An effect--which I believe to be observable, more or less, in
every individual who has occupied the position--is, that while
he leans on the mighty arm of the Republic, his own proper
strength departs from him. He loses, in an extent proportioned
to the weakness or force of his original nature, the capability
of self-support. If he possesses an unusual share of native
energy, or the enervating magic of place do not operate too long
upon him, his forfeited powers may be redeemable. The ejected
officer--fortunate in the unkindly shove that sends him forth
betimes, to struggle amid a struggling world--may return to
himself, and become all that he has ever been. But this seldom
happens. He usually keeps his ground just long enough for his
own ruin, and is then thrust out, with sinews all unstrung, to
totter along the difficult footpath of life as he best may.
Conscious of his own infirmity--that his tempered steel and
elasticity are lost--he for ever afterwards looks wistfully
about him in quest of support external to himself. His pervading
and continual hope--a hallucination, which, in the face of all
discouragement, and making light of impossibilities, haunts him
while he lives, and, I fancy, like the convulsive throes of the
cholera, torments him for a brief space after death--is, that
finally, and in no long time, by some happy coincidence of
circumstances, he shall be restored to office.
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