was present on that occasion, and furnishes the following interesting personal recollections of it:  “I saw Abraham Lincoln for the first time, at the Weddell House that evening.  He stood on the landing-place at the top of a broad stairway, and the crowd approached him from below.  This gave him an exaggerated advantage of his six feet four inches of length.  The shapelessness of the lathy form, the shock of coarse black hair surmounting the large head, the retreating forehead—­these were not apparent where we stood.  My heart sprang up to him—­the coming man.  Of the thousand times I afterward saw him, the first view remains the most distinct impression; and never again to me was he more imposing.  As we approached, someone whispered of me to him; he took my hand in both his for an instant, and we wheeled into the already crowded rooms.  His manner was strongly Western; his speech and pronunciation Southwestern.  Wholly without self-consciousness with men, he was constrained and ill at ease when surrounded, as he several times was, by fashionably dressed ladies.  One incident of the evening I particularly recall.  Ab McElrath was in the crowd—­a handsome giant, an Apollo in youth, of about Mr. Lincoln’s height.  What brought it about, I do not know; but I saw them standing back to back, in a contest of altitude—­Mr. Lincoln and Ab McElrath—­the President-elect, the chosen, the nation’s leader in the thick-coming darkness, and the tavern-keeper and fox-hunter.  The crowd applauded.

“Mr. Lincoln presented me to the gentlemen of his party—­Mr. Browning, Mr. Judd, and Mr. Lamon, I remember, as I later became very well acquainted with them; also the rough-looking Colonel Sumner of the army.  Mr. Lincoln invited me to accompany him for at least a day on his eastward journey.  I joined him the next morning at the station.  The vivacity of the night before had utterly vanished, and the rudely sculptured cliffy face struck me as one of the saddest I had ever seen.  The eyes especially had a depth of melancholy which I had never seen in human eyes before.  Some things he wished to know from me, especially regarding Mr. Chase, whom, among others, he had called to Springfield.  He asked me no direct questions, but I very soon found myself speaking freely to him, and was able to explain some not well-known features of Ohio politics—­and much to his satisfaction, as he let me see.  There was then some talk of Mr. Seward, and more of Senator Cameron.  All three had been his rivals at Chicago, and were, as I then thought, in his mind as possible Cabinet ministers; although no word was said by him of such an idea in reference to either.  Presently he conducted me to Mrs. Lincoln, whom I had not before seen.  Presenting me, he returned to the gentlemen of the party, and I saw little more of him except once when he returned to us, before I left the train.  Mrs. Lincoln impressed me very favorably, as a woman of spirit, intelligence, and decided opinions, which