Middlemarch by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans)

Poor Mr. Casaubon! This suffering was the harder to bear because it
seemed like a betrayal: the young creature who had worshipped
him with perfect trust had quickly turned into the critical wife;
and early instances of criticism and resentment had made an impression
which no tenderness and submission afterwards could remove.
To his suspicious interpretation Dorothea's silence now was
a suppressed rebellion; a remark from her which he had not in
any way anticipated was an assertion of conscious superiority;
her gentle answers had an irritating cautiousness in them;
and when she acquiesced it was a self-approved effort of forbearance.
The tenacity with which he strove to hide this inward drama made it
the more vivid for him; as we hear with the more keenness what we
wish others not to hear.

Instead of wondering at this result of misery in Mr. Casaubon,
I think it quite ordinary. Will not a tiny speck very close to our
vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin
by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.
And who, if Mr. Casaubon had chosen to expound his discontents--
his suspicions that he was not any longer adored without criticism--
could have denied that they were founded on good reasons?
On the contrary, there was a strong reason to be added, which he
had not himself taken explicitly into account--namely, that he was
not unmixedly adorable. He suspected this, however, as he suspected
other things, without confessing it, and like the rest of us,
felt how soothing it would have been to have a co pan ion who would
never find it out.

This sore susceptibility in relation to Dorothea was thoroughly
prepared before Will Ladislaw had returned to Lowick, and what had
occurred since then had brought Mr. Casaubon's power of suspicious
construction into exasperated activity. To all the facts which he knew,
he added imaginary facts both present and future which become more
real to him than those because they called up a stronger dislike,
a more predominating bitterness. Suspicion and jealousy of Will
Ladislaw's intentions, suspicion and jealousy of Dorothea's impressions,
were constantly at their weaving work. It would be quite unjust
to him to suppose that he could have entered into any coarse
misinterpretation of Dorothea: his own habits of mind and conduct,
quite as much as the open elevation of her nature, saved him
from any such mistake. What he was jealous of was her opinion,
the sway that might be given to her ardent mind in its judgments,
and the future possibilities to which these might lead her.
As to Will, though until his last defiant letter he had nothing definite
which he would choose formally to allege against him, he felt himself
warranted in believing that he was capable of any design which could
fascinate a rebellious temper and an undisciplined impulsiveness.
He was quite sure that Dorothea was the cause of Will's return
from Rome, and his determination to settle in the neighborhood;
and he was penetrating enough to imagine that Dorothea had innocently
encouraged this course. It was as clear as possible that she was
ready to be attached to Will and to be pliant to his suggestions:
they had never had a tete-a-tete without her bringing away from
it some new troublesome impression, and the last interview that
Mr. Casaubon was aware of (Dorothea, on returning from Freshitt Hall,
had for the first time been silent about having seen Will) had led
to a scene which roused an angrier feeling against them both than
he had ever known before. Dorothea's outpouring of her notions
about money, in the darkness of the night, had done nothing but bring
a mixture of more odious foreboding into her husband's mind.

And there was the shock lately given to his health always sadly
present with him. He was certainly much revived; he had recovered
all his usual power of work: the illness might have been mere fatigue,
and there might still be twenty years of achievement before him,
which would justify the thirty years of preparation. That prospect
was made the sweeter by a flavor of vengeance against the hasty
sneers of Carp & Company; for even when Mr. Casaubon was carrying
his taper among the tombs of the past, those modern figures came
athwart the dim light, and interrupted his diligent exploration.
To convince Carp of his mistake, so that he would have to eat his
own words with a good deal of indigestion, would be an agreeable
accident of triumphant authorship, which the prospect of living to
future ages on earth and to all eternity in heaven could not exclude
from contemplation. Since, thus, the prevision of his own unending
bliss could not nullify the bitter savors of irritated jealousy
and vindictiveness, it is the less surprising that the probability
of a transient earthly bliss for other persons, when he himself
should have entered into glory, had not a potently sweetening effect.
If the truth should be that some undermining disease was at work
within him, there might be large opportunity for some people to be
the happier when he was gone; and if one of those people should be
Will Ladislaw, Mr. Casaubon objected so strongly that it seemed
as if the annoyance would make part of his disembodied existence.

This is a very bare and therefore a very incomplete way of putting
the case. The human soul moves in many channels, and Mr. Casaubon,
we know, had a sense of rectitude and an honorable pride in satisfying
the requirements of honor, which compelled him to find other
reasons for his conduct than those of jealousy and vindictiveness.
The way in which Mr. Casaubon put the case was this:--"In marrying
Dorothea Brooke I had to care for her well-being in case of my death.
But well-being is not to be secured by ample, independent possession
of property; on the contrary, occasions might arise in which such
possession might expose her to the more danger. She is ready prey
to any man who knows how to play adroitly either on her affectionate
ardor or her Quixotic enthusiasm; and a man stands by with that
very intention in his mind--a man with no other principle than
transient caprice, and who has a personal animosity towards me--
I am sure of it--an animosity which is fed by the consciousness
of his ingratitude, and which he has constantly vented in ridicule
of which I am as well assured as if I had heard it. Even if I
live I shall not be without uneasiness as to what he may attempt
through indirect influence. This man has gained Dorothea's ear:
he has fascinated her attention; he has evidently tried to impress
her mind with the notion that he has claims beyond anything I have done
for him. If I die--and he is waiting here on the watch for that--
he will persuade her to marry him. That would be calamity for
her and success for him. SHE would not think it calamity:
he would make her believe anything; she has a tendency to
immoderate attachment which she inwardly reproaches me for not
responding to, and already her mind is occupied with his fortunes.
He thinks of an easy conquest and of entering into my nest.
That I will hinder! Such a marriage would be fatal to Dorothea.
Has he ever persisted in anything except from contradiction?
In knowledge he has always tried to be showy at small cost.
In religion he could be, as long as it suited him, the facile echo of
Dorothea's vagaries. When was sciolism ever dissociated from laxity?
I utterly distrust his morals, and it is my duty to hinder to the
utmost the fulfilment of his designs."

The arrangements made by Mr. Casaubon on his marriage left strong
measures open to him, but in ruminating on them his mind inevitably
dwelt so much on the probabilities of his own life that the longing
to get the nearest possible calculation had at last overcome his
proud reticence, and had determined him to ask Lydgate's opinion
as to the nature of his illness.

He had mentioned to Dorothea that Lydgate was coming by appointment
at half-past three, and in answer to her anxious question, whether he
had felt ill, replied,--"No, I merely wish to have his opinion
concerning some habitual symptoms. You need not see him, my dear.
I shall give orders that he may be sent to me in the Yew-tree Walk,
where I shall be taking my usual exercise."

When Lydgate entered the Yew-tree Walk he saw Mr. Casaubon slowly
receding with his hands behind him according to his habit,
and his head bent forward. It was a lovely afternoon; the leaves
from the lofty limes were falling silently across the sombre
evergreens, while the lights and shadows slept side by side:
there was no sound but the cawing of the rooks, which to the
accustomed ear is a lullaby, or that last solemn lullaby, a dirge.
Lydgate, conscious of an energetic frame in its prime, felt some
compassion when the figure which he was likely soon to overtake
turned round, and in advancing towards him showed more markedly
than ever the signs of premature age--the student's bent shoulders,
the emaciated limbs, and the melancholy lines of the mouth.
"Poor fellow," he thought, "some men with his years are like lions;
one can tell nothing of their age except that they are full grown."

"Mr. Lydgate," said Mr. Casaubon, with his invariably po lite air,
"I am exceedingly obliged to you for your punctuality. We will,
if you please, carry on our conversation in walking to and fro."

"I hope your wish to see me is not due to the return
of unpleasant symptoms," said Lydgate, filling up a pause.

"Not immediately--no. In order to account for that wish I must mention--
what it were otherwise needless to refer to--that my life,
on all collateral accounts insignificant, derives a possible
importance from the incompleteness of labors which have extended
through all its best years. In short, I have long had on hand
a work which I would fain leave behind me in such a state, at least,
that it might be committed to the press by--others. Were I assured
that this is the utmost I can reasonably expect, that assurance
would be a useful circumscription of my attempts, and a guide
in both the positive and negative determination of my course."

