Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Part 5

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 a.s.sociate teachers in the Western Inst.i.tute. They visited an estate that afterwards figured as that of Colonel Shelby in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and here the young auth.o.r.ess 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 pa.s.ses into _female_ hands. This is especially true with regard to boys. To govern boys by moral influences requires tact and talent and versatility; it requires also the same division of labor that female education does. But men of tact, versatility, talent, and piety will not devote their lives to teaching. They must be ministers and missionaries, and all that, and while there is such a thrilling call for action in this way, every man who is merely teaching feels as if he were a Hercules with a distaff, ready to spring to the first trumpet that calls him away. As for division of labor, men must have salaries that can support wife and family, and, of course, a revenue would be required to support a requisite number of teachers if they could be found.

"Then, if men have more knowledge they have less talent at communicating it, nor have they the patience, the long-suffering, and gentleness necessary to superintend the formation of character. We intend to make these principles understood, and ourselves to set the example of what females can do in this way. You see that first-rate talent is necessary for all that we mean to do, especially for the last, because here we must face down the prejudices of society and we must have exemplary success to be believed. We want original, planning minds, and you do not know how few there are among females, and how few we can command of those that exist."

During the summer of 1834 the young teacher and writer made her first visit East since leaving New England two years before. Its object was mainly to be present at the graduation of her favorite brother, Henry Ward, from Amherst College. The earlier part of this journey was performed by means of stage to Toledo, and thence by steamer to Buffalo. A pleasant bit of personal description, and also of impressions of Niagara, seen for the first time on this journey, are given in a letter sent back to Cincinnati during its progress. In it she says of her fellow-travelers:--

"Then there was a portly, rosy, clever Mr. Smith, or Jones, or something the like; and a New Orleans girl looking like distraction, as far as dress is concerned, but with the prettiest language and softest intonations in the world, and one of those faces which, while you say it isn't handsome, keeps you looking all the time to see what it can be that is so pretty about it. Then there was Miss B., an independent, good-natured, do-as-I-please sort of a body, who seemed of perpetual motion from morning till night. Poor Miss D. said, when we stopped at night, 'Oh, dear! I suppose Lydia will be fiddling about our room till morning, and we shall not one of us sleep.' Then, by way of contrast, there was a Mr. Mitch.e.l.l, the most gentlemanly, obliging man that ever changed his seat forty times a day to please a lady. Oh, yes, he could ride outside,---or, oh, certainly, he could ride inside,--he had no objection to this, or that, or the other. Indeed, it was difficult to say what could come amiss to him. He speaks in a soft, quiet manner, with something of a drawl, using very correct, well-chosen language, and p.r.o.nouncing all his words with carefulness; has everything in his dress and traveling appointments comme il faut_; and seems to think there is abundant time for everything that is to be done in this world, without, as he says, 'any unnecessary excitement.' Before the party had fully discovered his name he was usually designated as 'the obliging gentleman,' or 'that gentleman who is so accommodating.' Yet our friend, withal, is of Irish extraction, and I have seen him roused to talk with both hands and a dozen words in a breath. He fell into a little talk about abolition and slavery with our good Mr. Jones, a man whose mode of reasoning consists in repeating the same sentence at regular intervals as long as you choose to answer it. This man, who was finally convinced that negroes were black, used it as an irrefragible argument to all that could be said, and at last began to deduce from it that they might just as well be slaves as anything else, and so he proceeded till all the philanthropy of our friend was roused, and he sprung up all lively and oratorical and gesticulatory and indignant to my heart's content. I like to see a quiet man that can be roused."

In the same letter she gives her impressions of Niagara, as follows :--

"I have seen it (Niagara) and yet live. Oh, where is your soul? Never mind, though. Let me tell, if I can, what is unutterable. Elisabeth, it is not _like_ anything; it did not look like anything I expected; it did not look like a waterfall. I did not once think whether it was high or low; whether it roared or didn't roar; whether it equaled my expectations or not. My mind whirled off, it seemed to me, in a new, strange world. It seemed unearthly, like the strange, dim images in the Revelation. I thought of the great white throne; the rainbow around it; the throne in sight like unto an emerald; and oh that beautiful water rising like moonlight, falling as the soul sinks when it dies, to rise refined, spiritualized, and pure. That rainbow, breaking out, trembling, fading, and again coming like a beautiful spirit walking the waters. Oh, it is lovelier than it is great; it is like the Mind that made it: great, but so veiled in beauty that we gaze without terror. I felt as if I could have _gone over_ with the waters; it would be so beautiful a death; there would be no fear in it. I felt the rock tremble under me with a sort of joy. I was so maddened that I could have gone too, if it had gone."

