"
Garrison does not exaggerate the importance of the initiatives and
achievements of the year, or the part played by him in its history. His
activity was indeed phenomenal, and the service rendered by him to the
reform, was unrivaled. He was in incessant motion, originating,
directing, inspiring the agitation in all portions of the North. What
strikes one strongly in studying the pioneer is his sleeplessness, his
indefatigableness, his persistency in pursuit of his object. Others may
rest after a labor, may have done one, two, or three distinct tasks, but
between Garrison's acts there is no hiatus, each follows each, and is
joined to all like links in a chain. He never closed his eyes, nor
folded his arms, but went forward from work to work with the
consecutiveness of a law of nature.
But amid labors so strenuous and uninterrupted the leader found
opportunity to woo and win "a fair ladye." She was a daughter of a
veteran Abolitionist, George Benson, of Brooklyn, Conn., who with his
sons George W. and Henry E. Benson, were among the stanchest of the
reformer's followers and supporters. The young wife, before her
marriage, was not less devoted to the cause than they. She was in
closest sympathy with her husband's anti-slavery interests and purposes.
Never had husband found wife better fitted to his needs, and the needs
of his life work. So that it might be truly said that Garrison even when
he went a-wooing forgot not his cause and that when he took a wife, he
made at the same time a grand contribution to its ultimate triumph.
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