MISS BROOKE.CHAPTER I. Since I can do no good because a woman,Reach constantly at something that is near it. —The Maid’s Tragedy: BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. 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 ...Read More

CHAPTER II. “‘Dime; no ves aquel caballero que hacia nosotros viene sobre un caballo rucio rodado que trae puesto 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. “‘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, ...Read More

CHAPTER III. “Say, goddess, what ensued, when Raphael,The affable archangel . . . EveThe story heard attentive, and was filledWith admiration, and deep muse, to hearOf things so high and strange.”—Paradise Lost, B. vii. 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 ...Read More

CHAPTER IV. 1st Gent. Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves. 2d Gent. Ay, truly: but I think is the worldThat brings the iron. “Sir James seems determined to do everything you wish,” said Celia, as they were driving home from an inspection of the new building-site. “He is a good creature, and more sensible than any one would imagine,” said Dorothea, inconsiderately. “You mean that he appears silly.” “No, no,” said Dorothea, recollecting herself, and laying her hand on her sister’s a moment, “but he does not talk equally well on all subjects.” “I should think none ...Read More

CHAPTER V. “Hard students are commonly troubled with gowts, catarrhs, rheums, cachexia, bradypepsia, bad eyes, stone, and collick, crudities, vertigo, winds, consumptions, and all such diseases as come by over-much sitting: they are most part lean, dry, ill-colored … 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. This was Mr. Casaubon’s letter. MY DEAR MISS BROOKE,—I have your guardian’s permission to address you on a subject than ...Read More

CHAPTER VI. My lady’s tongue is like the meadow blades,That cut you stroking them with idle hand.Nice cutting is function: she dividesWith spiritual edge the millet-seed,And makes intangible savings. 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 “How do you do?” in the nick of time. In spite of her shabby bonnet ...Read More

CHAPTER VII. “Piacer e poponeVuol la sua stagione.”—Italian Proverb. Mr. Casaubon, as might be expected, spent a great deal 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 ...Read More

CHAPTER VIII. “Oh, rescue her! I am her brother now,And you her father. Every gentle maidShould have a guardian each gentleman.” 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 ...Read More

CHAPTER IX. 1st Gent. An ancient land in ancient oracles Is called “law-thirsty”: all the struggle there after order and a perfect rule. Pray, where lie such lands now? . . . 2d Gent. Why, where they lay of old—in human souls. 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 ...Read More

CHAPTER X. “He had catched a great cold, had he had no other clothes to wear than the skin a bear not yet killed.”—FULLER. 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. 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 ...Read More

CHAPTER XI. But deeds and language such as men do use,And persons such as comedy would choose,When she would an image of the times,And sport with human follies, not with crimes.—BEN JONSON. 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, “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 ...Read More

CHAPTER XII. He had more tow on his distaffeThan Gerveis knew.—CHAUCER. The ride to Stone Court, which Fred and 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. 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 ...Read More

CHAPTER XIII. 1st Gent. How class your man?—as better than the most, Or, seeming better, worse beneath that As saint or knave, pilgrim or hypocrite? 2d Gent. Nay, tell me how you class your wealth of books The drifted relics of all time. As well sort them at once by size and livery: Vellum, tall copies, and the common calf Will hardly cover more diversity Than all your labels cunningly devised To class your unread authors. In consequence of what he had heard from Fred, Mr. Vincy determined to speak with ...Read More

CHAPTER XIV. “Follows here the strict receiptFor that sauce to dainty meat,Named Idleness, which many eatBy preference, and call sweet:First watch for morsels, like a houndMix well with buffets, stir them roundWith good thick oil of flatteries, And froth with mean self-lauding lies.Serve warm: the vessels you must chooseTo keep it in are dead men’s shoes.” Mr. Bulstrode’s consultation of Harriet seemed to have had the effect desired by Mr. Vincy, for early the next morning a letter came which Fred could carry to Mr. Featherstone as the required testimony. The old gentleman was staying in bed on account ...Read More

CHAPTER XV. “Black eyes you have left, you say, Blue eyes fail to draw you;Yet you seem more to-day, Than of old we saw you. “Oh, I track the fairest fair Through new haunts of pleasure;Footprints here and echoes there Guide me to my treasure: “Lo! she turns—immortal youth Wrought to mortal stature,Fresh as starlight’s aged truth— Many-namèd Nature!” A great historian, as he insisted on calling himself, who had the happiness to be dead a hundred and twenty years ago, and so to take his place among the colossi whose huge legs ...Read More

CHAPTER XVI. “All that in woman is adored In thy fair self I find—For the whole sex can afford The handsome and the kind.”—SIR CHARLES SEDLEY. The question whether Mr. Tyke should be appointed as salaried chaplain to the hospital was an exciting topic to the Middlemarchers; and Lydgate heard it discussed in a way that threw much light on the power exercised in the town by Mr. Bulstrode. The banker was evidently a ruler, but there was an opposition party, and even among his supporters there were some who allowed it to be seen that their ...Read More

