Stowe (1811-96)

Harriet Beecher Stowe "Sojourner Truth The Libyan Sibyl" Atlantic Monthly (XI) April 1863

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)

Instructor's note: In an era of remarkable Americans—Lincoln, John Brown, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Emerson, Poe, etc.—Sojourner Truth was unique, particularly in her work for both women's rights and abolition. Unable to read and write, her remarkable personality endures in transcriptions of her speeches, in her life story, and in sketches by authors like Stowe.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851-2), was invaluable to the abolition movement, but how does her sketch of Truth appear both appreciative and limited? For instance, how much is her portrait a "sentimental stereotype" or "Romantic racism?" What might change if Truth could write for herself?

(None of the above intends to attack Stowe, who did great good in the fight against slavery, but her characterizations of African Americans here and in Uncle Tom's Cabin have been criticized as patronizing or stereotypical, for all their generally good intentions. Historical reading must often accept such limits not only because one gives the benefit of the doubt when other good signs are present but also doing so may help us perceive the limits of our own minds now.)

Wikipedia article on Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth, The Libyan Sibyl

["Libyan" = African; "Sibyl" = prophetess]

[1] Many years ago [1853?], the few readers of radical Abolitionist papers must often have seen the singular name of Sojourner Truth, announced as a frequent speaker at Anti-Slavery meetings, and as travelling on a sort of self-appointed agency through the country. I had myself often remarked the name, but never met the individual. On one occasion, when our house was filled with company, several eminent clergymen being our guests, notice was brought up to me that Sojourner Truth was below, and requested an interview. Knowing nothing of her but her singular name, I went down, prepared to make the interview short, as the pressure of many other engagements demanded.

[2] When I went into the room, a tall spare form arose to meet me. She was evidently a full-blooded African, and though now aged and worn with many hardships, still gave the impression of a physical development which in early youth must have been as fine a specimen of the torrid zone as Cumberworth's celebrated statuette of the Negro Woman at the Fountain. Indeed, she so strongly reminded me of that figure, that when I recall the events of her life, as she narrated them to me, I imagine her as a living, breathing impersonation of that work of art.

[3] I do not recollect ever to have been conversant with any one who had more of that silent and subtle power which we call personal presence than this woman. In the modern Spiritualistic phraseology, she would be described as having a strong sphere. Her tall form, as she rose up before me, is still vivid to my mind. She was dressed in some stout, grayish stuff, neat and clean, though dusty from travel. On her head she wore a bright Madras handkerchief, arranged as a turban, after the manner of her race. She seemed perfectly self-possessed and at her ease,—in fact, there was almost an unconscious superiority, not unmixed with a solemn twinkle of humor, in the odd, composed manner in which she looked down on me. Her whole air had at times a gloomy sort of drollery which impressed one strangely. [sentimental stereotype?]

[4] "So, this is you," she said.

[5] "Yes," I answered.

[6] "Well, honey, de Lord bless ye! I jes' thought I'd like to come an' have a look at ye. You's heerd o' me, I reckon?" she asked.

[7] "Yes, I think I have. You go about lecturing, do you not?"

[8] "Yes, honey, that's what I do. The Lord has made me a sign unto this nation, an' I go round-a-testifyin', an showin' on 'em their sins agin my people."

[9] So saying, she took a seat, and stooping over and crossing her arms on her knees, she looked down on the floor, and appeared to fall into a sort of reverie.

[10] Her great gloomy eyes and her dark face seemed to work with some undercurrent of feeling; she sighed deeply, and occasionally broke out,—

[11] "O Lord! O Lord! Oh, the tears, an' the groans, an' the moans! O Lord!"

[12] I should have said that she was accompanied by a little grandson of ten years,—the fattest, jolliest wooly-headed little specimen of Africa that one can imagine. He was grinning and showing his glistening white teeth in a state of perpetual merriment, and at this moment broke out into an audible giggle, which disturbed the reverie into which his relative was falling. [sentimental stereotyping—cf. Irving's depiction of African Americans in Legend of Sleepy Hollow. In contrast, stereotyping in Stowe's depiction of Truth is minimal, probably owing to her powerful uniqueness or originality.]

