He acknowledged that he could not always trust to this, but was generally guided by it and found he got along very well with it. Sometimes, however, he did make a mistake, as when on one occasion he had talked to a man for half an hour as though he was a hotel keeper, and found out afterward that he was a preacher.
Through all this conversation there had run an undercurrent of whimsicality, partly, no doubt, the conscious effort ofa sorely tried mind to gain a few minutes’ respite from its pressing cares, but none the less showing a keen and deep-seated appreciation of the funny side of life. Only once did this humor forsake him, and that was when Lincoln spoke of Tad. The little boy had been playing quietly by himself all the time—apparently he was as much at home in the Cabinet Room as in any other part of the White House—and Lincoln told me Tad had been sick and that it worried him.
Then he put his head in both his hands, looked down at the table, and said, “No man ought to wish to be President of the United States!”
Still holding his head in his hands, he said to me, “Young man, do not take a political office unless you are compelled to; there are times when it is heart-crushing!”
He said he had thought how many a mother and father had lost their children in the war—just boys.
“And I am so anxious about my Tad,I cannot help but think how they must feel. If Tad had died—”
He grew very sad; for a few minutes his face was gloomy, and it seemed as though half a sob was coming up in his throat.
Lincoln was not one of those men who go to the extremes of grief or the extremes of joy; but other people have told me, as I myself now saw, that when there came to him that seizure of deep sadness he had to fight himself for a few minutes to overcome it. This impressed me that day very deeply. Breaking off abruptly from what he had been talking about—war and Artemus Ward—and speaking suddenly of Tad, he had dropped down in that dejected position, and for a few minutes looked so sad I thought something awful must suddenly have come to his mind. But it seemed, after all, to be only the fear that Tad, who was not very well, might die. Who can say what vistas of thought that idea may have opened.
Tomany persons it seemed incongruous that there should be any thought, motive, or taste in common between Abraham Lincoln and the droll Artemus Ward. Indeed, the great biographers of Lincoln have either ignored the existence of Ward or have referred to him very sparingly. Yet no visitor at the White House seemed more welcome than Ward during Lincoln’s administration. Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, and Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War, were said to disapprove of Ward’s frequent visits, and it was whispered to Mrs. Ames, correspondent of theIndependent, that Lincoln hinted to Ward that it might be best to time his visits so as to occur when Mrs. Lincoln was not at home. But it was a matter of common gossip in “NewspaperRow” that there was a strong and true friendship between the care-burdened President and the fun-making showman, whose real name was Charles Farrar Browne.
The strange contrast in their abilities, their dispositions, and their careers puzzled the amateur psychoanalysts of that day. Was it merely an example of the attraction of opposites? Lincoln was strong, athletic, and enduring; Ward was weak, lazy, and changeable. Lincoln loved work; Ward took the path of least resistance. Lincoln was a moderate eater and lived firmly up to his principles as a teetotaler; Ward drank anything sold at a bar and sometimes was too intoxicated to appear at his “wax-figger show.” Lincoln loved the classics and was a good judge of literature; Ward seldom read a classic translation. Lincoln saved money and could carefully invest it; Ward would not take the trouble to collect his own salary, and never was known to make aninvestment. Lincoln laughed often, and on rare occasions laughed long and loud; Ward never laughed in public and in his funniest moods never even smiled. Lincoln’s sad face, when in repose, touched a chord of sympathy in the souls of those who knew him best. Yet Hingston, who was Ward’s best friend, said that Ward’s cold stare awoke at once cyclones of riotous laughter in his audiences. Lincoln was a great patriotic leader of men and wielded the power of a monarch; Ward was a quiet citizen, who loved his country, but had no desire for power or for battles. Strong contrasts these. Yet in a deep and sincere friendship they were agreed.
Of the few cheerful things which entered Lincoln’s life in those troubled and gloomy times, the one which he enjoyed most was Ward’s “Show.” He thought this was the most downright comical thing that had ever been put before the public, and he laughed heartily even as he described it. Ward had a nondescript collection ofstuffed animals which he exhibited upon the stage; he told the audience he found it cheaper to stuff the animals once than to keep stuffing them continually. They consisted at one time of a jack-rabbit and two mangy bears. He had also a picture of the Western plains—the poorest one he could find. He would say, “The Indians in this picture have not come along yet.”
One always expected him to lecture about his animals, but he never did; in fact, he scarcely mentioned them. His manner was that of an utter idiot, and his blank stare, when the audience laughed at something he had said, was enough in itself to send the whole hall into paroxysms of mirth. Lincoln said to me that day, “One glimpse of Ward would make a culprit laugh when he was being hung.”
No doubt one reason why Lincoln felt kindly toward Ward was because the latter was “most unselfishly trying to keep people cheerful in a most depressing time. He and Nasby,” the President said, “arefurnishing about all the cheerfulness we now have in this country.” (Petroleum V. Nasby, it will be remembered, was the pen name taken by David Ross Locke in his witty letters from the “Confedrit Crossroads.”)
The humor of Ward may seem crude to us now, but in the dark days of ’64 it took something more potent than refined wit to make people laugh—just as it took a series of ludicrous and not overrefined drawings to make England laugh in 1916; and it must be borne in mind that while Ward’s sayings were homely and sometimes savored strongly of the frontier, they were never coarse or insinuating.
But after all, the best way to learn what Lincoln really thought of Ward was to ask him, and I did exactly that. Also, I was careful to give close heed to his words, that I might be able to write them down immediately afterward. This, to the best of my recollection, was what Lincoln said:
“I was told the other day by a Congressmanfrom Maine that Ward was driven partly insane in his early life by the drowning of his intended bride in Norway Lake. I could feelthatin Ward’s character somehow before I was told about it. Ward seems at times so utterly forlorn.
“Nothing draws on my feelings like such a calamity. I knew what it was once. Yes! Yes! I know all about it. One never gets away from it. I must ask Ward to tell me all about his trouble sometime. I think that is what makes him so sad in appearances. Ward never laughs himself, unless he thinks it is his duty to make other people laugh. He is surely right about that.
“Perhaps Ward’s whisky drinking is all an attempt to drown his sorrow. Who knows? It is a mighty mistake to go to drink for comfort. I should suppose the memory of the woman, if she was one worth while, would keep him from such a foolish habit. I’ve been right glad that I let the stuff alone. There was plenty of it about.
