[71]
it was coming, so that she might be ready to enact the part.
Well, the deception took.
Uncle Sam examined it and pronounced, ex cathedra, that it must have been a real letter.
Mr. Greene (the gentleman who reads) declared that it must have come from Mrs. Hall, and elucidated the theory by spelling out the names and dates which I had erased, which, of course, he accommodated to his own tastes.
But then, what makes me feel uneasy is that Elisabeth, after reading it, did not seem to be exactly satisfied.
She thought it had too much sentiment, too much particularity of incident,she did not exactly know what.
She was afraid that it would be criticised unmercifully.
Now Elisabeth has a tact and quickness of perception that I trust to, and her remarks have made me uneasy enough.
I am unused to being criticised, and don't know how I shall bear it.
In 1833
Mrs. Stowe first had the subject of slavery brought to her personal notice by taking a trip across the river from
Cincinnati into
Kentucky in company with
Miss Dutton, one of the associate teachers in the
Western Institute.
They visited an estate that afterwards figured as that of
Colonel Shelby in “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” and here the young authoress first came into personal contact with the negro slaves of the
South.
In speaking, many years afterwards, of this visit,
Miss Dutton said:
Harriet did not seem to notice anything in particular that happened, but sat much of the time as though abstracted in thought.
When the negroes did funny things and cut up capers, she did not seem to pay the slightest attention to them.
