Springfield was twenty-two miles from New Salem, and yet Lincoln walked there and back on the day proposed. He made a long day of it, and a wearisome one, too. On the following evening Green called upon him, to learn how he succeeded.

“What!” he exclaimed. “Did you bring all these books home in your arms?” They were Blackstone’s Commentaries, in four volumes.

“Yes, and read forty pages of the first volume on the way,” Lincoln replied. “Come, now, just examine me on the first volume.”

He had a faculty of perusing a volume when he was walking, and he often did it. He gained time thereby.

“I don’t see what you are made of to endure so,” continued Green. “It would use me all up to carry such a load a quarter part of that distance.”

“I am used to it, you know, and that makes the difference. But come, just see what I know about the first part of that volume.” And he passed the first volume to him.

“If you pass muster you’ll want I should admit you to the bar, I suppose,” responded Green. “That I shall be glad to do.”

So he proceeded to examine Lincoln on the first volume; and he found, to his surprise, that he was well posted on the forty pages read. By his close attention, and the ability to concentrate his thoughts, he readily made what he read his own.

Thus Lincoln began and continued the study of law, alternating his time between surveying and study, going to Springfield for books as often as it was necessary, and often pursuing his reading of law far into the night.

With such devotion did he employ his time in study and manual labour, denying himself much that young men generally consider essential, that he might have said, as Cicero said of himself: “What others give to public shows and entertainments, to festivity, to amusements, nay, even to mental and bodily rest, I give to study and philosophy.” Even when he was engaged in the fields surveying, his thoughts were upon his books, so that much which he learned at night was fastened in his mind by day. He might have adopted the language of Cicero concerning himself: “Even my leisure hours have their occupation.”

Sometimes he was engaged days and weeks together in surveying, having only his nights in which to study; and then, again, he had both day and night to give to his books for a time. Nor did his interest abate in the least; it rather increased than otherwise. The longer he studied, the more deeply absorbed he became in his books. His robust physical constitution enabled him to endure hard toil both of body and mind, otherwise he would have broken down.

He served his constituents so faithfully in the Legislature that he was renominated for the position in 1836. He had grown so rapidly in mental power that in this campaign his speeches were of high order. R. L. Wilson, who was a Representative elect with Lincoln, says:—

“The Saturday evening preceding the election the candidates were addressing the people in the Court House at Springfield. Dr. Early, one of the candidates on the Democratic side, made some charge that N. W. Edwards, one of the candidates on the Whig side, deemed untrue. Edwards climbed on a table, so as to be seen by Early and by every one in the house, and at the top of his voice told Early that the charge was false. The excitement that followed was intense,—so much so that fighting men thought a duel must settle the difficulty. Mr. Lincoln, by the programme, followed Early. He took up the subject in dispute, and handled it fairly, and with such ability that every one was astonished and pleased. So that difficulty ended there. Then, for the first time, developed by the excitement of the occasion, he spoke in