Charles E. Stowe, Harriet Beecher Stowe compiled from her letters and journals by her son Charles Edward Stowe

My Dear,--This morning Mrs. Follen called and we had quite a chat. We are separated by the whole city. She lives at the West End, while I am down here in Walworth, which is one of the postscripts of London, for this place has as many postscripts as a lady's letter. This evening we dined with the Earl of Carlisle. There was no company but ourselves, for he, with great consideration, said in his note that he thought a little quiet would be the best thing he could offer.

Lord Carlisle is a great friend to America, and so is his sister, the Duchess of Sutherland. He is the only English traveler who ever wrote notes on our country in a real spirit of appreciation.

We went about seven o'clock, the dinner hour being here somewhere between eight and nine. We were shown into an ante-room adjoining the entrance hall, and from that into an adjacent apartment, where we met Lord Carlisle. The room had a pleasant, social [229] air, warmed and enlivened by the blaze of a coal fire and wax candles.

We had never, any of us, met Lord Carlisle before; but the considerateness and cordiality of our reception obviated whatever embarrassment there might have been in this circumstance. In a few moments after we were all seated, a servant announced the Duchess of Sutherland, and Lord Carlisle presented me. She is tall and stately, with a most noble bearing. Her fair complexion, blonde hair, and full lips speak of Saxon blood.

The only person present not of the family connection was my quondam correspondent in America, Arthur Helps. Somehow or other I had formed the impression from his writings that he was a venerable sage of very advanced years, who contemplated life as an aged hermit from the door of his cell. Conceive my surprise to find a genial young gentleman of about twentyfive, who looked as if he might enjoy a joke as well as another man.

After the ladies left the table, the conversation turned on the Maine law, which seems to be considered over here as a phenomenon in legislation, and many of the gentlemen present inquired about it with great curiosity.

After the gentlemen rejoined us, the Duke and Duchess of Argyll came in, and Lord and Lady Blantyre. These ladies are the daughters of the Duchess of Sutherland. The Duchess of Argyll is of slight and fairy-like figure, with flaxen hair and blue eyes, answering well enough to the description of Annot Lyle in the Legend of Montrose. Lady Blantyre was somewhat taller, of fuller figure, with a very brilliant [230] bloom. Lord Blantyre is of the Stuart blood, a tall and slender young man with very graceful manners.

As to the Duke of Argyll, we found that the picture drawn of him by his countrymen in Scotland was in every way correct. Though slight of figure, with fair complexion and blue eyes, his whole appearance is indicative of energy and vivacity. His talents and efficiency have made him a member of the British Cabinet at a much earlier age than is usual; and he has distinguished himself not only in political life, but as a writer, having given to the world a work on Presbyterianism, embracing an analysis of the ecclesiastical history of Scotland since the Reformation, which is spoken of as written with great ability, and in a most liberal spirit. He made many inquiries about our distinguished men, particularly of Emerson, Longfellow, and Hawthorne; also of Prescott, who appears to be a general favorite here. I felt at the moment that we never value our own literary men so much as when we are placed in a circle of intelligent foreigners.

The following evening we went to dine with our old friends of the Dingle, Mr.Cropper and Mrs. Edward Cropper, who are now spending a little time in London. We were delighted to meet them once more and to hear from our Liverpool friends. Mrs. Cropper's father, Lord Denman, has returned to England, though with no sensible improvement in his health.

At dinner we were introduced to Lord and Lady Hatherton. Lady Hatherton is a person of great cultivation and intelligence, warmly interested in all the progressive movements of the day; and I gained much information in her society. There were also present [231] Sir Charles and Lady Trevelyan; the former holds an appointment at the treasury, and Lady Trevelyan is a sister of Macaulay.

In the evening quite a circle came in, among others Lady Emma Campbell, sister of the Duke of Argyll; the daughters of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who very kindly invited me to visit them at Lambeth; and Mr. Arthur Helps, besides many others whose names I need not mention.

May 7

This evening our house was opened in a general way for callers, who were coming and going all the evening. I think there must have been over two hundred people, among them Martin Farquhar Tupper, a little man with fresh, rosy complexion and cheery, joyous manners; and Mary Howitt, just such a cheerful, sensible, fireside companion as we find her in her books,--winning love and trust the very first moment of the interview.

