Now, to-day, for example, I'll tell you what I had

on my mind from dawn to dewy eve. In the first place

I waked about half after four and thought, "Bless

me, how light it is! I must get out of bed and rap

to wake up Mina, for breakfast must be had at six

o'clock this morning." So out of bed I jump and seize

the tongs and pound, pound, pound over poor Mina's

sleepy head, charitably allowing her about half an

hour to get waked up in,--that being the quantum of

time that it takes me,--or used to. Well, then baby

wakes--quâ, quâ, quâ, so I give him his breakfast,

dozing meanwhile and soliloquizing as follows: "Now I

must not forget to tell Mr. Stowe about the starch and

dried apples"--doze--"ah, um, dear me! why doesn't Mina

get up? I don't hear her,"--doze--"a, um,--I wonder if

Mina has soap enough! I think there were two bars left

on Saturday"--doze again--I wake again. "Dear me, broad

daylight! I must get up and go down and see if Mina is

getting breakfast." Up I jump and up wakes baby. "Now,

little boy, be good and let mother dress, because she

is in a hurry." I get my frock half on and baby by

that time has kicked himself down off his pillow, and

is crying and fisting the bed-clothes in great order. I

stop with one sleeve off and one on to settle matters

with him. Having planted him bolt upright and gone all

up and down the chamber barefoot to get pillows and

blankets to prop him up, I finish putting my frock on

and hurry down to satisfy myself by actual observation

that the breakfast is in progress. Then back I come

into the nursery, where, remembering that it is washing

day and that there is a great deal of work to be done,

I apply myself vigorously to sweeping, dusting, and the

setting to rights so necessary where there are three

little mischiefs always pulling down as fast as one can

put up.

Then there are Miss H---- and Miss E----, concerning

whom Mary will furnish you with all suitable

particulars, who are chattering, hallooing, or singing

at the tops of their voices, as may suit their various

states of mind, while the nurse is getting their

breakfast ready. This meal being cleared away, Mr.

Stowe dispatched to market with various memoranda

of provisions, etc., and the baby being washed and

dressed, I begin to think what next must be done.

I start to cut out some little dresses, have just

calculated the length and got one breadth torn off when

Master Henry makes a doleful lip and falls to crying

with might and main. I catch him up and turning round

see one of his sisters flourishing the things out of

my workbox in fine style. Moving it away and looking

the other side I see the second little mischief seated

by the hearth chewing coals and scraping up ashes with

great apparent relish. Grandmother lays hold upon her

and charitably offers to endeavor to quiet baby while

I go on with my work. I set at it again, pick up a

dozen pieces, measure them once more to see which is

the right one, and proceed to cut out some others, when

I see the twins on the point of quarreling with each

other. Number one pushes number two over. Number two

screams: that frightens the baby and he joins in. I

call number one a naughty girl, take the persecuted one

in my arms, and endeavor to comfort her by trotting to

the old lyric:--

"So ride the gentlefolk,

And so do we, so do we."

Meanwhile number one makes her way to the slop jar and

forthwith proceeds to wash her apron in it. Grandmother

catches her by one shoulder, drags her away, and sets

the jar up out of her reach. By and by the nurse comes

up from her sweeping. I commit the children to her, and

finish cutting out the frocks.

But let this suffice, for of such details as these are

all my days made up. Indeed, my dear, I am but a mere

drudge with few ideas beyond babies and housekeeping.

As for thoughts, reflections, and sentiments, good

lack! good lack!

I suppose I am a dolefully uninteresting person at

present, but I hope I shall grow young again one of

these days, for it seems to me that matters cannot

always stand exactly as they do now.

Well, Georgy, this marriage is--yes, I will speak well

of it, after all; for when I can stop and think long

enough to discriminate my head from my heels, I must

say that I think myself a fortunate woman both in

husband and children. My children I would not change

for all the ease, leisure, and pleasure that I could

have without them. They are money on interest whose

value will be constantly increasing.

In 1839 Mrs. Stowe received into her family as a servant a colored

girl from Kentucky. By the laws of Ohio she was free, having been

brought into the State and left there by her mistress. In spite of

this, Professor Stowe received word, after she had lived with them some

months, that the girl's master was in the city looking for her, and

that if she were not careful she would be seized and conveyed back into

slavery. Finding that this could be accomplished by boldness, perjury,

and the connivance of some unscrupulous justice, Professor Stowe

determined to remove the girl to some place of security where she might

remain until the search for her should be given up. Accordingly he and

his brother-in-law, Henry Ward Beecher, both armed, drove the fugitive,

in a covered wagon, at night, by unfrequented roads, twelve miles back

into the country, and left her in safety with the family of old John

Van Zandt, the fugitive's friend.

It is from this incident of real life and personal experience that Mrs.

Stowe conceived the thrilling episode of the fugitives' escape from Tom

Loker and Marks in "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

An amusing and at the same time most interesting account of her

struggles to accomplish literary work amid her distracting domestic

duties at this time is furnished by the letter of one of her intimate

friends, who writes:--

"It was my good fortune to number Mrs. Stowe among my friends, and

during a visit to her I had an opportunity one day of witnessing the

combined exercise of her literary and domestic genius in a style that

to me was quite amusing.

"'Come Harriet,' said I, as I found her tending one baby and watching

two others just able to walk, 'where is that piece for the "Souvenir"

which I promised the editor I would get from you and send on next week?

You have only this one day left to finish it, and have it I must.'

"'And how will you get it, friend of mine?' said Harriet. 'You will

at least have to wait till I get house-cleaning over and baby's teeth

through.'

"'As to house-cleaning, you can defer it one day longer; and as to

baby's teeth, there is to be no end to them, as I can see. No, no;

to-day that story must be ended. There Frederick has been sitting by

Ellen and saying all those pretty things for more than a month now, and

she has been turning and blushing till I am sure it is time to go to

her relief. Come, it would not take you three hours at the rate you can

write to finish the courtship, marriage, catastrophe, éclaircissement,

and all; and this three hours' labor of your brains will earn enough to

pay for all the sewing your fingers could do for a year to come. Two

dollars a page, my dear, and you can write a page in fifteen minutes!

Come, then, my lady housekeeper, economy is a cardinal virtue; consider

the economy of the thing.'

"'But, my dear, here is a baby in my arms and two little pussies by

my side, and there is a great baking down in the kitchen, and there

is a "new girl" for "help," besides preparations to be made for

house-cleaning next week. It is really out of the question, you see.'

"'I see no such thing. I do not know what genius is given for, if it

is not to help a woman out of a scrape. Come, set your wits to work,

let me have my way, and you shall have all the work done and finish the

story too.'

"'Well, but kitchen affairs?'

"'We can manage them too. You know you can write anywhere and anyhow.

Just take your seat at the kitchen table with your writing weapons, and

while you superintend Mina fill up the odd snatches of time with the

labors of your pen.'

"I carried my point. In ten minutes she was seated; a table with flour,

rolling-pin, ginger, and lard on one side, a dresser with eggs, pork,

and beans and various cooking utensils on the other, near her an oven

heating, and beside her a dark-skinned nymph, waiting orders.

"'Here, Harriet,' said I, 'you can write on this atlas in your lap; no

matter how the writing looks, I will copy it.'

"'Well, well,' said she, with a resigned sort of amused look. 'Mina,

you may do what I told you, while I write a few minutes, till it is

time to mould up the bread. Where is the inkstand?'

"'Here it is, close by, on the top of the tea-kettle,' said I.

"At this Mina giggled, and we both laughed to see her merriment at our

literary proceedings.

"I began to overhaul the portfolio to find the right sheet.

"'Here it is,' said I. 'Here is Frederick sitting by Ellen, glancing at

her brilliant face, and saying something about "guardian angel," and

all that--you remember?'

"'Yes, yes,' said she, falling into a muse, as she attempted to recover

the thread of her story.

"'Ma'am, shall I put the pork on the top of the beans?' asked Mina.

"'Come, come,' said Harriet, laughing. 'You see how it is. Mina is a

new hand and cannot do anything without me to direct her. We must give

up the writing for to-day.'

"'No, no; let us have another trial. You can dictate as easily as you

can write. Come, I can set the baby in this clothes-basket and give him

some mischief or other to keep him quiet; you shall dictate and I will

write. Now, this is the place where you left off: you were describing

the scene between Ellen and her lover; the last sentence was, "Borne

down by the tide of agony, she leaned her head on her hands, the tears

streamed through her fingers, and her whole frame shook with convulsive

sobs." What shall I write next?'

"'Mina, pour a little milk into this pearlash,' said Harriet.

"'Come,' said I. '"The tears streamed through her fingers and her whole

frame shook with convulsive sobs." What next?'

"Harriet paused and looked musingly out of the window, as she turned

her mind to her story. 'You may write now,' said she, and she dictated

as follows:

"'"Her lover wept with her, nor dared he again to touch the point so

sacredly guarded"--Mina, roll that crust a little thinner. "He spoke in

soothing tones"--Mina, poke the coals in the oven.'

"'Here,' said I, 'let me direct Mina about these matters, and write a

while yourself.'

"Harriet took the pen and patiently set herself to the work. For

a while my culinary knowledge and skill were proof to all Mina's

investigating inquiries, and they did not fail till I saw two pages

completed.

"'You have done bravely,' said I, as I read over the manuscript; 'now

you must direct Mina a while. Meanwhile dictate and I will write.'

"Never was there a more docile literary lady than my friend. Without a

word of objection she followed my request.

"'I am ready to write,' said I. 'The last sentence was: "What is this

life to one who has suffered as I have?" What next?'

"'Shall I put in the brown or the white bread first?' said Mina.

"'The brown first,' said Harriet.

"'"What is this life to one who has suffered as I have?"' said I.

"Harriet brushed the flour off her apron and sat down for a moment in a

muse. Then she dictated as follows:--

"'"Under the breaking of my heart I have borne up. I have borne up

under all that tries a woman,--but this thought,--oh, Henry!"'

"'Ma'am, shall I put ginger into this pumpkin?' queried Mina.

"'No, you may let that alone just now,' replied Harriet. She then

proceeded:--

"'"I know my duty to my children. I see the hour must come. You must

take them, Henry; they are my last earthly comfort."'

"'Ma'am, what shall I do with these egg-shells and all this truck

here?' interrupted Mina.

"'Put them in the pail by you,' answered Harriet.

"'"They are my last earthly comfort,"' said I. 'What next?'

"She continued to dictate,--

"'"You must take them away. It may be--perhaps it _must_ be--that I

shall soon follow, but the breaking heart of a wife still pleads, 'a

little longer, a little longer.'"'

"'How much longer must the gingerbread stay in?' inquired Mina.

"'Five minutes,' said Harriet.

"'"A little longer, a little longer,"' I repeated in a dolorous tone,

and we burst into a laugh.

"Thus we went on, cooking, writing, nursing, and laughing, till I

finally accomplished my object. The piece was finished, copied, and the

next day sent to the editor."

The widely scattered members of the Beecher family had a fashion of

communicating with each other by means of circular letters. These,

begun on great sheets of paper, at either end of the line, were passed

along from one to another, each one adding his or her budget of news

to the general stock. When the filled sheet reached the last person

for whom it was intended, it was finally remailed to its point of

departure. Except in the cases of Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Perkins, the

simple address "Rev. Mr. Beecher" was sufficient to insure its safe

delivery in any town to which it was sent.

One of these great, closely-written sheets, bearing in faded ink the

names of all the Beechers, lies outspread before us as we write. It

is postmarked Hartford, Conn., Batavia, N. Y., Chillicothe, Ohio,

Zanesville, Ohio, Walnut Hills, Ohio, Indianapolis, Ind., Jacksonville,

Ill., and New Orleans, La. In it Mrs. Stowe occupies her allotted space

with--

WALNUT HILLS, _April 27, 1839._

DEAR FRIENDS,--I am going to Hartford myself, and

therefore shall not write, but hurry along the

preparations for my forward journey. Belle, father says

you may go to the White Mountains with Mr. Stowe and me

this summer. George, we may look in on you coming back.

Good-by.

Affectionately to all, H. E. STOWE.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] A ridiculous book from which Mr. Stowe derived endless amusement.

[3] Salmon P. Chase.

CHAPTER V.

POVERTY AND SICKNESS, 1840-1850.

FAMINE IN CINCINNATI.--SUMMER AT THE EAST.--PLANS

FOR LITERARY WORK.--EXPERIENCE ON A RAILROAD.--DEATH

OF HER BROTHER GEORGE.--SICKNESS AND DESPAIR.--A

JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF HEALTH.--GOES TO BRATTLEBORO'

WATERCURE.--TROUBLES AT LANE SEMINARY.--CHOLERA IN

CINCINNATI.--DEATH OF YOUNGEST CHILD.--DETERMINED TO

LEAVE THE WEST.

