Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1867-01-05

BOSTON, Dec. z, 1866.

DOSION, Lee. q, 1OOO.
To the Editor of the Boston Advertiser.
have just returned from some
what heightened journey through the
State of Illinois While there, il was a
matter of some vexation and annoyance
that could in no wise lay hold of a
Boston paper. When few hours since
a paragraph from the Daily Advertiser,
headed, "a Singular Story of Mr.. Lin
coin, " W as put into my hands, my first
feeling was one of intense thankfulness
that in all probability it would never
meet Mr.. Herndon's eyes. Did it con-
Germ any one but him, whose name
thrills through every American heart
were Mr.. Herndon himself in New Eng
land-we might trust to the wisdom of
silence, and let the reproach sink into
natural oblivion. But Mr.. Herndon as
to write the only life of Abraham Lin
coin which will command the attention
of posterity, it is TO be published by a
Boston house, and / am not wiling
that there should be any doubt as to his
qualifications or his character.
In order to understand such men as
Herndon and Lincoln-for they were
both of one type-we must have an
Ii our of pioneer life, such as few East
ern men possess. Travellers through
the large cities of the West do not often
see this class of men; they must be
sought in the darkness OF Egypt in the
broad stretches of the prairie, on the
dismal trail of the legal circuit. Their
lives are not like our lives, nor are
their ways as our ways. Since the days
of the old crusaders, there have been
no men, / think, so blessed or so ours
ed, as the case might be, by the love
of women. Nor is it in those far off
wilds. possible to keep the secrets of
mans life in this respect. When saw
with my own eyes written statements
from Mr.. Lincoln's own hand, and aft.
davits from repeated sources as to sim
liar statements made by him in CONVEX
sation, on matters which would never
have passed the lips of an Eastern man,
/ asked, ''what does it mean?-how can
it be eKplained2" and everywhere in
Southern Illinois ] received the same
answer, "Only by the habits Of our
people"
It is we'll to be born in Boston, well
to be nurtured in a school, where
'prunes and prisrns" form part of ones
elementary discipline, but it is also well
to go away fro n Boston, to be purged
utterly of provincial egotism and moral
bigotries, and open ones eyes to the
facts that God is competent to save all
men, and that He specially bends to
save sometimes the poor wretch whom
We BostoniaDs leave III the gutter
When, a few weeks since, l wrote let
ter to Boston paper, from Mr.. Hern-
don's fireside. and stated hew / could
at one glance distinguish the only two
"pioneers" in an audience composed of
New England sbopkeepers and traders,
such audiences as travellers for the most
part encounter, it was not MP own
smartless that ! desired to advertise,
but the extraordinary and impossible
barrier between these two races.
The time is past, / think, when any
one IN New England would justify ia
red Sparks in drawing his pen through
the phrase "Old Put" and putting in
the General Putnam, which restored
the mythical dignity of Washington. -
Is there any one in this generation who
knows anything of Washington, the
man? Certainly. There must have
been some days when he omitted TO
wear his starched cravat, and when his
horses heels were not duly blackened!
And of Napoleon, where can we find
single historic sketch? The early Eng
lish writers make him the father of half
the illegitimate princes on the CONT
nent, including some too near of kin.
The French memoirs represent him as
a miracle of chastity and devotion to
Josephine, while now and then for
eign newspaper tells us that some one
dies who was an acknowledged son of
the great Napoleon.
Abraham Lincoln did not believe in
writing history in this way. He was a
man who would neither think, nor look,
nor act lie. lie was great enough to
see his own relation to mis- times, his
personal circumstances, and his God,
and to be will ing that the world should
see it also. If he was not great enough,
the State of Illinois is and knowing
how MIR. Lincoln loved ami trusted
William Henry HerndoD, it demanded
at once that this man should write his
life Too impatient to wait for the
slow and faithful work which is the
only work that Mr.. Herndon can do,
Springfield demanded, meanwhile,
course of five lectures. ~. .9
There are two millions of people in
the state of Illinois, and large por-
ton of them know in some fashion
all the facts these five lectures treat
1t was Mr.. Herndon's business to put
these into an order which weuld force
them to illustrate each other. The lee
lures do not constitute the Life" he
is to publish; they are only studies to-
ward it. The lecture which the Adver-
tiser has criticised is, l believe, the
fourth of the five, and supplies nee
essary hnk il the history. Ii could
no more be left out of true life of
Lincoln than Dante's love for Beatrice,
or Petrarch's love for Laura, OF Shell
ley's divorce from his first wife, could
be omitted in the biographies of those
poets, and still leave them Ineligible.
For thirty years after the period it de-
scribes, his terrible sorrow continued to
move him at many times out of him
sell, and il is the only explanation of
many significant facts. The poem
which is inseparably connected with his
memory became pre- cIous to him simply
for Ann Rutledge's sake.
Here is the story, and Mr.. Herndon,
nearly twelve years Mr.. Lincoln's Jun.
Tor, has no more TO do with it than /
have as tell it. Ann Rutledge was
lady-one of the very few who bad
penetrated to Illinois as early as 1888.
OF family educated aud aristocratic,