Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Part 3

"I think that those views of G.o.d which you have presented to me have had an influence in restoring my mind to its natural tone. But still, after all, G.o.d is a being afar off. He is so far above us that anything but the most distant reverential affection seems almost sacrilegious. It is that affection that can lead us to be familiar that the heart needs. But easy and familiar expressions of attachment and that sort of confidential communication which I should address to papa or you would be improper for a subject to address to a king, much less for us to address to the King of kings. The language of prayer is of necessity stately and formal, and we cannot clothe all the little minutiae of our wants and troubles in it. I wish I could describe to you how I feel when I pray. I feel that I love G.o.d,--that is, that I love Christ,--that I find comfort and happiness in it, and yet it is not that kind of comfort which would arise from free communication of my wants and sorrows to a friend. I sometimes wish that the Saviour were visibly present in this world, that I might go to Him for a solution of some of my difficulties... . Do you think, my dear brother, that there is such a thing as so realizing the presence and character of G.o.d that He can supply the place of earthly friends? I really wish to know what you think of this... . Do you suppose that G.o.d really loves sinners before they come to Him? Some say that we ought to tell them that G.o.d hates them, that He looks on them with utter abhorrence, and that they must love Him before He will look on them otherwise. Is it right to say to those who are in deep distress,'

G.o.d is interested in you; He feels for and loves you'?"

Appended to this letter is a short note from Miss Catherine Beecher, who evidently read the letter over and answered Harriet's questions herself. She writes: "When the young man came to Jesus, is it not said that Jesus loved him, though he was unrenewed?"

In April, 1828, Harriet again writes to her brother Edward:---

"I have had more reason to be grateful to that friend than ever before. He has not left me in all my weakness. It seems to me that my love to Him is the love of despair. All my communion with Him, though sorrowful, is soothing. I am painfully sensible of ignorance and deficiency, but still I feel that I am willing that He should know all. He will look on all that is wrong only to purify and reform. He will never be irritated or impatient. He will never show me my faults in such a manner as to irritate without helping me. A friend to whom I would acknowledge all my faults must be perfect. Let any one once be provoked, once speak harshly to me, once sweep all the chords of my soul out of tune, I never could confide there again. It is only to the most perfect Being in the universe that imperfection can look and hope for patience. How strange! ... You do not know how harsh and forbidding everything seems, compared with his character. All through the day in my intercourse with others, everything has a tendency to destroy the calmness of mind gained by communion with Him. One flatters me, another is angry with me, another is unjust to me.

"You speak of your predilections for literature having been a snare to you. I have found it so myself. I can scarcely think, without tears and indignation, that all that is beautiful and lovely and poetical has been laid on other altars. Oh! will there never be a poet with a heart enlarged and purified by the Holy Spirit, who shall throw all the graces of harmony, all the enchantments of feeling, pathos, and poetry, around sentiments worthy of them? ... It matters little what service He has for me... . I do not mean to live in vain. He has given me talents, and I will lay them at his feet, well satisfied, if He will accept them. All my powers He can enlarge. He made my mind, and He can teach me to cultivate and exert its faculties."

The following November she writes from Groton, Conn., to Miss May:--

"I am in such an uncertain, unsettled state, traveling back and forth, that I have very little time to write. In the first place, on my arrival in Boston I was obliged to spend two days in talking and telling news. Then after that came calling, visiting, etc., and then I came off to Groton to see my poor brother George, who was quite out of spirits and in very trying circ.u.mstances. To-morrow I return to Boston and spend four or five days, and then go to Franklin, where I spend the rest of my vacation.

"I found the folks all well on my coming to Boston, and as to my new brother, James, he has nothing to distinguish him from forty other babies, except a very large pair of blue eyes and an uncommonly fair complexion, a thing which is of no sort of use or advantage to a man or boy.

"I am thinking very seriously of remaining in Groton and taking care of the female school, and at the same time being of a.s.sistance and company for George. On some accounts it would not be so pleasant as returning to Hartford, for I should be among strangers. Nothing upon this point can be definitely decided till I have returned to Boston, and talked to papa and Catherine."

