In the summer of 1866 I first met Henry Grady, even then giving promise of marvelous gifts of mind and heart. From that summer evening, remembered now as though it were but yesterday, I have loved him with all a brother’s devotion and tenderness. During all these years there has been no shadow on our friendship and no secrets in our hearts. In prosperity he has rejoiced with me, and when sorrow and trouble came no voice was as cheering, no sympathy was as sweet as his. Only a year ago, when death came into my home and took the one little blossom that had bloomed in my heart as my own, he wrote to my mother words of tenderest comfort for her and of love for me—words that are inexpressibly precious to me now. Out of my life into the beautiful beyond have passed the two friends I loved best on earth—the chivalrous Gordon, the peerless Grady. God keep my friends and lead them gently through the meadow-lands where the river flows in song eternal. I know that near its crystal banks, where the birds sing sweetest and flowers bloom brightest, they have clasped hands in blessed and happy reunion. The love with which Henry Grady inspired his friends has never been surpassed by mortal man. Beautiful and touching have been the expressions of devotion that have come to his family. I believe that there are hundreds all over this State who would gladly take his place in yonder silent tomb, if by so doing they could restore him to the people who loved him and who need him so greatly. It is not his great genius, unrivaled as it was; not his fervent patriotism, unselfish as it was; not his wonderful eloquence, matchless as it was; not his public spirit, willing as it was—these are not the recollections that have moved the people as they have never been moved before. But it was the great heart of the man beating in loving sympathy with suffering, touching with sweetest encouragement the lowly and struggling, carrying the sunshine of his own radiant life into so many unhappy lives, that now bow down the hearts of the people under the weight of a personal loss.