put aside the second suggestion of his friends that he should ask for a first-class foreign embassy, feeling that he was entirely unfitted for such a post. And when he applied for the Commissionership of the General Land Office, he was so scrupulously loyal to the opposing claims of his friends that he can hardly have been much surprised at his failure. One cannot help feeling that, in spite of this appearance in their ranks, Lincoln could never have belonged to the class of Office-seekers. He disliked them and their methods so much that, in later years, he came to regard them, and the spirit out of which they were begotten, as the most serious menace to the future of the Republic.

Yet he must have been disappointed by his failure. Could he have remained in Washington he would have been present during the storm and strife of the thirty-first Congress, perhaps the most pregnant in American history. He would have been in the midst of that struggle of the Titans which issued in Clay's last great work, the Compromise of 1850: he would have heard the clashing voices of union and disunion, -and of the great protagonists of the time in their hour of crisis: Calhoun calling up immediate war in the name of the South, Webster for the sake of Union, turning his back upon the cause of abolition, Governor Seward proclaiming a higher law than that even of the Constitution, while the old President in the background was growling out his determination to deal justice to traitors: and above all, central among them all, the pathetic, eloquent, fiery figure of Clay, forgetful of every minor consideration, pouring all the talents of his extraordinary personality and influence into the cause of National Unity.

Those were the great days in Washington, the end of a generation of heroic men, the last of Webster and Calhoun, of Taylor and of Clay, days in which Douglas shared, while Lincoln was carrying their burden with him in exile along the country roads of the Eighth Illinois Circuit. Politically, he seemed, indeed, to himself and to others, a ruined man. He had fallen back into a provincial mediocrity. But events proved how false such seeming was. He had only been withdrawn into the background that he might prepare for his part in the struggle with slavery and secession which was growing every year more inevitable.

His public utterances are sufficient evidence that he was not yet come into the full mastery of himself. Even at forty, the conflicting elements of his nature were not yet properly blended, he was still, as it were, immature. And this, because he was a man of a profound emotional nature as well as of great intellectual gifts and pure moral quality. As yet, though he seemed so much immersed in politics, in the law, and in the round of Bohemian sociability, he remained, as it were, an onlooker at life. The man himself had not yet met with his occasion. Destiny had not yet demanded of him all he had to give-yea, to the uttermost farthing. And being one of those men who have the instinct of Destiny, he waited his hour.

H

Chapter V

On the Eighth Circuit

Lincoln and Herndon-Lincoln on Circuit-As a Lawyer-Important Cases-View of the Law-Appearance and Habits-Father diesEulogy on Clay-Douglas's position.

AFTER a flying visit to Washington in the summer of 1849, Lincoln settled down again to his old round of duties at Springfield, steadied by political disappointment. Here he was frequently consulted as to the filling of offices in his district, and was characteristically candid in his replies. Many a politician would have been content to urge the claims of his own friends on the attention of the Administration; but Lincoln had a scrupulous sense of responsibility, and a single desire to serve the public good. His fairness of spirit is humourously illustrated by the following, from a letter to the Secretary of State :

"Mr Bond, I know to be, personally, every way worthy of the office [in question]; and he is very numerously and most respectably recommended. His papers I send to you: and I solicit for his claims a full and fair consideration. Having said this much, I add that, in my individual judgment, the appointment of Mr Thomas would be better."

By mid-July he had apparently abandoned politics and become once more immersed in the law. On his return from Washington he had been offered a

partnership in a Chicago law-firm, but had declined on the ground that he had a tendency toward consumption, and feared the effect of a town-practice on his health.1 His old partner, Herndon, had worked hard during his absence, and had extended their business: now, after nearly three years in which he had contributed nothing, Lincoln felt some compunction on taking up again his full share in the profits of their partnership. Herndon would, however, hear of nothing but resumption on the old terms.

In spite of the relentless logic of his thought, the senior partner was the least methodical of men in matters of detail, and his junior, in whom he had hoped to find balancing qualities, proved to be little better. Any order which could be discovered in the office must, therefore, have been due to the advent of some student-clerk who had taken chaos in hand, swept out the room and sorted the papers. The office was on the first floor of a brick-building which faced the court-house across the public-square, but it was a back room, and its windows overlooked the yard. Its furniture consisted of the baize-covered table, a few chairs, an old-fashioned "secretary" and a bookcase containing a couple of hundred law-books.

Lincoln's real desk, in whose drawers and pigeonholes, so to speak, all his more important notes and memoranda were deposited, was a tall silk hat. This figures in his business papers, for he writes, somewhat unprofessionally, to a fellow-lawyer, whose correspondence he had neglected, "when I received the letter, I put it in my old hat, and buying a new one

1 This fear of consumption lends some colour to the report that his mother had died from the disease.

the next day, the old one was set aside, and so the letter was lost sight of for a time." 1 On top of the secretary lay a bundle of papers, always growing in bulk, and labelled "When you can't find it anywhere else look into this." One can almost see the twinkle of fun in his eye whenever he turned to ransack this package of his waifs and strays.

Lincoln was now living in his own modest house, to which, during one of his long absences with the Court, his wife is said to have added a story, thus altering it almost out of its owner's recognition on his return. Nearly six months of every twelve he spent riding the Eighth Circuit with Judge Davis, only coming home when the round was completed. He was the only lawyer of the bar who took the whole circuit, and was thus the Judge's constant companion. Davis and Lincoln were strongly contrasted in person and character, the former being stout, domineering, and somewhat avaricious. But he grew to be much attached to Lincoln, who became the leader of the bar on his circuit, and even on rare occasions, by consent of the court, acted as the Judge's deputy in his absence. This position of favour would have been dangerous to any other man; but Lincoln was never puffed-up to presume upon his position. He was modest and unassuming among his equals; while to the youngest junior on the circuit he was uniformly kind, often deliberately effacing himself in order to give such an one his opportunity. It is said of him, that he never 1 In another business letter of earlier date, quite too racy to be wholly omitted, he advised a client :

We recommend you

"As to the real estate, we cannot attend to it. to give the charge of it to Mr Isaac Britton, a trustworthy man, and one whom the Lord made on purpose for such business."