The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1895-09-27
SKETCHES OF LINCOLN.
A Study Of His Peculiar and Per-
sonal Traits.
QUALITIES THAT MADE HIM GREAT

QUALITIES THAT MADE HIM GREAT
Faithful and Life1ike Descriptions His
Personal Aforementioned and
Gloom-His Perceptive Faculties-Little
Reading, but Great Thinking.
from "The Life of Lincoln" by william H.
Herndon and Jesse ". Weik Copyright, 1888.
by Jesse W. Weik. Copyright, 1892. by D. APP
pleton & Co.
Soon after the death of Mr.. Lincoln DR..
J. G. Holland came out to Illinois from
his home in Massachusetts, to gather up
materials for a life of the dead president.
The gentleman spent several days with
me, and gave him all the assistance that
lay in my power. l was much pleased
with him and awaited with not little in
terest the appearance of his book.
DR.. Holland had only found what Lin
coln's friends had always experienced in
their relations with him-that he was a
man of many moods and many sides. He
never revealed himself entirely to any one
man, and therefore he will always to a
certain extent remain enveloped in doubt.
Even those who were with him through
long years of hard study and under con
stantly varying circumstances can hardly
say they knew him through and through
I always believed I could read him as
thoroughly as any man, and yet he was so
different in many respects from any other
one 1 ever met before or since his time
that I cannot say comprehended him.
give my recollection of his individual char
acteristics as they occur to me and allow
bo 70 itS
recollection of the man destroys any other
PERSONS ideal l cannot help it. By
faithful and lifelike description of Lincoln
the man, and study of his peculiar and
person traits, perhaps some of the appar-
ent contradictions met with by DR.. Hol-
land will hayo melted from sight,
His Personal Appearance.
Mr.. Lincoln was feet inches high,
and when he left the city of his home for
Washington was 81 years old, having good
health and no gray hairs or but few, on
his head He was thin, wiry, sinewy,
rawboned, thin through the breast to the
back and narrow across the shoulders.
Standing he leaned forward-was what
may be called stoop shouldered, inclining
to the consumptive by build.s His usual
weight was $50 pounds. His organization
worked slowly His blood had to run
long distance from his heart to the ex-
tremities of his Frame and his nerve force
had to travel through dry ground a long
distance before his muscles were obedient
to his will. His structure was loose and
leathery; his body was shrunk and shriv-
eled he had dark skin, dark hair and look
ed woestruck. The whole man, body and
mind, worked slowly, as if it needed oiling.
Physically he was a very powerful man,
lifting with ease 400 and in one case 900
pounds. His mind was like his body and
worked slowly but strongly; hence there
was very little bodily or mental wear and
tear in him. This popularity In his con-
struction gave him great advantage over
other men in public life. No man in Amer
lea, scarcely a man in the world, could
have stood what Lincoln did in Washing
ton and survived through more than one
term of the presidency.
When he walked, he moved cautiously,
but firmly. His long arms and giant
hands swung down by his SIDE. He walked
with even tread, the inner sides of his feet
being parallel. He put the whole foot flat
down on the ground at once, not landing
on the heel. He likewise lifted his foot all
at once not rising from the toe, and hence
he had no spring to his walk. His walk
was undulatory, catching and pocketing
tire, WEAKNESS and pain all up and down
his person, and thus preventing them from
locating. The first impression of a stran-
ger or a man who did not observe closely
was that his walk implied shrewdness and
cunning, that he was a tricky man, but
in reality 1t was the walk of caution and
frmness. In sitting down on a common
ohoiu hnx taII Inn
His legs and arms were abnormally, IN
naturally long and in undue proportion to
the remainder of his body. 1t was only
when he stood up that he loomed above
other men.
His Head and Face.
Mr.. Lincoln's head was long and tall
from the base of the brain and from the |
eyebrows His head ran backward his |
forehead rising as it ran back at low an
gle like Clay's, and unlike Webster's, |
which was almost perpendicular The size |
of his hat measured at the hatter's block |
was ~, his head being from ear to ear
81 inches and from the front to the back
of the brain inches Thus measured it |
was not below the medium size. His fore
head was narrow, but high; his hair was
dark, almost black, and lay floating where
his fingers or the winds left it, piled up at
random; his cheek bones were high,
sharp and prominent; his jaws were long
and up curved; his nose was large, long,
blunt and little awry toward the right
eye; his chin was sharp and up curved;
bis eyebrows cropped out like huge rock
on the brow of a hill; his long sallow
face was wrinkled and dry, with a hair
here and there on the surface; his cheeks
were leathery; his ears were large and ran
out almost at right angles from his head,
caused partly by heavy hats and partly by
nature; his lower lip was thick, hanging
and undercurved, while his chin reached
for the lip up curved; his neck was neat
and trim, his head being we'll balanced on
it. There was the lone mole on the right
cheek and Adams apple on his throat.
Thus stood, walked, acted and looked
Abraham Lincoln. He was not pretty
man by any means, nor was he an ugly
one. He was homely man, careless of his
looks, plain looking and plain acting. He
had no pomp, display or dignity, so called
He appeared simple in his carriage and
bearing. He was a sad looking man. His
dripped from him as he
walked. His apparent gloom impressed