Semi=weekly graphic., 1897-06-12

tory. As we sat there our conversation. iu spite of my attempts to divert it. would run into channel as cheerless and 1u~abrious as our surroundings. ' On another occasion, while in court in 1855, Whitney describes him as ''sit- ting alone iii one corner of the room re- mote from any one else wrapped in ab- straction and gloom. It was sad but in- teresting study for me, and l watched him for some time. It appeared as if he were pursuing in his mind some sad subject through various sinuosities, 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. 7 As early as 1887 Robert L. Wilson, who was his colleague in the legislature, testifies 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 SC overcome at times by depression of spirits he never dared carry pocketknife
 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 sufi- cient in his opinion to produce the deep est mental depression and melancholy.
 Mr. Herndon attributed Lineoln's melancholy among other things to the death of Anne Rutledge, believing that his grief at her untimely death was so intense it cast q perpetual shadow over his mental horizon Another believed it 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, he was not mated, so that if we see him : come into his office III the morning eat I ing cheese and bologna sausages philo- ! sophically, what can we expect but some periods of sadness and gloom? Emerson whom you and hold i'll high esteem, had pie for breakfast all his married life, and il my op.u-on that is what H clouded his memory the rest of his life after 70 years of age. .
 But with the benefit of all the obser- 2 vation and reasoning on the subject 1t is | doubtful If any definite cause can be as- X signed for this peculiar vein ill Mir. Lin i coln s moral makeup cannot but think 1 it must have been an inherited trait, but whether it came directly to him i from his parents, whose lives were spent 1 in the loneliness and isolation of an un- ] settled country, or whettiel is was the l reproduction of the moody aud sensitive l soul of some member farther down the 1 ancestral line can never be determined. | We can only conclude that it was Q part
 of the character of the man and no more 1 to be shaken off than he could part
 with his brains.
 The unique character of Abraham
 Lincoln and the reaetionary epoch in
 which he lived elevated him uncon- i 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-
 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 drl% him down from his lofty pedestal and make him one of ourselves. Of ! course there wero some contradictions
 in his life, but they were never very 1 glaring, and viewing it as whole at
 this distance the incongruities disappear l and it stretches out before us one con
 tinued, uninterrupted story. The bard of Avon. sung:
 The web of our life is of mingled yarn, 1 Good and ill together. Our virtues would be proud
 1 If our faults whipped them not, and our crimes ! Would despair ii they were not cherished by
 our virtues
 Real worth or excellence of character consists therefore not ill the absence of 1 weaknesses and the baser traits of our I nature, but in 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 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 im- measurable service to his country in the hour of her need. If he for time dis 1 appointed the lady whom he had solemn ly promised to lead to the hymeneal altar, he atoned for tko offense later by marriage to her followed by over 20 years of patient submission to the matri- monial yoke If for the accomplishment of his own personal ends he sought through the use of his own money to in- fluence the conduct of another man by offering to beau his expenses as dele gate to the convention which nominated him for president, the dark features of the picture fade away when we recall the $200 which committee gave him to be used for political purposes and of which lie returned unused $199 75, the missing % cents having been expended for horse feed, observing that he never