The only record in the “Life of Garrison” by his sons — perhaps the most thoroughly executed biography ever written in America, though it could hardly be expected to be the most absolutely impartial — of any final interview showing the cleavage between him and Whittier is in a letter from Lucretia Mott, written on Feb. 25, 1852. She says:
How far Garrison did justice to the real strength of Whittier's nature will perhaps always remain somewhat doubtful, in view of the fact that eight years before this, in 1834, he had briefly characterised him as “highly poetical, exuberant, and beautiful.” 2 It is possible he may have been rather surprised, in later years, to find his young proselyte developing a will ofMaria W. Chapman wrote me that he [Whittier] was in the [antislavery] office a few months since, bemoaning to Garrison that there should have been any divisions. ‘Why could we not all go on together?’ ‘ Why not, indeed? ’ said Garrison; ‘we stand just where we did. I see no reason why you cannot cooperate with the American Society.’ ‘Oh,’ replied Whittier, ‘but the American Society is not what it once was. It has the coat, the hat, and the waistcoat of the old society, but the life has passed out of it.’ ‘Are you not ashamed,’ said Garrison, ‘to come here wondering why we cannot go on together? No wonder you can't cooperate with a suit of old clothes.’
Garrison's life, III. 35.
