Chapter XV: The Third Trip to Europe, 1859

THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE.--LADY BYRON ON "THE
MINISTER'S WOOING."--SOME FOREIGN PEOPLE AND THINGS
AS THEY APPEARED TO PROFESSOR STOWE.--A WINTER IN
ITALY.--THINGS UNSEEN AND UNREVEALED.--SPECULATIONS
CONCERNING SPIRITUALISM.--JOHN RUSKIN.--MRS.
BROWNING.--THE RETURN TO AMERICA.--LETTERS TO DR.
HOLMES.

MRS. STOWE'S third and last trip to Europe was undertaken in the summer of 1859. In writing to Lady Byron in May of that year, she says: "I am at present writing something that interests me greatly, and may interest you, as an attempt to portray the heart and life of New England, its religion, theology, and manners. Sampson Low & Son are issuing it in numbers, and I should be glad to know how they strike you. It is to publish this work complete that I intend to visit England this summer."

The story thus referred to was "The Minister's Wooing," and Lady Byron's answer to the above, which is appended, leaves no room for doubt as to her appreciation of it. She writes:--

LONDON, _May 31, 1859._

DEAR FRIEND,--I have found, particularly as to
yourself, that if I did not answer from the first
impulse, all had evaporated. Your letter came by the
Niagara, which brought Fanny Kemble, to learn the loss
of her _best_ friend, that Miss Fitzhugh whom you saw
at my house.

I have an intense interest in your new novel. More
power in these few numbers than in any of your former
writings, relatively, at least to my own mind. More
power than in "Adam Bede," which is _the_ book of the
season, and well deserves a high place. Whether Mrs.
Scudder will rival Mrs. Poyser, we shall see.

It would amuse you to hear my granddaughter and myself
attempting to foresee the future of the "love story,"
being quite persuaded for the moment that James is
at sea, and the minister about to ruin himself. We
think that she will labor to be in love with the
self-devoting man, under her mother's influence, and
from that hyper-conscientiousness so common with good
girls,--but we don't wish her to succeed. Then what
is to become of her older lover? He--Time will show.
I have just missed Dale Owen, with whom I wished to
have conversed about the "Spiritualism." Harris is
lecturing here on religion. I do not hear him praised.
People are looking for helps to believe everywhere but
in life,--in music, in architecture, in antiquity,
in ceremony,--and upon all is written, "Thou shalt
_not_ believe." At least, if this be faith, happier
the unbeliever. I am willing to see _through_ that
materialism, but if I am to rest there, I would rend
the veil.

_June 1._ The day of the packet's sailing. I shall hope
to be visited by you here. The best flowers sent me
have been placed in your little vases, giving life, as
it were, to the remembrance of you, though not to pass
away like them.

Ever yours,
A. T. NOEL BYRON.

The entire family, with the exception of the youngest son, was abroad at this time. The two eldest daughters were in Paris, having previously sailed for Havre in March, in company with their cousin, Miss Beecher. On their arrival in Paris, they went directly to the house of their old friend, Madame Borione, and soon afterwards entered a Protestant school. The rest of the family, including Mrs. Stowe, her husband and youngest daughter, sailed for Liverpool early in August. At about the same time, Fred Stowe, in company with his friend Samuel Scoville, took passage for the same port in a sailing vessel. A comprehensive outline of the earlier portion of this foreign tour is given in the following letter written by Professor Stowe to the sole member of the family remaining in America:

CASTLE CHILLON, SWITZERLAND, _September 1, 1859._

DEAR LITTLE CHARLEY,--We are all here except Fred, and
all well. We have had a most interesting journey, of
which I must give a brief account.

We sailed from New York in the steamer Asia, on the 3d
of August [1859], a very hot day, and for ten days it
was the hottest weather I ever knew at sea. We had a
splendid ship's company, mostly foreigners, Italians,
Spaniards, with a sprinkling of Scotch and Irish. We
passed one big iceberg in the night close to, and as
the iceberg wouldn't turn out for us we turned out for
the iceberg, and were very glad to come off so. This
was the night of the 9th of August, and after that we
had cooler weather, and on the morning of the 13th the
wind blew like all possessed, and so continued till
afternoon. Sunday morning, the 14th, we got safe into
Liverpool, landed, and went to the Adelphi Hotel. Mamma
and Georgie were only a little sick on the way over,
and that was the morning of the 13th.

