Chapter III

Settlements

Removal to Springfield-Stuart and Lincoln-Engagement to Mary Todd-Letters to Joshua Speed-The Shields Affair-MarriageTemperance-Logan and Lincoln.

THE year of Queen Victoria's accession was, for quite other reasons, notable in Lincoln's life. It saw his removal to Springfield, with whose interests he had so actively identified himself, and therewith, the commencement of his legal career.

It would seem that his friend, Major Stuart, one of the most popular lawyers in the State, not content with lending him law-books, made him an offer of partnership;1 and in mid-April Lincoln said farewell to New Salem, and rode into the new capital, with all his personal effects in a pair of saddlebags, upon a borrowed horse.

He was 28 years of age, and as poor as when, seven years before, he had entered New Salem. He made this second start in life with the old indomitable purpose, but with the added melancholy of a man who had known disaster and despair.

Characteristically enough, he began what was to be

1 Lincoln was admitted to the bar, as a person of good character March 24, 1836; his name appears on the roll of attorneys, September 9, of the same year. (F. T. Hill. )

the most intimate friendship of his whole life in the first shop he entered. It was a large country store, and Lincoln had been inquiring what was the cost of a bed and bedding. Hearing the price, he said that he was making an experiment as a lawyer, and asked if he could have credit till Christmas; adding with despondency, "If I fail in this, I do not know that I can ever pay you." The storekeeper looked hard at this stranger who was even more honest than he was poor, and whose face seemed, for the moment, the saddest he had ever seen. He had a double bed in the big room above; and there and then he offered to share it. Lincoln's sadness vanished; he accepted eagerly, and they became close friends. "The best part of a man's life consists of his friendship," Lincoln used to say: Joshua Speed, the storekeeper, was the principal figure in the group of comrades which was to make his new life possible.1

But in spite of new friends, he missed the old friendly ways of New Salem. And, besides, he was worrying over another matter.

Early in May he wrote to Miss Owens that he was dull, lonely, and out of things. He would be glad of her society; but as for bringing her to share his lot— for he seems to have spoken tentatively to her of marriage he warned her that if she came, she could only look on as an outsider, at the social display of this little metropolis. "There is a greal deal of flourishing about in carriages here, which it would be

1 Speed was five years Lincoln's junior, and at this time 23 years old. He was a Kentuckian, and came of a prosperous family of antislavery convictions. After completing his college course, he had settled in Springfield about 1835.

your doom to see without sharing.

You would have

to be poor without the means of hiding your poverty. Do you believe you could bear that patiently?" He wants to hear from her-a long letter "would be a good deal of company in this busy wilderness."

Three months later he wrote to her again as follows:

"FRIEND MARY,-You will no doubt think it rather strange that I should write you a letter on the same day on which we parted, and I can only account for it by supposing that seeing you lately makes me think of you more than usual; while at our late meeting we had but few expressions of thoughts. You must know that I cannot see you or think of you with entire indifference; and yet it may be that you are mistaken in regard to what my real feelings toward you are. If I knew you were not, I should not trouble you with this letter. Perhaps any other man would know enough without further information; but I consider it my peculiar right to plead ignorance, and your bounden duty to allow the plea. I want in all cases to do right, and most particularly so in all cases with women. I want at this particular time, more than anything else, to do right with you; and if I knew it would be doing right, as I rather suspect it would, to let you alone, I would do it. And for the purpose of making the matter as plain as possible, I now say that you can now drop the subject, dismiss your thoughts (if ever you had any) from me forever, and leave this letter unanswered, without calling forth one accusing murmur from me. And I will even go further, and say that if it will add anything to your comfort or peace of mind to do so, it is my sincere

wish that you should. Do not understand by this that I wish to cut your acquaintance. I mean no such thing. What I do wish is that our further acquaintance shall depend upon yourself. If such further acquaintance would contribute nothing to your happiness, I am sure it would not to mine. If you feel yourself in any degree bound to me, I am now willing to release you, provided you wish it; while, on the other hand, I am willing and even anxious to bind you faster, if I can be convinced that it will, in any considerable degree, add to your happiness. This, indeed, is the whole question with me. Nothing would make me more miserable than to believe you miserable—nothing more happy than to know you

were so.

"In what I have now said, I think I cannot be misunderstood; and to make myself understood is the only object of this letter.

"If it suits you best not to answer this-farewell! -a long life and a merry one attend you! But if you conclude to write back, speak as plainly as I do. There can be neither harm nor danger in saying to me anything you think, just in the manner you think it.

"My respects to your sister. Your friend,

LINCOLN."

His appeal for frankness seems to have resulted in a rebuff which he was slow to accept, till the lady —who, while she respected him and found him a good friend, felt him to be impossible as a husbanddecisively settled the matter, and he was more chagrined than satisfied at regaining his freedom.

Perhaps she looked for a less impersonal attach

ment than he had offered, and it is clear that she resented his indifference to the details both of life and love. The unpleasing vein of irony and the very ill-conceived humour in which Lincoln described this unfortunate affair to a friend, shows that it still gave him acute discomfort. But I think that his letter betrays disappointed hopes and ambitions, however natural, rather than disappointed love.

"I have now come to the conclusion " he said at the close of this singularly awkward epistle,1 " never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be satisfied with any one who would be blockhead enough to have me." After this, it seems needless to add that he was engaged to be married to another woman within the year.

In the meantime, Lincoln and his partner were deep both in the law and in politics; and Lincoln was besides, creating a society of his own. He made Speed's store his headquarters, and as cold weather drew on, the ablest men of the town gathered round its friendly fire of logs for news-mongering and discussion. The younger of them seem also to have established a sort of informal literary and debating club, which met either in Speed's room, or at the lawoffice of one of its members. For this Lincoln seems to have written verses.

More public and formal were the meetings of the Young Men's Lyceum, before which Lincoln, in the course of the autumn, delivered an eloquent and highly rhetorical address on "The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions." He argued, in true American style, that his country had nothing to fear from the 1 See Appendix B,

E