, plowing, lumbering, boating,
or store keeping, he studied and read every spare minute, and often
until late at night.

But this sketch has already exceeded the limits of Lincoln's boyhood,
for he had reached his twenty-second year while in the store in New
Salem. How he was made captain of a company raised to fight against the
Indians, how he kept store for himself, learned surveying, was elected
a member of the Illinois legislature, studied law, and was admitted to
the bar in Springfield, and how he finally became president of the
United States,--all this belongs to a later chapter of his life.

Lincoln's rise from the poorest of log cabins to the White House, to be
president of the greatest republic in the world, is one of the most
inspiring stories in American biography. Yet he was not a genius,
unless a determination to make the most of one's self and to persist in
spite of all hardships, discouragements, and hindrances, be genius. He
made himself what he was--one of the noblest, greatest, and best of
men--by sheer dint of hard work and the cultivation of the talents that
had been given him. No fortunate chances, no influential friends, no
rare opportunities played a part in his life. Alone and unaided he
made, by the grace of God, the great career which will forever
challenge the admiration of mankind.

THE MARBLE WAITETH

THE STATUE

The marble waits, immaculate and rude;
Beside it stands the sculptor, lost in dreams.
With vague, chaotic forms his vision teems.
Fair shapes pursue him, only to elude
And mock his eager fancy. Lines of grace
And heavenly beauty vanish, and, behold!
Out through the Parian luster, pure and cold,
Glares the wild horror of a devil's face.

The clay is ready for the modeling.
The marble waits: how beautiful, how pure,
That gleaming substance, and it shall endure,
When dynasty and empire, throne and king
Have crumbled back to dust. Well may you pause,
Oh, sculptor-artist! and, before that mute,
Unshapen surface, stand irresolute!
Awful, indeed, are art's unchanging laws.

The thing you fashion out of senseless clay,
Transformed to marble, shall outlive your fame;
And, when no more is known your race, or name,
Men shall be moved by what you mold to-day.
We all are sculptors. By each act and thought,
We form the model. Time, the artisan,