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John Wilkes Booth |
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John Wilkes Booth |
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Booth's sister Asia recounts an episode when John,
whom the family called Wilkes, was attending a boarding school. The family
had gone down to see him for some class festivities. She writes:
I met Wilkes in the hollow forthwith, and throwing himself along the ground, he leaned his head back against my knees, and said, "It is this"; and unfolding a strip of paper from his pocket, he read what he called "his fortune," which a Gipsey prowling hereabouts had told him a few days since.
"See here, " he said, "I've written it-but there was no need to do that, for it is so bad that I shall not soon forget it."
The paper is ragged thro' much folding, and the boyish pencil writing is worn away. It was only a Gipsey's tattle for money--but who shall say there is no truth in it?
"Ah, you've a bad hand; the lines all cris-cras. It's full enough of sorrow--full of trouble--trouble in plenty, everywhere I look. You'll break hearts, they'll be nothing to you. You'll die young, and leave many to mourn you, many to love you too, but you'll be rich, generous, and free with your money. You're born under an unlucky star. You've got in your hand a thundering crowed of enemies--not one friend--you'll make a bad end, and have plenty to love you afterwards. You'll have a fast life--short, but a grand one. Now, young sir, I've never seen a worse hand, and I wish I hadn't seen it, but every word I've told is true by the signs. You'd best turn a missionary or a priest and try to escape it."
"I asked her," Wilkes said, as he slowly refolded the paper, "if it's in the stars, or in my hand, which is the same thing to you--how am I to Escape it? It's a good thing that it is so short, as it is so bad a fortune. For this evil dose do you expect me to cross your palm?" She took her money though, and said that she was glad she was not a young girl, or she'd follow me through the world for my handsome face."
He laughed at this, but the fortune had not ceased
to trouble him, and at intervals, through the course of the few years that
summed his life, frequent recurrence was sadly made to the rambling words
of that old Gipsey in the wood of Cockeysville.
Source:
Clarke, Asia Booth. The Unlocked Book: A Memoir of John Wilkes Booth by His Sister. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1938.