As it was court time, the high sheriff of Lancashire,
Sir Robert Gerauld, a fine, stout, old, gray-haired
John Bull, came thundering up to the hotel at noon
in his grand coach with six beautiful horses with
outriders, and two trumpeters, and twelve men with
javelins for a guard, all dressed in the gayest
manner, and rushing along like Time in the primer, the
trumpeters too-ti-toot-tooing like a house a-fire, and
how I wished my little Charley had been there to see it!

Monday we wanted to go and see the court, so we
went over to St. George's Hall, a most magnificent
structure, that beats the Boston State House all
hollow, and Sir Robert Gerauld himself met us, and said
he would get us a good place. So he took us away round
a narrow, crooked passage, and opened a little door,
where we saw nothing but a great, crimson curtain,
which he told us to put aside and go straight on; and
where do you think we all found ourselves?

Right on the platform with the judges in their big wigs
and long robes, and facing the whole crowded court! It
was enough to frighten a body into fits, but we took it
quietly as we could, and your mamma looked as meek as
Moses in her little, battered straw hat and gray cloak,
seeming to say, "I didn't come here o' purpose."

That same night we arrived in London, and Tuesday
(August 16th), riding over the city, we called at
Stafford House, and inquired if the Duchess of
Sutherland was there. A servant came out and said
the duchess was in and would be very glad to see us;
so your mamma, Georgie, and I went walking up the
magnificent staircase in the entrance hall, and the
great, noble, brilliant duchess came sailing down the
stairs to meet us, in her white morning dress (for it
was only four o'clock in the afternoon, and she was
not yet dressed for dinner), took your mamma into her
great bosom, and folded her up till the little Yankee
woman looked like a small gray kitten half covered in a
snowbank, and kissed and kissed her, and then she took
up little Georgie and kissed her, and then she took my
hand, and didn't kiss me.

Next day we went to the duchess's villa, near Windsor
Castle, and had a grand time riding round the park,
sailing on the Thames, and eating the very best dinner
that was ever set on a table.

We stayed in London till the 25th of August, and then
went to Paris and found H. and E. and H. B. all well
and happy; and on the 30th of August we all went to
Geneva together, and to-day, the 1st of September, we
all took a sail up the beautiful Lake Leman here in the
midst of the Alps, close by the old castle of Chillon,
about which Lord Byron has written a poem. In a day or
two we shall go to Chamouni, and then Georgie and I
will go back to Paris and London, and so home at the
time appointed. Until then I remain as ever,

Your loving father,
C. E. STOWE.

Mrs. Stowe accompanied her husband and daughter to England, where, after traveling and visiting for two weeks, she bade them good-by and returned to her daughters in Switzerland. From Lausanne she writes under date of October 9th:--

MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Here we are at Lausanne, in the
Hotel Gibbon, occupying the very parlor that the
Ruskins had when we were here before. The day I left
you I progressed prosperously to Paris. Reached there
about one o'clock at night; could get no carriage,
and finally had to turn in at a little hotel close by
the station, where I slept till morning. I could not
but think what if anything should happen to me there?
Nobody knew me or where I was, but the bed was clean,
the room respectable; so I locked my door and slept,
then took a carriage in the morning, and found Madame
Borione at breakfast. I write to-night, that you may
get a letter from me at the earliest possible date
after your return.

Instead of coming to Geneva in one day, I stopped
over one night at Macon, got to Geneva the next day
about four o'clock, and to Lausanne at eight. Coming
up-stairs and opening the door, I found the whole
party seated with their books and embroidery about
a centre-table, and looking as homelike and cosy as
possible. You may imagine the greetings, the kissing,
laughing, and good times generally.

From Lausanne the merry party traveled toward Florence by easy stages, stopping at Lake Como, Milan, Verona, Venice, Genoa, and Leghorn. At Florence, where they arrived early in November, they met Fred Stowe and his friend, Samuel Scoville, and here they were also joined by their Brooklyn friends, the Howards. Thus it was a large and thoroughly congenial party that settled down in the old Italian city to spend the winter. From here Mrs. Stowe wrote weekly letters to her husband in Andover, and among them are the following, that not only throw light upon their mode of life, but illustrate a marked tendency of her mind:--

FLORENCE, _Christmas Day, 1859._

MY DEAR HUSBAND,--I wish you all a Merry Christmas,
hoping to spend the next one with you.

