Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 28.djvu/246

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ation to him of the Cross of the Legion of Honor from the Daugh- ters of the Confederacy. The cross, however, would be sent to him. Mrs. Lewis Graham moved that a committee be appointed to take the cross to Dr. Palmer, and Mrs. Smith asked Mrs. Graham to serve as chairman of the committee. But just at this moment the cry rang through the hall:

"DR. PALMER! HERE is DR. PALMER!"

and Mrs. Graham escorted him to the platform, while the audience rose to greet him. Approaching Dr. Palmer, Mrs. Smith said:

"Dr. Palmer, in the name of the Daughters of the Confederacy, I have the honor and pleasure to present you with this Cross of the Legion of Honor; we know of no one who deserved it more, for your name and fame is almost as great as that of the immortal hero whose memory we celebrate to-day."

Dr. Palmer was completely overcome; when he recovered some- what he said in a voice tremulous with emotion, but so distinct that he could be heard to the furthermost end of the room:

" Ladies and Mme. President: You have almost taken away my breath, not only in presenting me with this beautiful medal, but in mentioning my name in connection with the noble character who has passed into history. There are some things in nature that cannot be reproduced in art. The gleam of the lightning flash cannot be reproduced on the painter's canvas; the rush of the sea's mighty waves, as they dash in billows over the waters and rise in crested foam, cannot be pictured; what painter has ever succeeded in trans- ferring to canvas the gleam of the skies, either in the rosy flash of dawn or when the evening, with its myriads of colors of orange and blue and red and burnished gold bespeak the great painter, the un- created artist?" And so it seems with the characters of history that are supremely great; neither the depth nor power of poet or painter can ever do them justice. Nature generally discriminates, and men who are great are so along some particular line; one is gifted with the power of poetry, another with the gift of art; another with the power of oratory, and still another is a military genius, gifted with the wonderful power of massing great bodies of men and converging these forces at the right moment so as to win a glorious triumph and wrest victory even from defeat.

" These are men who are placed in the nation's records, and whose names are handed down to time.