[Gutenberg 12800] • Abraham Lincoln, Volume I

Excerpt from Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 1 of 2

Abraham Lincoln knew little concerning his progenitors, and rested well content with the scantiness of his knowledge. The character and condition of his father, of whom alone upon that side of the house he had personal cognizance, did not encourage him to pry into the obscurity behind that luckless rover. he was sensitive on the subject; and when he was applied to for information, a brief paragraph conveyed all that he knew or desired to know. Without doubt he would have been best pleased to have the world take him solely for himself, with no inquiry as to whence he came, - as if he had dropped upon the planet like a meteorite; as, indeed, many did piously hold that he came a direct gift from heaven.