The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1885-03-28

less knowledge of. literature, and,
while well up in what we call history,
limited his acquaintance with fiction to
that sombre poem known as "Why
Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud ?"
1t was well for us that our President
proved to be what then recognized
He was equal to the awful strain put
upon him in the four years Of terrible
strife that followed. A man of deli
cate mould and sympathetic nature,
such as Chase or Seward, would have
broken down, not from over-work, al
though that was terrible, but from the
over-anxiety that kills.
ATE AND SLEPT AS USUAL.
| Lincoln had none of this. He faced
and lived through the awful response
bility of the situation with the high
courage and comfort that came of in
difference. At the darkest period, for
us, of the war, when the enemy's can
non were throbbing in its roar along
the walls of our Capitol, | heard him
say to General Schenck, Il enjoy ny
rations, and sleep the sleep of the in
nocent."
Mr.. Lincoln did not believe, could
not be made to believe, that the South
meant secession and war. When l
told him, subsequently to this CONVEX
sation, at dinner-table in Chicago,
where the Hon. Hannibal HamllL,
General Schenck and others were
guests, that the Southern people were
in dead earnest, meant war, and |
doubted whether he would be inaugu-
rated at Washington, he laughed and
said the fall of pork al Cincinnati had
affected me. | became somewhat irri-
tated and told him that in ninety days
the land would be whitened with tents
He said in reply, well, we won't jump
that ditch until we come to it," and
then after pause he added, Il must
run the machine as | find it."
The epigrammatic force of his ex-
pressions was remarkable for the sin
gular purity of his words. What he
said was SO original that | reduced
much of it to writing at the time. One
of these was this on secession: "If
our Southern friends are right in their
claim, the trainers of the Government
carefully planned the rot that now
threatens their work with destruction.
If one state has the right at will to
withdraw, certainly majority have the
right, and we have the result given US
of the states being able to force out
one state. That is logical -
Subsequent to the supper we had
gatherings at Mr.. Lincoln's old law
office, and at the political headquarters
at which men only formed the COM
pany, and before these good, honest
citizens, who fairly worshipped their
distinguished neighbor, Mr.. Lincoln
gave way to his natural bent for fun,
and told very amusing stories, always
in quaint illustration of the subject un-
der discussion, no one of which will
bear printing. They were coarse, and
were saved from vulgarity only by be-
ing SO strangely in point, and told. not
for the sake of the telling as if he en-
loved the stories themselves, but that
they were, as | have said, SO quantity
illustrative.
The man who could open a cabinet
meeting called to discuss the Enamel
patton Proclamation by reading Arte-
mus Ward, who called for comic song
on the bloody battlefield, was the same
man who could guide with clear mind
and iron hand the diplomacy that kept
off the fatal interference of Europe,
: while conducting at home the most
horrible of all civil wars that ever
afflicted a people. He reached with
ease the highest and the lowest level,
and on the very field that he shamed
with ribald song he lett a record Of
eloquence never reached by human
lips before.
There IS popular belief that Abra-
ham Lincoln was of SO kind and for
giving a nature that his gentler impul-
ses intertered with his duty. In proof
of this attention is called to the fact
that through all the war he never per
mitted a man to be shot for desertion
The belief is erroneous. There never
lived man who could say mo" with
easier facility, and abide by his saying
with more firmness, than President
i. Lincoln. His good-natured manner
misled the common mind. 1t covered
as firm character as nature ever clad
with human flesh, and | doubt whether
Mr.. Lincoln had at all kind forgiving
nature. Such traits are not common
to successful leaders. They, like Han.
t nibal, melt their way through rock:
: with hot vinegar, not honey. AND
that good. natured way more generally
] covers a selfish than a generous dis
S position. Men instinctively find il
: easier to glide comfortably through life
/ with a round, oily, elastic exterior thar
!. in an Angular, hard one, Such give
: way in trifles and hold their own ad
l versely in all the more serious sacrifice
Y of self to the good or comfort 0
others.
AFACE THAT TOLD A STORY.
If one doubts what here assert, lie
such turn and study the hard, angular
coarse face of this great man. Natur,
l never gave that as ali indication of