to beautify it. His law-office was a dusty, littered, carelessly kept place. Yet in the home and in the office he had thought and suffered much, and his heart and brain, in all their patience and growth, were linked to every commonplace feature of either. He asked Mr. Herndon as a favor, after settling their partnership affairs, not to take down the old sign of “Lincoln & Herndon" for at least four years. He had a hope or thought, however faint, that perhaps the days of its usefulness might return. They seemed almost happy days, in comparison with those to which he well knew he was going forward. His perception of the true nature of these has many witnesses. Men who remember how he looked during those last few weeks be fore his departure for Washington invariably dwell upon his weary, sad, haggard, woe-struck face and his bent and burdened form. There were darker circles under his eyes, and the faraway, indwelling look, so noticeable in some of his portraits, had grown deeper, gloomier than ever.

What is known as "happiness" had been denied him in his home relations-faithful, devoted, loving as his wife assuredly was, and utterly true to her as was he himself. The one love which can insure the highest married happiness had come to him once, and it had been buried, years and years ago, in a grave on the bank of the Sangamon. No breath of scandal ever assailed the purity of his domestic life. No smallest stain blotted the clear record of his integrity. Of all the citizens of Springfield, he was the best known, most highly honored, best beloved. But those treasures of human life which were as daily bread to the men and women who loved and honored him were impossible possessions to the man whose merry jokes they were so fond of repeating, and for whom they and others invented such a wealth of varied humor over and above all that he ever uttered.

Much has been said and written to prove that, at this particular time, he permitted himself to entertain forebodings and foreshadowings of the violent death which was to come to him.

It is as if a vague effort were made to account in some such stupid way for his access of sadness. Such premonitions come, as all men know, whether or not they are afterwards fulfilled. If verified, then superstition recalls them and points theatrically to the grim fulfillment. If not, then skepticism, with equal pertinence, forgets them, or gleefully mocks at a false prophecy. The shadow upon Lincoln's life was not cast before any such inadequate specter as the wonder-seekers have described, but by the coming agony of a great people. For long years he had been reading the signs of the times. He understood better than other men the meaning of the black portents on the political sky. They were to him full of blood, and they were dark with the horrible suffering of millions. Under and in face of all, the responsibility had been laid upon him of leading his people forward into the day of their trial and into the measureless woe before them. He had been carefully trained and developed in the providence of God for the assumption and bearing of that very burden; but all his training, while giving him the power to bear it, gave him no power to cast off any ounce of its crushing weight.

CHAPTER XXVII.

PRESIDENT.

Speaking to the Nation-Diplomacy-Journey to Washington-In the Enemy's Country-The District of Columbia Militia-The Flood of Office-seekers-The Inauguration-The Address-The True Meaning of Secession-March, 1861.

MR. LINCOLN's term of office as President of the United States was to begin on the 4th of March, 1861, but he determined to leave Springfield on the 11th of February.

The policy he was pursuing required that he should be seen and heard and more perfectly understood by the people. It was needful that his proceeding to Washington should be made under the concentrated watching of both friends and enemies.

So he decided and so he went. The feverish anxieties of millions attended every step of his journey, and the hearts of men grew hourly better prepared to sustain him after his arrival at the seat of government.

Such preparations for war as had yet been made at the North bore no comparison to those of the South. It was the 18th of February before even such a State as Massachusetts passed an Act to increase the State militia, and tendering men and money to the general government for the maintenance of the national authority. The great State of Pennsylvania did not take similar action until April 9th, and the State Legislature of New York passed its dilatory "war bill" on the 17th of that month. A great deal was doing, in a desultory and illdirected way, by patriotic individuals, but it was not well that the zeal of even these should be so stimulated that their activity should endanger the diplomatic campaign for the mili