to whom Virginia owed so much in leadership and
example. And Lincoln and Washington were typical Americans in the use
they made of their genius. But there will be few such men at best, and
we will not look into the mystery of how and why they come. We will only
keep the door open for them always, and a hearty welcome,--after we have
recognized them.

I have read many biographies of Lincoln; I have sought out with the
greatest interest the many intimate stories that are told of him, the
narratives of nearby friends, the sketches at close quarters, in which
those who had the privilege of being associated with him have tried to
depict for us the very man himself "in his habit as he lived;" but I
have nowhere found a real intimate of Lincoln's. I nowhere get the
impression in any narrative or reminiscence that the writer had in fact
penetrated to the heart of his mystery, or that any man could penetrate
to the heart of it. That brooding spirit had no real familiars. I get
the impression that it never spoke out in complete self-revelation, and
that it could not reveal itself completely to anyone. It was a very
lonely spirit that looked out from underneath those shaggy brows and
comprehended men without fully communing with them, as if, in spite of
all its genial efforts at comradeship, it dwelt apart, saw its visions
of duty where no man looked on. There is a very holy and very terrible
isolation for the conscience of every man who seeks to read the destiny
in affairs for others as well as for himself, for a nation as well as
for individuals. That privacy no man can intrude upon. That lonely
search of the spirit for the right perhaps no man can assist. This
strange child of the cabin kept company with invisible things, was born
into no intimacy but that of its own silently assembling and deploying
thoughts.

I have come here to-day, not to utter a eulogy on Lincoln; he stands in
need of none, but to endeavor to interpret the meaning of this gift to
the nation of the place of his birth and origin. Is not this an altar
upon which we may forever keep alive the vestal fire of democracy as
upon a shrine at which some of the deepest and most sacred hopes of
mankind may from age to age be rekindled? For these hopes must
constantly be rekindled, and only those who live can rekindle them. The
only stuff that can retain the life-giving heat is the stuff of living
hearts. And the hopes of mankind cannot be kept alive by words merely,