A word that still the Atlantic hears,
And Lincoln was the lord of his event.

_The two speaking together:_ So the uncounted
spirit wakes
To the birth
Of uncounted circumstance.
And time in a generation makes
Portents majestic a little story of earth
To be remembered by chance
At a fireside.
But the ardours that they bear,
The proud and invincible motions of
character--

These--these abide.



SCENE I.


_The parlour of Abraham Lincoln's House at Springfield, Illinois,
early in 1860_. MR. STONE, _a farmer, and_ MR. CUFFNEY, _a
store-keeper, both men of between fifty and sixty, are sitting before
an early spring fire. It is dusk, but the curtains are not drawn. The
men are smoking silently_.

_Mr. Stone (after a pause)_: Abraham. It's a good name for a man to
bear, anyway.