at the time, and yet long after describe it with the exactness and particularity of a photograph.
Mrs. Stowe was a quietly observant person on the banks of the Ohio, not a flaming Abolitionist, not a fiery partisan; having a real and strong regard for the good qualities of the Southern people; fully comprehending their inherited difficulties, and having for them a charitable sympathy. But in her own quiet way she gradually absorbed a knowledge of the whole system of life in the Southern States; its good and its evil, its tragedy and its comedy. She appears to have done this without particular effort, and even without knowing that she had done it.
Nor is it probable that, when she sat down to write something for her hundred dollar check, and called it "Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly," she had any lofty anticipations concerning her work. It is altogether likely-judging from the way great things are usually done that her principal care was to give the editor a good hundred dollars' worth for his money. She expected to finish the story in three or four numbers. But the subject fascinated and overpowered her, and she was drawn on, week after week, cheered now and then by another check, by the warm appreciation of the editor, and by occasional approving letters from distant readers.
Few literary tasks have ever been executed in circumstances so little favorable to composition. She was at the head of a household, with narrow means, with young children clamorous for their mother's aid, with the inexorable Monday wash to superintend, the Saturday's baking to do, the semi-weekly batch of bread to make, her class of young ladies to instruct, company to entertain, garments to cut out, buttons to sew on, and all the endless tasks of a wife and mother. Sometimes, on baking-day, she would light the fire in the big brick oven, and thinking to gain a few minutes for writing, would fly to her
