Then, moreover, the white locks of age were sometimes found to
be the thatch of an intellectual tenement in good repair. But,
as respects the majority of my corps of veterans, there will be
no wrong done if I characterize them generally as a set of
wearisome old souls, who had gathered nothing worth preservation
from their varied experience of life. They seemed to have flung
away all the golden grain of practical wisdom, which they had
enjoyed so many opportunities of harvesting, and most carefully
to have stored their memory with the husks. They spoke with far
more interest and unction of their morning's breakfast, or
yesterday's, to-day's, or tomorrow's dinner, than of the
shipwreck of forty or fifty years ago, and all the world's
wonders which they had witnessed with their youthful eyes.
The father of the Custom-House--the patriarch, not only of this
little squad of officials, but, I am bold to say, of the
respectable body of tide-waiters all over the United States--was
a certain permanent Inspector. He might truly be termed a
legitimate son of the revenue system, dyed in the wool, or
rather born in the purple; since his sire, a Revolutionary
colonel, and formerly collector of the port, had created an
office for him, and appointed him to fill it, at a period of the
early ages which few living men can now remember.
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