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Show 142 NOTES ON is because they are genuine Yankees, th::tt they arc so ha.rd masters: they lw.vc been accustomed to sec men do a day's work -they have Uonc it thcmsclves,-and they cannot unde;stand how the negro can do only a half or o third ~@~ k' I recollect the first time I saw Quashy at wor m the field, 1 was struck with tho lazy, listless man.ner m winch he raised his hoe. It reminded me of the '~orkmg·beam of the engino on the steamboat that I had JUSt landed fromfifteen strokes a minute; but there wa~ tlns ~tfference, that whereas the working-beam kept stoad,Iy at 1t, Quashy, on the controry, would stop obout every fivo strokes and !:an upon his hoe, and look around, apparently congratulatmg himself on the amount of work he had accomphsl~~d. Mrs. Stowe may well call Quashy "shiftless. One of my father's hired men, who was with him seven years, d~d more work in that time than an average negrO" would do m his whole life. Nay, I myself have done more work in a day,-and followed it up too,-than I over saw a negro do; and yet I was considered remarbbly lazy w1th the plough or tho hoe : certainly, I had no great hkmg for 11, for my vocation did not seem to me to lie that way. Perhaps a similar reason was operating on Quashy. NoTE 16.-CnARACTEns O>' TilE WoRK. I have rcmarl<cd in tho Introduction that the life of the work is in its characters. Certainly tho nuthor l1:1s a wonderful power of descriptive portrn.~t-pai~1ting, and where she has an original to sit to her, she mvanably succeeds. She can paint a New England old. maid, or a Kentucky negro, to tlJC life, for she is :1t home among them. Equally s.ucccssful is sl1e in sketcl1ing the Kentucky droYcr, for gcnUI~e specimens of these arc to be seen occasionally on the Ohw UNCJ~E TOM 'S CADIN. 143 sitlc of the ri\'Cr. So, too, with the Quakers : her fa,mily picture 8hows that she l1as been among them; there are l}hinchas ]'letcher's, and pl enty of them too, in every Quuker community, not only of those wLo l1avc married into the society, but such as have been " always born and brought lip" in it. And this must neecss:LI'ily be so. Quakerism is oo unnatural, so contrary to human nJ,turc, not only unregenerate, but regenerate, that you cannot screw men up to it; or if you do, you CJ,nnot keep them screwed: "Naturam cxpcllas furcn, t:tmcn USf[liC rccui'I'Ct." 1tlrs. Stowe understands tl1is, and she makes Simeon Halllday himself more than half acknowledge it. But to proceed with tl~e characters. Senator Din! and his wife is a true sketch, real and life-like. So is ~.rom Loker: I myself lla\'C seen at least ''a dozen of him"-veritable flesh and blood-engaged in quite a different calling, though, from that of negro-catcher. In all these characters, and several ot]10rs that might be mentioned, ?\Irs. Stowe is at home; but when she comes to the Southern gentleman or lady, she is evidently out of her clement. I-Icr idea of the former, we have in .Mr. Shelby, "a well sketched average Kentucky gentleman," as her friend, the London Exa'mincr, calls him: if he is, God help the ,Kentuckians, for they are sadly in need of help! But more of lVIr. Shelby further on: let us turn to our autiwr's idea of ladyship. 'L'his we have in Marie St. Claro! But certainly no lady, not to say, no Southern lady, ever sat for that portmit: not only is it a caricature,-tltat wo might put up with,-but there is in it an essential and inO"raincd vulgarity. For proof of this, sec both volumes pa.ssbn, and particularly vol. ii. pp. 98 ond 148. A lady might be cruel, if it were simple crurlty, and still, possibly, remain within the charmed circle of ladysltip; but any one who could so far forget herself as to usc the longuagc, "You good-for- |