SPRINGFIELD, February 25, 1842.
DEAR SPEED:—Yours of the 16th instant, announcing that Miss Fanny and
you are “no more twain, but one flesh,” reached me this morning. I
have no way of telling you how much happiness I wish you both, though I
believe you both can conceive it. I feel somewhat jealous of both of you
now: you will be so exclusively concerned for one another, that I shall
be forgotten entirely. My acquaintance with Miss Fanny (I call her this,
lest you should think I am speaking of your mother) was too short for me
to reasonably hope to long be remembered by her; and still I am sure I
shall not forget her soon. Try if you cannot remind her of that debt she
owes me—and be sure you do not interfere to prevent her paying it.
I regret to learn that you have resolved to not return to Illinois.
I shall be very lonesome without you. How miserably things seem to be
arranged in this world! If we have no friends, we have no pleasure; and
if we have them, we are sure to lose them, and be doubly pained by the
loss. I did hope she and you would make your home here; but I own I have
no right to insist. You owe obligations to her ten thousand times
more sacred than you can owe to others, and in that light let them be
respected and observed. It is natural that she should desire to remain
with her relatives and friends. As to friends, however, she could not
need them anywhere: she would have them in abundance here.
Give my kind remembrance to Mr. Williamson and his family, particularly
Miss Elizabeth; also to your mother, brother, and sisters. Ask little
Eliza Davis if she will ride to town with me if I come there again. And
finally, give Fanny a double reciprocation of all the love she sent me.
Write me often, and believe me
Yours forever, LINCOLN.
P. S. Poor Easthouse is gone at last. He died awhile before day this
morning. They say he was very loath to die....