Part 30 (1/2)

GOOD FORTUNE OF OUR LITTLE EGOTISMS.

We are all, fortunately, greatly disposed to contentment with our lot.

We do not seem to realize it, but the importance of the pleasures of life which cannot be bartered in, has its noticeable effect on the mind.

Horace remarked this ages ago, and Dr. Johnson has thus translated the thoughts hinging upon it: ”Howsoever every man may complain occasionally,” says he, ”of the hards.h.i.+ps of his condition, he is seldom willing to change it for any other on the same level. Whether it be that he who follows an employment, chose it at first on account of its suitableness to his inclination; or that when accident, or the determination of others, have pleased him in a particular station, he, by endeavoring to reconcile himself to it, gets the custom of viewing it only on the fairest side; or whether every man thinks that cla.s.s to which he belongs the most ill.u.s.trious, merely

BECAUSE HE HAS HONORED IT WITH HIS NAME--

it is certain that, whatever be the reason, most men have a very strong and active prejudice, in favor of their own vocation, always working upon their minds and influencing their action.” Let us be thankful for that laughable egotism which is born with us, and within us, and which, in this natural and un.o.btrusive affair of contentment, becomes a true anchor, holding us inside the peaceful haven.

AMBITION.

Marble may rise from crystal waters spanned By other marbles: founts may plash on stone, And fas.h.i.+onably-branched trees may stand As thieves upon a scaffold. Yet, how cold!

How cold!

We are made up of elements. These elements should be well balanced. The delicacy of equilibrium is what makes the perfect man, or, rather, the honorable man. Too much avarice makes a contemptibly mean man; not enough makes a foolish spendthrift, who is always appealing to his friends for help. Too much bravery in man makes a bully; not enough a coward. Too much speech in man makes a bore; not enough a ”stick.” Too much hope in man makes a speculator and a gambler; not enough, a hermit and a man-hater. So of ambition. It is a flame to be guarded--a willing slave, an unpitying master. In its full sway it is the very essence of self-conceit and selfishness,--two traits, a little of which goes a good way. You know that you do not put much blueing into a washtub full of water. Well, use ambition in the same sparing way. If you spill it in using it, you will have a difficult affair on your hands. It may be just possible, of course, that you have clothes to wash, so to speak, which require the whole box or bottle. If so, your chance of happiness is not great.

”HE WHO SURPa.s.sES OR SUBDUES MANKIND,”

says Byron, ”must look down on the hate of those below.” ”Who soars too near the sun, with golden wings, melts them,” says Shakspeare. We all have upon us golden wings of happiness. Let us not soar near the sun.

”Fling away ambition,” mourns old Cardinal Wolsely in Henry VIII; ”by that sin fell the angels; how can man, then, the image of his Maker, hope to win by it?” ”It often puts men upon doing the meanest offices,”

says Swift, ”as climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.” It has been aptly called by Sir William Davenant,

”THE MIND'S IMMODESTY.”

Watch this petty man. He is consumed by a desire to be a little higher than he now is. He is driver on a street car, in a city. Unconsciously, he is an excellent driver. He has not become so by the silent care which befits a real climber. No! he was born a horseman. But he was also born ambitious. If he were private secretary to the President, he would want to be President, simply because his attention would be more closely directed to the Chief Magistracy than elsewhere.

BEHOLD HIM INSTALLED AS CONDUCTOR.

He rings the bell incessantly for a milk-wagon to get out of the road.

The pa.s.sengers expostulate. One of them is drunk, therefore extra-expostulatory. Our conductor beholds the moment arrived when he must ”bounce” the pa.s.senger. The pa.s.senger is landed free on track, with only the conductor's badge in his mind, which he reports to the office.

The next day the conductor tells a pa.s.senger to get his feet off that seat, or he will put him off. In a dispute which follows, the conductor loses a chance to get across a swinging-bridge, and a pa.s.senger who has thus missed a train, gets angry and reports the conductor. The driver is quietly asked about our friend, and our friend is thrown out of his place like a shot out of a gun. He is too proud to drive again, and takes a trip into the country for his health. This homely drama is played in all the hotels where head-waiters are employed, in all the departments of business where head-clerks are needed; in all the great stores where floor-walkers ”strut their brief hour,”--everywhere that gives an opportunity for little Envy to peep, from

THE RIDICULOUS AMBUSCADE

of some incompetent subordinate, out upon the goings and comings of unsuspecting Merit. ”There is a native baseness,” says Simms, ”in the ambition which seeks beyond its desert, that never shows more conspicuously than when, no matter how, it temporarily gains its object.” So, to me, there has always seemed a real baseness in these attempts of unfit people, who have only their self-conceit for training and their cheek for capital. Half our failures in business come from men attempting something they know nothing about. A printer will open a drug store, and a country dry goods merchant will start a daily paper in a city! ”Alas!” says Young, ”ambition makes my little less.”

Once in a while there is born, in every State, a soul which is to be ”like a star and dwell apart.” It is to be gifted with qualities of an exalted character. But it is also to be lashed with the scourge of ambition. It is to stand, as William Penn said,