Charles E. Stowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe compiled from her letters and journals by her son Charles Edward Stowe

Chapter 21: closing scenes, 1870-1889.

• Literary labors.
-- complete list of published books. -- first reading tour. -- Peeps behind the curtain. -- some New England cities. -- a letter from Maine. -- pleasant and unpleasant readings. -- second tour. -- a Western journey. -- visit to old scenes. -- celebration of seventieth birthday. -- congratulatory poems from Mr. Whittier and Dr. Holmes. -- last words.

I have at last finished all my part in the third book of mine that is to come out this year, to wit “ Oldtown Fireside Stories,” and you can have no idea what a perfect luxury of rest it is to be free from all literary engagements, of all kinds, sorts, or descriptions. I feel like a poor woman I once read about,--

Who always was tired,
'Cause she lived in a house
Where help was n't hired,

and of whom it is related that in her dying moments,

She folded her hands
With her latest endeavor,
Saying nothing, dear nothing,
Sweet nothing forever.

[490]

I am in about her state of mind. I luxuriate in laziness. I do not want to do anything or go anywhere. I only want to sink down into lazy enjoyment of living.

She was certainly well entitled to a rest, for never had there been a more laborious literary life. In addition to the twenty-three books already written, she had prepared for various magazines and journals an incredible number of short stories, letters of travel, essays, and other articles. Yet with all she had accomplished, and tired as she was, she still had seven books to write, besides many more short stories, before her work should be done. As her literary life did not really begin until 1852, the bulk of her work has been accomplished within twenty-six years, as will be seen from the following list of her books, arranged in the chronological order of their publication:--

In 1872 a new and remunerative field of labor was opened to Mrs. Stowe, and though it entailed a vast amount of weariness and hard work, she entered it with her customary energy and enthusiasm. It presented itself in the shape of an offer from the American Literary (Lecture) Bureau of Boston to deliver a course of forty readings from her own works in the principal cities of the New England States. The offer was a liberal one, and Mrs. Stowe accepted it on condition that the reading tour should be ended in time to allow her to go to her Florida home in December. This being acceded to, she set forth and gave her first reading in Bridgeport, Conn., on the evening of September 19, 1872.

The following extracts from letters written to her husband while on this reading tour throw some interesting gleams of light on the scenes behind the curtain of the lecturer's platform. From Boston, October 3d, she writes: “Have had a most successful but fatiguing week. Read in Cambridgeport to-night, and Newburyport to-morrow night.” Two weeks later, upon receipt of a letter from her husband, in which he fears he has not long to live, she writes from Westfield, Mass:-- [492]

I have never had a greater trial than being forced to stay away from you now. I would not, but that my engagements have involved others in heavy expense, and should I fail to fulfill them, it would be doing a wrong.

God has given me strength as I needed it, and I never read more to my own satisfaction than last night.

Now, my dear husband, please do want, and try, to remain with us yet a while longer, and let us have a little quiet evening together before either of us crosses the river. My heart cries out for a home with you; our home together in Florida. Oh, may we see it again! Your ever loving wife.

From Fitchburg, Mass., under date of October 29th, she writes:--

In the cars, near Palmer, who should I discover but Mr.Fields and Mrs. J. T. Fields, returning from a Western trip, as gay as a troubadour. I took an empty seat next to them, and we had a jolly ride to Boston. I drove to Mr. Williams's house, where I met the Chelsea agent, who informed me that there was no hotel in Chelsea, but that they were expecting to send over for me. So I turned at once toward 148 Charles Street, where I tumbled in on the Fields before they had got their things off. We had a good laugh, and I received a hearty welcome. I was quickly installed in my room, where, after a nice dinner, I curled up for my afternoon nap. At half-past 7 the carriage came for me, and I was informed that I should not have a hard reading, as they had engaged singers to take part. So, when I got into the carriage, who should I find, beshawled, and beflowered, and betoggled in blue satin [493] and white lace, but our old friend of Andover concert memory, now become Madame Thingumbob, of European celebrity. She had studied in Italy, come out in Milan, sung there in opera for a whole winter, and also in Paris and London.

Well, she sings very sweetly and looks very nice and pretty. Then we had a little rosebud of a Chelsea girl who sang, and a pianist. I read “Minister's Housekeeper” and Topsy, and the audience was very jolly and appreciative. Then we all jogged home.

The next letter finds Mrs. Stowe in Maine, and writing in the cars between Bangor and Portland. She says:--

From South Framingham, Mass., she writes on November 7th:--

From Newport she writes on November 26th--

It was a hard, tiring, disagreeable piece of business to read in New London. Had to wait three mortal hours in Palmer. Then a slow, weary train, that did not reach New London until after dark. There was then no time to rest, and I was so tired that it did seem as though I could not dress. I really trembled with [497] fatigue. The hall was long and dimly lighted, and the people were not seated compactly, but around in patches. The light was dim, except for a great flaring gas jet arranged right under my eyes on the reading desk, and I did not see a creature whom I knew. I was only too glad when it was over and I was back again at my hotel. There I found that I must be up at five o'clock to catch the Newport train.

