" And much more of the same shrewd sensible sort,--a picture
unintentionally of his own state of mind no less than of his friend's.

This strange episode reveals also that amid Lincoln's silences, while
the outward man appeared engrossed in everyday matters, the inward
man had been seeking religion. His failure to accept the forms of his
mother's creed did not rest on any lack of the spiritual need. Though
undefined, his religion glimmers at intervals through the Speed letters.
When Speed's fiancee fell ill and her tortured lover was in a paroxysm
of remorse and grief, Lincoln wrote: "I hope and believe that your
present anxiety and distress about her health and her life must and will
forever banish those horrid doubts which I know you sometimes felt as
to the truth of your affection for her. If they can once and forever
be removed (and I feel a presentment that the Almighty has sent your
present affliction expressly for that object) surely nothing can come
in their stead to fill their immeasurable measure of misery. . . Should
she, as you fear, be destined to an early grave, it is indeed a great
consolation to know she is so well prepared to meet it."

Again he wrote: "I was always superstitious. I believe God made me one
of the instruments of bringing you and your Fanny together, which union
I have no doubt lie had foreordained. Whatever He designs He will do for
me yet. 'Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord' is my text now."

The duality in self-torture of these spiritual brethren endured in all
about a year and a half, and closed with Speed's marriage. Lincoln was
now entirely delivered from his demon. He wrote Speed a charming letter,
serene, affectionate, touched with gentle banter, valiant though with
a hint of disillusion as to their common type. "I tell you, Speed, our
forebodings (for which you and I are peculiar) are all the worst sort
of nonsense. . You say you much fear that that elysium of which you have
dreamed so much is never to be realized. Well, if it shall not, I dare
swear it will not be the fault of her who is now your wife. I have no
doubt that it is the peculiar misfortune of both you and me to
dream dreams of elysium far exceeding all that anything earthly can
realize."(8)

V. PROSPERITY

How Lincoln's engagement was patched up is as delicious an uncertainty,
from gossip's point of view, as how it had been broken off. Possibly, as
many people have asserted, it was brought abou