Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Part 12

After all, my brother, the strength and hope of your oppressed race does lie in the church--in hearts united to Him of whom it is said, "He shall spare the souls of the needy, and precious shall their blood be in his sight." Everything is against you, but Jesus Christ is for you, and He has not forgotten his church, misguided and erring though it be. I have looked all the field over with despairing eyes; I see no hope but in Him. This movement must and will become a purely religious one. The light will spread in churches, the tone of feeling will rise, Christians North and South will give up all connection with, and take up their testimony against, slavery, and thus the work will be done.

This letter gives us a conception of the state of moral and religious exaltation of the heart and mind out of which flowed chapter after chapter of that wonderful story. It all goes to prove the correctness of the position from which we started, that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" came from the heart rather than the head. It was an outburst of deep feeling, a cry in the darkness. The writer no more thought of style or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and cries for help to save her children from a burning house thinks of the teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist.

A few years afterwards Mrs. Stowe, writing of this story, said, "This story is to show how Jesus Christ, who liveth and was dead, and now is alive and forever-more, has still a mother's love for the poor and lowly, and that no man can sink so low but that Jesus Christ will stoop to take his hand. Who so low, who so poor, who so despised as the American slave? The law almost denies his existence as a person, and regards him for the most part as less than a man--a mere thing, the property of another. The law forbids him to read or write, to hold property, to make a contract, or even to form a legal marriage. It takes from him all legal right to the wife of his bosom, the children of his body. He can do nothing, possess nothing, acquire nothing, but what must belong to his master. Yet even to this slave Jesus Christ stoops, from where he sits at the right hand of the Father, and says, 'Fear not, thou whom man despiseth, for I am thy brother. Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine.'"

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a work of religion; the fundamental principles of the gospel applied to the burning question of negro slavery. It sets forth those principles of the Declaration of Independence that made Jefferson, Hamilton, Was.h.i.+ngton, and Patrick Henry anti-slavery men; not in the language of the philosopher, but in a series of pictures. Mrs. Stowe spoke to the understanding and moral sense through the imagination.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" made the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law an impossibility. It aroused the public sentiment of the world by arousing in the concrete that which had been a mere series of abstract propositions. It was, as we have already said, an appeal to the imagination through a series of pictures. People are like children, and understand pictures better than words. Some one rushes into your dining-room while you are at breakfast and cries out, "Terrible railroad accident, forty killed and wounded, six were burned alive."

"Oh, shocking! dreadful!" you exclaim, and yet go quietly on with your rolls and coffee. But suppose you stood at that instant by the wreck, and saw the mangled dead, and heard the piercing shrieks of the wounded, you would be faint and dizzy with the intolerable spectacle.

So "Uncle Tom's Cabin" made the crack of the slavedriver's whip, and the cries of the tortured blacks ring in every household in the land, till human hearts could endure it no longer.

CHAPTER VII.

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, 1852.

"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN" AS A SERIAL IN THE "NATIONAL ERA."--AN OFFER FOR ITS PUBLICATION IN BOOK FORM.--WILL IT BE A SUCCESS?--AN UNPRECEDENTED CIRCULATION.--CONGRATULATORY MESSAGES.--KIND WORDS FROM ABROAD.--MRS.

STOWE TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE.--LETTERS FROM AND TO LORD SHAFTESBURY.

--CORRESPONDENCE WITH ARTHUR HELPS.

The wonderful story that was begun in the "National Era," June 5, 1851, and was announced to run for about three months, was not completed in that paper until April 1, 1852. It had been contemplated as a mere magazine tale of perhaps a dozen chapters, but once begun it could no more be controlled than the waters of the swollen Mississippi, bursting through a creva.s.se in its levees. The intense interest excited by the story, the demands made upon the author for more facts, the unmeasured words of encouragement to keep on in her good work that poured in from all sides, and above all the ever- growing conviction that she had been intrusted with a great and holy mission, compelled her to keep on until the humble tale had a.s.sumed the proportions of a volume prepared to stand among the most notable books in the world. As Mrs. Stowe has since repeatedly said, "I could not control the story; it wrote itself;" or "I the author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'? No, indeed. The Lord himself wrote it, and I was but the humblest of instruments in his hand. To Him alone should be given all the praise."

Although the publication of the "National Era" has been long since suspended, the journal was in those days one of decided literary merit and importance. On its t.i.tle-page, with the name of Dr. Gamaliel Bailey as editor, appeared that of John Greenleaf Whittier as corresponding editor. In its columns Mrs. Southworth made her first literary venture, while Alice and Phoebe Gary, Grace Greenwood, and a host of other well-known names were published with that of Mrs. Stowe, which appeared last of all in its prospectus for 1851.

Before the conclusion of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Mrs. Stowe had so far outstripped her contemporaries that her work was p.r.o.nounced by competent judges to be the most powerful production ever contributed to the magazine literature of this country, and she stood in the foremost rank of American writers.

After finis.h.i.+ng her story Mrs. Stowe penned the following appeal to its more youthful readers, and its serial publication was concluded:--

"The author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' must now take leave of a wide circle of friends whose faces she has never seen, but whose sympathies coming to her from afar have stimulated and cheered her in her work.

"The thought of the pleasant family circles that she has been meeting in spirit week after week has been a constant refreshment to her, and she cannot leave them without a farewell.

"In particular the dear children who have followed her story have her warmest love. Dear children, you will soon be men and women, and I hope that you will learn from this story always to remember and pity the poor and oppressed. When you grow up, show your pity by doing all you can for them. Never, if you can help it, let a colored child be shut out from school or treated with neglect and contempt on account of his color. Remember the sweet example of little Eva, and try to feel the same regard for all that she did. Then, when you grow up, I hope the foolish and unchristian prejudice against people merely on account of their complexion will be done away with.

