English Help Uncle Tom's Cabin
What is the main idea of this passage?

Mrs. Shelby had gone on her visit, and Eliza stood in the verandah, rather dejectedly
looking after the retreating carriage, when a hand was laid on her shoulder. She turned, and
a bright smile lighted up her fine eyes.
“George, is it you? How you frightened me! Well; I am so glad you ‘s come! Missis is gone to
spend the afternoon; so come into my little room, and we’ll have the time all to ourselves.”
Saying this, she drew him into a neat little apartment opening on the verandah, where she
generally sat at her sewing, within call of her mistress.
“How glad I am!—why don’t you smile?—and look at Harry—how he grows.” The boy
stood shyly regarding his father through his curls, holding close to the skirts of his mother’s
dress. “Isn’t he beautiful?” said Eliza, lifting his long curls and kissing him.
“I wish he’d never been born!” said George, bitterly. “I wish I’d never been born myself!”
Surprised and frightened, Eliza sat down, leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder, and
burst into tears.
“There now, Eliza, it’s too bad for me to make you feel so, poor girl!” said he, fondly; ‘it’s
too bad. O, how I wish you never had seen me—you might have been happy!”
“George! George! how can you talk so? What dreadful thing has happened, or is going to
happen? I’m sure we’ve been very happy, till lately.”
“So we have, dear,” said George. Then drawing his child on his knee, he gazed intently on
his glorious dark eyes, and passed his hands through his long curls.
“Just like you, Eliza; and you are the handsomest woman I ever saw, and the best one I ever
wish to see; but, oh, I wish I’d never seen you, nor you me!”
“O, George, how can you!”
“Yes Eliza, it’s all misery, misery, misery! My life is bitter as wormwood; the very life is
burning out of me. I’m a poor, miserable, forlorn drudge; I shall only drag you down with
me, that’s all. What’s the use of our trying to do anything, trying to know anything, trying to
be anything? What’s the use of living? I wish I was dead!”

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