Compiled From Her Letters and Journals by Her Son Charles Edward Stowe /

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by Charles Edward Stowe

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Title: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author: Charles Edward Stowe

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LIFE OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Compiled From

Her Letters and Journals

BY HER SON

CHARLES EDWARD STOWE


[Illustration: Handwritten Preface

It seems but fitting, that I should preface this story of my life,
with a few words of introduction.

The desire to leave behind me some reflection of my life, has been
cherished by me, for many years past; but failing strength and
increasing infirmities have prevented its accomplishment.

At my suggestion and with what assistance I have been able to render
my son Revd. Charles Edward Stow, has compiled from my letters and
journals, this biography. It is this true story of my own words, and
has therefore all the force of an autobiography.

It is perhaps much more accurate as to detail & impression than is
possible with any autobiography, written later in life.

If these pages, shall lead those who read them to a firmer trust in
God and a deeper sense of this fatherly goodness throughout the days
of our Earthly pilgrimage I can stay with Valient for Faith in the
Pilgrim's Progress.

I am going to my Father's & this with great difficulty. I am got
hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the troubles I have been
at, to arrive where I am.

My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage & my
courages & skills to him that can get it.

Hartford Sept. 30 1889

(Signed) Harriet Beecher Stowe]




INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT.

I desire to express my thanks here to Harper & Brothers, of New York,
for permission to use letters already published in the "Autobiography
and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher." I have availed myself freely of
this permission in chapters i. and iii. In chapter xx. I have given
letters already published in the "Life of George Eliot," by Mr. Cross;
but in every instance I have copied from the original MSS. and not
from the published work. In conclusion, I desire to express my
indebtedness to Mr. Kirk Munroe, who has been my co-laborer in the
work of compilation.

CHARLES E. STOWE.

HARTFORD, _September_ 30, 1889.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

CHILDHOOD 1811-1824.

DEATH OF HER MOTHER.--FIRST JOURNEY FROM HOME.--LIFE AT NUT PLAINS.--
SCHOOL DAYS AND HOURS WITH FAVORITE AUTHORS.--THE NEW MOTHER.--
LITCHFIELD ACADEMY AND ITS INFLUENCE.--FIRST LITERARY EFFORTS.--A
REMARKABLE COMPOSITION.--GOES TO HARTFORD.


CHAPTER II.

SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD, 1824-1832.

MISS CATHERINE BEECHER.--PROFESSOR FISHER.--THE WRECK OF THE ALBION
AND DEATH OF PROFESSOR FISHER.--"THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--MISS
CATHERINE BEECHER'S SPIRITUAL HISTORY.--MRS. STOWE'S RECOLLECTIONS OF
HER SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD.--HER CONVERSION.--UNITES WITH THE FIRST
CHURCH IN HARTFORD.--HER DOUBTS AND SUBSEQUENT RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT.
--HER FINAL PEACE.


CHAPTER III.

CINCINNATI, 1832-1836.

DR. BEECHER CALLED TO CINCINNATI.--THE WESTWARD JOURNEY.--FIRST LETTER
FROM HOME.--DESCRIPTION OF WALNUT HILLS.--STARTING A NEW SCHOOL.--
INWARD GLIMPSES.--THE SEMI-COLON CLUB.--EARLY IMPRESSIONS OF SLAVERY.
--A JOURNEY TO THE EAST.--THOUGHTS AROUSED BY FIRST VISIT TO NIAGARA.--
MARRIAGE TO PROFESSOR STOWE.


CHAPTER IV.

EARLY MARRIED LIFE, 1836-1840.

PROFESSOR STOWE'S INTEREST IN POPULAR EDUCATION.--HIS DEPARTURE FOR
EUROPE.--SLAVERY RIOTS IN CINCINNATI.--BIRTH OF TWIN DAUGHTERS.--
PROFESSOR STOWE'S RETURN AND VISIT TO COLUMBUS.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--
AIDING A FUGITIVE SLAVE.--AUTHORSHIP UNDER DIFFICULTIES.--A BEECHER
ROUND ROBIN.


CHAPTER V.

POVERTY AND SICKNESS, 1840-1850.

FAMINE IN CINCINNATI.--SUMMER AT THE EAST.--PLANS FOR LITERARY WORK.--
EXPERIENCE ON A RAILROAD.--DEATH OF HER BROTHER GEORGE.--SICKNESS AND
DESPAIR.--A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF HEALTH.--GOES TO BRATTLEBORO' WATER-
CURE.--TROUBLES AT LANE SEMINARY.--CHOLERA IN CINCINNATI.--DEATH OF
YOUNGEST CHILD.--DETERMINED TO LEAVE THE WEST.


CHAPTER VI.

REMOVAL TO BRUNSWICK, 1850-1852.

MRS. STOWE'S REMARKS ON WRITING AND UNDERSTANDING BIOGRAPHY.--THEIR
APPROPRIATENESS TO HER OWN BIOGRAPHY.--REASONS FOR PROFESSOR STOWE'S
LEAVING CINCINNATI.--MRS. STOWE'S JOURNEY TO BROOKLYN.--HER BROTHER'S
SUCCESS AS A MINISTER.--LETTERS FROM HARTFORD AND BOSTON.--ARRIVES IN
BRUNSWICK.--HISTORY OF THE SLAVERY AGITATION.--PRACTICAL WORKING OF
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.--MRS. EDWARD BEECHER'S LETTER TO MRS. STOWE
AND ITS EFFECT.--DOMESTIC TRIALS.--BEGINS TO WRITE "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN"
AS A SERIAL FOR THE "NATIONAL ERA."--LETTER TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS.--
"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" A WORK OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION.


CHAPTER VII.

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, 1852.

"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AS A SERIAL IN THE "NATIONAL ERA."--AN OFFER FOR
ITS PUBLICATION IN BOOK FORM.--WILL IT BE A SUCCESS?--AN UNPRECEDENTED
CIRCULATION.--CONGRATULATORY MESSAGES.--KIND WORDS FROM ABROAD.--MRS.
STOWE TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--LETTERS FROM AND TO LORD SHAFTESBURY.
--CORRESPONDENCE WITH ARTHUR HELPS.


CHAPTER VIII.

FIRST TRIP TO EUROPE, 1853.

THE EDMONDSONS.--BUYING SLAVES TO SET THEM FREE.--JENNY LIND.--
PROFESSOR STOWE IS CALLED TO ANDOVER.--FITTING UP THE NEW HOME.--THE
"KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN."--"UNCLE TOM" ABROAD.--HOW IT WAS PUBLISHED
IN ENGLAND.--PREFACE TO THE EUROPEAN EDITION.--THE BOOK IN FRANCE.--IN
GERMANY.--A GREETING FROM CHARLES KINGSLEY.--PREPARING TO VISIT
SCOTLAND.--LETTER TO MRS. FOLLEN


CHAPTER IX.

SUNNY MEMORIES, 1853.

CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.--ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.--RECEPTION IN LIVERPOOL.--
WELCOME TO SCOTLAND.--A GLASGOW TEA-PARTY.--EDINBURGH HOSPITALITY.--
ABERDEEN.--DUNDEE AND BIRMINGHAM.--JOSEPH STURGE.--ELIHU BURRITT.--
LONDON.--THE LORD MAYOR'S DINNER.--CHARLES DICKENS AND HIS WIFE


CHAPTER X.

FROM OVER THE SEA, 1853.

THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--ARTHUR HELPS.--THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF ARGYLL.
--MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER.--A MEMORABLE MEETING AT STAFFORD HOUSE.--
MACAULAY AND DEAN MILMAN.--WINDSOR CASTLE.--PROFESSOR STOWE RETURNS TO
AMERICA.--MRS. STOWE ON THE CONTINENT.--IMPRESSIONS OF PARIS.--EN
ROUTE TO SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY.--BACK TO ENGLAND.--HOMEWARD BOUND


CHAPTER XI.

HOME AGAIN, 1853-1856.

ANTI-SLAVERY WORK.--STIRRING TIMES IN THE UNITED STATES.--ADDRESS TO
THE LADIES OF GLASGOW.--APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA.--
CORRESPONDENCE WITH WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.--THE WRITING OF "DRED."--
FAREWELL LETTER FROM GEORGIANA MAY.--SECOND VOYAGE TO ENGLAND.


CHAPTER XII.

DRED, 1856.

SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND.--A GLIMPSE AT THE QUEEN.--THE DUKE OF ARGYLL
AND INVERARY.--EARLY CORRESPONDENCE WITH LADY BYRON.--DUNROBIN CASTLE
AND ITS INMATES.--A VISIT TO STOKE PARK.--LORD DUFFERIN.--HARLES
KINGSLEY AT HOME.--PARIS REVISITED.--MADAME MOHL'S RECEPTIONS


CHAPTER XIII.

OLD SCENES REVISITED, 1856.

EN ROUTE TO ROME.--TRIALS OF TRAVEL.--A MIDNIGHT ARRIVAL AND AN
INHOSPITABLE RECEPTION.--GLORIES OF THE ETERNAL CITY.--NAPLES AND
VESUVIUS.--VENICE.--HOLY WEEK IN ROME.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--LETTER
FROM HARRIET MARTINEAU ON "DRED."--A WORD FROM MR. PRESCOTT ON
"DRED."--FAREWELL TO LADY BYRON.


CHAPTER XIV.

THE MINISTER'S WOOING, 1857-1859.

DEATH OF MRS. STOWE'S OLDEST SON.--LETTER TO THE DUCHESS OF
SUTHERLAND.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTERS IN PARIS.--LETTER TO HER SISTER
CATHERINE.--VISIT TO BRUNSWICK AND ORR'S ISLAND.--WRITES "THE
MINISTER'S WOOING" AND "THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND."--MR. WHITTIER'S
COMMENTS.--MR. LOWELL ON "THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--LETTER TO MRS.
STOWE FROM MR. LOWELL.--JOHN RUSKIN ON "THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--A
YEAR OF SADNESS.--LETTER TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTER.--
DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.


CHAPTER XV.

THE THIRD TRIP TO EUROPE, 1859.

THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE.--LADY BYRON ON "THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--SOME
FOREIGN PEOPLE AND THINGS AS THEY APPEARED TO PROFESSOR STOWE.--A
WINTER IN ITALY.--THINGS UNSEEN AND UNREVEALED.--SPECULATIONS
CONCERNING SPIRITUALISM.--JOHN RUSKIN.--MRS. BROWNING.--THE RETURN TO
AMERICA.--LETTERS TO DR. HOLMES


CHAPTER XVI.

THE CIVIL WAR, 1860-1865.

THE OUTBREAK OF CIVIL WAR.--MRS. STOWE'S SON ENLISTS.--THANKSGIVING
DAY IN WASHINGTON.--THE PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION.--REJOICINGS IN
BOSTON.--FRED STOWE AT GETTYSBURG.--LEAVING ANDOVER AND SETTLING IN
HARTFORD.--A REPLY TO THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND.--LETTERS FROM JOHN BRIGHT,
ARCHBISHOP WHATELY, AND NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.


CHAPTER XVII.

FLORIDA, 1865-1869.

LETTER TO DUCHESS OF ARGYLL.--MRS. STOWE DESIRES TO HAVE A HOME AT THE
SOUTH.--FLORIDA THE BEST FIELD FOR DOING GOOD.--SHE BUYS A PLACE AT
MANDARIN.--A CHARMING WINTER RESIDENCE--"PALMETTO LEAVES."--EASTER
SUNDAY AT MANDARIN.--CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. HOLMES.--"POGANUC
PEOPLE."--RECEPTIONS IN NEW ORLEANS AND TALLAHASSEE.--LAST WINTER AT
MANDARIN.


CHAPTER XVIII.

OLDTOWN FOLKS, 1869.

PROFESSOR STOWE THE ORIGINAL OF "HARRY" IN "OLDTOWN FOLKS."--PROFESSOR
STOWE'S LETTER TO GEORGE ELIOT.--HER REMARKS ON THE SAME.--PROFESSOR
STOWE'S NARRATIVE OF HIS YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES IN THE WORLD OF SPIRITS.
--PROFESSOR STOWE'S INFLUENCE ON MRS. STOWE'S LITERARY LIFE.--GEORGE
ELIOT ON "OLDTOWN FOLKS."


CHAPTER XIX.

THE BYRON CONTROVERSY, 1869-1870.

MRS. STOWE'S STATEMENT OF HER OWN CASE.--THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH
SHE FIRST MET LADY BYRON.--LETTERS TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER TO DR.
HOLMES WHEN ABOUT TO PUBLISH "THE TRUE STORY OF LADY BYRON'S LIFE" IN
THE "ATLANTIC."--DR. HOLMES'S REPLY.--THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER.


CHAPTER XX.

GEORGE ELIOT.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH GEORGE ELIOT.--GEORGE ELIOT'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF
MRS. STOWE.--MRS. STOWE'S LETTER TO MRS. FOLLEN.--GEORGE ELIOT'S
LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--MRS. STOWE'S REPLY.--LIFE IN FLORIDA.--ROBERT
DALE OWEN AND MODERN SPIRITUALISM.--GEORGE ELIOT'S LETTER ON THE
PHENOMENA OF SPIRITUALISM.--MRS. STOWE'S DESCRIPTION OF SCENERY IN
FLORIDA.--MRS. STOWE CONCERNING "MIDDLEMARCH."--GEORGE ELIOT TO MRS.
STOWE DURING REV. H. W. BEECHER'S TRIAL.--MRS. STOWE CONCERNING HER
LIFE EXPERIENCE WITH HER BROTHER, H. W. BEECHER, AND His TRIAL.--MRS.
LEWES' LAST LETTER TO MRS. STOWE.--DIVERSE MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF
THESE TWO WOMEN.--MRS. STOWE'S FINAL ESTIMATE OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM.


