There is a "romance of character" that accompanies people of exceptional achievements, as Emerson has so justly said, and Lincoln possessed it without being in the slightest degree conscious of the fact. This is one reason why his life surpasses in interest any book of fiction ever written. He united all the realism of pioneer life with the romance of the inexplicable and the fascination of the unexpected.

Those who come to Lincoln in search of the shifting romance of bohemianism will be disappointed, for the romance of change and vacillation is the kind that leads to the poorhouse or the hospital. This romance of character, belonging, as it did, to the temperament of the man, was hidden from the multitude, but all could readily see the romance of the progressive events of his life. Lincoln was at times awed, but not alarmed, by the turn of affairs which placed him at the head of the nation. He realised the tremendous responsibility without regrets or fear. He was fully conscious of his mission but quite unconscious of the romantic elements which enveloped it, for Lincoln's life included both the "romance of character" and the romance of experience. Without the first, the second would have unfitted him for the heavy responsibilities of his high office later on. He did not seek experience for the sake of experience, like so many in our day who are under the illusion that truth and wisdom arrive perforce. He forced nothing. He followed a natural course of events, dealing with each according to the light of his own judgment, asking for no advice.

Neither the romance of character nor the romance of experience comes to those who seek them. Self-consciousness dissipates romantic mystery.