Books: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe

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We got here Wednesday evening about nine o'clock, and found all the
neighbors waiting to welcome us on the wharf. The Meads, and Cranes,
and Webbs, and all the rest were there, while the black population was
in a frenzy of joy. Your father is quite well. The sea had its usual
exhilarating effect upon him. Before we left New York he was quite
meek, and exhibited such signs of grace and submission that I had
great hopes of him. He promised to do exactly as I told him, and
stated that he had entire confidence in my guidance. What woman
couldn't call such a spirit evidence of being prepared for speedy
translation? I was almost afraid he could not be long for this world.
But on the second day at sea his spirits rose, and his appetite
reasserted itself. He declared in loud tones how well he felt, and
quite resented my efforts to take care of him. I reminded him of his
gracious vows and promises in the days of his low spirits, but to no
effect. The fact is, his self-will has not left him yet, and I have
now no fear of his immediate translation. He is going to preach for us
this morning.

The last winter passed in this well-loved Southern home was that of
1883-84, for the following season Professor Stowe's health was in too
precarious a state to permit him to undertake the long journey from
Hartford. By this time one of Mrs. Stowe's fondest hopes had been
realized; and, largely through her efforts, Mandarin had been provided
with a pretty little Episcopal church, to which was attached a
comfortable rectory, and over which was installed a regular clergy-
man.

In January, 1884, Mrs. Stowe writes:--

"Mandarin looks very gay and airy now with its new villas, and our new
church and rectory. Our minister is perfect. I wish you could know
him. He wants only physical strength. In everything else he is all one
could ask.

"It is a bright, lovely morning, and four orange-pickers are busy
gathering our fruit. Our trees on the bluff have done better than any
in Florida.

"This winter I study nothing but Christ's life. First I read Farrar's
account and went over it carefully. Now I am reading Geikie. It keeps
my mind steady, and helps me to bear the languor and pain, of which I
have more than usual this winter."

CHAPTER XVIII.

OLDTOWN FOLKS, 1869.

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

This biography would be signally incomplete without some mention of
the birth, childhood, early associations, and very peculiar and
abnormal psychological experiences of Professor Stowe. Aside from the
fact of Dr. Stowe's being Mrs. Stowe's husband, and for this reason
entitled to notice in any sketch of her life, however meagre, he is
the original of the "visionary boy" in "Oldtown Folks;" and "Oldtown
Fireside Stories" embody the experiences of his childhood and youth
among the grotesque and original characters of his native town.

March 26, 1882, Professor Stowe wrote the following characteristic
letter to Mrs. Lewes:--

MRS. LEWES,--I fully sympathize with you in your disgust with Hume and
the professing mediums generally.

Hume spent his boyhood in my father's native town, among my relatives
and acquaintances, and he was a disagreeable, nasty boy. But he
certainly has qualities which science has not yet explained, and some
of his doings are as real as they are strange. My interest in the
subject of spiritualism arises from the fact of my own experience,
more than sixty years ago, in my early childhood. I then never thought
of questioning the objective reality of all I saw, and supposed that
everybody else had the same experience. Of what this experience was
you may gain some idea from certain passages in "Oldtown Folks."

The same experiences continue yet, but with serious doubts as to the
objectivity of the scenes exhibited. I have noticed that people who
have remarkable and minute answers to prayer, such as Stilling,
Franke, Lavater, are for the most part of this peculiar temperament.
Is it absurd to suppose that some peculiarity in the nervous system,
in the connecting link between soul and body, may bring some, more
than others, into an almost abnormal contact with the spirit-world
(for example, Jacob Boehme and Swedenborg), and that, too, without
correcting their faults, or making them morally better than others?
Allow me to say that I have always admired the working of your mind,
there is about it such a perfect uprightness and uncalculating
honesty. I think you are a better Christian without church or theology
than most people are with both, though I am, and always have been in
the main, a Calvinist of the Jonathan Edwards school. God bless you! I
have a warm side for Mr. Lewes on account of his Goethe labors.

Goethe has been my admiration for more than forty years. In 1830 I got
hold of his "Faust," and for two gloomy, dreary November days, while
riding through the woods of New Hampshire in an old-fashioned
stagecoach, to enter upon a professorship in Dartmouth College, I was
perfectly dissolved by it.

