“‘Fourscore and seven years ago,’” the fresh voice began, and the face of the dying man stood out white in the white pillows, sharp with eagerness, and the face of the President shone as he listened as if to new words.  The field of yesterday, the speech, the deep silence which followed it, all were illuminated, as his mind went back, with new meaning.  With the realization that the stillness had meant, not indifference, but perhaps, as this generous enemy had said, “The most perfect tribute ever paid by any people to any orator,” there came to him a rush of glad strength to bear the burdens of the nation.  The boy’s tones ended clearly, deliberately: 

“’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, for the people shall not perish from the earth.’”

There was deep stillness in the hospital ward as there had been stillness on the field of Gettysburg.  The soldier’s voice broke it.  “It’s a wonderful speech,” he said.  “There’s nothing finer.  Other men have spoken stirring words, for the North and for the South, but never before, I think, with the love of both breathing through them.  It is only the greatest who can be a partisan without bitterness, and only such to-day may call himself not Northern or Southern, but American.  To feel that your enemy can fight you to death without malice, with charity—­it lifts country, it lifts humanity to something worth dying for.  They are beautiful, broad words and the sting of war would be drawn if the soul of Lincoln could be breathed into the armies.  Do you agree with me?” he demanded abruptly, and Lincoln answered slowly, from a happy heart.

“I believe it is a good speech,” he said.

The impetuous Southerner went on:  “Of course, it’s all wrong from my point of view,” and the gentleness of his look made the words charming.  “The thought which underlies it is warped, inverted, as I look at it, yet that doesn’t alter my admiration of the man and of his words.  I’d like to put my hand in his before I die,” he said, and the sudden, brilliant, sweet smile lit the transparency of his face like a lamp; “and I’d like to tell him that I know that what we’re all fighting for, the best of us, is the right of our country as it is given us to see it.”  He was laboring a bit with the words now as if he were tired, but he hushed the boy imperiously.  “When a man gets so close to death’s door that he feels the wind through it from a larger atmosphere, then the small things are blown away.  The bitterness of the fight has faded for me.  I only feel the love of country, the satisfaction of giving my life for it.  The speech—­that speech—­has made it look higher and simpler—­your side as well as ours.  I would like to put my hand in Abraham Lincoln’s—­”