The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume III Part 17

Hundreds of people are now engaged in smoothing out the lines of Lincoln's face--forcing all features to the common mould--so that he may be known, not as he really was, but, according to their poor standard, as he should have been.

Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone--no ancestors, no fellows, and no successors.

He had the advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, of personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his future the perpetual star of hope. He preserved his individuality and his self-respect. He knew and mingled with men of every kind; and, after all, men are the best books. He became acquainted with the ambitions and hopes of the heart, the means used to accomplish ends, the springs of action and the seeds of thought. He was familiar with nature, with actual things, with common facts. He loved and appreciated the poem of the year, the drama of the seasons.

In a new country a man must possess at least three virtues--honesty, courage and generosity. In cultivated society, cultivation is often more important than soil. A well-executed counterfeit pa.s.ses more readily than a blurred genuine. It is necessary only to observe the unwritten laws of society--to be honest enough to keep out of prison, and generous enough to subscribe in public--where the subscription can be defended as an investment.

In a new country, character is essential; in the old, reputation is sufficient. In the new, they find what a man really is; in the old, he generally pa.s.ses for what he resembles. People separated only by distance are much nearer together, than those divided by the walls of caste.

It is no advantage to live in a great city, where poverty degrades and failure brings despair. The fields are lovelier than paved streets, and the great forests than walls of brick. Oaks and elms are more poetic than steeples and chimneys.

In the country is the idea of home. There you see the rising and setting sun; you become acquainted with the stars and clouds. The constellations are your friends. You hear the rain on the roof and listen to the rhythmic sighing of the winds. You are thrilled by the resurrection called Spring, touched and saddened by Autumn--the grace and poetry of death. Every field is a picture, a landscape; every landscape a poem; every flower a tender thought, and every forest a fairy-land. In the country you preserve your ident.i.ty--your personality. There you are an aggregation of atoms, but in the city you are only an atom of an aggregation.

In the country you keep your cheek close to the breast of Nature. You are calmed and enn.o.bled by the s.p.a.ce, the amplitude and scope of earth and sky--by the constancy of the stars.

Lincoln never finished his education. To the night of his death he was a pupil, a learner, an inquirer, a seeker after knowledge. You have no idea how many men are spoiled by what is called education. For the most part, colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. If Shakespeare had graduated at Oxford, he might have been a quibbling attorney, or a hypocritical parson.

Lincoln was a great lawyer. There is nothing shrewder in this world than intelligent honesty. Perfect candor is sword and s.h.i.+eld.

He understood the nature of man. As a lawyer he endeavored to get at the truth, at the very heart of a case. He was not willing even to deceive himself. No matter what his interest said, what his pa.s.sion demanded, he was great enough to find the truth and strong enough to p.r.o.nounce judgment against his own desires.

Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart, direct as light; and his words, candid as mirrors, gave the perfect image of his thought. He was never afraid to ask--never too dignified to admit that he did not know. No man had keener wit, or kinder humor.

It may be that humor is the pilot of reason. People without humor drift unconsciously into absurdity. Humor sees the other side--stands in the mind like a spectator, a good-natured critic, and gives its opinion before judgment is reached. Humor goes with good nature, and good nature is the climate of reason. In anger, reason abdicates and malice extinguishes the torch. Such was the humor of Lincoln that he could tell even unpleasant truths as charmingly as most men can tell the things we wish to hear.

He was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy--it is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the stupid.

He was natural in his life and thought--master of the story-teller's art, in ill.u.s.tration apt, in application perfect, liberal in speech, shocking Pharisees and prudes, using any word that wit could disinfect.

He was a logician. His logic shed light. In its presence the obscure became luminous, and the most complex and intricate political and metaphysical knots seemed to untie themselves. Logic is the necessary product of intelligence and sincerity. It cannot be learned. It is the child of a clear head and a good heart.

Lincoln was candid, and with candor often deceived the deceitful. He had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride, and religion without cant--that is to say, without bigotry and without deceit.

