On tombstones and hearses.
The letter closes with an exhortation to him to be patient and bear trouble as if it were the toothache or a driving rain or anything else that one cannot escape—which is good sound advice.
Her own power to put this advice into practice and to control her moods of depression is shown in a letter she once wrote to him when he was away in search of health.
“It is a dark, sloppy, rainy, muddy, disagreeable day, and I have been working hard all day in the kitchen, washing dishes, looking into closets, and seeing a great deal of that dark side of domestic life which a housekeeper may who will investigate after a girl who keeps all clean on the outside of cup and platter, and is very apt to make good the rest of the text in the inside of things.... I am sick of the smell of sour milk, and sour meats, and sour everything; and then the clothes will not dry, and no wet thing does, and everything smells mouldy; and altogether I feel as if I never wanted to eat again.” After enlarging upon her troubles further in the same whimsical vein, she added gravely, “Yet do I rejoice in my God, and know in whom I have believed, and only pray that the fire may consume the dross; as to the gold, that is imperishable. No real evil can come to me, so I fear nothing for the future, and only suffer in the present tense. God, the mighty God, is mine, of that I am sure, and I know that He knows that though heart and flesh fail, I am all the while desiring and trying for His will alone.” As to money, for which there was imminent necessity, she said: “Money, I suppose, is as plenty with Him now as it always has been, and if He sees it is really best, He will doubtless help me.” At one time her husband wrote that he was sick a-bed and all but dead; he did not ever expect to see his family again; wanted to know how she would manage in case she was left a widow; he knew she would get into debt and never get out; he wondered at her courage, thought she was very sanguine, warned her to be prudent, as there would not be much to live on in case of death, etc., etc. This letter Mrs. Stowe read and poked into the fire. Then she proceeded with her writing. “You are not able just now to bear anything, my dear husband,” she replied; “therefore, trust all to me; I never doubt or despair. I am already making arrangements to raise money.”
Now, how was the little woman to “raise money”? Of course by writing. Certain of her friends, pitying her trials, copied and sent a number of her sketches to some liberally paying Annuals with her name. With the money earned in this way she bought a feather-bed! This was considered a profitable investment, and if the Shakespearean fashion of mentioning a treasured bed in the codicil of a will were to be followed, it might be suggested that here would be found the article most deserving of mention as an heirloom in successive testaments!
After this Mrs. Stowe thought that she had discovered the philosopher’s stone! So when a new carpet or mattress was going to be needed or when at the close of the year it began to be evident that her accounts, like Dora’s, “wouldn’t add up,” she used to say to her faithful friend and factotum, the governess, who shared all her joys and sorrows, “Now, Anna, if you will keep the babies and attend to the house for one day, I will write a piece and then we shall be out of the scrape.” She began to make overtures to various editors. She wrote her husband: “I have sent some pieces to W. If he accepts them and pays you for them, take the money and use it as you see necessary; if not, be sure to send the pieces back to me. I am strong in spirit; and God, who has been with me in so many straits, will not desert me now. I know Him well; He is my Father, and though I may be a blind and erring child, He will help me for all that. My trust through all errors and sins is in Him. He will help us, and His arms are about us, so we shall not sink, my dear husband.”
Her early successes filled the heart of Professor Stowe with pride and with the desire that she should adopt a literary career. It was so written, he declared, in the book of fate, and she should make all her calculations accordingly. She must get a good stock of health and brush up her mind. She should drop the “E” out of her name because it only encumbered the name and interfered with its flow and harmony. “Harriet Beecher Stowe” it should be, a name euphonious and flowing and full of meaning. “Then my word for it,” he said enthusiastically, “your husband will lift up his head in the gate, and your children will rise up and call you blessed.”
Of the tremendous odds under which Mrs. Stowe for a time pursued her literary labors, her sister Catherine gives an amusing account. Harriet had promised that she would get at a certain story when the house-cleaning was done and when baby’s teeth were through! Catherine said that the house-cleaning could be deferred one day longer and as to baby’s teeth, she did not see that there would ever be any end to them; she must have the manuscript that day, she said, for she had promised it to the editor. “Come, my dear,” she said, “in three hours you can finish the courtship, marriage, catastrophe, and all, and this three hours of your brains will earn enough to pay for all the sewing your fingers can do for a year to come. Two dollars a page, my dear, and you can write a page in fifteen minutes!” But Harriet called her sister’s attention to the fact that there was a baby in her arms and two pussies by her side, a great baking in the kitchen to be done, and a green girl to help—it was clearly out of the question for that day at least. Catherine would not take “no” for an answer.
“‘No, no; let us have another trial. You can dictate as easily as you can write. Come, I can set the baby in this clothes-basket and give him some mischief or other to keep him quiet; you shall dictate and I will write. Now this is the place where you left off; you were describing the scene between Ellen and her lover; the last sentence was, “Borne down by the tide of agony, she leaned her head on her hands, the tears streamed through her fingers, and her whole frame shook with convulsive sobs.” What shall I write next?’
“‘Mina, put a little milk into this pearlash,’ said Harriet.