One afternoon we went to hear Senator Wright speak.  He was to answer Calhoun on a detail of the banking laws.  The floor and galleries were filled.  With what emotion I saw him rise and begin his argument as all ears bent to hear him!  He aimed not at popular sentiments in highly finished rhetoric, as did Webster, to be quoted in the school-books and repeated on every platform.  But no words of mine—­and I have used many in the effort—­are able to convey a notion of the masterful ease and charm of his manner on the floor of the Senate or of the singular modesty, courtesy, aptness and simplicity of his words as they fell from his lips.  There were the thunderous Webster, the grandeur of whose sentences no American has equaled; the agile-minded Clay, whose voice was like a silver clarion; the farseeing, fiery Calhoun, of “the swift sword”—­most formidable in debate—­but I was soon to learn that neither nor all of these men—­gifted of heaven so highly—­could cope with the suave, incisive, conversational sentences of Wright, going straight to the heart of the subject and laying it bare to his hearers.  That was what people were saying as we left the Senate chamber, late in the evening; that, indeed, was what they were always saying after they had heard him answer an adversary.

He had a priceless and unusual talent for avoiding school-reader English and the arts of declamation and for preparing a difficult subject to enter the average brain.  The underlying secret of his power was soon apparent to me.  He stood always for that great thing in America which, since then, Whitman has called “the divine aggregate,” and seeing clearly how every measure would be likely to affect its welfare, he followed the compass.  It had led him to a height of power above all others and was to lead him unto the loneliest summit of accomplishment in American history.

Not much in my term of service there is important to this little task of mine.  I did my work well, if I may believe the Senator, and grew familiar with the gentle and ungentle arts of the politician.

One great fact grew in magnitude and sullen portent as the months passed:  the gigantic slave-holding interests of the South viewed with growing alarm the spread of abolition sentiment.  Subtly, quietly and naturally they were feeling for the means to defend and increase their power.  Straws were coming to the surface in that session which betrayed this deep undercurrent of purpose.  We felt it and the Senator was worried I knew, but held his peace.  He knew how to keep his opinions until the hour had struck that summoned them to service.  The Senator never played with his lance.  By and by Spencer openly sounded the note of conflict.

The most welcome year of my life dawned on the first of January, 1844.  I remember that I arose before daylight that morning and dressed and went out on the street to welcome it.

I had less than six months to wait for that day appointed by Sally.  I had no doubt that she would be true to me.  I had had my days of fear and depression, but always my sublime faith in her came back in good time.