This is a segment from a longer essay by Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823 – 1911). The author had once served in the anti-slavery movement during the late 1850s with famed abolitionist John Brown; it was his wish in writing this column that Brown be remembered as a thoroughly sane man with just as much reasoning skills as the rest of us:
"In his thin, worn, resolute face there were the signs of of a fire which might wear him out, and practically did so, but nothing of pettiness or baseness; and his talk was calm, persuasive, and coherent...Of grand tactics and strategy Brown knew as much as Giribaldi; but he had studied guerrilla warfare for himself in books, as well as in Europe...He lived as he finally died, absolutely absorbed on one idea; and it is as a pure enthusiast , fantastic, if you please, that he is to be judged."
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