through the book, though in that scene it reaches its highest point. Beneath it all is a good story, with plenty of intriguing, fighting, and bloodshed, captures and escapes, breakneck chances, and thrilling dangers. Robert E. Lee: Man and Soldier. By Thomas Nelson Page. The discovery of the soul of Robert E. Lee by Northern writers must be accounted not only a notable achievement of recent biography, but also a signal mark of the abatement of sectional prejudice. Mr. James Ford Rhodes and Mr. Charles Francis Adams have done much to eradicate the misconceptions which lurk in the ugly epithet, "traitor"; but it has been reserved to a son of New England, in the rôle of "psychographer," to disclose the soul life of Lee as no previous writer, North or South, has ventured to do. There has been no lack of eulogistic biographies from Southern sources, to be sure; but the cold Northern reading public has inevitably taken these estimates of Lee with a grain of salt. To nine out of ten men, Robert E. Lee is still simply a talented soldier of noble lineage and amiable qualities who led a lost cause. And the limitations of Northern appreciation are not broken down by the perfervid rhapsodies of Mr. Thomas Nelson Page in his recent amplified biography of Lee. We recoil from such superlative estimates as "the greatest soldier of his time," "the greatest captain of the English-speaking race," "the loftiest character of his generation," commanding "the most redoubtable body of fighting men of the century” than whom “not Cromwell's army was more religious.” Perhaps Mr. Page is right; but as a layman, unfamiliar with the art of war, I hesitate to follow a civilian in the rôle of military historian. I have an unconquerable suspicion that his military observations are the outcome of his emotions. Mr. Bradford is on surer ground when he intimates that the definitive biography of Lee must be written by a competent military specialist. Mr. Page's way of writing biography has, too, this unhappy consequence - that it rouses in the wayward reader much the same homicidal instincts which mastered the Athenian when he heard Aristides forever called "the Just." Lee was a good man no one may gainsay that - but his goodness seems just a bit tiresome when one has read some six hundred pages descriptive of his unalloyed virtuousness. Lee's father, gallant, impetuous “Light Horse Harry," in his last illness throwing a boot at his colored nurse, whom he really loved, seems much nearer to the heart of our own crooked and perverse generation. seem Our New England biographer does much to rectify the balance. With scarcely less admiration for his hero, he has written with a much keener sense of proportion; and he has allowed certain limitations in Lee's nature to appear, which paradoxical as it may make him not less but more lovable. Although Mr. Bradford tells us that he would portray a soul, following the art of SainteBeuve, "that prince of all psychographers," he falls somewhat short of his ideal, largely because, I fancy, he cannot shake off the Puritan conscience which is his birthright. In the concluding paragraph of his entertaining book, he confesses to an ethical purpose. In an age which worships success, he would portray a soul great in defeat, that it may be an example for future Americans. Now this is a laudable motive; but it puts him at some distance from his model. I doubt if Sainte-Beuve portrayed souls with any serious concern for the moral betterment of his contemporaries. The author of Lee the American is really not content to be a naturalist of souls." The hortatory at times overbears the historical instinct. 66 The reader of these biographies will be puzzled by a query which both writers suggest, but which neither answers. Why did Lee choose a soldier's career? "The great decision" of 1861 no one can now fail to understand. That Lee was impelled by the highest sense of duty to follow his State may not hereafter be called in question. That the Southern cause assumed almost a religious aspect in his mind, is equally incontestable. The main query does not touch these matters. It goes deeper. Why was it that Lee, with his innate gentleness and goodness, his broad humanity, and his deeply religious nature, chose the profession of arms? How could the man who, with shot and shell falling around him, would stop to put a fledgling in a place of safety - how could such a man deliberately choose a career which, in the last analysis, involves the destruction of life? Mr. Bradford puts two sayings of Lee in juxtaposition, but he does not attempt to reconcile them: "What a cruel thing is war; to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world." And then a single sentence, uttered during the battle at Fredericksburg: "It is well that war is so terrible, or else we might grow too fond of it." The most characteristic act of Lee's life was his self-effacement when he chose to become the president of an obscure college, rather than to