Mr. Lincoln’s distinction was his strong originality and self-reliance. As a young man, with no adviser to guide him through the hardships and embarrassments of life, he took counsel with his own mind, which fortunately was of peculiar depth, rich in resources,--and the advice he received from this consultation, the instruction he gained by this appeal to the fund of his own knowledge and experience served him splendidly as schooling for the task which was in store for him. And joined to this self-education nature had bestowed on him some of her rarest gifts,--humor, kind, genial, and peculiarly humane, blending tears with laughter, and a mother-wit always ready to make fun of his own misfortunes and shortcomings, and to joke away any embarrassing situation in which either untoward circumstances or his own mistakes might have placed him. In addition to all this he possessed that truly American characteristic--shrewdness, which far from being an objectionable quality with him, was modified by his kindness of heart and his moral uprightness.
In that great and distinctly English book, Robinson Crusoe, we find a young Englishman in consequence of a shipwreck thrown upon a deserted island in midocean. He is cut off from civilization and its resources and thrown upon his own ingenuity to carve out a living for himself which, to a degree at least, comes up to the experience which he has had while living in civilized society. A few tools and instruments which he saves from the wrecked ship are the only things to assist him in the building up of his future life, yet by industry, shrewdness, and perseverance he really succeeds in making that life not only tolerable, but to a degree comfortable. Possibly the trying circumstances in which young Robinson was placed whetted and sharpened his wits, strengthened his nerve, and inspired him with enough confidence to become equal to his difficult task; at all events, he succeeded, and the book narrating his experience, his trials, and his sufferings forms one of the most delightful and at the same time one of the most instructive books for young and old ever written. Its educational value can hardly be overestimated. It may be said that Robinson Crusoe is but a novel, and that his adventures and achievements all originated in the fertile mind of Daniel Defoe. But even if it was so, which is by no means proven, the feat of Defoe’s genius shows that a young man of strong character and full of resources, with an ideal placed before his mental eye, can find the means to raise himself to a higher level than he could have reached under ordinary circumstances and without the stimulating influence of personal hardships and pressing necessity.