[213] Had he lived twenty years longer, I believe he would have steadily increased in ability to counsel his countrymen, and in the estimation of the wise and good. ... The republic needed to be cast through chastening, purifying fires of adversity and suffering; so these came and did their work, and the verdure of a new national life springs greenly from their ashes. Other men were helpful to the great renervation, and nobly did their part in it; yet, looking back through the lifting mists of seven eventful, tragic, trying, glorious years, I clearly discern that the one providential leader, the indispensable hero of the great drama-faithfully reflecting even in his hesitations and seeming vacillation the sentiment of the masses-fitted by his very defects and shortcomings for the burden laid upon him, the good to be wrought out through him, was Abraham Lincoln.
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New York, D. Appleton and Company, March 1903.
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