Politics seemed to him to open the surest and shortest
road to the prominence which he craved above everything else. He was one
of those unfortunates who can never be happy on a level--even with the
highest--and who must look down in order to be at all content with life.
Yet with this overweening and insatiable craving for distinction and
prominence, he had been given no talent by which distinction may be won;
had been granted no quality, mental, moral, or physical, by which he
might rise above the mass of his fellows. It was a cruel trick for
Nature to play, and one that she plays far too often. The sufferers from
it are certainly far more to be pitied than blamed, and it is harmful
only to the afflicted themselves, so long as it meets, or still expects,
a measure of gratification. When they are permitted to reach any height
from which to look down, the terrible craving appears to be temporarily
appeased; and they become kind, and even generous, to all who look up
with willing, unwandering gaze. It is only when the sufferers fail to
reach any height, or when they lose what little they may have attained,
or when the gaze of the world wanders, that they become hard, sour,
bitter, and merciless toward all who have succeeded where they have
failed.
Pages:
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51