is only
good-humoured because of the consciousness of his own triumph; how
rare, again, it is to find an unsuccessful person who does not attempt,
if he can, to belittle the attainments of his successful rival, or who
at least, if he overcomes that temptation from a sense of propriety,
feels entitled to nourish a secret satisfaction at any indication of
failure on the part of the man who has obtained the prize that he
himself coveted in vain. Yet if one has ever seen, as I have, the
astonishing change of both work and even character which may come over
a boy or a young man who is perhaps diffident and indolent, if one can
get him to do a successful piece of work, or push an opportunity in his
way and help him to seize it, one hesitates before ruling out the use
of ambition as an incentive. Perhaps it is uneasy and casuistical
morality to shrink from using this incentive, so long as one faithfully
puts the higher side of the question before a boy as well. But when one
is quite sure that the larger aspect of the case will fall on deaf
ears, and that only the lower stimulus will be absorbed, one is apt to
hesitate. I am inclined, however, to think that such hesitation is on
the whole misplaced, and that in dealing with immature minds one must
be content to use immature motives. There is a temptation to try and
keep the education of people too much in one's own hands, and to feel
oneself to be too responsible in the matter. I have a friend who errs
in this respect, and who is apt to assume too wide a responsibility in
dealing with others, who was gently rebuked by a wise-hearted teacher
of wide and deep experience, who said on one occasion, when
over-anxiety had spoilt the effect of my friend's attempts, that he
ought to be content to leave something for God to do.

But for oneself, one must try to learn the large lesson in the course
of time, to learn that the sense of ambition is often, in reality, only
a sense of personal vanity and self-confidence disguised; and that the
one possible attitude of mind is to go humbly and patiently forward,
desiring the best, labouring faithfully and abundantly, neither seeking
nor avoiding great opportunities, not failing in courage nor giving way
to rash impulses, and realizing the truth of the wise old Greek proverb
that the greatest of all disasters for a man is to be opened and found
to be empty; the wise application of which to life is not to avoid the
occasions of opening, but to m