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.