“Ward told me one day that he took to funny work as a makeshift for a decent living; and that he found it to be an honest way to go about doing good. I would have done that myself if I had not found harder work at the law.
“I have agreed with many people who think that Ward should be in some trade or writing books. But I don’t know about it. He has a special kind of mind, and, rightly used, he would make an excellent teacher of mental science. In one way of looking at it his life is wasted. But if he refreshes and cheers other people as he does me, I can’t see how he could make a better investment of his life. I smile and smile here as one by one the crowd passes me to shake hands, until it is a week before my face gets straight. But it is a duty.I could defeat our whole army to-morrow by looking glum at a reception or by refusing to smile for three consecutive hours.[2]Ward says he carries a bottle of sunshine in ‘theother pocket,’ to treat his friends. I like that idea.
“Ward is dreadfully misunderstood by a lot of dull people. They insist on taking him seriously. An old lady in Baltimore held me up one night after I had told some of Artemus Ward’s remarks, and she may not have forgiven me yet. I told his tale of the rich land out in Iowa, where the farmer threw a cucumber seed as far as he could and started out on a run for his house. But the cucumber vine overtook him and he found a seed cucumber in his pocket.
“At that the old lady opened her eyes and mouth, but made no remark. Once more I tried her, by telling how Ward knew a lady who went for a porous plaster and the druggist told her to place it anywhere on her trunk. Not having a trunk or box in the house, she put it on her bandbox, and the next day reported that it was so powerful that it drew her pink bonnet all out of shape.
“That was more than the conscientious old saint could stand, and after supper she called me aside and told me that I ought to know that man Ward, or whoever it was, ‘was an out-and-out liar.’
“That makes me think of a colored preacher who worked here on the grounds through the week, and who loved the deep waters of theology in which he floundered daily. One evening I asked him why he did not laugh on Sunday, and when he said it was because it was ‘suthin’ frivlus,’ I told him that the Bible said God laughed.
“The old man came to the door several days after that and said, ‘Marse Linkum, I’ve been totin’ dat yar Bible saying “God larfed,” and I’ve ’cluded dat it mus’ jes’ tak’ a joke as big as der universe ter mak God larf. Dar ain’t no sech jokes roun’ dis yere White House on Sunday.’
“Well, let us get back to Ward and beginde novo. And, by the way, that was the first Latin phrase I ever heard. But I likeWard, because all his fun and all his yarns are as clean as spring water. He doesn’t insinuate or suggest approval of evil. He doesn’t ridicule true religion. He never speaks slightingly or grossly of woman. He is a one-hundred-carat man in his motives. I am often accredited with telling disgraceful barroom stories, and sometimes see them in print, but I have no time to contradict them. Perhaps people forget them soon. I hope so. I don’t know how I came by the name of a storyteller. It is not a fame I would seek. But I have tried to use as many as I could find that were good so as to cheer up people in this hard world.
“Ward said that he did not know much about education in the schools, but he had an idea the training there was more to make the child think quickly and think accurately than to memorize facts. If that were the case he thought a textbook on bright jokes would be a valuable addition to a school curriculum.
“Ward’s sharp jokesdodiscipline the mind. Ward told Tad last summer that Adam wassnakedout of Eden, and that Goliath was surprised when David hit him because such a thing never entered his head before. Ward told Mr. Chase that his father was an artist who was true to life, for he made a scarecrow so bad that the crows brought back the corn they had stolen two years before. Ward believes that the riddles of Sampson, the fables of Æsop, the questions of Socrates, and sums in mathematics are all mind awakeners similar in effect to the discipline of real humor.”
Knowing that Lincoln had suffered a nearly fatal heart blow in his youth through the tragic death of his first love, I was interested, years after this interview with the President, to learn that there had been a startling occurrence of a very similar nature in the early life of Ward. This has been almost universally overlooked. Even his most intimate friends, includingRobertson, Hingston, Setchell, Coe, Carleton, and Rider, make no mention of the tragic death of one of Ward’s earliest girl friends, Maude Myrick, then residing with relatives in Norway, Maine. The township of Norway adjoins Waterford, where Ward was born, and where he lived until he was nineteen. None of Ward’s biographers give details of his early life on the farm, and none appear even to have heard of Maude Myrick.
In 1874 a reporter of the BostonDaily Travelerwas sent to Waterford to find the living neighbors of Ward’s family and write a sketch of the village and people. In the report the barest mention was made of Maude Myrick. It stated that a cousin of Ward’s remembered that his early infatuation for a girl in the adjoining township “broke him all up” when she was accidentally drowned at the inlet of Norway Lake. Search for her genealogy at this late date seems vain. Ward appears never to have mentioned her name but onceafter her death, and that was on his own dying bed. The only allusion possibly concerning her that he ever made was a brief note in an autograph album, preserved in Portland, Maine, in which he wrote: “As for opposites; the happiest place for me is Tiffin, and the saddest is a bridge over the Norway brook.”
If the historian could be sure that the vague rumor was fact and that the country lass and the farmer’s son were lovers, that the place of her sudden death at the bridge over the inlet to Norway Lake, halfway between their homes, was their trysting place, it would make clear the chief reason for Abraham Lincoln’s tender interest in Artemus Ward. That fact would also account in a large degree for Ward’s eccentric, inimitable humor. All the great humorists from Charles Lamb to Josh Billings were broken-hearted in their youth. Great geniuses have often been developed by the same sad experience. It often costs much to be truly great.
Previous to his sixteenth year the life of Charles Farrar Browne was that of a New England country boy with parents who were industrious, honest, and poor. The family needs were not of the extreme kind which are found in the slums of the city, but existence depended on incessant toil and the most critical economy. Squire Browne, the father of the future “Artemus Ward,” was a farmer who could also use surveying instruments with the skill of New England common sense.
His mother was a strong, industrious woman of the Pilgrim Fathers stock. She encouraged home study and made the long winter evenings the occasion for moral and mental instruction. The district school was of little use to her children, as they could “outteach the teacher.” But Charlie was educated beyond his years by the books which his parents brought into the home. At fifteen years of age, his father having died two years previously, he was sent to Skowhegan, Maine, to learn thetrade of a printer in the office of the SkowheganClarion.
