to contain an original piece of poetry for my paper, the _Free
Press_. The ink was very pale, the handwriting very small; and,
having at that time a horror of newspaper original poetry--which
has rather increased than diminished with the lapse of time--my
first impulse was to tear it in pieces, without reading it; the
chances of rejection, after its perusal, being as ninety-nine to
one; ... but summoning resolution to read it, I was equally
surprised and gratified to find it above mediocrity, and so gave
it a place in my journal.... As I was anxious to find out the
writer, my post-rider, one day, divulged the secret, stating
that he had dropped the letter in the manner described, and that
it was written by a Quaker lad, named Whittier, who was daily at
work on the shoemaker's bench, with hammer and lapstone, at East
Haverhill. Jumping into a vehicle, I lost no time in driving to
see the youthful rustic bard, who came into the room with
shrinking diffidence, almost unable to speak, and blushing like
a maiden. Giving him some words of encouragement, I addressed
myself more particularly to his parents, and urged them with
great earnestness to grant him every possible facility for the
development of his remarkable genius."


Garrison had not only found a true poet, but a true friend as well, in
the Quaker lad, John Greenleaf Whittier. The friendship which sprang up
between the two was to last during the lifetime of the former. Neither
of them in those days of small things could have possibly by any flight
of the imagination foreseen how their two lives, moving in parallel
lines, would run deep their shining furrows through one of the greatest
chapters of human history. But I am anticipating, and that is a vice of
which no good storyteller ought to be guilty. So, then, let me