He was an orator--clear, sincere, natural. He did not pretend. He did not say what he thought others thought, but what he thought.

If you wish to be sublime you must be natural--you must keep close to the gra.s.s. You must sit by the fireside of the heart; above the clouds it is too cold. You must be simple in your speech; too much polish suggests insincerity.

The great orator idealizes the real, transfigures the common, makes even the inanimate throb and thrill, fills the gallery of the imagination with statues and pictures perfect in form and color, brings to light the gold h.o.a.rded by memory the miser, shows the glittering coin to the spendthrift hope, enriches the brain, enn.o.bles the heart, and quickens the conscience. Between his lips words bud and blossom.

If you wish to know the difference between an orator and an elocutionist--between what is felt and what is said--between what the heart and brain can do together and what the brain can do alone--read Lincoln's wondrous speech at Gettysburg, and then the oration of Edward Everett.

The speech of Lincoln will never be forgotten. It will live until languages are dead and lips are dust. The oration of Everett will never be read.

The elocutionists believe in the virtue of voice, the sublimity of syntax, the majesty of long sentences, and the genius of gesture.

The orator loves the real, the simple, the natural. He places the thought above all. He knows that the greatest ideas should be expressed in the shortest words--that the greatest statues need the least drapery.

Lincoln was an immense personality--firm but not obstinate. Obstinacy is egotism--firmness, heroism. He influenced others without effort, unconsciously; and they submitted to him as men submit to nature--unconsciously. He was severe with himself, and for that reason lenient with others.

He appeared to apologize for being kinder than his fellows.

He did merciful things as stealthily as others committed crimes.

Almost ashamed of tenderness, he said and did the n.o.blest words and deeds with that charming confusion, that awkwardness, that is the perfect grace of modesty.

As a n.o.ble man, wis.h.i.+ng to pay a small debt to a poor neighbor, reluctantly offers a hundred-dollar bill and asks for change, fearing that he may be suspected either of making a display of wealth or a pretence of payment, so Lincoln hesitated to show his wealth of goodness, even to the best he knew.

A great man stooping, not wis.h.i.+ng to make his fellows feel that they were small or mean.

By his candor, by his kindness, by his perfect freedom from restraint, by saying what he thought, and saying it absolutely in his own way, he made it not only possible, but popular, to be natural. He was the enemy of mock solemnity, of the stupidly respectable, of the cold and formal.

He wore no official robes either on his body or his soul. He never pretended to be more or less, or other, or different, from what he really was.

He had the unconscious naturalness of Nature's self.

He built upon the rock. The foundation was secure and broad. The structure was a pyramid, narrowing as it rose. Through days and nights of sorrow, through years of grief and pain, with unswerving purpose, "with malice towards none, with charity for all," with infinite patience, with unclouded vision, he hoped and toiled. Stone after stone was laid, until at last the Proclamation found its place. On that the G.o.ddess stands.

He knew others, because perfectly acquainted with himself. He cared nothing for place, but everything for principle; little for money, but everything for independence. Where no principle was involved, easily swayed--willing to go slowly, if in the right direction--sometimes willing to stop; but he would not go back, and he would not go wrong.

He was willing to wait. He knew that the event was not waiting, and that fate was not the fool of chance. He knew that slavery had defenders, but no defence, and that they who attack the right must wound themselves.

He was neither tyrant nor slave. He neither knelt nor scorned.

With him, men were neither great nor small--they were right or wrong.

Through manners, clothes, t.i.tles, rags and race he saw the real--that which is. Beyond accident, policy, compromise and war he saw the end.

He was patient as Destiny, whose undecipherable hieroglyphs were so deeply graven on his sad and tragic face.

Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.

It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy.

Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe, this divine, this loving man.

He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying the master--seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices--he was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope and the n.o.bility of a Nation.

He spoke not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince.

He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction.

He longed to pardon.

He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he had rescued from death.

Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.