Part 4 (2/2)
The two books which he read most were the Bible and Shakespeare. With these he was very familiar, reading and studying them habitually and constantly. He had great fondness for poetry, and eloquence, and his taste and judgment in each was exquisite. Shakespeare was his favorite poet; Burns stood next. I know of a speech of his at a Burns festival, in which he spoke at length of Burns's poems; ill.u.s.trating what he said by many quotations, showing perfect familiarity with and full appreciation of the peasant poet of Scotland. He was extremely fond of ballads, and of simple, sad, and plaintive music.
He was a most admirable reader. He read and repeated pa.s.sages from the Bible and Shakespeare with great simplicity but remarkable expression and effect. Often when going to and from the army, on steamers and in his carriage, he took a copy of Shakespeare with him, and not unfrequently read, aloud to his a.s.sociates. After conversing upon public affairs, he would take up his Shakespeare, and addressing his companions, remark, ”What do you say now to a scene from Macbeth, or Hamlet, or Julius Caesar,” and then he would read aloud, scene after scene, never seeming to tire of the enjoyment.
On the last Sunday of his life, as he was coming up the Potomac, from his visit to City Point and Richmond, he read aloud many extracts from Shakespeare. Among others, he read, with an accent and feeling which no one who heard him will ever forget, extracts from Macbeth, and among others the following:--
”Duncan is in his grave; After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well.
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing Can touch him farther.”
After ”treason” had ”_done his worst_,” the friends who heard him on that occasion remembered that he read that pa.s.sage very slowly over twice, and with an absorbed and peculiar manner. Did he feel a mysterious presentiment of his approaching fate?
His conversation was original, suggestive, instructive, and playful; and, by its genial humor, fascinating and attractive beyond comparison.
Mirthfulness and sadness were strongly combined in him. His mirth was exuberant, it sparkled in jest, story, and anecdote; and the next moment those peculiarly sad, pathetic, melancholy eyes, showed a man ”familiar with sorrow, and acquainted with grief.” I have listened for hours at his table, and elsewhere, when he has been surrounded by statesmen, military leaders, and other distinguished men of the nation, and I but repeat the universally concurring verdict of all, in stating that as a conversationalist he had no equal. One might meet in company with him the most distinguished men, of various pursuits and professions, but after listening for two or three hours, on separating, it was what Lincoln had said that would be remembered. His were the ideas and ill.u.s.trations that would not be forgotten. Men often called upon him for the pleasure of listening to him. I have heard the reply to an invitation to attend the theater, ”No, I am going up to the White House.
I would rather hear Lincoln talk for half an hour, than attend the best theater in the world.”
As a public speaker, without any attempt at oratorical display, I think he was the most effective of any man of his day. When he spoke, everybody listened. It was always obvious, before he completed two sentences, that he had something to say, and it was sure to be something original, something different from any thing heard from others, or which had been read in books. He impressed the hearer at once, as an earnest, sincere man, who believed what he said. To-day, there are more of the sayings of Lincoln repeated by the people, more quotations, sentences, and extracts from his writings and speeches, familiar as ”household words,” than from those of any other American.
I know no book, except the Bible and Shakespeare, from which so many familiar phrases and expressions have been taken as from his writings and speeches. Somebody has said, ”I care not who makes the laws, if I may write the ballads of a nation.” The words of Lincoln have done more in the last six years to mold and fas.h.i.+on the American character than those of any other man, and their influence has been all for truth, right, justice, and liberty. Great as has been Lincoln's services to the people, as their President, his influence, derived from his words and his example, in molding the future national character, in favor of justice, right, liberty, truth, and real, sincere, unostentatious reverence for G.o.d, is scarcely less important. The Republic of the future, the matured national character, will be more influenced by him than by any other man. This is evidence of his greatness, intellectual, and still more, moral. In this power of impressing himself upon the people, he contrasts with many other distinguished men in our history.
Few quotations from Jefferson, or Adams, or Webster, live in the every-day language of the people. Little of Clay survives; not much of Calhoun, and who can quote, off-hand, half a dozen sentences from Douglas? But you hear Lincoln's words, not only in every cabin and caucus, and in every stump speech, but at every school-house, high-school, and college declamation, and by every farmer and artisan, as he tells you story after story of Lincoln's, and all to the point, hitting the nail on the head every time, and driving home the argument.
