his lofty example, we have the
striking proofs, if any were needed, in letters that have been
published. Let me cull but an occasional expression from these
unaffected outpourings of the heart of Robert E. Lee toward the son he
loved so well. "My precious Roon," as he was wont to call him.

When the boy was not yet ten years of age he closes a playful letter,
adapted to such tender years, with these earnest words:

Be true, kind, and generous, and pray earnestly to God to enable
you to keep His commandments and to walk in the same all the days
of your life.

A year later, writing from the ship _Massachusetts_, off Lobos, to his
two sons, a letter full of interest to boys, he urges them to diligence
in study:

I shall not feel my long separation from you if I find that my
absence has been of no injury to you, and that you have both grown
in goodness and knowledge as well as in stature; but how I shall
suffer on my return if the reverse has occurred. You enter into all
my thoughts, into all my prayers, and on you in part will depend
whether I shall be happy or miserable, as you know how much I love
you.

Ten years later, when the son had become a lieutenant in the Army, he
admonishes him:

I hope you will always be distinguished for your avoidance of the
universal bane whisky and every immorality. Nor need you fear to be
ruled out of the society that indulges in it, for you will acquire
their esteem and respect, as all venerate, if they do not practice,
virtue. I hope you will make many friends, as you will be thrown
with those who deserve this feeling. But indiscriminate intimacies
you will find annoying and entangling, and they can be avoided by
politeness and civility. When I think of your youth, impulsiveness,
and many temptations, your distance from me, and the ease (and even
innocence) with which you might commence an erroneous course, my
heart quails within me and my whole frame and being tremble at the
possible results. May Almighty God have you in His holy keeping. To
His merciful providence I commit you, and I will rely upon Him and
the efficacy of the prayers that will be daily and hourly offered
up by those who love you.

A year or two later, on New Year's Day, 1859, he writes:

I always thought there was stuff in you for a good soldier and I
trust you will prove it.