CHAPTER XVII. “The clerkly person smiled and saidPromise was a pretty maid,But being poor she died unwed.” The Rev. Farebrother, whom Lydgate went to see the next evening, lived in an old parsonage, built of stone, venerable enough to match the church which it looked out upon. All the furniture too in the house was old, but with another grade of age—that of Mr. Farebrother’s father and grandfather. There were painted white chairs, with gilding and wreaths on them, and some lingering red silk damask with slits in it. There were engraved portraits of Lord Chancellors and other celebrated ...Read More

CHAPTER XVIII. “Oh, sir, the loftiest hopes on earthDraw lots with meaner hopes: heroic breasts,Breathing bad air, run risk pestilence;Or, lacking lime-juice when they cross the Line,May languish with the scurvy.” Some weeks passed after this conversation before the question of the chaplaincy gathered any practical import for Lydgate, and without telling himself the reason, he deferred the predetermination on which side he should give his vote. It would really have been a matter of total indifference to him—that is to say, he would have taken the more convenient side, and given his vote for the appointment of Tyke ...Read More

CHAPTER XIX. “L’ altra vedete ch’ha fatto alla guanciaDella sua palma, sospirando, letto.”—Purgatorio, vii. When George the Fourth was reigning over the privacies of Windsor, when the Duke of Wellington was Prime Minister, and Mr. Vincy was mayor of the old corporation in Middlemarch, Mrs. Casaubon, born Dorothea Brooke, had taken her wedding journey to Rome. In those days the world in general was more ignorant of good and evil by forty years than it is at present. Travellers did not often carry full information on Christian art either in their heads or their pockets; and even the most ...Read More

CHAPTER XX. “A child forsaken, waking suddenly,Whose gaze afeard on all things round doth rove,And seeth only that it see The meeting eyes of love.” Two hours later, Dorothea was seated in an inner room or boudoir of a handsome apartment in the Via Sistina. I am sorry to add that she was sobbing bitterly, with such abandonment to this relief of an oppressed heart as a woman habitually controlled by pride on her own account and thoughtfulness for others will sometimes allow herself when she feels securely alone. And Mr. Casaubon was certain to remain away for ...Read More

CHAPTER XXI. “Hire facounde eke full womanly and plain,No contrefeted termes had sheTo semen wise.”—CHAUCER. It was in that Dorothea came to be sobbing as soon as she was securely alone. But she was presently roused by a knock at the door, which made her hastily dry her eyes before saying, “Come in.” Tantripp had brought a card, and said that there was a gentleman waiting in the lobby. The courier had told him that only Mrs. Casaubon was at home, but he said he was a relation of Mr. Casaubon’s: would she see him? “Yes,” said Dorothea, without ...Read More

CHAPTER XXII. “Nous câusames longtemps; elle était simple et bonne.Ne sachant pas le mal, elle faisait le bien;Des richesses coeur elle me fit l’aumône,Et tout en écoutant comme le coeur se donne,Sans oser y penser je lui donnai le mien;Elle emporta ma vie, et n’en sut jamais rien.”—ALFRED DE MUSSET. Will Ladislaw was delightfully agreeable at dinner the next day, and gave no opportunity for Mr. Casaubon to show disapprobation. On the contrary it seemed to Dorothea that Will had a happier way of drawing her husband into conversation and of deferentially listening to him than she had ever ...Read More

CHAPTER XXIII. “Your horses of the Sun,” he said, “And first-rate whip Apollo!Whate’er they be, I’ll eat my But I will beat them hollow.” Fred Vincy, we have seen, had a debt on his mind, and though no such immaterial burthen could depress that buoyant-hearted young gentleman for many hours together, there were circumstances connected with this debt which made the thought of it unusually importunate. The creditor was Mr. Bambridge, a horse-dealer of the neighborhood, whose company was much sought in Middlemarch by young men understood to be “addicted to pleasure.” During the vacations Fred had ...Read More

CHAPTER XXIV. “The offender’s sorrow brings but small reliefTo him who wears the strong offence’s cross.”—SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets. I am to say that only the third day after the propitious events at Houndsley Fred Vincy had fallen into worse spirits than he had known in his life before. Not that he had been disappointed as to the possible market for his horse, but that before the bargain could be concluded with Lord Medlicote’s man, this Diamond, in which hope to the amount of eighty pounds had been invested, had without the slightest warning exhibited in the stable a most vicious ...Read More

CHAPTER XXV. “Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any careBut for another gives its And builds a heaven in hell’s despair.. . . . . . .Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight,Joys in another’s loss of ease, And builds a hell in heaven’s despite.”—W. BLAKE: Songs of Experience. Fred Vincy wanted to arrive at Stone Court when Mary could not expect him, and when his uncle was not downstairs: in that case she might be sitting alone in the wainscoted parlor. He left his horse ...Read More

CHAPTER XXVI. He beats me and I rail at him: O worthy satisfaction! would it were otherwise—that I could him while he railed at me.—Troilus and Cressida. But Fred did not go to Stone Court the next day, for reasons that were quite peremptory. From those visits to unsanitary Houndsley streets in search of Diamond, he had brought back not only a bad bargain in horse-flesh, but the further misfortune of some ailment which for a day or two had deemed mere depression and headache, but which got so much worse when he returned from his visit to Stone ...Read More

