that I can think of you as my friend and I trust can write to you as I hope you will write to me.  Let us face the reality and consider that after all we have the sweetest and best of things that can be between a man and a woman.  If I can ever help you in any way I shall be so glad.  I sense somehow that you may fear me, thinking that you have become indifferent in my eyes.  This is not true.  I cannot too often assure you of this.  I hope for good things for you and your Reverdy.  Give my love to him from ‘Mamma Isabel’ and believe me, affectionately, Isabel.”

And I wrote to Isabel:  “Some of your admonitions came too late to me, for I am interested in politics again.  I have just returned from Alton where I went to hear Douglas debate against a Mr. Lincoln, a lawyer of Springfield, who has been nominated for Senator by the Republicans.  He is as much of a backwoodsman as anybody could be, as much so as Harrison and a good deal more so than Taylor.  But he is not to be despised either in himself or on account of his backers.  The Republican party in Illinois profits by the feeling of the German revolutionnaires; and Lincoln may be ever so poor and so humble, nevertheless the Republican party has drawn to itself some of the richest and most powerful interests in the country; interests which are far-sighted enough to see that if the Republican party can be put into power the mercantile ambition of the North to control the South and the whole country will be realized.  No human being could have been a greater orator than Douglas was at Alton; while Lincoln, in spite of disadvantages of voice and manner and physique, rose to great heights of eloquence.  The climax of his speech was when he spoke of the world-old struggle between right and wrong.  I was swept off my feet for the moment and seemed to see in his face something of the genius of Pinturicchio.  Now I wonder if I was not befooled both as to the value of Lincoln’s utterance and as to his kinship with the great Italian artist.  After all I do not know what is right and wrong; and I do not believe any one else does.  I see that people get worked up into furies over what they think is right and wrong, and kill each other on account of it.  Later ages view the matter as of no importance; and the lives that are lost in the struggle are as forgotten as the multitudinous leaves which bestrew the ground of an autumnal forest.  I fear I am in a very bad state of mind.  It is true, as you intimate in your letter, that I am passing through a certain humiliation of spirit; and I am thus inclined to speculate on the value of all truths and philosophies.  I seem to see that material things control truths and influence our human natures in every way.  Our experience demonstrates this fact.  And in the case of Douglas and Lincoln, Douglas is quick to sense the moralistic hypocrisy with which the Republicans are draping their trafficking ambitions.  But, on the other hand, I believe that Lincoln is as honest