“You are quite right,” he said.  “And what I have most to be thankful for in life, is that I have never attracted that refuse of mankind who fawn and flatter; or have dismissed them in short order,” he added, with his usual regard for facts.  “Come and breakfast with me to-morrow.  Good night.”

He walked home quickly, told the servant at the door that he was not to be disturbed, and locked himself in his study.  He lit one candle, then threw himself into his revolving chair, and thought until the lines in his face deepened to the bone, and only his eyes looked alive.  He wasted no further regrets on the political consequences of his act.  What was done, was done.  Nor did he anticipate any such wholesale disaster as had distracted the Federalists since the morning issues.  He knew the force of habit and the tenacity of men’s minds.  His followers would be aghast, harshly critical for a day, then make every excuse that ingenuity could suggest, unite in his defence, and follow his lead with redoubled loyality.  His foresight had long since leaped to the end of this conflict, for the Democratic hordes had been augmenting for years; his own party was hopelessly divided and undermined by systematic slander.  To fight was second nature, no matter how hopeless the battle; but in those moments of almost terrifying prescience so common to him, he realized the inevitableness of the end, as history does to-day.  His only chance had been to placate Adams and recreate his enemy’s popularity.

The day never came when he was able to say that he might have done this at the only time when such action would have counted.  He had been inexorable until the pamphlet was flung to the public; and then, although he was hardly conscious of it at the moment, he was immediately dispossessed of the intensity of his bitterness toward Adams.  The revenge had been so terrible, so abrupt, that his hatred seemed disseminating in the stolen leaves fluttering through the city.  Therefore his mind was free for the appalling thought which took possession of it as Troup poured out his diatribe; and this thought was, that he was no longer conscious of any greatness in him.  Through all the conflicts, trials, and formidable obstacles of previous years he had been sustained by his consciousness of superlative gifts combined with loftiness of purpose.  Had not his greatness been dinned into his ears, he would have been as familiar with it.  But he seemed to himself to have shrivelled, his very soul might have been in ashes—­incremated in the flames of his passions.  He had triumphed over every one of his enemies in turn.  Historically he was justified, and had he accomplished the same end impersonally, they would have been the only sufferers, and in the just degree.  But he had boiled them in the vitriol of his nature; he had scarred them and warped them and destroyed their self-respect.  Had these raging passions been fed with other vitalities?  Had they ravaged his soul to nourish his demons?  Was that his punishment,—­an instance of the inexorable law of give and take?