Lincoln's Melancholy

[davg2000]

(10-10-2016 03:47 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  I think his face had a lot to do with how others viewed him. William Herndon said, "The perpetual look of sadness was his most prominent feature." Francis B. Carpenter, the artist who lived in the White House for part of 1864, said of Lincoln, "I have said repeatedly to friends that Mr. Lincoln had the saddest face I ever attempted to paint." Joshua Speed said of his first meeting Lincoln, "As I looked up at him I thought then, and think now, that I never saw a sadder face."

I've really never thought that Lincoln was "mentally ill," but, instead, that melancholy was merely his nature. Centuries ago, humans were understood by the four humors of blood, yellow bile (yellow choler), black bile (black choler, also known as melancholy), and phlegm. All people were thought to have these bodily fluids in some proportion individual and correct to them. Someone ill might have an imbalance in his blend of the humors. Although no one views illness this way today, it was also believed that a person might be well yet predisposed to a certain humor; one might be sanguine, choleric, melancholy, or phlegmatic. We view these now as traits. Someone who is moody, sometimes depressed, silent for long periods, thoughtful, might today be understood as simply melancholy. Maybe Lincoln was just being Lincoln.