"A few days before Ann's death a message from her brought her betrothed to her bedside, and they were left alone. No one ever knew what passed between them in the endless moments of that last sad farewell; but Lincoln left the house with inexpressible agony written upon his face. He had been to that hour a man of marvelous poise and self-control, but the pain he now struggled with grew deeper and more deep, until, when they came and told him she was dead, his heart and will, and even his brain itself gave way. He was utterly without help or the knowledge of possible help in this world or beyond it. He was frantic for a time, seeming even to lose the sense of his own identity, and all New Salem said that he was insane. He piteously moaned and raved:
"'I never can be reconciled to have the snow, rain, and storms beat upon her grave.'
"His best friends seemed to have lost their influence over him, . . . all but one; for Bowling Green . . . managed to entice the poor fellow to his own home, a short distance from the village, there to keep watch and ward over him until the fury of his sorrow should wear away. There were well-grounded fears lest he might do himself some injury, and the watch was vigilantly kept.
"In a few weeks reason again obtained the mastery, and it was safe to let him return to his studies and his work. He could indeed work again, and he could once more study law, for there was a kind of relief in steady occupation and absorbing toil, but he was not, could not ever be the same man. . . .
"Lincoln had been fond of poetry from boyhood, and had gradually made himself familiar with large parts of Shakespeare's plays and the works of other great writers. He now discovered, in a strange collection of verses, the one poem which seemed best to express the morbid, troubled, sore condition of his mind, . . . the lines by William Knox, beginning:
"'Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave:'"
"THE LONG NINE" AND THE REMOVAL TO SPRINGFIELD
Two years was the term for which Lincoln was elected to the Legislature. The year following the death of Ann Rutledge he threw himself into a vigorous campaign for re-election. He had found much to do at Vandalia. The greatest thing was the proposed removal of the State capital to Springfield. In this enterprise he had the co-operation of a group of tall men, known as "the Long Nine," of whom he was the tallest and came to be the leader.
Lincoln announced his second candidacy in this brief, informal letter in the county paper:
"New Salem, June 13, 1836.