For us, we are expecting to spend this evening with
quite a circle of American friends. With Scoville and
Fred came L. Bacon (son of Dr. Bacon); a Mr. Porter,
who is to study theology at Andover, and is now making
the tour of Europe; Mr. Clarke, formerly minister at
Cornwall; Mr. Jenkyns, of Lowell; Mr. and Mrs. Howard,
John and Annie Howard, who came in most unexpectedly
upon us last night. So we shall have quite a New
England party, and shall sing Millais' Christmas hymn
in great force. Hope you will all do the same in the
old stone cabin.

Our parlor is all trimmed with laurel and myrtle,
looking like a great bower, and our mantel and table
are redolent with bouquets of orange blossoms and pinks.

_January 16, 1860._

MY DEAR HUSBAND,--Your letter received to-day has
raised quite a weight from my mind, for it shows that
at last you have received all mine, and that thus the
chain of communication between us is unbroken. What
you said about your spiritual experiences in feeling
the presence of dear Henry with you, and, above all,
the vibration of that mysterious guitar, was very
pleasant to me. Since I have been in Florence, I have
been distressed by inexpressible yearnings after
him,--such sighings and outreachings, with a sense of
utter darkness and separation, not only from him but
from all spiritual communion with my God. But I have
become acquainted with a friend through whom I receive
consoling impressions of these things,--a Mrs. E., of
Boston, a very pious, accomplished, and interesting
woman, who has had a history much like yours in
relation to spiritual manifestations.

Without doubt she is what the spiritualists would
regard as a very powerful medium, but being a very
earnest Christian, and afraid of getting led astray,
she has kept carefully aloof from all circles and
things of that nature. She came and opened her mind to
me in the first place, to ask my advice as to what she
had better do; relating experiences very similar to
many of yours.

My advice was substantially to try the spirits whether
they were of God,--to keep close to the Bible and
prayer, and then accept whatever came. But I have
found that when I am with her I receive very strong
impressions from the spiritual world, so that I feel
often sustained and comforted, as if I had been near
to my Henry and other departed friends. This has been
at times so strong as greatly to soothe and support
me. I told her your experiences, in which she was
greatly interested. She said it was so rare to hear of
Christian and reliable people with such peculiarities.

I cannot, however, think that Henry strikes the
guitar,--that must be Eliza. Her spirit has ever
seemed to cling to that mode of manifestation, and if
you would keep it in your sleeping-room, no doubt you
would hear from it oftener. I have been reading lately
a curious work from an old German in Paris who has been
making experiments in spirit-writing. He purports to
describe a series of meetings held in the presence of
fifty witnesses, whose names he gives, in which writing
has come on paper, without the apparition of hands or
any pen or pencil, from various historical people.

He seems a devout believer in inspiration, and the book
is curious for its mixture of all the phenomena, Pagan
and Christian, going over Hindoo, Chinese, Greek, and
Italian literature for examples, and then bringing
similar ones from the Bible.

One thing I am convinced of,--that spiritualism is a
reaction from the intense materialism of the present
age. Luther, when he recognized a personal devil,
was much nearer right. We ought to enter fully, at
least, into the spiritualism of the Bible. Circles and
spiritual jugglery I regard as the lying signs and
wonders, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness;
but there is a real scriptural spiritualism which has
fallen into disuse, and must be revived, and there
are, doubtless, people who, from some constitutional
formation, can more readily receive the impressions of
the surrounding spiritual world. Such were apostles,
prophets, and workers of miracles.

_Sunday evening._ To-day I went down to sit with Mrs.
E. in her quiet parlor. We read in Revelation together,
and talked of the saints and spirits of the just made
perfect, till it seemed, as it always does when with
her, as if Henry were close by me. Then a curious thing
happened. She has a little Florentine guitar which
hangs in her parlor, quite out of reach. She and I
were talking, and her sister, a very matter-of-fact,
practical body, who attends to temporals for her, was
arranging a little lunch for us, when suddenly the bass
string of the guitar was struck loudly and distinctly.

"Who struck that guitar?" said the sister. We both
looked up and saw that no body or thing was on that
side of the room. After the sister had gone out, Mrs.
E. said, "Now, that is strange! I asked last night
that if any spirit was present with us after you came
to-day, that it would try to touch that guitar." A
little while after her husband came in, and as we were
talking we were all stopped by a peculiar sound, as if
somebody had drawn a hand across all the strings at
once. We marveled, and I remembered the guitar at home.

