Middlemarch Page 6

  CHAPTER V.

  "Hard students are commonly troubled with gowts, catarrhs, rheums, cachexia, bradypepsia, bad eyes, stone, and collick, crudities, oppilations, vertigo, winds, consumptions, and all such diseases as come by over-much sitting: they are most part lean, dry, ill-colored . . . 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 youon a subject than which I have none more at heart. I am not, I trust,mistaken in the recognition of some deeper correspondence than that ofdate in the fact that a consciousness of need in my own life had arisencontemporaneously with the possibility of my becoming acquainted withyou. For in the first hour of meeting you, I had an impression of youreminent and perhaps exclusive fitness to supply that need (connected, Imay say, with such activity of the affections as even thepreoccupations of a work too special to be abdicated could notuninterruptedly dissimulate); and each succeeding opportunity forobservation has given the impression an added depth by convincing memore emphatically of that fitness which I had preconceived, and thusevoking more decisively those affections to which I have but nowreferred. Our conversations have, I think, made sufficiently clear toyou the tenor of my life and purposes: a tenor unsuited, I am aware, tothe commoner order of minds. But I have discerned in you an elevationof thought and a capability of devotedness, which I had hitherto notconceived to be compatible either with the early bloom of youth or withthose graces of sex that may be said at once to win and to conferdistinction when combined, as they notably are in you, with the mentalqualities above indicated. It was, I confess, beyond my hope to meetwith this rare combination of elements both solid and attractive,adapted to supply aid in graver labors and to cast a charm over vacanthours; and but for the event of my introduction to you (which, let meagain say, I trust not to be superficially coincident withforeshadowing needs, but providentially related thereto as stagestowards the completion of a life's plan), I should presumably have goneon to the last without any attempt to lighten my solitariness by amatrimonial union.

  Such, my dear Miss Brooke, is the accurate statement of my feelings;and I rely on your kind indulgence in venturing now to ask you how faryour own are of a nature to confirm my happy presentiment. To beaccepted by you as your husband and the earthly guardian of yourwelfare, I should regard as the highest of providential gifts. Inreturn I can at least offer you an affection hitherto unwasted, and thefaithful consecration of a life which, however short in the sequel, hasno backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will findrecords such as might justly cause you either bitterness or shame. Iawait the expression of your sentiments with an anxiety which it wouldbe the part of wisdom (were it possible) to divert by a more arduouslabor than usual. But in this order of experience I am still young,and in looking forward to an unfavorable possibility I cannot but feelthat resignation to solitude will be more difficult after the temporaryillumination of hope.

  In any case, I shall remain, Yours with sincere devotion, EDWARD CASAUBON.

  Dorothea trembled while she read this letter; then she fell on herknees, buried her face, and sobbed. She could not pray: under the rushof solemn emotion in which thoughts became vague and images floateduncertainly, she could but cast herself, with a childlike sense ofreclining, in the lap of a divine consciousness which sustained herown. She remained in that attitude till it was time to dress fordinner.

  How could it occur to her to examine the letter, to look at itcritically as a profession of love? Her whole soul was possessed bythe fact that a fuller life was opening before her: she was a neophyteabout to enter on a higher grade of initiation. She was going to haveroom for the energies which stirred uneasily under the dimness andpressure of her own ignorance and the petty peremptoriness of theworld's habits.

  Now she would be able to devote herself to large yet definite duties;now she would be allowed to live continually in the light of a mindthat she could reverence. This hope was not unmixed with the glow ofproud delight--the joyous maiden surprise that she was chosen by theman whom her admiration had chosen. All Dorothea's passion wastransfused through a mind struggling towards an ideal life; theradiance of her transfigured girlhood fell on the first object thatcame within its level. The impetus with which inclination becameresolution was heightened by those little events of the day which hadroused her discontent with the actual conditions of her life.

  After dinner, when Celia was playing an "air, with variations," a smallkind of tinkling which symbolized the aesthetic part of the youngladies' education, Dorothea went up to her room to answer Mr.Casaubon's letter. Why should she defer the answer? She wrote it overthree times, not because she wished to change the wording, but becauseher hand was unusually uncertain, and she could not bear that Mr.Casaubon should think her handwriting bad and illegible. She piquedherself on writing a hand in which each letter was distinguishablewithout any large range of conjecture, and she meant to make much useof this accomplishment, to save Mr. Casaubon's eyes. Three times shewrote.

  MY DEAR MR. CASAUBON,--I am very grateful to you for loving me, andthinking me worthy to be your wife. I can look forward to no betterhappiness than that which would be one with yours. If I said more, itwould only be the same thing written out at greater length, for Icannot now dwell on any other thought than that I may be through life

  Yours devotedly, DOROTHEA BROOKE.

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

  "Have you thought enough about this, my dear?" he said at last.

  "There was no need to think long, uncle. I know of nothing to make mevacillate. If I changed my mind, it must be because of somethingimportant and entirely new to me."

  "Ah!--then you have accepted him? Then Chettam has no chance? HasChettam offended you--offended you, you know? What is it you don'tlike in Chettam?"

  "There is nothing that I like in him," said Dorothea, ratherimpetuously.

  Mr. Brooke threw his head and shoulders backward as if some one hadthrown a light missile at him. Dorothea immediately felt someself-rebuke, and said--

  "I mean in the light of a husband. He is very kind, I think--reallyvery good about the cottages. A well-meaning man."

  "But you must have a scholar, and that sort of thing? Well, it lies alittle in our family. I had it myself--that love of knowledge, andgoing into everything--a little too much--it took me too far; thoughthat sort of thing doesn't often run in the female-line; or it runsunderground like the rivers in Greece, you know--it comes out in thesons. Clever sons, clever mothers. I went a good deal into that, atone time. However, my dear, I have always said that people should doas they like in these things, up to a certain point. I couldn't, asyour guardian, have consented to a bad match. But Casaubon standswell: his position is good. I am afraid Chettam will be hurt, though,and Mrs. Cadwallader will blame me."

  That evening, of course, Celia knew nothing of what had happened. Sheattributed Dorothea's abstracted manner, and the evidence of furthercrying since they had got home, to the temper she had been in about SirJames Chettam and the buildings, and was careful not to give furtheroffence: having once said what she wanted to say, Celia had nodisposition to recur to disagreeable subjects. It had been her naturewhen a child never to quarrel with any one--only to observe with wonderthat they quarrelled with her, and looked like turkey-cocks; whereuponshe was ready to play at cat's cradl
e with them whenever they recoveredthemselves. And as to Dorothea, it had always been her way to findsomething wrong in her sister's words, though Celia inwardly protestedthat she always said just how things were, and nothing else: she neverdid and never could put words together out of her own head. But thebest of Dodo was, that she did not keep angry for long together. Now,though they had hardly spoken to each other all the evening, yet whenCelia put by her work, intending to go to bed, a proceeding in whichshe was always much the earlier, Dorothea, who was seated on a lowstool, unable to occupy herself except in meditation, said, with themusical intonation which in moments of deep but quiet feeling made herspeech like a fine bit of recitative--

  "Celia, dear, come and kiss me," holding her arms open as she spoke.

  Celia knelt down to get the right level and gave her little butterflykiss, while Dorothea encircled her with gentle arms and pressed herlips gravely on each cheek in turn.

  "Don't sit up, Dodo, you are so pale to-night: go to bed soon," saidCelia, in a comfortable way, without any touch of pathos.

  "No, dear, I am very, very happy," said Dorothea, fervently.

  "So much the better," thought Celia. "But how strangely Dodo goes fromone extreme to the other."

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

  Mr. Brooke read the letter, and then, nodding toward Dorothea, said,"Casaubon, my dear: he will be here to dinner; he didn't wait to writemore--didn't wait, you know."

  It could not seem remarkable to Celia that a dinner guest should beannounced to her sister beforehand, but, her eyes following the samedirection as her uncle's, she was struck with the peculiar effect ofthe announcement on Dorothea. It seemed as if something like thereflection of a white sunlit wing had passed across her features,ending in one of her rare blushes. For the first time it entered intoCelia's mind that there might be something more between Mr. Casaubonand her sister than his delight in bookish talk and her delight inlistening. Hitherto she had classed the admiration for this "ugly" andlearned acquaintance with the admiration for Monsieur Liret atLausanne, also ugly and learned. Dorothea had never been tired oflistening to old Monsieur Liret when Celia's feet were as cold aspossible, and when it had really become dreadful to see the skin of hisbald head moving about. Why then should her enthusiasm not extend toMr. Casaubon simply in the same way as to Monsieur Liret? And itseemed probable that all learned men had a sort of schoolmaster's viewof young people.

  But now Celia was really startled at the suspicion which had dartedinto her mind. She was seldom taken by surprise in this way, hermarvellous quickness in observing a certain order of signs generallypreparing her to expect such outward events as she had an interest in.Not that she now imagined Mr. Casaubon to be already an accepted lover:she had only begun to feel disgust at the possibility that anything inDorothea's mind could tend towards such an issue. Here was somethingreally to vex her about Dodo: it was all very well not to accept SirJames Chettam, but the idea of marrying Mr. Casaubon! Celia felt asort of shame mingled with a sense of the ludicrous. But perhaps Dodo,if she were really bordering on such an extravagance, might be turnedaway from it: experience had often shown that her impressibility mightbe calculated on. The day was damp, and they were not going to walkout, so they both went up to their sitting-room; and there Celiaobserved that Dorothea, instead of settling down with her usualdiligent interest to some occupation, simply leaned her elbow on anopen book and looked out of the window at the great cedar silvered withthe damp. She herself had taken up the making of a toy for thecurate's children, and was not going to enter on any subject tooprecipitately.

  Dorothea was in fact thinking that it was desirable for Celia to knowof the momentous change in Mr. Casaubon's position since he had lastbeen in the house: it did not seem fair to leave her in ignorance ofwhat would necessarily affect her attitude towards him; but it wasimpossible not to shrink from telling her. Dorothea accused herself ofsome meanness in this timidity: it was always odious to her to have anysmall fears or contrivances about her actions, but at this moment shewas seeking the highest aid possible that she might not dread thecorrosiveness of Celia's pretty carnally minded prose. Her reverie wasbroken, and the difficulty of decision banished, by Celia's small andrather guttural voice speaking in its usual tone, of a remark aside ora "by the bye."

  "Is any one else coming to dine besides Mr. Casaubon?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "I hope there is some one else. Then I shall not hear him eat his soupso."

  "What is there remarkable about his soup-eating?"

  "Really, Dodo, can't you hear how he scrapes his spoon? And he alwaysblinks before he speaks. I don't know whether Locke blinked, but I'msure I am sorry for those who sat opposite to him if he did."

  "Celia," said Dorothea, with emphatic gravity, "pray don't make anymore observations of that kind."

  "Why not? They are quite true," returned Celia, who had her reasonsfor persevering, though she was beginning to be a little afraid.

  "Many things are true which only the commonest minds observe."

  "Then I think the commonest minds must be rather useful. I think it isa pity Mr. Casaubon's mother had not a commoner mind: she might havetaught him better." Celia was inwardly frightened, and ready to runaway, now she had hurled this light javelin.

  Dorothea's feelings had gathered to an avalanche, and there could be nofurther preparation.

  "It is right to tell you, Celia, that I am engaged to marry Mr.Casaubon."

  Perhaps Celia had never turned so pale before. The paper man she wasmaking would have had his leg injured, but for her habitual care ofwhatever she held in her hands. She laid the fragile figure down atonce, and sat perfectly still for a few moments. When she spoke therewas a tear gathering.

  "Oh, Dodo, I hope you will be happy." Her sisterly tenderness could notbut surmount other feelings at this moment, and her fears were thefears of affection.