ON January 7, 1839, Professor Stowe wrote to his mother in Natick,

Mass.: "You left here, I believe, in the right time, for as there has

been no navigation on the Ohio River for a year, we are almost in a

state of famine as to many of the necessities of life. For example,

salt (coarse) has sold in Cincinnati this winter for three dollars a

bushel; rice eighteen cents a pound; coffee fifty cents a pound; white

sugar the same; brown sugar twenty cents; molasses a dollar a gallon;

potatoes a dollar a bushel. We do without such things mostly; as there

is yet plenty of bread and bacon (flour six and seven dollars a barrel,

and good pork from six to eight cents a pound) we get along very

comfortably.

"Our new house is pretty much as it was, but they say it will be

finished in July. I expect to visit you next summer, as I shall deliver

the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Dartmouth College; but whether wife and

children come with me or not is not yet decided."

Mrs. Stowe came on to the East with her husband and children during

the following summer, and before her return made a trip through the

White Mountains.

In May, 1840, her second son was born and named Frederick William,

after the sturdy Prussian king, for whom her husband cherished an

unbounded admiration.

Mrs. Stowe has said somewhere: "So we go, dear reader, so long as we

have a body and a soul. For worlds must mingle,--the great and the

little, the solemn and the trivial, wreathing in and out like the

grotesque carvings on a gothic shrine; only did we know it rightly,

nothing is trivial, since the human soul, with its awful shadow, makes

all things sacred." So in writing a biography it is impossible for us

to tell what did and what did not powerfully influence the character.

It is safer simply to tell the unvarnished truth. The lily builds up

its texture of delicate beauty from mould and decay. So how do we know

from what humble material a soul grows in strength and beauty!

In December, 1840, writing to Miss May, Mrs. Stowe says:--

"For a year I have held the pen only to write an occasional business

letter such as could not be neglected. This was primarily owing to a

severe neuralgic complaint that settled in my eyes, and for two months

not only made it impossible for me to use them in writing, but to fix

them with attention on anything. I could not even bear the least light

of day in my room. Then my dear little Frederick was born, and for two

months more I was confined to my bed. Besides all this, we have had an

unusual amount of sickness in our family....

"For all that my history of the past year records so many troubles, I

cannot on the whole regard it as a very troublous one. I have had so

many counterbalancing mercies that I must regard myself as a person

greatly blessed. It is true that about six months out of the twelve I

have been laid up with sickness, but then I have had every comfort and

the kindest of nurses in my faithful Anna. My children have thriven,

and on the whole 'come to more,' as the Yankees say, than the care of

them. Thus you see my troubles have been but enough to keep me from

loving earth too well."

In the spring of 1842 Mrs. Stowe again visited Hartford, taking her

six-year-old daughter Hatty with her. In writing from there to her

husband she confides some of her literary plans and aspirations to him,

and he answers:--

"My dear, you must be a literary woman. It is so written in the book

of fate. Make all your calculations accordingly. Get a good stock of

health and brush up your mind. Drop the E. out of your name. It only

incumbers it and interferes with the flow and euphony. Write yourself

fully and always Harriet Beecher Stowe, which is a name euphonious,

flowing, and full of meaning. Then my word for it, your husband will

lift up his head in the gate, and your children will rise up and call

you blessed.

"Our humble dwelling has to-day received a distinguished honor of which

I must give you an account. It was a visit from his excellency the

Baron de Roenne, ambassador of his majesty the King of Prussia to the

United States. He was pleased to assure me of the great satisfaction

my report on Prussian schools had afforded the king and members of

his court, with much more to the same effect. Of course having a real

live lord to exhibit, I was anxious for some one to exhibit him to; but

neither Aunt Esther nor Anna dared venture near the study, though they

both contrived to get a peep at his lordship from the little chamber

window as he was leaving.

"And now, my dear wife, I want you to come home as quick as you can.

The fact is I cannot live without you, and if we were not so prodigious

poor I would come for you at once. There is no woman like you in this

wide world. Who else has so much talent with so little self-conceit;

so much reputation with so little affectation; so much literature with

so little nonsense; so much enterprise with so little extravagance;

so much tongue with so little scold; so much sweetness with so little

softness; so much of so many things and so little of so many other

things?"

In answer to this letter Mrs. Stowe writes from Hartford:--

"I have seen Johnson of the 'Evangelist.' He is very liberally

disposed, and I may safely reckon on being paid for all I do there. Who

is that Hale, Jr., that sent me the 'Boston Miscellany,' and will he

keep his word with me? His offers are very liberal,--twenty dollars for

three pages, not very close print. Is he to be depended on? If so, it

is the best offer I have received yet. I shall get something from the

Harpers some time this winter or spring. Robertson, the publisher here,

says the book ('The Mayflower') will sell, and though the terms they

offer me are very low, that I shall make something on it. For a second

volume I shall be able to make better terms. On the whole, my dear, if

I choose to be a literary lady, I have, I think, as good a chance of

making profit by it as any one I know of. But with all this, I have my

doubts whether I shall be able to do so.

"Our children are just coming to the age when everything depends on my

efforts. They are delicate in health, and nervous and excitable, and

need a mother's whole attention. Can I lawfully divide my attention by

literary efforts?

"There is one thing I must suggest. If I am to write, I must have a

room to myself, which shall be _my_ room. I have in my own mind pitched

on Mrs. Whipple's room. I can put the stove in it. I have bought a

cheap carpet for it, and I have furniture enough at home to furnish it

comfortably, and I only beg in addition that you will let me change the

glass door from the nursery into that room and keep my plants there,

and then I shall be quite happy.

"All last winter I felt the need of some place where I could go and be

quiet and satisfied. I could not there, for there was all the setting

of tables, and clearing up of tables, and dressing and washing of

children, and everything else going on, and the constant falling of

soot and coal dust on everything in the room was a constant annoyance

to me, and I never felt comfortable there though I tried hard. Then if

I came into the parlor where you were I felt as if I were interrupting

you, and you know you sometimes thought so too.

"Now this winter let the cooking-stove be put into that room, and let

the pipe run up through the floor into the room above. We can eat by

our cooking-stove, and the children can be washed and dressed and keep

their playthings in the room above, and play there when we don't want

them below. You can study by the parlor fire, and I and my plants,

etc., will take the other room. I shall keep my work and all my things

there and feel settled and quiet. I intend to have a regular part of

each day devoted to the children, and then I shall take them in there."

In his reply to this letter Professor Stowe says:--

"The little magazine ('The Souvenir') goes ahead finely. Fisher sent

down to Fulton the other day and got sixty subscribers. He will make

the June number as handsome as possible, as a specimen number for the

students, several of whom will take agencies for it during the coming

vacation. You have it in your power by means of this little magazine

to form the mind of the West for the coming generation. It is just as

I told you in my last letter. God has written it in his book that you

must be a literary woman, and who are we that we should contend against

God? You must therefore make all your calculations to spend the rest of

your life with your pen.

"If you only could come home to-day how happy should I be. I am daily

finding out more and more (what I knew very well before) that you are

the most intelligent and agreeable woman in the whole circle of my

acquaintance."

That Professor Stowe's devoted admiration for his wife was

reciprocated, and that a most perfect sympathy of feeling existed

between the husband and wife, is shown by a line in one of Mrs.

Stowe's letters from Hartford in which she says: "I was telling

Belle yesterday that I did not know till I came away how much I was

dependent upon you for information. There are a thousand favorite

subjects on which I could talk with you better than with any one else.

If you were not already my dearly loved husband I should certainly fall

in love with you."

In this same letter she writes of herself:--

"One thing more in regard to myself. The absence and wandering of mind

and forgetfulness that so often vexes you is a physical infirmity

with me. It is the failing of a mind not calculated to endure a great

pressure of care, and so much do I feel the pressure I am under,

so much is my mind often darkened and troubled by care, that life

seriously considered holds out few allurements,--only my children.

"In returning to my family, from whom I have been so long separated,

I am impressed with a new and solemn feeling of responsibility. It

appears to me that I am not probably destined for long life; at all

events, the feeling is strongly impressed upon my mind that a work is

put into my hands which I must be earnest to finish shortly. It is

nothing great or brilliant in the world's eye; it lies in one small

family circle, of which I am called to be the central point."

On her way home from this Eastern visit Mrs. Stowe traveled for the

first time by rail, and of this novel experience she writes to Miss

Georgiana May:--

BATAVIA, _August 29, 1842._

Here I am at Brother William's, and our passage along

this railroad reminds me of the verse of the psalm:--

"Tho' lions roar and tempests blow,

And rocks and dangers fill the way."

Such confusion of tongues, such shouting and swearing,

such want of all sort of system and decency in

arrangements, I never desire to see again. I was

literally almost trodden down and torn to pieces in

the Rochester depot when I went to help my poor,

near-sighted spouse in sorting out the baggage. You

see there was an accident which happened to the cars

leaving Rochester that morning, which kept us two

hours and a half at the passing place this side of

Auburn, waiting for them to come up and go by us.

The consequence was that we got into this Rochester

depot aforesaid after dark, and the steamboat, the

canal-boat, and the Western train of cars had all been

kept waiting three hours beyond their usual time,

and they all broke loose upon us the moment we put

our heads out of the cars, and such a jerking, and

elbowing, and scuffling, and swearing, and protesting,

and scolding you never heard, while the great

locomotive sailed up and down in the midst thereof,

spitting fire and smoke like some great fiend monster

diverting himself with our commotions. I do think

these steam concerns border a little too much on the

supernatural to be agreeable, especially when you are

shut up in a great dark depot after sundown.

Well, after all, we had to ride till twelve o'clock at

night to get to Batavia, and I've been sick abed, so to

speak, ever since.

The winter of 1842 was one of peculiar trial to the family at Walnut

Hills; as Mrs. Stowe writes, "It was a season of sickness and gloom."

Typhoid fever raged among the students of the seminary, and the house

of the president was converted into a hospital, while the members of

his family were obliged to devote themselves to nursing the sick and

dying.

July 6, 1843, a few weeks before the birth of her third daughter,

Georgiana May, a most terrible and overwhelming sorrow came on Mrs.

Stowe, in common with all the family, in the sudden death of her

brother, the Rev. George Beecher.

He was a young man of unusual talent and ability, and much loved by his

church and congregation. The circumstances of his death are related

in a letter written by Mrs. Stowe, and are as follows: "Noticing the

birds destroying his fruit and injuring his plants, he went for a

double-barreled gun, which he scarcely ever had used, out of regard to

the timidity and anxiety of his wife in reference to it. Shortly after

he left the house, one of the elders of his church in passing saw him

discharge one barrel at the birds. Soon after he heard the fatal report

and saw the smoke, but the trees shut out the rest from sight.... In

about half an hour after, the family assembled at breakfast, and the

servant was sent out to call him.... In a few minutes she returned,

exclaiming, 'Oh, Mr. Beecher is dead! Mr. Beecher is dead!'... In a

short time a visitor in the family, assisted by a passing laborer,

raised him up and bore him to the house. His face was pale and but

slightly marred, his eyes were closed, and over his countenance rested

the sweet expression of peaceful slumber.... Then followed the hurried

preparations for the funeral and journey, until three o'clock, when,

all arrangements being made, he was borne from his newly finished

house, through his blooming garden, to the new church, planned and

just completed under his directing eye.... The sermon and the prayers

were finished, the choir he himself had trained sung their parting

hymn, and at about five the funeral train started for a journey of over

seventy miles. That night will stand alone in the memories of those who

witnessed its scenes!

"At ten in the evening heavy clouds gathered lowering behind, and

finally rose so as nearly to cover the hemisphere, sending forth

mutterings of thunder and constant flashes of lightning.

"The excessive heat of the weather, the darkness of the night, the

solitary road, the flaring of the lamps and lanterns, the flashes of

the lightning, the roll of approaching thunder, the fear of being

overtaken in an unfrequented place and the lights extinguished by the

rain, the sad events of the day, the cries of the infant boy sick with

the heat and bewailing the father who ever before had soothed his

griefs, all combined to awaken the deepest emotions of the sorrowful,

the awful, and the sublime....

"And so it is at last; there must come a time when all that the most

heart-broken, idolizing love can give us is a coffin and a grave! All

that could be done for our brother, with all his means and all the

affection of his people and friends, was just this, no more! After all,

the deepest and most powerful argument for the religion of Christ is

its power in times like this. Take from us Christ and what He taught,

and what have we here? What confusion, what agony, what dismay, what

wreck and waste! But give Him to us, even the most stricken heart can

rise under the blow; yea, even triumph!

"'Thy brother shall rise again,' said Jesus; and to us who weep

He speaks: 'Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are made partakers of Christ's

sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye also may be glad

with exceeding joy!'"

The advent of Mrs. Stowe's third daughter was followed by a protracted

illness and a struggle with great poverty, of which Mrs. Stowe writes

in October, 1843:--

"Our straits for money this year are unparalleled even in our annals.

Even our bright and cheery neighbor Allen begins to look blue, and

says $600 is the very most we can hope to collect of our salary,

once $1,200. We have a flock of entirely destitute young men in the

seminary, as poor in money as they are rich in mental and spiritual

resources. They promise to be as fine a band as those we have just sent

off. We have two from Iowa and Wisconsin who were actually crowded from

secular pursuits into the ministry by the wants of the people about

them. Revivals began, and the people came to them saying, 'We have no

minister, and you must preach to us, for you know more than we do.'"

