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

[50] that afterwards fell to the lot of her tall and angular brother. Within two years after her marriage she died in childbirth. Something in the conduct of the Grigsbys and their treatment of his sister gave Abe great offense, and for a long time the relations between him and them were much strained. The Grigsbys were the leading family in Gentryville, and consequently were of no little importance in a social way. Abe, on the contrary, had no reserve of family or social influence to draw upon. He was only awaiting an opportunity to “even up” the score between them. Neither his father nor any of the Hankses were of any avail, and he therefore for the first time resorted to the use of his pen for revenge. He wrote a number of pieces in which he took occasion to lampoon those who provoked in any way his especial displeasure. It was quite natural to conceive therefore that with the gift of satire at command he should not have permitted the Grigsbys to escape. These pieces were called “Chronicles,” and although rude and coarse, they served the purpose designed by their author of bringing public ridicule down on the heads of his victims. They were written in an attempted scriptural vein, and on so many different subjects that one might consistently call them “social ventilators.” Their grossness must have been warmly appreciated by the early denizens of Gentryville, for the descendants of the latter up to this day have taken care that they should not be buried from sight under the dust of long-continued forgetfulness. I reproduce here, exactly as I obtained it, the particular