His taint of superstition, like his tendency to melancholy, was doubtless inherited from his ancestors and was shared by all sensitive people whose lives were spent in the mysterious solitude and isolation of the Western frontier. It is manifested by the denizens of the forests, the mountains, and the plains, and wherever else sensitive natures are subjected to loneliness and the company of their own thoughts. Lincoln's mind was peculiarly sensitive to impressions; his nature was intensely sympathetic, his imagination was vivid, and his observation was keen and comprehensive. With all his candor, he was reticent and secretive in matters that concerned himself, and the struggle of his early life, his dismal and depressing surroundings, the death of his mother, and the physical conditions in which he was born and bred were just the influences to develop the morbid tendency which was manifested on several occasions in such a manner as to cause anxiety and even alarm among his friends. He realized the danger of submitting to it, and the cure invented and prescribed by himself was to seek for the humorous side of every event and incident and to read all the humorous books he could find.
His poetic temperament was developed early and frequently manifested while he was in the White House. He loved melancholy as well as humorous poems. He could repeat hymns by the hundreds, and quoted Dr. Watts' and John Wesley's verses as frequently as he did Shakespeare or Petroleum V. Nasby or Artemas Ward. His favorite poem was "Oh! Why should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud."
Judge Weldon, of the Court of Claims, remembers the first time he heard him repeat it. "It was during a term of court, in the same year, at Lincoln, a little town named for Mr. Lincoln. We were all stopping at the hotel, which had a very big room with four beds, called the lawyers' room. Some of us thin fellows doubled up; but I remember that Judge Davis, who was as large then as he was afterwards, when a Justice of the Supreme Bench, always had a bed to himself. Mr. Lincoln was an early riser, and one morning, when up early, as usual, and dressed, he sat before the big old-fashioned fireplace and repeated aloud from memory that whole hymn. Somebody asked him for the name of the author; but he said he had never been able to learn who wrote it, but wished he knew. There were a great many guesses, and some said that Shakespeare must have written it. But Mr. Lincoln, who was better read in Shakespeare than any of us, said that they were not Shakespeare's words. I made a persistent hunt for the author, and years after found the hymn was written by an Englishman, William Knox, who was born in 1789 and died in 1825."
All his life Lincoln was a temperance man. His first essay was a plea for temperance. His second was a eulogy of the Declaration of Independence. He belonged to the Sons of Temperance in Springfield, and frequently made temperance speeches. Judge Weldon remembers that he was once in Mr. Douglas's room at Springfield when Lincoln entered, and, following the custom, Mr. Douglas produced a bottle and some glasses and asked his callers to join him in a drink. Lincoln declined on the ground that for thirty years he had been a temperance man and was too old to change. Leonard Swett says,—
"He told me not more than a year before he was elected President that he had never tasted liquor in his life. 'What!' I said, 'Do you mean to say that you never tasted it?' 'Yes,' he replied, 'I never tasted it.'"
In one of his speeches is found this assertion: "Reasonable men have long since agreed that intemperance is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all evils of mankind."
Mr. C. C. Coffin, a famous newspaper writer of that time, who accompanied the notification committee from the Chicago Convention to Springfield, related in his newspaper a few days later an incident that occurred on that occasion. He says that after the exchange of formalities Lincoln said,—
"'Mrs. Lincoln will be pleased to see you, gentlemen. You will find her in the other room. You must be thirsty after your long ride. You will find a pitcher of water in the library.'
"I crossed the hall and entered the library. There were miscellaneous books on the shelves, two globes, celestial and terrestrial, in the corners of the room, a plain table with writing materials upon it, a pitcher of cold water, and glasses, but no wines or liquors. There was humor in the invitation to take a glass of water, which was explained to me by a citizen, who said that when it was known that the committee was coming, several citizens called upon Mr. Lincoln and informed him that some entertainment must be provided.
"'Yes, that is so. What ought to be done? Just let me know and I will attend to it,' he said.