Martha Foote Crow

“ If new thoughts, new ideals, new enthusiasms embodied in a new girl can be brought in, the old thoughts will disappear themselves. There are trees on which the old leaves hang withered and dead all winter long: the rains cannot rot them away, the winds cannot whip them off. But when in the spring the new life begins to come coursing up the trunk, runs out through the branches, and presses a new end against the root of the dead stem, it yields at last and makes way for the leaf and flower and fruit that imperatively insist upon having more room. ”

“ If the margin of unbearable drudgery seems to be reached, there is the solace of music at evening when the whole family join in an orchestra of violin, cornet and piano. If the days seem to grow unendurably monotonous, a pageant looms on the horizon to capture the interest and to make life fascinating at once. A fourteen-hour day of hard labor is broken by a recess in the midst to write a letter and send it out to some girl friend in the great big world that shall keep the secluded spirit in some touch with the outside currents of life. ”

“ Your forward zeal in the cause of liberty, your singular attachment to this infant world, your ardent and persevering efforts not only in America, but since your return to France, to serve the United States, your polite attentions to Americans, and your strict and uniform friendship for me, have ripened the first impressions of esteem and attachment which I imbibed for you into such perfect love and gratitude, as neither time nor absence can impair. ”

“ In a little saucer-like valley of the lower Berkshires, where the hills stand about in a wide circle, lies that most beautiful of Connecticut villages, Litchfield. Here Harriet Beecher Stowe was born. There was not a day when she and her brothers and sisters did not run to the window to see that blue rim of hills, and even when they were grown into women and men they did not forget the charm of their early home in the mountains. ”

“ Angelica—Yet when I look at it I shrink back—if that great eye that shoots out terrors toward me and gives me more pain than joy be really the light I have longed for! Ah, Mother! She said the light of The World Above would blind my eyes. Dear Mother! I want her!
Jean—But if we should try to go back, we could not find our way to her now. We must go on. We will wait till our eyes are a little stronger and can bear the light; for it is the light! It must be, since we have traced it by every trap we have passed. ”

“ How can we get a kitchen like that? Well, that is the Gordian knot that the farm daughters will be able to cut. They can do it—they must do it. Every instinct of patriotism, every breathing of passion for the welfare of the future homes, every thought of affection for the home circle that will be theirs, calls for the most valiant struggle to gain the goal—a perfectly hygienic, perfectly fitted household plant, with all in it that can by scientific mechanism be placed there, to be the perfect working basis for that highest product, human happiness in a human home. ”

“ It does possess that consummate quality which supreme works of art always have, namely, that their power over us is great, but that we do not see why it should be so great. Their charm is inexplicable. Mrs. Stowe’s fellow genius, George Sand, said that in art there is but one rule—to paint and to move. By this law, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is a great work of art. It painted; it made a great people see; and it moves the whole world. The same generous critic said that Mrs. Stowe may not have “talent, but she has genius as humanity feels genius. ”

“ From the door of the hut a young girl emerges and passes across the gallery. She hums a strain of the hymn Varina, and as she comes along, she touches the wall lightly with her white finger tips and walks with a hesitating step as if the floor were slippery, or as if she were accustomed to find her way more by the sense of touch than by that of sight. She is a slender and delicate looking girl, and the pupils of her eyes are large and dark as if they were trying to gather all the light they could. ”

“ There was a strange surprise awaiting Lafayette when he came to know the American situation more intimately. Before he left Europe, his sincere mind had clothed the cause of liberty in this country in the most rosy colors. He thought that here almost every man was a lover of liberty who would rather die free than live a slave. Before leaving France he thought that all good Americans were united in one mind, and that confidence in the commander in chief was universal and unbounded; he now believed that if Washington were lost to America, the Revolution would not survive six months. ”

“ If among the girls of the village there is one who has been away to college and has seen anything of the outside world, ought she not to use her influence among the girls of the village to show them what the real danger is likely to be to one who goes unprepared by industrial and social training to cope with the situation in the city? Ought she not to consider herself to a great degree responsible if any girl from her village or her country community does go away unequipped into the struggle and becomes lost in the oubliette of vice? ”

“ An army that needed admonitions like these could still awaken enthusiasm from spectators. The austere commander in chief looked very handsome as he passed; the slim, eager-eyed French major general rode at his side; every window shone with curious and admiring eyes and the sidewalks were crowded with applauding citizens. The men could not help catching the spirit of the occasion; each soldier stuck a sprig of green in his hat to make up as far as possible for the lack of fine uniforms and military brilliancy. ”

“ They pass out beneath the stone archway into the full, bright day. As they move from beneath the sharply-cut outline of the shadow and emerge into the glow of the level sunset rays, a halo of light seems to enwreathe the heads of youth and maiden, and their faces shine as if transfigured. The joyous welcoming voices come nearer—one can almost understand what they say! Jean and Angelica float together, buoyed safely by the current, out into the river. ”

“ Those were very busy, happy days for Harriet, probably the days she had in mind when she wrote in “Oldtown Folks”: “Certainly of all the days that I look back upon, this Academy life in Cloudland was the most perfectly happy.... It was happy because we were in the first flush of belief in ourselves and in life. Oh, that first belief! those incredible first visions! when all things look possible, and one believes in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and sees enchanted palaces in the sunset clouds! ”

“ We cannot say that we have an ideal unless we contrive a plan to express that ideal. Something luminous and startling may glow before our eyes and flatter our self-conceit with a hope that seems like a resolution. But without a definite plan, the glow soon vanishes and we are no better for having had it. In fact we are worse. It is a real injury to our soul development to entertain an unfounded ideal and then allow it to fade away before we concentrate it into purpose; for we have deceived ourselves and we have weakened our will. ”

“ Jean—Yes, this is how it is. Listen, dear! You know the shadows of the swinging lamp as they reflect on the water and then back on the glass above, make just such strange pictures. We have often watched them together. Don’t you remember, dear, once when—
Angelica—But the trap was open and above I saw a sheet of jewel like my ring when I hold it up to the candle, and at the side I saw a wall but clearer and brighter than any wall in all The Darker Realm. It fairly glistened. Tell me, have you never seen such a vision in all your life?
Jean—No, dear Angelica. ”

“ It was liberty itself—the revolt against tyranny in every realm of life—that interested him from the first. Lafayette was against whatever stood for tyranny, against whatever appeared to be an institution that could foster despotism. He believed that the well-being of society would be advanced by giving the utmost freedom to all, high and low, educated and uneducated. He saw a world in chains only waiting for some hero to come along and strike off the fetters. ”