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Eric Hobsbawm A Life in History 1st

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Grand and noble Grady, we mourn your death; but we know a soul
so radiant with love for humanity, is now at rest with the redeemed.
GEORGIA’S NOBLE SON.

From the “Madison Advertiser.”


In view of the innumerable, heartfelt and touching memorials to
this gifted child of genius, anything that we might add would be as
Hyperion to a Satyr. But moved by a feeling of profound grief at our’s
and the Nation’s loss, we claim the privilege of giving, as humble
members of the craft, expression to our high regard for the character
of Georgia’s noble son, and mingle a tear with those of the entire
country upon the grave of a great and good man.
In early life he manifested a ripeness and decision of purpose in
selecting a calling for which he conceived he had an aptitude. Nor
was his judgment erroneous, for, with rare genius, coupled with
energy and untiring application, he soon found a place amongst the
first journalists of the country. How, with his gifted pen, he convinced
the judgment, moved the emotions and sympathies, inspired to lofty
resolve and the cultivation of gentle kindness, none knew better than
his constant readers.
Perhaps no character in Georgia, we may say in the South, was
possessed of such varied, versatile talent. Profuse in rhetorical
attainments, gifted in oratory, profound in thought, facile and
versatile as a writer, an encyclopædia of statistics, he presented a
combination amounting to an anomaly. Coming upon the stage of
action at a period when the crown was torn from our Southland and
she bent beneath the cross, when the gore of his patriot father,
poured out on the fields of Virginia, was still red before his vision and
calling as it were for vengeance, he remembered the vow of the
greatest Captain of the age, taken at Appomattox, the injunction of
our recently departed Chieftain, and set his noble brain, gifted pen
and silver tongue to the herculean task of extinguishing the embers
of sectional hate; to a recognition of the rights, and adjustment of the
wrongs of his beloved South, and the rehabilitating of the great
American nation, under the ægis of constitutional equality.
His strong and graceful effusions in the Atlanta Constitution had
attracted universal attention, and put men everywhere to thinking.
Blended with so much of genial kindness and courtesy, while abating
nothing of truth or right, they won commendation, even from
unwilling ears. Nor were they confined to one theme. Every work of
industry, labor, love or charity found in him a potent advocate,
convincing by his logic, and persuading by his gentle, finished
rhetoric. As a journalist, among the craft and the world of readers, he
was recognized as without a superior, scarcely with a peer.
But burning with a grand, great purpose, he felt with the inspiration
of true greatness, that there was work for his tongue, as well as pen.
With a penetrating judgment, he felt that the territory of those
misguided and uninformed as to the condition and burdens of his
beloved South must be invaded, and the ear of those who read but
little or nothing of her grievances must be reached. Unexpectedly an
opportunity was opened up for him, and he appeared before a
cultivated audience in the great metropolis, New York.
To say that wonder, admiration and conviction was the result of his
grand effort on that occasion, would be to put it mildly. Never, since
the surrender, have any utterances, from any source, commanded,
up to that time, so much attention and attracted so much careful and
unprejudiced consideration of the situation of the South. From the
position of an accomplished journalist, he bloomed out into a grand
orator. His name and his grand effort was on every tongue, and
every true Georgian thanked God that a David had arisen to battle
her cause.
So profound was the impression made upon the Northern mind of
the justice, truth and temperance of Mr. Grady’s position, that he was
called to Boston, the cradle of Phillips, Garrison and all isms, to
discuss the race question. Had his people been admonished of the
consequences to him physically, they would have felt as did others in
reference to the sweet singer of Israel—better ten thousand perish
than he be endangered. Intent upon what he believed his great
mission, he responded. What that grand effort was is fresh in the
minds of all. Its influence upon this Nation, time alone will disclose.
Grand as was Mr. Grady as a writer, thinker and orator, his
greatness culminated in the bigness of his heart. He might truthfully
be called (as he styled the late Dawson) “the Golden-hearted man.”
His pen, tongue, hand and purse were ever open to all the calls of
distress or want, and every charitable movement found no more
effective champion than in him. A striking recent incident is narrated
of him illustrative of this his noble characteristic. Taking two tattered
strangers into a store, he directed the proprietor to furnish each with
a suit of clothes. The proprietor, his close personal friend,
remonstrated with him for his prodigality, saying, “You are not able to
so do.” He replied, “I know it, but are they not human beings?” Grand
man. Surely he has won the crown bestowed upon the peacemaker
and the cheerful giver. Mysterious are the ways of the Great Ruler.
Little did his exulting friends think that he would be so soon
summoned from the field of his glory and usefulness to the grave.
Man proposes, God disposes, and Grady sleeps the long sleep, but
“tho’ dead he yet speaketh.” Alone, aided by none save perhaps the
gifted, battle-scarred, faithful Gordon, he gave up his life to enforcing
the obligation of Lee, the injunctions of the lamented Davis. With a
brave spirit and a heart of love, he would speak words of forgiveness
to his wrong-doers, if any, while others less tolerant might say to
them, “An eagle in his towering flight was hawked at by a mousing
owl.” But with indorsement from such as Cleveland, Hill, Campbell
and a host of others, he needs no apology from us. Peacefully he
has crossed over the river, and under the perennial shade of the leal
land he sits with Davis and Lee and receives their plaudits for his
faithful, patriotic efforts.
THE DEATH OF HENRY GRADY.