[13] She looked at him with an indulgent sadness, and then at me.

[14] "Laws, Ma'am, he don't know nothin' about it,—he don't. Why, I've seen them poor critters, beat an' 'bused an' hunted, brought in all torn,—ears hangin' all in rags, where the dogs been a bitin' of em!"

[15] This set off our little African Puck into another giggle, in which he seemed perfectly convulsed. [Puck = fairy sprite, as in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream]

[16] She surveyed him soberly, without the slightest irritation.

[17] "Well, you may bless the Lord you can laugh; but I tell you, 't wa'n't no laughin' matter."

[18] By this time I thought her manner so original that it might be worth while to call down my friends; and she seemed perfectly well pleased with the idea. An audience was what she wanted,—it mattered not whether high or low, learned or ignorant. She had things to say, and was ready to say them at all times, and to any one.  [As the daughter and sister of preachers, Stowe recognizes Truth as a preacher]

[19] I called down Dr. Beecher [Lyman Beecher, Stowe's father, a famous minister], Professor Allen, and two or three other clergymen, who, together with my husband and family, made a roomful. No princess could have received a drawing room with more composed dignity than Sojourner her audience. She stood among them, calm and erect, as one of her own native palm-trees waving alone in the desert. I presented one after another to her, and at last said,—"Sojourner, this is Dr. Beecher. He is a very celebrated preacher."

[20] "Is he" she said, offering her hand in a condescending manner, and looking down on his white head. "Ye dear lamb, I'm glad to see ye! De Lord bless ye! I love preachers. I'm a kind o' preacher myself."

[21] "You are?" said Dr. Beecher. "Do you preach from the Bible?"

[22] "No, honey, can't preach from de Bible,—can't read a letter."

[23] "Why, Sojourner, what do you preach from, then?"

[24] Her answer was given with a solemn power of voice, peculiar to herself, that hushed every one in the room.

[25] "When I preaches, I has jest one text to preach from, an' I always preaches from this one. My text is, "WHEN I FOUND JESUS."

[26] "Well, you couldn't have a better one," said one of the ministers.

[27] She paid no attention to him, but stood and seemed swelling with her own thoughts, and then began this narration:—

[28] "Well, now, I'll jest have to go back, an' tell ye all about it. Ye see, we was all brought over from Africa, father an' mother an' I, an' a lot more of us; an' we was sold up an' down, an' hither an' yon; an' I can 'member, when I was a little thing, not bigger than this 'ere," pointing to her grandson, "how my ole mammy would sit out o' doors in the evenin', an' look up at the stars an' groan. She'd groan an' groan, an' says I to her,—

[29] "Mammy, what makes you groan so?"

[30] "An' she'd say,—

[31] "Matter enough, chile! I'm groanin' to think o' my poor children: they don't know where I be, an' I don't know where they be; they looks up at the stars, an' I looks up at the stars, but I can't tell where they be. [sublime & Romantic]

[32] "Now,' she said, 'chile, when you're grown up, you may be sold away from your mother an' all your ole friends, an' have great troubles come on ye; an when you has these troubles come on ye, ye jes' go to God, an' He'll help ye."

[33] "An' says I to her,—

[34] "Who is God, anyhow, mammy?"

[35] "An' says she,—

[36] "Why, chile, you jes' look up dar! It's Him that made all dem!"

[37] "Well, I did n't mind much 'bout God in them days. I grew up pretty lively an' strong, an' could row a boat, or ride a horse, or work round, an' do 'most anything.

