The old stone house, the moat, the draw bridge, all spoke of days of violence long gone by, when no man was safe except within fortified walls, and every man’s house literally had to be his castle.
To me it was interesting as the dwelling of a conqueror, as one who had not wrestled with flesh and blood merely, but with principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world, and who had overcome, as his great Master did before him, by faith, and prayer, and labor.
We were received with much cordiality by the widow of Clarkson, now in her eighty-fourth year. She has been a woman of great energy and vigor, and an efficient co-laborer in his plans of benevolence.
She is now quite feeble. I was placed under the care of a respectable female servant, who forthwith installed me in a large chamber overlooking the court yard, which had been Clarkson’s own room; the room where, for years, many of his most important labors had been conducted, and from whence his soul had ascended to the reward of the just.
The servant who attended me seemed to be quite a superior woman, like many of the servants in respectable English families. She had grown up in the family, and was identified with it; its ruling aims and purposes had become hers. She had been the personal attendant of Clarkson, and his nurse during his last sickness; she had evidently understood, and been interested in his plans; and the veneration with which she therefore spoke of him had the sanction of intelligent appreciation.
A daughter of Clarkson, who was married to a neighboring clergyman, with her husband, was also present on this day.
After dinner we rode out to see the old church, in whose enclosure the remains of Clarkson repose. It was just such a still, quiet, mossy old church as you have read of in story books, with the graveyard spread all around it, like a thoughtful mother, who watches the resting of her children.
The grass in the yard was long and green, and the daisy, which, in other places, lies like a little button on the ground, here had a richer fringe of crimson, and a stalk about six inches high. It is, I well know, the vital influence from the slumbering dust beneath which gives the richness to this grass and these flowers; but let not that be a painful thought; let it rather cheer us, that beauty should spring from ashes, and life smile brighter from the near presence of death. The grave of Clarkson is near the church, enclosed by a railing, and marked by a simple white marble slab; it is carefully tended, and planted with flowers. In the church was an old book of records, and among other curious inscriptions was one recording how a pious committee of old Noll’s army had been there, knocking off saints’ noses, and otherwise purging the church from the relics of idolatry.
Near by the church was the parsonage, the home of my friends, a neat, pleasant, sequestered dwelling, of about the style of a New England country parsonage.
The effect of the whole together was inexpressibly beautiful to me. For a wonder, it was a pleasant day, and this is a thing always to be thankfully acknowledged in England. The calm stillness of the afternoon, the seclusion of the whole place, the silence only broken by the cawing of the rooks, the ancient church, the mossy graves with their flowers and green grass, the sunshine and the tree shadows, all seemed to mingle together in a kind of hazy dream of peacefulness and rest. How natural it is to say of some place sheltered, simple, cool, and retired, here one might find peace, as if peace came from without, and not from within. In the shadiest and stillest places may be the most turbulent hearts; and there are hearts which, through the busiest scenes, carry with them unchanging peace. As we were walking back, we passed many cottages of the poor.
I noticed, with particular pleasure, the invariable flower garden attached to each. Some pansies in one of them attracted my attention by their peculiar beauty, so very large and richly colored. On being introduced to the owner of them, she, with cheerful alacrity, offered me some of the finest. I do not doubt of there being suffering and misery in the agricultural population of England, but still there are multitudes of cottages which are really very pleasant objects, as were all these. The cottagers had that bright, rosy look of health which we seldom see in America, and appeared to be both polite and self-respecting.
In the evening we had quite a gathering of friends from the neighborhood — intelligent, sensible, earnest people, who had grown up in the love of the antislavery cause as into religion. The subject of conversation was, “The duty of English people to free themselves from any participation in American slavery, by taking means to encourage the production of free cotton in the British provinces.”
It is no more impossible or improbable that something effective may be done in this way than that the slave trade should have been abolished. Every great movement seems an impossibility at first. There is no end to the number of things declared and proved impossible which have been done already, so that this may become something yet.
Mrs. Clarkson had retired from the room early; after a while she sent for me to her sitting room. The faithful attendant of whom I spoke was with her. She wished to show me some relics of her husband, his watch and seals, some of his papers and manuscripts; among these was the identical prize essay with which he began his career, and a commentary on the Gospels, which he had written with great care, for the use of his grandson. His seal attracted my attention — it was that kneeling figure of the negro, with clasped hands, which was at first adopted as the badge of the cause, when every means was being made use of to arouse the public mind and keep the subject before the public. Mr. Wedgwood, the celebrated porcelain manufacturer, designed a cameo, with this representation, which was much worn as an ornament by ladies. It was engraved on the seal of the Antislavery Society, and was used by its members in sealing all their letters. This of Clarkson’s was handsomely engraved on a large, old-fashioned carnelian; and surely, if we look with emotion on the sword of a departed hero, — which, at best, we can consider only as a necessary evil, — we may look with unmingled pleasure on this memorial of a bloodless victory.
When I retired to my room for the night I could not but feel that the place was hallowed: unceasing prayer had there been offered for the enslaved and wronged race of Africa by that noble and brotherly heart. I could not but feel that those prayers had had a wider reach than the mere extinction of slavery in one land or country, and that their benign influence would not cease while a slave was left upon the face of the earth.
LETTER XXV.
DEAR C.: —
We returned to London, and found Mr. S. and Joseph Sturge waiting for us at the depot. We dined with Mr. Sturge. It seems that Mr. S.’s speech upon the subject of cotton has created some considerable disturbance, different papers declaring themselves for or against it with a good deal of vivacity.
After dinner Mr. Sturge desired me very much to go into the meeting of the women; for it seems that, at the time of the yearly meeting among the Friends, the men and women both have their separate meetings for attending to business. The aspect of the meeting was very interesting — so many placid, amiable faces, shaded by plain Quaker bonnets; so many neat white handkerchiefs, folded across peaceful bosoms. Either a large number of very pretty women wear the Quaker dress, or it is quite becoming in its effect.
There are some things in the mode of speaking among the Friends, particularly in their public meetings, which do not strike me agreeably, and to which I think it would take me some time to become accustomed; such as a kind of intoning somewhat similar to the manner in which the church service is performed in cathedrals. It is a curious fact that religious exercises, in all ages and countries, have inclined to this form of expression. It appears in the cantilation of the synagogue, the service of the cathedral, the prayers of the Covenanter and the Puritan.
There were a table and writing materials in this meeting, and a circle of from fifty to a hundred ladies. One of those upon the platform requested me to express to them my opinion on free labor. In a few words I told them I considered myself upon that subject more a learner than a teacher, but that I was deeply interested
in what I had learned upon this subject since my travelling in England, and particularly interested in the consistency and self-denial practised by their sect.
I have been quite amused with something which has happened lately. It always has seemed to me that distinguished people here in England live a remarkably out-door sort of life; and newspapers tell a vast deal about people’s concerns which it is not our custom to put into print in America. Such, for instance, as where the Hon. Mr. A. is staying now, and where he expects to go next; what her grace wore at the last ball, and when the royal children rode out, and what they had on; and whom Lord Such-a-one had to dinner; besides a large number of particulars which probably never happen.
Could I have expected dear old England to make me so much one of the family as to treat my humble fortunes in this same public manner? But it is even so. This week the Times has informed the United Kingdom that Mrs. Stowe is getting a new dress made! — the charming old aristocratic Times, which every body declares is such a wicked paper, and yet which they can no more do without than they can their breakfast! What am I, and what is my father’s house, that such distinction should come upon me? I assure you, my dear, I feel myself altogether too much flattered. There, side by side with speculations on the eastern question, and conjectures with regard to the secret and revealed will of the Emperor of Russia, news from her majesty’s most sacred retreat at Osborne, and the last debates in Parliament, comes my brown silk dress! The Times has omitted the color; I had a great mind to send him word about that. But you may tell the girls — for probably the news will spread through the American papers — that it is the brown Chinese silk which they put into my trunk, unmade, when I was too ill to sit up and be fitted.
Mr. Times 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 any thing 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 very respectable 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 under every form. The person who had been so unfortunate as to receive the weight of my public patronage was in a very tragical state; protested her innocence of any connection with dens, of any overworking of hands, &c., with as much fervor as if I had been appointed on a committee of parliamentary inquiry. Let my case be a warning to all philanthropists who may happen to want clothes while they are in London. Some of my correspondents seemed to think that I ought to publish a manifesto for the benefit of distressed Great Britain, stating how I came to do it, and all the circumstances, since they are quite sure I must have meant well, and containing gentle cautions as to the disposal of my future patronage in the dressmaking line.
Could these people only know in what sacred 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, was going to take it home and make it herself; it never occurred to me that she was the head of an establishment.
And now, what am I to do? The Times seems to think that, in order to be consistent, I ought to take up the conflict immediately; but, for my part, I think otherwise. What an unreasonable creature! Does he suppose me so lost to all due sense of humility as to take out of his hands a cause which he is pleading so well? If the plantation slaves had such a good friend as the Times, and if every over-worked female cotton picker could write as clever letters as this dressmaker’s apprentice, and get them published in as influential papers, and excite as general a sensation by them as this seems to have done, I think I should feel that there was no need of my interfering in a work so much better done. Unfortunately, our female cotton pickers do not know how to read and write, and it is against the law to teach them; and this instance shows that the law is a sagacious one, since, doubtless, if they could read and write, most embarrassing communications might be made.
