y absorbed. I read until I devoured them."(7)

The majesty of the law at the bottom of a barrel of trash discovered at
a venture and taking instant possession of the discoverer's mind! Like
the genius issuing grandly in the smoke cloud from the vase drawn up out
of the sea by the fisher in the Arabian tale! But this great book was
not the only magic casket discovered by the idle store-keeper, the
broken seals of which released mighty presences. Both Shakespeare and
Burns were revealed to him in this period. Never after did either for a
moment cease to be his companion. These literary treasures were found
at Springfield twenty miles from New Salem, whither Lincoln went on foot
many a time to borrow books.

His subsistence, after the failure of Berry & Lincoln, was derived from
the friendliness of the County Surveyor Calhoun, who was a Democrat,
while Lincoln called himself a Whig. Calhoun offered him the post of
assistant. In accepting, Lincoln again displayed the honesty that was
beginning to be known as his characteristic. He stipulated that he
should be perfectly free to express his opinions, that the office should
not be in any respect, a bribe. This being conceded, he went to work
furiously on a treatise upon surveying, and astonishingly soon, with the
generous help of the schoolmaster of New Salem, was able to take up his
duties. His first fee was "two buckskins which Hannah Armstrong 'fixed'
on his pants so the briers would not wear them out."(8)

Thus time passed until 1834 when he staked his only wealth, his
popularity, in the gamble of an election. This time he was successful.
During the following winter he sat in the Legislature of Illinois; a
huge, uncouth, mainly silent member, making apparently no impression
whatever, very probably striking the educated members as a nonentity in
homespun.(9)

In the spring of 1835, he was back in New Salem, busy again with his
surveying. Kind friends had secured him the office of local postmaster.
The delivery of letters was now combined with going to and fro as a
surveyor. As the mail came but once a week, and as whatever he had to
deliver could generally be carried in his hat, and as payment was in
proportion to business done, his revenues continued small. Nevertheless,
in the view of New Salem, he was getting on.

And then suddenly misfortune overtook him. His great adventure, the
first of those spiritual agonies of which he was destined to endure so
many, approache