Middlemarch Page 11

  CHAPTER X.

  "He had catched a great cold, had he had no other clothes to wear than the skin of a bear not yet killed."--FULLER.

  Young Ladislaw did not pay that visit to which Mr. Brooke had invitedhim, and only six days afterwards Mr. Casaubon mentioned that his youngrelative had started for the Continent, seeming by this cold vaguenessto waive inquiry. Indeed, Will had declined to fix on any more precisedestination than the entire area of Europe. Genius, he held, isnecessarily intolerant of fetters: on the one hand it must have theutmost play for its spontaneity; on the other, it may confidently awaitthose messages from the universe which summon it to its peculiar work,only placing itself in an attitude of receptivity towards all sublimechances. The attitudes of receptivity are various, and Will hadsincerely tried many of them. He was not excessively fond of wine, buthe had several times taken too much, simply as an experiment in thatform of ecstasy; he had fasted till he was faint, and then supped onlobster; he had made himself ill with doses of opium. Nothing greatlyoriginal had resulted from these measures; and the effects of the opiumhad convinced him that there was an entire dissimilarity between hisconstitution and De Quincey's. The superadded circumstance which wouldevolve the genius had not yet come; the universe had not yet beckoned.Even Caesar's fortune at one time was, but a grand presentiment. Weknow what a masquerade all development is, and what effective shapesmay be disguised in helpless embryos.--In fact, the world is full ofhopeful analogies and handsome dubious eggs called possibilities. Willsaw clearly enough the pitiable instances of long incubation producingno chick, and but for gratitude would have laughed at Casaubon, whoseplodding application, rows of note-books, and small taper of learnedtheory exploring the tossed ruins of the world, seemed to enforce amoral entirely encouraging to Will's generous reliance on theintentions of the universe with regard to himself. He held thatreliance to be a mark of genius; and certainly it is no mark to thecontrary; genius consisting neither in self-conceit nor in humility,but in a power to make or do, not anything in general, but something inparticular. Let him start for the Continent, then, without ourpronouncing on his future. Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is themost gratuitous.

  But at present this caution against a too hasty judgment interests memore in relation to Mr. Casaubon than to his young cousin. If toDorothea Mr. Casaubon had been the mere occasion which had set alightthe fine inflammable material of her youthful illusions, does it followthat he was fairly represented in the minds of those less impassionedpersonages who have hitherto delivered their judgments concerning him?I protest against any absolute conclusion, any prejudice derived fromMrs. Cadwallader's contempt for a neighboring clergyman's allegedgreatness of soul, or Sir James Chettam's poor opinion of his rival'slegs,--from Mr. Brooke's failure to elicit a companion's ideas, or fromCelia's criticism of a middle-aged scholar's personal appearance. I amnot sure that the greatest man of his age, if ever that solitarysuperlative existed, could escape these unfavorable reflections ofhimself in various small mirrors; and even Milton, looking for hisportrait in a spoon, must submit to have the facial angle of a bumpkin.Moreover, if Mr. Casaubon, speaking for himself, has rather a chillingrhetoric, it is not therefore certain that there is no good work orfine feeling in him. Did not an immortal physicist and interpreter ofhieroglyphs write detestable verses? Has the theory of the solarsystem been advanced by graceful manners and conversational tact?Suppose we turn from outside estimates of a man, to wonder, with keenerinterest, what is the report of his own consciousness about his doingsor capacity: with what hindrances he is carrying on his daily labors;what fading of hopes, or what deeper fixity of self-delusion the yearsare marking off within him; and with what spirit he wrestles againstuniversal pressure, which will one day be too heavy for him, and bringhis heart to its final pause. Doubtless his lot is important in hisown eyes; and the chief reason that we think he asks too large a placein our consideration must be our want of room for him, since we referhim to the Divine regard with perfect confidence; nay, it is even heldsublime for our neighbor to expect the utmost there, however little hemay have got from us. Mr. Casaubon, too, was the centre of his ownworld; if he was liable to think that others were providentially madefor him, and especially to consider them in the light of their fitnessfor the author of a "Key to all Mythologies," this trait is not quitealien to us, and, like the other mendicant hopes of mortals, claimssome of our pity.

