INTRODUCTION

LINCOLNFrom a bust by Johannes GelerttopINTRODUCTIONTHE POETIC SPIRIT OF LINCOLNByMarion Mills Miller(Seebiographical sketchon page 146)Someyears ago, while editing Henry C. Whitney's "Life of Lincoln" I showed a photograph of the bust of Lincoln by Johannes Gelert, the most intellectual to my mind of all the studies of his face, to a little Italian shoeblack, and asked him if he knew who it was. The boy, evidently prompted by a recent lesson at school, said questioningly, "Whittier?—Longfellow?" I replied, "No, it is Lincoln, the great President." He answered, "Well, he looks like a poet, anyway."This verified a conclusion to which I had already come: Lincoln, had he lived in a region of greater culture, such as New England, might not have adopted the engrossing pursuits of law and politics, but, as did Whittier, have remained longer on the farm and gradually taken up the calling of letters, composing verse of much the same order as our Yankee bards', and poetry of even higher merit than some produced.It is not generally known that Lincoln, shortly before he went to Congress, wrote verse of a kind to compare favorably with the early attempts of American poets such as those named. Thus the two poems of his which have been preserved, for his early lampoons on his neighbors have happily been lost, are equal in poetic spirit and metrical art to Whittier's "The Prisoner for Debt," to which they are strikingly similar in melancholic mood.In 1846, at the age of 37, Lincoln conducted a literary correspondence with a friend,William Johnson by name, of like poetic tastes. In April of this year he wrote the following letter to Johnson:topTremont, April 18, 1846.FRIEND JOHNSTON:Your letter, written some six weeks since, was received in due course, and also the paper with the parody. It is true, as suggested it might be, that I have never seen Poe's "Raven"; and I very well know that a parody is almost entirely dependent for its interest upon the reader's acquaintance with the original. Still there is enough in the polecat, self-considered, to afford one several hearty laughs. I think four or five of the last stanzas are decidedly funny, particularly where Jeremiah "scrubbed and washed, and prayed and fasted."I have not your letter now before me; but, from memory, I think you ask me who is the author of the piece I sent you, and that you do so ask as to indicate a slight suspicion that I myself am the author. Beyond all question, I am not the author. I would give all I am worth, and go in debt, to be able to write so fine a piece as I think that is. Neither do I know who is the author. I met it in a straggling form in a newspaper last summer, and I remember to have seen it once before, about fifteen years ago, and this is all I know about it.The piece of poetry of my own which I alluded to, I was led to write under the following circumstances. In the fall of 1844, thinking I might aid some to carry the State of Indiana for Mr. Clay, I went into the neighborhood in that State in which I was raised, where my mother and only sister were buried, and from which I had been absent about fifteen years.That part of the country is, within itself, as unpoetical as any spot of the earth; but still, seeing it and its objects and inhabitants aroused feelings in me which were certainly poetry; though whether my expression of those feelings is poetry is quite another question. When I got to writing, the change of subject divided the thing into four little divisions or cantos, the first only of which I send you now, and may send the others hereafter.Yours truly,A. LINCOLN.My childhood's home I see again,And sadden with the view;And still, as memory crowds my brain,There's pleasure in it too.O Memory! thou midway world'Twixt earth and paradise,Where things decayed and loved ones lostIn dreamy shadows rise,topAnd, freed from all that's earthly vile,Seem hallowed, pure and bright,Like scenes in some enchanted isleAll bathed in liquid light.As dusky mountains please the eyeWhen twilight chases day;As bugle-notes that, passing by,In distance die away;As leaving some grand waterfall,We, lingering, list itsroar—So memory will hallow allWe've known but know no more.Near twenty years have passed awaySince here I bid farewellTo woods and fields, and scenes of play,And playmates loved so well.Where many were, but few remainOf old familiar things;But seeing them to mind againThe lost and absent brings.The friends I left that parting day,How changed, as time has sped!Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray;And half of all are dead.I hear the loved survivors tellHow nought from death could save,Till every sound appears a knell,And every spot a grave.I range the fields with pensive tread,And pace the hollow rooms,And feel (companion of the dead)I'm living in the tombs.In September he wrote the following letter:Springfield, September 6, 1846.FRIEND JOHNSTON:You remember when I wrote you from Tremont last spring, sending you a little canto of what I called poetry, I promised to bore you with another some time. I now fulfil the promise. The subject of the present one is an insane man; his name is Matthew Gentry. He is three years older than I, and when we were boys we went to school together. He was rather a bright lad, and the son of the rich man of a verytoppoor neighborhood. At the age of nineteen he unaccountably became furiously mad, from which condition he gradually settled down into harmless insanity. When, as I told you in my other letter, I visited my old home in the fall of 1844, I found him still lingering in this wretched condition. In my poetizing mood, I could not forget the impression his case made upon me. Here is the result:But here's an object more of dreadThan aught the gravecontains—A human form with reason fled,While wretched life remains.When terror spread, and neighbors ranYour dangerous strength to bind,And soon, a howling, crazy man,Your limbs were fast confined;How then you strove and shrieked aloud,Your bones and sinews bared;And fiendish on the gazing crowdWith burning eyeballs glared;And begged and swore, and wept and prayed,With maniac laughter joined;How fearful were these signs displayedBy pangs that killed the mind!And when at length the drear and longTime soothed thy fiercer woes,How plaintively thy mournful songUpon the still night rose!I've heard it oft as if I dreamed,Far distant, sweet and lone,The funeral dirge it ever seemedOf reason dead and gone.To drink its strains I've stole away,All stealthily and still,Ere yet the rising god of dayHad streaked the eastern hill.Air held her breath; trees with the spellSeemed sorrowing angels round,Whose swelling tears in dewdrops fellUpon the listening ground.But this is past, and naught remainsThat raised thee o'er the brute:Thy piercing shrieks and soothing strainsAre like, forever mute.topNow fare thee well! More thou the causeThan subject now of woe.All mental pangs by time's kind lawsHast lost the power to know.O death! thou awe-inspiring princeThat keepst the world in fear,Why dost thou tear more blest ones hence,And leave him lingering here?If I should ever send another, the subject will be a "Bear Hunt."Yours as ever,A. LINCOLN.The poem alluded to in the first letter is undoubtedly "Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal BeProud?",by William Knox, a Scottish poet, known to fame only by its authorship. It remained the favorite of Lincoln until his death, being frequently alluded to by him in conversation with his friends. Because it so aptly presents Lincoln's own spirit it is here presented in full. During his Presidency he said:"There is a poem which has been a great favorite with me for years, which was first shown me when a young man by a friend, and which I afterwards saw and cut from a newspaper and learned by heart. I would give a good deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain."Then, half closing his eyes, he repeated the verses:OH, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD?ByWilliam Knox.William Knox was born at Firth, in the parish of Lilliesleaf, in the county of Roxburghshire, on the 17th of August, 1789. From his early youth he composed verses. He merited the attention of Sir Walter Scott, who afforded him pecuniary assistance. He died November 12, 1825, at the age of thirty-six.Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?Like a swift-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,The flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,He passes from life to his rest in the grave.The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,Be scattered around and together be laid;And the young and the old, and the low and the highShall molder to dust and together shall lie.topThe infant a mother attended and loved,The mother that infant's affection who proved,The husband that mother and infant who blest,Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,Shone beauty and pleasure, her triumphs are by;And the mem'ry of those who loved her and praisedAre alike from the minds of the living erased.The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne,The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn,The eye of the sage and the heart of the braveAre hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep,The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,Have faded away like the grass that we tread.The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven,The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.So the multitude goes like the flower or the weedThat withers away to let others succeed,So the multitude comes, even those we behold,To repeat every tale that has often been told.For we are the same that our fathers have been;We see the same sights our fathers have seen;We drink the same streams, and view the same sun,And run the same course our fathers have run.The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think,From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;To the life we are clinging they also would cling,But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come;They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.They died, ay, they died. We things that are now,That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,And make in their dwellings a transient abode,Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,Are mingled together in sunshine and rain:And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,Still follow each other like surge upon surge.top'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,From the gilded salon to the bier and theshroud,—Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"The Last Leaf," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, was also a favorite poem of Lincoln, says Henry C. Whitney, his friend and biographer (in his "Life of Lincoln," Vol. I, page 238):"Over and over again I have heard him repeat:The mossy marbles restOn the lips that he has prestIn their bloom;And the names he loved to hearHave been carved for many a yearOn the tomb.and tears would come unbidden to his eyes, probably at thought of the grave (his mother's) at Gentryville, or that in the bend of the Sangamo" (of Ann Rutledge, his first love, who died shortly before the time set for their wedding, and whose memory Lincoln ever kept sacred).While Lincoln, so far as can be ascertained, wrote nothing in verse after 1846, he developed in his speeches a literary style which is poetical in the highest sense of that term. More than all American statesmen his utterances and writings possess that classic quality whose supreme expression is found in Greek literature. This is because Lincoln had an essentially Hellenic mind. First of all the architecture of his thought was that of the Greek masters, who, whether as Phidias they built the Parthenon to crown with harmonious beauty the Acropolis, or as Homer they recorded in swelling narrative from its dramatic beginning the strife of the Achaeans before Troy, or even as Euclid, they developed from postulates the relations of space, had a deep insight into the order in which mother nature was striving to express herself, and a reverent impulse to