The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1895-07-05

nifty, SO called. he appeared slIHple III
his carriage and bearing He was sad
looking man. His melancholy dripped
from him as he walked. His apparent
gloom impressed his friends and Great
ed sympathy for him-one means OF his
great success. He was gloomy, abstract
ed and joyous-rather humorous-by
turns, but / do not think he knew what
real joy was for many years
Mr.. Lincoln sometimes walked our
streets cheerily, he was not always
gloomy, and then it was that on meet
ing friend he greeted him with plain
"Howd'y?" clasping his hand in both
of his own, and gave him a hearty soul
welcome On winters morning he
might be seen stalking toward the mar
ket house, basket on arm, his old gray
shawl wrapped around his neck, his lit
tie boy Willie or Tad running along at
his heels. asking thousand boylsh ques-
tions, which his father, in deep abstrac-
ton, neither needed nor heard. 1t a
friend met or passed him and he awoke
from his reverie, something would re-
mind him of story he had heard in In
diana, and tell it he would, and there
was no alternative but to listen.
Thus, repeat, stood and walked and
talked this singular man. He was odd,
but when that gray eye and that face
and those features were lit up by the in
ward soul in fires of emotion then it was
that all those apparently ugly features
sprang into organs of beauty or disap-
peared in the sea of inspiration that often
flooded his face Sometimes it appeared
as if Lincoln's soul was fresh from it's
Creator.
His Perceptive Faculties.
have asked the friends and foes of
Mr.. Lincoln alike what they thought of
his perceptions One gentleman of un-
questioned ability and free from all par
TALLY or prejudice said, "Mr. Lincoln's
perceptions were slow. little pervert-
ed, if not somewhat distorted and dis
eased.'' If the meaning of this is that
Mr.. Lincoln saw things from peculiar
angle of his being, and from this was
susceptible to natures impulses, and
that he so expressed himself, then have
no objection to what is said. Otherwise
l dissent Mr. Lincoln's perceptions
were slow, cold, clear and exact. Every
thing came to him in its precise shape
and color. To some men the world of
matter and of man comes ornamented
with beauty, life and action, and hence,
more or less false and inexact. No lurk-
ing illusion or other error, false in itself
and clad for the moment in robes of
splendor, ever passed undetected or I'M
challenged over the threshold of his
mind-that point which divides vision
from the realm and home of thought.
Names to him were nothing, and titles
naught, assumption always standing
back abashed at his cold, intellectual
glare. Neither his perceptions nor intel
lectual vision was perverted, distorted
or diseased. He saw all things through
a perfect mental lens. There was no diff
fraction or refraction there. He was not
impulsiye, faaoiful or imaginative, but
cold, calm and precise. He threw his
whole mental light around the object
and after time substance and quality
stood apart, form and color took their
appropriate places, and all was clear and
exact in his mind. His fault, if any,
was that he saw things less than they
really were-less beautiful and more
frigid. He crushed the unreal, the mex
act, the hollow and the sham. He saw
things in rigidity rather than in vital
action. He saw what no man could dis
pute, but he failed to see what might
have been seen.
The truth about Mr.. Lincoln is that
he read less and thought more than any
man in his sphere in America. No man
can put his finger on any great book
written in the last or present century
that he read thoroughly. When young,
he read the Bible. and when of age he
read Shakespeare; but, though he otter
quoted from both, he never read either
one through. He is acknowledged now
to have been great man, but the ques
tion is what made him great. l repeat
that he read less and thought more thar
any man of his standing in America, il
not in the world. He possessed original
ity and power of thought in an eminent
degree. Besides his we'll established
reputation for caution he was concen
trated in his thoughts and had great con
tinuity of reflection. In everything hi
was patient and enduring These ar,
some of the grounds of his wonderful
success.
| His Reasoning Powers.
Not only were nature, man and prin
ciples suggestive to Mr.. Lincoln, not onl,
had he accurate and exact perceptions
but he was causative. His mind, appar
emily with an automatic movement
ran back behind facts, principles ant
all things to their origin and first caus
to that point where forces act at one
as effect and cause. He would stop il
the street and analyze machine. H
would whittle thing to point an,
then count the numberless inclinet
planes and their pitch making the point
Mastering and defining this, he woul'
then cut that point back and get broa,
transverse section of his pine stick an,
peel and define that. Clocks, omnibuses
language, paddle wheels and idiom
never escaped his observation and analy
sis. Before he could form an idea Q
anything, before he would express hi
opinion on a subject, he must know it
origin and history in substance and quail
ity, in magnitude and gravity. He mus
know it inside and outside, up side an
| 4 T.