Page:Six Months at the White House.djvu/355

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348
SIX MONTHS AT THE WHITE HOUSE.

self, and assumed that others were so organized. He never suspected men. These, with other defects of his nature, caused all his follies and wrongs, if he ever had any of either.

"All the wise and good things Mr. Lincoln ever did, sprang or came out of his great reason, his conscience, his understanding, and his heart, his love of truth, right, and the good. I am speaking now of his particular and individual faculties and qualities, not their combination, nor the result of wise or unwise combinations. Each man and woman must form his or her own estimate of the man in the mind. Run out these facts, qualities, and faculties, and see what they must produce. For instance, a tender heart; a wise; strong reason; a good understanding, an exalted conscience, a love of the good, must, in such combination, practically applied, produce a man of great humanity.

"Take another illustration in the combination of his faculties and qualities. Mr. Lincoln's eloquence lay, 1st, in the strength of his logical faculty, his supreme power of reasoning, his great understanding, and his love of principle; 2d, in his clear, exact, and very accurate vision; 3d, in his cool and masterly statement of his principles, around which the issues gather; in the statement of those issues, and the grouping of the facts that are to carry conviction, aided by his logic, to the minds of men of every grade of intelligence. He was so clear that be could not be misunderstood nor misrepresented.