DOCSLIB.ORG

Abraham Lincoln's Indiana and the Spirit of Mortal

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Abraham Lincoln's Indiana and the Spirit of Mortal Abraham Lincoln’s Indiana and the Spirit of Mortal Douglas L. Wilson’” Abraham Lincoln was fond of poetry. As a young man, he memorized and recited the best-known poems of Robert Burns, ad- mired Lord Byron, and cultivated a taste for William Shakespeare that would last throughout his life. Perhaps more than any other president, the self-educated Lincoln invoked his familiarity with English verse, particularly the plays of Shakespeare, as a means of dealing with the pressures and burdens of office. But his favorite poem, which he would recite alongside passages from Hamlet, was so obscure that until the last months of his life he never knew it in an authoritative text or even knew the name of its author. “Mortality” by the Scottish poet William Knox is better known by its first line, “0 why should the spirit of mortal be proud?’ but it is safe to say it is only known or remembered at all in associa- tion with Abraham Lincoln. This was true even in Lincoln’s life- time, when he was himself sometimes identified as the poem’s author, an attribution he found flattering. “Beyond all question, I am not the author,” he wrote to a correspondent. “I would give all I am worth, and go in debt, to be able to write so fine a piece as I think that is.”1 Judging by the number of times he is reported to have praised it, recited it, and dictated or copied it out for friends during the last twenty years of his life, it seems reasonable to con- clude with David C. Mearns that this obscure poem “had a special meaning for Abraham Lincoln.”2 * Douglas L. Wilson is professor of English and director of the library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. He has written on Jefferson’s library and literary in- terests, and more recently, on Jefferson and Lincoln as readers. He is currently editing, with Rodney 0. Davis, the letters and interviews of William H. Herndon’s Lincoln informants. 1 Abraham Lincoln to Andrew Johnston, April 18, 1846, in The Collected Works ofAbraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler (9 vols., New Brunswick, N.J., 1953), I, 378. David C. Mearns, “ ‘The Great Invention of the World’: Mr. Lincoln and the Books he Read,” in Three Presidents and Their Books: The Reading of Jefferson, Lincoln, and Franklin D. Rooseuelt, by Arthur Bestor, David C. Mearns, and Jona- than Daniels (Urbana, Ill., 1955), 83. INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, LXXXVII (June, 1991). * 1991, Trustees of Indiana University. 156 Indiana Magazine of History Lincoln’s recitation of “Mortality” must have been extremely effective, to judge by the reactions of witnesses. One of the most revealing accounts is provided by Francis B. Carpenter, who en- gaged Lincoln in literary conversation while painting his portrait in the White House. Carpenter described an evening spent with Lincoln in his study, where the president began talking about Shakespeare and then read several of his favorite passages, some- thing he did often and with great effect. “Relapsing into a sadder strain,” Carpenter wrote, “he laid the book aside, and leaning back in his chair, said, ‘There is a poem that has been a great favorite with me for years, to which my attention was first called when a young man, by a friend, and which I afterward saw and cut from a newspaper, and carried in my pocket, till by frequent reading I had it by heart. I would give a great deal,’ he added, ‘to know who wrote it, but I never could ascertain.’ Then, half closing his eyes, he repeated the poem, ‘Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?’ ”3 Carpenter’s reaction was typical of Lincoln’s listeners: he was surprised and delighted, and he asked for a copy of the text. Unlike the special meaning of “Mortality” for Abraham Lin- coln, the poem’s meanings are not at all obscure. Its basic theme- that life is fleeting and death inevitable-is modulated in each of its fourteen quatrains and is accented by the framing question of the first and last lines: 0 why should the spirit of mortal be proud! Like a swift flying meteor-a fast flying cloud- A flash of the lightning-a break of the wave, He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. The leaves of the Oak, and the Willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid. And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie. The infant a mother attended and loved- The mother that infant’s affection who proved The husband that mother and infant who blest, Each-all are away to their dwellings of rest. The maid on whose brow, on whose cheek, in whose eye Shone beauty and pleasure-her triumphs are by; And alike from the memory of the living erased And the memory of mortals, who loved her and praised- The hand of the King, that the scepter hath borne, The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn, The eye of the Sage, and the heart of the Brave, Are hidden, and lost in the depth of the grave- F. B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln: The Story of a Picture (New York, 18661, 58. Spirit of Mortal 157 The saint who enjoyed the communion of Heaven, The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven; The wise and the foolish, the gentle and just, Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap. The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep, The beggar who wandered in search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread. So the multitude goes like the flower or weed, That withers away to let other succeed, So the multitude comes, even those we behold, To repeat every tale that has often been told. For we are the same our fathers have been, We see the same sights our fathers have seen, We drink the same stream, and view the same sun, And run the same course our fathers have run- The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think, From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink; To the life we are clinging they also would cling, But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing- They loved, but the story we can not unfold, The scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold, They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come, They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb- They died! Aye, they died. We things that are now- That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, And make in their dwellings a transient abode, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, Are mingled together in sun shine and rain- And the smile, and the tear, and the song, and the dirge, Still follow each other like surge upon surge- Tis the wink of an eye, tis the draught of a breath From the blossom of health to the paleness of death- From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud- 0 why should the spirit of mortal be proud?4 4 The text cited here is that written out by Lincoln in 1849 for Lois E. Newhall and is transcribed from the photographic reproduction in Maurice Boyd, William Knox and Abraham Lincoln: The Story of a Poetic Legacy (Denver, 1966), xiv-xvii. This version differs slightly from the authoritative text of the poem in the ex- tremely rare collected edition of Knox’s poetry (1847), which is reproduced in Boyd. Another version in Lincoln’s hand, written out for Ellen M. Hutchison Stanton dur- ing Lincoln’s presidency and reproduced by Boyd, is lacking stanza 7; the version dictated to Francis B. Carpenter lacked stanzas 4 and 7. The earliest known Lincoln version, dictated to his law clerk Gibson Harris between 1845 and 1847, is in the Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield. 158 Indiana Magazine of History THEINDIANA ABRAHAM LINCOLN MOVEDTO As A BOY OF EIGHT HE LATERDESCRIBED As “AN UNBROKENFOREST.” REVISITING THE SCENEMANY YEARS LATER, HE WROTE: “THATPART OF THE COUNTRYIs, WITHIN ITSELF, As UNPOETICALAS ANY SPOT OF THE EARTH;BUT STILL, SEEING IT AND ITS OBJECTSAND INHABITANTS AROUSEDFEELINGS IN ME WHICH WERECERTAINLY POETRY.” Engravings throughout text reproduced from William Knox, Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud‘ (Boston, 1877), n p , collections of Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington Intended by the poet as a recapitulation of the third chapter of Job and the first chapter of Ecclesiastes, its Old Testament fatalism is unremitting and notably unrelieved by any suggestion of an after- life. The fate of humankind-low or high, young or old-is that of the leaves: both “shall moulder to dust.” Human joy and grief, love and scorn, are all mere repetitions of one’s forebears and come to nothing. The predominant fact of life is death. Pride in so tran- sient a thing as a mortal is obviously misplaced. There can be little doubt that there was a connection between Lincoln’s affinity for “Mortality” and his recurrent melancholy. In- deed, one of the most conspicuous features of Lincoln’s personal demeanor was his frequent lapses into moods of profound depres- sion. He seems to have been subject to these spells from an early date, though he probably attempted to disguise them at first.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Lincoln Studies at the Bicentennial: a Round Table
    Lincoln Studies at the Bicentennial: A Round Table Lincoln Theme 2.0 Matthew Pinsker Early during the 1989 spring semester at Harvard University, members of Professor Da- vid Herbert Donald’s graduate seminar on Abraham Lincoln received diskettes that of- fered a glimpse of their future as historians. The 3.5 inch floppy disks with neatly typed labels held about a dozen word-processing files representing the whole of Don E. Feh- renbacher’s Abraham Lincoln: A Documentary Portrait through His Speeches and Writings (1964). Donald had asked his secretary, Laura Nakatsuka, to enter this well-known col- lection of Lincoln writings into a computer and make copies for his students. He also showed off a database containing thousands of digital note cards that he and his research assistants had developed in preparation for his forthcoming biography of Lincoln.1 There were certainly bigger revolutions that year. The Berlin Wall fell. A motley coalition of Afghan tribes, international jihadists, and Central Intelligence Agency (cia) operatives drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Virginia voters chose the nation’s first elected black governor, and within a few more months, the Harvard Law Review selected a popular student named Barack Obama as its first African American president. Yet Donald’s ven- ture into digital history marked a notable shift. The nearly seventy-year-old Mississippi native was about to become the first major Lincoln biographer to add full-text searching and database management to his research arsenal. More than fifty years earlier, the revisionist historian James G. Randall had posed a question that helps explain why one of his favorite graduate students would later show such a surprising interest in digital technology as an aging Harvard professor.
