The exile did not prove quite so severe as was anticipated; but when in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-eight it was necessary for Lord Trevelyan to return to England, Macaulay, sick at the thought of being left behind, resigned his office and sailed back with the family.
We are told that officeholders seldom die and never resign. This may be true in the main; but surely there can not be found another instance in history of a man throwing up an office with a fifty-thousand-dollar salary attachment, simply because he could not bear the thought of being separated from his sister's children.
Soon after his return to England Macaulay was elected to a seat in Parliament from Edinburgh, a city that he had scarcely so much as visited, but to whose interest he had been loyal in that, up to this time, nine-tenths of all he had written had been printed there.
To represent Edinburgh in the House of Commons was no small matter, and we know that Macaulay was not unmindful of the honor.
His next preferment was his appointment as Secretary of War, and a seat in the Cabinet.
During all these busy years he ever had on hand some piece of literary work. In fact, all of the "Essays" on which his literary fame so largely rests, were composed on "stolen time" in the lull seized from the official and social whirl in which he lived.
If you want a piece of work well and thoroughly done, pick a busy man. The man of leisure postpones and procrastinates, and is ever making preparations and "getting things in shape"; but the ability to focus on a thing and do it is the talent of the man seemingly o'erwhelmed with work. Women in point lace and diamonds, club habitues and "remittance men"—those with all the time there is—can never be entrusted to carry the message to Gomez.
Pin your faith to the busy person.