Here Mr. Casaubon paused, removed one hand from his back and thrust
it between the buttons of his single-breasted coat. To a mind
largely instructed in the human destiny hardly anything could be
more interesting than the inward conflict implied in his formal
measured address, delivered with the usual sing-song and motion
of the head. Nay, are there many situations more sublimely tragic
than the struggle of the soul with the demand to renounce a work
which has been all the significance of its life--a significance
which is to vanish as the waters which come and go where no man has
need of them? But there was nothing to strike others as sublime
about Mr. Casaubon, and Lydgate, who had some contempt at hand for
futile scholarship, felt a little amusement mingling with his pity.
He was at present too ill acquainted with disaster to enter into
the pathos of a lot where everything is below the level of tragedy
except the passionate egoism of the sufferer.

"You refer to the possible hindrances from want of health?" he said,
wishing to help forward Mr. Casaubon's purpose, which seemed to be
clogged by some hesitation.

"I do. You have not implied to me that the symptoms which--
I am bound to testify--you watched with scrupulous care,
were those of a fatal disease. But were it so, Mr. Lydgate,
I should desire to know the truth without reservation, and I
appeal to you for an exact statement of your conclusions:
I request it as a friendly service. If you can tell me that my
life is not threatened by anything else than ordinary casualties,
I shall rejoice, on grounds which I have already indicated.
If not, knowledge of the truth is even more important to me."

"Then I can no longer hesitate as to my course," said Lydgate;
"but the first thing I must impress on you is that my conclusions
are doubly uncertain--uncertain not only because of my fallibility,
but because diseases of the heart are eminently difficult to found
predictions on. In any ease, one can hardly increase appreciably
the tremendous uncertainty of life."

Mr. Casaubon winced perceptibly, but bowed.

"I believe that you are suffering from what is called fatty
degeneration of the heart, a disease which was first divined
and explored by Laennec, the man who gave us the stethoscope,
not so very many years ago. A good deal of experience--a more
lengthened observation--is wanting on the subject. But after
what you have said, it is my duty to tell you that death from this
disease is often sudden. At the same time, no such result can
be predicted. Your condition may be consistent with a tolerably
comfortable life for another fifteen years, or even more. I could
add no information to this beyond anatomical or medical details,
which would leave expectation at precisely the same point."
Lydgate's instinct was fine enough to tell him that plain speech,
quite free from ostentatious caution, would be felt by Mr. Casaubon
as a tribute of respect.

"I thank you, Mr. Lydgate," said Mr. Casaubon, after a moment's pause.
"One thing more I have still to ask: did you communicate what you
have now told me to Mrs. Casaubon?"

"Partly--I mean, as to the possible issues." Lydgate was going
to explain why he had told Dorothea, but Mr. Casaubon, with an
unmistakable desire to end the conversation, waved his hand slightly,
and said again, "I thank you," proceeding to remark on the rare
beauty of the day.

Lydgate, certain that his patient wished to be alone, soon left him;
and the black figure with hands behind and head bent forward
continued to pace the walk where the dark yew-trees gave him
a mute companionship in melancholy, and the little shadows of bird
or leaf that fleeted across the isles of sunlight, stole along
in silence as in the presence of a sorrow. Here was a man who now
for the first time found himself looking into the eyes of death--
who was passing through one of those rare moments of experience
when we feel the truth of a commonplace, which is as different from
what we call knowing it, as the vision of waters upon the earth is
different from the delirious vision of the water which cannot be had
to cool the burning tongue. When the commonplace "We must all die"
transforms itself suddenly into the acute consciousness "I must die--
and soon," then death grapples us, and his fingers are cruel;
afterwards, he may come to fold us in his arms as our mother did,
and our last moment of dim earthly discerning may be like the first.
To Mr. Casaubon now, it was as if he suddenly found himself on
the dark river-brink and heard the plash of the oncoming oar,
not discerning the forms, but expecting the summons. In such an
hour the mind does not change its lifelong bias, but carries it
onward in imagination to the other side of death, gazing backward--
perhaps with the divine calm of beneficence, perhaps with the petty
anxieties of self-assertion. What was Mr. Casaubon's bias his acts
will give us a clew to. He held himself to be, with some private
scholarly reservations, a believing Christian, as to estimates of
the present and hopes of the future. But what we strive to gratify,
though we may call it a distant hope, is an immediate desire:
the future estate for which men drudge up city alleys exists already
in their imagination and love. And Mr. Casaubon's immediate desire
was not for divine communion and light divested of earthly conditions;
his passionate longings, poor man, clung low and mist-like in very
shady places.

Dorothea had been aware when Lydgate had ridden away, and she had
stepped into the garden, with the impulse to go at once to her husband.
But she hesitated, fearing to offend him by obtruding herself;
for her ardor, continually repulsed, served, with her intense memory,
to heighten her dread, as thwarted energy subsides into a shudder;
and she wandered slowly round the nearer clumps of trees until
she saw him advancing. Then she went towards him, and might have
represented a heaven-sent angel coming with a promise that the
short hours remaining should yet be filled with that faithful
love which clings the closer to a comprehended grief. His glance
in reply to hers was so chill that she felt her timidity increased;
yet she turned and passed her hand through his arm.

Mr. Casaubon kept his hands behind him and allowed her pliant arm
to cling with difficulty against his rigid arm.

There was something horrible to Dorothea in the sensation which this
unresponsive hardness inflicted on her. That is a strong word,
but not too strong: it is in these acts called trivialities that
the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round
with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made,
and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness--calling their
denial knowledge. You may ask why, in the name of manliness,
Mr. Casaubon should have behaved in that way. Consider that his
was a mind which shrank from pity: have you ever watched in such
a mind the effect of a suspicion that what is pressing it as a grief
may be really a source of contentment, either actual or future,
to the being who already offends by pitying? Besides, he knew
little of Dorothea's sensations, and had not reflected that on
such an occasion as the present they were comparable in strength
to his own sensibilities about Carp's criticisms.

Dorothea did not withdraw her arm, but she could not venture to speak.
Mr. Casaubon did not say, "I wish to be alone," but he directed his
steps in silence towards the house, and as they entered by the glass
door on this eastern side, Dorothea withdrew her arm and lingered
on the matting, that she might leave her husband quite free.
He entered the library and shut himself in, alone with his sorrow.

She went up to her boudoir. The open bow-window let in the serene
glory of the afternoon lying in the avenue, where the lime-trees
east long shadows. But Dorothea knew nothing of the scene.
She threw herself on a chair, not heeding that she was in the
dazzling sun-rays: if there were discomfort in that, how could
she tell that it was not part of her inward misery?

She was in the reaction of a rebellious anger stronger than any she
had felt since her marriage. Instead of tears there came words:--

"What have I done--what am I--that he should treat me so?
He never knows what is in my mind--he never cares. What is the use
of anything I do? He wishes he had never married me."

She began to hear herself, and was checked into stillness. Like one
who has lost his way and is weary, she sat and saw as in one glance
all the paths of her young hope which she should never find again.
And just as clearly in the miserable light she saw her own and her
husband's solitude--how they walked apart so that she was obliged
to survey him. If he had drawn her towards him, she would never have
surveyed him--never have said, "Is he worth living for?" but would
have felt him simply a part of her own life. Now she said bitterly,
"It is his fault, not mine." In the jar of her whole being,
Pity was overthrown. Was it her fault that she had believed in him--
had believed in his worthiness?--And what, exactly, was he?--
She was able enough to estimate him--she who waited on his glances
with trembling, and shut her best soul in prison, paying it only
hidden visits, that she might be petty enough to please him.
In such a crisis as this, some women begin to hate.

The sun was low when Dorothea was thinking that she would not go
down again, but would send a message to her husband saying that she
was not well and preferred remaining up-stairs. She had never
deliberately allowed her resentment to govern her in this way before,
but she believed now that she could not see him again without
telling him the truth about her feeling, and she must wait till
she could do it without interruption. He might wonder and be hurt
at her message. It was good that he should wonder and be hurt.
Her anger said, as anger is apt to say, that God was with her--
that all heaven, though it were crowded with spirits watching them,
must be on her side. She had determined to ring her bell, when there
came a rap at the door.

Mr. Casaubon had sent to say that he would have his dinner
in the library. He wished to be quite alone this evening,
being much occupied.

"I shall not dine, then, Tantripp."

"Oh, madam, let me bring you a little something?"

"No; I am not well. Get everything ready in my dressing room,
but pray do not disturb me again."

Dorothea sat almost motionless in her meditative struggle,
while the evening slowly deepened into night. But the struggle
changed continually, as that of a man who begins with a movement
towards striking and ends with conquering his desire to strike.
The energy that would animate a crime is not more than is wanted
to inspire a resolved, submission, when the noble habit of the soul
reasserts itself. That thought with which Dorothea had gone
out to meet her husband--her conviction that he had been asking
about the possible arrest of all his work, and that the answer
must have wrung his heart, could not be long without rising beside
the image of him, like a shadowy monitor looking at her anger
with sad remonstrance. It cost her a litany of pictured sorrows
and of silent cries that she might be the mercy for those sorrows--
but the resolved submission did come; and when the house was still,
and she knew that it was near the time when Mr. Casaubon habitually
went to rest, she opened her door gently and stood outside in the
darkness waiting for his coming up-stairs with a light in his hand.
If he did not come soon she thought that she would go down and even risk
incurring another pang. She would never again expect anything else.
But she did hear the library door open, and slowly the light advanced
up the staircase without noise from the footsteps on the carpet.
When her husband stood opposite to her, she saw that his face was
more haggard. He started slightly on seeing her, and she looked up
at him beseechingly, without speaking.

"Dorothea!" he said, with a gentle surprise in his tone. "Were you
waiting for me?"

"Yes, I did not like to disturb you."

"Come, my dear, come. You are young, and need not to extend your
life by watching."

When the kind quiet melancholy of that speech fell on Dorothea's ears,
she felt something like the thankfulness that might well up
in us if we had narrowly escaped hurting a lamed creature.
She put her hand into her husband's, and they went along the broad
corridor together.

BOOK V.

THE DEAD HAND.

CHAPTER XLIII.

        This figure hath high price: 't was wrought with love
        Ages ago in finest ivory;
        Nought modish in it, pure and noble lines
        Of generous womanhood that fits all time
        That too is costly ware; majolica
        Of deft design, to please a lordly eye:
        The smile, you see, is perfect--wonderful
        As mere Faience! a table ornament
        To suit the richest mounting."

Dorothea seldom left home without her husband, but she did occasionally
drive into Middlemarch alone, on little errands of shopping or charity
such as occur to every lady of any wealth when she lives within three
miles of a town. Two days after that scene in the Yew-tree Walk,
she determined to use such an opportunity in order if possible to
see Lydgate, and learn from him whether her husband had really felt
any depressing change of symptoms which he was concealing from her,
and whether he had insisted on knowing the utmost about himself.
She felt almost guilty in asking for knowledge about him from another,
but the dread of being without it--the dread of that ignorance
which would make her unjust or hard--overcame every scruple.
That there had been some crisis in her husband's mind she was certain:
he had the very next day begun a new method of arranging his notes,
and had associated her quite newly in carrying out his plan.
Poor Dorothea needed to lay up stores of patience.

It was about four o'clock when she drove to Lydgate's house in
Lowick Gate, wishing, in her immediate doubt of finding him at home,
that she had written beforehand. And he was not at home.

"Is Mrs. Lydgate at home?" said Dorothea, who had never, that she
knew of, seen Rosamond, but now remembered the fact of the marriage.
Yes, Mrs. Lydgate was at home.

"I will go in and speak to her, if she will allow me. Will you
ask her if she can see me--see Mrs. Casaubon, for a few minutes?"

When the servant had gone to deliver that message, Dorothea could
hear sounds of music through an open window--a few notes
from a man's voice and then a piano bursting into roulades.
But the roulades broke off suddenly, and then the servant came
back saying that Mrs. Lydgate would be happy to see Mrs. Casaubon.

When the drawing-room door opened and Dorothea entered, there was
a sort of contrast not infrequent in country life when the habits
of the different ranks were less blent than now. Let those who know,
tell us exactly what stuff it was that Dorothea wore in those days
of mild autumn--that thin white woollen stuff soft to the touch
and soft to the eye. It always seemed to have been lately washed,
and to smell of the sweet hedges--was always in the shape of a
pelisse with sleeves hanging all out of the fashion. Yet if she
had entered before a still audience as Imogene or Cato's daughter,
the dress might have seemed right enough: the grace and dignity were
in her limbs and neck; and about her simply parted hair and candid
eyes the large round poke which was then in the fate of women,
seemed no more odd as a head-dress than the gold trencher we call
a halo. By the present audience of two persons, no dramatic heroine
could have been expected with more interest than Mrs. Casaubon.
To Rosamond she was one of those county divinities not mixing with
Middlemarch mortality, whose slightest marks of manner or appearance
were worthy of her study; moreover, Rosamond was not without satisfaction
that Mrs. Casaubon should have an opportunity of studying HER.
What is the use of being exquisite if you are not seen by the best
judges? and since Rosamond had received the highest compliments
at Sir Godwin Lydgate's, she felt quite confident of the impression
she must make on people of good birth. Dorothea put out her hand
with her usual simple kindness, and looked admiringly at Lydgate's
lovely bride--aware that there was a gentleman standing at a distance,
but seeing him merely as a coated figure at a wide angle.
The gentleman was too much occupied with the presence of the one woman
to reflect on the contrast between the two--a contrast that would
certainly have been striking to a calm observer. They were both tall,
and their eyes were on a level; but imagine Rosamond's infantine
blondness and wondrous crown of hair-plaits, with her pale-blue
dress of a fit and fashion so perfect that no dressmaker could look
at it without emotion, a large embroidered collar which it was
to be hoped all beholders would know the price of, her small hands
duly set off with rings, and that controlled self-consciousness
of manner which is the expensive substitute for simplicity.

"Thank you very much for allowing me to interrupt you,"
said Dorothea, immediately. "I am anxious to see Mr. Lydgate,
if possible, before I go home, and I hoped that you might possibly
tell me where I could find him, or even allow me to wait for him,
if you expect him soon."

"He is at the New Hospital," said Rosamond; "I am not sure how soon
he will come home. But I can send for him,"

"Will you let me go and fetch him?" said Will Ladislaw, coming forward.
He had already taken up his hat before Dorothea entered.
She colored with surprise, but put out her hand with a smile
of unmistakable pleasure, saying--

"I did not know it was you: I had no thought of seeing you here."

"May I go to the Hospital and tell Mr. Lydgate that you wish
to see him?" said Will.

"It would be quicker to send the carriage for him," said Dorothea,
"if you will be kind enough to give the message to the coachman."

Will was moving to the door when Dorothea, whose mind had flashed
in an instant over many connected memories, turned quickly and said,
"I will go myself, thank you. I wish to lose no time before getting
home again. I will drive to the Hospital and see Mr. Lydgate there.
Pray excuse me, Mrs. Lydgate. I am very much obliged to you."

Her mind was evidently arrested by some sudden thought, and she
left the room hardly conscious of what was immediately around her--
hardly conscious that Will opened the door for her and offered her his
arm to lead her to the carriage. She took the arm but said nothing.
Will was feeling rather vexed and miserable, and found nothing
to say on his side. He handed her into the carriage in silence,
they said good-by, and Dorothea drove away.

In the five minutes' drive to the Hospital she had time for some
reflections that were quite new to her. Her decision to go, and her
preoccupation in leaving the room, had come from the sudden sense
that there would be a sort of deception in her voluntarily allowing
any further intercourse between herself and Will which she was unable
to mention to her husband, and already her errand in seeking Lydgate
was a matter of concealment. That was all that had been explicitly
in her mind; but she had been urged also by a vague discomfort.
Now that she was alone in her drive, she heard the notes of the man's
voice and the accompanying piano, which she had not noted much
at the time, returning on her inward sense; and she found herself
thinking with some wonder that Will Ladislaw was passing his time
with Mrs. Lydgate in her husband's absence. And then she could
not help remembering that he had passed some time with her under
like circumstances, so why should there be any unfitness in the fact?
But Will was Mr. Casaubon's relative, and one towards whom she was
bound to show kindness. Still there had been signs which perhaps
she ought to have understood as implying that Mr. Casaubon did
not like his cousin's visits during his own absence. "Perhaps I
have been mistaken in many things," said poor Dorothea to herself,
while the tears came rolling and she had to dry them quickly.
She felt confusedly unhappy, and the image of Will which had been
so clear to her before was mysteriously spoiled. But the carriage
stopped at the gate of the Hospital. She was soon walking round
the grass plots with Lydgate, and her feelings recovered the strong
bent which had made her seek for this interview.

