Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays

He seemed wonderfully gentle and sweet for one who had lived through so much; and confirmed, without bitterness, the report I had heard that he had never fully believed in the National Workshops, which failed under his charge in 1848, but that they were put into his hands by a rival who wished them and him to fail. Everything at the meal was simple, as our hosts lived in honorable poverty after their exile. We sat at table for a while after dinner, and then both sexes withdrew together. Through the open windows we heard the music from a students' dance-garden below, and could catch a glimpse of young girls, dressed modestly enough, and of their partners, dancing with that wonderful grace and agility which is possible only to young Frenchmen. All spheres of French life intermingle so closely that there seemed nothing really incongruous in all this exuberant gayety beneath the windows, while the two veteran radicals — who had very likely taken their share in such amusements while young — were fighting over again their battles of reform. Both now have passed away. Louis Blanc's “Ten years” still finds readers, and some may remember the political papers written a few years later by Talandier for the “International review,” published in Boston.