“I agree with you,” replied the Master, more seriously. “The desire of distinction, though often a dangerous, and often an unhappy desire, is likewise often, though I believe here sometimes were a better word, a fortunate one. It is dangerous in the head of a fool; unhappy, in that of a man of moderate abilities, or unfavorable situation, who can conceive a noble aim, but lacks the talent or the means necessary for its attainment. It is fortunate only in the head of a genius, the heart of a sage, and in a situation convenient for its development and gratification. These three things you will allow do not often meet in one person.”
“Yet,” said Theon, “how many great men has Athens produced?”
“But it is not a consequent that they were happy?”
“Happy or not happy, who would refuse their fate?”
“I like that feeling,” replied the Gargettian; “nor do I dissent from it. The fate of greatness will always be enviable, even when the darkest storms trouble its course. Well-merited fame has in itself a pleasure so much above all pleasures, that it may weigh in the balance against all the accumulated evils of mortality. Grant then our great men to have been fortunate; are they, as you say, so many?—Alas! my son, we may count them on our fingers. A generation, the most brilliant in genius, leaves out of its thousands and millions but three or four, or a dozen, to the worship, even to the knowledge of futurity.”
“And these, only these three, four, or a dozen, have a right to the desire of distinction?”
“As to the right,” replied the sage, playfully, “I mean not to dispute that. The right lies with all men in our democracy to sit in a tub, or to walk in a dirty tunic.”
“But you will allow of no end in ambition but an absurd one.”
“I have not expressed myself well, or you have not understood me well, if you draw that conclusion. I surely have granted our great men to have had great ends of ambition.”
“But is it only great men, or men destined to be great, that may have such ends?”