CHAPTER XXI.

CLOSING SCENES, 1870-1889.

LITERARY LABORS.--COMPLETE LIST OF PUBLISHED BOOKS.--FIRST READING
TOUR.--PEEPS BEHIND THE CURTAIN.--SOME NEW ENGLAND CITIES.--A LETTER
FROM MAINE.--PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT READINGS.--SECOND TOUR.--A
WESTERN JOURNEY.--VISIT TO OLD SCENES.--CELEBRATION OF SEVENTIETH
BIRTHDAY.--CONGRATULATORY POEMS FROM MR. WHITTIER AND DR. HOLMES.--
LAST WORDS.



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PORTRAIT OF MRS. STOWE. From a crayon by Richmond, made in England in
1853

SILVER INKSTAND PRESENTED TO MRS. STOWE BY HER ENGLISH ADMIRERS IN
1853

PORTRAIT OF MRS. STOWE'S GRANDMOTHER, ROXANNA FOOTE. From a miniature
painted on ivory by her daughter, Mrs. Lyman Beecher.

BIRTHPLACE AT LITCHFIELD, CONN.

PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE E. BEECHER. From a photograph taken in 1875

THE HOME AT WALNUT HILLS, CINCINNATI. [Footnote: From recent
photographs and from views in the Autobiography of Lyman Beecher,
published by Messrs. Harper & Brothers.]

PORTRAIT OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. From a photograph by Rockwood, in 1884

MANUSCRIPT PAGE OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" (facsimile)

THE ANDOVER HOME. From a painting by F. Rondel, in 1860, owned by Mrs.
H. F. Allen.

PORTRAIT OF LYMAN BEECHER, AT THE AGE OF EIGHTY-SEVEN. From a painting
owned by the Boston Congregational Club.

PORTRAIT OF THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND. From an engraving presented to
Mrs. Stowe.

THE OLD HOME AT HARTFORD

THE HOME AT MANDARIN, FLORIDA

PORTRAIT OF CALVIN ELLIS STOWE. From a photograph taken in 1882

PORTRAIT OF MRS. STOWE. From a photograph by Ritz and Hastings, in
1884

THE LATER HARTFORD HOME




CHAPTER I.

CHILDHOOD, 1811-1824.


DEATH OF HER MOTHER.--FIRST JOURNEY FROM HOME.--LIFE AT NUT PLAINS.--
SCHOOL DAYS AND HOURS WITH FAVORITE AUTHORS.--THE NEW MOTHER.--
LITCHFIELD ACADEMY AND ITS INFLUENCE.--FIRST LITERARY EFFORTS.--A
REMARKABLE COMPOSITION.--GOES TO HARTFORD.

Harriet Beecher (Stowe) was born June 14, 1811, in the characteristic
New England town of Litchfield, Conn. Her father was the Rev. Dr.
Lyman Beecher, a distinguished Calvinistic divine, her mother Roxanna
Foote, his first wife. The little new-comer was ushered into a
household of happy, healthy children, and found five brothers and
sisters awaiting her. The eldest was Catherine, born September 6,
1800. Following her were two sturdy boys, William and Edward; then
came Mary, then George, and at last Harriet. Another little Harriet
born three years before had died when only one month old, and the
fourth daughter was named, in memory of this sister, Harriet Elizabeth
Beecher. Just two years after Harriet was born, in the same month,
another brother, Henry Ward, was welcomed to the family circle, and
after him came Charles, the last of Roxanna Beecher's children.

The first memorable incident of Harriet's life was the death of her
mother, which occurred when she was four years old, and which ever
afterwards remained with her as the tenderest, saddest, and most
sacred memory of her childhood. Mrs. Stowe's recollections of her
mother are found in a letter to her brother Charles, afterwards
published in the "Autobiography and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher."
She says:--

"I was between three and four years of age when our mother died, and
my personal recollections of her are therefore but few. But the deep
interest and veneration that she inspired in all who knew her were
such that during all my childhood I was constantly hearing her spoken
of, and from one friend or another some incident or anecdote of her
life was constantly being impressed upon me.

"Mother was one of those strong, restful, yet widely sympathetic
natures in whom all around seemed to find comfort and repose. The
communion between her and my father was a peculiar one. It was an
intimacy throughout the whole range of their being. There was no human
mind in whose decisions he had greater confidence. Both intellectually
and morally he regarded her as the better and stronger portion of
himself, and I remember hearing him say that after her death his first
sensation was a sort of terror, like that of a child suddenly shut out
alone in the dark.

"In my own childhood only two incidents of my mother twinkle like rays
through the darkness. One was of our all running and dancing out
before her from the nursery to the sitting-room one Sabbath morning,
and her pleasant voice saying after us, 'Remember the Sabbath day to
keep it holy, children.'

"Another remembrance is this: mother was an enthusiastic
horticulturist in all the small ways that limited means allowed. Her
brother John in New York had just sent her a small parcel of fine
tulip-bulbs. I remember rummaging these out of an obscure corner of
the nursery one day when she was gone out, and being strongly seized
with the idea that they were good to eat, using all the little English
I then possessed to persuade my brothers that these were onions such
as grown people ate and would be very nice for us. So we fell to and
devoured the whole, and I recollect being somewhat disappointed in the
odd sweetish taste, and thinking that onions were not so nice as I had
supposed. Then mother's serene face appeared at the nursery door and
we all ran towards her, telling with one voice of our discovery and
achievement. We had found a bag of onions and had eaten them all up.

"Also I remember that there was not even a momentary expression of
impatience, but that she sat down and said, 'My dear children, what
you have done makes mamma very sorry. Those were not onions but roots
of beautiful flowers, and if you had let them alone we should have
next summer in the garden great beautiful red and yellow flowers such
as you never saw.' I remember how drooping and dispirited we all grew
at this picture, and how sadly we regarded the empty paper bag.

"Then I have a recollection of her reading aloud to the children Miss
Edgeworth's 'Frank,' which had just come out, I believe, and was
exciting a good deal of attention among the educational circles of
Litchfield. After that came a time when every one said she was sick,
and I used to be permitted to go once a day into her room, where she
sat bolstered up in bed. I have a vision of a very fair face with a
bright red spot on each cheek and her quiet smile. I remember dreaming
one night that mamma had got well, and of waking with loud transports
of joy that were hushed down by some one who came into the room. My
dream was indeed a true one. She was forever well.

"Then came the funeral. Henry was too little to go. I can see his
golden curls and little black frock as he frolicked in the sun like a
kitten, full of ignorant joy.

"I recollect the mourning dresses, the tears of the older children,
the walking to the burial-ground, and somebody's speaking at the
grave. Then all was closed, and we little ones, to whom it was so
confused, asked where she was gone and would she never come back.

"They told us at one time that she had been laid in the ground, and at
another that she had gone to heaven. Thereupon Henry, putting the two
things together, resolved to dig through the ground and go to heaven
to find her; for being discovered under sister Catherine's window one
morning digging with great zeal and earnestness, she called to him to
know what he was doing. Lifting his curly head, he answered with great
simplicity, 'Why, I'm going to heaven to find mamma.'

"Although our mother's bodily presence thus disappeared from our
circle, I think her memory and example had more influence in moulding
her family, in deterring from evil and exciting to good, than the
living presence of many mothers. It was a memory that met us
everywhere, for every person in the town, from the highest to the
lowest, seemed to have been so impressed by her character and life
that they constantly reflected some portion of it back upon us.

"The passage in 'Uncle Tom' where Augustine St. Clare describes his
mother's influence is a simple reproduction of my own mother's
influence as it has always been felt in her family."

Of his deceased wife Dr. Beecher said: "Few women have attained to
more remarkable piety. Her faith was strong and her prayer prevailing.
It was her wish that all her sons should devote themselves to the
ministry, and to it she consecrated them with fervent prayer. Her
prayers have been heard. All her sons have been converted and are now,
according to her wish, ministers of Christ."

Such was Roxanna Beecher, whose influence upon her four-year-old
daughter was strong enough to mould the whole after-life of the author
of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." After the mother's death the Litchfield home
was such a sad, lonely place for the child that her aunt, Harriet
Foote, took her away for a long visit at her grandmother's at Nut
Plains, near Guilford, Conn., the first journey from home the little
one had ever made. Of this visit Mrs. Stowe herself says:--

"Among my earliest recollections are those of a visit to Nut Plains
immediately after my mother's death. Aunt Harriet Foote, who was with
mother during all her last sickness, took me home to stay with her. At
the close of what seemed to me a long day's ride we arrived after dark
at a lonely little white farmhouse, and were ushered into a large
parlor where a cheerful wood fire was crackling; I was placed in the
arms of an old lady, who held me close and wept silently, a thing at
which I marveled, for my great loss was already faded from my childish
mind.

"I remember being put to bed by my aunt in a large room, on one side
of which stood the bed appropriated to her and me, and on the other
that of my grandmother. My aunt Harriet was no common character. A
more energetic human being never undertook the education of a child.
Her ideas of education were those of a vigorous English woman of the
old school. She believed in the Church, and had she been born under
that regime would have believed in the king stoutly, although being of
the generation following the Revolution she was a not less stanch
supporter of the Declaration of Independence.

[Illustration: Roxanna Foote]

"According to her views little girls were to be taught to move very
gently, to speak softly and prettily, to say 'yes ma'am,' and 'no
ma'am,' never to tear their clothes, to sew, to knit at regular hours,
to go to church on Sunday and make all the responses, and to come home
and be catechised.

"During these catechisings she used to place my little cousin Mary and
myself bolt upright at her knee, while black Dinah and Harry, the
bound boy, were ranged at a respectful distance behind us; for Aunt
Harriet always impressed it upon her servants 'to order themselves
lowly and reverently to all their betters,' a portion of the Church
catechism that always pleased me, particularly when applied to them,
as it insured their calling me 'Miss Harriet,' and treating me with a
degree of consideration such as I never enjoyed in the more democratic
circle at home. I became proficient in the Church catechism, and gave
my aunt great satisfaction by the old-fashioned gravity and steadiness
with which I learned to repeat it.

"As my father was a Congregational minister, I believe Aunt Harriet,
though the highest of High Church women, felt some scruples as to
whether it was desirable that my religious education should be
entirely out of the sphere of my birth. Therefore when this
catechetical exercise was finished she would say, 'Now, niece, you
have to learn another catechism, because your father is a Presbyterian
minister,'--and then she would endeavor to make me commit to memory
the Assembly catechism.

"At this lengthening of exercise I secretly murmured. I was rather
pleased at the first question in the Church catechism, which is
certainly quite on the level of any child's understanding,--'What is
your name?' It was such an easy good start, I could say it so loud and
clear, and I was accustomed to compare it with the first question in
the Primer, 'What is the chief end of man?' as vastly more difficult
for me to answer. In fact, between my aunt's secret unbelief and my
own childish impatience of too much catechism, the matter was
indefinitely postponed after a few ineffectual attempts, and I was
overjoyed to hear her announce privately to grandmother that she
thought it would be time enough for Harriet to learn the Presbyterian
catechism when she went home."

Mingled with this superabundance of catechism and plentiful needlework
the child was treated to copious extracts from Lowth's Isaiah,
Buchanan's Researches in Asia, Bishop Heber's Life, and Dr. Johnson's
Works, which, after her Bible and Prayer Book, were her grandmother's
favorite reading. Harriet does not seem to have fully appreciated
these; but she did enjoy her grandmother's comments upon their
biblical readings. Among the Evangelists especially was the old lady
perfectly at home, and her idea of each of the apostles was so
distinct and dramatic that she spoke of them as of familiar
acquaintances. She would, for instance, always smile indulgently at
Peter's remarks and say, "There he is again, now; that's just like
Peter. He's always so ready to put in."

It must have been during this winter spent at Nut Plains, amid such
surroundings, that Harriet began committing to memory that wonderful
assortment of hymns, poems, and scriptural passages from which in
after years she quoted so readily and effectively, for her sister
Catherine, in writing of her the following November, says:--

"Harriet is a very good girl. She has been to school all this summer,
and has learned to read very fluently. She has committed to memory
twenty-seven hymns and two long chapters in the Bible. She has a
remarkably retentive memory and will make a very good scholar."

At this time the child was five years old, and a regular attendant at
"Ma'am Kilbourne's" school on West Street, to which she walked every
day hand in hand with her chubby, rosy-faced, bare-footed, four-year-
old brother, Henry Ward. With the ability to read germinated the
intense literary longing that was to be hers through life. In those
days but few books were specially prepared for children, and at six
years of age we find the little girl hungrily searching for mental
food amid barrels of old sermons and pamphlets stored in a corner of
the garret. Here it seemed to her were some thousands of the most
unintelligible things. "An appeal on the unlawfulness of a man
marrying his wife's sister" turned up in every barrel she
investigated, by twos, or threes, or dozens, till her soul despaired
of finding an end. At last her patient search was rewarded, for at the
very bottom of a barrel of musty sermons she discovered an ancient
volume of "The Arabian Nights." With this her fortune was made, for in
these most fascinating of fairy tales the imaginative child discovered
a well-spring of joy that was all her own. When things went astray
with her, when her brothers started off on long excursions, refusing
to take her with them, or in any other childish sorrow, she had only
to curl herself up in some snug corner and sail forth on her bit of
enchanted carpet into fairyland to forget all her griefs.

