Lincoln, Stanton and the Aeolian Harp

[Linda Anderson]

From the article in the Atlantic Monthly, April 1930, titled "Dickens, Stanton, Sumner, and Storey."

"The record of a dinner held in Washington at which present were the host, Charles Sumner, Charles Dickens, Edwin M. Stanton, and Moorfield Storey, Mr. Sumner's secretary. This memorandum was written by Mr. Storey the evening of the dinner, immediately after the departure of the guests."

Stanton and Sumner gave their accounts of Lincoln's assassination. Stanton "alluded to Mr. Lincoln's breathing [on his deathbed], and said that it sounded like an aeolian harp, now rising, now falling and almost dying away, and then reviving, and reminded him in what he had noticed in the case of one of his children, who had died in his arms shortly before."

The aeolian harp is played by the wind. It's a haunting sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmP5XaNYlkI