The author's name became at once a cynosure the world over. When
Henry Ward Beecher, the writer's distinguished brother, delivered his
first lecture in England, he was introduced to the audience by the
chairman as the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher Stowe.
The way in which the idea of writing the book came to the author was
significant of the will that produced it. A lady friend wrote Mrs.
Stowe a letter in which she said, "If I could use a pen as you can, I
would write something that would make the whole nation feel what an
accursed thing slavery is." When the letter reached its destination,
and Mrs. Stowe came to the passage above quoted, as the story is told
by a friend who was present, she sprang to her feet, crushed the
letter in her hand in the intensity of her feeling, and with an
expression on her face of the utmost determination, exclaimed, "If I
live, I will write something that will do that thing."
The circumstances under which she executed her great task would
ordinarily be looked upon as altogether prohibitory. She was the wife
of a poor minister and school-teacher. To eke out the family income
she took boarders.
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