So is it ever: when with bold step we press our way into the holy place where genius hath wrought, we find it to be a place of sorrows. Art has its Gethsemane and its Calvary as well as religion. Our best loved books and sweetest songs are those "that tell of saddest thought."
The summer of 1859 found Mrs. Stowe again on her way to Europe, this time accompanied by all her children except the youngest.
CHAPTER XV.
THE THIRD TRIP TO EUROPE, 1859.
Third Visit to Europe.—Lady Byron on "The Minister's Wooing."—Some Foreign People and Things as they Appeared to Professor Stowe.—A Winter in Italy.—Things Unseen and Unrevealed.—Speculations concerning Spiritualism.—John Ruskin.—Mrs. Browning.—The Return to America.—Letters to Dr. Holmes.
Mrs. Stowe's third and last trip to Europe was undertaken in the summer of 1859. In writing to Lady Byron in May of that year, she says: "I am at present writing something that interests me greatly, and may interest you, as an attempt to portray the heart and life of New England, its religion, theology, and manners. Sampson Low & Son are issuing it in numbers, and I should be glad to know how they strike you. It is to publish this work complete that I intend to visit England this summer."
The story thus referred to was "The Minister's Wooing," and Lady Byron's answer to the above, which is appended, leaves no room for doubt as to her appreciation of it. She writes:—
London, May 31, 1859.
Dear Friend,—I have found, particularly as to yourself, that if I did not answer from the first impulse, all had evaporated. Your letter came by the Niagara, which brought Fanny Kemble, to learn the loss of her best friend, that Miss Fitzhugh whom you saw at my house.
I have an intense interest in your new novel. More power in these few numbers than in any of your former writings, relatively, at least to my own mind. More power than in "Adam Bede," which is the book of the season, and well deserves a high place. Whether Mrs. Scudder will rival Mrs. Poyser, we shall see.
It would amuse you to hear my granddaughter and myself attempting to foresee the future of the "love story," being quite persuaded for the moment that James is at sea, and the minister about to ruin himself. We think that she will labor to be in love with the self-devoting man, under her mother's influence, and from that hyper-conscientiousness so common with good girls,—but we don't wish her to succeed. Then what is to become of her older lover? He—Time will show. I have just missed Dale Owen, with whom I wished to have conversed about the "Spiritualism." Harris is lecturing here on religion. I do not hear him praised. People are looking for helps to believe everywhere but in life,—in music, in architecture, in antiquity, in ceremony,—and upon all is written, "Thou shalt not believe." At least, if this be faith, happier the unbeliever. I am willing to see through that materialism, but if I am to rest there, I would rend the veil.
June 1. The day of the packet's sailing. I shall hope to be visited by you here. The best flowers sent me have been placed in your little vases, giving life, as it were, to the remembrance of you, though not to pass away like them.
Ever yours,
A. T. Noel Byron.