In the spring of 1844 Professor Stowe visited the East to arouse

an interest in the struggling seminary and raise funds for its

maintenance. While he was there he received the following letter from

Mrs. Stowe:--

"I am already half sick with confinement to the house and overwork.

If I should sew every day for a month to come I should not be able to

accomplish a half of what is to be done, and should be only more unfit

for my other duties."

This struggle against ill-health and poverty was continued through

that year and well into the next, when, during her husband's absence to

attend a ministerial convention at Detroit, Mrs. Stowe writes to him:--

_June 16, 1845._

MY DEAR HUSBAND,--It is a dark, sloppy, rainy, muddy,

disagreeable day, and I have been working hard (for

me) all day in the kitchen, washing dishes, looking

into closets, and seeing a great deal of that dark

side of domestic life which a housekeeper may who will

investigate too curiously into minutiæ in warm, damp

weather, especially after a girl who keeps all clean

on the _outside_ of cup and platter, and is very apt

to make good the rest of the text in the _inside_ of

things.

I am sick of the smell of sour milk, and sour meat, and

sour everything, and then the clothes _will_ not dry,

and no wet thing does, and everything smells mouldy;

and altogether I feel as if I never wanted to eat again.

Your letter, which was neither sour nor mouldy, formed

a very agreeable contrast to all these things; the

more so for being unexpected. I am much obliged to

you for it. As to my health, it gives me very little

solicitude, although I am bad enough and daily growing

worse. I feel no life, no energy, no appetite, or

rather a growing distaste for food; in fact, I am

becoming quite ethereal. Upon reflection I perceive

that it pleases my Father to keep me in the fire,

for my whole situation is excessively harassing and

painful. I suffer with sensible distress in the brain,

as I have done more or less since my sickness last

winter, a distress which some days takes from me all

power of planning or executing anything; and you know

that, except this poor head, my unfortunate household

has no mainspring, for nobody feels any kind of

responsibility to do a thing in time, place, or manner,

except as I oversee it.

Georgiana is so excessively weak, nervous, cross, and

fretful, night and day, that she takes all Anna's

strength and time with her; and then the children are,

like other little sons and daughters of Adam, full of

all kinds of absurdity and folly.

When the brain gives out, as mine often does, and one

cannot think or remember anything, then what is to be

done? All common fatigue, sickness, and exhaustion is

nothing to this distress. Yet do I rejoice in my God

and know in whom I believe, and only pray that the

fire may consume the dross; as to the gold, that is

imperishable. No real evil can happen to me, so I fear

nothing for the future, and only suffer in the present

tense.

God, the mighty God, is mine, of that I am sure, and I

know He knows that though flesh and heart fail, I am

all the while desiring and trying for his will alone.

As to a journey, I need not ask a physician to see that

it is needful to me as far as health is concerned, that

is to say, all human appearances are that way, but I

feel no particular choice about it. If God wills I

go. He can easily find means. Money, I suppose, is as

plenty with Him now as it always has been, and if He

sees it is really best He will doubtless help me.

That the necessary funds were provided is evident from the fact that

the journey was undertaken and the invalid spent the summer of 1845 in

Hartford, in Natick, and in Boston. She was not, however, permanently

benefited by the change, and in the following spring it was deemed

necessary to take more radical measures to arrest the progress of her

increasing debility. After many consultations and much correspondence

it was finally decided that she should go to Dr. Wesselhoeft's

watercure establishment at Brattleboro', Vt.

At this time, under date of March, 1846, she writes:

"For all I have had trouble I can think of nothing but the greatness

and richness of God's mercy to me in giving me such friends, and in

always caring for us in every strait. There has been no day this winter

when I have not had abundant reason to see this. Some friend has always

stepped in to cheer and help, so that I have wanted for nothing. My

husband has developed wonderfully as house-father and nurse. You would

laugh to see him in his spectacles gravely marching the little troop in

their nightgowns up to bed, tagging after them, as he says, like an old

hen after a flock of ducks. The money for my journey has been sent in

from an unknown hand in a wonderful manner. All this shows the care of

our Father, and encourages me to rejoice and to hope in Him."

A few days after her departure Professor Stowe wrote to his wife:--

"I was greatly comforted by your brief letter from Pittsburgh. When

I returned from the steamer the morning you left I found in the

post-office a letter from Mrs. G. W. Bull of New York, inclosing $50 on

account of the sickness in my family. There was another inclosing $50

more from a Mrs. Devereaux of Raleigh, N. C., besides some smaller sums

from others. My heart went out to God in aspiration and gratitude.

None of the donors, so far as I know, have I ever seen or heard of

before.

"Henry and I have been living in a Robinson Crusoe and man Friday sort

of style, greatly to our satisfaction, ever since you went away."

Mrs. Stowe was accompanied to Brattleboro' by her sisters, Catherine

and Mary, who were also suffering from troubles that they felt might be

relieved by hydropathic treatment.

From May, 1846, until March, 1847, she remained at Brattleboro' without

seeing her husband or children. During these weary months her happiest

days were those upon which she received letters from home.

The following extracts, taken from letters written by her during this

period, are of value, as revealing what it is possible to know of her

habits of thought and mode of life at this time.

BRATTLEBORO', _September, 1846._

MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I have been thinking of all your

trials, and I really pity you in having such a wife. I

feel as if I had been only a hindrance to you instead

of a help, and most earnestly and daily do I pray to

God to restore my health that I may do something for

you and my family. I think if I were only at home I

could at least sweep and dust, and wash potatoes, and

cook a little, and talk some to my children, and should

be doing something for my family. But the hope of

getting better buoys me up. I go through these tedious

and wearisome baths and bear that terrible douche

thinking of my children. They never will know how I

love them....

There is great truth and good sense in your analysis

of the cause of our past failures. We have now come

to a sort of crisis. If you and I do as we should for

_five years_ to come the character of our three oldest

children will be established. This is why I am willing

to spend so much time and make such efforts to have

health. Oh, that God would give me these five years in

full possession of mind and body, that I may train my

children as they should be trained. I am fully aware

of the importance of system and order in a family. I

know that nothing can be done without it; it is the

keystone, the _sine quâ non_, and in regard to my

children I place it next to piety. At the same time it

is true that both Anna[4] and I labor under serious

natural disadvantages on this subject. It is not all

that is necessary to feel the importance of order and

system, but it requires a particular kind of talent to

carry it through a family. Very much the same kind of

talent, as Uncle Samuel said, which is necessary to

make a good prime minister....

I think you might make an excellent sermon to

Christians on the care of health, in consideration

of the various infirmities and impediments to the

developing the results of religion, that result from

bodily ill health, and I wish you would make one that

your own mind may be more vividly impressed with it.

The world is too much in a hurry. Ministers think there

is no way to serve Christ but to overdraw on their

physical capital for four or five years for Christ and

then have nothing to give, but become a mere burden on

his hands for the next five....

_November 18._ "The daily course I go through

presupposes a degree of vigor beyond anything I ever

had before. For this week, I have gone before breakfast

to the wave-bath and let all the waves and billows roll

over me till every limb ached with cold and my hands

would scarcely have feeling enough to dress me. After

that I have walked till I was warm, and come home to

breakfast with such an appetite! Brown bread and milk

are luxuries indeed, and the only fear is that I may

eat too much. At eleven comes my douche, to which I

have walked in a driving rain for the last two days,

and after it walked in the rain again till I was warm.

(The umbrella you gave me at Natick answers finely, as

well as if it were a silk one.) After dinner I roll

ninepins or walk till four, then sitz-bath, and another

walk till six.

"I am anxious for your health; do be persuaded to

try a long walk before breakfast. You don't know how

much good it will do you. Don't sit in your hot study

without any ventilation, a stove burning up all the

vitality of the air and weakening your nerves, and

above all, do _amuse_ yourself. Go to Dr. Mussey's

and spend an evening, and to father's and Professor

Allen's. When you feel worried go off somewhere and

forget and throw it off. I should really rejoice to

hear that you and father and mother, with Professor

and Mrs. Allen, Mrs. K., and a few others of the same

calibre would agree to meet together for dancing

cotillons. It would do you all good, and if you took

Mr. K.'s wife and poor Miss Much-Afraid, her daughter,

into the alliance it would do them good. Bless me!

what a profane set everybody would think you were,

and yet you are the people of all the world most

solemnly in need of it. I wish you could be with me in

Brattleboro' and coast down hill on a sled, go sliding

and snowballing by moonlight! I would snowball every

bit of the _hypo_ out of you! Now, my dear, if you are

going to get sick, I am going to come home. There is no

use in my trying to get well if you, in the mean time,

are going to run yourself down."

_January, 1847._

My dear Soul,--I received your most melancholy

effusion, and I am sorry to find it's just so. I

entirely agree and sympathize. Why didn't you engage

the two tombstones--one for you and one for me?

[Illustration: Ding, dong! Dead and gone!]

I shall have to copy for your edification a "poem

on tombstones" which Kate put at Christmas into the

stocking of one of our most hypochondriac gentlemen,

who had pished and pshawed at his wife and us for

trying to get up a little fun. This poem was fronted

with the above vignette and embellished with sundry

similar ones, and tied with a long black ribbon. There

were only two cantos in very concise style, so I shall

send you them entire.

CANTO I.

In the kingdom of _Mortin_

I had the good fortin'

To find these verses

On tombs and on hearses,

Which I, being jinglish

Have done into English.

[Illustration]

CANTO II.

The man what's so colickish

When his friends are all frolickish

As to turn up his noses

And turn on his toses

Shall have only verses

On tombstones and hearses.

But, seriously, my dear husband, you must try and be

patient, for this cannot last forever. Be patient and

bear it like the toothache, or a driving rain, or

anything else that you cannot escape. To see things as

through a glass darkly is your infirmity, you know;

but the Lord will yet deliver you from this trial. I

know how to pity you, for the last three weeks I have

suffered from an overwhelming mental depression, a

perfect heartsickness. All I wanted was to get home and

die. Die I was very sure I should at any rate, but I

suppose I was never less prepared to do so.

The long exile was ended in the spring of 1847, and in May Mrs. Stowe

returned to her Cincinnati home, where she was welcomed with sincere

demonstrations of joy by her husband and children.

Her sixth child, Samuel Charles, was born in January of 1848, and

about this time her husband's health became so seriously impaired that

it was thought desirable for him in turn to spend a season at the

Brattleboro' water-cure. He went in June, 1848, and was compelled by

the very precarious state of his health to remain until September,

1849. During this period of more than a year Mrs. Stowe remained in

Cincinnati caring for her six children, eking out her slender income by

taking boarders and writing when she found time, confronting a terrible

epidemic of cholera that carried off one of her little flock, and in

every way showing herself to be a brave woman, possessed of a spirit

that could rise superior to all adversity. Concerning this time she

writes in January, 1849, to her dearest friend:--

MY BELOVED GEORGY,--For six months after my return from

Brattleboro' my eyes were so affected that I wrote

scarce any, and my health was in so strange a state

that I felt no disposition to write. After the birth of

little Charley my health improved, but my husband was

sick and I have been so loaded and burdened with cares

as to drain me dry of all capacity of thought, feeling,

memory, or emotion.

Well, Georgy, I am thirty-seven years old! I am glad

of it. I like to grow old and have six children and

cares endless. I wish you could see me with my flock

all around me. They sum up my cares, and were they gone

I should ask myself, What now remains to be done? They

are my work, over which I fear and tremble.

In the early summer of 1849 cholera broke out in Cincinnati, and soon

became epidemic. Professor Stowe, absent in Brattleboro', and filled

with anxiety for the safety of his family, was most anxious, in spite

of his feeble health, to return and share the danger with them, but

this his wife would not consent to, as is shown by her letters to him,

written at this time. In one of them, dated June 29, 1849, she says:--

MY DEAR HUSBAND,--This week has been unusually fatal.

The disease in the city has been malignant and

virulent. Hearse drivers have scarce been allowed to

unharness their horses, while furniture carts and

common vehicles are often employed for the removal of

the dead. The sable trains which pass our windows, the

frequent indications of crowding haste, and the absence

of reverent decency have, in many cases, been most

painful. Of course all these things, whether we will or

no, bring very doleful images to the mind.

On Tuesday one hundred and sixteen deaths from cholera

were reported, and that night the air was of that

peculiarly oppressive, deathly kind that seems to lie

like lead on the brain and soul.

As regards your coming home, I am decidedly opposed

to it. First, because the chance of your being taken

ill is just as great as the chance of your being able

to render us any help. To exchange the salubrious air

of Brattleboro' for the pestilent atmosphere of this

place with your system rendered sensitive by water-cure

treatment would be extremely dangerous. It is a source

of constant gratitude to me that neither you nor father

are exposed to the dangers here.

Second, none of us are sick, and it is very uncertain

whether we shall be.

Third, if we were sick there are so many of us that it

is not at all likely we shall all be taken at once.

_July 1._ Yesterday Mr. Stagg went to the city and

found all gloomy and discouraged, while a universal

panic seemed to be drawing nearer than ever before.

