rstand it_,' has
been his invariable reply. And whatever may be said of his state papers
as compared with the classic standards, it has been a fact that they
have always been wonderfully well understood by the people, and that
since the time of Washington the state papers of no President have more
controlled the popular mind. One reason for this is that they have been
informal and undiplomatic. They have more resembled a father's talk to
his children than a state paper. They have had that relish and smack of
the soil that appeal to the simple human heart and head, which is a
greater power in writing than the most artful devices of rhetoric.
Lincoln might well say with the apostle, 'But though I be rude in
speech, yet not in knowledge, but we have been thoroughly _made manifest
among you_ in all things.' His rejection of what is called 'fine
writing' was as deliberate as St. Paul's, and for the same
reason--because he felt that he was speaking on a subject which must be
made clear to the lowest intellect, though it should fail to captivate
the highest. But we say of Lincoln's writing, that for all true manly
purposes there are passages in his state papers that could not be better
put; they are absolutely perfect. They are brief, condensed, intense,
and with a power of insight and expression which make them worthy to be
inscribed in letters of gold."

Hon. William J. Bryan, certainly a competent judge of oratory, says of
Lincoln as an orator: "Brevity is the soul of wit, and a part of
Lincoln's reputation for wit lies in his ability to condense a great
deal into a few words. He was epigrammatic. His Gettysburg speech is the
world's model in eloquence, elegance, and condensation. He was apt in
illustration--no one more so. A simple story or simile drawn from
every-day life flashed before his hearers the argument that he wanted to
present. He made frequent use of Bible language, and of illustrations
drawn from Holy Writ. It is said that when he was preparing his
Springfield speech of 1858 he spent hours in trying to find language
that would express the central idea--that a republic could not
permanently endure part free and part slave. Finally a Bible passage
flashed through his mind, and he exclaimed, 'I have found it--_a house
divided against itself cannot stand_.' Probably no other Bible passage
ever exerted as much influence as this one in the settlement of a great
controversy."

Lincoln was a tireless worker, and del