Lincoln & Herndon

[LincolnToddFan]

Angela,

I am stunned that English is not your first language. I would never have guessed!

I read the article you refer to about the Library first questioning the "Love Is Eternal" inscription but it did not persuade me that the inscription is a legend. It first surfaced in the newspaper in the days after MTL's death. Her sister Elizabeth found the ring(MTL took it off a couple of days before she died because it kept sliding from her finger.) The newspapers had to have gotten the information about the ring inscription from Elizabeth or someone else who had personally seen it. Why would they make up something so specific? We know for a fact that AL gave other love trinkets to her during the course of the marriage, like the heart shaped diamond locket he purchased at Tiffany in April 1862. So an engraved ring would not have been out of character.

Beside being famously ambitious, Mary Todd was deeply proud. Anyone who believes she would have spent 23 years sleeping with and bearing children for a man who did not reassure her in some way that he loved her does not understand women, human nature, or either.

I am almost embarrassed about how much I have read about this couple and their marriage. It's the same when I debate on message boards about Henry VIII of England and his six wives...for example I am VERY partial to Henry's first queen Katherine of Aragon. I became obsessed with her about the same time I "discovered" the Lincolns when I was a child of about 12 years old. So.. when I encounter fans of her love rival Anne Boleyn, the fur tends to fly!

Good luck with your reading, and please let me know what conclusions you draw!