In true
fraternity and democracy this Westerner was not only far in
advance of his own day, but he is also far in advance of ours
which raises statues to his memory. Yet he was used to loneliness
and to the long view, and even across the welter of the World War
of the twentieth century Lincoln would be tall enough to see that
ship coming into the harbor under full sail.
CHAPTER X. A NEW NATION
The changes that have come over the inner spirit and the outward
expression of American life since Lincoln's day are enough to
startle the curiosity of the dullest observer. Yet they have been
accomplished within the lifetime of a single man of letters. The
author of one of the many campaign biographies of Lincoln in 1860
was William Dean Howells, then an Ohio journalist of
twenty-three. In 1917, at the age of eighty, Mr. Howells is still
adding to his long row of charming and memorable books. Every
phase of American writing since the middle of the last century
has fallen under the keen and kindly scrutiny of this loyal
follower of the art of literature.
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