|
||
|
Special thanks to Miss Lisa Van Pelt at the library of congress for sending copies of the letters cited here. |
||
The Advertisement here first appeared in Life Magazine, Feb. 1952. The text is hard to read from this image, so I include it as text below: "Young Abe larned Pen writin'... In old Kaintuck, the log-cabin "blab school" mentor with faith in "lickin' and larnin.." taught young Abe his A-B's and the rudiments of pen writin'. With turkey buzzard quills and ink of wild brier root or home-boiled sumac berries and oak bark, the boy did easy lines from the copy books. A few years later he penned long passages from Plato adn the Scriptures, practised the essay and elocation. As a young man, he served as a scribe for unlettered folk, wrote notes fo rneighbors to kin back in the mountains or the East. Called by his country and destiny to the Presidency, his able pen wrote documents that still live... the Gettysburg Address, the Emacipation Proclomation, the letter to Mrs. Bixby, in which the heart not of a man, but of a nation, consoles a mother for five sons dead... Few people realize that Lincoln's fame rests primarily on his ability as a writer. |
 |