The Scarlet Letter

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.