In law, however, he had become a master, and his
position, to judge from the class of cases entrusted to him, was
second to none in Illinois. To that severe yet wholesome cast of
mind which the law establishes in men naturally lofty, Lincoln
added the tonic influence of a sense of style--not the verbal
acrobatics of a rhetorician, but that power to make words and
thought a unit which makes the artist of a man who has great
ideas. How Lincoln came by this literary faculty is, indeed, as
puzzling as how Burns came by it. But there it was, disciplined
by the court room, made pungent by familiarity with plain people,
stimulated by constant reading of Shakespeare, and chastened by
study of the Bible.
It was arranged that Douglas and Lincoln should tour the State
together in a series of joint debates. As a consequence there
followed a most interesting opposition of methods in the use of
words, a contest between the method formed in Congress at a time
when Congress was a perfect rhetorical academy, and that method
of using words which was based on an arduous study of Blackstone,
Shakespeare, and Isaiah. Lincoln issued from the debates one of
the chief intellectual leaders of America, and with a place in
English literature; Douglas came out a Senator from Illinois.
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