Classic Audiobook Collection - Middlemarch by George Eliot ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

Starting point is 00:00:00 Middle March by George Eliot. 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 St. Teresa, has not smiled with some gentleness

Starting point is 00:00:21 at the thought of the little girl, walking forth one morning, hand in hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek Martyr, them in the country of the Moors? Out they toddled, from rugged Avila, wide-eyed and helpless-looking as two fons, but, with human hearts,

Starting point is 00:00:41 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. Teresa's passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic, life? What were many volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests

Starting point is 00:01:06 of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up in that light fuel, and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would

Starting point is 00:01:21 reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self? She found her epos and the form of a religious order. That Spanish woman who lived 300 years ago was certainly not the last of her kind. Many Teresa's 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

Starting point is 00:01:59 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 commonize, their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness. For these later-born Teresa's 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

Starting point is 00:02:42 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 anyone would imagine from the sameness of women's coiffure and the favorite love stories in prose and verse. Here and there, a signet is reared uneasily among the ducklings in the brown pond, and never finds the living stream in fellowship with its own ory-footed. kind. Here and there is born a St. Teresa, foundress of nothing, whose loving heart beats and

Starting point is 00:03:37 sobs, after an unattained goodness, tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances, instead of centering in some long-recognizable deed. Book 1. Miss Brooke Chapter 1 Since I can do no good because a woman, reach constantly. constantly at something that is near it. The maid's tragedy. Beaumont and Fletcher.

Starting point is 00:04:07 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 sight of provincial fashion

Starting point is 00:04:34 gave her the impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible, or from one of our elder poets in a paragraph of today'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 sisters, and had a shade of coquetry in its arrangements, for Miss Brooks' plain dressing was due to mixed conditions, in most of which her sister shared. The pride of being ladies had something to do with it.

Starting point is 00:05:16 The Brooke connections, though not exactly aristocratic, were unquestionably good. If you inquired backward for a generation or two, you would not find any of the 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,

Starting point is 00:05:59 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

Starting point is 00:06:20 to account for plain dress, quite apart from religious feeling, but in Miss Brooks' 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. Dorothy it knew many passages of Pascal's Ponce's and of Jeremy Taylor by heart, and to her the destinies of mankind, seen by the light of Christianity, made the solicitude

Starting point is 00:06:56 of feminine fashion appear in 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 enamored 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,

Starting point is 00:07:51 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 disadvantage 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,

Starting point is 00:08:34 and uncertain vote. He had traveled in his younger years, and was held in this part of the country to have contracted a too-rambling habit of mind. Mr. Brooks' conclusions were as difficult to predict as the weather. It was only safe to say that he would act with benevolent intentions, that he would spend as little money as possible in carrying them out. For the most glutinously indefinite minds and close 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. Brook, the hereditary strain of Puritan energy was clearly in abeyance,

Starting point is 00:09:25 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 700 a year each from their parents, but if Dorothea married and had a son, that son would inherit Mr. Brooks' 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 goldfields, and of that gorgeous plutocracy which has so nobly exalted the necessities of genteel life.

Starting point is 00:10:20 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 might even 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 saddle-horses a man would naturally think twice before he risked himself in such fellowship women were expected to have weak opinions but the great safeguard of society and of domestic life was that opinions were not acted on sane people did what their 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 eye

Starting point is 00:11:48 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. Writing was an indulgence which she allowed herself in spite of conscientious qualms. She felt that she enjoyed it in a pagan,

Starting point is 00:12:44 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 have seen Mr. Book, she concluded that he must be in love with Celia. Sir James Chedham, 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

Starting point is 00:13:37 sure that she would have accepted the judicious hooker if she had been born in time to save him from that wretched mistake he had 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

Starting point is 00:14:23 in neighboring families for not securing some middle-aged lady as a guide in companion to his nieces. But he himself dreaded so much the sort of superior woman likely to be available for such position, that he allowed himself to be dissuaded by Dorothy'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 Lomshire. 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 Chatham 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.

Starting point is 00:15:14 This was the Reverend Edward Cassebon, 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 in 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.

Starting point is 00:16:02 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 haven't 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 a habitual awe of doris dorothea and principal 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 little, with a rising sob of mortification, necklaces are quite usual now, and Madame Bronson, who was stricter in some things even than

Starting point is 00:17:45 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. named Dorothea, an air of astonished discovery animating her whole person with a dramatic action which she had caught from that very Madame Ponson 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 side of her head and seemed to despair of her memory.

Starting point is 00:18:26 "'They're here,' said Celia, with whom this explanation had been long meditated and pre-arranged. Pray open the large drawer of the cabinet and get out the jewel-box. The casket was soon opened 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 goldwork, and a pearl cross with five brilliance 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,

Starting point is 00:19:11 but the circle suited the Henrietta Maria's 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. Oh, Dodo, you must keep the cross yourself. No, no, dear, no, said Dorothy, 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.

Starting point is 00:19:51 for the world. A cross is the last thing I would wear as a trinket, Dorothea shuddered lightly. 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 Mama's sake? No, I have other things of Mama's. Her sandalwood box, which I am so fond of? Plenty of things. In fact, they're 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

Starting point is 00:20:35 in this Puritanic toleration, hardly less trying to the blonde flesh of an unenthusiastic sister than a Puritanic persecution. But how can I wear ornaments if you, who are the elder sister, we'll 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 pure wedding. The whole world would go round with me,

Starting point is 00:21:06 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

Starting point is 00:21:48 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's 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,

Starting point is 00:22:42 and also that emeralds would suit her own complexion even better than purple amethysts. you must keep that ring and bracelet if nothing else but see these agates are very pretty and quiet yes i will keep these this ring and bracelet said dorothea then letting her hand fall on the table she said in another tone yet what miserable men find such things and work at them and sell them she paused again and celia thought that her sister was going to renounce the ornaments as in consistency she ought to do yes dear i will keep these said dorothea decidedly but take all the rest away and the casket she took up her pencil without removing the jewels and still looking at them she thought of often having them by her to feed her eye at these little fountains of pure color shall you wear them in company said celia who was watching her with real curiosity as to what she would do Dorothy glanced quickly at her sister. Across all her imaginative adornment of those whom she loved, there darted now and then a keen discernment,

Starting point is 00:24:00 which was not without a scorching quality. If Miss Brooke ever attained perfect meekness, it would not be for lack of inward fire. Perhaps, she said rather haughtily, I cannot tell to what level I may sink. Celia blushed and was unhappy. she saw that she had offended her sister and dared not say even anything pretty about the gift of the ornaments which she had put back into the box and carried away dorothea too was unhappy as she went on with her plan drawing questioning the purity of her own feeling and speech in the scene which had ended with that little explosion celia's consciousness told her that she had not been at all in the wrong it was quite natural and justifiable that she should have asked that question

Starting point is 00:24:49 and she repeated to herself that dorothea was inconsistent either she should have taken her full share of the jewels or after what she had said she should have renounced them altogether i am sure at least i trust thought celia that the wearing of a necklace will not interfere with my prayers and i do not see that i should be bound by dorothea's opinions now that we are going into society though of course she herself ought to be bound by them but dorothea is not always consistent thus celia mutely bending over her tapestry until she heard her sister calling her here kitty come and look at my plan i shall think i am a great architect if i have not got in compatible stairs and fireplaces as celia bent over the paper dorothea put her cheek against her sister's arm caressingly celia understood the action dorothea saw that she had been in the wrong and celia pardoned her since they could remember there had been a mixture of criticism and awe in the attitude of celia's mind towards her elder sister The younger had always worn a yoke, but is there any yoked creature without its private opinions? End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Middle March.

Starting point is 00:26:17 This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Margaret Espayat. Middle March by George Elliott, Chapter 2. Dime, No be that caballero. that a-to-n-nose-coulde, over a cabo-ruci-roded

Starting point is 00:26:40 that has put in the head a yelmo of the or? What I veo, and columbro, responded Sancho. No is, but a man

Starting point is 00:26:49 over an asnopardo like the that my that is over the thing that relumbra. Well,

Starting point is 00:26:57 that is the yelmo de mambriino, said Don Quixote, Servantus. Seest thou not yon cavalier who cometh toward us on a dapple-gray steed, and weareth a golden helmet?

Starting point is 00:27:11 What I see, answered Sancho, is nothing but a man on a gray ass like my own, who carries something shiny on his head. Just so, answered Don Quixote, and that resplendent object is the helmet of Mambino. Sir Humphrey Davy, said Mr. Brooke, over the soup, in his easy, smiling wreathy, taking up Sir James Chedham's remark that he was studying Davy's agricultural chemistry. Well, now, Sir Humphrey Davy, I dined with him years ago at Cartwrights, and Wordsworth was there too, the poet Wordsworth, you know. Now there was something singular.

Starting point is 00:27:57 I was at Cambridge when Wordsworth was there, and I never met him, and I dined with him twenty years afterwards at Cartwright. there's an oddity in things now but davy was there he was a poet too or as i may say wordsworth was poet one and davy was poet two that was true in every sense you know dorothea felt a little more uneasy than usual in the beginning of dinner the party being small and the room still these motes from the mass of a magistrate's mind felt a little more uneasy than usual in the beginning of dinner the party being small and the room still these moats from the mass of a magistrate's mind felt too noticeably. She wondered how a man like Mr. Kazabon would support such triviality. His manners, she thought, were very dignified. The set of his iron-gray hair and his deep eye-sockets made him resemble the portrait of Locke. He had the spare form and the pale complexion which became a student, as different as possible from the blooming Englishman of the Red Whiskered

Starting point is 00:29:03 type represented by Sir James Chedham. I am reading the agricultural chemistry, said this excellent baronet, because I'm going to take one of the farms into my own hands and see if something cannot be done in setting a good pattern of farming among my tenants. Do you approve of that, Miss Brooke? A great mistake, Chetam, interposed Mr. Brooke, going into electrifying your land and that kind of thing, and making a parlor of your cowhouse? It won't do. I went into science a great deal myself at one time, but I saw it would not do. It leads to everything. You can let nothing alone. Now, no, see that your tenants don't sell their straw and that kind of thing, and give them

Starting point is 00:29:51 draining tiles, you know, but your fancy farming will not do. The most expensive sort of whistle you can by, you may as well keep a pack of hounds." "'Surely,' said Dorothea, "'it is better to spend money in finding out how men can make the most of the land which supports them all than in keeping dogs and horses only to gallop over it. It is not a sin to make yourself poor in performing experiments for the good of all.' She spoke with more energy than is expected of so young a lady, but Sir James had appealed to her.

Starting point is 00:30:26 he was accustomed to do so and she had often thought that she could urge him to many good actions when he was her brother-in-law mr casabon turned his eyes very markedly on dorothea while she was speaking and seemed to observe her newly young ladies don't understand political economy you know said mr brooke smiling towards mr casabon i remember when we were all reading adam smith there is a book now. I took in all the new ideas at one time. Human perfectability now. But some say history moves in circles, and that may be very well argued. I have argued it myself. The fact is, human reason may carry you a little too far, over the hedge, in fact. It carried me a good way at one time. But I saw it would not do. I pulled up. I pulled up in time. but not too hard. I've always been in favor of a little theory. We must have thought, else we shall be landed back in the dark ages. But, talking of books, there's Sothe's

Starting point is 00:31:38 Peninsular War. I'm reading that of a morning. You know, Sothey? No, said Mr. Casabon, not keeping pace with Mr. Brooks' impetuous reason, and thinking of the book only. I have little leisure for such literature just now. I have been using up my eyesight on old characters lately. The fact is, I want a reader for my evenings, but I am fastidious in voices. I cannot endure listening to an imperfect reader. It is a misfortune in some senses. I feed too much on the inward sources. I live too much with the dead. My mind is something like the ghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying mentally to construct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and confusing changes. But I find it

Starting point is 00:32:33 necessary to use the utmost caution about my eyesight. This was the first time that Mr. Cazabon had spoken at any length. He delivered himself with precision, as if he had been called upon to make a public statement, and the balanced sing-song neatness of his speech occasionally corresponded to by a movement of his head, was the more conspicuous from its contrast with good Mr. Brooks' scrappy slovenliness. Dorothy has said to herself that Mr. Cazabon was the most interesting man she had ever seen, not accepting even Monsieur Lier, the Vaudois clergyman who had given conferences on the history of the Waltenses, to reconstruct a past world, doubtless with a view to the highest purposes of truth. What a work to be in any way present at, to assist in, though only as a lamp-holder.

Starting point is 00:33:33 This elevating thought lifted her above her annoyance at being twitted with her ignorance of political economy, that never explained science, which was thrust as an extinguisher over all her lights. But you are fond of writing, Miss Brooke, Sir James presently took an opportunity of saying, I should have thought that you would enter a little into the pleasures of hunting. I wish you would let me send over a chestnut horse for you to try. It has been trained for a lady. I saw you on Saturday, cantering over a hill on a nag not worthy of you. My groom shall bring cordon for you every day if you will only mention the time.

Starting point is 00:34:14 Thank you. You are very good. I mean to give up riding. I shall not ride any more, said Dorothea, urged to this point. brusque resolution by a little annoyance that sir james would be soliciting her attention when she wanted to give it all to mr casabon no that is too hard said sir james in a tone of reproach that showed strong interest your sister is given to self-mortification is she not he continued turning to celia who sat at his right hand i think she is said celia feeling a friend lest she should say something that would not please her sister and blushing as prettily as possible above her necklace she likes giving up if that were true celia my giving up would be self-indulgence not self-mortification but there may be good reasons for choosing not to do what is very agreeable said dorothea mr brooke was speaking at the same time but it was evident that mr casabon was observing dorothea

Starting point is 00:35:22 and she was aware of it exactly said sir james you give up from some high generous motive no indeed not exactly i did not say that of myself answered dorothea reddening unlike celia she rarely blushed and only from high delight or anger at this moment she felt angry with a perverse sir james why did he not pay attention to celia and leave her to listen to Mr. Cazabon. If that learned man would only talk, instead of allowing himself to be talked to by Mr. Brooke, who was just then informing him, that the Reformation either meant something, or it did not, that he himself was a Protestant to the core,

Starting point is 00:36:11 but that Catholicism was a fact, and as to refusing an acre of your ground for a Romanist chapel, all men needed the bridle of religion, which, properly speaking, was the dread of a hereafter. I made a great study of theology at one time, said Mr. Brook, as if to explain the insight just manifested. I know something of all schools.

Starting point is 00:36:36 I knew Wilberforce in his best days. Do you know Wilberforce? Mr. Casabon said, no. Well, Wilberforce was perhaps not enough of a thinker, but if I went into Parliament, as I've been asked to do, I should sit on the independent bench, as Wilberforce did, and work at philanthropy. Mr. Cazabon bowed and observed that it was a wide field. Yes, said Mr. Brooke with an easy smile, but I have documents. I began a long while ago to

Starting point is 00:37:12 collect documents. They want arranging, but when a question has struck me, I have written to somebody and got an answer. I have documents at my back. but now how do you arrange your documents in pigeon-holes partly said mr casabon with rather a startled air of effort ah pigeon-holes will not do i have tried pigeon-holes but everything gets mixed in pigeon-holes i never know whether a paper is an a or z i wish you would let me sort your papers for you uncle said dorothea i would letter them all and then make a list of subjects under each letter. Mr. Kazabon gravely smiled approval and said to Mr. Brook, You have an excellent secretary at hand, you perceive. No, no, said Mr. Brook, shaking his head. I cannot let young ladies meddle with my documents. Young ladies are too flighty. Dorothea felt hurt. Mr. Casabon would think that her uncle had some special reason for delivering

Starting point is 00:38:18 this opinion, whereas the remark lay in his mind as lightly, as the broken wing of an insect among all the other fragments there and a chance current had sent it alighting on her when the two girls were in the drawing room alone celia said how very ugly mr casabon is celia he is one of the most distinguished-looking men i ever saw he is remarkably like the portrait of locke he has the same deep eye-sockets had locke those two white mulls with hairs on them? Oh, I dare say, when people of a certain sort looked at him, said Dorothea, walking away a little. Mr. Casabon is so sallow. All the better, I suppose you admire a man with the complexion of a cocheon de lay. Do-do, exclaimed Celia, looking after her in surprise. I never heard you make such a comparison before. Why should I make it before the occasion came? It is a good comparison. The match is perfect.

Starting point is 00:39:26 Miss Brooke was clearly forgetting herself, and Celia thought so. I wonder you show temper, Dorothea. It is so painful in you, Celia, that you will look at human beings as if they were merely animals with a toilet and never see the great soul in a man's face. Has Mr. Casabon a great soul? Celia was not without a touch of naive malice. yes i believe he has said dorothea with the full voice of decision everything i see in him corresponds to his pamphlet on biblical cosmology he talks very little said celia there is no one for him to talk to celia thought privately dorothea quite despises sir james chettam i believe she would not accept him celia felt that this was a pity she had never been deceived as to the object of the baronet's interest

Starting point is 00:40:26 sometimes indeed she had reflected that dodo would perhaps not make a husband happy who had not her way of looking at things and stifled in the depths of her heart was the feeling that her sister was too religious for family comfort notions and scruples were like spilt needles making one afraid of treading or sitting down or even eating when miss brooke was at the tea-table sir james came to sit down by her not having felt her mode of answering him at all offensive why should he he thought it probable that miss brook liked him and manners must be very marked indeed before they ceased to be interpreted by preconceptions either confident or distrustful she was thoroughly charming to him but of course he theorized a little about his attachment he was made of excellent human doe and he had the rare merit of knowing that his talents even if let loose would not set the smallest stream in the county on fire hence he liked the prospect of a wife to whom he could say what shall we do about this or that who could help her husband out with reasons and would also have the property qualification for doing so as to the excessive religiousness alleged against miss brook he had a very indefinite notion of what it consisted in and thought it would die out with marriage in short he felt himself to be in love in the right place and was ready to endure a great deal of predominance which after all a man could always put down when he liked sir james had no idea that he should ever like to put down the predominance of this handsome girl

Starting point is 00:42:18 in whose cleverness he delighted why not a man's mind what there is of it has always the advantage of being masculine as the smallest birch tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality sir james might not have originated this estimate but a kind providence furnishes the limpest personality with a little gunk or starch in the form of tradition let me hope that you will rescind that resolution about the horse miss brooke said the persevering admirer i assure you riding is the most healthy of exercises i am aware of it said dorothea coldly i think it would do celia good if she would take to it but you are such a perfect horsewoman excuse me i have had very little practice and i should be easily thrown then that is a reason for more practice practice. Every lady ought to be a perfect horsewoman, that she may accompany her husband. You see how widely we differ, Sir James. I have made up my mind that I ought not to be a perfect horsewoman, and so I should never correspond to your pattern of a lady.

Starting point is 00:43:40 Dorothea looked straight before her and spoke with a cold brusquery, very much with the air of a handsome boy, in amusing contrast with the solicitous amiability of her admirer. I should like to know your reasons for this cruel resolution. It is not possible that you should think horsemanship wrong. It is quite possible that I should think it wrong for me. Oh, why, said Sir James, in a tender tone of remonstrance. Mr. Cazabon had come up to the table, teacup in hand, and was listening. We must not inquire too curiously into motives, he interposed, in his measured

Starting point is 00:44:24 way. Miss Brooke knows that they are apt to become feeble in the utterance. The aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light. Dorothea colored with pleasure and looked up gratefully to the speaker. Here was a man who could understand the higher inward life, and with whom there could be some spiritual communion, nay, who could illuminate principle with the widest knowledge, a man whose learning almost amounted to a proof of whatever he believed. Dorothy's inferences may seem large, but really life could never have gone on at any period but for this liberal allowance of conclusions, which has facilitated marriage under the difficulties of civilization has any one ever pinched into its pilliless smallness the cobweb of pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship

Starting point is 00:45:24 certainly said good sir james miss brooke shall not be urged to tell reasons she would rather be silent upon i am sure her reasons would do her honour he was not in the least jealous of the interest with which dorothy had looked up at mr casabon it never occurred to him that the girl to whom he was meditating an offer of marriage could care for a dried bookworm towards fifty except indeed in a religious sort of way as for a clergyman of some distinction however since miss brooke had become engaged in a conversation with mr casabon about the vodois clergy sir james betook himself to celia and talked to her about her sister spoke of a house in town and asked whether Miss Brooke disliked London. Away from her sister, Celia talked quite easily, and Sir James said to himself that the second Miss Brooke was certainly very agreeable as well as pretty, though not, as some people pretended,

Starting point is 00:46:29 more clever and sensible than the elder sister. He felt that he had chosen the one who was in all respects the superior, and a man naturally likes to look forward to having the best. He would be the very maworm of bachelors who pretended not to expect it. End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 of Middle March. This is a Libravox recording.