CHAPTER XXVII. Let the high Muse chant loves Olympian:We are but mortals, and must sing of man. An eminent among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact. Your pier-glass or extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round ...Read More

CHAPTER XXVIII. 1st Gent. All times are good to seek your wedded home Bringing a mutual delight. 2d Why, true. The calendar hath not an evil day For souls made one by love, and even death Were sweetness, if it came like rolling waves While they two clasped each other, and foresaw No life apart. Mr. and Mrs. Casaubon, returning from their wedding journey, arrived at Lowick Manor in the middle of January. A light snow was falling as they descended at the door, and in the morning, when Dorothea passed from her ...Read More

CHAPTER XXIX. I found that no genius in another could please me. My unfortunate paradoxes had entirely dried up source of comfort.—GOLDSMITH. One morning, some weeks after her arrival at Lowick, Dorothea—but why always Dorothea? Was her point of view the only possible one with regard to this marriage? I protest against all our interest, all our effort at understanding being given to the young skins that look blooming in spite of trouble; for these too will get faded, and will know the older and more eating griefs which we are helping to neglect. In spite of the blinking ...Read More

CHAPTER XXX. Qui veut délasser hors de propos, lasse.—PASCAL. Mr. Casaubon had no second attack of equal severity with first, and in a few days began to recover his usual condition. But Lydgate seemed to think the case worth a great deal of attention. He not only used his stethoscope (which had not become a matter of course in practice at that time), but sat quietly by his patient and watched him. To Mr. Casaubon’s questions about himself, he replied that the source of the illness was the common error of intellectual men—a too eager and monotonous application: the ...Read More

CHAPTER XXXI. How will you know the pitch of that great bellToo large for you to stir? Let but flutePlay ’neath the fine-mixed metal: listen closeTill the right note flows forth, a silvery rill:Then shall the huge bell tremble—then the massWith myriad waves concurrent shall respondIn low soft unison. Lydgate that evening spoke to Miss Vincy of Mrs. Casaubon, and laid some emphasis on the strong feeling she appeared to have for that formal studious man thirty years older than herself. “Of course she is devoted to her husband,” said Rosamond, implying a notion of necessary sequence which the ...Read More

CHAPTER XXXII. They’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk.—SHAKESPEARE: Tempest. The triumphant confidence of the Mayor founded on Featherstone’s insistent demand that Fred and his mother should not leave him, was a feeble emotion compared with all that was agitating the breasts of the old man’s blood-relations, who naturally manifested more their sense of the family tie and were more visibly numerous now that he had become bedridden. Naturally: for when “poor Peter” had occupied his arm-chair in the wainscoted parlor, no assiduous beetles for whom the cook prepares boiling water could have been less welcome on a ...Read More

CHAPTER XXXIII. “Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close;And let us all to meditation.”—2 Henry VI. That after twelve o’clock Mary Garth relieved the watch in Mr. Featherstone’s room, and sat there alone through the small hours. She often chose this task, in which she found some pleasure, notwithstanding the old man’s testiness whenever he demanded her attentions. There were intervals in which she could sit perfectly still, enjoying the outer stillness and the subdued light. The red fire with its gently audible movement seemed like a solemn existence calmly independent of the petty passions, the imbecile ...Read More

CHAPTER XXXIV. “1st Gent. Such men as this are feathers, chips, and straws, Carry no weight, no force. Gent. But levity Is causal too, and makes the sum of weight. For power finds its place in lack of power; Advance is cession, and the driven ship May run aground because the helmsman’s thought Lacked force to balance opposites.” It was on a morning of May that Peter Featherstone was buried. In the prosaic neighborhood of Middlemarch, May was not always warm and sunny, and on this particular morning a chill wind was blowing ...Read More

CHAPTER XXXV. “Non, je ne comprends pas de plus charmant plaisirQue de voir d’héritiers une troupe affligéeLe maintien interdit, la mine allongée,Lire un long testament où pales, étonnésOn leur laisse un bonsoir avec un pied de nez.Pour voir au naturel leur tristesse profondeJe reviendrais, je crois, exprès de l’autre monde.”—REGNARD: Le Légataire Universel. When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may imagine that allied species made much private remark on each other, and were tempted to think that so many forms feeding on the same store of fodder were eminently superfluous, as tending to diminish the rations. ...Read More

CHAPTER XXXVI. ’T is strange to see the humors of these men,These great aspiring spirits, that should be wise:. . . . . . .For being the nature of great spirits to loveTo be where they may be most eminent;They, rating of themselves so farre aboveUs in conceit, with whom they do frequent,Imagine how we wonder and esteemeAll that they do or say; which makes them striveTo make our admiration more extreme,Which they suppose they cannot, ’less they giveNotice of their extreme and highest thoughts.—DANIEL: Tragedy of Philotas. Mr. Vincy went home from the reading of the will with ...Read More

