steps to that
height at which he wants to arrive. Seek first, then, for the predominant
passion of the character which you mean to engage and influence, and
address yourself to it; but without defying or despising the inferior
passions; get them in your interest too, for now and then they will have
their turns. In many cases, you may not have it in your power to
contribute to the gratification of the prevailing passion; then take the
next best to your aid. There are many avenues to every man; and when you
cannot get at him through the great one, try the serpentine ones, and you
will arrive at last.

There are two inconsistent passions, which, however, frequently accompany
each other, like man and wife; and which, like man and wife too, are
commonly clogs upon each other. I mean ambition and avarice: the latter
is often the true cause of the former, and then is the predominant
passion. It seems to have been so in Cardinal Mazarin, who did anything,
submitted to anything, and forgave anything, for the sake of plunder. He
loved and courted power, like a usurer, because it carried profit along
with it. Whoever should have formed his opinion, or taken his measures,
singly, from the ambitious part of Cardinal Mazarin's character, would
have found himself often mistaken. Some who had found this out, made
their fortunes by letting him cheat them at play. On the contrary,
Cardinal Richelieu's prevailing passion seems to have been ambition, and
his immense riches only the natural consequences of that ambition
gratified; and yet, I make no doubt, but that ambition had now and then
its turn with the former, and avarice with the latter. Richelieu (by the
way) is so strong a proof of the inconsistency of human nature, that I
cannot help observing to you, that while he absolutely governed both his
king and his country, and was, in a great degree, the arbiter of the fate
of all Europe, he was more jealous of the great reputation of Corneille
than of the power of Spain; and more flattered with being thought (what
he was not) the best poet, than with being thought (what he certainly
was) the greatest statesman in Europe; and affairs stood still while he
was concerting the criticism upon the Cid. Could one think this possible,
if one did not know it to be true? Though men are all of one composition,
the several ingredients are so differently proportioned in each
individual, that no two are exactly alike; and no one at all times like
hims