charm of new life in Whitman's versification.

Save

for a few comments on some broad allusions that Lincoln suggested could have been veiled, or left out, he commended the new poet's verses for their virility, freshness, unconventional sentiments, and unique form of expression, and claimed that Whitman gave promise of a new school of poetry.

Speaking in general of Lincoln's literary likings, Mr. Rankin continues:

He enjoyed particularly Holmes, Theodore Parker, Beecher, Whittier, Lowell, the elder Abbott, and Hawthorne. He cared little for fiction, though Uncle Tom's Cabin moved him deeply while reading it. His literary taste was keen and delicate, and his zest for the best in current literature was unerring to recognize and appreciate beauty of style and strength of personality in a writer's method of expressing thought. His likes and dislikes in literature were quick, strong, and positive. A few glances, a sentence read here and there, a hasty turning of leaves, sufficed with him for a decision to toss the book aside, or make it his own as he found leisure to read it. Lincoln was an earnest seeker of the best in thought and form in literature.1

This method of determining his "likes and dis1 Rankin, pp. 129, 130.

likes in literature" calls to mind Herndon's account of Lincoln's swift estimate of a biography of Burke :

In 1856 I purchased . . . a Life of Edmund Burke. I have forgotten now who the author was. . . . One morning Lincoln came into the office and, seeing the book in my hands, inquired what I was reading.. Taking it in his hand he threw himself down on the office sofa and hastily ran over its pages, reading a little here and there. At last he closed and threw it on the table with the exclamation, "No, I've read enough of it. It's like all the others. Biographies as generally written are not only misleading, but false. The author of this life of Burke makes a wonderful hero out of his subject. He magnifies his perfections -if he had any-and suppresses his imperfections. He is so faithful in his zeal and so lavish in praise of his every act that one is almost driven to believe that Burke never made a mistake or a failure in his life. History is not history unless it is the truth."

It was of course Lincoln's misfortune not to have known the field of biography beyond Weems's Washington, and probably Marion's, and some campaign biographies. He had read also a life of Clay, and may have read Franklin's Autobiography.1 He read the biographical histories of Abbott. Of I Holland, "Life of Lincoln,” p. 31.

such books he would easily discover the uncritical character. His keen judgment and taste for the best would detect the inadequacy of such books as interpretations of the men and events they described. His education had enabled him to estimate these juvenile performances at their value, but had not been inclusive enough to profit by biographical literature based upon competent research, carefully balanced evidence, and disinterested purpose.

1837

It is natural that we should desire to reconstruct the processes of Lincoln's education and his acquisition of good style, but the effort to do this with the completeness to which research aspires is baffled at points for lack of evidence. It may be safe to conclude that from his admission to the bar to his re-entrance into politics in 1854, Lincoln devoted himself assiduously to reading and study. His partnership with such accomplished lawyers as Major Stuart and Judge Logan, from 1837 to 1843, afforded him an unusual opportunity to perfect himself in the principles and practice of law. But when in the latter year, upon his own initiative, he headed the new firm of Lincoln and Herndon, his cultural interests made rapid advancement. His acquaintance with literature now widened and was maintained for the rest of his life. His tastes were ver

satile, he was conscious of the necessity of education to a successful career, and he had already developed that capacity for independent investigation and judging of facts which scholarship has accorded him so freely.

As early as 1839, according to Joseph Jefferson's autobiography, Lincoln appeared before the city council of Springfield and persuaded that body to relax its puritanic attitude toward the theatre and theatrical representations in that city. Mr. Jefferson says that when his company came against the obstruction of the city ordinance, "a young lawyer called on the managers. He had heard of the injustice, and offered, if they would place the matter in his hands, to have the license taken off, declaring that he only wanted to see fair play, and would accept no fee whether he failed or succeeded. The case was brought before the council. . . . He handled the subject with tact, skill, and humor, tracing the history of the drama from the time when Thespis acted in a cart, to the stage of to-day. . . . He now lies buried in Springfield, under a monument commemorating his greatness and his virtues, and his name was Abraham Lincoln.” 1

Lincoln must be conceded the ability to master 1 Joseph Jefferson's Autobiography, pp. 28-30.

the literature of the subjects before him, and to assimilate the essential details of the problem within it.

Behind this power was a native thirst for knowledge, a love for the best that had been said and thought in the world, "a sheer desire to see things as they are." This "self-educated" man clothed his mind with the materials of genuine culture. Call it genius or talent, the process of his attainment was that described by Professor Emerton in speaking of the education of Erasmus: "He was no longer at school, but was simply educating himself by the only pedagogical method which ever yet produced any results anywhere,—namely, by the method of his own tireless energy in continuous study and practice." 1

I Emerton, "Desiderius Erasmus," p. 22.

Lincoln's view of self-education is indicated in his letters to J. T. Thornton and J. M. Brockman, December 2, 1858, and September 25, 1860, respectively, the latter of which is to be found on page 303, Appendix.