Читать книгу The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln - Francis F. Browne - Страница 13

Table of Contents

Lincoln again in Springfield—Back to the Circuit—His Personal Manners and Appearance—Glimpses of Home-Life—His Family—His Absent-Mindedness—A Painful Subject—Lincoln a Man of Sorrows—Familiar Appearance on the Streets of Springfield—Scenes in the Law-Office—Forebodings of a "Great or Miserable End "—An Evening with Lincoln in Chicago—Lincoln's Tenderness to His Relatives—Death of His Father—A Sensible Adviser—Care of His Step-Mother—Tribute from Her.

Retiring, somewhat reluctantly, from Washington life, which he seems to have liked very much, Lincoln returned to Springfield in 1849 and resumed the practice of the law. He declined an advantageous offer of a law-partnership at Chicago, made him by Judge Goodrich, giving as a reason that if he went to Chicago he would have to sit down and study hard, and this would kill him; that he would rather go around the circuit in the country than to sit down and die in a big city. So he settled down once more in the rather uneventful and fairly prosperous life of a country lawyer.

A gentleman who knew Lincoln intimately in Springfield, in his maturity, has given the following capital description of him. "He stands six feet four inches high in his stockings. His frame is not muscular, but gaunt and wiry; his arms are long, but not disproportionately so for a person of his height; his lower limbs are not disproportioned to his body. In walking, his gait, though firm, is never brisk. He steps slowly and deliberately, almost always with his head inclined forward and his hands clasped behind his back. In matters of dress he is by no means precise. Always clean, he is never fashionable; he is careless, but not slovenly. In manner he is remarkably cordial and at the same time simple. His politeness is always sincere but never elaborate and oppressive. A warm shake of the hand and a warmer smile of recognition are his methods of greeting his friends. At rest, his features, though those of a man of mark, are not such as belong to a handsome man; but when his fine dark gray eyes are lighted up by any emotion, and his features begin their play, he would be chosen from among a crowd as one who had in him not only the kindly sentiments which women love but the heavier metal of which full-grown men and Presidents are made. His hair is black, and, though thin, is wiry. His head sits well on his shoulders, but beyond that it defies description. It nearer resembles that of Clay than that of Webster; but it is unlike either. It is very large, and phrenologically well proportioned, betokening power in all its developments. A slightly Roman nose, a wide-cut mouth, and a dark complexion, with the appearance of having been weather-beaten, complete the description."

Of Lincoln's life at this period, another writer says: "He lived simply, comfortably, and respectably, with neither expensive tastes nor habits. His wants were few and simple. He occupied a small unostentatious house in Springfield, and was in the habit of entertaining, in a very simple way, his friends and his brethren of the bar during the terms of the court and the sessions of the Legislature. Mrs. Lincoln often entertained small numbers of friends at dinner and somewhat larger numbers at evening parties. In his modest and simple home everything was orderly and refined, and there was always, on the part of both Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, a cordial and hearty Western welcome which put every guest at ease. Yet it was the wit and humor, anecdote, and unrivalled conversation of the host which formed the chief attraction and made a dinner at Lincoln's cottage an event to be remembered. Lincoln's income from his profession was now from $2,000 to $3,000 per annum. His property consisted of his house and lot in Springfield, a lot in the town of Lincoln which had been given to him, and 160 acres of wild land in Iowa which he had received for his services in the Black Hawk War. He owned a few law and miscellaneous books. All his property may have been of the value of $10,000 or $12,000."

Lincoln was at this time the father of two sons: Robert Todd, born on the 1st day of August, 1843; and Edward Baker, born on the 10th of March, 1846. In a letter to his friend Speed, dated October 22 of the latter year, Lincoln writes: "We have another boy, born the 10th of March. He is very much such a child as Bob was at his age, rather of a longer order. Bob is 'short and low,' and I expect he always will be. He talks very plainly, almost as plainly as anybody. He is quite smart enough. I sometimes fear he is one of the little rare-ripe sort that are smarter at about five than ever after. He has a great deal of that sort of mischief that is the offspring of much animal spirits. Since I began this letter a messenger came to tell me Bob was lost; but by the time I reached the house his mother had found him and had him whipped. By now, very likely, he is run away again."

December 21, 1850, a third son, William Wallace, was born to him; and on April 4, 1853, a fourth and last child, named Thomas.

