Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN •71It was her desire for vengeance. "He had crushed her proudwomanly spirit," suggests Herndon, and "she felt degraded inthe eyes of the world: Love fled at the approach of revenge."She was always complaining, always criticizing her husband;nothing about him was ever right: He was stoopshouldered, hewalked awkwardly and lifted his feet straight up and down likean Indian. She complained that there was no spring to his step,no grace to his movements; and she mimicked his gait andnagged at him to walk with his toes pointed down, as she hadbeen taught at Madame Mentelle's.She didn't like the way his huge ears stood out at right anglesfrom his head. She even told him that his nose wasn't straight,that his lower lip stuck out, that he looked consumptive, thathis feet and hands were too large, his head too small.His shocking indifference to his personal appearance gratedon her sensitive nature, and made her woefully unhappy. "Mrs.Lincoln," says Herndon, "was not a wildcat without cause."Sometimes her husband walked down the street with one trouserleg stuffed inside his boot-top and the other dangling on theoutside. His boots were seldom blackened or greased. His collaroften needed changing, his coat frequently needed brushing.James Gourly, who lived next door to the Lincolns for years,wrote: "Mr. Lincoln used to come to our house, his feet encasedin a pair of loose slippers, and with an old faded pair oftrousers fastened with one suspender"—or "gallis" as Lincolnhimself called it.In warm weather he made extended trips "wearing a dirtylinen duster for a coat, on the back of which the perspirationhad splotched wide stains that resembled a map of the continent."A young lawyer who once saw Lincoln in a country hotel,getting ready for bed, and clad "in a home made yellow flannelnight shirt" that reached "halfway between his knees and hisankles," exclaimed, "He was the ungodliest figure I ever saw."He never owned a razor in his life, and he didn't visit a barberas frequently as Mrs. Lincoln thought he should.He neglected to groom his coarse, bushy hair, that stood outall over his head like horsehair. That irritated Mary Todd beyondwords, and when she combed it, it was soon mussed again,by his bank-book, letters,and legal papers, which he carried inthe top of his hat.One day he was having his picture taken in Chicago, and the