When ambitious views, the lust of wealth, and purposes of aggrandizement, are the prompting incitements, the order of circumstances indeed may be essentially varied, without much altering the result. The excitement of the senses and the illusions of the imagination give place to these more sordid motives. They are, however, equally absorbing with the former. The faculties, having converged to the point of cautious and keen speculation, allow no greater scope, and furnish no happier facilities, for noting the development of understanding, character and temper, than in the other predicament. The appetite for money, and the burning of ambition may as effectually blind the aspirant to the silliness and bad temper of her who is seen through the flattering medium of his plans and his hopes, as could his vanity and his youthful inclinations. How can a person be expected to compare, and discriminate traits, and the almost imperceptible lights and shades of character, whose whole mind is intensely concentrated on the chances of his speculation, the fear of rivals, the danger of mishap, and the means of hastening the issue? Who, under such circumstances, inquires about the elements of happiness or misery, the good sense, the regulated temper, the discretion, health, temperament, and habits, that appertain to the means, by which a fortune and a name are to be obtained? These are passed by, as subordinate considerations. Suppose inquiries touching these points to glance through the mind. Suppose the speculator to have lucid glimpses, and some startling premonitions of the importance of settled and discriminating views, in relation to these matters; contemplated through golden associations and in the glare of ambitious hopes, they will be hardly likely to undergo a very severe or sifting scrutiny.