Lincoln endures. I have a new biography in hand, A. Lincoln by Ronald C. White. I’m excited to begin. I wonder what he’ll bring to Lincoln, what he’ll offer, what he’ll attribute, how he’ll try to humanize him.
I've been trying to understand Abraham Lincoln for quite a while. I read my first biography of him when I was a boy, and he has been my hero ever since. It sounds funny to me, odd, for an adult to have a hero, but it’s true. When a significant new biography of Lincoln comes out, I usually manage to get my hands on it pretty quickly. I never tire of reading the basic facts of his life and I love the nuances that almost always lead to the same conclusions. I haven’t read anything new lately. I think the last one I read was by David Herbert Donald. It was magnificent. With my apologies to a great writer, a Lincoln biography written well can’t help but be magnificent.
In my mind, my father shared the heroic pedestal with Honest Abe for a long time, but Dad had a natural advantage; he was flesh and blood and loved me personally. We hugged each other. He grew up in a poor family in a small Midwestern town, was a proud descendant of William Bradford, was farmed out by his parents for money at an early age, performed very well in school, worked on the Mississippi River, left home, fell in love with and married my mother, put himself through college while in the service, sired nine children and gave up his own financial security in the process, started and ran his own business for decades, expressed his opinions comfortably, taught me how to camp and hunt, gave me his great spelling genes and his easy smile, failed at one or two very important things and survived. That was the nub of what he taught me. He learned his lessons and grew. Ultimately, he changed; it wasn’t easy, life’s lessons can be hard to face, but he did and as a result, he changed and that was also the essence of Lincoln. Learn. Acknowledge. Change.
For a long time I thought my father and Lincoln looked alike. Dad was tall, his face was weathered and lined, but other than those few similarities, they didn't look alike at all. Not really. Dad was bald, but much better looking, especially as a young man when compared to the recently discovered photo of Lincoln in which he appears haughty and possibly even conniving, much like a Dickensian villain. Yet Lincoln grew into his face right up to the end when in the last photos taken shortly before his assassination, his expression spills over with love and compassion. His eyes seem to embrace, understand, forgive and even see deep into the future; after all he looks directly into my soul two hundred years after he was born.
Is that fair? Can a few photographs reveal the soul of a man so thoroughly? If he had not risen from poverty, had not fought the Civil War, penned the Emancipation Proclamation, delivered the Gettysburg address, had not been murdered at the height of his success would I see love and sadness in his eyes? Does everyone see what I see, or is it simply that I need the tales and personality, the power and the myth, his willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice more than do other people? Is it possible that now when both men are dead that Lincoln loves me as much as my father loves me? I think so. In fact I think that in some ways Lincoln loves me more.
When I’m feeling small, unsafe, my father’s ready smile and big warm hands are talismans of memory that I can conjure to feel more secure. When I am demoralized by the latest political scandal or the degradation of politics in general, Lincoln rejuvenates my hope. These days politicians on the left and on the right seem to fall all over themselves to embrace Lincoln, to be seen as his heir. It’s a sign of recognition, an acknowledgement that there is a transcendent ideal that at least inspires voters if not the politicians themselves. Because of that, Lincoln has almost as much impact on my day-to-day life as my father’s warm smile and ready hand.
So I will read this 676 page tome with great interest and try to look at Lincoln anew, but I don’t really expect to find anything new. It never fails, a writer intends to tell us about Lincoln the man, and publisher’s blurbs proclaim the latest insights, Lincoln resurrected, but inevitably the author ends by telling us how unlike other men he was and confirms what we already believe. Lincoln was a better man.
I also want to be a better man, but I’ve always been slow to give up my own misconceptions, so I’ll go on reading the biographies, looking for a way into Lincoln that I can pass on to my children. After all, they should know their father.
I've been trying to understand Abraham Lincoln for quite a while. I read my first biography of him when I was a boy, and he has been my hero ever since. It sounds funny to me, odd, for an adult to have a hero, but it’s true. When a significant new biography of Lincoln comes out, I usually manage to get my hands on it pretty quickly. I never tire of reading the basic facts of his life and I love the nuances that almost always lead to the same conclusions. I haven’t read anything new lately. I think the last one I read was by David Herbert Donald. It was magnificent. With my apologies to a great writer, a Lincoln biography written well can’t help but be magnificent.
In my mind, my father shared the heroic pedestal with Honest Abe for a long time, but Dad had a natural advantage; he was flesh and blood and loved me personally. We hugged each other. He grew up in a poor family in a small Midwestern town, was a proud descendant of William Bradford, was farmed out by his parents for money at an early age, performed very well in school, worked on the Mississippi River, left home, fell in love with and married my mother, put himself through college while in the service, sired nine children and gave up his own financial security in the process, started and ran his own business for decades, expressed his opinions comfortably, taught me how to camp and hunt, gave me his great spelling genes and his easy smile, failed at one or two very important things and survived. That was the nub of what he taught me. He learned his lessons and grew. Ultimately, he changed; it wasn’t easy, life’s lessons can be hard to face, but he did and as a result, he changed and that was also the essence of Lincoln. Learn. Acknowledge. Change.
For a long time I thought my father and Lincoln looked alike. Dad was tall, his face was weathered and lined, but other than those few similarities, they didn't look alike at all. Not really. Dad was bald, but much better looking, especially as a young man when compared to the recently discovered photo of Lincoln in which he appears haughty and possibly even conniving, much like a Dickensian villain. Yet Lincoln grew into his face right up to the end when in the last photos taken shortly before his assassination, his expression spills over with love and compassion. His eyes seem to embrace, understand, forgive and even see deep into the future; after all he looks directly into my soul two hundred years after he was born.
Is that fair? Can a few photographs reveal the soul of a man so thoroughly? If he had not risen from poverty, had not fought the Civil War, penned the Emancipation Proclamation, delivered the Gettysburg address, had not been murdered at the height of his success would I see love and sadness in his eyes? Does everyone see what I see, or is it simply that I need the tales and personality, the power and the myth, his willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice more than do other people? Is it possible that now when both men are dead that Lincoln loves me as much as my father loves me? I think so. In fact I think that in some ways Lincoln loves me more.
When I’m feeling small, unsafe, my father’s ready smile and big warm hands are talismans of memory that I can conjure to feel more secure. When I am demoralized by the latest political scandal or the degradation of politics in general, Lincoln rejuvenates my hope. These days politicians on the left and on the right seem to fall all over themselves to embrace Lincoln, to be seen as his heir. It’s a sign of recognition, an acknowledgement that there is a transcendent ideal that at least inspires voters if not the politicians themselves. Because of that, Lincoln has almost as much impact on my day-to-day life as my father’s warm smile and ready hand.
So I will read this 676 page tome with great interest and try to look at Lincoln anew, but I don’t really expect to find anything new. It never fails, a writer intends to tell us about Lincoln the man, and publisher’s blurbs proclaim the latest insights, Lincoln resurrected, but inevitably the author ends by telling us how unlike other men he was and confirms what we already believe. Lincoln was a better man.
I also want to be a better man, but I’ve always been slow to give up my own misconceptions, so I’ll go on reading the biographies, looking for a way into Lincoln that I can pass on to my children. After all, they should know their father.
