The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am
inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life.
Nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so
serious a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it,
if the sufferer will but make the best rather than the worst, of
the accident which has befallen him. In my particular case the
consolatory topics were close at hand, and, indeed, had
suggested themselves to my meditations a considerable time
before it was requisite to use them. In view of my previous
weariness of office, and vague thoughts of resignation, my
fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain
an idea of committing suicide, and although beyond his hopes,
meet with the good hap to be murdered. In the Custom-House, as
before in the Old Manse, I had spent three years--a term long
enough to rest a weary brain: long enough to break off old
intellectual habits, and make room for new ones: long enough,
and too long, to have lived in an unnatural state, doing what
was really of no advantage nor delight to any human being, and
withholding myself from toil that would, at least, have stilled
an unquiet impulse in me. Then, moreover, as regarded his
unceremonious ejectment, the late Surveyor was not altogether
ill-pleased to be recognised by the Whigs as an enemy; since his
inactivity in political affairs--his tendency to roam, at will,
in that broad and quiet field where all mankind may meet, rather
than confine himself to those narrow paths where brethren of the
same household must diverge from one another--had sometimes made
it questionable with his brother Democrats whether he was a
friend. Now, after he had won the crown of martyrdom (though
with no longer a head to wear it on), the point might be looked
upon as settled. Finally, little heroic as he was, it seemed
more decorous to be overthrown in the downfall of the party with
which he had been content to stand than to remain a forlorn
survivor, when so many worthier men were falling: and at last,
after subsisting for four years on the mercy of a hostile
administration, to be compelled then to define his position
anew, and claim the yet more humiliating mercy of a friendly
one.
Meanwhile, the press had taken up my affair, and kept me for a
week or two careering through the public prints, in my
decapitated state, like Irving's Headless Horseman, ghastly and
grim, and longing to be buried, as a political dead man ought.
So much for my figurative self. The real human being all this
time, with his head safely on his shoulders, had brought himself
to the comfortable conclusion that everything was for the best;
and making an investment in ink, paper, and steel pens, had
opened his long-disused writing desk, and was again a literary
man.