(09-04-2014, 10:40 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote: The additional words simply detract. The person responsible for carving the words onto the tombstone may have thought so as well.
Luckily IMO Jules Guerin (think it was he?) didn't consider any words of the Gettysburg Address or 2nd Inaugural detracting when quoting them on the inside walls of the Lincoln Memorial! (If chacun à son goût went first - who knows what Masters would have done then?)
Dr. Houmes' hint seems likely to me.
I think Lincoln was a better writer. What is your opinion?
"So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history." -- Plutarch