
 conversion is irregular, 51 ; her influ 
 ence on Harriet s character, 52 f. ; her 
 engagement and loss, 52 f . ; her brav 
 ery, 53; letters to Dr. Beecher, 63; 
 to Edward Beecher concerning Har 
 riet s health, 64; her refutation of 
 Edwards " On the Will," 64; charac 
 ter somewhat stern, 66 ; goes to 
 Cincinnati, 73; writes "Emigrant s 
 Farewell," 76 ; with Mrs. Stowe at 
 Brattleboro, 112; letter from Mrs. 
 Stowe, 243. 
 
 Beecher, Charles, brother of Harriet 
 Beecher, " a mischievous little fel 
 low," 26 ; plays flute, 42; letters from 
 Mrs. Stowe, 302, 303, 351 ; removes to 
 Florida, 304; declines to change his 
 creed, 304; charming character im 
 pressed on region, 305. 
 
 Beecher, Edward, discusses with Mrs. 
 Foote, 19 ; plays flute, 42 ; strong in 
 fluence over Harriet Beecher s mind, 
 54 ; letters from Harriet Beecher, 60, 
 66, 68 ; preaches for his father, 103 ; 
 Mrs. Stowe s visit, 130 ; reported to 
 have been killed at Alton, Illinois, by 
 pro-slavery mob, 144. 
 
 Beecher, Mrs. Edward ; her suggestion 
 the cause of " Uncle Tom s Cabin," 
 130. 
 
 Beecher, Esther, aunt of Harriet, at 
 Litchfield, 37 ff. ; her fund of infor 
 mation, 37; "nineteen rat stories," 
 38 ; Lord Byron, 38 ; takes Charles and 
 Thomas into her home, 52 ; goes to 
 Cincinnati, 73 ; care of home, 87. 
 
 Beecher, Frederick, " an interesting lit 
 tle fellow," 26. 
 
396 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Beecher, George, brother of Harriet ; at 
 Groton, 62 ; " out of spirits," 62 ; 
 goes to Cincinnati, 73 ; preaches for 
 his father, 103 ; death, 108. 
 
 Beecher, Mrs. George, letter to, 123. 
 
 Beecher, Harriet, see Harriet Beecher 
 Stowe. 
 
 Beecher, Harriet Porter, second wife of 
 Lyman Beecher, 25 ; first impression 
 upon Harriet Beecher, 25 ; upon Henry 
 Ward Beecher, 27 ; her description of 
 her stepchildren, 26 ; Cincinnati, 73 
 ff. ; care of home, 87 ; health declines, 
 87. 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward, anecdote illus 
 trating power of conscience in child 
 hood, 4; "going to heaven to find 
 ma," 12; goes to school with Harriet 
 Beecher, 23; "speaks very thick," 
 
 26 ; his impression of his stepmother, 
 
 27 ; graduates from Amherst College, 
 88 ; editor of paper in Cincinnati, 94 ; 
 his attitude toward the South at end 
 of war, 275 f. ; scandal, 352 ff . ; Dr. 
 Abbott s statement, 352 ff. ; Mrs. 
 Stowe s account of, to George Eliot, 
 362 ff. 
 
 Beecher, Isabella, sister of Harriet, goes 
 to Cincinnati, 73. 
 
 Beecher, James, brother of Harriet, 62 ; 
 goes to Cincinnati, 73 ; " will be five 
 when it snows very hard," 78. 
 
 Beecher, John, ancestor of Mrs. Stowe, 1. 
 
 Beecher, Dr. Lyman, like his father, 2 ; 
 feeble at birth, 3 ; early home in Guil- 
 ford, 3 ; bright pupil, 3 ; anecdote illus^. 
 trating personal identity, 3, 4 ; qual 
 ities transmitted to descendants, 3 ff. ; 
 moral courage, 4 ; college, 4 ; anecdot^ 
 of robber, 4 ; anecdote illustrating 
 courage, 5 ; marries Roxana Foote, 5, 
 6; "made for action," 5; power of 
 imparting hope, 6 ; settles in East 
 Hampton, 6 ; removal toLitchfield, 7 ; 
 birth of Harriet Beecher, T ; death of 
 his wife, 9; marries Harriet Porter, 
 25 ; physical daring, instance of, 34 ; 
 power of exciting family enthusiasm, 
 34 ff . ; regret at not having met Lord 
 Byron, 39 f. ; appreciation of Milton, 
 40 ; of Bonaparte, 41 ; sympathy with 
 executive genius, 41 ; fond of mueic, 
 41 ; plays violin, 41 ; resigns pastorate 
 
 in Litchfield, 52, 55; accepts call to 
 Hanover Street Church, Boston, 52; 
 frank statement of personal affairs to 
 Litchfield church, 55 f . ; "last and 
 saving hope for Orthodoxy in Boston," 
 55; besieged with inquirers, 58; at a 
 white heat of enthusiasm, 58; his 
 prayer for Boston, 59 ; his methods of 
 relieving nervous strain, 59; method 
 of preparing sermons, 59; physical 
 exercise needed for balance, 69 ; goes 
 to Cincinnati, 73 ff. ; "performs in 
 Chatham Theatre," 73; begs money 
 for Lane Seminary, 73 ; in high spirits, 
 74 ; in Philadelphia, 74 ; Downington, 
 75 ; Harrisburg, 76 ; house on Walnut 
 Hills, 79 ; works under high pressure, 
 87 ;" moral oxygen," 87 ; reunion of 
 the family, 102. 
 
 Beecher, Mary, letter to, from Cincin 
 nati, 76 ; with Mrs. Stowe at Brattle- 
 boro, 112 ; death of her husband, T. C. 
 Perkins, 331. 
 
 Beecher, Mr., grandfather of Mrs. Stowe, 
 character of , 2 ; a farmer and black 
 smith, 2 ; absent-minded, 2 ; loved 
 fun, 3 ; his wife, 3. 
 
 Beecher, Roxana Foote, mother of Mrs. 
 Stowe, 5 ff. ; courtship and marriage, 
 5, 6 ; her character, 6, 9 ff . ; East 
 Hampton, 6 ; paints on ivory, 7 ; Litch 
 field, 7 ; birth of Harriet Beecher, 7 ; 
 death, 9 ; Lyman Beecher s dream of 
 her, 10; anecdote of tulip-bulbs, 10; 
 story of Henry Ward Beecher "going 
 to heaven to find ma," 12 ; her influ 
 ence on her family and the village, 12 ; 
 her artistic skill, 13 ; timidity in com 
 pany, 13 ; memory sacred to her chil 
 dren, 13 ; her wish for her sons, 15 ; 
 born an Episcopalian, 304. 
 
 Beecher, Thomas, taken into Esther 
 Beecher s home, 52. 
 
 Beecher, Rev. William, Mrs. Stowe visits, 
 96, 107 ; preaches for his father, 103. 
 
