FUNERAL CEREMONIES.

55

the tolling of bells, music, requiems, dirges, military and civic displays, draped flags, black covering every public building and private house, everywhere indicated the pious desire of the people to do honor to the dead: two thousand miles, along which every house was draped in black, and from which, everywhere, hung the national colors in mourning. The funeral ceremonies at Baltimore were peculiarly impressive: nowhere were the manifestations of grief more universal; but the sorrow of the negroes, who thronged the streets in thousands, and hung like a dark fringe upon the long procession, was especially impressive. Their coarse, homely features were convulsed with a grief which they could not control; their emotional natures, excited by the scene, and by each other, until sobs and cries and tears, rolling down their black faces, told how deeply they felt their loss. When the remains reached Philadelphia, a half million of people were in the streets, to do honor to all that was left of him, who, in old Independence Hall, four years before, had declared that he would sooner die, sooner be assassinated, than give up the principles of the Declaration of Independence. He had been assassinated because he would not give them up. All felt, when the remains were placed in that historic room, surrounded by the memories of the great men of the Past, whose portraits from the walls looked down upon the scene, that a peer of the best and greatest of the revolutionary wor thies was now added to the list of those who had served the Republic.

Through New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Indiana, to Illinois, all the people followed the funeral train as mourners, but when the remains reached his own State, where he had been personally known to every one, where the people had all heard him on the stump and in court, every family

The train reached

mourned him as a father and a brother. Springfield on the 3d of May; and the corpse was taken to Oak Ridge Cemetery, and there, among his old friends and neighbors, his clients, and constituents, surrounded by representatives from the Army and Navy, with delegations from every State, with all the people, the world for his mourners-was he buried.

PERSONAL SKETCHES OF LINCOLN.*

In the remaining pages, I shall attempt to give a wordpicture of Mr. Lincoln, his person, his moral and intellectual characteristics, and some personal recollections, so as to aid the reader, as far as I may be able, in forming an ideal of the man.

Physically, he was a tall, spare man, six feet and four inches in height. He stooped, leaning forward as he walked. He was very athletic, with long, sinewy arms, large, bony hands, and of great physical power. Many anecdotes of his strength are given, which show that it was equal to that of two or three ordinary men. He lifted with ease five or six hundred pounds. His legs and arms were disproportionately long, as compared with his body; and when he walked, he swung his arms to and fro more than most men. When seated, he did not seem much taller than ordinary men. In his movements there was no grace, but an impression of awkward strength and vigor.

He was naturally diffident, and even to the day of his death, when in crowds, and not speaking or acting, and conscious of being observed, he seemed to shrink with bashfulness. When he became interested, or spoke, or

*The substance of what follows is from chapter 29th of "The History of Abraham Lincoln, and The Overthrow of Slavery," by Isaac N. Arnold.

PERSONAL DESCRIPTION

57

listened, this appearance left him, and he indicated no selfconsciousness. His forehead was high and broad, his hair very dark, nearly black, and rather stiff and coarse, his eyebrows were heavy, his eyes dark-gray, very expressive and varied; now sparkling with humor and fun, and then deeply sad and melancholy; flashing with indignation at injustice or wrong, and then kind, genial, droll, dreamy; according to his mood.

His nose was large, and clearly defined and well shaped; cheek-bones high and projecting. His mouth coarse, but firm. He was easily caricatured—but difficult to represent as he was, in marble or on canvass. The best bust of him is that of Volk, which was modeled from a cast taken from life in May, 1860, while he was attending court at Chicago.

Among the best portraits, in the judgment of his family and intimate friends, are those of Carpenter, in the picture of the Reading of the Proclamation of Emancipation before the Cabinet, and that of Marshall.

He would be instantly recognized as belonging to that type of tall, thin, large-boned men, produced in the northern portion of the Valley of the Mississippi, and exhibiting its peculiar characteristics in a most marked degree in Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee. In any crowd in the United States, he would have been readily pointed out as a Western man. His stature, figure, manner, voice, and accent, indicated that he was of the Northwest. His manners were cordial, familiar, genial; always perfectly self-possessed, he made every one feel at home, and no one approached him without being impressed with his kindly, frank nature, his clear, good sense, and his transparent truthfulness and integrity. There is more or less of expression and character in handwriting. Lincoln's was plain, simple, clear, and legible, as that of Washington; but unlike that of Washington, it was without ornament.

In endeavoring to state those qualities which gave him success and greatness, among the most important, it seems to me, were a supreme love of truth, and a wonderful capacity to ascertain it. Mentally, he had a perfect eye for truth. His mental vision was clear and accurate: he saw things as they were. I mean that every thing presented to his mind for investigation, he saw divested of every extraneous circumstance, every coloring, association, or accident which could mislead. This gave him at the bar a sagacity which seemed almost instinctive, in sifting the true from the false, and in ascertaining facts; and so it was in all things through life. He ever sought the real, the true, and the right. He was exact, carefully accurate in all his statements. He analyzed well; he saw and presented what lawyers call the very gist of every question, divested of all unimportant or accidental relations, so that his statement was a demonstration. At the bar, his exposition of his case, or a question of law, was so clear, that, on hearing it, most persons were surprised that there should be any controversy about it. His reasoning powers were keen and logical, and moved forward to a demonstration with the precision of mathematics. What has been said implies that he possessed not only a sound judgment, which brought him to correct conclusions, but that he was able so to present questions as to bring others to the same result.

His memory was capacious, ready, and tenacious. His reading was limited in extent, but his memory was so ready, and so retentive, that in history, poetry, and general literature, no one ever remarked any deficiency. As an illustration of the power of his memory, I recollect to have once called at the White House, late in his Presidency, and introducing to him a Swede and a Norwegian; he immediately repeated a poem of eight or ten verses, describing Scandinavian

FONDNESS FOR POETRY.

59

scenery and old Norse legends. In reply to the expression of their delight, he said that he had read and admired the poem several years before, and it had entirely gone from him, but seeing them recalled it.

The two books which he read most were the Bible and Shakespeare. With these he was very familiar, reading and studying them habitually and constantly. He had great fondness for poetry, and eloquence, and his taste and judg ment in each was exquisite. Shakespeare was his favorite. poet; Burns stood next. I know of a speech of his at a Burns festival, in which he spoke at length of Burns's poems; illustrating what he said by many quotations, showing perfect familiarity with and full appreciation of the peasant poet of Scotland. He was extremely fond of ballads, and of simple, sad, and plaintive music.

He was a most admirable reader. He read and repeated passages from the Bible and Shakespeare with great simplicity but remarkable expression and effect. Often when going to and from the army, on steamers and in his carriage, he took a copy of Shakespeare with him, and not unfrequently read, aloud to his associates. After conversing upon public affairs, he would take up his Shakespeare, and addressing his companions, remark, "What do you say now to a scene from Macbeth, or Hamlet, or Julius Caesar," and then he would read aloud, scene after scene, never seeming to tire of the enjoy

ment.

On the last Sunday of his life, as he was coming up the Potomac, from his visit to City Point and Richmond, he read aloud many extracts from Shakespeare. Among others, he read, with an accent and feeling which no one who heard him will ever forget, extracts from Macbeth, and among others the following: