are comparatively well known. Her
literary career can hardly be said to have begun until the age of
forty and, if this were the only interest her life had for us, we
could pass hastily over her youth. It will be found however that her
religious development, begun prematurely with her fourth year and
continued without consideration or discretion until at seventeen she
became a chronic invalid, gives a kind of tragic interest to her
earlier years. Her religious education may not have been unique; it
may have been characteristic of much of the religious life of New
England, but girls set at work upon the problems of their souls at the
age of four have seldom attained the distinction of having their
biographies written, so that one can study their history.

Harriet, the second daughter and seventh child of Lyman Beecher and
Roxanna Foote, was born in Litchfield, Conn., June 14, 1811. There
were three Mrs. Lyman Beechers of whom Roxanna Foote was the first.
The Footes were Episcopalians, Harriet, sister of Roxanna, being as
Mrs. Stowe says, "the highest of High Churchwomen who in her private
heart did not consider my father an ordained minister." Roxanna,
perhaps not so high-church, held out for two years against Dr.
Beecher's assaults upon her heart and then consented to become his
wife.

Mrs. Beecher was a refined and cultivated lady who "read all the new
works that were published at that day," numbered painting among her
accomplishments, and whose house "was full of little works of
ingenuity and taste and skill, which had been wrought by her hand:
pictures of birds and flowers, done with minutest skill"; but her
greatest charm was a religious nature full of all gentleness and
sweetness. "In no exigency," says Dr. Beecher, "was she taken by
surprise. She was just there, quiet as an angel above." There seems to
have been but one thing which this saintly woman with an Episcopalian
education could not do to meet the expectations of a Congregational
parish, and that was that "in the weekly female prayer-meeting she
could never lead the devotions"; but from this duty she seems to have
been excused because of her known sensitiveness and timidity.

Mrs. Beecher died when Harriet was in her fourth year, but she left an
indelible impression upon her family. Her "memory met us everywhere,"
says Mrs. Stowe; "when father wished to make an appeal to our hearts
which he knew we could not resist, he spoke of mother." It had been
the