Page 66 - THE SCARLET LETTER

The Scarlet Letter

malice and revenge has never distinguished the many
triumphs of my own party as it now did that of the Whigs.
The Democrats take the offices, as a general rule, because
they need them, and because the practice of many years

has made it the law of political warfare, which unless a
different system be proclaimed, it was weakness and
cowardice to murmur at. But the long habit of victory has
made them generous. They know how to spare when they
see occasion; and when they strike, the axe may be sharp
indeed, but its edge is seldom poisoned with ill-will; nor is
it their custom ignominiously to kick the head which they
have just struck off.
In short, unpleasant as was my predicament, at best, I
saw much reason to congratulate myself that I was on the
losing side rather than the triumphant one. If, heretofore, l
had been none of the warmest of partisans I began now, at
this season of peril and adversity, to be pretty acutely
sensible with which party my predilections lay; nor was it
without something like regret and shame that, according
to a reasonable calculation of chances, I saw my own
prospect of retaining office to be better than those of my
democratic brethren. But who can see an inch into
futurity beyond his nose? My own head was the first that
fell

65 of 394