Who wrote the lines of poetry "quoted" by Lincoln at the Soldiers' Home?

[David Lockmiller]

The New York Times published a story today (March 18) on the NCAA basketball tournament and the continuing academic demands placed on some of these student-athletes. The story is entitled “For Players, Classes Don’t End Just Because the Games Begin” and is written by Juliet Macur. It reads, in part, as it is relevant to this posting thread:

Matt Ryan, a freshman forward for Notre Dame, has Italian to practice and maybe a lecture or two to watch online. Then there’s that big project due Wednesday in his anthropology class called Hacking Life: From Cyber Crime to Human Creativity; for that, Ryan must write a dozen or so pages on how artificial intelligence applies to combat.

You don’t see that on his stat sheet.

“We knew what we were getting into when we signed up for this,” said Ryan, who this month was named to the Atlantic Coast Conference’s all-academic basketball team. “Yes, some teams have a reputation for not paying much attention to academics, but Notre Dame isn’t one of those. For me, it’s all about balancing school and basketball because they’re both important.”

In case the connection of the NYTimes story to this thread is missed: “Ryan must write a dozen or so pages on how artificial intelligence applies to combat.”

I would like to see what this student-athlete writes on the subject and if he makes any reference to President Lincoln and his advocacy role in the creation and building of the Monitor in response to the threat of the Merrimac by the Rebels.

[David Lockmiller]

(03-18-2016 01:13 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  The New York Times published a story today (March 18) on the NCAA basketball tournament and the continuing academic demands placed on some of these student-athletes. The story is entitled “For Players, Classes Don’t End Just Because the Games Begin” and is written by Juliet Macur. It reads, in part, as it is relevant to this posting thread:

Matt Ryan, a freshman forward for Notre Dame, has Italian to practice and maybe a lecture or two to watch online. Then there’s that big project due Wednesday in his anthropology class called Hacking Life: From Cyber Crime to Human Creativity; for that, Ryan must write a dozen or so pages on how artificial intelligence applies to combat.

. . . .

In case the connection of the NYTimes story to this thread is missed: “Ryan must write a dozen or so pages on how artificial intelligence applies to combat.”

I would like to see what this student-athlete writes on the subject and if he makes any reference to President Lincoln and his advocacy role in the creation and building of the Monitor in response to the threat of the Merrimac by the Rebels.

The internal debate over Maven, viewed by both supporters and opponents as opening the door to much bigger defense contracts, generated a petition signed by about 4,000 [Google] employees who demanded “a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology.”

Fei-Fei Li is among the brightest stars in the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence, somehow managing to hold down two demanding jobs simultaneously: head of Stanford University’s A.I. lab and chief scientist for A.I. at Google Cloud, one of the search giant’s most promising enterprises.

Yet last September, when nervous company officials discussed how to speak publicly about Google’s first major A.I. contract with the Pentagon, Dr. Li strongly advised shunning those two potent letters.

“Avoid at ALL COSTS any mention or implication of AI,” she wrote in an email to colleagues reviewed by The New York Times. “Weaponized AI is probably one of the most sensitized topics of AI — if not THE most. This is red meat to the media to find all ways to damage Google.”

Dr. Li’s concern about the implications of [AI] military contracts for Google has proved prescient.

Source: NYTimes story May 31, 2018 - How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for Google

The Monitor was built at Lincoln's direction to counter the military technology of the Merrimack (CSS Virginia).

The United States, at the behest of Einstein and other noted scientists, raced to create the atomic bomb before Germany was able to do so.

Now, how do you stop the race to build warfare technology based on artificial intelligence? And, is there really a choice? Lincoln knew that there was no choice. Einstein knew that there was no choice.

[David Lockmiller]

Google Promises Its A.I. Will Not Be Used for Weapons New York Times June 8, 2018

Google detailed applications of the technology that the company will not pursue, including A.I. for “weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people” and “technologies that gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms of human rights.”

No doubt, it will be "full steam ahead" for the Chinese and the Russians in these areas of AI research.

"Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration" by L. E. Chittenden (Lincoln's Register of the Treasury) Chap. XXVI, PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S CONNECTION WITH THE ORIGIN OF ARMORED VESSELS -- NAVY ASSISTANT-SECRETARY INTERVIEW WITH THE PRESIDENT, pages 212-214.

