Middlemarch Page 4

  CHAPTER III.

  "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." --Paradise Lost, B. vii.

  If it had really occurred to Mr. Casaubon to think of Miss Brooke as asuitable wife for him, the reasons that might induce her to accept himwere already planted in her mind, and by the evening of the next daythe reasons had budded and bloomed. For they had had a longconversation in the morning, while Celia, who did not like the companyof Mr. Casaubon's moles and sallowness, had escaped to the vicarage toplay with the curate's ill-shod but merry children.

  Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoir ofMr. Casaubon's mind, seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthineextension every quality she herself brought; had opened much of her ownexperience to him, and had understood from him the scope of his greatwork, also of attractively labyrinthine extent. For he had been asinstructive as Milton's "affable archangel;" and with something of thearchangelic manner he told her how he had undertaken to show (whatindeed 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 mythicalfragments in the world were corruptions of a tradition originallyrevealed. Having once mastered the true position and taken a firmfooting there, the vast field of mythical constructions becameintelligible, nay, luminous with the reflected light ofcorrespondences. But to gather in this great harvest of truth was nolight or speedy work. His notes already made a formidable range ofvolumes, but the crowning task would be to condense these voluminousstill-accumulating results and bring them, like the earlier vintage ofHippocratic books, to fit a little shelf. In explaining this toDorothea, Mr. Casaubon expressed himself nearly as he would have doneto 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 theEnglish with scrupulous care, but he would probably have done this inany case. A learned provincial clergyman is accustomed to think of hisacquaintances as of "lords, knyghtes, and other noble and worthi men,that conne Latyn but lytille."

  Dorothea was altogether captivated by the wide embrace of thisconception. Here was something beyond the shallows of ladies' schoolliterature: here was a living Bossuet, whose work would reconcilecomplete knowledge with devoted piety; here was a modern Augustine whounited the glories of doctor and saint.

  The sanctity seemed no less clearly marked than the learning, for whenDorothea was impelled to open her mind on certain themes which shecould speak of to no one whom she had before seen at Tipton, especiallyon the secondary importance of ecclesiastical forms and articles ofbelief compared with that spiritual religion, that submergence of selfin communion with Divine perfection which seemed to her to be expressedin the best Christian books of widely distant ages, she found in Mr.Casaubon a listener who understood her at once, who could assure her ofhis own agreement with that view when duly tempered with wiseconformity, and could mention historical examples before unknown to her.

  "He thinks with me," said Dorothea to herself, "or rather, he thinks awhole world of which my thought is but a poor twopenny mirror. And hisfeelings too, his whole experience--what a lake compared with my littlepool!"

  Miss Brooke argued from words and dispositions not less unhesitatinglythan other young ladies of her age. Signs are small measurable things,but interpretations are illimitable, and in girls of sweet, ardentnature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, hope, belief, vast as asky, and colored by a diffused thimbleful of matter in the shape ofknowledge. They are not always too grossly deceived; for Sinbadhimself may have fallen by good-luck on a true description, and wrongreasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions: starting along way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, wenow and then arrive just where we ought to be. Because Miss Brooke washasty in her trust, it is not therefore clear that Mr. Casaubon wasunworthy of it.

  He stayed a little longer than he had intended, on a slight pressure ofinvitation from Mr. Brooke, who offered no bait except his owndocuments on machine-breaking and rick-burning. Mr. Casaubon was calledinto the library to look at these in a heap, while his host picked upfirst one and then the other to read aloud from in a skipping anduncertain way, passing from one unfinished passage to another with a"Yes, now, but here!" and finally pushing them all aside to open thejournal of his youthful Continental travels.

  "Look here--here is all about Greece. Rhamnus, the ruins ofRhamnus--you are a great Grecian, now. I don't know whether you havegiven much study to the topography. I spent no end of time in makingout these things--Helicon, now. Here, now!--'We started the nextmorning for Parnassus, the double-peaked Parnassus.' All this volume isabout Greece, you know," Mr. Brooke wound up, rubbing his thumbtransversely along the edges of the leaves as he held the book forward.

