Harriet Beecher Stowe - The Chimney-Corner

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WRITINGS OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

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Mrs. Stowe's romances are among the most thoughtful, picturesque, and popular works of modern fiction. Indeed, they should hardly be called fictitious; for they treat inimitably, and with unfailing freshness, some of the deepest themes that engage the attention of earnest minds. They paint marvellously truthful pictures of the times, countries, and people to which they relate, and are inspired by a nobility of purpose that lifts them infinitely above the ordinary novel. Yet they are so humorous, so exceedingly ingenious in depicting the ludicrous side of things, that they rank with the most charming stories in English Literature. Her essays, juvenile books, and poems are among the best of their kind, and bear ample proofs of Mrs. Stowe's genius.

AGNES OF SORRENTO. A Romance of Italy. 12mo	$2.00
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. A Story of Maine. 12mo	2.00
UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 12mo	2.00
THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 12mo	2.00
THE MAY-FLOWER, and other Sketches. 12mo	2.00
NINA GORDON (formerly called "Dred"). 12mo	2.00
OLDTOWN FOLKS. 12mo	2.00
SAM LAWSON'S FIRESIDE STORIES. Illustrated. 12mo. Paper	.75
The same. Boards	1.00
HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS. 16mo	1.75
LITTLE FOXES. 16mo	1.75
THE CHIMNEY-CORNER. 16mo	1.75
RELIGIOUS POEMS. Illustrated. Gilt edges. 16mo	2.00
PALMETTO LEAVES. A Volume of Sketches. Illustrated. 16mo	2.00
LADY BYRON VINDICATED. 16mo	1.50
QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE. Illustrated. Small 4to	1.50
LITTLE PUSSY WILLOW. Illustrated. Small 4to	1.50

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For sale by all Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt of price by

JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Publishers,
Cathedral Building, Winthrop Square, Boston.

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THE
CHIMNEY-CORNER.

BY

CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD,

AUTHOR OF "HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS" AND "LITTLE FOXES."

logo

BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.
1877.

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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
TICKNOR AND FIELDS,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co. ,
Cambridge .

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CONTENTS.

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PAGE
I.	What will You do with Her? or, The Woman Question
II.	Woman's Sphere
III.	A Family-Talk on Reconstruction
IV.	Is Woman a Worker?
V.	The Transition
VI.	Bodily Religion: A Sermon on Good Health
VII.	How shall we entertain our Company?
VIII.	How shall we be amused?
IX.	Dress, or who makes the Fashions
X.	What are the Sources of Beauty in Dress
XI.	The Cathedral
XII.	The New Year
XIII.	The Noble Army of Martyrs

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THE CHIMNEY-CORNER.

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I. WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH HER? OR, THE WOMAN QUESTION.

"Well, what will you do with her?" said I to my wife.

My wife had just come down from an interview with a pale, faded-looking young woman in rusty black attire, who had called upon me on the very common supposition that I was an editor of the "Atlantic Monthly."

By the by, this is a mistake that brings me, Christopher Crowfield, many letters that do not belong to me, and which might with equal pertinency be addressed, "To the Man in the Moon." Yet these letters often make my heart ache,they speak so of people who strive and sorrow and want help; and it is hard to be called on in plaintive tones for help which you know it is perfectly impossible for you to give.

For instance, you get a letter in a delicate hand, setting forth the old distress,she is poor, and she has looking to her for support those that are poorer and more helpless than herself: she has tried sewing, but can make little at it; tried teaching, but cannot now get a school,all places being filled, and more than filled; at last has tried literature, and written some little things, of which she sends you a modest specimen, and wants your opinion whether she can gain her living by writing. You run over the articles, and perceive at a glance that there is no kind of hope or use in her trying to do anything at literature; and then you ask yourself, mentally, "What is to be done with her? What can she do?"

Such was the application that had come to me this morning,only, instead of by note, it came, as I have said, in the person of the applicant, a thin, delicate, consumptive-looking being, wearing that rusty mourning which speaks sadly at once of heart-bereavement and material poverty.

My usual course is to turn such cases over to Mrs. Crowfield; and it is to be confessed that this worthy woman spends a large portion of her time, and wears out an extraordinary amount of shoe-leather, in performing the duties of a self-constituted intelligence-office.

Talk of giving money to the poor! what is that, compared to giving sympathy, thought, time, taking their burdens upon you, sharing their perplexities? They who are able to buy off every application at the door of their heart with a five or ten dollar bill are those who free themselves at least expense.

My wife had communicated to our friend, in the gentlest tones and in the blandest manner, that her poor little pieces, however interesting to her own household circle, had nothing in them wherewith to enable her to make her way in the thronged and crowded thoroughfare of letters,that they had no more strength or adaptation to win bread for her than a broken-winged butterfly to draw a plough; and it took some resolution in the background of her tenderness to make the poor applicant entirely certain of this. In cases like this, absolute certainty is the very greatest, the only true kindness.

It was grievous, my wife said, to see the discouraged shade which passed over her thin, tremulous features, when this certainty forced itself upon her. It is hard, when sinking in the waves, to see the frail bush at which the hand clutches uprooted; hard, when alone in the crowded thoroughfare of travel, to have one's last bank-note declared a counterfeit. I knew I should not be able to see her face, under the shade of this disappointment; and so, coward that I was, I turned this trouble, where I have turned so many others, upon my wife.

"Well, what shall we do with her?" said I.

"I really don't know," said my wife, musingly.

"Do you think we could get that school in Taunton for her?"

"Impossible; Mr. Herbert told me he had already twelve applicants for it."

"Couldn't you get her plain sewing? Is she handy with her needle?"

"She has tried that, but it brings on a pain in her side, and cough; and the doctor has told her it will not do for her to confine herself."

"How is her handwriting? Does she write a good hand?"

"Only passable."

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