From that time until his death I saw much of General Lee, and learned much of his character and impulses, which I imagine are wholly undreamed of by those who encountered him only in his official capacities. He had the instincts of the scholar, without the scholar's opportunity to indulge them. "It is a matter of regret," he said to me in Washington one day, "that family tradition has decreed that all Lees shall be soldiers. I have often regretted that I was sent to West Point instead of being educated in a more scholarly way. You know I have Carter blood and Mason blood in my veins, and the Carters and Masons have had intellects worth cultivating."
I replied by quoting from Byron's "Mazeppa" the lines:
"'Ill betide The school wherein I learned to ride.' Quoth Charles: 'Old Hetman, wherefore so, Since thou hast learned the art so well?'"
Instantly he responded by continuing the quotation:
"''Twere long to tell, And we have many a league to go With every now and then a blow;'
That is to say, I'm still Consul-General at Havana, and I have an appointment to see the President on official business this morning."
As we were sitting in my rooms at the Arlington and not in his quarters at the Shoreham, this was not a hint of dismissal, but an apology for leaving.
The conversation awakened surprise in my mind, and ever since I have wondered how many of the world's great men of action have regretted that they were not men of thought instead, and how far the regret was justified. If Fitz Lee had been educated at Yale or Harvard, what place would he have occupied in the world? Would he have become a Virginian lawyer and perhaps a judge? or what else? Conjecture in such a case is futile. "If" is a word of very uncertain significance.
The story told in the foregoing paragraphs reminds me of another experience.
When the war ended it became very necessary that I should go to Indiana with the least possible delay. But at Richmond I was stopped by a peremptory military order that forbade ex-Confederates to go North. The order had been issued in consequence of Mr. Lincoln's assassination, and the disposition to enforce it rigidly was very strong.
In my perplexity I made my way into the office of the Federal chief of staff of that department. There I encountered a stalwart and impressive officer, six feet, four or five inches high--or perhaps even an inch or two more than that--who listened with surprising patience while I explained my necessity to him. When I had done, he placed his hand upon my shoulder in comradely fashion and said: