Volume 38, Number 14 · August 15, 1991
Lincoln Up Close
By Gore Vidal
Once, at the Library of Congress in Washington, I was shown the contents of Lincoln's pockets on the night that he was shot at Ford's Theater. There was a Confederate bank note, perhaps acquired during the President's recent excursion to the fallen capital, Richmond; a pocket knife; a couple of newspaper cuttings (good notices for his administration); and two pairs of spectacles. It was eerie to hold in one's hand what looked to be the same spectacles that he wore as he was photographed reading the Second Inaugural Address, the month before his murder. One of the wire 'legs' of the spectacles had broken off and someone, presumably Lincoln himself, had clumsily repaired it with a piece of darning wool. I tried on the glasses: he was indeed farsighted, and what must have been to him the clearly printed lines, 'let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds,' was to my myopic eyes a gray quartz-like blur.
Feature, 2787 words
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