A very graphic summing-up of Lincoln in person and character is that of Mr. John G. Nicolay, one of his private secretaries, who knew him intimately and understood him well.  “President Lincoln was of unusual stature, six feet four inches, and of spare but muscular build,” says Mr. Nicolay.  “He had been in youth remarkably strong and skilful in the athletic games of the frontier, where, however, his popularity and recognized impartiality oftener made him an umpire than a champion.  He had regular and prepossessing features, dark complexion, broad, high forehead, prominent cheek bones, gray, deep-set eyes, and bushy, black hair, turning to gray at the time of his death.  Abstemious in his habits, he possessed great physical endurance.  He was almost as tender-hearted as a woman.  ’I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man’s bosom,’ he was able to say.  His patience was inexhaustible.  He had naturally a most cheerful and sunny temper, was highly social and sympathetic, loved pleasant conversation, wit, anecdote, and laughter.  Beneath this, however, ran an undercurrent of sadness; he was occasionally subject to hours of deep silence and introspection that approached a condition of trance.  In manner he was simple, direct, void of the least affectation, and entirely free from awkwardness, oddity, or eccentricity.  His mental qualities were a quick analytic perception, strong logical powers, a tenacious memory, a liberal estimate and tolerance of the opinions of others, ready intuition of human nature; and perhaps his most valuable faculty was rare ability to divest himself of all feeling or passion in weighing motives of persons or problems of state.  His speech and diction were plain, terse, forcible.  Relating anecdotes with appreciating humor and fascinating dramatic skill, he used them freely and effectively in conversation and argument.  He loved manliness, truth, and justice.  He despised all trickery and selfish greed.  In arguments at the bar he was so fair to his opponent that he frequently appeared to concede away his client’s case.  He was ever ready to take blame on himself and bestow praise on others.  ’I claim not to have controlled events,’ he said, ’but confess plainly that events have controlled me.’  The Declaration of Independence was his political chart and inspiration.  He acknowledged a universal equality of human rights.  ‘Certainly the negro is not our equal in color,’ he said, ’perhaps not in many other respects; still, in the right to put into his mouth the bread that his own hands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or black.’  He had unchanging faith in self-government.  ’The people,’ he said, ’are the rightful masters of both congresses and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.’  Yielding and accommodating in non-essentials, he was inflexibly firm in a principle or position deliberately taken.  ‘Let us have faith that right makes might,’ he said, ’and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.’ ...”