‘“Even his failings lean to virtue’s side.”
A keen sense of genius in another, and a reverence for it that forced expression, was out of place at Seven Oaks, as beautiful things sometimes will be. He was lost in admiration of General Lee, and filled with that feeling, forebore to conquer him. The quality that would prove noble generosity in a historian, does not fit the soldier. Another instance of the necessity for my suggestion being carried into effect,’ he added, smiling.
“When in New York a few months afterwards, I heard the regular dinner-table conversation turn on the ‘Nero who cracked jokes while Rome was burning,’ and the hundred and one wicked things the McClellanites said of Mr. Lincoln, I recalled the gentle verdict I had heard, and acknowledged how bitterly a noble Christian gentleman may be belied. It was after McClellan’s speech at West Point, and his admirers were wild with enthusiasm over the learning and classic taste it displayed. The word ‘scholarly’ rang from mouth to mouth in characterizing it,—the very word Mr. Lincoln had used months before in finding a merciful excuse for his inefficiency.
“There is one little incident connected with this visit to the Soldier’s Home that remains with me as connected with my home here. I had always noticed that the bare mention of our California cemetery filled the minds of those who heard it with a solemn sense of awe and sorrow,—‘Lone Mountain!’ It seemed to rise before them out of the quiet sea, a vast mausoleum from the hand of God, wherein to lay the dead. I was not astonished, therefore, when Mr. Lincoln alluded to it in this way, and gave, in a few deep-toned words, a eulogy on one of its most honored dead, Colonel Baker. Having witnessed the impressive spectacle of that glorious soldier’s funeral, I gave him the meagre outline one can convey in words, of something which, having been once seen, must remain a living picture in the memory forever. I tried to picture the solemn hush that lay like a pall on the spirit of the people while the grand procession wound its mournful length through the streets of the city out on that tear-stained road to the gate of the cemetery, where the body passed beneath the prophetic words of California’s most eloquent soul, ‘Hither in future ages they shall bring,’ etc. When I spoke of ‘Starr King,’ I saw how strong a chord I had touched in the great appreciative heart I addressed; and giving a weak dilution of that wondrous draught of soul-lit eloquence, that funeral hymn uttered by the priest of God over the sacred ashes of the advocate and soldier of liberty, whose thrilling threnody seems yet to linger in the sighing wind that waves the grass upon the soil made sacred by the treasure it received that day, I felt strangely impressed as to the power and grandeur of that mind, whose thoughts, at second-hand and haltingly given from memory, could move and touch the soul of such a man as Abraham Lincoln as I saw it touched when he listened. It is the electric chain with which all genius and grandeur of soul whatsoever is bound,—the free-masonry by which spirit hails spirit, though unseen. Now they all three meet where it is not seeing through a glass darkly, but in the light of a perfect day.”
LXV.
On the morning of Mr. Lincoln’s arrival in Washington, just before his inauguration, it will be remembered that the Peace Convention was in session. Among those who were earliest to call upon him was a gentleman from Pennsylvania, who had been in Congress with him, and who was a member of the Peace Convention. He at once commenced plying the President elect with urgent reasons for compromising matters in dispute, saying, “It must be done sooner or later, and that this seemed the propitious moment.” Listening attentively to all that was said, Mr. Lincoln finally replied: “Perhaps your reasons for compromising the alleged difficulties are correct, and that now is the favorable time to do it; still, if I remember correctly, that is not what I was elected for!”
The same day, at Willard’s Hotel, a gentleman from Connecticut was introduced, who said he wanted nothing but to take the incoming President by the hand. Mr. Lincoln surveyed him from head to foot, and giving him a cordial grasp, replied: “You are a rare man.”
During the brief period that the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was editor-in-chief of the “Independent,” in the second year of the war, he felt called upon to pass some severe strictures upon the course of the administration. For several weeks the successive leaders of the editorial page were like bugle-blasts, waking the echoes throughout the country. Somebody cut these editorials out of the different numbers of the paper, and mailed them all to the President under one envelope. One rainy Sunday he took them from his drawer, and read them through to the very last word. One or two of the articles were in Mr. Beecher’s strongest style, and criticized the President in no measured terms. As Mr. Lincoln finished reading them, his face flushed up with indignation. Dashing the package to the floor, he exclaimed, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?”
The excitement, however, soon passed off, leaving no trace behind of ill-will toward Mr. Beecher; and the impression made upon his mind by the criticism was lasting and excellent in its effects.
Mr. Lincoln’s popularity with the soldiers and the people is well illustrated in the following incidents.