The general topic of remark on meeting me seems to be, that I am not so bad-looking as they were afraid I was; and I do assure you that when I have seen the things that are put up in the shop windows here with my name under them, I have been in wondering admiration at the boundless loving-kindness of my English and Scottish friends in keeping up such a warm heart for such a Gorgon. I should think that the Sphinx in the London Museum might have sat for most of them. I am going to make a collection of these portraits to bring home to you. There is a great variety of them, and they will be useful, like the Irishman's guide-board, which showed where the road did not go.

Before the evening was through I was talked out [232] and worn out; there was hardly a chip of me left. To-morrow at eleven o'clock comes the meeting at Stafford House. What it will amount to I do not know; but I take no thought for the morrow.

My dear C.,--In fulfillment of my agreement I will tell you, as nearly as I can remember, all the details of the meeting at Stafford House. At about eleven o'clock we drove under the arched carriage-way of a mansion externally not very showy in appearance.

When the duchess appeared, I thought she looked handsomer by daylight than in the evening. She received us with the same warm and simple kindness which she had shown before. We were presented to the Duke of Sutherland. He is a tall, slender man, with rather a thin face, light-brown hair, and a mild blue eye, with an air of gentleness and dignity.

Among the first that entered were the members of the family, the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, Lord and Lady Blantyre, the Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford, and Lady Emma Campbell. Then followed Lord Shaftesbury with his beautiful lady, and her father and mother, Lord and Lady Palmerston. Lord Palmerston is of middle height, with a keen dark eye and black hair streaked with gray. There is something peculiarly alert and vivacious about all his movements; in short, his appearance perfectly answers to what we know of him from his public life. One has a strange, mythological feeling about the existence of people of whom one hears for many years without ever seeing them. While talking with Lord Palmerston I could but remember how often I had heard father and Mr. S. exulting [233] over his foreign dispatches by our own fireside. There were present, also, Lord John Russell, Mr. Gladstone, and Lord Granville. The latter we all thought very strikingly resembled in his appearance the poet Longfellow.

After lunch the whole party ascended to the picturegallery, passing on our way the grand staircase and hall, said to be the most magnificent in Europe. The company now began to assemble and throng the gallery, and very soon the vast room was crowded. Among the throng I remember many presentations, but of course must have forgotten many more. Archbishop Whateley was there, with Mrs. and Miss Whateley; Macaulay, with two of his sisters; Milman, the poet and historian; the Bishop of Oxford, Chevalier Bunsen and lady, and many more.

When all the company were together, Lord Shaftesbury read a very short, kind, and considerate address in behalf of the ladies of England, expressive of their cordial welcome.

This Stafford House meeting, in any view of it, is a most remarkable fact. Kind and gratifying as its arrangements have been to me, I am far from appropriating it to myself individually as a personal honor. I rather regard it as the most public expression possible of the feelings of the women of England on one of the most important questions of our day, that of individual liberty considered in its religious bearings.

Dear E.,--This letter I consecrate to you, because I know that the persons and things to be introduced into it will most particularly be appreciated by you.

In your evening reading circles, Macaulay, Sydney Smith, and Milman have long been such familiar names that you will be glad to go with me over all the scenes of my morning breakfast at Sir Charles Trevelyan's yesterday. Lady Trevelyan, I believe I have said before, is a sister of Macaulay.

We were set down at Westbourne Terrace somewhere, I believe, about eleven o'clock, and found quite a number already in the drawing-room. I had met Macaulay before, but being seated between him and Dean Milman, I must confess I was a little embarrassed at times, because I wanted to hear what they were both saying at the same time. However, by the use of the faculty by which you play a piano with both hands, I got on very comfortably.

There were several other persons of note present at this breakfast, whose conversation I had not an opportunity of hearing, as they sat at a distance from me. There was Lord Glenelg, brother of Sir Robert Grant, [235] governor of Bombay, whose beautiful hymns have rendered him familiar in America. The favorite one, commencing

When gathering clouds around I view,

was from his pen.

The historian Hallam was also present, and I think it very likely there may have been other celebrities whom I did not know. I am always finding out, a day or two after, that I have been with somebody very remarkable and did not know it at the time.

