“The world,” writes one who knew Mr. Lincoln well, “will never hear
the last of the ‘little stories’ with which the President garnished
or illustrated his conversation and his early stump-speeches. He once
said, however, that as near as he could reckon, about one sixth only of
those credited to him were old acquaintances,--all the rest were the
productions of other and better story-tellers than himself. ‘I remember
a good story when I hear it,’ he continued; ‘but I never invented
anything original; I am only a retail-dealer.’”[11]
“Mr. Lincoln’s jocoseness,” wrote another, “though sometimes grim
and sarcastic, was _never_ abusive, and seldom wounded. Often nicely
adapted to the place and the occasion, it was used, as the case might
be, either as a shield or a weapon.”[12]
Humor and shrewdness, together with a certain nameless individuality,
were combined in his stories in a degree that will secure for many of
them enduring interest. These characteristics, marked and prominent
as they were, are directly traceable to the powerful effect produced
upon the plastic mind of the pioneer boy, by the early study of Æsop’s
Fables, and the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” His lightest as well as his
most powerful thought almost invariably took on the form of a figure
in speech which drove the point _home_, and _clinched_ it, as few
abstract reasoners are able to do.
The character of this volume, necessarily rambling and fragmentary,
seems to present a legitimate field for the incorporation and
preservation of some of the best of Mr. Lincoln’s “little stories” and
quaint sayings, other than those which came within my own personal
observation. Beside these, there has accumulated in my possession a
variety of incidents, many of which have never been published, throwing
light not only upon the character of the man, but upon many events and
circumstances connected with the war and the administration.
Believing everything of this kind to have more than a temporary
interest and value, I devote the following section to their embodiment.