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    Middlemarch
    Middlemarch
    Middlemarch
    Ebook1,125 pages22 hours

    Middlemarch

    By George Eliot

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    About this ebook

    A passionate young woman's search for a rewarding and meaningful life unfolds in Middlemarch, an English town taking its first steps toward modernization. From tradesmen to gentry, the provincial community's residents form a microcosm of political and social change during the 1830s. The shifting perspectives ― including those of idealistic Dorothea Brooke, ambitious Dr. Lydgate, prodigal Fred Vincy, and faithful Mary Garth ― provide a timeless array of observations on human nature, drawn with subtlety, depth, and humor.
    Virginia Woolf praised Middlemarch as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people," and the story's thematic concerns range from the status of women and the rise of the middle class to morality, religion, and marriage. Rich in narrative irony and suspense, George Eliot's masterpiece will captivate readers of all ages.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateFeb 1, 2016
    ISBN9780486810546
    Author

    George Eliot

    George Eliot was the pseudonym for Mary Anne Evans, one of the leading writers of the Victorian era, who published seven major novels and several translations during her career. She started her career as a sub-editor for the left-wing journal The Westminster Review, contributing politically charged essays and reviews before turning her attention to novels. Among Eliot’s best-known works are Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, in which she explores aspects of human psychology, focusing on the rural outsider and the politics of small-town life. Eliot died in 1880.

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    Reviews for Middlemarch

    4/5

    2,979 ratings132 reviews

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    • 4/5
      It's most interesting in the ways she differs from Austen. Much more political and philosophical and concerned with morals and the class system. I liked how it swept over many of the citizens of Middlemarch. It was about the whole town.
    • 5/5
      Trollope loved george eliot & g. lewes, that's enough for me.
    • 2/5
      Is it blasphemous to say this book disappointed me?

      Listen. It's a fine story. There's nothing inherently wrong with it. It's a lovely look at provincial life, full of the drama and romantic tension one expects from 19th century literature. But that's-- all it was to me. It was nothing special, nothing life hanging.

      I liked it, sure, but maybe I wasn't in the mood to appreciate it.

      I'm glad I read it, but I doubt I'll be picking it up again any time soon.
    • 4/5
      A very nicely written book that gives a rounded view of the town of Middlemarch by bringing together the points of view of a cast of different characters. The book went deep into the psychology of each character which was intriguing, and I really loved the characters of Dorothea and Mary. The book has a strong thoughtful streak, and George Eliot has a lot of insightful things to say about the world. It is also a very realistic book, no wild gothic drama.

      On the downside, it is a very long book, and I did lose interest in some parts, particularly in Bulstrode & Lydgate's chapters. And the ending was a little unsatisfying.

      What books would I compare this to? Well, it has a dash of Vanity Fair in its past perspective & ambition, a streak of Le Miserable in its ensemble cast, a dollop of Dickens with its ideology, and a hint of Austen in its wit.

      I wouldn't recommend this as light reading, but if you have the time to commit to it, it is really a quite special book.
    • 5/5
      A thoughtful yet entertaining read about the people and customs of an English town from the earlier part of the 19th century. The characters are very well drawn, their personalities are not superficial, and I was willingly dragged into the story, something I expect a very well-written book should do. This tale is never boring, but as the sentences often have deeper meanings one needs to take time to read this work slowly, unhurried, and without distraction. Quite good and worth the time and effort. Solid.
    • 3/5
      Tales of people, how other's expectations don't match the reality.
    • 5/5
      I have a customer, an old gentleman who has written many books himself, who insists that Middlemarch is the best novel ever written. I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, but it is superb, and worth reading if only for the character of Dorothea. And the way the weather, as in silent films, uncannily accompanies the underlying emotional turning points in the novel.
    • 4/5
      This was a pleasant light reading, which has not really captivated me. It is a social study with about a provincial town filled with being in love, marriages, deaths, money worries and happiness. Most actions were predictable and relatively typical of that time. You will quickly become familiar with all protagonists and almost can already guess what happens before it undergoes in the book.
    • 5/5
      Yet another of those books that escaped me far, far longer than it should have. It was a great joy to dive into this world, and while there were definitely a few characters (probably more than a few) that I wanted to reach out and shake some sense into, I enjoyed it thoroughly. The Modern Library edition I read had some odd typos (many d's were replaced with t's, for no discernible reason), so beware that version perhaps, but it's a classic for a reason, and one I'm sure I'll come back to.
    • 4/5
      With all of its 880 pages, I expected “more” in terms of a definitive plot, which I did not find. The characters are rich and the time period displayed beautifully by Eliot. Her descriptive powers are delicious as evidenced by description of Mr. Casaubon: "as genuine a character as any ruminant animal". (pg. 173) The pace of the book is slow and reminds somewhat of Austen and Wharton. I have 2-3 other Eliot’s in my anthology and as of right now I’m not anxious to begin them.
    • 4/5
      I've been meaning to read this book for a long time (& by that I mean decades) but somehow Eliot never drew me in. It took me a few months to finish once I started - the first half was slow going although somewhere around the middle it caught and I finished it up in a few nights reading.

      This very personal introduction is to encourage anyone who reads this review not to wait as long as I. Great literature is defined by creating a world you feel you are inhabiting, by creating characters as real as anyone you know and by making the reader care deeply about the fate of those characters. The truly great books also teach you truths about the human condition & help you reflect on your own life. On all four of those characteristics this books excels and shows Eliot is indeed one of the great writers.

      Now that I'm done I can say the biggest problem with her writing is its complexity- her sentences can often be more convoluted than Proust's and you have to sit there and puzzle out what exactly was her intentions. And unlike Proust there is no lyricism to make those twists & turns soar into something poetic. Hence the prose can be heavy at times. Surprisingly, unlike other 19th or even 18th century writers a lot of her language seems archaic - I was very glad to have chosen this edition which has great footnotes as well as an interesting introduction.

      Because of the heaviness of her prose I had to deduct one star, but that does not deduct from my strong recommendation for everyone to read this great classic.

    • 3/5
      Longish. Not sure what the fuzz is about? But still, at times intriguing.
    • 5/5
      a lot of cultural discussion that I didn’t understand. I was able to picture the scenes that were described so well. I liked it.
    • 5/5
      I tried and failed to read Middlemarch back in 2012. But, it is one of my brother's favorite novels and when it comes to literature, I trust his taste above all.

      I want to hug and snuggle with this book, to sleep with it under my pillow so some of George Eliot's genius might seep into my poor little brain while I sleep. Eliot might be the best illustrator of human nature and the many contradictory aspects of a person's self that I've ever read. Dorothea Brook is in the running for my favorite all time heroine. (Sorry Elizabeth Bennet, Margaret Hale and Hermione Granger.) I wanted to slap her and tell her to snap out of it at the beginning, but by the end I was desperate for her to find her happiness. There were storylines that didn't interest me too much, and besides Dorothea and Mary every single character irritated me, but by the end of the book I cared about everyone. Even Bulstrode. But not Rosamond. Never Rosamond.

      I listened to the audiobook narrated by Juliet Stevenson who is, hands down, the premier British literature audio book performer.

      It's a testament to how much I loved this book (thought this disjointed review doesn't do my admiration justice) that I will definitely read it again, all 900 pages or 34 hours of it.
    • 5/5
      This story of ordinary lives lived in provincial England is a study of characters. It is a story of marriage but also of not belonging. The main characters are the passionate, idealistic Dorothea, the idealist doctor Lyndgate, the self absorbed, intellectual Mr. Causabon and the narcissistic, self-centered Rosamonde. The last two are characters you can love to hate while sometimes the idealism of the other two can irritate as well. It also is a story of “be sure your sins will find you out” and “oh what a tangled web we weave when once we practice to deceive. Ms Eliot really brings out the destruction of gossip and rumors that is part of living in a small town. For a 900 plus pages novel, this story goes by in a flash. I’ve also read Silas Marner by the author and while it was also good, I especially enjoyed Middlemarch. There is a historical social commentary that also flows through the story and it is about reform; improving life for the middle and lower classes.
    • 5/5
      Re-read forever. I still think Deronda says more for us now.
    • 4/5
      I enjoy the novels of Jane Austen very much, but I prefer George Eliot, because whereas Austen's characters are all people of wealth and leisure, Eliot concerns herself with working people. Even the wealthy heroine in Middlemarch, Dorothea, who doesn't have to work, is dedicated to helping the poor. In addition, where Austen's characters can be somewhat one-dimensional, Eliot creates character who are complex.The story itself is complex, with more major characters than are usual in a novel of this time.

      I like this book, but my favorite by George Eliot is Adam Bede.
    • 1/5
      I had an interview once with someone for whom I have much respect and who I had heard was very well-read. Naturally, I worked the topic of conversation around to literature, and we had a lively discussion on the merits of several British authors. His favorite book is Middlemarch, which he said that he reads when he’s not in the mood for anything heavy. For whatever reason, I have an image of him very Mr. Bennet-like, enjoying folly and being amused by the profane. I had to confess to him that I had never read that particular book. I did not get the job.

      I resolved to read that book around New Years’. I picked up a soft bound copy of Middlemarch from my local library toward the end of February and was surprised at its girth. No light reading after all, it would seem. I read it on the train to and from an internship and then tried a few nights to just give it a few hours at a time. And alas, alack, I could not do it. After 200 pages, I gave up. I more than gave up–I borrowed the BBC adaptation from my local library. Sigh.

      So why could I not finish it? The characters were a little too flat. They all had a touch of the ridiculous in them, which I generally like. But the characters all seemed so very one-dimensional to me–so much so that I could never really become interested in any of their stories; I never needed to see what happens next with them. I just didn’t care.
    • 4/5
      Varied narratives describing the life of people in and around the fictional town of Middlemarch. Enjoyable victorian realism, if anything too broad in the story telling for me (lost track on occasion as I mostly read this over my lunch breaks and on public transport).
    • 3/5
      Decent writing, but drawn out
    • 5/5
      Everybody talks about Jane Austin and I'm a fan too, but why doesn't anybody ever sing the praises of George Elliot? Middlemarch is like Jane Austin on steroids, its not limited to a single societal set - its a whole world, as relevant today as it was when it was written -- it even has murder in it!
    • 5/5
      Immensely rewarding - but difficult to get into. Do persevere though - you won't regret it.
    • 5/5
      Sorry I waited so long to pick this up--an instant favourite. (Proper review forthcoming.)
    • 5/5
      Took me forever to finish but well worth it. Shows what destruction happens when a women invests all her identity in a man.
    • 5/5
      Why can't there be more than five stars for a book like this? And why can't I find the words to describe how beautiful Eliot's story is? One day after I finished it, I'm feeling the lingering effects of Eliot's wise insights into human behavior and relationships. Eliot has inspired me to be a better person.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book, from beginning to end. I can't remember right now when I read it, or why on earth I didn't write a review!
    • 4/5
      I am happy to report that I have finally made it through Middlemarch! At 784 densely-packed pages, there were times it was a bit of a slog, but, ultimately, the novel rewards the reader with finely-tuned observations about love, marriage, and human nature. Recommended for those willing to give it the time and patience it deserves.
    • 5/5
      So refreshing to read of characters motivated by their core beliefs, yet clearly modifying their actions based on new information or circumstances.
    • 5/5
      A classic literary epic masterpiece.
    • 5/5
      I like Dorothea and Lydate in that they feel compelled to do something interesting, something creative with their lives. Dorothea tried to serve her first husband’s research project and to build cottages for those who needed them. Lydgate wanted to change the field of medicine. I only wish they had succeeded. I like Dorothea even more, and Caleb Garth too in that they both give people chances where others wouldn’t: Dorothea believes in Lydgate; Caleb, Fred Vincy. And I like Eliot: she combines telling me about what a character is doing with telling me about what a character is thinking and feeling to the degree I like best.

    Book preview

    Middlemarch - George Eliot

    Middlemarch

    GEORGE ELIOT

    DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

    Mineola, New York

    DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

    GENERAL EDITOR: MARY CAROLYN WALDREP

    EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: ALISON DAURIO

    Bibliographical Note

    This Dover edition, first published in 2015, is an unabridged republication of a standard edition of the work.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Eliot, George, 1819–1880.

    Middlemarch / George Eliot.

    pages cm

    eISBN-13: 978-0-486-81054-6

    1. Triangles (Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. 2. City and town life—Fiction. 3. Social reformers—Fiction. 4. Married people—Fiction. 5. Young women—Fiction. 6. Scholars—Fiction. 7. England—Fiction. I. Title.

    PR4662.A1 2015b 823'.8—dc23

    2015027100

    Manufactured in the United States by RR Donnelley

    79933601 2015

    www.doverpublications.com

    Note

    George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann Evans (1819–1880), was one of the most celebrated novelists of the Victorian Era. Despite growing up in a conservative household in Warwickshire, England, she was a progressive thinker, eventually moving to London and becoming the editor of the Westminster Review—a prestigious journal which attracted predominantly philosophical radicals. During this time she met fellow writer and philosopher George Henry Lewes, who would become Evans’ close friend, and later her live-in lover. He encouraged her to begin writing fiction, and shortly thereafter she began her first collection of short stories. She took the pen name of George Eliot to ensure that her works would be taken seriously. Sadly, it was a popular stereotype of Evans’ time that women only wrote lighthearted romances. Her first published work was the collection of short stories, Scenes from Clerical Life, and her first novel, Adam Bede, was published in 1860. She went on to write seven novels over the course of her life, many of which were critically acclaimed.

