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Middlemarch By George Eliot New York and Boston H M Caldwell Company Publishers Ebd E-BooksDirectory.com 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 ardor 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 favorite 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 centring in some longrecognizable deed Ebd E-BooksDirectory.com BOOK I MISS BROOKE CHAPTER I "Since I can 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 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 parlor, 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 Pensees 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 gimp 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 retractations, 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 county 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 laborer 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 saddlehorses: 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 neighbors 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 favor 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 neighboring 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 northeast 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 colored, 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 Poincon, 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 Poincon 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 colors 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 colors 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 CHAPTER LIXXV "Then went the jury out whose names were Mr Blindman, Mr Nogood, Mr Malice, Mr Love-lust, Mr Live-loose, Mr Heady, Mr Highmind, Mr Enmity, Mr Liar, Mr Cruelty, Mr Hate-light, Mr Implacable, who every one gave in his private verdict against him among themselves, and afterwards unanimously concluded to bring him in guilty before the judge And first among themselves, Mr Blindman, the foreman, said, I see clearly that this man is a heretic Then said Mr No-good, Away with such a fellow from the earth! Ay, said Mr Malice, for I hate the very look of him Then said Mr Lovelust, I could never endure him Nor I, said Mr Live-loose; for he would be always condemning my way Hang him, hang him, said Mr Heady A sorry scrub, said Mr High-mind My heart riseth against him, said Mr Enmity He is a rogue, said Mr Liar Hanging is too good for him, said Mr Cruelty Let us despatch him out of the way said Mr Hatelight Then said Mr Implacable, Might I have all the world given me, I could not be reconciled to him; therefore let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death."—Pilgrim's Progress When immortal Bunyan makes his picture of the persecuting passions bringing in their verdict of guilty, who pities Faithful? That is a rare and blessed lot which some greatest men have not attained, to know ourselves guiltless before a condemning crowd—to be sure that what we are denounced for is solely the good in us The pitiable lot is that of the man who could not call himself a martyr even though he were to persuade himself that the men who stoned him were but ugly passions incarnate—who knows that he is stoned, not for professing the Right, but for not being the man he professed to be This was the consciousness that Bulstrode was withering under while he made his preparations for departing from Middlemarch, and going to end his stricken life in that sad refuge, the indifference of new faces The duteous merciful constancy of his wife had delivered him from one dread, but it could not hinder her presence from being still a tribunal before which he shrank from confession and desired advocacy His equivocations with himself about the death of Raffles had sustained the conception of an Omniscience whom he prayed to, yet he had a terror upon him which would not let him expose them to judgment by a full confession to his wife: the acts which he had washed and diluted with inward argument and motive, and for which it seemed comparatively easy to win invisible pardon—what name would she call them by? That she should ever silently call his acts Murder was what he could not bear He felt shrouded by her doubt: he got strength to face her from the sense that she could not yet feel warranted in pronouncing that worst condemnation on him Some time, perhaps—when he was dying—he would tell her all: in the deep shadow of that time, when she held his hand in the gathering darkness, she might listen without recoiling from his touch Perhaps: but concealment had been the habit of his life, and the impulse to confession had no power against the dread of a deeper humiliation He was full of timid care for his wife, not only because he deprecated any harshness of judgment from her, but because he felt a deep distress at the sight of her suffering She had sent her daughters away to board at a school on the coast, that this crisis might be hidden from them as far as possible Set free by their absence from the intolerable necessity of accounting for her grief or of beholding their frightened wonder, she could live unconstrainedly with the sorrow that was every day streaking her hair with whiteness and making her eyelids languid "Tell me anything that you would like to have me do, Harriet," Bulstrode had said to her; "I mean with regard to arrangements of property It is my intention not to sell the land I possess in this neighborhood, but to leave it to you as a safe provision If you have any wish on such subjects, not conceal it from me." A few days afterwards, when she had returned from a visit to her brother's, she began to speak to her husband on a subject which had for some time been in her mind "I should like to something for my brother's family, Nicholas; and I think we are bound to make some amends to Rosamond and her husband Walter says Mr Lydgate must leave the town, and his practice is almost good for nothing, and they have very little left to settle anywhere with I would rather without something for ourselves, to make some amends to my poor brother's family." Mrs Bulstrode did not wish to go nearer to the facts than in the phrase "make some amends;" knowing that her husband must understand her He had a particular reason, which she was not aware of, for wincing under her suggestion He hesitated before he said— "It is not possible to carry out your wish in the way you propose, my dear Mr Lydgate has virtually rejected any further service from me He has returned the thousand pounds which I lent him Mrs Casaubon advanced him the sum for that purpose Here is his letter." The letter seemed to cut Mrs Bulstrode severely The mention of Mrs Casaubon's loan seemed a reflection of that public feeling which held it a matter of course that every one would avoid a connection with her husband She was silent for some time; and the tears fell one after the other, her chin trembling as she wiped them away Bulstrode, sitting opposite to her, ached at the sight of that grief-worn face, which two months before had been bright and blooming It had aged to keep sad company with his own withered features Urged into some effort at comforting her, he said— "There is another means, Harriet, by which I might a service to your brother's family, if you like to act in it And it would, I think, be beneficial to you: it would be an advantageous way of managing the land which I mean to be yours." She looked attentive "Garth once thought of undertaking the management of Stone Court in order to place your nephew Fred there The stock was to remain as it is, and they were to pay a certain share of the profits instead of an ordinary rent That would be a desirable beginning for the young man, in conjunction with his employment under Garth Would it be a satisfaction to you?" "Yes, it would," said Mrs Bulstrode, with some return of energy "Poor Walter is so cast down; I would try anything in my power to him some good before I go away We have always been brother and sister." "You must make the proposal to Garth yourself, Harriet," said Mr Bulstrode, not liking what he had to say, but desiring the end he had in view, for other reasons besides the consolation of his wife "You must state to him that the land is virtually yours, and that he need have no transactions with me Communications can be made through Standish I mention this, because Garth gave up being my agent I can put into your hands a paper which he himself drew up, stating conditions; and you can propose his renewed acceptance of them I think it is not unlikely that he will accept when you propose the thing for the sake of your nephew." CHAPTER LXXXVI "Le coeur se sature d'amour comme d'un sel divin qui le conserve; de la l'incorruptible adherence de ceux qui se sont aimes des l'aube de la vie, et la fraicheur des vielles amours prolonges Il existe un embaumement d'amour C'est de Daphnis et Chloe que sont faits Philemon et Baucis Cette vieillesse la, ressemblance du soir avec l'aurore."—VICTOR HUGO: L'homme qui rit Mrs Garth, hearing Caleb enter the passage about tea-time, opened the parlor-door and said, "There you are, Caleb Have you had your dinner?" (Mr Garth's meals were much subordinated to "business.") "Oh yes, a good dinner—cold mutton and I don't know what Where is Mary?" "In the garden with Letty, I think." "Fred is not come yet?" "No Are you going out again without taking tea, Caleb?" said Mrs Garth, seeing that her absent-minded husband was putting on again the hat which he had just taken off "No, no; I'm only going to Mary a minute." Mary was in a grassy corner of the garden, where there was a swing loftily between two pear-trees She had a pink kerchief tied over her head, making a little poke to shade her eyes from the level sunbeams, while she was giving a glorious swing to Letty, who laughed and screamed wildly Seeing her father, Mary left the swing and went to meet him, pushing back the pink kerchief and smiling afar off at him with the involuntary smile of loving pleasure "I came to look for you, Mary," said Mr Garth "Let us walk about a bit." Mary knew quite well that her father had something particular to say: his eyebrows made their pathetic angle, and there was a tender gravity in his voice: these things had been signs to her when she was Letty's age She put her arm within his, and they turned by the row of nut-trees "It will be a sad while before you can be married, Mary," said her father, not