Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe | Page 6

and pamphlets stored in a corner of the garret.
Here it seemed to her were some thousands of the most unintelligible
things. "An appeal on the unlawfulness of a man marrying his wife's
sister" turned up in every barrel she investigated, by twos, or threes, or
dozens, till her soul despaired of finding an end. At last her patient
search was rewarded, for at the very bottom of a barrel of musty
sermons she discovered an ancient volume of "The Arabian Nights."
With this her fortune was made, for in these most fascinating of fairy
tales the imaginative child discovered a well-spring of joy that was all
her own. When things went astray with her, when her brothers started
off on long excursions, refusing to take her with them, or in any other
childish sorrow, she had only to curl herself up in some snug corner
and sail forth on her bit of enchanted carpet into fairyland to forget all
her griefs.

In recalling her own child-life Mrs. Stowe, among other things,
describes her father's library, and gives a vivid bit of her own
experiences within its walls. She says: "High above all the noise of the
house, this room had to me the air of a refuge and a sanctuary. Its walls
were set round from floor to ceiling with the friendly, quiet faces of
books, and there stood my father's great writing-chair, on one arm of
which lay open always his Cruden's Concordance and his Bible. Here I
loved to retreat and niche myself down in a quiet corner with my
favorite books around me. I had a kind of sheltered feeling as I thus sat
and watched my father writing, turning to his books, and speaking from
time to time to himself in a loud, earnest whisper. I vaguely felt that he
was about some holy and mysterious work quite beyond my little
comprehension, and I was careful never to disturb him by question or
remark.
"The books ranged around filled me too with a solemn awe. On the
lower shelves were enormous folios, on whose backs I spelled in black
letters, 'Lightfoot Opera,' a title whereat I wondered, considering the
bulk of the volumes. Above these, grouped along in friendly, social
rows, were books of all sorts, sizes, and bindings, the titles of which I
had read so often that I knew them by heart. There were Bell's Sermons,
Bonnett's Inquiries, Bogue's Essays, Toplady on Predestination,
Boston's Fourfold State, Law's Serious Call, and other works of that
kind. These I looked over wistfully, day after day, without even a hope
of getting something interesting out of them. The thought that father
could read and understand things like these filled me with a vague awe,
and I wondered if I would ever be old enough to know what it was all
about.
"But there was one of my father's books that proved a mine of wealth to
me. It was a happy hour when he brought home and set up in his
bookcase Cotton Mather's 'Magnalia,' in a new edition of two volumes.
What wonderful stories those! Stories too about my own country.
Stories that made me feel the very ground I trod on to be consecrated
by some special dealing of God's Providence."
[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE AT LITCHFIELD, CONNECTICUT.]

In continuing these reminiscences Mrs. Stowe describes as follows her
sensations upon first hearing the Declaration of Independence: "I had
never heard it before, and even now had but a vague idea of what was
meant by some parts of it. Still I gathered enough from the recital of the
abuses and injuries that had driven my nation to this course to feel
myself swelling with indignation, and ready with all my little mind and
strength to applaud the concluding passage, which Colonel Talmadge
rendered with resounding majesty. I was as ready as any of them to
pledge my life, fortune, and sacred honor for such a cause. The heroic
element was strong in me, having come down by ordinary generation
from a long line of Puritan ancestry, and just now it made me long to
do something, I knew not what: to fight for my country, or to make
some declaration on my own account."
When Harriet was nearly six years old her father married as his second
wife Miss Harriet Porter of Portland, Maine, and Mrs. Stowe thus
describes her new mother: "I slept in the nursery with my two younger
brothers. We knew that father was gone away somewhere on a journey
and was expected home, therefore the sound of a bustle in the house the
more easily awoke us. As father came into our room our new mother
followed him. She was very fair, with bright blue eyes, and soft auburn
hair bound round with a