Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
  (That hath infirmity of noble mind)
  To scorn delights and live laborious days[1]

And again: 

        How hard it is to climb
  The heights where Fame’s proud temple shines afar!

[Footnote 1:  Milton. Lycidas.]

We can thus understand how it is that the vainest people in the world are always talking about la gloire, with the most implicit faith in it as a stimulus to great actions and great works.  But there can he no doubt that fame is something secondary in its character, a mere echo or reflection—­as it were, a shadow or symptom—­of merit:  and, in any case, what excites admiration must be of more value than the admiration itself.  The truth is that a man is made happy, not by fame, but by that which brings him fame, by his merits, or to speak more correctly, by the disposition and capacity from which his merits proceed, whether they be moral or intellectual.  The best side of a man’s nature must of necessity be more important for him than for anyone else:  the reflection of it, the opinion which exists in the heads of others, is a matter that can affect him only in a very subordinate degree.  He who deserves fame without getting it possesses by far the more important element of happiness, which should console him for the loss of the other.  It is not that a man is thought to be great by masses of incompetent and often infatuated people, but that he really is great, which should move us to envy his position; and his happiness lies, not in the fact that posterity will hear of him, but that he is the creator of thoughts worthy to be treasured up and studied for hundreds of years.

Besides, if a man has done this, he possesses something which cannot be wrested from him; and, unlike fame, it is a possession dependent entirely upon himself.  If admiration were his chief aim, there would be nothing in him to admire.  This is just what happens in the case of false, that is, unmerited, fame; for its recipient lives upon it without actually possessing the solid substratum of which fame is the outward and visible sign.  False fame must often put its possessor out of conceit with himself; for the time may come when, in spite of the illusions borne of self-love, he will feel giddy on the heights which he was never meant to climb, or look upon himself as spurious coin; and in the anguish of threatened discovery and well-merited degradation, he will read the sentence of posterity on the foreheads of the wise—­like a man who owes his property to a forged will.

The truest fame, the fame that comes after death, is never heard of by its recipient; and yet he is called a happy man.

His happiness lay both in the possession of those great qualities which won him fame, and in the opportunity that was granted him of developing them—­the leisure he had to act as he pleased, to dedicate himself to his favorite pursuits.  It is only work done from the heart that ever gains the laurel.