1 files changed, 11286 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/15534-8.txt b/15534-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6b4a09f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/15534-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11286 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Children of the Market Place, by Edgar Lee
+Masters
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Children of the Market Place
+
+
+Author: Edgar Lee Masters
+
+Release Date: April 4, 2005  [eBook #15534]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE MARKET PLACE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+CHILDREN OF THE MARKET PLACE
+
+by
+
+EDGAR LEE MASTERS
+
+1922
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO GEORGE P. BRETT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+I was born in London on the eighteenth of June, 1815. The battle of
+Waterloo was being fought as I entered this world. Thousands were giving
+up their lives at the moment that life was being bestowed upon me. My
+father was in that great battle. Would he ever return? My mother was but
+eighteen years of age. Anxiety for his safety, the exhaustion of giving
+me life prostrated her delicate constitution. She died as I was being
+born.
+
+I have always kept her picture beside me. I have always been bound to
+her by a tender and mystical love. During all the years of my life my
+feeling for her could not have been more intense and personal if I had
+had the experience of daily association with her through boyhood and
+youth.
+
+What girlish wistfulness and sadness there are in her eyes! What a
+gentle smile is upon her lips, as if she would deny the deep foreboding
+of a spirit that peered into a perilous future! Her dark hair falls in
+rich strands over her forehead in an elfin and elegant disorder. Her
+slender throat rises gracefully from an unloosened collar. This picture
+was made from a drawing done by a friend of my father's four months
+before I was born. My old nurse told me that he was invalided from the
+war; that my father had asked him to make the drawing upon his return to
+London. Perhaps my father had ominous dreams of her ordeal soon to be.
+
+They pronounced me a fine boy. I was round faced, round bodied, well
+nourished. The nurse read my horoscope in coffee grounds. I was to
+become a notable figure in the world. My mother's people took me in
+charge, glad to give me a place in their household. Here I was when my
+father returned from the war, six months later. He had been wounded in
+the battle of Waterloo. He was still weak and ill. I was told these
+things by my grandmother in the succeeding years.
+
+When I was four years old my father emigrated to America. I seem to
+remember him. I have asked my grandmother if he did not sing "Annie
+Laurie"; if he did not dance and fling me toward the ceiling in a riot
+of playfulness; if he did not snuggle me under my tender chin and tickle
+me with his mustaches. She confirmed these seemingly recollected
+episodes. But of his face I have no memory. There is no picture of him.
+They told me that he was tall and strong, and ruddy of face; that my
+beak nose is like his, my square forehead, my firm chin. After he
+reached America he wrote to me. I have the letters yet, written in a
+large open hand, characteristic of an adventurous nature. Though he was
+my father, he was only a person in the world after all. I was surrounded
+by my mother's people. They spoke of him infrequently. What had he done?
+Did they disapprove his leaving England? Had he been kind to my mother?
+But all the while I had my mother's picture beside me. And my
+grandmother spoke to me almost daily of her gentleness, her
+high-mindedness, her beauty, and her charm.
+
+I was raised in the English church. I was taught to adore Wellington, to
+hate Napoleon as an enemy of liberty, a usurper, a false emperor, a
+monster, a murderer. I was sent to Eton and to Oxford. I was
+indoctrinated with the idea that there is a moral governance in the
+world, that God rules over the affairs of men. I was taught these
+things, but I resisted them. I did not rebel so much as my mind
+naturally proved impervious to these ideas. I read the _Iliad_ and the
+_Odyssey_ with passionate interest. They gave me a panoramic idea of
+life, men, races, civilizations. They gave me understanding of Napoleon.
+What if he had sold the Louisiana territory to rebel America, and in
+order to furnish that faithless nation with power to overcome England in
+some future crisis? Perhaps this very moral governance that I was taught
+to believe in wished this to happen. But if the World Spirit be nothing
+but the concurrent thinking of many peoples, as I grew to think, the
+World Spirit might irresistibly wish this American supremacy to be.
+
+And now at eighteen I am absorbed in dreams and studies at Oxford. I
+have many friends. My life is a delight. I arise from sleep with a song,
+and a bound. We play, we talk, we study, we discuss questions of all
+sorts infinitely. I take nothing for granted. I question everything, of
+course in the privacy of my room or the room of my friends. I do not
+care to be expelled. And in the midst of this charming life bad news
+comes to me. My father is dead. He has left a large estate in Illinois.
+I must go there. At least my grandmother thinks it is best. And so my
+school days end. Yet I am only eighteen!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+I am eighteen and the year is 1833. All of Europe is in a ferment, is
+bubbling over in places. Napoleon has been hearsed for twelve years in
+St. Helena. But the principles of the French Revolution are working.
+Charles is king of France, but by the will of the nation first and by
+the grace of God afterward. There is no republic there; but the
+sovereignty of the people, the prime principle of the French Revolution,
+has founded the right of Charles to rule.... And what of England? Fox
+had rejoiced at the fall of the Bastille. Coleridge, Wordsworth, and
+Southey had sung of liberty, exulting in the emancipation of peoples
+from tyranny. Then they had changed. Liberalism had come under the heel
+again. Revolution was feared and denounced. Liberal principles were
+crushed.... But not for long. We students read Shelley and Byron. They
+were now gone from earth, eleven and nine years respectively. They had
+not altered their faith, dying in the heyday of youthful power. Would
+they have changed at any age to which they might have lived? We believed
+they would not have done so. But what of England? It is 1833 and the
+reform bill is a year old. The rotten boroughs are abolished. There is a
+semblance of democratic representation in Parliament. The Duke of
+Wellington has suffered a decline in popularity. Italy is rising, for
+Mazzini has come upon the scene. Germany is fighting the influence of
+Metternich. We students are flapping our young wings. A great day is
+dawning for the world. And I am off to America!
+
+What is stirring there? I am bound for the Middle West of that great
+land. What is it like? Shall I ever return? What will my life be? These
+are my reflections as I prepare to sail.
+
+I take passage on the _Columbia and Caledonia_. She is built of wood and
+is 200 feet long from taffrail to fore edge of stem. Her beam is 34-1/2
+feet. She has a gross tonnage of 520 tons. She can sail in favorable
+weather at a speed of 12 knots an hour. I laughed at all this when,
+something more than twenty years after, I crossed on the _Persia_, 376
+feet long, of 3500 tonnage, and making a speed of nearly 14 knots an
+hour, with her 4000-horse-power engines.
+
+It is April. The sea is rough. We are no sooner under way than the heavy
+swell of the waves tosses the boat like a chip. The prow dips down into
+great valleys of glassy water. The stern tips high in the air against an
+angry sky. The shoulders of the sea bump under the poop of the boat, and
+she trembles like a frightened horse under its rider. I have books to
+read. My grandmother has provided me with many things for my comfort and
+delight. But I cannot eat, not until during the end of the voyage. I lie
+in a little stateroom, which I share with an American. He persists in
+talking to me, even at night when I am trying to sleep. He tells me of
+America. His home is New York City. He has been as far west as Buffalo.
+He gives me long descriptions of the Hudson River, and the boats on it
+that run to Albany. He talks of America in terms of extravagant eulogy.
+The country is free. It has no king. The people rule. I have read a
+little and heard something of America. At Oxford we students had
+wondered at the anomaly of a republic maintaining the institution of
+slavery. I asked him about this. He said that it did not involve any
+contradiction; that the United States was founded by white men for white
+men; that negroes were a lower order of beings; that their servitude was
+justified by the Bible; that a majority of the clergy and the churches
+of the country approved of the institution; that the slaves were well
+treated, much better housed and fed than the workers of Europe; better
+than the free laborers even in America. His thesis was that the business
+of life was the obtaining of the means of life; that all the uprisings
+in Europe, the French Revolution included, were inspired by hunger; that
+the struggle for existence was bound to produce oppression; that the
+strong would use and control the weak, make them work, keep them in a
+state where they could be worked. All this for trade. He topped off this
+analysis with the remark that negro slavery was a benign institution,
+exactly in line with the processes of the business of life; that it had
+been lied about by a growing fanaticism in the States; New York had
+always been in sympathy, for the most part with the Southern States,
+where slavery was a necessary institution to the climate and the cotton
+industry. He went on to tell me that about a year before a maniacal
+cobbler named William Lloyd Garrison had started a little paper called
+_The Liberator_ in which he advocated slave insurrections and the
+overthrow of the laws sustaining slavery; and that a movement was now on
+foot in New England to found the American Anti-Slavery Society. And that
+John Quincy Adams, once President, but now a senile intermeddler, had
+been presenting petitions in Congress from various constituencies for
+the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. This would be
+finally squelched, he thought. New England had always demanded a tariff
+in order to foster her industries, and that policy trenched on the
+rights of the states not needing and not wanting a tariff. While slavery
+did not in any way harm New England, she intermeddled in a mood of moral
+fanaticism.
+
+I was much interested in these revelations by Mr. Yarnell, for such was
+his name.... One morning we began to sense land. We had been about three
+weeks on the water. We were nearing the harbor of New York.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Yarnell was a man of about thirty. He seemed very mature to me. In fact
+he was quite a man of the world. I had told him my destination, and
+asked him how best to reach it. He had given me some information, but it
+was not wholly clear. He advised me to ask for direction at the Franklin
+House, which he recommended to me as a comfortable hotel.
+
+As we came into the harbor we stood on the deck together while he
+pointed out the places of interest. I was thrilled with its beauty and
+its extent. The day was mild. A fresh breeze was blowing. May clouds
+floated swiftly in the clear sky. I felt my blood course electrically in
+expectation of the wonders of New York. It was now lying before me in
+all its color and mystery. Boats of all kinds passed us. There was a
+tangled thicket of masts at the piers. I discerned gay awnings over a
+walk around a building near the water. Yarnell said this was Castle
+Garden, where many diners came for the excellence of the food and the
+view of the harbor. I could begin to see up the streets of the city
+beyond the Battery. But there was a riot of stir and activity, in
+expectation of our boat.
+
+I disembarked and hired a hack. I was traveling with a huge valise.
+This the hackman took for me. Yarnell came up to bid me adieu, promising
+to call upon me at the Franklin House. The fare was twenty-five cents a
+mile. The hotel was at 197 Broadway. Was it more than a mile? I did not
+know. I was charged fifty cents for the trip. I was not stinted for
+money, and it did not matter. I paid the amount demanded, and walked
+into the hotel.
+
+How simple things are at the end of a journey and a daily restlessness
+to arrive! My valise was taken to my room. I went with the negro porter.
+I looked from my window out upon Broadway. The porter departed. The door
+was closed. My journey to New York was over. I was alone. I began to
+wish for Yarnell, wish to be back upon the boat. Above all I began to
+sense the distance that separated me from England and those I loved.
+Here was the afternoon on my hands. Should I not see something of the
+city? When should I start west? I took from my pocket the letter written
+from Illinois by the lawyer, who had advised this journey and my
+presence at Jacksonville, for that was the town where my father's estate
+was to be settled. For the first time I was conscious of the fact that
+difficulties probably stood in my way. The letter read: "Claims are
+likely to be made against the estate that require your personal
+attention." What could it mean? Why had my grandmother said nothing to
+me of this? She had seen the letter. I began to wonder. But to fight
+down my growing loneliness I started out to see the city.
+
+As I passed up the street I bought _Valentine's Manual_ and glanced at
+it as I walked. How far up did the city extend? The manual said more
+than thirteen miles. I could not make that distance before dark. A
+passerby said that there was a horse railway running as far as Murray
+Hill. But I strode on, arriving in a little while at Washington Square.
+Beyond this I could see that the city did not present the appearance of
+being greatly built. On my way I passed the gas works, the City Hall,
+many banks, several circulating libraries, saw the signs of almost
+innumerable insurance companies. But the people! They were all strange
+to me. So many negroes. My manual said there were over 14,000 negroes in
+the city, which, added to the white population, made an aggregate of
+more than 200,000 souls. I sat for a while in the Park and then retraced
+my steps.
+
+On my way back I stopped at Niblo's Garden at Broadway and Prince
+Street. It was a gay place. People were feasting upon oysters, drinking,
+laughing, talking over the affairs of the day. Here I partook of oysters
+for the first time in my life. I walked through the grounds, looking at
+the flowers. I stared about at the splendor of the paintings and the
+mirrors in the rooms. Then like a ghost I resumed my way to my hotel.
+Why? There was nothing there to call me back. Yet it was the only home I
+had, and the evening was coming on.
+
+Instead of stopping at the hotel, I went on to Castle Garden. I decided
+to dine there. I could look over the harbor and the ships. It was a way
+to put myself in touch with England, to travel back over the way I had
+come. I found a table and ordered a meal.
+
+I became conscious of the fact that the captain of the _Columbia and
+Caledonia_ was at a near table with a gay party. They had wine, and
+there was much merriment. This abandonment was in contrast to the
+serious, almost dark spirit of a party at another table. This was
+composed of men entirely. I had never seen such faces before. Their hair
+was long. They wore goatees. They were strangely dressed. They talked
+with a broad accent. Excitement and anger rose in their voices. They
+were denouncing President Jackson. The matter seemed to be a force bill,
+the tariff imposed by New England's enterprise, the duty of the Southern
+States to resist it. They were insisting that there was no warrant to
+pass a tariff law, that it was clearly a breach of the Constitution, and
+that it should be resisted to the death. There was bitter cursing of
+Yankees, of the greed of New England, of its disregard of the rights of
+the South.... But out upon the harbor the sea gulls were drifting. I
+could hear the slapping of the waves against the rocks. And in the midst
+of this the orchestra began to play "Annie Laurie." The tears came to my
+eyes. I arose and left the place. My mind turned to a theater as a means
+of relief to these pressing thoughts. I consulted my manual, and started
+for the American theater. It was described as an example of Doric
+architecture, modeled after the temple of Minerva at Athens. I found it
+on the Bowery and Elizabeth Street, bought a ticket for seventy-five
+cents and entered. The play was _Othello_, and I had never seen it
+before.
+
+I could not help but overhear and follow the conversation of the people
+who sat next to me. They were wondering what moved Shakespeare to depict
+the story of a black man married to a white woman. Could such a theme be
+dramatized now? How could a woman, fair and high-bred, become the wife
+of a sooty creature like Othello? Was it real? If not real, what was
+Shakespeare trying to do? And much more to the same effect, together
+with remarks about negroes and that slavery should be let alone by New
+England, and by everyone else.
+
+The play was dreary to me, played listlessly where it was not ranted and
+torn to tatters. I sat it through and then went back to my hotel.... The
+loneliness of that room as I entered it has never left my memory. For
+long hours I did not sleep. The city had 600 night watch, so the manual
+said, and I could hear some of them going their rounds. At last ... I
+awoke and it was morning. I awoke with a sense of delight in the
+strength and vitality which sleep had restored to me.... I went below
+to breakfast and to find the way to travel to Illinois.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The clerk of the hotel told me that the best route was by way of Albany,
+the canal, the Great Lakes to Chicago; that when I got there I would
+likely find a boat or stage service to Jacksonville. I could leave at
+noon for Albany if I wished. Accordingly, I made ready to do so.
+
+I was entranced with the river boat. It was longer than the _Columbia
+and Caledonia_. And it was propelled by steam. It had the most enormous
+wheels. And no sooner were we under way than I found that we were
+gliding along at the rate of twenty miles an hour. The swiftly passing
+hills and palisades of the Hudson served to mark our speed. There were
+great saloons, lovely awnings under which to read or lounge, promenade
+decks. And there was a gay and well-behaved crowd of passengers.... At
+dinner we were seated at long tables, and served with every luxury. And
+the whole journey cost me less than seven shillings.
+
+On arriving at Albany that night at about nine o'clock I found myself in
+the best of luck. I could get passage on a canal boat the next morning
+for Buffalo; rather I was permitted to sleep on board.... I got on and
+retired. I awoke just as the boat was beginning to start. I had never
+seen anything like this before. The boat was narrow, sharp, gayly
+painted. It was drawn by three horses, each ridden by a boy who urged
+the horses forward. We traveled at the great speed of five miles an
+hour.
+
+But it was delightful. We were more than three days going from Albany to
+Buffalo. The time was well spent. The scenery was varied and beautiful.
+All the while we were climbing, for Lake Erie, to which we had to be
+lifted, was much above us. We went through lovely valleys; we ran beside
+glistening streams and rivers; we wound around hills. The farms were
+large and prosperous. The villages were new, fresh with white paint and
+green blinds, hidden among flowers and shrubbery.
+
+You see, I am eighteen and these external objects realize my dreams and
+stimulate them. I do not know these people. They are frank, talkative,
+often vulgar and presuming. But they are friendly. There is much
+merriment on board, for we have to dodge down frequently to save our
+heads from the bridges which the farmers build right across the canal.
+The ladies have to be warned and assisted. There are narrow escapes and
+shouts of laughter. And when the dinner bell is rung by a comical negro
+every one rushes for the dining room. I am introduced again to the
+American oyster, raw, fried, and stewed. It is the most delicious of
+discoveries among the new viands. Then we have wonderful roast turkey,
+chicken, and the greatest variety of vegetables and sweets. I am keeping
+a daily record of events and impressions to mail to my dear grandmother
+when I shall arrive at Buffalo....
+
+Sometimes I get tired of the boat. Then I go on land and run along the
+path behind the horses. A young woman on her way to Michigan to teach
+school joins me in these reliefs from the tedium of the boat. We
+exchange a few words. But I see that I am not old enough for her. I have
+already observed her in confiding conversation with a man about the age
+of Yarnell. And soon they go together to trot along the path, to stray
+off a little into the meadows, or at the base of the picturesque
+hills.... I am interested in the talk of the passengers, and cannot
+choose but follow it at times.... One man has been reading the _New
+Yorker_, printed by H. Greeley and Company. I learn that Horace Greeley
+is his full name, and he comes in for a berating at the hands of a man
+with one of the characteristic goatees that I first observed at Castle
+Garden. The Whigs! I had always associated this party with
+latitudinarian principles. Now I hear it called a centralist party, a
+monarchist party. A voluble man, who chews tobacco, curses it as a mask
+for the old Federalist party, which tried to corrupt America with the
+British system, after it had failed as a combination of Loyalists to
+keep America under the dominion of Great Britain.... This is all a maze
+to me, at least so far as the American application is concerned. Then
+the man with the goatee assails New England, and calls her the devotee
+of the soured gospel of envy which covers its wolf face of hate with the
+lamb's decapitated head of universal brotherhood and slavery abolition.
+Surely there is much strife in America.... Also again President
+Jackson, the tariff, and the force bill! And will South Carolina secede
+from the Union on account of the unjust and lawless tariff? New England
+tried to secede once when the run of affairs did not suit her. Why not
+South Carolina, then, if she chooses? Another man is reading a book of
+poems and talking at intervals to a companion. I hear him say that a Mr.
+Willis is one of the world's greatest poets. I glance at the book and
+see the name Nathaniel Parker Willis. Also it seems Willis is the editor
+of one of the world's greatest literary journals. It is published in New
+York and is called the _New York Mirror_.... It is all so strange. Is it
+true that in this country, so far from England, there are men who are
+the equals of Shelley and Byron, or of Tennyson, whose first book has
+given me such delight recently?...
+
+We near the journey's end. At Lockport we are lifted up the precipice
+over which the Falls of Niagara pour some miles distant. We are now on a
+level with Lake Erie, to which we have climbed by many locks and lifts
+over the hills since we left Albany. Soon we travel along the side of
+the Niagara River; quickly we drift into Buffalo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Buffalo, they told me, had about 15,000 people. I wished to see
+something of it before departing for the farther west. For should I ever
+come this way again? I started from the dock, but immediately found
+myself surrounded by runners and touters lauding the excellences of the
+boats to which they were attached. The harbor was full of steamboats
+competing for trade.... They rang bells, let off steam, whistled. Bands
+played. Negroes ran here and there, carrying freight and baggage. The
+air was vibrating with yells and profanity.... But I made my escape and
+walked through the town. It had broad streets, lovely squares,
+substantial and attractive buildings and residences. And there was Lake
+Erie, blue and fresh, rippling under the brilliant May sun. I had never
+seen anything remotely approximating Lake Erie.... "How large is it?" I
+inquired of a passerby. I was told that it was 60 miles wide and 250
+miles long. Could it be true? Was there anything in all of Europe to
+equal it? I could not for the moment remember the extent of the Caspian
+Sea. And I stood in wonder and delight.
+
+As I left the dock for my walk I had observed the name _Illinois_ on a
+boat that had all the appearances of being brand new. I walked leisurely
+toward the dock so as to avoid the touters as much as possible while I
+was overlooking the boat. I liked it, but would it take me to Chicago?
+The gangplank was lying on the dock and near it stood what seemed to me
+to be the captain and the pilot, around them touters and others. I edged
+around to the captain and asked him if the _Illinois_ would take me to
+Chicago. "In about an hour," he said with a laugh. Immediately I was
+besieged by the runners to help me on, to get my baggage, to serve me in
+all possible ways. I couldn't hire all of them. I chose one, who got my
+valise for me, and I went aboard.
+
+It was a new boat, and this was its maiden trip. All the stewards,
+negroes, waiters were brisk and obliging, and bent on making the trip an
+event. The captain gave parties. He was a bluff, kindly man, who mingled
+much with favorite passengers. Wine flowed freely. The food was abundant
+and delicious. We had dances by moonlight on the deck. A band played at
+dinner and at night. The boat was distinguished for many quaint and
+interesting characters. I enjoyed it all, but made no friends. I did not
+understand this free and easy manner of life. The captain noted me, and
+asked if I was well placed and comfortable. Various people opened
+conversations with me. But I was shy, and I was English. I could not
+unbend. I did not desire to do so.
+
+We docked at Erie and at Cleveland, both small places. We came to
+Detroit, the capital of Michigan. On the way some one pointed out the
+scene of Perry's victory over the hated British. We passed into Lake
+Huron.
+
+Then later I was privileged to see Mackinac, an Indian trading post. I
+viewed the smoking wigwams from the deck of the _Illinois_. Here were
+the savages buying powder, blankets, and whisky. The squaws were selling
+beaded shoes. The shore was wooded and high.... I looked below into the
+crystalline depths of the water. I could see great fish swimming in the
+transparent calms, which mirrored the clouds, the forests, and the boats
+and canoes of the Indians.... We ran down to Green Bay, Wisconsin. Here
+too there were Indian traders.... We went on to Milwaukee. As there was
+no harbor here a small steamer came out to take us off. I went ashore
+with some others. A creek flowed from the land to the lake. But the town
+was nothing. Only a storehouse and a few wooden buildings. Soon we
+proceeded to Chicago. I was told that the northern boundary of Illinois
+had been pushed north, in order to give the state the southern shores of
+the great lake, with the idea of capturing a part of the emigration and
+trade of the East. This fact eventually influenced my life, and the
+history of the nation, as will be seen.
+
+Chicago had been a trading post, and to an extent was yet. The
+population was less than 1000 people. There was a fort here, too, built
+in place of one which had been destroyed in a massacre by the Indians.
+There was much activity here, particularly in land speculation. Not a
+half mile from the place where we landed there was a forest where some
+Indians were camping. I heard that an Indian war was just over. The
+Black Hawks had been defeated and driven off. But some friendly remnants
+of other breeds were loitering about the town.
+
+Carrying my valise, I began to look for a hotel for the night. Also, how
+and when was I to get to Jacksonville? A man came by. I hailed him and
+asked to be driven to a hotel. He walked with me north toward the river,
+past the fort and landed me at a hostelry built partly of logs and
+partly of frames. Surely this was not New York or Buffalo! As I came to
+the hotel I saw a man standing at the door, holding the bridle bits of
+an Indian pony. He came into the hotel soon, evidently after disposing
+of his charge. At that moment I was asking Mr. Wentworth, the hotel
+manager, how to get to Jacksonville. The man came forward and in the
+kindest of voices interrupted to tell me what the manager evidently
+could not. "I am going there myself to-morrow," he said. "You can ride
+behind. The pony can carry both of us." I looked at my new-found friend.
+He had deep blue eyes, a noble face, a musical and kindly voice. He
+looked like the people I had known in England. I was drawn to him at
+once in confidence and friendship. He went on to tell me later that he
+had been in the Black Hawk War; that he had been spending some time in
+Chicago trying to decide whether he would locate there or return to
+Jacksonville. He had been offered forty acres of land about a mile south
+of the river for the pony. But what good was the land? It was nothing
+but sand and scrub oaks. Unless the town grew and made the land
+valuable as building property, it would never be of value. For farming
+it was worthless. But around Jacksonville the soil was incomparably
+fertile and beautiful. He had decided, therefore, to return to
+Jacksonville. His eyes deepened. "You see that I am attached to that
+country." He smiled. "Yes, I must go back. Some one is waiting for me.
+You are heartily welcome to ride behind." How long would it take? A
+matter of five days. Meanwhile he had told me how to reach there
+independently: by stage to a place 90 miles south on the Illinois River,
+then by boat to a town on the river called Bath, then cross country to
+Jacksonville. I began to balance the respective disadvantages. "My name
+is Reverdy Clayton," he said, extending his hand in the most cordial
+way. I could not resist him. "My name is James Miles," I returned with
+some diffidence. "James Miles," he echoed. "James Miles ... there was a
+man of that name in Jacksonville, poor fellow ... now gone." "Perhaps he
+was my father ... did you know my father?" I felt a thrill go through
+me. Was this new-found acquaintance before me a friend of my father's?
+It turned out to be so. But why "poor fellow"?
+
+Clayton was not over thirty-two, therefore my father's junior by some
+years. How well had they known each other? We went to dinner together.
+We were served with bacon and greens, strong coffee, apple pie. It was
+all very rough and strange. But Clayton told me many things. He knew the
+lawyer Brooks who had written me. Brooks was a reliable man. But when I
+pressed Clayton for details about my father he grew strangely reticent.
+I began to feel depressed, overcome by a foreboding of wonder.
+
+After dinner we separated. Clayton had errands to do preparatory to
+leaving and I went forth to see the town. What a spectacle of undulating
+board sidewalks built over swales of sand, running from hillock to
+hillock! What shacks used for stores, trading offices, marts for real
+estate! Truly it was a place as if built in a night, relieved but little
+by buildings of a more substantial sort.... Drinking saloons were
+everywhere. I heard music and entered one of these resorts. There was a
+barroom in front and a dancing room in the rear. The place was filled
+with sailors, steamboat captains and pilots, traders, roisterers,
+clerks, hackmen, and undescribed characters. Women mingled with the men
+and drank with them. They dressed with conspicuous abandon, in loud
+colors. Their faces were rouged. They ran in and out of the dance room
+with escorts or without, stood at the bar for drinks, entwined their
+arms with those of the men. In the dance room a band was playing. A man
+with a tambourine added to the hilarity of the music. It was a wild
+spectacle, unlike anything I had ever seen. No one accosted me. I could
+feel a different spirit in the crowd from that I had seen on the boats
+or in New York. There was no talk of politics, negroes, force bills.
+They did not seem to know or to care about these things. It was a wild
+assemblage, but without meanness or malice. They were occupied solely
+with a spirit of carnival, of dancing, drinking, of talk about the
+arrival of the _Illinois_; about the price of land and the great future
+of Chicago. "It's as plain as day," said a man at the bar. "Here we are
+at the foot of the lake. The trade comes our way. The steamboats come
+here from the East. Look at the country! No such farm country in the
+world! Why, in twenty years this town will have a population of 20,000
+people. It's bound to." How could it be? How could such a locality ever
+be the seat of a city? So far from the East. And nothing here but wastes
+of sand!
+
+I left the place unnoticed and returned to the hotel. I sat down
+drearily enough. The feeling that I was far from home, far even from the
+civilization and the charm of New York came over me with depressing
+effect. I began to wish that Clayton would appear. I had not decided to
+accept his kindly offer. I must be off to-morrow. The air seemed
+oppressive. Was it so warm? I put my hand to my brow. It was hot.
+Perhaps I was not well. The trip I had just ended was after all
+wearisome. I had not slept well some nights. I sensed that I was
+fatigued. What would a ride of more than 200 miles on a pony do to me?
+But on the other hand I had the alternative of 90 miles by stage. For
+the first time I began to feel apprehension about the days ahead.
+
+While I was thinking these matters over Clayton came in. He supplemented
+my doubts by telling me that if I was not used to riding, a journey of
+such length would make me lame; at least a little. I then decided that
+I would take the stage, and the boat. The next morning, promising to see
+me in Jacksonville and offering to befriend me in any way he could,
+Clayton bestrode his pony and was off. In an hour I was rolling in the
+stage toward the Illinois River....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+We were some hours getting through the sand. Then we came to hilly
+country overgrown with oaks and some pines. Later the soil was rocky. We
+skirted along a little river; and here and there I had my first view of
+the prairie. The air above me was thrilling with the song of spring
+birds. I did not know what they were. Some of them resembled the English
+skylark in the habit of singing and soaring. But the note was different.
+
+My head felt heavy. I seemed to be growing more listless. But I could
+not help but note the prairie: the limitless expanse of heavy grass,
+here and there brightened by brilliant blossoms. All the houses along
+the way were built of logs. The inhabitants were a large breed for the
+most part, tall and angular, dressed sometimes in buckskin, coonskin
+caps. Now and then I saw a hunter carrying a long rifle. The wild geese
+were flying....
+
+Some of the passengers were dressed in jeans; others in linsey-woolsey
+dyed blue. As we stopped along the way I had an opportunity to study the
+faces of the Illinoisians. Their jaws were thin, their eyes, deeply
+sunk, had a far-away melancholy in them. They were swarthy. Their voices
+were keyed to a drawl. They sprawled, were free and easy in their
+movements. They told racy stories, laughed immoderately, chewed tobacco.
+Some of the passengers were drinking whisky, which was procured anywhere
+along the way, at taverns or stores. The stage rolled from side to side.
+The driver kept cracking his whip, but without often touching the
+horses, which kept an even pace hour after hour. We had to stop for
+meals. But the heavy food turned my stomach. I could not relish the
+cornbread, the bacon or ham, the heavy pie. When we reached La Salle,
+where I was to get the boat, I found myself very fatigued, aching all
+through my flesh and bones, and with a dreamy, heavy sensation about my
+eyes.
+
+The country had become more hilly. And now the bluffs along the Illinois
+River rose with something of the majesty of the Palisades of the Hudson.
+The river itself was not nearly so broad or noble, but it was not
+without beauty.... More oblivious of my surroundings than I had been
+before, I boarded _The Post Boy_, a stern wheeler, and in a few minutes
+she blew the most musical of whistles and we were off....
+
+The vision of hills and prairies around me harmonized with the dreamy
+sensations that filled my heavy head and tired body. I sat on deck and
+viewed it all. I did not go to the table. The very smell of the food
+nauseated me. I do not remember how I got to bed, nor how long I was
+there. I remember being brought to by a negro porter who told me that we
+were approaching Bath where I was to get off. I heard him say to another
+porter: "That boy is sure sick." And then a tall spare man came to me,
+told me that he was taking the stage as I was, and was going almost to
+Jacksonville, and that he would see me through. He helped me in the
+stage and we started. I remember nothing further....
+
+I became conscious of parti-colored ribbons fluttering from my body as
+if blown by a rapid breeze from a central point of fixture in my breast.
+Was it the life going out of me, or the life clinging to me in spite of
+the airs of eternity? My eyes opened. I saw standing at the foot of the
+bed, an octoroon about fourteen years of age. She was staring at me with
+anxious and sympathetic eyes, in which there was also a light of terror.
+I tried to lift my hands. I could not. I was unable to turn my body. I
+was completely helpless. I looked about the room. It was small, papered
+in a figure of blue. Two windows stared me in the face. "Where am I?" I
+asked. "Yo's in Miss Spurgeon's house ... yo's in good hands." At that
+moment Miss Spurgeon entered. She was slender, graceful. Her hair was
+very black. Her eyes gray and hazel. Her nose delicate and exquisitely
+shaped. She put her hand on my brow and in a voice which had a musical
+quaver, she said: "I believe the fever has left you. Yes, it has. Would
+you like something to eat?" I was famished and said: "Yes, something, if
+you please." She went out, returning with some gruel. Turning to the
+octoroon she said: "Will you feed him, Zoe?" And Zoe came to the chair
+by the bed and fed me, for I could not lift a hand. Then I fell into a
+refreshing sleep. I had been ill of typhoid. Had I contracted it from
+the oysters, or from food on the steamer? But I had been saved. Miss
+Spurgeon had refused to let the doctor bleed me. She believed that
+careful nursing would suffice, and she had brought me through. But I had
+a relapse. I was allowed to eat what I craved. I indulged my inordinate
+hunger, and came nearer to death than with the fever itself. But from
+this I rallied by the strength of my youth and a great vitality. All the
+while Zoe and Miss Spurgeon watched over me with the most tender care.
+And one day I came out of a sleep to find Reverdy Clayton by the bed.
+
+A father could not have looked at me with more solicitude. His voice was
+grave and tender. His eyes bright with sympathy. "You will soon be well
+again," he said. He took my hand, sat down by me, cautioned me not to
+worry about my business affairs, told me that nothing would happen
+adverse to my interests while I was incapacitated, that Mr. Brooks was
+guarding my affairs and that they were not in peril.... And it turned
+out that Miss Spurgeon was his fiancée, that it was to her that he had
+returned from Chicago. They were soon now to be married. I asked him if
+Zoe was a slave. He laughed at this. "No one born in Illinois is a
+slave," he said. "This is a free country. Zoe was born here."
+
+Miss Spurgeon came in and I could now see them side by side. They seemed
+so kind and noble hearted, so suited to each other. I loved both of
+them.
+
+I was stronger now, was sitting up part of each day. I reached out my
+hands and took their hands, bringing them together in a significant
+contact. Miss Spurgeon bent over me, placing a kiss upon my brow. "You
+are a dear boy," she said. And Reverdy said: "The Lord keep you always,
+son." Their eyes showed the tears, and as for me my cheeks were suddenly
+wet. Then from what they said I learned that Reverdy had been gone many
+months, that Sarah, for that was her name, had been in great anxiety,
+that Reverdy had just got out of the service the morning I had seen him
+in Chicago; and that he had speculated on staying there a while for the
+purpose of improving his fortune with a view to his marriage. But now
+having returned, they were to be married soon. What had been the delay
+thus far? They were waiting for me to get well. I had interfered, no
+doubt, with the wedding plans, with the arranging and ordering of the
+house for the wedding. But they said they wished me to be present. Sarah
+thought there was something well omened in my meeting with Reverdy in
+Chicago, and in the fate that had brought me to her house, and she
+wished to fulfill the happy auspices to the end by having me for the
+chief guest at the wedding. But how had I come to this household?
+
+The stranger who had helped me on the boat at Bath had turned me over to
+a young man named Douglas who had brought me here, because of the poor
+comforts at the inn of Jacksonville. Douglas had been here but a few
+months himself, having come from the state of Vermont. He, too, had
+been ill of the same disease; had been confined under wretched
+circumstances at Cleveland on his way west; had nearly died. When he saw
+me he was moved to do the very best for me. He had brought me to Miss
+Spurgeon's and pleaded with her to take me in. And she had consented to
+the ordeal of my care, because Zoe insisted upon it, offering to take
+the burden of waiting upon me and watching over me. The Spurgeon house
+was quite the best in this town of 1000 people. Sarah's father and
+mother were both dead, and she was living here with a grandmother, a
+woman now of more than eighty, whom I did not see until I began to go
+about the house.... Meantime Zoe's face and manner became clearer to me
+day by day. She was not very darkly hued, rather lighter than the Hindus
+I had seen in England. Her hair was abundant and straight. Her lips were
+full but shapely. Her nose rather of a Caucasian type. Her voice was the
+most musical one could imagine. And she sang--she sang "Annie Laurie" at
+times in a voice which thrilled me. There was grace in her carriage,
+charm in her gestures and movements. And she waited upon me with the
+affection of a sister.
+
+As I grew better Mr. Brooks came to call upon me. And at last I went to
+his office to talk over the matter of my father's estate. It was now
+July and the heat was more terrible than I had ever conceived could
+prevail outside of a tropical country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Sarah and Zoe followed me to the door the morning I went to see Mr.
+Brooks. Cholera had descended upon the community and they begged me to
+go to Mr. Brooks' office and return at once, and not to be in the sun
+any more than was necessary. I had no fear. Having come from so serious
+an illness I did not feel that another malady would attack me soon. As I
+walked along I could see that the boundless prairie was around me. I
+inhaled the spaciousness of the scene. I could see the deep woods which
+stood beyond the rich prairies of tall and heavy grass. The town was
+built roughly of hewn logs. It was like a camp of hastily constructed
+shacks. But a college had already been founded. It had two buildings,
+one of logs and one of brick. I looked back to see that the Spurgeon
+house was substantially built, with care and taste.... Mr. Brooks'
+office was in one of the log structures about the square. One entered it
+from the street. I counted the signs of eleven lawyers on my way. The
+tavern where I had stayed, except for Douglas and Miss Spurgeon, was a
+most uninviting place.
+
+Mr. Brooks sat behind a rude table. Back of him on a wall were a
+portrait of Washington and a map of Illinois. On the table there was a
+law book of some sort. Altogether there were three chairs in the room.
+The floor was made of puncheon boards, and was bare. Flies buzzed in the
+air and at the rude windows. I felt strong when I left the house. Now I
+was not sure how long I should feel so. Mr. Brooks invited me to have a
+seat; and after a few words about the heat and the cholera he began to
+tell me stories of the people and the country. "Some years ago," he
+said, "a man came to this country, I mean over around the river country
+which you saw when you took the steamboat at Bath. He didn't have
+anything, but he was ambitious to be rich. How could he do it? Well,
+you can work and buy land with your savings, and land here under the
+Homestead Act has been $1.25 an acre since 1820; still that may not put
+you ahead very fast. And if you're ambitious you want to get rich quick.
+That's the way every one here feels who is bent on getting rich. Money
+is not as plentiful as land; and if land is only $1.25 an acre it takes
+$800 to get a section. That's a lot of money to a man who has nothing.
+This land around here is rich as the valley of the Nile. It is six feet
+or more of black fertility. I'll bet that some say it will be worth $50
+an acre."
+
+I began to wonder why these Americans talk so much. I had observed it
+everywhere. Here I was come on a matter of business, of my father's
+estate; and the lawyer with whom I was forced to deal was talking to me
+interminably of things that had nothing to do with it. But I was young
+and strange, and not very strong; and it did not occur to me to show
+impatience with him. And so he went on.
+
+"This man was fine to look at, prepossessing and engaging. He looked
+like a driver, a man of his word too. And one day when he was standing
+on the street here he was approached by a stranger who began to get him
+into conversation. You see, we don't have slavery here as a regular
+thing. The negroes are sort o' apprenticed--free but apprenticed. But
+under pretty severe laws, have to be registered, can't testify, and so
+forth. This state is part of the Northwest Territory which was made free
+by the old Confederate States in 1787; but we actually had an election
+here eleven years ago to make it slave. And the people voted it free.
+Anyhow we have negroes here; and the people are from Tennessee,
+Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas where they do have slavery, and
+we're all beginnin' to be scared over the agitation. Now this stranger
+was a Southerner and any one could see he was; but of course didn't look
+different from some of our own people. So this stranger began to talk to
+this man and ask him if he was married, and he wasn't; and asked him if
+he would like to make some money, which of course he did.
+
+"And finally the stranger said that he had a daughter that he would like
+to introduce, and asked this man to come with him a mile or so, and if
+he liked the girl he would pay him to marry her. They started off and
+found the girl. She was a mulatto or octoroon as they say, and as
+pretty as a red wagon. You see the stranger was pure white and from New
+Orleans; but the mother of the girl was a slave and they say kind of
+coffee colored. And the upshot of it was that the stranger offered this
+man $2500 to marry the octoroon. What he wanted to do was to place her
+well. He didn't want her to run the chance of ever being a slave, as she
+might be in the South. He was her father and he naturally had a father's
+feeling for her, even if she was an octoroon. And this stranger said
+that he had been around town and the country for some days looking at
+prospective husbands and making some inquiry, and that he had found no
+one to equal this man. The man liked the octoroon, the octoroon liked
+the man. And they struck a bargain. The man got his $2500; he married
+the girl on the spot. The stranger disappeared, and was never seen or
+heard of again. It all happened right there. The man bought land, he got
+rich. He was one of the best men I ever knew, and one of my best
+friends. The octoroon died in childbirth, leaving a daughter still
+living and in this town. The man died recently. His name was James
+Miles. He was your father. And Zoe is your half-sister, and wants to
+share in the estate, and that's why I sent for you."
+
+The flies began a louder buzzing at the window. The heat had increased.
+I looked through the open door and saw a man fall over, whether from
+heat or cholera I could not tell. I was by now weary and faint. I said:
+"I do not know what to say now. If we can agree, I mean if we are
+allowed to agree, Zoe and I will have no trouble. I am getting faint.
+And I shall come again." With that I arose and walked weakly from the
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+What were my thoughts after all? Was I ashamed of my kinship with Zoe?
+With this human being who had nursed me so tenderly through my illness?
+Did I begrudge her the interest which she had, of right, with me in our
+father's estate? She was as closely connected to him by ties of blood as
+I was. These things I reflected upon as I felt course through me a deep
+undercurrent of regret.
+
+Was it my mother? Her face came before me as I had learned to know it
+from her picture. Yes, that seemed to be it. My mother had not been
+honored. How could my father for any ambition, for any exigency of
+circumstance stoop to a marriage of this sort, with the memory of my
+mother still fresh in mind, if not in heart? Ah! that was it! Did he
+keep her in his heart? My grandmother's reticence about my father began
+to fill in with significance of this sort. She knew that he had married
+the octoroon not many years after my mother's death. She resented it and
+she preserved silence about him, while keeping me ignorant. Thus without
+any preparation for the disclosure, I had encountered it at full speed
+in my career. Reverdy had, no doubt, alluded to this matter when he
+spoke with such feeling of my father in Chicago. "Poor fellow," he had
+said. Did my father suffer for this marriage? What was his secret? Why
+"poor fellow?"
+
+With these thoughts I entered the house. I could sense that they knew
+that I should return with the secret which they had kept from me. Zoe
+was not in sight. Sarah's grandmother sat in her chair by the window
+and called me to her. "Come here, Jimmy," she said. "You're a nice
+English boy. You know we are all English. My father and mother were
+English ... well, to be truthful, my father was half Irish. His mother
+was Irish. And that makes us all friends, no matter how much we fight. We
+fight and get over it. My husband was in the Revolutionary War; and he's
+dead and gone long ago; and here I am in this new country of Illinois
+with Sarah and a son-in-law soon to be ... and maybe as lonely sometimes
+as you are. Sarah's mother was my pride and she's dead a long time too,
+but I don't get over that.... What's the matter, Jimmy? You've had bad
+news. O, yes, it had to come. You know now about Zoe. Well, remember that
+pretty is as pretty does. For that matter, she is pretty enough, and
+good enough too. Change her skin and any boy would be proud to be her
+brother. That's what a little color does. And yet the good Lord made us
+all, white as well as black. I have always liked the colored people. I
+liked them in Tennessee, and I hated to see them mistreated whenever
+they were. But I'm like a lot of others, I don't know what we are going
+to do with so many of them; and I say let the southern people run their
+own business and not try to intermeddle in the business of the Almighty.
+If He hadn't wanted slavery He could have prevented it. As for me, I
+don't want no slaves. Every one to his own way. Reverdy's father came
+down from Tennessee too. He emancipated all his slaves before coming. He
+grew to hate slavery. He brought one old nigger woman with him to
+Illinois. She's here yet, on a farm not more than fifteen miles away.
+And Reverdy's father provided for her, and left a little fortune to
+Reverdy ... more than $600, and that gives him a start."
+
+The old lady talked on in this manner without a pause.
+
+Just then Reverdy and Sarah came in. They had been for a walk. Sarah
+had gathered a bouquet of wild flowers. They took in the scene, evidently
+divined the subject of our talk. For Reverdy sat down and began with
+gentleness to pick up its threads. "You have been told, James, I hope,
+that Zoe is not trying to take anything from you. She will make no fight
+on your father's will." ... "Will," I echoed. "There was a will then?"
+"Didn't Mr. Brooks tell you?" ... He hadn't told me. He had scarcely had
+the opportunity. But if Zoe had been remembered in the will what was the
+danger now? "No, your father was fond of Zoe ... he remembered her; but
+not to the same extent that he remembered you. She gets $500 of the
+estate and you get the rest. But the hitch is here: we have eleven
+lawyers in Jacksonville and another one studying to be a lawyer; this
+newcomer, Douglas. And they are as hungry as catfish after a hard
+winter. And Mr. Brooks feared that some of these fellows would try to
+stir up a little business by using Zoe to attack the will, and he
+thought it was best to get it settled. He was a good friend of your
+father's, liked him, and he wants to see his wishes carried out. Your
+father was one of the best of men. It's a great loss to the
+community ... his death."
+
+But as Zoe was my sister why should she not have some of the land that
+my father left? Should her dark skin deprive her of that? My father had
+evidently thought so. But now I could settle the estate by enforcing the
+will, or I could divide the estate with her equally. Could I enforce the
+will after all? I knew nothing of such things. I hadn't asked Mr.
+Brooks' advice about anything. There I sat then going over these matters
+in my mind, in a kind of weariness and sickness of heart. I had heard of
+cases where wills had been rejected for fraud or lack of mind on the
+part of the maker. Was it possible that my father's mind was disturbed?
+What fraud could have been wrought upon him? I, the chief beneficiary,
+had not influenced him; no one could have done so for me. What then?
+
+Zoe came in now and began to spread the table. There was only the one
+large room downstairs beside the kitchen. But I loved its comforts, its
+quaint and substantial furnishings. All brought from North Carolina
+originally, Mrs. Spurgeon said. There were silver spoons, hand wrought;
+and blue china, and thick blue spreads for the table. There were three
+rooms upstairs. The beds were posters, built up with feather beds in the
+cold weather; spread now with thick linen sheets. Mrs. Spurgeon had
+woven some of these things. Her loom stood yet in one of the outhouses,
+on occasion set up in the living room when she brought herself to the
+task of weaving, rarely now. She was too old for much labor. Sarah
+helped Zoe with the meal. Reverdy stayed to share it with us. But I had
+learned that he lived at the tavern, though he disliked it thoroughly.
+
+Some nights later I asked Zoe to walk out with me. She was timid about
+the rattlesnakes which she said were everywhere through the woods and
+the grass, sometimes crawling into the roads. There were wildcats and
+wolves too in the timber; but they were not so likely to be encountered
+now as in the winter time. I had a pocket pistol, and taking up a
+hickory stick that was in the corner, I urged Zoe to allay her fears and
+come. Sarah joined me in prevailing upon her. Zoe doubtless knew that I
+wished to talk with her about the estate; and at last she walked with me
+out of the house and into the road.
+
+After a few minutes of silence I asked her about my father: what were
+his spirits; his way of life; where did he live; did she live with him?
+Then Zoe told me some of the things I had learned from Mr. Brooks. And
+as her mother had died when Zoe was born she had been taken by Mrs.
+Spurgeon to raise. She said that her father, my father, had lived a part
+of the time at the inn, and a part of the time at his house on the farm;
+that during the last two years of his life she had seen more of him than
+formerly, though he was often in St. Louis, and even New Orleans. And
+she added with hesitation that he drank a good deal at the last, and was
+often depressed and silent. "Was he kind to you?" I asked. Zoe said that
+he was never anything but kindness, and that he provided her with
+comforts and with schooling whenever any one came along to teach the
+children of the community. I had already seen around the house a copy of
+the _Spectator_, and Pope's poems. Zoe told me that she had read these
+books, part of them over and over, and that she had had a teacher the
+year before who had helped her to understand them. I began to delimn Zoe
+as a girl of intelligence. Of vital spirits she had an abundance.... The
+night was very warm and of wonderful stillness, no breeze. We heard the
+cry of what Zoe called "varmints" in the woods. A night bird was
+singing. She told me it was the whippoorwill. I never had heard a more
+thrillingly melancholy note. Once Zoe stepped upon a stick in the road.
+Thinking it was a snake she gave a cry and leaped to one side. But I
+calmed her and we kept our way.... I had never seen the stars to the
+same advantage, not even on the ocean. They were spread above us in
+infinite numbers, and of remarkable brilliancy. And there was the
+prairie, stretching as far as the eye could penetrate into the haze of
+the horizon, except where a distant forest rimmed the edge of the
+visible landscape. Zoe took up my remark about the spaciousness of the
+country with telling me that young Douglas had been to supper a few
+nights before I had come to myself out of the fever, and that he had
+said that the prairie affected him as liberty would affect an eagle
+released from a cage; and that he looked back upon the hills of Vermont
+as barriers to his vision. "He is nearly your age," said Zoe; "only two
+years older. You will like him; every one does. No one can talk like him
+that I have ever heard."....
+
+At last I brought forward the subject of our father's will. Zoe was
+silent for a moment, for my specific question was what she wished to
+have done. Then she said: "It's all foolishness. These lawyers here have
+been bothering me to get me to fight the will, and trying to get me to
+break the will because my pa drank. I know he drank, but I don't see
+what difference that makes. He always knew what he was doing, so far as
+I know; and even if he didn't I'd never say nothin' about it. I know my
+place; and things is gettin' worse about colored folks, and less chance
+for a colored girl to marry a white man even if she wanted to,
+'specially if I knew he was marryin' me to get my land. I'm satisfied
+with the will the way it is and always have been, or any way you want
+it, Mr. James. I know my place, and that there is a kind of curse on me
+for bein' dark skinned; and I think my pa was mighty kind to make the
+will the way he did. This 5000 acres he left is worth a lot of money,
+more than $5000 Mr. Reverdy says; and if I had what the will gives me
+I'd have $500, and what would I do with it? For I've always got to work
+anyway."
+
+Suddenly we saw lights ahead in the road and heard the rattle of wheels.
+It was the stage coming into Jacksonville. It was upon us almost at
+once. The lights of the lantern made us blink our eyes. We stepped to
+one side. A voice called out: "Well I'll be damned if there ain't a
+white feller strollin' with a nigger!" "Shut your trap," said the
+driver, and the stage rolled rapidly away from us.
+
+My mind was suddenly made up as to the farm by the remark falling so
+brutally from these unknown lips. I took Zoe's hands. I drew her to me.
+She was weeping. Was not one half of her blood English blood? Yes, and
+what Englishman would not resent with tears an insult which he could
+neither deny nor punish? But I would punish it. Zoe should have her
+rightful half.... And silently we walked back.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+The next morning the alarm over the cholera is more intense. All kinds
+of horrifying stories go the rounds. News has been brought by passengers
+on the stage that a man and his wife, living near the Illinois River,
+died within an hour of each other. They were well at dawn. At noon they
+were both under the black soil of the river's shore, buried by three
+stalwart sons, who carried their bodies in the bed clothing and let them
+down by it into hastily made graves.
+
+Something has happened here. The stage driver who silenced the rowdies
+last night is stricken this morning at the tavern. He is dead. By noon
+he is buried in the village cemetery where the ashes of my father lie.
+
+Mrs. Spurgeon thinks that Reverdy should leave the tavern and come here
+with the rest of us. I am to take the word to him when I go to see Mr.
+Brooks. She has seen the ravages of cholera before. There is nothing to
+do but to be careful about diet, keep cheerful, and surrender to no
+fears. I am not in the least alarmed. But the negroes are panic
+stricken. They are calling upon the Lamb to save them. They are singing
+and wailing. They are congregating at the hut of Aunt Leah, an aged
+negress, who is sanctified and gifted with supernatural power. Zoe is
+not in fear, and Sarah goes about the duties of the day with calm
+unconcern.
+
+I am off to see Mr. Brooks again. The streets are almost deserted. The
+faces of those I meet are white and drawn. Mr. Brooks acts as if his
+mind is stretched out of him in apprehension. Yet he is in his office
+ready to pick up what business may come his way; and he is waiting to
+see me.
+
+I tell Mr. Brooks at once that I want to divide the property equally
+with Zoe. He thinks, evidently, that I have weakened before the mere
+prospect of a contest; and he assures me that the estate can be settled
+as my father intended. Well, but can this plan of mine be carried out?
+As easily as the other, he says, and of course more bindingly if there
+can be a difference. For he had intended to have the court decree a sale
+of the property and divide the money under the sanction of the court.
+But according to my plan Zoe could get no more; and therefore no one
+could object to it.
+
+I am curious about my father. What is the danger of a contest, even if
+Zoe could be brought to make one? Mr. Brooks tells me that my father was
+drinking heavily toward the last; that he looked aged and worn. His hair
+had turned white, though he was only forty. He acted like a man who had
+a corroding sorrow in his heart. When he took the cold it developed
+rapidly into lung fever. He was dead in three days. His will was made
+just as he took to his bed at the tavern. There were stray scamps about
+Jacksonville who would swear to anything. And though Zoe was a colored
+girl, and notwithstanding the character of such witnesses in her behalf,
+a case so composed might be troublesome. Then there was the treasure at
+stake; and the hunger of lawyers and maintainers. Well, I had settled
+it. None of these wolves should have a chance. Mr. Brooks scrutinized my
+face with large, pensive eyes. After a silence he said: "You are the
+boss; but I want you to know that the will can stand. I will guarantee
+to win the case if there is one." "Can we see the farm?" I asked. "And
+my father's grave?" Mr. Brooks brought up his buggy and we were off.
+
+But first I wished to find Reverdy and give him Mrs. Spurgeon's message.
+He had gone out to his little farm. He was raising a crop, having
+returned from the war just in time to get it planted. It was only a
+little out of our way, and we could stop there on our return.
+
+Almost at once we came to the cemetery, a crude enclosure, fenced with
+rough pickets, evidently split with the ax. Mr. Brooks led me to the
+spot.
+
+Weeds abounded everywhere. The grasshoppers were flying before our
+steps. A long snake glided away from my feet as I stepped near the
+yellow clay which tented the body of my father ... and Zoe's
+father ... the husband of my lovely mother, so long dead. Here was the
+soldier of Waterloo, the adventurer into this Far West, the man who had
+died with some secret sorrow, or some sorrow for which he found no words
+or no confidant. Above me was the blinding sun, before me the prairie, at
+my feet this hillock of clay, where weeds had already begun to sprout.
+Mr. Brooks watched me; and seeing me move he started on; and I followed
+him through the broken gate to the buggy.
+
+It was two miles to the log house which my father had built on his land.
+We drove up and went in. A tenant named Engle was living here with his
+wife and numerous children. Some of them crowded around us; others ran
+and hid, afterwards peered around the corner, timid and wild. Engle was
+not there; but his wife came from her washing to tell us where he could
+be found, what he was doing. When Mr. Brooks revealed to her who I was
+she stared at me with simple wondering eyes, drying her hands the while
+upon her apron. She was terribly upset by the reports of the cholera.
+Besides ... she went on: "There's a right smart lot of lung fever this
+summer. I 'low the men let their lungs get full of dust in the barn or
+somethin'. And I never did see the like of bloody flux among the
+children, and the scarlet fever too. We never had nothin' like that in
+Kaintucky. But I says to my man this mornin', there ain't nothin' to do
+but to stick it out. When yer time comes I guess there ain't no use ter
+run. And people do die in Kaintucky, too."
+
+We proceeded to drive around the entire acreage. It took us some hours.
+Always the prairie, boundless and colorful. Miles of rich tall grass,
+sprinkled everywhere with purple, brick red, yellow, white, and blue
+blossoms! Billows of air drove the surface of it into waves. It was a
+sea of living green.
+
+We passed forests of huge oak and elm trees, which grew along the little
+streams. There were many fields of corn, too, tall and luxuriant; and
+wheat ready for harvest. We came upon Engle at last. He wanted me to
+come close to see the corn. I got out and stood beside it, stroked its
+long graceful banners, turned up the dark soil with my boot and saw how
+rich and friable it was. And all this was mine, mine and Zoe's.
+
+My imagination took fire. My ambition rose. I resolved to study the
+whole agricultural matter, and to reduce these acres in their entirety
+to cultivation. I would raise cattle and sheep. I would build fences.
+Above all I would make a house for myself. Here was my place in life and
+my work. No delay. I should begin to-morrow with something directed to
+the general end.
+
+Returning we went past Reverdy's farm. But he had finished his work and
+gone to town. Accordingly we speeded up. When I arrived home I found
+Reverdy already there. But he would not leave the tavern. He gave no
+reason in particular. He said he was as safe there as anywhere; and it
+was more convenient for him.
+
+But there was much doing. Sarah and Zoe were mixing the ingredients of
+a cake. A turkey was roasting; we were going to have a guest for supper.
+Douglas, the law student, the new school teacher, was coming; and all
+was delighted expectation. "For," said Mrs. Spurgeon, "I reckon we ain't
+never had such a young feller before around these parts. Talk! You never
+heard such talk. It flows just like the water down hill. And there never
+was a friendlier soul. I never thought they raised such people up in
+Yankeeland as him. You can bet he'll make his mark. He'll be a judge
+before he's ten years older; and they do well to get him here. And what
+I say is: where did he get his eddication? He is an orphan too, like
+you, James ... raised by an uncle so far as he had a raisin'. But the
+uncle fooled him. He promised him an eddication, and then went back on
+it. And what does young Douglas do? He busts away. He gets awful mad and
+comes west to make his fortune. Make a young feller mad, hurt him good
+and plenty, and if he has the right stuff you make a man of him. I've
+seen it over and over. When a young feller's mad and disappointed, if
+he's got the right stuff in him, he gets more energy, like a kettle
+blown off. They do, unless they sulk. Now there's other types. There was
+your poppy; he warn't mad and he didn't sulk exactly, and yet there was
+somethin'. He seemed to simmer and stew a little. But he left five
+thousand acres of land. Maybe he was one of these here big speculators
+like as is all over Illinois now, that has some kind of a different
+secret, and makes a big success some other way. You can never tell. But
+you see when Douglas came here he landed from Alton down here at
+Winchester and went right to work makin' a few dollars at a auction
+where he was a appraiser. And he worked at his trade too. For he's a
+cabinet maker. Yes, sir, he has a trade. With all the books he's read he
+has a trade. And now he's up here to look over the ground; for they say
+he's comin' here next spring to practice law, and even then he'll be
+only twenty-one."
+
+Surely, this was a land of haste, of easy expedients. I did not know a
+great deal about the legal education of an English lawyer; but enough to
+appreciate the difference between the slow and disciplined training
+there and the rapid and loose preparation which I heard Mrs. Spurgeon
+describe with so much pride. I went into the corner of the room to write
+a letter to my grandmother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+This is the letter that I wrote:
+
+"Dear Grandmama: I cannot describe to you the conditions that surround
+me. The boundless extent of the country, the wildness and beauty of the
+prairies, the roughness of this frontier town, above all the people
+themselves. The house I am living in is unlike anything you ever saw;
+but yet it is very comfortable. And my hostess, Mrs. Spurgeon, as well
+as her granddaughter, have treated me with all the consideration that
+my own kindred could do. I was very dangerously ill and they took care
+of me with wonderful solicitude; particularly Zoe, who nursed me and
+scarcely left my side. Now I am well, or nearly so, and they insist on
+my living with them. I pay two dollars a week, or about eight shillings.
+And everything is clean and nice; the food very good, delicious bacon
+smoked with hickory wood; but altogether the diet is unlike what I was
+accustomed to in England. It all seems like a story, first that I
+should meet Reverdy Clayton when I landed in Chicago from the steamboat
+which had brought me from Buffalo. He offered to bring me here on his
+Indian pony. But I was afraid to risk so long a ride, especially as at
+that time I was beginning to feel very badly. Then it is strange that
+I should get here and awake from an illness so serious in the house
+of Mrs. Spurgeon, whose granddaughter Sarah is going to marry
+Reverdy ... one never knows whether to attribute these things to
+Providence or to the accidents of life.... Perhaps you were right never
+to tell me about my father's marriage to the octoroon girl; but you must
+have known that I would find it out on arriving here. It has caused me
+much thought, if not disturbance of mind; but I have worked out my
+problems, perhaps impulsively, but still to my own satisfaction. Zoe is
+about the color of an Indian from Bombay. She is a beautiful girl, and
+shows her English blood in her manner and her active mind. I do not
+believe that there was the slightest danger that she would have attacked
+the will; but many considerations moved me to divide the estate with her
+equally. She took care of me with the most affectionate interest when I
+was ill. Besides, the land is not worth so very much, and one half of it
+will give her no fortune to mention. She is in danger even now, and the
+future for her is not reassuring. Illinois is supposed to be free
+territory, but it is not so many years ago that a vote was taken in
+Illinois to have slavery here, and it was defeated by no very great
+majority. And now the Illinois laws are rather strict as to colored
+people. The country is beginning to be feverish about the slavery
+question. I saw evidence of this in New York and on the way here; though
+just in this place the matter is not so much agitated. Yet the other day
+a copy of a periodical arrived here called _The Liberator_, and it made
+much angry talk. I will not tire you with this subject, dear grandmama,
+but only say that the effort here and everywhere in America seems to be
+directed toward hushing the matter up. But to return to Zoe: if her
+mother's father wished to secure the mother against misfortune by
+bringing her north and marrying her to a white man (my father, as it
+turned out) why should not I, her half-brother, try to protect her
+against the future that her mother might have incurred? I reason that I
+have taken the place of Zoe's grandfather, and must do for her what he
+tried to do for Zoe's mother. This inheritance of duty comes to me as the
+land comes to me, without my will. Zoe's grandfather gave my father his
+start, gave him the $2500 bonus to marry Zoe's mother. I think, in
+considering what share of the estate Zoe should have, these things cannot
+be ignored. Of course I don't know exactly how much of the $2500 went
+into this land. From things I have heard I think my father spent money
+freely; he went about a good deal and was not as temperate as he should
+have been for his own health and prosperity. Something was evidently
+preying upon his mind. Anyway, I have decided the matter, and I hope you
+will approve of me. I went to father's grave this morning, and it made me
+sad. Afterwards Mr. Brooks, the lawyer, drove me to the farm and around
+most of it. I am going to take hold of it at once. This country is
+growing rapidly, and I mean to do what my father didn't exactly. I am
+going to be rich; that is my ambition. And I must think and work. I am
+well again, or nearly so, and full of hope and plans, though sometimes
+lonely for you and for England. Some day I shall come back to see you. My
+love to you, dear grandmama. And do write me as often as you can.
+
+"Affectionately, James."
+
+And that evening Douglas came. He was of the smallest stature, but with
+a huge chest and enormous head. His hair was abundant and flowing,
+tossed back from his full forehead like a cataract. His eyes were blue
+and penetrating, but kindly. His face rather square. His voice deep and
+resonant. His words were clearly spoken, and fell from his lips freely,
+as if he were loosening them into a channel worn by long thinking. His
+ideas were clearly envisioned. He had read books of which I had never
+heard. But apart from books his sallies of wit, the aptness of his
+stories and allusions quite dazzled me.
+
+Though he was but two years my senior, I felt like a boy in his
+presence. His maturity and self-possession and intellectual mastery of
+the hour kept me silent. He recalled what he had done to bring me to the
+comforts of Mrs. Spurgeon's house when I arrived in Jacksonville, ill
+and helpless. After that he did not exactly ignore me, but I seemed not
+to enter into the association of his ideas or their expression. He
+talked of the country. There was the matter of Texas, a territory half
+as large as central Europe. But if Texas seceded from Mexico he wished
+the country absorbed into the domain of the United States. Texas has a
+right to secede. All governments derive their powers from the consent of
+the governed. Let moralists and dreamers say what they would, the course
+of America was toward mastery of the whole of North America. Yes, and
+there was Oregon. If the Louisiana Purchase of 1804 did not include
+Oregon, what of the Lewis and Clark expedition; what of the founding of
+Astoria by Mr. Astor of New York, on the shores of the Columbia River;
+what of the restoration of Astoria to the United States in 1818 after it
+had been forcibly seized by Great Britain in the War of 1812? Douglas
+looked forward to the day when Great Britain would not have an inch of
+land from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Pole, and from the Atlantic to
+the Pacific. All of this vast territory should be the abiding place of
+liberty forever. Homestead laws should be passed with reference to it,
+and settlers invited to reduce it to cultivation. It should be tilled by
+millions of husbandmen, the most intelligent and progressive of the
+world. It should be crossed by railroads and canals. Already there were
+the Mohawk and Hudson railroad, the Boston and Albany, and the Baltimore
+and Ohio. Illinois should have railroads and canals; the rivers and
+harbors should be improved. Lake Michigan should be connected with the
+Mississippi River by a canal joining Lake Michigan with the Illinois
+River.
+
+What was it all about? National wealth as a foundation for education,
+power, the supremacy of the white stocks having the greatest vitality.
+
+Zoe was waiting upon the table, occasionally sitting down to take a
+bite. Douglas neither saw her nor was he oblivious of her. He talked
+ahead, referring now to the slavery question. He believed the North
+should leave the South alone. He had seen the reformer, the
+intermeddler, in his native lair in Vermont. Who had brought into this
+remote and peaceful town that copy of Garrison's _Liberator_? He was a
+half-cracked busybody. People who had no business of their own made the
+business of other people their business. He would put all such drivelers
+to work upon the roads, and thus make them contribute to the nation's
+wealth. He referred to the works of Jefferson, which he had read, to the
+_Federalist_, which he had read, and to much else, of which at that time
+I did not know a line. I studied Reverdy's face to see whether or not
+Reverdy concurred in what Douglas said. I had confidence in Reverdy, and
+was willing to go along with Douglas if Reverdy approved of these
+programs; although my English blood was stirred to some extent by
+Douglas' evident hostility to Great Britain. I sensed that Reverdy did
+not wholly agree with Douglas in all his theories and plans. But Reverdy
+knew that he could not cope with such a whirlwind as this dynamic
+logician. He therefore at times smiled a half disapproval, but did not
+express it. For myself I found my mind consenting to the magic of
+Douglas' vision. I did not relish the idea of England's surrendering
+Oregon; but, on the other hand, since my fortunes were cast in the
+United States, did it not behoove me to draw upon the country's
+increasing prosperity and to help to increase it? Texas did not matter.
+I did not fancy the institution of slavery. It grated upon my
+sensibilities; but I had a very slight understanding of it in the
+concrete. I was glad that England was rid of it. I had never admired the
+Wesleys, the Methodists; but I was glad to give them credit for what
+they had done to relieve England of such an abomination. I rejoiced that
+more than seven years before I was born Clarkson and Wilberforce had
+brought about the abolition of this traffic from the land of my nativity
+and its dependencies.
+
+Then here was Zoe. If I was indifferent to slavery I had to be logical
+and be indifferent to her becoming a subject of barter. At least what,
+but a sentimental reason, could I set up against the enforced servitude
+of Zoe? What did it matter in point of justice and civilization that the
+South could not carry on her commercial interests without slavery? Was
+trade everything? Were the merchants the leaders of civilization? Were
+merchants to be permitted to do what they chose in order that they might
+create wealth for themselves, or even the nation? In a word, was wealth
+everything? My Adam Smith had said no, and I had already read that. He
+had classified banks of issue, colonialism, and slavery, as well as some
+other things as equal parts of a mercantile program. I was, therefore,
+inclined to dissent from any plan that included any one of these things.
+And still I was swept along by the torrent of Douglas' thinking. His
+vision enthralled me. His outlook upon the country, its increasing power
+and wealth, fascinated my imagination. Was I not resolved to be rich
+myself? And for moments I was under the spell of his great power. He was
+a world thinker, but with his own country forefronted in the playing of
+a colossal part. It appealed to my English blood, that blood which does
+great deeds through great vision, and then repents the iniquities along
+the way and corrects them at last. And who was Douglas in spirit?
+Nothing less than the English genius. And so my feelings were mixed, but
+admiration for him predominated. I felt his edge and did not like it;
+his audacity and resented it; his power and rebelled against it; his
+brusqueness and shrank from it; his emphasis upon power and supremacy,
+and felt that he might be overlooking finer powers and more lasting
+triumphs. But his eyes were full of kindly lights, in spite of their
+intellectual penetration; and he was charming to the last degree.
