Abraham Lincoln : a biographical essay . Yet, lo ! the marks their lines alongOf one who strove and suffered much. 42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN For here in knotted cord and veinI trace the varying chart of years; I know the troubled heart, the strain,The weight of Atlas — and the tears. Again I see the patient brow That palm erewhile was wont to press; And now t is furrowed deep, and nowMade smooth with hope and tenderness. For something of a formless graceThis moulded outline plays about; A pitying flame, beyond our trace,Breathes like a spirit, in and out, — The love that cast an aureole Round one who
Abraham Lincoln : a biographical essay . Yet, lo ! the marks their lines alongOf one who strove and suffered much. 42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN For here in knotted cord and veinI trace the varying chart of years; I know the troubled heart, the strain,The weight of Atlas — and the tears. Again I see the patient brow That palm erewhile was wont to press; And now t is furrowed deep, and nowMade smooth with hope and tenderness. For something of a formless graceThis moulded outline plays about; A pitying flame, beyond our trace,Breathes like a spirit, in and out, — The love that cast an aureole Round one who, longer to endure, Called mirth to ease his ceaseless dole,Yet kept his nobler purpose sure. Lo, as I gaze, the statured man, Built up from yon large hand, appears: A type that Nature wills to planBut once in all a peoples years. What better than this voiceless cast To tell of such a one as he,Since through its living semblance passed The thought that bade a race be free! Edmund Clarence Stedman. ABRAHAM LINCOLNA BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY. ABRAHAM LINCOLN JO American can study the char-acter and career of AbrahamLincoln without being car-ried away by sentimental emo-tions. We are always inclinedto idealize that which we love,— a state of mind very unfavorable to the exer-cise of sober critical judgment. It is therefore notsurprising that most of those who have written orspoken on that extraordinary man, even while con-scientiously endeavoring to draw a lifelike por-traiture of his being, and to form a just estimate ofhis public conduct, should have drifted into moreor less indiscriminating eulogy, painting his greatfeatures in the most glowing colors, and coveringwith tender shadings whatever might look like ablemish. But his standing before posterity will not beexalted by mere praise of his virtues and abilities,nor by any concealment of his limitations andfaults. The stature of the great man, one of whosepeculiar charms consisted in his being so unlike 46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN all
Size: 1578px × 1584px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorpforzheimerbruceroger, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900
