Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/179

 Major-General George Washington Custis Lee. 167

MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON CUSTIS LEE.

A Paper read at the Annual Meeting of the Virginia Historical Society February 24, 1914, by the President, VV. GORDON McCABE.

Only a single "Life jMember," General George Washington Custis Lee, has been lost to us since our last report, 3'et is the loss one that has brought such poignant sorrow to kinsmen, comrades and friends, that, despite the fact that he had passed fourscore and finally fell- on sleep full of honors, revered and loved by all who knew him, we scarce can measure in words our unaffected grief at the passing of so noble a life, though well we know such "Life is perfected by Death."

Outside his immediate family, few people, perhaps, might claim to know him intimately, yet, reserved as he was, with a nameless touch of aloofness due to innate shyness, such was the compelling charm of his old-fashiond courtesy, his ready sym- pathy with distress, his almost quixotic generosity to those in need, that men and women instinctively came to love this grave and silent gentleman, whose simplicity and kindliness uncon- sciously won their abiding confidence and regard.

Probably, if the dead concern themselves at all with things of earth, he himself would prefer that his name should be passed over in silence and that no public utterance should vex the eternal quiet of ''the keyless house."

So long had he lived the life of a recluse, so persistently, in his later years, did he guard his seclusion from the outer world, that it is not improbable that few of the general public, out- side his native State, knew that he was still alive.

Yet, in his unobtrusive way, had he done much good service to nation as well as State, and, had fate willed that he should have been rated according to his great talents and varied ac- complishments, had fortune, in homely phrase, "given him his