I started for this place in the dusk of a dreary, foggy morning. Traveled first on a ferry, then in cars, and then in a little cold steamboat. Found no one to meet me, in spite of all my writing, and so took a carriage and came to the hotel. The landlord was very polite to me, said he knew me by my trunk, had been to our place in Mandarin, etc. All I wanted was a warm room, a good bed, and unlimited time to sleep. Now I have had a three hours nap, and here I am, sitting by myself in the great, lonely hotel parlor.

Well, dear old man, I think lots of you, and only want to end all this in a quiet home where we can sing “John Anderson, my Jo” together. I check off place after place as the captive the days of his imprisonment. Only two more after to-night. Ever your loving wife.

Mrs. Stowe made one more reading tour the following year, and this time it was in the West. On October 28, 1873, she writes from Zanesville, Ohio, to her son at Harvard:--

Mrs. Stowe never undertook another reading tour, nor, after this one, did she ever read again for money, though she frequently contributed her talent in this direction to the cause of charity.

The most noteworthy event of her later years was the celebration of the seventieth anniversary of her birthday. That it might be fittingly observed, her publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. of Boston, arranged a reception for her in form of a garden party, to which they invited the literati of America. It was held on June 14, 1882, at The old elms, the home of Ex-Governor Claflin of Massachusetts, in Newtonville, one of Boston's most beautiful suburbs. Here the assembly gathered to do honor to Mrs. Stowe, that lovely June afternoon, comprised two hundred of the most distinguished and best known among the literary men and women of the day.

From three until five o'clock was spent socially. As the guests arrived they were presented to Mrs. Stowe by Mr. H. 0. Houghton, and then they gathered in groups in the parlors, on the verandas, on the lawn, and in the refreshment room. At five o'clock they assembled in a large tent on the lawn, when Mr. [501] Houghton, as host, addressed to his guest and her friends a few words of congratulation and welcome. He closed his remarks by saying:--

And now, honored madam, as

When to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea northeast winds blow
Sabean odors from the spicy shore
Of Arabie the blest,

so the benedictions of the lowly and the blessings of all conditions of men are brought to you to-day on the wings of the wind, from every quarter of the globe; but there will be no fresher laurels to crown this day of your rejoicing than are brought by those now before you, who have been your co-workers in the strife; who have wrestled and suffered, fought and conquered, with you; who rank you with the Miriams, the Deborahs, and the Judiths of old; and who now shout back the refrain, when you utter the inspired song:--

Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.

The Almighty Lord hath disappointed them by the hand of a woman.

In reply to this Mrs. Stowe's brother, Henry Ward Beecher, said:

Of course you all sympathize with me to-day, but, standing in this place, I do not see your faces more clearly than I see those of my father and my mother. Her I only knew as a mere babe-child. He was my teacher and my companion. A more guileless soul than he, a more honest one, more free from envy, from jealousy, and from selfishness, I never knew. Though lie thought he was great by his theology, everybody else knew he was great by his religion. My [502] mother is to me what the Virgin Mary is to a devout Catholic. She was a woman of great nature, profound as a philosophical thinker, great in argument, with a kind of intellectual imagination, diffident, not talkative, -in which respect I take after her,--the woman who gave birth to Mrs. Stowe, whose graces and excellences she probably more than any of her children — we number but thirteen--has possessed. I suppose that in bodily resemblance, perhaps, she is not like my mother, but in mind I presume she is most like her. I thank you for my father's sake and for my mother's sake for the courtesy, the friendliness, and the kindness which you give to Mrs. Stowe.

The following poem from John Greenleaf Whittier was then read:

Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers
And golden-fruited orange bowers
To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours!
To her who, in our evil time,
Dragged into light the nation's crime
With strength beyond the strength of men,
And, mightier than their sword, her pen;
To her who world-wide entrance gave
To the log cabin of the slave,
Made all his wrongs and sorrows known,
And all earth's languages his own,--
North, South, and East and West, made all
The common air electrical,
Until the o'ercharged bolts of heaven
Blazed down, and every chain was riven!

Welcome from each and all to her
Whose Wooing of the Minister
Revealed the warm heart of the man
Beneath the creed-bound Puritan,
And taught the kinship of the love
Of man below and God above; [503]
To her whose vigorous pencil-strokes
Sketched into life her Oldtown Folks,
Whose fireside stories, grave or gay,
In quaint Sam Lawson's vagrant way,
With Old New England's flavor rife,
Waifs from her rude idyllic life,
Are racy as the legends old
By Chaucer or Boccaccio told;
To her who keeps, through change of place
And time, her native strength and grace,
Alike where warm Sorrento smiles,
Or where, by birchen-shaded isles
Whose summer winds have shivered o'er
The icy drift of Labrador,
She lifts to light the priceless Pearl
Of Harpswell's angel-beckoned girl.
To her at threescore years and ten
Be tributes of the tongue and pen,
Be honor, praise, and heart thanks given,
The loves of earth, the hopes of heaven!