"A young man bred in Springfield," says Dr. Holland, "speaks of a vision of Lincoln, as he appeared in those days, that has clung to his memory very vividly. The young man's way to school led by the lawyer's door. On almost any fair summer morning he would find Lincoln on the sidewalk in front of his house, drawing a child backward and forward in a little gig. Without hat or coat, wearing a pair of rough shoes, his hands behind him holding to the tongue of the gig, and his tall form bent forward to accommodate himself to the service, he paced up and down the walk forgetful of everything around him and intent only on some subject that absorbed his mind. The young man says he remembers wondering in his boyish way how so rough and plain a man should happen to live in so respectable a house. The habit of mental absorption, or 'absent-mindedness' as it is called, was common with him always, but particularly during the formative periods of his life. The New Salem people, it will be remembered, thought him crazy because he passed his best friends in the street without seeing them. At the table, in his own family, he often sat down without knowing or realizing where he was, and ate his food mechanically. When he 'came to himself' it was a trick with him to break the silence by the quotation of some verse of poetry from a favorite author. It relieved the awkwardness of the situation, served as a 'blind' to the thoughts which had possessed him, and started conversation in a channel that led as far as possible from the subject that he had set aside."

Mr. Lamon has written with great freedom of the sorrow that brooded over Lincoln's home. Some knowledge of the blight which this cast upon his life is necessary for a right interpretation of the gloomy moods that constantly oppressed him and left their indelible impress on his face and character. Mr. Lamon states unreservedly that Lincoln's marriage was an unhappy one. The circumstances preceding his union with Miss Todd have been related. Mr. Lamon says: "He was conscientious and honorable and just. There was but one way of repairing the injury he had done Miss Todd, and he adopted it. They were married; but they understood each other, and suffered the inevitable consequences. Such troubles seldom fail to find a tongue; and it is not strange that in this case neighbors and friends, and ultimately the whole country, came to know the state of things in that house. Lincoln scarcely attempted to conceal it. He talked of it with little or no reserve to his wife's relatives, as well as to his own friends. Yet the gentleness and patience with which he bore this affliction from day to day and from year to year was enough to move the shade of Socrates. It touched his acquaintances deeply, and they gave it the widest publicity." Mrs. Colonel Chapman, daughter of Dennis Hanks and a relative of Lincoln, made him a long visit previous to her marriage. "You ask me," says she, "how Mr. Lincoln acted at home. I can say, and that truly, he was all that a husband, father, and neighbor should be, kind and affectionate to his wife and child ('Bob' being the only one they had when I was with them), and very pleasant to all around him. Never did I hear him utter an unkind word."

It seems impossible to arrive at all the causes of Lincoln's melancholy disposition. He was, according to his most intimate friends, totally unlike other people—was, in fact, "a mystery." But whatever the history or the cause—whether physical reasons, the absence of domestic concord, a series of painful recollections of his mother, of early sorrows and hardships, of Anne Rutledge and fruitless hopes, or all these combined—Lincoln was a terribly sad and gloomy man. "I do not think that he knew what happiness was for twenty years," says Mr. Herndon. "'Terrible' is the word which all his friends used to describe him in the black mood. 'It was terrible! It was terrible!' said one to another." Judge Davis believes that Lincoln's hilarity was mainly simulated, and that "his stories and jokes were intended to whistle off sadness." "The groundwork of his social nature was sad," says Judge Scott. "But for the fact that he studiously cultivated the humorous, it would have been very sad indeed. His mirth always seemed to me to be put on; like a plant produced in a hot-bed, it had an unnatural and luxuriant growth." Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's law-partner and most intimate friend, describes him at this period as a "thin, tall, wiry, sinewy, grizzly, raw-boned man, looking 'woe-struck.' His countenance was haggard and careworn, exhibiting all the marks of deep and protracted suffering. Every feature of the man—the hollow eyes, with the dark rings beneath; the long, sallow, cadaverous face intersected by those peculiar deep lines; his whole air; his walk; his long silent reveries, broken at long intervals by sudden and startling exclamations, as if to confound an observer who might suspect the nature of his thoughts—showed he was a man of sorrows, not sorrows of to-day or yesterday, but long-treasured and deep, bearing with him a continual sense of weariness and pain. He was a plain, homely, sad, weary-looking man, to whom one's heart warmed involuntarily because he seemed at once miserable and kind."

