Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Carlyle's laugh and other surprises, chapter 13, page 167

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19th-Century American

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Table of Contents:

I. Carlyle 's laugh

V. James Fenimore Cooper

VII : Henry David Thoreau

VIII : Emerson 's foot-note person, -- Alcott

X. Charles Eliot Norton

XIV . one of Thackeray 's women

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[167] men qualified to fill that position heartily, through his powerful voice, ready sympathy, and boundless willingness to make himself useful in every direction.

A very characteristic side of the man might always be seen in his letters. The following was written in his own hurried handwriting in recognition of his seventy-seventh birthday :--

April 8, 1899.

Dear Higginson,--Thanks for your card. It awaited me on my return from North Carolina last night.

Three score & ten as you know, has many advantages,--and as yet, I find no drawbacks.

Asa Gray said to me “It is great fun to be 70 years old. You do not have to know everything!”

I see that you can write intelligibly.

I wish I could — But I cannot run a Typewriter more than a Sewing-Machine.

Will the next generation learn to write — any more than learn the alphabet?

With Love to all yours

Truly & always E. E. Hale.

This next letter was called out by the death of Major-General Rufus Saxton, distinguished for his first arming of the freed slaves--

Washington, D. C., Feb. 29, 1908.

Dear Higginson,--I have been reading with the greatest interest your article on Gen. Saxton.

Houghton Mifflin Press. 1909.

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