ABRAHAM LINCOLN--strange mingling of mirth and tears, of the tragic and
grotesque, of cap and crown, of Socrates and Democritus, of Æsop and
Marcus Aurelius, of all that is gentle and just, humorous and honest,
merciful, wise, laughable, lovable and divine, and all consecrated to
the use of man; while through all, and over all, were an overwhelming
sense of obligation, of chivalric loyalty to truth, and upon all, the
shadow of the tragic end.
Nearly all the great historic characters are impossible monsters,
disproportioned by flattery, or by calumny deformed. We know nothing
of their peculiarities, or nothing but their peculiarities. About these
oaks there clings none of the earth of humanity.
Washington is now only a steel engraving. About the real man who lived
and loved and hated and schemed, we know but little. The glass through
which we look at him is of such high magnifying power that the features
are exceedingly indistinct.
Hundreds of people are now engaged in smoothing out the lines of
Lincoln's face--forcing all features to the common mould--so that he may
be known, not as he really was, but, according to their poor standard,
as he should have been.
Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone--no ancestors, no fellows, and
no successors.
He had the advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, of
personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his future the perpetual
star of hope. He preserved his individuality and his self-respect. He
knew and mingled with men of every kind; and, after all, men are the
best books. He became acquainted with the ambitions and hopes of the
heart, the means used to accomplish ends, the springs of action and the
seeds of thought. He was familiar with nature, with actual things, with
common facts. He loved and appreciated the poem of the year, the drama
of the seasons.
In a new country a man must possess at least three virtues--honesty,
courage and generosity. In cultivated society, cultivation is often more
important than soil. A well-executed counterfeit passes more readily
than a blurred genuine. It is necessary only to observe the unwritten
laws of society--to be honest enough to keep out of prison, and generous
enough to subscribe in public--where the subscription can be defended as
an investment.
In a new country, character is essential; in the old, reputation is
sufficient. In the new, they find what a man really is; in the old,
he generally passes for what he resembles. People separated only by
distance are much nearer together, than those divided by the walls of
caste.
It is no advantage to live in a great city, where poverty degrades and
failure brings despair. The fields are lovelier than paved streets, and
the great forests than walls of brick. Oaks and elms are more poetic
than steeples and chimneys.
In the country is the idea of home. There you see the rising and setting
sun; you become acquainted with the stars and clouds. The constellations
are your friends. You hear the rain on the roof and listen to the
rhythmic sighing of the winds. You are thrilled by the resurrection
called Spring, touched and saddened by Autumn--the grace and poetry of
death. Every field is a picture, a landscape; every landscape a poem;
every flower a tender thought, and every forest a fairy-land. In the
country you preserve your identity--your personality. There you are
an aggregation of atoms, but in the city you are only an atom of an
aggregation.
In the country you keep your cheek close to the breast of Nature. You
are calmed and ennobled by the space, the amplitude and scope of earth
and sky--by the constancy of the stars.
Lincoln never finished his education. To the night of his death he was
a pupil, a learner, an inquirer, a seeker after knowledge. You have no
idea how many men are spoiled by what is called education. For the most
part, colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are
dimmed. If Shakespeare had graduated at Oxford, he might have been a
quibbling attorney, or a hypocritical parson.
Lincoln was a great lawyer. There is nothing shrewder in this world than
intelligent honesty. Perfect candor is sword and shield.
He understood the nature of man. As a lawyer he endeavored to get at the
truth, at the very heart of a case. He was not willing even to deceive
himself. No matter what his interest said, what his passion demanded,
he was great enough to find the truth and strong enough to pronounce
judgment against his own desires.
Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears, complex
in brain, single in heart, direct as light; and his words, candid as
mirrors, gave the perfect image of his thought. He was never afraid
to ask--never too dignified to admit that he did not know. No man had
keener wit, or kinder humor.
It may be that humor is the pilot of reason. People without humor drift
unconsciously into absurdity. Humor sees the other side--stands in the
mind like a spectator, a good-natured critic, and gives its opinion
before judgment is reached. Humor goes with good nature, and good
nature is the climate of reason. In anger, reason abdicates and malice
extinguishes the torch. Such was the humor of Lincoln that he could tell
even unpleasant truths as charmingly as most men can tell the things we
wish to hear.
He was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and
hypocrisy--it is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the
stupid.
He was natural in his life and thought--master of the story-teller's
art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, liberal in speech,
shocking Pharisees and prudes, using any word that wit could disinfect.
