Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

STORY OF UNCLE TOM

A former paper on Mrs Stowe's remarkable book, presented a little episode, the heroine of which was Eliza, a female slave on the estate of a Mr Shelby in Kentucky. We now turn to the story of Tom himself, whose transfers from hand to hand afford the authoress an opportunity of describing the private life and feelings of slave-owners, and the unwholesome and dangerous condition of society in the south.

Tom, we have hinted, was jet black in colour, trustworthy and valued by his master, who was compelled by necessity to part with him to Haley, a slave-trader. The separation of this honest fellow from his wife Chloe, and his children, was a sad affair; but as Tom was of a hopeful temperament, and under strong religious impressions, he did not repine at the fate he was about to encounter, dreaded as that usually is by persons in his situation. 'In order to appreciate the sufferings of the negroes sold south, it must be remembered that all the instinctive affections of that race are peculiarly strong. Their local attachments are very abiding. They are not naturally daring and enterprising, but home-loving and affectionate. Add to this all the terrors with which ignorance invests the unknown, and add to this, again, that selling to the south is set before the negro from childhood as the last severity of punishment. The threat that terrifies more than whipping or torture of any kind, is the threat of being sent down river.

'A missionary among the fugitives in Canada told us, that many of the fugitives confessed themselves to have escaped from comparatively kind masters, and that they were induced to brave the perils of escape, in almost every case, by the desperate horror with which they regarded being sold south—a doom which was hanging either over themselves or their husbands, their wives or children. This nerves the African, naturally patient, timid, and unenterprising, with heroic courage, and leads him to suffer hunger, cold, pain, the perils of the wilderness, and the more dread penalties of recapture.'

After a simple repast in his rude cabin, Tom prepared to start. Chloe shut and corded his trunk, and getting up, looked gruffly on the trader who was robbing her of her husband; her tears seemingly turned to sparks of fire. Tom rose up meekly to follow his new master, and raised the box on his shoulder. His wife took the baby in her arms, to go with him as far as the wagon, and the children, crying, trailed on behind. 'A crowd of all the old and young hands in the place stood gathered around it, to bid farewell to their old associate. Tom had been looked up to, both as a head-servant and a Christian teacher, by all the place, and there was much honest sympathy and grief about him, particularly among the women. Haley whipped up the horse, and with a steady, mournful look, fixed to the last on the old place, Tom was whirled away. Mr Shelby at this time was not at home. He had sold Tom under the spur of a driving necessity, to get out of the power of a man he dreaded; and his first feeling, after the consummation of the bargain, had been that of relief. But his wife's expostulations awoke his half-slumbering regrets; and Tom's disinterestedness increased the unpleasantness of his feelings. It was in vain that he said to himself, that he had a right to do it, that everybody did it, and that some did it without even the excuse of necessity: he could not satisfy his own feelings; and that he might not witness the unpleasant scenes of the consummation, he had gone on a short business tour up the country, hoping that all would be over before he returned.'

Haley, with his property, reaches the Mississippi; and on that magnificent river, a steam-boat, piled high with bales of cotton from many a plantation, receives the party. 'Partly from confidence inspired by Mr Shelby's representations, and partly from the remarkably inoffensive and quiet character of the man, Tom had insensibly won his way far into the confidence even of such a man as Haley. At first, he had watched him narrowly through the day, and never allowed him to sleep at night unfettered; but the uncomplaining patience and apparent contentment of Tom's manner, led him gradually to discontinue these restraints; and for some time Tom had enjoyed a sort of parole of honour, being permitted to come and go freely where he pleased on the boat. Ever quiet and obliging, and more than ready to lend a hand in every emergency which occurred among the workmen below, he had won the good opinion of all the hands, and spent many hours in helping them with as hearty a good-will as ever he worked on a Kentucky farm. When there seemed to be nothing for him to do, he would climb to a nook among the cotton-bales of the upper deck, and busy himself in studying over his Bible—and it is there we see him now. For a hundred or more miles above New Orleans, the river is higher than the surrounding country, and rolls its tremendous volume between massive levees twenty feet in height. The traveller from the deck of the steamer, as from some floating castle-top, overlooks the whole country for miles and miles around. Tom, therefore, had spread out full before him, in plantation after plantation, a map of the life to which he was approaching. He saw the distant slaves at their toil; he saw afar their villages of huts gleaming out in long rows on many a plantation, distant from the stately mansions and pleasure-grounds of the master; and as the moving picture passed on, his poor foolish heart would be turning backward to the Kentucky farm, with its old shadowy beeches, to the master's house, with its wide, cool halls, and near by the little cabin, overgrown with the multiflora and bignonia. There he seemed to see familiar faces of comrades who had grown up with him from infancy: he saw his busy wife, bustling in her preparations for his evening meals; he heard the merry laugh of his boys at their play, and the chirrup of the baby at his knee, and then, with a start, all faded; and he saw again the cane-brakes and cypresses of gliding plantations, and heard again the creaking and groaning of the machinery, all telling him too plainly that all that phase of life had gone by for ever.'

