Chapter 1

Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added by the transcriber.

McCLURE'S MAGAZINE

FEBRUARY, 1896.

VOL. VI. NO. 3.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Ida M. Tarbell. Lincoln's Life at New Salem from 1832 to 1836. Looking for Work. Decides to Buy a Store. He Begins to Study Law. Berry and Lincoln Get a Tavern License. The Firm Hires a Clerk. Lincoln Appointed Postmaster. A New Opening. Surveying with a Grapevine. Business Reverses. The Kindness Shown Lincoln in New Salem. Lincoln's Acquaintance in Sangamon County Is Extended. He Finally Decides on a Legal Career. Lincoln Enters the Illinois Assembly. The Story of Ann Rutledge. Abraham Lincoln at Twenty-six Years of Age. A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL. By Ian Maclaren. THE FASTEST RAILROAD RUN EVER MADE. By Harry Perry Robinson. A CENTURY OF PAINTING. By Will H. Low. THE TRAGEDY OF GARFIELD'S ADMINISTRATION. By Murat Halstead. Garfield's Administration. The Garfields in the White House. Last Interview with President Garfield. THE VICTORY OF THE GRAND DUKE OF MITTENHEIM. By Anthony Hope. Chapter II. CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. THE TOUCHSTONE. By Robert Louis Stevenson. MAGAZINE NOTES. Mrs. Humphry Ward--Dr. Jowett. Three Hundred Thousand. Our Own Printing Establishment. Anthony Hope's New Novel. The Life of Lincoln. The Early Life of Lincoln. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. "The Sabine Women"--A Correction.

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE EARLIEST PORTRAIT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. LINCOLN IN 1859. LINCOLN IN THE SUMMER OF 1860. LINCOLN EARLY IN 1861. LINCOLN IN 1861. THE STATE-HOUSE AT VANDALIA, ILLINOIS. LINCOLN'S SURVEYING INSTRUMENTS. FACSIMILE OF A TAVERN LICENSE ISSUED TO BERRY AND LINCOLN. BERRY AND LINCOLN'S STORE IN 1895. DANIEL GREEN BURNER, BERRY AND LINCOLN'S CLERK. THE REV. JOHN M. CAMERON. JAMES SHORT. SQUIRE COLEMAN SMOOT. SAMUEL HILL--AT WHOSE STORE LINCOLN KEPT THE POST-OFFICE. MARY ANN RUTLEDGE, MOTHER OF ANN MAYES RUTLEDGE. JOHN CALHOUN, UNDER WHOM LINCOLN LEARNED SURVEYING. LINCOLN'S SADDLE-BAGS. REPORT OF A ROAD SURVEY BY LINCOLN. A MAP MADE BY LINCOLN OF A PIECE OF ROAD IN MENARD COUNTY. A WAYSIDE WELL NEAR NEW SALEM, KNOWN AS "ANN RUTLEDGE'S WELL." CONCORD CEMETERY. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. MAJOR JOHN T. STUART. JOSEPH DUNCAN, GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS DURING LINCOLN'S FIRST TERM. GRAVE OF ANN RUTLEDGE IN OAKLAND CEMETERY. "I WENT UP TO MR. PERKINS'S ROOM WITHOUT CEREMONY." "HE HAD THE JOLLIEST LITTLE DINNER READY YOU EVER SAW." VIEW BACK ON THE TRACK WHEN TRAIN WAS RUNNING AT ABOUT EIGHTY MPH. JOHN NEWELL. THE TEN-WHEEL ENGINE 564. THE BROOKS ENGINE 599. THE ENGINEERS WHO BROUGHT THE TRAIN FROM CHICAGO TO CLEVELAND. J.R. GARNER, ENGINEER FROM CLEVELAND TO ERIE. WILLIAM TUNKEY, ENGINEER FROM ERIE TO BUFFALO. GEORGE ROMNEY, PAINTER OF "THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER." THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER. JOHN CONSTABLE. FLATFORD MILL, ON THE RIVER STOUR. THE HAY-WAIN. THE "FIGHTING TEMERAIRE" TUGGED TO HER LAST BERTH. JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER. PEACE--BURIAL AT SEA OF THE BODY OF SIR DAVID WILKIE. PORTRAIT OF A BOY. JOHN HOPPNER. PORTRAIT OF A LADY. PORTRAIT OF A CHILD. MRS. SIDDONS. LADY BLESSINGTON. SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. MISS BARRON, AFTERWARDS MRS. RAMSEY. PORTRAIT OF A BROTHER AND SISTER. GARFIELD IN 1881, WHILE PRESIDENT. AGE 49. GARFIELD IN 1863. GARFIELD IN 1863. GARFIELD IN 1867, WITH HIS DAUGHTER. "FROM THE LONG GRASS BY THE RIVER'S EDGE A YOUNG MAN SPRANG UP." "'YOU ARE THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD,' HE ANSWERED SMILING." "'LISTEN!' SHE CRIED, SPRINGING TO HER FEET." "HE LEANED FROM HIS SADDLE AS HE DASHED BY." RALPH WALDO EMERSON. PROFESSOR AUSTIN PHELPS, FATHER OF ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS. PROFESSOR M. STUART PHELPS, ELDEST SON OF PROFESSOR AUSTIN. "HE WAS A GRAVE MAN, AND BESIDE HIM STOOD HIS DAUGHTER." "'MAID,' QUOTH HE, 'I WOULD FAIN MARRY YOU.'" "ALL THAT DAY HE RODE, AND HIS MIND WAS QUIET."