  Mr. Casaubon made a dignified though somewhat sad audience; bowed inthe right place, and avoided looking at anything documentary as far aspossible, without showing disregard or impatience; mindful that thisdesultoriness was associated with the institutions of the country, andthat the man who took him on this severe mental scamper was not only anamiable host, but a landholder and custos rotulorum. Was his enduranceaided also by the reflection that Mr. Brooke was the uncle of Dorothea?

  Certainly he seemed more and more bent on making her talk to him, ondrawing her out, as Celia remarked to herself; and in looking at herhis face was often lit up by a smile like pale wintry sunshine. Beforehe left the next morning, while taking a pleasant walk with Miss Brookealong the gravelled terrace, he had mentioned to her that he felt thedisadvantage of loneliness, the need of that cheerful companionshipwith which the presence of youth can lighten or vary the serious toilsof maturity. And he delivered this statement with as much carefulprecision as if he had been a diplomatic envoy whose words would beattended with results. Indeed, Mr. Casaubon was not used to expectthat he should have to repeat or revise his communications of apractical or personal kind. The inclinations which he had deliberatelystated on the 2d of October he would think it enough to refer to by themention of that date; judging by the standard of his own memory, whichwas a volume where a vide supra could serve instead of repetitions, andnot the ordinary long-used blotting-book which only tells of forgottenwriting. But in this case Mr. Casaubon's confidence was not likely tobe falsified, for Dorothea heard and retained what he said with theeager interest of a fresh young nature to which every variety inexperience is an epoch.

  It was three o'clock in the beautiful breezy autumn day when Mr.Casaubon drove off to his Rectory at Lowick, only five miles fromTipton; and Dorothea, who had on her bonnet and shawl, hurried alongthe shrubbery and across the park that she might wander through thebordering wood with no other visible companionship than that of Monk,the Great St. Bernard dog, who always took care of the young ladies intheir walks. There had risen before her the girl's vision of apossible future for herself to which she looked forward with tremblinghope, and she wanted to wander on in that visionary future withoutinterruption. She walked briskly in the brisk air, the color rose inher cheeks, and her straw bonnet (which our contemporaries might lookat with conjectural curiosity as at an obsolete form of basket) fell alittle backward. She would perhaps be hardly characterized enough ifit were omitted that she wore her brown hair flatly braided and coiledbehind so as to expose the outline of her head in a daring manner at atime when public feeling required the meagreness of nature to bedissimulated by tall barricades of frizzed curls and bows, neversurpassed by any great race except the Feejeean. This was a trait ofMiss Brooke's asceticism. But there was nothing of an ascetic'sexpression in her bright full eyes, as she looked before her, notconsciously seeing, but absorbing into the intensity of her mood, thesolemn glory of the afternoon with its long swathes of light betw
eenthe far-off rows of limes, whose shadows touched each other.

  All people, young or old (that is, all people in those ante-reformtimes), would have thought her an interesting object if they hadreferred the glow in her eyes and cheeks to the newly awakened ordinaryimages of young love: the illusions of Chloe about Strephon have beensufficiently consecrated in poetry, as the pathetic loveliness of allspontaneous trust ought to be. Miss Pippin adoring young Pumpkin, anddreaming along endless vistas of unwearying companionship, was a littledrama which never tired our fathers and mothers, and had been put intoall costumes. Let but Pumpkin have a figure which would sustain thedisadvantages of the shortwaisted swallow-tail, and everybody felt itnot only natural but necessary to the perfection of womanhood, that asweet girl should be at once convinced of his virtue, his exceptionalability, and above all, his perfect sincerity. But perhaps no personsthen living--certainly none in the neighborhood of Tipton--would havehad a sympathetic understanding for the dreams of a girl whose notionsabout marriage took their color entirely from an exalted enthusiasmabout the ends of life, an enthusiasm which was lit chiefly by its ownfire, and included neither the niceties of the trousseau, the patternof plate, nor even the honors and sweet joys of the blooming matron.