Suggestions of the necessity of armored vessels for harbor defense were strongly pressed by Major Robert Anderson, very soon after he arrived in Washington from Fort Sumter. He reported that one of the Confederate batteries in Charleston harbor was covered with bars of railroad iron, in such a way that the guns of the fort made no impression upon it. Having learned from experience that a battery so protected was impregnable, and there being no reason why like armor could not be applied to a floating as well as a land battery, Major Anderson argued that the Confederates would almost certainly undertake the construction of iron-clad vessels, and if we were not provided with similar vessels to resist them, they would take and hold possession of our navigable rivers and harbors, and so inflict an irremediable injury on our seaport cities and their commerce.

I (L. E. Chittenden) was so fortunate as to have secured the friendship of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox, and I have made several visits to the President in his company. On one of these visits, I heard the President ask Mr. Fox his opinion of armored vessels, and of Major Anderson's suggestion. Mr. Fox replied, in substance, that the subject was under active consideration in the Navy Department, but it was novel; it was very important, and though generally impressed with the practicability of such vessels, he was not yet prepared to commit himself to any fixed opinion. The President, somewhat earnestly, observed that "we must not let the rebels get ahead of us in such an important matter," and asked what Mr. Fox regarded as the principal difficulty in the way of their use.

When we left the White House, Mr. Fox observed that the President appeared to be deeply interested in the subject of iron-clads; that it was most important, but it was new, and would encounter all the prejudices of the naval service. But its importance was such that its investigation would be pressed as fast as possible, with a view of at least trying the experiment.

[Gene C]

Thanks Google
So much for "Speak softly and carry a big stick"

One of the potential problems with AI is that people will forget how to think, and in some businesses, aren't allowed to think.
At least that is what my computer told me to write.

[David Lockmiller]

(06-08-2018 10:19 AM)Gene C Wrote:  Thanks Google
So much for "Speak softly and carry a big stick"

One of the potential problems with AI is that people will forget how to think, and in some businesses, aren't allowed to think.
At least that is what my computer told me to write.

Another very real problem is the first Terminator movie (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) scenario. Elon Musk, among others, has expressed a similar concern.

Pertinent script from the original Terminator movie:

Sarah: Reese. Why me? Why does it (the terminator) want me?

Kyle Reese: There was a nuclear war. A few years from now, all this, this whole place, everything, it's gone. Just gone. There were survivors. Here, there. Nobody even knew who started it. It was the machines, Sarah.

Sarah: I don't understand.

Kyle Reese: Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.

[David Lockmiller]

A directly relevant story on AI appeared today on the New York Times online, after I made my previous posting, that is partially titled: "The Feud Over Killer Robots"

Mark Zuckerberg thought his fellow Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk was behaving like an alarmist.

Mr. Musk, the entrepreneur behind SpaceX and the electric-car maker Tesla, had taken it upon himself to warn the world that artificial intelligence was “potentially more dangerous than nukes” in television interviews and on social media.

So, on Nov. 19, 2014, Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, invited Mr. Musk to dinner at his home in Palo Alto, Calif. Two top researchers from Facebook’s new artificial intelligence lab and two other Facebook executives joined them.

As they ate, the Facebook contingent tried to convince Mr. Musk that he was wrong. But he wasn’t budging. “I genuinely believe this is dangerous,” Mr. Musk told the table, according to one of the dinner’s attendees, Yann LeCun, the researcher who led Facebook’s A.I. lab.

Mr. Musk’s fears of A.I., distilled to their essence, were simple: If we create machines that are smarter than humans, they could turn against us. (See: “The Terminator,” “The Matrix,” and “2001: A Space Odyssey.”) Let’s for once, he was saying to the rest of the tech industry, consider the unintended consequences of what we are creating before we unleash it on the world.

Neither Mr. Musk nor Mr. Zuckerberg would talk in detail about the dinner, which has not been reported before, or their long-running A.I. debate.

The creation of “superintelligence” — the name for the supersmart technological breakthrough that takes A.I. to the next level and creates machines that not only perform narrow tasks that typically require human intelligence (like self-driving cars) but can actually outthink humans — still feels like science fiction. But the fight over the future of A.I. has spread across the tech industry.

More than 4,000 Google employees recently signed a petition protesting a $9 million A.I. contract the company had signed with the Pentagon — a deal worth chicken feed to the internet giant, but deeply troubling to many artificial intelligence researchers at the company. Last week, Google executives, trying to head off a worker rebellion, said they wouldn’t renew the contract when it expires next year.

Artificial intelligence research has enormous potential and enormous implications, both as an economic engine and a source of military superiority. The Chinese government has said it is willing to spend billions in the coming years to make the country the world’s leader in A.I., while the Pentagon is aggressively courting the tech industry for help. A new breed of autonomous weapons can’t be far away. . . .

Even such influential figures as the Microsoft founder Bill Gates and the late Stephen Hawking have expressed concern about creating machines that are more intelligent than we are. Even though superintelligence seems decades away, they and others have said, shouldn’t we consider the consequences before it’s too late?

On Jan. 27, 2016, Google’s DeepMind lab unveiled a machine that could beat a professional player at the ancient board game Go. In a match played a few months earlier, the machine, called AlphaGo, had defeated the European champion Fan Hui — five games to none.

Even top A.I. researchers had assumed it would be another decade before a machine could solve the game. Go is complex — there are more possible board positions than atoms in the universe — and the best players win not with sheer calculation, but through intuition. Two weeks before AlphaGo was revealed, Mr. LeCun said the existence of such a machine was unlikely.



The Chinese government has said it is willing to spend billions in the coming years to make the country the world’s leader in A.I. It is, therefore, unreasonable to believe that the Chinese would not spend billions in the coming years for “weapons or other technologies whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people” and “technologies that gather or use information for surveillance violating internationally accepted norms of human rights.”

As President Lincoln said to skeptics in regards to the development of ironclads: "We must not let the rebels get ahead of us in such an important matter."

History is filled with stories of advanced weaponry defeating established civilizations. The African slave trade and the subjugation of native American Indians being only two examples.

Collectively speaking, merely "putting our heads in the sand" is not a viable option.

[David Lockmiller]

(06-09-2018 10:46 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  A directly relevant story on AI appeared today on the New York Times online, after I made my previous posting, that is partially titled: "The Feud Over Killer Robots"

Mark Zuckerberg thought his fellow Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk was behaving like an alarmist.

Mr. Musk, the entrepreneur behind SpaceX and the electric-car maker Tesla, had taken it upon himself to warn the world that artificial intelligence was “potentially more dangerous than nukes” in television interviews and on social media.

Autonomous weapons are fighting on battlefields from Armenia to Libya. War will never be the same.

[Steve Whitlock]

(01-21-2016 04:39 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(01-21-2016 11:56 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Is it possible that Lincoln himself became the anonymous poet in that moment, in that place, in the fall of 1864?

David, what you propose as a possibility will be my guess as to the answer to your trivia question. I will guess Lincoln himself.

It is possible that Mr. Lincoln wrote the lines in question; however, not all books have been digitized, so there may be a lesser known author who wrote the lines that inspired Mr.Lincoln. I tried finding a poem that I know was in a book, and nothing comes up, so it remains uncertain, but possible, that Abraham wrote the lines.

[David Lockmiller]

(07-08-2021 01:59 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  

(01-21-2016 04:39 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(01-21-2016 11:56 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Is it possible that Lincoln himself became the anonymous poet in that moment, in that place, in the fall of 1864?

David, what you propose as a possibility will be my guess as to the answer to your trivia question. I will guess Lincoln himself.

It is possible that Mr. Lincoln wrote the lines in question; however, not all books have been digitized, so there may be a lesser known author who wrote the lines that inspired Mr.Lincoln. I tried finding a poem that I know was in a book, and nothing comes up, so it remains uncertain, but possible, that Abraham wrote the lines.

It would be valuable to learn that Lincoln himself is the poet in the fullest sense of the word. I believe it to be true.

[Steve Whitlock]

(07-08-2021 03:38 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  

(07-08-2021 01:59 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  

(01-21-2016 04:39 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(01-21-2016 11:56 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Is it possible that Lincoln himself became the anonymous poet in that moment, in that place, in the fall of 1864?

David, what you propose as a possibility will be my guess as to the answer to your trivia question. I will guess Lincoln himself.

It is possible that Mr. Lincoln wrote the lines in question; however, not all books have been digitized, so there may be a lesser known author who wrote the lines that inspired Mr.Lincoln. I tried finding a poem that I know was in a book, and nothing comes up, so it remains uncertain, but possible, that Abraham wrote the lines.

