134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



tion and hostility. Mr. Lincoln has never studied Quinc- 

 tilian ; but he has, in the earnest simplicity and unaffected 

 Americanism of his own character, one art of oratory worth 

 all the rest. He forgets himself so entirely in his object as 

 to give his / the sympathetic and persuasive effect of We 

 with the great body of his countrymen. Homely, dispas 

 sionate, 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 utter 

 ances of Mr. Lincoln. He has always addressed the intelli 

 gence 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-hu 

 moured 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 per 

 suasive 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 a 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. 



