Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1894 — An Historic Marvel [ARTICLE]

An Historic Marvel

Abraham Lincoln is assuredly one of the marvels of history. No land but America has produced his like. This destined chief of a nation in its most perilous hour was the son of a thrift e is and wandering settler, bred in the most sordid poverty. He had received only the rudiments of education, and though he afterward read eagerly such works as were within his reach it is wonderful that he should have attained as aspeuker and writer a mastery of language and a pure as well as effective style. He could look back smiling on the day when his long shanks appeared bare below the shrunken leather breeches which were his only nether garment. His frame was gauut and grotesque, but mighty. He had a strong and eminently fair understanding, with great powers of patient thought, which he cultivated by the study of Euclid. In all his views thero was a simplicity which had its source in the simplicity of his character. His local popularity was due largely to his humor. At the same timehe was melancholy, touched with the pathos o' human life, fond of mournful poetrv. religious, though not orthodox, wit’: a strong sense of an overruling provi dence, which when he was out o spirits some times took the shape o fatalism. His melancholy was prob ably deepened by his gloomy sur roundings and by misadventures in love.