The Underground Railroad by William Still (best fiction books of all time txt) 📖

money, from what I heard, to his former master. After all, friend, do we not belong to one of the best branches of the human race? And yet, how have our people been murdered in the South, and their bones scattered at the grave's mouth! Oh, when will we have a government strong enough to make human life safe? Only yesterday I heard of a murder committed on a man for an old grudge of several years' standing. I had visited the place, but had just got away. Last summer a Mr. Luke was hung, and several other men also, I heard."

While surrounded with this state of affairs, an appeal reached her through the columns of the National Standard, setting forth a state of very great suffering and want, especially on the part of the old, blind and decrepit Freedmen of the District of Columbia. After expressing deep pity for these unfortunates, she added: "Please send ten dollars to Josephine Griffing for me for the suffering poor of the District of Columbia. Just send it by mail, and charge to my account."

Many more letters written by Mrs. Harper are before us, containing highly interesting information from Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Maryland, and even poor little Delaware. Through all these States she has traveled and labored extensively, as has been already stated; but our space in this volume will admit of only one more letter:

"I have been traveling the best part of the day.  *  *  *  Can you spare a little time from your book to just take a peep at some of our Alabama people? If you would see some instances of apparent poverty and ignorance that I have seen perhaps you would not wonder very much at the conservative voting in the State. A few days since I was about to pay a woman a dollar and a quarter for some washing in ten cent (currency) notes, when she informed me that she could not count it; she must trust to my honesty—she could count forty cents. Since I left Eufaula I have seen something of plantation life. The first plantation I visited was about five or six miles from Eufaula, and I should think that the improvement in some of the cabins was not very much in advance of what it was in Slavery. The cabins are made with doors, but not, to my recollection, a single window pane or speck of plastering; and yet even in some of those lowly homes I met with hospitality. A room to myself is a luxury that I do not always enjoy. Still I live through it, and find life rather interesting. The people have much to learn. The condition of the women is not very enviable in some cases. They have had some of them a terribly hard time in Slavery, and their subjection has not ceased in freedom.  *  *  *  One man said of some women, that a man must leave them or whip them.  *  *  *  Let me introduce you to another scene: here is a gathering; a large fire is burning out of doors, and here are one or two boys with hats on. Here is a little girl with her bonnet on, and there a little boy moves off and commences to climb a tree. Do you know what the gathering means? It is a school, and the teacher, I believe, is paid from the school fund. He says he is from New Hampshire. That may be. But to look at him and to hear him teach, you would perhaps think him not very lately from the North; at least I do not think he is a model teacher. They have a church; but somehow they have burnt a hole, I understand, in the top, and so I lectured inside, and they gathered around the fire outside. Here is another—what shall I call it?—meeting-place. It is a brush arbor. And what pray is that? Shall I call it an edifice or an improvised meeting-house? Well, it is called a brush arbor. It is a kind of brush house with seats, and a kind of covering made partly, I rather think, of branches of trees, and an humble place for pulpit. I lectured in a place where they seemed to have no other church; but I spoke at a house. In Glenville, a little out-of-the-way place, I spent part of a week. There they have two unfinished churches. One has not a single pane of glass, and the same aperture that admits the light also gives ingress to the air; and the other one, I rather think, is less finished than that. I spoke in one, and then the white people gave me a hall, and quite a number attended.... I am now at Union Springs, where I shall probably room with three women. But amid all this roughing it in the bush, I find a field of work where kindness and hospitality have thrown their sunshine around my way. And Oh what a field of work is here! How much one needs the Spirit of our dear Master to make one's life a living, loving force to help men to higher planes of thought and action. I am giving all my lectures with free admission; but still I get along, and the way has been opening for me almost ever since I have been South. Oh, if some more of our young women would only consecrate their lives to the work of upbuilding the race! Oh, if I could only see our young men and women aiming to build up a future for themselves which would grandly contrast with the past—with its pain, ignorance and low social condition."

