language, but any subject, however simple, admits of digressions and
mental excursions by the illogical and careless writer. Of these there
is not a trace. Even in the most informal letters and telegrams,
written at post haste and at times under the most extreme pressure of
business and anxiety, Lincoln shows a natural feeling for the
appropriate expression that is found only in the masters of language.

Five years later, in 1837, the interval being represented by only a few
unimportant letters, Lincoln entered upon a period distinguished by
qualities that are not usually associated with his name, a tendency to
fine writing that we should look for earlier than at the age of
twenty-eight. The subject of the address is "The Perpetuation of our
Political Institutions," and the complete text is given in this volume.
Here for once Lincoln speaks of an Alexander, a Buonoparte, a
Washington. The influence of Webster is apparent, in this first purely
oratorical attempt of Lincoln's. It could hardly have been otherwise
at a time when the great Whig orator was making the whole country ring
with his wonderful speeches. It is almost certain, too, that Henry
Clay, to whom Lincoln later referred as _beau ideal_ of an orator, had
a part in moulding this early manner, though this is probably less
apparent here than in the later soberer addresses.

But it must not be supposed that this speech consists merely of what
Hamlet would call "words, words, words." Neither are all the figures
inferior and commonplace. Although it is more ornate than anything in
the later period, the following description of the passing away of the
heroes of the Revolution is a fine example of the Websterian style:
"They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-resistless hurricane has
swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled
of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur