Middlemarch
not fair that I should be so ignorant of yours. But perhaps you would
be a little ashamed of me. I forgot that.”
Lydgate smiled at her tenderly, and really accepted the suggestion that
the proud pleasure of showing so charming a bride was worth some
trouble. And now he came to think of it, he would like to see the old
spots with Rosamond.
“I will write to him, then. But my cousins are bores.”
It seemed magnificent to Rosamond to be able to speak so slightingly of
a baronet’s family, and she felt much contentment in the prospect of
being able to estimate them contemptuously on her own account.
But mamma was near spoiling all, a day or two later, by saying—
“I hope your uncle Sir Godwin will not look down on Rosy, Mr. Lydgate.
I should think he would do something handsome. A thousand or two can be
nothing to a baronet.”
“Mamma!” said Rosamond, blushing deeply; and Lydgate pitied her so much
that he remained silent and went to the other end of the room to
examine a print curiously, as if he had been absent-minded. Mamma had a
little filial lecture afterwards, and was docile as usual. But Rosamond
reflected that if any of those high-bred cousins who were bores, should
be induced to visit Middlemarch, they would see many things in her own
family which might shock them. Hence it seemed desirable that Lydgate
should by-and-by get some first-rate position elsewhere than in
Middlemarch; and this could hardly be difficult in the case of a man
who had a titled uncle and could make discoveries. Lydgate, you
perceive, had talked fervidly to Rosamond of his hopes as to the
highest uses of his life, and had found it delightful to be listened to
by a creature who would bring him the sweet furtherance of satisfying
affection—beauty—repose—such help as our thoughts get from the summer
sky and the flower-fringed meadows.
Lydgate relied much on the psychological difference between what for
the sake of variety I will call goose and gander: especially on the
innate submissiveness of the goose as beautifully corresponding to the
strength of the gander.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Thrice happy she that is so well assured
Unto herself and settled so in heart
That neither will for better be allured
Ne fears to worse with any chance to start,
But like a steddy ship doth strongly part
The 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 spight
Of grudging foes; ne favour seek of friends;
But in the stay of her own stedfast might
Neither to one herself nor other bends.
Most happy she that most assured doth rest,
But he most happy who such one loves best.
—SPENSER.
The doubt hinted by Mr. Vincy whether it were only the general election
or the end of the world that was coming on, now that George the Fourth
was dead, Parliament dissolved, Wellington and Peel generally
depreciated and the new King apologetic, was a feeble type of the
uncertainties in provincial opinion at that time. With the glow-worm
lights of country places, how could men see which were their own
thoughts in the confusion of a Tory Ministry passing Liberal measures,
of Tory nobles and electors being anxious to return Liberals rather
than friends of the recreant Ministers, and of outcries for remedies
which seemed to have a mysteriously remote bearing on private interest,
and were made suspicious by the advocacy of disagreeable neighbors?
Buyers of the Middlemarch newspapers found themselves in an anomalous
position: during the agitation on the Catholic Question many had given
up the “Pioneer”—which had a motto from Charles James Fox and was in
the van of progress—because it had taken Peel’s side about the Papists,
and had thus blotted its Liberalism with a toleration of Jesuitry and
Baal; but they were ill-satisfied with the “Trumpet,” which—since its
blasts against Rome, and in the general flaccidity of the public mind
(nobody knowing who would support whom)—had become feeble in its
blowing.
It was a time, according to a noticeable article in the “Pioneer,” when
the crying needs of the country might well counteract a reluctance to
public action on the part of men whose minds had from long experience
acquired breadth as well as concentration, decision of judgment as well
as tolerance, dispassionateness as well as energy—in fact, all those
qualities which in the melancholy experience of mankind have been the
least disposed to share lodgings.
Mr. Hackbutt, whose fluent speech was at that time floating more widely
than usual, and leaving much uncertainty as to its ultimate channel,
was heard to say in Mr. Hawley’s office that the article in question
“emanated” from Brooke of Tipton, and that Brooke had secretly bought
the “Pioneer” some months ago.
“That means mischief, eh?” said Mr. Hawley. “He’s got the freak of
being a popular man now, after dangling about like a stray tortoise. So
much the worse for him. I’ve had my eye on him for some time. He shall
be prettily pumped upon. He’s a damned bad landlord. What business has
an old county man to come currying favor with a low set of dark-blue
freemen? As to his paper, I only hope he may do the writing himself. It
would be worth our paying for.”
“I understand he has got a very brilliant young fellow to edit it, who
can write the highest style of leading article, quite equal to anything
in the London papers. And he means to take very high ground on Reform.”
“Let Brooke reform his rent-roll. He’s a cursed old screw, and the
buildings all over his estate are going to rack. I suppose this young
fellow is some loose fish from London.”
“His name is Ladislaw. He is said to be of foreign extraction.”
“I know the sort,” said Mr. Hawley; “some emissary. He’ll begin with
flourishing about the Rights of Man and end with murdering a wench.
That’s the style.”
