Mammon vatsa biography of abraham lincoln

In Life and Times of

THE range of the personality of Abraham Lincoln ran far, identifying itself with the tumults and follies of mankind, keeping touch with multitudes and solitudes. The free-going and friendly companion is there and the man of the cloister, of the lonely corner of thought, prayer, and speculation. The man of public affairs, before a living audience announcing decisions, is there, and the solitary inquirer weaving his abstractions related to human freedom and responsibility.

Perhaps no other American held so definitely in himself both those elements — the genius of the Tragic, the spirit of the Comic. The fate of man, his burdens andcrosses, the pity of circumstance, the extent of tragedy in human life, these stood forth in word shadows of the Lincoln utterance, as testamentary as the utter melancholy of his face in repose.

And in contrast he came to be known nevertheless as the first authentic humorist to occupy the Executive Mansion in Washington, his gift of laughter and his flair for the funny being taken as a national belonging. It has been computed that his printed speeches and writings number 1,, words. One may range through this record of utterance and find a wider variety of styles than in any other American statesman or orator.

And perhaps no author of books has written and vocalized in such a diversity of speech tones directed at all manner and condition of men. Three short pieces from his pen are kept as immemorial possessions of the American people, each keyed to a high tragic note. These are the Letter to Mrs. Bixby, the Gettysburg Address, the Second Inaugural.

The War Department records showed a Boston woman to have lost five sons in combat actions. The number was less than five, as later research revealed. But Lincoln spoke through her to all families that had lost a boy or man in the war. In its implicative qualities, it stands among the supreme utterances of democratic peoples of the world.