all
his fellow men.

During the years from 1850 to 1860 the tall figure of Lincoln, garbed
in black, continued to be familiar to the people of Springfield, as he
strode along the street between his dingy law office on the square and
his home on Eighth Street. He was clean in person and in dress, and
diligent in his law practice, but he was not good at collecting what was
coming to him; badly as he needed money in those days. He had finally
paid off his debts, but the death of his father had left his devoted
step-mother needing some help; and his shiftless stepbrother to be
expostulated with in letters full of very kindly interest and wholesome
advice.

He worked hard and was rapidly becoming known as an excellent lawyer. He
made friends of the best men in the state, and they referred to him
affectionately as "Honest Abe" or "Old Abe," but they always addressed
him respectfully as "Mr. Lincoln." His humor, never peccant, was related
to his brooding melancholy, and was designed to smooth out the little
rough places in life, which he so well understood, with all its
tragedies and tears. Men loved him, not alone for his stories, but for
his simplicity of life, his genuine kindness, his utter lack of
selfishness. There was a fascination about his personality. He seemed
somehow mysterious and at the same time simple. In fact he was always
trying to make ideas seem simple and clear, and told stories to
accomplish that purpose. He tried to make the case clear to the jury,
and the issues clear to his hearers. In all his life which had ever its
heavy sorrows, these years were probably the brightest for him. He
enjoyed the confidence of his people and the devotion of his friends.
His fellow men of whatever degree in life, judge, lawyers, witnesses,
jurors, litigants, all gathered affectionately around him to hear him
talk and to tell stories. But he was not a mere story teller. His
conversation was such as to draw men to him for its very worth. He was
fundamentally serious, dignified, and never given to uncouth
familiarities.

Though so notably kind, so deeply sympathetic, and at times so given to
humor, when he was aroused he was terrible in his firmness, his
resolution to win for the cause that was right, his stern rebuke for
injustice, his merciless excoriation of falsehood and his relentless
determination to see the truth prevail. False or careless witnesses
dreaded his cross-examinations, and his opponents dreaded his
ef