Will Ladislaw, meanwhile, was mortified, and knew the reason
of it clearly enough. His chances of meeting Dorothea were rare;
and here for the first time there had come a chance which had set
him at a disadvantage. It was not only, as it had been hitherto,
that she was not supremely occupied with him, but that she had seen
him under circumstances in which he might appear not to be supremely
occupied with her. He felt thrust to a new distance from her,
amongst the circles of Middlemarchers who made no part of her life.
But that was not his fault: of course, since he had taken his lodgings
in the town, he had been making as many acquaintances as he could,
his position requiring that he should know everybody and everything.
Lydgate was really better worth knowing than any one else in
the neighborhood, and he happened to have a wife who was musical
and altogether worth calling upon. Here was the whole history
of the situation in which Diana had descended too unexpectedly on
her worshipper. It was mortifying. Will was conscious that he should
not have been at Middlemarch but for Dorothea; and yet his position
there was threatening to divide him from her with those barriers
of habitual sentiment which are more fatal to the persistence
of mutual interest than all the distance between Rome and Britain.
Prejudices about rank and status were easy enough to defy in the
form of a tyrannical letter from Mr. Casaubon; but prejudices,
like odorous bodies, have a double existence both solid and subtle--
solid as the pyramids, subtle as the twentieth echo of an echo,
or as the memory of hyacinths which once scented the darkness.
And Will was of a temperament to feel keenly the presence
of subtleties: a man of clumsier perceptions would not have felt,
as he did, that for the first time some sense of unfitness
in perfect freedom with him had sprung up in Dorothea's mind,
and that their silence, as he conducted her to the carriage,
had had a chill in it. Perhaps Casaubon, in his hatred and jealousy,
had been insisting to Dorothea that Will had slid below her socially.
Confound Casaubon!

Will re-entered the drawing-room, took up his hat, and looking
irritated as he advanced towards Mrs. Lydgate, who had seated
herself at her work-table, said--

"It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted. May I
come another day and just finish about the rendering of `Lungi dal
caro bene'?"

"I shall be happy to be taught," said Rosamond. "But I am sure
you admit that the interruption was a very beautiful one. I quite
envy your acquaintance with Mrs. Casaubon. Is she very clever?
She looks as if she were."

"Really, I never thought about it," said Will, sulkily.

"That is just the answer Tertius gave me, when I first asked him
if she were handsome. What is it that you gentlemen are thinking
of when you are with Mrs. Casaubon?"

"Herself," said Will, not indisposed to provoke the charming
Mrs. Lydgate. "When one sees a perfect woman, one never thinks
of her attributes--one is conscious of her presence."

"I shall be jealous when Tertius goes to Lowick," said Rosamond,
dimpling, and speaking with aery lightness. "He will come back
and think nothing of me."

"That does not seem to have been the effect on Lydgate hitherto.
Mrs. Casaubon is too unlike other women for them to be compared
with her."

"You are a devout worshipper, I perceive. You often see her,
I suppose."

"No," said Will, almost pettishly. "Worship is usually a matter
of theory rather than of practice. But I am practising it to excess
just at this moment--I must really tear myself away.

"Pray come again some evening: Mr. Lydgate will like to hear
the music, and I cannot enjoy it so well without him."

When her husband was at home again, Rosamond said, standing in
front of him and holding his coat-collar with both her hands,
"Mr. Ladislaw was here singing with me when Mrs. Casaubon came in.
He seemed vexed. Do you think he disliked her seeing him at our house?
Surely your position is more than equal to his--whatever may be his
relation to the Casaubons."

"No, no; it must be something else if he were really vexed,
Ladislaw is a sort of gypsy; he thinks nothing of leather and prunella."

"Music apart, he is not always very agreeable. Do you like him?"

"Yes: I think he is a good fellow: rather miscellaneous and
bric-a-brac, but likable."

"Do you know, I think he adores Mrs. Casaubon."

"Poor devil!" said Lydgate, smiling and pinching his wife's ears.

Rosamond felt herself beginning to know a great deal of the world,
especially in discovering what when she was in her unmarried girlhood
had been inconceivable to her except as a dim tragedy in by-gone costumes--
that women, even after marriage, might make conquests and enslave men.
At that time young ladies in the country, even when educated at
Mrs. Lemon's, read little French literature later than Racine,
and public prints had not cast their present magnificent illumination
over the scandals of life. Still, vanity, with a woman's whole
mind and day to work in, can construct abundantly on slight hints,
especially on such a hint as the possibility of indefinite conquests.
How delightful to make captives from the throne of marriage with a
husband as crown-prince by your side--himself in fact a subject--
while the captives look up forever hopeless, losing their rest probably,
and if their appetite too, so much the better! But Rosamond's romance
turned at present chiefly on her crown-prince, and it was enough
to enjoy his assured subjection. When he said, "Poor devil I"
she asked, with playful curiosity--

"Why so?"

"Why, what can a man do when he takes to adoring one of you mermaids?
He only neglects his work and runs up bills."

"I am sure you do not neglect your work. You are always at the Hospital,
or seeing poor patients, or thinking about some doctor's quarrel;
and then at home you always want to pore over your microscope
and phials. Confess you like those things better than me."

"Haven't you ambition enough to wish that your husband should
be something better than a Middlemarch doctor?" said Lydgate,
letting his hands fall on to his wife's shoulders, and looking
at her with affectionate gravity. "I shall make you learn
my favorite bit from an old poet--

        `Why should our pride make such a stir to be
         And be forgot? What good is like to this,
         To do worthy the writing, and to write
         Worthy the reading and the worlds delight?'

What I want, Rosy, is to do worthy the writing,--and to write out
myself what I have done. A man must work, to do that, my pet."

"Of course, I wish you to make discoveries: no one could more wish
you to attain a high position in some better place than Middlemarch.
You cannot say that I have ever tried to hinder you from working.
But we cannot live like hermits. You are not discontented
with me, Tertius?"

"No, dear, no. I am too entirely contented."

"But what did Mrs. Casaubon want to say to you?"

"Merely to ask about her husband's health. But I think she is
going to be splendid to our New Hospital: I think she will give
us two hundred a-year."

CHAPTER XLIV.

I would not creep along the coast but steer
Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars.

When Dorothea, walking round the laurel-planted plots of the New
Hospital with Lydgate, had learned from him that there were no signs
of change in Mr. Casaubon's bodily condition beyond the mental
sign of anxiety to know the truth about his illness, she was
silent for a few moments, wondering whether she had said or done
anything to rouse this new anxiety. Lydgate, not willing to let
slip an opportunity of furthering a favorite purpose, ventured to say--

"I don't know whether your or Mr.--Casaubon's attention has been drawn
to the needs of our New Hospital. Circumstances have made it seem
rather egotistic in me to urge the subject; but that is not my fault:
it is because there is a fight being made against it by the other
medical men. I think you are generally interested in such things,
for I remember that when I first had the pleasure of seeing you
at Tipton Grange before your marriage, you were asking me some
questions about the way in which the health of the poor was affected
by their miserable housing."

"Yes, indeed," said Dorothea, brightening. "I shall be quite
grateful to you if you will tell me how I can help to make things
a little better. Everything of that sort has slipped away from me
since I have been married. I mean," she said, after a moment's
hesitation, "that the people in our village are tolerably comfortable,
and my mind has been too much taken up for me to inquire further.
But here--in such a place as Middlemarch--there must be a great
deal to be done."

"There is everything to be done," said Lydgate, with abrupt energy.
"And this Hospital is a capital piece of work, due entirely to
Mr. Bulstrode's exertions, and in a great degree to his money.
But one man can't do everything in a scheme of this sort. Of course
he looked forward to help. And now there's a mean, petty feud
set up against the thing in the town, by certain persons who want
to make it a failure."

"What can be their reasons?" said Dorothea, with naive surprise.

"Chiefly Mr. Bulstrode's unpopularity, to begin with. Half the
town would almost take trouble for the sake of thwarting him.
In this stupid world most people never consider that a thing is good
to be done unless it is done by their own set. I had no connection
with Bulstrode before I came here. I look at him quite impartially,
and I see that he has some notions--that he has set things on foot--
which I can turn to good public purpose. If a fair number of the better
educated men went to work with the belief that their observations
might contribute to the reform of medical doctrine and practice,
we should soon see a change for the better. That's my point of view.
I hold that by refusing to work with Mr. Bulstrode I should be
turning my back on an opportunity of making my profession more
generally serviceable."

"I quite agree with you," said Dorothea, at once fascinated by
the situation sketched in Lydgate's words. "But what is there
against Mr. Bulstrode? I know that my uncle is friendly with him."

"People don't like his religious tone," said Lydgate, breaking off there.

"That is all the stronger reason for despising such an opposition,"
said Dorothea, looking at the affairs of Middlemarch by the light
of the great persecutions.

"To put the matter quite fairly, they have other objections to him:--
he is masterful and rather unsociable, and he is concerned with trade,
which has complaints of its own that I know nothing about.
But what has that to do with the question whether it would not be
a fine thing to establish here a more valuable hospital than any
they have in the county? The immediate motive to the opposition,
however, is the fact that Bulstrode has put the medical direction
into my hands. Of course I am glad of that. It gives me an
opportunity of doing some good work,--and I am aware that I have
to justify his choice of me. But the consequence is, that the
whole profession in Middlemarch have set themselves tooth and nail
against the Hospital, and not only refuse to cooperate themselves,
but try to blacken the whole affair and hinder subscriptions."

