Mr. Lincoln had this further idea. Dreams being natural occurrences, in the strictest sense, he held that their best interpreters are _the common people_; and this accounts in large measure for the profound respect he always had for the collective wisdom of plain people,--"the children of Nature," he called them,--touching matters belonging to the domain of psychical mysteries. There was some basis of truth, he believed, for whatever obtained general credence among these "children of Nature;" and as he esteemed himself one of their number, having passed the greater part of his life among them, we can easily account for the strength of his convictions on matters about which they and he were in cordial agreement. The natural bent of Mr. Lincoln's mind, aided by early associations, inclined him to read books which tended to strengthen his early convictions on occult subjects. Byron's "Dream" was a favorite poem, and I have often heard him repeat the following lines:-- "Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world And a wide realm of wild reality. And dreams in their development have breath, And tears and tortures, and the touch of joy; They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, They take a weight from off our waking toils, They do divide our being." He seemed strangely fascinated by the wonderful in history,--such as the fall of Geta by the hand of Caracalla, as foretold by Severus; the ghosts of Caracalla's father and murdered brother threatening and upbraiding him; and kindred passages. It is useless further to pursue this account of Mr. Lincoln's peculiar views concerning these interesting mysteries. Enough has been said to show that the more intense the light which is poured upon what may be regarded as Mr. Lincoln's weakest points, the greater and grander will his character appear. CHAPTER VIII. THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF HIS CHARACTER. No one knew better than Mr. Lincoln that genuine humor is "a plaster that heals many a wound;" and certainly no man ever had a larger stock of that healing balm or knew better how to use it. His old friend I. N. Arnold once remarked that Lincoln's laugh had been his "life-preserver." Wit, with that illustrious man, was a jewel whose mirth-moving flashes he could no more repress than the diamond can extinguish its own brilliancy. In no sense was he vain of his superb ability as a wit and story-teller.