Books: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe

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I have been quite amused with something which has happened lately.
This week the "Times" has informed the United Kingdom that Mrs. Stowe
is getting a new dress made! It wants to know if Mrs. Stowe is aware
what sort of a place her dress is being made in; and there is a letter
from a dressmaker's apprentice stating that it is being made up
piecemeal, in the most shockingly distressed dens of London, by poor,
miserable white slaves, worse treated than the plantation slaves of
America!

Now Mrs. Stowe did not know anything of this, but simply gave the silk
into the hands of a friend, and was in due time waited on in her own
apartment by a very respectable-appearing woman, who offered to make
the dress, and lo, this is the result! Since the publication of this
piece, I have received earnest missives, from various parts of the
country, begging me to interfere, hoping that I was not going to
patronize the white slavery of England, and that I would employ my
talents equally against oppression in every form. Could these people
only know in what sweet simplicity I had been living in the State of
Maine, where the only dressmaker of our circle was an intelligent,
refined, well-educated woman who was considered as the equal of us
all, and whose spring and fall ministrations to our wardrobe were
regarded a double pleasure,--a friendly visit as well as a domestic
assistance,--I say, could they know all this, they would see how
guiltless I was in the matter. I verily never thought but that the
nice, pleasant person who came to measure me for my silk dress was
going to take it home and make it herself; it never occurred to me
that she was the head of an establishment.

May 22, she writes to her husband, whose duties had obliged him to
return to America: "To-day we went to hear a sermon in behalf of the
ragged schools by the Archbishop of Canterbury. My thoughts have been
much saddened by the news which I received of the death of Mary
Edmonson."

"_May_ 30. The next day from my last letter came off Miss
Greenfield's concert, of which I send a card. You see in what company
they have put your poor little wife. Funny!--isn't it? Well, the Hons.
and Right Hons. all were there. I sat by Lord Carlisle.

"After the concert the duchess asked Lady Hatherton and me to come
round to Stafford House and take tea, which was not a thing to be
despised, either on account of the tea or the duchess. A lovelier time
we never had,--present, the Duchess of Argyll, Lady Caroline Campbell,
Lady Hatherton, and myself. We had the nicest cup of tea, with such
cream, and grapes and apricots, with some Italian bread, etc.

"When we were going the duchess got me, on some pretext, into another
room, and came up and put her arms round me, with her noble face all
full of feeling.

"'Oh, Mrs. Stowe, I have been reading that last chapter in the "Key";
Argyll read it aloud to us. Oh, surely, surely you will succeed,--God
surely will bless you!'

"I said then that I thanked her for all her love and feeling for us,
told her how earnestly all the women of England sympathized with her,
and many in America. She looked really radiant and inspired. Had those
who hang back from our cause seen her face, it might have put a soul
into them as she said again, 'It will be done--it will be done--oh, I
trust and pray it may!'

"So we kissed each other, and vowed friendship and fidelity--so I came
away.

"To-day I am going with Lord Shaftesbury to St. Paul's to see the
charity children, after which lunch with Dean Milman.

"_May_ 31. We went to lunch with Miss R. at Oxford Terrace,
where, among a number of distinguished guests, was Lady Byron, with
whom I had a few moments of deeply interesting conversation. No
engravings that ever have been circulated in America do any justice to
her appearance. She is of slight figure, formed with exceeding
delicacy, and her whole form, face, dress, and air unite to make an
impression of a character singularly dignified, gentle, pure, and yet
strong. No words addressed to me in any conversation hitherto have
made their way to my inner soul with such force as a few remarks
dropped by her on the present religious aspect of England,--remarks of
such quality as one seldom hears.

"According to request, I will endeavor to keep you informed of all our
goings-on after you left, up to the time of our departure for Paris.

"We have borne in mind your advice to hasten away to the Continent.
Charles wrote, a day or two since, to Mrs. C. at Paris to secure very
private lodgings, and by no means let any one know that we were
coming. She has replied urging us to come to her house, and promising
entire seclusion and rest. So, since you departed, we have been
passing with a kind of comprehensive skip and jump over remaining
engagements. And just the evening after you left came off the
presentation of the inkstand by the ladies of Surrey Chapel.

