this was a life which could not with
impunity be lived too long; else, it might have made me permanently
other than I had been without transforming me into any shape which it
would be worth my while to take. But I never considered it as other
than a transitory life. There was always a prophetic instinct, a low
whisper in my ear, that, within no long period, and whenever a new
change of custom should be essential to my good, a change would come.

Meanwhile, there I was, a Surveyor of the Revenue, and, so far as I
have been able to understand, as good a Surveyor as need be. A man of
thought, fancy, and sensibility (had he ten times the Surveyor's
proportion of those qualities) may, at any time, be a man of affairs,
if he will only choose to give himself the trouble. My fellow-officers,
and the merchants and sea-captains with whom my official duties
brought me into any manner of connection, viewed me in no other light,
and probably knew me in no other character. None of them, I presume,
had ever read a page of my inditing, or would have cared a fig the
more for me, if they had read them all; nor would it have mended the
matter, in the least, had those same unprofitable pages been written
with a pen like that of Burns or of Chaucer, each of whom was a
custom-house officer in his day, as well as I. It is a good
lesson--though it may often be a hard one--for a man who has dreamed
of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world's
dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in
which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of
significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he
aims at. I know not that I especially needed the lesson, either in the
way of warning or rebuke; but, at any rate, I learned it thoroughly:
nor, it gives me pleasure to reflect, did the truth, as it came home
to my perception, ever cost me a pang, or require to be thrown off in
a sigh. In the way of literary talk, it is true, the Naval Officer--an
excellent fellow, who came into office with me and went out only a
little later--would often engage me in a discussion about one or the
other of his favorite topics, Napoleon or Shakespeare. The Collector's
junior clerk, too--a young gentleman who, it was whispered,
occasionally covered a sheet of Uncle Sam's letter-paper with what (at
the distance of a few yards) looked very much like poetry--used now
and then to speak to me of books, a