What think you? Have you had any more manifestations,
any truths from the spirit world?

About the end of February the pleasant Florentine circle broke up, and Mrs. Stowe and her party journeyed to Rome, where they remained until the middle of April. We next find them in Naples, starting on a six days' trip to Castellamare, Sorrento, Salerno, Pæstum, and Amalfi; then up Vesuvius, and to the Blue Grotto of Capri, and afterwards back to Rome by diligence. Leaving Rome on May 9th, they traveled leisurely towards Paris, which they reached on the 27th. From there Mrs. Stowe wrote to her husband on May 28th:--

Since my last letter a great change has taken place
in our plans, in consequence of which our passage for
America is engaged by the Europa, which sails the 16th
of June; so, if all goes well, we are due in Boston
four weeks from this date. I long for home, for my
husband and children, for my room, my yard and garden,
for the beautiful trees of Andover. We will make a very
happy home, and our children will help us.

Affectionately yours,
HATTY.

This extended and pleasant tour was ended with an equally pleasant homeward voyage, for on the Europa were found Nathaniel Hawthorne and James T. Fields, who proved most delightful traveling companions.

While Mrs. Stowe fully enjoyed her foreign experiences, she was so thoroughly American in every fibre of her being that she was always thankful to return to her own land and people. She could not, therefore, in any degree reciprocate the views of Mr. Ruskin on this subject, as expressed in the following letter, received soon after her return to Andover:--

GENEVA, _June 18, 1860._

DEAR MRS. STOWE,--It takes a great deal, when I am at
Geneva, to make me wish myself anywhere else, and,
of all places else, in London; nevertheless, I very
heartily wish at this moment that I were looking out
on the Norwood Hills, and were expecting you and the
children to breakfast to-morrow.

I had very serious thoughts, when I received your
note, of running home; but I expected that very day an
American friend, Mr. S., who I thought would miss me
more here than you would in London; so I stayed.

What a dreadful thing it is that people should have to
go to America again, after coming to Europe! It seems
to me an inversion of the order of nature. I think
America is a sort of "United" States of Probation, out
of which all wise people, being once delivered, and
having obtained entrance into this better world, should
never be expected to return (sentence irremediably
ungrammatical), particularly when they have been making
themselves cruelly pleasant to friends here. My friend
Norton, whom I met first on this very blue lake water,
had no business to go back to Boston again, any more
than you.

I was waiting for S. at the railroad station on
Thursday, and thinking of you, naturally enough,--it
seemed so short a while since we were there together.
I managed to get hold of Georgie as she was crossing
the rails, and packed her in opposite my mother and
beside me, and was thinking myself so clever, when you
sent that rascally courier for her! I never forgave him
any of his behavior after his imperativeness on that
occasion.

And so she is getting nice and strong? Ask her, please,
when you write, with my love, whether, when she stands
now behind the great stick, one can see much of her on
each side?

So you have been seeing the Pope and all his Easter
performances? I congratulate you, for I suppose it is
something like "Positively the last appearance on any
stage." What was the use of thinking about _him_? You
should have had your own thoughts about what was to
come after him. I don't mean that Roman Catholicism
will die out so quickly. It will last pretty nearly as
long as Protestantism, which keeps it up; but I wonder
what is to come next. That is the main question just
now for everybody.

So you are coming round to Venice, after all? We shall
all have to come to it, depend upon it, some way or
another. There never has been anything in any other
part of the world like Venetian strength well developed.

I've no heart to write about anything in Europe to you
now. When are you coming back again? Please send me
a line as soon as you get safe over, to say you are
all--wrong, but not lost in the Atlantic.

I don't know if you will ever get this letter, but I
hope you will think it worth while to glance again at
the Denmark Hill pictures; so I send this to my father,
who, I hope, will be able to give it you.

I really am very sorry you are going,--you and yours;
and that is absolute fact, and I shall not enjoy my
Swiss journey at all so much as I might. It was a shame
of you not to give me warning before. I could have
stopped at Paris so easily for you! All good be with
you! Remember me devotedly to the young ladies, and
believe me ever affectionately yours,

J. RUSKIN.

In Rome Mrs. Stowe had formed a warm friendship with the Brownings, with whom she afterwards maintained a correspondence. The following letter from Mrs. Browning was written a year after their first meeting.

