uch an assemblage of strange costumes,
male and female. Very few people of any consideration were there. The
President looked exhausted and uncomfortable, and most ungainly in his
dress; and Mrs. Lincoln all in blue, with a feather in her hair and a
highly flushed face."(12)

XV. PRESIDENT AND PREMIER

The brilliant Secretary, who so promptly began to influence the
President had very sure foundations for that influence. He was inured
to the role of great man; he had a rich experience of public life;
while Lincoln, painfully conscious of his inexperience, was perhaps
the humblest-minded ruler that ever took the helm of a ship of state in
perilous times. Furthermore, Seward had some priceless qualities
which, for Lincoln, were still to seek. First of all, he had
audacity--personally, artistically, politically. Seward's instantaneous
gift to Lincoln was by way of throwing wide the door of his gathering
literary audacity. There is every reason to think that Seward's personal
audacity went to Lincoln's heart at once. To be sure, he was not yet
capable of going along with it. The basal contrast of the first month of
his administration lies between the President's caution and the boldness
of the Secretary. Nevertheless, to a sensitive mind, seeking guidance,
surrounded by less original types of politicians, the splendid
fearlessness of Seward, whether wise or foolish, must have rung like
a trumpet peal soaring over the heads of a crowd whose teeth were
chattering. While the rest of the Cabinet pressed their ears to the
ground, Seward thought out a policy, made a forecast of the future, and
offered to stake his head on the correctness of his reasoning. This
may have been rashness; it may have been folly; but, intellectually
at least, it was valor. Among Lincoln's other advisers, valor at that
moment was lacking. Contrast, however, was not the sole, nor the surest
basis of Seward's appeal to Lincoln. Their characters had a common
factor. For all their immeasurable difference in externals, both at
bottom were void of malice. It was this characteristic above all others
that gave them spiritually common ground. In Seward, this quality had
been under fire for a long while. The political furies of "that iron
time" had failed to rouse echoes in his serene and smiling soul.
Therefore, many men who accepted him as leader because, indeed, they
could not do without him--because none other in their camp had
his genius for managemen