His parents had not intended that he should be permanently a printer; the inability to care for the growing boy at home evidently induced them to seek a trade for him by which he could earn a living while studying for the ministry. But the tragic events or the unaccountable mental revolution of those unrecorded years turned away all the hopes of his parents and sent his soul into rebellion against such a career. Nevertheless, a deep good nature remained intact and the altruistic qualities of his disposition proved to be permanent. He wrote to Shillabar (“Mrs. Partington”) of Boston that “the man who has no care for fun himself has more time to cheer up his neighbors.” The only thing that ever cheered Ward into chuckling laughter was to meditate by himself on the effect of a squib or description he was composing on “some old codger on a barrel by the country grocery.”
Ward was never contented or fully happy. He traveled about from place to place, often leaving without collecting his wages. He was a typesetter and reporter at Tiffin, Ohio, at Toledo, and at Cleveland. When Mr. J. W. Gray of the ClevelandPlain Dealersecured Ward’s services as a reporter, Ward was twenty-four years old and thought to be hopelessly indolent by his previous employer. He soon became known as “that fool who writes for thePlain Dealer”; and his comic situations and surprising arguments were soon the general theme of conversation in the city. He was famous in a month.
It was there and then that he assumed the pen name of Artemus Ward. He began to give his humorous public talks in 1862 and was successful from the first evening. His writings forVanity Fair, New York, and all his lectures were clearly original. He could never be accused of plagiarism or imitation. Indeed, no one on earth could repeat his lectures with success orequal Ward in continual fun making. He often assumed the role of an idiot, but at the same time made the wisest observations and the cutest sarcasms. His appearance on the stage even before he made his mechanical nod was greeted with loud, hearty, and prolonged laughter. The saddest forgot his sorrow, the most sedate gentleman began to shake, and the crusty old maid broke out into the Ha! Ha! of a girl of sixteen.
We may read Ward’s writings and feel something of his absurd humor when we recall his posture as he stated solemnly that his wife’s feet “were so large that her toes came around the corner two minutes before she came along”; but to feel the full force of the absurdity one needs to see Ward’s seeming impatience that anyone should take it as a joke or disbelieve his plain statement.
Some cynical persons saw in Lincoln’s friendship a move to secure Ward’s influence as a popular writer for the help ofhis political party. Now that Mr. Lincoln is more fully understood, no one would accuse him of any such a hypocritical or unworthy motive. He would have been frank with Ward even though the latter was needed to aid the sacred cause of human liberty.
Samuel Bowles of the SpringfieldRepublican, writing on Artemus Ward’s death in 1866, said, “Ward is said not to have seen a well day after the death of President Lincoln.” It was a true friendship, beyond a doubt.
Amongthe articles published by Artemus Ward were the following references to Lincoln’s political life, which greatly pleased Mr. Lincoln. He often showed the worn clippings to his intimate friends. They lose much of the keen wit of their composition by the changes which the years have wrought in their local setting. Almost every word had a humorous and wise inference or thrust which cannot be recognized by the modern reader. But they retain enough still to be wonderfully funny.
The tattered clippings are no more, of course, but I have gone back to Ward’s book and give below the stories which so amused Lincoln.
JOY IN THE HOUSE OF WARD
Dear Sirs:
I take my pen in hand to inform you that I am in a state of great bliss, and trust these lines will find you injoyin the same blessins. I’m reguvinated. I’ve found the immortal waters of yooth, so to speak, and am as limber and frisky as a two-year-old steer, and in the futur them boys which sez to me “go up, old Bawld hed,” will do so at the peril of their hazard, individooally. I’m very happy. My house is full of joy, and I have to git up nights and larf! Sumtimes I ax myself “is it not a dream?” & suthin withinto me sez “it air”; but when I look at them sweet little critters and hear ’em squawk, I know it is a reality—2 realitys, I may say—and I feel gay.
I returnd from the Summer Campane with my unparaleld show of wax works and livin wild Beests of Pray in the early part of this munth. The peple of Baldinsvillemet me cordully and I immejitly commenst restin myself with my famerly. The other nite while I was down to the tavurn tostin my shins agin the bar room fire & amuzin the krowd with sum of my adventurs, who shood cum in bare heded & terrible excited but Bill Stokes, who sez, sez he, “Old Ward, there’s grate doins up to your house.”
Sez I, “William, how so?”
Sez he, “Bust my gizzud but it’s grate doins,” & then he larfed as if he’d kill hisself.
Sez I, risin and puttin on a austeer look, “William, I woodunt be a fool if I had common cents.”
But he kept on larfin till he was black in the face, when he fell over on to the bunk where the hostler sleeps, and in a still small voice sed, “Twins!” I ashure you gents that the grass didn’t grow under my feet on my way home, & I was follered by a enthoosiastic throng of my feller sitterzens, who hurrard for Old Ward at the top of their voises. I found the housechock full of peple. Thare was Mis Square Baxter and her three grown-up darters, lawyer Perkinses wife, Taberthy Ripley, young Eben Parsuns, Deakun Simmuns folks, the Skoolmaster, Doctor Jordin, etsetterry, etsetterry. Mis Ward was in the west room, which jines the kitchen. Mis Square Baxter was mixin suthin in a dipper before the kitchin fire, & a small army of female wimin were rushin wildly round the house with bottles of camfire, peaces of flannil, &c. I never seed such a hubbub in my natral born dase. I cood not stay in the west room only a minit, so strung up was my feelins, so I rusht out and ceased my dubbel barrild gun.
“What upon airth ales the man?” sez Taberthy Ripley. “Sakes alive, what air you doin?” & she grabd me by the coat tales. “What’s the matter with you?” she continnerd.
“Twins, marm,” sez I, “twins!”
“I know it,” sez she, coverin her pretty face with her aprun.
“Wall,” sez I, “that’s what’s the matter with me!”
“Wall, put down that air gun, you pesky old fool,” sed she.
“No, marm,” sez I, “this is a Nashunal day. The glory of this here day isn’t confined to Baldinsville by a darn site. On yonder woodshed,” sed I, drawin myself up to my full hite and speakin in a show actin voice, “will I fire a Nashunal saloot!” sayin whitch I tared myself from her grasp and rusht to the top of the shed whare I blazed away until Square Baxter’s hired man and my son Artemus Juneyer cum and took me down by mane force.
On returnin to the Kitchin I found quite a lot of peple seated be4 the fire, a talkin the event over. They made room for me & I sot down. “Quite a eppisode,” sed Docter Jordin, litin his pipe with a red-hot coal.
