Lincoln writes parting letter to Joshua F. Speed, who is about to move to Kentucky. Knowing that Speed is tormented by doubts about his coming marriage, Lincoln gives him encouragement and begs him to forget "reason" and let love have free rein. "Candidly," he writes, "were not those heavenly black eyes, the whole basis of all your early reasoning on the subject?"Abraham Lincoln to Joshua F. Speed, [3? January 1842], CW, 1:265-66.