The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-23 00:00:00

NG, MAY 23, 1865.

PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN•

As described in the Revue des Deux Mondes, by
M. Auguste Langel.

" Charles Sumner one day told me that the Pre-
sident opened once a week, no matter how pressing
his occupations, his Cabinet to all who desired to
address a petition or claim to him. We set out for
the White House, and entered Mr. Lincoln's Ca-
binet, where, without being announced, we took
our places with a dozen people who were waiting
for their turn. The walls were covered with large
maps representing the divers places where the war
was going on. Over the chimney hung a portrait
of President Jackson, the features dry and harsh,
and bearing the impress of extreme energy. Over
the marble there was a photographic likeness,
beautifully done—it was that of John Bright, the
eloquent defender of the American Union in the
British Parliament. Through two spacious windows
I could see the white lines of the Potomac, the
winding uplands of Maryland, and the half-hidden
obelisk of Washington standing in sharp relief to
the blue sky. Between two windows stood a
huge writing-table, before which the President
was seated. He did not perceive Mr. Sumner,
being at the moment engaged in talking with
some petitioner, whom he dismissed soon after we
entered. The usher—who, by the way, was dressed
like everybody else—brought forward a woman.
She appeared to be in deep affliction, and it was
with difficulty she could explain that her husband
was a soldier in the regular army, that he
had served for a long term, and now asked for leave
to quit his regiment and return to support his
family. She got more and more embarrassed as
she spoke. Let me help you,' said Mr. Lincoln
kindly, and thereupon he put questions to her with
the method and clearness of a lawyer. On the
luminous rectangle of the window, through which
poured a flood of sunshine, his profile appeared
dark ; with the right hand he often pushed up his
hair, which made it stand straight, or changed it
into disordered tufts. While he spoke all the
muscles of the face put in movement gave an angular
and strange contour to his head, which had some
resemblance, to that of Mephistopheles ; but his
voice had all the softness of the father. After put-
ting some questions to the poor woman, he said, ' I
can't myz:elf grant you what you ask. I have the
right of disbanding all the armies of the Union,' he
added, with a strange laugh ; ' but I cannot give a
single soldier his discharge. Only the Colonel of
your husband's regiment can do what you want.'
The woman deplored her poverty. She had never,
she said, suffered so much. ' Madam,' said Mr.
Lincoln, deepening to a tone of slow and impressive
solemnity, ' I share your sorrow ; but, remember
that we, all of us as we are, have never suffered
what we now suffer. We have all of us our burdens
to bear !' He then leant towards her, and for some
time we only heard the murmur of the two voices. I
saw him write a fewwords on a piece of paper and give
to the woman; he then dismissed her with the forms
of the most scrupulous politeness. The next who
advanced was a young man, who held out his hand
to the President, and said with a loud voice, As
for me, I have come only to shake hands with
Abraham Lincoln.' Much obliged, sir,' said the
President, offering his big hand ; ' this is our day
for business.' • • • • • •

" A sadness which was almost superhuman passed
now and then over his brow, on which the
wrinkles had deepened into furrows— on those
strange features where the hearty laugh of
other days had become a sort of painful grimace.
I remember meeting the President one evening to-
wards nightfall. He was just leaving the White
House, and, according to his habit, was going to the
War-office to get news. There was nobody with
him, though he had often been recommended not to
go out alone ; but he despised danger, and had a
horror of constraint. With his plaid folded round
him against the cold he moved slowly on, lost in
reverie, like a tall phantom. I was struck with the
pensive and suffering expression of his face. Agi-
tation and anxiety had gradually bent, and at last
broken, that stout and rustic nature, and worn the
nerves of steel of the giant. For four years he never
knew what an hour of repose was. Even his recep-
tions were horrible sufferings. When the saloons of
the White House were open the tide of visitors
rolled on without stopping before him, and his big
and honest hand grasped all those that were held out
to him. The slave of the American people, he was
condemned to stay at Washington when everybody
else had fled from its heat and dust. He only
escaped in search of a little verdure to the smiling
slopes where the President's country-house is
situated by the side of the Soldiers' Home—the
asylum where the State keeps a few invalids since
the Mexican war. In his walks he saw the beauti-
ful woods cut down to make room for the parapets
and glacis of the forts ; and at a short distance was
the large burial-ground, where ten thousand graves,
all arranged in lines, were still fresh. I have seen
amidst these woods this city of the dead, with its
long parallels of alley, its ten thousand white stones,
all alike, and each one marked with the name of a
soldier. One seems to pass in review these inter-
minable ranks, the sameness of which has something
terrible. These soldiers, who now sleep in an order
which nothing will trouble more, Mr. Lincoln had
beheld young, vigorous, and full of health !" While
at Washington M. Langel had the honour of an in-
vitation to accompany Mr. Lincoln, to see " Lear"
performed, to Ford's playhouse, and in the same box
where he was soon after foully murdered :—" The
Washington theatre is small and in a state
of decay. You reached the President's box by an open
passage behind the galleries, and you had only to
open a door and draw a curtain to enter. The front
of the box was covered with a piece of red velvet,
but the interior was not covered with either cloth or
velvet. I was, as may be supposed, more occupied
with the President than the performance. He, how-
ever, listened with attention, though he knew the
play by heart. He followed all the incidents of it
with the greatest interest, and talked with Mr. Sum-
ner and myself only between the acts. His second
son, a boy of 11, was near him, and Mr. Lincoln
held him nearly the whole time, leaning on him, and
often pressed the laughing or astonished face of the
child on his broad chest. To his many questions he
replied with the greatest patience. Certain allusions
1 of King Lear to the sorrows of paternity caused a
cloud to pass over the President's brow, for he
had lost a young child at the White House, and
never was consoled. I may be pardoned for dwell-
ing on recollections so. personal, which, under
other circumstances, I should communicate only to
a few friends; for it was on that very spot where
I saw him with his child, and his friends that
death struck, down one as full of meekness, as gentle
as a woman, as simple as a child. It was there he
received the Pathian arrow of vanquished slavery,
and fell, the noble victim of the noblest of causes."
M. Langel concludes his sketch with these words :
" As always happens, the people, astounded by their
sorrow, only now feel all they have lost. Con-
demned by the force of events- to become a great
man, Mr. Lincoln has gained a glory which he
never coveted. With what larger joy he would
have refused it if, at such a price, he could have
spared his country the cruel trials from amid which
his name was slowly to rise. His glory will survive
many a gaudy and hollow renown. It will give a
new feature to that pure ideal which places great-
ness in simplicity ; which makes power bend to the
law ; and which does not separate heroism from
self-denial. I should say enough if I said that Mr.
Lincoln was a Christian Statesman, taking the word
in its most sublime sense. He never thought of
himself ; and so his own country and the whole
world will keep him in their memory for ever."

THE EXTENSIVE DEFALCATION CASE AT HALIFAX.
—Mr. Richardson, cashier for Messrs. John Holds-
worth and Sons, manufacturers, Halifax, charged with em-
bezzling about £B,OOO belonging to his masters, was again
brought before the Halifax justices on Saturday. The
details of the defalcations have already been published.
The bench, at tho late examination into the case, decided
to accept bail for the prisoner's appearance at the Leeds
assizes, in £16,000, himself in the sum of £B,OOO, and
two sureties in £4,000 each. The bench delayed sending
Mr. Richardson to prison for a day or two in order that he
might, if possible, find bail. His attorney intimated that
bail was not yet forthcoming. The bench then com-
mitted the prisoner to Wakefield House of Correction, to
await his trial.