It is thirty years now since the great Chicago fire swept my fortune away.  I saved one lot out of the wreck.  A skyscraper wanted it to complete its necessary ground space.  So I leased it; and the rental keeps me.  The lease will be out in 1989—­but no matter for that.  Between 1871 and 1890 I had a hard time of it.  I tried to repair my fortune and couldn’t do it.  Then the building of skyscrapers struck Chicago, and I came into an income through this lease.  I have a good room at the boarding house and all I wish of everything.  Perhaps I shall revise my will and leave something to Miss Sharpe.  I should like to depart from the customary bequests to hospitals and colleges.  If the University founded by Douglas had not been taken over by the money made by the Standard Oil Company I might give something to it.  Some say that the University stands for spiritual hardness, a Darwinian scientific which distinguished Douglas, but I am not sure.  Yes, I believe I shall revise my will in favor of Miss Sharpe.  Sometimes I suspect that she wants to marry me.  She talks of nothing but the soul, as Isabel did in Rome.  I am sure I have plenty of soul.  I have no one else to give my money to but Miss Sharpe.  My boy died in the middle sixties.

As for the rest, they are all gone.  Zoe and I lived happily together until the rage of the influenza in 1889; then she died.  Mr. Williams, Abigail, Aldington passed away and were buried in a cemetery about a mile north of the river.  Then their bodies were removed somewhere, for the cemetery was turned into a park.  Lincoln Park it is now.  Reverdy, Sarah, gave up the battle years ago.  They went to sleep by the side of their son, Amos, who was killed in the battle of Belmont.  Their other children are scattered to unknown quarters.  I know not if they live.

A strange thing happened yesterday.  Mr. Williams’ grandson called upon me.  He is going to South Africa with a load of mules for the British.  Almost every one in America wants the Boers put down.  He asked me to go along and for a moment I took him seriously.  The adventurer in me arose.  Then I became conscious of my stiff legs.  Besides was I ever much of an adventurer after all?  Why did I not travel in the splendid forties and the leisurely fifties?  Still I believe I have had as much out of life as Cecil Rhodes.  He started out to be rich.  So did I. He got diamonds and gold.  I got land.  He wished to see England world-triumphant.  I wanted to see America an ocean-bound republic.  I followed Douglas.  He was inspired by Ruskin.  For Ruskin had fired young Rhodes at Oxford with these words:  “England must found colonies as fast and as far as she is able, formed of her most energetic and worthy men; seizing every piece of fruitful waste ground she can set her foot on, and there teaching her colonists that their chief virtue is to be fidelity to their country, and that their first aim is to be to advance the power of England by land and by sea.”