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{ N A garden of death
where heroes lie
of the summer sky
There's a grave just
marked by a plain gray stone
That’s inscribed with a name to fame unknown.
But green is the grass
And fresh are the flowers
Which garnish this grave
That love’s hand embowers.
And the wind sighs o’er it on summer eves
Its plaintive lament through the shrubs and
leaves,
And with the refrain comes a softer sigh
From the heart of a love that cannot die,
" For true love survives
The lapse of the years,
Though of hope bereft,
Though its fruit be tears.
And on summer days by this grave so green
In somber array may a form be seen,
Or, when o’er it is cast a shroud of snow,
There undying love by this grave moans low.
What does she wish for,
For what does she pray
In the garden of death
Both winter and May?
In sad communings her thoughts backward fly
To the day he bade her a last goodby,
To, that sadder day when he, fighting, fell
For the cause he loved and she loved so well.
She, a Spartan bride,
Would not say him nay,
Though it broke her heart
When he went away.
Others there be in that garden of death
Who the loved ones recall with bated breath,
Who strew bright flowers o'er their graves
with a sigh
For love that lived, for the love that could die.
But she, robed in black,
With the pale, sad face,
Defled the long years
Her love to erase.
Not wedded to death, though her love lies low
And her heart feels cold in the Maytime glow,
But wedded to love which lives in the past,
Sustained by a hope that they’ll meet at last—
She and her lover,
He conqueror where
Death cannot enter
Nor partings be there.
NEIL MACDONALD.
A TORN STAMP.
BY CAPTAIN KENNETH GILMER.
[Copyright, 1897, by the Author.)
When the Army of the Potomac started
on the Wilderness campaign in the spring
of 1864, there was a hasty rally of scatter- .
ed commands, and men of all ranks and
statiens who were on furloughs, detached
service and the like turned from their tem- ''
porary occupations or pastimes, as do bor-
der settlers in time of Indian alarm, and
rushed to the field of danger. I reached the |
Wilderness battleground after an air line |
run to Washington and a forced march
across Virginia, and that, too, without an |
ounce of personal baggage, without mon- !
ey, with nothing but a soldier’s regulation
2quipments and a scribbler’s dnevitable
portfolio. Iwas a veteran campaigner, and |
after that fight the myriad dead whose |
-dumb, cold forms would never again utter |
love messages reminded me that the dear |
ones left behind me would anxiously await |
tidings by every northern mail. A volun-
teer soon learncd that patriot fire must be
fed by dear home ties; that in order to fight
well the soldier must love well, and so !
mother and sister and cousin and sweet- :
heart must share the warrior’s thought |
and affection. I wrote the usual home let- |
ters and hastily put on stamps, letting the
other remain so that I might use every sec- |
‘ond of time before the bag would close. |
When the call sounded and the mail courier
was gathering his burden, I added ‘just
. another word,’’ closed it and reached for a
stamp, but found nothing but a fragment
of a 3 cent issue.’ ‘‘Has any one a spare
stamp?’ I called out. The answer from all
over camp by mocking laughs and catcalls
told me that I had echoed a query already
ancient.
In my absorption I had been oblivious of
the stamp famine raging around me. The
agents of the friendly commissions who
sometimes forward army letters were not
at hand, so I scribbled across the edge of
the envelope, ‘‘ A soldier’s battlefield letter
to his sweetheart; no stamp,’’ and tossed
it into the mail bag, returning the torn
stamp to my portfolio quite carelessly. For
a fact the kindly countenance of the Father
- of His Country seemed to smile on me
from that stamp as I glanced at it. I re-
called some of the stories of the young
British lieutenant and his amatory ardor
until I fancied he was my friend whisper-
ing to me each time that I thought about
-my wandering missive, ‘It is all right,
my boy; that Wilderness letter is going
' fought like beasts.
- to Lucy," the whisper would say. We wens
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| into battle after battle, and our marching
and fighting postponed all letter writing.
We shouldered our way to Richmond, and
I was one of the 10,000 who crawled away
from Cold Harbor, maimed and bleeding,
with a stinging hurt to carry for life. We
were soon en route to Washington, and the
river and railway conveyances were weight-
| ed with crushed and groaning humanity.
About three days after I left the fleld I
received from the sanitary people two Bos-
ton crackers and a gill of milk punch.
When I saw Washington at the end of a
week, I was burning and thirsting and
longing madly for something to cool the
fever of lip and head and coursing veins.
All about the wharfs where our steamer
put in there were hucksters of every sort of
repulsive trash—pies, black cakes, fat soak-
ed doughnuts—just the sights to derange
still more the famished stomach and unfit
it for the coarse hospital fare which was
now to follow. When we reached the new
diet, it was rough, raw and tasteless and in
every way unsuited to the palates of suffer-
ing men. Finally, within two or three
days, we were put on board box freight
cars on bare floors and hauled, with much
joiting and spasmodic shakings, to Balti- |
more. .
The arrival of a new detachment of men
from the front attracted the basket ped-
dlers of the streets, and they quickly sur-
rounded the parade ground, crying out
their stock with a glibness that was ex-
*‘HAS ANY ONE A SPARE STAMP?”
tremely tantalizing, ‘‘Nice fresh oranges,
ten for a quarter!’’ A stoical warrior with-
out a cent could repel that, but the music-
al throat of one young girl in the crowd
bad a decided charm. There was a rush
to the spot by all who were able to use
crutches, although there was not a dime
in the entire party.
Some one ‘called out, “Do you take
stamps?’ - Of course the answer was
“Yes” as soon as the money panic was
known to the hawkers. Some of the live-
| liest of the crippled ones then hustled into
the barrack, and one by one they returned
and counted out their last fiscal symbols
and sat down on the grass to.enjoy their
fruit. Those who could not join certainly
felt no better for looking on. Among the
latter was a famishing lad whose wits had
been turned, by his suffering, and when he
saw some of the men eating éranges he
reached out and seized one from a basket
and began to devour it, and that without
question or bargain or pay. The girl with
the musical throat looked startled at the
bold act, but soon smiled and continued
ner cry, ‘“‘Nice fresh oranges!” But the
girl was only a helper of the real owner,
and now a swarthy, hard looking Hun
stepped forward and held his hand out to
get the proceeds-of the sales.
the money and then the oranges in the
hands of the men, and as he saw there was
a difference he demanded something from
the girl in a jargon we could not inter-
pret. The girl began to weep, and just
then the famished boy, unconscious of ev-
erything but his desperate craving for
He counted
no right here! We don’t fight just to keep
up the country for them !”’
The men were mad, and the rage must
work itself out. More than one badly
wounded man had his hurt opened afresh
in the rough and tumble encounter, and
all of them retired shamefaced from their
ignoble triumph.
I said to my strange mate as I held out
the torn stamp, ‘Had this been good I
would have paid for the boy’s orange and
prevented this trouble.”’ Tears were in
his eyes, and I saw that he was a man of
sensibilities. He turned away, and the
figures on his cap, which I had not noticed
before, gleamed in the sunshine, and at
once branded themselves upon my vision
—*142nd Vols.”
I left the scene with my companion, and,
the quicker to drop the unpleasant affair
from mind, proposed that we two exchange
one of our crutches. Such things are relics,
and mine had come from Washington's
old home, White House, Va., and my ac-
quaintance’s from Winchester, in the val-
ley. We tried them, and were both suited,
but he had carved his very neatly with sev-
eral designs and with his full name in old
English—*‘Joseph Pennington.’’ This, too,
was transferred mystically to a place in
my memory and stood out boldly beside
those characters I had seen on his cap, so
that the legend now fixed there was, ‘‘Jo-
seph Pennington, 142nd Vols.’ That
evening my furlough reached me, and I
was en route for my home in the Empire
State before*midnight. .
