The Wilmingtonian., 1884-05-24
THE ANOMALIES OF FAME.

THE ANOMALIES OF FAME.
How startling are the vagaries of history
in the closing years of great men. Belisar-
ius, the conqueror, became blind old beg
gar; Cromwell the invincible, died in abjeet
terror Of the dagger's point; Swift became
dwelling idiot; Columbus succumbed to a
broken heart and the insults of an migrate
full country. But surely history itself
affords few parallels to the case of Ulysses
s. Grant. Setting aside all questions Of
political sympathy and mistaken loyalty,
whether will Ulysses s. Grant or Robert e.
Lee stand the higher before posterty as the
embt di nent Of noble life? In the light of
present contemplation, when the heat OF
factional strife has begun to cool down, after
short twenty years of peace, how does the
lot of the victor of Appomattox compare
with the vanquisheda Which of the two
lots would proud man the more cheerfully
accept?
There are not wanting men who class
Robert E. Lee with Benedict Arnold, and
would dismiss the bare suggestion of a com
parison between patriot and a traitor.
That Lee made fatal mistake his most
ardent adherents can scarcely be prepared
to deny that he fought blindly and madly
for bad cause will not justify him in the
eyes of the present student of American his
tory but that the ending of his life was
noble in the highest degree-the tranquil
acceptance of the stern fate of the van
auished--borue without murmur; nay with
patient, almost triumphant resignation
which earned for him the admiration of his
enemies and tear of sympathy from the
whole world, not the bitterest opponent of
the great Virginian can be prepared to gain
say. We are not called on now to write q
eulogy on General Lee, but to contrast the
closing years of the two men, r. E. Lee and
U. S. Grant We have said that after the
bitter struggle was over Lee patiently
accepted the result He set an example of
cheerful resignation which was followed by
the whole of the South with the same blind
confidence which had led wives and mothers
to give up their husbands and sons for
ilnmolation under the accursed juggernau tof
slavery. That spirit of humility. so foreign
to the proud Southern nature, had its foun-
tain-head in the breast of Lee; it flowed on
easily and TRANQUILITY into the grand river of
Reconstruction. Were honors wanting to
the vanquished and ruined soldier, the man
who, up to 1861, had won and deserved every
tribute his country could bestow upon him ?
We s.,aS .hat they ws1s not: Almost
before the echoes of the last days Of the con
fiict had died away, General Lee was ten
dered by New York Company a magnifi
cent stipend and the honor of its presidency
The crowned heads of Europe offered hin
high command in their armies. He nigh
In few years have gained wealth and afflu
, ence, greater far than even that which h
+ sacrificed in behalf of cause he mistakenl
r believed to be just. These offers b
declined, one and all; accepting only the on
a rendered him by his own State, in which
y proposed to himself the task of instructin
/. the young men of his country in the highes
q duties of life. He had no sinecure; ever,
thing had to be built up, maintained an
: supported by his own hands.-by the fort
tude of a heart, already invaded by diseas
v by the self-sacri6cing energy of spir
It which so desperate a reverse of fortuI
70 might well have crushed. We know that
c endured hardness as good soldier; in h
Ii civil career of five short years he won f
himself renown even greater than he hi
II gained on the battlefield, He might ha
st been passing rich; he remained at the pc
le he had chosen, looked firmly and untaltt
II ingly on his ruined home and confscat
as estates, and died--literally and truly of
m broken heart--amid the tears of his peoI
ry in the fall of 1870 hisnam unsullied
ro the faint of veaality or fraud, and with t
tribute wrung from his foes, that with
be his faults as a patriot, he was ''a go
i'll Christian man and great soldier"
be Is it to be denied that Grant, of all 9th
ISL men, acknowledged the'v virtues of his G
til ---s
III THE IRREPRE.