It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find another man who would not, upon a sudden transfer from the obscurity of private life in a country town to the dignities and duties of the Presidency, feel it incumbent upon him to assume something of the manner and tone befitting that position. Mr. Lincoln never seemed to be aware that his place or his business were essentially different from those in which he had always been engaged. He brought to every question,-the loftiest and most imposing,-the same patient inquiry into details, the same eager longing to know and to do exactly what was just and right, and the same working-day, plodding, laborious devotion, which characterized his management of a client's case at his law office in Springfield. He had duties to perform in both places in the one case to his country, as to his client in the other. But all duties were alike to him. All called equally upon him for the best service of his mind. and heart, and all were alike performed with a conscientious, single-hearted devotion that knew no distinction, but was absolute and perfect in every case.

Mr. Lincoln's place in the history of this country will be fixed quite as much by the importance of the events amidst which he moved, and the magnitude of the results which he achieved, as by his personal characteristics. The Chief Magistrate whose administration quelled a rebellion of eight millions of people, set free four millions of slaves, and vindicated the ability of the people, under all contingencies, to maintain the Government which rests upon their will, whose wisdom and unspotted integrity of character secured his re-election, and who, finally, when his work was done, found his reward in the martyrdom which came to round his life and set the final seal upon his renown, will fill a place hitherto unoccupied in the annals of the world.

ANECDOTES AND REMINISCENCES

OF

PRESIDENT

LINCOLN.

BY FRANK B. CARPENTER.

I WENT to Washington the last week in February, 1864, for the purpose of carrying out my cherished project of painting the scene commemorative of the first reading in cabinet council of the Emancipation Proclamation. To my friends, Samuel Sinclair and F. A. Lane, of New York, the Honorable Schuyler Colfax, and Honorable Owen Lovejoy, shall I ever be indebted for the opening up of the way for the successful accomplishment of this undertaking. Through the latter gentleman arrangements were made with the President and Mrs. Lincoln, by which the spacious "State dining-room" of the Executive Mansion was placed at my disposal for a studio, in order that I might enjoy every facility for studying my subjects from the life.

The painting of the picture occupied about six months. It embraced full-length life-size portraits of the President and entire cabinet, and portrays, as faithfully as I was capable of rendering it, the scene as it transpired in the old cabinet chamber of the White House, when the Act of Emancipation first saw the light.

My relations with Mr. Lincoln of course became of an intimate character. Permitted the freedom of his private office at almost all hours, I was privileged to see and know more of his daily life than has perhaps fallen to the lot of any one not sustaining to him domestic or official relations.

In compiling a chapter of anecdotes, I have endeavored to embrace only those which bear the marks of authenticity. Many in this collection I myself heard the President relate; others were communicated to me by persons who either heard or took part in them. Sev

eral have had a wide circulation, in connection with subjects of interest at different times which called them out. The reminiscences are mainly my own, and are taken, for the most part, from articles contributed on various occasions, since the assassination, to the public press.

MR. LINCOLN'S SADNESS.

Many persons formed their impressions of the late President from the stories in circulation attributed to him, and consequently supposed him to have been habitually of a jocund, humorous disposition. There was this element in his nature in a large degree, but it was the sparkle and ripple of the surface. Underneath was a deep undercurrent of sadness, if not melancholy. When most depressed, it was his way frequently to seek relief in some harmless pleasantry. I recollect an instance related to me, by a radical member of the last Congress. It was during the dark days of 1862. He called upon the President early one morning, just after news of a disaster. Mr. Lincoln commenced telling some trifling incident, which the Congressman was in no mood to hear. He rose to his feet, and said, "Mr. President, I did not come here this morning to hear stories; it is too serious a time." Instantly the smile disappeared from Mr. Lincoln's face, who exclaimed, "A-, sit down! I respect you as an earnest, sincere man. You cannot be more anxious than I am constantly, and I say to you now, that were it not for this occasional vent, I should die!"

It has been the business of my life to study the human face, and I have said repeatedly to friends that Mr. Lincoln had the saddest face I ever attempted to paint. During some of the dark days of the spring and summer of 1864, I saw him at times when his care-worn, troubled appearance was enough to bring tears of sympathy into the eyes of his most bitter opponents. I recall particularly one day, when, having occasion to pass through the main hall of the domestic apartments, I met him alone, pacing up and down a narrow passage, his hands behind him, his head bent forward upon his breast, heavy black rings under his eyes, showing sleepless nights-altogether such a picture of the effects of sorrow and care as I have never seen!

"No man," says Mrs. Stowe, "has suffered more and deeper, albeit with a dry, weary, patient pain, that seemed to some like insensibility, than President Lincoln." "Whichever way it ends," he said to her, "I have the impression that I shan't last long after it is over."

After the dreadful repulse of Fredericksburg, he is reported to have said: "If there is a man out of perdition that suffers more than I do, I pity him."