In recalling her own child-life Mrs. Stowe, among other things,
describes her father's library, and gives a vivid bit of her own
experiences within its walls. She says: "High above all the noise of
the house, this room had to me the air of a refuge and a sanctuary.
Its walls were set round from floor to ceiling with the friendly,
quiet faces of books, and there stood my father's great writing-chair,
on one arm of which lay open always his Cruden's Concordance and his
Bible. Here I loved to retreat and niche myself down in a quiet corner
with my favorite books around me. I had a kind of sheltered feeling as
I thus sat and watched my father writing, turning to his books, and
speaking from time to time to himself in a loud, earnest whisper. I
vaguely felt that he was about some holy and mysterious work quite
beyond my little comprehension, and I was careful never to disturb him
by question or remark.

"The books ranged around filled me too with a solemn awe. On the lower
shelves were enormous folios, on whose backs I spelled in black
letters, 'Lightfoot Opera,' a title whereat I wondered, considering
the bulk of the volumes. Above these, grouped along in friendly,
social rows, were books of all sorts, sizes, and bindings, the titles
of which I had read so often that I knew them by heart. There were
Bell's Sermons, Bonnett's Inquiries, Bogue's Essays, Toplady on
Predestination, Boston's Fourfold State, Law's Serious Call, and other
works of that kind. These I looked over wistfully, day after day,
without even a hope of getting something interesting out of them. The
thought that father could read and understand things like these filled
me with a vague awe, and I wondered if I would ever be old enough to
know what it was all about.

"But there was one of my father's books that proved a mine of wealth
to me. It was a happy hour when he brought home and set up in his
bookcase Cotton Mather's 'Magnalia,' in a new edition of two volumes.
What wonderful stories those! Stories too about my own country.
Stories that made me feel the very ground I trod on to be consecrated
by some special dealing of God's Providence."

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE AT LITCHFIELD, CONNECTICUT.]

In continuing these reminiscences Mrs. Stowe describes as follows her
sensations upon first hearing the Declaration of Independence: "I had
never heard it before, and even now had but a vague idea of what was
meant by some parts of it. Still I gathered enough from the recital of
the abuses and injuries that had driven my nation to this course to
feel myself swelling with indignation, and ready with all my little
mind and strength to applaud the concluding passage, which Colonel
Talmadge rendered with resounding majesty. I was as ready as any of
them to pledge my life, fortune, and sacred honor for such a cause.
The heroic element was strong in me, having come down by ordinary
generation from a long line of Puritan ancestry, and just now it made
me long to do something, I knew not what: to fight for my country, or
to make some declaration on my own account."

When Harriet was nearly six years old her father married as his second
wife Miss Harriet Porter of Portland, Maine, and Mrs. Stowe thus
describes her new mother: "I slept in the nursery with my two younger
brothers. We knew that father was gone away somewhere on a journey and
was expected home, therefore the sound of a bustle in the house the
more easily awoke us. As father came into our room our new mother
followed him. She was very fair, with bright blue eyes, and soft
auburn hair bound round with a black velvet bandeau, and to us she
seemed very beautiful.

"Never did stepmother make a prettier or sweeter impression. The
morning following her arrival we looked at her with awe. She seemed to
us so fair, so delicate, so elegant, that we were almost afraid to go
near her. We must have appeared to her as rough, red-faced, country
children, honest, obedient, and bashful. She was peculiarly dainty and
neat in all her ways and arrangements, and I used to feel breezy,
rough, and rude in her presence.

"In her religion she was distinguished for a most unfaltering Christ-
worship. She was of a type noble but severe, naturally hard, correct,
exact and exacting, with intense natural and moral ideality. Had it
not been that Doctor Payson had set up and kept before her a tender,
human, loving Christ, she would have been only a conscientious bigot.
This image, however, gave softness and warmth to her religious life,
and I have since noticed how her Christ-enthusiasm has sprung up in
the hearts of all her children."

In writing to her old home of her first impressions of her new one,
Mrs. Beecher says: "It is a very lovely family, and with heartfelt
gratitude I observed how cheerful and healthy they were. The sentiment
is greatly increased, since I perceive them to be of agreeable habits
and some of them of uncommon intellect."

This new mother proved to be indeed all that the name implies to her
husband's children, and never did they have occasion to call her aught
other than blessed.

Another year finds a new baby brother, Frederick by name, added to the
family. At this time too we catch a characteristic glimpse of Harriet
in one of her sister Catherine's letters. She says: "Last week we
interred Tom junior with funeral honors by the side of old Tom of
happy memory. Our Harriet is chief mourner always at their funerals.
She asked for what she called an _epithet_ for the gravestone of
Tom junior, which I gave as follows:--

  "Here lies our Kit,
  Who had a fit,
    And acted queer,
  Shot with a gun,
  Her race is run,
    And she lies here."

In June, 1820, little Frederick died from scarlet fever, and Harriet
was seized with a violent attack of the same dread disease; but, after
a severe struggle, recovered.

Following her happy, hearty child-life, we find her tramping through
the woods or going on fishing excursions with her brothers, sitting
thoughtfully in her father's study, listening eagerly to the animated
theological discussions of the day, visiting her grandmother at Nut
Plains, and figuring as one of the brightest scholars in the
Litchfield Academy, taught by Mr. John Brace and Miss Pierce. When she
was eleven years old her brother Edward wrote of her: "Harriet reads
everything she can lay hands on, and sews and knits diligently."

At this time she was no longer the youngest girl of the family, for
another sister (Isabella) had been born in 1822. This event served
greatly to mature her, as she was intrusted with much of the care of
the baby out of school hours. It was not, however, allowed to
interfere in any way with her studies, and, under the skillful
direction of her beloved teachers, she seemed to absorb knowledge with
every sense. She herself writes: "Much of the training and inspiration
of my early days consisted not in the things that I was supposed to be
studying, but in hearing, while seated unnoticed at my desk, the
conversation of Mr. Brace with the older classes. There, from hour to
hour, I listened with eager ears to historical criticisms and
discussions, or to recitations in such works as Paley's Moral
Philosophy, Blair's Rhetoric, Allison on Taste, all full of most
awakening suggestions to my thoughts.

"Mr. Brace exceeded all teachers I ever knew in the faculty of
teaching composition. The constant excitement in which he kept the
minds of his pupils, the wide and varied regions of thought into which
he led them, formed a preparation for composition, the main requisite
for which is to have something which one feels interested to say."

In her tenth year Harriet began what to her was the fascinating work
of writing compositions, and so rapidly did she progress that at the
school exhibition held when she was twelve years old, hers was one of
the two or three essays selected to be read aloud before the august
assembly of visitors attracted by the occasion.

Of this event Mrs. Stowe writes: "I remember well the scene at that
exhibition, to me so eventful. The hall was crowded with all the
literati of Litchfield. Before them all our compositions were read
aloud. When mine was read I noticed that father, who was sitting on
high by Mr. Brace, brightened and looked interested, and at the close
I heard him ask, 'Who wrote that composition?' 'Your daughter, sir,'
was the answer. It was the proudest moment of my life. There was no
mistaking father's face when he was pleased, and to have interested
him was past all juvenile triumphs."

That composition has been carefully preserved, and on the old yellow
sheets the cramped childish hand-writing is still distinctly legible.
As the first literary production of one who afterwards attained such
distinction as a writer, it is deemed of sufficient value and interest
to be embodied in this biography exactly as it was written and read
sixty-five years ago. The subject was certainly a grave one to be
handled by a child of twelve.

CAN THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL BE PROVED BY THE LIGHT OF NATURE?

It has justly been concluded by the philosophers of every age that
"The proper study of mankind is man," and his nature and composition,
both physical and mental, have been subjects of the most critical
examination. In the course of these researches many have been at a
loss to account for the change which takes place in the body at the
time of death. By some it has been attributed to the flight of its
tenant, and by others to its final annihilation.

The questions, "What becomes of the soul at the time of death?" and,
if it be not annihilated, "What is its destiny after death?" are those
which, from the interest that we all feel in them, will probably
engross universal attention.

In pursuing these inquiries it will be necessary to divest ourselves
of all that knowledge which we have obtained from the light which
revelation has shed over them, and place ourselves in the same
position as the philosophers of past ages when considering the same
subject.

The first argument which has been advanced to prove the immortality of
the soul is drawn from the nature of the mind itself. It has (say the
supporters of this theory) no composition of parts, and therefore, as
there are no particles, is not susceptible of divisibility and cannot
be acted upon by decay, and therefore if it will not decay it will
exist forever.

Now because the mind is not susceptible of decay effected in the
ordinary way by a gradual separation of particles, affords no proof
that that same omnipotent power which created it cannot by another
simple exertion of power again reduce it to nothing. The only reason
for belief which this argument affords is that the soul cannot be
acted upon by decay. But it does not prove that it cannot destroy its
existence. Therefore, for the validity of this argument, it must
either be proved that the "Creator" has not the power to destroy it,
or that he has not the will; but as neither of these can be
established, our immortality is left dependent on the pleasure of the
Creator. But it is said that it is evident that the Creator designed
the soul for immortality, or he would never have created it so
essentially different from the body, for had they both been designed
for the same end they would both have been created alike, as there
would have been no object in forming them otherwise. This only proves
that the soul and body had not the same destinations. Now of what
these destinations are we know nothing, and after much useless
reasoning we return where we began, our argument depending upon the
good pleasure of the Creator.

And here it is said that a being of such infinite wisdom and
benevolence as that of which the Creator is possessed would not have
formed man with such vast capacities and boundless desires, and would
have given him no opportunity for exercising them.

In order to establish the validity of this argument it is necessary to
prove by the light of Nature that the Creator is benevolent, which,
being impracticable, is of itself sufficient to render the argument
invalid.

But the argument proceeds upon the supposition that to destroy the
soul would be unwise. Now this is arraigning the "All-wise" before the
tribunal of his subjects to answer for the mistakes in his government.
Can we look into the council of the "Unsearchable" and see what means
are made to answer their ends? We do not know but the destruction of
the soul may, in the government of God, be made to answer such a
purpose that its existence would be contrary to the dictates of
wisdom.

The great desire of the soul for immortality, its secret, innate
horror of annihilation, has been brought to prove its immortality. But
do we always find this horror or this desire? Is it not much more
evident that the great majority of mankind have no such dread at all?
True that there is a strong feeling of horror excited by the idea of
perishing from the earth and being forgotten, of losing all those
honors and all that fame awaited them. Many feel this secret horror
when they look down upon the vale of futurity and reflect that though
now the idols of the world, soon all which will be left them will be
the common portion of mankind--oblivion! But this dread does not arise
from any idea of their destiny beyond the tomb, and even were this
true, it would afford no proof that the mind would exist forever,
merely from its strong desires. For it might with as much correctness
be argued that the body will exist forever because we have a great
dread of dying, and upon this principle nothing which we strongly
desire would ever be withheld from us, and no evil that we greatly
dread will ever come upon us, a principle evidently false.

Again, it has been said that the constant progression of the powers of
the mind affords another proof of its immortality. Concerning this,
Addison remarks, "Were a human soul ever thus at a stand in her
acquirements, were her faculties to be full blown and incapable of
further enlargement, I could imagine that she might fall away
insensibly and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we
believe a thinking being that is in a perpetual progress of
improvement, and traveling on from perfection to perfection after
having just looked abroad into the works of her Creator and made a few
discoveries of his infinite wisdom and goodness, must perish at her
first setting out and in the very beginning of her inquiries?"

In answer to this it may be said that the soul is not always
progressing in her powers. Is it not rather a subject of general
remark that those brilliant talents which in youth expand, in manhood
become stationary, and in old age gradually sink to decay? Till when
the ancient man descends to the tomb scarce a wreck of that once
powerful mind remains.

Who, but upon reading the history of England, does not look with awe
upon the effects produced by the talents of her Elizabeth? Who but
admires that undaunted firmness in time of peace and that profound
depth of policy which she displayed in the cabinet? Yet behold the
tragical end of this learned, this politic princess! Behold the
triumphs of age and sickness over her once powerful talents, and say
not that the faculties of man are always progressing in their powers.

From the activity of the mind at the hour of death has also been
deduced its immortality. But it is not true that the mind is always
active at the time of death. We find recorded in history numberless
instances of those talents, which were once adequate to the government
of a nation, being so weakened and palsied by the touch of sickness as
scarcely to tell to beholders what they once were. The talents of the
statesman, the wisdom of the sage, the courage and might of the
warrior, are instantly destroyed by it, and all that remains of them
is the waste of idiocy or the madness of insanity.

Some minds there are who at the time of death retain their faculties
though much impaired, and if the argument be valid these are the only
cases where immortality is conferred. Again, it is urged that the
inequality of rewards and punishments in this world demand another in
which virtue may be rewarded and vice punished. This argument, in the
first place, takes for its foundation that by the light of nature the
distinction between virtue and vice can be discovered. By some this is
absolutely disbelieved, and by all considered as extremely doubtful.
And, secondly, it puts the Creator under an obligation to reward and
punish the actions of his creatures. No such obligation exists, and
therefore the argument cannot be valid. And this supposes the Creator
to be a being of justice, which cannot by the light of nature be
proved, and as the whole argument rests upon this foundation it
certainly cannot be correct.

This argument also directly impeaches the wisdom of the Creator, for
the sense of it is this,--that, forasmuch as he was not able to manage
his government in this world, he must have another in which to rectify
the mistakes and oversights of this, and what an idea would this give
us of our All-wise Creator?

