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The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne Author:Nathaniel Hawthorne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: i Surveyor of the Customs. That was all. But, never- theless, it is anything but agreeable to be haunted by a suspicion that one's intellect is dw... more »indling away ; or exhaling, without your consciousness, like ether out of a phial; so that, at every glance, you find a smaller and less volatile residuum. Of the fact there could be no doubt; and, examining myself and others, I was ' led to conclusions, in reference to the effect of public office on the character, not very favorable to the mode of life in question. In some other form, perhaps, I may hereafter develop these effects. Suffice it here to say, that a Custom House officer, of long continu- ance, can hardly be a very praiseworthy or respectable personage, for many reasons; one of them, the tenure by which he holds his situation, and another, the very nature of his business, which -- though, I trust, an honest one -- is of such a sort that he does not share in the united effort of mankind. An effect -- which I believe to be observable, more or less, in every individual who has occupied the position -- is, that, while he leans on the mighty arm of the Republic, his own proper strength departs from him. He loses, in an extent proportioned to the weakness or force of his original nature, the capability of self-support. If he possess an unusual share of native energy, or the enervating magic of place do not operate too long upon him, his forfeited powers may be redeemable. The ejected officer -- fortunate in the unkindly shove that sends him forth betimes to struggle amid a struggling world -- may return to himself, and become all that he has ever been. But this seldom happens. He usually keeps his ground just long enough for his own ruin, an...« less