his countrymen. Homely, dispassionate, showing
all the rough-edged process of his thought as it goes along, yet
arriving at his conclusions with an honest kind of every-day logic,
he is so eminently our representative man, that, when he speaks, it
seems as if the people were listening to their own thinking aloud. The
dignity of his thought owes nothing to any ceremonial garb of words,
but to the manly movement that comes of settled purpose and an energy
of reason that knows not what rhetoric means. There has been nothing
of Cleon, still less of Strepsiades striving to underbid him in
demagogism, to be found in the public utterances of Mr. Lincoln. He
has always addressed the intelligence of men, never their prejudice,
their passion, or their ignorance.

* * * * *

On the day of his death, this simple Western attorney, who according
to one party was a vulgar joker, and whom the doctrinaires among his
own supporters accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, was
the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this solely by the hold
his good-humored sagacity had laid on the hearts and understandings of
his countrymen. Nor was this all, for it appeared that he had drawn
the great majority, not only of his fellow-citizens, but of mankind,
also, to his side. So strong and so persuasive is honest manliness
without a single quality of romance or unreal sentiment to help it! A
civilian during times of the most captivating military achievement,
awkward, with no skill in the lower technicalities of manners, he left
behind him a fame beyond that of any conqueror, the memory of a grace
higher than that of outward person, and of gentlemanliness deeper than
mere breeding. Never before that startled April morning did such
multitudes of men shed tears for the death of one they had never seen,
as if with him a friendly presence had been taken away from their
lives, leaving them colder and darker. Never was funeral panegyric so
eloquent as the silent look of sympathy which strangers exchanged when
they met on that day. Their common manhood had lost a kinsman.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

January First, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Three

BY FRANK MOORE

Stand like an anvil, when 'tis beaten
With the full vigor of the smith's right arm!
Stand like the noble oak-tree, when 'tis eaten
By the Saperda and his ravenous swarm!
For many smiths will strike the ringing blows
Ere the red