book1.xml

<TEI>
  <body>
  <text>

<H1 ALIGN="center">
Middlemarch
</H1>


<H3 ALIGN="center"> By </H3>

<H2 ALIGN="center"> George Eliot </H2>

<H4 ALIGN="center">
New York and Boston
<BR/>
H. M. Caldwell Company Publishers
</H4>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

<H3 ALIGN="center">
To my dear Husband, George Henry Lewes,<BR/>
in this nineteenth year of our blessed union.
</H3>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

<div type="chapter" n="0">

  <head>PRELUDE</head>

<P>
Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious
mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt,
at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with
some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one
morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek
martyrdom in the country of the Moors?  Out they toddled from rugged
Avila, wide-eyed and helpless-looking as two fawns, but with human
hearts, already beating to a national idea; until domestic reality met
them in the shape of uncles, and turned them back from their great
resolve.  That child-pilgrimage was a fit beginning.  Theresa's
passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed
romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to
her?  Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from
within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which
would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with
the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self.  She found her epos in
the reform of a religious order.
</P>

<P>
That Spanish woman who lived three hundred years ago, was certainly not
the last of her kind.  Many Theresas have been born who found for
themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of
far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of
a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of
opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and
sank unwept into oblivion.  With dim lights and tangled circumstance
they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but
after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and
formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent
social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge
for the ardently willing soul.  Their ardor alternated between a vague
ideal and the common yearning of womanhood; so that the one was
disapproved as extravagance, and the other condemned as a lapse.
</P>

<P>
Some have felt that these blundering lives are due to the inconvenient
indefiniteness with which the Supreme Power has fashioned the natures
of women: if there were one level of feminine incompetence as strict as
the ability to count three and no more, the social lot of women might
be treated with scientific certitude.  Meanwhile the indefiniteness
remains, and the limits of variation are really much wider than any one
would imagine from the sameness of women's coiffure and the favorite
love-stories in prose and verse.  Here and there a cygnet is reared
uneasily among the ducklings in the brown pond, and never finds the
living stream in fellowship with its own oary-footed kind.  Here and
there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of nothing, whose loving
heart-beats and sobs after an unattained goodness tremble off and are
dispersed among hindrances, instead of centring in some
long-recognizable deed.
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>
</div>

<list type="Characters">
  <item xml:id="D"/>
  <name>Dorothea</name>
  <item xml:id="Celia"/>
  <name> Celia </name>
  <item xml:id="B"/>
  <name>Bulstrode</name>
  <item xml:id="Lyd"/>
  <name>Tertius Lydate</name>
  <item xml:id="Lad"/>
  <name>Will Ladislaw</name>
  <item xml:id="R"/>
  <name>Rosamond Vincy</name>
  <item xml:id="M"/>
  <name>Mary Garth</name>
  <item xml:id="F"/>
  <name>Fred Vincy</name>
  <item xml:id="C"/>
  <name>Mr. Casaubon</name>
  <item xml:id="MB"/>
  <name>Mr. Brooke</name>
  <item xml:id="JC"/>
  <name>Sir James Chettam</name>
  <item xml:id="LC"/>
  <name>Lady Chettam</name>
  <item xml:id="MrsV"/>
  <name>Mrs Vincy</name>
  <item xml:id="MrV"/>
  <name>Mr Vincy</name>
  <item xml:id="MrsCad"/>
  <name>Mrs Cadawaller </name>
  <item xml:id="MrF"/>
  <name>Mr Featherstone </name>
</list>


<A NAME="chap01"></A>

<H2 ALIGN="center"> BOOK I. </H2>

<BR/>

<H2 ALIGN="center"> MISS BROOKE. </H2>

<BR/><BR/>

<H3 ALIGN="center">
CHAPTER I.
</H3>

<epigraph>
          Since I can do no good because a woman,
          Reach constantly at something that is near it.
                   —The Maid's Tragedy: BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
</epigraph>

<BR/>

<P>
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into
relief by poor dress. <first> Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that
she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the
Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and her profile as well as
her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain
garments, which by the side of provincial fashion gave her the
impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible,—or from one of our
elder poets,—in a paragraph of to-day's newspaper. </first> She was usually
spoken of as being remarkably clever, but with the addition that her
sister Celia had more common-sense. Nevertheless, Celia wore scarcely
more trimmings; and it was only to close observers that her dress
differed from her sister's, and had a shade of coquetry in its
arrangements; for Miss Brooke's plain dressing was due to mixed
conditions, in most of which her sister shared. <fid who="#MM"> The pride of being
ladies had something to do with it: the Brooke connections, though not
exactly aristocratic, were unquestionably "good"</fid>: <second> if you inquired
backward for a generation or two, you would not find any yard-measuring
or parcel-tying forefathers—anything lower than an admiral or a
clergyman; and there was even an ancestor discernible as a Puritan
gentleman who served under Cromwell, but afterwards conformed, and
managed to come out of all political troubles as the proprietor of a
respectable family estate. </second> Young women of such birth, living in a
quiet country-house, and attending a village church hardly larger than
a parlor, naturally regarded frippery as the ambition of a huckster's
daughter.  Then there was well-bred economy, which in those days made
show in dress the first item to be deducted from, when any margin was
required for expenses more distinctive of rank.  Such reasons would
have been enough to account for plain dress, quite apart from religious
feeling; but in Miss Brooke's case, religion alone would have
determined it; and Celia mildly acquiesced in all her sister's
sentiments, only infusing them with that common-sense which is able to
accept momentous doctrines without any eccentric agitation. Dorothea
knew many passages of Pascal's Pensees and of Jeremy Taylor by heart;
and to her the destinies of mankind, seen by the light of Christianity,
made the solicitudes of feminine fashion appear an occupation for
Bedlam. She could not reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life
involving eternal consequences, with a keen interest in gimp and
artificial protrusions of drapery.  Her mind was theoretic, and yearned
by its nature after some lofty conception of the world which might
frankly include the parish of Tipton and her own rule of conduct there;
she was enamoured of intensity and greatness, and rash in embracing
whatever seemed to her to have those aspects; likely to seek martyrdom,
to make retractations, and then to incur martyrdom after all in a
quarter where she had not sought it.  Certainly such elements in the
character of a marriageable girl tended to interfere with her lot, and
hinder it from being decided according to custom, by good looks,
vanity, and merely canine affection.  With all this, she, the elder of
the sisters, was not yet twenty, and they had both been educated, since
they were about twelve years old and had lost their parents, on plans
at once narrow and promiscuous, first in an English family and
afterwards in a Swiss family at Lausanne, their bachelor uncle and
guardian trying in this way to remedy the disadvantages of their
orphaned condition.
</P>

<P>
It was hardly a year since they had come to live at Tipton Grange with
their uncle, a man nearly sixty, of acquiescent temper, miscellaneous
opinions, and uncertain vote.  He had travelled in his younger years,
and was held in this part of the county to have contracted a too
rambling habit of mind.  Mr. Brooke's conclusions were as difficult to
predict as the weather: it was only safe to say that he would act with
benevolent intentions, and that he would spend as little money as
possible in carrying them out.  For the most glutinously indefinite
minds enclose some hard grains of habit; and a man has been seen lax
about all his own interests except the retention of his snuff-box,
concerning which he was watchful, suspicious, and greedy of clutch.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> In Mr. Brooke the hereditary strain of Puritan energy was clearly in
abeyance; but in his niece Dorothea it glowed alike through faults and
virtues, turning sometimes into impatience of her uncle's talk or his
way of <said>letting things be</said> on his estate, and making her long all the
more for the time when she would be of age and have some command of
money for generous schemes. </said> She was regarded as an heiress; for not
only had the sisters seven hundred a-year each from their parents, but
if Dorothea married and had a son, that son would inherit Mr. Brooke's
estate, presumably worth about three thousand a-year—a rental which
seemed wealth to provincial families, still discussing Mr. Peel's late
conduct on the Catholic question, innocent of future gold-fields, and
of that gorgeous plutocracy which has so nobly exalted the necessities
of genteel life.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#waryman" direct="false" aloud="false"> And how should Dorothea not marry?—a girl so handsome and with such
prospects?  Nothing could hinder it but her love of extremes, and her
insistence on regulating life according to notions which might cause a
wary man to hesitate before he made her an offer, or even might lead
her at last to refuse all offers.  A young lady of some birth and
fortune, who knelt suddenly down on a brick floor by the side of a sick
laborer and prayed fervidly as if herself living in the
time of the Apostles—who had strange whims of fasting like a Papist,
and of sitting up at night to read old theological books!  <second> Such a wife
might awaken you some fine morning with a new scheme for the
application of her income which would interfere with political economy
and the keeping of saddle-horses: a man would naturally think twice
before he risked himself in such fellowship.  </second> Women were expected to
have weak opinions; but the great safeguard of society and of domestic
life was, that opinions were not acted on.  Sane people did what their
neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know
and avoid them. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MM" direct="false" aloud="false"> The rural opinion about the new young ladies, even among the cottagers,
was generally in favor of Celia, as being so amiable and
innocent-looking, while Miss Brooke's large eyes seemed, like her
religion, too unusual and striking.  Poor Dorothea! compared with her,
the innocent-looking Celia was knowing and worldly-wise; so much
subtler is a human mind than the outside tissues which make a sort of
blazonry or clock-face for it. </said>
</P>

<P>
Yet those who approached Dorothea, though prejudiced against her by
this alarming hearsay, found that she had a charm unaccountably
reconcilable with it.  Most men thought her bewitching when she was on
horseback.  She loved the fresh air and the various aspects of the
country, and when her eyes and cheeks glowed with mingled pleasure she
looked very little like a devotee.  Riding was an indulgence which she
allowed herself in spite of conscientious qualms; she felt that she
enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked forward to
renouncing it.
</P>

<P>
She was open, ardent, and not in the least self-admiring; indeed, it
was pretty to see how her imagination adorned her sister Celia with
attractions altogether superior to her own, and if any gentleman
appeared to come to the Grange from some other motive than that of
seeing Mr. Brooke, she concluded that he must be in love with Celia:
Sir James Chettam, for example, whom she constantly considered from
Celia's point of view, inwardly debating whether it would be good for
Celia to accept him.  That he should be regarded as a suitor to herself
would have seemed to her a ridiculous irrelevance.  Dorothea, with all
her eagerness to know the truths of life, retained very childlike ideas
about marriage. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> She felt sure that she would have accepted the
judicious Hooker, if she had been born in time to save him from that
wretched mistake he made in matrimony; or John Milton when his
blindness had come on; or any of the other great men whose odd habits
it would have been glorious piety to endure; but an amiable handsome
baronet, who said "Exactly" to her remarks even when she expressed
uncertainty,—how could he affect her as a lover?  <second> The really
delightful marriage must be that where your husband was a sort of
father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you wished it.</second> </said>
</P>

<P>
These peculiarities of Dorothea's character caused Mr. Brooke to be all
the more blamed in neighboring families for not securing some
middle-aged lady as guide and companion to his nieces. <said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false"> But he himself
dreaded so much the sort of superior woman likely to be available for
such a position, that he allowed himself to be dissuaded by Dorothea's
objections, and was in this case brave enough to defy the world—that
is to say, Mrs. Cadwallader the Rector's wife, and the small group of
gentry with whom he visited in the northeast corner of Loamshire. </said> So
Miss Brooke presided in her uncle's household, and did not at all
dislike her new authority, with the homage that belonged to it.
</P>

<P>
Sir James Chettam was going to dine at the Grange to-day with another
gentleman whom the girls had never seen, and about whom Dorothea felt
some venerating expectation.  This was the Reverend Edward Casaubon,
noted in the county as a man of profound learning, understood for many
years to be engaged on a great work concerning religious history; also
as a man of wealth enough to give lustre to his piety, and having views
of his own which were to be more clearly ascertained on the publication
of his book.  His very name carried an impressiveness hardly to be
measured without a precise chronology of scholarship.
</P>

<P>
Early in the day Dorothea had returned from the infant school which she
had set going in the village, and was taking her usual place in the
pretty sitting-room which divided the bedrooms of the sisters, bent on
finishing a plan for some buildings (a kind of work which she delighted
in), when Celia, who had been watching her with a hesitating desire to
propose something, said—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia"> Dorothea, dear, if you don't mind—if you are not very busy—suppose
we looked at mamma's jewels to-day, and divided them?  It is exactly
six months to-day since uncle gave them to you, and you have not looked
at them yet.</said>
</P>

<P>
<second> Celia's face had the shadow of a pouting expression in it, the full
presence of the pout being kept back by an habitual awe of Dorothea and
principle; two associated facts which might show a mysterious
electricity if you touched them incautiously. </second> <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false">To her relief,
Dorothea's eyes were full of laughter as she looked up. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">What a wonderful little almanac you are, Celia!  Is it six calendar or
six lunar months?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">It is the last day of September now, and it was the first of April
when uncle gave them to you.  You know, he said that he had forgotten
them till then.  I believe you have never thought of them since you
locked them up in the cabinet here.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Well, dear, we should never wear them, you know.</said> Dorothea spoke in a
full cordial tone, half caressing, half explanatory.  She had her
pencil in her hand, and was making tiny side-plans on a margin.
</P>

<P>
Celia colored, and looked very grave.  <said who="#Celia">I think, dear, we are wanting
in respect to mamma's memory, to put them by and take no notice of
them.  And,</said> she added, after hesitating a little, with a rising sob of
mortification, <said who="#Celia">necklaces are quite usual now; and Madame Poincon, who
was stricter in some things even than you are, used to wear ornaments.
And Christians generally—surely there are women in heaven now who wore
jewels.</said> <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> Celia was conscious of some mental strength when she really
applied herself to argument. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">You would like to wear them?</said> exclaimed Dorothea, an air of astonished
discovery animating her whole person with a dramatic action which she
had caught from that very Madame Poincon who wore the ornaments.  <said who="#D">Of
course, then, let us have them out.  Why did you not tell me before?
But the keys, the keys!</said> She pressed her hands against the sides of her
head and seemed to despair of her memory.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">They are here,</said> said Celia, with whom this explanation had been long
meditated and prearranged.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Pray open the large drawer of the cabinet and get out the jewel-box.</said>
</P>

<P>
The casket was soon open before them, and the various jewels spread
out, making a bright parterre on the table.  It was no great
collection, but a few of the ornaments were really of remarkable
beauty, the finest that was obvious at first being a necklace of purple
amethysts set in exquisite gold work, and a pearl cross with five
brilliants in it.  Dorothea immediately took up the necklace and
fastened it round her sister's neck, where it fitted almost as closely
as a bracelet; but the circle suited the Henrietta-Maria style of
Celia's head and neck, and she could see that it did, in the pier-glass
opposite.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">There, Celia! you can wear that with your Indian muslin.  But this
cross you must wear with your dark dresses.</said>
</P>

<P>
Celia was trying not to smile with pleasure.  <said who="#Celia">O Dodo, you must keep
the cross yourself.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">No, no, dear, no,</said> said Dorothea, putting up her hand with careless
deprecation.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Yes, indeed you must; it would suit you—in your black dress, now,</said>
said Celia, insistingly.  <said who="#Celia">You <emph rend="italics">might</emph> wear that.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Not for the world, not for the world.  A cross is the last thing I
would wear as a trinket.</said> Dorothea shuddered slightly.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Then you will think it wicked in me to wear it,</said> said Celia, uneasily.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">No, dear, no,</said> said Dorothea, stroking her sister's cheek.  <said>Souls
have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">But you might like to keep it for mamma's sake.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">No, I have other things of mamma's—her sandal-wood box which I am so
fond of—plenty of things.  In fact, they are all yours, dear.  We need
discuss them no longer.  There—take away your property.</said>
</P>

<P>
Celia felt a little hurt.  There was a strong assumption of superiority
in this Puritanic toleration, hardly less trying to the blond flesh of
an unenthusiastic sister than a Puritanic persecution.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">But how can I wear ornaments if you, who are the elder sister, will
never wear them?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Nay, Celia, that is too much to ask, that I should wear trinkets to
keep you in countenance.  If I were to put on such a necklace as that,
I should feel as if I had been pirouetting.  The world would go round
with me, and I should not know how to walk.</said>
</P>

<P>
Celia had unclasped the necklace and drawn it off.  <said who="#Celia">It would be a
little tight for your neck; something to lie down and hang would suit
you better,</said> she said, with some satisfaction. <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> The complete unfitness
of the necklace from all points of view for Dorothea, made Celia
happier in taking it. </said> She was opening some ring-boxes, which disclosed
a fine emerald with diamonds, and just then the sun passing beyond a
cloud sent a bright gleam over the table.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">How very beautiful these gems are!</said> said Dorothea, under a new current
of feeling, as sudden as the gleam.  <said who="#D">It is strange how deeply colors
seem to penetrate one, like scent.  I suppose that is the reason why
gems are used as spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St. John.  They
look like fragments of heaven.  I think that emerald is more beautiful
than any of them.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">And there is a bracelet to match it,</said> said Celia.  <said who="#Celia">
We did not notice
this at first.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D"> <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false">They are lovely,</said> said Dorothea, slipping the ring and bracelet on her
finely turned finger and wrist, and holding them towards the window on
a level with her eyes.  All the while her thought was trying to justify
her delight in the colors by merging them in her mystic religious joy. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia"> <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false">You <emph rend="italics">would</emph> like those, Dorothea,</said> said Celia, rather falteringly,
beginning to think with wonder that her sister showed some weakness,
and also that emeralds would suit her own complexion even better than
purple amethysts. </said> <said who="#Celia">You must keep that ring and bracelet—if nothing
else.  But see, these agates are very pretty and quiet.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Yes!  I will keep these—this ring and bracelet,</said> said Dorothea.
Then, letting her hand fall on the table, she said in another
tone— <said who="#D">Yet what miserable men find such things, and work at them, and
sell them! </said> <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> She paused again, and Celia thought that her sister was
going to renounce the ornaments, as in consistency she ought to do. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D"> Yes, dear, I will keep these,</said> said Dorothea, decidedly.  <said who="#D">But take
all the rest away, and the casket.</said>
</P>

<P>
She took up her pencil without removing the jewels, and still looking
at them. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> She thought of often having them by her, to feed her eye at
these little fountains of pure color. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Shall you wear them in company?</said> said Celia, who was watching her with
real curiosity as to what she would do.
</P>

<P>
Dorothea glanced quickly at her sister.  Across all her imaginative
adornment of those whom she loved, there darted now and then a keen
discernment, which was not without a scorching quality.  If Miss Brooke
ever attained perfect meekness, it would not be for lack of inward fire.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Perhaps,</said> she said, rather haughtily.  <said who="#D">I cannot tell to what level I
may sink.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> Celia blushed, and was unhappy: she saw that she had offended her
sister, and dared not say even anything pretty about the gift of the
ornaments which she put back into the box and carried away. </said> <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false">Dorothea
too was unhappy, as she went on with her plan-drawing, questioning the
purity of her own feeling and speech in the scene which had ended with
that little explosion. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> Celia's consciousness told her that she had not been at all in the
wrong: it was quite natural and justifiable that she should have asked
that question, and she repeated to herself that Dorothea was
inconsistent: either she should have taken her full share of the
jewels, or, after what she had said, she should have renounced them
altogether. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">I am sure—at least, I trust,</said> thought Celia, <said who="#Celia">that the wearing of a
necklace will not interfere with my prayers.  And I do not see that I
should be bound by Dorothea's opinions now we are going into society,
though of course she herself ought to be bound by them.  But Dorothea
is not always consistent.</said>
</P>

<P>
Thus Celia, mutely bending over her tapestry, until she heard her
sister calling her.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Here, Kitty, come and look at my plan; I shall think I am a great
architect, if I have not got incompatible stairs and fireplaces.</said>
</P>

<P>
As Celia bent over the paper, Dorothea put her cheek against her
sister's arm caressingly. <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> Celia understood the action. Dorothea saw
that she had been in the wrong, and Celia pardoned her. </said> Since they
could remember, there had been a mixture of criticism and awe in the
attitude of Celia's mind towards her elder sister.  The younger had
always worn a yoke; but is there any yoked creature without its private
opinions?
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

</div>

<div type="chapter" n="02"><head>CHAPTER II.</head>

    <epigraph xml:lang="spa">>
        <said>'Dime; no ves aquel caballero que hacia nosotros viene
            sobre un caballo rucio rodado que trae puesto en la cabeza
            un yelmo de oro?' 'Lo que veo y columbro,' respondio Sancho,
            'no es sino un hombre sobre un as no pardo como el mio, que
            trae sobre la cabeza una cosa que relumbra.' 'Pues ese es el
            yelmo de Mambrino,' dijo Don Quijote.—CERVANTES.
        </said>
    </epigraph>

    <epigraph>
        <said>'Seest thou not yon cavalier who cometh toward us on a
            dapple-gray steed, and weareth a golden helmet?' 'What I
            see,' answered Sancho, 'is nothing but a man on a gray ass
            like my own, who carries something shiny on his head.' 'Just
            so,' answered Don Quixote: 'and that resplendent object is
            the helmet of Mambrino.'</said>
    </epigraph>


<P>
<said who="#MB">Sir Humphry Davy?</said> said Mr. Brooke, over the soup, in his easy smiling
way, taking up Sir James Chettam's remark that he was studying Davy's
Agricultural Chemistry.  <said who="#MB">Well, now, Sir Humphry Davy; I dined with him
years ago at Cartwright's, and Wordsworth was there too—the poet
Wordsworth, you know.  Now there was something singular.  I was at
Cambridge when Wordsworth was there, and I never met him—and I dined
with him twenty years afterwards at Cartwright's. There's an oddity in
things, now.  But Davy was there: he was a poet too.  Or, as I may say,
Wordsworth was poet one, and Davy was poet two.  That was true in every
sense, you know.</said>
</P>

<P>
Dorothea felt a little more uneasy than usual.  In the beginning of
dinner, the party being small and the room still, these motes from the
mass of a magistrate's mind fell too noticeably. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> She wondered how a
man like Mr. Casaubon would support such triviality.  His manners, she
thought, were very dignified; the set of his iron-gray hair and his
deep eye-sockets made him resemble the portrait of Locke.  He had the
spare form and the pale complexion which became a student; as different
as possible from the blooming Englishman of the red-whiskered type
represented by Sir James Chettam. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">I am reading the Agricultural Chemistry,</said> said this excellent baronet,
<said who="#JC">because I am going to take one of the farms into my own hands, and see
if something cannot be done in setting a good pattern of farming among
my tenants.  Do you approve of that, Miss Brooke?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">A great mistake, Chettam,</said> interposed Mr. Brooke, <said who="#MB">going into
electrifying your land and that kind of thing, and making a parlor of
your cow-house. It won't do.  I went into science a great deal myself
at one time; but I saw it would not do.  It leads to everything; you
can let nothing alone.  No, no—see that your tenants don't sell their
straw, and that kind of thing; and give them draining-tiles, you know.
But your fancy farming will not do—the most expensive sort of whistle
you can buy: you may as well keep a pack of hounds.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Surely,</said> said Dorothea, <said who="#D">it is better to spend money in finding out
how men can make the most of the land which supports them all, than in
keeping dogs and horses only to gallop over it.  It is not a sin to
make yourself poor in performing experiments for the good of all.</said>
</P>

<P>
She spoke with more energy than is expected of so young a lady, but Sir
James had appealed to her.  He was accustomed to do so, and she had
often thought that she could urge him to many good actions when he was
her brother-in-law.
</P>

<P>
Mr. Casaubon turned his eyes very markedly on Dorothea while she was
speaking, and seemed to observe her newly.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Young ladies don't understand political economy, you know,</said> said Mr.
Brooke, smiling towards Mr. Casaubon.  <said who="#MB">I remember when we were all
reading Adam Smith.  <emph rend="italics">There</emph> is a book, now.  I took in all the new
ideas at one time—human perfectibility, now.  But some say, history
moves in circles; and that may be very well argued; I have argued it
myself.  The fact is, human reason may carry you a little too far—over
the hedge, in fact.  It carried me a good way at one time; but I saw it
would not do.  I pulled up; I pulled up in time.  But not too hard.  I
have always been in favor of a little theory: we must have Thought;
else we shall be landed back in the dark ages.  But talking of books,
there is Southey's 'Peninsular War.' I am reading that of a morning.
You know Southey?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">No,</said> said Mr. Casaubon, not keeping pace with Mr. Brooke's impetuous
reason, and thinking of the book only.  <said who="#C">I have little leisure for such
literature just now.  I have been using up my eyesight on old
characters lately; the fact is, I want a reader for my evenings; but I
am fastidious in voices, and I cannot endure listening to an imperfect
reader.  It is a misfortune, in some senses: I feed too much on the
inward sources; I live too much with the dead.  My mind is something
like the ghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying
mentally to construct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and
confusing changes.  But I find it necessary to use the utmost caution
about my eyesight.</said>
</P>

<P>
This was the first time that Mr. Casaubon had spoken at any length.  He
delivered himself with precision, as if he had been called upon to make
a public statement; and the balanced sing-song neatness of his speech,
occasionally corresponded to by a movement of his head, was the more
conspicuous from its contrast with good Mr. Brooke's scrappy
slovenliness. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea said to herself that Mr. Casaubon was the most
interesting man she had ever seen, not excepting even Monsieur Liret,
the Vaudois clergyman who had given conferences on the history of the
Waldenses.  To reconstruct a past world, doubtless with a view to the
highest purposes of truth—what a work to be in any way present at, to
assist in, though only as a lamp-holder!  This elevating thought lifted
her above her annoyance at being twitted with her ignorance of
political economy, that never-explained science which was thrust as an
extinguisher over all her lights. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">But you are fond of riding, Miss Brooke,</said> Sir James presently took an
opportunity of saying.  <said who="#JC">I should have thought you would enter a little
into the pleasures of hunting.  I wish you would let me send over a
chestnut horse for you to try.  It has been trained for a lady.  I saw
you on Saturday cantering over the hill on a nag not worthy of you.  My
groom shall bring Corydon for you every day, if you will only mention
the time.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D"> <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false">Thank you, you are very good.  I mean to give up riding.  I shall not
ride any more,</said> said Dorothea, urged to this brusque resolution by a
little annoyance that Sir James would be soliciting her attention when
she wanted to give it all to Mr. Casaubon. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">No, that is too hard,</said> said Sir James, in a tone of reproach that
showed strong interest.  <said who="#JC">Your sister is given to self-mortification,
is she not?</said> he continued, turning to Celia, who sat at his right hand.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia"> <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false">I think she is,</said> said Celia, feeling afraid lest she should say
something that would not please her sister, and blushing as prettily as
possible above her necklace. </said> <said who="#Celia">She likes giving up.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">If that were true, Celia, my giving-up would be self-indulgence, not
self-mortification. But there may be good reasons for choosing not to
do what is very agreeable,</said> said Dorothea.
</P>

