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Mississippi valley. And people wondered at the
stranger – reports a native writer – who talked to the
darkies as civilly as to the whites, and with a
Swedish accent so strong that, despite the purity
of her English, Hawthorne could understand only
a fraction of what she said. So when her letters
on America came out in Mary Hewitt’s translation
they were eagerly read by all who "possessed the
slightest curiosity to know the impressions made
on the Swedish novelist by the universal Yankee
nation." Miss Bremer "lays no claim to the character
of a political philosophress or strong-minded woman,"
writes a contemporary, "but with active, perceptive
powers and heart-warm sympathies contemplates the
living phenomena around her, and faithfully sketches
such features as most readily appeal to her interest
and curiosity. Her impressions are given with the most
transparent candor, and if she sometimes unnecessarily
draws aside the veil of private life, it is certainly
not in the spirit of gossip or scandal, but from
excess of love."
The letters were originally written from America, and
most of them "to a beloved sister, who was no longer
on earth" when Fredrika returned to Sweden. They
were not at first intended for publication; but the
subsequent opening and rereading of them by the author
"reanimated" her,
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