The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1890-01-17
sTANLEY's REVERENCE.
I. IA. Been Developed by His Africa

1t HAS Been Developed by His African
Life.
Smalley's London Letter in tho New York
Tribune.
1t is all one chorus of praise for Mr..
Stanley's latest letters. to which the
London papers without exception ac-
cord the honor of ample space and large
type. He has conquered the last of his
critics. His courage, decision, iudg-
mcnt, tact, all that marvellous combina-
tion of qualities which are now, per-
haps. for the first time visible in their
full development, and all resting on
that indomitable energy which never
owns to fatigue or defeat, are now for
the first time fully recognized and adj
mitted and justly %applauded. There is
no descendant note in the homage.
Nov also for the first time is Justice
done 10 his power as u writer; perhaps,
also. because now for the first time are
his highest literary qualities shown.
There are passages in these letters
which read like verses out of an Old
Testament-Ezckiel at II moment and
Isaiah the next. 1t is the style of a
man who has done much and thought
much. Notiu vain has he brooded over
various problems i'll the remorseless
black forest of Africa. What were the
books lc carried with him and read?
They cannot have been many. Con-
tinual contact with savages and Oriental
life; that, too. has left its mark.
How Carlyle would have delighted in
some of this grim humor, and how
American is Stanley's power of leaving
things ursaid and coming straight to
the result, abandoning the intermediate
steps and processes to the inference of
the reader. II ought to MENTION he
writes, that through sol1e error of the
native carriers employed by the Egypt
ians. a packet ofletters was intercepted
and Stanley found out the plot he
suspected and the plottcr. Errors of
that sort only happen to men who know
how to profit by them. and to contrive
them. He omits to mention what be-
came of 1braham Efendi Ethan. His
speech to his officers and to Emin, when
Emin could not make up his mind to
stay or go, reads like Il speech from
Thucydides, and is probably just about
as accurate Il report OF what was ac-
tually said. | rather imagine that dis
courses half a column long with exor-
dunn and peroration. are rare in the
mluulc Oh EtFici. me hollow square
of the Ianzibari rifles with the trcach-
erous Egyptians in the middle, with
the choice freely offered them of dis
cipline or death, is a scene not soon to
be forgotten.
One is sorry for Emma man essen
TALLY SO gallant and loyal, yet forever
yielding to a fatal indecision. 1t is
quite clear that Stanley at last made up
Emin's mind for him. There is a limit
to patience: at the end of a year of hes
itation it was finally reached. 1t is not
easy to imagine a man OF Stanlcy's tenn
permanent and temper coming away from
Africa without the man he had gone
there to rescue. To return empty
handed after these years of heroic effort
might do for anothcr-not for Stanley
and it is possible that Emin's wishes
ceased at last to DO a factor in the prob
lem. Measurcless is his scorn for a
leader who cannot resolve either to lead
or to follow; yet the expression of it is
kept entirely within the bounds of de-
corum, and this, like so many other
facts of prime interest, the iudicious
public is left to discover for itself. If
it breaks out once it is in the exclama-
ton: Il could save a dozen pashas if
thsy were willing to be saved'-a little
as if pashas were cheap in Africa.