<P>
Mr. Brooke was speaking at the same time, but it was evident that Mr.
Casaubon was observing Dorothea, and she was aware of it.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Exactly,</said> said Sir James.  <said who="#JC">You give up from some high, generous
motive.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">No, indeed, not exactly.  I did not say that of myself,</said> answered
Dorothea, reddening.  Unlike Celia, she rarely blushed, and only from
high delight or anger. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> At this moment she felt angry with the perverse
Sir James.  Why did he not pay attention to Celia, and leave her to
listen to Mr. Casaubon?— <said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false">if that learned man would only talk, instead
of allowing himself to be talked to by Mr. Brooke, who was just then
informing him that the Reformation either meant something or it did
not, that he himself was a Protestant to the core, but that Catholicism
was a fact; and as to refusing an acre of your ground for a Romanist
chapel, all men needed the bridle of religion, which, properly
speaking, was the dread of a Hereafter. </said> </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">I made a great study of theology at one time,</said> said Mr. Brooke, as if
to explain the insight just manifested.  <said who="#MB">I know something of all
schools.  I knew Wilberforce in his best days.  Do you know
Wilberforce?</said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Casaubon said, <said who="#C">No.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Well, Wilberforce was perhaps not enough of a thinker; but if I went
into Parliament, as I have been asked to do, I should sit on the
independent bench, as Wilberforce did, and work at philanthropy.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false"> Mr. Casaubon bowed, and observed that it was a wide field. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Yes,</said> said Mr. Brooke, with an easy smile, <said who="#MB">but I have documents.  I
began a long while ago to collect documents.  They want arranging, but
when a question has struck me, I have written to somebody and got an
answer.  I have documents at my back.  But now, how do you arrange your
documents?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">In pigeon-holes partly,</said> said Mr. Casaubon, with rather a startled air
of effort.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Ah, pigeon-holes will not do.  I have tried pigeon-holes, but
everything gets mixed in pigeon-holes: I never know whether a paper is
in A or Z.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I wish you would let me sort your papers for you, uncle,</said> said
Dorothea.  <said who="#D">I would letter them all, and then make a list of subjects
under each letter.</said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Casaubon gravely smiled approval, and said to Mr. Brooke, <said who="#C">You have
an excellent secretary at hand, you perceive.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">No, no,</said> said Mr. Brooke, shaking his head; <said who="#MB">I cannot let young ladies
meddle with my documents.  Young ladies are too flighty.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea felt hurt.  Mr. Casaubon would think that her uncle had some
special reason for delivering this opinion, whereas the remark lay in
his mind as lightly as the broken wing of an insect among all the other
fragments there, and a chance current had sent it alighting on <emph rend="italics">her</emph>. </said>
</P>

<P>
When the two girls were in the drawing-room alone, Celia said—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">How very ugly Mr. Casaubon is!</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Celia!  He is one of the most distinguished-looking men I ever saw.
He is remarkably like the portrait of Locke.  He has the same deep
eye-sockets.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Had Locke those two white moles with hairs on them?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Oh, I dare say! when people of a certain sort looked at him,</said> said
Dorothea, walking away a little.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Mr. Casaubon is so sallow.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">All the better.  I suppose you admire a man with the complexion of a
cochon de lait.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia" >Dodo!</said> exclaimed Celia, looking after her in surprise.  <said who="#C">I never heard
you make such a comparison before.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Why should I make it before the occasion came?  It is a good
comparison: the match is perfect.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> Miss Brooke was clearly forgetting herself, and Celia thought so. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">I wonder you show temper, Dorothea.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">It is so painful in you, Celia, that you will look at human beings as
if they were merely animals with a toilet, and never see the great soul
in a man's face.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Has Mr. Casaubon a great soul?</said> Celia was not without a touch of naive
malice.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Yes, I believe he has,</said> said Dorothea, with the full voice of
decision.  <said who="#D">Everything I see in him corresponds to his pamphlet on
Biblical Cosmology.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">He talks very little,</said> said Celia
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">There is no one for him to talk to.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> Celia thought privately, <said>Dorothea quite despises Sir James Chettam; I
believe she would not accept him.</said> Celia felt that this was a pity.
She had never been deceived as to the object of the baronet's interest.
Sometimes, indeed, she had reflected that Dodo would perhaps not make a
husband happy who had not her way of looking at things; and stifled in
the depths of her heart was the feeling that her sister was too
religious for family comfort.  Notions and scruples were like spilt
needles, making one afraid of treading, or sitting down, or even eating. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> When Miss Brooke was at the tea-table, Sir James came to sit down by
her, not having felt her mode of answering him at all offensive.  Why
should he?  He thought it probable that Miss Brooke liked him, and
manners must be very marked indeed before they cease to be interpreted
by preconceptions either confident or distrustful.  She was thoroughly
charming to him, but of course he theorized a little about his
attachment.  He was made of excellent human dough, and had the rare
merit of knowing that his talents, even if let loose, would not set the
smallest stream in the county on fire: hence he liked the prospect of a
wife to whom he could say, <said>What shall we do?</said> about this or that; who
could help her husband out with reasons, and would also have the
property qualification for doing so.  As to the excessive religiousness
alleged against Miss Brooke, he had a very indefinite notion of what it
consisted in, and thought that it would die out with marriage.  In
short, he felt himself to be in love in the right place, and was ready
to endure a great deal of predominance, which, after all, a man could
always put down when he liked. Sir James had no idea that he should
ever like to put down the predominance of this handsome girl, in whose
cleverness he delighted.  Why not?  A man's mind—what there is of
it—has always the advantage of being masculine,—as the smallest
birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm,—and even
his ignorance is of a sounder quality.  Sir James might not have
originated this estimate; but a kind Providence furnishes the limpest
personality with a little gum or starch in the form of tradition. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Let me hope that you will rescind that resolution about the horse,
Miss Brooke,</said> said the persevering admirer.  <said who="#JC">I assure you, riding is
the most healthy of exercises.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I am aware of it,</said> said Dorothea, coldly.  <said who="#D">I think it would do Celia
good—if she would take to it.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">But you are such a perfect horsewoman.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Excuse me; I have had very little practice, and I should be easily
thrown.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Then that is a reason for more practice.  Every lady ought to be a
perfect horsewoman, that she may accompany her husband.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">You see how widely we differ, Sir James.  I have made up my mind that
I ought not to be a perfect horsewoman, and so I should never
correspond to your pattern of a lady.</said> Dorothea looked straight before
her, and spoke with cold brusquerie, very much with the air of a
handsome boy, in amusing contrast with the solicitous amiability of her
admirer.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">I should like to know your reasons for this cruel resolution.  It is
not possible that you should think horsemanship wrong.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">It is quite possible that I should think it wrong for me.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D"> Oh, why?</said> said Sir James, in a tender tone of remonstrance.
</P>

<P>
Mr. Casaubon had come up to the table, teacup in hand, and was
listening.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">We must not inquire too curiously into motives,</said> he interposed, in his
measured way.  <said who="#C">Miss Brooke knows that they are apt to become feeble in
the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air.  We must keep
the germinating grain away from the light.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea colored with pleasure, and looked up gratefully to the
speaker.  Here was a man who could understand the higher inward life,
and with whom there could be some spiritual communion; nay, who could
illuminate principle with the widest knowledge: a man whose learning
almost amounted to a proof of whatever he believed! </said>
</P>

<P>
Dorothea's inferences may seem large; but really life could never have
gone on at any period but for this liberal allowance of conclusions,
which has facilitated marriage under the difficulties of civilization.
Has any one ever pinched into its pilulous smallness the cobweb of
pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship?
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Certainly,</said> said good Sir James.  <said who="#JC">Miss Brooke shall not be urged to
tell reasons she would rather be silent upon.  I am sure her reasons
would do her honor.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> He was not in the least jealous of the interest with which Dorothea had
looked up at Mr. Casaubon: it never occurred to him that a girl to whom
he was meditating an offer of marriage could care for a dried bookworm
towards fifty, except, indeed, in a religious sort of way, as for a
clergyman of some distinction. </said>
</P>

<P>
However, since Miss Brooke had become engaged in a conversation with
Mr. Casaubon about the Vaudois clergy, Sir James betook himself to
Celia, and talked to her about her sister; spoke of a house in town,
and asked whether Miss Brooke disliked London. <said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> Away from her sister,
Celia talked quite easily, and Sir James said to himself that the
second Miss Brooke was certainly very agreeable as well as pretty,
though not, as some people pretended, more clever and sensible than the
elder sister.  He felt that he had chosen the one who was in all
respects the superior; and a man naturally likes to look forward to
having the best.  He would be the very Mawworm of bachelors who
pretended not to expect it. </said>
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

</div><div type="chapter" n="03"><head>CHAPTER III.</head>

<epigraph>
          <said>Say, goddess, what ensued, when Raphael,
          The affable archangel . . .
                                                     Eve
          The story heard attentive, and was filled
          With admiration, and deep muse, to hear
          Of things so high and strange.</said>
                                         —Paradise Lost, B. vii.
</epigraph>

<BR/>

<P>
If it had really occurred to Mr. Casaubon to think of Miss Brooke as a
suitable wife for him, the reasons that might induce her to accept him
were already planted in her mind, and by the evening of the next day
the reasons had budded and bloomed.  For they had had a long
conversation in the morning, while Celia, who did not like the company
of Mr. Casaubon's moles and sallowness, had escaped to the vicarage to
play with the curate's ill-shod but merry children.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of
Mr. Casaubon's mind, seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine
extension every quality she herself brought; had opened much of her own
experience to him, and had understood from him the scope of his great
work, also of attractively labyrinthine extent.  For he had been as
instructive as Milton's <said>affable archangel;</said> and with something of the
archangelic manner he told her how he had undertaken to show (what
indeed had been attempted before, but not with that thoroughness,
justice of comparison, and effectiveness of arrangement at which Mr.
Casaubon aimed) that all the mythical systems or erratic mythical
fragments in the world were corruptions of a tradition originally
revealed. </said> <said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false">Having once mastered the true position and taken a firm
footing there, the vast field of mythical constructions became
intelligible, nay, luminous with the reflected light of
correspondences.  But to gather in this great harvest of truth was no
light or speedy work.  His notes already made a formidable range of
volumes, but the crowning task would be to condense these voluminous
still-accumulating results and bring them, like the earlier vintage of
Hippocratic books, to fit a little shelf.  In explaining this to
Dorothea, Mr. Casaubon expressed himself nearly as he would have done
to a fellow-student, for he had not two styles of talking at command:
it is true that when he used a Greek or Latin phrase he always gave the
English with scrupulous care, but he would probably have done this in
any case.  A learned provincial clergyman is accustomed to think of his
acquaintances as of <said>lords, knyghtes, and other noble and worthi men,
that conne Latyn but lytille.</said> </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea was altogether captivated by the wide embrace of this
conception.  Here was something beyond the shallows of ladies' school
literature: here was a living Bossuet, whose work would reconcile
complete knowledge with devoted piety; here was a modern Augustine who
united the glories of doctor and saint. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> The sanctity seemed no less clearly marked than the learning, for when
Dorothea was impelled to open her mind on certain themes which she
could speak of to no one whom she had before seen at Tipton, especially
on the secondary importance of ecclesiastical forms and articles of
belief compared with that spiritual religion, that submergence of self
in communion with Divine perfection which seemed to her to be expressed
in the best Christian books of widely distant ages, she found in Mr.
Casaubon a listener who understood her at once, who could assure her of
his own agreement with that view when duly tempered with wise
conformity, and could mention historical examples before unknown to her. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">He thinks with me,</said> said Dorothea to herself, <said who="#D">or rather, he thinks a
whole world of which my thought is but a poor twopenny mirror.  And his
feelings too, his whole experience—what a lake compared with my little
pool!</said>
</P>

<P>
Miss Brooke argued from words and dispositions not less unhesitatingly
than other young ladies of her age.  Signs are small measurable things,
but interpretations are illimitable, and in girls of sweet, ardent
nature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, hope, belief, vast as a
sky, and colored by a diffused thimbleful of matter in the shape of
knowledge.  <first> They are not always too grossly deceived; for Sinbad
himself may have fallen by good-luck on a true description, and wrong
reasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions: starting a
long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, we
now and then arrive just where we ought to be. </first> Because Miss Brooke was
hasty in her trust, it is not therefore clear that Mr. Casaubon was
unworthy of it.
</P>

<P>
He stayed a little longer than he had intended, on a slight pressure of
invitation from Mr. Brooke, who offered no bait except his own
documents on machine-breaking and rick-burning. Mr. Casaubon was called
into the library to look at these in a heap, while his host picked up
first one and then the other to read aloud from in a skipping and
uncertain way, passing from one unfinished passage to another with a
<said>Yes, now, but here!</said> and finally pushing them all aside to open the
journal of his youthful Continental travels.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Look here—here is all about Greece.  Rhamnus, the ruins of
Rhamnus—you are a great Grecian, now.  I don't know whether you have
given much study to the topography.  I spent no end of time in making
out these things—Helicon, now.  Here, now!—'We started the next
morning for Parnassus, the double-peaked Parnassus.' All this volume is
about Greece, you know,</said> Mr. Brooke wound up, rubbing his thumb
transversely along the edges of the leaves as he held the book forward.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false"> Mr. Casaubon made a dignified though somewhat sad audience; bowed in
the right place, and avoided looking at anything documentary as far as
possible, without showing disregard or impatience; mindful that this
desultoriness was associated with the institutions of the country, and
that the man who took him on this severe mental scamper was not only an
amiable host, but a landholder and custos rotulorum. Was his endurance
aided also by the reflection that Mr. Brooke was the uncle of Dorothea? </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false">Certainly he seemed more and more bent on making her talk to him, on
drawing her out, as Celia remarked to herself; and in looking at her
his face was often lit up by a smile like pale wintry sunshine. </said> <said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false"> Before
he left the next morning, while taking a pleasant walk with Miss Brooke
along the gravelled terrace, he had mentioned to her that he felt the
disadvantage of loneliness, the need of that cheerful companionship
with which the presence of youth can lighten or vary the serious toils
of maturity.  And he delivered this statement with as much careful
precision as if he had been a diplomatic envoy whose words would be
attended with results.  Indeed, Mr. Casaubon was not used to expect
that he should have to repeat or revise his communications of a
practical or personal kind.  The inclinations which he had deliberately
stated on the 2d of October he would think it enough to refer to by the
mention of that date; judging by the standard of his own memory, which
was a volume where a vide supra could serve instead of repetitions, and
not the ordinary long-used blotting-book which only tells of forgotten
writing.  But in this case Mr. Casaubon's confidence was not likely to
be falsified, for Dorothea heard and retained what he said with the
eager interest of a fresh young nature to which every variety in
experience is an epoch. </said>
</P>

<P>
It was three o'clock in the beautiful breezy autumn day when Mr.
Casaubon drove off to his Rectory at Lowick, only five miles from
Tipton; and Dorothea, who had on her bonnet and shawl, hurried along
the shrubbery and across the park that she might wander through the
bordering wood with no other visible companionship than that of Monk,
the Great St. Bernard dog, who always took care of the young ladies in
their walks. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> There had risen before her the girl's vision of a
possible future for herself to which she looked forward with trembling
hope, and she wanted to wander on in that visionary future without
interruption.</said> <first> She walked briskly in the brisk air, the color rose in
her cheeks, and her straw bonnet (which our contemporaries might look
at with conjectural curiosity as at an obsolete form of basket) fell a
little backward. </first> She would perhaps be hardly characterized enough if
it were omitted that she wore her brown hair flatly braided and coiled
behind so as to expose the outline of her head in a daring manner at a
time when public feeling required the meagreness of nature to be
dissimulated by tall barricades of frizzed curls and bows, never
surpassed by any great race except the Feejeean.  This was a trait of
Miss Brooke's asceticism.  But there was nothing of an ascetic's
expression in her bright full eyes, as she looked before her, not
consciously seeing, but absorbing into the intensity of her mood, the
solemn glory of the afternoon with its long swathes of light between
the far-off rows of limes, whose shadows touched each other.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MM" direct="false" aloud="false"> All people, young or old (that is, all people in those ante-reform
times), would have thought her an interesting object if they had
referred the glow in her eyes and cheeks to the newly awakened ordinary
images of young love: the illusions of Chloe about Strephon have been
sufficiently consecrated in poetry, as the pathetic loveliness of all
spontaneous trust ought to be. <first> Miss Pippin adoring young Pumpkin, and
dreaming along endless vistas of unwearying companionship, was a little
drama which never tired our fathers and mothers, and had been put into
all costumes. </first> Let but Pumpkin have a figure which would sustain the
disadvantages of the shortwaisted swallow-tail, and everybody felt it
not only natural but necessary to the perfection of womanhood, that a
sweet girl should be at once convinced of his virtue, his exceptional
ability, and above all, his perfect sincerity.  But perhaps no persons
then living—certainly none in the neighborhood of Tipton—would have
had a sympathetic understanding for the dreams of a girl whose notions
about marriage took their color entirely from an exalted enthusiasm
about the ends of life, an enthusiasm which was lit chiefly by its own
fire, and included neither the niceties of the trousseau, the pattern
of plate, nor even the honors and sweet joys of the blooming matron. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> It had now entered Dorothea's mind that Mr. Casaubon might wish to make
her his wife, and the idea that he would do so touched her with a sort
of reverential gratitude.  How good of him—nay, it would be almost as
if a winged messenger had suddenly stood beside her path and held out
his hand towards her!  For a long while she had been oppressed by the
indefiniteness which hung in her mind, like a thick summer haze, over
all her desire to make her life greatly effective.  What could she do,
what ought she to do?—she, hardly more than a budding woman, but yet
with an active conscience and a great mental need, not to be satisfied
by a girlish instruction comparable to the nibblings and judgments of a
discursive mouse.  With some endowment of stupidity and conceit, she
might have thought that a Christian young lady of fortune should find
her ideal of life in village charities, patronage of the humbler
clergy, the perusal of <said>Female Scripture Characters,</said> unfolding the
private experience of Sara under the Old Dispensation, and Dorcas under
the New, and the care of her soul over her embroidery in her own
boudoir—with a background of prospective marriage to a man who, if
less strict than herself, as being involved in affairs religiously
inexplicable, might be prayed for and seasonably exhorted. </said> From such
contentment poor Dorothea was shut out.  The intensity of her religious
disposition, the coercion it exercised over her life, was but one
aspect of a nature altogether ardent, theoretic, and intellectually
consequent: and with such a nature struggling in the bands of a narrow
teaching, hemmed in by a social life which seemed nothing but a
labyrinth of petty courses, a walled-in maze of small paths that led no
whither, the outcome was sure to strike others as at once exaggeration
and inconsistency. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> The thing which seemed to her best, she wanted to
justify by the completest knowledge; and not to live in a pretended
admission of rules which were never acted on. Into this soul-hunger as
yet all her youthful passion was poured; the union which attracted her
was one that would deliver her from her girlish subjection to her own
ignorance, and give her the freedom of voluntary submission to a guide
who would take her along the grandest path. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I should learn everything then,</said> she said to herself, still walking
quickly along the bridle road through the wood.  <said who="#D">It would be my duty
to study that I might help him the better in his great works.  There
would be nothing trivial about our lives.  Every-day things with us
would mean the greatest things.  It would be like marrying Pascal.  I
should learn to see the truth by the same light as great men have seen
it by.  And then I should know what to do, when I got older: I should
see how it was possible to lead a grand life here—now—in England.  I
don't feel sure about doing good in any way now: everything seems like
going on a mission to a people whose language I don't know;—unless it
were building good cottages—there can be no doubt about that.  Oh, I
hope I should be able to get the people well housed in Lowick!  I will
draw plenty of plans while I have time.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea checked herself suddenly with self-rebuke for the presumptuous
way in which she was reckoning on uncertain events, but she was spared
any inward effort to change the direction of her thoughts by the
appearance of a cantering horseman round a turning of the road. </said> The
well-groomed chestnut horse and two beautiful setters could leave no
doubt that the rider was Sir James Chettam.  He discerned Dorothea,
jumped off his horse at once, and, having delivered it to his groom,
advanced towards her with something white on his arm, at which the two
setters were barking in an excited manner.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">How delightful to meet you, Miss Brooke,</said> he said, raising his hat and
showing his sleekly waving blond hair.  <said who="#JC">It has hastened the pleasure I
was looking forward to.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Miss Brooke was annoyed at the interruption.  This amiable baronet,
really a suitable husband for Celia, exaggerated the necessity of
making himself agreeable to the elder sister. <second> Even a prospective
brother-in-law may be an oppression if he will always be presupposing
too good an understanding with you, and agreeing with you even when you
contradict him. </second> The thought that he had made the mistake of paying his
addresses to herself could not take shape: all her mental activity was
used up in persuasions of another kind.  But he was positively
obtrusive at this moment, and his dimpled hands were quite
disagreeable.  Her roused temper made her color deeply, as she returned
his greeting with some haughtiness. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> Sir James interpreted the heightened color in the way most gratifying
to himself, and thought he never saw Miss Brooke looking so handsome. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">I have brought a little petitioner,</said> he said, <said who="#JC">or rather, I have
brought him to see if he will be approved before his petition is
offered.</said> He showed the white object under his arm, which was a tiny
Maltese puppy, one of nature's most naive toys.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">It is painful to me to see these creatures that are bred merely as
pets,</said> said Dorothea, whose opinion was forming itself that very moment
(as opinions will) under the heat of irritation.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Oh, why?</said> said Sir James, as they walked forward.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I believe all the petting that is given them does not make them happy.
They are too helpless: their lives are too frail.  A weasel or a mouse
that gets its own living is more interesting.  I like to think that the
animals about us have souls something like our own, and either carry on
their own little affairs or can be companions to us, like Monk here.
Those creatures are parasitic.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">I am so glad I know that you do not like them,</said> said good Sir James.
<said who="#JC">I should never keep them for myself, but ladies usually are fond of
these Maltese dogs.  Here, John, take this dog, will you?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> The objectionable puppy, whose nose and eyes were equally black and
expressive, was thus got rid of, since Miss Brooke decided that it had
better not have been born. </said> But she felt it necessary to explain.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">You must not judge of Celia's feeling from mine.  I think she likes
these small pets.  She had a tiny terrier once, which she was very fond
of.  It made me unhappy, because I was afraid of treading on it.  I am
rather short-sighted.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">You have your own opinion about everything, Miss Brooke, and it is
always a good opinion.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> What answer was possible to such stupid complimenting? </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Do you know, I envy you that,</said> Sir James said, as they continued
walking at the rather brisk pace set by Dorothea.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I don't quite understand what you mean.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Your power of forming an opinion.  I can form an opinion of persons.
I know when I like people.  But about other matters, do you know, I
have often a difficulty in deciding.  One hears very sensible things
said on opposite sides.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Or that seem sensible.  Perhaps we don't always discriminate between
sense and nonsense.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea felt that she was rather rude. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Exactly,</said> said Sir James.  <said who="#JC">But you seem to have the power of
discrimination.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">On the contrary, I am often unable to decide.  But that is from
ignorance.  The right conclusion is there all the same, though I am
unable to see it.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">I think there are few who would see it more readily.  Do you know,
Lovegood was telling me yesterday that you had the best notion in the
world of a plan for cottages—quite wonderful for a young lady, he
thought.  You had a real <emph rend="italics">genus</emph>, to use his expression.  He said you
wanted Mr. Brooke to build a new set of cottages, but he seemed to
think it hardly probable that your uncle would consent.  Do you know,
that is one of the things I wish to do—I mean, on my own estate.  I
should be so glad to carry out that plan of yours, if you would let me
see it.  Of course, it is sinking money; that is why people object to
it.  Laborers can never pay rent to make it answer.  But, after all, it
is worth doing.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Worth doing! yes, indeed,</said> said Dorothea, energetically, forgetting
her previous small vexations.  <said who="#D">I think we deserve to be beaten out of
our beautiful houses with a scourge of small cords—all of us who let
tenants live in such sties as we see round us.  Life in cottages might
be happier than ours, if they were real houses fit for human beings
from whom we expect duties and affections.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Will you show me your plan?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Yes, certainly.  I dare say it is very faulty.  But I have been
examining all the plans for cottages in Loudon's book, and picked out
what seem the best things.  Oh what a happiness it would be to set the
pattern about here!  I think instead of Lazarus at the gate, we should
put the pigsty cottages outside the park-gate.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea was in the best temper now.  Sir James, as brother in-law,
building model cottages on his estate, and then, perhaps, others being
built at Lowick, and more and more elsewhere in imitation—it would be
as if the spirit of Oberlin had passed over the parishes to make the
life of poverty beautiful! </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> Sir James saw all the plans, and took one away to consult upon with
Lovegood.  He also took away a complacent sense that he was making
great progress in Miss Brooke's good opinion. </said> <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> The Maltese puppy was
not offered to Celia; an omission which Dorothea afterwards thought of
with surprise; but she blamed herself for it.  She had been engrossing
Sir James.  After all, it was a relief that there was no puppy to tread
upon. </said>
</P>

<P>
Celia was present while the plans were being examined, and observed Sir
James's illusion.  <said who="#Celia">He thinks that Dodo cares about him, and she only
cares about her plans.  Yet I am not certain that she would refuse him
if she thought he would let her manage everything and carry out all her
notions.  And how very uncomfortable Sir James would be!  I cannot bear
notions.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> It was Celia's private luxury to indulge in this dislike.  She dared
not confess it to her sister in any direct statement, for that would be
laying herself open to a demonstration that she was somehow or other at
war with all goodness.  But on safe opportunities, she had an indirect
mode of making her negative wisdom tell upon Dorothea, and calling her
down from her rhapsodic mood by reminding her that people were staring,
not listening. Celia was not impulsive: what she had to say could
wait, and came from her always with the same quiet staccato evenness.
When people talked with energy and emphasis she watched their faces and
features merely.  She never could understand how well-bred persons
consented to sing and open their mouths in the ridiculous manner
requisite for that vocal exercise. </said>
</P>

<P>
It was not many days before Mr. Casaubon paid a morning visit, on which
he was invited again for the following week to dine and stay the night.
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Thus Dorothea had three more conversations with him, and was convinced
that her first impressions had been just.  He was all she had at first
imagined him to be: almost everything he had said seemed like a
specimen from a mine, or the inscription on the door of a museum which
might open on the treasures of past ages; and this trust in his mental
wealth was all the deeper and more effective on her inclination because
it was now obvious that his visits were made for her sake.  This
accomplished man condescended to think of a young girl, and take the
pains to talk to her, not with absurd compliment, but with an appeal to
her understanding, and sometimes with instructive correction.  What
delightful companionship!  Mr. Casaubon seemed even unconscious that
trivialities existed, and never handed round that small-talk of heavy
men which is as acceptable as stale bride-cake brought forth with an
odor of cupboard.  He talked of what he was interested in, or else he
was silent and bowed with sad civility.  To Dorothea this was adorable
genuineness, and religious abstinence from that artificiality which
uses up the soul in the efforts of pretence.  For she looked as
reverently at Mr. Casaubon's religious elevation above herself as she
did at his intellect and learning.  He assented to her expressions of
devout feeling, and usually with an appropriate quotation; he allowed
himself to say that he had gone through some spiritual conflicts in his
youth; in short, Dorothea saw that here she might reckon on
understanding, sympathy, and guidance.  On one—only one—of her
favorite themes she was disappointed.  Mr. Casaubon apparently did not
care about building cottages, and diverted the talk to the extremely
narrow accommodation which was to be had in the dwellings of the
ancient Egyptians, as if to check a too high standard.  After he was
gone, Dorothea dwelt with some agitation on this indifference of his;
and her mind was much exercised with arguments drawn from the varying
conditions of climate which modify human needs, and from the admitted
wickedness of pagan despots.  Should she not urge these arguments on
Mr. Casaubon when he came again?  But further reflection told her that
she was presumptuous in demanding his attention to such a subject; he
would not disapprove of her occupying herself with it in leisure
moments, as other women expected to occupy themselves with their dress
and embroidery—would not forbid it when—Dorothea felt rather ashamed
as she detected herself in these speculations.  But her uncle had been
invited to go to Lowick to stay a couple of days: was it reasonable to
suppose that Mr. Casaubon delighted in Mr. Brooke's society for its own
sake, either with or without documents? </said>
</P>

<P>
Meanwhile that little disappointment made her delight the more in Sir
James Chettam's readiness to set on foot the desired improvements. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> He
came much oftener than Mr. Casaubon, and Dorothea ceased to find him
disagreeable since he showed himself so entirely in earnest; for he had
already entered with much practical ability into Lovegood's estimates,
and was charmingly docile. </said> She proposed to build a couple of cottages,
and transfer two families from their old cabins, which could then be
pulled down, so that new ones could be built on the old sites.  Sir
James said <said who="#JC">Exactly,</said> and she bore the word remarkably well.
</P>

<P>
Certainly these men who had so few spontaneous ideas might be very
useful members of society under good feminine direction, if they were
fortunate in choosing their sisters-in-law!  It is difficult to say
whether there was or was not a little wilfulness in her continuing
blind to the possibility that another sort of choice was in question in
relation to her. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> But her life was just now full of hope and action:
she was not only thinking of her plans, but getting down learned books
from the library and reading many things hastily (that she might be a
little less ignorant in talking to Mr. Casaubon), all the while being
visited with conscientious questionings whether she were not exalting
these poor doings above measure and contemplating them with that
self-satisfaction which was the last doom of ignorance and folly. </said>
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

