Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1873-01-04

INPRESSIFENESS Of CHARACTER.
There is a class Of men whom we all
know, Of the utmost dehcacy and pur-
ity Of nature, Of quick sympathy and
admirable accomplishment, who inhu-
ence rs like exquisite music, and who
without marked originality or command
ing force. are remembered only like
music when they are gone. Indeed,
the fueuess of nature which is most
attractive, the conscientious intellect,
so to speak, to which partisanship is
impossible, and which pensivelv sees
the equal reason of the other view, is
incompatible with the quality which
makes leadership, and which most i'm
pressed mankind. Pray continue to
be ornamental, said an accomplished
woman Of the world to a young man
who began to feel Il desire to take his
share of the worlds work She forgot
that the most exquisitely wrought col
umn is vet Of stone, and helps support
the mchitrave. The Chevalier Bayard
or Sir Philip Sidney carries a guitar
upon a ribbon, but his sword is hung
upon leather beneath it. He kneels in
graceful compliment to the queen, but
he lneels also in prayer to his Maker
The charm of such character is re-
sistless. How little Sidney did, yet
how much he IS the darling Of the his
tory of his time. as he was of his con
temporaries! Horace Walpole, who
called Goldsmith an inspired idiot, is
the only Englishman who sneers at Sid
ney. He was a kind of flower Of men,
and, like other flowers, he neither toiled
nor spun. A cumbrous and stately
novel in the affected style of his time
a noble essay upon poetry, and few
memorable sonnets, with his letter to
Elizabeth against the French marriage,
are all that remain to us of what he did
Nobody reads his :" Arcadia" few know
his sonnets; his letter to the queen is
forgotten. But Sidney survives. His
name is the synonym of courtesy and
grace. of accomplishment and yalor
And he names for us a whole class of
men, gentle and spirited as he was,
men of the truest temper, of rare gifts,
of subtitle fascination, whose coming is
bright rs daylight, and whose refining
influence is a permanent benediction.
Some of our readers may have seen
the name of young man Of this kind
who died not long ago in England
Julian Fame. A memoir of him by his
friend, Robert Lytton, better known,
perhaps, by his authors name, Owen
Meredith, was lately published, in
which the simple tale Of the wholly un-
eventful life of Mr.. Fame is so well told
that the character of the man himself
is clearly conveyed, with the beautiful
impression OF his purity and grace, and
some conception Of that personal inhu-
ence which Mr.. Lytton truly calls " in
communicable. "Yet, he adds, "the
influence of these men upon the society
they adorn is too benehcent to be alto
gether evanescent. Their presence ami
mates and sustains whatever is loveliest
in social life. The worlds dim and
dusty atmosphere grows golden in the
light of it. Their mere look rebukes
vulgarity. Their conversation elevates
the lowest and brightens the dullest
theme. Their intellectual sympathy is
often the unacknowledged begetter of
other mems intellectual labor; and in
the charm of their companionship we
are conscious Of those benignant influ-
ences which the Greeks called Graces,
but which Christianity has converted
into Charities.