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. . . There comes over me at times a strange wonder whether greater and better persons in times past have taken their life as quietly while it was contemporary, and forgotten all the hubbubs in the little events of every day. . . . No affairs in which I was ever engaged have excited me so much as it would have excited me to hear the thing well told in story or history.
I can understand the client who cried when his lawyer told the tale of his wrongs— “he never knew how much he had suffered before.”
A newspaper of the time says:—
He [Mr. Butman] awards praise to those who defended him after the storm had been roused, especially Mr. Higginson. . . . Some of the crowd did not distinguish in their attacks between Mr. Butman and Mr. Higginson.
The latter gentleman received a considerable share of the missiles, and one large stone was thrown into the carriage, narrowly missing his head.
Miss Higginson wrote an anxious letter of inquiry to her brother, expressing his mother's disapproval of the whole affair, but concluding, ‘It is evident you are going to be a real knight-errant, always on hand.’
Several years later,
Mr. Higginson wrote to a friend, ‘Did you ever see an extravaganza of a novel, “
Harrington,” of which I was said to be the highly melodramatic hero—though I never knew the author—and which certainly worked up some scenes ’
