"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count.

It's the life in your years" ~ Abraham Lincoln

During his 56 years on Earth, Abraham Lincoln had only 18 months of formal education. One of the most influential thinkers in American history, Lincoln was essentially self-taught. In addition to his reading of the law, the scope of Lincoln's interests ran the gamut -- from Aesop's Fables to the First Six Books of Euclid and everything in between.

The drive to learn and reason through a mastery of the written word is evident in Lincoln's prose. Like The Gettysburg Address, his writings were built on a foundation of classical knowledge and plain old common sense.

In the previous post about photographs of Lincoln at Gettysburg, Liz from Philadelphia reports that additional images may have been discovered. Wow, the President's stovepipe hat is quite prominent in the photo on the right. Thanks, Liz, for the clarification!

Now, one more thing about voracious readers: I've noticed (or maybe it's my imagination) that stitchers tend to be serious readers. Perhaps the same powers of concentration used in reading are applied to stitching -- such as, the ability to focus on a task for hours on end.

Or . . . is it simply that stitchers are a highly-evolved form of intelligent life, super-ably equipped to perform complex tasks beyond the ken of the General Population?

Yeah, I think that's it. :)