Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

Click on the [Listen] link to hear the music and on the [MusicXML] link to download the notation. As of the date of posting, these links to external files will work only in the HTML version of this e-book.

The key signature notation in the music on [page 64 ] was corrected in the audio file. The notation should be F#, not E#.

A typo in the music notation on [page 251 ] was corrected in the audio file. Beams bewteen bass notes A & F (beat 1) in bars 17 & 18 are missing in the original.

Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

A BIOGRAPHY FOR GIRLS

BY
MARTHA FOOTE CROW

NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1913

Copyright, 1913, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

TO
E. L. F.

PREFACE

Thanks are very heartily due to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, the publishers of the works of Mrs. Stowe, for their kind permission to quote freely from her books, and from the biographies of Mrs. Stowe written by her son, Rev. Charles E. Stowe, and by her grandson, Mr. Lyman Beecher Stowe. The same publishers have given permission to make an abstract of “Cleon,” the play by Harriet Beecher, which is found in the “Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe” by Annie Fields, of which they are the publishers. Messrs. Harper and Brothers have also been good enough to allow quotation from the “Autobiography and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher.” To Miss E. N. Vanderpoel, the compiler of “Chronicles of a Pioneer School,” the author wishes to acknowledge her indebtedness for some interesting passages.

The author has also greatly appreciated the permission given by Mr. John R. Howard to quote a short passage about childhood experiences in the Beecher home found in his valuable sketch of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.

To Mr. Charles E. Stowe, the author hereby makes grateful acknowledgment for much helpful advice, and for material not hitherto published. From many friends in Litchfield, Guilford, Hartford and elsewhere, the writer of this book has received invaluable help and would be glad to acknowledge each one’s contribution if there were space to do so. The frontispiece is made from an old carte de visite kindly lent by Mrs. Hannah C. Partridge, of Hartford, Connecticut.

Without these bountiful sources of information and these privileges so graciously allowed, a book of this kind could, of course, not have been written. Where-ever possible the language of Mrs. Stowe herself has been quoted or adapted from the rich treasury of her correspondence and autobiographical writings, or from stories of her own. Among these the “Lyman Beecher Autobiography” fixes forever a composite portrait of the Beecher family and is an almost inexhaustible storehouse of material. Among Mrs. Stowe’s books, the childhood experiences of Tina in “Oldtown Folks” and of Dolly in “Poganuc People” have been a veritable panorama of the young life of Harriet herself. Indeed, so largely do her books reflect not only her ideas and emotions but even the objective incidents of her life, that many of them are almost autobiographic in their character.

CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE OF MRS. STOWE’S LIFE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I.The Early Home of Harriet Beecher Stowe [1]
II.Work and Play in the Beecher Parsonage [16]
III.Harriet Beecher’s Schooling [32]
IV.Education in the Home [51]
V.The Books She Read [70]
VI.Dramatic Ventures [83]
VII.Studies and Teachers [96]
VIII.Some Steps Forward [110]
IX.A Pilgrimage [122]
X.The Western Home [133]
XI.The Founders of a School [146]
XII.The Semi-Colons [158]
XIII.Mrs. Stowe the Home-Maker [171]
XIV.Unconscious Preparation for a Work [188]
XV.The Great Inspiration [204]
XVI.“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and Its Influence [215]
XVII.Wandering in Foreign Lands [223]
XVIII.A Unique Jubilee [243]
XIX.A Visit to Abraham Lincoln [258]
XX.Writing Stories of Old New England Life [274]
XXI.A Serene Old Age [294]

Harriet Beecher Stowe

CHAPTER I
THE EARLY HOME OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

In a little saucer-like valley of the lower Berkshires, where the hills stand about in a wide circle, lies that most beautiful of Connecticut villages, Litchfield. Here Harriet Beecher Stowe was born. There was not a day when she and her brothers and sisters did not run to the window to see that blue rim of hills, and even when they were grown into women and men they did not forget the charm of their early home in the mountains. From the door of the house where they lived there was an extended view. Here Harriet often stood and looked over to the distant horizon, where Mt. Tom reared its round, blue head against the sky, and the Great and Little Ponds gleamed out amid a steel-blue expanse of distant pine groves. Turning to the west, she saw a rounded height called Prospect Hill, and many a pensive, wondering hour she sat on the stone threshold of that doorway, watching the splendor of the sunsets that burned themselves out beyond that hill. Harriet often said that her home was at the precise point of the country where the hills were most inspiring and vivacious, reminding one of the Psalm, “The little hills rejoice on every side.” Mountains are grand, she thought, and sometimes even dreary; but these half-grown hills uplift one like the waves of the sea.

Once when Harriet returned by stage-coach from a visit to her relatives down in Guilford, she could not restrain her raptures on beholding her mountains again. As the quaint old coach went lumbering along the winding road, the keen-eyed little girl leaned out of the window, peering in every direction, determined to let no bluebird’s flight escape her and no columbine flower pass unadmired. She took in all the sweeping bends of the beautiful brown river and watched the curves of water as they flowed over the shining rocks. After a while the coach wound up amid hemlock forests whose solemn shadows were all aglow with pink clouds of blossoming laurel. Presently they entered into great vistas of mountains whose cloudy, purple heads stretched and veered around the path like moving forms in a dream. There were the hills which meant home. Writing about this years afterward, she cried out, “Can there be anything on earth as beautiful as these mountain rides in New England?” So she gave to her childhood’s home the name of Cloudland, and its inheritance of clear air and height and spaciousness became a part of her nature.

Any one would have loved the quiet village in 1811, the year when Harriet Beecher was born, with the large Green in the center on which stood the meeting-house where her honored father, Dr. Lyman Beecher, preached. From here extended to the four points of the compass the four spacious avenues, North, South, East, and West Streets, all of them thickly planted with double rows of fine elm trees, through which one could see the stately colonial mansions that had been there since before the days of the Revolution.

These mansions had looked upon many a thrilling scene, for in those Revolutionary days the town of Litchfield had been a place of great activity. The direct state road from Boston across to West Point and thence down the river to the city of New York passed at that time through the town, making connection with the station for military stores that were kept there. So on training days there would be dramatic episodes on the ample Green, while on many a dark night that great message-bearer, Paul Revere, would ride swiftly and mysteriously through the town.

In fact, the town of Litchfield, in the days of the Beecher family, fairly bristled with traditions of that ancient, eventful era. It is certain that the little Harriet would be told about the time when the service of war had claimed all the men in the patriotic township of Litchfield except eight, who were too old or too young to go out and fight. It must also have been impressed upon her that the women of her native town shared in an especial degree this lofty patriotism, for it is related that when the leaden statue of King George was knocked off its pedestal in Bowling Green, in New York City, the shattered pieces were conveyed to the military storehouse at Litchfield and there hidden away. Then when the great need arose, the aristocratic ladies of Litchfield melted the broken fragments of that rejected statue and with their own hands molded the lead into bullets. Harriet’s heart swelled with pride as she heard this story or as she passed the very house where the lead was molded over or perhaps was shown the precious memorandum that indicated how many thousand bullets each helper had made. Litchfield, indeed, a very storehouse of patriotic tradition, was a fitting home for Harriet Beecher Stowe whose soul was to be a perfect flame of patriotic feeling by virtue of which she was to perform a great and permanent work.

In Harriet’s own childhood, too, Litchfield was a very busy place. There were some forty mills along the streams, not one of which remains to-day, and there was a famous law school, the first one in America, and a celebrated school for young ladies. The society in the village was singularly good; it was a place where piety, intelligence, and refinement were united. Mrs. Stowe, remembering the history that lay back of it in Colonial and Revolutionary days, spoke of it as “burning like live coals with all the fervid activity of an intense, newly kindled, peculiar and individual life.”

Perhaps one would realize this somewhat better on a Sunday than on a week day. Then from the fine old residences that adorned the principal street the families of comfortable means and impressive traditions proceeded in a dignified manner and solemnly entered the little church. From the outlying population for miles around came also processions of wagons, bearing the well-dressed wives, stalwart sons and blooming daughters of the well-to-do farmers, all punctual as a clock to the ringing of the second-bell. They were alert-minded, independent people; it was a highly intelligent audience that gathered to hear Dr. Beecher expound problems of theology, which his hearers were quite ready to debate with him if they thought he bent a little too far to the one side or to the other in some hair-splitting argument.

The parsonage where Dr. Beecher lived, and where seven of his thirteen children were born, was a roomy edifice that seemed to have been built by a succession of afterthoughts. It was first a model New England house, built around a great brick chimney which ran up like a lighthouse in the center of the square roof; but various bedroom additions had been gradually made and a new kitchen had been built on, and out of the kitchen a sinkroom, and out of the sinkroom a woodhouse, and out of the woodhouse a carriage house, and so on through a gradually lessening succession of out-buildings, until it might seem as if the house has been constructed on the model of a telescope. And besides all this, there were four great attics! What a wonderful house in which to play tag or blind-man’s bluff!

The house stood at the highest point on North Street in the midst of a colony of noble elms that gathered about the plain, old-fashioned parsonage like classic pillars, giving it a grand air of scholarly retirement. The surroundings of this rambling old house were delightful. There was the tall well-sweep, and a gate that swung with a chain and a great stone. From the pantry window could be seen a whole neighborhood of purple-leaved beets and feathery parsnips; the gooseberry bushes were rolled up by the fence in billows, and here and there stood an aristocratic quince tree. Far off in one corner a little patch penuriously devoted to ornament flamed with marigolds, poppies, snappers and four-o’clocks. Then there was a little box by itself with one rose geranium in it, which looked around the garden in a frightened way, as much a stranger as a French dancing master would be in a Yankee meeting-house. The little foreigner, however, received delicate attention at the hands of Harriet’s beauty-loving mother.

But, although the house was a big one, there was not too much room for the Beecher family. Besides the father and mother, there were, when the last arrival completed the magic number, thirteen children in all. Then there was sometimes an aunt, or a grandmother, or a cousin; there were generally a number of students as boarders, and these, together with one Rachel and one Zillah, both black, completed the household circle.

Rich in children was this New England family, but not in other wealth. Economy in the Beecher family was a necessity, but economy was also a law of New England life. Dr. Beecher in one of his reminiscences tells of an old parishioner of his who was so steeped in the prevailing spirit of economy that he boasted of having kept all of his accounts for thirty years with one quill pen; that he knew exactly how to lean his arm on the table so as not to take the nap off the sleeve; and how to set down his foot with the least possible wear to the sole of his shoe. It stands to reason that when the minister has to deal with such deacons as this the minister’s wife will turn a dress several times, and must be forgiven if she requires even the smallest children of her family to overcast the long seams of the linen sheets and to hem interminable towels. This is what the little Harriet had to do, and perhaps it did not cause her any harm.

In spite of this rather narrowed way of living, the children in this family did not feel poor. Once there was sent from Boston to the Litchfield parsonage a barrel of dishes embellished with figures which you could worship without worshiping the image of anything either in the heaven or upon earth—so Henry said; but the children thought them the very embodiment of beauty. When the barrel was unpacked, one of the boys said, “Oh, mother, what rich people we must be to have such wonderful dishes!” Wealth, it seems, consists more in the way one feels than in what one really possesses.

An establishment such as this, as any one may see, afforded occupation for a number of hands. Little Harriet was a great worker. Her brother wrote that before he was ten years old he had learned to sew, knit, scour knives, wash dishes, set and clear the table, cut and split and bring in wood, break tumblers and—earn whippings! There can be no doubt that his sister next older shared these exercises with him—except the last! We are not going to believe that Harriet ever deserved that.

Harriet Beecher said once that work, thrift and industry are the incessant steam-power of Yankee life; certainly none of her family seems to have been in any degree scared by the prospect of hard work. Harriet’s brother Edward makes light of the labor in a very jolly letter which he sent in 1821 to his stepmother. “And what shall I say more? Shall I speak of our orchard, from which the gale blew off apples enough for twenty barrels of cider, and whereon are yet cider and winter apples without number? Or of our cellar wherein are barrels small and great, moreover bins, boxes, cupboards, which I have arranged, having cleansed the cellar with bezom, rake, and wheelbarrow? Or of our garden, in which were weeds of various kinds, particularly pig; yea, also beets, carrots, parsnips and potatoes, the like of which was never seen?”[1] And Dr. Beecher himself, writing to one of the boys in July, 1819, tells how he has weeded the parsnips and beets, has planted potatoes in the orchard, plowed the yard and carried out the stones. With some help he has got out in two days a pile of stones as big as the salt mountain in Louisiana! After that they set to and tore down a useless eighty-year-old barn. The garden, he went on to say, was waving with corn, canteloupes, cabbages and pumpkins. The peas were some of them big enough to eat but had politely waited for the younger brethren around them to come to maturity so that they might all have the pleasure of being eaten together! The raspberries were so thick that one could not see between them, nor even stick between them a sharp-pointed knife. “Can you not find out by algebra,” he asks, “how many there will be?” So he goes on through the list—lettuce, radishes, pepper-grass, carrots, etc. “The garden gates shut,” he continues, “as regularly as they open, and no creature can get in except the hens, which are now about tired of coming, as they are sure to be saluted quite unexpectedly with a charge of powder, ‘speaking terror from the gun muzzle.’ Do you know,” he asks his son, “from whom the quotation is made? Some poet, you perceive.” So the wise father mixed instruction with gossip and made a game of work.