    [Show full text]
  • Amberglow of Abraham Lincoln and Ann Rutledge
    LHNC Q LN KQ Q M LIBRA RY M EMQ RHA L t/oe Glow of 190] fou n ded by H A RLA N H O YT H O RNER a n d H ENRIETTA C A LH O UN H O RNER CO PY RI H TED 1 G , 939 BY A R O LD F A I A TE N R NC S G S . T SPEC KA L PREN KNG O F 300, PRINTED IN TH E UNITED STATES , DEA TH Q F A NN RUTLEDGE H ERE A RE the chiding leaves ? ? i s that the winter snow a- falling Is it her that ’ s calling me I n the brooding cold ? l hear in every sou nd In wind ' i In heavy rain that a falling I say again I hear her calling me ' h n Why , oh W y should every natural sou d A bound with pleading cries? Why must every gnarled tree Easily W hisper sighs ? l know , a That life is living A nd death is easily met e But listen i hear her callin g yet ' And though i live for ages My soul shall ever see n A frie dl y , constant shadow That pleads and waits for m e. H E MEMORY Abraham Li ncoln is like a spirit within t h e s e United States that reveals a deep significance only after ‘ r long and an alytical thought . A nation lived prio to h i s comi n g but kept on doing so only under - n w e his after life force .
    [Show full text]
  • OF HISTORY Volume XLI September, 1945 No
    INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Volume XLI September, 1945 No. 3 Herndon’s Contribution to Lincoln Mythology LOUISA. WARREN The primary and perhaps the most important task of a painstaking biographer is to test the reliability of his source material. The average historian is often tempted to throw the responsibility for the accuracy of his deductions on other authors who have preceded him in the same field of effort. This is accomplished by the use of a generous distribution of footnotes and references, supplemented with an exhaustive bibliography. Supported by this array of evidences he at- tempts to give his argument the tone of authority. This method of approach by many Lincoln historians is responsible for the continual repetition of folklore and fable, until numer- ous, untenable stories, so widely circulated, have become ac- cepted generally as factual, and constitute what we may term, “Lincoln Mythology.” There is no collection of writings, consisting of manu- scripts, correspondence, recorded traditions, fragments of folklore, and personal reminiscences, which has contributed more definitely to the current opinion of Abraham Lincoln’s private life, than the compilation known as the Herndon collection of Lincoln papers.’ One would lack the ability of discrimination if he did not acknowledge the historical value of much of the information contained in these docu- ments, but he would also show the absence of nice perception The originals of the Herndon-Weik Collection are in the Library of Congress. They are divided into five main groups. I. Association Pieces A. A sheet from the home-made arithmetic book of Abraham Lincoln R.
    [Show full text]
  • The Soul of Ann Rutledge : Abraham Lincoln's Romance
    LINCOLN NATIONAL LIFE FOUNDATION ^^ j,^^^ /yl^ . //Wv^2^^/^ /^.^^2^^ i^^C.e^'^. Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive in 2010 witli funding from Tlie Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant http://www.archive.org/details/soulofannrutledgOOinbabc THE SOUL OF ANN RUTLEDGE ABBAHAM LINCOLN'S ROMANCE SECOND IMPRESSION " ABRAH.\M, THIS PLACE SEEMS HOLY AND YOU ARE ITS PROPHET Page 276 THE SOUL OF ANN RUTLEDGE ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S ROMANCE BY BERNIE BABCOCK WITH A FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR BY GAYLE EOSKINS PHILADELPHL^ & LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COjMPANY 1919 OOPTHIOHT, I9I9, BT J. B. LIPPDJCOTT COMPANT PRINTED BT J. B. LIPPIWCOTT COMPANT AT THS WASHINGTON SQUABE PEBSS PHILADELPHIA, V. S. A. ToJ AUTHOR'S NOTE In the tremendous output of Lincolniana that has been given to literature, it seems strange that no adequate story has been given of one of the greatest loves in history. Many writers have referred to it and to its moulding power on the lover's after life. Some have thrown sidelights on the character of the woman. Some have mentioned her rare gift of song and her unusual endowment of mind, and one writer has given a careful description of her personal appearance. But so far as careful and exhaustive research shows, all this matter has never been woven into one story. It is also strange that there has been so much controversy regarding the religious views of Abraham Lincoln, and by those whose faith is based on the evidence required by the Great Teacher when He said, '* Ye shall know them by their fruits." Nor should it ever have been taken as an evidence of lack of faith because he did not accept the creedal beliefs of his day, for had not the Christ Himself strenuously denied 7 AUTHOR'S NOTE much that was insisted on in His day, Christian- ity could never have been possible.
