rld.

The greatness and glory of his success, in this instance, are to be
measured by the inherent difficulties in the subject itself.

The intellectual and physical traits of Abraham Lincoln were such as the
world had never seen before. Original, peculiar, and anomalous, they
seemed incapable of analysis and classification.

While the keen, comprehensive intellect within that broad, grand
forehead was struggling with the great problems of national fate, other
faculties of the same organization, strongly marked in the lower
features of his face, seemed to be making light of the whole matter.

His character and the physical expression of it were unique, and yet
made up of the most complex elements;--simple, yet incomprehensible;
strong, yet gentle; inflexible, yet conciliating; human, yet most rare;
the strangest, and yet for all in all the most lovable, character in
history.

To represent this man, to embody these characteristics, was the work
prescribed the artist. Instead of being fetters, these contradictions
seem to have been incentives to the artist. Justice to himself, as to an
American who loved Lincoln, and justice to the great man, the truest
American of his time, appear also to have been his inspiration.

Neglected now, this golden opportunity might be lost forever, and the
future be haunted by an ideal only, and never be familiarized with the
plain, good face we knew. For what could the future make of all these
caricatures and uncouth efforts at portraiture, rendered only more
grotesque when stretched upon the rack of a thousand canvases? No less a
benefactor to art than to humanity is he who shall deliver the world of
these.

The artist has chosen, with admirable judgment, a quiet, restful,
familiar phase of Mr. Lincoln's life, with the social and genial
sentiments of his nature at play, rather than some more impressive and
startling hour of his public life, when a victory was gained, or an
immortal sentence uttered at Gettysburg or the Capitol, or when, as the
great Emancipator, he walked with his liberated children through the
applauding streets of Richmond. It was tempting to paint him as
President, but triumphant to represent him as a man.

Though the face is wanting in the crowning glory of the dramatic, the
romantic, the picturesque,--elements so fascinating to an artist,--we
still feel no loss in the absence of these; for Mr. Marshall has found
abundant material in the rich and varied qualiti