  Certainly this affair of his marriage with Miss Brooke touched him morenearly than it did any one of the persons who have hitherto shown theirdisapproval of it, and in the present stage of things I feel moretenderly towards his experience of success than towards thedisappointment of the amiable Sir James. For in truth, as the dayfixed for his marriage came nearer, Mr. Casaubon did not find hisspirits rising; nor did the contemplation of that matrimonial gardenscene, where, as all experience showed, the path was to be borderedwith flowers, prove persistently more enchanting to him than theaccustomed vaults where he walked taper in hand. He did not confess tohimself, still less could he have breathed to another, his surprisethat though he had won a lovely and noble-hearted girl he had not wondelight,--which he had also regarded as an object to be found bysearch. It is true that he knew all the classical passages implyingthe contrary; but knowing classical passages, we find, is a mode ofmotion, which explains why they leave so little extra force for theirpersonal application.

  Poor Mr. Casaubon had imagined that his long studious bachelorhood hadstored up for him a compound interest of enjoyment, and that largedrafts on his affections would not fail to be honored; for we all ofus, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and actfatally on the strength of them. And now he was in danger of beingsaddened by the very conviction that his circumstances were unusuallyhappy: there was nothing external by which he could account for acertain blankness of sensibility which came over him just when hisexpectant gladness should have been most lively, just when he exchangedthe accustomed dulness of his Lowick library for his visits to theGrange. Here was a weary experience in which he was as utterlycondemned to loneliness as in the despair which sometimes threatenedhim while toiling in the morass of authorship without seeming nearer tothe goal. And his was that worst loneliness which would shrink fromsympathy. He could not but wish that Dorothea should think him notless happy than the world would expect her successful suitor to be; andin relation to his authorship he leaned on her young trust andveneration, he liked to draw forth her fresh interest in listening, asa means of encouragement to himself: in talking to her he presented allhis performance and intention with the reflected confidence of thepedagogue, and rid himself for the time of that chilling ideal audiencewhich crowded his laborious uncreative hours with the vaporous pressureof Tartarean shades.

  For to Dorothea, after that toy-box history of the world adapted toyoung ladies which had made the chief part of her education, Mr.Casaubon's talk about his great book was full of new vistas; and thissense of revelation, this surprise of a nearer introduction to Stoicsand Alexandrians, as people who had ideas not totally unlike her own,kept in abeyance for the time her usual eagerness for a binding theorywhich could bring her own life and doctrine into strict connection withthat amazing past, and give the remotest sources of knowledge somebearing on her actions. That more complete teaching would come--Mr.Casaubon would tell her all that: she was looking forward to higherinitiation in ideas, as she was looking forward to marriage, andblending her dim conceptions of both. It would be a great mistake tosuppose that Dorothea would have cared about any share in Mr.Casaubon's learning as mere accomplishment; for though opinion in theneighborhood of Freshitt and Tipton had pronounced her clever, thatepithet would not have described her to circles in whose more precisevocabulary cleverness implies mere aptitude for knowing and doing,apart from character. All her eagerness for acquirement lay withinthat full current of sympathetic motive in which her ideas and impulseswere habitually swept along. She did not want to deck herself withknowledge--t
o wear it loose from the nerves and blood that fed heraction; and if she had written a book she must have done it as SaintTheresa did, under the command of an authority that constrained herconscience. But something she yearned for by which her life might befilled with action at once rational and ardent; and since the time wasgone by for guiding visions and spiritual directors, since prayerheightened yearning but not instruction, what lamp was there butknowledge? Surely learned men kept the only oil; and who more learnedthan Mr. Casaubon?

  Thus in these brief weeks Dorothea's joyous grateful expectation wasunbroken, and however her lover might occasionally be conscious offlatness, he could never refer it to any slackening of her affectionateinterest.

  The season was mild enough to encourage the project of extending thewedding journey as far as Rome, and Mr. Casaubon was anxious for thisbecause he wished to inspect some manuscripts in the Vatican.

