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be happy while she is otherwise. She accompanied a large party on the railroad cars to Jacksonville last Monday, and on her return spoke, so that I heard of it, of having enjoyed the trip exceedingly. God be praised for that!

You know with what sleepless vigilance I have watched you ever since the commencement of your affair; and, although I am almost confident it is useless, I cannot forbear once more to say, that I think it is even yet possible for your spirits to flag down and leave you miserable. If they should, don't fail to remember that they cannot long remain so. One thing I can tell you which I know you will be glad to hear, and that is that I have seen - and scrutinized her feelings as well as I could, and am fully convinced she is far happier now than she has been for the last fifteen months past.

You will see by the last "Sangamon Journal" that I have made a temperance speech on the 22d of February, which I claim that Fanny and you shall read as an act of charity to me; for I cannot learn that anybody else has read it, or is likely to. Fortunately, it is not very long, and I shall deem it a sufficient compliance with my request if one of you listens while the other reads it.

As to your Lockridge matter, it is only necessary to say that there has been no court since you left, and that the next commences to-morrow morning, during which I suppose we cannot fail to get a judgment.

I wish you would learn of Everett what he would take, over and above a discharge, for all trouble we have been at, to take his business out of our hands and give it to somebody else. It is impossible to collect money on that or any other claim here now, and, although you know I am not a very petulant man, I declare I am almost out of patience with Mr. Everett's endless importunity. It seems like he not only writes all the letters he can himself, but gets everybody else in Louisville and vicinity to be constantly writing to us about his claim. I have always said that Mr. Everett is a very clever fellow, and I am very sorry he cannot be obliged; but it does seem to me he ought to know we are interested to collect his claim, and therefore would do it if we could.

I am neither joking nor in a pet when I say we would thank him to transfer his business to some other, without any compensation for what we have done, provided he will see the court cost paid, for which we are security.

The sweet violet you enclosed came safely to hand, but it was so dry, and mashed so flat, that it crumbled to dust at the first attempt to handle it. The juice that mashed out of it stained a place in the letter, which I mean to preserve and cherish for the sake of her who procured it to be sent. My renewed good wishes to her in particular, and generally to all such of your relations who know me.

As ever,
LINCOLN.

SPRINGFIELD, ILL., July 4, 1842.

DEAR SPEED,-Yours of the 16th June was received only a day or two since. It was not mailed at Louisville till the 25th. You speak of the great time that has elapsed since I wrote you. Let me explain that. Your letter reached here a day or two after I had started on the circuit. I was gone five or six weeks, so that I got the letters only a few weeks before Butler started to your country. I thought it scarcely worth while to write you the news which he could and would tell you more in detail. On his return, he told me you would write me soon, and so I waited for your letter. As to my having been displeased with your advice, surely you know better than that. I know you do, and therefore will not labor to convince you. True, that subject is painful to me; but it is not your silence, or the silence of all the world, that can make me forget it. I acknowledge the correctness of your advice too; but, before I resolve to do the one thing or the other, I must gain my confidence in my own ability to keep my resolves when they are made. In that ability you know I once prided myself, as the only or chief gem of my character: that gem I lost, how and where you know too well. I have not yet 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; but that does not now afford me sufficient confidence to begin that or the like of that again.

You make a kind acknowledgment of your obligations to me for your present happiness. I am much pleased with that acknowledgment. But a thousand times more am I pleased, to know that you enjoy a degree of happiness worthy of an acknowledgment. The truth is, I am not sure that there was any went with me in the part I took in your difficulty: I was drawn to it as by fate. If I would, I could not have done less than I did. I always was superstitious: I believe God made me one of the instruments of bringing your Fanny and you together, which union I have no doubt he had fore-ordained. Whatever he designs, he will do for me yet. "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, but for its reference to our friend here: let her seeing it depend upon whether she has ever known any thing of my affairs; and, if she has not, do not let her. 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. I should like to visit you again. I should like to see that "sis" of yours that was absent when I was there, though I suppose she would run away again, if she were to hear I was coming.

My respects and esteem to all your friends there, and, by your permission, my love to your Fanny. Ever yours. LINCOLN.

SPRINGFIELD, Oct. 5, 1842.

DEAR SPEED,-You have heard of my duel with Shields, and I have now to inform you that the duelling business still rages in this city. Day before yesterday Shields challenged Butler, who accepted, and proposed fighting next morning at sunrising in Bob Allen's meadow, one hundred yards' distance, with rifles. To this Whitesides, Shields's second, said "no," because of the law. Thus ended duel No. 2. Yesterday Whiteside chose to consider himself insulted by Dr. Merryman, so sent him a kind of quasi-challenge, inviting him to meet him at the Planter's House in St. Louis, on the next Friday, to settle their difficulty. Merryman made me his friend, and sent W. a note, inquiring to know if he meant his note as a challenge, and, if so, that he would, according to the law in such case made and provided, prescribe the terms of the meeting. W. returned for answer,

that, if M. would meet him at the Planter's House as desired, he would challenge him. M. replied in a note, that he denied W.'s right to dictate time and place, but that he (M.) would waive the question of time, and meet him at Louisiana, Mo. Upon my presenting this note to W., and stating verbally its contents, he declined receiving it, saying he had business in St. Louis, and it was as near as Louisiana. Merryman then directed me to notify Whiteside that he should publish the correspondence between them, with such comments as he thought fit. This I did. it stood at bedtime last night. This morning Whiteside, by his friend Shields, is praying for a new trial, on the ground that he was mistaken in Merryman's proposition to meet him at Louisiana, Mo., thinking it was the State of Louisiana. This Merryman hoots at, and is preparing his publication; while the town is in a ferment, and a street-fight somewhat anticipated.

