and fast all day, and there had been a great Hurrah Boys, so that I was
well tired out, and went home to rest and threw myself on a lounge in my
chamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass, and
looking in the 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. 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. I left, 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 though something uncomfortable had
happened. Later in the day I told my wife about it, and a few days later
I tried the experiment again, when, sure enough, the thing came again.
My wife thought that it was a sign that I was to be elected to a second
term of office and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen
that I should not live through the last term."
Not long after his second inauguration he said to a friend in
Washington:--
"I have seen this evening what I saw on the evening of my nomination. As
I stood before a mirror I saw two images of myself--a bright one in
front and one that was pallid, standing behind. It completely unnerved
me. The bright one I know is my past, the pale one my coming life. I do
not think I shall live to see the end of my second term."
In his biography, Morgan relates a dream which Lincoln had. He thought
he was in a vast assembly, and the people drew back to let him pass.
Just then Lincoln heard some one say: "He is a common-looking fellow."
Lincoln, in his dream, turned to the man and said: "Friend, the Lord
prefers common-looking people; that is the reason He makes so many of
them."
Shortly before Lincoln's assassination some friends were talking about
certain dreams recorded in the Bible when the President said:
"About two days ago I retired very late. I could not have been long in
bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream.
There seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. Then I heard subdued
sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and
wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful
sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no
living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met
me as I passed along. It was light in all the rooms; every object was
familiar to me, but where were all the people who were grieving as if
their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the
meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things
so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East
Room, which I entered. Before me was a catafalque on which was a form
wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were
acting as guards; there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully
upon the catafalque; others weeping pitifully. 'Who is dead in the White
House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers. 'The President,' was the
answer. 'He was killed by an assassin.' Then came a loud burst of grief
from the crowd, which woke me from my dream."
_The New Era_
The principles enunciated by Abraham Lincoln are abiding examples, not
only for the English-speaking peoples but for the whole world.
Out of what seems universal confusion, tending towards chaos, there
arises a new era. A material transformation had to occur before the
uprising of the spiritual, and the truth is beginning to dawn in the
minds of thousands that behind all material phenomena there dwells the
divine idea. Before the gates of oblivion closed on civilisation we were
plucked from the gulf in accordance with the Divine purpose.
Amidst the strife of contending factions the thunder of upheaval
reverberates from continent to continent, heralding the close of a
dispensation that has known the trials and triumphs of nearly two
thousand years, from which is emerging the mystical dawn of a new day.
THE END
THE WORKS OF
FRANCIS GRIERSON
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THE HUMOUR OF THE UNDERMAN
_The London Evening News_:--"'The Humour of the Underman' is a classic.
The work will rank among the great books of the century if only for the
rarity and beauty of its literary expression."
_The London Telegraph_:--"In 'The Humour of the Underman' there is a
delicacy, a skilfullness, an ease of manner, and a consummate sense of
style. Here is the short epigrammatic way of putting things which is
Emerson's way, but the successive sentences are less staccato than in
the work of the Concord Sage; there is added to it something of the
delicacy, the ease, the grace of the French."
THE INVINCIBLE ALLIANCE
_Austin Harrison, Editor of The English Review_:--"Mr. Grierson's essays
are masterpieces of lucid expression and condensed though. In 'The
Invincible Alliance' he puts his index finger on the weak places--on
snobbery on politics, on music, on the clergy, on the English point of
view, which is twenty years behind Continental thought.... We believe
him to be absolutely right."
_Dr. Samuel P. Orth, Professor of Political Science at Cornell, in a
page review of the book in the N. Y. Times_:--"In 'The Invincible
Alliance' Mr. Grierson touches prophetic heights. His analytical gift is
a sort of intellectual clairvoyance."
ILLUSIONS AND REALITIES OF THE WAR
_The New York Sun_:--"Mr. Grierson's volume on the war is the rarest
book of the year."
_The Brooklyn Eagle_:--"A work of marvellous power."
_The Independent_:--"Keen observation, trenchant criticism, and a
conciseness of style combine with unusual force in Mr. Grierson's latest
volume on the great war."
_The Boston Transcript_:--"In 1913 Mr. Grierson wrote a volume of essays
called 'The Invincible Alliance' in which he outlined very clearly the
dangers which lay before the two great English-speaking nations.
Re-reading these essays in the light of the last four years we can see
that Mr. Grierson looked even more deeply into the future and that he
predicted much which has come to pass since the war began."
_The Herald, Washington, D. C._:--"Since the publication of the 'The
Invincible Alliance' nothing has appeared in book form to surpass the
trenchant vigour and illuminating insight of 'Illusions and Realities of
the War.'"
LA VIE ET LES HOMMES
_M. Sully Prudhomme, of the French Academy_:--"J'ai trouvé ces
méditations pleines d'aperçus profonds et sagaces. J'ai été frappé de
l'originalité puissante de la pensée de l'auteur."
MODERN MYSTICISM
_Maurice Maeterlinck_:--"This volume is full of thoughts of the very
highest order. You have deliciously and profoundly surprised me. You
have said so many things which I should like to have written myself."
_A. B. Walkley, dramatic critic of the London Times_:--"Modern Mysticism
is an original and delectable book."
_The London Telegraph_:--"Mr. Grierson pierces to the heart of his theme
with a keenness that is almost disconcerting. He illumines the most
obscure situation by one of his sudden flashes of insight. The poise of
his sentences has something of Gallic precision about it and it is not
surprising that savants of contemporary French literature have praised
his work with generous emphasis. Such an influence, working like leaven
in the lump, cannot fail to make its presence appreciated."
THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS
_Arnold Bennett, in a long review_:--"'The Valley of Shadows' is a noble
book.... Mr. Grierson's descriptions possess a detaching sentiment of
beauty with absolute visual quality."
_The New York Times_:--"Perhaps at last, before oblivion closes over the
ante-bellum days in Illinois, the laureate of the Lincoln Country has
arrived. If there is another book in existence which deals so
graphically and so faithfully with that period we do not know of it."
_The Literary Digest_:--"Grierson's description of Lincoln as he stood
before Douglas at Alton, is more real, more lifelike, than any statue or
picture, and will in future ages take rank with Balzac's description of
Dante."
_Sir Owen Seaman (Editor of Punch)_:--"There are chapters in 'The Valley
of Shadows' that haunt one afterward like remembered music."
THE CELTIC TEMPERAMENT
_Prof. William James_:--"I find this volume full of wisdom. The pages of
'Reflections' have found their mark in me."
_Maeterlinck_:--"'The Celtic Temperament' is one of the most subtle and
substantial books that I know."
PARISIAN PORTRAITS
_The London Times_:--"The most remarkable feature of Mr. Grierson's
'Parisian Portraits' is their extraordinary clear and various detail;
they are served up with truth undiluted by sentiment. His insight is
sure and his choice of subject exclusive."
_Leon Bazalgette, in La Phalange, Paris_:--"In his 'Parisian Portraits'
Francis Grierson gives us some chapters of his romantic and marvellous
existence. He conquers us by a very rare quality of evoking and
suggesting a spiritual atmosphere."
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JOHN LANE COMPANY, NEW YORK
JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, LONDON
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.