And we feel we are changed—we are changed.
EDITOR’S TABLE.
THE MEANS OF A MAN’S LASTING FAME.
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BY JOSEPH R. CHANDLER.
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As a general rule, we must look to the earliest years of a man to ascertain the facts and circumstances which have influenced the conduct and produced the result of his latest years; just as we ascend to the sources of a stream, to find what has caused the color and quality of its water; on looking a little down we find those assisting or disturbing accidents that divert or direct its current.
But while the quality of a man’s mind may be dependent upon the gifts of God or the culture of his infancy—while we may trace up from the last effort of matured greatness to the earliest movement of the nascent powers, the influence of the first directing causes, and see how qualities were improved and greatness achieved; while all the colors of the mind seem to be derived from infancy, and the fame of the youth is made obviously referable to the culture of the nursery and the fireside circle, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that even in later years, when the tone or the color of the mind becomes fixed, when the qualities have insured fame and eminence, some unseen, and by the world unsuspected, cause operates to disturb the onward course, impede the progress, lessen the influence, and thus diminish the greatness of the gifted one that has been “the observed of all observers,” as a projecting rock divides the current at the mouth of a stream, or an accumulated bar prevents a depth and destroys the usefulness of a river which has flowed steadily, beautifully and profitably from its source in the mountain to its entrance into the sea.