The Irish standard., 1903-02-14
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
BE Was 4 Man Of Most Remarkable
Character.

He Was Man Of Most Remarkable
Character.
Mr.. Lincoln was very tall mans
feet inches. His complexion was
dark, his eyes and hair black, and
though he was Of lean, spare habit, l
should suppose he must have weighed
about $50 pounds. He was man of
fine fiber, and thus brain of supe-
rior power was contained in small
but rather elongated skull. Horatio
Seymour once spoke of him as u man
"who wore a No. Z hat and No. II
boot" His movements We're rather
angular, but never awkward, and he
was never burdened with that fire.
quent curse of unfortunate genius, the
dreadful oppression of petty self-con-
seriousness, wrote Charles A. Dana.
1t was most remarkable character,
that of Abraham Lincoln. He had the
most comprehensive, the most judic-
ious mind; he was the least faulty in
his conclusions of any man that I
have ever known. He never STEP
ped too soon and he never stepped
too late. There was no pretension
about Abraham Lincoln. He didn't
put on any airs, and 1 never heard
him say harsh word to anybody. He
was most calm, equable, uncomplain-
ing, and, to my mind, one of the hap
piest men that have ever known.
He always had pleasant word for
everybody. What he said showed the
profoundest thought, even when he
was joking. He seemed to see every
side of every question. He never
was impatient, he never was in hur-
ry and he never tried to hurry any,
body else. 10 every one he was pleas,
ant and cordial; yet they all felt that
it was his word that went at last, and
until he had decided, the case hadn't
been decided and the final orders not
issued yet.
Mr.. Lincoln was not what yo,Y
would call an educated man. The COL
lcge that he had attended was that
which a man attends who gets up at
daylight to hoe the corn and sits I'D
at night to read the best book he can
md by the side of a burning pine
knot. What education he had he
picked up in that way. He had read
great many books, and all the books
that he had read he knew. He had a
tenacious memory, just as he had the
ability to see the essential thing. He
never took an unimportant point and
went off upon that, but he always laid
hold of the real thing, of the real
question, and attended to that without
attending to the others any more than
was indispensably necessary.
Thus while we say that Mr.. Lincoln
was an uneducated man, uneducated
In the sense that we recognize in New
Haven or at any other great College
town, he yet had singularly perfect
education in regard to everything that
concerns the practical affairs of life,
His judgment was excellent and his
information was always accurate. He
knew what the thing was. He was a
man Of genius, and, contrasted with
men of education, genius will always
carry the day.
Another remarkable popularity of
Mr. Lincoln's was that he seemed to
have no illusions. He had no freakish
notions that things We're so or might
be so when they were not so. All his
thinking and all his reasoning, all his
mind, in short, was based continually
upon actual facts and upon facts
of which, as I said, he saw the es-
sence. Inever heard him say anything
that was not so. I never heard him
foretell things. He told what thew
were. But never heard him intimate
that such and such consequences were
likely to happen, without the conse-
quences following. I should say, per-
haps. that his greatest quality was
wisdom. and that is something supe-
rior to talent, superior to education.
1 do not think it can be acquired. He
had it. He was wise, he was not
he saw things as they were.
All the advice that he gave was wise.
it was judicious and it was always
timely. This wisdom, it is scarcely
necessary to add, had its animatinr
philosophy in his own famous words:
"With charity toward all, with malice
toward none."