Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1911 — Page 3

LINCOLN'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE

JL A R- LINCOLN’S perfwm son a 1 appearance L.▼ jjL has been the subifck' ject of innumerable f a P ec d° tes an d ft 1m J° kes - He was not unaware, of the oddity of his figure (y and the characteristics of his face.

He came of a lanky race, gaunt, powerful people, and capable of great endurance. Their hard lives were not conducive to grace of figure or motion and their faces were often seamed and strongly marked. Climate, toil and improper or insufficient food had much to do with giving to the western and southern pioneers the peculiarities of form and action and the facial markings which identified them geographically as easily as did their speech. Lincoln never was ashamed of these things—at least he never changed his habits when he came into national prominence, but his continuance of .them did not arise from affectation. They were natural to him and he was. not willing to have one set of manners for Washington and another for the people back in Illinois. That he was careless of his appearance there was no doubt. When he sat for a photographer he never straightened his tie or smoothed his unkempt hair, blit, like Cromwell, told the picture 'man to take him as he was. He knew that a portrait of a “slicked up” Lincoln, as he would have said, would not have been recognized in Springfield, and he didn’t want them to think he was putting on airs because they had elected him to the presidency. It was his homeliness which per-

suaded the people that he was ond of them the moment he made his appearance on the platform—his homeliness and his intimate and apt use of the simple speech they could understand. There are anecdotes which are intended to show that even in a community of persons not noted for manly beauty he was considered pre-eminently the reverse. Yet, although this was the subject of jests at his expense, no one thought any the less of him for it. This homeliness—call it ugliness if you will —of his face, the awkwardness of his form, and the ungainllness of his gestures and attitudes seemed to the people to go naturally with his goodness of heart and the simplicity of his nature. In their eyes when advocating the cause of the oppressed and when opposing the forces which would destroy the nation he became to many / positively handsome. As years afterward one old man “who knowed’’ him said: “Lots of ’em will tell you he was homely. Seems to me that’s about all some folks around here has to tell about Abraham Lincoln. ‘Yes, I knowed him,’ they say. ‘He was the homeliest man in Sangamon county.’ Well, now, don’t you make no mistake. The folks that don’t tell you nuthin’ but that hewer knowed Mr. Lincoln. Mebbe they’d seen him, but they never knowed him. He wa'n’t homely. There’s no denyin’ he was long and lean, and he didn’t always stand straight, and he wasn’t pertikeler about his clothes, but that night up to Bloomington in ten minutes after he struck the platform, I tell you he was the handsomest man I ever see.’’ The month after his first election the publication Once a Week in Ldhdon printed the following personal skethh of Lincoln: “Abraham Lincoln is a gaunt giant more than six feet high, strong and long limbed. He walks slow, and, like many thoughtful men (Wordsworth and Napoleon, for example), keeps his head Inclined forward and downward. His hair is wiry black, his eyes are dark gray, his smile is frank, sld cere and winning. Like most American gentlemen, he is loose and careless in dress, turns down his flapping white collars, and wears habitually what wo consider evening dress. His head is massive, his Brow full and wide, his nose large and fleshy, his mouth coarse and full; his eyes are sunken, his bronsed face is thin and drawn down into strong corded lines, that disclose the machinery that moves the broad jaw. This great leader of the ‘Republican* party—this abolitionist —this terror of the ‘Democrats'—this honest old lawyer, with face half-Roman, half-Indian, so wasted by climate, so scarred by a life’s struggle, was born in 1809 in Kentucky. His grandfather, who came from Virginia, was killed by the Indians. His father died young, leaving a widow and severdl children. They removed to Indiana, Abe being at the time only six years old. Poor and struggling, his mother could only afford him some eight months’ rough schooling; and In the clearings of that new and unsettled country the healthy stripling went to work to hew hickory and gum trees, to grapple with remonstrating bears, and tr look out for the too frequent rattle-