Large piles of coal were burning on the cross walks

and in the public squares, while those who had talked

confidently of the cholera being confined to the lower

classes and those who were imprudent began to feel as

did the magicians of old, "This is the finger of God."

Yesterday, upon the recommendation of all the clergymen

of the city, the mayor issued a proclamation for a day

of general fasting, humiliation, and prayer, to be

observed on Tuesday next.

_July 3._ We are all in good health and try to maintain

a calm and cheerful frame of mind. The doctors are

nearly used up. Dr. Bowen and Dr. Peck are sick in bed.

Dr. Potter and Dr. Pulte ought, I suppose, to be there

also. The younger physicians have no rest night or day.

Mr. Fisher is laid up from his incessant visitations

with the sick and dying. Our own Dr. Brown is likewise

prostrated, but we are all resolute to stand by each

other, and there are so many of us that it is not

likely we can all be taken sick together.

_July 4._ All well. The meeting yesterday was very

solemn and interesting. There is more or less sickness

about us, but no very dangerous cases. One hundred

and twenty burials from cholera alone yesterday, yet

to-day we see parties bent on pleasure or senseless

carousing, while to-morrow and next day will witness

a fresh harvest of death from them. How we can become

accustomed to anything! Awhile ago ten a day dying of

cholera struck terror to all hearts; but now the tide

has surged up gradually until the deaths average over

a hundred daily, and everybody is getting accustomed

to it. Gentlemen make themselves agreeable to ladies

by reciting the number of deaths in this house or

that. This together with talk of funerals, cholera

medicines, cholera dietetics, and chloride of lime form

the ordinary staple of conversation. Serious persons of

course throw in moral reflections to their taste.

_July 10._ Yesterday little Charley was taken ill, not

seriously, and at any other season I should not be

alarmed. Now, however, a slight illness seems like a

death sentence, and I will not dissemble that I feel

from the outset very little hope. I still think it best

that you should not return. By so doing you might lose

all you have gained. You might expose yourself to a

fatal incursion of disease. It is decidedly not your

duty to do so.

_July 12._ Yesterday I carried Charley to Dr. Pulte,

who spoke in such a manner as discouraged and

frightened me. He mentioned dropsy on the brain as

a possible result. I came home with a heavy heart,

sorrowing, desolate, and wishing my husband and father

were here.

About one o'clock this morning Miss Stewart suddenly

opened my door crying, "Mrs. Stowe, Henry is vomiting."

I was on my feet in an instant, and lifted up my heart

for help. He was, however, in a few minutes relieved.

Then I turned my attention to Charley, who was also

suffering, put him into a wet sheet, and kept him there

until he was in a profuse perspiration. He is evidently

getting better, and is auspiciously cross. Never was

crossness in a baby more admired. Anna and I have said

to each other exultingly a score of times, "How cross

the little fellow is! How he does scold!"

_July 15._ Since I last wrote our house has been a

perfect hospital. Charley apparently recovering, but

still weak and feeble, unable to walk or play, and

so miserably fretful and unhappy. Sunday Anna and

I were fairly stricken down, as many others are,

with no particular illness, but with such miserable

prostration. I lay on the bed all day reading my

hymn-book and thinking over passages of Scripture.

_July 17._ To-day we have been attending poor old Aunt

Frankie's[5] funeral. She died yesterday morning,

taken sick the day before while washing. Good, honest,

trustful old soul! She was truly one who hungered and

thirsted for righteousness.

Yesterday morning our poor little dog, Daisy, who had

been ailing the day before, was suddenly seized with

frightful spasms and died in half an hour. Poor little

affectionate thing! If I were half as good for my

nature as she for hers I should be much better than I

am. While we were all mourning over her the news came

that Aunt Frankie was breathing her last. Hatty, Eliza,

Anna, and I made her shroud yesterday, and this morning

I made her cap. We have just come from her grave.

_July 23._ At last, my dear, the hand of the Lord hath

touched us. We have been watching all day by the dying

bed of little Charley, who is gradually sinking. After

a partial recovery from the attack I described in my

last letter he continued for some days very feeble, but

still we hoped for recovery. About four days ago he was

taken with decided cholera, and now there is no hope of

his surviving this night.

Every kindness is shown us by the neighbors. Do not

return. All will be over before you could possibly get

here, and the epidemic is now said by the physicians

to prove fatal to every new case. Bear up. Let us not

faint when we are rebuked of Him. I dare not trust

myself to say more but shall write again soon.

_July 26._

MY DEAR HUSBAND,--At last it is over and our dear

little one is gone from us. He is now among the

blessed. My Charley--my beautiful, loving, gladsome

baby, so loving, so sweet, so full of life and hope

and strength--now lies shrouded, pale and cold, in the

room below. Never was he anything to me but a comfort.

He has been my pride and joy. Many a heartache has he

cured for me. Many an anxious night have I held him to

my bosom and felt the sorrow and loneliness pass out

of me with the touch of his little warm hands. Yet I

have just seen him in his death agony, looked on his

imploring face when I could not help nor soothe nor do

one thing, not one, to mitigate his cruel suffering,

do nothing but pray in my anguish that he might die

soon. I write as though there were no sorrow like my

sorrow, yet there has been in this city, as in the

land of Egypt, scarce a house without its dead. This

heart-break, this anguish, has been everywhere, and

when it will end God alone knows.

With this severest blow of all, the long years of trial and suffering

in the West practically end; for in September, 1849, Professor Stowe

returned from Brattleboro', and at the same time received a call to the

Collins Professorship at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, that he

decided to accept.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] The governess, Miss Anna Smith.

[5] An old colored woman.

CHAPTER VI.

REMOVAL TO BRUNSWICK, 1850-1852.

MRS. STOWE'S REMARKS ON WRITING AND UNDERSTANDING

BIOGRAPHY.--THEIR APPROPRIATENESS TO HER OWN

BIOGRAPHY.--REASONS FOR PROFESSOR STOWE'S LEAVING

CINCINNATI.--MRS. STOWE'S JOURNEY TO BROOKLYN.--HER

BROTHER'S SUCCESS AS A MINISTER.--LETTERS FROM HARTFORD

AND BOSTON.--ARRIVES IN BRUNSWICK.--HISTORY OF THE

SLAVERY AGITATION.--PRACTICAL WORKING OF THE FUGITIVE

SLAVE LAW.--MRS. EDWARD BEECHER'S LETTER TO MRS. STOWE

AND ITS EFFECT.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--BEGINS TO WRITE

"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AS A SERIAL FOR THE "NATIONAL

ERA."--LETTER TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS.--"UNCLE TOM'S

CABIN" A WORK OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION.

EARLY in the winter of 1849 Mrs. Stowe wrote in a private journal in

which she recorded thought and feeling concerning religious themes:

"It has been said that it takes a man to write the life of a man; that

is, there must be similarity of mind in the person who undertakes to

present the character of another. This is true, also, of reading and

understanding biography. A statesman and general would read the life of

Napoleon with the spirit and the understanding, while the commonplace

man plods through it as a task. The difference is that the one, being

of like mind and spirit with the subject of the biography, is able to

sympathize with him in all his thoughts and experiences, and the other

is not. The life of Henry Martyn would be tedious and unintelligible to

a mind like that of a Richelieu or a Mazarin. They never experienced

or saw or heard anything like it, and would be quite at a loss where

to place such a man in their mental categories. It is not strange,

therefore, that of all biography in the world that of Jesus Christ

should be least understood. It is an exception to all the world has

ever seen. 'The world knew Him not.' There is, to be sure, a simple

grandeur about the life of Jesus which awes almost every mind. The most

hardened scoffer, after he has jested and jeered at everything in the

temple of Christianity, stands for a moment uncovered and breathless

when he comes to the object of its adoration and feels how awful

goodness is, and Virtue in her shape how lovely. Yet, after all, the

character of the Christ has been looked at and not sympathized with.

Men have turned aside to see this great sight. Christians have fallen

in adoration, but very few have tried to enter into his sympathies and

to feel as He felt."

How little she dreamed that these words were to become profoundly

appropriate as a description of her own life in its relation to

mankind! How little the countless thousands who read, have read, and

will read, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" enter into or sympathize with the

feelings out of which it was written! A delicate, sensitive woman

struggling with poverty, with weary step and aching head attending

to the innumerable demands of a large family of growing children; a

devoted Christian seeking with strong crying and tears a kingdom not

of this world,--is this the popular conception of the author of "Uncle

Tom's Cabin"? Nevertheless it is the reality. When, amid the burning

ruins of a besieged city, a mother's voice is heard uttering a cry

of anguish over a child killed in her arms by a bursting shell, the

attention is arrested, the heart is touched. So "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was

a cry of anguish from a mother's heart, and uttered in sad sincerity.

It was the bursting forth of deep feeling, with all the intense anguish

of wounded love. It will be the purpose of this chapter to show this,

and to cause to pass before the reader's mind the time, the household,

and the heart from which this cry was heard.

After struggling for seventeen years with ill health and every possible

vexation and hindrance in his work, Professor Stowe became convinced

that it was his duty to himself and his family to seek some other field

of labor.

February 6, 1850, he writes to his mother, in Natick, Mass.: "My health

has not been good this winter, and I do not suppose that I should live

long were I to stay here. I have done a great deal of hard work here,

and practiced no little self-denial. I have seen the seminary carried

through a most vexatious series of lawsuits, ecclesiastical and civil,

and raised from the depths of poverty to comparative affluence, and I

feel at liberty now to leave. During the three months of June, July,

and August last, more than nine thousand persons died of cholera within

three miles of my house, and this winter, in the same territory, there

have been more than ten thousand cases of small-pox, many of them of

the very worst kind. Several have died on the hill, and the Jesuits'

college near us has been quite broken up by it. There have been,

however, no cases in our families or in the seminary.

"I have received many letters from friends in the East expressing

great gratification at the offer from Bowdoin College, and the hope

that I would accept it. I am quite inclined to do so, but the matter

is not yet finally settled, and there are difficulties in the way.

They can offer me only $1,000 a year, and I must, out of it, hire my

own house, at an expense of $75 to $100 a year. Here the trustees

offer me $1,500 a year if I will stay, and a good house besides, which

would make the whole salary equivalent to $1,800; and to-day I have

had another offer from New York city of $2,300.... On the whole, I

have written to Bowdoin College, proposing to them if they will give

me $500 free and clear in addition to the salary, I will accept their

proposition, and I suppose that there is no doubt that they will do it.

In that case I should come on next spring, in May or June."

This offer from Bowdoin College was additionally attractive to

Professor Stowe from the fact that it was the college from which he

graduated, and where some of the happiest years of his life had been

passed.

The professorship was one just established through the gift of Mrs.

Collins, a member of Bowdoin Street Church in Boston, and named in her

honor, the "Collins Professorship of Natural and Revealed Religion."

It was impossible for Professor Stowe to leave Lane Seminary till some

one could be found to take his place; so it was determined that Mrs.

Stowe, with three of the children, should start for the East in April,

and having established the family in Brunswick, Professor Stowe was to

come on with the remaining children when his engagements would permit.

The following extracts from a letter written by Mrs. Stowe at her

brother Henry's, at Brooklyn, April 29, 1850, show us that the journey

was accomplished without special incident.

[Illustration: Henry Ward Beecher]

"The boat got into Pittsburgh between four and five on Wednesday.

The agent for the Pennsylvania Canal came on board and soon filled

out our tickets, calling my three chicks one and a half. We had a

quiet and agreeable passage, and crossed the slides at five o'clock

in the morning, amid exclamations of unbounded delight from all the

children, to whom the mountain scenery was a new and amazing thing.

We reached Hollidaysburg about eleven o'clock, and at two o'clock in

the night were called up to get into the cars at Jacktown. Arriving at

Philadelphia about three o'clock in the afternoon, we took the boat and

railroad line for New York.

"At Lancaster we telegraphed to Brooklyn, and when we arrived in New

York, between ten and eleven at night, Cousin Augustus met us and

took us over to Brooklyn. We had ridden three hundred miles since two

o'clock that morning, and were very tired.... I am glad we came that

way, for the children have seen some of the finest scenery in our

country.... Henry's people are more than ever in love with him, and

have raised his salary to $3,300, and given him a beautiful horse and

carriage worth $600.... My health is already improved by the journey,

and I was able to walk a good deal between the locks on the canal. As

to furniture, I think that we may safely afford an outlay of $150, and

that will purchase all that may be necessary to set us up, and then we

can get more as we have means and opportunity.... If I got anything

for those pieces I wrote before coming away, I would like to be advised

thereof by you.... My plan is to spend this week in Brooklyn, the next

in Hartford, the next in Boston, and go on to Brunswick some time in

May or June."

May 18, 1850, we find her writing from Boston, where she is staying

with her brother, Rev. Edward Beecher:--

MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I came here from Hartford on Monday,

and have since then been busily engaged in the business

of buying and packing furniture.

I expect to go to Brunswick next Tuesday night by the

Bath steamer, which way I take as the cheaper. My

traveling expenses, when I get to Brunswick, including

everything, will have been seventy-six dollars....

And now, lastly, my dear husband, you have never been

wanting ... in kindness, consideration, and justice,

and I want you to reflect calmly how great a work

has been imposed upon me at a time when my situation

particularly calls for rest, repose, and quiet.

To come alone such a distance with the whole charge

of children, accounts, and baggage; to push my way

through hurrying crowds, looking out for trunks, and

bargaining with hackmen, has been a very severe trial

of my strength, to say nothing of the usual fatigues of

traveling.

It was at this time, and as a result of the experiences of this trying

period, that Mrs. Stowe wrote that little tract dear to so many

Christian hearts, "Earthly Care a Heavenly Discipline."

On the eve of sailing for Brunswick, Mrs. Stowe writes to Mrs. Sykes

(Miss May): "I am wearied and worn out with seeing to bedsteads,

tables, chairs, mattresses, with thinking about shipping my goods and

making out accounts, and I have my trunk yet to pack, as I go on board

the Bath steamer this evening. I beg you to look up Brunswick on the

map; it is about half a day's ride in the cars from Boston. I expect to

reach there by the way of Bath by to-morrow forenoon. There I have a

house engaged and kind friends who offer every hospitable assistance.

Come, therefore, to see me, and we will have a long talk in the pine

woods, and knit up the whole history from the place where we left it."

Before leaving Boston she had written to her husband in Cincinnati:

"You are not able just now to bear anything, my dear husband, therefore

trust all to me; I never doubt or despair. I am already making

arrangements with editors to raise money.

"I have sent some overtures to Wright. If he accepts my pieces and pays

you for them, take the money and use it as you see necessary; if not,

be sure and bring the pieces back to me. I am strong in spirit, and

God who has been with me in so many straits will not forsake me now. I

know Him well; He is my Father, and though I may be a blind and erring

child, He will help me for all that. My trust through all errors and

sins is in Him. He who helped poor timid Jacob through all his fears

and apprehensions, who helped Abraham even when he sinned, who was with

David in his wanderings, and who held up the too confident Peter when

he began to sink,--He will help us, and his arms are about us, so that

we shall not sink, my dear husband."

May 29, 1850, she writes from Brunswick: "After a week of most

incessant northeast storm, most discouraging and forlorn to the

children, the sun has at length come out.... There is a fair wind

blowing, and every prospect, therefore, that our goods will arrive

promptly from Boston, and that we shall be in our own house by next

week. Mrs. Upham[6] has done everything for me, giving up time and

strength and taking charge of my affairs in a way without which we

could not have got along at all in a strange place and in my present

helpless condition. This family is delightful, there is such a perfect

sweetness and quietude in all its movements. Not a harsh word or hasty

expression is ever heard. It is a beautiful pattern of a Christian

family, a beautiful exemplification of religion...."

The events of the first summer in Brunswick are graphically described

by Mrs. Stowe in a letter written to her sister-in-law, Mrs. George

Beecher, December 17, 1850.

MY DEAR SISTER,--Is it really true that snow is on the

ground and Christmas coming, and I have not written

unto thee, most dear sister? No, I don't believe it!

I haven't been so naughty--it's all a mistake--yes,

written I must have--and written I have, too--in the

night-watches as I lay on my bed--such beautiful

letters--I wish you had only gotten them; but by day it

has been hurry, hurry, hurry, and drive, drive, drive!

or else the calm of a sick-room, ever since last spring.

I put off writing when your letter first came because I

meant to write you a long letter--a full and complete

one, and so days slid by,--and became weeks,--and my

little Charlie came ... etc. and etc.!!! Sarah, when

I look back, I wonder at myself, not that I forget

any one thing that I should remember, but that I

have remembered anything. From the time that I left

Cincinnati with my children to come forth to a country

that I knew not of almost to the present time, it has

seemed as if I could scarcely breathe, I was so pressed

with care. My head dizzy with the whirl of railroads

and steamboats; then ten days' sojourn in Boston, and

a constant toil and hurry in buying my furniture and

equipments; and then landing in Brunswick in the midst

of a drizzly, inexorable northeast storm, and beginning

the work of getting in order a deserted, dreary, damp

old house. All day long running from one thing to

another, as for example, thus:--

Mrs. Stowe, how shall I make this lounge, and what

shall I cover the back with first?

_Mrs. Stowe._ With the coarse cotton in the closet.

_Woman._ Mrs. Stowe, there isn't any more soap to clean

the windows.

_Mrs. Stowe._ Where shall I get soap?

Here H., run up to the store and get two bars.

There is a man below wants to see Mrs. Stowe about the

cistern. Before you go down, Mrs. Stowe, just show me

how to cover this round end of the lounge.

There's a man up from the depot, and he says that a

box has come for Mrs. Stowe, and it's coming up to the

house; will you come down and see about it?

Mrs. Stowe, don't go till you have shown the man how

to nail that carpet in the corner. He's nailed it all

crooked; what shall he do? The black thread is all used

up, and what shall I do about putting gimp on the back

of that sofa? Mrs. Stowe, there is a man come with a

lot of pails and tinware from Furbish; will you settle

the bill now?

Mrs. Stowe, here is a letter just come from Boston

inclosing that bill of lading; the man wants to know

what he shall do with the goods. If you will tell me

what to say I will answer the letter for you.

Mrs. Stowe, the meat-man is at the door. Hadn't we

better get a little beefsteak, or something, for dinner?

Shall Hatty go to Boardman's for some more black thread?

Mrs. Stowe, this cushion is an inch too wide for the

frame. What shall we do now?

Mrs. Stowe, where are the screws of the black walnut

bedstead?

Here's a man has brought in these bills for freight.

Will you settle them now?

Mrs. Stowe, I don't understand using this great needle.

I can't make it go through the cushion; it sticks in

the cotton.

Then comes a letter from my husband saying he is sick

abed, and all but dead; don't ever expect to see his

family again; wants to know how I shall manage, in

case I am left a widow; knows we shall get in debt

and never get out; wonders at my courage; thinks I am

very sanguine; warns me to be prudent, as there won't

be much to live on in case of his death, etc., etc.,

etc. I read the letter and poke it into the stove, and

proceed....

Some of my adventures were quite funny; as for example:

I had in my kitchen elect no sink, cistern, or any

other water privileges, so I bought at the cotton

factory two of the great hogsheads they bring oil in,

which here in Brunswick are often used for cisterns,

and had them brought up in triumph to my yard, and

was congratulating myself on my energy, when lo and

behold! it was discovered that there was no cellar door

except one in the kitchen, which was truly a strait

and narrow way, down a long pair of stairs. Hereupon,

as saith John Bunyan, I fell into a muse,--how to get

my cisterns into my cellar. In days of chivalry I

might have got a knight to make me a breach through

the foundation walls, but that was not to be thought

of now, and my oil hogsheads standing disconsolately

in the yard seemed to reflect no great credit on my

foresight. In this strait I fell upon a real honest

Yankee cooper, whom I besought, for the reputation of

his craft and mine, to take my hogsheads to pieces,

carry them down in staves, and set them up again, which

the worthy man actually accomplished one fair summer

forenoon, to the great astonishment of "us Yankees."

When my man came to put up the pump, he stared very

hard to see my hogsheads thus translated and standing

as innocent and quiet as could be in the cellar, and

then I told him, in a very mild, quiet way, that I

got 'em taken to pieces and put together--just as if

I had been always in the habit of doing such things.

Professor Smith came down and looked very hard at

them and then said, "Well, nothing can beat a willful

woman." Then followed divers negotiations with a very

clever, but (with reverence) somewhat lazy gentleman

of jobs, who occupieth a carpenter's shop opposite to

mine. This same John Titcomb, my very good friend, is

a character peculiar to Yankeedom. He is part owner

and landlord of the house I rent, and connected by

birth with all the best families in town; a man of

real intelligence, and good education, a great reader,

and quite a thinker. Being of an ingenious turn he

does painting, gilding, staining, upholstery jobs,

varnishing, all in addition to his primary trade of

carpentry. But he is a man studious of ease, and fully

possessed with the idea that man wants but little here

below; so he boards himself in his workshop on crackers

and herring, washed down with cold water, and spends

his time working, musing, reading new publications,

and taking his comfort. In his shop you shall see

a joiner's bench, hammers, planes, saws, gimlets,

varnish, paint, picture frames, fence posts, rare old

china, one or two fine portraits of his ancestry, a

bookcase full of books, the tooth of a whale, an old

spinning-wheel and spindle, a lady's parasol frame,

a church lamp to be mended, in short, Henry says Mr.

Titcomb's shop is like the ocean; there is no end to

the curiosities in it.

In all my moving and fussing Mr. Titcomb has been my

right-hand man. Whenever a screw was loose, a nail to

be driven, a lock mended, a pane of glass set, and

these cases were manifold, he was always on hand.

But my sink was no fancy job, and I believe nothing

but a very particular friendship would have moved

him to undertake it. So this same sink lingered in

a precarious state for some weeks, and when I had

_nothing else to do_, I used to call and do what

I could in the way of enlisting the good man's

sympathies in its behalf.

How many times I have been in and seated myself in one

of the old rocking-chairs, and talked first of the

news of the day, the railroad, the last proceedings

in Congress, the probabilities about the millennium,

and thus brought the conversation by little and little

round to my sink!... because, till the sink was done,

the pump could not be put up, and we couldn't have any

rain-water. Sometimes my courage would quite fail me to

introduce the subject, and I would talk of everything

else, turn and get out of the shop, and then turn back

as if a thought had just struck my mind, and say:--

"Oh, Mr. Titcomb! about that sink?"

"Yes, ma'am, I was thinking about going down street

this afternoon to look out stuff for it."

"Yes, sir, if you would be good enough to get it done

as soon as possible; we are in great need of it."

"I think there's no hurry. I believe we are going to

have a dry time now, so that you could not catch any

water, and you won't need a pump at present."

These negotiations extended from the first of June to

the first of July, and at last my sink was completed,

and so also was a new house spout, concerning which

I had had divers communings with Deacon Dunning of

the Baptist church. Also during this time good Mrs.

Mitchell and myself made two sofas, or lounges, a

barrel chair, divers bedspreads, pillow cases, pillows,

bolsters, mattresses; we painted rooms; we revarnished

furniture; we--what _didn't_ we do?

Then came on Mr. Stowe; and then came the eighth

of July and my little Charley. I was really glad

for an excuse to lie in bed, for I was full tired,

I can assure you. Well, I was what folks call very

comfortable for two weeks, when my nurse had to leave

me....

During this time I have employed my leisure hours in

making up my engagements with newspaper editors. I have

written more than anybody, or I myself, would have

thought. I have taught an hour a day in our school, and

I have read two hours every evening to the children.

The children study English history in school, and I

am reading Scott's historic novels in their order.

To-night I finish the "Abbot;" shall begin "Kenilworth"

next week; yet I am constantly pursued and haunted by

the idea that I don't do anything. Since I began this

note I have been called off at least a dozen times;

once for the fish-man, to buy a codfish; once to see

a man who had brought me some barrels of apples; once

to see a book-man; then to Mrs. Upham, to see about

a drawing I promised to make for her; then to nurse

the baby; then into the kitchen to make a chowder for

dinner; and now I am at it again, for nothing but

deadly determination enables me ever to write; it is

rowing against wind and tide.

I suppose you think now I have begun, I am never going

to stop, and in truth it looks like it; but the spirit

moves now and I must obey.

Christmas is coming, and our little household is all

alive with preparations; every one collecting their

little gifts with wonderful mystery and secrecy....

To tell the truth, dear, I am getting tired; my neck

and back ache, and I must come to a close.

Your ready kindness to me in the spring I felt very

much; and _why_ I did not have the sense to have sent

you one line just by way of acknowledgment, I'm sure

I don't know; I felt just as if I had, till I awoke,

and behold! I had not. But, my dear, if my wits are

somewhat wool-gathering and unsettled, my heart is as

true as a star. I love you, and have thought of you

often.

This fall I have felt often _sad_, lonesome, both very

unusual feelings with me in these busy days; but the

breaking away from my old home, and leaving father

and mother, and coming to a strange place affected me

naturally. In those sad hours my thoughts have often

turned to George; I have thought with encouragement

of his blessed state, and hoped that I should soon

be there too. I have many warm and kind friends

here, and have been treated with great attention and

kindness. Brunswick is a delightful residence, and

if you come East next summer you must come to my new

home. George[7] would delight to go a-fishing with the

children, and see the ships, and sail in the sailboats,

and all that.

Give Aunt Harriet's love to him, and tell him when he

gets to be a painter to send me a picture.

Affectionately yours, H. STOWE.

The year 1850 is one memorable in the history of our nation as well as

in the quiet household that we have followed in its pilgrimage from

Cincinnati to Brunswick.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence and the statesmen and

soldiers of the Revolution were no friends of negro slavery. In fact,

the very principles of the Declaration of Independence sounded the

death-knell of slavery forever. No stronger utterances against this

national sin are to be found anywhere than in the letters and published

writings of Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, and Patrick Henry.

"Jefferson encountered difficulties greater than he could overcome, and

after vain wrestlings the words that broke from him, 'I tremble for my

country when I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot

sleep forever,' were the words of despair.

