The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1888-04-21
ALEfFER 10 GEN. BABEAU.
With Few Points On Natures History
for Earnest PeruSaI.

A""Nou' ohu Hcle' seQuteleftu Dl the
still waters. let us commune.
You have been annoyed; the babble
of many men has vexed you; will
speak low and softly; win soothe:
no man your lover more dear than |.
none more eager to do you reverence
in this hour.
First, let us whisper of the past. 1t
should not be necessary in your de-
tense to recapitulate the services YOU
rendered to this migrate. the dead Gen.
Grant but to forever silence all ques-
tions or eayil, let us review them.
In 1868, while you were enjoying
the obscurity and helplessness so very
dear to your nature, you consented
to allow him to make you captain in
the army. This weakness was your
first unhappy step towards the long
series of obligations under which you
placed him.
In 1869, in an evil hour, you again
sacrificed yourself to his selfishness,
and he imposed upon you the breyet
of Brigadier-General and the post of
Secretary of the British Legation, thus
depriving you of the double pleasure
of being poor and forgotten, to both of
which you were Justly entitled.
The following year he injured your
feelings by removing the London Con-
sul-Gcneral at your suggestion and
giving you his place, cntailing upon
you the hardships of an income of
about $4,000 per year.
Emboldened by your selfsacriiice,
he then plunged you in a vortex of
fortune, using his vast power to crush
your humility and poverty by giving
you place after place, honor upon hon
or, forcing even his own money upon
you when you had by noble and per-
sistent efforts freed yourself from the
twin curses of friends and credit.
| For years you suffered at his hands
this violence to your nature, which was
best fitted to revel in oblivion and
want, and not once did your patient
soul rebel. Who knows the sublime
{ height of indulgence and opprobrium to
which you might not have scared had
not this strong and tyrannous hand OF
his favor torn your chances ruthlessly
T from you and compelled you int,
! places of emolument and reputation?
. Not once did you assail his feeling
0 by a refusal. On the contrary, with
0 modest delicacy and an overilowinl
: heart, despite the cruel overload o
his great bounty under which yol
: staggered, you rose superior to ven
{ geance. In the days of his woundin,
: and sorrow, in the days when his skie
!, were canopied with poverty and de
a spair, when those fields of war whicl
Q had made fields of peace blossome,
5 with roses for others only to bea
] thorns for him, then, Gen. Adam
Badeau came you to repay.
Good Samaritan, you, Fastening
: with oil and balm to where swift-com
: ing Misery kept vigil with crawling
death. True, brave, loyal, earnest
: noble and remembering friend, you
T willing even TO the last to wrest from
him one meagcr fragment which tn,
whirlwind of troubles had spared
his dazzling name.
@ | delight in the bushes which com,
to your cheek at the reccollcction o
this, your greatest deed, this .pinnacl,
of all your life, this proudest SUNNI
to which your mental and moral gift
enabled you to aspire. II needs n,
historian, for the trumpets of his FAINT
will bear yours, too, unto generations
coming after, even as the rivers which
bear the commerce of a mighty city tc
the sea sweep also the putrid ooze o
its sewers.
But come, General, we are alone and
let us be funny. Let us kick up oul
heels like the lambkin, skip like the
, yearling calf and laugh, ha, ha
We have not lost much fleece, you
and mot much. We know ourselves
don't wel
Let US both, now that we have hivcd
, away all the plunder we can, take O
r vacation, partly for other reasons and
partly because the police are onto us.
. Let us study nature. We have
studied man, both of us. Your study
was narrower than mine, but admit
, you made II more profitable. Now lei
us look at the beasts of the field and
the dickey birds of the air, the bugs
and beetles, and the fshlets which
swim in the sea-
You have observed NatureY No
Then you have missed many parallels
r Take the jackal, for example. The
iackal is a small, sharp-nosed, sneaking
, thievish, cowardly and disrcputablt
! brute, smiling, snarling, yelping, so ful
of neas and famine that he hasn't room
for fight. lie loves to follow the lion
Do you know why? Merely becaus,
he is too helpless or too lazy to provide
r for himself. The lion Stays the quagga
II the cam clopard, the elan, the gnu o
! the Hartcbeest, and out of bis bount,
Al. l.. Al