assume conspicuous offices of public trust. As ever, his governing motive was a sense of duty. "I have a self-imposed task which I must accomplish. I have led the young men of the South in battle; I have seen many of them die on the field; I shall devote my remaining energies to training young men to do their duty in life." There we have the simple nature of the man, the key to his life, and the true measure of his greatness. If Robert E. Lee becomes a national hero, I venture to think it will be not because he ranks with the world's great generals, but because he lent the great force of his example to the restoration of the Union. "Madame," he said to a Southern matron after the war, "don't bring up your sons to detest the United States Government. Recollect that we form one country now. Abandon all these local animosities and make your sons Americans." And if any one will read Mr. Page's biography, remembering that the writer was himself one of those undergraduates at Washington College, he will recognize that the book is itself a document bearing eloquent witness to the work which Lee wrought with the younger generation of Southerners after the Yale Review. war. II. Write brief critical reviews of poems, short stories, or textbooks. Relation of the Several Kinds of Exposition. You have probably already observed that several among these forms of Exposition shade one into another. Descriptive Exposition, for example, is useful in Exposition of Character; Exposition of Condition may become Criticism; and Exposition by Enumeration can be used anywhere. Our chief purpose is to explain, and we should use always whatever means comes most readily to hand. But it will be useful, nevertheless, to consider which one of these various kinds of exposition best fits the subject with which we are concerned. There is usually one best way of doing anything. Exposition should be made Interesting. The Use of Comparison. And finally, Exposition is often accused of being the driest form of composition. The accusation should be made always against the writer of exposition, not against the form. If we are careful to enrich our explanations with illustrations and comparisons, we shall easily avoid dullness in our work. We have seen above how natural and how interesting it may be in explaining something to a friend which he has never seen, to compare it with something he has seen. You have never seen Mrs. A. I have seen Mrs. A. We have both seen Mrs. B. Mrs. A. is very much like Mrs. B. Therefore I shall make you understand what Mrs. A. is like by comparing her with Mrs. B. Suppose again a child asks what we mean by "a tramp." The child has often seen the scarecrow in the garden. Hence, we will explain by saying that a tramp is a live scarecrow. Thus we have explained by comparison, by going from the known to the unknown, and the explanation is vivid and clear. Furthermore, similes, such as you have often encountered in literature, especially in poetry, are most useful. A tent is shaped like a tree; the foot is arched like a bridge in order that it may have spring and R strength. Apt and appropriately inserted similes clarify Exposition. Summary. -In fact, any and every device, any plan, any means of expressing your thought clearly, simply, fully, is valuable for Exposition. Master your subject, think out its details, make your choice from among the means and methods we have discussed in this chapter, and then do not be content until your explanation tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth, with neither confusion nor delay. SUMMARY EXERCISES I. In the following examples of Exposition, classify the kinds, and discuss the methods of explanation: 1. Cromwell manufactured his own army. Napoleon, at the age of twenty-seven, was placed at the head of the best troops Europe ever saw. Cromwell never saw an army till he was forty; this man never saw a soldier till he was fifty. Cromwell manufactured his own army — out of what? Englishmen, the best blood in Europe. Out of the middle class of Englishmen, the best blood of the island. And with it he conquered what? Englishmen, their equals. This man manufactured his army out of what? Out of what you call the despicable race of negroes, debased, demoralized by two hundred years of slavery, one hundred thousand of them imported into the island within four years, unable to speak a dialect intelligible even to each other. Yet out of this mixed, and, as you say, despicable mass he forged a thunderbolt, and hurled it at what? At the proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered; at the most warlike blood in Europe, the French, and put them under his feet; at the pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked home to Jamaica. Now, if Cromwell was a general, at least this man was a soldier. WENDELL PHILLIPS's Toussaint L'Ouverture. 2. Having frequent occasions to hold councils, they have acquired great order and decency in conducting them. The old men sit in |