Mr. Lincoln was not a scholar, but where is there a speech more exhaustive in argument than his Cooper Inst.i.tute address? Where any thing more full of pathos than his farewell to his neighbors at Springfield, when he bade them good-bye, on starting for the capital?
Where any thing more eloquent than his appeal for peace and union, in his first Inaugural, or than his defense of the Declaration of Independence in the Douglas debates? Where the equal of his speech at Gettysburg? Where a more conclusive argument than in his letter to the Albany Meeting on Arrests? What is better than his letter to the Illinois State Convention; and that to Hodges of Kentucky, in explanation of his anti-slavery policy? Where is there any thing equal in simple grandeur of thought and sentiment, to his last Inaugural? From all of these, and many others, from his every-day talks, are extracts on the tongues of the people, as familiar, and nearly as much reverenced, as texts from the Bible; and these are shaping the national character.
”Though dead, he yet speaketh.”
As a public speaker, if excellence is measured by results, he had no superior. His manner was generally earnest, often playful; sometimes, but this was rare, he was vehement and impa.s.sioned. There have been a few instances, at the bar and on the stump, when, wrought up to indignation by some great personal wrong, or by an aggravated case of fraud or injustice, or when speaking of the fearful wrongs and injustice of slavery, he broke forth in a strain of impa.s.sioned vehemence which carried every thing before him.
Generally, he addressed the reason and judgment, and the effect was lasting. He spoke extemporaneously, but not without more or less preparation. He had the power of repeating, without reading it, a discourse or speech which he had prepared or written out. His great speech, in opening the Douglas canva.s.s, in June, 1858, was carefully written out, but so naturally spoken that few suspected that it was not extemporaneous. In his style, manner of presenting facts, and way of putting things to the people, he was more like Franklin than any other American. His ill.u.s.trations, by anecdote and story, were not unlike the author of _Poor Richard_.
A great cause of his intellectual power was the thorough exhaustive investigation he gave to every subject. Take, for ill.u.s.tration, his Cooper Inst.i.tute speech. Hundreds of able and intelligent men have spoken on the same subject treated by him in that speech, yet what they said will all be forgotten, and his will survive; because his address is absolutely perfect for the purpose for which it was designed. Nothing can be added to it.
Mr. Lincoln, however, required time thoroughly to investigate before he came to his conclusions, and the movements of his mind were not rapid; but when he reached his conclusions he believed in them, and adhered to them with great firmness and tenacity. When called upon to decide quickly upon a new subject or a new point, he often erred, and was ever ready to change when satisfied he was wrong.
It was the union, in Mr. Lincoln, of the capacity clearly to see the truth, and an innate love of truth, and justice, and right in his heart, that const.i.tuted his character and made him so great. He never demoralized his intellectual or moral powers, either by doing wrong that good might come, or by advocating error because it was popular.
Although, as a statesman, eminently practical, and looking to the possible good of to-day, he ever kept in mind the absolute truth and absolute right, toward which he always aimed.
Mr. Lincoln was an unselfish man; he never sought his own advancement at the expense of others. He was a just man; he never tried to pull others down that he might rise. He disarmed rivalry and envy by his rare generosity. He possessed the rare wisdom of magnanimity. He was eminently a tender-hearted, kind, and humane man. These traits were ill.u.s.trated all through his life. He loved to pardon: he was averse to punish. It was difficult for him to deny the request of a child, a woman, or of any who were weak and suffering. Pages of incidents might be quoted, showing his ever-thoughtful kindness, grat.i.tude to, and appreciation of the soldiers. The following note (written to a lady known to him only by her sacrifices for her country) is selected from many on this subject:--
”EXECUTIVE MANSION, WAs.h.i.+NGTON, ”November, 1864.
”DEAR MADAM:--
”I have been shown, in the files of the War Department, a statement of the Adjutant-General of Ma.s.sachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I can not refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may a.s.suage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
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