ations, he can yet
think of a friend at the antipodes who nurses a grievance against him;
and forthwith he sits down and writes five pages of generous,
affectionate remonstrance.[616] In the thick of an important campaign,
when countless demands are made upon his time, he finds a moment to
lay his hand upon the shoulder of a young German ward-politician with
the hearty word, "I count very much on your help in this
election."[617] If this was the art of a politician, it was art
reduced to artlessness.

Not least among the qualities which made Douglas a great, persuasive,
popular leader, was his quite extraordinary memory for names and
faces, and his unaffected interest in the personal life of those whom
he called his friends. "He gave to every one of those humble and
practically nameless followers the impression, the feeling, that he
was the frank, personal friend of each one of them."[618] Doubtless he
was well aware that there is no subtler form of flattery, than to call
individuals by name who believe themselves to be forgotten pawns in a
great game; and he may well have cultivated the profitable habit.
Still, the fact remains, that it was an innate temperamental quality
which made him frank and ingenuous in his intercourse with all sorts
and conditions of men.

Those who judged the man by the senator, often failed to understand
his temperament. He was known as a hard hitter in parliamentary
encounters. He never failed to give a Roland for an Oliver. In the
heat of debate, he was often guilty of harsh, bitter invective. His
manner betrayed a lack of fineness and good-breeding. But his
resentment vanished with the spoken word. He repented the barbed
shaft, the moment it quitted his bow. He would invite to his table the
very men with whom he had been in acrimonious controversy, and perhaps
renew the controversy next day. Greeley testified to this absence of
resentment. On a certain occasion, after the New York _Tribune_ had
attacked Douglas savagely, a mutual acquaintance asked Douglas if he
objected to meeting the redoubtable Greeley. "Not at all," was the
good-natured reply, "I always pay that class of political debts as I
go along, so as to have no trouble with them in social intercourse and
to leave none for my executors to settle."[619]

In the round of social functions which Senator and Mrs. Douglas
enjoyed, there was little time for quiet thought and reflection. Men
who met him night after night at receptions