ROME, 126 VIA FELICE, _14 March, 1861._

MY DEAR MRS. STOWE,--Let me say one word first. Your
letter, which would have given me pleasure if I had
been in the midst of pleasures, came to me when little
beside could have pleased. Dear friend, let me say it,
I had had a great blow and loss in England, and you
wrote things in that letter which seemed meant for me,
meant to do me good, and which did me good,--the first
good any letter or any talk did me; and it struck me as
strange, as more than a coincidence, that your first
word since we parted in Rome last spring should come to
me in Rome, and bear so directly on an experience which
you did not know of. I thank you very much.

The earnest stanzas I sent to England for one who
wanted them even more than I. I don't know how people
can keep up their prejudices against spiritualism with
tears in their eyes,--how they are not, at least,
thrown on the "wish that it might be true," and the
investigation of the phenomena, by that abrupt shutting
in their faces of the door of death, which shuts them
out from the sight of their beloved. My tendency is to
beat up against it like a crying child. Not that this
emotional impulse is the best for turning the key and
obtaining safe conclusions,--no. I did not write before
because I always do shrink from touching my own griefs,
one feels at first so sore that nothing but stillness
is borne. It is only after, when one is better, that
one can express one's self at all. This is so with me,
at least, though perhaps it ought not to be so with a
poet.

If you saw my "De Profundis" you must understand that
it was written nearly twenty years ago, and referred
to what went before. Mr. Howard's affliction made me
think of the MS. (in reference to a sermon of Dr.
Beecher's in the "Independent"), and I pulled it out
of a secret place and sent it to America, not thinking
that the publication would fall in so nearly with a new
grief of mine as to lead to misconceptions. In fact the
poem would have been an exaggeration in that case, and
unsuitable in other respects.

It refers to the greatest affliction of my life,--the
only time when I felt _despair_,--written a year after
or more. Forgive all these reticences. My husband calls
me "peculiar" in some things,--peculiarly _lâche_,
perhaps. I can't articulate some names, or speak of
certain afflictions;--no, not to _him_,--not after all
these years! It's a sort of _dumbness_ of the soul.
Blessed are those who can speak, I say. But don't you
see from this how I must want "spiritualism" above most
persons?

Now let me be ashamed of this egotism, together with
the rest of the weakness obtruded on you here, when I
should rather have congratulated you, my dear friend,
on the great crisis you are passing through in America.
If the North is found noble enough to stand fast on
the moral question, whatever the loss or diminution of
territory, God and just men will see you greater and
more glorious as a nation.

I had much anxiety for you after the Seward and Adams
speeches, but the danger seems averted by that fine
madness of the South which seems judicial. The tariff
movement we should regret deeply (and do, some of us),
only I am told it was wanted in order to persuade
those who were less accessible to moral argument. It's
eking out the holy water with ditch water. If the Devil
flees before it, even so, let us be content. How you
must feel, _you_ who have done so much to set this
accursed slavery in the glare of the world, convicting
it of hideousness! They should raise a statue to you in
America and elsewhere.

Meanwhile I am reading you in the "Independent," sent
to me by Mr. Tilton, with the greatest interest. Your
new novel opens beautifully.[14]

Do write to me and tell me of yourself and the subjects
which interest us both. It seems to me that our Roman
affairs may linger a little (while the Papacy bleeds
slowly to death in its finances) on account of this
violent clerical opposition in France. Otherwise we
were prepared for the fall of the house any morning.
Prince Napoleon's speech represents, with whatever
slight discrepancy, the inner mind of the emperor. It
occupied seventeen columns of the "Moniteur" and was
magnificent. Victor Emmanuel wrote to thank him for
it in the name of Italy, and even the English papers
praised it as "a masterly exposition of the policy of
France." It is settled that we shall wait for Venice.
It will not be for long. Hungary is _only_ waiting,
and even in the ashes of Poland there are flickering
sparks. Is it the beginning of the restitution of all
things?

