Another example of Lincoln's ability to improve the composition of another writer is the closing paragraph of his first inaugural address. The President-elect had submitted the manuscript of this most important speech, which would be universally scrutinized to find what policy he would adopt toward the seceded States, to Seward, his chosen Secretary of State, for criticism and suggestion. Mr. Seward approved the argument, but advised the addition of a closing paragraph "to meet and remove prejudice and passion in the South; and despondency in the East." He submitted two paragraphs of his own as alternative models. The second was in that poetic vein which occasionally cropped out in Seward's speeches, and over which Lincoln on better acquaintance was wont good-naturedly to rally him. It is evidence of Lincoln's predilection for poetic language, at least at the close of a speech, that he adopted the latter paragraph. It ran: "I close. We are not, we must not be, aliens or enemies, but fellow-countrymen and brethren. Although passion has strained our bonds of affection too hardly, they must not, I am sure they will not, be broken. The mystic chords which, proceeding from so many battlefields and so many patriot graves, pass through all the hearts and all hearths in this broad continent of ours, will yet again harmonize in their ancient music when breathed upon by the guardian angel of the nation." Lincoln, by deft touches which reveal a literary taste beyond that of any statesman of his time, indeed beyond that which he himself had yet exhibited, transformed this passage into his peroration. His emendations were largely in the way of excision of unnecessary phrases, resolution of sentences broken in construction into several shorter, more direct ones, and change of general and vague terms in rhetorical figure to concrete and picturesque words. He wrote: "I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." More than the persuasive argument and gentle yet determined spirit of the address, it was the chaste beauty and tender feeling of these closing words which convinced the people that Lincoln measured up to the high mental and moral stature demanded of one who was to be their leader through the most critical period that had arisen in the life of the nation.