But, as instructed, I have remained silent.
This is perhaps the worst of my torments: I may not tell the truth. I may speak, but never about the essential thing. Bevins and Vollman consider me an arrogant hectoring pedant, a droning old man; they roll their eyes when I offer counsel, but little do they know: my counsel is infused with bitter and excellent experience.
And so I cower and stall, hiding here, knowing all the while (most dreadful) that, though I remain ignorant of what sin I committed, my ledger stands just as it did on that awful day. I have done nothing to improve it since. For there is nothing to do, in this place where no action can matter.
Terrible.
Most terrible.
Is it possible that another person’s experience might differ from mine? That he might proceed to some other place? And have there some entirely divergent experience? Is it possible, that is, that what I saw was only a figment of my mind, my beliefs, my hopes, my secret fears?
No.
It was real.
As real as the trees now swaying above me; as real as the pale gravel trail below; as real as the fading, webbed boy breathing shallowly at my feet, banded down snugly across his chest like a captive of the wild Indians, a victim of my negligence (lost in the above recollections, I had long ago ceased laboring on his behalf); as real as Mr. Vollman and Mr. Bevins, who now came run-skimming up the path, looking happier (far happier) than I had ever before seen them.
We did it! said Vollman. We actually did it!
It was us! said Bevins.
We entered and persuaded the fellow! said Vollman.
Propelled by mutual joy, they vaulted in tandem on to the roof.
And indeed: miracle of miracles, they had brought the gentleman back. He entered the clearing below us, holding a lock: the lock to the door of the white stone home, which (though bent in grief) he was tossing up and down in one hand, like an apple.
The moon shone down brightly, allowing me a first good look at his face.
And what a face it was.
the reverend everly thomas
LXII.
The nose heavy and somewhat Roman, the cheeks thin and furrowed, the skin bronzed, the lips full, the mouth wide.
In “Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War,” by James R. Gilmore.
His eyes dark grey, clear, very expressive, and varying with every mood.
In “The Life of Abraham Lincoln,” by Isaac N. Arnold.
His eyes were bright, keen, and a luminous gray color.
In “Lincoln’s Photographs: A Complete Album,” by Lloyd Ostendorf, account of Martin P. S. Rindlaub.
Gray-brown eyes sunken under thick eyebrows, and as though encircled by deep and dark wrinkles.
In “Personal Recollections of Mr. Lincoln,” by the Marquis de Chambrun.
His eyes were a bluish-brown.
In “Herndon’s Informants,” edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, account of Robert Wilson.
His eyes were blueish-gray in color—always in deep shadow, however, from the upper lids, which were unusually heavy.
In “Six Months in the White House: The Story of a Picture,” by F. B. Carpenter.
Kind blue eyes, over which the lids half dropped.
In “With Lincoln from Washington to Richmond in 1865,” by John S. Barnes.
I would say, that the eyes of Prest. Lincoln, were of blueish-grey or rather greyish-blue; for, without being positive, the blue ray was always visible.
In papers of Ruth Painter Randall, account of Edward Dalton Marchant.
The saddest eyes of any human being that I have ever seen.
In “Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness,” by Joshua Wolf Shenk, account of John Widmer.
None of his pictures do him the slightest justice.
In the Utica “Herald.”
The pictures we see of him only half represent him.
Shenk, op. cit., account of Orlando B. Ficklin.
In repose, it was the saddest face I ever knew. There were days when I could scarcely look at it without crying.
Carpenter, op. cit.
But when he smiled or laughed…
Ostendorf, op. cit., account of James Miner.
It brightened, like a lit lantern, when animated.
In “Lincoln the Man,” by Donn Piatt, account of a journalist.
There were more differences between Lincoln dull & Lincoln animated, in facial expression, than I ever saw in any other human being.
In Wilson and Davis, op. cit., account of Horace White.
His hair was dark brown, without any tendency to baldness.
In “The True Story of Mary, Wife of Lincoln,” by Katherine Helm, account of Senator James Harlan.
His hair was black, still unmixed with gray.
In “Chiefly About War Matters,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
His hair, well silvered, though the brown then predominated; his beard was more whitened.
In “A Wisconsin Woman’s Picture of President Lincoln,” by Cordelia A. P. Harvey, in “The Wisconsin Magazine of History.”
His smile was something most lovely.
In “A Recollection of the Civil War: With the Leaders at Washington and in the Field in the Sixties,” by Charles A. Dana.