e right man appears at the right moment with a
lighted torch--"

"That's just why, sir, as the foremost citizen of Virginia, you must
answer this slander. I have brought a reporter from the _Globe_ with me
for that purpose. Shall I call him,"

"A reporter from a daily paper with a circulation of fifteen thousand?"

"Your word, Colonel Lee, will be heard at this moment to the ends of the
earth, sir!"

"In a newspaper interview?"

"Yes, sir."

"Nonsense."

"It's your character that will count."

"Such an answer would be a straw pitched against a hurricane. I am told
that this book has already reached a circulation of half a million
copies and it has only begun. That means already three million readers.
To answer this book my pen should be better trained than my sword--"

"It is, sir, if you'll only use it."

"The South has only trained swords. And not so many of them as we think.
We have no writers. We have no literature. We have no champions in the
forum of the world's thought. We are being arraigned at the judgment bar
of mankind and we are dumb. It's appalling."

"That's why you must speak for us. Speak in our defense. Speak with a
tongue of flame--"

"I am not trained for speech, Ruffin. And the pen is mightier than the
sword. I've never realized it before. The South will soon have the
civilized world arraigned against her. The North with a thousand pens is
stirring the faiths, the prejudices and the sentiments of the millions.
This appeal is made in the face of History, Reason and Law. But its
force will be as the gravitation of the earth, beyond the power of
resistance, unless we can check it in time."

"When it comes to resistance," Ruffin snapped, "that's another question.
The Yankees are a race of damned cowards and poltroons, sir. They won't
fight."

Lee shook his head gravely.

"I've been in the service more than a quarter of a century, my friend.
I've seen a lot of Yankees under fire. I've seen a lot of them die. And
I know better. Your idea of a Yankee is about as correct as the Northern
notion of Southern fighters. A notion they're beginning to exploit in
cartoons which show an effeminate lady killer with an umbrella stuck in
the end of his musket and a negro mixing mint juleps for him."

"We've got to denounce those slanders. I'm a man of cool judgment and I
never lose my temper--"

He leaped to his feet purple with rage.

"But, by God, sir, we can't sit quietly under the assault of