There is no reason to believe that the Southern leaders countenanced or instigated this atrocious deed. It was the act of a half-crazed political fanatic, and the few who were in sympathy with him, and cognizant of his plans, were men of like character. Justice overtook them in the end, as might have been expected, but they had wrought irreparable mischief, and plunged a whole people into mourning. CHAPTER XXXIII. MR. HERNDON’S ESTIMATE OF MR. LINCOLN. No one probably was better fitted to give a discriminating analysis of Mr. Lincoln’s character than Mr. W. H. Herndon, for more than twenty years his law-partner. From an address delivered at Springfield, Ill., Dec. 12, 1865, by that gentleman, I shall, therefore, quote freely, without indorsing everything that is said, but submitting it as the opinion of a man who knew Mr. Lincoln well: “Mr. Lincoln read _less_ and thought _more_ than any man in his sphere in America. No man can put his finger on any great book written in the last or present century that he read. When young he read the Bible, and when of age he read Shakespeare, This latter book was scarcely ever out of his mind. Mr. Lincoln is acknowledged to have been a great man, but the question is, What made him great? I repeat that he read less and thought more than any man of his standing in America, if not in the world. He possessed originality and power of thought in an eminent degree. He was cautious, cool, concentrated, with continuity of reflection; was patient and enduring. These are some of the grounds of his wonderful success. “Not only was nature, man, fact, and principle suggestive to Mr. Lincoln--not only had he accurate and exact perceptions, but he was causative; i.e., his mind ran back behind all facts, things, and principles to their origin, history, and first cause,--to that point where forces act at once as effect and cause. He would stop and stand in the street and analyze a machine. He would whittle things to a point, and then count the numberless inclined planes and their pitch, making the point. Mastering and defining this, he would then cut that point back and get a broad transverse section of his pine stick and point and define that. Clocks, omnibuses, and language, paddle-wheels, and idioms, never escaped his observation and analysis. Before he could form any idea of anything--before he would express his opinion on any subject, he must know it in origin and history, in substance and quality, in magnitude and gravity. He must know his subject inside and outside, upside and downside. He searched his own mind and nature thoroughly, as I have often heard him say. He must analyze a sensation, an idea, and words, and run them back to their origin, history, purpose, and destiny.”