Lincoln & Herndon

[L Verge]

(07-08-2014 06:14 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  ...for a used copy IMO still too much, regarding the last "used" copy I ordered consisted of single pages in an awful condition...But nevertheless thanks, I decided to give the "used" status another try, and it was indeed possible to order this one (for 20€ ~ 26$ altogether compared to a 1cent book...). But I'm just too anxious for this book now...

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(07-08-2014 12:51 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Has anyone ever delved into Mary's disposition before she married Mr. Lincoln? From what I have read, she seems to have been popular and even the belle of the ball. Has anyone ever considered that the sharp turn her life took once she married the wandering prairie lawyer (loneliness, raising children alone, economic problems that she had not had before, maybe being around a different class of people) caused her to change emotionally?

I think Evans (a physician) is one who did this pretty well, his "Mrs. A. Lincoln" is online here (though I'd recommend the printed edition):
http://archive.org/stream/mrsabrahamlinc...p_djvu.txt

Here are some key passages:
"Mrs. Edwards wrote of him [A. Lincoln] at that period: 'Lincoln could not hold a lengthy conversation with a lady; was not sufficiently educated and intelligent in the female line to do so.'
...She [Mary] attracted men and had ample opportunities for gauging them. Before long, she decided that of the many young men in Springfield she preferred Lincoln, a decision that did not meet with the unanimous approval of her family and friends. In fact, on more than one occasion she was called on to defend her choice, and her customary way of doing so was to say that he was to be president of the United States.
...It was not easy for one reared as she had been, in a roomy house with a large family and servants. Edgar Lee Masters, describing one of her Springfield homes as shabby, added : 'And here the daughter of the Kentucky banker abode for some time to come, with Lincoln.' To add to all this was that atmosphere of hostility or 'back-fence gossip' about intimate household conditions which enters so largely into the 'Springfield tradition.'
...It is not in accord with social practice for people to maintain a society status when, for financial and other reasons, they cannot keep up their end...When the Lincolns moved from the large Edwards house to live at the Globe Hotel; next, to a modest, rented house on Monroe Street; and, later, to the twelve-hundred-dollar home of their own it was too much to expect the small city aristocrats to continue to have an acute interest in them. Her sisters did, and by this time Ann had married C. M. Smith and joined Elizabeth, Frances, and Mary in Springfield. So did the Edwardses, the Todds, and the Stuarts; but not the general run of the society element. Charles Arnold is quoted by B. F. Stoneberger as saying: 'Mrs. Edwards was the social leader of Springfield and she gave fine parties. Mrs. Lincoln was poor and she resented the way people passed her by. She was hurt and envious.' If Mrs. Lincoln went to any parties or participated in any social affair or public function in Springfield in this period, there is no record of the fact."

Evans' analysis of the first decade after marriage reads:
"It almost summarizes her social activities during this period to say that Mrs. Lincoln lived quietly in her home economizing, doing without luxuries, bearing and rearing children, attending to domestic duties, paying some attention to politics, but otherwise letting the world go by.

A casting-up of the record of this decade shows that Mrs. Lincoln came through it reasonably well. Her training had been for a position in a fairly idle, rather glamorous, social world. She had had no training for motherhood except what little she had absorbed in her father's home. She had had no training in the conduct of a home where there were no slaves, rarely more than one servant, and often none a home run on very thrifty lines and supported by a slender income. Her training for society had not equipped her for the kind of social intercourse to which she was then limited. There was a social isolation which she did not understand and which her type of mind resented. She had been compelled to live simply and to do without things, but that had not hurt her character."

Thanks, Eva. I think Dr. Evans and I see eye-to-eye.