looking at her, but at the end of the stick which he held in his other hand "Not a sad while, father—I mean to be merry," said Mary, laughingly "I have been single and merry for four-and-twenty years and more: I suppose it will not be quite as long again as that." Then, after a little pause, she said, more gravely, bending her face before her father's, "If you are contented with Fred?" Caleb screwed up his mouth and turned his head aside wisely "Now, father, you did praise him last Wednesday You said he had an uncommon notion of stock, and a good eye for things." "Did I?" said Caleb, rather slyly "Yes, I put it all down, and the date, anno Domini, and everything," said Mary "You like things to be neatly booked And then his behavior to you, father, is really good; he has a deep respect for you; and it is impossible to have a better temper than Fred has." "Ay, ay; you want to coax me into thinking him a fine match." "No, indeed, father I don't love him because he is a fine match." "What for, then?" "Oh, dear, because I have always loved him I should never like scolding any one else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in a husband." "Your mind is quite settled, then, Mary?" said Caleb, returning to his first tone "There's no other wish come into it since things have been going on as they have been of late?" (Caleb meant a great deal in that vague phrase;) "because, better late than never A woman must not force her heart—she'll a man no good by that." "My feelings have not changed, father," said Mary, calmly "I shall be constant to Fred as long as he is constant to me I don't think either of us could spare the other, or like any one else better, however much we might admire them It would make too great a difference to us—like seeing all the old places altered, and changing the name for everything We must wait for each other a long while; but Fred knows that." Instead of speaking immediately, Caleb stood still and screwed his stick on the grassy walk Then he said, with emotion in his voice, "Well, I've got a bit of news What you think of Fred going to live at Stone Court, and managing the land there?" "How can that ever be, father?" said Mary, wonderingly "He would manage it for his aunt Bulstrode The poor woman has been to me begging and praying She wants to the lad good, and it might be a fine thing for him With saving, he might gradually buy the stock, and he has a turn for farming." "Oh, Fred would be so happy! It is too good to believe." "Ah, but mind you," said Caleb, turning his head warningly, "I must take it on my shoulders, and be responsible, and see after everything; and that will grieve your mother a bit, though she mayn't say so Fred had need be careful." "Perhaps it is too much, father," said Mary, checked in her joy "There would be no happiness in bringing you any fresh trouble." "Nay, nay; work is my delight, child, when it doesn't vex your mother And then, if you and Fred get married," here Caleb's voice shook just perceptibly, "he'll be steady and saving; and you've got your mother's cleverness, and mine too, in a woman's sort of way; and you'll keep him in order He'll be coming by-and-by, so I wanted to tell you first, because I think you'd like to tell him by yourselves After that, I could talk it well over with him, and we could go into business and the nature of things." "Oh, you dear good father!" cried Mary, putting her hands round her father's neck, while he bent his head placidly, willing to be caressed "I wonder if any other girl thinks her father the best man in the world!" "Nonsense, child; you'll think your husband better." "Impossible," said Mary, relapsing into her usual tone; "husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order." When they were entering the house with Letty, who had run to join them, Mary saw Fred at the orchard-gate, and went to meet him "What fine clothes you wear, you extravagant youth!" said Mary, as Fred stood still and raised his hat to her with playful formality "You are not learning economy." "Now that is too bad, Mary," said Fred "Just look at the edges of these coat-cuffs! It is only by dint of good brushing that I look respectable I am saving up three suits—one for a wedding-suit." "How very droll you will look!—like a gentleman in an old fashionbook." "Oh no, they will keep two years." "Two years! be reasonable, Fred," said Mary, turning to walk "Don't encourage flattering expectations." "Why not? One lives on them better than on unflattering ones If we can't be married in two years, the truth will be quite bad enough when it comes." "I have heard a story of a young gentleman who once encouraged flattering expectations, and they did him harm." "Mary, if you've got something discouraging to tell me, I shall bolt; I shall go into the house to Mr Garth I am out of spirits My father is so cut up—home is not like itself I can't bear any more bad news." "Should you call it bad news to be told that you were to live at Stone Court, and manage the farm, and be remarkably prudent, and save money every year till all the stock and furniture were your own, and you were a distinguished agricultural character, as Mr Borthrop Trumbull says—rather stout, I