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The Life Story
of
Major Henry
Lee Higginson
"Practical Idealism
and the Gift for Friendship"
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Preface
The story
that follows has been adapted primarily from the book The
Life and Letters of Henry Lee Higginson by Bliss
Perry. This book contains Henry Lee Higginson's
reminiscences dictated in 1918 at the age of 84, journal
entries, and correspondence by Higginson and other
writers. In order for you, the reader, to fully
appreciate Mr. Higginson's story, I thought it best to
let him tell as much of it as possible to you. Mr.
Higginson's original words from his reminiscences are
presented in serif type face (Times New Roman) with the exception of text in
brackets [ ] that I have included for
clarification and reference. To fill in portions of the
story where no original words exist, I have written
sections of text in sans serif font (Arial or Helvetica).
Additionally, to add to your appreciation of Mr.
Higginson's story, links to other pages on this site are
provided. These pages contain images and further
information about Higginson and significant persons from
his life.
Part I:
A Search for Self in a World of Music
Days
of Boyhood and Youth
I
was born in...New York City, on the 18th of November
1834, my father and mother being George and Mary [Cabot
Lee] Higginson. In my fourth year we moved to Boston, as
my father, who had been in business with his cousin as a
small commission merchant, failed in the great panic of
1837. Then we lived in a very small house...and father
carried on a very small commission business on India
Wharf in Boston. We lived in the narrowest way, and got
on very well; went into a house a little bit larger in
Bedford Place where I had a pleasant boyhood [with my
older brother George, younger brothers James (Jim) and
Francis (Frank), and sister Mary (Molly)].
My father and mother both worked pretty hard [in a
household that upheld the spirit of patriotism, along
with piousness, bravery, honor, and integrity]. My father
was a very kindly, industrious, sensible man, [a Whig and
Unitarian] with a remarkable "nose" for
character, scrupulously honest, and disinterested to a
high degree. When he was earning very little money, he
passed much of his time and any spare pennies possible in
charitable work. My mother was unusually intelligent and
attractive, as I now know from the various older men and
younger men who used to come to our house and dine....
We used to play on the [Boston] Common [park] or in the
little court in Bedford Place, where we lived, and I kept
up with most of the boys, seeing chiefly the three Paine
boys who lived close by us, and various others, among
them Charles
(Russell) Lowell(, Jr.), who was just my age and as
bright as I was stupid. He and I went everywhere
together, coasted on the Common, skated, cut up all sorts
of pranks; and with him James Savage(, Jr.), who was a year or two
older, but who was with us all the time.
I did fairly well at the [Boston] Latin School [that I
entered in 1846]...but was presently taken away because
of colds and headaches, which came very often and which
interfered with my work. After one year at a private
school, I was sent back to the Latin School, and did much
better. I remember studying hard and getting my lessons
with effort, but still with determination, because it
pleased my mother.... I got two prizes, but I cannot
remember that I ever cared about it myself....
In the year 1849, when I was fifteen years old, my mother
died, in August. She had had tuberculosis for some time,
and it had increased and increased, and nothing could be
done to save her. It was a terrible blow to my father,
and of course very bad for us all, but we lived along and
did the best we could.
[Following my graduation from the Latin School in 1851],
I went to [Harvard] college [that year] with a very good
lot of fellows. After six months...my eyes were too sick
to study and...I was sent to Europe [—a common
prescription for this type of condition during the
time—and placed under the guardianship of Reverend
Eliot of Northampton, Massachusetts who also was staying
overseas].
[On my first trip abroad] I was a very green boy, saw a
few people, and did not know what to do—that is, had
no "shape" at all. In Boston, before going
away, we had been to the Italian opera, getting seats for
twenty-five cents in the upper gallery, and enjoying it
highly. I had an inborn taste for music, which was
nourished by a few concerts in Boston and by the opera.
It was really a great pleasure to us. In London of course
the opera was better and delighted me.
