different the fact is! How much does one of us foresee of his own life?

Short way ahead of us it is all dim; an unwound skein of possibilities, of
apprehensions, attemptabilities, vague-looming hopes. This Cromwell had

_not_ his life lying all in that fashion of Program, which he needed then,
with that unfathomable cunning of his, only to enact dramatically, scene

after scene! Not so. We see it so; but to him it was in no measure so.
What absurdities would fall away of themselves, were this one undeniable

fact kept honestly in view by History! Historians indeed will tell you
that they do keep it in view;--but look whether such is practically the

fact! Vulgar History, as in this Cromwell's case, omits it altogether;
even the best kinds of History only remember it now and then. To remember

it duly with rigorous perfection, as in the fact it _stood_, requires
indeed a rare faculty; rare, nay impossible. A very Shakspeare for

faculty; or more than Shakspeare; who could _enact_ a brother man's
biography, see with the brother man's eyes at all points of his course what

things _he_ saw; in short, _know_ his course and him, as few "Historians"
are like to do. Half or more of all the thick-plied perversions which

distort our image of Cromwell, will disappear, if we honestly so much as
try to represent them so; in sequence, as they _were_; not in the lump, as

they are thrown down before us.
But a second error, which I think the generality commit, refers to this

same "ambition" itself. We exaggerate the ambition of Great Men; we
mistake what the nature of it is. Great Men are not ambitious in that

sense; he is a small poor man that is ambitious so. Examine the man who
lives in misery because he does not shine above other men; who goes about

producing himself, pruriently anxious about his gifts and claims;
struggling to force everybody, as it were begging everybody for God's sake,

to acknowledge him a great man, and set him over the heads of men! Such a
creature is among the wretchedest sights seen under this sun. A _great_

man? A poor morbid prurient empty man; fitter for the ward of a hospital,
than for a throne among men. I advise you to keep out of his way. He

cannot walk on quiet paths; unless you will look at him, wonder at him,
write paragraphs about him, he cannot live. It is the _emptiness_ of the

man, not his greatness. Because there is nothing in himself, he hungers
and thirsts that you would find something in him. In good truth, I believe

no great man, not so much as a genuine man who had health and real
substance in him of whatevermagnitude, was ever much tormented in this

way.
Your Cromwell, what good could it do him to be "noticed" by noisy crowds of

people? God his Maker already noticed him. He, Cromwell, was already
there; no notice would make _him_ other than he already was. Till his hair

was grown gray; and Life from the down-hill slope was all seen to be
limited, not infinite but finite, and all a measurable matter _how_ it

went,--he had been content to plough the ground, and read his Bible. He in
his old days could not support it any longer, without selling himself to

Falsehood, that he might ride in gilt carriages to Whitehall, and have
clerks with bundles of papers haunting him, "Decide this, decide that,"

which in utmost sorrow of heart no man can perfectly decide! What could
gilt carriages do for this man? From of old, was there not in his life a

weight of meaning, a terror and a splendor as of Heaven itself? His
existence there as man set him beyond the need of gilding. Death, Judgment

and Eternity: these already lay as the background of whatsoever he thought
or did. All his life lay begirt as in a sea of nameless Thoughts, which no

speech of a mortal could name. God's Word, as the Puritan prophets of that
time had read it: this was great, and all else was little to him. To call

such a man "ambitious," to figure him as the prurient wind-bag described
above, seems to me the poorest solecism. Such a man will say: "Keep your

gilt carriages and huzzaing mobs, keep your red-tape clerks, your
influentialities, your important businesses. Leave me alone, leave me

alone; there is _too much of life_ in me already!" Old Samuel Johnson, the
greatest soul in England in his day, was not ambitious. "Corsica Boswell"

flaunted at public shows with printed ribbons round his hat; but the great
old Samuel stayed at home. The world-wide soul wrapt up in its thoughts,

in its sorrows;--what could paradings, and ribbons in the hat, do for it?
Ah yes, I will say again: The great _silent_ men! Looking round on the

noisy inanity of the world, words with little meaning, actions with little
worth, one loves to reflect on the great Empire of _Silence_. The noble

silent men, scattered here and there, each in his department; silently
thinking, silentlyworking; whom no Morning Newspaper makes mention of!

