mood.

Out of the incident Mrs. Stowe evolved the character of "Uncle Tom." One
Sunday morning, as she sat at the communion table, the picture of Tom's
death rose and passed before her mind. "At the same time," writes her
son, "the words of Jesus were sounding in her ears: 'Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto
Me.' It seemed as if the crucified but now risen and glorified Christ
were speaking to her through the poor black man, cut and bleeding under
the blows of the slave whip." Long afterwards some one asked Mrs. Stowe
how she came to write the death of Uncle Tom, and she answered that she
did not write it, that God gave it to her in a vision, that she saw the
overseer flog him to death, and heard his dying words, and merely wrote
down the vision as she saw it. At the time, she had no idea of writing
more: it was a year later when she began the tale of which this incident
became the crisis.

For nearly two years the story ran in the _National Era_, published in
Washington. The book was completed on March 20, 1852, and in spite of
Mrs. Stowe's despondency and apprehension of failure, it sold 3,000
copies the first day, 10,000 in a week, and 300,000 in a year. Save
"Pilgrim's Progress" alone, perhaps no book ever had a wider
circulation, the Bible, of course, and "The Imitation of Christ," by à
Kempis, always excepted. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was translated into German,
French, Italian and Spanish, and later appeared in almost every known
language. Written for the people at large, the book struck a chord of
universal human nature, and aroused the learned as well as the simple.
Soon letters began to pour in from the most distinguished men in foreign
countries. Charles Dickens wrote that he had read "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
with the deepest interest and sympathy. Lord Carlisle sent a message of