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THE SUNNY SOUTH
THE
SUNNY SOUTH.
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ATLANTA, OA.. Saturday, September 19, 1896.
Kate Field’s Body to be Cremated.
While the lamented Kate Field possessed
but little of this world’s goods she seems to
have left a will which has just been found in
her boarding-house, The Shoreham, at Wash
ington, and one item in it directs that her
body be cremated. The idea is harrowing
in the extreme, but, perhaps not more so than
placing her in the cold, damp grave.
We can not become reconciled to the cre
mation of our bodies and yet, according to
historical records it has been practiced by
most of the nations of the earth from the
earliest ages, and, although in pagan coun
tries, it may have taken the form of fire
worshipping, there can be little doubt that its
adoption by the ancients was for. the most
part prompted by other than religious reasons.
The Greeks ascribe its introduction to Her
cules, who, having sworn to transmit the
body of Argus to his father, thought this the
most convenient way of fulfilling his prom
ise. According to Homer, the burning of
the dead was a common practice among the
Greeks long before the Trojan war, but the
earliest record we have of it is among the
Scythians, who inhabited the vast region
known under the name of Tartary. Slender
accounts handed down concerning the man
ners of some of the ancient natives of Hindo-
stan also allude to £the custom. The idea of
purification by fire was in all ages universal,
and with good reason. Some of our ances
tors believed that the body was unclean after
the departure of the soul, and it was, there
fore, deemed necessary that it should be puri
fied by fire. Ovid expressed the general per
suasion of his time, when he said that the
soul was not completely separated from the
body until the latter was consumed on the
pyre. The Athenians in variably, after a battle,
curiosity of a traveler that purpose still re
mains a secret.
Those who have the honor and the pleasure
of meeting him here find that he is not only
a scholar, statesman and soldier, but that he
is a genial and courteous gentleman, adroit at
parrying inquisitors and adept in asking
questions. His voice is musical, his smile
kindly, his iace strong and intelligent, his
stature commanding. He is a veritable giant,
aad with his suite entirely disabuses the idea
most Americans have of the diminutive
stature of the Chinese.
His reception in England was most note
worthy, and he was treated with great consid
eration by all classes. A single incident,
his visit to the statue of General Gordon in
Trafalgar Square and to the Gordon ceno
taph, won him the regard of the British
nation and proved the depth of his own affec
tion. As he approached the statue one of his
suite advanced with an enormous wreath of
flowers and deposited it on the top of the
pedestal. Gazing long and earnestly at the
effigy of the renowned Englishman who had
been his companion in arms, and, indeed, his
own right hand, so many years ago, Li
walked nearer and bowed low before it. This
act of reverent homage deeply touched the
hearts of every spectator. He then passed to
St. Paul’s and there on Gordon’s tomb placed
similar wreaths bearing the inscription “In
Memory of the Soldier and Friend of China,
From Li Hung Chang.’’ How nearly akin
this to Tennyson’s splendid epitaph on the
dead soldier:
“Warrior of God, man’s friend, not laid be
low,
But somewhere dead far in the waste Soudan,
Thou livest in all hearts, for all men know
This earth has borne no simpler,nobler man.”
This pleasing incident at least proves the
humanity and nobleness of our visitor from
the Far East.
Let us see to it that he does not leave our
shores without an increased appreciation of
American hospitality and American character.
Tuesday, took place to-day from his residence
in this city.
“Rev. Robert H. Paine, of Mount Calvary
church, read the Episcopal burial service at
the house and at the grave in Loudon Park
cemetery.
“The Confederate Society, of which Pro
fessor Crouch was a member, had charge of
the arrangements. A double quartet, under
the direction of Professsor F. X. Hale, ren
dered musical selections during the services,
and as the casket was being 'lowered into the
grave ‘Kathleen Mavourneen’ brought tears
to the eyes of the hundreds of friends of the
veneiable musician.
man. Americans are recognized abroad in
spite of perfect mastery of continential lan
guages. Translated into English, ‘Les Mis-
erables’ is still a French novel. After all,
language is but the outside cloak. Too often
literature resembles one of those poor wire
figures in the shop windows, clothed like
humanity, but with no beating heart beneath
its proper exterior.”
Why Novels Fail as Plays.
The editor of London Truth discusses the
subject indicated in the above caption and
arrives at the following conclusion !
The best books make the worst dramas on
record. No one yet has ever dramatized
Thackeray’s‘Vanity Fair,’ or ‘Henry Es
mond’—both stories teeming as they are
with dramatic situations and surprises.
