Very rare work of compiled and majority original poems and prose works by Elizabeth Richards. Local publication in Worcester and unusual on the market, with an example included in the William B. Cairns Collection of Women Writers at the University of Wisconsin.
Includes a short autobiographical narrative called A Ride with My Father that includes an account of meeting Black Jenny and her son Cato who were fugitive slaves; many poems on social and current themes including orphans, death of the young, the status of women, spiritualism, intemperance and drunkenness, angel spirits, marriage, etc.; and an excellent address entitled The State of Our Country [1848]:
Is there no fear that the iron fetters of the poor trembling slave, will be made to gall yet harder and harder? We have reason to believe that the more than savage whistle will be heard through the deep morasses, and gloomy caves of the earth, by the infernal master to call the blood-hounds together to give fresh fury, and to send then out to seek the footsteps of the poor fugitives, who are fleeing for life from the persecuting whip of the cruel task-master. But we are constrained to enquire, will this be the case if our Congressmen perform their responsibilities? We answer no. They will if they be good men, protect the degraded African, secure him liberties and personal rights. Will the slaver's ship plough the deep waters, in order to kidnap the unsuspecting black, as he is perhaps quietly planting his corn for his little family to eat? We answer with a loud no sir. It is feared by many a philanthropic heart, that the case of the already abused slave will be more dreadful than it has ever yet been, and that civil war will be the climax. It remains with the head men of the Nation to say whether it shall be so or not.
Richards, Elizabeth B. The Heart's Streamlet: Or Buds From Memory's Store House. Worcester. N. Hervey & Co., 1856. 168pp.
A good + copy, bound in cloth, lightly shaken with one signature forward, and moderate foxing.
