a serious and thoughtful affection
in his voice, "we may not meet again for years. I have a warm interest
in your happiness and career--yes, _career_--I repeat the word. I do not
habitually seek to inspire young men with ambition. Enough for most
of them to be good and honourable citizens. But in your case it is
different. I see in you the earnest and meditative, not rash and
overweening youth, which is usually productive of a distinguished
manhood. Your mind is not yet settled, it is true; but it is fast
becoming clear and mellow from the first ferment of boyish dreams
and passions. You have everything in your favour,--competence, birth,
connections; and, above all, you are an Englishman! You have a mighty
stage, on which, it is true, you cannot establish a footing without
merit and without labour--so much the better; in which strong and
resolute rivals will urge you on to emulation, and then competition will
task your keenest powers. Think what a glorious fate it is, to have
an influence on the vast, but ever-growing mind of such a country,--to
feel, when you retire from the busy scene, that you have played an
unforgotten part--that you have been the medium, under God's great will,
of circulating new ideas throughout the world--of upholding the glorious
priesthood of the Honest and the Beautiful. This is the true ambition;
the desire of mere personal notoriety is vanity, not ambition. Do not
then be lukewarm or supine. The trait I have observed in you," added
the Frenchman, with a smile, "most prejudicial to your chances of
distinction is, that you are _too_ philosophical, too apt to _cui
bono_ all the exertions that interfere with the indolence of cultivated
leisure. And you must not suppose, Maltravers, that an active career
will be a path of roses. At present you have no enemies; but the moment
you attempt distinction, you will be abused; calumniated, reviled.
You will be shocked at the wrath you excite, and sigh for your old
obscurity, and consider, as Franklin has it, that 'you have paid too
dear for your whistle.' But in return for individual enemies, what a
noble recompense to have made the Public itself your friend; perhaps
even Posterity your familiar! Besides," added De Montaigne, with almost
a religious solemnity in his voice, "there is a conscience of the head
as well as of the heart, and in old age we feel as much remorse if
we have wasted our natural talents as if we had perverted our natural
virtues. The