From the “Hawkinsville Dispatch.”


Henry W. Grady died at his home in Atlanta, at 3:40 o’clock, on
the morning of the 23d ult.
This announcement has already been flashed all over the United
States, and has carried genuine sorrow throughout Georgia and
many places beyond. The fame and the popularity of this brilliant
young orator and writer were not confined to this State, but were
almost co-extensive with the limits of the Union.
Mr. Grady was in Boston a week or two before his death to make
an address, by invitation of the Merchants’ Club of that city. The
address was on “The Negro Problem,” and it attracted attention
throughout the United States. He was not well when he left Atlanta,
and his departure was contrary to the advice of his physician.
Immediately after the address, he went to New York, and while there
he had to take his bed. He was compelled to decline all the honors
tendered him, and hastened home. The citizens of Atlanta had
arranged a complimentary reception for his return, but he was taken
from the car into a carriage and carried to his home. He never left
that home until he was carried out in his coffin.
His funeral took place on Wednesday of last week. It was probably
the largest that has ever been seen in Atlanta, for Mr. Grady was
nearer and dearer to the popular heart than any other man. The
body was carried to the First Methodist church, where it lay in state
several hours. Thousands of people passed through the church and
took a last look at the face which was so familiar to all Atlanta. The
church was profusely and beautifully decorated.
At two in the afternoon the funeral took place. There was no
sermon, but the services consisted of prayers, reading selections
from the Bible by several ministers, and songs. “Shall we gather at
the river?” was sung as the favorite hymn of the deceased. At the
close of the services, the remains were placed in a vault in Oakland
Cemetery.
Henry Grady was a remarkable man. He was not quite thirty-nine
years of age, had never held an official position, and yet his
wonderful talent had won for him a national reputation. It is scarcely
an exaggeration to say that, as an attractive writer and speaker, he
had not an equal in the United States. Certainly he had no superior.
He spoke as well as he wrote, and every utterance of his tongue or
production of his pen was received with eagerness. There was an
indescribable charm about what he said and wrote, that is
possessed by no other person within our knowledge.
He began writing for the press when about eighteen, and at once
made a reputation throughout the State. That reputation steadily
grew until he could command an audience that would crowd any hall
in the United States.
It is impossible to estimate the good he has done. At one time he
would use his wonderful eloquence to urge the farmers of Georgia to
seek prosperity by raising their own supplies. At another time, he
would rally the people of Atlanta to help the poor of the city who were
suffering from the severity of the winter weather. Then he would
plead—and never in vain—for harmony among the distracted
factions of his loved city, who were fighting each other in some
municipal contest. Still again, he would incite his people to grand
achievements in material prosperity; and who can measure the value
which his influence has been to Atlanta in this particular alone? He
often said to his people “Pin your eternal faith to these old red hills”;
and he set the example.
But his work was not confined to the narrow limits of his city and
State. He was in demand in other places, and wherever he went he
captured the hearts of the people. His speeches and his writings
were all philanthropic. All his efforts were for the betterment of his
fellows. In the South he urged the moral and material advancement.
In the North he plead, as no other man has plead, for justice to the
South and for a proper recognition of the rights of our people. The
South has had advocates as earnest, but never one as eloquent and
effective.
In the prohibition contest in Atlanta two years ago, Mr. Grady threw
his whole soul into the canvass for the exclusion of bar-rooms. With
his matchless eloquence he depicted the evils of the liquor traffic and
the blessedness of exemption from it. If reason had prevailed, his
efforts would not have been in vain; but unfortunately the balance of
power was held by the ignorant and the vicious—by those on whom
eloquence and argument could have no effect; and he lost.
But his life-work is ended, except so far as the influence of good
works lives after the worker dies. He has done much good for his
State and for the entire country; and there is no man whose death
would be more lamented by the people of Georgia.
A MEASURELESS SORROW.

From the “Lagrange Reporter.”


Atlanta buried yesterday her greatest citizen, and Georgia
mourns the death of her most brilliant son. Not only Atlanta and
Georgia bewail an irreparable loss, but the whole South joins in the
lamentation, while beyond her boundaries the great North, so lately
thrilled by his eloquence, stands with uncovered head at Grady’s
tomb.
O measureless sorrow! A young man, with unequaled genius and
great, loving heart, has been cut off in his golden promise. The
South saw in him her spokesman—her representative to the world.
The old and the new were happily blended in him. Revering the past,
his face was turned to the rising day. As the stars went out, one by
one, he greeted the dawn of a grander era, which he was largely
instrumental in hastening. His work for Georgia, the South, the
country, will abide. Time will only increase his fame.
A journalist without a peer, an orator unsurpassed, a statesman
with grasp of thought to “know what Israel ought to do,” has fallen.
Words are impotent to express the public grief.
God reigns. Let us bow to His will and trust Him for help. Our
extremity is His opportunity. If leader is necessary to perfect the
work, He will give us one qualified in all respects. Like Moses, the
South’s young champion had sighted the promised land and pointed
out its beauties and glories to his wondering people. Let us boldly
pass over the Jordan that lies between.
Rest, noble knight. Dream of battle-fields no more—days of toil,
nights of danger. Thy country will take care of thy fame.
GRADY’S DEATH.

From the “Oglethorpe Echo.”


Together with the sorrow of the thousands who loved Henry
Grady that he should be taken from among them, comes the lament
of the Nation that one so gifted and capable of so much good should
be cut down just as he was fairly upon the threshold of his useful
career. Viewing the surroundings from a human standpoint, it would
seem that his end was indeed untimely and a calamity to the whole
Nation.
Our own Colquitt and Gordon have won greatly the respect of the
Northern people, but they nor any Southern man had as implicitly
their confidence. Whatever Grady said or wrote, on no matter what
subject, our friends across Mason and Dixon’s line accepted as
utterly true and not to be questioned. They respected also his ability
more than they did any other man of this section, and were more
inclined to take his counsel and be governed by his advice and
admonition.
This distinction Grady had honestly won, and by having it he was
doing more than any ten men to obliterate sectional prejudices. His
last great speech, delivered only a few days before his death, was
on this line, and its good effects will be felt the country over, though
he has been taken before he could see them. In that speech he
disabused the minds of his hearers of many erroneous ideas of the
relations of the races in the South. He did it by stating plainly and
unhesitatingly facts and giving a true picture of the situation without
varnish. He had the gift of doing this in such a way as to command
the respect of both sides of whatever question he might be
discussing. Just such speakers and just such speeches is what is
now needed to bring the two sections together; to obliterate sectional
prejudices; make the entire Nation one people in purpose and
sentiment. But have we any more Gradys to make them? Perhaps
so, but they are in the background and time must elapse before they
can reach his place. We need them in the front and on the platform
now. Grady was already there, and was doing perhaps, as no other
man will ever do, what is urgently needed to make the Nation more
harmonious, more peaceful and more prosperous; and while we
must bow in humble submission to the will of the Higher Power
which saw fit to end his career, we can but lament the evident loss
the people of the South especially, and the whole Nation, sustains.
HE LOVED HIS COUNTRY.

From the “Cuthbert Liberal.”


