ered with superfluous flesh, but reduced to the minimum
working standard of cord and sinew and muscle, strong and indurated by
exposure and toil, with legs and arms long and attenuated, but not
disproportionately to the long and attenuated trunk; in posture and
carriage not ungraceful, but with the grace of unstudied and careless
ease rather than of cultivated airs and high-bred pretensions. His dress
is uniformly of black throughout, and would attract but little attention
in a well-dressed circle, if it hung less loosely upon him, and if the
ample white shirt collar were not turned over his cravat in Western
style. The face that surmounts this figure is half Roman and half
Indian, bronzed by climate, furrowed by life struggles, seamed with
humor; the head is massive and covered with dark, thick, and
unmanageable hair; the brow is wide and well developed, the nose large
and fleshy, the lips full, cheeks thin and drawn down in strong, corded
lines, which, but for the wiry whiskers, would disclose the machinery
which moves the broad jaw. The eyes are dark gray, sunk in deep sockets,
but bright, soft and beautiful in expression, sometimes lost and half
abstracted, as if their glance was reversed and turned inward, or as if
the soul which lighted them was far away. The teeth are white and
regular, and it is only when a smile, radiant, captivating, and winning
as was ever given to mortal, transfigures the plain countenance, that
you begin to realize that it is not impossible for artists to admire and
women to love it."

Mr. John Bigelow, who was appointed consul to Paris in 1861, and was
afterwards minister to France, describes in his "Retrospections of an
Active Life" his first visit to Lincoln and the impressions gained by
him at that early period in Lincoln's official career. "The day
following my arrival in Washington Preston King, Senator from New York,
invited me to go with him to be presented to President Lincoln, an
invitation which of course I embraced with alacrity; for as yet I had
not met him, and knew him only by his famous senatorial campaign against
Douglas in Illinois and the masterly address which he delivered at the
Cooper Institute shortly before his nomination in New York.... The new
President received us in his private room at an early hour of the
morning; another gentleman was with him at the time, a member of the
Senate, I believe. We were with him from a half to three-quarters of an
hour. The conversa