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

In the midst of these exciting public duties, the youthful delight which Mr. Higginson had found in nature revived. From his journal or ‘ Field Book,’ kept at the time, these extracts are taken:—

I need ask for nothing else when I find myself coming round again into all that old happiness in Nature, which my years of hard labor seemed to have dulled. I verily believe that I am to have it all again. A thousand delicate tendrils seem to be tremulously thrusting forth within me, to bind me to the blissful world once more. What an exchange for the life of a minister—St. Lawrence bound to a gridiron, with every seventh bar redhot . . . .If I could obtain but a slight addition to my certain income, so as to keep a saddle horse, I should have nothing more to ask of the world. . . . I see nothing but war which is now likely to change my life and it may be that war is the last of these public schools which I am destined to go through. But that I shall certainly enter, if I can.

Much of my enjoyment of Nature seems to come from the fact that all animals and even plants are more human to me than they appear to most people. When I come suddenly on a beautiful flower in a lonely place it is like meeting with a rare person there, and I never forget that association. So, birds are kindred and children to me . . . There are outdoor moments so rich, it seems as if a single walk