I know what I should love to do–to build a study; to write, and to think of nothing else. I want to bury myself in a den of books. I want to saturate myself with the elements of which they are made, and breathe their atmosphere until I am of it. Not a bookworm, being which is to give off no utterances; but a man in the world of writing–one with a pen that shall stop men to listen to it, whether they wish to or not.

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.