The phrase “absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence” has been attributed to Martin Rees, O.M., astronomer royal, former master of Trinity College, and ex-president of the Royal Society.
[1] It was used by him and then by Carl Sagan in discussions about the possibility of intelligent life somewhere else in the cosmos. (There are those who believe we have no direct evidence
of extraterrestrial intelligence and those who believe we might have direct evidence, e.g., “The Wow! Signal,” a strong signal detected by a radio telescope that has never been repeated.)
[2] And it involves questions about the nature of evidence, about how to separate in a mass of data the signal from the noise. Read more…
Rumsfeld’s life is bookended by two major historical events, two surprise attacks — the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 when he was 9 years old and 60 years later, the attack on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon. Rumsfeld wrote in Known and Unknown:
I had dictated a note to myself [July 23, 2001] that I intended to offer when I was next testifying before Congress. “I do not want to be sitting before this panel in a modern day version of a Pearl
Harbor post-mortem as to who didn’t do what, when, where and why,” I wrote. “None of us would want to have to be back here going through that agony.”[1]
But he was back testifying before Congress several months after that memo was written — not for a post-mortem assessment of what had happened, but to plead for more money from Congress following the 9/11
attacks.
Read more…
The phrase “known unknown” first appears in early 19th-century Romantic poetry — in John Keats’s Endymion, his ode to the sovereign power of love.[1] Fifty years later it appears again in Robert Browning’s The Ring and the Book.[2] A metaphor for the unknowability of the mind of man. And then John Wesley Powell, the
one-armed Civil War veteran who traveled through the Grand Canyon, compared the unknown known and the known unknown. Savagery versus civilization — the first use I can document of the two phrases
in one sentence.[3] Powell wrote:
There is an unknown known, and there is a known unknown. The unknown known is the philosophy of savagery; the known unknown is the philosophy of civilization. In those stages of culture that we call savagery
and barbarism, all things are known — supposed to be known; but when at last something is known, understood, explained, then to those who have that knowledge in full comprehension all other things
become unknown. Then is ushered in the era of investigation and discovery; then science is born; then is the beginning of civilization. The philosophy of savagery is complete; the philosophy of civilization
fragmentary. Ye men of science, ye wise fools, ye have discovered the law of gravity, but ye cannot tell what gravity is. But savagery has a cause and a method for all things; nothing is left unexplained.
[4]
In 1909, the year before his death, Leo Tolstoy was visited at his estate, Yasnaya Polyana, by the Count S. Stackelberg. Stackelberg was on a mission — persuade Tolstoy to write an article on Abraham
Lincoln for The New York World.[1] Tolstoy declined the commission but told Stackelberg a story:
Once while traveling in the Caucasus I happened to be the guest of a Caucasian chief of the Circassians, who, living far away from civilized life in the mountains, had but a fragmentary and childish comprehension
of the world and its history. The fingers of civilization had never reached him nor his tribe, and all life beyond his native valleys was a dark mystery. Being a Mussulman he was naturally opposed to
all ideas of progress and education. I was received with the usual Oriental hospitality and after our meal was asked by my host to tell him something of my life. Yielding to his request I began to tell
him of my profession, of the development of our industries and inventions and of the schools. He listened to everything with indifference, but when I began to tell about the great statesmen and the great
generals of the world he seemed at once to become very much interested.
Photo
Credit
The conversation continued. Descriptions of the Czar. Napoleon. Frederick the Great. But the Circassian chief was clearly unhappy. Something was missing.
‘…You have not told us a syllable about the greatest general and greatest ruler of the world. We want to know something about him. He was a hero. He spoke with a voice of thunder; he laughed
like the sunrise and his deeds were strong as the rock and as sweet as the fragrance of roses. The angels appeared to his mother and predicted that the son whom she would conceive would become the greatest
the stars had ever seen. He was so great that he even forgave the crimes of his greatest enemies and shook brotherly hands with those who had plotted against his life. His name was Lincoln and the country
in which he lived is called America, which is so far away that if a youth should journey to reach it he would be an old man when he arrived. Tell us of that man.’
Remember who is telling the story. Not some run-of-the-mill humdrum storyteller, but the supreme master of Russian literature. Indeed, the Circassian chief as quoted by Stackelberg sounds more like Tolstoy than
how I imagine a Circassian chief might sound. Regardless. Tolstoy told him everything he knew about Lincoln. But the Circassian chief was not satisfied. He wanted something more. The story tells us that
mere words are often not enough. He needed a photograph.
Photo
Credit Corbis
I can hardly forget the great enthusiasm which they expressed in their wild thanks and desire to get a picture of the great American hero. I said that I probably could secure one from my friend in the nearest
town, and this seemed to give them great pleasure…
One of the riders agreed to accompany me to the town and get the promised picture, which I was now bound to secure at any price. I was successful in getting a large photograph from my friend, and I handed
it to the man with my greetings to his associates. It was interesting to witness the gravity of his face and the trembling of his hands when he received my present. He gazed for several minutes silently,
like one in a reverent prayer; his eyes filled with tears. He was deeply touched and I asked him why he became so sad. After pondering my question for a few moments he replied: ‘I am sad because
I feel sorry that he had to die by the hand of a villain. Don’t you find, judging from his picture, that his eyes are full of tears and that his lips are sad with a secret sorrow?’
——–
Neither Tolstoy nor Count Stackelberg tells us which “large photograph” was presented to the Circassian chief — nothing except for the eyes “full of tears” and the
“secret sorrow.” I imagine it must have been from the Feb. 5, 1865, sitting in Gardner’s studio on that cold Sunday afternoon. It would be two months before “he had to die by
the hand of a villain.” Perhaps the Circassian chief had been given O-118. I like to think so. I like to think he was given the version with the proleptic crack.
