Omaha daily bee., 1909-02-10
SOME OF LrNcoLN.s ENGLISH.
Flaws In the Analysis 81 = Fault
Critic.
sprinEfield (Mass) Republiean.

awe N Nue AMnNyaAa ~ =
q Critic.
Springfield MASS Republican.
Montgomery Schuyler. in the course OF
a brief critical article in the February
Forum on Lincoln's English. finds few
purple patches" in the writings and
speeches Of Lincoln, and some flaws in
those few. The Gettysburg speech IL ad-
mittedly a masterpiece, one OF the great
little speeches" in the English or any
other language. whose immortality is as
sured; vet even there Mr.. Schuyler finds
in the first sentence, "our fathers brought
FORTH etc. an "unlucky sllp'-"wtth
Its necessary and impossible Implication
that the male is the parturient parent. -
This seems to be rather far-fetched. ITO
bring forth" even in its specific sense
of producing, conveys no necessary impli-
cation of the sort mentioned; while in its
derivstive senses of give rise to- or "be
the cause or the phrase expresses the
meaning of the speaker as accurately and
simply as could possibly be.
Another Of the few great passages or
purple patches found in the Lincoln ad-
dresses is the peroration of the first in
augural address which is credited to Sew
ard instead of Lincoln. AS 1t is not gen.
orally known that Seward had a hand in
moulding the form and thought Of that ad-
dress. the Seward draft of the passage in
question may be worth giving:
81 close. We are not, we must not be,
aliens or enemies, but fellow countrymen
and brethren Although passion has strained
our bonds OF affection too hardly, they
must not, l am sure they will not, be
broken. The mystic chords which, proceed
ing from so many battlefields and so many
patriot graves, pass through all the hearts
and all the hearths in this board continent
of ours will yet again harmonic in their
ancient music when breathed upon by the
guardian angel of the nation.''
Mr.. Schuyler makes Lincoln's secretary
of state "the foremost dialectician and even
more clearly the foremost rhetoricisn Of
his party yet compare the above with
the passage as revised and adopted by
Lincoln:
II am 10th to close. We are not enemies,
but friends. Though passion nay have
strained, 1t must not break our bonds of
affection. The mystic chords of memory,
stretch ng from every battlefield a I'd patriot
grave to every living heart and hearth
stone all over this broad land, will yet
swell the chorus of the union, when again
touched, as surely they will be, by the
DSltSF angels Oh our nature.
This is admittedly a vast improvement of
form in expressing the same idea; and, as
Mr.. Schuyler says, there is a mastery
rhetorical touch in the change made in the
first sentence by which the speaker is
made to appear as wishing to linger vet
awhile longer to plead the cause he has
at heart. Merely as a rhetorician, employ
ing art to conceal art-if Lincoln ever did
such a thing with any onsciousncss-the
revision of this Seward passage would
give him standing.
And the criticism passed upon the third
purple patch chosen only serves TO raise
a question whether Lincoln ever was a
conscious literary artist. This well known
passage is from the second inaugural adj
dress, in part as follows:
pFondly do we hope-fervently do we
p%ray-that this mighty scourge of war
may speedily pass away. Yet, IL God
wills that it continue until the wealth
piled by the bondman's $50 years Of I'M
requited toll shall be sunk. and until
every drop Of blood drawn with the lash
shah be paid with another drawn with the
sword, as was said 5000 years ago. so still
1t must be said. The judgments of the
Lord are true and righteous altogether"
What a pity" says Mr.. Schuyler. about
that juggling first sentence One cannot
help scanning It as meter, he says. and
even throwing IL into metrical form, as
contemporaneous copperhead %scoffers did.
1T does what one unlucky slip can do to
discredit what follows"
1t is hard to perceive the justice of
these observations. To be sure, in a
studied oration-studied to the point of
stiltiness-the word away would be
dropped, and all criticism Of this kind
would drop with 1t. But hardly anything
is more common in prose s~peech-even in
more or less carefully worded as we'll as
impromptu and impassioned speech-than
occasional chance falling upon rhyming
words at metrical distances; and the con-
summate artist. recognizing this fact,
might in such a passage as the above have
purposely put in the word away to rob
his speech of any artificial appearance.
! That Lincoln did any such thing is harry
to be believed. But his simple, candid
: nature may here have filled the place OF
, conscious art, as 1t did in so many other
ways with him. This was how his soul
was moved to speak, and he probably never
I thought more about it. In that case can
we lightly say that the sentence is I'M
. rhetorical? or can we easily find any jingle
I there beyond the empty words which can
2 never be read as such or thought of as such
without great effort?