"True," replied Vincent, "if wise and great men did but know, how little difference there is between them and the foolish or the mean, they would not take such pains to be wise and great; to use the Chinese proverb, 'they sacrifice a picture to get possession of its ashes.' It is almost a pity that the desire to progress should be so necessary to our being; ambition is often a fine, but never a felicitous feeling. Cyprian, in a beautiful passage on envy, calls it 'the moth of the soul:' but perhaps, even that passion is less gnawing, less a 'tabes pectoris,' than ambition. You are surprised at my heat--the fact is, I am enraged at thinking how much we forfeit, when we look up only, and trample unconsciously, in the blindness of our aspiration, on the affections which strew our path. Now, you and I have been utterly estranged from each other of late. Why?--for any dispute--any disagreement in private-- any discovery of meanness--treachery, unworthiness in the other? No! merely because I dine with Lord Lincoln, and you with Lord Dawton, voila tout. Well say the Jesuits, that they who live for the public, must renounce all private ties; the very day we become citizens, we are to cease to be men. Our privacy is like Leo Decimus; [Note: See Jovius.] directly it dies, all peace, comfort, joy, and sociality are to die with it; and an iron age, 'barbara vis et dira malorum omnium incommoda' [Note: See Jovius.] to succeed." "It is a pity, that we struck into different paths," said I; "no pleasure would have been to me greater, than making our political interests the same; but--" "Perhaps there is no but," interrupted Vincent; "perhaps, like the two knights in the hacknied story, we are only giving different names to the same shield, because we view it on different sides; let us also imitate them in their reconciliation, as well as their quarrel, and since we have already run our lances against each other, be convinced of our error, and make up our difference." I was silent; indeed, I did not like to trust myself to speak. Vincent continued: