Lincoln avoided this house as much as possible because, according to William Herndon, “his home was Hell” and “absence from home was his Heaven.” So much did he enjoy life on the circuit each spring and fall that he rejected a job offer from a Chicago firm that paid much more than he could earn in Springfield. Rather than return home on weekends like the other circuit riders, he stayed over in the little county seats by himself, even though, as one of them put it, “nothing could be duller than remaining on the Sabbath in a country inn of that time after adjournment of court. Good cheer had expended its force during court week, and blank dullness succeeded.” Nevertheless, Lincoln “would entertain the few lingering roustabouts of the barroom with as great zest, apparently, as he had previously entertained the court and bar, and then would hitch up his horse … and, solitary and alone, ride off to the next term in course.” David Davis and the other attorneys “soon learned to account for his strange disinclination to go home.” Lincoln “never had much to say about home, and,” Davis recalled, “we never felt free to comment on it. Most of us had pleasant, inviting homes, and as we struck out for them I’m sure each one of us down in our hearts had a mingled feeling of pity and sympathy for him.” To Davis and others it was obvious that Lincoln “was not domestically happy.” Herndon remembered that “while all other lawyers, every Saturday night after court hours, would start for home to see wife & babies,” Lincoln “would see us start home and know that we were bound to see good wife and the children. Lincoln, poor soul, would grow terribly sad at the sight, as much as to say—‘I have no wife and no home.’ None of us on starting home would say to Lincoln—‘Come, Lincoln, let’s go home,’ for we knew the terrors of home to him.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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