Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 4

1 Dec. 1, 1877.

2 Mr. Phillips held that as the spectacles were not literally part of the face, a portrait for posterity should be painted without them, and he accordingly commissioned a Boston artist to make one of Mr. Garrison with the glasses omitted. The result was a picture which Mrs. Garrison failed to recognize as even intended for her husband, and Mr. Phillips consigned it to his garret. Two other busts of Mr. Garrison had been made before Miss Whitney executed hers,—one by S. V. Clevenger (in 1841), and the other by John A. Jackson (in 1858), neither of great excellence. In writing of the conflicting opinions of friends about the latter, Mr. Garrison said: ‘One thing is certain—for some reason or other, I have one of the most difficult faces in the world to take (owing, probably, to its changeableness of expression); all artists, at home or abroad, having failed to get a likeness generally satisfactory to my personal friends. . . Jackson acknowledges that he has never had one sit to him whose living expression it has been so difficult to catch as in my own case; nor has he ever had one sit to him so many times, or for whom he has exerted himself so laboriously to achieve success. Besides, there is an inherent difficulty with which he has had to contend, and which it is not possible for even genius to surmount, in making a bust of me. My spectacles are a part of my face,—few ever see me for a moment without them,—and they greatly modify the appearance of my eyes, and my general expression of countenance. In fact, when I lay them aside, I am almost another man’ (Ms. May 1, 1858, to Oliver Johnson).

3 A marble copy of the bust was cut in Italy, and was received in Boston in March, 1879, shortly before Mr. Garrison left home for the last time. ‘It is admirably executed,’ he wrote to his daughter, ‘and the marble is of the purest white. ... I do not think a more accurate “ counterfeit presentment” of your father's features could possibly be made; and I am particularly pleased that it has been achieved by a woman’ (Ms. Mar. 28, 1879, W. L. G. to F. G. V.). The bust, which is now (1889) at Rockledge, stands on a pedestal which brings it exactly to Mr. Garrison's height (5 feet 8 1/2 in.). An engraving of it forms the frontispiece of this work.