"How very petty!" exclaimed Dorothea, indignantly.

"I suppose one must expect to fight one's way: there is hardly
anything to be done without it. And the ignorance of people about
here is stupendous. I don't lay claim to anything else than having
used some opportunities which have not come within everybody's reach;
but there is no stifling the offence of being young, and a new-comer,
and happening to know something more than the old inhabitants.
Still, if I believe that I can set going a better method of treatment--
if I believe that I can pursue certain observations and inquiries
which may be a lasting benefit to medical practice, I should be
a base truckler if I allowed any consideration of personal comfort
to hinder me. And the course is all the clearer from there being
no salary in question to put my persistence in an equivocal light."

"I am glad you have told me this, Mr. Lydgate," said Dorothea, cordially.
"I feel sure I can help a little. I have some money, and don't know
what to do with it--that is often an uncomfortable thought to me.
I am sure I can spare two hundred a-year for a grand purpose like this.
How happy you must be, to know things that you feel sure will do
great good! I wish I could awake with that knowledge every morning.
There seems to be so much trouble taken that one can hardly see
the good of!"

There was a melancholy cadence in Dorothea's voice as she spoke
these last words. But she presently added, more cheerfully,
"Pray come to Lowick and tell us more of this. I will mention
the subject to Mr. Casaubon. I must hasten home now."

She did mention it that evening, and said that she should like to
subscribe two hundred a-year--she had seven hundred a-year as the
equivalent of her own fortune, settled on her at her marriage.
Mr. Casaubon made no objection beyond a passing remark that the
sum might be disproportionate in relation to other good objects,
but when Dorothea in her ignorance resisted that suggestion,
he acquiesced. He did not care himself about spending money,
and was not reluctant to give it. If he ever felt keenly any question
of money it was through the medium of another passion than the love
of material property.

Dorothea told him that she had seen Lydgate, and recited the gist
of her conversation with him about the Hospital. Mr. Casaubon did
not question her further, but he felt sure that she had wished to know
what had passed between Lydgate and himself "She knows that I know,"
said the ever-restless voice within; but that increase of tacit
knowledge only thrust further off any confidence between them.
He distrusted her affection; and what loneliness is more lonely
than distrust?

CHAPTER XLV.

It is the humor of many heads to extol the days of their forefathers,
and declaim against the wickedness of times present. Which
notwithstanding they cannot handsomely do, without the borrowed help
and satire of times past; condemning the vices of their own times,
by the expressions of vices in times which they commend, which cannot
but argue the community of vice in both. Horace, therefore, Juvenal,
and Persius, were no prophets, although their lines did seem to indigitate
and point at our times.--SIR THOMAS BROWNE: Pseudodoxia Epidemica.

That opposition to the New Fever Hospital which Lydgate had sketched
to Dorothea was, like other oppositions, to be viewed in many
different lights. He regarded it as a mixture of jealousy and
dunderheaded prejudice. Mr. Bulstrode saw in it not only medical
jealousy but a determination to thwart himself, prompted mainly
by a hatred of that vital religion of which he had striven to be
an effectual lay representative--a hatred which certainly found
pretexts apart from religion such as were only too easy to find
in the entanglements of human action. These might be called the
ministerial views. But oppositions have the illimitable range of
objections at command, which need never stop short at the boundary
of knowledge, but can draw forever on the vasts of ignorance.
What the opposition in Middlemarch said about the New Hospital
and its administration had certainly a great deal of echo in it,
for heaven has taken care that everybody shall not be an originator;
but there were differences which represented every social shade
between the polished moderation of Dr. Minchin and the trenchant
assertion of Mrs. Dollop, the landlady of the Tankard in Slaughter Lane.

Mrs. Dollop became more and more convinced by her own asseveration,
that Dr. Lydgate meant to let the people die in the Hospital,
if not to poison them, for the sake of cutting them up without
saying by your leave or with your leave; for it was a known "fac"
that he had wanted to cut up Mrs. Goby, as respectable a woman
as any in Parley Street, who had money in trust before her marriage--
a poor tale for a doctor, who if he was good for anything should know
what was the matter with you before you died, and not want to pry
into your inside after you were gone. If that was not reason,
Mrs. Dollop wished to know what was; but there was a prevalent feeling
in her audience that her opinion was a bulwark, and that if it were
overthrown there would be no limits to the cutting-up of bodies,
as had been well seen in Burke and Hare with their pitch-plaisters--
such a hanging business as that was not wanted in Middlemarch!

And let it not be supposed that opinion at the Tankard in Slaughter
Lane was unimportant to the medical profession: that old authentic
public-house--the original Tankard, known by the name of Dollop's--
was the resort of a great Benefit Club, which had some months before put
to the vote whether its long-standing medical man, "Doctor Gambit,"
should not be cashiered in favor of "this Doctor Lydgate," who was
capable of performing the most astonishing cures, and rescuing people
altogether given up by other practitioners. But the balance had been
turned against Lydgate by two members, who for some private reasons
held that this power of resuscitating persons as good as dead was an
equivocal recommendation, and might interfere with providential favors.
In the course of the year, however, there had been a change
in the public sentiment, of which the unanimity at Dollop's was an index

A good deal more than a year ago, before anything was known of
Lydgate's skill, the judgments on it had naturally been divided,
depending on a sense of likelihood, situated perhaps in the pit
of the stomach or in the pineal gland, and differing in its verdicts,
but not the less valuable as a guide in the total deficit of evidence.
Patients who had chronic diseases or whose lives had long been
worn threadbare, like old Featherstone's, had been at once inclined
to try him; also, many who did not like paying their doctor's bills,
thought agreeably of opening an account with a new doctor and
sending for him without stint if the children's temper wanted
a dose, occasions when the old practitioners were often crusty;
and all persons thus inclined to employ Lydgate held it likely
that he was clever. Some considered that he might do more than
others "where there was liver;"--at least there would be no harm
in getting a few bottles of "stuff" from him, since if these proved
useless it would still be possible to return to the Purifying Pills,
which kept you alive if they did not remove the yellowness.
But these were people of minor importance. Good Middlemarch families
were of course not going to change their doctor without reason shown;
and everybody who had employed Mr. Peacock did not feel obliged
to accept a new man merely in the character of his successor,
objecting that he was "not likely to be equal to Peacock."

But Lydgate had not been long in the town before there were
particulars enough reported of him to breed much more specific
expectations and to intensify differences into partisanship;
some of the particulars being of that impressive order of which the
significance is entirely hidden, like a statistical amount without
a standard of comparison, but with a note of exclamation at the end.
The cubic feet of oxygen yearly swallowed by a full-grown man--
what a shudder they might have created in some Middlemarch circles!
"Oxygen! nobody knows what that may be--is it any wonder the cholera
has got to Dantzic? And yet there are people who say quarantine is
no good!"

One of the facts quickly rumored was that Lydgate did not dispense drugs.
This was offensive both to the physicians whose exclusive distinction
seemed infringed on, and to the surgeon-apothecaries with whom he
ranged himself; and only a little while before, they might have counted
on having the law on their side against a man who without calling
himself a London-made M.D. dared to ask for pay except as a charge
on drugs. But Lydgate had not been experienced enough to foresee
that his new course would be even more offensive to the laity;
and to Mr. Mawmsey, an important grocer in the Top Market, who,
though not one of his patients, questioned him in an affable manner
on the subject, he was injudicious enough to give a hasty popular
explanation of his reasons, pointing out to Mr. Mawmsey that it
must lower the character of practitioners, and be a constant injury
to the public, if their only mode of getting paid for their work
was by their making out long bills for draughts, boluses, and mixtures.

"It is in that way that hard-working medical men may come to be almost
as mischievous as quacks," said Lydgate, rather thoughtlessly.
"To get their own bread they must overdose the king's lieges;
and that's a bad sort of treason, Mr. Mawmsey--undermines the
constitution in a fatal way."

Mr. Mawmsey was not only an overseer (it was about a question of
outdoor pay that he was having an interview with Lydgate), he was
also asthmatic and had an increasing family: thus, from a medical
point of view, as well as from his own, he was an important man;
indeed, an exceptional grocer, whose hair was arranged in a
flame-like pyramid, and whose retail deference was of the cordial,
encouraging kind--jocosely complimentary, and with a certain
considerate abstinence from letting out the full force of his mind.
It was Mr. Mawmsey's friendly jocoseness in questioning him which
had set the tone of Lydgate's reply. But let the wise be warned
against too great readiness at explanation: it multiplies the
sources of mistake, lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong.