It would be valuable to learn that Lincoln himself is the poet in the fullest sense of the word. I believe it to be true.

Roger,

Are the lines in that book you have with the ratings for whether Lincoln said something? I'm referring to the Fehrenbachers.

[RJNorton]

(07-08-2021 04:00 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  Roger,

Are the lines in that book you have with the ratings for whether Lincoln said something? I'm referring to the Fehrenbachers.

Steve, I do not think it's in there, but I shall check.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Nope, not in there.

[David Lockmiller]

(07-08-2021 04:20 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(07-08-2021 04:00 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  Roger,

Are the lines in that book you have with the ratings for whether Lincoln said something? I'm referring to the Fehrenbachers.

Steve, I do not think it's in there, but I shall check.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Nope, not in there.

Thanks, Roger.

[RJNorton]

Thanks, David. I think the only question here is whether Francis Carpenter correctly quoted the San Francisco Bulletin article. I am very confident he did so, but I'd really like it if someone could possibly post the original article. It was published a month after Lincoln's assassination, so perhaps from the c. May 14, 1865, edition of the San Francisco Bulletin. The recollection is that of an anonymous woman from California.

Steve, in answer to your question, we are placing our trust in the memory of an anonymous visitor to Washington. I have no reason to question her memory from her time in Washington. Francis B. Carpenter obviously trusted her memory, and I do, too. Apparently there were other ladies present, but as far as I know, none of them provided recollections from that evening at the Soldiers' Home.

[Steve Whitlock]

(07-09-2021 06:23 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Thanks, David. I think the only question here is whether Francis Carpenter correctly quoted the San Francisco Bulletin article. I am very confident he did so, but I'd really like it if someone could possibly post the original article. It was published a month after Lincoln's assassination, so perhaps from the c. May 14, 1865, edition of the San Francisco Bulletin. The recollection is that of an anonymous woman from California.

Steve, in answer to your question, we are placing our trust in the memory of an anonymous visitor to Washington. I have no reason to question her memory from her time in Washington. Francis B. Carpenter obviously trusted her memory, and I do, too. Apparently there were other ladies present, but as far as I know, none of them provided recollections from that evening at the Soldiers' Home.

Roger,

I did some looking last night and came across some references, including a newspaper article, but at the moment I'm on a short break while racing to complete mowing before thunderstorms get here in a few hours and over the weekend. I'll try to find it again when I finish, if Steve Williams doesn't beat me to it.

[Steve Whitlock]

(07-09-2021 01:16 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  

(07-09-2021 06:23 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Thanks, David. I think the only question here is whether Francis Carpenter correctly quoted the San Francisco Bulletin article. I am very confident he did so, but I'd really like it if someone could possibly post the original article. It was published a month after Lincoln's assassination, so perhaps from the c. May 14, 1865, edition of the San Francisco Bulletin. The recollection is that of an anonymous woman from California.

Steve, in answer to your question, we are placing our trust in the memory of an anonymous visitor to Washington. I have no reason to question her memory from her time in Washington. Francis B. Carpenter obviously trusted her memory, and I do, too. Apparently there were other ladies present, but as far as I know, none of them provided recollections from that evening at the Soldiers' Home.

Roger,

I did some looking last night and came across some references, including a newspaper article, but at the moment I'm on a short break while racing to complete mowing before thunderstorms get here in a few hours and over the weekend. I'll try to find it again when I finish, if Steve Williams doesn't beat me to it.

Roger and David,

The San Francisco Bulletin in it's 1865 form is unfortunately not part of my newspapers.com account. The newspaper article I saw last night was from 1924 (see attachment#1), 13 Sep 1924, Sat, Pg4, The Journal News, Hamilton, OH.

James King of William began publishing the Daily Evening Bulletin in San Francisco in October, 1855 and built it into the highest circulation paper of its time. He criticized a city supervisor named James P. Casey, who on the afternoon of the story about him ran in the paper, shot and mortally wounded King. Casey was lynched by the early vigilante committee. The Morning Call was established and began publishing in December 1856, and later merged with the Bulletin to become the long running Call-Bulletin.