    [Show full text]
  • Ann Rutledge in American Memory: Social Change and the Erosion of a Romantic Drama
    Ann Rutledge in American Memory: Social Change and the Erosion of a Romantic Drama BARRY SCHWARTZ A legend of a shining, deathless, holy and pure passion arose, spread, grew by some inherent vital sheen of its own or of the need of those who wanted it, of Ann Rutledge. Carl Sandburg, The Prairie Years Among the many love stories that poetry, biography, film, and drama told during the first half of the twentieth century, that of Abraham Lincoln and Ann Rutledge occupies a special place. Although scholars have argued for decades about the role Ann Rutledge played in Abra- ham Lincoln’s life,1 this essay says nothing about that question; rather, it speaks about the diminished relevance of the question itself. Moving back and forth between images of tragic romance and the changing ethos of American culture, the essay reviews the emergence and diffu- sion of the Ann Rutledge story. It explains why the story evoked strong public interest during the Progressive and New Deal eras, remained popular until the 1950s, then faded as a postindustrial society intensified demands for diversity, inclusion, racial justice, and gender equality. Diminishing popular interest in Ann Rutledge accompanied by rising academic interest raises important questions for scholars of collective memory. A second-cousin of “public opinion,” “collective memory” refers to the distribution throughout society of beliefs, knowledge, feelings, and moral judgements about the past. Only in- dividuals possess the capacity to contemplate the past, but beliefs do not originate in the individual alone, nor can they be explained on the basis of personal experience.
    [Show full text]
  • Lincoln's Ghosts
    LINCOLN’S GHOSTS: THE POSTHUMOUS CAREER OF AN AMERICAN ICON Kimberly N. Kutz A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History. Chapel Hill 2013 Approved by: John F. Kasson W. Fitzhugh Brundage Bernard Herman David Morgan Heather A. Williams ©2013 Kimberly N. Kutz ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT KIMBERLY NOELLE KUTZ: Lincoln’s Ghosts: The Posthumous Career of an American Icon (Under the direction of Professor John F. Kasson) American cultural productions repeatedly have depicted Abraham Lincoln as “living on” as a spirit after his assassination in 1865. The unprecedented death toll of the Civil War coupled with the uncertain future of African American citizenship in the years after the war led Americans, both black and white, to imagine and reimagine how a living Lincoln would have responded to contemporary issues in the United States. As they grappled with Lincoln’s legacy for American race relations, artists, writers, and other creators of American culture did not simply remember Lincoln but envisioned him as an ongoing spiritual presence in everyday life. Immediately after the Civil War, when the American Spiritualist movement encouraged the bereaved to believe that departed loved ones watched over and comforted the living, popular prints and spirit photography depicted Lincoln’s ghost remaining to guide the American people. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, actors who played Lincoln on the American stage presented themselves as embodied forms of his spirit, in the process eschewing Lincoln’s political achievement of Emancipation in favor of sentimental portrayals of his boyhood and family life.