</div><div type="chapter" n="04"><head>CHAPTER IV.</head>

<epigraph>
          1st Gent. Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves.
          2d Gent.  Ay, truly: but I think it is the world
                       That brings the iron.
</epigraph>

<BR/>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Sir James seems determined to do everything you wish,</said> said Celia, as
they were driving home from an inspection of the new building-site.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">He is a good creature, and more sensible than any one would imagine,</said>
said Dorothea, inconsiderately.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">You mean that he appears silly.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">No, no,</said> said Dorothea, recollecting herself, and laying her hand on
her sister's a moment, <said who="#D">but he does not talk equally well on all
subjects.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">I should think none but disagreeable people do,</said> said Celia, in her
usual purring way.  <said who="#Celia">They must be very dreadful to live with.  Only
think! at breakfast, and always.</said>
</P>

<P>
Dorothea laughed.  <said who="#D">O Kitty, you are a wonderful creature!</said> <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> She pinched
Celia's chin, being in the mood now to think her very winning and
lovely—fit hereafter to be an eternal cherub, and if it were not
doctrinally wrong to say so, hardly more in need of salvation than a
squirrel. </said> <said who="#D">Of course people need not be always talking well.  Only one
tells the quality of their minds when they try to talk well.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">You mean that Sir James tries and fails.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I was speaking generally.  Why do you catechise me about Sir James?
It is not the object of his life to please me.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Now, Dodo, can you really believe that?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Certainly. He thinks of me as a future sister—that is all.</said> <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea
had never hinted this before, waiting, from a certain shyness on such
subjects which was mutual between the sisters, until it should be
introduced by some decisive event. </said> Celia blushed, but said at once—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Pray do not make that mistake any longer, Dodo.  When Tantripp was
brushing my hair the other day, she said that Sir James's man knew from
Mrs. Cadwallader's maid that Sir James was to marry the eldest Miss
Brooke.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">How can you let Tantripp talk such gossip to you, Celia?</said> said
Dorothea, indignantly, not the less angry because details asleep in her
memory were now awakened to confirm the unwelcome revelation.  <said who="#D">You
must have asked her questions.  It is degrading.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">I see no harm at all in Tantripp's talking to me.  It is better to
hear what people say.  You see what mistakes you make by taking up
notions.  I am quite sure that Sir James means to make you an offer;
and he believes that you will accept him, especially since you have
been so pleased with him about the plans.  And uncle too—I know he
expects it.  Every one can see that Sir James is very much in love with
you.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> The revulsion was so strong and painful in Dorothea's mind that the
tears welled up and flowed abundantly.  All her dear plans were
embittered, and she thought with disgust of Sir James's conceiving that
she recognized him as her lover. There was vexation too on account of
Celia. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">How could he expect it?</said> she burst forth in her most impetuous manner.
<said who="#D">I have never agreed with him about anything but the cottages: I was
barely polite to him before.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">But you have been so pleased with him since then; he has begun to feel
quite sure that you are fond of him.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Fond of him, Celia!  How can you choose such odious expressions?</said> said
Dorothea, passionately.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Dear me, Dorothea, I suppose it would be right for you to be fond of a
man whom you accepted for a husband.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">It is offensive to me to say that Sir James could think I was fond of
him.  Besides, it is not the right word for the feeling I must have
towards the man I would accept as a husband.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Well, I am sorry for Sir James.  I thought it right to tell you,
because you went on as you always do, never looking just where you are,
and treading in the wrong place.  You always see what nobody else sees;
it is impossible to satisfy you; yet you never see what is quite plain.
That's your way, Dodo.</said> Something certainly gave Celia unusual courage;
and she was not sparing the sister of whom she was occasionally in awe.
Who can tell what just criticisms Murr the Cat may be passing on us
beings of wider speculation?
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">It is very painful,</said> said Dorothea, feeling scourged.  <said who="#D">I can have no
more to do with the cottages.  I must be uncivil to him.  I must tell
him I will have nothing to do with them.  It is very painful.</said> Her eyes
filled again with tears.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Wait a little.  Think about it.  You know he is going away for a day
or two to see his sister.  There will be nobody besides Lovegood.</said>
Celia could not help relenting.  <said who="#Celia">Poor Dodo,</said> she went on, in an
amiable staccato.  <said who="#Celia">It is very hard: it is your favorite <emph rend="italics">fad</emph> to draw
plans.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D"><emph rend="italics">Fad</emph> to draw plans!  Do you think I only care about my
fellow-creatures' houses in that childish way?  I may well make
mistakes.  How can one ever do anything nobly Christian, living among
people with such petty thoughts?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> No more was said; Dorothea was too much jarred to recover her temper
and behave so as to show that she admitted any error in herself.  She
was disposed rather to accuse the intolerable narrowness and the
purblind conscience of the society around her: and Celia was no longer
the eternal cherub, but a thorn in her spirit, a pink-and-white
nullifidian, worse than any discouraging presence in the <said>Pilgrim's
Progress.</said> The <emph rend="italics">fad</emph> of drawing plans!  What was life worth—what great
faith was possible when the whole effect of one's actions could be
withered up into such parched rubbish as that? </said> When she got out of the
carriage, her cheeks were pale and her eyelids red. <said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false"> She was an image
of sorrow, and her uncle who met her in the hall would have been
alarmed, if Celia had not been close to her looking so pretty and
composed, that he at once concluded Dorothea's tears to have their
origin in her excessive religiousness. </said> He had returned, during their
absence, from a journey to the county town, about a petition for the
pardon of some criminal.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Well, my dears,</said> he said, kindly, as they went up to kiss him, <said who="#MB">I hope
nothing disagreeable has happened while I have been away.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">No, uncle,</said> said Celia, <said who="#Celia">we have been to Freshitt to look at the
cottages.  We thought you would have been at home to lunch.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">I came by Lowick to lunch—you didn't know I came by Lowick.  And I
have brought a couple of pamphlets for you, Dorothea—in the library,
you know; they lie on the table in the library.</said>
</P>

<P>
It seemed as if an electric stream went through Dorothea, thrilling her
from despair into expectation.  They were pamphlets about the early
Church.  The oppression of Celia, Tantripp, and Sir James was shaken
off, and she walked straight to the library.  Celia went up-stairs. Mr.
Brooke was detained by a message, but when he re-entered the library,
he found Dorothea seated and already deep in one of the pamphlets which
had some marginal manuscript of Mr. Casaubon's,—taking it in as
eagerly as she might have taken in the scent of a fresh bouquet after a
dry, hot, dreary walk.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> She was getting away from Tipton and Freshitt, and her own sad
liability to tread in the wrong places on her way to the New Jerusalem. </said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Brooke sat down in his arm-chair, stretched his legs towards the
wood-fire, which had fallen into a wondrous mass of glowing dice
between the dogs, and rubbed his hands gently, looking very mildly
towards Dorothea, but with a neutral leisurely air, as if he had
nothing particular to say.  Dorothea closed her pamphlet, as soon as
she was aware of her uncle's presence, and rose as if to go.  Usually
she would have been interested about her uncle's merciful errand on
behalf of the criminal, but her late agitation had made her
absent-minded.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">I came back by Lowick, you know,</said> said Mr. Brooke, not as if with any
intention to arrest her departure, but apparently from his usual
tendency to say what he had said before.  This fundamental principle of
human speech was markedly exhibited in Mr. Brooke.  <said who="#MB" >I lunched there
and saw Casaubon's library, and that kind of thing.  There's a sharp
air, driving.  Won't you sit down, my dear?  You look cold.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea felt quite inclined to accept the invitation.  Some times,
when her uncle's easy way of taking things did not happen to be
exasperating, it was rather soothing. She threw off her mantle and
bonnet, and sat down opposite to him, enjoying the glow, but lifting up
her beautiful hands for a screen.  They were not thin hands, or small
hands; but powerful, feminine, maternal hands.  She seemed to be
holding them up in propitiation for her passionate desire to know and
to think, which in the unfriendly mediums of Tipton and Freshitt had
issued in crying and red eyelids. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D"> She bethought herself now of the condemned criminal. </said> <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false">What news have
you brought about the sheep-stealer, uncle?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">What, poor Bunch?—well, it seems we can't get him off—he is to be
hanged.</said>
</P>

<P>
Dorothea's brow took an expression of reprobation and pity.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Hanged, you know,</said> said Mr. Brooke, with a quiet nod.  <said who="#MB">Poor Romilly!
he would have helped us.  I knew Romilly.  Casaubon didn't know
Romilly.  He is a little buried in books, you know, Casaubon is.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">When a man has great studies and is writing a great work, he must of
course give up seeing much of the world.  How can he go about making
acquaintances?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">That's true.  But a man mopes, you know.  I have always been a
bachelor too, but I have that sort of disposition that I never moped;
it was my way to go about everywhere and take in everything.  I never
moped: but I can see that Casaubon does, you know.  He wants a
companion—a companion, you know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">It would be a great honor to any one to be his companion,</said> said
Dorothea, energetically.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">You like him, eh?</said> said Mr. Brooke, without showing any surprise, or
other emotion.  <said who="#MB">Well, now, I've known Casaubon ten years, ever since
he came to Lowick.  But I never got anything out of him—any ideas, you
know.  However, he is a tiptop man and may be a bishop—that kind of
thing, you know, if Peel stays in.  And he has a very high opinion of
you, my dear.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea could not speak. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">The fact is, he has a very high opinion indeed of you.  And he speaks
uncommonly well—does Casaubon.  He has deferred to me, you not being
of age.  In short, I have promised to speak to you, though I told him I
thought there was not much chance.  I was bound to tell him that.  I
said, my niece is very young, and that kind of thing.  But I didn't
think it necessary to go into everything.  However, the long and the
short of it is, that he has asked my permission to make you an offer of
marriage—of marriage, you know,</said> said Mr. Brooke, with his explanatory
nod.  <said who="#MB">I thought it better to tell you, my dear.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false"> No one could have detected any anxiety in Mr. Brooke's manner, but he
did really wish to know something of his niece's mind, that, if there
were any need for advice, he might give it in time.  What feeling he,
as a magistrate who had taken in so many ideas, could make room for,
was unmixedly kind. </said> Since Dorothea did not speak immediately, he
repeated, <said who="#MB">I thought it better to tell you, my dear.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Thank you, uncle,</said> said Dorothea, in a clear unwavering tone.  <said who="#D">I am
very grateful to Mr. Casaubon.  If he makes me an offer, I shall accept
him.  I admire and honor him more than any man I ever saw.</said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Brooke paused a little, and then said in a lingering low tone,
<said who="#MB">Ah? &#8230;  Well!  He is a good match in some respects.  But now, Chettam is
a good match.  And our land lies together.  I shall never interfere
against your wishes, my dear.  People should have their own way in
marriage, and that sort of thing—up to a certain point, you know.  I
have always said that, up to a certain point.  I wish you to marry
well; and I have good reason to believe that Chettam wishes to marry
you.  I mention it, you know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">It is impossible that I should ever marry Sir James Chettam,</said> said
Dorothea.  <said who="#D">If he thinks of marrying me, he has made a great mistake.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">That is it, you see.  One never knows.  I should have thought Chettam
was just the sort of man a woman would like, now.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Pray do not mention him in that light again, uncle,</said> said Dorothea,
feeling some of her late irritation revive.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false"> Mr. Brooke wondered, and felt that women were an inexhaustible subject
of study, since even he at his age was not in a perfect state of
scientific prediction about them.  Here was a fellow like Chettam with
no chance at all. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D"> Well, but Casaubon, now.  There is no hurry—I mean for you.  It's
true, every year will tell upon him.  He is over five-and-forty, you
know.  I should say a good seven-and-twenty years older than you.  To
be sure,—if you like learning and standing, and that sort of thing, we
can't have everything.  And his income is good—he has a handsome
property independent of the Church—his income is good.  Still he is
not young, and I must not conceal from you, my dear, that I think his
health is not over-strong. I know nothing else against him.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I should not wish to have a husband very near my own age,</said> said
Dorothea, with grave decision.  <said who="#D">I should wish to have a husband who
was above me in judgment and in all knowledge.</said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Brooke repeated his subdued, <said who="#MB">Ah?—I thought you had more of your
own opinion than most girls.  I thought you liked your own
opinion—liked it, you know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I cannot imagine myself living without some opinions, but I should
wish to have good reasons for them, and a wise man could help me to see
which opinions had the best foundation, and would help me to live
according to them.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Very true.  You couldn't put the thing better—couldn't put it better,
beforehand, you know.  But there are oddities in things,</said> continued Mr.
Brooke, whose conscience was really roused to do the best he could for
his niece on this occasion.  <said who="#MB">Life isn't cast in a mould—not cut out
by rule and line, and that sort of thing.  I never married myself, and
it will be the better for you and yours.  The fact is, I never loved
any one well enough to put myself into a noose for them.  It <emph rend="italics">is</emph> a
noose, you know.  Temper, now.  There is temper.  And a husband likes
to be master.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I know that I must expect trials, uncle.  Marriage is a state of
higher duties.  I never thought of it as mere personal ease,</said> said poor
Dorothea.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Well, you are not fond of show, a great establishment, balls, dinners,
that kind of thing.  I can see that Casaubon's ways might suit you
better than Chettam's. And you shall do as you like, my dear.  I would
not hinder Casaubon; I said so at once; for there is no knowing how
anything may turn out.  You have not the same tastes as every young
lady; and a clergyman and scholar—who may be a bishop—that kind of
thing—may suit you better than Chettam.  Chettam is a good fellow, a
good sound-hearted fellow, you know; but he doesn't go much into ideas.
I did, when I was his age.  But Casaubon's eyes, now.  I think he has
hurt them a little with too much reading.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I should be all the happier, uncle, the more room there was for me to
help him,</said> said Dorothea, ardently.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">You have quite made up your mind, I see.  Well, my dear, the fact is,
I have a letter for you in my pocket.</said> Mr. Brooke handed the letter to
Dorothea, but as she rose to go away, he added, <said who="#MB">There is not too much
hurry, my dear.  Think about it, you know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false"> When Dorothea had left him, he reflected that he had certainly spoken
strongly: he had put the risks of marriage before her in a striking
manner.  It was his duty to do so.  But as to pretending to be wise for
young people,—no uncle, however much he had travelled in his youth,
absorbed the new ideas, and dined with celebrities now deceased, could
pretend to judge what sort of marriage would turn out well for a young
girl who preferred Casaubon to Chettam.  In short, woman was a problem
which, since Mr. Brooke's mind felt blank before it, could be hardly
less complicated than the revolutions of an irregular solid. </said>
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

</div><div type="chapter" n="05"><head>CHAPTER V.</head>

<epigraph>
    <said>Hard students are commonly troubled with gowts, catarrhs,
        rheums, cachexia, bradypepsia, bad eyes, stone, and collick,
        crudities, oppilations, vertigo, winds, consumptions, and
        all such diseases as come by over-much sitting: they are
        most part lean, dry, ill-colored &#8230; and all through
        immoderate pains and extraordinary studies. If you will not
        believe the truth of this, look upon great Tostatus and
        Thomas Aquainas' works; and tell me whether those men took
        pains.—BURTON'S Anatomy of Melancholy, P. I, s. 2.</said>
</epigraph>

<BR/>

<P>
This was Mr. Casaubon's letter.
</P>

<BR/>

<P CLASS="letter">
MY DEAR MISS BROOKE,—I have your guardian's permission to address you
on a subject than which I have none more at heart.  I am not, I trust,
mistaken in the recognition of some deeper correspondence than that of
date in the fact that a consciousness of need in my own life had arisen
contemporaneously with the possibility of my becoming acquainted with
you.  For in the first hour of meeting you, I had an impression of your
eminent and perhaps exclusive fitness to supply that need (connected, I
may say, with such activity of the affections as even the
preoccupations of a work too special to be abdicated could not
uninterruptedly dissimulate); and each succeeding opportunity for
observation has given the impression an added depth by convincing me
more emphatically of that fitness which I had preconceived, and thus
evoking more decisively those affections to which I have but now
referred.  Our conversations have, I think, made sufficiently clear to
you the tenor of my life and purposes: a tenor unsuited, I am aware, to
the commoner order of minds.  But I have discerned in you an elevation
of thought and a capability of devotedness, which I had hitherto not
conceived to be compatible either with the early bloom of youth or with
those graces of sex that may be said at once to win and to confer
distinction when combined, as they notably are in you, with the mental
qualities above indicated.  It was, I confess, beyond my hope to meet
with this rare combination of elements both solid and attractive,
adapted to supply aid in graver labors and to cast a charm over vacant
hours; and but for the event of my introduction to you (which, let me
again say, I trust not to be superficially coincident with
foreshadowing needs, but providentially related thereto as stages
towards the completion of a life's plan), I should presumably have gone
on to the last without any attempt to lighten my solitariness by a
matrimonial union.
</P>

<P CLASS="letter">
Such, my dear Miss Brooke, is the accurate statement of my feelings;
and I rely on your kind indulgence in venturing now to ask you how far
your own are of a nature to confirm my happy presentiment.  To be
accepted by you as your husband and the earthly guardian of your
welfare, I should regard as the highest of providential gifts.  In
return I can at least offer you an affection hitherto unwasted, and the
faithful consecration of a life which, however short in the sequel, has
no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find
records such as might justly cause you either bitterness or shame.  I
await the expression of your sentiments with an anxiety which it would
be the part of wisdom (were it possible) to divert by a more arduous
labor than usual.  But in this order of experience I am still young,
and in looking forward to an unfavorable possibility I cannot but feel
that resignation to solitude will be more difficult after the temporary
illumination of hope.
</P>

<P CLASS="closing">
In any case, I shall remain,<BR/>
    Yours with sincere devotion,<BR/>
        EDWARD CASAUBON.<BR/>
</P>

<BR/>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea trembled while she read this letter; then she fell on her
knees, buried her face, and sobbed.  She could not pray: under the rush
of solemn emotion in which thoughts became vague and images floated
uncertainly, she could but cast herself, with a childlike sense of
reclining, in the lap of a divine consciousness which sustained her
own. </said> She remained in that attitude till it was time to dress for
dinner.
</P>

<P>
How could it occur to her to examine the letter, to look at it
critically as a profession of love?  Her whole soul was possessed by
the fact that a fuller life was opening before her: she was a neophyte
about to enter on a higher grade of initiation.  She was going to have
room for the energies which stirred uneasily under the dimness and
pressure of her own ignorance and the petty peremptoriness of the
world's habits.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Now she would be able to devote herself to large yet definite duties;
now she would be allowed to live continually in the light of a mind
that she could reverence.  This hope was not unmixed with the glow of
proud delight—the joyous maiden surprise that she was chosen by the
man whom her admiration had chosen.  All Dorothea's passion was
transfused through a mind struggling towards an ideal life; the
radiance of her transfigured girlhood fell on the first object that
came within its level.  The impetus with which inclination became
resolution was heightened by those little events of the day which had
roused her discontent with the actual conditions of her life. </said>
</P>

<P>
After dinner, when Celia was playing an <said> air, with variations,</said> a small
kind of tinkling which symbolized the aesthetic part of the young
ladies' education, <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea went up to her room to answer Mr.
Casaubon's letter.  Why should she defer the answer?  She wrote it over
three times, not because she wished to change the wording, but because
her hand was unusually uncertain, and she could not bear that Mr.
Casaubon should think her handwriting bad and illegible.  She piqued
herself on writing a hand in which each letter was distinguishable
without any large range of conjecture, and she meant to make much use
of this accomplishment, to save Mr. Casaubon's eyes. </said> Three times she
wrote.
</P>

<P CLASS="letter">
MY DEAR MR. CASAUBON,—I am very grateful to you for loving me, and
thinking me worthy to be your wife.  I can look forward to no better
happiness than that which would be one with yours.  If I said more, it
would only be the same thing written out at greater length, for I
cannot now dwell on any other thought than that I may be through life
</P>

<P CLASS="closing">
Yours devotedly,<BR/>
    DOROTHEA BROOKE.<BR/>
</P>

<BR/>

<P>
Later in the evening she followed her uncle into the library to give
him the letter, that he might send it in the morning.  He was
surprised, but his surprise only issued in a few moments' silence,
during which he pushed about various objects on his writing-table, and
finally stood with his back to the fire, his glasses on his nose,
looking at the address of Dorothea's letter.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Have you thought enough about this, my dear?</said> he said at last.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">There was no need to think long, uncle.  I know of nothing to make me
vacillate.  If I changed my mind, it must be because of something
important and entirely new to me.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Ah!—then you have accepted him?  Then Chettam has no chance?  Has
Chettam offended you—offended you, you know?  What is it you don't
like in Chettam?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">There is nothing that I like in him,</said> said Dorothea, rather
impetuously.
</P>

<P>
Mr. Brooke threw his head and shoulders backward as if some one had
thrown a light missile at him.  Dorothea immediately felt some
self-rebuke, and said—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I mean in the light of a husband.  He is very kind, I think—really
very good about the cottages.  A well-meaning man.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">But you must have a scholar, and that sort of thing?  Well, it lies a
little in our family.  I had it myself—that love of knowledge, and
going into everything—a little too much—it took me too far; though
that sort of thing doesn't often run in the female-line; or it runs
underground like the rivers in Greece, you know—it comes out in the
sons.  Clever sons, clever mothers.  I went a good deal into that, at
one time.  However, my dear, I have always said that people should do
as they like in these things, up to a certain point.  I couldn't, as
your guardian, have consented to a bad match.  But Casaubon stands
well: his position is good.  I am afraid Chettam will be hurt, though,
and Mrs. Cadwallader will blame me.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> That evening, of course, Celia knew nothing of what had happened.  She
attributed Dorothea's abstracted manner, and the evidence of further
crying since they had got home, to the temper she had been in about Sir
James Chettam and the buildings, and was careful not to give further
offence: having once said what she wanted to say, Celia had no
disposition to recur to disagreeable subjects. It had been her nature
when a child never to quarrel with any one—only to observe with wonder
that they quarrelled with her, and looked like turkey-cocks; whereupon
she was ready to play at cat's cradle with them whenever they recovered
themselves. And as to Dorothea, it had always been her way to find
something wrong in her sister's words, though Celia inwardly protested
that she always said just how things were, and nothing else: she never
did and never could put words together out of her own head.  But the
best of Dodo was, that she did not keep angry for long together. </said> Now,
though they had hardly spoken to each other all the evening, yet when
Celia put by her work, intending to go to bed, a proceeding in which
she was always much the earlier, Dorothea, who was seated on a low
stool, unable to occupy herself except in meditation, said, with the
musical intonation which in moments of deep but quiet feeling made her
speech like a fine bit of recitative—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Celia, dear, come and kiss me,</said> holding her arms open as she spoke.
</P>

<P>
Celia knelt down to get the right level and gave her little butterfly
kiss, while Dorothea encircled her with gentle arms and pressed her
lips gravely on each cheek in turn.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Don't sit up, Dodo, you are so pale to-night: go to bed soon,</said> said
Celia, in a comfortable way, without any touch of pathos.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">No, dear, I am very, very happy,</said> said Dorothea, fervently.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">So much the better,</said> thought Celia.  <said>But how strangely Dodo goes from
one extreme to the other.</said>
</P>

<P>
The next day, at luncheon, the butler, handing something to Mr. Brooke,
said, <said>Jonas is come back, sir, and has brought this letter.</said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Brooke read the letter, and then, nodding toward Dorothea, said,
<said who="#MB">Casaubon, my dear: he will be here to dinner; he didn't wait to write
more—didn't wait, you know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> It could not seem remarkable to Celia that a dinner guest should be
announced to her sister beforehand, but, her eyes following the same
direction as her uncle's, she was struck with the peculiar effect of
the announcement on Dorothea.  It seemed as if something like the
reflection of a white sunlit wing had passed across her features,
ending in one of her rare blushes.  For the first time it entered into
Celia's mind that there might be something more between Mr. Casaubon
and her sister than his delight in bookish talk and her delight in
listening.  Hitherto she had classed the admiration for this <said>ugly</said> and
learned acquaintance with the admiration for Monsieur Liret at
Lausanne, also ugly and learned.  Dorothea had never been tired of
listening to old Monsieur Liret when Celia's feet were as cold as
possible, and when it had really become dreadful to see the skin of his
bald head moving about.  Why then should her enthusiasm not extend to
Mr. Casaubon simply in the same way as to Monsieur Liret?  And it
seemed probable that all learned men had a sort of schoolmaster's view
of young people. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> But now Celia was really startled at the suspicion which had darted
into her mind.  She was seldom taken by surprise in this way, her
marvellous quickness in observing a certain order of signs generally
preparing her to expect such outward events as she had an interest in.
Not that she now imagined Mr. Casaubon to be already an accepted lover:
she had only begun to feel disgust at the possibility that anything in
Dorothea's mind could tend towards such an issue.  Here was something
really to vex her about Dodo: it was all very well not to accept Sir
James Chettam, but the idea of marrying Mr. Casaubon!  Celia felt a
sort of shame mingled with a sense of the ludicrous.  But perhaps Dodo,
if she were really bordering on such an extravagance, might be turned
away from it: experience had often shown that her impressibility might
be calculated on. </said> The day was damp, and they were not going to walk
out, so they both went up to their sitting-room; and there Celia
observed that Dorothea, instead of settling down with her usual
diligent interest to some occupation, simply leaned her elbow on an
open book and looked out of the window at the great cedar silvered with
the damp.  She herself had taken up the making of a toy for the
curate's children, and was not going to enter on any subject too
precipitately.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea was in fact thinking that it was desirable for Celia to know
of the momentous change in Mr. Casaubon's position since he had last
been in the house: it did not seem fair to leave her in ignorance of
what would necessarily affect her attitude towards him; but it was
impossible not to shrink from telling her.  Dorothea accused herself of
some meanness in this timidity: it was always odious to her to have any
small fears or contrivances about her actions, but at this moment she
was seeking the highest aid possible that she might not dread the
corrosiveness of Celia's pretty carnally minded prose. Her reverie was
broken, and the difficulty of decision banished, by Celia's small and
rather guttural voice speaking in its usual tone, of a remark aside or
a <said>by the bye.</said> </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Is any one else coming to dine besides Mr. Casaubon?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Not that I know of.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">I hope there is some one else.  Then I shall not hear him eat his soup
so.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">What is there remarkable about his soup-eating?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Really, Dodo, can't you hear how he scrapes his spoon?  And he always
blinks before he speaks.  I don't know whether Locke blinked, but I'm
sure I am sorry for those who sat opposite to him if he did.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Celia,</said> said Dorothea, with emphatic gravity, <said who="#D">pray don't make any
more observations of that kind.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Why not?  They are quite true,</said> returned Celia, who had her reasons
for persevering, though she was beginning to be a little afraid.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Many things are true which only the commonest minds observe.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Then I think the commonest minds must be rather useful.  I think it is
a pity Mr. Casaubon's mother had not a commoner mind: she might have
taught him better.</said> <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> Celia was inwardly frightened, and ready to run
away, now she had hurled this light javelin. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea's feelings had gathered to an avalanche, and there could be no
further preparation. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">It is right to tell you, Celia, that I am engaged to marry Mr.
Casaubon.</said>
</P>

<P>
Perhaps Celia had never turned so pale before.  The paper man she was
making would have had his leg injured, but for her habitual care of
whatever she held in her hands.  She laid the fragile figure down at
once, and sat perfectly still for a few moments.  When she spoke there
was a tear gathering.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Oh, Dodo, I hope you will be happy.</said> <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> Her sisterly tenderness could not
but surmount other feelings at this moment, and her fears were the
fears of affection. </said>
</P>

