ve given play
to any untoward thought that had started in you against him since
you came into this room? But, leaving you, he knew you could test
yourselves to your own ease, and speak the more confident for it, and,
if you found yourselves clean of doubt, carry it all the happier in
your minds after. Is there a doubt among us?

_Tucker_:}
_Hind_: } No, none.
_Price_: }

_Macintosh_: Then, Mr. Tucker, ask him again when he comes back.

_Tucker_: I will.

_They sit in silence for a moment, and_ Lincoln _comes in again, back
to his place at the table_.

_Lincoln_: I wouldn't have you think it graceless of me to be slow in
my answer. But once given, it's for the deep good or the deep ill
of all this country. In the face of that a man may well ask himself
twenty times, when he's twenty times sure. You make no qualification,
any one among you?

_Tucker_: None. The invitation is as I put it when we sat down. And I
would add that we are, all of us, proud to bear it to a man as to whom
we feel there is none so fitted to receive it.

_Lincoln_: I thank you. I accept.

_He rises, the others with him. He goes to the door and calls_.

Susan.

_There is silence_. SUSAN _comes in.

Susan:_ Yes, Mr. Lincoln.

_Lincoln_: Take these gentlemen to Mrs. Lincoln. I will follow at
once.

_The four men go with_ SUSAN. LINCOLN _stands silently for a moment.
He goes again to the map and looks at it. He then turns to the table
again, and kneels beside it, possessed and deliberate, burying his
face in his hands._

THE CURTAIN FALLS.

_The two Chroniclers_: Lonely is the man who understands.
Lonely is vision that leads a man away
From the pasture-lands,
From the furrows of corn and the brown loads of hay,
To the mountain-side,
To the high places where contemplation brings
All his adventurings
Among the sowers and the tillers in the wide
Valleys to one fused experience,
That shall control
The courses of his soul,
And give his hand
Courage and continence.

_The First Chronicler_: Shall a man understand,
He shall know bitterness because his kind,
Being perplexed of mind,
Hold issues even that are nothing mated.
And he shall give
Counsel out of his wisdom that none shall hear;
And steadfast in vain persuasion must he live,
And unabated
Shall his temptation be.

_Second Chronicler_: Coveting the little, the instant gain,
The brief security,
And easy-tongued renown,
Many will mock the vision that his brain
Builds