SAGAMORE HILL, OYSTER BAY, N. Y., September 22, 1905.




INTRODUCTORY NOTE

"I have endured," wrote Lincoln not long before his death, "a great deal
of ridicule without much malice, and have received a great deal of
kindness not quite free from ridicule." On Easter Day, 1865, the world
knew how little this ridicule, how much this kindness, had really
signified. Thereafter, Lincoln the man became Lincoln the hero, year by
year more heroic, until to-day, with the swift passing of those who knew
him, his figure grows ever dimmer, less real. This should not be. For
Lincoln the man, patient, wise, set in a high resolve, is worth far more
than Lincoln the hero, vaguely glorious. Invaluable is the example of
the man, intangible that of the hero.

And, though it is not for us, as for those who in awed stillness listened
at Gettysburg with inspired perception, to know Abraham Lincoln, yet
there is for us another way whereby we may attain such knowledge--through
his words--uttered in all sincerity to those who loved or hated him.
Cold, unsatisfying they may seem, these printed words, while we can yet
speak with those who knew him, and look into eyes that once looked into
his. But in truth it is here that we find his simple greatness, his
great simplicity, and though no man tried less so to show his power, no
man has so shown it more clearly.

Thus these writings of Abraham Lincoln are associated with those of
Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, and of the other "Founders of the