Lydgate did not mean to be one of those failures, and there was thebetter hope of him because his scientific interest soon took the form of aprofessional enthusiasm: he had a youthful belief in his bread-winningwork, not to be stifled by that initiation in makeshift called his 'prenticedays; and he carried to his studies in London, Edinburgh, and Paris, theconviction that the medical profession as it might be was the finest in theworld; presenting the most perfect interchange between science and art;offering the most direct alliance between intellectual conquest and thesocial good. Lydgate's nature demanded this combination: he was anemotional creature, with a flesh-and-blood sense of fellowship whichwithstood all the abstractions of special study. He cared not only for"cases," but for John and Elizabeth, especially Elizabeth.
There was another attraction in his profession: it wanted reform, andgave a man an opportunity for some indignant resolve to reject its venaldecorations and other humbug, and to be the possessor of genuinethough undemanded qualifications. He went to study in Paris with thedetermination that when he provincial home again he would settle insome provincial town as a general practitioner, and resist the irrationalseverance between medical and surgical knowledge in the interest of hisown scientific pursuits, as well as of the general advance: he would keepaway from the range of London intrigues, jealousies, and social truckling,and win celebrity, however slowly, as Jenner had done, by theindependent value of his work. For it must be remembered that this wasa dark period; and in spite of venerable colleges which used great effortsto secure purity of knowledge by making it scarce, and to exclude errorby a rigid exclusiveness in relation to fees and appointments, it happenedthat very ignorant young gentlemen were promoted in town, and manymore got a legal right to practise over large areas in the country. Also,the high standard held up to the public mind by the College of whichwhich gave its peculiar sanction to the expensive and highly rarefiedmedical instruction obtained by graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, didnot hinder quackery from having an excellent time of it; for sinceprofessional practice chiefly consisted in giving a great many drugs, thepublic inferred that it might be better off with more drugs still, if theycould only be got cheaply, and hence swallowed large cubic measures ofphysic prescribed by unscrupulous ignorance which had taken nodegrees. Considering that statistics had not yet embraced a calculation asto the number of ignorant or canting doctors which absolutely must existin the teeth of all changes, it seemed to Lydgate that a change in theunits was the most direct mode of changing the numbers. He meant to bea unit who would make a certain amount of difference towards thatspreading change which would one day tell appreciably upon theaverages, and in the mean time have the pleasure of making anadvantageous difference to the viscera of his own patients. But he didnot simply aim at a more genuine kind of practice than was common. Hewas ambitious of a wider effect: he was fired with the possibility that hemight work out the proof of an anatomical conception and make a link inthe chain of discovery.
Does it seem incongruous to you that a Middlemarch surgeon shoulddream of himself as a discoverer? Most of us, indeed, know little of thegreat originators until they have been lifted up among the constellationsand already rule our fates. But that Herschel, for example, who "brokethe barriers of the heavens"—did he not once play a provincial church-organ, and give music-lessons to stumbling pianists? Each of thoseShining Ones had to walk on the earth among neighbors who perhapsthought much more of his gait and his garments than of anything whichwas to give him a title to everlasting fame: each of them had his littlelocal personal history sprinkled with small temptations and sordid cares,which made the retarding friction of his course towards finalcompanionship with the immortals. Lydgate was not blind to the dangersof such friction, but he had plenty of confidence in his resolution toavoid it as far as possible: being seven-and-twenty, he felt himselfexperienced. And he was not going to have his vanities provoked bycontact with the showy worldly successes of the capital, but to liveamong people who could hold no rivalry with that pursuit of a great ideawhich was to be a twin object with the assiduous practice of hisprofession. There was fascination in the hope that the two purposeswould illuminate each other: the careful observation and inference whichwas his daily work, the use of the lens to further his judgment in specialcases, would further his thought as an instrument of larger inquiry. Wasnot this the typical pre-eminence of his profession? He would be a goodMiddlemarch doctor, and by that very means keep himself in the track offar-reaching investigation. On one point he may fairly claim approval atthis particular stage of his career: he did not mean to imitate thosephilanthropic models who make a profit out of poisonous pickles tosupport themselves while they are exposing adulteration, or hold sharesin a gambling-hell that they may have leisure to represent the cause ofpublic morality. He intended to begin in his own case some particularreforms which were quite certainly within his reach, and much less of aproblem than the demonstrating of an anatomical conception. One ofthese reforms was to act stoutly on the strength of a recent legaldecision, and simply prescribe, without dispensing drugs or takingpercentage from druggists. This was an innovation for one who hadchosen to adopt the style of general practitioner in a country town, andwould be felt as offensive criticism by his professional brethren. ButLydgate meant to innovate in his treatment also, and he was wise enoughto see that the best security for his practising honestly according to hisbelief was to get rid of systematic temptations to the contrary.