Lydgate smiled as he ended his speech, putting his foot into
the stirrup, and Mr. Mawmsey laughed more than he would have
done if he had known who the king's lieges were, giving his
"Good morning, sir, good-morning, sir," with the air of one who saw
everything clearly enough. But in truth his views were perturbed.
For years he had been paying bills with strictly made items,
so that for every half-crown and eighteen-pence he was certain
something measurable had been delivered. He had done this with
satisfaction, including it among his responsibilities as a husband
and father, and regarding a longer bill than usual as a dignity
worth mentioning. Moreover, in addition to the massive benefit
of the drugs to "self and family," he had enjoyed the pleasure
of forming an acute judgment as to their immediate effects, so as
to give an intelligent statement for the guidance of Mr. Gambit--
a practitioner just a little lower in status than Wrench or Toller,
and especially esteemed as an accoucheur, of whose ability Mr. Mawmsey
had the poorest opinion on all other points, but in doctoring,
he was wont to say in an undertone, he placed Gambit above any of them.

Here were deeper reasons than the superficial talk of a new man,
which appeared still flimsier in the drawing-room over the shop,
when they were recited to Mrs. Mawmsey, a woman accustomed to be
made much of as a fertile mother,--generally under attendance more
or less frequent from Mr. Gambit, and occasionally having attacks
which required Dr. Minchin.

"Does this Mr. Lydgate mean to say there is no use in taking medicine?"
said Mrs. Mawmsey, who was slightly given to drawling. "I should
like him to tell me how I could bear up at Fair time, if I didn't
take strengthening medicine for a month beforehand. Think of what I
have to provide for calling customers, my dear!"--here Mrs. Mawmsey
turned to an intimate female friend who sat by--"a large veal pie--
a stuffed fillet--a round of beef--ham, tongue, et cetera,
et cetera! But what keeps me up best is the pink mixture,
not the brown. I wonder, Mr. Mawmsey, with your experience,
you could have patience to listen. I should have told him at once
that I knew a little better than that."

"No, no, no," said Mr. Mawmsey; "I was not going to tell him
my opinion. Hear everything and judge for yourself is my motto.
But he didn't know who he was talking to. I was not to be turned
on HIS finger. People often pretend to tell me things, when they
might as well say, `Mawmsey, you're a fool.' But I smile at it:
I humor everybody's weak place. If physic had done harm to self
and family, I should have found it out by this time."

The next day Mr. Gambit was told that Lydgate went about saying
physic was of no use.

"Indeed!" said he, lifting his eyebrows with cautious surprise.
(He was a stout husky man with a large ring on his fourth finger.)
"How will he cure his patients, then?"

"That is what I say," returned Mrs. Mawmsey, who habitually gave
weight to her speech by loading her pronouns. "Does HE suppose
that people will pay him only to come and sit with them and go
away again?"

Mrs. Mawmsey had had a great deal of sitting from Mr. Gambit,
including very full accounts of his own habits of body and other affairs;
but of course he knew there was no innuendo in her remark, since his
spare time and personal narrative had never been charged for.
So he replied, humorously--

"Well, Lydgate is a good-looking young fellow, you know."

"Not one that I would employ," said Mrs. Mawmsey. "OTHERS
may do as they please."

Hence Mr. Gambit could go away from the chief grocer's without
fear of rivalry, but not without a sense that Lydgate was one
of those hypocrites who try to discredit others by advertising
their own honesty, and that it might be worth some people's while
to show him up. Mr. Gambit, however, had a satisfactory practice,
much pervaded by the smells of retail trading which suggested
the reduction of cash payments to a balance. And he did not
think it worth his while to show Lydgate up until he knew how.
He had not indeed great resources of education, and had had to work
his own way against a good deal of professional contempt; but he made
none the worse accoucheur for calling the breathing apparatus "longs."

Other medical men felt themselves more capable. Mr. Toller shared the
highest practice in the town and belonged to an old Middlemarch family:
there were Tollers in the law and everything else above the line
of retail trade. Unlike our irascible friend Wrench, he had the
easiest way in the world of taking things which might be supposed
to annoy him, being a well-bred, quietly facetious man, who kept
a good house, was very fond of a little sporting when he could get it,
very friendly with Mr. Hawley, and hostile to Mr. Bulstrode.
It may seem odd that with such pleasant habits he should hare been
given to the heroic treatment, bleeding and blistering and starving
his patients, with a dispassionate disregard to his personal example;
but the incongruity favored the opinion of his ability among
his patients, who commonly observed that Mr. Toller had lazy manners,
but his treatment was as active as you could desire: no man,
said they, carried more seriousness into his profession: he was
a little slow in coming, but when he came, he DID something.
He was a great favorite in his own circle, and whatever he implied
to any one's disadvantage told doubly from his careless ironical tone.

He naturally got tired of smiling and saying, "Ah!" when he was told
that Mr. Peacock's successor did not mean to dispense medicines;
and Mr. Hackbutt one day mentioning it over the wine at a dinner-party,
Mr. Toller said, laughingly, "Dibbitts will get rid of his
stale drugs, then. I'm fond of little Dibbitts--I'm glad he's in luck."

"I see your meaning, Toller," said Mr. Hackbutt, "and I am entirely
of your opinion. I shall take an opportunity of expressing myself
to that effect. A medical man should be responsible for the
quality of the drugs consumed by his patients. That is the rationale
of the system of charging which has hitherto obtained;
and nothing is more offensive than this ostentation of reform,
where there is no real amelioration."

"Ostentation, Hackbutt?" said Mr. Toller, ironically. "I don't
see that. A man can't very well be ostentatious of what nobody
believes in. There's no reform in the matter: the question is,
whether the profit on the drugs is paid to the medical man by the
druggist or by the patient, and whether there shall be extra pay
under the name of attendance."

"Ah, to be sure; one of your damned new versions of old humbug,"
said Mr. Hawley, passing the decanter to Mr. Wrench.

Mr. Wrench, generally abstemious, often drank wine rather freely
at a party, getting the more irritable in consequence.

"As to humbug, Hawley," he said, "that's a word easy to fling about.
But what I contend against is the way medical men are fouling their
own nest, and setting up a cry about the country as if a general
practitioner who dispenses drugs couldn't be a gentleman. I throw
back the imputation with scorn. I say, the most ungentlemanly trick
a man can be guilty of is to come among the members of his profession
with innovations which are a libel on their time-honored procedure.
That is my opinion, and I am ready to maintain it against any one who
contradicts me." Mr. Wrench's voice had become exceedingly sharp.

"I can't oblige you there, Wrench," said Mr. Hawley, thrusting his
hands into his trouser-pockets.

"My dear fellow," said Mr. Toller, striking in pacifically! and
looking at Mr. Wrench, "the physicians have their toes trodden
on more than we have. If you come to dignity it is a question
for Minchin and Sprague."

"Does medical jurisprudence provide nothing against these infringements?"
said Mr. Hackbutt, with a disinterested desire to offer his lights.
"How does the law stand, eh, Hawley?"

"Nothing to be done there," said Mr. Hawley. "I looked into
it for Sprague. You'd only break your nose against a damned
judge's decision."

"Pooh! no need of law," said Mr. Toller. "So far as practice is
concerned the attempt is an absurdity. No patient will like it--
certainly not Peacock's, who have been used to depletion.
Pass the wine."

Mr. Toller's prediction was partly verified. If Mr. and Mrs. Mawmsey,
who had no idea of employing Lydgate, were made uneasy by his supposed
declaration against drugs, it was inevitable that those who called
him in should watch a little anxiously to see whether he did "use
all the means he might use" in the case. Even good Mr. Powderell,
who in his constant charity of interpretation was inclined to
esteem Lydgate the more for what seemed a conscientious pursuit
of a better plan, had his mind disturbed with doubts during his
wife's attack of erysipelas, and could not abstain from mentioning
to Lydgate that Mr. Peacock on a similar occasion had administered
a series of boluses which were not otherwise definable than by their
remarkable effect in bringing Mrs. Powderell round before Michaelmas
from an illness which had begun in a remarkably hot August.
At last, indeed, in the conflict between his desire not to hurt
Lydgate and his anxiety that no "means" should be lacking,
he induced his wife privately to take Widgeon's Purifying Bills,
an esteemed Middlemarch medicine, which arrested every disease
at the fountain by setting to work at once upon the blood.
This co-operative measure was not to be mentioned to Lydgate,
and Mr. Powderell himself had no certain reliance on it,
only hoping that it might be attended with a blessing.