<P>
Dorothea was still hurt and agitated.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">It is quite decided, then?</said> said Celia, in an awed under tone.  <said who="#Celia">And
uncle knows?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I have accepted Mr. Casaubon's offer.  My uncle brought me the letter
that contained it; he knew about it beforehand.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia"> <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false">I beg your pardon, if I have said anything to hurt you, Dodo,</said> said
Celia, with a slight sob.  She never could have thought that she should
feel as she did.  There was something funereal in the whole affair, and
Mr. Casaubon seemed to be the officiating clergyman, about whom it
would be indecent to make remarks. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Never mind, Kitty, do not grieve.  We should never admire the same
people.  I often offend in something of the same way; I am apt to speak
too strongly of those who don't please me.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> In spite of this magnanimity Dorothea was still smarting: perhaps as
much from Celia's subdued astonishment as from her small criticisms.
Of course all the world round Tipton would be out of sympathy with this
marriage.  Dorothea knew of no one who thought as she did about life
and its best objects. </said>
</P>

<P>
Nevertheless before the evening was at an end she was very happy.  In
an hour's <i>tete-a-tete</i> with Mr. Casaubon she talked to him with more
freedom than she had ever felt before, even pouring out her joy at the
thought of devoting herself to him, and of learning how she might best
share and further all his great ends. <said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false"> Mr. Casaubon was touched with an
unknown delight (what man would not have been?) at this childlike
unrestrained ardor: he was not surprised (what lover would have been?)
that he should be the object of it. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">My dear young lady—Miss Brooke—Dorothea!</said> he said, pressing her hand
between his hands, <said who="#C">this is a happiness greater than I had ever
imagined to be in reserve for me.  That I should ever meet with a mind
and person so rich in the mingled graces which could render marriage
desirable, was far indeed from my conception.  You have all—nay, more
than all—those qualities which I have ever regarded as the
characteristic excellences of womanhood.  The great charm of your sex
is its capability of an ardent self-sacrificing affection, and herein
we see its fitness to round and complete the existence of our own.
Hitherto I have known few pleasures save of the severer kind: my
satisfactions have been those of the solitary student.  I have been
little disposed to gather flowers that would wither in my hand, but now
I shall pluck them with eagerness, to place them in your bosom.</said>
</P>

<P>
No speech could have been more thoroughly honest in its intention: the
frigid rhetoric at the end was as sincere as the bark of a dog, or the
cawing of an amorous rook.  <first> Would it not be rash to conclude that there
was no passion behind those sonnets to Delia which strike us as the
thin music of a mandolin? </first>
</P>

<P>
Dorothea's faith supplied all that Mr. Casaubon's words seemed to leave
unsaid: what believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? <first> The
text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put
into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime. </first>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I am very ignorant—you will quite wonder at my ignorance,</said> said
Dorothea.  <said who="#D"> I have so many thoughts that may be quite mistaken; and now
I shall be able to tell them all to you, and ask you about them.  But,</said>
she added, with rapid imagination of Mr. Casaubon's probable feeling,
<said who="#D">I will not trouble you too much; only when you are inclined to listen
to me.  You must often be weary with the pursuit of subjects in your
own track.  I shall gain enough if you will take me with you there.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C"> <said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false">How should I be able now to persevere in any path without your
companionship?</said> said Mr. Casaubon, kissing her candid brow, and feeling
that heaven had vouchsafed him a blessing in every way suited to his
peculiar wants. </said> He was being unconsciously wrought upon by the charms
of a nature which was entirely without hidden calculations either for
immediate effects or for remoter ends.  It was this which made Dorothea
so childlike, and, according to some judges, so stupid, with all her
reputed cleverness; as, for example, in the present case of throwing
herself, metaphorically speaking, at Mr. Casaubon's feet, and kissing
his unfashionable shoe-ties as if he were a Protestant Pope. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> She was
not in the least teaching Mr. Casaubon to ask if he were good enough
for her, but merely asking herself anxiously how she could be good
enough for Mr. Casaubon. Before he left the next day it had been
decided that the marriage should take place within six weeks.  Why not?
Mr. Casaubon's house was ready.  It was not a parsonage, but a
considerable mansion, with much land attached to it.  The parsonage was
inhabited by the curate, who did all the duty except preaching the
morning sermon. </said>
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

</div><div type="chapter" n="06"><head>CHAPTER VI.</head>

<epigraph>
          My lady's tongue is like the meadow blades,
          That cut you stroking them with idle hand.
          Nice cutting is her function: she divides
          With spiritual edge the millet-seed,
          And makes intangible savings.
</epigraph>

<BR/>

<P>
As Mr. Casaubon's carriage was passing out of the gateway, it arrested
the entrance of a pony phaeton driven by a lady with a servant seated
behind.  It was doubtful whether the recognition had been mutual, for
Mr. Casaubon was looking absently before him; but the lady was
quick-eyed, and threw a nod and a <said who="#MrsCad">How do you do?</said> in the nick of time.
In spite of her shabby bonnet and very old Indian shawl, it was plain
that the lodge-keeper regarded her as an important personage, from the
low curtsy which was dropped on the entrance of the small phaeton.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Well, Mrs. Fitchett, how are your fowls laying now?</said> said the
high-colored, dark-eyed lady, with the clearest chiselled utterance.
</P>

<P>
<said>Pretty well for laying, madam, but they've ta'en to eating their eggs:
I've no peace o' mind with 'em at all.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Oh, the cannibals!  Better sell them cheap at once.  What will you
sell them a couple?  One can't eat fowls of a bad character at a high
price.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said>Well, madam, half-a-crown: I couldn't let 'em go, not under.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Half-a-crown, these times!  Come now—for the Rector's chicken-broth
on a Sunday.  He has consumed all ours that I can spare.  You are half
paid with the sermon, Mrs. Fitchett, remember that.  Take a pair of
tumbler-pigeons for them—little beauties.  You must come and see them.
You have no tumblers among your pigeons.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said>Well, madam, Master Fitchett shall go and see 'em after work.  He's
very hot on new sorts; to oblige you.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Oblige me!  It will be the best bargain he ever made.  A pair of
church pigeons for a couple of wicked Spanish fowls that eat their own
eggs!  Don't you and Fitchett boast too much, that is all!</said>
</P>

<P>
The phaeton was driven onwards with the last words, leaving Mrs.
Fitchett laughing and shaking her head slowly, with an interjectional
<said>Sure<emph rend="italics">ly</emph>, sure<emph rend="italics">ly</emph>!"—from which it might be inferred that she would
have found the country-side somewhat duller if the Rector's lady had
been less free-spoken and less of a skinflint.  <second> <said who="#MM" direct="false" aloud="false"> Indeed, both the
farmers and laborers in the parishes of Freshitt and Tipton would have
felt a sad lack of conversation but for the stories about what Mrs.
Cadwallader said and did: a lady of immeasurably high birth, descended,
as it were, from unknown earls, dim as the crowd of heroic shades—who
pleaded poverty, pared down prices, and cut jokes in the most
companionable manner, though with a turn of tongue that let you know
who she was. </second> Such a lady gave a neighborliness to both rank and
religion, and mitigated the bitterness of uncommuted tithe.  A much
more exemplary character with an infusion of sour dignity would not
have furthered their comprehension of the Thirty-nine Articles, and
would have been less socially uniting. </said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Brooke, seeing Mrs. Cadwallader's merits from a different point of
view, winced a little when her name was announced in the library, where
he was sitting alone.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad"> "I see you have had our Lowick Cicero here,</said> she said, seating herself
comfortably, throwing back her wraps, and showing a thin but well-built
figure.  <said who="#MrsCad">I suspect you and he are brewing some bad polities, else you
would not be seeing so much of the lively man.  I shall inform against
you: remember you are both suspicious characters since you took Peel's
side about the Catholic Bill.  I shall tell everybody that you are
going to put up for Middlemarch on the Whig side when old Pinkerton
resigns, and that Casaubon is going to help you in an underhand manner:
going to bribe the voters with pamphlets, and throw open the
public-houses to distribute them.  Come, confess!</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Nothing of the sort,</said> said Mr. Brooke, smiling and rubbing his
eye-glasses, but really blushing a little at the impeachment.
<said who="#MB">Casaubon and I don't talk politics much.  He doesn't care much about
the philanthropic side of things; punishments, and that kind of thing.
He only cares about Church questions.  That is not my line of action,
you know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Ra-a-ther too much, my friend.  I have heard of your doings.  Who was
it that sold his bit of land to the Papists at Middlemarch?  I believe
you bought it on purpose.  You are a perfect Guy Faux.  See if you are
not burnt in effigy this 5th of November coming.  Humphrey would not
come to quarrel with you about it, so I am come.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Very good.  I was prepared to be persecuted for not persecuting—not
persecuting, you know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">There you go!  That is a piece of clap-trap you have got ready for the
hustings.  Now, <emph rend="italics">do not</emph> let them lure you to the hustings, my dear Mr.
Brooke.  A man always makes a fool of himself, speechifying: there's no
excuse but being on the right side, so that you can ask a blessing on
your humming and hawing.  You will lose yourself, I forewarn you.  You
will make a Saturday pie of all parties' opinions, and be pelted by
everybody.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">That is what I expect, you know,</said> said Mr. Brooke, not wishing to
betray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch—<said who="#MB">what I expect as
an independent man.  As to the Whigs, a man who goes with the thinkers
is not likely to be hooked on by any party.  He may go with them up to
a certain point—up to a certain point, you know.  But that is what you
ladies never understand. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Where your certain point is?  No. I should like to be told how a man
can have any certain point when he belongs to no party—leading a
roving life, and never letting his friends know his address.  'Nobody
knows where Brooke will be—there's no counting on Brooke'—that is
what people say of you, to be quite frank.  Now, do turn respectable.
How will you like going to Sessions with everybody looking shy on you,
and you with a bad conscience and an empty pocket?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB"> <said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false">I don't pretend to argue with a lady on politics,</said> said Mr. Brooke,
with an air of smiling indifference, but feeling rather unpleasantly
conscious that this attack of Mrs. Cadwallader's had opened the
defensive campaign to which certain rash steps had exposed him. </said> <said>Your
sex are not thinkers, you know—<i>varium et mutabile semper</i>—that kind of
thing.  You don't know Virgil.  I knew</said> — <said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false">Mr. Brooke reflected in time
that he had not had the personal acquaintance of the Augustan poet </said> — <said who="#MB"> I
was going to say, poor Stoddart, you know.  That was what <emph rend="italics">he</emph> said.
You ladies are always against an independent attitude—a man's caring
for nothing but truth, and that sort of thing.  And there is no part of
the county where opinion is narrower than it is here—I don't mean to
throw stones, you know, but somebody is wanted to take the independent
line; and if I don't take it, who will?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Who?  Why, any upstart who has got neither blood nor position.  People
of standing should consume their independent nonsense at home, not hawk
it about.  And you! who are going to marry your niece, as good as your
daughter, to one of our best men.  Sir James would be cruelly annoyed:
it will be too hard on him if you turn round now and make yourself a
Whig sign-board.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false"> Mr. Brooke again winced inwardly, for Dorothea's engagement had no
sooner been decided, than he had thought of Mrs. Cadwallader's
prospective taunts.  It might have been easy for ignorant observers to
say, <said>Quarrel with Mrs. Cadwallader;</said> but where is a country gentleman
to go who quarrels with his oldest neighbors?  Who could taste the fine
flavor in the name of Brooke if it were delivered casually, like wine
without a seal?  Certainly a man can only be cosmopolitan up to a
certain point. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">I hope Chettam and I shall always be good friends; but I am sorry to
say there is no prospect of his marrying my niece,</said> said Mr. Brooke,
much relieved to see through the window that Celia was coming in.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Why not?</said> said Mrs. Cadwallader, with a sharp note of surprise.  <said who="#MrsCad">It
is hardly a fortnight since you and I were talking about it.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">My niece has chosen another suitor—has chosen him, you know.  I have
had nothing to do with it.  I should have preferred Chettam; and I
should have said Chettam was the man any girl would have chosen.  But
there is no accounting for these things.  Your sex is capricious, you
know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Why, whom do you mean to say that you are going to let her marry?</said>
<said who="#MrsCad" direct="false" aloud="false"> Mrs. Cadwallader's mind was rapidly surveying the possibilities of
choice for Dorothea. </said>
</P>

<P>
But here Celia entered, blooming from a walk in the garden, and the
greeting with her delivered Mr. Brooke from the necessity of answering
immediately.  He got up hastily, and saying, <said who="#MB">By the way, I must speak
to Wright about the horses,</said> shuffled quickly out of the room.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">My dear child, what is this?—this about your sister's engagement?</said>
said Mrs. Cadwallader.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia"> <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false">She is engaged to marry Mr. Casaubon,</said> said Celia, resorting, as
usual, to the simplest statement of fact, and enjoying this opportunity
of speaking to the Rector's wife alone. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">This is frightful.  How long has it been going on?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">I only knew of it yesterday.  They are to be married in six weeks.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Well, my dear, I wish you joy of your brother-in-law.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">I am so sorry for Dorothea.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Sorry!  It is her doing, I suppose.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Yes; she says Mr. Casaubon has a great soul.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">With all my heart.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Oh, Mrs. Cadwallader, I don't think it can be nice to marry a man with
a great soul.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad"> Well, my dear, take warning.  You know the look of one now; when the
next comes and wants to marry you, don't you accept him.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">I'm sure I never should.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">No; one such in a family is enough.  So your sister never cared about
Sir James Chettam?  What would you have said to <emph rend="italics">him</emph> for a
brother-in-law?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">I should have liked that very much.  I am sure he would have been a
good husband.  Only,</said> Celia added, with a slight blush (she sometimes
seemed to blush as she breathed), <said who="#Celia">I don't think he would have suited
Dorothea.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Not high-flown enough?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Dodo is very strict.  She thinks so much about everything, and is so
particular about what one says.  Sir James never seemed to please her.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">She must have encouraged him, I am sure.  That is not very creditable.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Please don't be angry with Dodo; she does not see things.  She thought
so much about the cottages, and she was rude to Sir James sometimes;
but he is so kind, he never noticed it.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Well,</said> said Mrs. Cadwallader, putting on her shawl, and rising, as if
in haste, <said who="#MrsCad">I must go straight to Sir James and break this to him.  He
will have brought his mother back by this time, and I must call.  Your
uncle will never tell him.  We are all disappointed, my dear.  Young
people should think of their families in marrying.  I set a bad
example—married a poor clergyman, and made myself a pitiable object
among the De Bracys—obliged to get my coals by stratagem, and pray to
heaven for my salad oil.  However, Casaubon has money enough; I must do
him that justice.  As to his blood, I suppose the family quarterings
are three cuttle-fish sable, and a commentator rampant.  By the bye,
before I go, my dear, I must speak to your Mrs. Carter about pastry.  I
want to send my young cook to learn of her.  Poor people with four
children, like us, you know, can't afford to keep a good cook.  I have
no doubt Mrs. Carter will oblige me.  Sir James's cook is a perfect
dragon.</said>
</P>

<P>
In less than an hour, Mrs. Cadwallader had circumvented Mrs. Carter and
driven to Freshitt Hall, which was not far from her own parsonage, her
husband being resident in Freshitt and keeping a curate in Tipton.
</P>

<P>
Sir James Chettam had returned from the short journey which had kept
him absent for a couple of days, and had changed his dress, intending
to ride over to Tipton Grange.  His horse was standing at the door when
Mrs. Cadwallader drove up, and he immediately appeared there himself,
whip in hand.  Lady Chettam had not yet returned, but Mrs.
Cadwallader's errand could not be despatched in the presence of grooms,
so she asked to be taken into the conservatory close by, to look at the
new plants; and on coming to a contemplative stand, she said—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">I have a great shock for you; I hope you are not so far gone in love
as you pretended to be.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> It was of no use protesting against Mrs. Cadwallader's way of putting
things.  But Sir James's countenance changed a little.  He felt a vague
alarm. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">I do believe Brooke is going to expose himself after all.  I accused
him of meaning to stand for Middlemarch on the Liberal side, and he
looked silly and never denied it—talked about the independent line,
and the usual nonsense.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Is that all?</said> said Sir James, much relieved.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Why,</said> rejoined Mrs. Cadwallader, with a sharper note, <said who="#MrsCad">you don't mean
to say that you would like him to turn public man in that way—making a
sort of political Cheap Jack of himself?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">He might be dissuaded, I should think.  He would not like the expense.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">That is what I told him.  He is vulnerable to reason there—always a
few grains of common-sense in an ounce of miserliness.  Miserliness is
a capital quality to run in families; it's the safe side for madness to
dip on.  And there must be a little crack in the Brooke family, else we
should not see what we are to see.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC"> What?  Brooke standing for Middlemarch? </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Worse than that.  I really feel a little responsible.  I always told
you Miss Brooke would be such a fine match.  I knew there was a great
deal of nonsense in her—a flighty sort of Methodistical stuff.  But
these things wear out of girls.  However, I am taken by surprise for
once.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC"> <said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false">What do you mean, Mrs. Cadwallader?</said> said Sir James.  His fear lest
Miss Brooke should have run away to join the Moravian Brethren, or some
preposterous sect unknown to good society, was a little allayed by the
knowledge that Mrs. Cadwallader always made the worst of things. </said> <said who="#JC">What
has happened to Miss Brooke?  Pray speak out.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad" >Very well.  She is engaged to be married.</said> <said who="#MrsCad" direct="false" aloud="false"> Mrs. Cadwallader paused a
few moments, observing the deeply hurt expression in her friend's face,
which he was trying to conceal by a nervous smile, while he whipped his
boot; but she soon added, <said who="#MrsCad">Engaged to Casaubon.</said> </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> Sir James let his whip fall and stooped to pick it up.  Perhaps his
face had never before gathered so much concentrated disgust as when he
turned to Mrs. Cadwallader and repeated, <said who="#JC">Casaubon?</said> </said>
</P>/

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Even so.  You know my errand now.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Good God!  It is horrible!  He is no better than a mummy!</said> (The point
of view has to be allowed for, as that of a blooming and disappointed
rival.)
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">She says, he is a great soul.—A great bladder for dried peas to
rattle in!</said> said Mrs. Cadwallader.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">What business has an old bachelor like that to marry?</said> said Sir James.
<said who="#JC">He has one foot in the grave.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">He means to draw it out again, I suppose.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Brooke ought not to allow it: he should insist on its being put off
till she is of age.  She would think better of it then.  What is a
guardian for?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">As if you could ever squeeze a resolution out of Brooke!</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Cadwallader might talk to him.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Not he!  Humphrey finds everybody charming. I never can get him to
abuse Casaubon.  He will even speak well of the bishop, though I tell
him it is unnatural in a beneficed clergyman; what can one do with a
husband who attends so little to the decencies?  I hide it as well as I
can by abusing everybody myself.  Come, come, cheer up!  you are well
rid of Miss Brooke, a girl who would have been requiring you to see the
stars by daylight.  Between ourselves, little Celia is worth two of
her, and likely after all to be the better match.  For this marriage to
Casaubon is as good as going to a nunnery.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Oh, on my own account—it is for Miss Brooke's sake I think her
friends should try to use their influence.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Well, Humphrey doesn't know yet.  But when I tell him, you may depend
on it he will say, 'Why not?  Casaubon is a good fellow—and
young—young enough.' These charitable people never know vinegar from
wine till they have swallowed it and got the colic.  However, if I were
a man I should prefer Celia, especially when Dorothea was gone.  The
truth is, you have been courting one and have won the other.  I can see
that she admires you almost as much as a man expects to be admired.  If
it were any one but me who said so, you might think it exaggeration.
Good-by!</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> Sir James handed Mrs. Cadwallader to the phaeton, and then jumped on
his horse.  He was not going to renounce his ride because of his
friend's unpleasant news—only to ride the faster in some other
direction than that of Tipton Grange. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> Now, why on earth should Mrs. Cadwallader have been at all busy about
Miss Brooke's marriage; and why, when one match that she liked to think
she had a hand in was frustrated, should she have straightway contrived
the preliminaries of another?  Was there any ingenious plot, any
hide-and-seek course of action, which might be detected by a careful
telescopic watch?  </said> Not at all: a telescope might have swept the
parishes of Tipton and Freshitt, the whole area visited by Mrs.
Cadwallader in her phaeton, without witnessing any interview that could
excite suspicion, or any scene from which she did not return with the
same unperturbed keenness of eye and the same high natural color. <second> In
fact, if that convenient vehicle had existed in the days of the Seven
Sages, one of them would doubtless have remarked, that you can know
little of women by following them about in their pony-phaetons. </second> <first> Even
with a microscope directed on a water-drop we find ourselves making
interpretations which turn out to be rather coarse; for whereas under a
weak lens you may seem to see a creature exhibiting an active voracity
into which other smaller creatures actively play as if they were so
many animated tax-pennies, a stronger lens reveals to you certain
tiniest hairlets which make vortices for these victims while the
swallower waits passively at his receipt of custom. </first> In this way,
metaphorically speaking, a strong lens applied to Mrs. Cadwallader's
match-making will show a play of minute causes producing what may be
called thought and speech vortices to bring her the sort of food she
needed.  Her life was rurally simple, quite free from secrets either
foul, dangerous, or otherwise important, and not consciously affected
by the great affairs of the world. <said who="#MrsCad" direct="false" aloud="false"> All the more did the affairs of the
great world interest her, when communicated in the letters of high-born
relations: the way in which fascinating younger sons had gone to the
dogs by marrying their mistresses; the fine old-blooded idiocy of young
Lord Tapir, and the furious gouty humors of old Lord Megatherium; the
exact crossing of genealogies which had brought a coronet into a new
branch and widened the relations of scandal,—these were topics of
which she retained details with the utmost accuracy, and reproduced
them in an excellent pickle of epigrams, which she herself enjoyed the
more because she believed as unquestionably in birth and no-birth as
she did in game and vermin. <first> She would never have disowned any one on
the ground of poverty: a De Bracy reduced to take his dinner in a basin
would have seemed to her an example of pathos worth exaggerating, and I
fear his aristocratic vices would not have horrified her. </first> But her
feeling towards the vulgar rich was a sort of religious hatred: they
had probably made all their money out of high retail prices, and Mrs.
Cadwallader detested high prices for everything that was not paid in
kind at the Rectory: such people were no part of God's design in making
the world; and their accent was an affliction to the ears.  A town
where such monsters abounded was hardly more than a sort of low comedy,
which could not be taken account of in a well-bred scheme of the
universe. </said> Let any lady who is inclined to be hard on Mrs. Cadwallader
inquire into the comprehensiveness of her own beautiful views, and be
quite sure that they afford accommodation for all the lives which have
the honor to coexist with hers.
</P>

<P>
With such a mind, active as phosphorus, biting everything that came
near into the form that suited it, how could Mrs. Cadwallader feel that
the Miss Brookes and their matrimonial prospects were alien to her?
especially as it had been the habit of years for her to scold Mr.
Brooke with the friendliest frankness, and let him know in confidence
that she thought him a poor creature. <said who="#MrsCad" direct="false" aloud="false"> From the first arrival of the
young ladies in Tipton she had prearranged Dorothea's marriage with Sir
James, and if it had taken place would have been quite sure that it was
her doing: that it should not take place after she had preconceived it,
caused her an irritation which every thinker will sympathize with.  She
was the diplomatist of Tipton and Freshitt, and for anything to happen
in spite of her was an offensive irregularity. As to freaks like this
of Miss Brooke's, Mrs. Cadwallader had no patience with them, and now
saw that her opinion of this girl had been infected with some of her
husband's weak charitableness: those Methodistical whims, that air of
being more religious than the rector and curate together, came from a
deeper and more constitutional disease than she had been willing to
believe. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">However,</said> said Mrs. Cadwallader, first to herself and afterwards to
her husband, <said who="#MrsCad">I throw her over: there was a chance, if she had married
Sir James, of her becoming a sane, sensible woman.  He would never have
contradicted her, and when a woman is not contradicted, she has no
motive for obstinacy in her absurdities.  But now I wish her joy of her
hair shirt.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad" direct="false" aloud="false"> It followed that Mrs. Cadwallader must decide on another match for Sir
James, and having made up her mind that it was to be the younger Miss
Brooke, there could not have been a more skilful move towards the
success of her plan than her hint to the baronet that he had made an
impression on Celia's heart. </said> For he was not one of those gentlemen who
languish after the unattainable Sappho's apple that laughs from the
topmost bough—the charms which
</P>

<P CLASS="poem">
<said>Smile like the knot of cowslips on the cliff,<BR/>
Not to be come at by the willing hand."<BR/>
</P>

<P>
He had no sonnets to write, and it could not strike him agreeably that
he was not an object of preference to the woman whom he had preferred.
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> Already the knowledge that Dorothea had chosen Mr. Casaubon had bruised
his attachment and relaxed its hold.  Although Sir James was a
sportsman, he had some other feelings towards women than towards grouse
and foxes, and did not regard his future wife in the light of prey,
valuable chiefly for the excitements of the chase.  Neither was he so
well acquainted with the habits of primitive races as to feel that an
ideal combat for her, tomahawk in hand, so to speak, was necessary to
the historical continuity of the marriage-tie. <first> On the contrary, having
the amiable vanity which knits us to those who are fond of us, and
disinclines us to those who are indifferent, and also a good grateful
nature, the mere idea that a woman had a kindness towards him spun
little threads of tenderness from out his heart towards hers. </first> </said>
</P>

<P>
Thus it happened, that after Sir James had ridden rather fast for half
an hour in a direction away from Tipton Grange, he slackened his pace,
and at last turned into a road which would lead him back by a shorter
cut. <said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> Various feelings wrought in him the determination after all to go
to the Grange to-day as if nothing new had happened.  He could not help
rejoicing that he had never made the offer and been rejected; mere
friendly politeness required that he should call to see Dorothea about
the cottages, and now happily Mrs. Cadwallader had prepared him to
offer his congratulations, if necessary, without showing too much
awkwardness.  He really did not like it: giving up Dorothea was very
painful to him; but there was something in the resolve to make this
visit forthwith and conquer all show of feeling, which was a sort of
file-biting and counter-irritant. And without his distinctly
recognizing the impulse, there certainly was present in him the sense
that Celia would be there, and that he should pay her more attention
than he had done before. </said>
</P>

<P>
<first> We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between
breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale
about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, <said> Oh, nothing!</said> Pride
helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide
our own hurts—not to hurt others. </first>
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

</div><div type="chapter" n="07"><head>CHAPTER VII.</head>

<epigraph xml:lang="ita">>
          <said>Piacer e popone
           Vuol la sua stagione.</said>
                 —Italian Proverb.
</epigraph>

<BR/>

<P>
<said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false"> Mr. Casaubon, as might be expected, spent a great deal of his time at
the Grange in these weeks, and the hindrance which courtship occasioned
to the progress of his great work—the Key to all
Mythologies—naturally made him look forward the more eagerly to the
happy termination of courtship.  But he had deliberately incurred the
hindrance, having made up his mind that it was now time for him to
adorn his life with the graces of female companionship, to irradiate
the gloom which fatigue was apt to hang over the intervals of studious
labor with the play of female fancy, and to secure in this, his
culminating age, the solace of female tendance for his declining years.
Hence he determined to abandon himself to the stream of feeling, and
perhaps was surprised to find what an exceedingly shallow rill it was.
As in droughty regions baptism by immersion could only be performed
symbolically, Mr. Casaubon found that sprinkling was the utmost
approach to a plunge which his stream would afford him; and he
concluded that the poets had much exaggerated the force of masculine
passion.  Nevertheless, he observed with pleasure that Miss Brooke
showed an ardent submissive affection which promised to fulfil his most
agreeable previsions of marriage.  It had once or twice crossed his
mind that possibly there was some deficiency in Dorothea to account for
the moderation of his abandonment; but he was unable to discern the
deficiency, or to figure to himself a woman who would have pleased him
better; so that there was clearly no reason to fall back upon but the
exaggerations of human tradition. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Could I not be preparing myself now to be more useful?</said> said Dorothea
to him, one morning, early in the time of courtship; <said who="#D">could I not learn
to read Latin and Greek aloud to you, as Milton's daughters did to
their father, without understanding what they read?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">I fear that would be wearisome to you,</said> said Mr. Casaubon, smiling;
<said who="#C">and, indeed, if I remember rightly, the young women you have mentioned
regarded that exercise in unknown tongues as a ground for rebellion
against the poet.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Yes; but in the first place they were very naughty girls, else they
would have been proud to minister to such a father; and in the second
place they might have studied privately and taught themselves to
understand what they read, and then it would have been interesting.  I
hope you don't expect me to be naughty and stupid?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">I expect you to be all that an exquisite young lady can be in every
possible relation of life.  Certainly it might be a great advantage if
you were able to copy the Greek character, and to that end it were well
to begin with a little reading.</said>
</P>

