as if "the noblest part of man had been left out of my composition or had decayed out of it since my nature was given to my own keeping." Yet he tries to be just to his experience, and adds what he thought the good of it had been:—
"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 fit 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 portion 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 earthly cavern, where I am now buried, nothing will cling to me that ought to be left behind."
The rebellion, nevertheless, continued, and as the spring came on the Custom House is a "darksome dungeon," where he "murders the joyful young day," quenching the sunshine; when he shall be free again, he thinks, he will enjoy all things anew like a child of five, and "go forth and stand in a summer shower, and all the worldly dust that has collected on me shall be washed away
