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.
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