SUNSET JOURNEY
In the end, as at the beginning, Martin Van Buren found himself standing on a street-corner in New York. At the end, he wondered if he might have declined the opportunity had he known what lay ahead: but like so many experiences in his life, there was no opportunity to decide, a priori, about what might be—there was, and always would be, only a consideration of what might have been.
In the end, on balance, after due consideration—when the defense had rested, and the jury had departed to contemplate the verdict—he would not want to have missed it for the world.