a saying peculiarly true of a man such as Lincoln.

A testimonial to the influence of this early reading upon his childish
mind was given by Lincoln himself many years afterwards. While on his
way to Washington to assume the duties of the Presidency he passed
through Trenton, New Jersey, and in a speech made in the Senate Chamber
at that place he said: "May I be pardoned if, upon this occasion, I
mention that away back in my childhood, in the earliest days of my being
able to read, I got hold of a small book--such a one as few of the
younger members have seen, Weems's Life of Washington. I remember all
the accounts there given of the battle-fields and struggles for the
liberties of the country; and none fixed themselves upon my imagination
so deeply as the struggle here at Trenton. The crossing of the river,
the contest with the Hessians, the great hardships endured at that time,
all fixed themselves in my memory more than any single Revolutionary
event; and you all know, for you have all been boys, how these early
impressions last longer than any others. I recollect thinking then, boy
even though I was, that there must have been something more than common
that these men struggled for. I am exceedingly anxious that that thing
which they struggled for, that something even more than National
Independence, that something that held out a great promise to all the
people of the world for all time to come, I am exceedingly anxious that
this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people, shall be
perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle
was made."

Another incident in regard to the ruined volume which Lincoln had
borrowed from Crawford is related by Mr. Lamon. "For a long time," he
says, "there was one person in the neighborhood for whom Lincoln felt a