Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Last week we had a reading by Mrs. Howe of an essay and poem for Mr. Brooks's benefit (there is a fund raising to send him to Europe). It was unexpectedly pleasing, as she reads very quietly and with beautiful enunciation, and the essay was neither abstruse nor brilliant. There were about sixty persons in Richard Hunt's studio. It was not advertised and they were mostly acquaintances, with dollar tickets. At the end, by Mr. Bancroft's request, she recited her “Battle hymn of the republic,” and it seemed quite a Marseillaise.

We have had a remarkably pleasant household here this summer--three demi-authoresses, as my sister called them, Mrs. L. C. Calhoun, whom I always liked; Mrs. Dodge, who wrote “Hans Brinker,” a fine, generous creature, a widow with a fine boy of thirteen; and Mrs. Louise C. Moulton, of Boston, who writes in “Harper's” a good deal, a person of fine qualities, but rather sad experiences. Then Kate Field and her mother are next door, and they linger, though the rest have gone. Mrs. Calhoun is to marry Mr. Runkle, a young New York lawyer.