Uncle Tom's Cabin

I am currently reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I am completely enthralled in this book. As I began it I thought "Oh, this is going to be a tough one to get through". It took me a while to get used to the different dialects and vocabulary but once I did I became hooked! I am only 113 pages into it but here are the quotes that I like best so far.

"If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, to-morrow morning, -if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o'clock till morning to make good your escape, -how fast could you walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom, -the little sleepy head on your shoulder, -the small, soft arm trustingly holding on to your neck?" (p.43)

"And oh! mother that reads this, has there never been in your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you like the opening again of a little grave? Ah! happy mother that you are, if it has not been so.

"Mrs. Bird slowly opened the drawer. There were little coats of many a form and pattern, piles of aprons, and rows of small stockings: and even a pair of little shoes, worn and rubbed at the toes, were peeping from the folds of a paper. there was a toy horse and wagon, a top, a ball, -memorials gathered with many a tear and a heart-break! She sat down by the drawer, and, leaning her head on her hands over it, wept till the tears fell through her fingers into the drawer: then suddenly raising her head, she began with nervous haste, selecting the plainest and most substantial articles, and gathering them into a bundle.

"Mama," said one of the boys, gently touching her arm, "are you going to give away those things?"

"My dear boys," she said, softly and earnestly, "if our dear, loving little Henry looks down from heaven, he would be glad to have us do this. I could not find it in my heart to give them away to any common person- to anybody that was happy; but I give them to a mother more heart-broken and sorrowful than I am; and I hope God will send his blessings with them!"

"There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the distressed. Among such was the delicate woman who sits there by the lamp, dropping slow tears, while she prepares the memorials of her own lost one for the outcast wanderer." (P. 75)

"Patience! patience! ye whose hearts swell indignant at wrongs like these. Not one throb of anguish, not one tear of the oppressed, is forgotten by the Man of Sorrows, the Lord of Glory. In his patient, generous bosom he bears the anguish of the world. Bear thou, like him, in patience, and labor in love; for sure as he is God, "the year of his redeemed shall come." (P. 111)

I know, sorry for such a long post! Like I said I am hooked. I wish I had all of the time in the world to read this book, but alas, I have 4 children. Morning comes way to early and sleep is fleeting! If this is a book you have read I would love to hear from you good or bad;)