Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1898 — REPUTATION AT A BOUND. [ARTICLE]

REPUTATION AT A BOUND.

Men Who Became Fanton* at an Karly * A*e. The early exploits of military leaders are paralleled in other lines of life by achievements of young men who afterward became famous In their chosen professions or callings. It has frequently happened that young men distinguished themselves by achievements which they were never afterward able to surpass. Bryant never wrote a better poem than Thanatopsls, yet he was , only a boy when this, his best known j production, was completed. Like many . poetical writers, he was a poor judge j of the merits of his own work, and f fancied he could write much better, later in life. He preferred his translation of Homer to any of his poetical i effusions, and disliked to be eompli- 1 mented upon Thanatopsis, regarding It j as a mere boyish play of fancy which had been greatly surpassed by his later work; the public, however, did not agree with him, and nine-tenths of the men who admire Thanatopsls neither know nor care anything about the rest of Bryant’s writings; this one is enough. Shelley was only a boy when Queen Mab appeared and resulted in his leaving the university. Keats was not 20 when he distinguished himself by some of his choicest work; Moore ; was admired all over the Englishspeaking world before he was as old as Hobson.

As with writers, so with men of affairs, the youthful man frequently .astonishes ids elders by some achievement which establishes his reputation. Charles James Fox was not 20 when his first success in Parliament was recorded. Metternich was a young man when he first swiped the destinies of the Austrian empire. Thiers and Gladstone were still young when their first political successes were recorded; Lafayette was only a boy when he came to America; Alexander had hardly attained his majority when he marched Into Asia; Edison had not grown a beard when his first Inventions astonished the electricians; Peter Cooper was still a young man when he undertook to solve the problem of steam traction;. Fulton was young when he set about the work of “navigating seas with a wash Ixdler.” On the other hand, however, there are so many men whose mental growth is gradual that he who concludes that all geniuses develop early is likely to fall into error. There, for example, is our own Dewey, who is over 00 years of age, and who. lias ascended to his present station by the slow process of gradual promotion. He was what, in popular parlance, is known as a “safe” man—that is to say, a man who will not take unjustifiable risks to accomplish the end proposed; a cautious man, who thinks too much of his reputation to endanger it by venturing into an enterprise which, if unsuccessful, would be pronounced foolhardy. The name of Dewey was hardly known outside of naval circles until his splendid victory at Manila. A line in the newspapers, hid away in the corner of naval changes, and unnoticed save by those interested, gave the world to understand a year or so ago that Commodore Dewey had been appointed to command the Asiatic squadron, but outside of the Navy Department and the navy not one man in a million in the country knew or cared who Commodore Dewey was, had ever heard of him l> - fore or ever expected to hear of lii.a again. All at once, however, the name becomes of world-wide fame.