f the great names in French literature, to whom
Moliere is reading a comedy in the presence of the celebrated Ninon de
l'Enclos. D'Alembert, one of the first mathematicians of his age, was a
wit, a man of gallantry and letters. With us a learned man is absorbed
in himself and some particular study, and minds nothing else. There is
something ascetic and impracticable in his very constitution, and he
answers to the description of the Monk in Spenser--

From every work he challenged essoin
For contemplation's sake.

Perhaps the superior importance attached to the institutions of
religion, as well as the more abstracted and visionary nature of its
objects, has led (as a general result) to a wider separation between
thought and action in modern times.

Ambition is of a higher and more heroic strain than avarice. Its objects
are nobler, and the means by which it attains its ends less mechanical.

Better be lord of them that riches have,
Than riches have myself, and be their servile slave.

The incentive to ambition is the love of power; the spur to avarice is
either the fear of poverty or a strong desire of self-indulgence. The
amassers of fortunes seem divided into two opposite classes--lean,
penurious-looking mortals, or jolly fellows who are determined to get
possession of, because they want to enjoy, the good things of the wo
others, in the fulness of their persons and the robustness of their
constitutions, seem to bespeak the reversion of a landed estate, rich
acres, fat beeves, a substantial mansion, costly clothing, a chine and
curkey, choice wines, and all other good things consonant to the wants
and full-fed desires of their bodies. Such men charm fortune by the
sleekness of their aspects and the goodly rotundity of their honest
faces, as the others scare away poverty by their wan, meagre looks. The
last starve themselves into riches by care and carking; the first
eat, drink, and sleep their way into the good things of this life. The
greatest number of _warm_ men in the city are good, jolly follows. Look
at Sir William -----. Callipash and callipee are written in his face: he
rolls about his unwieldy bulk in a sea of turtle-soup. How many haunches
of venison does he carry on his back! He is larded with jobs and
contracts: he is stuffed and swelled out with layers of bank-notes
and invitations to dinner! His face hangs out a flag of defiance to
mischance: the roguish twinkle in his eye with which he lures h