With hand outstretched in
an easy graceful gesture, he said:
"Fellow Citizens: I introduce to you Abraham Lincoln, the
President-elect of the United States of America."
Again the silence of death, as the once ragged, lonely, barefoot boy
from a Kentucky cabin stepped forward into the fiercest light that ever
beat on human head.
He quickly adjusted his glasses, drew his tall figure to its full
height, and began to read his address, his face suddenly radiant with
the poise of conscious reserve power, oblivious of crowd, ceremony,
hostility or friendship. His voice was strong, high pitched, clear,
ringing, and his articulation singularly and beautifully perfect. His
words carried to the outer edge of the vast silent throng.
Betty watched his mobile features with increasing fascination. His bushy
eyebrows and the muscles of his sensitive face moved and flashed in
sympathy with every emotion. In a countenance of such large and rugged
lines every movement spoke unusual power. The lift of an eyebrow, the
curve of the lip, the flash of the eye were gestures more eloquent than
the impassioned sweep of the ordinary orator's arm. He made no gesture
with hand or arm or the mass of his towering body. No portrait of this
man had ever been made. She had seen many pictures and not one of them
had suggested the deep, subtle, indirect expression of his
face--something that seemed to link him with the big forces of nature.
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