Dickens, who loved the stage, was divorced
from his love, in that his books were impos
sible for dramatic treatment. They were very
good to read, but very bad to act. There is
a reason in all this. The art of the novelist
is to delay his secret; the art of the dramatist
is to betray it. The best and most interesting
book is the one that delays the surprises until
the last page; the worst play is the one that
refuses to tell the secret until five minutes
before the curtain falls on the last act. The
reader of novels likes to dawdle over the
story, and to prolong the agony ; the spectator
of play loves to be wiser than the puppets
before him, and to watch them dallying. In
fact,, the playgoer is a kind of omniscience
in pit, gallery, stalls, and boxes, w’ho knows
more than anyone else.”
Is there Life on the Planets?
What would we not give for a definite and
reliable answer to this question ? But it will
remain unanswered for a good while to come.
We have no possible means of solving that
problem. The great telescopes reveal wonder
ful things to us, but they are not powerful
enough to reveal life on the planets. We can
only conjecture. Reasoning from our own
planet, the earth, we might say the others
are inhabited also. But conditions on the
other planets are so different from our own,
that if there be life there, it must be different
from ours.
The moon is our only near neighbor, being
two hundred and forty thousand miles dis
tant. The great Lick telescope can bring this
body to appear about two hundred miles dis
tant, and at that distance, objects about three
hundred feet square can be recognized. Such
objects as mountains, seas, canals, and cities
could be readily seen, but there has not been
discovered the slightest evidence of life. We
know that life can not exist without air and it
has been proven that the moon has no at
mosphere. Therefore, it can have no life,
animal or vegetable.
The planets that revolve around the sun
with us are all too far away to be studied in
regard to life. Venus is the nearest, and her
shortest distance is twenty-six million miles,
and that is when her dark side is turned
toward us. Even when she is nearest us, she
is more than one hundred times as far away
as the moon. Looking at this planet at cer
tain times, it has the apparance of the cresent
moon and seems to be surrounded by dense
white clouds. Mercury and Venus being
nearer the sun than we, of course receive
more heat and light.than we do, Venus re
ceiving twice as much and Mercury five
times as much.
This intense heat and light may be so
modified as to admit of some form of life, but
we can not discover it.
That Sensational Preacher, Tom Dixon.
The Chicago Times-Herald says:
“Christianity has been sufficient to domi
nate the most enlightened portions of the
earth for eighteen hundred years. Its philos
ophy has overcome the legacy of Egypt,
Greece and Rome, and continues to triumph
over the intellectual syndicates of skepticism
that follow each other in monumental groups,
age after age, the irresistible sweetness of its
creed has carried pioneers though the perils
of the wilderness as broad streams bear the
ships along during the night. Its warmth
has kept alive humanity in everlasting snows
and cooled the brow of suffering in the ever
lasting tropic. Vast as imagination, adequate
to every conceivable need of any clime, of
every country, of all classes of the human
race, eternal as its adherents believed Deity
itself, there is a time when it is rolled up
like a scroll, as the heavens sometime are to
be rolled, according to the prophet; and the
rolling in these days is done by some little
political preacher. On his lips Christianity
withers and campaign sensation becomes its
squalid substitute.
“The political preacher, no matter to what
denomination he may attach himself, is al
most invariably a man who, through lack of
native ability to acquire distinction as an ex
pounder of Christianity or grace to be content
with obscurity, resolves to obtain notoriety
by offending against religion. The first duty
of a patriot priest is to preach respect for
law and obedience to authority. The last
offense a congregation should tolerate in a
pulpit is incitement of anarchy and sugges
tion of treason.-
“Rev. Thomas Dixon,' jF.j^of New York
City, finds Christianity too pvp-mv- hi_
while parties wrangle. His gigantic intellect,
towering above that of Christ and his apos-
burned the slain.
King-
The Celestial Ambassador.
The Grand Old Man of the Flowery
dom, the foremost statesman of the Orient,
Li Hung Chang, having completed his tour
in Europe, is now the guest of the United
States.
His course of conduct and utterances in
Europe, says an exchange, have been watched
and noted and weighed by all manner of
people, high and low, from the moment of
his appearance at the czar’s coronation to
the day he disembarked from England, to
discover, if possible, the significance of this
Western tour, but so far, all in vain. He
passed from St. ‘Petersburg to Berlin, from
Berlin, to Paris and from Paris to London,
always the same benign, gentle, sociable, in
scrutable person. Tradesmen and manufact
urers of each nationality stood hat in hand
looking for large orders, but no orders came.
Bankers listened with attentive ear, but heard
no whisper of a Chinese loan. Statesmen and
monarchs received him with all the form and
ceremonial belonging to high functions of
State, but there has been no suggestion of
treaty or alliance. Whatever surmises as to
the object or objects of his visit have been
made have proved fallacious,and if he has any
purpose in view other than to satisfy the
Talent and Leisure Reforming the World.