"It is a beautiful specimen of silver-work, eighteen inches long, with
a group of silver figures on it representing Religion, with the Bible
in her hand, giving liberty to the slave. The slave is a masterly
piece of work. He stands with his hands clasped, looking up to Heaven,
while a white man is knocking the shackles from his feet. But the
prettiest part of the scene was the presentation of a _gold pen_
by a band of beautiful children, one of whom made a very pretty
speech. I called the little things to come and stand around me, and
talked with them a few minutes, and this was all the speaking that
fell to my share.

"To-morrow we go--go to quiet, to obscurity, to peace--to Paris, to
Switzerland; there we shall find the loveliest glen, and, as the Bible
says, 'fall on sleep.'

"_Paris, June_ 4. Here we are in Paris, in a most charming
family. I have been out all the morning exploring shops, streets,
boulevards, and seeing and hearing life in Paris. When one has a
pleasant home and friends to return to, this gay, bustling, vivacious,
graceful city is one of the most charming things in the world; and we
_have_ a most charming home.

"I wish the children could see these Tuileries with their statues and
fountains, men, women, and children seated in family groups under the
trees, chatting, reading aloud, working muslin,--children driving
hoop, playing ball, all alive and chattering French. Such fresh,
pretty girls as are in the shops here! _Je suis ravé_, as they
say. In short I am decidedly in a French humor, and am taking things
quite _couleur de rose_.

"_Monday, June_ 13. We went this morning to the studio of M.
Belloc, who is to paint my portrait. The first question which he
proposed, with a genuine French air, was the question of 'pose' or
position. It was concluded that, as other pictures had taken me
looking at the spectator, this should take me looking away. M. Belloc
remarked that M. Charpentier said I appeared always with the air of an
observer,--was always looking around on everything. Hence M. Belloc
would take me '_en observatrice, mais pas en curieuse_,'--with
the air of observation, but not of curiosity. By and by M. Charpentier
came in. He began panegyrizing 'Uncle Tom,' and this led to a
discussion of the ground of its unprecedented success. In his thirty-
five years' experience as a bookseller, he had known nothing like it.
It surpassed all modern writings! At first he would not read it; his
taste was for old masters of a century or two ago. 'Like M. Belloc in
painting,' said I. At length he found his friend M., the first
intelligence of the age, reading it.

"'What, you, too?' said he.

"'Ah, ah!' replied the friend; 'say nothing about this book! There is
nothing like it. This leaves us all behind,--all, all, miles behind!'

"M. Belloc said the reason was because there was in it more _genuine
faith_ than in any book; and we branched off into florid eloquence
touching paganism, Christianity, and art.

"_Wednesday, June_ 22. Adieu to Paris! Ho for Chalons-sur-Saône!
After affectionate farewells of our kind friends, by eleven o'clock we
were rushing, in the pleasantest of cars, over the smoothest of rails,
through Burgundy. We arrived at Chalons at nine P. M.

"_Thursday_, 23, eight o'clock A. M. Since five we have had a
fine bustle on the quay below our windows. There lay three steamers,
shaped for all the world like our last night's rolls. One would think
Ichabod Crane might sit astride one of them and dip his feet in the
water. They ought to be swift. L'Hirondelle (The Swallow) flew at
five; another at six. We leave at nine.

"_Lyons_. There was a scene of indescribable confusion upon our
arrival here. Out of the hold of our steamer a man with a rope and
hook began hauling baggage up a smooth board. Three hundred people
were sorting their goods without checks. Porters were shouldering
immense loads, four or five heavy trunks at once, corded together, and
stalking off Atlantean. Hat-boxes, bandboxes, and valises burst like a
meteoric shower out of a crater. '_A moi, à moi_!' was the cry,
from old men, young women, soldiers, shopkeepers, and _frères_,
scuffling and shoving together.

"_Saturday, June_ 25. Lyons to Genève. As this was our first
experience in the diligence line, we noticed particularly every
peculiarity. I had had the idea that a diligence was a ricketty, slow-
moulded antediluvian nondescript, toiling patiently along over
impassable roads at a snail's pace. Judge of my astonishment at
finding it a full-blooded, vigorous monster, of unscrupulous railway
momentum and imperturbable equipoise of mind. Down the macadamized
slopes we thundered at a prodigious pace; up the hills we trotted,
with six horses, three abreast; madly through the little towns we
burst, like a whirlwind, crashing across the pebbled streets, and out
upon the broad, smooth road again. Before we had well considered the
fact that we were out of Lyons we stopped to change horses. Done in a
jiffy; and whoop, crick, crack, whack, rumble, bump, whirr, whisk,
away we blazed, till, ere we knew it, another change and another.

