It is possible that Lincoln knew that Mary Todd would make his life miserable when he married her, but Herndon believed that she changed dramatically after the wedding. Before marriage, he asserted, she was “rather pleasant—polite—civil—rather graceful in her movements—intelligent, [and] witty.” Indeed, she could be “affable and even charming in her manners.” But “after she got married she became soured—got gross—became material—avaricious—insolent—mean—insulting—imperious; and a she wolf.” Herndon thought that the wolf “was in her when young and unmarried, but she unchained it … when she got married. Discretion when young kept the wolf back for a while, but when there was no more necessity for chaining it was unchained to growl—snap & bite at all.” Herndon frequently saw her in “spells of frenzy.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
(echo:: @ ⌗)