SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, February 13, 1842.
DEAR SPEED:—Yours of the 1st instant came to hand three or four days
ago. When this shall reach you, you will have been Fanny’s husband
several days. You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting; that
I will never cease while I know how to do anything. But you will always
hereafter be on ground that I have never occupied, and consequently,
if advice were needed, I might advise wrong. I do fondly hope, however,
that you will never again need any comfort from abroad. But should I be
mistaken in this, should excessive pleasure still be accompanied with
a painful counterpart at times, still let me urge you, as I have ever
done, to remember, in the depth and even agony of despondency, that very
shortly you are to feel well again. I am now fully convinced that you
love her as ardently as you are capable of loving. Your ever being happy
in her presence, and your intense anxiety about her health, if there
were nothing else, would place this beyond all dispute in my mind. I
incline to think it probable that your nerves will fail you occasionally
for a while; but once you get them firmly guarded now that trouble is
over forever. I think, if I were you, in case my mind were not exactly
right, I would avoid being idle. I would immediately engage in some
business, or go to making preparations for it, which would be the same
thing. If you went through the ceremony calmly, or even with sufficient
composure not to excite alarm in any present, you are safe beyond
question, and in two or three months, to say the most, will be the
happiest of men.
I would desire you to give my particular respects to Fanny; but perhaps
you will not wish her to know you have received this, lest she should
desire to see it. Make her write me an answer to my last letter to her;
at any rate I would set great value upon a note or letter from her.
Write me whenever you have leisure. Yours forever, A. LINCOLN. P. S.—I
have been quite a man since you left.