The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1874-05-28
GRACE GREENWOOD ON TIE
EULOGY QUESTION.

from the pres of that veteran letter
writer, Grace Greenwood, will be
ready with interest, especially by
those who have been familiar with
the style of the writer for the last
quarter of a century or more. Ehe
letter is written from Washington to
the New York Times:
1t seems to me pity that our
best men cannot be eulogized. if
enlogized they must be, as soon after
they are taken from us as possible.
while the hearts Of their. political
compeers are still solemnized by
death softened and inspired by the
general grief, moved to sad thought
fulness and gentlest charity by the
sight of him who was so great lying
SO low-of him who was so imper
ious Of eye and tone, lying sightless
and silent forever more. EuIogies
like those pronounced upon Charles
Sumner, in the Senate and House, on
Monday--before multitude gathered
to the longlooked-for, soIemnly-
arranged feast Of love and sorrow
though ever so eloquent, learned and
poetical, are such deliberate, dreary,
dragging things to the tributes the
same men would have uttered, warm
and direct from the heart, on the day
after tbs funeral There might
have been less rhetoric, less Latin,
less careful analysis, less rhetoric,
less cool moral dissection and demon
stration, but there would have been
more genuine elOquence, more earnest
feeling. Even the last sad offerings
and testimonials of personal respect
aid affection, sincere as they doubt .
less were, couched in phrases of
studied elegance and funeral proprie
ty, seemed somewhat cold and
artificial. They were like marvel
Gus wax flowers laid on his coffin
even the poetry vuoted by parious
orators, though so apt(too apt, suggest
ing tivesonetaxing Of memory orlong
searching through Dana's and Bzy-
aut's collections-did not move us
much. 1t was not the bird of
sorrowful song, singing with her
breast against thorn, above his
grave; it was rather the automatic
nightingale, wound up to sing and
bob about among artificial roses and
forget-lne-nots.
If these same eulogists could have
come together weeks ago, less
formally, and talked of the dead
Senator, not as scholars and speech
makers, but as comrads and friends
talked in simple, neighbofly way
not bound to eulogize, but only to do
Christian justice; if they had been
content to compare impressions and
personal experiences, rather than to
proclaim opinions and pronounce
judgments if they had INDUCED in
pleasant "reminiscences, told anecdotes
and quoted characteristic sayings of
the Senator whom it seems they all
SO honored in life, and whose death
4heJ so deeply deplore; if all speech
about him, whether diffuse or concise
beautiful or homely, had been quite
voluntary and impulsive, haw much
liner and sweeter and more natural
it would have been! I suppose they
will go on in this way ill the last
Congress is adjourned sine die by
the last 'Dies ire;" but surely the
custom formalizes feeling,and so kills
lt-parades, in a pomp of words, a
glitter of imagery, and jingle Of
iteration, sacred sentiment, and so
profanes it. #t Ys T1
Yet some few of those panegyrics
could hardly have been more simple
and tender if they had been uttered
SIX weeks ago, over the still open
grave at Mount Auburn. How
perfect in taste and feeling, like
everything which falls from his lips
or comes from his pen, was the .brieJ
tribute OF Senator Anthony! Il was
well to adjourn gafter that terse,
noble, reverant, little, great eulogy!
In the House. the speeches Of Mr..
e. r. Hoar and Mr., Lamar, taking
the antecedents of the men into
account, were the most remarkable.
as strangely =, harmonious views OF