The Times Great Women's Lives

by Sue Corbett

  For many years before her death Miss Rossetti led a very secluded life, partly due to her natural shrinking from the outer world and society, and partly to her enfeebled health. Her devotion to her aged mother — who survived her husband for the long period of 32 years — was touching and beautiful. The earnest religious convictions of the deceased poetess were ever translated into daily thought and action, and her life may well be described as saintly in character. It may here be mentioned that she sat for the face and figure of the Virgin in her brother’s striking early Pre-Raphaelite picture, “The Girlhood of Mary Virgin.” He afterwards painted several other portraits of his sister.

  Miss Rossetti had much of the richness of style and beauty of imagery of her still more eminent brother, though she was not capable of his sustained flights. Some of her lyrics, such as the one beginning, “Does the road wind up-hill all the way?” produce a very vivid and lasting impression. In all that she did she was the finished artist, while her poems were able to stimulate and to elevate as well as to delight. In the sphere of the religious emotions few writers have given the world thoughts so full of beauty and pathos. While Dante Rossetti excelled in masculine vigour and artistic excellence, Christina Rossetti’s qualities were rather those of grace and delicacy combined with a clear and pellucid style and a singular tenderness and sensitiveness of feeling. Her death leaves a distinct gap in the poetic literature of the time.

  Christina Rossetti, poet, was born on December 5, 1830. She died of cancer on December 29, 1894, aged 64

  CLARA SCHUMANN

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  GERMAN PIANIST AND COMPOSER WHO WAS ALSO THE INSPIRATION OF HER HUSBAND, ROBERT

  MAY 22, 1896

  By the death of Mme Schumann, which occurred at Frankfurt on the Main, on Wednesday, from paralysis, the musical world has lost, not only the ablest exponent of Robert Schumann’s pianoforte music, but also perhaps the most richly gifted of all female musicians. Mme Schumann, who had attained to a recognized position under her maiden name of Clara Wieck, was born at Leipzig, September 13, 1819, and, having studied the pianoforte under her father, the illustrious teacher, Friedrich Wieck, she made her first appearance in public just nine years later, and rapidly made her mark as a pianist of the first rank.

  Schumann’s romantic attachment to her was the directly inspiring cause of many of his most beautiful and individual compositions. So little smoothly did the course of their love run that an action at law was one of the incidents of their story.

  Married on the eve of her birthday, September 12, 1840, she was not only a most devoted wife until the time of his tragic death in July, 1856, but a fellow-artist worthy in every way to help him in the interpretation of his best creations. From a period shortly before the composer’s death until comparatively recently she devoted her life mainly to the work of obtaining wide recognition for his compositions. In England, where she appeared at a Philharmonic Concert for the first time but three months before Schumann’s death, the task was a particularly heavy one; but in the course of years she was most amply rewarded, not so much by the heartfelt enthusiasm with which her later appearances were always greeted as by the high place ultimately accorded to Schumann’s compositions in the musical world of London. Although these were peculiarly and in a special sense her own, yet she was not less remarkable as a player of the classics, and, indeed, as a distinguished critic has truly said, “She was one of the greatest pianoforte players that the world has ever heard.” The sonatas of Beethoven received new meaning at her hands, and in works of lighter calibre, such as the harpsichord pieces of Scarlatti, her success was complete. In the expression of the deepest and most refined emotion, in dignity of style and breadth and variety of tone, she was without rival, and her compositions, though extending only to opus 23 or thereabouts, reach a very high degree of excellence and show real poetic insight.

  No doubt the excessive smallness of the list of her works is due to an artistic fastidiousness and a power of self-criticism which prevented her from publishing anything not entirely representative of the power that was in her. Gradually increasing deafness caused her latterly to shun the concert platform, but her work as a teacher was almost phenomenally successful. Among her English pupils Mr Franklin Taylor (as a teacher), Miss Fanny Davies, Miss Adeline de Lara, and Mr Leonard Borwick (as players) are the most distinguished, and the Hoch Conservatorium became famous mainly through the co-operation of Mme Schumann and her daughters.

  Clara Schumann, pianist and composer, was born on September 13, 1819. She died on May 20, 1896, aged 76

  HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

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  AMERICAN WRITER WHOSE ANTI-SLAVERY NOVEL “UNCLE TOM’S CABIN” WAS AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

  JULY 2, 1896

  NEW YORK, July 1: Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe died at noon to-day at her home in Hartford, Connecticut, in her 85th year. She had had three successive attacks of paralysis since Monday. It is the breaking of almost the last link between the America of to-day and that America which Mrs Stowe found dead to the sin of slavery and woke to life. The three great names in connexion with that period of transition before the Civil War are Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” That is the judgment of those Americans who know that period best, and Mrs Stowe is not the least of the three. — Our Own Correspondent.