 Beecher family, ancestry, 1 ; family 
 traits, 2 ff. ; reunion in Cincinnati, 
 102. 
 
 Beecher house in New Haven, the old, 1. 
 
 Belloc, M., to paint Mrs. Stowe s por 
 trait, 202. 
 
 Belloc, Mme. L. S., translates "Uncle 
 Tom s Cabin " into French, 157. 
 
INDEX 
 
 397 
 
 Berea College, founded by John G. Fee, 
 144. 
 
 Biblical Literature professorship in Lane 
 Seminary, 73. 
 
 Birmingham, Mrs. Stowe in, 191 ff. 
 
 Birney, Mr., frees his slaves, 94; assist 
 ant editor of anti-slavery newspaper, 
 94 ; the Press destroyed, 94 ff . 
 
 Boston : Lyman Beecher meets his second 
 wife, 25 ; accepts call to Hanover Street 
 Church, 52, 55 ; Unitarianism pre 
 dominant, 57 ff. ; Harriet Beecher vis 
 its, 62, 291 ff., 383 f. ; firemen s fund, 
 Mrs. Stowe s contribution to after the 
 Great Fire, 331 : Mrs. Stowe reads in, 
 345 f. 
 
 Bowdoin College, Professor Stowe a 
 graduate of, 119 ; invitation to profes 
 sorship, 119. 
 
 Brace, Mr., principal of Litchfield Acad 
 emy, 29. 
 
 Bracelet, gold, presented by Duchess of 
 Sutherland, 196. 
 
 Brigham, Miss, Assistant in Catherine 
 Beecher s school, 66 ; character, 67. 
 
 Bright, John, his reply to Mrs. Stowe s 
 Appeal to Englishwomen, 268. 
 
 Brooks, Phillips, his death a loss to the 
 country, 392. 
 
 Brown, Clarissa, assistant in Catherine 
 Beecher s school, 65. 
 
 Browning, Mrs., reply to Mrs. Stowe s 
 Appeal to Englishwomen, 268 ; Mrs. 
 Stowe s grief at her loss, 271 ; corre 
 spondence with, 288, 291. 
 
 Bruce, Lady Augusta, "a strong anti- 
 slavery body," 226. 
 
 Brunswick, Me., home of Mrs. Stowe, 
 120 ff . ; Mrs. Stowe revisits, 245. 
 
 Buck, Eliza, servant in Mrs. Stowe s fam 
 ily, 175. 
 
 Buckingham, General, carries order re 
 lieving McClellan of command, 262. 
 
 Bull, Isaac D., Harriet Beecher boards 
 in family of, 43. 
 
 Burnet, Judge, talks of revolution in 
 Cincinnati, 95. 
 
 Burritt, Elihu, Mrs. Stowe meets, 191. 
 
 Butler, Bishop, Harriet Beecher studies 
 his "Analogy," 49; letter in imita 
 tion of, 83. 
 
 Byron, Lady, Mrs. Stowe meets, 202 ; vis 
 its, 235; Mrs. Stowe s grief at her 
 
 loss, 271 ; Mrs. Stowe s vindication of 
 her memory, 318 ff. ; Professor Phelps 
 approval of her vindication, 329 ; cor 
 respondence, 217, 223, 236, 247, 321. 
 Byron, Lord : Harriet Beecher s interest 
 in his poems, 38, 369; her father s 
 wish that he might have converted 
 him, 39 f . 
 
 Calvinism, reaction against, in Massa 
 chusetts, 57. 
 
 Carlisle, Lord, letter accompanying 
 " Address to the Women of America," 
 158 ; Mrs. Stowe meets, 193. 
 
 Catechism, Episcopal, 17 ; Presbyterian, 
 17. 
 
 Catholic question, Bishop Purcell ap 
 proves Harriet Beecher s treatment 
 of, 80. 
 
 Chase, Salmon P., defends Van Zandt, 
 145. 
 
 Chatham Theatre, Dr. Beecher s address 
 in, 73. 
 
 Cholera in Cincinnati, 116 ff. 
 
 " Christian Union," Mrs. Stowe s work 
 for, 325 ff. 
 
 " Christopher s Evenings," projected 
 sketches, 300. 
 
 Cincinnati, home of Lyman Beecher and 
 his family, 73 ; social and literary 
 club, 82 ; College for Teachers, 92 ; 
 pro-slavery mob, 94 ; in danger of 
 famine, 102 ; Mrs. Stowe reads in, 
 350. 
 
 Civil war, 258 ff. ; ended, 274. 
 
 Claflin, Governor, Mrs. Stowe s last 
 public appearance, at house of, 380 f . 
 
 " Cleon," drama written by Harriet 
 Beecher, 43 ; extracts from, 44-49. 
 
 Club, social and literary, in Cincinnati, 
 the "Semi-Colon," 82. 
 
 Coggswell, Catherine Ledyard, friend of 
 Harriet Beecher, 43. 
 
 College for Teachers, in Cincinnati, 92. 
 
 Columbus, Ohio, Mrs. Stowe s wedding 
 trip to, 91. 
 
 Conversationalist, Mrs. Stowe a charm 
 ing, 376. 
 
 Copp s Hill burying-ground, near Lyman 
 Beecher s church, 58. 
 
 " Corinne," sympathy with, 82. 
 
 "Corsair," Byron s, Harriet Beecher a 
 interest in, 38. 
 
398 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Crowell, G. M., chaplain, announces 
 wounding of Frederick Stowe, 272. 
 
 Cudworth, Eev. Mr., chaplain of Massa 
 chusetts regiment, 260. 
 
 "Daniel Deronda," Mrs. Stowe s inter 
 est in, 361. 
 
 Davenport, Mr., leader of colony, 1. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, effect of, 
 on Harriet Beecher, 28. 
 
 Degan, Miss, teacher in Hartford school, 
 50, 65, 67. 
 
 Diagoras, character hi " Cleon," 44. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, Mrs. Stowe meets, 
 193. 
 
 "Divina Commedia," Dante s, Profes 
 sor Stowe s constant companion, 93. 
 
 " Don Quixote," Harriet Beecher finds 
 a copy of, 37. 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 213. 
 
 Douglass, Frederick, letter from Mrs. 
 Stowe, 133 ; Mrs. Stowe s defense of, 
 iu letter to Mr. Garrison, 214 f. 
 
 Drake, Dr., family physician in Cincin 
 nati, 79. 
 
 Drawing and painting, Harriet Beecher 
 takes lessons in, 65. 
 
 "Dred," begun, 215; completed, 216; 
 a success, 216, 218, 221, 222; IB 
 France, 229 ; Queen Victoria s inter 
 est, 219, 222, 226 ; Harriet Marti- 
 neau s opinion, 233 ; a work of genius, 
 251. 
 
 Dufferin, Lord, Mrs. Stowe meets, 225. 
 