Mr. Page Eaton, an old resident of Springfield, says: "Lincoln always did his own marketing, even after he was elected President and before he went to Washington. I used to see him at the butcher's or baker's every morning, with his basket on his arm. He was kind and sociable, and would always speak to everyone. He was so kind, so childlike, that I don't believe there was one in the city who didn't love him as a father or brother." "On a winter's morning," says Mr. Lamon, "he could be seen wending his way to the market, with a basket on his arm and at his side a little boy whose small feet rattled and pattered over the ice-bound pavement, attempting to make up by the number of his short steps for the long strides of his father. The little fellow jerked at the bony hand which held his, and prattled and questioned, begged and grew petulant, in a vain effort to make his father talk to him. But the latter was probably unconscious of the other's existence, and stalked on, absorbed in his own reflections. He wore on such occasions an old gray shawl, rolled into a coil and wrapped like a rope around his neck. The rest of his clothes were in keeping. 'He did not walk cunningly—Indian-like—but cautiously and firmly.' His tread was even and strong. He was a little pigeon-toed; and this, with another peculiarity, made his walk very singular. He set his whole foot flat on the ground, and in turn lifted it all at once—not resting momentarily upon the toe as the foot rose nor upon the heel as it fell. He never wore his shoes out at the heel and the toe, as most men do, more than at the middle. Yet his gait was not altogether awkward, and there was manifest physical power in his step. As he moved along thus, silent and abstracted, his thoughts dimly reflected in his sharp face, men turned to look after him as an object of sympathy as well as curiosity. His melancholy, in the words of Mr. Herndon, 'dripped from him as he walked.' If, however, he met a friend in the street, and was roused by a hearty 'Good-morning, Lincoln!' he would grasp the friend's hand with one or both of his own, and with his usual expression of 'Howdy! howdy!' would detain him to hear a story; something reminded him of it; it happened in Indiana, and it must be told, for it was wonderfully pertinent. It was not at home that he most enjoyed seeing company. He preferred to meet his friends abroad—on a street-corner, in an office, at the court-house, or sitting on nail-kegs in a country store." Mrs. Lincoln experienced great difficulty in securing the punctual attendance of her husband at the family meals. Dr. Bateman has repeatedly seen two of the boys pulling with all their might at his coat-tails, and a third pushing in front, while paterfamilias stood upon the street cordially shaking the hand of an old acquaintance.

After his breakfast-hour, says Mr. Lamon, he would appear at his office and go about the labors of the day with all his might, displaying prodigious industry and capacity for continuous application, although he never was a fast worker. Sometimes it happened that he came without his breakfast; and then he would have in his hands a piece of cheese or bologna sausage, and a few crackers, bought by the way. At such times he did not speak to his partner, or his friends if any happened to be present; the tears perhaps struggling into his eyes, while his pride was struggling to keep them back. Mr. Herndon knew the whole story at a glance. There was no speech between them, but neither wished the visitors at the office to witness the scene. So Lincoln retired to the back office while Mr. Herndon locked the front one and walked away with the key in his pocket. In an hour or more the latter would return and perhaps find Lincoln calm and collected. Otherwise he went out again and waited until he was so. Then the office was opened and everything went on as usual.

"His mind was filled with gloomy forebodings and strong apprehensions of impending evil, mingled with extravagant visions of personal grandeur and power. He never doubted for a moment that he was formed for some 'great or miserable end.' He talked about it frequently and sometimes calmly. Mr. Herndon remembers many of these conversations in their office at Springfield and in their rides around the circuit. Lincoln said the impression had grown in him all his life; but Mr. Herndon thinks it was about 1840 that it took the character of a 'religious conviction.' He had then suffered much, and considering his opportunities he had achieved great things. He was already a leader among men, and a most brilliant career had been promised him by the prophetic enthusiasm of many friends. Thus encouraged and stimulated, and feeling himself growing gradually stronger and stronger in the estimation of 'the plain people' whose voice was more potent than all the Warwicks, his ambition painted the rainbow of glory in the sky, while his morbid melancholy supplied the clouds that were to overcast and obliterate it with the wrath and ruin of the tempest. To him it was fate, and there was no escape or defense. The presentiment never deserted him. It was as clear, as perfect, as certain as any image conveyed by the senses. He had now entertained it so long that it was as much a part of his nature as the consciousness of identity. All doubts had faded away, and he submitted humbly to a power which he could neither comprehend nor resist. He was to fall—fall from a lofty place and in the performance of a great work."

