[New York City—Friday, 5 May 1865]

Friday. Have seen a lady who knows the person to whom Booth is engaged, said that her letter telling him she was true passed his letter of relinquishment on its way to Philadelphia. She thinks these two women have saved Booth. “I have been loved too well” he said once referring I suppose to his frequent slips. But the lady Blanche Hoell whom he is now to marry, is different from Mary Booth and is stronger than he perhaps.

Aldrich said we should not have been more astonished to hear he himself had done the terrible deed than he was to know Wilkes Booth had done it. “He was so gentle, gentler than I, and very handsome,—a slight beautiful figure & (as he described the face it was the Greek Antinous kind of beauty there).

I could not but reflect how the deed may deform the man—nobody said he was beautiful after he was dead but they laid a cloth upon the face & said how dreadful. It has been a strange experience to come among the people who know the family. I hoped I should be spared this but the soul of good in things evil God means we should all see.


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