[38] "At last I got sold away to a real hard massa an' missis. Oh, I tell you, they was hard! 'Peared like I could n't please 'em nohow. An' then I thought o' what my old mammy told me about God; an' I thought I'd got into trouble, sure enough, an' I wanted to find God, an' I heerd some one tell a story about a man that met God on a threshin'-floor, an' I thought, 'Well an' good, I'll have a threshin'-floor, too.' So I went down in the lot, an' I threshed down a place real hard, an' I used to go down there every day, an' pray an' cry with all my might, a-prayin' to the Lord to make my massa an' missis better, but it did n't seem to do no good; an' so says I, one day,—

[39] "O God, I been a-askin' ye, an' askin 'ye, an' askin' ye, for all this long time, to make my massa an' missis better, an' you don't do it, an' what can be the reason? Why, maybe you can't. Well, now, I tell you, I'll make a bargain with you. Ef you'll help me to git away from my massa an' missis, I'll agree to be good; but ef you don't help me, I really don't think I can be. Now,' says I, 'I want to git away; but the trouble's jest here: ef I try to git away in the night, I can't see; an' ef I try to git away in the daytime, they'll see me, an' be after me.'

[40] "Then the Lord said to me, 'Git up two or three hours afore daylight, an' start off.'

[41] "An' says I, 'Thank'ee, Lord! that's a good thought.'

[42] "So up I got, about three o'clock in the mornin', an' I started an' travelled pretty fast, till when the sun rose, I was clear away from our place an' our folks, an' out o' sight. An' then I begun to think I did n't know nothin' where to go. So I kneeled down, and says I—

[43] "'Well, Lord, you've started me out, an' now please to show me where to go."

[44] "Then the Lord made a house appear to me, an' He said, to me that I was to walk on till I saw that house, an' then go in an' ask the people to take me. An' I travelled all day, an' did n't come to the house till late at night' but when I saw it, sure enough, I went in, an' I told the folks that the Lord sent me. An' they was Quakers [early abolitionists], an' real kind they was to me. They jes' took me in, an' did for me as kind as ef I'd been one of 'em; an' after they'd giv me supper, they took me into a room where there was a great, tall, white bed; an' they told me to sleep there. Well, honey, I was kind o' skeered when they left me alone with that great white bed; 'cause I never had been in a bed in my life. It never came into my mind they could mean me to sleep in it. An' so I jes' camped down under it, on the floor, an' then I was slep' pretty well. In the mornin', when they came in, they asked me ef I had n't been asleep; an' I said, 'Yes, I never slep' better.' An' they said, 'Why, you have n't been in the bed!' An' says I, 'Laws, you did n't think o' sech a thing as my sleepin' in dat 'ar' bed, did you? I never heerd o' sech a thing in my life.'

[45] "Well, ye see, honey, I stayed an' lived with 'em. An' now jes' look here" instead o' keepin' my promise an' bein' good, as I told the Lord I would, jest as soon as everything got a-goin' easy, I forget all about God.

[46] "Pretty well don't need no help; an' I gin up prayin.' I lived there two or three years, an' then the slaves in New York were all set free [1827], an' ole massa came to our house to make a visit, an' he asked me ef I did n't want to go back an' see the folks on the ole place. An' I told him I did. So he said, ef I'd jes' git into the wagon with him, he'd carry me over. Well, jest as I was goin' out to git into the wagon, I met God! an' says I, 'O God, I did n't know as you was so great!' An' I turned right round an' come into the house, an' set down in my room; for 't was God all around me. I could feel it burnin', burnin', burnin' all around me, an' goin' through me; an' I saw I was so wicked, it seemed as ef it would burn me up. An' I said, 'O somebody, somebody, stand between God an' me! for it burns me!' [sublime + conversion narrative]

