At one end
of the room, in a recess, were a number of barrels piled one
upon another, containing bundles of official documents. Large
quantities of similar rubbish lay lumbering the floor. It was
sorrowful to think how many days, and weeks, and months, and
years of toil had been wasted on these musty papers, which were
now only an encumbrance on earth, and were hidden away in this
forgotten corner, never more to be glanced at by human eyes. But
then, what reams of other manuscripts--filled, not with the
dulness of official formalities, but with the thought of
inventive brains and the rich effusion of deep hearts--had gone
equally to oblivion; and that, moreover, without serving a
purpose in their day, as these heaped-up papers had,
and--saddest of all--without purchasing for their writers the
comfortable livelihood which the clerks of the Custom-House had
gained by these worthless scratchings of the pen. Yet not
altogether worthless, perhaps, as materials of local history.
Here, no doubt, statistics of the former commerce of Salem might
be discovered, and memorials of her princely merchants--old King
Derby--old Billy Gray--old Simon Forrester--and many another
magnate in his day, whose powdered head, however, was scarcely
in the tomb before his mountain pile of wealth began to dwindle.
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