Evening star., 1934-03-04
ROBERT E. LEE. BY Robert w. Winston. Me-
York: William Morrow Co.

York: William Morrow & Co.
4 HAS often been said that Robert E. Lee
was almost too perfect to be a good
Il subject for biography. This is probably
true If the modernist type of biography Is
meant. Emil Ludwig or Andre Maurois
would find Robert E. Lee uninspring to
their best efforts. He had, nevertheless, very
human if not sensational personality. John
Drinkwater recognized this and made Lee the
subject of one of his best plays. Judge Winston
has recognized it and has written not only an
authoritative, but interesting biography of
Lee. 1t is also unified biography, which fuses
the cavalier, the soldier and the citizen into
the complete personality. Most previous biog-
raphies of Lee, the best of which are A. L.
Longs Memoirs of Robert E. Lee" Fitzhugh
, Lees Gen. Lee" and Sir F. Maurice's Robert
E. Lee the Soldier" have been almost altogether
concentrated on the military of Lee.
This is natural enough since his mastery of
the art of war, much ahead of his time. has
caused his military tactics to be much studied.
Judge Winston, North CarOlinan born at the
beginning of the Civil War, has been interested
in the more personal Lee. What manner OF
man could Lee have been to provoke such ad-
miration? How did he succeed in winning the
love of his very enemies?" His study of Lee
has yielded satisfactory answers to both these
questions. One of the answers is that the
general was good sport; he fought hard but
fought clean, ana Wnen NE SurrenQereo ne
surrendered"
An intimate picture Is drawn of the boyhood
of Robert Edward Lee. Born at Stratford, from
which he was soon exiled account of the
poverty of his father, "Light-HOrSe Harry Lee
of revolutionary fame; the companion of his
mother in q modest home on a side street Of
Alexandria, entering West Point partly because
his mother could not afford to send him to
Harvard. Very different from his erratic father.
fho 1ad had he "chorqctpr Of he Carriers and
the intellect of the Lees" From the first he
stood high in both scholarship and conduct at
West Point. On June 80, 1881, Lieut.. r. E.
Lee OF the United States Corps Of Engineers was
married to Mary Custis daughter of George
Washington Parke Gusts. at Arlington.
Throughout the narrative Judge Winston fol-
lows the family and social life of Lee, rich in
all the charm of the Old South. until the tragic
time when he was forced. reluctantly, to choose
between Nation and State. Previous to the
Civil War; Lee had served in the Mexican War
and against the Comanche Indians; the years
1861-1865 made him a great general. Inevitably.
even though this is not military biography, the
bulk of the volume is given to those four years,
whose struggles against overwhelming odds
hardened Lees fibre and left him no less
sensitive, but calm and reserved in defeat ready
to face his future, without home business
profession, a paroled prisoner of war. Judge
Winston's account of the postwar years, when
"
Lee, the citizen, working for popular education
and manual training, loyal to a restored Union.
holding no hatred, refusing gifts and bonuses.
Those were also quiet happy years. when he
attended with his usual conscientious care for
details to the work of the college (afterward
Washington and Lee University, planted vege-
table and flower gardens, rode about the country
on Traveller" interested himself in the affairs
of his children and their friends consistently re-
fused to write book about the Civil War,
though it would have brought him a small
fortune. Judge Winston has incorporated in
his book many anecdotes of Lees everyday life.
related to the author by old soldiers dis
covered in newspapers and magazines of the COS.
MEXICO. Study of Two Americas. BY
Stuart Chase. In collaboration with Marian
Tyler. Illustrated by Diego Rivera. New
York: The Macmillan Co.
CTUART CHASE went to Mexico for a rest
- and to see Mexican paintings, but he found
it difficult ito relax at 1000 feet above the sea-:
so he gathered information and impressions on
many subjects, which he has here shaped into a
book which attracts at first sight because of its
physical makeup and later because of its inter-
esting material and unusual treatment. He
lists in his foreword all the things which
"excited' him in Mexico-"volcanoes, the raw
violence Of the scenery, pyramids with plumed
serpents marching across their bases, great
crumbling cathedrals, native handcraft, the
frescoes of Rivera and Orozco. gold mines at
the end of burro trails, and, above all, the way
of life in the free villages, where I saw a
handicraft economy functoning much as it did
in the Middle Ages, and so bench mark with
which to compare my machines" He was
disappointed that he bandidos, his
greatest danger was from the wild driving Of
mestizos on some motor roads, He kept away
from the border states and from Mexico City:
his interest was in the small towns and villages
of Central and Southern Mexico, where Aztec