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Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman
page 74 of 831 (08%)
that is the pace set them by the one they wait upon. The sabres and
accoutrements clank, and the entirely unornamental _cortege_ as it
trots towards Lafayette square arouses no sensation, only some curious
stranger stops and gazes. I see very plainly ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S dark
brown face, with the deep-cut lines, the eyes, always to me with a
deep latent sadness in the expression. We have got so that we exchange
bows, and very cordial ones. Sometimes the President goes and comes in
an open barouche. The cavalry always accompany him, with drawn sabres.
Often I notice as he goes out evenings--and sometimes in the morning,
when he returns early--he turns off and halts at the large and
handsome residence of the Secretary of War, on K street, and holds
conference there. If in his barouche, I can see from my window he does
not alight, but sits in his vehicle, and Mr. Stanton comes out to
attend him. Sometimes one of his sons, a boy of ten or twelve,
accompanies him, riding at his right on a pony. Earlier in the summer
I occasionally saw the President and his wife, toward the latter part
of the afternoon, out in a barouche, on a pleasure ride through the
city. Mrs. Lincoln was dress'd in complete black, with a long crape
veil. The equipage is of the plainest kind, only two horses, and they
nothing extra. They pass'd me once very close, and I saw the President
in the face fully, as they were moving slowly, and his look, though
abstracted, happen'd to be directed steadily in my eye. He bow'd and
smiled, but far beneath his smile I noticed well the expression I
have alluded to. None of the artists or pictures has caught the deep,
though subtle and indirect expression of this man's face. There is
something else there. One of the great portrait painters of two or
three centuries ago is needed.


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