He met every new question with the same disposition, and nobody ever knew better how to dig for the root of a subject than he. When his children began to go to school, he used to study with them, and frequently referred to the many interesting points of information and the valuable knowledge he acquired in that way. The lawyers who were associated with him upon the circuit relate how often he was accustomed to pull a book from his pocket whenever he had an idle moment, and it was quite as frequently a treatise on astronomy or engineering or a medical lecture as a collection of poems or speeches. But, with all his modesty and diffidence, he never hesitated to meet with confidence the most formidable opponent at the bar or on the stump, and frequently, when reading accounts of litigation in which famous lawyers were engaged, he would express a wish that he might some time "tackle" them in a court-room. He once said that in all his practice at the bar he had never been surprised by the strength of the testimony or the arguments of his adversary, and usually found them weaker than he feared. This was due to a habit he acquired early in his practice of studying the opposite side of every disputed question in every law case and every political issue quite as carefully as his own side. When he had an important case on hand he was accustomed to withdraw himself into a room where he would not be disturbed, or, what he liked better, to get out into the fields or the woods around Springfield where there was nothing to distract his thoughts, in order to "argue it out in my own mind," as he put it; and when he returned to his house or his office he would usually have a clear conception of his case and have formed his plan of action.