ident,
strangely illustrating the superstitious element in his nature, was
narrated by him as follows:--

"It 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 I was well tired out and went home to rest, throwing myself upon a
lounge in my chamber. Opposite to where I lay was a bureau with a
swinging glass upon it; and, in looking in that 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; and 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; and I
went off, 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. When I went home, I told my wife about it; and a few days
after I tried the experiment again, when, sure enough, the thing came
back again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that,
though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was
worried about it somewhat. She thought 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 see life through the last term."

From this time forth anonymous threats and friendly warnings came thick
and fast up to the fatal day when the real event befell. Some of these
he kept, and after his death they were found in his desk, labeled
"Assassination Letters." Before he left Springfield for his journey to
Washington, many ingenious fears were suggested to him; but, except for
his change of route toward the close of his journey, none of these
presagings visibly influenced him, and his change of purpose concerning
the passage through Baltimore was never afterward recalled by him
without vexation. From that time forth he resolutely ignored all danger
of this kind. During most of the time that he was in office any one
could easily call upon him, unguarded, at the White House; he moved
through the streets of Washington like any private cit