Evening star., 1939-02-12
such doubts and fears as could not have &C.
cured to lesser man was in many Ways. the

All who have ever looked at any of the
photographs of Lincoln are sure that he was
an infinitely sad. lonely man. Indeed, that
very sadness is beautifully enshrined in the
Lincoln Memorial Speed said of his first
meeting with Lincoln, Il thought then, as
think now, that l never saw so gloomy and
melancholy face in my life" What were
the roots of this melancholy? There have been
many explanations, many attempts to ana
lyze that strange psychology, but they don't |
matter much to us now; all that does matter
is that on at least three occasions in his life,
despair overcame Lincoln, devitali7ed him.
destroyed his resolve, threatened his very rea-,
son. drove him to the verge of suicide From
each of these dreadful phases he emerged al
changed man.
The first such phase came when he was
twenty-six years old, resident of the tiny
frontier community of New Salem, Illinois,
He was the most popular young man in town,
the acknowledged champion at wrestling and
storytelling The best word to describe him
then was used by his teacher Mentor Ora
ham, it was c0mbant0nable. He had been\
elected to the State Assembly and the local
judge. Bowling Green, was helping him to get
started in law. Everyone agreed that young
Abe had a great future. Then an epidemic
appeared. They called it the brain fever"
and among those afflicted was the prettiest
girl in town. Ann Rutledge, whom Lincoln
loved. She died. and Lincoln's grief took such
strange and terrifying forms that the curious.
primitive people about him thought he had
gone insane The village handy-man-of-all-
work. the leader of laughter, revealed the
weird qualities of a prairie Hamlet.
Five years later a very different Lincoln,
older, graver. less "companionable." was
paying court in rather lukewarm manner
to a high-bred, ambitious young lady named
Mary Todd. She came of proud. even snob-
bish family. and she was admired by many of
the most eligible young gentlemen in Spring
field. That she preferred the ungainly, un-
couth impoverished Lincoln is tribute to
her extraordinary, Cassandra-like prescience
She had said. many times, as child and as
a grown woman, that her husband would b :
President of the United States; probably
many other American girls have said the1
same thing, but Mary Todd was right.
After she and Lincoln became engaged, and
the wedding day was set. the prospective
groom lost his nerve First he tried to escape
from the imminent involvement by writing
a letter. to be delivered to his fiancee by
Joshua Speed; but Speed wouldn't be party
to this cowardly attempt to escape and he
burned the letter. Just what happened on the
wedding day has never been fully revealed.
but we do know that the supper was laid and
the minister in readiness - and the groom
failed to appear.
Judging by contemporary accounts, Lin
coins subsequent behavior gave deep concern
to his friends and cause for much ribald mirth
from all the local gossips He went as crazy
as loon," according to Miss Todds brother
in-law, the aristocratic Ninian Edwards. Lin
coin himself wrote that he was making "a
most discreditable exhibition of myself in the
way of hypochondriacism." Speed said that
they had to remove from his reach all knives
and razors and every instrument that could
be used for sef-destruction." The word 'neu-
rotic" was not then current in the language
of Illinois. Sigmund Freud was as yet unborn
But Speed did urge his miserable friend to
consult doctor who had made a special
study of lunacy.
(Continvsd on poss ~