Hamilton sat motionless for some moments, the blood returning to his
face, for he was seething with fury and disgust.
"The hounds!" he said aloud, then again and again. He was alone, and he
never had conquered his youthful habit of muttering to himself. "I can
see Monroe leaping, not walking, to the jail, the moment he learned of a
chance to incriminate me. The heels at the end of those long legs must
have beaten the powder from his queue. And this is what a man is to
expect so long as he remains in public life--if he succeeds. He resigns
a large income, reduces his family almost to poverty, works himself half
to death, rescues the country from contempt, launches it upon the sea of
prosperity; and his public rewards are more than counterbalanced by the
persecutions of his enemies. I have been on the defensive from the
moment I entered public life. Scarcely a week but I have been obliged to
parry some poisoned arrow or pluck it out and cauterize. The dreams of
my youth! They never soared so high as my present attainment, but
neither did they include this constant struggle with the vilest
manifestations of which the human nature is capable.
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