Stowe, with the Duke of Sutherland's kind
regards, 1869.' Should he look into a low oaken case standing in the
hall, he would find there the twenty-six folio volumes of the
'Affectionate and Christian Address of Many Thousands of Women in
Great Britain and Ireland to their Sisters in the United States of
America' pleading the cause of the slave, and signed with over half a
million names, which was delivered to Mrs. Stowe in person at a
notable gathering at Stafford House, in England, in 1853; and with it
similar addresses from the citizens of Leeds, of Glasgow, and
Edinburgh, presented at about the same time. The house, indeed, is a
treasury of such relics, testimonials of reverence and regard,
trophies of renown from many lands, enough to furnish a museum, all of
the highest historic interest and value.... There are relics, too, of
more private sort; for example, a smooth stone of two or three pounds
weight, and a sketch or study of it by Ruskin made at a hotel on Lake
Neuchatel, where he and Mrs. Stowe chanced to meet.... One of her most
prized possessions is a gold chain of ten links, which, on occasion of
the gathering at Stafford House that has been referred to, the Duchess
of Sutherland took from her own arm and clasped upon Mrs. Stowe's,
saying, 'This is the memorial of a chain which we trust will soon be
broken.' On several of the ten links were engraved the great dates in
the annals of emancipation in England; and the hope was expressed that
she would live to add to them other dates of like import in the
progress of liberty this side the Atlantic.
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