Henry's
fondness of music flourished after attending several
operas in London, England and in Germany. While in
Dresden, the philosophical, analytical, and introspective
young man wrote in a letter to his father at the end of
1852:
...For
amusements I want no money but for music, and that is not
very expensive here: even that I would not indulge in to
the extent I have and shall, did I not try to learn
something by it, did I not consider it as a study in a
measure: indeed I have already learned something and
would know more. My desire has only increased very much
since I've been abroad, and I shall certainly study it
with a master, if I have the eyes, and if not, at least I
can play somewhat, and amuse my otherwise idle hours....
...I know I learn something every day; that I need not
and do not depend on those around me for occupation and
amusement, but that I can always help myself; that my
mind has something to do, to occupy itself with, and that
is a most important thing for everyone. It is an
occupation in itself to watch people and talk with them,
to learn what they think, feel, and do, to study their
national character, and compare it with our own and with
what I know of theirs....
In March
1853, Henry wrote to his father about his progress and
personal growth; condition of his eyes; schooling; the
possibility of leaving Europe to continue his studies at
home, and concerns about selecting a career path:
...I
have striven to understand myself, my own nature,
character, feelings, all as hard, nay harder than for
anything, and if I have not succeeded, it is not my
fault; but I think I have. Since I have left home, it
appears to me I have changed, I have grown older, I have
found my way, and can see more clearly thro' the mist
that envelopes one's youth; I feel more as if I had an
object in life, and consequently happier and better
satisfied with myself....
...I have been waiting some time to tell you what I can
now, that my eyes are decidedly better.... I can study
six hours a day, and today have been writing and
practising with notes seven or more without any suffering
to speak of.... I think it would be well to take
chemistry, physics to a certain degree, perhaps history,
and to continue with music....
...There is one thing, as I before said, that makes me
very, very sorry to leave Europe: the loss of music. I do
think it makes and has made a real and a great change in
me, since I first began with it; and if I continue to
hear and to cultivate it, so will the change go on and
the advantage increase. I do not believe there is
anything more refining than music, no greater or stronger
preservative against evil, and at least for me it has
done much. I am almost thankful that I have had weak
eyes; indeed I am quite so, for it has given me the time
and opportunity to find out how much music is to me, and
it has opened pleasures to me that otherwise would very
possibly have never been discovered. I am afraid to trust
to my feelings within, to my own ideas, or I should study
music for a profession. I know not how one finds that he
has a talent for any one thing without trying: but
everyone has a particular faculty for something, everyone
has a decided turn and talent for a particular branch,
and it is his duty to try to find this out, and to turn
to it. If one may trust what he hears within himself, in
his own heart, and be sure that it is right, I should say
that my talent was for music, and that, if I studied it
properly and persevered, I could bring out something
worth having, worthy of a life thus spent, worthy of a
man, worthy of my mother and of you....
Work
at Home and Continuing Self-Discoveries Abroad
Henry's
reminiscences continue with his return home to Boston:
In
March 1855, my father secured for me a place in the
office of Messrs. Samuel and Edward Austin, India
merchants on India Wharf, and there I served nineteen
months as sole clerk and bookkeeper.... During all this
time I used to go into society a good deal, went to the
parties, made many acquaintances, saw many girls, with
whom I made friends and who added very much to the
happiness of my life. [One day] I...remember saying to
Mr. Edward Austin—who was very bright—something
about future employment. He asked me what I wanted to do,
and I said I did not know; that work on the wharf did not
seem to me to require any mind; that I wanted something
which would use my mind and would give me a chance to
take hold of life more seriously. He muttered: "I
guess when you have some notes to pay, you will find that
your mind is busy enough"; which struck me as true.
[Outside of work] I had seen a great deal of certain
classmates, and a great deal of my friends Stephen (George) Perkins, Charles Lowell, James
Savage, and many others. We had walked and talked
together, discussed all sorts of problems, been deeply
interested in many things—and they had plenty of new
ideas. Charles Lowell and Stephen Perkins were among the
most brilliant men I ever have known—very
thoughtful, and fond of taking up everything and
discussing it from the bottom—not content with the
affairs of this world, being what one now would call real
reformers or radicals, and measuring everything by their
own footrule. The slavery questions were more and more
important at that time, and the question of Kansas came
up. Men were sent to Kansas and Nebraska to keep the
States out of Slavery....
