rowds and congratulations, is
well described; and the succeeding moment, when clerks with immense
portfolios enter, is a striking contrast. Examples from romance can
never have such a powerful effect upon the mind, as those which are
taken from real life; but in proportion to the just and lively
representation of situations, and passions resembling reality,
fictions may convey useful moral lessons. In the Cyropaedia there is an
admirable description of the day spent by the victorious Cyrus, giving
audience to the unmanageable multitude, after the taking of Babylon
had accomplished the fullness of his ambition.[100]

It has been observed, that these examples of the insufficiency of the
objects of ambition to happiness, seldom make any lasting impression
upon the minds of the ambitious. This may arise from two causes; from
the reasoning faculty's not having been sufficiently cultivated, or
from the habits of ambition being formed before proper examples are
presented to the judgment for comparison. Some ambitious people, when
they reason coolly, acknowledge and feel the folly of their pursuits;
but still, from the force of habit, they act immediately in obedience
to the motives which they condemn: others, who have never been
accustomed to reason firmly, believe themselves to be in the right in
the choice of their objects; and they cannot comprehend the arguments
which are used by those who have not the same way of thinking as
themselves. If we fairly place facts before young people, who have
been habituated to reason, and who have not yet been inspired with the
passion, or enslaved by the habits of vulgar ambition, it is probable,
that they will not be easily effaced from the memory, and that they
will influence the conduct through life.

It sometimes happens to men of a sound understanding, and a
philosophic turn of mind, that their ambition decreases with their
experience. They begin with some ardor, perhaps, an ambitious pursuit;
but by degrees they find the pleasure of the occupation sufficient
without the fame, which was their original object. This is the same
process which we have observed in the minds of children with respect
to the pleasures of literature, and the taste for sugar-plums.

Happy the child who can be taught to improve himself without the
stimulus of sweetmeats! Happy the man who can preserve activity
without the excitements of ambition!

FOOTNOTES:

[93] Gibbon. Memoirs of his Life and Writings,