her in harmonious cooeperation. The respect
felt for him by gentlemen who saw him at all hours, and under none of
the guise of ceremony, was probably greater than that experienced
by the community who looked upon him from a distance. That distant
perspective, hiding little weaknesses, and revealing only the great
proportions of a human being, is said to be essential generally to the
heroic sublime. No man, it has been said, can be great to those always
near him; but in the case of General Lee this was far from being the
fact. He seemed greater and nobler, day by day, as he was better and
more intimately known; and upon this point we shall quote the words of
the brave John B. Gordon, one of his most trusted lieutenants:

"It has been my fortune in life," says General Gordon, "from
circumstances, to have come in contact with some whom the world
pronounced great--some of the earth's celebrated and distinguished;
but I declare it here to-day, that of any mortal man whom it has ever
been my privilege to approach, he was the greatest; and I assert here,
that, _grand as might be your conception of the man before, he arose
in incomparable majesty on more familiar acquaintance_. This can be
affirmed of few men who have ever lived or died, and of no other man
whom it has ever been my fortune to approach. Like Niagara, the more
you gazed, the more its grandeur grew upon you, the more its majesty
expanded and filled your spirit with a full satisfaction that left a
perfect delight without the slightest feeling of oppression. Grandly
majestic and dignified in all his deportment, he was genial as the
sunlight of this beautiful day; and not a ray of that cordial social
intercourse but brought warmth to the heart as it did light to the
understanding."

Upon this point, General Breckinridge, too, bears his testimony:
"During the last year of that unfortunate struggle," he says, "it was
my good fortune to spend a great deal of time with him. I was almost
constantly by his side, and it was during the two months immediately
preceding the fall of Richmond that I came to know and fully
understand the true nobility of his character. In all those long
vigils, he was considerate and kind, gentle, firm, and self-poised. I
can give no better idea of the impression it made upon me, than to
say it inspired me with an ardent love of the man and a profound
veneration of his character. It was so massive and noble, so grand in
its proportions, that al