CHAPTER XXXVII. Thrice happy she that is so well assuredUnto herself and settled so in heartThat neither will for be alluredNe fears to worse with any chance to start,But like a steddy ship doth strongly partThe raging waves and keeps her course aright;Ne aught for tempest doth from it depart,Ne aught for fairer weather’s false delight.Such self-assurance need not fear the spightOf grudging foes; ne favour seek of friends;But in the stay of her own stedfast mightNeither to one herself nor other bends. Most happy she that most assured doth rest, But he most happy who such ...Read More

CHAPTER XXXVIII. “C’est beaucoup que le jugement des hommes sur les actions humaines; tôt ou tard il devient efficace.”—GUIZOT. James Chettam could not look with any satisfaction on Mr. Brooke’s new courses; but it was easier to object than to hinder. Sir James accounted for his having come in alone one day to lunch with the Cadwalladers by saying— “I can’t talk to you as I want, before Celia: it might hurt her. Indeed, it would not be right.” “I know what you mean—the ‘Pioneer’ at the Grange!” darted in Mrs. Cadwallader, almost before the last word was off ...Read More

CHAPTER XXXIX. “If, as I have, you also doe, Vertue attired in woman see,And dare love that, and so too, And forget the He and She; And if this love, though placed so, From prophane men you hide,Which will no faith on this bestow, Or, if they doe, deride: Then you have done a braver thing Than all the Worthies did,And a braver thence will spring, Which is, to keep that hid.”—DR. DONNE. Sir James Chettam’s mind was not fruitful in devices, but his growing anxiety to “act on Brooke,” once brought close ...Read More

CHAPTER XL. Wise in his daily work was he: To fruits of diligence,And not to faiths or polity, He plied his utmost sense.These perfect in their little parts, Whose work is all their prize—Without them how could laws, or arts, Or towered cities rise? In watching effects, if only of an electric battery, it is often necessary to change our place and examine a particular mixture or group at some distance from the point where the movement we are interested in was set up. The group I am moving towards is at Caleb Garth’s breakfast-table in ...Read More

CHAPTER XLI. By swaggering could I never thrive,For the rain it raineth every day.—Twelfth Night. The transactions referred to Caleb Garth as having gone forward between Mr. Bulstrode and Mr. Joshua Rigg Featherstone concerning the land attached to Stone Court, had occasioned the interchange of a letter or two between these personages. Who shall tell what may be the effect of writing? If it happens to have been cut in stone, though it lie face down-most for ages on a forsaken beach, or “rest quietly under the drums and tramplings of many conquests,” it may end by letting us ...Read More

CHAPTER XLII. How much, methinks, I could despise this manWere I not bound in charity against it!—SHAKESPEARE: Henry VIII. of the professional calls made by Lydgate soon after his return from his wedding-journey was to Lowick Manor, in consequence of a letter which had requested him to fix a time for his visit. Mr. Casaubon had never put any question concerning the nature of his illness to Lydgate, nor had he even to Dorothea betrayed any anxiety as to how far it might be likely to cut short his labors or his life. On this point, as on all ...Read More

CHAPTER XLIII. “This figure hath high price: ’t was wrought with loveAges ago in finest ivory;Nought modish in it, and noble linesOf generous womanhood that fits all timeThat too is costly ware; majolicaOf deft design, to please a lordly eye:The smile, you see, is perfect—wonderfulAs mere Faience! a table ornamentTo suit the richest mounting.” Dorothea seldom left home without her husband, but she did occasionally drive into Middlemarch alone, on little errands of shopping or charity such as occur to every lady of any wealth when she lives within three miles of a town. Two days after that scene ...Read More

CHAPTER XLIV. I would not creep along the coast but steerOut in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars. When walking round the laurel-planted plots of the New Hospital with Lydgate, had learned from him that there were no signs of change in Mr. Casaubon’s bodily condition beyond the mental sign of anxiety to know the truth about his illness, she was silent for a few moments, wondering whether she had said or done anything to rouse this new anxiety. Lydgate, not willing to let slip an opportunity of furthering a favorite purpose, ventured to say— “I don’t know whether ...Read More

CHAPTER XLV. It is the humor of many heads to extol the days of their forefathers, and declaim against wickedness of times present. Which notwithstanding they cannot handsomely do, without the borrowed help and satire of times past; condemning the vices of their own times, by the expressions of vices in times which they commend, which cannot but argue the community of vice in both. Horace, therefore, Juvenal, and Persius, were no prophets, although their lines did seem to indigitate and point at our times.—SIR THOMAS BROWNE: Pseudodoxia Epidemica. That opposition to the New Fever Hospital which Lydgate had ...Read More

CHAPTER XLVI. Pues no podemos haber aquello que queremos, queramos aquello que podremos. Since we cannot get what we let us like what we can get.—Spanish Proverb. While Lydgate, safely married and with the Hospital under his command, felt himself struggling for Medical Reform against Middlemarch, Middlemarch was becoming more and more conscious of the national struggle for another kind of Reform. By the time that Lord John Russell’s measure was being debated in the House of Commons, there was a new political animation in Middlemarch, and a new definition of parties which might show a decided change of ...Read More