He was an interesting man, gifted with tremendous enthusiasm and untiring energy. And he had an individual way of doing things and a salty wit which can only be described as Beecher-ish. He knew instinctively just when to praise and when to blame. When he and the boys were splitting wood and carrying it into the shed, he sometimes said, “I wish, Harriet, that you were a boy, for, if you had been, you would have done more than any of them.” Then would Harriet run and put on a little black coat she had, and work like all possessed to outdo the others in her enthusiasm. The clever suggestion to Harriet also glanced sidewise and hit the lagging boys, who then bestirred themselves until the wood was all split and piled in the woodshed and the chips swept up. To make the work go faster and more cheerfully, Dr. Beecher sometimes made the children vie with each other to see who could tell the most Bible stories, or name the most Bible characters; or he started a discussion on some theological question, often taking the weaker or wrong side himself and telling the children what point to bring forward, saying, the argument is thus and so! Now, if you will take this position, you will be able to trip me up! So he strengthened their reasoning powers.

The task done, the reward was a fishing excursion or a nutting party. Here again the father challenged the children in feats of climbing the trees and of gathering the nuts. Although not a man of special physical strength himself, he came from a line celebrated for vigor. His grandfather had been six feet tall and could easily lift a barrel of cider and drink from the bung. His father, not quite so tremendous, had been only strong enough to lift a barrel of cider and toss it easily into the cart! The descendant of these giant-like men was more celebrated for his intellectual feats than for his merely physical exploits. But no Highlanders ever gloried more proudly in the prowess of their chief than did the Beecher children in that of their father! The most difficult trees were climbed by the Doctor himself; sometimes to reach a branch that hung out over the cliff, he endangered his life to get the fruit. They were certain that no tree grew in so exalted a place that he could not climb it. Oh, those were great days! At noon a fire was made and the abundant luncheon was spread on a broad flat rock around which a white foam of moss made a soft seat. And here again the father was the hero, for around the fire no companion could be more jolly than he. It is not strange that the children remembered their father rather as a playmate than as a stern disciplinarian.

Yet discipline in this home circle there must have been to keep order in so large and intensely active a family. Aunt Esther sometimes found a want of subordination among the troops. The very cleverness of the children made the problem great. For instance, if she told the boys that they should not be so boisterous, they would be likely to answer by complaining that she did not also try to keep the girls from being so girlsterous. And under cover of this witticism the boys would escape punishment. At one time she wrote to one of the children in a merry mood, “Your father and mother have been gone a fortnight and the crew at home are beginning to grow somewhat mutinous, and I am not sure but I shall be obliged to condemn and hang a half score of them before the return of your father.” In February, 1822, while Harriet was visiting her aunt at Guilford, her older sister, Catherine, wrote to her: “We all want you home very much, but hope you are now where you will learn to stand and sit straight and hear what people say to you, and sit still in your chair, and learn to sew and knit well, and be a good girl in every particular; and if you don’t learn this while you are with your Aunt Harriet, I am afraid you never will.” Then, to offset this rather strenuous piece of advice, Catherine, in relenting mood, added, very much as her father might have done: “Old Puss is very well and sends his respects to you; and Mr. Black Trip has come out of the barn to live, and says that if you ever come into the kitchen he will jump up and lick your hand and pull your frock, just as he serves the rest of us.” This elder sister of Harriet’s was so full of fun that she was the life and joy of the house. Writing to their brother Edward in 1819, she said: “Apropos—last week we interred Tom, Junior, with funeral honors, by the side of old Tom of happy memory. What a fatal mortality there is among the cats of the parsonage! Our Harriet is chief mourner always at their funerals. She has asked for what she calls an ‘epithet’ for the gravestone of Tom, Junior, which I gave as follows:

“Here died our kit

Who had a fit,

And acted queer.

Shot with a gun,

Her race is run,

And she lies here.”

Catherine’s father must have been looking over his daughter’s shoulder as she wrote this, for he added a postscript saying that, as every man must eat his pound of dirt, so he supposed every one must write his quire of nonsense, but that he hoped that soon none but letters so solid and weighty as to earn their postage would be passing to and fro. After this Catherine put on still another postscript and said: “Never mind this, Ned, for Papa loves to laugh as well as any of us, and is quite as much tickled at nonsense as we are.”

There was, then, a merry side in the life at Litchfield Parsonage. Catherine wrote at one time, quite seriously, that her little sister was a very good girl, had been to school all summer and had learned to read very fluently, and that she had committed to memory twenty-seven hymns and two long chapters in the Bible; that she had a remarkably retentive memory and would make a very good scholar. Still, considering the spirit of fun that races through every book Harriet wrote, we cannot believe she was always sitting still in a chair, learning to sew and knit well, and being a good girl in every particular. We think of her also as having something in her of the fascinating little Tina in “Oldtown Folks,” one of Mrs. Stowe’s most powerful stories of New England life. We can even believe it to have been as difficult in Harriet’s case as it was in Tina’s to get her to go to bed at the proper hour. As night drew on, the little one’s tongue no doubt ran on with increasing fluency, and her powers of entertainment waxed more dazzling. On a drizzling, freezing night when the wind howled lonesomely around the corners of the house, who could have the heart to extinguish the candle at exactly eight or even at nine? Then little Harriet was ballet and opera to the household group, mimicking the dog, the cat, the hens, and the tom-turkey, or talking and flying about the room in lively imitation of some member of the family. She stirred up butter and exclaimed, “Pshaw!” just like one of the grown-ups; she invented imaginary scenes and conversations and improvised unheard-of costumes out of strange old things she rummaged out of the garret, until nine o’clock sounded inexorably from the old family timepiece and put a stop to the fun for that night.

CHAPTER II
WORK AND PLAY IN THE BEECHER PARSONAGE

In the Beecher household there was naturally a necessity that every one should be up and doing: Monday, because it was washing day; Tuesday, because it was ironing day; Wednesday, because it was baking day; Thursday, because to-morrow was Friday, and so on through the week. Daily life began at four o’clock in the morning when the tapping of a pair of imperative heels on the stair and an authoritative rap on the door dispelled the slumbers of the children. On winter mornings the door was opened and a lighted candle was set inside. The sleepy eyes of little girl Harriet could then watch the forest of glittering frostwork made by her breath as it froze on the threads of the blanket. She saw rainbow colors on this frostwork, and she then floated off into dreams and fancies about it which would perhaps end in a doze. Very soon, however, her cold little fingers managed the fastenings on her own clothes as well as on those of her little brother, and she was at her breakfast with the large family circle.

The breakfast! It was not like the five-course banquet we have to-day. The bread was that black compound of rye and Indian meal which the economy of New England made the common form because it could be most easily raised on a hard and stony soil; but Mrs. Stowe in later life informed all whom it might concern that rye and Indian bread, smoking hot, together with savory sausage, pork and beans formed a breakfast fit for a king, if the king had earned it by getting up in a cold room, washing in ice-water, tumbling through snow-drifts and foddering cattle. The children in the Beecher home no doubt partook of this form of nourishment with thorough cheerfulness, dividing their portions with the dog and the cat of the establishment in a contentment pleasant to behold.

After breakfast came family prayers. They read the Bible through in course, without note or comment. At that time the very letter of the Bible was one of the forces that formed the minds of the children, since it was for the most part read twice a day in every family of any pretensions to respectability. It was also used as a reading book in every common school. If the children understood, well; if not, the mental stimulant of constant contact with the Book was left to make what impression it would. It was wonderful to hear the Doctor read the Bible at family prayers in the morning, for he read it in such an eager, earnest tone of admiring delight, with such an indescribable air of intentness and expectancy, as if the Book had just been handed him out of Heaven! The joy of his soul in every new ray of Heaven’s glory was manifest to each member of the home circle and had its effect on the impressionable children so that they could hardly fail to partake with him of that hunger and thirst after the knowledge of God. The reading of the chapter was followed by an earnest prayer by Dr. Beecher, and sometimes by what they called a “concert of prayer,” when every member of the family would offer an extemporaneous petition, long or short, according to ability and experience. These sacred hours were remembered by the children as long as life lasted.

After this ceremony, the first thing to do was to get the children off to school. It was not a small matter when the list included William Henry, Edward, Mary Foote, George, Harriet Elizabeth, Henry Ward and Charles. Later on were added the names of Isabella Holmes, Thomas Kennicut and James. Now the dinner for each child was packed in a small splint basket, and after much business was gone through all were away to Academy or Dame School, according to age and ability. In winter William and Edward had their sleds—not gayly painted ones from the emporium as modern boys have, but rude fabrics made on rainy days out of odds and ends of old sleigh runners and any rough boards that could be fashioned with saw and hatchet. Such as they were, they served the Beecher family well, and happy was the day when big brother William or Edward would take the little sister to school on the sled, drawing her swiftly over the snow, her little charge, the younger brother, closely clasped in her arms.

On Sunday mornings strenuous exertions were required, for besides going through the usual routine, Sunday clothes had to be donned; also, it was to be made quite certain that the catechism had been successfully and permanently drilled into the mind of each child. In her account of the life of her distinguished brother, Henry Ward Beecher, Mrs. Stowe records an early experience of hers in trying to teach him his grammar, and if she had equal difficulties in making him learn the catechism, she certainly had her hands full.

“Now, Henry,” she would say, “A is the indefinite article, you see, and must be used only with a singular noun. You can say a man, but you can’t say a men, can you?”

“Why, yes, I can say Amen, too,” was the ready rejoinder. “Father says it at the end of his prayers.”

“Come, Henry, now don’t be joking; now decline he.”

“Nominative, he; possessive, his; objective, him.”

“Yes,” said the young teacher. “You see, his is possessive. Now you can say, his book, but you cannot say him book.”

“Yes, I do say hymn-book, too,” said the incorrigible scholar, with a quizzical twinkle. Each one of his sallies produced from the teacher a laugh, which was the victory he wanted.

“But now, Henry, seriously. Just attend to the active and passive voice. Now I strike is active, you see, because if you strike you do something. But I am struck is passive, because if you are struck you don’t do anything, do you?”

“Yes, I do; I strike back again.”

When Harriet was old enough to become the instructor of a frisky pupil like this she may well have found that the New England Catechism occasionally brought her to her wit’s end.

The church to which the Beecher children were regularly led was one of those square, bald structures of which but few have come down to us from the old times. It was wide, roomy, and of a desolate plainness. During the long hours of the sermon the youngsters, perched in a row on a low seat in front of the pulpit, attempted occasionally sundry small exercises of their own, such as making their handkerchiefs into rabbits, or exhibiting slyly the apples and gingerbread they had brought for the Sunday dinner, or pulling the ears of some discreet, meeting-going dog, who now and then soberly pit-a-patted through the broad aisle. But woe be to them, says Harriet, if during those contraband sports they should see the sleek head of the Deacon dodge up from behind the top of his seat. Instantly all the apples, gingerbread and handkerchiefs would vanish and the whole row of children would be seen sitting there with their hands folded looking as demure as if they understood every word of the sermon and more, too.

Mrs. Stowe says that her book, “Poganuc People,” consists of chapters taken right out of her own life, and so we may read the name “Harriet” in the place of “Dolly” all the way through. We may believe, then, that Harriet was disposed of in all those shorthand methods by which children were taught to be the least possible trouble. She was told to come when called, and to do as she was bid without question or argument, to be quiet in bed at the earliest possible hour of the night, and, in the presence of her elders, to speak only when spoken to. All this was a great repression to Harriet, who was by nature a lively, excitable little thing, bursting with questions that she longed to ask, and with comments and remarks that she burned to make. Perhaps it never distinctly occurred to her to murmur at her lot in life, yet at times she must have sighed over the dreadful insignificance of being only a little girl in a great family of grown-up people. For even the brothers nearest her own age were studying at the Academy and spouting scraps of superior Latin at her to make her stare and wonder at their learning. They were tearing, noisy, tempestuous boys, good-natured enough and willing to pet her at intervals, but prompt to suggest that it was time for her to go to bed when her questions or her gambols interfered with their evening pleasures.

Moreover, since Harriet was a robust, healthy little creature, she received none of the petting which a more delicate child might have claimed. The general course of her experience impressed her with the mournful conviction that she was always likely to be in the way. But if she was it was because of her childish curiosity, and of her burning desire to see and hear all that interested the grown people about her.

At that time there were no amusements especially provided for children, no children’s books, and no Sunday schools to teach bright little songs and to give children picnics and presents. It was a grown people’s world. The toys of the period were so poor and so few that, in comparison with our modern profusion, they could scarcely be said to exist. Harriet was, however, not without some home-made toys, and we are glad to believe that a doll baby, though perhaps only a rag one, was, in the course of providential events, assigned to little, human-hearted Harriet Beecher.

