Stowe letter to Horace Mann
March 2, 1852
[edit]Hon. Horace Mann
Dear Sir
Some months ago you addressed me a note for which I was at the time exceedingly grateful & to which I intended to reply when time should enable me to test the advice you were kind enough to send me.
To day I have taken my pen from the last chapter of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" & I think you will understand me when I say that I feel as if I had written some of it almost with my hearts blood—I look upon it almost as a despairing appeal to civilized humanity - in the close of it I think you may trace the result of some of your suggestions.
It has been the most cheering thing about the whole endeavor to me, that men like you, would feel it -for so deeply has the cause I speak for enwoven itself with my life, that sympathy for that, seems to me almost a personal favor.
May I now ask you to favor me with your advice on another head—It is my wish to present copies to several distinguished persons in England—among others T.B. McAule, the Earl of Carlysle whose very sensible remarks on slavery I remember with pleasure, to Charles Dickens & lastly to Prince Albert.
Were the subject any other I should think this impertinent & Egotistical — as it is, I have thus settled it with myself—it may be that they will read it - & if they read it, they must think & feel somewhat—& if they are too busy to read it there is no harm done & its no matter at all to me, what they think—The very oddity of the fact that an American woman has sent them a book may inspire some curiosity to see what a native can do & thus ensure a reading.
Can you give me any advice as to the best mode of forwarding &c—perhaps your diplomatic life in Washington may enable you to enlighten my rusticity a little on these points—I have just been reading your volume of speeches—It is with a sad feeling that I think that things like what are there recorded have been said in the legislative bodies & men have heard them & gone on—just as before—"ceace ye from man" 3.
Were it not for my faith in the Ever living—whose hour is certainly coming—I could see no use in living—as it is I have this comfort that every blow on the right side is telling & the final victory is certain
Yours very truly,
- HB Stowe
My direction is in Brunswick Maine