language had the energy of honest directness and he was a master of
logical lucidity. He loved to point and enliven his reasoning by
humorous illustrations, usually anecdotes of Western life, of which he
had an inexhaustible store at his command. These anecdotes had not
seldom a flavor of rustic robustness about them, but he used them with
great effect, while amusing the audience, to give life to an abstraction,
to explode an absurdity, to clinch an argument, to drive home an
admonition. The natural kindliness of his tone, softening prejudice and
disarming partisan rancor, would often open to his reasoning a way into
minds most unwilling to receive it.

Yet his greatest power consisted in the charm of his individuality. That
charm did not, in the ordinary way, appeal to the ear or to the eye. His
voice was not melodious; rather shrill and piercing, especially when it
rose to its high treble in moments of great animation. His figure was
unhandsome, and the action of his unwieldy limbs awkward. He commanded
none of the outward graces of oratory as they are commonly understood.
His charm was of a different kind. It flowed from the rare depth and
genuineness of his convictions and his sympathetic feelings. Sympathy was
the strongest element in his nature. One of his biographers, who knew
him before he became President, says: "Lincoln's compassion might be
stirred deeply by an object present, but never by an object absent and
unseen. In the former case he would most likely extend relief, with
little inquiry into the merits of the case, because, as he expressed it
himself, it `took a pain out of his own heart.'" Only half of this is
correct. It is certainly true that he could not witness any individual
distress or oppression, or any kind of suffering, without feeling a pang
of pain himself, and that by relieving as much as he could the suffering
of others he put an end to his own. This compassionate impulse to help
he felt not only for human beings, but for every living creature. As in