1833. An Elementary Geography. 1843. The Mayflower. 1852. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 1853. Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 1854. Sunny Memories. 1856. Dred. 1858. Our Charley. 1859. Minister’s Wooing. 1862. Pearl of Orr’s Island. 1863. Agnes of Sorrento. 1864. House and Home Papers. 1865. Little Foxes. 1866. Nina Gordon (Formerly “Dred”). 1867. Religious Poems. 1867. Queer Little People. 1868. The Chimney Corner. 1868. Men of Our Times. 1869. Oldtown Folks. 1870. Lady Byron Vindicated. 1871. The History of the Byron Controversy (London). 1870. Little Pussy Willow. 1871. Pink and White Tyranny. 1871. Old Town Fireside Stories. 1872. My Wife and I. 1873. Palmetto Leaves. 1873. Library of Famous Fiction. 1875. We and Our Neighbors. 1876. Betty’s Bright Idea. 1877. Footsteps of the Master. 1878. Bible Heroines. 1878. Poganuc People. 1881. Dog’s Mission.
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: —
“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. 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 seven 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 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: —
MY DEAR HUSBAND, — Well, Portland and Bangor are over, and the latter, which I had dreaded as lonesome and far off, turned out the pleasantest of any place I have visited yet. I stayed at the Fays; he was one of the Andover students, you remember; and found a warm, cosy, social home. In the evening I met an appreciative audience, and had a delightful reading. I read Captain Kittridge, apparently to the great satisfaction of the people, who laughed heartily at his sea stories, and the “Minister’s Housekeeper” with the usual success, also Eva and Topsy.
One woman, totally deaf, came to me afterwards and said: “Bless you. I come jist to see you. I’d rather see you than the Queen.” Another introduced her little girl named Harriet Beecher Stowe, and another, older, named Eva. She said they had traveled fifty miles to hear me read. An incident like that appeals to one’s heart, does it not?
The people of Bangor were greatly embarrassed by the horse disease; but the mayor and his wife walked over from their house, a long distance off, to bring me flowers, and at the reading he introduced me. I had an excellent audience notwithstanding that it rained tremendously, and everybody had to walk because there were no horses. The professors called on me, also Newman Smith, now a settled minister here.
Everybody is so anxious about you, and Mr. Fay made me promise that you and I should come and spend a week with them, next summer. Mr. Howard, in Portland, called upon me to inquire for you, and everybody was so delighted to hear that you were getting better.
It stormed all the time I was in Portland and Bangor, so I saw nothing of them. Now I am in a palace car riding alongside the Kennebec, and recalling the incidents of my trip. I certainly had very satisfactory houses; and these pleasant little visits, and meetings with old acquaintance, would be well worth having, even though I had made nothing in a pecuniary sense. On the whole it is as easy a way of making money as I have ever tried, though no way of making money is perfectly easy, — there must be some disagreeables. The lonesomeness of being at a hotel in dull weather is one, and in Portland it seems there is nobody now to invite us to their homes. Our old friends there are among the past. They have gone on over the river. I send you a bit of poetry that pleases me. The love of the old for each other has its poetry. It is something sacred and full of riches. I long to be with you, and to have some more of our good long talks.
The scenery along this river is very fine. The oaks still keep their leaves, though the other trees are bare; but oaks and pines make a pleasant contrast. We shall stop twenty minutes at Brunswick, so I shall get a glimpse of the old place.
Now we are passing through Hallowell, and the Kennebec changes sides. What a beautiful river! It is now full of logs and rafts. Well, I must bring this to a close. Good-by, dear, with unchanging love. Ever your wife.
From South Framingham, Mass., she writes on November 7th: —
Well, my dear, here I am in E.’s pretty little house. He has a pretty wife, a pretty sister, a pretty baby, two nice little boys, and a lovely white cat. The last is a perfect beauty! a Persian, from a stock brought over by Dr. Parker, as white as snow, with the softest fur, a perfect bunch of loving-kindness, all purr and felicity. I had a good audience last evening, and enjoyed it. My audiences, considering the horse disease and the rains, are amazing. And how they do laugh! We get into regular gales.
E. has the real country minister turn-out: horse and buggy, and such a nice horse too. The baby is a beauty, and giggles, and goos, and shouts inquiries with the rising inflection, in the most inspiring manner.