It is also said that all nations have some conceptions of a future
state, that the ancient Greeks and Romans believed in it, that no
nation has been found but have possessed some idea of a future state
of existence. But their belief arose more from the fact that they
wished it to be so than from any real ground of belief; for arguments
appear much more plausible when the mind wishes to be convinced. But
it is said that every nation, however circumstanced, possess some idea
of a future state. For this we may account by the fact that it was
handed down by tradition from the time of the flood. From all these
arguments, which, however plausible at first sight, are found to be
futile, may be argued the necessity of a revelation. Without it, the
destiny of the noblest of the works of God would have been left in
obscurity. Never till the blessed light of the Gospel dawned on the
borders of the pit, and the heralds of the Cross proclaimed "Peace on
earth and good will to men," was it that bewildered and misled man was
enabled to trace his celestial origin and glorious destiny.

The sun of the Gospel has dispelled the darkness that has rested on
objects beyond the tomb. In the Gospel man learned that when the dust
returned to dust the spirit fled to the God who gave it. He there
found that though man has lost the image of his divine Creator, he is
still destined, after this earthly house of his tabernacle is
dissolved, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth
not away, to a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Soon after the writing of this remarkable composition, Harriet's
child-life in Litchfield came to an end, for that same year she went
to Hartford to pursue her studies in a school which had been recently
established by her sister Catherine in that city.




CHAPTER II.

SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD, 1824-1832.


MISS CATHERINE BEECHER.--PROFESSOR FISHER.--THE WRECK OF THE ALBION
AND DEATH OF PROFESSOR FISHER.--"THE MINISTER'S WOOING."--MISS
CATHERINE BEECHER'S SPIRITUAL HISTORY.--MRS. STOWE'S RECOLLECTIONS OF
HER SCHOOL DAYS IN HARTFORD.--HER CONVERSION.--UNITES WITH THE FIRST
CHURCH IN HARTFORD.--HER DOUBTS AND SUBSEQUENT RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT.
--HER FINAL PEACE.

The school days in Hartford began a new era in Harriet's life. It was
the formative period, and it is therefore important to say a few words
concerning her sister Catherine, under whose immediate supervision she
was to continue her education. In fact, no one can comprehend either
Mrs. Stowe or her writings without some knowledge of the life and
character of this remarkable woman, whose strong, vigorous mind and
tremendous personality indelibly stamped themselves on the sensitive,
yielding, dreamy, and poetic nature of the younger sister. Mrs. Stowe
herself has said that the two persons who most strongly influenced her
at this period of her life were her brother Edward and her sister
Catherine.

Catherine was the oldest child of Lyman Beecher and Roxanna Foote, his
wife. In a little battered journal found among her papers is a short
sketch of her life, written when she was seventy-six years of age. In
a tremulous hand she begins: "I was born at East Hampton, L. I.,
September 5, 1800, at 5 P.M., in the large parlor opposite father's
study. Don't remember much about it myself." The sparkle of wit in
this brief notice of the circumstances of her birth is very
characteristic. All through her life little ripples of fun were
continually playing on the surface of that current of intense thought
and feeling in which her deep, earnest nature flowed.

When she was ten years of age her father removed to Litchfield, Conn.,
and her happy girlhood was passed in that place. Her bright and
versatile mind and ready wit enabled her to pass brilliantly through
her school days with but little mental exertion, and those who knew
her slightly might have imagined her to be only a bright, thoughtless,
light-hearted girl. In Boston, at the age of twenty, she took lessons
in music and drawing, and became so proficient in these branches as to
secure a position as teacher in a young ladies' school, kept by a Rev.
Mr. Judd, an Episcopal clergyman, at New London, Conn. About this time
she formed the acquaintance of Professor Alexander Metcalf Fisher, of
Yale College, one of the most distinguished young men in New England.
In January of the year 1822 they became engaged, and the following
spring Professor Fisher sailed for Europe to purchase books and
scientific apparatus for the use of his department in the college.

In his last letter to Miss Beecher, dated March 31, 1822, he writes:--

"I set out at 10 precisely to-morrow, in the Albion for Liverpool; the
ship has no superior in the whole number of excellent vessels
belonging to this port, and Captain Williams is regarded as first on
their list of commanders. The accommodations are admirable--fare $140.
Unless our ship should speak some one bound to America on the passage,
you will probably not hear from me under two months."

Before two months had passed came vague rumors of a terrible shipwreck
on the coast of Ireland. Then the tidings that the Albion was lost.
Then came a letter from Mr. Pond, at Kinsale, Ireland, dated May 2,
1822:--

"You have doubtless heard of the shipwreck of the Albion packet of New
York, bound to Liverpool. It was a melancholy shipwreck. It happened
about four o'clock on the morning of the 22d of April. Professor
Fisher, of Yale College, was one of the passengers. Out of twenty-
three cabin passengers, but one reached the shore. He is a Mr.
Everhart, of Chester County, Pennsylvania. He informs me that
Professor Fisher was injured by things that fetched away in the cabin
at the time the ship was knocked down. This was between 8 and 9
o'clock in the evening of the twenty-first. Mr. Fisher, though badly
bruised, was calm and resolute, and assisted Captain Williams by
taking the injured compass to his berth and repairing it. About five
minutes before the vessel struck Captain Williams informed the
passengers of their danger, and all went on deck except Professor
Fisher, who remained sitting in his berth. Mr. Everhart was the last
person who left the cabin, and the last who ever saw Professor Fisher
alive."

I should not have spoken of this incident of family history with such
minuteness, except for the fact that it is so much a part of Mrs.
Stowe's life as to make it impossible to understand either her
character or her most important works without it. Without this
incident "The Minister's Wooing" never would have been written, for
both Mrs. Marvyn's terrible soul struggles and old Candace's direct
and effective solution of all religious difficulties find their origin
in this stranded, storm-beaten ship on the coast of Ireland, and the
terrible mental conflicts through which her sister afterward passed,
for she believed Professor Fisher eternally lost. No mind more
directly and powerfully influenced Harriet's than that of her sister
Catherine, unless it was her brother Edward's, and that which acted
with such overwhelming power on the strong, unyielding mind of the
older sister must have, in time, a permanent and abiding influence on
the mind of the younger.

After Professor Fisher's death his books came into Miss Beecher's
possession, and among them was a complete edition of Scott's works. It
was an epoch in the family history when Doctor Beecher came down-
stairs one day with a copy of "Ivanhoe" in his hand, and said: "I have
always said that my children should not read novels, but they must
read these."

The two years following the death of Professor Fisher were passed by
Miss Catherine Beecher at Franklin, Mass., at the home of Professor
Fisher's parents, where she taught his two sisters, studied
mathematics with his brother Willard, and listened to Doctor Emmons'
fearless and pitiless preaching. Hers was a mind too strong and
buoyant to be crushed and prostrated by that which would have driven a
weaker and less resolute nature into insanity. Of her it may well be
said:--

  "She faced the spectres of the mind
  And laid them, thus she came at length
  To find a stronger faith her own."

Gifted naturally with a capacity for close metaphysical analysis and a
robust fearlessness in following her premises to a logical conclusion,
she arrived at results startling and original, if not always of
permanent value.

In 1840 she published in the "Biblical Repository" an article on Free
Agency, which has been acknowledged by competent critics as the ablest
refutation of Edwards on "The Will" which has appeared. An amusing
incident connected with this publication may not be out of place here.
A certain eminent theological professor of New England, visiting a
distinguished German theologian and speaking of this production, said:
"The ablest refutation of Edwards on 'The Will' which was ever written
is the work of a woman, the daughter of Dr. Lyman Beecher." The worthy
Teuton raised both hands in undisguised astonishment. "You have a
woman that can write an able refutation of Edwards on 'The Will'? God
forgive Christopher Columbus for discovering America!"

Not finding herself able to love a God whom she thought of in her own
language as "a perfectly happy being, unmoved by my sorrows or tears,
and looking upon me only with dislike and aversion," she determined
"to find happiness in living to do good." "It was right to pray and
read the Bible, so I prayed and read. It was right to try to save
others, so I labored for their salvation. I never had any fear of
punishment or hope of reward all these years." She was tormented with
doubts. "What has the Son of God done which the meanest and most
selfish creature upon earth would not have done? After making such a
wretched race and placing them in such disastrous circumstances,
somehow, without any sorrow or trouble, Jesus Christ had a human
nature that suffered and died. If something else besides ourselves
will do all the suffering, who would not save millions of wretched
beings and receive all the honor and gratitude without any of the
trouble? Sometimes when such thoughts passed through my mind, I felt
that it was all pride, rebellion, and sin."

So she struggles on, sometimes floundering deep in the mire of doubt,
and then lifted for the moment above it by her naturally buoyant
spirits, and general tendency to look on the bright side of things. In
this condition of mind, she came to Hartford in the winter of 1824,
and began a school with eight scholars, and it was in the practical
experience of teaching that she found a final solution of all her
difficulties. She continues:--

"After two or three years I commenced giving instruction in mental
philosophy, and at the same time began a regular course of lectures
and instructions from the Bible, and was much occupied with plans for
governing my school, and in devising means to lead my pupils to become
obedient, amiable, and pious. By degrees I finally arrived at the
following principles in the government of my school:--

"First. It is indispensable that my scholars should feel that I am
sincerely and deeply interested in their best happiness, and the more
I can convince them of this, the more ready will be their obedience.

"Second. The preservation of authority and order depends upon the
certainty that unpleasant consequences to themselves will inevitably
be the result of doing wrong.

"Third. It is equally necessary, to preserve my own influence and
their affection, that they should feel that punishment is the natural
result of wrong-doing in such a way that they shall regard themselves,
instead of me, as the cause of their punishment.

"Fourth. It is indispensable that my scholars should see that my
requisitions are reasonable. In the majority of cases this can be
shown, and in this way such confidence will be the result that they
will trust to my judgment and knowledge, in cases where no explanation
can be given.

"Fifth. The more I can make my scholars feel that I am actuated by a
spirit of self-denying benevolence, the more confidence they will feel
in me, and the more they will be inclined to submit to self-denying
duties for the good of others.

"After a while I began to compare my experience with the government of
God. I finally got through the whole subject, and drew out the
results, and found that all my difficulties were solved and all my
darkness dispelled."

Her solution in brief is nothing more than that view of the divine
nature which was for so many years preached by her brother, Henry Ward
Beecher, and set forth in the writings of her sister Harriet,--the
conception of a being of infinite love, patience, and kindness who
suffers with man. The sufferings of Christ on the cross were not the
sufferings of his human nature merely, but the sufferings of the
divine nature in Him. In Christ we see the only revelation of God, and
that is the revelation of one that suffers. This is the fundamental
idea in "The Minister's Wooing," and it is the idea of God in which
the storm-tossed soul of the older sister at last found rest. All this
was directly opposed to that fundamental principle of theologians that
God, being the infinitely perfect Being, cannot suffer, because
suffering indicates imperfection. To Miss Beecher's mind the lack of
ability to suffer with his suffering creatures was a more serious
imperfection. Let the reader turn to the twenty-fourth chapter of "The
Minister's Wooing" for a complete presentation of this subject,
especially the passage that begins, "Sorrow is divine: sorrow is
reigning on the throne of the universe."

In the fall of the year 1824, while her sister Catherine was passing
through the soul crisis which we have been describing, Harriet came to
the school that she had recently established.

In a letter to her son written in 1886, speaking of this period of her
life, Mrs. Stowe says: "Somewhere between my twelfth and thirteenth
year I was placed under the care of my elder sister Catherine, in the
school that she had just started in Hartford, Connecticut. When I
entered the school there were not more than twenty-five scholars in
it, but it afterwards numbered its pupils by the hundreds. The school-
room was on Main Street, nearly opposite Christ Church, over Sheldon &
Colton's harness store, at the sign of the two white horses. I never
shall forget the pleasure and surprise which these two white horses
produced in my mind when I first saw them. One of the young men who
worked in the rear of the harness store had a most beautiful tenor
voice, and it was my delight to hear him singing in school hours :--

  'When in cold oblivion's shade
  Beauty, wealth, and power are laid,
  When, around the sculptured shrine,
  Moss shall cling and ivy twine,
  Where immortal spirits reign,
  There shall we all meet again.'

"As my father's salary was inadequate to the wants of his large
family, the expense of my board in Hartford was provided for by a
species of exchange. Mr. Isaac D. Bull sent a daughter to Miss
Pierce's seminary in Litchfield, and she boarded in my father's family
in exchange for my board in her father's family. If my good, refined,
neat, particular stepmother could have chosen, she could not have
found a family more exactly suited to her desires. The very soul of
neatness and order pervaded the whole establishment. Mr. I. D. Bull
was a fine, vigorous, white-haired man on the declining slope of life,
but full of energy and of kindness. Mr. Samuel Collins, a neighbor who
lived next door, used to frequently come in and make most impressive
and solemn calls on Miss Mary Anne Bull, who was a brunette and a
celebrated beauty of the day. I well remember her long raven curls
falling from the comb that held them up on the top of her head. She
had a rich soprano voice, and was the leading singer in the Centre
Church choir. The two brothers also had fine, manly voices, and the
family circle was often enlivened by quartette singing and flute
playing. Mr. Bull kept a very large wholesale drug store on Front
Street, in which his two sons, Albert and James, were clerks. The
oldest son, Watson Bull, had established a retail drug store at the
sign of the 'Good Samaritan.' A large picture of the Good Samaritan
relieving the wounded traveler formed a striking part of the sign, and
was contemplated by me with reverence.

[Illustration: Catherine E. Beecher]

"The mother of the family gave me at once a child's place in her
heart. A neat little hall chamber was allotted to me for my own, and a
well made and kept single bed was given me, of which I took daily care
with awful satisfaction. If I was sick nothing could exceed the
watchful care and tender nursing of Mrs. Bull. In school my two most
intimate friends were the leading scholars. They had written to me
before I came and I had answered their letters, and on my arrival they
gave me the warmest welcome. One was Catherine Ledyard Cogswell,
daughter of the leading and best-beloved of Hartford physicians. The
other was Georgiana May, daughter of a most lovely Christian woman who
was a widow. Georgiana was one of many children, having two younger
sisters, Mary and Gertrude, and several brothers. Catherine Cogswell
was one of the most amiable, sprightly, sunny-tempered individuals I
have ever known. She was, in fact, so much beloved that it was
difficult for me to see much of her. Her time was all bespoken by
different girls. One might walk with her to school, another had the
like promise on the way home. And at recess, of which we had every day
a short half hour, there was always a suppliant at Katy's shrine, whom
she found it hard to refuse. Yet, among all these claimants, she did
keep a little place here and there for me. Georgiana was older and
graver, and less fascinating to the other girls, but between her and
me there grew up the warmest friendship, which proved lifelong in its
constancy.

"Catherine and Georgiana were reading 'Virgil' when I came to the
school. I began the study of Latin alone, and at the end of the first
year made a translation of 'Ovid' in verse, which was read at the
final exhibition of the school, and regarded, I believe, as a very
creditable performance. I was very much interested in poetry, and it
was my dream to be a poet. I began a drama called 'Cleon.' The scene
was laid in the court and time of the emperor Nero, and Cleon was a
Greek lord residing at Nero's court, who, after much searching and
doubting, at last comes to the knowledge of Christianity. I filled
blank book after blank book with this drama. It filled my thoughts
sleeping and waking. One day sister Catherine pounced down upon me,
and said that I must not waste my time writing poetry, but discipline
my mind by the study of Butler's 'Analogy.' So after this I wrote out
abstracts from the 'Analogy,' and instructed a class of girls as old
as myself, being compelled to master each chapter just ahead of the
class I was teaching. About this time I read Baxter's 'Saint's Rest.'
I do not think any book affected me more powerfully. As I walked the
pavements I used to wish that they might sink beneath me if only I
might find myself in heaven. I was at the same time very much
interested in Butler's 'Analogy,' for Mr. Brace used to lecture on
such themes when I was at Miss Pierce's school at Litchfield. I also
began the study of French and Italian with a Miss Degan, who was born
in Italy.

"It was about this time that I first believed myself to be a
Christian. I was spending my summer vacation at home, in Litchfield. I
shall ever remember that dewy, fresh summer morning. I knew that it
was a sacramental Sunday, and thought with sadness that when all the
good people should take the sacrificial bread and wine I should be
left out. I tried hard to feel my sins and count them up; but what
with the birds, the daisies, and the brooks that rippled by the way,
it was impossible. I came into church quite dissatisfied with myself,
and as I looked upon the pure white cloth, the snowy bread and shining
cups, of the communion table, thought with a sigh: 'There won't be
anything for me to-day; it is all for these grown-up Christians.'
Nevertheless, when father began to speak, I was drawn to listen by a
certain pathetic earnestness in his voice. Most of father's sermons
were as unintelligible to me as if he had spoken in Choctaw. But
sometimes he preached what he was accustomed to call a 'frame sermon;'
that is, a sermon that sprung out of the deep feeling of the occasion,
and which consequently could be neither premeditated nor repeated. His
text was taken from the Gospel of John, the declaration of Jesus:
'Behold, I call you no longer servants, but friends.' His theme was
Jesus as a soul friend offered to every human being.

"Forgetting all his hair-splitting distinctions and dialectic
subtleties, he spoke in direct, simple, and tender language of the
great love of Christ and his care for the soul. He pictured Him as
patient with our errors, compassionate with our weaknesses, and
sympathetic for our sorrows. He went on to say how He was ever near
us, enlightening our ignorance, guiding our wanderings, comforting our
sorrows with a love unwearied by faults, unchilled by ingratitude,
till at last He should present us faultless before the throne of his
glory with exceeding joy.

"I sat intent and absorbed. Oh! how much I needed just such a friend,
I thought to myself. Then the awful fact came over me that I had never
had any conviction of my sins, and consequently could not come to Him.
I longed to cry out 'I will,' when father made his passionate appeal,
'Come, then, and trust your soul to this faithful friend.' Like a
flash it came over me that if I needed conviction of sin, He was able
to give me even this also. I would trust Him for the whole. My whole
soul was illumined with joy, and as I left the church to walk home, it
seemed to me as if Nature herself were hushing her breath to hear the
music of heaven.

"As soon as father came home and was seated in his study, I went up to
him and fell in his arms saying, 'Father, I have given myself to
Jesus, and He has taken me.' I never shall forget the expression of
his face as he looked down into my earnest, childish eyes; it was so
sweet, so gentle, and like sunlight breaking out upon a landscape. 'Is
it so?' he said, holding me silently to his heart, as I felt the hot
tears fall on my head. 'Then has a new flower blossomed in the kingdom
this day.'"

If she could have been let alone, and taught "to look up and not down,
forward and not back, out and not in," this religious experience might
have gone on as sweetly and naturally as the opening of a flower in
the gentle rays of the sun. But unfortunately this was not possible at
that time, when self-examination was carried to an extreme that was
calculated to drive a nervous and sensitive mind well-nigh distracted.
First, even her sister Catherine was afraid that there might be
something wrong in the case of a lamb that had come into the fold
without being first chased all over the lot by the shepherd; great
stress being laid, in those days, on what was called "being under
conviction." Then also the pastor of the First Church in Hartford, a
bosom friend of Dr. Beecher, looked with melancholy and suspicious
eyes on this unusual and doubtful path to heaven,--but more of this
hereafter. Harriet's conversion took place in the summer of 1825, when
she was fourteen, and the following year, April, 1826, Dr. Beecher
resigned his pastorate in Litchfield to accept a call to the Hanover
Street Church, Boston, Mass. In a letter to her grandmother Foote at
Guilford, dated Hartford, March 4, 1826, Harriet writes:--

"You have probably heard that our home in Litchfield is broken up.
Papa has received a call to Boston, and concluded to accept, because
he could not support his family in Litchfield. He was dismissed last
week Tuesday, and will be here (Hartford) next Tuesday with mamma and
Isabel. Aunt Esther will take Charles and Thomas to her house for the
present. Papa's salary is to be $2,000 and $500 settlement.

"I attend school constantly and am making some progress in my studies.
I devote most of my attention to Latin and to arithmetic, and hope
soon to prepare myself to assist Catherine in the school."

This breaking up of the Litchfield home led Harriet, under her
father's advice, to seek to connect herself with the First Church of
Hartford. Accordingly, accompanied by two of her school friends, she
went one day to the pastor's study to consult with him concerning the
contemplated step. The good man listened attentively to the child's
simple and modest statement of Christian experience, and then with an
awful, though kindly, solemnity of speech and manner said, "Harriet,
do you feel that if the universe should be destroyed (awful pause) you
could be happy with God alone?" After struggling in vain, in her
mental bewilderment, to fix in her mind some definite conception of
the meaning of the sounds which fell on her ear like the measured
strokes of a bell, the child of fourteen stammered out, "Yes, sir."

"You realize, I trust," continued the doctor, "in some measure at
least, the deceitfulness of your heart, and that in punishment for
your sins God might justly leave you to make yourself as miserable as
you have made yourself sinful?"

"Yes, sir," again stammered Harriet.

Having thus effectually, and to his own satisfaction, fixed the
child's attention on the morbid and over-sensitive workings of her own
heart, the good and truly kind-hearted man dismissed her with a
fatherly benediction. But where was the joyous ecstasy of that
beautiful Sabbath morning of a year ago? Where was that heavenly
friend? Yet was not this as it should be, and might not God leave her
"to make herself as miserable as she had made herself sinful"?

In a letter addressed to her brother Edward, about this time, she
writes: "My whole life is one continued struggle: I do nothing right.
I yield to temptation almost as soon as it assails me. My deepest
feelings are very evanescent. I am beset behind and before, and my
sins take away all my happiness. But that which most constantly besets
me is pride--I can trace almost all my sins back to it."

In the mean time, the school is prospering. February 16, 1827,
Catherine writes to Dr. Beecher: "My affairs go on well. The stock is
all taken up, and next week I hope to have out the prospectus of the
'Hartford Female Seminary.' I hope the building will be done, and all
things in order, by June. The English lady is coming with twelve
pupils from New York." Speaking of Harriet, who was at this time with
her father in Boston, she adds: "I have received some letters from
Harriet to-day which make me feel uneasy. She says, 'I don't know as I
am fit for anything, and I have thought that I could wish to die
young, and let the remembrance of me and my faults perish in the
grave, rather than live, as I fear I do, a trouble to every one. You
don't know how perfectly wretched I often feel: so useless, so weak,
so destitute of all energy. Mamma often tells me that I am a strange,
inconsistent being. Sometimes I could not sleep, and have groaned and
cried till midnight, while in the day-time I tried to appear cheerful
and succeeded so well that papa reproved me for laughing so much. I
was so absent sometimes that I made strange mistakes, and then they
all laughed at me, and I laughed, too, though I felt as though I
should go distracted. I wrote rules; made out a regular system for
dividing my time; but my feelings vary so much that it is almost
impossible for me to be regular.'"

But let Harriet "take courage in her dark sorrows and melancholies,"
as Carlyle says: "Samuel Johnson too had hypochondrias; all great
souls are apt to have, and to be in thick darkness generally till the
eternal ways and the celestial guiding stars disclose themselves, and
the vague abyss of life knits itself up into firmaments for them."

At the same time (the winter of 1827), Catherine writes to Edward
concerning Harriet: "If she could come here (Hartford) it might be the
best thing for her, for she can talk freely to me. I can get her
books, and Catherine Cogswell, Georgiana May, and her friends here
could do more for her than any one in Boston, for they love her and
she loves them very much. Georgiana's difficulties are different from
Harriet's: she is speculating about doctrines, etc. Harriet will have
young society here all the time, which she cannot have at home, and I
think cheerful and amusing friends will do much for her. I can do
better in preparing her to teach drawing than any one else, for I best
know what is needed."

It was evidently necessary that something should be done to restore
Harriet to a more tranquil and healthful frame of mind; consequently
in the spring of 1827, accompanied by her friend Georgiana May, she
went to visit her grandmother Foote at Nut Plains, Guilford. Miss May
refers to this visit in a letter to Mrs. Foote, in January of the
following winter.

HARTFORD, _January_ 4, 1828.

DEAR MRS. FOOTE:--. . . I very often think of you and the happy hours
I passed at your house last spring. It seems as if it were but
yesterday: now, while I am writing, I can see your pleasant house and
the familiar objects around you as distinctly as the day I left them.
Harriet and I are very much the same girls we were then. I do not
believe we have altered very much, though she is improved in some
respects.

The August following this visit to Guilford Harriet writes to her
brother Edward in a vein which is still streaked with sadness, but
shows some indication of returning health of mind.

"Many of my objections you did remove that afternoon we spent
together. After that I was not as unhappy as I had been. I felt,
nevertheless, that my views were very indistinct and contradictory,
and feared that if you left me thus I might return to the same dark,
desolate state in which I had been all summer. I felt that my immortal
interest, my happiness for both worlds, was depending on the turn my
feelings might take. In my disappointment and distress I called upon
God, and it seemed as if I was heard. I felt that He could supply the
loss of all earthly love. All misery and darkness were over. I felt as
if restored, nevermore to fall. Such sober certainty of waking bliss
had long been a stranger to me. But even then I had doubts as to
whether these feelings were right, because I felt love to God alone
without that ardent love for my fellow-creatures which Christians have
often felt. . . . I cannot say exactly what it is makes me reluctant
to speak of my feelings. It costs me an effort to express feeling of
any kind, but more particularly to speak of my private religious
feelings. If any one questions me, my first impulse is to conceal all
I can. As for expression of affection towards my brothers and sisters,
my companions or friends, the stronger the affection the less
inclination have I to express it. Yet sometimes I think myself the
most frank, open, and communicative of beings, and at other times the
most reserved. If you can resolve all these caprices into general
principles, you will do more than I can. Your speaking so much
philosophically has a tendency to repress confidence. We never wish to
have our feelings analyzed down; and very little, nothing, that we say
brought to the test of mathematical demonstration.

"It appears to me that if I only could adopt the views of God you
presented to my mind, they would exert a strong and beneficial
influence over my character. But I am afraid to accept them for
several reasons. First, it seems to be taking from the majesty and
dignity of the divine character to suppose that his happiness can be
at all affected by the conduct of his sinful, erring creatures.
Secondly, it seems to me that such views of God would have an effect
on our own minds in lessening that reverence and fear which is one of
the greatest motives to us for action. For, although to a generous
mind the thought of the love of God would be a sufficient incentive to
action, there are times of coldness when that love is not felt, and
then there remains no sort of stimulus. I find as I adopt these
sentiments I feel less fear of God, and, in view of sin, I feel only a
sensation of grief which is more easily dispelled and forgotten than
that I formerly felt."


A letter dated January 3, 1828, shows us that Harriet had returned to
Hartford and was preparing herself to teach drawing and painting,
under the direction of her sister Catherine.

MY DEAR GRANDMOTHER,--I should have written before to assure you of my
remembrance of you, but I have been constantly employed, from nine in
the morning till after dark at night, in taking lessons of a painting
and drawing master, with only an intermission long enough to swallow a
little dinner which was sent to me in the school-room. You may easily
believe that after spending the day in this manner, I did not feel in
a very epistolary humor in the evening, and if I had been, I could not
have written, for when I did not go immediately to bed I was obliged
to get a long French lesson.

