Lottery tickets were openly sold. Negroes thronged
the streets. They were the domestic servants, the laborers, the hackmen.
A raggedness, a poverty, a shiftlessness, characterized external
Washington. Washington was not Chicago.
We found that Douglas had settled himself handsomely with his young and
charming wife. He entertained a great deal, and was entertained in turn.
We dined back and forth with each other. And because of Mrs. Douglas'
friendship Dorothy found her social pleasures assured and advanced.
Washington like other cities in America was struggling out of the earth.
The whole country was in a similar throe. Everywhere were great dreams
partly realized. One could not help but imagine what the nation would
become, just as one could not look at the unfinished Capitol at the end
of Pennsylvania Avenue without completing its lines in imagination.
We had come to New York City by boat, as I had gone to Chicago by boat
in 1833; but in New York we had taken a train to Philadelphia, claimed
our baggage at the station, transferred to another station, and taken
another train through Baltimore to Washington. The cities of the East
were now in telegraphic communication with each other: Washington with
Baltimore and New York; Philadelphia and Newark were joined. Polk's
election had been flashed by the telegraph.
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