Middlemarch
faith was possible when the whole effect of one’s actions could be
withered up into such parched rubbish as that? When she got out of the
carriage, her cheeks were pale and her eyelids red. She was an image of
sorrow, and her uncle who met her in the hall would have been alarmed,
if Celia had not been close to her looking so pretty and composed, that
he at once concluded Dorothea’s tears to have their origin in her
excessive religiousness. He had returned, during their absence, from a
journey to the county town, about a petition for the pardon of some
criminal.
“Well, my dears,” he said, kindly, as they went up to kiss him, “I hope
nothing disagreeable has happened while I have been away.”
“No, uncle,” said Celia, “we have been to Freshitt to look at the
cottages. We thought you would have been at home to lunch.”
“I came by Lowick to lunch—you didn’t know I came by Lowick. And I have
brought a couple of pamphlets for you, Dorothea—in the library, you
know; they lie on the table in the library.”
It seemed as if an electric stream went through Dorothea, thrilling her
from despair into expectation. They were pamphlets about the early
Church. The oppression of Celia, Tantripp, and Sir James was shaken
off, and she walked straight to the library. Celia went up-stairs. Mr.
Brooke was detained by a message, but when he re-entered the library,
he found Dorothea seated and already deep in one of the pamphlets which
had some marginal manuscript of Mr. Casaubon’s,—taking it in as eagerly
as she might have taken in the scent of a fresh bouquet after a dry,
hot, dreary walk.
She was getting away from Tipton and Freshitt, and her own sad
liability to tread in the wrong places on her way to the New Jerusalem.
Mr. Brooke sat down in his arm-chair, stretched his legs towards the
wood-fire, which had fallen into a wondrous mass of glowing dice
between the dogs, and rubbed his hands gently, looking very mildly
towards Dorothea, but with a neutral leisurely air, as if he had
nothing particular to say. Dorothea closed her pamphlet, as soon as she
was aware of her uncle’s presence, and rose as if to go. Usually she
would have been interested about her uncle’s merciful errand on behalf
of the criminal, but her late agitation had made her absent-minded.
“I came back by Lowick, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, not as if with any
intention to arrest her departure, but apparently from his usual
tendency to say what he had said before. This fundamental principle of
human speech was markedly exhibited in Mr. Brooke. “I lunched there and
saw Casaubon’s library, and that kind of thing. There’s a sharp air,
driving. Won’t you sit down, my dear? You look cold.”
Dorothea felt quite inclined to accept the invitation. Some times, when
her uncle’s easy way of taking things did not happen to be
exasperating, it was rather soothing. She threw off her mantle and
bonnet, and sat down opposite to him, enjoying the glow, but lifting up
her beautiful hands for a screen. They were not thin hands, or small
hands; but powerful, feminine, maternal hands. She seemed to be holding
them up in propitiation for her passionate desire to know and to think,
which in the unfriendly mediums of Tipton and Freshitt had issued in
crying and red eyelids.
She bethought herself now of the condemned criminal. “What news have
you brought about the sheep-stealer, uncle?”
“What, poor Bunch?—well, it seems we can’t get him off—he is to be
hanged.”
Dorothea’s brow took an expression of reprobation and pity.
“Hanged, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, with a quiet nod. “Poor Romilly!
he would have helped us. I knew Romilly. Casaubon didn’t know Romilly.
He is a little buried in books, you know, Casaubon is.”
“When a man has great studies and is writing a great work, he must of
course give up seeing much of the world. How can he go about making
acquaintances?”
“That’s true. But a man mopes, you know. I have always been a bachelor
too, but I have that sort of disposition that I never moped; it was my
way to go about everywhere and take in everything. I never moped: but I
can see that Casaubon does, you know. He wants a companion—a companion,
you know.”
“It would be a great honor to any one to be his companion,” said
Dorothea, energetically.
“You like him, eh?” said Mr. Brooke, without showing any surprise, or
other emotion. “Well, now, I’ve known Casaubon ten years, ever since he
came to Lowick. But I never got anything out of him—any ideas, you
know. However, he is a tiptop man and may be a bishop—that kind of
thing, you know, if Peel stays in. And he has a very high opinion of
you, my dear.”
Dorothea could not speak.
“The fact is, he has a very high opinion indeed of you. And he speaks
uncommonly well—does Casaubon. He has deferred to me, you not being of
age. In short, I have promised to speak to you, though I told him I
thought there was not much chance. I was bound to tell him that. I
said, my niece is very young, and that kind of thing. But I didn’t
think it necessary to go into everything. However, the long and the
short of it is, that he has asked my permission to make you an offer of
marriage—of marriage, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, with his explanatory
nod. “I thought it better to tell you, my dear.”
