He
has no reproaches for any one except disunionists. He has become
impersonal on all things but the Union. I know that the end is near for
him. No one can speak so who is not prompted by Death.
He has fallen ill at his hotel in this Chicago that he loved and dowered
with a university and linked to the South with a great railroad in the
interests of peace and a firmer Union. I go to see him. Mrs. Douglas
cannot admit me. He is unconscious of those around him, but his soul is
at work. "Telegraph to the President and let the column move on." "Stand
for the Union." "The West, this great ..."
I go into the mad streets so grief-stricken, so alone. Dorothy is long
dead. Isabel is lost to me. My boy is away. My home is haunted with
loneliness. I would be rich if Douglas was to be too. Now he is rich, I
am poor; he is poor, I am rich. Men are marching, bugles calling. The
city roars. At the foot of Clark Street I see the masts of scores of
sailing craft. Chicago has become a great mart.
The June sky is blue and cool, and great white clouds sail through it so
indifferently. They were here when I first came to Chicago; here when
the French explored the wilderness. Here they are now just the same; and
Illinois has more than a million souls, and every heart carries the
burden of war. Over them this sky, these clouds.
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