sue, there are two names that cannot be omitted. These are
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. It was the good fortune of the
writer to be an eye and ear witness of the closing bout, at Alton,
Illinois, between those two political champions in their great debate
of 1858. The contrast between the men was remarkable. Lincoln was very
tall and spare, standing up, when speaking, straight and stiff.
Douglas was short and stumpy, a regular roly-poly man. Lincoln's face
was calm and meek, almost immobile. He referred to it in his address
as "my rather melancholy face." Although plain and somewhat rugged, I
never regarded Lincoln's face as homely. I saw him many times and
talked with him, after the occasion now referred to. It was a good
face, and had many winning lines. Douglas's countenance, on the other
hand, was leonine and full of expression. His was a handsome face.
When lighted up by the excitement of debate it could not fail to
impress an audience.

Lincoln indulged in no gesticulation. If he had been addressing a
bench of judges he would not have been more impassive in his manner.
He was an animate, but not an animated, bean-pole. He poured out a
steady flow of words--three to Douglas's two--in a simple and
semi-conversational tone. He attempted no witticisms and indulged in
no oratorical claptrap. His address was pure argument. Douglas's
manner was one of excitement, and accompanied and emphasized by almost
continuous bodily movement. His hands and his feet, and especially
that pliable face of his, were all busy talking. He said sharp things,
evidently for their immediate effect on his audience, and showed that
he was not only master of all the arts of the practical stump orator,
but was ready to employ them.

But the most noticeable difference was in the voices of the men.
Douglas spoke first, and for the first minute or two was utterly
unintelligible. His voice seemed to be all worn out by his speaking in
that long and principally open-air debate. He simply bellowed. But
gradually he got command of his organ, and pretty soon, in a somewhat
laborious and painful way, it is true, he succeeded in making himself
understood.

Lincoln's voice, on the contrary, was without a quaver or a sign of
huskiness. He had been speaking in the open air exactly as much as
Douglas, but it was perfectly fresh, not a particle strained. It was a
perfect voice.

Those who wanted to understand Douglas had to press up close to the