An unlooked-for incident raises up a friend. 'Among the passengers on the boat was a young gentleman of fortune and family, resident in New Orleans, who bore the name of St Clare. He had with him a daughter between five and six years of age, together with a lady who seemed to claim relationship to both, and to have the little one especially under her charge. Tom had often caught glimpses of this little girl, for she was one of those busy, tripping creatures, that can be no more contained in one place than a sunbeam or a summer breeze; nor was she one that, once seen, could be easily forgotten. Her form was the perfection of childish beauty, without its usual chubbiness and squareness of outline.'

This angelic little creature was attracted by Tom's appearance; and speaking kindly to him, expressed a hope of serving him, by inducing her papa to become his purchaser. Tom had just thanked the little lady for her intentions, when the boat stopped at a landing-place. At its moving on again, Eva, who leaned imprudently on the railings, fell overboard. Tom was fortunately standing under her as she fell. 'He saw her strike the water and sink, and was after her in a moment. A broad-chested, strong-armed fellow, it was nothing for him to keep afloat in the water till, in a moment or two, the child rose to the surface, and he caught her in his arms, and, swimming with her to the boat-side, handed her up, all dripping, to the grasp of hundreds of hands, which, as if they had all belonged to one man, were stretched eagerly out to receive her. A few moments more, and her father bore her, dripping and senseless, to the ladies' cabin, where, as is usual in cases of the kind, there ensued a very well-meaning and kind-hearted strife among the female occupants generally as to who should do the most things to make a disturbance, and to hinder her recovery in every way possible.'

Next day, as the vessel approached New Orleans, Tom sat on the lower deck, with his arms folded, anxiously from time to time turning his eyes towards a group on the other side of the boat. 'There stood the fair Evangeline, a little paler than the day before, but otherwise exhibiting no traces of the accident which had befallen her. A graceful, elegantly-formed young man stood by her, carelessly leaning one elbow on a bale of cotton, while a large pocket-book lay open before him. It was quite evident, at a glance, that the gentleman was Eva's father. There was the same noble cast of head, the same large blue eyes, the same golden-brown hair; yet the expression was wholly different. In the large, clear blue eyes, though in form and colour exactly similar, there was wanting that misty, dreamy depth of expression; all was clear, bold, and bright, but with a light wholly of this world: the beautifully cut mouth had a proud and somewhat sarcastic expression, while an air of free-and-easy superiority sat not ungracefully in every turn and movement of his fine form. He was listening with a good-humoured, negligent air, half comic, half contemptuous, to Haley, who was very volubly expatiating on the quality of the article for which they were bargaining.

"All the moral and Christian virtues bound in black morocco, complete!" he said, when Haley had finished. "Well, now, my good fellow, what's the damage, as they say in Kentucky; in short, what's to be paid out for this business? How much are you going to cheat me, now? Out with it!"

"Wal," said Haley, "if I should say thirteen hundred dollars for that ar fellow, I shouldn't but just save myself—I shouldn't, now, raily."

"Papa, do buy him! it's no matter what you pay," whispered Eva softly, getting up on a package, and putting her arm around her father's neck. "You have money enough, I know. I want him."'

Tom was purchased, and paid for. 'Come, Eva,' said St Clare, as he stepped across the boat to his newly-acquired property. '"Look up, Tom, and see how you like your new master." Tom looked up. It was not in nature to look into that gay, young, handsome face without a feeling of pleasure; and Tom felt the tears start in his eyes as he said, heartily: "God bless you, mas'r!"

"Well, I hope he will. What's your name? Tom? Quite as likely to do it for your asking as mine, from all accounts. Can you drive horses, Tom?"

"I've been allays used to horses," said Tom.