Sincerely yours,

C. E. STOWE.

In a letter to Mrs. Stowe, written June 24, 1872, Mrs. Lewes alludes
to Professor Stowe's letter as follows: "Pray give my special thanks
to the professor for his letter. His handwriting, which does really
look like Arabic,--a very graceful character, surely,--happens to be
remarkably legible to me, and I did not hesitate over a single word.
Some of the words, as expressions of fellowship, were very precious to
me, and I hold it very good of him to write to me that best sort of
encouragement. I was much impressed with the fact--which you have told
me--that he was the original of the "visionary boy" in "Oldtown
Folks;" and it must be deeply interesting to talk with him on his
experience. Perhaps I am inclined, under the influence of the facts,
physiological and psychological, which have been gathered of late
years, to give larger place to the interpretation of vision-seeing as
subjective than the professor would approve. It seems difficult to
limit--at least to limit with any precision--the possibility of
confounding sense by impressions derived from inward conditions with
those which are directly dependent on external stimulus. In fact, the
division between within and without in this sense seems to become
every year a more subtle and bewildering problem."

In 1834, while Mr. Stowe was a professor in Lane Theological Seminary
at Cincinnati, Ohio, he wrote out a history of his youthful adventures
in the spirit-world, from which the following extracts are taken:--

"I have often thought I would communicate to some scientific physician
a particular account of a most singular delusion under which I lived
from my earliest infancy till the fifteenth or sixteenth year of my
age, and the effects of which remain very distinctly now that I am
past thirty.

"The facts are of such a nature as to be indelibly impressed upon my
mind they appear to me to be curious, and well worth the attention of
the psychologist. I regard the occurrences in question as the more
remarkable because I cannot discover that I possess either taste or
talent for fiction or poetry. I have barely imagination enough to
enjoy, with a high degree of relish, the works of others in this
department of literature, but have never felt able or disposed to
engage in that sort of writing myself. On the contrary, my style has
always been remarkable for its dry, matter-of-fact plainness: my mind
has been distinguished for its quickness and adaptedness to historical
and literary investigations, for ardor and perseverance in pursuit of
the knowledge of facts,--_eine verständige Richtung_, as the
Germans would say,--rather than for any other quality; and the only
talent of a higher kind which I am conscious of possessing is a turn
for accurate observation of men and things, and a certain broad humor
and drollery.

[Illustration: C. Z. Stowe]

"From the hour of my birth I have been constitutionally feeble, as
were my parents before me, and my nervous system easily excitable.
With care, however, I have kept myself in tolerable health, and my
life has been an industrious one, for my parents were poor and I have
always been obliged to labor for my livelihood.

"With these preliminary remarks, I proceed to the curious details of
my psychological history. As early as I can remember anything, I can
remember observing a multitude of animated and active objects, which I
could see with perfect distinctness, moving about me, and could
sometimes, though seldom, hear them make a rustling noise, or other
articulate sounds; but I could never touch them. They were in all
respects independent of the sense of touch, and incapable of being
obstructed in any way by the intervention of material objects; I could
see them at any distance, and through any intervening object, with as
much ease and distinctness as if they were in the room with me, and
directly before my eyes. I could see them passing through the floors,
and the ceilings, and the walls of the house, from one apartment to
another, in all directions, without a door, or a keyhole, or crevice
being open to admit them. I could follow them with my eyes to any
distance, or directly through or just beneath the surface, or up and
down, in the midst of boards and timbers and bricks, or whatever else
would stop the motion or intercept the visibleness of all other
objects. These appearances occasioned neither surprise nor alarm,
except when they assumed some hideous and frightful form, or exhibited
some menacing gesture, for I became acquainted with them, as soon as
with any of the objects of sense. As to the reality of their existence
and the harmlessness of their character, I knew no difference between
them and any other of the objects which met my eye. They were as
familiar to me as the forms of my parents and my brother; they made up
a part of my daily existence, and were as really the subjects of my
consciousness as the little bench on which I sat in the corner by my
mother's knee, or the wheels and sticks and strings with which I
amused myself upon the floor. I indeed recognized a striking
difference between them and the things which I could feel and handle,
but to me this difference was no more a matter of surprise than that
which I observed between my mother and the black woman who so often
came to work for her; or between my infant brother and the little
spotted dog Brutus of which I was so fond. There was no time, or
place, or circumstance, in which they did not occasionally make their
appearance. Solitude and silence, however, were more favorable to
their appearance than company and conversation. They were more pleased
with candle-light than the daylight. They were most numerous,
distinct, and active when I was alone and in the dark, especially when
my mother had laid me in bed and returned to her own room with the
candle. At such times, I always expected the company of my serial
visitors, and counted upon it to amuse me till I dropped asleep.
Whenever they failed to make their appearance, as was sometimes the
case, I felt lonely and discontented. I kept up a lively conversation
with them,--not by language or by signs, for the attempt on my part to
speak or move would at once break the charm and drive them away in a
fret, but by a peculiar sort of spiritual intercommunion.

