Lincoln's Birthday : $b a comprehensive view of Lincoln as given in the most noteworthy essays, orations and poems, in fiction and in Lincoln's own writings
History
Lincoln's Birthday : $b a comprehensive view of Lincoln as given in the most noteworthy essays, orations and poems, in fiction and in Lincoln's own writings
Then he had a vast good nature, which made him tolerant and accessible
to all; fair minded, leaning to the claim of the petitioner; affable,
and not sensible to the affliction which the innumerable visits paid
to him when President would have brought to any one else. And how this
good nature became a noble humanity, in many a tragic case which the
events of the war brought to him, every one will remember; and with
what increasing tenderness he dealt when a whole race was thrown on
his compassion. The poor negro said of him, on an impressive occasion,
"Massa Linkum am ebery-where." Then his broad good humor, running
easily into jocular talk, in which he delighted and in which he
excelled, was a rich gift to this wise man. It enabled him to keep his
secret; to meet every kind of man and every rank in society; to take
off the edge of the severest decisions; to mask his own purpose and
sound his companion; and to catch with true instinct the temper of
every company he addressed. And, more than all, it is to a man of
severe labor, in anxious and exhausting crises, the natural
restorative, good as sleep, and is the protection of the overdriven
brain against rancor and insanity.
He is the author of a multitude of good sayings, so disguised as
pleasantries that it is certain they had no reputation at first but as
jests; and only later, by the very acceptance and adoption they find
in the mouths of millions, turn out to be the wisdom of the hour. I am
sure if this man had ruled in a period of less facility of printing,
he would have become mythological in a very few years, like AEsop or
Pilpay, or one of the Seven Wise Masters, by his fables and proverbs.
But the weight and penetration of many passages in his letters,
messages, and speeches, hidden now by the very closeness of their
application to the moment, are destined hereafter to wide fame. What
pregnant definitions; what unerring common sense; what foresight; and,
on great occasion, what lofty, and more than national, what humane
tone! His brief speech at Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by
words on any recorded occasion. This, and one other American speech,
that of John Brown to the court that tried him, and a part of
Kossuth's speech at Birmingham, can only be compared with each other,
and with no fourth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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