SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, February 13, 1842.
       DEAR SPEED:--Yours of the 1st instant came to hand three or four days ago. When this shall reach you, you will have been Fanny's husband several days. You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting; that I will never cease while I know how to do anything. But you will always hereafter be on ground that I have never occupied, and consequently, if advice were needed, I might advise wrong. I do fondly hope, however, that you will never again need any comfort from abroad. But should I be mistaken in this, should excessive pleasure still be accompanied with a painful counterpart at times, still let me urge you, as I have ever done, to remember, in the depth and even agony of despondency, that very shortly you are to feel well again. I am now fully convinced that you love her as ardently as you are capable of loving. Your ever being happy in her presence, and your intense anxiety about her health, if there were nothing else, would place this beyond all dispute in my mind. I incline to think it probable that your nerves will fail you occasionally for a while; but once you get them firmly guarded now that trouble is over forever. I think, if I were you, in case my mind were not exactly right, I would avoid being idle. I would immediately engage in some business, or go to making preparations for it, which would be the same thing. If you went through the ceremony calmly, or even with sufficient composure not to excite alarm in any present, you are safe beyond question, and in two or three months, to say the most, will be the happiest of men.
       I would desire you to give my particular respects to Fanny; but perhaps you will not wish her to know you have received this, lest she should desire to see it. Make her write me an answer to my last letter to her; at any rate I would set great value upon a note or letter from her. Write me whenever you have leisure. Yours forever, A. LINCOLN. P. S.--I have been quite a man since you left.

Introductory
Introductory Note
Abraham Lincoln: An Essay by Carl Shurz
Abraham Lincoln, by Joseph H. Choate
Address to the People of Sangamon County.
To E. C. Blankenship.
Response to Request for Postage Receipt
Announcement of Political Views.
Response to Political Smear
To Miss Mary Owens.
Speech in Illinois Legislature.
Opposition to Mob-Rule. Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois.
Protest in the Illinois Legislature on the Subject of Slavery.
To Miss Mary Owens.
To John Bennett.
To Mary Owens.
Legal Suit of Widow v.s. Gen. Adams
Lincoln and Talbott in Reply to Gen. Adams.
Gen. Adams Controversy--continued
To Mrs. O. H. Browning--A Farce
Remarks on Sale of Public Lands
To _________ Row.
Speech on National Bank
To John T. Stuart.
Circular From Whig Committee.
To John T. Stuart.
Resolution in the Illinois Legislature.
Resolution in the Illinois Legislature.
Remarks in the Illinois Legislature.
Remarks in the Illinois Legislature.
To John T. Stuart--On Depression
Remarks in the Illinois Legislature.
Circular From Whig Committee.
Extract From a Protest in the Illinois Legislature Against the Reorganization of the Judiciary.
To Joshua F. Speed--Murder Case
Statement About Harry Wilton.
To Miss Mary Speed--Practical Slavery
To Joshua F. Speed--On Marriage
To Joshua F. Speed.
To Joshua F. Speed--On Depression
To G. B. Sheledy.
To George E. Pickett--Advice to Youth
Address Before the Springfield Washingtonian Temperance Society, February 22, 1842.
To Joshua F. Speed.
To Joshua F. Speed--On Marriage Concerns
To Joshua F. Speed.
To Joshua F. Speed.
A Letter From the Lost Townships
Lost Townships
Invitation to Henry Clay.
Correspondence About the Lincoln-Shields Duel.
To J. Shields.
To A. Lincoln From Jas. Shields
Memorandum of Instructions to E. H. Merryman, Lincoln's Second,
To Joshua F. Speed.
To James S. Irwin.
Resolutions at a Whig Meeting at Springfield, Illinois, March 1, 1843.
Circular From Whig Committee.
To John Bennett.
To Joshua F. Speed.
To Martin M. Morris.
To Martin M. Morris.
To Gen. J. J. Hardin.