art, 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