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

[375] festivities, and usually made some address to the throng of young and old. He also spoke at meetings of the Farmers' Grange. Men who were then boys still remember their delight in these talks from a man who had ‘been in the war,’ who wrote books, and could tell no end of amusing stories. One of these youths, now a college professor, writes of Colonel Higginson:—

The traits that marked his summer life at Dublin specially appealed to me; his sincere recognition of genuine manhood and womanhood in the townsfolk and his detection of a poetic element in even the grim and seemingly sordid side of country life.

Literary work was continued at Dublin and the author's secretary imported for a time each summer, as this plea to his so-called pastor for the loan of a typewriter shows:—

Reverend Sir:—

A virtuous maid has arrived at this house, for whose spiritual welfare I am bound to concern myself. She is to do certain copying for Goodman Hart and myself on that carnal instrument called a typewriter, which I myself eschew, finding it to savor little of the great Scriptural Types which we are bidden to revere.

Now the only typewriting machine yet accessible here is that belonging to your neighbor Goodman Cooke, a species of lay preacher, who offers his