Lady diana cooper biography of abraham lincoln

Robert V. Bruce, Abraham Lincoln and the Tools of War
 
Abraham Lincoln had a curious mind – he liked technology and natural mysteries. Judge David Davis recalled that Mr. Lincoln &#;had a good mechanical mind and Knowledge.&#; Attorney Henry Clay Whitney recalled one night when the two lawyers were on the Eighth Circuit in Illinois and Mr. Lincoln had disappeared after dinner. &#;Now, Lincoln had a furtive way of stealing in on one, unheard, unperceived, and unawares; and on this occasion, after we had lain for a short time; our door latch was noiselessly raised – the door opened, and the tall form of Abraham Lincoln glided in noiselessly. &#;Why Lincoln, where have you been?&#; exclaimed Judge David Davis. &#;I was in hopes you fellers would be asleep,&#; replied he: &#;Well, I have been to a little show up at the Academy:&#; and he sat before the fire, and narrated all the sights of that most primitive of country shows, given chiefly to school children. Next night, he was missing again; the show was still in town, and he stole in as before, and entertained us with a description of new sights – a magic lantern, electrical machine, etc. I told him I had seen all these sights at school. &#;Yes,&#; said he, sadly, &#;I now have an advantage over you in, for the first time in my life, seeing these things which are of course common to those, who had, what I did not, a chance at an education, when they were young.&#;
 
Mr. Lincoln had an abiding interest in how the real world worked. Attorney Joseph Gillespie wrote that Mr. Lincoln &#;was less given to pure abstraction than most of thoughtful and investigating minds. I should say that he was contemplative rather than speculative. He wanted something solid to rest upon and hence his bias for mathematics and the physical sciences. I think he bestowed more attention to them than upon metaphysical speculations. I have heard him descant upon the problem

Excerpt*

Famed for her beau­ty and the “durable fire” of her mar­riage to Alfred Duff Coop­er, First Vis­count Nor­wich, The Lady Diana Coop­er was ear­ly admit­ted to  friend­ship with Win­ston and Clemen­tine Churchill. A stun­ning beau­ty and an accom­plished actress, she was a glit­ter­ing writer. Her tril­o­gy of mem­oirs is redo­lent of that van­ished Eng­land the Coop­ers and Churchills loved. Her books are worth seek­ing out: The Light of Com­mon Day, Trum­pets from the Steep and The Rain­bow Comes and Goes ().

In anoth­er age, when even Churchill’s mar­riage is ques­tioned by the igno­rant, Lady Diana offers words worth remem­ber­ing. Few who knew Clemen­tine and Win­ston spoke bet­ter of it. Lit­tle was said about it in their time, she writes,“because it was too hap­py to be heard of.” Her essay cor­rect­ed that lapse. It first appeared after Sir Winston’s death in The Atlantic. Lady Diana ‘s son, Lord Nor­wich, had not seen it and was pleased at the dis­cov­ery. I have insert­ed her charm­ing pic­ture of a Chartwell week­end from her first vol­ume of mem­oirs. —RML

*Excerpt­ed from the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To read the com­plete arti­cle, click here.

Lady Diana writes…

From the solemn moment when the world knew that Win­ston Churchill had breathed his last, a roll of hon­our of some 17th-cen­tu­ry poet elu­sive­ly haunt­ed me. To lay it I asked friends, poets, and pub­lish­ers, even All Souls Col­lege. All remem­bered it, but none could place the lines that say: “O that Sir Philip Sid­ney should be dead….O that Sir Wal­ter Raleigh should be dead.”’ Many anoth­er glo­ri­ous name is list­ed, and now we can add: O that Sir Win­ston Churchill should be dead. No man deserved his lau­rels more whol­ly. He left us the exam­ple of his prowess, the books that record his great times; and more than these he left us courage.

Some years ago I&nbs

Was Churchill, on one of his vis­its to the White House, spooked by the ghost of Abra­ham Lin­coln? Ever a fan of Things That Go Bump in the Night, I was intrigued to receive this question.

Fred­er­ick N. Ras­mussen of the Bal­ti­more Sun, an admir­er of Sir Win­ston, told a sto­ry years ago, which has just float­ed back. Ras­mussen wrote:

Experts in the field of spec­tral phe­nom­e­na claim that Mary­land and Wash­ing­ton are rich in sight­ings…. A ghost sto­ry dat­ing to the Civ­il War that has per­sist­ed through the years is that of repeat­ed appear­ances of Abra­ham Lin­coln, who has been seen stand­ing in a win­dow of the Exec­u­tive Man­sion star­ing toward Vir­ginia, as he had done often dur­ing the war. Even Churchill, who thought noth­ing of tak­ing on Hitler and Mus­soli­ni, was not hap­py when assigned to the Lin­coln Bed­room. Quite often, he was found in a vacant bed­room across the hall the next morning.

There are end­less Lin­coln ghost sto­ries. Churchill’s encounter would have occurred dur­ing one of his stays in the White House dur­ing the Sec­ond World War.

But his daugh­ter, Lady Soames, told me he was not eas­i­ly spooked. “He didn’t real­ly believe in appari­tions.” What about his con­fronta­tion with the ghost of his father in his short sto­ry, The Dream? Lady Soames replied: “In that case, his fan­cy was released by the image of his father.”

Naked encounter?