snake. Tall, strong, lithe and smiling, Abe toiled on as a farm laborer, mule driver, sheep feeder, deer killer, woodcutter, and, lastly, as boatman on the waters of the Wabash and the Mississippi.” Another English writer in describing the president is still more realistic than his countryman when he says: "To say that he is ugly is nothing; to add that his figure is grotesque is to convey no adequate impression. Fancy a many six feet high, and then out of proportion; with long bony arms and legs, which somehow seem to be always in the way; with great rugged, furrowed hands, which grasp you like a vise when shaking yours; with a long enaggy neck and a chest too narrow for the great arms at its side. "Add to this figure a head cocoanut shaped and somewhat too small for such a stature, covered with rough, uncombed and uncombable hair, that stands out in every direction at once; a face furrowed, wrinkled and indented, as though it had been scarred by vitriol; a high, narrow forehead; and sunk deep beneath bushy eyebrows two bright, dreamy eyes that seem to gaze through you without looking at you; a few irregular blotches of black bristly hair in the place where beard and whiskers ought to grow;’a close set, thin lipped, stern mouth, with two rows of j£rge white teeth, and a nose and ears wbkrifhave been taken by mistake from a head twice the size. “Clothe this figure, then, in a long, tight, badly fitting suit of black, creased, soiled and puckered up at every salient point of the figure (and every point of this figure is salient), put on large, ill-fitting boots, gloves too long for the long, bony fingers, and a fluffy hat, covered to the top with dusty, puffy crape; and then add to this an air of strength, physical as well as moral, and a strange look of dignity coupled with all this grotesqueness, and you will have the impression left upon me by Abraham Lincoln.” Ward Lamon, who knew him intimately, goes more Into details. He says: Mr. Lincoln was about six feet four inches high, the length of his legs being out of all proportion to that of his body. When he sat down in a chair he seemed no taller than an average man, measuring from the chair to the crown of his head; but his knees rose high in front, and a marble placed on the cap of one would roll down a steep descent to the hip. He weighed about 180 pounds, but he was thin through the breast, narrow across the shoulders, and had the general appearance of a consumptive subject Standing up, he stooped slightly forward; sitting down, he usually crossed his long legs or threw them over tto arms of the chair as the most convenient mode of disposing of them. His “head was long and tall from the base of the brain and the eyebrow;” his forehead big and narrow, but Inclining backward as it rose. The diameter of his bead from ear to ear was 6V4 inches and from front to back eight Inches. His ears were large, standing out almost at right angles from his head; his cheek bones AUh nnd

prominent; his eyebrpws heavy and Jutting forward over., small, sunken blue eyes; his nose long, large and blunt, the tip of it rather ruddy and slightly awry towards the right hand side; his chin, projecting far and sharp, curved upward to meet a thick, material lower lip, which hung downward; his cheeks were flabby, and the loose skin fell'A in wrinkles or folds; there was a large mole on his right cheek and an uncommonly prominent Adam’s apple on his throat; his hair was dark brown in color, stiff,' unkempt, and as yet showing little or no sign of advancing age or trouble; his complexion was very dark, his skin yellow, shriveled and “leathery.” In short, to use the language of Mr. Herndon, “he was a thin, tall, wiry, grisly, raw-boned man,” “looking woe-struck.” His countenance was haggard and careworn, exhibiting all the marks of deep and protracted suffering. Every feature of the man —the hollow eyes, with the dark rings beneath; the long, sallow, cadaverous face, intersected by those peculiar deep lines; his whole air, his walk, his long, slleqt reveries, broken at long intervals by sudden and startling exclamations, as if to confound art* observer who might suspect the nature of his thought—showed he was a man of sorrows —not sorrows of today or yesterday, but long treasured and deep—bearing with him a continual sense of weariness and

pain. He was a plain, homely, sad, weary-looking man, to whom one’s heart warmed involuntarily, because he seemed at once miserable and kind. James B. Fry, who became intimately acquainted with Lincoln early in the latter’s political career, says: Lincoln was tall and thin; his long bones were united by large joints and he had a long neck and an angular face and head. Many likenesses represent his face well enough, but none that I have ever seen do justice to the awkwardness and ungainllness of his figure. His feet, hanging loosely to his ankles, were prominent objects, but his hands were more conspicuous even than his feet —due perhaps to the fact that ceremony at times compelled him to clothe them in white kid .gloves, which always fitted loosely. Both in the height of conversation and in the depth of reflection his ,hand now and then ran over or supported his head, giving his hair habitually a disordered aspect. His expression in repose was sad and dull, but* his ever-recurring humor, at short intervals, flashed forth with the brilliancy of an electric light. I observed but two well defined expressions in his countenance; one that of a pure, thoughtful, honest man, absorbed by a sense of duty and responsibility; the other, that of a humorist so full of fun that he could not keep it all in. His power of analysis was wonderful. He strengthened every case he stated and no anecdote or joke ever lost force or effect from his telling. % ' Apropos of his large feet there is an anecdote told of Lincoln when he was in. the legislature: He had walked his hundred miles to Vandalia, in 183 C, as he had in 1834, and when the session closed he walked home again. A gentleman of Menard county remembers meeting him and a detachment of the “long nine” on their way home. They were all mounted except Lincoln, who had thus far kept up with them on foot. If he had any money he was hoarding it for more important purposes than that of saving leg weariness and leather. The weather was raw and Lincoln’s clothing was none of the warmest Complaining of being cold to one of hlB companions, this irreverent member of the “long nine” told his future president that It was no wonder that he was cold —“there was so much of him on the ground.” None of the party appreciated this homely Joke at the expense of his feet (they were doubtless able to bear it) more thoroughly than Lincoln did. We can imagine the cross fires of wit and humor by which the way was enlivened during this cold and tedious Journey. The scene was certainly a rude one and seems more like a dream than a reality, when we remember that it occurred, not many years ago, in a state which now contains hardly less than three millions of people and 7,600 piles of railway. Cassius M. Clay in describing an address which he delivered at Springfield in 1856 says: “Lincoln and Browning lay upon the ground whittling sticks and heard me throughout with marked attention. Hurrying on to my appointments, I saw him then no more. I never shall forget his long, uugrlnly person and plain but even then sad and features '

