Editorial February 21, 1901 Issue

An Eloquent Tribute to Lincoln

Editor

At the celebration of the ninety-second birthday of Abraham Lincoln by the Middlesex Club at the Hotel Brunswick in Boston, Tuesday, February 12, 1901, Senator Joseph V. Quarles of Wisconsin delivered an unusually eloquent address. He paid the great President a fine tribute. In a bit of word painting so picturesque and vivid that the production may justly take its place among the masterpieces of oratorical art, he likened him to a great mountain.

Here is the picture:—

A mountain is a mystery; such was Abraham Lincoln. It is tall, rugged, isolated; so was he. It has seams and crevices that would disfigure the beauty of a hill, but constitute no blemish on such massive sublimity. Among its rugged crags are sheltered spots of rare beauty, where the sunshine loves to linger, where flowers bloom and cooling streams sparkle, where the rich coloring of nature delights the eye. But there are great patches of denuded rock which tell of the harsh attrition of the early glacier. The clouds that veil its summit lend it an air of mystery and melancholy. Great storms beat up against it with tremendous fury. The lightning with its vivid glow and the quick responses of the deep-toned thunder tell of the awful struggles that are waged about its lofty peak. Yet through storm and tempest it remains unmoved. Its cold, gray surface condenses the moisture in the threatening clouds and sends it down in raindrops to refresh and fructify the earth below. Its grand mission remains the same through all its varying moods.

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