The seminary is finished, and the school going on nicely. Miss
Clarissa Brown is assisting Catherine in the school. Besides her,
Catherine, and myself, there are two other teachers who both board in
the family with us: one is Miss Degan, an Italian lady who teaches
French and Italian; she rooms with me, and is very interesting and
agreeable. Miss Hawks is rooming with Catherine. In some respects she
reminds me very much of my mother. She is gentle, affectionate,
modest, and retiring, and much beloved by all the scholars. . . . I am
still going on with my French, and carrying two young ladies through
Virgil, and if I have time, shall commence Italian.

I am very comfortable and happy.

I propose, my dear grandmamma, to send you by the first opportunity a
dish of fruit of my own painting. Pray do not now devour it in
anticipation, for I cannot promise that you will not find it sadly
tasteless in reality. If so, please excuse it, for the sake of the
poor young artist. I admire to cultivate a taste for painting, and I
wish to improve it; it was what my dear mother admired and loved, and
I cherish it for her sake. I have thought more of this dearest of all
earthly friends these late years, since I have been old enough to know
her character and appreciate her worth. I sometimes think that, had
she lived, I might have been both better and happier than I now am,
but God is good and wise in all his ways.


A letter written to her brother Edward in Boston, dated March 27,
1828, shows how slowly she adopted the view of God that finally became
one of the most characteristic elements in her writings.

"I think that those views of God which you have presented to me have
had an influence in restoring my mind to its natural tone. But still,
after all, God is a being afar off. He is so far above us that
anything but the most distant reverential affection seems almost
sacrilegious. It is that affection that can lead us to be familiar
that the heart needs. But easy and familiar expressions of attachment
and that sort of confidential communication which I should address to
papa or you would be improper for a subject to address to a king, much
less for us to address to the King of kings. The language of prayer is
of necessity stately and formal, and we cannot clothe all the little
minutiae of our wants and troubles in it. I wish I could describe to
you how I feel when I pray. I feel that I love God,--that is, that I
love Christ,--that I find comfort and happiness in it, and yet it is
not that kind of comfort which would arise from free communication of
my wants and sorrows to a friend. I sometimes wish that the Saviour
were visibly present in this world, that I might go to Him for a
solution of some of my difficulties. . . . Do you think, my dear
brother, that there is such a thing as so realizing the presence and
character of God that He can supply the place of earthly friends? I
really wish to know what you think of this. . . . Do you suppose that
God really loves sinners before they come to Him? Some say that we
ought to tell them that God hates them, that He looks on them with
utter abhorrence, and that they must love Him before He will look on
them otherwise. Is it right to say to those who are in deep distress,'
God is interested in you; He feels for and loves you'?"

Appended to this letter is a short note from Miss Catherine Beecher,
who evidently read the letter over and answered Harriet's questions
herself. She writes: "When the young man came to Jesus, is it not said
that Jesus loved him, though he was unrenewed?"

In April, 1828, Harriet again writes to her brother Edward:---

"I have had more reason to be grateful to that friend than ever
before. He has not left me in all my weakness. It seems to me that my
love to Him is the love of despair. All my communion with Him, though
sorrowful, is soothing. I am painfully sensible of ignorance and
deficiency, but still I feel that I am willing that He should know
all. He will look on all that is wrong only to purify and reform. He
will never be irritated or impatient. He will never show me my faults
in such a manner as to irritate without helping me. A friend to whom I
would acknowledge all my faults must be perfect. Let any one once be
provoked, once speak harshly to me, once sweep all the chords of my
soul out of tune, I never could confide there again. It is only to the
most perfect Being in the universe that imperfection can look and hope
for patience. How strange! . . . You do not know how harsh and
forbidding everything seems, compared with his character. All through
the day in my intercourse with others, everything has a tendency to
destroy the calmness of mind gained by communion with Him. One
flatters me, another is angry with me, another is unjust to me.

"You speak of your predilections for literature having been a snare to
you. I have found it so myself. I can scarcely think, without tears
and indignation, that all that is beautiful and lovely and poetical
has been laid on other altars. Oh! will there never be a poet with a
heart enlarged and purified by the Holy Spirit, who shall throw all
the graces of harmony, all the enchantments of feeling, pathos, and
poetry, around sentiments worthy of them? . . . It matters little what
service He has for me. . . . I do not mean to live in vain. He has
given me talents, and I will lay them at his feet, well satisfied, if
He will accept them. All my powers He can enlarge. He made my mind,
and He can teach me to cultivate and exert its faculties."

The following November she writes from Groton, Conn., to Miss May:--

"I am in such an uncertain, unsettled state, traveling back and forth,
that I have very little time to write. In the first place, on my
arrival in Boston I was obliged to spend two days in talking and
telling news. Then after that came calling, visiting, etc., and then I
came off to Groton to see my poor brother George, who was quite out of
spirits and in very trying circumstances. To-morrow I return to Boston
and spend four or five days, and then go to Franklin, where I spend
the rest of my vacation.

"I found the folks all well on my coming to Boston, and as to my new
brother, James, he has nothing to distinguish him from forty other
babies, except a very large pair of blue eyes and an uncommonly fair
complexion, a thing which is of no sort of use or advantage to a man
or boy.

"I am thinking very seriously of remaining in Groton and taking care
of the female school, and at the same time being of assistance and
company for George. On some accounts it would not be so pleasant as
returning to Hartford, for I should be among strangers. Nothing upon
this point can be definitely decided till I have returned to Boston,
and talked to papa and Catherine."

Evidently papa and Catherine did not approve of the Groton plan, for
in February of the following winter Harriet writes from Hartford to
Edward, who is at this time with his father in Boston:---

"My situation this winter (1829) is in many respects pleasant. I room
with three other teachers, Miss Fisher, Miss Mary Dutton, and Miss
Brigham. Ann Fisher you know. Miss Dutton is about twenty, has a fine
mathematical mind, and has gone as far into that science perhaps as
most students at college. She is also, as I am told, quite learned in
the languages. . . . Miss Brigham is somewhat older: is possessed of
a fine mind and most unconquerable energy and perseverance of
character. From early childhood she has been determined to obtain an
education, and to attain to a certain standard. Where persons are
determined to be anything, they will be. I think, for this reason, she
will make a first-rate character. Such are my companions. We spend our
time in school during the day, and in studying in the evening. My plan
of study is to read rhetoric and prepare exercises for my class the
first half hour in the evening; after that the rest of the evening is
divided between French and Italian. Thus you see the plan of my
employment and the character of my immediate companions. Besides
these, there are others among the teachers and scholars who must exert
an influence over my character. Miss Degan, whose constant occupation
it is to make others laugh; Mrs. Gamage, her room-mate, a steady,
devoted, sincere Christian. . . . Little things have great power over
me, and if I meet with the least thing that crosses my feelings, I am
often rendered unhappy for days and weeks. . . . I wish I could bring
myself to feel perfectly indifferent to the opinions of others. I
believe that there never was a person more dependent on the good and
evil opinions of those around than I am. This desire to be loved
forms, I fear, the great motive for all my actions. . . . I have been
reading carefully the book of Job, and I do not think that it contains
the views of God which you presented to me. God seems to have stripped
a dependent creature of all that renders life desirable, and then to
have answered his complaints from the whirlwind; and instead of
showing mercy and pity, to have overwhelmed him by a display of his
power and justice. . . . With the view I received from you, I should
have expected that a being who sympathizes with his guilty, afflicted
creatures would not have spoken thus. Yet, after all, I do believe
that God is such a being as you represent Him to be, and in the New
Testament I find in the character of Jesus Christ a revelation of God
as merciful and compassionate; in fact, just such a God as I need.

"Somehow or another you have such a reasonable sort of way of saying
things that when I come to reflect I almost always go over to your
side. . . . My mind is often perplexed, and such thoughts arise in it
that I cannot pray, and I become bewildered. The wonder to me is, how
all ministers and all Christians can feel themselves so inexcusably
sinful, when it seems to me we all come into the world in such a way
that it would be miraculous if we did not sin. Mr. Hawes always says
in prayer, 'We have nothing to offer in extenuation of any of our
sins,' and I always think when he says it, that we have everything to
offer in extenuation. The case seems to me exactly as if I had been
brought into the world with such a thirst for ardent spirits that
there was just a possibility, though no hope, that I should resist,
and then my eternal happiness made dependent on my being temperate.
Sometimes when I try to confess my sins, I feel that after all I am
more to be pitied than blamed, for I have never known the time when I
have not had a temptation within me so strong that it was certain I
should not overcome it. This thought shocks me, but it comes with such
force, and so appealingly, to all my consciousness, that it stifles
all sense of sin. . . .

"Sometimes when I read the Bible, it seems to be wholly grounded on
the idea that the sin of man is astonishing, inexcusable, and without
palliation or cause, and the atonement is spoken of as such a
wonderful and undeserved mercy that I am filled with amazement. Yet if
I give up the Bible I gain nothing, for the providence of God in
nature is just as full of mystery, and of the two I think that the
Bible, with all its difficulties, is preferable to being without it;
for the Bible holds out the hope that in a future world all shall be
made plain. . . . So you see I am, as Mr. Hawes says, 'on the waves,'
and all I can do is to take the word of God that He does do right and
there I rest."

The following summer, in July, she writes to Edward: "I have never
been so happy as this summer. I began it in more suffering than I ever
before have felt, but there is One whom I daily thank for all that
suffering, since I hope that it has brought me at last to rest
entirely in Him. I do hope that my long, long course of wandering and
darkness and unhappiness is over, and that I have found in Him who
died for me all, and more than all, I could desire. Oh, Edward, you
can feel as I do; you can speak of Him! There are few, very few, who
can. Christians in general do not seem to look to Him as their best
friend, or realize anything of his unutterable love. They speak with a
cold, vague, reverential awe, but do not speak as if in the habit of
close and near communion; as if they confided to Him every joy and
sorrow and constantly looked to Him for direction and guidance. I
cannot express to you, my brother, I cannot tell you, how that Saviour
appears to me. To bear with one so imperfect, so weak, so
inconsistent, as myself, implied long suffering and patience more than
words can express. I love most to look on Christ as my teacher, as one
who, knowing the utmost of my sinfulness, my waywardness, my folly,
can still have patience; can reform, purify, and daily make me more
like himself."

So, after four years of struggling and suffering, she returns to the
place where she started from as a child of thirteen. It has been like
watching a ship with straining masts and storm-beaten sails, buffeted
by the waves, making for the harbor, and coming at last to quiet
anchorage. There have been, of course, times of darkness and
depression, but never any permanent loss of the religious trustfulness
and peace of mind indicated by this letter.

The next three years were passed partly in Boston, and partly in
Guilford and Hartford. Writing of this period of her life to the Rev.
Charles Beecher, she says:---

My Dear Brother:---The looking over of father's letters in the period
of his Boston life brings forcibly to my mind many recollections. At
this time I was more with him, and associated in companionship of
thought and feeling for a longer period than any other of my
experience.

In the summer of 1832 she writes to Miss May, revealing her spiritual
and intellectual life in a degree unusual, even for her.

"After the disquisition on myself above cited, you will be prepared to
understand the changes through which this wonderful _ego et me
ipse_ has passed.

"The amount of the matter has been, as this inner world of mine has
become worn out and untenable, I have at last concluded to come out of
it and live in the external one, and, as F------ S------ once advised
me, to give up the pernicious habit of meditation to the first
Methodist minister that would take it, and try to mix in society
somewhat as another person would.

"'_Horas non numero nisi serenas.'_ Uncle Samuel, who sits by me,
has just been reading the above motto, the inscription on a sun-dial
in Venice. It strikes me as having a distant relationship to what I
was going to say. I have come to a firm resolution to count no hours
but unclouded ones, and to let all others slip out of my memory and
reckoning as quickly as possible. . . .

"I am trying to cultivate a general spirit of kindliness towards
everybody. Instead of shrinking into a corner to notice how other
people behave, I am holding out my hand to the right and to the left,
and forming casual or incidental acquaintances with all who will be
acquainted with me. In this way I find society full of interest and
pleasure--a pleasure which pleaseth me more because it is not old and
worn out. From these friendships I expect little; therefore generally
receive more than I expect. From past friendships I have expected
everything, and must of necessity have been disappointed. The kind
words and looks and smiles I call forth by looking and smiling are not
much by themselves, but they form a very pretty flower border to the
way of life. They embellish the day or the hour as it passes, and when
they fade they only do just as you expected they would. This kind of
pleasure in acquaintanceship is new to me. I never tried it before.
When I used to meet persons, the first inquiry was, 'Have they such
and such a character, or have they anything that might possibly be of
use or harm to me?'"

It is striking, the degree of interest a letter had for her.

"Your long letter came this morning. It revived much in my heart. Just
think how glad I must have been this morning to hear from you. I was
glad. . . . I thought of it through all the vexations of school this
morning. . . . I have a letter at home; and when I came home from
school, I went leisurely over it.

"This evening I have spent in a little social party,--a dozen or so,--
and I have been zealously talking all the evening. When I came to my
cold, lonely room, there was your letter lying on the dressing-table.
It touched me with a sort of painful pleasure, for it seems to me
uncertain, improbable, that I shall ever return and find you as I have
found your letter. Oh, my dear G-----, it is scarcely well to love
friends thus. The greater part that I see cannot move me deeply. They
are present, and I enjoy them; they pass and I forget them. But those
that I love differently; those that I LOVE; and oh, how much that word
means! I feel sadly about them. They may change; they must die; they
are separated from me, and I ask myself why should I wish to love with
all the pains and penalties of such conditions? I check myself when
expressing feelings like this, so much has been said of it by the
sentimental, who talk what they could not have felt. But it is so
deeply, sincerely so in me, that sometimes it will overflow. Well,
there is a heaven,--a heaven,--a world of love, and love after all is
the life-blood, the existence, the all in all of mind."