Nothing shows more plainly, to my mind, than this letter, the difference between the working class of England and the slave. The free workman or workwoman of England or America, however poor, is self-respecting; is, to some extent, clever and intelligent; is determined to resist wrong, and, as this incident shows, has abundant means for doing so.
When we shall see the columns of the Charleston Courier adorned with communications from cotton pickers and slave seamstresses, we shall then think the comparison a fair one. In fact, apart from the whimsicality of the affair, and the little annoyance which one feels at notoriety to which one is not accustomed, I consider the incident as in some aspects a gratifying one, as showing how awake and active are the sympathies of the British public with that much-oppressed class of needlewomen.
Horace Greeley would be delighted could his labors in this line excite a similar commotion in New York.
We dined to-day at the Duke of Argyle’s. At dinner there were the members of the family, the Duchess of Sutherland, Lord Carlisle, Lord and Lady Blantyre, &c. The conversation flowed along in a very agreeable channel. I told them the more I contemplated life in Great Britain, the more I was struck with the contrast between the comparative smallness of the territory and the vast power, physical, moral, and intellectual, which it exerted in the world.
The Duchess of Sutherland added, that it was beautiful to observe how gradually the idea of freedom had developed itself in the history of the English nation, growing clearer and more distinct in every successive century.
I might have added that the history of our own American republic is but a continuation of the history of this development. The resistance to the stamp act was of the same kind as the resistance to the ship money; and in our revolutionary war there were as eloquent defences of our principles and course heard in the British Parliament as echoed in Faneuil Hall.
I conversed some with Lady Caroline Campbell, the duke’s sister, with regard to Scottish preaching and theology. She is a member of the Free church, and attends, in London, Dr. Cumming’s congregation. I derived the impression from her remarks, that the style of preaching in Scotland is more discriminating and doctrinal than in England. One who studies the pictures given in Scott’s novels must often have been struck with the apparent similarity in the theologic training and tastes of the laboring classes in New England and Scotland. The hard-featured man, whom he describes in Rob Roy as following the preacher so earnestly, keeping count of the doctrinal points on his successive fingers, is one which can still be seen in the retired, rural districts of New England; and I believe that this severe intellectual discipline of the pulpit has been one of the greatest means in forming that strong, self-sustaining character peculiar to both countries.
The Duke of Argyle said that Chevalier Bunsen had been speaking to him in relation to a college for colored people at Antigua, and inquired my views respecting the emigration of colored people from America to the West India islands. I told him my impression was, that Canada would be a much better place to develop the energies of the race. First, on account of its cold and bracing climate; second, because, having never been a slave state, the white population there are more thrifty and industrious, and of course the influence of such a community was better adapted to form thrift arid industry in the negro.
In the evening, some of the ladies alluded to t
he dressmaker’s letter in the Times. I inquired if there was nothing done for them as a class in London, and some of them said, —
“O, Lord Shaftesbury can tell you all about it; he is president of the society for their protection.”
So I said to Lord Shaftesbury, playfully, “I thought, my lord, you had reformed every thing here in London.”
“Ah, indeed,” he replied, “but this was not in one of my houses. I preside over the West End.”
He talked on the subject for some time with considerable energy; said it was one of the most difficult he had ever attempted to regulate, and promised to send me a few documents, which would show the measures he had pursued. He said, however, that there was progress making; and spoke of one establishment in particular, which had recently been erected in London, and was admirably arranged with regard to ventilation, being conducted in the most perfect manner.
Quite a number of distinguished persons were present this evening; among others, Sir David Brewster, famed in the scientific world. He is a fine-looking old gentleman, with silver-white hair, who seemed to be on terms of great familiarity with the duke. He bears the character of a decidedly religious man, and is an elder in the Free church.
Lord Mahon, the celebrated historian, was there, with his lady. He is a young-looking man, of agreeable manners, and fluent in conversation. This I gather from Mr. S., with whom he conversed very freely on our historians, Prescott, Bancroft, and especially Dr. Sparks, his sharp controversy with whom he seems to bear with great equanimity.
Lady Mahon is a handsome, interesting woman, with very pleasing manners.
Mr. Gladstone was there also, one of the ablest and best men in the kingdom. It is a commentary on his character that, although one of the highest of the High church, we have never heard him spoken of, even among dissenters, otherwise than as an excellent and highly conscientious man. For a gentleman who has attained to such celebrity, both in theology and politics, he looks remarkably young. He is tall, with dark hair and eyes, a thoughtful, serious cast of countenance, and is easy and agreeable in conversation.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 770
