The story of Lincoln’s affair with Miss Owens can be told briefly. It had occurred four years earlier. She was a sister of Mrs. Bennett Abell, whom Lincoln knew in New Salem. In the autumn of 1836 Mrs. Abell returned to Kentucky to visit her family, saying that she would bring her sister back to Illinois with her if Lincoln would agree to marry her.
Lincoln had seen the sister three years before, and he said all right; and presto! the sister appeared. She had a beautiful face, refinement, education, and wealth; but Lincoln didn’t want to marry her. He thought “she was a trifle too willing.” Besides, she was a year older than he, and short and very corpulent— “a fair match for Falstaff,” as Lincoln put it.
“I was not at all pleased with her,” said Lincoln, “but what could I do?”
Mrs. Abell “was very anxious,” to have Lincoln stick to his promise.
But he wasn’t. He admits he was “continually repenting the rashness” which had led him to make it, and dreaded the thought of marrying her as “an Irishman does the halter.”
So he wrote to Miss Owens, frankly and tactfully telling her how he felt and trying to get out of the engagement.
Here is one of his letters. It was written in Springfield on May 7, 1837, and I believe it gives us a very good idea of what he wrote to Mary Todd.
Friend Mary:
I have commenced two letters to send you before this, both of which displeased me before I got half done, and so I tore them up. The first I thought wasn’t serious enough, and the second was on the other extreme. I shall send this, turn out as it may.
This thing of living in Springfield is rather a dull business after all—at least it is so to me. I am quite as lonesome here as [I] ever was anywhere in my life. I have been spoken to by but one woman since I’ve been here, and should not have been by her if she could have avoided it.
I’ve never been to church yet, and probably shall not be soon. I stay away because I am conscious I should not know how to behave myself. I am often thinking of what we said of your coming to live at Springfield. I am afraid you would not be satisfied. There is a great deal of flourishing about in carriages here, which it would be your doom to see without sharing in it. You would have to be poor without the means of hiding your poverty. Do you believe you could bear that patiently? Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should anyone ever do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented, and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort. I know I should be much happier with you than the way I am, provided I saw no signs of discontent in you.
What you have said to me may have been in jest or I may have misunderstood it. If so, then let it be forgotten; if otherwise I much wish you would think seriously before you decide. For my part I have already decided. What I have said I will most positively abide by, provided you wish it. My opinion is you had better not do it. You have not been accustomed to hardship, and it may be more severe than you imagine. I know you are capable of thinking correctly on any subject; and if you deliberate maturely upon this before you decide, then I am willing to abide your decision.
You must write me a good long letter after you get this. You have nothing else to do, and though it might not seem interesting to you after you have written it, it would be a good deal of company in this busy wilderness. Tell your sister I don’t want to hear any more about selling out and moving. That gives me the hypo whenever I think of it.
Yours, etc.
Lincoln.
So much for Lincoln’s affair with Mary Owens. To return to his affair with Mary Todd: Speed tossed into the fire the letter which Lincoln had written to Miss Todd, and, turning to his friend and room-mate, said:
“Now, if you have the courage of manhood, go see Mary yourself; tell her, if you do not love her, the facts, and that you will not marry her. Be careful not to say too much, and then leave at your earliest opportunity.”
“Thus admonished,” Speed relates, “he buttoned his coat, and with a rather determined look started out to perform the serious duty for which I had just given him explicit directions.”
Herndon says:
That night Speed did not go upstairs to bed with us, but under pretense of wanting to read, remained in the store below. He was waiting for Lincoln’s return. Ten o’clock passed, and still the interview with Miss Todd had not ended. At length, shortly after eleven, he came stalking in. Speed was satisfied, from the length of Lincoln’s stay, that his directions had not been followed.
“Well, old fellow, did you do as I told you and as you promised?” were Speed’s first words.
“Yes, I did,” responded Lincoln, thoughtfully, “and when I told Mary I did not love her, she burst into tears and almost springing from her chair and wringing her hands as if in agony, said something about the deceiver being himself deceived.” Then he stopped.
“What else did you say?” inquired Speed, drawing the facts from him.
“To tell you the truth, Speed, it was too much for me. I found the tears trickling down my own cheeks. I caught her in my arms and kissed her.”
“And that’s how you broke the engagement,” sneered Speed. “You not only acted the fool, but your conduct was tantamount to a renewal of the engagement, and in decency you cannot back down now.”
“Well,” drawled Lincoln, “if I am in again, so be it. It’s done, and I shall abide by it.”
Weeks rolled on, and the marriage date drew near. Seamstresses were at work upon Mary Todd’s trousseau. The Edwards mansion was freshly painted, the living-rooms were redecorated, the rugs renovated, and the furniture polished and shifted.
But, in the meantime, a dreadful thing was happening to Abraham Lincoln. One is at a loss to know how to describe it. Profound mental depression is not like grief of the normal type; it is a dangerous illness affecting both mind and body.
Lincoln was sinking day by day, now, into just such a state. His mind came very near being unbalanced; and it is doubtful whether he ever fully recovered from the effects of these awful weeks of unspeakable torture. Although he had definitely agreed to the marriage, his whole soul rebelled against it. Without realizing it, he was seeking a way of escape. He sat for hours in the room above the store, with no desire to go to his office or to attend the meetings of the legislature of which he was a member. Sometimes he arose at three o’clock in the morning, went down below, lighted a fire in the fireplace, and sat staring at it until daybreak. He ate less, and began to lose weight. He was irritable, avoided people, and would talk to no one.
He had begun now to recoil with horror from his approaching marriage. His mind seemed to be whirling through a dark abyss, and he feared that he was losing his reason. He wrote a long letter to Dr. Daniel Drake of Cincinnati, the most eminent physician in the West, the head of the medical department of the College of Cincinnati, describing his case and asking the physician to recommend a course of treatment. But Dr. Drake replied that it would be impossible for him to do so without a personal examination.
The marriage was set for January 1, 1841. The day dawned bright and clear, and the aristocracy of Springfield flourished about in sleighs, making their New Year’s calls. Out of nostrils of horses issued breaths of steam, and the tinkle of tiny bells filled the air.
At the Edwards mansion the bustle and hurry of final preparation went on apace. Delivery boys hastened to the back door with this article and that that had been ordered at the last minute. A special chef had been hired for the occasion. The dinner was to be cooked, not in an old iron oven on the hearth, but in a new invention that had just been installed—a cooking stove.
The early evening of New Year’s Day descended