Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Carlyle's laugh and other surprises

Mr. Scudder was born in Boston on October 16, 1838, the son of Charles and Sarah Lathrop (Coit) Scudder, and died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 11, 1902. He was a graduate of Williams College, and after graduation went to New York, where he spent three years as a teacher. It was there that he wrote his first stories for children, entitled “Seven little people and their friends” (New York, 1862). After his father's death he returned to Boston, and thenceforward devoted himself almost wholly to literary pursuits. He prepared the “Life and letters of David Coit Scudder,” his brother, a missionary to India (New York, 1864); edited the “Riverside magazine” for young people during its four years existence (from 1867 to 1870); and published “Dream children” and “Stories from my Attic.” Becoming associated with Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, he edited for them the Atlantic Monthly from 1890 to 1898, preparing for it also that invaluable Index, so important to bibliographers; he also edited the “American Commonwealths” series, and two detached volumes, “American poems” (1879) and “American prose” (1880). He published also the “Bodley books” (8 vols., Boston, 1875 to 1887); “The Dwellers in five Sisters' Court” (1876); “Boston town” (1881); “Life of Noah Webster” (1882); “A History of the ”