Grady

“ Who that has listened to the magic of Grady’s speech, or gathered the subtle thought from his well-chosen words, has not found in them the expression of that which seemed to lie slumbering in his own bosom, only to be awakened by the touch of his master hand! Such is the service which genius renders to humanity, and such did he render for us with a power that was almost matchless and unapproachable. ”

“ Grady was a big-hearted, whole-souled fellow, a man of the people, a statesman and a patriot. His intellectual attainments and all fitted him for the grand and brilliant position which he reached. True as steel to his native South, he was able to conciliate the North. A man of noble impulses, he never offended. ”

“ Henry W. Grady had the zeal of a martyr and valor of a patriot. If it be permitted to mortals who have put on immortality to look upon this world from their celestial home, the incense of praise which ascends from our stricken hearts will be grateful to the soul of Henry Grady. God has set his seal upon his silver tongue, and no more forever will his eloquent voice, stimulating his fellow-countrymen to deeds of noble enterprise, be heard on earth. ”

“ Grady comes to us as a sorrow with all the force of a painful surprise. He was cut down in the bloom of a robust physical manhood, in the full enjoyment of his magnificent mental powers by which he had just ascended to the very pinnacle of fame. The eyes of the country were fixed upon him, the son of the South, whose transcendent genius inspired the hope of the blessed realization of promises with which his brief but 552brilliant career was so full. But in the death of this illustrious journalist and matchless orator the lesson is enforced that “The path of glory leads but to the grave.” ”

“ In the hush of that dark hour which just precedes the dawn—in its silence and darkness, while Love kept vigil by his couch of pain and breathed sweet benedictions on his dying brow—the spirit of Henry Grady, the South’s fame-crowned son—her lover and her champion—the Man Eloquent—the courtly gentleman—whose laureled brow while yet flushed with earth’s triumphs towered into immortality—the spirit of this man of love and might passed from the scenes which its radiance had illumined to the loftier life of the world beyond. ”

“ To the manner born, he loved his State and his South with all the ardor of the highest type of patriot. His tongue was never silent nor his inkhorn dry when our people were aspersed. He met traducers with truths and a glittering wit which were matchless.
Grady was a genius born. His work has proved it. Ah! the sad part of it is that Death has snatched him with so much of the grand mission which was plainly his unfinished. Nature seldom endows her children with the gifts with which she favored Grady. Among modern orators he was the peer of any and his pen spoke as eloquently as his tongue. ”

“ Made fatherless in youth by the cruel ravage of war, he struck out with a stout heart and strong hands for success—how well he achieved it, the praises showered upon him from every quarter forcibly demonstrate the fact! Who has not felt the warmth of his sunny nature?—it glows in every stroke of his pen, and shines in all his eloquent utterances, and brightens his memory as his name and triumphs pass into history. Mr. Grady, by his pen and eloquence, has done more for the South than any other of her sons, and their love and appreciation is attested in their universal sorrow. ”

“ Grady addressed Northern people from the home of Phillips and Sumner, and his words have rung from Boston to San Francisco. His great speech was susceptible to no criticism for taste, for loyalty to our convictions, for impressive oratory or convincing argument. His facts and his logic are as strong as his word painting.
His beautiful tribute to the land which “lies far South” is a literary gem not destined alone to stir the hearts at the time of its utterance. It will live for its poetry, its tender sentiment and its reality. ”

“ Henry Woodfin Grady died Monday morning, December 23, 1889, from bronchial and other troubles, irritated by his recent visit to Boston, where he made his last and greatest speech in behalf of the section and people he loved so well.
Since England lost her Wellington, and America her Lincoln, no greater calamity has moved a people to sympathetic tears than the death of Henry Grady. His life was the fulfillment of a noble man, and his grand impulses touched every phase of humanity. ”

“ It is as more than a journalist or an orator, that Mr. Grady is to be counted. He was admirable as both, but he was more than a Southerner, a peacemaker between the sections. He was intensely Southern, filled full of all the traditions of his people, proud of them and their past, but he accepted the new order with the magnificent enthusiasm of his intense nature, and became the embodiment of the spirit of the New South. More than any other man of this section, he had the ear of the people of the North. ”

“ Even should an orator, whose eloquence might sway multitudes, rise to reign in the dead hero’s stead, it is more than probable that he would not combine with his oratory the wonderful statistical knowledge possessed by Mr. Grady, whose solid reasoning was only exceeded by the winsome touch, creeping in here and there, of the true artistic nature. He spoke in his last address of the South’s vast resources—of its “cotton whitening by night beneath the stars, and by day the wheat locking the sunshine in its bearded sheaf.” ”

“ Whether engaged in making governors and senators, or preparing a Christmas dinner for newsboys, whether occupied in building a church or forming a Chautauqua; whether constructing a railroad or erecting some eleemosynary institution, his pen was powerful and his influence potent. It has left its impress upon the tablets of the world’s memory, and the name of Henry Grady, the great pacificator, will live in song and story until the sundown of time. ”

“ A hundred years hence, when sweet charity is stemming the tides of suffering in the world, if truth is not dumb, she will say: This blessed work is an echo from Henry Grady’s life on earth. A hundred years hence, when friendship is building high her altars of self-sacrifice in the name of love and loyalty, if truth is not dumb, she will say: This beautiful service is going on as a perpetual memorial to Henry Grady’s life on earth. ”

“ Grady’s work, and he brought to the work of journalism some of its highest qualifications. Ability as a writer, keen appreciation of “news,” and tireless industry, which he had, must all be held second to the power he possessed in an eminent degree of divining the drift and tendency of public feeling, being neither too early to lead it nor too late to control it. This divination Mr. Grady was daily displaying and he never made better use of it than in his last speech in Boston, the best of his life, in which he rose from mere rhetoric to a clear, earnest and convincing handling of fact. ”