Perhaps that was a more cheerful time for observers and theorizersthan the present; we are apt to think it the finest era of the world whenAmerica was beginning to be discovered, when a bold sailor, even if hewere wrecked, might alight on a new kingdom; and about 1829 the darkterritories of Pathology were a fine America for a spirited youngadventurer. Lydgate was ambitious above all to contribute towardsenlarging the scientific, rational basis of his profession. The more hebecame interested in special questions of disease, such as the nature offever or fevers, the more keenly he felt the need for that fundamentalknowledge of structure which just at the beginning of the century hadbeen illuminated by the brief and glorious career of Bichat, who diedwhen he was only one-and-thirty, but, like another Alexander, left arealm large enough for many heirs. That great Frenchman first carriedout the conception that living bodies, fundamentally considered, are notassociations of organs which can be understood by studying them firstapart, and then as it were federally; but must be regarded as consistingof certain primary webs or tissues, out of which the various organs—brain, heart, lungs, and so on—are compacted, as the variousaccommodations of a house are built up in various proportions of wood,iron, stone, brick, zinc, and the rest, each material having its peculiarcomposition and proportions. No man, one sees, can understand andestimate the entire structure or its parts—what are its frailties and whatits repairs, without knowing the nature of the materials. And theconception wrought out by Bichat, with his detailed study of thedifferent tissues, acted necessarily on medical questions as the turning ofgas-light would act on a dim, oil-lit street, showing new connections andhitherto hidden facts of structure which must be taken into account inconsidering the symptoms of maladies and the action of medicaments.But results which depend on human conscience and intelligence workslowly, and now at the end of 1829, most medical practice was stillstrutting or shambling along the old paths, and there was still scientificwork to be done which might have seemed to be a direct sequence ofBichat's. This great seer did not go beyond the consideration of thetissues as ultimate facts in the living organism, marking the limit ofanatomical analysis; but it was open to another mind to say, have notthese structures some common basis from which they have all started, asyour sarsnet, gauze, net, satin, and velvet from the raw cocoon? Herewould be another light, as of oxy-hydrogen, showing the very grain ofthings, and revising all former explanations. Of this sequence to Bichat'swork, already vibrating along many currents of the European mind,Lydgate was enamoured; he longed to demonstrate the more intimaterelations of living structure, and help to define men's thought moreaccurately after the true order. The work had not yet been done, but onlyprepared for those who knew how to use the preparation. What was theprimitive tissue? In that way Lydgate put the question—not quite in theway required by the awaiting answer; but such missing of the right wordbefalls many seekers. And he counted on quiet intervals to be watchfullyseized, for taking up the threads of investigation—on many hints to bewon from diligent application, not only of the scalpel, but of themicroscope, which research had begun to use again with new enthusiasmof reliance. Such was Lydgate's plan of his future: to do good small workfor Middlemarch, and great work for the world.
He was certainly a happy fellow at this time: to be seven-and-twenty,without any fixed vices, with a generous resolution that his action shouldbe beneficent, and with ideas in his brain that made life interesting quiteapart from the cultus of horseflesh and other mystic rites of costlyobservance, which the eight hundred pounds left him after buying hispractice would certainly not have gone far in paying for. He was at astarting-point which makes many a man's career a fine subject forbetting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who couldappreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with allthe possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the nicetiesof inward balance, by which a man swims and makes his point or else iscarried headlong. The risk would remain even with close knowledge ofLydgate's character; for character too is a process and an unfolding. Theman was still in the making, as much as the Middlemarch doctor andimmortal discoverer, and there were both virtues and faults capable ofshrinking or expanding. The faults will not, I hope, be a reason for thewithdrawal of your interest in him. Among our valued friends is therenot some one or other who is a little too self-confident and disdainful;whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is alittle pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; orwhose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel underthe influence of transient solicitations? All these things might be allegedagainst Lydgate, but then, they are the periphrases of a polite preacher,who talks of Adam, and would not like to mention anything painful tothe pew-renters. The particular faults from which these delicategeneralities are distilled have distinguishable physiognomies, diction,accent, and grimaces; filling up parts in very various dramas. Ourvanities differ as our noses do: all conceit is not the same conceit, butvaries in correspondence with the minutiae of mental make in which oneof us differs from another. Lydgate's conceit was of the arrogant sort,never simpering, never impertinent, but massive in its claims andbenevolently contemptuous. He would do a great deal for noodles, beingsorry for them, and feeling quite sure that they could have no power overhim: he had thought of joining the Saint Simonians when he was inParis, in order to turn them against some of their own doctrines. All hisfaults were marked by kindred traits, and were those of a man who hada fine baritone, whose clothes hung well upon him, and who even in hisordinary gestures had an air of inbred distinction. Where then lay thespots of commonness? says a young lady enamoured of that carelessgrace. How could there be any commonness in a man so well-bred, soambitious of social distinction, so generous and unusual in his views ofsocial duty? As easily as there may be stupidity in a man of genius if youtake him unawares on the wrong subject, or as many a man who has thebest will to advance the social millennium might be ill-inspired inimagining its lighter pleasures; unable to go beyond Offenbach's music,or the brilliant punning in the last burlesque. Lydgate's spots ofcommonness lay in the complexion of his prejudices, which, in spite ofnoble intention and sympathy, were half of them such as are found inordinary men of the world: that distinction of mind which belonged tohis intellectual ardor, did not penetrate his feeling and judgment aboutfurniture, or women, or the desirability of its being known (without histelling) that he was better born than other country surgeons. He did notmean to think of furniture at present; but whenever he did so it was tobe feared that neither biology nor schemes of reform would lift himabove the vulgarity of feeling that there would be an incompatibility inhis furniture not being of the best.
