y
can realize."

When Lincoln heard that Speed was finally married, he wrote him:

"It cannot be told how it now thrills me with joy to hear you say you
are 'far happier than you ever expected to be,' That much, I know, is
enough. I know you too well to suppose your expectations were not, at
least, sometimes extravagant; and if the reality exceeds them all, I
say, Enough, dear Lord. I am not going beyond the truth when I tell you
that the short space it took me to read your last letter gave me more
pleasure than the total sum of all I have enjoyed since the fatal first
of January, 1841. Since then it seems to me I should have been entirely
happy, but for the never-absent idea that there is one still unhappy
whom I have contributed to make so. That still kills my soul. I cannot
but reproach myself for even wishing to be happy while she is
otherwise."

It is quite possible that a series of incidents that occurred during the
summer in which the above was written had something to do with bringing
such a frame of mind to a happier conclusion. James Shields, afterward a
general in two wars and a senator from two States, was at that time
auditor of Illinois, with his office at Springfield. Shields was an
Irishman by birth, and, for an active politician of the Democratic
party, had the misfortune to be both sensitive and irascible in party
warfare. Shields, together with the Democratic governor and treasurer,
issued a circular order forbidding the payment of taxes in the
depreciated paper of the Illinois State banks, and the Whigs were
endeavoring to make capital by charging that the order was issued for
the purpose of bringing enough silver into the treasury to pay the
salaries of these officials. Using this as a basis of argument, a couple
of clever Springfield society girls wrote and printed in the "Sangamo
Journal" a series of humorous letters in country dialect, purporting to
come from the "Lost Townships," and signed by "Aunt Rebecca," who called
herself a farmer's widow. It is hardly necessary to say that Mary Todd
was one of the culprits. The young ladies originated the scheme more to
poke fun at the personal weaknesses of Shields than for the sake of
party effect, and they embellished their simulated plaint about taxes
with an embroidery of fictitious social happenings and personal
allusions to the auditor that put the town on a grin and Shields into
fury. The fair and mischievous writers found it necessary to consu