216 THE FOGY DAYS AND XOW; 



Milledgeville, Ga. There is an assembly of guests at the Man- 

 sion. Two gentlemen from S. C, and the once rich cousin, who 

 is now a member of the Legislature, are the guests, and are 

 entertained by the once poor boy, now Governor Joseph E. 

 Brown, and his wife. They are talking of bye-gone days, and 

 the Governor relates the story of the school boy days, and 

 the advice of the rich cousin, who meditatively replies, "well, 

 Joe, the changes and phases of human nature are d — n strange, 

 arn't they? Once more we let the curtain fall. 



Another season of twenty years have intervened, and the 

 scene has shifted again. Joseph E. Brown is now a U. S. Sen- 

 ator, and is really a thunderer in the halls of congress, but the 

 once prosperous cousin, where, oh where is he ? The rich man's 

 son a wanderer in a strange land among strangers, the poor boy 

 a man of untold wealth, and upon whom all the honors of his 

 adopted State has been heaped. 



The cousin Avas a warm friend of mine, and a school mate, 

 and by nature a real noble fellow ; his great misfortune was 

 that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. The once 

 poor boy lives to-day in Atlanta, Ga. A phenomenal success 

 in every thing he has undertaken, known to the world and to 

 fame, and the best illustration of the possibilities of a poor 

 young man, perhaps, that there is to-day in America; and no 

 doubt that many of us, of ante-bellum times, would [have been 

 more useful citizens, and better off in the world, if it had not 

 been for the difficulties of the silver spoon. 



