the same time never doubting that I understood them perfectly; and also, that she, whom I had taught myself to believe nobody else would have, had actually rejected me with all my fancied greatness. And, to cap the whole, I then for the first time began to suspect that I was really a little in love with her. But let it all go. I'll try to outlive it. Others have been made fools of by the girls; but this can never with truth be said of me. I most emphatically, in this instance, made a fool of myself. I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason: I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.

"When you receive this, write me a long yarn about something to amuse me. Give my respects to Mr Browning. -Your sincere friend, A. LINCOLN "

However, the last phrase in the letter, "I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying," was in no way seriously meant by Lincoln. He was thinking very much of marrying. It seemed to him a way out of his loneliness, and he went about trying to overcome it in a deliberate manner, not seeming to understand that the result would likely be to augment it for the rest of his life. And so he deliberately sought to lose himself in marriage. He found many objects of his affection, but to fix upon someone to marry, there his courage failed him. He wanted the abandonment of love, but could not abandon himself to it. Poor and homely as he was, brought up in sordidness, he sought beauty. He who had had so little culture, wanted culture. He thought his years were going from him, and he wanted youth. At the age of thirty-two we find him proposing to a young girl of sixteen.

Not much is known about this quest, for at this time the other principal in the drama of his life appeared. She was Mary Todd, a Kentucky belle of twenty-one, and a member of one of the "better families." Her sister was married to Ninian Edwards, who had been Lincoln's colleague in the Long Nine. She came to visit this sister in Springfield, and Lincoln met her and was attracted to her. Mrs Edwards said she often watched the courtship go on, he seated silent, gazing at her as if irresistibly drawn by some superior and unseen power, while she carried on the conversation. No doubt he was attracted to her for the position he had not; she had family behind her, she had traditions, she had education. She spoke French as fluently as English. She was a woman of the social world and he wanted to be in it. They became engaged to be married; but the old doubts assailed him, and at one point he wrote a letter definitely breaking his engagement.

She, in the meantime, was being courted by Stephen Douglas, who had already shown himself to be Lincoln's rival in another field - politics, which was to culminate in a rivalry that was to last through many years, and carry them into the very highest fields of political warfare. In these early days Douglas, the little giant, brilliant and self-assured, walked arm-in-arm with Mary Todd, passing Lincoln on the street, as he ostensibly paid his court to her. Here again there were conflicting versions: one, that Mary Todd encouraged Douglas only to spur on the attentions of Lincoln, whose ardour was flagging. Others, that she really loved Douglas, who, to all appearances, was truly better suited to her,

but that she did not feel free to accept him because of her engagement to Lincoln.

The effect of this play on Lincoln was not to spur him on in his attentions at all, but to make him think more seriously whether marriage between them was advisable, and whether he really loved her well enough. He came to the conclusion that he did not, and he wrote her a letter, setting her free. He took it to Speed's store and asked Speed to deliver it for him. Speed says he threw the letter into the fire and told him that if he had the courage of manhood to go and see the lady himself. It was not that Speed wanted Lincoln to marry, but he thought the personal visit would be better policy. "For words put in writing stand a living and eternal monument against you, while in a private conversation they are forgotten, misunderstood or unnoticed." Speed gave him advice as to his conduct. "Tell her, if you do not love her, the facts, and that you will not marry her," he said. "Be careful not to say too much, and then leave at your earliest opportunity."

Lincoln buttoned up his coat and went forth with a determined air to carry out his friend's advice. Speed waited for his return. Ten o'clock came, and still Lincoln had not returned. Finally, after eleven, Lincoln entered, and reported the result of his visit. He did as he was told, he said, but when he told her he did not love her she burst into tears, and almost springing from her chair and wringing her hands as if in agony said something about the deceiver himself being deceived. This was too much for him; he, too, began to cry, and he caught her in his arms and kissed her. And so, instead of breaking the engagement, Lincoln was "in again,"

as he expressed it. Douglas had now dropped out of the race, by the advice of her people, and the marriage of Lincoln and Mary Todd was fixed for the Ist of January 1841.

Again doubts assailed him and he was unable to carry out the contract. The wedding-day arrived, the preparations were made, the guests were assembled, the bride was dressed in her gown and veil, but the groom did not appear. What she felt, high-spirited and proud, can be imagined. What he felt is told by his friends. They found him at daybreak, wandering about, miserable, desperate, on the verge of suicide. They watched him in their rooms, day and night. Mrs Edwards and Mary gave the verdict that he was insane. He was sufficiently balanced mentally to attend the Legislature next day, but then depression seized him, and he absented himself for several weeks. On the 19th, Harden announced his illness in the House. Four days later he wrote to his partner, Stuart: "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were distributed to the whole human family there would not be one cheerful face on earth. Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell. I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die, or be better, as it appears to me. . . . I fear I shall be unable to attend to any business here, and a change of scene might hurt me. If I could be myself I would rather remain at home with Judge Logan. I can write no more."

Towards the end of the session he resumed his seat, but took no interest in the proceedings and only answered the roll calls. As soon as the session closed he went with his friend Speed on a visit to his family in

Kentucky, where Speed's mother, who seemed to be impressed with the tall, melancholy-looking friend her son brought, gave him a Bible to read and tried to comfort him. He was much depressed, says Speed, and at first contemplated suicide. He certainly wrote some lines to the Sangamon Journal under the title of "Suicide." When hunting through the files for these lines, after Lincoln's death, Herndon says he found they had been cut out, and he supposed that it was done by Lincoln, or by someone at his instigation.

In the Fall he returned to Springfield with Speed, who was going through the same experience that Lincoln had gone through six months earlier. He was to be married, and doubt and hesitancy overcame him. Lincoln, who evidently regretted his own lack of courage, now stepped in to try to prevent his friend from committing the blunders he had himself made. He argued with him, advised him, bore with him, and, what is most significant, always urged the point that he should marry and not run away. It was a telling conclusion.

A letter, dated 1st January 1842, showed his argument with himself as well as his argument with Speed. "I know," he says, "what the painful point with you at all times is when you are honest. It is an apprehension that you do not love her as you should. What nonsense. How came you to court her? Did you court her for her wealth? You say she had none. But you say you reasoned yourself into it. What do you mean by that? Was it not that you found yourself unable to reason yourself out of it? Did you not think and partly form the purpose of courting her the first time you ever saw her or heard of her? What had reason to do with