Three great men had fallen in Israel—an eminent clergyman, an eminent country representative, and an eminent dealer in salt-fish on Long Wharf. The Colonel was triply dolorous upon the matter; society, business, politics, had suffered an immense loss; a loss incalculable, irreparable, and so forth. I assured the Colonel there was no great cause for apprehension, for the world was pretty sure to turn round once in twenty-four hours, whether great men died or lived. “The fact is, Colonel,” said I, “great men may die as fast as they please for aught I care. I have never been frightened by the death of them since an adventure that happened to me in my ninth year, when I lived in the country.” “What is that?” asked the Colonel. “I’ll tell you,” said I. “On a certain day—a day never to be forgotten by me, news arrived in town that the Governor was dead. No sovereign prince, pontiff, or potentate on the face of the earth, ever appeared so gigantic and formidable to my childish eyes, as that harmless gentleman the Governor of Massachusetts. Imagine the shock occasioned by this announcement! Straightway the bells began tolling, people collected in groups, quidnuncs scoured from place to place, gossips chattered, children gaped in dumb astonishment, and old women with dismal faces ran about croaking ‘The Governor is dead!’ “To me these things seemed to betoken the general wreck of nature, for how the order of the universe could subsist after the death of the Governor, was beyond my comprehension. I expected the sun and moon to fall, the stars to shoot from their spheres, and my grandfather’s mill-pond to upset. The horrible forebodings under which I lay down to sleep that night, are not to be described, and it was a long time ere I could close my eyes. In the morning I was awakened by a dreadful rumbling noise. ‘The Governor is dead!’ I exclaimed, starting up in a terrible fright. The noise continued: I listened, and discovered it to be nothing more than my old grandmother, grinding coffee! “The effect of this prodigious anti-climax can hardly be imagined; never in my life was I so puzzled and confounded as at the first moment of this discovery. “‘What!’ said I to myself, ‘is the Governor dead, and yet people grind coffee? then it seems we are to eat our breakfast just as if nothing had happened. Is a great man of no more consequence than this?’ “A new ray of light broke in upon me. I fell to pondering upon the occurrence, and five minutes pondering completely demolished the power supreme with which many a pompous owl had stalked through my imagination. “From that moment, governors, town-clerks, select-men, representatives, justices of the peace, and great people of every degree, lost nine-tenths of their importance in my eyes, for I plainly saw the world could do without them. “How often, in after life, have I applied the moral of this incident! How much moving eloquence and dire denunciation have I passed by with the remark: