Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1896-11-09

tory. As we sat there our conversation, in spite of my attempts to divert 1t, would run into q channel as cheerless and Iugubri6us as our surroundings.
 On another occasion, while in court in 1855, Whitney describes him as sit ting alone in one corner of the room re- mote from any one else wrapped in ab- straetion and gIoom. It yfas a sad but in- teresting study for me, and l watched him for some time It appeared as It he were pursuing in his mind some sad subject through various sinuosit1es, and his face would assume at times the deepest phases of seeming pain, but no relief came from this dark and despair ing melancholy till he was reused by the breaking up of court, when he emerged from his cave of gloom and came back, like one awakened from sleep, to the world in which he lived again. " As early as 1887 Robert L. Wilson, who was his colleague in the legislature, testifes that Lincoln admit ted to him that, although he appeared to enjoy life rapturously, still he was the victim of extreme melancholy, and that he was so overcome at times by depression of spirits he never dared carry q pocketknife.
 To physicians he was something of @ physiological puzzle. John T. Stuart ln- sisted that his digestion was organieally 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 sutfi- eient in his opinion to produce the deep- est mental depression and melancholy.
 AIr Herndon attributed Lincoln's melancholy among other things to the death of Anne Butledge, believing that his grief at her untimely death was so intense it cast @ perpetual shadow over l his mental horizon. Another believed it i arose from his domestic environments; ] that his family relations were far from i pleasant, and that that unhappy feature i of his life was a constant menace to his peace and perfect equipoise of spirits. $ Although married, says one, The was not mated, so that if we see him come into his office in the morning eat ing cheese and bologna sausages philo- i sophically, what can we expect but some 1 periods of sadness and gloom? Emerson, whom you and hold in high esteem, had pie for breakfast all his married life, and in my opinion that is what clouded his memory the rest of his life after 70 years of age.
 But with the benefit of all the obser- vation and reasoning on the subject 1t is doubtful if any definite cause can be as- signed for this peculiar vein in MT. Lin eoln 5 moral makeup. cannot but think it must have been an inherited trait, but whether it came directly to him from his parents, whose lives were spent in the loneliness and isolation of an un- settled country, or whether it was the reproduction of the moody and sensitive soul of some member farther down the ancestral line can never be determined. We can only conclude that it was part of the character Of the man and no more to be shaken off than he could part with his brains 'a
 The unique character of Abraham Lincoln and the reactionary epoch in which he lived elevated him uneon- seiously 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 i'll all history no life which il- lustrates more forcibly than does his the truth of the proposition that while 8 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. D 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 it stretches out before us one con- tinaed, uninterrupted story. The bard of Avon sung:
 The web of our life is of mingled yarn,
 Good and ill together. Our virtues would be
 proud
 If our faults whipped them not, and our crimes 1 Would despair if they were not cherished by
 our virtues.
 Real worth or excellence of character consists therefore not in the absence of weaknesses and the baser traits of our nature, but iii 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 inn measurable service to his country in the hour of her need. If he for time dis appointed the lady whom he had solemn | ly promised to lead to the hymeneal altar, lie atoned for the offense later by marriage to her followed by over 20