“Congress does not seize hard upon me ... much gab, great fear of public opinion; plenty of low business talent, but no masterful man in Congress (probably best so)—I THINK WELL OF THE PRESIDENT. He has a face like a Hoosier Michael Angelo, so awful ugly it becomes beautiful, with its strange mouth, its deep cut criss-cross lines, and its doughnut complexion. My notion is, too, that underneath his outside smutched manner, and stories from third-class country bar rooms (it is his humor), Mr. Lincoln keeps a fountain of first class practical telling wisdom. I do not dwell on the supposed failures of his government; he has shown I sometimes think an almost supernatural tact in keeping the ship afloat at all, with head steady, not only not going down and now certain not to, but with proud and resolute spirit, and flag flying in sight of the world, menacing and high as ever. I say never yet Captain, never ruler, had such a perplexing dangerous task as his the past two years. I more and more rely upon his idiomatic western genius, careless of court dress or of court decorums....” (_His hospital experiences are very interesting._) “... These Hospitals, so different from all others—these thousands, and ten and twenties of thousands of American young men, badly wounded ... operated on, pallid with diarrhoea, languishing, dying with fever, pneumonia, etc., open a new world somehow to me, giving closer insights ... showing our humanity ... tried by terrible fearful tests, probed deepest, the living souls, the body’s tragedies, bursting the petty bonds of art. To these, what are your dreams and poems, even the oldest and the tearfullest? Not old Greek mighty ones, where man contends with fate (and always yields)—not Virgil showing Dante on and on among the agonized and damned, approach what here I see and take a part in. For here I see, not at intervals but quite always, how certain man, our American man—how he holds himself cool and unquestioned master above all pains and bloody mutilations.... This, then, what frightened us all so long! Why it is put to flight with ignominy—a mere stuffed scarecrow of the fields. O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?...” LETTER OF LINCOLN, DECLINING AN OFFER OF OFFICE ⁂ It is easy to see the great personal interest of such a letter as this. It marks a period in Lincoln’s life, the importance of which can hardly be over-estimated. In Morse’s _Life of Lincoln_, it is said that upon the offer of the position, “controlled by the sensible advice of his wife, he fortunately declined.” Springfield, _Illinois_, _Sept. 27, 1849_. “HON. J. M. CLAYTON Secretary of State. DEAR SIR