I grieve to see that both in England and this country there are those who are entirely incapable of appreciating the Christian and truly friendly feeling that prompted this movement, and that there are even those who meet it with coarse personalities such as I had not thought possible in an English or American paper.
When I wrote my work it was in simplicity and in the love of Christ, and if I felt anything that seemed to me like a call to undertake it, it was this, that I had a true heart of love for the Southern people, a feeling appreciation of their trials, and a sincere admiration of their many excellent traits, and that I thus felt, I think, must appear to every impartial reader of the work.
It was my hope that a book so kindly intended, so favorable in many respects, might be permitted free circulation among them, and that the gentle voice of Eva and the manly generosity of St. Clare might be allowed to say those things of the system which would be invidious in any other form.
At first the book seemed to go by acclamation; the South did not condemn, and the North was loud and unanimous in praise; not a dissenting voice was raised; to my astonishment everybody praised. But when the book circulated so widely and began to penetrate the Southern States, when it began to be perceived how powerfully it affected every mind that read it, there came on a reaction.
Answers, pamphlets, newspaper attacks came thick
