ary sagacity; that story-telling was to him a safety-valve,
and that he indulged in it, not only for the pleasure it afforded him,
but for a temporary relief from oppressing cares." It is related that on
the morning after the battle at Fredericksburg, Hon. I.N. Arnold, then a
member of Congress from Illinois, called on the President, and to his
amazement found him engaged in reading "Artemus Ward." Making no
reference to that which occupied the universal thought, he asked Mr.
Arnold to sit down while he read to him Artemus' description of his
visit to the Shakers. Shocked at this proposition, Mr. Arnold said: "Mr.
President, is it possible that with the whole land bowed in sorrow and
covered with a pall in the presence of yesterday's fearful reverse, you
can indulge in such levity?" Throwing down the book, with the tears
streaming down his cheeks and his huge frame quivering with emotion,
Lincoln answered: "Mr. Arnold, if I could not get momentary respite from
the crushing burden I am constantly carrying, my heart would break!"

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "His broad good humor, running easily into
jocular talk, in which he delighted, and in which he excelled, was a
rich gift to this wise man. It enabled him to keep his secret, to meet
every kind of man, and every rank in society; to take off the edge of
the severest decisions, to mask his own purpose and sound his companion,
and to catch, with true instinct, the temper of every company he
addressed. And, more than all, it is to a man of severe labor, in
anxious and exhausting crises, the natural restorative, good as sleep,
and is the protection of the overdriven brain against rancor and
insanity."

Even amidst the stern realities of war, Lincoln was keenly appreciative
of anything that disclosed the comic or grotesque side of men or
happenings,--largely, doubtless, for the relief afforded him. At the
beginning of Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania, in June, 1863, when the
Union forces under Colonel Milroy were driven out of Harper's Ferry by
the Confederates, great consternation and alarm were caused by reports
that the Army of the Potomac had been routed and was retreating before
Lee, who was pressing forward toward Harrisburg, the capital of
Pennsylvania. Mr. Welles records in his Diary (June 17, 1863) that he
was at the War Department with the President and Secretary Stanton, when
"a messenger came in from General Schenck, declaring that the
stragglers and baggage-trains