 | Dream life |  |
II.
First Ambition.
I BELIEVE that sooner or later, there come to
every man, dreams of ambition. They may be
covered with the sloth of habit, or with a pretence of
humility: they may come only in dim, shadowy visions,
that feed the eye, like the glories of an ocean sun-rise;
but, you may be sure that they will come: even before
one is aware, the bold, adventurous Goddess, whose
name is Ambition, and whose dower is Fame, will be
toying with the feeble heart. And she pushes her
ventures with a bold hand: she makes timidity strong,
and weakness valiant.
The way of a man's heart, will be foreshadowed by
what goodness lies in him,—coming from above, and
from around;—but a way foreshadowed, is not a way
from that quickening of resolve, which we call Ambition.
It is the spur that makes man struggle with Destinv:
it is Heaven's own incentive, to make Purpose great,
and Achievement greater.
It would be strange if you, in that cloister life of a
college, did not sometimes feel a dawning of new
resolves. They grapple you indeed, oftener than you
dare to speak of. Here, you dream first of that very
sweet, but very shadowy success, called reputation.
You think of the delight and astonishment, it would
give your mother and father, and most of all, little
Nelly, if you were winning such honors, as now escape
you. You measure your capacities by those about you,
and watch their habit of study; you gaze for a half
hour together, upon some successful man, who has won
his prizes; and wonder by what secret action he has
done it. And when, in time, you come to be a competitor
yourself, your anxiety is immense.
You spend hours upon hours at your theme.
You write and re-write; and when it is at length
complete, and out of your hands, you are harassed
by a thousand doubts. At times, as you recal your
hours of toil, you question if so much has been spent
upon any other; you feel almost certain of success.
You repeat to yourself, some passages of special
eloquence, at night. You fancy the admiration of
You have a slight fear that its superior
goodness may awaken the suspicion, that some one
out of the college—some superior man, may have
written it. But this fear dies away.
The eventful day is a great one in your calendar;
you hardly sleep the night previous. You tremble
as the Chapel bell is rung; you profess to be very
indifferent, as the reading, and the prayer close; you
even stoop to take up your hat,—as if you had entirely
overlooked the fact, that the old President was in the
desk, for the express purpose of declaring the successful
names. You listen dreamily to his tremulous,
yet fearfully distinct enunciation. Your head swims
strangely.
They all pass out with a harsh murmur, along
the aisles, and through the door ways. It would
be well if there were no disappointments in life more
terrible than this. It is consoling to express very
deprecating opinions of the Faculty in general;—and
very contemptuous ones of that particular officer who
decided upon the merit of the prize themes. An
evening or two at Dalton's room go still farther toward
healing the disappointment; and—if it must be said—
toward moderating the heat of your ambition.
You grow up however, unfortunately, as the College
years fly by, into a very exaggerated sense of your
Squire, for whom you had once entertained so much
respect, seems to your crazy, classic fancy, a very
hum-drum sort of personage. Frank, although as
noble a fellow as ever sat a horse, is yet—you cannot
help thinking—very ignorant of Euripides; even the
English master at Dr. Bidlow's school, you feel sure
would balk at a dozen problems you could give him.
You get an exalted idea of that uncertain quality,
which turns the heads of a vast many of your fellows,
called—Genius. An odd notion seems to be inherent in
the atmosphere of those College chambers, that there is
a certain faculty of mind—first developed as would
seem in Colleges,—which accomplishes whatever it
chooses, without any special pains-taking. For a time,
you fall yourself into this very unfortunate hallucination;
you cultivate it, after the usual college fashion,
by drinking a vast deal of strong coffee, and whiskey
toddy,—by writing a little poor verse, in the Byronic
temper, and by studying very late at night, with
closed blinds.
It costs you, however, more anxiety and hypocrisy
than you could possibly have believed.
—You will learn, Clarence, when the Autumn
has rounded your hopeful Summer, if not before, that
there is no Genius in life, like the Genius of energy and
industry. You will learn, that all the traditions so
characters have wrought their greatness by an inspiration
as it were, grow out of a sad mistake.
And you will further find, when you come to
measure yourself with men, that there are no rivals
so formidable, as those earnest, determined minds,
which reckon the value of every hour, and which
achieve eminence by persistent application.
Literary ambition may inflame you at certain periods;
and a thought of some great names will flash like
a spark into the mine of your purposes; you dream till
midnight over books; you set up shadows, and chase
them down—other shadows, and they fly. Dreaming
will never catch them. Nothing makes the `scent lie
well,' in the hunt after distinction, but labor.
And it is a glorious thing, when once you are weary
of the dissipation, and the ennui of your own aimless
thought, to take up some glowing page of an earnest
thinker, and read—deep, and long, until you feel the
metal of his thought tinkling on your brain, and striking
out from your flinty lethargy, flashes of ideas, that give
the mind light and heat. And away you go, in the
chase of what the soul within, is creating on the instant,
and you wonder at the fecundity of what seemed so
barren, and at the ripeness of what seemed so crude.
The glow of toil wakes you to the consciousness of
your real capacities: you feel sure that they have
mood it is, that one feels grateful to the musty tomes,
which at other hours, stand like curiosity-making
mummies, with no warmth, and no vitality. Now
they grow into the affections like new-found friends;
and gain a hold upon the heart, and light a fire in the
brain, that the years and the mould cannot cover, nor
quench.
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