e another that I shall be
forgotten entirely. I shall feel very lonesome without you." And a
little later: "It cannot be told how it thrills me with joy to hear you
say you are far happier than you ever expected to be. I know you too
well to suppose your expectations were not at least sometimes
extravagant, and if the reality exceeds them all, I say, 'Enough, dear
Lord.'" And here follows what might perhaps have been foreseen: "Your
last letter gave me more pleasure than the total sum of all that I have
received since the fatal 1st of January, 1841. Since then it seems to
me I should have been entirely happy but for the never absent idea that
there is still one unhappy whom I have contributed to make so. That
kills my soul. I cannot but reproach myself for even wishing to be
happy while she is otherwise." Very significantly he has inquired of
friends how that one enjoyed a trip on the new railway cars to
Jacksonville, and--not being like Falkland in "The Rivals"--praises God
that she has enjoyed it exceedingly.

This was in the spring of 1842. Some three months later he writes
again to Speed: "I must gain confidence in my own ability to keep my
resolves when they are made. In that ability I once prided myself as
the only chief gem of my character. That gem I lost how and where you
know too well. I have not regained it, and until I do I cannot trust
myself in any matter of much importance. I believe now that, had you
understood my case at the time as well as I understood yours
afterwards, by the aid you would have given me I should have sailed
through clear. . . . I always was superstitious. I believe God made
me one of the instruments of bringing Fanny and you together, which
union I have no doubt He had fore-ordained. Whatever He designs for me
He will do. 'Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,' is my
text just now. If, as you say, you have told Fanny all, I should have
no objection to her seeing this letter. I do not think I can come to
Kentucky this season. I am so poor and make so little headway in the
world that I drop back in a month of idleness as much as I gain in a
year's sowing." At last in the autumn of that year Lincoln addresses
to Speed a question at once so shrewd and so daringly intimate as
perhaps no other man ever asked of his friend. "The immense sufferings
you endured from the first days of September till the middle of
February" (the date of Speed's wedding) "you never