Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 1

[34] his teens, and to understand the love and reverence in which he ever held the memory of his parent. ‘I always feel like a little boy when I think of Mother,’ he used to say in after years; and he never doubted that he had her strengthening and inspiring influence, and her constant approbation, through all his stormy career. Many years after her death he thus wrote of her to his betrothed:

You speak of “a mother's love,” and ask, “What love is¹ comparable to hers?” An allusion like this dissolves my heart, and causes it to grow liquid as water. I had a mother once, who cared for me with such a passionate regard, who loved me so intensely, that no language can describe the yearnings of her soul—no instrument measure the circumference of her maternal spirit. As to her person, I sum up my panegyric of it in the following original verse:

She was the masterpiece of womankind—
In shape and height majestically fine;
Her cheeks the lily and the rose combined;
Her lips—more opulently red than wine;
Her raven locks hung tastefully entwined;
Her aspect fair as Nature could design:
And then her eyes! so eloquently bright!
An eagle would recoil before their light.

But she was not remarkable for her personal attractions merely. Her mind was of the first order—clear, vigorous, creative, and lustrous, and sanctified by an ever-glowing piety. How often did she watch over me—weep over me—and pray over me! (I hope, not in vain.) She has been dead almost eleven years; but my grief at her loss is as fresh and poignant now as it was at that period. “O that my mother were living!” is often the exclamation of my heart. Alas! she cannot come to me.

After a time Lloyd was apprenticed to Moses Short, a cabinet-maker at Haverhill, Mass., who took the boy into his family and treated him with much kindness. The work was not unpleasant, and he soon learned to make a toy bureau and helped at veneering, but his old homesickness seized him, and he became so unhappy that, at the end of six weeks, he resolved to make his escape. Watching his opportunity, one morning when his master had gone to the shop, he tied his shirt and other worldly