"And now, my dear, perhaps the wonder to you, as to me, is how this
momentous crisis in the life of such a wisp of nerve as myself has
been transacted so quietly. My dear, it is a wonder to myself. I am
tranquil, quiet, and happy. I look _only_ on the present, and
leave the future with Him who has hitherto been so kind to me. 'Take
no thought for the morrow' is my motto, and my comfort is to rest on
Him in whose house there are many mansions provided when these
fleeting earthly ones pass away.
"Dear Georgy, naughty girl that I am, it is a month that I have let
the above lie by, because I got into a strain of emotion in it that I
dreaded to return to. Well, so it shall be no longer. In about five
weeks Mr. Stowe and myself start for New England. He sails the first
of May. I am going with him to Boston, New York, and other places, and
shall stop finally at Hartford, whence, as soon as he is gone, it is
my intention to return westward."
This reference to her husband as about to leave her relates to his
sailing for Europe to purchase books for Lane Seminary, and also as a
commissioner appointed by the State of Ohio to investigate the public
school systems of the old world. He had long been convinced that
higher education was impossible in the West without a higher grade of
public schools, and had in 1833 been one of the founders in Cincinnati
of "The College of Teachers," an institution that existed for ten
years, and exerted a widespread influence.
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