Dear M.,--I can compare the embarrassment of our London life, with its multiplied solicitations and infinite stimulants to curiosity and desire, only to that annual perplexity which used to beset us in our childhood on Thanksgiving Day. Like Miss Edgeworth's philosophic little Frank, we are obliged to make out a list of what man must want, and of what he may want; and in our list of the former we set down, in large and decisive characters, one quiet day for the exploration and enjoyment of Windsor.

The ride was done all too soon. About eleven o'clock we found ourselves going up the old stone steps to the castle. We went first through the state apartments. The principal thing that interested me was the ball-room, which was a perfect gallery of Vandyke's paintings. After leaving the ball-room we filed off to the proper quarter to show our orders for the private rooms. The state apartments, which we had been looking [236] at, are open at all times, but the private apartments can only be seen in the Queen's absence and by a special permission, which had been procured for us on that occasion by the kindness of the Duchess of Sutherland.

One of the first objects that attracted my attention upon entering the vestibule was a baby's wicker wagon, standing in one corner. It was much such a carriage as all mothers are familiar with; such as figures largely in the history of almost every family. It had neat curtains and cushions of green merino, and was not royal, only maternal. I mused over the little thing with a good deal of interest.

We went for our dinner to the White Hart, the very inn which Shakespeare celebrates in his Merry wives, and had a most overflowing merry time of it. After dinner we had a beautiful drive.

We were bent upon looking up the church which gave rise to Gray's “Elegy in a country Churchyard,” intending when we got there to have a little scene over it; Mr. S., in all the conscious importance of having been there before, assuring us that he knew exactly where it was. So, after some difficulty with our coachman, and being stopped at one church which would not answer our purpose in any respect, we were at last set down by one which looked authentic; embowered in mossy elms, with a most ancient and goblin yew-tree, an ivy-mantled tower, all perfect as could be. Here, leaning on the old fence, we repeated the Elegy, which certainly applies here as beautifully as language could apply.

Imagine our chagrin, on returning to London, at being informed that we had not been to the genuine [237] churchyard after all. The gentleman who wept over the scenes of his early days on the wrong doorstep was not more grievously disappointed. However, he and we could both console ourselves with the reflection that the emotion was admirable, and wanted only the right place to make it the most appropriate in the world.

The evening after our return from Windsor was spent with our kind friends, Mr.Gurney and Mrs. Gurney. After breakfast the next day, Mr. S., C., and I drove out to call upon Kossuth. We found him in an obscure lodging on the outskirts of London. I would that some of the editors in America, who have thrown out insinuations about his living in luxury, could have seen the utter bareness and plainness of the reception room, which had nothing in it beyond the simplest necessaries. He entered into conversation with us with cheerfulness, speaking English well, though with the idioms of foreign languages. When we parted he took my hand kindly and said, “God bless you, my child!”

I have been quite amused with something which has happened lately. This week the “Times” has informed the United Kingdom that Mrs. Stowe is getting a new dress made! It wants to know if Mrs. Stowe is aware what sort of a place her dress is being made in; and there is a letter from a dressmaker's apprentice stating that it is being made up piecemeal, in the most shockingly distressed dens of London, by poor, miserable white slaves, worse treated than the plantation slaves of America!

Now Mrs. Stowe did not know anything of this, but simply gave the silk into the hands of a friend, and was in due time waited on in her own apartment by a [238] very respectable-appearing woman, who offered to make the dress, and lo, this is the result! Since the publication of this piece, I have received earnest missives, from various parts of the country, begging me to interfere, hoping that I was not going to patronize the white slavery of England, and that I would employ my talents equally against oppression in every form. Could these people only know in what sweet simplicity I had been living in the State of Maine, where the only dressmaker of our circle was an intelligent, refined, well-educated woman who was considered as the equal of us all, and whose spring and fall ministrations to our wardrobe were regarded a double pleasure,--a friendly visit as well as a domestic assistance,--I say, could they know all this, they would see how guiltless I was in the matter. I verily never thought but that the nice, pleasant person who came to measure me for my silk dress was going to take it home and make it herself; it never occurred to me that she was the head of an establishment.

May 22.

To-day we went to hear a sermon in behalf of the ragged schools by the Archbishop of Canterbury. My thoughts have been much saddened by the news which I received of the death of Mary Edmonson.

May 30.