Starting point is 00:47:00 All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Margaret Esbayat. Middle March by George Elliott, Chapter 3. Say, Goddess, what ensue? when Raphael, the affable archangel, Eve, the story heard attentive, and was filled with admiration and deep muse to hear of things so high and strange. Paradise Lost If it had really occurred to Mr. Kazabon to think of Miss Brooke as a suitable wife for him,

Starting point is 00:47:42 the reasons that might induce her to accept him were already planted in her mind. and by the evening of the next day the reasons had budded and bloomed for they had had a long conversation in the morning while celia who did not like the company of mr casabon's moles and sallowness had escaped to the vicarage to play with the curate's ill-shod but merry children dorothea by this time had looked deep into the unguaged reservoir of mr casabon's mind seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine extension every quality she herself brought, had opened much of her own experience to him, and had understood from him the scope of his great work, also of attractively labyrinthine extent, for he had been as instructive as Milton's affable archangel,

Starting point is 00:48:39 and with something of the archangelic manner, he told her how he had undertaken to show what indeed had been attempted before, but not with that thoroughness, justice of comparison, and effectiveness of arrangement at which Mr. Casabon aimed, that all the mythical systems or erratic mythical fragments in the world were corruptions of a tradition originally revealed. Having once mastered the true position and taken a firm footing there, the vast field of mythical constructions became intelligible, nay, luminous, with the reflected light of correspondences. But to gather in this great harvest of truth was no light or speedy work. His notes already made a

Starting point is 00:49:28 formidable range of volumes, but the crowning task would be to condense these voluminous still accumulating results, and bring them, like the earlier vintage of Hippocratic books, to fit a little shelf. In explaining this to Dorothea, Mr. Kazabon expressed himself nearly as he would have done to a fellow student, for he had not two styles of talking at command. It is true that when he used a Greek or Latin phrase, he always gave the English with scrupulous care, but he would probably have done this in any case. A learned provincial clergyman is accustomed to think of his acquaintances as of lords knights and other noble and worthy men that con latin but little dorothea was altogether captivated by the wide embrace of this conception here was something beyond the shallows of ladies school literature here was a living boss who's work would reconcile complete knowledge with devoted piety here was a modern augustine who united the glories of doctor and saint

Starting point is 00:50:39 the sanctity seemed no less clearly marked than the learning for when dorothea was impelled to open her mind on certain themes which she could speak of to no one whom she had before seen at tipton especially on the secondary importance of ecclesiastical forms and articles of belief compared with that of spiritual religion that submergence of self in communion with divine perfection which seemed to her to be expressed in the best christian books of widely distant ages she found in mr casabon a listener who understood her at once who could assure her of his own agreement with that view when duly tempered with wise conformity and could mention historical examples before unknown to her. He thinks of me, said Dorothea to herself, or rather he thinks a whole world of which my thought is but a poor two-penny mirror, and his feelings too, his whole experience, what a lake compared with my little pool.

Starting point is 00:51:46 Miss Brooke argued from words and dispositions not less unhesitatingly than other young ladies of her. her age. Signs are small measurable things, but interpretations are illimitable, and in girls of sweet, ardent nature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, hope, belief, vast as a sky, and colored by a diffused thimbleful of matter in the shape of knowledge. They are not always too grossly deceived, for Sinbad himself may have fallen by good luck on a true description, and wrong reasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions. Starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, we now and then

Starting point is 00:52:36 arrive just where we ought to be. Because Miss Brooke was hasty in her trust, it is not therefore clear that Mr. Casabon was unworthy of it. He stayed a little longer than he had intended on a slight pressure of invitation from Mr. Brooke, who offered no bait except his own documents on machine-breaking and rick burning mr casabon was called into the library to look at these in a heap while his host picked up first one and then the other to read aloud from in a skipping and uncertain way passing from one unfinished passage to another with a yes now but here and finally pushing them all aside to open the journal of his youthful continental travels. Look here. Here is all about Greece. Ramness, the ruins of Ramnes. You are a great Grecian now. I don't know whether you have given much study to the topography.

Starting point is 00:53:37 I spent no end of time in making out these things. Helicon now. Here now. We started the next morning for Parnassus, the double-peaked Parnassus. All this volume is about Greece, you know. Mr. Brooke wound up, rubbing his thumb transversely along the edges of the Lees, as he held the book forward. Mr. Cazabon made a dignified, though somewhat sad, audience, bowed in the right place, and avoided looking at anything documentary as far as possible, without showing disregard or impatience, mindful that this desultoriness was associated with the institutions of the country, and that the man who took him on this severe mental scamper was not only an amiable host but a landholder and custas rotulorum was his endurance aided also by the reflection that mr brooke was the uncle of dorothea certainly he seemed more and more bent on making her talk to him on drawing her out as celia remarked to herself and in looking at her his face was often lit up by a smile like

Starting point is 00:54:50 pale wintry sunshine. Before he left the next morning, while taking a pleasant walk with Miss Brooke along the gravelled terrace, he had mentioned to her that he felt the disadvantage of loneliness, the need of that cheerful companionship with which the presence of youth can lighten or vary the serious toils of maturity. And he delivered this statement with as much careful precision as if he had been a diplomatic envoy whose words would be attended with results. Indeed, Mr. Cazabon was not used to expect that he should have to repeat or revise his communications of a practical or personal kind. The inclinations which he had deliberately stated on the 2nd of October,

Starting point is 00:55:38 he would think it enough to refer to by the mention of that date, judging by the standard of his own memory, which was a volume where a V-D-Supra would serve instead of repetitions, and not the ordinary long-used blotting book, which only tells of forgotten writing. But in this case, Mr. Kazabon's confidence was not likely to be falsified, for Dorothea heard and retained what he said, with the eager interest of a fresh young nature to which every variety in experience is an epic. it was three o'clock in the beautiful breezy autumn day when mr casabon drove off to his rectory at lowick only five miles from tipton and dorothea who had on her bonnet and shawl hurried along the shrubbery and across the park

Starting point is 00:56:31 that she might wander through the bordering wood with no other visible companionship than that of monk the great st bernard dog who always took care of the young ladies in their walks there had risen before her the girl's vision of a possible future for herself to which she looked forward with trembling hope and she wanted to wander on in that visionary future without interruption she walked briskly in the brisk air the color rose in her cheeks and her straw bonnet, which our contemporaries might look at with conjectural curiosity, as at an obsolete form of basket, fell a little backward. She would perhaps be hardly characterized enough, if it were omitted, that she wore her brown hair, flatly braided, and coiled behind, so as to expose the outline of her head in a daring manner at a time when public feeling required the meagerness of nature to be dissimulated,

Starting point is 00:57:31 by tall barricades of frizzed curls and bows, never surpassed by any great race except the Fijian. This was a trait of Miss Brooks asceticism. But there was nothing of an ascetic's expression in her bright, full eyes, as she looked before her, not consciously seen, but absorbing into the intensity of her mood, the solemn glory of the afternoon

Starting point is 00:57:57 with its long swathes of light between the far-off rows of limes whose shadows touched each other. All people, young or old, that is, all people in those anti-reform times, would have thought her an interesting object if they had referred the glow in her eyes and cheeks to the newly awakened ordinary images of young love. The illusions of Chloe about Streffon have been sufficiently consecrated in poetry as the pathetic loveliness of all spontaneous trust ought to be. Miss Pippin adoring young pumpkin,

Starting point is 00:58:36 and dreaming along endless vistas of unwearying companionship, was a little drama which never tired our fathers and mothers, and had been put into all costumes. Let but pumpkin have a figure which would sustain the disadvantages of the short-wasted 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.

Starting point is 00:59:12 But perhaps no persons then living, certainly none in the neighborhood of Tipton, would have had a sympathetic understanding for the dreams of a girl whose notions about marriage took their color and time, from an exalted enthusiasm about the ends of life, an enthusiasm which was lit chiefly by its own fire, and included neither the niceties of the trousseau, the pattern of plate, nor even the honors and sweet joys of the blooming matron. It had now entered Dorothea's mind that Mr. Casabon might wish to make her his wife, and the idea that he would do so touch the her with a sort of reverential gratitude how good of him nay it would be almost as if a winged messenger had suddenly stood beside her path and held out his hand towards her

Starting point is 01:00:10 for a long while she had been oppressed by the indefiniteness which hung in her mind like a thick summer haze over all her desire to make her life greatly effective what could she do what ought she to do she hardly more than a budding woman but yet with an active conscience and a great mental need not to be satisfied by a girlish instruction comparable to the nibblings and judgments of a discursive mouse with some endowment of stupidity and conceit she might have thought that a christian young lady of fortune should find her ideal of life in village charities patronage of the humbler clergy the peruse's of female scripture characters, unfolding the private experience of Sarah under the old dispensation and Dorcas under the new, and the care of her soul over her embroidery in her own boudoir, with a background of prospective marriage to a man who, if less strict than herself, as being involved in affairs religiously inexplicable, might be prayed for and seasonably exhorted. From such contentment, poor Dorothea was shut out.

Starting point is 01:01:30 The intensity of her religious disposition, the coercion it exercised over her life, was but one aspect of a nature altogether ardent, theoretic, and intellectually consequent. But with such a nature struggling in the bands of narrow teaching, hemmed in by a social life which seemed nothing but a labyrinth of petty courses, a walled in maze of small paths that led no wither, the outcome was sure to strike others as at once exaggeration and inconsistency. The thing which seemed to her best, she wanted to justify by the completest knowledge,

Starting point is 01:02:12 and not to live in a pretended admission of rules which were never acted on. Into this sole hunger, as yet all her youthful passion was poor, the union which attracted her was one that would deliver her from girlish subjection to her own ignorance and give her the freedom of voluntary submission to a guide who would take her along the grandest path i should learn everything then she said to herself still walking quickly along the bridle road through the wood it would be my duty to study that i might help him the better in his great works there would be nothing trivial about our lives everyday things with us would mean the greatest things it would be like marrying pascal i should learn to see the truth by the same light as great men have seen it by and then i should know what to do when i got older i should see how it was possible to lead a grand life here now in england i don't feel sure about doing good in any way now everything seems like going on a mission to people whose language i don't know unless it were building good cottages there can be no doubt about that oh i hope i should be able to get the people well housed in lowick i will draw plenty of plans while i have time dorothea checked herself suddenly with self-rebuke for the presumptuous way in which she was reckoning on uncertain events

Starting point is 01:03:49 but she was spared any inward effort to change the direction of her thoughts by the appearance of a cantering horseman round a turning of the road the well-groomed chestnut horse and two beautiful setters could leave no doubt that the rider was sir james chetham he discerned dorothea jumped off his horse at once and having delivered it to his groom advanced toward her with something white on his arm at which the two setters were barking in an excitement manner. How delightful to meet you, Miss Brooke, he said, raising his hat and showing his sleekly waving blonde hair. It has hastened the pleasure I was looking forward to. Miss Brooke was annoyed at the interruption. This amiable baronet, really a suitable husband for Celia, exaggerated the necessity of making himself agreeable to the elder sister. Even a prospective brother-in-law may be an oppression if he will always be presupposing too good in understanding with you and agreeing with you even when you contradict him. The thought that he had made the mistake of paying his addresses to herself could not take shape. All her mental activity was used up

Starting point is 01:05:06 in persuasions of another kind. But he was positively obtrusive at this moment, and his dimpled hands were quite disagreeable. Her round, her roused. temper made her color deeply as she returned his greeting with some haughtiness sir james interpreted the heightened color in the way most gratifying to himself and thought he never saw miss brooke looking so handsome i have brought a little petitioner he said or rather i have brought him to see if he will be approved before his petition is offered he showed the white object under his arm which was a tiny maltese puppy one of nature's most naive toys it is painful to me to see these creatures that are bred merely as pets said dorothea whose opinion was forming itself that very moment as opinions will under the heat of irritation oh why said sir james as they walked forward i believe all the petting that is given them does not make them happy they are too helpless their lives are too frail a weasel or a mouse that gets its own living is more interesting i like to think that the animals about us have souls something like our own and either carry on their own little affairs or can be companions to us like monk here those creatures are parasitic i am so glad i know that you do not like them said good sir james i should never keep them for myself but ladies are usually fond of these maltese dogs

Starting point is 01:06:45 here john take this dog will you the objectionable puppy whose nose and eyes were equally black and expressive was thus got rid of since miss brooke decided that it had better not have been born but she felt it necessary to explain you must not judge ocelia's feeling from mine i think she likes these small pets she had a tiny terrier once which she was very fond of it made me unhappy because she was very fond of it made me unhappy because she was very happy because she was very fond of it made me unhappy because she was because I was afraid of treading on it. I'm rather short-sighted. You have your own opinion about everything, Miss Brooke, and it is always a good opinion. What answer was possible to such stupid complimenting? Do you know, I envy you that, Sir James said, as they continued walking at the rather brisk pace set by Dorothea. I don't quite understand what you mean. Your power of forming an opinion. I can form an opinion of persons. I know when I like people, but about other matters, do you know? I have often a difficulty in deciding. One hears very sensible things

Starting point is 01:07:56 said on opposite sides. Or, that seem sensible. Perhaps we don't always discriminate between sense and nonsense. Dorothy felt that she was rather rude. Exactly, said Sir James, but you seem to have the power of discrimination. On the contrary, I am often unable to decide, but that is from ignorance. The right conclusion is there all the same, though I am unable to see it. I think there are a few who would see it more readily. Do you know, Lovegood was telling me yesterday that you had the best notion in the world of a plan for cottages, quite wonderful for a young lady, he thought. You had a real genius to use his expression. He said you wanted me. Mr. Brook to build a new set of cottages, but he seemed to think it hardly probable that your

Starting point is 01:08:47 uncle would consent. Do you know, that is one of the things I wish to do, I mean on my own estate. I should be so glad to carry out that plan of yours if you would let me see it. Of course, it is sinking money. That is why people object to it. Laborers can never pay rent to make it answer. But after all, it is worth doing. Worth doing? Yes, indeed, said Dorothy. energetically, forgetting her previous small vexations. I think we deserve to be beaten out of our beautiful houses with a scourge of small cords, all of us who let tenants live in such sties as we see round us. Life in cottages might be happier than ours if they were real houses fit for human

Starting point is 01:09:33 beings from whom we expect duties and affections. Will you show me your plan? Yes, certainly. I dare say it is very faulty, but I have been examining all the plans for cottages in Loden's book and picked out what seemed the best things. Oh, what a happiness it would be to set the pattern about here. I think instead of Lazarus at the gate, we should put the pig-sty cottages outside the park gate. Dorothea was in the best temper now, Sir James, as brother-in-law, building model cottages on his estate, and then perhaps others being built at Loic, and more and more elsewhere in imitation, it would be as if the spirit of Oberlin had passed over the parishes to make the life of poverty beautiful. Sir James saw all the plans, and took one away to consult upon with Lovegood.

Starting point is 01:10:31 He also took away a complacent sense that he was making great progress in misbrisbrose. good opinion. The Maltese puppy was not offered to Celia, an omission which Dorothea afterwards thought of with surprise, but she blamed herself for it. She had been engrossing Sir James. After all, it was a relief that there was no puppy to tread upon. Celia was present while the plans were being examined and observed Sir James' illusion. He thinks that Dodo cares about him, and she only cares about her plans. Yet, I am not certain that she would refuse him if she thought he would let her manage everything and carry out all her notions. How very uncomfortable Sir James would be! I cannot bear notions.

Starting point is 01:11:23 It was Celia's private luxury to indulge in this dislike. She dared not confess it to her sister in any direct statement, for that would be laying herself open to her. a demonstration that she was somehow or other at war with all goodness. But on safe opportunities, she had an indirect mode of making her negative wisdom tell upon Dorothea, and calling her down from her rhapsodic mood by reminding her that people were staring, not listening. Celia was not impulsive. What she had to say could wait, and came from her always with the same quiet staccato evenness. When people talked with energy and emphasis, she watched their faces and features merely. She could never understand how well-bred persons consented to sing

Starting point is 01:12:19 and open their mouths in the ridiculous manner requisite for that vocal exercise. It was not many days before Mr. Casabon paid a morning visit, on which he was invited again for the following week to dine and stay the night. Thus Dorothea had three more conversations with him, and was convinced that her first impressions had been just. He was all she had at first imagined him to be. Almost everything he had said seemed like a specimen from a mine, or the inscription on the door of a museum which might open on the treasures of past ages, and this trust in his mental wealth was all the deeper and more effective on her inclination, because it was now obvious that his visits were made for her sake. This accomplished man condescended to think of a young girl,

Starting point is 01:13:12 and take the pains to talk to her, not with absurd compliment, but with an appeal to her understanding, and sometimes with instructive correction. What delightful companionship! Mr. Casabon seemed even unconscious that trivialities existed, and never handed round that small talk of heavy men, which is as acceptable as stale bride-cake brought forth with an odor of cupboard. He talked of what he was interested in, or else he was silent and bowed with sad civility. To Dorothea this was adorable genuineness and religious abstinence from that artificiality which uses up the soul in the efforts of pretense. For she looked as reverently at Mr. Casabon's religious elevation above herself as she did at his intellect and learning.

Starting point is 01:14:07 He assented to her expressions of devout feeling, and usually with an appropriate quotation. He allowed himself to say that he had gone through some spiritual conflicts in his youth. In short, Dorothea saw that here she might reckon on understanding sympathy and guidance. On one, only one, of her favorite themes, she was disappointed. Mr. Cazabon apparently did not care about building cottages, and diverted the talk to the extremely narrow accommodation which was to be had in the dwellings of the ancient Egyptians, as if to check a too high standard. After he was gone, Dorothea dwelt with some agitation on this indifference of his, and her mind was much exercised with arguments drawn from the varying conditions of climate

Starting point is 01:15:01 which modify human needs, and from the admitted wickedness of pagan despots. Should she not urge these arguments on Mr. Casabon when he came again? But further reflection told her that she was presumptuous in demanding his attention to such a subject. He would not disapprove of her occupying herself with it in leisure moments, as other women expected to occupy themselves with their dress and embroidery, would not forbid it when. Dorothea felt rather ashamed, as she detected herself in these speculations. But her uncle had been invited to go to Loweck to stay a couple of days. Was it reasonable to suppose that Mr. Casabon delighted in Mr. Brooks' society for its own sake, either with or without documents?

Starting point is 01:15:53 Meanwhile, that little disappointment made her delight the more in Sir James Chatham's readiness to set on foot the desired improvements. He came much oftener than Mr. Cazabon, and Dorothea ceased to find him disagreeable since he showed himself so entirely in earnest, for he had already entered with much practical ability into Lovegood's estimates and was charmingly docile. She proposed to build a couple of cottages and transfer two families from their old cabins, which could then be pulled down so that new ones could be built on the old sites. Sir James said, exactly, and she bore the word remarkably well. Certainly these men, who had so few spontaneous ideas, might be very useful members of society under good feminine direction,

Starting point is 01:16:50 if they were fortunate in choosing their sisters-in-law. It is difficult to say whether there was or was not a little willfulness in her continuing blind to the possibility that another sort of choice was in question in relation to her. But her life was just now full of hope and action. She was not only thinking of her plans, but getting down learned books from the library and reading many things hastily, that she might be a little less ignorant in talking to Mr. Casabon,

Starting point is 01:17:27 all the while being visited with conscientious questionings whether she were not exulting these poor doings above measure, and contemplating them with that self-satisfaction which was the last doom of ignorance and folly. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of Middle March by George Elliott. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Margaret Espiac. First gentlemen, Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves.

Starting point is 01:18:12 Second gentleman. I truly, but I think it is the world that brings the iron. Sir James seems determined to do everything you wish, said Celia, as they were driving home from an inspection of the new building, sight. He is a good creature, and more sensible than anyone would imagine, said Dorothea, inconsiderately. You mean that he appears silly? No, no, said Dorothea, recollecting herself, and laying her hand on her sisters a moment. But he does not talk equally well on all subjects. I should think none but disagreeable people

Starting point is 01:18:52 do, said Celia in her usual purring way. They must be very very very good. I should think none but disagreeable people do, said Celia, in her usual purring way. They must be very dreadful to live with. Only think at breakfast and always? Dorothea laughed. Oh, kitty, you are a wonderful creature. She pinched Celia's chin, being in the mood now to think her very winning and lovely,

Starting point is 01:19:14 fit hereafter to be an eternal cherub, and if it were not doctrinally wrong to say so, hardly more in need of salvation than a squirrel. of course people need not be always talking well only one tells the quality of their minds when they try to talk well you mean that sir james tries and fails i was speaking generally why do you catechized me about sir james it is not the object of his life to please me now dodo can you really believe that certainly he thinks of me as a future sister that is all dorothea had never hinted this before waiting from a certain shyness on such subjects which was mutual between the sisters until it should be introduced by some decisive event celia blushed but said at once pray do not make that mistake any longer dodo when tantrip was brushing my hair the other day she said that sir james man knew from mrs cadwallader's maid that sir james was to marry the other day she said that sir james man knew from mrs cadwallader's maid that sir james was to marry the the eldest Miss Brooke. How can you let Tantrip talk such gossip to you, Celia? said Dorothea,

Starting point is 01:20:30 indignantly, not the less angry because details, asleep in her memory, were now awakened to confirm the unwelcome revelation. You must have asked her questions. It is degrading. I see no harm at all in Tantrips talking to me. It is better to hear what people say. You see what mistakes you make by taking up notions. i am quite sure that sir james means to make you an offer and he believes that you will accept him especially since you have been so pleased with him about the plans an uncle too i know he expects it every one can see that sir james is very much in love with you the revulsion was so strong and painful in dorothea's mind that the tears welled up and flowed abundantly all her dear plans were embittered and she thought with disgust of sir james conceiving that she recognized him as her lover there was vexation too on account of celia how could he expect it she burst forth in her most impetuous manner i have never agreed with him about anything but the cottages i was barely polite to him before but you have been so pleased with him since then he has begun to feel quite sure that you are fond of him

Starting point is 01:21:50 fond of him celia how can you choose such odious expressions said dorothea passionately dear me dorothea i suppose it would be right for you to be fond of a man whom you accepted for a husband it is offensive to me to say that sir james could think i was fond of him besides it is not the right word for the feeling i must have towards the man i would accept as a husband well i am sorry for sir james i thought it right to tell you because you went on as you always do never looking just where you are and treading in the wrong place you always see what nobody else sees it is impossible to satisfy you yet you never see what is quite plain that's your way dodo something certainly gave celia unusual courage and she was not sparing the sister of whom she was occasionally in awe who can tell what just criticisms mure the cat may be passing on us beings of wider speculation it is very painful said dorothea feeling scourged i can have no more to do with the cottages i must be uncivil to him i must tell him i will have nothing to do with them it is very painful her eyes filled again with tears wait a little think about it you know he is going away for a day or two to see his sister there will be nobody besides love good celia could not help relenting poor dodo she went on in an amiable staccato it is very hard it is your favorite fad to draw plans fad to draw plans do you think i only care about my fellow-creature's houses in that childish way i may well make mistakes how can one ever do anything nobly christian living among people with such petty thoughts

Starting point is 01:23:55 no more was said dorothea was too much jarred to recover her temper and behaved so as to show that she admitted any error in herself she was disposed rather to accuse the intolerable narrowness and the purblind conscience of the society around her and celia was no longer the eternal cherub but a thorn in her spirit a pink and white nullifidian worse than any discouraging presence in the pilgrim's progress the fad of drawing plans what was life worth what great faith was possible when the whole effect of one's actions could be withered up into such parched rubbish as that when she got out of the carriage her cheeks were pale and her eyelids red she was an image of sorrow and her uncle who met her in the hall would have been alarmed if celia had not been close to her looking so pretty and composed that he at once concluded dorothea's tears to have their origin in her excessive religiousness he had returned during their absence from a journey to the county town about a petition for the party's of some criminal well my dears he said kindly as they went up to kiss him i hope nothing disagreeable has happened while i have been away no uncle said celia we have been to fresh it to look at the cottages we thought she would have been home to lunch i came by lowick to lunch you didn't know i came by lowick and i have brought a couple of pamphlets for you dorothea in the library you know they lie on the table in the library you know they lie on the table in the library It seemed as if an electric stream went through Dorothea, thrilling her from despair into expectation.

