Descriptive essay: Abraham Lincoln

Introduction

In my lifetime, I always yearned to know who Abraham Lincoln was, his personality and his life as a dedicated patriot in the United States of America. My dreams came true when I met his biographies and samples of his speeches in a wide range of newspapers within the library historical section of archives. Through the newspapers and the online published biographies, speeches and the entire life from his youth to his presidency, I came to understand Lincoln in a detailed perspective.

Physical characteristics

Abraham Lincoln came to life on 12th February in 1809 in Hodgenville, Kentucky, United States. He was a self-educated lawyer, married to Mary Todd with four children, and served the USA as the 16th president. He was a dark complexioned man, ungainly person, and a very tall figure of six feet and four inches in height. His shoulders were a little stooped, and he always kept his forehead high. His arms and legs were long while his hands and feet were large. He had a wrinkled face and forehead even during his youth, which deepened as he grew old. In general, he was a very sad man as indicated by his expression features. However, his sadness died out when he warmed up, and his face became radiant and glowing. This gave him an expression to his thoughts even before his tongue would utter them (Lincoln 2014).

Personality

During his public speeches, Abraham Lincoln never sawed space with his hands or act for the stage effect since he was sincere, self-possessed, earnest and cool. He was a man of the people, for example, he was truthful, fair, not dictatorial, good-natured man, and could not insult anyone. Moreover, he had a natural look, pose and act and his ideas were clear, simple in words, but strong to win the hearts of the people. For example, he spoke and acted to convince individual people and masses. He was elegant and graceful in demonstrating his ideas for example; he sometimes used his right-hand to gesture with his long bony forefinger pointing out an idea or expressing a thought, whereas his thumb rested on his middle finger (Lincoln 2014).

Whenever Lincoln stood to give his speech, he offered a perceptible smile that lit up the faces of the audience and opened up a discussion in a splendid style to the infinite surprise of his friends. In most of his speeches, he would begin talking with his eyes zoomed and every movement he made allowed him to express his thoughts and ideas. This would make him involuntarily disappear all the consciousness of his uncouth appearance or even his unpleasant voice that sounded over the vast concourse; thus the audience would forget about his looks (Lincoln 2014).

Habits

During all his public speeches, Lincoln would stand with his both hands inserted down deep in the pockets of his trousers. He warmed up by giving the audience an appreciable smile that lit up their faces, whereby he would desert his hands from the pocket in order to enforce his ideas with awkward gestures. On other occasions, he would address the crowd with his hands placed behind him with his back part of his left hand resting on the palm of his right hand. As he proceeded with his speeches, he would move his hands to the front and interlock his fingers while running one thumb around the other (Lincoln 2014).

Sometimes Lincoln would also hang his hands by his side for a short-while. However, he was fond of using his right hand during his gestures, as well as his head to great a deal in speaking from one position to another in order to more emphatic and help in driving the idea home. More often than not, Lincoln had a habit of having lengthy public speeches. For example, most of his speeches lasted for two to three hours, but he was capable of wrapping in the attention of the whole audience by his perfect, eloquence and organized speech (Lincoln 2014).

Conclusion

Lincoln served the USA presidency for only four years from 1861 to 1865when he was assassinated. The assassination turned the light into darkness since no man could replace Lincoln’s personalities, desires, and the love for his country. He was a knowledgeable, kind, humble, trustworthy, and goal-oriented person who led not for his personal interest, but for the future of American people.

Work cited

Abraham Lincoln Online. Characteristics of Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings. Abraham Lincoln Online © 2014, accessed on 3^rd November 2014 from: http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/speaker.htm