Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1886-11-30
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Tho Remarkable Unity OF His OUTWARD
Expression with Ills Inward Spirit.

Tho Remarkable Unity OF His Outwara
Expression with Ills Inward Spirit.
1t is certainly pity that lone Of
Plutarch's men" should have had his
life omitted by that biographer. The
modern writer, who accounts for his
hero instead of representing him, and
records, painstakingly, his diurnal do
ings in the flesh in place Of the expert
ence of his immortal past will not
serve for a man of the old stamp. Plu-
tarch had special sense for the sig
nilicant deeds and words in which
greatness resides, and happily, the
rapid destruction of what was unessen-
tial even in the most famous careers
made it easy for him to write brief mar
ratives, so justly delineating living
traits that he was the Holbein of
antiquity. In our day, however, in.
dividuality has well-nigh dropped
out of history and literary criti'
cism altogether, and = seems to
have taken refuge in fiction. Where
it used to be Cato and Regulus it is
Jean Valjean and Sir Galahad. The
ideal in character, has become in let
ter, thing Of the Imagination; hence
arises our commiserat.on for any Plu-
tarchian who was born too late. In
the case of Lincoln, regret ought to
reach some degree of poignancy, be.
cause not only was he distinguished
by that genuine and original quality OF
manhood which Mr.. Lowelrs phrase is
meant to cypress, but "reminiscences OF
him are of the sort which Plutarch's
method makes the most Of; and truly,
II one could gather up into life Of the
breVity and succinctness of these age
worn chronicles what was capital in
Lincoln's actions and characteristic in
his sayings, it were book to make the
owls Of the commonplace wink! Lin
coin possessed in remarkable measure
the kind Of personality which Plutarch
rendered most perfectly; for it is
the popularity Of that old-style
biographer not to dissociate the
deed or word from It's author, but to
set it forth as the truest and most vital
expression of the mans nature, so that
at the end one seems to remember, not
what the hero did or said, but what he
was. This unity of the outward ex-
preston with the inward spirit. together
with an ever-present sense OF domi-
nant individuality, is constantly brought
home to the mind in any reading about
Lincoln; whatever the trait may be
named-genuineness, originality, sin
cerity, directness-it pervaded his life;
and so true is this that many person
who has had the opportunity of hearing
of Lincoln from his companions in
early circuit days, must have remarked
that anecdotes concerning him then are
not less plentiful and characteristic
than in the stirring times of the war.
He seems always to have been doing or
saying something noticeable, from boy
hood. In consequence, the amount OF
detail respecting him which has sur
vived from hundred perishable sources
is very large; and, while it would be
gossip II 1t related to another man. il
Is Of very high interest in connection
|
known to us by anecdote, such as DIR.
johnson; but much of the attractive
ness of Boswell's narrative is due tc
the club, to the manners OF the time
and to the humors and idiosyncrasiei
of the old doctor, while in Lincoln''
case the charm is exclusively individual
and, moreover, owes nothing to erratiC
human nature, but all to noble typt
of manhood. And other men have sur
vived by their sayings, such as Tale
rand; but in him wisdom is the concen
trated craft of cruel and selfish world,
class, while in Lincoln it is felt to b
the plain truth sifted from the expert
ence of common life, and with tn
beneiiccnce as well as the validity o
rroverb. In whatever way one ap
proaches Lincoln, he finds man whit
did not merely impress himself upon hi
times by his talents, after the manne
of a great man, like Pitt or Mirabeau
but in quite special way; he is recog
nized as new species OF public man o
worlds hero. Whether there is an.
Justice in calling him "the first Amer
lean" may be doubted, although in hi
character he embodied the excellence
most priced in the national ideal Q
manhood, with singular purity an
clearness, and with an elevation tina
places him foremost in rank; but in an
other sense he is just as likely to be tn
last American, at least of his kind, be
cause, so far as there is any truth !
applying the terms of physical scienc
to the origin Of spiritual character, h
was the product of the transitory pic
neering stage in the settlement Of tn
continent, and was environed in hi
birth and early manhood by condition
that pass away with "the Border.
This does not interfere with the fat
that Lincoln was new type of Amer
can, and distinctively Westerner; c
with our PREDATORY consideration, tn:
his marked individuality and strikin
expression of himself, at every momen
: make him peculiarly fit for Plutarchia
; biography, which aims to present a ma
only in the deeds and words in whic
his greatness was made manifest. "A
lantic Monthly.