 Dunrobin Castle, Mrs. Stowe s visit to, 
 217 ff. 
 
 Dutton, Mary, assistant in Catherine 
 Beecher s school, 66 ; a mathematical 
 mind, 67 ; assistant in Cincinnati 
 school, 84 ; accompanies Harriet 
 Beecher to Kentucky, 84. 
 
 East Hampton, Long Island, first pasto 
 rate of Lyman Beecher, 6 ; early his 
 tory, 7 ; whales as minister s salary, 7. 
 
 Edinburgh, Mrs. Stowe in, 186 ff. 
 
 Edmondson girls, Mrs. Stowe redeems 
 from slavery, 138 ff . 
 
 Edwards, President, compared with Dr. 
 Johnson by Mrs., Foote, 20; refuted 
 by Catherine Beecher, 64. 
 
 Eliot, George, personal appearance, 
 points in common with Mrs. Stowe, 
 
 206 ; her reverence and love for Mrs. 
 Stowe, 334 ; Mrs. Stowe s regard for, 
 334, 368 f . ; correspondence, 334, 335, 
 338, 339, 360. 
 
 Elliot, Sarah, in Cincinnati, 83. 
 
 Elmes, Mr., in Philadelphia, 74. 
 
 Emancipation Proclamation, 262. 
 
 " Emigrant s Farewell, " Catherine 
 Beecher writes, 78. 
 
 England, Mrs. Stowe s visits to, first, 
 178 ff . ; second, 216 ff . ; third, 252. 
 
 Episcopal Church : the Footes stanch 
 Church people, 16 ff. ; Harriet Beech 
 er s early training at Nutplains, 16 ff . ; 
 activity in Florida, 302 ; Mrs. Stowe a 
 communicant, 30*. 
 
 "Evangelist," Mrs. Stowe s offer from, 
 104. 
 
 " Evelina," Miss Burney s, read at Nut- 
 plains, 5. 
 
 Fee, John G. , liberates slaves and is dis 
 inherited, 144 ; founds Berea College, 
 144. 
 
 Fields, J. T., Mrs. Stowe s correspon 
 dence with, 283, 295 ; visits, 29 ff., 
 347 ; his death, 380. 
 
 First church in Hartford, Harriet 
 Beecher proposes to join, 52. 
 
 Fisher, Ann, assistant in Catherine 
 Beecher s school, 66. 
 
 Fisher, Professor, engaged to Catherine 
 Beecher, 53 ; lost at sea, 54 . 
 
 Florence, Mrs. Stowe in, 252 ff. 
 
 Florida, Mrs. Stowe buys plantation in, 
 278 ; plans for winter home, 302 f. ; 
 hires Laurel Grove, 303 ; buys place 
 in Mandarin, 305 ; her first winter in, 
 314 ff . ; her residence, 318 ff . 
 
 Follen, Mrs., Mrs. Stowe s autobiogra 
 phy, 172. 
 
 Foote, Elisabeth, in Cincinnati, 83. 
 
 Foote, George, uncle of Mrs. Stowe, 15 ; 
 a lover of poetry, 22. 
 
 Foote, Harriet, aunt of Harriet Beecher, 
 15; Harriet visits her aunt at Nut- 
 plains, 15 ff. ; a strict Churchwoman, 
 16, 18, 20 ; catechises the children, 17 ; 
 treasures family relics, 21. 
 
 Foote, Mrs., grandmother of Harriet 
 Beecher, at Nutplains, 15; Harriet s 
 first impressions of her, 15 ff . ; in awe 
 of Aunt Harriet, 18 ; indulgent to 
 
INDEX 
 
 399 
 
 Harriet, 19 ; her books, 19 ; compari 
 son of Dr. Johnson and President Ed 
 wards, 20 ; a peacemaker, 20 ; a Tory 
 21 ; letter from Harriet Beecher, 65. 
 
 Foote, Roxana, see Beecher, Roxana 
 Foote. 
 
 Foote, Samuel, uncle of Harriet Beecher 
 interested in " Semi-Colon," 82 ft. 
 
 France, Mrs. Stowe in, 202. 
 
 " Frank," Miss Edgeworth s, read to 
 Harriet Bee cher in childhood, 11. 
 
 Franklin, Mass., Harriet Beecher spends 
 vacation at, 62. 
 
 French language, Harriet Beecher stud 
 ies, 50, 65, 227. 
 
 " French Revolution, state of the clergy 
 during," delight of Harriet Beecher s 
 childhood, 36. 
 
 Fugitive Slave Act, 130, 145. 
 
 Fun, love of, characteristic of Beecher 
 family, 3 ; Catherine, 42 ; Harriet, 377. 
 
 Gamage, Mrs., at Catherine Beecher s 
 
 school, 67. 
 Gardiner, John Lyon, friend of Lyman 
 
 Beecher, 7. 
 Gardiner s Island, home of John Lyon 
 
 Gardirter, 7. 
 Garrison, William Lloyd ; his radicalism 
 
 disturbs Mrs. Stowe, 212; her letter 
 
 concerning Frederick Douglass, 214 f . ; 
 
 letter to Mrs. Stowe, 275 f. 
 Gaskell, Mrs., Mrs. Stowe visits, 235. 
 Genius, possessed by Harriet and Henry 
 
 Ward Beecher, 9; Lyman Beecher s 
 
 sympathy with, 41. 
 Geography, Harriet Beecher s, 80. 
 Glasgow, Mrs. Stowe in, 181 ff. 
 Gorres, Professor Stowe s interest in, 
 
 361. 
 Grandison, Sir Charles, Lyman Beecher 
 
 like, 5. 
 Groton, Mass., Harriet Beecher s brother 
 
 George at, 62 ; Harriet thinks of tak 
 ing charge of school at, 62. 
 Guiccioli memoirs, 320, 322. 
 Guilford, Lyman Beecher s early home, 
 
 3, 5 ; home of Roxana Foote, 5. 
 Gymnastic apparatus, Lyman Beecher s, 
 
 Hanover Street Church, Boston, Lyman 
 Beecher called to, 65. 
 
 Hartford, Catherine Beecher s school 
 in, 42, 52 ; First Church in, 52 ; Mrs. 
 Stowe visits, 103 ; Mrs. Stowe s home at 
 Oakwold, 293 ff. ; her home on Forest 
 Street, 352. 
 
 Harvard College, Unitarian, 57. 
 
 Hawks, Miss, assistant in Catherine 
 Beecher s school, 65 ; gives Harriet 
 Beecher habit of sociability, 81. 
 
 Hawthorne, Mrs. Nathaniel, "a second 
 Scheherezade," 282. 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, on shipboard 
 with Mrs. Stowe, 282. 
 
 Heber, Bishop, Life of, read by Mrs. 
 Foote, 19. 
 
 Helps, Arthur, Mrs. Stowe meets, 193. 
 
