e of wit or humour, then he is so big a
fool that it is not worth while to waste your good brains on him. T.W.
Higginson." That reproof chilled my ardour. Now you can hardly find
any one who denies that women possess both qualities, and it is
generally acknowledged that not a few have the added gift of comedy.

As most biographers of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe dwell on her other gifts
as philanthropist, poet, and worker for the equality of women with
men, I call attention to her effervescent, brilliant wit. Julia Ward
Howe was undeniably witty. Her concurrence with a dilapidated
bachelor, who retained little but his conceit, was excellent. He said:
"It is time now for me to settle down as a married man, but I want so
much; I want youth, health, wealth, of course; beauty, grace--" "Yes,"
she interrupted sympathetically, "you poor man, you do want them all."

Of a conceited young man airing his disbelief at length in a magazine
article, she said: "Charles evidently thinks he has invented atheism."
After dining with a certain family noted for their chilling manners
and lofty exclusiveness, she hurried to the house of a jolly friend,
and, seating herself before the glowing fire, sought to regain a
natural warmth, explaining: "I have spent three hours with the Mer de
Glace, the Tete-Noire, and the Jungfrau, and am nearly frozen."

Pathos and humour as twins are exemplified by her tearful horror over
the panorama of Gettysburg, and then by her saying, when urged by Mrs.
Livermore to dine with her: "O no! my dear, it's quarter past two, and
Mr. Howe will be wild if he does not get--not his burg--but his
dinner."

Mrs. Howe's wit never failed her. I once told her I was annoyed by
seeing in big headlines in the morning's paper, "Kate Sanborn
moralizes," giving my feeble sentiments on some subject which must
have been reported by a man whom I met for the first time the evening
before at a reception, though I was ignorant of the fact that I was
being interviewed. She comforted me by saying: "But after all, how
much better that was than if he had announced, 'Kate Sanborn
demoralizes.'" Or when Charles Sumner refusing to meet some friends of
hers at dinner explained languidly: "Really, Julia, I have lost all my
interest in individuals." She retorted, "Why, Charles, God hasn't got
as far as that yet!" Once walking in the streets of Boston with a
friend she looked up and read on a public building, "Charitable Eye
and Ear Infirmary." She