EULOGY OF GARFIELD

    (Extract)

Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death.  For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this world’s interest, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death—­and he did not quail.  Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave.  What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell—­what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm, manhood’s friendships, what bitter rending of sweet household ties!  Behind him a proud, expectant nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood’s day of frolic; the fair young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing into closest companionship, claiming every day and every day rewarding a father’s love and care; and in his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet all demand.  Before him, desolation and great darkness!  And his soul was not shaken.  His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound and universal sympathy.  Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation’s love, enshrined in the prayers of a world.  But all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering.  He trod the wine press alone.  With unfaltering front he faced death.  With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life.  Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin’s bullet he heard the voice of God.  With simple resignation he bowed to the Divine decree.

    —­JAMES G. BLAINE, delivered at the memorial service held
    by the U.S.  Senate and House of Representatives.

    EULOGY OF LEE

    (Extract)

At the bottom of all true heroism is unselfishness.  Its crowning expression is sacrifice.  The world is suspicious of vaunted heroes.  But when the true hero has come, and we know that here he is in verity, ah! how the hearts of men leap forth to greet him! how worshipfully we welcome God’s noblest work—­the strong, honest, fearless, upright man.  In Robert Lee was such a hero vouchsafed to us and to mankind, and whether we behold him declining command of the federal army to fight the battles and share the miseries of his own people; proclaiming on the heights in front of Gettysburg that the fault of the disaster was his own; leading charges in the crisis of combat; walking under the yoke of conquest without a murmur of complaint; or refusing fortune to come here and train the youth of his