Mr. Noah Brooks, who is publishing a series of personal reminiscences of Lincoln in the Century, tells the following strange story:
On the day mentioned, Lincoln narrated an incident the particulars of which I wrote out and printed directly after. These are his own words, ad nearly as they could then be recalled:
“It was just after my election in 1860, when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day and there had been a great ‘hurrah, boys,’ so that I was well tired out and went home to rest, throwing myself down on a lounge in my chamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it (and here he got up an placed furniture to illustrate the position), and looking in that glass I saw myself reflected nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed, had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished. On lying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before, and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler, say five shades–than the other. I got up, and the thing melted away, and I went off and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it–nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang as if something uncomfortable had happened.
“When I went home that night I told my wife about it, and a few days afterwards I made the experiment again when (with a laugh), sure enough the thing came again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife. She was somewhat worried about it. She though it was a ’sign’ that I was to be elected to a second term of office and that the paleness of the face was an omen that I should not see life through the last term.”
That is a very remarkable story–a coincidence, we may say, to which some significance was given by the cruel death of the president soon after the beginning of his second term. I told Mrs. Lincoln the story, and asked her if she remembered the details. She expressed surprise that Mr. Lincoln was willing to say anything about it, as he had up to that time refrained from mentioning the incident to anybody and as she was firm in her belief that the optical illusion (which it certainly was) was a warning, I never again referred to the subject to either the president or his wife.
Subsequently, Lincoln’s version of the story was confirmed by Private Secretary John Hay, who, however, was of the opinion that the illusion had been seen on the day of Lincoln’s first nomination, and not, as I have said, on the day of his first election.
[tags]Ann Arbor Register, April, 1895[/tags]