They are the salt of the Earth. A country that has none or few of these is
in a bad way. Like a forest which had no _roots_; which had all turned

into leaves and boughs;--which must soon wither and be no forest. Woe for
us if we had nothing but what we can _show_, or speak. Silence, the great

Empire of Silence: higher than the stars; deeper than the Kingdoms of
Death! It alone is great; all else is small.--I hope we English will long

maintain our _grand talent pour le silence_. Let others that cannot do
without standing on barrel-heads, to spout, and be seen of all the

market-place, cultivate speech exclusively,--become a most green forest
without roots! Solomon says, There is a time to speak; but also a time to

keep silence. Of some great silent Samuel, not urged to writing, as old
Samuel Johnson says he was, by _want of money_, and nothing other, one

might ask, "Why do not you too get up and speak; promulgate your system,
found your sect?" "Truly," he will answer, "I am _continent_ of my thought

hitherto; happily I have yet had the ability to keep it in me, no
compulsion strong enough to speak it. My 'system' is not for promulgation

first of all; it is for serving myself to live by. That is the great
purpose of it to me. And then the 'honor'? Alas, yes;--but as Cato said

of the statue: So many statues in that Forum of yours, may it not be
better if they ask, Where is Cato's statue?"--

But now, by way of counterpoise to this of Silence, let me say that there
are two kinds of ambition; one wholly blamable, the other laudable and

inevitable. Nature has provided that the great silent Samuel shall not be
silent too long. The selfish wish to shine over others, let it be

accounted altogether poor and miserable. "Seekest thou great things, seek
them not:" this is most true. And yet, I say, there is an irrepressible

tendency in every man to develop himself according to the magnitude which
Nature has made him of; to speak out, to act out, what nature has laid in

him. This is proper, fit, inevitable; nay it is a duty, and even the
summary of duties for a man. The meaning of life here on earth might be

defined as consisting in this: To unfold your _self_, to work what thing
you have the faculty for. It is a necessity for the human being, the first

law of our existence. Coleridge beautifully remarks that the infant learns
to _speak_ by this necessity it feels.--We will say therefore: To decide

about ambition, whether it is bad or not, you have two things to take into
view. Not the coveting of the place alone, but the fitness of the man for

the place withal: that is the question. Perhaps the place was _his_;
perhaps he had a natural right, and even obligation, to seek the place!

Mirabeau's ambition to be Prime Minister, how shall we blame it, if he were
"the only man in France that could have done any good there"? Hopefuler

perhaps had he not so clearly _felt_ how much good he could do! But a poor
Necker, who could do no good, and had even felt that he could do none, yet

sitting broken-hearted because they had flung him out, and he was now quit
of it, well might Gibbon mourn over him.--Nature, I say, has provided amply

that the silent great man shall strive to speak withal; _too_ amply,
rather!

Fancy, for example, you had revealed to the brave old Samuel Johnson, in
his shrouded-up existence, that it was possible for him to do priceless

divine work for his country and the whole world. That the perfect Heavenly
Law might be made Law on this Earth; that the prayer he prayed daily, "Thy

kingdom come," was at length to be fulfilled! If you had convinced his
judgment of this; that it was possible, practicable; that he the mournful

silent Samuel was called to take a part in it! Would not the whole soul of
the man have flamed up into a divineclearness, into noble utterance and

determination to act; casting all sorrows and misgivings under his feet,
counting all affliction and contradiction small,--the whole dark element of

his existence blazing into articulateradiance of light and lightning? It
were a true ambition this! And think now how it actually" target="_blank" title="ad.事实上；实际上">actually was with

Cromwell. From of old, the sufferings of God's Church, true zealous
Preachers of the truth flung into dungeons, whips, set on pillories, their

ears crops off, God's Gospel-cause trodden under foot of the unworthy: all
this had lain heavy on his soul. Long years he had looked upon it, in

silence, in prayer; seeing no remedy on Earth; trusting well that a remedy
in Heaven's goodness would come,--that such a course was false, unjust, and

could not last forever. And now behold the dawn of it; after twelve years
silent waiting, all England stirs itself; there is to be once more a

Parliament, the Right will get a voice for itself: inexpressible
well-grounded hope has come again into the Earth. Was not such a

Parliament worth being a member of? Cromwell threw down his ploughs, and
hastened thither.