Here in Rome there are fewer English than usual, and
more empty houses. There is a new story every morning,
and nobody to cut off the head of the Scheherazade.
Yesterday the Pope was going to Venice directly, and,
the day before, fixed the hour for Victor Emmanuel's
coming, and the day before _that_ brought a letter from
Cavour to Antonelli about sweeping the streets clean
for the feet of the king. The poor Romans live on these
stories, while the Holy Father and king of Naples meet
holding one another's hands, and cannot speak for sobs.
The little queen, however, is a heroine in her way and
from her point of view, and when she drives about in a
common fiacre, looking very pretty under her only crown
left of golden hair, one must feel sorry that she was
not born and married nearer to holy ground. My husband
prays you to remember him, and I ask your daughters to
remember both of us. Our boy rides his pony and studies
under his abbé, and keeps a pair of red cheeks, thank
God.

I ought to send you more about the society in Rome, but
I have lived much alone this winter, and have little to
tell you. Dr. Manning and Mr. De Vere stay away, not
bearing, perhaps, to see the Pope in his agony.

Your ever affectionate friend,
ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.

Soon after her return to America Mrs. Stowe began a correspondence with Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, which opened the way for the warm friendship that has stood the test of years. Of this correspondence the two following letters, written about this time, are of attention.

ANDOVER, _September 9, 1860._

DEAR DR. HOLMES,--I have had an impulse upon me for
a long time to write you a line of recognition and
sympathy, in response to those that reached me monthly
in your late story in the "Atlantic" ("Elsie Venner").

I know not what others may think of it, since I have
seen nobody since my return; but to me it is of deeper
and broader interest than anything you have done
yet, and I feel an intense curiosity concerning that
underworld of thought from which like bubbles your
incidents and remarks often seem to burst up. The
foundations of moral responsibility, the interlacing
laws of nature and spirit, and their relations to us
here and hereafter, are topics which I ponder more
and more, and on which only one medically educated
can write _well_. I think a course of medical study
ought to be required of all ministers. How I should
like to talk with you upon the strange list of topics
suggested in the schoolmaster's letter! They are bound
to agitate the public mind more and more, and it is of
the chiefest importance to learn, if we can, to think
soundly and wisely of them. Nobody can be a sound
theologian who has not had his mind drawn to think with
reverential fear on these topics.

Allow me to hint that the monthly numbers are not
long enough. Get us along a little faster. You must
work this well out. Elaborate and give us all the
particulars. Old Sophie is a jewel; give us more of
her. I have seen her. Could you ever come out and spend
a day with us? The professor and I would so like to
have a talk on some of these matters with you!

Very truly yours,
H. B. STOWE.

ANDOVER, _February 18, 1861._

DEAR DOCTOR,--I was quite indignant to hear yesterday
of the very unjust and stupid attack upon you in the
----. Mr. Stowe has written to them a remonstrance
which I hope they will allow to appear as he wrote it,
and over his name. He was well acquainted with your
father and feels the impropriety of the thing.

But, my dear friend, in being shocked, surprised,
or displeased personally with such things, we must
consider other people's natures. A man or woman may
wound us to the quick without knowing it, or meaning to
do so, simply through difference of fibre. As Cowper
hath somewhere happily said:--

"Oh, why are farmers made so coarse,
Or clergy made so fine?
A kick that scarce might move a horse
Might kill a sound divine."

When once people get ticketed, and it is known that one
is a hammer, another a saw, and so on, if we happen to
get a taste of their quality we cannot help being hurt,
to be sure, but we shall not take it ill of them. There
be pious, well-intending beetles, wedges, hammers,
saws, and all other kinds of implements, good--except
where they come in the way of our fingers--and from a
beetle you can have only a beetle's gospel.

I have suffered in my day from this sort of handling,
which is worse for us women, who must never answer, and
once when I wrote to Lady Byron, feeling just as you
do about some very stupid and unkind things that had
invaded my personality, she answered me, "Words do not
kill, my dear, or I should have been dead long ago."

There is much true religion and kindness in the world,
after all, and as a general thing he who has struck a
nerve would be very sorry for it if he only knew what
he had done.

I would say nothing, if I were you. There is eternal
virtue in silence.

I must express my pleasure with the closing chapters of
"Elsie." They are nobly and beautifully done, and quite
come up to what I wanted to complete my idea of her
character. I am quite satisfied with it now. It is an
artistic creation, original and beautiful.

Believe me to be your true friend,
H. B. STOWE.

FOOTNOTE:

[14] _The Pearl of Orr's Island._