Existing comment:
Diversions:
"If there is a worse place than Hell, I am in it." -- A despairing Abraham Lincoln, after the military disaster at Fredericksburg.
Lincoln had few diversions to take his mind off the war. He laughed out loud at humorists like Artemus Ward and Petroleum V. Nasby (both pen names). "Ward rests me more than any other man," he told one White House visitor. Often the Lincolns took afternoon carriage rides or went to concerts, since the president enjoyed all kinds of music, from grand opera to military bands.
Lincoln at the Theatre:
Lincoln's favorite form of recreation was the theatre. Along with minstrel shows and an Irish comedian named Barney Williams, he relished Shakespeare's comedies for their wit and insights into human character.
It was Shakespearean drama that the president quotes from memory before young clerks at the War Department. Following one battlefield defeat, Lincoln found solace in these haunting lines from Macbeth:
"Out, out brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more..."
(Act V, Scene V)
Edwin, John Wilkes Booth's brother, was the foremost Shakespearean actor of his time. Unlike his brother, he was a staunch supporter of the president. |