It was a period of ferment for all of us young people. I
was wild about slavery and anti-slavery, did not like the
Abolitionists, could not bear the disgrace to our country
of slavery, believed that we should have sooner or later
a great struggle, and that we should get rid of it in
some way. At that time several fugitive slaves in Boston
were taken and sent back under the Fugitive Slave Act,
which Mr. Webster had helped pass, being merely a
strengthening of a law which had stood for many years....
| Our class
graduated in 1855 and [though I did not graduate
with them, they] let me partake in the
festivities of Class Day and Commencement, for I
had many friends there. After another year of
work in the office on the wharf, I wished much to
go abroad. Charles Lowell had broken down [with a
disease that caused his lungs to bleed] and had
been sent abroad, and I proposed to join him.
Stephen Perkins and Powell Mason were going with
me, and we sailed about the first of November. At
that time I had inherited about $13,000 from an
old uncle who had just died, and I expected to
live on the interest of that. In
November 1856, just before his 22nd birthday,
Henry returned to Europe with Perkins and Mason
where the three were eventually reunited with
Lowell. Nearly a year later, Henry wrote to his
father in September 1857 about his decision to
remain in Vienna, Austria, and explained his
reasons for continuing his studies and practice
of music:
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Henry's class photo of 1855
from Bliss Perry's book,
Life and Letters of Henry Lee Higginson.
Image courtesy of Brian Pohanka. |
...Here one can get good enough,
if not the best, instruction in the theory of music, and
also in instrumental music; and in singing far better
instruction than in any other German city....
As everyone has some particular object of supreme
interest to himself, so I have music. It is almost my
inner world; without it, I miss much, and with it I am
happier and better....
On my return home other studies took up my time so much
that music had to be neglected much against my will. The
same was true when in the store. It is quite true that I
had plenty of spare hours during my apprenticeship, but
it is, in my opinion, very false to suppose that a
knowledge of anything so difficult as music can be
gained, when the best hours of the day and the best
energies of the man are consumed by the acquiring of
another knowledge. Of course men more busily employed
than I was have applied themselves to and conquered great
things in science, in art, etc., etc., but they
are exceptions certainly, and I nothing of the kind. At
any rate, I did not learn anything more of music
during those nineteen months. I felt the want of it
greatly, and was very sorry to give up the thing dearest
to me. When I came out here, I had no plans, as you know.
Trade was not satisfying to the inner man for a
life-occupation. Out here I have consulted, and have
decided to try to learn something of music ex- and
internally, i.e., of playing arid of harmony or
thorough-bass. If I find that I am not profiting at all
by my work, I shall throw it up and go home. If I gain
something, I shall stick to it.
You will ask, "What is to come of it all if
successful?" I do not know. But this is clear. I
have then improved my own powers, which is every man's
duty. I have a resource to which I can always turn with
delight, however the world may go with me. I am much the
stronger, the wider, the wiser, the better for my duties
in life. I can then go with satisfaction to my business,
knowing my resource at the end of the day. It is already
made, and has only to be used and it will grow. Finally,
it is my province in education, and having cultivated
myself in it, I am fully prepared to teach others in it.
Education is the object of man, and it seems to me
the duty of us all to help in it, each according to his
means and in his sphere. I have often wondered how people
could teach this and that, but I understand it now. I
could teach people to sing, as far as I know, with
delight to myself. Thus I have a means of living if other
things should fail. But the pleasure, pure and free from
all disagreeable consequences or afterthoughts, of
playing, and still more of singing myself, is
indescribable. In Rome I took about eight lessons of a
capital master, and I used to enjoy intensely the singing
to his accompaniment my exercises and some little
Neapolitan songs.
My reasons for studying harmony are manifest. I cannot
properly understand music without doing so; moreover, it
is an excellent exercise for the mind. As to writing
music, I have nothing to say; but it is not my
expectation.... I am studying for my own good and
pleasure. And now...I hope you will be able to make
something out of this long letter. You should not have
been troubled with it, but I thought you would prefer to
know all about it. It is only carrying out your own
darling idea of making an imperishable capital in
education. My money may fly away; my knowledge cannot.
