Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN • 247In the daytime she visited the stores, making absurd purchases,paying, for example, three hundred dollars for lace curtainswhen she had no home in which to hang them.With a heavy heart Robert Lincoln applied to the CountyCourt of Chicago, for a trial of his mother's sanity. A jury oftwelve men decided that she was insane, and she was confinedin a private asylum at Batavia, Illinois.At the end of thirteen months she was, unfortunately, released—released,but not cured. Then the poor, ailing womanwent abroad to live among strangers, refusing to write Robertor let him know her address.One day while living alone in Pau, France, she mounted astep-ladder to hang a picture above the fireplace; the ladderbroke, and she fell,injuring her spinal cord. For a long time,she was unable even to walk.Returning to her native land to die, she spent her last daysat the home of her sister Mrs. Edwards, in Springfield, sayingover and over: "You ought to pray now that I be taken to myhusband and children."Although she then had six thousand dollars in cash andseventy-five thousand in government bonds, nevertheless hermind was constantly racked by absurd fears of poverty, andshe was haunted by the fear that Robert, then Secretary of War,would be assassinated like his father.Longing to escape from the harsh realities that pressed uponher, she shunned every one, closed her doors and windows,pulled down the shades, darkened her room, and lighted a candleeven when the sun was shining bright."No urging," says her physician, "would induce her to goout into the fresh air."And there, amidst the solitude and soft quiet of the candlelight,her memory doubtless winged its way back across thecruel years, and, dwelling at last among the cherished thoughtsof her young womanhood, she imagined herself waltzing oncemore with Stephen A. Douglas, charmed by his gracious mannerand listening to the rich music of his melodious vowels andclear-cut consonants.At times she imagined that her other sweetheart, a young mannamed Lincoln—Abraham Lincoln—was coming to court herthat night. True, he was only a poor, homely, struggling lawyerwho slept in an attic above Speed's store, but she believedhe might be President if she could stimulate him to try hard,