pressiveness 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
assoc