In this unpleasant state of his domestic relations, the character of
Captain Wilde Seemed to undergo an entire transformation. From being
remarkable for his love of quiet retirement, he became restless and
dissatisfied; and instead of laughing, as formerly, at public employment
as only vanity and vexation, he, now that a greater vexation assailed
him in his once peaceful home, eagerly sought relief, not, as a younger
or less virtuous man might have done, in dissipation, but in the
distractions of public business. But here again his evil fortune granted
the desired boon in a shape pregnant with future disaster. The hostility
of Mrs. Wilde's family, which had now become deeply excited,--combined
with his own political heterodoxy,--forbade any hope of attaining a
place by popular choice; and in an evil hour his friends succeeded in
procuring him the office of exciseman.

Now there is no peculiarity more marked in all the branches of the
Anglo-Saxon race than the extreme impatience with which they submit to
any direct interference of the government in the private affairs of the
citizens; and no form of such interference has ever been so generally
odious as the excise, and, by consequence, no officer so generally
detested as the exciseman. This feeling, on account of the very large
number of persons engaged in distilling, was then formidably strong in
Kentucky,--all the more so that this form of taxation was a favorite
measure of the existing Federal Administration. Those who ventured to
accept so hateful an office at the hands of so hated a government were
sure to make themselves highly unpopular. In time, when the people began
to learn their own strength and the weakness of the authorities,
the enforcement of the law became dangerous, and at last altogether
impossible. The writer has been told, by a gentleman holding a
responsible position under our judicial system, that the name of his
grandfather--the last Kentucky exciseman--to this day stands charged on
the government-books with thousands of dollars arrears, although he was
a man of great courage and not at all likely to be deterred from the
discharge of his duty by any ordinary obstacle.

Such was the place sought and obtained by the unfortunate Wilde as
a refuge from domestic wretchedness. The consequence it was easy to
foresee. In a few months, he who had been accustomed to universal
good-will became an object of almost as general dislike; and as people
are apt