and features of the face from brow to chin. What one saw in
that face was the quality of justice made flesh, good-will to men
personified.

This characterization of the reformer's countenance may be considered
absurd by some readers. But absurd it is not. People who had read his
stern denunciations of slave-holding and slaveholders, and who had
formed their image of the man from his "hard language" and their own
prejudices could not recognize the original when they met him. His
manner was peculiarly winning and attractive, and in personal
intercourse almost instantly disarmed hostility. The even gentleness of
his rich voice, his unfailing courtesy and good temper, his quick eye
for harmless pleasantries, his hearty laugh, the Quaker-like calmness,
deliberateness, and meekness, with which he would meet objections and
argue the righteousness of his cause, his sweet reasonableness and
companionableness were in strange contrast to popular misconceptions and
caricatures of him. No one needed to be persuaded, who had once
conversed with him, that there was no hatred or vindictiveness in his
severities of language toward slaveholders. That he was no Jacobin, no
enemy of society, was perceived the moment one looked into his grave,
kind face, or caught the warm accents of his pacific tones, or listened
to the sedate intensity, and humanity of his discourses on the enormity
of American slavery as they fell from him in conversations between man
and man. Here is a case in point, a typical incident in the life of the
reformer; it occurred, it is true, when he was twenty-seven, but it
might have occurred at twenty-five quite as well; it is narrated by
Samuel J. May in his recollections of the anti-slavery conflict: On his
way from New York to Philadelphia with Garrison, Mr. May fell into a
discussion with a pro-slavery passenger on the vexed question of the
day. There was the common pro-slavery reasoning, which May answered as
well as he was able. Presently Mr. Garrison drew near the disputants,
whereupon May took the opportunity to shift the anti-slavery burden of
the contention to his leader's shoulders. All of his most radical and
unpopular Abolition doctrines Garrison immediately proceeded to expound
to his opponent. "After a long conversation," says Mr. May, "which
attracted as many as could get within hearing, the gentleman said,
courteously: 'I have been much interested, sir, in what you have said,
and in the exceedingly fran