have ever remained in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy
or powerful relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown
exclusively upon the independent voters of the county; and, if
elected, they will have conferred a favor upon me, for which I shall
be unremitting in my labors to compensate. But if the good people in
their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been
too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined."

This is almost precisely the style of his later years. The errors of
grammar and construction which spring invariably from an effort to
avoid redundancy of expression remained with him through life. He
seemed to grudge the space required for necessary parts of speech. But
his language was at twenty-two, as it was thirty years later, the
simple and manly attire of his thought, with little attempt at
ornament and none at disguise. There was an intermediate time when he
sinned in the direction of fine writing; but this ebullition soon
passed away, and left that marvelously strong and transparent style in
which his two inaugurals were written.

Of course, in the ten days left him after his return from the field, a
canvass of the county, which was then--before its division--several
thousand square miles in extent, was out of the question. He made a
few speeches in the neighborhood of New Salem, and at least one in
Springfield. He was wholly unknown there except by his few comrades in
arms. We find him mentioned in the county paper only once during the
summer, in an editorial note adding the name of Captain Lincoln to
those candidates for the Legislature who were periling their lives on
the frontier and had left their reputations in charge of their
generous fellow-citizens at home. On the occasion of his speaking at
Springfield, most of the candidates had come together to address a