Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/138

134 such a network of suspicious circumstances—all pointing one way, and that way forgery! The evidence is not only consistent with forgery, but inconsistent with any other hypothesis. It is said that the letter is "mysterious." So it is mysterious, more than mysterious, utterly bewildering, indeed, if we assume it to be genuine. But on the hypothesis of forgery, all is clear. This is the clue to the labyrinth, this the master-key that unlocks all doors. I indict The Duty Letter as guilty of literary forgery. And I believe that, taking into consideration the cumulative effect of all the evidence, there can be but one verdict—guilty as indicted. And this beyond any reasonable doubt.

But, assuming now that The Duty Letter as a whole is a literary forgery, the question may still be asked, Is it not possible that the sentence, "Duty, then, is the sublimest word in our language" may be saved? Take away all the rest, but leave us this! May not this sentence have occurred in a genuine letter of Lee, where it was found by the forger and transferred to The Duty Letter? In other words, may not The Compilation Theory, to this extent, at least, be true? The Duty Sentence is now so associated with General Lee, is so universally taken as the keynote of his character, that to deny its authenticity seems almost sacrilegious. Even Gamaliel Bradford, who does not admire The Duty Letter as a whole, declares of the Duty Sentence: "I would give a great deal to be assured that it is a genuine utterance of Lee."

This theory of repudiation of The Duty Letter as a whole, with the acceptance, nevertheless, of the Duty Sentence as genuine, has the support of no less an authority than Dr. J. William Jones, one of the earliest and best-known biographers of General Lee. Thus in Jones' "Personal Reminiscences of General R. E. Lee," published in 1874, it is said (p. 133): "The letter which has been so widely published, purporting to have been written by General Lee at Arlington to his son Custis at West Point, is unquestionably spurious. But the expression, 'Duty is the