  "I still regret that your sister is not to accompany us," he said onemorning, some time after it had been ascertained that Celia objected togo, and that Dorothea did not wish for her companionship. "You willhave many lonely hours, Dorothea, for I shall be constrained to makethe utmost use of my time during our stay in Rome, and I should feelmore at liberty if you had a companion."

  The words "I should feel more at liberty" grated on Dorothea. For thefirst time in speaking to Mr. Casaubon she colored from annoyance.

  "You must have misunderstood me very much," she said, "if you think Ishould not enter into the value of your time--if you think that Ishould not willingly give up whatever interfered with your using it tothe best purpose."

  "That is very amiable in you, my dear Dorothea," said Mr. Casaubon, notin the least noticing that she was hurt; "but if you had a lady as yourcompanion, I could put you both under the care of a cicerone, and wecould thus achieve two purposes in the same space of time."

  "I beg you will not refer to this again," said Dorothea, ratherhaughtily. But immediately she feared that she was wrong, and turningtowards him she laid her hand on his, adding in a different tone, "Praydo not be anxious about me. I shall have so much to think of when I amalone. And Tantripp will be a sufficient companion, just to take careof me. I could not bear to have Celia: she would be miserable."

  It was time to dress. There was to be a dinner-party that day, thelast of the parties which were held at the Grange as properpreliminaries to the wedding, and Dorothea was glad of a reason formoving away at once on the sound of the bell, as if she needed morethan her usual amount of preparation. She was ashamed of beingirritated from some cause she could not define even to herself; forthough she had no intention to be untruthful, her reply had not touchedthe real hurt within her. Mr. Casaubon's words had been quitereasonable, yet they had brought a vague instantaneous sense ofaloofness on his part.

  "Surely I am in a strangely selfish weak state of mind," she said toherself. "How can I have a husband who is so much above me withoutknowing that he needs me less than I need him?"

  Having convinced herself that Mr. Casaubon was altogether right, sherecovered her equanimity, and was an agreeable image of serene dignitywhen she came into the drawing-room in her silver-gray dress--thesimple lines of her dark-brown hair parted over her brow and coiledmassively behind, in keeping with the entire absence from her mannerand expression of all search after mere effect. Sometimes whenDorothea was in company, there seemed to be as complete an air ofrepose about her as if she had been a picture of Santa Barbara lookingout from her tower into the clear air; but these intervals of quietudemade the energy of her speech and emotion the more remarked when someoutward appeal had touched her.

  She was naturally the subject of many observations this evening, forthe dinner-party was large and rather more miscellaneous as to the maleportion than any which had been held at the Grange since Mr. Brooke'snieces had resided with him, so that the talking was done in duos andtrios more or less inharmonious. There was the newly elected mayor ofMiddlemarch, who happened to be a manufacturer; the philanthropicbanker his brother-in-law, who predominated so much in the town thatsome called him a Methodist, others a hypocrite, according to theresources of their vocabulary; and there were various professional men.In fact, Mrs. Cadwallader said that Brooke was beginning to treat theMiddlemarchers, and that she preferred the farmers at the tithe-dinner,who drank her health unpretentiously, and were not ashamed of theirgrandfathers' furniture. For in that part of the country, beforereform had done its notable part in developing the politicalconsciousness, there was a clearer distinction of ranks and a dimmerdistinction of parties; so that Mr. Brooke's miscellaneous invitationsseemed to belong to that general laxity which came from his inordinatetravel and habit of taking too much in the form of ideas.

  Already, as Miss Brooke passed out of the dining-room, opportunity wasfound for some interjectional "asides."

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

  Mr. Bulstrode, the banker, seemed to be addressed, but that gentlemandisliked coarseness and profanity, and merely bowed. The remark wastaken up by Mr. Chichely, a middle-aged bachelor and coursingcelebrity, who had a complexion something like an Easter egg, a fewhairs carefully arranged, and a carriage implying the consciousness ofa distinguished appearance.

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

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

  "I should be disposed to refer coquetry to another source," said Mr.Bulstrode. "I should rather refer it to the devil."

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

  "Well, make up, make up," said Mr. Standish, jocosely; "you see themiddle-aged fellows early the day."

  Mr. Chichely shook his head with much meaning: he was not going toincur the certainty of being accepted by the woman he would choose.

  The Miss Vincy who had the honor of being Mr. Chichely's ideal was ofcourse not present; for Mr. Brooke, always objecting to go too far,would not have chosen that his nieces should meet the daughter of aMiddlemarch manufacturer, unless it were on a public occasion. Thefeminine part of the company included none whom Lady Chettam or Mrs.Cadwallader could object to; for Mrs. Renfrew, the colonel's widow, wasnot only unexceptionable in point of breeding, but also interesting onthe ground of her complaint, which puzzled the doctors, and seemedclearly a case wherein the fulness of professional knowledge might needthe supplement of quackery. Lady Chettam, who attributed her ownremarkable health to home-made bitters united with constant medicalattendance, entered with much exercise of the imagination into Mrs.Renfrew's account of symptoms, and into the amazing futility in hercase of all strengthening medicines.

  "Where can all the strength of those medicines go, my dear?" said themild but stately dowager, turning to Mrs. Cadwallader reflectively,when Mrs. Renfrew's attention was called away.

  "It strengthens the disease," said the Rector's wife, much toowell-born not to be an amateur in medicine. "Everything depends on theconstitution: some people make fat, some blood, and some bile--that'smy view of the matter; and whatever they take is a sort of grist to themill."

  "Then she ought to take medicines that would reduce--reduce thedisease, yo
u know, if you are right, my dear. And I think what you sayis reasonable."

  "Certainly it is reasonable. You have two sorts of potatoes, fed onthe same soil. One of them grows more and more watery--"

  "Ah! like this poor Mrs. Renfrew--that is what I think. Dropsy! Thereis no swelling yet--it is inward. I should say she ought to takedrying medicines, shouldn't you?--or a dry hot-air bath. Many thingsmight be tried, of a drying nature."

  "Let her try a certain person's pamphlets," said Mrs. Cadwallader in anundertone, seeing the gentlemen enter. "He does not want drying."

  "Who, my dear?" said Lady Chettam, a charming woman, not so quick as tonullify the pleasure of explanation.

  "The bridegroom--Casaubon. He has certainly been drying up faster sincethe engagement: the flame of passion, I suppose."

  "I should think he is far from having a good constitution," said LadyChettam, with a still deeper undertone. "And then his studies--so verydry, as you say."

  "Really, by the side of Sir James, he looks like a death's head skinnedover for the occasion. Mark my words: in a year from this time thatgirl will hate him. She looks up to him as an oracle now, andby-and-by she will be at the other extreme. All flightiness!"

  "How very shocking! I fear she is headstrong. But tell me--you knowall about him--is there anything very bad? What is the truth?"

  "The truth? he is as bad as the wrong physic--nasty to take, and sureto disagree."

  "There could not be anything worse than that," said Lady Chettam, withso vivid a conception of the physic that she seemed to have learnedsomething exact about Mr. Casaubon's disadvantages. "However, Jameswill hear nothing against Miss Brooke. He says she is the mirror ofwomen still."

  "That is a generous make-believe of his. Depend upon it, he likeslittle Celia better, and she appreciates him. I hope you like mylittle Celia?"

  "Certainly; she is fonder of geraniums, and seems more docile, thoughnot so fine a figure. But we were talking of physic. Tell me aboutthis new young surgeon, Mr. Lydgate. I am told he is wonderfullyclever: he certainly looks it--a fine brow indeed."

  "He is a gentleman. I heard him talking to Humphrey. He talks well."

  "Yes. Mr. Brooke says he is one of the Lydgates of Northumberland,really well connected. One does not expect it in a practitioner ofthat kind. For my own part, I like a medical man more on a footingwith the servants; they are often all the cleverer. I assure you Ifound poor Hicks's judgment unfailing; I never knew him wrong. He wascoarse and butcher-like, but he knew my constitution. It was a loss tome his going off so suddenly. Dear me, what a very animatedconversation Miss Brooke seems to be having with this Mr. Lydgate!"