    Middlemarch, which is widely considered her masterpiece, was originally published in eight installments between 1871 and 1872. It features a series of intersecting stories, and a large cast of characters who face challenges that we can still relate to today. Unhappy marriages, successes and failures, the roles of women and education in society, idealism and self-preservation, and hypocrisy are just a few of the themes Evans’ novel deals with. Often cited by critics as one of the best novels in Victorian literature, and touted by Virginia Woolf as a novel written for grown-up people, Middlemarch is an essential part of the English literary canon.

    Contents

    PRELUDE

    BOOK ONE

    Miss Brooke

    BOOK TWO

    Old and Young

    BOOK THREE

    Waiting for Death

    BOOK FOUR

    Three Love Problems

    BOOK FIVE

    The Dead Hand

    BOOK SIX

    The Widow and the Wife

    BOOK SEVEN

    Two Temptations

    BOOK EIGHT

    Sunset and Sunrise

    FINALE

    PRELUDE

    WHO THAT cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors? Out they toddled from rugged Avila, wide-eyed and helpless-looking as two fawns, but with human hearts, already beating to a national idea; until domestic reality met them in the shape of uncles, and turned them back from their great resolve. That child-pilgrimage was a fit beginning. Theresa’s passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self. She found her epos in the reform of a religious order.

    That Spanish woman who lived three hundred years ago was certainly not the last of her kind. Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and sank unwept into oblivion. With dim lights and tangled circumstance they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul. Their ardour alternated between a vague ideal and the common yearning of womanhood; so that the one was disapproved as extravagance, and the other condemned as a lapse.

    Some have felt that these blundering lives are due to the inconvenient indefiniteness with which the Supreme Power has fashioned the natures of women: if there were one level of feminine incompetence as strict as the ability to count three and no more, the social lot of women might be treated with scientific certitude. Meanwhile the indefiniteness remains, and the limits of variation are really much wider than any one would imagine from the sameness of women’s coiffure and the favourite love-stories in prose and verse. Here and there a cygnet is reared uneasily among the ducklings in the brown pond, and never finds the living stream in fellowship with its own oary-footed kind. Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of nothing, whose loving heart-beats and sobs after an unattained goodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances, instead of centering in some long-recognisable deed.

    BOOK ONE

    MISS BROOKE

    CHAPTER 1

    "Since I can do no good because a woman,

    Reach constantly at something that is near it."

    THE MAID’S TRAGEDY: Beaumont and Fletcher

    MISS BROOKE had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and her profile as well as her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain garments, which by the side of provincial fashion gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible,—or from one of our elder poets,—in a paragraph of to-day’s newspaper. She was usually spoken of as being remarkably clever, but with the addition that her sister Celia had more common-sense. Nevertheless, Celia wore scarcely more trimmings; and it was only to close observers that her dress differed from her sister’s, and had a shade of coquetry in its arrangements; for Miss Brooke’s plain dressing was due to mixed conditions, in most of which her sister shared. The pride of being ladies had something to do with it: the Brooke connections, though not exactly aristocratic, were unquestionably good: if you inquired backward for a generation or two, you would not find any yard-measuring or parcel-tying forefathers—anything lower than an admiral or a clergyman; and there was even an ancestor discernible as a Puritan gentleman who served under Cromwell, but afterwards conformed, and managed to come out of all political troubles as the proprietor of a respectable family estate. Young women of such birth, living in a quiet country-house, and attending a village church hardly larger than a parlour, naturally regarded frippery as the ambition of a huckster’s daughter. Then there was well-bred economy, which in those days made show in dress the first item to be deducted from, when any margin was required for expenses more distinctive of rank. Such reasons would have been enough to account for plain dress, quite apart from religious feeling; but in Miss Brooke’s case, religion alone would have determined it; and Celia mildly acquiesced in all her sister’s sentiments, only infusing them with that common-sense which is able to accept momentous doctrines without any eccentric agitation. Dorothea knew many passages of Pascal’s Pensées and of Jeremy Taylor by heart; and to her the destinies of mankind, seen by the light of Christianity, made the solicitudes of feminine fashion appear an occupation for Bedlam. She could not reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life involving eternal consequences, with a keen interest in guimp and artificial protrusions of drapery. Her mind was theoretic, and yearned by its nature after some lofty conception of the world which might frankly include the parish of Tipton and her own rule of conduct there; she was enamoured of intensity and greatness, and rash in embracing whatever seemed to her to have those aspects; likely to seek martyrdom, to make retractions, and then to incur martyrdom after all in a quarter where she had not sought it. Certainly such elements in the character of a marriageable girl tended to interfere with her lot, and hinder it from being decided according to custom, by good looks, vanity, and merely canine affection. With all this, she, the elder of the sisters, was not yet twenty, and they had both been educated, since they were about twelve years old and had lost their parents, on plans at once narrow and promiscuous, first in an English family and afterwards in a Swiss family at Lausanne, their bachelor uncle and guardian trying in this way to remedy the disadvantages of their orphaned condition.

    It was hardly a year since they had come to live at Tipton Grange with their uncle, a man nearly sixty, of acquiescent temper, miscellaneous opinions, and uncertain vote. He had travelled in his younger years, and was held in this part of the country to have contracted a too rambling habit of mind. Mr. Brooke’s conclusions were as difficult to predict as the weather: it was only safe to say that he would act with benevolent intentions, and that he would spend as little money as possible in carrying them out. For the most glutinously indefinite minds enclose some hard grains of habit; and a man has been seen lax about all his own interests except the retention of his snuff-box, concerning which he was watchful, suspicious, and greedy of clutch.

    In Mr. Brooke the hereditary strain of Puritan energy was clearly in abeyance; but in his niece Dorothea it glowed alike through faults and virtues, turning sometimes into impatience of her uncle’s talk or his way of letting things be on his estate, and making her long all the more for the time when she would be of age and have some command of money for generous schemes. She was regarded as an heiress, for not only had the sisters seven hundred a-year each from their parents, but if Dorothea married and had a son, that son would inherit Mr. Brooke’s estate, presumably worth about three thousand a-year—a rental which seemed wealth to provincial families, still discussing Mr. Peel’s late conduct on the Catholic Question, innocent of future gold-fields, and of that gorgeous plutocracy which has so nobly exalted the necessities of genteel life.

    And how should Dorothea not marry?—a girl so handsome and with such prospects? Nothing could hinder it but her love of extremes, and her insistence on regulating life according to notions which might cause a wary man to hesitate before he made her an offer, or even might lead her at last to refuse all offers. A young lady of some birth and fortune, who knelt suddenly down on a brick floor by the side of a sick labourer and prayed fervidly as if she thought herself living in the time of the Apostles—who had strange whims of fasting like a Papist, and of sitting up at night to read old theological books! Such a wife might awaken you some fine morning with a new scheme for the application of her income which would interfere with political economy and the keeping of saddle-horses: a man would naturally think twice before he risked himself in such fellowship. Women were expected to have weak opinions; but the great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not acted on. Sane people did what their neighbours did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.

