Aside from the
fact of Dr. Stowe's being Mrs. Stowe's husband, and for this reason
entitled to notice in any sketch of her life, however meagre, he is
the original of the "visionary boy" in "Oldtown Folks;" and "Oldtown
Fireside Stories" embody the experiences of his childhood and youth
among the grotesque and original characters of his native town.
March 26, 1882, Professor Stowe wrote the following characteristic
letter to Mrs. Lewes:--
MRS. LEWES,--I fully sympathize with you in your disgust with Hume and
the professing mediums generally.
Hume spent his boyhood in my father's native town, among my relatives
and acquaintances, and he was a disagreeable, nasty boy. But he
certainly has qualities which science has not yet explained, and some
of his doings are as real as they are strange. My interest in the
subject of spiritualism arises from the fact of my own experience,
more than sixty years ago, in my early childhood. I then never thought
of questioning the objective reality of all I saw, and supposed that
everybody else had the same experience. Of what this experience was
you may gain some idea from certain passages in "Oldtown Folks."
The same experiences continue yet, but with serious doubts as to the
objectivity of the scenes exhibited. I have noticed that people who
have remarkable and minute answers to prayer, such as Stilling,
Franke, Lavater, are for the most part of this peculiar temperament.
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