The emotional temperament of Conwell has always
made him responsive to the great, the striking,
the patriotic. He was deeply influenced by
knowing John Brown, and his brief memories of
Lincoln are intense, though he saw him but three
times in all.
The first time he saw Lincoln was on the night
when the future President delivered the address,
which afterward became so famous, in Cooper
Union, New York. The name of Lincoln was then
scarcely known, and it was by mere chance that
young Conwell happened to be in New York on
that day. But being there, and learning that
Abraham Lincoln from the West was going to
make an address, he went to hear him.
He tells how uncouthly Lincoln was dressed,
even with one trousers-leg higher than the other,
and of how awkward he was, and of how poorly,
at first, he spoke and with what apparent
embarrassment. The chairman of the meeting got
Lincoln a glass of water, and Conwell thought
that it was from a personal desire to help him and
keep him from breaking down. But he loves to
tell how Lincoln became a changed man as he
spoke; how he seemed to feel ashamed of his brief
embarrassment and, pulling himself together and
putting aside the written speech which he had
prepared, spoke freely and powerfully, with splendid
conviction, as only a born orator speaks.
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