" Soon his banners float on the coast, soon the cities
are blazing behind his fearful stride, and soon the cruel war is over.
We behold the third son of a very large family of
TENNYSONS
begin writing verses. He writes trash at first, but by and by he is
proclaimed the greatest living poet, and his art of writing (all that
part of his work which was difficult) is pronounced the greatest the
world has ever seen. We see the boy Lee, studying hard to sustain the
illustrious name he bore, advancing in science to the great study of
astronomy, becoming the intellectual credit of his surroundings, the
tutor of the scholarly. We behold him clasping the sword put in his
hands by the greatest unsuccessful insurrection of all past time, and,
seated on his horse, smiling at the awful repulse of
PICKETT'S IMMORTAL CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG,
saying, simply: "We cannot always expect to have our own way in an
attack," when down in his great heart he knows that the proudest people
ever defeated have cast the final die, and lost. We stand over his ashes
and feel that they are the ashes of a truly great man whom "unmerciful
disaster followed fast and followed faster.
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