HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5667, 11 September 1896, Page 2

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

A WOMAN WHO MADE HISTORY. (Sew York Times.) The death of Harriet Beecher Stowe is more than the end of a woman's life of whatever degree of fame. It marks the extinction of a genius in a family, and is one of the closing leaves in an era of our century. The more famous children of a famous father leave worthy descendants, but none of their own mental gifts or rank. Rarely, indeed, is there so much in a single life so memorable or so interesting as in that of the writer of probably the most widely read work of fiction ever penned. Her fifteen years of childhood were uneventful, but spent in an exceptional environment of cultured society, with lawyers, ministers and professors who were frequenters of her father's circle. Her mother died in her early youth, and she was still a slip of a girl when she went to help her sister Catharine, who was the head of a successful girls' school at Hartford. Thus prosily her life passed imtil, in her twentyfirst year, on Jan. 5, 1833, she married Calvin E. Stowa, Professor of Languages and BibliCtil Literature at Lane Seminary, Cincinnati. That was the turning point of her career. Nowhere were the " undei'gro'und railway" and pathetic incidents under the fugitive slave law more familiar than on the border of Ohio. Nowhere was there a stronger anti-slavery agitation or more flourishing hotbed of abolition than at Lane Seminary. That this remark is not made at random appears from the record that a majority of the students left the seminary because the trustees insisted upon their disbanding an anti-slavery debating society. Perhaps the seminary owed its escape from such scenes as attended the mobbing of the Coloured Orphan Asylum in this city solely to the difficulty of reaching it from Cincinnati. In anticipation of violence, the Stowe residence was armed and equipped with a large bell to summon help. In her husband's house many a fugitive was sheltered and many a thrilling tale rehearsed. Thus, in a sense, " Uncle Tom's Cabin " was not a freak of fancy. Its inspiration and its incidents came from actual life. But the story of that book— a historical event and influence second only to some of the Bibles of the world— must be reserved while its author's life is followed hastily to its close. After leaving Cincinnati the Stowes

lived for .a time in Brunswick, Me., her husband being a professor at Bowdoin College. In 1852 they settled in Andover, in the famous theological seminary of which village he also held a chair. He was an ideal old-time New-Englander, about ten years older than his wife. His flowing white beard and silvery hair, falling from a fine head bald on top, suggested the reference to the "dear old rabbi" contained in a personal letter to his wife from George Eliot. His death preceded his wife's about ten years. Mrs Stowe's literary life began shortly after marriage, and was long confined to fugitive tales and sketches, afterwards assembled and printed under the title of " The Mayflower." She did nothing memorable until her maturity, and then leaped full-fledged into the company of the illustrious women of the century. Besides " Uncle Tom's Cabin," of which the narrative is given below, she did nothing better than "The Minister's Wooing" (1859), which pleased the critics at least as well as it did the public. Possibly her least happy venture was "Lady Byron Vindicated." In - 1853 she had visited England, and formed the acquaintance of- the tinhappy wife of the poet, and upon what she then learned was based an unmentionable charge against him. Upon this tour was based " Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands." , In 1856 appeared her second anti-slavery. | novel, "Dred." It was a powerful work, but marred by the sentiment inspired by the attack upon Sumner in the Senate Chamber. It was thus that the bitter avenging spirit was given to Dred at the expense of the art of the story. She has written other works creditable enough, but they will not live. America's greatest orator has said that j true eloquence is very rare, because there i go to make it up three things almost never found together — the man, the subject and | the occasion. Never was there a riper occasion, than when this country was writhing in its death grip with slavery. Never was there a subject appealing more deeply to the tenderest sentiments of every human being. And if it is added with appearanco of extravagance that never; was there an uninspired intellect better adapted to strike the glowing iron, the record is confidently appealed to for the •■ • ■ • ■ I