  Dorothea was still hurt and agitated.

  "It is quite decided, then?" said Celia, in an awed under tone. "Anduncle knows?"

  "I have accepted Mr. Casaubon's offer. My uncle brought me the letterthat contained it; he knew about it beforehand."

  "I beg your pardon, if I have said anything to hurt you, Dodo," saidCelia, with a slight sob. She never could have thought that she shouldfeel as she did. There was something funereal in the whole affair, andMr. Casaubon seemed to be the officiating clergyman, about whom itwould be indecent to make remarks.

  "Never mind, Kitty, do not grieve. We should never admire the samepeople. I often offend in something of the same way; I am apt to speaktoo strongly of those who don't please me."

  In spite of this magnanimity Dorothea was still smarting: perhaps asmuch from Celia's subdued astonishment as from her small criticisms.Of course all the world round Tipton would be out of sympathy with thismarriage. Dorothea knew of no one who thought as she did about lifeand its best objects.

  Nevertheless before the evening was at an end she was very happy. Inan hour's tete-a-tete with Mr. Casaubon she talked to him with morefreedom than she had ever felt before, even pouring out her joy at thethought of devoting herself to him, and of learning how she might bestshare and further all his great ends. Mr. Casaubon was touched with anunknown delight (what man would not have been?) at this childlikeunrestrained ardor: he was not surprised (what lover would have been?)that he should be the object of it.

  "My dear young lady--Miss Brooke--Dorothea!" he said, pressing her handbetween his hands, "this is a happiness greater than I had everimagined to be in reserve for me. That I should ever meet with a mindand person so rich in the mingled graces which could render marriagedesirable, was far indeed from my conception. You have all--nay, morethan all--those qualities which I have ever regarded as thecharacteristic excellences of womanhood. The great charm of your sexis its capability of an ardent self-sacrificing affection, and hereinw
e see its fitness to round and complete the existence of our own.Hitherto I have known few pleasures save of the severer kind: mysatisfactions have been those of the solitary student. I have beenlittle disposed to gather flowers that would wither in my hand, but nowI shall pluck them with eagerness, to place them in your bosom."

  No speech could have been more thoroughly honest in its intention: thefrigid rhetoric at the end was as sincere as the bark of a dog, or thecawing of an amorous rook. Would it not be rash to conclude that therewas no passion behind those sonnets to Delia which strike us as thethin music of a mandolin?

  Dorothea's faith supplied all that Mr. Casaubon's words seemed to leaveunsaid: what believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? Thetext, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can putinto it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.

  "I am very ignorant--you will quite wonder at my ignorance," saidDorothea. "I have so many thoughts that may be quite mistaken; and nowI shall be able to tell them all to you, and ask you about them. But,"she added, with rapid imagination of Mr. Casaubon's probable feeling,"I will not trouble you too much; only when you are inclined to listento me. You must often be weary with the pursuit of subjects in yourown track. I shall gain enough if you will take me with you there."

  "How should I be able now to persevere in any path without yourcompanionship?" said Mr. Casaubon, kissing her candid brow, and feelingthat heaven had vouchsafed him a blessing in every way suited to hispeculiar wants. He was being unconsciously wrought upon by the charmsof a nature which was entirely without hidden calculations either forimmediate effects or for remoter ends. It was this which made Dorotheaso childlike, and, according to some judges, so stupid, with all herreputed cleverness; as, for example, in the present case of throwingherself, metaphorically speaking, at Mr. Casaubon's feet, and kissinghis unfashionable shoe-ties as if he were a Protestant Pope. She wasnot in the least teaching Mr. Casaubon to ask if he were good enoughfor her, but merely asking herself anxiously how she could be goodenough for Mr. Casaubon. Before he left the next day it had beendecided that the marriage should take place within six weeks. Why not?Mr. Casaubon's house was ready. It was not a parsonage, but aconsiderable mansion, with much land attached to it. The parsonage wasinhabited by the curate, who did all the duty except preaching themorning sermon.