[47] Then, honey, when I said so, I felt as it were somethin' like an amberill (umbrella) that came between me an' the light, an' I felt it was somebody,—somebody that stood between me an' God; an' it felt cool, like a shade; an' sayd I, 'Who's this that stands between me an' God? Is it old Cato?' He was a pious old preacher; but then I seemed to see Cato in the light, an' he was all polluted an' vile, like me; an' I said, "Is it old Sally?' an' then I saw her, an' she seemed jes' so. An' then says I, 'Who is this?' An' then, honey, for a while it was like the sun shinin' in a pail o' water, when it moves up an' down; for I begun to feel 't was somebody that loved me; an' I tried to know him. An' I said, 'I know you! I know you! I know you!'—an' then I said, 'I don't know you! I don't know you! I don't know you!' An' when I said, "I know you, I know you,' the light came; an' when I said, 'I don't know you, I don't know you,' it went, jes' like the sun in a pail o' water. An' finally somethin' spoke out in me an' said, 'This is Jesus!' An' I spoke out with all my might, an' says I, "This is Jesus! Glory be to God! An' then the whole world grew bright, an' the trees they waved an' waved in glory, an' every little bit o' stone on the ground shone like glass; an' I shouted an' said, 'Praise, praise, praise to the Lord!' An' I begun to feel sech a love in my soul as I never felt before,—love to all creatures. An' then, all of a sudden, it stopped, an' I said, 'Dar 's de white folks, that have abused you an' beat you an' abused your people,—think o' them!' But then there came another rush of love through my soul, an' I cried out loud,—'Lord, Lord, I can love even de white folks!' [mystic correspondence]

[48] "Honey, I jes' walked round an' round in a dream. Jesus loved me! I knowed it,—I felt it. Jesus was my Jesus. Jesus would love me always. I didn't dare tell nobody; 't was a great secret. Everything had been got away from me that I ever had; an' I thought that ef I let white folks know about this, maybe they'd get Him away,—so I said, 'I'll keep this close. I won't let any one know.'"

[49] "But, Sojourner, had you never been told about Jesus Christ?"

[50] "No, honey. I had n't heerd no preachin',—been to no meetin'. Nobody had n't told me. I'd kind o' heerd of Jesus, but thought he was like Gineral Lafayette, or some o' them. But one night there was a Methodist meetin' somewhere in our parts, an' I went; an' they got up an' begun for to tell der 'speriences; an' de fust one begun to speak. I started, 'cause he told about Jesus. [Truth's participation in a Methodist "camp meeting" represents a typical evangelical experience in the 2nd Great Awakening]

[51] 'Why,' says I to myself, 'dat man's found him, too!' An' another got up an' spoke, an' I said, 'He's found him, too!' An' finally I said, 'Why, they all know him!' I was so happy! An' then they sung this hymn': (Here Sojourner sang, in a strange, cracked voice, but evidently with all her soul and might, mispronouncing the English, but seeming to derive as much elevation and comfort from bad English as from good):—

'There is a holy city,
A world of light above,
Above the stairs and regions,*    [*starry regions]
Built by the God of love.

"An everlasting temple,
And saints arrayed in white
There serve their great Redeemer
And dwell with him in light.

"The meanest child of glory
Outshines the radiant sun;
But who can speak the splendor
Of Jesus on his throne?

"Is this the man of sorrows
Who stood at Pilate's bar,
Condemned by haughty Herod
And by his men of war?

"He seems a mighty conqueror,
Who spoiled the powers below,
And ransomed many captives
From everlasting woe.

"The hosts of saints around him
Proclaim his work of grace,
The patriarchs and prophets,
And all the godly race,

"Who speak of fiery trials
And tortures on their way;
They came from tribulation
To everlasting day.

"And what shall be my journey,
How long I'll stay below
Or what shall be my trials,
Are not for me to know.

"In every day of trouble
I'll raise my thoughts on high,
I'll think of that bright temple
And crowns above the sky."

[52] I put in this whole hymn, because Sojourner, carried away with her own feelings, sang it from beginning to end with a triumphant energy that held the whole circle around her intently listening. She sang with the strong barbaric accent of the native African, and with those indescribable upward turns and those deep gutturals which give such a wild, peculiar power to the negro singing,—but above all, with such an overwhelming energy of personal appropriation that the hymn seemed to be fused in the furnace of her feelings and come out recrystallized as a production of her own.

