from gossip's point of view, as how it had been broken off. Possibly, as
many people have asserted, it was brought about by an event of which, in
the irony of fate, Lincoln ever after felt ashamed.(1) An impulsive,
not overwise politician, James Shields, a man of many peculiarities, was
saucily lampooned in a Springfield paper by some jaunty girls, one of
whom was Miss Todd.

Somehow,--the whole affair is very dim,--Lincoln acted as their literary
adviser. Shields demanded the name of his detractor; Lincoln assumed
the responsibility; a challenge followed. Lincoln was in a ridiculous
position. He extricated himself by a device which he used more than once
thereafter; he gravely proposed the impossible. He demanded conditions
which would have made the duel a burlesque--a butcher's match with
cavalry broadswords. But Shields, who was flawlessly literal, insisted.
The two met and only on the dueling ground was the quarrel at last
talked into oblivion by the seconds. Whether this was the cause of the
reconciliation with Miss Todd, or a consequence, or had nothing to do
with it, remains for the lovers of the unimportant to decide. The only
sure fact in this connection is the marriage which took place November
4, 1842.(2)

Mrs. Lincoln's character has been much discussed. Gossip, though with
very little to go on, has built up a tradition that the marriage was
unhappy. If one were to believe the half of what has been put in print,
one would have to conclude that the whole business was a wretched
mistake; that Lincoln found married life intolerable because of the
fussily dictatorial self-importance of his wife. But the authority
for all these tales is meager. Not one is traceable to the parties
themselves. Probably it will never be known till the end of time what
is false in them, what true. About all that can be disengaged from this