But in this doubtful stage of Lydgate's introduction he was helped
by what we mortals rashly call good fortune. I suppose no doctor ever
came newly to a place without making cures that surprised somebody--
cures which may be called fortune's testimonials, and deserve as
much credit as the ten or printed kind. Various patients got well
while Lydgate was attending them, some even of dangerous illnesses;
and it was remarked that the new doctor with his new ways had at
least the merit of bringing people back from the brink of death.
The trash talked on such occasions was the more vexatious to Lydgate,
because it gave precisely the sort of prestige which an incompetent
and unscrupulous man would desire, and was sure to be imputed to him
by the simmering dislike of the other medical men as an encouragement
on his own part of ignorant puffing. But even his proud outspokenness
was checked by the discernment that it was as useless to fight
against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog;
and "good fortune" insisted on using those interpretations.

Mrs. Larcher having just become charitably concerned about alarming
symptoms in her charwoman, when Dr. Minchin called, asked him to see
her then and there, and to give her a certificate for the Infirmary;
whereupon after examination he wrote a statement of the case as one
of tumor, and recommended the bearer Nancy Nash as an out-patient. Nancy,
calling at home on her way to the Infirmary, allowed the stay maker
and his wife, in whose attic she lodged, to read Dr. Minchin's paper,
and by this means became a subject of compassionate conversation
in the neighboring shops of Churchyard Lane as being afflicted with
a tumor at first declared to be as large and hard as a duck's egg,
but later in the day to be about the size of "your fist."
Most hearers agreed that it would have to be cut out, but one had
known of oil and another of "squitchineal" as adequate to soften
and reduce any lump in the body when taken enough of into the inside--
the oil by gradually "soopling," the squitchineal by eating away.

Meanwhile when Nancy presented herself at the Infirmary, it happened
to be one of Lydgate's days there. After questioning and examining her,
Lydgate said to the house-surgeon in an undertone, "It's not tumor:
it's cramp." He ordered her a blister and some steel mixture,
and told her to go home and rest, giving her at the same time a note
to Mrs. Larcher, who, she said, was her best employer, to testify
that she was in need of good food.

But by-and-by Nancy, in her attic, became portentously worse,
the supposed tumor having indeed given way to the blister, but only
wandered to another region with angrier pain. The staymaker's wife
went to fetch Lydgate, and he continued for a fortnight to attend Nancy
in her own home, until under his treatment she got quite well and went
to work again. But the case continued to be described as one of tumor
in Churchyard Lane and other streets--nay, by Mrs. Larcher also;
for when Lydgate's remarkable cure was mentioned to Dr. Minchin,
he naturally did not like to say, "The case was not one of tumor,
and I was mistaken in describing it as such," but answered,
"Indeed! ah! I saw it was a surgical case, not of a fatal kind."
He had been inwardly annoyed, however, when he had asked at the
Infirmary about the woman he had recommended two days before,
to hear from the house-surgeon, a youngster who was not sorry
to vex Minchin with impunity, exactly what had occurred:
he privately pronounced that it was indecent in a general practitioner
to contradict a physician's diagnosis in that open manner,
and afterwards agreed with Wrench that Lydgate was disagreeably
inattentive to etiquette. Lydgate did not make the affair a ground
for valuing himself or (very particularly) despising Minchin,
such rectification of misjudgments often happening among men
of equal qualifications. But report took up this amazing case
of tumor, not clearly distinguished from cancer, and considered
the more awful for being of the wandering sort; till much prejudice
against Lydgate's method as to drugs was overcome by the proof
of his marvellous skill in the speedy restoration of Nancy Nash
after she had been rolling and rolling in agonies from the presence
of a tumor both hard and obstinate, but nevertheless compelled to yield.

How could Lydgate help himself? It is offensive to tell a lady
when she is expressing her amazement at your skill, that she is
altogether mistaken and rather foolish in her amazement. And to have
entered into the nature of diseases would only have added to his
breaches of medical propriety. Thus he had to wince under a promise
of success given by that ignorant praise which misses every valid quality.

In the case of a more conspicuous patient, Mr. Borthrop Trumbull,
Lydgate was conscious of having shown himself something better than
an every-day doctor, though here too it was an equivocal advantage
that he won. The eloquent auctioneer was seized with pneumonia,
and having been a patient of Mr. Peacock's, sent for Lydgate,
whom he had expressed his intention to patronize. Mr Trumbull was
a robust man, a good subject for trying the expectant theory upon--
watching the course of an interesting disease when left as much
as possible to itself, so that the stages might be noted for future
guidance; and from the air with which he described his sensations
Lydgate surmised that he would like to be taken into his medical
man's confidence, and be represented as a partner in his own cure.
The auctioneer heard, without much surprise, that his was a
constitution which (always with due watching) might be left to itself,
so as to offer a beautiful example of a disease with all its phases
seen in clear delineation, and that he probably had the rare strength
of mind voluntarily to become the test of a rational procedure,
and thus make the disorder of his pulmonary functions a general
benefit to society.

Mr. Trumbull acquiesced at once, and entered strongly into the view
that an illness of his was no ordinary occasion for medical science.

"Never fear, sir; you are not speaking to one who is altogether ignorant
of the vis medicatrix," said he, with his usual superiority
of expression, made rather pathetic by difficulty of breathing.
And he went without shrinking through his abstinence from drugs,
much sustained by application of the thermometer which implied
the importance of his temperature, by the sense that he furnished
objects for the microscope, and by learning many new words which
seemed suited to the dignity of his secretions. For Lydgate
was acute enough to indulge him with a little technical talk.

It may be imagined that Mr. Trumbull rose from his couch with a
disposition to speak of an illness in which he had manifested the
strength of his mind as well as constitution; and he was not backward
in awarding credit to the medical man who had discerned the quality of
patient he had to deal with. The auctioneer was not an ungenerous man,
and liked to give others their due, feeling that he could afford it.
He had caught the words "expectant method," and rang chimes on this
and other learned phrases to accompany the assurance that Lydgate "knew
a thing or two more than the rest of the doctors--was far better versed
in the secrets of his profession than the majority of his compeers."

This had happened before the affair of Fred Vincy's illness had given
to Mr. Wrench's enmity towards Lydgate more definite personal ground.
The new-comer already threatened to be a nuisance in the shape
of rivalry, and was certainly a nuisance in the shape of practical
criticism or reflections on his hard-driven elders, who had had
something else to do than to busy themselves with untried notions.
His practice had spread in one or two quarters, and from the
first the report of his high family had led to his being pretty
generally invited, so that the other medical men had to meet him
at dinner in the best houses; and having to meet a man whom you
dislike is not observed always to end in a mutual attachment.
There was hardly ever so much unanimity among them as in the opinion
that Lydgate was an arrogant young fellow, and yet ready for the
sake of ultimately predominating to show a crawling subservience
to Bulstrode. That Mr. Farebrother, whose name was a chief flag of the
anti-Bulstrode party, always defended Lydgate and made a friend of him,
was referred to Farebrother's unaccountable way of fighting on both sides.

Here was plenty of preparation for the outburst of professional
disgust at the announcement of the laws Mr. Bulstrode was laying
down for the direction of the New Hospital, which were the more
exasperating because there was no present possibility of interfering
with his will and pleasure, everybody except Lord Medlicote
having refused help towards the building, on the ground that they
preferred giving to the Old Infirmary. Mr. Bulstrode met all
the expenses, and had ceased to be sorry that he was purchasing
the right to carry out his notions of improvement without hindrance
from prejudiced coadjutors; but he had had to spend large sums,
and the building had lingered. Caleb Garth had undertaken it,
had failed during its progress, and before the interior fittings
were begun had retired from the management of the business;
and when referring to the Hospital he often said that however
Bulstrode might ring if you tried him, he liked good solid carpentry
and masonry, and had a notion both of drains and chimneys. In fact,
the Hospital had become an object of intense interest to Bulstrode,
and he would willingly have continued to spare a large yearly sum that
he might rule it dictatorially without any Board; but he had another
favorite object which also required money for its accomplishment:
he wished to bay some land in the neighborhood of Middlemarch,
and therefore he wished to get considerable contributions towards
maintaining the Hospital. Meanwhile he framed his plan of management.
The Hospital was to be reserved for fever in all its forms;
Lydgate was to be chief medical superintendent, that he might have free
authority to pursue all comparative investigations which his studies,
particularly in Paris, had shown him the importance of, the other
medical visitors having a consultative influence, but no power to
contravene Lydgate's ultimate decisions; and the general management
was to be lodged exclusively in the hands of five directors associated
with Mr. Bulstrode, who were to have votes in the ratio of their
contributions, the Board itself filling up any vacancy in its numbers,
and no mob of small contributors being admitted to a share of government.

