Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays

[285] his bedside for midnight amusement. I recall with a different kind of pleasure the interest he took in my experience with the colored race, and the faith which he expressed in the negroes. This he afterward stated more fully in a letter to me, which may be found in his published memoirs. It is worth recording that even the incredulous Carlyle had asked eagerly about the colored soldiers, and had drawn the conclusion, of his own accord, that in their case the negroes should be enfranchised. “You could do no less,” he said, “for the men who had stood by you.”

Darwin's house at Beckenham was approached from Orpington station by a delightful drive through lanes, among whose tufted hedges I saw the rare spectacle of two American elms, adding those waving and graceful lines which we their fellow countrymen are apt to miss in England. Within the grounds there were masses of American rhododendrons, which grow so rapidly in England, and these served as a background to flower-beds more gorgeous than our drier climate can usually show.

At my second visit Darwin was full of interest in the Peabody Museum at Yale College, and quoted with approval what Huxley had told him, that there was more to be learned