HE NEVER OFFENDED.
From the “Washington Chronicle.”
He died peacefully at his home in Atlanta on Monday morning at forty minutes past three o’clock. As the news flashed over the wires it imparted a thrill of anguish to every Southern heart. For he was a great favorite at the South. And at the North he had cause to be proud of his reputation. It would be impossible to compare Mr. Grady with any man who has lived. His character was unique and so was his work. It is idle and senseless talk to conjecture what his future might have been if he had lived. His course is run and his life is finished, as completely finished as if he had lived an hundred years and died. What was that life? 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. In sober truth he was a great man, and accomplished a great work which will live after him and glorify his name.
Were a star quenched on high,
Forever would its light,
Still traveling downward from the sky,
Shine on our mortal sight.
So when a great man dies,
Ages beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies
Upon the paths of men.