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was greeted with a prolonged burst of enthusiasm which was almost overpowering.
He wrote in his diary, June 26:—
Received degree of Ll.D. somewhat tardily, but glad of delay for the sake of the roar of applause from the audience (beginning with the young men) which greeted it. It was wholly a surprise to me and was something to have lived for.
The secret of
Colonel Higginson's popularity was the overflowing fountain of sympathy which pulsed in his veins.
Lowell's lines might have been written about him:—
[He] doeth little kindnesses
Which most leave undone, or despise.
One of these was his invariable habit of writing to young authors whose work had pleased him. A typical instance of the little thoughtful deeds which always seemed to be second nature to him is given the writer by a Yale professor.
When a lonely and homesick sophomore at
Harvard, he was startled to receive a call from
Colonel Higginson with an invitation to attend an interesting meeting in
Boston, not open to the public.
To this day he does not know how his unexpected visitor discovered him, but he says the incident brought the first real pleasure into his college life.
‘You know,’ one of his early friends, now a wellknown
