Quotes About Higginson

Higginson served until 1864, and recorded his adventures in a book based on a diary he wrote while campaigning in the South, Army Life in a Black Regiment (1870). The book is a classic of Civil War literature.

In her lifetime, Emily Dickinson had been called 'the myth'; when she died, Todd saw her disappear more deeply into her 'mystery'. Higginson introduced her to the public as a nunnish recluse who never thought of publication. He characterised her as 'whimsical', 'wayward', 'uneven' and 'exasperating'. Actually, the blueprint for this character goes back to the poet herself:

how could the guardians of convention in the 1880s lend themselves to originality in a woman who was 'wayward'? Dickinson had not seen fit to follow the advice Higginson, with patient kindliness, had laid out for her over the course of twenty-five years.