Y16 



STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER. 



The death of Lord Byron, in 1824, was felt by 

 this sensitive child as a personal loss. She knew 

 his finest poem by heart, and mourned over his de- 

 parture from moral rectitude with intense sorrow. 

 Although she was brought up amid the furnace heat 

 of theological discussion that marked the Unitarian 

 movement in the Congregational churches where 

 Lyman Beecher was set as a beacon of the ancient 

 faith, there were sweet and steadying influences in 

 her life that served her well in the stormy periods 

 of trial. She gives an account of her religious ex- 

 perience. At the close of one of his sermons set- 

 ting forth the love of Christ, her father said : " Come 

 ye and trust your souls to this faithful friend." Har- 

 riet, who was thoughtfully listening, says that a feel- 

 ing of perfect trust came into her mind, and she adds : 

 "My whole soul was illumined with joy, and on 

 leaving the church to walk home it seemed as if Na- 

 ture herself were hushing her breath to hear the 

 music of heaven. As soon as father came home ami 

 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.' 'Is it so?' he said, 

 folding her in his arms, while the tears fell hot on 

 her forehead. ' Then has a new flower blossomed 

 in the kingdom this day."' The religious impulse 

 gained in that hour of consecration was the motive 

 power of Mrs. Stowe's life and work. 



She was placed in school at Hartford, where her 

 sister Catherine was teacher. She began the study 

 of Latin by herself, and at the end of the first year 

 made a metrical translation from Ovid. It was her 

 ambition to be a poet, and she began a drama en- 

 titled " Cleon." The scene is laid in the court of 

 Is'ero, and Cleon, who is a noble in the emperor's 

 suite, becomes a Christian after long study and 

 much tribulation. She was so absorbed in this 

 work that her sister Catherine expostulated with 

 her, and gave her a class in Butler's " Analogy " 

 to turn her mind into a different channel and dis- 

 cipline her exuberant fancy. ' I instructed girls as 

 old as myself," writes Mrs. Stowe, "and was com- 

 pelled to master each chapter just ahead of the class 

 I was teaching." She read Baxter's " Saints' Rest " 

 at this time, and she says: "As I walked the pave- 

 ments I used to wish that they might sink beneath 

 me if only I might find myself in heaven." 



Harriet Beecher had few companions of her 

 own age. There were two girls, older than her- 

 self Catherine Cogswell and Georgiana May 

 with whom she formed an intimacy, but her posi- 

 tion in the school was early that of pupil teacher, 

 which shut her off from the wholesome and natu- 

 ral interchange of girlish feeling. The evil effect of 

 this Harriet realized later. When she was twenty- 

 one years old she made an effort to rid herself of 

 the habit of introspection that had become second 

 nature. She wrote to Georgiana May at this time : 

 " 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, give up the pernicious habit of 

 meditation. . . . 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 form- 

 ing casual or incidental acquaintances with all who 

 will be acquainted with me. 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?' The greater 

 part that I see can not move me deeply. But those 

 that I love oh, how much that word means ! They 

 may change, they must die, they are separated from 

 me, and I ask myself why I should 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." 



In 1826 Dr. Beecher became pastor of a church 

 in Boston, where he remained for six years, when 

 he became President of Lane Theological Seminary, 

 at Cincinnati. Catherine Beecher, with Harriet as 

 assistant, established a school, which they dreamed 

 might one day become a college for women. At this 

 time Harriet made her first literary venture, a school 

 geography, which was published in Cincinnati. In 

 the winter of 1833 she won a f50 prize that was 

 offered by a Western magazine for the best story. 

 Her story was entitled " Uncle Lot." She became 

 a member of a literary society, and wrote for its 

 meetings, but most of her time was absorbed by the 

 extensive scheme that the sisters formed for a system 

 of schools in Cincinnati. In 1836 Harriet married 

 Calvin E. Stowu, professor in Lane Seminary. 



The privations that arose from the cramped 

 financial condition of a struggling seminary and 

 school taxed the willing strength and ingenuity 

 of Mrs. Stowe to the utmost. During the twelve 

 years from 1836 to 1848 she gave birth to six chil- 

 dren. Amid the cares and anxieties of their up- 

 bringing she prosecuted her literary work, both 

 for the delight it gave her and for the addition to 

 the slender family purse. Her husband was very 

 proud of her work in that direction, and had great 

 faith in her ability. At one time he wrote to her, 

 " You must make all your calculations to spend the 

 rest of your life with your pen." Happily, leisure 

 and rest and physical strength seem never to have 

 been necessary to the production of the best litera- 

 ture. The absorbing power of concentration, 

 which is one of the compensations of woman's 

 nervous organization, was given in full measure to 

 Mrs. Stowe. When this is associated with rich 

 spiritual endowments and insight the conditions 

 are present in which a trained mind may find last- 

 ing expression in literature. Mrs. Stowe was not 

 the author of a single book. While " Uncle Tom's 

 Cabin " was the first fruit of her perfected powers, 

 " Dred " was in some respects its superior in the 

 same field. This field was opened to Mrs. Stowe 

 during her residence in Cincinnati. Only the Ohio 

 river, which played so dramatic a part in the set- 

 ting of the novel of Uncle Tom, rolled between 

 her home and homes that were built upon the 

 slave system. In 1832, when Dr. Beecher removed 

 to Cincinnati, the border States were beginning to 

 feel the pressure of conflicting sentiment that had 

 been gaining in volume since the time when free- 

 dom and slavery stood face to face in the minds 

 and circumstances that produced the Declaration 

 of Independence. The Beechers were always 

 ardent antislavery advocates, although not be- 

 longing to any party or faction of avowed aboli- 

 tionists. Mrs. Stowe was about eight years old 

 when the agitation over the question of admitting 

 Missouri to the Union took place, with the conten- 

 tion Shall it be free or slave territory? She records 

 that one of the deepest impressions ever made upon 

 her mind was produced at that time by the prayers 

 and sermons of her father and his anguish for the 

 slave. She says: " I remember his preaching draw- 

 ing tears down the hardest faces of the old farmers 

 in his congregation. I well remember his prayers 

 morning and evening in the family for poor, op- 

 pressed bleeding Africa, that the time of her deliv- 

 erance might come : prayers offered with strong 

 crying and tears, and which indelibly impressed 

 my heart, and made me what I am from my very 

 soul the enemy of all slavery." She further says: 

 " Every brother I have has been, in his sphere, a 



