第39章 THE STRANGE NEW MAN(1)

There is a period of sixteen months--from February,1861,to a day in June,1862,--when Lincoln is the most singular,the most problematic of statesmen.Out of this period he issues with apparent abruptness,the final Lincoln,with a place among the few consummate masters of state-craft.During the sixteen months,his genius comes and goes.His confidence,whether in himself or in others,is an uncertain quantity.At times he is bold,even rash;at others,irresolute.The constant factor in his mood all this while is his amazing humility.He seems to have forgotten his own existence.As a person with likes and dislikes,with personal hopes and fears,he has vanished.He is but an afflicted and perplexed mind,struggling desperately to save his country.A selfless man,he may be truly called through months of torment which made him over from a theoretical to a practical statesman.He entered this period a literary man who had been elevated almost by accident to the position of a leader in politics.After many blunders,after doubt,hesitation and pain,he came forth from this stern ordeal a powerful man of action.

The impression which he made on the country at the opening of this period was unfortunate.The very power that had hitherto been the making of him--the literary power,revealing to men in wonderfully convincing form the ideas which they felt within them but could not utter--this had deserted him.Explain the psychology of it any way you will,there is the fact!The speeches Lincoln made on the way to Washington during the latter part of February were appallingly unlike himself.His mind had suddenly fallen dumb.He had nothing to say.The gloom,the desolation that had penetrated his soul,somehow,for the moment,made him commonplace.When he talked--as convention required him to do at all his stopping places--his words were but faint echoes of the great political exponent he once had been.His utterances were fatuous;mere exhortations to the country not to worry."There is no crisis but an artificial one,"he said.[1]And the country stood aghast!

Amazement,bewilderment,indignation,was the course of the reaction in many minds of his own party.Their verdict was expressed in the angry language of Samuel Bowles,"Lincoln is a Simple Susan."[2]

In private talk,Lincoln admitted that he was "more troubled about the outlook than he thought it discreet to show."This remark was made to a "Public Man,"whose diary has been published but whose identity is still secret.Though keenly alert for any touch of weakness or absurdity in the new President,calling him "the most ill-favored son of Adam Iever saw,"the Public Man found him "crafty and sensible."In conversation,the old Lincoln,the matchless phrase-maker,could still express himself.At New York he was told of a wild scheme that was on foot to separate the city from the North,form a city state such as Hamburg then was,and set up a commercial alliance with the Confederacy."As to the free city business,"said Lincoln,"well,I reckon it will be some time before the front door sets up bookkeeping on its own account."[3]

The formal round of entertainment on his way to Washington wearied Lincoln intensely.Harassed and preoccupied,he was generally ill at ease.And he was totally unused to sumptuous living.Failures in social usage were inevitable.New York was convulsed with amusement because at the opera he wore a pair of huge black kid gloves which attracted the attention of the whole house,"hanging as they did over the red velvet box front."At an informal reception,between acts in the director's room,he looked terribly bored and sat on the sofa at the end of the room with his hat pushed back on his head.

Caricatures filled the opposition papers.He was spoken of as the "Illinois ape"and the "gorilla."Every rash remark,every "break"in social form,every gaucherie was seized upon and ridiculed with-out mercy.

There is no denying that the oddities of Lincoln's manner though quickly dismissed from thought by men of genius,seriously troubled even generous men who lacked the intuitions of genius.And he never overcame these oddities.During the period of his novitiate as a ruler,the critical sixteen months,they were carried awkwardly,with embarrassment.Later when he had found himself as a ruler,when his self-confidence had reached its ultimate form and he knew what he really was,he forgot their existence.None the less,they were always a part of him,his indelible envelope.At the height of his power,he received visitors with his feet in leather slippers.[4]

He discussed great affairs of state with one of those slippered feet flung up on to a corner of his desk.A favorite attitude,even when debating vital matters with the great ones of the nation,is described by his secretaries as "sitting on his shoulders"--he would slide far down into his chair and stick up both slippers so high above his head that they could rest with ease upon his mantelpiece.[5]No wonder that his enemies made unlimited fun.And they professed to believe that there was an issue here.When the elegant McClellan was moving heaven and earth,as he fancied,to get the army out of its shirt-sleeves,the President's manner was a cause of endless irritation.