As to women, he had once already been drawn headlong byimpetuous folly, which he meant to be final, since marriage at somedistant period would of course not be impetuous. For those who want tobe acquainted with Lydgate it will be good to know what was that caseof impetuous folly, for it may stand as an example of the fitful swervingof passion to which he was prone, together with the chivalrous kindnesswhich helped to make him morally lovable. The story can be told withoutmany words. It happened when he was studying in Paris, and just at thetime when, over and above his other work, he was occupied with somegalvanic experiments. One evening, tired with his experimenting, and notbeing able to elicit the facts he needed, he left his frogs and rabbits tosome repose under their trying and mysterious dispensation ofunexplained shocks, and went to finish his evening at the theatre of thePorte Saint Martin, where there was a melodrama which he had alreadyseen several times; attracted, not by the ingenious work of thecollaborating authors, but by an actress whose part it was to stab herlover, mistaking him for the evil-designing duke of the piece. Lydgatewas in love with this actress, as a man is in love with a woman whom henever expects to speak to. She was a Provencale, with dark eyes, a Greekprofile, and rounded majestic form, having that sort of beauty whichcarries a sweet matronliness even in youth, and her voice was a softcooing. She had but lately come to Paris, and bore a virtuous reputation,her husband acting with her as the unfortunate lover. It was her actingwhich was "no better than it should be," but the public was satisfied.Lydgate's only relaxation now was to go and look at this woman, just ashe might have thrown himself under the breath of the sweet south on abank of violets for a while, without prejudice to his galvanism, to whichhe would presently return. But this evening the old drama had a newcatastrophe. At the moment when the heroine was to act the stabbing ofher lover, and he was to fall gracefully, the wife veritably stabbed herhusband, who fell as death willed. A wild shriek pierced the house, andthe Provencale fell swooning: a shriek and a swoon were demanded bythe play, but the swooning too was real this time. Lydgate leaped andclimbed, he hardly knew how, on to the stage, and was active in help,making the acquaintance of his heroine by finding a contusion on herhead and lifting her gently in his arms. Paris rang with the story of thisdeath:—was it a murder? Some of the actress's warmest admirers wereinclined to believe in her guilt, and liked her the better for it (such wasthe taste of those times); but Lydgate was not one of these. Hevehemently contended for her innocence, and the remote impersonalpassion for her beauty which he had felt before, had passed now intopersonal devotion, and tender thought of her lot. The notion of murderwas absurd: no motive was discoverable, the young couple beingunderstood to dote on each other; and it was not unprecedented that anaccidental slip of the foot should have brought these grave consequences.The legal investigation ended in Madame Laure's release. Lydgate by thistime had had many interviews with her, and found her more and moreadorable. She talked little; but that was an additional charm. She wasmelancholy, and seemed grateful; her presence was enough, like that ofthe evening light. Lydgate was madly anxious about her affection, andjealous lest any other man than himself should win it and ask her tomarry him. But instead of reopening her engagement at the Porte SaintMartin, where she would have been all the more popular for the fatalepisode, she left Paris without warning, forsaking her little court ofadmirers. Perhaps no one carried inquiry far except Lydgate, who feltthat all science had come to a stand-still while he imagined the unhappyLaure, stricken by ever-wandering sorrow, herself wandering, and findingno faithful comforter. Hidden actresses, however, are not so difficult tofind as some other hidden facts, and it was not long before Lydgategathered indications that Laure had taken the route to Lyons. He foundher at last acting with great success at Avignon under the same name,looking more majestic than ever as a forsaken wife carrying her child inher arms. He spoke to her after the play, was received with the usualquietude which seemed to him beautiful as clear depths of water, andobtained leave to visit her the next day; when he was bent on telling herthat he adored her, and on asking her to marry him. He knew that thiswas like the sudden impulse of a madman—incongruous even with hishabitual foibles. No matter! It was the one thing which he was resolvedto do. He had two selves within him apparently, and they must learn toaccommodate each other and bear reciprocal impediments. Strange, thatsome of us, with quick alternate vision, see beyond our infatuations, andeven while we rave on the heights, behold the wide plain where ourpersistent self pauses and awaits us.
