> r 4 > JS 5 O > x Abraham Lincoln's Personality Melancholy Excerpts from newspapers and other sources From the files of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection -?/.«>o«i.oer.03 tW qualities came from this broad-minded MOIiBID TRAITS IN LINCOLN. un- I known Virginian." "His words and laitn. ne neia Kobert Dalb Nothing in the history of Abraham Lin- mel- 1 Owen's theory ancholy tone made a deep that men are absolutely coln's life is more interesting than his pro- impression on me," governed by thei'r says Mr. Herndon. motives, and, logical tound melancholy—a trait as.deeply wrought There is the same mel- as he was at times, there ancholy tone is no evidence Into the character In a letter Lincoln wrote the that it ever occurred to of the man as his master- I him that next year (January 7, men's motives change ing quality of ambition. His law partner and 1851) in rcspome to a with their lives; summons to the death-bed that, therefore, men friend, Mr. W. H. Herndon of Springfield,' of the shiftless can and do govern thpir Thomas Lincoln, for motives by their lives. has made public a mass of evidence in his bi- whom ho had bought a He was a Fatalist, farm In Coles County, Illinois. believing that men are ography of Lincoln which will do much to "Say to him powerless to suspend that if wo could meet any natural law acting shape the judgment of posterity on the true now it Is doubtful if it on their intellectual would not be more and moral natures. character of this remarkable man. painful than pleasant," he Always introspective, and wrote, after advising that he never an observer of nature, The old poets of the classic civilization in- should com- he never was able volved the mend himself to "a Merciful Meker." Thi3, to apply-to intellect or morals deepest truths in their myths, as , the ^duressed tOTnJyimr fatne^~Beems"Deartlps8- inference from the If taunting with them the blindness of man- perpetual process of ne3S, but Lincoln was never the suspension of kind. It is in this spirit that the great thinker heartless. What one law of nature reason for it he concealed in by another through who illustrated the startling inconsistencies bis deep self- the agency of consciousness will never be human will in the of human^ character by sincerely seeking known. It Is activities of hu- known that Thomas Lincoln man life. The Providence, truths while serving as pander to Nero, has was worse than he believed a step-father in i to him, but there is no was a Providence of fatal sn treated the myth of the descent of one of evidence law, and living Whatever of maliciousness In the his life of moods-moods the old heroes into character of of emotion ; moods hell—a descent necessary J of logic; ! Abhaham Ltncoln,. Ho could inflict moods of deep depression, In order that he might attain heaven ("iu- pain on succeeded by ' Others, but only as a result of logic the exaltation of a fixed and fcrna tetegtt posset ut suptra adsequi"). If when he ambitious pur- was in his logical mood. In his emotiona' pose, he died as he believed he jever a living man "descended Into hell" it was "fated" to mood he inflicted on himself the dio. wasTLiNCOLN. No man was ever lew "equal- deepest men- tal anguish. Such characters minded." That quality of common sense he have not been rare in the Naturally, in such a history of the lacked altogether. There are no common- man, emotionalism is human family. Selfconscious- most marked in his relations ness and the habit of sensible people in the ninth circle of the in- with women. introspection exDlain His love for Ante Rotledoe many of their ferno, which was so familiar to him. That was an emotion peculiarities that would be which "carried, him away;' otherwise unexplainable. majority of people in the world whose rule of completely—to life makes common sense have providen- use the Saxon instead of the Latin expression tially some such mental safc-gnard against of the result of emotion. Hot death fixed on deep and bitter thought as aquatic fowls have him the deep melancholy he could never iu the oil bag, by means of the secretions of shake off, but it is characteristic of his moods which they that the next can come out of the water, not . year, while his friends were unwetted, but with only surface moisture, to still fearing he might kill himself, he made be.sliaken off with a turn of the body and an offer of marriage to two other ladies. After expansion of the wings. Lincoln had no his failure to appear on the day set for the such mental organ. "The waves of his wedding with Miss Todd, his condition was trouble" penetrated him. The common-senso probably worse than it ever was before equanimity, without which the world would or afterwards. He himself described it as "a be either a mad house or the arena for the hell" of suffering. As he was recovering from constant struggle of mad ambition, he lacked it on a farm in Kentucky where bi3 friends altogether. lie went from extreme to ex- seclnded him, he gave a glimpse of hi9 self- treme. ' consciousness which explains much in his Jt&y, , ^ ^ - £ ^ ? M Common-sense '/brewdness he had in a character, "If what I feeL" he wrote, wero marked degree. ^He understood men, per- equally distributed to the whole human fam- haps, because he underwent more than the ily, there would not be a cheerful face on average suffertntr from what is averago earth." And shortly afterwards he declared human weakness—emotionalism. If his that he had done nothing to make any human whole life was not a struggle between a brain being remember that he had lived, and that capablo of deep calculation and always in- what he desired to live for was to link his clined to shrewdness, and those feelings name forever with some great event. •which move men out of themselves, unbal- "Beware what you ask," the French say, ance them and make them pathetic, then the "for the gods will give it to you." Lincoln's evidence of his life, as it is presented by the ambition mastered his emotion. He had friend from whom he concealed least, must written a communication on "Suicide" to a be rejected. local paper. When his biographers, years One cause of the deep melancholy, verging afterwards, looked in the only file of the pa- insanity, on to which he was subject seem9 to per to find it, it had been cat out. Lincoln, have been a sense of the obscurity of hi3 the politician, did not propose that Lincoln, origin weighing down against his ambition. the man, should interfere overmuch in poli- How far he believed or disbelieved the tics. stories ab6ut his birth does not • fully The marriage with Miss Todd made his appear, but he was conscious in himsolf of moods of gloom a fixed habit. His biographer qualities he could not account for as derived describes his married life as "years of self- from his putative ancestry. In a converstv- torture and sacrificial pangs." He would tion with Mr. Herndon, in 1850, he reckoned leave his home at daylight, go to his law over these qualities, mentioning among them office and 9it there silently, "doubled power of logic, a faculty of analysis, mental up," with his feet higherthan his head,filling activity and ambition. He believed in hered- the room with such intense gloom that his ity and breeding, and he believed that these partner would be driven out to escape the qualities "distinguished him from the other unbearable oppression. Three or four hours members later, and descendants of the Hanks (his going from extreme to extreme, he mother's) family." would sitting Curiously enough, it does be on the Court House steps, not seem to have occurred to him to search keeping a crowd of "loungers" in a roar with for them In the Lincoln family. He took his jokes—Lincoln jokes, the obscenity of into account only his maternal parentage, and Which his biographer is able to excuse on the told Mr. Herndon that his mother was "the ground of their pith and their illustration of Illegitimate daughter human of Lucy Hanks and a nature. J well-bred Virginia farmer or planter." "He As the comfort of home was wholly denied IRI u h i believed that his bctter_nnture ana finer him, so he denied himself the comfort of LINCOLN'S SADNBBB. Journal. Indianapolis • The • . From . f, Boone County Republicans celebrated Lincoln's • Birthday with a banquet In Lochlnvar Hall. One o£ the most Interesting speeches delivered was that of General Wallace. The address dealt for the most of the great part with personal reminiscences . emancipator. In' concluding his remarks he said: "I will tell you at this time of an incident which I have never before made public. I do not know that It Is. proper, but the man whom It Is about is gone, and I will relate It. I had made an engage- ment with "Lincoln to call at the White House and present: two women who desired to meet him. The time set for the call was 11 a. m. At the appointed hour I presented myself. In company with the women. As I Was ushered in I saw at the further erid of the ldng room the tall form of Lincoln lean-' lng against a window.