In the death of Henry W. Grady, Georgia loses one of her most
gifted sons. Though but a young man he had already acquired a
name that will live as long as Americans love liberty or humanity
loves charity. Though in point of years but just above the horizon of
fame’s vast empyrean, his sun shone with the splendor and brilliancy
usually reached at the zenith. As journalist, he was without a peer in
his own loved Southland. As orator, none since the death of the
gifted Prentiss had, at his age, won such renown. He loved Georgia,
he loved the South, but his big heart and soul encompassed his
whole country. As patriot, his widespread arms took in at one
embrace the denizens upon the borders of the frozen lakes and the
dwellers among the orange groves that girt the Mexic sea. He gave
his life away in a masterful effort to revive peace and good will
between sections estranged by passion and prejudice, and races
made envious of each other by selfish intermeddling of those who
would perpetuate strife to gratify their own greed. As neighbor and
friend, those who knew him best loved him most. Wherever suffering
or poverty pinched humanity, there his heart beat in sympathy and
there his hand dispensed charity’s offerings without stint. Though we
have differed with him in many things, the grave now holds all our
differences and our tears blot out the bitterness of words or thoughts
of the past. May the God in whom he trusted dispense grace, mercy
and peace to the widow and orphans, whose grief and sorrow none
but they can know.
A RESPLENDENT RECORD.

From the “Madison Madisonian.”


It is almost impossible to realize that Henry Grady is dead; that
the eager, restless hands are stilled, and the great heart pulseless
forevermore. The soul turned sick at the tidings, and a wave of
anguish choked all utterance save lamentation alone. His people
mourn his passing with one mighty voice, and like Rachel weeping in
the wilderness, refuse to be comforted.
It seems a grief too heavy to be borne, and as lasting as the
everlasting hills; but when time shall have laid its soothing hand
upon our woe, there will succeed a sensation of exultance and
exaltation, the natural consequence of a contemplation and
appreciation of the briefness and brilliancy of his course, and the
proportions and perfection of his handiwork.
To few men has it been given to live as Grady lived; to still less to
die as Grady died, in the flush flood-tide of achievement, laying down
sword and buckler, the victory won, and bowing farewell while yet the
thunder-gust of plaudits shook the arena like a storm. He flamed like
a meteor athwart the night and vanished in focal mid-zenith, leaving
the illimitable void unstarred by an equal, whose rippling radiance,
flashing in splendor from its myriad facets, might gladden our
sublimated vision.
And what of good he accomplished, all his claim to renown, and
the sole and simple cause of endearing him to mankind, rested upon
one trait alone, one Christ-like attribute and actuating motive. He
held but one creed and preached but one gospel—the gospel of
love. “Little children, love one another,” said, now nearly a score of
centuries since, the carpenter of Nazareth, and with this text—this
first and greatest and most divine of all the commandments—for a
wizard’s wand, our modern Merlin unlocked hearts and insured the
hearty clasping of palms from one end to the other of this broad land.
What more resplendent record could man attain? What prouder
fame be shouted down the ages?
His epitaph is written in the hearts of his people. His memory is
enshrined in the love of a nation.
Let us leave him to repose.
DEDICATED TO HUMANITY.

From the “Sandersville Herald and Georgian.”


The usual joyous season of Christmas tide has been saddened by
funeral dirges over the loss of Georgia’s gifted son. Since the death
of the eloquent and lamented Ben Hill, the loss of no man has
aroused deeper sorrow than Henry W. Grady. Greater
demonstrations of grief with all the emblems of mourning were
perhaps never before exhibited in Georgia. Memorial services were
held not only in Atlanta, the city of his home, but throughout the
State, voicing the great love of the people and their deep sense of
the magnitude of his loss. More touching, beautiful eulogies and
panegyrics have perhaps never been pronounced over the bier of
any man.
The intensity of the admiration for Henry Grady grew out of the
fact that his grand powers were all dedicated to the interests of
humanity. His magic pen, that charmed while it instructed, that
delighted while it moved, was laid under contribution to the good of
his fellows. Eager for the development of his State and her
resources, he traversed the lowlands of the South, and depicted her
vast possibilities in the cultivation of fruits, melons, etc., that have
added so much to her material wealth. Turning to the rock-ribbed
mountains and hills of North Georgia he pointed out the vast
treasures of iron ore, marble and coal, but waiting the hand of
industry. In all sections he portrayed their resources, their fields for
manufacturers, the importance and value of increased railroad
transportation—in fact, leaving nothing undone that seemed to
promise good and prosperity to his people.
The sunny heart which he always carried into his labors was his
chief charm. The playful yet ardent spirit which he always had he
seemed happily to be able to impart to others. Indeed, he seemed to
be a gatherer of sunbeams, his blithe spirit seemed to sing,
Let us gather up the sunbeams
Lying all around our path,
Let us keep the wheat and roses,
Casting out the thorns and chaff.

