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PFTHE HOUSEHOLD Ju
| A Department of Expression For Those Who Feel and Think,
LOVE.
Ask me not wherefore 1 love you—
For I know not why;
Should I ask my heart the question,
It could not reply.
Ask me not how much I love you;
None can measure love,
Deeper than the ocean's caverns,
High’r than heaven above.
Neither ask how long i 11 love you—
Only wait and see;
Love is long —long as the ages
Os eternity.
MARGARET A. RICHARD.
CHAT.
The white light of history and biog
raphy, the flash lignt, the newspaper
and magazine have so often been
thrown upon the life and character
of Robert E. Lee that it would seem
everyone must have a full length pic
ture of him hung hig.. in his mental
gallery. But General Lee was many
sided. As citizen, patriot, Christian
friend, father ,husband, soldier —he
revealed characteristics that made
him the one supremely great man of
his age. His social side—his life apart
from the great national drama in
which he figured pre-eminently—is
not as widely known as it should be.
Many incidents, anecdotes and circum
stances illustrative of his character
as a man and citizen are in danger of
being forgotten. When the curtain
fell on the tragedy of the South's lost
cause, it found Lee with ruined for
tunes, his grand home confiscated,
himself a paroled prisoner, but his
fame as man and soldier shone over
the world, and strong inducements of
money and positions were held out to
him from England, from Mexico and
from Northern States uut he had spo
ken these noble words: “We must all
resolve not to abandon our country.
Now, more than ever before, the South
needs us. We must go to work and
try with as little delay as possible to
bm-d up her prosperity.”
To the amazement of the world and
the disapproval of many of his friends
and admirers, he accepted the presi
dency of the Washington College at
Lexington, Virginia—then a small lo
cal institution of forty pupils, and
four teachers, the Federal soldiers
having despoiled its buildings, its li
brary and its apparatus. Bishop Wil
mer, —who had hastened to Lee on
hearing of the offer, hoping to influ
ence him to decline it, has recorded
how he was shamed into silence be
fore the greatness of the man on find
ing that Lee’s hesitancy to accept the
offer proceeded only from the fear
tnat he might not be able to fill the
place as efficiently as some other
man, and also that the salary offered
—three thousand dollars—was more
than the college could afford.
Later on, one of the wealthiest in
surance companies in the North offer
ed him a salary of ten thousand dol
lars a year to become its president.
He refused, saying that he would not
leave his work at the college. “But
we do not require any service of you,
we wish to pay you lor the use of
your name.” “I can not accept pay,
where I do not render service,” was
his reply.
Hon. Henry Hilliard —ex-member of
the Federal Congress—ln a speech
delivered in Augusta, Georgia, told
tnat an offer originating in that city
had been made ro General Lee, plac
ing at his disposal an immense sum
01 money if he would consent to re,
side in New York City and represent
Southern commerce. He declined,
saying: “No, I am grateful, but I
have a self-imposed task, which I must
accomplish. I have led the young
men of the South to battle; I have
seen many o± them fall under my
standard; I shall devote the rest of
my days to training young men to do
their duty in life.”
How nobly he fulfilled this task;
how conscientiously he labored to in
struct and to elevate morally the
young men who came under his charge
is known to all. When he died the
college was a university, whose pupils
numbered over four hundred, with
twenty professors, and the fine spirit
that emanated from it had given a
higher tone to the entire community.
He steadily refused to have his sal
ary raised, though this was repeatedly
urged by the faculty who represented
to him that it was through his influ
ence that the conege had prospered
and had received frequent endow
ments of money. Invariably his firm
reply was: “My salary is as large as
the college ought to pay.”
During tne later years of his serv
ice at the college, a truly magnificent
offer came to him from one of the
richest and oldest corporations in
New YorK City—the offer of a salary
of fifty thousand dollars a year to be
come its president. He courteously
declined tiiis magnificent offer as he
declined (in his wife’s name) the gift
of an elegant house and an annuity
of three thousand dollars a year
whica the college trustees and some
other friends of General Lee had set
tled upon Mrs. Lee. After the Gen
eral's death, a deed to this house was
quietly recorded and a check for the
annuity sent to his wife, but this no
ble woman shared the spirit of her
husband and she returned the check
and the deed, with a beautiful letter,
gratefully declining to allow any of
the funds of the university to be di
verted to her private use.
Such unselfishness —such absence of
any mercenary promptings—seems in
credible in an age which has been
truly characterized as the age of
greed and graft. Truly, the ideals of
honor entertained by these Lees are
beyond the conceptions of most men
oi today.
Yet this king of men was the soul
of simplicity. Children loved him and
went to him with their little joys and
their small troubles. He was the
comrade and confidante of his own
children. When Liey wore small and he
—then a young officer in the United
States service—was away from them
in his military capacity, he wrote
them delightful letters, full of pleas
ant incidents and entertaining de
scriptions. Some of the true stories
he told them in these letters would bo
fine reading in our paper’s “Voices
of Youth.”
His tender consideration for chil
dren extended beyond his own home,
he looked after his college boys as
though they were bis own sons. One
Sunday in February, he entered a
crowded church and saw standing
near the door, a little girl in a faded
frock, looking timidly about for a seat.
Taking her nand, he said: “Come with
me little lady, I think we can find a
place to sit down.”
After the war, he received an ill
spelled letter from a girl in the moun
tains asking “Mr. Lee” to please try
to find her lover, who his people told
her was killed in the war. “But” she?
wrote, “I jest hope they told me this
because they don’t want us to marry,”
The Golden Age For January 27, 1910.