CLEANING DAY HINTS

USE A SOLUTION OF WASHING SODA ON TILED ORATES. .. - ■■ » Wear Rubber Goloshes When Putting Down a Carpet—Paper Will Stick Over Whitewash if Skim Milk Is Put in the Paste. To clean tiled grates, a strong solution of washing soda thickened to make a paste with fuller’s earth is excellent. This will easily remove stains or grease, while It is equally efficient in the case of grease-spotted marble. The paste should be left on for an hour or two, and then washed oft with a flannel dipped in A- hot lather. In putting down a carpet it Is an excellent plan to slide a pair of goloshes over the shoes. The rubber enables the carpet to be drawn out and by simply walking or pushing the carpet with the feet from the center to the corners. In papering a room which has hitherto been whitewashed, it is not easy to make* the paper adhere satisfactorily. The experiment should be tried of forming the paste with skim milk Instead of water. The milk must, however, be carefully skimmed so that every drop of the cream lias been removed, the whey of separated milk being the best for the purpose. The paste must be scalded well, and should on no account be too thick. The best method of cleaning a mirror, whether new or antique, is that of rubbing it in the first instance with a sponge saturated with methylated spirits, and then sprinkling the surface of the glass with powdered Indfl 1 go. If this is left for a few moments and then dusted off with a clean leather, a good polish should be obtained.

Larded Liver.

Cut half a pound of fat salt pork into lardoons and thrust them about half an inch apart into fresh calf’s liver, so that they project on both sides. Put two tablespoons of butter into a saucepan with a small onion (minced), pepper and some sweet herbs, chopped, also a few spoonfuls of strained tomato junce. Cover closely and set in a frying pan of boiling water for one hour, keeping the outer pan full all the time and turning the liver twice. Then take out the saucepan and set over the fire, but cook slowly. When the liver is nicely browned below, turn It. At the end of ♦0 minutes boll up once sharply and for the first time. Take ou the liver and keep hot. Add a little boiling water to the gravy, strain, thicken with browned flour and pour over the liver.

The Narrow Skirt.

It Is said that a garment Is never fashionable to a woman when it becomes too fashionable. Prom this argument Is predicted the downfall of the narrow skirt. It Is even hinted that this Is the psychological moment for the appearance again of the crinoline. But even if this disaster does not deadend upon fashionable women It Is .argued that a reaction In favor of a more capacious skirt Is Inevitable. All these agitators forget the fact that woman Is not always swayed by whims, and the comfort and hygiene of the moderately narrow skirt Is too pronounced to be quickly discarded by even the most fickle.

Russian Rooks.

One and one-half cups of brown sugar, one cup of butter, three eggs beaten separately, one teaspoon of soda dissolved In boiling water, two and three-fourths cups of flour, plnob of salt, one teaspoon of cinnamon, onehalf teaspoon of cloves* one teaspoon of vanilla/ one-third pound of nut meats (English walnuts), three-fourths pound of seeded raisins. Fill teaspoon and drop into buttered pan.

Egoless Crullers.

One cup of grated raw potato, one cup of sugar, one cup of milk, one teaspoon of cream of tartar, one-half teaspoon of soda, saltspoon of salt, grating of nutmeg and flour to roll. Mix In the order named, roll out in thin strips, twist and fry In hot lard. The dough will seem very short, but the potato swells In cooking and they will not soak fat Roll In sugar while hot

Date Gems.

To one-half cup of stoned, chopped dates add the well-beaten yolk of one egg, a pinch of salt, one-half pint of sweet milk, two scant cups of flour In which two teaspoons of baking powder have been sifted, adding a tablespoon of oil or butter before beating In the whipped white of the egg. Bake for to minutes rather briskly.

For Hot Cakes.

