The voice seemed far away as if from some ancestral tomb. "I have lived my life. I found it here in New Salem—and I will leave it here."
"No, no. You will feel differently after awhile. You will want to live for the things that are to be."
"For the things that are to be? What can a man do when that which alone could make life worth living is taken from it forever?"
"There are other incentives to life than love. There is ambition with its measure of fame, and service with the pleasure of duty," Dr. Allen said.
"Ambition—fame," Lincoln repeated wearily. "What is fame but a bauble—a passin' bauble."
"But think what you may live to do for humanity in some way or another. You have made a good beginning—you have put in the foundation, Lincoln. You might be Governor of Illinois some day. Think then what you might accomplish for liberty—for freedom and justice."
"My interest in these things is dead. Everything is dead."
"No, not dead, only numb. Great pain brings numbness, but Time heals the deepest cuts. The edges stay tender, the old wounds bleed and the scars remain. But in spite of all, the numbness and the pain give way in time to the healing forces of nature."
Lincoln dropped his head wearily on the table. He was ill, tired, hungry, suffering from loss of sleep—all this with the other.
Dr. Allen looked helplessly at Green and wiped his eyes again.