My first act upon reaching an abiding
place was to write to Lucy in New Eng-
land, and then I began to count the hours
until time for reply. Days went by and
ran into weeks, yet none came. A second
letter was written to explain the Wilder-
ness case and my inability to dispatch an-
other until I reached home. All this was
to no effect, and finally gossip reached me
in a roundabout way that Lucy had taken
up with a dashing young fellow, an ad-
venturer who had sent a substitute to
battle to fight in his stead. The sequel to
this gossip came just before I left home
again for the front. This was a package
of letters returned—my glowing camp let-
ters of 1861-3. And the first to meet my
sight, intentionally so, was the Wilderness
letter, with a heavy line traced about my
ingenious and ingenuous frank, thus:
esc sesceetessssstsstesesesassasssesnstesnetes
A SOLDIER’S BATTLEFIELD
LETTER TO ‘HIS SWEETHEART.
Lucy aimed to be reckoned in the New
England caste of Vere de Vere, and a ro-
mantic impulse born on the treacherous
fleld of death found no vulnerable place in
her armor of propriety. I was confused, to
state it mildly, almost desperate, but when
the field of war was reached again devotion
to the fighting offered a good antidote, and
the exciting work which followed helped to
turn that affection most speedily from an
object so unworthy.
In this great campaign came the climax
of interest concerning this stamp. It had
now come to be prized with something of
that personal veneration we give to charms.
A week before Richmond and Petersburg
fell into the Union hands I was aroused
from a sleep on the outpost bivouac in front
of the latter city by a rough shaking and
felt myself hurried off by force toward
Lee’s lines. Our men had been surprised.
It was very dark, and the Confederates
found such heavy fighting ahead of them
when our forces received the alarm that
they had to disregard the hndful of pris-
| oners taken, ahd so before daylight I found
opportunity to steal away from the pres-
ence of the troops. Some greenbacks con-
cealed on me purchased seclusion for the
time and also a good suit of Confederate
' clothing. An old negro in a hut between
. the forts and the city helped me to these,
i and I found him a shrewd adviser besides.
He told me to go into the interior of Dixie.
, He said that all about the army lines or-
i ders were strict and a close watch was
sesscecesesesesessone
food, reached for another orange. He se- :
cured one, but the old Hun grabbed the
basket, gave the girl a rough shaking, and ;
then, after placing his goods beyond reach
of the soldiers, returned and attacked the
boy. The lad was too weak to stand, but
he clung to his prize, and the brutal hawk-
er wrung the slender wrists to make him
let go.
There were some strong, cool men there
who could not endure this sight, and be-
fore I could see just how the melee opened
the soldiers had raided the whole pack of
gypsy peddlers and gathered up every scrap
of edibles, overtur .ing the baskets and
beating off the owners, some of whom
I could never see any
glory in the black eyes and bruises of a
tommon brawl, no matter what the occa-
sion, and was only a sad spectator here.
At the beginning of all this business I had
taken a parcel of keepsakes from my pock- |
et, and, just to make sure for the twen-
tieth time that I had no current values
about me, ran over the pile carefully. The
torn stamp was in the lot and caught my
attention, and, with a flood of memories, it
bore my thought away from the present
scene. First, Lucy’s letter and what was
she thinking now of me. There were two
heads bending over it now, for a wounded
comrade stood so close that he could look
into my hand and was studying me as in-
tently as I studied the stamp. What his
thoughts were I never knew, but they were
equally distracting with mine, for we two
had not yielded to the passionate dfift of
the crowd, and when these broke out upon
peddlers we alone were cool. We vainly
begged them to stop, but their slogan was
unanswerable in words:
“Down with the foreigners! They have
“HAD THIS BEEN GOOD I WOULD HAVE PAID
FOR THE BOY’S ORANGE.”
kept, but away from the lines men came
and went pretty much at pleasure. One
circumstance favored me and controlled all
my subsequent experiences. Although I
was an old campaigner, I was a beardless
boy, with fair skin, and actually appeared
like a schoolboy rather than a soldier in
the fleld. Weather bronze and battle grime
had not taken hold in my case, and this old
man raised my hopes many degrees when
he declared contemptuously at our leave
taking, ‘‘ Nobody gwine to bother wiv sich
baby trash like yo’."”’