Starting point is 01:25:50 They were pamphlets about the early church. The oppression of Celia, Tantrip, and Sir James was shaken off, and she walked straight to the library. Celia went upstairs. Mr. Brooke was detained by a message, but when he re-entered the library, he found Dorothea seated and already deep in one of the pamphlets, which had some marginal manuscript of Mr. Casabonds, taking it in as eagerly as she might have taken in the scent of a fresh bouquet after a dry, hot, dreary walk. She was getting away from Tipton and Freshet,

Starting point is 01:26:26 and her own sad liability to tread in the wrong places on her way to the New Jerusalem. Mr. Brooke sat down in his armchair, stretched his legs toward the wood fire, which had fallen into a one-stained, mass of glowing dice between the dogs, and rubbed his hands gently, looking very mildly towards Dorothea, but with a neutral, leisurely air, as if he had nothing particular to say. Dorothea closed her pamphlet, as soon as she was aware of her uncle's presence, and rose as if

Starting point is 01:27:00 to go. Usually she would have been interested about her uncle's merciful errand on behalf of the criminal, but her late agitation had made her absent-minded. i came back by lowick you know said mr brooke not as if with any intention to arrest her departure but apparently from his usual tendency to say what he had said before this fundamental principle of human speech was markedly exhibited in mr brook i lunched there and saw casabon's library and that kind of thing there's a sharp air driving won't you sit down my dear you look cold dorothea felt quite inclined to accept the invitation sometimes when her uncle's easy way of taking things did not happen to be exasperating it was rather soothing she threw off her mantle and bonnet and sat down opposite to him enjoying the glow but lifting up her beautiful hands for a screen they were not thin hands or small hands but powerful feminine maternal hands she seemed to be holding them up in propitiation for her passionate desire to know and to think which in the unfriendly mediums of tipton and freshet had issued in crying and red eyelids she bethought herself now of the condemned criminal what news have you brought about the sheep-stealer uncle what poor bunch well it seems we can't get him off he is to be hanged

Starting point is 01:28:37 dorothea's brow took an expression of reprobation and pity hanged you know said mr brooke with a quiet nod poor romilly he would have helped us i knew romilly casabon didn't know romilly he is a little buried in books you know casabon is when a man has great studies and is writing a great work he must of course give up seeing much of the world how can he go about making acquaintance of his own That's true, but a man mopes, you know. I have always been a bachelor, too, but I have that sort of disposition that I never moped. It was my way to go about everywhere and take in everything. I never mooped. But I can see that Casabon does, you know. He wants a companion, you know.

Starting point is 01:29:32 It would be a great honor to anyone to be his companion, said Dorothea. energetically. You like him, eh? said Mr. Brook, without showing any surprise or other emotion. Well, now, I've known Casabon ten years ever since he came to Loweck, but I never got anything out of him, any ideas, you know. However, he is a tip-top 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.

Starting point is 01:30:07 dorothea could not speak the fact is he has a very high opinion indeed of you and he speaks uncommonly well does casabon he has deferred to me you not being of age in short i have promised to speak to you though i told him i thought there was not much chance i was bound to tell him that i said my niece is very young and that kind of thing but i didn't think it necessary to go into everything however the long and the short of it is that he has asked my permission to make you an offer of marriage of marriage you know said mr brooke with his explanatory nod i thought it better to tell you my dear no one could have detected any anxiety in mr brooke's manner but he did really wish to know something of his niece's mind that if there were any need to know something of his niece's mind that if there were any need for advice, he might give it in time. What feeling he, as a magistrate who had taken in so many ideas, could make room for, was unmixedly kind. Since Dorothea did not speak immediately, he repeated, I thought it better to tell you, my dear. Thank you, uncle, said Dorothea, in a clear, unwavering tone. I am very grateful to Mr. Casabon. If he makes me an offer,

Starting point is 01:31:36 I shall accept him. I admire and honor him more than any man I ever saw. Mr. Brooke paused a little, and then said in a lingering low tone, Ah, well, he is a good match in some respects, but now Chetam is a good match,

Starting point is 01:31:58 and our land lies together. I shall never interfere against your wishes, my dear, people should have their own way in marriage, and that sort of thing, up to a certain point, you know. I have always said that, up to a certain point. I wish you to marry well, and I have good reason to believe that Chetham wishes to marry you. I mention it, you know. It is impossible that I should ever marry Sir James Chetam, said Dorothea. If he thinks of marrying me, he has made a great mistake.

Starting point is 01:32:34 that is it you see one never knows i should have thought chedham was just the sort of man a woman would like now pray do not mention him in that light again uncle said dorothea feeling some of her late irritation revive mr brook wondered and felt that women were an inexhaustible subject of study since even he at his age was not in a perfect state of scientific prediction about them here was a fellow like chatham with no chance at all but well casabon now there is no hurry i mean for you it's true every year will tell upon him he is over five and forty you know i should say a good seven-and-twenty years older than you to be sure if you like learning and standing and that sort of thing we can't have everything and his income is good he has a handsome property independent of the church his income is good still he is not young and i must not conceal from you my dear that i think his health is not over-strong i know nothing else against him i should not wish to have a husband very near my own age said dorothea with grave decision i should wish to have a husband who was above me in judgment and in all knowledge. Mr. Brooke repeated his subdued. Ah? I thought you had more of your own opinion than most girls. I thought you liked your own opinion. Liked it, you know. I cannot imagine myself living

Starting point is 01:34:16 without some opinions, but I should wish to have good reasons for them, and a wise man could help me to see which opinions had the best foundation, and would help me to live according to them. very true you couldn't put the thing better couldn't put it better beforehand you know but there are oddities in things continued mr brook whose conscience was really roused to do the best he could for his niece on this occasion life isn't cast in a mould not cut out by rule and line and that sort of thing i never married myself and it will be the better for you and yours the fact is i never loved any one well enough to put myself into a noose for them it is a noose you know temper now there is temper and a husband likes to be master i know that i must expect trials uncle marriage is a state of higher duties i never thought of it as a mere personal ease said poor dorothea well you are not fond of show a great establishment balls dinners and that kind of thing i can see that casabon's ways might suit you better than chetam's and you shall do as you like my dear i would not hinder casabon i said so at once for there is no knowing how anything may turn out you have not the same tastes as every young lady and a clergyman and a scholar who may be a bishop that kind of thing may suit you better than chettam

Starting point is 01:35:57 chetam is a good fellow a good sound-hearted fellow you know but he doesn't go much into ideas i did when i was his age but casabon's eyes now i think he has hurt them with a little too much reading. I should be all the happier, uncle, the more room there was for me to help him, said Dorothea ardently. You have quite made up your mind, I see. Well, my dear, the fact is, I have a letter for you in my pocket. Mr. Brooke handed the letter to Dorothea, but as she rose to go away, he added, There is not too much hurry, my dear.

Starting point is 01:36:35 Think about it, you know. When Dorothea had left him, he reflected that he had certainly spoken strongly. He had put the risks of marriage before her in a striking manner. It was his duty to do so. But as to pretending to be wise for young people, no uncle, however much he had traveled in his youth, absorbed the new ideas, and dined with celebrities now deceased, could pretend to judge what sort of marriage would turn out will. for a young girl who preferred Kazabon to Chatham. In short, woman was a problem which, since

Starting point is 01:37:15 Brooke's mind felt blank before it, could be hardly less complicated than the revolutions of an irregular solid. And of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of Middle March by George Elliott. This Liberbox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Margaret Espiat. Hard students are commonly troubled with gouts, catars, rooms, cachesia, bradypepsia, bad eyes, stone and colic, crudities, opulations, vertigues, winds, consumptions, and all such diseases as come by overmuch sitting. They are most part lean, dry, ill-colored, and all through immoderate pains and extraordinary studies. If you will not believe the truth of this, look upon the great Tostatus and Thomas Aquinas works, and tell me whether those men took pains. Burton's

Starting point is 01:38:18 anatomy of melancholy. This was Mr. Casabon's letter. My dear Miss Brooke, I have your guardian's permission to address you on a subject than which I have none more at heart. I am not, I trust, mistaken in the recognition of some deeper, correspondence than that of date in the fact that a consciousness of need in my own life had arisen contemporaneously with the possibility of my becoming acquainted with you. For in the first hour of meeting you, I had an impression of your eminent and perhaps exclusive fitness to supply that need, connected, I may say, with such activity of the affections as even the preoccupations of a work too special to be abdicated, could not uninterrupted.

Starting point is 01:39:07 dissimulate, and each succeeding opportunity for observation has given the impression an added depth by convincing me more emphatically of that fitness which I had preconceived, and thus evoking more decisively those affections to which I have but now referred. Our conversations have, I think, made sufficiently clear to you the tenor of my life and purposes, a tenor unsuited, I am aware, to the commoner order of mind. But I have discerned in you an elevation of thought and a capability of devotedness, which I had hitherto not conceived to be compatible either with the early bloom of youth, or with those graces of sex that may be said at once to win and to confer distinction when

Starting point is 01:39:56 combined, as they notably are in you, with the mental qualities above indicated. It was, I confess, beyond my hope to meet with this rare car. combination of elements, both solid and attractive, adapted to supply aid in graver labors, and to cast a charm over vacant hours. And but for the event of my introduction to you, which, let me say again, I trust not to be superficially coincident with foreshadowing needs, but providentially related thereto as stages towards the completion of a life's plan. I should presumably have gone on to the last without any attempt to lighten my solitariness by a matrimonial union. Such, my dear Miss Brooke, is the accurate statement of my feelings, and I rely on your kind indulgence

Starting point is 01:40:52 in venturing now to ask you how far your own are of a nature to confirm my happy presentiment. To be accepted by you as your husband and the earthly guardian of your husband. your welfare, I should regard as the highest of providential gifts. In return, I can at least offer you an affection hitherto unwasted, and the faithful consecration of a life which, however short in the sequel, has no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find records such as might justly cause you either bitterness or shame. I await the expression of your sentiments with an anxiety which it would be the part of wisdom, were it possible, to divert by a more arduous labor than usual. But in this order of experience I am still young,

Starting point is 01:41:45 and in looking forward to an unfavorable possibility, I cannot but feel that resignation to solitude will be more difficult after the temporary illumination of hope. In any case, I shall remain yours with sincere devotion, Edward Casabon. Dorothea trembled while she read this letter. Then she fell on her knees, buried her face, and sobbed. She could not pray. Under the rush of solemn emotion in which thoughts became vague and images floated uncertainly, she could but cast herself with a childlike sense of reclining in the

Starting point is 01:42:26 lap of a divine consciousness which sustained. her own. She remained in that attitude till it was time to dress for dinner. How could it occur to her to examine the letter, to look at it critically as a profession of love? Her whole soul was possessed by the fact that a fuller life was opening before her. She was a neophyte about to enter on a higher grade of initiation. She was going to have room for the energies which stirred uneasily under the dimness and pressure of her own ignorance, and the petty perimptoriness of the world's habits. Now she would be able to devote herself to large yet definite duties. Now she would be allowed to live continually in the light of a mind that she could reverence. This hope was not unmixed

Starting point is 01:43:16 with the glow of proud delight, the joyous maiden surprise that she was chosen by the man whom her admiration had chosen. All Dorothy's passion was transfused through a mind, struggling towards an ideal life. The radiance of her transfigured girlhood fell on the first object that came within its level. The impetus with which inclination became resolution was heightened by those little events of the day

Starting point is 01:43:45 which had roused her discontent with the actual conditions of her life. After dinner, when Celia was playing an air with variations, a small kind of tinkling which symbolized the aesthetic part of the young lady's education, Dorothea went up to her room to answer Mr. Casabant's letter. Why should she defer the answer? She wrote it over three times, not because she wished to change the wording, but because her hand was unusually uncertain, and she could not bear that.

Starting point is 01:44:20 Mr. Casabon should think her handwriting bad and illegible. She piqued herself on writing a hand, in which each letter was distinguishable without any large range of conjecture, and she meant to make much use of this accomplishment to save Mr. Casabon's eyes. Three times she wrote, My dear Mr. Casabon, I am very grateful to you for loving me, and thinking me worthy to be your wife. i can look forward to no better happiness than that which would be one with yours if i said more it would be only the same thing written out at greater length for i cannot now dwell on any other thought that i may be through life yours devotedly dorothea brooke later in the evening she followed her uncle into the library to give him the letter that he might send it in the morning he was surprised but his surprise only issue in a few moments of silence, during which he pushed about various objects on his writing-table, and finally stood with his back to the fire, his glasses on his nose, looking at the address of

Starting point is 01:45:30 Dorothea's letter. "'Have you thought enough about this, my dear?' he said at last. "'There was no need to thank long, uncle. I know of nothing to make me vacillate. If I changed my mind, it must be because of something important and entirely new to me.' ah then you have accepted him then chedham has no chance has chetam offended you offended you you know what is it you don't like in chetham there is nothing that i like in him said dorothea rather impetuously mr brook threw his head and shoulders backward as if some one had thrown a light missile at him dorothea immediately felt some self-rebuke and said i mean in the light of a husband he is very kind i think really very good about the cottages a well-meaning man but you must have a scholar and that sort of thing well it lies a little in our family i had it myself that love of knowledge and going into everything a little too much it took me too far though that sort of thing doesn't often run in the female line

Starting point is 01:46:42 or it runs underground like the rivers in greece you know it comes out in the suns clever sons clever mothers i went a good deal into that at one time-and-one and the river's in greece you know it comes out in the sons clever mothers i went a good deal into that at one time-time However, my dear, I have always said that people should do as they like in these things, up to a certain point. I couldn't, as your guardian, have consented to a bad match. But Casabon stands well, his position is good. I'm afraid Chatham will be hurt, though, and Mrs. Cadwallader will blame me. That evening, of course, Celia knew nothing of what had happened. She attributed Dorothea's abstracted manner and the evidence of further crying since they had got home

Starting point is 01:47:28 to the temper she had been in about Sir James Chatham in the buildings, and was careful not to give further offense. Having once said what she wanted to say, Celia had no disposition to recur to disagreeable subjects. It had been her nature when a child never to quarrel with anyone, only to observe with wonder that they quarreled with her. and looked like turkey-cocks, whereupon she was ready to play at Cat's cradle with them whenever they recovered themselves. And as to Dorothea, it had always been her way to find something wrong in her sister's words,

Starting point is 01:48:06 though Celia inwardly protested that she always said just how things were, and nothing else. She never did and never could put words together out of her own head. But the best of Dodo was that she did not keep anything, angry for long together. Now, though they had hardly spoken to each other all the evening, yet when Celia put by her work, intending to go to bed, a proceeding in which she was always much the earlier, Dorothea, who was seated on a low stool, unable to occupy herself except in meditation, said with the musical intonation which in moments of deep but quiet feeling made her

Starting point is 01:48:48 speech like a fine bit of recitative. Celia, dear, come and kiss me, holding her arms open as she spoke. Celia knelt down to get to the right level and gave her a little butterfly kiss, while Dorothea encircled her with gentle arms and pressed her lips gravely on each cheek and turn. Don't sit up, Dodo. You are so pale to-night. Go to bed soon, said Celia in a comfortable way, without any touch of pathos.

Starting point is 01:49:18 "'No, dear, I am very, very happy,' said Dorothea fervently. "'So much the better,' thought Celia. But how strangely Dodo goes from one extreme to the other. The next day at luncheon, the butler, handing something to Mr. Brooke, said, "'Jonas has come back, sir, and has brought this letter.' Mr. Brooke read the letter, and then, nodding toward Dorothea said, "'Casabon, my dear, he will be here to dinner. He didn't wait to write more.

Starting point is 01:49:46 didn't wait, you know. It could not seem remarkable to Celia that a dinner guest should be announced to her sister beforehand, but her eyes following the same direction as her uncles, she was struck with a peculiar effect of the announcement on Dorothea. It seemed as if something like the reflection of a white sunlit wing had passed across her features, ending in one of her rare blushes. For the first time it entered into Celia's mind that there might be something more between Mr. Cazabon and her sister than his delight in bookish talk and her delight in listening. Hitherto she had clasped the admiration for this ugly and learned acquaintance, with the admiration for Monsieur Luré at Lausanne, so ugly and learned. Dorothy had never been tired of listening

Starting point is 01:50:37 to old Monsieur Lire when Celia's feet were as well. cold as possible, and when it had really become dreadful to see the skin of his bald head moving about. Why, then, should her enthusiasm not extend to Mr. Casabon simply in the same way as to Monsieur Lire? And it seemed probable that all learned men had a sort of schoolmaster's view of young people. But now Celia was really startled at the suspicion which had darted into her mind. She was seldom taken by surprise in this way. Her marveled. quickness in observing a certain order of signs, generally preparing her to expect such outward events as she had an interest in. Here was something really to vex her about Dodo. It was all very

Starting point is 01:51:24 well not to accept Sir James Chedham, but the idea of marrying Mr. Cazabon. Celia felt a sort of shame mingled with a sense of the ludicrous. But perhaps Dodo, if she were really bordering on such an extravagance, might be turned away from it. Experience had often shown that her impressibility might be calculated on. The day was damp, and they were not going to walk out, so they both went up to their sitting-room, and there Celia observed that Dorothea, instead of settling down with her usual diligent interest to some occupation, simply leaned on her elbow on an open book, and looked out of the window at the great cedar silvered with the damp. She herself had taken up the making of a toy for the curate's children, and was not going to enter on any subject too precipitately. Dorothea was,

Starting point is 01:52:22 in fact, thinking that it was desirable for Celia to know of the momentous change in Mr. Cazabon's position since he had last been in the house. It did not seem fair to leave her in ignorance of what would necessarily affect her attitude towards him, but it was impossible not to shrink from telling her. Dorothea accused herself of some meanness in this timidity. It was always odious to her to have any small fears or contrivances about her actions, but at this moment she was seeking the highest aid possible that she might not dread the corrosiveness of Celia's pretty carnally-minded prose. Her reverie was broken. Her reverie was broken. and the difficulty of decision banished by Celia's small and rather guttural voice

Starting point is 01:53:12 speaking in its usual tone of a remark aside or a by-the-by. Is anyone else coming to dine besides, Mr. Cazabon? Not that I know of. I hope there is someone else that I shall not hear him eat his soup so. What is there remarkable about his soup eating? Really, Dodo, can't you hear how? how he scrapes his spoon, and he always blinks before he speaks. I don't know whether Locke blinked, but I'm sure I am sorry for those who sat opposite to him if he did.

Starting point is 01:53:47 Celia, said Dorothea, with emphatic gravity. Pray don't make any more observations of that kind. Why not? They are quite true, returned Celia, who had her reasons for persevering, though she was beginning to be a little afraid. Many things are true which only the commonest minds observe. Then, I think the commonest minds must be rather useful. I think it is a pity Mr. Casabon's mother had not a commoner mind. She might have taught him better. Celia was inwardly frightened and ready to run away. Now she had hurled this light javelin. Dorothy's feelings had gathered to an avalanche, and there could be no further preparation. It is right to tell you, Celia, engaged to marry Mr. Cazabon.

Starting point is 01:54:39 Perhaps Celia had never turned so pale before. The paper man she was making would have had his leg injured, but for her habitual care of whatever she held in her hands. She laid the fragile figure down at once and sat perfectly still for a few moments. When she spoke, there was a tear-gathering. Oh, Dodo, I hope you will be happy. her sisterly tenderness could not but surmount other feelings at this moment, and her fears were the fears of affection.

