Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1876-03-31

WALT wnITMANs ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT
TRAGEDY.


ident Lincoln's assassination, is from
forthcoming book by Walt Whitman:
The day, April IA, 1865, seems to have
been pleasant one throughout the whole
land-the moral atmosphere pleasant, too
the long storm, so dark, so fralricidal, full
Of blood aud doubt and gloom, over and
ended at last by the sunrise of such an alb
solute national victory, and utter breaking
down of secession-we almost doubted our
own senses! Lee had capitulated beneath
the apple tree of the Appomattox. The
other armies, the 1anges Of the revolt,
swiftly followed,
And could 1t really be, then? Out ofall
the affairs of this world OF woe and passion,
of failure and disorder and disnlay, was
there really come the confirmed, uttering
sign Of peace, like shaft of pure light-of
rightrul rule-of God? But 1 must not
dwell on accessories. The deed hastens.
The popular afternoon paper, the little
EUenin1 STAR had spatteled all over its
third page, divided among the advertise
ments in a sensational manner in hum
drcd different places: "The President and
his lady will be at the theatre this even
ing" (Llncoln was fond of the theatre.
l have myself seen him there several times.
1 remember thinking how funny it was
that he, in some respects, the leading actor
in the greatest and stormiest drama known
to real history's stage, through centuries,
should sit there and be so completely in-
terested and absorbed in those human
jack k-straws moving about with their silly
Little gestures, foreign spirit and tiatulent
text.)
So the day, as 1 say, was propitious.
Early herbage, early flowers, were out. Il
remember where l was stopping at the
time, the season being advanced, there
were many lilacs in full bloom. By one
OF those caprices that enter and give tinge
to events without being at all part of
them, find myself always reminded of
the great tragedy Of that day by the sight
and odor of those blossoms. 1t never iails)
On this occasion the theatre was crowd
ed, many ladies in rich costumes, officers
| in their uniforms, many well-known citi-
zens, young folks, the usual cluster Of gas
lights, the usual magnetism of SO many
people, cheerful, with perfumes, music of
| violins and flutes-(and over all and satur-
aling all, that vast vague wonder, Victory,
the Nations Victory, the triumph OF the
Union, filling the air, the thought, the
sense, with exhlaration more than all per-
| fumes.)
The President came betimes, and, with
his wife, witnessed the play, from the large
stage boxes of the second tier, two thrown
into one, and profusely draped with the
national flag. The acts and scenes of the
piece-one of those singularly witless COM
positions which have at least the merit of
giving entire relief 10 an audience engaged
in mental action or business oxctements
and cares during the day, as it makes not
the slightest call on either the moral, emo
tional, aesthetic, or spiritual nature-a piece
("Our American Cousin") in which, among
other characters, so called, Yankee, GER
tainly such a one as was never seen, or the
least like It ever seen in North America, Is
in troduced in England, with varied fol-
de-rOl OF talk, plot, scenery, and such
phantasmsgoria as goes to make up mod
ern popular drama-had progressed
through perhaps a couple of its acts, whom
in the midst OF this comedy, or tragedy, or
nonsuch, or whatever Il Is 10 be called,
and 10 affect it or finish it out, as it in ma
tures or the great muses. mockery, of
these poor mines, comes inlerpoated that
scene, not really or exactly to he described
at all (for on the many hundred who were
there it seems TO this hour TO have left lit
tie but passing blur, dream, blotch)
and yet partially to be described as now
proceed to give ii.
There is a scene in the play representing
a modern parlor, in which two unprece-
dented English ladies are informed by the
unprec edented and impossible Yankee
that he is not man OF fortune, and there
fore undesirable for marriage catching
purposes ailer which, the comments be-
ing finished, the dramatic trio made exit,
leaving the stage clear for a moment.
There was pause, hush as 1t were. AT
this period came the murder of Abraham
Lincoln. Great as that was, with all its
manifold train circling round il, and
stretching into the future for many a GEN.
tury, in the politics, piety, art, &C., of the
New World, in point of fact the main
thing, the actual muider transpred with
the quiet and simplicity of any commonest
occurrence-the bursting of a bud or pod
in the growth of vegetation, for instance.
Through the general hum following the
stage pause, with the change Of positions,
&C., came the muffied sound of pistol
shot, which not one-hundreth part of the
audience heard at the time-and yet mo-
ment's hush-somehow, surely a vague,
startled thrill-and then, through the orna-
mented, draperied, starred and striped
spaceway of the Presidents box, a sudden
figure, a man raises himself with his hands
and feet, stands a moment on the railing,
leaps below TO the Stage "a distance OF per-
haps fourteen or fifteen feet), falls out oi
position, catching his heel in the copious
drapery (the American flag, falls on one
knee, quickly RECEIVERS himself, rises as II
nothing had happened (he really sprains
his ankle, but unielt them and so the fig
ure, Booth the murderer, dressed in plain
black broadclOth, bare-headed, with full
head Of glossy, raven hair, and his eyes,
like some mad animals, flashing with light
and resolution, yet with certain strange
calmness, holds aloft in one hand large
knife-walks along not much back from
the footlights-turns fully toward the audi
ence his face of statuesque beauty, lit by
those basilisk eyes, flashing with a desper-
alton, perhaps insanity,-launches out in a
firm and steady voice the words, sic semper
tyrannis-and then walks with neither slow
nor very rapid pace diagonally across to
the back of the stage, and disappears
Had not all this terrible scene-making
the mimic ones preposerous-had not il
all been rehearsed, ia blank, by Booth, be-