    The rural opinion about the new young ladies, even among the cottagers, was generally in favour of Celia, as being so amiable and innocent-looking, while Miss Brooke’s large eyes seemed, like her religion, too unusual and striking. Poor Dorothea! compared with her, the innocent-looking Celia was knowing and worldly-wise; so much subtler is a human mind than the outside tissues which make a sort of blazonry or clock-face for it.

    Yet those who approached Dorothea, though prejudiced against her by this alarming hearsay, found that she had a charm unaccountably reconcilable with it. Most men thought her bewitching when she was on horseback. She loved the fresh air and the various aspects of the country, and when her eyes and cheeks glowed with mingled pleasure she looked very little like a devotee. Riding was an indulgence which she allowed herself in spite of conscientious qualms; she felt that she enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked forward to renouncing it.

    She was open, ardent, and not in the least self-admiring; indeed, it was pretty to see how her imagination adorned her sister Celia with attractions altogether superior to her own, and if any gentleman appeared to come to the Grange from some other motive than that of seeing Mr. Brooke, she concluded that he must be in love with Celia: Sir James Chettam, for example, whom she constantly considered from Celia’s point of view, inwardly debating whether it would be good for Celia to accept him. That he should be regarded as a suitor to herself would have seemed to her a ridiculous irrelevance. Dorothea, with all her eagerness to know the truths of life, retained very childlike ideas about marriage. She felt sure that she would have accepted the judicious Hooker, if she had been born in time to save him from that wretched mistake he made in matrimony; or John Milton when his blindness had come on; or any of the other great men whose odd habits it would have been glorious piety to endure; but an amiable handsome baronet, who said Exactly to her remarks even when she expressed uncertainty,—how could he affect her as a lover? The really delightful marriage must be that where your husband was a sort of father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you wished it.

    These peculiarities of Dorothea’s character caused Mr. Brooke to be all the more blamed in neighbouring families for not securing some middle-aged lady as guide and companion to his nieces. But he himself dreaded so much the sort of superior woman likely to be available for such a position, that he allowed himself to be dissuaded by Dorothea’s objections, and was in this case brave enough to defy the world—that is to say, Mrs. Cadwallader the Rector’s wife, and the small group of gentry with whom he visited in the north-east corner of Loamshire. So Miss Brooke presided in her uncle’s household, and did not at all dislike her new authority, with the homage that belonged to it.

    Sir James Chettam was going to dine at the Grange to-day with another gentleman whom the girls had never seen, and about whom Dorothea felt some venerating expectation. This was the Reverend Edward Casaubon, noted in the county as a man of profound learning, understood for many years to be engaged on a great work concerning religious history; also as a man of wealth enough to give lustre to his piety, and having views of his own which were to be more clearly ascertained on the publication of his book. His very name carried an impressiveness hardly to be measured without a precise chronology of scholarship.

    Early in the day Dorothea had returned from the infant school which she had set going in the village, and was taking her usual place in the pretty sitting-room which divided the bedrooms of the sisters, bent on finishing a plan for some buildings (a kind of work which she delighted in), when Celia, who had been watching her with a hesitating desire to propose something, said—

    Dorothea dear, if you don’t mind—if you are not very busy— suppose we looked at mamma’s jewels to-day, and divided them? It is exactly six months to-day since uncle gave them to you, and you have not looked at them yet.

    Celia’s face had the shadow of a pouting expression in it, the full presence of the pout being kept back by an habitual awe of Dorothea and principle; two associated facts which might show a mysterious electricity if you touched them incautiously. To her relief, Dorothea’s eyes were full of laughter as she looked up.

    What a wonderful little almanac you are, Celia! Is it six calendar or six lunar months?

    It is the last day of September now, and it was the first of April when uncle gave them to you. You know, he said that he had forgotten them till then. I believe you have never thought of them since you locked them up in the cabinet here.

    Well, dear, we should never wear them, you know. Dorothea spoke in a full cordial tone, half caressing, half explanatory. She had her pencil in her hand, and was making tiny side-plans on a margin.

    Celia coloured, and looked very grave. I think, dear, we are wanting in respect to mamma’s memory, to put them by and take no notice of them. And, she added, after hesitating a little, with a rising sob of mortification, necklaces are quite usual now; and Madame Poinçon, who was stricter in some things even than you are, used to wear ornaments. And Christians generally—surely there are women in heaven now who wore jewels. Celia was conscious of some mental strength when she really applied herself to argument.

    You would like to wear them? exclaimed Dorothea, an air of astonished discovery animating her whole person with a dramatic action which she had caught from that very Madame Poinçon who wore the ornaments. Of course, then, let us have them out. Why did you not tell me before? But the keys, the keys! She pressed her hands against the sides of her head and seemed to despair of her memory.

    They are here, said Celia, with whom this explanation had been long meditated and prearranged.

    Pray open the large drawer of the cabinet and get out the jewel-box.

    The casket was soon open before them, and the various jewels spread out, making a bright parterre on the table. It was no great collection, but a few of the ornaments were really of remarkable beauty, the finest that was obvious at first being a necklace of purple amethysts set in exquisite gold work, and a pearl cross with five brilliants in it. Dorothea immediately took up the necklace and fastened it round her sister’s neck, where it fitted almost as closely as a bracelet; but the circle suited the Henrietta-Maria style of Celia’s head and neck, and she could see that it did, in the pier-glass opposite.

    There, Celia! you can wear that with your Indian muslin. But this cross you must wear with your dark dresses.

    Celia was trying not to smile with pleasure. O Dodo, you must keep the cross yourself.

    No, no, dear, no, said Dorothea, putting up her hand with careless deprecation.

    Yes, indeed you must; it would suit you—in your black dress, now, said Celia, insistingly. "You might wear that."

    Not for the world, not for the world. A cross is the last thing I would wear as a trinket. Dorothea shuddered slightly.

    Then you will think it wicked in me to wear it, said Celia, uneasily.

    No, dear, no, said Dorothea, stroking her sister’s cheek. Souls have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another.

    But you might like to keep it for mamma’s sake.

    No, I have other things of mamma’s—her sandal-wood box, which I am so fond of—plenty of things. In fact, they are all yours, dear. We need discuss them no longer. There—take away your property.

    Celia felt a little hurt. There was a strong assumption of superiority in this Puritanic toleration, hardly less trying to the blond flesh of an unenthusiastic sister than a Puritanic persecution.

    But how can I wear ornaments if you, who are the elder sister, will never wear them?

    Nay, Celia, that is too much to ask, that I should wear trinkets to keep you in countenance. If I were to put on such a necklace as that, I should feel as if I had been pirouetting. The world would go round with me, and I should not know how to walk.

    Celia had unclasped the necklace and drawn it off. It would be a little tight for your neck; something to lie down and hang would suit you better, she said, with some satisfaction. The complete unfitness of the necklace from all points of view for Dorothea, made Celia happier in taking it. She was opening some ring-boxes, which disclosed a fine emerald with diamonds, and just then the sun passing beyond a cloud sent a bright gleam over the table.

    How very beautiful these gems are! said Dorothea, under a new current of feeling, as sudden as the gleam. It is strange how deeply colours seem to penetrate one, like scent. I suppose that is the reason why gems are used as spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St. John. They look like fragments of heaven. I think that emerald is more beautiful than any of them.

    And there is a bracelet to match it, said Celia. We did not notice this at first.

    They are lovely, said Dorothea, slipping the ring and bracelet on her finely-turned finger and wrist, and holding them towards the window on a level with her eyes. All the while her thought was trying to justify her delight in the colours by merging them in her mystic religious joy.

    "You would like those, Dorothea, said Celia, rather falteringly, beginning to think with wonder that her sister showed some weakness, and also that emeralds would suit her own complexion even better than purple amethysts. You must keep that ring and bracelet—if nothing else. But see, these agates are very pretty—and quiet."

    Yes! I will keep these—this ring and bracelet, said Dorothea. Then, letting her hand fall on the table, she said in another tone— Yet what miserable men find such things, and work at them, and sell them! She paused again, and Celia thought that her sister was going to renounce the ornaments, as in consistency she ought to do.

    Yes, dear, I will keep these, said Dorothea, decidedly. But take all the rest away, and the casket.

    She took up her pencil without removing the jewels, and still looking at them. She thought of often having them by her, to feed her eye at these little fountains of pure colour.

    Shall you wear them in company? said Celia, who was watching her with real curiosity as to what she would do.

    Dorothea glanced quickly at her sister. Across all her imaginative adornment of those whom she loved, there darted now and then a keen discernment, which was not without a scorching quality. If Miss Brooke ever attained perfect meekness, it would not be for lack of inward fire.

    Perhaps, she said, rather haughtily. I cannot tell to what level I may sink.

    Celia blushed, and was unhappy; she saw that she had offended her sister, and dared not say even anything pretty about the gift of the ornaments which she put back into the box and carried away. Dorothea too was unhappy, as she went on with her plan-drawing, questioning the purity of her own feeling and speech in the scene which had ended with that little explosion.

    Celia’s consciousness told her that she had not been at all in the wrong: it was quite natural and justifiable that she should have asked that question, and she repeated to herself that Dorothea was inconsistent: either she should have taken her full share of the jewels, or, after what she had said, she should have renounced them altogether.

    I am sure—at least, I trust, thought Celia, that the wearing of a necklace will not interfere with my prayers. And I do not see that I should be bound by Dorothea’s opinions now we are going into society, though of course she herself ought to be bound by them. But Dorothea is not always consistent.

    Thus Celia, mutely bending over her tapestry, until she heard her sister calling her.

    Here, Kitty, come and look at my plan; I shall think I am a great architect, if I have not got incompatible stairs and fireplaces.

    As Celia bent over the paper, Dorothea put her cheek against her sister’s arm caressingly. Celia understood the action. Dorothea saw that she had been in the wrong, and Celia pardoned her. Since they could remember, there had been a mixture of criticism and awe in the attitude of Celia’s mind towards her elder sister. The younger had always worn a yoke; but is there any yoked creature without its private opinions?

    CHAPTER 2

    ‘Dime; no ves aquel caballero que hácia nosotros viene sobre un caballo rucio rodado que trae puesto en la cabeza un yelmo de oro?’ ‘Lo que veo y columbro,’ respondiò Sancho, ‘no es sino un hombre sobre un asno pardo como el mio, que trae sobre la cabeza una cosa que relumbra.’ ‘Pues ese es el yelmo de Mambrino,’ dijo Don Quijote. Cervantes.

    ‘Seest thou not yon cavalier who cometh toward us on a dapple-grey steed, and weareth a golden helmet?’ ‘What I see,’ answered Sancho, ‘is nothing but a man on a grey ass like my own, who carries something shiny on his head.’ ‘Just so,’ answered Don Quixote: ‘and that resplendent object is the helmet of Mambrino.’

    SIR HUMPHRY Davy? said Mr. Brooke, over the soup, in his easy smiling way, taking up Sir James Chettam’s remark that he was studying Davy’s Agricultural Chemistry. Well, now, Sir Humphry Davy: I dined with him years ago at Cartwright’s, and Wordsworth was there too—the poet Wordsworth, you know. Now there was something singular. I was at Cambridge when Wordsworth was there, and I never met him—and I dined with him twenty years afterwards at Cartwright’s. There’s an oddity in things, now. But Davy was there: he was a poet too. Or, as I may say, Wordsworth was poet one, and Davy was poet two. That was true in every sense, you know.

    Dorothea felt a little more uneasy than usual. In the beginning of dinner, the party being small and the room still, these motes from the mass of a magistrate’s mind fell too noticeably. She wondered how a man like Mr. Casaubon would support such triviality. His manners, she thought, were very dignified; the set of his iron-grey hair and his deep eye-sockets made him resemble the portrait of Locke. He had the spare form and the pale complexion which became a student; as different as possible from the blooming Englishman of the red-whiskered type represented by Sir James Chettam.

    I am reading the Agricultural Chemistry, said this excellent baronet, because I am going to take one of the farms into my own hands, and see if something cannot be done in setting a good pattern of farming among my tenants. Do you approve of that, Miss Brooke?

    A great mistake, Chettam, interposed Mr. Brooke, going into electrifying your land and that kind of thing, and making a parlour of your cow-house. It won’t do. I went into science a great deal myself at one time; but I saw it would not do. It leads to everything; you can let nothing alone. No, no—see that your tenants don’t sell their straw, and that kind of thing; and give them draining-tiles, you know. But your fancy-farming will not do—the most expensive sort of whistle you can buy: you may as well keep a pack of hounds.

    Surely, said Dorothea, it is better to spend money in finding out how men can make the most of the land which supports them all, than in keeping dogs and horses only to gallop over it. It is not a sin to make yourself poor in performing experiments for the good of all.

    She spoke with more energy than is expected of so young a lady, but Sir James had appealed to her. He was accustomed to do so, and she had often thought that she could urge him to many good actions when he was her brother-in-law.

    Mr. Casaubon turned his eyes very markedly on Dorothea while she was speaking, and seemed to observe her newly.

    Young ladies don’t understand political economy, you know, said Mr. Brooke, smiling towards Mr. Casaubon. "I remember when we were all reading Adam Smith. There is a book, now. I took in all the new ideas at one time—human perfectibility, now. But some say, history moves in circles; and that may be very well argued; I have argued it myself. The fact is, human reason may carry you a little too far—over the hedge, in fact. It carried me a good way at one time; but I saw it would not do. I pulled up; I pulled up in time. But not too hard. I have always been in favour of a little theory: we must have Thought; else we shall be landed back in the dark ages. But talking of books, there is Southey’s Peninsular War. I am reading that of a morning. You know Southey?"