"It was the desire of Washington's heart that Virginia should remove

slavery by a public act; and as the prospects of a general emancipation

grew more and more dim ... he did all that he could by bequeathing

freedom to his own slaves."[8]

Hamilton was one of the founders of the Manumission Society, the object

of which was the abolition of slaves in the State of New York. Patrick

Henry, speaking of slavery, said: "A serious view of this subject gives

a gloomy prospect to future times." Slavery was thought by the founders

of our Republic to be a dying institution, and all the provisions of

the Constitution touching slavery looked towards gradual emancipation

as an inevitable result of the growth of the democracy.

From an economic standpoint slave labor had ceased to be profitable.

"The whole interior of the Southern States was languishing, and its

inhabitants emigrating, for want of some object to engage their

attention and employ their industry." The cultivation of cotton was

not profitable for the reason that there was no machine for separating

the seed from the fibre.

This was the state of affairs in 1793, when Eli Whitney, a New England

mechanic, at this time residing in Savannah, Georgia, invented his

cotton-gin, or a machine to separate seed and fibre. "The invention

of this machine at once set the whole country in active motion."[9]

The effect of this invention may to some extent be appreciated when

we consider that whereas in 1793 the Southern States produced only

about five or ten thousand bales, in 1859 they produced over five

millions. But with this increase of the cotton culture the value

of slave property was augmented. Slavery grew and spread. In 1818

to 1821 it first became a factor in politics during the Missouri

compromise. By this compromise slavery was not to extend north of

latitude 36° 30´. From the time of this compromise till the year

1833 the slavery agitation slumbered. This was the year that the

British set the slaves free in their West Indian dependencies. This

act caused great uneasiness among the slaveholders of the South. The

National Anti-Slavery Society met in Philadelphia and pronounced

slavery a national sin, which could be atoned for only by immediate

emancipation. Such men as Garrison and Lundy began a work of agitation

that was soon to set the whole nation in a ferment. From this time on

slavery became the central problem of American history, and the line

of cleavage in American politics. The invasion of Florida when it was

yet the territory of a nation at peace with the United States, and its

subsequent purchase from Spain, the annexation of Texas and the war

with Mexico, were the direct results of the policy of the pro-slavery

party to increase its influence and its territory. In 1849 the State

of California knocked at the door of the Union for admission as a free

State. This was bitterly opposed by the slaveholders of the South,

who saw in it a menace to the slave-power from the fact that no slave

State was seeking admission at the same time. Both North and South the

feeling ran so high as to threaten the dismemberment of the Union, and

the scenes of violence and bloodshed which were to come eleven years

afterwards. It was to preserve the Union and avert the danger of the

hour that Henry Clay brought forward his celebrated compromise measures

in the winter of 1850. To conciliate the North, California was to be

admitted as a free State. To pacify the slaveholders of the South, more

stringent laws were to be enacted "concerning persons bound to service

in one State and escaping into another."

The 7th of March, 1850, Daniel Webster made his celebrated speech, in

which he defended this compromise, and the abolitionists of the North

were filled with indignation, which found its most fitting expression

in Whittier's "Ichabod:" "So fallen, so lost, the glory from his gray

hairs gone." ... "When honor dies the man is dead."

It was in the midst of this excitement that Mrs. Stowe, with her

children and her modest hopes for the future, arrived at the house of

her brother, Dr. Edward Beecher.

Dr. Beecher had been the intimate friend and supporter of Lovejoy,

who had been murdered by the slaveholders at Alton for publishing an

anti-slavery paper. His soul was stirred to its very depths by the

iniquitous law which was at this time being debated in Congress,--a

law which not only gave the slaveholder of the South the right to seek

out and bring back into slavery any colored person whom he claimed

as a slave, but commanded the people of the free States to assist in

this revolting business. The most frequent theme of conversation while

Mrs. Stowe was in Boston was this proposed law, and when she arrived

in Brunswick her soul was all on fire with indignation at this new

indignity and wrong about to be inflicted by the slave-power on the

innocent and defenseless.

After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, letter after letter was

received by Mrs. Stowe in Brunswick from Mrs. Edward Beecher and

other friends, describing the heart-rending scenes which were the

inevitable results of the enforcement of this terrible law. Cities were

more available for the capturing of escaped slaves than the country,

and Boston, which claimed to have the cradle of liberty, opened her

doors to the slave-hunters. The sorrow and anguish caused thereby no

pen could describe. Families were broken up. Some hid in garrets and

cellars. Some fled to the wharves and embarked in ships and sailed

for Europe. Others went to Canada. One poor fellow who was doing good

business as a crockery merchant, and supporting his family well, when

he got notice that his master, whom he had left many years before, was

after him, set out for Canada in midwinter on foot, as he did not dare

to take a public conveyance. He froze both of his feet on the journey,

and they had to be amputated. Mrs. Edward Beecher, in a letter to Mrs.

Stowe's son, writing of this period, says:--

"I had been nourishing an anti-slavery spirit since Lovejoy was

murdered for publishing in his paper articles against slavery and

intemperance, when our home was in Illinois. These terrible things

which were going on in Boston were well calculated to rouse up this

spirit. What can I do? I thought. Not much myself, but I know one who

can. So I wrote several letters to your mother, telling her of various

heart-rending events caused by the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave

Law. I remember distinctly saying in one of them, 'Now, Hattie, if I

could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make

this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.'... When we

lived in Boston your mother often visited us.... Several numbers of

'Uncle Tom's Cabin' were written in your Uncle Edward's study at these

times, and read to us from the manuscripts."

A member of Mrs. Stowe's family well remembers the scene in the little

parlor in Brunswick when the letter alluded to was received. Mrs. Stowe

herself read it aloud to the assembled family, and when she came to the

passage, "I would write something that would make this whole nation

feel what an accursed thing slavery is," Mrs. Stowe rose up from her

chair, crushing the letter in her hand, and with an expression on her

face that stamped itself on the mind of her child, said: "I will write

something. I will if I live."

This was the origin of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and Professor Cairnes has

well said in his admirable work, "The Slave Power," "The Fugitive

Slave Law has been to the slave power a questionable gain. Among its

first-fruits was 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"

The purpose of writing a story that should make the whole nation feel

that slavery was an accursed thing was not immediately carried out.

In December, 1850, Mrs. Stowe writes: "Tell sister Katy I thank her

for her letter and will answer it. As long as the baby sleeps with me

nights I can't do much at anything, but I will do it at last. I will

write that thing if I live.

"What are folks in general saying about the slave law, and the stand

taken by Boston ministers universally, except Edward?

"To me it is incredible, amazing, mournful!! I feel as if I should

be willing to sink with it, were all this sin and misery to sink in

the sea.... I wish father would come on to Boston, and preach on the

Fugitive Slave Law, as he once preached on the slave-trade, when I was

a little girl in Litchfield. I sobbed aloud in one pew and Mrs. Judge

Reeves in another. I wish some Martin Luther would arise to set this

community right."

December 22, 1850, she writes to her husband in Cincinnati: "Christmas

has passed, not without many thoughts of our absent one. If you want

a description of the scenes in our family preceding it, _vide_ a 'New

Year's Story,' which I have sent to the 'New York Evangelist.' I am

sorry that in the hurry of getting off this piece and one for the 'Era'

you were neglected." The piece for the "Era" was a humorous article

called "A Scholar's Adventures in the Country," being, in fact, a

picture drawn from life and embodying Professor Stowe's efforts in the

department of agriculture while in Cincinnati.

_December 29, 1850._ "We have had terrible weather here. I remember

such a storm when I was a child in Litchfield. Father and mother went

to Warren, and were almost lost in the snowdrifts.

"Sunday night I rather watched than slept. The wind howled, and the

house rocked just as our old Litchfield house used to. The cold has

been so intense that the children have kept begging to get up from

table at meal-times to warm feet and fingers. Our air-tight stoves

warm all but the floor,--heat your head and keep your feet freezing.

If I sit by the open fire in the parlor my back freezes, if I sit in

my bedroom and try to write my head aches and my feet are cold. I am

projecting a sketch for the 'Era' on the capabilities of liberated

blacks to take care of themselves. Can't you find out for me how much

Willie Watson has paid for the redemption of his friends, and get any

items in figures of that kind that you can pick up in Cincinnati?...

When I have a headache and feel sick, as I do to-day, there is

actually not a place in the house where I can lie down and take a nap

without being disturbed. Overhead is the school-room, next door is the

dining-room, and the girls practice there two hours a day. If I lock

my door and lie down some one is sure to be rattling the latch before

fifteen minutes have passed.... There is no doubt in my mind that

our expenses this year will come two hundred dollars, if not three,

beyond our salary. We shall be able to come through, notwithstanding;

but I don't want to feel obliged to work as hard every year as I have

this. I can earn four hundred dollars a year by writing, but I don't

want to feel that I must, and when weary with teaching the children,

and tending the baby, and buying provisions, and mending dresses, and

darning stockings, sit down and write a piece for some paper."

January 12, 1851, Mrs. Stowe again writes to Professor Stowe at

Cincinnati: "Ever since we left Cincinnati to come here the good hand

of God has been visibly guiding our way. Through what difficulties

have we been brought! Though we knew not where means were to come

from, yet means have been furnished every step of the way, and in

every time of need. I was just in some discouragement with regard to

my writing; thinking that the editor of the 'Era' was overstocked with

contributors, and would not want my services another year, and lo! he

sends me one hundred dollars, and ever so many good words with it. Our

income this year will be seventeen hundred dollars in all, and I hope

to bring our expenses within thirteen hundred."

It was in the month of February after these words were written that

Mrs. Stowe was seated at communion service in the college church at

Brunswick. Suddenly, like the unrolling of a picture, the scene of

the death of Uncle Tom passed before her mind. So strongly was she

affected that it was with difficulty she could keep from weeping aloud.

Immediately on returning home she took pen and paper and wrote out the

vision which had been as it were blown into her mind as by the rushing

of a mighty wind. Gathering her family about her she read what she

had written. Her two little ones of ten and twelve years of age broke

into convulsions of weeping, one of them saying through his sobs, "Oh,

mamma! slavery is the most cruel thing in the world." Thus Uncle Tom

was ushered into the world, and it was, as we said at the beginning,

a cry, an immediate, an involuntary expression of deep, impassioned

feeling.

Twenty-five years afterwards Mrs. Stowe wrote in a letter to one of

her children, of this period of her life: "I well remember the winter

you were a baby and I was writing 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' My heart was

bursting with the anguish excited by the cruelty and injustice our

nation was showing to the slave, and praying God to let me do a little

and to cause my cry for them to be heard. I remember many a night

weeping over you as you lay sleeping beside me, and I thought of the

slave mothers whose babes were torn from them."

It was not till the following April that the first chapter of the story

was finished and sent on to the "National Era" at Washington.

In July Mrs. Stowe wrote to Frederick Douglass the following letter,

which is given entire as the best possible introduction to the history

of the career of that memorable work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

BRUNSWICK, _July 9, 1851._

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ESQ.:

_Sir_,--You may perhaps have noticed in your editorial

readings a series of articles that I am furnishing for

the "Era" under the title of "Uncle Tom's Cabin, or

Life among the Lowly."

In the course of my story the scene will fall upon

a cotton plantation. I am very desirous, therefore,

to gain information from one who has been an actual

laborer on one, and it occurred to me that in the

circle of your acquaintance there might be one

who would be able to communicate to me some such

information as I desire. I have before me an able paper

written by a Southern planter, in which the details and

_modus operandi_ are given from his point of sight.

I am anxious to have something more from another

standpoint. I wish to be able to make a picture that

shall be graphic and true to nature in its details.

Such a person as Henry Bibb, if in the country, might

give me just the kind of information I desire. You may

possibly know of some other person. I will subjoin to

this letter a list of questions, which in that case you

will do me a favor by inclosing to the individual, with

the request that he will at earliest convenience answer

them.

For some few weeks past I have received your paper

through the mail, and have read it with great interest,

and desire to return my acknowledgments for it. It will

be a pleasure to me at some time when less occupied to

contribute something to its columns. I have noticed

with regret your sentiments on two subjects--the church

and African colonization, ... with the more regret

because I think you have a considerable share of reason

for your feelings on both these subjects; but I would

willingly, if I could, modify your views on both points.

In the first place you say the church is "pro-slavery."

There is a sense in which this may be true. The

American church of all denominations, taken as a body,

comprises the best and most conscientious people

in the country. I do not say it comprises none but

these, or that none such are found out of it, but only

if a census were taken of the purest and most high

principled men and women of the country, the majority

of them would be found to be professors of religion

in some of the various Christian denominations.

This fact has given to the church great weight in

this country--the general and predominant spirit of

intelligence and probity and piety of its majority

has given it that degree of weight that it has the

power to decide the great moral questions of the

day. Whatever it unitedly and decidedly sets itself

against as moral evil it can put down. In this sense

the church is responsible for the sin of slavery. Dr.