  It had now entered Dorothea's mind that Mr. Casaubon might wish to makeher his wife, and the idea that he would do so touched her with a sortof reverential gratitude. How good of him--nay, it would be almost asif a winged messenger had suddenly stood beside her path and held outhis hand towards her! For a long while she had been oppressed by theindefiniteness which hung in her mind, like a thick summer haze, overall 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 yetwith an active conscience and a great mental need, not to be satisfiedby a girlish instruction comparable to the nibblings and judgments of adiscursive mouse. With some endowment of stupidity and conceit, shemight have thought that a Christian young lady of fortune should findher ideal of life in village charities, patronage of the humblerclergy, the perusal of "Female Scripture Characters," unfolding theprivate experience of Sara under the Old Dispensation, and Dorcas underthe New, and the care of her soul over her embroidery in her ownboudoir--with a background of prospective marriage to a man who, ifless strict than herself, as being involved in affairs religiouslyinexplicable, might be prayed for and seasonably exhorted. From suchcontentment poor Dorothea was shut out. The intensity of her religiousdisposition, the coercion it exercised over her life, was but oneaspect of a nature altogether ardent, theoretic, and intellectuallyconsequent: and with such a nature struggling in the bands of a narrowteaching, hemmed in by a social life which seemed nothing but alabyrinth of petty courses, a walled-in maze of small paths that led nowhither, the outcome was sure to strike others as at once exaggerationand inconsistency. The thing which seemed to her best, she wanted tojustify by the completest knowledge; and not to live in a pretendedadmission of rules which were never acted on. Into this soul-hunger asyet all her youthful passion was poured; the union which attracted herwas one that would deliver her from her girlish subjection to her ownignorance, and give her the freedom of voluntary submission to a guidewho would take her along the grandest path.

  "I should learn everything then," she said to herself, still walkingquickly along the bridle road through the wood. "It would be my dutyto study that I might help him the better in his great works. Therewould be nothing trivial about our lives. Every-day things with uswould mean the greatest things. It would be like marrying Pascal. Ishould learn to see the truth by the same light as great men have seenit by. And then I should know what to do, when I got older: I shouldsee how it was possible to lead a grand life here--now--in England. Idon't feel sure about doing good in any way now: everything seems likegoing on a mission to a people whose language I don't know;--unless itwere building good cottages--there can be no doubt about that. Oh, Ihope I should be able to get the people well housed in Lowick! I willdraw plenty of plans while I have time."

  Dorothea checked herself suddenly with self-rebuke for the presumptuousway in which she was reckoning on uncertain events, but she was sparedany inward effort to change the direction of her thoughts by theappearance of a cantering horseman round a turning of the road. Thewell-groomed chestnut horse and two beautiful setters could leave nodoubt 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 twosetters were barking in an excited manner.

  "How delightful to meet you, Miss Brooke," he said, raising his hat andshowing his sleekly waving blond hair. "It has hastened the pleasure Iwas looking forward to."

  Miss Brooke was annoyed at the interruption. This amiable baronet,really a suitable husband for Celia, exaggerated the necessity ofmaking himself agreeable to the elder sister. Even a prospectivebrother-in-law may be an oppression if he will always be presupposingtoo good an understanding with you, and agreeing with you even when youcontradict him. The thought that he had made the mistake of paying hisaddresses to herself could not take shape: all her mental activity wasused up in persuasions of another kind. But he was positivelyobtrusive at this moment, and his dimpled hands were quitedisagreeable. Her roused temper made her color deeply, as she returnedhis greeting with some haughtiness.

  Sir James interpreted the heightened color in the way most gratifyingto himself, and thought he never saw Miss Brooke looking so handsome.

  "I have brought a little petitioner," he said, "or rather, I havebrought him to see if he will be approved before his petition isoffered." He showed the white object under his arm, which was a tinyMaltese puppy, one of nature's most naive toys.