"As evening drew on, a wind sprang up and a storm seemed gathering on
the Jura. The rain dashed against the panes of the berlin as we rode
past the grim-faced monarch of the 'misty shroud.' It was night as we
drove into Geneva and stopped at the Messagerie. I heard with joy a
voice demanding if this were _Madame Besshare_. I replied, not
without some scruples of conscience, '_Oui, Monsieur, c'est
moi_,' though the name did not sound exactly like the one to which
I had been wont to respond. In half an hour we were at home in the
mansion of Monsieur Fazy."

From Geneva the party made a tour of the Swiss Alps, spending some
weeks among them. While there Charles Beecher wrote from a small hotel
at the foot of the Jura:--

"The people of the neighborhood, having discovered who Harriet was,
were very kind, and full of delight at seeing her. It was Scotland
over again. We have had to be unflinching to prevent her being
overwhelmed, both in Paris and Geneva, by the same demonstrations of
regard. To this we were driven, as a matter of life and death. It was
touching to listen to the talk of these secluded mountaineers. The
good hostess, even the servant maids, hung about Harriet, expressing
such tender interest for the slave. All had read 'Uncle Tom;' and it
had apparently been an era in their life's monotony, for they said,
'Oh, madam, do write another! Remember, our winter nights here are
very long!'"

Upon their return to Geneva they visited the Castle of Chillon, of
which, in describing the dungeons, Mrs. Stowe writes:--

"One of the pillars in this vault is covered with names. I think it is
Bonnevard's Pillar. There are the names of Byron, Hunt, Schiller, and
ever so many more celebrities. As we were going from the cell our
conductress seemed to have a sudden light upon her mind. She asked a
question or two of some of our party, and fell upon me vehemently to
put my name also there. Charley scratched it on the soft freestone,
and there it is for future ages. The lady could scarce repress her
enthusiasm; she shook my hand over and over again, and said she had
read 'Uncle Tom.' 'It is beautiful,' she said, 'but it is cruel.'

"_Monday, July_ 18. Weather suspicious. Stowed ourselves and our
baggage into our _voiture_, and bade adieu to our friends and to
Geneva. Ah, how regretfully! From the market-place we carried away a
basket of cherries and fruit as a consolation. Dined at Lausanne, and
visited the cathedral and picture-gallery, where was an exquisite
_Eva_. Slept at Meudon.

"_Tuesday, July_ 19. Rode through Payerne to Freyburg. Stopped at
the Zähringer Hof,--most romantic of inns.

"_Wednesday, July_ 20. Examined, not the lions, but the bears of
Berne. Engaged a _coiture_ and drove to Thun. Dined and drove by
the shore of the lake to Interlachen, arriving just after a brilliant
sunset.

"We crossed the Wengern Alps to Grindelwald. The Jungfrau is right
over against us,--her glaciers purer, tenderer, more dazzlingly
beautiful, if possible, than those of Mont Blanc. Slept at
Grindelwald."

From Rosenlaui, on this journey, Charles Beecher writes:--

"_Friday, July 22_. Grindelwald to Meyringen. On we came, to the
top of the Great Schiedeck, where H. and W. botanized, while I slept.
Thence we rode down the mountain till we reached Rosenlaui, where, I
am free to say, a dinner was to me a more interesting object than a
glacier. Therefore, while H. and W. went to the latter, I turned off
to the inn, amid their cries and reproaches.

"Here, then, I am, writing these notes in the _salle à manger_ of
the inn, where other voyagers are eating and drinking, and there is H.
feeding on the green moonshine of an emerald ice cave. One would
almost think her incapable of fatigue. How she skips up and down high
places and steep places, to the manifest perplexity of the honest
guide Kienholz, _père_, who tries to take care of her, but does
not exactly know how! She gets on a pyramid of débris, which the edge
of the glacier is plowing and grinding up, sits down, and falls--not
asleep exactly, but into a trance. W. and I are ready to go on: we
shout; our voice is lost in the roar of the torrent. We send the
guide. He goes down, and stands doubtfully. He does not know exactly
what to do. She hears him, and starts to her feet, pointing with one
hand to yonder peak, and with the other to that knife-like edge that
seems cleaving heaven with its keen and glistening cimeter of snow,
reminding one of Isaiah's sublime imagery, 'For my sword is bathed in
heaven.' She points at the grizzly rocks, with their jags and spear-
points. Evidently she is beside herself, and thinks she can remember
the names of those monsters, born of earthquake and storm, which
cannot be named nor known but by sight, and then are known at once
perfectly and forever."

