Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-12-01

! dictionS he had received TO Paris where
| he had passed so many hours amid its
| glories of art; to London, in whose vast
museums he had recalled the mighty
past; that message thrilled the deep waters
| of the Atlantic, over whose restless bosom
| he had thrice crossed in safety; that mess
| age traverSed this great continent TO your
| Golden Gate, where his happy childhood
was the promise of a noble youth, and that
! youth the prophesy of the grandest man.
| hood
| When that message was received poets
| swept their harps in mournful numbers
and sang their saddest elegies; editors We'd
with each other in touching panegyrics
ministers of God offered the consolation of
religion; citizens who CHANGED to meet on
your streets whispered the solemn intelli-
gence, and were amazed at the inscrutable
| Providence; hundreds of telegrams and
| letters conveyed expressions of deepest
| sympathy to the bereaved and that night
mothers pressed their darling boys TO their
bosoms and fervently prayed that they
might be spared to them.
| Whence the secret of this deep concern
and widespread sorrow? 1t is unusual.
| Other youths, as brilliant, as rich. as pro-
missing, have lived and died, and are for
gotten. Do you tell me that his father is
one of the foremost citizens of this great
l genius
made your State great; that his honorable
life is the pride of your Commonwealth:
| that his vast possessions command public
| respect? Do you tell me that his mother,
| refined, cultured, gifted, pure and full of
| charities, is more than q Roman matron
whose happy domestic life has excited your
| admiration, and whose high social position
is both influential and beneticent? Do YOU
| tell me that tickle fortune had made the
departed favorite; that Nature had been
partial in her bestowment of her rarest
| gifts; that Providence had ordained his
| birth in some golden hour; that circum-
stances beyond his control had made him
what he was, and stripped of these he
| would have been as many others are; that
no pains had been spared to enrich his
mind under the most competent tutors
| that his receptive years had been spent in
foreign lands; that his young intellect had
been polished by contact with the wise and
great of earth, and that the enfoldings of
his character had been watched with the
parental care only bestowed upon prince?
True, thrice happily true But all these
facts, extraordinary as they are, are made
quate to discover to us
THE CHARM OF HIS YOUNG LIFE.
Others have lived as long, and died as
young; blessed with parentage as worthy,
| with cndearments as great, with crcum-
| stances as favorable with tutOrage as COM
petent, with vigilance as constant, yet failed
| in life and death to make an impression so
wide and deep. We must look deeper and
| search more keenly for the secret of his
power over us; and sean with greater care
| the purposes of Divine Providence for the
| source of the charm of his life.
Nature had highly favored him for some
noble purpose Although so young, he was
tall and graceful as some Apollo Belvedere;
with classic features some master would
have chosen to chise in marble or cast in
bronze; with eyes soft and gentle as an
angels, yet dreamy as the vision of seer;
| with broad, white forehead, home of
radiant soul. Who could see that face and
not love it; see it and ever forget it? He
reminds us of the beautiful Joseph "a
goodly person and well favored" That
body was the abode of Il marvellous mind :;
clear as crystal, clean in all its garniUre,
quick to perceive, strong to grasp, tenacious
to hold, capable of indefinite expansion.
Think of a youth at 16 speaking his Eng
lish in purity, conversing with the thought
full German and the vivacious Frenchman
with native fuency and accuracy, and quick
to decipher those mystic symbols of Egypt
| ian and Assyrian monuments. Think of him
in the studios of Duran of BOnnat of Mes
ionnier, expressing his likes and dislikes of
renowned works of art, and that to the aG-
miration of those great masters of modern
times. Think of him as a wrapt listener
to the mature conversations of such men
as Sir Joseph Hooker Sir William Jenner,
Baron Rothschild, Dr. Schlcimann and
General iii Cesnola and
ASKING OR ANSWERING QUESTIONS.
1t was the reproduction of Christ among
the doctors at the age of i. Think of him
offering to prove the tides of Venice are a
fact, and, that contrary to accepted theories.
Think of his capacity and taste manifested
in his study of the famous Rosetta stone
which kindled his passion for antiquarian
research, and foreshadowed the future
arch9ologist And behold such youth
pencil in hand, absorbed with delight
standing in the British Museum, whose vast
treasures of art have been exhumed from
the buried cities of the world; standing in
the Louvre, wherein the renowned past
and the illustrioUs present meet in all the
wonders of ancient and modern art; stand
ing in the Vatican, wherein Phidias and
Apelles Michael Angelo and Raphael the
divine, live fOreverin the creations of their
pencils and their chisels; and recall him
| wandering amid the enhancing ruins of
ancient Athens ascending the Acropolis to
mediate in the Parthenon; mounting the
| Bema where Pericles had spoken; entering
| the cave where Socrates had died for i'm
| mortality reyerentlv pausing on Mars
| Hill, where St. Paul had preached Jesus
and the Resurrection" and lingering with
strange delight in the temple of Eleusis
wherein death kissed his cheek into a con-
suming fever
And how pure and lofty and benefcent
| the artistic taste in one so young, TO turn
| aside from all the monuments OF London {;
|
from Wellington's mausoleum in St
! Pauls; from the royal shrines in West
minister Abbey, and prefer the Albert
memorial monument, both for its eXecu-
ton and purpose, in the design of which
the four corners OF the earth meet in har-
mOny, whereon are men and women Illus
| trious in art and science war and state
craft, charity and religion, and in the glory
of which the heart of the wife is more con-
spicuous than the crown of the Queen.
In all this early intellectual superiority
he reminds us that the history of heroes is
| the history of youth. At II Bacon was
speculating on the % Laws of Imagination
at Il student at Cambridge at 16 eX-
pressing his dislike for the philosophy of
| Aristotle; at 20 the author of paper on
the defects of Universities at 21 admitted
to the bar; at 2S appointed Queens Counsel
| Extraordinary. He reminds of the tender
| and eloquent Pascal, who at the age of Is
published a Treatise on Comic Sections -
, at Il suggested the hydraulic press at 20
anticipated by his inventions the works of
Galileo and Descartes, and at "A was an au-
| thOrity in higher mathematics.
He reminds US of Grotius, who entered
the university at twelve; at fourteen pub
lished an edition of Marcianus Capella,
which disclosed his acquaintance with
Cicero, Aristotle, Pliny, Euclid Strabo and
other great writers; at fifteen was an attache
of a Dutch embassy to Henry W; at
sixteen was admitted to practice; at
twenty-four was Acknowledgement of the
Treasury of Holland, and at twenty-five
was an authority on international law
| lie recalls to us Gibbon who was in his
Latin at seven a student at oxford at
fifteen; lover of Lock, and Grotius, and
| Pascal at seventeen, and at twenty five had
acquired the scholarship gathered the ma
terials and formed the plan of that great
history which has given Immortality to
his name.
He brings to mind our own Hamilton,
who entered college at fifteen was an
orator at seventeen; political writer at
| eighteen; at twenty was on Washington's s
staff; at twenty-five was legislator, and
at thirty-two was Secretary of the Treas
ury of the United States. Nay, more; his
early mental promise was like that of