As Mr. Medill says in an editorial in the Chicago "Tribune," "It is not only full of new things, but is so distinct and clear in local color that an interest attaches to it which is not found in other biographies."
And Mr. R.W. Diller, of Springfield, Illinois, who knew Mr. Lincoln intimately for nearly twenty years before his election to the Presidency, writes to us about Miss Tarbell's article: "As far as read she goes to rock-bottom evidence and will beat her Napoleon out of sight."
There are certainly few men more familiar with all that has been written about Lincoln than William H. Lambert, Esq., of Philadelphia, whose collection includes practically every book, pamphlet, or printed document about Lincoln, and who has one of the finest collections of Lincolniana in the world. He writes:
"I have read your first article with intense interest, and I am confident that you will make a most important addition to our knowledge of Lincoln."
But perhaps it is better to print some of the letters we have received commenting on the first article and on the early portrait and other portraits and illustrations.
John T. Morse, Jr., author of the lives of Abraham Lincoln, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. in their "American Statesmen Series," and editor of this series, writes as follows about the early portrait:
6 FAIRCHILD STREET, BOSTON,
November 2, 1895.
S.S. MCCLURE, ESQ.—Dear Sir: I thank you very much for the artist's proof of the engraving of the earliest picture of Abraham Lincoln.
I have studied this portrait with very great interest. All the portraits with which we are familiar show us the man as made; this shows us the man in the making; and I think every one will admit that the making of Abraham Lincoln presents a more singular, puzzling, interesting study than the making of any other man known in human history.
I have shown it to several persons, without telling them who it was. Some say, a poet; others, a philosopher, a thinker, like Emerson. These comments also are interesting, for Lincoln had the raw material of both these characters very largely in his composition, though political and practical problems so over-laid them that they show only faintly in his later portraits. This picture, therefore, is valuable evidence as to his natural traits.
Was it not taken at an earlier date than you indicate as probable in your letter? I should think that it must have been.
I am very sincerely yours,
JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
Dr. Hale also draws attention to the resemblance of the early portrait to Emerson:
ROXBURY, MASSACHUSETTS,
October 28, 1895.
My dear Mr. McClure:—I think you will be interested to know that in showing the early portrait of Lincoln to two young people of intelligence, each of them asked if it were not a portrait of Waldo Emerson. If you will compare the likeness with that of Emerson in Appleton's "Cyclopedia of Biography," I think you will like to print copies of the two likenesses side by side.
Yours truly,
EDWARD E. HALE.
Mr. T.H. Bartlett, the eminent sculptor, who has for many years collected portraits of Lincoln, and has made a scientific study of Lincoln's physiognomy, contributes this: