In George Eliot's novel Middlemarch, there are many characters who, throughout the novel, show how a difference in priorities decides a person's success or failure. Priest Edward Casaubon and doctor Tertius Lydgate put their professional ambitions before marriage, which leads both to an extremely sad end. Casaubon's cousin, Will Ladislaw, and the mayor's son, Fred Vincy, both offer very little in the way of job prospects, but instead focus only on their romantic ambitions. Both are successful and continue to live happy lives. With the final fates of these four characters, Eliot makes clear the danger of valuing professional ambition above personal relationships. Edward Casaubon is one of the first characters introduced in the novel and his main feature is his life's work, a book he is writing that is the "Key to All Mythologies". His engagement and marriage to the lovely and intelligent Dorothea Brooke occurs quite naturally, however during their courtship he appears to be rather bored and unmoved by her and the narrator tells us that "[Casaubon] had concluded that the poets had greatly exaggerated the strength of masculine passion” (Eliot 57). So why is Casaubon so unaffectionate towards the beautiful Dorothea, who seems to worship the ground on which he walks decades has given value to his “Key to all mythologies”? above all human relationships, romantic or otherwise, and now he simply doesn't know how to relate to another person. The narrator tells us that “[Casaubon] spent much of his time at the Grange these weeks, and the obstacle that the courtship caused to the progress of his great work—The Key to All Mythologies—naturally made him look forward all the more to the happy conclusion of the courtship” (Eliot 57). Casaubon doesn't even get to enjoy his engagement because he