hat of Iago in the play and worse. It would be like the
unscrupulous lawyer, anxious for a fee, who says to a client, living
happily with his wife: 'I know she is handsome and virtuous and
intelligent and loving but she has her faults. There are lovelier women.
I could easily get a divorce for you.' We would quickly throw such a man
out of the door. A man's country is like his wife. If she is virtuous and
well-disposed he should permit no meddling, odious person to come between
them, or to suggest to him that he put poison into her tea. Least of all
should he look for perfection in her, knowing that it is not to be found
in this world of ours."

Honest Abe rose and walked up and down the room in silence for a moment.
Then he added:

"Choate phrased it well when he said 'We should beware of awaking the
tremendous divinities of change from their long sleep. Let us think of
that when we consider what we shall do with the evils that afflict us.'"

The boy Joe has been deeply interested in this talk.

"If you'll lend me a book I'd like to begin studying," he said.

"There's time enough for that," said Lincoln. "First I want you to
understand what the law is and what the lawyer should be. You wouldn't
want to be a pettifogger. Choate is the right model. He has a dignity
suited to the greatness of his chosen master. They say that before a
Justice of the Peace in a room no bigger than a shoemaker's shop his work
is done with the same dignity and care that he would show in the supreme
court of Massachusetts. A newspaper says that in a dog case at Beverly he
treated the dog as if he were a lion and the crabbed old squire with the
consideration due a chief justice."

"He knows how to handle the English language," Samson observed.

"He got that by reading. He is the best read man at the American bar and
the best Bible student. There's a lot of work ahead of you, Joe, before
you are a lawyer and when you're admitted success comes only of the
capacity for work. Brougham wrote the peroration of his speech in defense
of Queen Caroline nineteen times."

"I want to be a great orator," the boy exclaimed with engaging frankness.

"Then you must remember that character is the biggest part of it," Honest
Abe declared. "Great thoughts come out of a great character and only out
of that. They will come even if you have little learning and none of the
graces which attract the eye. But you must have a character that is ever
speaking even