Gibson W. Harris

[RJNorton]

Many thanks to Scott for sending a .pdf file of the Gibson W. Harris' articles in the Woman's Home Companion (1903-1904). Harris was a young law clerk in the Lincoln-Herndon office 1845-1847.

CLICK HERE

I found the articles fascinating. Here are just a few of Harris' recollections and observations that I thought were interesting:

"Mr. Lincoln's mind was logical to the last degree, but his heart was more a woman's than a man’s."

"As a frequent visitor I was made welcome at the Lincoln home, and on two different occasions, at the instance of Mr. Lincoln, he being unable to attend, I became Mrs. Lincoln's escort to a ball, where I danced with her. I always found her most pleasant-mannered. She was a bright, witty and accomplished young woman, naturally fond of fun and frolic, but very staid and proper when it was in order to be so."

"In walking his step was such that his foot came down flat on the ground. I can see him now, in memory, as he daily appeared on the streets of Springfield, his arms slowly swinging, his head and body bent slightly forward, his whole aspect that of a man in deep thought, from which, however, he was easily roused, never failing to make hearty acknowledgment of a salutation, whether from friend or stranger. He was slow, or more properly, deliberate, in his movements. I cannot recall ever having seen him walk briskly, much less run, though his long limbs carried him over the ground with more speed than one was apt to realize at first."

"Mr. Lincoln showed great consideration for his wife, which I noticed the more, perhaps, because, for some reason, Mr. Herndon cherished a strong dislike for her, and of this fact made no secret to the office clerk. She was unusually timid and nervous during a thunder-storm, and whenever one threatened, her husband made it a point to leave whatever he was engaged upon, if it was a possible thing, and go home, to stay with her until it passed over."

"I believe it literally true that by his counsel more cases were settled without trial than through litigation. He never asked a fee for bringing about such a termination, and when I took the liberty once of saying it would be no more than fair for him to make some charge, he laughed good-naturedly, and said, “They won’t care to pay me; they don’t think I have earned a fee unless I take the case into court and make a speech or two."

"He read but little at the office, and I have never imagined there was much burning of the midnight oil at his home. The truth is, unless I am greatly mistaken, Abraham Lincoln never studied hard at any period of his life. He did not need to study hard. With him a single reading was sufficient to afford a clear insight into any ordinary subject. It almost seemed as if, in a previous existence, he had acquired a knowledge of things, and in this life needed only to refresh his memory, now by reading and now by colloquy with others."

"Mr. Lincoln sometimes told at the office the sayings or doings of his children. One such account I remember as well as if I had heard it last week. He came in. an hour or so after dinner, smiling beyond even his wont, and said he was lying down at home, having left his boots in the second-story hallway, when all at once he heard a tremendous clatter on the stairs. He jumped up. hurried to the head of the stairs, and looking down, saw Bob (Robert Todd Lincoln! aged three) getting up on all fours from the floor of the hallway below, unhurt but sadly bewildered. "The youngster had got into my boots," he said, "and in trying to walk around in them had fallen down-stairs. You ought to have seen him. Gibson—he looked so comical with the boot-legs reaching clear up to his little body."

"When telling a story, he had a mannerism peculiarly his own. If he was seated in a chair or on a dry-goods box (it was generally one or the other), his feet would be planted fiat upon the floor or ground, until near the story’s end, at which juncture his eyes would begin to sparkle and his right leg be seen to raise slowly; suddenly, at the instant the climax was reached, the right leg would be thrown across the left, back would go his head, and lie would laugh as unrestrainedly as any of his auditors. There was never any straining for effect; the heartiness and spontaneity of it all delightfully enhanced the story’s effectiveness."

"In his intercourse with others his simplicity and unaffectedness were most engaging. I never heard him use an oath or make a vulgar remark, and never knew of his doing an improper thing. He was the purest man, both in speech and action—I make the statement deliberately—of all the men I have known on intimate terms. He made one feel that it was good to be with him."

"In one of Miss Tarbell's Lincoln articles, published a few years ago in a current magazine, I noticed a portrait of Lincoln with the statement annexed that it was from a daguerreotype, but giving the reader to understand that it could not be ascertained when and by whom the likeness was taken. Later, the same portrait appeared in the Century Magazine, but still unidentified. I feel confident I am not mistaken in recognizing the portrait as the work of my friend Shephard, before whose camera I know Mr Lincoln sat once or oftener. The claim repeatedly made for it of being the earliest portrait of Abraham Lincoln remains, as far as I know, an undisputed fact."