We know that Harriet’s older sister Catherine was a master hand at making dolls. With scissors, needle, paint and other materials she could make dolls of all sizes, sexes and colors, and surround them with all sorts of droll contrivances. For instance, she once made a Queen of Sheba with a gold crown, seated her in a chariot made of half a pumpkin drawn by four prancing steeds fashioned out of crook-necked squashes, whose ears and legs she whittled out and fastened securely in their proper places. Then she manufactured a negro driver and placed him above with the reins in hand. Her care and artistry were rewarded by the admiration and amusement of the whole family. It was certainly worth a great deal to the little Harriet to have a sister like that, and we believe that the exercise of Catherine’s talents was not wholly selfish.

In “Poganuc People,” Mrs. Stowe, remembering her own childhood well, gives to the young heroine a gorgeous wooden doll with staring glass eyes. This precious treasure was the central point in all Dolly’s arrangements. To this companion Dolly showed her stores of chestnuts and walnuts, gave jay-bird feathers and bluebird’s wings, and a set of tea cups made out of the backbone of a codfish. She brushed and curled the doll’s hair till she took all the curl out of it, and washed all the paint off its cheeks in her motherly zeal.

Besides her doll and its excellent codfish backbone tea-set—and no one who has not tried to make them, by the way, can know how beautiful and delicate such tea cups can be—Harriet had in her earliest play days an unfailing source of occupation and delight in the gigantic woodpile in the back yard where the fuel for the season was laid up in long rows eight or ten feet high. Here was a world of marvels. The child skipped and sung and climbed among its intricacies, finding and collecting wonderful treasures, green velvet mosses, little white trees of lichen that seemed to have tiny apples upon them, fine scarlet cups and fairy caps. From these materials she constructed miniature landscapes in which the mosses made the fields, little sprigs of spruce and ground pine the trees, and bits of broken glass the lakes and rivers, reflecting the overshadowing banks.

With such delights as these, Harriet was busy, healthy and happy. When her brothers came home from the Academy in the evening and tossed her up in their long arms, her laugh rang out gay and loud as if there were no such thing as disappointment in the world. Sometimes the other children joined her in the magic field of the woodpile. Then they made themselves houses, castles and fortresses. They played at giving parties and entertainments at which the dog and the cat assisted. They held town meetings also, and had voting days with speeches against the Democrats. (The word did not mean then what it does now.) They held religious meetings, too, sung hymns and preached sermons, and on these occasions Harriet was known to exhort and recite texts of Scripture with a degree of fervor that seemed to produce a great effect upon her auditors. Thus the woodpile became a great forum of debate as well as a studio of art, and Harriet was the first to welcome the time when its stores should be reinforced at that great event of the year, the wood-spell.

A wood-spell is an old-fashioned sort of donation party. The pastor used to be settled with the understanding that he should receive a certain sum of money as salary, and his wood, just as in Easthampton, Long Island, Dr. Beecher’s first pastorate, one-fourth of the whales that were stranded on the beach was assigned to the minister as a part of his yearly payment. In Litchfield a day was set apart in the winter about the time when the sleighs were running most smoothly over the pressed snow, and on that day every parishioner was to bring to the minister a sled-load of wood. This was built up in the back yard of the parsonage into a mighty woodpile for the year’s use. When Harriet was five years old, partly because sorrow had visited the Beecher family that year, and partly because of a quickened religious enthusiasm throughout the community, the wood-spell of that winter was more than usually interesting and the number of loads very generous. With her father’s rejoicing approval, Harriet’s elder sister, Catherine, now sixteen years old, was allowed to take the whole responsibility of preparing the banquet for the occasion. This meant a great deal. Everything in the house must be spick and span; dozens of doughnuts must be cooked; and, above all, the wood-spell cake must be made.

For nearly a week the kitchen was as busy as an ant-hill. The fat was prepared to fry the doughnuts, the spices were pounded, the flour was sifted, the materials for the flips were collected. Catherine was assisted by eleven-year-old Mary; William, Edward and George split and brought in an incredible amount of wood for the oven, and the girls sat all the evening about the kitchen fire stoning raisins, with the best story-teller in the midst to make the time pass—and she, we are sure, could have been none other than Harriet.

Then came the baking of the cake. For two days beforehand the fire was surrounded by a row of earthen jars in which the spicy compound was rising to the necessary lightness. At exactly the quivering instant for perfection each loaf was shoved into the little black door of the brick oven.

At last all the wood-spell loaves came out victorious, while each helper merrily claimed merit for the baking.

The frying of the doughnuts was also a matter of the greatest delicacy, requiring experience and the nicest art; but this also was a triumph. Catherine said, “Were I to tell how many loaves I have put in and taken out of the oven, and how many bushels of doughnuts I have boiled over the kitchen fire, I fear my credit for veracity would be endangered.”

Finally all was finished. A mighty cheese was brought; every shelf in the closet and all the dressers of the kitchen were crowded with the abundance. The delicious stores of food were indeed a sight to behold, calling in admiring visitors, and Catherine’s success was a matter of universal congratulation. But may we not give Harriet some credit, too? For though her part may have been largely the care of the younger children, still, without her help, Catherine would not have been free to do the work.

The auspicious day for the coming of the farmers arrived. It was a jewel of a morning, one of those sharp, clear, sunny, winter days when the sleds squeak over the flinty snow and the little icicles, falling from the trees, tingle along on the glittering crust. The breath of the slow-pacing oxen steamed up like a rosy cloud in the morning sun and then fell back condensed in globes of ice on every hair.

All the children were astir early, full of life and vigor. The boys were at home for the day. There was a holiday at the Academy, for the teacher had been asked to come over to the minister’s to chat and tell stories with the farmers and give them high entertainment. There was enough work for all to do, for the three big boys and for the two sisters. Besides all the rest, there was little Henry Ward, aged three, and Charles, aged but one, to be cared for and kept out of mischief. Eager, lively, little Harriet could take care of herself, and do a great deal of helping besides.

Pretty soon the first load came squeaking up the village street, and the boys clapped their hands and shouted, “Hurrah for Heber!” as his load of magnificent oak, well-bearded with gray moss, came scrunching into the yard.

“Well, Mr. Atwood,” said the Doctor, “you must have had pretty hard work on that load; that’s no ordinary oak, I can tell you.”

And now the loads began to arrive thick and fast. Sometimes two and three, sometimes four and five, came stringing along in unbroken procession. For every load the minister had an appreciative word, noticing and commending the especial points, and the farmers themselves, shrewdest of observers, looked at every pile and gave it their verdict. The loads were of the best, none of your crooked-stick makeshifts. Good, straight, shagbark hickory was voted none too good for the minister.

Before long the yard, street, and the lower rooms of the house were swarming with cheerful faces. Then Aunt Esther began to cut the first loaf of wood-spell cake. The flip-irons were taken out of the fire and thrust into the foaming bowl. The little folks were as busy as bees in waiting on the kind farmers. They handed around the good things to eat, the cider and doughnuts, the cheese and the cake. The teacher and the minister were in the midst of merry chatting circles; their best stories were told, and roars of laughter resounded.

Meantime such a woodpile was arising in the yard as never before was seen in ministerial domains! And how fresh and woodsy it smelt! Harriet eyed it with a view to future plays. There was the black birch whose flavored bark she prized as a species of confectionery. There were also gleaming logs of white birch, from the bark of which she could cut strips for her woodland parchment. Then there were massive trunks of oak affording veritable worlds of supplies for her woodsy palette.

And now the sun was going down. The sleds had ceased to come, the riches of woodland treasure were all in, the whole air was full of a trembling, rose-colored light. All over the distant landscape there was not a fence to be seen, nothing but waving hollows of spotless snow, glowing with the rosy radiance and fading away into purple and lilac shadows. And the evening stars began to twinkle, one after another, keen and clear, through the frosty air, as the children all sat together in triumph on the highest perch of the woodpile.

In the town where the Beechers had their home there were other unique expressions of social feeling calculated to influence the mind of a growing child, as for instance, the Fourth of July, the apple bee, and the sleighing party. But perhaps Thanksgiving Day was the one most noted in the calendar. When this characteristic Yankee festival came around there was again an opportunity for the parishioners to show the grace of generosity toward the minister. In 1818 Dr. Beecher writes to his son at college: “We had a pleasant Thanksgiving dinner and, they say, a good sermon. We had presents piled up yesterday at a great rate. Mr. Henry Wadsworth sent 6 lbs. of butter, 6 lbs. lard, 2 lbs. Hyson tea, 5 dozen eggs, 8 lbs. sugar, a large pig, a large turkey and four cheeses. The governor sent a turkey; Mrs. Thompson, do.; and, to cap it all, Mr. Rogers sent us a turkey!” Under such circumstances as these it is rather fortunate that the Beecher family had a considerable number of mouths to be filled.

Again the kitchen was fragrant with the smell of cinnamon, cloves and allspice which the children were set to pound to a most wearisome fineness in the great lignum-vitæ mortar. Again there was the stoning of raisins, the cutting of citron, the slicing of orange-peel. Again the fire was built up more architecturally than usual and roared and crackled up the wide chimney, brightening with its radiance the farthest corner of the ample room. Then a tub of rosy-cheeked apples, another of golden quinces, and a bushel basket full of cranberries were set in the midst of the circle of happy children who were being led in the ways of industry, sorting and cutting, to the tune of the snapping fire.

But who shall do justice to the dinner? Who shall describe the turkey, the chicken, with the confusing series of vegetables, the plum puddings and the endless variety of pies? After dinner the father of the house conformed to the old Puritan custom by recounting the mercies of God in his dealings with the family. He recited a sort of family history, closing with the time-honored text that expressed the hope that as years went by every member of the house circle might so number his days as to apply his heart unto wisdom. Then with the national hymn of the Puritans,

Let children hear the mighty deeds

Which God performed of old,

sung to the venerable tune of St. Martin’s, the ceremonies closed.

So it was in the noble old New England days! Amid scenes like this a child was growing up in whose character love of home and love of country were to be corner stones.

CHAPTER III
HARRIET BEECHER’S SCHOOLING

Away down West Street in the village of Litchfield was a square pine building standing at the edge of the highway where no tree gave shade and no bush or fence took off the cold hard look. In this Dame School, kept by Ma’am Kilbourne, Harriet Beecher’s school education began. Before the door in winter was a pile of wood for fuel, and in summer all the chips of the winter’s wood still lay there outspread upon the ground. Inside the appearance was even less attractive than without. The benches were simple slabs with legs. The desks were slabs set up at an angle; they were cut, hacked, and scratched; each year’s edition of jack-knife literature overlay its predecessor’s, until in the days of the Beecher children the desks already possessed carvings two or three inches deep. But if a child cut a morsel, or stuck in a pin, or pinched off a splinter, the sharp-eyed little mistress was on hand, and one look from her eyes was worse than a sliver in the foot, and one nip from her fingers was equal to the jab of a pin; each boy knew, for every one of them had tried both. The teacher in this school for children was a sharp, precise person possessed of many ingenious ways for fretting little ones. At any rate this was the way one little boy remembered her, and we may suppose that a little girl would realize some of her disagreeableness, even so obedient a child as Harriet.

Every morning, then, during both summer and winter little Harriet and her brother two years younger than herself, reinforced by a hearty breakfast and a more hearty session of morning prayers at home, and bearing the precious splint basket that contained their mid-day lunch of brown bread and apples, trudged down to the place of all-day work and perhaps of discipline.

Harriet and her brother Henry were inseparable companions. Together they were hurried off from the house, together they went down the village street, together they entered the dismal school, subdued for the moment into quiet. Together they endured the long day and envied the flies and the birds that could go about so freely. The windows were so high that they could not see the grassy meadows—only the tantalizing tops of the trees came above the window ledges, and above that the far, deep, bounteous, blue sky. There flew the bluebirds; there went the robins, and there followed the longing thoughts of the children. Long before they knew what was written in Scripture they cried out, O that we had the wings of a bird! As for learning, it was Henry’s opinion in his mature life, that the sum of all they got at the village school would scarcely cover the first ten letters of the alphabet. One good, kind, story-telling, Bible-rehearsing aunt at home with apples and gingerbread premiums was worth all the school ma’ams that ever stood to see poor little fellows roast in those boy-traps called district schools! Such an aunt the Beecher children had at home, and beloved she was!

But that was a boy’s view; and boys’ views of teachers are well known to be entirely unreliable. Ma’am Kilbourne was highly respected in the community and her curriculum, though not wide, is known to have gone very deep. In fact we may say that in her school the character and influence of the teacher, together with the “New England Primer,” formed the main body of the instruction.

“Come here and learn your Primer,” the teacher said, and Harriet’s curly head bent over the little book as she spelled out the words,

“The cat doth play,

And after slay.”

“You see the picture?” Her teacher pointed out the right one in its little square on the page, a wood-cut of the feline musician with fiddle in hand. Here Henry crowded forward to see, too, and, finding some great joke in the matter, he nudged and coughed and could not be made to stand still. The Dame continued:

“’Tis youth’s delight

To fly their kite—”

a self-evident truth not needing proof. The next item is more learned.