"Well, I think I shall put you in coachy, on condition that you won't be drunk more than once a week, unless in cases of emergency, Tom."

'Tom looked surprised, and rather hurt, and said: "I never drink, mas'r."

"I've heard that story before, Tom; but then we'll see. It will be a special accommodation to all concerned if you don't. Never mind, my boy," he added good-humouredly, seeing Tom still looked grave; "I don't doubt you mean to do well."

"I sartin do, mas'r," said Tom.

"And you shall have good times," said Eva. "Papa is very good to everybody, only he always will laugh at them."

"Papa is much obliged to you for his recommendation," said St Clare laughing, as he turned on his heel and walked away.'

Augustine St Clare was a wealthy citizen of New Orleans, and possessed a domestic establishment of great extent and elegance, with a body of servants in the condition of slaves, to whom he was an indulgent master. The description of this splendid mansion, with its lounging and wasteful attendants, its indolent, pretty, and capricious lady-mistress, and the account of Ophelia, a shrewd New-England cousin, who managed the household affairs, must be considered the best, or at least the most amusing portion of the work. The authoress also dwells with fondness on the character of the gentle Eva, a child of uncommon talents, but so delicate in health, so ethereal, that while still on earth, she seems already an angel of paradise leading and beckoning to Heaven. Eva was kind to everybody—kind even to Topsy, a negro girl whom St Clare had one day bought out of mere charity, on seeing her cruelly lashed by her former master and mistress. Topsy is a fine picture of a brutalised young negro, who never speaks the truth even by chance, and steals because she cannot help it. Every one gives up Topsy as utterly irreclaimable—all except the gentle Eva. Caught in a fresh act of theft, Topsy is led away by Eva. 'There was a little glass-room at the corner of the veranda, which St Clare used as a sort of reading-room; and Eva and Topsy disappeared into this place.

"What's Eva going about now?" said St Clare; "I mean to see." And advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered the glass-door, and looked in. In a moment, laying his finger on his lips, he made a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia to come and look. There sat the two children on the floor, with their side-faces towards them, Topsy with her usual air of careless drollery and unconcern; but, opposite to her, Eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in her large eyes.

"What does make you so bad, Topsy? Why won't you try and be good? Don't you love anybody, Topsy?"

"Donno nothing 'bout love. I loves candy and sich—that's all," said Topsy.

"But you love your father and mother?"

"Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that, Miss Eva."

"Oh, I know," said Eva sadly; "but hadn't you any brother, or sister, or aunt, or"–

"No, none on 'm—never had nothing nor nobody."

"But, Topsy, if you'd only try to be good, you might"–

"Couldn't never be nothin' but a nigger, if I was ever so good," said Topsy. "If I could be skinned, and come white, I'd try then."

"But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. Miss Ophelia would love you if you were good."

'Topsy gave the short, blunt laugh that was her common mode of expressing incredulity.

"Don't you think so?" said Eva.

"No; she can't bar me, 'cause I'm a nigger!—she'd's soon have a toad touch her. There can't nobody love niggers, and niggers can't do nothin'. I don't care," said Topsy, beginning to whistle.

"O Topsy, poor child, I love you," said Eva, with a sudden burst of feeling, and laying her little thin white hand on Topsy's shoulder—"I love you because you haven't had any father, or mother, or friends—because you've been a poor, abused child! I love you, and I want you to be good. I am very unwell, Topsy, and I think I shan't live a great while; and it really grieves me to have you be so naughty. I wish you would try to be good, for my sake; it's only a little while I shall be with you."

'The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with tears; large bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, and fell on the little white hand. Yes, in that moment a ray of real belief, a ray of heavenly love, had penetrated the darkness of her heathen soul. She laid her head down between her knees, and wept and sobbed; while the beautiful child, bending over her, looked like the picture of some bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner.

"Poor Topsy!" said Eva, "don't you know that Jesus loves all alike? He is just as willing to love you as me. He loves you just as I do, only more, because he is better. He will help you to be good, and you can go to heaven at last, and be an angel for ever, just as much as if you were white. Only think of it, Topsy; you can be one of those spirits bright Uncle Tom sings about."

"O dear Miss Eva!—dear Miss Eva!" said the child, "I will try—I will try! I never did care nothin' about it before."'

By such persuasions, Eva had the happiness to see the beginning of improvement in Topsy, who finally assumed an entirely new character, and attained a respectable position in society.

