It is only forty years since Abraham Lincoln became of much note in the world, yet in that brief time he has been the subject of more varied discussion than has been expended upon any other historical character, save, perhaps, Napoleon; and the kind of discussion which has been called forth by Lincoln is not really to be likened to that which has taken place concerning Napoleon or concerning any other person whomsoever. The great men of the various eras and nations are comprehensible, at least upon broad lines. The traits to which each owes his peculiar power can be pretty well agreed upon; the capacity of each can be tolerably well expressed in a formula; each can be intelligibly described in fairly distinct phrases; and whether this be in the spirit of admiration or of condemnation will, in all cases which admit of doubt, be largely a question of the personal sympathies of the observer. But Lincoln stands apart in striking solitude,--an enigma to all men. The world eagerly asks of each person who endeavors to write or speak of him: What illumination have you for us? Have you solved the mystery? Can you explain this man? The task has been essayed many times; it will be essayed many times more; it never has been, and probably it never will be entirely achieved. Each biographer, each writer or speaker, makes his little contribution to the study, and must be content to regard it merely as a contribution. For myself, having drawn the picture of the man as I see him, though knowing well that I am far from seeing him all, and still farther from seeing inwardly through him, yet I know that I cannot help it by additional comments. Very much more than is the case with other men, Lincoln means different things to different persons, and the aspect which he presents depends to an unusual degree upon the moral and mental individuality of the observer. Perhaps this is due to the breadth and variety of his own nature. As a friend once said to me: Lincoln was like Shakespeare, in that he seemed to run through the whole gamut of human nature. It was true. From the superstition of the ignorant backwoodsman to that profoundest faith which is the surest measure of man's greatness, Lincoln passed along the whole distance. In his early days he struck his roots deep down into the common soil of the earth, and in his latest years his head towered and shone among the stars. Yet his greatest, his most distinctive, and most abiding trait was his humanness of nature; he was the expression of his people; at some periods of his life and in some ways it may be that he expressed them in their uglier forms, but generally he displayed them in their noblest and most beautiful developments; yet, for worse or for better, one is always conscious of being in close touch with him as a fellow man. People often call him the greatest man who ever lived; but, in fact, he was not properly to be compared with any other. One may set up