But the question presses, on what authority (he must have had some authority, real or supposed), does Dr. Jones affirm that the expression, "Duty, then, is the sublimest word in our language," "did occur in a letter by General Lee to his son." If Dr. Jones had in his possession a letter by General Lee containing this sentence, who can doubt that he would have printed it in full. If he had any definite knowledge as to such a letter, would he not have given the date, or at least the name of the son to whom it was written?
Neither the widow of Dr. Jones (who is still living), nor any one of his four sons can throw any light on the problem, beyond this statement of one of them:[1] "I know that my father always said that the quotation, 'Duty is the sublimest word in the English language,' was not written in a letter to General Custis Lee, but was written to another son, on another occasion. I have never been able to find that letter." But to what son, and on what occasion? All the papers of Dr. Jones have been searched in vain. All the letters of General Lee have been scrutinized by half a dozen persons[2] (by some of them with especial reference to the Duty Sentence); but no one encountered
- ↑ Letter of Rev. E. Pendleton Jones, D. D., to the writer, June 16, 1913.
- ↑ The letters of General Lee to his son, W. H. Fitzhugh Lee, were carefully examined, at my request, by his widow, and by his eldest son, Colonel Robert E. Lee, of Ravensworth.
inclusive. During this period, the Dispatch was considered more likely to contain the Jones letter than the Richmond Times, since Captain Lee, who read the Dispatch, saw the letter, and the writer, who read the Times, did not see it.
Presumably, Dr. Jones did not know of the publication of The Duty Letter in the New York Sun, nor of its publication in the Richmond Whig and Sentinel, and its repudiation in the Sentinel. This is to be inferred from the fact that Captain McCabe, who saw the Jones letter, did not know, thereafter, that The Duty Letter had been published in the Whig (Letter to the writer, June 1, 1913), and presumably was unaware of the other publications above referred to.
It is inexplicable that after writing such a letter, prior to 1904, Dr. Jones in his second book, published in 1906, should not have referred to it (even in a footnote), but satisfied himself with his former ipse dixit, with no further explanation than the conjecture (already quoted) that The Duty Letter is "the product of some ingenious newspaper correspondent, who got at Arlington a number of General Lee's letters; and taking extracts from several manufactured one to his taste"—thus adopting The Compilation Theory.
