quibbling attorney or a hypocritical parson.

Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears,
complex in brain, single in heart, direct as light; and his words,
candid as mirrors, gave the perfect image of his thought. He was never
afraid to ask--never too dignified to admit that he did not know. No
man had keener wit or kinder humor. He was not solemn. Solemnity is a
mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy--it is the preface, prologue, and
index to the cunning or the stupid. He was natural in his life and
thought--master of the story-teller's art, in illustration apt, in
application perfect, liberal in speech, shocking Pharisees and prudes,
using any word that wit could disinfect.

He was a logician. Logic is the necessary product of intelligence and
sincerity. It cannot be learned. It is the child of a clear head and a
good heart. He was candid, and with candor often deceived the
deceitful. He had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride,
and religion without cant--that is to say, without bigotry and without
deceit.

He was an orator--clear, sincere, natural. He did not pretend. He did
not say what he thought others thought, but what he thought. If you
wish to be sublime you must be natural--you must keep close to the
grass. You must sit by the fireside of the heart; above the clouds it
is too cold. You must be simple in your speech: too much polish
suggests insincerity. The great orator idealizes the real,
transfigures the common, makes even the inanimate throb and thrill,
fills the gallery of the imagination with statues and pictures perfect
in form and color, brings to light the gold hoarded by memory, the
miser--shows the glittering coin to the spendthrift, hope--enriches
the brain, ennobles the heart, and quickens the conscience. Between
his lips, words bud and blossom.

If you wish to know the difference between an orator and an
elocutionist--between what is felt and what is said--between what the
heart and brain can do together and what the brain can do alone--read
Lincoln's wondrous words at Gettysburg, and then the speech of Edward
Everett. The oration of Lincoln will never be forgotten. It will live
until languages are dead and lips are dust. The speech of Everett will
never be read. The elocutionists believe in the virtue of voice, the
sublimity of syntax, the majesty of long sentences, and the genius of
gesture. The orator loves the real, the simple, the natural. He places
the th