19, 1858.

MS.
The sting of personal defeat is painful to most men, and doubtless it was so to Lincoln.

Yet he regarded the passing struggle as something more than a mere scramble for office, and drew from it the consolation which all earnest workers feel in the consciousness of a task well done.

Thus he wrote to a friend on November 19: "You doubtless have seen ere this the result of the election here.

Of course I wished, but I did not much expect, a better result....