aid her in bodying forth according to her methods the ideal forms of the cosmos, the world of beauty, no less within the soul of man than without it, which was intended by such help to be realized as a whole in the infinity of time, and in part in the visiontopof every true workman. In short, Lincoln had a profound sense of the fitness of things, that which Aristotle, the scientific analyst of human thought and the philosopher of its proper expression, called "poetic justice." He strove to make his reasoning processes strictly logical, and to this end carried with him as he rode the legal circuit not law-books, but a copy of Euclid's geometry, and passed his time on the way demonstrating to his drivers the theorems therein proposed. "Demonstrate" he said he considered to be the greatest word in the English language. He constructed every one of his later speeches on the plan of a Euclidean solution. His Cooper Union speech on "Slavery as the Fathers Viewed It," which contributed so largely to his Presidential nomination, was such a demonstration, settling what was thereafter never attempted to be controverted: his contention that the makers of the Constitution merely tolerated property in human flesh and blood as a primitive and passing phase of civilization, and never intended that it should be perpetuated by the charter of the Republic.So, too, the Gettysburg speech, brief as it is, is the statement of a thesis, the principles upon which the Fathers founded the nation, and of the heroic demonstration of the same by the soldiers fallen on the field, and the addition of a moral corollary of this, the high resolve of the living to prosecute the work until the vision of the Fathers was realized.In substance of thought and in form of its presentation the speech is as perfect a poem as ever was written, and even in the minor qualities of artistic language—rhythm and cadence, phonetic euphony, rhetorical symbolism, and that subtle reminiscence of a great literary and spiritual inheritance, the Bible, which stands to us as Homer did to the ancients—it excels the finest gem to be found in poetic cabinets from the Greek Anthology downward. Only because it was not written in the typography of verse, with capitalized and paragraphed initial words at the beginning of each thought-group of words, has it failed of recognition as a poem by academic minds. Had Walt Whitman composed the address, and printed it in the above manner, it would now appear in every anthology of poetry publishedtopsince its date. To convince of this those conventional people who must have an ocular demonstration of form in order to compare the address with accepted examples of poetry, I will dare to incur the condemnation of those who rightly look upon such a departure from Lincoln's own manner of writing the speech as profanation, and present it in the shape ofvers libre.For the latter class of readers this, the greatest poem by Lincoln, the greatest, indeed, yet produced in America, may be preferably read in the original form onpage 100of this collection. I trust that these, especially if they are teachers of literature, will pardon, for the sake of others less cultivated in poetic taste, what may appear a duplication here, unnecessary to themselves, of the address.SPEECH AT GETTYSBURGByAbraham LincolnFour score and seven years agoOur fathers brought forth on this continentA new nation,Conceived in liberty,And dedicated to the propositionThat all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war,Testing whether that nation,Or any nation so conceived and so dedicated,Can long endure.We are met on a great battle-field of that war.We have come to dedicate a portion of that fieldAs a final resting-placeFor those who here gave their livesThat that nation might live.It is altogether fitting and properThat we should do this.But, in a larger sense,We cannotdedicate—We cannotconsecrate—We cannothallow—This ground.The brave men, living and dead,Who struggled here,Have consecrated it far above our poor powerTo add or detract.The world will little note nor long rememberWhat we say here,topBut it can never forgetWhat they did here.It is for us, the living, rather,To be dedicated here to the unfinished workWhich they who fought here have so nobly advanced.It is rather for us to be here dedicatedTo the great task remaining beforeus—That from these honored deadWe take increased devotion to that causeFor which they gave the last full measure of devotion;That we here highly resolveThat these dead shall not have died in vain;That this nation, under God,Shall have a new birth of freedom;And that government of the people,By the people, and for the peopleShall not perish from the earth.Lincoln attained this classic perfection of ordered thought, and with it, as an inevitable accompaniment this classic beauty of expression, only by great struggle. He became a poet of the first rank only by virtue of his moral spirit. He was continually correcting deficiencies in his character, which were far greater than is generally received, owing to the tendency of American historians of the tribe of Parson Weems to find by force illustrations of moral heroism in the youth of our great men. Thus Lincoln is represented as a noble lad, who, having allowed a borrowed book to be ruined by rain, went to the owner and offered to "pull fodder" to repay him, which the man ungenerously permitted him to do. The truth is, that the neighbor, to whom the book was a cherished possession, required him to do the work in repayment, and that Lincoln not only did it grudgingly, but afterwards lampooned the man so severely in satiric verse that he was ashamed to show himself at neighborhood gatherings. All the people about Gentryville feared Lincoln's caustic wit, and disliked him for it, although they were greatly impressed with his ability exhibited thereby. Lincoln recognized his moral obliquity, and curbed his propensity for satire, which was a case of that "exercise of natural faculty" which affects all gifted persons. And when he left that region he visited all the neighbors, and asked pardon of those whom he had ridiculed. The true Lincoln is a far better example to boys than thetopfictitious one, in that he had more unlovely traits at first than the average lad, yet he reformed, with the result that, when he went to new scenes, he speedily became the most popular young man in the neighborhood. He was one of those who"rise on stepping stonesOf their dead selves to higher things."The reformation of his character by self examination and determination not to make the same mistake again seems to have induced similar effects and methods for their attainment in the case of his intellectual development. Whatever the connection, both regenerations proceeded apace. Lincoln at first was a shallow thinker, accepting without examination the views of others, especially popular statesmen, such as Henry Clay, whose magnetic personality was drawing to himself the high-spirited young men of the West. Some of the political doctrines which Lincoln then adopted he retained to the end, these being on subjects such as taxation and finance whose moral bearing was not apparent, and therefore into which he never inquired closely, for Lincoln's mind could not be profoundly interested in any save a moral question. When he found that a revered statesman was weak upon a crucial moral issue, he repressed his innate tendency to loyalty and rejected him. Thus, after a visit to Henry Clay in Kentucky, when the slavery question was arising to vex the country despite the efforts the aged statesman had made to settle it by the compromise of 1850, Lincoln returned disillusioned, having found that the light he himself possessed on the subject was clearer than that of his old leader. The eulogy which he delivered on the death of Clay, which occurred shortly afterward (in 1852), is the most perfunctory of all his addresses.Indeed, not till the time of the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1854, which brought Lincoln back into politics by its overthrow of what he regarded as the constitutional exclusion of slavery from the Territories, did he rise to his highest powers as a thinker and speaker. Lincoln had been defeated for reelection totopCongress because of his opposition, though not highly moral in character, to the popular Mexican war, and, regarding himself as a political failure, he had devoted himself to law. His most notable speech in the House of Representatives, a well composed satirical arraignment of President Polk for throwing the country into war, had failed utterly of its intended effect, probably because of its trimming partisan tone. In 1854 he was relieved of the trammels of party, the Whigs having gone to smash. Anti-slavery had become a great moral movement, and he was drawn into its current. Almost at once he became its Western leader. His speech against the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise which had been effected by his inveterate antagonist, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, was his first classic achievement in argumentative oratory. While in the greater aspect of artistic composition, the form of the address as a whole, his master was Euclid, in minor points the influence of Shakespeare, of whom Lincoln had become a great reader, was apparent, as indicated by a quotation from the dramatist, and an application to Senator Douglas of the scene of Lady Macbeth trying to wash out the indelible stain upon her hand. Also the Bible was the source of strong and telling phrases and figures of speech. Thus he denominated slavery as "the great Behemoth of danger," and asked, "shall the strong grip of the nation be loosened upon him, to intrust him to the hands of his feeble keepers?"And, in the following passage, characteristic of the new Lincoln, I think that either Shakespeare and the Bible had combined to inspire him with graphic description of character and moral indignation, or they enforced these native powers."Again, you have among you a sneaking individual of the class of native tyrants known as the 'Slave-Dealer'. He watches your necessities, and crawls up to buy your slave at a speculative price. If you cannot help it, you sell to him; but if you can help it, you drive him from your door. You despise him utterly. You do not recognize him as a friend, or even as an honest man. Your children must not play with his; they may rollick freely with the little negroes, but nottopwith the slave-dealer's children. If you are obliged to deal with him you try to get through the job without so much as touching him. It is common with you to join hands with the men you meet, but with the slave-dealer you avoid the ceremony—instinctively shrinking from the snaky contact."Of Lincoln's critical appreciation of Shakespeare Frank B. Carpenter, the artist of the "First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation" (see illustration onpage 206), writes in his "Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln" as follows:"Presently the conversation turned upon Shakspeare, of whom it is well known Mr. Lincoln was very fond. He once remarked, 'It matters not to me whether Shakspeare be well or ill acted; with him the thought suffices.' Edwin Booth was playing an engagement at this time at Grover's Theatre. He had been announced for the coming evening in his famous part ofHamlet.The President had never witnessed his representation of this character, and he proposed being present. The mention of this play, which I afterward learned had at all times a peculiar charm for Mr. Lincoln's mind, waked up a train of thought I was not prepared for. Said he,—and his words have often returned to me with a sad interest since his own assassination,—'There is one passage of the play of "Hamlet" which is very apt to be slurred over by the actor, or omitted altogether, which seems to me the choicest part of the play. It is the soliloquy of the King, after the murder. It always struck me as one of the finest touches of nature in the world.'"Then, throwing himself into the very spirit of the scene, he took up thewords:—"'O my offence is rank,it smells to heaven;It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,A brother's murder!