19 But warned with that unchanging flame See how yon beam of seeming white Arches and spirals circling round, Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear With music it is heaven to hear. Then mark the cloven sphere that holds O Father! grant thy love divine HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 1812-1896 Harriet Beecher Stowe was born in 1812 in the little town of Litchfield, Connecticut, where her father, Dr. Lyman Beecher, was a clergyman. Her mother died while Harriet was very young, leaving a family of eight children to the mother's care of her oldest sister Catherine. In 1826 Dr. Beecher received a call to Boston, and Harriet and Catherine went to Hartford, where the latter established a young ladies' school, in which Harriet was first a pupil and later an instructor. Six years later her father became the president of the Lane Theological Seminary at Cincinnati, Ohio, and the two sisters accompanied him to enter on another educational enterprise. It was during her residence in Cincinnati, on the border of the slave State of Kentucky, that Harriet was first deeply impressed by the sorrows of slavery. In 1836 she married Professor Stowe, one of the instructors in the theological seminary, and a man of lofty character and fine intellect. Mrs. Stowe at this period contributed regularly to the magazines, in spite of her numerous household cares. In 1850 Professor Stowe was called to Bowdoin College, and the family removed to Brunswick. Here, during the next two years, Mrs. Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life among the Lowly," the work appearing in serial form in the "National Era," published in Washington. She received only the paltry sum of three hundred dollars for the serial. In book form the work achieved a most astounding success, three thousand copies being sold on the day of publication, and three hundred thousand more during the first year. It was translated into forty languages, and became the most widely read novel ever written in the English language. In 1853 the Stowes removed to Andover, where Professor Stowe became one of the leading teachers in the theological_seminary. This period was one of the happiest and busiest of Mrs. Stowe's life, and Andover was always very dear to her. In 1856 "Dred" was published, and in 1859 she brought out "The Minister's Wooing," a work in which the author struck a new note, taking New England life instead of slavery for her theme. She made her first trip to Europe in 1853, her reception, especially in England, surpassing that ever accorded to a woman not of royal blood. During the war her literary activity was incessant. She strove especially to stir up sympathy for the Northern cause in England. Her noble Appeal to the women of England did perhaps as much for the cause of the Union as the eloquent speeches of her famous brother, Henry Ward Beecher. Her later books include Agnes of Sorrento,' The Pearl of Orr's Island," and "Oldtown Folks.' She also published a book of poems, including many of exquisite beauty. Professor Stowe died in 1886; Mrs. Stowe survived her husband ten years, passing away in 1896 at the age of eighty-five. Both were buried at Andover. 66 99 66 Mrs. Stowe's literary style is marked by intense earnestness, sympathy and religious conviction. Her pen appeals to the human heart with sympathetic and stirring effect. Even in her short sketches some definite purpose is always discernible, as in the charming paper on " The Old Oak of Andover," which begins as a reverie and ends as a sermon. When we consider that most of her life was passed amid household cares that gave little time for reading or meditation, the volume of her literary work and the beauty of her style are, indeed, remarkable. S THE OLD OAK OF ANDOVER A REVERY ILENTLY, with dreamy languor, the fleecy snow is fall ing. Through the windows, flowery with blossoming geranium and heliotrope, through the downward sweep of crimson and muslin curtain, one watches it as the wind whirls and sways it in swift eddies. Right opposite our house, on our Mount Clear, is an old oak, the apostle of the primeval forest. Once, when this place was all wildwood, the man who was seeking a spot for the location of the buildings of Phillips Academy climbed this oak, using it as a sort of green watch tower, from whence he might gain a view of the surrounding country. Age and time, since then, have dealt hardly with the stanch old fellow. His limbs have been here and there shattered; his back begins to look mossy and dilapidated; but after all, there is a piquant, decided air about him, that speaks the old age of a tree of distinction, a kingly oak. To-day I see him standing, dimly revealed through the mist of falling snows; to-morrow's sun will show the outline of his gnarled limbs-all rose color with their soft snow burden; and again a few months, and spring will breathe on him, and he will draw a long breath, and break out once more, for the three hundredth time, perhaps, into a vernal crown of leaves. I sometimes think that leaves are the thoughts of trees, and that if we only knew it, we should find their life's experience recorded in them. Our oak! what a crop of meditations and remembrances must he have thrown forth, leafing out century after century. Awhile he spake and thought only of red deer and Indians; of the trillium that opened its white triangle in his shade; of the scented arbutus, fair as the pink ocean shell, weaving her fragrant mats in the moss at his feet; of feathery ferns, casting their silent shadows on the checkerberry leaves, and all those sweet, wild, nameless, half-mossy things, that live |
