Lincoln's Melancholy

[Eva Elisabeth]

(10-09-2016 12:22 PM)L Verge Wrote:  That sounds like a normal state of being for many people -- not clinical depression like some modern authors try to persuade us that Lincoln suffered from.

As I have stated many times, I am not well-read on Lincoln the man; but the references that I have seen to his up-and-down moods have even made me wonder if, what his "analysts" are describing as depression-oriented, was more like a "brooding" state that he would go into where he wanted to be alone to figure out his next move in life, solutions for legal cases he was involved in, how to change the world, etc. -- Sort of a Greta Garbo syndrome?

Abraham Lincoln indirectly hinted at this himself - Ruth Painter Randall wrote: “The two younger boys were so devoted to each other it was almost as hard for Willie to witness Tad’s tears as it was for Mr. Lincoln. He looked on sorrowfully at their father’s failure to bring Tad out of his woe, then lapsed into an absorbed silence which lasted for ten or fifteen minutes. He was evidently trying hard to think of some way he could cheer Tad up. Mr. Lincoln was watching Willie and making sure that no one disturbed his mental concentration. Finally Willie clasped both hands together, shut his teeth over his lower lip, and looked up into his father’s face with a smile. Mr. Lincoln had been waiting for this. ‘There!’ he exclaimed. ‘You have it now, my boy, have you not?’ Then turning to a guest who was at the breakfast table he explained, ‘I know every step of the process by which that boy arrived at his satisfactory solution of the question before him, as it by just such slow methods I attain results.”