Fidelity to truth, the maintenance of personal honor, deference for the opinions and feelings of others, without abating one's own or aggressively thrusting them on others; a kindliness of manner to dependents, a knightly courtesy to all, but with special and tender regard in thought, word, and action toward woman, were in turn patiently taught in all the lessons of the fireside and at the family altar, and earnestly insisted upon in the formation of the character of a true gentleman. "Any man will be polite to a beautiful young woman, but it takes a gentleman to show the same respect to a homely old woman" was the stinging rebuke of a father to his son who failed to remove his hat in passing a forlorn old woman on the public highway. The old-field school, the private tutor, the high school, whose excellence in Virginia I can not praise too much, the college, the university, led the young mind by easy stages to its full intellectual maturity. Nowhere was the principle "_Sana mens in sano corpore_" more scrupulously taught than in Virginia. The rod and stream, the gun, the "hounds and horns," the chase, with the music of the pack, the bounding steed, all lent their ready aid in developing the physical manhood of the boy. In the pure atmosphere of his country home, amid its broad fields and virgin forests, contracted houses in narrow streets had no charms for him. To join the chase was the first promotion to which the boy looked as evidencing his permanent release from the nursery. The gun and dog became his constant companions, while "Old Betsey," his father's trusted double-barreled gun of many years' usage, standing in the sitting-room corner or hanging on stag-horns or dog-wood forks on the side of the wall, was the eloquent subject of nightly rehearsals of her prowess and power in the annual deer hunt "over the mountains." Skill in horsemanship was essential, and breaking colts was naturally followed by broken limbs; but manhood found a race of trained horsemen, both graceful and skillful in the saddle, unexcelled, I dare venture to assert, by any civilized people. A child of nature, the Virginia boy communed with her as his mother, and from her purest depths drew the richest inspirations. To him no mountains were so blue as hers, no streams so clear, no forests so enchanting, no homes so sweet. While others hailed in distant skies the glories of the Union He only saw the mountain bird stoop o'er his Old Dominion.