d because of him at the battle of
Waterloo. And as I sat in the gallery of the Senate, Webster, Calhoun,
Hale, Cass, and Douglas reminded me of this hallucination. They seemed
to me like flies at the windowpane of Texas and California and Oregon,
beating their wings against the dark glass of the future. They were like
insects, caught in the rich gluten of circumstances and buzzing as they
sought to make their way.

This winter sad news came to me of the death of my dear grandmother,
whom I had planned all along to see again. Now it could not be. My life
had been hurried forward with such varied events, and with all the
rapidity of America's development. I had worked with great industry in
putting the farm on a paying basis. I had run at high speed in Chicago.
I was still living fast in plans and activities. Douglas was full of
the subject of railroad extension, and I was drawn into that. He was
trying to formulate a plan for the Illinois Central railroad; and my
interests in Chicago drew me to that plan. He was also talking of
founding a university in Chicago. These were the subjects of our many
talks. Our visits took place at his house or at mine, as he rarely went
with me to the places of amusement which I frequented.

A theatrical company had come to Washington from New York which was
playing in repertoire, _Jack Sheppard_, _Don Cesar de Bazan_, _His Last
Legs_, _London Assurance_, _Old Heads and Young Hearts_, and some other
dramas. Dorothy and Mrs. Douglas were devotees of the theater. I enjoyed
_Richelieu_ and _Macbeth_, and I had seen Forrest as Sir Charles
Overreach and Claude Melnotte; but for many of the plays I did not care.
Douglas was indifferent to the theater. He was himself too much of a
player on the stage of American affairs to be illusioned by any mimic
representation.

On a night when Dorothy and I were dining with Douglas and Mrs. Douglas,
Dorothy and Mrs. Douglas conceived the idea of going off to see the play
of _Charlotte Temple_; for we had overflowed the lesser talk at the
dinner table by our discussion of railroads. Accordingly they left us,
and Douglas and I settled down to an intimate evening, of which we were
beginning to have many. We set a quart bottle of whisky between us,
drinking from it from time to time as the evening progressed. Both of
us had a fair capacity. And without either of us becoming more than well
stimulated, we nearly consumed the bottle by the time Mrs. Douglas and
D