<P>
Dorothea seized this as a precious permission. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> She would not have
asked Mr. Casaubon at once to teach her the languages, dreading of all
things to be tiresome instead of helpful; but it was not entirely out
of devotion to her future husband that she wished to know Latin and
Greek.  Those provinces of masculine knowledge seemed to her a
standing-ground from which all truth could be seen more truly.  As it
was, she constantly doubted her own conclusions, because she felt her
own ignorance: how could she be confident that one-roomed cottages were
not for the glory of God, when men who knew the classics appeared to
conciliate indifference to the cottages with zeal for the glory?
Perhaps even Hebrew might be necessary—at least the alphabet and a few
roots—in order to arrive at the core of things, and judge soundly on
the social duties of the Christian.  And she had not reached that point
of renunciation at which she would have been satisfied with having a
wise husband: she wished, poor child, to be wise herself. </said> Miss Brooke
was certainly very naive with all her alleged cleverness.  Celia, whose
mind had never been thought too powerful, saw the emptiness of other
people's pretensions much more readily.  To have in general but little
feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any
particular occasion.
</P>

<P>
However, Mr. Casaubon consented to listen and teach for an hour
together, like a schoolmaster of little boys, or rather like a lover,
to whom a mistress's elementary ignorance and difficulties have a
touching fitness.  Few scholars would have disliked teaching the
alphabet under such circumstances. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> But Dorothea herself was a little
shocked and discouraged at her own stupidity, and the answers she got
to some timid questions about the value of the Greek accents gave her a
painful suspicion that here indeed there might be secrets not capable
of explanation to a woman's reason. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false">Mr. Brooke had no doubt on that point, and expressed himself with his
usual strength upon it one day that he came into the library while the
reading was going forward. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Well, but now, Casaubon, such deep studies, classics, mathematics,
that kind of thing, are too taxing for a woman—too taxing, you know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">Dorothea is learning to read the characters simply,</said> said Mr.
Casaubon, evading the question.  <said who="#C">She had the very considerate thought
of saving my eyes.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Ah, well, without understanding, you know—that may not be so bad.
But there is a lightness about the feminine mind—a touch and
go—music, the fine arts, that kind of thing—they should study those
up to a certain point, women should; but in a light way, you know.  A
woman should be able to sit down and play you or sing you a good old
English tune.  That is what I like; though I have heard most
things—been at the opera in Vienna: Gluck, Mozart, everything of that
sort.  But I'm a conservative in music—it's not like ideas, you know.
I stick to the good old tunes.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Mr. Casaubon is not fond of the piano, and I am very glad he is not,</said>
said Dorothea, whose slight regard for domestic music and feminine fine
art must be forgiven her, considering the small tinkling and smearing
in which they chiefly consisted at that dark period.  She smiled and
looked up at her betrothed with grateful eyes.  If he had always been
asking her to play the <said>Last Rose of Summer,</said> she would have required
much resignation.  <said who="#D">He says there is only an old harpsichord at Lowick,
and it is covered with books.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Ah, there you are behind Celia, my dear.  Celia, now, plays very
prettily, and is always ready to play.  However, since Casaubon does
not like it, you are all right.  But it's a pity you should not have
little recreations of that sort, Casaubon: the bow always strung—that
kind of thing, you know—will not do.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">I never could look on it in the light of a recreation to have my ears
teased with measured noises,</said> said Mr. Casaubon.  <said who="#C">A tune much iterated
has the ridiculous effect of making the words in my mind perform a sort
of minuet to keep time—an effect hardly tolerable, I imagine, after
boyhood.  As to the grander forms of music, worthy to accompany solemn
celebrations, and even to serve as an educating influence according to
the ancient conception, I say nothing, for with these we are not
immediately concerned.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">No; but music of that sort I should enjoy,</said> said Dorothea.  <said who="#D">When we
were coming home from Lausanne my uncle took us to hear the great organ
at Freiberg, and it made me sob.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">That kind of thing is not healthy, my dear,</said> said Mr. Brooke.
<said who="#MB">Casaubon, she will be in your hands now: you must teach my niece to
take things more quietly, eh, Dorothea?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false"> He ended with a smile, not wishing to hurt his niece, but really
thinking that it was perhaps better for her to be early married to so
sober a fellow as Casaubon, since she would not hear of Chettam. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MC">It is wonderful, though,</said> he said to himself as he shuffled out of the
room—<said who="#MB"> it is wonderful that she should have liked him.  However, the
match is good.  I should have been travelling out of my brief to have
hindered it, let Mrs. Cadwallader say what she will.  He is pretty
certain to be a bishop, is Casaubon.  That was a very seasonable
pamphlet of his on the Catholic Question:—a deanery at least.  They
owe him a deanery.</said>
</P>

<P>
<first> And here I must vindicate a claim to philosophical reflectiveness, by
remarking that Mr. Brooke on this occasion little thought of the
Radical speech which, at a later period, he was led to make on the
incomes of the bishops. </first> <said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false">What elegant historian would neglect a
striking opportunity for pointing out that his heroes did not foresee
the history of the world, or even their own actions?—For example, that
Henry of Navarre, when a Protestant baby, little thought of being a
Catholic monarch; or that Alfred the Great, when he measured his
laborious nights with burning candles, had no idea of future gentlemen
measuring their idle days with watches. <first> Here is a mine of truth,
which, however vigorously it may be worked, is likely to outlast our
coal. </said> </first>
</P>

<P>
<first> But of Mr. Brooke I make a further remark perhaps less warranted by
precedent—namely, that if he had foreknown his speech, it might not
have made any great difference. </first>To think with pleasure of his niece's
husband having a large ecclesiastical income was one thing—to make a
Liberal speech was another thing; and it is a narrow mind which cannot
look at a subject from various points of view.
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

</div><div type="chapter" n="08"><head>CHAPTER VIII.</head>

<epigraph>
          <said>Oh, rescue her!  I am her brother now,
          And you her father.  Every gentle maid
          Should have a guardian in each gentleman.</said>
</epigraph>

<BR/>

<P>
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> It was wonderful to Sir James Chettam how well he continued to like
going to the Grange after he had once encountered the difficulty of
seeing Dorothea for the first time in the light of a woman who was
engaged to another man.  Of course the forked lightning seemed to pass
through him when he first approached her, and he remained conscious
throughout the interview of hiding uneasiness; but, good as he was, it
must be owned that his uneasiness was less than it would have been if
he had thought his rival a brilliant and desirable match.  He had no
sense of being eclipsed by Mr. Casaubon; he was only shocked that
Dorothea was under a melancholy illusion, and his mortification lost
some of its bitterness by being mingled with compassion. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> Nevertheless, while Sir James said to himself that he had completely
resigned her, since with the perversity of a Desdemona she had not
affected a proposed match that was clearly suitable and according to
nature; he could not yet be quite passive under the idea of her
engagement to Mr. Casaubon.  On the day when he first saw them together
in the light of his present knowledge, it seemed to him that he had not
taken the affair seriously enough.  Brooke was really culpable; he
ought to have hindered it.  Who could speak to him?  Something might be
done perhaps even now, at least to defer the marriage. </said> On his way home
he turned into the Rectory and asked for Mr. Cadwallader.  Happily, the
Rector was at home, and his visitor was shown into the study, where all
the fishing tackle hung. But he himself was in a little room
adjoining, at work with his turning apparatus, and he called to the
baronet to join him there.  The two were better friends than any other
landholder and clergyman in the county—a significant fact which was in
agreement with the amiable expression of their faces.
</P>

<P>
Mr. Cadwallader was a large man, with full lips and a sweet smile; very
plain and rough in his exterior, but with that solid imperturbable ease
and good-humor which is infectious, and like great grassy hills in the
sunshine, quiets even an irritated egoism, and makes it rather ashamed
of itself.  <said who="#MrCad">Well, how are you?</said> he said, showing a hand not quite fit
to be grasped.  <said who="#MrCad">Sorry I missed you before.  Is there anything
particular?  You look vexed.</said>
</P>

<P>
Sir James's brow had a little crease in it, a little depression of the
eyebrow, which he seemed purposely to exaggerate as he answered.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">It is only this conduct of Brooke's. I really think somebody should
speak to him.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">What? meaning to stand?</said> said Mr. Cadwallader, going on with the
arrangement of the reels which he had just been turning.  <said who="#MrCad">I hardly
think he means it.  But where's the harm, if he likes it?  Any one who
objects to Whiggery should be glad when the Whigs don't put up the
strongest fellow.  They won't overturn the Constitution with our friend
Brooke's head for a battering ram.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Oh, I don't mean that,</said> said Sir James, who, after putting down his
hat and throwing himself into a chair, had begun to nurse his leg and
examine the sole of his boot with much bitterness.  <said who="#JC">I mean this
marriage.  I mean his letting that blooming young girl marry Casaubon.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">What is the matter with Casaubon?  I see no harm in him—if the girl
likes him.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">She is too young to know what she likes.  Her guardian ought to
interfere.  He ought not to allow the thing to be done in this headlong
manner.  I wonder a man like you, Cadwallader—a man with daughters,
can look at the affair with indifference: and with such a heart as
yours!  Do think seriously about it.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">I am not joking; I am as serious as possible,</said> said the Rector, with a
provoking little inward laugh.  <said>You are as bad as Elinor.  She has
been wanting me to go and lecture Brooke; and I have reminded her that
her friends had a very poor opinion of the match she made when she
married me.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">But look at Casaubon,</said> said Sir James, indignantly.  <said who="#JC">He must be
fifty, and I don't believe he could ever have been much more than the
shadow of a man.  Look at his legs!</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">Confound you handsome young fellows! you think of having it all your
own way in the world.  You don't understand women.  They don't admire
you half so much as you admire yourselves.  Elinor used to tell her
sisters that she married me for my ugliness—it was so various and
amusing that it had quite conquered her prudence.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC"> <said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false">You! it was easy enough for a woman to love you.  But this is no
question of beauty.  I don't <emph rend="italics">like</emph> Casaubon.</said> This was Sir James's
strongest way of implying that he thought ill of a man's character. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">Why? what do you know against him?</said> said the Rector laying down his
reels, and putting his thumbs into his armholes with an air of
attention.
</P>

<P>
Sir James paused. <said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> He did not usually find it easy to give his reasons:
it seemed to him strange that people should not know them without being
told, since he only felt what was reasonable. </said> At last he said—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Now, Cadwallader, has he got any heart?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">Well, yes.  I don't mean of the melting sort, but a sound kernel,
<emph rend="italics">that</emph> you may be sure of.  He is very good to his poor relations:
pensions several of the women, and is educating a young fellow at a
good deal of expense.  Casaubon acts up to his sense of justice.  His
mother's sister made a bad match—a Pole, I think—lost herself—at any
rate was disowned by her family.  If it had not been for that, Casaubon
would not have had so much money by half.  I believe he went himself to
find out his cousins, and see what he could do for them.  Every man
would not ring so well as that, if you tried his metal.  <emph rend="italics">You</emph> would,
Chettam; but not every man.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">I don't know,</said> said Sir James, coloring.  <said who="#JC">I am not so sure of
myself.</said> He paused a moment, and then added, <said who="#JC">That was a right thing
for Casaubon to do.  But a man may wish to do what is right, and yet be
a sort of parchment code.  A woman may not be happy with him.  And I
think when a girl is so young as Miss Brooke is, her friends ought to
interfere a little to hinder her from doing anything foolish.  You
laugh, because you fancy I have some feeling on my own account.  But
upon my honor, it is not that.  I should feel just the same if I were
Miss Brooke's brother or uncle.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">Well, but what should you do?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC"> I should say that the marriage must not be decided on until she was of
age.  And depend upon it, in that case, it would never come off.  I
wish you saw it as I do—I wish you would talk to Brooke about it.</said>
</P>

<P>
Sir James rose as he was finishing his sentence, for he saw Mrs.
Cadwallader entering from the study.  She held by the hand her youngest
girl, about five years old, who immediately ran to papa, and was made
comfortable on his knee.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">I hear what you are talking about,</said> said the wife.  <said who="#MrsCad">But you will make
no impression on Humphrey.  As long as the fish rise to his bait,
everybody is what he ought to be.  Bless you, Casaubon has got a
trout-stream, and does not care about fishing in it himself: could
there be a better fellow?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">Well, there is something in that,</said> said the Rector, with his quiet,
inward laugh.  <said who="#MrCad">It is a very good quality in a man to have a
trout-stream.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">But seriously,</said> said Sir James, whose vexation had not yet spent
itself, <said who="#JC">don't you think the Rector might do some good by speaking?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Oh, I told you beforehand what he would say,</said> answered Mrs.
Cadwallader, lifting up her eyebrows.  <said who="#MrsCad">I have done what I could: I
wash my hands of the marriage.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">In the first place,</said> said the Rector, looking rather grave, <said who="#MrCad">it would
be nonsensical to expect that I could convince Brooke, and make him act
accordingly.  Brooke is a very good fellow, but pulpy; he will run into
any mould, but he won't keep shape.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">He might keep shape long enough to defer the marriage,</said> said Sir James.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">But, my dear Chettam, why should I use my influence to Casaubon's
disadvantage, unless I were much surer than I am that I should be
acting for the advantage of Miss Brooke?  I know no harm of Casaubon.
I don't care about his Xisuthrus and Fee-fo-fum and the rest; but then
he doesn't care about my fishing-tackle. As to the line he took on the
Catholic Question, that was unexpected; but he has always been civil to
me, and I don't see why I should spoil his sport.  For anything I can
tell, Miss Brooke may be happier with him than she would be with any
other man.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Humphrey!  I have no patience with you.  You know you would rather
dine under the hedge than with Casaubon alone.  You have nothing to say
to each other.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">What has that to do with Miss Brooke's marrying him?  She does not do
it for my amusement.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">He has got no good red blood in his body,</said> said Sir James.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all
semicolons and parentheses,</said> said Mrs. Cadwallader.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">Why does he not bring out his book, instead of marrying,</said> said Sir
James, with a disgust which he held warranted by the sound feeling of
an English layman.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Oh, he dreams footnotes, and they run away with all his brains.  They
say, when he was a little boy, he made an abstract of 'Hop o' my
Thumb,' and he has been making abstracts ever since.  Ugh!  And that is
the man Humphrey goes on saying that a woman may be happy with.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">Well, he is what Miss Brooke likes,</said> said the Rector.  <said who="#MrCad">I don't
profess to understand every young lady's taste.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC">But if she were your own daughter?</said> said Sir James.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrCad">That would be a different affair.  She is <emph rend="italics">not</emph> my daughter, and I
don't feel called upon to interfere.  Casaubon is as good as most of
us.  He is a scholarly clergyman, and creditable to the cloth.  Some
Radical fellow speechifying at Middlemarch said Casaubon was the
learned straw-chopping incumbent, and Freke was the brick-and-mortar
incumbent, and I was the angling incumbent.  And upon my word, I don't
see that one is worse or better than the other.</said> <said who="#MrCad" direct="false" aloud="false"> The Rector ended with
his silent laugh.  He always saw the joke of any satire against
himself.  His conscience was large and easy, like the rest of him: it
did only what it could do without any trouble.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#JC" direct="false" aloud="false"> Clearly, there would be no interference with Miss Brooke's marriage
through Mr. Cadwallader; and Sir James felt with some sadness that she
was to have perfect liberty of misjudgment.  It was a sign of his good
disposition that he did not slacken at all in his intention of carrying
out Dorothea's design of the cottages. </said> <first> Doubtless this persistence was
the best course for his own dignity: but pride only helps us to be
generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty. </first>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> She was now enough aware of Sir James's position with regard to her, to
appreciate the rectitude of his perseverance in a landlord's duty, to
which he had at first been urged by a lover's complaisance, and her
pleasure in it was great enough to count for something even in her
present happiness. </said> Perhaps she gave to Sir James Chettam's cottages
all the interest she could spare from Mr. Casaubon, or rather from the
symphony of hopeful dreams, admiring trust, and passionate self
devotion which that learned gentleman had set playing in her soul.
<said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> Hence it happened that in the good baronet's succeeding visits, while
he was beginning to pay small attentions to Celia, he found himself
talking with more and more pleasure to Dorothea.  She was perfectly
unconstrained and without irritation towards him now, and he was
gradually discovering the delight there is in frank kindness and
companionship between a man and a woman who have no passion to hide or
confess. </said>
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

</div><div type="chapter" n="09"><head>CHAPTER IX.</head>

<epigraph>
              1st Gent. An ancient land in ancient oracles
                           Is called <said>law-thirsty</said>: all the struggle there
                           Was after order and a perfect rule.
                           Pray, where lie such lands now? . . .
              2d Gent.  Why, where they lay of old—in human souls.
</epigraph>

<BR/>

<P>
Mr. Casaubon's behavior about settlements was highly satisfactory to
Mr. Brooke, and the preliminaries of marriage rolled smoothly along,
shortening the weeks of courtship.  The betrothed bride must see her
future home, and dictate any changes that she would like to have made
there.  A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an
appetite for submission afterwards. <first> And certainly, the mistakes that
we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly
raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. </first>
</P>

<P>
On a gray but dry November morning Dorothea drove to Lowick in company
with her uncle and Celia.  Mr. Casaubon's home was the manor-house.
Close by, visible from some parts of the garden, was the little church,
with the old parsonage opposite.  In the beginning of his career, Mr.
Casaubon had only held the living, but the death of his brother had put
him in possession of the manor also.  It had a small park, with a fine
old oak here and there, and an avenue of limes towards the southwest
front, with a sunk fence between park and pleasure-ground, so that from
the drawing-room windows the glance swept uninterruptedly along a slope
of greensward till the limes ended in a level of corn and pastures,
which often seemed to melt into a lake under the setting sun.  This was
the happy side of the house, for the south and east looked rather
melancholy even under the brightest morning.  The grounds here were
more confined, the flower-beds showed no very careful tendance, and
large clumps of trees, chiefly of sombre yews, had risen high, not ten
yards from the windows.  The building, of greenish stone, was in the
old English style, not ugly, but small-windowed and melancholy-looking:
the sort of house that must have children, many flowers, open windows,
and little vistas of bright things, to make it seem a joyous home.  In
this latter end of autumn, with a sparse remnant of yellow leaves
falling slowly athwart the dark evergreens in a stillness without
sunshine, the house too had an air of autumnal decline, and Mr.
Casaubon, when he presented himself, had no bloom that could be thrown
into relief by that background.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Oh dear!</said> Celia said to herself, <said who="#Celia">I am sure Freshitt Hall would have
been pleasanter than this.</said> <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> She thought of the white freestone, the
pillared portico, and the terrace full of flowers, Sir James smiling
above them like a prince issuing from his enchantment in a rose-bush,
with a handkerchief swiftly metamorphosed from the most delicately
odorous petals—Sir James, who talked so agreeably, always about things
which had common-sense in them, and not about learning! </said>  Celia had
those light young feminine tastes which grave and weatherworn gentlemen
sometimes prefer in a wife; but happily Mr. Casaubon's bias had been
different, for he would have had no chance with Celia.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea, on the contrary, found the house and grounds all that she
could wish: the dark book-shelves in the long library, the carpets and
curtains with colors subdued by time, the curious old maps and
bird's-eye views on the walls of the corridor, with here and there an
old vase below, had no oppression for her, and seemed more cheerful
than the casts and pictures at the Grange, which her uncle had long ago
brought home from his travels—they being probably among the ideas he
had taken in at one time.  To poor Dorothea these severe classical
nudities and smirking Renaissance-Correggiosities were painfully
inexplicable, staring into the midst of her Puritanic conceptions: she
had never been taught how she could bring them into any sort of
relevance with her life. </said> But the owners of Lowick apparently had not
been travellers, and Mr. Casaubon's studies of the past were not
carried on by means of such aids.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea walked about the house with delightful emotion.  Everything
seemed hallowed to her: this was to be the home of her wifehood, and
she looked up with eyes full of confidence to Mr. Casaubon when he drew
her attention specially to some actual arrangement and asked her if she
would like an alteration.  All appeals to her taste she met gratefully,
but saw nothing to alter.  His efforts at exact courtesy and formal
tenderness had no defect for her.  She filled up all blanks with
unmanifested perfections, interpreting him as she interpreted the works
of Providence, and accounting for seeming discords by her own deafness
to the higher harmonies.  And there are many blanks left in the weeks
of courtship which a loving faith fills with happy assurance. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C"> <said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false">Now, my dear Dorothea, I wish you to favor me by pointing out which
room you would like to have as your boudoir,</said> said Mr. Casaubon,
showing that his views of the womanly nature were sufficiently large to
include that requirement. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">It is very kind of you to think of that,</said> said Dorothea, <said who="#D">but I assure
you I would rather have all those matters decided for me.  I shall be
much happier to take everything as it is—just as you have been used to
have it, or as you will yourself choose it to be.  I have no motive for
wishing anything else.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Oh, Dodo,</said> said Celia, <said who="#Celia">will you not have the bow-windowed room
up-stairs?</said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Casaubon led the way thither.  The bow-window looked down the
avenue of limes; the furniture was all of a faded blue, and there were
miniatures of ladies and gentlemen with powdered hair hanging in a
group.  A piece of tapestry over a door also showed a blue-green world
with a pale stag in it.  The chairs and tables were thin-legged and
easy to upset.  It was a room where one might fancy the ghost of a
tight-laced lady revisiting the scene of her embroidery.  A light
bookcase contained duodecimo volumes of polite literature in calf,
completing the furniture.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Yes,</said> said Mr. Brooke, <said who="#MB">this would be a pretty room with some new
hangings, sofas, and that sort of thing.  A little bare now.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">No, uncle,</said> said Dorothea, eagerly.  <said who="#D">Pray do not speak of altering
anything.  There are so many other things in the world that want
altering—I like to take these things as they are.  And you like them
as they are, don't you?</said> she added, looking at Mr. Casaubon.  <said who="#D">Perhaps
this was your mother's room when she was young.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">It was,</said> he said, with his slow bend of the head.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">This is your mother,</said> said Dorothea, who had turned to examine the
group of miniatures.  <said who="#D">It is like the tiny one you brought me; only, I
should think, a better portrait.  And this one opposite, who is this?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">Her elder sister.  They were, like you and your sister, the only two
children of their parents, who hang above them, you see.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia"> <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false">The sister is pretty,</said> said Celia, implying that she thought less
favorably of Mr. Casaubon's mother.  It was a new opening to Celia's
imagination, that he came of a family who had all been young in their
time—the ladies wearing necklaces. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">It is a peculiar face,</said> said Dorothea, looking closely.  <said who="#D">Those deep
gray eyes rather near together—and the delicate irregular nose with a
sort of ripple in it—and all the powdered curls hanging backward.
Altogether it seems to me peculiar rather than pretty.  There is not
even a family likeness between her and your mother.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">No. And they were not alike in their lot.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">You did not mention her to me,</said> said Dorothea.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">My aunt made an unfortunate marriage.  I never saw her.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Dorothea wondered a little, but felt that it would be indelicate just
then to ask for any information which Mr. Casaubon did not proffer, and
she turned to the window to admire the view. </said> The sun had lately
pierced the gray, and the avenue of limes cast shadows.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Shall we not walk in the garden now?</said> said Dorothea.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">And you would like to see the church, you know,</said> said Mr. Brooke.  <said who="#MB">It
is a droll little church.  And the village.  It all lies in a
nut-shell. By the way, it will suit you, Dorothea; for the cottages are
like a row of alms-houses—little gardens, gilly-flowers, that sort of
thing.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Yes, please,</said> said Dorothea, looking at Mr. Casaubon, <said who="#D">I should like
to see all that.</said> She had got nothing from him more graphic about the
Lowick cottages than that they were <said>not bad.</said>
</P>

<P>
They were soon on a gravel walk which led chiefly between grassy
borders and clumps of trees, this being the nearest way to the church,
Mr. Casaubon said.  At the little gate leading into the churchyard
there was a pause while Mr. Casaubon went to the parsonage close by to
fetch a key.  Celia, who had been hanging a little in the rear, came up
presently, when she saw that Mr. Casaubon was gone away, and said in
her easy staccato, which always seemed to contradict the suspicion of
any malicious intent—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Do you know, Dorothea, I saw some one quite young coming up one of the
walks.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Is that astonishing, Celia?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">There may be a young gardener, you know—why not?</said> said Mr. Brooke.
<said who="#MB">I told Casaubon he should change his gardener.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">No, not a gardener,</said> said Celia; <said who="#Celia">a gentleman with a sketch-book. He
had light-brown curls.  I only saw his back.  But he was quite young.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">The curate's son, perhaps,</said> said Mr. Brooke.  <said who="#MB">Ah, there is Casaubon
again, and Tucker with him.  He is going to introduce Tucker.  You
don't know Tucker yet.</said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Tucker was the middle-aged curate, one of the <said>inferior clergy,</said>
who are usually not wanting in sons.  But after the introduction, the
conversation did not lead to any question about his family, and the
startling apparition of youthfulness was forgotten by every one but
Celia. <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> She inwardly declined to believe that the light-brown curls and
slim figure could have any relationship to Mr. Tucker, who was just as
old and musty-looking as she would have expected Mr. Casaubon's curate
to be; doubtless an excellent man who would go to heaven (for Celia
wished not to be unprincipled), but the corners of his mouth were so
unpleasant.  Celia thought with some dismalness of the time she should
have to spend as bridesmaid at Lowick, while the curate had probably no
pretty little children whom she could like, irrespective of principle. </said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Tucker was invaluable in their walk; and perhaps Mr. Casaubon had
not been without foresight on this head, the curate being able to
answer all Dorothea's questions about the villagers and the other
parishioners. <said who="#curate" direct="false" aloud="false"> Everybody, he assured her, was well off in Lowick: not a
cottager in those double cottages at a low rent but kept a pig, and the
strips of garden at the back were well tended.  The small boys wore
excellent corduroy, the girls went out as tidy servants, or did a
little straw-plaiting at home: no looms here, no Dissent; and though
the public disposition was rather towards laying by money than towards
spirituality, there was not much vice.  </said>The speckled fowls were so
numerous that Mr. Brooke observed, <said who="#MB">Your farmers leave some barley for
the women to glean, I see.  The poor folks here might have a fowl in
their pot, as the good French king used to wish for all his people.
The French eat a good many fowls—skinny fowls, you know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I think it was a very cheap wish of his,</said> said Dorothea, indignantly.
<said who="#D">Are kings such monsters that a wish like that must be reckoned a royal
virtue?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">And if he wished them a skinny fowl,</said> said Celia, <said who="#Celia">that would not be
nice.  But perhaps he wished them to have fat fowls.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia"> <said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false">Yes, but the word has dropped out of the text, or perhaps was
subauditum; that is, present in the king's mind, but not uttered,</said> said
Mr. Casaubon,  smiling and bending his head towards Celia, who
immediately dropped backward a little, because she could not bear Mr.
Casaubon to blink at her. </said>
</P>

<P>
Dorothea sank into silence on the way back to the house. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> She felt some
disappointment, of which she was yet ashamed, that there was nothing
for her to do in Lowick; and in the next few minutes her mind had
glanced over the possibility, which she would have preferred, of
finding that her home would be in a parish which had a larger share of
the world's misery, so that she might have had more active duties in
it.  Then, recurring to the future actually before her, she made a
picture of more complete devotion to Mr. Casaubon's aims in which she
would await new duties.  Many such might reveal themselves to the
higher knowledge gained by her in that companionship. </said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Tucker soon left them, having some clerical work which would not
allow him to lunch at the Hall; and as they were re-entering the garden
through the little gate, Mr. Casaubon said—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">You seem a little sad, Dorothea.  I trust you are pleased with what
you have seen.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I am feeling something which is perhaps foolish and wrong,</said> answered
Dorothea, with her usual openness— <said who="#D"> almost wishing that the people
wanted more to be done for them here.  I have known so few ways of
making my life good for anything.  Of course, my notions of usefulness
must be narrow.  I must learn new ways of helping people.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">Doubtless,</said> said Mr. Casaubon.  <said who="#C">Each position has its corresponding
duties.  Yours, I trust, as the mistress of Lowick, will not leave any
yearning unfulfilled.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Indeed, I believe that,</said> said Dorothea, earnestly.  <said who="#D">Do not suppose
that I am sad.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">That is well.  But, if you are not tired, we will take another way to
the house than that by which we came.</said>
</P>

