"WE SHALL SEE OUR FRIENDS IN HEAVEN!"
For weeks after the death of his son Willie the inconsolable father mourned in particular on that day in each week, and even the military sights at Fortress Monroe to court a change failed to distract him. He was studying Shakespeare. Calling his private secretary to him, he read several passages, and finally that of Queen Constance's lament over her lost child:
And, father cardinal, I have heard you say
That we shall see, and know, our friends in heaven.
(King John, III., 4.)
"If that be true, I shall see my boy again!" He said:
"Colonel, did you ever dream of a lost friend, and feel that you were holding sweet communion with that friend, and yet have a sad consciousness that it was not reality? Just so I dream of my boy Willie!"
(Colonel Lamon, the presidential body-guard-in-chief, was the recipient of this spiritual confidence.)