“Yes,” sed I, “2 eppisodes, waying abowt 18 pounds jintly.”
“A perfeck coop de tat,” sed the skoolmaster.
“E pluribus unum, in proprietor persony,” sed I, thinking I’d let him know I understood furrin langwidges as well as he did, if I wasn’t a skoolmaster.
“It is indeed a momentious event,” sed young Eben Parsuns, who has been 2 quarters to the Akademy.
“I never heard twins called by that name afore,” sed I, “But I spose it’s all rite.”
“We shall soon have Wards enuff,” sed the editer of the BaldinsvilleBugle of Liberty, who was lookin over a bundle of exchange papers in the corner, “to apply to the legislater for a City Charter!”
“Good for you, old man!” sed I; “giv that air a conspickius place in the nextBugle.”
“How redicklus,” sed pretty Susan Fletcher, coverin her face with her knittin work & larfin like all possest.
“Wall, for my part,” sed Jane Maria Peasley, who is the crossest old made in the world, “I think you all act like a pack of fools.”
Sez I, “Mis. Peasly, air you a parent?”
Sez she, “No, I ain’t.”
Sez I, “Mis. Peasly, you never will be.”
She left.
We sot there talkin & larfin until “the switchin hour of nite, when grave yards yawn & Josts troop 4th,” as old Bill Shakespire aptlee obsarves in his dramy of John Sheppard, esq, or the Moral House Breaker, when we broke up & disbursed.
Muther & children is a doin well & as Resolushhuns is the order of the day I will feel obleeged if you’ll insurt the follerin—
Whereas, two Eppisodes has happined up to the undersined’s house, which is Twins; & Whereas I like this stile, sade twins bein of the male perswashun & both boys; there4 Be it—
Resolved, That to them nabers who did the fare thing by sade Eppisodes my hart felt thanks is doo.
Resolved, That I do most hartily thank Engine Ko. No. 17, who, under theimpreshun from the fuss at my house on that auspishus nite that thare was a konflagration goin on, kum galyiantly to the spot, but kindly refraned from squirtin.
Resolved, That frum the Bottum of my Sole do I thank the Baldinsville brass band fur givin up the idea of Sarahnadin me, both on that great nite & sinse.
Resolved, That my thanks is doo several members of the Baldinsville meetin house who for 3 whole dase hain’t kalled me a sinful skoffer or intreeted me to mend my wicked wase and jine sade meetin house to onct.
Resolved, That my Boozum teams with meny kind emoshuns towards the follerin individoouls, to whit namelee—Mis. Square Baxter, who Jenerusly refoozed to take a sent for a bottle of camfire; lawyer Perkinses wife who rit sum versis on the Eppisodes; the Editer of the BaldinsvilleBugle of Liberty, who nobly assisted me in wollupin my Kangeroo, which sagashus little cuss seriusly disturbed the Eppisodesby his outrajus screetchins & kickins up; Mis. Hirum Doolittle, who kindly furnisht sum cold vittles at a tryin time, when it wasunt konvenient to cook vittles at my hous; & the Peasleys, Parsunses & Watsunses fur there meny ax of kindness.
Trooly yures,Artemus Ward.
THE CRISIS
[This Oration was delivered before the commencement of the war]
On returnin to my humsted in Baldinsville, Injianny, resuntly, my feller sitterzens extended a invite for me to norate to ’em on the Krysis. I excepted & on larst Toosday nite I peared be4 a C of upturned faces in the Red Skool House. I spoke nearly as follers:
Baldinsvillins: Heartto4, as I have numerously obsarved, I have abstrained from having any sentimunts or principles, my pollertics, like my religion, bein of a exceedin accommodatin character. Butthe fack can’t be no longer disgised that a Krysis is onto us, & I feel it’s my dooty to accept your invite for one consecutive nite only. I spose the inflammertory individooals who assisted in projucing this Krysis know what good she will do, but I ain’t ’shamed to state that I don’t scacely. But the Krysis is hear. She’s bin hear for sevral weeks, & Goodness nose how long she’ll stay. But I venter to assert that she’s rippin things. She’s knockt trade into a cockt up hat and chaned Bizness of all kinds tighter nor I ever chaned any of my livin wild Beests. Alow me to hear dygress & stait that my Beests at presnt is as harmless as the newborn Babe. Ladys & gentlemen neen’t hav no fears on that pint. To resoom—Altho I can’t exactly see what good this Krysis can do, I can very quick say what the origernal cawz of her is. The origernal cawz is Our Afrikan Brother. I was intoBarnim’sMoozeum down to New York the other day & saw that exsentric Etheopian, theWhat Is It. Sez I, “Mister What Is It, you folks air raisin thunder with this grate country. You’re gettin to be ruther more numeris than interestin. It is a pity you coodent go orf sumwhares by yourselves, & be a nation of What Is Its, tho’ if you’ll excoose me, I shooden’t care about marryin among you. No dowt you’re exceedin charmin to hum, but your stile of luvliness isn’t adapted to this cold climit.” He larfed into my face, which rather Riled me, as I had been perfeckly virtoous and respectable in my observashuns. So sez I, turnin a leetle red in the face, I spect, “Do you hav the unblushin impoodents to say you folks haven’t raised a big mess of thunder in this brite land, Mister What Is It?” He larfed agin, wusser nor be4, whareupon I up and sez, “Go home, Sir, to Afriky’s burnin shores & taik all the other What Is Its along with you. Don’t think we can spair your interestin picters. You What Is Its air on the pint of smashin up the gratest Guv’ment ever erected by man,& you actooally hav the owdassity to larf about it. Go home, you low cuss!”
I was workt up to a high pitch, & I proceeded to a Restorator & cooled orf with some little fishes biled in ile—I b’leeve thay call ’em sardeens.
Feller Sitterzuns, the Afrikan may be Our Brother. Sevral hily respectyble gentlemen, and sum talentid females tell us so, & fur argyment’s sake I mite be injooced to grant it, tho’ I don’t beleeve it myself. But the Afrikan isn’t our sister & our wife & our uncle. He isn’t sevral of our brothers & all our fust wife’s relashuns. He isn’t our grandfather, and our grate grandfather, and our Aunt in the country. Scacely. & yit numeris persons would have us think so. It’s troo he runs Congress & sevral other public grosserys, but then he ain’t everybody & everybody else likewise. [Notiss to bizness men ofVanity Fair: Extry charg fur this larst remark. It’s a goak.—A. W.]
