Herndon's regret increased that he had sold to Lamon the copies of his papers. He was in a position where he was getting most of the blame for what Lamon had written, and he was not wholly in sympathy with Lamon's and especially with Black's point of view. Lamon's proposed new edition, with the new volume that was to have covered the years of Lincoln's Presidency, did not materialize. There was probably no publisher who dared undertake it. At length Herndon got to work on his own biography of Lincoln, and was fortunate in associating with himself Mr. Jesse W. Weik, who helped him to complete it. The work was published in 1889 by Belford, Clarke, & Company, of Chicago, and made its appearance in three volumes. Soon after its publication the firm failed. The books were hawked about for a song, the greater part of the edition was unsold, and the balance of the edition is alleged to have been bought up by Lincoln's friends and destroyed. The author of this book paid $35.00 for his set, and could sell it at a profit. It is a great pity that Herndon had not learned his lesson from the fate of Lamon's book. If he had omitted some of the objectionable matter, he would have made for himself a great name. Even as it was, he did a great piece of work: but he gained neither money nor commendation. In 1892, Appletons brought out a new edition in two volumes, with some matter omitted, and some new matter by Horace White, and that edition met with favor. But Herndon did not live to see it. He died, poor and battle-scarred, denounced as the maligner of the man he loved. In his younger days, Herndon drank, and it is alleged that in his later life he used morphine. It is said that he wanted an appointment to a Government Land Office, but that Lincoln, knowing his weakness, did not appoint him, and that this had some share in his feeling, which he still thought to be one of reverence for Lincoln, but which was unconsciously tinged with resentment. To this it is answered that Lincoln did offer Herndon an appointment which Herndon declined: but it was not a very attractive appointment, and there is good reason to believe that Herndon was disappointed, and that he knew Lincoln's reason. The name which Herndon applied to Lincoln he accepted for himself, that of infidel. Yet it is fair to ask whether this was a just term as applied to Herndon himself. In his lecture on Ann Rutledge, he had occasion to defend himself in advance for views which he knew would be heard with suspicion, and which, indeed, like almost everything he said and did, had the unfortunate quality of increasing his unpopularity, he said: