I do not think it is claiming too much to say that _Uncle Tom's Cabin_
was a fair and truthful panorama of slavery; however that may be, it
opened my eyes as to who and what I was and what my country considered
me; in fact, it gave me my bearing. But there was no shock; I took
the whole revelation in a kind of stoical way. One of the greatest
benefits I derived from reading the book was that I could afterwards
talk frankly with my mother on all the questions which had been
vaguely troubling my mind. As a result, she was entirely freed from
reserve, and often herself brought up the subject, talking of things
directly touching her life and mine and of things which had come down
to her through the "old folks." What she told me interested and even
fascinated me, and, what may seem strange, kindled in me a strong
desire to see the South. She spoke to me quite frankly about herself,
my father, and myself: she, the sewing girl of my father's mother;
he, an impetuous young man home from college; I, the child of this
unsanctioned love. She told me even the principal reason for our
coming north. My father was about to be married to a young lady of
another great Southern family; She did not neglect to add that another
reason for our being in Connecticut was that he intended to give me
an education and make a man of me. In none of her talks did she ever
utter one word of complaint against my father. She always endeavored
to impress upon me how good he had been and still was, and that he was
all to us that custom and the law would allow. She loved him; more,
she worshiped him, and she died firmly believing that he loved her
more than any other woman in the world. Perhaps she was right. Who
knows?

All of these newly awakened ideas and thoughts took the form of a
definite aspiration on the day I graduated from the grammar school.
And what a day that was! The girls in white dresses, with fresh