The gold leaf., 1904-04-07
BRILLIANT LIGHT EXTINGUISHED.

Mr.. Isaac Erwin Avery, city editor
of the Charlotte Observer, died at his
room in that city Saturday evening
at 7:2O o'clock His death was
somewhat sudden and wholly uneX-
pected heart failure being assigned
as the cause. Mr. Avery was but 81
years old but he was recognized as
easily the most versatile and bril-
liant Newspaper writer in the State.
Deceased was a son ex-Judge Avery,
of MorgantOn, and WAS vice consul
to Shanghai, China, under President
Cleveland's last admir- istratiOn. As
another has said OF him:
''In the regular routine of his work
Mr.. Avery has written articles OF
great merit, and more than once it
has been suggested that his special
stories of different events were worthy
OF more prominence thanpublication
in q newspaper could warrant. His
daily writings, touching on local in
cidents We're eagerly looked for by a
host Of readers in many parts OF the
State
"Mr. Avery's special work that
made his writings more widely read
than they otherwise would probably
have been was his variety Of Idle
Comment" published once a week in
the Observer. These Comments s.
l. -,
by several OF the State papers and
they were the most generally quoted
of any contributions in the North
Carolina press.
"The fascination of his writings
was in the style of treatment. He
cOnld weave long, simply told, III
teresting story out of the small facts
gathered in his local reporting was
remarkable for it's clcverless and in
tsrest 1t is not false to say that he
was the ablest writer in his line ol
work in the State"
EditorialIy, his late chief, Mr.. J. p
Caldwell, pays the following tribute
to the lamented dead:
The first page of this paper tells of the
death last evening of its brilliant and
popular city editor. 49,.
This writer, in his most composed
moments, when his vision is clearest and
his capacity for analysis at its best
would not be fit to write of the man who
is dead. He loved him too much. What
then, now, when the heart is filled tC
hrIrc fol bn
across the paper? There must be re
corded, though a few facts, to which al
those who knew him personally or fol
lowed him in his work, will subscribe
which might be recorded in the coolest
blood and which no one would undertake
to contrOvert.
He closed as he began his career or
earth and ever sustained it-a gentleman
He was descended from knightly race
and illustrated in his life its lOftiest vir
tues. He came of a people who regarded
honor first, and who afterwards. WERE
distinguished for intellect, courage, fol
public service, for public and private vir
tues. There was never q man who dis
criminated more nicely between the right
and wrong OF things, or who lived more
nearly to that ideal of a man as brave az
n lion and as gentle as n woman. ''iT
all the storms of life this brave anG
gentle man was oak and rock, but in the
sunshine he was vine and flower In
person he was picture of manly beauty
God and his ancestors had given him an
intellect with which he might have done
.lmOst anything, and within the past
four years he has employed it to the best
purpose. We say only what all mel
know when it is said, that he was the
most brilliant writer in North Carolina
and that when he died he was winning
reputation more rapidly than any mar
in the State Who will ever forget his
Monday morning comments? the know
ledge they sometimes betrayed of the
most secret springs of human nature; the
delightful humor which bubbled VI
through them; or the delicate touch
which he could bestow upon any object
he referred to? Who, for instance. vii
ever forget the exquisite little tribute il
last Monday paper to the violet? 1t il
pasted in n thousand scrap books to-day
We speak of him as individual anC
newspaper man: He was faithful to his
trust, loyal to his paper and to hisfriends
Able, brilliant, brave, tender, generous
sympathetic, unselfish These PROPOSE
tions none will be found to dispute But
He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer dried fountain
When our need was the sorest
The font. re-appearing
From the rain-drops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,
To Duncan no morrow"