audience with loud demonstrations of approval; that amid the tears, sobs, and cheers it produced in the excited throng, the orator of the day, Mr. Everett, turned to Mr. Lincoln, grasped his hand, and exclaimed, 'I congratulate you on your success!' adding in a transport of heated enthusiasm, 'Ah, Mr. President, how gladly would I give my hundred pages to be the author of your twenty lines!'

"As a matter of fact," Mr. Lamon goes on to say, "the silence during the delivery of the speech, and the lack of hearty demonstrations of approval immediately after its close, were taken by Mr. Lincoln as certain

proof that it was not well received. In that opinion we all shared. If any person then present saw, or thought he saw, the marvellous beauties of that wonderful speech, as intelligent men in all lands now see them, his superabundant caution closed his lips and stayed his pen."

WHY THE AUDIENCE WAS NOT IMPRESSED

In concluding his comments upon Mr. Lincoln's address, Mr. Nicolay, in his "Century" article to which reference has been made, says, "They [the hearers] were therefore totally unprepared for what they heard, and could not immediately re

alize that his words, and not those of the carefully selected orator, were to carry the concentrated thought of the occasion like a trumpet peal to the farthest posterity."

My own recollection, which is more clear as to occurrences in those troublous times, esspecially those upon that occasion, the responsibilities of which devolved in a great degree upon a board of which I was a member, coincides with that of Mr. Lamon and Mr. Nicolay. It is true, as Mr. Nicolay says, the hearers were totally unprepared for what they heard, and could not immediately realize how able and