The sweet, pacific tone of his mind gave him a wonderful influence
over the masses. More than once when disturbing questions were
agitating the city, and party and personal feeling ran high, has he by
his conciliatory spirit and harmless pleasantry quelled the boisterous
multitude. This spirit was ever fruitful of methods and concessions by
which all could harmonize. It was the cropping out of these broad,
liberal views in the fields of national patriotism that arrested the
attention of other sections of the Union, and gave rise to calls for
Grady to address the people at the meeting of the Historical Society
in New York over two years ago. The eloquent utterances of the
young orator, as he painted the Confederate soldier returning from
the war, ragged, shoeless and penniless, fired the Northern heart
with a sympathy for the South it had never known before.
From this time his fame as an orator was established, and he was
at once ranked among the greatest living orators of the day.
Thoughtful men of the North, recognizing the race problem as one
of the coming momentous issues of the future, were eager to hear
the broad views and patriotic suggestions of this great pacificator. An
invitation was there extended by the Merchants’ Association of
Boston to address them at Faneuil Hall. The address seemed to call
forth all his capacious powers, and is styled the crowning
masterpiece of his life. As he graphically sketched the happy results
of the sun shining upon a land with all differences harmonized, with
all aspirations purified by the limpid fount of patriotism, he sketched
a panorama of loveliness and beauty and promise that enraptured
his hearers. And as the notes of the dying swan thrill with new
melody, so the last utterances of the dying statesman will have now
a new charm for those who loved him.
THE SOUTH LAMENTS.

From the “Middle Georgia Progress.”


One week ago yesterday morning woe folded her dark and gloomy
pinions and settled over our fair and sunny Southland! He, who by
his love for us, by his incessant labor for the advancement of our
material progress, whose voice was raised to dispel the shadows of
hate and prejudice, and bring the North and South into a closer
union, whose heart was filled with charity, and whose hands were
ever performing deeds of kindness, the eloquent and gifted Grady—
the knightly and chivalrous leader of the peaceful hosts of the New
South—was called to a brighter home in the skies, where all is peace
and joy and supernal bliss. The whole South laments his death “and
may his soul rest in peace” is the sentiment of every heart. His
virtues are sung in sweetest song, and his worth proclaimed by lips
tremulous with emotion. Young in years, but matured in wisdom, he
grappled the great question that affected his people, and with
matchless eloquence presented their cause on New England soil
and told of their loyalty and love, still cherishing and remembering
the traditions of the past. His death everywhere is recognized as a
national calamity. Every public utterance and every public
appearance, whether in New York, Boston, Texas or on his native
soil, amid “the red old hills of Georgia,” has been greeted with
applause and demonstrations of delight. 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. His gifts were rare, his eloquence wonderful, and
he bore in honor and peace the standard of his people, and they will
ever keep his memory fresh and green.
HIS CAREER.

From the “Dalton Citizen.”


Only a few short weeks ago Hon. Henry W. Grady left his Atlanta
home to electrify a critical audience in Boston, Mass., with one of his
inimitable speeches. Through all the papers of the country the fame
of this magnificent address went ringing, and ere the speech itself
was printed, in full, the orator from whose lips it fell was stricken with
a fatal disease on his return homeward. In little more than a week his
life’s sands had run their course, and in the flush of a glorious and
useful manhood Henry Grady lay dead, while his eulogies were on
the lips of the whole nation. There has been much written by friends
(he had no foes) in the newspaper world concerning this great loss;
but it is all summed up in the words, “Henry Grady is dead!”
Somewhere, in an English poet’s writings, we find a pregnant little
sentence: “I stood beside the grave of one who blazed the comet of
a season.” The career of Henry Grady has been likened by several
speakers and writers to a star burning brightly in the national and
journalistic sky, but its light quenched in the darkness of death ere it
reached its zenith. Fittest, it seems to us, is the simile quoted
previously. A comet trailing its brilliant light across the darkening
heavens, a spectacle focussing the gaze of millions of eyes, causing
other stars to sink into insignificance by reason of its greater glow
and grandeur.—Then, while the interest concerning its movements
has reached its intensity, its gleaming light fades, and presently the
sky is merely glittering again with the myriad stars, for the flash and
the blaze of the comet have disappeared forever and it is invisible to
mortal eyes. The question is, will another take its place, and when?
—We think not soon. 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.” A practical argument at one turn and a
beautifully rounded sentence at another.
These things made up the speeches that held so many in
breathless attention, augmented by his magnetic personality. It
would be well for our Southland could another as gifted shine forth in
like splendor.

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