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_From the “Philadelphia Ledger.”_
THE death of Henry W. Grady, which occurred almost at the dawning of
this beneficent Christmas time, did not “eclipse the gayety of nations,”
as it was long ago said the death of another illustrious person did, but
it still casts a shadow over his native land—a shadow which falls
heavily upon all those of his countrymen who knew, honored and loved the
man.
Henry W. Grady was one of the youngest, the most brilliant, the best
beloved of the young men of his country who, since the war of secession,
won distinction in public life. Whether considered as a writer or an
orator, his talents were extraordinary. His language was strong,
refined, and, in its poetic warmth and elegance, singularly beautiful.
But that which gave to it its greatest value and charm was the wisdom of
the thought, the sincerity of the high conscience of which it was the
expression. It was given to him as it is to so few—the ability to wed
noble thoughts to noble words—to make the pen more convincing than the
sword in argument, to make the tongue proclaim “the Veritas that lurks
beneath the letter’s unprolific sheath.”
Henry W. Grady was, in the truest sense, an American; his love of
country, his unselfish devotion to it, were unquestioned and
unquestionable; but he sought to serve it best by best serving the
South, which he so greatly loved and which so loved and honored him. It
was the New South of human freedom, material progress—not the Old South
of chattel slavery and material sluggishness—of which he was the
representative, the prophet. It was the South of to-day, which has put
off the bitternesses, defeats and animosities of the war; which has put
on the sentient spirit of real union, of marvelous physical development,
which advances day by day to wealth, dignity and greatness by gigantic
strides. This was the South that he glorified with pen and tongue, and
which he sought with earnest, zealous love to bring into closer, warmer
fraternity with the North and the North with it.
The story of the shield which hung in the forest, and which, to the
traveler coming from the North, seemed to be made of gold, and to the
traveler journeying from the South, to be made of silver, is an old one.
But it has its new significance in every great matter to which there are
two sides, and which is looked at by those approaching it from different
directions from their respective points of view. He saw but one side of
the race question—the Southern side, and for that he strenuously
contended only a few days before his death, in the very shadow of
Faneuil Hall, or, as he finely said: “Here, within touch of Plymouth
Rock and Bunker Hill—where Webster thundered and Longfellow sang,
Emerson thought and Channing preached—here, in the cradle of American
letters and of American liberty.” It was in the house of his antagonists
that he fought for the side which he thought good and just, and if in
doing so he did not convince, he was listened to with respect and
admiration.
That is a question not to be discussed here and now, and it is referred
to only to show the courage of Mr. Grady in defence of his convictions,
for they were convictions, and honest ones, and not mere political or
sectional opinions. Apart from the race question, Mr. Grady was a man of
peace, who, whether writing in his own influential journal in the South,
or speaking in Boston, his tongue and voice were alike for peace, good
will, unity of interest, thought and feeling. In his address of the 13th
instant, at the Boston banquet, Mr. Grady said:
“A mighty duty, sir, a mighty inspiration impels every one of us
to-night to lose in patriotic consecration whatever estranges, whatever
divides. We, sir, are Americans, and we stand for human liberty! The
uplifting force of the American idea is under every throne on earth.
France, Brazil—these are our victories. To redeem the earth from
kingcraft and oppression, this is our mission! And we shall not fail.
God has sown in our soil the seed of His millennial harvest, and He will
not lay the sickle to the ripening crop until His full and perfect day
has come. Our history, sir, has been a constant and expanding miracle
from Plymouth Rock and Jamestown all the way—aye, even from the hour
when, from the voiceless and trackless ocean, a new world rose to the
sight of the inspired sailor. As we approach the fourth centennial of
that stupendous day—when the Old World will come to marvel and to learn,
amid our gathered treasures—let us resolve to crown the miracles of our
past with the spectacle of a republic, compact, united, indissoluble in
the bonds of love—loving from the Lakes to the Gulf—the wounds of war
healed in every heart as on every hill—serene and resplendent at the
summit of human achievement and earthly glory—blazing out the path and
making clear the way up which all the nations of the earth must come in
God’s appointed time.”
The fine expression of these lofty sentiments shows the eloquence of the
man, but, better than that, they themselves show the broad and noble
spirit of his patriotism. And the man that his countrymen so admired and
honored is dead, his usefulness ended, his voice silent, his pen idle
forever, and he so young. There are no accidents, said Charles Sumner,
in the economy of Providence; nor are there. The death of Henry W.
Grady, which seems so premature, is yet part of the inscrutable design
the perfectness of which may not be questioned, and out of it good will
come which is now hidden. He was of those great spirits of whom Lowell
sang:
“We find in our dull road their shining track;
In every noble mood
We feel the Orient of their spirit glow,
Part of our life’s unalterable good,
Of all our saintlier aspirations!”
He was of those who even through death do good, and so posthumously work
out the economy of Providence, for
“As thrills of long-hushed tone
Live in the viol, so our souls grow fine
With keen vibrations from the touch divine
Of Nobler natures gone.”
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