deserves to be
famous, is what a man should hold in esteem. This is, as it were, the
true underlying substance, and fame is only an accident, affecting its
subject chiefly as a kind of external symptom, which serves to confirm
his own opinion of himself. Light is not visible unless it meets with
something to reflect it; and talent is sure of itself only when its
fame is noised abroad. But fame is not a certain symptom of merit;
because you can have the one without the other; or, as Lessing nicely
puts it, _Some people obtain fame, and others deserve it_.

It would be a miserable existence which should make its value or want
of value depend upon what other people think; but such would be the
life of a hero or a genius if its worth consisted in fame, that is,
in the applause of the world. Every man lives and exists on his own
account, and, therefore, mainly in and for himself; and what he is and
the whole manner of his being concern himself more than anyone else;
so if he is not worth much in this respect, he cannot be worth much
otherwise. The idea which other people form of his existence is
something secondary, derivative, exposed to all the chances of fate,
and in the end affecting him but very indirectly. Besides, other
people's heads are a wretched place to be the home of a man's true
happiness--a fanciful happiness perhaps, but not a real one.

And what a mixed company inhabits the Temple of Universal
Fame!--generals, ministers, charlatans, jugglers, dancers, singers,
millionaires and Jews! It is a temple in which more sincere
recognition, more genuine esteem, is given to the several excellencies
of such folk, than to superiority of mind, even of a high order, which
obtains from the great majority only a verbal acknowledgment.

From the point of view of human happiness, fame is, surely, nothing
but a very rare and delicate morsel for the appetite that feeds on
pride and vanity--an appetite which, however carefully concealed,
exists to an immoderate degree in every man, and is, perhaps strongest
of all in those who set their hearts on becoming famous at any cost.
Such people generally have to wait some time in uncertainty as to
their own value, before the opportunity comes which will put it to the
proof and let other people see what they are made of; but until then,
they feel as if they were suffering secret injustice.[1]

[Footnote 1: Our greatest pleasure consists in being admired; but
those who admire us, eve