Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John Greenleaf Whittier

[95] black eyebrows, brilliant eyes and an Oriental, Semitic cast of countenance. This was Whittier at thirty-five. Appetite vanished, and I resolved to speak to him, then or never. I watched till he rose from the table; and then advancing, said with boyish enthusiasm and, I doubt not, with boyish awkwardness also, “I should like to shake hands with the author of Massachusetts to Virginia.” The poet, who was then, as always, one of the shyest of men, looked up as if frightened, then broke into a kindly smile, and said briefly, “Thy name, friend?” I gave it, we shook hands, and that was all; but to me it was like touching a hero's shield; and though I have since learned to count the friendship of Whittier as one of the great privileges of my life, yet nothing has ever displaced the recollection of that first boyish interview.

In comparing his whole life with that of his early friend Garrison, one must observe the fact that, while there was but a slight difference in their ages, Garrison was at first the leader, Whittier the follower. On the other hand, we notice that differences of temperament soon showed themselves and told both upon their careers and their memories. Partly as a result of this, each had a certain advantage with a later generation. Whittier, for instance, was childless; while Garrison left behind him a family of children to carry on his unfinished work, to write his memoirs and to do honour to his name by their inheritance of his qualities. It is difficult, however, to read those very memoirs without seeing that Garrison encountered in life some drawbacks which grew out of his own temperament, that he ceased in some cases to hold the warm friendships he had made, and lost the alliance of