[53] It is said that Rachel was wont to chant the "Marseillaise" in a manner that made her seem, for the time, the very spirit and impersonation of the gaunt, wild, hungry, avenging mob which rose against aristocratic oppression; and in like manner, Sojourner, singing this hymn, seemed to impersonate the fervor of Ethiopia [Africa], wild, savage, hunted of all nations, but burning after God in her tropic heart, and stretching her scarred hands towards the glory to be revealed.

[54] "Well, den ye see, after a while I thought I'd go back an' see de folks on de ole place. Well, you know, de law had passed dat de culled folks was all free [New York state ended slavery in the 1820s, app. 1 generation earlier]; an' my old missis, she had a daughter married about dis time who went to live in Alabama,—an' what did she do but give her my son, a boy about de age of dis yer ["this here," i.e., her nephew], for her to take down to Alabama? When I got back to de ole place, they told me about it, an' I went right up to see ole misses, an' says I,—  [Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, published a dozen years earlier, had emphasized how slavery wrecked families (both black and white), thus appealing to "family values"]

[55] "'Missis, have you been an' sent my son away down to Alabama?'

[56] "'Yes, I have,' says she; 'he's gone to live with your young missis.'

[57] "'Oh, Missis,' says I, 'how could you do it?'

[58] "'Poh! says she, 'what a fuss you make about a little nigger! Got more of 'em now than you know what to do with.'

[59] "I tell you, I stretched up. I felt as tall as the world!

[60] "Missis,' sayd I, 'I'll have my son back again!'

[61] "She laughed.

[62] "You will, you nigger? How you goin' to do it? You ha'n't got no money.'

[63] "'No, Misses,—but God has,—an' you'll see He'll help me! -an' I turned round an' went out.

[64] "Oh, but I was angry to have her speak to me so haughty an' so scornful, as ef my chile wasn't worth anything. I said to God, 'O Lord, render unto her double!' It was a dreadful prayer, an' I did n't know how true it would come.

[65] "Well, I did n't rightly know which way to turn; but I went to the Lord, an' I said to Him, 'O Lord, ef I was as rich as you be, an' you were a poor as I be, I'd help you,—you know I would; and, oh, do help me!' An' I felt sure then that He would.

[66] "Well, I talked with people, an' they said I must git the case before a grand jury. So I went into the town where they was holdin' a court, to see ef I could find any grand jury. An' I stood round the court-house, an' when they was a-comin' out, I walked right up to the grandest lookin' one I could see, an' says I to him,—

[67] "Sir, be you a grand jury?'

[68] "An' then he wanted to know why I asked, an' I told him all about it; an' he asked me all sorts of questions, an' finally he says to me,—

[69] "'I think, ef you pay me ten dollars, that I'd agree to git your son for you.' An' sayd he, pointin' to a house over the way, 'You go 'long an' tell your story to the folks in that house, an' I guess they'll give you the money.'

[70] "Well, I went, an' I told them, an' they gave me twenty dollars, an' then I thought to myself, 'Ef ten dollars will git him, twenty dollars will git him sartin.' So I carried it to the man all out, an said,—

[71] "Take it all,—only be sure an' git him.'

[72] "Well, finally they got the boy brought back; an' then they tried to frighten him, an' to make him say that I wasn't his mammy, an' that he didn't know me; but they couldn't make it out. They gave him to me, an' I took him an' carried him home; an' when I came to take off his clothes, there was his poor little back all covered with scars an' hard lumps, where they'd flogged him.

[73] "Well, you see honey, I told you how I prayed the Lord to render unto her double. Well, it came true; for I was up at ole missis' house not long after, an' I heerd 'em readin' a letter to her how her daughter's husband had murdered her,—how he'd thrown her down an' stamped the life out of her, when he was in liquor' an' my ole missis, she giv a screech, an' fell flat on the floor. Then says I, 'O Lord, I did n't mean all that! You took me up too quick.'

