the overdriven
brain against rancor and insanity.

He is the author of a multitude of good sayings, so disguised as
pleasantries that it is certain they had no reputation at first but as
jests; and only later, by the very acceptance and adoption they find
in the mouths of millions, turn out to be the wisdom of the hour. I am
sure if this man had ruled in a period of less facility of printing,
he would have become mythological in a very few years, like AEsop or
Pilpay, or one of the Seven Wise Masters, by his fables and proverbs.
But the weight and penetration of many passages in his letters,
messages, and speeches, hidden now by the very closeness of their
application to the moment, are destined hereafter to wide fame. What
pregnant definitions; what unerring common sense; what foresight; and,
on great occasion, what lofty, and more than national, what humane
tone! His brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by
words on any recorded occasion. This, and one other American speech,
that of John Brown to the court that tried him, and a part of
Kossuth's speech at Birmingham, can only be compared with each other,
and with no fourth.

His occupying the chair of State was a triumph of the good sense of
mankind, and of the public conscience. This middle-class country had
got a middle-class President, at last. Yes, in manners and sympathies,
but not in powers, for his powers were superior. This man grew
according to the need. His mind mastered the problem of the day; and
as the problem grew, so did his comprehension of it. Rarely was man so
fitted to the event. In the midst of fears and jealousies, in the
Babel of counsels and parties, this man wrought incessantly with all
his might and all his honesty, laboring to find what the people
wanted, and how to obtain that. It cannot be said there is any
exaggeration of his worth. If ever a man was fairly tested, he was.
There was no lack of resistance, nor of slander, nor of ridicule. The
times have allowed no state secrets; the nation has been in such
ferment, such multitudes had to be trusted, that no secret could be
kept. Every door was ajar, and we know all that befell.

Then, what an occasion was the whirlwind of the war. Here was place
for no holiday magistrate, no fair-weather sailor; the new pilot was
hurried to the helm in a tornado. In four years,--four years of
battle-days,--his endurance, his fertility of resources, his
magnanimity, were sorely tried a