nts was very great, and it is unnecessary to add that
their respect for him was unbounded. By the citizens of Lexington, and
especially the graver and more pious portion, he was regarded with a
love and admiration greater than any felt for him during the progress
of his military career.

This was attributable, doubtless, to the franker and clearer
exhibition by General Lee, in his latter years, of that extraordinary
gentleness and sweetness, culminating in devoted Christian piety,
which--concealed from all eyes, in some degree, during the war--now
plainly revealed themselves, and were evidently the broad foundation
and controlling influences of his whole life and character. To
speak first of his gentleness and moderation in all his views and
utterances. Of these eminent virtues--eminent and striking, above
all, in a defeated soldier with so much to embitter him--General Lee
presented a very remarkable illustration. The result of the war seemed
to have left his great soul calm, resigned, and untroubled by the
least rancor. While others, not more devoted to the South, permitted
passion and sectional animosity to master them, and dictate acts and
expressions full of bitterness toward the North, General Lee refrained
systematically from every thing of that description; and by simple
force of greatness, one would have said, rose above all prejudices and
hatreds of the hour, counselling, and giving in his own person to all
who approached him the example of moderation and Christian charity. He
aimed to keep alive the old Southern traditions of honor and virtue;
but not that sectional hatred which could produce only evil. To a lady
who had lost her husband in the war, and, on bringing her two sons to
the college, indulged in expressions of great bitterness toward the
North, General Lee said, gently: "Madam, do not train up your children
in hostility to the Government of the United States. Remember that we
are one country now. Dismiss from your mind all sectional feeling, and
bring them up to be Americans."

A still more suggestive exhibition of his freedom from rancor was
presented in an interview which is thus described:

"One day last autumn the writer saw General Lee standing at his
gate, talking pleasantly to an humbly-clad man, who seemed very
much pleased at the cordial courtesy of the great chieftain, and
turned off, evidently delighted, as we came up. After exchanging
salutations, the general said