Mr. Webster was an ambitious man. He desired the highest office in the gift of the people. But on this subject, as on all others, there was no concealment in his nature. And ambition is not a weakness unless it be disproportional to the capacity. To have more ambition than ability is to be at once weak and unhappy. With him it was a noble passion, because it rested upon noble powers. He was a man cast in a heroic mould. His thoughts, his wishes, his passions, his aspirations, were all on a grander scale than those of other men. Unexercised capacity is always a source of rusting discontent. The height to which men may rise is in proportion to the upward force of their genius, and they will never be calm till they have attained their predestined elevation. Lord Bacon says, "as in nature things move violently to their place and calmly in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority, settled and calm." Mr. Webster had a giant's brain and a giant's heart, and he wanted a giant's work. He found repose in those strong conflicts and great duties which crush the weak and madden the sensitive. He thought that, if he were elevated to the highest place, he should so administer the government as to make the country honored abroad, and great and happy at home. He thought, too, that he could do something to make us more truly one people. This, above everything else, was his ambition. And we, who knew him better than others, felt that it was a prophetic ambition, and we honored and trusted him accordingly. G. S. Hillard. XXIX. THE DANGER OF EXCLUSIVE DEVOTION TO BUSINESS. This is a world of inflexible compensations. Nothing is ever given away, but everything is bought and paid for. If, by exclusive and absolute surrender of ourselves to material pursuits, we materialize the mind, we lose that class of satisfactions of which the mind is the region and the source. A young man in business, for instance, begins to feel the exhilarating glow of success, and deliberately determines to abandon himself to its delirious whirl. He says to himself, I will think of nothing but business till I shall have made so much money, and then I will begin a new life. I will gather round me books and pictures and friends. I will have knowledge, taste, and cultivation,--the perfume of scholarship, and winning speech, and graceful manners. I will see foreign countries, and converse with accomplished men. I will drink deep of the fountains of classic lore. Philosophy shall guide me, history shall instruct, and poetry shall charm me. Science shall open to me her world of wonders. I shall remember my present life of drudgery as one recalls a troubled dream when the morning has dawned.