<P>
Dorothea was not at all tired, and a little circuit was made towards a
fine yew-tree, the chief hereditary glory of the grounds on this side
of the house.  As they approached it, a figure, conspicuous on a dark
background of evergreens, was seated on a bench, sketching the old
tree.  Mr. Brooke, who was walking in front with Celia, turned his
head, and said—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Who is that youngster, Casaubon?</said>
</P>

<P>
They had come very near when Mr. Casaubon answered—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">That is a young relative of mine, a second cousin: the grandson, in
fact,</said> he added, looking at Dorothea, <said who="#C">of the lady whose portrait you
have been noticing, my aunt Julia.</said>
</P>

<P>
The young man had laid down his sketch-book and risen.  His bushy
light-brown curls, as well as his youthfulness, identified him at once
with Celia's apparition.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">Dorothea, let me introduce to you my cousin, Mr. Ladislaw.  Will, this
is Miss Brooke.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> The cousin was so close now, that, when he lifted his hat, Dorothea
could see a pair of gray eyes rather near together, a delicate
irregular nose with a little ripple in it, and hair falling backward;
but there was a mouth and chin of a more prominent, threatening aspect
than belonged to the type of the grandmother's miniature.  Young
Ladislaw did not feel it necessary to smile, as if he were charmed with
this introduction to his future second cousin and her relatives; but
wore rather a pouting air of discontent. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">You are an artist, I see,</said> said Mr. Brooke, taking up the sketch-book
and turning it over in his unceremonious fashion.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Lad">No, I only sketch a little.  There is nothing fit to be seen there,</said>
said young Ladislaw, coloring, perhaps with temper rather than modesty.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Oh, come, this is a nice bit, now.  I did a little in this way myself
at one time, you know.  Look here, now; this is what I call a nice
thing, done with what we used to call <emph rend="italics">brio</emph>.</said> Mr. Brooke held out
towards the two girls a large colored sketch of stony ground and trees,
with a pool.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I am no judge of these things,</said> said Dorothea, not coldly, but with an
eager deprecation of the appeal to her.  <said who="#D">You know, uncle, I never see
the beauty of those pictures which you say are so much praised.  They
are a language I do not understand.  I suppose there is some relation
between pictures and nature which I am too ignorant to feel—just as
you see what a Greek sentence stands for which means nothing to me.</said>
Dorothea looked up at Mr. Casaubon, who bowed his head towards her,
while Mr. Brooke said, smiling nonchalantly—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Bless me, now, how different people are!  But you had a bad style of
teaching, you know—else this is just the thing for girls—sketching,
fine art and so on.  But you took to drawing plans; you don't
understand <i>morbidezza</i>, and that kind of thing.  You will come to my
house, I hope, and I will show you what I did in this way,</said> he
continued, turning to young Ladislaw, who had to be recalled from his
preoccupation in observing Dorothea. <said who="#Lad" direct="false" aloud="false"> Ladislaw had made up his mind
that she must be an unpleasant girl, since she was going to marry
Casaubon, and what she said of her stupidity about pictures would have
confirmed that opinion even if he had believed her.  As it was, he took
her words for a covert judgment, and was certain that she thought his
sketch detestable.  There was too much cleverness in her apology: she
was laughing both at her uncle and himself.  But what a voice!  It was
like the voice of a soul that had once lived in an Aeolian harp.  This
must be one of Nature's inconsistencies.  There could be no sort of
passion in a girl who would marry Casaubon. </said> But he turned from her,
and bowed his thanks for Mr. Brooke's invitation.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">We will turn over my Italian engravings together,</said> continued that
good-natured man.  <said who="#MB">I have no end of those things, that I have laid by
for years.  One gets rusty in this part of the country, you know.  Not
you, Casaubon; you stick to your studies; but my best ideas get
undermost—out of use, you know.  You clever young men must guard
against indolence.  I was too indolent, you know: else I might have
been anywhere at one time.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">That is a seasonable admonition,</said> said Mr. Casaubon; <said who="#C">but now we will
pass on to the house, lest the young ladies should be tired of
standing.</said>
</P>

<P>
When their backs were turned, young Ladislaw sat down to go on with his
sketching, and as he did so his face broke into an expression of
amusement which increased as he went on drawing, till at last he threw
back his head and laughed aloud. <said who="#Lad" direct="false" aloud="false"> Partly it was the reception of his
own artistic production that tickled him; partly the notion of his
grave cousin as the lover of that girl; and partly Mr. Brooke's
definition of the place he might have held but for the impediment of
indolence. </said> Mr. Will Ladislaw's sense of the ludicrous lit up his
features very agreeably: it was the pure enjoyment of comicality, and
had no mixture of sneering and self-exaltation.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">What is your nephew going to do with himself, Casaubon?</said> said Mr.
Brooke, as they went on.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">My cousin, you mean—not my nephew.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Yes, yes, cousin.  But in the way of a career, you know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">The answer to that question is painfully doubtful.  On leaving Rugby
he declined to go to an English university, where I would gladly have
placed him, and chose what I must consider the anomalous course of
studying at Heidelberg.  And now he wants to go abroad again, without
any special object, save the vague purpose of what he calls culture,
preparation for he knows not what.  He declines to choose a profession.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">He has no means but what you furnish, I suppose.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D"> <said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false">I have always given him and his friends reason to understand that I
would furnish in moderation what was necessary for providing him with a
scholarly education, and launching him respectably.  I am therefore
bound to fulfil the expectation so raised,</said> said Mr. Casaubon, putting
his conduct in the light of mere rectitude: a trait of delicacy which
Dorothea noticed with admiration. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">He has a thirst for travelling; perhaps he may turn out a Bruce or a
Mungo Park,</said> said Mr. Brooke.  <said who="#MB">I had a notion of that myself at one
time.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">No, he has no bent towards exploration, or the enlargement of our
geognosis: that would be a special purpose which I could recognize with
some approbation, though without felicitating him on a career which so
often ends in premature and violent death.  But so far is he from
having any desire for a more accurate knowledge of the earth's surface,
that he said he should prefer not to know the sources of the Nile, and
that there should be some unknown regions preserved as hunting grounds
for the poetic imagination.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB"> <said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false">Well, there is something in that, you know,</said> said Mr. Brooke, who had
certainly an impartial mind. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">It is, I fear, nothing more than a part of his general inaccuracy and
indisposition to thoroughness of all kinds, which would be a bad augury
for him in any profession, civil or sacred, even were he so far
submissive to ordinary rule as to choose one.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Perhaps he has conscientious scruples founded on his own unfitness,</said>
said Dorothea, who was interesting herself in finding a favorable
explanation.  <said who="#D">Because the law and medicine should be very serious
professions to undertake, should they not? People's lives and fortunes
depend on them.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C"> Doubtless; but I fear that my young relative Will Ladislaw is chiefly
determined in his aversion to these callings by a dislike to steady
application, and to that kind of acquirement which is needful
instrumentally, but is not charming or immediately inviting to
self-indulgent taste.  I have insisted to him on what Aristotle has
stated with admirable brevity, that for the achievement of any work
regarded as an end there must be a prior exercise of many energies or
acquired facilities of a secondary order, demanding patience.  I have
pointed to my own manuscript volumes, which represent the toil of years
preparatory to a work not yet accomplished.  But in vain.  To careful
reasoning of this kind he replies by calling himself Pegasus, and every
form of prescribed work 'harness.'</said>
</P>

<P>
Celia laughed. <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> She was surprised to find that Mr. Casaubon could say
something quite amusing. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Well, you know, he may turn out a Byron, a Chatterton, a
Churchill—that sort of thing—there's no telling,</said> said Mr. Brooke.
<said who="#MB">Shall you let him go to Italy, or wherever else he wants to go?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">Yes; I have agreed to furnish him with moderate supplies for a year or
so; he asks no more.  I shall let him be tried by the test of freedom.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">That is very kind of you,</said> said Dorothea, looking up at Mr. Casaubon
with delight.  <said who="#D">It is noble.  After all, people may really have in them
some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not?
They may seem idle and weak because they are growing.  We should be
very patient with each other, I think.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">I suppose it is being engaged to be married that has made you think
patience good,</said> said Celia, as soon as she and Dorothea were alone
together, taking off their wrappings.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">You mean that I am very impatient, Celia.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Celia">Yes; when people don't do and say just what you like.</said> <said who="#Celia" direct="false" aloud="false"> Celia had
become less afraid of <said>saying things</said> to Dorothea since this
engagement: cleverness seemed to her more pitiable than ever. </said>
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

</div><div type="chapter" n="10"><head>CHAPTER X.</head>

    <epigraph>
        <said>He had catched a great cold, had he had no other clothes
            to wear than the skin of a bear not yet killed.—FULLER. </said>
    </epigraph>

<BR/>

<P>
Young Ladislaw did not pay that visit to which Mr. Brooke had invited
him, and only six days afterwards Mr. Casaubon mentioned that his young
relative had started for the Continent, seeming by this cold vagueness
to waive inquiry. <said who="#Lad" direct="false" aloud="false"> Indeed, Will had declined to fix on any more precise
destination than the entire area of Europe.  Genius, he held, is
necessarily intolerant of fetters: on the one hand it must have the
utmost play for its spontaneity; on the other, it may confidently await
those messages from the universe which summon it to its peculiar work,
only placing itself in an attitude of receptivity towards all sublime
chances. The attitudes of receptivity are various, and Will had
sincerely tried many of them.  He was not excessively fond of wine, but
he had several times taken too much, simply as an experiment in that
form of ecstasy; he had fasted till he was faint, and then supped on
lobster; he had made himself ill with doses of opium. Nothing greatly
original had resulted from these measures; and the effects of the opium
had convinced him that there was an entire dissimilarity between his
constitution and De Quincey's. The superadded circumstance which would
evolve the genius had not yet come; the universe had not yet beckoned.
Even Caesar's fortune at one time was but a grand presentiment.  We
know what a masquerade all development is, and what effective shapes
may be disguised in helpless embryos. In fact, the world is full of
hopeful analogies and handsome dubious eggs called possibilities. Will
saw clearly enough the pitiable instances of long incubation producing
no chick, and but for gratitude would have laughed at Casaubon, whose
plodding application, rows of note-books, and small taper of learned
theory exploring the tossed ruins of the world, seemed to enforce a
moral entirely encouraging to Will's generous reliance on the
intentions of the universe with regard to himself.  He held that
reliance to be a mark of genius; and certainly it is no mark to the
contrary; genius consisting neither in self-conceit nor in humility,
but in a power to make or do, not anything in general, but something in
particular.  Let him start for the Continent, then, without our
pronouncing on his future.  Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the
most gratuitous. </said>
</P>

<P>
<first> But at present this caution against a too hasty judgment interests me
more in relation to Mr. Casaubon than to his young cousin. <first> If to
Dorothea Mr. Casaubon had been the mere occasion which had set alight
the fine inflammable material of her youthful illusions, does it follow
that he was fairly represented in the minds of those less impassioned
personages who have hitherto delivered their judgments concerning him?
<first> I protest against any absolute conclusion, any prejudice derived from
Mrs. Cadwallader's contempt for a neighboring clergyman's alleged
greatness of soul, or Sir James Chettam's poor opinion of his rival's
legs,—from Mr. Brooke's failure to elicit a companion's ideas, or from
Celia's criticism of a middle-aged scholar's personal appearance.</first> <first> I am
not sure that the greatest man of his age, if ever that solitary
superlative existed, could escape these unfavorable reflections of
himself in various small mirrors; and even Milton, looking for his
portrait in a spoon, must submit to have the facial angle of a bumpkin. </first>
Moreover, if Mr. Casaubon, speaking for himself, has rather a chilling
rhetoric, it is not therefore certain that there is no good work or
fine feeling in him.  Did not an immortal physicist and interpreter of
hieroglyphs write detestable verses?  Has the theory of the solar
system been advanced by graceful manners and conversational tact? <first>
Suppose we turn from outside estimates of a man, to wonder, with keener
interest, what is the report of his own consciousness about his doings
or capacity: with what hindrances he is carrying on his daily labors;
what fading of hopes, or what deeper fixity of self-delusion the years
are marking off within him; and with what spirit he wrestles against
universal pressure, which will one day be too heavy for him, and bring
his heart to its final pause. </first> <first> Doubtless his lot is important in his
own eyes; and the chief reason that we think he asks too large a place
in our consideration must be our want of room for him, since we refer
him to the Divine regard with perfect confidence; nay, it is even held
sublime for our neighbor to expect the utmost there, however little he
may have got from us. </first><first> <said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false"> Mr. Casaubon, too, was the centre of his own
world; if he was liable to think that others were providentially made
for him, and especially to consider them in the light of their fitness
for the author of a "Key to all Mythologies," this trait is not quite
alien to us, and, like the other mendicant hopes of mortals, claims
some of our pity.</first> </said>
</P>

<P>
<first> Certainly this affair of his marriage with Miss Brooke touched him more
nearly than it did any one of the persons who have hitherto shown their
disapproval of it, and in the present stage of things I feel more
tenderly towards his experience of success than towards the
disappointment of the amiable Sir James. </first> <said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false"> For in truth, as the day
fixed for his marriage came nearer, Mr. Casaubon did not find his
spirits rising; nor did the contemplation of that matrimonial garden
scene, where, as all experience showed, the path was to be bordered
with flowers, prove persistently more enchanting to him than the
accustomed vaults where he walked taper in hand.  He did not confess to
himself, still less could he have breathed to another, his surprise
that though he had won a lovely and noble-hearted girl he had not won
delight,—which he had also regarded as an object to be found by
search. </said> <first> It is true that he knew all the classical passages implying
the contrary; but knowing classical passages, we find, is a mode of
motion, which explains why they leave so little extra force for their
personal application. </first>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false"> <first> Poor Mr. Casaubon had imagined that his long studious bachelorhood had
stored up for him a compound interest of enjoyment, and that large
drafts on his affections would not fail to be honored; for we all of
us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act
fatally on the strength of them. </first>  And now he was in danger of being
saddened by the very conviction that his circumstances were unusually
happy: there was nothing external by which he could account for a
certain blankness of sensibility which came over him just when his
expectant gladness should have been most lively, just when he exchanged
the accustomed dulness of his Lowick library for his visits to the
Grange.  Here was a weary experience in which he was as utterly
condemned to loneliness as in the despair which sometimes threatened
him while toiling in the morass of authorship without seeming nearer to
the goal.  And his was that worst loneliness which would shrink from
sympathy.  He could not but wish that Dorothea should think him not
less happy than the world would expect her successful suitor to be; and
in relation to his authorship he leaned on her young trust and
veneration, he liked to draw forth her fresh interest in listening, as
a means of encouragement to himself: in talking to her he presented all
his performance and intention with the reflected confidence of the
pedagogue, and rid himself for the time of that chilling ideal audience
which crowded his laborious uncreative hours with the vaporous pressure
of Tartarean shades. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> For to Dorothea, after that toy-box history of the world adapted to
young ladies which had made the chief part of her education, Mr.
Casaubon's talk about his great book was full of new vistas; and this
sense of revelation, this surprise of a nearer introduction to Stoics
and Alexandrians, as people who had ideas not totally unlike her own,
kept in abeyance for the time her usual eagerness for a binding theory
which could bring her own life and doctrine into strict connection with
that amazing past, and give the remotest sources of knowledge some
bearing on her actions.  That more complete teaching would come—Mr.
Casaubon would tell her all that: she was looking forward to higher
initiation in ideas, as she was looking forward to marriage, and
blending her dim conceptions of both.  It would be a great mistake to
suppose that Dorothea would have cared about any share in Mr.
Casaubon's learning as mere accomplishment; for though opinion in the
neighborhood of Freshitt and Tipton had pronounced her clever, that
epithet would not have described her to circles in whose more precise
vocabulary cleverness implies mere aptitude for knowing and doing,
apart from character.  All her eagerness for acquirement lay within
that full current of sympathetic motive in which her ideas and impulses
were habitually swept along.  She did not want to deck herself with
knowledge—to wear it loose from the nerves and blood that fed her
action; and if she had written a book she must have done it as Saint
Theresa did, under the command of an authority that constrained her
conscience.  But something she yearned for by which her life might be
filled with action at once rational and ardent; and since the time was
gone by for guiding visions and spiritual directors, since prayer
heightened yearning but not instruction, what lamp was there but
knowledge?  Surely learned men kept the only oil; and who more learned
than Mr. Casaubon? </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false"> Thus in these brief weeks Dorothea's joyous grateful expectation was
unbroken, and however her lover might occasionally be conscious of
flatness, he could never refer it to any slackening of her affectionate
interest. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C" direct="false" aloud="false"> The season was mild enough to encourage the project of extending the
wedding journey as far as Rome, and Mr. Casaubon was anxious for this
because he wished to inspect some manuscripts in the Vatican. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C"> I still regret that your sister is not to accompany us,</said> he said one
morning, some time after it had been ascertained that Celia objected to
go, and that Dorothea did not wish for her companionship.  <said who="#C">You will
have many lonely hours, Dorothea, for I shall be constrained to make
the utmost use of my time during our stay in Rome, and I should feel
more at liberty if you had a companion.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> The words "I should feel more at liberty" grated on Dorothea.  For the
first time in speaking to Mr. Casaubon she colored from annoyance. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">You must have misunderstood me very much,</said> she said, <said who="#D">if you think I
should not enter into the value of your time—if you think that I
should not willingly give up whatever interfered with your using it to
the best purpose.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">That is very amiable in you, my dear Dorothea,</said> said Mr. Casaubon, not
in the least noticing that she was hurt; <said who="#C">but if you had a lady as your
companion, I could put you both under the care of a cicerone, and we
could thus achieve two purposes in the same space of time.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">I beg you will not refer to this again,</said> said Dorothea, rather
haughtily. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> But immediately she feared that she was wrong, and turning
towards him she laid her hand on his, adding in a different tone, <said who="#D">Pray
do not be anxious about me.  I shall have so much to think of when I am
alone.  And Tantripp will be a sufficient companion, just to take care
of me.  I could not bear to have Celia: she would be miserable.</said> </said>
</P>

<P>
It was time to dress. <said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> There was to be a dinner-party that day, the
last of the parties which were held at the Grange as proper
preliminaries to the wedding, and Dorothea was glad of a reason for
moving away at once on the sound of the bell, as if she needed more
than her usual amount of preparation.  She was ashamed of being
irritated from some cause she could not define even to herself; for
though she had no intention to be untruthful, her reply had not touched
the real hurt within her.  Mr. Casaubon's words had been quite
reasonable, yet they had brought a vague instantaneous sense of
aloofness on his part. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D">Surely I am in a strangely selfish weak state of mind,</said> she said to
herself.  <said who="#D">How can I have a husband who is so much above me without
knowing that he needs me less than I need him?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#D" direct="false" aloud="false"> Having convinced herself that Mr. Casaubon was altogether right, she
recovered her equanimity, and was an agreeable image of serene dignity
when she came into the drawing-room in her silver-gray dress—the
simple lines of her dark-brown hair parted over her brow and coiled
massively behind, in keeping with the entire absence from her manner
and expression of all search after mere effect. </said> Sometimes when
Dorothea was in company, there seemed to be as complete an air of
repose about her as if she had been a picture of Santa Barbara looking
out from her tower into the clear air; but these intervals of quietude
made the energy of her speech and emotion the more remarked when some
outward appeal had touched her.
</P>

<P>
She was naturally the subject of many observations this evening, for
the dinner-party was large and rather more miscellaneous as to the male
portion than any which had been held at the Grange since Mr. Brooke's
nieces had resided with him, so that the talking was done in duos and
trios more or less inharmonious.  There was the newly elected mayor of
Middlemarch, who happened to be a manufacturer; the philanthropic
banker his brother-in-law, who predominated so much in the town that
some called him a Methodist, others a hypocrite, according to the
resources of their vocabulary; and there were various professional men.
<said who="#MrsCad" direct="false" aloud="false"> In fact, Mrs. Cadwallader said that Brooke was beginning to treat the
Middlemarchers, and that she preferred the farmers at the tithe-dinner,
who drank her health unpretentiously, and were not ashamed of their
grandfathers' furniture.  For in that part of the country, before
reform had done its notable part in developing the political
consciousness, there was a clearer distinction of ranks and a dimmer
distinction of parties; so that Mr. Brooke's miscellaneous invitations
seemed to belong to that general laxity which came from his inordinate
travel and habit of taking too much in the form of ideas. </said>
</P>

<P>
Already, as Miss Brooke passed out of the dining-room, opportunity was
found for some interjectional "asides".
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Standish">A fine woman, Miss Brooke! an uncommonly fine woman, by God!</said> said Mr.
Standish, the old lawyer, who had been so long concerned with the
landed gentry that he had become landed himself, and used that oath in
a deep-mouthed manner as a sort of armorial bearings, stamping the
speech of a man who held a good position.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#B" direct="false" aloud="false"> Mr. Bulstrode, the banker, seemed to be addressed, but that gentleman
disliked coarseness and profanity, and merely bowed. </said> The remark was
taken up by Mr. Chichely, a middle-aged bachelor and coursing
celebrity, who had a complexion something like an Easter egg, a few
hairs carefully arranged, and a carriage implying the consciousness of
a distinguished appearance.
</P>

<P>
<said>Yes, but not my style of woman: I like a woman who lays herself out a
little more to please us.  There should be a little filigree about a
woman—something of the coquette.  A man likes a sort of challenge.
The more of a dead set she makes at you the better.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said>There's some truth in that,</said> said Mr. Standish, disposed to be genial.
<said>And, by God, it's usually the way with them.  I suppose it answers
some wise ends: Providence made them so, eh, Bulstrode?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#B">I should be disposed to refer coquetry to another source,</said> said Mr.
Bulstrode.  <said who="#B">I should rather refer it to the devil.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said >Ay, to be sure, there should be a little devil in a woman,</said> said Mr.
Chichely, whose study of the fair sex seemed to have been detrimental
to his theology.  <said>And I like them blond, with a certain gait, and a
swan neck.  Between ourselves, the mayor's daughter is more to my taste
than Miss Brooke or Miss Celia either.  If I were a marrying man I
should choose Miss Vincy before either of them.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said>Well, make up, make up,</said> said Mr. Standish, jocosely; <said>you see the
middle-aged fellows carry the day.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Chicely" direct="false" aloud="false"> Mr. Chichely shook his head with much meaning: he was not going to
incur the certainty of being accepted by the woman he would choose. </said>
</P>

<P>
The Miss Vincy who had the honor of being Mr. Chichely's ideal was of
course not present; <said who="#MB" direct="false" aloud="false"> for Mr. Brooke, always objecting to go too far,
would not have chosen that his nieces should meet the daughter of a
Middlemarch manufacturer, unless it were on a public occasion. </said>  The
feminine part of the company included none whom Lady Chettam or Mrs.
Cadwallader could object to; for Mrs. Renfrew, the colonel's widow, was
not only unexceptionable in point of breeding, but also interesting on
the ground of her complaint, which puzzled the doctors, and seemed
clearly a case wherein the fulness of professional knowledge might need
the supplement of quackery. <said who="#LC" direct="false" aloud="false">  Lady Chettam, who attributed her own
remarkable health to home-made bitters united with constant medical
attendance, entered with much exercise of the imagination into Mrs.
Renfrew's account of symptoms, and into the amazing futility in her
case of all strengthening medicines. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC">Where can all the strength of those medicines go, my dear?</said> said the
mild but stately dowager, turning to Mrs. Cadwallader reflectively,
when Mrs. Renfrew's attention was called away.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">It strengthens the disease,</said> said the Rector's wife, much too
well-born not to be an amateur in medicine.  <said who="#MrsCad"> Everything depends on the
constitution: some people make fat, some blood, and some bile—that's
my view of the matter; and whatever they take is a sort of grist to the
mill.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC">Then she ought to take medicines that would reduce—reduce the
disease, you know, if you are right, my dear.  And I think what you say
is reasonable.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Certainly it is reasonable.  You have two sorts of potatoes, fed on
the same soil.  One of them grows more and more watery—</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC"> Ah! like this poor Mrs. Renfrew—that is what I think.  Dropsy!  There
is no swelling yet—it is inward.  I should say she ought to take
drying medicines, shouldn't you?—or a dry hot-air bath.  Many things
might be tried, of a drying nature.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Let her try a certain person's pamphlets,</said> said Mrs. Cadwallader in an
undertone, seeing the gentlemen enter.  <said who="#MrsCad">He does not want drying.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC">Who, my dear?</said> said Lady Chettam, a charming woman, not so quick as to
nullify the pleasure of explanation.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad"> The bridegroom—Casaubon. He has certainly been drying up faster since
the engagement: the flame of passion, I suppose.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC">I should think he is far from having a good constitution,</said> said Lady
Chettam, with a still deeper undertone.  <said who="#LC">And then his studies—so very
dry, as you say.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">Really, by the side of Sir James, he looks like a death's head skinned
over for the occasion.  Mark my words: in a year from this time that
girl will hate him.  She looks up to him as an oracle now, and
by-and-by she will be at the other extreme.  All flightiness!</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC">How very shocking!  I fear she is headstrong.  But tell me—you know
all about him—is there anything very bad?  What is the truth?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">The truth? he is as bad as the wrong physic—nasty to take, and sure
to disagree.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC"> <said who="#LC" direct="false" aloud="false">There could not be anything worse than that,</said> said Lady Chettam, with
so vivid a conception of the physic that she seemed to have learned
something exact about Mr. Casaubon's disadvantages. </said>  <said who="#LC">However, James
will hear nothing against Miss Brooke.  He says she is the mirror of
women still.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">That is a generous make-believe of his.  Depend upon it, he likes
little Celia better, and she appreciates him.  I hope you like my
little Celia?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC">Certainly; she is fonder of geraniums, and seems more docile, though
not so fine a figure.  But we were talking of physic.  Tell me about
this new young surgeon, Mr. Lydgate.  I am told he is wonderfully
clever: he certainly looks it—a fine brow indeed.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">He is a gentleman.  I heard him talking to Humphrey.  He talks well.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC">Yes. Mr. Brooke says he is one of the Lydgates of Northumberland,
really well connected.  One does not expect it in a practitioner of
that kind.  For my own part, I like a medical man more on a footing
with the servants; they are often all the cleverer.  I assure you I
found poor Hicks's judgment unfailing; I never knew him wrong.  He was
coarse and butcher-like, but he knew my constitution.  It was a loss to
me his going off so suddenly.  Dear me, what a very animated
conversation Miss Brooke seems to be having with this Mr. Lydgate!</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsCad">She is talking cottages and hospitals with him,</said> said Mrs.
Cadwallader, whose ears and power of interpretation were quick.  <said who="#MrsCad">I
believe he is a sort of philanthropist, so Brooke is sure to take him
up.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC">James,</said> said Lady Chettam when her son came near, <said who="#LC">bring Mr. Lydgate
and introduce him to me.  I want to test him.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC" direct="false" aloud="false"> The affable dowager declared herself delighted with this opportunity of
making Mr. Lydgate's acquaintance, having heard of his success in
treating fever on a new plan. </said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Lydgate had the medical accomplishment of looking perfectly grave
whatever nonsense was talked to him, and his dark steady eyes gave him
impressiveness as a listener.  He was as little as possible like the
lamented Hicks, especially in a certain careless refinement about his
toilet and utterance.  Yet Lady Chettam gathered much confidence in
him. <said who="#Lyd" direct="false" aloud="false">  He confirmed her view of her own constitution as being peculiar,
by admitting that all constitutions might be called peculiar, and he
did not deny that hers might be more peculiar than others.  He did not
approve of a too lowering system, including reckless cupping, nor, on
the other hand, of incessant port wine and bark. </said> <said who="#Lyd" direct="false" aloud="false">  He said "I think so"
with an air of so much deference accompanying the insight of agreement,
that she formed the most cordial opinion of his talents.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC">I am quite pleased with your protege,</said> she said to Mr. Brooke before
going away.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">My protege?—dear me!—who is that?</said> said Mr. Brooke.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#LC">This young Lydgate, the new doctor. He seems to me to understand his
profession admirably.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Oh, Lydgate! he is not my protege, you know; only I knew an uncle of
his who sent me a letter about him.  However, I think he is likely to
be first-rate—has studied in Paris, knew Broussais; has ideas, you
know—wants to raise the profession.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">Lydgate has lots of ideas, quite new, about ventilation and diet, that
sort of thing,</said> resumed Mr. Brooke, after he had handed out Lady
Chettam, and had returned to be civil to a group of Middlemarchers.
</P>