—Pray can I not,Though inclination be as sharp as will;My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;And, like a man to double business bound,I stand in pause where I shall first begin,And both neglect. What if this cursed handWere thicker than itself with brother's blood?Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavensTo wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercytopBut to confront the visage of offence;And what's in prayer but this twofoldforce—To be forestalled ere we come to fall,Or pardoned, being down? Then I'll look up;My fault is past. But O what form of prayerCan serve my turn? Forgive me my foulmurder?—That cannot be; since I am still possessedOf those effects for which I did themurder,—My crown, my own ambition, and my queen.May one be pardoned and retain the offence?In the corrupted currents of this world,Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itselfBuys out the law; but 'tis not soabove.There is no shuffling; there the action liesIn its true nature; and we ourselves compelled,Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,To give in evidence. What then? What rests?Try what repentance can; what can it not?Yet what can it when one cannot repent?O wretched state! O bosom black as death!O bruised soul that, struggling to be free,Art more engaged! Help, angels, make assay!Bow, stubborn knees! And heart with strings of steel,Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe;All may be well!'"He repeated this entire passage from memory, with a feeling and appreciation unsurpassed by anything I ever witnessed upon the stage. Remaining in thought for a few moments, hecontinued:—"'The opening of the play of "King Richard the Third" seems to me often entirely misapprehended. It is quite common for an actor to come upon the stage, and, in a sophomoric style, to begin with aflourish:—"'Now is the winter of our discontentMade glorious summer by this sun of York,And all the clouds that lowered upon our house,In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.'"'Now,' said he, 'this is all wrong. Richard, you remember, had been, and was then plotting the destruction of his brothers, to make room for himself. Outwardly, the most loyal to the newly crowned king, secretly he could scarcely contain his impatience at the obstacles still in the way of his own elevation. He appears upon the stage, just after the crowning oftopEdward, burning with repressed hate and jealousy. The prologue is the utterance of the most intense bitterness and satire.' Then, unconsciously assuming the character, Mr. Lincoln repeated, also from memory, Richard's soliloquy, rendering it with a degree of force and power that made it seem like a new creation to me. Though familiar with the passage from boyhood, I can truly say that never till that moment had I fully appreciated its spirit. I could not refrain from laying down my palette and brushes, and applauding heartily upon his conclusion, saying, at the same time, half in earnest, that I was not sure but that he had made a mistake in the choice of a profession, considerably, as may be imagined, to his amusement. Mr. Sinclair has since repeatedly said to me that he never heard these choice passages of Shakspeare rendered with more effect by the most famous of modern actors."Lincoln's sense of the classic phrase seems to have been native with him, for we find it in his earliest utterances. Such a phrase appears in homely proverbial form in his first speech: "My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance." Impaired in rhythm of thought and sound by an awkward, though logical, parenthetical expression, another phrase stands out in a "spread-eagle" passage from his first formal address, that on "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.""All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of earth (our own excepted) in its military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by forcetake a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridgein a trial of a thousand years."And in a eulogy on Washington, Lincoln early achieved a line which in phonetic quality, rhetorical figure and rhythmic cadence is pure poetry, though not of an exceptional order."In solemn awe we pronounce the name, and in its naked deathless splendor leave it shining on."In an article entitled "Lincoln's Literary Experiments," by John G. Nicolay, one of Lincoln's two private secretaries, which was published in the Century Magazine for April, 1894, are reproduced Lincoln's notes of one lyceum lecture on "Niagara Falls," andtopthe text of another on "Discoveries, Inventions and Improvements." These, however, detract, if anything, from Lincoln's reputation as a writer, for in choice of subjects and in style of treatment there is seen an almost discreditable stooping of a man of genius, even in his function of teacher, to the low popular taste of the West at the time. In the first lecture Lincoln presented the statistics of the water power of Niagara Falls for each minute, and led his hearers from this base to the "contemplation of the vast power the sun is constantly exerting in the quiet noiseless operation of lifting water up to be rained down again." Yet at this point he stopped short of his duty as an educator, for he made no suggestion as to the utilization of this power. He was satisfied with giving the people what they had come for—the pleasant excitation of a mental faculty, that of the imagination in its primary form of wonder at the grandeur of the material universe. In short, he was acting as a mere entertainer—as so many of our public men do now at "Chautauquas."In the second lecture heperformed this function in a still morediscreditable manner, by catering to the unworthy demand of his hearers for obvious and familiar humorous conceptions to grasp which would cause them no mental exertion. Thus, in speaking of the inventions of the locomotive and telegraph, already old enough for the first inevitable similitudes and jocose remarks about them to be current, he said:"The iron horse is panting and impatient to carry him (man) everywhere in no time; and the lightning stands ready harnessed to take and bring his tidings in a trifle less than no time."This reveals Lincoln's taste for the characteristic American humor of exaggeration, which was later to afford him relief from the stress and strain of his duties as President in the works of "Petroleum V. Nasby" and "Artemus Ward," writers, however, with a quaint originality which lifted them and their admirers above the plane of humorous composition and appreciation of the preceding decade. Indeed, Lincoln developed his own power of witty expression to a degree excelling that of the writers he admired, and in quality of product, if not in quantity (for the greater part of thetop"funny stories" attributed to him, thank heaven, are apocryphal) he stands in the front rank of the American humorists of his generation.And as the poet and the wit are near akin through this common appeal to the imagination, Lincoln, had he overcome the obsession of melancholy in his nature which was the mood in which he resorted to poetry, and which early limited his taste for it to verse of a sad and reflective kind, might have become a literary craftsman of the order of Holmes, whose poetry in the main was bright and joyous, and, even when he occasionally touched upon such subjects as death, was, as we have seen, informed with inspiring Hellenic beauty rather than depressing Hebraic moralization. It was in his sad moments, says Henry C. Whitney, that the mind of Lincoln "gravitated toward the weird, sombre and mystical. In his normal and tranquil state of mind, 'The Last Leaf,' by Oliver Wendell Holmes, was his favorite" (poem). It was Lincoln's happy lot to rise in the realm of oratory by the power of his poetic spirit higher than any American, save probably Emerson, has done in other fields of literature. On the theme of slavery, where his unerring moral sense had free sway, he became our supreme orator, transcending even Webster in grandeur of thought and beauty of its expression. His periods are not as sonorous as the Olympian New England orator's, but their accents will reach as far and resound even longer by the carrying and sustaining power of the ideas which they express. Indeed, it is on the wings supplied by Lincoln that Webster's most significant conception, that of the nature of the Constitution, is even now borne along, because of the uplifting ideality which Lincoln gave it by more broadly applying it to the nation itself as an examplar and preserver to the world of ideal government.Webster said: "It is, sir, the people's Constitution, the people's Government; made for the people; made by the people; and answerable to the people."This he made the thesis for an argument which was to be followed by a magnificent peroration ending with a sentiment, calculated for use as a toast at political banquets, and as a patriotic slogan: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"topLincoln with purer taste, the expression of which, be it said to Webster's credit, had been made possible by the acceptance of the earlier statesman's contention, assumed the thesis as placed beyond all controversy, and, making it the exhortation of his speech, gave to it the character of a sacred adjuration: "That we here highly resolve … that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."Another example of Lincoln's ability to improve the composition of another writer is the closing paragraph of his first inaugural address. The President-elect had submitted the manuscript of this most important speech, which would be universally scrutinized to find what policy he would adopt toward the seceded States, to Seward, his chosen Secretary of State, for criticism and suggestion. Mr. Seward approved the argument, but advised the addition of a closing paragraph "to meet and remove prejudice and passion in the South; and despondency in the East." He submitted two paragraphs of his own as alternative models. The second was in that poetic vein which occasionally cropped out in Seward's speeches, and over which Lincoln on better acquaintance was wont good-naturedly to rally him. It is evidence of Lincoln's predilection for poetic language, at least at the close of a speech, that he adopted the latter paragraph. It ran:"I close. We are not, we must not be, aliens or enemies, but fellow-countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, I am sure they will not, be broken. The mystic chords which, proceeding from so many battlefields and so many patriot graves, pass through all the hearts and all hearths in this broad continent of ours, will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation."Lincoln, by deft touches which reveal a literary taste beyond that of any statesman of his time, indeed beyond that which he himself had yet exhibited, transformed this passage into his peroration. His emendations were largely in the way of excision of unnecessary phrases, resolution of sentences broken in constructiontopinto several shorter, more direct ones, and change of general and vague terms in rhetorical figure to concrete and picturesque words. He wrote:"I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."More than the persuasive argument and gentle yet determined spirit of the address, it was the chaste beauty and tender feeling of these closing words which convinced the people that Lincoln measured up to the high mental and moral stature demanded of one who was to be their leader through the most critical period that had arisen in the life of the nation.The second inaugural address, coming so shortly before the President's death, formed unintentionally his farewell address. It has the spirit and tone of prophecy. The Bible, in thought and expression, was its inspiration. The first two of its three paragraphs ring like a chapter from Isaiah, chief of the poet seers of old. The concluding paragraph is an apostolic benediction such as Paul or John might have delivered."With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."top

