Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Chapter III: Cincinnati, 1832-1836.
by Harriet Beecher 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."
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 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. Mitchell, 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 pronouncing 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
Institute 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 nobody 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; nobody 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,