<P>
<said>Hang it, do you think that is quite sound?—upsetting the old
treatment, which has made Englishmen what they are?</said> said Mr. Standish.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#B">Medical knowledge is at a low ebb among us,</said> said Mr. Bulstrode, who
spoke in a subdued tone, and had rather a sickly air.  <said who="#B">I, for my part,
hail the advent of Mr. Lydgate.  I hope to find good reason for
confiding the new hospital to his management.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said>That is all very fine,</said> replied Mr. Standish, who was not fond of Mr.
Bulstrode; <said>if you like him to try experiments on your hospital
patients, and kill a few people for charity I have no objection.  But I
am not going to hand money out of my purse to have experiments tried on
me.  I like treatment that has been tested a little.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MB">Well, you know, Standish, every dose you take is an experiment-an
experiment, you know,</said> said Mr. Brooke, nodding towards the lawyer.
</P>

<P>
<said>Oh, if you talk in that sense!</said> said Mr. Standish, with as much
disgust at such non-legal quibbling as a man can well betray towards a
valuable client.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrV">I should be glad of any treatment that would cure me without reducing
me to a skeleton, like poor Grainger,</said> said Mr. Vincy, the mayor, a
florid man, who would have served for a study of flesh in striking
contrast with the Franciscan tints of Mr. Bulstrode.  <said who="#MrV">It's an
uncommonly dangerous thing to be left without any padding against the
shafts of disease, as somebody said,—and I think it a very good
expression myself.</said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Lydgate, of course, was out of hearing. <said who="#Lyd" direct="false" aloud="false">  He had quitted the party
early, and would have thought it altogether tedious but for the novelty
of certain introductions, especially the introduction to Miss Brooke,
whose youthful bloom, with her approaching marriage to that faded
scholar, and her interest in matters socially useful, gave her the
piquancy of an unusual combination. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Lyd">She is a good creature—that fine girl—but a little too earnest,</said> he
thought.  <said who="#Lyd">It is troublesome to talk to such women.  They are always
wanting reasons, yet they are too ignorant to understand the merits of
any question, and usually fall back on their moral sense to settle
things after their own taste.</said>
</P>

<P>
Evidently Miss Brooke was not Mr. Lydgate's style of woman any more
than Mr. Chichely's. Considered, indeed, in relation to the latter,
whose mind was matured, she was altogether a mistake, and calculated to
shock his trust in final causes, including the adaptation of fine young
women to purplefaced bachelors.  But Lydgate was less ripe, and might
possibly have experience before him which would modify his opinion as
to the most excellent things in woman.
</P>

<P>
Miss Brooke, however, was not again seen by either of these gentlemen
under her maiden name.  Not long after that dinner-party she had become
Mrs. Casaubon, and was on her way to Rome.
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

</div><div type="chapter" n="11"><head>CHAPTER XI.</head>

<epigraph>
          <said>But deeds and language such as men do use,
          And persons such as comedy would choose,
          When she would show an image of the times,
          And sport with human follies, not with crimes.</said>
                                                 —BEN JONSON.
</epigraph>

<BR/>

<P>
<said who="#Lyd" direct="false" aloud="false"> Lydgate, in fact, was already conscious of being fascinated by a woman
strikingly different from Miss Brooke: he did not in the least suppose
that he had lost his balance and fallen in love, but he had said of
that particular woman, <said who="#Lyd">She is grace itself; she is perfectly lovely
and accomplished.  That is what a woman ought to be: she ought to
produce the effect of exquisite music.</said> Plain women he regarded as he
did the other severe facts of life, to be faced with philosophy and
investigated by science. </said>  But Rosamond Vincy seemed to have the true
melodic charm; and when a man has seen the woman whom he would have
chosen if he had intended to marry speedily, his remaining a bachelor
will usually depend on her resolution rather than on his. <said who="#Lyd" direct="false" aloud="false"> Lydgate
believed that he should not marry for several years: not marry until he
had trodden out a good clear path for himself away from the broad road
which was quite ready made.  He had seen Miss Vincy above his horizon
almost as long as it had taken Mr. Casaubon to become engaged and
married: but this learned gentleman was possessed of a fortune; he had
assembled his voluminous notes, and had made that sort of reputation
which precedes performance,—often the larger part of a man's fame. </FI> <first> He
took a wife, as we have seen, to adorn the remaining quadrant of his
course, and be a little moon that would cause hardly a calculable
perturbation.  But Lydgate was young, poor, ambitious. </first> He had his
half-century before him instead of behind him, and he had come to
Middlemarch bent on doing many things that were not directly fitted to
make his fortune or even secure him a good income.  To a man under such
circumstances, taking a wife is something more than a question of
adornment, however highly he may rate this; and Lydgate was disposed to
give it the first place among wifely functions. <said who="#Lyd" direct="false" aloud="false">  To his taste, guided
by a single conversation, here was the point on which Miss Brooke would
be found wanting, notwithstanding her undeniable beauty.  She did not
look at things from the proper feminine angle.  The society of such
women was about as relaxing as going from your work to teach the second
form, instead of reclining in a paradise with sweet laughs for
bird-notes, and blue eyes for a heaven. </said>
</P>

<P>
Certainly nothing at present could seem much less important to Lydgate
than the turn of Miss Brooke's mind, or to Miss Brooke than the
qualities of the woman who had attracted this young surgeon. <first> But any
one watching keenly the stealthy convergence of human lots, sees a slow
preparation of effects from one life on another, which tells like a
calculated irony on the indifference or the frozen stare with which we
look at our unintroduced neighbor. </first> Destiny stands by sarcastic with
our dramatis personae folded in her hand.
</P>

<P>
Old provincial society had its share of this subtle movement: had not
only its striking downfalls, its brilliant young professional dandies
who ended by living up an entry with a drab and six children for their
establishment, but also those less marked vicissitudes which are
constantly shifting the boundaries of social intercourse, and begetting
new consciousness of interdependence.  Some slipped a little downward,
some got higher footing: people denied aspirates, gained wealth, and
fastidious gentlemen stood for boroughs; some were caught in political
currents, some in ecclesiastical, and perhaps found themselves
surprisingly grouped in consequence; while a few personages or families
that stood with rocky firmness amid all this fluctuation, were slowly
presenting new aspects in spite of solidity, and altering with the
double change of self and beholder.  Municipal town and rural parish
gradually made fresh threads of connection—gradually, as the old
stocking gave way to the savings-bank, and the worship of the solar
guinea became extinct; while squires and baronets, and even lords who
had once lived blamelessly afar from the civic mind, gathered the
faultiness of closer acquaintanceship.  Settlers, too, came from
distant counties, some with an alarming novelty of skill, others with
an offensive advantage in cunning. <first> In fact, much the same sort of
movement and mixture went on in old England as we find in older
Herodotus, who also, in telling what had been, thought it well to take
a woman's lot for his starting-point; though Io, as a maiden apparently
beguiled by attractive merchandise, was the reverse of Miss Brooke, and
in this respect perhaps bore more resemblance to Rosamond Vincy, who
had excellent taste in costume, with that nymph-like figure and pure
blindness which give the largest range to choice in the flow and color
of drapery. </first> But these things made only part of her charm.  She was
admitted to be the flower of Mrs. Lemon's school, the chief school in
the county, where the teaching included all that was demanded in the
accomplished female—even to extras, such as the getting in and out of
a carriage. <said who="#MrsLemon" direct="false" aloud="false">  Mrs. Lemon herself had always held up Miss Vincy as an
example: no pupil, she said, exceeded that young lady for mental
acquisition and propriety of speech, while her musical execution was
quite exceptional. </said> <first>  We cannot help the way in which people speak of us,
and probably if Mrs. Lemon had undertaken to describe Juliet or Imogen,
these heroines would not have seemed poetical.  The first vision of
Rosamond would have been enough with most judges to dispel any
prejudice excited by Mrs. Lemon's praise. </first>
</P>

<P>
Lydgate could not be long in Middlemarch without having that agreeable
vision, or even without making the acquaintance of the Vincy family;
for though Mr. Peacock, whose practice he had paid something to enter
on, had not been their doctor (Mrs. Vincy not liking the lowering
system adopted by him), he had many patients among their connections
and acquaintances. <said who="#MM" direct="false" aloud="false">  For who of any consequence in Middlemarch was not
connected or at least acquainted with the Vincys? </said>  They were old
manufacturers, and had kept a good house for three generations, in
which there had naturally been much intermarrying with neighbors more
or less decidedly genteel.  Mr. Vincy's sister had made a wealthy match
in accepting Mr. Bulstrode, who, however, as a man not born in the
town, and altogether of dimly known origin, was considered to have done
well in uniting himself with a real Middlemarch family; on the other
hand, Mr. Vincy had descended a little, having taken an innkeeper's
daughter.  But on this side too there was a cheering sense of money;
for Mrs. Vincy's sister had been second wife to rich old Mr.
Featherstone, and had died childless years ago, so that her nephews and
nieces might be supposed to touch the affections of the widower.  And
it happened that Mr. Bulstrode and Mr. Featherstone, two of Peacock's
most important patients, had, from different causes, given an
especially good reception to his successor, who had raised some
partisanship as well as discussion.  Mr. Wrench, medical attendant to
the Vincy family, very early had grounds for thinking lightly of
Lydgate's professional discretion, and there was no report about him
which was not retailed at the Vincys', where visitors were frequent.
<said who="#MrV" direct="false" aloud="false">  Mr. Vincy was more inclined to general good-fellowship than to taking
sides, but there was no need for him to be hasty in making any new man
acquaintance. </said> <said who="#R" direct="false" aloud="false">  Rosamond silently wished that her father would invite
Mr. Lydgate.  She was tired of the faces and figures she had always
been used to—the various irregular profiles and gaits and turns of
phrase distinguishing those Middlemarch young men whom she had known as
boys.  She had been at school with girls of higher position, whose
brothers, she felt sure, it would have been possible for her to be more
interested in, than in these inevitable Middlemarch companions.  But
she would not have chosen to mention her wish to her father; and he,
for his part, was in no hurry on the subject. </said>  An alderman about to be
mayor must by-and-by enlarge his dinner-parties, but at present there
were plenty of guests at his well-spread table.
</P>

<P>
That table often remained covered with the relics of the family
breakfast long after Mr. Vincy had gone with his second son to the
warehouse, and when Miss Morgan was already far on in morning lessons
with the younger girls in the schoolroom.  It awaited the family
laggard, who found any sort of inconvenience (to others) less
disagreeable than getting up when he was called. <first> This was the case one
morning of the October in which we have lately seen Mr. Casaubon
visiting the Grange; and though the room was a little overheated with
the fire, which had sent the spaniel panting to a remote corner,
Rosamond, for some reason, continued to sit at her embroidery longer
than usual, now and then giving herself a little shake, and laying her
work on her knee to contemplate it with an air of hesitating weariness. </first>
Her mamma, who had returned from an excursion to the kitchen, sat on
the other side of the small work-table with an air of more entire
placidity, until, the clock again giving notice that it was going to
strike, she looked up from the lace-mending which was occupying her
plump fingers and rang the bell.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Knock at Mr. Fred's door again, Pritchard, and tell him it has struck
half-past ten.</said>
</P>

<P>
This was said without any change in the radiant good-humor of Mrs.
Vincy's face, in which forty-five years had delved neither angles nor
parallels; and pushing back her pink capstrings, she let her work rest
on her lap, while she looked admiringly at her daughter.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Mamma,</said> said Rosamond, <said who="#R">when Fred comes down I wish you would not let
him have red herrings.  I cannot bear the smell of them all over the
house at this hour of the morning.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Oh, my dear, you are so hard on your brothers!  It is the only fault I
have to find with you.  You are the sweetest temper in the world, but
you are so tetchy with your brothers.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Not tetchy, mamma: you never hear me speak in an unladylike way.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Well, but you want to deny them things.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Brothers are so unpleasant.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Oh, my dear, you must allow for young men.  Be thankful if they have
good hearts.  A woman must learn to put up with little things.  You
will be married some day.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Not to any one who is like Fred.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Don't decry your own brother, my dear.  Few young men have less
against them, although he couldn't take his degree—I'm sure I can't
understand why, for he seems to me most clever.  And you know yourself
he was thought equal to the best society at college.  So particular as
you are, my dear, I wonder you are not glad to have such a gentlemanly
young man for a brother.  You are always finding fault with Bob because
he is not Fred.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Oh no, mamma, only because he is Bob.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Well, my dear, you will not find any Middlemarch young man who has not
something against him.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#C">But</said>—here Rosamond's face broke into a smile which suddenly revealed
two dimples. <said who="#R" direct="false" aloud="false">  She herself thought unfavorably of these dimples and
smiled little in general society. </said>  <said who="#R"> But I shall not marry any
Middlemarch young man.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">So it seems, my love, for you have as good as refused the pick of
them; and if there's better to be had, I'm sure there's no girl better
deserves it.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Excuse me, mamma—I wish you would not say, 'the pick of them.'</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Why, what else are they?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I mean, mamma, it is rather a vulgar expression.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Very likely, my dear; I never was a good speaker.  What should I say?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">The best of them.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Why, that seems just as plain and common.  If I had had time to think,
I should have said, 'the most superior young men.' But with your
education you must know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">What must Rosy know, mother?</said> said Mr. Fred, who had slid in
unobserved through the half-open door while the ladies were bending
over their work, and now going up to the fire stood with his back
towards it, warming the soles of his slippers.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Whether it's right to say 'superior young men,'</said> said Mrs. Vincy,
ringing the bell.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Oh, there are so many superior teas and sugars now.  Superior is
getting to be shopkeepers' slang.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Are you beginning to dislike slang, then?</said> said Rosamond, with mild
gravity.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Only the wrong sort.  All choice of words is slang.  It marks a class.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">There is correct English: that is not slang.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">I beg your pardon: correct English is the slang of prigs who write
history and essays.  And the strongest slang of all is the slang of
poets.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">You will say anything, Fred, to gain your point.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Well, tell me whether it is slang or poetry to call an ox a
leg-plaiter.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Of course you can call it poetry if you like.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Aha, Miss Rosy, you don't know Homer from slang.  I shall invent a new
game; I shall write bits of slang and poetry on slips, and give them to
you to separate.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Dear me, how amusing it is to hear young people talk!</said> said Mrs.
Vincy, with cheerful admiration.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Have you got nothing else for my breakfast, Pritchard?</said> said Fred, to
the servant who brought in coffee and buttered toast; while he walked
round the table surveying the ham, potted beef, and other cold
remnants, with an air of silent rejection, and polite forbearance from
signs of disgust.
</P>

<P>
<said>Should you like eggs, sir?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Eggs, no!  Bring me a grilled bone.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Really, Fred,</said> said Rosamond, when the servant had left the room, <said who="#R">if
you must have hot things for breakfast, I wish you would come down
earlier.  You can get up at six o'clock to go out hunting; I cannot
understand why you find it so difficult to get up on other mornings.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">That is your want of understanding, Rosy.  I can get up to go hunting
because I like it.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">What would you think of me if I came down two hours after every one
else and ordered grilled bone?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">I should think you were an uncommonly fast young lady,</said> said Fred,
eating his toast with the utmost composure.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I cannot see why brothers are to make themselves disagreeable, any
more than sisters.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">I don't make myself disagreeable; it is you who find me so.
Disagreeable is a word that describes your feelings and not my actions.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I think it describes the smell of grilled bone.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Not at all.  It describes a sensation in your little nose associated
with certain finicking notions which are the classics of Mrs. Lemon's
school.  Look at my mother; you don't see her objecting to everything
except what she does herself.  She is my notion of a pleasant woman.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Bless you both, my dears, and don't quarrel,</said> said Mrs. Vincy, with
motherly cordiality.  <said who="#MrsV">Come, Fred, tell us all about the new doctor.
How is your uncle pleased with him?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Pretty well, I think.  He asks Lydgate all sorts of questions and then
screws up his face while he hears the answers, as if they were pinching
his toes.  That's his way.  Ah, here comes my grilled bone.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">But how came you to stay out so late, my dear?  You only said you were
going to your uncle's.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Oh, I dined at Plymdale's. We had whist.  Lydgate was there too.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">And what do you think of him?  He is very gentlemanly, I suppose.
They say he is of excellent family—his relations quite county people.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Yes,</said> said Fred.  <said who="#F">There was a Lydgate at John's who spent no end of
money.  I find this man is a second cousin of his.  But rich men may
have very poor devils for second cousins.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">It always makes a difference, though, to be of good family,</said> said
Rosamond, with a tone of decision which showed that she had thought on
this subject. <said who="#R" direct="false" aloud="false">  Rosamond felt that she might have been happier if she
had not been the daughter of a Middlemarch manufacturer.  She disliked
anything which reminded her that her mother's father had been an
innkeeper.  Certainly any one remembering the fact might think that
Mrs. Vincy had the air of a very handsome good-humored landlady,
accustomed to the most capricious orders of gentlemen. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">I thought it was odd his name was Tertius,</said> said the bright-faced
matron, <said who="#MrsV">but of course it's a name in the family.  But now, tell us
exactly what sort of man he is.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Oh, tallish, dark, clever—talks well—rather a prig, I think.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I never can make out what you mean by a prig,</said> said Rosamond.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">A fellow who wants to show that he has opinions.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Why, my dear, doctors must have opinions,</said> said Mrs. Vincy.  <said who="#MrsV">What are
they there for else?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Yes, mother, the opinions they are paid for.  But a prig is a fellow
who is always making you a present of his opinions.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I suppose Mary Garth admires Mr. Lydgate,</said> said Rosamond, not without
a touch of innuendo.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Really, I can't say.</said> said Fred, rather glumly, as he left the table,
and taking up a novel which he had brought down with him, threw himself
into an arm-chair. <said who="#F">If you are jealous of her, go oftener to Stone
Court yourself and eclipse her.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I wish you would not be so vulgar, Fred.  If you have finished, pray
ring the bell.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">It is true, though—what your brother says, Rosamond,</said> Mrs. Vincy
began, when the servant had cleared the table.  <said who="#MrsV">It is a thousand
pities you haven't patience to go and see your uncle more, so proud of
you as he is, and wanted you to live with him.  There's no knowing what
he might have done for you as well as for Fred.  God knows, I'm fond of
having you at home with me, but I can part with my children for their
good.  And now it stands to reason that your uncle Featherstone will do
something for Mary Garth.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Mary Garth can bear being at Stone Court, because she likes that
better than being a governess,</said> said Rosamond, folding up her work.  <said who="#R">I
would rather not have anything left to me if I must earn it by enduring
much of my uncle's cough and his ugly relations.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">He can't be long for this world, my dear; I wouldn't hasten his end,
but what with asthma and that inward complaint, let us hope there is
something better for him in another.  And I have no ill-will towards
Mary Garth, but there's justice to be thought of.  And Mr.
Featherstone's first wife brought him no money, as my sister did.  Her
nieces and nephews can't have so much claim as my sister's.  And I must
say I think Mary Garth a dreadful plain girl—more fit for a governess.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Every one would not agree with you there, mother,</said> said Fred, who
seemed to be able to read and listen too.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Well, my dear,</said> said Mrs. Vincy, wheeling skilfully, <said>if she <emph rend="italics">had</emph>
some fortune left her,—a man marries his wife's relations, and the
Garths are so poor, and live in such a small way.  But I shall leave
you to your studies, my dear; for I must go and do some shopping.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Fred's studies are not very deep,</said> said Rosamond, rising with her
mamma, <said who="#R">he is only reading a novel.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsV">Well, well, by-and-by he'll go to his Latin and things,</said> said Mrs.
Vincy, soothingly, stroking her son's head.  <said who="#MrsV">There's a fire in the
smoking-room on purpose.  It's your father's wish, you know—Fred, my
dear—and I always tell him you will be good, and go to college again
to take your degree.</said>
</P>

<P>
Fred drew his mother's hand down to his lips, but said nothing.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I suppose you are not going out riding to-day?</said> said Rosamond,
lingering a little after her mamma was gone.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">No; why?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Papa says I may have the chestnut to ride now.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">You can go with me to-morrow, if you like.  Only I am going to Stone
Court, remember.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I want to ride so much, it is indifferent to me where we go.</said> Rosamond
really wished to go to Stone Court, of all other places.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Oh, I say, Rosy,</said> said Fred, as she was passing out of the room, <said who="#F">if
you are going to the piano, let me come and play some airs with you.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Pray do not ask me this morning.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Why not this morning?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Really, Fred, I wish you would leave off playing the flute.  A man
looks very silly playing the flute.  And you play so out of tune.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">When next any one makes love to you, Miss Rosamond, I will tell him
how obliging you are.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Why should you expect me to oblige you by hearing you play the flute,
any more than I should expect you to oblige me by not playing it?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">And why should you expect me to take you out riding?</said>
</P>

<P>
This question led to an adjustment, for Rosamond had set her mind on
that particular ride.
</P>

<P>
So Fred was gratified with nearly an hour's practice of <said>Ar hyd y nos,</said>
"Ye banks and braes," and other favorite airs from his <said>Instructor on
the Flute;</said> a wheezy performance, into which he threw much ambition and
an irrepressible hopefulness.
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

</div><div type="chapter" n="12"><head>CHAPTER XII.</head>

<epigraph>
          <said>He had more tow on his distaffe
           Than Gerveis knew.</said>
                           —CHAUCER.
</epigraph>

<BR/>

<P>
The ride to Stone Court, which Fred and Rosamond took the next morning,
lay through a pretty bit of midland landscape, almost all meadows and
pastures, with hedgerows still allowed to grow in bushy beauty and to
spread out coral fruit for the birds. <first> Little details gave each field a
particular physiognomy, dear to the eyes that have looked on them from
childhood: the pool in the corner where the grasses were dank and trees
leaned whisperingly; the great oak shadowing a bare place in
mid-pasture; the high bank where the ash-trees grew; the sudden slope
of the old marl-pit making a red background for the burdock; the
huddled roofs and ricks of the homestead without a traceable way of
approach; the gray gate and fences against the depths of the bordering
wood; and the stray hovel, its old, old thatch full of mossy hills and
valleys with wondrous modulations of light and shadow such as we travel
far to see in later life, and see larger, but not more beautiful. </first>
These are the things that make the gamut of joy in landscape to
midland-bred souls—the things they toddled among, or perhaps learned
by heart standing between their father's knees while he drove leisurely.
</P>

<P>
<first> But the road, even the byroad, was excellent; for Lowick, as we have
seen, was not a parish of muddy lanes and poor tenants; and it was into
Lowick parish that Fred and Rosamond entered after a couple of miles'
riding. </first>Another mile would bring them to Stone Court, and at the end
of the first half, the house was already visible, looking as if it had
been arrested in its growth toward a stone mansion by an unexpected
budding of farm-buildings on its left flank, which had hindered it from
becoming anything more than the substantial dwelling of a gentleman
farmer.  It was not the less agreeable an object in the distance for
the cluster of pinnacled corn-ricks which balanced the fine row of
walnuts on the right.
</P>

<P>
Presently it was possible to discern something that might be a gig on
the circular drive before the front door.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Dear me,</said> said Rosamond, <said who="#R">I hope none of my uncle's horrible relations
are there.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">They are, though.  That is Mrs. Waule's gig—the last yellow gig left,
I should think.  When I see Mrs. Waule in it, I understand how yellow
can have been worn for mourning.  That gig seems to me more funereal
than a hearse.  But then Mrs. Waule always has black crape on.  How
does she manage it, Rosy?  Her friends can't always be dying.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I don't know at all.  And she is not in the least evangelical,</said> said
Rosamond, reflectively, as if that religious point of view would have
fully accounted for perpetual crape.  <said who="#R">And, not poor,</said> she added, after
a moment's pause.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">No, by George!  They are as rich as Jews, those Waules and
Featherstones; I mean, for people like them, who don't want to spend
anything.  And yet they hang about my uncle like vultures, and are
afraid of a farthing going away from their side of the family.  But I
believe he hates them all.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsWaule" direct="false" aloud="false"> The Mrs. Waule who was so far from being admirable in the eyes of these
distant connections, had happened to say this very morning (not at all
with a defiant air, but in a low, muffled, neutral tone, as of a voice
heard through cotton wool) that she did not wish <said>to enjoy their good
opinion.</said> She was seated, as she observed, on her own brother's hearth,
and had been Jane Featherstone five-and-twenty years before she had
been Jane Waule, which entitled her to speak when her own brother's
name had been made free with by those who had no right to it. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">What are you driving at there?</said> said Mr. Featherstone, holding his
stick between his knees and settling his wig, while he gave her a
momentary sharp glance, which seemed to react on him like a draught of
cold air and set him coughing.
</P>

<P>
Mrs. Waule had to defer her answer till he was quiet again, till Mary
Garth had supplied him with fresh syrup, and he had begun to rub the
gold knob of his stick, looking bitterly at the fire.  It was a bright
fire, but it made no difference to the chill-looking purplish tint of
Mrs. Waule's face, which was as neutral as her voice; having mere
chinks for eyes, and lips that hardly moved in speaking.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsWaule">The doctors can't master that cough, brother.  It's just like what I
have; for I'm your own sister, constitution and everything.  But, as I
was saying, it's a pity Mrs. Vincy's family can't be better conducted.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Tchah! you said nothing o' the sort.  You said somebody had made free
with my name.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsWaule">And no more than can be proved, if what everybody says is true.  My
brother Solomon tells me it's the talk up and down in Middlemarch how
unsteady young Vincy is, and has been forever gambling at billiards
since home he came.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Nonsense!  What's a game at billiards?  It's a good gentlemanly game;
and young Vincy is not a clodhopper.  If your son John took to
billiards, now, he'd make a fool of himself.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsWaule">Your nephew John never took to billiards or any other game, brother,
and is far from losing hundreds of pounds, which, if what everybody
says is true, must be found somewhere else than out of Mr. Vincy the
father's pocket.  For they say he's been losing money for years, though
nobody would think so, to see him go coursing and keeping open house as
they do.  And I've heard say Mr. Bulstrode condemns Mrs. Vincy beyond
anything for her flightiness, and spoiling her children so.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">What's Bulstrode to me?  I don't bank with him.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsWaule" >Well, Mrs. Bulstrode is Mr. Vincy's own sister, and they do say that
Mr. Vincy mostly trades on the Bank money; and you may see yourself,
brother, when a woman past forty has pink strings always flying, and
that light way of laughing at everything, it's very unbecoming.  But
indulging your children is one thing, and finding money to pay their
debts is another.  And it's openly said that young Vincy has raised
money on his expectations.  I don't say what expectations.  Miss Garth
hears me, and is welcome to tell again.  I know young people hang
together.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">No, thank you, Mrs. Waule,</said> said Mary Garth.  <said who="#M">I dislike hearing
scandal too much to wish to repeat it.</said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Featherstone rubbed the knob of his stick and made a brief
convulsive show of laughter, which had much the same genuineness as an
old whist-player's chuckle over a bad hand.  Still looking at the fire,
he said—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">And who pretends to say Fred Vincy hasn't got expectations?  Such a
fine, spirited fellow is like enough to have 'em.</said>
</P>