“Whales in the sea

God’s voice obey—”

she pronounced “sea” as “say,” as was the custom in those days;

“The deluge drowned

The world around—”

continued these instructions in history and science. Biblical example was thus enforced for the benefit of Harriet:

“Young pious Ruth

Left all for truth;”

and, for Henry’s sake, this:

“Young Obadias,

David, Josias,

All were pious.”

That great New England classic, comprised in a mere booklet, three by four inches in size, contained also the “Alphabet of Lessons for Youth,” which Ma’am Kilbourne did not fail to enforce. She taught them to read from the printed page what they already knew in the better way—by heart, the immortal prayer, “Now I lay me,” and the hymns, “Hush, my dear,” and “Give ear, my children,” and other hymns and prayers. There were also “Moral Precepts for Children in Words of One Syllable.” They were tedious, but think of the glory of really knowing them by heart!

Speak the truth and lie not.

Live well that you may die well.

Ill words spread strife.

Do not be proud.

Scorn not to be poor.

Give to them that want.

Learn to love your book.

Good children must

Fear God all day Love Christ alway

Parents obey In secret pray

No false thing say Mind little play

By no sin stray Make no delay

In doing good.

These foundation principles, we may be sure, were well rubbed in.

The Dame School was an English inheritance that came with the Puritans from their home across the Atlantic—such a school as the poets Cowper and Shenstone have beautifully described in their poetry. In New England a special exercise for Saturday was added; then the little ones were required to learn and recite the answers in the Westminster Assembly’s Shorter Catechism, wherein the profoundest problems of Calvinism were thoroughly set forth. When Harriet was asked the first question: “What is the chief end of man?” and was taught to say: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever,” she thought the answer difficult. It was long and had words of more than one syllable in it. She liked far better the Church Catechism that her grandmother down in Guilford had her study which began simply with “What is your name?” This was more within her range; it was a good easy start, and the answer could be shouted out in a voice loud and clear.

Another custom of the New England Dame School was perhaps also an innovation—that of requiring the children to bring a piece of sewing from home for the boys and girls to work on at odd moments so that no precious interval of time might be lost. At recess after the lunch had been unceremoniously made away with there were long uninteresting towel seams to be ripped up on one side and sewed down on the other by the industrious little fingers of Harriet and of her robust and perhaps rebellious brother, Henry Ward. In these early New England schools, as in New England life in general, the chief note was industry. Our heroic ancestors, when they left their comfortable homes in the mother country and came to this untraveled land, did not include in their plan a smooth and easy life. Since Harriet belonged to a supremely self-sacrificing family, she came to share this severe understanding of life, and her patriotic heart warmly responded to it. Perhaps when she was a little girl she did not realize that her school provided few means of healthful enjoyment for the children. But then, on the rare occasion when one of the children had a treat of nuts and raisins, or a little cake trimmed with caraway sugar plums to share with the others, her joy was all the greater because of the rarity of the festival; and if besides there were added some of those wonderful candies brought from Boston, heart-shaped and hard as pebbles, but inscribed with romantic mottoes, why, that was bliss indeed!

From these rather severe foundations Harriet passed on into lessons in the reading of the Bible and in the “Columbian Orator.” She learned to write from “set copies,” and to do “sums” from Daboll’s Arithmetic.

Soon the whole company of Beecher boys and girls were together in a schoolroom which was bare to the point of meanness with a vestibule where hats and dinner baskets were hung. The heating apparatus was a big stove whose long black pipe stuck out of the window. But if any Beecher child complained of want of comfort, his father cut him short by saying, “Why, when I was a boy the fireplace in the schoolhouse, though big enough to take in logs of wood cart length and capable of making heat enough to roast an ox, did not carry the warmth much beyond the andirons. Only the biggest and smartest boys were able to get near the fire; the little fellows must do the best they could. I had to take my ink-bottle to the fire to thaw out the ice in it many times a day.” In this way he put their complaints to silence.

In New England the boys and girls were educated together in one school. As Mrs. Stowe said later in life, “If a daughter of Eve wished like her brother to put forth her hand to the tree of knowledge there was neither cherubim nor flaming sword to drive her away!” And how they did study! What industry! What rivalry! In English grammar, for instance, the school was parceled out into a certain number of divisions, each under a leader, and at the close of the term there was a great examination which was like a tournament. It was known that when the day came, the most difficult specimens of English literature would be given out for parsing and the most abstruse problems in grammar would be gathered together for use in the test. For a week the boys and girls spoke and dreamed of nothing but English grammar, and each division sat in solemn assembly, afraid lest one of its mighty secrets should possibly take wing and be plundered by some of the scouts of another division. In the end the division that could not be puzzled by any doubtful phrase would be proclaimed victorious and would be crowned with laurels as glorious as those of the old Olympian games.

In due time Harriet was ready to enter the institution that she was looking forward to with longing eyes—the Litchfield Female Academy. This school was one of many seminaries for the higher culture of the New England daughters, which sprang up throughout the vigorous young states, and which testify to the enthusiasm for education of our Puritan fathers. Among them the original Mt. Holyoke Seminary and the Emma Willard School are perhaps the most noted. Some of these early schools have developed into strong colleges, and all of them in their times served a valuable purpose in our educational life. It was fortunate for the Beecher family that Litchfield contained an academy of this sort, and here under the training of the cultivated ladies, Miss Sally and Miss Mary Pierce, Harriet’s education was now conducted.

Miss Sally Pierce was the real head of the school. According to her picture in Miss Vanderpoel’s delightful book of reminiscences of the famous school, Miss Pierce was a very handsome woman with eyes that suggest sensibility, and a mouth that could smile charmingly. But we suspect also that the little stiff curls might bob warningly and the lips settle down into a very firm line, while the tall cap standing up over the brow might strike terror to the heart of any child doubtful about the correctness of her examples, or nervous lest a half or a one-tenth of a “miss” should be counted against her. The truth is, however, that Miss Sally was very much beloved and so greatly admired that she must have been in danger of vanity. John Pierpont, a considerable poet in his day and not forgotten now, celebrated her worth in a passage in his Centennial Poem in 1851. He becomes almost eloquent.

Pierce, an honored name!

Yea, thrice and four times honored,

he cries. Then he contrasts her glories with those of the warrior.

Bloodless the garland on her temples laid.

To them, reproachful, no poor widow turns;

No sister’s heart bleeds, and no mother mourns

To see them flourish. Ne’er shall they be torn

From off her honored brows. Long be they worn

To show the world how a good Teacher’s name

Out-weighs, in real worth, the proudest warrior’s fame!

The Academy was held in an insignificant house thirty by sixty feet. There was a small closet at each end, one for the piano and one for bonnets. There were desks of the plainest pine, long plank benches, a small table and an elevated chair for the teacher—that was all. Upon the modest throne sat Miss Sally Pierce, the principal. She probably resembled Miss Titcomb, in Mrs. Stowe’s novel, “Oldtown Folks,” a thoroughbred, old-fashioned lady whose views of education were formed by Miss Hannah More and whose style like Miss Hannah More’s was profoundly Johnsonian, which means that her ideas were expressed in very grand and dignified language. The set of rules that she made for the conduct of her school required of the pupils absolute moral perfection. It was written there that persons truly polite would invariably treat their superiors with reverence, their equals with exact consideration, and their inferiors with condescension. Also, under the head of manners, they were warned not to consider romping as indicative of sprightliness or loud laughter as a mark of wit. When these rules were read to the pupils on a Saturday morning, we can imagine that there was some suppressed excitement, for these children with mountain air stirring in their veins were doubtless somewhat given to romping and loud laughter!

Dr. Beecher, who took a great interest in the school, came nearly every Saturday and talked with the girls about religious subjects. The young ladies also attended the church and were expected to report on the sermons they heard. Besides that, they wrote of their own accord long outlines of these mild entertainments in their diaries and commonplace books. Some of these old commonplace books have been preserved and give testimony to the accurate attention of these girls of old New England. Said one: “Dr. Beecher visited the school. I was very much pleased; his doctrine is plain and easy to understand.” Another, after hearing him both morning and evening and stating the chapter and verse used on each occasion, went home and went to her room thinking seriously of what he had said. “He wished,” she said, “to have us all be good Christians!” The same good child once had an afternoon holiday, but came to school just the same. She was rewarded by being present when, at about sunset, Dr. Beecher “came down to see us. He talked very affecting,” she said. “He said he could not make a very long visit with us at present, but if we wished he would come in some time and pray with us. We all joined in the request. I should be very glad to have him come, for I like to hear religious instruction.”

Another girl wrote: “He said that we must repent and believe and explained how we should repent and believe, but my memory is so poor that I cannot remember it.”

An unusually independent young mind conceived the following critical passage: “Mr. Beecher preached a very good sermon quite as good as he usually does, though I do not think he is one of the best preachers.” Here is the record of one Saturday’s exercise: “Dr. Beecher came in and gave us a lecture on the first question in the catechism. ‘What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ He said that in order to glorify God we must love Him and become acquainted with Him and likewise endeavor to acquaint our companions with His goodness, as we would if we had a friend at home who was very amiable, and tell our companions how amiable she is. It would be glorifying her.”

Thus the great preacher made his influence felt as the adviser and helper of Miss Pierce and of her girls. Mrs. Beecher, too, though the most shy and retiring of women, acted, with other ladies of the village, on the committee for awarding prizes at the end of the term.

When the middle of June came there were important exercises, and on this occasion all was dignity and decorum. A long procession of schoolgirls came marching down North Street, walking under the lofty elms to the music of the flute and flageolet. The girls were gaily dressed and in the most joyous spirits. At the church each proud graduate received her diploma, a document printed elegantly upon white satin and bound with blue ribbon. Upon the refined surface was a beautiful picture, representing a lofty hill, on the top of which was a temple surrounded by rays of light. A clearly marked but steep and difficult path led up the side of this mountain. At the foot stood a lady who reached out her arm and pointed with a meaning finger to a bulky geographical globe that rested upon a pile of books. She seemed to say that only by means of most severe study would you be able to climb this hill to the radiant temple of learning. The meaning of the picture was well understood by the young graduate. Above the design amid the most wonderful flourishes of penmanship was inscribed the title “Litchfield Female Academy,” and below were printed the words:

Miss —— ——

has completed with honor the prescribed course of study—Grammar, Geography, History, Arithmetic, Rhetoric, Natural and Moral Philosophy, Chemistry, Logic, and the Principles of Taste.

Several of these little diplomas, now yellowed with age, are preserved in the Town Museum at Litchfield. I do not know that Harriet Beecher came into possession of one of them; she probably went away to be a teacher herself before she reached that point.

We learn, however, from this little certificate what was the course of study in the Litchfield Female Academy. But no such list of titles can give us any real idea of what the days at the Academy meant to Harriet. Miss Pierce was a woman of great ability. She herself had made an “Abridgment of Universal History” in four volumes which was used as a text-book in her school; and after plodding through this ample work the students followed it by Russell’s “Modern Europe,” Coot’s “Continuation,” and Ramsey’s “American Revolution,” and accompanied the study with map-drawing. They made historical charts in which the names of kings and queens were set in little sequins strung along a “riband” or skein of sky-blue silk. Within the charmed enclosure of this design were the royal genealogical patterns from Saxon to Brunswick with roses of red and of white appropriately interspersed. Nothing could be clearer. Mrs. Stowe thought so much of Miss Pierce’s method that when she had her own little family to bring up she wrote to ask Miss Pierce for a copy of the book she had used in childhood from which to instruct her children.

In Miss Pierce’s school Harriet Beecher laid the foundations for her understanding of the history and principles of our national government which in due time made it possible for her to write the biographies of a number of our most distinguished statesmen, and to talk with Abraham Lincoln in 1862 with some comprehension of his problems.

Harriet must have been a brilliant little student. Writing compositions, which is such a burden to most young scholars, she seems to have found only a delight. To this work she must have been trained from her earliest days, for her mother had always maintained a sort of home school in the family; and when Dr. Beecher was off on some ministerial quest he did not fail to send home on time the lists of composition subjects and outlines that he had agreed to arrange for Mrs. Beecher to use in her work with these pupils. Here are some of the subjects: The Difference between the Natural and Moral Sublime, The Comparative Merits of Milton and Shakespeare, The Comparative Merits of the Athenian and Lacedaemonian Systems of Education, and, Can the Benevolence of Deity be Proved by the Light of Nature? Profound subjects! But when the young people were sharpening up their wits on such whetstones as these, it is not so strange that a little girl of twelve, who was filled with the spirit of aspiration and fired with curiosity about everything in the universe, should try her pen at the most difficult among them.

Her question was phrased in this way: Can the Immortality of the Soul Be Proved by the Light of Nature? And her essay, when handed in, was thought to be quite wonderful. And indeed it was wonderful; for even if the ideas were overheard by her in the classes of older pupils or in the table talk of her father at home, to set them down in order and arrange them effectively was a great achievement. This precious essay has been preserved and is reproduced in full in the “Life of Mrs. Stowe,” by her son, published in 1889. The learned subject is treated in the most systematic manner; the introduction, the point of view and arrangement of thought under separate heads.

