Page images
PDF
EPUB

that moves or feels in all the waste of weary precipice, darkening five thousand feet of the blue depth of heaven. Ruskin.

ALPS-Arrangement of the.

and to the rest of Europe noble and navigable rivers. Ruskin.

ALPS-Grandeur of the.

Above me are the Alps,

The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And throned eternity in icy halls
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche-the thunderbolt of snow!
All that expands the spirit, yet appals,
Gather around these summits, as to show
How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave
vain man below.
Byron.

AMAZEMENT.

But look! Amazement on my mother sits;
O step between her and her fighting soul !
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
Shakspeare.
AMBIGUITY.

Let's keep them,

In desperate hope of understanding us;
Riddles and clouds are very lights of speech.
I'll veil my careless anxious thoughts, as 'twere,
In a perspicuous cloud, that so I may
Whisper in a loud voice, and even be silent
When I do utter words.
Cartwright.

AMBITION.

But the longer I stayed among the Alps, and
the more closely I examined them, the more I
was struck by the one broad fact of there being
a vast Alpine plateau, or mass of elevated land,
upon which nearly all the highest peaks stood
like children set upon a table, removed, in
most cases, far back from the edge of the
plateau, as if for fear of their falling. And
the result of this arrangement is a kind of
division of the whole of Switzerland into an
upper and lower mountain-world; the lower
world consisting of rich valleys bordered by
steep but easily accessible wooded banks of
mountain, more or less divided by ravines,
through which glimpses are caught of the
higher Alps; the upper world, reached after
the first steep banks, of 3,000 or 4,000 feet in
beight, have been surmounted, consisting of
comparatively level but most desolate traces
of moor and rock, half covered by glacier, and
stretching to the feet of the true pinnacles of
the chain. It can hardly be necessary to point
out the perfect wisdom and kindness of this
arrangement, as a provision for the safety of
the inhabitants of the high mountain regions.
If the great peaks rose at once from the deepest
valleys, every stone which was struck from the
pinnacles, and every snow-wreath which slipped
from their ledges, would descend at once upon
the inhabitable ground, over which no year
would pass without recording some calamity
of earth-slip or avalanche. Besides this, the
masses of snow, cast down at once into the
warmer air, would all melt rapidly in the
spring, causing furious inundations of every
great river for a month or six weeks.
these calamities are prevented by the peculiar
Alpine structure which has been described.
The broken rocks and the sliding snow of the
high peaks, instead of being dashed at once
to the vales, are caught upon the desolate
shelves or shoulders which everywhere sur-
round the central crests. The soft banks
which terminate these shelves, traversed by
no falling fragments, clothe themselves with
richest wood; while the masses of snow heaped
upon the ledge above them, in a climate neither Inspiration lifts him from the earth.
Bo warm as to thaw them quickly in the spring,
nor so cold as to protect them from all the
power of the summer sun, either form them-
selves into glaciers or remain in slowly-wasting
fields even to the close of the year-in either
case supplying constant, abundant, and regular
streams to the villages and pastures beneath,

Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.
Raleigh.
If thy mind fail thee, do not climb at all.
Queen Elizabeth.

All

AMBITION-Anguish of

Ambition deadly tyrant!
Inexorable master! what alarms,
What anxious hours, what agonies of heart,
Are the sure portion of thy gaudy slaves?
Cruel condition! could the toiling hind,
The shivering beggar, whom no roof receives,
Wet with the mountain shower, and crouching

low

Beneath the naked cliff, his only home;
Could he but read the statesman's secret breast,
But see the horrors there, the wounds, the stabs,
From furious passions and avenging guilt,
He would not change his rags and wretchedness,
For gilded domes and greatness! Mallet.
AMBITION-Aspirations of.

That spirit of his,

Shakspeare.

It is not for man to rest in absolute con. tentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations, as the sparks fly upwards, unless he has brutified his nature, and quenched the spirit of immortality, which is his portion. Southey.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

AMBITION.

country where they live, and of growing considerable with those with whom they converse. There is a kind of grandeur and respect which the meanest and most insignificant part of mankind endeavour to procure in the little circle of their friends and acquaintance. The poorest mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon common alms, gets him his set of admirers, and delights in that superiority which he enjoys over those who are in some respects beneath him. This ambition, which is natural to the soul of man, might, methinks, receive a very happy turn; and, if it were rightly directed, contribute as much to a person's advantage as it generally does to his uneasiness and disquiet.

AMBITION-Disappointed.

Addison.

The same sun which gilds all nature, and exhilarates the whole creation, does not shine upon disappointed ambition. It is something that rays out of darkness, and inspires nothing but gloom and melancholy. Men in this deplorable state of mind find a comfort in spreading the contagion of their spleen. They find an advantage, too; for it is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. If such persons can answer the ends of relief and profit to themselves, they are apt to be careless enough about either the means or the consequences. Burke.

We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment: the course is then over, the wheel turns round but once, while the reaction of goodness and happiness is perpetual.

AMBITION-Doings of.

Landor.

[blocks in formation]

Ambition, that high and glorious passion, which makes such havoc among the sons of men, arises from a proud desire of honour and distinction; and when the splendid trappings in which it is usually caparisoned are removed, will be found to consist of the mean materials of envy, pride, and covetousness. It is described by different authors as a gallant madness, a pleasant poison, a hidden plague, a secret poison, a caustic of the soul, the moth of holiness, the mother of hypocrisy, and, by crucifying and disquieting all it takes hold of, the cause of melancholy and madness.

