Lincoln's Melancholy

[RJNorton]

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."