There are pictures of Lincoln taken in the height of his law career in Illinois in the years 1858 through 1860, taken in places like Springfield, Chicago, Peoria and places unknown, before he grew his beard. The Kunhardt illustrated biography gives us a series of them under a heading "Long Photographic Exposure Wouldn't Let Him Smile," on pages 94 and 95. More such portraits you will find from these years throughout the book, one with a rare white coat. He does smile in some of them. You can't quite say he looks confused in them. Adapted to being caught off guard, the photos catch a man of many moods. To me personally, the images of him strike me as ones taken of a bartender asked to stand still in the middle of a Saturday night shift. There are hints of bemusement at the variety of humanity glimmering in these pictures of ol' Lincoln. In some he looks depressed, in some he is distant and far away, maybe cold and professional, as one has to be sometimes.

"What is life about," he seems to be asking somewhere within behind his fixed expression. "Why are we here? What is the point of life?" The job kept him busy. It gave him experience in people. He had questions, not answers.

Lincoln saw people come and go. He saw them die. His mother, his sister, his girlfriend. He'd stare off into space sometimes. Along the way, he learned it's all about kindness. And so he stood for a kindness of a sort represented in the great contributions to science, culture and art, education and governing by the people, for the people, of the people. He knew kindness as a thing one is unlikely to much receive on a personal level. And so, to him, it should be buttressed institutionally. Fault him, maybe, for being cold, aloof, distant, for being subject to internal moods withdrawing him from life. (Imagine, perhaps, being married to the man.) Fault him for many things. A mortal like you and I. Yet, his achievements are rare and heroic for their defense and support of certain good and fair things.