LORD LANSDOWNE AND HORACE GREELY.
[To THE ED/TOR OF THE " SPECIETOR."1 Sra,—In two weeks I hope the number of the Spectator will arrive at our library reading-room which will contain your comment on Lord Lansdowne's letter to the Doi/g Telegraph. In the mean- time, I wanted to tell you, among other things, how much I have been impressed during the past few years with what might be called your saturation with Lincoln lore. If not that, you must have some sort of wonderful card-index. In either case, you have doubtless noticed how Lord Lansdowne, the Conservative statesman, and Horace Greely, the Radical and influential Republican editor of his time, were possessed of a similar—I had almost said obsession, at brief periods of their respective careers. If not, you will be interested to take down your Nicolay and Hay's Life of Lincoln and glance through chap. viii. of Vol. IX., entitled "Horace Greely's Peace Mission." At p. 186 you will notice that Greely is quoted as having written to Lincoln :—
" I venture to remind you that our bleeding, bankrupt, almost' dying country also longs for peace; shudders at the prospect of fresh conscriptions, of further wholesale devastations, and of new rivers of human blood "; while the New York Outlook of December 12th, by its weekly news comment on Lord Lansdowne's letter, draws attention to the words used by him, in which he suggests the fear of a " world-Wide catastrophe."
Is it too grotesque an explanation of what has recently occurred to imagine two shades conversing together in the spirit land, the Morning after the publication of the Lansdowne letter, and the one which proves to be that of the patient, charitable Lincoln saying to the other : " But he meant so well, and is torn with the conflicting emotions caused by the age-long tragedy of human sacrifice in some form or other, and in his case he seems to be beholding the nation about to offer up another Isaac as Abraham of old "; while the other shade, which is perceived to be either that of Sohn ffunyan, or of Lincoln's own Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, replies : "That will hardly do. You 'and I know full well the place that is paved with good intentions, and the fact remains that both lie and our own present associate Horace, have wrought confusion in Israel "?—I am, Sir, &c., WALTER J. LADD.
Providence, R.I., December 20th, 1917.
[We have been obliged, for lack of space, to curtail our American correspondent's letter.—ED. Spectator.]
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