Chapter 10 No.10

A president is not permitted to have smallpox but I have a mild case, nonetheless. Bed is a poor spot to keep up a diary. What can I say, this Wednesday? That I have been reading Shakespeare? I have not. That I have read the newspapers? I have not. During bouts of fever I let myself return to other days; I see a woman in a log cabin bending over an open fire. I smell bacon frying. Deep in the night I hear a hermit thrush. Its sorrowful sound assumes great beauty. I have a feeling I am in the wilderness, that wilderness almost Christ-like, benefi-cent.

December 12, '63

Desk

Documents. My pigeonholes are bulging.

In a few days I will feel all right.

I miss our green-shuttered house in Springfield. It seems much farther than 1700 miles away, and it seems more than nineteen years since we bought it-back in '44. We Lincolns were proud of that home. I liked the fireplace in the parlor on snowy nights. I liked the comfortable rockers and the black hair settee. Mary worked hard to sew and tailor the drapes. Her touches were everywhere. Yet, when we moved to Washington, she ruled out everything that was personal.

"Leave things...till we return." Then we rented our place. What will it be when we do return?

And she threw away a pair of my old boots.

Willie, Bob and Ted packed their toys, kites, drums, bats. How Willie stormed when he was told he could not take every single toy.

When Mary and I married, I had three words engraved on her wedding rings: Love is Eternal.

I had not reckoned with death.

Evening

I would like to have opportunities for meditation. Surely the bettering of life has to come from within. I would like to steal an hour or two every day. The only time I can steal is at night, when the White House is wrapped in memories. Then, candle or lamp beside, a fire in the fireplace, I hunt for inner balance. Per-haps the candles go out. Perhaps the fire goes out. I wait for connections, maybe wilderness connections or connections with the prairie, connections with perceptions that can become new. I may be able to use those perceptions in my day-to-day.

Library

This evening I have re-read some Volney, that old French scholar and trav-eler; this analysis strikes me forcibly:

Man in his blindness has riveted his own chains, and surrendered himself forever, without defense, to the sport of his ignorance and passions. To dis-solve such fatal chains, a miraculous concurrence of happy circumstances would be necessary: a whole nation, cured of the delirium of super-stition, must be inaccessible to the impulse of fanaticism...this people should be cou-rageous and prudent...

Sound advice for these times! When are we prudent? What, beside the pas-sage of time, years of peace, will evolve prudence? Is war a kind of superstition? I have thought so. Certainly it is a delirium.

I see the Library has a copy of Volney's Travels in Syria and Egypt. I have asked for a copy.

Evening

In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it.

The Anns and the boys with their Bibles.

The White House

As I study the office wall map of the war zones I am afflicted by partial blindness. The name Fredericksburg blurs. I hear myself saying: I have made a covent to free the slaves. I hear General McClellan say: "We must declare a truce to bury our dead." Alexandria, Fairfax, Sharpsburg, Harper's Ferry, Spotsylvania. That peculiar blindness continues, focuses now on faces I have loved, her face, the face of a friend in Springfield, the stairway leading to my law office, my children playing on the street in front of my home, riding in their little red wagon...

I am not a cartographer of war; however I surpass some of my gallant mili-tary officers. Their logistics have led to useless slaughter. Hellish bungling, I call it. But that blindness intrudes: I am surveying a piece of property near Salem, it seems.

What if this was a map of the entire world? What if I were in command? What then?

I hear my mother speak to me:

"Abe, shall we go out now and plant those squash seeds?"

W.H.

How are we to establish labor relations in the North and in the South? I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails under which laborers can strike when they want to, where they are not obliged to work under all circumstances, and are not tied down and obliged to labor whether you pay them or not! I like the system which lets a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might prevail every-where. In mill and cottonfield there has to be a leveling, hours, pay, conditions. We have to regulate a work week.

The White House

December 16, 1863

Thomas Jefferson was a great man, but no great American keeps slaves, and Jefferson had two hundred. Call it custom, excuse it as custom; yet not every wealthy man kept slaves.

I admire the Adams family: their racial integrity stands out, their intelligent diplomacy. The relationship with foreign nations is often a delicate one; the Adams succeeded-their statesmanship stands out.

Recently men have asked me to comment about George Washington. I declined. I sympathize with his problems but I can not get deeper into the man. History does not always afford us ample means for fair judgment.

Thirty-three states oppose eleven states in this conflict. If I were to ask a citi-zen of Europe which entity he might support I think the answer would be the state group with the largest population and greatest wealth, surmising that these advantages would bring about a definite resolution. However, in this conflict, the gamble is also a moral gamble. With this moral issue in mind we must pursue a sane course of action for everyone in this country, a course of action that must embody prolonged patience.

The White House

December 29, '63

I met Harriet Beecher Stowe the other day, and liked her. We sat in front of my white fireplace and she said she loved a fireplace, and I said I liked one too-that we had a couple of them at home. She said she wrote a lot of her Uncle Tom in front of her fireplace; then she asked me friendly questions about Springfield, the people, the town.

I shared my conviction that writing has a lasting influence. I tried to make her realize what books have meant to me. I am afraid I reminisced too much about what I had read. She nodded very pleasantly and did not say much; wrapped in a blue shawl she seemed more like a tired housewife than a person dedicated to writing and the rights of man.

I told her how I used to do my three r's before our cabin fireplace. Silence came between us. In spite of myself I forgot my guest; I could see a long road in summertime; I was walking along that road; I had borrowed Weems and stopped to read; I sat down on a culvert; a frog appeared; there were trees, fields of grass, yet I was in the midst of history.

When she rose to say "good-bye" I was startled.