This is the key to her whole life. She was impelled by love, and did
what she did, and wrote what she did, under the impulse of love. Never
could "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or "The Minister's Wooing" have been
written, unless by one to whom love was the "life-blood of existence,
the all in all of mind." Years afterwards Mrs. Browning was to express
this same thought in the language of poetry.

  "But when a soul by choice and conscience doth
    Throw out her full force on another soul,
  The conscience and the concentration both
    Make mere life love. For life in perfect whole
  And aim consummated is love in sooth,
    As nature's magnet heat rounds pole with pole."





CHAPTER III.

CINCINNATI, 1832-1836.


DR. BEECHER CALLED TO CINCINNATI.--THE WESTWARD JOURNEY.--FIRST LETTER
FROM HOME.--DESCRIPTION OF WALNUT HILLS.--STARTING A NEW SCHOOL.--
INWARD GLIMPSES.--THE SEMI-COLON CLUB.--EARLY IMPRESSIONS OF SLAVERY.
--A JOURNEY TO THE EAST.--THOUGHTS AROUSED BY FIRST VISIT TO NIAGARA.--
MARRIAGE TO PROFESSOR STOWE.

IN 1832, after having been settled for six years over the Hanover
Street Church in Boston, Dr. Beecher received and finally accepted a
most urgent call to become President of Lane Theological Seminary in
Cincinnati. This institution had been chartered in 1829, and in 1831
funds to the amount of nearly $70,000 had been promised to it provided
that Dr. Beecher accepted the presidency. It was hard for this New
England family to sever the ties of a lifetime and enter on so long a
journey to the far distant West of those days; but being fully
persuaded that their duty lay in this direction, they undertook to
perform it cheerfully and willingly. With Dr. Beecher and his wife
were to go Miss Catherine Beecher, who had conceived the scheme of
founding in Cincinnati, then considered the capital of the West, a
female college, and Harriet, who was to act as her principal
assistant. In the party were also George, who was to enter Lane as a
student, Isabella, James, the youngest son, and Miss Esther Beecher,
the "Aunt Esther" of the children.

Before making his final decision, Dr. Beecher, accompanied by his
daughter Catherine, visited Cincinnati to take a general survey of
their proposed battlefield, and their impressions of the city are
given in the following letter written by the latter to Harriet in
Boston:--

"Here we are at last at our journey's end, alive and well. We are
staying with Uncle Samuel (Foote), whose establishment I will try and
sketch for you. It is on a height in the upper part of the city, and
commands a fine view of the whole of the lower town. The city does not
impress me as being so very new. It is true everything looks neat and
clean, but it is compact, and many of the houses are of brick and very
handsomely built. The streets run at right angles to each other, and
are wide and well paved. We reached here in three days from Wheeling,
and soon felt ourselves at home. The next day father and I, with three
gentlemen, walked out to Walnut Hills. The country around the city
consists of a constant succession and variety of hills of all shapes
and sizes, forming an extensive amphitheatre. The site of the seminary
is very beautiful and picturesque, though I was disappointed to find
that both river and city are hidden by intervening hills. I never saw
a place so capable of being rendered a paradise by the improvements of
taste as the environs of this city. Walnut Hills are so elevated and
cool that people have to leave there to be sick, it is said. The
seminary is located on a farm of one hundred and twenty-five acres of
fine land, with groves of superb trees around it, about two miles from
the city. We have finally decided on the spot where our house shall
stand in case we decide to come, and you cannot (where running water
or the seashore is wanting) find another more delightful spot for a
residence. It is on an eminence, with a grove running up from the back
to the very doors, another grove across the street in front, and fine
openings through which distant hills and the richest landscapes
appear.

"I have become somewhat acquainted with those ladies we shall have the
most to do with, and find them intelligent, New England sort of folks.
Indeed, this is a New England city in all its habits, and its
inhabitants are more than half from New England. The Second Church,
which is the best in the city, will give father a unanimous call to be
their minister, with the understanding that he will give them what
time he can spare from the seminary.

"I know of no place in the world where there is so fair a prospect of
finding everything that makes social and domestic life pleasant. Uncle
John and Uncle Samuel are just the intelligent, sociable, free, and
hospitable sort of folk that everybody likes and everybody feels at
home with.

"The folks are very anxious to have a school on our plan set on foot
here. We can have fine rooms in the city college building, which is
now unoccupied, and everybody is ready to lend a helping hand. As to
father, I never saw such a field of usefulness and influence as is
offered to him here."

This, then, was the field of labor in which the next eighteen years of
the life of Mrs. Stowe were to be passed. At this time her sister Mary
was married and living in Hartford, her brothers Henry Ward and
Charles were in college, while William and Edward, already licensed to
preach, were preparing to follow their father to the West.

Mr. Beecher's preliminary journey to Cincinnati was undertaken in the
early spring of 1832, but he was not ready to remove his family until
October of that year. An interesting account of this westward journey
is given by Mrs. Stowe in a letter sent back to Hartford from
Cincinnati, as follows:--

"Well, my dear, the great sheet is out and the letter is begun. All
our family are here (in New York), and in good health.

"Father is to perform to-night in the Chatham Theatre! 'positively for
the _last_ time this season!' I don't know, I'm sure, as we shall
ever get to Pittsburgh. Father is staying here begging money for the
Biblical Literature professorship; the incumbent is to be C. Stowe.
Last night we had a call from Arthur Tappan and Mr. Eastman. Father
begged $2,000 yesterday, and now the good people are praying him to
abide certain days, as he succeeds so well. They are talking of
sending us off and keeping him here. I really dare not go and see Aunt
Esther and mother now; they were in the depths of tribulation before
at staying so long, and now,

'In the lowest depths, _another_ deep!'

Father is in high spirits. He is all in his own element,--dipping into
books; consulting authorities for his oration; going round here,
there, everywhere; begging, borrowing, and spoiling the Egyptians;
delighted with past success and confident for the future.

"Wednesday. Still in New York. I believe it would kill me dead to live
long in the way I have been doing since I have been here. It is a sort
of agreeable delirium. There's only one thing about it, it is too
_scattering._ I begin to be athirst for the waters of quietness."

[Illustration: The home at Walnut Hills, Cincinnati.]

Writing from Philadelphia, she adds:--

"Well, we did get away from New York at last, but it was through much
tribulation. The truckman carried all the family baggage to the wrong
wharf, and, after waiting and waiting on board the boat, we were
obliged to start without it, George remaining to look it up. Arrived
here late Saturday evening,--dull, drizzling weather; poor Aunt Esther
in dismay,--not a clean cap to put on,--mother in like state; all of
us destitute. We went, half to Dr. Skinner's and half to Mrs. Elmes's:
mother, Aunt Esther, father, and James to the former; Kate, Bella, and
myself to Mr. Elmes's. They are rich, hospitable folks, and act the
part of Gaius in apostolic times. . . . Our trunks came this morning.
Father stood and saw them all brought into Dr. Skinner's entry, and
then he swung his hat and gave a 'hurrah,' as any man would whose wife
had not had a clean cap or ruffle for a week. Father does not succeed
very well in opening purses here. Mr. Eastman says, however, that this
is not of much consequence. I saw to-day a notice in the
'Philadelphian' about father, setting forth how 'this distinguished
brother, with his large family, having torn themselves from the
endearing scenes of their home,' etc., etc., 'were going, like Jacob,'
etc.,--a very scriptural and appropriate flourish. It is too much
after the manner of men, or, as Paul says, speaking 'as a fool.' A
number of the pious people of this city are coming here this evening
to hold a prayer-meeting with reference to the journey and its object.
For _this_ I thank them."

From Downington she writes:--

"Here we all are,--Noah and his wife and his sons and his daughters,
with the cattle and creeping things, all dropped down in the front
parlor of this tavern, about thirty miles from Philadelphia. If to-day
is a fair specimen of our journey, it will be a very pleasant,
obliging driver, good roads, good spirits, good dinner, fine scenery,
and now and then some 'psalms and hymns and spiritual songs;' for with
George on board you may be sure of music of some kind. Moreover,
George has provided himself with a quantity of tracts, and he and the
children have kept up a regular discharge at all the wayfaring people
we encountered. I tell him he is _peppering_ the land with moral
influence.

"We are all well; all in good spirits. Just let me give you a peep
into our traveling household. Behold us, then, in the front parlor of
this country inn, all as much at home as if we were in Boston. Father
is sitting opposite to me at this table, reading; Kate is writing a
billet-doux to Mary on a sheet like this; Thomas is opposite, writing
in a little journal that he keeps; Sister Bell, too, has her little
record; George is waiting for a seat that he may produce his paper and
write. As for me, among the multitude of my present friends, my heart
still makes occasional visits to absent ones,--visits full of
pleasure, and full of cause of gratitude to Him who gives us friends.
I have thought of you often to-day, my G. We stopped this noon at a
substantial Pennsylvania tavern, and among the flowers in the garden
was a late monthly honeysuckle like the one at North Guilford. I made
a spring for it, but George secured the finest bunch, which he wore in
his buttonhole the rest of the noon.

"This afternoon, as we were traveling, we struck up and sang
'Jubilee.' It put me in mind of the time when we used to ride along
the rough North Guilford roads and make the air vocal as we went
along. Pleasant times those. Those were blue skies, and that was a
beautiful lake and noble pine-trees and rocks they were that hung over
it. But those we shall look upon 'na mair.'

"Well, my dear, there is a land where we shall not _love_ and
_leave._ Those skies shall never cease to shine, the waters of
life we shall _never_ be called upon to leave. We have here no
continuing city, but we seek one to come. In such thoughts as these I
desire ever to rest, and with such words as these let us 'comfort one
another and edify one another.'

"Harrisburg, Sunday evening. Mother, Aunt Esther, George, and the
little folks have just gathered into Kate's room, and we have just
been singing. Father has gone to preach for Mr. De Witt. To-morrow we
expect to travel sixty-two miles, and in two more days shall reach
Wheeling; there we shall take the steamboat to Cincinnati."

On the same journey George Beecher writes:--

"We had poor horses in crossing the mountains. Our average rate for
the last four days to Wheeling was forty-four miles. The journey,
which takes the mail-stage forty-eight hours, took us eight days. At
Wheeling we deliberated long whether to go on board a boat for
Cincinnati, but the prevalence of the cholera there at last decided us
to remain. While at Wheeling father preached eleven times,--nearly
every evening,--and gave them the Taylorite heresy on sin and decrees
to the highest notch; and what amused me most was to hear him
establish it from the Confession of Faith. It went high and dry,
however, above all objections, and they were delighted with it, even
the old school men, since it had not been christened 'heresy' in their
hearing. After remaining in Wheeling eight days, we chartered a stage
for Cincinnati, and started next morning.

"At Granville, Ohio, we were invited to stop and attend a protracted
meeting. Being in no great hurry to enter Cincinnati till the cholera
had left, we consented. We spent the remainder of the week there, and
I preached five times and father four. The interest was increasingly
deep and solemn each day, and when we left there were forty-five cases
of conversion in the town, besides those from the surrounding towns.
The people were astonished at the doctrine; said they never saw the
truth so plain in their lives."

Although the new-comers were cordially welcomed in Cincinnati, and
everything possible was done for their comfort and to make them feel
at home, they felt themselves to be strangers in a strange land. Their
homesickness and yearnings for New England are set forth by the
following extracts from Mrs. Stowe's answer to the first letter they
received from Hartford after leaving there:--

My dear Sister (Mary),--The Hartford letter from all and sundry has
just arrived, and after cutting all manner of capers expressive of
thankfulness, I have skipped three stairs at a time up to the study to
begin an answer. My notions of answering letters are according to the
literal sense of the word; not waiting six months and then scrawling a
lazy reply, but sitting down the moment you have read a letter, and
telling, as Dr. Woods says, "How the subject strikes you." I wish I
could be clear that the path of duty lay in talking to you this
afternoon, but as I find a loud call to consider the heels of George's
stockings, I must only write a word or two, and then resume my
darning-needle. You don't know how anxiously we all have watched for
some intelligence from Hartford. Not a day has passed when I have not
been the efficient agent in getting somebody to the post-office, and
every day my heart has sunk at the sound of "no letters." I felt a
tremor quite sufficient for a lover when I saw your handwriting once
more, so you see that in your old age you can excite quite as much
emotion as did the admirable Miss Byron in her adoring Sir Charles. I
hope the consideration and digestion of this fact will have its due
weight in encouraging you to proceed.

The fact of our having received said letter is as yet a state secret,
not to be made known till all our family circle "in full assembly
meet" at the tea-table. Then what an illumination! "How we shall be
edified and fructified," as that old Methodist said. It seems too bad
to keep it from mother and Aunt Esther a whole afternoon, but then I
have the comfort of thinking that we are consulting for their greatest
happiness "on the whole," which is metaphysical benevolence.

So kind Mrs. Parsons stopped in the very midst of her pumpkin pies to
think of us? Seems to me I can see her bright, cheerful face now! And
then those well known handwritings! We _do_ love our Hartford
friends dearly; there can be, I think, no controverting that fact.
Kate says that the word _love_ is used in _six senses_, and
I am sure in some one of them they will all come in. Well, good-by for
the present.

