In 1858, Mr. Lincoln was campaigning in Ohio, and staying in Cincinnati
at the Burnett House, it was the meeting-place of the party of which he
was the looming light. Some of the younger Republicans (says Murat
Halstead, there as a newspaper man) had refreshments in his rooms, and
from some stupid oversight, allowed the whisky and cigars to be
included in his bill. This raised a hot correspondence between them and
the guest, ticklish about his lifelong abstinence principles. Mr.
Halstead said that the episode rankled in the blunderers after they had
elected their pride President. He must have felt like the gentleman at
the inn dining-room who, falling asleep at his meal, had the fowl
consumed by some merry wags; then greasing his lips with the drumstick,
they left him before the carcass so that the host naturally charged him
with the feast.
* * * * *
"THE HIGHEST MERIT TO THE SOLDIER."
"This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all
classes of people, but the most heavily upon the soldier. For it has
been said, 'All that a man hath he will give for his life;' and, while
all contribute of their substance, the soldier puts his life at stake,
and often yields it up in his country's cause. The highest merit, then,
is due to the soldier."
* * * * *
"HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE?"
If Lincoln did not possess a wide range of reading, he had the habit of
committing to memory entire pages of the text he delighted in. The
consequence was his invariable ability to not only utter apt quotations
at length, but to cap them, if need be. Joining a group of visitors to
Washington, at the Soldiers' Home, during the war, he suddenly, but in
an undertone, murmured:
How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest?
The women were affected to tears by their susceptible nature, the
surroundings of the cemetery with its graves, the evening dusk, and the
touching voice with its apposite lines. An effect he redoubled by
concluding:
And women o'er the graves shall weep,
Where nameless heroes calmly sleep!
* * * * *