Hon. Horace Mann
Boston March 2nd [1852]
Dear Sir
Some months ago you addressed me a
note for which I was at the time exceedingly grateful
& to which I intended to reply when time should
enable
me to test the advice you were kind enough to send me
To day I have taken my pen from the last
chapter
of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" & I think you will
understand me when I say that I
feel as if I had written some of it almost with my
hearts blood. I look upon it almost as a despairing
appeal to civilized humanity, in the close of it I
think you may trace the result of some of your suggestions.
It has been the most cheering thing about the whole
endeavour to me, that men like you, would feel it
for so deeply has the cause I speak for enwoven itself
with my life, that sympathy for that, seems to me almost
a personal favor.
May I now ask you to favor me with your
advice on another head. It is my wish to present
copies to several distinguished persons in
England
among others T. B. McAuley,
the earl of
Carlysle
whose very sensible remarks on slavery I remember with
pleasure, to Charles Dickens &
lastly to Prince Albert
Were the subject any other I should think this impertinent
& Egotistical
as it is, I have thus settled
it with
if they read it, they must think & feel somewhat
& if they are too busy to read it there is no harm
done & it's no matter at all to me, what they
think. The very oddity of the fact that an
American woman has sent them a book may inspire
some curiosity to see what a native can do & thus
ensure a reading.
Can you give me any advice as to the
best mode of forwarding &c. perhaps your diplo
matic life in
Washington may enable you to
enlighten my rusticity a little on these points
I have just been reading your volume of speeches
It m is with a sad feeling that I think that
things like what are there recorded have been
said there in the legislative bodies &
men have
heard them & gone on just as before
"ceace ye from man"
Were it not for my faith in the Ever living
whose hour is certainly coming I could see no
use in living as it is I have this comfort that
every blow on the right side is telling &
[next?] the
final victory is certain.
My direction is in Brunswick Maine.
Hon Horace Mann
Washington
DC