November 13. Wakefield. I read in Haverhill last night. It was as usual stormy. I had a good audience, but not springy and inspiriting like that at Waltham. Some audiences seem to put spring into one, and some to take it out. This one seemed good but heavy. I had to lift them, while in Framingham and Waltham they lifted me.
The Lord bless and keep you. It grieves me to think you are dull and I not with you. By and by we will be together and stay together. Good-by dear. Your ever loving wife,
H. B. S. November 24. “I had a very pleasant reading in P
eabody. While there visited the library and saw the picture of the Queen that she had painted expressly for George Peabody. It was about six inches square, enameled on gold, and set in a massive frame of solid gold and velvet. The effect is like painting on ivory. At night the picture rolls back into a safe, and great doors, closed with a combination lock, defend it. It reminded me of some of the foreign wonders we have seen.
“Well, my course is almost done, and if I get through without any sickness, cold, or accident, how wonderful it will seem. I have never felt the near, kind presence of our Heavenly Father so much as in this. ‘He giveth strength to the faint, and to them of no might He increaseth strength.’ I have found this true all my life.”
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 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: —
You have been very good to write as often as you have, and your letters, meeting me at different points, have been most cheering. I have been tired, almost to the last degree. Read two successive evenings in Chicago, and traveled the following day for thirteen hours, a distance of about three hundred miles, to Cincinnati. We were compelled to go in the most uncomfortable cars I ever saw, crowded to overflowing, a fiend of a stove at each end burning up all the air, and without a chance to even lay my head down. This is the grand route between Chicago and Cincinnati, and we were on it from eight in the morning until nearly ten at night.
Arrived at Cincinnati we found that George Beecher had not received our telegram, was not expecting us, had no rooms engaged for us, and that we could not get rooms at his boarding-place. After finding all this out we had to go to the hotel, where, about eleven o’clock, I crept into bed with every nerve aching from fatigue. The next day was dark and rainy, and I lay in bed most of it; but when I got up to go and read I felt only half rested, and was still so tired that it seemed as though I could not get through.
Those who planned my engagements failed to take into account the fearful distances and wretched trains out here. On none of these great Western routes is there a drawing-room car. Mr. Saunders tried in every way to get them to put one on for us, but in vain. They are all reserved for the night trains; so that there is no choice except to travel by night in sleeping cars, or take such trains as I have described in the daytime.
I had a most sympathetic audience in Cincinnati; they all seemed delighted and begged me to come again. The next day George took us for a drive out to Walnut Hills, where we saw the seminary buildings, the house where your sisters were born, and the house in which we afterwards lived. In the afternoon we had to leave and hurry away to a reading in Dayton. The next evening another in Columbus, where we spent Sunday with an old friend.
By this time I am somewhat rested from the strain of that awful journey; but I shall never again undertake such another. It was one of those things that have to be done once, to learn not to do it again. My only reading between Columbus and Pittsburgh is to be here in Zanesville, a town as black as Acheron, and where one might expect to see the river Styx.
Later. I had a nice audience and a pleasant reading here, and to-day we go on to Pittsburgh, where I read to-morrow night.
I met the other day at Dayton a woman who now has grandchildren; but who, when I first came West, was a gay rattling girl. She was one of the first converts of brother George’s seemingly obscure ministry in the little new town of Chillicothe. Now she has one son who is a judge of the supreme court, and another in business. Both she and they are not only Christians, but Christians of the primitive sort, whose religion is their all; who triumph and glory in tribulation, knowing that it worketh patience. She told me, with a bright sweet calm, of her husband killed in battle the first year of the war, of her only daughter and two grandchildren dying in the faith, and of her own happy waiting on God’s will, with bright hopes of a joyful reunion. Her sons are leading members of the Presbyterian Church, and most active in stirring up others to make their profession a reality, not an empty name. When I thought that all this came from the conversion of one giddy girl, when George seemed to be doing so little, I said, “Who can measure the work of a faithful minister?” It is such living witnesses that maintain Christianity on earth.
Good-by, We shall soon be home now, and preparing for Florida. Always your own loving mother,
H. B. S.
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. 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 bro
ther, 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 he thought he was great by his theology, everybody else knew he was great by his religion. My 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
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 961