No one could have detected any anxiety in Mr. Brooke’s manner, but he
did really wish to know something of his niece’s mind, that, if there
were any need for advice, he might give it in time. What feeling he, as
a magistrate who had taken in so many ideas, could make room for, was
unmixedly kind. Since Dorothea did not speak immediately, he repeated,
“I thought it better to tell you, my dear.”
“Thank you, uncle,” said Dorothea, in a clear unwavering tone. “I am
very grateful to Mr. Casaubon. If he makes me an offer, I shall accept
him. I admire and honor him more than any man I ever saw.”
Mr. Brooke paused a little, and then said in a lingering low tone, “Ah?
… Well! He is a good match in some respects. But now, Chettam is a good
match. And our land lies together. I shall never interfere against your
wishes, my dear. People should have their own way in marriage, and that
sort of thing—up to a certain point, you know. I have always said that,
up to a certain point. I wish you to marry well; and I have good reason
to believe that Chettam wishes to marry you. I mention it, you know.”
“It is impossible that I should ever marry Sir James Chettam,” said
Dorothea. “If he thinks of marrying me, he has made a great mistake.”
“That is it, you see. One never knows. I should have thought Chettam
was just the sort of man a woman would like, now.”
“Pray do not mention him in that light again, uncle,” said Dorothea,
feeling some of her late irritation revive.
Mr. Brooke wondered, and felt that women were an inexhaustible subject
of study, since even he at his age was not in a perfect state of
scientific prediction about them. Here was a fellow like Chettam with
no chance at all.
“Well, but Casaubon, now. There is no hurry—I mean for you. It’s true,
every year will tell upon him. He is over five-and-forty, you know. I
should say a good seven-and-twenty years older than you. To be sure,—if
you like learning and standing, and that sort of thing, we can’t have
everything. And his income is good—he has a handsome property
independent of the Church—his income is good. Still he is not young,
and I must not conceal from you, my dear, that I think his health is
not over-strong. I know nothing else against him.”
“I should not wish to have a husband very near my own age,” said
Dorothea, with grave decision. “I should wish to have a husband who was
above me in judgment and in all knowledge.”
Mr. Brooke repeated his subdued, “Ah?—I thought you had more of your
own opinion than most girls. I thought you liked your own opinion—liked
it, you know.”
“I cannot imagine myself living without some opinions, but I should
wish to have good reasons for them, and a wise man could help me to see
which opinions had the best foundation, and would help me to live
according to them.”
“Very true. You couldn’t put the thing better—couldn’t put it better,
beforehand, you know. But there are oddities in things,” continued Mr.
Brooke, whose conscience was really roused to do the best he could for
his niece on this occasion. “Life isn’t cast in a mould—not cut out by
rule and line, and that sort of thing. I never married myself, and it
will be the better for you and yours. The fact is, I never loved any
one well enough to put myself into a noose for them. It _is_ a noose,
you know. Temper, now. There is temper. And a husband likes to be
master.”
“I know that I must expect trials, uncle. Marriage is a state of higher
duties. I never thought of it as mere personal ease,” said poor
Dorothea.
“Well, you are not fond of show, a great establishment, balls, dinners,
that kind of thing. I can see that Casaubon’s ways might suit you
better than Chettam’s. And you shall do as you like, my dear. I would
not hinder Casaubon; I said so at once; for there is no knowing how
anything may turn out. You have not the same tastes as every young
lady; and a clergyman and scholar—who may be a bishop—that kind of
thing—may suit you better than Chettam. Chettam is a good fellow, a
good sound-hearted fellow, you know; but he doesn’t go much into ideas.
I did, when I was his age. But Casaubon’s eyes, now. I think he has
hurt them a little with too much reading.”
“I should be all the happier, uncle, the more room there was for me to
help him,” said Dorothea, ardently.
“You have quite made up your mind, I see. Well, my dear, the fact is, I
have a letter for you in my pocket.” Mr. Brooke handed the letter to
Dorothea, but as she rose to go away, he added, “There is not too much
hurry, my dear. Think about it, you know.”
When Dorothea had left him, he reflected that he had certainly spoken
strongly: he had put the risks of marriage before her in a striking
manner. It was his duty to do so. But as to pretending to be wise for
young people,—no uncle, however much he had travelled in his youth,
absorbed the new ideas, and dined with celebrities now deceased, could
pretend to judge what sort of marriage would turn out well for a young
girl who preferred Casaubon to Chettam. In short, woman was a problem
which, since Mr. Brooke’s mind felt blank before it, could be hardly
less complicated than the revolutions of an irregular solid.
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
Aquinas’ 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 you
on 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 of
date in the fact that a consciousness of need in my own life had arisen
contemporaneously with the possibility of my becoming acquainted with
you. For in the first hour of meeting you, I had an impression of your
eminent and perhaps exclusive fitness to supply that need (connected, I
may say, with such activity of the affections as even the
preoccupations of a work too special to be abdicated could not
uninterruptedly dissimulate); and each succeeding opportunity for
observation has given the impression an added depth by convincing me