Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1867-02-27
WHOLE NO. $3.50.

I Battles never moved him unless he
trod among their corpSes. He would
have carried on the war forever, or a.
long as the people intrusted him its
management, rather than give up,
Speaking thus, among the assecia-
tions of his working life. the years of
Abraham Lincoln began to return in
the viVidness Of their monotony, bleak
and Enremunerated, hard and pEacti-
cal, full of patient walk down q road
without turning, frightened by du-
tifullness alone, pointed, but not cheer
ed by wayside anecdote, and success
full, not so much because he was san
guine of himself, as because he rated
not emineRce and honor too high or too
difficult. When he found himself COM
peting for the Senatorship, with the
quickest, the least scrupulous, and the
most hattered orator in the Union, he
saw nothing odd or dramatic about it.
His Presidential opportunity surprised
everybody hut himself-not that he
had self-conceit, but that he thought
the Office possible. He was none ofyour
IRichelieus, meditating aside the great
uses to which Providence had put him.
He never made bid for the favor or
forgiveness of history, but ruled the
nation as if it were practicing law, and
practiced law as if It were ruling the
nation.
This real greatness of mind, obliVi-
business of circumstances, ascending
from a practice of three thousand dol
lars year to twenty-five thousand, as
if there were no contrast bet%een them,
giving Billy" permission to use the
firm style as before, without 3 conscious
poetic trait, yet ever in absent mo-
ments looking very long away ponder
ing tie distance of rewards, promises,
Vindications, with q longing that was
poetry,-these compose some of the
character of one whose fame differs
vastly from his life, and must do 50 By
the anomaly of the man.
The strongest of his loves and faiths
was the The People. He had more
reverence fol-. them in bulk than for
their highest public exemplzrs. Re
hgiously he was q reTerent man with
out creed, believing in beDi6cent Sod
no more. No denomination has. 4
special claim to him he was not a
regular ehurcb-goer; the few clergy
men whom he liked recommended
themselves on personal grounds: he re-
fused to argue on religious matters,
but inclined toward Congregational
Independence. His mother and sisters
were fond Of camp meetings, and a
rather humorous letter held By Mr..
Herndon, says that > portion Of their
family was regularly converted every
year, and backslid in the Winter.
1 know Of no better illustration Of
difference between the real life and the
renown of Mr.. Lincoln than you can
get by visiting his grave. A horse rail
road two miles long, leads to it in the
cemetery of Oak Ridge. Behind you,
is his real ife- Springfield 3 Western
market town, set upon the monotonous
prairie, half the year NOISY with the
chatter Of politicians, plethoric with
lawyers, for all Of whom there is less
than enough to do, and saYoring much
of the frost and frontier; pretty prair-
lie city, but capitalized so that what the
State has not done for the town, and
what the psople expected it to do,
make an unfinished desultoryness. All
at once as you approach the Sangamon
River, the scene changes. SLalwart
young oaks of natural growth become
plentiful. The landscape IS plOwed
with leafy raYines. Bold knolls start
up. A creek goes plashing around the
abrupt hills. Shadow, murmur, and
surprises succeed the level life Of the.
city. And among all these mysteries,
itself the great mystery of our age, the
Yanit-of the President cans a hill n
temporary edifee Of brick, and the great
drive Of one of the handsomest eemeter-
les in the Union, winds with the winding
brook beneath it;
The last
and all the white tombs martial about It
Outtonwood, maple and ash trees cluster
It It's base: hers is to be his monument.
About $75, 900 have been collected for II
lP to this time, and it is supposed the
State will vote enough to make 500, 900
n all. 1t would be blasphemy TO mar the
lead mans grave with any mere pretty
hess of marble or smartness of bronze.
Let the fiery, untamed Western genius be
If timid chisel here. 4" Abraham Lin
;oln," IS good epitaph ifplsinly lettered.
And, afte- all, will any monument be like
he man, for no such one was ever q sculp-
or's theme before. Canove could get no
notion of Mr.. Lincoln. An aIlegorv
would be unlike him, shaft too formal,
statute too inexpensive. If the Pacific
railroad could be called by his name,
hat would be better than either; but this
nan will trouble any artist in that he was
o unlike any model.