McClure's Magazine
| Vol. VI. No. 549 | DECEMBER, 1895. | No. 1. |
CONTENTS
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Edited by Ida M.Tarbell
THE LOVE OF THE PRINCE OF GLOTTENBERG, ByAnthony Hope
MADONNA AND CHILD IN ART, By Will H.Low
CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE, By Elizabeth StuartPhelps
THE UNDERSTUDY, By Robert Barr
THE HEROINE OF A FAMOUS SONG,
THE TRUE STORY OF ANNIE LAURIE, By Frank Pope Humphrey
A POINT OF KNUCKLIN' DOWN, By EllaHigginson
THE SUN'S HEAT, By Sir Robert Ball
HALL CAINE, STORY OF HIS LIFE AND WORK, ByRobert Harborough Sherard
NEIGHBOR KING, By CollinsShackelford
THROUGH THE DARDANELLES, by CyWarman
THE EARLIEST PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN,
LETTERS IN REGARD TO THE FRONTISPIECE OF THE NOVEMBERMcCLURE'S
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Edited by Ida M. Tarbell.
II.
LIFE IN INDIANA.—REMOVAL TO ILLINOIS.—LINCOLN STARTSOUT IN LIFE FOR HIMSELF AT TWENTY-ONE.—THE BUILDING OF THEFLATBOAT AND THE TRIP TO NEW ORLEANS.—LINCOLN HIRES OUT AS AGROCERY CLERK IN NEW SALEM.—HIS FIRST VOTE.
INDIANA REMINISCENCES OF LINCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln grew tomanhood in Southern Indiana. When he reached Spencer County in1816, he was seven years of age; when he left in 1830, he hadpassed his twenty-first birthday. This period of a life showsusually the natural bent of the character, and we have found inthese fourteen years of Lincoln's life signs of the qualities ofgreatness which distinguished him. We have seen that, in spite ofthe fact that he had no wise direction, that he was brought up by afather with no settled purpose, and that he lived in a pioneercommunity, where a young man's life at best is but a series ofmakeshifts, he had developed a determination to make something outof himself, and a desire to know, which led him to neglect noopportunity to learn.
The only unbroken outside influence which directed andstimulated him in his ambitions was that coming first from hismother, then from his step-mother. It should never be forgottenthat these two women, both of them of unusual earnestness andsweetness of spirit, were one or the other of them at the boy'sside throughout this period. The ideal they held before him was thesimple ideal of the early American, that if a boy is upright andindustrious he may aspire to any place within the gift of thecountry. The boy's nature told him they were right. Everything heread confirmed their teachings, and he cultivated, in every wayopen to him, his passion to know and to be something.