inition. To say, as Lincoln probably said to himself, that
there is nothing intrinsically wrong in a moderate payment for expenses
to a fellow worker in a public cause, whom you believe to have
sacrificed much, is to ignore the point, indeed several points.
Lincoln, hungry now for some success in his own unrewarded career, was
tempted to a small manoeuvre by which he might pick up a little
support; he was at the same time tempted, no less, to act generously
(according to his means) towards a man who, he readily believed, had
made sacrifices like his own. He was not the man to stand against this
double temptation.

Petty lapses of this order, especially when the delinquent may be seen
to hesitate and excuse himself, are more irritating than many larger
and more brazen offences, for they give us the sense of not knowing
where we are. When they are committed by a man of seemingly strong and
high character, it is well to ask just what they signify. Some of the
shrewdest observers of Lincoln, friendly and unfriendly, concur in
their description of the weaknesses of which this incident may serve as
the example, weaknesses partly belonging to his temperament, but partly
such as a man risen from poverty, with little variety of experience and
with no background of home training, stands small chance of escaping.
For one thing his judgment of men and how to treat them was as bad in
some ways as it was good in others. His own sure grasp of the largest
and commonest things in life, and his sober and measured trust in human
nature as a whole, gave him a rare knowledge of the mind of the people
in the mass. So, too, when he had known a man long, or been with him
or against him in important transactions, he sometimes developed great
insight and sureness of touch; and, when the man was at bottom
trustworthy, his robust confidence in him was sometimes of great public
service. But he had no gift of rapid perception and no instinctive
tact or prudence in regard to the very numerous and very various men
with whom he had slight dealings on which he could bestow no thought.
This is common with men who have risen from poverty; if they have not
become hard and suspicious, they are generally obtuse to the minor
indications by which shrewd men of education know the impostor, and
they are perversely indulgent to little meannesses in their fellows
which they are incapable of committing themselves. In Lincoln this was
aggravated by an immens