call me Lincoln, and I’ll promise not to tell of the breach of etiquette—­if you, won’t—­and I shall have a resting-spell from “Mister President."’ With all his simplicity and unacquaintance with courtly manners, his native dignity never forsook him in the presence of critical polished strangers; but mixed with his angularities and bonhomie was something which spoke the fine fiber of the man; and while his sovereign disregard of courtly conventionalities was somewhat ludicrous, his native sweetness and straightforwardness of manner served to disarm criticism and impress the visitor that he was before a man pure, self-poised, collected, and strong in unconscious strength.  Of him, an accomplished foreigner, whose knowledge of the courts was more perfect than that of the English language, said, ’He seems to me one grand gentilhomme in disguise.’” Mr. Hay adds that Lincoln’s simplicity of manner “was marked in his total lack of consideration of what was due his exalted station.  He had an almost morbid dread of what he called ’a scene’—­that is, a demonstration of applause, such as always greeted his appearance in public.  The first sign of a cheer sobered him; he appeared sad and oppressed, suspended conversation, and looked out into vacancy; and when it was over, resumed the conversation just where it was interrupted, with an obvious feeling of relief....  Speaking of an early acquaintance who was an applicant for an office which he thought him hardly qualified to fill, the President said, ’Well, now, I never thought M——­ had any more than average ability, when we were young men together; really I did not.’ [A pause.] ’But, then, I suppose he thought just the same about me; he had reason to, and—­here I am!’”

General Carl Schurz says:  “In the White House, as in his simple home in Springfield, Mr. Lincoln was the same plain, unaffected, unpretentious citizen.  He won the admiration and affection of even the most punctilious of the foreign diplomats by the tenderness of his nature and the touching simplicity of his demeanor....  He was, in mind and heart, the very highest type of development of a plain man.  He was a born leader of men, and the qualities that made him a leader were of the plain, common-sense type....  Lincoln had one great advantage over all the chief statesmen of his day.  He had a thorough knowledge of the plain people.  He knew their habits, their modes of thought, their unfailing sense of justice and right.  He relied upon the popular feeling, in great measure, for his guidance.”

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe said of the qualities which Lincoln exhibited in the White House:  “Lincoln is a strong man, but his strength is of a peculiar kind; it is not aggressive so much as passive; and among passive things, it is like the strength not so much of a stone buttress as of a wire cable.  It is strength swaying to every influence, yielding on this side and on that, to popular needs, yet tenaciously