But we’ve got the Afrikan, or ruther he’sgot us, & now what air we going to do about it? He’s a orful noosanse. Praps he isn’t to blame fur it. Praps he was creatid fur sum wise purpuss, like the measles and New Englan Rum, but it’s mity hard to see it. At any rate he’s no good here, & as I statid to Mister What Is It, it’s a pity he cooden’t go orf sumwhares quietly by hisself, whare he cood wear red weskits & speckled neckties, & gratterfy his ambishun in varis interestin wase, without havin a eternal fuss kickt up about him.
Praps I’m bearing down too hard upon Cuffy. Cum to think on it, I am. He woodn’t be sich a infernal noosanse if white peple would let him alone. He mite indeed be interestin. And now I think of it, why can’t the white peple let him alone. What’s the good of continnerly stirrin him up with a ten-foot pole? He isn’t the sweetest kind of Perfoomery when in a natral stait.
Feller Sitterzens, the Union’s in danger. The black devil Disunion is trooly here, starin us all squarely in the fase! We mustdrive him back. Shall we make a 2nd Mexico of ourselves? Shall we sell our birthrite for a mess of potash? Shall one brother put the knife to the throat of anuther brother? Shall we mix our whisky with each other’s blud? Shall the star spangled Banner be cut up into dishcloths? Standin here in this here Skoolhouse, upon my nativ shore so to speak, I anser—Nary!
Oh you fellers who air raisin this row, & who in the fust place startid it, I’m ’shamed of you. The Showman blushes for you, from his boots to the topmost hair upon his wenerable hed.
Feller Sitterzens: I am in the Sheer & Yeller leaf. I shall peg out 1 of these dase. But while I do stop here I shall stay in the Union. I know not what the supervizers of Baldinsville may conclude to do, but for one, I shall stand by the Stars & Stripes. Under no circumstances whatsomever will I sesesh. Let every Stait in the Union sesesh & let Palmetter flags flote thicker nor shirts on Square Baxter’s close line,still will I stick to the good old flag. The country may go to the devil, but I won’t! And next Summer when I start out on my campane with my Show, wharever I pitch my little tent, you shall see floatin prowdly from the center pole thereof the Amerikan Flag, with nary a star wiped out, nary a stripe less, but the same old flag that has allers flotid thar! & the price of admishun will be the same it allers was—15 cents, children half price.
Feller Sitterzens, I am dun. Accordingly I squatted.
WAX FIGURESVERSUSSHAKSPEARE
Onto the wing——1859.
Mr. Editor.
I take my Pen in hand to inform yu that I’m in good helth and trust these few lines will find yu injoyin the same blessins. I wood also state that I’m now on the summir kampane. As the Poit sez—
ime erflote, ime erfloteOn the Swift rollin tiedAn the Rovir is free.
Bizness is scacely middlin, but Sirs I manige to pay for my foode and raiment puncktooally and without no grumblin. The barked arrers of slandur has bin leviled at the undersined moren onct sins heze bin into the show bizness, but I make bold to say no man on this footstule kan troothfully say I ever ronged him or eny of his folks. I’m travelin with a tent, which is better nor hirin hauls. My show konsists of a serious of wax works, snakes, a paneramy kalled a Grand Movin Diarea of the War in the Crymear, komic songs and the Cangeroo, which larst little cuss continners to konduct hisself in the most outrajus stile. I started out with the idear of makin my show a grate Moral Entertainment, but I’m kompeled to sware so much at that air infurnal Kangeroo that I’m frade this desine will be flustratid to some extent. And while speakin of morrality, remines me that sum folks turn up their nosis at shows like mine, sayin they is low and not fit to be patrernized by peple of highdegree. Sirs, I manetane that this is infernal nonsense. I manetane that wax figgers is more elevatin than awl the plays ever wroten. Take Shakespeer for instunse. Peple think heze grate things, but I kontend heze quite the reverse to the kontrary. What sort of sense is thare to King Leer, who goze round cussin his darters, chawin hay and throin straw at folks, and larfin like a silly old koot and makin a ass of hisself ginerally? Thare’s Mrs. Mackbeth—sheze a nise kind of woomon to have round ain’t she, a puttin old Mack, her husband, up to slayin Dunkan with a cheeze knife, while heze payin a frendly visit to their house. O its hily morral, I spoze, when she larfs wildly and sez, “gin me the daggurs—Ile let his bowels out,” or wurds to that effeck—I say, this is awl, strickly, propper, I spoze? That Jack Fawlstarf is likewise a immoral old cuss, take him how ye may, and Hamlick is as crazy as a loon. Thare’s Richurd the Three, peple think heze grate things, butI look upon him in the lite of a monkster. He kills everybody he takes a noshun to in kold blud, and then goze to sleep in his tent. Bimeby he wakes up and yells for a hoss so he kan go orf and kill sum more peple. If he isent a fit spesserman for the gallers then I shood like to know whare you find um. Thare’s Iargo who is more ornery nor pizun. See how shameful he treated that hily respecterble injun gentlemun, Mister Otheller, makin him for to beleeve his wife was too thick with Casheo. Obsarve how Iargo got Casheo drunk as a biled owl on corn whiskey in order to karry out his sneckin desines. See how he wurks Mister Otheller’s feelins up so that he goze and makes poor Desdemony swaller a piller which cawses her deth. But I must stop. At sum futur time I shall continner my remarks on the drammer in which I shall show the varst supeeriority of wax figgers and snakes over theater plays, in a interlectooal pint of view.
Very Respectively yures,A Ward, T. K.
THE SHAKERS
The Shakers is the strangest religious sex I ever met. I’d hearn tell of ’em and I’d seen ’em, with their broad brim’d hats and long wastid coats; but I’d never cum into immejit contack with ’em, and I’d sot ’em down as lackin intelleck, as I’d never seen ’em to my Show—leastways, if they cum they was disgised in white peple’s close, so I didn’t know ’em.
But in the Spring of 18—, I got swampt in the exterior of New York State, one dark and stormy night, when the winds Blue pityusly, and I was forced to tie up with the Shakers.
I was toilin threw the mud, when in the dim vister of the futer I obsarved the gleams of a taller candle. Tiein a hornet’s nest to my off hoss’s tail to kinder encourage him, I soon reached the place. I knockt at the door, which it was opened unto me by a tall, slick-faced, solum lookin individooal, who turn’d out to be a Elder.
