Lincoln's impact

The entry I chose for my book, “Lincoln 365,” for today’s date is as follows. It needs no elaboration.

“Lincoln's death was an unparalleled international phenomenon.
Of course heads of state, like his great and good friend Queen
Victoria, sent condolences. But what was astonishing was that,
according to one historian, condolences also came from the
Working Class Improvement Association of Lisbon, the Students
in the Faculty of Theology in Strasbourg, the Teachers of the
Ragged School in Bristol, the Vestry of the Parish of Chelsea, the
Cotton Brokers' Association of Liverpool, the Men's Gymnastic
Union of Berne, Switzerland [all 44 members]. As if moved
inexorably by some powerful if unseen gravitational pull, people
thousands of miles away made it their business to express their
profound sorrow at the passing of this most enigmatic of men.
For somehow Lincoln had managed to capture their imaginations,
this man carved from the granite of the great American heartland,
who had clambered through the dense entangling undergrowth of
misunderstanding and greed, of violence and stupidity, to burst
forth onto God's very own broad, sunlit uplands.”
- Arnold Kunst

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live
forever.”
- Mahatma Gandhi