Eva, after this, declined rapidly. Uncle Tom was much in her room. 'The child suffered much from nervous restlessness, and it was a relief to her to be carried; and it was Tom's greatest delight to carry her little frail form in his arms, resting on a pillow, now up and down her room, now out into the veranda; and when the fresh sea-breezes blew from the lake, and the child felt freshest in the morning, he would sometimes walk with her under the orange-trees in the garden, or, sitting down in some of their old seats, sing to her their favourite old hymns. The desire to do something was not confined to Tom. Every servant in the establishment shewed the same feeling, and in their way did what they could.' At length, the moment of departure of this highly-prized being arrives. 'It is midnight—strange, mystic hour, when the veil between the frail present and the eternal future grows thin—then came the messenger!' St Clare was called, and was up in her room in an instant. 'What was it he saw that made his heart stand still? Why was no word spoken between the two? Thou canst say, who hast seen that same expression on the face dearest to thee—that look, indescribable, hopeless, unmistakable, that says to thee that thy beloved is no longer thine.

'On the face of the child, however, there was no ghastly imprint—only a high and almost sublime expression—the overshadowing presence of spiritual natures, the dawning of immortal life in that childish soul.

'They stood there so still, gazing upon her, that even the ticking of the watch seemed too loud.' Tom arrived with the doctor. The house was aroused—'lights were seen, footsteps heard, anxious faces thronged the veranda, and looked tearfully through the glass doors; but St Clare heard and said nothing; he saw only that look on the face of the little sleeper.

"Oh, if she would only wake, and speak once more!" he said; and, stooping over her, lie spoke in her ear: "Eva, darling!"

'The large blue eyes unclosed—a smile passed over her face; she tried to raise her head, and to speak.

"Do you know me, Eva?"

"Dear papa," said the child with a last effort, throwing her arms about his neck. In a moment, they dropped again; and as St Clare raised his head, he saw a spasm of mortal agony pass over the face: she struggled for breath, and threw up her little hands.

"O God, this is dreadful!" he said, turning away in agony, and wringing Tom's hand, scarce conscious what he was doing. "O Tom, my boy, it is killing me!"

'The child lay panting on her pillows, as one exhausted; the large clear eyes rolled up and fixed. Ah, what said those eyes that spoke so much of heaven? Earth was passed, and earthly pain; but so solemn, so mysterious, was the triumphant brightness of that face, that it checked even the sobs of sorrow. They pressed around her in breathless stillness.

"Eva!" said St Clare gently. She did not hear.

"O Eva, tell us what you see! What is it?" said her father.

'A bright, a glorious smile passed over her face, and she said, brokenly: "O love—joy—peace!" gave one sigh, and passed from death unto life!'

Previous to the death of the dear Eva, she had induced her father to promise to emancipate Tom, and he was taking steps to give this faithful servant his liberty, when a terrible catastrophe occurred. St Clare was suddenly killed in attempting to appease a quarrel in one of the coffee-rooms of New Orleans. His family were plunged into grief and consternation; and by his trustees the whole of the servants in the establishment, Uncle Tom included, were brought to sale in the open market.

'Beneath a splendid dome were men of all nations, moving to and fro over the marble pavé. On every side of the circular area were little tribunes, or stations, for the use of speakers and auctioneers. Two of these, on opposite sides of the area, were now occupied by brilliant and talented gentlemen, enthusiastically forcing up, in English and French commingled, the bids of connoisseurs in their various wares. A third one, on the other side, still unoccupied, was surrounded by a group waiting the moment of sale to begin. And here we may recognise the St Clare servants, awaiting their turn with anxious and dejected faces.

'Tom had been standing wistfully examining the multitude of faces thronging around him for one whom he would wish to call master; and, if you should ever be under the necessity, sir, of selecting out of two hundred men one who was to become your absolute owner and disposer, you would perhaps realise, just as Tom did, how few there were that you would feel at all comfortable in being made over to. Tom saw abundance of men, great, burly, gruff men; little, chirping, dried men; long-favoured, lank, hard men; and every variety of stubbed-looking, common-place men, who pick up their fellow-men as one picks up chips, putting them into the fire or a basket with equal unconcern, according to their convenience; but he saw no St Clare.

