VII.


Then said I: 'Thou knowest thyself that ambition for worldly success
hath but little swayed me. Yet I have desired opportunity for action,
lest virtue, in default of exercise, should languish away.'

Then she: 'This is that "last infirmity" which is able to allure minds
which, though of noble quality, have not yet been moulded to any
exquisite refinement by the perfecting of the virtues--I mean, the love
of glory--and fame for high services rendered to the commonweal. And yet
consider with me how poor and unsubstantial a thing this glory is! The
whole of this earth's globe, as thou hast learnt from the demonstration
of astronomy, compared with the expanse of heaven, is found no bigger
than a point; that is to say, if measured by the vastness of heaven's
sphere, it is held to occupy absolutely no space at all. Now, of this so
insignificant portion of the universe, it is about a fourth part, as
Ptolemy's proofs have taught us, which is inhabited by living creatures
known to us. If from this fourth part you take away in thought all that
is usurped by seas and marshes, or lies a vast waste of waterless
desert, barely is an exceeding narrow area left for human habitation.
You, then, who are shut in and prisoned in this merest fraction of a
point's space, do ye take thought for the blazoning of your fame, for
the spreading abroad of your renown? Why, what amplitude or magnificence
has glory when confined to such narrow and petty limits?

'Besides, the straitened bounds of this scant dwelling-place are
inhabited by many nations differing widely in speech, in usages, in mode