as the wooing of any flesh-and-blood maiden, though, by the way, it

would read extremely similar; for Fortune is, indeed, as the ancients
painted her, very like a woman--not quite so unreasonable and

inconsistent, but nearly so--and the pursuit is much the same in one
case as in the other. Ben Jonson's couplet--

"Court a mistress, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you"--

puts them both in a nutshell. A woman never thoroughly cares for her
lover until he has ceased to care for her; and it is not until you

have snapped your fingers in Fortune's face and turned on your heel
that she begins to smile upon you.

But by that time you do not much care whether she smiles or frowns.
Why could she not have smiled when her smiles would have filled you

with ecstasy? Everything comes too late in this world.
Good people say that it is quite right and proper that it should be

so, and that it proves ambition is wicked.
Bosh! Good people are altogether wrong. (They always are, in my

opinion. We never agree on any single point.) What would the world
do without ambitious people, I should like to know? Why, it would be

as flabby as a Norfolk dumpling. Ambitious people are the leaven
which raises it into wholesome bread. Without ambitious people the

world would never get up. They are busybodies who are about early in
the morning, hammering, shouting, and rattling the fire-irons, and

rendering it generally impossible for the rest of the house to remain
in bed.

Wrong to be ambitious, forsooth! The men wrong who, with bent back
and sweating brow, cut the smooth road over which humanity marches

forward from generation to generation! Men wrong for using the
talents that their Master has intrusted to them--for toiling while

others play!
Of course they are seeking their reward. Man is not given that

godlike unselfishness that thinks only of others' good. But in
working for themselves they are working for us all. We are so bound

together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he
strikes in his own behalf helps to mold the universe. The stream in

struggling onward turns the mill-wheel; the coral insect, fashioning
its tiny cell, joins continents to one another; and the ambitious man,

building a pedestal for himself, leaves a monument to posterity.
Alexander and Caesar fought for their own ends, but in doing so they

put a belt of civilization half round the earth. Stephenson, to win a
fortune, invented the steam-engine; and Shakespeare wrote his plays in

order to keep a comfortable home for Mrs. Shakespeare and the little
Shakespeares.

Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They
form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted

against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent,
audience for the active spirits of the age to play before. I have not

a word to say against contented people so long as they keep quiet.
But do not, for goodness' sake, let them go strutting about, as they

are so fond of doing, crying out that they are the true models for the
whole species. Why, they are the deadheads, the drones in the great

hive, the street crowds that lounge about, gaping at those who are
working.

And let them not imagine, either--as they are also fond of doing--that
they are very wise and philosophical and that it is a very artful

thing to be contented. It may be true that "a contented mind is happy
anywhere," but so is a Jerusalem pony, and the consequence is that

both are put anywhere and are treated anyhow. "Oh, you need not
bother about him," is what is said; "he is very contented as he is,

and it would be a pity to disturb him." And so your contented party
is passed over and the discontented man gets his place.

If you are foolish enough to be contented, don't show it, but grumble
with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal.

Because if you don't you won't get any. In this world it is necessary
to adopt the principle pursued by the plaintiff in an action for

damages, and to demand ten times more than you are ready to accept.
If you can feel satisfied with a hundred, begin by insisting on a

thousand; if you start by suggesting a hundred you will only get ten.
It was by not following this simple plan that poor Jean Jacques

Rousseau came to such grief. He fixed the summit of his earthly bliss
at living in an orchard with an amiable woman and a cow, and he never

attained even that. He did get as far as the orchard, but the woman
was not amiable, and she brought her mother with her, and there was no

cow. Now, if he had made up his mind for a large country estate, a
houseful of angels, and a cattle-show, he might have lived to possess

his kitchen garden and one head of live-stock, and even possibly have
come across that _rara-avis_--a really amiable woman.

What a terribly dull affair, too, life must be for contented people!
How heavy the time must hang upon their hands, and what on earth do

they occupy their thoughts with, supposing that they have any?
Reading the paper and smoking seems to be the intellectual food of the

majority of them, to which the more energetic add playing the flute
and talking about the affairs of the next-door neighbor.

They never knew the excitement of expectation nor the stern delight of
accomplished effort, such as stir the pulse of the man who has

objects, and hopes, and plans. To the ambitious man life is a
brilliant game--a game that calls forth all his tact and energy and

nerve--a game to be won, in the long run, by the quick eye and the
steady hand, and yet having sufficient chance about its working out to

give it all the glorious zest of uncertainty. He exults in it as the
strong swimmer in the heaving billows, as the athlete in the wrestle,

the soldier in the battle.
And if he be defeated he wins the grim joy of fighting; if he lose the

race, he, at least, has had a run. Better to work and fail than to
sleep one's life away.

So, walk up, walk up, walk up. Walk up, ladies and gentlemen! walk
up, boys and girls! Show your skill and try your strength; brave your

luck and prove your pluck. Walk up! The show is never closed and the
game is always going. The only genuine sport in all the fair,

gentlemen--highly respectable and strictly moral--patronized by the
nobility, clergy, and gentry. Established in the year one, gentlemen,

and been flourishing ever since--walk up! Walk up, ladies and
gentlemen, and take a hand. There are prizes for all and all can

play. There is gold for the man and fame for the boy; rank for the
maiden and pleasure for the fool. So walk up, ladies and gentlemen,

walk up!--all prizes and no blanks; for some few win, and as to the
rest, why--

"The rapture of pursuing
Is the prize the vanquished gain."

ON THE WEATHER.
Things do go so contrary-like with me. I wanted to hit upon an

especially novel, out-of-the-way subject for one of these articles.
"I will write one paper about something altogether new," I said to

myself; "something that nobody else has ever written or talked about
before; and then I can have it all my own way." And I went about for

days, trying to think of something of this kind; and I couldn't. And
Mrs. Cutting, our charwoman, came yesterday--I don't mind mentioning

her name, because I know she will not see this book. She would not
look at such a frivolouspublication. She never reads anything but

the Bible and _Lloyd's Weekly News_. All other literature she
considers unnecessary and sinful.

She said: "Lor', sir, you do look worried."
I said: "Mrs. Cutting, I am trying to think of a subject the

discussion of which will come upon the world in the nature of a
startler--some subject upon which no previous human being has ever

said a word--some subject that will attract by its novelty, invigorate
by its surprising freshness."

She laughed and said I was a funny gentleman.
That's my luck again. When I make serious observations people

chuckle; when I attempt a joke nobody sees it. I had a beautiful one
last week. I thought it so good, and I worked it up and brought it in

artfully at a dinner-party. I forget how exactly, but we had been
talking about the attitude of Shakespeare toward the Reformation, and

I said something and immediately added, "Ah, that reminds me; such a
funny thing happened the other day in Whitechapel." "Oh," said they,

"what was that?" "Oh, 'twas awfully funny," I replied, beginning to