the various departments they add an elevation and
breadth of thought of the first order.

In a class by themselves are the various proclamations, some of them of
a purely formal character, such as those announcing blockades, others
of a distinctly literary character, like the announcements of fasts and
feasts. Midway between these two classes is the most important of all,
the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, which, with the
exception of the concluding sentence, is entirely free from ornament.
Perhaps Lincoln felt here, as with the Debates, that the occasion was
too serious, not only for jesting but even for attempting the mere
graces of language.

Finally, mention should be made of the letters and telegrams written by
President Lincoln. Although many letters have been preserved from
earlier times, none make special claims to attention outside of the
information that they furnish. But during the last four years of his
life Lincoln wrote some of the most beautiful letters that have ever
been composed. One of these, the letter to Mrs. Bixby, has been given
a place on the walls of one of the Oxford colleges, as a model of noble
English. The Conkling letter and the letter to Horace Greeley are
among the most important statements of Lincoln's policy and are really
short political tracts.

The First Inaugural can be traced through the Cooper Union Address and
the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, the Peoria Speech, and the speeches of
1854 to the seed of 1832, the plain, logical, direct statement of
principles of Lincoln's first address to the public. The development
of the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural, those supreme
expressions of Lincoln's feelings, is not, in the main, to be traced
through complete speeches, but it must be sought for in isolated
passages, when he left logic for the moment and gave himself up to the
passing emotion. The real seed of the majestic simplicity of those
addresses is perhaps to be found in those rhetorical speeches of an
early period, so lacking apparently in the qualities that we love and
admire. In writing, as in so many other things, we reap not what we
sow, but its fruition. The effect may seem very remotely related to
the cause, but he would be a fool who would deny the relation between
them.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The complete works of Abraham Lincoln have been compiled and edited by
his biographers, John G. Nicolay and John Hay (two vols., Century
Co