"Lincoln was visibly nervous.  He was wearing a new black suit and sporting a neatly clipped beard. . .
"Lincoln unrolled the manuscript of his inaugural address.  He put on his steel-rimmed spectacles and faced the sunlit crowd below.  Thousands of people jammed the broad square in front of the Capital, waiting to hear the new president speak.
"Four months had passed since Lincoln's election in November.  During that time, seven Southern states had left the Union, and four more were about to join them.  In February, Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi had been sworn in as president of the Confederate States of America.  Now, with the Union collapsing, the defiant South was preparing for war.
"Congressional leaders had tried to find a compromise plan that would hold the Union together.  But the Southerners would not budge from their demands."

~ excerpt from Chapter five, Lincoln, A Photobiography, by Russell Freedman.Clarion Books, 1987.

On Monday, January 21, 2013, The 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, will place his hand on the Lincoln bible and be sworn in at his second inauguration.

For a complete list of U.S. presidents, including Name, Term, Vice-Pres., Party, Congress, House Majority & Senate Majority:
http://australianpolitics.com/united-states-of-america/president/list-of-presidents-of-the-united-states

Inauguration Day ~ March 4, 1861

"Washington looked like an armed camp.  Cavalry and artillery had been clattering through the streets all morning.  Troops were everywhere.  Rumors of assassination plots, of Southern plans to seize the capital and prevent the inauguration, had put the army on the alert.
Shortly after noon, the carriage bearing President James Buchanan and President-elect Abraham Lincoln bounced over the cobblestones of Pennsylvania Avenue, heading for Capitol Hill.  Infantrymen lined the parade route.  Army sharpshooters crouched on nearby rooftops.  Soldiers surrounded the Capitol building, and plainclothes detectives mingled with the crowds.  On a hill overlooking the Capitol, artillerymen manned a line of howitzers and watched for trouble."

Tomorrow:  More of Russell Freedman's LINCOLN A PHOTOBIOGRAPHY, Clarion Books, 1987.

Henry D. Thoreau ~

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.  I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary.  I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms."

~ Henry D. Thoreau (Waldon, published in 1854) "Where I lived, and What I lived for."

H. D. Thoreau Memorial at Waldon*

*Photo source:  Wikipedia

Thought for Today ~

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.  It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautified; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.  To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.  Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour."

~ Henry D. Thoreau (1817 - 1862) A Fully Annotated Edition Walden, Yale University, 2004.  Edited & annotated by J. S. Cramer, curator of collections, The Thoreau Institute Walden Woods.

Tomorrow:  Thoreau tells us why he went to the woods to live.

READING ~

Author John Passfield

Thursday, January 17, 1:00 p.m.

"Coffee Pot's Always on..."

Everyone Welcome ~ no admission

Note:  Local author John Passfield has a new book, Babe Ruth.  Sports fans won't want to miss this one.  We hope to bring to you details and front cover image.

(To our Readers:  The Neat Little Bookshop blog has always included photographs and illustrations.  Of late, you may have noticed an odd repetition.  That is because something happened when we agreed to purchase additional storage from Goggle's Blogspot.  Suddenly, the only photos available for posting are those from earlier posts.  We are working to remedy the problem.) 

 This is Ontario* by Katherine Hale
Chapter II ~ Grand River Valley

Her Majesty's Church of the Mohawks

2012 Addition to Accomodate a Lift

* Ryerson Press, Toronto. Copyright, Canada, 1937.  Photos:  lbwalker, 2012.

Word Watching ~

The origin of words or phrases is always fascinating.  The label "peeping tom" comes from a seventeenth-century embellishment of the story of Lady Godiva's naked horseback ride in the year 1057.

Almost certainly an apocryphal tale, the story has it that Lady Godiva had pleaded with her husband, Leofric, English nobleman and Earl, to lower the taxes on the people of Coventry.  He agreed only if she would ride naked through the town's market place.

The seventeen-year-old Godiva called her husband's bluff.  However, she had previously made a pact with the townspeople that they would remain indoors behind closed shutters if they wanted their taxes lowered.  Everyone complied except a tailor by the name of Tom.  "This prurient citizen peeped through his curtains, drawing upon himself instant calamity by an unspecified agent; he was struck blind or in some versions dead."

Tailor Tom left a legacy to the English language, the phrase, "peeping Tom."

~ Source: The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, Clifton Fadiman General Editor, 1985.