Evidently papa and Catherine did not approve of the Groton plan, for in February of the following winter Harriet writes from Hartford to Edward, who is at this time with his father in Boston:---

"My situation this winter (1829) is in many respects pleasant. I room with three other teachers, Miss Fisher, Miss Mary Dutton, and Miss Brigham. Ann Fisher you know. Miss Dutton is about twenty, has a fine mathematical mind, and has gone as far into that science perhaps as most students at college. She is also, as I am told, quite learned in the languages... . Miss Brigham is somewhat older: is possessed of a fine mind and most unconquerable energy and perseverance of character. From early childhood she has been determined to obtain an education, and to attain to a certain standard. Where persons are determined to be anything, they will be. I think, for this reason, she will make a first-rate character. Such are my companions. We spend our time in school during the day, and in studying in the evening. My plan of study is to read rhetoric and prepare exercises for my cla.s.s the first half hour in the evening; after that the rest of the evening is divided between French and Italian. Thus you see the plan of my employment and the character of my immediate companions. Besides these, there are others among the teachers and scholars who must exert an influence over my character. Miss Degan, whose constant occupation it is to make others laugh; Mrs. Gamage, her room-mate, a steady, devoted, sincere Christian... . Little things have great power over me, and if I meet with the least thing that crosses my feelings, I am often rendered unhappy for days and weeks... . I wish I could bring myself to feel perfectly indifferent to the opinions of others. I believe that there never was a person more dependent on the good and evil opinions of those around than I am. This desire to be loved forms, I fear, the great motive for all my actions... . I have been reading carefully the book of Job, and I do not think that it contains the views of G.o.d which you presented to me. G.o.d seems to have stripped a dependent creature of all that renders life desirable, and then to have answered his complaints from the whirlwind; and instead of showing mercy and pity, to have overwhelmed him by a display of his power and justice... . With the view I received from you, I should have expected that a being who sympathizes with his guilty, afflicted creatures would not have spoken thus. Yet, after all, I do believe that G.o.d is such a being as you represent Him to be, and in the New Testament I find in the character of Jesus Christ a revelation of G.o.d as merciful and compa.s.sionate; in fact, just such a G.o.d as I need.

"Somehow or another you have such a reasonable sort of way of saying things that when I come to reflect I almost always go over to your side... . My mind is often perplexed, and such thoughts arise in it that I cannot pray, and I become bewildered. The wonder to me is, how all ministers and all Christians can feel themselves so inexcusably sinful, when it seems to me we all come into the world in such a way that it would be miraculous if we did not sin. Mr. Hawes always says in prayer, 'We have nothing to offer in extenuation of any of our sins,' and I always think when he says it, that we have everything to offer in extenuation. The case seems to me exactly as if I had been brought into the world with such a thirst for ardent spirits that there was just a possibility, though no hope, that I should resist, and then my eternal happiness made dependent on my being temperate.

Sometimes when I try to confess my sins, I feel that after all I am more to be pitied than blamed, for I have never known the time when I have not had a temptation within me so strong that it was certain I should not overcome it. This thought shocks me, but it comes with such force, and so appealingly, to all my consciousness, that it stifles all sense of sin... .

"Sometimes when I read the Bible, it seems to be wholly grounded on the idea that the sin of man is astonis.h.i.+ng, inexcusable, and without palliation or cause, and the atonement is spoken of as such a wonderful and undeserved mercy that I am filled with amazement. Yet if I give up the Bible I gain nothing, for the providence of G.o.d in nature is just as full of mystery, and of the two I think that the Bible, with all its difficulties, is preferable to being without it; for the Bible holds out the hope that in a future world all shall be made plain... . So you see I am, as Mr. Hawes says, 'on the waves,'

and all I can do is to take the word of G.o.d that He does do right and there I rest."

The following summer, in July, she writes to Edward: "I have never been so happy as this summer. I began it in more suffering than I ever before have felt, but there is One whom I daily thank for all that suffering, since I hope that it has brought me at last to rest entirely in Him. I do hope that my long, long course of wandering and darkness and unhappiness is over, and that I have found in Him who died for me all, and more than all, I could desire. Oh, Edward, you can feel as I do; you can speak of Him! There are few, very few, who can. Christians in general do not seem to look to Him as their best friend, or realize anything of his unutterable love. They speak with a cold, vague, reverential awe, but do not speak as if in the habit of close and near communion; as if they confided to Him every joy and sorrow and constantly looked to Him for direction and guidance. I cannot express to you, my brother, I cannot tell you, how that Saviour appears to me. To bear with one so imperfect, so weak, so inconsistent, as myself, implied long suffering and patience more than words can express. I love most to look on Christ as my teacher, as one who, knowing the utmost of my sinfulness, my waywardness, my folly, can still have patience; can reform, purify, and daily make me more like himself."

So, after four years of struggling and suffering, she returns to the place where she started from as a child of thirteen. It has been like watching a s.h.i.+p with straining masts and storm-beaten sails, buffeted by the waves, making for the harbor, and coming at last to quiet anchorage. There have been, of course, times of darkness and depression, but never any permanent loss of the religious trustfulness and peace of mind indicated by this letter.