“Mr. Shaker,” sed I, “you see before you a Babe in the woods, so to speak, and he axes shelter of you.”
“Yay,” sed the Shaker, and he led the way into the house, another Shaker bein sent to put my hosses and waggin under kiver.
A solum female, lookin sumwhat like a last year’s bean-pole stuck into a long meal bag, cum in and axed me was I a thurst and did I hunger? to which I urbanely anserd “a few.” She went orf and I endeverd to open a conversashun with the old man.
“Elder, I spect?” sed I.
“Yay,” he said.
“Helth’s good, I reckon?”
“Yay.”
“What’s the wages of a Elder, when he understans his bisness—or do you devote your sarvices gratooitus?”
“Yay.”
“Stormy night, sir.”
“Yay.”
“If the storm continners there’ll be a mess underfoot, hay?”
“Yay.”
“It’s onpleasant when there’s a mess underfoot?”
“Yay.”
“If I may be so bold, kind sir, what’s the price of that pecooler kind of weskit you wear, incloodin trimmins?”
“Yay!”
I pawsd a minit, and then, thinkin I’d be faseshus with him and see how that would go, I slapt him on the shoulder, bust into a harty larf, and told him that as ayayerhe had no livin ekal.
He jumpt up as if Billin water had bin squirted into his ears, groaned, rolled his eyes up tords the sealin and sed: “You’re a man of sin!” He then walkt out of the room.
Jest then the female in the meal bag stuck her hed into the room and statid that refreshments awaited the weary travler, and I sed if it was vittles she ment theweary travler was agreeable, and I follored her into the next room.
I sot down to the table and the female in the meal bag pored out sum tea. She sed nothin, and for five minutes the only live thing in that room was a old wooden clock, which tickt in a subdood and bashful manner in the corner. This dethly stillness made me oneasy, and I determined to talk to the female or bust. So sez I, “marrige is agin your rules, I bleeve, marm?”
“Yay.”
“The sexes liv strickly apart, I spect?”
“Yay.”
“It’s kinder singler,” sez I, puttin on my most sweetest look and speakin in a winnin voice, “that so fair a made as thow never got hitched to some likely feller.” [N. B.—She was upwards of 40 and homely as a stump fence, but I thawt I’d tickil her.]
“I don’t like men!” she sed, very short.
“Wall, I dunno,” sez I, “they’re a rayther important part of the populashun.I don’t scacely see how we could git along without ’em.”
“Us poor wimin folks would git along a grate deal better if there was no men!”
“You’ll excoos me, marm, but I don’t think that air would work. It wouldn’t be regler.”
“I’m fraid of men!” she sed.
“That’s onnecessary, marm.Youain’t in no danger. Don’t fret yourself on that pint.”
“Here we’re shot out from the sinful world. Here all is peas. Here we air brothers and sisters. We don’t marry and consekently we hav no domestic difficulties. Husbans don’t abooze their wives—wives don’t worrit their husbans. There’s no children here to worrit us. Nothin to worrit us here. No wicked matrimony here. Would thow like to be a Shaker?”
“No,” sez I, “it ain’t my stile.”
I had now histed in as big a load of pervishuns as I could carry comfortable, and,leanin back in my cheer, commenst pickin my teeth with a fork. The female went out, leavin me all alone with the clock. I hadn’t sot thar long before the Elder poked his hed in at the door. “You’re a man of sin!” he sed, and groaned and went away.
Directly thar cum in two young Shakeresses, as putty and slick lookin gals as I ever met. It is troo they was drest in meal bags like the old one I’d met previsly, and their shiny, silky har was hid from sight by long white caps, sich as I spose female Josts wear; but their eyes sparkled like diminds, their cheeks was like roses, and they was charmin enuff to make a man throw stuns at his granmother if they axed him to. They comenst clearin away the dishes, castin shy glances at me all the time. I got excited. I forgot Betsy Jane in my rapter, and sez I, “my pretty dears, how air you?”
“We air well,” they solumnly sed.
“Whar’s the old man?” sed I, in a soft voice.
“Of whom dost thow speak—Brother Uriah?”
“I mean the gay and festiv cuss who calls me a man of sin. Shouldn’t wonder if his name was Uriah.”
“He has retired.”
“Wall, my pretty dears,” sez I, “let’s have sum fun. Let’s play puss in the corner. What say?”
“Air you a Shaker, sir?” they axed.
“Wall, my pretty dears, I haven’t arrayed my proud form in a long weskit yit, but if they was all like you perhaps I’d jine ’em. As it is, I’m a Shaker protemporary.”
They was full of fun. I seed that at fust, only they was a leetle skeery. I tawt ’em Puss in the corner and sich like plase, and we had a nice time, keepin quiet of course so the old man shouldn’t hear. When we broke up, sez I, “my pretty dears, ear I go you hav no objections, hav you, to a innersent kiss at partin?”
“Yay,” they sed, and Iyay’d.
I went up stairs to bed. I spose I’d bin snoozin half an hour when I was woke up by a noise at the door. I sot up in bed, leanin on my elbers and rubbin my eyes, and I saw the follerin picter: The Elder stood in the doorway, with a taller candle in his hand. He hadn’t no wearin appeerel on except his night close, which flutterd in the breeze like a Seseshun flag. He sed, “You’re a man of sin!” then groaned and went away.
I went to sleep agin, and drempt of runnin orf with the pretty little Shakeresses mounted on my Californy Bar. I thawt the Bar insisted on steerin strate for my dooryard in Baldinsville and that Betsy Jane cum out and giv us a warm recepshun with a panfull of Bilin water. I was woke up arly by the Elder. He sed refreshments was reddy for me down stairs. Then sayin I was a man of sin, he went groanin away.
As I was goin threw the entry to the room where the vittles was, I cum acrossthe Elder and the old female I’d met the night before, and what d’ye spose they was up to? Huggin and kissin like young lovers in their gushingist state. Sez I, “my Shaker frends, I reckon you’d better suspend the rules and git married.”
“You must excoos Brother Uriah,” sed the female; “he’s subjeck to fits and hain’t got no command over hisself when he’s into ’em.”
“Sartinly,” sez I, “I’ve bin took that way myself frequent.”
“You’re a man of sin!” sed the Elder.
Arter breakfust my little Shaker frends cum in agin to clear away the dishes.