  Mrs Harriet Beecher Stowe, one of the most popular and versatile of American writers, was the daughter of Dr. Lyman Beecher, a Presbyterian minister. She was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, in June, 1812, one year before her distinguished brother, Henry Ward Beecher, who died in 1887, thus predeceasing her by eight years. Harriet Beecher lost her mother early in youth, and in one of the best of her many pathetic stories she has retold the incidents of the daily life of her motherless brothers and sisters. At the age of 13 she entered the Female Seminary at Hartford, of which her sister Catherine was the principal, and two years afterwards became a teacher in that institution. In 1832 she went with her family to Cincinnati, and in 1836 married the Rev Calvin E. Stowe, D. D., sometime Professor of Natural and Revealed Religion in Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine.

  The literary career of the deceased did not really begin until after her marriage, though a few years before she had written for the Semi-colon Club sketches and papers exhibiting much promise. One of these was afterwards published, with additions, in 1849, under the title of “The Mayflower” — a series of sketches of incident and character drawn from the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers. In 1850 Mrs Beecher Stowe accompanied her husband to Brunswick, in order to take up their residence at Bowdoin College. It was at this juncture that the Fugitive Slave Law of the United States was passed, and Mrs Stowe, who had always taken a profound interest in the slavery question, and had, indeed, frequently concealed runaway slaves in her own house, was moved to the quick by the sufferings of the negro race.

  In June, 1851, she began in the National Era, an anti-slavery newspaper published in Washington, her celebrated story, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” It was written for the express purpose of exposing the system of slavery, and with no expectation of reward. It exhibited the system in its most degraded and also in its most refined aspects, and from both points of view was equally severe in its condemnation. The success of the novel was without precedent in the history of fiction. Nearly half a million copies were soon disposed of in the United States alone. Long afterwards, when the author was questioned respecting her work, she said:—“I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did His dictation.” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was one of those spontaneous literary productions written under the sway of an overpowering emotion; and its moving pathos made its way at once to the heart of every reader. Its characters also were vigorously and boldly drawn, and its pictures of slave life were startling in their vividness and irresistible because of their truth. Of course, Mrs Stowe was violently attacked by the friends of slavery; but to prove the accuracy of her representations she published a “Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin,�
� giving the original facts upon which the story was founded, together with corroborative statements in verification and justification of the work.

  Just before the issue of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” Mrs Stowe had been much troubled by the fact that slavery was pursuing its victims more relentlessly than ever into the free States, and that Canada even was threatened. To avert the possible contingency of the closing of Canada as a haven of refuge for the oppressed, she wrote earnest letters to Prince Albert, to the Duke of Argyll, the Earls of Carlisle and Shaftesbury, Macaulay, Dickens, and others whom she knew to be friendly to the cause of the slaves. With these letters were despatched early copies of her forthcoming story. The replies she received were most sympathetic; the work was commended for its graphic power and its righteous mission; and that which its writer apprehended — the closing of Canada to the fugitive slave — happily never came to pass.

  In April, 1852, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was first brought out in England, and edition followed edition with great rapidity. From April to December 12 different editions were published, and within twelve months from its first appearance 18 different London publishing houses were engaged in supplying the immense demand that had set in, the total number of editions being 40. The aggregate number of copies circulated in a short time in Great Britain and the colonies exceeded one-and-a-half million. The Library of the British Museum contains some 40 different editions in English. In the course of a few years the story was translated into 22 languages.

  During the summer of 1853 Mrs Stowe visited Europe, and met with a most enthusiastic reception throughout England. She and her husband and her brother, Charles Beecher, arrived at Liverpool in April. Glasgow was the first point of their tour, and from that city they proceeded to Edinburgh, where the “National Penny Anti-Slavery Offering” was presented to Mrs Stowe, consisting of 1,000 sovereigns on a magnificent silver salver. The money was all subscribed by the poorer classes. On the 8th of May a grand reception was given to her at Stafford-house. Here she met Lord Palmerston, of whom she wrote:—“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. While talking with him I could not but remember how often I had heard father and Mr Stowe exulting over his foreign despatches 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.”

  Lord Shaftesbury read an address from the ladies of England, cordially welcoming Mrs Stowe to the mother country. A superb gold bracelet, formed as a slave’s shackle, and presented by the Duchess of Sutherland to Mrs Stowe, bore the inscription, “We trust it is a memorial of a chain that is soon to be broken.” On two of the links were inscribed the dates of the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery in English territory; and years after the presentation Mrs Stowe was able to have engraved on the clasp of the bracelet, “Constitutional amendment for ever abolishing slavery in the United States.” Mrs Stowe afterwards made a tour on the Continent.