"When their attention was directed towards me, I could feel and
respond to all their thoughts and feelings, and was conscious that
they could in the same manner feel and respond to mine. Sometimes they
would take no notice of me, but carry on a brisk conversation among
themselves, principally by looks and gestures, with now and then an
audible word. In fact, there were but few with whom I was very
familiar. These few were much more constant and uniform in their
visits than the great multitude, who were frequently changing, and too
much absorbed in their own concerns to think much of me. I scarcely
know how I can give an idea of their form and general appearance, for
there are no objects in the material world with which I can compare
them, and no language adapted to an accurate description of their
peculiarities. They exhibited all possible combinations of size,
shape, proportion, and color, but their most usual appearance was with
the human form and proportion, but under a shadowy outline that seemed
just ready to melt into the invisible air, and sometimes liable to the
most sudden and grotesque changes, and with a uniform darkly bluish
color spotted with brown, or brownish white. This was the general
appearance of the multitude; but there were many exceptions to this
description, particularly among my more welcome and familiar visitors,
as will be seen in the sequel."

"Besides these rational and generally harmless beings, there was
another set of objects which never varied in their form or qualities,
and were always mischievous and terrible. The fact of their appearance
depended very much on the state of my health and feelings. If I was
well and cheerful they seldom troubled me; but when sick or depressed
they were sure to obtrude their hateful presence upon me. These were a
sort of heavy clouds floating about overhead, of a black color,
spotted with brown, in the shape of a very flaring inverted tunnel
without a nozzle, and from ten to thirty or forty feet in diameter.
They floated from place to place in great numbers, and in all
directions, with a strong and steady progress, but with a tremulous,
quivering, internal motion that agitated them in every part.

"Whenever they appproached, the rational phantoms were thrown into
great consternation; and well it might be, for if a cloud touched any
part of one of the rational phantoms it immediately communicated its
own color and tremulous motion to the part it touched.

"In spite of all the efforts and convulsive struggles of the unhappy
victim, this color and motion slowly, but steadily and uninteruptedly,
proceeded to diffuse itself over every part of the body, and as fast
as it did so the body was drawn into the cloud and became a part of
its substance. It was indeed a fearful sight to see the contortions,
the agonizing efforts, of the poor creatures who had been touched by
one of these awful clouds, and were dissolving and melting into it by
inches without the possibility of escape or resistance.

"This was the only visible object that had the least power over the
phantoms, and this was evidently composed of the same material as
themselves. The forms and actions of all these phantoms varied very
much with the state of my health and animal spirits, but I never could
discover that the surrounding material objects had any influence upon
them, except in this one particular, namely, if I saw them in a neat,
well furnished room, there was a neatness and polish in their form and
motions; and, on the contrary, if I was in an unfinished, rough
apartment, there was a corresponding rudeness and roughness in my
aerial visitors. A corresponding difference was visible when I saw
them in the woods or in the meadows, upon the water or upon the
ground, in the air or among the stars."

"Every different apartment which I occupied had a different set of
phantoms, and they always had a degree of correspondence to the
circumstances in which they were seen. (It should be noted, however,
that it was not so much the place where the phantoms themselves
appeared to me to be, that affected their forms and movements, as the
place in which I myself actually was while observing them. The
apparent locality of the phantoms, it is true, had some influence, but
my own actual locality had much more.)"

