and found the sum for furnishings complete, would amount to seventeen
dollars in all. Said he: 'It is probably cheap enough, but I want to
say that, cheap as it is, I have not the money to pay; but if you will
credit me until Christmas, and my experiment here as a lawyer is a
success, I will pay you then. If I fail in that I will probably never
pay you at all.' The tone of his voice was so melancholy that I felt for
him. I looked up at him and I thought then as I think now that I never
saw so gloomy and melancholy a face in my life. I said to him: 'So small
a debt seems to affect you so deeply, I think I can suggest a plan by
which you will be able to attain your end without incurring any debt. I
have a very large room and a very large double bed in it, which you are
perfectly welcome to share with me if you choose.' 'Where is your room?'
he asked. 'Up-stairs,' said I, pointing to the stairs leading from the
store to my room. Without saying a word, he took his saddle-bags on his
arm, went upstairs, set them down on the floor, came down again, and
with a face beaming with pleasure and smiles exclaimed, 'Well, Speed,
I'm moved.'"(6)

This was the beginning of a friendship which appears to have been the
only one of its kind Lincoln ever had. Late in life, with his gifted
private secretaries, with one or two brilliant men whom he did not meet
until middle age, he had something like intimate comradeship. But
even they did not break the prevailing solitude of his inner life. His
aloofness of soul became a fixed condition. The one intruder in that
lonely inner world was Speed. In the great collection of Lincoln's
letters none have the intimate note except the letters to Speed. And
even these are not truly intimate with the exception of a single group
inspired all by the same train of events. The deep, instinctive reserve
of Lincoln's nature was incurable. The exceptional group of letters
involve his final love-affair. Four years after his removal to