at second hand; they have accepted them in the form they were given to them. They have not reëxamined them. They have not seen the world with their own eyes. But Lincoln saw it with his own eyes. And he not only saw the surface of it, but saw beneath the surface of it; for the characteristic of the seeing eye is that it is a discerning eye, seeing also that which is not caught by the surface; it penetrates to the heart of the subjects it looks upon. Not only did this man look upon life with a discerning eye. If you read of his youth and of his early manhood, it would seem that these were his only and sufficient pleasures. Lincoln seemed to covet nothing from his business except that it would give him leisure enough to do this very thing to look at other people; to talk about them; to sit by the stove in the evening and discuss politics with them; to talk about all the things that were going on, to make shrewd, penetrating comments upon them, to speak his penetrating jests.

I had a friend once who said he seriously thought that the business of life was conversation. There is a good deal of Mr. Lincoln's early life which would indicate that he was of the same opinion. He believed that, at any rate, the most attractive business of life was conversation; and conversation, with Lincoln, was an important part of the business of life, because it was conversation which uncovered the meanings of things and illuminated the hidden places where nobody but Lincoln had ever thought of looking.

You remember the very interesting story told about Mr. Lincoln in his early practice as a lawyer. Some business firm at a distance wrote to him and asked him to look into the credit of a certain man who had asked to have credit extended to him by the firm. Mr. Lincoln went around to see the man at his place of business, and reported to this effect: that he had found the man in an office which contained one table and two chairs, "But," he added, "there is a hole in the corner that would bear looking into." That anecdote, slight as it is, is typical of Mr. Lincoln. He sometimes found the character of the man lurking in a hole; and when his speech touched that character it was illuminated; you could

not frame otherwise a better characterization. That seemed to be the business of the man's life; to look at things and to comment upon them; and his comment upon them was just as fearless and just as direct as it was shrewd and penetrating.

I know some men can see anything they choose to see, but they won't say anything; who are dried up at the source by that enemy of mankind which we call Caution. God save a free country from cautious men,-men, I mean, cautious for themselves,-for cautious men are men who will not speak the truth if the speaking of it threatens to damage them. Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness.

This man had no caution. He was absolutely direct and fearless. You will say that he had very little worldly goods to lose. He did not allow himself to be encumbered by riches, therefore he could say what he pleased. You know that men who are encumbered by riches are apt to be more silent than others. They have given hostages to fortune, and for them it is very necessary to maintain the status quo. Now, Mr. Lincoln was not embarrassed in this way. A change of circumstances would suit him just as well as the permanency of existing circumstances. But I am confident that if Mr. Lincoln had had the gift of making money, he nevertheless would not have restrained his gift for saying things; that he nevertheless would have ignored the trammels and despised caution and said what he thought. But one interesting thing about Mr. Lincoln is that no matter how shrewd or penetrating his comment, he never seemed to allow a matter to grip him. He seemed so directly in contact with it that he could define things other men could not define; and yet he was detached. He did not look upon it as if he were part of it. And he was constantly salting all the delightful things that he said, with the salt of wit and humor.

I would not trust a saturnine man, but I would trust a wit; because a wit is a man who can detach himself, and not get so buried in the matter he is dealing with as to lose that sure and free movement which a man can have only when he is detached. If a man can comment upon his own misfortunes

with a touch of humor, you know that his misfortunes are not going to subdue or kill him. You should try to instill into every distressed friend the inclination to hold himself off at arm's length, and should assure him that, after all, there have been worse cases on record. Mr. Lincoln was not under the impression that his own misfortunes were unique, and he was not under the impression that the misfortunes of his fellow-men were unique or unalterable. Therefore he was detached; therefore he was a wit; therefore he told you a story to show that he was not so intense upon a matter that he could not recognize the funny side of it.

Not only that, but Lincoln was a singularly studious man -not studious in the ordinary conventional sense. To be studious in the ordinary, conventional sense, if I may judge by my observation at a university, is to do the things you have to do and not understand them particularly. But to be studious, in the sense in which Mr. Lincoln was studious, is to follow eagerly and fearlessly the curiosity of a mind which will not be satisfied unless it understands. That is a deep studiousness; that is the thing which lays bare the map of life and enables men to understand the circumstances in which they live, as nothing else can do.

And what commends Mr. Lincoln's studiousness to me is that the result of it was he did not have any theories at all. Life is a very complex thing. No theory that I ever heard propounded will match its varied pattern; and the men who are dangerous are the men who are not content with understanding, but go on to propound theories, things which will make a new pattern for society and a new model for the universe. Those are the men who are not to be trusted. Because, although you steer by the North Star, when you have lost the bearings of your compass, you nevertheless must steer in a pathway on the sea,-you are not bound for the North Star. The man who insists upon his theory insists that there is a way to the North Star, and I know, and every one knows, that there is not-at least none yet discovered. Lincoln was one of those delightful students who do not seek to tie you up in the meshes of any theory.