After traveling through Germany, Belgium, and Holland, the party
returned to Paris toward the end of August, from which place Mrs.
Stowe writes:--

"I am seated in a snug little room at M. Belloc's. The weather is
overpoweringly hot, but these Parisian houses seem to have seized and
imprisoned coolness. French household ways are delightful. I like
their seclusion from the street by these deep-paned quadrangles.

"Madame Belloc was the translator of Maria Edgeworth, by that lady's
desire; corresponded with her for years, and still has many of her
letters. Her translation of 'Uncle Tom' has to me all the merit and
all the interest of an original composition. In perusing it, I enjoy
the pleasure of reading the story with scarce any consciousness of its
ever having been mine."

The next letter is from London _en route_ for America, to which
passage had been engaged on the Collins steamer Arctic. In it Mrs.
Stowe writes:--

"_London, August _28. Our last letters from home changed all our
plans. We concluded to hurry away by the next steamer, if at that late
hour we could get a passage. We were all in a bustle. The last
shoppings for aunts, cousins, and little folks were to be done by us
all. The Palais Royal was to be rummaged; bronzes, vases, statuettes,
bonbons, playthings,--all that the endless fertility of France could
show,--was to be looked over for the 'folks at home.'

"How we sped across the Channel C. relates. We are spending a few very
pleasant days with our kind friends the L.'s, in London.

"_On board the Arctic, September_ 7. On Thursday, September 1, we
reached York, and visited the beautiful ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, and
the magnificent cathedral. It rained with inflexible pertinacity
during all the time we were there, and the next day it rained still,
when we took the cars for Castle Howard station.

"Lady Carlisle welcomed us most affectionately, and we learned that,
had we not been so reserved at the York station in concealing our
names, we should have received a note from her. However, as we were
safely arrived, it was of no consequence.

"Our friends spoke much of Sunmer and Prescott, who had visited there;
also of Mr. Lawrence, our former ambassador, who had visited them just
before his return. After a very pleasant day, we left with regret the
warmth of this hospitable circle, thus breaking one more of the links
that bind us to the English shore.

"Nine o'clock in the evening found us sitting by a cheerful fire in
the parlor of Mr. E. Baines at Leeds. The next day the house was
filled with company, and the Leeds offering was presented.

"Tuesday we parted from our excellent friends in Leeds, and soon found
ourselves once more in the beautiful "Dingle," our first and last
resting-place on English shores.

"A deputation from Belfast, Ireland, here met me, presenting a
beautiful bog-oak casket, lined with gold, and carved with appropriate
national symbols, containing an offering for the cause of the
oppressed. They read a beautiful address, and touched upon the
importance of inspiring with the principles of emancipation the Irish
nation, whose influence in our land is becoming so great. Had time and
strength permitted, it had been my purpose to visit Ireland, to
revisit Scotland, and to see more of England. But it is not in man
that walketh to direct his steps. And now came parting, leave-taking,
last letters, notes, and messages.

"Thus, almost sadly as a child might leave its home, I left the shores
of kind, strong Old England,--the mother of us all."

CHAPTER XI.

HOME AGAIN, 1853-1856.

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

After her return in the autumn of 1853 from her European tour, Mrs.
Stowe threw herself heart and soul into the great struggle with
slavery. Much of her time was occupied in distributing over a wide
area of country the English gold with which she had been intrusted for
the advancement of the cause. With this money she assisted in the
redemption of slaves whose cases were those of peculiar hardship, and
helped establish them as free men. She supported anti-slavery lectures
wherever they were most needed, aided in establishing and maintaining
anti-slavery publications, founded and assisted in supporting schools
in which colored people might be taught how to avail themselves of the
blessings of freedom. She arranged public meetings, and prepared many
of the addresses that should be delivered at them. She maintained such
an extensive correspondence with persons of all shades of opinion in
all parts of the world, that the letters received and answered by her
between 1853 and 1856 would fill volumes. With all these multifarious
interests, her children received a full share of her attention, nor
were her literary activities relaxed.

Immediately upon the completion of her European tour, her experiences
were published in the form of a journal, both in this country and
England, under the title of "Sunny Memories." She also revised and
elaborated the collection of sketches which had been published by the
Harpers in 1843, under title of "The Mayflower," and having purchased
the plates caused them to be republished in 1855 by Phillips &
Sampson, the successors of John P. Jewett & Co., in this country, and
by Sampson Low & Co. in London.

Soon after her return to America, feeling that she owed a debt of
gratitude to her friends in Scotland, which her feeble health had not
permitted her adequately to express while with them, Mrs. Stowe wrote
the following open letter:--

TO THE LADIES' ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW:

_Dear Friends_,--I have had many things in my mind to say to you,
which it was my hope to have said personally, but which I am now
obliged to say by letter.

I have had many fears that you must have thought our intercourse,
during the short time that I was in Glasgow, quite unsatisfactory.

At the time that I accepted your very kind invitation, I was in
tolerable health, and supposed that I should be in a situation to
enjoy society, and mingle as much in your social circles as you might
desire.

When the time came for me to fulfil my engagement with you, I was, as
you know, confined to my bed with a sickness brought on by the
exertion of getting the "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" through the press
during the winter.

In every part of the world the story of "Uncle Tom" had awakened
sympathy for the American slave, and consequently in every part of the
world the story of his wrongs had been denied; it had been asserted to
be a mere work of romance, and I was charged with being the slanderer
of the institutions of my own country. I knew that if I shrank from
supporting my position, the sympathy which the work had excited would
gradually die out, and the whole thing would be looked upon as a mere
romantic excitement of the passions.

When I came abroad, I had not the slightest idea of the kind of
reception which was to meet me in England and Scotland. I had thought
of something involving considerable warmth, perhaps, and a good deal
of cordiality and feeling on the part of friends; but of the general
extent of feeling through society, and of the degree to which it would
be publicly expressed, I had, I may say, no conception.

As through your society I was invited to your country, it may seem
proper that what communication I have to make to friends in England
and Scotland should be made through you.

In the first place, then, the question will probably arise in your
minds, Have the recent demonstrations in Great Britain done good to
the anti-slavery cause in America?

The first result of those demonstrations, as might have been expected,
was an intense reaction. Every kind of false, evil, and malignant
report has been circulated by malicious and partisan papers; and if
there is any blessing in having all manner of evil said against us
falsely, we have seemed to be in a fair way to come in possession of
it.

The sanction which was given in this matter to the voice of the
people, by the nobility of England and Scotland, has been regarded and
treated with special rancor; and yet, in its place, it has been
particularly important. Without it great advantages would have been
taken to depreciate the value of the national testimony. The value of
this testimony in particular will appear from the fact that the anti-
slavery cause has been treated with especial contempt by the leaders
of society in this country, and every attempt made to brand it with
ridicule.

The effect of making a cause generally unfashionable is much greater
in this world than it ought to be. It operates very powerfully with
the young and impressible portion of the community; therefore Cassius
M. Clay very well said with regard to the demonstration at Stafford
House: "It will help our cause by rendering it fashionable."

With regard to the present state of the anti-slavery cause in America,
I think, for many reasons, that it has never been more encouraging. It
is encouraging in this respect, that the subject is now fairly up for
inquiry before the public mind. And that systematic effort which has
been made for years to prevent its being discussed is proving wholly
ineffectual.

The "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" has sold extensively at the South,
following in the wake of "Uncle Tom." Not one fact or statement in it
has been disproved as yet. I have yet to learn of even an
_attempt_ to disprove.

The "North American Review," a periodical which has never been
favorable to the discussion of the slavery question, has come out with
a review of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which, while rating the book very
low as a work of art, they account for its great circulation and
success by the fact of its being a true picture of slavery. They go on
to say that the system is one so inherently abominable that, unless
slaveholders shall rouse themselves and abolish the principle of
chattel ownership, they can no longer sustain themselves under the
contempt and indignation of the whole civilized world. What are the
slaveholders to do when this is the best their friends and supporters
can say for them?

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