Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1896-11-29

III el4tS Gl 12lH tstttI4latS 10 ttlft It IT, would run into 8 channel as ( erless and lugublioas as our surround
 On another occasion, while il court in 1855, Whitney describes hia as s'sit- ting alone in one corner of the rocn re- mote from any one else wrapped in aB- straetion and gloom | was Q sad but ill- tefestlIg study fer ne, and IwGtched hin fer some time. It appeared as if he were pursuing i'll his mind some sad subject through various siuGos.ties, and hzs face would assume at times the deepest phases of st eI5ine pGsu, but no r }iaf caele fee1n this 6sgll and despair 51@ 1aelalok0ly til ke VAS reused by f-ie aIe&kEig up of court, when he emerged from his cave of glaem and came hack, Ike cne awakened from slaap, to the world iii which he lived again. AS earlg as 1887 Robert L. Wilson, zRho vas his colleague in the legislature, testifies that Lincoln admit ted to him that, although he appeared to eHjcy life Tapturously, still he was tho victim of extreme melancholy, and that he was SC overcome at times by depression of spirits he never dared carry poeketknife.
 To physicians he was something of a physiological puzzle. John T. Stuart in- sisted that his digestion was organically defective, so that the pores of his skin oftentimes performed the function of the bowels; that his liver operated ab- normally and failed to secrete bile, and that these things themselves were suf1i- cient i'll his opinion to produce the deep- est mental depression and melancholy
 Mir Herndon attributed Lincoln s melancholy among other things to the death of Anne Rntledge, believing that his grief it her untimely death was so intense it cast a perpetual shadow over i his mental horizon. Another believed 1t arose from his domestic environments; that his family relations were far from pleasant, and that that unhappy feature of his life was constant menace to his peace and perfect equipoise of spirits. Although married, ' says one, The was net mated, so that if we see him come into his office ill the morning eat i i4g cheese and bologna sausages philo- i l periods of sadness and gloom? Emerson whom you and l hold in high esteem, had pie for breakfast all his married life, and ill my opinion that is what clouded his memory the rest of his life after TO years of age ;
 But with the benefit of all the obser- vatien and reasoning on the subject it is doubtful if any definite cause can be as. signed for this peculiar vein in Mr Lin. eeln s moral makeup. cannot but think Ii must have been an inherited trait, but whether it came directly to him from his parents, whose lives were spani ill the loneliness and isolation of an un settled country, or whether it was tht 1 reproduction of tine moody and sensitive soul Of some member farther down the ancestral line can never be determined We can only conclude that it was par of the character of the man and no more to be shaken off than he could part with his brains. ''
 The unique character of Abraham Lincoln and the reaetionary epoch il which he lived elevated him uneon sciously and it seemed at times almost unwillingly to the very pinnacle of hu man greatness, entwined his name and memory with the tenacity of paternal ! affection about the hearts of the people. There is in all history no life which il. illustrates more forcibly than does his the truth of the proposition that while 2 1 truly great man wins our admiration and arouses our enthusiasm by his pre- eminent qualities he elicits our love only by his weaknesses, for the latter drag him down from his lofty pedestal and make him one of ourselves :" Of course there were some contradictions in his life, but they were never very glaring, and viewing it as whole at this distance the incongruities disappear and 1t stretches out before us one con- tinued, uninterrupted story. The bard l of Avon sung:
 The web of our lie is of A mingled yarn.
 Good and i'll together. Our virtues would be
 proud
 If our faults whipped them not, and our crimes Would despair if they were not cherished by
 our virtues.
 Real worth or excellence of character consists therefore not i'll the absence of weaknesses and the baser traits of our nature, but ill the degree in which they are redeemed by the virtues and graces of life. Thus we are to conclude that If Lincoln, when he was a member of the early legislature Of Illinois, undertook by jumping out of the window to shirk his duty and thus throw on the backs of other men responsibilities which his own shoulders should have borne he re- deemed himself later in life by an i'm measurable service to his country ill the hour ef her need. If he for a time dis appointed the lady whom he had solemn ly promised to lead to the hymeneaI altar, he atoned for the offense later by a marriage to her followed by over 20 years of patient submission to the matri- monial yoke If fer the accomplishment of his own personal ends he sought through the use of his own money to in- fuence the conduct of another man by offering to bear his expenses as dele
 4s .