Mary Thacher Higginson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson: the story of his life

[24] as officers in the Union army; and the list of those who made their mark includes Henry F. Durant, the founder of Wellesley College. An intimate friend who entered college two years after Wentworth was Levi Thaxter, later the ardent student of Browning and FitzGerald. He did much to guide wisely young Higginson's literary tendencies.

The lifelong friendship between Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Edward Everett Hale also began while they were undergraduates. In some of the former's unpublished notes is this comparison:—

There was a curious parallel in some respects between the life of Edward Everett Hale and my own. He is nearly two years older than myself, graduated at Harvard College two years before me (1839); each of us having the second rank in his class, a time when much more was thought of college rank than now. There were analogies also in physical matters between Hale and myself in some directions which had perhaps a bearing on the later problem of old age. Each of us was six feet tall; each of us combined the love of three studies which are rarely combined—Greek, mathematics, and natural history—and had on this last point the invaluable influence of Dr. Thaddeus William Harris, librarian, botanist, and entomologist. Each of us, therefore, was tempted out of doors, a very desirable temptation to naturally studious boys, and likely to strengthen their constitutions.