that day Mr. Lincoln went over to his office, with his carefully-prepared speech in his pocket; and, locking the door behind him, he said to his partner, Mr. Herndon:—

“Let me read you a paragraph of my speech.” He read the foregoing extract, which was a part of the first paragraph.

“How do you like it?” inquired Mr. Lincoln, before Herndon had time to express his surprise. “What do you think of it?”

“I think it is true,” replied Mr. Herndon, “but is it entirely politic to read or speak it just as it is written?”

“That makes no difference,” answered Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Herndon was still more surprised. “Radical” as he was, Lincoln was in advance of him.

“That expression is a truth of all human experience,—‘a house divided against itself cannot stand,’ ” added Mr. Lincoln with emphasis. “The proposition is indisputably true, and has been true for more than six thousand years; and—I will deliver it as written. … I would rather be defeated with this expression in the speech, than be victorious without it.”

An hour before the address was to be delivered in the Representatives’ Hall, a dozen of his friends assembled in the library room, and Mr. Lincoln read to them several paragraphs of his speech, including the extract quoted.

“What do you think of it?” he asked.

“Fifty years in advance of public opinion,” answered one leader, almost angrily.

“Very unwise,” replied another.

“It will kill the Republican party,” said a third.

“And you too, Lincoln,” said a fourth.

“Nothing could be more unwise; it will certainly defeat your election,” added a fifth.

And so the criticisms fell fast from nearly every tongue. Every one, except Mr. Herndon, condemned the extract in question. He sprang to his feet after all had delivered themselves freely, and said: “Lincoln deliver it just as it reads.”

Mr. Lincoln sat in silence for a moment, then, rising from his seat, he walked backwards and forwards a few moments longer. Suddenly stopping and facing the company, he said:—

“Friends, I have thought about this matter a great deal, have weighed the question well from all corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has come when it should be uttered; and if it must be that I must go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to truth—die in the advocacy of what is right and just.”

He delivered the speech just as he had prepared it, and great, indeed, was the excitement occasioned thereby. Many of his warmest friends were provoked by his “unwisdom.”

“A fool’s speech,” cried one.

“Wholly inappropriate!” cried another.

“That foolish speech of yours will kill you, Lincoln,” remarked Dr. Loring. “I wish it was wiped out of existence; don’t you wish so now?”