They were but shadows; the living man was he who was struggling on the bed with death.
Lincoln's great arms and chest were naked, and Stanton, who had thought of him as meagre and shrunken, was amazed at their sinewy strength.
He remembered that he had once heard of him as a village Hercules.

The President was unconscious, but some tortured nerve made him moan like an animal in pain.

It was a strange sound to hear from one who had been wont to suffer with tight lips.

To Stanton it heightened the spectral unreality of the scene.

He seemed to be looking at a death in a stage tragedy.
The trivial voice of Welles broke the silence.