The somberness of Lincoln's childhood was brightened by the memory of his mother. In intellect, she was far above those with whom she enacted the sad and short drama of her life. Even as a child in Kentucky he felt the spell and potent influence of her words. When she died, young as he was, he lived alone with his grief. The passing years hallowed the early impression of his sorrow, yet during all these years the memory of his mother was a mystic influence in his development; and so when he stood almost at the summit of his career, he declared, "All that I am, all that I hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."[21]
The greatness of Lincoln grows upon us when we contemplate the conditions from which he emerged, and consider the manner of men among whom he lived. Despite the efforts of many biographers to brighten his early surroundings, we have the highest evidence in his conduct and speech that he was nurtured in hopeless adversity; in poverty that was not alone incidental to pioneer conditions, but continued long after it was the common fate. He comprehensively described his environment in the statement that there was absolutely nothing in his associations to excite ambition for education.[22] There was little in his ancestry to quicken his pride. He ever maintained a peculiar reticence about his youthful days and his parentage. He may by constant thinking have exaggerated the distressing state of his childhood, but in the main there can be little addition to, or modification of, his reluctant testimony.[23]
He made his own way in the trail of letters. He pursued plans of educating himself infinitely better than those followed in schools and universities. He has left us priceless testimony of the manner of his intellectual development. "Among my earliest recollections," said Lincoln, "I remember how when a child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand. I do not think I ever got angry at anything else in my life; but that always disturbed my temper and has ever since. I can remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and spending no small part of the night walking up and down and trying to make out what was the exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings. I could not sleep though I tried to, when I got on such a hunt for an idea until I had caught it; and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over again; until I had put it in language plain enough, as I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend. This was a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck by me; for I am never easy now, when I am handling a thought, till I have bounded it north and south and bounded it east and west. But your question reminds me of a bit of education which I am bound in honor to mention. In the course of my law reading I constantly came upon the word demonstrate. I thought at first that I understood its meaning, but soon became satisfied that I did not. I said to myself, 'What do I mean when I demonstrate more than when I reason or prove?' I consulted Webster's Dictionary. That told of certain proof,—proof beyond the probability of a doubt, but I could form no sort of idea what proof it was. I thought a great many things were proved beyond the possibility of a doubt, without recourse to any such reasoning as I understood demonstration to be. I consulted all the dictionaries and books of reference I could find, but with no better results. You might as well have defined blue to a blind man. At last I said, 'Lincoln, you can never make a lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means;' and I left my situation in Springfield, went home to my father's house, and stayed there until I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight. I then found out what demonstrate meant, and went back to my law studies."[24]
Inadequate as his education may have been objectively, Lincoln was supremely trained in the college of lonely thought. No American of eminence owes less to the public school system. His entire career is a mystery unless full value is given to the statement of Herndon that "Lincoln read less and thought more than any other man of his time."[A]
His love of learning amounted to a passion. The time his companions squandered in recreation he largely employed in mental improvement. His literary education was a painful process and was gained without help. His plan was slow but effective. "He read every book he could lay his hands on; and, when he came across a passage that struck him, he would write it down on boards if he had no paper. Then he would rewrite it, look at it, repeat it. He had a copybook, a kind of scrap book, in which he put down all things, and thus preserved them."[25]
By this method he gradually evolved a style of supreme strength and sincerity. The Bible was the main force in its fruition. For a long time he dabbled in "crude rhymes" and "awkward imitations of scriptural lore." With all the gentleness of his nature, he was a master of satire, and slowly learned to use this dangerous gift with moderation. One of his early compositions was an impulsive effort to condemn cruelty to the helpless toad and turtle. More ambitious products followed. The reading of a newspaper article on temperance induced him to contribute something on that theme. A minister found it a place in a newspaper, to the ecstasy of the writer for the first time tasting the sweetness of publicity. This success led him to indulge in other dissertations. His political environment and his readings in American history germinated. With exultant spirit he proclaimed that "the American Government was the best form of government for an intelligent people; that it ought to be kept sound, and preserved forever; that general education should be fostered and carried all over the country; that the Constitution should be saved, the Union perpetuated, and the laws revered, respected, and enforced."[26] This effort met with instant approbation. A lawyer, to whose criticism it was soberly entrusted, declared, "The world can't beat it."[27]
Three books had a pervasive influence upon his political opinions, "The Revised Statutes of Indiana," Weems' "Life of Washington," and a "History of the United States."[28] Lincoln has left us indisputable evidence of the profound power of Revolutionary History in moulding his patriotic sentiments. For in his memorable speech in the Senate Chamber at Trenton, New Jersey, he said:
"May I be pardoned if, upon this occasion, I mention that away back in my childhood, the earliest days of my being able to read, I got hold of a small book, such a one as few of the younger members have ever seen, Weems' 'Life of Washington.' I remember all the accounts there given of the battlefields and struggles for the liberties of the country, and none fixed themselves upon my imagination so deeply as the struggle here at Trenton, New Jersey. The crossing of the river, the contest with the Hessians, the great hardships endured at that time, all fixed themselves on my memory, more than any single Revolutionary event; and you all know, for you have all been boys, how these early impressions last longer than any others. I recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, that there must have been something more than common that these men struggled for. I am exceedingly anxious that that thing—that something even more than national independence; that something that held out a great promise to all the people of the world to all time to come—I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be a humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, his almost most chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle."[29]
The influence of Weems' "Life" is indicated by the fact that Lincoln did not lose his boyish enthusiasm for the character of Washington. He once exclaimed, "Let us believe as in the days of our youth that Washington was spotless; it makes human nature better to believe that one human being was perfect: that human perfection is possible."[30] This devotion is still more significant as Lincoln very rarely indulged in hero worship.
We shall not at all comprehend the political life of Abraham Lincoln unless we fairly understand the momentous subjective influence of these few volumes. One of them, the Revised Statutes of Indiana, contained the Declaration of Independence. He was scarcely more than eighteen years old when he brooded over the significance of that immortal utterance.[31]