Starting point is 01:55:13 Dorothea was still hurt and agitated. "'Is it quite decided, then?' said Celia, in an awed undertone. "'And uncle knows?' "'I have accepted Mr. Casabon's offer. "'My uncle brought me the letter that contained it. "'He knew about it beforehand.' "'I beg your pardon if I have said any. anything to hurt you, Dodo, said Celia, with a slight sob. She never could have thought that

Starting point is 01:55:40 she could feel as she did. There was something funereal in the whole affair, and Mr. Kazabon seemed to be the officiating clergyman about whom it would be indecent to make remarks. Never mind, Kitty, do not grieve. We should never admire the same people. I often offend in something of the same way. I am apt to speak too strongly of the those who don't please me. In spite of this magnanimity, Dorothea was still smarting, perhaps as much from Celia's subdued astonishment as from her small criticisms. Of course, all the world round Tipton would be out of sympathy with this marriage. Dorothea knew of no one who thought as she did about life and its best objects.

Starting point is 01:56:29 Nevertheless, before the evening was at an end, she was very happy. An hour's tete-a-tete with Mr. Cazabon she talked to him with more freedom than she had ever felt before, even pouring out her joy at the thought of devoting herself to him, and of learning how she might best share and further all his great ends. Mr. Cazabon was touched with an unknown delight, what man would not have been, at this childlike unrestrained ardor. He was not surprised, what lover would have been, that he should be the object of it. My dear young lady, Miss Brooke, Dorothea, he said, pressing her hand between

Starting point is 01:57:12 his hands. This is a happiness greater than I had ever imagined to be in reserve for me, that I should ever meet with a mind and person so rich in the mingled graces which could render marriage desirable was far indeed from my conception. You have all, nay, more than all, those qualities which I have regarded as the characteristic excellences of womanhood. The great charm of your sex is its capability of an ardent, self-sacrificing affection, and herein we see its fitness to round and complete the existence of our own. Hitherto I have known few pleasures, save of the severer kind. My satisfactions have been those of the solitary student.

Starting point is 01:58:00 I have been little disposed to gather flowers that would wither in my hand, but now I shall pluck them with eagerness, to place them in your bosom. No speech could have been more thoroughly honest in its intention. The frigid rhetoric at the end was as sincere as the bark of a dog, or the cawing of an amorous rook. Would it not be rash to conclude that there was no passion behind those sonnets to Delia, which strike us as the thin music of a mandolin. Dorothy's faith supplied all that Mr. Casabon's words seemed to leave unsaid.

Starting point is 01:58:41 What believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime. I am very ignorant. You will quite wonder it. my ignorance, said Dorothea. I have so many thoughts that may be quite mistaken, and now I shall be able to tell them all to you and ask you about them.

Starting point is 01:59:10 But, she added, with rapid imagination of Mr. Casabon's probable feeling, I will not trouble you too much, only when you are inclined to listen to me. You must often be weary with the pursuit of subjects in your own track. I shall gain enough if you will take me with you there. How should I be able now to persevere in any path without your companionship, said Mr. Cazabon, kissing her candid brow, and feeling that heaven had vouchsafed him a blessing in every way suited to his peculiar wants. He was being unconsciously wrought upon by the charms of a nature which was entirely without

Starting point is 01:59:51 hidden calculations either for immediate effects or for remoter ends. It was this which made Dorothy so childlike, and according to some judges, so stupid, with all her reputed cleverness, as, for example, in the present case of throwing herself, metaphorically speaking, at Mr. Casabon's feet, and kissing his unfashionable shoe-ties as if he were a Protestant pope. She was not in the least teaching Mr. Casabon to ask if he were good enough for her, but merely asking herself anxiously how she could be good enough for Mr. Casabon. Before he left the next day, it had been decided that the marriage should take place within

Starting point is 02:00:38 six weeks. Why not? Mr. Casabon's house was ready. It was not a parsonage, but a considerable mansion, with much land attached to it. The parsonage was inhabited by the curate, who did all the duty except preaching the morning sermon. End of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 of Middle March by George Elliott. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Margaret Espiaa. My lady's tongue is like the meadow blades that cut you stroking them with idle hand.

Starting point is 02:01:22 Nice cutting is her function. She divides with spiritual edge the millet seed and makes intangible savings. As Mr. Casabon's carriage was passing out of the gateway, it arrested the entrance of a pony faton, driven by a lady with a servant seated behind. It was doubtful whether the recognition had been mutual, for Mr. Casabon was looking absently before him, but the lady was quick-eyed, and threw a nod and a how-do-you-do in the nick of time. In spite of her shabby bonnet and very old Indian shawl, It was plain that the lodgekeeper regarded her as an important personage from the low curtsy which was dropped on the entrance of the small phaeton. "'Well, Mrs. Fitchett, how are your fowls laying now?' said the high-coloured, dark-eyed lady, with the clearest chiselled utterance.

Starting point is 02:02:16 "'Pretty well for lay and madam, but they've tanned to eat in their eggs. I have no peace of mind with them at all.' "'Oh, the cannibals! Better sell them cheap at once! What will he be you? you sell them a couple. One can't eat fowls of a bad character at a high price. Well, madam, half a crown. I couldn't let him go, not under. Half a crown these times. Come now, for the rector's chicken broth on a Sunday. He has consumed all hours that I can spare. You are half paid with a sermon, Mrs. Fitchett, remember that. Take a pair of tumbler pigeons for them, little beauties. You must come and see them. You have no tumblers among your pigeons. "'Well, madam, Master Fitchett shall go and see him after work.

Starting point is 02:03:02 He's very hot on new sorts, to oblige you. "'Abligge me! It will be the best bargain he ever made! A pair of church pigeons for a couple of wicked Spanish fowls that eat their own eggs! Don't you and Fitchett boast too much, that is all!' The Fayton was driven onwards with the last words, leaving Mrs. Fitchett laughing, and shaking her head slowly with an interjectional, surely surely from which it might be inferred that she would have found the countryside somewhat duller if the rector's lady had been less freespoken and less of a skin flint indeed both the farmers and labourers in the parishes of freshet and tipton would have felt a sad lack of conversation but for the stories about what mrs cadwallader said and did a lady of immeasurably high birth descended as it were

Starting point is 02:03:57 from unknown earls, dim as the crowd of heroic shades, who pleaded poverty, pared down prices, and cut-chokes in the most companionable manner, though with a turn of tongue that let you know who she was. Such a lady gave a neighborliness to both rank and religion, and mitigated the bitterness of uncommuted tithe. A much more exemplary character with an infusion of sour dignity, would not have furthered their comprehension of the thirty-nine articles, and would have been less socially uniting. Mr. Brooke, seeing Mrs. Cadwalliter's merits from a different point of view, winced a little when her name was announced in the library, where he was sitting alone. "'I see you have had our Loic Cicicic, here,' she said,

Starting point is 02:04:48 seating herself comfortably, throwing back her wraps, and showing a thin but well-belled. built figure. I suspect you and he are brewing some bad politics, else you would not be seen so much of the lively man. I shall inform against you. Remember, you are both suspicious characters since you took Peel's side about the Catholic bill. I shall tell everybody that you are going to put up for Middle March on the Whig's side when old Pinkerton resigns, and that Cazabon is going to help you in an underhand manner, going to bribe the voters with pamphlet, and throw open the public houses to distribute them. Come, confess.

Starting point is 02:05:29 Nothing of the sort, said Mr. Brooke, smiling and rubbing his eyeglasses, but really blushing a little at the impeachment. Cazabon and I don't talk politics much. He doesn't care about the philanthropic side of things, punishments and that kind of thing. He only cares about church questions. That is not my line of action, you know.

Starting point is 02:05:51 rather too much, my friend. I have heard of your doings. Who was it that sold his bit of land to the Papists at Middle March? I believe you bought it on purpose. You are a perfect Guy Fawkes. See if you are not burnt in effigy this 5th of November coming. Humphrey would not come to quarrel with you about it, so I am come. Very good. I was prepared to be persecuted for not persecuting. not persecuting, you know. There you go. That is a piece of clap-trap you have got ready for the hustings.

Starting point is 02:06:28 Now do not let them lure you to the hustings, my dear Mr. Brooke. A man always makes a fool of himself speechifying. There's no excuse but being on the right side so that you can ask a blessing on your humming and hawing. You will lose yourself, I forewarn you. You will make a Saturday pie

Starting point is 02:06:47 of all party's opinions and be pelted by everybody. That is what I expect, you know, said Mr. Brook, not wishing to betray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch. What I expect as an independent man. As to the Whigs, a man who goes with the thinkers is not likely to be hooked on by any party. He may go with them up to a certain point,

Starting point is 02:07:13 up to a certain point, you know, but that is what you ladies never understand. Where your certain point is? No. I should like to be told how a man can have any certain point when he belongs to no party, leading a roving life, and never letting his friends know his address.

Starting point is 02:07:32 Nobody knows where Brooke will be. There's no counting on Brooke. That is what people say of you, to be quite frank. Now, do turn respectable. How will you like going to sessions with everybody looking shy on you, and you with a bad conscience, and an empty pocket.

Starting point is 02:07:50 I don't pretend to argue with a lady on politics, said Mr. Brooke, with an air of smiling indifference, but feeling rather unpleasantly conscious that this attack of Mrs. Cadwalladers had opened the defensive campaign to which certain rash steps had exposed him. Your sex are not thinkers, you know. Veriam et mutabilis semper, that kind of thing. You don't know, Virgil. I knew. Mr. Brooke reflected in time that he had not the personal acquaintance of the Augustine poet.

Starting point is 02:08:27 I was going to say, poor Stoddard, you know. That was what he said. You ladies are always against an independent attitude, a man's caring for nothing but the truth and that sort of thing. And there is no part of the county where opinion is narrower than it is here. I don't mean to throw stones, you know, but somebody is wanted to take the independent line, and if I don't take it, who will? Who? Why? Any upstart who has got neither blood nor position?

Starting point is 02:08:59 People of standing should consume their independent nonsense at home, not hawk it about. And you, who are going to marry your niece as good as your daughter, to one of our best men? Sir James would be cruelly annoyed. It will be too hard on him if you turn round now and make yourself a wig signboard. Mr. Brooke again winced inwardly, for Dorothy's engagement had no sooner been decided than he thought of Mrs. Cadwallader's prospective taunts. It might have been easy for ignorant observers to say quarrel with Mrs. Cadwallader, but where is a country gentleman to go who quarrels with his oldest neighbors?

Starting point is 02:09:42 Who could taste the fine flavor in the name of Brooke if it were delivered casually, like a wine without a seal? Certainly a man can only be cosmopolitan up to a certain point. I hope, Cheddarman I shall always be good friends, but I am sorry to say there is no prospect of his marrying my niece, said Mr. Brook, much relieved to see through the window that Celia was coming in. Why not? said Mrs. had walleter, with a sharp note of surprise. It is hardly a fortnight since you and I were talking about it. My niece has chosen another suitor.

Starting point is 02:10:22 Has chosen him, you know. I have had nothing to do with it. I should have preferred Chatham, and I should have said Chetham was the man any girl would have chosen. But there is no accounting for these things. Your sex is capricious, you know. Why, whom do you mean to say that you are going to let her marry? Mrs. Cadwallader's mind was rapidly surveying the possibilities of choice for Dorothea.

Starting point is 02:10:48 But here Celia entered, blooming from a walk in the garden, and the greeting with her, delivered Mr. Brooke from the necessity of answering immediately. He got up hastily and saying, By the way, I must speak to write about the horses, shuffled quickly out of the room. My dear child, what is this? This about your sister's engagement? said Mrs. Cadwallader. She is engaged to marry Mr. Cazabon, said Celia,

Starting point is 02:11:18 resorting, as usual, to the simplest statement of fact and enjoying this opportunity of speaking to the rector's wife alone. This is frightful. How long has it been going on? I only knew of it yesterday. They're going to be married in six weeks. Well, my dear, I wish you the joy of your brother-in-law. I am so sorry for Dorothea. Sorry! It is her doing, I suppose. Yes, she says Mr. Cazabon has a great soul.

Starting point is 02:11:52 With all my heart! Oh, Mrs. Cadwallader, I don't think it can be nice to marry a man with a great soul. Well, my dear, take warning. You know the look of one now. When the next comes and wants to marry you, don't you accept him? I'm sure I never should. No, one such in a family is enough. So, your sister never cared about Sir James Chedham.

Starting point is 02:12:20 What would you have said to him for a brother-in-law? I should have liked that very much. I am sure he would have been a good husband. Only, Celia added, with a slight blush, she sometimes seemed to blush as she breathed. I don't think he would have suited Dorothea. not high-flown enough dodo is very strict she thinks so much about everything and is so particular about what one says sir james never seemed to please her she must have encouraged him i am sure that is not very creditable please don't be angry with dodo she does not see things she thought so much about the cottages and she was rude to sir james sometimes but he is angry with dodo she does not see things she thought so much about the cottages and she was rude to sir james sometimes but he

Starting point is 02:13:08 is so kind, and he never noticed it. Well, said Mrs. Cadwallader, putting on her shawl and rising, as if in haste, I must go straight to Sir James and break this to him. He will have brought his mother back by this time, and I must call. Your uncle will never tell him. We are all disappointed, my dear. Young people should think of their families in marrying. I set a bad example, married a poor clergyman, and made myself a pitiable object. among the Debracy's, obliged to get my coals by stratagem, and pray to heaven for my salad oil. However, Cassebon has money enough. I must do him that justice. As to his blood, I suppose the

Starting point is 02:13:53 family quarterings are three cuttlefish sable, and a commentator rampant. By the way, before I go, my dear, I must speak to your Mrs. Carter about pastry. I want to send my young cook to learn of her. poor people with four children like us, you know, can't afford to keep a good cook. I have no doubt Mrs. Carter will oblige me. Sir James Cook is a perfect dragon. In less than an hour Mrs. Cadwallader had circumvented Mrs. Carter and driven to Freshet Hall, which was not far from her own parsonage, her husband being resident in Freshon, and keeping a curate in Tipton. Sir James Chatham had returned from the short journey which had kept him absent for a couple of

Starting point is 02:14:36 and had changed his dress, intending to ride over to Tipton Grange. His horse was standing at the door when Mrs. Cadwallader drove up, and he immediately appeared there himself, whip in hand. Lady Chatham had not yet returned, but Mrs. Cadwalliter's errand could not be dispatched in the presence of grooms, so she asked to be taken into the conservatory close by, to look at the new plants, and on coming to a contemplative stand, she said,

Starting point is 02:15:06 said, "'I have a great shock for you. I hope you are not so far gone in love as you pretended to be.' It was of no use protesting against Mrs. Cadwalliter's way of putting things, but Sir James's countenance changed a little. He felt a vague alarm. I do believe Brooke is going to expose himself after all. I accused him of meaning to stand for Middle March on the liberal side, and he looked silly and never denied it, talked about the independent line, and the usual nonsense. Is that all, said Sir James much relieved? Why, rejoined Mrs. Cadwallader with a sharper note, you don't mean to say that you would like him to turn public man in that way,

Starting point is 02:15:53 making a sort of political cheap jack of himself? He might be dissuaded, I should think. He would not like the expense. That is what I told him. He is vulnerable to reason there, always a few grains of common sense in an ounce of miserliness. Miserliness is a capital quality to run in families. It's the safe side for madness to dip on. And there must be a little crack in the Brooke family, else we should not see what we are to see.

Starting point is 02:16:25 What, Brooke standing for Middle March? Worse than that, I really feel a little responsible. I always told you Miss Brooke would be such a fine match. I knew there was a great deal of nonsense in her, a flighty sort of methodistical stuff. But these things were out of girls. However, I am taken by surprise for once. What do you mean, Mrs. Cadwallader, said Sir James.

Starting point is 02:16:53 His fear, lest Miss Brooke should have run away to join the Moravian brethren, or some preposterous sect unknown to good society, was a little allayed by the knowledge that mrs cadwallader always made the worst of things what has happened to miss brooke pray speak out very well she is engaged to be married mrs cadwalliter paused a few moments observing the deeply hurt expression in her friend's face which he was trying to conceal by a nervous smile while he whipped his boot but she soon added engaged to casabon sir james let his whip fall and stooped to pick it up perhaps his face had never before gathered so much concentrated disgust as when he turned to mrs cadwallader and repeated "'Casabon! Even so, you know my errand now?' "'Good God! It is horrible! He is no better than a mummy!' "'The point of view has to be allowed for, as that of a blooming and disappointed bribal.

Starting point is 02:18:04 "'She says he is a great soul, a great bladder for dried peas to rattle in,' said Mrs. Cadwallader. "'What business has an old bachelor like that to marry?' said Sir Sir. James. He has one foot in the grave. He means to draw it out again, I suppose. Brooke ought not to allow it. He should insist on its being put off till she is of age. She would think better of it then. What is a guardian for? As if you could ever squeeze a resolution out of Brooke. Cadwallader might talk to him. Not he. Humphrey finds everybody charming. I never can get him to abuse Casabon. He will even speak well of the bishop, though I tell him it is unnatural in a benefist clergyman. What can one do with a husband who attends so little to the

Starting point is 02:18:57 decencies? I hide it as well as I can by abusing everybody myself. Come, come, cheer up. You are well rid of Miss Brooke, a girl who would have been requiring you to see the stars by daylight. Between ourselves, little Celia is worth two of her, and likely, after all, to be the better match. For this marriage to Casabon is as good as going to a nunnery. Oh, on my own account. It is for Miss Brooks' sake I think her friends should try to use their influence. Well, Humphrey doesn't know yet, but when I tell him, you may depend on it, he will say, Why not? Casabon is a good fellow.

Starting point is 02:19:39 And young, young enough. these charitable people never know vinegar from wine till they have swallowed it and got the colic however if i were a man i should prefer celia especially when dorothea was gone the truth is you have been courting one and have one the other i can see that she admires you almost as much as a man expects to be admired if there were any one but me who said so you might think at exaggeration good-bye sir james handed mrs cadwallader to the phaeton and then jumped on his horse he was not going to renounce his ride because of his friend's unpleasant news only to ride the faster in some other direction than that of tippedon grange now why on earth should mrs cadwalliter have been at all busy about mrs brooke's marriage and why when one match that she liked to think she had a hand in was frustrated should she have straightway contrived the prelimin of another. Was there any ingenious plot, any hide-and-seek course of action, which might be detected by a careful telescopic watch? Not at all. A telescope might have swept the parishes of Tipton and Freshet, the whole area visited by Mrs. Cadwallader in her phaeton, without witnessing

Starting point is 02:21:03 any interview that could excite suspicion, or any scene from which she did not return with the same unperturbed keenness of eye, and the same high natural color. In fact, if that convenient vehicle had existed in the days of the seven sages, one of them would doubtless have remarked that you can know little of women by following them about in their pony faytons. Even with a microscope directed on a water drop, we find ourselves making interpretations which turn out to be rather coarse. For whereas under a weak lens you may seem to see a creature exhibiting an active veracity into which other smaller creatures actively play as if they were so many animated tax pennies, a stronger lens reveals to you certain tiniest hairlets which make vortices for these

Starting point is 02:21:56 victims, while the swallower waits passively at his receipt of custom. In this way, metaphorically speaking, A strong lens applied to Mrs. Cadwallader's matchmaking will show a play of minute causes producing what may be called thought and speech vortices to bring her the sort of food she needed. Her life was rurally simple, quite free from secrets either foul, dangerous, or otherwise important, and not consciously affected by the great affairs of the world. All the more did the affairs of the great world interest her. when communicated in the letters of high-born relations. The way in which fascinating younger sons had gone to the dogs

Starting point is 02:22:43 by marrying their mistresses, the fine, old-blooded idiocy of young Lord Taper, and the furious gouty humors of old Lord Megatherium, the exact crossing of genealogies which had brought a coronet into a new branch and widened the relations of scandal. These were topics, of which she retained details with the utmost accuracy, and reproduced them in an excellent pickle

Starting point is 02:23:12 of epigrams, which she herself enjoyed the more because she believed as unquestioningly in birth and no birth as she did in game and vermin. She would never have disowned anyone on the ground of poverty. A Debracy, reduced to take his dinner in a basin, would have seemed to her an example of pathos worth exaggerating. and I fear his aristocratic vices would not have horrified her. But her feeling toward the vulgar rich was a sort of religious hatred. They had probably made all their money out of high retail prices, and Mrs. Cadwallader detested high prices for everything that was not paid in kind at the rectory.

Starting point is 02:23:56 Such people were no part of God's design in making the world, and their accent was an affliction to the ears. A town where such monsters abounded was hardly more than a sort of low comedy, which could not be taken account of in a well-bred scheme of the universe. Let any lady who is inclined to be hard on Mrs. Cadwallader inquire into the comprehensiveness of her own beautiful views, and be quite sure that they afford accommodation for all the lives which have the honor to coexist with hers. with such a mind, active as phosphorus, biting everything that came near into the form that suited it, how could Mrs. Cadwallader feel that the Miss Brooks and their matrimonial prospects were alien to her, especially as it had been the habit of years for her to scold Mr. Brooke with the friendliest frankness,

Starting point is 02:24:52 and let him know in confidence that she thought him a poor creature? From the first arrival of the young ladies in Tipton, she had prearranged Dorothea's marriage with Sir James, and if it had taken place would have been quite sure that it was her doing, that it should not take place after she had preconceived it, caused her an irritation which every thinker will sympathize with. She was the diplomatist of Tipton and Freshet, and for anything to happen in spite of her was an offensive erroneous. regularity. As to freaks like this of Miss Brooks, Mrs. Cadwallader had no patience with them, and now that her opinion of this girl had been infected with some of her husband's weak charitableness, those methodistical whims, that air of being more religious than the rector and curate together,

Starting point is 02:25:48 came from a deeper and more constitutional disease than she had been willing to believe. "'However,' said Mrs. Cadwallader, first to herself and afterwards to her husband, "'I throw her over. There was a chance if she had married Sir James, of her becoming a sane, sensible woman. He would never have contradicted her, and when a woman is not contradicted, she has no motive for obstinacy in her absurdities. But now I wish her joy of her hair-shirt.' It followed that Mrs. Cadwallader must decide on another match for Sir James, and having made up her mind that it was to be the younger Miss Brooke, there could not have been a more skillful move toward the success of her plan than her hint to the baronet that he had made an impression on Celia's heart, for he was not one of those gentlemen who languish after the unattainable Sappho's apple that laughs from the topmost bow, the charms which smile like the knot of cow slips on the cliff, not to be come at by the willing hand. He had no sonnets to write, and it could not strike him agreeably that he was not an object of preference to the woman whom he had preferred.

Starting point is 02:27:08 Already the knowledge that Dorothea had chosen Mr. Casabon had bruised his attachment and relaxed its hold. Although Sir James was a sportsman, he had some other features. towards women than towards grouse and foxes, and did not regard his future wife in the light of prey, valuable chiefly for the excitements of the chase. Neither was he so well acquainted with the habits of primitive races as to feel that an ideal combat for her, tomahawk in hand, so to speak, was necessary to the historical continuity of the marriage-time. On the contrary, having the amiable vanity which nits us to those who, are fond of us, and disinclines us to those who are indifferent, and also a good, grateful nature,

Starting point is 02:27:57 the mere idea that a woman had a kindness towards him spun little threads of tenderness from out his heart towards hers. Thus it happened that after Sir James had ridden rather fast for half an hour in a direction away from Tipton Grange, he slackened his pace, and at last turned into a road which would lead him back by a shorter cut. Various feelings wrought in him the determination, after all, to go to the Grange to-day as if nothing new had happened. He could not help rejoicing that he had never made the offer and been rejected. Mere friendly politeness required that he should call to see Dorothy about the cottages,

Starting point is 02:28:42 and now happily Mrs. Cadwallader had prepared him to offer his congratulations. if necessary, without showing too much awkwardness. He really did not like it. Giving up Dorothea was very painful to him, but there was something in the resolve to make this visit forthwith and conquer all show of feeling, which was a sort of file-biting and counter-irritant. And without his distinctly recognizing the impulse, there certainly was present in him the sense that Celia would be there, and that he should pay her more attention than he had done before. We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner time, keep back the tears, and look a little pale about

Starting point is 02:29:31 the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, oh, nothing. Pride helps us, and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts, not to hurt others. End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 of Middle March by George Elliott. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Margaret Espayat. Piacere-upon vaux la sua stagone. Mr. Casabon, as might be expected,

Starting point is 02:30:12 spent a great deal of his time at the Grange in these weeks, and the hindrance which courtship occasioned to the progress of his great work, the key to all mythologies, naturally made him look forward the more eagerly to the happy termination of the courtship. But he had deliberately incurred the hindrance, having made up his mind that it was now time for him to adorn his life with the graces of female companionship, to irradiate the gloom which fatigue was apt to hang over the intervals of studious labor with the play of female fancy, and to secure in this, his culmination.

Starting point is 02:30:51 age, the solace of female tendance for his declining years. Hence, he determined to abandon himself to the stream of feeling, and perhaps was surprised to find what an exceedingly shallow, real it was. As in drowdy regions, baptism by immersion could only be performed symbolically, so Mr. Cazabon found that sprinkling was the utmost approach to a plunge, which his stream would afford him, and he concluded that the poets had much exaggerated the force of masculine passion. Nevertheless, he observed with pleasure that Miss Brooke showed an ardent, submissive affection which promised to fulfill his most agreeable provisions of marriage. It had once or twice crossed his mind that possibly there was some deficiency in Dorothea

Starting point is 02:31:49 to account for the moderation of his abandonment, but he was unable to discern the deficiency, or to figure to himself a woman who would have pleased him better, so that there was clearly no reason to fall back upon, but the exaggerations of human tradition. Could I not be preparing myself now to be more useful? said Dorothea to him one morning, early in the time of courtship.

Starting point is 02:32:16 Could I not learn to read Latin and Greek, allowed to you, as Milton's daughter did to their father, without understanding what they read? I fear that would be wearisome to you, said Mr. Casabon, smiling. And, indeed, if I remember rightly, the young women you have mentioned regarded that exercise in unknown tongues as a ground for rebellion against the poet. Yes, but in the first place they were very naughty girls, else they would have been proud to minister to such a father, and in the second place they might have studied privately and taught themselves to understand what they read, and then it would have been interesting. I hope you don't expect me to be naughty and stupid. I expect you to be all that an exquisite

Starting point is 02:33:05 young lady can be in every possible relation of life. Certainly it might be a great advantage if you were able to copy the Greek character, and to that end it were well to begin with a little reading. Dorothea sees this as a precious permission. She would not have asked Mr. Casabon at once to teach her the languages, dreading of all things to be tiresome instead of helpful, but it was not entirely out of devotion to her future husband that she wished to know Latin and Greek. Those provinces of masculine knowledge seemed to her a standing ground from which all

Starting point is 02:33:45 truth could be seen more truly. As it was, she constantly doubted her own conclusions, because she felt her own ignorance. How could she be confident that one-roomed cottages were not for the glory of God, when men who knew the classics appeared to conciliate indifference to the cottages with zeal for glory? Perhaps even Hebrew might be necessary, at least the alphabet and a few roots, in order to arrive at the core of the things, and judge soundly on the social duties of the Christian. And she had not reached that point of renunciation at which she would have been satisfied with having a wise husband. She wished, poor child, to be wise herself. Miss Brooke was certainly very naive with all her alleged cleverness.

Starting point is 02:34:36 Celia, whose mind had never been thought too powerful, saw the emptiness of other people's pretensions much more readily. To have in general but little feeling seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion. However, Mr. Cazabon consented to listen and teach for an hour together like a schoolmaster of little boys, or rather like a lover, to whom a mistress's elementary ignorance and difficulties have a touching fitness. Few scholars would have disliked teaching the alphabet under such circumstances. But Dorothea herself was a little shocked and discouraged at her own stupidity, and the answers she got to some timid questions about the value of the Greek accents gave her a painful suspicion that, here indeed, there might

Starting point is 02:35:32 be secrets not capable of explanation to a woman's reason. Mr. Brooke had no doubt on that point, and expressed himself with his usual strength upon it one day that he came into the library while the reading was going forward. Well, but now, Cazabon, such deep studies, classics, mathematics, that kind of thing, are too taxing for a woman, too taxing, you know. Dorothy is learning to read the characters simply, said Mr. Cazabon, evading the question. She had the very considerate thought of, saving my eyes. Ah, well, without understanding, you know, that may not be so bad. But there is a lightness about the feminine mind, a touch and go, music, the fine arts, that kind of thing.

Starting point is 02:36:24 They should study those up to a certain point, women should, but in a light way, you know. A woman should be able to sit down and play you and sing you a good old English tune. That is what I like, though I have heard most things. been at the opera in vienna gluck mozart everything of that sort but i'm a conservative in music it's not like ideas you know i stick to the good old tunes mr casabon is not fond of the piano and i am very glad he is not said dorothea whose slight regard for domestic music and feminine fine art must be forgiven her considering the small tinkling and smearing in which they chiefly consisted at that dark period. She smiled and looked up at her betrothed with grateful eyes. If he had always been asking her to play the last rose of summer, she would have required much resignation. He says there is only an old harpsichord at Loweck, and it is covered with books.

Starting point is 02:37:30 Ah, there you are behind Celia, my dear. Celia now plays very prettily, and is always ready to play. However, since Cazabon does not like it, you are all right. But it's a pity you should not have little recreations of that sort, Casabon. The bow always strung, that kind of thing you know, will not do. I never could look on it in the light of recreation to have my ears teased with measured noises, said Mr. Cazabon. A tune, much iterated, has the ridiculous effect of making the words in my mind perform a sort of minuet to keep time. an effect hardly tolerable i imagine after boyhood as to the grander forms of music worthy to accompany solemn celebrations and even to serve as an educating influence according to the ancient conception i say nothing for with these we are not immediately concerned no but music of that sort i should enjoy said dorothea when we were coming home from lausanne my uncle took us to hear the great organ at freiburg and it made me sob

Starting point is 02:38:41 that kind of thing is not healthy my dear said mr brook casabon she will be in your hands now you must teach my niece to take things more quietly eh dorothea he ended with a smile not wishing to hurt his niece but really thinking that it was perhaps better for her to be early married to so sober a fellow as casabon since she would not hear of chettam it is wonderful though he said to himself as he shuffled out of the room it is wonderful that she should have liked him however the match is good i should have been travelling out of my brief to have hindered it let mrs cadwallader say what she will he is pretty certain to be a bishop is casabon that was a very seasonable pamphlet on his on the catholic question a deanery at least they owe him a deanery and here i must vindicate a claim to philosophical reflectiveness by remarking that mr brooke on this occasion little thought of the radical speech which at a later period he was led to make on the incomes of the bishops what elegant historian would neglect a striking opportunity for pointing out that his heroes did not foresee the history of the world or even their own actions for example that henry of navarre when a protestant baby little thought of being a catholic monarch or that alfred the great when he measured his laborious knights with burning candles had no idea of future gentlemen measuring their idle day with watches. Here is a mine of truth which, however vigorously it may be worked, is likely

Starting point is 02:40:31 to outlast our coal. But of Mr. Brook I make a further remark, perhaps less warranted by precedent, namely that if he had foreknown his speech it might not have made any great difference. To think with pleasure of his niece's husband having a large ecclesiastical income was one thing. To make a liberal speech was another thing, and it is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view. End of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 of Middle March by George Elliott. This Libervox recording is in the public domain, recording by Margaret Espiat. Oh, rescue her! I am her brother now, and you her father. Every gentlemaid should have a guardian in each gentleman. It was wonderful to Sir James

Starting point is 02:41:34 Chedham how well he continued to like going to the Grange after he had once encountered the difficulty of seeing Dorothea for the first time in the light of a woman who was engaged to another man. Of course, the forked lightning seemed to pass through him when he first approached her, and he remained conscious throughout the interview of hiding uneasiness. But, good as he was, it must be owned that his uneasiness was less than it would have been if he had thought his rival a brilliant and desirable match. He had no sense of being eclipsed by Mr. Cazabon. He was only shocked that Dorothea was under a melancholy illusion,

Starting point is 02:42:17 and his mortification lost some of its bitterness by being mingled with compassion. Nevertheless, while Sir James said to himself that, he had completely resigned her, since, with the perversity of a desdemona, she had not affected a proposed match that was clearly suitable and according to nature. He could not yet be quite passive under the idea of her engagement to Mr. Cazabon. On the day when he first saw them together in the light of his present knowledge, it seemed to him that he had not taken the affair seriously enough. Brooke was really culpable. He ought to have hindered it. Who could speak to him? Something might be done perhaps even now, at least to defer the marriage. On his way home,

Starting point is 02:43:09 he turned to the rectory and asked for Mr. Cadwallader. Happily, the rector was at home, and his visitor was shown into the study where all the fishing tackle hung. But he himself was in a little room adjoining, at work with his turning apparatus, and he called to the baronet to join him there. The two were better friends than any other landholder and clergyman in the county, a significant fact which was in agreement with the amiable expression of their faces. Mr. Cadwallader was a large man, with full lips and a sweet smile, very plain and rough in his exterior, but with that solid, imperturbable ease. and good humor which is infectious, and like great grassy hills in the sunshine,

Starting point is 02:43:59 quiets even an irritated egoism, and makes it rather ashamed of itself. Well, how are you, he said, showing a hand, not quite fit to be grasped. Sorry I missed you before. Is there anything particular? You look vexed. Sir James Brow had a little crease in it, a little depression of the eyebrow, which he seemed purposely to exaggerate as he answered. It is only this conduct of Brooks. I really think somebody should speak to him. What, meaning to stand? said Mr. Cadwallader,

Starting point is 02:44:34 going on with the arrangement of the reels which he had just been turning. I hardly think he means it. But where's the harm if he likes it? Anyone who objects to Whiggery should be glad when the Whigs don't put up the strongest fellow. They won't overturn the Constitution. with our friend Brooks' head for a battering ram. Oh, I don't mean that, said Sir James,

Starting point is 02:44:57 who, after putting down his hat and throwing himself into a chair, had begun to nurse his leg and examine the soul of his boot with much bitterness. I mean this marriage. I mean his letting that blooming young girl marry Casabon. What is the matter with Casabon? I see no harm in him, if the girl likes him. She is too young to know what she likes. Her guardian ought to interfere.

Starting point is 02:45:26 He ought not to allow the thing to be done in this headlong manner. I wonder a man like you, Cadwallader, a man with daughters, can look at the affair with indifference, and with such a heart as yours. Do think seriously about it. I am not joking. I am as serious as possible, said the rector, with a provoking little inward laugh.

Starting point is 02:45:51 You are as bad as Eleanor. She has been wanting me to go in lecture-brook, and I have reminded her that her friends had a very poor opinion of the match she made when she married me. But look at Cazabon, said Sir James indignantly. He must be fifty, and I don't believe he could ever have been much more than the shadow of a man.

Starting point is 02:46:14 Look at his legs. Confound you, handsome young young. fellows. You think of having it all your own way in the world. You don't understand women. They don't admire you half so much as you admire yourselves. Eleanor used to tell her sisters that she married me for my ugliness. It was so various and amusing that it had quite conquered her prudence. You. It was easy enough for a woman to love you, but this is no question of beauty. I don't like Casabon. This was Sir James' strongest way of implying that he thought ill of a man's character.

Starting point is 02:46:55 Why, what do you know against him? said the rector, laying down his reels and putting his thumbs into his armholes with an air of attention. Sir James paused. He did not usually find it easy to give his reasons. It seemed to him strange that people should not know them without being told. since he only felt what was reasonable at last he said now cadwallader has he got any heart well yes i don't mean of the melting sort but a sound colonel that you may be sure of he is very good to his poor relations pensions several of the women and is educating a young fellow at a good deal of expense casabon acts up to his sense of justice his mother's sister made a bad match a pole i think lost herself at any rate was disowned by her family if it had not been for that casabon would not have had so much money by half i believe he went himself to find out his cousins and see what he could do for them every man would not ring so well as that if he tried his medal you would chetham but not every man "'I don't know,' said Sir James, Colerine. "'I am not so sure of myself.'

Starting point is 02:48:18 He paused a moment, and then added, "'That was a right thing for Casabon to do, but a man may wish to do what is right, and yet be a sort of parchment code. A woman may not be happy with him. And I think when a girl is so young as Miss Brooke is, her friends ought to interfere a little to hinder her from doing anything foolish. You laugh because you fancy I have some feeling on my own account.

Starting point is 02:48:46 But upon my honor it is not that. I should feel just the same if I were Miss Brooke's brother or uncle. Well, but what should you do? I should say that the marriage must not be decided on until she was of age, and depend upon it. In that case, it would never come off. I wish you saw it as I do. I wish you would talk to Brooke about it.

Starting point is 02:49:11 sir james rose as he was finishing his sentence for he saw mrs cadwallader entering from the study she held by the hand her youngest girl about five years old who immediately ran to papa and was made comfortable on his knee i hear what you are talking about said the wife but you will make no impression on humphrey as long as the fish rise to his bait everybody is what he ought to be bless you casabon has got a trout stream and does not care about fishing in it himself. Could there be a better fellow?' "'Well, there is something in that,' said the rector, with his quiet, inward laugh. "'It is a very good quality in a man to have a trout stream.' "'But seriously,' said Sir James, whose vexation had not yet spent itself, don't you think the rector might do some good by speaking?' "'Oh, I told you beforehand what he would say,' answered Mrs. Cadwallader,

Starting point is 02:50:10 lifting up her eyebrows. I have done what I could. I wash my hands of the marriage. In the first place, said the rector, looking rather grave. It would be nonsensical to expect that I could convince Brooke, and make him act accordingly. Brooke is a very good fellow, but pulpy. He will run into any mold, but he won't keep shape.

Starting point is 02:50:36 He might keep shape long enough to defer the marriage, said Sir James. but my dear chedham why should i use my influence to casabon's disadvantage unless i were much surer than i am that i should be acting for the advantage of miss brooke i know no harm of casabon i don't care about his zysothrus and fie fofum and the rest but then he doesn't care about my fishing tackle as to the line he took on the catholic question that was unexpected but he has always been civil to me, and I don't see why I should spoil his sport. For anything I can tell, Miss Brooke may be happier with him than she would be with any other man. Humphrey! I have no patience with you. You know you would rather dine under the hedge than with Casabon alone. You have nothing to say to each other. What does that have to do with Miss Brooks marrying him? She does not do it for my amusement?

Starting point is 02:51:38 He has got no good red blood in his body, said Sir James. No, somebody put a drop under a magnifying glass, and it was all semicolons and parentheses, said Mrs. Cadwallader. Why does he not bring out his book instead of marrying, said Sir James, with a disgust which he held warranted by the sound feeling of an English layman? Oh, he dreams of footnotes, and they read. run away with all his brains. They say when he was a little boy, he made an abstract of hop-of-my-thum, and he has been making abstracts ever since. Ugh! And that is the man Humphrey goes on saying

Starting point is 02:52:19 that a woman may be happy with. Well, he is what Miss Brooke likes, said the rector. I don't profess to understand every young lady's taste. But if she were your own daughter, said Sir James. That would be a different affair. She is not a different affair. She is not a my daughter, and I don't feel called upon to interfere. Cazabon is as good as most of us. He is a scholarly clergyman and creditable to the cloth. Some radical fellow speechifying at Middle March said Cazabon was the learned straw-chopping incumbent,

Starting point is 02:52:55 and Frecky was the brick-and-mortar incumbent, and I was the Angling incumbent. And upon my word I don't see that one is worse or better than the other. the rector ended with his silent laugh he always saw the joke of any satire against himself his conscience was large and easy like the rest of him it did only what it could do without any trouble clearly there would be no interference with miss brooke's marriage through mr cadwallader and sir james felt with some sadness that she was to have perfect liberty of misjudgment it was a sign of of his good disposition that he did not slacken at all in his intention of carrying out dorothea's design of the cottages doubtless this persistence was the best course for his own dignity but pride only helps us to be generous it never makes us so any more than vanity makes us witty she was now enough aware of sir james's position with regard to her to appreciate the rectitude of his perseverance in a landlord's duty to which he had at first been urged by a lover's complaisance and her pleasure in it was great enough to count for something even in her present happiness perhaps she gave to sir james chedham's cottages all the interest she could spare from mr casabon or rather from the symphony of hopeful dreams admiring trust and passionate self-devotion which that learned gentleman had set playing in her soul

Starting point is 02:54:35 hence it happened that in the good baronet's succeeding visits while he was beginning to pay small attentions to celia he found himself talking with more and more pleasure to dorothea she was perfectly unconstrained and without irritation towards him now and he was gradually discovering the delight there is in frank kindness and companionship between a man and woman who have no passion to hide or confess end of chapter eight chapter nine of middle march by george elliot this libravox recording is in the public domain recording by margaret espiat first gentlemen an ancient land in ancient oracles is called law-thirsty all the struggle there was after order and a perfect rule pray where lies such lands now second gentleman why where they lay of old in human souls mr casabon's behaviour about settlements was highly satisfactory to mr brook and the preliminaries of marriage rolled smoothly along shortening the weeks of courtship the betrothed bride must see her future home and dictate any changes that she would like to have made there a woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards and certainly the mistakes that we male and female mortal make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. On a gray but dry November morning, Dorothea drove to Loweck in company with her uncle and Celia.

Starting point is 02:56:27 Mr. Casabon's home was the manor house. Close by, visible from some parts of the garden, was the little church with the old parsonage opposite. In the beginning of his career, Mr. Casabon had only held the living, but the death of his brother had put him in possession of the manor also. It had a small park, with a fine old oak here and there, and an avenue of limes towards the southwest front, with a sunk fence between park and pleasure ground, so that from the drawing-room windows the glance swept uninterruptedly along a slope of greensward till the limes ended in a level of corn and pastures, which often seemed to melt into a lake under the setting sun.

Starting point is 02:57:13 This was the happy side of the house, for the south and east looked rather melancholy even under the brightest morning. The grounds here were more confined. The flower-beds showed no very careful tendons, and large clumps of trees, chiefly of somber yews, had risen high, not ten yards from the windows. The building of greenish stone was in the old English style, not ugly, but—but—the small-windowed and melancholy-looking, the sort of house that must have children, many flowers, open windows, and little vistas of bright things to make it seem a joyous home.