There appear to be records, possibly at the SF Library, for the old newspapers. Unless I can find it online, or in a Family Tree, I may have to credit Mr. Carpenter with a correct account from his book. I have the original page images, but here is a transcription:


SIX MONTHS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 223
dent spent the nights of midsummer. More at leisure there than at the " shop," as he was in the habit
of calling his official chamber at the White House,
Mr. Lincoln sat down with the party for a leisurely
conversation. "I know," he said to Mr. Bowen,
"that you are a great admirer of Mr. Chase and
Mr. Seward. Now, I will tell you a circumstance
that may please you. Before sunset of election-day,
in 1860, I was pretty sure, from the despatches I
received, that I was elected. The very first thing
that I settled in my mind, after reaching this conclusion, was that these two great leaders of the
party should occupy the two first places in my
cabinet."
LXIV.
" The Soldier's Home," writes a California
lady,* who visited Mr. Lincoln there, "is a few miles
out of Washington on the Maryland side. It is situated on a beautifully wooded hill, which you ascend by
a winding path, shaded on both sides by wide-spread
branches, forming a green arcade above you. When
you reach the top you stand between'two mansions,
large, handsome, and substantial, but with nothing
about them indicative of the character of either.
That on your left is the Presidential country-house;
that directly before you, the' Rest' for soldiers who
are too old for further service. The'Home' only admitted soldiers of the regular army;
but in the graveyard near at hand there are num~* San Francisco Bulletin.



Page 224
224 SIX MONTHS AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
berless graves —some without a spear of grass to
hide their newness - that hold the bodies of volunteers.
" While we stood in the soft evening air, watching the faint trembling of the long tendrils of waving willow, and feeling the dewy coolness that was
flung out by the old oaks above us, Mr. Lincoln
joined us, and stood silent, too, taking in the scene.
"'How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest,' -
he said, softly.
-" There was something so touching in the picture
opened before us, - the nameless graves, the solemn
quiet, the tender twilight air, but more particularly
our own feminine disposition to be easily melted, I
suppose, - that it made us cry as if we stood beside
the tomb of our own dead, and gave point to the
lines which he afterwards quoted: —
"' And women o'er the graves shall weep,
Where nameless heroes calmly sleep.'"
"Around the'Home' grows every variety of
tree, particularly of the evergreen class. Their
branches brushed into the carriage as we passed
along, and left with us that pleasant, woody smell
belonging to leaves. One of the ladies, catching a
bit of green from one of these intruding branches,
said it was cedar, and another thought it spruce.
"'Let me discourse on a theme I understand,'
said the President.'I know all about trees in



Page 225
SIX MONTHS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 225
right of being a backwoodsman. I'11 show you
the difference between spruce, pine, and cedar, and
this shred of green, which is neither one nor the
other, but a kind of illegitimate cypress.' He then
proceeded to gather specimens of each, and explain the distinctive formation of foliage belonging
to every species.'Trees,' he said,'are as deceptive in their likeness to one another as are certain
classes of men, amongst whom none but a physiognomist's eye can detect dissimilar moral features
until events have developed them. Do you know
it would be a good thing if in all the schools proposed and carried out by the improvement of modern thinkers, we could have a school of eJvents?'
"' A school of events?' repeated the lady he
addressed.
"' Yes,' he continued,'since it is only by that
active development that character and ability can
be tested. Understand me, I now mean men, not
trees; they can be tried, and an analysis of their
strength obtained less expensive to life and human
interests than man's. What I say now is a mere
whiinsey, you know; but when I speak of a school
of events, I mean one in which, before entering
real life, students might pass through the mimic
vicissitudes and situations that are necessary to
bring out their powers and mark the calibre to
which they are assigned. Thus, one could select
from the graduates an invincible soldier, equal to
any position, with no such word as fail; a martyr
15



Page 226
226 SIX MONTHS AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
to Right, ready to give up life in the cause; a
politician too cunning to be outwitted; and so on.
These things have all to be tried, and their sometime failure creates confusion as well as disappointment. There is no more dangerous or expensive
analysis than that which consists of trying a mall.'
"'Do you think all men are tried?.' was asked.
"'Scarcely,' said Mr. Lincoln,' or so many would
not fit their place so badly. Your friend, Mr.
Beecher, being an eloquent man, explains this well
in his quaint illustration of people out of their
sphere, the clerical faces he has met with in gay,
rollicking life, and the natural wits and good brains
that have*by a freak dropped into ascetic robes.'
"' Some men seem able to do what they wish in
any position, being equal to them all,' said some one.
"'Versatility,' replied the President,' is an injurious possession, since it never can be greatness. It
misleads you in your calculations from its very agreeability, and it inevitably disappoints you in any great
trust from its want of depth. A versatile man, to
be safe from execration, should never soar; mediocrity is sure of detection.'
" On our return to the city we had reached that
street — I forget its name-crossing which you
And yourself out of Maryland and in the District
of Columbia. Wondering at this visible boundary
that made certain laws and regulations apply to one
side of a street that did not reach the other, I lost
the conversatiofi, till I found it consisted of a dis