He was a logician. His logic shed light. In its presence the obscure
became luminous, and the most complex and intricate political and
metaphysical knots seemed to untie themselves. Logic is the necessary
product of intelligence and sincerity. It cannot be learned. It is the
child of a clear head and a good heart.
Lincoln was candid, and with candor often deceived the deceitful. He had
intellect without arrogance, genius without pride, and religion without
cant--that is to say, without bigotry and without deceit.
He was an orator--clear, sincere, natural. He did not pretend. He did
not say what he thought others thought, but what he thought.
If you wish to be sublime you must be natural--you must keep close to
the grass. You must sit by the fireside of the heart; above the clouds
it is too cold. You must be simple in your speech; too much polish
suggests insincerity.
The great orator idealizes the real, transfigures the common, makes even
the inanimate throb and thrill, fills the gallery of the imagination
with statues and pictures perfect in form and color, brings to light
the gold hoarded by memory the miser, shows the glittering coin to the
spendthrift hope, enriches the brain, ennobles the heart, and quickens
the conscience. Between his lips words bud and blossom.
If you wish to know the difference between an orator and an
elocutionist--between what is felt and what is said--between what the
heart and brain can do together and what the brain can do alone--read
Lincoln's wondrous speech at Gettysburg, and then the oration of Edward
Everett.
The speech of Lincoln will never be forgotten. It will live until
languages are dead and lips are dust. The oration of Everett will never
be read.
The elocutionists believe in the virtue of voice, the sublimity of
syntax, the majesty of long sentences, and the genius of gesture.
The orator loves the real, the simple, the natural. He places the
thought above all. He knows that the greatest ideas should be expressed
in the shortest words--that the greatest statues need the least drapery.
Lincoln was an immense personality--firm but not obstinate. Obstinacy
is egotism--firmness, heroism. He influenced others without
effort, unconsciously; and they submitted to him as men submit to
nature--unconsciously. He was severe with himself, and for that reason
lenient with others.
He appeared to apologize for being kinder than his fellows.
He did merciful things as stealthily as others committed crimes.
Almost ashamed of tenderness, he said and did the noblest words and
deeds with that charming confusion, that awkwardness, that is the
perfect grace of modesty.
As a noble man, wishing to pay a small debt to a poor neighbor,
reluctantly offers a hundred-dollar bill and asks for change, fearing
that he may be suspected either of making a display of wealth or
a pretence of payment, so Lincoln hesitated to show his wealth of
goodness, even to the best he knew.
A great man stooping, not wishing to make his fellows feel that they
were small or mean.
By his candor, by his kindness, by his perfect freedom from restraint,
by saying what he thought, and saying it absolutely in his own way, he
made it not only possible, but popular, to be natural. He was the enemy
of mock solemnity, of the stupidly respectable, of the cold and formal.
He wore no official robes either on his body or his soul. He never
pretended to be more or less, or other, or different, from what he
really was.
He had the unconscious naturalness of Nature's self.
He built upon the rock. The foundation was secure and broad. The
structure was a pyramid, narrowing as it rose. Through days and nights
of sorrow, through years of grief and pain, with unswerving purpose,
"with malice towards none, with charity for all," with infinite
patience, with unclouded vision, he hoped and toiled. Stone after stone
was laid, until at last the Proclamation found its place. On that the
Goddess stands.
He knew others, because perfectly acquainted with himself. He cared
nothing for place, but everything for principle; little for money, but
everything for independence. Where no principle was involved, easily
swayed--willing to go slowly, if in the right direction--sometimes
willing to stop; but he would not go back, and he would not go wrong.
He was willing to wait. He knew that the event was not waiting, and that
fate was not the fool of chance. He knew that slavery had defenders, but
no defence, and that they who attack the right must wound themselves.
He was neither tyrant nor slave. He neither knelt nor scorned.
With him, men were neither great nor small--they were right or wrong.
Through manners, clothes, titles, rags and race he saw the real--that
which is. Beyond accident, policy, compromise and war he saw the end.
He was patient as Destiny, whose undecipherable hieroglyphs were so
deeply graven on his sad and tragic face.
Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for
the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish
to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.
It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never
abused it, except on the side of mercy.
Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe, this divine, this loving
man.
He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying
the master--seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices--he was the
embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope and the nobility of
a Nation.
He spoke not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince.
He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction.
He longed to pardon.
He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband
he had rescued from death.
Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the
gentlest memory of our world.