The Project Gutenberg EBook of Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Title: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe

Last Updated: January 3, 2009
Posting Date: January 13, 2006 [EBook #203]
Release Date: January, 1995

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCLE TOM'S CABIN ***

Produced by Judith Boss, An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

or

Life among the Lowly

By Harriet Beecher Stowe

VOLUME I

CHAPTER I

In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity

Late in the afternoon of a chilly day in February, two gentlemen were
sitting alone over their wine, in a well-furnished dining parlor, in
the town of P----, in Kentucky. There were no servants present, and the
gentlemen, with chairs closely approaching, seemed to be discussing some
subject with great earnestness.

For convenience sake, we have said, hitherto, two _gentlemen_. One of
the parties, however, when critically examined, did not seem, strictly
speaking, to come under the species. He was a short, thick-set man,
with coarse, commonplace features, and that swaggering air of pretension
which marks a low man who is trying to elbow his way upward in the
world. He was much over-dressed, in a gaudy vest of many colors, a blue
neckerchief, bedropped gayly with yellow spots, and arranged with a
flaunting tie, quite in keeping with the general air of the man. His
hands, large and coarse, were plentifully bedecked with rings; and he
wore a heavy gold watch-chain, with a bundle of seals of portentous
size, and a great variety of colors, attached to it,--which, in the
ardor of conversation, he was in the habit of flourishing and jingling
with evident satisfaction. His conversation was in free and easy
defiance of Murray's Grammar,* and was garnished at convenient intervals
with various profane expressions, which not even the desire to be
graphic in our account shall induce us to transcribe.

* English Grammar (1795), by Lindley Murray (1745-1826), the
most authoritative American grammarian of his day.

His companion, Mr. Shelby, had the appearance of a gentl