Starting point is 02:57:53 In this latter end of autumn, with the sparse remnant of yellow leaves falling slowly athwart the dark evergreens, in a stillness without sunshine, the house, too, had an air of autumnal decline, and Mr. Cazabon, when he presented himself, had no blood. loom that could be thrown into relief by that background. Oh, dear, Celia said to herself, I am sure Fresh at Hall would have been pleasanter than this. She thought of the white freestone, the pillared portico, and the terrace full of flowers,

Starting point is 02:58:28 Sir James smiling above them like a prince issuing from his enchantment in a rose-bush, with a handkerchief swiftly metamorphosed from the most delicately odorous petals. sir james who talked so agreeably always about things which had common sense in them and not about learning celia had those light young feminine tastes which grave and weather-worn gentlemen sometimes prefer in a wife but happily mr casabon's bias had been different for he would have had no chance with celia dorothea on the contrary found the house and grounds all that she could wish the dark book-shelves in the long library the carpets and curtains with colours subdued by time the curious old maps and bird's-eye views on the walls of the corridor with here and there an old vase below had no oppression for her and seemed more cheerful than the casts and pictures at the grange which her uncle had long ago brought home from his travels they being probably among the ideas he had taken in at one time to poor dorothea these severe classical nudities and smirking renaissance courageosities

Starting point is 02:59:46 were painfully inexplicable, staring into the midst of her Puritanic conceptions. She had never been taught how she could bring them into any sort of relevance with her life. But the owners of Loweck apparently had not been travelers, and Mr. Cazabon's studies of the past were not carried on by means of such aids. Dorothea walked about the house with delightful emotion. Everything seemed hallowed to her. this was to be the home of her wifehood and she looked up with eyes full of confidence to mr casabon when he drew her attention specially to some actual arrangement and asked her if she would like an alteration all appeals to her taste she met gratefully but saw nothing to alter his efforts at exact courtesy and formal tenderness had no defect for her

Starting point is 03:00:43 she filled up all blanks with unmanifested perfections interpreting him as she interpreted the works of providence and accounting for seeming discords by her own deafness to the higher harmonies and there are many blanks left in the weeks of courtship which a loving faith fills with happy assurance now my dear dorothea i wish you to favor me by pointing out which room you would like to have as your boudoir said Mr. Kazabon, showing that his views of the womanly nature were sufficiently large to include that requirement. "'It is very kind of you to think of that,' said Dorothea. "'But I assure you I would rather have all those matters decided for me. I shall be much happier to take everything as it is, just as you have been used to have it, or as you will yourself choose it to be.

Starting point is 03:01:37 I have no motive for wishing anything else.' "'Oh, Dodo!' said Celia. will you not have the bow-windowed room upstairs? Mr. Cazabon led the way thither. The bow-window looked down the avenue of limes. The furniture was all of a faded blue, and there were miniatures of ladies and gentlemen with powdered hair hanging in a group.

Starting point is 03:02:00 A piece of tapestry over a door also showed a blue-green world with a pale stag in it. The chairs and tables were thin-legged and easy to upset. It was a room where one might feel. fancy the ghost of a tight-laced lady revisiting the scene of her embroidery. A light bookcase contained duodecimal volumes of polite literature in calf, completing the furniture. Yes, said Mr. Brooke, this would be a pretty room with some new hangings, sofas, and that sort of thing. A little bear now.

Starting point is 03:02:36 No, uncle, said Dorothea eagerly, pray do not speak of altering anything. There are so many other things in the world that want altering. I like to take these things as they are. And you like them as they are, don't you? she added, looking at Mr. Casabon. Perhaps this was your mother's room when she was young. It was, he said, with a slow bend of the head. This is your mother, said Dorothea, who had turned to examine the group of miniatures. It is like the tiny one you brought me, only I should think a better portrait.

Starting point is 03:03:08 and this one opposite, who is this? Her elder sister. They were, like you and your sister, the only two children of their parents, who hang above them, you see. The sister is pretty, said Celia, implying that she thought less favorably of Mr. Casabon's mother. It was a new opening to Celia's imagination

Starting point is 03:03:30 that he came of a family who had all been young in their time, the ladies wearing necklaces. It is a peculiar face, said Dorothea, looking closely, those deep, grey eyes rather near together, and the delicate irregular nose with a sort of ripple in it, and all the powdered curls hanging backward. Altogether it seems to me peculiar rather than pretty. There is not even a family likeness between her and your mother. No, and they were not alike in their lot. You did not mention her to me, said Dorothea.

Starting point is 03:04:06 My aunt made an unfortunate marriage. I never saw her. Dorothya wondered a little, but felt that it would be indelicate just then to ask for any information which Mr. Cazabon did not proffer, and she turned to the window to admire the view. The sun had lately pierced the gray,

Starting point is 03:04:26 and the avenue of limes cast shadows. Shall we not walk in the garden now? said Dorothea. And you would like to see the church, you know, said Mr. Brook. It is a droll little church, and the village. It all lies in a nutshell. By the way, it will suit you, Dorothea, for the cottages are like a row of almshouses, little gardens, gilly flowers, that sort of thing. Yes, please, said Dorothea, looking at Mr. Cassebon. I should like to see all that. She had got nothing from him more graphic about the Loic cottages than that they were not bad. They were so.

Starting point is 03:05:05 soon on a gravel walk which led chiefly between grassy borders and clumps of trees, this being the nearest way to the church, Mr. Casabon said. At the little gate leading into the churchyard there was a pause, while Mr. Casabon went to the parsonage close by to fetch a key. Celia, who had been hanging a little in the rear, came up presently, when she saw that Mr. Casabon was gone away, and said in her easy staccato, which always seemed to contradict the suspicion of any malicious intent. Do you know, Dorothea? I saw someone quite young coming up one of

Starting point is 03:05:42 the walks. Is that astonishing, Celia? There may be a young gardener, you know. Why not? said Mr. Brook. I told Kazabon he should change his gardener. No, not a gardener, said Celia, a gentleman with a sketchbook. He had light brown curls. I only saw his back, but he was quite young. The curate son, perhaps, said Mr. Brook. Ah, there's Casabon again, and Tucker with him. He's going to introduce Tucker. You don't know Tucker yet. Mr. Tucker was the middle-aged curate, one of the inferior clergy,

Starting point is 03:06:17 who are usually not wanting in sons. But after the introduction, the conversation did not lead to any question about his family, and the startling apparition of youthfulness was forgotten by everyone but Celia. She inwardly declined to believe that the light-brown curls and slim figure could have any relationship to Mr. Tucker, who was just as old and musty-looking as she would have expected Mr. Casabon's curate to be. Doubtless an excellent man who would go to heaven, for Celia wished not to be unprincipled, but the corners of his mouth were so unpleasant. Celia thought with some dismalness of the time she should have to spend as bridesmaid at Loic, where the curate had probably no pretty little children whom she could like, irrespective of principle.

Starting point is 03:07:08 Mr. Tucker was invaluable in their walk, and perhaps Mr. Casabon had not been without foresight on this head, the curate being able to answer all Dorothea's questions about the villagers and the other parishioners. everybody, he assured her, was well off in Loweck, not a cottager in those double cottages at a low rent but kept a pig, and the strips of garden at the back were well tended. The small boys wore excellent corduroy, the girls went out as tidy servants, or did a little straw-plating at home. No looms here, no descent, and though the public disposition was rather towards laying by money than towards spirituality, there was not much vice. The speckled fowls were so numerous that Mr. Brook observed, Your farmers leave some barley for the women to glean, I see. The poor folks here might have a foul in their pot, as the good French king used to wish for all his people. The French eat a good many fowls, skinny fowls, you know. I think it was a very cheap wish of his, said Dorothy

Starting point is 03:08:15 indignantly. Are kings such monsters that a wish like that must be reckoned a royal virtue? and if he wished them a skinny fowl said celia that would not be nice but perhaps he wished them to have fat fowls yes but the word has dropped out of the text or perhaps was sub auditum that is present in the king's mind but not uttered said mr casabon smiling and bending his head towards celia who immediately dropped backward a little because she could not bear mr casabon to blink at her dorothea sank into silence on the way back to the house she felt some disappointment of which she was yet ashamed that there was nothing for her to do in lowick and in the next few minutes her mind had glanced over the possibility which she would have preferred of finding that her home would be in a parish which had a larger share of the world's misery so that she might have had more active duties in it then recurring to the future actually before her she made a picture of more complete devotion to mr casabon's aims in which she would await new duties many such might reveal themselves to the higher knowledge gained by her in that companionship mr tucker soon left them having some clerical work which would not allow him to lunch at the hall and as they were re-entering the garden through the little gate mr casabon said you seem a little sound said, Dorothea. I trust you are pleased with what you have seen.

Starting point is 03:09:52 I am feeling something which is perhaps foolish and wrong, answered Dorothea, with her usual openness, almost wishing that the people wanted more to be done for them here. I have known so few ways of making my life good for anything. Of course, my notions of usefulness must be narrow. I must learn new ways of helping people. doubtless, said Mr. Casabon. Each position has its corresponding duties. Yours, I trust, as the mistress of Loick, will not leave any yearning unfulfilled. Indeed, I believe that, said Dorothea earnestly. Do not suppose that I am sad. That is well, but, if you are not tired, we will take another way to the house than that by which we came. Dorothy was not at all tired, and a little circuit

Starting point is 03:10:42 it was made towards a fine yew tree, the chief hereditary glory of the grounds on this side of the house. As they approached it, a figure, conspicuous on a dark background of evergreens, was seated on a bench, sketching the old tree. Mr. Brook, who was walking in front with Celia, turned his head and said, Who is that youngster Cazabon? They had come very near when Mr. Cazabon answered. That is a young relative of mine, a second cousin. The grandson, in fact, he added, looking at Dorothea, of the lady whose portrait you have been noticing, my aunt Julia. The younger man had laid down his sketchbook and risen. His bushy, light brown curls, as well as his youthfulness, identified him at once with Celia's apparition.

Starting point is 03:11:33 Dorothya, let me introduce to you my cousin, Mr. Ladislaw. Will, this is Miss Brooke. The cousin was so close now that, when he lifted his hat, Dorothea could see a pair of gray eyes rather near together, a delicate irregular nose with a little ripple in it, and hair falling backward, but there was a mouth and chin of a more prominent threatening aspect than belonged to the type of the grandmother's miniature.

Starting point is 03:12:03 young ladislaw did not feel it necessary to smile as if he were charmed with this introduction to his future second cousin and her relatives but wore a rather pouting air of discontent you are an artist i see said mr brooke taking up the sketch-book and turning it over in his unceremonious fashion no i only sketch a little there is nothing fit to be seen there said young ladislaw colouring perhaps with temper rather than modesty oh come this is a nice bit now i did a little in this way myself at one time you know look here now this is what i call a nice thing done with what we used to call brillo mr brook held out towards the two girls a large coloured sketch of stony ground and trees with a pool i am no judge of these things said dorothea not coldly but with an eager deprecation of the appeal to her you know uncle i never see the beauty of those pictures which you say are so much praised they are a language i do not understand i suppose there is some relation between pictures and nature which i am too ignorant to feel just as you see what a greek sense is a language i do not understand i suppose there is some relation between pictures and nature which i am too ignorant to feel just as you see what a greek sense stands for it which means nothing to me dorothea looked up at mr casabon who bowed his head towards her while mr brooke said smiling nonchalantly bless me now how different people are but you had a bad style of teaching you know else this is just the thing for girls sketching fine art and so on but you took to drawing plans you don't understand morbidza and that kind of thing you will come to my house i hope and i will show you what i did in this way he continued turning to young ladislaw who had to be recalled from his preoccupation in observing dorothea

Starting point is 03:13:57 ladislaw had made up his mind that she must be an unpleasant girl since she was going to marry casabon and what she said of her stupidity about pictures would have confirmed that opinion even if he had believed her as it was he took her words for a covert judgment and was certain that she thought his sketch detestable there was too much cleverness in her apology she was laughing both at her uncle and himself but what a voice it was like the voice of a soul that had once lived in an aeolian harp this must be one of nature's inconsistencies there could be no sort of passion in a girl who would marry casabon but he turned from her and bowed his thanks for mr brooke's invitation we will turn over my italian engravings together continued that good-natured man i have no end of those things that i have laid by for years one gets rusty in this part of the country you know not you casabon you stick to your studies but my best ideas get undermost out of use you know you clever young men must guard against indolence i was too indolent you know else i might have been anywhere at one time that is a seasonable admonition said mr casabon but now we will pass on to the house lest the young ladies should be tired of standing when their backs were turned young ladislaw sat down to go on with his sketching and as he did so his face broke into an expression of amusement which increased as he went on drawing till at last he threw back his head and laughed aloud.

Starting point is 03:15:45 Partly it was the reception of his own artistic production that tickled him, partly the notion of his grave cousin as the lover of that girl, and partly Mr. Brooks' definition of the place he might have held but for the impediment of indolence. Mr. Will Ladislaw's sense of the ludicrous lit up his features very agreeably. It was the pure enjoyment of comicality, and had no mixture of sneering and self-exaltation. What is your nephew going to do with himself, Kazabon? said Mr. Brook as they went on.

Starting point is 03:16:22 My cousin, you mean, not my nephew. Yes, yes, cousin, but in the way of a career, you know. The answer to that question is painfully doubtful. On leaving rugby, he declined to go to an English university where I would gladly have placed him, and chose what I must consider the anomalous course of studying at Heidelberg. Now he wants to go abroad again, without any special object, save the vague purpose of what he calls culture, preparation for he knows not what. He declines to choose a profession. He has no means but what you furnish, I suppose. I have always given him and his friends reason to understand that I would furnish in moderation what was necessary for providing him with a scholarly education, and launching him respectively.

Starting point is 03:17:14 I am therefore bound to fulfill the expectation so raised, said Mr. Cazabon, putting his conduct in the light of mere rectitude, a trait of delicacy which Dorothea noticed with admiration. He has a thirst for traveling. Perhaps he may turn out a Bruce or a Mungo Park, said Mr. Brooke. I had a notion of that myself at one time. No, he has no bent towards exploration, or the enlargement of our diagnosis. That would be a special purpose which I could recognize with some approbation, though without felicitating him on a career which so often ends in

Starting point is 03:17:54 premature and violent death. But so far is he from having any desire for a more accurate knowledge of the earth's surface, that he said he should prefer not to know the sources of the Nile, and that there should be some unknown regions preserved as hunting grounds for the poetic imagination. Well, there is something in that, you know, said Mr. Brooke, who had certainly an impartial mind. It is, I fear, nothing more than a part of his general inaccuracy and indisposition to thoroughness of all kinds, which would be a bad augury for him in any purpose. profession, civil or sacred, even were he so far submissive to ordinary rule as to choose one. Perhaps he has conscientious scruples founded on his own unfitness, said Dorothea,

Starting point is 03:18:44 who was interesting herself in finding a favorable explanation. Because the law and medicine should be very serious professions to undertake, should they not? People's lives and fortunes depend on them. doubtless, but I fear that my young relative Will Ladislaw is chiefly determined in his aversion to these callings by a dislike to steady application, and to that kind of acquirement which is needful instrumentally, but is not charming or immediately inviting to self-indulgent taste. I have insisted to him on what Aristotle has stated with admirable brevity that for the achievement of any work regarded as an end, there must be a prior exercise of many energies

Starting point is 03:19:32 or acquired facilities of a secondary order, demanding patience. I have pointed to my own manuscript volumes, which represent the toil of years preparatory to a work not yet accomplished, but in vain. To careful reasoning of this kind, he replies by calling himself Pegasus, and every form of prescribed work harness. Celia laughed. She was surprised to find that Mr. Casabon could say something quite amusing. Well, you know, he may turn out a Byron, a Chatterton, a Churchill, that sort of thing. There's no telling, said Mr. Brooke.

Starting point is 03:20:13 Shall you let him go to Italy, or wherever else he wants to go? Yes, I have agreed to furnish him with moderate supplies for a year or so, he asks no more. I shall let him be tried by the test of freedom." "'That is very kind of you,' said Dorothea, looking up at Mr. Casabon with delight. It is noble. After all, people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves.

Starting point is 03:20:40 May they not? They may seem idle and weak because they are growing. We should be very patient with each other, I think. I suppose it is being engaged to be married that has made you think patience is good, said Celia, as soon as she and Dorothea were alone together, taking off their wrappings. You mean that I am very impatient, Celia. Yes, when people don't do and say just what you like. Celia had become less afraid of saying things to Dorothea since this engagement. Cleverness seemed to her more pitiable than ever.

Starting point is 03:21:16 End of Chapter 9. Chapter 10 of Middle March by George Elliot. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Margaret Espiat. He had catched a great cold had he had no other clothes to wear than the skin of a bear not yet killed. Fuller. Young Ladislaw did not pay that visit to which Mr. Brooke had invited him,

Starting point is 03:21:53 and only six days afterwards, Mr. Kazabon, mentioned that his young relative had started for the continent seeming by this cold vagueness to wave inquiry indeed will had declined to fix on any more precise destination than the entire area of europe genius he held is necessarily intolerant of fetters on the one hand it must have the utmost play for its spontaneity on the other it may confidently await those messages from the universe which summon it to its your work, only placing itself in an attitude of receptivity towards all sublime chances. The attitudes of receptivity are various, and Will had sincerely tried many of them. He was not excessively fond of wine, but he had several times taken too much, simply as an experiment in that form of ecstasy. He had fasted till he was faint, and then supped on lobster. He had made himself ill with doses of opium. Nothing greatly original had resulted from these measures.

Starting point is 03:23:01 The effects of the opium had convinced him that there was an entire dissimilarity between his constitution and De Quincey's. The super-added circumstance which would evolve the genius had not yet come. The universe had not yet beckoned. Even Caesar's fortune at one time was but a grand presentiment. We know what a masquerade all devourable. development is, and what effective shapes may be disguised in helpless embryos. In fact, the world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs called possibilities. Will saw clearly enough the pitiable instances of long incubation producing no chick, but for gratitude would have laughed at Casabon, whose plotting application,

Starting point is 03:23:51 rows of notebooks and small taper of learned theory exploring the tossed ruins of the world, seemed to enforce a moral entirely encouraging to Will's generous reliance on the intentions of the universe with regard to himself. He held that reliance to be a mark of genius, and certainly it is no mark to the contrary, genius consisting neither in self-conceit nor in humility, but in a power to make or do, not anything in general but something in particular. Let him start for the continent, then, without our pronouncing honest future. Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous. But at present, this caution against a too hasty judgment interests me more in relation to Mr. Casabon,

Starting point is 03:24:46 than to his young cousin. If to Dorothea, Mr. Casabon, had been the mere occasion which had set alight the fine, inflammable material of her youthful illusions, does it follow that he was fairly represented in the minds of those less impassioned personages who have hitherto delivered their judgments

Starting point is 03:25:07 concerning him? I protest against any absolute conclusion, any prejudice derived from Mrs. Cadwallader, contempt for a neighboring clergyman's alleged greatness of soul, of Sir James Chatham's poor opinion of his rival's legs, from Mr. Brooks' failure to elicit a companion's ideas, or from Celia's criticism of a middle-aged scholar's personal appearance. I am not sure that the greatest man of his age, if ever that solitary superlative existed, could escape these unfavorable reflections of himself in various small mirrors, and even Milton, looking for his

Starting point is 03:25:51 portrait in a spoon, must submit to have the facial angle of a bumpkin. Moreover, if Mr. Casabon, speaking for himself, has rather chilling rhetoric, it is not therefore certain that there is no good work or fine feeling in him. Did not an immortal physicist and interpreter of hieroglyphs write detestable verses? Has the theory of the solar system been advanced by graceful manners and conversational tact? Suppose we turn from outside estimates of a man to wonder, with keener interest, what is the report of his own consciousness about his doings or capacity? With what hindrances is he carrying on his daily labor?

