Lincoln replied, "I am not afraid to die, and would be more than willing.

But I have an irrepressible desire to live till I can be assured that the world is a little better for my having been in it." Mr.Herndon gives as his opinion that Lincoln's insanity grew out of a most extraordinary complication of feelings--aversion to the marriage proposed, a counter--attachment to Miss Edwards, and a revival of his tenderness for the memory of Anne Rutledge.

At all events, his derangement was nearly if not quite complete.

"We had to remove razors from his room," says Mr.Speed, "take away all knives, and other dangerous things.

It was terrible." Mr.Speed determined to do for him what Bowlin Greene had done on a similar occasion at New Salem.