So universal is this sorrow, that a separate and personal bereavement could not have more completely shrouded in grief the public mind than did the announcement of his death. The advent of the dark angel into each and every household could not have more completely paralyzed the public mind than did the untimely taking off of this superbly gifted son of Georgia. Never since the angel of the Lord smote the first-born of Egyptian households for lack of mystic symbols on the door, has a people’s sorrow been so deep, so universal, and so sincere. Had the end of such a man come in the proper course of nature, heralded by such physical changes as indicate the approach of death, it might have been better borne, but would still have been an event of national misfortune that would have taxed to the uttermost the endurance of hearts already lacerated by freshly opened wounds. Had we been in the possession of such warnings as it was in the power of Omnipotence to have granted us, still the blow would have been unutterably painful and overpowering. But that he, who was conceded to be the intellectual peer of any in the nation; who was without a superior as an orator in the present generation; that he who was in an especial manner fitted to be the champion of the South in her appeal for justice at the bar of public opinion, both in Europe and America; that he, who was so richly endowed should suddenly and without warning, as it were, become the victim of death, and have all the bright and brilliant promise of a life whose sun had risen so gloriously, quenched in death and darkness, might well move a people to tears, and clothe a nation in sackcloth and ashes.
A PEOPLE MOURN.
From the “Warrenton Clipper.”
The people of the Southland are wrapped in grief and a nation mourns in sympathy. While all nature beams with beauteous smiles and December luxuriates in the balmy breezes of spring, he whom we had learned to love and to whom his people turned for hope and encouragement, lies wrapped in earth’s cold embrace. Henry W. Grady is dead. Early Monday morning his brave spirit forsook its earthly tenement and sought Him who had given it being. The electric words which flashed the sad news through the length and breadth of the country carried mourning into thousands of homes and millions of hearts. The friend of the people was dead, and one universal sense of sorrow pervaded the minds of all.
Mr. Grady had just returned from Boston, where he had delivered one of the grandest addresses of his life, before the Boston Merchants’ Association, upon the Southern question. The speech was thoroughly Southern in its character, and a grand defense of the course of his people in national politics and their dealings with the colored race. Exposure in the raw New England atmosphere caused him to contract a severe cold which rapidly grew worse. He was very ill when he returned to Atlanta and pneumonia in its worst form soon developed. He lay ill at his beautiful home in Atlanta for a few days only, gradually growing worse, until the end came Monday morning.
Though his dangerous situation was known, the probability of his death did not seem to occur to the people. That the youthful, magnetic, beloved Grady could die seemed impossible. When the blow had fallen its effect was to stun, and had we been told that it was a dream, a mistake, we would really have believed it and sought out some new evidence of his popularity. Dead! Is it possible! Before he had reached the prime of his manhood or the zenith of his fame! Did Death but waylay to seize him just as we were learning his worth? Of the many mysteries of life death is the greatest.
Nothing shows more the high estimation in which the man was held than the widespread sources from which came the words of sympathy and condolence; from field and fireside, from town and hamlet, from city street and mansion, from every source in which his noble words have found an echo, poured forth the gentle words of sympathy and sorrow. Statesmen and soldiers hastened to proffer their sympathy and great men of every rank condoled with the bereaved ones. Not a prominent Northern journal but devoted considerable space to his memory. Party and creed were alike forgotten. Not a whisper of depreciation was heard from any source.
There never died a man within the history of the State whose fame was so recent, who was so generally loved and admired in life and so universally regretted in death. On Christmas, the day of joy and peace, we laid our hero to rest. Not the less a hero because his were the victories of peace. No victor, fresh from the bloody field of battle, was ever more deserving of his laurel wreaths than he of the chaplets we can only lay upon his grave. The lips that pleaded so eloquently for peace and union are stilled in death, and the hand that penned so many beautiful words for the encouragement of his people moves no more. A sense of peculiar personal loss is upon us. The old men have lost a son, the young men a brother. Atlanta mourns her foremost citizen, the State a devoted son, the South an able defender and the Nation an honored citizen. Our matchless Grady is no more.