    No, said Mr. Casaubon, not keeping pace with Mr. Brooke’s impetuous reason, and thinking of the book only. I have little leisure for such literature just now. I have been using up my eyesight on old characters lately; the fact is, I want a reader for my evenings; but I am fastidious in voices, and I cannot endure listening to an imperfect reader. It is a misfortune, in some senses: I feed too much on the inward sources; I live too much with the dead. My mind is something like the ghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying mentally to construct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and confusing changes. But I find it necessary to use the utmost caution about my eyesight.

    This was the first time that Mr. Casaubon had spoken at any length. He delivered himself with precision, as if he had been called upon to make a public statement; and the balanced sing-song neatness of his speech, occasionally corresponded to by a movement of his head, was the more conspicuous from its contrast with good Mr. Brooke’s scrappy slovenliness. Dorothea said to herself that Mr. Casaubon was the most interesting man she had ever seen, not excepting even Monsieur Liret, the Vaudois clergyman who had given conferences on the history of the Waldenses. To reconstruct a past world, doubtless with a view to the highest purposes of truth—what a work to be in any way present at, to assist in, though only as a lamp-holder! This elevating thought lifted her above her annoyance at being twitted with her ignorance of political economy, that never-explained science which was thrust as an extinguisher over all her lights.

    But you are fond of riding, Miss Brooke, Sir James presently took an opportunity of saying. I should have thought you would enter a little into the pleasures of hunting. I wish you would let me send over a chestnut horse for you to try. It has been trained for a lady. I saw you on Saturday cantering over the hill on a nag not worthy of you. My groom shall bring Corydon for you every day, if you will only mention the time.

    Thank you, you are very good. I mean to give up riding. I shall not ride any more, said Dorothea, urged to this brusque resolution by a little annoyance that Sir James would be soliciting her attention when she wanted to give it all to Mr. Casaubon.

    No, that is too hard, said Sir James, in a tone of reproach that showed strong interest. Your sister is given to self-mortification, is she not? he continued, turning to Celia, who sat at his right hand.

    I think she is, said Celia, feeling afraid lest she should say something that would not please her sister, and blushing as prettily as possible above her necklace. She likes giving up.

    If that were true, Celia, my giving-up would be self-indulgence, not self-mortification. But there may be good reasons for choosing not to do what is very agreeable, said Dorothea.

    Mr. Brooke was speaking at the same time, but it was evident that Mr. Casaubon was observing Dorothea, and she was aware of it.

    Exactly, said Sir James. You give up from some high, generous motive.

    No, indeed, not exactly. I did not say that of myself, answered Dorothea, reddening. Unlike Celia, she rarely blushed, and only from high delight or anger. At this moment she felt angry with the perverse Sir James. Why did he not pay attention to Celia, and leave her to listen to Mr. Casaubon?—if that learned man would only talk, instead of allowing himself to be talked to by Mr. Brooke, who was just then informing him that the Reformation either meant something or it did not, that he himself was a Protestant to the core, but that Catholicism was a fact; and as to refusing an acre of your ground for a Romanist chapel, all men needed the bridle of religion, which, properly speaking, was the dread of a Hereafter.

    I made a great study of theology at one time, said Mr. Brooke, as if to explain the insight just manifested. I know something of all schools. I knew Wilberforce in his best days. Do you know Wilberforce?

    Mr. Casaubon said, No.

    Well, Wilberforce was perhaps not enough of a thinker; but if I went into Parliament, as I have been asked to do, I should sit on the independent bench, as Wilberforce did, and work at philanthropy.

    Mr. Casaubon bowed, and observed that it was a wide field.

    Yes, said Mr. Brooke, with an easy smile, but I have documents. I began a long while ago to collect documents. They want arranging, but when a question has struck me, I have written to somebody and got an answer. I have documents at my back. But now, how do you arrange your documents?

    In pigeon-holes partly, said Mr. Casaubon, with rather a startled air of effort.

    Ah, pigeon-holes will not do. I have tried pigeon-holes, but everything gets mixed in pigeon-holes: I never know whether a paper is in A or Z.

    I wish you would let me sort your papers for you, uncle, said Dorothea. I would letter them all, and then make a list of subjects under each letter.

    Mr. Casaubon gravely smiled approval, and said to Mr. Brooke, You have an excellent secretary at hand, you perceive.

    No, no, said Mr. Brooke, shaking his head; I cannot let young ladies meddle with my documents. Young ladies are too flighty.

    Dorothea felt hurt. Mr. Casaubon would think that her uncle had some special reason for delivering this opinion, whereas the remark lay in his mind as lightly as the broken wing of an insect among all the other fragments there, and a chance current had sent it alighting on her.

    When the two girls were in the drawing-room alone, Celia said—

    How very ugly Mr. Casaubon is!

    Celia! He is one of the most distinguished-looking men I ever saw. He is remarkably like the portrait of Locke. He has the same deep eye-sockets.

    Had Locke those two white moles with hairs on them?

    Oh, I daresay! when people of a certain sort looked at him, said Dorothea, walking away a little.

    Mr. Casaubon is so sallow.

    "All the better. I suppose you admire a man with the complexion of a cochon de lait."

    Dodo! exclaimed Celia, looking after her in surprise. I never heard you make such a comparison before.

    Why should I make it before the occasion came? It is a good comparison: the match is perfect.

    Miss Brooke was clearly forgetting herself, and Celia thought so.

    I wonder you show temper, Dorothea.

    It is so painful in you, Celia, that you will look at human beings as if they were merely animals with a toilette, and never see the great soul in a man’s face.

    Has Mr. Casaubon a great soul? Celia was not without a touch of naïve malice.

    Yes, I believe he has, said Dorothea, with the full voice of decision. Everything I see in him corresponds to his pamphlet on Biblical Cosmology.

    He talks very little, said Celia.

    There is no-one for him to talk to.

    Celia thought privately, Dorothea quite despises Sir James Chettam; I believe she would not accept him. Celia felt that this was a pity. She had never been deceived as to the object of the baronet’s interest. Sometimes, indeed, she had reflected that Dodo would perhaps not make a husband happy who had not her way of looking at things; and stifled in the depths of her heart was the feeling that her sister was too religious for family comfort. Notions and scruples were like spilt needles, making one afraid of treading, or sitting down, or even eating.

