Lincoln writes to his law partner Congressman John T. Stuart and discusses Stuart's possible bid for re-election. In the second half of the letter, Lincoln reveals that he is suffereing an intense bout of depression as he writes, "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me." Abraham Lincoln to John T. Stuart, 23 January 1841, CW, 1:229-30.