Page 227
SIX MONTHS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 227
cursive review of General McClellan's character, in
which I was directly appealed to to know if we had
not at one time considered him the second Napoleon
in California.
"I hastened to say that I had found, in travelling
in the New England States, more fervent admirers
of the Unready than I had ever known to expend
speculative enthusiasm upon him among us.
"'So pleasant and scholarly a gentleman can
never fail to secure personal friends,' said the President.' In fact,' he continued, kindly,' "Even his failings lean to virtue's side."
A keen sense of genius in another, and a reverence for it that forced expression, was out of place
at Seven Oaks, as beautiful things sometimes will
be. He was lost in admiration of General Lee, and
filled with that feeling, forebore to conquer him.
The quality that would prove noble generosity in a
historian, does not fit the soldier. Another instance
of the necessity for my suggestion being carried into
effect,' he added, smiling.
"When in New York a few months afterwards,
I heard the regular dinner-table conversation turn
on the' Nero who cracked jokes while Rome was
burning,' and the hundred and one wicked things
the McClellanites said of Mr. Lincoln, I recalled
the gentle verdict I had heard, and acknowledged
how bitterly a noble Christian gentleman may be
belied. It was after McClellan's speech at West



Page 228
228 SIX MONTHS AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
Point, and his admirers were wild with enthusiasm
over the learning and classic taste it displayed.
The word'scholarly' rang from mouth to mouth in
characterizing it, - the very word Mr. Lincoln had
used months before in finding a merciful excuse for
his inefficiency.
"There is one little incident connected with this
visit to the Soldier's Home that remains with me as
connected with my home here. I had always noticed that the bare mention of our California cemetery filled the minds of those who heard it with a solemn sense of awe and sorrow, -' Lone Mountain!'
It seemed to rise before them out of the quiet sea, a
vast mausoleum from the hand of God, wherein to
lay the dead. I was not astonished, therefore, when
Mr. Lincoln alluded to it in this way, and gave, in
a few deep-toned words, a.eulogy on one of its most
honored dead, Colonel Baker. Having witnessed
the impressive spectacle of that glorious soldier's
funeral, I gave him the meagre outline one can
convey in words, of something which, having been
once seen, must remain a living picture in the
memory forever. I tried to picture the solemn hush
that lay like a pall on the spirit of the people while
the grand procession wound its mournful length
through the streets of the city out on that tearstained road to the gate of the cemetery, where the
body passed beneath the prophetic words of California's most eloquent soul,' Hither in future ages they
shall bring,' etc. When I spoke of' Starr King,' I saw



Page 229
SIX. MONTHS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 229
how strong a chord I had touched in the great
appreciative heart I addressed; and giving a weak
dilution of that wondrous draught of soul-lit eloquence, that funeral hymn uttered by the priest of
God over the sacred ashes of the advocate and soldier of liberty, whose thrilling threnody seems yet
to linger in the sighing wind that waves the grass
upon the soil made sacred by the treasure it received
that day, I felt strangely impressed as'to the power
and grandeur of that mind, whose thoughts, at second-hand and haltingly given from memory, could
move and touch the soul of such a man as Abraham
Lincoln as I saw it touched when he listened. It
is the electric chain with which all genius and
grandeur of soul whatsoever is bound, - the freemasonry by which spirit hails spirit, though unseen.
Now they all three meet where it is not seeing
through a glass darkly, but in the light of a perfect
(lay." [SAW NOTE: Should be day.]
****************************
I included some extra stuff because I'm not sure how much was in the SF Bulletin article, and the ladies seem to be part of Lincoln's further commentary.

After looking at the book I see a line of bullets under "Where nameless heroes calmly sleep." That likely signals the end of the item from The SF Bulletin. I shouldn't have included anything after that.