prototype. In the English language the Bible and Shakspere's works are its only rivals. Within five yeai's a half million copies were sold in the United States alone, a degree of success phenomenal, but far inferior to that recorded in England. In 1855 the Edinburgh. Review declared that no record was possible after 1852, but in that year a million copies were sold in England, probably ten times as many as of any other volume except the Bible and Prayer Book. In each year of the generation since gone Ly the sale has steadily continued, and every year the book in its dramatic form is seen upon the stage by many audiences. There could not be a greater error than to limit the vogue of the book to the conipara* tively few millions who speak English. Here is a stanza by Holmes: — Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane, Turk. Spaniard. Tartnr of Ukraine, Hidalgo, OossacK, Cadi, High mitchman. and JiOw Dntehman, too, The Russian serf, the Polish Jew, Avnb, rmei.ian. and Mivutchoo, Would shout, " We know the lady." Lest this should be thought poetic license it will be to well to give .what the lawyers call a " bill of particulars " in the shape of a few of the titles under which this lady has carried her fame to the ends of the earth. Here they are, selected incompletely and at random, from a compilation by one of her publishers : — " Oncle Tom's Hutte." " Onkel Tomas," " De Negerut," "De Hut van Onkel Tom," " Tama's Bataya," "La Capanna dello Zio Tomlnaso," " Chata Wivja Tomasza," "A Cabana do Pai Thoinaz," "La Cabana del Tio Tomas," " Khizhina dyadi Tomnj," " Onkel Tom's Stuga," &c. In one of the above languages there were twelve versions, and no one knows how many editions. It has already been hinted how the book came to be written. Escaping slaves were familiar to her. She heard their stories, she saw their wounds, she helped their flight. Uncle Tom was the husband of a domestic in her family, and his death was the chapter first written. Topsy was a pickaninny named Celeste who lived on Walnut Hills, Cincinnati. Eliza's escape across the ice floating in the Ohio was an incident recorded in the press of that period by a witness of it, and. so the story came to her eyes. Thus she was brimming over with her topic when she •was asked to write a story for Tlic National Era. • It was begun in the* expectation that it would run through a month or so, but it was scarcely finished within a year. Week by

TT week, the instalments were produced and read aloud to the family before being dispatched to the narrow circle of readers who saw it first. To say that it was not appreciated in serial form is to state the case mildly. Her publisher was anxious for her to stop. Her brother, Henry Ward, warned her to cut it short, lest its length should prevent printing it as a book. She . answered them never a word. Her genius i was in travail, and, whatever others might think, she could not stop or turn. I The death of Uncle Tom was conceived ' at the communion table, and when her little sons heard it they declared slavery j was the wickedest thing in the world. ! After the chapter of Eva's death, the j anthor was prostrated- three days in bed. ! In one sense, a wholly reverent one, it may ;be said that she was inspired. She was ' wholly beside herself and in the control of ; her idea. She did not consider the book ! hers. She belonged to the book. Inner i own phrase " That wasn't mine ; that was ! given to me." Possibly from this accusj tonied expression of hers came the pre- ! posterous story that the wonder-working j volume was not hers, but her brother ' Henry's. In his jesting way he said that I he wrote " Norwood," just to show what he • really could do in the way of fiction, and I the result ." killed dead " the theory that he wrote " Uncle Tom's Cabin."^ At length the book was finished, and the next thing was to find a publisher for it. Mrs Stowe hoped it would at least bring her a silk gown, then the unfulfilled object of her womanly ambition. Accordingly, her sister Catherine offered it to the publishers of one of her own books. Mr Lee replied — the book being, it will be remembered, then in print, and not the proposal of an unread writer — that he could not sell a ! thousand copies, and, as it would ruin his trade with the South, he declined the project. John K. Jewett, of Boston, finally undertook to bring it out. He, as little as anyone else saw the end from the beginning. That within a few months he should hand to her lO.OOOdoI as her share of the profits was be»nd his wildest conceptions. J How far it fill short of the reality is in j some degree set forth above.