University of North Carolina Chapel Hill - Yackety Yack Yearbook (Chapel Hill, NC)

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EDWARD KIDDER GRAHAM OCTOBER 11. 1876 OCTOBER 26. 1919

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EDWARD KIDDER GRAHAM THE BELOVED CAPTAIN 5]|0 explain a man ' s personality is no easy task. Personality is elusive. It is not a matter of external impressions — a man ' s carriage, his manners, the peculiarities of gesture that enable the surface observer to differentiate him from others vi ho wear sim- ilar clothing and occupy themselves with similar tasks. Person- ality is secret. I found recently, in an interesting autobiography, the thought that in all the great moments of life, the moments that are charged with the deepest meaning for ourselves, we are alone — utterly, irretriev- ably alone. We cannot share such moments with others. It is in such moments, and after such a fashion, that a man ' s personality is a thing apart, not to be appraised by others however sympathetic or however intimate, perhaps not even within the consciousness of the man himself. Hamlet resents the crude examination to which he is subjected — You would pluck out the heart of my mystery! For the heart of a man ' s mystery is his personality. Nevertheless, no subject is so fascinating. Studied rightly, no theme is so important. In the realm of the elementary and the rule-of-thumb, to study personality is to study the secret of worldly success. In the advanced course, to study it is to study immortality. On the one hand, the secret of the great banker, of the great jurist. On the other hand, the secret of Socrates, the secret of Christ. Wordsworth somewhere speaks of spirits that catch the flame from heaven. It is from this text that I would try to set down something of my appreciation of the great personality whose departure has left us poor indeed. It explains, I think, his power over men. All things were tested by him in this flame. To say that he made the abstractions of philosophy concrete is but to touch the surface. Always it was the ma)i that interested him. The main enterprise of the world, says Emerson, for splendor, for extent, is the upbuilding of a man. And it is as a builder of manhood that Graham will remain most vividly in our memories. In this building he did not make the mistake, so easy to the ordinary intelligence, of working out an abstract system, a theology, and making