Some uncommonly vivid “first impressions” of Lincoln are given in the Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who early in February of 1862 made a visit to Washington for the purpose of delivering a lecture before the Smithsonian Institution—­a lecture which Lincoln is said to have attended.  A day or two afterwards Emerson was taken by Senator Sumner of Massachusetts to call at the White House.  “The President impressed me,” says Emerson, “more favorably than I had hoped.  A frank, sincere, well-meaning man, with a lawyer’s habit of mind, good clear statement of his facts; correct enough, not vulgar, as described, but with a sort of boyish cheerfulness, or that kind of sincerity and jolly good meaning that our class-meetings on Commencement Days show, in telling our old stories over.  When he has made his remark he looks up at you with great satisfaction, and shows all his white teeth, and laughs....  When I was introduced to him he said, ’Oh, Mr. Emerson, I once heard you say in a lecture that a Kentuckian seems to say by his air and manners, “Here am I; if you don’t like me, the worse for you."’” (The point of this of course is that Lincoln was himself a Kentuckian.) A day or two later Emerson again called on the President, this time in the company of Secretary Seward.  It being Sunday evening, Seward asked the President if he had been to church, to which the latter answered that he had not—­that he had been reading, for the first time, Senator Sumner’s speech in the Senate on the Trent affair.  This was followed by some general conversation on the Trent affair, in which the President expressed his gratification at the friendly attitude taken in the matter by France and Spain.

Private Secretary Hay thus writes of Lincoln’s character and disposition:  “All agree that the most marked characteristic of Mr. Lincoln’s manners was his simplicity and artlessness; this immediately impressed itself upon the observation of those who met him for the first time, and each successive interview deepened the impression.  People seemed delighted to find in the ruler of the nation freedom from pomposity and affectation, mingled with a certain simple dignity which never forsook him.  Though oppressed with the weight of responsibility resting upon him as President of the United States, he shrank from assuming any of the honors, or even the titles, of the position.  After years of intimate acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln, the writer cannot now recall a single instance in which he spoke of himself as President, or used that title for himself except when acting in an official capacity.  He always spoke of his position and office vaguely, as, ‘this place,’ ‘here,’ or other modest phrase.  Once, speaking of the room in the Capitol used by the Presidents of the United States during the close of a session of Congress, he said, ’That room, you know, that they call’—­dropping his voice and hesitating—­’the President’s room.’  To an intimate friend who addressed him always by his own proper title, he said, ’Now