HIS DEATH: RECUMBENT STATUE. 307 prescribed nourishment, he turned upon me with a look of friendly recognition, and then cast down his eyes with such a sadness in them as I can never forget. But he spoke not a word: not because he was unable-—for at times he did speak brief sentences with distinct enunciation*but because he saw (before the family or friends or physician) the portals of death opening to him, and chose to wrap himself in an unbroken silence as he went down to enter them." Thus he lingered till on the morning of the 12th of October, 1870, the tolling bells announced to the sorrowing community that he had breathed his last. From the house it is but a few rods across the College grounds to the chapel, in the rear of which is a recess, where lies a recumbent statue of the great leader. It is in marble, and represents the soldier at full length, as we have seen in old cathedrals the bronze effigies of those whose crossed limbs tell how they took up arms for the Cross, and fought for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. But it is no mailed Crusader that is stretched upon the tomb for the hand that once grasped the sword, is folded on the breast, and the whole impression is one of profound repose. It is a heroic figure, full of strength, as of a warrior taking his rest, and yet over all there is an expression of calm, as of one with whom the battle of life is over; who hears no more the morning drum-beat or the trumpet's call : "He sleeps his last sleep; he has fought his last battle; *This was probably in the earlier part of his illness, or if later, could only have been at intervals, for General Custis Lee, who was constantly at his father's bedside, says that he "made repeated efforts to speak to him, but could not from utter exhaustion and weakness." So it was that the wave of life kept moving to and fro, sometimes being strong enough for utterance, and then ebbing too fast for the lips to move. 308 THE CHARACTER OF LEE. While standing here, in the very presence of death, I am moved to say a few words in regard to the life that ended in this tomb, and the character of the man whose name it bears. As I read history, and compare the men who have figured in the events that make history -in wars and revolutions-it seems to me that General Lee was not only a great soldier, but a great man, one of the greatest that our country has produced. After his death, the College which had hitherto borne the name of Washington, by whom it was endowed, was re christened "Washington and Lee University"-a combination which suggests a comparison of the two men whose names are here brought together. Can we trace any likeness between them? At first it seems as if no characters, as well as no careers, could be more alien to each other, than those of the two great leaders, one of whom was the Founder of the Government which the other did his utmost to destroy. But nature brings forth her children in strange couples, with resemblances in some cases as marked, and yet as unexpected, as are contrasts in others. Washington and Lee, though born in different centuries, were children of the same mother, Old Virginia, and had her best blood in their veins. Descended from the stock of the English Cavaliers, both were born gentlemen, and never could be anything else. Both were trained in the school of war, and as leaders of armies it would not be a violent assumption to rank Lee as the equal of Washington. But it is not in the two soldiers, but in the two men, that the future historian will find points of resemblance. Washington was not a brilliant man; not a man of genius, such as now and then appears to dazzle mankind; but he had what was far better than genius--a combination of all the qualities that win human trust; in which intelligence is so balanced by judgment, and exalted by |