My country again! Mr. Wilson, you have a country; but what country have I, or any one like me, born of slave mothers? What laws are there for us? We don't make them, — we don't consent to them, — we have nothing to do with them; all they do for us is to crush us, and keep us down. Haven't I heard your Fourth-of-July speeches? Don't you tell us all, once a year, that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed? Can't a fellow think, that hears such things? Can't he put this and that together, and see what it comes to?
American abolitionist and author (1811–1896)
Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe (14 June 1811 – 1 July 1896) was an American abolitionist and writer, most famous as the author of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Birth Name:
Elizabeth Harriet Beecher
Native Name:
Harriet Beecher
Alternative Names:
Christopher Crowfield
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Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe
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Enrieta Elizabeth Beecher Stowe
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Harriet Elizabeth Beecher
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Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe
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Harriet Elizabeth Beecher-Stowe
From Wikidata (CC0)
It is a great mistake to suppose that a woman with no heart will be an easy creditor in the exchange of affection. There is not on earth a more merciless extractor of love from others than a thoroughly selfish woman; and the more unlovely she grows, the more jealously and scrupulously she extracts love, to the uttermost farthing.
Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were sitting alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in the town of P — — , in Kentucky. There were no servants present, and the gentlemen, with chairs closely approaching, seemed to be discussing some subject with great earnestness.
If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning, — if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o'clock till morning to make good your escape, — how fast could you walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom, — the little sleepy head on your shoulder, — the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?
Her face was round and rosy, with a healthful downy softness, suggestive of a ripe peach. Her hair, partially silvered by age, was parted smoothly back from a high placed forehead, on which time had written no inscription, except peace on earth, good will to men, and beneath shone a large pair of clear, honest, loving brown eyes; you only needed to look straight into them, to feel that you saw to the bottom of a heart as good and true as ever throbbed in woman's bosom. So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?
Has there ever been a child like Eva? Yes, there have been ; but their names are always on gravestones, and their sweet smiles, their heavenly eyes, their singular words and ways, are among the buried treasures of yearning hearts. In how many families do you hear the legend that all the goodness and graces of the living are nothing to the peculiar charms of one who is not I It is as if Heaven had an especial band of angels, whose office it was to sojourn for a season here, and en dear to them the wayward human heart, that they might bear it upward with them in their homeward flight. When you see that deep, spiritual light in the eye — when the little soul reveals itself in words sweeter and wiser than the ordinary words of children — hope not to retain that child ; for the seal of Heaven is on it, and the light of immortality looks out from its eyes.
If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning, — if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o'clock till morning to make good your escape, — how fast could you walk?