In ten days I made the circuit of the
“that fragment stamp and told the whole
whole army of Lee and
ground on the Rappahan®ck, near Fred-
ericksburg. I found that Federal cavalry
was posted on the north bank opposite,
and concluded to join it at once and trust
for 2 welcome despite my suit of gray. I
spied out my route in the morning, and
then went to sleep away the day in an iso-
lated barn. At dusk that day I was de-
termined to cross the stream to the cavalry
camp. But during the day, while I slept,
the scouts of the camp raided the whole
region along that bank of the river, and I
was made prisoner to my own men. Ev-'
erything was against me, and my treat-
ment was rough, for the story I told was
declared a lie. ‘‘We have too much of
that,’’ said the leader. It appeared that
some of the river patrol had been foully
murdered shortly before by treacherous
citizens or guerrillas, and the comrades of
the victims were bent on speedy revenge.
They had secured nine other stragglers
like myself, some in civilian and some in
Confederate army dress. These unfortu-
nates were hidden in a wooded vale be-
yond reach of discovery and rescue, and
here they were pleading for a chance of
life by military frial under the authorities
at Washington. To their petitions I now
added mine. But the majority of the guard
advocated summary measures. My situa-
tion was a trying one. There was not a
scrap of documentary evidence about me
for identification. When taken by the ene-
my, I wore an overcoat, in the pocket of
which always rested my Bible. The fly leaf
was missing, and hence bore no record. I
kept it wrapped in a gum cover to preserve
it, and between its leaves, incased in a
folded strip of blue tissue, was the torn
postage stamp, the contrivance serving as
a place mark and a memento as well. In
the transformation made at the time of
capture and escape I had parted with all
clse that belonged to me as a Union sol-
dier, even my United States undercloth-
ing, shoes and stockings. The patrol
which now had us in charge was an out-
post guard for a large camp composed of
all arms which lay back on Stafford hills.
We were to die the death of outlaws at sun-
down, and on this day of doom I chanced
a,
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‘0H, THIS FELLOW MAY BE ONLY A BALTI-
MORE SECESH:”’
to seo an infantryman from the main
camp coming to the cavalry bivouac with
dispatches. His cap bore the characters,
“142nd—Vols.”’
There was a rift in the cloud at once.
Fortunately two of our guard were
strong willed and humane and ready to
favor us with kindly offices. They fed us
and took our last messages for friends and
directions for our identification, and from
them I learned that the One Hundred and
Forty-second regiment was all in the camp
five miles distant. I asked to be conducted
there, but the acquaintance which I claim-
ed was so slight that the commander de-
murred and declared it was simply anoth-
er trick to gain time. Our kind advocates
then took it up and offered to investigate
the case, and soon Joseph Pennington was
brought to our prison glen. Pennington,
too, shook his head. When he last saw me,
the pallor caused by pain and the blight of
wound and fever were upon me. My re-
counting that affair with the hucksters in
Baltimore shook him a little, but one of
the guard who was zealous for our destruc-
tion broke the force of ifs influence most
skillfully. He said: ‘‘Oh, this fellow may
be only a Baltimore secesh who was hang-
ing around that time. Come to think, I
have;seen him sneaking around the depots
and wharfs in Baltimore and Alexandria,
spying out the movements of our troops.’’
Settled prejudices are hard to uproot. Pen-
nington quit the scene, and we were told
to get ready. Some prayed, some cried. I
paced the ground like a caged tiger. There
was not a guilty one in the party—that is,
guilty of the crime .charged or anything
like it, although there were some night
riders in the crowd—some of Mosby’sran-
gers. I could see‘‘innocent’’ written upon
every pallid. countenance, and emotions
stirred by my own grief and my sympathy
[a my fellows, as I thought of this useless
nd cruel execution, moved me beyond con-
trol.” I burst into a tornado of vehement
appeals aimed at any who would listen.
Some ears were open. 1 pleaded against
the shedding of innocent blood, pictured
the calamity to be visited on so many
homes, foretold the harrowing thoughts to
arise some day in the minds of our beloved
friends when they should learn the story
of our vain and shameful deaths, and at
last came to the point of fastening upon
the would be perpetrators a lifelong re-
morse. ;
My eloquence—for who could not be fired
with logic at such a crisis>—commanded at-
tention and several of the guard withdrew
from the sound of it. The leader stood
near gloomy and cold. All this time my
Bible in its close wrapper had remained in
my hand, pressed instinctively to my
heart, and as a last argument I turned to
it to try if I could not move those obdurate
hearts by reading from God’s own word.