“My pretty dears,” sez I, “shall weyayagin?”
“Nay,” they sed, and Inay’d.
The Shakers axed me to go to their meetin, as they was to hav sarvices that mornin, so I put on a clean biled rag and went. The meetin house was as neat as a pin. The floor was white as chalk and smooth as glass. The Shakers was all onhand, in clean weskits and meal bags, ranged on the floor like milingtery companies, the mails on one side of the room and the females on tother. They commenst clappin their hands and singin and dancin. They danced kinder slow at fust, but as they got warmed up they shaved it down very brisk, I tell you. Elder Uriah, in particler, exhiberted a right smart chance of spryness in his legs, considerin his time of life, and as he cum a dubble shuffle near where I sot, I rewarded him with a approvin smile and sed: “Hunky boy! Go it, my gay and festiv cuss!”
“You’re a man of sin!” he sed, continnerin his shuffle.
The Sperret, as they called it, then moved a short fat Shaker to say a few remarks. He sed they was Shakers and all was ekal. They was the purest and Seleckest peple on the yearth. Other peple was sinful as they could be, but Shakers was all right. Shakers was all goin kerslap to the Promist Land, and nobodywant goin to stand at the gate to bar ’em out, if they did they’d git run over.
The Shakers then danced and sung agin, and arter they was threw, one of ’em axed me what I thawt of it.
Sez I, “What duz it siggerfy?”
“What?” sez he.
“Why this jumpin up and singin? This long weskit bizniss, and this anty-matrimony idee? My frends, you air neat and tidy. Your hands is flowin with milk and honey. Your brooms is fine, and your apple sass is honest. When a man buys a keg of apple sass of you he don’t find a grate many shavins under a few layers of sass—a little Game I’m sorry to say sum of my New Englan ancesters used to practiss. Your garding seeds is fine, and if I should sow ’em on the rock of Gibralter probly I should raise a good mess of garding sass. You air honest in your dealins. You air quiet and don’t distarb nobody. For all this I givs you credit. But your religion is small pertaters, I must say.You mope away your lives here in single retchidness, and as you air all by yourselves nothing ever conflicks with your pecooler idees, except when Human Nater busts out among you, as I understan she sumtimes do. [I giv Uriah a sly wink here, which made the old feller squirm like a speared Eel.] You wear long weskits and long faces, and lead a gloomy life indeed. No children’s prattle is ever hearn around your harthstuns—you air in a dreary fog all the time, and you treat the jolly sunshine of life as tho’ it was a thief, drivin it from your doors by them weskits, and meal bags, and pecooler noshuns of yourn. The gals among you, sum of which air as slick pieces of caliker as I ever sot eyes on, air syin to place their heds agin weskits which kiver honest, manly harts, while you old heds fool yerselves with the idee that they air fulfillin their mishun here, and air contented. Here you air all pend up by yerselves, talkin about the sins of a world you don’t know nothin of.Meanwhile said world continners to resolve round on her own axeltree onct in every 24 hours, subjeck to the Constitution of the United States, and is a very plesant place of residence. It’s a unnatral, onreasonable and dismal life you’re leadin here. So it strikes me. My Shaker frends, I now bid you a welcome adoo. You have treated me exceedin well. Thank you kindly, one and all.
“A base exhibiter of depraved monkeys and onprincipled wax works!” sed Uriah.
“Hello, Uriah,” sez I, “I’d most forgot you. Wall, look out for them fits of yourn, and don’t catch cold and die in the flour of your youth and beauty.”
And I resoomed my jerney.
HIGH-HANDED OUTRAGE AT UTICA
In the Faul of 1856, I showed my show in Utiky, a trooly grate sitty in the State of New York.
The people gave me a cordyal recepshun. The press was loud in her prases.
1 day as I was givin a descripshun of my Beests and Snaiks in my usual flowry stile what was my skorn disgust to see a big burly feller walk up to the cage containin my wax figgers of the Lord’s Last Supper, and cease Judas Iscarrot by the feet and drag him out on the ground. He then commenced fur to pound him as hard as he cood.
“What under the son are you abowt?” cried I.
Sez he, “What did you bring this pussylanermus cuss here fur?” and he hit the wax figger another tremenjis blow on the hed.
Sez I, “You egrejus ass, that air’s a wax figger—a representashun of the false ’Postle.”
Sez he, “That’s all very well for you to say, but I tell you, old man, that Judas Iscarrot can’t show hisself in Utiky with impunerty by a darn site!” with whichobservashun he kaved in Judassis bed. The young man belonged to 1 of the first famerlies in Utiky. I sood him, and the Joory brawt in a verdick of Arson in the 3d degree.
Onlyonce in the course of our long and rambling conversation did Lincoln refer to the war. That was when he asked me how the soldiers’ spirits were keeping up. He said he had been giving out so much cheer to the generals and Congressmen that he had pumped himself dry and must take in a new supply from some source at once. He declared that his “ear bones ached” to hear a good peal of honest laughter. It was difficult, he said, to laugh in any acceptable manner when soldiers were dying and widows weeping, but he must laugh soon even if he had to go down cellar to do it. He asked me if I had thought how sacred a thing was a loving smile, and how important it often was to laugh. Then he toldhow some Union officers in reconnoitering had heard the Confederates laughing loudly over a game, and returned cast down with fear of some sudden and successful attack by the cheerful enemy. That laughter actually postponed a great battle for which the Union soldiers had been prepared.
When, as I later ascertained, I had been with the President for almost two hours, he suddenly straightened up in his chair, remarked that he “felt much better now,” and with a friendly but firm, “Good morning,” turned back to the papers before him on the table. This sounds abrupt as it is told, but there was a homeliness and simplicity about everything Lincoln did which robbed the action of any suspicion of discourtesy. One does not shake hands with a member of his own family on merely quitting a room, and I felt that a ceremonious dismissal would have been equally uncalled for in this case. Perhaps I really should say that is the way I feel now; atthe time I did not think of the matter at all because what was done seemed perfectly natural and proper.
In the anteroom the crowd was greater, if anything, than when I had gone in. Among those callers there were certain to be some who would bring trouble and vexation aplenty to the President. It was in preparation for this that he had been resting himself, like a boxer between the rounds of a bout. One would make a great error by supposing that Lincoln’s normal manner was that which he had exhibited to me. He could be soft and tender-hearted as any woman, but within that kindly nature there lay gigantic strength and the capacity for the most decisive action. He could speak slowly and weigh his words when occasion demanded, but his usual manner was vigorous and prompt—so much so that at times his speech had a quality which might fairly be described as explosive.
