He rises, the others with him. He goes to the door and calls.
Susan.
There is silence. SUSAN comes in.
Susan: Yes, Mr. Lincoln.
Lincoln: Take these gentlemen to Mrs. Lincoln. I will follow at once.
The four men go with SUSAN. LINCOLN stands silently for a moment. He goes again to the map and looks at it. He then turns to the table again, and kneels beside it, possessed and deliberate, burying his face in his hands.
THE CURTAIN FALLS.
The two Chroniclers: Lonely is the man who understands.
Lonely is vision that leads a man away
From the pasture-lands,
From the furrows of corn and the brown loads of hay,
To the mountain-side,
To the high places where contemplation brings
All his adventurings
Among the sowers and the tillers in the wide
Valleys to one fused experience,
That shall control
The courses of his soul,
And give his hand
Courage and continence.
The First Chronicler: Shall a man understand,
He shall know bitterness because his kind,
Being perplexed of mind,
Hold issues even that are nothing mated.
And he shall give
Counsel out of his wisdom that none shall hear;
And steadfast in vain persuasion must he live,
And unabated
Shall his temptation be.
Second Chronicler: Coveting the little, the instant gain,
The brief security,
And easy-tongued renown,
Many will mock the vision that his brain
Builds to a far, unmeasured monument,
And many bid his resolutions down
To the wages of content.
First Chronicler: A year goes by.
The two together: Here contemplate
A heart, undaunted to possess
Itself among the glooms of fate,
In vision and in loneliness.
SCENE II.
Ten months later. Seward's room at Washington. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, is seated at his table with JOHNSON WHITE and CALEB JENNINGS, representing the Commissioners of the Confederate States.