    [Show full text]
  • “It Would Just Kill Me to Marry Mary Todd”: Courtship and Marriage
    Chapter Six “It Would Just Kill Me to Marry Mary Todd”: Courtship and Marriage (1840-1842) In 1842, Lincoln married Mary Todd, a woman who was to make his domestic life “a burning, scorching hell,” as “terrible as death and as gloomy as the grave,” according to one who knew him well.1 COURTING MARY OWENS Lincoln’s courtship of Mary Todd is poorly documented, but indirect light on it is shed by his earlier, well-documented romance with Mary S. Owens. Born in Kentucky a few months before Lincoln, Mary Owens received a good education at the home of her wealthy father, a planter in Green County.2 She “was very different from Anne Rutledge.” Not only was she older, bigger, better-educated, and raised “in the most refined society,” she also “dressed much finer than any of the ladies who lived about New 1 William H. Herndon, quoted in Michael Burlingame, The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 268. 2 Nathaniel Owens, out “of his deep concern for the education of his children . maintained a private school in his pretentious plantation home, to which came instructors from Transylvania University, Ky., to give instruction to his children and those of his neighbors.” On his 5000-acre plantation he grew cotton and tobacco, which he farmed with the help of two dozen slaves. Notes on Nathaniel Owens, Fern Nance Pond Papers, Menard County Historical Museum, Petersburg, Illinois. According to William B. Allen, Owens “was a farmer of good education for the times, and of a high order of native intellect.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ann Rutledge }Iyth
    L~N COLN LORE llulletln of the Lincoln National Ufe Foundation - - • - · • Or. !..out• A. War...,n, Edit<>r Pnbltahed eaeh week by The Lincoln National Life Insurance Comvnny, Fort \Voyne, Tndi;.na xmmER1206 FORT WAYNE, INDIANA MAY 19, 1952 THE ANN RUTLEDGE }IYTH Many students of histoty have maintAined for several jP'OVe of Ann Rutledge and when interviewed about her years that the story of any romance between Abraham Jn later years stated that, "I never heard any person say Lincoln and Ann Rutledge is pure fiction. An important that Mr. Lincoln addressed Miss Ann Rutledge in terms witness now comes to the support of this view in the of courtship neither her own family nor my acquaintance person of Maty Todd Lincoln, wife of the President, otherwise." Is it possible that no one told him that when whose written testimony states, ur shall remain firm he was nway Ann and Lincoln had become engaged if in my conviction that Ann Rutledge is a myth-for in such were the case? all his (her husband's) confidential communications such a romantic name was never breathed." Tho above state· James Short was one of Lincoln's closest friends dur· ment appears in a letter written by Mary Todd to David ing the New Salem days and bid in a horse and some Davis on March 4, 1867-discovered in the papers of the surveying instruments for Abe when he was about to recipient, the executor of the President's estate. It has lose them at a commissioners sale. The Rutledges lived been surmised for a long time that when access was near Short at Sand Ridge and he had a close acquaintance gained to the Davis papers valuable historical data with them while Abe was supposed to be doing his court· would be available.
    [Show full text]
  • Mary Lincoln "Framed"
    L~N COLN LORE Bulletin of the Lincoln National Life Foundation -- - - -- Dr. Louis A. Warren, Editor Published each week by The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company, Fort Wayne, Indiana Number 1067 FORT WAYNE, INDIANA September 19, 1949 MARY LINCOLN "FRAMED" Ruth Painter Randall has achieved with one forcible Possibly the framing of Mrs. Lincoln as a wife and concise. sentence what most of us, who share her view­ mother is the most abusive role in which Mr. He.rndcn point with respect to the real Mary Todd Lincoln, have appears. She was the mother of four sons, one dying been laboring for years to accomplish with our extended in infancy at four years, another In the White House and documented monographs. Tranquil students of Abra­ at 12 years of age, and a third in Chicago after her ham Lincoln have been shaken out of their complacency husband's assassination. Herndon raised this question in with referenco to the status of the President's wife by the startling but well supported assertion of Mrs. Randall a letter to his friend and co-author Jesse M. Weik, "I that "In a sense Mary Lincoln has been 'framed'/' should like to know one thing and that is: what caused the death of these children. I have an opinion which I The author supplements this assertion by figuratively will never state to anyone. I know a good des! of the pointing her finger at William H. Herndon whom she Lincoln family and too much of Mrs. Lincoln. I wish I calls Mrs. Lincoln's "devil's advocate." She states that it did not know as much of her as I do; she was a tigress." was his book on Lincoln published in 1889 "that set Mary Lincoln before the world as an ill-tempered shrew who Mrs.
