States, did it not behoove me to draw upon the country’s increasing prosperity and to help to increase it?  Texas did not matter.  I did not fancy the institution of slavery.  It grated upon my sensibilities; but I had a very slight understanding of it in the concrete.  I was glad that England was rid of it.  I had never admired the Wesleys, the Methodists; but I was glad to give them credit for what they had done to relieve England of such an abomination.  I rejoiced that more than seven years before I was born Clarkson and Wilberforce had brought about the abolition of this traffic from the land of my nativity and its dependencies.

Then here was Zoe.  If I was indifferent to slavery I had to be logical and be indifferent to her becoming a subject of barter.  At least what, but a sentimental reason, could I set up against the enforced servitude of Zoe?  What did it matter in point of justice and civilization that the South could not carry on her commercial interests without slavery?  Was trade everything?  Were the merchants the leaders of civilization?  Were merchants to be permitted to do what they chose in order that they might create wealth for themselves, or even the nation?  In a word, was wealth everything?  My Adam Smith had said no, and I had already read that.  He had classified banks of issue, colonialism, and slavery, as well as some other things as equal parts of a mercantile program.  I was, therefore, inclined to dissent from any plan that included any one of these things.  And still I was swept along by the torrent of Douglas’ thinking.  His vision enthralled me.  His outlook upon the country, its increasing power and wealth, fascinated my imagination.  Was I not resolved to be rich myself?  And for moments I was under the spell of his great power.  He was a world thinker, but with his own country forefronted in the playing of a colossal part.  It appealed to my English blood, that blood which does great deeds through great vision, and then repents the iniquities along the way and corrects them at last.  And who was Douglas in spirit?  Nothing less than the English genius.  And so my feelings were mixed, but admiration for him predominated.  I felt his edge and did not like it; his audacity and resented it; his power and rebelled against it; his brusqueness and shrank from it; his emphasis upon power and supremacy, and felt that he might be overlooking finer powers and more lasting triumphs.  But his eyes were full of kindly lights, in spite of their intellectual penetration; and he was charming to the last degree.

He stood up.  I was a head taller than he.  But his torso belonged to a giant, and his head.  We all arose.  And after a time, saying that he was spending his evenings in the study of law, he took his leave.

CHAPTER XI

The autumn was coming on.  The cholera had abated.  The air was cool and fresh.  The country was taking fire from the colors of the changing year.  And I was feeling more rugged than I had ever felt in my life.