"Thus far I have attempted only a general outline of these curious
experiences. I will now proceed to a detailed account of several
particular incidents, for the sake of illustrating the general
statements already made. I select a few from manifestations without
number. I am able to ascertain dates from the following
circumstances:--

"I was born in April, 1802, and my father died in July, 1808, after
suffering for more than a year from a lingering organic disease.
Between two and three years before his death he removed from the house
in which I was born to another at a little distance from it. What
occurred, therefore, before my father's last sickness, must have taken
place during the first five years of my life, and whatever took place
before the removal of the family must have taken place during the
first three years of my life. Before the removal of the family I slept
in a small upper chamber in the front part of the house, where I was
generally alone for several hours in the evening and morning.
Adjoining this room, and opening into it by a very small door, was a
low, dark, narrow, unfinished closet, which was open on the other side
into a ruinous, old chaise-house. This closet was a famous place for
the gambols of the phantoms, but of their forms and actions I do not
now retain any very distinct recollection. I only remember that I was
very careful not to do anything that I thought would be likely to
offend them; yet otherwise their presence caused me no uneasiness, and
was not at all disagreeable to me.

"The first incident of which I have a distinct recollection was the
following:--

"One night, as I was lying alone in my chamber with my little dog
Brutus snoring beside my bed, there came out of the closet a very
large Indian woman and a very small Indian man, with a huge bass-viol
between them. The woman was dressed in a large, loose, black gown,
secured around her waist by a belt of the same material, and on her
head she wore a high, dark gray fur cap, shaped somewhat like a lady's
muff, ornamented with a row of covered buttons in front, and open
towards the bottom, showing a red lining. The man was dressed in a
shabby, black-colored overcoat and a little round, black hat that
fitted closely to his head. They took no notice of me, but were rather
ill-natured towards each other, and seemed to be disputing for the
possession of the bass-viol. The man snatched it away and struck upon
it a few harsh, hollow notes, which I distinctly heard, and which
seemed to vibrate through my whole body, with a strange, stinging
sensation The woman then took it and appeared to play very intently
and much to her own satisfaction, but without producing any sound that
was perceptible by me. They soon left the chamber, and I saw them go
down into the back kitchen, where they sat and played and talked with
my mother. It was only when the man took the bow that I could hear the
harsh, abrupt, disagreeable sounds of the instrument. At length they
arose, went out of the back door, and sprang upon a large heap of
straw and unthreshed beans, and disappeared with a strange, rumbling
sound. This vision was repeated night after night with scarcely any
variation while we lived in that house, and once, and once only, after
the family had removed to the other house. The only thing that seemed
to me unaccountable and that excited my curiosity was that there
should be such a large heap of straw and beans before the door every
night, when I could see nothing of it in the daytime. I frequently
crept out of bed and stole softly down into the kitchen, and peeped
out of the door to see if it was there very early in the morning.

"I attempted to make some inquiries of my mother, but as I was not as
yet very skillful in the use of language, I could get no satisfaction
out of her answers, and could see that my questions seemed to distress
her. At first she took little notice of what I said, regarding it no
doubt as the meaningless prattle of a thoughtless child. My
persistence, however, seemed to alarm her, and I suppose that she
feared for my sanity. I soon desisted from asking anything further,
and shut myself more and more within myself. One night, very soon
after the removal, when the house was still, and all the family were
in bed, these unearthly musicians once made their appearance in the
kitchen of the new house, and after looking around peevishly, and
sitting with a discontented frown and in silence, they arose and went
out of the back door, and sprang on a pile of cornstalks, and I saw
them no more.

"Our new dwelling was a low-studded house of only one story, and,
instead of an upper chamber, I now occupied a bedroom that opened into
the kitchen. Within this bedroom, directly on the left hand of the
door as you entered from the kitchen, was the staircase which led to
the garret; and, as the room was unfinished, some of the boards which
inclosed the staircase were too short, and left a considerable space
between them and the ceiling. One of these open spaces was directly in
front of my bed, so that when I lay upon my pillow my face was
opposite to it. Every night, after I had gone to bed and the candle
was removed, a very pleasant-looking human face would peer at me over
the top of that board, and gradually press forward his head, neck,
shoulders, and finally his whole body as far as the waist, through the
opening, and then, smiling upon me with great good-nature, would
withdraw in the same manner in which he had entered. He was a great
favorite of mine; for though we neither of us spoke, we perfectly
understood, and were entirely devoted to, each other. It is a singular
fact that the features of this favorite phantom bore a very close
resemblance to those of a boy older than myself whom I feared and
hated: still the resemblance was so strong that I called him by the
same name, Harvey.