General Lee took great pains to make
inquiries in all directions, for the
missing sweetheart, and when his ef
forts proved futile, he wrote the girl
a letter of sympathy.
He had a fine sense of humor and
was fond of a quiet joke. He indulg
ed in one occasionally, and his letters
are full of playful allusions. His an
tipathy to intoxicating liquor is well
known. All through the Mexican war
ne carried with him a bottle of fine
whiskey, which an old woman friend
had pressed upon him, telling him he
could not get on without it in Mexico.
He returned it to her, unopened, after
the war, just to show that he could
get on even in Mexico, without -whis
key. On one occasion, he invited sev
eral officers to dine with him in camp,
saying he had a “treat” for them.
They had had a glimpse of a jug, and
tney hoped that for once the General
was going to “indulge.” The dinner
consisted mostly of sweet potatoes,
and when the contents of the jug came
to light, it proved to be nice, fresh
buttermilk —the General’s favorite
beverage.
Many delicacies were sent to him
when he was in camp, but these were
invariably given to the sick soldiers
in the camp hospital, whose comfort
he looked after personally. He w r as
kind to all animals, and to wild
creatures. On one occasion, when he
was surprised by the near firing of
muskets, while he and some of his
men and officers were standing in
front of a house, he directed the sol
diers to go at once in the back yard
as a shelter from the bullets. He was
the last to go, and as he went, with
buiiets flying about him, he stooped
and picked up an unfledged sparrow
from the ground and put it in its nest
in a nearby limb.
Truly one who studies even most
superficially the character of General
Lee must agree with the soldier, who
when the then new theory of evolution
was being talked about around the
camp fire, listened open-mouthed to
the discussion, and presently said:
“Well, maybe weuns did come up from
monkeys, boys, but I ’low nobody but
God Almighty could er made a man
like Marse nobert.”
IKIUtb Our Correspondents
A CHAT ABOUT NEW BOOKS.
I have just received “The Chippen
dules” by Grant. The story is inter
esting, thougn occasionally over
drawn. Minor details are dwelt on
too much. Then, I confess that the
portrayal of New England life with
its narrow ideals and ideas is not at
tractive to me. I am infinitely thank
ful that I was born in another part of
the globe.
“The Spider,” by Fergur Hume is a
stirring story. One longs to turn the
pag s faster than th y can be read.
But I do not like this novel as well as
I like its predecessor —“The Silent
House.” Both stories are slightly on
tbo detective order, but not sensation
ally so.
“Polly of the Circus” is a sweet,
wholesome story, though the heroine
is a girl who one may say was born
in the circus ring. Her mother had
been a daring rider, and there is a
beautiful pathos in the devotion of the
humble circus employees to this
brave, beautiful mother, and in their
kindness to the little orphan, who
grows up among them, inheriting her
mother’s love for horses and her skill
and daring in bareback riding. A fall
from her favorite horse brings her in
contact with the minister to whose
home s..e is carried. A tender little
love story follows, in which a man’s
love and nobility of nature rescues
the bright girl from a perilous envi
ronment and brings the story to a
happy end.
“The Man in the Case” is a novel out
of the ordinary. In this story the girl,
when love comes into her life, is
nearly 30 and the sturdy Scotchman
is of a disposition that will make or
mar ones’ happiness. The girl’s
brother, heir to a noble name and'
fortune, has fallen into disgrace, kills
a man and is sent to Sing Sing—he
escapes and changes clothes with a
tramp, who later is drowned. The
public, with the heartbroken sister, ac
cepts his fate. The night she engages
herself to her lover and is at the
height of her happiness, the unhappy
brother knocks at her door. She
sends off her one remaining servant,
secludes herself, and refuses to give
any reason to her lover for sending
him away. Alone she cares for the
brother, who is dying of consumption.
Suspicion and scandal make life
wretched for her. The church people
do all in their power to make her an
outcast. Just when the lover de
mands that she marry him so he may
help her fight for her name, her
brother dies and then the story comes
to light, rear that he would be ta
ken, fear that the old name would be
tarnished has held her up in her hard
fight against everything that made
her life and happiness. The almost
dog-like devotion of the maid of all
work is fine, and the faith of her lov
er withstands all talk, proofs and
tests.
“The Third Degree”—a story based
on the exploits of a man who tries to
do his own thinking. The degree used
by the police of large cities to wring
a confession from a suspected person
when arrested for crime, independent
of the circumstances, proofs, etc., is
startling to one not familiar with the
law and its rather flimsy framework.
The story is based on a lawyer’s self
imposed task of exposing the graft
practiced in police circles, a work that
would be of far more benefit to the
world at large than many of the fads
the politicians take up nowadays. A
pretty love story runs through it, in
tercepted with a story of a mercenary
marriage, which shows how bitter a
woman can be towards her sex, espec
ially if the one who has erred is try
ing to reclaim herself.
Nashville, Tennessee. MIZPAH.
A GOOD MAN MISPLACED.
It has been a good while since I
have written anything for the House
hold though I have often thought I
would, as I have received so much
benefit and pleasure from its enter
taining columns that it prompts the
desire to try to give instead of being
only a receiver. I think it always
laudable to try to be of some service
to our fellow beings, particularly to
the deserving. I know of a minister,
a Baptist, who because of unselfish
sacrifice and labors without due com
pensation among the people of our
Southern mountains has been reduced
to such a state of need he is unable
to pay tuition for his children or pre
pare them for Sunday-school and he
is also finding it very hard to provide
the bare necessities for his family
this cold, expensive winter.
He has been compelled to quit hia
