This is a world of competition. It is a world full of things that
many people wish to get, and that all cannot get at once; and
to say this is much as to say that this is a world of failure and
disappointments. All things desirable, by their very existence imply
the disappointment of some. When you, my reader, being no longer
young, look with a philosophic eye at some pretty girl entering a
drawing-room, you cannot but reflect, as you survey the pleasing
picture, and more especially when you think of the twenty thousand
pounds--Ah! my gentle young friend, you will some day make one heart
very jolly, but a great many more extremely envious, wrathful, and
disappointed. So with all other desirable things; so with a large
living in the Church; so with aliy place of dignity; so with a seat
on the bench; so with the bishopric; so with the woolsack; so with
the towers of Lambeth. So with smaller matters; so with a good
business in the greengrocery line; so with a well-paying milk-walk;
so with a clerk's situation of eighty pounds a year; so with an
errand boy's place at three shillings a week, which thirty candidates
want, and only one can get. Alas for our fallen race! Is it not
part, at least, of some men's pleasure in gaining some object which
has been generally sought for, to think of the mortification of
the poor fellows that failed?

Disappointment, in short, may come and must come wherever man can
set his wishes and his hopes. The only way not to be disappointed
when a thing turns out against you, is not to have really cared how
the thing went. It is not a truism to remark that this is impossible
if you did care. Of course you are not disappointed at failing of
attaining an end which you did not care whether you attained or
not; but men seek very few such ends. If a man has worked day and
night for six weeks in canvassing his county, and then, having been