ually indulged, in ordinary conversation, in a class of objectionable stories. The biographer, it is true, attempts to palliate this, on the ground that it was no innate love of impurity which prompted such relations, but a keen relish for wit, in any form, the lack of refining influences in early life, and his experience as a lawyer, which necessarily induced professional familiarity with the foulest phases of human nature. The fault is a common one with many men of otherwise unblemished reputation, and cannot be too severely reprehended. The sooner, however, such things can be forgotten, of neighbor, friend, or President, the better. Weaknesses and blemishes are inseparable from common humanity in the present stage of its development; and though, like the spots on the sun, they may serve to inspire in us a feeling of kindred,—let the orb once set, never again to rise on the world, and he who should remember the trifling defects in the universal loss would certainly be considered, if not captious, at least a most inopportune critic.
Mr. Lincoln, I am convinced, has been greatly wronged in this respect. Every foul-mouthed man in the country gave currency to the slime and filth of his own imagination by attributing it to the President. It is but simple justice to his memory that I should state, that during the entire period of my stay in Washington, after witnessing his intercourse with nearly all classes of men, embracing governors, senators, members of Congress, officers
