Archibald H. Grimke, William Lloyd Garrison the Abolitionist

[333] homceopathists, hydropathists, mesmerists, spiritualists, Grahamites, clairvoyants, whom he received with unfailing hospitality, giving welcome and sympathy to the new ideas, food and shelter for the material sustenance of the fleshly vehicles of the new ideas. He evidently was strongly of the opinion that there are “more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of” in the philosophy of any particular period in the intellectual development of man. No age knows it all. It was almost a lo, here, and a lo, there, with him, so large was his bump of wonder, so unlimited was his appetite for the incredible and the improbable in the domain of human knowledge and speculation. Great was the man's faith, great was his hope, great was his charity.

He was one of the most observant of men in all matters affecting the rights of others; he was one of the least observant in all matters appertaining to himself. With a decided taste for dress, yet his actual knowledge of the kind of clothes worn by him from day to day was amusingly inexact, as the following incident shows: Before wearing out an only pair of trousers, the pioneer had indulged in the unusual luxury of a new pair. But as there was still considerable service to be got out of the old pair, he, like a prudent man, laid aside the new ones for future use. His wife, however, who managed all this part of the domestic business, determined, without consulting him, the morning when the new trousers should be donned. She made the necessary changes when her lord was in bed, putting the new in the place of the old. Garrison wore for several days the new trousers, thinking all the time that they were his old ones until his illusions