The shadow of threatened insanity passed, and within two years Mary Todd became his wife. It was a singular jest of fate that he should have won her away from Stephen A. Douglas, who was yet to be his rival in the great anti-slavery struggle that was ended only by millions of armed men. Poor heart-torn, shrewd, foolish, humble, sublime Lincoln! [Illustration: Senator Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln’s great rival] Then there was the duel with James Shields. That hot-headed Irishman had challenged Lincoln to fight because the tall politician had written certain anonymous letters for the _Springfield Journal_. Lincoln accepted and named “cavalry broadswords of the largest size.” The duelists went to the place appointed by the river, and sat on logs on opposite sides of the field. Here is a description of the scene by an onlooker, from Miss Tarbell’s “Life of Abraham Lincoln”: “I watched Lincoln closely while he set on his log awaiting the signal to fight. His face was grave and serious. I could discern nothing suggestive of ‘old Abe,’ as we knew him. I never knew him to go so long without making a joke, and I began to believe he was getting frightened. But presently he reached over and picked up one of the swords, which he drew from its scabbard. Then he felt along the edge of the weapon with his thumb, like a barber feels of the edge of his razor, raised himself to his full height, stretched out his long arms and clipped a twig from above his head with the sword. There wasn’t another man of us who could have reached anywhere near that twig, and the absurdity of that long-reaching fellow fighting with cavalry sabres with Shields, who could walk under his arm, came pretty near making me howl with laughter. After Lincoln had cut off the twig he returned the sword to the scabbard.” Before the combat could begin, friends arrived in a canoe, Shields was induced to make a concession, and presently Lincoln and his opponent returned to town fast friends. VII We love Lincoln because his life plucks every harp-string in true democracy. Lincoln is the answer to Socialism. He represents individualism, justifying opportunity. Self-government stands vindicated in his name. The thought of him is at once an inspiration and challenge to the poorest and most ignorant boy or man in America. But we love him most of all because he saved the nation which Washington began, and, in the bloody act of salvation, brought human slavery to an end in the great Republic. In following Lincoln through his picturesque and gaunt youth and through his service in the Illinois Legislature and in Congress to the point where the inner and outer influences of his life, his soul and its environments, merged into one supreme idea--the preservation of the Union--we must not forget the things that preceded the final test of his life.