Word: codger
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Dates: during 1952-1952
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...Codger. When the Sanitary Commission visited Lincoln, Strong found him "a barbarian, Scythian, yahoo, or gorilla in respect of outside polish," but also a man of "evident integrity and simplicity of purpose." From this visit Strong brought back a fine Lincoln story. Strong had asked Lincoln to pardon an imprisoned man. The papers for a pardon, replied Lincoln, "must be referred to the Attorney-General, but I guess it will be all right, for me and the Attorney-General's very chicken-hearted...
Like Fenimore Cooper, Strong was something of the professional old codger, the cultured curmudgeon who stands in fierce, often prejudiced judgment on his age. At times, as when he declares Americans "the windiest people extant" and deplores the inclination of democracies to undervalue great men, he resembles Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America). And when he lambastes his native land for coarse materialism and imperialist forays ("Texas is annexed. I think I'll expatriate myself"), he anticipates Henry Adams. But what makes his diary good reading for Americans is its reflection of an individual mind which...