LINCOLNFrom a bust by Johannes Gelert

top

ByMarion Mills Miller

(Seebiographical sketchon page 146)

Someyears ago, while editing Henry C. Whitney's "Life of Lincoln" I showed a photograph of the bust of Lincoln by Johannes Gelert, the most intellectual to my mind of all the studies of his face, to a little Italian shoeblack, and asked him if he knew who it was. The boy, evidently prompted by a recent lesson at school, said questioningly, "Whittier?—Longfellow?" I replied, "No, it is Lincoln, the great President." He answered, "Well, he looks like a poet, anyway."

This verified a conclusion to which I had already come: Lincoln, had he lived in a region of greater culture, such as New England, might not have adopted the engrossing pursuits of law and politics, but, as did Whittier, have remained longer on the farm and gradually taken up the calling of letters, composing verse of much the same order as our Yankee bards', and poetry of even higher merit than some produced.

It is not generally known that Lincoln, shortly before he went to Congress, wrote verse of a kind to compare favorably with the early attempts of American poets such as those named. Thus the two poems of his which have been preserved, for his early lampoons on his neighbors have happily been lost, are equal in poetic spirit and metrical art to Whittier's "The Prisoner for Debt," to which they are strikingly similar in melancholic mood.

In 1846, at the age of 37, Lincoln conducted a literary correspondence with a friend,William Johnson by name, of like poetic tastes. In April of this year he wrote the following letter to Johnson:

topTremont, April 18, 1846.FRIEND JOHNSTON:Your letter, written some six weeks since, was received in due course, and also the paper with the parody. It is true, as suggested it might be, that I have never seen Poe's "Raven"; and I very well know that a parody is almost entirely dependent for its interest upon the reader's acquaintance with the original. Still there is enough in the polecat, self-considered, to afford one several hearty laughs. I think four or five of the last stanzas are decidedly funny, particularly where Jeremiah "scrubbed and washed, and prayed and fasted."I have not your letter now before me; but, from memory, I think you ask me who is the author of the piece I sent you, and that you do so ask as to indicate a slight suspicion that I myself am the author. Beyond all question, I am not the author. I would give all I am worth, and go in debt, to be able to write so fine a piece as I think that is. Neither do I know who is the author. I met it in a straggling form in a newspaper last summer, and I remember to have seen it once before, about fifteen years ago, and this is all I know about it.The piece of poetry of my own which I alluded to, I was led to write under the following circumstances. In the fall of 1844, thinking I might aid some to carry the State of Indiana for Mr. Clay, I went into the neighborhood in that State in which I was raised, where my mother and only sister were buried, and from which I had been absent about fifteen years.That part of the country is, within itself, as unpoetical as any spot of the earth; but still, seeing it and its objects and inhabitants aroused feelings in me which were certainly poetry; though whether my expression of those feelings is poetry is quite another question. When I got to writing, the change of subject divided the thing into four little divisions or cantos, the first only of which I send you now, and may send the others hereafter.Yours truly,A. LINCOLN.My childhood's home I see again,And sadden with the view;And still, as memory crowds my brain,There's pleasure in it too.O Memory! thou midway world'Twixt earth and paradise,Where things decayed and loved ones lostIn dreamy shadows rise,topAnd, freed from all that's earthly vile,Seem hallowed, pure and bright,Like scenes in some enchanted isleAll bathed in liquid light.As dusky mountains please the eyeWhen twilight chases day;As bugle-notes that, passing by,In distance die away;As leaving some grand waterfall,We, lingering, list itsroar—So memory will hallow allWe've known but know no more.Near twenty years have passed awaySince here I bid farewellTo woods and fields, and scenes of play,And playmates loved so well.Where many were, but few remainOf old familiar things;But seeing them to mind againThe lost and absent brings.The friends I left that parting day,How changed, as time has sped!Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray;And half of all are dead.I hear the loved survivors tellHow nought from death could save,Till every sound appears a knell,And every spot a grave.I range the fields with pensive tread,And pace the hollow rooms,And feel (companion of the dead)I'm living in the tombs.

top

Tremont, April 18, 1846.

FRIEND JOHNSTON:Your letter, written some six weeks since, was received in due course, and also the paper with the parody. It is true, as suggested it might be, that I have never seen Poe's "Raven"; and I very well know that a parody is almost entirely dependent for its interest upon the reader's acquaintance with the original. Still there is enough in the polecat, self-considered, to afford one several hearty laughs. I think four or five of the last stanzas are decidedly funny, particularly where Jeremiah "scrubbed and washed, and prayed and fasted."

I have not your letter now before me; but, from memory, I think you ask me who is the author of the piece I sent you, and that you do so ask as to indicate a slight suspicion that I myself am the author. Beyond all question, I am not the author. I would give all I am worth, and go in debt, to be able to write so fine a piece as I think that is. Neither do I know who is the author. I met it in a straggling form in a newspaper last summer, and I remember to have seen it once before, about fifteen years ago, and this is all I know about it.

The piece of poetry of my own which I alluded to, I was led to write under the following circumstances. In the fall of 1844, thinking I might aid some to carry the State of Indiana for Mr. Clay, I went into the neighborhood in that State in which I was raised, where my mother and only sister were buried, and from which I had been absent about fifteen years.

That part of the country is, within itself, as unpoetical as any spot of the earth; but still, seeing it and its objects and inhabitants aroused feelings in me which were certainly poetry; though whether my expression of those feelings is poetry is quite another question. When I got to writing, the change of subject divided the thing into four little divisions or cantos, the first only of which I send you now, and may send the others hereafter.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

My childhood's home I see again,And sadden with the view;And still, as memory crowds my brain,There's pleasure in it too.

My childhood's home I see again,

And sadden with the view;

And still, as memory crowds my brain,

There's pleasure in it too.

O Memory! thou midway world'Twixt earth and paradise,Where things decayed and loved ones lostIn dreamy shadows rise,

O Memory! thou midway world

'Twixt earth and paradise,

Where things decayed and loved ones lost

In dreamy shadows rise,

topAnd, freed from all that's earthly vile,Seem hallowed, pure and bright,Like scenes in some enchanted isleAll bathed in liquid light.

And, freed from all that's earthly vile,

Seem hallowed, pure and bright,

Like scenes in some enchanted isle

All bathed in liquid light.

As dusky mountains please the eyeWhen twilight chases day;As bugle-notes that, passing by,In distance die away;

As dusky mountains please the eye

When twilight chases day;

As bugle-notes that, passing by,

In distance die away;

As leaving some grand waterfall,We, lingering, list itsroar—So memory will hallow allWe've known but know no more.

As leaving some grand waterfall,

We, lingering, list itsroar—

So memory will hallow all

We've known but know no more.