'A little before the sale commenced, a short, broad, muscular man, in a checked shirt, considerably open at the bosom, and pantaloons much the worse for dirt and wear, elbowed his way through the crowd, like one who is going actively into a business; and, coming up to the group, began to examine them systematically. From the moment that Tom saw him approaching, he felt an immediate and revolting horror at him, that increased as he came near. He was evidently, though short, of gigantic strength. His round, bullet head, large, light-gray eyes, with their shaggy, sandy eyebrows, and stiff, wiry, sun-burned hair, were rather unprepossessing items, it is to be confessed; his large, coarse mouth was distended with tobacco, the juice of which, from time to time, he ejected from him with great decision and explosive force; his hands were immensely large, hairy, sun-burned, freckled, and very dirty, and garnished with long nails, in a very foul condition. This man proceeded to a very free personal examination of the lot. He seized Tom by the jaw, and pulled open his mouth to inspect his teeth; made him strip up his sleeve to shew his muscle; turned him round, made him jump and spring, to shew his paces.' Almost immediately, Tom was ordered to mount the block. 'Tom stepped upon the block, gave a few anxious looks round; all seemed mingled in a common, indistinct noise—the clatter of the salesman crying off his qualifications in French and English, the quick fire of French and English bids; and almost in a moment came the final thump of the hammer, and the clear ring on the last syllable of the word "dollars," as the auctioneer announced his price, and Tom was made over.—He had a master!

'He was pushed from the block; the short, bullet-headed man, seizing him roughly by the shoulder, pushed him to one side, saying, in a harsh voice: "Stand there, you!"'

By his new and rude master, Tom was forthwith marched off; put on board a vessel for a distant cotton-plantation on Red River; stripped of his decent apparel by his savage owner, and dressed in the meanest habiliments. The treatment of the poor negro was now most revolting. He was wrought hard under a burning sun; half-starved; scourged; loaded with the grossest abuse. All this ends in a rapid decline of health; and his story terminates with an account of his death, his last moments being dignified by a strong sentiment of piety, and of forgiveness towards his inhuman taskmaster.

We have now presented a sufficiently ample abstract of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a work which will undoubtedly be perused at length by all who feel deeply on the subject of negro slavery. Of the authoress, Mrs H. B. Stowe, it may be said, that her chief merit consists in close observation of character, with a forcible and truth-like power of delineation. In plot, supposing her to aim at such a thing, she decidedly fails, and the winding-up of her dramatis personæ is hurried and imperfect. Notwithstanding these defects, however, she has succeeded in rivetting universal attention, while her aims are in the highest degree praiseworthy.

HANDEL IN DUBLIN

If biographers will occasionally make assertions at random, and pass lightly over important events, because their records are not at hand, while they give ample development to others, just because the materials for doing so are more abundant, it is well that there is to be found here and there an industrious littérateur, who will leave no leaf unturned, and no corner unexplored, if he suspects that any error has been committed, or any passage of interest slighted, in the memoirs of a favourite author.

Mr Mainwaring, the earliest biographer of Handel, and, on his authority, a host of subsequent writers, took upon them to assert, without any apparent foundation, that the oratorio of the Messiah was performed in London in the year 1741, previously to Handel's visit to Ireland; but that it met with a cold reception, and this was one cause of his leaving England. Dr Burney, when composing his History of Music, examined all the London newspapers where public amusements were advertised during 1741 and for several previous years, but found no mention whatever of this oratorio. He remembered, too, being a school-boy at Chester when Handel spent a week there, waiting for fair winds to carry him across the Channel, and taking advantage of the delay 'to prove some books that had been hastily transcribed, by trying the choruses which he intended to perform in Ireland.' An amateur band was mustered for him, and the manuscript choruses thus verified were those of the Messiah. In the absence, therefore, of stronger evidence to the contrary, Dr Burney believed that Dublin had the honour of its first performance. An Irish barrister has now proved this, we think, beyond dispute.1 His evidence has been drawn from the newspaper tomes of 1741, preserved in the public libraries of Dublin, confirmed by the records of the cathedrals and some of the charitable institutions, and yet more emphatically from some original letters of this date. He has thus succeeded in doing 'justice to Ireland,' by securing for it, in all time to come, the distinguished place which it is entitled to occupy in the history of this great man. Perhaps we should rather say, he has done justice to England, by clearing it of the imputation of having 'coldly received' a musical production to which immortal fame has since been decreed. While the musical world will thank our author for several new facts particularly interesting to them, the main attraction for general readers will probably be found in the glimpses which this volume affords of a beau monde which has passed away.