time, perhaps, because of the beauty of our surround-
ings ; at another, because the events were a surprise and
worthy of remembrance. The evening to which I refer
was noteworthy for both of these reasons.
It was, I think, in the year 1856. My husband, the
late Norman B. Judd, was attorney for the Rock Island
Railroad. The bridge over the Mississippi at Rock
Island had been destroyed by a river steamer running
into it and setting it on fire. The steamboat owners
along the Mississippi had brought a suit against the rail-
road company, and it was to be tried in the U. S. District
Court at Chicago. Mr. Lincoln had come to Chicago as
assistant counsel in the suit. Mr. Judd had invited Mr.
Lincoln to spend the evening at our pleasant home on
the shore of Lake Michigan. After tea, and until quite
late, we sat on the broad piazza, looking out upon as
lovely a scene as that which has made the Bay of Naples
so celebrated. A number of vessels were availing them-
selves of a fine breeze to leave the harbor, and the lake
was studded with many a white sail. I remember that a
flock of sea-gulls were flying along the beach, and dipping
their beaks and white-lined wings in the foam that capped
the short waves as they fell upon the shore.
MRS. NORMAN B. JUDD. 521
Whilst we sat there, the great white moon appeared
on the rim of the Eastern horizon, and slowly crept
above the water, throwing a perfect flood of silver light
upon the dancing waves. The stars shone with the soft
light of a midsummer night, and the breaking . of the low-
waves upon the shore, repeating the old rhythm of the
song which they have sung for ages, added the charm of
pleasant sound to the beauty of the night.
Mr. Lincoln, whose home was far inland from the
great lakes, seemed greatly impressed with the wondrous
beauty of the scene, and carried by its impressiveness away
from all thought of the jars and turmoil of earth. In
that mild, pleasant voice, attuned to harmony with his
surroundings, and which was his wont when his soul was
stirred by aught that was lovely or beautiful, Mr. Lincoln
began to speak of the mystery which for ages enshrouded
and shut out those distant worlds above us from our own,
of the poetry and beauty which was seen and felt by seers
of old when they contemplated Orion and Arcturus as
they wheeled, seemingly around the earth, in their nightly
course ; of the discoveries since the invention of the
telescope, which had thrown a flood of light and knowl-
edge on what before was incomprehensible and mysteri-
ous; of the wonderful computations of scientists who had
measured the miles of seemingly endless space which
separated the planets in our solar system from our central
sun, and our sun from other suns, which were now gemming
the heavens above us with their resplendent beauty.
He speculated on the possibilities of knowledge which
an increased power of the lens would give in the years
to come ; and then the wonderful discoveries of late
522 MRS. NORMAN B. JUDD.
centuries as proving that beings endowed with such capa-
bilities as man must be immortal, and created for some
high and noble end by him who had spoken those num-
berless worlds into existence ; and made man a little
lower than the angels that he might comprehend the
glories and wonders of his creation.
When the nigl^t air became too chilling to remain
longer on the piazza, we went into the parlor, and, seated
on the sofa, his long limbs stretching across the carpet, and
his arms folded behind him, Mr. Lincoln went on to speak
of other discoveries, and also of the inventions which had
been made during the long cycles of time lying between
the present and those early days when the sons of Adam
began to make use of the material things about them,
and invent instruments of various kinds in brass and gold
and silver. He gave us a short but succinct account of
all the inventions referred to in the Old Testament from
the time when Adam walked in the Garden of Eden until
the Bible record ended, 600 B. c.
I said, "Mr. Lincoln, I did not know you were such a
Bible student." He replied: "I must be honest, Mrs.
Judd, and tell you just how I came to know so much
about these early inventions." He then went on to say
that, discussing with some friend the relative age of the
discovery and use of the precious metals, he went to the
Bible to satisfy himself, and became so interested in his
researches that he made a memoranda of the different dis-
coveries and inventions ; that soon after he was invited to
lecture before some literary society, I think in Blooming-
ton ; that the interest he had felt in the study convinced
him that the subject would interest others, and he therefore
MRS. NORMAN B. JUDD. 523
prepared and delivered his lecture on the " Age of Differ-
ent Inventions :" and " of course," he added, " I could not
after that forget the order or time of such discoveries
and inventions."