Near twenty years have passed awaySince here I bid farewellTo woods and fields, and scenes of play,And playmates loved so well.

Near twenty years have passed away

Since here I bid farewell

To woods and fields, and scenes of play,

And playmates loved so well.

Where many were, but few remainOf old familiar things;But seeing them to mind againThe lost and absent brings.

Where many were, but few remain

Of old familiar things;

But seeing them to mind again

The lost and absent brings.

The friends I left that parting day,How changed, as time has sped!Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray;And half of all are dead.

The friends I left that parting day,

How changed, as time has sped!

Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray;

And half of all are dead.

I hear the loved survivors tellHow nought from death could save,Till every sound appears a knell,And every spot a grave.

I hear the loved survivors tell

How nought from death could save,

Till every sound appears a knell,

And every spot a grave.

I range the fields with pensive tread,And pace the hollow rooms,And feel (companion of the dead)I'm living in the tombs.

I range the fields with pensive tread,

And pace the hollow rooms,

And feel (companion of the dead)

I'm living in the tombs.

In September he wrote the following letter:

Springfield, September 6, 1846.FRIEND JOHNSTON:You remember when I wrote you from Tremont last spring, sending you a little canto of what I called poetry, I promised to bore you with another some time. I now fulfil the promise. The subject of the present one is an insane man; his name is Matthew Gentry. He is three years older than I, and when we were boys we went to school together. He was rather a bright lad, and the son of the rich man of a verytoppoor neighborhood. At the age of nineteen he unaccountably became furiously mad, from which condition he gradually settled down into harmless insanity. When, as I told you in my other letter, I visited my old home in the fall of 1844, I found him still lingering in this wretched condition. In my poetizing mood, I could not forget the impression his case made upon me. Here is the result:But here's an object more of dreadThan aught the gravecontains—A human form with reason fled,While wretched life remains.When terror spread, and neighbors ranYour dangerous strength to bind,And soon, a howling, crazy man,Your limbs were fast confined;How then you strove and shrieked aloud,Your bones and sinews bared;And fiendish on the gazing crowdWith burning eyeballs glared;And begged and swore, and wept and prayed,With maniac laughter joined;How fearful were these signs displayedBy pangs that killed the mind!And when at length the drear and longTime soothed thy fiercer woes,How plaintively thy mournful songUpon the still night rose!I've heard it oft as if I dreamed,Far distant, sweet and lone,The funeral dirge it ever seemedOf reason dead and gone.To drink its strains I've stole away,All stealthily and still,Ere yet the rising god of dayHad streaked the eastern hill.Air held her breath; trees with the spellSeemed sorrowing angels round,Whose swelling tears in dewdrops fellUpon the listening ground.But this is past, and naught remainsThat raised thee o'er the brute:Thy piercing shrieks and soothing strainsAre like, forever mute.topNow fare thee well! More thou the causeThan subject now of woe.All mental pangs by time's kind lawsHast lost the power to know.O death! thou awe-inspiring princeThat keepst the world in fear,Why dost thou tear more blest ones hence,And leave him lingering here?If I should ever send another, the subject will be a "Bear Hunt."Yours as ever,A. LINCOLN.

Springfield, September 6, 1846.

FRIEND JOHNSTON:You remember when I wrote you from Tremont last spring, sending you a little canto of what I called poetry, I promised to bore you with another some time. I now fulfil the promise. The subject of the present one is an insane man; his name is Matthew Gentry. He is three years older than I, and when we were boys we went to school together. He was rather a bright lad, and the son of the rich man of a verytoppoor neighborhood. At the age of nineteen he unaccountably became furiously mad, from which condition he gradually settled down into harmless insanity. When, as I told you in my other letter, I visited my old home in the fall of 1844, I found him still lingering in this wretched condition. In my poetizing mood, I could not forget the impression his case made upon me. Here is the result:

But here's an object more of dreadThan aught the gravecontains—A human form with reason fled,While wretched life remains.

But here's an object more of dread

Than aught the gravecontains—

A human form with reason fled,

While wretched life remains.

When terror spread, and neighbors ranYour dangerous strength to bind,And soon, a howling, crazy man,Your limbs were fast confined;

When terror spread, and neighbors ran

Your dangerous strength to bind,

And soon, a howling, crazy man,

Your limbs were fast confined;

How then you strove and shrieked aloud,Your bones and sinews bared;And fiendish on the gazing crowdWith burning eyeballs glared;

How then you strove and shrieked aloud,

Your bones and sinews bared;

And fiendish on the gazing crowd

With burning eyeballs glared;

And begged and swore, and wept and prayed,With maniac laughter joined;How fearful were these signs displayedBy pangs that killed the mind!

And begged and swore, and wept and prayed,

With maniac laughter joined;

How fearful were these signs displayed

By pangs that killed the mind!

And when at length the drear and longTime soothed thy fiercer woes,How plaintively thy mournful songUpon the still night rose!

And when at length the drear and long

Time soothed thy fiercer woes,

How plaintively thy mournful song

Upon the still night rose!

I've heard it oft as if I dreamed,Far distant, sweet and lone,The funeral dirge it ever seemedOf reason dead and gone.

I've heard it oft as if I dreamed,

Far distant, sweet and lone,

The funeral dirge it ever seemed

Of reason dead and gone.

To drink its strains I've stole away,All stealthily and still,Ere yet the rising god of dayHad streaked the eastern hill.

To drink its strains I've stole away,

All stealthily and still,

Ere yet the rising god of day

Had streaked the eastern hill.

Air held her breath; trees with the spellSeemed sorrowing angels round,Whose swelling tears in dewdrops fellUpon the listening ground.

Air held her breath; trees with the spell

Seemed sorrowing angels round,

Whose swelling tears in dewdrops fell

Upon the listening ground.

But this is past, and naught remainsThat raised thee o'er the brute:Thy piercing shrieks and soothing strainsAre like, forever mute.top

But this is past, and naught remains

That raised thee o'er the brute:

Thy piercing shrieks and soothing strains

Are like, forever mute.

top

Now fare thee well! More thou the causeThan subject now of woe.All mental pangs by time's kind lawsHast lost the power to know.

Now fare thee well! More thou the cause

Than subject now of woe.

All mental pangs by time's kind laws

Hast lost the power to know.

O death! thou awe-inspiring princeThat keepst the world in fear,Why dost thou tear more blest ones hence,And leave him lingering here?

O death! thou awe-inspiring prince

That keepst the world in fear,

Why dost thou tear more blest ones hence,

And leave him lingering here?

If I should ever send another, the subject will be a "Bear Hunt."

Yours as ever,

A. LINCOLN.

The poem alluded to in the first letter is undoubtedly "Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal BeProud?",by William Knox, a Scottish poet, known to fame only by its authorship. It remained the favorite of Lincoln until his death, being frequently alluded to by him in conversation with his friends. Because it so aptly presents Lincoln's own spirit it is here presented in full. During his Presidency he said:

"There is a poem which has been a great favorite with me for years, which was first shown me when a young man by a friend, and which I afterwards saw and cut from a newspaper and learned by heart. I would give a good deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain."

"There is a poem which has been a great favorite with me for years, which was first shown me when a young man by a friend, and which I afterwards saw and cut from a newspaper and learned by heart. I would give a good deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain."

Then, half closing his eyes, he repeated the verses:

ByWilliam Knox.

William Knox was born at Firth, in the parish of Lilliesleaf, in the county of Roxburghshire, on the 17th of August, 1789. From his early youth he composed verses. He merited the attention of Sir Walter Scott, who afforded him pecuniary assistance. He died November 12, 1825, at the age of thirty-six.Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?Like a swift-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,The flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,He passes from life to his rest in the grave.The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,Be scattered around and together be laid;And the young and the old, and the low and the highShall molder to dust and together shall lie.topThe infant a mother attended and loved,The mother that infant's affection who proved,The husband that mother and infant who blest,Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,Shone beauty and pleasure, her triumphs are by;And the mem'ry of those who loved her and praisedAre alike from the minds of the living erased.The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne,The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn,The eye of the sage and the heart of the braveAre hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep,The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,Have faded away like the grass that we tread.The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven,The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.So the multitude goes like the flower or the weedThat withers away to let others succeed,So the multitude comes, even those we behold,To repeat every tale that has often been told.For we are the same that our fathers have been;We see the same sights our fathers have seen;We drink the same streams, and view the same sun,And run the same course our fathers have run.The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think,From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;To the life we are clinging they also would cling,But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come;They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.They died, ay, they died. We things that are now,That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,And make in their dwellings a transient abode,Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,Are mingled together in sunshine and rain:And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,Still follow each other like surge upon surge.top'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,From the gilded salon to the bier and theshroud,—Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

William Knox was born at Firth, in the parish of Lilliesleaf, in the county of Roxburghshire, on the 17th of August, 1789. From his early youth he composed verses. He merited the attention of Sir Walter Scott, who afforded him pecuniary assistance. He died November 12, 1825, at the age of thirty-six.