  Early in 1854 she published an account of her European experiences, in the form of letters written to her friends at home, under the title of “Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands.” Both before and after her return to the United States Mrs Stowe added to the literature connected with “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by the publication — in addition to the “Key” — of “A Peep into Uncle Tom’s Cabin for Children” and “The Christian Slave, a Drama founded on Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” In 1856 she produced a second anti-slavery novel, entitled “Dred, a Tale of the Dismal Swamp.” It was a powerful work, and attained considerable popularity, but its unrelieved gloom, and the absence of the genial humour which had marked its predecessor, prevented it from taking the same intense hold upon the masses.

  Mrs Stowe paid a second visit to England and Europe in 1856. She was accompanied by her husband, her two eldest daughters, her son Henry, and her sister. The party spent some time at Inverary Castle, and afterwards at Dunrobin Castle. They were informally received at one of the Scotch railway stations by her Majesty the Queen, who was then travelling in Scotland. Professor Stowe, in describing this incident, said:— “The Queen seemed really delighted to see my wife, and remarkably glad to see me for her sake. She pointed us out to Prince Albert, who made two most gracious bows to my wife and two to me, while the four Royal children stared their big blue eyes almost out looking at the authoress of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Colonel Grey handed the Queen, with my wife’s compliments, two copies of the new book ‘Dred.’ She took one volume herself, and handed the other to Prince Albert, and they were soon both very busy reading.”

  In the summer of 1859 Mrs Stowe paid her last visit to Europe, accompanied by all her family except her youngest son. At Rome she saw a good deal of the Brownings, with whom she formed a warm friendship.

  Before her final European tour, Mrs Stowe had been closely engaged in literary work, and in 1858 she began the publication of “The Minister’s Wooing” in the Atlantic Monthly, and “The Pearl of Orr’s Island” simultaneously in the Independent.

  The American Civil War broke out in 1861, and one of the first volunteers was Mrs Stowe’s son Frederick, who was severely, though not fatally, wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg. In 1863 Mrs Stowe published her Italian story, “Agnes of Sorrento,” which was suggested to her on her last tour in Italy. But the most important event of this time was the publication in the Atlantic Monthly of Mrs Stowe’s reply to “The Affectionate and Christian Address of many thousands of Women of Great Britain and Ireland, to their Sisters, the Women of the United States of America.” The address had been presented to Mrs Stowe eight years before, accompanied by 26 folio volumes, containing considerably more than half a million signatures of British women. These signatures formed the most remarkable part of the address. Beginning at the very steps of the Throne, they went down to the names of women in the very humblest conditions of life. Mrs Stowe’s reply took the form of an eloquent and most powerful appeal to her sisters in Great Britain to stand true to the cause of the North and of human freedom. The fratricidal strife in the United States happily came to an end in 1865, and the cause of the union and of emancipation triumphed.

  In 1866 Mrs Stowe removed with her family to the South. In addition to other reasons, she was anxious to do her share towards educating and leading to a higher life those coloured people whom she had so largely helped to set free. Florida was selected as the best field, and she bought a place at Mandarin. She had now joined the Episcopal Church, in which her daughters were already communicants, and with the aid of the Bishop of Florida she established a number of churches along the St John’s River. In 1869 Mrs Stowe published her “Old Town Folks,” a story of New England life; and during this and the next few years, while her husband preached in a little church on the Florida property, she conducted Sunday schools, sewing classes, singing classes, &c., which were well attended by both the white and coloured residents of the neighbourhood.

  Mrs Stowe’s reputation was seriously overshadowed in 1870 by her attack upon Lord Byron. We cannot avoid all mention of this regrettable incident, seeing that the fame of one of the greatest of modern English poets was involved in the terrible charges advanced by Mrs Stowe. While in Europe Mrs Stowe had contracted a friendship with Lady Byron, upon whose authority the allegations were understood to be based. The Countess Guiccioli having published in 1868 her “Recollections of Lord Byron,” which contained some severe reflections on the character of Lady Byron, Mrs Stowe wrote a paper in reply, entitled “The True Story of Lady Byron’s Life,” which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly for September, 1869, and also in Macmillan’s Magazine. This article, which excited much comment, was extended into a volume called “Lady Byron Vindicated,” issued in 1870. It was felt that the grounds for the attack were of an altogether inadequate character, and there was a strong revulsion of feeling against the calumniator.

  Among Mrs Stowe’s
best and most attractive works in later life were:—“The Chimney Corner,” issued in 1869; “My Wife and I,” published in 1871; and “Palmetto Leaves,” a series of Florida sketches, which appeared in 1873. Then she wrote “Poganue People: their Loves and Lives,” her last undertaking of any length in volume form. It consisted of a series of delightful reminiscences of New England life. In addition to the works already cited she also produced a great number of minor stories and sketches.