influence of a spotless character, the power of a great,
good, and noble soul to elevate and dignify all with whom it came in
contact that will prove our irreparable loss. No man ever associated
with Gen. LEE without feeling the better for it. To have been with him
made you feel like one who had drawn a long deep inspiration of pure
fresh air into his lungs after breathing the stifling atmosphere of a
close room. His thoughts, his conversation, his ideas diffused about him
a sound and healthy morality, that was as natural to him as its delicate
odor is to the rose. Modest and gentle as a woman; sympathetic as a
child; guileless as the day; a logical, well-trained, accurate mind; a
horror of injustice; absolutely devoid of resentment; a benignant
countenance, and a splendid physique, made him indeed a man among men.

Sir, I believe not only in early training, but in the force of early
surroundings and family traditions. Sprung from an illustrious line of
statesmen and patriots, who had left their impress on every page of the
history, civil and military, of this country from the colonial days to
the present; born on those beautiful heights overlooking this city at
Arlington, where the house was filled with the sanctified relics and the
very atmosphere he breathed in childhood was pregnant with the
traditions and precepts of "the Father of his Country;" his mother being
the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of the
immortal Washington; his father that world-renowned military commander,
the self-poised, calm, patient, dignified, glorious Gen. Robert E. Lee,
it would be unnatural not to expect to find the impress of all these on
the heart and mind and character and life of Gen. WILLIAM H.F. LEE.

To some my words of eulogy may appear fulsome; but having known him in
public and in private, at home by his own fireside, as well as abroad on
the active field of life, I know that my poor words can but fail to do
full justice to his true worth. With him the performance of duty was
accompanied by no harsh word or cynical expression; on the contrary, his
calmness and uniform sweetness of manner were almost poetical. I recall
a notable instance in the Fiftieth Congress, when, pressing under the
most trying circumstances the passage of a bill for the relief of the
Episcopal high school near Alexandria, he was temperate and patient.
Standing on the Republican side of this Hall, among those who questioned
him,