973.7L63 Stephens, Albert L. 
 A3St43 
 
 From One Lincoln Lover to 
 Another. 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/fromonelincolnloOOstep 
 
I /J. IMP J | 
 
 jFr^ONE LINCOLN LOVER /o ANOTHER 
 
 BEING EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER WRITTEN BY ALBERT L. STEPHENS 
 OF CHICAGO TO F. RAY RISDON OF LOS ANGELES, AND PUBLISHED IN 
 THIS FORM BY THE RECIPIENT FOR SOME OF HIS COLLECTOR-FRIENDS 
 
 DEAR RAY: Your letter and package arrived in good time before 
 Christmas, as did Mary's. Many thanks to both of you from both 
 of us. 
 
 I have not had time to read the boo^ carefully; but I have 
 shimmed through it and read parts of it critically, and I quite agree 
 with you that the author has been overly enthusiastic and industrious 
 in his interpretation of Lincoln's religious life — although there is no 
 doubt in my mind that Lincoln had a very definite belief in God 
 and prayer. . . . 
 
 I wonder if you ever stop to thin\ that you are the one responsible 
 for my interest in Lincoln. That time that you showed me your 
 collection, I will confess that I was mildly interested and moderately 
 bored. Abraham Lincoln was a great man — oh, yes. He had delivered 
 the Gettysburg Address, the Second Inaugural, and other speeches 
 that had fired my boyish heart. But so had Patrick Henry, Robert 
 Emmett, Daniel Webster, and others; — but they were dead, and so 
 was he — and that was that! But when I began to send you the clip- 
 pings, I made up my mind I ought to know at least the year of his 
 birth. And so, one day at the Library, when it was raining pitchforks, 
 I picked up a biography and read some of it; then I read more and 
 
Came the day I visited Nancy Hanks Var\l I stood before the 
 huge granite boulder with a bronze tablet that begins "You are 
 facing the wooded knoll," and ends "And where she led him a little 
 way along the path to greatness." Then I climbed the hill and stood 
 in front of the grave — and there I caught a vision! 
 
 I saw a frail, sad-faced pioneer mother leading a bewildered but 
 trusting child over a pathway strewn with obstructions. I saw him 
 sobbing beside an open grave. I saw him trudging seventeen miles 
 and back to borrow a book. / saw him in the market place in 
 New Orleans, where human lives were bought and sold. I saw 
 a lonely man steal to his room and behind closed doors pray to God 
 for guidance, strength, and victory. Abraham Lincoln was no 
 longer a mysterious shadow in an historical past. He became a 
 living, breathing personality! 
 
 Working with boys in character-building programs, I naturally 
 began to investigate his boyhood; for that is when habits and char- 
 acter are formed — but that is another story. And that is how and 
 why I am interested in Lincoln. . . . 
 
 Yes, I think Lincoln was a great man; but being elected President 
 did not make him great. All the qualities of mind and soul that we 
 admire in him as President were but a continuation and culmination 
 of his boyhood habits. . . . 
 
 Love to all. 
 December 31, 1939 
 
INSTITUTE PRESS - WOOD, WOOD & WOOD 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA 
 
 973 7L63A3ST43 C001 
 
 FROM ONE LINCOLN LOVER TO ANOTHER UNITE 
 
 ilrlttftttiftl 
 
 3 0112 031782938