GEORGE G. VEST
George Graham Vest, exquisite eulogist of man's good friend, the dog, was born at Frankfort, Kentucky, December 6, 1830. At the age of eighteen years Vest was graduated from Centre College, Danville, Kentucky; and five years later Transylvania University granted him his degree in law. The year of his graduation from Transylvania, 1853, Vest went to Missouri, settling at Georgetown. He rapidly attained a State-wide reputation as a lawyer and orator. In 1860 he was a presidential elector on the Democratic ticket, and a member of the Missouri House of Representatives. Vest's sympathy lay with the South and he resigned his seat in the legislature in order to become a member of the Confederate Congress. He served two years in the Confederate House and one year in the Senate. After the war he resumed the practice of his profession at Sedalia, but he later removed to Kansas City. In 1878 Vest was elected United States Senator from Missouri and this position he held until 1903. In the Senate his powers as an orator and debater were generally recognized, and he became a national figure. Of the many speeches that Senator Vest made, his tribute to the dog, made in a jury trial, is the one thing that will keep his memory green for many years. It appears that Senator Vest was called into a case in which one party was endeavoring to recover damages for the death of a favorite dog, and when it came time for him to speak he arose and delivered his tribute to the dog, and then resumed his seat without having mentioned the case before the jury in any way whatsoever. The jury understood however, and the Senator won his case. Senator Vest died at Sweet Springs, Missouri, August 9, 1904.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1888, v. vi); _Library of Southern Literature_ (Atlanta, 1910, v. xii).
JEFFERSON'S PASSPORTS TO IMMORTALITY[16]
[From _The Writings of Thomas Jefferson_ (Washington, 1905, v.
xii)]
Upon the canvas of the past, Washington and Jefferson stand forth the central figures in our struggle for independence. The character of the former was so rounded and justly proportioned, that, so long as our country lives, or a single community of Americans can be found, Washington will be "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
To Washington we are more indebted than to any one man for national existence; but what availed the heroism of Bunker Hill, the sufferings of Valley Forge, or the triumph of Yorktown, if the government they established had been but an imitation of the monarchy from which we had separated?
To Jefferson we owe eternal gratitude for his sublime confidence in popular government, and his unfaltering courage in defending at all times and in all places, the great truth, that "All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."
The love of liberty is found not in palaces, but with the poor and oppressed. It flutters in the heart of the caged bird, and sighs with the worn and wasted prisoner in his dungeon. It has gone with martyrs to the stake, and kissed their burning lips as the tortured spirit winged its flight to God!
In the temple of this deity Jefferson was high priest!
For myself, I worship no mortal man living or dead; but if I could kneel at such a shrine, it would be with uncovered head and loving heart at the grave of Thomas Jefferson.
EULOGY OF THE DOG
[From _Library of Southern Literature_ (Atlanta, 1910, v. xii)]
Gentlemen of the Jury:
The best human friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps, when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deceives him, the one that never proves ungrateful and treacherous is his dog.
A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground where the wintry wind blows and the snow drifts fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journeys through the heavens. If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying, to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when, the last scene of all comes and when death takes the master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside may the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death.
FOOTNOTE:
[16] Copyright, 1905, by the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association.
WILLIAM P. JOHNSTON
William Preston Johnston, biographer and poet, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, January 5, 1831, the son of the famous Confederate general, Albert Sidney Johnston. He was graduated from Yale in 1852. During the Civil War young Johnston was on the staff of Jefferson Davis. After the war he was professor of history and literature in Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, for ten years. In 1880 he accepted the presidency of Louisiana State University, at Baton Rouge.
Paul Tulane's magnificent gift in 1883 made Tulane University possible, and Johnston became its first president. This position he held until his death, which occurred at New Orleans, July 16, 1899.
President Johnston's _Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston_ (New York, 1878), is one of the most admirable biographies ever written by a Kentuckian. His graphic description of the battle of Shiloh, in which his famous father met death and the South defeat, is now accepted, even in the North, as the best account of that desperate conflict. Had General Johnston lived a day longer no one can even guess what it would have meant to the South and to the North.
President Johnston was also the author of _The Prototype of Hamlet_ (1890), in which his power as a Shakesperian scholar is well proved; and he published _The Johnstons of Salisbury_. He was a maker of charming verse, which may be read in his three collections, _My Garden Walk_ (1894), _Pictures of the Patriarchs_ (1896), and _Seekers After God_ (Louisville, 1898), a book of sonnets. As a man, Johnston was a true type of the courtly Southern soldier and scholar.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1888, v. iii); _William Preston Johnston's Work for a New South_, by A. D. Mayo (Washington, 1900); _Library of Southern Literature_ (Atlanta, 1909, v. vii).
BATTLE OF SHILOH--SUNDAY MORNING
[From _The Life of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston_ (New York, 1879)]
Saturday afternoon, April 5th, the sun, breaking through the mists which drifted away, set in a cloudless sky. The night was clear, calm, and beautiful. General Johnston, tired out with the vigils of the night before, slept quietly in an ambulance-wagon, his staff bivouacking by the camp-fires around him. Some of Hardee's troops having wasted their rations, he and Bragg spent a large part of the night getting up provisions for them. Before the faintest glimmer of dawn, the wide forest was alive with preparations for the mighty contest of the coming day. No bugle-note sounded, and no drum beat the reveille; but men took their hasty morning meal, and looked with sharp attention to the arms that were to decide the fortunes of the fight.
