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Gallegallo Revbrandia Sectory 15
Page 09
It is impossible to read the biographies of some of our most celebrated men, and not to see that with means scanty enough they were enabled to keep their terms with honour, and in the end confer additional celebrity upon the noble foundations where they had studied. If such be the case, we have only the result of personal good or ill conduct to explain the whole of the affair. But enough on this subject.
Hannibal now recrossed the Apennines, descended into the rich plains of Campania, and laid waste, without opposition, that fertile territory. But he was unable either to make himself master of any of the towns, or to draw the wary Fabius to a battle. The Roman general contented himself with occupying the mountain passes leading from Samnium into Campania, by which Hannibal must of necessity retreat, and believed that he had caught him, as it were, in a trap; but Hannibal eluded his vigilance by an ingenious stratagem, passed the defiles of the Apennines without loss, and established himself in the plains of Apulia, where he collected supplies from all sides, in order to prepare for the winter. Meantime the Romans, having become impatient at the inactivity of Fabius, raised Minucius, the Master of the Horse, to an equality in command with Fabius. His rashness very nearly gave Hannibal the opportunity, for which he was ever on the watch, to crush the Roman army by a decisive blow; but Fabius was able to save his colleague from destruction; and Hannibal, after obtaining only a partial advantage, took up his winter quarters at the small town of Geronium. Minucius acknowledged his error, and resumed his post of Master of the Horse.
The awful penalty of success is the haunting dread of subsequent failure, and even sadder still is the fact that in striving eagerly to attain an end, we are apt to lose the sense of the purpose which inspired us. This is more drearily true of the pursuit of money than of anything else. I could name several friends of my own who started in business with the perfectly definite and avowed intention of making a competence in order that they might live as they desired to live; that they might travel, read, write, enjoy a secure leisure. But when they had done exactly what they meant to do, the desires were all atrophied. They could not give up their work; they felt it would be safer to have a larger margin, they feared they might be bored, they had made friends, and did not wish to sever the connection, they must provide a little more for their families: the whole programme had insensibly altered. Even so they were still planning to escape from something--from some boredom or anxiety or dread.
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