--VISIT TO BRUNSWICK AND ORR'S ISLAND.--WRITES "THE
MINISTER'S WOOING" AND "THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND."--MR. WHITTIER'S
COMMENTS.--MR. LOWELL ON THE "MINISTER'S WOOING."--LETTER TO MRS.
STOWE FROM MR. LOWELL.--JOHN RUSKIN ON THE "MINISTER'S WOOING."--A
YEAR OF SADNESS.--LETTER TO LADY BYRON.--LETTER TO HER DAUGHTER.--
DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.
Immediately after Mrs. Stowe's return from England in June, 1857, a
crushing sorrow came upon her in the death of her oldest son, Henry
Ellis, who was drowned while bathing in the Connecticut River at
Hanover, N. H., where he was pursuing his studies as a member of the
Freshman class in Dartmouth College. This melancholy event transpired
the 9th of July, 1857, and the 3d of August Mrs. Stowe wrote to the
Duchess of Sutherland:--
DEAR FRIEND,--Before this reaches you you will have perhaps learned
from other sources of the sad blow which has fallen upon us,--our
darling, our good, beautiful boy, snatched away in the moment of
health and happiness. Alas! could I know that when I parted from my
Henry on English shores that I should never see him more? I returned
to my home, and, amid the jubilee of meeting the rest, was fain to be
satisfied with only a letter from him, saying that his college
examinations were coming on, and he must defer seeing me a week or two
till they were over. I thought then of taking his younger brother and
going up to visit him; but the health of the latter seeming
unfavorably affected by the seacoast air, I turned back with him to a
water-cure establishment.
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