and history, in substance and quality, in magnitude and gravity. He must know his subject inside and outside, upside and downside. All facts and principles had to run through the crucible of an inflexible judgment and be tested by the fierce fires of an analytical mind; and hence when he spoke his utterances rang out with the clear ring of genuine gold upon the counters of the understanding. His reasoning through logic, comparison, and analogy was unerring and deadly; his adversaries dreaded his originality of idea, condensation and force of expression, not less than they writhed under the convincing effect of singularly significant and apt stories. Woe be to the man who hugged to his bosom a secret error if Abraham Lincoln ever suspected or started in chase of it! Time and all the legerdemain of debate could hide it in no nook or angle of space in which he would not detect and expose it. Though accurate in perception, a profound thinker as well as analyzer, his judgment on some occasions and in certain questions was pitiably weak. It might be said that his mind was in some respects slow and ponderous, not quick or discriminating; but when it came to the concentration of his great powers of reasoning, from cause to effect, the supremacy of truth, his deductions could not be overcome. When his mind could not grasp premises from which to argue, he was weaker than a child, because he had none of the child's intuitions- the soul's quick vision of the assembled facts. To that extent Mr. Lincoln was lacking in his mental structure. He was on the alert if a principle was involved or a man's rights at stake in a transaction; but he could see no harm or impropriety in wearing a sack-coat instead of a swallow-tail at an evening party, nor could he realize the offense of telling a coarse or questionable story if a preacher happened to be present. He did not care for forms, ways, methods the non-substantial things of this world. He could not, by reason of his structure and mental make-up, be much concerned about them; nor did he manifest an intense interest in any individual man — the dollar, property, rank, order, manners, or similar things; neither did he have any avarice or other like vice in his nature. He detested somewhat all technical rules in law and the sciences, con HIS INDIFFERENCE TO FORMS 117 tending they were, as a general thing, mere forms founded on arbitrary ideas and not on reason, truth, and the right. What satisfied a small or narrow and critical mind did not always suit Mr. Lincoln any more than a child's clothes would his body. As a rule he took but slight interest in purely local affairs; was hardly ever present at a town meeting, and the few gatherings which he did attend almost invariably were political conventions. He seemed not to care who succeeded to the presidency of this or that society or railroad company; who made the most money; who was going to Philadelphia and what were the costs of such a trip; who among his friends got this office or that — who was elected street commissioner or health inspector. No principle of justice, truth, or right being involved in these things, he could not be moved by them. It only remains to say that he was inflexibly steadfast in human transactions when it was necessary to be so and not otherwise. One moment he was as pliable and expansive as gentle air; the next as firm and unerring as gravity itself. Mr. Lincoln's understanding, his conscience, yea, everything, yielded submissively to the despotism of his reason. His anaİytical power was profound. In his mental organization logic occupied the throne. His vision was clear; his pursuit of the truth intense and unremitting. His conscience ruled his heart; he was always just before he was generous. But above and beyond everything else it was plain to his friends that his strength lay in his ability to reason. From that height he came down with crushing and irresistible force. The tallest intellects in the world bowed to him, and it is, therefore, no stretch of the truth to declare that, when viewed from the elevated standpoint of reason and logic, he was easily one of the greatest intellects the nation has produced. Another strong point in his construction was his knowledge of himself; he understood and comprehended his own capacity what he did and why he did it better, perhaps, than any other man of his day. He had a wider and deeper conception of his environments and limitations than men who made greater pretensions or had enjoyed the benefits of more thorough training. Viewing his life as a whole the student of history will be sure to conclude that the elements which predominated in Mr. Lin coln's peculiar character were: first, his great capacity and power of reason; second, his conscience and excellent understanding; third, an exalted idea of the sense of right and equity; fourth, his intense veneration of the true and the good. Whatever of life, vigor, and power of eloquence his peculiar qualities gave him; whatever there was in a fair, manly, and impartial administration of justice under law to all men; whatever there was in a strong will in the right, governed by tenderness and mercy; whatever there was in toil and sublime patience; whatever there was in these things or a wise combination of them Lincoln is justly entitled to in making up the impartial verdict of history. These limit and define him as a lawyer, an orator, a statesman, and a man. They developed in all the walks of his life; they were his law; they were his nature - they were Abraham Lincoln. CHAPTER X Behind the door of Lincoln's home - What the neighbors saw and heard -- In order to bring out in sharper outline the human side of Lincoln, to learn more definitely how he lived and bore himself with the door of his home closed against the intrusion of an anxious but heartless world, Mr. Herndon was good enough to put me on the track of much rare and authentic information which, otherwise, might not have reached the public. Among other things I remember he gave me the names and whereabouts of certain neighbors of Lincoln, urging me to "run them down and pump them dry," as he expressed it, a suggestion which I promptly undertook to carry out. Judged by their opportunities and the angle from which these people viewed Lincoln, I could not but agree with Herndon that their testimony was of unquestioned value and importance. One of Lincoln's closest neighbors was James Gourley, a shoemaker, who lived in a house adjoining the Lincoln homestead on the east. The Lincolns and Gourleys were on the best of terms, which is evidenced by the fact that one of the first persons in Springfield selected by Lincoln for a position in Washington after he became President was a son of Gourley. "I lived next door to the Lincolns for nineteen years,' said Gourley, "and knew the family well. The truth is I knew him as early as 1834. At that time he was living in New Salem, where he was postmaster. He used to come from there afoot to Springfield and wind up at Stuart and Dummer's office, where he borrowed books and took them back with him. Even then he was a great story-teller, and when he was at Stuart's office as I have told you he always had a crowd about him. In those days I used to run footraces, and I recall that E. D. Baker challenged me and I ran a race with him. Baker was a close friend of Lincoln, but notwithstanding the friendship between them Lincoln backed me and I beat Baker. In the course of time Lincoln moved here to Springfield and finally became my neighbor. He used to come to our house, his feet in a pair of loose slippers, and wearing an old, faded pair of trousers fastened with one suspender. Sometimes he came for milk. Our rooms were low, and one day he said: 'Jim, you'll have to lift your loft a little higher: I can't straighten out under it very well.' To my wife, who was short in stature, he used to say that little people had some advantages: they required less 'wood and wool to make them comfortable.' "As I remember Mr. Lincoln he was a poor landscape gardener and his yard was graced by very little shrubbery. He once decided to plant some rosebushes in the yard, and called my attention to them, but in a short time he had forgotten all about them. He never planted any vines or trees of any kind; in fact seemed to take little, if any, interest in things of that kind. Finally, however, yielding to my oft-repeated suggestion, he undertook to cultivate a garden in the yard back of his house; but one season's experience in caring for his flowers and vegetables sufficed to cure |