This was because he always knewexactly what he wanted to say. He thought out each problem to the end and decided it; then he left that and did not trouble his mind about it any more, but took up something else. This habit of disciplined thinking gave him a great advantage over most people, who mix their thinking and try to carry on a dozen mental processes all at once.
Lincoln realized the importance of mental discipline and he gave to humor a high place as an aid to its attainment. I have already told how, in discussing Artemus Ward with me, he said Ward was really an educator, for he understood that the purpose of education was to discipline the mind, to enable a man to think quickly and accurately in all circumstances of life. I hope the reader will bear with me if I repeat some of the points which Lincoln made then, because they show so clearly why he valued humor. Lincoln said that much of Ward’s humor was of the educational sort. It aroused intellectual activityof the finest kind, and he mentioned Ward’s constant use of riddles as an illustration. Then he spoke of the ancient Samson riddle and the fables of Æsop, and called attention to the fact that they employed a joke to train the mind by the study of keen satire. He said Ward was like that. It seems that Tad came to Ward at the table one day after he had heard somewhere a joke about Adam in Eden. So he said to Mr. Ward, “How did Adam get out of Eden?”
Ward had never heard the conundrum and did not give the answer Tad expected, but he had one of his own, for he exclaimed “Adam was ‘snaked’ out.” It took Tad some little time to fathom this reply and gave him some splendid mental exercise. Mr. Lincoln said he did not see why they did not have a course of humor in the schools. It was characteristic of his great modesty that whenever he referred to school or to college Lincoln always tried to limit himself by saying that, as he didnot know what they did learn there, he was not an authority on the subject, but that such-and-such a thing was just “his notion.”
If discipline was a subjective purpose in Lincoln’s use of humor, it may be said with equal certainty that the illustrative power of a well-told story was the principal objective use to which he put it. Lincoln seems never to have told a story simply to relate it; everyone he told had an application aside from the story itself. There is something profoundly elemental about this; it is like the use of the parable in the teachings of Christ.
Astute minds, capable of grasping the meaning of facts without illustration, sometimes resented this habit of the President’s; some of the sharpest criticism, as might be expected, came from within the Cabinet itself; but there can certainly be no just foundation for the statement that Lincoln detained a full session of the Cabinet to read them two chapters inArtemus Ward’s book. He was not frivolous or shallow. His reverence for great men, for great thoughts, and for great occasions was most sensitively acute. He recognized the fact that “brevity is the soul of wit,” and would not have done more than use a condensed and brief reference to Ward, at most. We know that on another occasion he made most effective use at a Cabinet meeting of Ward’s burlesque on Shaw patriotism when he quoted Ward as saying that he “was willing, if need be, to sacrifice all his wife’s relations for his country.”
An even better example of the President’s use of humor is the following story which he once told to illustrate the military situation existing at the time. A bull was chasing a farmer around a tree. The farmer finally got hold of the bull’s tail, and both started off across the field. The farmer could not let go for fear he would fall and break his head, but he called out to the bull, “Who started this mess,anyway?” Lincoln said he had gotten hold of the bull by the tail and that while the Confederacy was running away he dared not let go. This summed up the situation in a way the whole country could understand.
It is an interesting fact, and one not generally known, that Lincoln committed almost every good story he heard to writing. If his old notebooks could be found they would make a wonderful volume, but, unfortunately, they have never come to light. Perhaps he felt ashamed of them, as he did of his rough draft of the Gettysburg address, which he had scribbled on the margin of a newspaper in the morning while riding to Gettysburg on the train.
There was one source of Lincoln’s humor—and perhaps it was the chief one—which flowed from the very bedrock of his nature. That was the desire to bring cheer to others. When he was passing through the very Valley of the Shadow after the tragicend of the single love affair of his youth a true friend told him that he had no right to look so glum—that it “was his solemn duty to be cheerful,” to cheer up others. Young Abe took the lesson to heart, and he never forgot it. Incidentally, it was the means of restoring him to health and probably of preserving his sanity—as the old saint who gave him the lecture no doubt intended that it should.
In their common experience of an awful grief and in their ability to rise above its devastation purged of selfishness and devoted to a career of service, each according to his own gifts, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Farrar Browne had followed the same path, and it was from this that there sprang that deep and true bond of sympathy between the two men which mystified so many even of those who considered themselves Lincoln’s intimates. Where another saw but the cap and bells, Lincoln saw and reverenced the tortured, struggling soul within.
During our memorable talk on that December day in 1864 when the cares of state were pressing so sorely upon him, the President told me that he was greatly relieved in times of personal distress by trying to cheer up somebody else. He spoke of it as being both selfish and unselfish. He said he had been accused of telling thousands of stories he had never heard of, but that he told stories to cheer the downhearted and tried to remember stories that were cheerful to relate to people in discouraged circumstances. He reminded me that his first practice of the law was among very poor people. He tried to tell stories to his clients who were discouraged, to give them courage, and he found the habit grew upon him until he had to “draw in” and decline to use so many stories.
Bob Burdett, writing for the BurlingtonHawkeyeshortly after the President’s death on April 15, 1865, said that AbrahamLincoln’s humorous anecdotes would soon die, but that Lincoln’s humor, like John Brown’s soul, would be ever “marching on.” No printed story which he told ever expressed the soul of Lincoln fully. His own partial description of humor as “that indefinable, intangible grace of spirit,” is not to be found exemplified in his published speeches. It is in the spirit which animated them rather than in the works themselves that we must look for the vital principle of Lincoln’s humorous sayings.
To attempt the analysis of humor is as if a philosopher should try to put a glance of love into a geometrical diagram or the soul of music into a plaster cast. No one by searching can find it and no one by labor can secure it. Yet so simple, so homely, and withal so shrewd was the humor of Abraham Lincoln that one can easily picture him turning over in his mind the words of his favorite quotation from the “Merchant of Venice”—one of the few classical quotations he everused—while he reflected, half sadly, upon the cynicism and pettiness of mankind:
“Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time,Some that will evermore peep through their eyesAnd laugh like parrots at a bagpiper;And others of such vinegar aspectThat they’ll not show their teeth in way of smileThough Nestor swear the jest be laughable.”