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206 •LINCOLN THE UNKNOWNhim in a hotel room, and <strong>the</strong>n tried to commit suicide; and <strong>the</strong>morning after Booth shot <strong>Lincoln</strong>, ano<strong>the</strong>r of his swee<strong>the</strong>arts,Ella Turner, an inmate of a Washington "parlor house," was sodistressed to learn that her lover had turned murderer and fled<strong>the</strong> city,that she clasped his picture to her heart, took chloroform,and lay down to die.But did this flood of female adulation bring happiness toBooth? Very little, for his triumphs were confined almost whollyto <strong>the</strong> less discriminating audiences of <strong>the</strong> hinterland, while<strong>the</strong>re was gnawing at his heart a passionate ambition to win <strong>the</strong>plaudits of <strong>the</strong> metropolitan centers.But New York critics thought poorly of him, and in Philadelphiahe was hooted off <strong>the</strong> stage.This was galling, for o<strong>the</strong>r members of <strong>the</strong> Booth family werefamous on <strong>the</strong> stage. For well-nigh a third of a century, hisfa<strong>the</strong>r, Junius Brutus Booth, had been a <strong>the</strong>atrical star of <strong>the</strong>first magnitude. His Shakesperian interpretations were <strong>the</strong> talkof <strong>the</strong> nation. No one else in <strong>the</strong> history of <strong>the</strong> American stagehad ever won such extraordinary popularity. And <strong>the</strong> old manBooth had reared his favorite son, John Wilkes, to believe tha<strong>the</strong> was to be <strong>the</strong> greatest of <strong>the</strong> Booths.But <strong>the</strong> truth is that John Wilkes Booth possessed very littletalent, and he didn't make <strong>the</strong> most of <strong>the</strong> trifling amount hedid have. He was good-looking and spoiled and lazy, and herefused to bore himself with study. Instead, he spent his youthfuldays on horseback, dashing through <strong>the</strong> woods of <strong>the</strong> Marylandfarm, spouting heroic speeches to <strong>the</strong> treesand squirrels,and jabbing <strong>the</strong> air with an old army lance that had been usedin <strong>the</strong> Mexican War.Old Junius Brutus Booth never permitted meat to be servedat <strong>the</strong> family table, and he taught his sons that it was wrong tokill any living thing—even a rattlesnake. But John Wilkes evidentlywas not seriously restrained by his fa<strong>the</strong>r's philosophy.He liked to shoot and destroy. Sometimes he banged away withhis gun at <strong>the</strong> cats and hound dogs belonging to <strong>the</strong> slaves, andonce he killed a sow owned by a neighbor.Later he became an oyster pirate in Chesapeake Bay, <strong>the</strong>nan actor. Now, at twenty-six, he was a favorite of gushing highschoolgirls, but, in his own eyes, he was a failure. And besides,he was bitterly jealous, for he saw his elder bro<strong>the</strong>r, Edwin,achieving <strong>the</strong> very renown that he himself so passionately desired.