Bob Burdett, writing for the Burlington _Hawkeye_ shortly after the President's death on April 15, 1865, said that Abraham Lincoln's humorous anecdotes would soon die, but that Lincoln's humor, like John Brown's soul, would be ever "marching on." No printed story which he told ever expressed the soul of Lincoln fully. His own partial description of humor as "that indefinable, intangible grace of spirit," is not to be found exemplified in his published speeches. It is in the spirit which animated them rather than in the works themselves that we must look for the vital principle of Lincoln's humorous sayings. To attempt the analysis of humor is as if a philosopher should try to put a glance of love into a geometrical diagram or the soul of music into a plaster cast. No one by searching can find it and no one by labor can secure it. Yet so simple, so homely, and withal so shrewd was the humor of Abraham Lincoln that one can easily picture him turning over in his mind the words of his favorite quotation from the "Merchant of Venice"--one of the few classical quotations he ever used--while he reflected, half sadly, upon the cynicism and pettiness of mankind: "Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time, Some that will evermore peep through their eyes And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper; And others of such vinegar aspect That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable." Chapter VIII: Lincoln and John Brown "This is my friend!" said Lincoln, as he suddenly turned to a pile of books beside him and grasped a Japanese vase containing a large open pond lily. Some horticultural admirer, knowing Lincoln's love for that special flower, had sent in from his greenhouse a specimen of the _Castilia odorata_. The President put his left arm affectionately around the vase as he inclined his head to the lily and drew in the unequaled fragrance with a long, deep breath. "I have never had the time to study flowers as I often wished to do," he said. "But for some strange reason I am captivated by the pond lily. It may be because some one told me that my mother admired them." Sitting at this desk now, looking out on the Berkshire Hills and living over in memory that visit to the White House, I see again the tableau of the President looking down into the face of that glorious flower. He hugged the vase closer and repeated tenderly, "This is my friend!"