At length came a chance to secure an appointment as deputy state surveyor. The only difficulty was that Lincoln knew absolutely nothing about surveying. He borrowed a textbook and, with the help of a schoolmaster friend, worked night and day for six weeks. At the end of that time, pale and haggard but a master of surveying, he got the job.
It was about this time that he fell in love with the beautiful Ann Rutledge, who died soon after they became engaged. "My heart is buried there," he said to a friend when they once passed her grave. There is no doubt that Lincoln was a changed man after her death and that her loss deepened his life. This thought has been nobly phased by Edgar Lee Masters in the epitaph which he has written for her almost unmarked grave:
Ann Rutledge
Out of me, unworthy and unknown.
The vibrations of deathless music:
"With malice toward none, with charity for all."
Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions,
And the beneficent face of a nation
Shining with justice and truth.
I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds.
Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,
Wedded to him, not through union.
But through separation.
Bloom forever, O Republic,
From the dust of my bosom!
In 1834 Lincoln was elected to the state