After Mr. Lincoln left, Mr. Judd remarked : " I am
constantly more and more surprised at Mr. Lincoln's at-
tainments and the varied knowledge he has acquired dur-
ing years of constant labor at the Bar, in every depart-
ment of science and learning. A professor at Yale could
not have been more interesting or more enthusiastic."
Another incident in connection with the railroad suit
above referred to may be of interest.
Mr. Joseph Knox, one of the ablest lawyers in
Illinois, was also engaged as counsel in the defense. Mr.
Lincoln began his speech in the forenoon and spoke un-
til the court adjourned at noon. Mr. Knox dined with
us that day. He sat down at the dinner table in great
excitement, saying : " Lincoln has lost the case for us.
The admissions he made in regard to the currents in the
Mississippi at Rock Island and Moline will convince the
court that a bridge at that point will always be a serious
and constant detriment to navigation on the river."
Mr. Judd's reply was in substance that Mr. Lincoln's
admissions in regard to the currents were facts that could
not be denied, but that they only proved that the bridge
should have been built at a different angle to the stream,
and that a bridge so built could not injure the river as a
navigable stream. This reply was noteworthy as fore-
shadowing Mr. Lincoln's argument made in the afternoon.
The case was decided in their favor, and although carried
later to the Supreme Court at Washington, where it was
524 MS. NORMAN B. JUDD.
argued against by the Hon. Caleb Gushing, one of the
ablest lawyers in the United States, the lawyers on the
side of the bridge company won their case, and forever de-
cided the question that bridges could be built under
proper restrictions on all navigable streams in the United
States.
/
SENECA FALLS, 1882.
JOHN A VERY. 525
THE more the smoke of party strife clears away, as
we recede from the times of Abraham Lincoln and
the civil war, the grander does the form of the Martyr
President stand forth as the representative of sagacious
statesmanship and unsullied patriotism. It has not fallen
to the lot of any American since Washington to be so
loved and lamented by the whole nation, without distinc-
tion of race, section, or party. He was suddenly
snatched away in the midst of his usefulness, but he has
left a name behind which is a precious legacy to future
generations of his countrymen, teaching ambitious youth
that immortality may be most surely won, not by employing
the tricks of the politician, but by unselfish devotion to
the welfare of their country.
BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 1880.
526 WM. H. HERN DON.
THE ANALYSIS OF MR. LINCOLN'S CHAR-
ACTER.
A BRAHAM LINCOLN was born in Hardin county,
L "~\. Kentucky, February i2th, 1809. He moved to
Indiana in 1816; came to Illinois in March, 1830; to
old Sangamon county, in 1831, settling in New Salem,
and from this last place to this city in April, 1837 ;
coming as a rude, uncultivated boy, without polish or
education, and having no friends. He was about six feet
four inches high; and when he left this city was fifty-one
years old, having good health and no gray hairs, or but
few, on his head. He was thin, wiry, sinewy, raw-boned ;
thin through the breast to the back, and narrow across
the shoulders ; standing, he leaned forward was what
may be called stoop-shouldered, inclining to the consump-
tive by build. His usual weight was one hundred and
sixty pounds. His organization rather his structure
and functions worked slowly. His blood had to run a
long distance from his heart to the extremities of
his frame, and his nerve-force had to travel through
dry ground a long distance before his muscles were
obedient to his will. His structure was loose and
leathery ; his body was shrunk and shriveled, having
dark skin, dark hair looking woe-struck. The whole
man, body and mind, worked slowly, creakingly, as if it
needed oiling. Physically, he was a very powerful man,
lifting with ease four hundred or six hundred pounds.
WM. H. HERNDON. 527
His mind was like his body, and worked slowly but
strongly. When he walked, he moved cautiously but
firmly, his long arms and hands on them, hanging like
giant's hands, swung down by his side. He walked with
even tread, the inner sides of his feet being parallel. He
put the whole foot flat down on the ground at once, not
landing on the heel ; he likewise lifted his foot all at once,
not rising from the toe, and hence he had no spring to his
walk. He had economy of fall and lift of foot, though he
had no spring or apparent ease of motion in his tread.