Evening. Having finished the last hole on George's black vest, I stick
in my needle and sit down to be sociable. You don't know how coming
away from New England has sentimentalized us all! Never was there such
an abundance of meditation on our native land, on the joys of
friendship, the pains of separation. Catherine had an alarming
paroxysm in Philadelphia which expended itself in "The Emigrant's
Farewell." After this was sent off she felt considerably relieved. My
symptoms have been of a less acute kind, but, I fear, more enduring.
There! the tea-bell rings. Too bad! I was just going to say something
bright. Now to take your letter and run! How they will stare when I
produce it!

After tea. Well, we have had a fine time. When supper was about half
over, Catherine began: "We have a dessert that we have been saving all
the afternoon," and then I held up my letter. "See here, this is from
Hartford!" I wish you could have seen Aunt Esther's eyes brighten, and
mother's pale face all in a smile, and father, as I unfolded the
letter and began. Mrs. Parsons's notice of her Thanksgiving
predicament caused just a laugh, and then one or two sighs (I told you
we were growing sentimental!). We did talk some of keeping it
(Thanksgiving), but perhaps we should all have felt something of the
text, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" Your
praises of Aunt Esther I read twice in an audible voice, as the
children made some noise the first time. I think I detected a visible
blush, though she found at that time a great deal to do in spreading
bread and butter for James, and shuffling his plate; and, indeed, it
was rather a vehement attack on her humility, since it gave her at
least "angelic perfection," if not "Adamic" (to use Methodist
technics). Jamie began his Sunday-school career yesterday. The
superintendent asked him how old he was. "I'm four years old now, and
when _it snows very hard_ I shall be five," he answered. I have
just been trying to make him interpret his meaning; but he says, "Oh,
I said so because I could not think of anything else to say." By the
by, Mary, speaking of the temptations of cities, I have much
solicitude on Jamie's account lest he should form improper intimacies,
for yesterday or day before we saw him parading by the house with his
arm over the neck of a great hog, apparently on the most amicable
terms possible; and the other day he actually got upon the back of
one, and rode some distance. So much for allowing these animals to
promenade the streets, a particular in which Mrs. Cincinnati has
imitated the domestic arrangements of some of her elder sisters, and a
very disgusting one it is.

Our family physician is one Dr. Drake, a man of a good deal of
science, theory, and reputed skill, but a sort of general mark for the
opposition of all the medical cloth of the city. He is a tall,
rectangular, perpendicular sort of a body, as stiff as a poker, and
enunciates his prescriptions very much as though he were delivering a
discourse on the doctrine of election. The other evening he was
detained from visiting Kate, and he sent a very polite, ceremonious
note containing a prescription, with Dr. D.'s compliments to Miss
Beecher, requesting that she would take the inclosed in a little
molasses at nine o'clock precisely.

The house we are at present inhabiting is the most inconvenient, ill-
arranged, good-for-nothing, and altogether to be execrated affair that
ever was put together. It was evidently built without a thought of a
winter season. The kitchen is so disposed that it cannot be reached
from any part of the house without going out into the air. Mother is
actually obliged to put on a bonnet and cloak every time she goes into
it. In the house are two parlors with folding doors between them. The
back parlor has but one window, which opens on a veranda and has its
lower half painted to keep out what little light there is. I need
scarcely add that our landlord is an old bachelor and of course acted
up to the light he had, though he left little enough of it for his
tenants.

During this early Cincinnati life Harriet suffered much from ill-
health accompanied by great mental depression; but in spite of both
she labored diligently with her sister Catherine in establishing their
school. They called it the Western Female Institute, and proposed to
conduct it upon the college plan, with a faculty of instructors. As
all these things are treated at length in letters written by Mrs.
Stowe to her friend, Miss Georgiana May, we cannot do better than turn
to them. In May, 1833, she writes:--

"Bishop Purcell visited our school to-day and expressed himself as
greatly pleased that we had opened such an one here. He spoke of my
poor little geography, [Footnote: This geography was begun by Mrs.
Stowe during the summer of 1832, while visiting her brother William at
Newport, R. I. It was completed during the winter of 1833, and
published by the firm of Corey, Fairbank & Webster, of Cincinnati.]
and thanked me for the unprejudiced manner in which I had handled the
Catholic question in it. I was of course flattered that he should have
known anything of the book.

"How I wish you could see Walnut Hills. It is about two miles from the
city, and the road to it is as picturesque as you can imagine a road
to be without 'springs that run among the hills.' Every possible
variety of hill and vale of beautiful slope, and undulations of land
set off by velvet richness of turf and broken up by groves and forests
of every outline of foliage, make the scene Arcadian. You might ride
over the same road a dozen times a day untired, for the constant
variation of view caused by ascending and descending hills relieves
you from all tedium. Much of the wooding is beech of a noble growth.
The straight, beautiful shafts of these trees as one looks up the cool
green recesses of the woods seems as though they might form very
proper columns for a Dryad temple. _There_! Catherine is growling
at _me_ for sitting up so late; so 'adieu to music, moonlight,
and you.' I meant to tell you an abundance of classical things that I
have been thinking to-night, but 'woe's me.'

"Since writing the above my whole time has been taken up in the labor
of our new school, or wasted in the fatigue and lassitude following
such labor. To-day is Sunday, and I am staying at home because I think
it is time to take some efficient means to dissipate the illness and
bad feelings of divers kinds that have for some time been growing upon
me. At present there is and can be very little system or regularity
about me. About half of my time I am scarcely alive, and a great part
of the rest the slave and sport of morbid feeling and unreasonable
prejudice. I have everything but good health.

"I still rejoice that this letter will find you in good old
Connecticut--thrice blessed--'oh, had I the wings of a dove' I would
be there too. Give my love to Mary H. I remember well how gently she
used to speak to and smile on that forlorn old daddy that boarded at
your house one summer. It was associating with her that first put into
my head the idea of saying something to people who were not agreeable,
and of saying something when I had nothing to say, as is generally the
case on such occasions."

Again she writes to the same friend: "Your letter, my dear G., I have
just received, and read through three times. Now for my meditations
upon it. What a woman of the world you are grown. How good it would be
for me to be put into a place which so breaks up and precludes
thought. Thought, intense emotional thought, has been my disease. How
much good it might do me to be where I could not but be thoughtless. . . .

"Now, Georgiana, let me copy for your delectation a list of matters
that I have jotted down for consideration at a teachers' meeting to be
held to-morrow night. It runneth as follows. Just hear! 'About quills
and paper on the floor; forming classes; drinking in the entry (cold
water, mind you); giving leave to speak; recess-bell, etc., etc.' 'You
are tired, I see,' says Gilpin, 'so am I,' and I spare you.

"I have just been hearing a class of little girls recite, and telling
them a fairy story which I had to spin out as it went along, beginning
with 'once upon a time there was,' etc., in the good old-fashioned way
of stories.

"Recently I have been reading the life of Madame de Stael
and 'Corinne.' I have felt an intense sympathy with many parts of that
book, with many parts of her character. But in America feelings
vehement and absorbing like hers become still more deep, morbid, and
impassioned by the constant habits of self-government which the rigid
forms of our society demand. They are repressed, and they burn
inwardly till they burn the very soul, leaving only dust and ashes. It
seems to me the intensity with which my mind has thought and felt on
every subject presented to it has had this effect. It has withered and
exhausted it, and though young I have no sympathy with the feelings of
youth. All that is enthusiastic, all that is impassioned in admiration
of nature, of writing, of character, in devotional thought and
emotion, or in the emotions of affection, I have felt with vehement
and absorbing intensity,--felt till my mind is exhausted, and seems to
be sinking into deadness. Half of my time I am glad to remain in a
listless vacancy, to busy myself with trifles, since thought is pain,
and emotion is pain."

During the winter of 1833-34 the young school-teacher became so
distressed at her own mental listlessness that she made a vigorous
effort to throw it off. She forced herself to mingle in society, and,
stimulated by the offer of a prize of fifty dollars by Mr. James Hall,
editor of the "Western Monthly," a newly established magazine, for the
best short story, she entered into the competition. Her story, which
was entitled "Uncle Lot," afterwards republished in the "May-flower,"
was by far the best submitted, and was awarded the prize without
hesitation. This success gave a new direction to her thoughts, gave
her an insight into her own ability, and so encouraged her that from
that time on she devoted most of her leisure moments to writing.

Her literary efforts were further stimulated at this time by the
congenial society of the Semi-Colon Club, a little social circle that
met on alternate weeks at Mr. Samuel Foote's and Dr. Drake's. The name
of the club originated with a roundabout and rather weak bit of logic
set forth by one of its promoters. He said: "You know that in Spanish
Columbus is called 'Colon.' Now he who discovers a new pleasure is
certainly half as great as he who discovers a new continent. Therefore
if Colon discovered a continent, we who have discovered in this club a
new pleasure should at least be entitled to the name of 'Semi-
Colons.'" So Semi-Colons they became and remained for some years.

At some meetings compositions were read, and at others nothing was
read, but the time was passed in a general discussion of some
interesting topic previously announced. Among the members of the club
were Professor Stowe, unsurpassed in Biblical learning; Judge James
Hall, editor of the "Western Monthly;" General Edward King; Mrs.
Peters, afterwards founder of the Philadelphia School of Design; Miss
Catherine Beecher; Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz; E. P. Cranch; Dr. Drake;
S. P. Chase, and many others who afterwards became prominent in their
several walks of life.

In one of her letters to Miss May, Mrs. Stowe describes one of her
methods for entertaining the members of the Semi-Colon as follows:--

"I am wondering as to what I shall do next. I have been writing a
piece to be read next Monday evening at Uncle Sam's soiree (the Semi-
Colon). It is a letter purporting to be from Dr. Johnson. I have been
stilting about in his style so long that it is a relief to me to come
down to the jog of common english. Now I think of it I will just give
you a history of my campaign in this circle.

"My first piece was a letter from Bishop Butler, written in his
outrageous style of parentheses and foggification. My second a
satirical essay on the modern uses of languages. This I shall send to
you, as some of the gentlemen, it seems, took a fancy to it and
requested leave to put it in the 'Western Magazine,' and so it is in
print. It is ascribed to _Catherine_, or I don't know that I
should have let it go. I have no notion of appearing in _propria
personce_.

"The next piece was a satire on certain members who were getting very
much into the way of joking on the worn-out subjects of matrimony and
old maid and old bachelorism. I therefore wrote a set of legislative
enactments purporting to be from the ladies of the society, forbidding
all such allusions in future. It made some sport at the time. I try
not to be personal, and to be courteous, even in satire.

"But I have written a piece this week that is making me some disquiet.
I did not like it that there was so little that was serious and
rational about the reading. So I conceived the design of writing a
_set of letters_, and throwing them in, as being the letters of a
friend. I wrote a letter this week for the first of the set,--easy,
not very sprightly,--describing an imaginary situation, a house in the
country, a gentleman and lady, Mr. and Mrs. Howard, as being pious,
literary, and agreeable. I threw into the letter a number of little
particulars and incidental allusions to give it the air of having been
really a letter. I meant thus to give myself an opportunity for the
introduction of different subjects and the discussion of different
characters in future letters.

"I meant to write on a great number of subjects in future. Cousin
Elisabeth, only, was in the secret; Uncle Samuel and Sarah Elliot were
not to know.

"Yesterday morning I finished my letter, smoked it to make it look
yellow, tore it to make it look old, directed it and scratched out the
direction, postmarked it with red ink, sealed it and broke the seal,
all this to give credibility to the fact of its being a real letter.
Then I inclosed it in an envelope, stating that it was a part of a
_set_ which had incidentally fallen into my hands. This envelope
was written in a scrawny, scrawly, gentleman's hand.

"I put it into the office in the morning, directed to 'Mrs. Samuel E.
Foote,' and then sent word to Sis that it was coming, so that she
might be ready to enact the part.

"Well, the deception took. Uncle Sam examined it and pronounced, _ex
cathedra_, that it must have been a real letter. Mr. Greene (the
gentleman who reads) declared that it must have come from Mrs. Hall,
and elucidated the theory by spelling out the names and dates which I
had erased, which, of course, he accommodated to his own tastes. But
then, what makes me feel uneasy is that Elisabeth, after reading it,
did not seem to be exactly satisfied. She thought it had too much
sentiment, too much particularity of incident,--she did not exactly
know what. She was afraid that it would be criticised unmercifully.
Now Elisabeth has a tact and quickness of perception that I trust to,
and her remarks have made me uneasy enough. I am unused to being
criticised, and don't know how I shall bear it."

In 1833 Mrs. Stowe first had the subject of slavery brought to her
personal notice by taking a trip across the river from Cincinnati into
Kentucky in company with Miss Dutton, one of the associate teachers in
the Western Institute. They visited an estate that afterwards figured
as that of Colonel Shelby in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and here the young
authoress first came into personal contact with the negro slaves of
the South. In speaking, many years afterwards, of this visit, Miss
Dutton said: "Harriet did not seem to notice anything in particular
that happened, but sat much of the time as though abstracted in
thought. When the negroes did funny things and cut up capers, she did
not seem to pay the slightest attention to them. Afterwards, however,
in reading 'Uncle Tom,' I recognized scene after scene of that visit
portrayed with the most minute fidelity, and knew at once where the
material for that portion of the story had been gathered."

At this time, however, Mrs. Stowe was more deeply interested in the
subject of education than in that of slavery, as is shown by the
following extract from one of her letters to Miss May, who was herself
a teacher. She says:--

"We mean to turn over the West by means of _model schools_ in
this, its capital. We mean to have a young lady's school of about
fifty or sixty, a primary school of little girls to the same amount,
and then a primary school for _boys_. We have come to the
conclusion that the work of teaching will never be rightly done till
it passes into _female_ hands. This is especially true with
regard to boys. To govern boys by moral influences