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There is a picture which represents ambition. A young man is riding a swift and powerful steed. His mantle is flying behind him in the wind. His face is aglow with eager desire and anticipation. His eyes flash. He is consumed with eagerness as he seeks to grasp the prize. Before him rolls a ball of gold, on a narrow way. It is this that the young man is pursuing. On either side of the narrow path is a precipice, into which a stumble or a misstep may plunge horse and rider. Beneath the feet of the flying steed lies the prostrate form of virtue, over which the youth has ridden in his mad chase. Behind, his bony hand extended toward the rider, is the shadowy skeleton form of death, coming in swift pursuit. The goal of ambition ahead, death in pursuit, virtue trampled underfoot, danger on either hand, – these are the elements of the picture.
Is not the picture true in its delineation of the life of many men? You say it is too tragic? Nothing that art can do could overstate the real Tragicalness of thousands of lives in this world. Made for endlessness, for immortality, men live as though death ended all, as though the grave’s darkness were the close. Tragic? What are you living for? What are your central aims? What is your goal? Where is your eye fixed? What place has the endless hereafter in your hopes and plans or as a force in your life? Are you living only for time? Is there nothing tragical in your life as it appears to the angels, who, with loving eagerness, watch us mortals in this world?