Clearfield Republican. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1851-1937, 1874-09-09
THE PERIL or GREATNESS.

the number of it's able men who retire
into private life"
THE PERIL or GREATNESS.
II is wonderful how many men who
have risen TO greatness have had fools
and scamps for their friends, and it Is
wonderful how much mischief these
friends have done them. saa.
When General Grant was still nm OBJ
scurc man, fighting at once the doubt
fiil battle against his own insignificance
in the world and against the Southern
rebellion, he had friends worth having i
men Of sense and integrity, who told
him the truth squarcly and roughly III
necessary, and who never battered his
weakness or encouraged his tendency
to vice John A. Rawlins, his Adju-
tant General, and James Harrison Viii
son, his Inspector General, were friends
Of the kind described gentlemen of in
telligencc, and merciless enemies alike
of the boobies, pretendcrs, and jobbcrs
that often came about him. Without
their talents, their IDEAS, and, above all,
their frank admontions, it is not likely
that Grant would ever have become
great, and they served him because it
was serving their country. Besides,
in those days he was himself modest.
HIS previous expulsion from the army,
growing out of drunken habits, and his
low fortunes afterward, living as he
did in poverty and insignificancc, q
pensioner at Galena upon the hard
benevolencc of his shrewd and gripping
father had all disposed hismind toplace
a very moderate estimate upon himself,
and to receive and appreciate the coun-
sci and assistance of such friends But
after he had become great he no long
er wanted friends Of TINT kind. Men
like these are never Aatterers nattery
they despise and will not deal in, and
so Grant took friends like Boss Shep-
herd, Secor Robson, and John Patter-
son, coarse, dishonest fellows whose
hope is plunder, whose moral creed is
addition, Division, and Silence" and
who lead the President and tho coun-
try together on the road to ruin.
Another great man with an extra
ordinary blindness in the choice of his
friends was the late Chief Justice Chase
lie was endowed with a powerful
mind, and had honorable aspirations,
but he kept about him men utterly un-
worthy of his companionship, and al
though he had integrity and ability at
his command, he was apt TO choose for
important places those who were both
knaves and fools To one of these
friends he confided his private journals
and correspondence, tina, his biography
might be written and this trusted in
dividual has rewarded his benefactor
by magnifying every foible and doing
his utmost to destroy his great reputa-
tion and to prove that the lofty figure
which the public had so long revered
was after all nothing buta brasen idol,
hollow in the region of the head and
heart, and with feet of perishable clay.
Still more unfortunate in his friends
is the eloquent and eminent preacher
whose name is now 80 tragically in all
mems thoughts After all has any
thing been said of Henry Ward Beech
or more injurious than the fact that
his nearest and most intimate friends
were such persons as Theodore and
Elizabeth Tilton? OF the woman in
this case we do not now care 10 speak
much, but rather desire to pity and for
get her; but take her own letters and
her recent statement, and consider
what dreary compound of maudlin
jargon and gushing sentimentality, of
that emotional sham which with some
passes for religion, Of contradictions,
and untruths, and transccndent non
sense they are, and the wonder is
how such a person could ever be an
intimate friend, inspirer, and counsel
lor to a great man and teacher of re-
ligion and morality. But when we
look at Mr.. Tilton this astonishment is
more than doubled-a struttihg senti-
mentaist, inflated with vanity, trihing
in intellect, volublc in words, religious,
perhaps, as his nerves were excited,
having no fixed convictions Of truth,
divine or human, and swinging loosely
backward and forward on superficial
inanities of opinion, now saying his orth-
odox prayers at Plymouth Church, and
now learning the philosophy ofiree love
from Victoria Woodruff, with courage
TO defy public sentiment as his only
quality, and through it all the special
friend, the more than brother, of Henry
Ward Beechcr, until some catastrophe
occurs, either that which he alleges or
some other not yet explained, by which
this friendship was transformed into
an enmity as strange as the friendship.
Is il not most true, then, that great
men stand in special peril from their
friends, and that some mysterious
reason leads them often to choose for
friends people of so little mind or so
little moral value, or of such preposter-
ous tastes and unwholcsomc dispositions
that their friendship is hardly better
than death and destruction Perhaps,
however, this is only another one
among the mysterious compensations
of life, designed TO prove that intel
lectual greatness is merely human, and
balanced with such an amount Of little
ness that its possessors are still kept
within the average of mankind.--Neic