+
+He stood up. I was a head taller than he. But his torso belonged to a
+giant, and his head. We all arose. And after a time, saying that he was
+spending his evenings in the study of law, he took his leave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The autumn was coming on. The cholera had abated. The air was cool and
+fresh. The country was taking fire from the colors of the changing year.
+And I was feeling more rugged than I had ever felt in my life.
+
+As I have said, a college had already been founded in Jacksonville.
+Indeed, some years before my coming the one brick building on the campus
+had been constructed; and before that the log hut, also on the campus,
+in which the young president and his pretty wife had spent their first
+winter here in 1829. Reverdy told me that he had helped to hew and place
+the logs. I had become acquainted with Mr. Sturtevant, the president;
+for he was eager to hear of England, and Oxford and Eton. I was
+fascinated with this experiment of a college in the wilderness. He
+loaned me many books; and I often spent an evening at his house.
+
+In September I decided to go out to the farm and live with the Engles.
+I had many plans for the spring which could be better attended to on the
+ground; and then I was getting ready to build me a house. Reverdy knew
+where to find the logs, how to prepare them. He knew where to get men to
+help him, and I was glad to leave these things to him. Mr. Brooks had
+already commenced proceedings to settle the title to the land, dividing
+it between Zoe and me. This was off my mind. I had men building fences,
+plowing. I was buying horses, cattle, hogs. In all these things Reverdy
+was an incalculable help. I could not have succeeded without him. He
+knew horses and he helped me to honest dealers.
+
+One day I was walking over my land. I came to a beautiful grove of trees
+by the brook. And there in the midst of it was a log hut. I pushed the
+rude door open and entered. There was but one room. It had a fireplace
+needing repair. I saw a ladder in the corner, climbed it through a loft
+hole and looked into the loft. The rafters were rough and crooked, made
+only of undressed poles. I could see daylight through the shingles. The
+floor was of hewn planks. But I was elated. Why not come here to live? I
+did not like the Engle children. They were too numerous. I had no
+privacy there. But here! I could be to myself. I could make myself more
+comfortable than I was at the Engles'. I could have what food I wanted.
+I could kill game, for the country was full of it. I could bring my
+books. I could be a lord.
+
+I hurried back to town to tell Reverdy; to ask him to help me to mend
+the fireplace, and to put the house in condition for the coming winter.
+Reverdy looked at me in astonishment. How could I stand the loneliness?
+Did I know what I was getting into? Could I take care of myself
+entirely? What if I fell ill again and in the middle of the winter,
+when the ways were snowbound?
+
+I thought of Zoe. Why not take her with me? I could teach her. She could
+run the house. Reverdy looked at me with a certain dubiety. Sarah would
+hate to part with Zoe. Perhaps there were other things; but he did not
+express them. However, nothing could deter me.
+
+Zoe was delighted with the plan. She wanted to get away, to be with me,
+since I wanted her. Besides, Reverdy and Sarah were to be married in a
+few days. He was coming to the house to live and that would make a
+difference in the conveniences. And Mrs. Spurgeon, as far as I could
+judge, was not averse to Zoe's departure. Thus it was to be as I wished.
+
+Reverdy left off the work on my new house to help me repair the hut. We
+had to make a hearth. For this I found stones by the brook. We stopped
+the chinks between the logs with heavy, tough clay. We mended the holes
+in the roof. We repaired the floor. I bought beds and bedding, utensils
+for cooking, a rifle, an ax, and some other tools. I stocked the house
+with provisions. And in a week I was installed, listening at night to
+the cry of the wild animals, wolves and foxes and owls; and the song of
+late whippoorwills when an access of lingering summer warmed the
+midnights. I chopped my own wood. I killed quails and squirrels, and
+roasted them. I tried my hand at making cornbread. And I awoke in the
+delicious mornings, exuberant and happy. Zoe had not come to me yet,
+for she was staying on at Mrs. Spurgeon's until Sarah was married. And
+at last the wedding was celebrated.
+
+I shall never forget that night. It was unlike anything of which I had
+ever heard. The town minister performed the ceremony. Mr. and Mrs.
+Sturtevant were present. Douglas had been invited; but whether he failed
+to get the message, or whether his new duties of teaching at Winchester
+prevented him from coming I do not know. We missed him greatly. An
+emergency arose in which his courage and gift of speech might have been
+of use. I can imagine how he would have handled the crowd that assembled
+outside while the wedding was in progress. In short, we were treated to
+a shivaree, or _charivari_.
+
+No sooner had the clergyman pronounced the final words than the most
+unearthly noise broke loose right at the door. There was the sound of
+tin pans, kettles, horns, drums; and this pandemonium was punctuated by
+the firing of shots and the throwing of stones at the door and gravel
+upon the window panes. Sarah, already flushed from excitement, took on
+an expression of alarm. I thought that we had been attacked by a band of
+Indians bent upon massacre. The clergyman, however, smiled. And Reverdy
+left the side of his bride and went to the door.
+
+He flung it open. And there burst upon my vision the wildest assemblage
+of faces I had ever seen. Some were blacked to resemble the negro. Some
+were painted to look like the Indian on the warpath. They were dressed
+fantastically, in a variety of colors, with feathers in their hair or
+hats or coon caps. They leered, grinned from ear to ear. They yelled,
+and again began to beat their pans and kettles and to fire their rifles.
+Sarah put her fingers to her lips in a gesture of terror, of violated
+privacy. But after all this was but the frontier's hymeneal chant, the
+festivities of the uninvited wedding guests. To quiet them it was
+necessary to ask them to partake of the wedding delicacies.
+
+They pushed and writhed into the room. Some of them were half drunk.
+They trod upon each other. What they might have done if Reverdy had not
+managed them out of the kindness of his heart and with a certain
+adroitness is past conceiving. It seemed to me that a riot was on the
+point of breaking loose at any minute. But having satisfied themselves,
+they began to file out. Some lingered to wish the bride and groom a
+happy life. Reverdy spoke with each one in such friendliness of voice
+and manner, in which there was neither nervousness nor resentment. He
+took it all as a matter of course. But Sarah was visibly distrait. I
+could see that she was relieved as they began to depart. A few yells, a
+few intermittent shots marked their going away. Then all was silent. The
+guests now began to leave. And as I was going back to my hut for the
+night I came to Reverdy and Sarah to bid them God-speed. I had never
+seen Sarah look so charming. Her bridal dress was made of striped
+calico. She had a bonnet to match. Reverdy had a new suit of blue jeans.
+He looked handsome and strong. And he turned his eyes upon Sarah with a
+look of protecting tenderness. I took their hands in mine to emphasize
+my blessing with the closeness of affectionate contact. Sarah kissed me
+on the cheek; and I left, bestriding my horse at the gate, and riding
+through the darkness to my hut.
+
+Zoe was to come to me the next morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+The next morning while I was sitting near the door, cleaning my rifle, I
+heard the soft pounding of a horse's hoofs on the heavy sod, and looking
+up saw Reverdy and Sarah. He was in the saddle, she was riding behind. I
+was about to ask for Zoe when I saw her peeping mischievously around the
+shoulder of Sarah, showing her white teeth in a happy smile. It was not
+Reverdy's Indian pony that was carrying so many travelers, but a larger
+horse. They all got down and came in to see my hut. Sarah was greatly
+pleased with it, and Zoe could not contain her delight. Reverdy and
+Sarah were on their way to Winchester to pay a brief visit to Sarah's
+aunt. They were soon off, Reverdy giving me the assurance that it would
+only be a few days before he would again be at work on my new house.
+Meanwhile the other men would continue getting the logs.
+
+Zoe did not delay a minute in taking charge of the house. I had not
+cleared the breakfast table. She did so, then made my bed. I told her to
+spread it with clean sheets as it was to be hers now, but she would not
+hear to this. She was afraid to be on the ground floor where an intruder
+could walk in upon her, or a stray wolf push the door open and wake her
+with its unfriendly nose against her cheek. I told her then to look at
+the loft. She climbed the ladder and took a peek, descended with the
+remark that she liked it and would take it for hers. Almost at once we
+had perfect order in the hut.
+
+Zoe cooked, and cleaned the rooms. I was busy with my new dwelling. I
+killed enough game to keep us in meat. Sometimes standing in the doorway
+I could bring down a deer. Then we had venison. But we were never
+without quail and ducks and geese. Zoe made the most delicious
+cornbread, baking it in a pan in the fireplace. The Engles brought us
+some cider. I had bought a fiddle and was learning to play upon it. We
+never lacked for diversion. In the evenings I played, or we read. My
+days were full of duties connected with the new house, or the crops and
+improvements for the next year. And spring would soon be here.
+
+I was beginning to be looked upon as a driving man. They had scoffed at
+me as a young Englishman who could not endure the frontier life, and who
+knew nothing of farming. But they saw me take hold with so much vigor
+and interest that I was soon spoken of as an immediate success. My
+coming to the hut and living and doing for myself had helped greatly to
+confirm me in their esteem. I saw nothing hazardous or courageous in it.
+As for the daily life I could not have been more happily placed.
+
+The fall went by. The winter descended. The brook was frozen. I had to
+break the ice with the ax to get water. I had to spend an hour each day
+cutting wood for the fireplace and bearing it into the hut. These were
+the mornings when the cold bath, which I could never forego, no matter
+what the circumstances were, tested my resolution. For I was sleeping in
+the loft where the bitter wind fanned my cheeks during the night. Zoe
+had found it too rigorous, and preferred the danger of an intruder to
+the cold. Even snow sifted on my face from rifts in the shingles which
+we had overlooked. But nevertheless I adhered to the morning lustration,
+sometimes going to the brook to do it. I had never experienced such
+cold.
+
+Yet the months of November and December, which at the time I thought
+were the extreme of winter weather, were as nothing to the polar blasts
+that poured down upon us in January and February. I had no thermometer.
+But judging by subsequent observations I am sure that the temperature
+reached twenty degrees below zero. I took no baths in the brook now but
+contented myself with a hurried splash from a pan. At night I covered
+myself with all the blankets that I could support. I protected my face
+with a woolen cap, which was drawn over the ears as well. Zoe, though
+sleeping near the immense fire which we kept well fed with logs, got
+through but a little better than I. We heated stones in hot water to
+take to bed with us. All kinds of wild animals coming forth for food
+were frozen in their tracks. I found wolves and foxes in abundance lying
+stiffened and defeated in the woods. Some nights, seeing the light of
+our candle they would howl for food and shelter; and I heard them run up
+and down past the door, wisping it with their tails. Then Zoe would
+cling to me. And I would take up the rifle in anticipation of the wind
+opening the door and admitting the marauder. We were snowbound the whole
+month of February. I had to shovel a path to the brook. But it was out
+of the question for any one to go to town, or for any one to come to us.
+And of course during these bitter days nothing was done on my new house.
+The logs were all cut. They stood piled under the snow, except for a few
+that had been put in place.
+
+One brilliant morning in the last of February I had gone to the brook
+for water. The cold had moderated to some extent. But the snow remained
+deep in the woods and on the fields. For though the sun shone, the sky
+was nevertheless hazed with innumerable particles of frozen mist, having
+the appearance of illuminated dust, or powdered mica. Somewhere in the
+depths of this screen I heard the joyous cry of a jay. And Zoe, who was
+by my side, said that spring was at hand.
+
+The next day the air was milder. Soon the snow began to melt. We heard
+musical droppings from our eaves. The brook broke from its manacles. I
+could see patches of dead grass and dark earth between the disappearing
+snow on the fields. At break of day we heard the chirrup of the
+chickadee, the sparrow. I now resumed my plunge at the brook. And as we
+were depleted of cornmeal and other provisions, Zoe and I went to town,
+riding one of the horses which Engle had brought over to me. Bad news
+waited us here. Mrs. Spurgeon had died during the bitter weather, about
+three weeks before. Sarah was very much depressed. And Reverdy seemed
+almost as unhappy over the loss.
+
+He had much to do, but he would now set to work upon my house.
+
+Soon he came out bringing the men. I had made a drawing for the work and
+I was much about watching to see that it was followed. We could have had
+bricks for the chimney, though it was a good deal of labor to haul them.
+But why not a chimney of stone? There were plenty of stones of adequate
+size along the bed of the brook. And so we used them. But I did buy
+lumber for the floors. I sent to St. Louis for the kind of doors I
+wanted, and windows too. I was having a house built with regard to
+roominess and hospitable conveniences; a large living room, two
+bedrooms, a dining room, a kitchen, downstairs. The second floor was to
+have four chambers. I had selected a site back from the road. It was in
+a grove of majestic oaks, not far from the brook and the hut. The work
+progressed none too rapidly. Some of the men had to be away at times to
+attend to their farming. As for myself I had learned to plow, and was at
+it from early morning until sundown. I had many laborers working for me,
+plowing, sowing, building fences, clearing; in a word, reducing the land
+to cultivation. It was a big job.
+
+I had won the respect of the community by the energy with which I had
+undertaken the task. The neighbors said I was an improvement on my
+father. They wondered, however, if I would be as far-sighted and
+acquisitive as he, if I would add to what I had or lose it.
+
+In March I had a letter from my grandmother. She expressed pride in me
+for what I had done, approved the spirit I had shown towards Zoe. She
+was a great admirer of Wilberforce; and as she disliked America for its
+separation from the Crown she wished the institution of slavery no good
+on these shores. But she was disturbed about the conditions in England
+and Europe. The old order seemed to her to be crumbling. Revolution
+might break forth. The middle classes in England, having secured their
+rights, as she expressed it, the laborers were now striving for the
+franchise. Chartism was rampant. What would it all come to? Was England
+safe against such innovation? But how about America, if the colored
+people were given freedom, not of the franchise merely, but in civil
+rights of property and free activity? But contemporaneous with this
+letter, two events came into my life of profound influence. One was my
+meeting with Russell Lamborn, the son of one of Jacksonville's numerous
+lawyers. And the other was an extraordinary debate between a Whig
+politician named John J. Wyatt and young Douglas. It was at the debate
+that I met Lamborn.
+
+Douglas had finished his school teaching. He had been licensed to
+practice law, though not yet twenty-one years of age. He had opened an
+office in the courthouse at Jacksonville. His sharp wit, pugnacity,
+self-reliance, had already excited rivalry and envy. He had suddenly
+leaped into the political arena, carrying a defiant banner.
+
+Affairs in America were no more tranquil than they were in England.
+President Jackson had stirred the country profoundly by his imperious
+attitude toward the banking interests on the one hand, and the matter of
+South Carolina's nullification of the tariff law on the other hand. This
+had weakened the Democratic party in Illinois. And as there was to be an
+election in the fall of state officials, it was necessary to success to
+satisfy the electorate that President Jackson had not betrayed his
+leadership.
+
+Bantering words went around to the effect that Douglas was seizing the
+opportunity of this debate to make himself known, to get a start as a
+lawyer, and a lift in politics. When a chance to make a hit fits the
+orator's opportunity and convictions, it would be difficult for a man of
+Douglas' enterprise and audacity to resist it.
+
+For Douglas had, in spite of everything, captured the town. His name was
+on every one's tongue. He had lauded President Jackson and his policies
+with as much fervor as he had with virulence and vehemence denounced the
+humbugging Whigs, as he had characterized them. The village paper, a
+Whig publication, had sat upon him. It had dubbed him a turkey gobbler,
+a little giant, a Yankee fire-eater. But Douglas gave no quarter to any
+one. He returned blow for blow. He had become a terror. He must be
+subdued.
+
+John J. Wyatt, a man of ready speech, in the full maturity of his
+powers, a debater and campaigner, a soldier in the War of 1812, and a
+respected character, was to lay the adventurer, the interloper, low! He
+was elected to the task. Was Douglas a youth? No. He was a monstrosity.
+He had always been a man. He had never grown up. He had simply appeared
+in this part of the world, a creature of mature powers. Yet Wyatt would
+subdue him.
+
+We were all in anticipation of the contest. It was to take place in the
+courthouse. What was the subject? Anything. Everything. Chiefly Whiggery
+and Democracy. I came into town bringing Zoe and leaving her with Sarah.
+Reverdy and I went together. Here I met Russell Lamborn. He sat on one
+side of me and Reverdy on the other.
+
+I shall never forget this night. Wyatt opened the debate, and he closed
+it. The question was: Are the Whig policies best for the country?
+Douglas had the negative and, therefore, but one speech. Was it fair?
+Had not the young man given away too much? No, for Douglas proved a
+match for two or three such minds as Wyatt's. He humiliated to the last
+degree the older, and at first confident, antagonist.
+
+It was the most extraordinary exhibition of youth and dash and
+confidence and ready wit, and knowledge and dialectic handling of
+difficult matter. It furnished the groundwork of my education in the
+history of American politics up to that time. It led into almost every
+possible matter of constitutional law and party policy.
+
+Wyatt talked for an hour. He jeered at Douglas. He referred to his
+diminutive stature. He spoke ironically of his work as a cabinet maker,
+and advised Douglas to stick to it and leave the profession of the law
+alone. He characterized him as a strolling fellow who was trying to
+break into the favor of the community with an impudence as effective as
+burglar's tools. What did Douglas know of law? Who would trust his
+interests to a lawyer so inexperienced? When had Douglas had time to
+master its simplest principles? Who could not see through Douglas' thin
+scheme to attach his fortunes to the chariot of the great but misguided
+Jackson? Why had Douglas leaped to the defense of Jackson in this
+community, like a fice coming to the aid of a mastiff? Why, if not to
+get a bone for his own hungry stomach? Everything in the way of a taunt,
+a slur, a degrading image, a mockery of youth's ambition, an attack upon
+obscurity trying to rise, were thrown by Wyatt at Douglas. All the while
+Douglas sat imperturbed, his head at a slight angle, which gave him the
+appearance of attentive listening; and with a genial smile on his face
+that was lighted a little with ironic confidence. Then Wyatt sat down
+amid great cheering.
+
+Reverdy thought that Wyatt had overdone himself, had forfeited to a
+degree the sympathy of the audience. There was no call for such rough
+handling of a young man. The feelings of the crowd reacted. And as
+Douglas arose he was given a loud reception. For there were Democrats
+enough in the room. But though Douglas looked like a man while seated,
+he seemed a boy when he stood up. His stature told against him. But as
+soon as he spoke the first word the silence was profound. The voice was
+the voice of a man, and a strong man. It rolled over our heads with
+orotund volume. The clearly syllabized words fell upon delighted ears.
+He caught the crowd at once.
+
+Who would dare accuse him of subserviency to Jackson or to any man, for
+bread or for position? He differed from Jackson about the tariff, and
+all Jacksonville could know it. He agreed with Jackson about the bank,
+and the whole country would come to approve Jackson's course. Was
+nullification right? Perhaps Jefferson knew as much about that as Mr.
+Wyatt. Let the laws of the Constitution be obeyed and nullification
+would never be provoked. What had created nullification? The vile
+policies of the humbug Whig party, the old monarchist harlot
+masquerading in the robes of liberalism. How did these people dare to
+use the name of Whig, how dare to resort to such false pretenses, when
+it was common knowledge that the personnel of that party, having been
+put down as Federalists for gross usurpation and monarchist practices
+had, being forced to change their skin, adopted the title of the liberal
+party of England, remaining more Tory than the party that tried to
+destroy American liberty during the Revolution? And now this Whig party
+like a masked thief was abroad in the land to pick up what spoils it
+could, and to take from trusting hearts sustenance for its misbegotten
+existence. It was already beginning to coquette with the slavery
+question, hoping to deceive the people with humanitarian and moral
+professions. Very well! If it was the Good Samaritan it pretended to be
+let it give up its bank and its tariff, which took enough money out of
+the mouths of the poor to feed all the niggers in the world. Let the
+whiner about wrongs quit his own wrongs. Let the accusing sinner repent
+his own sin. Let the people of New England pluck the pine logs from
+their own eyes before talking of hickory splinters in the eyes of the
+South.
+
+And then Douglas took up the history of the formation of the Union. What
+went into the Union? Sovereign states. Who concluded a treaty of peace
+with Great Britain after the Revolution? The thirteen sovereign states
+that had waged the war. Who formed themselves into the Confederate
+States, each retaining its sovereignty? The same states. Who left that
+union and formed the present Union? The same states. What did they do?
+They retained all the sovereign powers that they did not expressly
+grant. They never parted with their sovereignty, but only with sovereign
+powers. Where does sovereignty reside under our system? With the people
+of the states. What follows from all of this? Why, that each state is
+left to decide for itself all questions save those which have been
+expressly given over to Washington to decide. Who is trying to nullify
+these inestimable principles and safeguards? That is the real
+nullification. The humbug Whigs, who would like to centralize all
+authority at Washington ... "and Mr. Wyatt here in this new country,
+among people of plain speech and industrious lives, is the spokesman of
+these encroaching despotisms, which he has vainly attempted to defend
+to-night. He dares to assail the great name of Andrew Jackson. He would
+like to overcome the state sovereignty which permits Connecticut to
+raise cranberries and Virginia to have negro slaves, which leaves
+Kentucky with whisky and Maine with water, if Maine ever chooses so. He
+does not know that the French Revolution was waged for the great
+principle of the people to rule; and he fails to see that the whole
+world is coming to accept that doctrine. With the growing wealth and
+power of the North, of Illinois, it is necessary that the rights of the
+individual and local communities and of the small states as well as the
+large states should have the effectual counterbalance of state
+sovereignty to protect them against the ambition of centralists, who are
+money grabbers wrapping themselves about with the folds of the flag and
+with the garments of superior holiness."
+
+He wished to see Illinois crossed by two railroads, from north to south,
+and from east to west. He would see the Illinois and Michigan canal
+completed, so that the great lake at the north of the state would be
+connected with the Mississippi River and with the Gulf of Mexico. What
+did it mean? The state would fill up with earners of wealth. Lands would
+increase in value. Cities would be built. As for himself, he would do
+his utmost to bring these benefits to the state.
+
+By what authority was his right challenged to come to this state to make
+his home; and to this town to follow the profession of the law? Was
+there any one present who did not wish him to strive for these
+achievements for this western country? Perhaps Mr. Wyatt objected. No
+matter. He was here to stay. He had left a land walled in by hills and
+mountains, where the eye was deprived of its use in forming a vision of
+the world. Here he had found his mind liberalized, his vision quickened.
+Here he had found a hospitable people, inspired with hope of the future.
+And he was glad he had cast his lot with theirs. He had grown in this
+brief time to feel that they were his people. And he asked them to adopt
+him as their son, trusting him not to forget his filial duties.
+
+The crowd was completely amazed at the vigor and fluency of Douglas'
+speech. Such applause arose that Wyatt was visibly embarrassed as he
+stood up for his rejoinder. He saw that Douglas had carried the day. He
+made a feeble attempt at reply. He tried satire; but it fell on
+unreceptive ears. He dropped denunciation. He dared not attempt that.
+He took up logical analysis. It left the audience cold. He pecked
+timidly at the doctrine of state sovereignty. Then voices began to
+question him. He shifted to Jackson. But the audience would not listen.
+After using one half of the hour allotted him for a conclusion, he sat
+down half wilted and discomfited.
+
+A storm of cheers arose for Douglas. He was surrounded by a host of
+admirers. And I saw him now in a new phase. He was winning and gallant,
+of open heart, of genial manner. When he saw me he smiled a warm
+recognition. I went to where he stood to offer my congratulations. I
+asked him to come out and see me, and have a meal with me. He was
+already mingling with the young people of his own age at dances and in
+sports. That had been his custom at Winchester. He was glad to come,
+inquired the way. He was very happy. He knew that he had won his spurs
+this night. And from thenceforth he was a notable figure. Had anything
+just like this ever occurred in England? I had never heard of it. I
+should certainly write my grandmama of this event.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Russell Lamborn left the courthouse with Reverdy and me. He lingered at
+the gate as if he wished an invitation to go into Reverdy's house; but
+Reverdy did not invite him. He would have asked Douglas to come in for
+the remainder of the evening, such as it was, except for Sarah's
+condition.
+
+Douglas had quite carried Reverdy away. And yet there lurked in him
+something that was not intellectually convinced and morally satisfied. I
+felt a little the same way. I did not know how to describe my state of
+mind. With Douglas' vision of the country, his hopes for it, the part he
+wished to play, I felt my English blood stir. But was there enough moral
+depth to him? Did he reckon enough with the forces which made for
+culture, enlightenment? Was he really high-minded? Did he not have the
+gesture and the touch of the magician, the abandonment of the
+indifferent demigod--indifferent to the higher and the deeper currents
+of man's life? I tried to formulate some of these nebulous ideas to
+Reverdy, but found myself running into denials, facts of contradiction
+in Douglas' attitude and thinking. Reverdy was equally unable to state
+the case against Douglas, which he felt a keener critic of thought would
+easily do. Meanwhile young Lamborn stood with us while we fumbled these
+doubtful things. He seemed reluctant to leave. I wondered in a vague way
+what kept him from going. What did he want?
+
+And when Douglas did come to see me, which was within a few days of the
+night of the debate, Lamborn came with him. It was in the afternoon and
+they were on their way to a country dance. I could not help but observe
+that Lamborn had been drinking. What a strange taste--this whisky
+drinking! We did it in England, to be sure. But here it was done
+everywhere and at all hours and in all degrees of immoderation and
+vulgarity. Lamborn, however, was not unduly under the influence of
+drink; he was rather laughing and genial and humorously familiar.
+Douglas had doubtless taken as much as Lamborn, but he was quite equal
+to resisting its relaxing effects.
+
+Douglas and I sat under a tree by the brook. The buds were coming out.
+There was the balmy warmth of spring in the air. I had a chance now to
+revise my first impressions of him. His charm could not be denied. His
+frankness, the quickness of his thought, his intellectual power, his
+vitality, his capacity for work, the tirelessness of his energies, were
+manifested in his speech, his movements, the clear and rapid glances of
+his eyes.
+
+At the same time I found angles to him. I sensed a ruthlessness in him.
+I saw him as a fearless and sleepless antagonist, but always open and
+fair. There was only once when his nature broke ground and revealed
+something of his inner self, something of a sensitiveness which suffers
+for subtler things and penetrates to finer understandings. This was when
+he was telling me of the effect of his uncle's broken promise to educate
+him. He had suffered deeply for this; and he was sure his whole life
+would be influenced by it. It had stirred all the reserve ambition and
+power of his nature. It had thrown him forward in a redoubled
+determination to overcome the default, to succeed in spite of the lost
+opportunity.
+
+Hence he had read many books. He had studied the history of America, and
+other countries as well. His mind ran to statecraft. He thought of
+nothing else. He sensed men as groups--thinking, desiring, trading,
+building--and for these ends organized into neighborhoods, villages,
+cities, and states. His genius, even then, was interested in using these
+groups for progressive ends, such as he had in view. He was a super-man
+who sees empires of progress and achievement for the race through the
+haze of the unformed future, and who takes the responsibility of carving
+that future out and of forcing history into the segment that his
+creative imagination has opened. He would guide and make the future,
+while serving men.
+
+Here he was then just past twenty-one, born on April 23d, the reputed
+birthday of Shakespeare; young, and yet old with a maturity with which
+he was invested at his entrance into the world. He was in every way a
+new type to me. We were mutually drawn to each other. I knew that his
+courage could never stoop to littleness. His integrity, even when his
+judgment might err, seemed to me an assured quality of nature. As for
+me, he doubtless thought that I was one of the coming men of the
+community. Whatever I was, I was dependable. If I should become attached
+to him he could rely upon me in case of need. This, I think, made him
+regard me at this early stage of our friendship as a person not to be
+neglected in his business of creating adherents. When I spoke to him in
+terms of wonder and congratulation of his defeat of Wyatt, he took it
+with a smile and as a matter of course. He had found it an easy thing to
+rout Wyatt. Wyatt had stirred his fighting blood; and everything
+pertinent to the discussion had come to his mind in the heat of the
+debate....
+
+And now we began to hear the sound of a fiddle, scraped in a loose and
+erratic fashion and giving forth an occasional note of a tune. I looked
+around and saw Lamborn sitting in the doorway of the hut. Zoe was near
+him, laughing at his half-drunken attempts to manage the instrument.
+Douglas looked up. A quick smile shot across his face. He glanced into
+my eyes in a searching manner which mystified me and sent a sudden
+thrill through me. What was he thinking? Surely he knew of my relation
+to Zoe. I caught out of his expression the prejudice of the time against
+the social equality that I was maintaining in standing by Zoe and having
+her with me. I had not shirked my heritage. Perhaps Douglas admired me
+too much to speak what was in his mind; or perhaps he was too much of
+the politician to trench upon ground so personal. At all events, we
+were silent for a moment. And then Douglas called to Lamborn. It was
+time to go. Lamborn rose to his feet, swaying a little as he did so, and
+came to where we sat. He looked me over in a scrutinizing way, then shot
+forth his hand for me to take it. It was an awkward act and out of
+place! Yet I felt compelled to give him my hand. And with good-bys they
+bestrode their horses and were gone. I began to have ominous
+reflections.
+
+I went to the hut and asked Zoe what Lamborn had been saying to her. She
+laughed and seemed reluctant to tell me. I pressed her then; and she
+said that he had followed her through the house and tried to kiss her;
+that she had come around to the front door so as to be in sight of
+Douglas and me; then that Lamborn had taken the fiddle down and had
+begun to play it.
+
+All the possibilities of Lamborn's attitude dawned on me instantly. How
+dearly might I pay in some way for my father's desire to be rich! If
+Douglas had taken his initial hurt in life from his uncle's failure to
+educate him, I had begun the weaving of my destiny with these threads
+which my father had bequeathed to me. What would my complications be if
+Zoe eloped with a wild fellow like Lamborn, bringing his personality
+into the texture of my affairs; the matter of this land, and Zoe's
+interest in it? I could sense ahead an unending difficulty, an ever
+deepening annoyance, or even tragedy. Had I gone too far in dividing the
+estate with Zoe? For the first time the presence of the negro in the
+state, the complications that it created, were forced upon me
+concretely and with impressive effect. My heart registered a vague
+apprehension. I warned Zoe against Lamborn, and decided that he should
+not come about me again.
+
+The work on my house was now progressing rapidly. I wished to move into
+it on my birthday, June 18th. I watched its completion day by day, and
+in addition I had much to do around the farm. I had made a start with a
+few calves toward raising cattle. In every way I was forging ahead as
+fast as I could. But my greatest delight was the house. I wanted to make
+it as beautiful as possible, and I did not need to spare expense. I
+decided to go to St. Louis for curtains and chairs, for beds and
+lounges, chests and bureaus. When the last of May came I set out for the
+city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+This June weather in Illinois! Such glorious white clouds floating in
+the boundless hemisphere of fresh blue! The warmth and the vitality of
+the air! The glistening leaves of the forest trees! The deep green
+shading into purples and blues of the distant woodlands! The sweet
+winds, bending the prairie grasses for miles and miles! Glimpses of cool
+water in little ponds, in small lakes, in the brook! The whispering of
+rushes and the song of thrushes, so varied, so melodious! The call of
+the plowman far afield, urging the horses ahead in the great work of
+bringing forth the corn! The great moon at night, and the spectacle of
+the stars in the hush of my forest hut!
+
+I was superbly well. And for diversion went farther into the woods to
+hear a fiddler and to have him teach me the art which fled my dull
+fingers and the unwieldy bow. And this fiddler! His curly hair, always
+wet from his lustrations for the evening meal; his cud of tobacco; his
+racy locutions; his happy and contented spirit; and his merry wife and
+the many children, wild like woodland creatures, with sparkling eyes and
+overflowing vitality! Many evenings I spent at this fiddler's hut. And
+such humbleness! Only the earth for a floor! Only one room where all his
+family ate and slept and lived!
+
+In going to St. Louis I took the same stage that had brought me to
+Jacksonville. This time I rode on the _City of Alton_, a better boat
+than the one that had brought me from La Salle to Bath; but all the
+conditions were the same. There was the same roistering and sprawling
+crowd; the same loudness and profanity; the same abundance of whisky and
+its intemperate indulgence; the same barbaric hilarity of negroes,
+driven and cursed. And now many goatees, and much talk of politics, of
+Whigs and Democrats.
+
+St. Louis was languid, weary and old. The buildings had an air of decay.
+The stream of life moved sluggishly, not swiftly as in New York or
+Buffalo, or even in the village of Chicago. There were luxury here and
+wealth. There were slaves and a slave market. I went to it, saw the
+business of selling these creatures, saw a woman of thirty, no darker
+than Zoe, sold to a man with a goatee, evidently from further south, who
+took her and led her away submissively. Whatever the institution might
+be of necessity and even of gentleness in good hands, here no less was
+the vile business of the sale. What would become of Zoe, was constantly
+in my thought. I turned away from the slave market to continue my
+shopping; but I could not drive Zoe from my thoughts.
+
+Here was I in St. Louis and necessarily withdrawn from care of Zoe. I
+could not always watch over her. Even if I did, what was her life to be?
+How could she establish herself? With whom, and where? I was glad that
+I had not left her at the hut during my absence, that I had taken her to
+Sarah. Nothing could happen to her while she was with Sarah. Sarah had
+need of her too. Sarah's baby was soon to be born. Dorothy Clayton,
+Reverdy's sister, was coming to Jacksonville from Nashville to be a part
+of Reverdy's household for a time; and the house had to be set in order
+for her arrival. Turning Zoe over to Sarah was, therefore, a great help
+to her at this time.
+
+I completed my purchases, arranged for their transportation and returned
+to Jacksonville. I arrived in the evening and went at once to Reverdy's.
+I had been gone a week. All were here to greet me. But Zoe was subdued
+in manner. Her smile was forced. She avoided me, going in and out of the
+room about the work of clearing the table. She did not pause to listen
+to the story of my trip. Was she perhaps ill? Reverdy and Sarah
+prevailed upon me to stay over night. And I did; but early the next
+morning all of us went to the country together; for Reverdy was now
+pushing the house to completion.
+
+When we arrived at the hut, as Zoe remained silent and subdued, I began
+to question her. She protested at first that nothing was the matter; but
+I knew better, and I persisted in my attempts to draw her out. She began
+to cry at last. She came to me and rested her head on my shoulder. "Tell
+me now," I urged. And she relieved herself of the secret in broken
+words, in half-formed phrases.
+
+She had gone walking one night with Lamborn. He had led her into the
+woods in search of a rabbit's nest he said was there. He had seized
+her, put his hand over her mouth, threatened her with harm, with being
+sold down South. He had overcome her. She had returned to Reverdy's
+afraid to tell him what had happened. She did not know what Lamborn
+would do to her if Reverdy went after him. She felt that she was in the
+wrong for having gone walking with Lamborn, and that she would be blamed
+by Sarah. Therefore she had not told her secret before. She was sure
+that neither Sarah nor Reverdy suspected it.
+
+What was I to do? I could not conceive of a wrong like this going
+unpunished. But my brain refused to plan, to think out what was best to
+do. I did not know the community well enough, nor enough of the laws to
+make a decision by myself. I decided that I must consult with Reverdy. I
+hurried away from Zoe, telling her on no account to leave the hut; and
+went to find Reverdy. He was at work on my house, looked at me
+wonderingly as if to question what had brought me over so soon. I drew
+him aside and told him what I knew.
+
+Reverdy's blue eyes grew terribly deep. They darkened like clouds in a
+rapidly gathering storm. They were full of comprehending compassion.
+They expressed alarm, but also an inexorable sense of futility, as if
+there was nothing to be done. He was silent. He had fought the Indians;
+he was used to the rough life of the West. He did not betray fear;
+rather he acted as if there was nothing to be done. When he began to
+speak that was the tenor of his words. He revealed to me possibilities
+that I had never dreamed of. I could see that I was caught in
+unforeseen circumstances. Some of the dangers involved in the situation
+he only hinted at. For example, the matter of my living with Zoe. There
+might be people in Jacksonville who believed that my attitude toward Zoe
+was not of a brotherly nature. Such a suspicion seemed horrible to me.
+But Reverdy went on to show me why it might be entertained. This remote
+country, lacking in opportunity for legitimate expression, held secrets
+of bestial and gross departures from nature. Here was Zoe, young and
+beautiful. What did our kindred blood have to do with the matter of my
+desire? I had not grown up with her, and it would be natural enough if I
+did not feel toward her as a brother. Incest was common enough around
+here. As to Lamborn, Zoe was a nigger, and the spoil of any one who
+wanted her. These were some of the things that Reverdy hinted at. If I
+prosecuted Lamborn, the countercharge would be made that I had been
+intimate with Zoe myself. If she had a child I would be proclaimed its
+father, especially if I raised an issue, and tried to fix the paternity
+upon Lamborn. If I went to see the state's attorney and asked him to
+act, there was danger that he would not wish to do so, because the
+present state's attorney was about to lose the office. He would not wish
+to start a social hostility that would react upon himself. In fact,
+Douglas was now trying to supplant him. I was known as a friend of
+Douglas'. Perhaps I would be trying to involve the state's attorney in
+an unpopular prosecution. If the prosecuting attorney refused to act
+that refusal would be known, and credit might be given to any reports
+that might arise that Zoe was mine before she was Lamborn's, if she ever
+was his. And if I resented the prosecuting attorney's refusal to act,
+then I might be accused of acting with Douglas in his ambition to get
+the office. Above all, under the law of Illinois, Zoe could not testify
+against Lamborn, a white man. Thus, in any prosecution that was to be
+made, evidence independent of Zoe's word had to be procured. Where was
+such evidence? That really settled the whole matter. But I had gone
+through the whole range of deliberation before finding out that Zoe's
+word would not be received in court.
+
+But why had Reverdy not warned me against taking Zoe to live with me?
+There was the matter, too, of my equal division of the estate with Zoe.
+I had done this with the purest of motives. Now the edge of it was
+turned against me. For why would I surrender so much when I did not have
+to?
+
+What was I now to do? Should I send Zoe away? Should I keep her in my
+household and let the tongues wag, as they were doing, or clatter if Zoe
+should have a child? The secret would be out soon. Lamborn would be sure
+to betray the fact that he had captured Zoe. There seemed nothing to do
+then but to settle down with British tenacity to live it out, and brave
+whatever came to me out of the complications. I was sure of the
+friendship of Reverdy and Sarah.
+
+With these reflections I went back to the hut. Zoe was still in tears.
+She asked me if she had not better go away. If I would give her some of
+her money she would leave and never come back. "No," I said. "I am going
+to see you through, Zoe. We will face this out together; only do you
+consult me about what to do, and help me to stand by you."
+
+I sat down and began to think it all over again. Here were all the
+pretty things I had bought in St. Louis soon to arrive, and the house
+would be ready to occupy in a few days. Yet these happy events were
+clouded for me. There was real bitterness in my cup now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The house was done. My furnishings were delivered. There were curtains
+to make, many feminine touches were needed to settle the rooms. Sarah
+did all that she could, but Dorothy Clayton had come. She was just a
+year younger than I, and of charming appearance and manner. We had
+become friends almost at once. She was with me daily, as we put the
+house in order for occupancy. Reverdy thought that Sarah must be
+apprised of what had happened to Zoe. She was terribly wounded and
+distressed. But she approved of my course in keeping Zoe with me.
+
+On my birthday, June 18th, we had the housewarming. I gave a party,
+inviting all the young people from Jacksonville and the country around:
+those that I knew and those that I didn't--all but Lamborn. The omission
+would be notable, but I could not invite him. The matter was promptly
+gossiped about. Lamborn himself was stirred to talk now. He made the
+most detestable references to Zoe and me; and I was told of them. At the
+party Douglas drew me aside and confided to me that Lamborn was in an
+ugly rage.
+
+Douglas was quite the life of my party. He mingled freely with all the
+company, making himself charming to every one. He danced with every
+girl present, and more than once with Dorothy. His short figure gave him
+a certain comical appearance. But he was graceful and adept at the
+dances. And his wit and good humor kept every one in high spirits.
+Reverdy, too, participated in the joy of the occasion with generous
+enthusiasm. Altogether, we were a merry crowd. I had strengthened my
+hold upon the affections of the community. For the time I had forgotten
+my embarrassing troubles. They came back to my mind after the guests had
+departed. And there was something else to disturb me. Dorothy had gained
+more than my passing interest.
+
+Work was now my salvation, and I had plenty to do. I had learned in this
+year a vast amount about running a farm; and I was blessed with
+excellent health. But meanwhile Zoe! It was not long before it was
+certain that she was to bear a child; and it would not be many months or
+even weeks when she could not walk out or go to town without betraying
+her secret to the world. But then what should the explanation be? Should
+I tell what I knew? Should I remain silent?
+
+Except for engrossing duties, with time to think and brood, I should
+have been thrown into tortures with the possibilities. There was always
+the chance, too, that Zoe in the desperation of the moment might run
+away from me. She had the English blood of my father in her veins,
+venturesome, perhaps reckless. Perhaps it was well that she had no
+control of the profits of the farm which had thus far been allotted to
+her, nor her share of the ready money which my father had left. I had
+had Reverdy appointed her guardian, making myself accountable to him. I
+deemed this the fitting thing; and I was also brought to do it because I
+might be absent at times in the future when she would need money. But if
+Zoe should run away what would become of her? The chance of her being
+kidnapped and sold into slavery filled me with terror. Yet the days went
+on without change.
+
+Except that Sarah's boy was born! What a father Reverdy was! So
+wondering and gentle. And he guarded Sarah like a lover and father in
+one. Zoe was wild to see Sarah's boy; but that was out of the question
+now. She wanted to deed some of her land to the boy, or better perhaps,
+to Sarah. But she would have to wait until she became of age to do this.
+
+The birth of Sarah's boy affected Zoe profoundly. She was now about two
+months advanced in her own pregnancy. She was beginning to think of the
+ordeal herself, of the fate of the child, what it was being born to....
+What, indeed? I noticed that Zoe had hours of deep depression. Would it
+not be best for me to have a woman in the house with Zoe? Mrs. Engle
+knew of a widow about fifty whose husband had been killed in the War of
+1812. And I got her, a Mrs. Brown. Zoe was now free of the housework.
+She had a companion when I was away on my work about the farm. And I
+felt relieved. But my mind and heart were full of problems. There was
+always Zoe! There was always Lamborn, skulking in the shadows of my
+speculations. How would I unravel this tangle with him?
+
+Then there was Dorothy. Some of the talk must reach her eventually. It
+might come to her as a smudge upon me. Then I could not expect to
+continue my attentions to her without explanations. How could I go into
+explanations with Dorothy? But even if Dorothy only knew that Zoe was my
+sister, what would she think of me? Could she have an interest in a man
+with a family relationship of this sort? Could Dorothy, bred in
+Tennessee, look with favor upon my attentions? Had Reverdy and Sarah
+kept this relationship from Dorothy? Had some one else told her? But if
+she had not found these circumstances a reason for turning from me could
+she tolerate the rest of my difficulties?
+
+And one night I came home to find Zoe in bed. She was in great pain and
+very weak. She was scarcely able to talk. She took my hand and pressed
+it, only saying: "I have done something for you. If I die, it will be
+best anyway. If I live it will be all right. I could not bear to bring
+you such shame and trouble. Don't worry ... don't."
+
+Mrs. Brown came in and stood by the bed. She did not speak. She looked
+at me as if to say that sometimes desperate things have to be done. I
+understood. I acquiesced. Did Mrs. Brown do it? I never asked. Zoe's
+sufferings were very great. All this for Lamborn's drunken madness. And
+then Zoe began to mend. She was out of her difficulty. She became
+herself in a few weeks. But her spirit had changed. She was wiser, more
+self-possessed. She was more a woman. A great load had been lifted from
+me; yet I now faced a new Zoe. What would this mature Zoe do to me?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+There was the law against Zoe taking this step, and against any one
+having any part in it. Still would it be known? I was content to wait
+for developments and meanwhile to put the whole thing behind me. Work
+helped me to do this.
+
+I had Sarah's boy to interest me too. They had named him Amos. I had
+taken five twenty-dollar gold pieces and tied them in a package, bound
+them with a ribbon, and placed them in his tiny hand. I could not
+foresee the time when I should touch his hand on an occasion of very
+different import and with Zoe standing by. Zoe had made Amos some pretty
+little things and sent them by me. Sarah's only regret was that her
+grandmother could not see the boy. Her great happiness was wholly
+beautiful. And Reverdy seemed impressed with a greater dignity and a
+more gracious heart, if that were possible. I had found Mrs. Brown well
+adapted to my household. She liked the place; and the prospect was that
+she would be long in my service. Life was moving on.
+
+I kept in touch with affairs in England and Europe through the London
+_Times_. I was also a subscriber to Greeley's _New Yorker_; and I did
+not slight the local paper, which belabored Douglas in proportion as he
+increased in popularity and power. I read many books as well.
+
+For I felt the stir of a new age. I saw the North, the country around
+me, growing in wealth and dominance. I saw old despotisms giving way and
+new ones coming to take their place. The factory system was arising, due
+to machinery. Weaving and spinning processes had improved. The cry of
+women and children crowded in the factories of Pennsylvania began to be
+heard. The hours of toil were long. And if the whip descended upon the
+back of the negro in the South, the factory overseer in Philadelphia
+flogged the laborer who did not work enough to suit him, or who was
+tardy at the task. Women and children there were feeling the lash of the
+whip. Just now there was talk of a machine which would cut as much grain
+in a day as six men could cut with scythes. I ordered two of these
+machines for the next year, for I was farming more and more on a big
+scale. But what seemed most wonderful to me was an instrument now being
+talked about which sent messages by electricity. It was not perfected
+yet. It was treated with skepticism. But if it could be! If I could get
+a message from St. Louis, a distance of more than a hundred miles, in a
+few minutes or an hour!
+
+Douglas came out to see me one night to tell me what was on his mind. He
+wanted to be the prosecuting attorney. Consider the straits of a young
+man who must make his way and get a place in the world! Is there
+anything more desperate at times? What was the law business in this
+community, divided, as it was, by eleven lawyers, shared in by visiting
+lawyers? Douglas had to live. Youth is forced to push ahead or be
+crushed. I know he has been accused of manipulation in having the law
+passed by which he could be appointed to the office and supplant a
+rival. Well, if he had not had the gifts and the energies to do such
+things, how could he have served the country and maintained himself? The
+next February before he was twenty-two, he was state's attorney for the
+district. No wonder that lesser men railed at him. But what one of them
+would not have done the same thing if he could?
+
+And now I was seeing much of Dorothy. What did it mean? Was she only my
+friend? Reverdy, her brother, was my most intimate friend. Did she
+receive my attentions on account of the relations between him and me? If
+she knew anything about Zoe she never betrayed it to me. Surely she
+could not be in Jacksonville so long and be ignorant that Zoe was my
+half-sister. At last I decided to explore Dorothy's mind. I went at it
+forthrightly. Did she know that Zoe and I had the same father?
+
+She had heard it. That was a common enough thing in the South; not
+common there, however, for a colored mother to be the wife of a white
+father. "I have suffered on account of this," said Dorothy. "You knew
+nothing about it and had nothing to do with it. It is too bad--too bad,
+Jimmy!"
+
+There remained Zoe's misadventure. How could I approach that? But if
+Dorothy had heard of it would she continue to receive me? If she knew
+about it would not the present association of ideas bring it to mind
+and bespeak it to me by change of color or expression? I looked at
+Dorothy quizzically. I discovered nothing in her face. Then I began to
+think of the certain probability that some one had come to her breathing
+rumors upon her. So I said: "Promise me something, Dorothy. If any one
+ever tells you anything about me, say, for example, that I haven't been
+perfectly fair with Zoe in every way, and honorable as far as I know how
+to be, will you withhold belief until you give me a chance? Do you
+promise me that?" And Dorothy stretched her hand to me in a warm-hearted
+way. "You are Reverdy's friend, aren't you, and he is yours. Well, I
+promise you. But it isn't necessary, for it would have to be something
+that I could believe you capable of. Then Reverdy would have to believe
+it, and then I might have a mind of my own after all. Why, how could
+anyone say anything about you? You have been as good to Zoe as if she
+were as white as I."
+
+And so Dorothy didn't know. I left the matter where it was. I could not
+go on. You see I was nineteen and Dorothy was eighteen and the year was
+1834.
+
+But Lamborn. I had made an enemy of him. Rather, he had turned himself
+into my enemy. He was running with a gang of rough fellows called the
+McCall boys. They drank and fought, using clubs or stones or knives.
+They were suspected of trying to rob the stage when it was driven by the
+poor wretch who had died of the cholera two summers before. That driver
+was noted for his courage, his ready use of the rifle; and he had
+frightened the marauders off, and had wounded one of them, who limped
+away until the trail of his blood was obscured.
+
+Every time I came into town I was subjected to wolfish leers from some
+member of this gang. Evidently they had taken up Lamborn's cause.
+Something was preying upon him. He was drinking more heavily. Perhaps he
+was tormented with the thought that I knew his secret and abided some
+vengeance upon him. Perhaps his conscience tortured him. At any rate he
+had become a skulking figure of hatred, showing his teeth and snarling
+when he saw me and sidling away like a wolf. He had muttered curses as
+he hurried to one side. "Bloody Englishman" and the like were his
+remarks. Something told me to watch him, to watch the McCall boys. I
+began to take pains to guard my house in the country, sleeping always
+with my rifle by my side; and I had provided my men with rifles,
+instructing them to shoot if trespassers approached during suspicious
+hours or when warned away.
+
+The autumn was the most delicious weather I had experienced since coming
+to America. Enough of the summer was carried over into October, and even
+November, to keep the days warm and full of sunlight, while the nights
+were clear and frosty, and always over this boundless prairie the far
+scattered stars. I had bought an astronomical chart and located the
+constellations, in which Zoe had joined me in increasing wonder. Then I
+had a taste of real hunting. Reverdy and I had gone to marshes a few
+miles away for wild geese and ducks; and we had come back loaded with
+game for ourselves and friends. There were many parties and what were
+called "shucking bees," where the company set to to assist the host in
+ridding the corn of its sheath; and quilting bees; and apple parings.
+These were occasions of festival, the local rituals of Dionysius.
+Earlier in the fall I had gone to a county fair and had seen the
+products of the field on display; and had studied the people: the tall
+angular gawks, the men carrying whips, the dust, the noise, the cheap
+fakirs and gamblers, the fights, the drunkenness, the women tired and
+perspiring carrying their babies and leading a brood. To me it was more
+like a cattle pen befogged with dust than an assemblage of human beings.
+And there was no happiness, no real joy; only barbaric breaking away
+from hard labor and the silence of the farms; only a reeling and a
+howling and a war dance; and only here and there a flash of breeding and
+fineness, and intelligent use of the occasion for sweeter joys and
+fuller life.
+
+The winter came down; but I was better prepared for it than I was the
+year before. My house with its walls a foot thick of solid oak and
+tightly plastered against the penetrating winds kept out the cold. And
+my fireplaces built under my very eye threw a steady heat into the
+rooms. I was giving parties from time to time and attending them as
+well. Douglas always came. He was unfailingly the life of the party. He
+had reënforced his political successes with a genuine hold upon the
+hearts of the young people and the older people. He was attacked weekly
+by the Whig newspaper. But he was not without defense. Almost upon
+arriving at Jacksonville he had written a letter of praise to the editor
+of a newly started journal. The editor was greatly pleased at this
+spontaneous expression of interest and had become Douglas' friend and
+stanch champion. Ah! Douglas was only manipulating. He had written this
+letter to win a newspaper to his support. The wily schemer! "Genius has
+come into our midst," wrote the editor. "No one can doubt this who heard
+Mr. Douglas expound Democratic doctrine in his wonderful debate with
+John Wyatt. This country is richer for having attracted Douglas to it.
+He is here to stay. And he will be one of the great men of the country
+as President Jackson is now the greatest figure since Washington; and
+Illinois will send him forth as her son to speak and to act on the great
+questions that are already beginning to fill the minds of the people."
+
+Douglas often came out to stay for the night or for a day or two. He had
+little law business, but his energies were always employed in shaping
+his powers toward a participation in the politics of the country. His
+superhuman energy was intensified by the fact that he had been deprived
+of an opportunity to educate himself. It was the gadfly that drove him
+forward with such restless industry. I could see that he had no patience
+for a detailed study of the law; that he might be ignorant of the
+technical steps to be taken in the collection of a promissory note, but
+he would know something about the resources of a treaty; that if he did
+not know how to settle the title to a farmer's field, he had considered
+ways to put at rest any claim of England to the territory of the Oregon.
+Yet he had to live as a lawyer before he could flourish as a statesman.
+And he had become the prosecuting attorney. His enemies said it was by a
+trick; that he had had the state law changed so that the legislature
+could appoint him state's attorney for the district of Jacksonville. The
+accusation proved too much. Douglas was not quite twenty-two when he
+reached this office. He had been in the state but two years, not quite
+that. How had such a youth first won the confidence of enough people who
+wished to give him this office and were able to do it; and then won the
+legislature to do the extraordinary thing of changing the law to give
+him the office, while at the same time supplanting a seasoned and
+experienced man in the place? How? Was every one corrupt, people and
+legislature? But it was February and he was the prosecuting attorney for
+the people.
+
+He came out to see me, and we drank his health and fortune. It was on
+this occasion that Douglas talked to me with the greatest freedom about
+my own affairs. His frankness and sincerity, his friendship for me,
+relieved this broaching of my intimate interests of intrusiveness. I
+felt no inclination to resent it. He had glanced at Zoe who had come
+into the room once or twice, remarking that she was an unusual young
+woman. Then he said: "Your father must have been much of a man. I think
+his marriage worked upon his feelings ... and Zoe. Don't let this get on
+your imagination. You are handling it in the right way ... just go on.
+Let me warn you. The McCall gang is a desperate one. Do not on any
+account come to an issue with them. There are too many of them. They
+will sneak up upon you. They carry grudges ... and another thing,
+there's Lamborn ... as bad as the McCalls. He's been talking too, making
+threats against you. I tell you this for your own good. He has been
+boasting of Zoe's interest in him ... to speak euphemistically of the
+matter ... but just be careful." Whatever else he had in his mind he
+communicated it to me by the look of his speaking eyes, keen and blue.
+Then he arose and went.
+
+Dorothy had returned to Nashville for the winter. She expected to take
+her place again in Reverdy's household in the spring. And we were
+writing. I had thought of proposing marriage to her the night before she
+left. But I could not bring myself to do so. I needed some one in my
+life. But I was just twenty, and Dorothy seemed so much more mature and
+wise than I. Then always there was this matter of Zoe. I lived in the
+expectation that something would come out of Zoe's misfortune; and if it
+did my name was bound to be connected with it. What would Dorothy say if
+in the midst of our engagement, if she engaged herself to me, the word
+should be brought to her that I was the father of Zoe's aborted child
+and that by some one, perhaps Mrs. Brown, Zoe had been saved the open
+shame of giving birth to the child and while an inmate of my house? I
+could see the probative force of these facts against me. This is what
+kept me from speaking to Dorothy on the subject of becoming my wife and
+having it settled before she went to Nashville. And then something
+happened that made my situation infinitely worse before it was any
+better.
+
+The spring had come on early and I had much to do. I was buying
+machinery. The mowers that I had ordered were soon to be delivered and I
+had need to be in town almost daily. There were always loafers about the
+streets; and among them, not infrequently, the McCall boys or Lamborn.
+Reverdy had told me that Lamborn had been talking in the barber shop,
+saying that I was living in a state of adultery with my nigger sister.
+At the same time I knew, and Reverdy knew, that Lamborn was trying to
+get Zoe to meet him. He had sent her a note to that effect, which Zoe
+had turned over to me. Once he had accosted Zoe as she was coming from
+Reverdy's to join me at the courthouse preparatory to starting home.
+Reverdy thought that the fellow was eaten up with insane jealousy and
+had brought himself to the belief that I had taken Zoe from him, if he
+could be said ever to have had a right to her.
+
+It is an April day and I have come into town and am rushing from place
+to place attending to many things. Reverdy has met me at the bank to
+tell me of another opportunity to buy a team of horses and some oxen;
+for we use the latter mostly to draw the plows that turn up the heavy
+sod of the prairie. Reverdy has just told me of Lamborn's threat to come
+to my farm and take Zoe: that when a girl was once his she was always
+his. He had said these things at the barber shop. Something came over
+me. I resolved that this intolerable state of affairs, of anxiety for
+Zoe, of misunderstanding for myself, of dread of the future, of a sort
+of brake on my life as of something holding me back and impeding my
+happiness and peace of mind ... all this had to end somehow and soon. I
+could not live and go on with things as they were.
+
+We stepped from the bank. And there, not ten feet away, stood Lamborn.
+His mouth became a scrawl, he uttered a growl, he swayed with passion,
+he moved his hands at his side in a sort of twisting motion. And I
+thought: there are Zoe and Dorothy, and I may create a feud against me
+that will follow me for years ... yet this man must die. And I drew my
+pistol and fired ... Lamborn sank to the ground without a groan. Some of
+the McCall boys ran out. I fired at them. They fled. I walked forward a
+step or two. Then I asked Reverdy if he had seen Lamborn reach for his
+pistol. Reverdy had seen this. I had not. In fact, Lamborn did nothing
+of the sort. But if Reverdy saw this he could swear to it and help me.
+The excitement of the precise moment was now over. I felt weak and
+anxious. I wanted to see Douglas. As state's attorney he could help me.
+Douglas was soon on the scene. He had heard what I had done. I wanted
+to talk with him. He waved me off saying: "You must have counsel of your
+own. You must not talk to me. I would be compelled in the discharge of
+my duty to use against you anything you might tell me." With that he
+walked away.
+
+He could not be my friend in this hour of need! What was I to do? Yes,
+there was Reverdy. But when it came to the matter of locking me up
+Douglas said: "If Mr. Clayton signs the bond ... make the bond $1000 ...
+don't lock him up. Get a coroner's jury."
+
+There was not a member of this jury who had not been exposed to some of
+this vile talk about Zoe and me, in the general contagion of the village
+gossip. How should this examination be managed? Of course the single
+question, they told me, was the manner of Lamborn's meeting his death.
+But the coroner's jury had the power to bind me to the grand jury for an
+indictment, and that I wished to escape. Well, I had been threatened, to
+be sure. But why? If Lamborn wanted Zoe and I had her in my house and
+kept him from seeing her, was it for a good or a selfish reason? Were we
+not rivals for the same favor? Did one have her and one lose her? Had I
+killed Lamborn for jealousy, or in self-defense? The single fact that I
+had shot him stood against the background of all this gossip and village
+understanding, and was necessarily read into it for my undoing or my
+freedom.
+
+There was the note that Lamborn had written Zoe! That proved that
+Lamborn was seeking her; but it might be used to prove that I resented
+his pursuit. And why? As Zoe's brother, or as her unnatural lover? My
+brain was in a whirl. I could not think for myself. I talked these
+subjects over with Reverdy and with Mr. Brooks, who was my counsel. All
+these things were done the day of the killing. The next morning, with
+the body of Lamborn lying in the room, I mounted the witness chair in my
+own behalf, after Reverdy had testified that he had seen Lamborn reach
+to his pocket, and that it was not until then that I drew my pistol and
+fired.
+
+Was Douglas turned against me? He plunged into the matter of Zoe almost
+at once in his cross examination of me. And at last I told the whole
+story ... with but two exceptions: I did not produce Lamborn's note to
+Zoe and I did not tell of Zoe's illness and its cause; of returning from
+St. Louis and finding Zoe in tears, of what she had told me, of the
+embarrassment I then found myself in, of my perplexity, of my failure to
+invite Lamborn to my housewarming and the reason for it, of Lamborn's
+attitude toward me after that, his menacing looks, his growling insults
+when he saw me ... of all these things I told with full
+circumstantiality under the examination of the new state's attorney, and
+with the whole of the countryside looking on, Whigs and Democrats, and
+with the audience permeated with slavery and with slavery feeling, at
+least so far as the present case was concerned. What would Douglas now
+do? He rose and in his deep voice, with perfect command of himself,
+looking over the audience as if it was a great instrument whose keys he
+knew, he spoke these brief words: "Gentlemen, it makes no difference to
+me whether this girl is white or black; if you bind this young man over
+to the grand jury, I will do what I can to prevent an indictment; and if
+the grand jury indicts him I will do what I can to have him acquitted.
+This dead man here met his just fate."
+
+The audience cheered. The jury acquitted me without leaving their seats.
+I walked a free man into the soft air of April. Douglas came out. His
+manner was changed. He spoke to me in freedom and in the old tone of
+friendship. "The boil is now open," he said. "The cut place will heal."
+
+And he walked with me down the street followed by a cheering crowd.
+Douglas had won the people; and I was free!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+I began to see myself as boring through opposition with lowered head and
+indomitable will. I was strengthened by the fact that I had never
+swerved from my duty to Zoe. And now that the beast was out of the way
+who had caused her so much agony, my whole life seemed cleared. The
+McCall gang might cause me trouble, but they would need to come
+prepared, or to catch me off my guard. The opening up of the whole case
+had had a wholesome effect upon my reputation. The brotherly innocence
+of my relation to Zoe was the generally accepted one. Reverdy assured me
+of this. Douglas was a valiant friend to me in this clarification of my
+nature and my character before the community. The whole atmosphere of my
+life was now freer; but it had cost Lamborn his life to make it so. It
+seemed best, however, that I should leave town for a while. I decided to
+go to Cincinnati and then to Nashville. I wanted to see Dorothy. I felt
+that I must make myself clear to her, and face to face.
+
+Having made all arrangements for Zoe and Mrs. Brown to keep the house
+while I was gone and having laid out the work for my men, I set forth
+for Vandalia, the capital of Illinois, by stage. There I took the
+Cumberland Road, passed through Indianapolis, a small place; arrived in
+good time at Cincinnati, a city of more than 30,000 people; a busy place
+of manufacturers, distillers, and pork packers, since Kentucky, Ohio,
+and Indiana shipped their hogs to this market to be converted into hams
+and bacon and lard. I saw the town, the residence of the great Nicholas
+Longworth, who had grown fabulously rich by making wine. And at the
+hotel, this latter part of April being warm, I was treated to the
+spectacle of the men in the dining room taking off their coats and
+dining in their shirt sleeves amid the not inelegant appointments that
+surrounded the table. But I was becoming Americanized now and was not as
+sensitive as formerly to deportment of this sort.
+
+The vastness of America came over me as I descended from Cincinnati to
+Nashville. Yet there was the southern territory still south of me; and
+beyond the Mississippi the unsettled empire of Louisiana. Cincinnati had
+something of the activity and the character of other northern cities;
+but as I passed through the domain of Kentucky and Tennessee I could not
+help but see that here was an agricultural country which owed its
+prosperity to slavery. But what was all that I saw here of industry and
+utilization of the resources of the land compared to what I saw growing
+up as a system around Jacksonville?
+
+Yet the loveliness of the country around Nashville enchanted me. I was
+in a mood to be won, to be sure; for I was completely captivated by
+Dorothy and the delightful hospitality that was accorded me. Dorothy's
+mother treated me with such gentle and thoughtful attention, as if she
+received me not less upon the basis of my friendship to Reverdy than
+upon my own appeal to her. And as for Dorothy--she was as kind to me as
+a sister; and yet....
+
+I loved the country and this little city of 6000 people on the hills
+above the Cumberland valley. Still, so many negroes. In this whole state
+of about 700,000 people, nearly 150,000 were slaves, so Dorothy told me.
+It amazed me. Negro slavery, so far as England was concerned, had never
+to me been a visible thing. But here in America, here in Tennessee, and
+in this city, it struck one at every turn. It entered into all the daily
+thinking and plans of every one. It was omnipresent. It touched every
+life.
+
+This was the town of James K. Polk, whose name meant nothing to me; but
+Dorothy spoke of him as a leading man in Congress from Tennessee. Here
+also was the residence of President Jackson, a place called the
+"Hermitage," a few miles into the country. Dorothy and I drove to it.
+These were the places of interest to see; and everywhere the southern
+mansion: the upper and lower porch in front, the spacious windows, the
+Dorian or Ionic columns, as the case might be; the great entrance door
+set between mullioned panes at either side, and beneath a lunette of
+woodwork and glass. The Clayton house was like this, for Dorothy's
+father had been a man of wealth, a slave owner too in his prosperous
+days. He had failed and died, Reverdy had gone to the newer country of
+Illinois to seek his fortune, leaving Dorothy and the mother to the
+possession of the diminished property which Mr. Clayton had left.
+
+But above everything in the way of delight, for the beauty of the
+prospect, for the opportunity it gave me to be with Dorothy, were the
+hills that overlooked the Cumberland valley and the river. We climbed
+here daily and sat beneath the lovely oaks that shaded the richness of
+the grass. To the west and north the river flowed to its confluence with
+the Ohio. Around us the hills. The valley between. The silence of
+nature, the intensity of unfolding life around us. Always on my mind was
+the thought of Dorothy as my wife. And why not speak my heart? I could
+not tell why. Was it Zoe; Dorothy's knowledge of Zoe? Was I investing
+Dorothy with my own thoughts, putting into her mouth the objections that
+I could make against myself? I could not tell what Zoe might bring into
+the life of the woman I married, as well as my own. Surely I was not
+very robust, very hearty in my speculations. For Dorothy had received
+me. There was nothing lacking in the warmth of her hospitality ... and
+yet I sensed at times such a temperate feeling in her glance, in her
+voice. Even her frankness had that character, or enhanced it perhaps.
+
+And one afternoon as we were walking along the river I spoke what was in
+my heart. I had this competence. I had built the house. I could make a
+fortune in time. I was beginning to need some one to help me, to be with
+me. And no sooner had I spoken than I saw myself: Zoe was my half-sister
+and I was proposing marriage to a girl who had no feeling that did not
+bespeak to her the inferiority of the colored skin, no matter if it were
+lightened, no matter by whom. Dorothy's attitude was that of the
+high-bred and kindly southerner: the negroes must be kept in slavery as
+a solution of the social question and for the prosperity of the South;
+but at the same time the negro should be treated with kindness. And here
+was Zoe, the half-sister of the man who was asking her to be his
+companion for life. To what extent, then, the associate on a basis of
+equality with Zoe too? This was not all. My name had been coupled with
+Zoe's. Above all, I had killed a man, my rival or Zoe's hunter, as one
+might choose to believe.
+
+Thus I saw myself. My very hair began to rise and to tingle. How had I
+dared to make this proposal to Dorothy? And as Dorothy was silent, and
+looked down as we walked, poking with her parasol at pebbles in the
+road, I was in a tense anxiety to know with what words she would break
+the oppressive pause between us. "I could see," she said, "that you
+liked me; and of course you wouldn't come so far to see me if you
+didn't. And you must know that Reverdy's friendship for you makes a
+difference. Do you know...?"
+
+Dorothy lost her voice. The tears came out of her eyes. As she did not
+speak I began again, trying to say for her what she did not say for
+herself. "There's Zoe," I said. And then Dorothy quite lost control of
+herself. She wept piteously. And then she grew calmer. She had faced the
+reluctant fact when I spoke Zoe's name. We had stumbled up and over
+that roughness in the road. Any rut or obstacle in it might now be
+easier endured ... if worse was not to come.
+
+Yes, these stories about me. Had Dorothy heard them? And the life I had
+taken for Zoe's sake. I was sure Dorothy had not heard of that. Even the
+first was a subject difficult to approach. I was twenty, Dorothy was
+nineteen. But the greatest obstacle was the age in which we lived. Women
+now draped themselves in mystery. There were whole realms of subjects
+that were not talked between the sexes. We managed things by mild
+indirections, by absurd circumlocutions.
+
+I began to think of the letter that Lamborn had written Zoe. I was
+carrying it in my pocket. Did it not prove Lamborn's interest in Zoe? I
+handed it to Dorothy, thinking that it would disprove my interest in
+Zoe, of which I had been made self-conscious by the accusations; and not
+realizing that Dorothy probably knew nothing of all these charges. "Read
+this," I said, handing it to Dorothy.
