Mr. Abraham Lincoln started having thoughts about his own assassination during the 1860 convention.
He went upstairs and, exhausted by repressed excitement, he lay down on the couch in Mrs. Lincoln's sitting room.
While lying there he was disturbed to see in the mirror two images of himself which were alike, except that one was not so clear as the other. The double reflection awakened the primitive vein in the superstition always present in him. He rose and lay down again to see if the paler shadow would vanish, but he saw it once more....
The next morning... he went home and reclined on the couch to see if there was not something wrong with the mirror itself. He was reassured to find it played the same trick. When he tried to show it to Mrs. Lincoln, however, the second reflection failed to appear.
Mrs. Lincoln took it as a sign that he was to have two terms in the Presidency, but she feared the paleness of one of the figures signified that he would not live through the second term.
'I am sure,' he said to his partner once, 'I shall meet with some terrible end...'
The Unseen Hand
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