m."

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
decl