io6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



have been mainly due to the good sense, the good-humour, 

 the sagacity, the large-minded ness, and the unselfish honesty 

 of the unknown man whom a blind fortune, as it seemed, 

 had lifted from the crowd to the most dangerous and difficult 

 eminence of modern times. It is by presence of mind in 

 untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is 

 tested ; it is by the sagacity to see, and the fearless honesty 

 to admit, whatever of truth there may be in an adverse 

 opinion, in order more convincingly to expose the fallacy 

 that lurks behind it, that a reasoner at length gains for his 

 mere statement of a fact the force of argument ; it is by a 

 wise forecast which allows hostile combinations to go so far 

 as by the inevitable reaction to become elements of his own 

 power, that a politician proves his genius for state-craft ; 

 and especially it is by so gently guiding public sentiment 

 that he seems to follow it, by so yielding doubtful points 

 that he can be firm without seeming obstinate in essential 

 ones, and thus gain the advantages of compromise without 

 the weakness of concession ; by so instinctively compre 

 hending the temper and prejudices of a people as to make 

 them gradually conscious of the superior wisdom of his 

 freedom from temper and prejudice it is by qualities such 

 as these that a magistrate shows himself worthy to be chief 

 in a commonwealth of freemen. And it is for qualities 

 such as these that we firmly believe History will rank Mr. 

 Lincoln among the most prudent of statesmen and the most 

 successful of rulers. If we wish to appreciate him, we have 

 only to conceive the inevitable chaos in which we should 

 now be weltering had a weak man or an unwise one been 

 chosen in his stead. 



&quot; Bare is back,&quot; says the Norse proverb, &quot; without 

 brother behind it ; &quot; and this is, by analogy, true of an 

 elective magistracy. The hereditary ruler in any critical 

 emergency may reckon on the inexhaustible resources of 

 prestige, of sentiment, of superstition, of dependent 

 interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully 

 create all these out of the unwilling material around 

 him, by superiority of character, by patient singleness of 



