One of Abraham Lincoln’s stories told on the ‘circuit’ in Illinois (From Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals):
Another story, relayed years later by John Usher, centered on a man “who had great veneration for Revolutionary relics.” Learning that an old woman still possessed a dress “she had worn in the Revolutionary War,” he traveled to her house and asked to see it. She took the dress from a bureau and handed it to him. He was so excited that he brought the dress to his lips and kissed it. “The practical old lady rather resented such foolishness over an old piece of wearing apparel and she said: ‘Stranger, if you want to kiss something old you had better kiss my ass. It is sixteen years older than that dress.’ ”