<P>
There was a slight pause before Mrs. Waule replied, and when she did
so, her voice seemed to be slightly moistened with tears, though her
face was still dry.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsWaule">Whether or no, brother, it is naturally painful to me and my brother
Solomon to hear your name made free with, and your complaint being such
as may carry you off sudden, and people who are no more Featherstones
than the Merry-Andrew at the fair, openly reckoning on your property
coming to <emph rend="italics">them</emph>.  And me your own sister, and Solomon your own
brother!  And if that's to be it, what has it pleased the Almighty to
make families for?</said> Here Mrs. Waule's tears fell, but with moderation.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Come, out with it, Jane!</said> said Mr. Featherstone, looking at her.  <said who="#MrF">You
mean to say, Fred Vincy has been getting somebody to advance him money
on what he says he knows about my will, eh?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsWaule" >I never said so, brother</said> (Mrs. Waule's voice had again become dry and
unshaken). <said who="#MrsWaule">It was told me by my brother Solomon last night when he
called coming from market to give me advice about the old wheat, me
being a widow, and my son John only three-and-twenty, though steady
beyond anything.  And he had it from most undeniable authority, and not
one, but many.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Stuff and nonsense!  I don't believe a word of it.  It's all a got-up
story.  Go to the window, missy; I thought I heard a horse.  See if the
doctor's coming.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrsWaule">Not got up by me, brother, nor yet by Solomon, who, whatever else he
may be—and I don't deny he has oddities—has made his will and parted
his property equal between such kin as he's friends with; though, for
my part, I think there are times when some should be considered more
than others.  But Solomon makes it no secret what he means to do.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">The more fool he!</said> said Mr. Featherstone, with some difficulty;
breaking into a severe fit of coughing that required Mary Garth to
stand near him, so that she did not find out whose horses they were
which presently paused stamping on the gravel before the door.
</P>

<P>
Before Mr. Featherstone's cough was quiet, Rosamond entered, bearing up
her riding-habit with much grace.  She bowed ceremoniously to Mrs.
Waule, who said stiffly, <said who="#R">How do you do, miss?</said> smiled and nodded
silently to Mary, and remained standing till the coughing should cease,
and allow her uncle to notice her.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Heyday, miss!</said> he said at last, <said who="#MrF">you have a fine color.  Where's Fred?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Seeing about the horses.  He will be in presently.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Sit down, sit down.  Mrs. Waule, you'd better go.</said>
</P>

<p>
<said who="#MrsWaule" direct="false" aloud="false"> Even those neighbors who had called Peter Featherstone an old fox, had
never accused him of being insincerely polite, and his sister was quite
used to the peculiar absence of ceremony with which he marked his sense
of blood-relationship. Indeed, she herself was accustomed to think that
entire freedom from the necessity of behaving agreeably was included in
the Almighty's intentions about families. <said direct="false" aloud="false"> She rose slowly without any
sign of resentment, and said in her usual muffled monotone, </said> <said who="#MrsWaule"> Brother, I
hope the new doctor will be able to do something for you.  Solomon says
there's great talk of his cleverness.  I'm sure it's my wish you should
be spared.  And there's none more ready to nurse you than your own
sister and your own nieces, if you'd only say the word.  There's
Rebecca, and Joanna, and Elizabeth, you know.</said>
</p>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Ay, ay, I remember—you'll see I've remembered 'em all—all dark and
ugly.  They'd need have some money, eh?  There never was any beauty in
the women of our family; but the Featherstones have always had some
money, and the Waules too.  Waule had money too.  A warm man was Waule.
Ay, ay; money's a good egg; and if you 've got money to leave behind
you, lay it in a warm nest.  Good-by, Mrs. Waule.</said> Here Mr.
Featherstone pulled at both sides of his wig as if he wanted to deafen
himself, and his sister went away ruminating on this oracular speech of
his. <said who="#MrsWaule" direct="false" aloud="false"> Notwithstanding her jealousy of the Vincys and of Mary Garth,
there remained as the nethermost sediment in her mental shallows a
persuasion that her brother Peter Featherstone could never leave his
chief property away from his blood-relations:—else, why had the
Almighty carried off his two wives both childless, after he had gained
so much by manganese and things, turning up when nobody expected
it?—and why was there a Lowick parish church, and the Waules and
Powderells all sitting in the same pew for generations, and the
Featherstone pew next to them, if, the Sunday after her brother Peter's
death, everybody was to know that the property was gone out of the
family? </said> The human mind has at no period accepted a moral chaos; and so
preposterous a result was not strictly conceivable. <first> But we are
frightened at much that is not strictly conceivable. </first>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false"> When Fred came in the old man eyed him with a peculiar twinkle, which
the younger had often had reason to interpret as pride in the
satisfactory details of his appearance. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">You two misses go away,</said> said Mr. Featherstone.  <said who="#MrF">I want to speak to
Fred.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">Come into my room, Rosamond, you will not mind the cold for a little
while,</said> said Mary.  The two girls had not only known each other in
childhood, but had been at the same provincial school together (Mary as
an articled pupil), so that they had many memories in common, and liked
very well to talk in private.  Indeed, this <i>tete-a-tete</i> was one of
Rosamond's objects in coming to Stone Court.
</P>

<P>
Old Featherstone would not begin the dialogue till the door had been
closed.  He continued to look at Fred with the same twinkle and with
one of his habitual grimaces, alternately screwing and widening his
mouth; and when he spoke, it was in a low tone, which might be taken
for that of an informer ready to be bought off, rather than for the
tone of an offended senior. <said who="#MrF" direct="false" aloud="false"> He was not a man to feel any strong moral
indignation even on account of trespasses against himself.  It was
natural that others should want to get an advantage over him, but then,
he was a little too cunning for them. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">So, sir, you've been paying ten per cent for money which you've
promised to pay off by mortgaging my land when I'm dead and gone, eh?
You put my life at a twelvemonth, say.  But I can alter my will yet.</said>
</P>

<P>
Fred blushed.  He had not borrowed money in that way, for excellent
reasons. <said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false"> But he was conscious of having spoken with some confidence
(perhaps with more than he exactly remembered) about his prospect of
getting Featherstone's land as a future means of paying present debts. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">I don't know what you refer to, sir.  I have certainly never borrowed
any money on such an insecurity.  Please do explain.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">No, sir, it's you must explain.  I can alter my will yet, let me tell
you.  I'm of sound mind—can reckon compound interest in my head, and
remember every fool's name as well as I could twenty years ago.  What
the deuce?  I'm under eighty.  I say, you must contradict this story.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F"> <said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false">I have contradicted it, sir,</said> Fred answered, with a touch of
impatience, not remembering that his uncle did not verbally
discriminate contradicting from disproving, though no one was further
from confounding the two ideas than old Featherstone, who often
wondered that so many fools took his own assertions for proofs. </said> <said who="#F">But I
contradict it again.  The story is a silly lie.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Nonsense! you must bring documents.  It comes from authority.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Name the authority, and make him name the man of whom I borrowed the
money, and then I can disprove the story.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">It's pretty good authority, I think—a man who knows most of what goes
on in Middlemarch.  It's that fine, religious, charitable uncle o'
yours.  Come now!</said> Here Mr. Featherstone had his peculiar inward shake
which signified merriment.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Mr. Bulstrode?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Who else, eh?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Then the story has grown into this lie out of some sermonizing words
he may have let fall about me.  Do they pretend that he named the man
who lent me the money?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">If there is such a man, depend upon it Bulstrode knows him.  But,
supposing you only tried to get the money lent, and didn't get
it—Bulstrode 'ud know that too.  You bring me a writing from Bulstrode
to say he doesn't believe you've ever promised to pay your debts out o'
my land.  Come now!</said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Featherstone's face required its whole scale of grimaces as a
muscular outlet to his silent triumph in the soundness of his faculties.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false"> Fred felt himself to be in a disgusting dilemma. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">You must be joking, sir.  Mr. Bulstrode, like other men, believes
scores of things that are not true, and he has a prejudice against me.
I could easily get him to write that he knew no facts in proof of the
report you speak of, though it might lead to unpleasantness.  But I
could hardly ask him to write down what he believes or does not believe
about me.</said> Fred paused an instant, and then added, in politic appeal to
his uncle's vanity, <said who="#F">That is hardly a thing for a gentleman to ask.</said>
<said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false">But he was disappointed in the result. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Ay, I know what you mean.  You'd sooner offend me than Bulstrode.  And
what's he?—he's got no land hereabout that ever I heard tell of.  A
speckilating fellow!  He may come down any day, when the devil leaves
off backing him.  And that's what his religion means: he wants God
A'mighty to come in.  That's nonsense!  There's one thing I made out
pretty clear when I used to go to church—and it's this: God A'mighty
sticks to the land.  He promises land, and He gives land, and He makes
chaps rich with corn and cattle.  But you take the other side.  You
like Bulstrode and speckilation better than Featherstone and land.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">I beg your pardon, sir,</said> said Fred, rising, standing with his back to
the fire and beating his boot with his whip.  <said who="#F">I like neither Bulstrode
nor speculation.</said> <said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false"> He spoke rather sulkily, feeling himself stalemated. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF"><said who="#MrF" direct="false" aloud="false">Well, well, you can do without me, that's pretty clear,</said> said old
Featherstone, secretly disliking the possibility that Fred would show
himself at all independent. </said> <said who="#MrF">You neither want a bit of land to make a
squire of you instead of a starving parson, nor a lift of a hundred
pound by the way.  It's all one to me.  I can make five codicils if I
like, and I shall keep my bank-notes for a nest-egg. It's all one to
me.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false"> Fred colored again.  Featherstone had rarely given him presents of
money, and at this moment it seemed almost harder to part with the
immediate prospect of bank-notes than with the more distant prospect of
the land. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">I am not ungrateful, sir.  I never meant to show disregard for any
kind intentions you might have towards me.  On the contrary.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Very good.  Then prove it.  You bring me a letter from Bulstrode
saying he doesn't believe you've been cracking and promising to pay
your debts out o' my land, and then, if there's any scrape you've got
into, we'll see if I can't back you a bit.  Come now!  That's a
bargain.  Here, give me your arm.  I'll try and walk round the room.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false"> Fred, in spite of his irritation, had kindness enough in him to be a
little sorry for the unloved, unvenerated old man, who with his
dropsical legs looked more than usually pitiable in walking.  While
giving his arm, he thought that he should not himself like to be an old
fellow with his constitution breaking up; and he waited
good-temperedly, first before the window to hear the wonted remarks
about the guinea-fowls and the weather-cock, and then before the scanty
book-shelves, of which the chief glories in dark calf were Josephus,
Culpepper, Klopstock's <said>Messiah,</said> and several volumes of the
<said>Gentleman's Magazine.</said> </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Read me the names o' the books.  Come now! you're a college man.</said>
</P>

<P>
Fred gave him the titles.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">What did missy want with more books?  What must you be bringing her
more books for?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">They amuse her, sir.  She is very fond of reading.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">A little too fond,</said> said Mr. Featherstone, captiously.  <said who="#MrF">She was for
reading when she sat with me.  But I put a stop to that.  She's got the
newspaper to read out loud.  That's enough for one day, I should think.
I can't abide to see her reading to herself.  You mind and not bring
her any more books, do you hear?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Yes, sir, I hear.</said> <said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false"> Fred had received this order before, and had
secretly disobeyed it.  He intended to disobey it again. </FID
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Ring the bell,</said> said Mr. Featherstone; <said who="#MrF">I want missy to come down.</said>
</P>

<P>
Rosamond and Mary had been talking faster than their male friends.
They did not think of sitting down, but stood at the toilet-table near
the window while Rosamond took off her hat, adjusted her veil, and
applied little touches of her finger-tips to her hair—hair of
infantine fairness, neither flaxen nor yellow.  Mary Garth seemed all
the plainer standing at an angle between the two nymphs—the one in the
glass, and the one out of it, who looked at each other with eyes of
heavenly blue, deep enough to hold the most exquisite meanings an
ingenious beholder could put into them, and deep enough to hide the
meanings of the owner if these should happen to be less exquisite.
Only a few children in Middlemarch looked blond by the side of
Rosamond, and the slim figure displayed by her riding-habit had
delicate undulations. <said who="#MM" direct="false" aloud="false"> In fact, most men in Middlemarch, except her
brothers, held that Miss Vincy was the best girl in the world, and some
called her an angel. </said> Mary Garth, on the contrary, had the aspect of an
ordinary sinner: she was brown; her curly dark hair was rough and
stubborn; her stature was low; and it would not be true to declare, in
satisfactory antithesis, that she had all the virtues.  Plainness has
its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty; it is apt
either to feign amiability, or, not feigning it, to show all the
repulsiveness of discontent: at any rate, to be called an ugly thing in
contrast with that lovely creature your companion, is apt to produce
some effect beyond a sense of fine veracity and fitness in the phrase.
At the age of two-and-twenty Mary had certainly not attained that
perfect good sense and good principle which are usually recommended to
the less fortunate girl, as if they were to be obtained in quantities
ready mixed, with a flavor of resignation as required.  Her shrewdness
had a streak of satiric bitterness continually renewed and never
carried utterly out of sight, except by a strong current of gratitude
towards those who, instead of telling her that she ought to be
contented, did something to make her so. <first> Advancing womanhood had
tempered her plainness, which was of a good human sort, such as the
mothers of our race have very commonly worn in all latitudes under a
more or less becoming headgear. </first> Rembrandt would have painted her with
pleasure, and would have made her broad features look out of the canvas
with intelligent honesty.  For honesty, truth-telling fairness, was
Mary's reigning virtue: she neither tried to create illusions, nor
indulged in them for her own behoof, and when she was in a good mood
she had humor enough in her to laugh at herself.  When she and Rosamond
happened both to be reflected in the glass, she said, laughingly—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">What a brown patch I am by the side of you, Rosy!  You are the most
unbecoming companion.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Oh no!  No one thinks of your appearance, you are so sensible and
useful, Mary.  Beauty is of very little consequence in reality,</said> said
Rosamond, turning her head towards Mary, but with eyes swerving towards
the new view of her neck in the glass.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">You mean <i>my</i> beauty,</said> said Mary, rather sardonically.
</P>

<P>
Rosamond thought, <said who="#R">Poor Mary, she takes the kindest things ill.</said> Aloud
she said, <said who="#R">What have you been doing lately?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">I?  Oh, minding the house—pouring out syrup—pretending to be amiable
and contented—learning to have a bad opinion of everybody.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">It is a wretched life for you.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">No,</said> said Mary, curtly, with a little toss of her head.  <said who="#M">I think my
life is pleasanter than your Miss Morgan's.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Yes; but Miss Morgan is so uninteresting, and not young.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">She is interesting to herself, I suppose; and I am not at all sure
that everything gets easier as one gets older.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">No,</said> said Rosamond, reflectively; <said who="#R">one wonders what such people do,
without any prospect.  To be sure, there is religion as a support.
But,</said> she added, dimpling, <said who="#R">it is very different with you, Mary.  You
may have an offer.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">Has any one told you he means to make me one?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Of course not.  I mean, there is a gentleman who may fall in love with
you, seeing you almost every day.</said>
</P>

<P>
A certain change in Mary's face was chiefly determined by the resolve
not to show any change.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">Does that always make people fall in love?</said> she answered, carelessly;
<said who="#M">it seems to me quite as often a reason for detesting each other.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Not when they are interesting and agreeable.  I hear that Mr. Lydgate
is both.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">Oh, Mr. Lydgate!</said> said Mary, with an unmistakable lapse into
indifference.  <said who="#M">You want to know something about him,</said> she added, not
choosing to indulge Rosamond's indirectness.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Merely, how you like him.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">There is no question of liking at present.  My liking always wants
some little kindness to kindle it.  I am not magnanimous enough to like
people who speak to me without seeming to see me.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R"> Is he so haughty?</said> said Rosamond, with heightened satisfaction.  <said who="#R">You
know that he is of good family?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">No; he did not give that as a reason.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Mary! you are the oddest girl.  But what sort of looking man is he?
Describe him to me.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">How can one describe a man?  I can give you an inventory: heavy
eyebrows, dark eyes, a straight nose, thick dark hair, large solid
white hands—and—let me see—oh, an exquisite cambric
pocket-handkerchief.  But you will see him.  You know this is about the
time of his visits.</said>
</P>

<P>
Rosamond blushed a little, but said, meditatively, <said who="#R">I rather like a
haughty manner.  I cannot endure a rattling young man.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">I did not tell you that Mr. Lydgate was haughty; but <i>il y en a pour
tous les gouts</i>, as little Mamselle used to say, and if any girl can
choose the particular sort of conceit she would like, I should think it
is you, Rosy.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Haughtiness is not conceit; I call Fred conceited.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">I wish no one said any worse of him.  He should be more careful.  Mrs.
Waule has been telling uncle that Fred is very unsteady.</said> <said who="#M" direct="false" aloud="false"> Mary spoke
from a girlish impulse which got the better of her judgment.  There was
a vague uneasiness associated with the word <said>unsteady</said> which she hoped
Rosamond might say something to dissipate.  But she purposely abstained
from mentioning Mrs. Waule's more special insinuation. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R"> <said who="#R" direct="false" aloud="false">Oh, Fred is horrid!</said> said Rosamond.  She would not have allowed
herself so unsuitable a word to any one but Mary. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">What do you mean by horrid?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">He is so idle, and makes papa so angry, and says he will not take
orders.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">I think Fred is quite right.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">How can you say he is quite right, Mary?  I thought you had more sense
of religion.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">He is not fit to be a clergyman.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">But he ought to be fit.</said> — <said who="#M"> Well, then, he is not what he ought to be.
I know some other people who are in the same case.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">But no one approves of them.  I should not like to marry a clergyman;
but there must be clergymen.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">It does not follow that Fred must be one.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">But when papa has been at the expense of educating him for it!  And
only suppose, if he should have no fortune left him?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">I can suppose that very well,</said> said Mary, dryly.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Then I wonder you can defend Fred,</said> said Rosamond, inclined to push
this point.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">I don't defend him,</said> said Mary, laughing; <said who="#M">I would defend any parish
from having him for a clergyman.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">But of course if he were a clergyman, he must be different.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">Yes, he would be a great hypocrite; and he is not that yet.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">It is of no use saying anything to you, Mary.  You always take Fred's
part.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">Why should I not take his part?</said> said Mary, lighting up.  <said who="#M">He would
take mine.  He is the only person who takes the least trouble to oblige
me.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">You make me feel very uncomfortable, Mary,</said> said Rosamond, with her
gravest mildness; <said who="#R">I would not tell mamma for the world.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">What would you not tell her?</said> said Mary, angrily.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Pray do not go into a rage, Mary,</said> said Rosamond, mildly as ever.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">If your mamma is afraid that Fred will make me an offer, tell her that
I would not marry him if he asked me.  But he is not going to do so,
that I am aware.  He certainly never has asked me.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Mary, you are always so violent.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">And you are always so exasperating.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I?  What can you blame me for?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">Oh, blameless people are always the most exasperating.  There is the
bell—I think we must go down.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I did not mean to quarrel,</said> said Rosamond, putting on her hat.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#M">Quarrel?  Nonsense; we have not quarrelled.  If one is not to get into
a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Am I to repeat what you have said?" </said> </P>

<P>
  <said who="#M"> Just as you please.  I never say
what I am afraid of having repeated.  But let us go down.</said>
</P>

<P>
Mr. Lydgate was rather late this morning, but the visitors stayed long
enough to see him; for Mr. Featherstone asked Rosamond to sing to him,
and she herself was so kind as to propose a second favorite song of
his—"Flow on, thou shining river"—after she had sung <said>Home, sweet
home</said> (which she detested). This hard-headed old Overreach approved of
the sentimental song, as the suitable garnish for girls, and also as
fundamentally fine, sentiment being the right thing for a song.
</P>

<P>
Mr. Featherstone was still applauding the last performance, and
assuring missy that her voice was as clear as a blackbird's, when Mr.
Lydgate's horse passed the window.
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Lyd" direct="false" aloud="false"> His dull expectation of the usual disagreeable routine with an aged
patient—who can hardly believe that medicine would not <said>set him up</said> if
the doctor were only clever enough—added to his general disbelief in
Middlemarch charms, made a doubly effective background to this vision
of Rosamond, whom old Featherstone made haste ostentatiously to
introduce as his niece, though he had never thought it worth while to
speak of Mary Garth in that light.  Nothing escaped Lydgate in
Rosamond's graceful behavior: how delicately she waived the notice
which the old man's want of taste had thrust upon her by a quiet
gravity, not showing her dimples on the wrong occasion, but showing
them afterwards in speaking to Mary, to whom she addressed herself with
so much good-natured interest, that Lydgate, after quickly examining
Mary more fully than he had done before, saw an adorable kindness in
Rosamond's eyes.  But Mary from some cause looked rather out of temper. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">Miss Rosy has been singing me a song—you've nothing to say against
that, eh, doctor?</said> said Mr. Featherstone.  <said who="#MrF">I like it better than your
physic.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">That has made me forget how the time was going,</said> said Rosamond, rising
to reach her hat, which she had laid aside before singing, so that her
flower-like head on its white stem was seen in perfection above her
riding-habit. <said who="#R">Fred, we must really go.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F"> <said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false">Very good,</said> said Fred, who had his own reasons for not being in the
best spirits, and wanted to get away. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#Lyd">Miss Vincy is a musician?</said> said Lydgate, following her with his eyes.
(Every nerve and muscle in Rosamond was adjusted to the consciousness
that she was being looked at.  She was by nature an actress of parts
that entered into her physique: she even acted her own character, and
so well, that she did not know it to be precisely her own.)
</P>

<P>
<said who="#MrF">The best in Middlemarch, I'll be bound,</said> said Mr. Featherstone, <said who="#MrF">let
the next be who she will.  Eh, Fred?  Speak up for your sister.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">I'm afraid I'm out of court, sir.  My evidence would be good for
nothing.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Middlemarch has not a very high standard, uncle,</said> said Rosamond, with
a pretty lightness, going towards her whip, which lay at a distance.
</P>

<P>
Lydgate was quick in anticipating her.  He reached the whip before she
did, and turned to present it to her.  She bowed and looked at him: he
of course was looking at her, and their eyes met with that peculiar
meeting which is never arrived at by effort, but seems like a sudden
divine clearance of haze.  <first> I think Lydgate turned a little paler than
usual, but Rosamond blushed deeply and felt a certain astonishment. </first>
<said who="#R" direct="false" aloud="false"> After that, she was really anxious to go, and did not know what sort of
stupidity her uncle was talking of when she went to shake hands with
him. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R" direct="false" aloud="false"> Yet this result, which she took to be a mutual impression, called
falling in love, was just what Rosamond had contemplated beforehand.
Ever since that important new arrival in Middlemarch she had woven a
little future, of which something like this scene was the necessary
beginning. </said> Strangers, whether wrecked and clinging to a raft, or duly
escorted and accompanied by portmanteaus, have always had a
circumstantial fascination for the virgin mind, against which native
merit has urged itself in vain.  And a stranger was absolutely
necessary to Rosamond's social romance, which had always turned on a
lover and bridegroom who was not a Middlemarcher, and who had no
connections at all like her own: of late, indeed, the construction
seemed to demand that he should somehow be related to a baronet. <said who="#R" direct="false" aloud="false"> Now
that she and the stranger had met, reality proved much more moving than
anticipation, and Rosamond could not doubt that this was the great
epoch of her life.  She judged of her own symptoms as those of
awakening love, and she held it still more natural that Mr. Lydgate
should have fallen in love at first sight of her.  These things
happened so often at balls, and why not by the morning light, when the
complexion showed all the better for it?  Rosamond, though no older
than Mary, was rather used to being fallen in love with; but she, for
her part, had remained indifferent and fastidiously critical towards
both fresh sprig and faded bachelor.  And here was Mr. Lydgate suddenly
corresponding to her ideal, being altogether foreign to Middlemarch,
carrying a certain air of distinction congruous with good family, and
possessing connections which offered vistas of that middle-class
heaven, rank; a man of talent, also, whom it would be especially
delightful to enslave: in fact, a man who had touched her nature quite
newly, and brought a vivid interest into her life which was better than
any fancied <said>might-be</said> such as she was in the habit of opposing to the
actual. </said>
</P>

<P>
Thus, in riding home, both the brother and the sister were preoccupied
and inclined to be silent. <said who="#R" direct="false" aloud="false"> Rosamond, whose basis for her structure had
the usual airy slightness, was of remarkably detailed and realistic
imagination when the foundation had been once presupposed; and before
they had ridden a mile she was far on in the costume and introductions
of her wedded life, having determined on her house in Middlemarch, and
foreseen the visits she would pay to her husband's high-bred relatives
at a distance, whose finished manners she could appropriate as
thoroughly as she had done her school accomplishments, preparing
herself thus for vaguer elevations which might ultimately come.  There
was nothing financial, still less sordid, in her previsions: she cared
about what were considered refinements, and not about the money that
was to pay for them. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false"> Fred's mind, on the other hand, was busy with an anxiety which even his
ready hopefulness could not immediately quell.  He saw no way of
eluding Featherstone's stupid demand without incurring consequences
which he liked less even than the task of fulfilling it.  His father
was already out of humor with him, and would be still more so if he
were the occasion of any additional coolness between his own family and
the Bulstrodes.  Then, he himself hated having to go and speak to his
uncle Bulstrode, and perhaps after drinking wine he had said many
foolish things about Featherstone's property, and these had been
magnified by report.  Fred felt that he made a wretched figure as a
fellow who bragged about expectations from a queer old miser like
Featherstone, and went to beg for certificates at his bidding.
But—those expectations!  He really had them, and he saw no agreeable
alternative if he gave them up; besides, he had lately made a debt
which galled him extremely, and old Featherstone had almost bargained
to pay it off.  The whole affair was miserably small: his debts were
small, even his expectations were not anything so very magnificent.
Fred had known men to whom he would have been ashamed of confessing the
smallness of his scrapes.  Such ruminations naturally produced a streak
of misanthropic bitterness.  To be born the son of a Middlemarch
manufacturer, and inevitable heir to nothing in particular, while such
men as Mainwaring and Vyan—certainly life was a poor business, when a
spirited young fellow, with a good appetite for the best of everything,
had so poor an outlook. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false"> It had not occurred to Fred that the introduction of Bulstrode's name
in the matter was a fiction of old Featherstone's; nor could this have
made any difference to his position.  He saw plainly enough that the
old man wanted to exercise his power by tormenting him a little, and
also probably to get some satisfaction out of seeing him on unpleasant
terms with Bulstrode.  Fred fancied that he saw to the bottom of his
uncle Featherstone's soul, though in reality half what he saw there was
no more than the reflex of his own inclinations. The difficult task of
knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is
chiefly made up of their own wishes. </said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false"> Fred's main point of debate with himself was, whether he should tell
his father, or try to get through the affair without his father's
knowledge.  It was probably Mrs. Waule who had been talking about him;
and if Mary Garth had repeated Mrs. Waule's report to Rosamond, it
would be sure to reach his father, who would as surely question him
about it. </said> He said to Rosamond, as they slackened their pace—
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Rosy, did Mary tell you that Mrs. Waule had said anything about me?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Yes, indeed, she did.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">What?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">That you were very unsteady.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Was that all?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I should think that was enough, Fred.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">You are sure she said no more?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">Mary mentioned nothing else.  But really, Fred, I think you ought to
be ashamed.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Oh, fudge!  Don't lecture me.  What did Mary say about it?</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I am not obliged to tell you.  You care so very much what Mary says,
and you are too rude to allow me to speak.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Of course I care what Mary says.  She is the best girl I know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I should never have thought she was a girl to fall in love with.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">How do you know what men would fall in love with?  Girls never know.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">At least, Fred, let me advise <emph rend="italics">you</emph> not to fall in love with her, for
she says she would not marry you if you asked her.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">She might have waited till I did ask her.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#R">I knew it would nettle you, Fred.</said>
</P>

<P>
<said who="#F">Not at all.  She would not have said so if you had not provoked her.</said>
<said who="#F" direct="false" aloud="false"> Before reaching home, Fred concluded that he would tell the whole
affair as simply as possible to his father, who might perhaps take on
himself the unpleasant business of speaking to Bulstrode. </said>
</P>

<BR/><BR/><BR/>

</text>
</body>
</TEI>