AMBITION-Fate of.

Burton.

[blocks in formation]

Of that great master of the world who wept
For other worlds to conquer. I'd have liv'd
An age of sinless glory, and gone down

Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and for- Storied, and epitaphed, and chronicled, gets the obligations of gratitude.

AMBITION-End of.

Sir Walter Scott.

Ambition's like a circle on the water,
Which never ceases to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
Shakspeare.

AMBITION-Ennobling.

The true ambition there alone resides,
Where justice vindicates, and wisdom guides;
Where inward dignity joins outward state,
Our purpose good, as our achievement great;
Where public blessings, public praise attend,
Where glory is our motive, not our end:
Wouldst thou be famed? have those high acts
in view,

Brave men would act, though scandal would
Young.

ensue.

To the very end of time.

AMBITION-Impulses of.

Mitford.

Ambition! the desire of active souls,
That pushes them beyond the bounds of nature,
That can inform the souls of beardless boys,
And elevates the hero to the gods;
And ripen 'em to men in spite of nature. Rowe.

AMBITION-Incurable.

Where ambition can be so happy as to cover its enterprises even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of all human passions. Hume.

AMBITION-Lowliness the Ladder of. Lowliness is young Ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber upward turns his face;

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

But when he once obtains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.
Shakspeare.

AMBITION-has many Masters.

A slave has but one master; the ambitious man has as many masters as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his future. La Bruyère. AMBITION-a Rebel against Reason. Ambition, like a torrent, ne'er looks back; It is a swelling, and the last affection A high mind can put off. It is a rebel Both to soul and reason, and enforces All laws, all conscience; treads upon religion,

And offers violence to Nature's self.

AMBITION-Spirit of.

Ben Jonson.

Ambition is the most troublesome and

men.

vexatious passion that can afflict the sons of Virtue hath not half so much trouble in it, for it sleeps quietly, without startings and affrighted fancies: it looks cheerfully, smiles with much serenity, and though it laughs not often, yet it is ever delightful in the apprehension of some faculty. It fears no man, nor no thing, nor is it ever discomposed, and hath no concernments in the great alterations of the world, and entertains death like a friend, and reckons the issues of it as the greatest of its hopes. But ambition is full of distractions; it teems with stratagems, and is swelled with expectations as with a tympany. It sleeps sometimes as the wind in a storm, still and quiet for a minute, that it may burst out into an impetuous blast till the cordage It fears when none of his heart-strings crack.

is nigh, and prevents things that never had intention, and falls under the inevitability of such incidents, which either could not be foreseen or not prevented. It is an infinite labour to make a man's self miserable, and the utmost acquist is so goodly a purchase, that he makes his days full of sorrow to enjoy the troubles of a three years' reign. Therefore there is no greater unreasonableness in the world than in the designs of ambition; for it makes the present certainly miserable, unsatisfied, troublesome, and discontented, for the uncertain acquisition of an honour, which nothing can secure; and besides a thousand possibilities of miscarrying, it relies upon no greater certainty than our life; and when we are dead, all the world sees who was the fool.

Jeremy Taylor. AMBITION-Temptations of.

Yet true renown is still with virtue join'd,
But lust of power lets loose the bridled mind;

The blast which his ambitious spirit swell'd,
See by how weak a tenure it was held.
If glory was a bait that angels swallow'd,
How then should souls allied to sense resist it?
Dryden.
AMBITION-Torments of.

Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in shew, like the statue of a public place. Montaigne. AMBITION-Unfruitfulness of.

I have often been astonished at the softness in which other minds seem to have passed their day the ripened pasture and clustering vineyards of imagination: the mental Arcadia in which they describe themselves as having loitered from year to year. Yet, can I have faith in this perpetual Claude Lorraine pencil -this undying verdure of the soil-this gold and purple suffusion of the sky-those pomps of the palace and the pencil with their pageants and nymphs, giving life to their landscape; while mine was a continual encounter with difficulty, a continual summons to self-control?-A march, not unlike that of the climber up the side of Etna; every step through ruins, the vestiges of former conflagrations; the ground trode, rocks that had once been flame; every advance a new trial of my feelings or my fortitude; every stage of the ascent leading me, like the traveller, into a higher region, of sand or ashes; until, at the highest, I stood in a circle of eternal frost, with all the rich and human landscape below fading away in distance, and looked down only on a gulf of fire.

AMUSEMENT-Abuse of.

Marston.

The habit of dissipating every serious thought by a succession of agreeable sensations, is as fatal to happiness as to virtue; for when amusement is uniformly substituted for objects of moral and mental interest, we lose all that elevates our enjoyments above the scale of childish pleasures. Anna Maria Porter. AMUSEMENTS-Necessity for.

The mind ought sometimes to be amused, that it may the better return to thought, and to itself. Phaedrus.

ANARCHY-Digest of.

Burke talked of "that digest of anarchy called the Rights of Man." Alison. ANATHEMA.

If she must teem, Create her child of spleen, that it may live, And be a thwart disnatured torment to her. Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;

« PreviousContinue »