Lincoln was particularly fascinated by the wonderful happenings recorded in history. He loved to read of those mighty events which had been foretold, and often brooded upon these subjects. His early convictions upon occult matters led him to read all books tending’ to strengthen these convictions.
The following lines, in Byron’s “Dream,” were frequently quoted by him:
| "Sleep hath its own world, |
| A boundary between the things misnamed |
| Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world |
| And a wide realm of wild reality. |
| And dreams in their development have breath, |
| And tears and tortures, and the touch of joy; |
| They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, |
| They take a weight from off our waking toils, |
| They do divide our being.” |
Those with whom he was associated in his early youth and young manhood, and with whom he was always in cordial sympathy, were thorough believers in presentiments and dreams; and so Lincoln drifted on through years of toil and exceptional hardship—meditative, aspiring, certain of his star, but appalled at times by its malignant aspect. Many times prior to his first election to the Presidency he was both elated and alarmed by what seemed to him a rent in the veil which hides from mortal view what the future holds.
He saw, or thought he saw, a vision of glory and of blood, himself the central figure in a scene which his fancy transformed from giddy enchantment to the most appalling tragedy.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg