The Tombstone., 1885-08-10
) :, Rosssa,scs'of e Lffe:

Wordsworth used to say ''the wcrld 1. full |of poetry, if men will br: open their eysa Rsnd behold It," and the saying is es true of |romance as q poetry, Tue world Is full of It: 1t is in plain sight every day; we see 1t around us all the time, but such is the ten. tdency 10 take an every day view of what goes on before our eyes thst we fail to ;recoYn'fe 1t as romance, but accept 1t as history. What ws see daily does not strong. ly affect the imagination; 1t is toe familiar; Eve locate the romantic In distant ago or in :s fsr-awsy country, and read the Arabian .Siyhts witA 2 pleasure l orn of 6 hs.f. .belief fin tue wonderful s,oriss. because the pictures Fare unlike anything we have ever seen. and Ithe personages different from all we have ever known.
 When the world hss grown older, and time has mellOwed the strong tip,s which we now
 bshold on tkc character of such . man as SCepersl GrsLt, the ron.aIce Of the life he led luin ce appreciated to sn extent that ls now 4deeWed hardly possible. Let a novelis, of 2to-day tell the story of Grsnt's life; of the funpromising career st West Poiui; the sp-
 parent tack of individuality in the army; the kfailure ss farmer; the lack of su,cess as ESbusiness agent; the story of the days st the .annery, when, half clerk. half porter. he ; seemed to have relinqui,hed both past and sfutyre--let him tell the tale oI the succeed. Einx twenty five years; how the hitherto luck. ess man rose step by step, with -apidity 9s,most incredible, to be General of the army,
 vice President, then for year the honored
 ucst and associate of the greatest u,oRui chs
 of the earth; ther let him reduce the hero to $po Tcrty, and at his death honor Liu with
 nstioAal funeral, aEc the book would be
 laughed &: as too wildly improbable to be
 worth consideration.
 Yet this was the story of Grant, thi> tNe
 taie of tae He tEst vas lived in ou; eizat. r. It is trs- and we accept 1t without question; i;
 he improbability Is gone becam.c we know q the facts; the roiaalcs v,nlsses because $rnAry of Us have known .hc man. We arc
 too close t1 him to ec2 kis jrst proportions; 1;
 u. ore may stand too close to a colossal
 statue to form just appreciation of Its size SSIn the eyes of his contemporaries, Washing. {ton was not politically blamslsss; those who
 owned farms adjoining his, found him a
 close listed, dissgreeahle neighbor. Napo. r. icOu to tuObe WbO ilvco III LIS tiUuc Wub either an angel Of light o. a demon from the Rpit; in the eyes of the ch.oniclers of his
 court, he vas au intermeddlinS busy body 3dsstrtute alike of dignity and decency.
 But time has placed both these men in
 their proper light before the world. The
 characters of great men are always over drawn in one way or another;by their CO., ftemporarics, and the softenins' fagers of the
 years are needed is place both their char
 acters and their portraits in condition Cor
 Inspection. The world has deanitely made up It's mind as to Washington and Napoleon, and the romance of their careers is fully ap-
 preciated by the people of the present day . But another generation or two must pass sawsy and distance lend enchantment to the
 view" before the wonderful story of the E.Dead Commander" will be seen in its proper
 flight. We know he was great. but few cai
 form any adequate idea how great We
 know that the obstacles In his path merely sserved him as rounds in the latter by which U he climbed to success, but none can yc:
 measure either the grestness os the ob- stscles nor the completeness of the success,
 Hi. life was stranger than other men's 2dreams," but it's romsLce is yet to be told.