Some men dream of being successful businessmen. Others want to tame a wild piece of land. Many want to be great leaders, soldiers, sports stars, or travelers. The type and scale of a dominant dream varies from man to man, but always it constitutes the inner fire that puts a light in the man’s eye. It’s that certain subject that causes a stillness to steal over him and faraway look to materialize on his face. In colloquial terms, it is his “passion.”
Ben Jonson wanted to be a poet and playwright. Jonson, who lived in England at the turn of the 17th century, worked his way up from being a lowly apprentice bricklayer to strutting the stages of London and penning essays, poems, and plays to great acclaim. Indeed, many consider him second only to his friend and rival Shakespeare in the category of Elizabethan dramatists.
