"I trust to Heaven no change whatever will be made in regard to the emoluments of the Liverpool consulate, unless indeed a salary is to be given in addition to the fees, in which case I should receive it very thankfully. This, however, is not to be expected.... A fixed salary (even if it should be larger than any salary now paid by government, with the exception of the President's own) will render the office not worth any man's holding. It is impossible (especially for a man with a family and keeping any kind of an establishment) not to spend a vast deal of money here. The office, unfortunately, is regarded as one of great dignity, and puts the holder on a level with the highest society, and compels him to associate on equal terms with men who spend more than my whole income on the mere entertainments and other trimmings and embroideries of their lives. Then I am bound to exercise some hospitality toward my own countrymen. I keep out of society as much as I decently can, and really practise as stern an economy as ever I did in my life; but nevertheless I have spent many thousands of dollars in the few months of my residence here, and cannot reasonably hope to spend less than $6,000 per annum, even after the expense of setting up an establishment is defrayed. All this is for the merely indispensable part of my living; and unless I make a hermit of myself and deprive my wife and children of all the pleasures and advantages of an English residence, I must inevitably exceed the sum named above.... It would be the easiest thing in the world for me to run in debt, even taking my income at $15,000" (out of which all the clerks and certain other office expenses had to be paid), ... "the largest sum that it ever reached in Crittenden's time. He had no family but a wife, and lived constantly at a boarding-house, and, nevertheless, went away (as he assured me) with an aggregate of only $25,000 derived from his savings. "Now the American public can never be made to understand such a statement as the above; and they would grumble awfully if more than $6,000 per annum were allowed for a consul's salary." But Hawthorne concludes that it would not compensate him to retain the place with a salary even of $10,000; and that if the emoluments should be reduced from their then proportions, "the incumbent must be compelled to turn his official position to account by engaging in commerce--a course which ought not to be permitted, and which no Liverpool consul has ever adopted."