The next day from my last letter came off Miss Greenfield's concert, of which I send a card. You see in what company they have put your poor little wife. Funny!--is n't it? Well, the Hons. and Right Hons. all were there. I sat by Lord Carlisle. [239]

After the concert the duchess asked Lady Hatherton and me to come round to Stafford House and take tea, which was not a thing to be despised, either on account of the tea or the duchess. A lovelier time we never had,--present, the Duchess of Argyll, Lady Caroline Campbell, Lady Hatherton, and myself. We had the nicest cup of tea, with such cream, and grapes and apricots, with some Italian bread, etc.

When we were going the duchess got me, on some pretext, into another room, and came up and put her arms round me, with her noble face all full of feeling.

“Oh, Mrs. Stowe, I have been reading that last chapter in the Key; Argyll read it aloud to us. Oh, surely, surely you will succeed,--God surely will bless you! ”

I said then that I thanked her for all her love and feeling for us, told her how earnestly all the women of England sympathized with her, and many in America. She looked really radiant and inspired. Had those who hang back from our cause seen her face, it might have put a soul into them as she said again, “It will be done — it will be done-oh, I trust and pray it may!”

So we kissed each other, and vowed friendship and fidelity — so I came away.

To-day I am going with Lord Shaftesbury to St. Paul's to see the charity children, after which lunch with Dean Milman.

May 31.

We went to lunch with Miss R. at Oxford Terrace, where, among a number of distinguished guests, was Lady Byron, with whom I had a few moments of deeply interesting conversation. No engravings [240] that ever have been circulated in America do any justice to her appearance. She is of slight figure, formed with exceeding delicacy, and her whole form, face, dress, and air unite to make an impression of a character singularly dignified, gentle, pure, and yet strong. No words addressed to me in any conversation hitherto have made their way to my inner soul with such force as a few remarks dropped by her on the present religious aspect of England,--remarks of such quality as one seldom hears.

According to request, I will endeavor to keep you informed of all our goings — on after you left, up to the time of our departure for Paris.

We have borne in mind your advice to hasten away to the Continent. Charles wrote, a day or two since, to Mrs. C. at Paris to secure very private lodgings, and by no means let any one know that we were coming. She has replied urging us to come to her house, and promising entire seclusion and rest. So, since you departed, we have been passing with a kind of comprehensive skip and jump over remaining engagements. And just the evening after you left came off the presentation of the inkstand by the ladies of Surrey Chapel.

It is a beautiful specimen of silver-work, eighteen inches long, with a group of silver figures on it representing Religion, with the Bible in her hand, giving liberty to the slave. The slave is a masterly piece of work. He stands with his hands clasped, looking up to Heaven, while a white man is knocking the shackles from his feet. But the prettiest part of the scene was the presentation of a gold pen by a band of beautiful children, one of whom made a very pretty speech. I called the [241] little things to come and stand around me, and talked with them a few minutes, and this was all the speaking that fell to my share.

To-morrow we go — go to quiet, to obscurity, to peace — to Paris, to Switzerland; there we shall find the loveliest glen, and, as the Bible says, “fall on sleep.”

Paris, June 4.

Here we are in Paris, in a most charming family. I have been out all the morning exploring shops, streets, boulevards, and seeing and hearing life in Paris. When one has a pleasant home and friends to return to, this gay, bustling, vivacious, graceful city is one of the most charming things in the world; and we have a most charming home.

I wish the children could see these Tuileries with their statues and fountains, men, women, and children seated in family groups under the trees, chatting, reading aloud, working muslin,--children driving hoop, playing ball, all alive and chattering French. Such fresh, pretty girls as are in the shops here! Je suis rave, as they say. In short I am decidedly in a French humor, and am taking things quite couleur de rose.

Monday, June 13

We went this morning to the studio of M. Belloc, who is to paint my portrait. The first question which he proposed, with a genuine French air, was the question of “pose” or position. It was concluded that, as other pictures had taken me looking at the spectator, this should take me looking away. M. Belloc remarked that M. Charpentier said I appeared always with the air of an observer,--was always looking around on everything. Hence M. Belloc would take me “en observatrice, mais pas en curieuse,”-with [242] the air of observation, but not of curiosity. By and by M. Charpentier came in. He began panegyrizing “Uncle Tom,” and this led to a discussion of the ground of its unprecedented success. In his thirty-five years experience as a bookseller, he had known nothing like it. It surpassed all modern writings! At first he would not read it; his taste was for old masters of a century or two ago. “ Like M. Belloc in painting,” said I. At length he found his friend M., the first intelligence of the age, reading it.