There was an immediate refusal on the part of every medical man
in the town to become a visitor at the Fever Hospital.

"Very well," said Lydgate to Mr. Bulstrode, "we have a capital
house-surgeon and dispenser, a clear-headed, neat-handed fellow;
we'll get Webbe from Crabsley, as good a country practitioner
as any of them, to come over twice a-week, and in case of any
exceptional operation, Protheroe will come from Brassing.
I must work the harder, that's all, and I have given up my post
at the Infirmary. The plan will flourish in spite of them,
and then they'll be glad to come in. Things can't last as they are:
there must be all sorts of reform soon, and then young fellows may
be glad to come and study here." Lydgate was in high spirits.

"I shall not flinch, you may depend upon it, Mr. Lydgate,"
said Mr. Bulstrode. "While I see you carrying out high intentions
with vigor, you shall have my unfailing support. And I have humble
confidence that the blessing which has hitherto attended my efforts
against the spirit of evil in this town will not be withdrawn.
Suitable directors to assist me I have no doubt of securing.
Mr. Brooke of Tipton has already given me his concurrence,
and a pledge to contribute yearly: he has not specified the sum--
probably not a great one. But he will be a useful member of
the board."

A useful member was perhaps to be defined as one who would
originate nothing, and always vote with Mr. Bulstrode.

The medical aversion to Lydgate was hardly disguised now. Neither
Dr. Sprague nor Dr. Minchin said that he disliked Lydgate's knowledge,
or his disposition to improve treatment: what they disliked was
his arrogance, which nobody felt to be altogether deniable. They implied
that he was insolent, pretentious, and given to that reckless innovation
for the sake of noise and show which was the essence of the charlatan.

The word charlatan once thrown on the air could not be let drop.
In those days the world was agitated about the wondrous doings of
Mr. St. John Long, "noblemen and gentlemen" attesting his extraction
of a fluid like mercury from the temples of a patient.

Mr. Toller remarked one day, smilingly, to Mrs. Taft, that "Bulstrode
had found a man to suit him in Lydgate; a charlatan in religion
is sure to like other sorts of charlatans."

"Yes, indeed, I can imagine," said Mrs. Taft, keeping the number
of thirty stitches carefully in her mind all the while; "there are
so many of that sort. I remember Mr. Cheshire, with his irons,
trying to make people straight when the Almighty had made them crooked."

"No, no," said Mr. Toller, "Cheshire was all right--all fair
and above board. But there's St. John Long--that's the kind of
fellow we call a charlatan, advertising cures in ways nobody knows
anything about: a fellow who wants to make a noise by pretending
to go deeper than other people. The other day he was pretending
to tap a man's brain and get quicksilver out of it."

"Good gracious! what dreadful trifling with people's constitutions!"
said Mrs. Taft.

After this, it came to be held in various quarters that Lydgate
played even with respectable constitutions for his own purposes,
and how much more likely that in his flighty experimenting he
should make sixes and sevens of hospital patients. Especially it
was to be expected, as the landlady of the Tankard had said,
that he would recklessly cut up their dead bodies. For Lydgate
having attended Mrs. Goby, who died apparently of a heart-disease
not very clearly expressed in the symptoms, too daringly asked
leave of her relatives to open the body, and thus gave an offence
quickly spreading beyond Parley Street, where that lady had long
resided on an income such as made this association of her body
with the victims of Burke and Hare a flagrant insult to her memory.

Affairs were in this stage when Lydgate opened the subject of the
Hospital to Dorothea. We see that be was bearing enmity and silly
misconception with much spirit, aware that they were partly created
by his good share of success.

"They will not drive me away," he said, talking confidentially
in Mr. Farebrother's study. "I have got a good opportunity here,
for the ends I care most about; and I am pretty sure to get
income enough for our wants. By-and-by I shall go on as quietly
as possible: I have no seductions now away from home and work.
And I am more and more convinced that it will be possible to
demonstrate the homogeneous origin of all the tissues. Raspail and
others are on the same track, and I have been losing time."

"I have no power of prophecy there," said Mr. Farebrother,
who had been puffing at his pipe thoughtfully while Lydgate talked;
"but as to the hostility in the town, you'll weather it if you
are prudent."

"How am I to be prudent?" said Lydgate, "I just do what comes
before me to do. I can't help people's ignorance and spite,
any more than Vesalius could. It isn't possible to square one's
conduct to silly conclusions which nobody can foresee."

"Quite true; I didn't mean that. I meant only two things. One is,
keep yourself as separable from Bulstrode as you can: of course,
you can go on doing good work of your own by his help; but don't
get tied. Perhaps it seems like personal feeling in me to say so--
and there's a good deal of that, I own--but personal feeling is not
always in the wrong if you boil it down to the impressions which make
it simply an opinion."

"Bulstrode is nothing to me," said Lydgate, carelessly, "except on
public grounds. As to getting very closely united to him, I am not
fond enough of him for that. But what was the other thing you meant?"
said Lydgate, who was nursing his leg as comfortably as possible,
and feeling in no great need of advice.

"Why, this. Take care--experto crede--take care not to get
hampered about money matters. I know, by a word you let fall one day,
that you don't like my playing at cards so much for money. You are
right enough there. But try and keep clear of wanting small sums
that you haven't got. I am perhaps talking rather superfluously;
but a man likes to assume superiority over himself, by holding up
his bad example and sermonizing on it."

Lydgate took Mr. Farebrother's hints very cordially, though he
would hardly have borne them from another man. He could not help
remembering that he had lately made some debts, but these had
seemed inevitable, and he had no intention now to do more than
keep house in a simple way. The furniture for which he owed
would not want renewing; nor even the stock of wine for a long while.

Many thoughts cheered him at that time--and justly. A man
conscious of enthusiasm for worthy aims is sustained under petty
hostilities by the memory of great workers who had to fight their
way not without wounds, and who hover in his mind as patron saints,
invisibly helping. At home, that same evening when he had been
chatting with Mr. Farebrother, he had his long legs stretched
on the sofa, his head thrown back, and his hands clasped behind
it according to his favorite ruminating attitude, while Rosamond
sat at the piano, and played one tune after another, of which her
husband only knew (like the emotional elephant he was!) that they
fell in with his mood as if they had been melodious sea-breezes.

There was something very fine in Lydgate's look just then,
and any one might have been encouraged to bet on his achievement.
In his dark eyes and on his mouth and brow there was that placidity
which comes from the fulness of contemplative thought--the mind
not searching, but beholding, and the glance seeming to be filled
with what is behind it.

Presently Rosamond left the piano and seated herself on a chair
close to the sofa and opposite her husband's face.

"Is that enough music for you, my lord?" she said, folding her hands
before her and putting on a little air of meekness.

"Yes, dear, if you are tired," said Lydgate, gently, turning his
eyes and resting them on her, but not otherwise moving.
Rosamond's presence at that moment was perhaps no more than a spoonful
brought to the lake, and her woman's instinct in this matter was not dull.

"What is absorbing you?" she said, leaning forward and bringing
her face nearer to his.

He moved his hands and placed them gently behind her shoulders.

"I am thinking of a great fellow, who was about as old as I am
three hundred years ago, and had already begun a new era in anatomy."

"I can't guess," said Rosamond, shaking her head. "We used to play
at guessing historical characters at Mrs. Lemon's, but not anatomists."

"I'll tell you. His name was Vesalius. And the only way he could get
to know anatomy as he did, was by going to snatch bodies at night,
from graveyards and places of execution."

"Oh!" said Rosamond, with a look of disgust on her pretty face,
"I am very glad you are not Vesalius. I should have thought he
might find some less horrible way than that."

"No, he couldn't," said Lydgate, going on too earnestly to take
much notice of her answer. "He could only get a complete skeleton
by snatching the whitened bones of a criminal from the gallows,
and burying them, and fetching them away by bits secretly, in the
dead of night."

"I hope he is not one of your great heroes," said Rosamond,
half playfully, half anxiously, "else I shall have you getting up
in the night to go to

Middlemarch by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries from the Encyclopedia of the Self by Mark ZimmermanReturn to Part 2 of 4Go to Part 4 of 4

Middlemarch
by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans)
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
Return to Part 2 of 4
Go to Part 4 of 4