“You must concede that there are abuses, Hawley,” said Mr. Hackbutt,
foreseeing some political disagreement with his family lawyer. “I
myself should never favor immoderate views—in fact I take my stand with
Huskisson—but I cannot blind myself to the consideration that the
non-representation of large towns—”
“Large towns be damned!” said Mr. Hawley, impatient of exposition. “I
know a little too much about Middlemarch elections. Let ’em quash every
pocket borough to-morrow, and bring in every mushroom town in the
kingdom—they’ll only increase the expense of getting into Parliament. I
go upon facts.”
Mr. Hawley’s disgust at the notion of the “Pioneer” being edited by an
emissary, and of Brooke becoming actively political—as if a tortoise of
desultory pursuits should protrude its small head ambitiously and
become rampant—was hardly equal to the annoyance felt by some members
of Mr. Brooke’s own family. The result had oozed forth gradually, like
the discovery that your neighbor has set up an unpleasant kind of
manufacture which will be permanently under your nostrils without legal
remedy. The “Pioneer” had been secretly bought even before Will
Ladislaw’s arrival, the expected opportunity having offered itself in
the readiness of the proprietor to part with a valuable property which
did not pay; and in the interval since Mr. Brooke had written his
invitation, those germinal ideas of making his mind tell upon the world
at large which had been present in him from his younger years, but had
hitherto lain in some obstruction, had been sprouting under cover.
The development was much furthered by a delight in his guest which
proved greater even than he had anticipated. For it seemed that Will
was not only at home in all those artistic and literary subjects which
Mr. Brooke had gone into at one time, but that he was strikingly ready
at seizing the points of the political situation, and dealing with them
in that large spirit which, aided by adequate memory, lends itself to
quotation and general effectiveness of treatment.
“He seems to me a kind of Shelley, you know,” Mr. Brooke took an
opportunity of saying, for the gratification of Mr. Casaubon. “I don’t
mean as to anything objectionable—laxities or atheism, or anything of
that kind, you know—Ladislaw’s sentiments in every way I am sure are
good—indeed, we were talking a great deal together last night. But he
has the same sort of enthusiasm for liberty, freedom, emancipation—a
fine thing under guidance—under guidance, you know. I think I shall be
able to put him on the right tack; and I am the more pleased because he
is a relation of yours, Casaubon.”
If the right tack implied anything more precise than the rest of Mr.
Brooke’s speech, Mr. Casaubon silently hoped that it referred to some
occupation at a great distance from Lowick. He had disliked Will while
he helped him, but he had begun to dislike him still more now that Will
had declined his help. That is the way with us when we have any uneasy
jealousy in our disposition: if our talents are chiefly of the
burrowing kind, our honey-sipping cousin (whom we have grave reasons
for objecting to) is likely to have a secret contempt for us, and any
one who admires him passes an oblique criticism on ourselves. Having
the scruples of rectitude in our souls, we are above the meanness of
injuring him—rather we meet all his claims on us by active benefits;
and the drawing of cheques for him, being a superiority which he must
recognize, gives our bitterness a milder infusion. Now Mr. Casaubon had
been deprived of that superiority (as anything more than a remembrance)
in a sudden, capricious manner. His antipathy to Will did not spring
from the common jealousy of a winter-worn husband: it was something
deeper, bred by his lifelong claims and discontents; but Dorothea, now
that she was present—Dorothea, as a young wife who herself had shown an
offensive capability of criticism, necessarily gave concentration to
the uneasiness which had before been vague.
Will Ladislaw on his side felt that his dislike was flourishing at the
expense of his gratitude, and spent much inward discourse in justifying
the dislike. Casaubon hated him—he knew that very well; on his first
entrance he could discern a bitterness in the mouth and a venom in the
glance which would almost justify declaring war in spite of past
benefits. He was much obliged to Casaubon in the past, but really the
act of marrying this wife was a set-off against the obligation. It was
a question whether gratitude which refers to what is done for one’s
self ought not to give way to indignation at what is done against
another. And Casaubon had done a wrong to Dorothea in marrying her. A
man was bound to know himself better than that, and if he chose to grow
gray crunching bones in a cavern, he had no business to be luring a
girl into his companionship. “It is the most horrible of
virgin-sacrifices,” said Will; and he painted to himself what were
Dorothea’s inward sorrows as if he had been writing a choric wail. But
he would never lose sight of her: he would watch over her—if he gave up
everything else in life he would watch over her, and she should know
that she had one slave in the world. Will had—to use Sir Thomas
Browne’s phrase—a “passionate prodigality” of statement both to himself
and others. The simple truth was that nothing then invited him so
strongly as the presence of Dorothea.
Invitations of the formal kind had been wanting, however, for Will had
never been asked to go to Lowick. Mr. Brooke, indeed, confident of
doing everything agreeable which Casaubon, poor fellow, was too much
absorbed to think of, had arranged to bring Ladislaw to Lowick several
times (not neglecting meanwhile to introduce him elsewhere on every
opportunity as “a young relative of Casaubon’s”). And though Will had
not seen Dorothea alone, their interviews had been enough to restore