er
done, to remember, in the depth and even agony of despondency, that very
shortly you are to feel well again. I am now fully convinced that you
love her as ardently as you are capable of loving. Your ever being happy
in her presence, and your intense anxiety about her health, if there
were nothing else, would place this beyond all dispute in my mind. I
incline to think it probable that your nerves will fail you occasionally
for a while; but once you get them firmly guarded now that trouble is
over forever. I think, if I were you, in case my mind were not exactly
right, I would avoid being idle. I would immediately engage in some
business, or go to making preparations for it, which would be the same
thing. If you went through the ceremony calmly, or even with sufficient
composure not to excite alarm in any present, you are safe beyond
question, and in two or three months, to say the most, will be the
happiest of men.

I would desire you to give my particular respects to Fanny; but perhaps
you will not wish her to know you have received this, lest she should
desire to see it. Make her write me an answer to my last letter to her;
at any rate I would set great value upon a note or letter from her.
Write me whenever you have leisure. Yours forever, A. LINCOLN. P. S.--I
have been quite a man since you left.

TO G. B. SHELEDY.

SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Feb. 16, 1842.

G. B. SHELEDY, ESQ.:

Yours of the 10th is duly received. Judge Logan and myself are doing
business together now, and we are willing to attend to your cases as you
propose. As to the terms, we are willing to attend each case you prepare
and send us for $10 (when there shall be no opposition) to be sent in
advance, or you to know that it is safe. It takes $5.75 of cost to
start upon, that is, $1.75 to clerk, and $2 to each of two publishers
of papers. Judge Logan thinks it will take the balance of $20 to carry
a case through. This must be advanced from time to time as the services
are performed, as the officers will not act without. I do not know
whether you can be admitted an attorney of the Federal court in your
absence or not; nor is it material, as the business can be done in our
names.

Thinking it may aid you a little, I send you one of our blank forms of
Petitions. It, you will see, is framed to be sworn to before the Federal
court clerk, and, in your cases, will have [to] be so far changed as to
be sworn to before the clerk of your circuit court;