+
+Dorothy took it in at a glance, for it was only a few lines beginning
+"Dear Zoe." It was an invitation to Zoe to meet Lamborn again at the
+same place. Dorothy's face turned crimson. She handed the note back to
+me without a word. I had to struggle with the tough materials of the
+revelation that I wished to make. And I went on to tell Dorothy that the
+author of the note was Lamborn. "You remember him?" I asked. Dorothy
+nodded her head. "Well," I continued, "he is dead, thank God. I killed
+him."
+
+Dorothy was overcome. She reeled. After a moment, in which she found her
+breath again, she faced about and began to walk toward the town.
+
+I followed, hurt and crushed; for Dorothy had suddenly changed her whole
+manner. Her face was impenetrable; and it had paralyzed my hope with its
+expression of self-withdrawal, something almost of anger. I could not go
+on now and tell my story: that I had killed Lamborn because of his
+offense against Zoe, because of his menacing attitude toward me, because
+of the vile things he had said about Zoe. No! nothing I could say now
+would be in place. I had blundered, perhaps. We walked to the house,
+silent all the way.
+
+Dorothy went to her room, leaving me in the hands of her mother. Mrs.
+Clayton, thinking that we had had a lovers' quarrel, endeavored by extra
+attention to me to overcome Dorothy's absence, and to say to me in this
+way that she did not share in Dorothy's attitude.
+
+And so it was that Mrs. Clayton and I dined together; and I now had
+opportunity to tell her of little Amos, of my life in England, of my
+farm, my new house, my plans for the future. Mrs. Clayton was outspoken
+enough. She said that Reverdy admired my father for many things, and did
+not particularly censure his marriage. As for that it was a common
+enough thing in the South for the planters to have children by negro
+women, or by the prettier quadroons and octoroons. For herself she
+hated slavery, but did not know what would be done if the negroes were
+free.
+
+Dorothy did not appear. We rose from the table and went out to sit under
+one of the great trees in the yard. I thought I saw an opportunity. Why
+not talk to Mrs. Clayton? She could tell Dorothy what I was unable to
+say to her. I set my will to the task.
+
+"You seem to know about my father, Mrs. Clayton. And I want you to know
+about me. I want Dorothy for my wife. We had a kind of a flare-up this
+afternoon. I was trying to make my case clear, and Dorothy fell to
+crying. That's all. You see I came to America in ignorance of
+everything. No one had told me about my father's marriage; and I blame
+my grandmother that she did not tell me. Well, I got to Jacksonville and
+was terribly ill, almost died. Zoe took care of me. And that won me. But
+in addition to that she is as much my father's child as I am. I found
+that out as soon as I got up. Then I took her to live with me, to help
+me with the house, without thinking that there would be talk, not only
+by those who didn't know that she was my sister as well as by those who
+did know it. I went to St. Louis to buy furnishings for my new house.
+While I was gone a man named Lamborn wronged her. This made great
+trouble for me. And one thing led to another. He was saying vile things
+about me and about Zoe. And my life was getting more and more
+unendurable day by day on account of this fellow. And at last I was
+coming down the street with Reverdy one day, and this Lamborn suddenly
+confronted me. I drew and killed him. The state's attorney, Mr. Douglas,
+brought out all the facts before the coroner's jury. The jury acquitted
+me before leaving their seats. Mr. Douglas told the jury that he would
+not prosecute me if an indictment was found against me. And so..." I was
+about to say that I had come to Nashville to get away from the
+circumstances. But I caught myself and forebore.
+
+Mrs. Clayton had followed me with rapt attention, leaning more and more
+toward me as my story progressed. She put out her hand to take mine. I
+could not tell whether it was the hand of pity or admiration. Her eyes
+were kindly, but they searched me. She seemed to say: "What difficulty
+in this boy's life is he trying to mingle with my daughter's life?" She
+spoke. "It is too bad. You are too young to have such tragedy." That was
+all. Then we went in.
+
+As I arose the next morning I began to wonder what reception would be
+accorded me by Mrs. Clayton, not to say Dorothy. No one was astir but
+the colored butler and the maids. Yes, slavery was very well for them. I
+could see that all that was said in favor of the benevolence of the
+institution had verification in them and perhaps in all slaves doing
+like service. But what of the field hands, the heavier workers? I was
+thinking of these things, but mostly of the desperate situation I was in
+and of this day ahead of me. Would Dorothy see me again? Would I be the
+honored guest of yesterday? This silence of the mansion made me feel
+that its hospitality had cooled toward me. But in a little while Mrs.
+Clayton appeared on the stair and descended to find me rather restlessly
+pacing the room.
+
+I could not specify any change in her manner. Perhaps as a matter of
+breeding I was to be bowed out with all possible courtesy. She smiled me
+a "Good morning," said that Dorothy would not be down until later. We
+two went in to breakfast.
+
+I began to feel embarrassed. I could not be at ease. Mrs. Clayton sensed
+my diffidence. We managed the conversation in broken sentences and
+forced remarks. My pride asserted itself. I had done nothing myself for
+which I could be blamed. For the rest, if I was not wanted I should go
+my way. I asked Mrs. Clayton when I could get a boat to St. Louis. She
+did not know, but one ran almost every day either directly, or I could
+change boats at a place called Freesland on the Ohio River. Accordingly,
+after breakfast, I went to the steamboat landing to make inquiries ...
+and without seeing Dorothy.
+
+A kind of rebellion and resentment were rising in me. Dorothy was
+Reverdy's sister; but surely she was of a different spirit if she
+disapproved of me for what I had done. Perhaps it would be well to be
+free of my love for Dorothy, to be once more without any feeling that my
+life needed completion by uniting it with a woman's life. I had offered
+myself. I was not accepted. My dignity, and place in the world, as I
+saw them, were dishonored.
+
+When I returned to the house Dorothy had appeared. She smiled gently in
+recognition of me. I broke the silence by telling her that I could get a
+boat the next day, and that I must be off. She made no reply.
+
+Later we went to the yard, under one of the great trees. Dorothy was
+evidently tortured in her mind and did not know what to say to me. She
+looked worn and as if she had not slept. I searched her face. A tear
+stole down her cheek. She averted her eyes and clasped her hands
+together nervously. I could endure the suspense no longer.
+
+"It is best for me to go," I said. She made no reply. "I am sorry that I
+have made you suffer. Let me erase everything by withdrawing what I have
+said to you." "You can't," said Dorothy. "You are Reverdy's friend; you
+know how I love him. You couldn't suppose that anything that has
+affected you so deeply would not affect him and therefore me. I never
+believed that I could be so unhappy. You are going and that leaves me to
+think and think."
+
+My heart took fire again. I stretched my hand to take Dorothy's. She
+removed hers gently out of reach. "Go your way, my friend," she said.
+"Later I may write you. You are only a boy yet ... and many things may
+happen. But be sure that I suffer, and that I remember and that I need
+help."
+
+She arose and preceded me back to the house. Mrs. Clayton seemed to
+direct her influence toward smoothing our way. But nothing could be
+done. I had met defeat and I wished to depart.
+
+The next day I was on the Ohio but not bound for St. Louis. I had
+decided to see New Orleans. Change of scene might allay my thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+I did not tell Dorothy where I was going. I left her to suppose that I
+was returning to Jacksonville.
+
+In passing to the boat landing I stumbled and fell, bruising myself
+painfully. I was hurrying to get away and in my haste and sorrow I was
+oblivious of my surroundings. As I limped along on the deck, I was
+approached by a kindly man who offered me some ointment which he said
+was made from the oil that escaped over the surface of the water in the
+salt wells of Kentucky and elsewhere, in spite of anything that could be
+done and much to the inconvenience of the business of getting salt. This
+man said that the oil was being subjected to experiments for use in
+illumination. As an ointment it was magical, and in a few days my
+lameness disappeared.
+
+Both on the Ohio and the Mississippi we saw flatboats tied together
+heaped with coal, which had been loaded into them from the sides of the
+hills of the Alleghanies and elsewhere. They were being floated down to
+New Orleans. I had found coal in several places on my land in Illinois.
+Sometimes one could dig it out of the surface of the ground. But no
+expeditious means were yet in use in Illinois in mining it.
+
+The Mississippi is a wonder scene to me. The river is full of islands
+and the boat winds about in endless turns of the stream. There are
+swamps, and melancholy cypress and funereal live oaks. There are the
+solitary huts of the woodcutters, and bars of sand covered with cane
+brake, and impenetrable forests, and the forbidding depths of the
+jungle. Farther on there are the sugar plantations, and the levees, and
+the great houses of the planters, and the huts of the negroes, and the
+vivid greens of fields of sugar cane standing many feet high; and around
+these the cypress swamp. And on every side in the midst of each
+plantation the tall white towers of the sugar mills. It is all novel and
+wonderful to me; and it helps me to forget my insistent thoughts of
+Dorothy.
+
+The steamer stopped to get wood. It was at a creole plantation. There
+was a procession of carts here, each drawn by a team of mules, driven by
+negroes, laughing and joking with each other. They were slaves hauling
+wood to the sugar mills. We were soon off again on the silent river,
+which had now broadened to the dimensions of a great lake.
+
+Then we saw steeples, a dome; then the masts of numerous vessels, and
+steamboats, and tall chimneys. Then we reached the levee of the city.
+The boat was fastened, and I walked upon the streets of New Orleans. The
+heat was no greater than I had felt in Illinois. And at night a breeze
+stirred briskly from the harbor and the gulf beyond. This city of 50,000
+people had immediate fascination for me.
+
+In the evening I went to the Place d'Armes where a military band was
+playing. There were races during the day just out of town. The cafés
+were filled with people smoking and drinking, playing billiards and
+dominoes. Ladies in gay costumes sat in the balconies, making
+observations on the scene, the players, the passersby. French was spoken
+everywhere. And everywhere was the creole beauty, with black eyes and
+long silken lashes, and light skin faintly suffused with rose. I plunged
+into these festivities in order to forget Dorothy.
+
+I went to the Spanish Cathedral the next day, and saw on the porch
+groups of gray-haired negroes waiting for alms. There were candles on
+the altar, paintings of the stations of the cross on the pillars, and
+confessional closets near the door. And here the lovely creole knelt
+side by side with pure black descendants of the African negro.
+
+Not anywhere did I see the negro treated worse than in Illinois, except
+on one occasion. I was loitering on the dock looking at the steamboats
+being loaded by slaves. A negro driving a wagon almost collided with a
+wagon being driven by a white man. I saw the whole of it. The white man
+was at fault. Yet he began to curse the negro, who laughingly spoke the
+truth, that the white man had suddenly veered. With that a man,
+apparently an officer of some sort, stepped from a patrol box carrying a
+rifle and with an oath and a vile epithet commanded the negro to drive
+on. And he did quickly and without returning a word. There was something
+about the injustice of this that aroused my resentment. It was a
+partiality that had nothing to do with the circumstances, but only with
+the persons.
+
+I visited the slave market and again saw the auctioning of human
+beings, some as light of color as Zoe and of as much breeding. Again I
+began to speculate on Zoe's future. What would become of her? How would
+her fate tangle itself with mine? If Douglas had taken an impetus in
+life from his uncle's failure to educate him, what direction had my life
+been given by my father's marriage and Zoe? Already I had killed a man
+for Zoe's sake; and I had been rejected by Dorothy because of Zoe, or
+because of the circumstances which Zoe had created around my life.
+
+Wherever I wandered on Canal Street, on the wharves, in the French
+quarter, out to the battlefield where Jackson had won a victory over
+Packenham, Dorothy was habitually in my thoughts. But always a door
+closed against any communication with her; anything to be done for her
+as a remembrance of her generosity; any step to be taken toward making
+whole what I conceived to be our wounded friendship. Should I write
+Dorothy? But what? So many exquisite things in the shop windows: jewels,
+artistries of silver and gold. How I longed to select something for
+Dorothy! But the door was closed against it. In the antique shops lovely
+tables, chests, writing desks! If I could only buy many of such things
+for our home--Dorothy's and mine. But was that home to be? The door
+softly closed.
+
+And thus I went about the city. It was so colorful, so gay, so
+continental, so unlike anything I had ever dreamed of. And all the while
+I was trying to order my thoughts, wondering what I should do. And if
+ever Douglas in his political ambitions got entangled, to his own
+undoing, with this mass of human beings, white and black, moving about
+the carcass of life, what was to be my fate, both on the score of my
+individual lot, and as one of the units in this racial hostility, and
+the political and economic forces that generated it?
+
+I tried several times to write a letter to Dorothy. I could not find the
+exact thing I wanted to say, or the words with which to express it. What
+should I say? Should I urge Dorothy to a marriage with me? Should I
+attempt to argue down her misgivings? Should I tell her that I would
+return to Jacksonville and send Zoe away? Should I write Dorothy that I
+relinquished any hope of making her my wife? I wrote letters of these
+various imports and then destroyed them. A kind of paralysis was upon my
+thinking. And then I would leave my room and wander into the streets,
+visit the cafés, and find temporary forgetfulness in lively scenes and
+gay faces.
+
+And one night when I was in the French quarter at dinner I became alert
+to the conversation of two men sitting at a near table. They spoke
+familiarly to each other, almost as brothers. But I sensed that they had
+been separated for some time. At last one of them made references to
+France and England, and I concluded that he had been abroad. Both were
+typical planters, with goatees and broad hats, coats of elegant material
+but widely and loosely tailored. As I followed their words almost the
+whole condition of America unfolded itself to my understanding.
+
+The tenor of the talk was concerning cotton, the demand for it abroad
+and at home, and the effect that that demand had upon the South and the
+whole social and political life of America. Within thirty years past all
+the Northern States but Delaware had abolished slavery. What would have
+kept slavery alive after all except for the cotton gin and Eli Whitney,
+what but England's great machinery development for spinning and weaving,
+which made the demand for cotton more and more?
+
+The demand! Where there is a demand it must be supplied, and everything
+must give way to the processes of furnishing that supply: land, slavery,
+what not. Then there are general references to life and to labor. After
+all, all labor is slavery they say. Apprentices, farm hands, factory
+workers are slaves. All this struggling mass of toilers must, in the
+fate of life, be consumed in the great drama of furnishing clothes and
+food and roofs for those who can pay. But cotton needs more land. And is
+not the territory of the United States, the great commons and domains of
+all the states, North and South, to be used by them for their several
+and common benefit, for the intromission of property: slaves or cattle
+or utensils? It seems to me, now that I hear these men talk, that I am
+compelled to listen everywhere in America to schemes of trade, material
+progress, the accumulation of money. These planters go on to ask why
+lines should be drawn across the territory of the United States
+forbidding slavery north of the line and permitting it south of the
+line. This territory had been paid for equally by the treasure and blood
+of all the states. Blood for land! Then slavery on the land to raise
+cotton! And was not Jefferson prophetic when he wrote that the extension
+of this divisional line in 1820 alarmed him like a fire bell at
+midnight? It betokened sectional strife: the North against the South.
+And about trade! For as the Southern States grew richer they would have
+more political power, could dominate the North. Some one must dominate.
+There must be a supremacy. And what would this growing hostility lead
+to? What would future inventions do to exacerbate it? What of the steam
+engine, what of machinery, what of unknown developments?
+
+I could not help but think of the bearing that all of this had on my own
+life.
+
+But finally as they paid for their dinner, lighted cigars, and became
+less energetic of mood, one asked the other: "Have you ever heard from
+the girl?" The reply was: "Not a word. How could I? I didn't leave my
+name. It was best to close the matter by leaving no trace of myself."
+And the first asked: "Wasn't your name on the draft?" "I had gold, a bag
+of gold. I simply turned it over to the new husband and went my way."
+
+I was all ears now, studying, too, the face of the man who was
+confessing to the bag of gold. Was there a trace of Zoe in him? I could
+not be sure. I seemed to see something about the eyes, but it faded
+under my scrutiny. At best this man was only Zoe's grandfather; and my
+father's blood was nearer to Zoe than his.
+
+They started to arise from the table. I wished to follow them. But I had
+not paid for my meal. I beckoned to a waiter. While he was coming the
+two planters strolled leisurely from the café arm in arm and in intimate
+conversation.
+
+I was hurrying to be away and to follow them--I scarcely knew why. They
+were gone when my waiter came. I asked him who the planters were. He
+didn't know their names; only knew them as rich planters who often
+visited the café. I left the café and tried to find them, but they had
+disappeared. And I stood on the curb watching the iridescent ooze of the
+sewage in a runnel of the street seep along like a sick snake.
+
+Creole beauties, negroes, planters, roughs, gamblers, passed me. The
+streets were noisy with trucks. The air was hot and lifeless. The scene
+about me suspired like the brilliant and deadly scales of a poisonous
+reptile. I was sick at heart. I was overcome with terrible loneliness. I
+was in love with Dorothy and I was Zoe's brother. I was caught in this
+great dramatic ordeal of America without any fault on my part. What
+should I do? Yes, my ambition. To get rich. That was labor enough. And
+there was my farm back in Illinois. Why was I here after all? Was it
+some dream? I would wake myself. I would return to my place, my duty.
+What else could I do? I went to the wharf to find a boat to St. Louis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+I was listless all the way home. Passing through Jacksonville I seemed
+to sense a coldness in the manner of some of the people. Even where
+there was a smile and a bow, to which I could take no exception, I
+interpreted an attitude which said: "The Englishman: the fellow who
+killed Lamborn."
+
+Was the town dividing as to me? I was sure of Reverdy and Sarah, and
+Douglas, and the president of the college and his wife, and some others;
+but for the rest I suspected that envy had seized upon a pretext for its
+exercise. For I was rich; I had availed myself of mowers and all the new
+machinery for farming and I was a competitor, a man possibly growing
+more and more in the way. My reception in many quarters seemed distant.
+
+I went directly to the farm. There was my house which I had built with
+many hopes. There was the hearth to which I longed to bring a wife. But
+here it was, only for me, for my habitation and rest from labors in the
+ambition to be rich! Mrs. Brown opened the door and welcomed me with a
+diffidence. "Where is Zoe?" I asked. Mrs. Brown replied quickly: "Zoe
+has not been seen nor heard of for more than a week. I got up one
+morning, and as she didn't appear I went and called her. She was gone.
+I saw Mr. Clayton about it. The last I heard no one had seen her."
+
+My feelings were mixed of regret and relief. I was fond of Zoe. My sense
+of justice was enlisted in her behalf. I was fearful for her future,
+both for the misfortune that might befall her and for the complications
+that might accrue to me in her living away from my guidance. For there
+was Zoe's property. But on the other hand, if Zoe were completely out of
+my life I might win Dorothy.
+
+I walked reflectively toward the fireplace. Should I not write to
+Dorothy and tell her of Zoe's disappearance? For surely Zoe would not go
+away unless she meant to stay. She had roving, adventurous blood in her,
+and an English will. Could I rely upon the hope of her staying away, and
+that she would not figure in my life in the future except as to the
+land, the money? Yes, here my hands were stuck as in honey. And when
+could they be freed and cleaned of it? While I was reflecting upon these
+things Mrs. Brown walked to the mantle and taking a letter from it
+handed it to me. It was from Dorothy.
+
+"Dear James," the letter read, "I was never more depressed in my life
+than I was after your departure; you must know that I would be. In the
+first place, Reverdy is so very fond of you and esteems you so much, and
+that counts with me. For he is the best and truest man I have ever
+known. And I am sure that you are honorable and kind; and you have asked
+me to be your wife, and any woman worth noticing is moved by a request
+like that if she has any respect for the man whatever. But this seems to
+me the most terrible situation that a girl could be placed in. I have
+thought it over until my mind goes around in a circle, and I cannot
+relate things clearly any more. And of course I have talked it all over
+with mother. You can be sure I would not take the pains to do this, nor
+the pains to write you in detail, if you had not entered my mind in a
+serious way. Frankly the only misgivings I have of you, and I beg you to
+forgive me for saying this, is the fact that your father would do such a
+thing. I cannot understand it, my mother can't. What was he that he
+could do such a thing with the prospect that he would injure you, his
+son by another marriage, in so many ways and so deeply? He could not
+have overlooked these things; nor the feeling that exists in America,
+particularly in the South, against such an alliance. But putting these
+things out of mind, you cannot possibly assure me, or any other woman,
+against the future. There are the property interests; but if these were
+out of the way there is the relationship. And I blame myself deeply, for
+I knew that Zoe was your sister almost as soon as I first came to
+Jacksonville. With this knowledge I should not have come to your parties
+or put myself in a way to be liked by you. I should have only been
+polite to you when you came to Reverdy's house. For any other
+association, I ask you to forgive me. I have written you many letters,
+and then torn them up. Perhaps I shall send this one. It is as good as
+I can do. It says everything now except that I am profoundly unhappy,
+that I shall never see you again--and to wish you happiness under the
+circumstances fills my throat with a kind of suffocation. And so I write
+farewell--and can hardly mean it--and yet it must be farewell."
+
+A kind of calmness came over me as I read the last word. There are
+anxiety and fear, and stir and ministration while the sick are alive.
+But with death there is quiet in the house. Calmness comes to those who
+have striven to heal and to save. And with the words "farewell" before
+my eyes a dumb resignation came into my heart. Dorothy was gone from me
+and forever! But here was my life left to me to work out, and my
+ambition to pursue. I grew suddenly strong and full of will. I walked to
+the door and gazed for some minutes over the prairie. Then I saddled a
+horse and went to find Reverdy.
+
+It was something to see the brother of the woman I loved; but I must
+find Zoe if possible.
+
+Reverdy was off somewhere with Douglas. Douglas was working upon the
+plan of introducing the political convention system in Illinois, as it
+prevailed in New York. He wished to step from the state's attorneyship
+into the legislatureship. He had newspaper supporters; he had many
+friends, as well as many foes. But he was fighting his way.
+
+I talked with Sarah of my trip to New Orleans and played with little
+Amos. I asked Sarah at last about Zoe. Reverdy had already done all he
+could to trace her. The stage driver had been questioned, but knew
+nothing. Some one had seen a girl, probably Zoe, walking north from
+town. Outside of that nothing had been heard. The facilities for finding
+her were so primitive. How could posters be sent around, how phrased?
+How could constables and sheriffs in the surrounding counties be
+notified? And if an advertisement should be published in the local
+newspaper where would it reach? Upon what basis could I seek to regain
+Zoe, if she did not wish to return? Sarah and I discussed these
+problems. But if she had met foul play how could that be discovered? I
+seemed quite helpless, yet since it was the best I could do I placed an
+advertisement with the newspaper. Then telling Sarah that I wished to
+see Reverdy, I returned to the farm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+I had much to do, and work kept me from brooding. It was three days
+after I had gone to find Reverdy that he came to see me, bringing
+Douglas. My first words to Reverdy were concerning Zoe; but Douglas at
+once took a hand in that subject. She would either turn up after a
+little wandering about the country or she was gone for good. If she had
+met her death it would be known by now, in all probability. I could be
+sure that she knew better than to go south. Her likely destination was
+Canada, or northern Illinois. There was much going on in Chicago to
+attract an adventurous girl. Should I not go there for her? But it was
+only a chance that I would find her. What of her property, her
+interests? Let them rest until an emergency arose.
+
+In truth Reverdy and Douglas had not come to see me about Zoe, but to
+enlist my support in Douglas' ambition to go to the legislature. Douglas
+was now twenty-three years of age. He had been in Illinois just three
+years. During that time he had become a lawyer, had had the law changed
+so as to be appointed state's attorney. He had only held that office
+from February to April of this year, when he had organized a convention
+at Vandalia to choose delegates to the national convention for next
+year. He had fought down opposition to the convention system; he had
+successfully managed a county convention in which he had been nominated
+for the legislature. Now he was out upon the stump, speaking in behalf
+of state policies like canals and railroads; and there was the question
+too of removing the state capital from Vandalia to Springfield, which
+might constitute a leverage for a vote for internal improvements.
+Douglas was in favor of both. While slave interests were seeking land
+for cotton, the agrarian interests in Illinois were awake to the need of
+transportation facilities and markets. As I had wheat and corn to sell
+besides cattle and hogs, and would have them in increasing quantities, I
+should use my influence in behalf of these measures and in behalf of
+Douglas, who had a vision of their need and a practical mind for
+securing them. Douglas did not hesitate on the matter of internal
+improvements. He believed that they should be made by the state. That
+obviated the centralization flowing from national aid. Let Illinois use
+its own resources for building canals and railroads. Let the state's
+credit be pledged. What state had greater natural riches? The Illinois
+and Michigan canal must be completed. The rivers must be made navigable.
+At least two railroads must be constructed, which should cross the state
+from north to south, and from east to west. The credit of the state must
+be pledged for a loan of money; and the interest on the loan should be
+paid by the sales of the land, which Illinois had been granted by the
+Federal government for the canal.
+
+Douglas was full of youthful enthusiasm for this work of building up
+the state. I could see his great energies moving like a restless tide
+through them as he talked these projects over with Reverdy and me. I was
+only too glad to lend him my help. It was to my interest. I trusted his
+judgment, too. I saw moderation and wisdom in his policies.
+
+Already it was apparent that Douglas stood upon no idealistic
+immovability when the main thing was at stake. And hence, when the bill
+which was brought in on the subject of railroads, appropriated the money
+for eight railroads instead of Douglas' two, and bestowed consolations
+here and there to counties in order to get their support, Douglas showed
+his reluctance, but gave his vote. The state capital was moved to
+Springfield as a part of the give and take of logrolling.
+
+But on the occasion of this call Douglas stood for a very moderate
+program, as I have already said. When he was elected and had legislative
+power he surrendered his moderation in order to get the railroads. In
+fact the people were moving in this direction; there was much
+magnificent dreaming and hazardous experimentation and the general
+result could not be prevented.
+
+I had gone to see Reverdy, partly to inquire about Zoe, partly with the
+hope that I could gain help as to Dorothy. Now he had come to me with
+Douglas; and all the talk was of politics, with no chance to draw
+Reverdy aside for a private word. When they arose to leave Reverdy took
+my hand. His eyes grew wonderfully deep and sympathetic. Then with a
+slap upon my back and a congratulation that I would help Douglas, the
+two departed.
+
+Then I began to think whether I should write Dorothy. Yes, her letter
+demanded some reply. As I sat down to write, Dorothy's view became mine
+in a flood of emotion of love's willingness to sacrifice. And I wrote:
+
+"Dear Dorothy: The only thing I can say in my own behalf is that I found
+myself suddenly placed in this position as Zoe's brother, without
+understanding, or only understanding gradually what it meant to me, or
+would mean to any one else. I have been learning all of these things;
+and your letter makes them clear to me. I did not come straight home but
+went to New Orleans; and your letter had been here some days when I
+returned. I must tell you that Zoe disappeared in my absence. I don't
+know where and cannot learn. I am fearful for her; and there are many
+possible complications. But I am powerless to do anything at this time.
+She may never return. She may fall into strange hands and make some new
+relations which will come back upon me and upon any one I cared for with
+embarrassing results. I am in a position where I can make no assurances.
+I feel like asking you to forgive me for causing you any suffering or
+anxiety. I should not have asked you to marry me. It was thoughtless;
+but I could not with my experience and knowledge of things understand
+all that my request might mean. As you are Reverdy's sister I can't help
+but feel a tender and protecting interest in you, whatever may come of
+it. And I hope life may deal with both of us in such a way that any harm
+I have done you will be overcome by some good that I may be to you. And
+without asking to see you again I still keep the hope that fate will be
+good enough to let me meet you sometime when a clasp of the hand will be
+welcome to you and with no consequences that are not pleasant."
+
+And then I sealed the letter for mailing and retired; but not to sleep,
+rather to turn restlessly for some hours in the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Fortunately for my peace of mind I had much to do and much to interest
+me. The country was developing rapidly under my eyes. Thousands of farms
+were coming into cultivation. The prairie grass was vanishing before the
+corn. Villages were springing up everywhere. Jacksonville was growing. A
+furor of land selling, the selling of lots and blocks in the newly
+formed towns, swept over the state. And my own farm had increased in
+value, both because of the care I had given it and because of the
+growing population. For in truth, while Illinois had about 160,000
+inhabitants when I came to it, now as we approached the year 1837 it was
+estimated that there were nearly 400,000 souls within its borders.
+
+Douglas had no sooner become a member of the legislature, as it seemed
+to me, than he resigned to take the office of register of land in
+Springfield, which was now the capital of the state. He was reported to
+me to be making a great deal of money now, sometimes as much as $100 a
+day. I saw him in the summer. He was a figure of dash, self-possession,
+energy and clear-headedness. He confided to me that he intended to run
+for Congress. He was now twenty-four, a political leader in his party,
+fearless, dreaded, and resourceful.
+
+Douglas had advised me to read political history. Accordingly, during
+the long evenings at the farm, I had gone through Elliott's _Debates_
+and the _Federalist_. My grandmother sent me De Tocqueville's _De la
+Démocratie en Amérique_, which I read in French.
+
+But now I began to see that abolition sentiment was growing. Societies
+were being formed and had been for about two years in the northern part
+of the state. Here in Jacksonville the agitation of the slavery question
+was frowned upon; but it was fermenting under the surface of southern
+sentiment.
+
+I was now treated to an American panic, and times were hard. The East
+wanted a tariff to protect its manufacturers; the South wanted land and
+slaves. Texas had been filling up with Americans since 1820. She seceded
+from Mexico and declared her independence now; and General Houston, a
+Virginian by birth, a Tennesseean by residence, had taken command of the
+Texas troops, and after the Alamo massacre, had defeated the Mexicans
+with terrible slaughter in the battle of San Jacinto. The New England
+conscience excoriated these things and attributed them to the
+machinations of the slavocracy. But while Douglas had no mastery of the
+tariff question in its details, his mind shot through to the general
+philosophy of it. He often said to me that books and works of art should
+be admitted free of duty. He was wont to laugh at the New England
+conscience which could swallow the tariff and the growing factory
+system, and yet reject with such holy loathing cotton and slavery. He
+could not handle statistics, but he was a master of principles.
+
+As my grandmother was writing me regularly of affairs in England, of the
+progress of events, of the building of railroads, of Charles
+Wheatstone's electric telegraph, and of the new books of moment, I on my
+part was attempting to keep her informed of my life, and of the swiftly
+moving panorama of Illinois life. And here I insert one of my letters to
+her because it covers so much of the ground of this time of my life.
+
+"Dear Grandmama: I have before written you of my friend Mr. Douglas who
+came to Illinois just a little while before I did, and who has had such
+a phenomenal rise in life in this new country. He is now making ready to
+go to Congress, and I am to be one of the delegates to the convention
+which is expected to nominate him. Having resigned a very lucrative post
+in the Land Office, he has gone into the practice of law and the pursuit
+of politics. For the latter he has a positive genius, as his whole mind
+is taken up with visions and plans for the development of the country,
+and for the aggrandizement of the United States. He is honest and
+outspoken, courageous even to audacity; but he is sometimes accused of
+devious ways, and of taking up anything that has a stomach in it. But no
+one can say that he changes his principles; rather he avails himself of
+opportune conditions, which are many, to advance himself and the things
+he believes in. The country has no truer friend. Though I am an alien I
+am a resident, and therefore I can participate in political affairs and
+help him without being naturalized. At the present time Douglas is in
+Springfield, and is much in the office of one of the newspapers there,
+to which he contributes editorials sometimes. Recently the office was
+attacked by some men who had been accused of trickery of some sort by
+the newspaper. Douglas was present; and, though he is a little fellow,
+he helped to beat off the attacking parties; and in the general assault
+the sheriff was stabbed by one of the editors; but the matter has all
+blown over.
+
+"My own unfortunate affair has the appearance now of dying down.
+
+"A very terrible thing has happened in the killing the Reverend Lovejoy
+at Alton, a town not far from Jacksonville. He was running an abolition
+newspaper which was offensive to the slave interests or the peace
+interests, if you want to call them that. And persisting in his
+agitation of the slave question they undertook to destroy his press. In
+the altercation Lovejoy was shot. There is great feeling over the
+matter.
+
+"It is impossible for me to convey to you the intellectual atmosphere of
+the country. It is so full of contradictions and cross currents. For
+example, you come to believe that a Whig is against slavery. Then some
+one comes forward to propose a certain General Harrison, a leading Whig,
+for President in 1840; and some one arises to show that when he was
+Governor of Indiana, when it was a territory, he tried to introduce
+slavery, contrary to the Ordinance of 1787. I wrote you of this
+Ordinance before. Then there are the most numerous groups of people of
+every sort of weird convictions; some organized to oppose Masonry;
+others to curb the Irish and the Catholics; others to prohibit the use
+of wine and all intoxicants; others to advance the cause of free love;
+others to socialize the state. There are also religious societies here
+of every description, such as the Millerites who are now preparing for
+the Second Advent of Christ which they believe will take place in 1843.
+They are already making ready to leave their business, get their white
+robes, and await the Epiphany. In this state, at Nauvoo, a group called
+Mormons, who came here from Missouri, founded their faith upon a new
+revelation brought to light by two miraculous stones, said to have been
+discovered by a man named Joseph Smith. They practice polygamy, as in
+patriarchal times. They are already stirring up opposition to
+themselves, for where every one is so good and in his own peculiar way,
+hostility must result. And in this Democracy, so-called, all the really
+good people are in the business of forcing others to their own way of
+thinking. I must tell you also of a branch of the Presbyterian church
+which separated from the old church on the question of predestination
+and infant damnation. Of Baptists, Methodists, and others there are
+numerous sects, which in England would be frowned upon as various forms
+of ludicrous non-conformism. De Tocqueville's book, for which my thanks
+to you, dear grandmama, will preserve a very faithful picture of America
+of this day.
+
+"And it is refreshing, strengthening to the mind and clearing to the
+eye, to see Douglas and to hear him talk about all these things. He
+stands so clear, so pure of stock so to speak, amid all this variegated
+growth of political and social heresy. The other day when I was in
+Springfield I looked him up. Here he was talking of the Lovejoy matter,
+which led him into a cataloguing of the abolitionists, the anti-Masons,
+the Spiritualists, the Mormons, free lovers, old centralists, with the
+Whigs. I think he is proud that he has no hobby in the way of an ideal
+or ism. He seems unmagnetic to all such things. If he does not look with
+suspicion upon the reformer and accuse him of masking some selfish
+purpose, he is likely to think that the reformer is something of a fool.
+He gazes with an eagle's eye over the whole of American activity; he
+sees the South interested in cotton, the North concerned with its
+growing factories. Steam, iron, coal, and land figure in his deductions.
+He sees the country rising to power on them. And he sees men--whatever
+their professions--trying to advance their own interests. Hence he
+laughs down these queer political and religious groups; and while he
+deplores the death of Lovejoy, he takes it as a matter of course; the
+wringing of the nose brings forth blood. He is kindly and most loyal,
+fearless, clear-minded, and powerful; but he is unmoral. He sees the
+play of life. He sees the stronger getting more, Texas coming eventually
+to the United States, though blood be shed. The drift of things is
+impelled by great forces of ancient and world-wide origin. He believes
+with all his soul in the superiority of the white race, and that it must
+rule. At the same time Democracy is the thing, but Democracy let loose
+only after the philosophical channels have been cut. Notwithstanding his
+laughter at Mormonism, for example, he would not suppress it. He would
+let it work out its own fate. Free thought and free speech will kill it,
+or it will survive in spite of them because of its inherent strength, if
+at all. All together Douglas is very admirable to me. I think he is a
+genius; one of those human beings who was born old but who will always
+be young. And here he is in a country that is changing and growing like
+a village crowd upon a stage. Already Chicago has more than 4,000, and
+we are soon to have canals and railroads, thanks to Douglas more than to
+any other man in Illinois. 'The Great Northern Cross,' a railroad, is
+soon to be built starting at Meredosia on the Illinois River and running
+to Jacksonville.
+
+"As to my own affairs, dear grandmama, I have nothing to wish for in the
+way of material progress. Upon my return from New Orleans, whither I
+went in order to think down an unfortunate love affair, I found that Zoe
+had run away. I do not know where she is, and cannot learn by any means
+at my present command. Though, if Douglas is nominated for Congress, I
+mean to go about with him through the state. That will give me
+opportunity to search for her, particularly if we go to Chicago. Do
+write when you can, as letters are especially welcome to me from you
+here in this somewhat lonely life."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Because of the gossip concerning Zoe, and the fact that I had killed
+Lamborn, opposition was made to me as a delegate to the Congressional
+convention. I was an alien too; but that did not count. I was a resident
+and a large land owner.
+
+Though Douglas was but twenty-four years of age, he was already a giant.
+Opposition gave way before him; he stepped on his foes; he brushed
+tangles aside. A Mr. May, who was now in Congress, wanted to return. But
+he found he could not simply assume the nomination and place the
+responsibility for the assumption upon the request of "many friends"--a
+vague and specious way of covering up his own seizure of the honor. He
+had to face the convention system which Douglas had introduced into
+Illinois politics. And Douglas had Morgan County, his first home in
+Illinois, back of him; and Sangamon County, his home since he had gone
+into the legislature and the Land Office. Douglas was nominated.
+
+A cry went up. An experienced Congressman, Mr. May, had been ruthlessly
+put aside for the sake of an ambitious stripling! The Whigs rejoiced and
+said that no nomination than that of Douglas could suit them better. And
+the Whigs were powerful enough. They were coquetting with the
+Abolitionists; and they stood for the tariff and the bank. Besides,
+times were hard. It had been said that Jackson had set the tide of money
+scarcity to flowing; Van Buren had increased it. There were also
+disgruntled factions because of Douglas' so-called high-handed tactics
+in capturing the nomination.
+
+Then to make things worse the Democrats nominated a state ticket upon
+which two of the candidates had been in the Land Office. So had Douglas.
+Hence the cry: the Land Office Ticket. Douglas had made money, therefore
+down with him! Only poverty and humility deserved honor.
+
+I not only opened my purse to Douglas, for he was not in fact affluent;
+but I decided to travel with him in the campaign. True to his courage
+and his self-confidence he met his Whig opponent, Major Stuart, face to
+face in joint debate at Springfield. I was greatly thrilled with this
+contest. Major Stuart was very popular, an old resident, an officer in
+the Black Hawk War, and a brave one, Reverdy told me. He was of powerful
+physique, standing more than six feet, and equal to an arduous campaign.
+At Springfield Stuart and Douglas came to blows. Stuart tucked Douglas'
+head under his arm and carried him around the square; meanwhile Douglas
+bit Stuart's thumb almost in two. As a debater and campaigner Douglas
+was his superior. He made friends by the hundreds everywhere. He went
+down among the gay and volatile Irishmen who were digging the Illinois
+and Michigan canal, and won them to his cause. I was with him, watching
+his methods, marveling at his physical resources, his exhaustless
+oratory, the aptness and quickness of his logic.
+
+In the midst of the summer we decided to go to Chicago. Douglas'
+clothes, his boots, his hat, were worn almost to pieces. We were driving
+a single horse hitched to a buggy. The horse was weary; the harness was
+a patch of ropes. We could have made these things good with purchases
+along the way, but Douglas put off the day. At last we decided to make
+them in Chicago. He was loath to let me use my money for such needs as
+these, seeing that I had already contributed so much to campaign
+expenses. But I overbore his wishes.
+
+We were a comical pair driving into the hurly burly of the new city of
+Chicago. It had recently received a charter. But what a motley of
+buildings it was! Frame shacks wedged between more substantial buildings
+of brick or wood. Land speculators swarmed everywhere; land offices
+confronted one at every turn; lawyers, doctors, men of all professions
+and trades had descended upon this waste of sand and scrub oaks about
+the lake. Indians walked among the whites; negroes as porters, laborers,
+bootblacks, were plentiful; there were countless drinking places and new
+hotels; there were sharpers, adventurers, blacklegs, men of prey of all
+description, prostitutes, the camp followers of new settlements, houses
+of vice, restaurants, gardens. And with all the rest of it evidences of
+fine breeds, and civilizing purposes in some of the residences and
+activities. After all a city was to be built.
+
+And here we were--a sorry pair indeed! Douglas, worn from his
+campaigning, battered and frayed; myself, dusty and unkempt, entering
+Chicago behind a horse dragging its body harnessed in patches to a
+rattling buggy. We laughed at ourselves.
+
+Douglas and I went to a clothing store where I insisted upon fitting him
+out with a suit and a hat. We bought a new harness for the horse. Then
+we set forth for meals and drinks.
+
+Somehow I felt that Zoe might be in some concert hall singing for the
+means of life. A darker idea crossed my mind, but I put it away. I told
+Douglas that I meant to find Zoe, if I could. After our meal we went
+from place to place in this quest. Douglas did not try to dissuade me,
+but he looked at me keenly as if he wondered why I wished to find Zoe.
+Why, after all? As years elapsed I would be rid of all associated memory
+of her in Jacksonville. Might not Dorothy come back to me if she knew
+that Zoe had wholly vanished from my life? Yet something of a sense of
+responsibility, and something of an affection for Zoe kept my mind fast
+to the idea of finding her. Up and down the streets of Chicago Douglas
+and I walked, looking for Zoe.
+
+Once I heard a woman's voice singing "Annie Laurie." I rushed into the
+place whence the voice came, followed deliberately and patiently by
+Douglas. There stood a woman on a sort of platform. She was garishly
+dressed. There were idlers and drinkers at the table. When we came out
+Douglas said that the search was useless; that if Zoe was in Chicago
+she might be in a place so secret that I would never find her, except by
+chance. Yes, I understood. And if it had come to that, what could I do
+with Zoe, if I found her?
+
+Chicago was not long in discovering that Douglas, the marvelous boy, was
+in their midst. He must make an address. They erected a platform and
+billed the town. I stayed near until Douglas rose to speak. He looked
+fresh and tidy in his new suit, and with freshly shaven face. I heard
+his great voice roll out over the large crowd collected to hear him. I
+heard the applause that welcomed him, that responded to the first thrill
+of his fluent eloquence. Then I stole away to look for Zoe.
+
+I walked up and down the streets. I stood in drinking places. I entered
+a few places of vice. I stopped at the rear of a hotel, where the maids
+were gathered together resting and talking after the day's work. But no
+Zoe.
+
+At last I went down to the shore of the lake, rather to the shore of the
+sluice through which the Chicago River widened into the lake in a
+southerly direction. I sat here on a rude settee. The air was warm.
+There were sounds and voices floating over me from the town.
+Occasionally I could hear the organ music of Douglas' oratory, as it
+drifted indistinguishably to me. I was thinking, wondering about my own
+life; enthralled at the vision of this new country, which I could see
+taking form before my own eyes. Then I became conscious of a couple on a
+settee near. I had not noticed them before. I got up and walked past
+them. And there was Zoe!
+
+It was dusk, but she knew me. She gave a quick start, put her hand to
+her mouth. The man was silent, looking at her, unconscious of my
+presence. I divined that she did not want me to speak to her. I heard
+her say to her companion: "Go back. Leave me here awhile, I want to be
+alone. I will return soon."
+
+I walked on a distance of a hundred yards or more. Then I looked back. I
+thought some one, Zoe, or both of them were still on the settee. I could
+not be sure. I retraced my steps. When I came to the settee the man was
+some distance away, going toward the town. Zoe motioned to me to walk
+the way I had come. I did so; loitered and returned. Zoe was now alone.
+I sat down beside her; Zoe took my hand.
+
+My first thought was who was the man. Zoe proceeded to tell me that she
+was working as a domestic, that this man was a voice teacher who had
+recently arrived in Chicago from New York. I looked at Zoe, as if to ask
+her what was the nature of the intimacy that would lead her into this
+association at night in this secluded place by the lake. I followed this
+by asking: "Are you very good friends?" "He is kind to me," Zoe said.
+"He teaches me and we walk out together and talk."
+
+Well, were there not then the usual consequences? Zoe was remarkably
+beautiful; Zoe's morale had been broken by a terrible experience. She
+had gone through the disintegration natural to my own difficulties, of
+which she was the occasion; the killing of Lamborn, the whole condition
+at Jacksonville. And now, what was Zoe? I could not penetrate her
+reserve. She stroked my hands affectionately. The tears started from her
+eyes.
+
+I changed the key by bringing up her interests. "Reverdy is your
+guardian and I am putting your property in his hands. Don't you need
+money? Why haven't you sent for money?" "Because," Zoe answered, "I
+meant to go out of your life, and stay out of your life. Now that you
+have found me it does not matter. All I could do would be to run off
+again. But why? This is a wonderful place. I love the excitement, the
+stir here. And I am in no danger here from being kidnapped. I don't want
+to go into the country again. I will be all right, James, be sure. But
+if you want to send me some money I will be glad. Only don't come for
+me; don't have me known in your life again. I am out of it now. You
+can't do for me what you could if I was white. Why try? Facts are just
+what they are. I will be all right here. I am learning to sing. Mr.
+Fortescue says that I have a voice. That's his name. He is a good man,
+you can be sure." "He loves you?" I interrupted. Zoe did not answer. "He
+wants to marry you?" I said, half interrogatively. "I don't believe I am
+made for marriage," said Zoe. "Where do you work?" I asked.
+
+Zoe was silent for some seconds, as if thinking. I repeated the
+question. "Don't ask me that, Mr. James, don't," she said. "I know where
+you are, I know where to find you. And if you need me I will come to you
+if I can; but don't ask me where I am." "How can I send you money?"
+"Send it to the post office. Send it to Laurette Toombs. That's my name
+here. But don't try to find me again. I just pray God all the time that
+I may never be of any trouble to you; and I am afraid all the time I
+may." "Why?" I asked quickly. "Oh, I don't know; just because things are
+what they are. I have already made you a world of trouble. And you have
+been just as good to me as a brother could be. I just pray God not to
+make you any more trouble. I must go." Her voice had grown full of
+pathos. "Where?" I asked. "Don't follow me, Mr. James, just let me go. I
+am a grown woman. I must lead my own life. Just be good to me as you
+have been--don't you understand? I grieve. So be good to me, let me
+manage myself and manage our meetings, whatever they are. Sit here now
+while I steal away. Promise me."
+
+Zoe got up, stretched her hands to me, then hurried through the darkness
+to the town. I followed her with my eyes until she was lost to view. The
+voice of Douglas by a sudden swell of the air was borne to me. One
+articulate word fell upon my ears. It was "slavery." His voice lapsed
+into the silence of the receding breeze. I sat alone for a few minutes.
+Then I arose, and went to the place where Douglas was speaking.
+
+He was just finishing. In a burst of impetuous and impassioned
+eloquence he was pointing to the future glory of the United States, when
+Great Britain would own no foot of soil from the North Pole to the Gulf.
+The audience applauded tumultuously. Douglas stepped from the rude
+platform into the arms of bewitched admirers. He freed himself and came
+to me. He brought with him a Mr. DeWitt Williams who had prevailed upon
+Douglas to accept his hospitality for the night. As Douglas' traveling
+companion, I was invited to share in the entertainment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+I had no opportunity now to tell Douglas that I had found Zoe. Her own
+injunctions to keep her whereabouts a secret appealed to me. Perhaps her
+going away, the changing of her name, her determination to keep her life
+free from mine, made for a real solution. Perhaps she could continue in
+this way for years, taking from me what I might send her. Perhaps I
+could marry Dorothy eventually. Perhaps all would be well. Perhaps!
+
+When we were driving toward Springfield the next day I was on the point
+several times of telling Douglas that I had found Zoe. I wanted to
+discuss the possibilities with some one. Prudence, however, dictated
+silence--and silence I kept.
+
+Mr. Williams was a prospering lawyer and land speculator. He had been in
+Chicago for two years. His household consisted of Mrs. Williams and two
+children, and a Miss Walker from Connecticut, a sister of Mrs. Williams.
+The house was new and of some architectural pretentions, of brick, in
+the style of the houses I had seen in New York. It was well furnished.
+There were two servants; altogether an air of elegance about the
+establishment.
+
+We had a gay hour at breakfast, for Douglas was in one of his most
+engaging and talkative moods. Mr. Williams was a man in the middle
+forties, and seemed colorless and unschooled in comparison with Douglas.
+He shared Douglas' political opinions, looked upon him with a certain
+awe; while Mrs. Williams and the children kept a reverential silence.
+
+But Miss Walker! I saw that she was disposed to match wits with Douglas.
+She was exceedingly fair of complexion, with lovely brown hair and
+gray-blue eyes, which had a way of fixing themselves in an expression of
+intense concentration. Like sudden spurts of flame they lighted quickly
+upon the barely suggested point of a story or an argument. She laughed
+freely in a musical voice that encouraged Douglas to multiply anecdotes.
+Douglas enjoyed this admiration. But after all his attitude toward women
+was wholly conventional. He did not use his gifts to win them. The idea
+of making conquests, even through his growing celebrity, did not enter
+into his speculations. He was a man's man. If he was ever to be
+interested in a woman it would be in the practical way of making her his
+wife. He could be a husband, never a lover. His genius, though fed by
+passion and virility, entertained no visions of romantic ecstasy. His
+instinct was for the laws.
+
+Miss Walker was to Douglas only a delightful auditor, an apt
+interlocutor. She looked Douglas through and through. She dropped words
+of dissent. She expressed her abhorrence of slavery and the South. In
+referring to South Carolina's attempted nullification of the tariff law,
+she said that if they ever attempted to secede they should be pushed
+out of the door and not held. I thought her critical of Douglas, in
+spite of the amazement which her eyes betrayed for his conversational
+gifts, his self-assurance and brilliancy. Once she said that there was a
+right and wrong about everything. And when Douglas glanced up at her
+quickly, her eyes fixed him steadily. Douglas took up this challenge by
+saying: "Yes, but who is to decide what is right and what is wrong; or
+what is to decide it? The progress of the country or the opinions of
+fanatics?" "The minds of big men," retorted Miss Walker. "And since you
+have spoken of a great territory for the United States let me bespeak
+big men for it instead. Persia you know was a big country." "Why make
+the two inconsistent?" asked Douglas. "You can have both." "No, not
+where you make material progress the never-ending thought of every one."
+
+Mr. Williams had many things on his mind, that was apparent. His haste
+in eating, his self-absorption showed that. Yet after breakfast he
+lingered for half an hour; and during this time Miss Walker, who had
+noticed me no more up to now than as one of the persons at the table,
+came to a seat near me in the living room. She was lovely to look at,
+but in a way half prim. The whiteness of her forehead, the fineness of
+her hands, her air of clear and quick intellectuality, made her a person
+to inspire something of deference. And yet I felt myself captivated by
+her. Surely in every thinking man's heart there is a biological groping
+toward a woman of mind. Shadowy forms rise undistinguished before him.
+They are the children that such a woman can bear. He does not know that
+this is the urge; but nature knows. On Miss Walker's part, I saw her
+appraising me. She had come west where life was luxuriant and the
+accidents of fortune abundant and men were strong. She had now
+overstayed her visit with Mrs. Williams. Was to-day her day of destiny?
+Here before her were the rising statesman of Illinois and a man who had
+increased a fortune.
+
+She was coming to Springfield shortly to visit. Would I be there? Did I
+know the Ridgeway family there, of which Edward Ridgeway, the founder,
+had been prominent in the affairs of Illinois, now dead some five years?
+If I came to Springfield she would be glad to have me call upon her.
+Well, perhaps she liked me and did not like Douglas after all. Was I
+drawn to her? I felt some definite interest in her, that was sure. But I
+was not forgetting Dorothy. Dorothy could not be obscured by a light as
+white as Miss Walker's. And yet I had to confess that I was thinking of
+Miss Walker in a half serious way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Douglas' hard campaign was ended when we arrived in Springfield. His
+humorous remark was that he had the constitution of the United States.
+He was never so wholly fatigued that a drink or a meal would not pull
+him up to a zest and a capacity for a further task. A little sleep
+restored him to a new exuberance. Truly, he was one of the most vital
+men who come into the world for a restless career.
+
+On the way back we noted how rapidly the country was changing. The
+influx of settlers was very great. Villages, towns were springing up
+everywhere. Farmhouses were multiplying. Douglas was enthusiastic over
+the great prosperity which was evident. As an empire builder his
+imagination was stirred. If he was not elected to Congress he would have
+to go back to the practice of law. At this period of his life he was the
+eager and ambitious youth pressed in the matter of money. I saw his
+career influenced, if not largely shaped, by material necessity. And as
+it turned out in the election in August he was defeated by thirty-five
+votes in a total poll of 36,000. We did not know the result of the
+election until several weeks later, due to the tardy facilities for
+communicating news.
+
+He had fought against an able and experienced campaigner. He had the
+handicap of extreme youth. He had to meet the slurs of "interloper," and
+the charge of being a pushing newcomer. And yet he was almost elected.
+There were discrepancies in the count, too. He was urged to contest the
+election. But the expense was too great. He was poor.
+
+There was much about Douglas to remind one of Napoleon: drive, will,
+resourcefulness, exhaustless energy. Too bad to remit such a man to the
+business of getting clients. He was not a plodder. He was a mind who saw
+men in large aggregations bound to each other by policies and interests.
+He knew how to handle them as material in empire building.
+
+On that ride back to Springfield he talked to me of many things that
+gave me an insight into the workings of his mind. For the dreamer, the
+visionary, he had no patience; he felt contempt for the agitator and the
+radical. In a theory preoccupying the human mind he saw something akin
+to madness. Mormonism, abolitionism, all the various forms of propaganda
+which made American life so clamorous, found a common classification in
+his tabulation of men. What was really before the country? Truly, the
+conquest of the wilderness, the production of wealth, the development of
+national power; but always the rule of the people too. "There are two
+things in my life," he said to me. "One is the fact that I got mad at my
+uncle, and the other is the inspiration that I get out of these
+prairies. Add to these what mind I have, and the sum is myself."
+
+When we parted in Springfield, and I was about to return to my farm in
+Jacksonville, he could not thank me enough for what I had done for him.
+But I was his friend, and why not? I saw him later when a dinner was
+given at Quincy in honor of the Democratic governor-elect whose success
+Douglas had done so much to bring about. All the speakers paid tribute
+to Douglas amid storms of applause. They assured him that his firm
+integrity, the high order of his talent had endeared him to the people;
+and that he would be remembered in two years with another nomination.
+
+As soon as I saw Reverdy I told him that I had found Zoe and all the
+circumstances and about Fortescue. Reverdy thought that I should send
+Zoe money for living expenses on the first of each month; and so I
+began.
+
+But neither Reverdy nor myself could work out any permanent program for
+Zoe. After all, what was humanly possible? Zoe was now about nineteen.
+If she was dealt with justly as to her property what more could I do? If
+there was danger from Fortescue, or any one else, I was powerless to
+prevent it. Since she did not wish to live with me, I had no power to
+make her do so.
+
+In November Reverdy and I went to Meredosia to see the locomotive which
+had been shipped from Pittsburgh for Illinois' first railroad. All of
+the horses and oxen of the neighborhood were required to pull the huge
+iron thing up the banks of the river; and scores of men in ant-like
+activity worked about it to place it upon the rails. Douglas was in the
+crowd, happy and enthusiastic. He joined the party, headed by Governor
+Duncan, in the first journey that a steam train ever made in the state.
+He tried to make a place for Reverdy and me; but the Governor had filled
+all the seats with his friends: so we stood as spectators, while the new
+wonder moved on its way, pulled by the queer locomotive, amid the shouts
+of the crowd, responded to by the calls of those on board.
+
+Going back to Jacksonville I ventured to talk to Reverdy about Dorothy.
+He knew well enough what my feeling was for her. He knew the story; he
+knew her attitude. He did not share in her fears, in her feeling about
+Zoe. He was frank to say that Zoe could do nothing, could be nothing
+that need affect my life in any way more serious than if her skin was
+white. But he explained that Dorothy had the southern view; and if I
+wished to wait and see if she could work herself out of doubts, well and
+good; and if I could not further hope he could understand that too. I
+wanted to write to Dorothy to tell her that Zoe was still away and that
+I thought she would never return. But perhaps after all Dorothy's
+attitude was founded in an innate prejudice against the relationship to
+which she would make herself a party by marrying me. Was this not
+perfectly unreasonable? It made me distrust Dorothy's nature at times.
+What was she after all? Finally, however, I wrote to Dorothy as best I
+could and after many ineffectual trials at expressing myself. Promptly
+enough a letter came back. It was not lacking in kindness, but it
+offered no hope. Hurt and listless I tried to turn my thoughts to other
+things. There were always my growing enterprises--and yet to what end?
+To be rich, to be richer.
+
+When December came I had a letter from Miss Walker. She was in
+Springfield at the Ridgeway mansion for a visit through the holidays.
+There were to be parties and dances. Why did I not come over? And I
+went.
+
+I looked up Douglas at once. He was making some headway at the practice
+of law, but his energies, for the most part, were absorbed in perfecting
+the organization of his party. He was putting together a compact
+machine. He was on the very edge of being the leader of the Illinois
+Democracy. What infinite details there are to any given end! If it is
+the building of a house, tools must be bought, trees felled, foundations
+dug. A carpenter's finger must be bandaged so that he can go on with the
+work. Cloth must be found for the bandage and a string with which to tie
+it. And so Douglas was engaged in infinite talks on the corners, at the
+newspaper office; he was making short trips; he was writing dozens of
+letters, he was inserting editorials in the newspapers. But he had time
+for the gayeties of the season.
+
+He was always the gallant, the amusing wit, the ready raconteur. We were
+such friends! Again Miss Walker had both of us for attendants; but upon
+such widely different footing. I was a suitor with many doubts. Douglas
+was not a suitor at all. He came to her to enjoy the keenness of her
+mind.
+
+But as I was English, and as Miss Walker thought herself the next thing
+to it, she took me aside as an understanding confidant as to the life
+around us. Springfield was almost a mudhole. She was offended by it, but
+also she found much in it to make her laugh. There were the gawks; the
+sprawling ill-bred men; the illiterate young women; the mushroom life;
+the haste, the crudities of living; the ugliness and the disorder; the
+unsettled, ever restless, patchy catch as catch can existence; the
+attempt, in a word, to make life, to build a town, a capital. All this
+shocked or amused her. Did I not see it with English eyes used to
+tranquillity and order? She wondered why Douglas had left the East. He
+could have risen there in time; and when he should have done so it would
+have been an eminence. Had he not acquired brusqueness, vulgarity since
+coming west? A man of undoubted gifts, she conceded--yet. Perhaps I was
+her favorite after all.
+
+To test her out, I put my own story around the life of a friend, telling
+her of a man who had married an octoroon, leaving a daughter of color
+and a son by a previous marriage with a white woman; also describing the
+consequences that had ensued. Miss Walker heard me with interested
+attention. She admitted that the complications were serious.
+Undoubtedly, many women in the West would care nothing about such a
+relationship, there was so much indifference here to form and breeding;
+anything for a husband, anything to get along in the world. Well, if
+Miss Walker from Connecticut could see my relationship to Zoe in such a
+light, could I blame Dorothy from Tennessee for judging it more
+seriously? Perhaps after all this was a woman's reaction to my story.
+
+Later I had a party at my house, inviting all the young crowd of
+Springfield to come over. Douglas came too, and Reverdy and Sarah and
+Mr. and Mrs. Sturtevant. It was just after Christmas. We had a roaring
+fire in the fireplace. We popped corn and pulled candy. I brought in my
+old fiddler from the woods to play for us. We danced. These festivities
+were in honor of Miss Walker, and she entered into the fun with great
+zest. Day by day we were better friends. When she came to go back to
+Springfield she was no longer Miss Walker to me, she was Abigail. I was
+not in love with her--there was Dorothy still in my heart. Yet I was
+very fond of her. I thought she approved of me. As we parted she asked
+me why I did not come to Chicago. It was fast growing into a city. What
+better field for making money? Vaguely the idea entered my mind and
+began to mature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+The truth was that the loneliness in my life was depressing me; it was
+in a sense work without hope--only the hope of being rich. While I could
+not doubt Abigail's fitness as a mate for me, and though I was in
+desperate need of a companion, Dorothy would not out of my mind and my
+heart. My indomitable will had asserted itself in the pursuit of
+Dorothy. Even if my judgment had favored Abigail I could not have given
+up Dorothy. To surrender the hope of Dorothy was to leave something in
+my life unfinished; and that was contrary to my tenacious purpose. I
+could not hear Abigail's voice without comparing it to the softer
+modulations of Dorothy's. I could not be in the presence of Abigail
+without feeling that there was something more kindred to me in the
+personality of Dorothy. And yet I had to confess on reflection that I
+was not sure of this. Dorothy wrote to me on occasion, but there was
+really nothing in her letters to keep hope alive. All the while my life
+was going on in labor, in planning, in building, with Mrs. Brown to keep
+my house. Even Zoe did not write to me. I knew that she was receiving
+the monthly allowance from the fact that my letters were not returned.
+However, at last one was sent back to me.
+
+Then in the late winter I was surprised one day by the visit of a
+stranger--and a strange character he was too. He introduced himself to
+me as Henry Fortescue of Chicago--and as Zoe's husband! I remembered; he
+was the voice teacher with whom Zoe was sitting on the lake front. He
+began by saying that he had come with very unwelcome news and upon a
+sorrowful mission. Zoe was dead! Zoe had met her death by foul play. She
+had been found strangled to death in her bed.
+
+I glanced in horror at this unknown character. He went on to tell me
+that suspicion had fastened itself upon a half-breed who came to the
+house where Zoe lived. He had been arrested, was soon to be tried. As to
+Fortescue's visit here, he had come to see about Zoe's land and
+interests. He had married Zoe some weeks before her death. Without
+knowing much about such matters I went at once to the point.
+
+I asked Fortescue what proof he had of the marriage. I began to suspect
+Fortescue of being the murderer himself. So many desperate deeds were
+done in this country; so many dishonest expedients resorted to for
+money, for land. My question gave Fortescue embarrassment. He stammered,
+colored a little, then went on to say that he had witnesses to the
+marriage; that the ceremony was not performed by a minister, but that he
+and Zoe had entered into a common-law marriage. I did not know exactly
+what this was and at once determined to see Douglas about it.
+
+Meanwhile I was compelled to suffer Fortescue to wander over the farm.
+He took it upon himself to do so; and I scarcely knew how to forbid him.
+I did stay him, however, from looking through my house. I saw that he
+was a hungry dog, an impoverished wanderer who had fallen into means,
+if, indeed, he was Zoe's husband.
+
+The question now was, how to get him away; how, without denying he had
+any rights, to keep him from assuming an attitude of proprietorship. I
+thought it best to go with him. Accordingly, as I had proposed that we
+go to Springfield at once, we rode partially across the farm in going to
+Jacksonville. I told Fortescue frankly that I would have to look into
+his proofs, and that I meant to go to Chicago, and that it was my duty
+to see to it that Zoe's murderer was punished.
+
+I stopped a few minutes to talk to Reverdy and Sarah. Reverdy was all
+sympathy and wondered what misfortune would befall me next. Sarah wept
+for Zoe's fate and for the trouble that it involved me in. She went to
+the window and looked out. There was Fortescue waiting for me,
+apparently glowing for the good fortune that had come to him. And here
+was I in the house of Dorothy's brother and unable to put out of mind
+the hope that Zoe's death would change Dorothy's decision, even while I
+was grieving for Zoe. Like a spider at its door Fortescue was waiting
+for me. Whether he or I should be more benefited by Zoe's death remained
+to be seen. As I left I asked Reverdy to write Dorothy and tell her what
+had happened to Zoe.
+
+When we got to Springfield I left Fortescue to his own ways. I looked
+up Douglas and asked his advice. As always, he was busy in politics. He
+was now master of his party's organization. But as I had tortures
+because of my position he had anxieties because of the lack of means.
+The law business did not bring him a great deal; it could not, for his
+mind was on other things. He was trying to be secretary of state in
+order to supplement his earnings as a lawyer. He was catching at
+whatever offered to float himself along. His life was, therefore,
+patchy. Would it ever be a whole, well-fitting garment to his great
+genius?
+
+I took up with him at once the matter of Zoe's common-law marriage.
+There was first the question whether Zoe could enter into any marriage
+with a white man. But I had settled that with Mr. Brooks, when going
+into that matter of my father's marriage with Zoe's mother. Zoe was not
+a negro, not a mulatto; she had less than one fourth negro blood.
+Therefore, she did not fall under the inhibitions of the Illinois law
+forbidding marriages between persons of color, negro or mulatto, with a
+white person. Douglas confirmed what Mr. Brooks had told me; and he gave
+me the opinion that a common-law marriage was legal, but that Fortescue
+would have to bring witnesses to Jacksonville to testify that he and Zoe
+had taken each other as husband and wife; and that this had been
+followed by an assumption of the marriage relation.
+
+Douglas advised me to look carefully into the proofs. Well, why should
+he not return to Chicago with me and help with the investigation? He was
+willing. Meanwhile Fortescue was waiting for me. When I told him that I
+was coming to Chicago with a friend he looked suspicious, as if he
+thought that I was trying to evade him. As he began to press me then,
+saying that we could all travel together, I forgot myself for the moment
+in a rise of temper. "The land can't get away; nothing can run away; and
+you can't get anything until you prove your case. I am going to Chicago
+with a friend. I will see you there. You can go your own way." Fortescue
+acquiesced apologetically; and having done with him for the time, I
+turned again to visit with Douglas.
+
+I had never seen him in a more interesting mood. He wished for good
+fortune to befall him so that he could do something for the education of
+the young, since his own opportunities had been limited. In this
+connection he spoke of the grants of land which had been made to
+Illinois for institutions and schools of higher learning. And while
+talking of the Louisiana territory which Napoleon had granted to
+America, and of Texas whose recent independence the United States had
+recognized, his imagination glowed before the future power and glory of
+the country. He was delighted that so many Germans and Irish, fleeing
+from disorder and oppression in Europe, were seeking freedom and
+opportunity here, and filling up the new lands. But while my inheritance
+of a few thousand acres was already perplexing me, Douglas was still
+free of the great calamity that would befall him because of the new
+domains! If Zoe as one of the numerous persons of color had already
+involved my life, how terribly would the curse pronounced upon the
+descendants of Ham fall upon this Titan, this nation builder! Douglas
+indulged his satirical talent in an amusing description of General
+Taylor who was now talked of by the Whigs for President. He charged the
+Whigs with cunningly picking rough and ready characters, pioneer types,
+for their appeal to the plain people--pioneer types who really
+entertained monarchistic principles. There was already much talk that
+Texas was being drawn toward the United States by the slavocracy. Well,
+what of it? The main thing was to get Texas. What is this sanctimonious
+talk in prose and verse in England about Texas? Douglas was very
+contemptuous of all of this.
+
+Fortescue took his way somehow to Chicago. Douglas and I traveled
+together. The first thing that Douglas sought to do was to look into the
+evidence as to the murder of Zoe, and this with reference to Fortescue's
+possible part in it. To this end Douglas sought the assistance of Mr.
+Williams. Though he kept a law office, his larger interests were real
+estate dealings. But he dropped everything to assist Douglas and me in
+arriving at the truth. We went to the jail and saw the half-breed who
+was charged with killing Zoe. The state's attorney had the half-breed's
+confession. Though he was half insane from drink when he did the deed,
+the prosecutor intended to ask for the death penalty. He was a
+half-breed!
+
+We intended to look up the witnesses, to learn from them the
+circumstances which attended the murder. The prosecutor, however, was
+disinclined to let us do this, and refused to give us their names. He
+stood on a matter of pride that he had the case in hand himself and had
+procured the confession. Douglas seemed to think it was unnecessary to
+pursue the matter, and that was Mr. Williams' attitude. In the hurry of
+these hours, dinner time having arrived too, we got into a haze--at
+least I did--about getting anything more definite. Douglas thought that
+the real question was the common-law marriage. If I wanted to prosecute
+Fortescue for the murder I could do it any time. In the meanwhile
+Fortescue would have to prove the marriage in order to derive any
+benefit from Zoe's death.
+
+We asked Fortescue what evidence he had of this marriage. "For one thing
+this," he said, bringing forth a ring which had the words, "to my
+husband Henry from Zoe" and the date engraved in it. Douglas wished
+Fortescue to produce the witnesses who were present at the marriage.
+This Fortescue refused to do. He became suddenly stubborn, almost
+sullen. In a bold way he said to us: "If you are not satisfied with
+this, I'll prove my case." "You will have to do that anyway," said
+Douglas, "and perhaps as this matter goes on you will not be so
+confident." Saying that he would come to Jacksonville with his proofs
+Fortescue left us and disappeared.
+
+Then Douglas turned to the talk of politics with his friends. Mr.
+Williams went to his office. I was left alone. Had we accomplished
+anything? I went back to see the state's attorney by myself, and asked
+him if he did not suspect Fortescue. The state's attorney said that the
+case was perfectly clear against the half-breed; that my only interest
+in the matter was the marriage and to go back and defend that if I
+chose, though he felt sure that Fortescue would amply prove that he had
+married Zoe. I dropped the whole thing and called upon Abigail.
+
+She began at once to urge me to come to Chicago. This was to be a city.
+The opportunities here were infinitely rich. The life was increasingly
+more interesting. She knew of my troubles, knew of the murder, for it
+had been the talk of the town. She urged upon me a new life. I did not
+need to sell my farm--leave it. Come to Chicago where fortunes were
+being made and where greater fortunes would come to men of vision and
+energy. We took a walk by the lake, which in reality only came to the
+shore far south of the town--south of the mouth of the river. Here the
+waves rolled upon the sand. What purity and blueness in the sky! To our
+right as far as we could see wastes of yellow sand, dunes, brush, small
+oaks and pines! Back of us a ragged and wild landscape being broken or
+leveled by builders, by the opening of streets and roads.
+
+Abigail was truly my friend, wise and sympathetic. Her clear-cut
+thinking sheared away accidental things, fringes of irrelevancy. I was
+so glad to get her opinion on the various things that perplexed me. She
+advised me to make the best fight I could against Fortescue. After that
+come to Chicago whatever the result. We parted with a clasp of the hand.
+Then I went to find Douglas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+At times afterward I reproached myself for not doing more to fix the
+guilt of Zoe's death upon Fortescue. Particularly as it became clear to
+me that his freedom from that responsibility energized his descent upon
+me for Zoe's interest in the farm. What had my generosity, foolish and
+boyish, come to after all?
+
+But on this trip to Chicago, whatever our resolutions were on the way,
+they melted or scattered when we found the half-breed had confessed;
+also when we talked to the witnesses. Douglas, too, though he had not
+slackened his interest in my behalf, had politics to occupy his mind.
+The presidential campaign was on. He was the leader of his party in
+Illinois; and his presence in Chicago was opportune.
+
+The half-breed was quickly tried, convicted, and hanged. And before I
+was scarcely ready Fortescue had come to Jacksonville with his witnesses
+to prove the marriage. I tried to engage Douglas as my counsel, but he
+was deep in campaigning. Accordingly I turned again to Mr. Brooks. There
+was nothing left of defense to us but the cross-examination of these
+unknown persons who came to swear that they were witnesses to the
+wedding. That Zoe and Fortescue had lived together as husband and wife
+there was little doubt. Had I not seen them together on the lake front
+in Chicago? Had not Zoe then hidden herself behind a suspicious
+reticence? These things corroborated the witnesses.
+
+Mr. Brooks' cross-examination was not very acute. Perhaps there was not
+much to ask. But we had no witnesses with whom to rebut Fortescue's
+claim. I could not conceive how I could find any such witnesses; but I
+had gone to Chicago and left without trying to do so. And neither
+Douglas nor Mr. Williams had suggested it.
+
+If some six men and two women were willing to swear that they were
+present to hear, and did hear, Zoe and Fortescue pledge themselves to
+each other, what could break the evidentiary effect? Fortescue had paid
+the expenses of these witnesses to Jacksonville; there was no attempt to
+hide that. But why not a formal marriage? They did not wish it that way.
+Was not this marriage as valid as any? To be sure. Then the ring! We
+made little of a defense. Mr. Brooks seemed overcome by the emphatic
+answers. We lost. And Fortescue came into my life as a co-tenant, a
+brother-in-law.
+
+Of course I inherited from Zoe too; but here was Fortescue, sharing in
+every acre, in every piece of timber in my house. Only a division by a
+court could set off to him his share and leave me in individual
+possession of mine.
+
+He came to Jacksonville to live. He went into possession of the hut.
+Whether I would or no, I had to confer with him about various things,
+fences, taxes, road service. He knew nothing of farming. He often came
+to ask me what to do, and I could not rebuff him. He brought strange
+characters about him, particularly some of the witnesses who had helped
+him to sustain his claim. He sent to borrow utensils, household
+necessities. He visited with my workmen, wasting their time, putting
+disturbing ideas into their minds. He was a consummate nuisance. And as
+usual I had much to do and to think of, and I spent lonely evenings when
+I did not see Reverdy and Sarah or the old fiddler.
+
+It was now left to me to institute a partition suit to divide the land
+between me and Fortescue. Mr. Brooks managed this admirably for me.
+There was danger that Fortescue might compel a sale of the whole farm
+and a division of the proceeds. There was my house, the attractive
+improvements around it, bright to the envious eye. Fortescue only had
+the hut. But at last acres were set off to him. I kept my house and the
+remainder of the land. And this was ended.
+
+But nevertheless I thought more and more of selling the farm, of moving
+to Chicago. Fortescue was an impelling cause to this step. I should in
+that event leave Reverdy and Sarah and little Amos. I should see less of
+Douglas. But I began to be desperately annoyed by my situation. I could
+not wholly live down the killing of Lamborn. There was the memory of
+Zoe. There was now Fortescue. And in Chicago there was Abigail, to whom
+I was writing. She had become a very close friend. She was urging me
+constantly to take up my residence in Chicago. But I could not leave
+without selling the land. I did not wish to sacrifice it. I did not
+think it wise to rent it. Indeed I could not rent it and derive the same
+income from it that I could by working it myself. I had not yet found a
+purchaser who would pay what it was worth.
+
+It was now the autumn of 1840. Sarah had two children beside little
+Amos, a boy born in August whom they had named Jonas. Dorothy had come
+from Nashville to help Sarah with the heavy household burdens that were
+now upon her.
+
+I saw a good deal of Dorothy at Reverdy's; she came to my house on
+occasions when I entertained. She was as lovely as ever, but she did not
+have Abigail's mind. She was luxurious in her temperament, aristocratic
+in her outlook and tastes. She did not stimulate me as Abigail did, but
+she involved my emotional nature more powerfully. Something of
+resentment fortified my present neutral attitude toward her. Why, after
+all, need Zoe have affected her so profoundly? Perhaps my own thinking
+was toughened by my experiences. I had killed a man for Zoe; I had been
+through a trial with Fortescue. Surely if there had been any bloom on me
+it had been rubbed off. Why had not Dorothy seen in me a practical,
+courageous heart, who took his fate and made the best of it? Was there
+something lacking of depth, of genuineness, in Dorothy's nature?
+
+There was much stirring now in the country due to the campaign. The log
+cabin was apotheosized; hard cider was the toast to America's greatness.
+The hero of Tippecanoe, the pioneer soldier, Indian fighter, the plain
+man, the Whig, was pitted against the well-groomed and resourceful Van
+Buren. Reverdy, because of his admiration for Douglas, was for Van
+Buren; and Dorothy had no thought of any other allegiance. We made up
+parties to attend the rallies, to see the marching men, to hear the
+speeches. Douglas, who was campaigning with tireless energy, came to
+Jacksonville to address the people. He was now twenty-seven and a
+master. He controlled the party's organization in Illinois. Practice had
+given solidity and balance to his oratory. He moulded the materials of
+all questions favorably to his side. Audiences rose up to him as if
+hypnotized. He swept Illinois for Van Buren. But Harrison and Tyler were
+elected. The vote of Illinois was a personal triumph for Douglas.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+A few days before Dorothy returned to Nashville we spent an evening
+together, first at Reverdy's home, later in a walk through the country.
+It was moonlight of middle November, and the air was mild with a late
+accession of Indian summer. I sensed in Dorothy a complete erasure of
+everything in my life that had stayed her coming to me as my bride. It
+was not so much what she said as it was her attitude, her tone of voice,
+her whole manner. But my own troubles had formed a nuclear hardness of
+thinking in me, which like a lodestar attracted what was for me, and
+left quiet and at a distance what was not mine.
+
+I was delighted to be with Dorothy, but I did not stand with her on the
+basis of my former emotional interest. In a way she symbolized the false
+standards, the languorous aristocracy of the South. She was a presence
+of romantic music, a warmth that produces dreams. She was not the
+intense light that shone around Abigail. I had a letter from Abigail in
+my pocket. Parts of it wedged themselves through Dorothy's words as she
+rattled on more and more. I might as well have been thinking of my
+troubles; but in point of fact it was of Abigail.
+
+Dorothy was not like Reverdy, nor was she like Sarah. If she had only
+been! A pathos was on me in this walk. The wind was blowing. The forest
+trees murmured like agitated water. The moon sailed high, and Dorothy
+walked by my side and talked. There was an evident struggle in her to
+bring me to her, to evoke the old ardor which had reached for her. But
+we returned to Reverdy's at last, and there had been no touch of hands,
+no tenderness. She stood momentarily at the gate. I gave her my hand,
+and with an impassive goodnight, she turned to the door and I went my
+way.
+
+Then regret came over me. Had I wounded her? And if I had, could I win
+her back? Did I wish to? I could not entirely bring myself to relinquish
+Dorothy for good. But did I really care for Abigail? I took out her
+letter and began to read it again in order to clear my thoughts: "Dear
+James: You must be beginning to perceive that day by day you are
+accomplishing certain things and thus forming your life. I admire
+greatly the way you took hold of the farm and the success that you have
+had with it; and I admire too the loyalty with which you have stood by
+your duty. Now I cannot help but urge you to come to Chicago. I feel
+something of a draw at times to return to the East; but, on the other
+hand, this growing town has an increasing fascination for me. It is
+already enlivened and bettered by many eastern people; and you would
+find a more interesting atmosphere than where you live now. I think some
+of the southern people who have settled middle Illinois are as fine as
+any one I have ever known; but I do not like the habits and the
+principles that go along with the southern institutions. If you could
+sell the farm you could use the money to make a very large fortune in
+Chicago. The campaign has interested me very greatly; it has been
+riotous and colorful and full of extravagance. There is no real truth in
+all this business. It is the lesser reality of deals and bargains,
+wheedling, persuasion, and vote-getting. And no one has the gift of
+specious logic and stump hypnotism better than Douglas. To me he is one
+of the greatest of small men. Have you read Emerson or Lowell yet? Here
+are new men of real thoughtfulness whose minds are upon the truth which
+does not fade with passing events. These questions about Texas and
+Oregon, about tariffs, about Whigs and Democrats, what are they but the
+cackle of the moment? And yet there is something pathetic about Douglas.
+Why does he not settle to the solid study and experiences of the law?
+Why this catching at this and the other opportunity? Mr. Williams says
+that Mr. Douglas has just accepted the Secretary of Stateship for
+Illinois. What an absurd thing for a lawyer to do! His career is so
+changeable, so flashy. He leaves himself open to the charge of scheming,
+grabbing, all sorts of things, though all the while he may be doing the
+best he can. Forgive my opinions, I love to express them to you. I look
+upon you as a fresh mind who can value the truth of things about it.
+Douglas may become a very great figure; but I can't help but believe
+that his restless life may bring him to disaster. Let us hope it won't.
+Meantime I wish for happiness for you. Your letters are very interesting
+and I am always glad to get them. Write me as often as you can, give me
+pictures of your life, the people. And do move to Chicago. Your friend,
+Abigail."
+
+I read this letter over more than once with reference to its
+characterization of Douglas. I could not share her opinions. Why could
+she not see that Douglas had always done his best? After all, what of
+the law? Douglas could not be patient with the rules that related to a
+land title while his thoughts were far afield in plans for the
+territorial greatness of his country. Meantime he had to earn his bread.
+He had never stooped to dishonor, to chicanery. He had caught at the
+driftwood of supporting offices in his swimming of the new stream of
+primitive life. He was poor. He had enemies. His eye was upon an
+eminence. He had to make the best of the materials at hand.
+
+I understood Douglas' difficulties because I had had difficulties of my
+own. I had not faced the world with poverty. But I had faced it with
+Zoe. I had not battled in issues which were influenced by the negro, but
+I had a social experience which Zoe had made and complicated for me. If
+Douglas was now in an office that belittled him, I was sorry, for I was
+his friend in all loyalty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Scarcely had Douglas settled as Secretary of State, when he resigned the
+office to become Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois. Abigail wrote
+me a most amusing and ironical letter on this sudden shift of his
+activities. "What do you think now?" was her query. "I think he is as
+well fitted to be judge as to be Secretary of State, which is not at
+all."
+
+When I wrote to Abigail I had news to tell her with reference to the
+farm. I believed I had found a purchaser in Springfield; and my trading
+talks with Washburton, for that was his name, had taken me over there a
+number of times. On one of these occasions I saw Douglas. He had been
+presiding over a proceeding that had something to do with the Mormons,
+in which he favored them. He was charged with placating their interests
+to win them to his political fortunes. "It was nothing of the sort,"
+said Douglas. "I only did my duty. What have I to gain by favoring them?
+There are a great many more people who hate them than those who have any
+use for them. Even my enemies know that. Do you know they say, Jim, that
+I grabbed this judgeship by some high-handed method. It's all a lie. I
+can do nothing to please some people. They don't like my conduct on the
+bench. You know how crude things are here. My throne is a platform with
+a table; and the audience sits so close to me that I can almost touch
+them. The other day I walked off the platform and sat for a moment with
+one of the spectators, an old friend. Somebody wrote this up for the
+newspaper and made a terrible fuss about it. I cannot please some
+people, no matter what I do."
+
+It was the winter and spring of 1841 that I was visiting Springfield
+about the sale of my farm. President Harrison had died after a month in
+office, and John Tyler had become President. Douglas was elated over
+this. "Tyler is a Democrat," said Douglas. "And we have taken victory
+out of defeat after all. He has vetoed the new bank bill true to the
+principles of Jackson; and he has been read out of the Whig party for
+doing so. Every member of his Cabinet but Webster has resigned, you
+know. The Whigs are getting nothing out of the triumphs of log cabins
+and hard cider. They are all a humbug. Their sins are finding them out.
+We will put in a thorough-going Democratic party in 1844."
+
+Douglas was talking the annexation of Texas. "Think of it," he said. "A
+territory 750 miles broad added to the domain of this country! The whole
+continent by right belongs to us. Do you think, if we once get it that
+there will be any whining that we should give it up? You have seen
+Illinois filling up; you have seen canals and railroads make their
+beginning here. Let's do the same for Oregon. I want you to rid yourself
+of any feeling for Great Britain, and use your English will to the
+making of America. Do for America what you would do for England, if you
+were living there. She would take the whole earth if she could get it.
+Let us take all of North America.
+
+"I am planning to run for Congress again. I am stifled in this little
+life. There is not enough for me to do here. I am restless to get out
+and help build up the West."
+
+I asked Douglas if I should move to Chicago. His eyes brightened. "Yes,"
+he said in his quick way. "That is a place of great opportunity. Go
+there, Jim. I will be there myself, eventually. You can become very rich
+there with the capital that you have for a start."
+
+Then I told him that I was trying to sell the farm; that I had about
+matured my plans to move. He was delighted. "I'll miss you here, but a
+friend is a friend to me, even up there. Go and build. You can help make
+a city. I want to see this state come into its own. I want to see
+schools everywhere, giving the advantages to the young which were denied
+to me. This is the most wonderful of states. Be glad that your destiny
+brought you here. At the present rate of immigration the population of
+Illinois will soon be a million. When you came here the population of
+the United States was about twelve million; now it is about seventeen
+million; it will soon be twenty million. Do you appreciate these
+figures? Look at the New Englanders, the Irish, the Germans that have
+poured into Illinois. Some of them come here with ideas that I find
+hostile to my ambitions. I have to win them to the liberty of the
+Democratic party, and keep them from stopping halfway, contented with
+the fraudulent liberty of the Whigs. I take them in hand at political
+gatherings; I love to persuade and shape them. I will fill this
+population of Illinois with love of Democratic ideas. What have the
+Whigs to offer? Look at the mixed blood of the Whigs, at their tainted
+ancestors. I take the greatest pleasure in exposing them. It is my fun
+and my work."
+
+With all this intellectual activity, Douglas was not a reader. I had
+found Emerson through Abigail; I read the _North American Review_, and
+Cooper's novels as they appeared. But Douglas had contempt for the moral
+idealism of New England. He thought it impractical. "You can't have a
+brain without a body," said Douglas. "Let the country develop its bones,
+its muscles, attain its stature. These men think the world is run by
+righteousness, especially if you let them prescribe the righteousness.
+But it isn't. It is run by interests. Roofs, clothing, and food must be
+taken care of; then cities. These men get preconceived ideas of God, and
+then want to force them on the great impulses of life. But they can't do
+it."
+
+I ventured to say that the two ran together. His reply was that nothing
+of idealism counted that did not harmonize with material interests.
+There would always be war so long as interests conflicted. The lesser
+had to give way to the larger. War was a factor in the game of
+supremacy, of life. If Great Britain stood in our way, fight her. If
+Mexico made trouble about Texas, conquer her. War is the execution of
+the law of progress. Reason can go only so far, and then the sharpness
+of the sword is necessary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+I sold the farm at last and moved to Chicago. It was with sorrow that I
+broke up my association with Reverdy and Sarah, and their little family.
+But I was much relieved to be out of the situation that had been so full
+of annoyance to me. I had friends to be sure, but I was English; I was a
+little reserved even yet; I was a driver, a money maker. Then there had
+been Zoe and Lamborn. Besides, the life on the farm was monotonous. The
+end of the day marked lonely hours for me. And I was looking forward to
+much association with Abigail.
+
+I saw her frequently now that I was in Chicago. She was teaching school.
+Mr. Williams, his wife, their children, were my first friends, the
+beginning of my new associations.
+
+I began at once to speculate in real estate. Mr. Williams proved an
+invaluable counsel in these ventures. I made money faster than I could
+ever have believed it possible to me. I was now very well off at
+twenty-seven. But was life nothing but money making?
+
+As I had sold the farm on partial payments I was compelled to make
+frequent trips to Springfield to collect the purchase money notes; and I
+always saw Douglas unless he was away campaigning. By the new census of
+1840 Illinois was entitled to seven Congressmen instead of the four
+which it had hitherto been allowed. A legislature had reapportioned the
+state in such a way as to give Douglas a chance to be elected. Douglas'
+friends had called a convention. The re-apportionment of the state was
+charged to be arbitrary; the convention was styled "machine-made" with a
+view to Douglas' nomination. Had he had a hand in this--the young judge
+of the Supreme Court? If so, many others had had a hand in it.
+
+In the convention Douglas' friends rode roughly over the other
+aspirants; and when he received the prize they withdrew and accorded him
+their support. All of this was the perfection of party organization, to
+which Douglas, with a leader's genius, had directed his party from the
+moment he had set foot in Jacksonville. Douglas found an opponent in a
+Whig of Kentucky birth. A Democrat from Illinois, a Whig from
+Kentucky--such was the anomalous situation. And both agreed about taking
+over the Oregon territory. But Douglas was the better campaigner, the
+more winning personality, the more indefatigable worker. Like Napoleon,
+his sleep was intermittent, his meals eaten on the run. He made speeches
+for more than a month of successive days. And he was elected. A member
+of Congress at thirty!
+
+I could see that the hard life was wearing upon him. Perhaps he was too
+convivial. There was hard drinking everywhere about him; and he did not
+abstain. He had supreme confidence in the lasting character of his own
+vitality. He might be ill for a few days occasionally, but he was soon
+up and actively at work again. His "integrity is as unspotted as the
+vestal's flame--as untarnished and pure as the driven snow," said a
+local newspaper when his methods were assailed, and no one could face
+him without believing that he had courage that would have its way
+without stooping to meanness, and vision that saw its objective through
+the hesitant dreams and sickly qualms of lesser strength.
+
+When I went to Springfield in the fall about my farm I found that
+Douglas had been seriously ill for some weeks. The campaign had
+exhausted him. There was more gentleness in his manner now than was his
+wont. He held my hand warmly and was visibly grateful that I had come.
+He was heartened by this fresh evidence of my affectionate interest. He
+talked of his plans. He wished to visit his mother in New York State as
+soon as he could be about. He said that he was entering upon a new stage
+of his life--upon the beginning of his real career. He wished to have
+his mother's blessing before taking his seat in Congress.
+
+When I next went to Springfield I found him gone. The place was lonely
+to me. I collected my note and wandered about idly; passed the Ridgeway
+mansion where I had met Abigail; went through the new state house. The
+years between seemed so brief but so full of events. I was twenty-eight,
+Douglas was thirty; Reverdy had passed forty; Zoe was dead. My farming
+days were over. It all seemed a dream. My grandmother in England was now
+in the middle sixties. There were steamships crossing the Atlantic, the
+first one four years before. Great forces here and in Europe, movements
+of peoples, and interests were flowing to carry Douglas along for some
+years, and to carry me and all others in their sweep. I was lonely in
+Springfield on this trip. Douglas was gone! His career here seemed
+finished, as if he were dead. Like a camper he had foraged upon the
+country, made his tent and taken it down. And now he was gone!
+Everywhere there was talk of war with Mexico. Had Douglas gone forth to
+bring this about in realization of his dream of America's greatness? A
+man must be made president who would annex Texas. If there should be war
+let it come. The land is ours. Our people have gone there. We must seize
+the whole continent north of the Gulf.
+
+Now that I was separated from him how should I follow him day by day? I
+got Niles' _Register_ in order to keep in touch with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Large mercantile establishments were building in Chicago. Elevators and
+pork-packing plants fronted the Chicago River. The harbor was being
+improved by the Federal government. The population had risen to more
+than ten thousand people. Great labor was necessary to keep the
+facilities of life equal to the growing demands upon it. The first water
+works had been installed at a cost of $95.50, and consisted of a well
+alone. Now the city purveyed water through wooden pipes, laid under the
+ground. The Illinois and Michigan canal, which Douglas had done so much
+to originate, was nearing completion. The thousands of Irish laborers
+engaged upon the work added to the liveliness and colorfulness of the
+city life. We had excellent mail service. Long since the drygoods box
+had disappeared which had served as the only depository of mail. The
+hogs had been barred from the main streets, so that in my boarding place
+at Michigan Avenue and Madison Street I was no longer disturbed by
+grunts and squeals as they fed and wandered through the city.
+
+Mr. Williams and I had formed a real estate and brokerage partnership,
+and we were making money at a phenomenal rate. The air was vibrating
+with the ring of the trowel and the hammer. Gardens and roadhouses had
+appeared in the pleasanter places out of town. Everywhere in the central
+part of the city were livery stables, restaurants, saloons. The harbor
+was full of sailing craft. Every day saw the tides of emigration pour
+upon this hospitable shore. I felt the stir of the new life, the growing
+city. I was fascinated with the money making. I had found new friends.
+My change of life had brought me happiness.
+
+Abigail and I saw much of each other and we talked of many things, and
+much of Douglas. I saw him as the symbol of this intense life, this
+miraculous development. He seemed to me the man of the hour, the man
+even of the age.
+
+No sooner was he sworn in as a Congressman than he proceeded to make his
+presence felt. He did precisely what he had done in Illinois when he
+came to Winchester, penniless and unknown: he seized an opportunity. He
+admired Andrew Jackson with an almost unqualified heart, and he rose to
+Jackson's defense in Congress.
+
+I have said that I was reading Niles' _Register_. Through it I was able
+to follow Douglas' career in Congress from the beginning.
+
+Abigail had made friends with a certain Robert Aldington, who had also
+come west to teach school. And when we met at the Williams' residence of
+evenings there were sharp exchanges of opinion between us about life,
+books, the new city of Chicago, the destiny of America, and Douglas.
+Aldington was keeping abreast with all the new books in America and
+England as well. He too had read De Tocqueville; but he was also
+familiar with Rousseau, Voltaire, the French Encyclopaedists; with
+Locke. And he assured me that Calhoun, the Senator from South Carolina,
+had written a treatise on the philosophy of government which for depth
+and dialectic power, was a match for Locke. He also knew the poets
+Shelley and Byron. He had studied the French Revolution. He was watching
+the feverish developments of Italy and Germany. The tide of emigration
+into Chicago and Illinois furnished him material for infinite
+speculation. What would this hot blood, seeking opportunity and freedom
+from old world restraints, do for the new country? He admired Douglas to
+a degree, but he disliked what he sensed in him as materialism.
+
+We were reading together the proceedings in Congress concerning the fine
+which had been imposed by court upon Jackson at New Orleans when he was
+in military charge of the city in 1812. Douglas had taken this as his
+occasion to make himself known to the House and to the country at large.
+He was nothing in Congress because of his achievements in Illinois. He
+had to win his spurs. He had contended with great force and brilliancy
+that Jackson, in declaring martial law, had not committed a contempt of
+court; that if Jackson had violated the Constitution in declaring
+martial law the matter was not one of contempt or for a local court to
+judge. "Do you see," said Aldington, "his mind runs in a channel of
+pure legalism, and then it escapes between freer shores." Aldington
+continued: "The trouble with Douglas is that he does not see that
+idealism is as real as realism. Douglas is something of a sophist. I do
+not mean to disparage his value to the country. But he is a genius in
+making the course of Jackson consistent. He has applied the same art to
+justify his own conduct. He will always prove an elusive debater; and
+you see, after all, this makes against his candor. This is not the sort
+of stuff of which a thinker is made. There are men who will not trifle
+with facts. They are your Shelleys, your Emersons. These men make the
+brain of a nation. Douglas may make its body, if you can make a body
+without making a brain."
+
+"That's exactly it," said Abigail. "But it is not possible to have a
+statesman as clear in his logic as Emerson, though dealing with coarser
+material than philosophy's. Surely there is a chance now for some mind
+of deep integrity, of real spirituality, to do something for this
+chaotic, vulgar mass of humanity that is grabbing, feeding, trying to
+foment war with Mexico. I am sure of it. Why this contempt of his for
+the idealist, the reformer? He classes all sorts of grotesque,
+half-insane people with the high-minded thinkers of the East. And now
+that he is in Congress, and will have to face some of them, Adams for
+example, I expect him to find a match."
+
+I tried to have my friends understand Douglas, as I understood him. What
+was he doing in Congress now? Trying to get appropriations for the
+rivers and harbors of Illinois. "Won't that ensure his reelection?"
+asked Abigail. "Yes, but do we not need the harbors?" I replied. "Why
+pursue Douglas with arguments like these?"
+
+Abigail's argumentativeness made me turn to Dorothy. Did I want a wife
+who had such definite opinions about masculine questions such as these?
+But now how to find Dorothy again? She had been back and forth between
+Nashville and Reverdy's. We had exchanged only a few letters, with long
+silences between. I began to depreciate myself for allowing Zoe or
+anything connected with her to thwart my will with reference to Dorothy.
+These meetings with Abigail and these conversations and arguments had
+clarified my mind both as to Dorothy and as to Abigail. I wanted Dorothy
+and I did not want Abigail. This being the case why should I not go to
+Dorothy and tell her so? If I went to her with the same will that I took
+up the matter of the farm, could I not win her?
+
+It was not many days before I had the rarest opportunity in the world to
+go to Nashville upon an interesting mission. Douglas suddenly appeared
+in Chicago. The session of Congress was over. He was going to Nashville
+to see Andrew Jackson. He asked me to go with him; and I took this
+opportunity to see Dorothy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+I had heard much of Jackson and all his works of wonder: as the victor
+at New Orleans, the greatest hater of England, as the firm friend of the
+Union against the rebellion of South Carolina, as the foe of the bank,
+as the most picturesque figure in America. He was living in retirement
+at Nashville. And to see this man! To see Douglas with him! Abigail
+laughed at me for my enthusiasm. But also I was to see Dorothy, and to
+make up my mind once for all--rather, to get Dorothy to do so.
+
+When we arrived in Nashville, making arrangements so that I should not
+miss the visit to Jackson's house and the meeting between Douglas and
+Jackson, I went to see Dorothy. Mrs. Clayton met me at the door. She was
+greatly surprised. But there was wonderful cordiality in her manner.
+Dorothy was out for the time but would soon return. In the meanwhile
+Mrs. Clayton was eager to hear about my life and about Chicago. I told
+her more or less in detail the circumstances which had forced me to sell
+the farm. As to Douglas, she was devoted to him for his defense of
+Jackson. Jackson was a demigod to her and to the people of Tennessee.
+She wished she could be present to see Douglas and Jackson meet. Why
+could it not be arranged and for Dorothy too? They all knew the General
+very well. He had been a friend of Mr. Clayton's. Where was I stopping?
+Would I like to come to their house? My visit to Nashville was to be
+brief; besides I wished to be with Douglas. She would like to entertain
+him too. And thus we talked until Dorothy came in.
+
+Dorothy knew before many minutes that I had not come especially to see
+her. She had heard of Douglas' arrival, of Douglas' mission. Between her
+mother's recapitulation of our talk and my own additions in her
+presence, she learned of the events of my life that she did not already
+know. I could see that she was very happy. And for myself it was an easy
+reunion.
+
+She too wished to see Douglas and be present at the "Hermitage." Why
+not? She and her mother could easily presume upon the General's
+hospitality. Still, would I not be kind enough to arrange it? I stayed
+to the noonday meal with Dorothy and her mother. Then I went to the
+hotel to tell Douglas that I would come to the "Hermitage" with them. I
+did not find him at first. He had gone to pay a call upon Mr. Polk, who
+had been nominated for the Presidency as a young hickory to Jackson's
+"Old Hickory." He returned soon and was glad to have Mrs. Clayton and
+Dorothy come to the "Hermitage." Then I went back to spend the
+intervening time with Dorothy. She was truly lovely to me now. Her hair
+was more glistening and more golden; her eyes more elfin; the arch of
+her nose more patrician. She was gentle and tender. It seemed that all
+misunderstandings between us had dissolved. We did not mention any of
+the disagreeable things of the past. We communicated with each other
+against a background of Zoe being dead, of my being gone from the farm.
+Chicago, its growth, its color, its picturesque location by the great
+lake, made her eyes dance. She could not hear enough of it. She had
+outgrown the Cumberland hills. Her life was monotonous here. As I talked
+to Dorothy I had a clearer vision of Abigail. I felt sure now that
+Abigail had no magnetism for me. At the same time I began to recall what
+I had thought of Dorothy: her southern ways, her aristocratic ideas, her
+leisurely life, her cultural environment making for the lady, for the
+Walter Scott romanticism. Chicago had blown the mists from my eyes. I
+had lived under a clear sky, breathed rough and invigorating breezes.
+Yet I was drawn to Dorothy. My mind was poised in a delicate balance.
+And as I had impulsively given Zoe half the farm, I now suddenly
+proposed to Dorothy while turning from Dorothy to Abigail and from
+Abigail to Dorothy.
+
+The afternoon was warm. The soft breeze was stirring the great trees,
+the flowering bushes on the lawn. A distant bird was calling. The
+Cumberland hills were dreaming beyond the river. And Dorothy suddenly
+looked at me with eyes in which supernatural lights were burning
+brightly. It was the look which in a woman comprehends and accepts the
+man who is before her; it was the secret and sacred fire of nature
+illuminating her vision and asking my vision to join hers in an
+intuition of a mating. With that look I asked Dorothy to be my wife.
+
+Her hands were lying loosely clasped in her lap. Her head was leaning
+gracefully against the tree back of the settee. She closed her eyes;
+gave my hand a responding clasp. "Be my wife, Dorothy," I repeated. "Do
+you really love me?" she asked. "With all my heart," I said. And I did.
+It had come to me in that moment. "Do you love me?" I asked. "I have
+always loved you," she replied. "I have always admired you. I have
+waited for you. I did not expect you to come. You see I am now
+twenty-seven. I have not been able to care for any one else. I could not
+marry you before; and I could not marry any one else in the interval.
+Now I am very happy that you really love me." "I do love you, yes,
+Dorothy, I have always loved you."
+
+Dorothy sprang to her feet, clasping her hands and laughing. "Let's tell
+mother, come." "What?" I asked. "Why, isn't there something to tell?"
+"You haven't promised to marry me." "Oh!" exclaimed Dorothy, "does it
+have to be by so many words? Very well, yes." She took my arm and we ran
+to the house. We burst upon Mrs. Clayton and told her. "Oh, you
+children!" exclaimed Mrs. Clayton, half crying and half laughing. "After
+all this delay. I am so happy."
+
+She took me by the shoulders, looked at me, drew me to her, and kissed
+me. "Come," she said, "it's time to go to the 'Hermitage.'" And we got
+into the phaeton hitched to a gentle old horse which Dorothy drove. We
+entered the "Hermitage" and saw Douglas and the company and the hero of
+New Orleans.
+
+I presented Douglas to Mrs. Clayton and Dorothy. Then we went forward to
+greet Jackson. I was introduced to him and I saw Douglas taken into the
+arms of the great warrior and masterful President.
+
+He was now in his 78th year, thin of face, spare of frame, his body all
+sinew and nerve, his eyes brilliant with unextinguished fire. I loitered
+near to hear what he would say to Douglas. He seemed to have a paternal
+pride in the young Congressman. He entwined his arm with Douglas',
+patted Douglas on the knee, looked into his brilliant and youthful face.
+And after assuring Douglas that his whole life had been a devotion to
+the law, he expressed deep gratitude for Douglas' defense. "I have
+always had enemies," he said. "Now I am an old man and can do nothing
+for myself, and so I am thankful to you."
+
+The old hero's voice shook, his hand trembled. And Douglas looked down,
+glowing with pride and saying: "I am proud to be your defender. You are
+and always have been the object of my greatest admiration."
+
+Mrs. Clayton, with a woman's tact, sought to relieve the tension of the
+moment. She brought Dorothy and me to the General and said: "General, my
+daughter has betrothed herself to this young man, Mr. Miles."
+
+Jackson was seated upon a sofa. He arose, though with some difficulty,
+and taking Dorothy's head between his hands, he pressed a reverential
+kiss upon her brow. "I knew your father; he was a good man, a good
+friend. Take my blessing." And to me he said: "Mind that you are always
+a man with her and for her, and against all the world for her. She is
+worth all your devotion."
+
+The circumstances seemed to affect him profoundly. He turned away from
+us, as if to hide his tears, leaving us standing in a group. Douglas
+joined us and extended his congratulations, and we departed together,
+Douglas to confer with Mr. Polk and the rest of us to return to the
+Clayton mansion. For there was the wedding now to consider. I wanted to
+take Dorothy back to Chicago with me.
+
+Mrs. Clayton invited Douglas to take the evening meal at her house.
+Dorothy joined in the request and I ventured to put in a word. Douglas
+had to arrange then for a later call upon Mr. Polk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+This dinner was the most delightful of occasions. Dorothy was in
+brilliant spirits. And Mrs. Clayton shared in her daughter's happiness.
+The colored servants, all slaves, affectionate and interested,
+manifested their joy in all sorts of lively and profuse attentions. I
+could hear them laughing in the kitchen. Mammy, the old cook, was
+singing; Jenny, the maid, came in and out of the dining room with
+dancing eyes, which she cast upon me, and scarcely less upon Douglas,
+who was talking in his usual brilliant way. It was pleasing to me to
+hear Mrs. Clayton agree with him about so many things. She was disturbed
+by the slavery agitation. She feared for the peace of the Southern
+States. She dreaded a negro rebellion. She commented upon the fact that
+even the domestic slaves sometimes sulked or slacked; and that this was
+due to the talk of the Abolitionists. It was hard enough to keep paid
+laborers in good discipline; how much easier to encourage the negroes to
+inattention to duty by attacks upon the system of slavery. But after
+all, what was to be done?
+
+Douglas referred to Calhoun's attempt to exclude abolition writings from
+the mails. He referred to this without approving of it. For Calhoun had
+conceded the lack of power in the Federal government to interfere with
+the freedom of the press; but he contended that the states as sovereign
+powers could prevent the distribution of such literature within their
+borders. Everywhere it seemed to me the slavery question divided reason
+and thinking against themselves and brought great minds into absurdity.
+
+Douglas wanted the slavery agitation to cease, but on the other hand he
+did not wish to interfere with the freedom of speech and of the press.
+Mrs. Clayton now recalled Harriet Martineau's visit to America of some
+eight years before. She had read _Society in America_ and _Retrospect of
+Western Travel_. Did I know that Miss Martineau had stopped in Chicago
+and had described Chicago as it was then?
+
+Douglas returned to the subject of the Abolitionists apropos of this,
+because Miss Martineau had made herself much disliked by siding with
+them. He began to talk of Horace Greeley who had helped the humbug Whigs
+into power in 1840 by his publication, _The Log Cabin_. It was now
+merged in the weekly _Tribune_, in which all sorts of vagaries were
+exploited: Fourierism, spiritualism, opposition to divorce and the
+theater, total abstinence, abolitionism, opposition to the annexation of
+Texas. Douglas referred to a certain Robert Owen who had thought out a
+panacea for poverty, who had founded an ideal community at New Harmony,
+Indiana, which had proven to be not ideal and had failed. Then there was
+a certain James Russell Lowell who was writing abolition poems and
+articles for the Pennsylvania _Freeman_ and for the _Anti-Slavery
+Standard_. Douglas classed all these agitators and dreamers together in
+his usual satirical way. The ponderable move of national interests would
+crush their squeaks. Here he made one of the most humorous
+classifications, separating Democrats and nation builders from the
+ragged and motley hordes of Fourierists, Spiritualists, Abolitionists,
+loco-focoes, barn-burners, anti-Masonics, Know-nothings, and Whigs. He
+was inclined to think that the infidel belonged with these hybrid
+breeds. Though he did not speak of God and had never joined any church,
+something of a matter-of-fact Deism was subsumed in his practical
+attitude. The Democratic party stood alone against these disorderly
+elements. Nationalism and the rule of the people were his lodestars. He
+was the son of Jackson in the principle of no disunion, and he was the
+son of Jefferson in the principle of popular sovereignty.
+
+The talk turned to Mr. Polk. As he was a resident of Nashville, Mrs.
+Clayton, on that ground as well as for political agreement, was heartily
+devoted to him. These two talked of Mr. Polk's record as a Congressman
+from Tennessee and later as Governor of the state. "Well," said Douglas,
+"he is sound on the bank, he is against the tariff, he is in favor of
+annexing Texas and settling the matter of Oregon. As usual the Whigs are
+vacillating, because their leader, Mr. Clay, is himself vacillating."
+
+What had all this to do with Dorothy and me? We had happier things of
+which to think. We could commune with each other undisturbed while
+Douglas and Mrs. Clayton settled Texas and Oregon.
+
+The meal was over and Douglas arose to depart. As I intended to marry
+Dorothy before leaving Nashville, if she would consent to do so, I was
+wondering what I should do about not returning to Chicago with Douglas.
+Accordingly I asked him if I could see him the next morning. He fixed
+the hour at ten o'clock, saying that a boat left for St. Louis at noon.
+With plans thus vaguely left, so far as they affected both of us, he
+departed. Mrs. Clayton said: "Reverdy has told me so much of Douglas.
+Now I have seen him, and he is all and more than I was led to believe."
+
+When she left the room I asked Dorothy if we could not be married the
+next day. Well, but she had much to do to get ready; put the wedding off
+until December, or later. "You can get everything you want in Chicago,"
+I persisted, "and I want to take you back with me." Dorothy had not
+talked this matter over with her mother. She was not sure that her
+mother could be won to a plan so hasty. "Let's see her," I said.
+
+For the whole evening we discussed the subject. Since Mrs. Clayton's
+household would be broken up by Dorothy's departure, she had to readjust
+her life. She was thinking something of making a visit of some months in
+North Carolina. She could not make ready for that immediately. Why not
+come to Chicago with us, make her home with us? She could bring the
+colored servants. We talked until one o'clock. Then Mrs. Clayton advised
+a night's rest on the matter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+The next morning I awoke with such a feeling of repose, of being at home
+at last. I was lying in a poster bed, which Mrs. Clayton had told me was
+an heirloom from North Carolina. In my view was a lovely bureau of
+mahogany; on a stand a vase of roses; at the windows snowy curtains; on
+the walls pictures of Mr. Clayton in his soldier's uniform, and of
+Reverdy as a young boy and of Dorothy.
+
+I stretched myself between the comfort of the linen sheets, and turned
+over on my side to smile to myself, as I looked out of the window into
+the trees. I was at home at last! I thought back over my voyage across
+the Atlantic, of the long journey from New York to Jacksonville, of
+Reverdy at Chicago with his Indian pony, of my illness and Zoe. All my
+troubles had faded away.
+
+There was soon a knock at the door and Jenny's voice called to me that
+she had brought me water. I arose, dressed, and went down to the living
+room. Mrs. Clayton bade me such a kind good morning, kissed me on the
+cheek. In a moment Dorothy entered, radiant from her night's rest, and
+with a lover's kiss for me bestowed so happily, yet with something of
+mischievous reserve--all so charming!
+
+Our thoughts were fresh for the discussion of the marriage. Mrs.
+Clayton thought that the wedding might take place at once, within a day
+or two, at least, if I would not insist upon returning to Chicago for a
+few weeks, or until she had opportunity to close the house preparatory
+to her visit to North Carolina. This arrangement quite suited me. I
+wanted to have Douglas present at the wedding. So I hastened away to
+tell Douglas what my plans were.
+
+I found him making ready to depart, but in consultation with
+politicians. He was running for Congress again in Illinois, and the
+presidential campaign was on. But when I told him of my desire he
+thought for a moment, and consented. He was being importuned to make an
+address at Nashville. Now he would stay to do so and attend the wedding.
+I was very happy over these fortunate circumstances and returned quickly
+to Dorothy. If only General Jackson could be persuaded to come, and Mr.
+Polk. We had many things to do. I set about running errands for Mrs.
+Clayton. Dorothy was notifying her friends, getting her veil, her dress
+into readiness. Mammy and Jenny were cooking all sorts of delicacies;
+they had requisitioned old Mose who was the slave of a neighbor, Mr.
+Parsons, and the wedding preparations progressed with speed. I had
+traveled hither without the slightest expectation of this sudden
+consummation and therefore had no clothes suitable for the occasion. I
+had to attend to that as best I could.
+
+The hour came. Douglas arrived with Mr. Polk, who had also been a
+friend of Mr. Clayton's. But General Jackson was unable to come. He was
+not strong. He sent a bottle of rare wine and a bouquet and his hearty
+congratulations; all by a colored messenger who was excited and voluble.
+General Jackson! It was less than a year when he passed from earth.
+
+Mr. Polk was a full-faced, rather a square-faced man, with broad
+forehead, packed abundantly at the temples, rather intense eyes, and
+lines running by the corners of his nose, which slightly looped his
+mouth upward in an expression of decision and self-reliance. He was
+already called a small man. But I did not see him so. He was of pleasing
+presence of distinguished decorum, and chivalrous manner. But after all
+Douglas was the center of attraction. Mr. Polk escorted Mrs. Clayton to
+the wedding breakfast, and Douglas took in Mrs. Rutledge, an aunt of
+Dorothy's.
+
+So we were married, and I was happy. I had found a wife and I had found
+a mother. Douglas departed, promising to see me in Chicago soon. The
+guests went their way. I was here with Dorothy, with Mrs. Clayton,
+Mammy, and Jenny.
+
+There is something good for the soul in being for an hour, even if for
+an hour only, the central thought of every one; in having one's wishes
+and happiness the chief consideration of interested friends. And here
+were Mammy and Jenny, who had no thought but to serve me and Dorothy;
+here was Mrs. Clayton, who strove so gently to attend to my wants,
+whatever they were, to put herself at the disposal of these first hours
+of Dorothy's new life and mine. Mose was at the door with the horses and
+the carriage, loaned by his master, to drive us into the country and
+over the Cumberland hills. Mrs. Rutledge lingered a while in evident
+admiration of me, and with happy tears for the radiant delight which
+shone in Dorothy's face.
+
+We set forth with old Mose, who was talking and pointing out to me the
+places of interest, the hills, the huts, the houses which were
+associated with stories or personalities of the neighborhood. And here
+was Dorothy by my side, scarcely speaking, her beautiful head at times,
+as we drove in secluded places, resting delicately upon my shoulder, her
+eyes closed in the beatitude of the hour.
+
+Mrs. Clayton's position came into my mind. What was this visit to a
+sister? Was it not a pure makeshift, an expedient in the breaking up of
+her life, the first step in an accommodation to Dorothy's loss? I had
+such ample means. Why should she not come with me? Why separate Dorothy
+from her? Why leave Mammy and Jenny behind, who had served nearly the
+whole of their lives in this household? I had learned to like the
+colored people. What heart could withhold itself from Mammy and Jenny?
+These humble devoted souls whose lives and thoughts had no concern but
+to make Mrs. Clayton and Dorothy happy, and who had taken me into the
+circle of their interest! What were the colored people but the shadows
+of the white people, following them and imitating them in a childlike,
+humorous, innocent way? How difficult for selfishness, seeking its own
+happiness, to understand Mammy and Jenny, whose whole happiness and
+undivided heart were in giving happiness to Mrs. Clayton and Dorothy!
+
+I spoke my plan to Dorothy, "Come, let's take mother, Mammy, and Jenny
+with us. Close the house for good. I want all of you. We can transfer
+all this happiness to Chicago. I will get a big house. I have some one
+now with whom to share my riches. This sharing is the beginning of my
+real satisfaction in life."
+
+Dorothy took my hand, pressed her cheek against mine. "Oh, my dear, my
+dear!" was all she said. I felt her cheek moistening with tears. Then
+drawing her to me I said: "Yes, my dear, that is my wish. Let us drive
+back now and tell mother."
+
+Mrs. Clayton was silent for some seconds. Then she said: "Aren't you
+best alone? Take Mammy and Jenny if you wish. But perhaps I can't be a
+mother to you, James; perhaps you won't want to be a son to me as time
+goes on. These things must come to mothers and fathers. The daughters
+find new homes and go away. I did that. And now Dorothy has the same
+right."
+
+"No," I said, with emphasis, "I want you. I want to transfer this whole
+atmosphere to Chicago. I want all of you with me. I do not wish you to
+wander off on this visit. After that what, anyway? You should not be
+separated from Dorothy. Come, and if you want to go on a visit from
+Chicago, well and good."
+
+If this was to be, there was much to do. Could we wait until the house
+was rented, or at least placed with an agent, the furnishings stored if
+necessary? Yes, I could wait and Dorothy could wait. And day by day both
+of us importuned Mrs. Clayton to come with us. She saw at last that it
+was our dearest wish. And she yielded.
+
+In the meanwhile Dorothy and I were driving about the country or sitting
+under the trees in the yard, living through great rapture, mothered by
+Mrs. Clayton, and so constantly served by Mammy and Jenny and Mose.
+
+Then the day came. The house was rented. Mrs. Clayton stored some of her
+furnishings. The choicest things she gave to Dorothy--lovely mahogany
+and silver.
+
+On a morning, with Mammy and Jenny in our traveling party, with Mose
+helping us to the boat, hiding his saddened spirit under a forced humor,
+with Mrs. Rutledge and many friends to see us off, we took our
+departure. Again the musical whistle of the boat; again the stir and
+vociferous calls of the pier; again on the waters of the Ohio bound for
+St. Louis. Again the great Mississippi.
+
+But Mrs. Clayton left us at St. Louis to visit Reverdy and Sarah. She
+would come to Chicago later.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+I took a house in Madison Street, some two blocks from the lake. There
+was first the business of having Mammy and Jenny registered, something
+similar to a dog license. But Mr. Williams helped me about that.
+
+I had not seen Abigail yet, but of course she knew that I was married. A
+vague faithlessness accused me. And yet I had never spoken a word of
+love to her. It was my admiration for her and hers for me, rising up to
+ask me why I had married Dorothy. Did I really know myself?
+
+Dorothy was entranced with Chicago. She thrived under its more bracing
+air. She loved the bustle, the stir. We were now in the midst of the
+presidential campaign, and Mammy and Jenny saw political enthusiasm in a
+new phase. Marching men passed through the street. There were shouts,
+torches, many speeches on America's greatness.
+
+Mrs. Clayton came to Chicago before the election and was all delight
+over the new life which had come to her. The pulsations of great
+vitality in the rapidly growing nation were well exemplified in
+Chicago's development. The country was bursting with commercial
+expansion; it was lusty with the infusion of strong blood from Europe.
+Nearly a million Irishmen and Germans had been added to the population
+since 1840. Illinois, as a garden spot, had received her share of these
+virile stocks.
+
+The iron production, which was in a primitive stage when I arrived in
+America, had now grown to be a great industry. There was anthracite
+coal, which was first mined in Pennsylvania in 1814 on a very
+inconsiderable scale; and now the output was more than five million tons
+a year. It was supplanting wood in the making of steam. The Chippewas
+had ceded their copper lands on the south shore of Lake Superior, and
+the mining and manufacture of copper had become an extensive industry.
+Gold was taken in large quantities from the Appalachians. There were
+about five thousand miles of railroad in the country as compared with
+the something more than one thousand miles which it had in 1833. The
+telegraph was following the railroads. For in this very year, under the
+administration of President Tyler, $30,000 had been appropriated by
+Congress for the building of a telegraph line from Baltimore to
+Washington. But above all, the country thrilled with the prospect of
+acquiring Texas and settling the territory of Oregon. Douglas was at
+once one of the creators and one of the most conspicuous products of
+this great drama.
+
+He had been reelected to Congress by a plurality of over 1700 votes over
+his Whig opponent. The Whigs opposed the annexation of Texas. Clay was
+against it. New England preached and sang against it. But Tyler had
+tried to negotiate a treaty for it. It had failed. He devoted much of
+his last annual message to Congress to the Texas subject, soliciting
+"prompt and immediate action on the subject of annexation." Douglas,
+during the campaign in Illinois and in Tennessee, had denounced those
+weaklings who feared that the extension of the national domain would
+corrupt the institutions of the country. As to war with Mexico because
+of Texas, let it come. The Federal system was adapted to expansion, to
+the absorption of the whole continent. Great Britain should be driven,
+with all the vestiges of royal authority, from North America. "I would
+make," he said, "an ocean-bound republic, and have no more disputes
+about boundaries or red lines upon the maps."
+
+These words sent a thrill through the country. What had Clay to offer as
+a counteractant, as an equal inspiration to the pride of this lusty
+nation? Surely not the tariff. This imaginative impulse had carried Mr.
+Polk to the Presidency; but before Mr. Tyler laid down his office he was
+able to send a message to Texas with an offer of annexation. It was
+accepted, and in December of that year, 1845, Texas became a state of
+the Union.
+
+Mother Clayton had come on to Chicago at last, and we were fully settled
+with Mammy and Jenny to run the house. My life was ideal, divided as it
+was between money making and participation in Chicago's development. We
+had Mr. and Mrs. Williams and Abigail and Aldington as a nucleus for new
+friendships. I could see more clearly than ever that Dorothy and Abigail
+were as dissimilar as two women could be. Nevertheless, they became
+friends. Mrs. Williams and Mother Clayton found much in common. My
+business relations with Mr. Williams were altogether agreeable.
+
+I resumed my readings with Abigail and Aldington, although Dorothy was
+not greatly interested. Poe's _Raven_ went the rounds this winter and
+created an excitement. We read Hawthorne's novels. Emerson's _Essays_,
+the second series, appeared. Then the first discordant note came between
+Dorothy and Abigail. For Emerson said: "We must get rid of slavery, or
+get rid of freedom." Abigail exclaimed over this epigrammatic truth.
+Dorothy looked at Abigail disapprovingly, apparently seeing in her face
+evidence of a different spirit than she had hitherto suspected.
+Aldington joined Abigail in praise of Emerson. And for the sake of a
+balance, I sided with Dorothy and Mother Clayton against them. Though
+none of us had anything to do directly with the matter of slavery, it
+thus cast its shadow upon our otherwise happy relationship.
+
+In these readings too I was following with great care the career of
+Douglas in Congress, in which Abigail and Aldington were not so warmly
+interested. Douglas' early life, his adventure into the West, had put
+him through an experience and into the possession of an understanding
+which were alien to the eastern statesmen. The West was for the
+enterprise of the young. It was a domain of opportunity for youth,
+divorced from family influence and the tangles of decaying environment.
+Hence Texas must be assimilated, and California taken eventually, and
+the Oregon country acquired. An ocean-bound republic!
+
+As for slavery, it did not enter into Douglas' calculations. I knew,
+however, that in spite of what any one said, he was not a protagonist of
+slavery. He simply subordinated it to the interests of expansion. He was
+willing to leave it to the new states to determine for themselves
+whether they should have slavery or not. With the impetuosity of his
+thirty-two years he slipped into a recognition of the Missouri
+Compromise, and was willing that slavery should be prohibited north of
+this line. He was generating a plague for himself which would come back
+upon him later.
+
+But if Douglas' advocacy of the Texas expansion exposed him to charges
+of a slave adherency, nothing could be said against his cry for the
+taking of Oregon. The Mormons whom he had befriended without any
+dishonor to himself had set forth into the untraveled land of Utah.
+Already a band of young men from Peoria had gone into the Far West.
+Therefore, when he now spoke for Oregon he had a responsive ear among
+his own people in Illinois. If the eastern people, the dwellers in the
+old communities, did not kindle to Oregon, it was because they had
+neither the flare nor did they see the urge of this emigration and
+occupancy. With the rapid extension of railroads, how soon would the
+whole vast land be bound together in quick communication!
+
+So it was, Douglas was offering bills in Congress for creating the
+territory of Nebraska, for establishing military posts in Oregon, and
+for extending settlements across the West under military protection. He
+advocated means of communication across the Rocky Mountains. He thought
+of his own unprotected youth. He would have the young men from Peoria
+and from every place feel confident in the knowledge that as builders of
+the nation's greatness they had the friendship and the strong arm of the
+government around them.
+
+What was Great Britain doing? Reaching for California, hungering for
+Texas, eyeing Cuba. She hated republican institutions. She would gird
+them with her own monarchist principles, bodied forth in fortifications
+and military posts. It should not be. Douglas had said: "I would blot
+out the lines of the map which now mark our national boundaries on this
+continent and make the area of liberty as broad as the continent itself.
+I would not suffer petty rival republics to grow up here, engendering
+jealousy of each other, and interfering with each other's domestic
+affairs, and continually endangering their peace. I do not wish to go
+beyond the great ocean--beyond those boundaries which the God of nature
+has marked out. I would limit myself only by that boundary which is so
+clearly defined by nature."
+
+Meanwhile President Polk was saying: "Our title to Oregon is clear and
+unquestionable." He was urging the termination of the treaty for joint
+occupation with Great Britain of Oregon. War! Yes, but Douglas did not
+fear it. At the beginning of the thirties of his years, he was leading
+Congress in the formation of an ocean-bound republic.
+
+These were his words: "The great point at issue between us and Great
+Britain is for the freedom of the Pacific Ocean, for the trade of China
+and Japan, of the East Indies, and for our maritime ascendency on all
+these waters."
+
+I watched these proceedings to the end, and until the Oregon territory
+was settled by the fixing of the 49th parallel as the boundary between
+Great Britain and the United States. Douglas had striven with all his
+might to extend the boundary to the 54th parallel. He had failed in
+this, and was bitterly disappointed. He had been accused of boyish dash
+and temerity in affronting English feeling with a larger demand. It had
+come to the point where I could not discuss, particularly in Dorothy's
+presence, these questions with Abigail. She saw nothing in these labors
+of Douglas but vulgar materialism. That, of course, was the farthest
+thing from the minds of Mother Clayton and Dorothy.
+
+But before the Oregon compact was signed, two grave matters disturbed
+our peace and brought their influence into our happy household. Congress
+had failed to pass the bills to protect the settlers in the Oregon
+territory. And we were at war with Mexico.
+
+I felt irresistibly drawn to the war.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+Dorothy was in terror. We had been married so short a time. Our
+happiness had been undisturbed. We had found such perfect enjoyment in
+our home. We had taken such delight in the life of Chicago.
+
+But Mother Clayton encouraged me with bright and admiring eyes. I felt
+that I owed this service to Douglas. He had mapped out the boundaries of
+Texas. Should I not carry the sword to defend and establish them? The
+dream which was Douglas' had also taken possession of me.
+
+Abigail saw nothing in the Mexican War beyond an ambition of the
+Southern States to extend slavery. It was a fight for cotton. The
+Eastern States did not like the war, the Whigs opposed the war. Illinois
+had many enemies of the war.
+
+But these were the facts: Mexico had announced that the annexation of
+Texas would be considered an act of war. She had broken off diplomatic
+relations with us when we offered to annex it. She had prepared to
+resist the loss of Texas with force of arms. Our people were in Texas.
+They could not be abandoned. "How did they get there?" asked Abigail.
+"By pushing and adventuring where they did not belong."
+
+President Polk had sent troops under General Taylor to defend Texas; he
+had sent commissioners to Mexico to make a peaceable solution of the
+dispute. Besides, he was anxious to get the Mexican province of
+California, as Douglas was, including the wonderful bay and harbor of
+San Francisco. Would Mexico sell them without a fight? Mexico had
+declined. General Taylor was therefore ordered to advance to the Rio
+Grande. There was war! Its shadow entered my household. Dorothy was in
+tears. Mammy and Jenny were shaking with fear. For I had resolved to
+enter the fight.
+
+And Chicago was afire with the war spirit. The streets echoed to the
+music of martial bands; orators addressed multitudes in various parts of
+the city. Trade was stimulated. The hotels were thronged with people.
+The restaurants were noisy with agitated talkers. Douglas' name was on
+every one's tongue.
+
+Volunteers had been called for. But Illinois could send but three
+regiments; she offered six to the cause. Many companies were refused. I
+organized a company, financing it myself. But it could not be taken, and
+I joined the army under the colonelcy of John J. Hardin. He it was whom
+Douglas had supplanted as state's attorney. Now he was to lead troops,
+to the vindication of Douglas' dream.
+
+Dorothy was inconsolable for my departure. She could not have sustained
+the ordeal except for Mother Clayton. There were fear, anxiety, and
+mystical foreboding in Dorothy's heart for a different reason. She was
+soon to bear a child. She was loath to have me away from her in this
+ordeal. Yet I had to go. A whole continent moved me; great forces urged
+me forward. I was now an American. Martial blood stirred in me. All
+concerns of home, of Dorothy, sank below the great vision of war. The
+aggregate feelings and thoughts of a people make a superintelligence
+which may be mistaken for God. Of this superintelligence Douglas' voice
+was the great expression. I broke from Dorothy's arms, after vainly
+attempting to console her.
+
+The six Illinois regiments assembled at Alton, where I had been so many
+times before. I was to see this town again in the most dramatic moment
+of my life, how unimagined in this terrible time of war. We hurried on
+to join General Taylor, who had already, as we learned later, won the
+battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. Characters later to figure
+momentously in the history of the country were here to settle the title
+of Texas with the sword. Robert E. Lee, a lieutenant, was brevetted for
+bravery in the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, and
+Chapultepec. Captain Grant had come with a regiment and joined the
+forces of General Taylor. He took part in the battles of Palo Alto,
+Resaca de la Palma, and Monterey; and then being transferred to General
+Scott's army, he served at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Churubusco, Molino
+del Rey, and at the capture of Chapultepec. Here too was Colonel
+Jefferson Davis, who led his valorous Mississippians, who put to flight
+Ampudia at the battle of Buena Vista. Lee, Grant, Davis, Taylor, the
+next President, all in arms for the ocean-bound republic of the young
+Congressman from Illinois!
+
+Our Illinois troops with those from other states, numbering in all 5000
+men, proceeded to Monterey, thence to Buena Vista where we were
+confronted by 20,000 Mexicans under the command of General Santa Anna,
+who had no doubt of a speedy victory over us. On Washington's birthday,
+Santa Anna sent a message to General Taylor to surrender, saying that he
+did not wish to inflict useless slaughter. General Taylor declined, and
+we fought.
+
+I shall never forget my feelings, but how shall I describe them? My
+nerves were tense; they rang taut with unexpended energy. I felt death
+near me. I thought of Dorothy constantly, but I was living with fate.
+
+The line of battle was formed where the valley was narrow. The lofty
+mountains were on either side of us. Torrents had gullied the plain. The
+Kentucky volunteers were posted at the left; the Indiana volunteers were
+stationed near. Our regiment, together with a Texas company, formed the
+remainder of the line which ran from the plain to the plateau. Extending
+from these towards the mountains were placed other troops from Illinois,
+from Indiana, and from Arkansas. Up the valley came Santa Anna, with his
+20,000 Mexicans.
+
+He had sent General Ampudia to climb the mountain and fall upon our
+troops at the left. The battle began in the afternoon and lasted till
+night.
+
+At dawn Santa Anna advanced his troops in three columns in front of us.
+And the battle began to rage. The Indiana troops retreated in disorder.
+But the Illinoisians stood their ground, pouring forth sheets of flame
+upon the Mexicans. We had to retreat. We were pressed back to the
+narrows. Then General Taylor, hastening up, took command. Batteries were
+opened. Grapeshot and canister were poured into the advancing Mexicans.
+The cannon belched deadly fire. Colonel Davis had routed Ampudia at the
+left. The Mexicans began to waver in front. We from Illinois and
+Kentucky started in pursuit. We drove them into a deep ravine.
+
+Here suddenly they were reënforced by 12,000 men. They shot us down like
+sheep. It was a slaughterhouse. But we fought like madmen. Our riflemen,
+the squirrel hunters of Kentucky and Illinois, picked off the Mexicans
+unerringly. Our batteries began to thunder again. Again the Mexicans
+broke order. They started to run. We pursued them through the valley,
+under the shadows of the great mountain. Night came.... The silence of
+night and of our victory.
+
+We had won the battle! The Mexicans fled southward. Then we started to
+bury our dead. Our losses were terrible. So many boys from Illinois were
+hearsed in this bloody soil. Colonel Hardin was killed; but we were
+commissioned to bring his body back to Jacksonville.
+
+This ended the war in northern Mexico. But meanwhile, as President Polk
+could not buy California, he seized it. He ordered an American squadron
+to take San Francisco and other harbors on the California coast. He sent
+General Kearney with a cooperating force to this end. Kearney occupied
+the city of Santa Fe and organized a temporary government for New
+Mexico. The President also sent General Scott against the city of Mexico
+and Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo. These were taken; but they were used only
+as levers in the settlement.
+
+What had been accomplished? We had fixed the Rio Grande as the Texas
+boundary; we had added California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming,
+and Utah to the American domain. With Oregon acquired Douglas'
+ocean-bound republic was realized. Was it to prove his lasting triumph,
+or his undoing?
+
+I had been gone less than a year. I was eager to reach Chicago, but I
+had to stop off at Jacksonville to help bury the body of Colonel Hardin.
+We made his grave near the grave of my father and not far from
+Lamborn's.
+
+What had happened in my absence? How should I find the home that I had
+left? If Dorothy should be dead, or Mother Clayton, or Mammy or Jenny?
+
+I rang the bell. Jenny came to the door. She gave a cry. Mammy came
+hurrying through the hall; then Mother Clayton, flinging her arms upward
+in dumb delight. Then Dorothy, lovely in her young motherhood, carrying
+our boy, the tears running down her cheeks. She could not speak. She
+could only rub her cheek against mine, press her lips to mine, hold our
+little boy's laughing and uncomprehending lips to mine. We cried. We
+uttered broken words.
+
+I entered. The door closed behind me. I was home. All was well. I sat
+down. All looked at me. Jenny and Mammy loitered in the room. I wanted
+to speak. But what had I to say? Nothing! Such happiness at being home!
+So we sat until I broke the silence by asking: "When was the baby born?"
+Mother Clayton replied: "He is five weeks old to-morrow." Then we all
+laughed. We had broken this heavy silence with such simple words. And
+after that, many words, much laughter; and later a wonderful meal
+prepared by the delighted hands of Mammy and Jenny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+But what of Douglas? During the war I had been entirely out of touch
+with him. What was he doing? What had he accomplished? What was now
+stirring in his restless imagination? They all had news for me about him
+and of varied import, according to their attitude.
+
+For one thing he had married while I was in the war. Mother Clayton
+approved the marriage. Abigail mocked it. For his wife was a southern
+woman, the owner of many slaves in Mississippi. Douglas had announced
+that he would have nothing to do with her property, especially with the
+slaves. But how was he to escape a derivative gain? So Abigail asked. I
+knew that he disliked the institution; but here it was touching him
+again in a peculiarly intimate way. Texas soiled him with its influence
+and now his marriage identified him with it. He might regard it, if he
+would, as a domestic matter like the liquor business, which Maine had
+just now laid low by a prohibition law. As he would not be a liquor
+dealer, so he would not be a slave owner. But he was the next thing to
+it in the circumstance of his marriage.
+
+But in my absence he had moved to Chicago, and this gave me great
+happiness. I should now see much of him. He was speculating in land and
+growing rich. He was advocating the immediate construction of the
+Illinois Central railroad. He had been triumphantly reelected to
+Congress. The Mexican War had helped to do that for him. He was only
+thirty-four, but a great and growing figure.
+
+Chicago had changed in my absence. The second water system, consisting
+of a reservoir at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Water Street, and a
+pump, operated by a 25-horsepower engine, was soon to be supplanted by a
+crib sunk in the lake 600 feet from shore, from which the water was to
+be drawn by a 200-horsepower engine. The lake traffic had increased
+enormously. The Illinois and Michigan canal was soon to be opened.
+
+Mother Clayton had saved for me the copies of Niles' _Register_ and had
+marked passages in Douglas' speeches in Congress, particularly his
+effective retorts to the aged J. Q. Adams, who pursued Douglas with
+inveterate hostility. It was all about the slavery question.
+
+I looked Douglas up as soon as possible. We invited him and his young
+wife to dinner. Surely he had found a charming and interesting mate. We
+now had so much of life in common and of mutual memory to draw upon. He
+was eager to hear of the war, the battles I had been in. He was very
+proud of me and happy beyond measure that I had come out of the war
+without a scar.
+
+How strange about Colonel Hardin! "An able man, that," said Douglas,
+"but I don't believe he ever forgave me for taking the state's
+attorneyship from him."
+
+Abigail and Aldington were also at our dinner. Mrs. Douglas found
+herself quite at home with Mother Clayton and Dorothy. I could see,
+however, that she did not like Abigail.
+
+After that Douglas and I had many meetings. He was full of ideas and
+absorbed in various activities. He was pugnacious and energetic. But
+what friends he made! He passed in and out of my view frequently, now
+that we lived in the same city. And before I knew it, scarcely before
+there was any talk of it, he was selected as United States Senator from
+Illinois.
+
+It was in December of 1847. He was within some four months of his
+thirty-fifth birthday. He had now had an uninterrupted career of
+political triumph. His one defeat for Congress, when he ran the first
+time, could scarcely be counted against him.
+
+But to my English eyes, in spite of all my admiration for the man, I saw
+much imperfection in his intellectual make-up, due in part I think to
+the haste with which he had lived. He had an adroitness and a fertility
+of mind which were altogether amazing. Yet he was like Chicago: of quick
+and phenomenal growth. His protective coloration was like Chicago's,
+which covered its ugliness and its irregularity with bunting and flags
+on a holiday. He was growing up rapidly, as Chicago was growing up.
+Chicago was facing greater problems as its population increased; and as
+Douglas rose into higher power, thicker complications entangled him. He
+dragged after him the imperfect education of his youth, the opinions of
+his immaturity. He was now enmeshed in the problems of the new
+territories, and always, slavery. Prepared or not, he would fight for
+his principles. If defeated he would rise quickly; if triumphant he
+advanced.
+
+As leisure was possible to me, and because of Dorothy's somewhat frail
+health, we decided to give up the Chicago house this winter and spend
+the season in Washington. We would take Mother Clayton, of course, and
+Mammy and Jenny. I would thus have the chance to watch the contests in
+Congress in which I was so profoundly interested. I wished to witness
+Douglas' part in these great affairs. Some of the old giants were still
+there: Calhoun, Webster. How would Douglas face these great men? Above
+all, the shreds of a decaying past were stretching themselves forward to
+enter the texture of the new weaving. How would the two pieces be
+connected? Would it be a patchwork?
+
+Douglas had come to me offering an appointment in Illinois. When I
+declined this, he suggested a consulship on the continent, or in London.
+But I could not see my way clear to leave America. I had too many
+interests now, and I wished to see the unfolding of events here.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+We found Washington much as Dickens had described it seven years before.
+The avenues were broad. They began in great open spaces and faded into
+commons equally unbounded. They seemed to lead nowhere. There were
+numerous streets without houses. There were public buildings without a
+public. There were thoroughfares that had no markings but ornaments. The
+residences had green blinds and red and white curtains at the windows
+almost without an exception. Grass grew in the avenues. The distances
+were great, separating the new public buildings from easy access.
+Brickyards were in the center of the city, from which all the bricks had
+been taken, leaving only dust, which was stirred by gusts of wind
+filling the air at times to suffocation. Pennsylvania Avenue was
+grotesque with its big and little buildings, its small and impoverished
+shops set between the more splendid windows of jewelry and fabrics. It
+was in such sharp contrast with Chicago. No noise here. No smell.
+Instead of lumbering drays, many carriages; instead of bustle, leisure;
+instead of commercial haste, languid strolling along Pennsylvania
+Avenue. And there at its head stood the unfinished Capitol; and at its
+other end the executive mansion now occupied by President Polk, and
+soon to be the residence of the hero of the Mexican War, Zachary Taylor;
+and soon of Millard Fillmore.
+
+Dorothy and I and Mother Clayton visited the places of interest at once.
+We went to the Patent Office and saw the model of the Morse telegraph.
+We looked at the Declaration of Independence displayed in a glass case
+at the Department of State. We stood before Trumbull's pictures of the
+celebrated men of an earlier day. We went to the room of the Spring
+Court, saw the judges in their black robes, the thin intellectual Chief
+Justice Taney at the center. We went to the slave market, where the
+capital of the republic trafficked in human flesh for itself and the
+surrounding country. Lottery tickets were openly sold. Negroes thronged
+the streets. They were the domestic servants, the laborers, the hackmen.
+A raggedness, a poverty, a shiftlessness, characterized external
+Washington. Washington was not Chicago.
+
+We found that Douglas had settled himself handsomely with his young and
+charming wife. He entertained a great deal, and was entertained in turn.
+We dined back and forth with each other. And because of Mrs. Douglas'
+friendship Dorothy found her social pleasures assured and advanced.
+
+Washington like other cities in America was struggling out of the earth.
+The whole country was in a similar throe. Everywhere were great dreams
+partly realized. One could not help but imagine what the nation would
+become, just as one could not look at the unfinished Capitol at the end
+of Pennsylvania Avenue without completing its lines in imagination.
+
+We had come to New York City by boat, as I had gone to Chicago by boat
+in 1833; but in New York we had taken a train to Philadelphia, claimed
+our baggage at the station, transferred to another station, and taken
+another train through Baltimore to Washington. The cities of the East
+were now in telegraphic communication with each other: Washington with
+Baltimore and New York; Philadelphia and Newark were joined. Polk's
+election had been flashed by the telegraph. And news now came to
+Washington on every subject: markets, fires, catastrophes, elections.
+The public press was very active. The country was in a ferment. The
+great West agitated the more sensitive, the listening East. From beyond
+the Atlantic news of thrilling import poured upon us. In truth the whole
+world was trembling at the threshold of a new era. Douglas was keenly
+conscious of these world changes. They occupied my own thoughts.
+
+In France Louis Philippe had been dethroned, a republic had been
+established with Louis Napoleon as President. The ideas of the
+revolution had worked a democratic triumph as to the suffrage and the
+form of the government. This was February, 1848, the same month that
+Douglas made his first speech in the Senate.
+
+This February revolution in France had lighted the fires of liberty
+throughout Europe. In England there was agitation and violence. The
+people there were demanding the right to vote. In Italy there was a cry
+for reform and free constitutions. Mazzini was proclaiming the fact that
+the people in Spain, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Russia, were oppressed.
+He called the cause of all peoples a common cause. The French Revolution
+had announced the liberty, equality and fraternity of individual men;
+the new revolution should proclaim the liberty, equality and fraternity
+of nations. Cavour and Garibaldi were getting ready to bring about the
+unification of Italy. The Germans had gained some liberties in 1830. But
+when Paris broke into shouts for freedom in 1848, the news went across
+the Rhine and the German liberals arose and demanded a constitutional
+government. Metternich was obliged to flee the country. The Emperor
+Ferdinand abdicated in favor of his nephew, and the people's
+constitution was granted. There were rioting and bloodshed in the
+streets of Berlin.
+
+As a result of all this, thousands of Europeans were fleeing to America,
+the land of the free. Yet there were the slave markets in Washington,
+New Orleans, all through the South. And Congress was about to consider
+the new territory which had come as a result of the Mexican War and the
+Oregon settlement. How would Douglas react to these world movements? How
+would he interpret them? Who could stand against this world-wide
+avalanche? With the North now greatly the superior of the South in
+wealth, in railroads, mines, in agricultural productiveness, what could
+the South do for her slaves and her cotton? What would the Titans--iron,
+coal, gold, copper, wheat, corn--do to the Giant of cotton?
+
+I heard Douglas' first speech in the Senate and interpreted it against
+this background. He had already been made chairman of the committee on
+territories, and thus placed in the very midst of the fight touching the
+annexations. The great Webster was here. He had opposed the annexation
+of Texas and the Mexican War, and was the spokesman of the Whig party.
+He had split metaphysical hairs with Calhoun, also here. Calhoun
+declared that the Constitution was over the territory and by that fact
+carried slavery into it; no imperialism in America. To this Webster
+rejoined that the territory was the property of the United States and
+not a part of it. Hence the Constitution was not over it and slavery
+could be kept out of it. This was implied powers in favor of liberty.
+Calhoun's doctrine was: Constitutional government in the interests of
+slavery. To such dialectics had the matter come. Mazzini might contend
+for liberty, equality, and fraternity for individuals and nations. Here
+in America the questions were more subtle. Clay was not here but soon to
+be here. Hale of New Hampshire was here, an astringent personality,
+eager to challenge young Douglas from Illinois.
+
+The question was the Mexican treaty. Senator Hale injected abolitionism
+into Douglas' speech. Calhoun characterized Douglas' retort to Hale as
+equal in offensiveness to Hale's remark, which elicited the retort. The
+battle was on. We now had occasion to be proud of our friend. He stood
+forth with such self-possession, such dignity. With great emphasis he
+announced that he had no sympathy with abolitionism; but neither did he
+look with favor upon the extreme view of the South. "We protest," said
+Douglas, in his great musical voice, facing the southern Senators,
+"against being made puppets in this slavery excitement, which can
+operate only against your interests and the building up of those who
+wish to put you down. In the North it is not expected that we should
+take the position that slavery is a positive good, a positive blessing.
+If we did assume such a position it would be a very pertinent inquiry,
+why do you not adopt this institution? We have moulded our institutions
+in the North as we have thought proper; and now we say to you of the
+South, if slavery be a blessing, it is your blessing; if it be a curse,
+it is your curse; enjoy it--on you rests all the responsibility. We are
+prepared to aid you in the maintenance of all your constitutional
+rights; and I apprehend that no man, South or North, has shown more
+constantly than I a disposition to do so. But I claim the privilege of
+pointing out to you how you give strength and encouragement to the
+Abolitionists of the North."
+
+Mother Clayton had been long schooled in the questions which vexed the
+matter of slavery. She thought Douglas showed great courage in these
+words, but she was not satisfied with them. She felt that the South had
+not been protected in its rights and that Douglas owed it to the South
+to stand with the southern Senators. His position was not definite
+enough to suit her. He should say that slavery went into the territories
+by law, or was kept out by law. Douglas' thesis might be judicial but it
+laid him open to doubts.
+
+This was our talk as we walked away from the Capitol. Dorothy was
+fatigued by the experience. She was interested, but the debate exhausted
+her. What she wished more than anything was peace for the whole country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+I had had a delirium in the serious illness through which Zoe had nursed
+me, in which a blue fly crawling up the windowpane, sliding down the
+windowpane, buzzing in the corner of the frame where it could neither
+climb nor get through nor think of returning into the room--in which
+this fly took on the semblance of Napoleon. My imagination was then full
+of Napoleon; and my father had suffered because of him at the battle of
+Waterloo. And as I sat in the gallery of the Senate, Webster, Calhoun,
+Hale, Cass, and Douglas reminded me of this hallucination. They seemed
+to me like flies at the windowpane of Texas and California and Oregon,
+beating their wings against the dark glass of the future. They were like
+insects, caught in the rich gluten of circumstances and buzzing as they
+sought to make their way.
+
+This winter sad news came to me of the death of my dear grandmother,
+whom I had planned all along to see again. Now it could not be. My life
+had been hurried forward with such varied events, and with all the
+rapidity of America's development. I had worked with great industry in
+putting the farm on a paying basis. I had run at high speed in Chicago.
+I was still living fast in plans and activities. Douglas was full of
+the subject of railroad extension, and I was drawn into that. He was
+trying to formulate a plan for the Illinois Central railroad; and my
+interests in Chicago drew me to that plan. He was also talking of
+founding a university in Chicago. These were the subjects of our many
+talks. Our visits took place at his house or at mine, as he rarely went
+with me to the places of amusement which I frequented.
+
+A theatrical company had come to Washington from New York which was
+playing in repertoire, _Jack Sheppard_, _Don César de Bazan_, _His Last
+Legs_, _London Assurance_, _Old Heads and Young Hearts_, and some other
+dramas. Dorothy and Mrs. Douglas were devotees of the theater. I enjoyed
+_Richelieu_ and _Macbeth_, and I had seen Forrest as Sir Charles
+Overreach and Claude Melnotte; but for many of the plays I did not care.
+Douglas was indifferent to the theater. He was himself too much of a
+player on the stage of American affairs to be illusioned by any mimic
+representation.
+
+On a night when Dorothy and I were dining with Douglas and Mrs. Douglas,
+Dorothy and Mrs. Douglas conceived the idea of going off to see the play
+of _Charlotte Temple_; for we had overflowed the lesser talk at the
+dinner table by our discussion of railroads. Accordingly they left us,
+and Douglas and I settled down to an intimate evening, of which we were
+beginning to have many. We set a quart bottle of whisky between us,
+drinking from it from time to time as the evening progressed. Both of
+us had a fair capacity. And without either of us becoming more than well
+stimulated, we nearly consumed the bottle by the time Mrs. Douglas and
+Dorothy returned.
+
+This evening I studied Douglas with more than usual care. I had been
+struck at dinner by his great devotion to Mrs. Douglas. He treated her
+with a high-bred chivalry, a constant kindness. I was really trying to
+get at the emotional side of his nature as to things that did not
+relate, for example, to an ocean-bound republic. After all, his attitude
+toward men was one of guarded friendship. He attached men to himself
+with ardor and loyalty. In turn he gave loyalty and a certain ardor too.
+But he was really analytical of men. He was suspicious of disinterested
+friendship. He saw selfish considerations as the social bond. Hence he
+had less and less patience with New England. The radicals who talked God
+and benevolence and fraternalism were anathema to him. They had nothing
+to lose; therefore, they could chant a goodness as to the loss of
+others; they could praise self-sacrifice, having nothing themselves to
+sacrifice. As for human love, what was it but the feeling evoked by
+consideration? Pay a man well and he will love you. Give him good
+working conditions and he will tolerate the service. Put him to the test
+by short pay or bad conditions and he will hate you. All of this pointed
+to the love of men and women. I tried to draw him out on this. I do not
+know what the lack of his mind was, whether of subtlety or imagination.
+At any rate it was a realm of thought to which his face was a blank, and
+to which his mind seemed to have no reaction.
+
+He turned now to the Oregon settlement. He was still furious over it,
+still indignant at Polk. He had stood for 54:40 as the northern
+boundary; he was chagrined at the 49th parallel. Why had Polk fulminated
+first for 54:40 and faded off to the 49th parallel? England! He hated my
+mother country with a deep and rancorous hatred. Coming from Vermont he
+had taken into his bones a poison for the British atrocities of the
+Revolution; he loathed England for her conduct of the War of 1812, the
+ruthless burning of Washington, with all its priceless records of the
+early days of the republic. He was eager, restive to fight England.
+England's invulnerableness tantalized him; her habitual luck infuriated
+him. Her ownership of the right thing at the right place and time
+mystified him. Concretely now there were the Mosquito Islands off the
+coast of Honduras which England claimed to own, but Douglas thought
+without any right. He was advocating the cutting of a canal across
+Nicaragua. What would England do? She would try to use the Mosquito
+Islands as a basis of agreement for joint control with the United States
+of the canal--in spite of the Monroe Doctrine. Why would not all
+statesmen rise with him in the assertion of a title to the whole of
+North America? Was America in the business of pirating around the shores
+of Europe to pick up islands, or promontories like Gibraltar? Not at
+all. Then why should England be tolerated in this Western Hemisphere?
+What divided the American imagination? The old loyalists and royalists
+who had become the Federalists under Hamilton, who were now the Whigs
+with the same banking scheme, the same old tariff, the same old hatred
+of democratic government, the same hypocrisy, the same disingenuous and
+devious policies. There was but one American party, one pure-blooded
+party, good for the East and the West, friendly to every just thing that
+the East desired, understanding the West; that was the Democratic party!
+It stood for America. It envisioned the needs of the greatness of
+America. It had fought the war against England and Mexico. It had
+created the American domain. And now these old defeated and crooked
+monarchists who had stood in the way of America's progress were seizing
+upon a moral issue, upon slavery, with which to befool a democratic
+electorate naturally responsive to the arguments of liberty. They had
+opposed the Mexican War; they had brought up the slavery question at
+every important juncture to confound counsels and perplex otherwise easy
+solutions. But what one of them would give back Texas, New Mexico,
+California, to Mexico? Would Webster? Would Hale? No, not one of them
+would do this.
+
+The campaign of 1848! What would the Whigs do? They would use this
+Democratic Mexican War to get into power. They would appeal to the war
+spirit which they had dishonored; they would use a national gratitude
+for service in the despised war to get the offices and control the
+administration. Would Clay win the Whig nomination? Not at all. It would
+be Zachary Taylor, the hero of the Mexican War, the slave owner of
+Louisiana. This party was over virtuous on the slavery matter, lending
+an unofficial ear to Garrison and other agitators, but it had been
+careful not to take a party stand on the question. It would continue to
+play with the subject. It would put forward a southern slave owner to
+catch the southern Whigs, and at the same time use his war record to
+move the pure-blooded and American vote.
+
+Would the Abolitionists put up a ticket? Perhaps. What would come of
+arraying section against section? Suppose slavery could be put to a
+vote. In 1840 the Abolitionists had polled 7,000 votes in the country.
+In 1844, 60,000. This proved that it was not difficult to throw a
+firebrand into America's affairs. Suppose this vote grew and an
+Abolitionist President should ultimately be elected? What of American
+progress in such a contingency? What of a wrecked republic before the
+greedy eyes of England, the envious hands of kings? Why should such
+folly be? Let the slavery question alone. Keep it out of the way of
+American development. Let the territories decide for themselves whether
+they would have slavery or not; let the states coming in do so, with
+slavery or without, as they chose.
+
+We took a drink every now and then, and Douglas turned to the subject
+of railroad extension. He told me of a certain Asa Whitney. Whitney had
+lived in China. He had returned to America in 1844, urging that a
+railroad across the continent would bring the trade of China to the
+United States and enable American merchants to control it. If a canal
+were built, supplemented by a railroad across that part of the Isthmus
+of Panama not traversed by the canal, about 115 miles, the distance
+between New York and San Francisco would be shortened by 1100 miles, and
+from New Orleans to San Francisco by 1700 miles. This related to the
+proposed Tehuantepec canal. Ah! but England had already got an interest
+in this route. So Whitney proposed a railroad from Lake Michigan through
+the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. He had laid this plan before the
+Senate in 1845, showing that if a railroad were built the journey from
+New York to the mouth of the Columbia River could be made in eight days,
+and to China in thirty days. A naval station on the Columbia River, but
+eight days from Washington city, and the Pacific could be commanded;
+next, the Indian Ocean and the South Seas. Oregon would become a great
+state at once. The commerce of China, Japan, Manila, Australia, Java,
+Calcutta, and Bombay would be ours. What would England say to this? Oh,
+yes, the Abolitionists might object! Freedom for the negro at any
+sacrifice. "Let us have a drink," said Douglas, with a laugh.
+
+"I am for this plan," said Douglas. "True, he wants $65,000,000--that
+is, he wants to raise that much and has asked Congress for a grant of
+land sixty miles wide across the continent with which to get the money.
+He is on a lecture tour now, I hear, and has got the Boards of Trade of
+New York, Cincinnati, Louisville, and some others to favor his plan. As
+usual, like all other things, the rivalry between the North and the
+South will affect the route. The Mexican annexations make it necessary
+to run the road farther south. There is to be a convention in St. Louis
+soon about the matter, and I intend to go to it."
+
+"What do you think about gold being discovered in California? Now I
+wonder if Webster does not want to give California back to Mexico. A
+good joke on us if the Whigs win the next election. How can they play
+with things in this way?"
+
+We heard some one at the door. Douglas stood up, poured himself another
+drink, and said: "To the University of Chicago."
+
+Then Dorothy and Mrs. Douglas entered. Mrs. Douglas pointed to the
+nearly empty bottle and said: "You have had a good time I see." She sat
+on the arm of Douglas' chair and began to smooth out his unruly locks.
+"You missed a good play," she said. "We had a very good drama here,"
+said Douglas. Dorothy was pulling at me to go home.
+
+When we arrived we found Mother Clayton laughing and scolding over
+Dickens' _American Notes_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+Our stay in Washington had come to an end and the campaign was on.
+
+I was building a business block in Chicago, which had come to a tangle
+owing to labor conditions. Throughout the country there was a movement
+for the ten-hour day, and there were many strikes, particularly in the
+East.
+
+We decided to return to Chicago by way of New York. Dorothy was in great
+anxiety about Mammy and Jenny lest they be kidnapped along the way.
+Desperate characters were about who picked up negroes in the North and
+sold them in the South. It was as common a matter as robbing a bank or
+picking a pocket. We kept a close watch on Mammy and Jenny. In New York
+we rode together in a carriage. But this was also made necessary by the
+fact that negroes were not permitted to use the street cars.
+
+The city now had half a million people; but I found the old places, like
+Niblo's Garden, and again walked to Washington Square whither I had
+taken my lonely way so many years before. Leaving our boy, Reverdy, with
+Mammy and Jenny at the Astor House, Dorothy and I spent much time in
+sightseeing.
+
+Broadway was our particular delight. Though it was poorly paved, and
+dimly lighted at night, it was a scene of great fascination. It was the
+great promenade. Omnibuses, cabs, hacks, trucks rolled through it all
+day long. There were footmen in livery; luxury was displayed in the
+equipages. There were crowds of foreigners; and ragged boys and girls
+who sold matches or newspapers. New York had the penny newspaper. We
+looked out upon the street in the early morning, when the workers
+streamed to their tasks. We saw it at breakfast time, when the bankers
+hurried toward Wall Street, and the lawyers were going to court, or to
+their offices in Nassau and Pine streets. In the afternoon ladies,
+richly dressed, dandies, and loafers crowded the sidewalks. There was
+fashion in abundance; wonderful silks, ermine cloaks, furs, feathers,
+gorgeous costumes of all sorts. Gold had been discovered in California!
+The Mexican cessions and Oregon could be felt on Broadway. In the shops
+articles from every part of the world were for sale. There were ladies'
+oyster shops, ladies' reading rooms, and ladies' bowling alleys.
+
+We drove to the new residence districts, like La Fayette Place, Waverly
+Place, Washington Square, and lower Fifth Avenue. We went down to the
+Battery from which I had looked with lonely eyes on the ships and the
+bay fifteen years before. The sailing vessels were giving way to the
+steamship. The Cunarder _Canada_ was in port, 250 feet long, of 2000
+horsepower, and with a speed of eleven knots an hour. Everywhere we
+encountered the New York policemen who had taken the place of the
+night-watch of 1833. They were all in uniform too. They had made a fight
+against the uniforms, upon the principle that all men are free and
+equal, and that they would not be liveried lackeys. But they had come to
+it. We also attended the theater frequently, like the Chatham and the
+Olympic. But most wonderful of all was Barnum's Museum, in which that
+great showman had collected dwarfs and giants, fat women and human
+skeletons.
+
+I felt impelled to hurry to Chicago, but Dorothy wanted to shop and so
+we stayed on. One day I had an agreeable surprise in meeting with
+Yarnell as we were entering the Astor House. I had not seen him since I
+parted with him in 1833, on my way west. He was now about forty-five
+years of age, but looked as youthful as when I first saw him, and was
+more of a dandy. He touched my arm as I passed him. I recognized him at
+once and presented him to Dorothy. As Dorothy was anxious to return to
+our son, she left me with Yarnell who wished to join me at luncheon.
+
+He took me to the Hone Club, which was the resort of good livers and men
+about town. After ordering the meal we set to the comparison of notes.
+He was eager to hear about the West and of Chicago. He could scarcely
+believe that Detroit and Milwaukee had a population of about 20,000
+each, and that Chicago had distanced them with 30,000. I told him of our
+canal, which was done, and of our great shipping. Illinois had more than
+300 miles of railroad, and we were building more at a rapid rate. This
+led, of course, to Douglas. Yarnell wanted to hear more of him. I told
+Yarnell of the beginning of my friendship with Douglas; how he had
+helped me from the stage to Mrs. Spurgeon's house in Jacksonville; of
+our friendship since that time, and of our winter in Washington. Then we
+fell to talking of Webster and Seward. Seward was a power in New York,
+now about forty-seven years of age; but Yarnell did not like him.
+Webster had wavered, particularly before the logic of Calhoun. But,
+after all, was not Webster cribbed by his New England environment?
+Seward had since been an anti-Masonic, had attended its national
+convention in 1830. Then he had joined the Whigs, in order to oppose
+Jackson. Nearly all lunacies had gone into the composition of the Whigs.
+What about this observance of the law, the higher law included? Why did
+not Seward honor the requisition of the Governor of Virginia for the
+return of a fugitive slave? Then we took up Greeley. His daily _Tribune_
+was now having an enormous circulation. Greeley and Seward were not
+friends, but there was much of spiritual kinship between them. We grew
+humorous over recounting the new movements: Spiritualism, women's
+rights, and temperance. "Do you know what happened right here in New
+York?" said Yarnell. "The Millerites got ready for the Second Advent of
+Christ, and there was a shop in the Bowery which displayed a large
+placard with the words 'muslin for ascension robes.'"
+
+"Don't you see how clearly Douglas' compact mind stands out against all
+this folly?" "Yes," said Yarnell, "but how is Douglas going to stand out
+against it? These various reformers never get tired, and they are so
+numerous that they will overwhelm any man. Besides that, you find able
+minds like Seward and Greeley taking up with them. Is it the same way
+out in Chicago?" "Not so much so," I said. "We have many foreigners out
+our way, and they give a different quality to the civilization. Come out
+and see."
+
+Yarnell walked with me back to the Astor House, and we parted.
+
+I found Dorothy in tears, almost hysterical. Jenny, in her absence, had
+stepped from the room for a moment. She had not returned. She could not
+be found. I went on the streets, I searched everywhere. I drove to the
+open squares, to the Battery. I enlisted the aid of policemen, but they
+were none too friendly. I went to the _Tribune_ and inserted an
+advertisement. The hotel employees took a hand. But no Jenny. She was
+deeply attached to our boy. She could not have willingly wandered away.
+She must have been kidnapped.
+
+Dorothy cried herself to sleep. I sat through half the night at the
+window, looking out upon Broadway, listening, at last, to the stir and
+sounds of dawn. Jenny had been in the Clayton family almost from her
+birth; an associate of Mammy's for many years. The affection that
+existed between Dorothy and Jenny was intimate and tender. Dorothy
+depended upon her for everything. I went to Dorothy and took her in my
+arms, trying to console her. She was as deeply affected as if she had
+lost a sister. All that day we searched for Jenny. The days went by, and
+we did nothing but try to find her. Our loss became the talk of the
+hotel. The newspapers took up the story. Where was Jenny; in whose
+hands; what fate had she met? Our boy cried for her, and Mrs. Clayton
+was inconsolable. But at last we had to move on to Chicago. Was Jenny
+kidnapped? We never knew. We only knew that we never saw her again. This
+was the sordidness of slavery, its temptation to the meanest passions,
+the lowest lusts. The loss of Jenny made me hate it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+I had many business vexations on returning to Chicago. But also the
+campaign of 1848 was on, and I was deeply interested in it. I had passed
+through the panic of 1837, but I was not then conscious that a labor
+movement was on. That panic had stayed it, for a mason or a carpenter
+was glad of work in those hard days. Then prosperity had revived and now
+it was in full tide due to a world condition; but in America also due to
+expansion and railroad building. Mr. Van Buren, in 1840, then being
+President, and seeking, as his enemies said, to influence the labor
+vote, had issued an executive order to the effect that laborers and
+mechanics need work but ten hours a day. Soon after this the bricklayers
+of Pittsburgh formed a union, the journeyman tailors of Washington
+opened a shop of their own; the workingmen of Philadelphia got into
+politics with an Equal Rights party. The laborers everywhere were
+advocating organization and cooperation and strikes as a means to good
+wages. In New York the laborers' union association had demanded a dollar
+a day, made out a political program, which involved opposition to any
+candidate who did not support the interests of workingmen. Sometimes the
+militia had to be called out, as in 1846 when some Irish workers on a
+strike were supplanted by Germans. Horace Greeley had naturally taken a
+hand in this movement. It attracted the humanitarian mind. The
+revolutionary processes in Europe of this year, the success of the
+socialists in France, had a marked influence upon the conditions in
+America. Meetings were held to congratulate the Chartists in England,
+the followers of Louis Blanc in France. Strikes were on in Boston and
+Philadelphia. I was caught in this world drift. I had a strike on my
+building in Chicago.
+
+I had left my affairs in the hands of an agent manager, who did not
+assume authority to meet the terms of the strikers. Upon my return I was
+obliged to settle it myself. I did this by promptly acceding to the
+demands made upon me. What was a quarter of a dollar more a day to me? I
+wanted my building to be finished.
+
+One could not escape observing all this rebellion abroad and in America,
+this awakening of the worker, this fight for human rights upon slavery
+in the South, even if he did not have it brought to his mind in the
+concrete way that I did. Slavery might be wrong, that was one thing; it
+might cut into the rights, first or last, of the free worker; but if the
+negro was owned in body and in energy, and his labor taken for nothing,
+except the food, shelter, and clothing required to keep him efficient,
+was that anything but just a matter of degree from the case of the white
+man who was paid so much a day, enough to give him food, shelter, and
+clothing, and thus keep him a fit machine? Thus there was a moral
+sympathy between the white workers and the black workers; all were
+making money for an upper man. If it was wrong to appropriate all the
+black man's labor, it was wrong to appropriate too much of the white
+man's labor. The Declaration of Independence was a hard nut to crack.
+While only a few hare-brained agitators wanted negro equality, even
+Douglas did not like slavery.
+
+The new lands of the West brought fresh troubles to Douglas and
+desperate struggles to the South. The emigration of revolutionaries from
+Europe added to the enemies of the slave system. It was hard for them to
+understand that the Declaration of Independence did not include the
+negro.
+
+This was the state of affairs in the campaign of 1848. The Democrats had
+nominated Mr. Cass, of Michigan, for President, and presented him to the
+people on a platform which placed the responsibility for the Mexican War
+upon the aggressions of Mexico; it congratulated the American soldiers
+of that war for having crowned themselves with imperishable glory; it
+tendered to the Republic of France fraternal salutations upon the
+success of republican principles, upon the recognition by the French of
+the inherent right of the people in their sovereign capacity to make and
+amend their forms of government. It spoke for American Democracy, a
+sense of the sacred duty, by reason of these popular triumphs abroad, to
+advance constitutional liberty, to resist monopolies. It advocated a
+constant adherence to the principles and compromises of the
+Constitution. It praised the administration of Mr. Polk for repealing
+the tariff of 1842, and making a start toward free trade.
+
+And not a word about slavery. The convention voted down a resolution
+which favored "non-interference with the rights of property of any
+portion of the people of this confederation, be it in the states or the
+territories, by any other than the parties interested in them."
+
+What of the Whigs? They made no declaration of principles whatever.
+Complete silence. They nominated General Taylor, as Douglas had
+predicted, upon his record in the Mexican War, the war successfully
+prosecuted by President Polk, and through which California, with her
+gold, had come to the United States. Taylor, the slave owner of
+Louisiana! But this was not the end of Whig cunning. Millard Fillmore
+was nominated for Vice President. He was from New York, had been in
+Congress, had opposed the annexation of Texas, was a tariff man, had
+fought side by side with J. Q. Adams for the abolition of slavery. But
+also he had been the Congressman who had carried the appropriation of
+$30,000 for Morse's telegraph. A mixed man! His good was Taylor's evil.
+Taylor's evil was his good.
+
+Well, the native Americans had a ticket in the field; the Barn-burners
+had a ticket in the field; and the Abolitionists. Mr. Van Buren was
+running for President as a Barn-burner on a platform which declared
+that there should be no more slave states, and no more slave territory.
+Where was I to stand amid all this confusion and contradiction?
+Naturally with Douglas. But I wanted to see what he had to say.
+
+It was not long before he came to Chicago and our interesting
+association was renewed. He had had something of a quarrel with Mr.
+Polk, but it had been patched up. Before now he had proposed that the
+line of the Missouri Compromise be extended to the Pacific Ocean. Was
+he, too, becoming uncertain of mind? Sometimes I thought he was
+overworked, that his energies were concerned with too many subjects. He
+was making speeches; he was talking railroads; he had his own political
+fortunes to watch. The Whigs were gaining ground. He scoffed at them. He
+derided their hypocrisy. He laughed at their piebald character. Yet he
+saw a cunning plot in this presentation to the electorate of men who
+appealed so diversely: Taylor of the South, and of slavery; Fillmore of
+the North, and of free soil, backed by the powerful mercantilism of the
+North, like the bank and the tariff. Both were using Jefferson to win
+the mob, and Hamilton to satisfy the strong.
+
+It was in the fall just before the election that Reverdy and Sarah came
+to visit us, bringing Amos, now about fourteen, and Reverdy Junior,
+about twelve, and Nancy, who was ten.
+
+The Douglases came to dine with us, and after the dinner Reverdy,
+Douglas, and I retired to the library. Again we had the bottle between
+us, but Reverdy was an abstainer. He was satisfied with Douglas'
+personal attitude toward slavery; Douglas' evident wish that the
+institution was not among us; his refusal to have anything to do with
+Mrs. Douglas' slaves. Reverdy was a man of peace and believed that
+Douglas' non-interference policy would ensure peace. He approved of
+leaving the matter of slavery to the people of the territories. He
+feared a war, and he opposed the agitation that might bring it. At the
+same time, he preferred a free soil and a free people. Reverdy was
+typical of many men in America. And indeed, my heart went with Reverdy
+in these things, even while my thinking went with Douglas.
+
+Douglas was now the master of his party in Illinois, and it seemed to me
+that no one could dispute his leadership in the nation. He had perfected
+the party organization in the state from the small beginnings of which I
+have told. He was proud of his work and the strength and discipline of
+his party. He looked forward to victory this fall over the
+hermaphroditic ticket of Taylor and Fillmore. He was never more
+brilliant than he was this evening. He was compelling to look at, not
+when standing, for then his short legs caricatured and belittled his
+great body. But when he was seated his wonderful face and majestic head
+truly represented his nature.
+
+Outside the house, in the streets, we could hear the cries, "free soil,
+free speech, free labor, and free men!" Douglas looked annoyed, ironic
+lights passed across his face. He said in a satiric way: "Just listen
+to that." These cries could not be met by direct denial, by an
+epigrammatic retort. One could not so aptly say "slave banks, slave
+tariffs, slave labor conditions." These required arguments to expound.
+If labor conditions presaged slavery for white men were they freed by
+negro slavery? Was not this roar outside of the house a part of the
+tumult in Germany and France? Was not this America hailing Europe? Had
+not this crowd caught up the Democratic platform which congratulated the
+republicans of France? What would the German vote do, the Irish vote,
+all the foreign vote? Had not the Whigs, marching through these streets
+of Chicago, captured all the effective thunder of the Democratic party?
+
+As Douglas sat before us I saw him as a giant around whom great forces
+were gathering. The light played a curious trick with his forehead,
+throwing part of it into fantastic shadows. There was a moment's silence
+in which the deep brilliancy of his eyes flashed upon me. Then his great
+voice spoke again: "It is easy to have a war--among ourselves." Reverdy
+looked at Douglas in a sort of terror. Just then Amos came to the door
+to call us to see a political parade which was passing the house.
+
+We three arose, joining Mother Clayton, Dorothy, and Mrs. Douglas who
+were already watching it. It was a demonstration of Free Soilers.
+Douglas had voted against the prohibition of slavery in Texas. This was
+the answer. These banners, bearing the words "Free Soil, Free Speech,
+Free Labor, and Free Men," were the challenge. The men who bore them did
+not know how to apply their principles to anything but the negro.
+Douglas knew this. At the same time he knew that he had helped to create
+this demonstration, that he had been influential in initiating this new
+momentum.
+
+I looked at Douglas to see what effect the shouts, the pushing, running,
+limp-stepped throng would have upon him. A smile flitted across his
+face. His eyes were intense and concentrated. He made no comment. The
+last men of the parade passed with shouts. A drunken marcher fell. The
+lights faded. We turned into the room. Douglas was laughing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+
+What was the result? General Taylor had 1,360,099 votes and 163
+electoral votes; Cass had 1,220,544 votes and 127 electoral votes. The
+Abolitionists polled 300,000 votes in the country. The Free Soilers had
+polled 291,263 votes in the country. Illinois was lost to General
+Taylor. The Free Soilers had swept the northeastern counties. There had
+been great Democratic desertions. Voltaire and Rousseau were still at
+work. These fermentations of Europe had bubbled and exploded around
+Chicago. The concrete thing known as negro slavery heard the rumble of
+the ground. The tariff, the bank, imperial power in Congress unwittingly
+renewed their strength--unwittingly on the part of the Free Soilers.
+
+A slave owner had become President; a man of the fresh blood of the
+northwest of Michigan had been defeated. A New Yorker, wedded to the
+tariff, had been put in place to be President by the death of General
+Taylor. And Douglas found the forces that were to embattle him drawing
+up in line.
+
+The state was saved to the local offices. The legislature was
+Democratic, but it proceeded soon to instruct Douglas as Senator to
+procure the enactment of laws for the territories for the exclusion of
+slavery from them. The members from Egypt, however, sustained Douglas in
+his position against the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to keep slavery
+from Texas. The state was thus disrupted. The opposition to the
+extension of slavery dated from 1787, from the work of Jefferson in
+1800. However, let the people of the territories decide the matter.
+Local self-government was a popular cry. Between saying that Congress
+could keep slavery out of the territories, thereby treating the
+territories as property, not as subordinate sovereignties, and Congress
+sending slavery into the territories, because the Constitution was over
+them, what juster pragmatism were possible than to let the people of the
+territories decide the matter for themselves? If the general government
+was one of granted powers, where did it get the right to prohibit
+slavery in the territories? No such power could be indicated.
+
+Oh, well, there was opportunity for infinite speculation. At the same
+time, here were the territories and here was slavery. The powerful North
+was assuming a definite opposition to a weaker South. Iron and coal were
+stronger than cotton. What was to be done by a man who had the burdens
+of leadership? How should the whole people be at peace? Since slavery
+could not be removed from the states, why not let its tendrils creep
+into the territories and there flourish or wither according to the soil?
+Since it was practical, not radical policy to confine it to the states,
+and not to abolish it in the states, it was practical and not radical
+policy to let the territories decide the matter for themselves. If the
+first course aroused the fury of the Abolitionists, the second course
+found no favor with the Free Soilers, and ambitious Whigs, drawing upon
+abolitionism and free soilism for food, for northern mercantilism and
+for a larger slavery of both blacks and whites.
+
+I had now lived so long in America, seen so much of the country, read so
+extensively of politics and history, that I was able to follow the
+questions involved in this crisis. All the while I had the benefit of
+Douglas' association, who talked to me intimately of his own plans and
+of persons and issues, as they arose. There were calls upon him now to
+resign the Senatorship; but he had no intention of doing so. His
+fighting blood was aroused. He was hardened to contests and to
+misunderstanding and abuse. He had been berated for coarseness and
+charged with the half-culture of the West. His sagacity had been
+caricatured as cunning; his presence of mind taken for vulgar audacity;
+he was held up as a half-educated debater, filled with a miserable
+self-sufficiency. He was attacked as a demagogue. The East held itself
+aloof from him in unctuous self-righteousness, because of his stand in
+the Mexican War. His fight for Oregon had aligned against him the
+friends of England in America. Yet men were in power because of him. A
+Whig had been elected President upon a war record of a fight for Texas.
+Who wished to part with Texas, New Mexico, California, or Oregon?
+
+If Douglas had the slavocracy back of him and catered to it, he did not
+have plutocracy back of him. If he had been a demagogue he would have
+done the bidding of some faction. He did the bidding of no faction. His
+mind was budding with railroads now, for the Far West. What he was now
+doing made for a money control of the country in the future; but that
+was not apparent to him. What one of us saw that we could not make an
+ocean-bound republic without a supremacy of wealth, even if it was
+brought about by a plebiscite? This did not make it democratic.
+
+It was at this time that Mother Clayton's health began to be frail, and
+Dorothy was by no means strong. The winters in Chicago had been very
+trying upon both of them. Just now I had so many interests that I could
+not leave the city. But Mother Clayton wished to return to Nashville for
+a few months, and Dorothy decided to go with her. Our boy was not as
+robust as we should have wished. Mammy, by no means to be left out of
+our consideration, was aging and longed for the old scenes of Nashville.
+We closed our house, and I went to the hotel. Then Abigail and Aldington
+were married. They went abroad to study European conditions. Thus the
+most of my associations were interrupted. All but those I had with
+Douglas.
+
+To go to Nashville was an inconvenient trip, but I made it on several
+occasions. Once on a mission of deep sorrow. Mother Clayton died in
+June just as she and Dorothy were preparing to join me in Chicago. I was
+thinking of going to California on account of the gold discoveries. So I
+brought Dorothy and Mammy back, although Mammy was very old and could
+not be of much service.
+
+Thousands were turning their faces to the West. How to get there, how to
+equip oneself, were the questions. Some went by Cape Horn, some by the
+Isthmus of Panama, some by the overland route. Thousands joined
+companies. Others bought ships or chartered them. The wildest of rumors
+spread of the richness of the discoveries. Fabulous reports of fabulous
+prices and wages in California were scattered broadcast. I wanted to go.
+But why, after all? I could get richer, but why get richer? Besides,
+there were my interests and Dorothy. I felt the adventurer stir within
+me, and talked with Douglas about going. He did not wish me to leave
+Chicago. What soil could be richer than that south of Madison Street?
+Besides, he was working on the Illinois Central railroad project, and
+that would mean all the money that I would care for, if I would take
+advantage of the opportunities which the railroad would create. Then
+there were the transcontinental lines to be built. A convention was soon
+to be held in St. Louis, and Douglas wished me to go along with him.
+
+It was held in October and I went with Douglas to attend it. The
+proposition was the construction of a railroad from the Mississippi to
+the Pacific. The delegates were mostly from the Mississippi valley,
+more than 800 in number, and Douglas made me a delegate from Illinois.
+He was promptly elected to preside over the convention. The first thing
+proposed was the construction of an emigrant route on the line of the
+proposed railroad. This was in the interest of the gold seekers. A
+delegate who said he had constructed more than 7000 miles of telegraph
+offered to string a wire to California if Congress would lend its aid.
+There should be stations along the way, with troopers to defend the
+emigrants against Indians. The troopers could carry the mails, thus
+insuring the delivery of a letter from St. Louis to San Francisco in
+twelve days. Another delegate advised the convention that Charleston and
+New Orleans would soon be joined by telegraph. As a means of
+communication, he proposed that for the sending of messages from
+Washington to Oregon, it could be done in fifteen days by transmitting a
+telegram by boat from New Orleans to Laredo, and thence by telegraph to
+some point on the Gulf of California; thence to San Francisco and to
+Washington or Oregon again by boat.
+
+It was a vital, noisy assemblage of men; and Douglas was a perfect
+talent as a presiding officer. His great voice could easily be heard
+over the entire hall and it seemed altogether fitting, since he had so
+long been interested in binding the country together with railroads and
+telegraphs, that he should be the spokesman of this body of men, who
+were inaugurating this magical transformation of America.
+
+The lobby of the hotel was full of faces of all descriptions. The
+millionaire was there, the countryman, the slave dealer, the man with
+the goatee. The barrooms and corridors were noisy with excitement, loud
+talk of politics, of railroads, of trade, of slavery; denunciation of
+the Whigs, curses for the defeat of Cass. I saw bloodshot eyes, reeling
+steps, coarseness, cruelty, wastefulness in drink. Yankees and Dutch
+were denounced as trash and as cowards and traitors. They had defeated
+the Democratic party the previous fall. Plans were made on the moment
+among various excited groups to go to California. A transcontinental
+line must be put through at once.
+
+Amid this motley throng stood Douglas. He glowed in the admiration he
+received. He was acclaimed, cheered; his hand was taken in a rough and
+hearty manner by scores, wherever he stood or walked. One moment he was
+talking with a group of men from Tennessee; again he was exchanging
+salutations with Captain Grant, who was here now without prospects,
+drinking too much, quite a sorry figure, lounging about waiting for
+something to turn up. Not so with the dignified Major Sherman. He had
+been to California, on field duty in the Mexican War. Now well groomed
+and of fine bearing, he stood about the lobby interested in the
+projected railroad. Douglas, Grant, Sherman,--all had a definite
+relation to the Mexican War, and the new territory. Douglas seemed to be
+taking renewed life from this interesting experience. I was his
+companion all the time, loitering near as he talked to various
+notables. I looked over this mass of humanity and thought of America as
+a whole, and wondered what it would do with its rich possessions, and
+its problems. Its fate seemed hopelessly entangled, in spite of the
+material prosperity--perhaps because of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+I felt now the truth of Webster's picturesque words that "the imprisoned
+winds were let loose." We might have a transcontinental railroad, and
+Douglas' Illinois Central might connect Chicago with the Gulf of Mexico.
+All of this building might go forward successfully. But at the same time
+the slavery question would not down. Even railroad building was a bone
+of contention, for as to a line to California it had been debated
+whether it should start from Chicago or from St. Louis. Hence it was
+that every activity of Douglas had to reckon with the negro. There were
+now great things to be done at Washington. And as Dorothy had enjoyed
+herself so much during the winter that we had spent there, she was
+urging me to return. I had my affairs now under better management, and
+communication with Chicago was rather convenient; besides Dorothy was
+not well. The loss of Jenny and the death of her mother had visibly
+affected her health. I decided at last to spend the winter in
+Washington.
+
+The trip from Chicago to New York by boat and by train was as wearisome
+as before. When we arrived in New York, Dorothy had to take to her bed
+and rest for two days before proceeding to Washington.
+
+We took a house again, keeping Mammy for intimate service and
+supplementing her with two colored women who fitted in fairly well. Our
+boy Reverdy was put in school.
+
+I began to attend the sessions of the Senate, taking Dorothy when she
+wished to go. Clay of Kentucky, after an absence of eight years, was
+back; here were also Webster and Calhoun, the lions of an earlier day.
+They were enacting their last parts, trying to re-imprison the winds of
+destiny, which the events of the Mexican War had set to roaring over the
+land. Young America, in the person of Douglas, faced the hierarchy of
+the earlier republic; and Seward of New York, older than Douglas by some
+twelve years, but less versatile and attractive, stood now as a
+spokesman for a new party.
+
+If there were pessimists who believed that the Union was in danger at
+this time, Douglas was not of them. He could not see the South, if
+reasonably accommodated, interfering with his ocean-bound republic. He
+had elasticity, a fresh edge. The coldness of dying arteries was not
+upon him, as in the case of Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. He had great
+projects to forward, such as grants to secure the construction of the
+Illinois Central railroad. He knew what railroads meant to the country.
+He was of the West and he understood it. He was quick to offer a bill in
+the Senate for a grant of land for the construction of this railroad
+from Chicago to New Orleans, and it was passed. In the debate over the
+bill Douglas of Illinois faced Webster of Massachusetts. It was a
+dramatic antithesis. Douglas, young and devoted to the prairies,
+Webster, old and fixed in his admirations for the East. The old question
+of disunion arose. If we would have liberty and union forever, railroads
+would insure them. Douglas had said that if the North should ever be
+arrayed against the South, the pioneers of the northwest and the
+southwest would balance the contest. Webster had spoken slightingly of
+the West which Douglas so greatly loved. And these were Douglas'
+inspiring and prophetic words in reply:
+
+"There is a power in this nation greater either than the North or the
+South--a growing, increasing, swelling power that will be able to speak
+the law to this nation and to execute the law as spoken. That power is
+the country known as the Great West--the valley of the Mississippi, one
+and indivisible from the Gulf to the Great Lakes, and stretching on the
+one side and the other to the extreme sources of the Ohio and the
+Mississippi--from the Alleghenies to the Rocky Mountains. There, sir, is
+the hope of this nation, the resting place of the power that is not only
+to control but to save the Union. We furnish the water that makes the
+Mississippi; and we intend to follow, navigate, and use it until it
+loses itself in the briny ocean. So with the St. Lawrence. We intend to
+keep open and enjoy both of these great outlets to the ocean, and all
+between them we intend to take under our special protection, and
+preserve and keep as one happy, free, and united people. This is the
+mission of the great Mississippi valley, the heart and soul of the
+nation and the continent."
+
+Did these words have any definite meaning to Webster? He knew nothing of
+the West. He sat with his leonine eyes fixed upon young America in the
+person of Douglas. No, as for that, Douglas did not know how truly he
+was speaking. He could not see in what manner time would fulfill his
+words. No, not even though there was thrilling conviction in his great
+voice, which filled the Senate chamber.
+
+On the subject of the territories Douglas had offered several bills of
+his own. I can't remember their order, their substance, beyond the fact
+that they looked to the territorial control of slavery. But I remember a
+very cutting reply that he made to one Senator who interrupted him to
+ask by what authority a territory could legislate upon slavery. "Your
+bill conceded that a representative government is necessary--a
+government founded upon the principles of popular sovereignty, and the
+right of the people to enact their own laws; and for this reason you
+give them a legislature constituted of two branches; you confer upon
+them the right to legislate upon all rightful subjects of legislation,
+except negroes. Why except negroes? I am not therefore prepared to say
+that under the Constitution we have not the power to pass laws excluding
+negro slaves from the territories. But I do say that if left to myself
+to carry out my own opinions I would leave the whole subject to the
+people of the territories themselves."
+
+In a sense Clay was the center of attraction, both because he had
+returned after a long absence and because he was expected to use his
+conciliatory power toward a settlement which would satisfy both the
+North and the South. He had come to Washington expecting to be received
+with open arms by President Taylor. He had been disappointed. He was not
+overstrong, being in his seventy-third year. But his old charm had not
+faded, his power over men had not abated. He had loved a drink, a game
+of cards; he was a slave owner, from a slave state; he had not been
+consistent in his thinking and his preachment. True to his peculiar gift
+of leadership and negotiation, he had framed a compromise which provided
+for the admission of California as a free state. This contradicted the
+doctrine of the right of the state to come into the Union free or slave,
+as it chose. The bill provided further for the admission of Utah and New
+Mexico with or without slavery as they might choose. This impugned the
+admissional doctrine of California. It provided for the abolition of the
+slave trade in the District of Columbia, and for the passage of a
+fugitive slave law, such as would satisfy the South. A motley bill!
+Calhoun was against it. He demanded the extension of slavery into the
+territory acquired from Mexico, and proposed an amendment to the
+Constitution providing for two presidents, one from the South and one
+from the North, with a veto over each other's acts. Any absurdity for
+the sake of slavery! Perhaps disease had something to do with this
+unreason. He died in April before any law was passed.
+
+Webster supported Clay's bill, thus standing for the admission of Utah
+and New Mexico with or without slavery as they might decide. Douglas in
+the discussion, with his eye for the concrete, pointed out that the
+ordinance of 1787, and the Missouri Compromise as well, were practically
+dead letters. As to the free law respecting Oregon, Oregon had
+previously fixed the freedom status for herself. As to the fantastic
+proposition of striking a balance between the North and the South,
+giving them equal new states of freedom and slavery, he pointed out that
+that was a moral and physical impossibility. The cause of freedom had
+steadily advanced, the cause of slavery steadily failed. "We all look
+forward with confidence to the time when Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,
+Kentucky, and Missouri, and probably North Carolina and Tennessee, will
+adopt a gradual system of emancipation. In the meantime we have a vast
+territory, stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific, which is
+rapidly filling up with a hardy, enterprising, and industrious
+population, large enough to form at least seventeen new free states.
+Now, let me inquire, where are you to find the slave territory with
+which to balance these seventeen free territories, or even any one of
+them?"
+
+This was not exactly placating the South. Douglas missed his opportunity
+as a demagogue.
+
+Turning to Webster Douglas said: "California came in free according to
+those laws of nature and God to which the Senator of Massachusetts
+alluded. It would be free under any bill you may pass or without any
+bill at all." And Seward spoke for a law higher than the Constitution.
+Well, there were many laws of justice, mercy, and ethics which the
+Constitution did not comprehend. Still, if it came to a question of law,
+what law was to be observed? The laws that were written, the laws
+relating to the progress of the country, the laws that worked for peace
+among the American people? If Webster could vote for this compromise,
+surely Douglas could. Both might have to return to their homes, there to
+face hostility arising from a different vision of the questions than
+that these men had, acting upon their responsibility and attempting to
+reconcile many interests.
+
+In point of fact, Douglas returned to Chicago to find a storm of
+disfavor rising about him. His enemies were multiplying. His own state
+was disappointed in him. The South distrusted him. But he had infinite
+confidence in his own strength. Webster was declining, both he and Clay
+were soon to die. But Douglas was only thirty-seven. More than thirty
+years yet before he would reach their age. Clay's Compromises had become
+a law. The slavery question was settled. Now for the Illinois Central
+railroad.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+
+We returned from Washington to New York, for much was going on in the
+metropolis. The newspapers day by day were full of Douglas and his
+difficulties in Chicago. The common council had adopted a resolution
+censuring Douglas, calling the Clay Compromises a violation of the laws
+of God. The aldermen of Chicago must have been affected by the religious
+psychology which was now sweeping the country.
+
+We read that Douglas had heard that a mass-meeting was about to indorse
+the resolution of the city council; he had gone to the hall to defend
+himself and had been greeted by hisses and catcalls. He had faced his
+hecklers, forced them to adjourn until he could address them; then he
+had addressed them, carried them by storm and procured the resolutions
+to be expunged.
+
+Evidently the city council did not understand the Clay Compromises. Or
+had Douglas' oratory swept them off their feet? It may not be a pleasing
+sight to see a slave returned to its master, but what are you going to
+do with the law? Are you willing to violate the Constitution for the
+negro? A heckler asked him: "Are not the provisions of the Constitution
+respecting the return of a fugitive slave a violation of the law of
+God?" Douglas was quick to reply: "The divine law does not prescribe
+the form of government under which we shall live, and the character of
+our political and civil institutions. Revelation has not furnished us
+with a constitution, a code of international law, and a system of civil
+and municipal jurisprudence. If this Constitution is to be repudiated
+for the law of God, who is to be the prophet to reveal the will of God
+and establish a theocracy for us?"
+
+I began to think of this law of God. Men are always reaching for it.
+Sometimes it is only a club for interest or revenge. You have offended
+me. God will punish you. If God was opposed to slavery he could have
+prevented it in the beginning and He could terminate it now. Perhaps
+Douglas thought of this when saying that God had not provided a code of
+municipal law. If He had, He could have written freedom into the
+Constitution. Douglas was at least sure that he knew as much about the
+law of God as Garrison or Seward, or abolitionist lecturers in back
+halls.
+
+De Tocqueville had written that "America is the country of the whole
+world where the question of religion has asserted the most real power
+over the souls of men." The ringing of church bells, church going,
+revivals, the calling upon God to note and punish sin, pervaded the
+country and the cities. The Bible was a textbook of God's thinking. It
+justified slavery in the South; it encouraged abolitionism in the North;
+it suggested interference and regimentation; it counseled forgiveness
+and vengeance.
+
+At this time in New York one could not turn or pick up the most casual
+publication without finding something in the nature of a moral
+propagandum. At breakfast I read from the _New York Independent_ that
+"Rum, profaneness and Sabbath breaking always go together." The editor
+was "sorry to find that the stockholders of the Saratoga railroad still
+run their cars upon the Sabbath. It is an odious and monstrous
+violation, not only of the laws of God, but of all the decencies of
+Christian society. And yet I had noticed ladies traveling in them,
+thundering into Saratoga on the Lord's Day. Women traveling in a public
+conveyance on the Sabbath. There is something in this peculiarly
+degrading and shameful. It ought to be only the lowest of the sex that
+would stoop to such debasement." And another paper said: "We are sorry
+to learn that the directors have established an accommodation train for
+Sunday morning between this city and Poughkeepsie, in addition to the
+mail train to Albany. Mr. James Boorman, through whose efficient service
+as President the road was mainly built, has resigned his office as
+director and has addressed a firm remonstrance to the Board against this
+impiety."
+
+This was the time in which Douglas was now working. Every one knew what
+the law of God was. Every one appealed to the Bible as God's word. For
+much of this Douglas had perfect contempt; and he was quick to sense a
+taint of it in Seward, or any one whom it had infected. Such men as
+Stephens of the South were insisting now that the real intellect-of the
+North cared nothing about slavery, and only used it to masquerade their
+centralizing plots. If local self-government could be extinguished for
+the purposes of abolition why not for anything, in behalf of which a
+moral enthusiasm could be evoked? Why not a constitutional amendment
+establishing a state religion? Why not a state religion under the
+present constitutional clause which makes provision for the general
+welfare?
+
+One day when Dorothy and I were seated at Niblo's at luncheon I felt
+some one touch my shoulder. I looked up and saw Aldington, back of him
+Abigail, who was laughing at my expression of surprise. We all broke
+into exclamations. They had just returned from Europe. They joined us in
+the meal; and there was scarcely enough time to tell back and forth all
+that was of mutual interest. He saw me with the _Independent_ and began
+to rally me. "Did you know," he said, "that the early Puritans in New
+England were the progenitors of one third of the whole population of the
+United States by 1834? They constitute one half of the population of the
+states of Ohio and New York now, and they have gone into the northwest.
+They will make trouble for your Douglas. I admit that they have blighted
+art and hobbled literature. They have expurgated Shakespeare, they have
+fought the theater, they are always ready for the moral battle. They
+know what God wants better than anybody. In a sense they are hounds in
+pursuit of a lot of things in the great hunt of life. They are a
+stubborn lot. It will be hard to take away from them anything that is
+their own, and also to keep them from destroying anything that they
+don't want."
+
+"Well, now don't you see," I asked, "that Douglas is against all these
+people and that he has all these influences to fight? For example, these
+Puritans cannot rule if popular sovereignty is adopted everywhere. They
+are numerically too inferior. How, for example, can you stop the
+railroads on Sunday if you let communities, states, control the matter?
+But if these fanatics get into control of the Federal government, they
+can do it. Don't you see the point? This is what Douglas is thinking
+about. He knows that you can have freedom about life only where every
+man has a say."
+
+Then we began to talk of the religious revival. Periodicals were noting
+the great turn of the public mind to religion. "Fruits of the spirit"
+were extolled. Great and glorious works of divine grace were wrought in
+Maine. A village in Massachusetts had enjoyed "a heavenly refreshing
+from the presence of the Lord." In Cincinnati there was "an outpouring
+of the spirit." In the woods of Michigan men rode into a village to
+obtain mercy, having heard that the Lord was there. In New York City
+noon prayer meetings were held. A conductor found salvation suddenly
+while operating his horse car in Sixth Avenue. A sailor saw Christ at
+the wheel. Christ was met in parlors, in places of worldly gayety. An
+actor had been rescued from his wicked calling. Harriet Beecher Stowe
+wrote: "We trust since prayer has once entered the counting rooms it
+will never leave it; and that the ledger, sandbox, the blotting book and
+the pen and ink will all be consecrated by heavenly presence." Her
+brother, the pastor of Plymouth church, had converted one hundred and
+ninety souls. A theater was used for a place of worship. Actors were
+called upon to repent: You who have portrayed human nature before the
+footlights, fall on your knees and acknowledge God! Rum had been driven
+from a saloon near this theater. "Thank God," said Beecher, "let us pray
+silently for the space of two minutes. What a history has been here. A
+place of fictitious joys but of real sorrows has been reformed. It is
+open for God's people to sing and pray in. God be thanked that Heaven's
+gates have been opened in this place of hell."
+
+Garrison saw the point. Of the revival he wrote that it had "spread like
+an epidemic in all directions, over a wide extent of country. Prayer
+meetings, morning, noon and night; prayer meetings in town, village, and
+hamlet, North and South. The whole thing is an emotional contagion
+without principle. This revival, judging from the past, will promote
+meanness, not manliness; delusion, not intelligence; the growth of
+bigotry, not of humanity; a spurious religion, not genuine piety."
+
+Theodore Parker denounced the mania too, and was attacked for it by
+Methodists and others. He sew that the North had its rain gods, its
+prosperity gods, its bread and butter gods, its rituals and devotions
+for these gods; and that the South had the same number of gods.
+
+What then of the law of God? Douglas was at one with Garrison and Parker
+in this criticism of the religious mania.
+
+Thus we talked along together. The principal thing about Abigail was
+that she despised the South, but for the reason that there was nothing
+there but the political mind and that it was concerned almost entirely
+with the negro. It had no literature. Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier,
+Lowell were producing works of merit; and the South was doing nothing.
+Poe was born in Boston, had lived South, but had written out of nowhere.
+He had died about a year before, discouraged and broken.
+
+The most silent voice at the table was Dorothy's. She did not really
+enter into these discussions. Her softer, altogether feminine nature was
+disturbed by these things. Abigail began to laugh. "Why," she asked,
+"does every one say here 'how's your health' instead of 'good morning'
+as they say in England? People look careworn to me in America; they are
+spare and pallid. Not many ruddy complexions. Why all these sharp-faced,
+lantern-jawed, lean, sallow, hard-handed people? Why this depression of
+spirits? Perhaps they really get a thrill out of religion after all. Why
+all these advertisements of quack remedies, why all this calling on God?
+This is a place of bright sunshine and exhilarating air. After all, I do
+not understand it."
+
+"All due to the habits of life," said Aldington. "Look at the fast
+eating--look at them here. Too much hot bread and sweets--too much pie
+for breakfast. Too much pork. Too much living at hotels and boarding
+houses. Too much drinking before meals; not enough wine and beer with
+meals. Too much tobacco chewing. No exercise. Only the farmer, the
+laborer works. They go too far. But where do you see outdoor sports? No
+cricket, no rowing. Nothing but trotting around in buggies. Recreation
+consists of lounging around on sofas at Saratoga. All the public men
+ill. I hear that Toombs is indisposed. Sumner is in poor health.
+Douglas, the little giant, is losing strength. What a curious people,
+aged and young, corrupt and idealistic, candid and hypocritical,
+religious and materialistic, hoarders and spenders, self-righteous,
+licentious, Puritanical." "Like all others," I interjected.
+
+"Like no other," Aldington rejoined. "Go back to your native England and
+see. You have forgotten some things. There is such a thing as a definite
+stock. And if you call the English bulldogs, for example, your America
+is a mixture of the wolf, spaniel, lapdog, shepherd, and about all
+breeds; and according to the occasion any one of them, with quick
+changes. Abigail and I have been here for a number of days and we have
+been entertained by some of her splendacious friends, to use Thackeray's
+adjective for American fashion; and the impression it all makes on me is
+beyond description. I want to see a better thing made of Chicago. I
+really hate it here, all this striving for money--but of course no place
+can beat Chicago for that--but also the idlers here, the worship of
+Mammon, the dullness and the gloom of elegant people, the extravagant
+dressing, the liveried servants, all this imitation. And all this talk
+here of America being the only religious, free, and enlightened people
+in the world. Why, they are not free at all. The mind must be free
+before the man is free, and the mind cannot be free in a despotism. The
+slavery of the North is just as bad as the slavery of the South. For
+look at these people; slaves to fear, slaves to stupid customs, slaves
+to superstition, slaves to foreign ideas of dress, fashion, wealth;
+slaves to all the vices by which money is made, and all the tricks and
+hypocrisies by which it is piled up and invested with rulership; slaves
+to absurd ideas; slaves to every foolish reform. Why, sometimes as I
+think of it, I see the negro in the South as the freest man in America.
+He is only a slave as to his labor. Every one must work. Instead of
+receiving money he gets clothes and a hut. He can't go away from the
+plantation, but why go away? One must be somewhere. And as to these
+other things, he is not a slave at all."
+
+"Yes, and that's not all," I said. "A money power is fast growing up in
+this country which will rule the country so thoroughly that the small
+dictation of the cotton industry of the South will not be a comparison.
+Slavocracy is only one of the scales on the tail of the dragon of
+plutocracy. Gold and silver, tariffs, subsidies, colonies, banks of
+issue--these are the claws and teeth of the big slavery."
+
+"So says Adam Smith," Aldington interjected.
+
+"Exactly so, and it's all true. Every one of the old timers knew these
+things, Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton. I am beginning to think that
+Franklin, Payne, and Jefferson were the truest thinkers and greatest
+planners for a republic that America has had. And what do you think of
+Douglas now? He is a Nationalist with Jackson, and a Republican with
+Jefferson; a let-alone philosopher all the time."
+
+"Oh, yes, but Douglas is not educated. He is not really sound. He is not
+deep enough. He is not--I hate the word spirituality--but he hasn't the
+right heat, the right light. I may not be able to put my finger on the
+exact fault--it is not exactly demagogy--but I see him using blocks of
+people, who are bound together by a common emotion or idea, as a man
+might use a block of stone for his house. He picks them up and puts them
+in the place that suits his own ambition. There is one thing, however,
+with which I am inclined to sympathize with Douglas. His appeal is
+really more intellectual than emotional. You see an ocean-bound republic
+requires imagination to get the thrill out of it, but you can catch
+anybody in America with a military uniform. And while Douglas may be a
+war man, so to speak, he is really too honest to play that game. I'll
+grant him that much. I think that the Whigs are outplaying him. And it
+looks to me that the emotions of America--what some people might call
+the conscience of America--are being drawn away from Douglas by this
+slavery matter. Just now territory and railroads are not so strong, or
+will not be so strong pretty soon as the cry for emancipation." "I am
+glad to hear you say these things," I said. "Douglas is only
+thirty-seven; he will not fully mature his powers for ten years yet. I
+have talked with him many times and have known him intimately and I
+think I understand the man. He is distrusted in the South simply because
+he will not bend all law making to the slave interests. He has just been
+written down in Chicago on the law of God doctrine. And yet he stands
+his ground against both the North and the South without flinching. He
+defies his enemies. He has the very sanity that you have extolled here
+at this table. I think he has the only rational solution for this
+slavery question. He is a very great man in my opinion."
+
+"What do you think of Barnum?" asked Aldington. Abigail looked up and
+said: "Yes, I would like to hear a little about Barnum and less about
+Douglas. I hear that Jenny Lind is coming to town." "It's to-day," said
+Dorothy. "And don't we want to see her arrive? I do, let's go."
+
+And we all hurried forth to witness the greetings given to the Swedish
+nightingale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+
+Barnum had been taken by De Quincey as an epitome of America: "A great
+hulk of a continent, that the very moon finds fatiguing to cross,
+produces a race of Barnums on a pre-Adamite scale, corresponding in
+activity to its own enormous proportions."
+
+Barnum had resorted to daily advertising, a great sensationalism to keep
+up interest in the arrival of the singer. We went from our table to the
+pier to see her descend from the steamer. Triumphal arches of evergreens
+and flowers had been erected over the way she passed. A great crowd had
+collected. Bands were playing. Her face came into view. Shouts arose.
+She bowed and smiled to the wild throngs about her as she rode with
+Barnum to the Astor House. Here the Swedish and American flags floated
+in her honor. New York was in a frenzy of delight. But the tickets to
+hear her! All this excitement had been worked up for use at the box
+office. And Aldington could not afford the price. We wished Abigail and
+Aldington to be with us. I therefore submitted to the Barnum extortion
+for the whole party.
+
+Jenny Lind sang at Castle Garden, where I had sat nearly twenty years
+before, when New York had about half the population. The crowds pressed
+around the entrances. Those who could not afford to enter hoped to get a
+glimpse of her anyway. It was an enormous audience, and all of
+distinguished New York was there. Senator Webster had been one of those
+to receive her at the pier, and he was in the audience too. We were all
+deeply moved by this wonderful voice. Poor Dorothy was frequently drying
+her eyes. And when she sang one of her own national airs, Webster sat
+entranced. At its close she courtesied to him. He arose and bowed to her
+with the majestic manner of a great monarch. The audience went into a
+fury of applause. Every one spoke of her as good of heart, sweet and
+natural of manner. She had given her share of the proceeds of this
+concert to various charities in New York City. A feeling of uplifted
+life spread over the metropolis. She melted the souls of thousands, and
+purged the craft of money getting. We came away from her as from a
+higher realm. "What," said Abigail, "is anything in the world, money or
+statesmanship, what, of all these things of which we have talked to-day
+can be compared to an art like that, a divine influence like song?"
+
+After this we started on a round of the theaters. I prevailed upon our
+friends to prolong their stay, to be our guests. We saw Burton and Edwin
+Booth. We went to the Opera, saw the ballet which Fannie Ellsler had
+previously inaugurated. The _Independent_ was denouncing the theater as
+an unmitigated evil; the ballet was a shocking exhibition of legs.
+Still they had come, and New York had them.
+
+We dined at Niblo's, at Castle Garden. We drove about the city. We went
+out to see Trenton Falls where Jenny Lind had been taken as part of her
+entertainment, and where she had sung in the woods and been answered by
+the birds.
+
+I began to notice that Dorothy was unusually quiet. She complained of
+fatigue, of pain. We had done too much perhaps. One morning she could
+not arise. Abigail and Aldington were returning to Chicago. We had
+expected to go with them. But Dorothy could not travel now--she could
+not stand that terrible journey of boats and cars, of changes and
+delays. So we bade adieu to our friends.
+
+Dorothy did not rally, as I had expected. She grew weaker day by day.
+She became gravely ill. In the midst of the extra labor thrown upon
+Mammy, she too was compelled to take to her bed. I was forced to look
+about for servants, finding two Irish girls at last. Then quite suddenly
+Mammy died. She was very old. And thus we were cut off from all our
+past, Nashville, the old days. And I stayed almost constantly by
+Dorothy's side, trying to bring back her strength. It entered my mind at
+times that after all I was not as tender a husband to Dorothy as I
+should have been. I was with her a good deal, to be sure. At the same
+time, I was much preoccupied. She did not like politics, and could not
+share my interest in that direction. The condition of the country really
+distressed her. She had seen slavery in its benign aspect, and she was
+impatient with any criticism of the institution.
+
+It was months before Dorothy sat up and began to walk again. I could see
+that she was frailer than before and might never be strong again. Our
+boy Reverdy was not robust. And the winter was coming on. At the same
+time Dorothy did not wish to return to Washington. She wanted to hear no
+more of politics. I had to select her books for her, something that
+soothed her, led her into dreams. _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ was now appearing
+in serial form. I was reading it with great amusement. But I dared not
+show it to Dorothy. I had heard Beecher and knew his sentimental
+attitude. This book had for me the same quality. Yet it helped me to
+pass many hours while watching by Dorothy's side. Somehow I felt that it
+would produce a storm akin to the religious psychology which was
+sweeping the country. Critics were already noting its moral effect. Mrs.
