He was hunted and traduced!  Moralists prattled of his lack of a moral nature; envy tracked him, shooting from ambush!  He had become rich and famous.  He was the first man in his party.  He was young and full of power.  He might be President.  The sanctimonious quoted Scripture against him.  “Where a man’s treasure is, there will be his heart also,” said an enemy in the Senate, referring to the fact that Douglas had married a woman who was a slave owner.  Douglas had replied in these manly and tender words:  “God forbid that I should be understood by any one as being willing to cast from me any responsibility that now does or has ever attached to any member of-my family.  So long as life shall last and I shall cherish with religious veneration the memories and virtues of the sainted mother of my children—­so long as my heart shall be filled with paternal solicitude for the happiness of those motherless infants, I implore my enemies who so ruthlessly invade the domestic sanctuary to do me the favor to believe that I have no wish, no aspiration to be considered purer or better than she, who was, or they who are slaveholders.”

It was while I was in New Orleans that Douglas wrote me a letter regarding the Presidency.  “I do not wish to occupy that position,” he said.  “I think that such a state of things will exist that I shall not desire the nomination.  Yet I do not intend to do any act which will deprive me of the control of my own action.  Our first duty is to the cause—­the fate of individual politicians is of minor consequence.  The party is in a distracted condition, and it requires all our wisdom, prudence, and energy to consolidate its power and perpetuate its principles.”

It was this letter that stirred my reflections as I went about New Orleans reading of conditions in Europe and foolishly searching for Zoe.  Moreover, I was beginning to be tired of everything in America, and particularly worn with New Orleans.  I longed to be back in Chicago in the fresh air by the lake, away from the steam, the heat, the sensual atmosphere of this southern city.  Yet Dorothy could not just now venture into the changeable climate of Lake Michigan.  I was forced to stay on for her sake.  I continued my wanderings and my thoughts about the city, guiding my business interests in Chicago by correspondence.

But at last we started.

CHAPTER XLVII

I wanted to stop on the way to see Reverdy and Sarah.  I had a call to the renewal of the old days, to an overlooking of the farm, the places I had first known in Illinois.  But as Dorothy wished to be home, to settle into a regular life of comfort at once, I had to take her to Chicago and then return later to Jacksonville.  Before leaving I had several conferences with Mr. Williams about our joint interests; and we talked of Douglas too.