McCLURE'S MAGAZINE

VOL. VI. FEBRUARY, 1896, NO. 3.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

BY IDA M. TARBELL.

LINCOLN'S LIFE AT NEW SALEM FROM 1832 TO 1836.

BERRY AND LINCOLN'S GROCERY.--A SET OF BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES.--BERRY AND LINCOLN TAKE OUT A TAVERN LICENSE.--THE POSTMASTER OF NEW SALEM IN 1833.--LINCOLN BECOMES DEPUTY SURVEYOR.--THE FAILURE OF BERRY AND LINCOLN.--ELECTIONEERING IN ILLINOIS.--LINCOLN CHOSEN ASSEMBLYMAN.--BEGINS TO STUDY LAW.--THE ILLINOIS STATE LEGISLATURE IN 1834.--THE STORY OF ANN RUTLEDGE.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN AT TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF AGE.

_Embodying special studies in Lincoln's life at New Salem by J. McCan Davis._

LOOKING FOR WORK.

It was in August, 1832, that Lincoln made his unsuccessful canvass for the Illinois Assembly. The election over, he began to look for work. One of his friends, an admirer of his physical strength, advised him to become a blacksmith, but it was a trade which would afford little leisure for study, and for meeting and talking with men; and he had already resolved, it is evident, that books and men were essential to him. The only employment to be had in New Salem which seemed to offer both support and the opportunities he sought, was clerking in a store; and he applied for a place successively at all of the stores then doing business in New Salem. But they were in greater need of customers than of clerks. The business had been greatly overdone. In the fall of 1832 there were at least four stores in New Salem. The most pretentious was that of Hill and McNeill, which carried a large line of dry goods. The three others, owned by the Herndon Brothers, Reuben Radford, and James Rutledge, were groceries.

DECIDES TO BUY A STORE.

Failing to secure employment at any of these establishments, Lincoln, though without money enough to pay a week's board in advance, resolved to _buy_ a store. He was not long in finding an opportunity to purchase. James Herndon had already sold out his half interest in Herndon Brothers' store to William F. Berry; and Rowan Herndon, not getting along well with Berry, was only too glad to find a purchaser of his half in the person of "Abe" Lincoln. Berry was as poor as Lincoln; but that was not a serious obstacle, for their notes were accepted for the Herndon stock of goods. They had barely hung out their sign when something happened which threw another store into their hands. Reuben Radford had made himself obnoxious to the Clary's Grove Boys, and one night they broke in his doors and windows, and overturned his counters and sugar barrels. It was too much for Radford, and he sold out next day to William G. Green for a four-hundred-dollar note signed by Green. At the latter's request, Lincoln made an inventory of the stock, and offered him six hundred and fifty dollars for it--a proposition which was cheerfully accepted. Berry and Lincoln, being unable to pay cash, assumed the four-hundred-dollar note payable to Radford, and gave Green their joint note for two hundred and fifty dollars. The little grocery owned by James Rutledge was the next to succumb. Berry and Lincoln bought it at a bargain, their joint note taking the place of cash. The three stocks were consolidated. Their aggregate cost must have been not less than fifteen hundred dollars. Berry and Lincoln had secured a monopoly of the grocery business in New Salem. Within a few weeks two penniless men had become the proprietors of three stores, and had stopped buying only because there were no more to purchase.