fear, and with the Greek and Latin sadly weatherworn?" "You don't mean anything except nonsense, Mary?" said Fred, coloring slightly nevertheless "That is what my father has just told me of as what may happen, and he never talks nonsense," said Mary, looking up at Fred now, while he grasped her hand as they walked, till it rather hurt her; but she would not complain "Oh, I could be a tremendously good fellow then, Mary, and we could be married directly." "Not so fast, sir; how you know that I would not rather defer our marriage for some years? That would leave you time to misbehave, and then if I liked some one else better, I should have an excuse for jilting you." "Pray don't joke, Mary," said Fred, with strong feeling "Tell me seriously that all this is true, and that you are happy because of it— because you love me best." "It is all true, Fred, and I am happy because of it—because I love you best," said Mary, in a tone of obedient recitation They lingered on the door-step under the steep-roofed porch, and Fred almost in a whisper said— "When we were first engaged, with the umbrella-ring, Mary, you used to—" The spirit of joy began to laugh more decidedly in Mary's eyes, but the fatal Ben came running to the door with Brownie yapping behind him, and, bouncing against them, said— "Fred and Mary! are you ever coming in?—or may I eat your cake?" Ebd E-BooksDirectory.com FINALE Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending Who can quit young lives after being long in company with them, and not desire to know what befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life, however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises may not be kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension; latent powers may find their long-waited opportunity; a past error may urge a grand retrieval Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness It is still the beginning of the home epic—the gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which makes the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in common Some set out, like Crusaders of old, with a glorious equipment of hope and enthusiasm and get broken by the way, wanting patience with each other and the world All who have cared for Fred Vincy and Mary Garth will like to know that these two made no such failure, but achieved a solid mutual happiness Fred surprised his neighbors in various ways He became rather distinguished in his side of the county as a theoretic and practical farmer, and produced a work on the "Cultivation of Green Crops and the Economy of Cattle-Feeding" which won him high congratulations at agricultural meetings In Middlemarch admiration was more reserved: most persons there were inclined to believe that the merit of Fred's authorship was due to his wife, since they had never expected Fred Vincy to write on turnips and mangel-wurzel But when Mary wrote a little book for her boys, called "Stories of Great Men, taken from Plutarch," and had it printed and published by Gripp & Co., Middlemarch, every one in the town was willing to give the credit of this work to Fred, observing that he had been to the University, "where the ancients were studied," and might have been a clergyman if he had chosen In this way it was made clear that Middlemarch had never been deceived, and that there was no need to praise anybody for writing a book, since it was always done by somebody else Moreover, Fred remained unswervingly steady Some years after his marriage he told Mary that his happiness was half owing to Farebrother, who gave him a strong pull-up at the right moment I cannot say that he was never again misled by his hopefulness: the yield of crops or the profits of a cattle sale usually fell below his estimate; and he was always prone to believe that he could make money by the purchase of a horse which turned out badly—though this, Mary observed, was of course the fault of the horse, not of Fred's judgment He kept his love of horsemanship, but he rarely allowed himself a day's hunting; and when he did so, it was remarkable that he submitted to be laughed at for cowardliness at the fences, seeming to see Mary and the boys sitting on the five-barred gate, or showing their curly heads between hedge and ditch There were three boys: Mary was not discontented that she brought forth men-children only; and when Fred wished to have a girl like her, she said, laughingly, "that would be too great a trial to your mother." Mrs Vincy in her declining years, and in the diminished lustre of her housekeeping, was much comforted by her perception that two at least of Fred's boys were real Vincys, and did not "feature the Garths." But Mary secretly rejoiced that the youngest of the three was very much what her father must have been when he wore a round jacket, and showed a marvellous nicety of aim in playing at marbles, or in throwing stones to bring down the mellow pears Ben and Letty Garth, who were uncle and aunt before they were well in their teens, disputed much as to whether nephews or nieces were more desirable; Ben contending that it was clear girls were good for less than boys, else they would not be always in petticoats, which