he stems of the trees in the opposite horizon and on the leaves of
the shrub-oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched long over
the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was
such a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air
also was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise
of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary
phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and
ever an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest
child that walked there, it was more glorious still.

The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with
all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance as
it has never set before,--where there is but a solitary marsh-hawk to
have his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his
cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the
marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying
stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered
grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never
bathed in such golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The
west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of
Elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving
us home at evening.

So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine
more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our
minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening
light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

DEMOCRACY

BY

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

_INTRODUCTORY NOTE_

_James Russell Lowell, poet, essayist, diplomatist, and scholar, was
born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on February 22, 1819, the son of a
Unitarian minister. Educated at Harvard College, he tried the law, but
soon gave it up for literature. His poem on "The Present Crisis,"
written in 1844, was his first really notable production, and one that
made a deep impression on the public mind. In the twenty years of
troubled politics that followed, one finds it constantly quoted. The
year 1848 saw four volumes from Lowell's pen--a book of "Poems," the
"Fable for Critics," "The Biglow Papers," and the "Vision of Sir
Launfal." The second of these exhibited the author as wit and criti