All this seemed to Mr. Lincoln to be "

very extraordinary." He had been sufficiently astonished by his success in the West; but he had no expectation of any marked success in the East, particularly among literary and learned men.

"Now," said Mr. Lincoln, "I should very much like to know what it was in my speech which you thought so remarkable, and which interested my friend the professor so much?"

Mr. Gulliver's answer was:

"The clearness of your statements, the unanswerable style of your reasoning, and, especially, your illustrations, which were romance and pathos, and fun and logic, all welded together."

After Mr. Gulliver had fully satisfied his curiosity by a further exposition of the politician's peculiar power, Mr. Lincoln said:

"I am much obliged to you for this. I have been wishing for a long time to find some one who would make this analysis for me. It throws light on a subject which has been dark to me. I can understand very readily how such a power as you have ascribed to me will account for the effect which seems to be produced by my speeches. I hope you have not been too flattering in your estimate. Certainly, I have had a most wonderful success for a man of my limited education."

"That suggests, Mr. Lincoln, an inquiry which

has several time been upon my lips during this conversation," said Mr. Gulliver. "I want very much to know how you got this unusual power of putting things. It must have been a matter of education. No man has it by nature alone. What has your education been ?"

"Well, as to education, the newspapers are correct," replied Lincoln; "I never went to school more than six months in my life. But, as you say, this must be a product of culture in some form. I have been putting the question you ask me to myself, while you have been talking. I can say this, that among my earliest recollections I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand. I don't think I ever got angry at anything else in my life. But that always disturbed my temper, and has ever since. I can remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and spending no small part of the night walking up and down, and trying to make out what was the exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings. I could not sleep, though I often tried to, when I got on such a hunt after an idea, until I had caught it; and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over, until I had put it in language plain enough, as

I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend. This was a kind of passion with me, and it has stuck by me; for I am never easy now, when I am handling a thought, till I have bounded it north, and bounded it south, and bounded it east, and bounded it west. Perhaps that accounts for the characteristic you observe in my speeches, though I never put the two things together before."

"Mr. Lincoln," said Mr. Gulliver, "I thank you for this. It is the most splendid educational fact I ever happened upon. This is genius, with all its impulsive, inspiring, dominating power over the mind of its possessor, developed by education into talent, with its uniformity, its permanence, and its disciplined strength-always ready, always available, never capricious—the highest possession of the human intellect. But, let me ask, did you prepare for your profession?"

"O yes! I read law, as the phrase is; that is, I became a lawyer's clerk in Springfield, and copied tedious documents, and picked up what I could of law in the intervals of other work. But your question reminds me of a bit of education I had, which I am bound in honesty to mention. In the course of my law-reading, I constantly came upon the word demonstrate. I thought at first that I understood its meaning, but soon became satisfied that I did not. I said to myself, 'What do I mean

when I demonstrate more than when I reason or prove? How does demonstration differ from any other proof?' I consulted Webster's Dictionary. That told of certain proof, proof beyond the possibility of doubt; but I could form no idea what sort of proof that was. I thought a great many things were proved beyond a possibility of doubt, without recourse to any such extraordinary process of reasoning as I understood demonstration to be. I consulted all the dictionaries and books of reference I could find, but with no better results. You might as well have defined blue to a blind man. At last I said: 'Lincoln, you can never make a lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means;' and I left my situation in Springfield, went home to my father's house, and staid there till I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight. I then found out what demonstrate means, and went back to my law-studies."

LINCOLN'S NOMINATION FOR THE

PRESIDENCY.

SAAC N. ARNOLD, in his "Life of Lincoln," thus describes the nomination of Lincoln :

N. in his of

"The leading candidates for the Presidency were William H. Seward, of New York; Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania; and Edward Bates, of Missouri; but it early became apparent that the contest was between Seward and Lincoln.

"On the first day of the Convention the friends of Lincoln discovered that there was an organized body of New Yorkers and others in the 'Wigwam' who cheered vociferously whenever Seward's name was mentioned, or any allusion was made to him. The New Yorkers did the shouting, Lincoln's friends were modest and quiet.

"At the meeting of the Illinois delegation at the Tremont, on the evening of the first day, at which Judd, Davis, Cook, and others were present, it was decided that on the second day Illinois and the West should be heard. There was then living in Chicago a man whose voice could drown the