to
them, in plain unvarnished terms, the duty which remained for them to
do--to finish the work which the dead around them had given their lives
to carry on. It was one of the briefest of the many speeches with which
Lincoln had swayed the impulses and opinions of crowds of his
fellow-men, but it is the one which will be remembered above all others
as hallowed by the truest and loftiest inspiration. As the final
sentence ended, amid the tears and sobs and cheers of the excited
throng, the President turned to Mr. Everett, and, grasping his hand,
exclaimed with sincerity, "I congratulate you on your success." Mr.
Everett responded in the fervor of his emotion, "Ah, Mr. President, how
gladly would I exchange all my hundred pages to have been the author of
your twenty lines!"

Of all Lincoln's public utterances, this is unquestionably the most
remarkable. The oration, brief and unpretending as it is, will remain a
classic of the English language. "The Westminster Review," one of the
foremost of the great English quarterlies, said of it: "It has but one
equal, in that pronounced upon those who fell in the first year of the
Peloponnesian War; and in one respect it is superior to that great
speech. It is not only more natural, fuller of feeling, more touching
and pathetic, but we know with absolute certainty that _it was really
delivered_. Nature here takes precedence of art--even though it be the
art of Thucydides."

"An illustration of the difference between oratory and inspiration" is
Mr. John Bigelow's happy characterization of the Gettysburg address. "It
was," he adds, "one of the most momentous incidents in the history of
the Civil War. It may be doubted whether anything had then, or has
since, been said of that national strife conceived upon a higher and
wiser spiritual plane.... It is perhaps, on the whole, the most enduring
bit of eloquence that has ever been uttered on this continent; and yet
one finds in it none of the tricks of the forum or the stage, nor any
trace of the learning of the scholar, nor the need of it."

Major Harry T. Lee, who was himself a participant in the battle of
Gettysburg and occupied a seat on the platform at the dedication, says
that the people listened with marked attention through the two hours of
Everett's noble and scholarly oration; but that when Lincoln came
forward, and in a voice burdened with emotion uttered his simple and
touching eulogy on "the brave men, living and dead, who