Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/81

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Maj. Andrew Reid Venable, Jr.
73

and children, to kinsmen and comrades, as a precious legacy, the fragrant memory of his tenderness and purity, his generosity and integrity, his nice sense of honor and chivalric courage, and of all those stern and gentle virtues that we unconsciously associate with the loftiest type of the high-bred gentleman and dauntless soldier.

In contemplating this heroic life, thus rounded, at the last, with the sleep which He giveth His beloved, we, who miss him and hold him in our hearts, rising above our own selfish sorrow, can surely say of him, as Milton says of Sampson:

"Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail;
* * * * nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble."

W. Gordon McCabe.

December 6th, 1909.