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L.
A day or two previous to the meeting of the Republican Convention, the
President read me his letter to the “
Owen Lovejoy Monument Association,” --lately written, and not then published,--in which he expressed his appreciation of
Mr. Lovejoy in nearly the same language I had heard him use on a former occasion.
“Throughout my heavy and perplexing responsibilities here,” ran the letter, “to the day of his death, it would scarcely wrong any other to say he was my most generous friend.
Let him have the marble monument, along with the well assured and more enduring one in the hearts of those who love liberty unselfishly for all men.”
A noble tribute, in fitly chosen words!
The evening following the reading of this letter, he said that
Mrs. Lincoln and he had promised half an hour to a sort of “artist” who wished to “exhibit” before them in the red-room below.
“What kind of an artist?”
I inquired.
“Oh, not in your line,” he answered; “I think he is a sort of mountebank, or comic lecturer, or something of the kind.”
On my way to my own room, I met in the passage the well-known “Jeems Pipes of Pipesville,” --otherwise
Stephen Massett,--whom I at once conjectured to be the individual the
President had referred to. The two rooms communicating by double doors, I could not well avoid overhearing a portion of the performance,
