Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [396]
Seward and Miss Cushman had met in the 1850s and become great friends. Whenever she was in Washington, she stayed at the Seward home. The celebrated actress forged a close relationship with young Fanny, who idolized her. Miss Cushman offered a glimpse of the vital and independent life Fanny hoped to lead someday, if her dream to become a writer came true. “Imagine me,” Fanny wrote her mother after one of Miss Cushman’s visits, “full of the old literary fervor and anxious to be at work, to try hard—& at the same time ‘learn to labor, & to wait’ I mean, improve in the work which I cannot choose but take…I am full of hope that I may yet make my life worth the living and be of some use in the world.”
In honor of the star guest, Seward organized a series of dinner parties, inviting members of foreign legations and cabinet colleagues. For her part, Miss Cushman regarded Seward as “the greatest man this country ever produced.” Fanny believed that Cushman understood her noble father better than almost anyone outside their family.
Fred Seward recalled that Lincoln made his way to their house almost every night while Miss Cushman visited. Seward had introduced Cushman to the president in the summer of 1861. She had hoped to ask Lincoln for help in obtaining a West Point appointment for a young friend, but the scintillating conversation distracted her from the purpose of her visit. And Lincoln was undoubtedly riveted by the celebrated actress of his beloved Shakespeare.
Unlike Seward, who had been attending theater since he was a young man, Lincoln had seen very few live performances until he came to Washington. So excited was he by his first sight of Falstaff on the stage that he wrote the actor, James Hackett: “Perhaps the best compliment I can pay is to say, as I truly can, I am very anxious to see it again.” Although he had not read all of Shakespeare’s plays, he told Hackett that he had studied some of them “perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader. Among the latter are Lear, Richard Third, Henry Eighth, Hamlet, and especially Macbeth. I think nothing equals Macbeth. It is wonderful. Unlike you gentlemen of the profession, I think the soliloquy in Hamlet commencing ‘O, my offence is rank’ surpasses that commencing, ‘To be, or not to be.’ But pardon this small attempt at criticism.” When Hackett shared the president’s letter with friends, it unfortunately made its way into opposition newspapers. Lincoln was promptly ridiculed for his attempt to render dramatic judgments. An embarrassed Hackett apologized to Lincoln, who urged him to have “no uneasiness on the subject.” He was not “shocked by the newspaper comments,” for all his life he had “endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice.”
The histories and tragedies of Shakespeare that Lincoln loved most dealt with themes that would resonate to a president in the midst of civil war: political intrigue, the burdens of power, the nature of ambition, the relationship of leaders to those they governed. The plays illuminated with stark beauty the dire consequences of civil strife, the evils wrought by jealousy and disloyalty, the emotions evoked by the death of a child, the sundering of family ties or love of country.
Congressman William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania recalled bringing the actor John McDonough to the White House on a stormy night. Lincoln had relished McDonough’s performance as Edgar in King Lear and was delighted to meet him. For his part, McDonough was “an intensely partisan Democrat, and had accepted the theory that Mr. Lincoln was a mere buffoon.” His attitude changed after spending four hours discussing Shakespeare with the president. Lincoln was eager to know why certain scenes were left out of productions. He was fascinated by the different ways that classic lines could be delivered. He lifted his “well-thumbed volume” of Shakespeare from the shelf, reading aloud some passages, repeating others from memory. When the clock