A exchange says there is happiness in the
thought that many who possess talent and
leisure are learning to regard these gifts in
the nature of a trust to be used in the service
of the world. The realization that to do good
one must give, not money, but friendship,
sympathy, love, and that personal work
which is of such value, is deepening in the
hearts of every one at the present time.
Yet there is danger lest we be too keenly
attracted by those openings for service which
are conspicuous and novel. It is not only in
the slums of cities that “sweetness and
light” are needed. Ordinary, every-day life
affords many opportunities for doing good.
The cordial greeting, the wise and cheering
word, the warm pressure of a hand, will
often prove very helpful to others, and much
good may even be done by that stimulating
spirit which shows itself in the look or man
ner, and often benefits strangers with whom
no words are exchanged.
Kathleen Mavourneen at His Grave.
What a beautiful conception it was among
poor Crouch’s friends to sing his world-re
nowned and world-beloved ballad, “Kathleen
Mavourneen,” at his burial. The papers
bearing date of August 23d, say:
“The funeral of Professor Frederick Wil
liam Nicholas Crouch, the well-known com
poser who died in Portland, Maine, last
Decadence of Dialect.
Agnes M. Cole, in the New Bohemian,
says :
“The dialect story is no longer exciting
controversy. It is not sufficiently morbid.
The public demands characters less human
and books possessing some novel purpose. It
is not necessary to approve of that purpose
—even if we comprehend it. On the con
trary, a pinch of disapproval tickles the gen
eral appetite and makes the author’s fortune
—which is very nice for the author.
The literature of localities has its fascina
tion for those who love to recognize human
nature through a strange disguise. Who can
fail to recall any number of pathet
ic and humorous little tales, clothed
in uncouth language,—go recall them with
an affection embracing even that vesture. If
dialect literature dies, it will be a case of
suicide. While the present broad appreci
ation of books lasts, it can expect only a
second place, since the majority must always
prefer sensations served hot. But the minority,
a respectable company, are indulgent. De
manding neither excitement nor amusement,
they do humbly beg for truth, locally colored.
.To satisfy this craving they are offered a
strange vocabulary. Even a worm will turn.
‘We have studied glossaries and foot-notes,’
say these patterns of patience. ‘ We willingly
endure hardship, deciphering these compo
sitions. Is it too much to demand a reward in
the end?’
“The most appreciative of us would scarce
ly confess to a relish for dialect. We endure
it as a necessary evil. Some authors appar
ently believe that human nature is the same
the world over and that diversity of speech
alone give variety. Linguistic phenomena
impress them more than do mental. The
field of philology is awaiting such persons.
Literature can spare them.
The rest of the world knows that a
Frenchman does not think like an English-
. Christ and his
tles and disciples, deliberately and with pur
pose aforethought,discarded religion from his
alleged sanctuary Sunday last at New York
City and delivered himself thus :
“ ‘If Bryan is elected two million more
men will be idle and, added to the million
men idle caused by the present administra
tion, we will have in this country three mil
lion idle men. Will these men starve? No-
they will fight for bread. They will pillage’
burn and murder. What will Mr. Bryan do.
He will turn the army and navy on these
men. The starving men will fire on the flag
and war will follow. When the flag is fired
on farmers of the West,the men of the South
who are to-day talking free silver and sup
porting Bryan, will rally round the flag and
shoot down these three million starving men.
The starving and desperate men will be killed
and the nation will be saved. For this nation
will survive forever, as I believe we are
God s favored people.’
“This is the language of a lunatic or of
an incendiary. The brutal farce into which
he degraded his office was terminated, we are
More 1 ! ^ P ath ^ tic iron 7 of a ‘benediction.’
More logical indeed, would it have been if
tion C nn gre ?^ tl0n u had replied with a maledic
tion upon him who did not bless but on that
occasion at least, defiled a [temple they had
dedicated to Christian truth.
UniiL JL ryan u elected the citizens of the
respect thlT °r VOte against him ^ill
respect the laws of the republic of which thev
^,"^70 ItS PeaCe - i,S h°„or, they
win Help to preserve. There will
re°so btedly ’ f bC A widespread distress, but the
sources of Ammerican citizenship will be
be equal to the emergency. The starving will
be fed. The flag will continue to float in
majesty over the government buildings at
Washmgton and everywhere else wherever
XT:™ ° Ter 3 free 3nd P eace " ma *“taln-
w ‘‘ There ? re times wfa en patriotism may
with propriety, be voiced from a chancel
Ld Mr 1S n - never a time "hen partisanship-
and Mr. Dixon avowed himself a mere
behTnd it "a ££ o^^^Tbe !?*“*
that are God?" V^L Unt ,° • G ° d * he * hin * s