Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/151

 Robert Edward Lee. 151

The speaker then rapidly ran over the events of General Lee's career up to the civil war, and spoke eloquently of his patriotic devo- tion and distinguished services as a soldier of the Confederacy.

THE MARVELLOUS INFLUENCE.

"But gentlemen," he added, "we have not yet attained to the secret of the wonderful power, the magical spell the strange, mar- vellous influence exerted by that life which this day we study. Men are not great simply nor especially by the intellect, but through the heart. Character is of more value than genius, and what I wish to observe is this, that the military career of our dead chieftain is the canvas on which, from the inner life as from a lantern, is thrown a rarer combination of graces and spiritual excellences than is witnessed in the history of one man in a thousand."

LEADING CHARACTERISTICS.

He then dwelt at length on the leading characteristics of that life: First, duty; second, independence; third, great tenderness; fourth, modesty and humility ; and fifth, his patience under defeat. 'Then in a beautiful and eloquent peroration on the Christian character of General Lee the speaker closed his splendid oration.

ALEXANDRIA.

R. E. Lee Camp of Confederete Veterans celebrated the birthday of General R. E. Lee by a banquet at the Hotel Fleischmann at night.

The dining-room of the hotel was very handsomely decorated with flags, Confederate and United States, and with flowers. Extended around the room were tables arranged in the form of a square and laden down with all the good things of the season. In the centre of the table stood a large model of the Alexandria Confederate soldiers' monument (Elder's Appomattox), said to be one of the handsomest in the South.

Promptly at 8:15 P. M. the Camp, with a few invited guests, filed into the dining-room, and for over an hour nothing was heard but the clatter of knives and forks, as the veterans did justice to the bountiful repast spread by mine host Fleischmann.