The same friendly critic has left his judgment of other traits of the leader, traits not so much of the man as of the editor.  It is delivered in a private letter of Quincy to Garrison on resigning the temporary editorship of the Liberator to “its legitimate possessor.” who had been for several months health-hunting at Northampton in the beautiful Connecticut Valley.  Quincy made bold to beard the Abolition lion in his lair, and twist his tail in an extremely lively manner.  “Now, my dear friend,” wrote the disciple to the master, “you must know that to the microscopic eyes of its friends, as well as to the telescopic eyes of its enemies, the Liberator has faults, these they keep to themselves as much as they honestly may, but they are not the less sensible of them, and are all the more desirous to see them immediately abolished.  Luckily, they are not faults of principle—­neither moral nor intellectual deficiencies—­but faults the cure of which rests solely with yourself.

“I hardly know how to tell you what the faults are that we find with it, lest you should think them none at all, or else unavoidable.  But no matter, of that you must be the judge; we only ask you to listen to our opinion.  We think the paper often bears the mark of haste and carelessness in its getting up; that the matter seems to be hastily selected and put in higgledy-piggledy, without any very apparent reason why it should be in at all, or why it should be in the place where it is.  I suppose this is often caused by your selecting articles with a view to connect remarks of your own with them, which afterward in your haste you omit.  Then we complain that each paper is not so nearly a complete work in itself as it might be made, but that things are often left at loose ends, and important matters broken off in the middle.  I assure you, that Brother Harriman is not the only one of the friends of the Liberator who grieves over your ‘more anon’ and ’more next week’—­which ‘anon’ and ‘next week’ never arrive.

“Then we complain that your editorials are too often wanting, or else such, from apparent haste, as those who love your fame cannot wish to see; that important topics, which you feel to be such, are too often either entirely passed over or very cursorily treated, and important moments like the present neglected....

“We have our suspicions, too, that good friends have been disaffected by the neglect of their communications; but of this we can only speak by conjecture.  In short, it appears to those who are your warmest friends and the stanchest supporters of the paper, that you might make the Liberator a more powerful and useful instrumentality than it is, powerful and useful as it is, by additional exertions on your part.  It is very unpleasant to hear invidious comparisons drawn between the Liberator and Emancipator with regard to the manner of getting it up, and to have not to deny but to excuse them—­and we knowing all the time that you have all the tact and technical talent for getting up a good newspaper that Leavitt has, with as much more, intellectual ability as you have more moral honesty, and only wanting some of his (pardon me) industry, application, and method.”