The exhibition day came. The hall was crowded with all the literati of Litchfield. Before this distinguished audience all the compositions were read aloud. Harriet’s father was present and was sitting on high by the side of the teacher. When they read Harriet’s piece she was closely watching her father’s face, and she saw that it visibly brightened. He looked really interested, and at the close she heard him say, “Who wrote that composition?” “Your daughter, sir.” was the answer. It was the proudest moment of Harriet’s life. She could not mistake the expression of her father’s face when he was listening to the essay; she knew that he was pleased, and to have him interested was the greatest triumph that her heart could ask.

The teacher that answered Dr. Beecher was a nephew of Miss Pierce, Mr. J. P. Brace, who assisted her in the work of the school. He must have been one of those strong and spicy old New England schoolmasters that Mrs. Stone speaks of in “Men of Our Times.” A well-informed and cultivated man, a writer of romances himself, and especially gifted in conversational power, he must have been a stimulating and inspiring instructor. An enthusiast in botany, mineralogy, and the natural sciences generally, he filled the students with an enthusiasm that made gathering specimens and making herbariums an easy task. He kept up a constant conversation on a great variety of subjects, better calculated to develop the mind and to inspire love of literature than any mere routine could have been. Harriet afterward declared that she gained more from hearing the recitations and discussions in the classes of the older pupils than from her own work. There from hour to hour she listened with eager ears to historical criticisms and discussion of such works as Paley’s “Moral Philosophy,” Blair’s “Rhetoric,” and Alison on “Taste.”

In composition Mr. Brace excelled all teachers she ever knew. The constant interest that he aroused in the minds of his pupils, the wide and varied regions of thought into which he led them, formed a perfect preparation for their work in composition. He made them feel that they had something which they wanted to say, and this is the main requisite for success in writing.

Those were very busy, happy days for Harriet, probably the days she had in mind when she wrote in “Oldtown Folks”: “Certainly of all the days that I look back upon, this Academy life in Cloudland was the most perfectly happy.... It was happy because we were in the first flush of belief in ourselves and in life. Oh, that first belief! those incredible first visions! when all things look possible, and one believes in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and sees enchanted palaces in the sunset clouds! What faith we had in one another, and how wonderful we were in one another’s eyes!... We believed that we had secrets of happiness and progress known only to ourselves. We had full faith in one another’s destiny; we were all remarkable people and destined to do great things!”

CHAPTER IV
EDUCATION IN THE HOME

The account of Harriet’s education may sound somewhat meager to those who do not look beneath the surface. But it must be remembered that her own family formed an educational institution in itself. New England was celebrated, as Mrs. Stowe afterwards said, for “crisp originalities of character.” And even against this background the Beecher family stood out as a “sharp-cut and peculiar set.” These highly individual qualities in her parents and in her brothers and sisters made a constant current of life beneath the roof of the Beecher parsonage. It was an education to hear her father discuss things, whether at dinner or at wood-sawing or on a picnic; for he was like a high-mettled horse in a pasture, as Mrs. Stowe said of one of her characters in her novel, “My Wife and I”; he enjoyed once in a while having a free argumentative race all round the theological lot. But this discussion was by no means left to the leader alone; all the children were expected to take part. The home circle thus became a great lyceum of thought. The rule of these debates was that each one should contribute his thought and bear his part with boldness, independence and originality. In this way the father trained the children in toughness, tenacity and endurance. Harriet’s father would have disowned any child that refrained in fair argument from putting forth every atom of logical strength he possessed. Every boy was expected, in supporting his opinions, to exert himself to the utmost, but without sophistry or unfairness. Against a refusal to argue or a resort to evasion or trick, the father’s anger burned like fire. And no child was allowed to find fault if his arguments were roughly handled, or to grumble and get angry if he were bruised or floored in fair debate. A stranger looking upon some hotly contested discussion might have said that the doctor and his children were angry with each other. Never! They were only in earnest. Moreover, the great household was filled with a spirit of active service, carried out with cheerfulness and even hilarity. Or if perchance the will for obedience deflected a little from perfection, the father’s sharp call, “Mind your mother. Quick! No crying! Look pleasant!” was sufficient to bring stragglers into line at once.

The work and plans and interests of the household went on like a great well-balanced machine, in which one little cog, that good child Harriet, was taking its part according to its ability. Harriet was also getting ready to perform a greater part, for all these home experiences were turning in a direction that gave her a special preparation for her life-work.

At this time Harriet’s older sister, Catherine, was considered by far the more promising daughter. She did become a most efficient woman, who wrote a long list of educational books and who had a great influence on the schools of her time throughout the country. When Harriet was in the early teens, however, Catherine was simply a brilliant young woman, efficient, sparkling and full of life. She caused a breath of mirth to flow through the home every minute, even the stern father being indulgent toward her pranks and jokes. She made every occurrence the subject of a bit of composition in prose or in verse, like the “epithet” for the kit. Everything was turned into literary expression; the disappearance of a favorite calf inspired a threnody; if a precious brown-edged platter was smashed, an epic poem was forthwith composed; if a marriage took place among the cousins, a ballad appeared into which the names of all the guests were woven and which was learned by heart by every one and was quoted for months.

In such an atmosphere as this it is not strange that the bent of Harriet’s mind toward writing should have been strengthened. The wonder is not that she developed in that direction, but that she did not begin to write even earlier than she did. We shall see that the reasons for that were sufficient.

A great deal has been said about Harriet’s father, but her mother must have a special word also. It could be said of her, as it has been of another ideal woman of history, that to know her was in itself an education. Roxana Foote Beecher belonged to the old Guilford Foote family, so conspicuous for intellectual and social attainments in the early New England days. One of Harriet’s sisters, in writing to her daughter of the Foote homestead at Nut Plains near Guilford, said: “These Footes are a people by themselves in their literary accomplishments, their good sense and fine breeding. Their homestead almost talks to you from its very walls of the days gone by. I never felt more sure of spirit companionship of the highest order, and your father thinks few parlors in all the land have gathered a more noble company. The place is full of rich and inspiring associations.”

In this Foote family there were traditions that must have been especially inspiring to a child like Harriet Beecher. One of the stories centered about a young girl named Lucinda Foote, who was born in Chester, Connecticut, only a few years before Roxana Beecher’s time. She displayed great taste for study and attained a distinction that not many other girls of her time gained. She was the daughter of the Reverend John Foote, the minister in Chester, a man distinguished for his scholarship.

Little Lucinda Foote studied the “learned languages,” as they were called, that is, Latin and Greek, and when she was only twelve years old she was examined in them by the President of Yale College, the great Ezra Stiles. He testified in a parchment which is one of the precious treasures among her descendants that she had shown commendable progress in these studies, giving the meaning of passages in the Æneid of Virgil, the select Orations of Cicero and also in the Greek Testament, and that she was “fully qualified except in regard to sex to be received as a pupil in the freshman class in Yale University.” It may satisfy a natural curiosity to add that this child afterwards privately pursued a full collegiate course, including Hebrew, under President Stiles; was married at the age of eighteen; had ten children and lived to be sixty-two years old! In fact, as the elderly Mrs. Cornwall, wife of the physician in Chester, Harriet Beecher may possibly have seen her as she passed through the village in the stage coach on her way to visit her aunts in Guilford.

The traditions of this highly intellectual family were carried on excellently by Roxana Foote. Even in her girlhood, when the spinning-wheel was her daily companion, it was a habit of hers to adorn one end of the wheel beam with the pile of fleecy rolls ready for the spinning and then to lay on the other end an open book which, with its face down, waited for the minute when her conscience would allow her to leave her work and pore for a while over its pages. Roxana’s grandfather, General Ward, used to tell a story about his three granddaughters. He said that when the three girls came down in the morning Harriet Ward’s voice would be heard briskly calling, “Here! take the broom; sweep up; make a fire; make haste!” Betsy Chittenden would say, “I wonder what ribbon it’s best to wear at that party?” But Roxana Foote would say, “Which do you think was the greater general, Hannibal or Alexander?”

Roxana took advantage of every opportunity for culture. From a French gentleman who, after the massacres at San Domingo had taken refuge in this country and settled in Guilford, she learned French and became able to speak it fluently. He lent her the best French authors, which she studied as she spun flax, tying the book, face forward, to the distaff. She had a brother who went into business in New York; while visiting him she studied drawing and painting with water colors and in oils; afterwards when any problem in perspective puzzled her she flew to the encyclopedia and was not content till she had overcome the difficulty. She was highly gifted in artistic execution of many kinds. She painted miniature portraits upon ivory for various members of her family and for her pupils and rarely failed to get a good likeness. Her needlework was a marvel in its delicacy and complexity; bobbin lace and cobweb stitch like hers have now passed out of memory. The house was full of works of ingenuity devised by her which adorned wall and furniture and drapery. Her famous Russian stove, made with the aid of a mason from the description in her encyclopedia, warmed six rooms with less fuel than many of her neighbors used for a single fire. In fact, the second Mrs. Beecher declared that this wonderful stove entirely annihilated the winter indoors.

Under her mother’s guidance, Catherine, at about fourteen, decorated with landscapes a new chamber set of beautiful white wood, the bureau, dressing-table, candlestand, washstand and bedstead. She surrounded the pictures with garlands of flowers and fruits, and then varnished them according to a recipe in the same encyclopedia. Once Dr. Beecher sent home a whole bale of cotton which he bought just because it was cheap. Roxana found a use for this commodity. She conceived the idea of making a carpet of it—a thing unheard of in the little Long Island town where they began their housekeeping together. In that primitive place they still covered their floors with sand dampened and smoothed over, marking this smooth surface with the broom in zig-zag lines if they wanted decoration. But Mrs. Beecher’s artistic mind took a higher flight. She carded and spun the bale of cotton, had it woven, cut and sewed it to fit the parlor, and then stretched it on the garret floor to begin the operations. Here she brushed it over with thin paste to make a stiff foundation. Meantime she had sent to her brother in New York for paints and had learned from the invaluable encyclopedia how to use them. She painted flowers and leaves in groups on this background, taking for models the plants in her own garden. The carpet, when it was done, was the admiration of the whole town, but the deacons, when they came to the door, did not dare to step on anything so splendid; they also thought it a sin to make the room so magnificent that the splendors of Heaven would lose their attractiveness! “Do you think,” said one of them, “that you can have all of this and Heaven besides?”

It is difficult to say what her chief interests were, she was so full of activities. She loved works on philosophy and on science, and was ingenious in making devices for experiments in natural philosophy. She was intensely interested in all the new books of poetry. Writing to her sailor brother Samuel, she besought him to come up to Litchfield to visit them. “Just pack yourself into the chaise,” she said, “and come up here and see how pleasant it is in winter. You might fancy yourself at sea now and then when we have a brisk breeze, with the help of a little imagination. You might find sundry other things to amuse you. I have a new philosophical work you may study and some new poems you may read.” This was in November, 1814, when Harriet was two years old; while her mother was writing Harriet was clinging about her neck praying her to stop writing and make her a doll baby!

Mrs. Beecher was modest and retiring in the highest degree, so that she could not speak with a stranger or a guest without having the beautiful color sweep over her face; and she was so shy that she could never lead the weekly “female prayer-meeting”; yet she had so much tact that she never angered her impetuous husband, and she was the life and the center of the Beecher home.

But details like these, after all, give us very little insight into her real character. We may perhaps judge what sort of woman she was by the influence she had upon her children.

From what Harriet said of her we can see that she must have been the very quintessence of womanliness, of motherliness. Harriet said: “Mother was one of those strong, restful, yet widely sympathetic natures, in whom all around seemed to find comfort and repose. She was of a temperament peculiarly restful and peace-giving. Her union of spirit with God, unruffled and unbroken even from very early childhood, seemed to impart to her an equilibrium and healthful placidity that no earthly reverses ever disturbed.” In almost every book that Mrs. Stowe wrote she pays tribute to her mother in her pictures of motherly feeling. All the mother influence upon St. Clair in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is Harriet’s offering upon the altar of her own mother’s memory.

Harriet’s brother, Henry Ward Beecher, said that the loss of his mother was like a cheating of his heart’s best possession. All his life long he felt that there was a moral power in his memory of her—one of those invisible blessings that faith comprehends, but that cannot be weighed or estimated.

We may come a little nearer yet to an understanding of Roxana Foote’s character if we take a quotation from one of her letters written to Dr. Beecher before their marriage. Old-time love-letters were of a more serious kind than those of to-day. When the prevailing thought of a time dwelt upon religious questions it was but natural that the spiritual condition of the one beloved should be of the deepest concern to the lover. With such a thought we may read this passage which is given as a light upon the inner impulses and character of Harriet’s mother.