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?Like a swift-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,The flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Like a swift-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,

The flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,

He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,Be scattered around and together be laid;And the young and the old, and the low and the highShall molder to dust and together shall lie.top

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,

Be scattered around and together be laid;

And the young and the old, and the low and the high

Shall molder to dust and together shall lie.

The infant a mother attended and loved,The mother that infant's affection who proved,The husband that mother and infant who blest,Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

The infant a mother attended and loved,

The mother that infant's affection who proved,

The husband that mother and infant who blest,

Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,Shone beauty and pleasure, her triumphs are by;And the mem'ry of those who loved her and praisedAre alike from the minds of the living erased.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,

Shone beauty and pleasure, her triumphs are by;

And the mem'ry of those who loved her and praised

Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne,The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn,The eye of the sage and the heart of the braveAre hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne,

The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn,

The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave

Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep,The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,

The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep,

The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,

Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven,The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven,

The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,

The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,

Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes like the flower or the weedThat withers away to let others succeed,So the multitude comes, even those we behold,To repeat every tale that has often been told.

So the multitude goes like the flower or the weed

That withers away to let others succeed,

So the multitude comes, even those we behold,

To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same that our fathers have been;We see the same sights our fathers have seen;We drink the same streams, and view the same sun,And run the same course our fathers have run.

For we are the same that our fathers have been;

We see the same sights our fathers have seen;

We drink the same streams, and view the same sun,

And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think,From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;To the life we are clinging they also would cling,But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think,

From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;

To the life we are clinging they also would cling,

But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come;They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;

They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;

They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come;

They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died, ay, they died. We things that are now,That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,And make in their dwellings a transient abode,Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

They died, ay, they died. We things that are now,

That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,

And make in their dwellings a transient abode,

Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,Are mingled together in sunshine and rain:And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,Still follow each other like surge upon surge.top

Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,

Are mingled together in sunshine and rain:

And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,

Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,From the gilded salon to the bier and theshroud,—Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,

From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,

From the gilded salon to the bier and theshroud,—

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

"The Last Leaf," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, was also a favorite poem of Lincoln, says Henry C. Whitney, his friend and biographer (in his "Life of Lincoln," Vol. I, page 238):

"Over and over again I have heard him repeat:

The mossy marbles restOn the lips that he has prestIn their bloom;And the names he loved to hearHave been carved for many a yearOn the tomb.

The mossy marbles restOn the lips that he has prestIn their bloom;And the names he loved to hearHave been carved for many a yearOn the tomb.

The mossy marbles rest

On the lips that he has prest

In their bloom;

And the names he loved to hear

Have been carved for many a year

On the tomb.

and tears would come unbidden to his eyes, probably at thought of the grave (his mother's) at Gentryville, or that in the bend of the Sangamo" (of Ann Rutledge, his first love, who died shortly before the time set for their wedding, and whose memory Lincoln ever kept sacred).

While Lincoln, so far as can be ascertained, wrote nothing in verse after 1846, he developed in his speeches a literary style which is poetical in the highest sense of that term. More than all American statesmen his utterances and writings possess that classic quality whose supreme expression is found in Greek literature. This is because Lincoln had an essentially Hellenic mind. First of all the architecture of his thought was that of the Greek masters, who, whether as Phidias they built the Parthenon to crown with harmonious beauty the Acropolis, or as Homer they recorded in swelling narrative from its dramatic beginning the strife of the Achaeans before Troy, or even as Euclid, they developed from postulates the relations of space, had a deep insight into the order in which mother nature was striving to express herself, and a reverent impulse to aid her in bodying forth according to her methods the ideal forms of the cosmos, the world of beauty, no less within the soul of man than without it, which was intended by such help to be realized as a whole in the infinity of time, and in part in the visiontopof every true workman. In short, Lincoln had a profound sense of the fitness of things, that which Aristotle, the scientific analyst of human thought and the philosopher of its proper expression, called "poetic justice." He strove to make his reasoning processes strictly logical, and to this end carried with him as he rode the legal circuit not law-books, but a copy of Euclid's geometry, and passed his time on the way demonstrating to his drivers the theorems therein proposed. "Demonstrate" he said he considered to be the greatest word in the English language. He constructed every one of his later speeches on the plan of a Euclidean solution. His Cooper Union speech on "Slavery as the Fathers Viewed It," which contributed so largely to his Presidential nomination, was such a demonstration, settling what was thereafter never attempted to be controverted: his contention that the makers of the Constitution merely tolerated property in human flesh and blood as a primitive and passing phase of civilization, and never intended that it should be perpetuated by the charter of the Republic.

So, too, the Gettysburg speech, brief as it is, is the statement of a thesis, the principles upon which the Fathers founded the nation, and of the heroic demonstration of the same by the soldiers fallen on the field, and the addition of a moral corollary of this, the high resolve of the living to prosecute the work until the vision of the Fathers was realized.

In substance of thought and in form of its presentation the speech is as perfect a poem as ever was written, and even in the minor qualities of artistic language—rhythm and cadence, phonetic euphony, rhetorical symbolism, and that subtle reminiscence of a great literary and spiritual inheritance, the Bible, which stands to us as Homer did to the ancients—it excels the finest gem to be found in poetic cabinets from the Greek Anthology downward. Only because it was not written in the typography of verse, with capitalized and paragraphed initial words at the beginning of each thought-group of words, has it failed of recognition as a poem by academic minds. Had Walt Whitman composed the address, and printed it in the above manner, it would now appear in every anthology of poetry publishedtopsince its date. To convince of this those conventional people who must have an ocular demonstration of form in order to compare the address with accepted examples of poetry, I will dare to incur the condemnation of those who rightly look upon such a departure from Lincoln's own manner of writing the speech as profanation, and present it in the shape ofvers libre.For the latter class of readers this, the greatest poem by Lincoln, the greatest, indeed, yet produced in America, may be preferably read in the original form onpage 100of this collection. I trust that these, especially if they are teachers of literature, will pardon, for the sake of others less cultivated in poetic taste, what may appear a duplication here, unnecessary to themselves, of the address.

ByAbraham Lincoln

Four score and seven years agoOur fathers brought forth on this continentA new nation,Conceived in liberty,And dedicated to the propositionThat all men are created equal.

Four score and seven years ago

Our fathers brought forth on this continent

A new nation,

Conceived in liberty,

And dedicated to the proposition

That all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war,Testing whether that nation,Or any nation so conceived and so dedicated,Can long endure.We are met on a great battle-field of that war.We have come to dedicate a portion of that fieldAs a final resting-placeFor those who here gave their livesThat that nation might live.It is altogether fitting and properThat we should do this.But, in a larger sense,We cannotdedicate—We cannotconsecrate—We cannothallow—This ground.The brave men, living and dead,Who struggled here,Have consecrated it far above our poor powerTo add or detract.The world will little note nor long rememberWhat we say here,topBut it can never forgetWhat they did here.It is for us, the living, rather,To be dedicated here to the unfinished workWhich they who fought here have so nobly advanced.It is rather for us to be here dedicatedTo the great task remaining beforeus—That from these honored deadWe take increased devotion to that causeFor which they gave the last full measure of devotion;That we here highly resolveThat these dead shall not have died in vain;That this nation, under God,Shall have a new birth of freedom;And that government of the people,By the people, and for the peopleShall not perish from the earth.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war,

Testing whether that nation,

Or any nation so conceived and so dedicated,

Can long endure.

We are met on a great battle-field of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field

As a final resting-place

For those who here gave their lives

That that nation might live.

It is altogether fitting and proper

That we should do this.

But, in a larger sense,

We cannotdedicate—

We cannotconsecrate—

We cannothallow—

This ground.

The brave men, living and dead,

Who struggled here,

Have consecrated it far above our poor power

To add or detract.

