He was not
so absolutely self-effacing as Lincoln, but I think that he
realized to the full the meaning of Lincoln's phrase, "the world
will little note, nor long remember what we may say here," and
that he would have made it his motto. For he, like all truly
great statesmen, was so immensely concerned in winning today's
battle, that he wasted no time in speculating what tomorrow, or
next year, or next century would say about it. Mysticism, the
recurrent fad which indicates that its victims neither see clear
nor think straight, could not spread its veils over him. The man
who visualizes is safe from that intellectual weakness and moral
danger. But although Roosevelt felt the sway of the true
emotions, he allowed only his intimates to know what he held most
intimate and sacred. He felt also the charm of beauty, and over
and over again in his descriptions of hunting and riding in the
West, he pauses to recall beautiful scenery or some unusual bit
of landscape; and even in remembering his passage down the River
of Doubt, when he came nearer to death than he ever came until he
died, in spite of tormenting pain and desperate anxiety for his
companions, he mentions more than once the loveliness of the
river scene or of the massed foliage along its banks.
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