The New England Weekly Review

The Folly of Ambition.

"The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,
Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause,
With penitential aspect as they pass,
All point to earth, and hiss at human pride!"

Reader, art thou ambitious?-art thou seeking, with restless eagerness and fond anticipation, for honor and applause?-and does the bright vision of fame illuminate thy path, casting a radiance over the future? If so, we tell thee frankly we have nothing now to suit thy mood-nothing to brighten the vision which thou dost cherish, and nothing to feed that impulse which is urging thee on in the toilsome and doubtful race for glory. We have just now fallen into a fit of moralizing, and if thou readest farther, our reflections will probably make thee dissatisfied with us, with fortune and thyself.—We therefore give thee this warning, that thou needest not take pains to read what might not only unstring thy nerves, unfit thee for the strife, and break the charm which holds thee to thy course.

When we glance at the historic page, we are surprised to find how few actors in the world's great drama, have been honored even with a passing notice. There is left us no record of their character, or of the manner in which their performance was acted or received. They appeared, flourished, and made their exit; but whether they were hissed or applauded we know not, and it is vain that we appeal to history, or tradition, to recall either the scenes or the actors. They are, and will be remembered no more. Oblivion is their grave, and silence their only epitaph!

Every age has teemed with its restless millions, eager for applause and determined to win it: devotees of Fame, who have crowded the highways to her sacred temple, vainly hoping to win a smile from the adored but fickle Goddess—yet with all their restless ambition, their dazzling visions, their daring projects and lofty aspirations, she spurned them, and they are forgotten. They were dissatisfied with living and dying unknown, and struggled to reach an elevation from which they could attract the gaze of posterity; but the only result of their efforts, was to crush the buds of happiness, while they failed to win the fruits of glory!

We know that they loved and hated—that they had joys and sorrows, brilliant hopes, and withering fears, generous feelings and stormy passions. We know this, for this is an ever true portrait of an ever-changing race. But as individuals, we know them not. We cannot body them forth to our thoughts each in his own distinct, peculiar character, each acting for himself, having his own ends in view, and pursuing them as if he deemed himself created to be honored, and others created to honor him. Whenever we think of them, it is as the nameless particles of a general mass, which contribute indeed to its greatness, but lose their own individual importance in the very magnitude which they create!

In pursuit of their object, some have made the cabinet their field, some have toiled through the mazes of abstruse philosophy, some have sought it in regal splendor, and others in conquest. They have staked wealth and life for fame—sought the bubble reputation in the cannon's mouth'—toiled through a long, boisterous, and bloody existence to win the admiration of posterity, and failed. Time has given 'the crown to canker, and the sword to rust,' and the waters of Lethe are flowing alike over their tombs and their memories! Their ambitious deeds are 'on the tongue of grey tradition voluble no more,' and in 'life's visit' they have even 'failed to leave their name.

Yet it was not through inconstancy that they failed to win the favor of the Goddess, for at her shrine they offered the freshness of their days, the warmth of their affections, and the vigor of their life. Cheered by her delusive smiles, they were constant in their worship through years of toil and danger, and followed her gracious beckonings, notwithstanding she 'held the promise to their hopes, and broke it to their hearts.' It was their destiny. They could toil by the midnight lamp in solitary cells to build up favorite theories, and perhaps astonish their compeers by the profoundness of their observation the subtlety and strength of their reasoning—they could lead on their fierce legions to combat, and scatter the serried columns of mailed warriors, but they could not subvert the decree of fate, or weave a brighter thread into the woof of their destiny! There are a few who have won what the many desired—immortality of fame and who stand out as brilliant, though distant lights, amid the darkness of the past. Yet, as we travel back the silent and deserted path of ages, we only, by their existence, catch more fearful glimpses of the wrecks amid which they stand.