He walked undulatory, up and down, catching and pocket-
ing tire, weariness and pain, all up and down his person,
preventing them from locating. The first opinion of a
stranger, or a man who did not observe closely, was that
his walk implied shrewdness, cunning a tricky man ; but
his was the walk of caution and firmness. In sitting
down on a common chair he was no taller than ordinary
men. His legs and arms were abnormally, unnaturally long,
and in undue proportion to the balance of his body. It
was only when he stood up that he loomed above other men.
Mr. Lincoln's head was long and tall from the base
of the brain and from the eyebrows. His head ran back-
wards, his forehead rising as it ran back at a low
angle, like Clay's, and, unlike Webster's, almost per-
pendicular. The size of his hat, measured at the hat-
ter's block, was 71^, his head being, from ear to ear, 6%
inches, and from the front to the back of the brain 8
inches. Thus measured, it was not below the medium
size. His forehead was narrow but high ; his hair was
dark, almost black, and lay floating where his fingers or
the winds left it, piled up at random. His cheek-bones
528 WM. H. HERNDON.
were high, sharp, and prominent ; his eyebrows heavy
and prominent ; his jaws were long, upcurved and heavy ;
his nose was large, long and blunt, a little awry towards
the right eye ; his chin was long, sharp and upcurved ;
his eyebrows cropped out like a huge rock on the brow
of a hill ; his face was long, sallow and cadaverous,
shrunk, shriveled, wrinkled and dry, having here and
there a hair on the surface ; his cheeks were leathery ;
his ears were large, and ran out almost at right angles
from his head, caused partly by heavy hats and partly by
nature ; his lower lip was thick, hanging, and under-
curved, while his chin reached for the lip upcurved ; his
neck was neat and trim, his head being well balanced on
it ; there was the lone mole on the right cheek, and
Adam's apple on his throat.
Thus stood, walked, acted and looked Abraham
Lincoln. He was not a pretty man by any means, nor
was he an ugly one ; he was a homely man, careless of
his looks, plain-looking and plain-acting. He had no
pomp, display or dignity, so-called. He appeared simple
in his carriage and bearing. He was a sad-looking man ;
his melancholy dripped from him as he walked. His ap-
parent gloom impressed his friends, and created a
sympathy for him one means of his great success. He
was gloomy, abstracted, and joyous rather, humorous
by turns. I do not think he knew what real joy was for
many years.
Mr. Lincoln sometimes walked our streets cheerily,
good-humoredly, perhaps joyously and then it was,
on meeting a friend, he cried : " How d'y ?" clasping one
of his friend's hand in both of his, giving a good hearty
WM. H. HERN DON. 529
soul-welcome. Of a winter's morning, he might be seen
stalking and stilting it towards the market house, basket
on arm, his old gray shawl wrapped around his neck, his
little Willie or Tad running along at his heels, asking a
thousand little quick questions, which his father heard
not, not even then knowing that little Willie or Tad was
there, so abstracted was he. When he thus met a friend,
he said that something put him in mind of a story which
he heard in Indiana or elsewhere, and tell it he would,
and there was no alternative but to listen.
Thus, I say, stood and walked and looked this
singular man. He was odd, but when that gray eye
and face and every feature were lit up by the inward soul
in fires of emotion, then it was that all these apparently
ugly features sprang into organs of beauty, or sunk
themselves into a sea of inspiration that sometimes
flooded his face. Sometimes it appeared to me that
Lincoln's soul was just fresh from the presence of its
Creator.
I have asked the friends and foes of Mr. Lincoln
alike, what they thought of his perceptions. One
gentleman of undoubted ability, and free from all partial-
ity or prejudice, said : " Mr. Lincoln's perceptions are
slow, a little perverted, if not somewhat distorted and
diseased." If the meaning of this is that Mr. Lincoln
saws things from a peculiar angle of his being, and from
this was susceptible to Nature's impulses, and that he so
expressed himself, then I have no objection to what is
said. Otherwise, I dissent. Mr. Lincoln's perceptions
34
530 WM. H. HERNDON.
were slow, cold, precise, and exact. Everything came to
him in its precise shape and color. To some men the
world of matter and of man comes ornamented with
beauty, life, and action, and hence more or less false and
inexact. No lurking illusion or other error, false in
itself, and clad for the moment in robes of splendor,
ever passed undetected or unchallenged over the
threshold of his mind that point that divides vision
from the realm and home of thought. Names to him
were nothing, and titles naught assumption always
standing back abashed at his cold, intellectual glare.
Neither his perceptions nor intellectual vision were per-
verted, distorted, or diseased. He saw all things through
a perfect mental lens. There was no diffraction or re-
fraction there. He was not impulsive, fanciful or im-
aginative, but cold, calm, precise and exact. He threw
his whole mental light around the object, and in time,
substance, and quality stood apart ; form and color took
their appropriate places, and all was clear and exact
in his mind. His fault, if any, was that he saw things
less than they really were ; less beautiful and more
frigid. In his mental view he crushed the unreal, the
inexact, the hollow and the sham. He saw things in
rigidity rather than in vital action. Here was his
fault He saw what no man could dispute; but he
failed to see what might have been seen. To some
minds the world is all life, a soul beneath the material ;
but to Mr. Lincoln no life was individual or universal that
did not manifest itself to him. His mind was hisstandard.
His perceptions were cool, persistent, pitiless in pursuit of
the truth. No error went undetected, and no falsehood
WW. H. HERN DON. 531
unexposed, if he once was aroused in search of truth.
If his perceptions were perverted, distorted, and dis-
eased, would to Heaven that more minds were so.
*-&***###*
The true peculiarity of Mr. Lincoln has not been seen
by his various biographers ; or, if seen, they have failed
wofully to give it that prominence which it deserves. It
is said that Newton saw an apple fall to the ground from
a tree, and beheld the law of the universe in that fall ;
Shakespeare saw human nature in the laugh of a man ;
Professor Owen saw the animal in its claw ; and Spencer
saw the evolution of the universe in the growth of a seed.
Nature was suggestive to all these men. Mr. Lincoln no
less saw philosophy in a story, and a schoolmaster in a
joke. No man, no men, saw nature, fact, thing, or man
from his stand-point. His was a new and original posi-
tion, which was always suggesting, hinting something to
him. Nature, insinuations, hints and suggestions were
new, fresh, original and odd to him. The world, fact,
man, principle, all had their powers of suggestion to his
susceptible soul. They continually put him in mind of
something. He was odd, fresh, new, original, and pecu-
liar, for this reason, that he was a new, odd, and original
creation and fact. He had keen susceptibilities to the
hints and suggestions of nature, which always put him in
mind of something known or unknown. Hence his
power and tenacity of what is called association of ideas
must have been great. His memory was tenacious and
strong. His susceptibility to all suggestions and hints
enabled him at will to call up readily the associated and
classified fact and idea.
S3 2 WM. H. HERN DON.
As an evidence of this, especially peculiar to Mn
Lincoln, let me ask one question. Were Mr. Lincoln's
expression and language odd and original, standing out
peculiar from those of all other men ? What does this
imply ? Oddity and originality of vision as well as ex-
pression; and what is expression in words and human
language, but a telling of what we see, defining the idea
arising from and created by vision and view in us ?
Words and language are but the counterparts of the idea
the other half of the idea ; they are but the stinging,
hot, heavy, leaden bullets that drop from the mold ; and
what are they in a rifle with powder stuffed behind them
and fire applied, but an embodied force pursuing their
object ? So are words an embodied power feeling for
comprehension in other minds. Mr. Lincoln was often
perplexed to give expression to his ideas : first, because
he was not master of the English language : and,
secondly, because there were no words in it containing
the coloring, shape, exactness, power, and gravity of his
ideas. He was frequently at a loss fora word, and hence
was compelled to resort to stories, maxims, and jokes to
embody his idea, that it might be comprehended. So
true was this peculiar mental vision of his, that though
mankind has been gathering, arranging, and classifying
facts for thousands of years, Lincoln's peculiar stand-
point could give him no advantage of other men's labor.
Hence he tore up to the deep foundations all arrange-
ments of facts, and coined and arranged new plans to
govern himself. He was compelled, from his peculiar
mental organization, to do this. His labor was great,
continuous, patient and all-enduring.
WM. H. HERN DON. 533
The truth about this whole matter is that Mr.
Lincoln read less and thought more than any man in his
sphere in America. No man can put his finger on any
great book written in the last or present century that he
read. When young he read the Bible, and when of age
he read Shakespeare. This latter book was scarcely ever
out of liis mind. Mr. Lincoln is acknowledged to have
been a great man, but the question is, what made him
great ? I repeat, that he read less and thought more
than any man of his standing in America, if not in the
world. He possessed originality and power of thought
in an eminent degree. He was cautious, cool, concen-
trated, with continuity of reflection ; was patient and
enduring. These are some of the grounds of his wonder-
ful success.
