The aesthetic and picturesque aspects of the Fair building included also personal relations—which often, to a warm-hearted man like Mr. Higinbotham, became friendships—with painters, sculptors, musicians, even poets; with foreign Commissioners, government and state officials; with eager concessionaires from far and near; indeed with all the various types of human self-interest and idealistic enthusiasm which a vast festival gathers together. In each case the president, in his council of four, must hold the even scales of justice, settling all disputes aesthetic or temporal, and getting or giving a reasonable price for what was granted or secured. Many of these disputes were little less than agonies to the persons involved, and in these cases Mr. Higinbotham’s quick sympathies became deeply engaged, and he spent over them many hours which should have been given to sleep. One such incident may be briefly dwelt upon, not because it was more important than others, but because it was typical of countless minor disputes which went for final settlement to the Council of Administration, and because the writer, as the author of the poem involved, happens to know about it. This was the “Columbian Ode” episode—a story which Mr. Higinbotham delighted to tell to the end of his life. This poem had been unanimously requested of the author by the Committee on Ceremonies and definitely accepted by that body for the great day of the Dedication of Buildings—the four-hundredth anniversary of the Discovery of America. But a small group in the committee suddenly ceased to favor the poem, and set up a violent opposition in the effort to have it annulled as a feature of the Dedication Day program. The dispute became so bitter that a peaceful decision in the Committee became impossible, and the matter was referred to the Council of Administration for settlement. This was in mid-September, 1892—the Dedication of Buildings was only a month away. The writer, who had just returned from a summer outing, was summoned to present her side of the question at an evening session of the Council of Administration. At this time she had never met Mr. Higinbotham, who took the chair soon after her arrival—a simple, quiet man in the prime of life, of slight figure, fine shapely head, regular features rather delicate in contour, and dark wavy hair and beard streaked with a few threads of gray. Near him were two other members of the Council of Administration.