    When Miss Brooke was at the tea-table, Sir James came to sit down by her, not having felt her mode of answering him at all offensive. Why should he? He thought it probable that Miss Brooke liked him, and manners must be very marked indeed before they cease to be interpreted by preconceptions either confident or distrustful. She was thoroughly charming to him, but of course he theorised a little about his attachment. He was made of excellent human dough, and had the rare merit of knowing that his talents, even if let loose, would not set the smallest stream in the county on fire: hence he liked the prospect of a wife to whom he could say, What shall we do? about this or that; who could help her husband out with reasons, and would also have the property qualification for doing so. As to the excessive religiousness alleged against Miss Brooke, he had a very indefinite notion of what it consisted in, and thought that it would die out with marriage. In short, he felt himself to be in love in the right place, and was ready to endure a great deal of predominance, which, after all, a man could always put down when he liked. Sir James had no idea that he should ever like to put down the predominance of this handsome girl, in whose cleverness he delighted. Why not? A man’s mind—what there is of it—has always the advantage of being masculine—as the smallest birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm—and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality. Sir James might not have originated this estimate; but a kind Providence furnishes the limpest personality with a little gum or starch in the form of tradition.

    Let me hope that you will rescind that resolution about the horse, Miss Brooke, said the persevering admirer. I assure you, riding is the most healthy of exercises.

    I am aware of it, said Dorothea, coldly. I think it would do Celia good—if she would take to it.

    But you are such a perfect horsewoman.

    Excuse me; I have had very little practice, and I should be easily thrown.

    Then that is a reason for more practice. Every lady ought to be a perfect horsewoman, that she may accompany her husband.

    You see how widely we differ, Sir James. I have made up my mind that I ought not to be a perfect horsewoman, and so I should never correspond to your pattern of a lady. Dorothea looked straight before her, and spoke with cold brusquerie, very much with the air of a handsome boy, in amusing contrast with the solicitous amiability of her admirer.

    I should like to know your reasons for this cruel resolution. It is not possible that you should think horsemanship wrong.

    It is quite possible that I should think it wrong for me.

    Oh, why? said Sir James, in a tender tone of remonstrance.

    Mr. Casaubon had come up to the table, tea-cup in hand, and was listening.

    We must not inquire too curiously into motives, he interposed, in his measured way. Miss Brooke knows that they are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light.

    Dorothea coloured with pleasure, and looked up gratefully to the speaker. Here was a man who could understand the higher inward life, and with whom there could be some spiritual communion; nay, who could illuminate principle with the widest knowledge: a man whose learning almost amounted to a proof of whatever he believed!

    Dorothea’s inferences may seem large; but really life could never have gone on at any period but for this liberal allowance of conclusion, which has facilitated marriage under the difficulties of civilisation. Has anyone ever pinched into its pilulous smallness the cobweb of pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship?

    Certainly, said good Sir James. Miss Brooke shall not be urged to tell reasons she would rather be silent upon. I am sure her reasons would do her honour.

    He was not in the least jealous of the interest with which Dorothea had looked up at Mr. Casaubon: it never occurred to him that a girl to whom he was meditating an offer of marriage could care for a dried bookworm towards fifty, except, indeed, in a religious sort of way, as for a clergyman of some distinction.

    However, since Miss Brooke had become engaged in a conversation with Mr. Casaubon about the Vaudois clergy, Sir James betook himself to Celia, and talked to her about her sister; spoke of a house in town, and asked whether Miss Brooke disliked London. Away from her sister, Celia talked quite easily, and Sir James said to himself that the second Miss Brooke was certainly very agreeable as well as pretty, though not, as some people pretended, more clever and sensible than the elder sister. He felt that he had chosen the one who was in all respects the superior; and a man naturally likes to look forward to having the best. He would be the very Mawworm of bachelors who pretended not to expect it.

    CHAPTER 3

    "Say, goddess, what ensued, when Raphaël,

    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 a suitable wife for him, the reasons that might induce her to accept him were already planted in her mind, and by the evening of the next day the reasons had budded and bloomed. For they had had a long conversation in the morning, while Celia, who did not like the company of Mr. Casaubon’s moles and sallowness, had escaped to the vicarage to play with the curate’s ill-shod but merry children.

    Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of Mr. Casaubon’s mind, seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine extension every quality she herself brought; had opened much of her own experience to him, and had understood from him the scope of his great work, also of attractively labyrinthine extent. For he had been as instructive as Milton’s affable archangel; and with something of the archangelic manner he told her how he had undertaken to show (what indeed 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 mythical fragments in the world were corruptions of a tradition originally revealed. Having once mastered the true position and taken a firm footing there, the vast field of mythical constructions became intelligible, nay, luminous with the reflected light of correspondences. But to gather in this great harvest of truth was no light or speedy work. His notes already made a formidable range of volumes, but the crowning task would be to condense these voluminous still-accumulating results and bring them, like the earlier vintage of Hippocratic books, to fit a little shelf. In explaining this to Dorothea, Mr. Casaubon expressed himself nearly as he would have done to 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 the English with scrupulous care, but he would probably have done this in any case. A learned provincial clergyman is accustomed to think of his acquaintances as of lords, knyghtes, and other noble and worthi men, that conne Latyn but lytille.

    Dorothea was altogether captivated by the wide embrace of this conception. Here was something beyond the shallows of ladies’-school literature: here was a living Bossuet, whose work would reconcile complete knowledge with devoted piety; here was a modern Augustine who united the glories of doctor and saint.

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

    He thinks with me, said Dorothea to herself, or rather, he thinks a whole world of which my thought is but a poor twopenny mirror. And his feelings too, his whole experience—what a lake compared with my little pool!

    Miss Brooke argued from words and dispositions not less unhesitatingly than other young ladies of her age. Signs are small measurable things, but interpretations are illimitable, and in girls of sweet, ardent nature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, hope, belief, vast as a sky, and coloured by a diffused thimbleful of matter in the shape of knowledge. They are not always too grossly deceived; for Sinbad himself may have fallen by good luck on a true description, and wrong reasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions: starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, we now and then arrive just where we ought to be. Because Miss Brooke was hasty in her trust, it is not therefore clear that Mr. Casaubon was unworthy of it.

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

    Look here—here is all about Greece. Rhamnus, the ruins of Rhamnus—you are a great Grecian, now. I don’t know whether you have given much study to the topography. I spent no end of time in making out these things—Helicon, now. Here, now!— ‘We started the next morning for Parnassus, the double-peaked Parnassus.’ All this volume is about Greece, you know, Mr. Brooke wound up, rubbing his thumb transversely along the edges of the leaves as he held the book forward.

