as one would find in a day's journey. He would not have been at home in
a library, but he was at home in the forest.

In 1806 he married Nancy Hanks, a young woman from Virginia, who became
the mother of the president. Doubtless there are many women among the
obscure who are as true and loyal as she was, but whose life is not
brought into publicity. Still, without either comparing or contrasting
her with others, we may attest our admiration of this one as a "woman
nobly planned." In the midst of her household cares, which were neither
few nor light, she had the courage to undertake to teach her husband to
read and write. She also gave her children a start in learning. Of her
the president, nearly half a century after her death, said to Seward,
with tears,--"All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother--
blessings on her memory."

Mr. Lincoln himself never manifested much interest in his genealogy. At
one time he did give out a brief statement concerning his ancestors
because it seemed to be demanded by the exegencies of the campaign. But
at another time, when questioned by Mr. J. L. Scripps, editor of the
Chicago _Tribune_, he answered: "Why, Scripps, it is a great piece of
folly to attempt to make anything out of me or my early life. It can
all be condensed into a single sentence, and that sentence you will
find in Gray's Elegy:

'The short and simple annals of the poor.'

That's my life, and that's all you or any one else can make out of it."

In all this he was neither proud nor depreciative of his people. He was
simply modest. Nor did he ever outgrow his sympathy with the common