CHAPTER XLVII. Was never true love loved in vain,For truest love is highest gain.No art can make it: it springWhere elements are fostering.So in heaven’s spot and hourSprings the little native flower,Downward root and upward eye,Shapen by the earth and sky. It happened to be on a Saturday evening that Will Ladislaw had that little discussion with Lydgate. Its effect when he went to his own rooms was to make him sit up half the night, thinking over again, under a new irritation, all that he had before thought of his having settled in Middlemarch and harnessed himself with ...Read More

CHAPTER XLVIII. Surely the golden hours are turning grayAnd dance no more, and vainly strive to run:I see their locks streaming in the wind—Each face is haggard as it looks at me,Slow turning in the constant clasping roundStorm-driven. Dorothea’s distress when she was leaving the church came chiefly from the perception that Mr. Casaubon was determined not to speak to his cousin, and that Will’s presence at church had served to mark more strongly the alienation between them. Will’s coming seemed to her quite excusable, nay, she thought it an amiable movement in him towards a reconciliation which she ...Read More

CHAPTER XLIX. “A task too strong for wizard spellsThis squire had brought about;’T is easy dropping stones in wells,But shall get them out?” “I wish to God we could hinder Dorothea from knowing this,” said Sir James Chettam, with a little frown on his brow, and an expression of intense disgust about his mouth. He was standing on the hearth-rug in the library at Lowick Grange, and speaking to Mr. Brooke. It was the day after Mr. Casaubon had been buried, and Dorothea was not yet able to leave her room. “That would be difficult, you know, Chettam, as ...Read More

CHAPTER L. “This Loller here wol precilen us somewhat.”“Nay by my father’s soule! that schal he nat,”Sayde the Schipman, schal he not preche,We schal no gospel glosen here ne teche.We leven all in the gret God,’ quod he.He wolden sowen some diffcultee.”—Canterbury Tales. Dorothea had been safe at Freshitt Hall nearly a week before she had asked any dangerous questions. Every morning now she sat with Celia in the prettiest of up-stairs sitting-rooms, opening into a small conservatory—Celia all in white and lavender like a bunch of mixed violets, watching the remarkable acts of the baby, which were so ...Read More

CHAPTER LI. Party is Nature too, and you shall seeBy force of Logic how they both agree:The Many in One, the One in Many;All is not Some, nor Some the same as Any:Genus holds species, both are great or small;One genus highest, one not high at all;Each species has its differentia too,This is not That, and He was never You,Though this and that are AYES, and you and heAre like as one to one, or three to three. No gossip about Mr. Casaubon’s will had yet reached Ladislaw: the air seemed to be filled with the dissolution of Parliament ...Read More

CHAPTER LII. “His heartThe lowliest duties on itself did lay.”—WORDSWORTH. On that June evening when Mr. Farebrother knew that was to have the Lowick living, there was joy in the old fashioned parlor, and even the portraits of the great lawyers seemed to look on with satisfaction. His mother left her tea and toast untouched, but sat with her usual pretty primness, only showing her emotion by that flush in the cheeks and brightness in the eyes which give an old woman a touching momentary identity with her far-off youthful self, and saying decisively— “The greatest comfort, Camden, is ...Read More

CHAPTER LIII. It is but a shallow haste which concludeth insincerity from what outsiders call inconsistency—putting a dead mechanism “ifs” and “therefores” for the living myriad of hidden suckers whereby the belief and the conduct are wrought into mutual sustainment. Mr. Bulstrode, when he was hoping to acquire a new interest in Lowick, had naturally had an especial wish that the new clergyman should be one whom he thoroughly approved; and he believed it to be a chastisement and admonition directed to his own shortcomings and those of the nation at large, that just about the time when he ...Read More

CHAPTER LIV. “Negli occhi porta la mia donna Amore;Per che si fa gentil ciò ch’ella mira:Ov’ella passa, ogni uom lei si gira,E cui saluta fa tremar lo core. Sicchè, bassando il viso, tutto smore,E d’ogni suo difetto allor sospira:Fuggon dinanzi a lei Superbia ed Ira:Aiutatemi, donne, a farle onore. Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umileNasce nel core a chi parlar la sente;Ond’è beato chi prima la vide.Quel ch’ella par quand’ un poco sorride,Non si può dicer, nè tener a mente,Si è nuovo miracolo gentile.”—DANTE: La Vita Nuova. By that delightful morning when the hay-ricks at Stone Court were scenting the ...Read More

CHAPTER LV. Hath she her faults? I would you had them too.They are the fruity must of soundest wine;Or they are regenerating fireSuch as hath turned the dense black elementInto a crystal pathway for the sun. If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the oldest inhabitants in Peru do not ...Read More

CHAPTER LVI. “How happy is he born and taughtThat serveth not another’s will;Whose armor is his honest thought,And simple his only skill!. . . . . . .This man is freed from servile bandsOf hope to rise or fear to fall;Lord of himself though not of lands;And having nothing yet hath all.”—SIR HENRY WOTTON. Dorothea’s confidence in Caleb Garth’s knowledge, which had begun on her hearing that he approved of her cottages, had grown fast during her stay at Freshitt, Sir James having induced her to take rides over the two estates in company with himself and Caleb, who ...Read More

CHAPTER LVII. They numbered scarce eight summers when a name Rose on their souls and stirred such motions thrill the buds and shape their hidden frame At penetration of the quickening air:His name who told of loyal Evan Dhu, Of quaint Bradwardine, and Vich Ian Vor,Making the little world their childhood knew Large with a land of mountain lake and scaur,And larger yet with wonder, love, belief Toward Walter Scott who living far awaySent them this wealth of joy and noble grief. The book and they must part, but day by day, ...Read More

CHAPTER LVIII. “For there can live no hatred in thine eye,Therefore in that I cannot know thy change:In many’s the false heart’s historyIs writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange:But Heaven in thy creation did decreeThat in thy face sweet love should ever dwell:Whate’er thy thoughts or thy heart’s workings beThy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell.”—SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets. At the time when Mr. Vincy uttered that presentiment about Rosamond, she herself had never had the idea that she should be driven to make the sort of appeal which he foresaw. She had not yet had any anxiety ...Read More

CHAPTER LIX. “They said of old the Soul had human shape,But smaller, subtler than the fleshly self,So wandered forth airing when it pleased.And see! beside her cherub-face there floatsA pale-lipped form aerial whisperingIts promptings in that little shell her ear.” News is often dispersed as thoughtlessly and effectively as that pollen which the bees carry off (having no idea how powdery they are) when they are buzzing in search of their particular nectar. This fine comparison has reference to Fred Vincy, who on that evening at Lowick Parsonage heard a lively discussion among the ladies on the news which ...Read More

CHAPTER LX. Good phrases are surely, and ever were, very commendable.—Justice Shallow. A few days afterwards—it was already the of August—there was an occasion which caused some excitement in Middlemarch: the public, if it chose, was to have the advantage of buying, under the distinguished auspices of Mr. Borthrop Trumbull, the furniture, books, and pictures which anybody might see by the handbills to be the best in every kind, belonging to Edwin Larcher, Esq. This was not one of the sales indicating the depression of trade; on the contrary, it was due to Mr. Larcher’s great success in the ...Read More

CHAPTER LXI. “Inconsistencies,” answered Imlac, “cannot both be right, but imputed to man they may both be true.”—Rasselas. The night, when Mr. Bulstrode returned from a journey to Brassing on business, his good wife met him in the entrance-hall and drew him into his private sitting-room. “Nicholas,” she said, fixing her honest eyes upon him anxiously, “there has been such a disagreeable man here asking for you—it has made me quite uncomfortable.” “What kind of man, my dear,” said Mr. Bulstrode, dreadfully certain of the answer. “A red-faced man with large whiskers, and most impudent in his manner. He ...Read More

CHAPTER LXII. He was a squyer of lowe degre,That loved the king’s daughter of Hungrie.—Old Romance. Will Ladislaw’s mind now wholly bent on seeing Dorothea again, and forthwith quitting Middlemarch. The morning after his agitating scene with Bulstrode he wrote a brief letter to her, saying that various causes had detained him in the neighborhood longer than he had expected, and asking her permission to call again at Lowick at some hour which she would mention on the earliest possible day, he being anxious to depart, but unwilling to do so until she had granted him an interview. He ...Read More

CHAPTER LXIII. These little things are great to little man.—GOLDSMITH. “Have you seen much of your scientific phoenix, Lydgate, said Mr. Toller at one of his Christmas dinner-parties, speaking to Mr. Farebrother on his right hand. “Not much, I am sorry to say,” answered the Vicar, accustomed to parry Mr. Toller’s banter about his belief in the new medical light. “I am out of the way and he is too busy.” “Is he? I am glad to hear it,” said Dr. Minchin, with mingled suavity and surprise. “He gives a great deal of time to the New Hospital,” said ...Read More

CHAPTER LXIV. 1st Gent. Where lies the power, there let the blame lie too. 2d Gent. Nay, power is you cannot fright The coming pest with border fortresses, Or catch your carp with subtle argument. All force is twain in one: cause is not cause Unless effect be there; and action’s self Must needs contain a passive. So command Exists but with obedience. Even if Lydgate had been inclined to be quite open about his affairs, he knew that it would have hardly been in Mr. Farebrother’s power to give him the help ...Read More

CHAPTER LXV. One of us two must bowen douteless,And, sith a man is more reasonableThan woman is, ye [men] be suffrable.—CHAUCER: Canterbury Tales. The bias of human nature to be slow in correspondence triumphs even over the present quickening in the general pace of things: what wonder then that in 1832 old Sir Godwin Lydgate was slow to write a letter which was of consequence to others rather than to himself? Nearly three weeks of the new year were gone, and Rosamond, awaiting an answer to her winning appeal, was every day disappointed. Lydgate, in total ignorance of her ...Read More

CHAPTER LXVI. ’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,Another thing to fall.—Measure for Measure. Lydgate certainly had good reason reflect on the service his practice did him in counteracting his personal cares. He had no longer free energy enough for spontaneous research and speculative thinking, but by the bedside of patients, the direct external calls on his judgment and sympathies brought the added impulse needed to draw him out of himself. It was not simply that beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectably and unhappy men to live calmly—it was a perpetual claim on the ...Read More

CHAPTER LXVII. Now is there civil war within the soul:Resolve is thrust from off the sacred throneBy clamorous Needs, Pride the grand-vizierMakes humble compact, plays the supple partOf envoy and deft-tongued apologistFor hungry rebels. Happily Lydgate had ended by losing in the billiard-room, and brought away no encouragement to make a raid on luck. On the contrary, he felt unmixed disgust with himself the next day when he had to pay four or five pounds over and above his gains, and he carried about with him a most unpleasant vision of the figure he had made, not only rubbing ...Read More

CHAPTER LXVIII. What suit of grace hath Virtue to put onIf Vice shall wear as good, and do as Wrong, if Craft, if IndiscretionAct as fair parts with ends as laudable?Which all this mighty volume of eventsThe world, the universal map of deeds,Strongly controls, and proves from all descents,That the directest course still best succeeds.For should not grave and learn’d ExperienceThat looks with the eyes of all the world beside,And with all ages holds intelligence,Go safer than Deceit without a guide!—DANIEL: Musophilus. That change of plan and shifting of interest which Bulstrode stated or betrayed in his conversation with ...Read More

CHAPTER LXIX. “If thou hast heard a word, let it die with thee.”—Ecclesiasticus. Mr. Bulstrode was still seated in manager’s room at the Bank, about three o’clock of the same day on which he had received Lydgate there, when the clerk entered to say that his horse was waiting, and also that Mr. Garth was outside and begged to speak with him. “By all means,” said Bulstrode; and Caleb entered. “Pray sit down, Mr. Garth,” continued the banker, in his suavest tone. “I am glad that you arrived just in time to find me here. I know you count ...Read More

