Evangeline St. Clare Quotes

“Oh my Eva, whose little hour on earth did so much good...what account have I to give for my long years?”

“Then I mean to call you Uncle Tom, because, you see, I like you,”

“I want to make him happy.”

“Mamma, couldn’t I take care of you one night—just one? I know I shouldn’t make you nervous, and I shouldn’t sleep. I often lie awake nights, thinking—”

“But Eva somehow always seems to put herself on an equality with every creature that comes near her. It’s a strange thing about the child. I never have been able to break her of it. St. Clare, I believe, encourages her in it.”

“Why, you know, papa,” she said, in a whisper, “cousin told me that God wants to have us; and he gives us everything, you know; and it isn’t much to do it, if he wants us to. It isn’t so very tiresome after all.”

“These things sink into my heart, Tom,”

“O, it’s a shame you ever had to go away from them!”

“It’s very important he should write,” said Eva, “because his mistress is going to send down money to redeem him, you know, papa; he told me they told him so.”

″‘Miss Eva has got the St. Clare blood in her, that’s plain. She can speak, for all the world, just like her papa,’ she said, as she passed out of the room.”

“Poor Topsy, why need you steal? You’re going to be taken good care of now. I’m sure I’d rather give you anything of mine, than have you steal it.”

“She can’t teach her mischief; she might teach it to some children, but evil rolls off Eva’s mind like dew off a cabbage-leaf,—not a drop sinks in.”

“I’d sell them, and buy a place in the free states, and take all our people there, and hire teachers, to teach them to read and write.”

“But Uncle Tom said it was an accident, and he never tells what isn’t true.”

“You frighten him into deceiving, if you treat him so.”

“I could love anything, for your sake, dear Cousin; for I really think you are the loveliest creature that I ever saw!”

“At any rate,” she said, “dear Cousin, do love poor Dodo, and be kind to him, for my sake!”

“But her heart yearned with sad tenderness for all that she was to leave behind.”

“She loved her mother because she was so loving a creature, and all the selfishness that she had seen in her only saddened and perplexed her; for she had a child’s implicit trust that her mother could not do wrong.”

“I can’t tell you; but, when I saw those poor creatures on the boat, you know, when you came up and I,—some had lost their mothers, and some their husbands, and some mothers cried for their little children—and when I heard about poor Prue,—oh, wasn’t that dreadful!—and a great many other times, I’ve felt that I would be glad to die, if my dying could stop all this misery. I would die for them, Tom, if I could”

“No, papa,” said Eva, putting it gently away, “don’t deceive yourself!—I am not any better, I know it perfectly well,—and I am going, before long. I am not nervous,—I am not low-spirited. If it were not for you, papa, and my friends, I should be perfectly happy. I want to go,—I long to go!”

“I had rather be in heaven; though, only for my friends’ sake, I would be willing to live. There are a great many things here that make me sad, that seem dreadful to me; I had rather be there; but I don’t want to leave you,—it almost breaks my heart!”

“O, that’s what troubles me, papa. You want me to live so happy, and never to have any pain,—never suffer anything,—not even hear a sad story, when other poor creatures have nothing but pain and sorrow, all their lives;—it seems selfish. I ought to know such things, I ought to feel about them! Such things always sunk into my heart; they went down deep; I’ve thought and thought about them. Papa, isn’t there any way to have all slaves made free?”

“Papa, you are such a good man, and so noble, and kind, and you always have a way of saying things that is so pleasant, couldn’ t you go all round and try to persuade people to do right about this? When I am dead, papa, then you will think of me, and do it for my sake. I would do it, if I could.”

“And promise me, dear father, that Tom shall have his freedom as soon as”—she stopped, and said, in a hesitating tone—“I am gone!”

“But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. Miss Ophelia would love you, if you were good.”

“I love you, because you haven’t had any father, or mother, or friends;—because you’ve been a poor, abused child! I love you, and I want you to be good.”

“Mamma, I think Topsy is different from what she used to be; she’s trying to be a good girl.”

“Why, that any one, who could be a bright angel, and live with angels, should go all down, down down, and nobody help them!—oh dear!”

“I am so happy, Uncle Tom, to think I shall see you in heaven,—for I’m sure I shall;”

“Yes, poor Topsy! to be sure, I will. There—every time you look at that, think that I love you, and wanted you to be a good girl!”

“Well, papa, you can do everything, and are everything to me.”

“Miss Eva, she talks to me. The Lord, he sends his messenger in the soul. I must be thar, Miss Feely; for when that ar blessed child goes into the kingdom, they’ll open the door so wide, we’ll all get a look in at the glory, Miss Feely.”