Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN•91despair that he took no notice of those who met him and spoketo him. Occasionally he shook hands with people without knowingwhat he was doing.Jonathan Birch, who all but worshiped Lincoln's memory,says:When attending court at Bloomington, Lincoln wouldkeep his hearers in the court room, office or on the streetconvulsed with laughter at one hour and the next hour beso deeply submerged in speculation that no one daredarouse him. ... He would sit in a chair tilted against thewall, his feet on the lower rung, legs drawn up and kneeslevel with his chin, hat tipped forward, hands claspedabout knees, eyes infinitely sad, the very picture of dejectionand gloom. Thus absorbed I have seen him sit forhours at a time, defying the interruption of even his closestfriends.Senator Beveridge, after studying Lincoln's career perhapsmore exhaustively than any one else has ever done, came tothe conclusion that "the dominant quality in Lincoln's life from1849 to the end was a sadness so profound that the depths of itcannot be sounded or estimated by normal minds."Yet Lincoln's inexhaustible humor, his amazing capacity fortelling stories, were as striking and inseparable a part of his personalityas his sadness.At times Judge Davis even stopped court to listen to hisboisterous humor."Crowds thronged about him, crowds of two hundred andthree hundred," says Herndon, holding their sides and laughingthe hours away.One eye-witness declares that when Lincoln reached the"nub" of a good story, men "whooped" and rolled off theirchairs.Those who knew Lincoln intimately agreed that "his abysmalsadness" was caused by two things: his crushing political disappointmentsand his tragic marriage.And so the poignant years of apparently permanent politicaloblivion dragged by—six of them—and then suddenly an eventoccurred that altered the whole course of Lincoln's life, andstarted him toward the White House.The instigator and moving spirit behind this event was MaryLincoln's old sweetheart, Stephen A. Douglas.