As I turned the covers nervously the blue
inclosure fell out, and a pregnant thought
~—*‘‘that stamp and Pennington’’—rushed
to my mind. ‘‘Here is proof!’ I cried.
‘Let me see Joseph Pennington again!”
‘The hour was up, but a respite was allow-
ed and Pennington came sullenly back.
My game was desperate. - I showed him
story without a break. He scanned me,
still skeptical, but I had put in a wedge.
Doubt had arisen. After a hasty consul-
tation the execution was deferred until
daylight, and my own was then to be sub-
ject to approval of a council from the main
camp. Of course I was a hero among the
doomed men. About midnight word came
that Lee had surrendered his army. The
startling tidings instantly disarmed the
passionate prejudices of the fratricidal
strife. The stern judgments and fatal ver-
dicts of martial courts'were off forever, and
every man of us went free, filled with a
gratitude words failed to express. :
The little faded: fragment of a stamp is
now mounted on blue silk, framed, and
hangs over my cabinet. 1 prize it as the
ehoicess of ny collection of relics of the
ed well knowni |
war.
George Alfred Townsend, Henry Villard,
THEIR MEMORIAL AT CRAMPTON'S
GAP AND ITS RECORDS.
The Surviving War Correspondents and
What Some of Them Are Doing—Their
Valuable but Unappreciated Service.
Only One Who Has Made a Fortune.
[Copyright, 1837, by the Author.]
Not many Americans of the present gen-
eration—counting a generation at 40 years
—know anything personally of war corre-
spondents. Our great civil war began 36
years ago. It is 82 since it closed. The
majority of the correspondents in the field
are now dead. Of about 150, or more,
who described the events of the struggle
with pen and pencil, only 80 or 40 are
alive. This shows how active death ever
is among all classes at all ages. Not even
s0 many would have survived had not
nearly all of them embraced the calling
while they were in the early twenties—
little more than boys indeed. The war for
the preservation of the Union was fought
by very young men. They were styled
veterans at its términation, though many
were not then 30. :
The average duration of human life aft-
er maturity is much shorter than is com-
monly believed. Almost any one of good
constitution and in fair health will, it is
thought, on reaching #1 continue until
60, or beyond. But it is not so. Accidents
and acute diseases, which are not and can-
not be taken into account beforehand, add
greatly to the average mortality. We do
not, it is generally held, begin to miss va-
cancies in the ranks with which we set out
on our world march until we have passed
our sixth decade at least. But the vacan-
cies are really forced on our attention be-
fore 50, often even before 40. Let any man
of 40 or thereabout recall, if he can, how
many of the associates of his early boy-
hood are still among his contemporaries,
and he will realize the truth of what has
been said.
The correspondents north and south of
the war, most of whom were almost for-
gotten by the multitude, have recently
been commemorated. A memorial was
completed and dedicated to them last au-
tumn at Gapland, or Crampton’s Gap, a
pass in the South Mountain range near
Burkittsville, Frederick county, Md. The
scene of the battle of South Mountain,
which occurred Sept. 14, 1862, it is ona
branch of the Baltimore and Ohio rail-
road. It is also in the vicinity of Harper's
Ferry, Cedar Creek, Antietam, Gettysburg |.
and other fields famous in the four years’
contest between the north and south. It
has been to people at large an obscure
place. The erection, however, of the me-
morial—a double feudal, picturesque gate-
way, mainly of granite and rubble =ztone,
some 60 feet. high, having a large arch at
the base, three smaller arches above and a
solid, pictorial, striking tower on one side
—tends to make the Gap noted and keep
the memory of the correspondents green.
The names of about 130 of them are en-
graved on tablets inserted in the memorial.
Some of the names, as those of Henry M.
Stanley, Henry J. Raymond, John A.
