Made in Germany

LINCOLN--Emil Ludwig--Little, Brown ($5).

Though Biographer Ludwig has not modified the outlines of a life known to every U. S. public-schoolboy, he gives many anecdotes and quotations in these readable 489 pages that few Lincoln admirers will mind hearing again; some that may be new to all except Lincoln students. For instance: when Lincoln was captain of a company (which saw no fighting) in the Black Hawk War, he was once at a loss how to get his men through a gate. Said he at last: "This company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again on the other side of the gate!"

Lincoln, said one of his friends, "had a strong if not terrible passion for women." Nevertheless, he made a loveless marriage with Mary Todd, and was in such a nervous panic on his wedding day that he took refuge in the Illinois Legislature. Later, however, she got her man, for, said she: "Mr. Lincoln is to be President of the United States some day; if I had not thought so, I would not have married him, for you can see he is not pretty."

Lincoln was not a happy man. Said his friend and partner Herndon: "His melancholy oozed from him as he walked." Depression led him into absent-minded habits, so that he would walk through the streets in a trance, laugh at the wrong times, and speak out of turn. Once for two days he neglected his law business while he sat, surrounded by compasses, calculations and rulers, trying to square the circle. He split rails and infinitives with equal ease: when he had written his letter of acceptance of the Republican nomination in 1860, he took it to the Springfield superintendent of education, who pointed out a split infinitive. Said Lincoln: "So you think I better put those two little fellows end to end, do you?" and did it. Shortly after his nomination a little girl wrote to him and told him he ought to grow whiskers. He started growing them, sure enough; but not the little girl, says Ludwig, but Mrs. Lincoln, was responsible.

Lincoln was one of the most original letter-writers who ever penned an official communication. His famed letter giving Hooker command of the Army of the Potomac is too long to quote. Here is one written when Lincoln was still a lawyer in Springfield, to a Manhattan firm which had inquired about the financial standing of a certain Springfield citizen. Said Lincoln: "First of all, he has a wife and a baby; together they ought to be worth $500,000 to any man. Secondly, he has an office in which there is a table worth $1.50, and three chairs worth, say, $1. Last of all, there is in one corner a large rathole, which will bear looking into. Respectfully, A. Lincoln."

The Significance. Popular with many plain people in his lifetime, Lincoln was almost universally hooted at by U. S. aristocracy and by Europe. (Notable exception: The Manchester trade-unionists, who applauded him even while the Southern blockade was ruining their cotton industry.) At his death the tide changed; now he is generally regarded, in the U. S. and abroad, as our greatest President, bar none. Says Biographer Ludwig: "In the many years I have been studying and writing about characters I have never found a more lovable man than Abraham Lincoln, whom God created as a solitary diamond, hors concours [unique]."

The Author. Emil Ludwig, indefatigable reporter of late great lives, was born in Breslau, Germany, in 1881, of Jewish parents. His father was a famed ophthalmologist. Stocky, long-haired; smooth, long, plump of face, bland of smile, his dark eyes have a Rudy Vallee droop. In law, then business, till he was 25, he took up journalism in 1914. Say his detractors: he is still at it. Says he: "I detest the historical novel. It perverts both history and fiction. My ideal is a portrait of unimpeachable documentary veracity, which at the same time is suggestive of a story." Author Ludwig has been married 27 years. Other books: Napoleon, Bismarck, The Son of Man, Goethe, Diana (a novel, TIME, Dec. 16).

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