Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1889 — Singing Among Mark Twain’s Flowers. [ARTICLE]

Singing Among Mark Twain’s Flowers.

I was recently sitting in Mark Twain’s home in Hartford, says a writer in the New York Graphic, waiting for the humorist to return from his daily walk. Suddenly sounds of devotional singing came in through the open window from the direction of the outer conservatory. The singing was low, yet the sad tremor in the voice seemed to give it special carrying power. “You have quite a devotional domestic,” I said to a member of the family who came in shortly afterward. “That is not a domestic who is singing,” was the answer. “Step to this window, look in the conservatory and see for yourself.” I did so. There, sitting alone on one of the rustic benches in the flower house, was a small, elderly lady. Keeping time with the first finger of her. right hand, as if with a baton, she was slightly swaying her frail body as she; sang, softly yet sweetly, Charles Wesley’s hymn, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” and Sarah Flower Adams’ “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” But the singer was not a domestic. It was Harriet Beecher Stowe! There sat the once brilliant authoress like a child crooning a favorite air.