Uncle Tom's Cabin
leaves were yellow with age, and began turning it over.
“There,” he said to Miss Ophelia, “this was one of my mother’s
books,—and here is her handwriting,—come and look at it. She copied and
arranged this from Mozart’s Requiem.” Miss Ophelia came accordingly.
“It was something she used to sing often,” said St. Clare. “I think I
can hear her now.”
He struck a few majestic chords, and began singing that grand old Latin
piece, the “Dies Iræ.”
Tom, who was listening in the outer verandah, was drawn by the sound to
the very door, where he stood earnestly. He did not understand the
words, of course; but the music and manner of singing appeared to
affect him strongly, especially when St. Clare sang the more pathetic
parts. Tom would have sympathized more heartily, if he had known the
meaning of the beautiful words:—
“Recordare Jesu pie
Quod sum causa tuær viæ
Ne me perdas, illa die
Quærens me sedisti lassus
Redemisti crucem passus
Tantus labor non sit cassus.”[1]
[1] These lines have been thus rather inadequately translated:
“Think, O Jesus, for what reason
Thou endured’st earth’s spite and treason,
Nor me lose, in that dread season;
Seeking me, thy worn feet hasted,
On the cross thy soul death tasted,
Let not all these toils be wasted.”
[Mrs. Stowe’s note.]
St. Clare threw a deep and pathetic expression into the words; for the
shadowy veil of years seemed drawn away, and he seemed to hear his
mother’s voice leading his. Voice and instrument seemed both living,
and threw out with vivid sympathy those strains which the ethereal
Mozart first conceived as his own dying requiem.
When St. Clare had done singing, he sat leaning his head upon his hand
a few moments, and then began walking up and down the floor.
“What a sublime conception is that of a last judgment!” said he,—“a
righting of all the wrongs of ages!—a solving of all moral problems, by
an unanswerable wisdom! It is, indeed, a wonderful image.”
“It is a fearful one to us,” said Miss Ophelia.
“It ought to be to me, I suppose,” said St. Clare stopping,
thoughtfully. “I was reading to Tom, this afternoon, that chapter in
Matthew that gives an account of it, and I have been quite struck with
it. One should have expected some terrible enormities charged to those
who are excluded from Heaven, as the reason; but no,—they are condemned
for _not_ doing positive good, as if that included every possible
harm.”
“Perhaps,” said Miss Ophelia, “it is impossible for a person who does
no good not to do harm.”
“And what,” said St. Clare, speaking abstractedly, but with deep
feeling, “what shall be said of one whose own heart, whose education,
and the wants of society, have called in vain to some noble purpose;
who has floated on, a dreamy, neutral spectator of the struggles,
agonies, and wrongs of man, when he should have been a worker?”
“I should say,” said Miss Ophelia, “that he ought to repent, and begin
now.”
“Always practical and to the point!” said St. Clare, his face breaking
out into a smile. “You never leave me any time for general reflections,
Cousin; you always bring me short up against the actual present; you
have a kind of eternal _now_, always in your mind.”
“_Now_ is all the time I have anything to do with,” said Miss Ophelia.
“Dear little Eva,—poor child!” said St. Clare, “she had set her little
simple soul on a good work for me.”
It was the first time since Eva’s death that he had ever said as many
words as these to her, and he spoke now evidently repressing very
strong feeling.
“My view of Christianity is such,” he added, “that I think no man can
consistently profess it without throwing the whole weight of his being
against this monstrous system of injustice that lies at the foundation
of all our society; and, if need be, sacrificing himself in the battle.
That is, I mean that _I_ could not be a Christian otherwise, though I
have certainly had intercourse with a great many enlightened and
Christian people who did no such thing; and I confess that the apathy
of religious people on this subject, their want of perception of wrongs
that filled me with horror, have engendered in me more scepticism than
any other thing.”
“If you knew all this,” said Miss Ophelia, “why didn’t you do it?”
“O, because I have had only that kind of benevolence which consists in
lying on a sofa, and cursing the church and clergy for not being
martyrs and confessors. One can see, you know, very easily, how others
ought to be martyrs.”
“Well, are you going to do differently now?” said Miss Ophelia.
“God only knows the future,” said St. Clare. “I am braver than I was,
because I have lost all; and he who has nothing to lose can afford all
risks.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“My duty, I hope, to the poor and lowly, as fast as I find it out,”
said St. Clare, “beginning with my own servants, for whom I have yet
done nothing; and, perhaps, at some future day, it may appear that I
can do something for a whole class; something to save my country from
the disgrace of that false position in which she now stands before all
civilized nations.”
“Do you suppose it possible that a nation ever will voluntarily
emancipate?” said Miss Ophelia.
“I don’t know,” said St. Clare. “This is a day of great deeds. Heroism
and disinterestedness are rising up, here and there, in the earth. The
Hungarian nobles set free millions of serfs, at an immense pecuniary
loss; and, perhaps, among us may be found generous spirits, who do not
estimate honor and justice by dollars and cents.”
“I hardly think so,” said Miss Ophelia.
