Such is the catalogue description which has been given by an American biographer of the woman who first kindled in Lincoln's heart the flame of love. For a while, however, he kept his love as a secret known only to himself. He had a rival in the field, a man named Mcnamar, and it was not until this man had disappeared mysteriously from New Salem that Lincoln dared to speak. And then the result was tragedy.

Anne Rutledge, wavering between her loyalty to her old love and her longing for the new, fell ill. Day by day she grew weaker, and, at length, as she lay dying, she summoned Lincoln to her bedside. The subject of the interview has never been disclosed, but it can be imagined, for the girl's death moved Lincoln strangely. ' My heart is buried there," he declared as he stood beside her grave. And even many years afterwards he said that the mere thought that "the rains and snows fall upon her grave" filled him with indescribable grief.

For some time after the death of Anne Rutledge, Lincoln's friends feared greatly that the man either would commit suicide or would lose his reason.

For days he wandered about alone, morbid and depressed. Finally, however, his condition became so alarming that his friends consulted together and sent him to the house of a man named Bowling Greene, who lived in a secluded spot some distance from the town. Here he was carefully nursed back to a normal state.

Almost immediately, however, Lincoln found himself plunged into the midst of another matrimonial complication.

On this occasion the lady's name was Mary Owens. Like Lincoln himself, she was a native of Kentucky, but it was at New Salem, at the house of her sister, Mrs. Able, that first he met her. This was long before the Anne Rutledge affair had reached its tragic climax.

Shortly after he had recovered from the effects of this disaster, however, Lincoln met Mrs. Able as she was about to set out on a journey. On hearing that she was going to Kentucky, he made inquiry for Miss Owens. Mrs. Able thereupon remarked that, if Lincoln were willing to make the girl his wife, she would bring her sister back with her to New Salem.

Love

The proposition was made in jest, and in this spirit it was accepted. When Mrs. Able returned in the following spring, however, accompanied by her sister, Lincoln became alarmed. For a reason which must remain unexplained unless, in spite of his wit, one may credit Lincoln with a deficient sense of humour, he regarded his idle promise as serious and binding. His distress, moreover, was increased considerably by the fact that the Miss Owens, whom he had remembered as an attractive girl, pretty in features and pretty in manner, had grown into a stout, embittered woman.

Marry her he felt he could not, but, on the other hand, he knew not how to avoid it; his honour and reputation he felt to be at stake. It is an amazing story, and not the least surprising part about it is the denoument. Happily, it has been described by Lincoln himself, and the reader cannot fail to find comedy where he discovered only tragedy.

"What could I do?" he asked, in a letter to his friend Mrs. Browning. " I had told her sister that I would take her for better or for worse, and I made it a point of honour and conscience in all things to stick to my word, especially if others had been induced to act on it, which in this case I had no doubt they had; for I was now fairly convinced that no other man on earth would have her, and hence the conclusion that they were bent on holding me to my bargain. . . . After I had delayed the matter as long as I thought I could in honour do ... I concluded I might as well bring it to a consummation without further delay, and so I mustered my resolution, and made the proposal to her direct; but, shocking to relate, she answered 'no!' At first I supposed she did it through an affectation of modesty, which I thought but ill became her under the peculiar circumstances of her case, but on my renewal of the charge I found that she repelled it with greater firmness than before. I tried it again and again, but with the same success, or rather, with the same want of success. I finally was forced to give it up, at which I very unexpectedly found myself mortified almost beyond endurance. . . . And, to cap the whole, I then for the first time began to suspect that I was really a little in love with her."

Poor Lincoln! His conceit and self-assurance knew no bounds, and it was they which, no doubt, helped to make him a great President. But a glaring fault can be found in the moral characters of most great men; in the case of many instability of affection is that flaw, but in the case of Lincoln it was an utter inability to win affection. Already he had been deceived twice by love, but experience had taught him nothing; he was victimised again almost immediately.

At about this time he removed to Springfield, in order that he might expand his legal practice. He borrowed a horse, and on this animal he placed himself and his personal effects - two saddle-bags, containing law books and a few articles of clothing. On his arrival at Springfield he took a bedroom at the house of a cabinet-maker, and then repaired to a local shop and asked, "What the furniture for a single bedroom would cost? "

"I took slate and pencil," records Mr. Speed, the shopkeeper, "made a calculation, and found the sum for furniture complete would amount to seventeen dollars in all. Said he, 'it is probably cheap enough, but I want to say, cheap as it is, I have not the money to pay. But if you will credit me until Christmas, and my experience here as a lawyer is a success, I will pay you then. If I fail in that I will probably never pay you at all.' The tone in his voice was so melancholy that, I felt for him . . . I never saw so gloomy and melancholy a face in my life. I said to him: ' . . . I can suggest a plan by which you will be able to attain your end without incurring any debt. I have a very large room, and a very large double bed in it, which you are perfectly welcome to share with me if you choose.' 'where is your room?' he asked. 'upstairs,' said I. Without saying a word he took his saddle-bags on his arm, went upstairs and put them down on the floor, came back again, and, with a face beaming with pleasure and smiles, exclaimed, 'well, Speed, I am moved! ' "