[74] "Well, I went in an' tended that poor critter all night. She was out of her mind,—a-cryin', an' callin' for her daughter; an' I held her poor ole head on my arm, an' watched for her as ef she'd been my baby. An' I watched by her, an' took care on her all through her sickness after that, an' she died in my arms, poor thing!"

[75] "Well, Sojourner, did you always go by this name?"

[76] "No, 'deed! My name was Isabella; but when I left the house of bondage, I left everything behind. I wa'n't goin' to keep nothin' of Egypt on me, an' so I went to the Lord an' asked Him to give ma a new name. And the Lord gave me Sojourner [visitor, temporary resident], because I was to travel up an' down the land, showin' the people their sins, an' bein' a sign unto them. Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted another name, 'cause everybody else had two names; and the Lord gave me Truth, because I was to declare the truth to people.

[77] "Ye see some ladies have given me a white satin banner," she said, pulling out of her pocket and unfolding a white banner, printed with many texts, such as, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," and others of like nature. "Well," she said, "I journeys round to camp-meetins, an' wherever folks is, an' I sets up my banner, an' then I sings an' then folks always come up round me, an' then I preaches to 'em. I tells 'em about Jesus, an' I tells 'em about the sins of this people. A great many always comes to hear me; an' they're right good to me, too, an' say they want to hear me agin."

[78] We all thought it likely; and as the company left her, they shook hands with her, and thanked her for her very original sermon; and one of the ministers was overheard to say to another, "There's more of the gospel in that story than in most sermons."

[79] Sojourner stayed several days with us, a welcome guest. Her conversation was so strong, simple, shrewd, and with such a droll flavoring of humor, that the Professor [Allen; see 19] was wont to say of an evening, "Come, I am dull, can't you get Sojourner up here to talk a little?" She would come up into the parlor, and sit among pictures and ornaments, in her simple stuff gown, with her heavy travelling-shoes, the central object of attention both to parents and children, always ready to talk or to sing, and putting into the common flow of conversation the keen edge of some shrewd remark.

[80] "Sojourner, what do you think of Women's Rights?"

[81] "Well, honey, I's ben to der meetins, an' harked [listened] a good deal. Dey wanted me fur to speak. So I got up. Says I,—'Sisters, I a'n't clear what you 'd be after. Ef women want any rights more 'n dey got, why don't dey jes' take 'em an' not be talkin' about it?' Some on 'em came round me, an' asked why I didn't wear Bloomers.* An' I told 'em I had Bloomers* enough when I was in bondage. You see," she said, "dey used to weave what dey called nigger-cloth, an' each one of us got jes' sech a strip, an' had to wear it width-wise. Them that was short got along pretty well, but as for me"—She gave an indescribably droll glance at her long limbs and then at us, added,—"Tell you, I had enough of Bloomers in them days." [*Bloomers were long, baggy women's pants, popularized by Amelia Bloomer in the 1850s for preserving Victorian modesty while allowing women more freedom of movement.]

[82] Sojourner then proceeded to give her view of the relative capacity of the sexes, in her own way.

[83] "S'pose a man's mind holds a quart, an' a woman's don't hold but a pint; ef her pint is full, it's as good as his quart."

[84] Sojourner was fond of singing an extraordinary lyric, commencing,—

"I'm on my way to Canada,     [Canada did not have to observe the U.S.'s Fugitive Slave Law]
That cold, but happy land;
The dire effects of Slavery
I can no longer stand.

O righteous Father,
Do look down on me,
And help me on to Canada,
Where colored folks are free!"

[85] The lyric ran on to state, that, when the fugitive crosses the Canada line,

"The Queen comes down unto the shore,  [Queen Victoria of Great Britain, constitutional monarch of Canada]
With arms extended wide,
To welcome the poor fugitive
Safe onto Freedom's side."

