Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginsonwas an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism. He was a member of the Secret Six who supported John Brown. During the Civil War, he served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorized black regiment, from 1862–1864. Following the war, Higginson devoted much of the rest of his life to fighting for...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTheologian
Date of Birth22 December 1823
CountryUnited States of America
There are no days in the whole round year more delicious than those which often come to us in the latter half of April... The sun trembles in his own soft rays... The grass in the meadow seems all to have grown green since yesterday... though there is warmth enough for a sense of luxury, there is coolness enough for exertion.
The most fertile soil does not necessarily produce the most abundant harvest. It is the use we make of our faculties which renders them valuable.
Fields are won by those who believe in the winning.
In our methodical American life, we still recognize some magic in summer. Most persons at least resign themselves to being decently happy in June. They accept June. They compliment its weather. They complain of the earlier months as cold, and so spend them in the city; and they complain of the later months as hot, and so refrigerate themselves on some barren sea-coast. God offers us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls; most men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast the rest away.
But days even earlier than these in April have a charm, — even days that seem raw and rainy.... There is a fascination in walking through these bare early woods, — there is such a pause of preparation, winter's work is so cleanly and thoroughly done. Everything is taken down and put away.... All else is bare, but prophetic: buds everywhere, the whole splendor of the coming summer concentrated in those hard little knobs on every bough...
Noble discontent is the path to heaven.
It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards.
To be really cosmopolitan a man must be at home even in his own country.
The first wild-flower of the year is like land after sea.