It is clear, therefore, to me, that in making up the debt and credit account of life, in relation to happiness, most of the sentiments associated with ambition, and its prolific family of self-tormenting passions, may be set down as gratuitous items of misery, superinduced by our own voluntary discipline. I shall be asked, what is to stimulate to exertion, to study, toil and sacrifice, to great and noble actions, and what shall lead to fame and renown, if this incentive be taken away? I answer, that, what is ordinarily dignified with the appellation of ambition, is a vile mixture of the worst feelings of our nature. There is in all minds, truly noble, a sufficient impulse towards great actions, apart from these movements, which are generally the excitements of little and mean spirits. Take the whole nature of man into the calculation, and there can never be a want of sufficient impulse towards distinction, without a particle of those contemptible motives, which are generally put to the account of praiseworthy incitement. Truly great men have been remarkable for their exemption from envy, the inseparable concomitant of conscious deficiency; and for a certain calm and tranquil spirit, indicating moderation and comparative indifference in the struggle of emulation. They are able to say, in regard to the highest boon of ambition,
‘I neither spurn, nor for the favor call,
It comes unasked-for, if it comes at all.’
Why, then, in a world, and in an order of society, where ambition, with its associated passions, brings in an enormous amount to the mass of human self-inflicted torment, should he be censured, who advises, that in the philosophic and calculating pursuit of happiness, this element of misery should be, as much as possible, repressed? The question may be more strongly urged, when we take into the account, the consideration, that the far greater portion of the species must calculate on the bitterness of disappointment, in addition to the miseries which are inseparable from the indulgence of this passion. All the inordinate thirst for power and fame of the countless aspirants, who desire to be Alexanders, Cæsars and Napoleons, not only is so much subtracted from their enjoyment, and added to their misery, but has little tendency to aid them to attainments, which, after all, are as frequently the award of contingency, as of calculation.
Let the evils of retirement and obscurity, be fairly balanced with those of gratified ambition, and let the aspirant feel, that they are absolutely incompatible, the one with the other.—Let him then make his election, in view of the consequences, and not foolishly expect that he can unite incompatible advantages. If he chooses the dust and scramble of the arena, and the intoxicating pleasures at the goal, let him not repine, that he cannot unite with them those of repose, retirement and a tranquil mind. If, on the contrary, he prefers to hold on the noiseless tenor of his way, in peace and privacy, let not the serpents of envy sting him, when he sees the car of the fortunate aspirant drawn forward by the applauding million. Let not murmurs arise in his heart, when he hears, or reads of the rewards, honors and immortality of those whom he may believe to be endowed no higher than himself with talents or virtues. Let him say, ‘no one can show me the mind, or paint me the consciousness of that man. Fortune and my own choice have assigned me the shade. Let me not embitter its coolness and its satisfactions, by idle desires to unite advantages, that are, in their nature, incongruous. Let me remember, that mine is the condition of the million. My Creator cannot have doomed so vast a proportion of his creatures to a state, which is necessarily miserable. All that remains to me, is to make the best of the common lot.’
Severe strictures have, also, been passed upon this maxim. I well know, that the common rules proposed to the young, in commencing their serious and more advanced studies, lead them to look forward to happiness, as a garland suspended from the goal, an object only in remote expectation, the fruition of which should be hoped for only at a period of life, when few are capable of enjoyment, even if the means were in their power. To calculate on comfort and repose, early in life, has been considered as a sort of effeminate weakness.
These unphilosophic views of education have, more than almost any other, thrown over the whole course of preparatory discipline for life, a repulsive gloom, tending to fill the mind of the pupil with dismay and disgust in view of his studies.—The young should be early imbued with the sentiment, that God sent them here to be happy, not in indolence, intoxication, voluptuousness or insanity; but in earnest and vigorous discipline for coming duties. And at this bright epoch, when nature spreads a charm over existence, a philosophic teacher may easily train them to invest their studies, labors, and pursuits, and perhaps even their privations and severer toils, with a coloring of cheerfulness and gayety, when contemplated as the only means of discipline by which they may hope to reach a desired end. They should be trained to meet events, and brave the shock of adversity with a firm and searching purpose, to find either a way to mitigate the pressure, or to increase self-respect by the noble pride of manifesting to themselves, with how much calmness and patient endurance they can overcome the inevitable ills of their condition. In other words, they should make enjoyment a means, as well as an end, that they may carry onward, from their first days, an accumulating stock of happiness, with which courage and cheerfulness may paint future anticipations in the mellow lustre of past remembrances. In this way the bow of promise may be made to bend its brilliant arch over every period of this transient existence, connecting what has been, and what will be, in the same radiant span.
Entertaining such views of the direction which might be given to the juvenile mind, I mourn over those weak parents, who are nursing their children with effeminate fondness, not allowing the winds to visit them too roughly, pampering their wishes, instead of teaching them to repress them: and rather striving to ward from them all pains and privations, than teaching them that they must encounter innumerable sorrows and disappointments, and disciplining them to breast the ills of life with a conquering fortitude. Opulence generally gives birth to this injudicious plan of parental education. Penury, as little directed by sound views, but impelled by the stern teaching of necessity, imparts to the children of the poor, a much more salutary discipline, and they ordinarily come forward with a more robust spirit, with more vigor, power and elasticity; and it is in this way, that providence adjusts the balance of advantages between these different conditions.
We have all admired the practical philosophy of the man, who, when sick of a painful disease, thanked God that he was not subject to a still more painful one; and when under the pressure of the latter, found cause for cheerfulness, that he was not visited with both diseases at the same time. Akin to this was the noble fortitude of the mariner, who, when a limb was carried away by a cannon-ball, congratulated himself that it was not his head. I do not say that any one can find cheerfulness in contemplating such Spartan spirits, but that a philosophy of this sort would disarm the common ills of life of much of their power, and would even enable the sufferer to find enjoyment in the midst of them.