Roxana’s lover had, it seems, asked her certain perplexing questions as to her religious experience. In answer she said: “You ask, when I feel a degree of joy, whether it arises from anything I perceive in the character of God that charms me, or from anything that I perceive in myself that I think will charm God? I think the former.... In contemplating the character of God, His mercy and goodness are most present to my mind, and as it were swallow up His other attributes. The overflowing goodness that has created multitudes of human beings that He might communicate to them a part of His happiness, and which openeth His hand and filleth all things with plenteousness, I can contemplate with delight.... I can not now describe what have been my feelings before, but on Sunday night I experienced emotions which I can find no language to describe. I seemed carried to Heaven and thought that neither height nor depth nor things present, nor things to come, should be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Yet, if I feel a degree of joy, I fear to indulge it and tremble at every emotion of pleasure. Last night I was almost in Heaven, but sunk to earth again by fears that I should rejoice without cause, but when I prayed my fears seemed to remove.”[2]

When we read such a love-letter as this we can a little understand how every son of that mother should become a notable minister of the Gospel and each daughter a source of wide influence for good.

It is also a matter beyond dispute that a mother with such tastes and accomplishments as Mrs. Beecher possessed would see to it that the education of her daughters on the artistic side should not be neglected. And in fact there was need—at any rate we should think so to-day. In the Litchfield Female Academy there was indeed some instruction in art. Painting, embroidery and the piano were at that time considered the essential things in the proper education of a young lady. The description that Aurora Leigh gives of the instruction she received at the hands of her English aunts in the first book of Mrs. Browning’s great poem, “Aurora Leigh,” belongs to about the same period and will be considered sufficiently laughable by the girls of to-day. Ideas in New England were not very different from these. In the Academy in Litchfield they painted flowers that were delicate and stiff; they worked samplers and coats of arms in chenille and floss; pastoral pieces were in great favor, representing fair young shepherdesses sitting with crooks in their hands on green chenille banks, tending animals of uncertain description which were to be received by faith as sheep. There were mourning pieces with a willow tree by a family monument and weeping mourners with faces artfully concealed by flowing pocket-handkerchiefs. The sweet confiding innocence, said Mrs. Stowe with gentle irony in “Oldtown Folks,” which regarded the making of objects like these as more suited to the tender female character than the pursuit of Latin and mathematics was characteristic of the ancient régime. Did not Penelope embroider, and all sorts of princesses, ancient and modern? And was not embroidery a true feminine grace?[3] We may well doubt if Harriet took much interest in these beasts of floss and chenille and probably preferred, as we should think she would, her childhood landscapes of gray and brown mosses. But when she was older and could follow her home instruction in painting she gained a skill that made sketching landscapes and other work in water color a resource to her all her life.

In music, too, Harriet was not without opportunities for culture. Her mother, Roxana, played the guitar from her girlhood. Her father was devoted to the violin which always lay near him in the attic study to be taken up whenever the strain of his work made him feel the need of relaxation. Under the influence of such parents it is not strange that every member of the Beecher family began singing at a very early age. One of Harriet’s sisters said that she learned to read music by note as soon as she learned to read print. Dr. Beecher must have had the soul of music within him. He once said that if he could play what he heard inside his soul he would beat Paganini. But not being able to do that he had to content himself with “Merrily O” and other melodies of a simple sort. But whatever he may have lacked in execution he managed at every church he served as minister to infuse into the singing a portion of his own buoyant enthusiasm. In earlier days the Puritan singing had been of a plaintive and minor kind. Lyman Beecher called forth a song of a bolder, livelier, more triumphant character, and uniting his endeavors with those of Lowell Mason, the great leader in later New England hymnology, he worked a great change in the psalmody of his country.

We do not think of the New England meeting-house as being the home of music, but to Harriet Beecher the singing in the Sabbath service must have meant a great deal. The Puritan music, with its solemn undertone of deep emotion, had a mysterious power over her. When the “wild warble” of “St. Martin’s,” which ran like this:

[ [[audio/mpeg]] | [Download Music XML] ]

or “China” with its weird yet majestic movement of which this first line may remind us:

[ [[audio/mpeg]] | [Download Music XML] ]

when these old beloved tunes swelled and reverberated through the church they expressed to her a solemn assurance of victory. In the old fuguing tunes, too, there was a wild freedom and energy of motion that came from the heart of a people who had been courageous in combat and unshaken in endurance. They were like the ocean when it is aroused by stormy winds when deep calleth unto deep in tempestuous confusion, from which at last is evolved peace and harmony. Whatever a trained musician might say of such a tune as old “Majesty,” no person of imagination and sensibility could ever hear it well rendered by a large choir without deep emotion. So thought Harriet; and when back and forth from every side of the church came the different parts shouting

On cherubim and seraphim,

Full royally He rode,

And on the wings of mighty winds,

Came flying all abroad,

there was at least one young heart in the audience that could scarcely contain its rapture and that held itself quite still until the tempest sank away to peace in the words:

He sat serene upon the floods,

Their fury to restrain,

And He, as sovereign Lord and King,

Forevermore shall reign.

Stirred to the depths by songs such as this on Sunday, Harriet came home to a family that were making the rafters ring with music all the week. A fine-toned upright piano, which some lucky accident had brought within the means of the poor minister, had been early brought all the way from New Haven; Harriet said that never was ark of the covenant brought into the tabernacle with such gladness as when this magical instrument came into their abode. Then indeed was the house filled with music. Catherine and Harriet had regular instruction from a charming and beautiful performer. Edward and William learned to play on the flute. Dr. Beecher brought out his fiddle, and many evenings were given to concerts in which piano, violin, flute and voice united, and Scotch ballads and hymns and chorals resounded through the house.

Sunday evening was a particularly pleasant time in the Beecher home. Something of the old law about Sunday observance ending at sundown still held in New England. And when the boys, who were closely watching, had at last seen the required three stars come out—why, that decided the matter; it was really evening, the Sabbath was over, and playing could now begin without making their consciences prick. When the preaching was done for the day, Dr. Beecher would join the family, and music would be in order. Never was the father so entertaining as at this time. He was lively, sparkling, jocose. He got out the old yellow music book and his faithful friend, the violin, and played “Auld Lang Syne,” “Bonnie Doon,” “Mary’s Dream” and other favorites. On week day evenings a concert like this ended with “Money Musk” and “College Hornpipe,” and perhaps after the mother had gone to bed the father would exhibit the wonders of a double shuffle remembered from the corn-huskings of his youth; but it is said that the results on the feet of his stockings made the female authorities frown on them to such a degree that after a while the exhibition became a rare treat.

But there were other ways in which the high spirits of this sometimes frisky parent amused the family. For instance, in pursuance of a sort of dare the musical father went through the house before the housekeeper was up, energetically playing “Yankee Doodle.” At another time when he was tired of theological study he began to play the fiddle under the schoolroom (in the days when they had a school in the home), much to the delight of the pupils; but the mother came downstairs, took the instrument gently from his hands, carried it upstairs, and laid it on the desk in the schoolroom. This closed that incident and gave us an example of the mother’s tact in managing a rather difficult situation.

But not to dwell upon the jocose side of things which kept the life in the Beecher home from becoming too serious and dull for the welfare of a company of little ones who were full of activity that needed outlet, it is plain that there were many broadening educative influences about Harriet Beecher in her own immediate home.

These were also supplemented by others of a still wider character. When Harriet stayed at the Foote homestead in Nut Plains down near Guilford she slept in a bed that was hung with curtains of printed India linen on which bloomed strange mammoth plants with endless convolutions of branches in whose hollows appeared Chinese summer houses adorned with countless bells which gay Chinese attendants were ever in the act of ringing with a hammer. There were also sleepy-looking mandarins, and birds bigger than the mandarins. Drowsy little girl Harriet wondered why the bells did not ring when struck, and why the mandarins never came out of their summer houses.

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.

The first satisfaction she had for her intense longing for what she would call interesting reading was in the “Pilgrim’s Progress” of Bunyan. We know how deeply this sank into her heart from the fact that in the books she wrote she often illuminates her thought by some apt illustration from the Pilgrim’s adventures. That her mind began very early to be haunted by those memories of the Pilgrim we know from one story about her youth.

It is related that sometimes when she was prowling about in the back attic she would timidly open a little door that she found in the side of the chimney and would peer into the dark abyss that yawned within. Looking into that smoky and fearsome place, she was reminded of the door that the Pilgrim found in the walls of a certain valley, an opening which was the way that hypocrites go in at, whence issued the scent of brimstone together with a rumbling noise as of fire. As this thought came to Harriet she would shut to the little door in the chimney with a bang and run away to a more friendly part of the house, seeking some room that might perhaps be called a “Chamber of Peace.”

This name could certainly be applied to her father’s study. Harriet loved that attic of her father’s with its quiet and its rows of books. There she would cuddle down in a corner and watch her father as he sat in his great writing chair with his Bible and his Cruden’s “Concordance” and now and then whispered out his rapidly forming sermon. She looked about upon those mysterious books with awe. To her father there was evidently good magic in them, but to her their charm was unrevealed. To be sure, from Harmer’s work on “Solomon’s Song” and from a book called “The State of the Clergy during the French Revolution,” she could gain some food for her hungry fancy. There was also Cotton Mather’s “Magnalia,” that wonderful account of how this plantation of New England was made so considerable in a space of time so inconsiderable, a work that was a perfect storehouse of tales of these strange old days. These were wonderful stories indeed! And they were all about her own country, too, and made her feel that she herself trod upon ground that was consecrated by some special dealings of God’s Providence.

Nevertheless the story-loving side of little Harriet could never be convinced that there were no more lively bits to be found among all those unpromising black books. She sought perseveringly, and her efforts were rewarded. In a side closet full of documents there was a weltering ocean of pamphlets in which she dug and toiled for hours, to be repaid by disinterring a delicious morsel of “Don Quixote” that had once been a book, but was now lying in forty or fifty broken scraps amid Calls and Appeals, Essays, Replies and Rejoinders. The turning up of such a fragment, she thought, was like the rising of an enchanted island out of an ocean of mud. Further searches in certain barrels of old sermons brought to her a battered but precious copy of the “Arabian Nights.” She was now happy; such books as these could be read and re-read forever without ever palling.

We must remember that there were in those days no books written specially for children and so arranged as to be interesting at each step of the child’s growth. Harriet had to grow to the great books, but as she had a very precocious and devouring mind she was fully ready by the time that she discovered the Oriental story-book in the bottom of the barrel, to read all the big words in Scheherazade’s long-winded, fascinating tales.

It was Harriet Beecher’s good fortune that no silly or trashy books were thrown in her way, to the injury or ruin of her mental development. Under all these encouraging influences she grew with astonishing rapidity, but in a perfectly simple and normal way.

Mrs. Stowe herself tells us in “The Minister’s Wooing” what was thought to be the proper selection for the personal library of a well-taught young lady of those times. Upon the snowy cover of the small table under her looking-glass should lie “The Spectator,” “Paradise Lost,” “Shakespeare” and “Robinson Crusoe.” Beside them of course the Bible should rest. There should also be the works of Jonathan Edwards. Laid a little to one side, as perhaps of doubtful reputation, might be found the only novel which the stricter people in those days allowed for the reading of their daughters, that seven-volumed, trailing, tedious, delightful old bore, “Sir Charles Grandison”—a book whose influence was almost universal and might be traced even in the epistolary style of some grave divines.

A story is told of a certain young lady of Litchfield, probably a devourer of such books as this, who was once going in the stage from Litchfield to Hartford and happened to have Miss Sally Pierce, the principal of the Female Academy, for traveling companion. Miss Pierce recommended to the young lady the purchase of “Wilberforce’s View.” The young lady took this advice, paying the sum of six shillings for the work. Miss Pierce also suggested the “Memoirs of Miss Susanna Anthony” which could be bought for three and six, and a book called “Reflections on Death” which she declared to be very interesting as well as instructive. We are not told that the young lady did not slip in also “The Lady of the Lake,” which was just then becoming a fashionable book in the hill towns of Connecticut, or even perhaps volume one of that great romance, “Sir Charles Grandison.”

Harriet no doubt had books of the same solemn and metaphysical kind recommended to her by her beloved teacher, but decidedly not the seven-volume novel. We do not know that Harriet had a little room to herself and a small library of her own. But she must have read that classic novel some time, or how could she have pronounced it a bore? Besides this, we know that once when she was almost an old lady she stood on her feet with bonnet on and read a chapter of “Sir Charles” through to the end, oblivious of the fact that she was keeping a dinner party waiting for her to come.

Fortunately for Harriet with her strong literary instincts, the tastes of her mother were more catholic than were those of her theological father; she included philosophical, scientific and poetic books among her favorites. In one of her letters to her sister-in-law she said: “May has, I suppose, told you of the discovery that the fixed alkalies are metallic oxyds. I first saw the notice in the Christian Observer and have since seen it in the Edinburgh Review.” Her eager mind led her to add: “I think this is all the knowledge I have obtained in the whole circle of the arts and sciences of late; if you have been more fortunate, pray let me have the benefit.”