  "She is talking cottages and hospitals with him," said Mrs.Cadwallader, whose ears and power of interpretation were quick. "Ibelieve he is a sort of philanthropist, so Brooke is sure to take himup."

  "James," said Lady Chettam when her son came near, "bring Mr. Lydgateand introduce him to me. I want to test him."

  The affable dowager declared herself delighted with this opportunity ofmaking Mr. Lydgate's acquaintance, having heard of his success intreating fever on a new plan.

  Mr. Lydgate had the medical accomplishment of looking perfectly gravewhatever nonsense was talked to him, and his dark steady eyes gave himimpressiveness as a listener. He was as little as possible like thelamented Hicks, especially in a certain careless refinement about histoilet and utterance. Yet Lady Chettam gathered much confidence inhim. He confirmed her view of her own constitution as being peculiar,by admitting that all constitutions might be called peculiar, and hedid not deny that hers might be more peculiar than others. He did notapprove of a too lowering system, including reckless cupping, nor, onthe other hand, of incessant port wine and bark. 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.

  "I am quite pleased with your protege," she said to Mr. Brooke beforegoing away.

  "My protege?--dear me!--who is that?" said Mr. Brooke.

  "This young Lydgate, the new doctor. He seems to me to understand hisprofession admirably."

  "Oh, Lydgate! he is not my protege, you know; only I knew an uncle ofhis who sent me a letter about him. However, I think he is likely tobe first-rate--has studied in Paris, knew Broussais; has ideas, youknow--wants to raise the profession."

  "Lydgate has lots of ideas, quite new, about ventilation and diet, thatsort of thing," resumed Mr. Brooke, after he had handed out LadyChettam, and had returned to be civil to a group of Middlemarchers.

  "Hang it, do you think that is quite sound?--upsetting The oldtreatment, which has made Englishmen what they are?" said Mr. Standish.

  "Medical knowledge is at a low ebb among us," said Mr. Bulstrode, whospoke in a subdued tone, and had rather a sickly air. "I, for my part,hail the advent of Mr. Lydgate. I hope to find good reason forconfiding the new hospital to his management."

  "That is all very fine," replied Mr. Standish, who was not fond of Mr.Bulstrode; "if you like him to try experiments on your hospitalpatients, and kill a few people for charity I have no objection. But Iam not going to hand money out of my purse to have experiments tried onme. I like treatment that has been tested a little."

  "Well, you know, Standish, every dose you take is an experiment-anexperiment, you know," said Mr. Brooke, nodding towards the lawyer.

  "Oh, if you talk in that sense!" said Mr. Standish, with as muchdisgust at such non-legal quibbling as a man can well betray towards avaluable client.

  "I should be glad of any treatment that would cure me without reducingme to a skeleton, like poor Grainger," said Mr. Vincy, the mayor, aflorid man, who would have served for a study of flesh in strikingcontrast with the Franciscan tints of Mr. Bulstrode. "It's anuncommonly dangerous thing to be left without any padding against theshafts of disease, as somebody said,--and I think it a very goodexpression myself."

  Mr. Lydgate, of course, was out of hearing. He had quitted the partyearly, and would have thought it altogether tedious but for the noveltyof certain introductions, especially the introduction to Miss Brooke,whose youthful bloom, with her approaching marriage to that fadedscholar, and her interest in matters socially useful, gave her thepiquancy of an unusual combination.

  "She is a good creature--that fine girl--but a little too earnest," hethought. "It is troublesome to talk to such women. They are alwayswanting reasons, yet they are too ignorant to understand the merits ofany question, and usually fall back on their moral sense to settlethings after their own taste."

  Evidently Miss Brooke was not Mr. Lydgate's style of woman any morethan Mr. Chichely's. Considered, indeed, in relation to the latter,whose mind was matured, she was altogether a mistake, and calculated toshock his trust in final causes, including the adaptation of fine youngwomen to purplefaced bachelors. But Lydgate was less ripe, and mightpossibly have experience before him which would modify his opinion asto the most excellent things in woman.

  Miss Brooke, however, was not again seen by either of these gentlemenunder her maiden name. Not long after that dinner-party she had becomeMrs. Casaubon, and was on her way to Rome.