“What, you, too?” said he.

“ Ah, ah!” replied the friend; “say nothing about this book! There is nothing like it. This leaves us all behind,--all, all, miles behind!”

M. Belloc said the reason was because there was in it more genuine faith than in any book; and we branched off into florid eloquence touching paganism, Christianity, and art.

Wednesday, June 22.

Adieu to Paris! Ho for Chalons-sur-Saone! After affectionate farewells of our kind friends, by eleven o'clock we were rushing, in the pleasantest of cars, over the smoothest of rails, through Burgundy. We arrived at Chalons at nine P. M.

Thursday, 23, eight o'clock A. M.

Since five we have had a fine bustle on the quay below our windows. There lay three steamers, shaped for all the world like our last night's rolls. One would think Ichabod Crane might sit astride one of them and dip his feet in the water. They ought to be swift. L'Hirondelle (The Swallow) flew at five; another at six. We leave at nine.

Lyons.

There was a scene of indescribable confusion [243] upon our arrival here. Out of the hold of our steamer a man with a rope and hook began hauling baggage up a smooth board. Three hundred people were sorting their goods without checks. Porters were shouldering immense loads, four or five heavy trunks at once, corded together, and stalking off Atlantean. Hat-boxes, bandboxes, and valises burst like a meteoric shower out of a crater. “À moi, à moi!” was the cry, from old men, young women, soldiers, shopkeepers, and freres, scuffling and shoving together.

Saturday, June 25.

Lyons to Geneve. As this was our first experience in the diligence line, we noticed particularly every peculiarity. I had had the idea that a diligence was a ricketty, slow-moulded antediluvian nondescript, toiling patiently along over impassable roads at a snail's pace. Judge of my astonishment at finding it a full-blooded, vigorous monster, of unscrupulous railway momentum and imperturbable equipoise of mind. Down the macadamized slopes we thundered at a prodigious pace; up the hills we trotted, with six horses, three abreast; madly through the little towns we burst, like a whirlwind, crashing across the pebbled streets, and out upon the broad, smooth road again. Before we had well considered the fact that we were out of Lyons we stopped to change horses. Done in a jiffy; and whoop, crick, crack, whack, rumble, bump, whirr, whisk, away we blazed, till, ere we knew it, another change and another.

As evening drew on, a wind sprang up and a storm seemed gathering on the Jura. The rain dashed against the panes of the berlin as we rode past the grim-faced monarch of the “misty shroud.” It was [244] night as we drove into Geneva and stopped at the Messagerie. I heard with joy a voice demanding if this were Aladame Besshare. I replied, not without some scruples of conscience, “Oui, Monsieur, c'est moi,” though the name did not sound exactly like the one to which I had been wont to respond. In half an hour we were at home in the mansion of Monsieur Fazy.

One of the pillars in this vault is covered with names. I think it is Bonnevard's Pillar. There are the names of Byron, Hunt, Schiller, and ever so many more celebrities. As we were going from the cell our conductress [245] seemed to have a sudden light upon her mind. She asked a question or two of some of our party, and fell upon me vehemently to put my name also there. Charley scratched it on the soft freestone, and there it is for future ages. The lady could scarce repress her enthusiasm; she shook my hand over and over again, and said she had read “ Uncle Tom.” “It is beautiful,” she said, “ but it is cruel.”

Monday, July 18.

Weather suspicious. Stowed ourselves and our baggage into our voiture, and bade adieu to our friends and to Geneva. Ah, how regretfully! From the market-place we carried away a basket of cherries and fruit as a consolation. Dined at Lausanne, and visited the cathedral and picture-gallery, where was an exquisite Eva. Slept at Meudon.

Tuesday, July 19.

Rode through Payerne to Freyburg. Stopped at the Zahringer Hof,--most romantic of inns.

Wednesday, July 20.

Examined, not the lions, but the bears of Berne. Engaged a voiture and drove to Thun. Dined and drove by the shore of the lake to Interlachen, arriving just after a brilliant sunset.