When making buckwheat, comm eel or other griddle cake, try adding a tablespoonful of olive oil to the batter. It will not affect the taste at all, but will .Impart a delicate brown to the cakes and do away with the necessity for greasing the griddle.

Plum Loaf.

When your bread is ready for/tha baking tins take out enough for one loaf, roll out thin, sprinkle thickly with sugar, roll oat two or three times this way and work In a cup of raisins. Then bake as usual.

DRINKING LEMON AND WATER

Morning Beverage Good for the Complexion—How to Keep the , Cut Fruit Fresh. Lemon, and water taken early each! morning has become a common drink among women who value their complexions. Nothing keeps the digestion! in better condition. Since sugar is not used, there is no* danger of acid even for gouty and! rheumatic subjects. Do not use too much lemon. The Juice of a third or half the fruitfTs enough. To keep the cut lemon fresh for several days is something of a problem. Cut off only the section to be used and squeeze Juice from the cut portion. The rest can be turned, cut side down, in a cup or it can be put In the same position on waxed paper. This should be big enough to fold over the lemon and keep out the air. Treated in either of these ways, a lemon will keep several days even In hot weather. Do not stand in a warm closet nor where the fruit will freeze.

THINGS ITS WELL TO KNOW

Dried Coffee Grounds Good to Fill Pincushions—Vinegar Removes the Odor of Paraffin. Dried coffee grounds answer well for filling a pincushion; they do not attract moths like wool nor mice as bran does. Tinned fruits should be turned out of the tins two hours before using; the flavor of it is greatly Improved by this treatment. Vinegar will remove the disagreeable odor of paraffin from earthen and tin ware; dip a rag into the vinegar and scour the vessel with it. Gas stoves require a good deal more cleaning than they often get. A dirty stove is the cause of a disagreeable smell in the house. Use old curtains or newspapers to rub them over after cooking, then polish with grate polish; finish off with an old piece of velvet or flannel.

Brown Betty.

This is an economical dessert of which the children are particularly fond. Chop fine some sour apples, and for each cupful use a half-cupful of fine bread crumbs, one tablespoonful of sugar, half a cupful of chopped raisins, a little cinnamon, grated lemon rind or nutmeg and a tablespoonful of butter. Butter a pudding dish; put in a layer of apples and raisins; sprinkle over this sngar 'and spice; then put on a layer of bread crumbs and a few dots of butter and so continue. with the various layers until all the ingredients are used. The top layer should be of the crumbs and bits of butter. Cover closely and bake about twenty minutes; uncover and brown. It can be served plain with sauce, with butter and sugar or with cream as preferred.

Mother’s Indian Pudding.

Put two quarts of milk in a kettle and jnst bring to a boil. Pour into a large pan and add one even tablespoon salt. Sift In slowly with the hand, stirring all the time, a pint dish half full (just as she did) of boltdd Indian meal —not granulated—£wo-thlrds cup of molasses, or enough to make quite sweet, no eggs, no spice. Poor Into a large brown earthen pudding pot, must not be more than two-thirds full. Put In oven and pour over top one-half pint milk. Don’t stii*r Bake in a moderate oven three hours. If it scorches, cover with thin tin plate. This makes its own sauce.

Carrot Salve.

Grate enough mature clean carrots to fill a pint measure. Do not remove the skins. Add three-fourths of a pound of pure hog's lard. Put in a spider to cook, and keep stirring until it gets as brown as a chestnut Strain through cheesecloth while hot and add about an ounce of yellow beeswax. Apply on a cloth. Before applying to a sore it Is well to rub on a little flaxseed jelly made by covering a little flaxseed with boiling water and leaving it until it forma a jolly-

Egg Toast.

Scoop out the centers of stale biscuits, then brown them In the oven. Pour boiling water over them drain at onoe. Fill with hard cooked eggs, cut In halves, arranged on a platter and pour a well-seasoned cream sauce (hot) over the whole. This la a pleasing change from the regular milk toast.

Skins Add Flavor.

Some of the beet'part of the appla Is wasted when the fruit Is pared for apple sauce. Core the fruit and then cut Into quarters. Cook until tender and press through a collander. The skin will give to the sauce a hit of oolor and add to Its flavor.

Anchovy Sippets.

Toast white bread. In thin narrow pieces, until It Is hard and. brown. Cover each thinly with Russian anchovy paste and put a aqupese of lemon on top. Such delectable morsels go well before other eating; they whet the appetite for more.

Prunes on Toast.

Toast siloes of stale breatf lightly and butter each slloe Lay on a platter and pour over them stewed prunse sweetened to taste. Heap whipped cream on each sties, and serve nt OSM.