The cool, gray dawn found them in motion. Morning opened with all the delicate fragrance and beauty of the season, enhanced by the contrast of the day before. The sky was serene, the air was bracing, the dew lay heavy on the tender green of leaf and herb, and the freshness of early spring was on all around. When the sun rose it was with unclouded brilliancy; and, as it shed its glories over the coverts of the oak-woods, the advancing host, stirred by the splendor of the scene and the enthusiasm of the hour, passed the omen from lip to lip, and welcomed its rising as another "sun of Austerlitz."
The native buoyance of General Johnston's self-repressed temper broke its barriers at the prospect of that struggle which should settle for all time by the arbitrament of arms the dispute as to his own military ability and skill and the fate of the Confederate cause in the West.
He knew the hazard; but he knew, too, that he had done all that foresight, fortitude, energy, and strategy, could accomplish to secure a victory, and he welcomed with exultant joy the day that was about to decide not only these great questions, but for him all questions, solving the mysteries of life and death. Men who came within his influence on the battle-field felt and confessed the inspiration of his presence, his manner, and his words. As he gave his orders in terse sentences, every word seemed to ring with a presage of victory.
Turning to his staff, as he mounted, he exclaimed, "Tonight we will water our horses in the Tennessee River." It was thus that he formulated his plan of battle. It must not stop short of entire victory.
As he rode forward he encountered Colonel Randal L. Gibson, who was the intimate friend of his son. When Gibson ordered his brigade to salute, General Johnston took him warmly by the hand and said: "Randal, I never see you but I think of William. I hope you may get through safely to-day, but we must win a victory." Gibson says he felt greatly stirred by his words.
Sharp skirmishing had begun before he reached the front. Here he met Colonel John S. Marmaduke, commanding the Third Arkansas Regiment.
This officer, in reply to General Johnston's questions, explained, with some pride, that he held the _centre_ of the front line, the other regiments forming on him. Marmaduke had been with General Johnston in Utah, at Bowling Green, and in the retreat to Corinth, and regarded him with the entire affection and veneration of a young soldier for his master in the art of war. General Johnston put his hand on Marmaduke's shoulder, and said to him with an earnestness that went to his heart, "_My son_, we must this day conquer or perish!"
Marmaduke felt himself moved to a tenfold resolution.
General Johnston said to the ambitious Hindman, who had been in the vanguard from the beginning: "You have _earned_ your spurs as major-general. Let this day's work win them."
"Men of Arkansas!" he exclaimed to a regiment from that State, "they say you boast of your prowess with the bowie-knife. To-day you wield a nobler weapon--the bayonet. Employ it well." It was with such words, as he rode from point to point, that he raised a spirit in that host which swept away the serried lines of the conquerors of Donelson.
WILL WALLACE HARNEY
Will Wallace Harney, poet, was born at Bloomington, Indiana, June 20, 1832, the son of John H. Harney, professor of mathematics in the University of Indiana, and author of the first _Algebra_ edited by an American. When the future poet was seven years of age his father removed to Louisville, Kentucky, to accept the presidency of Louisville College.
In 1844 President Harney became editor of the Louisville _Daily Democrat_, which he conducted for nearly twenty-five years. Will Wallace Harney was educated by the old grammarian, Noble Butler, and at Louisville College. He became a teacher in the public schools of the city, in which he taught for five years; and he was the first principal of the high school there, holding the position for two years.
Know-Nothingism then swept the city and elected a new board of trustees, which requested Harney's resignation. He was appointed to a professorship in the State Normal School at Lexington, which he held for two years. He then returned to Louisville to practice law, but he was shortly afterwards asked to become assistant editor of the _Daily Democrat_; and after his father's death, in 1867, he became editor of that paper. Harney's masterpiece, _The Stab_, that John J. Piatt called "a tragic little night-piece which Heine could not have surpassed in its simple, graphic narration and vivid suggestiveness," was written in Kentucky before 1860. In 1869 Harney removed to Florida, where he planted an orange grove and wrote for the high-class magazines and newspapers of the East and South. From 1883 to 1885 he was editor of _The Bitter Sweet_, a newspaper of Kissimmee. Harney spent the final years of his life with his only son, William R. Harney, a business man of Jacksonville, to whom he inscribed his one book, _The Spirit of the South_ (Boston, 1909). This volume brought together his poems and short stories which he cared to preserve from newspapers and periodicals. The poet died at Jacksonville, Florida, March 28, 1912.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Blades o' Blue Grass_, by Fannie P. Dickey (Louisville, 1892); _Memorial History of Louisville, Kentucky_, by J. S. Johnston (Chicago, 1896).
THE STAB[17]
[From _The Spirit of the South_ (Boston, 1909)]
On the road, the lonely road, Under the cold white moon, Under the ragged trees, he strode; He whistled, and shifted his heavy load; Whistled a foolish tune.
There was a step timed with his own; A figure that stooped and bowed; A cold white blade that flashed and shone, Like a splinter of daylight downward thrown-- And the moon went behind a cloud.
But the moon came out, so broad and good, The barn cock woke and crowed; Then roughed his feathers in drowsy mood, And the brown owl called to his mate in the wood, That a dead man lay on the road.