Mrs. Lincoln heard the talk and mentioned it to her husband. “I may not rule myself, but certainly Seward shall not,” said Lincoln. “The only ruler I have is my conscience--following God in it--and these men will have to learn that yet.” John Hay, his secretary and bosom friend, who called Lincoln “the greatest character since Christ,” wrote to Mr. Herndon: “It is absurd to call him a modest man. No great man was ever modest. It was his intellectual arrogance and unconscious assumption of superiority that men like Chase and Sumner could never forgive.” Still, even though he stood rocklike where his mind and conscience told him that he was right, a humbler, simpler, more unaffected man never walked the earth; and there are libraries of books teeming with tales of his tenderness to women, his love of little children, his compassion for the unfortunate. The first sign of the strong, sure Lincoln in the White House came when the new President on the day after his inauguration received a dispatch from Major Anderson declaring that he was short of provisions, that Fort Sumter must be abandoned to the Confederacy in a few weeks, and that it would take at least twenty thousand soldiers to relieve Charleston harbor from the Confederate siege. The whole Federal army numbered only sixteen thousand men. Washington was filled with clamorous office-seekers who crowded the White House. The President was distracted. Even his carriage was stopped by a greedy applicant, and he was compelled to cry, “I won’t open shop in the street.” With the secret news from Fort Sumter stirring his soul--for no one knew better that immediate war depended on his action--Lincoln told stories, cracked jokes and dealt with the thronging politicians in his old shrewd, homely way. None of the place-hunters was permitted to suspect the impending tragedy that made him bow his head when he was alone. Meanwhile he ordered General Scott to report what could be done; but the old hero advised him that the abandonment of Sumter was “almost inevitable.” He had also ordered troops to be sent to relieve Fort Pickens, in Florida, which was also menaced. General Scott reported that both Pickens and Sumter should be evacuated. Instantly the President ordered the Navy Department to prepare plans for a relief expedition for Fort Sumter. That night he gave a great state dinner. His humorous stories and quaint sallies of wit kept his guests in high spirits. His lean face was convulsed with laughter, his eyes sparkled and his thin, high voice whipped up the merriment. But as the night waned and the laughter died down, he called the members of his Cabinet aside and, with haggard face and a voice of deep emotion, he told them the news from General Scott.