Mary Todd Lincoln's faux pas (plural), worse, and much worse

[LincolnToddFan]

(06-13-2014 07:00 AM)BettyO Wrote:  Very well said, Joe!

I'm coming in late to this very interesting discussion and I'm of the very same opinion. These folk lived 150 years ago. Unless something was written down in a diary/journal by individuals, it's near impossible to pin down what they thought/said in a particular circumstance. People seem to avoid or miss the fact that the 19th Century held different values than do current times. People were different - yes, they were still people, but values and morals were strikingly different and a lot of modern writers/researchers/historians sometimes miss that.

It's extremely difficult to write when very little is recorded or written.

This is so true. I often think about my parents, who had a marriage that seemed incompatible to most of their friends and family, to use an understatement. Growing up in our home I saw a lot of dysfunction, chaos, yelling. I rarely witnessed any manifestation of affection or tenderness between them and I often wondered why they married at all. It was a cross between Al and Peg Bundy on "Married With Children" and Martha/George of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?." I am not exaggerating.

Just like Abe and Mary Lincoln,they could not have been more different. Dad was cerebral, bookish, undemonstrative. Mom was impulsive, frivolous, often abrasive, self-absorbed, obsessed with fashion and style. There was an 8/9 year difference of age.

Sound familiar?

Dad died prematurely at age 50 in 1982. Shortly before her own death four years ago she told me that on the last night of Daddy's life she sat by his hospital bed and they talked about their marriage from the beginning. From about 9pm until 3am when he lapsed into the final coma they discussed all the ways they had hurt one another for 23 years, speaking as honestly as they ever would to one another. They made amends, and the next day he died.

My mother seemed okay at first but was never really the same. I could never understand it. She was now free from the man who she had impulsively married at age 19. He had left her financially comfortable. She was, at age 42, young enough to make a better life with someone else. But she never remarried.

She died calling for him, according to the hospice nurse.

On the morning of her death one of their oldest and closest friends called me and said "Toia, you must never believe that your parents did not love one another. They did. I don't care how bad it looked to others, I was there in the beginning. I know for a fact they were crazy for one another. Don't try to understand it. Accept what I am telling you and move on".

I was stunned, but I have tried to do just that. This friend was a woman who's judgment and opinion I always valued.

I feel the same about the Lincolns. None of us shared their bed in Springfield or the WH. None of us-certainly not Burlingame-were privy to their innermost thoughts and feelings for each other. None of us know the secret of what made them love one another under circumstances most of us would find intolerable. But it's wrong to assume that because we can't accept something it isn't real.

[L Verge]

Toia and Joe,

Thanks for sharing some personal and beautiful thoughts on what makes humans human. I am really going to start a forest fire here, but I often think that women should write more history books (especially biographies)because they (in general) look for emotions and other ethereal factors that play into understanding the full personality of their subject(s). Hard, cold facts and statements, taken out of context from the world around the subject, paint a false picture and do a disservice.

[LincolnToddFan]

Laurie, you read my mind. I am not saying men can not have those qualities but there are some very intangible things that female historians often bring to the table when discussing the personal lives of historical figures.

This idea of "I think she was dreadful. I could not have dealt with such behavior. Therefore, another person MUST have felt the same way" does not take into account the nuances of human emotions and motivations.

[BettyO]

I'll take my life in my hands here and tune in - but I think you're right - Toia, Laurie and Joe.

Toia, thanks for a beautiful story - love can and does come in varying forms - but love IS still love and yes, your parents did love one another. Thanks so very much for sharing!

To get back to what both you and Laurie were saying - for some reason, I think that women (perhaps with an inborn nature to be maternal - who knows?!?) may be a sight more intutive when it comes to attempting to sort out emotions/feelings and personality in an individual. Not to sound sexist and say that men can't do the same - they most certainly can. But I think that women can somehow perhaps "read" certain qualities in an individual, and if historically, these same "qualities"; characteristics, personality quirks - call it what you may, can be backed up by other solid documentation, letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, what have you, than by all means, get to the bottom of it and utilize these characteristics to unravil an individual's personality the best you can. It's not easy but it can help to dig out a person's character perhaps.

[Linda Anderson]

(06-13-2014 01:19 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  [quote='Linda Anderson' pid='34120' dateline='1402584435']

You state above that you "don't think Burlingame gives enough credit to Lincoln for loving this difficult woman." Lincoln did the best he could in the marriage, the very best he knew how in dealing with this very difficult and highly insensitive woman right up to the very end of his life. He never abandoned her to uncontrolled and justifiable criticism from himself, although sometimes he had to walk away (and stay away) from her tirades...

Sometimes, Mary Todd Lincoln showed no consideration whatsoever for the difficulties and challenges that Abraham Lincoln faced as President of the United States in four years of Civil War. Lincoln did not have a well-deserved partner in marriage; he had a very difficult woman with whom he had to contend on many occasions.

From a woman's perspective, I should want to know how does such a highly-respected man "love" a difficult woman such as Mary Todd Lincoln?

David, I think I should rephrase my sentence to, "I don't think Burlingame gives enough credit to Lincoln for more than likely loving this difficult woman." After all, I don't know if Lincoln loved her, although it looks that way to me, and you don't know that he didn't. We can only guess. He certainly was very considerate and compassionate towards her.

