“But I began this letter not for what I have been writing, but to say something on that subject which you know to be of such infinite solicitude to me.  The immense sufferings you endured from the first days of September till the middle of February you never tried to conceal from me, and I well understood.  You have now been the husband of a lovely woman nearly eight months.  That you are happier now than the day you married her I well know, for without you could not be living.  But I have your word for it too, and the returning elasticity of spirits which is manifested in your letters.  But I want to ask a close question.  ’Are you now in feeling as well as judgment glad that you are married as you are?’ From anybody but me this would be an impudent question not to be tolerated, but I know you will pardon it in me.  Please answer it quickly, as I am impatient to know.”

The answer was evidently satisfactory, for on November 4, 1842, the Rev. Charles Dresser united Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd in the holy bonds of matrimony.[3]

 [Footnote 3:  The following children were born of this marriage: 

 Robert Todd, August 1, 1843; Edward Baker, March 10, 1846; William
 Wallace, December 21, 1850; Thomas, April 4, 1853.

 Edward died in infancy; William in the White House, February 20,
 1862; Thomas in Chicago, July 15, 1871; and the mother, Mary
 Lincoln, in Springfield, July 16, 1882.

Robert, who filled the office of Secretary of War with distinction under the administrations of Presidents Garfield and Arthur, as well William as that of minister to England under the administration of President Harrison, now resides in Chicago, Illinois.]

His marriage to Miss Todd ended all those mental perplexities and periods of despondency from which he had suffered more or less during his several love affairs, extending over nearly a decade.  Out of the keen anguish he had endured, he finally gained that perfect mastery over his own spirit which Scripture declares to denote a greatness superior to that of him who takes a city.  Few men have ever attained that complete domination of the will over the emotions, of reason over passion, by which he was able in the years to come to meet and solve the tremendous questions destiny had in store for him.  His wedding once over, he took up with resolute patience the hard, practical routine of daily life, in which he had already been so severely schooled.  Even his sentimental correspondence with his friend Speed lapsed into neglect.  He was so poor that he and his bride could not make the contemplated visit to Kentucky they would both have so much enjoyed.  His “national debt” of the old New Salem days was not yet fully paid off.  “We are not keeping house, but boarding at the Globe tavern,” he writes.  “Our room ... and boarding only cost us four dollars a week.”