These Oriental treasures were brought by a famous sea-faring uncle of Harriet’s, Uncle Samuel Foote. He had been a sailor at sixteen, a commander of a ship at twenty-one. And he, of course, was Harriet’s hero of romance. He it was that brought the frankincense from Spain, the mementos of the Alhambra and of the ancient Moors. He sent mats and baskets, almonds and raisins from Mogadore, Oriental caps and slippers, South American ingots of silver and hammocks wrought by the Southern Indian tribes. And when he came speaking French and Spanish and full of the very atmosphere of a great and wonderful world that lay beyond the rims of the mountains, what stories of adventure the children could hear! What discussions about the respective value of Turk and Christian! What keen observations upon all life everywhere!
And this uncle always brought a box of books, the newest thing, the latest. He it was that sent up into the hills the wonderful “Salmagundi” of Irving the minute it was printed. He kept track of everything that Roxana might desire and saw to it that she received the last word in philosophy, art and poetry.
Still other opportunities were given to the acutely observing little girl to know the great outside world, its interests, its burdens. There was, for instance, Aunt Mary Hubbard who, returning from San Domingo, opened a vista into a life full of romance and tragedy. This admired aunt braids strangely into the pattern of Harriet’s life, as we shall see in a later chapter. Then Harriet’s father was always off for some tour of theological interest, bringing back a refreshing atmosphere of the outside world. We must also remember that Litchfield was full of young men who came to attend the Law School and who made the town more or less breezy. Among them was a French count who remembered the Beecher family to his latest days. These students and the young ladies of the Academy came from all parts of the country, each adding to the enlargement of life that such a collection of personalities always brings.
CHAPTER V
THE BOOKS SHE READ
It was not a retired and quiet life that Harriet lived during her most formative years. She was on an intellectual highway and at a crossroads where many influences of the richest inspiration were felt.
The town attracted fine and interesting people from everywhere; and from all of them she was receiving liberalizing influences that were helping to make of her the great woman that she afterwards became.
In such a home circle as that of the Beechers, books were the very breath of life. From 1799, when Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote were married, they had taken the Christian Observer, a paper conducted by Macaulay, Wilberforce and Hannah More, and they had always procured as many books as they could afford of those that were mentioned in that paper. A valuable encyclopedia came to the household as a gift from an English gentleman whose daughters had boarded with the family. This bulky and useful work was not, as is often the case in our day when the public library is just around the corner, left to fall to pieces on the dusty shelf, but it was made a constant source of reference in all their lively discussions.
It may be thought that Harriet would have a constant resource in her father’s library. This attic study did indeed afford her a harbor, but his tastes and necessities were naturally for theological works and the walls of his room were fairly choked with tall volumes for his own use. Searching through such a library as this Harriet’s despairing and hungry glances found only such titles as these: Bell’s “Sermons,” Bogue’s “Essays,” Monnet’s “Inquiries,” Toplady on “Predestination,” Housley’s “Tracts”—not such books as would do much toward feeding the beauty-loving instinct of a gifted child.
One of the heroines in a book written by her when she was a woman is described in this way: “She was well-read, well-bred, high-minded, high-principled, a little inclined to be ultra-romantic, maybe.” We may surely think of Harriet as fitting this definition, even including the romantic inclination—that is, she was fond of stories of adventure, and was full of high feelings and enthusiasms. It would not be strange if the story-loving side of her nature bloomed a little shyly, since it had been almost starved. But it could not die.
This spirit of lofty enthusiasm is illustrated by what she felt when as a little girl she first heard the Declaration of Independence read. She had but a vague idea of what it meant, but she gathered enough from the recital of the abuses and injuries that had driven her nation to revolt to feel herself swelling with indignation and ready with all her little mind and strength to applaud what seemed the resounding majesty of the Declaration. She was as ready as any one to pledge her life, fortune and sacred honor for such a cause. The heroic element was strong in her. It had come down from a line of Puritan ancestors; when the little girl heard that document read the spirit of her father swelled her little frame and brightened her cheeks and made her long to do something, she scarce knew what, to fight for her country or to make some declaration on her own account. This spirited child needed food for the imagination and fancy. She needed contact with the genius-lighted minds of the past. She had the power to assimilate a great amount of intellectual food, and she was hungry for it.