Also, it seems to me that Lincoln was a "difficult" husband in that he spent a lot of time and energy on things other than Mary. I think that no matter how difficult Mary made Lincoln's life, and he made hers, she clearly loved him very much and he must have basked in that love.

"On Wednesday [April 12] Lincoln in his office wrote a little note to his wife, a loverlike note from a man long married..." Randall, Mary Lincoln: The Biography of a Marriage.

The following is from a letter from Mary Lincoln to Mary Jane Welles dated July, 11, 1865 describing that "little note."

"This morning, I have been looking over & arranging a large package of his dear, loving letters to me, many of them written to me, in the 'long ago,' and quite yellow with age, others, more recent & one written from his office, only the Wednesday before, a few lines, playfully & tenderly worded, notifying, the hour, of the day, he would drive with me!" Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters

So David, I can't answer your question about "how does such a highly respected man "love" a difficult woman such as Mary Todd Lincoln?" because it would involve knowing things about these two people, or any two people for that matter, that an outsider can never know.

All I know is that "Love is Strange." Cue Gene.

[LincolnToddFan]

Hi Linda-

So if Lincoln wrote the playful and affectionate note to his wife on Wednesday April 12th, it means he wrote it the morning after he gave the speech of April 11th from the window of the WH...the same speech during which Burlingame assures us that Mary and Clara Harris chattered loudly and humiliated the president, no?

How very true are the last two paragraphs of your post. Of course I can't say for sure but I honestly believe no one would be more surprised and offended at the charge that he did not love his own wife than AL himself.

[Gene C]

(06-13-2014 02:57 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  All I know is that "Love is Strange." Cue Gene.

And so is this music video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha5QUXk6Alg

Herndon & Burlingame might think this song is more appropriate in regards to Mary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NLjcWH6v6I

[Susan Higginbotham]

I looked up Burlingame's sources for the story about Mary and Clara chattering while Lincoln tried to give his speech. One is the October 7, 1867, Boston Daily Advertiser, which refers to Mary and a "gay party of ladies" in the window instead of just to Mary and Clara (and recounts the detail about Lincoln's pained look); the other is Clara's letter of April 29, 1865, in "We Saw Lincoln Shot," where she recalls standing at a window with Mary the night of the speech but doesn't mention herself or Mary drowning out the President. She adds that after the speech, the company went into Lincoln's room, where "Mrs. Lincoln declared the last few days to have been the happiest of her life."

Assuming that the Boston Daily Advertiser account, reported more than two years after the fact, is accurate, I don't see Mary as being insensitive here, just carried away by high spirits.

[L Verge]

The whole city of Washington had been in high spirits after the fall of Richmond and Lee's surrender. The professor chose to put a negative spin on this one sequence, perhaps?

[Eva Elisabeth]

Regarding A. L. appreciating Mary's support for his career, Jean Baker writes that Henry Whitney "recounted a similar incident in which Lincoln used the words of Macbeth...to acknowledge 'my dearest partner of greatness.'" (Pp.147-148, paperback ed.) I would love to learn the entire quote/account, but there's no footnote nor can I find it via Google. Does anyone know?

[Linda Anderson]

(06-14-2014 05:26 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Regarding A. L. appreciating Mary's support for his career, Jean Baker writes that Henry Whitney "recounted a similar incident in which Lincoln used the words of Macbeth...to acknowledge 'my dearest partner of greatness.'" (Pp.147-148, paperback ed.) I would love to learn the entire quote/account, but there's no footnote nor can I find it via Google. Does anyone know?

Eva, the quote is from Act I, Scene V. Lady Macbeth is reading a letter from Macbeth.

LADY MACBETH [Reads.]
1 "They met me in the day of success: and I have
2 learned by the perfect'st report, they have more in
3 them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire
4 to question them further, they made themselves air,
5 into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in
6 the wonder of it, came missives from the king, who
7 all-hailed me 'Thane of Cawdor'; by which title,
8 before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred
9 me to the coming on of time, with 'Hail, king that
10 shalt be!' This have I thought good to deliver
11 thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou
12 mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being
13 ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it
14 to thy heart, and farewell."

http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/macbeth/T15.html

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks Linda. Maybe I worded that badly, I was actually curious about the entire original Whitney account.

[Linda Anderson]

(06-14-2014 06:15 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Thanks Linda. Maybe I worded that badly, I was actually curious about the entire original Whitney account.

I should have realized what you meant, Eva, because the quotation from Macbeth is very easy to find via Google, as are interpretations of that line. It's amazing how often the Scottish play is referred to in the Lincoln story.

[Eva Elisabeth]

BTW - which was his favorite Shakespeare play? Macbeth or Hamlet? At least I know which is my favorite Shakespeare quote of the ones mentioned by A. L.: "There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough - hew them how we will" (Hamlet, act 5, scene 2)

[Linda Anderson]

(06-14-2014 07:28 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  BTW - which was his favorite Shakespeare play? Macbeth or Hamlet? At least I know which is my favorite Shakespeare quote of the ones mentioned by A. L.: "There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough - hew them how we will" (Hamlet, act 5, scene 2)
(And I wonder if he ever saw my favorite plays, "The Mercant of Venice" and Lessing's "Nathan the Wise"?)

According to this article, Macbeth was Lincoln's favorite play.

http://www.nhinet.org/beran.htm