To Mrs. Beecher a new interesting book was an event, heard of across the ocean, watched for as one watches for the rising of a new planet; and while the English packet was slowly laboring over, bearing it to our shores, expectation in the family was rising. When the book was to be found in the city book stores an early copy generally found its way to the family circle in Litchfield. Miss Edgeworth’s “Frank” came, and was read aloud to their great edification. Many a box of books appeared through the thoughtfulness of Uncle Samuel, who always selected the latest and most interesting things. “The Lay of the Last Minstrel” and “Marmion” made an epoch by their arrival; they were read in the home with wild enthusiasm, and afterwards spouted in glorious hours by the children. Can we take ourselves back to the freshness of a time when a letter from the mountains to a New Haven sister could contain this message: “John brought ‘The Vision of Roderick,’ a poem by Scott. Do tell me about Scott.” There was an eager, unjaded appetite in that mountain town that would give a rapturous welcome to such a poem as the “Lady of the Lake,” such a novel as “Ivanhoe.” These were the days when the heart of the world was being periodically agitated by the appearance of a new Waverley novel; it was the time, too, of Moore, Southey, Wordsworth, and, above all, of Byron.

Ah, Byron! It was the day of Byron, too. Over the sea came the rolling rhythms, the bravado and the mockery of the wonderful living poet. Over the sea came, too, the Byronic melancholy and the loose, waving Byronic necktie. The sensitive young attendants of the Law School suffered from the one and wore the other. We know that they suffered from the Byronic melancholy, for Dr. Beecher preached against it; and this time he did, as he used to say, take hold without mittens. He preached cut and thrust, hip and thigh, and did not ease off. His sermon was closed with an eloquent lamentation over the wasted life and misused powers of the great poet.

Meantime Harriet, then eleven years old, had found a stray volume of Byron’s “Corsair.” Her aunt had given it to her one afternoon to appease her craving for something to read. This poem astonished and electrified her. She kept calling to her aunt to hear the wonderful things she found in it and to ask what they meant. “Aunt Esther, what does this mean: ‘One I never loved enough to hate’?” “Oh, child, it’s one of Byron’s strong expressions,” said her aunt. That day Harriet went home full of dreaming about Byron, and after that she listened to everything that was said about him at the table. She heard her father tell about his separation from his wife, and one day he said, “My dear, Byron is dead—gone!” Then after a minute he added, “Oh, I am sorry that Byron is dead. I did hope he would live to do something for Christ. What a harp he might have swept!” That afternoon Harriet took her basket and went up to the strawberry field on Chestnut Hill. But she was too dispirited to do anything. She lay in the daisies and looked up into the blue sky and thought of the great eternity into which Byron had entered, and wondered how it might be with his soul.

It is interesting to recall that Harriet’s great English contemporary, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who afterward became the greatest of women poets and was one of Mrs. Stowe’s dear friends, at almost the same time was also mourning in a beautiful poem that “’midst the shriekings of the tossing wind,” “the dark blue depths” he sang of were then bearing all that remained of Byron to his native shore.

Harriet would probably know by instinct that no novel would be approved by her father for the children. So we can imagine her joy when one day he brought a novel of Scott’s to her brother George, saying that, though he generally disapproved of such books as trash, yet in these he could see that there were real genius and real culture and therefore he would remove his ban upon them.

In that summer Harriet and her brother read “Ivanhoe” through seven times, and they were both able to recite many scenes verbatim from beginning to end. They dramatized it all. They named the rocks and glens and rivers about Litchfield by names borrowed from “The Lady of the Lake”; they clambered among the rocks of Benvenue and sailed on the bosom of the Loch Katrine, using Chestnut Hill and the Great and Little Pond for the purpose. In the reading circles among the law students and among the young ladies they discussed Scott’s treatment side by side with that of Shakespeare, and compared the poetry of Scott and Byron.

In the family all this great new poetry was read aloud—which is indeed the best and only way to get the good of poetry. And though Harriet’s father was necessarily most interested in theological argument and discussion, he, too, was fond of poetry and read it with wonderful expression. Harriet thought it the greatest possible treat to hear him read passages from that world-poem, “Paradise Lost.” Especially was she moved when he read the account of Satan’s marshaling of his forces of fallen angels. The courage and fortitude of Milton’s Satan enlisted her in his favor, and when her father came to the passage beginning

Millions of spirits for his fault amerced

Of Heaven,

and ending with the lines,

Attention held them mute.

Thrice he essay’d, and thrice, in spite of scorn,

Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth,

her father himself burst into tears and the reading was ended for that day. Perhaps that poem was a favorite with Dr. Beecher because Milton’s confessed object in writing had been to “justify the ways of God to man,” and this was a theme that would appeal strongly to the great preacher.

Of course, if one were to speak of the books that were read by the future author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” one would have to name first and foremost the one that was the daily and almost hourly study and reading and talk of all members of the Beecher home, the Bible. What Harriet Beecher Stowe thought of that book is written at large in all her works. Especially in the novel, “My Wife and I,” she takes occasion to speak of what she thinks it means to a young man to have a thorough knowledge in the mind and the heart of that world-embracing book. It may be said also that her own books express in their content the spirit of the Bible. When later in life Mrs. Stowe traveled in the mountains of Switzerland, she said that she rejoiced every hour while among those scenes in her familiarity with the language of the Bible, for there alone could she find vocabulary and images to express her feelings of wonder and awe!

CHAPTER VI
DRAMATIC VENTURES

We are accustomed to think of the early New England life as offering few expressions of artistic beauty, and there is much truth in this view, for the thoughts of our forefathers were directed chiefly toward theology. But we must never forget that those first adventurers came from England during the greatest age of artistic expression that England ever had, the time of Sidney and Spenser and Shakespeare. When the New Englanders had become settled in their new home, had become somewhat unified, that “fervid activity of an intense, newly-kindled, peculiar and individual life” resulted in all sorts of out-croppings of that desire for beauty invincible in the human soul. We should be surprised to see how general were attempts in dramatic form. In all the schools, in the homes, in the societies and lyceums everywhere, original dialogues and plays were the order; and the Sunday school, when invented, threw a generous mantle of charity over various colloquies, symbolisms, moralities, and other kinds of dramatic presentation.

In Miss Pierce’s school there were many exercises of this character. Miss Pierce herself was devoted, like her nephew, to the English classics; she was a good reader, given to quoting long passages of poetry and making her pupils do likewise. To the compositions for gala days, declamations, colloquies and dramatic sketches were added. Then

My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills

My father fed his flocks, etc.,

was invariably spouted. “The Will, or The Power of Medicine,” is the subject of one play on record; also a colloquy on “Improvements in Education.” A play called “The Country Boy” was given, in which the characters were John Hickory and Hotspur. In one called “The Curfew,” the hero is a robber disguised as a minstrel. “The Combat,” from “The Lady of the Lake,” was another favorite. Miss Pierce herself wrote some very respectable dramas which the pupils presented in the exhibitions at the close of school. On these occasions a stage was erected, scenery was painted and hung in true theatrical style, while all the wardrobes of the community were ransacked for stage dresses. When the principal’s favorite, “Jephtha’s Daughter,” was given, the Biblical hero, adorned with a helmet of gilt paper, surmounted by waving ostrich plumes, strode grandly in, declaiming,

“On Jordan’s banks proud Ammon’s banners wave.”

There was a procession of Judæan maidens, bearing the body of Jephtha’s daughter on a bier after the sacrifice, and there was also a procession of sympathizing youths. For this part of the program the young students from the Law School came in very handy; and, judging by the diary of one of them which has been lately exhumed and published,[4] the young gentlemen of a hundred years ago were not so different from those of to-day.

If one desired to know the type of a young man to be found in the town of Litchfield during the time that Harriet Beecher and her two sisters, Catherine and Mary, were a part of the social life there, one may have recourse to this published journal. George Younglove Cutler is the name of the writer, and, judging by the fascinating pages he indited, the name was not wholly inappropriate. He had a vivid way of writing, as if he were directly addressing the person to whom he was speaking, and he writes in his vehemence with a sublime disregard of punctuation. For instance, he says: “Miss M., you were becomingly dressed last night because there was less fix about you than common. I like richness of dress but hate ribbons & bows & knots & ruffles & rigmaroles generally speaking I dislike ornaments of any kind. To see ladies loaded with as many kickshaws as are put on now-a-days looks more like burlesque than reality!” Again he harps on the same string when he says: “It is a very pretty thing, no doubt, to see a young lady dressed with Parisian flowers & Parisian gauzes & an Indian fan & the whole &c of fashionable array. But I question after all, the style in which a young man of any understanding sees a young lady with most danger to his peace.” Extremely critical as he is of the Litchfield young ladies, Mr. Younglove himself betrays a touch of vanity. There is a great deal of talk in his diary about his “adonizationizing” of himself in his toilet—by which manufactured word he means “frushing up,” “furbishing,” “making fix,” or “prigging.” Once he takes pains to say: “It being Sunday, I wore pumps and white stockings to meeting.” Again he records the sad news: “Tore my Angola pantaloons!” On one date he sets it down with an outburst of enthusiasm: “To begin this great day was powdered. Huzza!”

We may not know by what logic we reach the conclusion, but I believe all will agree that the sort of young man self-depicted in this long-buried, old diary could never have been averse to coming on the stage as a robber in the disguise of a minstrel, or as a proud Jephtha in a gilt paper helmet declaiming in stentorian voice,

“On Jordan’s banks proud Ammon’s banners wave;”

and if George Younglove ever became in any way unruly, there was always the overwhelming Miss Pierce, more powerful than any warrior, to bring order out of chaos. The discipline that she gave to one youth of George’s class is recorded. He gazed for something more than a minute at one of the sacred members of her household, and the worst happened! He was exiled. Surely not very frequently did anything take place to bring so dire a fate upon a Litchfield youth!

But to come back to the play by Miss Pierce and the actors that took part in it. They certainly did all the honor they could to the dramatist. The costumes were copied out of the “Bible Dictionary”—with the single exception, perhaps, of the nose-jewels—and the stabbing to the heart and the chorus of wailing maidens were done to the life. In this play the part of Bethulah, wife of Jephtha, was taken by “C. Beecher,” as the list of actors shows, and she is on the stage most of the time. Catherine also took a prominent place in the dramatic representation of the beautiful story of Ruth. The story of Esther the Queen was also enacted. Her majesty had a dress of old flowered brocade from somebody’s wedding chest; Mordecai and Ahashuerus were appropriately enrobed, and the part of Haman—who was to be hanged—was taken by the dog. At least this is the way Mrs. Stowe tells about it, long afterward, in “Oldtown Folks,” but perhaps by that time she may have forgotten some of the particulars as to the death of Haman. For the plots of their plays, the young ladies in Miss Pierce’s Seminary analyzed the stories in “Plutarch’s Lives,” and found treasures there for dramatic representation from Romulus and Remus down to Julius Cæsar. History in their own country came in for a share of attention. Bunker Hill was done with a couple of old guns to give effect to the scene and with the rolling of a cannon ball across the floor behind the curtains to make the cannonades of battle. Harriet, like Tina, a past master in getting up a cave of banditti, borrowed suggestions from the “Mysteries of Udolpho,” and delighted one audience with a playlet of the purest romance.

Those dramatic representations seem to have awakened no unfavorable comment in the Beecher family so long as they were carried on under the supervision of the Academy. But on an unlucky day Harriet’s brilliant sister Catherine lighted upon a thrilling story in Miss Edgeworth’s “Moral Tales,” called “The Unknown Friend,” which tells how an attractive sixteen-year-old young lady was cured of a foolish sentimentality. In this story Angelina, the heroine, reads a book written by an unknown lady by the name of Araminta. This book speaks extravagantly, and as it seems to Angelina alluringly, of the charms of friendship, and on the theory that one who wrote so feelingly of the beautiful and romantic must be herself the embodiment of those traits, Angelina sets out to find this paragon, believing that in her she will gain such a friend as she has dreamed of. After wandering futilely for a time, she reaches a hut in the Welch mountains, where the writer of the sentimental book has taken refuge. She finds in Araminta a disheveled, unlovely, forbidding person. Every sense of taste and propriety is shocked, and they do not get on well together at all. The story shows Angelina’s complete disillusionment and the sorrows that will come to one who disregards the practical side of life. The incidents in this tale of Miss Edgeworth’s are ludicrous and the story is not a bit tame. It might afford amusement even to-day.

The clever Catherine conceived the idea of making it into a play and giving a happy surprise to the whole family by setting up the little drama in the house itself. There were characters enough for every one of the Beecher children to have one to himself—and that is saying a good deal! There was also variety. The dialects used included Welsh, Scotch, and broad Irish. The Lady Diana Chillingworth and her sister, the Lady Frances Somerset, trailed about in finery extracted from mother’s band-boxes and chests. A palace, a mountain top, a shop, afforded changes of scene that were easily designated in true Elizabethan fashion by the use of a parlor table, or a kitchen chair, or a set of shelves; and costumes were delightfully relied upon to give aid to the imagination. Rehearsals were carried on in the strictest secrecy for some weeks. The appointed evening came. Father and mother wondered why a fire was built in the large parlor or why so many neighbors and students happened to come in at about the same moment; but before any questions could be asked, the door to the dining room was suddenly thrown open and a mysterious drapery was seen at the farther end of the room. The curtain rose and forthwith the actors appeared and completed the whole drama amid thunders of applause—at least so runs the account by an eye witness. The next day, however, Catherine was told with some severity that while it was very good, they must not do so any more!

