The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-08-13

dlloIl is, ne has run ms race TeElole
from towns, in retirement, in content
ment. IN simple life; he mas nor
sought nor wished to change his place
nor rushed through newspaper noto-
riety into the current of public notice.
He has lived there for fifty years and
reared a distinguished family, seven
or eight sons and daughter, on tne
| milk and beef of his own green mis-,
and the wheat of his own field, ana
clothed them from the sheep OF
his own pastures. You coulon
| live, nor make, him court a newspaper
interview. His companionship is above
| it. If he walks the street of a city,
he chooses to walk through the streets
| of Rome locked arms in Imagination
with Livy. Sallust, Tacitus or Horace
or the cities of Greece with homer
| Herodotus, Aeschylus, Simonldes or
| Pindar for he reads them all In the
original tongue as fiuently as does Inc
reader the columns of this paper, ana
delights In ait TO intoxicat1on. Als
peculiar fort is his acquaintance with
| the classic languages and with ancient
history. have. seen him. a. hundred
| times almost start out in a. lecture ana
a translation, after his Latin or creek
| recitation was over and maui doWH
from the shelf a volume whose appear
| ance indicated that 1t was saved from
the wreck of the Alexandrlan library
and start out in pursuits ike those
above indicated, and when he got
started off and the boys began to
prick their ears and blare their eyes
| i'm wonderment, there was absolutely
nothing like it! / never knew now
accurate the translation was, ana
| would make him a poorer witness
| now, but 1 knew this and know it
now; if he didn't get it right he didn't
get it any worse, for while nave
read the TRANSACTIONS of Pope ana OF
Dryden, whose rhyme and rhythm,
was superior of course, l did not by
| their tranSlations get so close to the
walls of Troy and hear so distinctly
the actual clash of the arms OF Ach-
lilies and Hector, of Paris, and Meme
laus nor even so VlVldly,
Diomed and Ulysses laden with
the spoils of Rhesus. All
these pictures passed in brilliant pan
Drama under his translations. he IS
pre-eminently the greatest lingulst
have ever seen. These Emergencies
from the routine of the days study
were thrilling. They intoxicated US.
They absorbed us. They lifted us in
to realms of imagination and made US
burn with restless emulation, ana es-
pecialIy absorbed us with the person
atty of the man. And right here Is
his power as a teacher and the reas-
on chiefly why proclaim him eminent
i'm his work. An ambitious boy can
absorb and imbibe. information
through the pores of the skin with the
air he breathes, if put in the presence
of one he admires and emulates, and
who simply evolves it every moment
as he does from the mysterious al
chemy of his personality. But Whlle
Capt Picot was rich as l have SAID IN
his tranSlations of the classics, espe-
cially of the Latin classics, they being
more familiar to us than the Greek,
he was never at his best until he got
off on Napoleon. He is half French
man. His paternal grandfather fol-
lowed Napoleon iIf many of his great
marches over Europe, was an ofncer
Ct have forgotten3of what rank) in
that invincible army, and with the
phenominally favored few, crossed the
bloody bridge at Lodi with his hero,
bearing the tri-color. On the dethrone-
ment of the Emperor and. the return
Of the Bourbons, he seems like others
no less renowned to have fed from
the storm of the political upheaVal) TO
a safer atmosphere, where IN the ST.
lent reflections of his own sad memory
he trained his descendants to see Ma
them in detail, we can imagine, over
that marvellous career. to where as
Ingersoll said, fate and chance COM
bined to wreck the fortunes OF their
former king" Capt Picots ancestors
at a time not exactly known to us, set
tied at Plymouth, n. c., where ne was
born His father Peter .. Picot,
rests in the family lot in the northeast
corner of the Episcopal cemetery and
In f.
If a young and ambitious man, study
ing the great career of that demigod,
could sit under the sound of his lee
lures on Napoleon and escape en-
chantment / cannot conceive OF the
man. He was a good judge of a boy.
He could tell the trend of his capab1li-
ties and his tastes and he delighted in
cultivating them if they were pra1s-
worthy. He could soon find out II the
boy would read anything at all what
suited him and what he would profit
by. / recall that without my request
he brought me one day a copy of
Richard Taylor Shields Sketches of
the Irish Bar / read it with great
pleasure and profit and have tried to
find a copy en- sale. OF course he knew
that | had set to work ardently to
imbibe enough Latin to struggle with
the dog Latin of the law books, and
] do not mention TINS as the ohly
test of his wise selections. He grad
uated at Union college about lS52,
and located where he now lives soon
thereafter and married a Miss Vann-
by which marriage he has reared q
large family. One son, Peter Picot,
of Winton. died in '93 While rapidly
making his way to prominence in the
law. Another we'll on his way to dis
tinction as a minister, had gone be-
fore, several years, One, Guy G. Pic
OF, is in mercantile, business at Como
and is we'll equipped for the battle.
of life and stands high in his county,
AS the living evidence of his fathers
handiwork, and in ample proof of what
/ have said, / introduce (hy way OF
autoplic preference as the law books
say, for he could not testify in good
taste). another son. DR.. l.. j. Picot, OF
Littleton, N. C. Look at him. Exam
inc him. Try him. He never went to
school a day in his life to another
than his father except to medical coll.
lege, and he doesn't know anything
either, that he didn't learn from his
father, The work proclaims the work.
man. ft' {
Capt. Picot used to mingle with the
hovS and keen i'm touch with their per-