CHAPTER LXX. “Our deeds still travel with us from afar,And what we have been makes us what we are.” first object after Lydgate had left Stone Court was to examine Raffles’s pockets, which he imagined were sure to carry signs in the shape of hotel-bills of the places he had stopped in, if he had not told the truth in saying that he had come straight from Liverpool because he was ill and had no money. There were various bills crammed into his pocketbook, but none of a later date than Christmas at any other place, except one, which ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXI. Clown. . . . ’Twas in the Bunch of Grapes, where, indeed,you have a delight to sit, you not?Froth. I have so: because it is an open room, and good for winter.Clo. Why, very well then: I hope here be truths.—Measure for Measure. Five days after the death of Raffles, Mr. Bambridge was standing at his leisure under the large archway leading into the yard of the Green Dragon. He was not fond of solitary contemplation, but he had only just come out of the house, and any human figure standing at ease under the archway in ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXII. Full souls are double mirrors, making stillAn endless vista of fair things before,Repeating things behind. Dorothea’s impetuous which would have leaped at once to the vindication of Lydgate from the suspicion of having accepted money as a bribe, underwent a melancholy check when she came to consider all the circumstances of the case by the light of Mr. Farebrother’s experience. “It is a delicate matter to touch,” he said. “How can we begin to inquire into it? It must be either publicly by setting the magistrate and coroner to work, or privately by questioning Lydgate. As to ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXIII. Pity the laden one; this wandering woeMay visit you and me. When Lydgate had allayed Mrs. Bulstrode’s by telling her that her husband had been seized with faintness at the meeting, but that he trusted soon to see him better and would call again the next day, unless she sent for him earlier, he went directly home, got on his horse, and rode three miles out of the town for the sake of being out of reach. He felt himself becoming violent and unreasonable as if raging under the pain of stings: he was ready to curse ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXIV. “Mercifully grant that we may grow aged together.”—BOOK OF TOBIT: Marriage Prayer. In Middlemarch a wife could long remain ignorant that the town held a bad opinion of her husband. No feminine intimate might carry her friendship so far as to make a plain statement to the wife of the unpleasant fact known or believed about her husband; but when a woman with her thoughts much at leisure got them suddenly employed on something grievously disadvantageous to her neighbors, various moral impulses were called into play which tended to stimulate utterance. Candor was one. To be candid, ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXV. “Le sentiment de la fausseté des plaisirs présents, et l’ignorance de la vanité des plaisirs absents causent Rosamond had a gleam of returning cheerfulness when the house was freed from the threatening figure, and when all the disagreeable creditors were paid. But she was not joyous: her married life had fulfilled none of her hopes, and had been quite spoiled for her imagination. In this brief interval of calm, Lydgate, remembering that he had often been stormy in his hours of perturbation, and mindful of the pain Rosamond had had to bear, was carefully gentle towards her; ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXVI. To mercy, pity, peace, and love All pray in their distress,And to these virtues of delight, Return their thankfulness.. . . . . .For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face;And Love, the human form divine; And Peace, the human dress.—WILLIAM BLAKE: Songs of Innocence. Some days later, Lydgate was riding to Lowick Manor, in consequence of a summons from Dorothea. The summons had not been unexpected, since it had followed a letter from Mr. Bulstrode, in which he stated that he had resumed his arrangements for quitting Middlemarch, and must remind ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXVII. “And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,To mark the full-fraught man and best induedWith suspicion.”—Henry V. The next day Lydgate had to go to Brassing, and told Rosamond that he should be away until the evening. Of late she had never gone beyond her own house and garden, except to church, and once to see her papa, to whom she said, “If Tertius goes away, you will help us to move, will you not, papa? I suppose we shall have very little money. I am sure I hope some one will help us.” And ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXVIII. “Would it were yesterday and I i’ the grave,With her sweet faith above for monument.” Rosamond and stood motionless—they did not know how long—he looking towards the spot where Dorothea had stood, and she looking towards him with doubt. It seemed an endless time to Rosamond, in whose inmost soul there was hardly so much annoyance as gratification from what had just happened. Shallow natures dream of an easy sway over the emotions of others, trusting implicitly in their own petty magic to turn the deepest streams, and confident, by pretty gestures and remarks, of making the ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXIX. “Now, I saw in my dream, that just as they had ended their talk, they drew nigh a very miry slough, that was in the midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond.”—BUNYAN. When Rosamond was quiet, and Lydgate had left her, hoping that she might soon sleep under the effect of an anodyne, he went into the drawing-room to fetch a book which he had left there, meaning to spend the evening in his work-room, and he saw on the table Dorothea’s ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXX. Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wearThe Godhead’s most benignant grace;Nor know we anything so fairAs is the upon thy face;Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,And fragrance in thy footing treads;Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong;And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.—WORDSWORTH: Ode to Duty. When Dorothea had seen Mr. Farebrother in the morning, she had promised to go and dine at the parsonage on her return from Freshitt. There was a frequent interchange of visits between her and the Farebrother family, which enabled her to say that she was not at ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXXI. Du Erde warst auch diese Nacht beständig,Und athmest neu erquickt zu meinen Füssen,Beginnest schon mit Lust mich umgeben,Du regst und rührst ein kräftiges BeschliessenZum höchsten Dasein immerfort zu streben.—Faust: 2r Theil. When Dorothea was again at Lydgate’s door speaking to Martha, he was in the room close by with the door ajar, preparing to go out. He heard her voice, and immediately came to her. “Do you think that Mrs. Lydgate can receive me this morning?” she said, having reflected that it would be better to leave out all allusion to her previous visit. “I have no ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXXII. “My grief lies onward and my joy behind.”—SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets. Exiles notoriously feed much on hopes, and are to stay in banishment unless they are obliged. When Will Ladislaw exiled himself from Middlemarch he had placed no stronger obstacle to his return than his own resolve, which was by no means an iron barrier, but simply a state of mind liable to melt into a minuet with other states of mind, and to find itself bowing, smiling, and giving place with polite facility. As the months went on, it had seemed more and more difficult to him to ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXXIII. “And now good-morrow to our waking soulsWhich watch not one another out of fear;For love all love other sights controls,And makes one little room, an everywhere.”—DR. DONNE. On the second morning after Dorothea’s visit to Rosamond, she had had two nights of sound sleep, and had not only lost all traces of fatigue, but felt as if she had a great deal of superfluous strength—that is to say, more strength than she could manage to concentrate on any occupation. The day before, she had taken long walks outside the grounds, and had paid two visits to the ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXXIV. “Though it be songe of old and yonge, That I sholde be to blame,Theyrs be the that spoke so large In hurtynge of my name.”—The Not-Browne Mayde. It was just after the Lords had thrown out the Reform Bill: that explains how Mr. Cadwallader came to be walking on the slope of the lawn near the great conservatory at Freshitt Hall, holding the “Times” in his hands behind him, while he talked with a trout-fisher’s dispassionateness about the prospects of the country to Sir James Chettam. Mrs. Cadwallader, the Dowager Lady Chettam, and Celia were ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXXV. “Then went the jury out whose names were Mr. Blindman, Mr. No-good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-lust, Mr. Mr. Heady, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, Mr. Hate-light, Mr. Implacable, who every one gave in his private verdict against him among themselves, and afterwards unanimously concluded to bring him in guilty before the judge. And first among themselves, Mr. Blindman, the foreman, said, I see clearly that this man is a heretic. Then said Mr. No-good, Away with such a fellow from the earth! Ay, said Mr. Malice, for I hate the very look of him. ...Read More

CHAPTER LXXXVI. “Le cœur se sature d’amour comme d’un sel divin qui le conserve; de là l’incorruptible adhérence de qui se sont aimés dès l’aube de la vie, et la fraîcheur des vielles amours prolongées. Il existe un embaumement d’amour. C’est de Daphnis et Chloé que sont faits Philémon et Baucis. Cette vieillesse-là, ressemblance du soir avec l’aurore.”—VICTOR HUGO: L’homme qui rit. Mrs. Garth, hearing Caleb enter the passage about tea-time, opened the parlor-door and said, “There you are, Caleb. Have you had your dinner?” (Mr. Garth’s meals were much subordinated to “business.”) “Oh yes, a good dinner—cold mutton ...Read More