    Mr. Casaubon made a dignified though somewhat sad audience; bowed in the right place, and avoided looking at anything documentary as far as possible, without showing disregard or impatience; mindful that this desultoriness was associated with the institutions of the country, and that the man who took him on this severe mental scamper was not only an amiable host, but a landholder and custos rotulorum. Was his endurance aided 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, on drawing her out, as Celia remarked to herself; and in looking at her, his face was often lit up by a smile like pale wintry sunshine. Before he left the next morning, while taking a pleasant walk with Miss Brooke along the gravelled terrace, he had mentioned to her that he felt the disadvantage of loneliness, the need of that cheerful companionship with which the presence of youth can lighten or vary the serious toils of maturity. And he delivered this statement with as much careful precision as if he had been a diplomatic envoy whose words would be attended with results. Indeed, Mr. Casaubon was not used to expect that he should have to repeat or revise his communications of a practical or personal kind. The inclinations which he had deliberately stated on the 2d of October he would think it enough to refer to by the mention of that date; judging by the standard of his own memory, which was a volume where a vide supra could serve instead of repetitions, and not the ordinary long-used blotting-book which only tells of forgotten writing. But in this case Mr. Casaubon’s confidence was not likely to be falsified, for Dorothea heard and retained what he said with the eager interest of a fresh young nature to which every variety in experience 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 from Tipton; and Dorothea, who had on her bonnet and shawl, hurried along the shrubbery and across the park that she might wander through the bordering wood with no other visible companionship than that of Monk, the Great St. Bernard dog, who always took care of the young ladies in their walks. There had risen before her the girl’s vision of a possible future for herself to which she looked forward with trembling hope, and she wanted to wander on in that visionary future without interruption. She walked briskly in the brisk air, the colour rose in her cheeks, and her straw-bonnet (which our contemporaries might look at with conjectural curiosity as at an obsolete form of basket) fell a little backward. She would perhaps be hardly characterised enough if it were omitted that she wore her brown hair flatly braided and coiled behind so as to expose the outline of her head in a daring manner at a time when public feeling required the meagreness of nature to be dissimulated by tall barricades of frizzed curls and bows, never surpassed by any great race except the Feejeean. This was a trait of Miss Brooke’s asceticism. But there was nothing of an ascetic’s expression in her bright full eyes, as she looked before her, not consciously seeing, but absorbing into the intensity of her mood, the solemn glory of the afternoon with its long swathes of light between the far-off rows of limes, whose shadows touched each other.

    All people, young or old (that is, all people in those ante-reform times), would have thought her an interesting object if they had referred the glow in her eyes and cheeks to the newly-awakened ordinary images of young love: the illusions of Chloe about Strephon have been sufficiently consecrated in poetry, as the pathetic loveliness of all spontaneous trust ought to be. Miss Pippin adoring young Pumpkin and dreaming along endless vistas of unwearying companionship, was a little drama which never tired our fathers and mothers, and had been put into all costumes. Let but Pumpkin have a figure which would sustain the disadvantages of the short-waisted swallow-tail, and everybody felt it not only natural but necessary to the perfection of womanhood, that a sweet girl should be at once convinced of his virtue, his exceptional ability, and above all, his perfect sincerity. But perhaps no persons then living—certainly none in the neighbourhood of Tipton—would have had a sympathetic understanding for the dreams of a girl whose notions about marriage took their colour entirely from an exalted enthusiasm about the ends of life, an enthusiasm which was lit chiefly by its own fire, and included neither the niceties of the trousseau, the pattern of plate, nor even the honours and sweet joys of the blooming matron.

    It had now entered Dorothea’s mind that Mr. Casaubon might wish to make her his wife, and the idea that he would do so touched her with a sort of reverential gratitude. How good of him—nay, it would be almost as if a winged messenger had suddenly stood beside her path and held out his hand towards her! For a long while she had been oppressed by the indefiniteness which hung in her mind, like a thick summer haze, over all 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 yet with an active conscience and a great mental need, not to be satisfied by a girlish instruction comparable to the nibblings and judgments of a discursive mouse. With some endowment of stupidity and conceit, she might have thought that a Christian young lady of fortune should find her ideal of life in village charities, patronage of the humbler clergy, the perusal of Female Scripture Characters, unfolding the private experience of Sara under the Old Dispensation, and Dorcas under the New, and the care of her soul over her embroidery in her own boudoir—with a background of prospective marriage to a man who, if less strict than herself, as being involved in affairs religiously inexplicable, might be prayed for and seasonably exhorted. From such contentment poor Dorothea was shut out. The intensity of her religious disposition, the coercion it exercised over her life, was but one aspect of a nature altogether ardent, theoretic, and intellectually consequent: and with such a nature, struggling in the bands of a narrow teaching, hemmed in by a social life which seemed nothing but a labyrinth of petty courses, a walled-in maze of small paths that led no whither, the outcome was sure to strike others as at once exaggeration and inconsistency. The thing which seemed to her best, she wanted to justify by the completest knowledge; and not to live in a pretended admission of rules which were never acted on. Into this soul-hunger as yet all her youthful passion was poured; the union which attracted her was one that would deliver her from her girlish subjection to her own ignorance, and give her the freedom of voluntary submission to a guide who would take her along the grandest path.

    I should learn everything then, she said to herself, still walking quickly along the bridle road through the wood. It would be my duty to study that I might help him the better in his great works. There would be nothing trivial about our lives. Everyday-things with us would mean the greatest things. It would be like marrying Pascal. I should learn to see the truth by the same light as great men have seen it by. And then I should know what to do, when I got older: I should see how it was possible to lead a grand life here— now—in England. I don’t feel sure about doing good in any way now: everything seems like going on a mission to a people whose language I don’t know;—unless it were building good cottages— there can be no doubt about that. Oh, I hope I should be able to get the people well housed in Lowick! I will draw plenty of plans while I have time.

    Dorothea checked herself suddenly with self-rebuke for the presumptuous way in which she was reckoning on uncertain events, but she was spared any inward effort to change the direction of her thoughts by the appearance of a cantering horseman round a turning of the road. The well-groomed chestnut horse and two beautiful setters could leave no doubt 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 two setters were barking in an excited manner.

    How delightful to meet you, Miss Brooke, he said, raising his hat and showing his sleekly-waving blond hair. It has hastened the pleasure I was looking forward to.

    Miss Brooke was annoyed at the interruption. This amiable baronet, really a suitable husband for Celia, exaggerated the necessity of making himself agreeable to the elder sister. Even a prospective brother-in-law may be an oppression if he will always be presupposing too good an understanding with you, and agreeing with you even when you contradict him. The thought that he had made the mistake of paying his addresses to herself could not take shape: all her mental activity was used up in persuasions of another kind. But he was positively obtrusive at this moment, and his dimpled hands were quite disagreeable. Her roused temper made her colour deeply, as she returned his greeting with some haughtiness.

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

    I have brought a little petitioner, he said, or rather I have brought him to see if he will be approved before his petition is offered. He showed the white object under his arm, which was a tiny Maltese puppy, one of nature’s most naïve toys.

    It is painful to me to see these creatures that are bred merely as pets, 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 mouse that gets its own living is more interesting. I like to think that the animals about us have souls something like our own, and either carry on their 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 of these Maltese dogs. Here, John, take this dog, will you?

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

    You must not judge of Celia’s feeling from mine. I think she likes these small pets. She had a tiny terrier once, which she was very fond of. It made me unhappy, because I was afraid of treading on it. I am rather short-sighted.

    You have your own opinion about everything, Miss Brooke, and it is always a good opinion.

    What answer was possible to such stupid complimenting?

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

    "I don’t quite understand

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