The Memorial To...

Lincoln's Memorial

A picture cannot adequately convey the impression one is left with when they first experience the Grand Canyon. Likewise, it would be woefully inadequate for me to attempt to put into words the impact of gazing upon the sculpture of Abraham Lincoln. The enormity of Abraham’s likeness pervades the immense room in which it sits. The Gettysburg Address is inscribed on the towering walls of this hall, and when I read it I must confess that my eyes welled with emotion. Along with the pictures of Lincoln’s Memorial is another picture I took of a tombstone decorated by two incomplete scrolls. Although this memorial is far more diminutive than that of Lincoln’s (it is no higher than two loaves of bread), it is nonetheless linked in significance. For this cold stone, unsigned so as not to reveal who lies beneath it, and whose bones history has scorned, marks the last “act” of the assassin—John Wilkes Booth.

Note the subtle adjustment in Lincoln’s mood as the perspective changes. I suspect the sculptors did this intentionally.

Here his hand is relaxed and his face contemplative.

But with the peak of an eyebrow, and a clenched fist, he is fuming.

It is an enormous hall.

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His assassin

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