  "It is painful to me to see these creatures that are bred merely aspets," said Dorothea, whose opinion was forming itself that very moment(as opinions will) under the heat of irritation.

  "Oh, why?" said Sir James, as they walked forward.

  "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 mousethat gets its own living is more interesting. I like to think that theanimals about us have souls something like our own, and either carry ontheir own little affairs or can be companions to us, like Monk here.Those creatures are parasitic."

  "I am so glad I know that you do not like them," said good Sir James."I should never keep them for myself, but ladies usually are fond ofthese Maltese dogs. Here, John, take this dog, will you?"

  The objectionable puppy, whose nose and eyes were equally black andexpressive, was thus got rid of, since Miss Brooke decided that it hadbetter not have been born. But she felt it necessary to explain.

  "You must not judge of Celia's feeling from mine. I think she likesthese small pets. She had a tiny terrier once, which she was very fondof. It made me unhappy, because I was afraid of treading on it. I amrather short-sighted."

  "You have your own opinion about everything, Miss Brooke, and it isalways a good opinion."

  What answer was possible to such stupid complimenting?

  "Do you know, I envy you that," Sir James said, as they continuedwalking at the rather brisk pace set by Dorothea.

  "I don't quite understand what you mean."

  "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, Ihave often a difficulty in deciding. One hears very sensible thingssaid on opposite sides."

  "Or that seem sensible. Perhaps we don't always discriminate betweensense and nonsense."

  Dorothea felt that she was rather rude.

  "Exactly," said Sir James. "But you seem to have the power ofdiscrimination."

  "On the contrary, I am often unable to decide. But that is fromignorance. The right conclusion is there all the same, though I amunable to see it."

  "I think there are few who would see it more readily. Do you know,Lovego
od was telling me yesterday that you had the best notion in theworld of a plan for cottages--quite wonderful for a young lady, hethought. You had a real _genus_, to use his expression. He said youwanted Mr. Brooke to build a new set of cottages, but he seemed tothink 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. Ishould be so glad to carry out that plan of yours, if you would let mesee it. Of course, it is sinking money; that is why people object toit. Laborers can never pay rent to make it answer. But, after all, itis worth doing."

  "Worth doing! yes, indeed," said Dorothea, energetically, forgettingher previous small vexations. "I think we deserve to be beaten out ofour beautiful houses with a scourge of small cords--all of us who lettenants live in such sties as we see round us. Life in cottages mightbe happier than ours, if they were real houses fit for human beingsfrom whom we expect duties and affections."

  "Will you show me your plan?"

  "Yes, certainly. I dare say it is very faulty. But I have beenexamining all the plans for cottages in Loudon's book, and picked outwhat seem the best things. Oh what a happiness it would be to set thepattern about here! I think instead of Lazarus at the gate, we shouldput the pigsty cottages outside the park-gate."

  Dorothea was in the best temper now. Sir James, as brother in-law,building model cottages on his estate, and then, perhaps, others beingbuilt at Lowick, and more and more elsewhere in imitation--it would beas if the spirit of Oberlin had passed over the parishes to make thelife of poverty beautiful!

  Sir James saw all the plans, and took one away to consult upon withLovegood. He also took away a complacent sense that he was makinggreat progress in Miss Brooke's good opinion. The Maltese puppy wasnot offered to Celia; an omission which Dorothea afterwards thought ofwith surprise; but she blamed herself for it. She had been engrossingSir James. After all, it was a relief that there was no puppy to treadupon.

  Celia was present while the plans were being examined, and observed SirJames's illusion. "He thinks that Dodo cares about him, and she onlycares about her plans. Yet I am not certain that she would refuse himif she thought he would let her manage everything and carry out all hernotions. And how very uncomfortable Sir James would be! I cannot bearnotions."

