Middlemarch

CHAPTER 7

‘Piacer e popone

Vuol la sua stagione.’

—Italian Proverb.

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

‘Could I not be preparing myself now to be more useful?’ said Dorothea to him, one morning, early in the time of courtship; ‘could I not learn to read Latin and Greek aloud to you, as Milton’s daughters did to their father, without understanding what they read?’

‘I fear that would be wearisome to you,’ said Mr Casaubon, smiling; ‘and indeed, if I remember rightly, the young women you have mentioned regarded that exercise in unknown tongues as a ground for rebellion against the poet.’

‘Yes; but in the first place they were very naughty girls, else they would have been proud to minister to such a father; and in the second place they might have studied privately and taught themselves to understand what they read, and then it would have been interesting. I hope you don’t expect me to be naughty and stupid?’

‘I expect you to be all that an exquisite young lady can be in every possible relation of life. Certainly it might be a great advantage if you were able to copy the Greek character, and to that end it were well to begin with a little reading.’

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

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

Mr Brooke had no doubt on that point, and expressed himself with his usual strength upon it one day that he came into the library while the reading was going forward.

‘Well, but now, Casaubon, such deep studies, classics, mathematics, that kind of thing, are too taxing for a woman—too taxing, you know.

‘Dorothea is learning to read the characters simply,’ said Mr Casaubon, evading the question. ‘She had the very considerate thought of saving my eyes.’

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

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

‘Ah, there you are behind Celia, my dear. Celia, now, plays very prettily, and is always ready to play. However, since Casaubon does not like it, you are all right. But it’s a pity you should not have little recreations of that sort Casaubon; the bow always strung—that kind of thing, you know—will not do.’

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

‘No; but music of that sort I should enjoy,’ said Dorothea. ‘When we were coming home from Lausanne my uncle took us to hear the great organ at Freiberg, and it made me sob.’

‘That kind of thing is not healthy, my dear,’ said Mr Brooke. ‘Casaubon, she will be in your hands now; you must teach my niece to take things more quietly, eh, Dorothea?’

He ended with a smile, not wishing to hurt his niece, but really thinking that it was perhaps better for her to be early married to so sober a fellow as Casaubon, since she would not hear of Chettam.

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

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

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

CHAPTER 8

‘Oh, rescue her! I am her brother now,

And you her father. Every gentle maid

Should have a guardian in 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 his uneasiness was less than it would have been if he had thought his rival a brilliant and desirable match. He had no sense of being eclipsed by Mr Casaubon; he was only shocked that Dorothea was under a melancholy illusion, and his mortification lost some of its bitterness by being mingled with compassion.

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

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

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

‘It is only this conduct of Brooke’s. I really think somebody should speak to him.’

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

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

‘What is the matter with Casaubon? I see no harm in him—if the girl likes him.’

‘She is too young to know what she likes. Her guardian ought to interfere. He ought not to allow the thing to, be done in this headlong manner. I wonder a man like you, Cadwallader—a man with daughters, can look at the affair with indifference; and with such a heart as yours! Do think seriously about it.’

‘I am not joking; I am as serious as possible,’ said the rector, with a provoking little inward laugh. ‘You are as bad as Elinor. She has been wanting me to go and lecture Brooke; and I have reminded her that her friends had a very poor opinion of the match she made when she married me.’

‘But look at Casaubon,’ said Sir James, indignantly. ‘He must be fifty, and I don’t believe he could ever have been much more than the shadow of a man. Look at his legs!’

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

‘You! it was easy enough for a woman to love you. But this is no question of beauty. I don’t like Casaubon.’ This was Sir James’s strongest way of implying that he thought ill of a man’s character.

‘Why? what do you know against him?’ said the rector, laying down his reels, and putting his thumbs into his armholes with an air of attention.

Sir James paused. He did not usually find it easy to give his reasons; it seemed to him strange that people should not know them without being told, since he only felt what was reasonable. At last he said—

‘Now, Cadwallader, has he got any heart?’

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

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

‘Well, but what should you do?’

‘I should say that the marriage must not be decided on until she was of age. And depend upon it, in that case, it would never come off. I wish you saw it as I do—I wish you would talk to Brooke about it.’

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

‘I hear what you are talking about,’ said the wife. ‘But you will make no impression on Humphrey. As long as the fish rise to his bait, everybody is what he ought to be. Bless you, Casaubon has got a trout stream, and does not care about fishing in it himself; could there be a better fellow?’

‘Well, there is something in that,’ said the rector, with his quiet, inward laugh. ‘It is a very good quality in a man to have a trout stream.’

‘But seriously,’ said Sir James, whose vexation had not yet spent itself, ‘don’t you thing the rector might do some good by speaking?’

‘Oh, I told you beforehand what he would say,’ answered Mrs Cadwallader, lifting up her eyebrows. ‘I have done what I could; I wash my hands of the marriage.’

‘In the first place,’ said the rector, looking rather grave, ‘it would be nonsensical to expect that I could convince Brooke, and make him act accordingly. Brooke is a very good fellow, but pulpy; he will run into any mould, but he won’t keep shape.’

‘He might keep shape long enough to defer the marriage,’ said Sir James.

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

‘Humphrey! I have no patience with you. You know you would rather dine under the hedge than with Casaubon alone. You have nothing to say to each other.’

‘What has that to do with Miss Brooke’s marrying him? She does not do it for my amusement.’

‘He has got no good red blood in his body,’ said Sir James,

‘No, Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass, and it was all semicolons and parentheses,’ said Mrs Cadwallader.

‘Why does he not bring out his book, instead of marrying?’ said Sir James, with a disgust which he held warranted by the sound feeling of an English layman.

‘Oh, he dreams footnotes, and they run away with all his brains. They say, when he was a little boy, he made an abstract of “Hop o’ my Thumb,” and he has been making abstracts ever since. Ugh! And that is the man Humphrey goes on saying that a woman may be happy with.’

‘Well, he is what Miss Brooke likes,’ said the rector. ‘I don’t profess to understand every young lady’s taste.’

‘But if she were your own daughter?’ said Sir James.

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

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

CHAPTER 9

1st Gent. ‘An ancient land in ancient oracles

Is called ‘law-thirsty:’ all the struggle there

Was after order and a perfect rule.

Pray, where lie such lands now? …’

2nd Gent. ‘Why, where they lay of old—in human souls’