Starting point is 03:26:38 what fading of hopes or what deeper fixity of self-delusion the years are marking off within him, and with what spirit he wrestles against universal pressure, which will one day be too heavy for him, and bring his heart to its final pause. Doubtless his lot is important in his own eyes, and the chief reason that we think he asks too larger place in our consideration, must be our want of room for him, since we refer him to the divine regard with perfect confidence. Nay, it is even held sublime for our neighbors to expect the utmost there, however little he may have got from us. Mr. Cazabon, too, was the center of his own world. If he was liable to think that others were providentially made for him, and especially to

Starting point is 03:27:31 consider them in the light of their fitness for the author of a key to all mythologies. This trait is not quite alien to us, and, like the other, mendicant hopes of mortals, claims some of our pity. Certainly this affair of his marriage with Miss Brooke touched him more nearly than it did any one of the persons who have hitherto shown their disapproval of it, and in the present stage of things I feel more tenderly towards his experience. of success than towards the disappointment of the amiable Sir James. For in truth, as the day fixed for his marriage came nearer, Mr. Cazabon did not find his

Starting point is 03:28:13 spirits rising, nor did the contemplation of that matrimonial garden scene, where, as all experience showed, the path was to be bordered with flowers, prove persistently more enchanting to him than the accustomed vaults where he walked taper in hand. he did not confess to himself still less could he have breathed to another his surprise that though he had won a lovely and noble-hearted girl he had not one delight which he had also regarded as an object to be found by search it is true that he knew all the classical passages implying the contrary but knowing classical passages we find is a mode of motion which explains that he knew all the classical passages implying the contrary but knowing classical passages we find is a mode of motion which explains why they leave so little extra force for their personal application. Poor Mr. Casabon had imagined that his long, studious bachelorhood had stored up for him a compound interest of enjoyment,

Starting point is 03:29:16 and that large drafts on his affections would not fail to be honored, for we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them. And now he was in danger of being, saddened by the very conviction that his circumstances were unusually happy. There was nothing external by which he could account for a certain blankness of sensibility which came over him just when his expectant gladness should have been most lively,

Starting point is 03:29:48 just when he exchanged the accustomed dullness of his Lohic library for his visits to the Grange. Here was a weary experience in which he was as utterly condemned to loneliness as in the despair which sometimes threatened him while toiling in the morass of authorship without seeming nearer to the goal. And his was that worst loneliness which could shrink from sympathy. He could not but wish that Dorothea should think him not less happy than the world would expect her successful suitor to be, and in relation to his authorship, he leaned on her young trust and veneration. He liked to draw forth her fresh interest in listening as a means of encouragement to himself. In talking to her, he presented all his performance and intention with the reflected confidence

Starting point is 03:30:40 of the pedagogue, and rid himself for the time of that chilling ideal audience, which crowded his laborious, uncreative hours with the vaporous pressure of Tartarian shades. For to Dorothea, after that toy-box history of the world adapted to young ladies, which had made the chief part of her education, Mr. Cazabon's talk about his great book was full of new vistas, and this sense of revelation, this surprise of a nearer introduction to Stoics and Alexandrians, as people who had ideas not totally unlike her own, kept in abeyance for the time her usual eagerness for a a binding theory which could bring her own life and doctrine into strict connection with that amazing past, and give the remotest sources of knowledge some bearing on her actions. That more complete teaching would come. Mr. Cazibon would tell her all that. She was looking forward to higher initiation in ideas as she was looking forward to marriage and blending her dim conceptions of both. It would be a great mistake to suppose that Dorothea would have cared

Starting point is 03:31:54 about any share in Mr. Casabon's learning as mere accomplishment, for though opinion in the neighborhood of Freshet and Tipton had pronounced her clever, that epithet would not have described her to circles in whose more precise vocabulary cleverness implies mere aptitude for knowing and doing, apart from character. All her eagerness for requirement lay within that full current of sympathetic motive in which her ideas and impulses were habitually swept along. She did not want to deck herself with knowledge, to wear it loose from the nerves and blood that fed her action, and if she had written a book, she must have done it as St. Teresa did, under the command of an authority that constrained her conscience. But something

Starting point is 03:32:42 she yearned for by which her life might be filled with action at once rational and ardent, and, since the time was gone by for guiding visions and spiritual directors, since prayer heightened yearning, but not instruction, what lamp was there but knowledge? Surely learned men kept the only oil, and whom were learned than Mr. Cazabon? Thus, in these brief weeks, Dorothea's joyous, grateful expectation was unbroken, and however her lover might occasionally be conscious of flames. He could never refer it to any slackening of her affectionate interest. The season was mild enough to encourage the project of extending the wedding journey as far as Rome, and Mr. Kazabon was anxious for this because he wished to inspect some manuscripts in

Starting point is 03:33:36 the Vatican. I still regret that your sister is not to accompany us, he said one morning, sometime after it had been ascertained that Celia objected to go, and that Dorothea did not wish for her companionship. You will have many lonely hours, Dorothea, for I shall be constrained to make the utmost use of my time during our stay in Rome, and I should feel more at liberty if you had a companion. The words I should feel more at liberty graded on Dorothea. For the first time in speaking to Mr. Casabon, she colored from annoyance. You must have misunderstood me very much, she said, if you think I should not enter into the value of the of your time, if you think that I should not willingly give up whatever interfered with your

Starting point is 03:34:23 using it to the best purpose. That is very amiable in you, my dear Dorothea, said Mr. Cazabon, not in the least noticing that she was hurt. But if you had a lady as your companion, I could put you both under the care of a Cicerooney, and we could thus achieve two purposes in the same space of time. I beg you will not refer to this again, said Dorothea, rather hotly. but immediately she feared that she was wrong, and turning toward him she laid her hand on his, adding in a different tone. Pray do not be anxious about me. I shall have so much to think of when I am

Starting point is 03:35:01 alone, and tantrip will be a sufficient companion, just to take care of me. I could not bear to have Celia. She would be miserable. It was time to dress. There was to be a dinner party that day, the last of the parties which were held at the Grange as proper preliminaries to the wedding, and Dorothea was glad of a reason for moving away at once on the sound of the bell, as if she needed more than her usual amount of preparation. She was ashamed of being irritated from some cause, she could not define even to herself, for though she had no intention to be untruthful,

Starting point is 03:35:39 her reply had not touched the real hurt within her. Mr. Casabon's words had been quite reasonable, yet they had brought a vague, instantaneous sense of aloofness on his part. Surely I am in a strangely selfish weak state of mind, she said to herself. How can I have a husband who is so much above me without knowing that he needs me less than I need him? Having convinced herself that Mr. Casabon was altogether right, she recovered her equanimity and was an agreeable image of serene dignity when she came into the drawing-room in her silver-grey dress. The simple lines of her dark brown hair parted over her brow and coiled massively behind, in keeping with the entire absence from her manner and expression of all search after mere effect.

Starting point is 03:36:32 Sometimes when Dorothea was in company, there seemed to be as complete an air of repose about her as if she had been a picture of Santa Barbara looking out from her tower into the clear air. But these intervals of quietude made the energy of her speech and emotion, the more remarked when some outward appeal had touched her. She was naturally the subject of many observations this evening, for the dinner party was large and rather more miscellaneous as to the mail portion than any which had been held at the Grange since Mr. Brooks' nieces had resided with him. so that the talking was done in duos and trios more or less in harmonious.

Starting point is 03:37:14 There was the newly elected mayor of Middlemarch, who happened to be a manufacturer, the philanthropic banker, his brother-in-law, who predominated so much in the town that some called him a Methodist, others a hypocrite, according to the resources of their vocabulary, and there were various professional men. In fact, Mrs. Cadwallader had said that Brooke was beginning to treat the middle marchers, and that she preferred the farmers at the tithe dinner, who drank her health unpretentiously, and were not ashamed of their grandfather's furniture. For in that part of the country, before reform had done its notable part in developing the political consciousness, there was a clearer distinction of ranks and a dimmer distinction

Starting point is 03:38:00 of parties, so that Mr. Brooks' miscellaneous invitations seemed to belong to that general laxity, which came from his inordinate travel and habit of talking too much in the form of ideas. Already, as Miss Brooke passed out of the dining-room, opportunity was found for some interjectional asides. "'A fine woman, Miss Brooke! An uncommonly fine woman, by God,' said Mr. Standish, the old lawyer, who had been so long concerned with a landed gentry that he had become landed himself, and used that oath in a deep-mouthed manner as a sort of armorial bearings, stamping the speech of a man who

Starting point is 03:38:43 held a good position. Mr. Bolstrow, the banker, seemed to be addressed, but that gentleman disliked coarseness and profanity, and merely bowed. The remark was taken up by Mr. Chichley, a middle-aged bachelor and coursing celebrity, who had a complexion something like an Easter-egg, a few hairs carefully arranged, and a carriage implying the consciousness of a distinguished appearance. Yes, but not my style of woman. I like a woman who lays herself out a little more to please us. There should be a little filigree about a woman, something of the coquette. A man likes a sort of challenge. The more of a dead set she makes at you, the better. There's some truth in that, said Mr. Standish, disposed to be genial.

Starting point is 03:39:31 And by God, it's usually the way with them. them. I suppose it answers some wise ends. Providence made them so, eh, Bolstrow?' "'I should be disposed to refer coquetry to another source,' said Mr. Bullstrowd. "'I should rather refer it to the devil.' "'I, to be sure. There should be a little devil in a woman,' said Mr. Chichley, whose study of the fair sex seemed to have been detrimental to his theology. and I like them blonde, with a certain gait, and a swan neck. Between ourselves, the mayor's daughter is more to my taste than Miss Brooke, or Miss Celia, either.

Starting point is 03:40:09 If I were a marrying man, I should choose Miss Vincy before either of them. Well, make up, make up, said Mr. Standish, jocosely. You see the middle-aged fellows carry the day. Mr. Chichlet shook his head with much meaning. He was not going to incur the certainty of being. being accepted by the woman he would choose. The Miss Vincey, who had the honor of being Mr. Chichley's ideal, was of course not present, for Mr. Brooke, always objecting to go too far, would not have chosen that his nieces should meet the daughter of a Middle March manufacturer,

Starting point is 03:40:46 unless it were on a public occasion. The feminine part of the company included none whom Lady Chatham or Mrs. Cadwallader could object to, for Mrs. Renfrew, the colonel's widow, was not only unexceptionable in point of breeding, but also interesting on the ground of her complaint, which puzzled the doctors, and seemed clearly a case wherein the fullness of professional knowledge might need the supplement of quackery.

Starting point is 03:41:14 Lady Chedham, who attributed her own remarkable health to homemade bidders, united with constant medical attendance, entered with much exercise of the imagination into Mrs. Renfrew's account of symptoms, and into the amazing futility in her case of all strengthening medicines. Where can all the strength of those medicines go, my dear, said the mild but stately dowager, turning to Mrs. Cadwallader reflectively when Mrs. Renfrew's attention was called away.

Starting point is 03:41:46 It strengthens the disease, said the rector's wife, much too well-born not to be an amateur in medicine. Everything depends on the constitution. Some people make fat, some blood, and some bile. That's my view of the matter. And whatever they take is a sort of grist to the mill. Then she ought to take medicines that would reduce, reduce the disease, you know, if you are right, my dear. And I think what you say is reasonable. Certainly it is reasonable. You have two sorts of potatoes, fed on the same soil. One of them grows more and more watery. Ah, like this poor Mrs. Renfrew. This is what I think. Dropsy. There's no swelling yet.

Starting point is 03:42:30 It is inward. I should say she ought to take drying medicines, shouldn't you? Or a dry hot air bath. Many things might be tried of a drying nature. Let her try a certain person's pamphlets, said Mrs. Cadwallader in an undertone, seeing the gentleman enter. He does not want drying. Who, my dear, said Lady Chetam, a charming woman,

Starting point is 03:42:54 not so quick as to nullify the pleasure of explanation? the bridegroom, Casabon. He has certainly been drying up faster since the engagement. The flame of passion, I suppose. I should think he is far from having a good constitution, said Lady Chedham, with a still deeper undertone, and then his studies, so very dry, as you say. Really, by the side of Sir James, he looks like a deathhead skinned over for the occasion. Mark my words. In a year from this time, that girl will hate him. She looks up to him as an oracle now,

Starting point is 03:43:35 and by the by she will be at the other extreme. All flightiness. How very shocking! I fear she is headstrong. But tell me, you know all about him. Is there anything very bad? What is the truth? The truth?

Starting point is 03:43:52 He is as bad as the wrong physic. nasty to take and sure to disagree there could not be anything worse than that said lady chedham with so vivid a conception of the physic that she seemed to have learned something exact about mr casabond's disadvantages however james will hear nothing against miss brooke he says she is the mirror of women still that is a generous make-believe of his depend upon it he likes little celia better and she appreciates him "'I hope you like my little Celia.' "'Certainly. She is fonder of geraniums, and seems more docile, though not so fine a figure. "'But we were talking of physic. Tell me about this new young surgeon, Mr. Lydgate. "'I am told he is wonderfully clever.

Starting point is 03:44:42 "'He certainly looks at, a fine brow indeed. "'He is a gentleman. "'I heard him talking to Humphrey. He talks well.' "'Yes, Mr. Brooke says he is one of the Lydgates of Northumberland. really well connected one does not expect it in a practitioner of that kind for my own part i like a medical man more on a footing with the servants they are often all the cleverer i assure you i found poor hick's judgment unfailing i never knew him wrong he was coarse and butcher-like but he knew my constitution it was a loss to me his going off so suddenly dear me what a very animated conversation miss brook seems to be having with this mr lydgate she is talking cottages and hospitals with him said mrs cadwallader whose ears and power of interpretation were quick i believe he is a sort of philanthropist so brook is sure to take him up james said lady chedham when her son came near bring mr lydgate and introduce him to me i want to test him

Starting point is 03:45:50 the affable dowager declared herself delighted with this opportunity of making mr lydgate's acquaintance having heard of his success in treating fever on a new plan mr lydgate had the medical accomplishment of looking perfectly grave whatever nonsense was talked to him and his dark steady eyes gave him impressiveness as a listener he was as little as possible like the lamented hicks especially in a certain careless refinement about his toilet and utterword yet Lady Chetham gathered much confidence in him. He confirmed her view of her own Constitution as being peculiar by admitting that all constitutions might be called peculiar, and he did not deny that hers might be more peculiar than others. He did not approve of a too-lowering system, including reckless cupping, nor, on the other hand, of incessant port wine and bark. He said, I think so, with an air of so much deference accompanying the insight of agreement, that she formed the most cordial opinion of his talents. I am quite pleased with your protege, she said to Mr.

Starting point is 03:47:02 Brooke, before going away. My protege? Dear me, who is that? said Mr. Brook. This young Lydgate, the new doctor, he seems to me to understand his profession admirably. Oh, Lydgate. He is not my protege, you know. Only I knew an uncle of his who sent me a letter about him. However, I think he is likely to be first-rate, has studied in Paris, new Broussé, has ideas, you know, wants to raise the profession. Lydgate has lots of ideas quite new about ventilation and diet, that sort of thing, resumed Mr. Brooke, after he had handed out Lady Chatham, and had returned to be civil to a group of middle marchers. Hang it, do you think that is quite sound?

Starting point is 03:47:48 Upsetting the old treatment, which has made Englishmen what they are? said Mr. Standish. Medical knowledge is at a low ebb among us, said Mr. Bolstrow, who spoke in a subdued tone and had a rather sickly air. I, for my part,

Starting point is 03:48:04 hail the advent of Mr. Lydgate. I hope to find good reason for confiding the new hospital to his management. That is all very fond. replied Mr. Standish, who is not fond of Mr. Bolstrow. If you like him to try experiments on your hospital patients and kill a few people for charity, I have no objection, but I am not going to hand money out of my purse to have experiments tried on me. I like treatment that has been tested a

Starting point is 03:48:32 little. Well, you know, Standish, every dose you take is an experiment. An experiment, you know, said Mr. Brooke, nodding towards the lawyer. Oh, if you talk in that sense, said Mr. Standish, with as much disgust at such non-legal quibbling as a man can well betray towards a valuable client. I should be glad of any treatment that would cure me without reducing me to a skeleton, like poor Granger, said Mr. Vincey, the mayor, a florid man, who would have served for a study of flesh and striking contrast with the Franciscan tense of Mr. Bullstrow. It's an uncommonly dangerous thing to be.

Starting point is 03:49:12 be left without any padding against the shafts of disease, as somebody said, and I think it a very good expression myself. Mr. Lydgate, of course, was out of hearing. He had quitted the party early, and would have thought it altogether tedious but for the novelty of certain introductions, especially the introduction to Miss Brooke, whose youthful bloom with her approaching marriage to that faded scholar, and her interest in matters socially useful, gave her the people of an unusual combination. She is a good creature, that fine girl, but a little too earnest, he thought. It is troublesome to talk to such women.

Starting point is 03:49:52 They are always wanting reasons, yet they are too ignorant to understand the merits of any question, and usually fall back on their moral sense to settle things after their own taste. Evidently, Miss Brooke was not Mr. Lydgate's style of woman any more than Mr. Chichelies, considered indeed in relation to the latter whose mind was matured, she was altogether a mistake, and calculated to shock his trust in final causes, including the adaptation of fine young women to purple-faced bachelors. But Lydgate was less ripe, and might possibly have experience before him which would modify his opinion as to the most excellent things in woman. Miss Brooke, however, was not again seen by either of these gentlemen under her maiden name.

Starting point is 03:50:44 Not long after that dinner party, she had become Mrs. Casabon and was on her way to Rome. End of Chapter 10. Chapter 11 of Middle March by George Elliott. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Margaret Espayette. But deeds and language such as men do use, and persons such as comedy would choose, when she would show an image of the times, and sport with human follies, not with crimes. Ben Johnson. Lydgate, in fact, was already conscious of being fascinated by a woman strikingly different from Miss Brooke. He did not in the least suppose that he had lost his balance and fallen in love, but he had said of that particular woman, she is grace at herself. She is perfectly lovely and accomplished. That is what a woman ought to be. She ought to

Starting point is 03:51:48 produce the effect of exquisite music. Plain women he regarded as he did the other severe facts of life, to be faced with philosophy and investigated by science. But Rosamond Vincy seemed to have the true melodic charm, and when a man has seen the woman whom he would have chosen if he had intended to marry speedily, his remaining a bachelor will usually depend on her resolution rather than on his. Lydgate believed that he should not marry for several years, not marry until he had trodden out a good clear path for himself away from the broad road which was quite ready-made.

Starting point is 03:52:31 He had seen Miss Vincey above his horizon almost as long as it had taken Mr. Cazabon to become engaged in Mary, but this learned gentleman was possessed of a fortune he had assembled his voluminous notes and had made that sort of reputation which precedes performance often the larger part of a man's fame he took a wife as we have seen to adorn the remaining quadrant of his course and be a little moon that would cause hardly a calculable perturbation but lidgate was young poor ambitious he had had a little moon that would cause hardly a calculable perturbation but lidgate was young poor ambitious he had had a little moon he had his half-century before him instead of behind him and he had come to middle march bent on doing many things that were not directly fitted to make his fortune or even secure him a good income to a man under such circumstances taking a wife is something more than a question of adornment however highly he may rate this and lydgate was disposed to give it the first place among wifely functions to his taste guided by a single conversation here was the point on which miss brooke would be found wanting notwithstanding her undeniable beauty she did not look at things from the proper feminine angle the society of such women was about as relaxing as going from your work to teach the second form instead of reclining in a paradise with sweet laughs for bird notes and blue eyes for a heaven

Starting point is 03:54:08 Certainly nothing at present could seem much less important to Lydgate than the turn of Miss Brooke's mind, or to Miss Brooke than the qualities of the woman who had attracted this young surgeon. But anyone watching keenly the stealthy convergence of human lots sees a slow preparation of effects from one life on another, which tells like a calculated irony on the indifference or the frozen stare with which we look at our unintroduced neighbor. Destiny stands by sarcastic, with our dramatist person I folded in her hand. Old provincial society had its share of this subtle movement, had not only its striking downfalls, its brilliant young professional dandies,

Starting point is 03:54:58 who ended by living up an entry with a drab and six children for their establishment, but also those less marked vicissitudes, which are constantly shifting the boundaries of social intercourse, and begetting new consciousness of interdependence. Some slipped a little downward, some got higher footing. People denied aspirates, gained wealth, and fastidious gentlemen stood for boroughs. Some were caught in political currents, some in ecclesiastical, and perhaps found themselves surprisingly grouped in consequence, while a few personages or families that stood with rocky firmness amid all this fluctuation were slowly presenting new aspects in spite of solidity,

Starting point is 03:55:49 and altering with the double change of self and beholder. Municipal town and rural parish gradually made few threads of connection, gradually as the old stocking gave way to the savings bank, and the worship of the Solar Guinea became extinct, while squires and baronets, and even lords who had once lived blamelessly afar from the civic mind, gathered the faultiness of closer acquaintanceship. Settlers, too, came from distant counties, some with an alarming novelty of skill, others with an offensive advantage in cunning. In fact, much the same sort of movement and mixture went on in Old England, as we find in older Herodotus, who also, in telling what had been, thought it

Starting point is 03:56:40 well to take a woman's lot for his starting point, though low, as a maiden apparently beguiled by attractive merchandise, was the reverse of Miss Brooke, and in this respect perhaps bore more resemblance to Rosamond Vincy, who had excellent taste and costume with that nymph-like figure and pure blondness which give the largest range to choice in the flow and color of drapery. But these things made only part of her charm. She was admitted to be the flower of Mrs. Lemmon's school, the chief school in the county, where the teaching included all that was demanded in the accomplished female, even to extras, such as the getting in and out of a carriage. Mrs. Lemon herself had always held up Miss Vincy as an example. No pupil, she said,

Starting point is 03:57:38 exceeded that young lady for mental acquisition and propriety of speech, while her musical execution was quite exceptional. We cannot help the way in which people speak of us, and probably if Mrs. Lemon had undertaken to describe Juliet. or Imogen, these heroines would not have seemed poetical. The first vision of Rosamond would have been enough with most judges to dispel any prejudice excited by Mrs. Lemon's praise. Lydgate could not be long in Middlemarch without having that agreeable vision, or even without making the acquaintance of the Vincy family, for though Mr. Peacock, whose practice he had paid something to enter on, had not been their doctor, Mrs. Vincy not liking the lowering system adopted by him.

Starting point is 03:58:29 He had many patients among their connections and acquaintances, for who, of any consequence in Middlemarch, was not connected, or at least acquainted with the Vinci's. They were old manufacturers, and had kept a good house for three generations, in which there had naturally been much intermarrying with neighbors more or less decidedly genteel. Mrs. Vincy's sister had made a wealthy match in accepting Mr. Bullstrowd, who, however, as a man not born in the town, and altogether of dimly known origin, was considered to have done well in uniting himself with a real Middle March family. On the other hand, Mr. Vincey had descended a little, having taken an innkeeper's daughter.

Starting point is 03:59:17 But on this side, too, there was a cheering sense of money, for Mrs. Vincy's sister had been second wife to rich old Mr. Featherstone, and had died childless years ago, so that her nephews and nieces might be supposed to touch the affections of the widower. And it happened that Mr. Bullstrowed and Mr. Featherstone, two of Peacock's most important patients, had from different causes, given an especially good reception to his successor, who had raised some partisanship as well as discussion. Mr. Wrench, medical attendant to the Vincy family, very early had grounds for thinking lightly of Lydgate's professional discretion, and there was no report about him which was not retailed at the Vincys, where visitors were frequent. Mr. Vincy was more inclined to general good fellowship than to taking sides, but there was no need for him to be hasty in making any new man's acquaintance. Rosamond silently wished that her father would invite Mr. Lydgate. She was tired of the faces and figures she had always been used to, the various irregular profiles and gates and turns of phrase distinguishing those Middlemarch young men, whom she had known as born.

