A pleasant story about Andrew Carnegie is told by a tourist from
Scotland in the New York _Tribune_:
At Skibo Castle, Mr. Carnegie had during the summer a beautiful
rose-garden. There were thousands of red and white and yellow
roses always blooming there, and the villagers were free to
saunter in the garden paths to their hearts’ content.
One day the head gardener waited upon Mr. Carnegie. “Sir,” he
said, “I wish to lodge a complaint.” “Well?” said the master.
“Well, sir,” the gardener began, “I wish to inform you that the
village folk are plucking the roses in your rose garden. They
are denuding your rose-trees, sir.” “Ah,” said Mr. Carnegie
gently, “my people are fond of flowers, are they, Donald? Then
you must plant more.” (Text.)
(1190)
* * * * *
There is a beautiful incident connected with the fall of the
stronghold of the Cumberland which General Grant was too modest
to include in the “Memoirs.” Many years after the event, General
Buckner, speaking at a Grant birthday gathering, said: “Under
these circumstances I surrendered to General Grant. I had at a
previous time befriended him, and it has been justly said that
he never forgot an act of kindness. I met him on the boat (at
the surrender), and he followed me when I went to my quarters.
He left the officers of his own army and followed me, with
that modest manner peculiar to him, into the shadow, and there
he tendered me his purse. It seems to me that in the modesty
of his nature he was afraid the light would witness that act
of generosity, and sought to hide it from the world.”--Col.
NICHOLAS SMITH, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”
(1191)
* * * * *
A noble spirit despises pay and money. Garibaldi was always
penniless; so, when he had occasion to give, as was constantly
the case, he had to borrow or sacrifice personal belongings.
Once he brought home an Italian exile, who, he explained, was
poorer than himself. “I have two shirts and he has none,” and
he proposed dividing. But one shirt happened to be in the wash,
so, had he stript off the one on his back, as he was wholly
capable of doing, the division would still have been unequal. “I
have it!” then exclaimed Garibaldi. “There is the red shirt in
my trunk that I haven’t worn since Rome. He shall have that!” A
friend, however, intervened, and the Garibaldian red badge of
courage was peremptorily rescued. (Text.)
(1192)
* * * * *
If I were poor, and had no means, and was obliged to throw my
remaining days on the generosity of the public for food and
clothes and comfort, I should appeal to the Korean, knowing that
he would never see me want, would be respectful while generous,
and would never be so mean as to cast up my good-for-nothingness
to me.--JAMES S. GALE, “Korea in Transition.”
(1193)
* * * * *
Of Samuel Johnson, William J. Long in “English Literature” writes:
In all London there was none more kind to the wretched, and none
more ready to extend an open hand to every struggling man and
woman who crossed his path. When he passed poor, homeless Arabs
sleeping in the streets he would slip a coin in their hands, in
order that they might have a happy awakening; for he himself
knew well what it meant to be hungry. Such was Johnson--a “mass
of genuine manhood,” as Carlyle called him, and as such, men
loved and honored him.
(1194)
See ACKNOWLEDGMENT; HUMOR AND GENEROSITY; TACT.
=Generosity Betrayed=--See DISPLACEMENT.