more
miserable than to believe you miserable--nothing more happy
than to know you were so."

In spite of his evident sincerity, it is not surprising to learn that
a little later, Miss Owens definitely refused him. In April, of the
following year, Lincoln wrote to his friend, Mrs. L. H. Browning,
giving a full account of this grotesque courtship:

"I finally was forced to give it up [he wrote] at which I
very unexpectedly found myself mortified almost beyond
endurance.

"I was mortified it seemed to me in a hundred different
ways. My vanity was deeply wounded by the reflection that I
had so long been too stupid to discover her intentions, and
at 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 then 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 and 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 any one who would be blockhead
enough to have me!"

The gist of the matter seems to be that at heart Lincoln hesitated at
matrimony, as other men have done, both before and since his time. In
his letter to Mrs. Browning he speaks of his efforts to "put off the
evil day for a time, which I really dreaded as much, perhaps more,
than an Irishman does the halter!"

But in 1839 Miss Mary Todd came to live with her sister, Mrs. Ninian
Edwards, at Springfield. She was in her twenty-first year, and is
described as "of average height and compactly built." She had a
well-rounded face, rich dark brown hair, and bluish grey eyes. No
picture of her fails to show the full, well-developed chin, which,
more than any other feature is an evidence of determination. She
was strong, proud, passionate, gifted with a keen sense of the
ridiculous, well educated, and swayed only by her own imperious will.

Lincoln was attracted at once, and strangely enough, Stephen A.
Douglas crossed his wooing. For a time the two men were rivals, the
pursuit waxing more furious day by