Matters went on in this way for about three months; then they met again, seemingly without making any progress. On the day they parted, Lincoln wrote her another letter, evidently to make his own position clear and put the burden of decision upon her.
“If you feel yourself in any degree bound to me [he said], I am now willing to release you, provided you wish it; while, on the other hand, I am willing and even anxious, to bind you faster, if I can be convinced that it will in any considerable degree add to your happiness. This, indeed, is the whole question with me. Nothing would make me more miserable than to believe you miserable—nothing more happy than to know you were so.”
In spite of his evident sincerity, it is not surprising to learn that a little later, Miss Owens definitely refused him. In April, of the following year, Lincoln wrote to his friend, Mrs. L. H. Browning, giving a full account of this grotesque courtship:
“I finally was forced to give it up [he wrote] at which I very unexpectedly found myself mortified almost beyond endurance.
“I was mortified it seemed to me in a hundred different ways. My vanity was deeply wounded by the reflection that I had so long been too stupid to discover her intentions, and at the same time never doubting that I understood them perfectly; and also, that she, whom I had taught myself to believe nobody else would have, had actually rejected me, with all my fancied greatness.
“And then to cap the whole, I then, for the first time, began to suspect that I was really a little in love with her. But let it all go. I’ll try and outlive it. Others have been made fools of by the girls; but this can never with truth be said of me. I most emphatically in this instance made a fool of myself. I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason I can never be satisfied with any one who would be blockhead enough to have me!”
The gist of the matter seems to be that at heart Lincoln hesitated at matrimony, as other men have done, both before and since his time. In his letter to Mrs. Browning he speaks of his efforts to “put off the evil day for a time, which I really dreaded as much, perhaps more, than an Irishman does the halter!”
But in 1839 Miss Mary Todd came to live with her sister, Mrs. Ninian Edwards, at Springfield. She was in her twenty-first year, and is described as “of average height and compactly built.” She had a well-rounded face, rich dark brown hair, and bluish grey eyes. No picture of her fails to show the full, well-developed chin, which, more than any other feature is an evidence of determination. She was strong, proud, passionate, gifted with a keen sense of the ridiculous, well educated, and swayed only by her own imperious will.
Lincoln was attracted at once, and strangely enough, Stephen A. Douglas crossed his wooing. For a time the two men were rivals, the pursuit waxing more furious day by day. Some one asked Miss Todd which of them she intended to marry, and she answered laughingly: “The one who has the best chance of becoming President!”
She is said, however, to have refused the “Little Giant” on account of his lax morality and after that the coast was clear for Lincoln. Miss Todd’s sister tells us that “he was charmed by Mary’s wit and fascinated by her quick sagacity, her will, her nature, and culture.” “I have happened in the room,” she says, “where they were sitting, often and often, and Mary led the conversation. Lincoln would listen, and gaze on her as if drawn by some superior power—irresistibly so; he listened, but scarcely ever said a word.”