Its sudden and amazing success was not confined to
this country. The story ran in three Paris newspapers at once,
was promptly dramatized, and has held the stage in France ever
since. It was placed upon the "Index" in Italy, as being
subversive of established authority. Millions of copies were sold
in Europe, and "Uncle Tom's Cabin," more than any other cause,
held the English working men in sympathy with the North in the
English cotton crisis of our Civil War.
It is easy to see the faults of this masterpiece and impossible
not to recognize its excellencies. "If our art has not scope
enough to include a book of this kind," said Madame George Sand,
"we had better stretch the terms of our art a little." For the
book proved to be, as its author had hoped, a "living dramatic
reality." Topsy, Chloe, Sam and Andy, Miss Ophelia and Legree are
alive. Mrs. St. Clare might have been one of Balzac's indolent,
sensuous women. Uncle Tom himself is a bit too good to be true,
and readers no longer weep over the death of little Eva--nor, for
that matter, over the death of Dickens's little Nell.
Pages:
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257