Trivial Trivia - taking trivia to new levels

[David Lockmiller]

(01-27-2019 04:56 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  [Gurowski] had been employed in the State Department as a translator, I believe, but had quarrelled with Mr. Seward and was discharged. This caused him to pursue Lincoln, Seward, and Sumner with bitter hatred. The curious will find in a published diary of his a fantastic classification of his enemies. The President he rated as "third-class," according to his estimate of statesmanlike qualities.

From this man Gurowski, and from him alone, Mr. Lincoln really apprehended danger by a violent assault, although he knew not what the sense of fear was like. Mr. Lincoln more than once said to me: "So far as my personal safety is concerned, Gurowski is the only man who has given me a serious thought of a personal nature. From the known disposition of the man, he is dangerous wherever he may be. I have sometimes thought that he might try to take my life. It would be just like him to do such a thing."

Wikipedia entry for Gurowski has a different assessment of Gurowski's opinion of Lincoln. I would go with Lincoln's beliefs.

From 1861 to 1863, he was translator in the State Department in Washington D.C., being acquainted with eight languages.In 1862, he published the first volume of his three-volume Diary. It included three categories of men: Praise, Half and Half and Blame. President Abraham Lincoln merited the Praise column, as did Edwin M. Stanton and poet Walt Whitman, but otherwise Gurowski was highly critical of officials in the Lincoln administration.

William O’Connor, who translated some of the count’s papers into English, described him as “a madman with lucid intervals.” Whitman wrote, "He knew every thing & growled & found fault with everybody—but was always very courteous to me."

Count Gurowski died in May 1866 and was buried in Congressional Cemetery. Whitman considered the tempestuous count a friend and attended his funeral. “His funeral was simple but very impressive—all the big radicals were there,” Whitman wrote.