Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Enough has no doubt reached you, through the New York papers, of the affair in which I figured there, to make you anxious to hear from me about them. ... The best account is that in the “Herald,” which I send, though all the leading New York papers were full of it the next day (Friday). This is, of course, exaggerated in parts (for instance, the majority of the dozen ladies did not wear Bloomer dresses); but the speeches and proceedings are more correct than in any other paper. You see I was the right-hand man of the Temperance meeting, and for me to take up the cause of those ladies was rather a blow. They had come, relying on the hall for the meeting, which was for “Friends of Temperance” ; still they knew there would be opposition, but thought it their right to cooperate, and when Lucy Stone (who came with them) found I was there, she was rejoiced and appealed to me in a way that called out all my chivalry, though I should have done the same, at any rate. Besides, this female society had really worked harder for Temperance than any society in the State, and done much more than the clerical gentlemen who attacked them in the most insulting way. Rather fortunately for us, we kept our tempers (as all admit) so much better than