stairway goes up indefinitely, and at
last becomes lost in the sky of the future, like the beanstalk of Jack
the Giant-killer. All this sounds quite materialistic, and as if I was
without hope, but I am not materialistic, or despairing of the future. I
know that matter cannot be explained without resorting to such concepts
as force, causation, action, and reaction. And these are the ideas of
the mind. And I think of matter and of history in terms of action and
reaction. The mind of man is the most wonderful thing that we know
anything about, and its secret is the secret of the universe. Having
never been happy myself, I am not a disciple of eudemonism; but I see
life as struggle and change; and though I do not know what it means, I
know thought will not be at rest, that hopes will not cease, and that
dreams of liberty will fascinate the minds of future Lincolns and
Douglases.

The masons are eating their luncheon. I arise to go to Douglas' tomb.
The young woman says: "I wonder who that old man is? He has been sitting
right there all morning."

I wonder myself who I am. I take my way feebly up the stone steps to the
grated door of the tomb. I look through. There lies the sarcophagus
which contains the bones of Stephen A. Douglas. There was no truer,
braver man in his time, and no abler.

I put my spectacles on, for I cannot see well into the tomb. Yes, there
are the words: "Tell my children to obey the laws and support the
Constitution." No, I do not subscribe to that. I believe in liberty and
not law. Douglas' popular sovereignty was more liberty than it was law.
These words on his tomb must have been spoken by him with reference to
the preservation of the Union. At any rate I do not believe in these
words. I accept instead Walt Whitman's admonition to the States: "Obey
little, resist much." What shall we obey at all, and where shall we
resist? You must decide that for yourself, or ask those about it who
still have the capacity for living.

I am old. Now I must go to luncheon and then take my afternoon nap.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE MARKET PLACE***

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