 Hollis professorship, employed to edu 
 cate Unitarians, 57. 
 
 Holmes, Dr. 0. W., letters to, 288, 289, 
 319, 369, 373. 
 
 "House and Home Papers," 295; suc 
 cess of, 300. 
 
 Howard, Mr. and Mrs. John T., mem 
 bers of Plymouth Church, 162 ; how 
 " Uncle Tom s Cabin " was written, 
 Mrs. Stowe s account, 163 ff. ; gener 
 ous intermediary between Henry Ward 
 Beecher and Mrs. Stowe, 166 ; letters 
 from Mrs. Stowe, 219, 280, 284, 322, 
 328, 355, 388, 389, 391, 392 ; in Europe 
 with Mrs. Stowe, 252 ; death of daugh 
 ter, 279. 
 
 Howard, Mr., editor and publisher, let 
 ters to, 325. 
 
 Immortality of the Soul," etc., early 
 
 composition by Harriet Beecher, 30. 
 
 Independent," Mrs. Stowe writes for, 
 
 285 ff. 
 Inkstand, presented by ladies of Surrey 
 
 Chapel, 201. 
 "Isaiah," Lowth s, read by Mrs. Foote, 
 
 19. 
 Italian language, Harriet Beecher 
 
 studies, 50. 
 Italy, Mrs. Stowe visits, 230 f., 252 ff. 
 
 Johnson, President, " honestly seeking 
 
 to do right," 275. 
 Johnson, Samuel, Works of, read by Mrs. 
 
 Foote, 19; compared with President 
 
 Edwards by Mrs. Foote, 20; hypo- 
 
 chondria, 63. 
 
400 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Kentucky, Harriet Beecher s visit to, 
 84; Cincinnati mob led by Kentucky 
 slaveholders, 143. 
 
 "Key to Uncle Tom s Cabin," begun, 
 171, 177; sold extensively at South, 
 209 ; opinion of " North American Re 
 view," 209. 
 
 Kilbourne, Ma am, Harriet Beecher s 
 first teacher, 23. 
 
 Kindergarten system, Mrs. Stowe disap 
 proves of, G3. 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, Mrs. Stowe visits, 
 227. 
 
 Kossuth, Mrs. Stowe calls on, 198. 
 
 Labouchere, Mr. and Lady Mary, visit 
 
 to, 224 ff . 
 
 Lane Theological Seminary, Lyman 
 Beecher called to presidency of, 73; 
 Professor Stowe to select foreign 
 books, 92 ; typhoid fever, 108 ; desti 
 tute young men, 108 ; Professor Stowe 
 raises money, 109 ; Professor Stowe 
 leaves, 118; students largely aboli 
 tionists, 143. 
 Latin language, Harriet Beecher studies, 
 
 43. 
 Laurel Grove, Mrs. Stowe s first home 
 
 in Florida, 303. 
 
 Lentulus, character in " Cleon," 44. 
 Letters : 
 Catherine Beecher to Harriet Beecher, 
 
 30. 
 Mrs. Edward Beecher to Mrs. Stowe, 
 
 130. 
 
 Lyman Beecher to Litchfield congre 
 gation, 55. 
 
 Lady Byron to Mrs. Stowe, 217, 223. 
 George Eliot to Mrs. Stowe, 334, 360. 
 Harriet Martineau to Mrs. Stowe, 232. 
 Prof. Stowe to his mother, 103. 
 Prof. Stowe to Mrs. Stowe, 103, 105. 
 Mrs. Stowe to her daughters, 235, 241, 
 
 244, 245, 331. See also infra. 
 Mrs. Stowe to her son, 42. See also 
 
 infra. 
 Mrs. Stowe to the Duchess of Argyll, 
 
 269, 274. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe to Catherine Beecher, 243. 
 Mrs. Stowe to Charles Beecher, 302, 
 
 303, 351. 
 Mrs. Stowe to Edward Beech.er, 60, 
 
 61, 66, 68. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. George Beecher, 
 
 123. 
 Mrs. Stowe to Dr. Lyman Beecher, 
 
 63. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe to Mary Beecher, 76. 
 Mrs. Stowe to Lady Byron, 223, 236, 
 
 247. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe to Frederick Douglass, 133. 
 Mrs. Stowe to George Eliot, 335, 338, 
 
 339, 360. 
 Mrs. Stowe to J. T. Fields, 273, 283, 
 
 295. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. Follen, 172. 
 Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. Foote, 52, 64. 
 Mrs. Stowe to Wm. Lloyd Garrison, 
 
 214 f. 
 Mrs. Stowe to Dr. Holmes, 288, 289, 
 
 319, 369, 373. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe to Mr. Howard, 325 f. 
 Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. Howard, 219, 280, 
 
 282, 284, 322, 328, 355, 388, 389, 391, 
 
 392. 
 Mrs. Stowe to Georgiana May, 62, 70, 
 
 80, 81, 82, 85, 91, 96, 102, 107, 115, 
 
 122. 
 Mrs. Stowe to Charles Stowe, 349, 371, 
 
 372, 374, 379, 382. 
 Mrs. Stowe to Professor Stowe, 93, 
 
 104, 110, 112, 114, 116, 119, 121, 122, 
 
 138, 167 ff., 216, 218, 221, 253, 257, 
 
 259, 347. 
 Mrs. Stowe to Duchess of Sutherland, 
 
 171, 238. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe to Mrs. Wigham, 212. 
 "Liberator, The," Mrs. Stowe fears its 
 
 radicalism, 212 ; its work done, 275. 
 "Lightfoot Opera," Harriet Beecher s 
 
 wonder at, 28. 
 
 Lincoln, President, Mrs. Stowe s biter- 
 view with, 262, 269. 
 
 Lind, Jenny, subscription to Edmond- 
 son ransom, 138 ; sends concert tickets 
 to Mrs. Stowe, 140. 
 
 Litchfield, Conn., Lyman Beecher settles 
 in, 7 ; Harriet Beecher s birthplace, 7 ; 
 description of, 8 ; meeting-house, 8 ; 
 beautiful scenery, 30 ff . ; fishing trips, 
 32 f. ; nutting excursion, 34 ; Dr. 
 Beecher resigns pastorate, 52, 55. 
 Litchfield Academy, Harriet Beecher at 
 tends, 29. 
 
 Literature, Mrs. Stowe not a student of f 
 299. 
 
INDEX 
 
 401 
 
 Liverpool, Mrs. Sto ve in, 179. 
 
 London, Mrs. Stowe in, 192. 
 
 Lovejoy, shot in Alton, Illinois, by pro- 
 slavery mob, 144. 
 
 Lucullus, character in " Cleon," 44. 
 
 Lyinan, Miss, becomes wife of Mr. 
 Beecher, 3. See Beecher, Mr., grand 
 father of Mrs. Stowe. 
 