One belongs to the world, the other to me.
By October
1857, with the panic of 1857 threatening financial ruin
for businessmen in the states, Henry reconsidered his
plans for remaining overseas with his friends. He offered
to surrender his musical ambitions and return home to
assist his father in the stock brokerage house of Lee,
Higginson and Co., but his father reassured him
otherwise. However, a few months later, a troubling
incident eventually changed the course of the young man's
career plans. Henry's letter to his father, written on
December 1, 1857, brought worrisome news:
When
I last wrote, a fearful headache of three days' duration
was troubling me. I went to the greatest physician here,
Oppolzer, a very renowned man; he was out of town, so I
went to a bleeder, and got rid of 8 ounces of
blood—a tumblerful. He would not take any more tho'
I urged him to do so. In fifteen minutes the pressure,
which had been tremendous, was nearly gone, and the next
day (Sunday) I was quite well. On Monday and Tuesday I
played [the piano] with my left arm (the one opened), and
not considering the effect of such exercise, lamed it
badly. I have since seen Oppolzer. He says the affliction
is neuralgia (that I supposed) and gave me quinine to
take daily, forbade cold bathing, ordered cold water on
the head when in pain, and in the morning. I am now using
these remedies, and am better.... I shall write less in
future. The music demands eight hours a day, and I must
study the languages and read a bit beside; then other
necessary demands are made on my time, such as two
lectures a week, a weekly evening at the Minister's
unavoidably, etc., etc....
Despite the
pain in his arm, Henry continued pursuing his musical
goals throughout the following year, much to his father's
increasing dismay. The elder Higginson could not convince
his son to return home with the outlook for a career in
business looking less than lucrative. Henry wrote to his
father on August 30, 1858:
About
my arm, I cannot say that it is better than before
coming; yet I think improvement has taken place.... About
returning home, father: I have already written you that
my arrangements are made for another year from Sept. 1st
in Vienna. How can I return when my object is music, and
I've been unable to play at all the whole year?
Besides, what is there in America particularly tempting
in business, and what is there out of business for me?
Henry's
optimism soon changed as he was confronted by the grim
reality of his condition. In a letter from Vienna dated
October 19, Henry disclosed disheartening news to his
father:
The
arm is probably injured for life, not seriously, but so
far that I shall not be able to play the piano very long
at a time.... When I look back at those six weeks I
played, I could cry heartily. It is a hard line for me;
cuts deeper than you think. What I had wished for years
was at hand, with every possible help; and in that time I
really learned much. Now it is over forever; I can never
play freely again. I almost wonder that I managed to bear
so much as I did....
With his
hopes for a musical occupation no longer foreseeable,
Henry contemplated a career as a wine merchant, then
considered a clerkship in a wholesale drug business. As
he searched for a practical occupation suited to his
liking, unrest erupted on the home front in America. A
day before his 26th birthday in November 1860, Henry set
sail once more for Boston.
Henry's
story continues with:
Part II: The Civil
War Years
Sources
Used in Writing this Section of the Essay
Books:
Dictionary
of American Biography, Charles Scribner's Sons, New
York, NY, 1958-1964.
Harvard Memorial Biographies, edited by Thomas
Wentworth Higginson, Sever and Francis, Cambridge, MA,
1866.
Life and Letters of Henry Lee Higginson, by Bliss
Perry, The Atlantic Monthly Press, Boston, MA, 1921.
Web
Pages:
Distinguished
High School Graduates of the Boston Latin School,
Boston Public Schools, copyright 2001,
http://boston.k12.ma.us/textonly/bps/alumni_latin.asp
(accessed February 2001).
Making of America, University of Michigan,
copyright 2001, http://moa.umdl.umich.edu (accessed March
2001).
Public Latin School Hall of Fame, Boston Latin
School, copyright 2001,
http://www.bls.org/blswebsite/bls_History/hall_fame.htm
(accessed February 2001).
Index to Higginson's Pages
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