Love was the law of Henry Grady’s life. His splendid eminence
among his fellows teaches once again that “he who follows love’s
behest far exceedeth all the rest.” Its strongest throbs beat in
the inner circle of the home; but in widening waves they expand
first into friendship, then into public spirit, then into
patriotism, then into philanthropy. When it rises above these
forms of human affection in the incense of worship—we give it
once more the sacred name of love, which it bore at its fireside
shrine. From Henry Grady’s heart, that first and best and truest
and most of all was the home-fond heart, there flowed out in all
the prodigality of his generous soul, and yet with the perfect
adjustment of due degree, all those currents of feeling which
bear so many names and yet are one. And as he loved, so is he
mourned—from the hearth of a desolated home to the borders of a
mighty nation.
What was he to his friends? I dare not answer except to muffle
my own heart in borrowed words—the words of Carlyle over the
bier of the gifted Edward Irving—“His was the bravest, freest,
brotherliest human soul mine ever came in contact with.”
What was he to Atlanta? More than any other man, he built this
city which he rightly loved as he loved no other. Although the
feudal independence of the old Southern life was distinctly
promotive of individualism—yet it was reserved for this young
leader—but one remove from that past generation, to give to our
common country the finest and most conspicuous type which
American citizenship has yet produced of that high civil
virtue—public spirit. It is a virtue untaught in the schools—a
grace and a duty not preached from the pulpit: and yet, as I
study its manifestations in this marvelous man whose suggestion
and sagacity planted the cornucopias of plenty amid industrial
desolation and agricultural poverty—to me it seems far more in
touch with the brotherhood of man and the helpfulness of Christ
than the benevolence which so often degrades the recipient and
the zeal which burns so fiercely for the conversion of opinions.
If the Church does not claim it as the fruit of religion, the
State may be proud to own it as the patriotism of peace.
What was he to Georgia? We naturally think of the material
progress which he inspired throughout the State, and all due
emphasis has been accorded to it. But we must not forget the
other forms of progress to which he was devoted. What a
many-sided man he was! He spent himself to the utmost of his
wonderful resources in behalf of the intellectual culture of the
State—in the earnest but sweet-spirited championship of that
moral issue which he declared was “the most hopeful experiment
ever undertaken in any American city,” in that magnificent
tribute to the value of her young men, which Atlanta has “writ
large” in the stately Association Building. And thus he, whose
pen seemed like the touch of Midas turning to the gold of
material wealth every interest to which it pointed, he teaches
also that imperative lesson of our needy time—that to know and
to be are greater things than to get and to have.
What was he to the South? Let the laureate answer:
The voice of any people is the sword—
The sword that guards them or the sword that beats them down.
More than any other public man, he was the voice of his people.
His eloquence in magnetic speech, and that new art his genius
had created—the oratory of the editorial!—along with the voices
in literature of Joel Chandler Harris, Thomas Nelson Page and
Harry Stillwell Edwards, have conquered a hearing at the North.
In glowing utterance and moving story, they have set forth the
true and tender pictures of the old Southern life, the sincere
and single-hearted heroism of the Confederate soldier, the
cordial but self-respecting loyalty of the South of to-day to
the restored Union. They have brought it to pass that in the
contemporary fiction of English-speaking peoples the favorite
scene is amid the old plantations, and the popular hero is the
boy that wore the gray. By these subtle forces of genius,
results have been achieved which no forensic advocacy or party
zeal could ever have accomplished. Old verdicts of condemnation
and prejudice have been reversed; and in their stead,
comprehension has come, patience is coming, confidence will
come.
For the sole but sufficient reason that the whole truth demands
it, I ought to say, that from what seemed to me some of the
implications of his public utterances I had urged upon him my
own dissent; and his letter in reply, permitting me to differ
without a discount in his sincere esteem, is now, more than
ever, one of the treasures of my life.
His work for his people could not have been so adequately done
had office crowned his worth. His advocacy would then have
seemed professional and political. Public station would have put
limitations on him—would have narrowed his audience. A rare
lesson of his life is here—a lesson needed especially among us
whose habit has been to associate official distinction too
exclusively with public service. The people are greater than
Senate or Congress. The official in Washington can speak only to
his party. But the audiences which Grady and his generous
eulogist, Depew, commands show that a man uncrowned with public
office can be great in public life, and perhaps thereby do a
greater work.
What was he to the Nation? Compelled by the limitations of the
hour to answer in one word, I choose this: He it was who first
taught the rising generation of the South to bind the name of
Lincoln with that of Washington “as a sign upon their hand and a
frontlet on their brow.”
We stand face to face with a great mystery. It is the tragedy of
early death, like that of Arthur Henry Hallam, which wrung from
the sweetest singer of our time the noblest poem of sorrow, a
poem whose pages have been for three days past luminous to me
with new and richer meaning. Accepting the evidence of
consciousness in its report of the hopes and aspirations of the
human soul, there can be but two rational hypotheses for this
mystery of an unfinished life. One has been phrased by Renan in
words like this: “There is at the heart of the universe, an
infinite fiend who has filled the hearts of his creatures with
delusions, in order that in awful mockery he may witness the
discomfiture of their despair.” The other theory has been
phrased by Martineau in words like these: “The universe, which
includes and folds us round, is the life-dwelling of an eternal
mind and an infinite love; and every aspiration is but a
prophecy of the reality in that overarching scene where one
incompleteness is rounded out in the greatness of God.” I need
not tell you which of these faiths Henry Grady accepted, or I
accept. I envy not the man who can think that there are in this
universe any shadows dark enough to quench his sunny spirit. I
believe (turning to his picture, on the stage) oh friend of
mine! that I shall look again into that love-lit eye—that I
shall clasp once more thy generous hand!
A poet sings of the echoes of the bugle from cliff and scar as
contrasted with the impact of human influence:
Oh, love, _they_ die on your rich sky,
_They_ faint on hill and field and river;
_Our_ echoes roll from soul to soul
And grow forever and forever!
In all gratitude we can say that we are happier because he
lived; in all humility that we are better because his life
touched ours. And because this is true our children and our
fellow men shall be made happier and better; and so the echoes
of his soul, reduplicated in ten thousand hearts, shall abide, a
gladdening and beneficent force—
Until the stars grow old,
And the suns grow cold,
And the leaves of the judgment book unfold!