“Mr. Beecher had been at the theatre the night before?”
“Yes, to see ‘Louis XI.’”
“Did he talk much?”
“Oh, yes! and his conversation was most interesting. He related, and very graphically, an incident of the troubled times before the abolition of slavery. ‘One day in the pulpit,’ he said, ‘I asked my people, suppose you had a sister, and she came to you and said, “I would like to stay in your city of Brooklyn; I think I would be very happy here; but I must go away, I cannot stay; I must depart, probably to live with a reprobate, some hard, cruel man, who will lay claim to me, body and soul.” You say, “Why, why must you go?” She answers, “Because my body is worth so much, and I am to be sold; and my little child, it, too, is of value in the same way; my child will be sold, and we shall be separated.” There was a dead silence in the church. ‘My friends,’ I said, ‘you have a sister in that position; and I want you to buy that woman!’ “Come up here, Dinah Cullum” (or whatever her name was), I said, and out of the congregation stepped a beautiful woman, a mulatto, and I said, “Here she is; here is my sister, your sister!” The collecting basket was sent around. More than enough was realized to buy the woman. And I said to her, “Dinah Cullum, you are free.” Then addressing my people again, I said, “Now you can buy the child”; and they did, and we gave the child to its mother!’
“It used to be said of Lord Beaconsfield,” Irving continued, “that his Oriental blood and his race instincts gave him his fondness for jewels; but Beecher seems to have the same kind of taste. He brought out from a cabinet a handful of rings, and asked me which I thought Miss Terry would like best. Then he took them to her and she selected an aqua marina, which he placed upon her finger, and begged her to accept as a souvenir of her visit to Brooklyn. ‘May I?’ said Miss Terry to Mrs. Beecher. ‘Yes, my dear, take it,’ said Mrs. Beecher; and she did. It was quite touching to see the two women together, so different in their stations, their years, their occupations. Miss Terry was the first actress Mrs. Beecher had ever known. To begin with, she was very courteous; her greeting was hospitable, but not cordial. The suggestion of coldness in her demeanor gradually thawed, and at the close of the visit she took Miss Terry into her arms, and the two women cried. ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.’ Human sympathy,—what a fine thing it is! It is easy to understand how a woman of the training and surroundings that belong to the class in which Mrs. Beecher has lived might regard an actress, and especially one who has made a name, and is therefore the object of gossip. All the more delightful is the bit of womanly sympathy that can bind together two natures which the austerity of professed religionists would keep asunder.”
“It is a greater triumph for the stage than you, perhaps, quite appreciate,—this visit to the home of a popular preacher; for, however liberal Mr. Beecher’s sentiments may be in regard to plays and players, there are members of his congregation who will not approve of his going to the theatre, and who will probably be horrified at his entertaining you at his own home.”
“No doubt,” Irving replied. “Beecher said to me, ‘I wish you could come and spend a week with me at my little country-house. You might leave all the talking to me, if you liked. I would give you a bit of a sermon now and then, and you in return should give me a bit of acting. Oh, we should have a pleasant time! You could lie on your back and smoke and rest. I suppose some day you will allow yourself a little rest.’”
“What was the Beecher home like? New or old,—characteristic of the host or not?”
“Quite characteristic, I should say. It impressed me as a home that had been gradually furnished over a period of many years. That was particularly the case with regard to the library. Around the walls were a series of cabinets, with old china and glass in them. The room had an old English, or what I suppose would be called an old New England, appearance. Books, pictures, china, and a wholesome perfume of tobacco-smoke. Mr. Beecher does not smoke, but his sons do. ‘I cannot pretend to put down these small vices,’ he said. ‘I once tried to, I believe.’—‘Oh, yes,’ said one of his sons, a fine fellow,—‘the only thrashing he ever gave me was for smoking a cigar; and when the war broke out, and I went to the front, the first present I received from home was a box of cigars, sent to me by my father.’ Altogether I was deeply impressed with Beecher. A robust, fearless man, I can quite understand how great he might be in face of opposition. Indeed, I was witness of this on the occasion of his famous platform fight at Manchester, during the war. I was acting in a stock company there at the time, and either in the first or last piece, I forget which, I was able to go and hear him speak. The incident, as you know, is historical on this side of the Atlantic, and it created quite a sensation in Manchester. The lecture-room was packed with secessionists. Beecher was attacking the South, and upholding the Federal cause. The great, surging crowd hooted and yelled at him. I fear I did not know much about the rights or wrongs of the matter. I had my work to do, and, though I watched the course of the American trouble, I had no very definite views about it. But I admired the American preacher. He faced his opponents with a calm, resolute face,—stood there like a rock. Whenever there was a lull in this commotion he would speak, and his words were defiant. There was the sound of the trumpet in them. We English admire courage, worship pluck, and after a time the men who had tried their hardest to shout Beecher down evidently felt ashamed. There presently arose cries of ‘Hear him!’ and ‘Fair play!’ Beecher stood there firm and defiant, and I felt my heart go out to him. Once more he got a few words in. They bore upon the rights of free speech, and in a little while he had the floor, as they say in America, and kept it. It seemed as if he were inspired. He spoke with a fervid eloquence I don’t think I have ever heard equalled. In the end he carried the entire meeting with him. The crowd evidently knew no more about the real merits of the quarrel between North and South than I did. They entered the hall Confederates, and left it out-and-out Federals, if one should judge by the thundering cheers that broke out every now and then during the remainder of Beecher’s oration, and the unanimous applause that marked the finish of it.”