Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1916-09-04

ne was here. Do you share with me
| the feeling, wonder, that he was per-
manently at home nowhere? II seems
10 me that in the case OF a. mani
would rather say of a spirit--like Lin
coin the question where he was is Of
little significance; that 1t Is always
| what he was that really arrests our
| thought and takes hold OF our imagi-
! nation.
TT is the spirit always that is SOW
ereign Lincoln, like the rest of u.s..
was put through the discipline of the
world--a very rough and exacting dis
cipline for him, an indispensable dis
| cipline for every man who would know
what he is about in the midst of the
| worlds affairs; but his spirit got only
| its schooling there. 1t did not derive
its character or its vision from the
experiences which brought 1t to it's
full revelation. The test Of every
American must always be, not where
he is, but what he is. That also is Of
the essence Of democracy and is the
moral of which this place IS most
gravely expressive.
I'VE would like to think Of men like
Lincoln and Washington as typical
Americans, but no man can be typical
who Is so unusual as these great men
were. 1t was typical of American life
that it should produce such men with
supreme indifference as to the manner
in which it produced them. and as
readily here in this hut as amidst the
little circle of cultivated gentlemen to
whom Virginia owed SO much in Lead
ership and example. And Lincoln and
Washington were typical Americans
in the use they made of their genius.
But there will be few such men at
best, and we will not look into the
mystery Of how and why they come.
We will only keep the door open for
them always and hearty welcome
after we have recognized them.
Real Lincoln Not Revealed.
81 have read many biographies Of
Lincoln; I have sought out with the
greatest interest the many Intimate
stories that are told OF him, the
narratives of nearby friends, The
sketches at close quarters, in which
those who had the privilege Of being
associated with him have tried to de-
pict for US the very man himself in
his habit as he lived; but I have
nowhere found real Intimate Of Lin
coins. l nowhere get the impression
in any narrative or "reminiscences that
the writer had in fact penetrated to
the heart of his mystery. or that any
man could penetrate to the heart of 1t.
That brooding spirit had no real famil-
lars / get the impression thatjt never
spoke out in complete self-revelation,
and that it could not reveal itself COM
pietely to anyone. II was very lone
ly spirit that looked on. from under
meath those shaggy eyebrows and COM
pretended men without fully commun-
ing with them, as IT, in spite of all its
genial effects of comrade ship, it dweit
apart, saw its visions of duty where
no man looked on. There is a very
holy and terrible isolation for the con-
science of every man who seeks to
read the destiny in affairs for others
as we'll as for himself, for a nation as
well as for individuals. That privacy
no man can intrude upon. That lonely
search of the spirit for the right per-
haps, no man can assist. This strange
child of the cabin kept company with
invisible things, was born into no init
macy but that of its own silently as
sembling and deploying thoughts"