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The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth | George Alfred Townsend | |
Letter III: The Murderer |
Page 7 of 9 |
Of what avail, may we ask, on the impossible supposition that Booth's crime could have been considered heroic, was it that such a record should have dared to die for fame? Victory would have been ashamed of its champion, as England of Nelson, and France of Mirabeau. I may add to this record that he had not been in Philadelphia a year, on first setting out in life, before getting into a transaction of the kind specified. For an affair at his boarding-house he was compelled to pay a considerable sum of money, and it happily occurred just as he was to quit the city. He had many quarrels and narrow escapes through his license, a husband in Syracuse, N. Y., once followed him all the way to Cleveland to avenge a domestic insult. Booth's paper "To Whom it may Concern" was not his only attempt at influential composition. He sometimes persuaded himself that he had literary ability; but his orthography and pronunciation were worse than his syntax. The paper deposited with J. S. Clarke was useful as showing his power to entertain a deliberate purpose. It has one or two smart passages in it--as this: "Our once bright red stripes look like bloody gashes on the face of heaven." In the passages following there is common sense and lunacy: |
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The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth George Alfred Townsend |
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