showed how little they were meant for; whereupon Letty, who argued much from books, got angry in replying that God made coats of skins for both Adam and Eve alike—also it occurred to her that in the East the men too wore petticoats But this latter argument, obscuring the majesty of the former, was one too many, for Ben answered contemptuously, "The more spooneys they!" and immediately appealed to his mother whether boys were not better than girls Mrs Garth pronounced that both were alike naughty, but that boys were undoubtedly stronger, could run faster, and throw with more precision to a greater distance With this oracular sentence Ben was well satisfied, not minding the naughtiness; but Letty took it ill, her feeling of superiority being stronger than her muscles Fred never became rich—his hopefulness had not led him to expect that; but he gradually saved enough to become owner of the stock and furniture at Stone Court, and the work which Mr Garth put into his hands carried him in plenty through those "bad times" which are always present with farmers Mary, in her matronly days, became as solid in figure as her mother; but, unlike her, gave the boys little formal teaching, so that Mrs Garth was alarmed lest they should never be well grounded in grammar and geography Nevertheless, they were found quite forward enough when they went to school; perhaps, because they had liked nothing so well as being with their mother When Fred was riding home on winter evenings he had a pleasant vision beforehand of the bright hearth in the wainscoted parlor, and was sorry for other men who could not have Mary for their wife; especially for Mr Farebrother "He was ten times worthier of you than I was," Fred could now say to her, magnanimously "To be sure he was," Mary answered; "and for that reason he could better without me But you—I shudder to think what you would have been—a curate in debt for horse-hire and cambric pocket-handkerchiefs!" On inquiry it might possibly be found that Fred and Mary still inhabit Stone Court—that the creeping plants still cast the foam of their blossoms over the fine stone-wall into the field where the walnut-trees stand in stately row—and that on sunny days the two lovers who were first engaged with the umbrella-ring may be seen in white-haired placidity at the open window from which Mary Garth, in the days of old Peter Featherstone, had often been ordered to look out for Mr Lydgate Lydgate's hair never became white He died when he was only fifty, leaving his wife and children provided for by a heavy insurance on his life He had gained an excellent practice, alternating, according to the season, between London and a Continental bathing-place; having written a treatise on Gout, a disease which has a good deal of wealth on its side His skill was relied on by many paying patients, but he always regarded himself as a failure: he had not done what he once meant to His acquaintances thought him enviable to have so charming a wife, and nothing happened to shake their opinion Rosamond never committed a second compromising indiscretion She simply continued to be mild in her temper, inflexible in her judgment, disposed to admonish her husband, and able to frustrate him by stratagem As the years went on he opposed her less and less, whence Rosamond concluded that he had learned the value of her opinion; on the other hand, she had a more thorough conviction of his talents now that he gained a good income, and instead of the threatened cage in Bride Street provided one all flowers and gilding, fit for the bird of paradise that she resembled In brief, Lydgate was what is called a successful man But he died prematurely of diphtheria, and Rosamond afterwards married an elderly and wealthy physician, who took kindly to her four children She made a very pretty show with her daughters, driving out in her carriage, and often spoke of her happiness as "a reward"—she did not say for what, but probably she meant that it was a reward for her patience with Tertius, whose temper never became faultless, and to the last occasionally let slip a bitter speech which was more memorable than the signs he made of his repentance He once called her his basil plant; and when she asked for an explanation, said that basil was a plant which had flourished wonderfully on a murdered man's brains Rosamond had a placid but strong answer to such speeches Why then had he chosen her? It was a pity he had not had Mrs Ladislaw, whom he was always praising and placing above her And thus the conversation ended with the advantage on Rosamond's side But it would be unjust not to tell, that she never uttered a word in depreciation of Dorothea, keeping in religious remembrance the generosity which had come to her aid in the sharpest crisis of her life Dorothea herself had no dreams of being praised above other women, feeling that there was always something better which she might have done, if she had only been better and known better Still, she never repented that she had given up position and fortune to marry Will Ladislaw, and he would have held it the greatest shame as well as sorrow to him if she had repented They were bound to each other by a love stronger than any impulses which could have marred it No life would have been possible to Dorothea which was not filled with emotion, and she had now a life filled also with a beneficent activity which she had not the doubtful pains of discovering and marking out for herself Will became an ardent public man, working well in those times when reforms were begun with a young hopefulness of immediate good which has been much checked in our days, and getting at last returned to Parliament by a constituency who paid his expenses Dorothea could have liked nothing better, since wrongs existed, than that her husband should be in the thick of a struggle against them, and that she should give him wifely help Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother But no one stated exactly what else that was in her power she ought rather to have done— not even Sir James Chettam, who went no further than the negative prescription that she ought not to have married Will Ladislaw But this opinion of his did not cause a lasting alienation; and the way in which the family was made whole again was characteristic of all concerned Mr Brooke could not resist the pleasure of corresponding with Will and Dorothea; and one morning when his pen had been remarkably fluent on the prospects of Municipal Reform, it ran off into an invitation to the Grange, which, once written, could not be done away with at less cost than the sacrifice (hardly to be conceived) of the whole valuable letter During the months of this correspondence Mr Brooke had continually, in his talk with Sir James Chettam, been presupposing or hinting that the intention of cutting off the entail was still maintained; and the day on which his pen gave the daring invitation, he went to Freshitt expressly to intimate that he had a stronger sense than ever of the reasons for taking that energetic step as a precaution against any mixture of low blood in the heir of the Brookes But that morning something exciting had happened at the Hall A letter had come to Celia which made her cry silently as she read it; and when Sir James, unused to see her in tears, asked anxiously what was the matter, she burst out in a wail such as he had never heard from her before "Dorothea has a little boy And you will not let me go and see her And I am sure she wants to see me And she will not know what to with the baby—she will wrong things with it And they thought she would die It is very dreadful! Suppose it had been me and little Arthur, and Dodo had been hindered from coming to see me! I wish you would be less unkind, James!" "Good heavens, Celia!" said Sir James, much wrought upon, "what you wish? I will anything you like I will take you to town to-morrow if you wish it." And Celia did wish it It was after this that Mr Brooke came, and meeting the Baronet in the grounds, began to chat with him in ignorance of the news, which Sir James for some reason did not care to tell him immediately But when the entail was touched on in the usual way, he said, "My dear sir, it is not for me to dictate to you, but for my part I would let that alone I would let things remain as they are." Mr Brooke felt so much surprised that he did not at once find out how much he was relieved by the sense that he was not expected to anything in particular Such being the bent of Celia's heart, it was inevitable that Sir James should consent to a reconciliation with Dorothea and her husband Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike Sir James never liked Ladislaw, and Will always preferred to have Sir James's company mixed with another kind: they were on a footing of reciprocal tolerance which was made quite easy only when Dorothea and Celia were present It became an understood thing that Mr and Mrs Ladislaw should pay at least two visits during the year to the Grange, and there came gradually a small row of cousins at Freshitt who enjoyed playing with the two cousins visiting Tipton as much as if the blood of these cousins had been less dubiously mixed Mr Brooke lived to a good old age, and his estate was inherited by Dorothea's son, who might have represented Middlemarch, but declined, thinking that his opinions had less chance of being stifled if he remained out of doors Sir James never ceased to regard Dorothea's second marriage as a mistake; and indeed this remained the tradition concerning it in Middlemarch, where she was spoken of to a younger generation as a fine girl who married a sickly clergyman, old enough to be her father, and in little more than a year after his death gave up her estate to marry his cousin—young enough to have been his son, with no property, and not well-born Those who had not seen anything of Dorothea usually observed that she could not have been "a nice woman," else she would not have married either the one or the other Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs Ebd E-BooksDirectory.com [...]... 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,"... put into all costumes Let but Pumpkin have a figure which would sustain the disadvantages of the shortwaisted 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 neighborhood... 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