108 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



penetrating fire ran in and roused those primary instincts 

 that make their lair in the dens and caverns of the mind. 

 What is called the great popular heart was awakened, that 

 indefinable something which may be, according to circum 

 stances, the highest reason or the most brutish unreason. 

 But enthusiasm, once cold, can never be warmed over into 

 anything better than cant; and phrases, when once the 

 inspiration that filled them with beneficent power has 

 ebbed away, retain only that semblance of meaning which 

 enables them to supplant reason in hasty minds. Among 

 the lessons taught by the French Revolution there is none 

 sadder or more striking than this, that you may make 

 everything else out of the passions of men except a political 

 system that will work, and that there is nothing so pitilessly 

 and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into dogma. 

 It is always demoralising to extend the domain of sentiment 

 over questions where it has no legitimate jurisdiction ; and 

 perhaps the severest strain upon Mr. Lincoln was in 

 resisting a tendency of his own supporters which chimed 

 with his own private desires, while wholly opposed to his 

 convictions of what would be wise policy. 



The change which three years have brought about is too 

 remarkable to be passed over without comment, too weighty 

 in its lesson not to be laid to heart. Never did a President 

 enter upon office with less means at his command, outside 

 his own strength of heart and steadiness of understanding, 

 for inspiring confidence in the people, and so winning it for 

 himself, than Mr. Lincoln. All that was known of him was 

 that he was a good stump-speaker, nominated for his avail 

 ability that is, because he had no history and chosen by 

 a party with whose more extreme opinions he was not in 

 sympathy. It might well be feared that a man past fifty, 

 against whom the ingenuity of hostile partisans could rake 

 up no accusation, must be lacking in manliness of character, 

 in decision of principle, in strength of will; that a man 

 who was at best only the representative of a party, and who 

 yet did not fairly represent even that, would fail of 

 political, much more of popular, support. And certainly 