 " Magnalia," Cotton Mather s, Harriet 
 Beecher s delight in, 28. 
 
 Mandarin, Mrs. Stowe buys estate in, 
 303, 305 ; makes it her home, 324 ; mis 
 sion church, 329 ; church and school- 
 house burned, 343 ; Easter Sunday, 
 359; charm of Mrs. Stowe s home, 
 386 f . ; Episcopal church founded, 387. 
 
 Martineau, Harriet, letter from, 232. 
 
 Massachusetts, reaction against strict 
 theocracy, 56 ; Orthodoxy despised, 
 57 ; Unitarianism predominant, 57 f. 
 
 May, Georgiana, friend of Harriet 
 Beecher, 43 ; letters to, 62, 70, 80, 81, 
 82, 85, 91, 96. 102, 107, 115, 122 ; habits 
 of mind different from Harriet s, 64 ; 
 visits Mrs. Foote with Harriet, 64 ; 
 Mrs. Stowe s third daughter named 
 from, 108. 
 
 "Mayflower, The," Mrs. Stowe s first 
 book, 8 ; revised and enlarged, 204. 
 
 Meeting-house at Litchfield, Conn., Mrs. 
 Stowe s recollection of, 8. 
 
 " Men of our Times," Mrs. Stowe s book, 
 205. 
 
 Milton, John, Lyinan Beecher s appre 
 ciation of, 40. 
 
 Mina, Mrs. Stowe s servant, figures in 
 domestic and literary difficulties, 96, 
 98 ff. 
 
 "Minister s Wooing, The," due to Cath 
 erine Beecher s romantic experience, 
 54 ; publication, 248 ; Lowell s opin 
 ion, 249 f. 
 
 "Miscellany, Boston," Mrs. Stowe s 
 offer from, 104. 
 
 Mob, in Cincinnati, 94 ff. 
 
 Model schools, in the West, 85. 
 
 Modesty, a trait of Mrs. Stowe s charac 
 ter, 374. 
 
 Mohl, Madame, Mrs. Stowe visits, 229. 
 
 "Moral oxygen," 87. 
 
 " Mourning Veil, The," published, 248. 
 
 Music Lyman Beecher fond of, 41. 
 
 "My Wife and I," Mrs. Stowe s novel, 
 328 ; success, 332. 
 
 " National Era," anti-slavery paper, Mrs. 
 Stowe writes "Uncle Tom s Cabin" 
 for, 133. 
 
 Negroes, endurance of, anecdote illustra 
 ting, 386. 
 
 Nero, character in " Cleon," 47. 
 
 New Haven, Mrs. Stowe s ancestors 
 settle in, 1. 
 
 New Orleans, Mrs. Stowe warmly wel 
 comed in, 337. 
 
 New York City, stop in, on the way to 
 Cincinnati, 73. 
 
 Newport, Florida, home of Charles 
 Beecher, 304. 
 
 Niagara, Harriet Beecher s impression 
 of, 89. 
 
 Novel-reading, regarded as an evil in 
 Mrs. Stowe s childhood, 36. 
 
 Nutplains, home of the Footes, 5 ; Har 
 riet Beecher s first visit, 15 ff. ; visit 
 at eleven, 30. 
 
 Oakwold, Mrs. Stowe s home in Hart 
 ford, 293 ff. 
 
 Ohio River, navigation closed, 102. 
 
 "Oldtown Fireside Stories" finished, 
 332. 
 
 " Oldtown Folks," Mrs. Stowe s inter 
 est in, 312 ; hindered by household 
 cares, 313, by rest in Florida, 316; 
 published, 323 ; George Eliot s ap 
 proval, 334. 
 
 Olympia, map of, drawn by Harriet 
 Beecher, 44. 
 
 Orthodoxy in Boston, Dr. Beecher 
 needed to save, 55 ; despised, 57. 
 
 "Our Martyrs," story of boy dying in 
 Southern prison, 297. 
 
 Ovid, Harriet Beecher translates, 43. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, Mrs. Stowe meets, 
 195. 
 
 " Palmetto Leaves," Mrs. Stowe s Flor 
 ida sketches, 351. 
 
 Paris, Mrs. Stowe in, 202, 228, 232. 
 
 "Pearl of Orr s Island," begun, 168; 
 laid aside, 170; recommenced, 285; 
 suspended for six months, 286 ; card 
 in " Independent," 287. 
 
 Penny offering, national, 188. 
 
402 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Perkins, Thomas C., death of, 331. 
 
 Philadelphia, stop in, on the way to Cin 
 cinnati, 74. 
 
 Physical exercise, Dr. Beecher s, 59; 
 not thought necessary for women, GO ; 
 Mrs. Stowe s, at Brattleboro, 113. 
 
 Pierpont, John, the poet, friend of Ly- 
 man Beecher, 8. 
 
 Planchette, projected story, 316 f. 
 
 "Planter, Alabama," makes solemnly 
 savage attack on Mrs. Stowe, 168. 
 
 Plymouth Church, in " Beecher trial," 
 365 ff. 
 
 "Pogamic People," Mrs. Stowe s last 
 long book, 373. 
 
 Pollock, Lord Chief Baron ; his opinion 
 of the legal points in the " Key," 192. 
 
 Porter, Harriet, see Beecher, Harriet 
 Porter. 
 
 Portraits of Mrs. Stowe, 205 ff. ; by 
 Richmond, 205; bust, by Miss Du- 
 rant, 207 ; the Foote mask, 207 ; her 
 face dull and heavy when not ani 
 mated by feeling, 206 ; photographs 
 often painfully plain, 206. 
 
 Poverty, suffering from, 109, 132, 325. 
 
 Prussia, Professor Stowe to study 
 schools of, 92. 
 
 Purcell, Bishop, approves Harriet 
 Beecher s treatment of Catholic ques 
 tion, 80. 
 
 Putnam, Ohio, home of William Beech 
 er, 96 ; Mrs. Stowe visits, 96. 
 
 Reader, public, Mrs. Stowe as a, 344 ff. ; 
 in Springfield, 345 ; Boston, 345 ; Chel 
 sea, 347 ; Portland, 347 ; Bangor, 347 ; 
 Newport, 349; Chicago, 349; Cincin 
 nati, 349 ; Columbus, 350 ; Dayton, 
 350; Zanesville, 350. 
 
 Rees s Cyclopedia, in Harriet Beecher s 
 childhood, 22. 
 
 Reeve, Judge, friend of Lyman Beecher, 
 8. 
 
