The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-03-22
A KANSAN AT HARVARD.
Col, T. W. Higginson Tells About
London and Paris Authors

Boston, March 22.-Col. Thomas Went
worth Higginson entertained the Harvard
Graduate club Saturday evening in the
Colonial clubhouse, Cambridge, with an
anecdotal address on Literary society in
London and Paris in 1878 His remarks
were based chiefly on personal interviews
with some of the noted authors in those
cities.
After meeting Froude, the historian and
finding that he did not care 1T all to talk
about his book. the Nemesis of Faith"
which has impressed Col. Higginson
strongly. the speaker met Carlyle.
found him to be, said the colonel, a tall.
gaunt man in a suit of Holland gray or
what that name implies, with shaggy,
overhanging brows and strong Scotch
speech and manner. His manner was al
most uncouth but he had the heartiest,
most resounding laugh 1 have ever heard.
No one who spent an hour in his COM
pany could help carrying away kindly
feeling. Col. Higginson then went to the
house of Darwin, and found him to be
tall. long-legged man in a shawl He was
kindly and genial, and his nature was sim
Browning struck the speaker a 5 a man
who seemed to judge people chiefly by
the opinion they had of his poems. He
was. as Mary Anderson put it in her
memoirs, like one of our agreeable
southern gentlemen" One could hardly
find greater contrast than that between
Browning and Tennyson. Col Higginson
journeyed to Tennyson's home on the Isle
of Wight, and found him to be the most
un-English looking man, somewhat like
a bandit in appearance-not well groomad.
not well tubbed, high-shouldered and with
keen. brilliant eyes. He was noticeable
but apparently neglected figure. I learn
ed later said the colonel, that Mrs
TennysOn was away for two or three
days" Tennyson was sensitive with re-
You Americans he said. have not
treated me WE'LL He was manifestly a
man of delicately accurate observation.
the colonel learned during a stroll
through his garden.
In Paris, the speaker attended a meet
ing of the people to celebrate the centen-
ial of Voltaire, and saw Victor Hugo
come on the platform TO deliver one of his
audience applauded his entrance wildly,
but only with hand clapping, which Seems
ed 10 be somewhat musical When hugo
was on a long sentence, working up
climax, there was reverent silence. The
people hung on his words.
Louis Blanc, the colonel returned to Eng
land, and met Du Maurier, who borrowed
he said, most of his "Trilby'' from
French authors. Du Maurier seemed to
be man who was constantly bored. He
received the colonel kindly, and in the
why he always drew his faces of women
to represent beauty. Du Maurier replied
that the public preferred to have them
He said that he got most of his bright
children'S sayings by observing his own
children, but that they were growing old.
and he was obliged to listen to other
children. The colonel suggested that Du
Maurier present a notebook to any lady
whom his children visited and request
her TO take down their hest savings TIRES
months later the colonel was in Switzer-
land and was surprised one day to find
in Punch a reproduction of the anecdote,
illustrated with a drawing representing Il
pudgy English mother, three pudgy
mother was asking the governess to take
a notebook in which the sayings of the
children We're to be recorded; and the
lack of intelligence