of that yearning which
we call aspiration, for, even though you do not attain your ideal, the
efforts you make will bring nothing but blessing; while he who fails of
attaining mere worldly goals is too often eaten up with the canker-worm
of disappointed ambition. To all will come a time when the love of glory
will be seen to be but a splendid delusion, riches empty, rank vain,
power dependent, and all outward advantages without inward peace a mere
mockery of wretchedness. The wisest men have taken care to uproot
selfish ambition from their breasts. Shakespeare considered it so near a
vice as to need extenuating circumstances to make it a virtue.

Who has not noticed the power of love in an awkward, crabbed, shiftless,
lazy man? He becomes gentle, chaste in language, energetic. Love brings
out the poetry in him. It is only an idea, a sentiment, and yet what
magic it has wrought. Nothing we can see has touched the man, yet he is
entirely transformed.

Not less does ambition completely transform a human being, for a woman
thirsting for fame can work where a man equally resolute would faint.
He despises ease and sloth, welcomes toil and hardship, and shakes even
kingdoms to gratify his master passion. Mere ambition has impelled many
a man to a life of eminence and usefulness; its higher manifestation,
aspiration, has led him beyond the stars. If the aim be right the life
in its details cannot be far wrong. Your heart must inspire what your
hands execute, or the work will be poorly done. The hand cannot reach
higher than does the heart.

But do not strive to reach impossible goals. It is wholly in your
power to develop yourself, but not necessarily so to make yourself a
king. How many Presidents of the United States or Prime Ministers of
England are chosen within the working lifetime of a man? What if a
thousand young men resolve to become President or Prime Minister? While
such prizes are within your reach, remember that your will must be
tremendous and your qualifications of the highest order, or you cannot
hope to secure them. Too many are deluded by ambition beyond their power
of attainment, or tortured by aspirations totally disproportionate to
their capacity for execution. You may, indeed, confidently hope to
become eminent in usefulness and power, but only as you build upon a
broad foundation of self-culture; while, as a rule, specialists in
ambition as in science are apt to become narrow and one-sided. Darwin
was