[86] In the truth thus set forth, she seemed to have the most simple faith. But her chief delight was to talk of "glory," and to sing hymns whose burden [theme or refrain] was,—

"O glory, glory, glory.
Won't you come along with me?"

and when left to herself, she would often hum these with great delight, nodding her head.

[87] On one occasion, I remember her sitting at a window singing and fervently keeping time with her head, the little black Puck of a grandson meanwhile amusing himself with ornamenting her red-and-yellow turban with green dandelion-curls, which shook and trembled with her emotions, causing him perfect convulsions of delight.

[88] "Sojourner," said the Professor to her, one day, when he heard her singing, "you seem to be very sure about heaven."

[89] "Well, I be," she answered, triumphantly.

[90] "What makes you so sure there is any heaven?"

[91] "Well, 'cause I got such a hankerin' arter it in here," she said,—giving a thump on her breast with her usual energy.

[92] There was at the time an invalid in the house, and Sojourner, on learning it, felt a mission to go and comfort her. It was curious to see the tall, gaunt, dusky figure stalk up to the bed with such an air of conscious authority, and take on herself the office of consoler with such a mixture of authority and tenderness. She talked as from above,—and at the same time, if a pillow needed changing or any office to be rendered, she did it with a strength and handiness that inspired trust. One felt as if the dark, strange woman were quite able to take up the invalid in her bosom, and bear her as a lamb, both physically and spiritually. There was both power and sweetness in that great warm soul and that vigorous frame. [sublime?]

[93] At length, Sojourner, true to her name, departed. [sojourner = visitor, guest] She had her mission elsewhere. Where now she is I know not; but she left deep memories behind her.

[94] To these recollections of my own I will add one more anecdote, related by Wendell Phillips [leading antebellum Abolitionist].

[95] Speaking of the power of Rachel to move and bear down a whole audience by a few simple words, he said he never knew but one other human being that had that power, and that other was Sojourner Truth. He related a scene of which he was witness. It was at a crowded public meeting in Faneuil Hall [historic meeting hall in Boston], where Frederick Douglass was one of the chief speakers. Douglass had been describing the wrongs of the black race, and as he proceeded, he grew more and more excited, and finally ended by saying that they had no hope of justice from the whites, no possible hope except in their own right to arms. It must come to blood; they must fight for themselves, and redeem themselves, or it would never be done.

[96] Sojourner was sitting, tall and dark, on the very front seat, facing the platform; and in the hush of deep feeling, after Douglass sat down, she spoke out in her deep, peculiar voice, heard all over the house,—

[97] "Frederick, is God dead!"

[98] The effect was perfectly electrical, and thrilled through the whole house, changing as by a flash the whole feeling of the audience. Not another word she said or needed to say; it was enough.

[99] It is with a sad feeling that one contemplates noble minds and bodies, nobly and grandly formed human beings, that have come to us cramped, scarred, maimed, out of the prison-house of bondage. One longs to know what such beings might have become, if suffered to unfold and expand under the kindly developing influences of education.

[100] It is the theory of some writers, that to the African is reserved, in the later and palmier days of the earth, the full and harmonious development of the religious element in man. The African seems to seize on the tropical fervor and luxuriance of Scripture imagery as something native; he appears to feel himself to be of the same blood with those old burning, simple souls, the patriarchs, prophets, and seers, whose impassioned words seem only grafted as foreign plants on the cooler stock of the Occidental mind. [sentimental stereotype?]

