Men speak of dreaming as if it were a phenomenon of night and sleep. They should know better. All results achieved by us are self-promised, and all self-promises are made in dreams awake. Dreaming is the relief of labor,the wine that sustains us in act. We learn to love labor, not for itself, but for the opportunity it furnishes for dreaming, which is the great under-monotone of real life, unheard, unnoticed, because of its constancy. Living is dreaming. Only in the graves are there no dreams.

Lew Wallace rejoined his father in Indianapolis. His father was a graduate of the United States Military Academy in West Point New York and served as lieutenant governor and governor of Indiana.  .

Wallace served as governor of the New Mexico Territory at the time of the Lincoln County War and worked to bring an end to the fighting. Of his novels and biographies he is best known for his historical novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880) a bestselling book since its publication and called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century. Lewis "Lew" Wallace (April 10 1827 – February 15 1905) was an American lawyer Union general in the American Civil War territorial governor and statesman politician and author.