The world will little note nor long remember

What we say here,

But it can never forget

What they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather,

To be dedicated here to the unfinished work

Which they who fought here have so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated

To the great task remaining beforeus—

That from these honored dead

We take increased devotion to that cause

For which they gave the last full measure of devotion;

That we here highly resolve

That these dead shall not have died in vain;

That this nation, under God,

Shall have a new birth of freedom;

And that government of the people,

By the people, and for the people

Shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln attained this classic perfection of ordered thought, and with it, as an inevitable accompaniment this classic beauty of expression, only by great struggle. He became a poet of the first rank only by virtue of his moral spirit. He was continually correcting deficiencies in his character, which were far greater than is generally received, owing to the tendency of American historians of the tribe of Parson Weems to find by force illustrations of moral heroism in the youth of our great men. Thus Lincoln is represented as a noble lad, who, having allowed a borrowed book to be ruined by rain, went to the owner and offered to "pull fodder" to repay him, which the man ungenerously permitted him to do. The truth is, that the neighbor, to whom the book was a cherished possession, required him to do the work in repayment, and that Lincoln not only did it grudgingly, but afterwards lampooned the man so severely in satiric verse that he was ashamed to show himself at neighborhood gatherings. All the people about Gentryville feared Lincoln's caustic wit, and disliked him for it, although they were greatly impressed with his ability exhibited thereby. Lincoln recognized his moral obliquity, and curbed his propensity for satire, which was a case of that "exercise of natural faculty" which affects all gifted persons. And when he left that region he visited all the neighbors, and asked pardon of those whom he had ridiculed. The true Lincoln is a far better example to boys than thetopfictitious one, in that he had more unlovely traits at first than the average lad, yet he reformed, with the result that, when he went to new scenes, he speedily became the most popular young man in the neighborhood. He was one of those who

"rise on stepping stonesOf their dead selves to higher things."

"rise on stepping stonesOf their dead selves to higher things."

"rise on stepping stones

Of their dead selves to higher things."

The reformation of his character by self examination and determination not to make the same mistake again seems to have induced similar effects and methods for their attainment in the case of his intellectual development. Whatever the connection, both regenerations proceeded apace. Lincoln at first was a shallow thinker, accepting without examination the views of others, especially popular statesmen, such as Henry Clay, whose magnetic personality was drawing to himself the high-spirited young men of the West. Some of the political doctrines which Lincoln then adopted he retained to the end, these being on subjects such as taxation and finance whose moral bearing was not apparent, and therefore into which he never inquired closely, for Lincoln's mind could not be profoundly interested in any save a moral question. When he found that a revered statesman was weak upon a crucial moral issue, he repressed his innate tendency to loyalty and rejected him. Thus, after a visit to Henry Clay in Kentucky, when the slavery question was arising to vex the country despite the efforts the aged statesman had made to settle it by the compromise of 1850, Lincoln returned disillusioned, having found that the light he himself possessed on the subject was clearer than that of his old leader. The eulogy which he delivered on the death of Clay, which occurred shortly afterward (in 1852), is the most perfunctory of all his addresses.

Indeed, not till the time of the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1854, which brought Lincoln back into politics by its overthrow of what he regarded as the constitutional exclusion of slavery from the Territories, did he rise to his highest powers as a thinker and speaker. Lincoln had been defeated for reelection totopCongress because of his opposition, though not highly moral in character, to the popular Mexican war, and, regarding himself as a political failure, he had devoted himself to law. His most notable speech in the House of Representatives, a well composed satirical arraignment of President Polk for throwing the country into war, had failed utterly of its intended effect, probably because of its trimming partisan tone. In 1854 he was relieved of the trammels of party, the Whigs having gone to smash. Anti-slavery had become a great moral movement, and he was drawn into its current. Almost at once he became its Western leader. His speech against the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise which had been effected by his inveterate antagonist, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, was his first classic achievement in argumentative oratory. While in the greater aspect of artistic composition, the form of the address as a whole, his master was Euclid, in minor points the influence of Shakespeare, of whom Lincoln had become a great reader, was apparent, as indicated by a quotation from the dramatist, and an application to Senator Douglas of the scene of Lady Macbeth trying to wash out the indelible stain upon her hand. Also the Bible was the source of strong and telling phrases and figures of speech. Thus he denominated slavery as "the great Behemoth of danger," and asked, "shall the strong grip of the nation be loosened upon him, to intrust him to the hands of his feeble keepers?"

And, in the following passage, characteristic of the new Lincoln, I think that either Shakespeare and the Bible had combined to inspire him with graphic description of character and moral indignation, or they enforced these native powers.

"Again, you have among you a sneaking individual of the class of native tyrants known as the 'Slave-Dealer'. He watches your necessities, and crawls up to buy your slave at a speculative price. If you cannot help it, you sell to him; but if you can help it, you drive him from your door. You despise him utterly. You do not recognize him as a friend, or even as an honest man. Your children must not play with his; they may rollick freely with the little negroes, but nottopwith the slave-dealer's children. If you are obliged to deal with him you try to get through the job without so much as touching him. It is common with you to join hands with the men you meet, but with the slave-dealer you avoid the ceremony—instinctively shrinking from the snaky contact."

Of Lincoln's critical appreciation of Shakespeare Frank B. Carpenter, the artist of the "First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation" (see illustration onpage 206), writes in his "Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln" as follows:

"Presently the conversation turned upon Shakspeare, of whom it is well known Mr. Lincoln was very fond. He once remarked, 'It matters not to me whether Shakspeare be well or ill acted; with him the thought suffices.' Edwin Booth was playing an engagement at this time at Grover's Theatre. He had been announced for the coming evening in his famous part ofHamlet.The President had never witnessed his representation of this character, and he proposed being present. The mention of this play, which I afterward learned had at all times a peculiar charm for Mr. Lincoln's mind, waked up a train of thought I was not prepared for. Said he,—and his words have often returned to me with a sad interest since his own assassination,—'There is one passage of the play of "Hamlet" which is very apt to be slurred over by the actor, or omitted altogether, which seems to me the choicest part of the play. It is the soliloquy of the King, after the murder. It always struck me as one of the finest touches of nature in the world.'

"Then, throwing himself into the very spirit of the scene, he took up thewords:—

"'O my offence is rank,it smells to heaven;It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,A brother's murder!—Pray can I not,Though inclination be as sharp as will;My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;And, like a man to double business bound,I stand in pause where I shall first begin,And both neglect. What if this cursed handWere thicker than itself with brother's blood?Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavensTo wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercytopBut to confront the visage of offence;And what's in prayer but this twofoldforce—To be forestalled ere we come to fall,Or pardoned, being down? Then I'll look up;My fault is past. But O what form of prayerCan serve my turn? Forgive me my foulmurder?—That cannot be; since I am still possessedOf those effects for which I did themurder,—My crown, my own ambition, and my queen.May one be pardoned and retain the offence?In the corrupted currents of this world,Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itselfBuys out the law; but 'tis not soabove.There is no shuffling; there the action liesIn its true nature; and we ourselves compelled,Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,To give in evidence. What then? What rests?Try what repentance can; what can it not?Yet what can it when one cannot repent?O wretched state! O bosom black as death!O bruised soul that, struggling to be free,Art more engaged! Help, angels, make assay!Bow, stubborn knees! And heart with strings of steel,Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe;All may be well!'

"'O my offence is rank,it smells to heaven;It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,A brother's murder!—Pray can I not,Though inclination be as sharp as will;My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;And, like a man to double business bound,I stand in pause where I shall first begin,And both neglect. What if this cursed handWere thicker than itself with brother's blood?Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavensTo wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercytopBut to confront the visage of offence;And what's in prayer but this twofoldforce—To be forestalled ere we come to fall,Or pardoned, being down? Then I'll look up;My fault is past. But O what form of prayerCan serve my turn? Forgive me my foulmurder?—That cannot be; since I am still possessedOf those effects for which I did themurder,—My crown, my own ambition, and my queen.May one be pardoned and retain the offence?In the corrupted currents of this world,Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itselfBuys out the law; but 'tis not soabove.There is no shuffling; there the action liesIn its true nature; and we ourselves compelled,Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,To give in evidence. What then? What rests?Try what repentance can; what can it not?Yet what can it when one cannot repent?O wretched state! O bosom black as death!O bruised soul that, struggling to be free,Art more engaged! Help, angels, make assay!Bow, stubborn knees! And heart with strings of steel,Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe;All may be well!'

"'O my offence is rank,it smells to heaven;

It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,

A brother's murder!—Pray can I not,

Though inclination be as sharp as will;

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;

And, like a man to double business bound,

I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

And both neglect. What if this cursed hand

Were thicker than itself with brother's blood?

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens

To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy

But to confront the visage of offence;

And what's in prayer but this twofoldforce—

To be forestalled ere we come to fall,

Or pardoned, being down? Then I'll look up;

My fault is past. But O what form of prayer

Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foulmurder?—

That cannot be; since I am still possessed

Of those effects for which I did themurder,—

My crown, my own ambition, and my queen.

May one be pardoned and retain the offence?

In the corrupted currents of this world,

Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,

And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself

Buys out the law; but 'tis not soabove.

