He read everything he could lay his hands on, and when he came across a passage that struck him he would write it down on boards, if he had no paper, and keep it until he had got paper.

Then he would copy it, look at it, commit it to memory, and repeat it.

He kept a scrap-book into which he copied everything which particularly pleased him." Mr.Arnold further states: "There were no libraries and but few books in the back settlements in which Lincoln lived.

If by chance he heard of a book that he had not read he would walk miles to borrow it.

Among other volumes borrowed from Crawford was Weems's Life of Washington.