Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

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He is called reckless by many, yet he always succeeds better than his strongest friends anticipated. He has more forethought than he manifests.

He has great literary ingenuity, and is full of new schemes and projects. He shows a great deal of tact as a writer and reasoner. He seldom or never commits himself. He unites wit and sarcasm, and always adapts his remarks to the occasion.

His memory of principles, new ideas, historical facts, of faces, shapes, locations, and the expressions of others, is good.

He is very wordy, and always has something to say. He has an uncommon talent for a writer. He reasons both by analogy and induction. He is very systematic. He is sometimes over-particular about the arrangement of things. He has a mathematical and mechanical talent, and wishes to have everything done according to rule. He is very happy in his illustrations of the passions and natural inclinations of man, and in portraying the human heart; also in making everything simple, clear and plain, easily understood by a child.

He wants to engage in business on a large scale. He is willing to ask advice, yet always does what he thinks to be right. His friends are his strong friends, and his enemies are most bitter. He is not so well calculated to please as he is to subdue. He always uses mild measures first, and then the more severe. His firmness is almost too strong, and he is at times too decided and positive. He never compromises to secure the approbation of others, but acts totally regardless of what others may think or say.

The year which had opened joyously with a birth, had been clouded by the rapidly failing health of the beloved Henry Benson, whose predisposition to consumption had been stimulated by his conscientious application to the duties of the Anti-Slavery Office. It closed in mourning for the death of his venerable father, George Benson, in¹ the eighty-fifth year of his age. His daughter Helen and her husband were at his bedside in his last moments. ‘Mr. Benson,’ said his son-in-law in the Liberator, ‘was a rare example of moral excellence among mankind. In justness, he was an Aristides—in peaceableness, a Penn —in philanthropy, a Clarkson.’