she rejected him because she believed more firmly in his rival's future, another and less probable one that at one time only a respect for her engagement kept her from marrying "the Little Giant," as Douglas was soon to be known to the world.

One evening, according to Herndon, who was then a clerk in Speed's store, Lincoln read Speed a letter to Miss Todd, telling her he did not love her enough to marry her and asked Speed to deliver it. Speed, who was the most intimate friend Lincoln ever had, threw it into the fire and said the message ought to be delivered orally. Lincoln obeyed, but when Mary burst into tears and said something about the deceiver being deceived, her fiancé wept also, caught her in his arms, kissed her, and allowed things to drift on toward marriage, which was fixed for January 1, 1841. According to Herndon's story, which has been doubted, but not essentially shaken, Lincoln failed to appear when all the preparations for the marriage had been made, but was found at daybreak in so distraught a state that friends watched over him and kept from him all knives, razors, and other weapons with which he might have ended his troubles. One story is that he had just fallen in love with Miss Matilda Edwards. At any rate, three weeks later, on the 23d of January, he wrote to his partner Stuart:

"I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally 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 forbode 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 any business here, and a change of scene might help me. If I could be myself, I would rather remain at home with Judge Logan. I can write no more."

Herndon tells of a few lines sent by Lincoln at this period to the Sangamon Journal under the title "Suicide," and later cut out of the files. According to Herndon also, Miss Todd released her fiancé from his engagement by letter a few days after the incidents of what Lincoln called "that fatal first of January, 1841."

Whatever may have been the degree of these perturbations the victim of them was so much in active life that he was in his seat in the legislature January 1 and 2, and most of the time to the close of the session March 1; and on April 14, 1841, the firm of Stuart and Lincoln was dissolved and that of Logan and Lincoln established, the senior partner being Stephen T. Logan, an ex-Judge of the Circuit Court of the United States, with the reputation of being the best nisi prius lawyer in Illinois. He was a man of studious and saving habits, devoted to the

technical aspect of his profession, methodical, and in most respects the opposite of Lincoln. Logan wrote in the regular formal legal style, whereas his partner's manner may be illustrated by this letter to a client :

"As to the real estate we cannot attend to it. We are not real estate agents, we are lawyers. We recommend that you give the charge of it to Mr. Isaac S. Britton, a trustworthy man, and one whom the Lord made on purpose for such business."

If his business activity did not cease during these trying months, no more did his humor, which could be at the expense of his own misfortunes. It is in this session that he said in a speech:

"The gentlemen had accused old women of being partial to the number nine; but this, he presumed, was without foundation. A few years since, it would be recollected by the House, that the delegation from this county was dubbed by way of eminence 'The Long Nine,' and, by way of further distinction, he had been called 'The Longest of the Nine.' 'Now,' said Mr. Lincoln, I desire to say to my friend from Monroe (Mr. Bissell), that if any woman, old or young, ever thought there was any particular charm in this distinguished specimen of number nine, I have as yet been so unfortunate as not to have discovered it."

It was during the same session that he had the

first noticeable issue with his famous rival, on Douglas's bill for "reforming" the judiciary, which was merely a scheme to turn out the judges and appoint others for partisan purposes. It passed the legislature, in spite of the protest of Lincoln and others, but seven years after, Governor Ford, a Democratic leader, said that it was both wrong and impolitic.

However, while there are many signs that no absolute gap in his political and legal activities was made by his inner troubles, before or after the fatal first of January, they certainly weighed heavily on his spirit. In the summer Speed asked him for a visit at Louisville, Kentucky, his old home, and Lincoln was much helped by the change. On his return he wrote a letter to Miss Mary Speed, in which occurs this significant passage:

"By the way, a fine example was presented on board the boat for contemplating the effect of condition upon human happiness. A gentleman had purchased twelve negroes in different parts of Kentucky, and was taking them to a farm in the South. They were chained six and six together. A small iron clevis was around the left wrist of each, and this fastened to the main chain by a shorter one, at a convenient distance from the others, so that the negroes were strung together precisely like so many fish upon a trot-line. In this condition they were being separated forever from the scenes

of their childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, and many of them from their wives and children, and going into perpetual slavery, where the lash of the master is proverbially more ruthless and unrelenting than any other where; and yet amid all these distressing circumstances, as we would think them, they were the most cheerful and apparently happy creatures on board. One whose offence for which he had been sold was an over-fondness for his wife, played the fiddle almost continually, and the others danced, sang, cracked jokes, and played various games with cards from day to day. How true it is that God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,' or in other words, that he renders the worst of human conditions tolerable, while he permits the best to be nothing better than tolerable. To return to the narrative. When we reached Springfield I stayed but one day, when I started on this tedious circuit where I now am. Do you remember my going to the city, while I was in Kentucky, to have a tooth extracted, and making a failure of it? Well, that same old tooth got to paining me so much that about a week since I had it torn out, bringing with it a bit of the jawbone, the consequence of which is that my mouth is now so sore that I can neither talk nor eat."

He was being talked about for governor, but believed it unadvisable to run for the office, as shown in a semi-official announcement in the Sangamon Journal, the editorial columns of which were always open to him: