Abraham Lincoln's Life.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 413, 23 October 1889, Page 6

Abraham Lincoln's Life.

Mr Lincoln's habits, Mr Herndon says, were very simple. 'He was not fastidious as to food or dress. His hat was brown, faded, and the nap usually worn or rubbed off. He wore a short cloak and sometimes a shawl. His coat and vest hung loosely on his gaunt form, and his trousers were invariably too short. On the circuit ho carried in one hand a faded green umbrella, with " A Lincoln " in large white cotton or muslin letters, sew6d on the inside. The knob was gone from the handle, »nd, when closed, a piece of cord was usually tied around it in the middle to keep it from flying open. In the other hand he carried a literal carpet bag, in whioh were stored the few papers to be used in Court, and underclothing enough to last till his return to Springfield. He slept in a long, ooarse, yellow flannel shirt whioh reaohed half-way between his knees and ankles.' Mr Herndon never knew Lincoln's equal as a storyteller. 'I have seen him surrounded by a crowd numbering as many as two and in some cases three hundred pei'sons, all deeply interested in the outcome of a story which, when he had finished it, speedily found repetition in every grocery and lounging place within reach. His power of mimicry, as I have before noted, and his manner of recital were in many respects unique, if not remarkable. His countenance and all his features seemed to take part in the performance. As he neared the pith or point of the joke or story every vestige of seriousness} disappeared from his face ; his little grey eyes sparkled ; a smile seemed to gather up, curtainlike, the corners of his mouth, his frame quivered with suppressed excitement, and when the pomt — or 'nub ' of the story, as he called it— -oame, no one's laugh was heartier than hie. These backwoods allegories are out of date now, and any lawyer, ambitious to gain prominence, would hardly dare thus to entertain a crowd, except at the risk of hia reputation ; but with Lincoln, it gave him, in some mysterious way, a singularly firm hold upon the people. This was one of his ways to impress a truth or to clinch an argument., He 'did not toll stories simply to raise an idlelaugh,-^-From a Review of Herndon 's Life of Lfocojn.