“But, suppose we should rise up tomorrow and emancipate, who would
educate these millions, and teach them how to use their freedom? They
never would rise to do much among us. The fact is, we are too lazy and
unpractical, ourselves, ever to give them much of an idea of that
industry and energy which is necessary to form them into men. They will
have to go north, where labor is the fashion,—the universal custom; and
tell me, now, is there enough Christian philanthropy, among your
northern states, to bear with the process of their education and
elevation? You send thousands of dollars to foreign missions; but could
you endure to have the heathen sent into your towns and villages, and
give your time, and thoughts, and money, to raise them to the Christian
standard? That’s what I want to know. If we emancipate, are you willing
to educate? How many families, in your town, would take a negro man and
woman, teach them, bear with them, and seek to make them Christians?
How many merchants would take Adolph, if I wanted to make him a clerk;
or mechanics, if I wanted him taught a trade? If I wanted to put Jane
and Rosa to a school, how many schools are there in the northern states
that would take them in? how many families that would board them? and
yet they are as white as many a woman, north or south. You see, Cousin,
I want justice done us. We are in a bad position. We are the more
_obvious_ oppressors of the negro; but the unchristian prejudice of the
north is an oppressor almost equally severe.”
“Well, Cousin, I know it is so,” said Miss Ophelia,—“I know it was so
with me, till I saw that it was my duty to overcome it; but, I trust I
have overcome it; and I know there are many good people at the north,
who in this matter need only to be _taught_ what their duty is, to do
it. It would certainly be a greater self-denial to receive heathen
among us, than to send missionaries to them; but I think we would do
it.”
“_You_ would, I know,” said St. Clare. “I’d like to see anything you
wouldn’t do, if you thought it your duty!”
“Well, I’m not uncommonly good,” said Miss Ophelia. “Others would, if
they saw things as I do. I intend to take Topsy home, when I go. I
suppose our folks will wonder, at first; but I think they will be
brought to see as I do. Besides, I know there are many people at the
north who do exactly what you said.”
“Yes, but they are a minority; and, if we should begin to emancipate to
any extent, we should soon hear from you.”
Miss Ophelia did not reply. There was a pause of some moments; and St.
Clare’s countenance was overcast by a sad, dreamy expression.
“I don’t know what makes me think of my mother so much, tonight,” he
said. “I have a strange kind of feeling, as if she were near me. I keep
thinking of things she used to say. Strange, what brings these past
things so vividly back to us, sometimes!”
St. Clare walked up and down the room for some minutes more, and then
said,
“I believe I’ll go down street, a few moments, and hear the news,
tonight.”
He took his hat, and passed out.
Tom followed him to the passage, out of the court, and asked if he
should attend him.
“No, my boy,” said St. Clare. “I shall be back in an hour.”
Tom sat down in the verandah. It was a beautiful moonlight evening, and
he sat watching the rising and falling spray of the fountain, and
listening to its murmur. Tom thought of his home, and that he should
soon be a free man, and able to return to it at will. He thought how he
should work to buy his wife and boys. He felt the muscles of his brawny
arms with a sort of joy, as he thought they would soon belong to
himself, and how much they could do to work out the freedom of his
family. Then he thought of his noble young master, and, ever second to
that, came the habitual prayer that he had always offered for him; and
then his thoughts passed on to the beautiful Eva, whom he now thought
of among the angels; and he thought till he almost fancied that that
bright face and golden hair were looking upon him, out of the spray of
the fountain. And, so musing, he fell asleep, and dreamed he saw her
coming bounding towards him, just as she used to come, with a wreath of
jessamine in her hair, her cheeks bright, and her eyes radiant with
delight; but, as he looked, she seemed to rise from the ground; her
cheeks wore a paler hue,—her eyes had a deep, divine radiance, a golden
halo seemed around her head,—and she vanished from his sight; and Tom
was awakened by a loud knocking, and a sound of many voices at the
gate.
He hastened to undo it; and, with smothered voices and heavy tread,
came several men, bringing a body, wrapped in a cloak, and lying on a
shutter. The light of the lamp fell full on the face; and Tom gave a
wild cry of amazement and despair, that rung through all the galleries,
as the men advanced, with their burden, to the open parlor door, where
Miss Ophelia still sat knitting.
St. Clare had turned into a cafe, to look over an evening paper. As he
was reading, an affray arose between two gentlemen in the room, who
were both partially intoxicated. St. Clare and one or two others made
an effort to separate them, and St. Clare received a fatal stab in the
side with a bowie-knife, which he was attempting to wrest from one of
them.
The house was full of cries and lamentations, shrieks and screams,
servants frantically tearing their hair, throwing themselves on the
ground, or running distractedly about, lamenting. Tom and Miss Ophelia
alone seemed to have any presence of mind; for Marie was in strong
hysteric convulsions. At Miss Ophelia’s direction, one of the lounges
in the parlor was hastily prepared, and the bleeding form laid upon it.
St. Clare had fainted, through pain and loss of blood; but, as Miss
Ophelia applied restoratives, he revived, opened his eyes, looked
fixedly on them, looked earnestly around the room, his eyes travelling
wistfully over every object, and finally they rested on his mother’s
picture.
The physician now arrived, and made his examination. It was evident,
from the expression of his face, that there was no hope; but he applied
himself to dressing the wound, and he and Miss Ophelia and Tom