Some one was smoking in the presence of the President and
complimented him on having new vices, neither drinking nor smoking. “That is a doubtful compliment,” answered the
President; “I recollect once being outside a stage in Illinois and a man
sitting by me offered me a segar. I told
him I had no vices. He said nothing,
smoked for some time, and then grunted out, “It’s my experience that folks who
have no vices have plagued few virtues.”
The President is rather fain of his height, but one day a
young man called on him who was certainly three inches taller than the former;
he was like the mathematical definition of the straight line—length without
breadth. “Really,” said Mr. Lincoln, “I
must look up to you, if you ever get in a deep place you ought to be able to
wade out.” That reminds us of the story
told of Mr. Lincoln somewhere when a crowd called him out. He came out with his wife on the balcony (who
is somewhat below medium height) and made the following “brief remarks:”—“Here
I am and here is Mrs. Lincoln. That’s
the long and short of it.”
SOURCE: New York Daily Herald,
New York, New York, Friday, February 19, 1864, p. 5, and copied from the New York Evening Post, New York, New
York, Wednesday, February 17, 1864.
