MANUSCRIPT: BPL (Higg 56). Ink. Dated: Amherst.

PUBLICATION: AM LXVIII (October 1891) 449; L (1894) 309-310, in part; LL 248-249, in part; L (1931) 278-279, entire.

In the letter ED enclosed "The Soul unto itself." Higginson had gone to South Carolina, in command of a Negro regiment, in November 1862. The Springfield Republican carried long items about Higginson and his troops in the issues of 1 January and 6 February 1863. Higginson's "Procession of Flowers" appeared in the December 1862, issue of the Atlantic Monthly. He could never explain the reason for the signature. One conjectures that perhaps he had earlier commented on the gnomic quality of her verses.