[81] 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 would n'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 assisted 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--