Ah, dearer than the praise that stirs
The air to-day, our love is hers!
She needs no guaranty of fame
Whose own is linked with Freedom's name.
Long ages after ours shall keep
Her memory living while we sleep;
The waves that wash our gray coast lines,
The winds that rock the Southern pines
Shall sing of her; the unending years
Shall tell her tale in unborn ears.
And when, with sins and follies past,
Are numbered color-hate and caste,
White, black, and red shall own as one,
The noblest work by woman done.

It was followed by a few words from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who also read the subjoined as his contribution to the chorus of congratulation:--

If every tongue that speaks her praise
For whom I shape my tinkling phrase
Were summoned to the table, [504]
The vocal chorus that would meet
Of mingling accents harsh or sweet,
From every land and tribe, would beat
The polyglots of Babel.

Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane,
Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine,
Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi,
High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too,
The Russian serf, the Polish Jew,
Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo
Would shout, “ We know the lady.”

Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom
And her he learned his gospel from,
Has never heard of Moses;
Full well the brave black hand we know
That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe
That killed the weed that used to grow
Among the Southern roses.

When Archimedes, long ago,
Spoke out so grandly, “Δὸς ποῦ στῶ, -
Give me a place to stand on,
I'll move your planet for you, now,” --
He little dreamed or fancied how
The sto at last should find its pou
For woman's faith to land on.

Her lever was the wand of art,
Her fulcrum was the human heart,
Whence all unfailing aid is;
She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed,
Its mountains shook, its temples reeled,
The blood-red fountains were unsealed,
And Moloch sunk to Hades.

All through the conflict, up and down
Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown,
One ghost, one form ideal;
And which was false and which was true,
And which was mightier of the two,
The wisest sibyl never knew,
For both aEke were real. [505]

Sister, the holy maid does well
Who counts her beads in convent cell,
Where pale devotion lingers;
But she who serves the sufferer's needs,
Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds,
May trust the Lord will count her beads
As well as human fingers.

When Truth herself was Slavery's slave
Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave
The rainbow wings of fiction.
And Truth who soared descends to-day
Bearing an angel's wreath away,
Its lilies at thy feet to lay
With heaven's own benediction.

Poems written for the occasion by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, Miss Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Mr. J. T. Trowbridge, Mrs. Allen (Mrs. Stowe's daughter), Mrs. Annie Fields, and Miss Charlotte F. Bates, were also read, and speeches were made by Judge Albion W. Tourgee and others prominent in the literary world.

Letters from many noted people, who were prevented from being present by distance or by other engagements, had been received. Only four of them were read, but they were all placed in Mrs. Stowe's hands. The exercises were closed by a few words from Mrs. Stowe herself. As she came to the front of the platform the whole company rose, and remained standing until she had finished. In her quiet, modest, way, and yet so clearly as to be plainly heard by all, she said:--

I wish to say that I thank all my friends from my heart,--that is all. And one thing more,--and that is, if any of you have doubt, or sorrow, or pain, if you doubt about this world, just remember what God has done; just remember that this great sorrow of slavery [506] has gone, gone by forever. I see it every day at the South. I walk about there and see the lowly cabins. I see these people growing richer and richer. I see men very happy in their lowly lot; but, to be sure, you must have patience with them. They are not perfect, but have their faults, and they are serious faults in the view of white people. But they are very happy, that is evident, and they do know how to enjoy themselves, --a great deal more than you do. An old negro friend in our neighborhood has got a new, nice twostory house, and an orange grove, and a sugar-mill. He has got a lot of money, besides. Mr. Stowe met him one day, and he said, “ I have got twenty head of cattle, four head of “hoss,” forty head of hen, and I have got ten children, all mine, every one mine.” Well, now, that is a thing that a black man could not say once, and this man was sixty years old before he could say it. With all the faults of the colored people, take a man and put him down with nothing but his hands, and how many could say as much as that? I think they have done well.

A little while ago they had at his house an evening festival for their church, and raised fifty dollars. We white folks took our carriages, and when we reached the house we found it fixed nicely. Every one of his daughters knew how to cook. They had a good place for the festival. Their suppers were spread on little white tables with nice clean cloths on them. People paid fifty cents for supper. They got between fifty and sixty dollars, and had one of the best frolics you could imagine. They had also for supper ice-cream, which they made themselves. [507]

That is the sort of thing I see going on around me. Let us never doubt. Everything that ought to happen is going to happen.