When Catherine Beecher, the tragedy queen and star actress in all Miss Pierce’s plays, went away to Hartford, she left a great vacancy in the society of Litchfield; and when Harriet, author of the essay that had astonished Dr. Lyman Beecher, departed, she carried with her a secluded little ambition of which she spoke to no one. For in those days Harriet was full of poetry and shyly entertained a dream that she herself might join the glorious band of immortal poets. She was soon trying her hand at blank verse, and she planned out a drama that should be written in that form.

When at the age of about thirteen she was filled with her first enthusiasm for classic lore, the subject of “Cleon” attracted her dramatic instinct. Cleon was an historical person whose character and problem were, not so very long after Harriet’s attempt, made the basis of a noble poem by Robert Browning.

The story of Cleon is this: He was a Greek, living at the court of Nero. This fixes the date for us as the first century of the Christian era. He was a follower of the Greek gods, but he heard about Christ and after much searching and doubting he at last came to a true knowledge of Christianity. This transformation is the theme of Harriet’s play.

The scene opens in a street in Rome. Some Roman patricians, dressed in their flowing togas, come upon the stage and discuss the lavish entertainment that this wealthy Greek, Cleon, has been giving.

We shall live twice as fast while he is here,

says one of them.

By Bacchus, then we shall be lived to death;

I’m almost out of breath with living now,

declares the other. The first speaker continues the conversation, describing Cleon as one who has a thirst for pleasure so ravenous that he works with hand and foot and soul, both night and day, to gain diversion, and is so lavish of money that the Emperor Nero with all his waste seems parsimonious compared to Cleon.

This is the picture of Cleon given in the opening scene of the play. In the next scene we find him reclining upon a luxurious couch in his palatial apartment. Enter his old friend and teacher, Diagoras, who has come from Athens to visit him. Diagoras is amazed to see the lavish richness and splendor of the house and the room. When Cleon asks him politely to sit down, he answers that he cannot, for he does not see any seat! Cleon cries out that he thinks that Diagoras must have lost his eyes, and points out that there is in the room a fair choice among some thirty different kinds of couches—couches of the Phrygian and of the Grecian pattern, and many other kinds. Diagoras is astonished when told that these beds adorned with pearls and gold are made to sit on; he is, he says, a simple man, used to plain things, and begs the pardon of Cleon if he has been unappreciative. Cleon thinks that behind this excuse his old teacher is displeased with him; but, as it is, there is no choice between two evils: either Diagoras must rest his philosophic feet upon that most profanely glittering floor which is all inlaid with gems, or he must rest himself upon one of those rich beds. Cleon perceives that this jesting way of speaking is giving pain to his good master, who should have known of old the reckless tongue of Cleon. He assures Diagoras of a hearty welcome and begs him to sit down that they may have a long visit.

Diagoras thereupon is made to recline upon one of the couches. He proceeds to tell the cause of his disappointment in his pupil. He has heard that Cleon is the common talk of the city on account of his evil ways, his rioting and his luxuriousness. He has heard that his former pupil has become the companion of the very dross and dregs of all mankind. Cleon interposes, and asks if Diagoras means by the “dross and dregs” the Emperor Nero. Diagoras will not answer directly, but assures him that this is the tale that he has heard about him. He exclaims:

Is this the Athenian Cleon, is this he

Who drank philosophy and worshiped virtue?

This he who triumphed in the Olympian race

Followed by wondering eyes?...

Rememberest thou the glory of those days?

he asks.

Diagoras succeeds in calling the soul of Cleon back from the downward path that it is following. At last Cleon exclaims that it has been only a curse to him to have had so much wealth; he has striven desperately to satisfy himself with the things that satisfy the common crowd, but he has not succeeded.

As the play goes on Cleon passes through a spiritual crisis and becomes a Christian. Now this, we must remember, is the time of the most extreme persecutions of the Christians. Cleon is brought to the supreme test that the followers of Christ were subjected to under the persecuting monarch Nero. An on-looker describes the scene, and tells us that Cleon bore the ordeal with courage; he was steady and undismayed; he declared his fixed purpose, saying that he was willing to abide by whatever should come to him. The one who tells the story says that Cleon would have fared better if he had given a fiery answer to the Emperor, for his very composure made Nero mad and he stamped his foot as a signal to the slaves to bring in the torture.

In the next scene Cleon is led in by two soldiers. Though he is weak and faint from the torture he has endured, he insists upon standing on his feet. Harriet Beecher follows the historical tradition of Nero’s character, in making him cause his friend Cleon to suffer these frightful agonies. The unspeakable Emperor now apologizes for the severity of the torture, and assures Cleon that he has only loving intentions toward him. He gives him permission to keep his religion if he will but consent to worship—privately! “Suppose you do call yourself a Christian,” he says, “why need you let everybody know it? Only be quiet about it and I will not interfere; worship in any way you will, only let it be—out of my sight.” Cleon then asks the Emperor what he shall do if he is questioned about his faith. The Emperor suggests that he should under those circumstances make up some “smooth, decoying phrase” that would turn off the inquiry. Cleon receives this proposal with the shock that shows the inner truth of his nature. He exclaims:

My lord, I scarce may trust myself to answer,

Since I have heard such degradation named.

In place of open bold apostasy

Thou dost propose an hourly, daily lie.

Cleon’s whole nature revolts against anything so base. He declares that it is his settled purpose while he lives to leave nothing undone or untried to win everybody to the reverence for Christ that he has learned to enjoy within himself. Thus he defies the Emperor and all the world.

This drama which has many elements of nobility in it and which shows a great deal of skill, filled Harriet’s waking thoughts and her dreams at night, and for a long time she was joyously filling blank book after blank book with the flowing lines. But the play was never finished. Her sister Catherine pounced down upon her one day and told her that she should not waste any more time writing poetry, but that she should discipline her mind by the study of Butler’s “Analogy.” So the obedient Harriet laid aside her loved play and began to write out abstracts of the “Analogy.” Thus her dramatic aspirations were for the time arrested. Catherine snuffed out the little light of her sister’s budding poetic genius; or, rather, perhaps we should say that she turned those powers in another direction; she saved and stored that intellectual energy for a purpose of which neither of them had at that time the remotest dream.

CHAPTER VII
STUDIES AND TEACHERS

After the death of Mrs. Beecher in 1816 the care of the younger ones fell to a large extent upon the elder daughter, Harriet’s capable and energetic sister Catherine, who was some twelve years older than she. So the traditions of the mother Roxana were carried on in the household until a second mother, another highly cultivated lady, came to take the headship of the home.

It is natural that this strong and brilliant Catherine should have a great influence upon the sensitive younger sister, and that the various steps in Catherine’s career and in her soul-history should be followed by Harriet with interest and sympathy almost as great as if she had been a responsible part in the story. And if disturbing experiences came to Catherine, a reflected tumult would naturally pass through the life of Harriet. This is exactly what did happen. Harriet’s days were shaded by the sorrows of Catherine through all the early years of her young womanhood.

Catherine Beecher was destined to be a remarkable woman, author of many books, a trainer of teachers and a founder of educational institutions. The range of her thought seems to have been almost unlimited. She wrote on education, on slavery, on the evils suffered by American women and on the duties of American women to their country. She wrote on all subjects connected with the home. In one book only she treats of the following topics: The dignity and importance of woman’s work, the Christian family, scientific domestic ventilation, stoves, furnaces and chimneys, home decoration, health, exercise, food, cookery, early rising, domestic manners, system and order, charity and economy, care of infants, management of children, care of the aged, of servants, of the sick, accidents and antidotes, fires and lights, care of rooms, of yards and gardens, cultivation of plants, and care of domestic animals—and of all these things she writes with the object of dignifying domestic employment and increasing the wages paid for it. As if this were not enough to fill a single volume, she adds twenty-five more chapters on recipes of all kinds, meats and breads, preserving fruits, setting table, washing, ironing and cleaning; and finally she adds a chapter of “miscellaneous advice.”

In other books she takes still higher flights. Her “Elements of Mental and Moral Philosophy Founded on Experience, Reason, and the Bible,” published at Hartford in 1831, and her “Letters on Difficulties of Religion,” and her “Appeal to the People as the Authorized Interpreters of the Bible,” are examples of her excursions into philosophical and theological realms. In the large collection of Beecher writings that would be ours if we should gather all the writings of the family into one library, an ample shelf would have to be given to this talented favorite daughter of Dr. Lyman Beecher.

A curious story is told in connection with one of Catherine Beecher’s philosophical essays. In 1840 she wrote an article called “Free Agency,” which was published in the Biblical Repository. This is a theological term, meaning “free will,” and Catherine’s object was to answer the arguments on the subject of the human will that had been given out by Jonathan Edwards, one of the most profound scholars of New England. The story is that a New England preacher in talking with a professor of theology in Germany once mentioned this essay of Miss Beecher’s, calling it the ablest refutation of Edwards that had yet been written. “Do you mean to say that you have in your country a woman who can write the ablest refutation of Edwards on the will?” exclaimed the German professor. “Then may God forgive Christopher Columbus for discovering America!” This story had a good point in its day. But now that women have proved by their achievements in all branches of science and in literature and the arts that they needed only education and opportunity to attain distinction, it is only amusing that such a remark could ever have been made—even in Germany.

When Harriet was nine years old—about the time when she was writing essays on the “Difference Between the Natural and Moral Sublime”—her sister Catherine was away at Boston studying music and drawing, and preparing herself in general to be a teacher. Because of her remarkable powers of mind, she made such progress that in a short time she was able to take a position as teacher in a young ladies’ school in New London, Connecticut.

While in this place she met a young man of brilliant prospects and of great personal charm, a professor at Yale College. They became engaged and were most happy; but their joy was short-lived. Professor Fisher, commissioned to go to Europe to buy books for his department, set sail in the ship Albion, which encountered a severe storm and was dashed to pieces on the rocks of the Irish coast.

Catherine faced her grief bravely as her lover had faced death bravely. But added to her natural grief for the loss of her lover was a tormenting fear for the welfare of his soul, for she feared lest the spiritual conditions that she had been accustomed to regard as essential had not been met by her lover. Her disturbance was not quieted when she went to live for some years with the parents of her lost lover and while there listened to one of the strictest of the early theologians. Almost crushed in her grief, her strong original mind nevertheless grappled with the problems of death and the after-life. She used her great power in metaphysical analysis in endless discussion, exchanging many long letters with her father, whose loving sympathy was a tower of strength to her in this crisis. After a long period of darkness and struggle, Catherine took the wisest course that the profoundest philosophy could suggest: she determined to find happiness in living to do good. This thought she clung to and in it she found comfort.

She looked about her to see what use she could make of her life. Writing to her father, she said that she did not see any very extensive sphere of usefulness for a single woman except in teaching, and asked his advice about starting a school or seminary, something like the Litchfield Female Academy, perhaps in Hartford.

Her father answered with characteristic energy that if she were going to have a school it should be a good one. She should not engage in it listlessly, expecting to superintend, and do a little, and have the weight of the school come on others. He would be ashamed, he said, to have her keep only a commonplace, middling sort of a school. Unless she was willing to put her talents and strength into it, it would be better not to begin. He called the spent energies of the daughter into line and made them march. He himself went straight to Hartford to look over the ground and see whether there was a good opening for a school there.

Catherine felt that her own enthusiasms would rise to the occasion. She went to Hartford, canvassed the ground, gathered a company of pupils, and was eager to start. She resolutely prepared a text-book on chemistry, one on natural philosophy, and one on logic. Arithmetic and algebra and a part of geometry she also thoroughly reviewed. Under such a character as this Harriet was now to be trained.

When Harriet entered her sister’s school in the fall of 1824, there were but twenty-five pupils. Later there were hundreds. At the beginning the school was situated in an upstairs apartment on Main Street, nearly opposite to Christ Church. The lower floor was used for a harness shop and the shopkeeper had set up a dummy white horse on each side of the entrance. Harriet thought them beautiful and invested them with the glories of Castor and Pollux; and many a pupil of the hundreds that came to that school will remember through life the Sign of the White Horses that guided them to that quiet retreat. In another year the school was so prosperous that they put up a building for their own use; the stock was easily taken and a fine prospectus of the full-fledged Hartford Female Seminary was sent out.

On her arrival, Harriet was at once placed in the care of a delightful family named Bull, who, as a convenient exchange, were sending a daughter to the Litchfield Academy to make her home, while there, at the Beecher homestead. Mrs. Bull was so good a housekeeper that even Harriet’s orderly stepmother was satisfied. She was a motherly woman and took Harriet to her heart at once in the place of the absent daughter. Harriet was given a charming little hall chamber with a beautiful outlook from the window over the Connecticut River valley. We may believe that this was the first time in her life when she had a room all her own. The little single bed assigned to her was the object of her special delight, and she took daily care of it with a satisfaction mingled with awe; and though the room was small as a nun’s apartment, it was, like that of one of Harriet’s heroines, as dainty in its neatness as the waxen cell of a bee.