Page:Boissonnas, Un Vaincu, English, 1875.djvu/14

 pursue his pleasures. So much so, that when time had come for him to enter West Point, the American Saint-Cyr, his mother exclaimed with distress, "How can I live without Robert ? He is both son and daughter to me."

In memory of the services General Henry Lee rendered to his country, the State of Virginia took in charge the young man's tuition costs at West Point. From the very beginning, he gained the first rank in his class and kept up this rank during the 4 statutory years. The permanence of his success was due more to the stubbornness of his work, the perseverance of his efforts, than to his intellectual gifts, however remarkable they were.

One of his professors of mathematics said that his main characteristic was to complete and to perfect everything he undertook. " … One of the branches of mathematics he studied with me was Conic Sections, in which some of the diagrams are very complicated. He drew the diagrams on a slate ; and although he well knew that the one he was drawing would have to be removed to make room for another, he drew each one with as much accuracy and finish, lettering and all, as if it were to be engraved and printed… "

Such a sense of duty in his work attracted the esteem of his professors. A completely different set of qualities gained him popularity among his comrades, the evidence of