 Religious experience, Harriet Beech 
 er s ; verse associated with mother s 
 memory, 13 ; father s prayer, 14 ; 
 mother s influence, 15 ; grandmother s 
 reading prayers, 16 ; catechisms, 17 ; 
 reading to grandmother, 19 ; commit 
 ting to memory, 23 ; her father s ser 
 mon on Byron, 39 ; Baxter s " Saint s 
 Rest," 49; believes herself to be a 
 
 Christian, 50 ; her father s sympathy, 
 51 ; reception by pastor of First 
 Church, 52 ; morbid feeling, 53, 61, 
 63 ; happier if her mother had lived, 
 65 ; perfection of God, 66 ; desire to 
 be loved, 67 ; God merciful, 68 ; 
 " everything to offer in extenuation 
 for our sins," 68 ; returns to early 
 trust, 69 ; better off than most chil 
 dren of our day, 70 ; gives up habit of 
 meditation, 70 ; pleasure in acquaint 
 anceship, 71 ; " love is the life-blood of 
 mind," 72; "tranquil, quiet, and 
 happy," 92 ; " Earthly Care a Hea 
 venly Discipline," 121 ; " Still, still 
 with Thee," 170 ; fears as to radical 
 influence in anti-slavery work, 213; 
 she feels heavenly friends nearer, 236 ; 
 effect of her son Henry s death, 238 ff . ; 
 human beings were to her " spirits 
 walking the brief road to the eternal 
 life," 252; civil war God s punish 
 ment for slavery, 258 ; submission, 
 280 f . ; spiritualism not attractive, 
 in comparison with faith in Christ, 
 309 ff. ; her ambition for " The Chris 
 tian Union," 328 ; her idea of heaven, 
 332 ; her faith during the Henry Ward 
 Beecher trial, 354 ff. ; " Uncle 
 Tom s Cabin " written under inspira 
 tion, 163, 377 ; test of fitness for eter 
 nal life, 380 ; unwavering sense of 
 Christ s presence, 382, 390 ; " in sight 
 of the River of Death," 390. 
 
 Rhodes , J. F., "History of the United 
 States," critical review of "Uncle 
 Tom s Cabin," 140 ; Mrs. Stowe and 
 Stephen A. Douglas, 213. 
 
 Rochester, railroad accident delays Mrs. 
 Stowe, 107. 
 
 Roenne, Baron de, Prussian ambassador, 
 his complimentary visit to Professor 
 Stowe, 103. 
 
 Rome, Mrs. Stowe in, 230, 231, 255. 
 
 Ruskin, John, Mrs. Stowe visits, 235 ; 
 correspondence with, 288, 291. 
 
 " Saint s Rest," Baxter s, affects Har 
 riet Beecher, 49. 
 
 Sand, George, reviews " Uncle Tom a 
 Cabin," 151 ff. ; personal appearance, 
 points in common with Mrs. Stowe, 
 206. 
 
INDEX 
 
 403 
 
 Schools : Ma am Kilbourne s, 23 ; Litch- 
 field Academy, 29 ; Catherine Beech- 
 er s, at Hartford, 52, GO, G5 ; in Cin 
 cinnati, 73, 80, 85 ; Miss Pierce s, 50 
 model schools in the West, 85 ; Col 
 lege for Teachers, 92 ; common schools 
 of Europe, 92 ff. 
 Scotland, Mrs. Stowe s visits to, 180 ff. ; 
 
 216 ff. 
 
 Scott, Walter, ballads of, read to Har 
 riet Beecher in early childhood, 22 ; 
 novels, read in Lyman Beecher s 
 family, 36 ff. ; Mrs. Stowe reads at 
 Brunswick, 128 ; her visit to Abbots- 
 ford, 190. 
 
 Semi-Colon, in Cincinnati, a club, 82 ff. 
 Shaftesbury, Lord, originator of " Ad 
 dress to the Women of America," 158. 
 "Shelby, Colonel," Harriet Beecher s 
 
 visit to plantation, 84. 
 Sherman, Roger, a friend of Mrs. Stowe s 
 
 grandfather, 2. 
 
 Skinner, Dr., in Philadelphia, 74. 
 Slavery, first brought to Harriet Beech 
 er s personal notice, 84; in Mrs. 
 Stowe s journal, 94 ; Mrs. Stowe not 
 yet an abolitionist, 94 ; Mr. Birney and 
 Dr. Bailey edit the " Press," 94 ; the 
 " Press " destroyed, 94 ff. ; pro- 
 slavery mob in Cincinnati, 94 ; " alli 
 ance between old school and slave 
 holders will make abolitionists," 96 ; 
 Webster s seventh of March speech, 
 130 ; Fugitive Slave Act, 130 ; " Uncle 
 Tom s Cabin," 130 ff. ; the church 
 pro-slavery, 134 ; " Uncle Tom s 
 Cabin," 140 ff. ; history of pro-slavery 
 excesses leading to " Uncle Tom s 
 Cabin," 141 ff. ; Key to " Uncle Tom s 
 Cabin," 171 ff. ; Mrs. Stowe s work in 
 England, 204, 208 ff. ; anti-slavery 
 fashionable, 208 ; church pushed to 
 its duty by the world, 209; colored 
 convention, 209 ; appeal to American 
 women, 210 ff . ; Mrs. Stowe and Fred 
 erick Douglass, 214 f.; " Dred," 215 ff.; 
 civil war, 258 ff.; Emancipation Procla 
 mation, 262 ; appeal to Englishwomen, 
 263 ff. ; Mrs. Stowe s letter to the 
 v Duchess of Argyll, 271; end of the 
 war, 274; attitude of various public 
 men, 275 ; progress of the colored peo 
 ple, 381. 
 
 " Society woman," Mrs. Stowe not a, 
 
 256. 
 " Solomon s Song, Harmer on," Harriet 
 
 Beecher s pleasure in learning, 36. 
 " Souvenir, The," magazine, 105. 
 
 Spiritualism : Lyman Beecher s dream, 
 10; letter to Professor Stowe, 253; 
 Mrs. Stowe s attitude toward, 306 ff. ; 
 absurd to deny the facts, 336 ; inter 
 esting study in psychology, 336 ; curi 
 ous studies into nature, 337 ; Mrs. 
 Stowe s letter to Dr. Holmes, 370. 
 
 Stael, Madame de, sympathy with, 82. 
 
 Stafford House, meetings at, 158, 195 ff. ; 
 Mrs. Stowe visits, 193 ff. ; tea, 200. 
 
 Stoke Park, visit to, 224. 
 
 " Stone Cabin, The," Mrs. Stowe s home 
 in Andover, 167. 
 
 Stowe, Calvin E., professor in Lane 
 Seminary, 73 ; member of social and 
 literary club, 90 ; partisan of radical 
 Professor Tyler, 90 ; quick insight and 
 exceptional learning, 90 ; keen sufferer 
 from depression, 90; Harriet Beech 
 er s sympathy, 91 ; marries Harriet 
 Beecher, 91 ; goes to Europe, 92 ff. ; 
 agent of the State of Ohio, and of 
 Lane Seminary, 92 ff. ; remarkable 
 knowledge of Greek, Hebrew, Ger 
 man, and Italian, 93 ; tries water-cure, 
 115 ; professor in Bowdoin College, 
 119 ff. ; Brunswick, 128 ff. ; professor 
 in Andover Seminary, 166 ; England, 
 178 ff., 252; death of son Henry, 
 238 ff. ; Hartford, 293 ff . ; Mrs. Stowe s 
 dependence on, 299 ; Florida, 318 ff . ; 
 preaches in Mandarin, 329, 359 ; arti 
 cle on the Talmud, 379 ; Boston, 383 ; 
 last illness, 389; death, 390; corre 
 spondence with Mrs. Stowe, see Let 
 ters. 
 
