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HINTS IRON HISTO'R'I: Litt n. p "Mh T °’
Southern Literature a Prophecy.
N the tw’ilight I w 7 alked in a garden un
der the gray skies of winter.
The Vine.
I saw a vine. It was bare of leaf and
fruit and flow 7 er. What promise here of
the grape cluster? What pledge here
of rich, red wine?
A baby bud made answer: “I drank
in the sunlight of summers long ago.
jg
I bathed in the showers that fell from the skies. I
breathed in the golden haze of autumns long gone,
and the crimson glow of the sunsets. The moon
beams came and played with me through the long,
soft nights of the past. The rough wind of winter
lent his hand to rock my swaying cradle. The skies
are gray, but I give you the pledge of rich, red
wine. ”
The Rose.
I came to the barren rose stem. What promise
here of sun-kissed petal, or sense-entrancing odor?
The life within replied: “I have captured the
rainbow crown from the brow of the dewdrop and
have stored it in my treasure-house. While no eyes
but the eyes of the stars kept watch the love-sick
night breeze, with many a kiss slipped into my
bosom his costly aroma brought from unremembered
.lands, and this I have hidden in my holy of holies.
When the great king of day returns from his dis
tant pilgrimage and warms my heart with his lov
ing smile, I shall clothe me in a robe to match the
rainbow 7 crown; and to him, and to you, and to the
All-Father of us all, I shall render back the odor
and the color I have kept. On the honor of the
lips of life I promise you the beauty and fragrance
of the rose.”
$1 Virginian and a Lee
OBERT E. Lee Jr., is a son of the
Lees —and a Lee himself.
The recent visit of this worthy son
of an illustrious name was only knoWn
before his coming as the grandson of
the great confederate chieftian —but now
he is known as a superior man in his
own right and an orator of superb
power.
R
General Clement A. Evans, the beloved old
preacher —war-horse, presided over an enthusiastic
meeting at the State capitol at which Captain
Robert E. Lee Jr., was the guest of honor. Col.
Walter McElreath, an old college mate of “Bob”
Lee as he was affectionally called introduced the
brilliant young Virginian in the graceful speech
published below, and the wild enthusiasm
with which the grandson of Robert E. Lee was
greeted was sustained —indeed heightened as senti
ments of patriotism in garments of beauty leaped
from the orators tongue. Judge John T. Pendleton
on leaving the capitol expressed the prophecy of
many others when he said: “That man is bound to
be Governor of Virginia.” It is good—very good
to meet a son of greatness who is himself really
great.
Mr. McElreath’s Address.
In the days of 1861, the fires of patriotism burned
nowhere more intensely than here in Georgia, and
nowhere on earth today is the Confederate soldier
held in higher honor, or the memory of a Con
federate hero more revered.
This state and city were at the geographical center
of the Confederacy. In the early years of the
great struggle, her armies were posted around here
frontiers, but in the baptism of heroic blood which
Robert K. Lee, Jr., Captures the "Old Confeds”
Graceful Introduction
By Colonel Walter McKlreath
By A. H. Klien.
The Seed.
I came to a place that was utterly bare, and
doubt, for a moment, ruled in my heart; but my
ear caught the sound of silent voices. A little seed
beneath the sod was communing with its own soul.
In its dark cell it was recalling the memories of
light; days of sunlight when it slept in its air
swung cradle, and dreampt no dream of the sod.
Reverently I bent my lips to the ground and
asked if it had a hope to tell, or a prophecy. It
answered: “The power of all the past is in the
compass of my little cell. The sunbeam of Eden
is here. The rainbow from Noah’s flood; the moon
light caught from the face of that fair queen as
she stood still over the valley of Avalon. I prom
ise on the surety of Him who giveth the increase
that I shall bless the world with grain.”
The South.
The heart of the South is the garden. There have
been days of sunshine and days of shadow. There
have been cruel nights, nights of ruin, and soft,
sweet nights of rest. Through the chambers of this
heart hath stolen the silent footfalls of the velvet
slippered breeze, and against its walls hath charged
the furious legions of the storm-king. To it hath
come all the vicissitudes of God’s seasons, and from
it shall spring all the blessings of God’s fruitage.
My fellow travelers, pitching our tents for a day
upon the soil of the South, hear my message ere we
sleep: With the voice of the vine in my ears, and
the pledge of the rose in my memory, and the hope
of the unresurrected seed in my soul, I declare to
you that out of the garden of the heart of the
South hath sprung, and shall spring, the wine and
the flower, and the fruit of a literature that shall
bless the world with its beauty.
fell upon the soil of other states, there was no richer
flood than that which flowed from Georgia hearts.
