Sketch of the life of Abraham LincolnArnold, Isaac N.
History
Sketch of the life of Abraham Lincoln
Arnold, Isaac N.
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
Mr. Lincoln was by nature a gentleman. No man can point, in all his
lifetime, to any thing mean, small, tricky, dishonest, or false; on the
contrary, he was ever open, manly, brave, just, sincere, and true. That
characteristic, attributed to him by some, of coarse story-telling, did
not exist. I assert that my intercourse with him was constant for many
years before he went to Washington, and I saw him daily, during the
greater part of his Presidency; and although his stories and anecdotes
were racy, witty, and pointed beyond all comparison, yet I never heard
one of a character to need palliation or excuse. If a story had wit and
was apt, he did not reject it, because to a vulgar or impure mind it
suggested coarse ideas; but he himself was unconscious of any thing but
its wit and aptness.
It may interest the people who did not visit Washington during his
Presidency, to know something of his habits, and the room he occupied
and transacted business in, during his administration. His
reception-room was on the second floor, on the south side of the White
House, and the second apartment from the southeast corner. The corner
room was occupied by Mr. Nicolay, his private secretary; next to this
was the President's reception-room. It was, perhaps, thirty by twenty
feet. In the middle of the west side, was a large marble fireplace, with
old-fashioned brass andirons, and a large, high, brass fender. The
windows looked to the south, upon the lawn and shrubbery on the south
front of the White House, taking in the unfinished Washington Monument,
Alexandria, the Potomac, and down that beautiful river toward Mount
Vernon. Across the Potomac was Arlington Heights. The view from these
windows was altogether very beautiful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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