On one occasion Lincoln visited Chicago as counsel in a case in the U.S. District Court. The Hon. N.B. Judd, an intimate friend, was also engaged upon the case, and took Mr. Lincoln home with him as a guest. The following account of this visit is given by Mrs. Judd in Oldroyd's Memorial Album: "Mr. Judd had invited Mr. Lincoln to spend the evening at our pleasant home on the shore of Lake Michigan. After tea, and until quite late, we sat on the broad piazza, looking out upon as lovely a scene as that which has made the Bay of Naples so celebrated. A number of vessels were availing themselves of a fine breeze to leave the harbor, and the lake was studded with many a white sail. I remember that a flock of sea-gulls were flying along the beach, dipping their beaks and white-lined wings in the foam that capped the short waves as they fell upon the shore. Whilst we sat there the great white moon appeared on the rim of the eastern horizon and slowly crept above the water, throwing a perfect flood of silver light upon the dancing waves. The stars shone with the soft light of a midsummer night, and the breaking of the low waves upon the shore added the charm of pleasant sound to the beauty of the night. Mr. Lincoln, whose home was far inland from the great lakes, seemed greatly impressed with the wondrous beauty of the scene, and carried by its impressiveness away from all thought of jars and turmoil of earth. In that mild, pleasant voice, attuned to harmony with his surroundings, as was his wont when his soul was stirred by aught that was lovely or beautiful, Mr. Lincoln began to speak of the mystery which for ages enshrouded and shut out those distant worlds above us from our own; of the poetry and beauty which was seen and felt by seers of old when they contemplated Orion and Arcturus as they wheeled, seemingly around the earth, in their nightly course; of the discoveries since the invention of the telescope, which had thrown a flood of light and knowledge on what before was incomprehensible and mysterious; of the wonderful computations of scientists who had measured the miles of seemingly endless space which separated the planets in our solar system from our central sun, and our sun from other suns. He speculated on the possibilities of knowledge which an increased power of the lens would give in the years to come. When the night air became too chilling to remain longer on the piazza we went into the parlor. Seated on the sofa, his long limbs stretching across the carpet and his arms folded behind him, Mr. Lincoln went on to speak of other discoveries, of the inventions which had been made during the long cycles of time lying between the present and those early days when the sons of Adam began to make use of material things about them and invent instruments of various kinds in brass and gold and silver. He gave us a short but succinct account of all the inventions referred to in the Old Testament, from the time when Adam walked in the garden of Eden until the Bible record ended, 600 B.C. I said, 'Mr. Lincoln, I did not know you were such a Bible student.' He replied: 'I must be honest, Mrs. Judd, and tell you just how I come to know so much about these early inventions.' He then went on to say that in discussing with some friend the relative age of the discovery and use of the precious metals he went to the Bible to satisfy himself and became so interested in his researches that he made memoranda of the different discoveries and inventions. Soon after, he was invited to lecture before some literary society, I think in Bloomington. The interest he had felt in the study convinced him that the subject would interest others, and he therefore prepared and delivered his lecture on The Age of Different Inventions. 'Of course,' he added, 'I could not after that forget the order or time of such discoveries and inventions.'"

In all the years that had passed since Lincoln left his father's humble house, he had preserved an affectionate interest in the welfare of its various members. He paid them visits whenever he could find opportunity, and never failed to extend his aid and sympathy whenever needed. He had risen to success in his profession, was widely known throughout his section, and though still a poor man he had good prospects and considerable influence. Yet he ever retained a considerate regard and remembrance for the poor and obscure relatives he had left plodding in the humble ways of life. He never assumed the slightest superiority to them. Whenever, upon his circuit, he found time, he always visited them. Countless times he was known to leave his companions at the village hotel after a hard day's work in the court-room and spend the evening with these old friends and companions of his humbler days. On one occasion, when urged not to go, he replied, "Why, Aunt's heart would be broken if I should leave town without calling upon her,"—yet he was obliged to walk several miles to make the call. As his fortunes improved he often sent money and presents to his father and step-mother, bought land for them, and tried in every way to make them comfortable and happy. The father was gratified at these marks of affection, and felt great pride in the rising prosperity of his son. Mr. Herndon says that "for years Lincoln supported or helped to support his aged father and mother. It is to his honor that he dearly loved his step-mother, and it is equally true that she idolized her step-son. He purchased a piece of property in Coles County as a home for his father and mother, and had it deeded in trust for their use and benefit."

In 1851 Lincoln's father died, at the age of seventy-three. The following letter, written a few days before this event, reveals the affectionate solicitude of the son: