The Young Abraham Lincoln in Love

The Young Abraham Lincoln in Love

SMOOT'S RESPONSIBILITY

Paying his debts had kept Lincoln so poor that, though he had been elected to the Legislature, he was not properly clothed or equipped to make himself presentable as the people's representative at the State capital, then located at Vandalia. One day he went with a friend to call on an older acquaintance, named Smoot, who was almost as dry a joker as himself, but Smoot had more of this world's goods than the young legislator-elect. Lincoln began at once to chaff his friend.

"Smoot," said he, "did you vote for me?"

"I did that very thing," answered Smoot.

"Well," said Lincoln with a wink, "that makes you responsible. You must lend me the] money to buy suitable clothing, for I want to make a decent appearance in the Legislature."

"How much do you want?" asked Smoot.

"About two hundred dollars, I reckon."

For friendship's sake and for the honor of Sangamon County the young representative received the money at once.

ANN RUTLEDGE—"LOVED AND LOST"

Abe Lincoln's new suit of clothes made him look still more handsome in the eyes of Ann, the daughter of the proprietor of Rutledge's Tavern, where Abe was boarding at that time. She was a beautiful girl who had been betrothed to a young man named McNamar, who was said to have returned to New York State to care for his dying father and look after the family estate. It began to leak out that this young man was going about under an assumed name and certain suspicious circumstances came to light. But Ann, though she loved the young legislator, still clung to her promise and the man who had proved false to her. As time went on, though she was supposed to be betrothed to Mr. Lincoln, the treatment she had received from the recreant lover preyed upon her mind so that she fell into a decline in the summer of 1835, about a year after her true lover's election to the Legislature.

William O. Stoddard, one of the President's private secretaries, has best told the story of the young lover's despair over the loss of his first love:

"It is not known precisely when Ann Rutledge told her suitor that her heart was his, but early in 1835 it was publicly known that they were solemnly betrothed. Even then the scrupulous maiden waited for the return of the absent McNamar, that she might be formally released from the obligation to him which he had so recklessly forfeited. Her friends argued with her that she was carrying her scruples too far, and at last, as neither man nor letter came, she permitted it to be understood that she would marry Abraham Lincoln as soon as his legal studies should be completed.

"That was a glorious summer for him; the brightest, sweetest, most hopeful he yet had known. It was also the fairest time he was ever to see; for even now, as the golden days came and went, they brought an increasing shadow on their wings. It was a shadow that was not to[150] pass away. Little by little came indications that the health of Ann Rutledge had suffered under the prolonged strain to which she had been subjected. Her sensitive nature had been strung to too high a tension and the chords of her life were beginning to give way.

"There were those of her friends who said that she died of a broken heart, but the doctors called it 'brain fever.'

"On the 25th of August, 1835, just before the summer died, she passed away from earth. But she never faded from the heart of Abraham Lincoln. . . . In her early grave was buried the best hope he ever knew, and the shadow of that great darkness was never entirely lifted from him.

"A few days before Ann's death a message from her brought her betrothed to her bedside, and they were left alone. No one ever knew what passed between them in the endless moments of that last sad farewell; but Lincoln left the house with inexpressible agony written upon his face. He had been to that hour a man of marvelous poise and self-control, but the pain he now struggled with grew deeper and more deep, until, when they came and told him she was] dead, his heart and will, and even his brain itself gave way. He was utterly without help or the knowledge of possible help in this world or beyond it. He was frantic for a time, seeming even to lose the sense of his own identity, and all New Salem said that he was insane. He piteously moaned and raved:

"'I never can be reconciled to have the snow, rain, and storms beat upon her grave.'

"His best friends seemed to have lost their influence over him, . . . all but one; for Bowling Green . . . managed to entice the poor fellow to his own home, a short distance from the village, there to keep watch and ward over him until the fury of his sorrow should wear away. There were well-grounded fears lest he might do himself some injury, and the watch was vigilantly kept.

"In a few weeks reason again obtained the mastery, and it was safe to let him return to his studies and his work. He could indeed work again, and he could once more study law, for there was a kind of relief in steady occupation and absorbing toil, but he was not, could not ever be the same man. . . .

"Lincoln had been fond of poetry from boyhood, and had gradually made himself familiar with large parts of Shakespeare's plays and the works of other great writers. He now discovered, in a strange collection of verses, the one poem which seemed best to express the morbid, troubled, sore condition of his mind, . . . the lines by William Knox, beginning:

"'Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave:'"