We crossed the Wengern Alps to Grindelwald. The Jungfrau is right over against us,--her glaciers purer, tenderer, more dazzlingly beautiful, if possible, than those of Mont Blanc. Slept at Grindelwald.

Friday, July 22.

Grindelwald to Meyringen. On we came, to the top of the Great Schiedeck, where H. and W. botanized, while I slept. Thence we rode down the mountain till we reached Rosenlaui, where, I am [246] free to say, a dinner was to me a more interesting object than a glacier. Therefore, while H. and W. went to the latter, I turned off to the inn, amid their cries and reproaches.

Here, then, I am, writing these notes in the salle ma ranger of the inn, where other voyagers are eating and drinking, and there is H. feeding on the green moonshine of an emerald ice cave. One would almost think her incapable of fatigue. How she skips up and down high places and steep places, to the manifest perplexity of the honest guide Kienholz, pere, who tries to take care of her, but does not exactly know how! She gets on a pyramid of debris, which the edge of the glacier is plowing and grinding up, sits down, and falls-not asleep exactly, but into a trance. W. and I are ready to go on: we shout; our voice is lost in the roar of the torrent. We send the guide. He goes down, and stands doubtfully. He does not know exactly what to do. She hears him, and starts to her feet, pointing with one hand to yonder peak, and with the other to that knife-like edge that seems cleaving heaven with its keen and glistening cimeter of snow, reminding one of Isaiah's sublime imagery, “ For my sword is bathed in heaven.” She points at the grizzly rocks, with their jags and spear-points. Evidently she is beside herself, and thinks she can remember the names of those monsters, born of earthquake and storm, which cannot be named nor known but by sight, and then are known at once perfectly and forever.

I am seated in a snug little room at M. Belloc's. The weather is overpoweringly hot, but these Parisian houses seem to have seized and imprisoned coolness. French household ways are delightful. I like their seclusion from the street by these deep-paned quadrangles.

Madame Belloc was the translator of Maria Edgeworth, by that lady's desire; corresponded with her for years, and still has many of her letters. Her translation of “ Uncle Tom” has to me all the merit and all the interest of an original composition. In perusing it, I enjoy the pleasure of reading the story with scarce any consciousness of its ever having been mine.

Our last letters from home changed all our plans. We concluded to hurry away by the next steamer, if at that late hour we could get a passage. We were all in a bustle. The last shoppings for aunts, cousins, and little folks were to be done by us all. The Palais Royal was to be rummaged; bronzes, vases, statuettes, bonbons, playthings,--all that the endless fertility of France could show,--was to be looked over for the “ folks at home.”

How we sped across the Channel C. relates. We are spending a few very pleasant days with our kind friends the L.'s, in London.

On board the Arctic, September 7.

On Thursday, September 1, we reached York, and visited the beautiful ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, and the magnificent cathedral. It rained with inflexible pertinacity [248] during all the time we were there, and the next day it rained still, when we took the cars for Castle Howard station.

Lady Carlisle welcomed us most affectionately, and we learned that, had we not been so reserved at the York station in concealing our names, we should have received a note from her. However, as we were safely arrived, it was of no consequence.

Our friends spoke much of Sumner and Prescott, who had visited there; also of Mr. Lawrence, our former ambassador, who had visited them just before his return. After a very pleasant day, we left with regret the warmth of this hospitable circle, thus breaking one more of the links that bind us to the English shore.

Nine o'clock in the evening found us sitting by a cheerful fire in the parlor of Mr. E. Baines at Leeds. The next day the house was filled with company, and the Leeds offering was presented.

Tuesday we parted from our excellent friends in Leeds, and soon found ourselves once more in the beautiful “Dingle,” our first and last resting-place on English shores.

A deputation from Belfast, Ireland, here met me, presenting a beautiful bog-oak casket, lined with gold, and carved with appropriate national symbols, containing an offering for the cause of the oppressed. They read a beautiful address, and touched upon the importance of inspiring with the principles of emancipation the Irish nation, whose influence in our land is becoming so great. Had time and strength permitted, it had been my purpose to visit Ireland, to revisit Scotland, and to see more of England. But it is not in man that [249] walketh to direct his steps. And now came parting, leave-taking, last letters, notes, and messages.

Thus, almost sadly as a child might leave its home, I left the shores of kind, strong Old England,--the mother of us all.