Starting point is 04:00:42 boys. She had been at school with girls of higher position, whose brothers she felt sure it would have been possible for her to be more interested in than in these inevitable Middle March companions. But she would not have chosen to mention her wish to her father, and he, for his part, was in no hurry on the subject. An alderman, about to be mayor, must by and by and large his dinner parties, but at present there were plenty of guests as to be a man. as well-spread table. That table often remained covered with the relics of the family breakfast, long after Mr. Vincey had gone with his second son to the warehouse, and when Miss Morgan was already far on in morning lessons with the younger girls in the schoolroom. It awaited the family laggard, who found any sort of inconvenience to others less disagreeable than getting up when he was called. This was the case one morning of the October, in which we have lately seen Mr. Cazabon visiting the Grange, and though the room was a little overheated with the fire, which had sent the spaniel panting to a remote corner, Rosamond, for some reason, continued to sit at her

Starting point is 04:01:58 embroidery longer than usual, now and then giving herself a little shake, and laying her work on her knee to contemplate it with an air of hesitating weariness. Her mama, who had returned from an excursion to the kitchen, sat on the other side of the small work-table with an air of more entire placidity, until the clock again giving notice that it was going to strike, she looked up from the lace mending which was occupying her plump fingers and rang the bell. Knock again at Fred's door, Pritchard, and tell him it has struck half-past, ten this was said without any change in the radiant good-humour of mrs vincey's face in which forty-five years had delved neither angles nor parallels and pushing back her pink cap-strings she let her work rest on her lap while she looked admiringly at her daughter mamma said rosamond when fred comes down i wish you would not let him have red herrings i cannot bear the smell of them all over the house at this hour of the morning

Starting point is 04:03:08 oh my dear you are so hard on your brothers it is the only fault i have to find with you you are the sweetest temper in the world but are so tetchy with your brothers not tetchy mamma you never hear me speak in an unladylike way well you want to deny them things brothers are so unpleasant oh my dear you must allow for young men be thankful if they have good hearts a woman must learn to put up with little things you will be married some day not to any one who is like fred don't decry your own brother my dear few young men have less against them although he couldn't take his degree i'm sure i can't understand why, for he seems to me most clever. And you know yourself he was thought equal to the best society at college. So particular as you are, my dear, I wonder you are not glad to have such a gentlemanly young man for a brother. You are always finding fault with Bob because he is not Fred. Oh, no, Mama, only because he is Bob. Well, dear, you will not find any Middle March young man who has not got something against him.

Starting point is 04:04:28 But! Here, Rosamond's face broke into a smile which suddenly revealed two dimples. She herself thought unfavorably of these dimples, and smiled little in general society. But I shall not marry any Middle March young man. So it seems, my love, for you have as good as refused the pick of them. And if there's better to be had, I'm sure there's no girl better deserves it. excuse me mamma i wish you would not say the pick of them why what else are they i mean mamma it is rather a vulgar expression very likely my dear i never was a good speaker what should i say the best of them why that seems just as plain and common if i had had time to think i should have said the most superior young men but with your education you must know

Starting point is 04:05:25 "'What must Razzie know, mother?' said Fred, who had slid unobserved through the half-open door while the ladies were bending over their work, and now going up to the fire, stood with his back towards it, warming the soles of his slippers. "'Whether it's right to say superior young men,' said Mrs. Vincy, ringing the bell. "'Oh, there are so many superior teas and sugars now. Superior is getting to be shopkeeper slang. Are you beginning to dislike slang then, said Rosamond with mild gravity? Only the wrong sort.

Starting point is 04:06:02 All choice of words is slang. It marks a class. There is correct English. That is not slang. I beg your pardon. Correct English is the slang of Prigs, who write history and essays. And the strongest slang is the slang of poets. You will say anything, Fred, to gain your point.

Starting point is 04:06:24 Well, tell me whether it is slang or poetry to call an ox a leg-plater. Of course you can call it poetry if you like. Aha, Miss Razzie, you don't know Homer from slang. I shall invent a new game. I shall write bits of slang and poetry on slips and give them to you to separate. Dear me, how amusing it is to hear young people talk, said Mrs. Vincy with cheerful admiration. Have you got nothing else for my breakfast, Pritchard? said Fred to the servant who brought in coffee and buttered toast, while he walked round the table surveying the ham, potted beef, and other cold remnants with an air of silent rejection and polite forbearance from signs of disgust. Should you like eggs, sir?

Starting point is 04:07:13 Eggs? No. Bring me a grilled bone. Really, Fred, said Rosamond, when the servant had left the room. If you must have hot things for breakfast, I wish you would come down earlier. You can get up at six o'clock to go out hunting. I cannot understand why you find it so difficult to get up on other mornings. That is your want of understanding, Razzie. I can get up to go hunting because I like it. What would you think of me if I came down two hours after everyone else and ordered grilled bone?

Starting point is 04:07:48 I should think you were an uncommonly fast, young lady. said Fred, eating his toast with the utmost composure. I cannot see why brothers are to make themselves disagreeable any more than sisters. I don't make myself disagreeable. It is you who find me so. Disagreable is a word that describes your feelings and not my actions. I think it describes the smell of grilled bone. Not at all. It describes a sensation in your little nose, associated with certain finicking notions which are the classics of mrs lemmon's school look at my mother you don't see her objecting to everything except what she does herself she is my notion of a pleasant woman

Starting point is 04:08:37 bless you both my dears and don't quarrel said mrs vincey with a motherly cordiality come fred tell us all about the new doctor how is your uncle pleased with him pretty well i think he asks lydgate all sorts of questions and then screws up his face while he hears the answers as if they were pinching his toes that's his way ah here comes my grilled bone but how came you to stay out so late my dear you only said you were going to your uncles oh i dined at plymdales we had whist lydgate was there too and what do you think of him he is very gentlemanly i suppose they say he is of excellent family his relations quite county people yes said fred there was a lidgate at johns who spent no end of money i find this man is a second cousin of his but rich men may have very poor devils for second cousins it always makes a difference though to be of good family said rosamond with a tone of decision which showed that she had thought on this subject rosamond felt that she might have been happier if she had not been the daughter of a middle march manufacturer she disliked anything which reminded her that her mother's father had been an innkeeper certainly any one remembering the fact might think that mrs vincey had the air of a very handsome good-humoured landlady accustomed accustomed to the most capricious orders of gentlemen i thought it was odd his name was tertius said the bright-faced matron but of course it's a name in the family but now tell us exactly what sort of man he is oh tallish dark clever talks well rather a prig i think i never can make out what you mean by a prig said rosamond

Starting point is 04:10:36 a fellow who wants to show that he has opinions why my dear doctors must have opinions said mrs vincey what are they there for else yes mother the opinions they are paid for but a prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions i suppose mary garth admires mr lidgate said rosamond not without a touch of innuendo really i can't say said fred rather glumly as he left the table and taking up a novel which he had brought down with him threw himself into an arm-chair if you are jealous of her go often her to stone court yourself and eclipse her i wish you would not be so vulgar fred if you have finished pray ring the bell it is true though what your brother says rosamond mrs vincey began when the servant had cleared the table it is a thousand pities you haven't patience to go and see your uncle more so proud of you as he is and wanted you to live with him there's no knowing what he might have done for you as well as for fred god knows i'm fond of having you at home with me but i can part with my children for their good and now it stands to reason that your uncle featherstone will do something for mary garth mary garth can bear being at stone court because she likes that better than being a governess said rosamond folding up her work i would rather not have anything left to me if i must earn it by enduring much of my uncle's cough and his ugly relations. He can't be long for this world, my dear. I wouldn't hasten his end, but what with asthma and that inward complaint, let us hope there is something better for him

Starting point is 04:12:27 in another. And I have no ill will towards Mary Garth, but there's justice to be thought of, and Mr. Featherstone's first wife brought him no money, as my sister did. Her nieces and nephews can't have so much claim as my sisters. and i must say i think mary garth a dreadful plain girl more fit for a governess every one would not agree with you there mother said fred who seemed to be able to read and listen to well my dear said mrs vincey wheeling skilfully if she had some fortune left her a man marries his wife's relations and the garths are so poor and live in such a small way but i shall leave you to your studies my dear for i must go and do some shopping fred's studies are not very deep said rosamund rising with her mamma he is only reading a novel well well by and by he'll go to his latin in things said mrs vincy soothingly stroking her son's head there is a fire in the smoking-room on purpose it's your father's wish you know fred my dear and i always tell him you will be good and go to college again to take your degree.

Starting point is 04:13:46 Fred drew his mother's hand down to his lips, but said nothing. "'I suppose you are not going out riding today,' said Rosamond, lingering a little after her mama was gone. "'No, why?' "'Papa says I may have the chestnut to ride now. "'You can go with me tomorrow, if you like. "'Only I am going to Stone Court, remember.' "'I want the ride so much.

Starting point is 04:14:12 it is indifferent to me where we go. Rosamond really wished to go to Stone Court of all other places. Oh, I say, Rossey, said Fred, as she was passing out of the room. If you are going to the piano, let me come and play some airs with you. Pray do not ask me this morning.

Starting point is 04:14:32 Why not this morning? Really, Fred, I wish you would leave off playing the flute. A man looks very silly playing the flute, and you play so out of tune. when next any one makes love to you miss rosamond i will tell him how obliging you are why should you expect me to oblige you by hearing you play the flute any more than i should expect you to oblige me by not playing it and why should you expect me to take you out riding this question led to an adjustment for rosamond had set her mind on that particular ride so fred was gratified with nearly an hour's practice of arhygidinous ye banks and braes and other favorite airs from his instructor on the flute a wheezy performance into which he threw much ambition and an irrepressible hopefulness end of chapter eleven chapter twelve of middle march by george elliot this libervox recording is in the public domain recording by margaret

Starting point is 04:15:48 he had more toe on his distaff than jervais knew chaucer the ride to stone court which fred and rosamund took the next morning lay through a pretty bit of midland landscape almost all meadows and pastures with head hedgerows still allowed to grow in bushy beauty and to spread out coral fruit for the birds. Little details gave each field a particular physiognomy, dear to the eyes that have looked on them from childhood. The pool in the corner where the grasses were dank and trees leaned whisperingly, the great oak shadowing a bare place in mid-pasture, the high bank where the ash trees grew, the sudden slope of the old marl pit, making a red background for the burdock, the huddled roofs and ricks of the homestead, without a traceable way of approach, the gray gate and fences against the depths of the bordering wood, and the stray hovel, its old, old thatch, full of mossy hills and valleys, with wondrous modulations of light and shadow, such as we travel far to see in later life, and to see large, but not more beautiful. These are the things that make the gamut of joy and landscape to midland-bred souls, the things they toddled among, or perhaps learned by heart, standing

Starting point is 04:17:17 between their father's knees while he drove leisurely. But the road, even the by-road, was excellent, for Loic, as we have seen, was not a parish of muddy lanes and poor tenants, and it was into Loic Parish that Fred and Rosamond entered after a couple of miles riding. Another mile would bring them to stone court, and, at the end of the first half, the house was already visible, looking as if it had been arrested in its growth toward a stone mansion by an unexpected budding of farm buildings on its left flank, which had hindered it from becoming anything more than the substantial dwelling of a gentleman farmer. it was not the less agreeable an object in the distance for the cluster of pinnacled cornwrecks which balanced the fine row of walnuts on the right presently it was possible to discern something that might be a gig on the circular drive before the front door

Starting point is 04:18:18 dear me said rosamond i hope none of my uncle's horrible relations are there they are though that is mrs wall's gig the last yellow gig left i should think when i see mrs wall in it i understood how yellow can have been worn for mourning that gig seems to me more funereal than a hearse but then mrs wall always has black crape on how does she manage it rosy her friends can't always be done dying i don't know at all and she is not in the least evangelical said rosamond reflectively as if that religious point of view would have fully accounted for the perpetual crape and not poor she added after a moment's pause no by george they are as rich as jews those walls and feather stones i mean for people like them who don't want to spend anything and yet they hang about my uncle like vultures and are afraid of a farthing going away from their their side of the family. But I believe he hates them all. The Mrs. Wall, who was so far from being admirable in the eyes of these distant connections, had happened to say this very morning, not at all with a defiant air, but in a low, muffled, neutral tone, as of a voice heard through cotton wool, that she did not wish to enjoy their good opinion. She was seated,

Starting point is 04:19:44 as she observed, on her own brother's hearth, and had been Jane Featherstone five and twenty years before she had been Jane Wall, which entitled her to speak when her own brother's name had been made free with by those who had no right to it. "'What are you driving at there?' said Mr. Featherstone, holding his stick between his knees and settling his wig while he gave her a momentary sharp glance, which seemed to react on him like a draft of cold air, and set him coughing. Mrs. Wall had to defer her answer till he was quiet again, till Mary Garth had supplied him with fresh syrup,

Starting point is 04:20:25 and he had begun to rub the gold knob of his stick, looking bitterly at the fire. It was a bright fire, but it made no difference to the chill-looking purplish tint of Mrs. Wall's face, which was as neutral as her voice, having mere chinks for eyes, and lips that hardly moved in speaking. The doctors can't master that, cough, brother.

Starting point is 04:20:49 It's just like what I have, for I'm your own sister, Constitution and everything. But, as I was saying, it's a pity Mrs. Vincy's family can't be better conducted. Tcha, you said nothing of the sort. You said somebody had made free with my name. And no more than can be proved,

Starting point is 04:21:09 if what everybody says is true. My brother Solomon tells me it's the talk up and down in Middle March how unsteady young Vincy is, and has been forever gambling at billiards since home he came. Nonsense. What's a game at billiards? It's a good gentlemanly game, and young Vincy is not a clodhopper. If your son John took to billiards now, he'd make a fool of himself. Your nephew John never took to billiards or any other game, brother, and his father, and his father from losing hundreds of pounds, which, if what everybody says is true, must be found somewhere else than out of Mr. Vincey the father's pocket. For they say he's been losing money for years,

Starting point is 04:21:53 though nobody would think so, to see him go coursing and keeping open houses they do. And I've heard say Mr. Bullstrode condemns Mrs. Vincey beyond anything for her flightiness, and spoiling her children so. What's Bullstrode to me? I don't bank with him. Well, Mrs. Bullstrode is Mr. Vincy's own sister, and they do say that Mr. Vincy mostly trades on the bank money, and you may see yourself, brother, when a woman past 40, has pink strings always flying, and that light way of laughing at everything. It's very unbecoming. But indulging your children is one thing, and finding money to pay their debts is another, and it's openly said that young Vincy has

Starting point is 04:22:39 raised money on his expectations. I don't say what expectations. Miss Garth hears me and is welcome to tell again. I know young people hang together. No thank you, Mrs. Wall, said Mary Garth. I dislike hearing scandal too much to wish to repeat it. Mr. Featherstone rubbed the knob of his stick and made a brief convulsive show of laughter, which had much the same genuineness as an old wist-player's chuckle over a bad hand. Still looking at the fire, he said, And who pretends to say that Fred Vincy hasn't got expectations? Such a fine, spirited fellow is like enough to have him. There was a slight pause before Mrs. Wall replied, and when she did so, her voice seemed to be slightly moistened with tears, though her face

Starting point is 04:23:32 was still dry. Whether or no, brother, it is naturally painful to me and my brother Solomon to hear your name made free with, and your complaint being such as may carry you off sudden, and people who are no more feather-stones than the Mary Andrew at the fair, openly reckoning on your property coming to them, and me your own sister, and Solomon your own brother. And if that's to be it, what has it pleased the Almighty to make families for? Here Mrs. Wall's tears fell, but with moderation. Come, out with it, Jane, said Mr. Featherstone, looking at her.

Starting point is 04:24:13 You mean to say Fred Vincy has been getting somebody to advance him money on what he says he knows about my will, eh? I never said so, brother. Mrs. Wall's voice had again become dry and unshaken. It was told me by my brother Solomon last night when he called coming from Market to give me advice about the old wheat, me being a widow, and my son John only three and twenty, though steady beyond anything, and he had it from most undeniable authority, and not one but many.

Starting point is 04:24:48 Stuff and nonsense. I don't believe a word of it. It's all a got-up story. Go to the window, Missy. I thought I heard a horse. if the doctor's coming. Not got up by me, brother, nor yet by Solomon, who, whatever else he may be, and I don't deny he has oddities, has made his will and parted his property equal between such kin as he's friends with, though for my part I think there are times when some

Starting point is 04:25:17 should be considered more than others. But Solomon makes it no secret what he means to do. "'The more fool he,' said Mr. Featherstone, with some difficulty, breaking into a severe fit of coughing that required Mary Garth to stand near him, so that she did not find out whose horses they were which presently paused, stamping on the gravel before the door. Before Mr. Featherstone's cough was quiet, Rosamond entered, burying up her riding habit with much grace. she bowed ceremoniously to mrs wall who said stiffly how do you do miss smiled and nodded silently to mary and remained standing till the coughing should cease and allow her uncle to notice her hey day miss he said at last you have a fine color where's fred seeing about the horses he will be in presently sit down sit down mrs wall you'd better go even those neighbors who had called peter featherstone an old fox had never accused him of being insincerely polite and his sister was quite used to the peculiar absence of ceremony with which he marked his sense of blood relationship indeed she herself was accustomed to think that entire freedom from the necessity of behaving agreeably was included in the almighty's intentions about families she rose slowly without any sign of resentment and said in her usual muffled monotone brother i hope the new doctor will be able to do something for you

Starting point is 04:26:58 solomon says there's great talk of his cleverness i'm sure it's my wish you should be spared and there's none more ready to nurse you than your own sister and your own nieces if you'd only say the word there's rebecca and joanna and elizabeth you know ay ay i remember you'll see i've remembered em all all dark and ugly they'd need have some money eh there never was any beauty in the women of our family but the feather stones have always had some money and the walls too wall had money too a warm man was wall ay ay money's a good egg and if you've got money to leave behind you lay it in a warm nest good-bye mrs wall here mr featherstone pulled at both sides of his wig as if he wanted to deafen himself and his sister went away ruminating on this oracular speech of his notwithstanding her jealousy of the vincies and of mary garth there remained as the nethermost sediment in her mental shallows a persuasion that her brother peter featherstone could never leave his chief property away from his blood relations else why had the almighty carried off his two wives, both childless, after he had gained so much by manganese and things, turning up when nobody expected it. And why was there a Loic parish church, and the walls and powderels, all sitting in the same pew for generations, and the Featherstone pew next to them,

Starting point is 04:28:33 if, the Sunday after her brother Peter's death, everybody was to know that the property was gone out of the family. The human mind has at no period accepted a moral chaos, and so preposterous a result was not strictly conceivable, but we are frightened at much that is not strictly conceivable. When Fred came in, the old man eyed him with a peculiar twinkle, which the younger had often had reason to interpret as pride in the satisfactory details of his appearance. You two, Mrs. Go away, said Mr. Featherstone. I want to speak to Fred. Come into my room, Rosamund. You will not mind the cold for a little while, said Mary.

Starting point is 04:29:19 The two girls had not only known each other in childhood, but had been at the same provincial school together, Mary, as an article pupil, so that they had many memories in common and liked very well to talk in private. Indeed, this tete-a-tete was one of Rosamund's objects in coming to Stone Court. Old Featherstone would not begin the dialogue till the door had been closed. He continued to look at Fred with the same twinkle and with one of his habitual grimaces,

Starting point is 04:29:51 alternately screwing and widening his mouth. And when he spoke, it was in a low tone, which might be taken for that of an informer ready to be bought off, rather than for the tone of an offended senior. He was not a man. to feel any strong moral indignation, even on account of trespasses against himself. It was natural that others should want to get an advantage over him, but then he was a little

Starting point is 04:30:18 too cunning for them. "'So, sir, you've been paying ten percent for money which you've promised to pay off by mortgaging my land when I'm dead and gone, eh? You put my life at a twelve-month, say. But I can alter my will yet.' fred blushed he had not borrowed money in that way for excellent reasons but he was conscious of having spoken with some confidence perhaps with more than he exactly remembered about his prospect of getting featherstone's land as a future means of paying present debts i don't know what you refer to sir i have certainly never borrowed any money on such an insecurity pleased to explain no sir it's you must explain i can alter my will yet let me tell you i'm of sound mind can reckon compound interest in my head and remember every fool's name as well as i could twenty years ago what the deuce i'm under eighty i say you must contradict this story

Starting point is 04:31:23 i have contradicted it sir fred answered with a touch of impatience not remembering that his uncle did not verbally discriminate contradicting from disproving though no one was further from confounding the two ideas than old featherstone who often wondered that so many fools took his own assertions for proofs but i contradict it again the story is a silly lie nonsense you must bring documents it comes from authority name the authority and make him name the man of whom i borrowed the money and then i can disprove the story it's pretty good authority i think a man who knows most of what goes on in middle march it's that fine religious charitable uncle of yours come now here mr featherstone had his peculiar inward shake which signified merriment mr bullstrode who else eh then the story

Classic Audiobook Collection - Middlemarch by George Eliot ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

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