The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-02-09
9. On Being a Washington Clerk

. ON Being a Washington Clerk, "a.
We are indebted to the Washington
correspondent of the Mack-a-cheek Press
for the following graphic sketch OF the
career, trials and tribulations ola Wash.
ington clerk. Many will recognize and
fully appreciate it's lights and shadows
ss, Sir, Washington is the devil-fish de
scribed by Victor Hugo. 1 have been
fourteen Years struggling in its embra-
ser. 1t sucks your blood with Its
myriad paralyzing mouths of landlords,
grocers, bakers and butchers, its wood,
vendors and coal dealers. When L
came here first, fresh from the Miami
Valley, had blood in my veins was
young, sir, and felt the impulses OF
youth. My coming here was the first
yielding to temptation. My purpose,
as l held it then, was to get little
capital to begin life. All, as Burns has
said, "the one false step is ne'er retriev-
ed" The sap is gone out Of me, sir; L
am no longer young. am in the grip
of the terrible vice, and the iron has
entered nv soul-and it is not a tonic.
Sir, this office-holding business is indeed
a vice-a vice that described by Pope,
such,
GAS to be hated needs but to be seen,
But seen too oft, familiar with its face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace"
We do not see the vice at first; it is
the tempting mask we see-the rouged
face of the terrible syren-soon we de-
tect the wretched features underneath,
which we endure from certain force
of incipient habit then comes feeling
of pity indescribable-it is hardly self
pity then we embrace it for good, in
fact we have all the while been embra-
cling it! Come to w ashington for a
clerkship? Go to the devil, sir, at
once! I have been here sir, as l said
before, for fourteen years l am forty
years old. The heats of youth cooled
off on the anxiety of small salary; the
strength of manhood has ebbed in the
pinching trials of caring for a large
family. Never the cheerful warmth
of competency in doors-always the
chill winds of poverty, prohesying
starvation, out Of doors; for, the fact
that there comes day when the noun
ers mourning the loss of their Offices
go about the steets, is always in your
waking first thought, and always in your
last consciousness before sleeping,
My friend, you are young-look at
these gray and palsy-shaken fellows f.;
they are clerk-grown old. Ask any one
of them how it has been with him; he
will tell you that he has been living
from year to year with the constant
dread Of hearing the official voice say
Through the nervous lips of the yellow
envelope) eco" Go! Whittier will
he go? The props of selfsupport are
taken away when you accept an office;
the longer you remain, the weaker and
more helpless you become-there will
dawn a morning when the almond
bough shall flourish and the grasshop-
per shall be burden and desire shall |
tail. Business and the ways of the |
world have grown long unfamiliar;
you are distrusted by your friends-you |
will be so unhappy, because of too lit
tie lmportance,) as not to have or de- |
serve an enemy. He who trusts in
Providence and does nothing himself
but trust, is not worthy of human conf
lence, and the gods will fout at him.
"Put your shoulder to the wheel,
first, and I will help you," was said
by Jupiter to the driver of stalled
wagon, who sat down upon the fence
md prayed the god to give him lift.
SO home. Go to work. BE a man.
But, suppose you get an office; what
hen? You come here and go to board
NC. Then after while you get mar
red you go to boarding with your
wife. That little paradise where two
ire met together and have one lite-I
mean home, sir-you will never see. 1
nave an old friend who has been living
mere, boarding here, forty years. ex-
pressed my surprise one day, that with
lis family he should never have taken
house. ooh, You know, Henry, have
only been living here temporarily" was
lis answer. Temporarily! That is it,
everything is temporary here, sir. There
S a wind in Dante's Hell that, by fits
md starts, sweeps certain lovers away
hey cannot pause and rest. That dread
al wind blows in Washington, strand
ook at these treasury clerks, men and
how soon they will feel that
breath which indeed bloweth whittier
and when) it listeth Temporarily,
ir!''
WuAT P1Nr OF WIIIcEEv NoCr