Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/366

296 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS The death of President Lincoln, in the moment of the great national victory that he had done more than any other to gain, caused a movement of sym pathy throughout the world. The expressions of grief and condolence that were sent to the govern ment at Washington, from national, provincial, and municipal bodies all over the globe, were after ward published by the state department in a quarto volume of nearly a thousand pages, called "The Tribute of the Nations to Abraham Lincoln." After the lapse of thirty years, the high estimate of him that the world appears instinctively to have formed at the moment of his death seems to have been increased rather than diminished, as his par ticipation in the great events of his time has been more thoroughly studied and understood. His goodness of heart, his abounding charity, his quick wit and overflowing humor, which made him the hero of many true stories and a thousand legends, are not less valued in themselves ; but they are cast in the shade by the evidences that continually appear of his extraordinary qualities of mind and of character. His powerful grasp of details, his analytic capacity, his unerring logic, his perception of human nature would have made him unusual in any age of the world, while the quality that, in the opinion of many, made him the specially fitted agent of Providence in the salvation of the country, his absolute freedom from prejudice or passion in