That portion of the biography of Mr. Lincoln that appears in the November number of McCLURE'S MAGAZINE I have read with very great interest. It contains much that has not been printed in any other life of Lincoln. Especially interesting is the account given of pioneer life of that people among whom Mr. Lincoln had his birth and his early education. It was a strange and singular people, and their history abounds in much that is akin to romance and peculiar to a life in the wilderness. It was a life that had a wonderful attractiveness for all that loved an adventurous life. The story of their lives in the wilderness has a charm that nothing else in Western history possesses. It is to be regretted that there are writers that represent the early pioneers of the West to have been an ignorant and rude people. Nothing can be further from the truth. Undoubtedly there were some dull persons among them. There are in all communities. But a vast majority of the early pioneers of the West were of average intelligence with the people they left back in the States from which they emigrated. And why should they not have been? They were educated among them, and had all the advantages of those by whom they were surrounded. But in some respects they were much above the average of those among whom they dwelt in the older communities east of the Alleghany Mountains. The country into which they were about to go was known to be crowded with dangers. It was a wilderness, full of savage beasts and inhabited by still more savage men--the Indians. It is evident that but few other than the brave and most daring, would venture upon a life in such a wilderness. The timid and less resolute remained in the security of an older civilization.