Domestic
sorrows had been the prelude to a change of policy, which had aroused a
bitter opposition, and to the pangs of disappointed ambition. A sense of
mistake and failure hung heavily upon his spirits, and the cry of "vanity,
vanity, all is vanity," came readily to his lips. There is an infinite
pathos in those melancholy words which have just been quoted. The sun of
life, which had shone so splendidly at its meridian, was setting amid
clouds. The darkness which overspread him came from the action of the 7th
of March, and the conflict which it had caused. If there were failure and
mistake they were there. The presidency could add nothing, its loss could
take away nothing from the fame of Daniel Webster. He longed for it
eagerly; he had sacrificed much to his desire for it; his disappointment
was keen and bitter at not receiving what seemed to him the fit crown of
his great public career. But this grief was purely personal, and will not
be shared by posterity, who feel only the errors of those last years coming
after so much glory, and who care very little for the defeat of the
ambition which went with them.
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