Francis B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House

[228] Point, and his admirers were wild with enthusiasm over the learning and classic taste it displayed. The word “scholarly” rang from mouth to mouth in characterizing it,--the very word Mr. Lincoln had used months before in finding a merciful excuse for his inefficiency.

There is one little incident connected with this visit to the Soldier's Home that remains with me as connected with my home here. I had always noticed that the bare mention of our California cemetery filled the minds of those who heard it with a solemn sense of awe and sorrow,--“Lone mountain!” It seemed to rise before them out of the quiet sea, a vast mausoleum from the hand of God, wherein to lay the dead. I was not astonished, therefore, when Mr. Lincoln alluded to it in this way, and gave, in a few deep-toned words, a eulogy on one of its most honored dead, Colonel Baker. Having witnessed the impressive spectacle of that glorious soldier's funeral, I gave him the meagre outline one can convey in words, of something which, having been once seen, must remain a living picture in the memory forever. I tried to picture the solemn hush that lay like a pall on the spirit of the people while the grand procession wound its mournful length through the streets of the city out on that tearstained road to the gate of the cemetery, where the body passed beneath the prophetic words of California's most eloquent soul, “Hither in future ages they shall bring,” etc. When I spoke of “Starr King,” I saw