carlyle once said to holman hunt: “i’m only a poor man, but i would give one third of what i possess for a veritable, contemporaneous representation of jesus christ. had those carvers of marble chiseled a faithful statue of the son of man, as he called himself, and shown us what manner of man he was like, what his height, what his build, and what the features of his sorrow-marked face were, i for one would have thanked the sculptor with all the gratitude of my heart for that portrait as one of the most precious heirlooms of the ages.”
remarkable as it may seem, were it not for photography and one life mask, this, with equal truth, might be said of a man who, as the ages run, has hardly gone from among us.
lincoln, one of the greatest of observers, was himself the least truly observed. god had built him in the backyard of the nation and there, wrapped in homely guise, had preserved and matured his pure humanity. he was heard, but seems rarely, if ever, to have been truly seen. the reports we have of him do not satisfy, do not justify, are inconsistent. the eastern, old-world eye could not read beyond the queer hat, bad tailoring, and boots you could not now give away—and he was so long he fairly had to stoop to look the little world in the face. never has bad tailoring, homely, deferential manner, so completely hidden seer, jester, master of men, as did these simple accoutrements this first great gift of the west. but it is surprising that professional observers, artists and writers alike, have drawn and redrawn the untrue picture.
a great portrait is always full of compelling presence, more even than is seen in the original at all times, for a great portrait depicts great moments and carries the record of the whole man. it is, therefore, not enough to draw a mask.
lincoln is a comfort and a reality, an example, a living inspiration to every mother and every son in america. no mask will satisfy us; we want to see what we care for; we want to feel the private conscience that became public conduct. we love this man, because he was all in all one of us and made all the world peers. now we begin to see him truly. within his coming the west has steadily rolled back the east, and of his ways the world has many. the silk hat, the tall figure, the swing, the language and manner have become american, and we all understand.
official washington was shocked by his address. men, who could have given us master pictures of a master man, remained unconvinced until he had passed away. the great portrait was never drawn, and now it is too late; we must wade through mountains of material and by some strange divination find in fragments the real man, and, patiently, lovingly, yet justly, piece them all together.
it was speculation of this kind that gradually led me to a careful analysis of lincoln the man. the accepted portraits of him do not justify his record. his life, his labors, his writings, made me feel some gross injustice had been done him in the blind, careless use of such phrases as ungainly, uncouth, vulgar, rude, which were commonly applied to him by his contemporaries. these popular descriptions do not fit the master of polished douglas—nor the man, whose intellectual arrogance academic sumner resented.
i believed the healthy, powerful youth and frontiersman, the lover, lawyer of spotless record, legislator, the thrice candidate for president, had been falsely drawn. i believed if properly seen and truly read, the compelling and enduring greatness of the man would be found written in his actions, in his figure, in his deportment, in his face, and that some of this compelling greatness might be gotten into the stone. to do this, i read all or nearly all he had written, his own description of himself, the few immediate records of his coming and going. i then took the life mask, learned it by heart, measured it in every possible way—for it is infallible—then returned to the habits of his mind, which his writings gave me, and i recognized that five or six of the photographs indicated the man.
whether lincoln sat or stood, his was the ease of movement of a figure controlled by direct and natural development, without a hint of consciousness. chairs were low for him and so lincoln seemed when he sat down to go farther than was quite easy or graceful. his walk was free and he moved with a long but rather slow swinging stride. his arms hung free, and he walked with an open hand. he was erect; he did not stoop at the shoulders. he bent forward, but from the waistline. his face was large in its simple masses. his head was normal in size; his forehead high, regular and ideal in shape. his brow bushed and projected like a cliff. his eyebrows were very strong. his mouth was not coarse or heavy. his right side was determined, developed, ancient. the left side was immature, plain—and physically not impressive.
you will find written in his face literally all the complexness of his nature. we see a dual nature struggling with a dual problem, delivering a single result—to the whole. he was more deeply rooted in the home principles that are keeping us together than any man who was ever asked to make his heart-beat national—too great to become president, except by some extraordinary combination of circumstances.
gutzon borglum
