New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1859-07-13
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ANOTHER GREAT MAN.

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ANOTHER GREAT MAN,
The casuiat may argue that the hunger for fame,
the desire 10 live after in praiseconferring noto-
riety, Is not worthy Indictment to great and good
deeds which should be their own reward but he can.
not prove it. for Is stimulates their performance
does it partake Of their excellence; yet truly 1t is
question whether any longer fame should be reckoned
10 the balance OF choice between good and evil for
- the world wags We see it, aurels gathered by tin
seled mountebanks while those who live heroes and
die martyrs, directly indirectly. in the various
causes Of good, 60 down to sooniorgotten graves
their fate unrecorded their virtues unsang IL was
written couple of centuries 90 ago, that mems
evil manners live In brass their virtues we write In
water !" but ii ustrious evil was then chleny COM
memorated we do much worse now, for We add 1901,
ishness and absurty to the list Of what is deserving
| commemoration, and fame is made OF the sorrlest
stuff which popular cutlery can wait upon the breeze
| of notoriety-so much chat winncwed by the blast
from out OF the more solid wheat Of current events
which seem to be dragged down into obscurity by
the mere weight Of their own substantial quality.
Be the accounting causes what they may, it is a
fact which needs no citation in support, that nine
tenths Of the famous men OF the day are those who
are famous, but not infamous despised for qualities
OF circumstances which prove only that they are evil
or foolish, and though, when they first made their
debus upon the stage Of publicity Kisses may have
mingled largely with the approbatory shouting of
the unthinking, yet the clamor drowned the former
eventually, and they who Kissed became persuaded
they may have been precpitate and that the subject
was hardly worthy hiss after all. These foolish
notoreties have lived down by persistence all de-.
nunciation and merely BY virtue Of the consistency
of their oolishness have convinced the of the
world that they entitled to the credit Of great
ness. Historians are human and falble, and there
fore histories are not altogether dspassionate in the
distinctions between famous men which they exhibit;
and in the inches of history the monument of fame
erected to one is Of dimensions magnificent that
to the other thoughth one be sinner and this
saint-either being illustrated into exemplar for
those who may choose to follow the the other.
The sinner is accompanied by his bographst with
the same particularly through the steps by
which he wrought his way up the ladder to station
and distinction the good mans track is traced to
the same elevation /; and the historian vaunts his
"impartiality in sparing condemnation or common
daton," and leaves posterity to select between the
two paths to the same end without decisive preju.
dice from his record. Chroniolers have way, too,
of depr eciating the much evil Of great bad man,
and Of magnifying the little evil of a great good
man and we know not one who has taken in hand
the writing down Of things past after the hot heat of
events has cooled and left them matters of history
but who has yielded to this inherent tendency of
human nature some great religious or politi-
cal bias set the tendency aside for the indulgence of
an opposite and perhaps as unjust course-its ex-
IRENE. This tendency is naturally accounted for for
the writer nvoluntarly argues in bis own extenua.
ton il he shows that good men may have been quite
bad and bad men good. He Involuntary pleads in
behalf Of the humanity common to himself.
But dropping the consideration of historians
proper, they who scribbe posthumously, with whom,
indeed we did not design to have to do we come to
those great cotemporaneous chronicers, the class
journalistic who manufacture fame to order and get
up heroes at sight as fit objects of the plaudts of
the gaping world who encourage knave or fool to
cut capers, each Of their kind in its sight, and some.
times drag good simple man before it by the ears
and make him hero nolens rolens Pens in wilful
or indiscreet fingers continually stirring the mass
Of the world into muddle and bringing to the seeth.
ing surface the refuse Of humanity, who should be
permitted to rest undisturbed in its depths, as much
out of sight and hearing their characters and acts
are removed from what is praseworthy. No matter
how disreputable or how unpromising may be the
human material which they take in hand, they but
seldom fail to make something of it, and we do verify
believe that if three or four hundred newspapers
should undertake the task they would persuade two.
thirds of the reading public in two weeks time that
| Brigham Young, James Gordon Bennett or James
Buchanan are vastly good men, and more sinned
against than shining. Orf Abbott should get his subtle
pan at work upon Robespierre or Benedict Arnold,
he would doubtless effect quite general revolution
10 the notions entertained as to their merits as he
did by white-washing Napoleon Bonaparte into
saintlike purity. But these journalists these who
are needless or INSCRIPTIONS public opinion is
plastic in their hands, and they can mold and adapt
it to the reception Of any impression which they wish
1t to take and they sometimes exert their power in
the most ridiculous and fantastic manner, as now,
when they mount man monkey on their shoulders
and parade him through the world with shouts and
hurrahs as if be great conquering Caesar
making trumphal progression through the land, in
stead of mountebank who chose to risk his poor
life the showing that he knew its little value being
the only evidence Of sense which Blondin, the rope
dancer displayed in his wordringng feat of walking
across Niagara river rope Had he lost it, there
would have been an end of him, for it could not
have been said Of him" He lives in fame that died
in virtues cause"
Had he died, be would have been denounced as he
should be anyhow, as a fool-a sensation Snowman
but he did not die, and nearly the whole newspaper
press Of the country, led by the great dalies of
New York. is crazy about him. They have raked up
his life history they tell where he was born, what
be has been doing since that interesting event &C.
cured relate anecdotes of him, inform the soIcitous
public where he boards, what he says, what is the
color Of his hair, that he wears a moustache and
goatee, that he has a pleasant expression when he
laughs, etc. Leader writers bring their heavy pens
to bear upon NJ. Blondin and envelope him in thun-
der cloud of ponderousy profound dissertation litter
aeurs and poetasters snatch the subject and surround
him with sparkling halo of ornamental rhetoric and
bad verse. In short, he is hero of the first water
Now we object to this cheapening of fame. If this
depreciating process is suffered to go lowering its
standard it will soon not be worth mans striving
If true and yertable prophet to come on earth
and approve his MISSION the newspapers of the coun
try could scarcely say more Of him and more in his
| commentator than they have Of M. Blondin.
Anniversary Events---July 10.
lS54-A riot occurred at Buffalo growing out OF
street preaching.
1s54-Bottle of Gaymas, between some French.
men under Count Raousset de Boulbon, and the Next