The Hartford herald., 1885-12-23
UNSUNG GENIUS.
Men Wnh the Soul Ofa Poet and PM.
OsOpher. who Live and die without
Finding Voice to speak %.
t"Enan," i'm Courier-JournaI.l ]

/
| Then he became a listleSs merchant; a ST.
lent, unsocial and rather moody waiter upon
petty traffic. A poor farmer, a worse tan
ner, worthless trafiicker. 6 Absolutely
untitled, apparently, for pre-eminence. Had
Grant died at the lanyard, OF from behind
the counter, the world would never have sus-
pected that 1t had lost hero. He would
have fallen as an undistinguishable leaf
among the millions cast down every year
Beecher's sermon on Grant.
| In reading the fine address of the cele-
brated preacher on the celebrated sol
dier, the portion quoted above, IN some
occult and indefnable way, filled me
with profound sadness, and in this mood
| have been led away in thought along
the quiet streets of our villages and
towns and by the country stores Of our
crossroads to take sly glance from un-
der the broad brim ofmy felt hat at the
unsuspected heroes who may be seen
the poor farmers, the worse tanners, the
worthless traffickers, to fortune and to
fame unknown, and forever to remain
unknown.
The constitution and temperament of
my mind and heart are such that love
to think of these "undistinguishable
leaves" who, in the never-ceasing au-
tumn season i'm human life, are silently
but constantly falling to the ground. /
feel that they are blood-kin to me, and
that am one of them. These men and
women who are the playthings of Fate,
who in the great multitude are so
dwarfed in statue that they are never
seen, those grains of popcorn that never
pop and flower out into Captains" but
brown, and hard and worthless, are
cast into the fire or fed to the chickens.
Look about you now for the contempo-
raries of that silent, moody man who
twenty-five years ago listlessly meas
ured a yard of calico on his store count
er for some old woman. Where are
they? Fallen away, dim, dark, the
very names and faces of them as il they
had never been born. And yet among
them who shall say that there was moi,
in possibility, Milton, a Shakespeare,
a Napoleon, a Washington, Pitt, a
Newton? l have no doubt that the
things which have been thought but
have never been spoken are finer and
grander than all that has been said.
do not question but what to-day, OBJ
scure and unknown, as unregarded as
the clod IN the road, there are, in every
community, minds as exquisitely tenn
pered and as strong and splendid by na-
ture rs ever astonished or delighted the
world. And yet they are dumb, and
will continue dumb. Great battles will
remain unfought, great poems will re-
main unwritten, profound deductions
in science will not be made, magnifi-
cent flights of eloquence will not he
taken. Silent and dumb as the grave
to which all are hurrying! Is it not a
sad thought? See how few are the
kings and princes of the world, the
great ones of any given age, compared
with the unknown herd
How many truly great men or wo-
men does this country of ours, with its
sixty millions of souls, boast to-day? A
hundred? Fifty? Ten? Five? Who
is the poet that ranks with Dante? Who
is soldier as great as Cesar? Who is
the orator as fine as Demost henes? 1t
is not the age, says some one. Non-
sense One age is As great as another.
The reason is not so broad and massive
Opportunity, voice, words do not come
to the age that has past, nor to the age
that is. They come, few and far be-
tween, to the individual, to the shining
few. and the hundreds and thousands
to whom great things are possible, and
who are never heard of, remain silent
and dumb. have a friend who tells
he all his thoughts. He Is a quiet, re-
served man, who loves the most of all
things to shut himself up in his room
with his hooks and his own thoughts.
Often he may be seen in the wooded
outskirts of the town, strolling alone or
seated at the foot of forest tree.
said he tells me all his thoughts. /
should have said he tells me some Of
his thoughts. For instance. he confided
to me one day that he never sees a fine
painting, nor hears great speech, nor
reads sensible book, but what he finds
himself feeling that 1t is possible for
him to do better than the author, the
orator or the artist. And yet, / think
no man is mOdester than he, and no
man more truly appreciates genius in
Others or more generously comedies il.
He does not underestimate the works of
genius, but seeing their full merit and
gladly acknowledging it, he yet feels
that the latent power and capacity is il,
him to excel. But he is as dumb an an
oyster. Gray hairs are creeping out on
his temples, and crows feet are gather
ing about the corners of his eyes, and
still the world does Dot know that he
is, and when he is gone it will never
know that he has been. He is ian un-
distinguishable leaf among the millions
cast down every year"
There Is no room here for complaint.
Perhaps nothing can be done to alter
this condition of things. l am not
preaching a sermon, nor running tilt
against a status which is. perhaps as
fixed and interchangeable as the hills.
There is noise enough in the world, God
knows, and dare say cit is meet and
proper" that the most of US should keep
still. But, all the same, when | see u
man like Burns, for instance, lift up his
voice in spite of adverse surroundings,
in spite of the jingle and elatter of the
plOugh-gear, in spite of the seclusion