Not only was nature, man, fact and principle sug-
gestive to Mr. Lincoln, not only had he accurate and
exact perceptions, but he was causative, i.e., his mind
ran back behind all facts, things and principles to their
origin, history and first cause, to that point where forces
act at once as effect and cause. He would stop and
stand in the street and analyze a machine. He would
whittle things to a point, and then count the numberless
inclined planes, and their pitch, making the point. Mas-
tering and defining this, he would then cut that point
back, and get a broad transverse section of his pine
stick, and peel and define that. Clocks, omnibuses and
language, paddle-wheels and idioms, never escaped his
observation and analysis. Before he could form any idea
of anything, before he would express his opinion on any
subject, he must know it in origin and history, in sub-
534 WM. H. HERNDON.
stance and quality, in magnitude and gravity. He must
know his subject inside and outside, upside and down-
side. He searched his own mind and nature thoroughly,
as I have often heard him say. He must analyze a sen-
sation, an idea, and words, and run them back to their
origin, history, purpose and destiny. He was most em-
phatically a remorseless analyzer of facts, thiftgs and
principles. When all these processes had been well and
thoroughly gone through, he could form an opinion and
express it, but no sooner. He had no faith. " Say so's "
he had no respect for, coming though they might from
tradition, power or authority.
All things, facts and principles had to run through
his crucible and be tested by the fires of his analytic
mind ; and hence, when he did speak, his utterances rang
out gold-like, quick, keen and current upon the counters
of the understanding. He reasoned logically, through
analogy and comparison. All opponents dreaded him in
his originality of idea, condensation, definition and force
of expression, and woe be to the man who hugged to his
bosom a secret error if Mr. Lincoln got on the chase of
it. I say, woe to him ! Time could hide the error in
no nook or corner of space in which he would not detect
and expose it.
******
Though Mr. Lincoln had accurate perceptions,
though nature was extremely suggestive to him, though
he was a profound thinker as well as an analyzer, still
his judgments and opinions formed upon minor matters
were often childish. I have sometimes asked prominent,
talented and honest men in this and other States for
WM. H. HERN DON. 535
their manly opinion of Mr. Lincoln's judgments. I did
this to confirm or overthrow my own opinions on this
point. Their answers were that his judgments were
poor. But now, what do we understand by the word
" judgments M ? It is not reason, it is not will, nor
is it understanding ; but it is the judging faculty that
capacity or power that forms opinions and decides on
the fitness, beauty, harmony and appropriateness of
things under all circumstances and surroundings, quickly,
wisely, accurately. Had Mr. Lincoln this quality of
mind? I think not. His mind was like his body, and
worked slowly.
3f # # # -3f *
One portion of mankind maintained that Mr. Lin-
coln was weak-minded, and they look at him only from
the stand-point of his judgments. Another class main-
tain that he was a great, deep, profound man in his judg-
ments. Do these two classes understand themselves ?
Both views cannot be correct. Mr. Lincoln's mind was
slow, angular, and ponderous, rather than quick and
finely discriminating, and in time his great powers of
reason on cause and effect, on creation and relation, on
substance and on truth, would form a proposition, an
opinion, wisely and well that no human being can deny.
When his mind could not grasp premises from which to
argue he was weaker than a child, because he had none
of the child's intuitions the soul's quick, bright flash
over scattered and unarranged facts.
Mr. Lincoln was a peculiar man, having a peculiar
mind ; he was gifted with a peculiarity, namely, a new
look-out on nature. Everything had to be newly created
536 WM. H. HERNDON.
for him facts newly gathered, newly arranged, and newly
classed. He had no faith, as already expressed. In
order to believe he must see and feel, and thrust his
hand into the place. He must taste, smell and handle
before he had faith, i.e., belief. Such a mind as this must
act slowly, must have its time. His forte and power lay
in his love of digging out for himself and hunting up for
his own mind its own food, to be assimilated unto itself ;
and then in time he could and would form opinions and
conclusions that no human power could overthrow.
They were as irresistible as iron thunder, as powerful as
logic embodied in mathematics.
I have watched men closely in reference to their