The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1892-11-10

gentlemen who sc0rned TO De sell
Sc ekers. Besides the honor ofleading
exalting and dignifying the profession
and work of the journalist, he ha
played an influential part in the litera
ture OF the State. Receiving two degree
from Wake Forest in as many years
he was honored with the degree of Ii
D. by the University of North Caro-
lima in 1883. And this venerable in
stitution has followed up this distin
guished compliment by inviting hin
recently to deliver an address on Co
lumbus and University day.
1t is no secret to his trends that hi
could long since have held conspicu
Gus public station if he had so willed
In 1876 hewas widely sought to allow
his name to be used before the Demo
cratic convention for the office O
Superin tendent of Public Instruction
Under Mr.. Cleveland's administration
such was the potency of his editorial:
in the preceding campaign, and SC
distinguished were his merits, that the
entire North Carolina delegation in
Congress profered their cooperation
to secure him a valuable appointment
This he declined. And time and
again during the shifting fortunes o
our State University, he has been sug.
gested and urged by the press to promi-
nent professorships and to professor
ship of that institution.
With all his editorial and literary
labors, DR.. Kingsbury tries to be faith
full to all his religious duties. He also
fills the devoted office of class leader,
and draws much of his Christian hope
and happiness from the experience OF
the class room. But with all this he
is close student of theology, and en-
joys the keen investigation of theolo-
gical questions.
The explanation of DR.. Kingsbury's S
success as writer and journalist is his
judicious selection and passionate study
of standard authors in his youth. In
stead of wasting his time over ephe-
neral trash, he made champions of the
gifted spirits of the English classics
from Chaucer and Spenser to the
present time. He was student in the
highest sense Of that term. His earliest
compositions wore an air of dignity
and ambitious purpose. He was charged
with being pedantic because he
brought new and higher force into
journalism. But he held on his way
bravely and resolutely. He threw the
splendid light of his Furnished intel
lect over the dreary level of newspaper
life, and the prospect began to change.
Men saw that scholars and thinkers,
and not deadbeats and loafers, should
be magicians of newspaper literature.
Thus it came to pass that the various
newspapers, through whose glowing
and searching editorials this magnetic
element of reform was disseminated,
became almost imperceptibly the
founder of new school in journalism.
And to-day DIR. Kingsbury's excellent
library is conclusive illustration of that
approved judgment and taste which
have made him the prince of editorial
writers. 1t is his habitual retreat from
the cares and annoyances ofnewspaper
work.
A sketch ofthis distinguished gentle
man, however short, would be incom-
plete without designating that unerring,
critical faculty, which is the highest
intellectual gift. In the old days when
reviewers we're mighty in the land, and
one single flash of the critics knife
took fame and hope from the authors S
life forever, he would instinctively have
stood with that profession. But this
work would have been that of Chris
tian and gentleman. Though by the
force of his circumstances and not by
the bent of his own talents political
writer, his most passionate preference
is for the discriminating faculty in
reference to men and books. 1t does
not take him long to analyze and par
ticularizc the qualities of each. The
as we'll as the evident value
of thought and attribute alike stand
revealed before him. And nothing
ever gives the writer of this sketch
more pleasure than to read DR.. Kings
bury on literature and authors. The
beautiful and the grotesque, the true
and the false, the malicious and the
the opulent and the beggared,
the celestial and the earthly, all catch
his eye, and whirl before us in magic
glass. May our gifted friend long
live to make the world better for his
Iabors.