Sarah Vowell Quotes

It's Worth Pointing Out That [Herman Melville] Worked In [the New York Custom House] As A Deputy Customs Inspector Between 1866 And 1885. Nineteen Years, And He Never Got A Raise - Four Dollars A Day, Six Days A Week. He Was By Then A Washed-up Writer, Forgotten And Poor. I Used To Find This Subject Heartbreaking, A Waste: The Greatest Living American Author Was Forced To Spend His Days Writing Tariff Reports Instead Of Novels. But Now, Knowing What I Know About The Sleaze Of The New York Custom House, And The Honorable If Bitter Decency With Which Melville Did His Job, I Have Come To Regard Literature's Loss As The Republic's Gain. Great Writers Are A Dime A Dozen In New York. But An Honest Customs Inspector In The Gilded Age? Unheard Of.

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