"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, corr