startling; told a girl whom he was courting that he did not believe
any woman could fancy him; publicly said that he could not be in looks
what was rated a gentleman; carried the knife of "the homeliest man";
disparaged himself like a Brutus or a Pope Sixtus. But the mass
relished this "plain, blunt man who spoke right on."

He talked himself into being the local "Eminence," but did not succeed
in winning the election when first presented as "the humble" candidate
for the State Senate. He stood upon his "imperfect education," his not
belonging "to the first families, but the seconds"; and his shunning
society as debarring him from the study he required.

Repulsed at the polls, he turned to the law as another channel,
supplementing forensic failings by his artful story-telling. Judges
would suspend business till "that Lincoln fellow got through with his
yarn-spinning" or underhandedly would direct the usher to get the rich
bit Lincoln told, and repeat it at the recess.

Mrs. Lincoln, the first to weigh this man justly, said proudly, that
"Lincoln was the great favorite everywhere."

Meanwhile his fellow citizens stupidly tired of this Merry Andrew--they
"sent him elsewhere to talk other folks to death"--to the State House,
where he served several terms creditably, but was mainly the fund of
jollity to the lobby and the chartered jester of the lawmakers.

Such loquacious witchery fitted him for the Congress. Elected to the
House, he was immediately greeted by connoisseurs of the best stamp--
President Martin van Buren, "prince of good fellows;" Webster, another
intellect, saturnine in repose and mercurial in activity; the