From the “Gainesville Eagle.”
There was buried in Atlanta yesterday a young man that illustrated the possibilities of American youth.
There are two forces that combine to make great men—heredity and environment. The first had given Henry Grady magnificent natural endowment—a kingly and masterful mind. The second gave him opportunity, and he utilized it for all it was worth. Combined, they have given him a deathless name and fame that will make one of the brightest pages in the Southland’s history.
All over the land, men and women, who loved his sweetness of soul, grieve to-day over his untimely end. All over the South, men who expected much of his tongue and pen, mourn sincerely the loss of the brilliant mind which worshiped so loyally at Patriotism’s altar. How illy could he be spared. How inscrutable the ways of Providence! We can but bow and grieve.
But what an inspiration the history of his brief years! Poor and unknown a few years ago, he died in a halo of glory that had made his name a household word over a continent. His life was a psalm of praise. Like the birds, he sang because he must. Eloquence dwelt in his tongue like the perfume in the heart of the flowers; sweetness flowed from his pen as the honey comes from the mysterious alchemy of the bee—it was his nature.
This is not the time or place to analyze or measure his life-work. History and the future must render that verdict. Frankly, we are not of those who believe that his speeches—eloquent and grand as they were—will wipe out sectional feeling. The people who hate and fear the South are given over to believe a lie. It is their stock in trade; it is the life blood of their political partisanship, and though one rose from the dead, they would not believe. But he had done and was doing, and had he lived would have brought to a marvelous fruition something of far more practical value. He had made known to the world the marvelous resources of the South, and gotten the ear of capital and enterprise and brought, and was bringing, the enginery of its power to unlock the storehouses of an untold wealth. ’Tis here his grandest work was done. Call it selfish, if you will, but ’tis here our loss is greatest.
His brilliancy, dash and originality had made the great journal, of which he was the head, easily the foremost newspaper of the South. His eloquent tongue and matchless pen had made him par excellence the exemplar and apostle of this grand and growing section.
But the end has come. Only He who has smitten can know whether such another prophet shall rise in the wilderness to lead us forward to the glorious destiny which his prophetic eye foresaw, and to which his throbbing, loyal heart gave itself and died.