dismal region. A salt or even a coal-ship is ten million
times preferable; for there the sky is above me, and the
fresh breeze around me, and my thoughts having hardly
anything to do with my occupation, are as free as air.
Nevertheless ... it is only once in a while that the image
and desire of a better and happier life makes me feel the
iron of my chain; for after all a human spirit may find no
insufficiency of food for it, even in the Custom-house. And
with such materials as these I do think and feel and learn
things that are worth knowing, and which I should not know
unless I had learned them there; so that the present
position of my life shall not be quite left out of the sum
of my real existence.... It is good for me, on many
accounts, that my life has had this passage in it. I know
much more than I did a year ago. I have a stronger sense of
power to act as a man among men. I have gained worldly
wisdom, and wisdom also that is not altogether of this
world. And when I quit this earthy career where I am now
buried, nothing will cling to me that ought to be left
behind. Men will not perceive, I trust, by my look or the
tenor of my thoughts and feelings, that I have been a
Custom-house officer."

He says, writing shortly afterwards, that "when I shall be free again,
I will enjoy all things with the fresh simplicity of a child of five
years old. I shall grow young again, made all over anew. I will go
forth and stand in a summer shower, and all the worldly dust that has
collected on me shall be washed away at once, and my heart will be
like a bank of fresh flowers for the weary to rest upon."