While at the East she was greatly affected by hearing of the death of her dear friend, Eliza Tyler, the wife of Professor Stowe. This lady was the daughter of Dr. Bennett Tyler, president of the Theological Inst.i.tute of Connecticut, at East Windsor; but twenty-five years of age at the time of her death, a very beautiful woman gifted with a wonderful voice. She was also possessed of a well-stored mind and a personal magnetism that made her one of the most popular members of the Semi-Colon Club, in the proceedings of which she took an active interest.

Her death left Professor Stowe a childless widower, and his forlorn condition greatly excited the sympathy of her who had been his wife's most intimate friend. It was easy for sympathy to ripen into love, and after a short engagement Harriet E. Beecher became the wife of Professor Calvin E. Stowe.

Her last act before the wedding was to write the following note to the friend of her girlhood, Miss Georgiana May:--

_January_ 6, 1836.

Well, my dear G., about half an hour more and your old friend, companion, schoolmate, sister, etc., will cease to be Hatty Beecher and change to n.o.body knows who. My dear, you are engaged, and pledged in a year or two to encounter a similar fate, and do you wish to know how you shall feel? Well, my dear, I have been dreading and dreading the time, and lying awake all last week wondering how I should live through this overwhelming crisis, and lo! it has come and I feel _nothing at all_.

The wedding is to be altogether domestic; n.o.body present but my own brothers and sisters, and my old colleague, Mary Dutton; and as there is a sufficiency of the ministry in our family we have not even to call in the foreign aid of a minister. Sister Katy is not here, so she will not witness my departure from her care and guidance to that of another. None of my numerous friends and acquaintances who have taken such a deep interest in making the connection for me even know the day, and it will be all done and over before they know anything about it.

Well, it is really a mercy to have this entire stupidity come over one at such a time. I should be crazy to feel as I did yesterday, or indeed to feel anything at all. But I inwardly vowed that my last feelings and reflections on this subject should be yours, and as I have not got any, it is just as well to tell you _that_. Well, here comes Mr. S., so farewell, and for the last time I subscribe,

Your own H. E. B.

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.

The letter to her friend Georgiana May, begun half an hour before her wedding, was not completed until nearly two months after that event.

Taking it from her portfolio, she adds:--

"Three weeks have pa.s.sed since writing the above, and my husband and self are now quietly seated by our own fireside, as domestic as any pair of tame fowl you ever saw; he writing to his mother, and I to you. Two days after our marriage we took a wedding excursion, so called, though we would most gladly have been excused this conformity to ordinary custom had not necessity required Mr. Stowe to visit Columbus, and I had too much adhesiveness not to go too. Ohio roads at this season are no joke, I can tell you, though we were, on the whole, wonderfully taken care of, and our expedition included as many pleasures as an expedition at this time of the year _ever_ could.

"And now, my dear, perhaps the wonder to you, as to me, is how this momentous crisis in the life of such a wisp of nerve as myself has been transacted so quietly. My dear, it is a wonder to myself. I am tranquil, quiet, and happy. I look _only_ on the present, and leave the future with Him who has. .h.i.therto been so kind to me. 'Take no thought for the morrow' is my motto, and my comfort is to rest on Him in whose house there are many mansions provided when these fleeting earthly ones pa.s.s away.

"Dear Georgy, naughty girl that I am, it is a month that I have let the above lie by, because I got into a strain of emotion in it that I dreaded to return to. Well, so it shall be no longer. In about five weeks Mr. Stowe and myself start for New England. He sails the first of May. I am going with him to Boston, New York, and other places, and shall stop finally at Hartford, whence, as soon as he is gone, it is my intention to return westward."

This reference to her husband as about to leave her relates to his sailing for Europe to purchase books for Lane Seminary, and also as a commissioner appointed by the State of Ohio to investigate the public school systems of the old world. He had long been convinced that higher education was impossible in the West without a higher grade of public schools, and had in 1833 been one of the founders in Cincinnati of "The College of Teachers," an inst.i.tution that existed for ten years, and exerted a widespread influence. Its objects were to popularize the common schools, raise the standard of teachers, and create a demand for education among the people. Professor Stowe was a.s.sociated in this movement with many of the leading intellects of Ohio at that time, and among them were Albert Pickett, Dr. Drake, Smith Grimke, Archbishop Purcell, President A. H. McGuffey, Dr.

Beecher, Lydia Sigourney, Caroline Lee Hentz, and others. Their influence finally extended to the state legislature, and it was concluded to authorize Professor Stowe, when abroad, to investigate and report upon the common school systems of Europe, especially Prussia.

He sailed from New York for London in the ship Montreal, Captain Champlin, on June 8, 1836, and carried with him, to be opened only after he was at sea, a letter from his wife, from which the following extract is made:--

"Now, my dear, that you are gone where you are out of the reach of my care, advice, and good management, it is fitting that you should have something under my hand and seal for your comfort and furtherance in the new world you are going to. Firstly, I must caution you to set your face as a flint against the 'cultivation of indigo,' as Elisabeth calls it, in any way or shape. Keep yourself from it most scrupulously, and though you are unprovided with that precious and savory treatise ent.i.tled 'Kemper's Consolations,' [Footnote: A ridiculous book from which Mr. Stowe derived endless amus.e.m.e.nt.] yet you can exercise yourself to recall and set in order such parts thereof as would more particularly suit your case, particularly those portions wherewith you so much consoled Kate, Aunt Esther, and your unworthy handmaid, while you yet tarried at Walnut Hills. But seriously, dear one, you must give more way to hope than to memory.

You are going to a new scene now, and one that I hope will be full of enjoyment to you. I want you to take the good of it.

"Only think of all you expect to see: the great libraries and beautiful paintings, fine churches, and, above all, think of seeing Tholuck, your great Apollo. My dear, I wish I were a man in your place; if I wouldn't have a grand time!"

During her husband's absence abroad Mrs. Stowe lived quietly in Cincinnati with her father and brothers. She wrote occasionally short stories, articles, and essays for publication in the "Western Monthly Magazine" or the "New York Evangelist," and maintained a constant correspondence with her husband by means of a daily journal, which was forwarded to him once a month. She also a.s.sisted her brother, Henry Ward, who had accepted a temporary position as editor of the "Journal," a small daily paper published in the city.

At this time the question of slavery was an exciting one in Cincinnati, and Lane Seminary had become a hotbed of abolition. The anti-slavery movement among the students was headed by Theodore D.

Weld, one of their number, who had procured funds to complete his education by lecturing through the South. While thus engaged he had been so impressed with the evils and horrors of slavery that he had become a radical abolitionist, and had succeeded in converting several Southerners to his views of the subject. Among them was Mr. J. G.

Birney of Huntsville, Alabama, who not only liberated his slaves, but in connection with Dr. Gamaliel Bailey of Cincinnati founded in that city an anti-slavery paper called "The Philanthropist." This paper was finally suppressed, and its office wrecked by a mob instigated by Kentucky slaveholders, and it is of this event that Mrs. Stowe writes to her husband as follows:--

"Yesterday evening I spent scribbling for Henry's newspaper (the 'Journal') in this wise: 'Birney's printing-press has been mobbed, and many of the respectable citizens are disposed to wink at the outrage in consideration of its moving in the line of their prejudices.'

"I wrote a conversational sketch, in which I rather satirized this inconsistent spirit, and brought out the effects of patronizing _any_ violation of private rights. It was in a light, sketchy style, designed to draw attention to a long editorial of Henry's in which he considers the subject fully and seriously. His piece is, I think, a powerful one; indeed, he does write very strongly. I am quite proud of his editorials; they are well studied, earnest, and dignified. I think he will make a first-rate writer. Both our pieces have gone to press to-day, with Charles's article on music, and we have had not a little diversion about our _family newspaper_.

"I thought, when I was writing last night, that I was, like a good wife, defending one of your principles in your absence, and wanted you to see how manfully I talked about it. Henry has also taken up and examined the question of the Seminole Indians, and done it very n.o.bly."

Again:--

"The excitement about Birney continues to increase. The keeper of the Franklin Hotel was a.s.sailed by a doc.u.ment subscribed to by many of his boarders demanding that Birney should be turned out of doors. He chose to negative the demand, and twelve of his boarders immediately left, Dr. F. among the number. A meeting has been convoked by means of a handbill, in which some of the most respectable men of the city are invited by name to come together and consider the question whether they will allow Mr. Birney to continue his paper in the city. Mr.

Greene says that, to his utter surprise, many of the most respectable and influential citizens gave out that they should go.

"He was one of the number they invited, but he told those who came to him that he would have nothing to do with disorderly public meetings or mobs in any shape, and that he was entirely opposed to the whole thing.

"I presume they will have a hot meeting, if they have any at all.

"I wish father were at home to preach a sermon to his church, for many of its members do not frown on these things as they ought."

"Later: The meeting was held, and was headed by Morgan, Neville, Judge Burke, and I know not who else. Judge Burnet was present and consented to their acts. The mob madness is certainly upon this city when men of sense and standing will pa.s.s resolutions approving in so many words of things done contrary to law, as one of the resolutions of this meeting did. It quoted the demolition of the tea in Boston harbor as being authority and precedent.

"A large body, perhaps the majority of citizens, disapprove, but I fear there will not be public disavowal. Even N. Wright but faintly opposes, and Dr. Fore has been exceedingly violent. Mr. Hammond (editor of the 'Gazette') in a very dignified and judicious manner has condemned the whole thing, and Henry has opposed, but otherwise the papers have either been silent or in favor of mobs. We shall see what the result will be in a few days.

"For my part, I can easily see how such proceedings may make converts to abolitionism, for already my sympathies are strongly enlisted for Mr. Birney, and I hope that he will stand his ground and a.s.sert his rights. The office is fire-proof, and inclosed by high walls. I wish he would man it with armed men and see what can be done. If I were a man I would go, for one, and take good care of at least one window.

Henry sits opposite me writing a most valiant editorial, and tells me to tell you he is waxing mighty in battle."

In another letter she writes:--

"I told you in my last that the mob broke into Birney's press, where, however, the mischief done was but slight. The object appeared to be princ.i.p.ally to terrify. Immediately there followed a general excitement in which even good men in their panic and prejudice about abolitionism forgot that mobs were worse evils than these, talked against Birney, and winked at the outrage; N. Wright and Judge Burnet, for example. Meanwhile the turbulent spirits went beyond this and talked of revolution and of righting things without law that could not be righted by it. At the head of these were Morgan, Neville, Longworth, Joseph Graham, and Judge Burke. A meeting was convoked at Lower Market Street to decide whether they would permit the publishing of an abolition paper, and to this meeting able citizens were by name summoned.

"There were four cla.s.ses in the city then: Those who meant to go as revolutionists and support the mob; those who meant to put down Birney, but rather hoped to do it without a mob; those who felt ashamed to go, foreseeing the probable consequence, and yet did not decidedly frown upon it; and those who sternly and decidedly reprehended it.

"The first cla.s.s was headed by Neville, Longworth, Graham, etc.; the second cla.s.s, though of some numbers, was less conspicuous; of the third, Judge Burnet, Dr. Fore, and N. Wright were specimens; and in the last such men as Hammond, Mansfield, S. P. Chase, [Footnote: Salmon P. Chase.] and Chester were prominent. The meeting in so many words voted a mob, nevertheless a committee was appointed to wait on Mr. Birney and ascertain what he proposed to do; and, strange to tell, men as sensible as Uncle John and Judge Burnet were so short-sighted as to act on that committee.

"All the newspapers in the city, except Hammond's ('Gazette') and Henry's (the 'Journal'), were either silent or openly 'mobocratic.' As might have been expected, Birney refused to leave, and that night the mob tore down his press, scattered the types, dragged the whole to the river, threw it in, and then came back to demolish the office.