The power of his personality, the vital force of his energy, and the scope of his genius, had always precluded the thought that death could touch him, and hence, when he fell a victim to the dread destroyer, there was a terrible shock felt, and sorrow rolled like a tempest over the souls of the Southern people.
The swift race he ran, and the lofty heights he attained, harmonized well with God’s munificent endowment of him. In every field that he labored, his achievements were so wonderful, that a faithful account of his career sounds more like the extravagance of eulogy, than like a record of truth. Of his very early boyhood no account is essential to the purposes of this sketch. It is unnecessary to give any details of him prior to the time when he was a student in the University of Georgia, at Athens. From that institution he was graduated in 1868.
During his college days, he was a boy of bounding spirit, who, by an inexplicable power over his associates, made for himself an unchallenged leadership in all things with which he concerned himself. He was not a close student. He never studied his text-books more than was necessary to guarantee his rising from class to class, and to finally secure his diploma. He had no fondness for any department of learning except belles-lettres. In that branch of study he stood well, simply because it was to his liking. The sciences, especially mathematics, were really distasteful to him. He was an omnivorous reader. Every character of Dickens was as familiar to him as a personal friend. That great novelist was his favorite author. He read widely of history, and had a great memory for dates and events. He reveled in poetry as a pastime, but never found anything that delighted him more than “Lucile.” He learned that love-song literally by heart.
While at college his best intellectual efforts were made in his literary and debating society. He aspired to be anniversarian of his society, and his election seemed a foregone conclusion. He was, however, over-confident of success in the last days of the canvass, and when the election came off was beaten by one vote. This was his first disappointment, and went hard with him. He could not bring himself to understand how anything toward the accomplishment of which he had bent his energy could fail. His defeat proved a blessing in disguise, for the following year a place of higher honor, namely that of “commencement orator” was instituted at the University, and to that he was elected by acclamation. This was the year of his graduation, and the speech he made was the sensation of commencement. His subject was “Castles in Air,” and in the treatment of his poetic theme he reveled in that wonderful power of word painting for which he afterwards became so famous. Even in those early days, he wrote and spoke with a fluency of expression, and brilliancy of fancy, that were incomparable.
In all the relations of college life he was universally popular. He had a real genius for putting himself en rapport with all sorts and conditions of men. His sympathy was quick-flowing and kind. Any sight or story of suffering would touch his heart and make the tears come. His generosity, like a great river, ran in ceaseless flow and broadening course toward the wide ocean of humanity. He lived in the realization of its being “more blessed to give than to receive.” He never stopped to consider the worthiness of an object, but insisted that a man was entitled to some form of selfishness, and said his was the self-indulgence which he experienced in giving.
There was an old woman in Athens, who was a typical professional beggar. She wore out everybody’s charity except Grady’s. He never tired helping her. One day he said, just after giving her some money, “I do hope old Jane will not die as long as I live in Athens. If she does, my most unfailing privilege of charity will be cut off.” A princely liberality marked everything he did. His name never reduced the average of a subscription list, but eight times out of ten it was down for the largest amount.
By his marked individuality of character, and evidences of genius, even as a boy he impressed himself upon all those with whom he came in contact.
Immediately after his graduation at Athens, he went to the University of Virginia, not so much with a determination to broaden his scholastic attainments, as with the idea that in that famous institution he would be inspired to a higher cultivation of his inborn eloquence. From the day he entered the University of Virginia, he had only one ambition, and that was to be “society orator.” He made such a profound impression in the Washington Society that his right to the honor he craved was scarcely disputed. In the public debates, he swept all competitors before him. About two weeks before the Society’s election of its orator, he had routed every other aspirant from the field, and it seemed he would be unanimously chosen. However, when election day came, that same over-confidence which cost him defeat at Athens lost him victory at Charlottesville. This disappointment nearly broke his heart. He came back home crestfallen and dispirited, and but for the wonderful buoyancy of his nature, he might have succumbed permanently to the severe blow which had been struck at his youthful aspirations and hopes.
It was not long after his return to Georgia before he determined to make journalism his life-work. At once he began writing newspaper letters on all sorts of subjects, trusting to his genius to give interest to purely fanciful topics, which had not the slightest flavor of news. Having thus felt his way out into the field of his adoption, he soon went regularly into newspaper business.
Just about this time, and before he had attained his majority, he married Miss Julia King, of Athens. She was the first sweetheart of his boyhood, and kept that hallowed place always. Her beauty and grace of person, united to her charms of character, made her the queen of his life and the idol of his love. She, with two children (a boy and girl), survive him.