Daily capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1896-1899, 1897-09-09
uNcoLNs GETTYSBURG SPEECH.
sublime and Immortal. Though MAtY ,eu
Arnold Had Never Heard Of IT.

| 0Nu~u mai never Heard OF 1t
stood close by and heard that speech
delivered. It came upon Us after the
ponderous and elaborate rhetoric of Ed.
ward Everett like blaze of real fire
after a matchless picture of fire. II
sprang, like the strophes of old, out Of
ohastened heart almost broken with
the weight of CONQUEST, but still daunt.
less in its American faith, and the mau
who spoke the words was, for the mo.
ment, transfgured for us, and his fur.
rowed face and gaunt form took on
the light that never was on land OF
sea, SO that he became the archetype Of
the people themselves, uttering better
than he knew the great prayer Of that
finer and better humanity that our ia
theirs and we believed was to come With
liberty and equality out of storm and
stress and an unshaken confidence in
man.
But / don't think any of us then
knew how masterful is the speech Of
the human heart when 1t comes through
the furnace to these great occasions and
plants its sad sincerity by the side Of
mere scholarship and the grooved thun-
der of rhetoric.
We had to live on for quater of a
century and sec that brief speech burn.
ing with unquenchable flame in our
schoolbools and standing out with mod.
est majesty on our page of recorded
history to comprehend how God ran
touch with living coal the lips Of O
rail splitter just as he touched the lips
Of tentmaler of Tarsus and lifted the
untutored heart Of the shoemaker, Bun
yam, into communion with the immor-
tails
Turn it every way You can, the Get.
tysburg speech stands unique as brief
literary and patriotic composition. 1t ia
the noblest condensation into the fitteSt
words of all the emotions, aspirations
and sentiments that millions Of mute
people wanted at that moment to utter.
So inwrought is that speech with the
heart Of tho occasion, and so majestio-
ally does it sweep over into the time tc
come, that should think all men every.
where would discern its intrinsic quail
ty. But that is not the case.
remember talking with Matthew
Arnold when he was in this country
about Abraham Lincoln-you will re.
member that he said of Lincoln that lie
had no "distiuction'-and l called his
attention to the Gettysburg speech.
shall never forget the imperturbable
Saturday Review stare with which he
asked, "Ah, what is the Gettysburg
speech?"
He had never heard of it. believe
whom he went back he asked Professor
Bryce what it was about, and when IL
was hunted up in an American school
book and shown to him he read it Easti.
ly and put it away with commiserating
reticence.
Suppose you ask M. Bourgot, who is
looking into tho American heart by the
way Of the American bodice and on
space rates, if le has read the Gettys-
burg speech. happen to know Of my
own knowledge that Robert Louis
Stevenson had not heard Ct it when he
was exploring our continent, and Sir
Lepel Griffin and Rudyard Kipling had
an idea that it was newspaper fake
The current number of The Saturday
Review lies open before me, and this is
what my eye falls on:
1.-The common American delusion
that there have been number of great
American poets, that there Is indeed
such a thing rs American literature.
disports itself with unusual pomposity.
1t is impossible for these literary
prigs of o special cult to understand
that there may be stimulaut condi-
tions of national life that wake into
tumultuous activity all the higher and
better functions of the soul prior to the
chartered formulation of them into an
art, and that il is in these periods OF
awakening and not in the after repose
of an elaborate @sthetioism the most
precious heartbeats of tho race have
made themselves heard and felt, some-
times in half arriculate tones, but often
er in organ blasts which have set the
KEY of liberty and fixed the vocabulary
of hope and victory.
Before eloqueRoe or poetry was an art
1t was burning soul ana ietcneu its
style from the agonies and mysteries OF
an untutored nature.
Let us by all means confer distlno'
tion on a doathless utterance by mold
ing it in bronze If we add metal enough
and surround it with the arabesque OF
Oxford, future Matthew Arnolds may
Join the pilgrims and throw the English
tribute of a well turned phrase upon
the tablet, which, after all, is but
weak hieroglyph of the record in TO-
600, 900 hearts Andrew Q. Wheeler
in New York Sun
Prosperous Times Fer Hun.
lyon may complain of the times" said
Wall street man to friend, but they
are prosperous days II fellow l know
'Prosperous day-.' remarked the
ssher. why. how IN the world can
any one be successful when everything
. dull
"Thats ,ust the point" replied the
other. "He prospers when things are
dnn. He's au exec ton TO the general
,.,la hur then ~au pauet know, he's a