[101] I cannot but think that Sojourner with the same culture might have spoken words as eloquent and undying as those of the African Saint Augustine [St. Augustine of Hippo] or Tertullian [Early Roman-Christian author in Africa]. How grand and queenly a woman she might have been, with her wonderful physical vigor, her great heaving sea of emotion, her power of spiritual conception, her quick penetration, and her boundless energy! We might conceive an African type of woman so largely made and moulded, so much fuller in all the elements of life, physical and spiritual, that the dark hue of the skin should seem only to add an appropriate charm,—as Milton [John Milton, 1608-74, author of Paradise Lost and Il Penseroso] says of his Penseroso, whom he imagines

"Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,              [Memnon = mythological king of Ethiopia, NE African nation]
Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The sea-nymph's."

[102] But though Sojourner Truth has passed away from among us as a wave of the sea, her memory still lives in one of the loftiest and most original works of modern art, the Libyan Sibyl, by Mr. Story [William Wetmore Story (1819-95), American sculptor], which attracted so much attention in the late World's Exhibition. Some years ago, when visiting Rome, I related Sojourner's history to Mr. Story at a breakfast at his house. Already had his mind begun to turn to Egypt in search of a type of art which should represent a larger and more vigorous development of nature than the cold elegance of Greek lines. His glorious Cleopatra was then in process of evolution, and his mind was working out the problem of her broadly developed nature, of all that slumbering weight and fulness of passion with which this statue seems charged, as a heavy thunder-cloud is charged with electricity.

William Wetmore Story, The Libyan Sibyl 1861
(Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC)

[103] The history of Sojourner Truth worked in his mind and led him into the deeper recesses of the African nature,—those unexplored depths of being and feeling, mighty and dark as the gigantic depths of tropical forests, mysterious as the hidden rivers and mines of that burning continent whose life-history is yet to be. A few days after, he told me that he had conceived the idea of a statue which he should call the Libyan Sibyl. Two years subsequently, I revisited Rome, and found the gorgeous Cleopatra finished, a thing to marvel at, as the creation of a new style of beauty, a new manner of art. Mr. Story requested me to come and repeat to him the history of Sojourner Truth, saying that the conception had never left him. I did so; and a day or two after, he showed me the clay model of the Libyan Sibyl. I have never seen the marble statue; but am told by those who have, that it was by far the most impressive work of art at the Exhibition.

[104] A notice of the two statues from the London "Athenaeum" must supply a description which I cannot give.

[105] "The Cleopatra and the Sibyl are seated, partly draped, with the characteristic Egyptian gown that gathers about the torso and falls freely around the limbs; the first is covered to the bosom, the second bare to the hips. Queenly Cleopatra rests back against her chair in meditative ease, leaning her cheek against one hand, whose elbow the rail of the seat sustains; the other is outstretched upon her knee, nipping its forefinger upon the thumb thoughtfully, as though some firm, wilful purpose filled her brain, as it seems to set those luxurious features to a smile as if the whole woman 'would.' Upon her head is the coif bearing in front they mystic uraeus, or twining basilisk of sovereignty, while from its sides depend the wide Egyptian lappels, or wings, that fall upon her shoulders. The Sibilla Libica has crossed her knees,—an action universally held amongst the ancients as indicative of reticence or secrecy, and of power to bind. A secret-keeping looking dame she is, in the full-bloom proportions of ripe womanhood, wherein choosing to place his figure the sculptor has deftly gone between the disputed point whether these women were blooming and wise in youth, or deeply furrowed with age and burdened with the knowledge of centuries, as Virgil, Livy, and Gellius say. Good artistic example might be quoted on both sides. Her forward elbow is propped upon one knee; and to keep her secrets closer, for this Libyan woman is the closest of all the Sibyls, she rests her shut mouth upon one closed palm, as if holding the African mystery deep in the brooding brain that looks out through mournful, warning eyes, seen under the wide shade of the strange horned (ammonite) crest, that bears the mystery of the Tetragrammaton upon its upturned front. Over her full bosom, mother of myriads as she was, hangs the same symbol. Her face has a Nubian cast, her hair wavy and plaited, as is meet."

[106] We hope to see the day when copies both of the Cleopatra and the Libyan Sibyl shall adorn the Capitol at Washington.

END