There is no shuffling; there the action lies

In its true nature; and we ourselves compelled,

Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,

To give in evidence. What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can; what can it not?

Yet what can it when one cannot repent?

O wretched state! O bosom black as death!

O bruised soul that, struggling to be free,

Art more engaged! Help, angels, make assay!

Bow, stubborn knees! And heart with strings of steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe;

All may be well!'

"He repeated this entire passage from memory, with a feeling and appreciation unsurpassed by anything I ever witnessed upon the stage. Remaining in thought for a few moments, hecontinued:—

"'The opening of the play of "King Richard the Third" seems to me often entirely misapprehended. It is quite common for an actor to come upon the stage, and, in a sophomoric style, to begin with aflourish:—

"'Now is the winter of our discontentMade glorious summer by this sun of York,And all the clouds that lowered upon our house,In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.'

"'Now is the winter of our discontentMade glorious summer by this sun of York,And all the clouds that lowered upon our house,In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.'

"'Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York,

And all the clouds that lowered upon our house,

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.'

"'Now,' said he, 'this is all wrong. Richard, you remember, had been, and was then plotting the destruction of his brothers, to make room for himself. Outwardly, the most loyal to the newly crowned king, secretly he could scarcely contain his impatience at the obstacles still in the way of his own elevation. He appears upon the stage, just after the crowning oftopEdward, burning with repressed hate and jealousy. The prologue is the utterance of the most intense bitterness and satire.' Then, unconsciously assuming the character, Mr. Lincoln repeated, also from memory, Richard's soliloquy, rendering it with a degree of force and power that made it seem like a new creation to me. Though familiar with the passage from boyhood, I can truly say that never till that moment had I fully appreciated its spirit. I could not refrain from laying down my palette and brushes, and applauding heartily upon his conclusion, saying, at the same time, half in earnest, that I was not sure but that he had made a mistake in the choice of a profession, considerably, as may be imagined, to his amusement. Mr. Sinclair has since repeatedly said to me that he never heard these choice passages of Shakspeare rendered with more effect by the most famous of modern actors."

Lincoln's sense of the classic phrase seems to have been native with him, for we find it in his earliest utterances. Such a phrase appears in homely proverbial form in his first speech: "My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance." Impaired in rhythm of thought and sound by an awkward, though logical, parenthetical expression, another phrase stands out in a "spread-eagle" passage from his first formal address, that on "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions."

"All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of earth (our own excepted) in its military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by forcetake a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridgein a trial of a thousand years."

And in a eulogy on Washington, Lincoln early achieved a line which in phonetic quality, rhetorical figure and rhythmic cadence is pure poetry, though not of an exceptional order.

"In solemn awe we pronounce the name, and in its naked deathless splendor leave it shining on."

In an article entitled "Lincoln's Literary Experiments," by John G. Nicolay, one of Lincoln's two private secretaries, which was published in the Century Magazine for April, 1894, are reproduced Lincoln's notes of one lyceum lecture on "Niagara Falls," andtopthe text of another on "Discoveries, Inventions and Improvements." These, however, detract, if anything, from Lincoln's reputation as a writer, for in choice of subjects and in style of treatment there is seen an almost discreditable stooping of a man of genius, even in his function of teacher, to the low popular taste of the West at the time. In the first lecture Lincoln presented the statistics of the water power of Niagara Falls for each minute, and led his hearers from this base to the "contemplation of the vast power the sun is constantly exerting in the quiet noiseless operation of lifting water up to be rained down again." Yet at this point he stopped short of his duty as an educator, for he made no suggestion as to the utilization of this power. He was satisfied with giving the people what they had come for—the pleasant excitation of a mental faculty, that of the imagination in its primary form of wonder at the grandeur of the material universe. In short, he was acting as a mere entertainer—as so many of our public men do now at "Chautauquas."

In the second lecture heperformed this function in a still morediscreditable manner, by catering to the unworthy demand of his hearers for obvious and familiar humorous conceptions to grasp which would cause them no mental exertion. Thus, in speaking of the inventions of the locomotive and telegraph, already old enough for the first inevitable similitudes and jocose remarks about them to be current, he said:

"The iron horse is panting and impatient to carry him (man) everywhere in no time; and the lightning stands ready harnessed to take and bring his tidings in a trifle less than no time."

This reveals Lincoln's taste for the characteristic American humor of exaggeration, which was later to afford him relief from the stress and strain of his duties as President in the works of "Petroleum V. Nasby" and "Artemus Ward," writers, however, with a quaint originality which lifted them and their admirers above the plane of humorous composition and appreciation of the preceding decade. Indeed, Lincoln developed his own power of witty expression to a degree excelling that of the writers he admired, and in quality of product, if not in quantity (for the greater part of thetop"funny stories" attributed to him, thank heaven, are apocryphal) he stands in the front rank of the American humorists of his generation.

And as the poet and the wit are near akin through this common appeal to the imagination, Lincoln, had he overcome the obsession of melancholy in his nature which was the mood in which he resorted to poetry, and which early limited his taste for it to verse of a sad and reflective kind, might have become a literary craftsman of the order of Holmes, whose poetry in the main was bright and joyous, and, even when he occasionally touched upon such subjects as death, was, as we have seen, informed with inspiring Hellenic beauty rather than depressing Hebraic moralization. It was in his sad moments, says Henry C. Whitney, that the mind of Lincoln "gravitated toward the weird, sombre and mystical. In his normal and tranquil state of mind, 'The Last Leaf,' by Oliver Wendell Holmes, was his favorite" (poem). It was Lincoln's happy lot to rise in the realm of oratory by the power of his poetic spirit higher than any American, save probably Emerson, has done in other fields of literature. On the theme of slavery, where his unerring moral sense had free sway, he became our supreme orator, transcending even Webster in grandeur of thought and beauty of its expression. His periods are not as sonorous as the Olympian New England orator's, but their accents will reach as far and resound even longer by the carrying and sustaining power of the ideas which they express. Indeed, it is on the wings supplied by Lincoln that Webster's most significant conception, that of the nature of the Constitution, is even now borne along, because of the uplifting ideality which Lincoln gave it by more broadly applying it to the nation itself as an examplar and preserver to the world of ideal government.

Webster said: "It is, sir, the people's Constitution, the people's Government; made for the people; made by the people; and answerable to the people."

This he made the thesis for an argument which was to be followed by a magnificent peroration ending with a sentiment, calculated for use as a toast at political banquets, and as a patriotic slogan: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"top

Lincoln with purer taste, the expression of which, be it said to Webster's credit, had been made possible by the acceptance of the earlier statesman's contention, assumed the thesis as placed beyond all controversy, and, making it the exhortation of his speech, gave to it the character of a sacred adjuration: "That we here highly resolve … that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Another example of Lincoln's ability to improve the composition of another writer is the closing paragraph of his first inaugural address. The President-elect had submitted the manuscript of this most important speech, which would be universally scrutinized to find what policy he would adopt toward the seceded States, to Seward, his chosen Secretary of State, for criticism and suggestion. Mr. Seward approved the argument, but advised the addition of a closing paragraph "to meet and remove prejudice and passion in the South; and despondency in the East." He submitted two paragraphs of his own as alternative models. The second was in that poetic vein which occasionally cropped out in Seward's speeches, and over which Lincoln on better acquaintance was wont good-naturedly to rally him. It is evidence of Lincoln's predilection for poetic language, at least at the close of a speech, that he adopted the latter paragraph. It ran:

"I close. We are not, we must not be, aliens or enemies, but fellow-countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, I am sure they will not, be broken. The mystic chords which, proceeding from so many battlefields and so many patriot graves, pass through all the hearts and all hearths in this broad continent of ours, will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation."

Lincoln, by deft touches which reveal a literary taste beyond that of any statesman of his time, indeed beyond that which he himself had yet exhibited, transformed this passage into his peroration. His emendations were largely in the way of excision of unnecessary phrases, resolution of sentences broken in constructiontopinto several shorter, more direct ones, and change of general and vague terms in rhetorical figure to concrete and picturesque words. He wrote:

"I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

More than the persuasive argument and gentle yet determined spirit of the address, it was the chaste beauty and tender feeling of these closing words which convinced the people that Lincoln measured up to the high mental and moral stature demanded of one who was to be their leader through the most critical period that had arisen in the life of the nation.

The second inaugural address, coming so shortly before the President's death, formed unintentionally his farewell address. It has the spirit and tone of prophecy. The Bible, in thought and expression, was its inspiration. The first two of its three paragraphs ring like a chapter from Isaiah, chief of the poet seers of old. The concluding paragraph is an apostolic benediction such as Paul or John might have delivered.

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."

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