with it. Heart answered to heart as he spoke, and, when he ceased, the
silence and tears of the impassive bench, as well as of the excited
audience were a tribute to the truth and power of the feeling by which he
had been inspired.
G. S. Hillard.


XXVIII.

THE AMBITION OF WEBSTER.

Mr. Webster was an ambitious man. He desired the highest office in the gift
of the people. But on this subject, as on all others, there was no
concealment in his nature. And ambition is not a weakness unless it be
disproportional to the capacity. To have more ambition than ability is to
be at once weak and unhappy. With him it was a noble passion, because it
rested upon noble powers. He was a man cast in a heroic mould. His
thoughts, his wishes, his passions, his aspirations, were all on a grander
scale than those of other men. Unexercised capacity is always a source of
rusting discontent. The height to which men may rise is in proportion to
the upward force of their genius, and they will never be calm till they
have attained their predestined elevation. Lord Bacon says, "as in nature
things move violently to their place and calmly in their place, so virtue
in ambition is violent, in authority, settled and calm." Mr. Webster had a
giant's brain and a giant's heart, and he wanted a giant's work. He found
repose in those strong conflicts and great duties which crush the weak and
madden the sensitive. He thought that, if he were elevated to the highest
place, he should so administer the government as to make the country
honored abroad, and great and happy at home. He thought, too, that he could
do something to make us more truly one people. This, above everything else,