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

Arrived in Boston, Lundy went to Mr. Collier's boarding-house, where he became acquainted with Mr. Garrison, and found in him a ready and enthusiastic¹convert, who was willing to give not merely words of sympathy and approval, but energetic and active support. Garrison had seen the Genius, and so known of Lundy, whom he had imagined ‘a Hercules in shape and size’; and his disappointment was great, at first, when he beheld a diminutive and slender person,—the last man, by his appearance, that he would have selected as a reformer.²

‘Instead of being able to withstand the tide of public³ opinion,’ he wrote, a few months later, in describing Lundy,

it would at first seem doubtful whether he could sustain a temporary conflict with the winds of heaven. And yet he has explored nineteen of the twenty-four States—from the Green Mountains of Vermont to the banks of the Mississippi—multiplied anti-slavery societies in every quarter, put every petition in motion relative to the extinction of slavery in the District of Columbia, everywhere awakened the slumbering sympathies of the people, and begun a work, the completion of which will be the salvation of his country. His heart is of a gigantic size. Every inch of him is alive with power. He combines the meekness of Howard with the boldness of Luther. No reformer was ever more devoted, zealous, persevering, or sanguine. He has fought single-handed against a host, without missing a blow, or faltering a moment; but his forces are rapidly gathering, and he will yet free our land.

‘It should be mentioned, too, that he has sacrificed several thousand dollars in this holy cause, accumulated by unceasing ’