Cockerill, David B. Strother (Porte Cray-
on) and the Comte de Paris, are not those
of the war correspondents. They were in-
scribed on the memorial for causes indirect-
ly connected with the struggle. Not a few
of the men recorded gained little promi-
nence; others may not deserve to be there;
others, again, who were conspicuous in the
fleld have been omitted in the list. George
Alfred Townsend, who originated the idea
of the monument, who collected the money
for its building, about $6,000, and who
supervised the entire work, did his utmost
to select the proper names, but naturally
had great difficulty in deciding among the
conflicting claims.
he undertook to do very well, did it eco-
nomically, conscientiously, wholly without
personal recompense. But for him the
memorial would not in all probability have
been erected at all.
The northern war correspondents surely
merit remembrance by the republic. They
endured, they suffered much in its behalf
and had no recognition either from their
country or the community. They were in
the army, but not of it. They shared all its
discomforts and dangers and none of its re-
wards. They were imprisoned, some of
them sent up for one and two years; they
were wounded, even killed, but none of
the glory so bountifully extended to the
regular soldiers was theirs. Many of their
deeds, brilliant daring in the extreme,
Denes
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THE MEMORIAL.
passed unnoticed. They were not even
well paid by the newspapers for which they
performed so excellent service. They were
as a body most loyal, faithful, energetic,
courageous, the trustworthy medium be-
tween the army and the people, but were
not recompensed, unless by the conscious-
ness of duty done. If we should have an-
other war, either at home or abroad, the
correspondents will be on a totally differ-
ent footing.
Many of the survivors are very well
known outside of their war record. They
continue to be very active, very capable,
none of them old. Some of them, still
writers, have won high reputation. To
mention a few in alphabetic order, there
are H. V. Boynton, Junius Henri Browne,
William C. Church, Richard T. Colburn,
John Hay, Edward H. House, Whitelaw
Reid, William F. G. Shanks, George W.
Smalley, Edmund Clarence Stedman,
He certainly did what
WRITERSIN THEWAR
John Kussell Young. Some of the de-
ceased scribes achieved distinction, “as
Charles Carleton Coffin, Thomas W. Knox,
Albert D. Richardson, in authorship; Jo-
geph B. McCullagh, as editor and part pro-
prictor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat;
Benjamin F. Taylor, as a poet. Among
the living Townsend has achieved fame
as a general correspondent @@nd writer;
George W. Smalley as a London correspond-
ent, now.tho American correspondent of
the London Times; John Hay as a hu-
morist, diplomatist and biographer; Sted-
man asa poet and critic, and Colburn,
shrewd in business and an agnostic phi-
losopher, still writes. Many have changed
their vocation for the better. Hardly an
instance can be cited of a journalist mak-
ing money so long as he confined himself
strictly to journalism. The same might
be said of an author while he continues to
be an author.
John Hay is wealthy, but became so by
marrying an heiress, the daughter of a
Cleveland millionaire. He may have re-
membered what Major Pendennis so fre-
quently declared to Arthur, ‘It is just as
easy, my dear boy, to marry a rich girl as
a poor girl.”” But Hay’s intimates say
that he sincerely loves his wife, and would
have offered himself had she been without
financial prospects. Is there any sound
argument in favor of a man relinquishing
a woman he has set his heart on because
she has a fortune?
Whitelaw Reid is another correspondent
who has the name of having grown opu-
lent through marriage. It is not often that
any man has the chance of securing a fa-
ther-in-law worth $40,000,C00 to $50,000,-
000 by winning his sole daughter. Reid is
said to have acquired a handsome inde-
pendence before marriage by his business
talents. His wife’s dowry is asserted to
have enabled him to get rid of the Old
Man of the Sea (known here as Jay Gould)
while nominally proprietor of The Trib-
une, and thus to have become actually
what he had long only assumed to be.
Henry Villard is almost the sole man
who, beginning life in his early teens as a
journalist and continuing to be such for
years, has made himself wealthy, and in
Wall street too. He must have been a con-
genital financier, and remained ignorant
of the fact until his opportunity came. .
Long a leader of the street, he had his re-
verses—lost millions and recovered them.
