his voice was choked with deep emotion." The tears ran down his cheeks, and he was so overcome that he could not go on. His tears were more eloquent than any words he could have spoken.

Lincoln had not grown up to manhood without the usual experiences of the tender passion. Like most young men, he had his youthful fancies; perhaps on one occasion something which approached a "grand passion." There is more than a mere tradition, that, while residing at New Salem, he became very much attached to a prairie beauty, with the sweet and romantic name of Anne Rutledge. Irving, in his "Life of Washington," says: "before he was fifteen years old, he had conceived a passion for some unknown beauty, so serious as to disturb his otherwise well regulated mind, and to make him really unhappy." Lincoln was less precocious than Washington, or perhaps his heart was better shielded by the hard labor to which he was subjected. Something sensational and dramatic has been printed in regard to this attachment. Gossip and imagination have represented this early romance as casting a shadow over his whole after life, and as having produced something bordering upon insanity. The picture has been somewhat too highly colored, and the story made rather too tragic.

James Rutledge, one of the founders of New Salem, and who is said to have been of the distinguished South Carolina family of that name, one of whom was a signer of the "Declaration of Independence," was a warm personal friend of Lincoln. He was the father of a large family, and among the daughters was Anne, born January 7th, 1813. She is described as being a blonde, with golden hair, lips as red as the cherry, a cheek like the wild rose, with blue eyes, as sweet and gentle in manners and temper as attractive in perLincoln was among her suitors, and they were engaged to be married as soon as he should have finished his legal studies, and he should be admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court. But in August, 1835, she died. Her beauty and

son.

1. W. H. Herndon.

attractions, and her early death, made a very deep impression upon him. He idealized her memory, and in his recollections of her, there was a poetry of sentiment, which might possibly have been lessened had she lived, by the prosaic realities of life.

With all his love of fun and frolic, with all his wit and humor, with all his laughter and anecdotes, Lincoln, from his youth, was a person of deep feeling, and there was always mingled with his mirth, sadness and melancholy. He always associated with the memory of Anne Rutledge the plaintive poem which in his hours of melancholy he so often. repeated, and whose familiar first stanzas are as follows:

"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
"The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,

Be scattered around, and together be laid,
And the young and the old, and the low and the high
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie." 1

Lincoln loved at twilight, or when in the country, or in solitude, or when with some confidential friend, to repeat this poem. I think he exaggerated its merits, and I attribute. his great love of the poem to its association with Anne Rutledge. Several years passed after the sad death of Miss Rutledge before he married. It is not impossible that his devotion to her memory may have been, in part, the cause of so long a delay.

An old friend' of Lincoln long years afterwards, on one occasion when they were talking of old times at New Salem, of the Greenes and Armstrongs and Rutledges, ventured to ask him about his early attachment, to which he replied: "I loved her dearly. She was a handsome girl, and would have made a good, loving wife. She was natural, and quite intellectual, though not highly educated."

1. See Carpenter's "Six Months in the White House."

2. Isaac Cogswell.

In 1834, Lincoln was again a candidate for the Legislature, and was now elected, receiving a greater number of votes than any other man on either ticket. This is the more remarkable as among his colleagues was his old friend and comrade, John T. Stuart. Thus, at the age of twenty-five, this plain, rough, sturdy son of a pioneer found himself a member of the Illinois Legislature, and the most popular man in Sangamon County.

CHAPTER III.

THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE.

LINCOLN AT TWENTY-FIVE.-At VANDALIA.-Re-elected IN 1836.— REPLIES TO FORQUER.-TO DR. EARLY.-To COL. TAYLOR.— STATE CAPITAL REMOVED FROM VANDALIA TO SPRINGFIELD.— ANTI-SLAVERY PROTEST.-RE-ELECTED IN 1838.-REMOVES TO SPRINGFIELD. RE-ELECTED IN 1840.-PARTNERSHIP WITH JOHN T. STUART.-RIDING THE CIRCUIT.

Up to this time Lincoln's work had been up-hill, and his humble life had been a constant struggle with difficulties. By heroic endeavor, by persevering effort, by fortitude and constancy, and a resolute will, he had overcome these difficulties, and had at length found his true vocation. He was now to enter upon a new career. What he was he had made himself. What he knew he owed to his own exertions. Let us pause for a moment, and see what he was and what were his acquirements.

We find him now, at the age of twenty-five, a vigorous, well-developed man, with a constitution inured to toil and hardened by exposure-a sound body upon which he could rely for almost any amount of physical or mental labor, and great powers of endurance. He knew the Bible by heart. There was not a clergyman to be found so familiar with it as he. Scarcely a speech or paper prepared by him, from this time to his death, but contains apt allusions and striking illustrations from the sacred book. He could repeat nearly all the poems of Burns, and was familiar with Shakspeare. In arithmetic, surveying, and the rudiments of other branches

of mathematics, he was perfectly at home. He had mastered Blackstone, Kent, and the elementary law books. He had considerable knowledge of physics and mechanics. He showed how much better it is to know thoroughly a few books, than to know many superficially. Such had been his education. He was manly, gentle, just, truthful, and honest. In conduct, kind and generous; so modest, so considerate of others, so unselfish, that every one liked him and wished him success. True, he was homely, awkward, diffident; but he was, in fact, strictly a gentleman-" in substance, at least, if not in outside polish."1

From the books named, and especially from the Bible, he had acquired that clear, concise, simple, nervous, AngloSaxon style so effective with the people, and in this he was scarcely equalled by any American writer or speaker. It is wonderful how many sentences can be found in his writings, short, striking, clear and emphatic, in which every word consists of a single syllable.

His residence at Vandalia during the session of the Legislature, and his removal to Springfield, brought him into association with many families of culture and refinement. He now met as associates men of learning and intellect. He had access to all the books he could read, and the world of English literature, history and science lay open before him. He became and continued through life a student, always seeking and constantly acquiring knowledge. He was never ashamed to acknowledge his ignorance of any subject, and he rarely lost an opportunity to remedy it. At the first session of the Legislature he took no very active part in the discussions, but was studious and observHe said little, and learned much.

ant.

In 1836, he was again a candidate for the Legislature, and in this canvass he greatly distinguished himself. On

1. In his reply to Douglas, at Springfield, July 17. 1858, he said: "I set out in this campaign with the intention of conducting it strictly as a gentleman, in substance, at least, if not in outside polish. The latter I shall never be, but that which constitutes the inside of a gentleman, I hope I understand, and I am not less inclined to practice than another." (Lincoln and Douglas Debates, p. 57.)