    [Show full text]
  • Booth and Spirit of Lincoln
    BOOTH AND SPIRIT OF LINCOLN A STORY OF A LIVING DEAD MAN BY BERNIE BABCOCK AUTHOR OF THE SOUL OF ANN RUTLEDGE, THE SOUL OP ABE LINCOLN, ETC. GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1925. BY BBRNIB BABCOCK. TO THE MEMORY OP MARY ANN HOLMES WIFE OF JUNIUB BRUTUS BOOTH, MOTHER OF SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF WHOM WERE THE FAMOUS ACTORS JUNTOS BRUTUS, JR., EDWIN AND JOHN WILKES Though the youngest of these sons, because he forsook the teachings of a Christian mother and walked in the council of the ungodly, made infamous a name that might other* wise have been immortal in the splendor of his art, yet until the heart he broke ceased to beat, its every throb was one of deepest affection for her last born child and her every prayer one for the soul of a man who never in life or death got beyond his mother's love IN APPRECIATION This story, BOOTH AND THE SPIRIT OF LINCOLN, is founded on documentary evidence, a great portion of which was gathered by Finis L. Bates (deceased), early-day friend of John St. Helen, evidence now in possession of his wife, Mrs. Finis L. Bates, 1234 Harbert Avenue, Memphis, Tenn. This evidential matter I have examined with great care, using a strong magnifying glass over some of the signatures to detect the fraud charged by certain writers, who claim to believe Booth was shot in the Garrett barn. For the opportunity of this rigid examination I wish to thank Mrs. Bates and to advise readers of this story who may wish copies of Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • (Red Lodge, Mont.), 1931-04-23
    PAGE EIGHT THE CARBON COUNTY NEWS. RED LODGE. MONTANA THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1931 n ?» of dramatic incidents. At the tenth trick, Z should lead his No. 10. It is a very pretty hand and The death of Lincoln by the last spade. A cannot discard the jack the play as given actually took place. ABRAHAM LINCOLN of clubs or Y's ten will be good, so is hands of an assassin must rank 8 £How to play Bridge It is all the more noteworthy in that MRS. MINNIE OWENS forced to discard the four of hearts. Thiis : Z did not see any of the cards held by STANDS AS ACME OF as one of the greatest cene of a 1 ^ > AUCTION forced discard is called the “squeeze." A or B and his play depended on m- tragic nature ever filmed. Here / or Y now discards the ten of clubs and B ference alone. To appreciate how diffi­ SUCCUMBSTOHEART FILM PERFORMANCES Griffith toys with suspense and \\W3 is forced to discard. If he discards the cult his task was, just try to make the makes the spectator a living part ace of diamonds, Z's eight is good; so small slam as a double dummy propo­ of that real audience which heard CONTRACT B is forced to discard a heart. sition. It is hands like this one that ATTACK WEDNESDAY It is more than sublime enter­ VllLK This “squeeze" or forced discard of John Booth’s cruel shot at Fort, s make the expert so enjoy the game. tainment, D. W.
    [Show full text]
  • Abraham Lincoln Assassination
    ^ > *3 The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln John Wilkes Booth's Diary Excerpts from newspapers and other sources From the files of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection : ' Booth's Diary. ,be printed. So ends all. For my coun- given all The Booih diary is published. It try I have up that makes life ' and holy brought misery simp'y a defence of his actions. He says eweet ; upon my under date of April 13 and 14: family, aud am sure there is no pardon in Teamo. April 13-14. Friday, the ides. Heaven for me since man condemns rae 'Until to day nothing was thought of so. I have only heard of what^as been sacrificing him to our country's wrongs. done, except what I did myself, and it For six months we have worked to cap- fills me with horror. God, try and for- ture, but our cause being almost lost, give me ; and bless my mother. To night something decisive and great must be I will once more try the river whh the i intent to cross, though I a greater done ; but its failure was owing to others have who did not strike for their country with desire and almost a mind to return to a heart. I struck boldly, and tioi as the Washington and in a measure clear my papers say. 1 walked with a firm step name, which I feel I can do. I do not! through a thousand of hisfriends.and was repent the blow I struck. I may before stopped, but pushed on.
    [Show full text]