This photo taken on November 19th, 1863, shows Abraham Lincoln in the crowd of people assembled in the cemetery at Gettysburg, just a few months after the bloody battle. It was on this day that he delivered his now famous Gettysburg Address. (Lincoln is in the centre, bareheaded, facing the camera but looking down to his right.) The speech, wrote James Bryce MP in 1894, “states certain truths and principles in phrases so aptly chosen and so forcible, that one feels as if those truths could have been conveyed in no other words, and as if this deliverance of them were made for all time.”
THE world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here;* but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.*
From ‘American Patriotic Selections’ (1890) edited by Frederick W. Osborn. Additional information from ‘Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865’ (1894), with an introduction by James Bryce.
Writing in 1894, James Bryce MP (1838-1922), British Ambassador to the USA from 1907 to 1913, said that he had it ‘on good authority’ that on the train to Gettysburg Lincoln turned to his neighbour and said, “I suppose I shall be expected to say something this afternoon; lend me a pencil and a bit of paper.” Scottish-American industrialist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), at that time Secretary to the President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, claimed to be the man who lent him the pencil. General Julius H. Stahl, who was in the carriage with Lincoln, saw him writing; General James B. Fry, also in the carriage that day, said there had been no time to write anything. John Russell Young of the Philadelphia Press told how the President, upon the battlefield, ‘took the single sheet of foolscap, held it almost to his nose, and, in his high tenor voice, without the least attempt for effect, delivered that most extraordinary address’; as far as he remembered that day, Senator Cornelius Cole (1822-1924) was sure that ‘Mr Lincoln probably made not a word or note in preparation for that address’. It seems we shall never really know what happened.
Lincoln’s two-minute speech followed a two-hour effort by Edward Everett (1794-1865). James Bryce drew attention to the contrast. “It is a short speech” he wrote of the President’s reflection. “It is wonderfully terse in expression. It is quiet, so quiet that at the moment it did not make upon the audience, an audience wrought up by a long and highly-decorated harangue from one of the prominent orators of the day, an impression at all commensurate to that which it began to make as soon as it was read over America and Europe. But it states certain truths and principles in phrases so aptly chosen and so forcible, that one feels as if those truths could have been conveyed in no other words, and as if this deliverance of them were made for all time.”
Questions for Critics
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Précis
President Lincoln went on to say that the work of ridding the country of slavery and restoring its constitutional commitment to popular government was not yet finished, and that it fell to everyone present to ensure that the sacrifice made by the thousands who had died at Gettysburg had not been made in vain. (54 / 60 words)
President Lincoln went on to say that the work of ridding the country of slavery and restoring its constitutional commitment to popular government was not yet finished, and that it fell to everyone present to ensure that the sacrifice made by the thousands who had died at Gettysburg had not been made in vain.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, because, besides, may, must, or, unless, whether.
Archive
Word Games
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Nor. Perish. Seven.
2 Father. Full. New.
3 Detract. Far. Grind.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Homophones Find in Think and Speak
In each group below, you will find words that sound the same, but differ in spelling and also in meaning. Compose your own sentences to bring out the differences between them.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1.
Hear.
Here.
2.
Place.
Plaice.
3.
Sew.
So.
4.
Hire.
Higher.
5.
Meat.
Meet.
6.
Berth.
Birth.
7.
Weather.
Whether.
8.
Knew.
New.
9.
Hour.
Our.
Prepositions Find in Think and Speak
Each of the words below may be followed by one or more prepositions. Compose your own sentences to show which they might be. Some prepositions are given underneath.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1. Engaged. 2. Detract. 3. Perish.
Selected Prepositions
About. Against. Among. At. By. For. From. In. Into. Of. On. Out. Over. Through. To. Towards. Upon. With.
High Tiles Find in Think and Speak
Make words (three letters or more) from the seven letters showing below, using any letter once only. Each letter carries a score. What is the highest-scoring word you can make?
x
0
Add
Your Words ()
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