"Harvey's visits were always expected and always pleasant; but
sometimes there were visitations of another sort, odious and
frightful. One of these I will relate as a specimen of the rest."

"One night, after I had retired to bed and was looking for Harvey, I
observed an unusual number of the tunnel-shaped tremulous clouds
already described, and they seemed intensely black and strongly
agitated. This alarmed me exceedingly, and I had a terrible feeling
that something awful was going to happen. It was not long before I saw
Harvey at his accustomed place, cautiously peeping at me through the
aperture, with an expression of pain and terror on his countenance. He
seemed to warn me to be on my guard, but was afraid to put his head
into the room lest he should be touched by one of the clouds, which
were every moment growing thicker and more numerous. Harvey soon
withdrew and left me alone. On turning my eyes towards the left-hand
wall of the room, I thought I saw at an immense distance below me the
regions of the damned, as I had heard them pictured in sermons. From
this awful world of horror the tunnel-shaped clouds were ascending,
and I perceived that they were the principal instruments of torture in
these gloomy abodes. These regions were at such an immense distance
below me that I could obtain but a very indistinct view of the
inhabitants, who were very numerous and exceedingly active. Near the
surface of the earth, and as it seemed to me but a little distance
from my bed, I saw four or five sturdy, resolute devils endeavoring to
carry off an unprincipled and dissipated man in the neighborhood, by
the name of Brown, of whom I had stood in terror for years. These
devils I saw were very different from the common representations. They
had neither red faces, nor horns, nor hoofs, nor tails. They were in
all respects stoutly built and well-dressed gentlemen. The only
peculiarity that I noted in their appearance was as to their heads.
Their faces and necks were perfectly bare, without hair or flesh, and
of a uniform sky-blue color, like the ashes of burnt paper before it
falls to pieces, and of a certain glossy smoothness."

"As I looked on, full of eagerness, the devils struggled to force
Brown down with them, and Brown struggled with the energy of
desperation to save himself from their grip, and it seemed that the
human was likely to prove too strong for the infernal. In this
emergency one of the devils, panting for breath and covered with
perspiration, beckoned to a strong, thick cloud that seemed to
understand him perfectly, and, whirling up to Brown, touched his hand.
Brown resisted stoutly, and struck out right and left at the cloud
most furiously, but the usual effect was produced,--the hand grew
black, quivered, and seemed to be melting into the cloud; then the
arm, by slow degrees, and then the head and shoulders. At this instant
Brown, collecting all his energies for one desperate effort, sprang at
once into the centre of the cloud, tore it asunder, and descended to
the ground, exclaiming, with a hoarse, furious voice that grated on my
ear, 'There, I've got out; dam'me if I haven't!' This was the first
word that had been spoken through the whole horrible scene. It was the
first time I had ever seen a cloud fail to produce its appropriate
result, and it terrified me so that I trembled from head to foot. The
devils, however, did not seem to be in the least discouraged. One of
them, who seemed to be the leader, went away and quickly returned
bringing with him an enormous pair of rollers fixed in an iron frame,
such as are used in iron-mills for the purpose of rolling out and
slitting bars of iron, except instead of being turned by machinery,
each roller was turned by an immense crank. Three of the devils now
seized Brown and put his feet to the rollers, while two others stood,
one at each crank, and began to roll him in with a steady strain that
was entirely irresistible. Not a word was spoken, not a sound was
heard; but the fearful struggles and terrified, agonizing looks of
Brown were more than I could endure. I sprang from my bed and ran
through the kitchen into the room where my parents slept, and
entreated that they would permit me to spend the remainder of the
night with them. After considerable parleying they assured me that
nothing could hurt me, and advised me to go back to bed. I replied
that I was not afraid of their hurting me, but I couldn't bear to see
them acting so with C. Brown. 'Poh! poh! you foolish boy,' replied my
father, sternly. 'You've only been dreaming; go right back to bed, or
I shall have to whip you.' Knowing that there was no other
alternative, I trudged back through the kitchen with all the courage I
could muster, cautiously entered my room, where I found everything
quiet, there being neither cloud, nor devil, nor anything of the kind
to be seen, and getting into bed I slept quietly till morning. The
next day I was rather sad and melancholy, but kept all my troubles to
myself, through fear of Brown. This happened before my father's
sickness, and consequently between the four and six years of my age."

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