he quick breathing imagination of men.

More and more, however, the instinct of our people is turning to the
words of Abraham Lincoln as the truest embodiment in language, as his
life was the truest embodiment in action, of our national ideal. It is
a curious reversal of contemporary judgments that thus discovers in the
homely phrases of a frontier lawyer the most perfect literary expression
of the deeper spirit of his time. "How knoweth this man letters, having
never learned?" asked the critical East. The answer is that he had
learned in a better school than the East afforded. The story of
Lincoln's life is happily too familiar to need retelling here, but some
of the elements in his growth in the mastery of speech may at least be
summarized.

Lincoln had a slow, tireless mind, capable of intense concentration. It
was characteristic of him that he rarely took notes when trying a law
case, saying that the notes distracted his attention. When his
partner Herndon was asked when Lincoln had found time to study out
the constitutional history of the United States, Herndon expressed the
opinion that it was when Lincoln was lying on his back on the office
sofa, apparently watching the flies upon the ceiling. This combination
of bodily repose with intense mental and spiritual activity is familiar
to those who have studied the biography of some of the great mystics.
Walter Pater pointed it out in the case of Wordsworth.

In recalling the poverty and restriction of Lincoln's boyhood and his
infrequent contact with schoolhouses, it is well to remember that he
managed nevertheless to read every book within twenty miles of him.
These were not many, it is true, but they included "The Bible," "Aesop's
Fables," "Pilgrim's Progress," "Robinson Crusoe," and, a little later,
Burns and Shakespeare. Better food than this for the mind of a boy has
never been found. Then he came to the history of his own country since
the Declaration of Independence and mastered it. "I am tolerably well
acquainted with the history of the country," he remarked in his Chicago
speech of 1858; and in the Cooper Union speech of 1860 he exhibited a
familiarity with the theory and history of the Constitution which amazed
the young lawyers who prepared an annotated edition of the address.
"He has wit, facts, dates," said Douglas, in extenuation of his own
disinclination to enter upon the famous joint debates, and, when Douglas
returned to Washington after the debate