her, a light "coupe," I occupied alone. My route lay
through Rome and Florence, across the Apennines to Milan, and thence, by
the glorious scenery of the Spluegen, into Switzerland; but I saw little
of the varied scenes through which I journeyed. My whole thoughts were
engaged upon the future.

I had once more won the great prize in the world's lottery, and I never
ceased catechizing myself in what way I should exercise my power.

From what I had already observed of life, the great mistake of rich men
seemed to me, their addiction to some one pursuit of pleasure, which
gradually gained an undue ascendency over their minds, and exercised at
last an unwonted degree of tyranny. The passion for play, the love of
pictures, the taste for company-seeing, the sports of the field, and so
on, ought never to be allowed any paramount place, or used as pursuits;
all these things should be simply employed as means of obtaining an
ascendency over other men, and of exercising that sway which is never
denied to success.

Some men are your slaves because your cook is unrivalled, or your cellar
incomparable: others look up to you because your equipages exhibit an
elegance with which none can vie; because your thoroughbreds are larger,
show more bone, and carry the highest condition. Others, again, revere
you for your Vandykes and your Titians, your Rem brandts and Murillos,
your illuminated missals, your antique marbles. To every section of
society you can exhibit some peculiar and special temptation, which, in
their blind admiration, they refer to as an attribute of yourself.
Your own fault is it if they ever discover their error! The triumphs
of Raphael and Velasquez shed a reflected light upon him who possesses
them; and so of each excellence that wealth can purchase. You stand
embodied in the exercise of your taste, and in your own person receive
the adulation which greatness and genius have achieved.

To accomplish this, however, requires infinite tact and a great
abrogation of self. All individuality must be merged, and a new
character created, from the "disjecta membra" of many crafts and
callings.

To have any one inordinate passion is to betray a weak spot in one's
armor of which the cunning will soon take advantage. Such were among my
meditations as I rolled along towards Paris; and so long as I journeyed
alone, with no other companionship than my own thoughts, these opinions
appeared sage and well reasoned; but how soon we