Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1912-02-15


likewise, ascribing an influ-
ence in his career to signs and omens.
Noah Brooks, his Biographer, says
was also one of his intimates, says
of Lincoln that by nature he was very
superstitions, and attributes this TO
his backwoods upbringing. He gives
us two or three instances in line with
this assertion which we may take for
they are worth. The first refers to
Lincolns second trip to New Orleans,
when he and Dennis Hanks, his cous-
in, took flatboat down the rivers TO
that port for Denton Offtutt. There
is tradition" says Brooks, that dur
ing this visit TO Louisiana Tin May,
1881, when he was 22), Lincoln met
an aged negress, who pretended to be
a voodoo queen or fortune teller, and
that she said TO him: You will some
day be president and all the negroes
will be free But this is not authen.
ticated. 1t Is not unlikely that the
woman had said the same thing to a
great many young men,"
The other story is of darker portent
and more positive particulars. 1t is
Of the year 1860, the time of his first
election as president, Lincoln" says
our authority, took his election with
a composure not untinged with sad
ness. A tremendous responsibility was
now to be placed on him. The south
had openly and repeatedly threatened
TO break up the union. He
was oppressed with many weighty and
anxious thoughts. On the day the
news came Of his triumph a strange
thing happened to him. Years after,
when he had been nominated second
time to the presidency, he told this
story to the writer:
1t 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 l was well tired out and went
home to rest, throwing myself down on
a lounge in my chamber. Opposite
where | lay upon a bureau, with
a swinging glass upon it (here he
got up and placed the furniture
to illustrate the position), and,
looking in that glass | saw
myself reflected nearly at full
length; but my face, l noticed, had
tip of the nose of one being about
three inches from the tip of the other.
l was little bothered, perhaps start
led, and got up and looked in the glass,
but the illusion vanished
Ion lying down again saw it
second time-plainer, if possible, than
before; and then / 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 l went off,
and in the excitement of the hour, for
got all about it-nearly, but not quite
for the thing would, once in a while
come up and give me little pang, as
though something uncomfortable had
happened. Later in the day told my
wife about 1t, and a few days after
tried the experiment again, when
with a laugh, sure enough the thing
came back again; but never succeed
ed in bringing the ghost back after
that, though l once tried very industri-
ously to show it to my wife, who was
worried about it. She thought it a
sign that / was to be elected TO a
second term of Office and that the
paleness of one of the faces was An
omen that should not see life through
the last term"
Lincoln studied the problem for
while, the writer goes on TO say, and
came TO the conclusion that it was an
optical illusion caused by flaw in the
mirror. Mrs Lincoln, however, he
says, continued TO take it as warn
ing. He had told the story before, he
says. in an article in Harper's Maya
zine for July, 1865, while Mrs. Lincoln !
was vet alive to see 1t.
This same biographer mentions also
the fact that at the cabinet meeting |
Of the fateful April IA, 1865, the day |
he was killed, the president spoke of
a strange dream" he had had the
night before; what It was, however, !