[472] tyranny more despotic than that which exists in Europe is allowed to exist in our very confines? In succoring the Texans we should consider that we extend the sway of the goddess we worship, that we secure to their progeny the benefits of which we are so tenacious, and secure to oppressed freemen of other countries an asylum which our own country will, ere long, not be able to afford them .... The great end of all education is to expand the mind and gain a knowledge of human nature. What is more calculated to expand the mind than the espousing and working in the cause of liberty? What better book in which to study human nature than such a variety of characters as I would be constantly thrown with? All things cry out to me to go. Oh, my dear father, will you not give me permission? Do not think that my resolution has been taken unadvisedly, and do not smile at my aspirations. I do not believe that I shall become a Bonaparte or a Bolivar, but he who never aspires, never rises. I have confined this letter to one subject because my whole soul is taken up with that subject.General Early returned from Canada to the States in 1869; that winter was devoted to visits among his relatives and friends from whom he had been so long parted. His father died in 1870. In the autobiography he writes of his father as still living: it is therefore presumable that his manuscript was, at least, commenced while he was in Canada. Previously he had published at Toronto (in 1866), “A Memoir of the Last Year of the War for Independence,” which was written, he states, “under a solemn sense of duty to my unhappy country, and to the brave soldiers who fought under me, as well as to myself.” His correspondence was very large and in many cases continued during years. Through this runs the story of his unflagging interest and industry in endeavoring to confirm every minutest detail of the narrative he desired to complete. The letters all show the esteem in which he was held. Many of them are written to thank him for contributions, already written, in the defence of the South. Others urge that he prepare a complete history of the war giving the Southern side. From among these letters the following are selected; not the least of the interest in which proceeds from the fact that they are voluntary offerings, generally from
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