Barnes has beautifully and briefly expressed this on

the last page of his work on slavery, when he says:

"Not all the force out of the church could sustain

slavery an hour if it were not sustained in it." It

then appears that the church has the power to put an

end to this evil and does not do it. In this sense she

may be said to be pro-slavery. But the church has the

same power over intemperance, and Sabbath-breaking,

and sin of all kinds. There is not a doubt that if

the moral power of the church were brought up to the

New Testament standpoint it is sufficient to put an

end to all these as well as to slavery. But I would

ask you, Would you consider it a fair representation

of the Christian church in this country to say that

it is pro-intemperance, pro-Sabbath-breaking, and

pro everything that it might put down if it were in

a higher state of moral feeling? If you should make

a list of all the abolitionists of the country, I

think that you would find a majority of them in the

church--certainly some of the most influential and

efficient ones are ministers.

I am a minister's daughter, and a minister's wife, and

I have had six brothers in the ministry (one is in

heaven); I certainly ought to know something of the

feelings of ministers on this subject. I was a child in

1820 when the Missouri question was agitated, and one

of the strongest and deepest impressions on my mind was

that made by my father's sermons and prayers, and the

anguish of his soul for the poor slave at that time. I

remember his preaching drawing tears down the hardest

faces of the old farmers in his congregation.

I well remember his prayers morning and evening in the

family for "poor, oppressed, bleeding Africa," that the

time of her deliverance might come; prayers offered

with strong crying and tears, and which indelibly

impressed my heart and made me what I am from my very

soul, the enemy of all slavery. Every brother I have

has been in his sphere a leading anti-slavery man. One

of them was to the last the bosom friend and counselor

of Lovejoy. As for myself and husband, we have for the

last seventeen years lived on the border of a slave

State, and we have never shrunk from the fugitives, and

we have helped them with all we had to give. I have

received the children of liberated slaves into a family

school, and taught them with my own children, and it

has been the influence that we found in the church

and by the altar that has made us do all this. Gather

up all the sermons that have been published on this

offensive and unchristian Fugitive Slave Law, and you

will find that those against it are numerically more

than those in its favor, and yet some of the strongest

opponents have not published their sermons. Out of

thirteen ministers who meet with my husband weekly for

discussion of moral subjects, only three are found who

will acknowledge or obey this law in any shape.

After all, my brother, the strength and hope of your

oppressed race does lie in the church--in hearts united

to Him of whom it is said, "He shall spare the souls

of the needy, and precious shall their blood be in his

sight." Everything is against you, but Jesus Christ is

for you, and He has not forgotten his church, misguided

and erring though it be. I have looked all the field

over with despairing eyes; I see no hope but in Him.

This movement must and will become a purely religious

one. The light will spread in churches, the tone of

feeling will rise, Christians North and South will give

up all connection with, and take up their testimony

against, slavery, and thus the work will be done.

This letter gives us a conception of the state of moral and religious

exaltation of the heart and mind out of which flowed chapter after

chapter of that wonderful story. It all goes to prove the correctness

of the position from which we started, that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" came

from the heart rather than the head. It was an outburst of deep

feeling, a cry in the darkness. The writer no more thought of style

or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and

cries for help to save her children from a burning house thinks of the

teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist.

A few years afterwards Mrs. Stowe, writing of this story, said, "This

story is to show how Jesus Christ, who liveth and was dead, and now

is alive and forevermore, has still a mother's love for the poor and

lowly, and that no man can sink so low but that Jesus Christ will

stoop to take his hand. Who so low, who so poor, who so despised as

the American slave? The law almost denies his existence as a person,

and regards him for the most part as less than a man--a mere thing,

the property of another. The law forbids him to read or write, to hold

property, to make a contract, or even to form a legal marriage. It

takes from him all legal right to the wife of his bosom, the children

of his body. He can do nothing, possess nothing, acquire nothing, but

what must belong to his master. Yet even to this slave Jesus Christ

stoops, from where he sits at the right hand of the Father, and says,

'Fear not, thou whom man despiseth, for I am thy brother. Fear not, for

I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine.'"

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a work of religion; the fundamental principles

of the gospel applied to the burning question of negro slavery. It sets

forth those principles of the Declaration of Independence that made

Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, and Patrick Henry anti-slavery men;

not in the language of the philosopher, but in a series of pictures.

Mrs. Stowe spoke to the understanding and moral sense through the

imagination.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" made the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law

an impossibility. It aroused the public sentiment of the world by

presenting in the concrete that which had been a mere series of

abstract propositions. It was, as we have already said, an appeal to

the imagination through a series of pictures. People are like children,

and understand pictures better than words. Some one rushes into your

dining-room while you are at breakfast and cries out, "Terrible

railroad accident, forty killed and wounded, six were burned alive."

"Oh, shocking! dreadful!" you exclaim, and yet go quietly on with

your rolls and coffee. But suppose you stood at that instant by the

wreck, and saw the mangled dead, and heard the piercing shrieks of the

wounded, you would be faint and dizzy with the intolerable spectacle.

So "Uncle Tom's Cabin" made the crack of the slavedriver's whip, and

the cries of the tortured blacks ring in every household in the land,

till human hearts could endure it no longer.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Wife of Professor Upham of Bowdoin College.

[7] Her brother George's only child.

[8] Bancroft's funeral oration on Lincoln.

[9] Greeley's _American Conflict_, vol. i. p. 65.

CHAPTER VII.

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, 1852.

"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AS A SERIAL IN THE "NATIONAL

ERA."--AN OFFER FOR ITS PUBLICATION IN BOOK

FORM.--WILL IT BE A SUCCESS?--AN UNPRECEDENTED

CIRCULATION.--CONGRATULATORY MESSAGES.--KIND WORDS FROM

ABROAD.--MRS. STOWE TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--LETTERS

FROM AND TO LORD SHAFTESBURY.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH

ARTHUR HELPS.

THE wonderful story that was begun in the "National Era," June 5, 1851,

and was announced to run for about three months, was not completed in

that paper until April 1, 1852. It had been contemplated as a mere

magazine tale of perhaps a dozen chapters, but once begun it could no

more be controlled than the waters of the swollen Mississippi, bursting

through a crevasse in its levees. The intense interest excited by the

story, the demands made upon the author for more facts, the unmeasured

words of encouragement to keep on in her good work that poured in

from all sides, and above all the ever-growing conviction that she

had been intrusted with a great and holy mission, compelled her to

keep on until the humble tale had assumed the proportions of a volume

prepared to stand among the most notable books in the world. As Mrs.

Stowe has since repeatedly said, "I could not control the story; it

wrote itself;" or "I the author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'? No, indeed. The

Lord himself wrote it, and I was but the humblest of instruments in his

hand. To Him alone should be given all the praise."

Although the publication of the "National Era" has been long since

suspended, the journal was in those days one of decided literary merit

and importance. On its title-page, with the name of Dr. Gamaliel Bailey

as editor, appeared that of John Greenleaf Whittier as corresponding

editor. In its columns Mrs. Southworth made her first literary venture,

while Alice and Phoebe Cary, Grace Greenwood, and a host of other

well-known names were published with that of Mrs. Stowe, which appeared

last of all in its prospectus for 1851.

Before the conclusion of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Mrs. Stowe had so far

outstripped her contemporaries that her work was pronounced by

competent judges to be the most powerful production ever contributed to

the magazine literature of this country, and she stood in the foremost

rank of American writers.

After finishing her story Mrs. Stowe penned the following appeal to its

more youthful readers, and its serial publication was concluded:--

"The author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' must now take leave of a wide circle

of friends whose faces she has never seen, but whose sympathies coming

to her from afar have stimulated and cheered her in her work.

"The thought of the pleasant family circles that she has been meeting

in spirit week after week has been a constant refreshment to her, and

she cannot leave them without a farewell.

"In particular the dear children who have followed her story have her

warmest love. Dear children, you will soon be men and women, and I hope

that you will learn from this story always to remember and pity the

poor and oppressed. When you grow up, show your pity by doing all you

can for them. Never, if you can help it, let a colored child be shut

out from school or treated with neglect and contempt on account of his

color. Remember the sweet example of little Eva, and try to feel the

same regard for all that she did. Then, when you grow up, I hope the

foolish and unchristian prejudice against people merely on account of

their complexion will be done away with.

"Farewell, dear children, until we meet again."

With the completion of the story the editor of the "Era" wrote:

"Mrs. Stowe has at last brought her great work to a close. We do not

recollect any production of an American writer that has excited more

general and profound interest."

For the story as a serial the author received $300. In the mean time,

however, it had attracted the attention of Mr. John P. Jewett, a

Boston publisher, who promptly made overtures for its publication in

book form. He offered Mr. and Mrs. Stowe a half share in the profits,

provided they would share with him the expense of publication. This

was refused by Professor Stowe, who said he was altogether too poor

to assume any such risk; and the agreement finally made was that the

author should receive a ten per cent. royalty upon all sales.

Mrs. Stowe had no reason to hope for any large pecuniary gain from

this publication, for it was practically her first book. To be sure,

she had, in 1832, prepared a small school geography for a Western

publisher, and ten years later the Harpers had brought out her

"Mayflower." Still, neither of these had been sufficiently remunerative

to cause her to regard literary work as a money-making business, and

in regard to this new contract she writes: "I did not know until a week

afterward precisely what terms Mr. Stowe had made, and I did not care.

I had the most perfect indifference to the bargain."

The agreement was signed March 13, 1852, and, as by arrangement with

the "National Era" the book publication of the story was authorized

before its completion as a serial, the first edition of five thousand

copies was issued on the twentieth of the same month.

In looking over the first semi-annual statement presented by her

publishers we find Mrs. Stowe charged, a few days before the date of

publication of her book, with "one copy U. T. C. cloth $.56," and this

was the first copy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ever sold in book form.

Five days earlier we find her charged with one copy of Horace Mann's

speeches. In writing of this critical period of her life Mrs. Stowe

says:--

"After sending the last proof-sheet to the office I sat alone reading

Horace Mann's eloquent plea for these young men and women, then about

to be consigned to the slave warehouse of Bruin & Hill in Alexandria,

Va.,--a plea impassioned, eloquent, but vain, as all other pleas on

that side had ever proved in all courts hitherto. It seemed that there

was no hope, that nobody would hear, nobody would read, nobody pity;

that this frightful system, that had already pursued its victims into

the free States, might at last even threaten them in Canada."[10]

Filled with this fear, she determined to do all that one woman might

to enlist the sympathies of England for the cause, and to avert, even

as a remote contingency, the closing of Canada as a haven of refuge for

the oppressed. To this end she at once wrote letters to Prince Albert,

to the Duke of Argyll, to the Earls of Carlisle and Shaftesbury, to

Macaulay, Dickens, and others whom she knew to be interested in the

cause of anti-slavery. These she ordered to be sent to their several

addresses, accompanied by the very earliest copies of her book that

should be printed.

Then, having done what she could, and committed the result to God, she

calmly turned her attention to other affairs.

In the mean time the fears of the author as to whether or not her book

would be read were quickly dispelled. Three thousand copies were sold

the very first day, a second edition was issued the following week, a

third on the 1st of April, and within a year one hundred and twenty

editions, or over three hundred thousand copies of the book, had been

issued and sold in this country. Almost in a day the poor professor's

wife had become the most talked-of woman in the world, her influence

for good was spreading to its remotest corners, and henceforth she

was to be a public character, whose every movement would be watched

with interest, and whose every word would be quoted. The long, weary

struggle with poverty was to be hers no longer; for, in seeking to aid

the oppressed, she had also so aided herself that within four months

from the time her book was published it had yielded her $10,000 in

royalties.

Now letters regarding the wonderful book, and expressing all shades

of opinion concerning it, began to pour in upon the author. Her

lifelong friend, whose words we have already so often quoted, wrote:--

"I sat up last night until long after one o'clock reading and finishing

'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' I could not leave it any more than I could have

left a dying child, nor could I restrain an almost hysterical sobbing

for an hour after I laid my head upon my pillow. I thought I was a

thorough-going abolitionist before, but your book has awakened so

strong a feeling of indignation and of compassion that I never seem to

have had any feeling on this subject until now."

The poet Longfellow wrote:--

I congratulate you most cordially upon the immense

success and influence of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It is one

of the greatest triumphs recorded in literary history,

to say nothing of the higher triumph of its moral

effect.

With great regard, and friendly remembrance to Mr.

Stowe, I remain,

Yours most truly,

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

Whittier wrote to Garrison:--

"What a glorious work Harriet Beecher Stowe has wrought. Thanks for

the Fugitive Slave Law! Better would it be for slavery if that law had

never been enacted; for it gave occasion for 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"

Garrison wrote to Mrs. Stowe:--

"I estimate the value of anti-slavery writing by the abuse it brings.

Now all the defenders of slavery have let me alone and are abusing

you."

To Mrs. Stowe, Whittier wrote:--

Ten thousand thanks for thy immortal book. My young

friend Mary Irving (of the "Era") writes me that she

has been reading it to some twenty young ladies,

daughters of Louisiana slaveholders, near New Orleans,

and amid the scenes described in it, and that they,

with one accord, pronounce it true.

Truly thy friend,

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

From Thomas Wentworth Higginson came the following:--

To have written at once the most powerful of

contemporary fictions and the most efficient of

anti-slavery tracts is a double triumph in literature

and philanthropy, to which this country has heretofore

seen no parallel.

Yours respectfully and gratefully,

T. W. HIGGINSON.

A few days after the publication of the book, Mrs. Stowe, writing

from Boston to her husband in Brunswick, says: "I have been in such a

whirl ever since I have been here. I found business prosperous. Jewett

animated. He has been to Washington and conversed with all the leading

senators, Northern and Southern. Seward told him it was the greatest

book of the times, or something of that sort, and he and Sumner went

around with him to recommend it to Southern men and get them to read

it."

It is true that with these congratulatory and commendatory letters came

hosts of others, threatening and insulting, from the Haleys and Legrees

of the country.

Of them Mrs. Stowe said: "They were so curiously compounded of

blasphemy, cruelty, and obscenity, that their like could only be

expressed by John Bunyan's account of the speech of Apollyon: 'He spake

as a dragon.'"

A correspondent of the "National Era" wrote: "'Uncle Tom's Cabin' is

denounced by time-serving preachers as a meretricious work. Will you

not come out in defense of it and roll back the tide of vituperation?"

To this the editor answered: "We should as soon think of coming out in

defense of Shakespeare."

Several attempts were made in the South to write books controverting

"Uncle Tom's Cabin," and showing a much brighter side of the slavery

question, but they all fell flat and were left unread. Of one of them,

a clergyman of Charleston, S. C., wrote in a private letter:--

"I have read two columns in the 'Southern Press' of Mrs. Eastman's

'Aunt Phillis' Cabin, or Southern Life as it is,' with the remarks of

the editor. I have no comment to make on it, as that is done by itself.

The editor might have saved himself being writ down an ass by the

public if he had withheld his nonsense. If the two columns are a fair

specimen of Mrs. Eastman's book, I pity her attempt and her name as an

author."

In due time Mrs. Stowe began to receive answers to the letters she had

forwarded with copies of her book to prominent men in England, and

these were without exception flattering and encouraging. Through his

private secretary Prince Albert acknowledged with thanks the receipt

of his copy, and promised to read it. Succeeding mails brought scores

of letters from English men of letters and statesmen. Lord Carlisle

wrote:--

"I return my deep and solemn thanks to Almighty God who has led and

enabled you to write such a book. I do feel indeed the most thorough

assurance that in his good Providence such a book cannot have been

written in vain. I have long felt that slavery is by far the _topping_

question of the world and age we live in, including all that is most

thrilling in heroism and most touching in distress; in short, the real

epic of the universe. The self-interest of the parties most nearly

concerned on the one hand, the apathy and ignorance of unconcerned

observers on the other, have left these august pretensions to drop

very much out of sight. Hence my rejoicing that a writer has appeared

who will be read and must be felt, and that happen what may to the

transactions of slavery they will no longer be suppressed."

To this letter, of which but an extract has been given, Mrs. Stowe sent

the following reply:--

MY LORD,--It is not with the common pleasure of

gratified authorship that I say how much I am gratified

by the receipt of your very kind communication

with regard to my humble efforts in the cause of

humanity. The subject is one so grave, so awful--the

success of what I have written has been so singular

and so unexpected--that I can scarce retain a

self-consciousness and am constrained to look upon

it all as the work of a Higher Power, who, when He

pleases, can accomplish his results by the feeblest

instruments. I am glad of anything which gives

notoriety to the book, because it is a plea for the

dumb and the helpless! I am glad particularly of

notoriety in England because I see with what daily

increasing power England's opinion is to act on this

country. No one can tell but a _native_ born here

by what an infinite complexity of ties, nerves, and

ligaments this terrible evil is bound in one body

politic; how the slightest touch upon it causes

even the free States to thrill and shiver, what a

terribly corrupting and tempting power it has upon

the conscience and moral sentiment even of a free

community. Nobody can tell the thousand ways in

which by trade, by family affinity, or by political

expediency, the free part of our country is constantly

tempted to complicity with the slaveholding part. It

is a terrible thing to become used to hearing the

enormities of slavery, to hear of things day after

day that one would think the sun should hide his face

from, and yet, to _get used to them_, to discuss them

coolly, to dismiss them coolly. For example, the sale

of intelligent, handsome colored females for vile

purposes, facts of the most public nature, have made

this a perfectly understood matter in our Northern

States. I have now, myself, under charge and educating,

two girls of whose character any mother might be proud,

who have actually been rescued from this sale in the

New Orleans market.

I desire to inclose a tract[11] in which I sketched down

a few incidents in the history of the family to which

these girls belong; it will show more than words can

the kind of incident to which I allude. The tract is

not a published document, only _printed_ to assist me

in raising money, and it would not, at present, be for

the good of the parties to have it published even in

England.

But though these things are known in the free States,

and other things, if possible, worse, yet there is

a terrible deadness of moral sense. They are known

by clergymen who yet would not on any account so far

commit themselves as to preach on the evils of slavery,

or pray for the slaves in their pulpits. They are known

by politicians who yet give their votes for slavery

extension and perpetuation.

This year both our great leading parties voted to

suppress all agitation of the subject, and in both

those parties were men who knew personally facts of

slavery and the internal slave-trade that one would

think no man could ever forget. Men _united_ in

pledging themselves to the Fugitive Slave Law, who yet

would tell you in private conversation that it was an

abomination, and who do not hesitate to say, that as

a matter of practice they always help the fugitive

because they _can't_ do otherwise.

The moral effect of this constant insincerity, the

moral effect of witnessing and becoming accustomed to

the most appalling forms of crime and oppression, is to

me the most awful and distressing part of the subject.

Nothing makes me feel it so painfully as to see with

how much more keenness the English feel the disclosures

of my book than the Americans. I myself am blunted by

use--by seeing, touching, handling the details. In

dealing even for the ransom of slaves, in learning

market prices of men, women, and children, I feel that

I acquire a horrible familiarity with evil.

Here, then, the great, wise, and powerful mind of

England, if she will but fully master the subject,

may greatly help us. Hers is the same kind of mind

as our own, but disembarrassed from our temptations

and unnerved by the thousands of influences that

blind and deaden us. There is a healthful vivacity

of moral feeling on this subject that must electrify

our paralyzed vitality. For this reason, therefore, I

rejoice when I see minds like your lordship's turning

to this subject; and I feel an intensity of emotion, as

if I could say, Do not for Christ's sake let go; you

know not what you may do.

Your lordship will permit me to send you two of the

most characteristic documents of the present struggle,

written by two men who are, in their way, as eloquent

for the slave as Chatham was for us in our hour of need.

I am now preparing some additional notes to my book, in

which I shall further confirm what I have said by facts

and statistics, and in particular by extracts from

the _codes of slaveholding States_, and the _records

of their courts_. These are documents that cannot be

disputed, and I pray your lordship to give them your

attention. No disconnected facts can be so terrible as

these legal decisions. They will soon appear in England.

It is so far from being irrelevant for England to

notice slavery that I already see indications that this

subject, on _both sides_, is yet to be presented there,

and the battle fought on _English ground_. I see that

my friend the South Carolinian gentleman has sent to

"Fraser's Magazine" an article; before published in

this country, on "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The article

in the London "Times" was eagerly reprinted in this

country, was issued as a tract and sold by the hundred,

headed, "What they think of 'Uncle Tom' in England."

If I mistake not, a strong effort will be made to

pervert the public mind of England, and to do away the

impression which the book has left.

For a time after it was issued it seemed to go by

acclamation. From quarters the most unexpected, from

all political parties, came an almost unbroken chorus

of approbation. I was very much surprised, knowing

the explosive nature of the subject. It was not till

the sale had run to over a hundred thousand copies

that reaction began, and the reaction was led off by

the London "Times." Instantly, as by a preconcerted

signal, all papers of a certain class began to abuse;

and some who had at first issued articles entirely

commendatory, now issued others equally depreciatory.

Religious papers, notably the "New York Observer,"

came out and denounced the book as _anti-Christian_,

anti-evangelical, resorting even to personal slander on

the author as a means of diverting attention from the

work.

All this has a meaning, but I think it comes too late.

I can think of no reason why it was not tried sooner,

excepting that God had intended that the cause should

have a hearing. It is strange that they should have

waited so long for the political effect of a book which

they might have foreseen at first; but not strange

that they should, now they _do_ see what it is doing,

attempt to root it up.

The effects of the book so far have been, I think,

these: 1st. To soften and moderate the bitterness of

feeling in _extreme abolitionists_. 2d. To convert to

abolitionist views many whom this same bitterness had

repelled. 3d. To inspire the free colored people with

self-respect, hope, and confidence. 4th. To inspire

universally through the country a kindlier feeling

toward the negro race.

It was unfortunate for the cause of freedom that

the first agitators of this subject were of that

class which your lordship describes in your note as

"well-meaning men." I speak sadly of their faults,

for they were men of _noble_ hearts. "But oppression

maketh a wise man _mad_," and they spoke and did

many things in the frenzy of outraged humanity that

repelled sympathy and threw multitudes off to a

hopeless distance. It is mournful to think of all the

absurdities that have been said and done in the name

and for the sake of this holy cause, that have so long

and so fatally retarded it.

I confess that I expected for myself nothing but abuse

from extreme abolitionists, especially as I dared to

name a forbidden shibboleth, "Liberia," and the fact

that the wildest and extremest abolitionists united

with the coldest conservatives, at first, to welcome

and advance the book is a thing that I have never

ceased to wonder at.

I have written this long letter because I am extremely

desirous that some leading minds in England should know

how _we_ stand. The subject is now on trial at the bar

of a civilized world--a Christian world! and I feel

sure that God has not ordered this without a design.

Yours for the cause,

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

In December the Earl of Shaftesbury wrote to Mrs. Stowe:--

MADAM,--It is very possible that the writer of this

letter may be wholly unknown to you. But whether my

name be familiar to your ears, or whether you now read

it for the first time, I cannot refrain from expressing

to you the deep gratitude that I feel to Almighty God

who has inspired both your heart and your head in

the composition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." None but a

Christian believer could have produced such a book as

yours, which has absolutely startled the whole world,

and impressed many thousands by revelations of cruelty

and sin that give us an idea of what would be the

uncontrolled dominion of Satan on this fallen earth.

To this letter Mrs. Stowe replied as follows:--

ANDOVER, _January 6, 1853._

TO THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY:

_My Lord_,--The few lines I have received from you are

a comfort and an encouragement to me, feeble as I now

am in health, and pressed oftentimes with sorrowful

thoughts.

It is a comfort to know that in other lands there are

those who feel as we feel, and who are looking with

simplicity to the gospel of Jesus, and prayerfully

hoping his final coming.

My lord, before you wrote me I read with deep emotion

your letter to the ladies of England, and subsequently

the noble address of the Duchess of Sutherland, and I

could not but feel that such movements, originating

in such a quarter, prompted by a spirit so devout and

benevolent, were truly of God, and must result in a

blessing to the world.

I grieve to see that both in England and this country

there are those who are entirely incapable of

appreciating the Christian and truly friendly feeling

that prompted this movement, and that there are even

those who meet it with coarse personalities such as

I had not thought possible in an English or American

paper.

When I wrote my work it was in simplicity and in the

love of Christ, and if I felt anything that seemed to

me like a call to undertake it, it was this, that I had

a true heart of love for the Southern people, a feeling

appreciation of their trials, and a sincere admiration

of their many excellent traits, and that I thus felt,

I think, must appear to every impartial reader of the

work.

It was my hope that a book so kindly intended, so

favorable in many respects, might be permitted free

circulation among them, and that the gentle voice of

Eva and the manly generosity of St. Clare might be

allowed to say those things of the system which would

be invidious in any other form.

At first the book seemed to go by acclamation; the

South did not condemn, and the North was loud and

unanimous in praise; not a dissenting voice was raised;

to my astonishment everybody praised. But when the

book circulated so widely and began to penetrate the

Southern States, when it began to be perceived how

powerfully it affected every mind that read it, there

came on a reaction.

Answers, pamphlets, newspaper attacks came thick and

fast, and certain Northern papers, religious,--so

called,--turned and began to denounce the work as

unchristian, heretical, etc. The reason of all this

is that it has been seen that the book has a direct

tendency to do what it was written for,--to awaken

conscience in the slaveholding States and lead to

emancipation.

Now there is nothing that Southern political leaders

and capitalists so dread as anti-slavery feeling among

themselves. All the force of lynch law is employed

to smother discussion and blind conscience on this

question. The question is not allowed to be discussed,

and he who sells a book or publishes a tract makes

himself liable to fine and imprisonment.

My book is, therefore, as much under an interdict in

some parts of the South as the Bible is in Italy. It

is not allowed in the bookstores, and the greater part

of the people hear of it and me only through grossly

caricatured representations in the papers, with garbled

extracts from the book.

A cousin residing in Georgia this winter says that the

prejudice against my name is so strong that she dares

not have it appear on the outside of her letters, and

that very amiable and excellent people have asked her

if such as I could be received into reputable society

at the North.