It is almost certain failure for erring man to struggle only to be famous. She never yet came in all her splendor to the impetuous wooer. Like Cleopatra, who secretly tired of the infatuated Anthony, who could not fight at Actium for thoughts of her, and secretly died for love of the young Caesar who heartily despised the character of the ancient Langtry, so also with fame. “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” and perhaps knows if he allowed the fools who burn up their lives and their midnight oil seeking to become famous, to become so, their heads would burst with conceit or their own vanity would wreck them. But on the other hand, He often showers on those who honestly fight for right, regardless of consequences, who care more for principle than for worldly honor, and more for truth than for glory, and who do their whole duty regardless of consequences, the greatest fame and honor. The strutting peacock has all he can carry in his gaudy plumage and resplendent feathers. It would have been as much a sacrilege to have added these decorations to either Ulysses S. Grant or Robert E. Lee, as it would have been cruel to deprive John Pope and Robert Tombs of them. And the gap between the pairs is the true distance between fame and feathers.
The wild, reckless and dissipated young rake, who left Rome more to be rid of his creditors than to fight the Gauls, never dreamed of the glory in store for him as he threw the fire of his soul in his work and blazed his way to fame both with a pen and sword—each so resplendently bright that the student of to-day is lost in wonder and admiration as he endeavors to decide on which Caesar’s greatest claim to renown rests. “Here lies one whose name is written on water,” is the epitaph which the poor, gentle, timid Keats begged to have carved on his tomb, begged it as he lay dying from shafts of cruelty and malice. And yet, his fame is as enduring as his art, and that is “a thing of beauty” and “a joy forever.” “What have I done to be worthy of this great honor?” asked Washington, when he heard he was elected the first president of the Republic. Shakespeare was silent, morose, dissatisfied, as all true artists are, with his own work, and judging from the epitaph, which it is said he himself wrote, it appears he was fearful he might not have even a place to rest his bones. And so, the world over. Simplicity is greatness. Truth is fame. Honesty is glory. If you doubt it compare Agricola and Cataline; Washington and Arnold; Paul and Iscariot; Shakespeare and Sheridan.
In the same line of reasoning it is an hundred to one when a breeder, pinning everything on a pedigree, an individuality, or some supposed excellency, ever hits the mark. It is said that the same man once owned Kittrell’s Tom Hal and Copperbottom. The latter he thought was the better horse; the former was ignored. Time has shown, perhaps to his loss, the owner’s error. An exchange recently published a story of how a prospective buyer went to purchase one or two colts. The first was Hambletonian 10, then, I think, a yearling; the second was a horse called Abdallah. He regarded Abdallah the handsomest, the speediest, the best. He spent a good deal of time in his examination, and as they were priced the same, showing that even the owners had not discovered any difference, he finally purchased the Abdallah colt, and, the writer adds, “The first went to fame, the second to a double-tree.”
But some people think horse-breeding is not a lottery. Why, even man-breeding is.
And so the Hal family, thinking not of fame, find it thrust upon them.
(To be Continued.)
THE LAST HYMN OF THE BILOXI
(The Biloxi, a noble tribe of Indians who lived on the Gulf Coast many centuries ago, were defeated in battle and besieged in their last remaining fortress by an unrelenting enemy. Choosing rather to die in the sea than to be captured and enslaved, they marched out of their gate on a moonlit night, singing a death chant, a stately procession of men, women and children, and continued seaward until the waves swallowed them up. Their enemies stood on the shore and watched them, struck with surprise and admiration. The remains of their last fortress is said to be still standing at Biloxi, Miss., and to this day there is heard a weird music which comes in from the Gulf, oftenest on still, moonlit nights, which the natives call “The Last Hymn of the Biloxi.”)
Over the sea, the silent sea,