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Yours of Oct. 22nd. is received, as also was, in due course, that of Oct. 3rd. I look forward with pleasure to the fulfilment of the promise made in the former.
Give yourself no uneasiness on the subject mentioned in that of the 22nd.
My note to you I certainly did not expect to see in print; yet I have not been much shocked by the newspaper comments upon it. Those comments constitute a fair specimen of what has occurred to me through life. I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice; and have received a great deal of kindness, not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it. Yours truly A. LINCOLN
[1] ADF, RPB. ALS, owned by Alfred W. Stern, Chicago, Illinois; LS copy, DLC-RTL. See Lincoln's letter to Hackett, August 17, supra. On October 3 Hackett wrote that he expected to present performances in Washington, December 21-23, and enclosed a copy of The Man of the World by C. Macklin: ``I would propose to represent upon those evenings,---first, the Falstaff of KING HENRY V; next, Sir Pertinax Mac Sycophant in the comedy called---THE MAN OF THE WORLD; & immediately after it, Monsieur Mallet, an exiled general of Napoleon in my popular interlude of `THE POSTOFFICE MISTAKE;' & upon my last night, the Falstaff of the comedy of THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR; if it may happen to be convenient to Your Excellency to attend upon each or either one of those three evenings named.'' (DLC-RTL).
On October 22 Hackett wrote again:
``About a month since my son John K. Hackett of New York wrote to me how vexed he had been at the unwarrantable liberty taken by certain Newspaper-Presses in publishing your kind, sensible & unpretending letter to me of `17 Augt.' last & more particularly at the Editorial remarks upon & perversion of its subject-matter to antagonistic political purposes, accompanied by satirical abuse in general.
``In order to calm my son's fears that it might give you cause to regret your having thus favored me, with such original materiel, I replied that I felt assured that, as a man of the world now and an experienced politician you were not likely to be so thin skinned, and that in my humble opinion such political squibs would probably affect your sensibility about as much as would a charge of mustard seed shot at forty yards distance, fired through a pop-gun barrel at the naturally armed Alligator, touch his nerves. Pray excuse the illustration! But, my son being a first rate shot with gun or pistol & thoroughly aware of their comparative effects, it was therefore an argumentum ad hominem.
``I have just recd. from my son the enclosed cut from the N.Y. Herald of 16th inst, transcribing an Editorial from `The Liverpool (Eng.) Post of Oct 1st'; and as I perceive your letter was not quite correctly quoted therein & has been very improperly in Sept. last by the Boston Courier, and also because you may not have retained a copy, allow me to send you one of some which I caused to be printed for my friends' perusal without subjecting the original to consequent mutilating.
``I wrote your Excellency hence dated `3d Oct.' inst with a small package by mail which I hope came duly to yr. hand; and I intend to depart hence within a week for New York, there to pass the Winter.'' (Ibid.).