comprehensive plans for effecting this object, was that of securing the
heirs to the great wealth and popular name of Sir William Devereux.
This was only a minor mesh in the intricate web of his schemes; but it
is the character of the man to take exactly the same pains, and pursue
the same laborious intrigues, for a small object as for a great one.
His first impression, on entering our house, was in favour of Gerald;
and I believe he really likes him to this day better than either of us.
Partly your sarcasms, partly Gerald's disputes with you, partly my
representations,--for I was jealous even of the love of
Montreuil,--prepossessed him against you. He thought, too, that Gerald
had more talent to serve his purposes than yourself and more facility in
being moulded to them; and he believed our uncle's partiality to you far
from being unalienable. I have said that, at the latter period of his
residence with us, he was an agent of the exiled cause. At the time I
/now/ speak of, he had not entered into the great political scheme which
engrossed him afterwards. He was merely a restless and aspiring priest,
whose whole hope, object, ambition, was the advancement of his order.
He knew that whoever inherited, or whoever shared, my uncle's wealth,
could, under legitimate regulation, promote /any/ end which the heads of
that order might select; and he wished therefore to gain the mastery
over us all. Intrigue was essentially woven with his genius, and by
intrigue only did he ever seek to arrive at /any/ end he had in view.*
He soon obtained a mysterious and pervading power over Gerald and
myself. Your temper at once irritated him, and made him despair of
obtaining an ascendant over one who, though he testified in childhood
none of the talents for which he has since been noted, testified,
nevertheless, a shrewd, penetrating, and sarcastic power of observation
and detection. You, therefore, he resolved to leave to the
irregularities of your own nature, confident that they would yield him
the opportunity of detaching your uncle from you and ultimately securing