Men of Our Times; Or, Leading Patriots of the Day: Being narratives of the lives and deeds of statesmen, generals, and orators. Including biographical sketches and anecdotes of Lincoln, Grant, Garrison, Sumner, Chase, Wilson, Greeley, Farragut, Andrew, Colfax, Stanton, Douglass, Buckingham, Sherman, Sheridan, Howard, Phillips and Beecher.Stowe, Harriet Beecher
History
Men of Our Times; Or, Leading Patriots of the Day: Being narratives of the lives and deeds of statesmen, generals, and orators. Including biographical sketches and anecdotes of Lincoln, Grant, Garrison, Sumner, Chase, Wilson, Greeley, Farragut, Andrew, Colfax, Stanton, Douglass, Buckingham, Sherman, Sheridan, Howard, Phillips and Beecher.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
United States -- Biography; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Biography
Mr. Beecher has a firmly knit vigorous physical frame, come down from
back generations of yeomen, renowned for strength, and it stood him in
good service now. In giving an account afterwards, he said, "I had to
speak extempore on subjects the most delicate and difficult as between
our two nations, where even the shading of my words was of importance,
and yet I had to outscream a mob and drown the roar of a multitude. It
was like driving a team of runaway horses and making love to a lady at
the same time."
The printed record of this speech, as it came from England, has
constant parentheses of wild uproars, hootings, howls, cat calls,
clamorous denials and interruptions; but by cheerfulness, perfect
fearless good humor, intense perseverance, and a powerful voice, Mr.
Beecher said all he had to say in spite of the uproar.
Two letters, written about this time, show the state of his mind during
this emergency:
SUNDAY, Oct. 18, 1863. LONDON.
MY DEAR FRIEND:
You know why I have not written you from England. I have been so
full of work that I could not. God has been with me and prospered
me. I have had health, and strength, and courage, and what is of
unspeakably more importance, I have had the sweetest experience of
love to God and to man, of all my life. I have been enabled _to love
our enemies_. All the needless ignorance, the party perversions,
the wilful misrepresentations of many newspapers, the arrogance
and obstinacy too often experienced, and yet more the coolness
of brethren of our faith and order, and the poisoned prejudices
that have been arrayed against me by the propagation of untruths
or distorted reports, have not prevented my having a love for old
England, an appreciation of the good that is here, and a hearty
desire for her whole welfare. This I count a great blessing. God
awakened in my breast a desire to be a full and true Christian
towards England, the moment I put my foot on her shores, and he has
answered the prayers which he inspired. I have spoken at Manchester,
Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Liverpool, and am now in London, preparing
for Exeter Hall, Tuesday next. I have been buoyant and happy. The
streets of Manchester and Liverpool have been filled with placards,
in black and white letters, full of all lies and bitterness, but
they have seemed to me only the tracery of dreams. For hours I
have striven to speak amid interruptions of every kind--yellings,
hootings, cat calls, derisive yells, impertinent and insulting
questions, and every conceivable annoyance--some personal violence.
But God has kept me in perfect peace. I stood in Liverpool and looked
on the demoniac scene, almost without a thought that it was _me_
that was present. It seemed rather like a storm raging in the trees
of the forests, that roared and impeded my progress, but yet had
matters personal or wilful in it, against me. You know, dear friend,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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