It may be well to add that Mrs. Harper's letters from which we have copied were simply private, never intended for publication; and while they bear obvious marks of truthfulness, discrimination and impartiality, it becomes us to say that a more strictly conscientious woman we have never known.

Returning to Philadelphia after many months of hard labor in the South, Mrs. Harper, instead of seeking needed rest and recreation, scarcely allows a day to pass without seeking to aid in the reformation of the outcast and degraded. The earnest advice which she gives on the subject of temperance and moral reforms generally causes some to reflect, even among adults, and induces a number of poor children to attend day and Sabbath-schools. The condition of this class, she feels, appeals loudly for a remedy to respectable and intelligent colored citizens; and whilst not discouraged, she is often quite saddened at the supineness of the better class. During the past summer when it was too warm to labor in the South she spent several months in this field without a farthing's reward. She assisted in organizing a Sabbath-school, and accepted the office of Assistant Superintendent under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association.

Mrs. Harper reads the best magazines and ablest weeklies, as well as more elaborate works, not excepting such authors as De Tocqueville, Mill, Ruskin, Buckle, Guizot, &c. In espousing the cause of the oppressed as a poet and lecturer, had she neglected to fortify her mind in the manner she did, she would have been weighed and found wanting long since. Before friends and foes, the learned and the unlearned, North and South, Mrs. Harper has pleaded the cause of her race in a manner that has commanded the greatest respect; indeed, it is hardly too much to say, that during seventeen years of public labor she has made thousands of speeches without doing herself or people discredit in a single instance, but has accomplished a great deal in the way of removing prejudice. May we not hope that the rising generation at least will take encouragement by her example and find an argument of rare force in favor of mental and moral equality, and above all be awakened to see how prejudices and difficulties may be surmounted by continual struggles, intelligence and a virtuous character?

Fifty thousand copies at least of her four small books have been sold to those who have listened to her eloquent lectures. One of those productions entitled "Moses" has been used to entertain audiences with evening readings in various parts of the country. With what effect may be seen from the two brief notices as follows:

"Mrs. F.E.W. Harper delivered a poem upon 'Moses' in Wilbraham to a large and delighted audience. She is a woman of high moral tone, with superior native powers highly cultivated, and a captivating eloquence that hold her audience in rapt attention from the beginning to the close. She will delight any intelligent audience, and those who wish first-class lecturers cannot do better than to secure her services."—Zion's Herald, Boston.

"Mrs. Frances E.W. Harper read her poem of 'Moses' last evening at Rev. Mr. Harrison's church to a good audience. It deals with the story of the Hebrew Moses from his finding in the wicker basket on the Nile to his death on Mount Nebo and his burial in an unknown grave; following closely the Scripture account. It contains about 700 lines, beginning with blank verse of the common measure, and changing to other measures, but always without rhyme; and is a pathetic and well-sustained piece. Mrs. Harper recited it with good effect, and it was well received. She is a lady of much talent, and always speaks well, particularly when her subject relates to the condition of her own people, in whose welfare, before and since the war, she has taken the deepest interest. As a lecturer Mrs. Harper is more effective than most of those who come before our lyceums; with a natural eloquence that is very moving."—Galesburgh Register, Ill.

Grace Greenwood, in the Independent in noticing a Course of Lectures in which Mrs. Harper spoke (in Philadelphia) pays this tribute to her:

"Next on the course was Mrs Harper, a colored woman; about as colored as some of the Cuban belles I have met with at Saratoga. She has a noble head, this bronze muse; a strong face, with a shadowed glow upon it, indicative of thoughtful fervor, and of a nature most femininely sensitive, but not in the least morbid. Her form is delicate, her hands daintily small. She stands quietly beside her desk, and speaks without notes, with gestures few and fitting. Her manner is marked by dignity and composure. She is never assuming, never theatrical. In the first part of her lecture she was most impressive in her pleading for the race with whom her lot is cast. There was something touching in her attitude as their representative. The woe of two hundred years sighed through her tones. Every glance of her sad eyes was a mournful remonstrance against injustice and wrong. Feeling on her soul, as she must have felt it, the chilling weight of caste, she seemed to say: