At the opening of the administration he was overwhelmed with persistent office-seekers, and so much of his time was occupied in listening to their demands and trying to gratify them that he felt that he was not attending to military affairs and matters of public policy as closely as he should. He compared himself to a man who was so busy letting rooms at one end of his house that he had no time to put out a fire that was destroying the other end. And when he was attacked with the varioloid in 1861 he said to his usher,-- "Tell all the office-seekers to come and see me, for now I have something that I can give them." He had a remarkable capacity for work and for despatching business. Although deliberation was one of his strongest characteristics, he knew when to act and acted quickly. His brain was as tough and as healthy as his body. His appetite was always good and healthful. He ate sparingly of plain, wholesome food, but had no taste for rich dishes. He was temperate in every way except as concerned his labor, and in that he was tireless. He had the rare and valuable faculty of laying out work for others and being able to give instructions clearly and concisely. He loaded his Cabinet and his secretaries to the limit of their strength, but was always considerate and thoughtful of their comfort. Three of his secretaries lived with him in the White House and usually worked far into the night, and, even after their labors for the day had closed, Lincoln would often wander around barefooted and in his night-shirt, too wakeful to seek his own bed, and read poems from Burns, jokes from Artemas Ward, and the letters of Petroleum V. Nasby to the members of his household. His sense of humor was his salvation. It was the safety-valve by which his heart was relieved. He was melancholy by nature and inclined to be morbid, and it was this keen enjoyment of the ridiculous that enabled him to endure with patience his official trials and anxiety. One of the visitors in the early days of the administration says, "He walked into the corridor with us; and, as he bade us good-by and thanked ---- for what he had told him, he again brightened up for a moment and asked him in an abrupt kind of way, laying his hand, as he spoke, with a queer but not uncivil familiarity on his shoulder,-- "'You haven't such a thing as a postmaster in your pocket, have you?' "---- stared at him in astonishment, and I thought a little in alarm, as if he suspected a sudden attack of insanity. Then Mr. Lincoln went on,-- "'You see, it seems to me kind of unnatural that you shouldn't have at least a postmaster in your pocket. Everybody I've seen for days past has had foreign ministers and collectors and all kinds, and I thought you couldn't have got in here without having at least a postmaster get into your pocket.'"