comparative sunshine, or, at least his clouds were not close about him.
His will was steel, that day. Nevertheless, a friend who visited him
in January, to talk over their days together, found not only that "the
old-time zest" was lacking, but that it was replaced by "gloom and
despondency."(8) The ghosts that hovered so frequently at the back of
his mind, the brooding tendencies which fed upon his melancholy and
made him at times irresolute, were issuing from the shadows, trooping
forward, to encompass him roundabout.

In the midst of this spiritual reaction, he was further depressed by the
stern news from the South and from Washington. His refusal to compromise
was beginning to bear fruit. The Gulf States seceded. A Southern
Confederacy was formed. There is no evidence that he lost faith in
his course, but abundant evidence that he was terribly unhappy. He was
preyed upon by his sense of helplessness, while Buchanan through his
weakness and vacillation was "giving away the case." "Secession is being
fostered," said he, "rather than repressed, and if the doctrine meets
with general acceptance in the Border States, it will be a great blow to
the government."(9) He did not deceive himself upon the possible effect
of his ultimatum, and sent word to General Scott to be prepared to hold
or to "retake" the forts garrisoned by Federal troops in the Southern
States.(10)

All the while his premonition of the approach of doom grew more darkly
oppressive. The trail of the artist is discernible across his thoughts.
In his troubled imagination he identified his own situation with that of
the protagonist in tragedies on the theme of fate. He did not withhold
his thoughts from the supreme instance. That same friend who found him
possessed of gloom preserved these words of his: "I have read on my
knees the story of Gethsemane, when the Son of God prayed in vain