[Boston—Monday, 4 November 1867]
Monday Nov. 4. Great meeting of merchants to consolidate the fund as a memorial of Gov. Andrew. J. put down one thousand dollars at once for Ticknor & Fields. It was an eloquent and deeply enthousiastic occasion. The hearts of men burned within them.
I drove out of town with Mrs Stowe to call on Lady Amberley at Mrs Forbes’s—not at home but we had a delightful drive talking busily all the way. Mrs Stowe’s book on the men of the time occupies her mind although her novel is her chief delight; the latter writes itself she says, the former is work. Returning from Milton, called at Mrs Chapman’s in Chauncy St. who rehearsed some of the experiences of her anti-slavery career when her house was set on fire and then was mobbed. “What a queenly creature” said Mrs Stowe as she waved to us from the door. “Who would think that woman came of old Puritan stock. I knew all about her mother she was a real old Hopkinsian, a grand old woman who lived down at Weymouth talked theology & did her own work.”
I only wish I had time to write out these talks of Mr & Mrs Stowe. Especially the one of last evening when they sat down together and he described his supernatural visions, old days in Natick etc. while she interpolated anecdotes he had forgotten or omitted.