+Stowe was hailed by Sumner as a "Christian genius," a Joan of Arc.
+Garrison said that it would make two million abolitionists. In Paris it
+was compared to Dumas' _The Three Guardsmen_ as a popular _tour de
+force_. Others detected in it a resemblance to Rousseau's _Nouvelle
+Héloise_. One pleaded for the liberty of the slave, the other for the
+rights of the peasant. But I knew that the book was not really true. It
+forefronted the brutality of slavery, it minimized the benevolent
+aspects of the institution, which I had myself seen. It was written with
+intensity of feeling, with the revivalist's method and emotion. It was
+like her brother's sermons, and equally unauthentic. Yet how strangely
+was this book received. It won Macaulay and Longfellow and George Sand,
+and stirred the heart of Heine. It exasperated the South. The winds of
+destiny previously let loose were blowing madly now.
+
+In the midst of my own cares I awoke one morning to read that Douglas
+was on his way to Cuba. The thought went through my mind, why not take
+Dorothy and go in order to give her the benefit of this summer climate
+through the winter? As Douglas had traveled by way of New Orleans he had
+stopped in Memphis and I read in the _Tribune_ what he had said to the
+people there: "If old Joshua R. Giddings should raise a colony in Ohio
+and settle down in Louisiana he would be the strongest advocate of
+slavery in the South; he would find when he got there that his opinion
+would be very much modified; he would find on those sugar plantations
+that it was not a question between the white man and the negro, but
+between the negro and the crocodile. You come right back to the
+principle of dollars and cents."
+
+At New Orleans he had uttered the God of nature doctrine: "There is a
+line or belt of country meandering through the valleys and over the
+mountain tops which is a natural barrier between free territory and
+slave territory, on the south of which are to be found the productions
+suitable to slave labor, while on the north exists a country adapted to
+free labor alone. But in the great central region, where there may be
+some doubt as to the effect of natural causes, who ought to decide the
+question except the people residing there, who have all their interests
+there, who have gone there to live with their wives and children?"
+
+No recognition of a right and a wrong, to be sure. But no express
+advocacy of a wrong. I could not see then, and have never been able to
+see since, why Douglas with this practical facing of the business of
+life could not fare equally well with public opinion as Hamilton has
+fared with it, who advocated corruption in government as a means to a
+national power.
+
+I went to Dorothy with my plan about Cuba, telling her that Douglas had
+gone there. It stirred her languid spirits. She was all eagerness to
+start. We took passage from New York, sailing around Florida, at last
+around Morro Castle into the harbor of Havana. The blueness of the
+water, with the balmy wind blowing almost incessantly began to restore
+Dorothy. The Spanish city lying before our eyes, yellow and continental,
+awoke her interest. At the dock there were crowds of idlers, Spaniards,
+negroes, to see us fasten and disembark. With Dorothy and our son and
+two maids we made our way to a hotel near the water. I was anxious to
+look up Douglas; but it was impossible the first evening, owing to
+Dorothy's indisposition. She had been seasick and the journey had
+fatigued her. Nevertheless we went to the roof of the hotel together
+and sat there until nearly midnight, inhaling the luxurious breeze from
+the gulf and gazing up at the brilliant stars of this tropical sky.
+
+The next morning I was down to breakfast early, leaving Dorothy to be
+served in her room. The hotel was drab and decayed exteriorly; but the
+dining room was a continental elegance of marble, gilt, and mirrors.
+Douglas was not stopping here, as I had already learned. I concluded
+that he would be at one of the better known hotels on the Prado, and I
+hurried thither as fast as I could. I soon located him; but he had gone
+out for a few days, was making something of a tour of the island,
+including a visit to the celebrated cave of Matanzas. Leaving a note for
+Douglas which apprised him of my hotel, I hurried back to Dorothy. The
+city was so brilliant under the golden sunshine, and the air so
+delightful, that I wished to spend these wonderful hours in seeing the
+city.
+
+Havana was as novel to me as to Dorothy. It was Spanish, therefore
+having no resemblance to London or any other English town. It seemed to
+me to be about the size that New York was in 1833. We spent three days
+driving through the Paso de Paula, along the Malecon, up and down the
+Prado lined with laurels and distinguished for fine houses and clubs. We
+visited the parks, the Exchange, the old churches, the navy yard, La
+Fueza, built by De Soto, the old markets of Colon and Tacon, the Palace;
+and we stood in the Cathedral before the medallion which marked the
+burial place of Columbus when his remains were removed here from Santa
+Domingo in 1796. We dined about the cafés and hotels, and attended the
+theater, and walked, when Dorothy felt equal to it, through the parks,
+or along the wall of the sea which stretched from the punta.
+
+I have already recorded so much of wrangling politics and the debates of
+infuriate minds that one might infer that I was leading no life of my
+own. Do you think that I am only a shadow or a registering machine, and
+that Dorothy is not flesh and blood? Sometimes it occurs to me that I am
+not treating her as a woman in spite of my desire to be thoughtful. A
+vast world of rich imagination, of vital emotion was in truth moving
+about me all the while, and in breasts that I did not comprehend. For
+all my life up to this time and beyond it, as you shall see, was
+occupied with money making and with watching principally the epic
+development of America. But I was later to awake as from a day dream or
+from a life in a shell, to the consciousness of a brighter world of
+sunlight and of wings. I was at peace now, and with Dorothy, whose
+frailty required my watchfulness and my care, and whom I delighted to
+please with lovely things. That was the extent of my emotional life. And
+so we drove, and visited the shops in Opispo Street. For I was waiting
+for Douglas. I wanted to take him off to a bull fight or a cock fight.
+And I was eager to hear him talk of his plans, of America, of anything
+that came from his fluent and restless mind.
+
+One evening when Dorothy and I were in the comfortable lounging chairs
+on the roof of the hotel, looking over toward Morro Castle, counting the
+largest of the richly brilliant stars, Douglas came upon us. He had
+returned from his trip only that afternoon. Finding my note, and leaving
+other engagements, he had come over to call, delighted and surprised to
+find that we were in Havana. Cuba already had a railroad, but it was not
+of much extent. He had been traveling by carriage, and in the hillier
+localities in a vehicle of two enormous wheels, drawn by horses driven
+in tandem. He had seen the cave, the pineapple fields, the sugar
+plantations. His imagination was already at work for America.
+
+He went on to say to me that whenever the people of Cuba should show
+themselves worthy of freedom by asserting their independence and should
+apply for annexation to the United States, they ought to be annexed. And
+that whenever Spain should be ready to sell Cuba, with the consent of
+its inhabitants, the United States should accept the chance. With spirit
+he exclaimed that if Spain should transfer Cuba to England, or any other
+European power America should take Cuba by force. "It is folly," he
+said, "to debate the acquisition of the island. It naturally belongs to
+the American continent. It guards the mouth of the Mississippi River,
+which is the heart of the American continent and the body of the
+American nation." This led Douglas to speak, and with bitterness, of the
+Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which had given England joint control of any
+canal across the Isthmus of Panama. "I was disgusted with this treaty
+as I was disgusted with the settlement of the Oregon boundary. Just look
+at it! Here the Monroe Doctrine has been an avowed policy for thirty
+years, declaring that no European colonization will be permitted in
+America. And what happens? Whenever there has been no opportunity to
+enforce the doctrine, because there has been nothing at issue, we have
+cock-a-doodle-dooed; and whenever a chance has arisen to enforce it we
+have beaten a retreat, frightened to death by the awful consequences if
+we do enforce it. Frightened by our own spokesmen, Senators and others.
+Frightened by England in the main; for truly we have no other power to
+fear. So when the Clayton-Bulwer treaty came up I fought it as I fought
+Polk on the Oregon boundary of '49. I said then, and I say now, that the
+time may come when we shall want to possess some portion of Central
+America. It has come to the pass that I can't stand for America as to
+new territory without having the Abolitionists charge me with favoritism
+to the South. But it's a lie and history will vindicate me. But if I
+want Cuba or Central America for slavery I want them also for America.
+And what does England want them for? For freedom, I suppose, for the
+good of America! The agreement not to fortify the canal was not
+reciprocal, because England holds Jamaica, which guards the entrance to
+the canal. What rights did England have to the Mosquito Coast? Well, her
+title is at least doubtful.
+
+"But what I hate about the canal treaty is the recognition of the right
+of European powers to intervene in American affairs. We contracted with
+England to protect any canal or railroad across the Isthmus; and not
+only that, we invited other European powers to join with us in that
+protection. And that lets in all the kings of Europe, and where's your
+Monroe Doctrine? It vanishes into air. Study it out; you will see all
+these Whigs and all these motley groups joining the Whigs, pulling
+together by a sort of momentum started by the old crowd which sided with
+England against America in the Revolution. They are the same crowd that
+tried to break down the American system when they were banded together
+as Federalists. They tried secession at Hartford, when they didn't like
+the War of 1812; then they held up their hands in horror when South
+Carolina threatened to secede over the tariff. They called on God to
+avenge the Mexican War; then they grabbed this slavery matter to give
+them a moral push into power. They elected a President, but were afraid
+to formulate a platform. All the while they had played with England,
+skulking and running and fawning upon England, when our vital interests
+were at stake, and siding with England on the canal and on Oregon. They
+are better than other men! They are more holy! They are pure, just,
+broad! They love God! They are the only Christians! There is only one
+evil and that is slavery! But there are many gods, of which banks and
+tariffs are not the least; yet I notice that they do not give away
+Texas and California, those unholy fruits of a wicked war for which you
+fought, my friend. They like the gold and the wheat. And in order to
+ride into power they put forward old Taylor, and blow hot and cold with
+him and Millard Fillmore."
+
+The great organ-like voice of Douglas poured forth a steady stream of
+talk as we sat together under the wonderful stars of a clear sky, with
+the soft breeze from the Gulf blowing around us. Dorothy had fallen
+asleep. I got up and looked at her, and finding her resting peacefully I
+returned to my chair. It was now near midnight. We could hear the rattle
+of cabs on the cobblestones, the cries of strange voices in Spanish; and
+we saw the lights in the harbor, the lights in the Prado, over the city
+which was still feasting and playing. Then Douglas confided to me that
+he was going to be a candidate for President in this next campaign of
+1852.
+
+The prospects were very good, he thought. If he could get two or three
+western states to speak out in his favor he would win. He wondered if I
+could not go to Iowa for him. He hoped to have the leading politicians
+of Illinois as delegates at Baltimore. He wished me to be a delegate,
+not that I was a leading politician, but I counted for as much since I
+was an old friend and a sympathetic adherent. I told him to use me in
+any way that would serve him.
+
+Having all these enterprises on his hands he was leaving for Mobile in
+the morning. No time to see a bull fight. "I'll not say good night to
+Mrs. Miles," he said. "Let her sleep." He got up to tiptoe away. "Good
+night, Senator," called Dorothy. She had aroused at the cessation of our
+talk. Douglas returned and in his most gallant manner bade Dorothy good
+night. Then he strode away, stepped through the trapdoor, began to
+descend, disappeared. I looked up at the great stars. Then lifting
+Dorothy into my arms, I carried her to the stairs and on my back to our
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+
+Dorothy and I lingered in Havana until we were sure that spring had come
+to Chicago. Then we took a boat to New Orleans; and once again I
+ascended the Mississippi to St. Louis, and thence to Chicago by the
+Illinois River and the canal.
+
+It was still cool in Chicago, the air fresh and vital. Great spaces of
+deep blue stood far back, cool and thrillingly serene; against these
+spaces the white clouds coming over from the far west and disappearing
+into havens over the lake and into Michigan. The lake was roaring to the
+stiff breezes of the blustering spring.
+
+Chicago was a thrilling spectacle. The Illinois Central railroad was
+being built. The railroad mileage in the country had now risen to more
+than ten thousand miles. The short roads with steamboat connections were
+giving way to the trunk lines. Boston was now connected by rail with
+Montreal. There were nine hundred miles of railroad in Ohio; six hundred
+in Indiana; about four hundred in Illinois. The Michigan Central
+connected Chicago with Detroit. The Michigan Southern was opened, and
+the first train from the East had entered Chicago. A train had started
+west from St. Louis on the first five miles of the Pacific railroad.
+Telegraph lines stuck forth everywhere into the great spaces of the
+country, like the new shoots of a tree.
+
+The breech-loading gun had been invented. The fire-alarm telegram system
+had come into use.
+
+Thackeray had come over from England to smile upon us genially, to
+lecture at the rate "of a pound a minute," as he had expressed it. Young
+America was putting old America behind her.
+
+Calhoun was gone. Clay, defeated in his life's ambition to be President,
+had crept to his grave. Webster was a dying man. The slavery question
+had vexed and shadowed his dying years. He had supported the Compromises
+of 1850 and had been bitterly denounced for it. Whittier had expunged
+his name from the list of the great and the good. He had wanted to be
+President too. Men like General Harrison had secured the prize over his
+head. He was reduced to the rejection of the proffered Vice Presidency.
+He had been Secretary of State under Harrison, Tyler, and Fillmore. He
+had supported the bank, the tariff, implied powers, and Hamiltonism. He
+had followed Clay's leadership. Still he had risen to great heights of
+oratory and legalistic reason. Carlyle had called him a logic machine in
+pants. His debate with Hayne, however, was to furnish the material for
+one of the greatest of state papers, to be written less than a decade
+from this day. From the hills of Massachusetts he failed to see the
+West. Young Douglas had fronted him and told him of the power of the new
+and growing country along the Mississippi River. Old America was
+passing. The West was asking for the highest recognition. Douglas was
+thirty-nine and seemed to be the man for President.
+
+I did not pretend to be a politician, but only an observer and Douglas'
+friend. I read everything that was written about the questions of the
+day, the newspapers, the _Congressional Record_. It was clear to me that
+the Democrats had been split in 1848 by their attitude toward the Wilmot
+Proviso, which was intended to keep slavery from the Texan territory.
+Then came the Compromises under a Whig administration. The Compromises
+were hated by the South and cursed by the Abolitionists in the North.
+The Democrats were united by an acquiescence in the Compromises. And now
+the Whigs were divided because of them. They had played foxy in '48 by a
+no-platform. They were unable to have one, because they had no united
+voice. The Free Soil party had collapsed in Illinois. Altogether hopes
+ran high for the Democrats. But who should be the candidate?
+
+Douglas! He seemed to me the ideal man, as Webster seemed the ideal man
+to admiring Whigs. But Douglas, like Webster, was doomed to fail, at
+least in this convention. The prize was captured by Franklin Pierce,
+whom no one knew, but it was not until the forty-ninth ballot. On the
+forty-eighth ballot Douglas had thirty-three votes to Pierce's
+fifty-five. Then there was a stampede to Pierce. The West had lost.
+Young America was put aside for a fair-sized man from New Hampshire.
+
+The Whigs met the same month in Baltimore. Webster, soon to die, was
+again a candidate. The platform was made and submitted to him. He
+approved of it. It indorsed the Compromises. But again there was an old
+soldier in the field, in the person of General Scott. He had fought the
+British in 1812. He had made treaties with the Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and
+Sioux tribes after the Black Hawk War. Yes, he had made a brilliant
+record in the Mexican War. In mental stature he was up to the knees of
+Webster, and no more. But Webster had no imaginative appeal. He could
+only pull twenty-nine votes on the first ballot, as against Scott's one
+hundred and thirty-one votes. Webster never had more than thirty-two
+votes. On the fifty-third ballot Scott was nominated. And in a few
+months Webster died, and left the tangles of statecraft to other hands.
+
+Who was Franklin Pierce? Pretty soon Hawthorne, whose romances I had
+enjoyed so much, put forth a life of his long-time friend. "When a
+friend dear to him almost from boyhood days stands up before his
+country, misrepresented by indiscriminate abuse on the one hand, and by
+aimless praise on the other, it is quite proper that he should be
+sketched by one who has had opportunities of knowing him well and who is
+certainly inclined to tell the truth." These were Hawthorne's words.
+Pierce was a gentleman of truth and honor, devoted to his family and to
+his country, accomplished, of fine appearance, and always Democratic.
+But how could this man win against an old soldier? Webster and Douglas
+had lost the nomination, how could a gentleman win the election?
+
+I returned to Chicago and to my business. But Douglas' term for Senator
+was about to expire, and he necessarily entered the campaign with vigor.
+He traveled from Virginia to Arkansas, from New York to Illinois and all
+over his own state. He mocked Scott's letter of acceptance, attributing
+its composition to Seward. His physical endurance seemed exhaustless.
+All the while he was living and confraternizing and drinking. Pierce was
+elected. Douglas won the legislature for another Senatorial term. In the
+midst of these excitements Mrs. Douglas died.
+
+She had been to our house but recently. If I had prophesied between her
+and Dorothy I should have believed the end would come to Dorothy first.
+Dorothy was so frail, so incapable of effort. Already I was beginning to
+think of a milder climate for her for the winter.
+
+Douglas now seemed to lose heart. His temper became bitter. His dress
+was slovenly, his manners familiar, his associations indifferent. He was
+drinking too much. In his public utterances he was more emphatic, more
+caustic of tongue. If the loss of the nomination had disappointed him,
+the death of Mrs. Douglas had overwhelmed him. He was not interested in
+his Illinois Central. He was doing nothing with his large tract of land
+three miles south of Madison Street. He was very well off. But he had
+no heart to enjoy his prosperity. He was doing nothing about founding
+his university. He was a giant sorely smitten, ready to rouse from
+irritability into fury against his enemies. He was in a poor way to
+master his own spirit and future.
+
+I suggested to him a trip to Europe to forget his sorrows, to recuperate
+his spirits. He liked the idea. But first he had to return to the
+Senate. There he spoke of Cuba and its annexation, almost in the same
+words he had used when talking to me that midnight on the roof of the
+hotel in Havana. Bitterly he denounced the Clayton-Bulwer treaty.
+Audaciously he excoriated England. Almost immediately he was off to
+visit England, but not to see Queen Victoria, although invited to her
+presence. He went to Russia, saw the Czar. He visited the Crimea and
+Syria. From New Orleans I followed his travels. I had taken Dorothy
+there to escape the Chicago winter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+
+New Orleans had grown to be a city of 170,000 people. Its commerce was
+enormous. It was the great entrepôt of the continent's sugar and cotton
+industries.
+
+Day by day I stood on the wharves, watching the steamers unload and
+load, gazing over the busy mass of humanity back of which was labor,
+black and white, slave and free! The great Mississippi, broad and foul,
+waking from its sleep in the lowlands above, gathering speed here,
+feeling the call of the sea, begins to move with increased life. Across
+from the city are lowlands, sugar refineries, smoke stacks. The negroes
+call to each other, laugh with spontaneous, childlike humor. The wharf
+officers, the brokers, pass with intense faces. It is hot. Sweat drips
+from black faces and from white. Whips crack. Mules trot and stumble
+over the loose and resounding boards. Heavy wheels rumble. And the life
+of gambling, drinking, pleasure, crawls about the French quarter, along
+Canal Street, on Royal Street. The bell in the Cathedral rings. I catch
+the whiff of flowers. Gulls fly over the muddy water.
+
+I think of Douglas far away in Russia, of all my life in its early days,
+now growing so misty. I am more than thirty-seven; and sometimes I feel
+weary. I grieve for Dorothy. She has wound herself with tenderness
+around my heart. But less and less can she share life with me.
+
+I go to the Place d'Armes to see the equestrian statue of Jackson which
+has been erected here since my last visit. It is now called Jackson
+Square. The St. Louis Cathedral has been largely rebuilt. I wander
+through the Cabildo again, visit the old cemeteries, read the names of
+the dead. The scent of strange blossoms affects me poignantly. I stroll
+through the parks, and I visit the life in the French quarter.
+
+Dorothy can drive with me at times, but not for long. Our boy distresses
+her; and a governess keeps him away much of the time. There are memories
+all about me. La Fayette has been here. He was in this very Cabildo. The
+old hero of New Orleans, who blessed Dorothy and me, walked these
+streets. Now he is long gone. Clay is gone, Webster, Calhoun. The
+country is at a pause. Hawthorne's friend is President. And Douglas is
+in St. Petersburg, riding a horse grotesquely, and bringing his western
+ways into the very presence of the Czar.
+
+Sometimes I wonder if Zoe is not alive, if some kind of consummate trick
+was not played on me. Fortescue did not kill her. He did not seem to me
+like a man who would commit murder. Why would any one murder Zoe? Might
+she not have been sold for her loveliness to some man desiring a
+mistress? No! Zoe would write to me if she were living. Yet I went
+everywhere in New Orleans searching for Zoe.
+
+Often I visited the St. Louis hotel, for there young quadroons and
+octoroons on sale, tastefully dressed, were inspected by men with all
+the critical and amorous interest with which a roué would look upon the
+object of his desire. Their eyes were gazed into, their hair stroked,
+their limbs caressed and outlined, their busts stared at and touched.
+Men went mad over these beauties.
+
+A story went the rounds that a young man in Virginia fell in love with
+an octoroon slave while on a visit to a country house. The girl had gone
+to her mistress for protection, and received it, against the man's
+advances. But he had returned, saying that he could not live without the
+girl. The mistress had sold her to him for $1500. Did Zoe meet that
+fate, and not violence?
+
+So I searched the cafes, the places of amusement, the bagnios for Zoe.
+And into every octoroon's face in which I saw a resemblance to Zoe I
+peered, hoping that it would be she. For with Dorothy so much ill, and
+with no one in the world of my own but Dorothy and our boy, I had hours
+of profound loneliness. In New Orleans this winter I was more lonely
+than I had ever been in my life. I no longer had to strive, I had money
+enough. And all the while my real estate investments in Chicago doubled
+and trebled while I traveled.
+
+There were many French in New Orleans; there was reverence there and
+memory for Bonaparte. There was gladness and exultation now that Louis
+Napoleon had accomplished a coup d'état and established a throne upon
+the ruins of the republic. His soldiers were in the Crimea, fighting as
+desperately as if great wealth or fame could be won by their valor and
+death. But it was all for the glory of the French throne! A French
+monarchy again, after the struggles of Mirabeau, after the agony of
+Marat, and after the rise of republican principles which Douglas had
+hailed with delight! If these things could be done with honor and
+applause, did Douglas deserve the hostility which was rising up against
+him? Was America so immaculately free that Douglas' subordination of the
+negro to the welfare of the republic at large should be so severely
+dealt with?
+
+On the bulletin boards in great headlines, the progress of the Crimean
+War was heralded. The French soldiers were winning imperishable glory.
+The Light Brigade had died for God and the glory of England in the
+charge at Balaklava. Cavour had sent the Sardinians to help France and
+England against the Russians; these were soon to fight for the liberty
+of Italy. Always liberty and God! Russia had gone to war against the
+Turks because of a quarrel between the Greek and Latin Christians at
+Jerusalem. Then the Czar demanded of the Turk the right of a
+protectorate over all Greek Christians in the Ottoman empire. It was
+refused. Hence war. And England and France and Cavour's Sardinians are
+fighting Russia. Perhaps the Latin church is the inspiring cause. Minds
+and noses concur, and the result is conscience.
+
+America is in a distressed condition and growing worse. Politics raves.
+Malice, destroying forces are abroad. Always war with or without the
+sword. The Greek Christian must be protected; but the Turk must not be
+vanquished, his country taken by Russia. Louis Napoleon would win a
+little glory. England needs the Turk, because she lusts for Egypt and
+India. France wants Algeria and Morocco. In America the North wants
+power; the South wants power. Men are anxious for office. Labor has
+interests at stake; so has manufacturing. Farsighted money makers,
+imperialists, deploy these factions; parties are formed; the populace is
+fooled with war records and catch words. Men must be destroyed in order
+to achieve results--for God and liberty. Among others, Douglas must be
+destroyed!
+
+He has risen from obscurity to be the first man in America in the realm
+of statecraft. He has been a cabinet maker, a lawyer, a legislator, a
+judge, a Senator, then a leader, now chairman of the committee on
+territories. He has perfected political efficiency, introduced the
+convention system, done for representative government what the reaper
+has done for the harvest field. He has done this all himself without
+wealth or family to boost him. He is charged with being clever and
+resourceful, but no one points to corruption in his life. Is there a
+statesman in Europe or one in America with a cleaner record? His whole
+energy has been devoted to the development of the country. He has worked
+for schools, for colleges, for canals, for railroads, for the quick
+dissemination of intelligence, for the rule of the people on every
+subject, including slavery, and for that rule in places of maturing
+sovereignty, like territories, and in places of complete sovereignty,
+like states. He is spiritually hard, hates the sap-head, the agitator,
+the simple-hearted moralist. He is indifferent to slavery, when it
+stands in the way of his republic building. He knows that slavery cannot
+thrive in the North. He knows that prairies of corn, hills of iron and
+coal, fields of wheat are as alien to slavery as the tropics are alien
+to polar bears and reindeer. He sees a God who works through climate;
+and he sees that the cotton calls for a certain kind of worker, and corn
+for another. He did not read and he did not know much of anything of the
+work of Marx and the Revolutionary Manifesto of 1848. He did not need
+to. He sensed the materialistic conception of history. He had no horror
+of slavery, knowing exactly what it was; on the other hand he was
+falsely accused of trying to plant it in the territories.
+
+He was hunted and traduced! Moralists prattled of his lack of a moral
+nature; envy tracked him, shooting from ambush! He had become rich and
+famous. He was the first man in his party. He was young and full of
+power. He might be President. The sanctimonious quoted Scripture against
+him. "Where a man's treasure is, there will be his heart also," said an
+enemy in the Senate, referring to the fact that Douglas had married a
+woman who was a slave owner. Douglas had replied in these manly and
+tender words: "God forbid that I should be understood by any one as
+being willing to cast from me any responsibility that now does or has
+ever attached to any member of-my family. So long as life shall last and
+I shall cherish with religious veneration the memories and virtues of
+the sainted mother of my children--so long as my heart shall be filled
+with paternal solicitude for the happiness of those motherless
+infants, I implore my enemies who so ruthlessly invade the domestic
+sanctuary to do me the favor to believe that I have no wish, no
+aspiration to be considered purer or better than she, who was, or they
+who are slaveholders."
+
+It was while I was in New Orleans that Douglas wrote me a letter
+regarding the Presidency. "I do not wish to occupy that position," he
+said. "I think that such a state of things will exist that I shall not
+desire the nomination. Yet I do not intend to do any act which will
+deprive me of the control of my own action. Our first duty is to the
+cause--the fate of individual politicians is of minor consequence. The
+party is in a distracted condition, and it requires all our wisdom,
+prudence, and energy to consolidate its power and perpetuate its
+principles."
+
+It was this letter that stirred my reflections as I went about New
+Orleans reading of conditions in Europe and foolishly searching for
+Zoe. Moreover, I was beginning to be tired of everything in America, and
+particularly worn with New Orleans. I longed to be back in Chicago in
+the fresh air by the lake, away from the steam, the heat, the sensual
+atmosphere of this southern city. Yet Dorothy could not just now venture
+into the changeable climate of Lake Michigan. I was forced to stay on
+for her sake. I continued my wanderings and my thoughts about the city,
+guiding my business interests in Chicago by correspondence.
+
+But at last we started.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+
+I wanted to stop on the way to see Reverdy and Sarah. I had a call to
+the renewal of the old days, to an overlooking of the farm, the places I
+had first known in Illinois. But as Dorothy wished to be home, to settle
+into a regular life of comfort at once, I had to take her to Chicago and
+then return later to Jacksonville. Before leaving I had several
+conferences with Mr. Williams about our joint interests; and we talked
+of Douglas too.
+
+Mr. Williams thought that Douglas was getting deeper and deeper into
+trouble. The Compromises of 1850 were only partially satisfactory. They
+had not appeased the Abolitionists. A new party was growing up around
+the discontent which those Compromises had created. Mr. Pierce's
+administration had met some disturbances, though it had sufficed in the
+main. He had gone into office with the support of many of the best men
+of the country, as, for example, Bryant, the poet, and of course
+Hawthorne, his boyhood friend. Since his election the Whig party had
+gone to pieces. There was no party but the Democratic party. Beside it
+nothing but factions and groups trying to find a way to unite. Chief of
+these was the Know-nothings who stood for what they called Americanism,
+and raised an opposition to Catholicism. Next were the Abolitionists.
+There were smaller bodies, all inharmonious. I felt that Douglas was
+destined to drive these lawless resolutes into defeat and become
+President. He was not in Chicago now; but I was soon to see him. In the
+meanwhile I thought I would go to see Reverdy and Sarah.
+
+Reverdy was now in the middle fifties, and aging. Sarah looked thin and
+worn. She was really an old woman. Amos was a man. He had taken up with
+farming near Jacksonville. Jonas was nearing his twentieth year. The
+story was for the most part told for them all as one family.
+
+Reverdy and I drove about the country; and it had changed so much.
+Boundaries had disappeared; forests had vanished. Familiar houses had
+given way to pretentious residences, many built in the southern style of
+Tennessee or Kentucky. Great barns dotted the landscape. Yet the pioneer
+was still here. My old fiddler in the woods had aged, but he was much
+himself. He played for us. And we went to the log hut, in which I had
+lived during my first winter on the farm. Here it was with its chimney
+of sticks, its single room of all uses, the very symbol of humble life,
+of solitariness in the woods. I had lived here when the country was
+wild, but Reverdy said that before my coming to Illinois it was wilder
+still and more lonely. "What do you think," said Reverdy, "of a man and
+a woman living here in the most primitive days; no church, no schools.
+No doctors to relieve suffering, or scarcely to attend a birth. No
+books, or but few. The long winters of snow; silence except when
+terrible storms broke over a roof like this. Imagine yourself born and
+reared in such a place; all the family sleeping in this one room in the
+bitter cold of winter. Sickness without medicine. Imagine Douglas living
+here. His early youth had its hardships; but after all he has had a
+comfortable life. He soon became prosperous. Now he is rich. What public
+man has become so rich? Yes, here is the American cotter's home; and so
+many boys have come out of a place like this and gone to the wars or
+into public life. It is America's symbol."
+
+"You do not like Douglas, do you, Reverdy?" I asked, as we turned away.
+"Yes, I like him, I have always supported him--but somehow I feel that
+he is not good enough. I don't know what else to call it. You know, I
+don't like slavery; at the same time I don't know what to do with it.
+Sometimes I think Douglas' plan is all right, again I am not sure. All
+the time I feel that there is not enough sympathy in his nature for
+these poor negroes. I confess that at times I am for letting the
+territories manage it for themselves; and at other times I am for
+keeping it out of the territories by law. All the while I like Douglas'
+plan for the West. He has done wonderful work for the country. I wish I
+could make myself clearer, but I can't. I saw slavery in the South and
+know what it is. I am a good deal like Clay. He had slaves but disliked
+the institution. I have never had any slaves and I dislike it as much.
+Yet the question is what to do. If you keep it where it is you simply
+lay a siege about it. Great suffering will come in that way to the
+negroes of course. It is a kind of strangulation, selfish and small. On
+the other hand, if you give it breathing space what will become of the
+country? I know Douglas' argument that it cannot exist in the North. But
+suppose you have it all over the South, that's pretty big. Besides,
+what's to hinder new work being found for the slaves? Why can't they dig
+coal and gold like peons? Why can't they farm? Perhaps not; and yet I am
+not so sure of Douglas on that. He is the most convincing man in the
+world when you are with him. But when he goes away from you his spell
+slips off and you see the holes in his argument."
+
+"You have been reading and thinking, haven't you, Reverdy?"
+
+"Oh, yes, all the time. What I am afraid of is a war. I had a little dab
+of it in the Black Hawk trouble. But a war between these states would
+shake the earth. I have two boys, you know. Sarah worries about it.
+Everybody's beginning to live in a kind of terror."
+
+"I have read about it too, ever since I have been in America. I have
+applied my philosophically exercised faculties to it. I have talked with
+Mr. Williams about it many times and with Douglas. I have had dozens of
+conversations on all these things. It seems to me that I could advance
+some new arguments myself."
+
+"What new arguments could you advance?" asked Reverdy.
+
+"Well," I said, "suppose I wanted to take a definite stand that slavery
+is wrong, which these Whigs won't. They only play with the question.
+They want to limit it perhaps. But why? Is it wrong? Or is it against
+northern interests? What? But suppose I took such a stand and needed a
+legal foundation. Couldn't I say that Congress could prohibit slavery in
+the territories under the power it has to regulate commerce between
+them? I put this question to Mr. Williams and he hadn't thought of it;
+but he told me that Judge Marshall held that commerce was traffic. Very
+well? Isn't slavery traffic? It's buying and selling. It impresses
+things that are bought and sold--cotton. And slaves are the subject of
+traffic. Therefore to regulate it--keep the slaves out of the
+territories where they might be bought and sold after getting into the
+territories, as well as where they might be sold into the
+territories--is the regulation of commerce, isn't it? Well now, isn't
+that better than calling the territories property and subject to the
+arbitrary rule of Congress as merely inert matter? If you can rule the
+territories arbitrarily as to slavery, why not as to anything else?
+Suppose we annex Cuba; under this doctrine we could rule Cuba
+arbitrarily, just as England ruled the Colonies here arbitrarily. Then
+take the assumption that Congress has the power to keep slavery out of
+the territories; just the power, not the express duty; well, it follows
+that Congress has the power to let it in the territories. If it can put
+it in or out of the territories it can leave the territories to put it
+in or out. And why isn't that best? Right here is the point of my
+adherence to Douglas. For I see a growing central power in this country
+not acting on its lawful authority, but upon its own will, dictated by
+theories of morality or trade or monopoly. If this matter is left to the
+territories it is left to the source of sovereign power and to local
+interests; if it is controlled by Congress it means an increasing
+centralization. What I really mean is that this mere assumption that
+Congress can deal with the matter in virtue of some vague sovereignty,
+without pointing out some express power in Congress to do so, leads
+straight to imperialism. And thus on the whole, having a regard for the
+future of America and its liberty, I stand with Douglas. I have read
+Webster in his theories that the territories are property, and can
+therefore be dealt with under the clause which empowers Congress to make
+all needful laws and regulations for the territory and other property of
+the United States. Well, why doesn't he go farther and let Congress at
+one stroke emancipate the slaves? For a slave is certainly property, and
+if needful rules and regulations as to the negro require his
+emancipation, why can't he be emancipated under this clause? But if
+territory is property, so is a slave. And if territory is property, who
+owns the property? Why, all the states of course. And if they own the
+land and own the slaves too, why can't they take into their own land,
+unless they are forbidden to do so by a majority of the states,
+representatives legislating under some clause of the Constitution which
+gives them the right to do so?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Reverdy, "I have heard most of this before. But I'll
+tell you: the first man of account who rises up to say that slavery is
+wrong will be remembered, even if he is not honored. I am not talking
+about all these agitators and fellows; nor even of Seward or of
+Hale--they're too sharp and smart. I mean some man who puts the right
+feeling into the thing like Mrs. Stowe did in her book. You see, I was
+raised in Tennessee, and I don't care how you apologize for it, or make
+it look like labor of other kinds, or prove that all labor is slavery,
+just the same this negro slavery is vile. You can find good reasons for
+anything you want to do. I don't know where we get our right and
+wrong--it comes up from something deep in us. But when we get it, all
+this argument that Douglas is so skillful in simply melts away. I really
+wonder that so many women in the South favor slavery and that my mother
+was so wedded to it, and Dorothy now."
+
+We were passing now the house I had built. "Who lives there now?" I
+asked. Reverdy gave me the name. It was not the man to whom I had sold
+the farm. I thought of Fortescue. "Where is Fortescue?" "Oh, he lit out
+from here," said Reverdy. "Do you know," I said, "I have thought it
+possible that Zoe might not be dead." "How could that be?" "I don't
+know. I feel that I went through that transaction dazed and without
+verifying things, as I should have done." "Oh, no, if Zoe were living
+you would know of it long before now."
+
+After our drive we came back to Sarah and the meal that she had prepared
+for us. Women reflect the politics of the hour in nerves and anxiety, in
+anticipated sorrows. Sarah wished all agitations to stop. She longed for
+peace. She was in dread of war. Perhaps Dorothy's health had been
+affected by the growing turbulence of the country.
+
+Young Amos and Jonas came in and ate with us. We turned to the talk of
+railroads and the growth of Chicago. Sarah took a hand now and said:
+"These things are all right. You won't get any war out of railroads and
+telegraphs. You men can reason and argue as much as you please about
+this slavery matter; but I have two sons, and I didn't bring them into
+the world to be killed in a war; and I won't have it if I can help
+it--not for all the niggers in the world."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+
+If I were recording the life of an artist I should be dealing with
+different causes acting upon his development, or with different effects
+produced by the same times in which Douglas lived. Instead I am trying
+to set forth the soul of a great man who extracted from his environment
+other things than beauty; or rather the beauty of national progress. The
+question was, after all, whether Douglas was helping to give America a
+soul. What was he accomplishing for the real greatness of his country by
+giving it territory and railroads? What kind of a soul was he giving it?
+Who in this time was giving America a soul? Abigail had often hinted at
+these questions. And I had to confess that they occupied my thoughts.
+
+I run over now with as much brevity as possible the events which led to
+the crisis of Douglas' life. With the Compromises of 1850 the Whig party
+began its rapid decline. The South did not like the Whig tariff. The
+Whig attitude on the slavery question was too ambiguous to appeal to the
+North. With its dissolution other organizations began to feed on its
+remains. The Know-nothings arose and disappeared, without accomplishing
+anything. Greeley said of them that they were "as devoid of the elements
+of persistence as an anti-cholera or anti-potatobug party would be."
+
+In early 1854 the Whigs, Free Soilers and Anti-Slavery Democrats met at
+Ripon, Wisconsin, and proposed to form a new party, to be called the
+Republican party. They took part of the name which Jefferson had coined,
+dropping the word "national" out. Douglas, enraged by this blasphemy
+against Jefferson, suggested that the word "black" be put in where
+"national" had been left out, making the name Black Republican party.
+
+A year later Douglas put through his bill for the organization of Kansas
+and Nebraska, which provided that they could come into the Union with or
+without slavery as they chose. He had long before voted against slavery
+prohibition in Texas; for the extension of the Missouri Compromise to
+the Pacific; for the Compromises of 1850, which made California free and
+left Utah and New Mexico to come in free or slave, according to their
+own wish. I had to confess that he had no clear constitutional theory
+himself. He was only growing more emphatic in favor of popular
+sovereignty as a name for territorial independence on the subject. He
+compared this popular sovereignty to the rights which the Colonies
+asserted against England to manage their own affairs, and for the
+violation of which the Revolution ensued. The principle had appeared in
+most of the bills that he had sponsored or supported. Now it was the
+real doctrine. He was like an inventor who, after making many
+experiments, hits upon a working device. He was like a philosopher, who
+conceives the theory, then clears it, shears away its accidents or even
+abandons it. He had long been distrusted in the South. The
+Kansas-Nebraska bill still further alienated the South. The South wanted
+slavery carried into the territories by the Constitution, even against
+the will of the people of the territories. What had Douglas to gain with
+popular sovereignty? He really overestimated its appeal. He knew that
+the South did not like it, but he believed that it was sound, and that
+it would win the majority of the people. He advanced it not only as a
+solution of a vexed condition, but in the name of Liberty.
+
+He misconceived the case, and here his tragedy began to flourish. I was
+sorry to witness his discomfiture and his first forensic defeat.
+Clergymen denounced him; and thinking no doubt that they were the
+spokesmen of the back-hall radicalism and ignorant morality which he
+despised, he fought them back bitterly: "You who desecrate the pulpit to
+the miserable influence of party politics! Is slavery the only wrong in
+the country? If so, why not recognize the great principles of
+self-government and state equality as curatives?"
+
+He was burned in effigy and branded a traitor, a Judas, a Benedict
+Arnold. The whole mob power was used against him. But he was Hercules
+furious. He was against the wall, but unrepentant. He came to Chicago
+and announced that he would speak in front of the North Market Hall. It
+was September, and still lovely summer weather. I could not induce
+Dorothy to go, so Mr. Williams, Abigail, Aldington, and I went to hear
+Douglas defend himself. All the afternoon before this evening bells were
+tolled, flags were hung at half-mast. I got to Douglas, telling him that
+I feared violence to his person. He waved me off. His brow was heavy
+with scowls, his eyes deep with emotion. He was like a man ready to
+fight and die. Finally the hour arrived, and he mounted the platform
+intrepidly, amid hisses and howls. He paused to let the tumult die. He
+began again. He was hooted. He stepped forward undaunted, and let forth
+the full power of his voice:
+
+"I come to tell you that an alliance has been made of abolitionism,
+Maine liquor-lawism, and what there was left of northern Whiggism, and
+then the Protestant feeling against the Catholic, and the native feeling
+against the foreigner. All these elements were melted down in one
+crucible, and the result is Black Republicanism."
+
+A voice called out: "You're drunk!" Bedlam broke loose. In a silence
+Douglas retorted: "Let a sober man say that." There were cheers. He went
+on:
+
+"How do you dare to yell for negro freedom and then deny me the freedom
+of speech? I claim to be a man of practical judgment. I do not seek the
+unattainable. I am not for Utopias."
+
+"Topers!" said a voice, and there were yells.
+
+"Nor for topers," resumed Douglas.
+
+"I want results. What have you done with prohibition of slavery in the
+North by Federal law? You who want negro equality, why don't you repeal
+the laws of Illinois that forbid the intermarriage of white and blacks,
+that forbid a negro from testifying against a white man, that allow
+indentures of apprenticeship, and that require registration of negroes
+brought into the state, the same as you license a dog? The Federal
+government does not prevent you. The Ordinance of 1787 gave you the
+start that you want for Kansas and Nebraska. Yet you have these things;
+and you don't have slavery. Why? Not because the Federal government says
+you can't have it, but because you yourself do not want it. I say that
+this northern country is dedicated by God to freedom, law or no law; if
+it hadn't been, General Harrison, who introduced slavery into Indiana
+against the Ordinance of 1787 would have introduced something that would
+be there now. So much for you Whigs who voted for Harrison in 1840."
+
+A voice:
+
+"How about Kansas and Nebraska?" There were more yells. "I am telling
+you, if you will hear me. You old Whigs who followed Henry Clay to the
+end, why do you denounce me when the Kansas-Nebraska bill is the same in
+principle as Clay's Compromises of 1850 ..."
+
+"How about California?"
+
+"It was a compromise. And as I have said before if the people of
+California had wanted a slave state they would have had it, any law to
+the ..."
+
+Voices crying: "Benedict Arnold! Judas!" Douglas' voice rose to its
+fullest power. He was fulminating Black Republicans, Know-nothings,
+Anti-Catholics, humbug Whigs. I felt sure that he would be attacked. For
+two hours he fought with this wild and wicked audience. He appealed to
+their sense of fairness. If he was wrong, what harm to hear him through,
+the better to see the wrong? If he was right, why condemn him unheard? I
+could only make out a few sentences from time to time. He grew weary at
+last. He drew out his watch. The audience quieted to hear what he would
+say. "It is now Sunday morning. I will go to church and you may go to
+hell."
+
+He stepped from the platform, walked boldly through the angry mob, ready
+to assault him. Without a tremor, fearlessly he edged his way along to
+his carriage, got into it, and was driven away, the mob hooting, bolder
+rowdies running after him, and covering him with vile epithets.
+
+We walked away slowly without speaking to each other. We were too
+shamed, too sympathetic with Douglas to tolerate this exhibition of
+lawlessness. We were disgraced by an American audience which had tried
+to disgrace an American Senator, who asked for nothing except for the
+privilege of being heard.
+
+When we arrived at Clark and Randolph streets Aldington and Abigail
+paused for a moment before turning in a direction different from mine.
+They said good night and went on. I walked with Mr. Williams until I
+arrived at my house. Then I went in, to lie awake and to think of the
+spectacle of the evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+
+The next day I went out to look at the ten acres which Douglas had given
+for the founding of the University of Chicago. I walked over the ground,
+came to the lake. I was thinking that if Douglas' life were ending in
+failure how futile was my own life! I was rich to be sure, but what had
+I done? I had inherited money. Douglas had started in poverty and
+accumulated a fortune. I had done nothing but increase my wealth.
+Douglas' activities had covered many fields, and now if he was to fall!
+What was American liberty? How could their devotion to a liberty, bring
+liberty to him? Douglas' wife was dead; Dorothy was an invalid.
+
+In a few days I went around to see Abigail. That terrible evening
+remained a subject that must sometime be discussed between us.
+
+Abigail was never more gracious than on this occasion, and seemed to
+understand that I needed to be lifted out of my reflections. She knew
+what Dorothy's invalidism meant to me, and she was sympathetic with my
+devotion to Douglas, in so far as it was an expression of human
+friendship. She had a point of view about everything, which had been
+developed and clarified by reading and travel. It came over me that I
+had been nowhere in Europe, that I had been wandering up and down
+America. My life in England was by now almost obliterated from my
+consciousness. We were not long in the talk before she said that a man
+should have more than one interest, that music or some form of art, or a
+hobby in literature should be taken up as a relaxation from business.
+What were politics but the interpretation of business? She showed me
+some pictures she had been painting. A teacher had opened a studio in
+Lake Street. Why did I not try my hand? I would find it a diversion from
+other things. I had always loved etchings. I wished I could do that.
+Well, this artist taught etching too. She inspired me at once to see
+him. His name was Stoddard, and she gave me the number. I conceived an
+enthusiasm for this new activity, thinking that it would take me out of
+myself and away from the America that was closing around me with such
+depressing effect.
+
+Then Abigail and Aldington in supplement of each other began to recall
+the names of men then living whom they characterized as light-bearers.
+"Really," said Abigail, "there are only a few men of real importance in
+America to-day. These politicians and orators--Seward, Sumner, even the
+late Webster--amount to very little after all. They are even less than
+Lowell, whom Margaret Fuller recently characterized as shallow and
+doomed to oblivion. Longfellow is an adapter, a translator, a
+simple-hearted man. Whittier--well, all of them have fallen more or
+less under the moralistic influence of the country."
+
+"That is what I like about Douglas," I said. "He is not a humbug. I like
+his ironical voice against all these silly movements, like liquor laws;
+these ideas like God in the little affairs of men; all this barbarism
+which breaks into religious manias; all these half-baked reformations.
+They carry me with him into an opposition to negro equality--all this
+stuff of Horace Greeley, Emerson, and in which men like Seward and
+Sumner, and American writers and poets, big and little, share."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Abigail, "but after all you can say Douglas is just a
+politician. You do not need to grieve about him. He is tough enough to
+stand anything. He was put down by that mob. But I dare say he was not
+as much disturbed about it as you were. If he should die to-day what
+would the world lose? He has no great unfinished books, no half-painted
+pictures, no musical scores without the final touches. Look over the
+world, my friend. Do you realize who is living in it to-day? In Russia,
+Tolstoi and Turgenieff; in Germany, Schopenhauer, Freytag, Liszt,
+Wagner--Wagner is just Douglas' age too. In France, Hugo, George Sand,
+Renan, Berlioz, Bizet. In England, Tennyson, Macaulay. These are only a
+few. What has Douglas written or said that will live? What has he done
+that will carry an influence to a future day? I want to see you lift
+yourself out of this. Frankly, you seem to me like a man who has never
+come to himself. You have lived here in Illinois since you were a boy.
+You found work to do, and you did it. You wanted to be rich, you have
+had your wish. But the material you have handled has become you. It has
+entered the pores of your being, and become assimilated with its flesh.
+You have gone on oblivious of this greater world. There is another
+thing, and I have never known this to fail: you were a soldier in the
+Mexican War, and the causes for which it was fought have burned
+themselves into your nature. You are like a piece of clay molded and
+lettered and shoved into the hot oven of war. You came forth with Young
+America, Expansion burned into you. Douglas, being your close friend,
+and being for these things, gave interpretations to these words. Your
+glaze took the reflection of his face; and these words became other
+words of like import, or imaginatively enlarged by the lights which his
+winning art cast upon them. Give Douglas wit, humor, and he would carry
+the whole country. For it runs after greatness of territory, railroads,
+the equality of man, the superiority of the white race. As dull as the
+mob is it knows that Douglas does not stand for its morality and its
+God. If he had wit he could make them laugh and forget the distance that
+divides him from them. We all understand why he has enemies; why the
+revolutionaries from Germany, Hungary, Austria, divide in doubt over
+him. But what has he to carry against them that will be a loss to the
+world, if he fails?" I felt a little apologetic for my devotion to
+Douglas as Abigail talked. Had I made a god of a poor piece of clay?
+No, it was not true. I knew him, I believed in him. He was the clearest
+voice in all this rising absurdity of American life. But Abigail had
+given me one idea that I wished to act upon.
+
+I went the next day to see Stoddard and started to learn etching. If I
+could only transfer to the copper plate what I had seen of sand hills,
+pines, pools of water, the gulls over the lake, the picturesque shacks
+of early Chicago of 1833 and 1840; the old wooden drawbridge, which was
+over the river in 1834, with the ships beyond it toward the lake and the
+lighthouse, and in the forefront canoes on the shore, covered with
+rushes and sand grass. After a few days I saw Douglas. He came on an
+evening when I was just about to go to him. I had been thinking of him
+day by day, but waiting for the effect of his rough experience in front
+of the North Market to wear away from his thoughts and mine. He was now
+himself again, his eye keen, his voice melodious, his figure pervaded by
+animation. I noticed perhaps for the first time how small and graceful
+were his hands. The greatness and shapeliness of his head could not be
+overlooked. From beneath shaggy and questioning brows his penetrating
+eyes looked straight through me. Had his pride been wounded, his spirits
+dampened? Not at all. He was willing to face any audience anywhere. He
+had told the South unpleasant truths. He had satirized the groups that
+went to the making of the Republican party. "I have a creed," he said,
+"as broad as the continent. I can preach it boldly, and without apology
+North or South, East or West. I can face Toombs or Davis, if they preach
+sectional strife, or advocate disunion. I can continue to point out the
+narrow faith of Sumner and Seward. I shall not abate my contempt for the
+ragged insurrectionists who are going about the country for lack of
+better business, scattering dissension. Am I to be President? There is
+trouble now in Kansas and Nebraska. Can I help that? I have stood for
+the right of the people there to have slavery or not as they chose. But
+if any trick is played on either of them, whether in favor of slavery or
+against it, they will find me on the spot ready to fight for an honest
+deal."
+
+Seeing Douglas in all his strength and self-confidence again I was
+happy. We talked of the old days and drank from the old bottle. I took
+him to the door, followed his retreating figure down the street, so
+short but so massive. Then I went to Dorothy, to find her sleepless and
+unhappy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+
+No way to mark time quicker than by Presidentials. Four years pass in
+the space of two or less; for no sooner is a President installed than
+committees meet for reformations and plans. Six months between the
+election and the installation of a President! When he has served a year
+the election is nearly two years passed. Thus, as it seemed, the
+election of 1856 was upon the country before we had time to appreciate
+what Mr. Pierce had done. Had he had a fair chance in such a brief
+period to do anything? I was at work attending to my business, trying to
+etch too, but I could not keep my mind off the game of politics. Among
+the tens of thousands of men in Illinois who were devoted to Douglas no
+one was more loyal to his ambition than I, and perhaps no one was less
+conspicuous. I followed the _New York Tribune_, the _Springfield
+Republican_, the _North American Review_, the _Independent, Harper's
+Weekly_, and the southern press, as well as the papers of Illinois. I
+had made a large book of clippings, which expressed the journalistic
+thought of the country. All these things put together kept me fully
+occupied. Our son Reverdy was coming to an age when his schooling would
+need attention. I wished to send him to England. But that was difficult
+to do, because, while Dorothy was urging a trip abroad she wished to go
+to Italy, on account of the climate.
+
+In truth Dorothy was growing more distressed every day over American
+affairs. She found harshness in Chicago. She did not find sympathy with
+the ideas with which she had grown up. Her failure to make close friends
+interfered with her social delights. Mrs. Douglas had perhaps been her
+greatest intimate. With her death she had seemed to lose interest in
+other cordial associations. Her nervous organization was badly
+devitalized. I, too, hoped to see the continent, and particularly Italy.
+But I did not wish to leave until the campaign was over, owing to my
+interest in Douglas. I wanted to watch affairs now, but also I wished to
+help Douglas, if I could.
+
+For the first time the Republicans entered the field. They adopted a
+platform which incorporated the Declaration of Independence. It was
+against popular sovereignty, lest the people vote in slavery, or be
+tricked into doing so. It stood for Congressional control of slavery
+extension, and implicit in this was the constitutional power of Congress
+to do so. It had, with the Declaration of Independence, with the
+invocation of God, and appeals to the Bible, gathered a working force in
+the country. The press, the platform, had been busy to this end. Seward
+with his higher law was a contributor. Chase, who was termed by Douglas
+a debater, where Seward and Sumner were only essayists, was one of the
+big figures in the new movement. Beecher and Greeley were spokesmen of
+the new organization. The convention nominated Fremont who had explored
+Oregon in 1842.
+
+He was of the spirit of Douglas. He was an expansionist. He had gone
+into California in 1845, and raised the American flag on a mountain
+overlooking Monterey. He had helped later to conquer California. He had
+for various audacious and disobedient acts been tried and
+court-martialed, and dismissed from military service. President Polk had
+approved the verdict, but remitted the penalty. Then he had resigned.
+Now he was the object of the highest honor of an American convention. He
+was made the spokesman for a platform which denounced the invasion of
+Kansas by an armed force in the interests of slavery. He had gone into
+California for the slavocracy which engineered the Mexican War, as New
+England contended. Now he was at the head of the party waging war upon
+that slavocracy. A strange people, these Americans!
+
+Douglas had said that he did not want the office of President. Perhaps
+that was an exhibition of political coyness, for he was in the lists
+just the same! He had 33 votes on the first ballot, of which only 14
+came from the South. President Pierce, who was running again, met a
+wavering fortune. On the sixteenth ballot he had not a vote. Douglas had
+121 votes; a certain Mr. Buchanan had 168. On the seventeenth ballot
+this Mr. Buchanan was nominated. Who was this Mr. Buchanan?
+
+He had been Secretary of State under Polk, had helped to secure the
+Texan territory. So much for the appeal to Young America. He had been
+minister to Great Britain. Therefore he was abroad when Douglas was
+gummed with the poisonous sweet of Kansas and Nebraska. He thought
+slavery was wrong; therefore, you Abolitionists, here's the man for you.
+He held that territorial extension of slavery need not be feared; let
+the people rule. As a Congressman he had voted to exclude abolition
+literature from the mails; come forward Calhoun-ites and vote for
+Buchanan. They did. Fremont did not get a vote in North Carolina, South
+Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas,
+Missouri, Tennessee; and only 281 in Maryland, 291 in Virginia, and 364
+in Kentucky. But Millard Fillmore, running on a platform of America for
+Americans, almost divided the vote with Buchanan in those states. He
+carried Maryland against Buchanan; but of the whole popular vote he was
+nearly a million behind Buchanan. Fremont had 1,341,264 votes and
+Buchanan had 1,838,169 votes. The electoral college gave Buchanan 174
+votes, Fremont 114, and Fillmore 8. Why could Douglas not have been
+nominated?
+
+We got the news by telegraph in Chicago. As I studied the bulletins, I
+was wondering whether the result was symptomatic of transient causes or
+whether it betokened great changes. Had the Declaration of Independence
+been approved at the polls? How was Douglas taking it? I did not see
+him. I wrote to him, but he did not reply. Did he get my letter, or was
+he consoling himself in convivial ways?
+
+I now prepared to go abroad. I was leaving a country that had changed in
+almost every way since I had come to it. I was leaving a city that was
+nothing but a hamlet when I first saw it. I had seen New Orleans and
+Chicago connected by rail, and the state grow from a few hundred
+thousand to a million population. I had seen Arkansas, Florida,
+Michigan, Iowa, Texas, Wisconsin, California, added to the Union. Coal
+and iron had become barons and were doing the bidding of steam, which
+was king. The oil that had floated on the surface of the salt wells of
+Kentucky was soon to be more powerful than cotton. Everything had
+changed--but man. Was he rising to a purer height, had a glory begun to
+dawn on America? Should slavery, polygamy, rum, be driven from the land?
+Then should we be free and happy, and just and noble? France had got
+schools and the ballot by the Revolution, but now she had a throne
+again. We had the ballot but did we have freedom? No law could have made
+a mob hiss Douglas at the North Market. Freedom in their hearts would
+have given him an audience.
+
+Was I free? Was I happy? I was not free. I was not happy. My life seemed
+cribbed. Dorothy was an invalid. I went to her from watching the
+election bulletins. I sat on the side of the bed, took her in my arms.
+"Let us go to Italy," she said. "I am dying here." She pressed her frail
+hands around my neck. "Oh let us go--let us go."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+
+We sailed on the _Persia_, 376 feet long, 45 feet of beam, gross tonnage
+3300, horsepower 4000, speed 14 knots an hour. As Dorothy knew nothing
+of ocean sailing craft she was unable to share in my wonder at all the
+splendor and comfort of this wonderful steamer.
+
+From the first Dorothy was ill. Our boy Reverdy too became seasick. As I
+was not affected in the least I had the care of both of them. A part of
+the time the sea was very rough.
+
+One night when we had been on the water three days Dorothy called to me.
+She had been greatly nauseated during the afternoon. A sudden return of
+the discomfort had seized her. I arose quickly and made a light. The
+boat was rocking. A stiff breeze was blowing. We were headed through a
+great darkness. Dorothy was deathly pale. She was unable to bring up
+anything more and was convulsed with retching and coughing.
+
+She grew suddenly quiet, her eyes closing, her lips parting. "Dear," she
+murmured. I waited for what she would say. She had become at once limp
+in my arms. I shook her gently, pressed my ear to her breast. I could
+hear no heart beat. I called her, laid her down, wetted a towel, and
+applied it to her head. She did not rouse. I went from the stateroom to
+find the physician. He came hurriedly. But Dorothy was dead. That word
+of endearment was her last.
+
+Without, the sea and the sky were as black as a sunless cave. The water
+rolled around us, pitching the boat forward and sideways. The timbers
+creaked, lamps jiggled, the hallways seemed to undulate like snakes. But
+the heart of the _Persia_ pumped with rhythmic regularity. The
+passengers were asleep, or in various festivities, in cabins or in the
+dining room. Nothing was stayed for this tragedy which had come to me.
+On we went through the darkness! Dorothy was lying where I had placed
+her, her head turned to one side, her face pale in the last sleep. I
+aroused little Reverdy. He looked at his mother, kneeled by the berth,
+and sobbed. The physician took us out of the cabin, locked the door, and
+put us in another. I tucked little Reverdy in bed again; then I went out
+to look, at the storm, the dark water, the impenetrable sky.
+
+Back of me was America, flattened out like a map in my imagination, lost
+and sunk like old Atlantis. I sent my mind across it from New York to
+Chicago, from Chicago to California. What was it? Earth, a continent
+containing an embattled and disappointed Douglas, millions of struggling
+people. Ahead of me, over thousands of miles of water, an unknown Italy.
+I lived over all my life, but mostly now all my life with Dorothy, from
+those first days in Jacksonville when I was under a cloud because of
+Zoe and the killing of Lamborn, to our days in Nashville; the ecstasy
+of first love, our walks and restings among the Cumberland hills, the
+kindness of Mother Clayton, her joy when she learned that Dorothy had
+consented to become my wife. I saw again the face of Jackson, his eyes,
+his reverence when he kissed the brow of Dorothy; his tears and his
+feeble step when he walked away from us. And I lived over early Chicago,
+all my days with Douglas. Where was he now on that flattened, negligible
+map called America? In what soil had Zoe moldered into the earth? What
+had become of Fortescue? Where were Abigail and Aldington, Reverdy,
+Sarah, this night? How could the millions storming over slavery and war,
+territories, sugar and cotton and iron, gold and railways think of these
+things if they were face to face with a reality as stark as I was, in a
+boat rolled by dark water, tossing forward toward Europe and with a
+burden like the dead body of Dorothy? All this night I walked the deck.
+I saw the dawn come up, ragged and blue, patched with dark clouds, which
+the wind drove close to the mounting waves.
+
+The captain ordered an autopsy. Dorothy had died of heart failure. Then
+there was to be a burial at sea. In the afternoon the clouds lifted from
+the sky. Toward the west the sun burned over the water, making a wake of
+fire from the boat to the utmost horizon. I took a last look at Dorothy,
+kissed her cold brow. Then she was wrapped with sheets on a plank
+weighted with iron, and taken to the stern of the boat. I stood near to
+see it all, with little Reverdy weeping as if his heart would break.
+
+The body is cast into the water, and in the very golden wake of the sun.
+I cannot hear the splash; I only see a slight flap of the sheet. The
+water closes over instantly. A gull frightened into a slight veering off
+turns to the spot where Dorothy has disappeared. No ripples to mark the
+place where she has been received by the sea! The boat has gone on
+without staying. I keep my eyes fixed on the place. Waves cross and
+recross over it. The sunlight shifts. Tears and the sun blind my eyes. I
+rest them a moment and then look again. Where was it that Dorothy sank?
+What great fish started at the splash, the white apparition; and then
+returned to nibble? To what depths has Dorothy sunk? To what darker
+waters has she been towed by some creature of prey? The sailors have
+gone to their other duties. Little Reverdy is by my side, weeping
+softly. I must write to the older Reverdy back in Jacksonville. He is
+her only relation in the world. To-night I must sleep, if I can.
+
+But I do not sleep. I wonder if I have been a good husband to Dorothy.
+What was she doing, how living, in the years past, when I was absorbed
+in business, following the fortunes of Douglas, studying the books that
+had no bearing upon her happiness nor, alas, upon mine? I saw her now as
+patient, sometimes alone, perhaps always waiting for me, but never
+complaining. How many happy hours had I sacrificed to other things when
+I might have been with her! Was Dorothy happy? Did she love me? I began
+to think over the occasions of her demonstrations of affection--after
+all how few they were! Always tender toward me, but how infrequently
+were there moments of passion, of ecstasy. Had I awakened all of her
+nature? Had I been living a neutral life all these years? Was I in some
+sort a negligible character, without magnetism, of unfulfilled passion?
+A slumbering nature?
+
+But where now was Dorothy's body? We were fifty miles, seventy-five
+miles, a hundred miles from the unmarked spot of burial. She had sunk
+fathoms into the abyss. The bell on the boat had rung the midnight, then
+one o'clock. I heard it toll for two--then I slept. I awoke hearing
+little Reverdy sobbing. I stood out of the berth and tried to comfort
+him. Then we dressed and went to breakfast. Whatever happens there must
+be coffee and toast. Then I walked the deck and longed for land.
+
+We changed boats at Cherbourg. Then a dreary voyage to Naples. We
+hurried through the noise and colorful disorder of Naples and drove by
+carriage to Rome. We entered the same gate through which Milton and
+Goethe had passed, into the Piazza di Spagna. At the foot of the steps
+leading to Trinita di Monti--here where the foreigners stayed, the
+English quarter. I found accommodations in a pension. First there was
+the unpacking, and little Reverdy had to be kept comforted, if possible;
+I must start him in school too. Life must always go on. I became
+sensible of many bells. The strange noises of a civilization wholly
+unknown to me came up through my window. I looked out upon the Piazza di
+Spagna, knowing nothing of its history. Who would be my friends here?
+Back of me was nearly a quarter of a century in America and before me
+what?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+
+Our pension was all that could be desired. Mr. and Mrs. Winchell were
+here from America, from Connecticut. She was about twenty-seven; he was
+nearly sixty. They were on their way around the world, stopping in Rome
+for some months. She was studying painting under an artist who also
+taught etching. In this way I came under the instruction of Luca, who
+had a studio not far from the Piazza di Spagna, and also into daily
+association with Mrs. Winchell.
+
+First little Reverdy had to be placed in school and given a tutor.
+Before doing this I took him around the city, and we saw together some
+of the churches: S. Maria del Popolo, S. Giovanna dei Laterano, S.
+Angelo, S. Paolo. I took him to the Pantheon, the Coliseum, to St.
+Peter's, into the Vatican. Thus I gained my first impressions; and on
+these rounds I found the courier Serafino Maletesta, who became a source
+of so much interest and delight to me.
+
+My mornings were spent in Luca's studio; my afternoons in sightseeing
+with Serafino, in which Mr. and Mrs. Winchell joined, though
+infrequently by him. He was ageing and not well. And often from the
+beginning Mrs. Winchell and I set off together with Serafino to explore
+museums, visit the Palatine, drive to the edge of the city where the
+Alban hills were plainer across the Campagna, as level as a prairie
+around Jacksonville.
+
+I was struggling with Italian, carrying on such conversation as I could
+with Serafino, and with Mrs. Winchell, who was growing proficient in the
+language.
+
+Serafino was something past sixty. He had been with the Carbonari of
+1820, and in the Italian revolution of 1830-31. He saw this suppressed.
+Then when the republican movements of 1848 shook Europe, he had
+participated in the third Italian revolution of that year; and again he
+had seen Italy put down, this time by the intervention of the French,
+whose Louis Napoleon sought by this action to win the friendship of the
+Catholic clergy in France. The hated Austrians now ruled Lombardy and
+Venice. In Rome, now that the Pope again had temporal, power, the
+political affairs of the city were in the hands of Cardinal Antonelli,
+who suppressed political agitation with great severity. It was not only
+an American audience before North Market Hall in Clark Street, Chicago,
+that denied the freedom of speech. Cardinals were up to the same thing,
+as well as mobs.
+
+Serafino told me calmly, with occasional profanity, of the arrest of
+large numbers of Italians who belonged to the Unita Italiana at Naples,
+whose condemnation was speedily followed by hideous dungeons and
+atrocious cruelties. There was slavery in Italy too!
+
+Italy was under the heel of Austria. Religious bigotry, more subtle and
+more powerful than the slavocracy of America, was crushing hope from the
+lives of the Italians, while Mazzini and Cavour battled like Titans
+against the powerful hierarchy of monarchy and Catholicism. There was
+little of the history of Italy, of ancient Rome, that was seemingly
+unknown to Serafino. He had read all his life; and he had been in the
+actual conflicts of awakening Italy. Now his head shook a little when
+his face reddened from suppressed wrath. He cursed quietly, but with a
+terrible energy. He was poor; but there was a refinement in his personal
+appearance. His worn shoes were always polished, his coat and trousers
+of many years service were always brushed. He would appear at the
+appointed hour, bright of eye, cleanly shaven, and always with wonderful
+suggestions for sightseeing for the afternoon. He lived somewhere near
+the Forum. Having never married he was continuing a friendship formed
+long ago with a woman who kept house for him and lived with him. As he
+was no longer fitted for a battle or strife he was now an adviser to
+younger men. He was no doubt suspected but he seemed to have no fear. As
+we went about among priests and soldiers he smiled and spoke to them.
+
+He knew them of old and a certain security seemed to be his. His two
+interests were politics and art, but art had won him almost completely.
+What he knew of history and of art, his life-long residence in Rome made
+him the most interesting of couriers.
+
+Our conversations widened and deepened day by day. Had he heard of
+Douglas? No. He had read _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. What did I know of Mrs.
+Stowe? I ran over the list of our notables. They meant nothing to him.
+State sovereignty, popular sovereignty, the Missouri Compromise, the
+Compromises of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska act were words without
+significance. But there was negro slavery. "How can that be in your
+country?" he asked, and laughed ironically. "If all men are created free
+and equal how about the negro?" he asked.
+
+I went on to tell Serafino, that Thomas Jefferson, when drafting the
+Declaration of Independence, had condemned George III who had forbidden
+the American Colonies "to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce";
+but that the clause was stricken out by South Carolina and Georgia.
+Therefore that the Declaration did not mean negroes when it said "all
+men." Serafino looked at me with quiet, comprehending eyes which said:
+"It's the same struggle of money and power everywhere." He added aloud:
+"Italy will never eat free bread and have enough of it until the
+Austrian is driven off our back. They make us work and take away our
+labor in taxes. We are negroes too."
+
+He wanted to know something of Garrison, of whom he had heard. What was
+thought of Washington in America? But in the midst of these subjects he
+would stop to point to a broken column, a ruined temple; or he would
+turn suddenly into an old church to show me some beloved picture. After
+all, the old life of street brawls, debates, and dungeons had faded out
+of him with the dying of the rebellious fires of youth. There were only
+echoes of these thunderous events in his soul. His eye only brightened
+fully before a picture or a statue. His reverence arose only to some
+perfection of color or of form.
+
+Once he took me by a quick turn, as if by impulse, into an old church.
+"There is a lovely Madonna here," he said. "Who painted it?" "Some pupil
+of Raphael's perhaps." Serafino removed his hat and stood reverently
+before this beautiful face, so human, so tender. "I have heard you say
+so much against the Church, the Papacy--I thought you were not in the
+Church," I said. "No, I am an atheist," replied Serafino. "But what has
+that to do with this? Look at those eyes, those lips. In '48, when my
+soul was torn, I used to come in here every day just for the consolation
+of that face. And now I come for the memory and the peace it brings me."
+Slow tears were on the lower lids of his eyes. With a rough hand he
+brushed them away, then asked me: "What do you think?" "I love that
+face," I replied. "I understand how you feel."
+
+A friendship grew up between Serafino and me. He was not a perfunctory
+guide. He never grew tired. When five o'clock would come and the day was
+really ended I would say: "Well I must be back now. Little Reverdy is
+coming over for an early dinner." "Ah, but just this one picture," he
+would say, "it will only take a few minutes. I want you to see this. It
+is a great work and something may happen. I may forget to bring you
+again." Then we would walk in and out of the cold and gloom of the
+church after having stared the picture into vividness.
+
+During my morning work my friendship with Mrs. Winchell ripened rapidly.
+We had an excellent start in the circumstance that we were Americans. We
+knew of cities, of some people in common. Abigail had come from
+Connecticut and that, in a sense, laid a foundation for our
+conversations. We were working together, she with painting, I with
+drawing and etching. We criticized and suggested concerning each other's
+work. Or we put down our brushes and pencils and talked of life. In this
+way at last she knew of my going to America as a youth of eighteen, of
+the farm, of Zoe, of my marriage, my life in Chicago, my long friendship
+with Douglas, and lastly of Dorothy's death at sea. Her eyes would look
+intently into mine. And when I told her that I considered my life
+practically wasted she said: "Do you know every one's life is wasted;
+nearly every one. Few find their work and pursue it. Most of us are
+drawn aside, or tripped, or blinded. Your friend Douglas seems to me to
+have had a wasted life. As you tell me all this I see you as a man of
+tremendous will drawn into an accidental path, not his real path. You
+are an artist at heart. I don't mean that you will ever be a great
+etcher, though one cannot tell; I mean that all this turbulence,
+sordidness, American hurry, waste, vulgarity, agitation, politics, did
+not belong to you. But what right have I to talk? My life is a waste
+too."
+
+Little by little I learned from her what her life had been, what its
+central impulse was. She was a poor girl who hungered for opportunity.
+She had looked with critical eyes upon marriageable men. I wondered if
+she had been attractive to many men, if many had had the discernment to
+see what she was. If a young woman marries an elderly man of wealth it
+is probable that no young man of wealth has come to her at the favorable
+hour; and probable, too, that no man of merely compelling magnetism has
+been interested in her. Mr. Winchell was kindly, a noble nature; he gave
+her a tender, but only a paternal love. But through him she had
+traveled; she had had the beauty of life for which her heart was
+insatiable. There were no children; there never would be children, and
+what lavish, ecstatic affection she bestowed upon my Reverdy! So day by
+day I learned that she was a teacher in Connecticut when Mr. Winchell
+came along, willing to give her everything if she would marry him. He
+had been rather a heavy drinker up to this time, now five years before;
+when he left off drink for awhile. Then he had begun again, but rarely
+indulged to excess. It may be that drink had emasculated him before he
+married her; but now if because of this he tippled occasionally, he was
+justified in medicine which dulled feelings that he could not be a
+husband to this radiant woman, who treated him always with such
+tenderness and devotion, always honored him with such scrupulous
+attention.
+
+She wanted a child above all things. All of us remember some woman whom
+we knew in youth who kept canaries, or raised flowers or had some queer
+little fad. We learn to know why women do this. In her case she
+expressed her mother's passion in studies, in art, in travel, in
+friendship, in kindness to every one; above all in devotion to her
+husband. She mothered him in the most tender and beautiful way. In a
+little while I knew all her story, as she did mine.
+
+Serafino came for me one morning at the studio. There was an old café
+beyond the walls near the Campagna where the food was wholly Italian and
+of the best. It was a wonderful place for the rest of the noonday meal,
+for a view of the Alban hills. The sun was warm, the sky was clear. The
+intoxication of an Italian day was in the air. I wished so much to share
+the delight with someone. Mrs. Winchell was sitting near absorbed in her
+work. But she had looked up and bowed to Serafino, whom she had seen
+with me so frequently. I turned to her and asked: "Would you and Mr.
+Winchell like to join me?" "Let us go and ask him," she replied. So we
+set off to the pension to invite Uncle Tom. That was the name she called
+him, and I had begun to use it myself.
+
+Uncle Tom had made the acquaintance of some men of his own age from New
+York. They had begun to patronize a café located beyond the American
+Embassy, where broiled chicken and fresh vegetables were a specialty and
+where the red wine was of the best. He had an engagement with these
+cronies and was preparing to leave as we came in. He listened to
+Isabel's exclamations about the place to which Serafino wished to take
+us. If she had been his daughter and I had been his son he could not
+have sent us off together with a heartier laugh, a more undisturbed
+heart. "You two go," he said. "You get along about pictures and scenery.
+I am going to Canape's, and play checkers this afternoon. I am too fat
+to run around like you young folks do. Go on and have a good time."
+
+And we ran down, following Serafino who had preceded us to engage a
+carriage. Off we drove, the wheels rattling over the stones, past the
+Forum, past the Coliseum, in view of St. Peter's. Soon we entered a
+dusty road. The houses were small now, broken and old. At last we drew
+up into an open space surrounded by little buildings: a blacksmith's
+shop where the anvil was ringing, little bakeries, markets where
+vegetables and bologna were vended. Ragged Italian children, gay and
+soiled with healthy dirt, were playing in the dust, turning somersaults,
+chasing each other, laughing. Beyond us was the Campagna, the Alban
+hills. We climbed a rickety stairway to a platform or roof of stone. An
+eager and obliging waiter brought us a table, spread it, put before us
+red wine. And Serafino, seeing these things done, disappeared, leaving
+Isabel and me to dine together under this clear sky with the green of
+the lovely plain spread out before us to the purples of the hills.
+
+How could I help but make comparisons between Isabel and Dorothy? I had
+never known any women but Dorothy and Abigail, Sarah, Mother Clayton. I
+had never come into romantic contact with any woman but Dorothy. Now I
+was advancing to this relationship with Isabel. I began to wonder if I
+had given Dorothy love. I had given her perfect loyalty. Was there a
+form of treason to Dorothy's memory in the fast beating of my heart here
+in the presence of Isabel, under this sky, in this charming place?
+Perhaps I had been starved too. Yet because of her personality, the
+radiant flame which was herself, the laughing and girlish genius which
+was in her, but above all the spiritual integrity which was hers, I
+stood in awe of her. But that awe was sufficiently explained by her
+devotion to her husband. I saw in her eyes honor and truth, and the
+peace of mind that sometimes comes with them, all the while that I felt
+the blood surge around my heart and pulsate in my hands. There seemed to
+be nothing now of which we could not speak. Her interest in children
+betrayed itself in exclamations over the ragged little Italians playing
+in the court. I wondered if my heart had ever been profoundly stirred. I
+had married Dorothy. But suppose Zoe had not been in my life to have
+offended and alienated Dorothy's interest for a time, and thus to have
+energized this English will which was mine for conquest of the farm, for
+the killing of Lamborn--for the continued pursuit of Dorothy? In such
+case had I married Dorothy? What would life have been to me if I had met
+Isabel when I first knew Dorothy? This woman of white flame talking of
+art, of travel, of Rome, of religion, of beauty; giving way to girlish
+chuckles and laughter. Was she not closer to me, as temperate genius of
+the North, than Dorothy, out of the languor and the romanticism of the
+South? Was not Douglas closer to the North, which Isabel seemed to me
+now to symbolize, than to that South with which his fate had now so long
+been entangled?
+
+A step is heard. The old stair creaks, and Serafino's head appears above
+the railing. We look up, aroused from our enchantment. The afternoon
+lights are slanting across the Campagna. It is time to go. I have
+overpaid the waiter. He honestly offers to rectify it. Isabel laughs,
+seeing that I am oblivious of such worldly things. That breaks the
+spell. And we drive back to Rome and our pension.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+
+I begin to wonder about my Reverdy. At the school I see him in
+association with English boys. He is not so strong as they, not so
+handsome, not so alert and apt. Isabel has never had a child and wants
+one with consuming passion. This boy is mine, but am I better off than
+Isabel? My life grows clearer to me. I have receded from it and can see
+it better. I can look out upon Rome and then close my eyes and recall
+Chicago. I think of my long years of money making; then I turn to
+reflection upon art and life. I thrill in the presence of Isabel; then I
+remember the mild but tender passion which Dorothy aroused in me.
+
+I thrill before Isabel, but I give my feelings no expression. There are
+looks, no doubt, hesitations of speech, flutterings of the heart, that
+she may hear. But she is encompassed with flame that bars my way. I do
+not try to pass. We are all friends together, Isabel, Uncle Tom, and I.
+No plans are made which exclude Uncle Tom. Isabel and I have no secrets,
+no stealings away, no intimacies however slight, no quick withdrawals
+upon the sound of his step. Everything is known to Uncle Tom. I had
+impulses to all clearness of conduct in the circumstance that Uncle Tom
+is so much my friend. He treats me like a father; he is always doing
+generous things for me. He is delighted to see Isabel go with me to a
+church or a gallery, when he is too tired or too ill to accompany us,
+and that is often.
+
+And day by day Isabel was happier. She became a creature of glories,
+shining transparencies. We had books together, music together, our work
+together. We had the companionship of the morning and the evening meal,
+sacred rituals between beings who love each other. We had infinite talks
+together with Uncle Tom or alone, as it happened. If Uncle Tom saw our
+exaltation, nevertheless he knew all that was between us. For it was
+beauty of life that Isabel and I shared, and who cannot know between
+whom this secret exists, if he have eyes to see?
+
+He knew I loved Isabel, if he had not forgotten all that moves in the
+blood of a man of forty-two. He knew that she loved me--at any rate in
+some quality of love. For Isabel used this word freely in the ecstasies
+of her spirit, in the rapturous atmosphere of Italy. "I love James,
+Uncle Tom--not as I love you; but I really love him! How wonderful that
+he should come to us. He is like my brother, but he is something more.
+He is a great friend." Uncle Tom would smile benignantly upon this
+radiant woman, whom he had married for her youthful vitality, for which
+he gave the happiness that comes of wealth. Perhaps in his ageing
+psychology he did not know that there was passion in our hearts. Yet I
+think he was a great soul, wishing Isabel to have every happiness. I
+know he was my friend. There was nothing in him of the envy of January
+because of my younger years, nor reproof for the Maytime sunshine that
+was in the heart of Isabel.
+
+Isabel and I had been to the Vatican several times. Uncle Tom disliked
+pictures; above all he dreaded the fatigue of walking and the cold of
+the churches and rooms where he was obliged to remove his hat. One
+afternoon Isabel proposed that we go again to the Vatican; there was a
+face there she wished to show me. We asked Uncle Tom to come with us;
+but this was one of the days when he did not feel strong enough for
+anything. He was keeping to his room. Perhaps later he would go to
+Canape's. "You two go along. You will get on without me."
+
+Isabel took me directly to the suite which was decorated by Pinturicchio
+for Alexander VI. We looked at the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Magi,
+and the Resurrection. Somehow I was more moved by these paintings than
+by anything I had yet seen in Rome. The soul of this painter took
+possession of me. Then recalling what Isabel had said I asked her:
+"Where is the face, Isabel, you wished to show me?" "There," she said.
+"Turn around." I did and saw a bronze bust on a pedestal. "That, you
+mean?" Isabel nodded. I walked closer to it. It was Pinturicchio.
+
+A deeper emotion than I had ever before felt before a work of art took
+possession of me. Such wisdom, benignity, genius! What a soul belonged
+to this man! I looked about to see if we were watched by guards. As we
+were alone I put up my hands to caress this face, moved by some unknown
+impulse. Touching the silken surface of the bronze my whole imaginative
+power seemed to awake; my life spread out before me. I know not what it
+was; memories of so many things; not least of all Isabel's presence
+understanding what I felt. My eyes blinded; my shoulders shook a little.
+Isabel came to me and gently put her hand on my arm. We walked away.
+"Who was Pinturicchio?" I asked of Isabel. And she told me. I took a
+guide-book out of my pocket and began to read. "There is a story," it
+said, "that Pinturicchio was starved by his wife during his last
+illness." I closed the book. After all had not Douglas been starved in
+the finer part of his genius by the life to which he was wedded? How
+would his face look in bronze, ridged with reason and controversy; what
+could ever bring him out of the dust and noise of the levels where he
+was battling, even to the plateaus to which poor Serafino had climbed?
+
+After that I looked at everything of Pinturicchio's I could find in
+Rome. We found his Coronation of the Virgin, his frescoes of St.
+Antonio. But Isabel, who had already been to the Villa d'Este with Uncle
+Tom, began now day by day to plan another excursion there. She had not
+gone up to Tivoli, nor seen the cataracts; we could do all of this in an
+afternoon if we did not stop to wander through Hadrian's Villa. This
+time Serafino went with us; but Uncle Tom was again indisposed, and
+laughingly bade us to go on and leave him to an afternoon at Canape's
+with his cronies.
+
+Serafino rode on the box with the driver, and that left Isabel and me to
+something like a privacy, as we drove by the quarries of travertine
+where the slaves of old Rome went blind and died hewing out the stone
+that went to the building of the Coliseum and the theaters of Marcellus
+and Pompey. We passed the little stream whose waters were blue with
+sulphur, filling the air with its odor. The grasses and herbs were
+green; here and there an almond tree was in blossom. The dark cypresses
+of Hadrian's Villa stood like spires of thunder clouds against the
+wonderful azures of this uplifting sky. Before us were the mountains,
+pine-clad, vineyard-clad; and far up the gleam of a cascade shone like a
+bent sword in the sun.
+
+Serafino took us through the room of the d'Este Palace telling the
+driver to meet us at one of the entrances to the grounds. When we
+emerged and descended to the Hundred Fountains he turned away giving us
+the directions to reach the carriage. He knew that this was a place
+where lovers would wish to dispense with a guide.
+
+We walked through the avenues of great cypress trees and came to the
+farther end of the pools whose curbs were decorated with flowering urns.
+There we looked at the palace and listened to the song of the merles.
+Beside this all was silence, only the stir of the wind against the soft
+strings of the trees--the most melodious harp in the world! We climbed
+to an eminence, stood by an iron fence and gazed down upon the fisheries
+surrounded by graceful bushes and trees. Then we found the Fontana dell'
+Ovato, and a seat before it. It was a semicircle of stone perforated by
+arches over which the water musically poured. Here we rested, listening
+to the merles, the falling water, the whispering of the wind. Ghosts of
+dead delight seemed to pass us; unseen presences of passionate gallants
+and capricious loveliness, hungering hearts wounded by life, by beauty,
+by desire, spoke to us through the murmuring water, the stir of the
+wind, the intense silence when all sounds were turned away by the
+veering of the delicious air.
+
+And Uncle Tom was in Rome at Canape's drinking with his American
+cronies! Only myself knew my starved heart, but surely he knew the heart
+of Isabel. What was the attitude of mind in allowing this free
+association between Isabel and me? Does the heart of age become
+deadened? Does it understand; does it but partly divine these secrets;
+does it for any of these reasons cease to be sensitive?
+
+Then suddenly, as Isabel and I sat there in these enchanting
+surroundings, an uncontrollable emotion seized me, one that had no
+regard for a future, that sought only to realize wholly and at once an
+ecstatic present. For what could be between us? I could not marry
+Isabel; and what could be? Blindly, without a thought of any of these
+things, I took Isabel's hands and drew her to me frightened and
+trembling. Instantly I saw what I had done. Our life of frank
+companionship fell away from us. A new birth was ours; but of what
+wonder and terror and danger! Isabel exclaimed: "Oh, my friend!" Then
+she lost her voice and whispered, "My friend!" She became relaxed,
+leaned back her head, closed her eyes. Tears crept down her cheeks. And
+I was silent, in a kind of madness of fear, passion, regret, nameless
+sorrow. What could I say, to what could she listen? There was a long
+silence. Then Isabel began to speak.
+
+"Help me, my friend," she said. "How can I tell you how to be my friend?
+Still it must be. I care for you so deeply. Let me speak, but understand
+me as I try to speak, and help me. You are young and strong. You are so
+companionable; I never grow tired of you--but you must know that I am
+not different from you in all impulses, imaginings. But be my friend.
+Take into your being the beauty we have together; these flowers of
+friendship attend and keep for our garden--our Villa d'Este. Let it be
+open to the sky and wind as this is, a place where innocence and
+kindness may come, where children may play and the old rest. Ah, my
+friend, you have lived and now be strong for me. Uncle Tom is so fond of
+you. Think of all you have. You have had a wife, and you have a son. Be
+noble, be understanding, for really you see I am poor and you are rich.
+If possible these hands of passion which you have placed on mine must
+change, and my hands must forget what you have done. Otherwise what is
+the future to be?"
+
+Isabel began to sob, between her words crying: "Oh, be my friend!" How
+could I comfort her? The very comfort that her heart craved was that
+which her sorrow strove to deny me the giving. I drew out my watch; we
+had long overstayed our time, for we were to lunch at the Sibylla in
+Tivoli. We walked slowly to the entrance where Serafino waited for us
+with the carriage. He was smoking a pipe, calm and happy, and in
+companionable conversation with the driver.
+
+At a table near the Temple of Vesta here on the Castro Vetere, the
+waterfalls below us, Horace's Villa above us, we dined and became happy
+again.
+
+When we got back to the pension Uncle Tom was there to greet us and to
+receive Isabel's kiss upon a mischievously yielded cheek, and to hear
+her rapturous account of the afternoon.
+
+And I went forth with little Reverdy in the Borghese Gardens; afterwards
+to continue my studies of the etchings of Piranesi.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+
+Isabel now took Reverdy into her heart with an ardor that could not be
+mistaken. She often went to bring him from school to the pension. She
+took him in walks about the broken columns of the Forum. They clambered
+together over the galleries of the Coliseum and to the heights of the
+Palatine, exploring the ruins of the palaces of the Cesar's. They had
+walked out to the Appian Way, and gone to listen to the merles and the
+golden wrens among the cypresses of the Protestant cemetery.
+
+Reverdy had begun to call Isabel "Mamma Isabel" and Isabel addressed him
+as "son." Uncle Tom fell into the same way. The kinship between us was
+strengthened by these endearments.
+
+But I observed something of deeper, more mystical import; Reverdy was
+attached to Isabel with an intense and curious filial passion. He would
+rush into the room and kiss Isabel, flinging his arms about her with
+ecstatic joy. She evoked this demonstration in some secret, maternal
+way. And now as I tried to remember I could not recall that Dorothy had
+ever caressed Reverdy--not that she was cold toward him. She was the
+soul of kindness. But whenever had she held him to her breast with
+demonstrative heart-hunger and expression; whenever had she played with
+him, walked with him, entered into his life of game or studies? She had
+never done so. Perhaps Reverdy had never had a mother after all. Now he
+had one in Isabel, who seemed to direct something of the energy that she
+had channeled into art and into travel to this boy of mine. But she did
+not in any way withdraw her interest from me.
+
+I was wondering after our day at the Villa d'Este if she would place
+herself again in a like intimacy with me, if we should go about together
+as before. No, there was no change as to program; but her eyes were so
+clear, so innocently bright, her smile and laugh so gentle, yet free of
+direct invitation, above all her devotion to Uncle Tom was so noble,
+that I felt loath to make my approach more intimate. What I craved and
+what I was glad to keep was our daily association. And now while she
+always invited Uncle Tom to be with us and he more and more went his own
+way, Isabel turned to Reverdy and arranged for him to accompany us about
+Rome and into the country, once to Hadrian's Villa, once to Ostia where
+we looked upon the sea. It did not seem to me that Isabel sought to keep
+me at a distance and to bring in Reverdy as an influence to that end.
+She took such great delight in having him with us. It seemed only to
+happen that he went with us. It was not always so. And it was all quite
+natural.
+
+We had thus become friends in the profoundest sense. Once she referred
+to Pinturicchio saying: "If you feel that you could have loved that
+man, don't you see that the same feeling can exist between a man and a
+woman? I am talking of that unity of two minds out of which the finest
+emotions come; and in the case of artists the noblest works. Love is not
+just passional love, just this flame that burns so brightly and then
+dies. It may be a flame that has no material sustenance, or so slight
+that we are not subtle enough to discern it; a flame that feeds on
+flame, unites with another flame and grows brighter for the union; and
+finds in the flame a substitute for oil. Friendship is what I mean--or
+love may be a better word. Here in Rome among the old shrines and
+temples where the anemones and violets bloom so profusely, before the
+sculptured faces of Zeus and Aphrodite and Apollo and Bacchus, one
+dreams one's self into intuitions of the old gods, and the lovely faiths
+of the ancient world. And I go sometimes alone with a book to the
+Borghese or to the Capitoline and there let my imagination wander in
+re-creation of the visions of life and the soul that came as
+interpretations to the ancients. I have lately been reading a book on
+the cult of Orpheus, the Pagan Christ, one of the loveliest figures of
+the Greeks. It made me believe somehow that Christ never lived, that he
+is only a creation of the anonymous imagination of a hungering world.
+For surely Orpheus did not live, and how closely he resembles Christ as
+an embodiment of the heart's aspiration to free itself from the material
+and to rise into a realm of pure beauty, understanding, devotion--all
+lovely things. My friend, I was thinking of you all the while. And if
+you could have been a friend of Pinturicchio in the noblest sense, why
+not of me? I am not trying to play with words or with ideas, or to
+perplex you, or to excite your doubts or your desires. I think you have
+never had a friend. What, after all, could you find in a soul so
+masculine, so lacking in intuition as Douglas; upon whom you have poured
+your admiration for all these years? Has it not been for lack of some
+one better to whom you could give your heart? That is why I wish that
+you and I could find an enduring and inspiring union in a mutual
+interest in great things. Forgive me, I grieve that all this seems a
+cruel waste to me--all these years of your life."
+
+"Is your life not a waste?" I asked before I could check the words.
+
+"No," Isabel replied calmly, in no way offended. "After all there is a
+feeling in my heart for Uncle Tom such as you might have felt for
+Pinturicchio. What does one derive from love? There are riches in
+admiration, gratitude, sympathy, filial tenderness, in desire for
+devotion; yes, even in pity; in the bestowal of comforting hands; in
+solace given in hours of fatigue and illness; in care for declining
+vitality. All these expressions I have. And now, my friend, I would be a
+help to you. I would give you eyes to understand your past; and a vision
+to choose a better future. If you have ever been Dionysius, which you
+have not, you are yet an unawakened soul. I would have you become
+Orpheus, attended by the Muses of all this loveliness with which we are
+surrounded here. By contrast it makes me think of America, so vast but
+so without a soul. By soul I do not mean that energy which enforces
+righteousness, the dream of the fanatic, the ideal of the law
+fabricator; but the soul of high freedoms, delights, nobilities. For
+there is just as much difference between those things as there is
+between Douglas and Pinturicchio. All of this goes without saying, of
+course; but I am thinking of the application of these things to you. I
+am your friend, you know."
+
+Was there reality in Isabel's words? Was she not sublimating the
+materials of our thwarted relationship? Turning to Douglas I tried to
+tell her what character of thinker he was and how, in spite of any
+deficiency that he had, he was a brave heart and a thinking mind and a
+needed builder in America.
+
+"It may be," said Isabel. We were sitting in the Gardens of Adonis once
+occupied in part by the golden house of Nero, here where St. Sebastian
+was bound to a tree and pierced with arrows. What material symbols for
+our thoughts! Ruins of walls, columns and capitols lay about us; and on
+the air was borne the music of bells and the low murmur of Rome. In this
+pause of our conversation I heard a cry and looking up saw Reverdy
+running toward us, throwing up his arms in delight and falling upon the
+breast of Isabel. She embraced him with all tenderness; then arose and
+began to run with him about the garden. In a little while we saw Uncle
+Tom approaching slowly. He was much out of breath and looked definitely
+ill. How had they found us? Isabel had told Uncle Tom that we might
+stroll here; and Reverdy had prevailed upon Uncle Tom to drive this way.
+
+In a few days there was to be a service at St. Peter's which Isabel was
+eager to see. She was talking to Uncle Tom about it, begging him to go,
+and he was half consenting though reluctant. Reverdy was all delight
+over the prospect, and it was an opportunity for me to be with Isabel.
+She had never become a communicant of any church. But she abhorred
+atheism. It denied the love that she saw in nature, the divinity that
+permeated the human mind; the law she sensed in growth and decay; the
+spirit of beauty that reigned everywhere to her imagination. We were at
+one on this matter of denying a God, but the repugnance that I had had
+to imperial Catholicism had been increased by Serafino's recitals of
+Italy's sufferings under the Church and Austria. And in Rome one saw the
+settled dominance of clericalism. Perhaps the Church was like negro
+slavery. If the Church ministered to beauty and spirituality, was it not
+asserted in favor of slavery that it afforded leisure; did it not
+correspond to the fertilization which enriches the roots of a gorgeous
+flower? I could see Isabel turning to the esthetics in the Catholic
+service. "What can you say," she asked, "against a faith that surrounds
+itself with pictures, sculpture, music, incense, the rhythm of rich
+Latin, the appeal in words to life renewal, eternal life, purity, glory,
+tenderness? Say what you will of it; condemn its external sovereignty,
+of guns and poison and machinations--condemn these as you will--its
+ritual calls to purer dreams. And perhaps in all our life there must be
+oppression and particular injustice in order to produce the finest
+blossom."
+
+Uncle Tom seemed to be falling into more frequent indisposition. He
+often lay in bed for the greater part of the morning. There were days
+when he did not leave his room. Again he would go forth to Canape's; and
+while he was rarely in anything like a stagger, he was often saturated
+with wine, heavy and sleepy from its influence. Isabel through it all
+treated him with unfailing kindness; and some of our excursions were
+interrupted because of Uncle Tom's taking to bed after returning from
+Canape's; or because he could not arise before noon after an evening
+with his friends. She would not desert his side. Was there something in
+my presence with his life with Isabel, our friendship for each other,
+that woke nerves to suffering which only drink could dull?
+
+The day of the service in St. Peter's we all set forth in one carriage,
+Reverdy riding on the box, and Isabel, Uncle Tom, and I in the seat. I
+noticed that Uncle Tom was more than usually self-absorbed. Isabel
+patted his hand or held it, and talked to him of the objects of interest
+along the way.
+
+The service was about to begin when we entered. We walked as far as the
+bronze plate which marks the comparative length of the Cathedral of
+Milan, and I was looking toward the bronze pavilion with its twisted
+columns which tents the tomb of St. Peter, through and around these
+columns at the candles on the altar. Chanting voices echoed, soared in
+hollow reverberations up and about the arches, the domes; an organ was
+giving forth soft thunder in some hidden quarter.
+
+Suddenly Uncle Tom steps back, sways, coughs. Isabel utters a slight
+cry; I look at Uncle Tom and take him by the arm. Bystanders help me
+support him. He has turned very pale, blue at the lips. With the
+assistance of two men we take him to a carriage, drive to the pension.
+We put him to bed and send for a physician.
+
+Reverdy is sent away, and Isabel and I watch. For Uncle Tom is dying.
+The doctor says it is only a matter of a few hours. Uncle Tom wishes to
+make a will. Will I write it out for him? His thoughts are clear. He
+remembers his possessions, his relations. To brothers and sisters he
+gives handsome purses, all the rest to Isabel.
+
+"Isabel," he says with difficulty. "Yes, my dear," she replies in a
+voice of great tenderness. "Isabel, I want to give Jimmy something--ten
+thousand dollars." Before she can speak I interject: "I do not need it,
+Uncle Tom." He rolled his head in a negative, turned his hand feebly. "I
+give it to you that you may do something for her. Then it will be from
+you and from me too." Isabel stifles a sob by placing her hands tightly
+over her mouth. "Write," says Uncle Tom; and I write.
+
+The will is written. The doctor has come again. Uncle Tom signs the will
+in our presence. Then he asks the doctor for medicine for his lungs. "I
+seem to have a cough," he says. But it is not his lungs but his heart.
+We are standing by the bed. Uncle Tom takes our hands and puts them
+together. Instantly his head sinks upon the pillow. He is dead. The
+doctor walks from the room. Isabel and I stand by the bed with closed
+eyes, holding hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV
+
+
+Standing beside the dead body of this man a future with Isabel took form
+in my heart. Love is a great solemnity itself. And in this moment I felt
+that Isabel shared my vision.
+
+We buried Uncle Tom. Then Isabel began to prepare to sail for America.
+Of course no trip now around the world. She must go back to Connecticut,
+but she must go alone. That was her wish. It was understood that I
+should follow her later. This much was definite between us. Many plans
+filled her mind. She had a large estate to put in order. There were
+lawyers and agents to consult. I really wished to return with her in
+order to assist her. But she said: "It is best for you to stay here for
+a while. We shall write to each other. Later I wish you to come."
+
+The question in my mind was not shall we be married, but when shall we
+be married. But Isabel's mood was too serious, too majestic for me to
+broach these definite subjects now. I looked into her eyes. It seemed to
+me that my thoughts were silently communicated to her. She pressed my
+hand gently. And so after some days of packing, in which I helped her
+constantly, she sailed away and left me in Rome.
+
+I tried to work but the time would not pass. All my drawings and
+etchings were failures. What after all was art to me except a diversion?
+Too late! The only art that I ever could achieve was that of giving
+happiness to Isabel and being worthy of her devotion. Her letters came
+frequently, always so full of wise observations, striking fancies and
+imagery; so many with thanks for what I had been to her. She wrote me
+that Uncle Tom's will, as he had dictated it, had been probated and
+acquiesced in by every one.
+
+Six months went by. I had gone with Reverdy to Lake Maggiore to escape
+the heat in Rome. While I was there a letter came from Isabel asking me
+to come to her. In three weeks I was by her side, having first placed
+Reverdy in Phillips Exeter. We were together in the great homestead
+which had belonged to Uncle Tom's father, there in Connecticut. It was
+full of the treasures of old times. Priceless things gathered on
+Isabel's travels--a great house set in a wonderful expanse of grounds
+about a mile from a pretty village. It was October. The earth was aflame
+with the fires of the forest. Jays cried from the maples. The air was
+subtle with a delicate scent of pine needles and fallen leaves.
+
+She had other guests in the house. But they dispersed themselves
+gracefully. We were much alone, reading, listening to music played
+softly by one of her woman friends at a distance in the drawing room.
+Our favorite place was the window seat in the library, heaped with
+pillows and overlooking lilac and rose bushes, where we could see the
+great elms, the fountain, the country beyond. We had many walks
+together; and one afternoon we came to a place on a woodland path amid
+hills, trees towering above us, a brook playing below us. The air was
+hushed with a passionate Orpheus, and there I sensed her yearning. I
+heard the rhythm of her flesh singing to me. Her hands were stretched
+toward me, the pupils of her eyes grew wide as if a vision stood before
+her. For the first time I kissed Isabel upon the lips.
+
+Hitherto we had breathed the rarefied air of the peaks, seen the white
+light of the upper spaces, felt the passionless gods about us. Now we
+were descending the rich valleys, to the clustered vines, to the places
+of soft sounds and voluptuous air, to havens of sleep, to the
+replenishment of our souls in the bridal supper.
+
+That night we sat again in the window seat. Her other guests faded here
+and there. For a time there were shadowy fancies from the piano, then
+the house was stilled. But outside an April rain was falling. It pelted
+the windowpanes as softly as driven petals. It made a fairy swish as of
+far-off waves, and we sat together in a dim light. Isabel's eyes were
+closed. Her head rested partly on my shoulder, partly on a pillow. Her
+hand lay limp in my hand. Her whole being was relaxed. We were quite
+alone.
+
+Isabel was with me body and mind. But a terror crept upon me. My very
+hair trembled. I pressed her hand to my breast. It seemed only an act of
+will, however, not of emotion. I drew her head close to my breast. All
+these actions arrayed themselves before my detached observation.
+Paralyzing self-analysis preoccupied me. I kissed her upon the brow, the
+eyes, with pressure and strength upon the lips. I was not acting; I was
+thinking out these demonstrations. The consciousness that I was
+deceiving Isabel broke my emotional concentration. Could she sense that
+my heart was beating, but with terror? Where were the flames that had
+sung to me ethereally before? Where the song out of the flesh, but too
+subtle for the ears of flesh? Yet I drew her closer to me, folded her
+tightly against my breast. My imaginative strength was more and more
+absorbed in self-analysis, into wonder as to what weakness had taken
+place in me. For here was Isabel dissolved in my arms and how could I
+continue this futile demonstration? But why also desist? The sweat began
+to stand out on my forehead. What should I say? Uncle Tom no longer
+stood between us. Isabel was my bride. There were no barriers to break
+down, no protests to overcome. We were both of an age and of an
+experience where formalities lose their significance. The goddess had
+descended to me and here was I a witless fool. Finally there flashed
+into my mind what she had said to me in Rome: "My friend, for this once
+be Orpheus--Orpheus was once Dionysius. Orpheus, tranquil and inspired,
+touched the quiet lyre surrounded by the Muses. Orpheus had been
+Dionysius drinking wine, beating cymbals. Be Orpheus, my friend, and
+take into your being these beauties of the mind which are given
+us--these flowers of friendship attend and keep for our garden."
+
+These words ran through my tortured brain. They completed my enervation.
+But I could utter none of them to Isabel. What fear that hatred was
+budding in the heart of this woman at my side! I pressed her hands every
+now and then to see what was moving in her; for as my mind would not
+cease to analyze, analysis became keener. Always she returned the
+pressure. Her kisses at first given with ardent emotion were now lisped
+softly against my cheek. So we sat side by side. The rain pelted the
+window, the clock chimed. And the night was passing. A proposal of
+marriage seemed belated, incongruous. Yet it came into my mind as a
+protective coloration to more immediate expressions of the moment.
+
+Men have lost women because they dishonored them or betrayed them or
+changed for the time toward them--for a thousand reasons. But look at
+me. What were friendship, truth, honor, the service of all that I was,
+love in its highest and deepest sense, understanding, sympathy with all
+of Isabel's flights of the mind, if I could not come to her with a
+promise of the future? She was not only the revelation of all that I had
+desired and of all that I had missed in life, but she was the symbol of
+a fate that has come past the appointed hour. I was the father of
+Reverdy by Dorothy, whom I loved with a heart's beginning; and I was the
+defeated lover of the ideal whom I had found too late.
+
+In these circumstances of myself and Isabel were symbolized the lives of
+all men who give their devotions to lesser loves, who find their
+creations and their work imperfect or worthless when the planting season
+has passed.
+
+As hollow as the words sounded, I nevertheless asked Isabel to be my
+wife. And Isabel without changing her position and without opening her
+eyes said in the quietest of voices: "You know I love you. You know I
+have loved you in every way a woman can. I love you as I loved Uncle
+Tom; for you are my friend, as he was. But what will the future be? I
+have been compelled all my life to center my thought upon books and
+music, friends, travel, and devotion to Uncle Tom. I have developed this
+power of concentration and self-denial; but would you bring me to live
+over again what I lived with Uncle Tom? Oh, my friend, no man can
+understand and fathom the maternal desire in a woman. It is a mystery
+which she alone knows."
+
+What life remained in me sank down just as a stricken eagle falls into
+the thickets and is still; and breathes quietly and draws the film over
+its eyes. I could not answer her. The October air was mild. The house
+was overheated. A window was open. An entering wind began to stir my
+hair. I thought of how it must look to another, these beginnings of
+gray hair. Age had come to me. And I could see Isabel with my feelings
+alone, sitting beside me so pale, so tender, so sorrowful.
+
+The clock strikes three. Isabel arouses, turns slightly from me, and
+gradually sits up. "That was three, wasn't it?" she asked. "Your train
+leaves early in the morning. You must sleep a few hours. I shall not see
+you at breakfast. The maid will bring it to you. Shall we have a glass
+of wine together?"
+
+She poured wine for me and we drank. She handed me a lighted candle.
+Then she stood and searched my face. She offered her lips to me, turned
+and walked away.
+
+I stood with the candle in my hand, watching her until she passed
+through the shadows and darkness of the hall. The house was without a
+sound. No step of her came from the hall or the stair. I still stood
+with the candle in that silence and fluttering darkness. Then I went to
+my room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+
+But I did not retire. I stood for a few moments looking through the
+window into the darkness. Then I placed my belongings in my satchel,
+stole softly out of the room, down the great stairs, opened the great
+door of the main hallway and walked off the porch on to the gravel road,
+through the iron gate and into the highway leading to the village. I
+looked back at Isabel's mansion, at the roof dark between the dark
+trees. Under that roof the most priceless heart I had found in life was
+beating--but was it in sleep or in wakefulness? I was numbed, stunned,
+hopeless. I could never return here, never see Isabel again. The Orphic
+metamorphosis meant a complete disappearance from her life. She had not
+turned me away or dismissed me; she had done no cruel thing, said no
+word that wounded or would grow poignant in memory. She had been in
+every way an angel of light--and for these reasons I could not see her
+again. Whatever I was in truth, rid of accidental emotions if such they
+were, I had filled her mind with fear and doubt. Thus our fate was made,
+our sorrow was born.
+
+As I walked along in the darkness toward the village, my loneliness in
+the world came over me. I had not attached many to me; many of those I
+had won were gone. Was there a home for me? How could I return to the
+house in Chicago? To what there? I had come from Italy to America; from
+a city of memories and spiritual richnesses to the tumult of New York.
+Above all I had found heaven in Isabel and lost it. My life had come to
+flower only to be withered. I had stepped out of heaven into hell, and
+from a great light into darkness.
+
+But the soul does not give up while there is breath. If one is ill he
+looks forward to health; if he is slowly dying he hopes for years of
+life; if one friend is lost there is another to turn to. No heart so
+desperate but can imagine a haven, however poor it may be, and go to it.
+
+In this hour my mind turned to Reverdy back in Jacksonville. There could
+be no truer, kinder heart. There in the prairie of Illinois that I had
+grown up with he would be my solace. What had I to do with Rome, with
+art; what with a woman like Isabel? I had ventured on sacred ground and
+this was my punishment. A god had driven me forth. I had won my heart's
+desire; but before I could enjoy it a god, ironical but just, intuitive
+and swift to punish, had sent me down to my place in life. I would go to
+Reverdy, and stand before him in my familiar guise. He would not see
+Rome in my eyes; he would not know that I had been in Paradise; that in
+my heart shone a face that I had put by and should never look on again.
+Every man is a temple of forsaken shrines, of altars where candles
+burned replenished by spirits that need open no doors--a temple whose
+portals are barred.
+
+I went through Chicago, which had grown and changed in my absence so
+marvelously, straight to Jacksonville, regarding nothing on my way,
+reading nothing. Like a supernatural being which has girdled the earth
+in a second, it seemed that I stood before Reverdy and Sarah and their
+children. I stood before them, but I could hear the bells of Rome; and I
+saw Isabel as she handed the candle to me and walked from the room.
+
+I supplemented what I had written to them of Dorothy's death; then I
+told them brokenly of Rome. Where could I begin, what words could I
+select to express briefly my experiences? But besides, Isabel was all my
+thought, and of her I could not speak. Then we had the meal. The house,
+the town, the surrounding country, began to assemble themselves together
+familiarly. I was back. The old life was slipping on me as one removes
+his best dress for the overalls of work. Pinturicchio! What light was
+falling on those soft and tender cheeks in the Vatican? But where was
+Douglas?
+
+Douglas! Reverdy looked at me as if he had much to say. "He's
+campaigning," said Reverdy; "already has made about a hundred speeches.
+He has a fight on his hands. He has a tough rival to handle."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Abraham Lincoln!"
+
+"Who is Abraham Lincoln?"
+
+I had never heard that name before; nor seen it in print. Reverdy went
+on to tell me briefly that Lincoln had been in the legislature at the
+same time that Douglas was in 1836; that he had been in Congress in
+1847; that he was well known as a lawyer in Springfield; that for many
+years he had done nothing but practice law, though more active in
+politics since 1855 than before. That was some explanation of my
+ignorance of the name.
+
+I repeated it aloud: "Abraham Lincoln. That is a great name," I said to
+Reverdy. "Well, he's an able lawyer, and he gives Douglas enough to do
+in the debates they're having." "So they are debating, are they?" I
+asked. "Yes," drawled Reverdy, "Lincoln was nominated for Senator by the
+Republicans; Douglas of course is again the nominee of the Democrats.
+Lincoln challenged Douglas to a debate; and they're at it hot and heavy.
+We talk of nothing else. It's funny you didn't hear of it anywhere along
+the way home. This part of the country is on fire, and they say the East
+is waking up to what is going on here in Illinois. I've got the
+newspapers here containing all the debates. You've got some good reading
+ahead of you. To-morrow's the last debate over at Alton."
+
+"We must go," I said quickly. "I wouldn't miss that for the world. We
+must go." And I was thinking, what better way to forget Isabel? Reverdy
+was really glad to hear this debate at Alton; but it was necessary for
+him to attend to some things this day in preparation of being absent
+to-morrow. In the afternoon he had to drive out to his farm, and I went
+with him. And when we came within a short distance of the log cabin,
+where I had spent my first winter on the farm, I was seized with a
+desire to see it again. There was so much of Rome and Italy fresh in my
+mind with which to contrast my previous life. And we drove to the cabin.
+
+The door had fallen to one side. The clay between the logs had dried,
+turned to dust, and fallen away. The roof had sagged. The fireplace was
+going to wreck. We looked in. Weeds had grown up during the summer
+through the crevices of the floor. The place was lonely and haunted.
+"Well," said Reverdy, "this is the kind of a home that Lincoln had as a
+boy. He was born in a cabin like this; and he's poor now. He has never
+got rich like Douglas has. And Douglas will soon be as poor as Lincoln
+if he keeps on at the same rate spending money in this campaign. They
+say he has mortgaged nearly all his property in Chicago. Everybody's
+fighting him--the Republicans, all the Abolitionists, and half the
+Democrats. This campaign means his political death or life."
+
+"You say Lincoln was born in a log cabin. Is this a campaign of the log
+cabin, hard cider, and war records?"
+
+"Well, perhaps more log cabins, but no war record. Lincoln was never in
+any war but the Black Hawk. He was against the Mexican War; and when in
+Congress voted for resolutions that the war was unconstitutional and
+improper. No, he is not old Harrison or old Zach Taylor. Still the log
+cabin is in the fight."
+
+Then Reverdy went on to tell me that Lincoln was a clean man and that
+the Republicans had no abler man in Illinois; that he had been a good
+deal in politics after all, though quiet for about ten years. That while
+Douglas had been Senator, chairman of the committee on territories, his
+name on everybody's tongue, the most prominent man and the most active
+in the whole country, building railroads, organizing territories,
+battling with Great Britain, settling California and Oregon, and Kansas
+and Nebraska, traveling abroad into Russia and Asiatic Europe, and
+companioning with notables everywhere, making money almost like a
+millionaire, Lincoln had been over at Springfield practicing law,
+talking on the street corners, sitting in his office alone in
+reflection, sometimes reading; but all the while, in a way, resting.
+
+"He's fresh and Douglas is tired," said Reverdy. "He has the advantage
+of not having committed himself much. Douglas has spoken freely on
+everything. He's four years older than Douglas, but he's a younger man.
+He's a temperance man they say; and while I like a drink, I don't like
+to see a man drink as much as Douglas does. They say he's been pouring
+it down during this campaign. But as for Douglas' stooping to debate
+with Lincoln, it's no stoop. They make the fur fly when they talk. What
+I fear is that there's going to be trouble in this country. I hate
+slavery, but I hate this agitation too. I don't want to see the North
+keep on making war on the South. It will breed trouble sure. And this
+is where I stand with Douglas. He is for non-interference with slavery
+and his election will be a quieter."
+
+When we got back to Reverdy's house I plunged into the newspapers
+containing the debates. I read until suppertime, and then late into the
+night. I read them all. I went to bed and analyzed the arguments.
+
+A house divided against itself cannot stand! This was Seward's
+irrepressible conflict clothed in Biblical language. The religious
+revival which had swept the country gave these words a compelling
+acceptance. But as I read this it came over me that both Jesus and
+Lincoln were sophists. For a house divided against itself can stand; and
+irrepressible conflicts rage forever. They may change their ground, but
+they do not cease. I had seen this in Europe and in Italy, where in the
+January just past a certain Orsini had attempted the life of Louis
+Napoleon because he had not acceded to the labors of Cavour and thus
+hastened the liberty of Italy. And yet Italy was standing and France.
+Houses are divided everywhere and they stand. Beelzebub is crafty enough
+to cast out devils here and there in order to confound his kingdom with
+the Kingdom of Heaven. Of course he does not cast all the devils out--if
+he did he would lose his kingdom--only enough to make himself appear as
+one of the divine wonder-workers. A house divided against itself can
+stand, even as the world can stand with both good and evil in it, with
+both God and Satan in divided authority over it; and even as man has
+good and evil in his own nature and still lives and works without
+becoming wholly good or wholly evil. So could this country stand divided
+into free and slave states as it was formed at the beginning. There was
+not the slightest chance that it would ever become all slave, as Lincoln
+had presented one of the alternatives of a divided house. There was
+great chance that it would become all free by natural processes, as
+Douglas had indicated over and over again before the time of these
+debates.
+
+Here I found that the debaters had split hairs on what the fathers had
+done. "Why can't these agitators leave the states as they were made by
+the fathers, slave and free?" asked Douglas. "They were not made,"
+retorted Lincoln, "they were found; slavery was found and was let be as
+it was." "No," said Douglas, "the fathers organized a republic, adopted
+a Constitution; and when they made it, instead of abolishing slavery,
+making it free, they kept slavery and made it slave by the votes of
+states passing upon and acceding to an instrument of government. And
+besides, this instrument of government provided for the importation of
+more slaves from Africa; and provided for the capture and return of
+fugitive slaves now in the country or thereafter to be imported into the
+country."
+
+Douglas had attacked the doctrine of a divided house with all possible
+power and brilliancy. He had insisted that there was no more reason for
+the house of America to be divided because there was negro slavery in
+some states and no slavery in others, than because there was prohibition
+in Maine and whisky in Kentucky. And that there would be disunion if
+some states warred on other states about the purely domestic affairs of
+the latter. This was the only sense in which the house could be divided,
+and caused to fall. That disparate interests in the states should not
+make hostility between them; and that hostility arising from attacks and
+agitation should be put down. He went on to denounce the Republican
+party for holding and preaching a faith that arrayed one section of the
+country against another; and with great satire and invective he showed
+that the Republicans stood upon sectional principles which could not be
+preached in the South and not everywhere in the North. "But now you have
+a sectional organization," he had said to a theocratic audience at
+Galesburg, "a party which appeals to the northern section of the Union
+against the southern, a party which appeals to northern passion,
+northern pride, northern ambition, and northern prejudices, against
+southern people, the southern states, and southern institutions. The
+leaders of that party hope to be able to unite the northern states in
+one great sectional party; and inasmuch as the North is the strongest
+section they will thus be enabled to outvote, conquer, and control the
+South. Is there a Republican in Galesburg who can travel into Kentucky
+and carry his principles with him across the Ohio?"
+
+Douglas had even shown that Lincoln did not utter the same sentiments
+in all parts of Illinois. In Chicago where there was a large alien vote
+Lincoln had said: "I should like to know if taking this old Declaration
+of Independence which declares that all men are equal upon principle and
+making exceptions to it, where will it stop? If one man says it does not
+mean a negro, why may not another man say it does not mean another man?
+If the Declaration is not the truth let us get the statute books in
+which we find it and tear it out. Who is so bold as to do it?... Let us
+discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race
+and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in
+an inferior position, discarding our standard that we have left us. Let
+us discard all these things and unite as one people throughout this land
+until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created
+equal."
+
+Douglas had driven Lincoln hard upon this application of the Declaration
+of Independence with the result that in the southern part of Illinois,
+at Charleston, Lincoln had uttered these words of a very different
+tenor:
+
+"I will say then that I am not nor never have been in favor of bringing
+about in any way the social and political equality of the white and
+black races; that I am not nor never have been in favor of making free
+voters of the negroes or jurors or qualifying them to hold office or
+having them marry with white people. I will say in addition that there
+is a physical difference between the white and black races which I
+suppose will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of
+social and political equality; and inasmuch as they cannot so live that
+while they do remain together there must be the position of the superior
+and the inferior; that I, as much as any other man, am in favor of the
+superior position assigned to the white man."
+
+Lincoln and Douglas were therefore at one on this. But how about
+slavery? Lincoln looked forward to a time when slavery would be
+abolished. How could that be? By not admitting any more slave states?
+No! For Lincoln confessed that he would as a Senator vote to admit a
+slave state, if it as a territory had had a free chance to have slavery
+or freedom as it chose, and if in becoming a state it freely adopted a
+slave constitution. As to these opinions Lincoln and Douglas were
+agreed; for Douglas had fought the Kansas constitution because it forced
+slavery on Kansas; and now the whole Buchanan administration in Illinois
+was arrayed against Douglas for his attitude on Kansas, and Lincoln was
+profiting by that.
+
+How would Lincoln abolish slavery? By starving it, girding it about
+gradually with freedom, keeping it where it was. That was all. What
+would Douglas do? Referring to Lincoln's looking forward to a time when
+slavery would be abolished everywhere Douglas said: "I look forward to a
+time when each state shall be allowed to do as it pleases. If it chooses
+to keep slavery forever, it is not my business but its own; if it
+chooses to abolish slavery, it is its own business not mine. I care
+more for the great principles of self-government, the right of the
+people to rule, than I do for all the negroes in Christendom. I would
+not endanger the perpetuity of this Constitution, I would not blot out
+the great inalienable rights of the white men for all the negroes that
+ever existed."
+
+What would Lincoln do about the fugitive-slave law? Douglas had
+denounced attempts to evade it and actual violations of it. Even the
+Whigs frowned on its nullification. What would Lincoln do? He was not in
+favor of its repeal. He had said at Freeport: "I think under the
+Constitution of the United States, the people of the Southern States are
+entitled to a Congressional fugitive-slave law.... As we are now in no
+agitation in regard to an alteration or modification of that law, I
+would not be the man to introduce it as a new subject of agitation upon
+the general question of slavery."
+
+For the rest, what did it all come to? Like two pugilists Lincoln and
+Douglas blocked each other's blows, drove each other into corners.
+Lincoln twitted Douglas about being on both sides of the matter of
+extending the Missouri Compromise. Then Douglas tripped Lincoln, who had
+asserted that only slavery had ever disturbed the peace of the Union.
+"How about the War of 1812, and the Hartford convention?" asked Douglas.
+How about the tariff and South Carolina in 1832? He might have asked,
+how about the Alien and Sedition laws and the Kentucky resolutions of
+1798. But for the rest, what did it all come to?
+
+Lincoln contended that Congress had the power to forbid slavery in the
+territories; Douglas worked up from a position, which scarcely denied
+the power, but rather shrank from its use, to the position that
+sovereignty abode in the people of the territory; and that as Congress
+has no express grant of power to legislate upon slavery as to a
+territory, the territorial sovereignty had the only power to do so. He
+attacked Lincoln's position that a territory is a creature of Congress
+as a property, to be clothed with powers or denied powers; and
+particularly with powers not possessed by Congress itself. This doctrine
+led to imperialism. Douglas held that Congress had the power to organize
+territories under the clause providing for the admission of new states;
+but when they were organized they assumed an organic sovereignty out of
+an inchoate sovereignty, and had the right to legislate as they chose to
+the same extent as a state. It was the old fight between implied powers
+and strict construction.
+
+What in the Constitution forbade slaves from being taken into the
+territories? Not a thing. Moreover the territories were the commons of
+all the states, won by their common valor and blood. Could not a liquor
+dealer from Chicago take his stock to Kansas? Assuredly. Why then could
+not a planter from Louisiana take his slaves to Nebraska? Liquor and
+slaves were property. Who said so? The fugitive-slave clause of the
+Constitution, and the fugitive-slave law of 1850 which Lincoln admitted
+he would not alter.
+
+But after the liquor was in Kansas or the slave in Nebraska could they
+flourish? That depended on the territorial law, the attitude of the
+people. Did Congress have to pass favorable legislation? From what
+clause flowed the duty and the power? Did a territorial legislature have
+power to pass favorable legislation? It was not called upon to do so by
+anything in the Federal Constitution. Therefore, the mere right to take
+a slave into free territory under the Dred Scott decision, take it as
+property, was a naked right without local support. "This popular
+sovereignty is as thin as soup made from the shadow of a starved
+pigeon," said Lincoln. Nevertheless, it was what it was and no more. And
+Lincoln's catch question on the legal right to keep slavery out of the
+territories did not catch Douglas. The mere right to take a slave into
+free territory could coexist with no protective legislation after the
+slave was there. It could coexist with unfavorable legislation and
+social opposition. Let natural processes rule.
+
+What was the difference between this and girding the slave states around
+with freedom? That could scarcely be done without the aid of natural
+processes.
+
+But since Douglas did not admit that Congress had to give favorable
+legislation to a slave owner who had taken his slave into a territory,
+the South was drawing away from him. He was not their friend to the
+extreme doctrine of taking a slave into a territory and keeping him a
+slave against the will of the territory. Was Douglas unmoral? What of
+the unmorality of taking Kansas and Nebraska from the Indians? Was he
+syllogistic, analytic, intellectually hard? But was not Lincoln so too?
+Douglas derived from Jefferson through Jackson; Lincoln from Hamilton
+through Webster, whatever else could be said of them.
+
+Thus I read on through the night until I had finished all that Douglas
+and Lincoln had said at the six debates then finished. The next morning
+Reverdy and I started for Alton.
+
+I could scarcely wait to get my first glimpse of Lincoln.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII
+
+
+Alton, this old town that I had visited so many times before, was
+crowded with people drawn from the surrounding country, from across the
+river in Missouri. As to the temper of the audience, it rather favored
+Douglas. I saw the leering, ugly faces that I had seen in the lobbies of
+the hotels in St. Louis years before at the railroad convention, when
+Captain Grant was lounging there and planters swarmed at the bar and
+cursed Yankees and nigger-lovers.
+
+It was the fifteenth of October, fair and temperate. Thousands swarmed
+around the speaker's stand in the public square, which was bare of flags
+or mottoes by express orders of the masters of ceremony. The time
+arrived. Lincoln came to the platform and took a seat.
+
+He was tall, enormously tall, long of limb, angular, narrow shouldered.
+His skin was yellow and dry, wrinkled. His hair was black and coarse.
+His eyes were sunk back in his head with a melancholy expression which
+could flame into humor or indignation. But his forehead was full,
+shapely, and noble. The largeness of his nose, tilted a little to one
+side, gave sculptural strength to his face. His great mouth with its
+fleshy underlip, supplemented the nose. Both were material for grotesque
+caricature. He looked like an educated gawk, a rural genius, a pied
+piper of motley followers. He was a sad clown, a Socratic wag, a
+countryman dressed up for a state occasion. But he was not a poor man
+defending the cause of the poor. There was nothing of the dreamer in his
+make-up, the eccentric idealist. His big nose and mouth and Henry Clay
+forehead denied all of this. He sat in self-possession, in poise,
+clothed in the order of confident reason, unafraid, sure of himself but
+without vanity, in a wise detachment, on a vantage point of vision. His
+frock coat, rusty from dust and wear, did not fit him. The sleeves
+escaped his wrists by several inches; his trousers had hitched up as he
+sat down, so that one half of his shanks was exposed to view, leaving
+his monstrous feet, like the slap-boots of a negro minstrel, for
+ludicrous inches over the floor. His neck was long and feminine, and
+stuck up grotesquely much above a sort of Byronic collar held together
+by a black stock tie. I had never seen a man so absurd.
+
+Douglas was as ludicrously short as Lincoln was tall; broad shouldered
+where Lincoln was narrow; thick chested where Lincoln was thin; big
+headed where Lincoln was small; of massive brow where Lincoln was full
+and shapely; of strong bull-like neck where Lincoln was small and
+delicate; of short, compact, powerful body where Lincoln was tall,
+loosely constructed, awkward, and muscular. Douglas' face wore
+determination, seriousness, force, pugnacity, and endurance. But his
+hair was grayer than mine; he looked tired. He arose and in that great
+melodious voice which always thrilled me, he said: "It is now nearly
+four months since the canvass between Mr. Lincoln and myself commenced."
+
+He went on and controverted Mr. Lincoln's "house divided against
+itself," going over the ground of the previous debate. There was not a
+sound of disturbance in the audience. They were in a charm, a trance.
+Oratory could rise to no greater heights. Then after saying that the
+Declaration of Independence did not include the negro, Indians, or Fiji
+Islanders, but that all dependent races should be treated nevertheless
+with fairness, and that it did not follow that because a negro was an
+inferior he must be a slave, he appealed to the rights of the states and
+the territories to control slavery for themselves. He closed with these
+memorable words:
+
+"Why can we not thus have peace? Why should we allow a sectional party
+to agitate this country, to array the North against the South, and
+convert us into enemies instead of friends merely that a few ambitious
+men may ride into power on a sectional hobby? How long is it since these
+ambitious northern men wished for a sectional organization? Did any one
+of them dream of a sectional party as long as the North was the weaker
+section and the South the stronger? Then all were opposed to sectional
+parties; but the moment the North obtained the majority in the House and
+in the Senate by the admission of California and could elect a
+President without the aid of southern votes, that moment ambitious men
+formed a scheme to excite the North against the South and make the
+people be governed in their votes by geographical lines, thinking that
+the North being the stronger section would outvote the South and
+consequently they, the leaders, would ride into office on a sectional
+hobby. I am told that my hour is out. It was very short."
+
+Short it was. I thought he had just begun. What would this strange
+creature now rising to six feet four inches of awkward angularity say in
+reply to this wonderful oration? He opened his great mouth and spoke.
+What is this? A falsetto note, a piping instead of the musical thunder
+we have heard. He poses strangely, his gestures shoot up and out like
+the arms of a dislocated clothes rack. He rises on his toes with a quick
+springlike movement, as if he were a puppet loosened by a spring from a
+box. He sways from side to side to give emphasis to his words. His mouth
+opens to huge proportions in moments of excitement. His black hair falls
+over his forehead. His great nose sticks out like a signboard. Is he
+scoring?
+
+I know, for I have read the other debates. He is wasting no words; he is
+meeting Douglas point by point, whether successfully or not. He seemed
+embarrassed, diffident at first. Why not? He is fighting a giant; then
+there are ugly faces in the audience, men in drink, slave owners from
+Missouri, Democrats who hate sectionalism and loathe the rise of the
+Republican party. Whispers are near me: "He amounts to nothing. Douglas
+has laid him out. He is scared. The Little Giant has choked him."
+
+But Lincoln goes on. His earnestness deepens, his seriousness becomes
+more impressive. His voice is carrying even though it pipes. He has
+endurance, too, and courage and fighting will. But Douglas has made it
+very difficult for him; indeed he has brought Lincoln to his terms on
+nearly everything--all but the 'house divided against itself' doctrine;
+and the right and duty of Congress to keep slavery out of the
+territories. These are issues between him and Douglas still; but is this
+the real issue after all? He is nearly through. He has been going on as
+if he were making a statement of a case. It is interjected with
+argument; but it is largely statement of positions. It is declaratory
+and follows the form of a poem, not an argument. It assumes premises; he
+says "I think so." It has reason back of it, but it is the reason of
+things proven. It is fortified by matters of general acceptance. It has
+logic, but the logic of things existing inherently, not made. And at
+last, more earnestly than before, he says:
+
+"On the point of my wanting to make war between the free and the slave
+states, there has been no issue between us. So too when he says that I
+am in favor of introducing a perfect social and political equality
+between the white and the black races. These are false issues upon
+which Judge Douglas has tried to force the controversy. There is no
+foundation in truth for the charges that I maintain either of these
+propositions. The real issue in this controversy--the one pressing upon
+every mind--is the sentiment upon the part of one class that looks upon
+the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that does
+not look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the
+institution of slavery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of
+the Republican party. It is the sentiment around which all their
+actions, all their arguments, circle, from which all their propositions
+radiate. That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in
+this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall
+be silenced. It is the eternal struggle between these two
+principles--right and wrong--throughout the world. They are the two
+principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of Time, and
+will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity
+and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same spirit that
+says: 'You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in
+what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to
+bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their
+labor, or from one race of man as an apology for enslaving another race,
+it is the same tyrannical principle."
+
+What had come over Lincoln? He was no longer awkward. A divine grace
+permeated his being. The October sun threw glory upon his brow, gave us
+a look into his deeply illuminated eyes, left nothing of the great nose
+and mouth but their strength, the sculptural impressiveness of stone
+features in the sides of hills. What would Serafino think if he could
+hear this?
+
+Then of a sudden I saw Pinturicchio in Lincoln's face, the same
+gentleness along the sunken cheeks, the same imaginative glow in the
+whole countenance. Here in this warped and homely face, this face out of
+the womb of poverty and sorrow, the winter loneliness of the forest, the
+humbleness and the want of the log cabin, the mystical yearning of
+humanity on the prairies and under the woodland stars, I saw for a swift
+moment in the glancing of the sun, as he uttered these words, the genius
+of the poet who knows and states, who has lived years of loneliness and
+failure, who has seen others grow rich, notable, and powerful, and who
+has remained obscure and unobeyed, with nothing but a vision which has
+become lightning at last in a supreme moment of inspiration. Lincoln had
+had his hour whatever should befall him.
+
+The debate was over--the debates were over. Reverdy and I walked away
+with the great crowd hurrahing for Douglas, a few hurrahing for Lincoln.
+
+I began to repeat to myself what Douglas had said years before in the
+Senate in replying to Webster: "There is a power in this nation greater
+either than the North or the South--a growing, increasing, and swelling
+power that will be able to speak the law of this nation and to execute
+the law as spoken. That power is the country known as the Great West.
+There, sir, is the hope of this nation--the resting place of the power
+that is not only to control but to save the Union."
+
+This prediction had now been fulfilled. This West had produced Lincoln
+and Douglas. One of them was sure to have the responsibility of
+executing the law as spoken. Of this I was sure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII
+
+
+When I got back to Chicago I found a letter from Isabel. It read:
+
+"My dear friend: It hurts me to think that you stole off in the
+darkness. I can see you in imagination walking the lonely way, carrying
+your satchel. Perhaps it made no difference that you did not stay until
+morning, but still it hurts me. And what can I say to you now? Are we
+like two people who are kept from each other by circumstances that they
+do not control, like friends whom a war separates? I hardly know how to
+express myself. There seems to be nothing to say; and yet there is so
+much for which I wish I had words; or I wish some word of mine could
+alter the circumstances. I am loath to lose your friendship, your
+association. We have so much in common that can be enjoyed through
+letters; and I do wish you to write me. Above all you must not think
+that anything of depreciation or disregard has entered my heart. If this
+be true, why must you change toward me? Do I speak fantastically when I
+ask you to try out a marriage of the mind? The experiences through which
+you and I have passed have enabled me to penetrate the reality of my
+wishes and so even to have had them. I have known one kind of devotion;
+and I can fancy disillusionment coming over something more intensely
+emotional. Can we not think that we might grow tired of each other, and
+that we are to-day where we would be if we should become disillusioned
+but without having the bitterness of such an experience? Our poor human
+natures are cursed with fatigue, and with the loss of beauty and vision
+consequent upon daily intimacy. Let me say to you then that I love you
+and shall always love you, and that I have nothing in my heart that
+would not console you if everything in my heart was frankly expressed to
+you. If I ever should marry any one you will not lose your place in my
+affections. I turn to my life which I left for you. And you must see
+that if you have tragedy, so have I. As far as possible lift yourself
+out of the disturbing things of politics, and leave lesser personalities
+with the gods who are fashioning this world in the image of more
+enduring truths. There is solace to me, and I hope there may be to you,
+in the fact that we two are in the world together and that I can think
+of you as my friend and I trust can write to you as I hope you will
+write to me. Let us face the reality and consider that after all we have
+the sweetest and best of things that can be between a man and a woman.
+If I can ever help you in any way I shall be so glad. I sense somehow
+that you may fear me, thinking that you have become indifferent in my
+eyes. This is not true. I cannot too often assure you of this. I hope
+for good things for you and your Reverdy. Give my love to him from
+'Mamma Isabel' and believe me, affectionately, Isabel."
+
+And I wrote to Isabel: "Some of your admonitions came too late to me,
+for I am interested in politics again. I have just returned from Alton
+where I went to hear Douglas debate against a Mr. Lincoln, a lawyer of
+Springfield, who has been nominated for Senator by the Republicans. He
+is as much of a backwoodsman as anybody could be, as much so as Harrison
+and a good deal more so than Taylor. But he is not to be despised either
+in himself or on account of his backers. The Republican party in
+Illinois profits by the feeling of the German révolutionnaires; and
+Lincoln may be ever so poor and so humble, nevertheless the Republican
+party has drawn to itself some of the richest and most powerful
+interests in the country; interests which are far-sighted enough to see
+that if the Republican party can be put into power the mercantile
+ambition of the North to control the South and the whole country will be
+realized. No human being could have been a greater orator than Douglas
+was at Alton; while Lincoln, in spite of disadvantages of voice and
+manner and physique, rose to great heights of eloquence. The climax of
+his speech was when he spoke of the world-old struggle between right and
+wrong. I was swept off my feet for the moment and seemed to see in his
+face something of the genius of Pinturicchio. Now I wonder if I was not
+befooled both as to the value of Lincoln's utterance and as to his
+kinship with the great Italian artist. After all I do not know what is
+right and wrong; and I do not believe any one else does. I see that
+people get worked up into furies over what they think is right and
+wrong, and kill each other on account of it. Later ages view the matter
+as of no importance; and the lives that are lost in the struggle are as
+forgotten as the multitudinous leaves which bestrew the ground of an
+autumnal forest. I fear I am in a very bad state of mind. It is true, as
+you intimate in your letter, that I am passing through a certain
+humiliation of spirit; and I am thus inclined to speculate on the value
+of all truths and philosophies. I seem to see that material things
+control truths and influence our human natures in every way. Our
+experience demonstrates this fact. And in the case of Douglas and
+Lincoln, Douglas is quick to sense the moralistic hypocrisy with which
+the Republicans are draping their trafficking ambitions. But, on the
+other hand, I believe that Lincoln is as honest in his desire to keep
+slavery out of the territories as Douglas is honest in his plan to let
+the territories decide the matter for themselves. Both of these men are
+ambitious. Lincoln is of the industrial faith which is backboning the
+Republican party, and Douglas is of the vaguer and less materialistic
+faith which for so long has appealed to American Democracy in terms and
+promises of all kinds of freedoms and independencies.... I would give my
+life almost to see you again, but somehow I do not know how to bring it
+about, while at the same time I am living in hope that it may be so, and
+trusting that you will see me in a different light, and that I can give
+you assurances which will justify your vision. I am not very well and
+have been consulting a physician, since coming West, who seems to think
+that my nerves are in bad condition and that I am worn by striving and
+by life. It is curious too that Douglas, though bulky and fat, seems to
+me a tired man. Perhaps both of us have lost the way; and it may be true
+that later he will have the true vision as I did in you. I wish you
+could call me back to you. My mind wavers as I write. Affectionately,
+James."
