In discussing the probabilities of his nomination, I remarked that there was so much unfairness, if not downright trickery, used that it appeared to me almost useless to seek a nomination without resort to similar means.

His reply was: 'I want to be nominated; I would like to go to Congress; but if I cannot do so by fair means, I prefer to stay at home.' He was nominated, and in the following fall was elected by a majority over three times as large as the district had ever before given.
"Mr.Lincoln, like many others in their callow days, scribbled verses; and so far as I was capable of judging, their quality was above the average.

It was accidentally that I learned this.

In arranging the books and papers in the office, I found two or three quires of letter-paper stitched together in book form, nearly filled with poetical effusions in Mr.Lincoln's handwriting, and evidently original.

I looked through them somewhat hurriedly, and when Lincoln came in I showed him the manuscript, asking him if it was his.