I have not in my letters to you travelled beyond our own islands in
search of great English prose, but I propose now to make one
divergence from this rule and quote a very great and deservedly
far-famed speech, uttered on a memorable occasion, of Abraham
Lincoln, President of the United States.
At the present time, I think, the name of Lincoln lies closer to the
hearts of the American people than that of any other, not even
excepting Washington and Hamilton. The latter, though they
established American independence, remained in a personal sense
English gentlemen till their death. Lincoln was born in the backwoods in
rude poverty, received no education but what he acquired by his own
unaided efforts, and lived and died a man of the people, the ideal type
of native-born American.
He rose from the lowest to the highest position in the State, borne
upwards by the simple nobility of his character, by the stainless purity
of his actions, and the splendid motive of all his endeavours. His
speeches and writings derive their power and distinction from no tricks
of oratory, felicity of diction, or nimbleness of mind. They are the vocal
results of the beatings of his great heart.
He led his people to war in the manner of a prophet of Israel; with an
awful austerity, majestic, invincible, and with hand uplifted in sure
appeal to the God of battles. On the field of Gettysburg, where was
waged the most tremendous of all combats of the war, he came to
dedicate a cemetery to the innumerable dead, and these were his few
and noble words:--
"Fourscore-and-seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon 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 battlefield 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 cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate,
we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add of
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 thus far so nobly advanced. It is
rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us; that from these honoured 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."
Few are the opportunities in the history of the world when the time, the
place, the occasion, and the words spoken, have combined so
poignantly to move the hearts of men.
One can imagine the vast concourse standing awestruck and uncovered
before the solemn splendour of this noble dedication, every phrase of
which will remain for generations a treasured and sacred memory in
countless thousands of homes of the great continent in the West.
Your loving old
G.P.
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