retire and come back the following day, when he would be prepared to address them in a fitting manner. He added that as everything that he said in public was reported in the newspapers it was necessary for him to be very careX ful of what he said. The result fully justified the delay, for when Lincoln appeared on the following evening he delivered the longest and most carefully prepared speech of the presidential period. The speech enjoys the further distinction of being his last speech. It deals with the proposed constitution of Louisiana and indicates very clearly his wise policy of reconstruction-a policy which, if it had been followed, would have spared the South untold suffering and humiliation and would have hastened by many years the restoration of that harmony between the sections for which we, as patriotic American citizens, are so thankful to-day.

CHAPTER VIII

LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS

IN discussing Lincoln's letter writing Herndon says:

"In the matter of letter writing he could never distinguish between one of a business nature or any other kind. If a happy thought struck him he was by no means reluctant to use it."

Although this statement is in the main true and applies with equal force to much of his public speaking as well, it is far from applying to the whole correspondence, in much of which Lincoln shows as much restraint and sense of proportion as in his most finished addresses. Unconventional as he was in ordinary relations, as has already been noted in another connection, Lincoln yielded to none in his recogni

tion of propriety when he considered that the conditions required such compliance. All of his letters of condolence, for example-one of the most difficult classes of letters-are models of their kind, and in his business and official correspondence he is always brief and to the point.

Unfortunately very few letters from the earliest period have been preserved and most of these are of slight importance to the student of his style. The principal correspondent in the early 'forties, when the letters begin to appear in larger numbers, is his most intimate friend from that period, Joshua F. Speed, with whom he found lodging on first coming as a stranger to Springfield. These letters are distinguished from most of Lincoln's other correspondence by their greater length and by the deeper personal note that is sounded. Lincoln reveals his inner nature to Speed as he does to no other correspondent, not even to his last law partner, Herndon. This greater intimacy of expression appears to be due partly to Lin

coln's confidence in his friend's judgment and sympathy, partly to the fact that they were nearly of an age and had certain experiences of life in common. It is worth noting in this connection, as being greatly to the credit of both men, that they disagreed strongly in the matter of politics and particularly on the subject of slavery. It strikes us with something of a shock of surprise to learn that the most intimate early friend of the great emancipator was a slave owner and an ardent believer in the peculiar institution of slavery. Perhaps the fact that they were both natives of Kentucky was in part responsible for their friendship. It will be recalled that during the congressional period a few years later Lincoln formed an intimacy with Alexander H. Stephens, who became the vice president of the Confederacy. In his choice of friends Lincoln showed the same fine catholicity that distinguished Lamb.

The most interesting of the letters were written in 1842, immediately before and after Speed's marriage and a few months before

Lincoln's own marriage.

Like his friend,

Speed was at this time subject to fits of nervous melancholy bordering closely upon actual melancholia. Both men, too, showed a marked tendency at this time to introspection and, as Lincoln says in a letter to Speed, they both indulged in "forebodings, for which you and I are peculiar." In spite of his own doubts and fears at this time, Lincoln is ever ready with encouragement and advice to his friend, as is shown in the following extract:

"You say that something indescribably horrible and alarming still haunts you. You will not say that three months from now, I will venture. When your nerves once get steady now, the whole trouble will be over forever. Nor should you become impatient at their being very slow in becoming steady. Again you say, you much fear that that Elysium of which you have dreamed so much is never to be realized. Well, if it shall not, I dare swear it will not be the fault of her who is now your