' I think that few of your
readers can have felt more interest than I have felt in that picture
of an elder generation; for my interest in it has a double root,--one
in my own love for our old-fashioned provincial life, which had its
affinities with a contemporary life, even all across the Atlantic, and
of which I have gathered glimpses in different phases from my father
and mother, with their relations; the other is my experimental
acquaintance with some shades of Calvinistic orthodoxy. I think your
way of presenting the religious convictions which are not your own,
except by the way of indirect fellowship, is a triumph of insight and
true tolerance. . . . Both Mr. Lewes and I are deeply interested in
the indications which the professor gives of his peculiar
psychological experience, and we should feel it a great privilege to
learn much more of it from his lips. It is a rare thing to have such
an opportunity of studying exceptional experience in the testimony of
a truthful and in every way distinguished mind."
"Oldtown Folks" is of interest as being undoubtedly the last of Mrs.
Stowe's works which will outlive the generation for which it was
written. Besides its intrinsic merit as a work of fiction, it has a
certain historic value as being a faithful study of "New England life
and character in that particular time of its history which may be
called the seminal period.
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