![LINCOLN, Mary Todd. First Lady. Autograph letter signed ("Mary Lincoln") to Mrs Orne, "Frankfort on the Main" [Germany], 9 April 1869. 4 pages, 8vo, black bordered mourning stationery, repairs to folds, closing and signature written vertically across top of first page.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/1999/NYR/1999_NYR_09178_0238_000(115058).jpg?w=1)
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LINCOLN, Mary Todd. First Lady. Autograph letter signed ("Mary Lincoln") to Mrs Orne, "Frankfort on the Main" [Germany], 9 April 1869. 4 pages, 8vo, black bordered mourning stationery, repairs to folds, closing and signature written vertically across top of first page.
"THE TERRIBLE LOSS OF OF MY DEARLY BELOVED HUSBAND...IN WHOSE DEVOTED LOVE I WAS SO BLESSED"
A very fine letter of wistful melancholy from Lincoln's widow to an old and intimate friend, from Mary's self-imposed exile in Germany: "Your friendship for me...is always vividly remembered and your deep sympathy for me, in the terrible loss, of my dearly beloved husband...even yet, all recollections connected with it distract me. I am here a greater portion of the time, simply because I am nearer my young son [Tad], who is in school in Frankfort, my health is very indifferent and thus far, of course, I have moved about, very little."
"The further removed we are from Ones Own beloved land, the more I think our thoughts wander towards it - and the friends we left...Time brings so little consolation to me and do you wonder when you remember whose loss I mourn over - that of my worshipped husband, in whose devoted love I was so blessed, and from whom I was so cruelly torn? The hope of our reunion in a happier world than this, has alone supported me, during the last four, weary years."
Mary and Lincoln had planned to travel together in Europe after he left office. In spite of severe financial constraints, Mary had journeyed to Germany in October 1868. "Here as at home she was torn by conflicting desires, longing on the one hand for the recognition due a President's widow and on the other for the precious privacy of an ordinary citizen. Everyone seemed to know who she was..." (Turner and Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters, p.490). Sally Orne, the wife of a Philadelphia manufacturer, had befriended Mary in Washington. In August, she visited Europe and sought out Mary: "I followed the waiter to the fourth story and the back part of it too," she later wrote, "and there, in a small, cheerless, desolate looking room with but one window, two chairs and a solitary candle," found Lincoln's widow. "It was an emotional reunion. For three days and nights the two women spent every waking moment together, reminiscing about the past and lamenting the present" (ibid., pp.508-509). Affected by her miserable situation, the Ornes became adamant supporters of the bill to grant Mary a pension. Not in the Turners' edition of the letters and presumably unpublished.
"THE TERRIBLE LOSS OF OF MY DEARLY BELOVED HUSBAND...IN WHOSE DEVOTED LOVE I WAS SO BLESSED"
A very fine letter of wistful melancholy from Lincoln's widow to an old and intimate friend, from Mary's self-imposed exile in Germany: "Your friendship for me...is always vividly remembered and your deep sympathy for me, in the terrible loss, of my dearly beloved husband...even yet, all recollections connected with it distract me. I am here a greater portion of the time, simply because I am nearer my young son [Tad], who is in school in Frankfort, my health is very indifferent and thus far, of course, I have moved about, very little."
"The further removed we are from Ones Own beloved land, the more I think our thoughts wander towards it - and the friends we left...Time brings so little consolation to me and do you wonder when you remember whose loss I mourn over - that of my worshipped husband, in whose devoted love I was so blessed, and from whom I was so cruelly torn? The hope of our reunion in a happier world than this, has alone supported me, during the last four, weary years."
Mary and Lincoln had planned to travel together in Europe after he left office. In spite of severe financial constraints, Mary had journeyed to Germany in October 1868. "Here as at home she was torn by conflicting desires, longing on the one hand for the recognition due a President's widow and on the other for the precious privacy of an ordinary citizen. Everyone seemed to know who she was..." (Turner and Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters, p.490). Sally Orne, the wife of a Philadelphia manufacturer, had befriended Mary in Washington. In August, she visited Europe and sought out Mary: "I followed the waiter to the fourth story and the back part of it too," she later wrote, "and there, in a small, cheerless, desolate looking room with but one window, two chairs and a solitary candle," found Lincoln's widow. "It was an emotional reunion. For three days and nights the two women spent every waking moment together, reminiscing about the past and lamenting the present" (ibid., pp.508-509). Affected by her miserable situation, the Ornes became adamant supporters of the bill to grant Mary a pension. Not in the Turners' edition of the letters and presumably unpublished.