[Footnote: As a literary performance, the book is of course but slightly
characteristic; and being distasteful to the author, it is even dry. Yet
there is a great deal of simple dignity about it. The Whig journals
belabored it manfully, and exhausted the resources of those formidable
weapons, italics and small capitals, in the attempt to throw a
ridiculous light on the facts most creditable to Pierce. Hawthorne came
in for a share of the abuse too. One newspaper called the book his "new
romance"; another made him out a worthy disciple of Simonides, who was
the first poet to write for money. The other party, of course, took
quite another view of the work. A letter to Hawthorne from his elder
sister bears well upon his fidelity. "Mr. D---- has bought your Life of
Pierce, but he will not be convinced that you have told the precise
truth. I assure him that it is just what I have always heard you say."]
He had not much hope of his friend's election, but when that occurred,
the question of office, which he had already mooted, was definitely
brought before him. When Pierce learned that he positively would not
take an office, because to do so now might compromise him, he was
extremely troubled. He had looked forward to giving Hawthorne some one
of the prizes in his hand, if he should be elected. But the service he
had exacted from his friend threatened to deprive Hawthorne of the very
benefit which Pierce had been most anxious he should receive. At last,
Mr.
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