And really liked it.
Photo
Credit
[1] Part of this account appears at the end of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “A Team of Rivals.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Ann Petrone, Julie Fischer, Max Larkin, Josh Kearney, Skip Skinner and Tom Canaday helped with research and proofreading. The diagrams were created by Steven Hathaway, Sean Carroll and Max Larkin. Charles Rosenberg
and Alfred Guzzetti read various drafts and made helpful suggestions. Dr. James Cornelius, Lincoln curator at the Lincoln Presidential Library, Will Stapp, former curator of the photography collection at
the National Portrait Gallery, and David Gustavson at the George Eastman House gave helpful comments. Thanks to Jane Gastineau, Lincoln Librarian at the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection at the Allen
County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Mary Markey of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, who were helpful in putting together the images included in the essay. And to the art director of “My
Weekend with Marilyn.” Keya Morgan had told me about Marilyn Monroe’s fascination with Lincoln, but until I saw the movie, I didn’t realize she always had a picture of Lincoln in her
bedroom. I googled “Marilyn Lincoln” and it popped up. Finally, my thanks to my two interviewees — Harold Holzer and Keya Morgan. And of course, my wife, Julia Sheehan.
Time magazine was planning to publish a commemorative issue on Lincoln. Keya Morgan, a young, successful collector, was asked to provide a copy of O-118 for the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.
KEYA MORGAN: He wrote a full article about my photo for Time magazine, and the editors got the date wrong.
ERROL MORRIS: You mean O-118?
KEYA MORGAN: Yes. I told him that the date was the 5th of February. And later on, one of the publishers of Time magazine put “April 10, 1865” under the photograph.
ERROL MORRIS: But Obama liked the photograph?
KEYA MORGAN: Obama said it was his favorite photo of all time. He wrote a whole article about it. I didn’t know who Barack Obama was. I thought he had a funny name. I Googled him and found out he
was a senator. I thought, “Wow! That’s nice. Here is a senator who is African-American.” I thought, “That’s very unusual.” He was very polite and very nice.
Photo
Credit Time
ERROL MORRIS: But you’re upset they got the date wrong.
On a cold, blustery Sunday morning, Feb. 5, 1865 — five days after the Congress passed the 13th Amendment prohibiting slavery and over two months before John Wilkes Booth fired the bullet at Ford’s
Theater — President Lincoln and his young son, Tad, walked a mile to the photography studios of Alexander Gardner, at 511 7th Street, Washington, D.C. It was to be a productive morning. Five sets
of images. Wet-plate collodion negatives on glass, then albumen paper prints.[1] Two Imperials, the first and the last, and three sets of four small carte-de-visite negatives —
a total of 14 images.[2]
Apparently weary of the Lincoln paintings at one point, [Wilson] wrote Jeannie [his wife] that he was working on “the interminable, everlasting Lincolns.” — William J. Sims, “Matthew Henry Wilson, 1814 – 1892”[1]
PROLOGUE: PREMONITIONS
Photo
Credit From the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, courtesy of the Indiana
State Museum and Allen County Public Library.
Ward Hill Lamon, Abraham Lincoln’s bodyguard, recalled that days before he was assassinated, Lincoln had discussed a dream — a premonition:
“About ten days ago,” said he, “I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for
I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs.
There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as
I passed along. It was light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be
the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered.
Photo
Credit Library of Congress
“There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was
a throng of people, gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. ‘Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded of one of the soldiers, ‘The
President,’ was his answer; ‘he was killed by an assassin.’ Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which awoke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although
it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.”[2]
If innocents are the favourites of Heaven,
And God but little asks where little’s given,
My great Creator has for me in store
Eternal joys; what wise man can have more? — Gravestone inscription attributed to Baskerville; it was supposedly for “an idiot.”
Josiah Henry Benton, “John Baskerville: Type-Founder and Printer, 1706-1775”Drawn by P. H. Witton Jr. Engraved by William Ellis, 1792.
Fabulously successful in the japanning trade — the application of lacquer to buttons, snuff-boxes, candlesticks, etc. — John Baskerville, the creator of the Baskerville typeface, was able to purchase
eight acres about a half-mile from Birmingham. He named it “Easy Hill,” and built a mansion on the land at a cost of what would be millions of dollars today. It was his little Eden. An anonymous
writer in the Birmingham Daily Mail described the estate: “The pasture was luxuriant, great elm trees shaded the park-like expanse of verdure, an ample fish-pond stretched away westward, and a picturesque
disused windmill standing upon a slight elevation was ready to be converted into the most captivating of summer-houses.” Baskerville himself was a dandy with “clothes of the most gorgeous description,
and may be said to have smothered himself in gold lace on all possible occasions. As often as not he was to be seen arrayed in a green coat and a scarlet waistcoat.” [11]
Sarah Eaves came to live with him as a housekeeper shortly after the purchase of Easy Hill, and for all intents and purposes, as a wife. They married in 1764, after her estranged husband, a convicted forger,
died. Read more…
I would like you to read my essay and then take the quiz. It doesn’t matter whether
you have taken it before. If you haven’t taken it before, please take it. If you have taken it before, please take it again.
Wikimedia CommonsThe Torino Impact Hazard Scale
Here is my confession. My quiz wasn’t really a test of the optimism or pessimism of the reader. There was a hidden agenda. It was a test of the effect of typefaces on truth. Or to be precise, the effect
on credulity. [2] Are there certain typefaces that compel a belief that the sentences they are written in are true?
I picked a passage from David Deutsch’s second book, “The Beginning of Infinity” — a passage about “unprecedented safety” — and embedded it in my quiz for The
Times, “Are You an Optimist or a Pessimist?” Read more…
