All you then did or could know of her was her personal appearance and
deportment; and these, if they impress at all, impress the heart, and not
the head.
Say candidly, were not those heavenly black eyes the whole basis of all
your early reasoning on the subject? After you and I had once been at
the residence, did you not go and take me all the way to Lexington and
back, for no other purpose but to get to see her again, on our return on
that evening to take a trip for that express object? What earthly
consideration would you take to find her scouting and despising you, and
giving herself up to another? But of this you have no apprehension; and
therefore you cannot bring it home to your feelings.
I shall be so anxious about you that I shall want you to write by every
mail.
Your friend,
LINCOLN.
TO JOSHUA F. SPEED.
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, February 3, 1842.
DEAR SPEED:--Your letter of the 25th January came to hand to-day. You
well know that I do not feel my own sorrows much more keenly than I do
yours, when I know of them; and yet I assure you I was not much hurt by
what you wrote me of your excessively bad feeling at the time you wrote.
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