"Farewell, dear children, until we meet again."

With the completion of the story the editor of the "Era" wrote: "Mrs.

Stowe has at last brought her great work to a close. We do not recollect any production of an American writer that has excited more general and profound interest."

For the story as a serial the author received $300. In the mean time, however, it had attracted the attention of Mr. John P. Jewett, a Boston publisher, who promptly made overtures for its publication in book form. He offered Mr. and Mrs. Stowe a half share in the profits, provided they would share with him the expense of publication. This was refused by Professor Stowe, who said he was altogether too poor to a.s.sume any such risk; and the agreement finally made was that the author should receive a ten per cent royalty upon all sales.

Mrs. Stowe had no reason to hope for any large pecuniary gain from this publication, for it was practically her first book. To be sure, she had, in 1832, prepared a small school geography for a Western publisher, and ten years later the Harpers had brought out her "Mayflower." Still, neither of these had been sufficiently remunerative to cause her to regard literary work as a money-making business, and in regard to this new contract she writes: "I did not know until a week afterward precisely what terms Mr. Stowe had made, and I did not care. I had the most perfect indifference to the bargain."

The agreement was signed March 13, 1852, and, as by arrangement with the "National Era" the book publication of the story was authorized before its completion as a serial, the first edition of five thousand copies was issued on the twentieth of the same month.

In looking over the first semi-annual statement presented by her publishers we find Mrs. Stowe charged, a few days before the date of publication of her book, with "one copy U. T. C. cloth $.56," and this was the first copy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ever sold in book form. Five days earlier we find her charged with one copy of Horace Mann's speeches. In writing of this critical period of her life Mrs. Stowe says:--

"After sending the last proof-sheet to the office I sat alone reading Horace Mann's eloquent plea for these young men and women, then about to be consigned to the slave warehouse of Bruin & Hill in Alexandria, Va.,--a plea impa.s.sioned, eloquent, but vain, as all other pleas on that side had ever proved in all courts. .h.i.therto. It seemed that there was no hope, that n.o.body would hear, n.o.body would read, n.o.body pity; that this frightful system, that had already pursued its victims into the free States, might at last even threaten them in Canada."

[Footnote: Introduction to Ill.u.s.trated Edition of _Uncle Tom_, p.

xiii. (Houghton, Osgood & Co., 1879.)]

Filled with this fear, she determined to do all that one woman might to enlist the sympathies of England for the cause, and to avert, even as a remote contingency, the closing of Canada as a haven of refuge for the oppressed. To this end she at once wrote letters to Prince Albert, to the Duke of Argyll, to the Earls of Carlisle and Shaftesbury, to Macaulay, d.i.c.kens, and others whom she knew to be interested in the cause of anti-slavery. These she ordered to be sent to their several addresses, accompanied by the very earliest copies of her book that should be printed.

Then, having done what she could, and committed the result to G.o.d, she calmly turned her attention to other affairs.

In the mean time the fears of the author as to whether or not her book would be read were quickly dispelled. Three thousand copies were sold the very first day, a second edition was issued the following week, a third on the 1st of April, and within a year one hundred and twenty editions, or over three hundred thousand copies of the book, had been issued and sold in this country. Almost in a day the poor professor's wife had become the most talked-of woman in the world, her influence for good was spreading to its remotest corners, and henceforth she was to be a public character, whose every movement would be watched with interest, and whose every word would be quoted. The long, weary struggle with poverty was to be hers no longer; for, in seeking to aid the oppressed, she had also so aided herself that within four months from the time her book was published it had yielded her $10,000 in royalties.

Now letters regarding the wonderful book, and expressing all shades of opinion concerning it, began to pour in upon the author. Her lifelong friend, whose words we have already so often quoted, wrote:--

"I sat up last night until long after one o'clock reading and finis.h.i.+ng 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' I could not leave it any more than I could have left a dying child, nor could I restrain an almost hysterical sobbing for an hour after I laid my head upon my pillow. I thought I was a thorough-going abolitionist before, but your book has awakened so strong a feeling of indignation and of compa.s.sion that I never seem to have had any feeling on this subject until now."

The poet Longfellow wrote:--

I congratulate you most cordially upon the immense success and influence of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." It is one of the greatest triumphs recorded in literary history, to say nothing of the higher triumph of its moral effect.

With great regard, and friendly remembrance to Mr. Stowe, I remain,

Yours most truly,

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

Whittier wrote to Garrison:--

"What a glorious work Harriet Beecher Stowe has wrought. Thanks for the Fugitive Slave Law! Better would it be for slavery if that law had never been enacted; for it gave occasion for 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'"

Garrison wrote to Mrs. Stowe:--

"I estimate the value of anti-slavery writing by the abuse it brings.

Now all the defenders of slavery have let me alone and are abusing you."

To Mrs. Stowe, Whittier wrote:--

Ten thousand thanks for thy immortal book. My young friend Mary Irving (of the "Era") writes me that she has been reading it to some twenty young ladies, daughters of Louisiana slaveholders, near New Orleans, and amid the scenes described in it, and that they, with one accord, p.r.o.nounce it true.

Truly thy friend,

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

From Thomas Wentworth Higginson came the following:--

To have written at once the most powerful of contemporary fiction and the most efficient of anti-slavery tracts is a double triumph in literature and philanthropy, to which this country has heretofore seen no parallel.

Yours respectfully and gratefully,