Lincoln & Herndon

[LincolnToddFan]

[Herndon IMO contradicted himself ]//quote

Eva, talk about an understatement. Here is what he wrote to Jesse Weik on Jan 9, 1886
".....This woman was to me a terror, haughty poor when she married Lincoln, imperious, proud, aristocratic, witty and bitter; she was a gross material woman as she appeared to me."

Then, this is what he wrote to Weik exactly one week later on Jan 16, 1886.
".....she was a highly cultured woman, witty, dashing, pleasant, and a lady".

(Both of the passages above are quoted from Emmanuel Hertz' The Hidden Lincoln, pgs #131 and 136)

So- was she a "gross material woman", or was she "pleasant...and a lady"?



Laurie-

Your question is an excellent one, even though I haven't thought much about the answer. But according to Linda Leavitt Turner, he showed up for his meeting with MTL at the St. Nicholas Hotel on September 5, 1866 reeking of alcohol which (understandably, imo) Mary found upsetting.
(pg#380..Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters)

When I started reading about the life of Abraham Lincoln many years ago at the age of around 12, I was indifferent to his wife. Then the more I read, I became intrigued. If she was so awful as so many people seemed to believe, what does it say about AL that he was attracted to her and decided to marry her? The more I read, the more information I gathered. Now all these years later weighing everything...both good and bad(some of it very bad indeed) I am absolutely convinced that many Lincoln scholars and historians have been grossly unfair to her. Some of it seems inspired by hero worship of AL, the idea that this perfect demigod deserved a goddess for a wife and unfortunately ended up with an uber flawed mortal woman instead.

And some of it(criticism) comes off as nothing less than misogyny.