Mrs. Stowe's public life ends with the garden party, and little more remains to be told. She had already, in 1880, begun the task of selection from the great accumulation of letters and papers relating to her life, and writes thus to her son in Saco, Maine, regarding the work:--

In 1882 Mrs. Stowe writes to her son certain impressions derived from reading the “Life and letters of John Quincy Adams,” which are given as containing a retrospect of the stormy period of her own lifeexperience.

Your father enjoys his proximity to the Boston library. He is now reading the twelve or fourteen volumes of the life and diary of John Q. Adams. It is a history of our country through all the period of slavery usurpation that led to the war. The industry of the man in writing is wonderful. Every day's doings in the house are faithfully daguerreotyped,--all the mean tricks, contrivances of the slave-power, and the pusillanimity of the Northern members from day to day recorded. Calhoun was then secretary of state. Under his connivance even the United States census was falsified, to prove that freedom was bad for negroes. Records of deaf, dumb, and blind, and insane colored people were distributed in Northern States, and in places where John Q. Adams had means of proving there were no negroes. When he found that these [510] falsified figures had been used with the English embassador as reasons for admitting Texas as a slave State, the old man called on Calhoun, and showed him the industriously collected proofs of the falsity of this census. He says: “He writhed like a trodden rattlesnake, but said the census was full of mistakes; but one part balanced another,--it was not worth while to correct them.” His whole life was an incessant warfare with the rapidly advancing spirit of slavery, that was coiling like a serpent around everything.

At a time when the Southerners were like so many excited tigers and rattlesnakes,--when they bullied, and scoffed, and sneered, and threatened, this old man rose every day in his place, and, knowing every parliamentary rule and tactic of debate, found means to make himself heard. Then he presented a petition from negroes, which raised a storm of fury. The old man claimed that the right of petition was the right of every human being. They moved to expel him. By the rules of the house a man, before he can be expelled, may have the floor to make his defense. This was just what he wanted. He held the floor for fourteen days, and used his wonderful powers of memory and arrangement to give a systematic, scathing history of the usurpations of slavery; he would have spoken fourteen days more, but his enemies, finding the thing getting hotter and hotter, withdrew their motion, and the right of petition was gained.

What is remarkable in this journal is the minute record of going to church every Sunday, and an analysis of the text and sermon. There is something about these so simple, so humble, so earnest. Often differing [511] from the speaker — but with gravity and humilityhe seems always to be so self-distrustful; to have such a sense of sinfulness and weakness, but such trust in God's fatherly mercy, as is most beautiful to see. Just the record of his Sunday sermons, and his remarks upon them, would be most instructive to a preacher. He was a regular communicant, and, beside, attended church on Christmas and Easter,--I cannot but love the old man. He died without seeing even the dawn of liberty which God has brought; but oh! I am sure he sees it from above. He died in the Capitol, in the midst of his labors, and the last words he said were, “ This is the last of earth; I am content.” And now, I trust, he is with God.

All, all are gone. All that raged; all that threatened; all the cowards that yielded; truckled, sold their country for a mess of pottage; all the men that stood and bore infamy and scorn for the truth; all are silent in dust; the fight is over, but eternity will never efface from their souls whether they did well or ill — whether they fought bravely or failed like cowards. In a sense, our lives are irreparable. If we shrink, if we fail, if we choose the fleeting instead of the eternal, God may forgive us; but there must be an eternal regret! This man lived for humanity when hardest bestead; for truth when truth was unpopular; for Christ when Christ stood chained and scourged in the person of the slave.

In the fall of 1887 she writes to her brother Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher of Brooklyn, N. Y.:-- [512]

I have thought much lately of the possibility of my leaving you all and going home. I am come to that stage of my pilgrimage that is within sight of the River of Death, and I feel that now I must have all in readiness day and night for the messenger of the King. I have sometimes had in my sleep strange perceptions of a vivid spiritual life near to and with Christ, and multitudes of holy ones, and the joy of it is like no other joy,--it cannot be told in the language of the world. What I have then I know with absolute certainty, yet it is so unlike and above anything we conceive of in this world that it is difficult to put it into words. The inconceivable loveliness of Christ! It seems that about Him there is a sphere where the enthusiasm of love is the calm habit of the soul, that without words, without the necessity of demonstrations of affection, heart beats to heart, soul answers soul, we respond to the Infinite Love, and we feel his answer in us, and there is no need of words. All seemed to be busy coming and going on ministries of good, and passing each gave a thrill of joy to each as Jesus, the directing soul, the centre of all, “over all, in all, and through all,” was working his beautiful and merciful will to redeem and save. I was saying as I awoke:--

'Tis joy enough, my all in all,
At thy dear feet to lie.
Thou wilt not let me lower fall,
And none can higher fly.

This was but a glimpse; but it has left a strange sweetness in my mind.