The Poet and the President.
A poet was in the habit of pestering the President with his books. On one occasion he brought one to the President, who told him to put it into rhyme. He did so, and brought it back. “Ah!” said Abe, “it will do now; it is rhyme, formerly it was neither rhyme nor reason.”
Matrimony.
In a mixed company which the President honored with his presence, the topic of conversation turned on matrimony, when one, as is usual, compared it to Heaven, and another to Hell. On its being referred to the President, he, like a philosopher as he is, said “We had better take a middle course and call it Purgatory.”
Abe and the Picture Dealer.
A New York picture dealer once applied to Abe Lincoln to purchase, at a preposterously high figure, a portrait, which he assured him was the original of Wren, (Sir Christopher) by Hogarth. Abe pretended to scan the picture closely, and then cut the interview short by saying that it was not a portrait of Wren; it looked more like robin (robbing).
A Pun.
“You have not enough devil in you, Abe, to succeed in the task you have undertaken,” said a bosom friend of the President’s. “Well, blame my old father,” said the President, “for it was he who left the l (hell) out of Abe—Ab(l)e.”
Sojourner Truth.
When Sojourner Truth visited the present occupant of the White House, the President gave him a most hearty welcome. “Lies,” said he, “are pictured as being black as Erebus; but thou, Truth, art black also.” The most numerous lies, said the sable skin, are white lies.