The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-10-16
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The Remarkable Unity of His Outward
Expression With His Inward Spirit.

ING IemarkaDle unity OF his OuIWaru
Expression With His Inward Spirit.
1t is certainly pity that zone 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 man of the old stamp. Plu-
tarch had special sense for the sig
nificant 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
dividuAity 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 Vatican and Sir Galahad. The
ideal in character, has become in let
ter, thing of the Imagination; hence
arises our commiseration 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.. Lowell's phrase is
meant to express, but "reminiscences of
him are of the sort which Plutarch' s
method makes the most of; and truly,
if one could gather up into a 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 a 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 associate the
deed or word from its 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 a domi-
nant individuality. is constantly brought
home to the mind in any reading about
Lincoln; whatever the trait may be
named commences, originality, SIN
certify, 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
is of very high interest in connection
with him. Other men have been
known to us by anecdote, such as DR..
Johnson but much of the attractive
ness of Boswells narrative is due to
the club, to the manners of the time.
and to the humors and idiosyncrasies
of the old doctor, while in Lincoln 8
case the charm is exclusively individual,
and, moreover, owes nothing to erratic
human nature, but all to noble type
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 worldly
| class, while in Lincoln it is felt to be
| h. 10; eli tbo
ence of common life, and with the
beneficence as we'll as the validity of
proverb. In whatever way one APP
proaches Lincoln, he finds man who
did not merely impress himself upon his
times by his talents, after the manner
of great man, like Pitt or Mirabeau,
but in a quite special way; he is recog-
nized as new species of public man or
worlds hero. Whether there is any
justice in calling him 1.-THE first Amer
lean" may be doubted although in his
character he embodied the excellences
most priced in the national ideal of
manhood, with singular purity and
clearness, and with an elevation that
places him foremost in rank; but in an
other sense he is just as likely to be the
last American, at least of his kind, be-
cause, so far as there is any truth in
applying the terms of physical science
to the origin Of spiritual character, he
was the product of the transitory pio-
neering stage in the settlement of the
continent, and was environed in his
birth and early manhood by conditions
that pass away with "the Border"
This does not interfere with the fact
that Lincoln was a new type of Ameri-
can, and distinctively Westerner; or
with our predatory consideration, that
his marked individuality and striking
expression of himself, at every moment,
make him peculiarly fit for Plutarcl?ian
biography, which aims to present a nan
only in the deeds and words in Which
his greatness was made manifest. At
lG,ltic Monthly
Encouraging to Jones.