Thus

But I began this letter, not for what I have been writing, but to say something on that subject which you know to be of such infinite solicitude to me. The immense sufferings you endured from the first days of September till the middle of February you never tried to conceal from me, and I well understood. You have now been the husband of a lovely woman nearly eight months. That you are happier now than the day you married her, I well know; for without you could not be living. But I have your word for it, too, and the returning elasticity of spirits which is manifested in your letters. But I want to ask a close question, “Are you now in feeling, as well as judgment, glad you are married as you are?" From anybody but me this would be an impudent question, not to be tolerated; but I know you will pardon it in me. Please answer it quickly, as I am impatient to know.

I have sent my love to your Fanny so often, I fear she is getting tired However, I venture to tender it again,

of it.

Yours forever,

LINCOLN

In the last of these letters, Mr. Lincoln refers to his "duel with Shields." That was another of the disagreeable consequences which flowed from his fatal entanglement with Mary. Not content with managing a timid, although half-frantic and refractory, lover, her restless spirit led her into new fields of adventure. Her pen was too keen to be idle in the political controversies of the time. As a satirical writer, she had no rival of either sex at Springfield, and few, we venture to say, anywhere else. But that is a dangerous talent: the temptations to use it unfairly are numerous and strong; it inflicts so much pain, and almost necessarily so much injustice, upon those against whom it is directed, that its possessor rarely, if ever, escapes from a controversy without suffering from the desperation it provokes. Mary Todd was not disposed to let her genius rust for want of use; and, finding no other victim handy, she turned her attention to James Shields, "Auditor." She had a friend, one Miss Jayne, afterwards Mrs. Trumbull, who helped to keep her literary secrets, and assisted as much as she could in worrying the choleric IrishMr. Francis, the editor, knew very well that Shields was "a fighting-man;" but the "pieces" sent him by the wicked ladies were so uncommonly rich in point and humor, that he yielded to a natural inclination, and printed them, one and all. Below we give a few specimens:

man.

LETTER FROM THE LOST TOWNSHIPS.

LOST TOWNSHIPS, Aug. 27, 1842.

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DEAR MR. PRINTER, -I see you printed that long letter I sent you a spell ago: I'm quite encouraged by it, and can't keep from writing again. I think the printing of my letters will be a good thing all round, — it will give me the benefit of being known by the world, and give the world the advantage of knowing what's going on in the Lost Townships, and give your paper respectability besides. So here comes another. Yesterday afternoon I hurried through cleaning up the dinner-dishes, and stepped over to Neighbor S, to see if his wife Peggy was as well as mought be expected, and hear what they called the baby. Well, when I got there, and just turned round the corner of his log-cabin, there he was setting on the doorstep reading a newspaper.

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"How are you, Jeff?" says I. He sorter started when he heard me, for he hadn't seen me before.

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"Why," says he, "I'm mad as the devil, Aunt 'Becca!"

"What about?" says I: "ain't its hair the right color? None of that nonsense, Jeff: there ain't an honester woman in the Lost Townships than”. "Than who?" says he: "what the mischief are you about?"

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I began to see I was running the wrong trail, and so says I, "Oh! nothing: guess I was mistaken a little, that's all. But what is it you're mad about?” 'Why," says he, "I've been tugging ever since harvest getting out wheat and hauling it to the river, to raise State-Bank paper enough to pay my tax this year, and a little school-debt I owe; and now, just as I've got it, here I open this infernal Extra Register,' expecting to find it full of 'Glorious Democratic Victories' and 'High-Comb'd Cocks,' when, lo and behold! I find a set of fellows calling themselves officers of State have forbidden the tax-collectors and school-commissioners to receive State paper at all; and so here it is, dead on my hands. I don't now believe all the plunder I've got will fetch ready cash enough to pay my taxes and that school-debt."

I was a good deal thunderstruck myself; for that was the first I had heard of the proclamation, and my old man was pretty much in the same fix with Jeff. We both stood a moment staring at one another, without knowing what to say. At last says I, "Mr. S- let me look at that paper." He handed it to me, when I read the proclamation over.

"There, now," says he, "did you ever see such a piece of impudence and imposition as that?" I saw Jeff was in a good tune for saying some ill-natured things, and so I tho't I would just argue a little on the contrary side, and make him rant a spell if I could.

"Why," says I, looking as dignified and thoughtful as I could, "it seems pretty tough, to be sure, to have to raise silver where there's none to be raised; but then, you sec, 'there will be danger of loss' if it ain't done."

"Loss, damnation!" says he. "I defy Daniel Webster, I defy King Solomon, I defy the world, — I defy — I defy — yes, I defy even you, Aunt 'Becca, to show how the people can lose any thing by paying their taxes in State paper."

"Well," says I, "you see what the officers of State say about it, and they are a desarnin' set of men. But," says I, "I guess you're mistaken about what the proclamation says. It don't say the people will lose any thing by the paper money being taken for taxes. It only says there will be danger of loss;' and though it is tolerable plain that the people can't lose by paying their taxes in something they can get easier than silver, instead of having to pay silver; and though it is just as plain that the State can't lose by taking State-Bank paper, however low it may be, while she owes the bank more than the whole revenue, and can pay that paper over on her debt, dollar for dollar,― still there is danger of loss to the officers of State;' and you know, Jeff, we can't get along without officers of State."

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