William F. Berry, the partner of Lincoln, was the son of a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. John Berry, who lived on Rock Creek, five miles from New Salem. The son had strayed from the footsteps of the father, for he was a hard drinker, a gambler, a fighter, and "a very wicked young man." Lincoln cannot in truth be said to have chosen such a partner, but rather to have accepted him from the force of circumstances. It required only a little time to make it plain that the partnership was wholly uncongenial. Lincoln displayed little business capacity. He trusted largely to Berry; and Berry rapidly squandered the profits of the business in riotous living. Lincoln loved books as Berry loved liquor, and hour after hour he was stretched out on the counter of the store or under a shade tree, reading Shakespeare or Burns.

His thorough acquaintance with the works of these two writers dates from this period. In New Salem there was one of those curious individuals sometimes found in frontier settlements, half poet, half loafer, incapable of earning a living in any steady employment, yet familiar with good literature and capable of enjoying it--Jack Kelso. He repeated passages from Shakespeare and Burns incessantly over the odd jobs he undertook or as he idled by the streams--for he was a famous fisherman--and Lincoln soon became one of his constant companions. The taste he formed in company with Kelso he retained through life. William D. Kelley tells an incident which shows that Lincoln had a really intimate knowledge of Shakespeare. Mr. Kelley had taken McDonough, an actor, to call at the White House; and Lincoln began the conversation by saying:

"'I am very glad to meet you, Mr. McDonough, and am grateful to Kelley for bringing you in so early, for I want you to tell me something about Shakespeare's plays as they are constructed for the stage. You can imagine that I do not get much time to study such matters, but I recently had a couple of talks with Hackett--Baron Hackett, as they call him--who is famous as Jack Falstaff, but from whom I elicited few satisfactory replies, though I probed him with a good many questions.'

"Mr. McDonough," continues Mr. Kelley, "avowed his willingness to give the President any information in his possession, but protested that he feared he would not succeed where his friend Hackett had failed. 'Well, I don't know,' said the President, 'for Hackett's lack of information impressed me with a doubt as to whether he had ever studied Shakespeare's text, or had not been content with the acting edition of his plays.' He arose, went to a shelf not far from his table, and having taken down a well-thumbed volume of the 'Plays of Shakespeare,' resumed his seat, arranged his glasses, and having turned to 'Henry VI.' and read with fine discrimination an extended passage, said: 'Mr. McDonough, can you tell me why those lines are omitted from the acting play? There is nothing I have read in Shakespeare, certainly nothing in 'Henry VI.' or the 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' that surpasses its wit and humor.' The actor suggested the breadth of its humor as the only reason he could assign for omission, but thoughtfully added that it was possible that if the lines were spoken they would require the rendition of another or other passages which might be objectionable.

"'Your last suggestion,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'carries with it greater weight than anything Mr. Hackett suggested, but the first is no reason at all;' and after reading another passage, he said, 'This is not withheld, and where it passes current there can be no reason for withholding the other.'... And, as if feeling the impropriety of preferring the player to the parson, [there was a clergyman in the room] he turned to the chaplain and said: 'From your calling it is probable that you do not know that the acting plays which people crowd to hear are not always those planned by their reputed authors. Thus, take the stage edition of "Richard III." It opens with a passage from "Henry VI.," after which come portions of "Richard III.," then another scene from "Henry VI.," and the finest soliloquy in the play, if we may judge from the many quotations it furnishes, and the frequency with which it is heard in amateur exhibitions, was never seen by Shakespeare, but was written--was it not, Mr. McDonough?--after his death, by Colley Cibber."

"Having disposed, for the present, of questions relating to the stage editions of the plays, he recurred to his standard copy, and, to the evident surprise of Mr. McDonough, read or repeated from memory extracts from several of the plays, some of which embraced a number of lines.

"It must not be supposed that Mr. Lincoln's poetical studies had been confined to his plays. He interspersed his remarks with extracts striking from their similarity to, or contrast with, something of Shakespeare's, from Byron, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and other English poets."[1]