 Stowe, Charles, son of Mrs. Stowe, stu 
 dent at Bonn, 371 ; Mrs. Stowe s cor 
 respondence with, 349, 371, 372, 374, 
 379, 382. 
 
 Stowe, Eliza Tyler, first wife of Calvin 
 E. Stowe, 90 ; intimate friend of Har 
 riet Beecher, 90 ; member of social 
 club, 90 ; death, 90. 
 
 Stowe, Eliza Tyler, daughter of Mrs. 
 Stowe, 96. 
 
 Stowe, Frederick William, son of Mrs 
 Stowe, 101 ; member of First Mass* 
 
404 
 
 INDEX 
 
 chusetts Regiment, 259 ; in Jersey 
 City, 259 f . ; lieutenant s commission, 
 261 ; his mother s visit in Washington, 
 261 f . ; captain, 272 ; wounded at Get 
 tysburg, 272 ; never entirely to re 
 cover, 278 ; plantation in Florida, 278, 
 302 ff. ; sea-voyage, 333 ; not heard 
 from after reaching San Francisco, 
 333. 
 
 Stowe, Georgiana May, third daughter 
 of Mrs. Stowe, 108 ; in England, 252 ; 
 marriage, 297 ; visit from Mrs. Stowe, 
 383. 
 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher : Ancestry, 1 ff. ; 
 birth, 7 ; mother s death, 9 ff. ; visit 
 at Nutplains, 15 ff. ; first school, 23 ; 
 literary longings, 23 ; her stepmother, 
 25 ff. ; her father s study, 27 ff. ; at 
 tends Litchfield Academy, 29 ; preco 
 cious composition, 30 ; recollections of 
 Litchfield home, 31 ff. ; Scott, 36 ; 
 Byron, 38 ; Bonaparte, 41 ; music, 42 ; 
 at school in Hartford, 42 ; her drama, 
 " Cleon," 43 ff. ; Butler s " Analogy," 
 49 ; Baxter s " Saint s Rest," 49 ; be 
 comes a Christian, 50 ff., 60 ff. ; first 
 visit to Boston, 62 ff. ; hypochondria, 
 63 ; visits her grandmother, 64 ; les 
 sons in painting, 65 ; larger religious 
 experience, 66 ff. ; a change in her 
 character, 69 ff. ; on the way to Cin 
 cinnati, 73 ff. ; in Cincinnati, 76 ff. ; 
 Bishop Purcell approves her treatment 
 of the Catholic question, 80: new 
 school, 80 ff. ; first published story, 
 82 ; literary club, 82 ff. ; visits Ken 
 tucky, 84 ; model schools, 85 ff. ; her 
 home in Cincinnati, 85 ff. ; first visit 
 East, 88 ff . ; Niagara, 89 ; death of 
 Eliza Stowe, 90; marries Professor 
 Stowe, 91 ; second visit East, 92 ff. ; 
 Professor Stowe goes abroad, 92 ff. ; 
 experience with Cincinnati mob, 94 ff . ; 
 birth of twin daughters, 96 ; birth of 
 son, Henry, 96 ; amusing combination 
 of literary work and home cares, 9G ff . ; 
 third visit East, 103; her husband 
 advises her to live a literary life, 103, 
 105 ; her response, 104 ; absence of 
 mind a physical infirmity with her, 
 106; first journey by rail, 107; ty 
 phoid fever in the seminary > 108; 
 birth of third daughter, 108 ; death of 
 
 Rev. George Beecher, 108; poverty, 
 109 ; debility, 109 ff. ; Dr. Wessel- 
 hoeft s water-cure, 112 ff. ; second 
 son born, 115 ; Professor Stowe under 
 Dr. Wesselhoeft s care, 115; cholera, 
 116 ff. ; death of second son, 119 ; 
 journey to Brunswick, 120 ff. ; diffi 
 culties of getting house in order, 
 123 ff. ; birth of third son, 128 ; the 
 Fugitive Slave Law, 130; terrible 
 cold, 131 ; writing for the " Era, - 
 131; first chapter of "Uncle Tom g 
 Cabin," 133; letter to Frederick 
 Douglass, 133 ff . ; " Uncle Tom s 
 Cabin " finished, 136 ; success of her 
 work, 137 ff. ; her modesty, 137 ; work 
 for the Edmondson family, 138 ff . ; 
 hears Jenny Lind, 140 ; history of the 
 growth of "Uncle Tom s Cabin," 
 141 ff. ; George Sand s critique, 151 ff.; 
 addresses, 158 ff. ; returns to Brooklyn, 
 162 ; Mrs. Howard s narrative, 162 ff . ; 
 removal to Andover, 166 ff . ; " Key to 
 Uncle Tom s Cabin," 171 ; letter to 
 Mrs. Follen, 173 ff. ; visits England, 
 178, 191 ; Scotland, 180 ; France, 202 ; 
 Switzerland, 202 ; returns to Amer 
 ica, 204 ; personal appearance, 205 ff. ; 
 open letter to Scotland, 208 ff. ; appeal 
 to American women, 210 ff. ; letter to 
 Garrison in regard to Douglass, 214 ; 
 " Dred," 215 ff. ; second trip abroad, 
 216 ff.; success of "Dred," 318 ff.; 
 correspondence with Lady Byron, 217, 
 223, 236; visits Lady Mary Labou- 
 chere, 224 ff . ; Charles Kingsley, 227 ; 
 in Paris, 228 ff . ; in Italy, 230 ff . ; Har 
 riet Martineau s approval of " Dred," 
 232 ff.; return home, 238; drowning 
 of her eldest son, Henry, 238 ff. ; 
 "The Minister s Wooing," 248 ff. ; 
 Lowell s approval, 248 ff. ; third trip 
 abroad, 252 ff. ; England, 252 ; Lau 
 sanne, 252 ; Florence, 252 ff. ; spirit 
 ualism, 253 ; Rome, 255 ; not a society 
 woman, 256 ; return to America, 257 ; 
 civil war, 258 ff. ; her son enlists, 259 ; 
 at Jersey City, 259 ; in Washington, 
 
 261 ff. ; Emancipation Proclamation, 
 
 262 ; appeal to Englishwomen, 263 ff. ; 
 replies to her letter, 268; interview 
 with Lincoln, 269 ; letters to the 
 Duchess of Argyll, 269 if., 274 ff. ; hei 
 
INDEX 
 
 405 
 
 eon wounded, 272; end of the war, 
 274 ff. ; death of Annie Howard, 279 ff.; 
 crossing the Atlantic, 282 ; " Agues of 
 Sorrento," 283, 285; letter to Mrs. 
 Howard, 284; "The Pearl of Orr s 
 Island," 285 ff. ; letters to Mrs. 
 Browning, Mr. Ruskin, and Dr. 
 Holmes, 288 ; a street Arab, 291 ; re 
 moval to Hartford, 293 ff.; "House 
 and Home Papers," 295 ff. ; marriage 
 of youngest daughter, 297 ; not a stu 
 dent of literature, 299 ; inspiration due 
 to sympathy with humanity, 300 ; life 
 in Florida, 302 ff. ; joins Episcopal 
 Church, 304; "Men of Our Times," 
 
 305 ; visitors, 306 ; spiritualism, 
 
 306 ff. ; " Oldtown Folks," 311 ff. ; 
 death of Lady Byron, 318 ; fulfills her 
 promise to Lady Byron, 319 ff. ; be 
 comes a grandmother, 324 ; financial 
 difficulties, 326 ff . ; " The Christian 
 Union," 326 ff. ; "My Wife and I," 
 328 ; illness of youngest daughter, 
 330 ; death of sister s husband, 331 ; 
 Boston fire, 331 ; loss of her son Fred 
 erick, 333 ; acquaintance with George 
 Eliot, 333 ff. ; cordial greetings in the 
 South, 337 ; public readings, 344 ff. ; 
 trial of Henry Ward Beecher, 352 ff . ; 
 correspondence with George Eliot, 
 360 ff.; letter to Dr. Holmes, 369; 
 " Poganuc People," 372 ff. ; a de 
 lightful conversationalist, 376; love 
 cf fun, 377 ; want of self-conscious 
 ness, 377 ; inspired to write " Uncle 
 Tom p Cabin," 377 ; absent-minded 
 ness, 378 ; Professor Stowe s book, 
 379 ; death of Mr. Fields, 380 ; last 
 public appearance of Mrs. Stowe, 380 ; 
 putting her papers in order, 383 ff . ; 
 pleasure in reading, 383 ; John Quincy 
 Adams, 383 ff . ; toughness of negroes, 
 386 ; last winter in the South, 387 ; 
 Professor Stowe s illness and death, 
 389 ff. ; Mrs. Stowe s last days, 390 ff. ; 
 death, 393 ; correspondence, see Let 
 ters. 
 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, daughter of 
 Mrs. Stowe, 96. 
 
 Stowe, Henry, son of Mrs. Stowe, 96; 
 pledges in cold water at Dunrobin, 
 219 ; returns to America, 221 ; fresh 
 man in Dartmouth College, 238; is 
 
 drowned in Connecticut River, 238; 
 
 his character, 240, 242, 243. 
 Stowe, Samuel Charles, son of Mrs. 
 
 Stowe, 115 ; sickness and death, 117 ff. 
 Study, Lyman Beecher s, in Litchfield, 
 
 Harriet Beecher s delight in, 27. 
 Sturge, Joseph, Mrs. Stowe the guest of, 
 
 191. 
 Sutherland, Duchess of, true to cause of 
 
 freedom, 160 ; letter to, regarding the 
 
 " Key," 171 ; Mrs. Stowe meets, 193 ; 
 
 warm friendship for Mrs. Stowe, 200 ; 
 
 Mrs. Stowe visits at Dunrobin, 216 ff . 
 Switzerland, Mrs. Stowe in, 203. 
 Sykes, Mrs., see May, Georgiana. 
 Sympathy with humanity, Mrs. Stowe s 
 
 literary stimulant, 300. 
 
 Tallahassee gives Mrs. Stowe a warm 
 welcome, 337. 
 
 Theocracy founded by Puritans in Mas 
 sachusetts, 56 ; reaction, 56 f . 
 
 Thought, intense emotional, "a dis 
 ease " with Harriet Beecher, 81. 
 
 Tilton, Theodore, his part in the Henry 
 Ward Beecher scandal, 352. 
 
 "Times," London, opinion of "Dred, 1 
 221 ; misinformed on American sub 
 jects, 235. 
 
 Titcomb, John, ingenious cooper, 126 ff. 
 
 Tory, Mrs. Foote a, 21. 
 
 Trevelyan, Sir Charles, Mrs. Stowe 
 breakfasts with, 197. 
 
 Triqueti, Baron de, at Belloc s studio, 
 202; Mrs. Stowe at birthday party, 
 228. 
 
 Tyler, Eliza, see Stowe, Eliza Tyler. 
 
 Typhoid fever, among students of semi 
 nary, 108. 
 
 " Uncle Tom s Cabin," first chapter sent 
 to the " Era," 133 ; last chapter, 136 ; 
 in book form, 137 ; immediate success, 
 137 ; Jenny Lind, 140 ; Rhodes s His 
 tory, 140 ; Mrs. Stowe s account of its 
 writing, 141 ff. ; Mrs. Howard s ac 
 count, 163 ff. ; disagreement of the 
 two accounts, 165 ; dramatization, 178 ; 
 profits, 178 ; opinion of " North Amer 
 ican Review," 209; French enjoy it, 
 229 ; a work of genius, 251 ; Mrs. Stowe 
 preparing for, from birth, 295 ; writ 
 ten by inspiration, 163, 377. 
 
406 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Unitarians, dominant in Massachusetts, 
 
 57. 
 Upham, Mrs., friend of Mrs. Stowe s in 
 
 Brunswick, 123, 128, 245. 
 
 Van Zandt, Kentucky farmer, punished 
 for protecting fugitive slaves, 145 ; 
 Salmon P. Chase defends him, 145. 
 
 Victoria, Queen, refuses to act against 
 Northern States, 160; interested in 
 "Dred," 219, 222, 226; Mrs. Stowe 
 sees, 226. 
 
 Walnut Hills, charming drive from Cin 
 cinnati, 80 ; home at, 86 ff. 
 Ward, General Andrew, 5. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, his seventh of March 
 
 speech, 130. 
 Weld, Theodore D., a student in Lane 
 
 Seminary, 94. 
 Wesselhoeft, Dr., Mrs. Stowe a patient 
 
 in his water-cure, 112. 
 "Western Magazine, The," pays Har. 
 
 riet Beecher fifty dollars for her first 
 
 story, 82; satirical essay on modern 
 
 uses of language, 83. 
 Whales as minister s salary, 7. 
 Wigham, Mrs. letter to, 212. 
 Windsor, Mrs. Stowe visits, 197. 
 Wolcott, Oliver, Jr. friend of Lyman 
 
 Beecher, 8. 
 Wright, N., talks of revolution, 95. 
 
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