1877-79. CHAP. XI. night to Roxbury, where the funeral services were held on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 28. The spacious Unitarian. church of the First Religious Society, on Eliot Square, near Rockledge, was kindly placed at the disposal of the family and the public, and was thronged by the multitude who came to take a last look at the face of their old friend and leader. The gathering was remarkable for the number of his surviving co-laborers in the anti-slavery and kindred reformatory movements, and with these were present many of the race to whose redemption he had consecrated his life, and others who, formerly indifferent or hostile to the cause he advocated, now came to pay their tribute of respect. In accordance with Mr. Garrison's views of death, everything was done to avoid the appearance of mourning or of gloom. The blinds were opened to admit the cheerful light of the perfect spring day, the pulpit was tastefully decorated with flowers, and his favorite hymns were sung by a quartette of colored friends. The services were conducted by the Rev. Samuel May, who read some of the passages from Old and New Testaments so often quoted by Mr. Garrison in antislavery days, and spoke briefly and with deep feeling. He was followed by Mrs. Lucy Stone, who acknowledged the debt which women owed to the deceased; the Rev. Samuel Johnson (who read a poem written by Whittier for the occasion); and Theodore D. Weld, whose emotions almost overpowered his utterance; after which Wendell Phillips delivered an address masterly in its analysis and characterization, and tender in its concluding words of farewell and benediction to his beloved comrade.2 1 The pall-bearers were Wendell Phillips, Samuel May, Samuel E. Sewall, Robert F. Wallcut, Theodore D. Weld, Oliver Johnson, Lewis Hayden, and Charles L. Mitchell. 2 The proceedings were subsequently published in a small volume, 'Tributes to William Lloyd Garrison at the Funeral Services, May 28, 1879.' Mr. Phillips's address is also printed in the Appendix to Oliver Johnson's 'William Lloyd Garrison and his Times.' See a striking article from him on "Garrison" in the North American Review for August, 1879. 1877-79. The closing scene took place at sunset, when the body CHAP. XI. was interred beside that of Mrs. Garrison in the beautiful cemetery at Forest Hills, in the presence of a large number of friends, and with no other service or ceremony than the singing of an appropriate selection by the quartette. Thomas Talbot. May 30. Boston, Philadel ington, Cin cinnati, Raleigh, Atlanta. The flags of the city and State were at half-mast on the day of the funeral. The Governor of the State, in his order respecting Decoration Day, invoked special honor to the "great citizen whose name will be forever associated with the cause and the triumph of the contest." In various Northern and Southern cities the colored people met in memory of their illustrious champion. phia, WashThe leading papers of the United States and Great Britain contained long editorial and biographical articles on the founder of the anti-slavery movement, which were, with rare exceptions, appreciative and eulogistic. Even the very sheets which had formerly caricatured and reviled him, joined in the general panegyric, and it was one of the bitterest of these which confessed, the morning after his death, that the life just ended "was lived with a simplicity, singleness of purpose, and unflinching devotion to a self-imposed task rare in the annals of any time or any land." N. Y. World, May 25, 1879. CHAP. XII. CHAPTER XII. INNER TRAITS. hand which began this narrative has been Tallotted the vastly more difficult task of concluding it in the pages which are to follow. It has not seemed to me hard to stand off and view, and accordingly depict, my father as an historical personage. Critics must decide how far this objective treatment has been successful; yet, given the materials for this biography, in print and in manuscript, ours, I would fain hope, is the portrait that would be drawn by any seeker after the truth. To attempt, on the other hand, to exhibit my father from the side of his private and domestic life, or in the light of a psychological analysis, fills me first of all with a sense of insufficiency, and imposes a restraint quite different from that exacted by the foregoing documentary narrative. In another place and connection I might, giving a free rein to filial feeling, strive to convey an adequate impression of what my father was in his home to wife and children, and in common intercourse with friend and fellow-man. Some glimpses of this have been already incidentally afforded, and much has been able to be inferred as to the absolute consistency of his public and private behavior—a uniform simplicity, humility, self-abnegation, sympathy with all suffering, detestation of all forms of cruelty and oppression, active benevolence, charitable toleration, endless patience in adversity, indomitable courage, perennial cheerfulness. Something, too, has been observable of the magnetic power to charm and move others which displayed itself both on and off the public stage. These scattered threads I will now CHAP. XII. draw together in such fashion as I can. 314. The lineaments of the boy were, as ordinarily happens, partly preserved and partly effaced in the man. My father's childish love of out-door sports naturally suc- Ante, 1:28, cumbed to the stern requirements of his twofold struggle for existence and for the cause which he founded. I recall his indulging in quoits while at the water-cure near Ante, 3: 228. Northampton, a game in which he was fairly skilful, as if by virtue of that balanced judgment which showed itself in so many other ways; and in later years he was fond of croquet. His love of skating utterly died out from Ante, 1:28. disuse, but, what is perhaps surprising, his passion for swimming equally became a mere reminiscence, though his Ante, 1:28, home was always by tide-water. Among indoor games, he enjoyed checkers as long as his children were interested in it; and to us he seemed a good player, but not an expert. In the evening of his life, whist afforded him solace for his failing eyesight; but in this he remained a tyro, and his naïve revelations of the quality of his hand were most amusing. 29. 3:397. I never saw my father draw even a diagram, and he had had not the least training in drawing; yet his penmanship was handsome, and wonderfully persistent in its uni- Ante, 1 : 28 ; formity. It was always, however, very labored and inflexible, and latterly he wrote much in pencil, having begun with quills, then taken to steel nibs, and sometimes used a gold pen. Greater suppleness in this art would have made writing much less abhorrent to him, and resulted in a far more copious editorial productiveness. But this was as much a matter of temperament as of manual proficiency. He had an innate love of thoroughness, which was developed in the printing-office and was fos- Ante, 1 : 40. tered by his experience of bad "copy." His own manuscript was flawless, punctilious to the last degree, and as legible as the print itself. He seldom, except on grave occasions, resorted to a rough draft, but wrote almost without correction, his afterthought coming so quickly CHAP. XII. that his finger could generally blot out the faulty word while the ink was still wet. He had a habit of gently tapping the paper with his pen-hand while deliberating for a phrase. The psychical and moral side of this was an extreme scrupulousness, that weighed every word and uttered nothing at random. It is seldom that anything like abandon is found in his private correspondence, despite the haste in which he commonly wrote. In his letters, as in his speeches, he had always first in mind justness and aptness of expression, not the pleasure of the reader or listener, least of all the effect (how will it sound?), as gratifying his own vanity or sense of rhetorical power. He thus lacked both the ease and versatility and the perfect sympathy which are combined in the great letterwriters. His tact, however, was remarkable, and his letters were highly prized by the recipients, especially when of a consolatory nature. In controversy or in exhortation they partook of the best qualities of his public style; and I cannot imagine, for example, that such an Ante, 1:464 appeal as his to Dr. Channing in 1834 could have been read without a thrill. His domestic correspondence did not escape the general stiffness of his epistolary manner. A man so much in the glare of public censure could not shake off the consciousness of the scrutiny to which his most trivial and private utterances might be subjected. Even when addressing his wife, especially if he was absent on a lecturing tour, he either wrote so that extracts might be made for the Liberator as a quasi-report, or in view of the necessity of the letter being shown to the abolition circle for their information. When any of the children were away from home, it was our mother chiefly who kept us supplied with the family news. On the whole, the volume of my father's private correspondence was large enough to be a monument to his resolute grappling with the mechanical impediment, even if not to be compared with that of purely literary men. As for his editorial writing, that could doubtless be claimed for it which Edmund Quincy once |