And in a previous letter to Stuart, dated January 20, Lincoln says:
I have, within the last few days, been making a most
discreditable exhibition of myself in the way of
hyochondriacism and thereby got an impression that
Dr. Henry is necessary to my existence. Unless he
gets that place he leaves Springfield. You therefore
see how much I am interested in this matter.
The “matter” is getting Dr. Henry appointed as Postmaster, at Springfield, so he can be around to keep tinkering with Lincoln in order to keep him alive. In other words, Lincoln, at that point in his life, was on the verge of suicide or insanity or both together.
Sitting there in the Seattle public library with all the reference books spread out around me, I came to the conclusion that Lincoln was what they now call a manic-depressive psychotic.
The most interesting comment is made by the Britannica, and goes as follows:
All his life long there was a certain remoteness
in him, a something that made him not quite a
realist, but which was so veiled by apparent
realism that careless people did not perceive it.
He did not care whether they perceived it or not,
was willing to drift along, permitting circumstances
to play the main part in determining his course and
not stopping to split hairs as to whether his
earthly attachments sprang from genuine realistic
perceptions of affinity or from approximation more
or less to the dreams of his spirit.
And then the Britannica commences on the part about Ann Rutledge. It also adds this:
They reveal the profound sensibility, also the
vein of melancholy and unrestrained emotional
reaction which came and Went, in alternation
with boisterous mirth, to the end of his days.
Later, in his political speeches, he engaged in biting sarcasm, a trait, I discovered after research, found in manicdepressives. And the alternation of “boisterous mirth” with “melancholy” is the basis of the manic-depressive classification.
But what undermines this diagnosis of mine is the following ominous note.
Reticence, degenerating at times into secretiveness,
is one of his fixed characteristics.
And:
His capacity for what Stevenson called “a large and
genial idleness” is worth considering.
But the most ominous part of all deals with his indecision. Because that isn’t a symptom of manic-depression; that’s a symptom–if it’s a symptom at all–of the introverted psychosis. Of schizophrenia.
It was now five-thirty in the afternoon, time for dinner; I was stiff and my eyes and head ached. I put the reference books away, thanked the librarian, and made my way out onto the cold, wind-swept sidewalk, in search of a place to eat dinner.
Clearly, I had asked Maury for the use of one of the deepest, most complicated humans in history. As I sat in the restaurant that evening eating dinner–and it was a good dinner–I mulled it over in my mind.
Lincoln was exactly like me. I might have been reading my own biography, there in the library; psychologically we were as alike as two peas in a pod, and by understanding him I understood myself.
Lincoln had taken everything hard. He might have been remote, but he was not dead emotionally; quite the contrary. So he was the opposite of Pris, of the cold schizoid type. Grief, emotional empathy, were written on his face. He fully felt the sorrows of the war, every single death.
So it was hard to believe that what the Britannica called his “remoteness” was a sign of schizophrenia. The same with his well-known indecision. And in addition, I had my own personal experience with him–or to be more exact, with his simulacrum. I didn’t catch the _alienness_, the otherness, with the simulacrum that I had caught with Pris.
I had a natural trust and liking for Lincoln, and that was certainly the opposite to what I felt toward Pris. There was something innately good and warm and human about him, a vulnerability. And I knew, by my own experience with Pris, that the schizoid was not vulnerable; he was withdrawn to safety, to a point where he could observe other humans, could watch them in a scientific manner without jeopardizing himself. The essence of someone like Pris lay in the matter of distance. Her main fear, I could see, was of closeness to other people. And that fear bordered on suspicion of them, assigning motives to their actions which they didn’t actually have. She and I were so different. I could see she might switch and become paranoid at any time; she had no knowledge of authentic human nature, none of the easy, day-to-day encounter with people that Lincoln had acquired in his youth. In the final analysis, that was what distinguished the two of them. Lincoln knew the paradoxes of the human soul, its great parts, its weak parts, its lusts, its nobility, all the oddshaped pieces that went to make it up in its almost infinite variety. He had bummed around. Pris–she had an ironclad rigid schematic view, a blueprint, of mankind. An abstraction. And she lived in it.
No wonder she was impossible to reach.
I finished my dinner, left the tip, paid the bill, and walked back outside onto the dark evening sidewalk. Where now? To the motel once more. I attracted a cab and soon I was riding across town.
When I reached the motel I saw lights on in my room. The manager hurried out of his office and greeted me. “You have a caller. My god, he sure does look like Lincoln, like you said. What is this, a gag or something? I let him in.”
“Thanks,” I said, and went on into the motel room. There, in a chair, leaning back with his long legs stuck out before him, sat the Lincoln simulacrum. He was engrossed, unaware of me; he was reading the Carl Sandburg biography. Beside him on the floor rested a little cloth bag: his luggage.
“Mr. Lincoln,” I said.
Presently he glanced up, smiled at me. “Good evening, Louis.”
“What do you think of the Sandburg book?”
“I have not yet had time to form an opinion.” He marked his place in the book, closed it and put it aside. “Maury told me that you are in grave difficulty and required my presence and advice. I hope I have not arrived too lately on the scene.”
“No, you made good time. How did you like the flight from Boise?”
“I was taken with astonishment to observe the fast motion of the landscape beneath. We had hardly risen, when we were already here and landing; and the shepherdess told me that we had gone over a thousand miles.”
I was puzzled. “Oh. Stewardess.”
“Yes. Forgive my stupidity.”
“Can I pour you a drink?” I indicated the beer, but the simulacrum shook its head no.
“I would prefer to decline. Why don’t you present me with your problems, Louis, and we will see at once what is to be done.” With a sympathetic expression the simulacrum waited to hear.
I seated myself facing him. But I hesitated. After what I had read today I wondered if I wanted to consult him after all. Not because I did not have faith in his opinions–but because my problem might stir up his own buried sorrows. My situation was too much like his own with Ann Rutledge.
“Go ahead, Louis.”
“Let me fix myself a beer, first.” With the opener I set to work on the can; I fooled with that for a time, wondering what to do.
“Perhaps I should speak, then. During my trip from Boise I had certain meditations on the situation with Mr. Barrows.” Bending, he opened his overnight bag and brought out several lined pages on which he had written in pencil. “Do you desire to put great force to bear against Mr. Barrows? So that he will of his own will send back Miss Frauenzimmer, no matter how she may feel about it?”
I nodded.
“Then,” the simulacrum said, “telephone this person.” He passed me a slip of paper; on it was a name.
SILVIA DEVORAC
I could not for the life of me place the name. I had heard it before but I couldn’t make the connection. –
“Tell her,” the simulacrum went on softly, “that you would like to visit her in her home and discuss a matter of delicacy. A topic having to do with Mr. Barrows. . . that will be enough; she will at once invite you over.”
“What then?”
“I will accompany you. There will be no problem, I think. You need not resort to any fictitious account with her; you need only describe your relationship with Miss Frauenzimmer, that you represent her father and that you have profound emotional attachments toward the girl yourself.”
I was mystified. “Who is this Silvia Devorac?”
“She is the political antagonist of Mr. Barrows; it is she who seeks to condemn the Green Peach Hat housing which he owns and from which he derives enormous rents. She is a socially-inclined lady, given to worthy projects.” The simulacrum passed me a handful of newspaper clippings from Seattle papers. “I obtained these through Mr. Stanton’s assistance. As you can see from them, Mrs. Devorac is tireless. And she is quite astute.”