The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-12-20
FORGOTTEN.
Greenriz1c Nelrs.


Here is grave in almost any large
cemetery. The mound that once rose
above it has sunk to the level Of the
surrounding ground OF become de-
preston. Wild onions and coarse
grasses grow upon it. In the winter
the dead leaves and pine needles drift
upon it. When we ask who is buried
there, nobody knows. It may be
man or woman or child. Whoever it
is, is'forgotten Even where there is
better care and headstone or even a
monument bearing the name, the case
is the same after two or three score
years, for the name means nothing but
name. There is no living memory
connected with it; and after few
score more years the stone crumbles
and the inscriptions disappear and
the famous and rich lying there wait
ing are like the humbled brother or
sister beneath the unmarked place in
Potter field or the poor corner of the
burial place-forgotten. We do not
even wait for death. A little absence
does the same work. Men come and
go and are lost from our lives and
memories as they would be If they
were in unknown graves in distant
cemeteries-men we knew and liked
or disliked and who were parts OF our
daily lives, whose faces and forms and
names were as familiar to US as our
own. Some trick Of memory, some ac-
cidents recalls them to US. Perhaps
in that mysterious, wonderful life we
know while we are sleeping and our
minds are free and at fantastic play in
the mighty realm Of the unreal, these
men Of the long ago-6fteen or twenty
OF thirty years-are suddenly with
us again and we are involved with
them in some curious experience. We
struggle with our memories to bring
them back clearly, and vaguely wonder
that we have forgotten. If we occupy
leisure hour in going back through
our lives we are surprised by the
scores Of men who come to us from
oblivion whom we knew we'll. In
this country Of ours it is especially
notable. Here in Greenville man
who went away thirty, or even twenty,
years ago would find now strange faces
everywhere, strange names on the
signs oyer the doors. He would learn
that he had been forgotten and would,
as memories returned to him one by
one, wonder at the number of people
he had forgotten; and when he found
somebody who remembered him and
undertook to go over "old times man
after man, family after family would
be recalled who had been forgotten,
who had gone away and Of whom all
trace had been lost. In the cemeter-
les here there are the graves OF many
dead whose people are hundreds or
thousands of miles away, who are
forgotten in the community in which
they lived, who have forgotten it,
except vaguely, or when their hearts
come back to the neglected graves.
For we who are here as we forget
are forgotten. We are to those we
once knew as they are to us; and we
shall be after some little time to the
world Of living men as are the dead IN
the forsaken graves to us. In many
parts Of the world there are persons to
whom we are recalled by accident or a
vagary Of the dream life-by an old
book with name in it or faded pic
ture found in some out-of-the-way
place or something Of like kind. They,
too, struggle to recall us and do it
gradually and vaguely, and indifer-
emily speculate as to whether we are
living or dead, here or elsewhere, do
ing we'll or i'll, just as we do Of them.
None Of us may fatter ourselves that
we will be very long remembered. Of
each generation Of the human race
millions die and are forgotten within
ter or fifteen years. A few are re-
membered little longer; score or
so, century, perhaps; maybe one
will leave name which will live fresh
in mems minds always; but the man
himself will be forgotten. Only what
he did and was will be remembered.
While ,ren live their names will give
Importance to what they do; when
they are dead their names are made
important by what they have done.
So it is the universal lot to be for
gotten and only what we do can live.
It will live, even when We would earn
estly hope to have it die. What we
do and say is from our souls and