  It was Celia's private luxury to indulge in this dislike. She darednot confess it to her sister in any direct statement, for that would belaying herself open to a demonstration that she was somehow or other atwar with all goodness. But on safe opportunities, she had an indirectmode of making her negative wisdom tell upon Dorothea, and calling herdown from her rhapsodic mood by reminding her that people were staring,not listening. Celia was not impulsive: what she had to say couldwait, and came from her always with the same quiet staccato evenness.When people talked with energy and emphasis she watched their faces andfeatures merely. She never could understand how well-bred personsconsented to sing and open their mouths in the ridiculous mannerrequisite for that vocal exercise.

  It was not many days before Mr. Casaubon paid a morning visit, on whichhe was invited again for the following week to dine and stay the night.Thus Dorothea had three more conversations with him, and was convincedthat her first impressions had been just. He was all she had at firstimagined him to be: almost everything he had said seemed like aspecimen from a mine, or the inscription on the door of a museum whichmight open on the treasures of past ages; and this trust in his mentalwealth was all the deeper and more effective on her inclination becauseit was now obvious that his visits were made for her sake. Thisaccomplished man condescended to think of a young girl, and take thepains to talk to her, not with absurd compliment, but with an appeal toher understanding, and sometimes with instructive correction. Whatdelightful companionship! Mr. Casaubon seemed even unconscious thattrivialities existed, and never handed round that small-talk of heavymen which is as acceptable as stale bride-cake brought forth with anodor of cupboard. He talked of what he was interested in, or else hewas silent and bowed with sad civility. To Dorothea this was adorablegenuineness, and religious abstinence from that artificiality whichuses up the soul in the efforts of pretence. For she looked asreverently at Mr. Casaubon's religious elevation above herself as shedid at his intellect and learning. He assented to her expressions ofdevout feeling, and usually with an appropriate quotation; he allowedhimself to say that he had gone through some spiritual conflicts in hisyouth; in short, Dorothea saw that here she might reckon onunderstanding, sympathy, and guidance. On one--only one--of herfavorite themes she was disappointed. Mr. Casaubon apparently did notcare about building cottages, and diverted the talk to the extremelynarrow accommodation which was to be had in the dwellings of theancient Egyptians, as if to check a too high standard. After he wasgone, Dorothea dwelt with some agitation on this indifference of his;and her mind was much exercised with arguments drawn from the varyingconditions of climate which modify human needs, and from the admittedwickedness of pagan despots. Should she not urge these arguments onMr. Casaubon when he came again? But further reflection told her thatshe was presumptuous in demanding his attention to such a subject; hewould not disapprove of her occupying herself with it in leisuremoments, as other women expected to occupy themselves with their dressand embroidery--would not forbid it when--Dorothea felt rather ashamedas she detected herself in these speculations. But her uncle had beeninvited to go to Lowick to stay a couple of days: was it reasonable tosuppose that Mr. Casaubon delighted in Mr. Brooke's society for its ownsake, either with or without documents?

  Meanwhile that little disappointment made her delight the more in SirJames Chettam's readiness to set on foot the desired improvements. Hecame much oftener than Mr. Casaubon, and Dorothea ceased to find himdisagreeable since he showed himself so entirely in earnest; for he hadalready entered with much practical ability into Lovegood's estimates,and was charmingly docile. She proposed to build a couple of cottages,and transfer two families from their old cabins, which could then bepulled down, so that new ones could be built on the old sites. SirJames said "Exactly," and she bore the word remarkably well.

  Certainly these men who had so few spontaneous ideas might be veryuseful members of society under good feminine direction, if they werefortunate in choosing their sisters-in-law! It is difficult to saywhether there was or was not a little wilfulness in her continuingblind to the possibility that another sort of choice was in question inrelation to her. But her life was just now full of hope and action:she was not only thinking of her plans, but getting down learned booksfrom the library and reading many things hastily (that she might be alittle less ignorant in talking to Mr. Casaubon), all the while beingvisited with conscientious questionings whether she were not exaltingthese poor doings above measure and contemplating them with thatself-satisfaction which was the last doom of ignorance and folly.