Soon after coming to New Salem he chanced much in
the society of Miss Anne Rutledge, a slender, blue-eyed blonde, nineteen
years old, moderately educated, beautiful according to local
standards--an altogether lovely, tender-hearted, universally admired,
and generally fascinating girl. From the personal descriptions of her
which tradition has preserved, the inference is naturally drawn that her
temperament and disposition were very much akin to those of Mr. Lincoln
himself. It is little wonder, therefore, that he fell in love with her.
But two years before she had become engaged to a Mr. McNamar, who had
gone to the East to settle certain family affairs, and whose absence
became so unaccountably prolonged that Anne finally despaired of his
return, and in time betrothed herself to Lincoln. A year or so after
this event Anne Rutledge was taken sick and died--the neighbors said of
a broken heart, but the doctor called it brain fever, and his science
was more likely to be correct than their psychology. Whatever may have
been the truth upon this point, the incident threw Lincoln into profound
grief, and a period of melancholy so absorbing as to cause his friends
apprehension for his own health. Gradually, however, their studied and
devoted companionship won him back to cheerfulness, and his second
affair of the heart assumed altogether different characteristics, most
of which may be gathered from his own letters.
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