When her armies had been thinned, and when she
began to grow faint with the unequal struggle, and
when the enemy reached his hand to clutch the
quivering heart of the still resolute, but fainting
nation, he planted his guns on the bills surrounding
this devoted city, and after Atlanta feel the young
nation fainted fast to its death. But it died to
live again, thank God, and with the first pulsations
of its resurrected heart, it began to beat true to its
old ideals. Well did the distinguished young
gentleman, whom we have the honor and the
pleasure to entertain this evening, say yesterday
that you did not fight for a lost cause. There is in
human affairs an invisible empire of thought, of
feeling, of ideals, which cannot be conquered by
armies, limited by territorial bounds, nor classified
according to forms of government, but which gives
tone and charicter to civilization. That invisible
empire exists here today, reverencing the heroes
of other days, giving inspiration to younger genera
tions of men to nobler lives than else they would
live, and exerting a powerful influence upon the
life ami thought and policy of the nation. I verily
believe that the day will sometime come—yea, and
that day is not far distant —when southern thought
and southern ideas of government will again be
supreme in this nation.
Georgia had her great men in the Councils of the
Confederate nation and in its armies. She is
proud of her Toombs, her Stephens, her Longstreet,
her Gordon, and of the grand old man Clement A.
Evans, who introduced me this evening, but it is
no disparagement to these great men to say that
history has made up its verdict that Robert Edward
The Golden Age for May 7, 1908.
Lee was the greatest of the Confederate immortals.
That Georgia is second to none in her devotion
to Confederate memories the pages of her statute
books bear witness, for she was the first of all the
states to make the birthday of Robert E. Lee a
public holiday, and the first to accord this honor
to the great President of the Confederacy.
Besides that degree of proprietorship in the fame
of General Lee, which all the States of the Con
federacy have, he and his family belong, in a sense,
peculiarly to this state. On the soil of Georgia, at
the marge of the Southern Sea, where the waves
whisper on the beach of Cumberland a perpetual
requiem, under the spreading branches of great
live oak trees, rest, the ashes of Richard Henry Lee,
the father of General Robert E. Lee, and the
great grandfather of the guest of this evening.
In Greece one time an angry mob attacked an
old man, but just as they were preparing to cast
their missies at him, some one cried, “Stop. He
fought at Marithon!” Every Grecian dropped his
missile, and the crowd faded away. Among us, no
man can claim higher lineage than to have been
the son of a Confederate soldier who did his duty,
whether that soldier wore the uniform of a general,
or the private’s simple suit of gray. I do not
expect that this life shall ever bring to me a boast,
shall ever bring to me a thought, as dear to me as
the fact that I was the son of a Confederate sol
dier who fought in the first ranks at Manassas, and
who brought back with him, to hang upon the wall
of his simple home, a parole granted hi mat Appo
mattox.
But were the young gentleman, whom I have the
honor of presenting to you this evening, merely the
descendant and namesake of his honored ancestor,
I should not take such pleasure in introducing him;
but I have heard many of you bear testimony of
his eloquent words at Richmond, and today I have
heard much praise of his words at Griffin. That he
loves you is proved by the' fact that he came a
long journey from his home to pay honor to your
dead comrades. I am glad that I can bear the
testimony of friendship that he is worthy. Led by
an inclination given to me by the traditions of the
fireside, when I came to finish my education, I found
my way to the beautiful little town in the valley of
Virginia, to which Stonewall Jackson asked to be
carried when he lay dying, and where Lee and
Pendleton sleep. Upon the campus of Washington
and Lee University it was my good fortune in. my
boyhood days, and in his, to meet the friend whom
I have met today for the first time in sixteen years.
Deeds of kindness done me then, and the associa
tion of two years as school-boys taught me to love
him. Your words of praise brought back from
the Richmond reunion impressed me that it would
give you pleasure to meet him on this occasion, and
with the graciousness which is a characteristic of
his kindly heart, he accepted, and I am glad to
have the pleasure and the honor to now present
to you my friend of college days, Mr. Robert E.
Lee, Jr., of Virginia.
M *
Georgia Victorious.
By Willie Asenath Morris.
Let the banner of Temperance proudly now wave
O’er the state that no longer is Alcohol’s slave,
And the delicate ribbon of pure, snowy white
Be the symbol of victory, glory and might.
For Georgia, dear home of our childhood and
friends,
And Georgia, dear home of our life till it ends,
Has proudly, triumphantly made a decree
That her sons from the demon of drink shall be
free.
From the peak of her mountains, Idfty and grand,
from the shores of the ocean’s glimmering sand,
Let a paeon of praise to the heavens ascend,
For those who have chosen the right to defend.
All glory to those who are truthful and brave,
Who struggle and battle a brother to save,
Who spurn not to stoop to the gutter and sod
And lift him to manhood —to freedom—to God.