He retired two years ago. He made ene-
mies naturally by his success. They ac-
cused him of various kinds of wrongdoing,
and brought suits for misappropriating
large amounts of money. But he has been
vindicated by time. The suits have been
withdrawn. He retains many warm, de-
voted friends, who consider him one of the
kindest, most upright, most generous,
most conscientious of, men.
PAUL R. CLEVELAND, !
MEMORIAL DAY AT ATHENS.
Not the First, but the First of Which We
Have Particulars.
Of course it cannot be known when civ-
ilized nations first began to fix certain days
for the annual commemoration of the acts
of their dead heroes, but so natural is the
custom that it must have arisen among the
oldest nations. By a rare combination of
circumstances, however, we have a ver-
batim report of one Memorial day address,
delivered 2,322 years ago by the greatest
man of his age.
We know, moreover, that, unlike many
so called orations reported in ancient his-
tory, this one was delivered very nearly as
reported, for it was a written address, and
the report comes to us by Thucydides, an
enemy of the orator.” The great war of
Sparta and her allies against Athens and
her allies had been in progress a year when
the Greeks who had fallen in the first bat-
tles wero honored with a magnificent funer-
al, and Pericles, then ruler of Athens,
made the speech. . -
It is really wonderful to note how much
of it could be adopted word for word in a
Memorial day address of today. He began
by a eulogy of their ancestors who had
founded Athens, and of their successors
who had defended her against Persia and
made, her free. He then told why these
brave young men had died—to_ preserve
that glorious liberty—and thus continued:
‘‘For we enjoy a form of government
“ which does not copy the laws of our neigh-
bors, but we are ourselves rather a pattern
to others than imitators of them. In name,
from its not being administrated for the
benefit of the few, but of the many, it is
called a democracy, but with regard to its
laws all enjoy equality as concerns private
affairs, while with regard to public rank
each man, according as he has reputation
for anything, is preferred for public honors,
not so much from consideration of party as
of merit. Nor, again, on the ground of
poverty, if he be able to do the state any
service, is he prevented by the obscurity of
his position.” .
This was not sarcasm. He really meant
it. We are at liberty, however, to surmise
that Pericles meant to set forth what the
object of their government was rather than
what it really accomplished, for he goes on
to rclate how carefully they observe the
laws, because they are of their own choos-
ing, how recreations are provided for all
classes of men and equally in their enjoy-
ment, how the freedom of Athens is the
envy of mankind, and is so highly regard-
ed by Athenians that every ome would
rather die fighting than lose it. Indeed,
if he spoke exact truth, it is much to be
feared that no modern state is equal to it.
His closing paragraph might appropriate-
1y be recited to any American audience on
this Memorial day of 1897. It ran thus:
‘‘Wherefore to the parents of these dead
I will not offer condolence so much as con-
solation, for they know that they lived
subject to misfortunes, but that happy is
their lot who have gained the most glori-
ous death as these have, and theirs whose
sorrow is as yours; their life so measured
that it ended in honor, and even so your
sorrow. Difficult indeed I know it is to
persuade you of this, as you must be re-
minded of your loss by the good fortune of
others, and sorrow is most keenly felt, not
for the loss of that of which one is with-
out much experience, but of that which
one loses after being accustomed to it.
But bear up in hope of your other chil-
dren, who have them, and you who are old
consider that the long period before was so
much clear gain, that your time of grief
is but short while the fame of your lost
ones is Jong, for the love of honor is the
only feeling that never grows old, and as
age advances it is not the gain of treasure,
as some assert, that can cheer the heart,
but only the enjoyment of honor. ’’
Such were the golden words of this the
oldest Memorial day address recorded.
But it is a pain to complete the story.
Soon after ghe city was crowded by fugi-
tives, the dreadful plague came, and Peri-
cles and all his family died of it. Deprived
of his clear leadership, the Athenians
wasted their resources, and at the end of a
long*war were thoroughly subjugated and
put under the sway of the infamous ‘‘thir-
ty tyrants.’’ Yet it is wonderful what a
elear idea this man, 430 B. C., had of
what a republic ought to be. :
JOHN HENRY BEALE,
oo