Lincoln's Last Story and Last Written Words and Conversation.

The last story written by Mr. Lincoln was drawn out by a circumstance which occurred just before the inter view with Messrs. Colfax and Ashmun, on the evening of the assassination.

Marshal Lamon, of Washington, had called upon him with an application for the pardon of a soldier. After a brief hearing the President took the application, and, when about to write his name upon the back of it he looked up and said:

"Lamon, have you ever heard how the Patagonians eat oysters? They open them and throw the shells out of the window until the pile gets higher than the house, and then they move;" adding:

∙I feel to-day like commencing a new pile of pardons, and I may as well begin it just here."

At the subsequent interview with Messrs. Colfax and Ashmun, Mr. Lincoln was in high spirits. The uneasiness felt by his friends during his visit to Richmond was dwelt upon, when he sportively replied that "he suppos ed he should have been uneasy also, had any other man been President and gone there; but as it was he felt no apprehension of danger whatever." Turning to speaker Colfax, he said:

"Sumner has the 'gavel' of the Confederate Congress, which he got at Richmoud, and intended giving it to the Secretary of War, but I insisted he must give it to you, and you tell him from me to hand it over."

Mr. Ashmun, who was the presiding officer of the Chicago Convention in 1860, alluded to the "gavel" used on

"Colfax, don't forget to tell the people of the mining regions what I told you about the development when peace comes;" and then shaking hands with both gentlemen, he followed Mrs. Lincoln into the carriage, leaning forward at the last moment, to say as they were driven off, "I will telegraph you, Colfax, at San Francisco,"passing thus forth for the last time from under that roof into the creeping shadows which were to settle before another dawn into a funeral pall upon the orphaned heart of the nation.

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Abraham Lincoln's Death- Walt Whitman's Vivid Description of the Scene at

Ford's Theater.

The day (April 14, 1865) seems to have been a pleasant one throughout the whole land-the moral atmosphere pleasant, too- the long storm, so dark, so fratricidal, full of blood and doubt and gloom, over and ended at last by the sunrise of such an absolute National victory, and utter breaking down of secessionism-we almost doubted our senses! Lee had capitulated beneath the apple tree at Appommatox. The other armies, the flanges of the revolt, swiftly followed.

And could it really be, then? Out of all the affairs of this world of woe and passion, of failure and disorder and dismay, was there really come the confirmed, unerring sign of peace, like a shaft of pure light of rightful rule of God?

But I must not dwell on assessories. The deed hastens. The popular afternoon paper, the little Evening Star, had scattered all over its third page, divided among

the advertisements in a sensational manner in a hundred

different places:

"The President and his lady will be at the theater this evening."

Lincoln was fond of the theater.

I have myself seen

him there several times. ny it was that he, in some respects the leading actor in greatest and stormiest drama known to real history's stage, through centuries, should sit there and be so completely interested in those human jack-straws, moving about with their silly little gestures, foreign spirit, and flatulent text.

I remember thinking how fun

So the day, as I say, was propitious. Early herbage, early flowers, were out. I remember where I was stopping at the time, the season being advanced, there were many lilacs in full bloom. By one of those caprices that enter and give tinge to events without being a part at all of them, I find myself always reminded of the great tragedy of this day by the sight and odor of these blossoms. It never fails.

On this occasion the theater was crowded, many ladies. in rich and gay costumes, officers in their uniforms, many well-known citizens, young folks, the usual clusters of gas. lights, the usual magnetism of so many people, cheerfull with perfumes, music of violins and flutesand over all, that saturating, that vast, vague wonder, Victory, the Nation's victory, the triumph of the Union, filling the air, the thought, the sense, with exhiliration more than all perfumes.

The President came betimes, and, with his wife, witnessed the play, from the large stage boxes of the second tier, two thrown into one, and profusely draped with the

National flag. The acts and scenes of the piece-one of those singularly witless compositions which have at least the merit of giving entire relief to an audience engaged in mental action or business excitements and cares during the day, as it makes not the slightest call on either the moral, emotional, esthetic or spiritual nature-a piece ("Our American Cousin") in which, among other characters so called. a Yankee, certainly such a one as was never seen, or at least like it ever seen in North America, is introduced in England, with a varied fol-derol of talk, plot, scenery, and such phantasmagoria as goes to make up a modern popular drama-had progressed through perhaps a couple of its acts, when in the midst of this comedy, or tragedy, or non-such, or whatever it is to be called, and to offset it, or finish it out, as if in Nature's and the Great Muse's mockery of these poor mimies, comes interpolated that scene, not really or exactly to be described at all (for on the many hundreds who were there it seems to this hour to have left little but a passing blur, a dream, a blotch)—and yet partially described as I now proceed to give it:

There is a scene in the play representing the modern parlor, in which two unprecedented ladies are informed by the unprecedented and impossible Yankee that he is not a man of fortune, and therefore undesirable for marriage catching purposes; after which, the comments being finished, the dramatic trio make exit, leaving the stage clear for a moment.

There was a pause, a hush, as it were. came the death of Abraham, Lincoln.

At this period

Great as that was, with all it manifold train circling around it, and stretching into the future for many a cen