The next three years were pa.s.sed partly in Boston, and partly in Guilford and Hartford. Writing of this period of her life to the Rev.

Charles Beecher, she says:---

My Dear Brother:---The looking over of father's letters in the period of his Boston life brings forcibly to my mind many recollections. At this time I was more with him, and a.s.sociated in companions.h.i.+p of thought and feeling for a longer period than any other of my experience.

In the summer of 1832 she writes to Miss May, revealing her spiritual and intellectual life in a degree unusual, even for her.

"After the disquisition on myself above cited, you will be prepared to understand the changes through which this wonderful _ego et me ipse_ has pa.s.sed.

"The amount of the matter has been, as this inner world of mine has become worn out and untenable, I have at last concluded to come out of it and live in the external one, and, as F------ S------ once advised me, to give up the pernicious habit of meditation to the first Methodist minister that would take it, and try to mix in society somewhat as another person would.

"'_Horas non numero nisi serenas.'_ Uncle Samuel, who sits by me, has just been reading the above motto, the inscription on a sun-dial in Venice. It strikes me as having a distant relations.h.i.+p to what I was going to say. I have come to a firm resolution to count no hours but unclouded ones, and to let all others slip out of my memory and reckoning as quickly as possible... .

"I am trying to cultivate a general spirit of kindliness towards everybody. Instead of shrinking into a corner to notice how other people behave, I am holding out my hand to the right and to the left, and forming casual or incidental acquaintances with all who will be acquainted with me. In this way I find society full of interest and pleasure--a pleasure which pleaseth me more because it is not old and worn out. From these friends.h.i.+ps I expect little; therefore generally receive more than I expect. From past friends.h.i.+ps I have expected everything, and must of necessity have been disappointed. The kind words and looks and smiles I call forth by looking and smiling are not much by themselves, but they form a very pretty flower border to the way of life. They embellish the day or the hour as it pa.s.ses, and when they fade they only do just as you expected they would. This kind of pleasure in acquaintances.h.i.+p is new to me. I never tried it before.

When I used to meet persons, the first inquiry was, 'Have they such and such a character, or have they anything that might possibly be of use or harm to me?'"

It is striking, the degree of interest a letter had for her.

"Your long letter came this morning. It revived much in my heart. Just think how glad I must have been this morning to hear from you. I was glad... . I thought of it through all the vexations of school this morning... . I have a letter at home; and when I came home from school, I went leisurely over it.

"This evening I have spent in a little social party,--a dozen or so,-- and I have been zealously talking all the evening. When I came to my cold, lonely room, there was your letter lying on the dressing-table.

It touched me with a sort of painful pleasure, for it seems to me uncertain, improbable, that I shall ever return and find you as I have found your letter. Oh, my dear G-----, it is scarcely well to love friends thus. The greater part that I see cannot move me deeply. They are present, and I enjoy them; they pa.s.s and I forget them. But those that I love differently; those that I LOVE; and oh, how much that word means! I feel sadly about them. They may change; they must die; they are separated from me, and I ask myself why should I wish to love with all the pains and penalties of such conditions? I check myself when expressing feelings like this, so much has been said of it by the sentimental, who talk what they could not have felt. But it is so deeply, sincerely so in me, that sometimes it will overflow. Well, there is a heaven,--a heaven,--a world of love, and love after all is the life-blood, the existence, the all in all of mind."

This is the key to her whole life. She was impelled by love, and did what she did, and wrote what she did, under the impulse of love. Never could "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or "The Minister's Wooing" have been written, unless by one to whom love was the "life-blood of existence, the all in all of mind." Years afterwards Mrs. Browning was to express this same thought in the language of poetry.

"But when a soul by choice and conscience doth Throw out her full force on another soul, The conscience and the concentration both Make mere life love. For life in perfect whole And aim consummated is love in sooth, As nature's magnet heat rounds pole with pole."

CHAPTER III.

CINCINNATI, 1832-1836.

DR. BEECHER CALLED TO CINCINNATI.--THE WESTWARD JOURNEY.--FIRST LETTER FROM HOME.--DESCRIPTION OF WALNUT HILLS.--STARTING A NEW SCHOOL.-- INWARD GLIMPSES.--THE SEMI-COLON CLUB.--EARLY IMPRESSIONS OF SLAVERY.

--A JOURNEY TO THE EAST.--THOUGHTS AROUSED BY FIRST VISIT TO NIAGARA.-- MARRIAGE TO PROFESSOR 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 inst.i.tution 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 princ.i.p.al a.s.sistant. 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 seash.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sed. 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 professors.h.i.+p; the inc.u.mbent 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."