+
+With the exchange of these letters I merged my feelings into other
+things. The roar of Illinois and of the country tended to keep my mind
+from brooding on Isabel. There was a melancholy resignation in the words
+of Lincoln upon his own defeat for the Senatorship, which were in key
+with my own grief and helped me to sublimate it. He had written to a
+friend who chanced to show me the letter: "It gave me a hearing on the
+great and durable questions of the age, which I could have had in no
+other way; and though I now sink out of view and shall be forgotten I
+believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil
+liberty long after I am gone."
+
+The cause of civil liberty! Had not Douglas stood for this too? He had
+won against the terrific opposition of the Buchanan administration. He
+had fought the slave constitution of Kansas and he had beaten down in
+this campaign the enmity which had risen up around him because he had
+fought that constitution. The Republicans were exceedingly glad that
+Douglas' contest had divided the support of his own party. They had no
+thanks for him for what he had done for civil liberty in that regard.
+They were glad of his election over Lincoln for the sinister reason that
+Douglas' triumph, since Douglas was almost at one with Lincoln as to the
+matter of slavery, meant a decline and a division of the Democratic
+party as a whole. At the same time there was talk now of Lincoln for the
+Presidency. But Lincoln did not think he was worthy of the honor.
+Lincoln was writing and saying: "What is the use of talking of me whilst
+we have such men as Seward and Chase, and everybody knows them, and
+scarcely anybody outside of Illinois knows me; besides, as a matter of
+justice, is it not due to them? I admit I am ambitious and would like to
+be President.... But there is no such good luck in store for me as the
+Presidency of these United States." There was a pathos about this man
+Lincoln which won my heart.
+
+I spent some evenings now with Aldington and Abigail. We drove out to
+see the Douglas property south of the town. A horse-car line was being
+built from Randolph Street to 12th Street, but beyond that was the waste
+of sand and of scrub oaks, and the land which Douglas had all but lost
+in financing himself in this campaign. I was ready to help Douglas with
+money if he would accept it from me; but just now he was not an easy man
+to find, and he did not come to me.
+
+The trial and execution of John Brown was another thunderclap. And
+Abigail showed me what was being said about it. A certain Henry
+Thoreau, a strange, radical soul living in the woods near Concord,
+Massachusetts, had compared John Brown to Christ. "Some eighteen hundred
+years ago," Thoreau said, "Christ was crucified; this morning perchance
+Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of the chain which is not
+without its links. He is not old Brown any longer; he is an angel of
+light.... I foresee the time when a painter will paint that scene, no
+longer going to Rome for a subject. The poet will sing it, the historian
+will record it; and with the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers and the
+Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future
+national gallery when at least the present form of slavery shall be no
+more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown."
+
+Could it be possible that this Captain Brown should have his
+Pinturicchio? Well, might it not be so since Victor Hugo, living in
+exile, had also given Brown an apotheosis? Abigail also had Walt
+Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_, who was preaching the doctrine of
+brotherhood, democracy, resistance to the law.
+
+"What sort of country is this?" I asked Abigail. "Can every one set
+himself up as a judge of the laws and disobey them if he chooses? If you
+had heard Douglas' speech you would be convinced that this sort of mania
+will cease or there will be war. Even Emerson is among these idealistic
+rebels, for he says that it is a lack of health to cry 'madman' at a
+hero as he passes. I think the Bible is responsible for much of this
+turmoil and foolish rebellion, if not all of it. Lincoln founded his
+campaign upon the Bible: a house divided against itself cannot stand.
+And just because Christ is taken as divine, every word and act of his is
+lived up to by some madman as justification for acts like those of
+Brown."
+
+In the meantime Abigail had found among her papers the words of Victor
+Hugo: "He is not a New Englander," she said, "nor an American idealist.
+And he says--I'll translate it for you: 'In killing Brown the Southern
+States have committed a crime which will take its place among the
+calamities of history. The rupture of the Union will fatally follow the
+assassination of Brown. As to Brown, he was an apostle and a hero. The
+gibbet has only increased his glory and made him a martyr.'"
+
+Well, was not Douglas a martyr too? Who had done more for his country?
+Was Lincoln any more radical than Douglas? Lincoln was defeated to be
+sure, but Douglas was penalized for what he had said in these debates.
+No sooner had he returned to Washington than he found himself deposed
+from the committee on territories. He was beginning to be a man without
+a party. He was paying for his ideas.
+
+A book called _Helpers, the Impending Crisis of the South_ had at this
+time woven itself into the clouds of the gathering storm. It had
+influenced the election of a Speaker in Congress, for although Lincoln
+was defeated in Illinois, the Republicans had 25 Senators to 38
+Democrats; and the House had 109 Republicans to 128 Democrats. A crisis
+was indeed impending, with Douglas, the greatest man in the country,
+dishonored and disarmed by the Southern States. What was growing up, and
+from what source, which should be the master of the destiny of the
+country? What was giving it strength but some form of materialism? The
+phrase "the struggle for existence" crept into our conversation, for
+Darwin's _The Origin of Species_ had made its appearance this year. We
+discussed its principles as far as we could make them out from the
+reports of the book. Every one knew that strength survives. But what is
+strength? Did the North have strength, or the South? Did moral ideas
+have strength, or did war? All the while, where did God come in? Abigail
+said: "He comes in in this very struggle, defeat and devouring. For all
+the while there is triumph in the realm of the mind, and mind is God. My
+friend, you can think of Douglas and slavery and politics, and impending
+war; I know of something that overtops them all and can handle all of
+them as playthings. That is chemistry."
+
+"Where do you get all these things?" I asked Abigail. "From Richard,
+from books, from publications, everywhere. I am watching this thrilling
+thing called life and I can laugh when I see you taking Douglas and
+Lincoln so seriously; for really they amount to very little. Douglas has
+given some of his land to found a university. What will they teach in
+it? Anything of Douglas'? What? No, young minds will read philosophy
+there and study mathematics and chemistry by which engines, bridges,
+telegraphs, will be constructed. Here is a funny thing. You remember the
+Atlantic cable was laid last summer. Poor old Buchanan, the mighty
+President of a mighty Republic, is so ignorant that he doubts the verity
+of the message which Queen Victoria sent to him. Douglas and Lincoln!
+What are their speculations as to whether this ridiculous old document
+called the Constitution goes into a territory or not? Give me old Bishop
+Berkeley with his inquiries concerning the virtues of tar water. It
+takes imagination of some moment to sense, as he did, that tar contains
+the purified spirits of the trees, of vegetation which can heal and help
+man. These were dreams worth while. Now a German chemist named Kekule,
+comes along and develops a theory called the valence of atoms. And who
+can tell what will come of that? For that matter, Sir Walter Raleigh did
+more for the world than Douglas. He found petroleum in the Trinidad
+pitch lake way back in the sixteenth century. And now a well has just
+been drilled, not for salt as you saw it in Kentucky as a boy, but for
+the oil for which they then had no use except to make ointment for
+people who stumble on the pier trying to catch a boat."
+
+I said to Abigail: "I have never pretended that Douglas was a scientist
+or an artist or that he had a philosophical mind, but now that you bring
+these things to my attention I want to ask you why he is not a
+first-class disciple of Darwin, since he has advocated the processes of
+nature in the solution of the slavery question."
+
+"Nature! Well, are climate and soil any more nature than thought? Can't
+we use our will and our thought to assist climate and soil, about
+anything? But after all I get tired of this emphasis of the one slavery,
+just as you do. Why not include some other slaveries for condemnation?
+There is Emerson for example. He didn't start out with this John Brown
+idea. He began with a plea for emancipation intellectually from England;
+and for emancipation from the slavery of orthodoxy."
+
+"Yes," said Aldington, "I wish to add my plea too, and against the
+slavery of a lot of things: against the slavery of courts and bad laws
+and bad thoughts and poverty, and the whole business which we can see
+growing up in America, and making laws to stimulate it and protect it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX
+
+
+I was now more lonely than I had ever been in my life, more lonely than
+I was on the farm. Then I had youth and expectation of wonderful things.
+I had ebullient spirits which were excited by simple things, the new
+country, the prospect of growing rich. Now my spirits were on the level
+of the prairie itself and I could look over the whole of life. I had
+nothing in particular with which to employ my energies except taking
+care of the riches that I had acquired. Riches had no meaning to me now.
+They brought nothing that moderate means would not buy. What I needed
+was some one in my life. I had lost Dorothy. My boy was away at school.
+Isabel was denied me. If she had only rejected me so that my will had
+been raised against her. Then I should have had passion for my thought
+and action. But it was with gentleness and understanding that she bade
+me adieu.
+
+Douglas was left to me, but what could he do for me or I for him? He had
+been my friend with that loyalty which characterized him from the time
+that he had taken me from the clutches of the law for killing Lamborn.
+We had seen much of each other along the way. Did loneliness ever come
+over him? He had married again, but was he happy? He was living a life
+of much social brilliancy with the new Mrs. Douglas in Washington. But
+was he happy? Or was he drowning disappointment, the tragic sense of
+life's inadequacy, in abandoned diversions?
+
+Like myself, he had wished for riches and attained them. He had lost his
+riches. I still possessed mine. But I was no happier for that. He had
+married a woman who was a slave owner. On my part, I had been made
+kindred to the slave blood by the marriage of my father. He wished for
+land, for wealth, and had taken a purse to marry an octoroon. Douglas
+had wished for land for his country and had paralleled the course of the
+slavocracy to get it. I had killed a man because of Zoe; then Zoe had
+disappeared and a part of the accursed land which had come to me through
+my father had passed to the unknown Fortescue, who had appeared and
+disappeared from my life like a thief. I had married Dorothy because my
+will drove me to it in overcoming her opposition to the fact of Zoe. I
+had loved Isabel and lost her. Douglas had loved the North and the Great
+West. Was he to lose them?
+
+Thus Douglas and I seemed to have arrived at the same place in life. He
+was broken in fortune and without a party. I was burdened with what more
+and more seemed to me a tainted fortune. And I was as isolated as he
+was. I could not help but think of him constantly, of his long years of
+labor, his great struggles, his heroic fight, his undaunted courage.
+Could anything lift him out of his complication to honor and freedom?
+He was the most talked of man for the Presidency. If he could only win
+that now and stand as a master man for nationalism, union, progress,
+peace, popular sovereignty, all the great liberties for which he had
+battled. He had already failed twice to be nominated. If now he could
+not win the prize, what would be his future as against the growing power
+of the Republican party?
+
+As my heart was set upon Douglas' ambition I set off for Charleston,
+South Carolina, in April. Anything to alleviate my regret over Isabel.
+
+When I arrived there I sought Douglas and found him deep in consultation
+with his advisers. He was unmistakably confronted with the severest
+contest of his life. He was delighted to see me and got me admission to
+the convention hall. I had tried to come as a delegate; but Illinois had
+split in a fight over her own son, and there were two delegations, one
+for and one against Douglas. And I could be on neither.
+
+Douglas' birthday, April the 23d, saw the opening of the fateful
+deliberations. He was destined to have no peace and no rest. Others
+might find shelter from the storm. He was compelled after his great
+labors in the years before to walk through the lightning and have it
+gather about his head. His doctrines on slavery had alienated the whole
+South from him. But he had the West, save California and Oregon, which
+acted with the South. Yet he was their son too. He had strength all
+through the North, because of the West. That West which he had done so
+much to create, which he had prophesied would stand as a balance between
+the North and the South, was for its son and its prophet--save
+California and Oregon.
+
+But of the whole thirty-three states, seventeen were against him. The
+West fought the South and fought for Douglas. The South made a common
+cause of opposition to the North and the West. But the new Giant put
+through the Douglas principles in the platform.
+
+Then Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas
+seceded from the convention. The West had won but it had lost the South.
+And now in the balloting Douglas could not be nominated. He needed 202
+votes, he could only poll 152-1/2. The heat grew intense. The delegates,
+trying to accommodate their interests, wandered about the old city
+talking seriously and not excitedly. There was little drinking. The
+local clergy offered up prayers for the success of the convention, for
+peaceful solutions. Balloting and balloting! No choice! The twenty-third
+of May arrived and the convention, exhausted and half disgusted,
+adjourned to meet in Baltimore, June 18th. Douglas had not been
+nominated. His party had split just as the Republicans had anticipated
+when they were congratulating themselves on Douglas' success in the
+Senatorial contest with Lincoln.
+
+Meantime, the seceders went to another hall, adopted a platform that
+suited them on the slavery matter, and nominated John C. Breckenridge.
+
+I did not go up to Baltimore to see the end of this melancholy
+business. I followed the proceedings in the press. Delegates from the
+state delegations which had seceded appeared there on the scene to gain
+admission. They were admitted where pledged to Douglas; upon this
+decision a second secession took place. Then they nominated Douglas; but
+he was now like a runner who has been tripped along the way, and who
+stumbles spent and breathless over the goal. He had conjured the West.
+It was strong enough to adopt his principles, but it could not prevent
+the convention from dividing. It could nominate him, but could not hold
+to him the states he needed in this, his greatest trial. And among his
+bitterest enemies was that Jefferson Davis whom I had seen in the
+Mexican War and who was now Senator from Mississippi. My hatred of the
+South nearly reached self-contempt for the way in which my life had been
+united to its feeling. All my thinking of the country and the terrible
+events which followed the monumental folly of not giving Douglas a
+united nomination dates from these days.
+
+On my way west I read in the press of the verbal clash between this
+Jefferson Davis and Douglas in the Senate. With an insulting inflection
+Davis had said: "I have a declining respect for platforms. I would
+sooner have an honest man on any sort of a rickety platform you could
+construct than to have a man I did not trust, on the best platform which
+could be made."
+
+Douglas had retorted with telling effect: "If the platform is not a
+matter of much consequence, why press that question to the disruption of
+the party?"
+
+Why? But the South had done it. And Davis had done it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX
+
+
+Who should call upon me the next morning after my arrival in Chicago but
+Yarnell? I had not seen him now for several years. And he was a delegate
+to the Republican convention.
+
+"How is this?" I asked him. "I remember yet what you said to me about
+slavery when we came to America more than twenty-five years ago." "Oh,"
+he replied, "that makes no difference. The Republican party is not going
+to disturb slavery where it is. It only proposes to keep it out from
+what it isn't. The platform will refer to the Declaration of
+Independence, and all that. But it will also have a tariff plank. The
+Democrats have beaten the Morrill tariff bill; and we want a
+tariff--Pennsylvania wants a tariff for iron. And we will nominate
+Seward and elect him."
+
+"What if the Southern States secede?"
+
+"That suits us. That will give the Republican party complete control.
+With the Southern States out, we will have the Senate and the House as
+well as the President, and we can dominate everything, and gather in all
+the offices--postmasters, marshals, Federal judges, everything. The
+northern Democrats will have nothing to say. Your friend Douglas will
+have nothing to say. He is already a played-out horse. He won't be able
+to even whinny in the Senate. And the world and the fullness thereof
+will be ours."
+
+"How about Seward being too radical?"
+
+"No, he isn't. Look at what it comes to. Kansas will come in as a free
+state. The work is already done for that. California came in as a free
+state. Minnesota, Oregon, Wisconsin, have all come in as free states
+under the Democratic party and with Douglas on top as Senator. There
+won't be any more slave states no matter who is elected."
+
+"That's what I think."
+
+"I only say this to show that this talk of the radicalism of Seward is
+nonsense. He spoke of the higher law, to be sure, but Douglas has been
+talking of nature and nature's God. What's the difference?"
+
+"No difference except that Douglas' law of nature means something and
+the higher law means nothing. We can see what the law of nature is; we
+don't know what the higher law is, unless you can fathom the mind of the
+fanatic; of Thoreau, of John Brown, and Garrison. I will tell you
+something: Lincoln of this state is not so far apart from Douglas. He
+has rejected the higher law of Seward in a recent letter. He is for the
+irrepressible conflict, because it is the same thing as the house
+divided against itself. He must stand by his own doctrine--and the
+Bible. He is as practical as Douglas."
+
+"That's the point," said Yarnell. "The Abolitionists don't like Lincoln.
+He said right here in the debates that he was not in favor of giving
+the nigger a vote or making him a citizen. He isn't for the Declaration
+of Independence when it comes to things like that. But he is of no
+moment. He's not known. He's only a local man. He's a country jake,
+isn't he?"
+
+"Rather so."
+
+"That's what I hear. He's had no experience. Seward, you know, has been
+Governor of New York, and Senator. He's a famous man. The political
+machine is back of him, and lots of money in New York City."
+
+Then Yarnell went on to tell me that he himself was connected with the
+street railways in New York, and that the railways were backing Seward.
+Wall Street, however, was a little nervous. It didn't want any man
+elected President who would drive the South into secession. No use to
+let iron drive out cotton. Let us have both cotton and iron.
+
+We went out to walk through the city. Yarnell was amazed at the growth
+of Chicago. We wandered over to the Wigwam where the convention was to
+be held. It was a huge frame structure, seating ten thousand people. The
+city was swarming with delegates and visitors. All the hotels were
+filled; the saloons roared with drinking crowds. How many thousand
+cigars were lighted every minute! Stubs decorated the floors, the
+spittoons, the sidewalks. The houses of ill fame were riotous with men
+let loose upon a holiday.
+
+At the Richmond House there was much champagne, for that was the
+headquarters of the New York crowd. Yarnell took me here and introduced
+me about to his friends. He was well known. He had money for the
+occasion, and was esteemed in that light. It was a different crowd here
+from that I had seen in St. Louis years before, but its spirit was the
+same. "If you don't nominate Seward, where will you get your money?"
+Yarnell was saying this here and there. Some one at our side says: "This
+railsplitter Lincoln, who carries the purse for him?" "The tariff
+carries it," is the answer. "There's more money in the tariff than all
+that Seward can rake together." "Very well, Seward is for the tariff.
+Give us the tariff and Seward, then we will have the tariff money and
+Seward's money too."
+
+Yarnell and I left the Richmond House on our way to look again at the
+crowds. Bands of music were playing everywhere. Men were marching. Tom
+Hyer, the great prize fighter, was leading a club of rough and handy
+men. They were preceded by a noisy band. They shouted. The staring crowd
+shouted. Hyer had come for the purpose of lifting a lusty voice for
+Seward at the critical moment. He and his men had good fists too to use
+in a case of doubt on a question of votes or of a right of entrance to
+the hall. They pass, the band dies away; other marchers follow. Some
+paraders are carrying rails bearing the banner with the words "Honest
+Old Abe" That reminds me of something. We go over to the office of the
+_Chicago Times_ to see in the windows some rails which Lincoln split
+when he was working on the bottoms of the Sangamon River, thirty years
+before.
+
+"I should think Greeley would be for Lincoln," I said to Yarnell. "I saw
+the _Tribune_ yesterday and it slants toward Edward Bates of Missouri."
+
+"That old slicker," sneered Yarnell. "Why who can depend on him? He's
+been for every one and everything, and then against them. He hates
+Seward. We kept him off the New York delegation. Now he's got on the
+delegation from Oregon, got some one's proxy, and he's here to make
+trouble. But it won't do him any good. We will put Seward over on the
+first ballot."
+
+We came to the _Times_' window and looked at the rails. "Well," I said,
+"if they nominate Lincoln, we'll have another log-cabin campaign."
+
+"Yes, that's what it will come to. What's all this talk anyway about
+Honest Old Abe? Every man is honest enough, and no man in politics much
+more honest than another. We don't need that kind of dramatics to elect
+Seward. There is enough to the man to elect him. We mean to have a
+clean-cut, high-toned campaign with a great man to lead us, who is known
+to the whole country. The day is past for this log-cabin business. It's
+now a stone front and champagne."
+
+I went back with Yarnell to the Richmond House, then turned my own way
+to study the crowds. Chicago was a carnival of unlicensed spirits. What
+thousands of blue flies already swarmed upon the fresh carcass of this
+new political party! A few years before and it was poor, but of flesh
+that was fresh. Now it was beginning to stink. Tariffs, railroads, all
+powerful moneyed interests, special privileges, were settling upon it,
+blowing it full of eggs. All the old Whigs now long hungry, the old
+Federalists in disguise, the old plotters and schemers long defeated,
+were here. The motley elements that Douglas had derided as
+anti-Masonics, Know-nothings, Abolitionists, Spiritualists, where were
+they? Sunk in silence, out shouted, out talked, outnumbered by office
+seekers and monopolists. Tom Hyer was bawling, Garrison could not be
+heard. The New England manufacturers were here. Whittier was singing
+their songs and did not know it. I began to think of Rabelais, and of
+life as gluttony, eating and drinking, digestion and evacuation. I had a
+vision of all these hordes of men dead at last, their buttocks exposed
+to driving rains, upturned to a dark sky which breathed futility and
+contempt upon ended plots and hungers!
+
+That night I started out again with Abigail and Aldington. There had not
+been anything like the same amount of drinking at Charleston. Harlots
+staggered through the streets, their arms interlocked with those of
+howling men. Tom Hyer passed, leading his gang of toughs, the gayly
+liveried band swelling the air with great horns and drums. Again the
+rails and banners for "Honest Old Abe." Rumors caught us as we passed:
+the Germans were for Lincoln; Greeley wanted Douglas elected President
+and was scheming to defeat Seward for the nomination. We went to the
+Richmond House. I wanted Abigail and Aldington to see the smoking,
+drinking, gabbling delegates from New York. We ran into Yarnell. He was
+preoccupied, and was a little in drink. He stood with us for a moment,
+and then was buttonholed and taken away. We returned to the streets to
+watch the marchers.
+
+Yarnell was good enough to get tickets for Abigail, Aldington, and me,
+asking us with a half smile not to cheer for any one unless we cheered
+for Seward.
+
+It was in the air that Seward would be nominated. Greeley said so, but
+he was really fighting Seward. We spied the bald head and bespectacled
+eyes of the great editor moving about the Oregon delegates. The tumult
+and the passion of the Charleston convention were not as dramatic as
+this. These men were here to destroy the Democratic party, to take
+control of the government. The air was of concentrated passion and will.
+There was a declaration of principles to be formulated out of sagacity
+and dramaturgy. Principles were to be observed but baits to be dangled;
+factions were to be conciliated, relative claims adjusted; the higher
+thought of the nation respected; radicalism tickled but not embraced;
+wrong censured, but needless offense avoided. Hence state rights got a
+sop; the tariff was advocated and the Pacific railroad; the harmless
+Declaration of Independence was quoted at large. Everybody had used it
+for more than eighty years--why not this platform?
+
+The balloting begins. The expectation is intense. All of us have caught
+the crowd spirit, the infection of the mob. New England is polled first.
+What is the matter? She does not give Seward the fully expected vote.
+Very well! New York is reached. William M. Everetts, hook-nosed and
+dished of mouth, plumps New York seventy votes for Seward. The
+convention recovers from its fear. All is going well for Seward after
+all. What of Pennsylvania and her tariff? She has fifty-seven votes;
+fifty and one half of these go to a favorite son, Simon Cameron. This is
+a mere compliment; Pennsylvania will come to Seward now that her
+favorite son has been honored. Illinois is reached and votes for
+Lincoln. There are cheers. But he is the favorite son of Illinois. These
+are his people. The next ballot they will go to Seward. Indiana is
+reached. All of her vote goes to Lincoln. There are great cheers. But
+Lincoln split rails once in Indiana. This is a complimentary vote too.
+Ohio is reached. She has two favorite sons, Chase and McLean. Missouri
+is reached. Edward Bates is her son and gets the vote. What is this vote
+of Virginia,--fourteen votes out of her twenty-three for Lincoln? Some
+one near us whispers: "The South hates Seward worse than any one."
+
+At last the whole vote is announced: Seward has 173-1/2; Lincoln 102.
+The Illinois River breaks loose; the great shouter for Lincoln, hired
+for the occasion, storms and bawls above the hubbub of the convention.
+Where is Hyer the prize fighter? He has been out with his gang.
+Drinking? We do not know. At any rate he is late, has missed one of the
+psychologies of the convention. After the noise is subsided, we hear
+that Bates, Greeley's favorite, has forty-eight votes. "Call the roll!"
+"Call the roll!" shout hundreds of delegates. Men are going mad with
+anxiety. Arms are waved frantically, delegates rise from their seats and
+bawl undistinguishable words. Curses and hisses fill the air. The second
+ballot begins. Why does Pennsylvania deliberate, why does she retire so
+often to consult her wishes? There is laughter over it. She changes her
+vote now. Her favorite son, Cameron, gets two; forty-eight go to
+Lincoln. What is the matter with Seward? We had heard there was plenty
+of Seward money in Pennsylvania. Yarnell had told me so. Why doesn't the
+machinery work? Ohio falls off seven votes for Chase; Bates loses
+thirteen of his Missouri votes. Vermont throws her whole vote to
+Lincoln, and the Stentor from the Illinois River bottoms raises a
+thunder of applause. But Tom Hyer has now arrived and the Seward chorus
+is working.
+
+The vote is announced: Seward has 184-1/2; Lincoln 181; necessary to a
+choice, 233. Seward is ruined. Tom Hyer is down. The band, the banners
+are for nothing. All the Seward money is for nothing. To be Governor,
+Senator, the leading man of the party for years, the great debater of
+the Senate, the author of the irrepressible conflict, the most dreaded
+enemy of the South--all this goes up and out in a second like a poor
+sulphur match in a gale. Seward is ruined. A country lawyer from
+Springfield, Illinois, once a state legislator, once a Congressman, has
+killed him in two blows. What has done it? The irrepressible conflict.
+It has crushed him before it crushed many more, old and young throughout
+the land. He is too famous. His words are too well known. The house
+divided against itself is not so well known. Lincoln is obscure. He is a
+trim new champion of fifty-one years of age, ready after some fifteen or
+more years of resting and training, for a great fight.
+
+Yet may not Greeley's Bates still come in? A horse not so swiftly
+running before now has a chance. Where would Seward's strength be thrown
+now that he cannot use it for himself? Can he throw it to any one? No!
+For the third ballot gives Seward 180 and Lincoln 231-1/2. But Seward is
+still holding on. Ohio has been sticking to Chase. The vote is not
+announced by the chair. But hundreds of pencils have kept the score. And
+just about as it is to be announced, Ohio throws four votes from Chase
+to Lincoln. Lincoln is nominated! The West of Douglas has won.
+
+The convention goes mad. The Illinois River roars like waters over a
+thousand dams. Lake Michigan shouters make the rafters tremble. A cannon
+is fired from the roof. But no one inside hears it. We go forth to the
+street. Masses are yelling and crying with delight. Old Abe from
+Illinois is nominated. Chicago is delirious with joy. From the Tremont
+House a hundred guns are fired. Processions start; everywhere men are
+bearing rails. Bands play. Drink flows like sudden freshets. Yarnell
+passes at a distance. He is staring straight ahead, hurrying somewhere.
+What is left for Seward, for his supporters? Virginia had been bought,
+why didn't she deliver? Ohio was fingered for Seward. Why didn't Ohio
+yield? Pennsylvania had taken quantities of Seward money. Why this
+ingratitude? What nominated Lincoln? The Seward men have an answer.
+
+The madness of the crowd for railsplitting! The log-cabin tradition!
+Genius and statesmanship have been set aside for a popular symbol,
+railsplitting. A party of moral ideas has reverted to claptrap. These
+are the bitter comments of Seward's beaten army. Then there are curses
+for Greeley. Greeley has avenged Seward's lifetime enmity. He has
+slaughtered the great man of the party. Why? The old traitor wants
+Douglas elected.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI
+
+
+The press comments of the country on Lincoln's nomination were
+exceedingly conflicting. He was written of as the man whom Douglas had
+beaten two years before, and without other distinction; as lacking in
+culture, in every way inferior to Seward; as a whangdoodle stump speaker
+of the second class, and without any known principle. What is this talk
+of Old Abe Lincoln, Old Uncle Abe, Honest Abe Lincoln? Was he not a log
+roller in the Illinois legislature of 1836? Had he not been driven from
+position to position by Douglas in the debates? What is honest about him
+above other men? Why a nomination on the strength of a deceiving
+nickname? Is he not for the tariff and loose construction? Has he not
+been a Whig with all the humbuggery of that party, of log cabins and
+imperial practices?
+
+The Republican press was more favorable. He was hailed as a man of the
+people, sprung from the people. On a hurried visit with Douglas, he told
+me that Lincoln was as able as any man the Republicans had, abler far
+than Seward; and of great integrity, though he loathed Lincoln's
+political faith. "I'll carry nearly every northern state against him,"
+said Douglas. "The Union must be saved. I know the South. They will
+secede if Lincoln is elected. It's utter madness of them to think of
+this; but mad they are. We must handle them accordingly. Wall Street,
+New York, is afraid of Lincoln. They don't want their business disturbed
+by secession or even by a hostile South. Cotton is that strong."
+
+Douglas was full of fight and energy. He intended to canvass the entire
+country. He was going into the South to point out the dangers of a
+divided country. "They are terribly mad at me down there. But I have
+never feared an audience yet. I intend to face them--and win them."
+
+No Presidential nominee had ever made a speaking tour before. Lincoln
+stayed quietly in Springfield. Seward made a speaking campaign,
+traveling on a special train. At Springfield he stayed in his car and
+did not show Lincoln the courtesy of calling upon him. Lincoln, without
+standing on any pride, went to see Seward, edging his way through the
+crowd to the car.
+
+Douglas fought everywhere to the last. If in his Senatorial days and
+before he had been complaisant to the slavocracy, the Charleston
+convention would not have seceded from him. His course now in the
+campaign silenced men like Hale and Seward who had nagged him for years
+with their depreciations and suspicions. He went into Virginia and there
+while speaking he was heckled by a Breckenridge follower. He was asked
+if the Southern States would be justified in seceding if Lincoln should
+be elected President. "No," thundered Douglas. "The election of a man
+to the Presidency of the American people, in conformity to the
+Constitution of the United States, would not justify any attempt at
+dissolving this glorious confederacy."
+
+"But if the Southern States secede upon the inauguration of Lincoln,
+before he commits an overt act against their rights, would you advise or
+vindicate resistance by force to their secession?" If Douglas had ever
+prostituted his mind to the South, now was the time to do it again. But
+this was his answer:
+
+"I answer that it is the duty of the President of the United States and
+all others in authority under him to enforce the laws of the United
+States as passed by Congress and as the court expounds them. And I, as
+in duty bound by my oath of fidelity to the Constitution, would do all
+in my power to aid the government of the United States in maintaining
+the supremacy of the laws against all resistance to them, come from what
+quarter it might. The President should meet all attempts to break up the
+Union as Old Hickory treated the nullifiers in 1832."
+
+What of the right of revolution? Douglas conceded that, but insisted
+that the election of Lincoln would not be "such a grievance as would
+justify revolution, or secession."
+
+I believed this too. Upon large ground if the South had the right to
+hold the negroes in slavery, the North would have the right to hold the
+South in the Union. If the South wanted to stuff fate into a small
+pocket of logic and allow their narrow bigotry to get the better of
+their reason, I was in favor of licking them in the name of sport and in
+justification of Darwin's law of the survival of the fittest.
+
+Douglas, in spite of threats against his life, went into the Far South
+appealing to them to consider the dangers ahead. The Democratic party
+was hopelessly divided. Some partisan newspapers were carrying two
+tickets on the editorial page. Others were fighting Douglas bitterly;
+others supporting with fierce energy Breckenridge of Kentucky. Many were
+scheming with a view to the contingency that the election would be a tie
+and that the House of Representatives, in making the choice, would
+select Douglas.
+
+Chicago was a whirlpool of excitement. In the middle summer Albert
+Edward, Prince of Wales, traveling in America as Baron Renfrew, came to
+Chicago on his way hunting in Illinois. The fate of the nation was a
+passing play to him. While he was here he was a greater object of
+interest than either Douglas or Lincoln. We heard that he was to stand
+on the balcony of his hotel to watch the political parades of the
+evening. Mr. Williams and I went forth to see the future King of
+England.
+
+The city was thronged with people. Bands were playing everywhere. The
+Wide-awakes, a Republican organization, were out in force marching as
+soldiers, dressed in glazed caps and capes, carrying torches. Mottoes
+and transparencies were borne aloft by hundreds. "Free soil for free
+men." "No more slave territories." "We do care whether slavery is voted
+up or down." "Abraham Lincoln cares"--these were the banners. And
+everywhere the banner "Protection to American Industries." Men carried
+rails. The crowds cheered and roared. And Baron Renfrew looked on,
+surrounded by his entourage and a few of the élite of Chicago. We stared
+up into his face. Did he smile, approve? Was he greatly interested? If
+America should divide it would be better for England. We saw him turn
+and smile as he evidently spoke to one of his party.
+
+Then a parade of Douglas men passed. They too carried banners. "Little
+Giant." "Ever Readies." "Cuba Must Be Ours." "We want none but white men
+at the helm." "We want a statesman, not a railsplitter for President."
+"Free Trade"--these were the Douglas mottoes. We turned at last and made
+our way through the crowd. Hawkers were selling railsplitter pins,
+Honest Abe pins. The streets were a medley of noise, confusion; the
+sidewalks were blocked. Drunken men, eager men pushed their way through.
+Bands played. Far off a stump speaker's voice could be heard. All this
+waste of sand and scrub oak which I had seen in 1833 was now covered
+with buildings big and little. It was the battleground between two sons
+of Illinois.
+
+October came. I grew more and more apprehensive for Douglas' fate. I had
+had a letter from Isabel gently foreshadowing her marriage. My boy was
+not advancing in his work at school. Inexorable loneliness was
+descending upon me.
+
+Douglas came to Chicago on a speaking trip. He had been in Indianapolis
+where his voice was so hoarse that he could scarcely be heard. Chicago
+gave him a magnificent ovation. They saw the man now in all his
+clearness of mind and strength of heart. He repudiated the schemes of
+fusion.
+
+"Every disunionist," he said, "is a Breckenridge man. As Democrats, we
+can never fuse either with northern Abolitionists or southern bolters
+and secessionists. Yes, my friends, I say to you what I said in North
+Carolina and in the same words: I would hang every man higher than Haman
+who would attempt to resist by force the execution of any provision of
+the Constitution which our fathers made and bequeathed to us. You cannot
+sever this Union unless you cut the heartstrings that bind father to
+son, daughter to mother, and brother to sister in all our new states and
+territories. I love my children, but I do not desire to see them survive
+this Union."
+
+With these words his tired and broken voice fell back into weakness from
+the great melody and power of its habitual quality. His weary body had
+risen into fresh strength for this utterance. His face assumed a great
+majesty. Men and women alike wept to hear him speak so--wept for the
+dark days ahead, wept for a great man failing in a struggle in which he
+was yet holding to cherished ideals, now being blown and scattered by
+the storm of the new era. They saw him surrounded on all sides by
+enemies. The South hated him. The northern Democrats with southern
+ideas hated him. The fanatics hated him. The Republican party which he
+had stepped upon with giant contempt hated him. In eight years of
+existence it had gathered to itself the contemptible factions that he
+had satirized. They had united now in the supreme purpose of defeating
+him. He was appealing for the same principles to which he had always
+been devoted. He was defending the Union as he had defended it since the
+days when I saw Jackson put his arm around him, and look with paternal
+pride in his eyes. He knew the heart and the will of the South. He was
+trying to tell it to the North. He felt that his own election would
+prevent disunion. He asked people to believe that he wished to be
+elected, not to gratify his personal ambition, but for the sake of the
+Union.
+
+It was all in vain. The avalanche, loosened years before by stray
+adventurers building fires for their little kettles, and running
+thoughtlessly over weakened attachments, was now moving down on Douglas
+and the Union. The October election showed that he was defeated.
+Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana were carried by the Republicans in the
+state elections. Douglas was speaking in the South. His life had been
+threatened. An attempt was made to wreck his train. In Alabama he was
+showered with missiles. Not a northern paper published these shameful
+insults, which if published would have won him many friends in the
+North. Amid dangers and discouragements he went on to the end.
+
+He was in Mobile when the news of Lincoln's election reached him.
+Before leaving Alabama he did what he could to prevent that state from
+seceding.
+
+Undismayed, he went on to New Orleans. There he addressed the business
+men, pointing out to them that Lincoln would have a hostile Senate on
+his hands if the South would only remain in the Union; that Lincoln
+could carry out no abolition or unfriendly policy toward the South
+without a Senate; that all of Lincoln's appointments would have to be
+confirmed by the Senate. All of these things he said to dissuade the
+South from secession. When they would not be persuaded, he tore the mask
+from their faces and told them directly that Lincoln's election was only
+a pretext for those who wished to set up a Southern Confederacy.
+
+Lincoln was elected. But Douglas was not dishonored. He had achieved a
+great personal triumph. He had polled 1,357,157 votes in the country
+against Lincoln's 1,866,452. In Illinois he had polled 160,215 votes to
+Lincoln's 172,161--in spite of New England and the Germans. He had
+received 163,525 votes from the South against Lincoln's 26,430. But he
+had lost to Breckenridge or Bell fourteen southern states. Protective
+tariff Pennsylvania had given Lincoln 268,030 and Douglas 16,765.
+Protective tariff Massachusetts had given Lincoln 106,533 and Douglas
+34,372. Douglas had fought the South, he had fought against the
+disadvantage of a divided party, he had fought the protective tariff,
+yet Lincoln had polled but a little more than 500,000 votes more than
+he had. No use to say that the populace does not understand questions of
+government or that they cannot rise to high justices and rewards.
+Douglas' personal triumph had been great, but his remarkable popular
+support shrunk to an insignificant twelve votes in the electoral
+college. He was vanquished and I was more deeply depressed than I had
+ever been in my life. Lincoln was elected!
+
+And the South seceded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII
+
+
+It is war! Mars has descended. The irrepressible conflict has taken the
+sword. The house divided against itself is in the last contest to see
+whether there shall be two houses or one. The devils are now to be cast
+out, not by Satan but by the Lord mighty in battle, great in anger.
+Grapes of wrath are to be treaded now, and a furious wine drawn from the
+broken flesh of men hitherto growing peacefully on peaceful stems, North
+and South.
+
+Douglas wishes without ostentation to make himself clear in his
+friendship and support of Lincoln. No envy, no pique, no chagrin. He has
+often prophesied this war. For years he has warned the country against
+sectionalism. He does not now say, I told you so. The war has come. He
+is for the North, as he told the South he would be if elected himself.
+He is against disunion with all his heart. His health is broken; he has
+no future on this earth except to work to bring peace, and to win the
+South to save the Union. And he labors like a Titan to these ends.
+
+I waver in my plans to go to Washington to see Lincoln inaugurated. In
+any event I shall devour the report of the proceedings. I cannot keep my
+mind off the event. I cannot wait to see Douglas to express to him my
+great admiration, my deep affection. Yet I fear he is beyond the reach
+of such things. What does he care whether I admire him or not, or
+whether any one loves him or not? Such things cannot touch him now. But
+I would see him again. And I would see Lincoln too.
+
+On the morning I am to start I leave my house in Chicago; then I return
+to my porch and think, holding my satchel. I start again, force myself
+to go. I drag myself on to the train. Things are changed now. I can go
+by rail all the way. No need of boats and canals in this late February
+of 1861.
+
+Washington is in a thrill. It is expected that the crack of a rifle from
+a tree or a housetop will fell the tall Lincoln from Illinois, as he
+faces the crowd to take the oath of office. But all was peace. The South
+only intended to go its way and let Lincoln do what he could, if
+anything. I stood with the rapt mass close to the stand where I could
+see every face on the platform. Lincoln came, Douglas came. Douglas was
+giving notice to the country that he was hand in hand with Lincoln for
+the Union.
+
+Lincoln has no place to put his tall silk hat, brand new for this
+occasion. Douglas, gallantly not seriously, thoughtfully not showily,
+with grace and taste, takes Lincoln's hat and holds it while Lincoln
+reads his inaugural address.
+
+Lincoln is now becomingly dressed. He is past fifty-two; no gray hairs,
+no beard, looks clean shaven and youthful, like a man of thirty,
+prematurely old. He is swarthy, wrinkled. He is powerful, rested,
+self-possessed, masterful. The cadence of his voice is full of kindness
+and conciliation. Its rhythms speak in sympathy and respect for the
+feelings of every one. Some of his words move me like great music. He
+says in closing so clearly, so beautifully, sounding as of silver
+trumpets blown by archangels:
+
+"The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battle field and
+patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad
+land will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as
+surely they will be touched, by the better angels of our nature."
+
+I see Pinturicchio in his face. I hear the reverberations of Beethoven's
+dreams in his voice. This man is kindred to the greatest souls.
+
+I know about the mystic chords myself. I have been in battle. I fought
+for Texas. Be that cause good or bad, it has now blossomed in me for the
+Union. I have followed Douglas for nationalism and progress. I am still
+with him, and the more so because Douglas is with Lincoln.
+
+The crowd is moved. The great event is over. The railsplitter has
+disappeared to that house of state from whence he shall never emerge
+carefree and happy. And Douglas goes to consult with him, to aid him.
+
+Lincoln depends now on Douglas, cannot dispense with him. They have
+known each other for a quarter of a century, in that Illinois of the
+West which Douglas prophesied would hold the balance of power in any
+crisis of the North and the South. That prophecy is fulfilled. It would
+have been fulfilled by giving Douglas to the Presidency. It had given
+Lincoln instead; and the prophecy is fulfilled.
+
+Lincoln shows to Douglas his call for 75,000 men to put down the
+rebellion. Douglas approves of the wording of the order, but says it
+should call for 200,000 men. He knows the South!
+
+"What do you wish me to do?" he asked Lincoln. Lincoln thinks it would
+be well if Douglas used his great influence to appeal to doubtful
+sections, or wavering peoples. In obedience to this suggestion Douglas
+sets off for Illinois.
+
+I have preceded him. I know what war means. I know the processes, the
+psychologies, the technique. Bands are playing, men are enlisting and
+marching in Chicago. Orators are talking, women are singing and sewing.
+Shrouds and coffins must be made as well as caps and cloaks. Iron must
+be cast, nitrate dug, thousands of laborers set to work to hammer, to
+nail, to mold, to fashion engines of destruction. Nurses must be
+trained, for there will be blood to stanch, wounds to dress, and the
+dying to comfort. That Captain Grant whom I saw in St. Louis years ago
+has come to Springfield from Galena, left his tannery for the war. He is
+training some regiments for the service. Amos, Reverdy's boy, has joined
+the army, and Jonas too. Reverdy writes me about it. Sarah is full of
+anger, resentment, terror, and sorrow against this huge thing that has
+broken over her hearth and taken her sons. I am too old to fight. But I
+have money to give. I throw myself into the work with the hope of
+forgetting myself, my losses, my loneliness, my life. What can I do for
+Douglas? I have this wealth. He is now broken financially. When he
+returns to Chicago I must open my purse to him. What other use have I
+for money but to give it to this war, or to Douglas?
+
+Douglas comes back from southern Illinois where he has been speaking. He
+is going to address a Chicago audience. It is not likely that they will
+hoot him now. After some difficulty I find him. His face lights up with
+a certain gladness as he sees me. But he is a dying eagle that ruffles
+its feathers when food is offered it; then sinks back upon its broken
+wing when it sees that it cannot eat. What is my friendship now to him?
+What is any earthly thing to him? He bears the sorrows of earth without
+the consolation that any Heaven can cure them. His voice is hoarse, his
+face is worn and streaked with agony. His eyes look through me, over me,
+beyond me. He sees me, but what am I? His hair is gray--much grayer than
+mine. He is only 48 but he is an old man. He has no place in life now
+but to save the Union. All his strength and activity have come to this
+simple faith, as simple as the faith of a child. He reaches back into
+the years when he was 21 and first came to Illinois, to that substance
+of his being, always inherent and of his genius, which was and is now
+compact of nationalism, progress, intelligence, the firm union of
+sovereign states. This is all he has to sustain him now. He has laid up
+this food for the last hours, for this crisis of his soul. All souls
+must lay up something spiritual, even as they must lay up food for the
+winter of life, for the bleak bright hours of the soul's sterile fight.
+
+And this old love which led him to Jackson when I was there with
+Dorothy, which led him to Jackson for the great privilege of looking
+into the old hero's face is all that sustains Douglas now. He is poor in
+purse but rich in service and love; he can never be President if he
+wished to be. This new era will take all his devotion, but it will not
+even make him Senator again. But what need? The office is nothing now to
+him. He has no place politically, except as a leader of all men. He is
+without a party, but he has a country.
+
+I offer him my purse. He smiles and thanks me. No time now to think of
+his affairs--later perhaps. Something deeper than money friendship is
+required to arouse the depths of him; and only the depths of him are
+left. Will I come to hear him speak? I go.
+
+He is on the heights now. The purest fires leap from his being. The
+eloquence of great truths flows from his lips, along the melodious waves
+of that voice of thunder. He has become Orpheus; his Isabel is the Union
+now embodied in the strength, the beauty of the North which he has
+always wooed and never won until now. The crowd draws toward him, gives
+its spirit to him, casts its devotion at his feet. He is on the heights.
+For Death is near him and Death is the sincerest and most authentic of
+inspirers. He has nothing to ask now--only that the Union be saved. He
+has no reproaches for any one except disunionists. He has become
+impersonal on all things but the Union. I know that the end is near for
+him. No one can speak so who is not prompted by Death.
+
+He has fallen ill at his hotel in this Chicago that he loved and dowered
+with a university and linked to the South with a great railroad in the
+interests of peace and a firmer Union. I go to see him. Mrs. Douglas
+cannot admit me. He is unconscious of those around him, but his soul is
+at work. "Telegraph to the President and let the column move on." "Stand
+for the Union." "The West, this great ..."
+
+I go into the mad streets so grief-stricken, so alone. Dorothy is long
+dead. Isabel is lost to me. My boy is away. My home is haunted with
+loneliness. I would be rich if Douglas was to be too. Now he is rich, I
+am poor; he is poor, I am rich. Men are marching, bugles calling. The
+city roars. At the foot of Clark Street I see the masts of scores of
+sailing craft. Chicago has become a great mart.
+
+The June sky is blue and cool, and great white clouds sail through it so
+indifferently. They were here when I first came to Chicago; here when
+the French explored the wilderness. Here they are now just the same; and
+Illinois has more than a million souls, and every heart carries the
+burden of war. Over them this sky, these clouds. They do not care.
+
+It seems but a few minutes and the words go about the streets: "Douglas
+is dead." The newsboys cry it soon. I am prepared, but the city is not.
+It is shocked and wounded. Douglas is dead! This voice that spoke to us
+so lately is stilled. The great man who submerged everything of self in
+a cause of many is no more. I am dumb, a few tears ooze from my eyes;
+but on I go through the crowds. Now I shall throw myself more than ever
+into the work of the war. I pass a theater where speeches are being
+made. From it I hear a voice singing "Annie Laurie." I stop to look at a
+sign containing the name of Madam Zante. And I go in to hear her sing. I
+draw near her to get a seat. It is Zoe!
+
+Zoe! I send up my name by an usher. The word comes back quickly to join
+her behind the scenes. There she is waiting for me. And we fall into
+each other's arms and sob. She is all I have left in the world except
+little Reverdy. I hold her from me. She is majestic, glorious in the
+maturity of great beauty, intelligence, art. She has long been a singer
+of note under this name of Madam Zante. What of Fortescue? She ran away
+from him. What was the explanation of Fortescue's trick? So far as we
+could guess at it, only that he had used the murder of another woman to
+get the property that he had learned from Zoe that she had inherited.
+But we had no time to talk of this now. "Come with me, Zoe, to my
+house." And Zoe came. But she was soon off again to nurse in the
+hospitals.
+
+It is November, 1861. Word comes to us that Reverdy's boy, Amos, has
+been killed in the battle of Belmont. Douglas has now been in sleep five
+months; now Amos is a sacrifice to the war. He had joined Captain
+Grant's army against Sarah's fierce protest. He had gone forth happy and
+proud. Now he was to rest in the cemetery in Jacksonville near the dust
+of my father, near the dust of Major Hardin, and Lamborn.
+
+And so it was that Zoe and I stood side by side touching the dead hand
+of Amos. Sarah was too grief-stricken to be surprised at Zoe's
+reappearance in our lives. She wailed incessantly: "What is free
+territory to me? My boy is dead! What is the end of slavery to me? My
+boy is dead! There was no use for this war, no use, no use! It needed
+never to be. If they had only listened to Douglas. What are Lincoln and
+Jeff Davis thinking of? My boy is dead."
+
+And for nights after returning to Chicago I heard Sarah's voice crying:
+"my boy! my boy!"
+
+The battle of Gettysburg has been fought. That single thing that makes
+or destroys every man had come upon General Lee and commanded him to
+follow. In his case it was audacity. He had invaded Pennsylvania and
+been hurled back. And not long after I heard that Isabel's husband had
+been killed in that terrible battle. She did not write me. The silence
+of life had come over us.
+
+I read the Gettysburg address of Lincoln. It moved me like a symphony.
+But I did not believe it to be true. This government was not conceived
+in liberty. It was not dedicated to the proposition that all men are
+created equal. We were not engaged in a strife which tested whether this
+government so conceived and so dedicated could survive. The South could
+have set up a separate government and the same liberty and the same
+equality which informed the union would have remained intact. Isabel's
+husband, and the other thousands who had died there had not consecrated
+the ground unless the Union meant something more than a union. It had to
+mean liberty and more than the emancipation of the negroes for that
+ground to be consecrated. And a few years later its glory was detracted
+from by the machinations of merchants who grew fat on the blood of that
+battle. And yet I was moved by Lincoln's words more profoundly than by
+anything that I had ever read.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+It is April 23d, 1900. Three hundred and thirty-six years ago to-day a
+man named Shakespeare was born. He lived with some gnawing at his heart,
+wrote some plays, and died. He was wise enough, I fancy, to see that the
+joke is on those who remain in life, not those who leave it.
+Eighty-seven years ago to-day Stephen A. Douglas was born. He lived,
+stormed about these States, talked of great principles, was tossed aside
+by a squall on the universe of things, and died. It is now thirty-nine
+years since he summed up his life's wisdom in the words: "Tell my
+children to obey the laws and support the Constitution." That was about
+the summation of Socrates' wisdom, this matter of the laws, as he lay in
+prison opposite the Acropolis. He refused to walk forth free, except by
+the law. If I live until June the eighteenth I shall be eighty-five
+years of age. On the score of age I should feel much wiser than Douglas
+who died at forty-eight and Socrates who died at sixty. I feel that I am
+a good deal like Shakespeare. I have very little respect for the
+laws--at least for the written laws. I am not so sure about the higher
+law, if I am left to determine it. But in truth I am a good deal in
+doubt as to what is right, and what is wrong, what good and what evil.
+And I never know what the law is. I have wondered about it all my life.
+I have thought at times I knew, but I have been for the most part
+betrayed and fooled.
+
+And why not now? Miss Sharpe, delicate, spiritual, active of mind, lives
+at the boarding house where I do. She thinks I am a fine old gentleman.
+She likes my society. I am to her taste interesting because I am
+experienced. I am richer intellectually than any man could be at an
+earlier age. She reads to me, often reads to me:
+
+"Grow old along with me,
+The best is yet to be,
+The last of life for which the first was made."
+
+How glorious is old age! She comforts me, makes me contented with my
+state at times; she makes me forget how I feel when I rise in the
+morning, stiff, bewildered, sometimes wondering where I am. She helps me
+to establish my mind when it thinks of too many things at once, and
+cannot choose for paltering and fumbling. I walk with a cane; but legs
+are nothing. The soul is the prize, the flower. My food does not digest
+itself well; my heart flutters and stumbles; my eyes refuse to work even
+with the best of glasses. The doctor says I have an old man's arteries.
+I know when my memory falters that it is due to the brain which has
+shrunk, and to the incrusted arteries which do not carry enough blood
+cells to the brain to give me memory. Still the best is yet to be, and
+this is now it. I think the law of old age will get me eventually just
+as the law of the new era caught Douglas and destroyed him.
+
+It is thirty years now since the great Chicago fire swept my fortune
+away. I saved one lot out of the wreck. A skyscraper wanted it to
+complete its necessary ground space. So I leased it; and the rental
+keeps me. The lease will be out in 1989--but no matter for that. Between
+1871 and 1890 I had a hard time of it. I tried to repair my fortune and
+couldn't do it. Then the building of skyscrapers struck Chicago, and I
+came into an income through this lease. I have a good room at the
+boarding house and all I wish of everything. Perhaps I shall revise my
+will and leave something to Miss Sharpe. I should like to depart from
+the customary bequests to hospitals and colleges. If the University
+founded by Douglas had not been taken over by the money made by the
+Standard Oil Company I might give something to it. Some say that the
+University stands for spiritual hardness, a Darwinian scientific which
+distinguished Douglas, but I am not sure. Yes, I believe I shall revise
+my will in favor of Miss Sharpe. Sometimes I suspect that she wants to
+marry me. She talks of nothing but the soul, as Isabel did in Rome. I am
+sure I have plenty of soul. I have no one else to give my money to but
+Miss Sharpe. My boy died in the middle sixties.
+
+As for the rest, they are all gone. Zoe and I lived happily together
+until the rage of the influenza in 1889; then she died. Mr. Williams,
+Abigail, Aldington passed away and were buried in a cemetery about a
+mile north of the river. Then their bodies were removed somewhere, for
+the cemetery was turned into a park. Lincoln Park it is now. Reverdy,
+Sarah, gave up the battle years ago. They went to sleep by the side of
+their son, Amos, who was killed in the battle of Belmont. Their other
+children are scattered to unknown quarters. I know not if they live.
+
+A strange thing happened yesterday. Mr. Williams' grandson called upon
+me. He is going to South Africa with a load of mules for the British.
+Almost every one in America wants the Boers put down. He asked me to go
+along and for a moment I took him seriously. The adventurer in me arose.
+Then I became conscious of my stiff legs. Besides was I ever much of an
+adventurer after all? Why did I not travel in the splendid forties and
+the leisurely fifties? Still I believe I have had as much out of life as
+Cecil Rhodes. He started out to be rich. So did I. He got diamonds and
+gold. I got land. He wished to see England world-triumphant. I wanted to
+see America an ocean-bound republic. I followed Douglas. He was inspired
+by Ruskin. For Ruskin had fired young Rhodes at Oxford with these words:
+"England must found colonies as fast and as far as she is able, formed
+of her most energetic and worthy men; seizing every piece of fruitful
+waste ground she can set her foot on, and there teaching her colonists
+that their chief virtue is to be fidelity to their country, and that
+their first aim is to be to advance the power of England by land and by
+sea."
+
+Accordingly Rhodes had set out to become rich; he plotted the supremacy
+of England in South Africa. And now there is war on President Kruger of
+the Transvaal, who was at the head of its affairs in the years when
+Douglas was settling Oregon and California and talking of popular
+sovereignty. Gold was discovered there, as it was in California; and
+there was a great exodus of English; and now the question is whether the
+Ruskin idea will triumph or Kruger's idea, which is derived from the
+Bible, shall triumph. The Bible is used in many ways and on all sides of
+everything. Kruger is an abolitionist concerned with abolishing Great
+Britain. But I think Great Britain will abolish him, and find plenty of
+Biblical authority for it. Many sacred hymns will be sung, and God will
+be loudly praised when the end comes.
+
+Rhodes is using his great wealth to assist England in her war against
+the Boer Republic. He has advocated from a youth up the formation of a
+secret society with the following objects, as expressed by himself: "The
+extension of British rule throughout the world.... The colonization by
+British subjects of all lands where the means of livelihood are
+attainable by energy, labor, and enterprise, and especially the
+occupation by British settlers of the entire continent of Africa, the
+Holy Land, the valley of the Euphrates, the islands of Cypress and
+Candia, the whole of South America, the islands of the Pacific not
+heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay
+Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the ultimate recovery of
+the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire."
+
+A large lust for land, dwarfing to Douglas' call to American supremacy
+on the North American continent, the expulsion of Great Britain
+therefrom, and from all dominance in the Western Hemisphere. It was
+rather costly to Douglas to take over Texas; and the retention of the
+old land of the Southern States was the nation's crisis which killed
+him. For any land-lust that Douglas had, he has paid. Will Rhodes pay
+for his lust? No, I think he will be paid for it. For he has been a
+success. He has seen his hopes for England all but realized. So far as
+the United States is concerned England has recovered it. She rules us in
+trade, literature, in thought. We elect our own rulers, to be sure; but
+England controls them, though we pay their salaries.
+
+However, I shall not go to South Africa. I know that I may die in an
+instant; and though, if dying at sea, I might sink to the depth, where
+something of Dorothy remains, I would as soon be reduced to ashes and
+scattered on the shores of this lake that I have known so long. That
+would be symbolical of my purposeless and wasted life.
+
+The day being fine, this being Douglas' birthday, I have come from my
+boarding house to the little park which bears his name, and where
+stands the column to his memory, crowned with a bronze counterfeit of
+him, standing forthright and intrepid, as I have often seen him in life.
+It is a clear sky with racing clouds that the statue stands against, and
+I almost imagine it swaying and moving, such is the illusory effect of
+the clouds. I enter the park and rest on a settee looking toward the
+lake.
+
+Chicago has now a population of a million and a half--you will observe
+that this passion for figures remains with me. To the south I can see
+the smoke of the steel mills; to the north the towers of granite, tile,
+and brick of the city, and all between populous quarters. Twenty miles
+of city north and south; ten miles of city east and west. I am on
+Douglas' ninety acres, ten of which he deeded to the University of
+Chicago. Its three-story college building stands to the west of me about
+one half a mile; abandoned now. The acres themselves have passed to an
+insurance company on a mortgage. And in the general decay of Douglas'
+memory and influences this seems fitting enough.
+
+Of course, the Civil War was waged to free the negro; and to do it it
+was necessary to have a protective tariff, which came into being soon
+after Lincoln was elected, and has been the policy of the country ever
+since. Also for this emancipation it was necessary to revive the bank,
+and this was done during the war. Not long after the war was over--about
+two years--the trust known as the Standard Oil Company was organized.
+Its moving spirit endowed the Douglas university and moved it to the
+Midway Plaisance. It has continued its uninterrupted graduating years
+from Douglas' time till now. It is still Douglas' university--at least
+as much so as this United States was Douglas' these United States. It is
+a university built out of tariff privileges and railroad rebates; while
+Douglas' university was built from land, which Douglas was foresighted
+enough to buy in anticipation of Chicago's growth, and the increment in
+values produced by the Illinois Central railroad. Douglas was hotly
+denounced for crookedness and money grabbing in those days of 1858 by
+the Abolitionists and Free Soilers. Indeed much is said now in criticism
+of Mr. Rockefeller; but I believe it will pass. Besides he is not
+running for office, or trying to found an ocean to ocean republic; and
+hence criticism does not hurt him so much.
+
+Below me and down behind a wall the tracks of the Illinois Central roar
+to the wheels of numerous trains, long trains of ten and twelve cars,
+sleepers, diners, parlor cars, bound straight for New Orleans and New
+York, either place reached in twenty-four hours from Chicago. I wish
+Douglas could see this. Still, would he like to know that the public
+have no access to the lake at any place where the tracks lie between the
+shore and this wall? Perhaps he would see that this occupancy correctly
+exemplifies the fate that the free-soil doctrine has met with throughout
+the country.
+
+There are sounds of trowels, voices of workmen behind me. A group of
+masons and laborers is repairing Douglas' tomb; for it is not
+scrupulously cared for these days. Postprandial orators are frequently
+remarking amidst great acclaim that the hand on the dial of time points
+to Hamilton; and if government is as corrupt as the newspapers say it
+is, and if Hamilton stood for corruption in government, the hand on the
+dial undoubtedly points to him. At this moment a young man and woman
+come to a settee near me. The young woman asks her companion: "Who is
+that monument to?" "Douglas," he answers in staccato. "Who was Douglas?"
+"A Senator or something from Illinois. But why change the subject? You
+have kept putting this off, and I have six hundred dollars saved now,
+and prospects are good. I would like to be ..." the rest is borne away
+by the wind. But I know it is the old theme. Soon his arm encircles her
+shoulders over the back of the settee. She looks at him and smiles. It
+is April! The men are repairing the mortar between the stones of
+Douglas' tomb. Two are masons, two are negro helpers. The negroes are as
+free as the whites; the whites are no freer than the negroes. They are
+all wanderers, looking for jobs without settled places, paying board as
+I do, or living in rented places. One of them may own his house. Some
+laborers do, not many. They are like the factory workers, the whole
+breed of workers throughout the land. The Civil War did not make them
+prosperous, or change their real status. It seems that the God of
+nature still rules, and that Darwin is his best prophet. These men are
+free to work or to starve. Some things have changed. It is no longer
+against the law to send abolition literature through the mail. But it is
+against the law to incite laborers to strike, whether they are white or
+black, and it is against the law for laborers, white or black, to
+organize themselves into unions. The slave owners were pretty well
+organized once, both financially and politically, but now the
+corporations are much better organized than the slave owners were. The
+negro did not dare to rebel against his master. And now the law prevents
+the laborer from organizing against the corporation. We have freedom
+now, but of a different quality. It has changed its base, but is there
+more of it?
+
+A freight train goes by nearly a mile long. It is laden with coal, oil,
+iron. I can't believe that the soil is free. Coal and oil and iron have
+too much of it. I think of the banners borne in the campaign of 1860,
+when Baron Renfrew stood that night on the balcony of his hotel. He will
+soon be king of England and emperor of India. And some one--either the
+men who carried those banners or their sons--some one now has a complete
+overlordship of this United States.
+
+Why did not these banners make free men and a free soil? I suspect that
+the banner of protection to American industries was as influential at
+least as the free soil banner. It was easy after the war to force the
+XIV Amendment on the country, to give citizenship to the negro so far as
+his color had kept him out of it. It remained for the courts to call the
+corporations citizens and to fit to their backs the coat of equal
+protection of the laws, which they told us was cut and sewed for the
+negro. Hence this long freight train with coal, oil, and iron--all very
+well, but where are the free men and the free soil that Reverdy's son
+died for?
+
+Cries are now being uttered of capitalistic America. Also they say the
+Supreme Court is always the mouthpiece of the dominant influence. That
+was what was said when Taney decided that Dred Scott was not a citizen.
+"The courts are tools of Satan, the Constitution is a league with Hell,"
+said Garrison. He burned a copy of the Constitution on a public bonfire.
+That could be done then, for slavocracy only interfered with free speech
+in the South. Now it is not so safe to criticize the Supreme Court
+anywhere in America. I myself think that coal and iron and oil are more
+powerful than cotton ever was, and more permeatingly dominant. It would
+not do to burn the Constitution anywhere in this United and Standardized
+States. As for mocking the flag, one might be lynched on the spot.
+
+The Filipinos have taken literally the Declaration of Independence,
+which is the platform upon which Lincoln was elected; and they are
+fighting us in the name of Lincoln. We have an army over there
+sustaining the honor of the flag, under William McKinley, President of
+the United States and Commander in Chief of its Army and Navy. Mr.
+McKinley was a soldier in the war under Lincoln. He, therefore, knows
+something about military matters. He has demonstrated that he has
+something in his head beyond the theory of protection to American
+industries. He is demonstrating that he knows how to lift the United
+States out of its isolation, and to carry it beyond its place in the
+Western Hemisphere with nothing but satellites like the West Indies and
+Hawaii to be trailed by its gravitational movements. Also he learned how
+to put down rebellion in the Southern States, and that is the same
+thing, of course, as putting down rebellion in the Philippine Islands.
+We have bought the islands. They are ours. They are farther away, to be
+sure, than Cuba which Douglas wanted for his ocean-bound republic. But
+though farther away, civilization, our duty, and the manifest destiny of
+old compel us to hold them. When Alcibiades embarked on his Sicilian
+expedition, it was said that Athens itself was sailing out of the
+Piraeus, never to return. And some think that when Admiral Dewey sailed
+into the harbor of Manila with his fleet he took the old America with
+him, never to return to these shores; and what was worse, it disappeared
+there out of his hands and is lost for good.
+
+There is China, where we have set up a Federal judge. There is the trade
+of the Orient; the Philippine Islands themselves are rich in hemp. To
+get land for hemp is different from getting it for cotton--for I am
+sure hemp makes a better rope with which to strangle liberty.
+
+But though the Constitution has not reached the Islands, while the flag
+has, it may in time reach them. Meantime no mocking of that
+perambulating and capricious instrument! It contains the power to
+acquire islands, or the whole of China, by conquest or treaty; and the
+power to govern them as we choose, limited only by our ideas of Justice.
+It would not do to let them have popular sovereignty, any more than it
+would have done in Douglas' day to let Kansas have popular sovereignty.
+The right to prohibit or allow slavery in a territory goes with the
+right to extend the Constitution with its XIV Amendment to the
+Philippine Islands, or not to extend it--and we have chosen not to
+extend it. Thus the extra constitutional foundations of the Republican
+party have led to colonialism.
+
+Douglas, in bronze, looks over the lake to the east--to what? Perhaps to
+the hills of Vermont and his youth, when no forecasting angel could have
+told him what could come to him and his country. Perhaps he knows now
+that free souls are better than free soil, since he never had much use
+for the kind of free soil that was shouted at him.
+
+This morning's paper has long dispatches about the progress of our
+troops in the Philippines. Perhaps that is the reason why Douglas' back
+is to the west. Surely he does not mean that he turns his back upon the
+domain of Mexico and Oregon. It must be only upon the conquests of the
+new capitalism. I am glad, and more than glad, that negro slavery was
+abolished. It was nothing but a wooden plow anyway. Our new steel plows
+work much better and they have this advantage: they accomplish more,
+they are in themselves more of slaves, and they are creators of time and
+of greater wealth.
+
+There are strikes over the land. Why? Are not men free? Yes, they are
+free to choose their work if they know how to do more than one thing, or
+if they are able to move from the place where they have been employed.
+But they are not free to organize, to agitate for better wages, or to
+strike. What is this matter of freedom after all? It reminds me of the
+steps of a stairway. A step consists of a horizontal board and a
+vertical board and then another horizontal board. The first horizontal
+board is the present condition, and the second horizontal is the liberty
+that is desired, the vertical board is the difficulty in the way. One
+must overcome resistance to step up. When he does he has achieved the
+liberty to which he aspires. But he is standing on the same sort of a
+level that he did before. This stairway goes up indefinitely, and at
+last becomes lost in the sky of the future, like the beanstalk of Jack
+the Giant-killer. All this sounds quite materialistic, and as if I was
+without hope, but I am not materialistic, or despairing of the future. I
+know that matter cannot be explained without resorting to such concepts
+as force, causation, action, and reaction. And these are the ideas of
+the mind. And I think of matter and of history in terms of action and
+reaction. The mind of man is the most wonderful thing that we know
+anything about, and its secret is the secret of the universe. Having
+never been happy myself, I am not a disciple of eudemonism; but I see
+life as struggle and change; and though I do not know what it means, I
+know thought will not be at rest, that hopes will not cease, and that
+dreams of liberty will fascinate the minds of future Lincolns and
+Douglases.
+
+The masons are eating their luncheon. I arise to go to Douglas' tomb.
+The young woman says: "I wonder who that old man is? He has been sitting
+right there all morning."
+
+I wonder myself who I am. I take my way feebly up the stone steps to the
+grated door of the tomb. I look through. There lies the sarcophagus
+which contains the bones of Stephen A. Douglas. There was no truer,
+braver man in his time, and no abler.
+
+I put my spectacles on, for I cannot see well into the tomb. Yes, there
+are the words: "Tell my children to obey the laws and support the
+Constitution." No, I do not subscribe to that. I believe in liberty and
+not law. Douglas' popular sovereignty was more liberty than it was law.
+These words on his tomb must have been spoken by him with reference to
+the preservation of the Union. At any rate I do not believe in these
+words. I accept instead Walt Whitman's admonition to the States: "Obey
+little, resist much." What shall we obey at all, and where shall we
+resist? You must decide that for yourself, or ask those about it who
+still have the capacity for living.
+
+I am old. Now I must go to luncheon and then take my afternoon nap.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE MARKET PLACE***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 15534-8.txt or 15534-8.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/5/3/15534
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+