William H. Herndon, Jesse William Weik, Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, Etiam in minimis major, The History and Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln by William H. Herndon, for twenty years his friend and Jesse William Weik

[317] documents. In my efforts to clean up, I found that some of the seeds had sprouted in the dirt that had collected in the office. Judge Logan and Milton Hay occupied the front offices on the same floor with Lincoln and Herndon, and one day Mr. Hay came in and said with apparent astonishment: “What's happened here?” “Oh, nothing,” replied Lincoln, pointing to me, “only this young man has been cleaning up a little.” One of Lincoln's striking characteristics was his simplicity, and nowhere was this trait more strikingly exhibited than in his willingness to receive instruction from anybody and everybody. One day he came into the office and addressing his partner, said: “Billy, what's the meaning of antithesis?” Mr. Herndon gave him the definition of the word, and I said: “Mr. Lincoln, if you will allow me, I will give you an example.” “All right, John, go ahead,” said Mr. Lincoln in his hearty manner. “Phillips says, in his essay on Napoleon, “A pretended patriot, he impoverished the country; a professed Catholic, he imprisoned the Pope,” ” etc. Mr. Lincoln thanked me and seemed very much pleased. Returning from off the circuit once he said to Mr. Herndon: “Billy, I heard a good story while I was up in the country. Judge D-was complimenting the landlord on the excellence of his beef. “I am surprised,” he said, “that you have such good beef. You must have to kill a whole critter when you want any.” “Yes,” said the landlord, “we never kill less than a whole critter.””

Lincoln's favorite position when unravelling some knotty law point was to stretch both of his legs