“ Wherever Eloquence, the deity whom this people hath ever worshiped, shall retain a temple, no pilgrim shall enter there, save he bear thy dear name as a sacred shibboleth on his lips. So long as patriotism shall remain the shining angel who guards the destinies of our Republic, her starry finger will point to Grady on Plymouth Rock, for Fame will choose to chisel his statue there, standing as the sentinel whom God had placed to keep eternal watch over the liberties of a re-united people! ”

“ So, Henry Grady, a ministering angel of mercy on earth, faithfully tried, throughout his life, in his conduct toward his fellow-man, to follow the Divine injunction given at man’s creation morn. His pen was never dipped in malice or bitterness, but was always lifted in behalf of charity, love and kindness; in behalf of progress, industry and enterprise; in behalf of the South and her institutions—his State and her people.
For every heart he had a tone,
Could make its pulses all his own. Some men burst to shatters by their own furious notion, others in the course of nature simply cease to shine ”

“ Grady’s own boyishness led him to sympathize with everything that appertains to boyhood. His love for his own children led him to take an interest in other children. He wanted to see them enjoy themselves in a boisterous, hearty, health-giving way. The sports that men forget or forego possessed a freshness for him that he never tried to conceal. ”

“ That the press, which was his power, and which remains as the bulwark of the people, is the purer, and the better, and the stronger from the principles which Henry Grady inculcated in it. To carry out that work, which has fallen from his hands in death, should move the heart of every journalist, and when its fullest fruition has come, then will the crown upon the fame of Henry Grady shine the brighter! ”

“ He was our friend, wise and true and earnest in his counsels—pointing out that the true end of the journalist is the defense and advancement of his people. As a journalist, perhaps, has his greatest work been done, and upon the heart of every man of the pen he left an impression that his vocation is ennobled and is the grander that Henry Grady made it his love. ”

“ Henry Grady concerned himself to do good unto others. He kindled the fire on 387cold hearth stones, he cared for the sick and the forsaken, he visited the prisoner, he carried consolation to the desolate. His works of mercy, tenderness, and love do live after him, and they are the crowning beauty of his work in this world. The tear of gratitude that trickles down the cheek of the orphan is a purer jewel than ever sparkled in the crown of political fame. The simple thanks of the friendless and oppressed make sweeter music to the soul than the applause of senates. ”

“ But to give adequate shape to even the slightest sketch of the unique personality and the phenomenal career of Henry Woodfin Grady, who died, as it were, but yesterday, is well-nigh impossible; for here was a life that has no parallel in our history, productive as our institutions have been of individuality. A great many Americans have achieved fame in their chosen professions,—have won distinction and commanded the popular approval, but here is a career which is so unusual as to have no precedent. ”

“ Grady had the ear and heart of the South because he loved its history and its very soil, and because he was the leading exponent of the idea that is working to build up a prosperous manufacturing New South. He had the ear of the North because, while he had no apologies to make for Southern actions and was proud of Southern achievements, he had turned his eyes to the morning and lived in the busy world of to-day. He recognized changed conditions and did not bemoan fate. He stood up in his manliness and his faith and went to work to bring prosperity where poverty cast its blight. ”

“ Grady were only the means for development of his intellect and heart. And lo! when at thirty-nine years of age he put down his pen and closed his lips for the perpetual silence, he had done a work which many a man who lives on to sixty and seventy and eighty years never accomplishes. There is a great deal of senseless praise of longevity, as though it were a wonderful achievement to live a good while. Ah, my friends, it is not how long we live, but how well we live and how usefully we live. ”

“ No man within the past three years has come so suddenly before the American people, occupying so large a share of interested attention not only in the South but in the North. None has wielded a greater influence or made for himself a higher place in the public regard. The career of Mr. Grady reads like a romance. Like a true Georgian, he was born with the instincts of his people developed to a marked degree, and his rise to a position of honor and usefulness was certain, should his life be spared. ”

“ No effort of Toombs or Yancey, even in the days of public excitement, surpassed this last speech of Grady.
He deserves a place among the great men of America, and the South must hold his memory in reverence. A broken shaft must be his monument, for as sure as life had been spared him new honors were in store for this young man. He had made his place in the world, and he was equal to any call made upon him, and the people were learning to look to him as a leader. Few such men are born, and too much honor cannot be done them. ”

“ An intellect exceptionally brilliant, an indomitable courage, a judgment keen, clear and cool, a character unspotted and unassailable—these are the weapons with which Henry W. Grady captured the nation.
The South loves him for his unflinching devotion to its interests; the North admires him for the conservatism which always characterized his political actions. The brilliancy of his intellect all admit. We venture to say that there lives not a man in the United States to-day whose death would be more sincerely or more universally mourned. ”

“ A great loss has befallen the South in the death of Henry W. Grady, and deep sorrow rests upon the hearts of her people.
He was no ordinary man, and his death calls forth no ordinary grief. Brilliant in intellect, strong in his convictions, untiring in his efforts to promote the welfare of his country, genial, courteous, kind-hearted, ever ready to help the unfortunate, the loss of such a man cannot be estimated. When results were to be achieved, when encouragement was needed, his eloquent tongue, his ready pen, his helping hand were used with telling effect. ”

“ Of this mission Grady spoke with an eloquence so elevated and so inspired that it seemed as if the voices of the waiting angels were whispering to his 405prophetic intelligence messages of peace, joy and gladness to his countrymen. He said:
“A mighty duty, and 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 fight for human liberty! ”