The Lincoln Story Book Part 13

"'So! stand still at that!'"--(Speech by A. Lincoln, House of Representatives, Washington, July 27, 1848.)

HARD TO BEAT!

Of his Washington experience in 1848, Lincoln brought a pack of tales about the statesmen then prominent. He declared to have heard of Daniel Webster the subjoined:

In school little Dan had been guilty of some misdoing for which he was called up to the teacher to be caned on the hand. His hands were dirty, and to save appearance he moistened his right hand, on his way up, and wiped it on his pants. Nevertheless, it looked so foul on presentation to the ferule that the teacher sharply protested:

"Well, this is hard to beat! If you will find another hand in this room as filthy, I will let you off!"

Daniel popped out his left hand, modestly kept in the background, and readily cried:

"Here it is, sir!"

(Told by Lincoln before "the Honorable Mr. Odell, and others." This is not the ex-governor, Mr. Odell, of New York, who pleads guilty to the editor of "being too young to have the honor of speaking with Mr. Lincoln." The worse luck--both would have profited by the mutual pleasure.)

"I RECKON I TOOK MORE THAN MY SHARE."

Lincoln confessed at the outset of life that he was going to avoid society, as its frequentation was incompatible with study. He avowed at the same time that he liked it, which enhanced the sacrifice. No doubt so, since his Washington sojourn and his legal and legislative company earned him the t.i.tle of the prince of good fellows. To be coupled with the genial Martin van Buren with the same epithet was, indeed, a compliment.

At Washington he had, in 1848, made acquaintance with the fashionable world. He preferred the livelier and less strait ways of the Congressional boarding-house table, the Sat.u.r.day parties at Daniel Webster's, and the motley crowd at the bowling-alley, as well as the chatterers' corner in the Congressional post-office. Still, as chairman of a committee, and by reason of his being a wonder from the hirsute West, he was invited to the receptions and feasts of the first families. Green to the niceties of the table, he committed errors--so frankly apologized for and humorously treated that he lost no standing.

At one dinner the experience was new to him of the dish of currant jelly being pa.s.sed around for each guest to transfer a little to his plate. So he took it as a sweet, oddly accompanying the venison, and left but little on the general plate. But after tasting it, he perceived that the compote-dish was going the rounds, and suddenly looking pointedly at his plate and then at the hostess, with a troubled air, he said, with convincing simplicity:

"It looks as though I took more than my share."--(Supplied by the hostess, and collected by J. R. Speed.)

LINCOLN WAS LOADED FOR BEAR.

An eminent man of politics has said that the similes of the learned which liken Abraham Lincoln to King Henry IV. of France and other historical notables are far from the mark and reveal their miscomprehension of the Machiavel redeemed by moral goodness. He thinks that without the hypocrisy being censurable he was more of the type of Pope Sixtus the Fifth. This celebrity, who, like Lincoln, was in the hog business at one time, pretended silliness to be elected pontiff. The die cast, he stood forth in all his native strength, keeping the friends who did not try to sway him, and becoming a rod of steel where he had been rated as lead. [Footnote: Greeley stamped Lincoln as "the slowest piece of lead that ever crawled."] At the same time as he dispraised himself--mocked and laughed--he let out glimpses of true ambition. When his short-sighted advisers warmly crossed his ground of setting himself with freedom against the pro-slavery party, a.s.suring him that he would thereby lose the senatorship as against Douglas, he confessed:

"I am after larger game. The battle of 1860 (for the chair of Washington) is worth a hundred of this."

"A BOUNTEOUS PRESIDENT--IF ANYTHING IS LEFT!"

"Mr. Speaker, we have all heard of the animal standing in doubt between two stacks of hay and starving to death; the like of that would never happen to General Ca.s.s. Place the stacks a thousand miles apart; he would stand stock-still, midway between them, and eat both at once; and the green gra.s.s along the line would be apt to suffer some, too, at the same time. By all means, make him President, gentlemen. He will feed you bounteously--if--if--there is anything left after he shall have helped himself."--(Speech, House of Representatives, July 27, 1848.)

THE ART OF BEING PAID TO EAT.

"I have introduced General Ca.s.s' accounts here chiefly to show the wonderful physical capacities of the man. They show that he not only did the labor of several men at the same time, but that he often did it at several places many hundred miles apart, at the same time! And at eating, too, his capacities are shown to be quite as wonderful.

From October, 1821, to May, 1822, he ate ten rations a day in Michigan, ten a day here in Washington, and near five dollars' worth a day besides, partly on the road between the two places. And then there is an important discovery in his example: 'The art of being paid for what one eats, instead of having to pay for it.' Hereafter, if any nice man shall owe a bill which he cannot pay, he can just board it out!"--(Speech, House of Representatives, July 27, 1848.)

(A tilt at a general drawing rations for himself and staff.)

A VICE NOT TO SAY "NO!"

Mr. Lincoln said to General Viele: "If I have got one vice, it is not being able to say 'No.' And I consider it a vice. Thank G.o.d for not making me a woman! I presume if He had, He would have made me just as homely as I am, and n.o.body would have ever tempted me!"

THE BEST CAR!

From his previous sojourn in the capital, President Lincoln had a fund of good stories upon his predecessors. Among them was the following tale about President Tyler, one of the weakest chiefs the republic has ever known, with the exception of Franklin Pierce. Lincoln said that this President's son "Bob" was sent by his father to arrange about a special train for an excursion. The railroad agent happened to be a hard-sh.e.l.l Whig, and having no fear of the great, and wanting no favor, shrank from allowing him any. He said that the road did not run any "specials" for Presidents.

"Stop!" interrupted Bob, "did you not furnish a special for General-President Harrison?" (Died 1841.)

"S'pose we did," answered the superintendent; "well, if you will bring your father here in that condition, you shall have the best train on the track!"

SELF-MADE.

"Self-made or never made," says one of the apologists for Lincoln's ruggedness of character and outward air; at an early political meeting, when asked if he were self-made and he answered in the affirmative, the rough critic remarked: "Then it is a poor job," as if it were by nature's apprentice. But in 1860, when friends reproached him for the lack of "Old Hickory" Jackson's sternness, he replied n.o.bly:

"I am just as G.o.d made me, and cannot change."

HIS HIGH MIGHTINESS.

The little "court" of the White House wrangling about a fit t.i.tle for the Chief, that of "excellency" not being taken as sufficient, one disputant suggested that the Dutch one of "high mightiness" might fit.